He sees that system of orientation helps a human being to find his way in his life and in the world with certain context that gives meaning to it and which helps one to orientate in it. While all of the above definitions are interesting perspectives to the phenomenon of religion as such, some better than the others, I think they do not quite hit "the ultimate source" of the issue from the Setian point of view.
In order to go a bit deeper into the "left hand of religion" I now consider what generally makes human being "religious" in the first place, or rather what is categorically a needed condition for a human being to be a "homo religiosus". What makes a human being "religious"? Whether one can be defined to be a religious or unreligious person is a matter of perspective and is greatly dependent on the social context of which traditions of thought and world of context one has been grown up into and learnt to use.
Meanings of words and concepts are not completely independent of time and society - like language in general, also those meanings vary to some degree in relation to changes in other areas of culture and society.
To conceptually define "religious" and "unreligious" is a philosophical and scientific problem. In everyday life that problem is of course solved rather easily - religious person says she is such and unreligious person says she is not such. From the point of comparative religious studies it can be said that the same things that create culture and humanity create religion. If we think about conditions in which religiosity would be impossible, we should think about human being who could not be conscious of a difference between "I" and "others", who would not be conscious about her own coming physical death, who would not be able to create visions of the future world and of that which would Come Into Being.
Accordingly, a condition where religiosity would be impossible would also be impossible for the existence of culture - and that condition would be nature, where a human being would not be a conscious subject who consciously recognizes borders in her existence and can manipulate the Universe via different symbolic systems languages. In other words, we would be animals in that kind of condition, beings that have a rather direct instinctive response to all external stimulus.
There are religions because humans are more or less self-conscious beings who are able to use symbolic systems to conceptualize existence and to communicate it from a perspective that is separate from the nature - and as such we are beings who create values and meanings. We do not have only mind but we also have consciousness, we do not have only natural needs but also values and non-natural Needs.
We do not just act but we also have ideas about "right" and "wrong" action, we do not only have past but we also have history and future. We not only see but we also recognize if something is beautiful. In his classic work Das Heilige the Idea of the Holy philosopher of religion and theologian Rudolf Otto called religious experience as "numinous" from Latin "numen", meaning "dynamic, spirit-filled transhuman energy or force".
He described this experience as "mysterium tremendum" - experience of "something wholly other"; of profound awe, majesty, energy and urgency that at the same time fascinates and terrifies.
Right Hand Path religions can be quite harmless and also useful for society at large at best in that, but they can also be truly horrible in it at worst. We are anyway, first of all, an Initiatory School also called "Tool" by many. Likewise, we have a "Setian philosophy" instead of a "Setian religion" as a methodological base in our pursuit of Xeper. Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now.
Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness. Parsons was Winston's fellow employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms—one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the thought police, the stability of the Party depended. It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here.
And the people under the sky were also very much the same—everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same—people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world.
Traveling the world tree. Photo by Petri Laakso. I had a pleasure to meet a handful of local pagans for talking and traveling via drumming yesterday evening. In a local drum circle meeting there was first some half an hour of talking about what travelling via drumming is all about, then three about half an hour rounds of drumming. Two of those rounds were played with my self-made drum pictured above , one with two drums of other individuals present.
I was asked to speak a bit about drumming as a magical technique and things involved. Since shamanism and its universal traits in their many forms have been of great interest to me both academically and magically for more than a decade, I was very happy to ask some questions from participants and also to say few words on the subject myself.
I decided to touch upon some very basic questions involved. What is the context where the experience takes place? How your traveling via drumming differs f. What kind of shared elements are there? As I said during the meeting while talking about the experience, I think that suprarational experience typical of traveling via drumming is something that is best grasped with a rather poetic language.
My thanks for the organizer of the event and everybody present. It was a good evening in a good company. I am looking for more of these events. O: Box , Smithville, Texas Stefani on Aletheia.
Pessoa on Aletheia. The end of a melody is not its goal; but nonetheless, if the melody had not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable. Dinner with Ladies. Art by Roland Winkhart. Ensio Kataja sent me a challenge to take part in spreading a meme. I thought about this while having my morning coffee and ended up having two saints, a queen, a witch, a countess and a fashion designer on my list.
Saint Birgitta Saint, mystic, pilgrim, and founder of the Bridgettine Order. Without doubt, Saint Birgitta was one of the most powerful women in Europe during her lifetime. No matter what kind of magic this might be called, it nevertheless was very antinomian in its time and it brought some concrete results that I do appreciate into the world. I would like to learn from Saint Birgitta about working against established social order and about spirit of dedication and will.
Without doubt we would also have an interesting theological debate. Karin entered the Swedish court with low status. She saw some really hard times during her life, some of them in the prison of the Turku castle which is not too far away from where I am living currently.
Karin lived the latter part of her life in Finland and was well loved here, contributing notably to the Finnish culture. She is buried in the cathedral of Turku. She must have been a strong yet humble person with a good heart, someone to admire and certainly learn a thing or two from. Marketta Punasuomalainen Convicted witch. Marketta Punasuomalainen was a nature healer from Vaasa , West of Finland, who lived largely on begging.
She had a reputation of being a witch and she apparently also used this to boost her success as a healer. She was beheaded as a witch after being convicted of using magic in killing two men, causing illnesses and spoiling beer. As such, she was one of the first witches sentenced to death in Finland during the witch trials of the 17th century.
This date for a dinner would be very different from the first two names on my list. Marketta could give a very interesting and different perspective to what life was like during those times and what the religious atmosphere was like back then. I would also like to get a first-hand account of a witch-trial from someone who was convicted as a witch. If Marketta Punasuomalainen would accept my invitation she would be welcome to take Marketta Parkoinen another witch who lost her head due to witchcraft in the same place and the same day as Marketta Punasuomalainen with her to the dinner.
Background reading for this dinner: Malleus Maleficarum. A woman who was G. Meeting her would probably also tell me such things about one my greatest heroes that James Webb author of The Harmonious Circle or nobody else could tell. Besides all the Fourth Way stuff I would like to ask her what St. Petersburg was like in CE when she married Gurdjieff there.
Around that time I had relatives who regularly visited St. Petersburg and I am amused about the idea that they could have seen this just married remarkable couple there. If Julia would accept my invitation, I would be happy if she would take Jeanne de Salzmann CE , another Fourth Way legend, with her to the dinner.
Leila Waddell must have been a special individual in her own right just like Julia Ostrowska, although they both are generally known via other people. Evidently, Waddell was of enormous inspiration to Aleister Crowley. I would like to talk with her about music and magick and hear her views about fylgja and optimal dynamics involved. Being a saint Leila Waddell was a bit different from saint Birgitta - the thelemic saint is known to have said It's nice to be a devil when you're one like me.
Coco Chanel Fashion designer, couturier. They both had some really tough times in their lives and they both survived those times with success.
I got familiar with different clothes, buttons, zippers, and the rest, you name it. I bet there were no other young man in the city who knew better the latest fashion magazines, Finnish and foreign, than I did. I would like to talk with Chanel about how to get things done when there is huge amount of opposition, how to bring something new into the world. She would also be welcome to give me few tips on how to update my garderobe.
And of course, I would be happy to thank this Maga of fashion for bringing Chanel Platinum Egoiste into the world — I have weared it almost exclusively since I was around 17 years old. Bubbling under: Virgin Mary and H. Having finished my list here, I throw this same challenge to my friend Petri Laakso. Audiobook recordings. Recordings for my second book's audioversion are done. At least initially. I sort of expect that there are parts of the book that need to be recorded again, though.
Well, I just keep my fingers crossed that there would not arise any need to record anything anew The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness; and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds".
Fundamental insight. There is no pre-established harmony between the furtherance of truth and the well-being of mankind. Soundwave menu. Music is one of those universal things that are part of cultures as self-evidently as food and clothing among other things. I might do some of that later, though. It smells like bullshit as well. The magic practised on the left hand path is by its very nature practical. This could be seen impractical.
If the magic of an Initiate works, she will gain knowledge, power, and understanding in both subjective and objective universes in individually meaningful ways. Magic, at its best, is not only practical, but essentially also challenging, enriching, enlightening, inspiring, transforming, and fun. It could even be said that for an Initiate the practise of magic is simply necessary in her pursuits.
To quote professor Harry Frankfurt:. It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false.
For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false.
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