Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)
Contents
Focus of the Egodeath discussion
group
My oldest philosophy posting on
Usenet?
Charter of this discussion group
Newsgroups as record of publishing
Poll: subjects you'd like covered
Best discussion groups on relig,
myst, phil, consc, enth?
Many of my posts omitted from
discussion groups
Cult tactics in a Gnostic group
Online discussion extending beyond
the Egodeath group
>> I
can't see the focus of this group.
I don't
necessarily consider it a discussion group.
I started it because I needed a place to post my daily loosely
structured writings and my scholarly-research email exchanges that contribute
*toward* eventually building up a clear, simple theory of the ego death
experience. The focus is defined in the
home page for this discussion group, and in the online Intro article that
briefly describes the main principles of the theory of ego death I'm working
on. If anyone wants to look for a
statement of scope for this discussion group, they'll find it immediately,
where it should be -- the home page for the discussion group. The statement of focus of this group is
auto-sent every two weeks to the group's email subscribers.
Ironically,
I don't discuss my core philosophical theory of ego death much, because it is
essentially finished. Lately, all my
attention has been focused on demonstrating that the origin of Christianity is
isomorphic with my contemporary core theory of ego death -- I lately aim to
explain how Christianity as a system of mythic symbolism efficiently conveys or
embodies this contemporary model of ego death or ego transcendence. This overall project is a large project, yet
it is a specifically bounded project.
Other groups that I had hopes for actually lack focus.
It's
always a challenge to have focus and treat an open range of subjects. The solution is to define a specific set of
allowed topics, and allow discussion of any topic under the sun as long as the
writer explicitly connects that topic to the allowed topics. For example, in a guitar amp group,
discussion of guitars or cars should be allowed, as long as the writer clearly
relates guitars or cars to the central topic of guitar amps.
This group
has focus because the postings all relate to ego death and directly related
subjects, including the mystic altered state, entheogens, origins of religion,
abnormal psychology, and determinism's relation to responsible
self-control. Picture it as a flower
with the topic of ego death in the middle, and the topics of mystery religion,
entheogens, and so on as the petals.
The focus
of this group is ego death and rational explanations for what thoughts and
experiences and insights occur during ego death. What is the history of ego death? Recent evidence indicates that ego death came through entheogens,
creating religion by bringing about primary religious experience."
The Google
newsgroups now go back to 1981. The
earliest postings of mine I've found so far go back to March 1995, as
Cybermonk, though I may have posted with a different moniker as early as 1990. Near the beginning of the egodeath yahoo
group, I posted some other archival evidence for my first Usenet postings about
entheogen experiencing and philosophy.
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=author:cybermonk&start=50&hl=en&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1992&as_maxd=13&as_maxm=6&as_maxy=1995&selm=archangl.59.000092EE%40best.com&rnum=51
From:
Cybermonk (archangl at best com)
Subject:
Re: Determinism -Not Justifyable
Newsgroups:
sci.philosophy.meta
View:
Complete Thread (4 articles) | Original Format
Date:
1995-03-17 00:33:11 PST
In article
<1995Mar10.221514.22481 at galileo.cc.rochester.edu> stevens at
prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens) writes:
>From:
stevens at prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens)
>Subject:
Re: Determinism -Not Justifyable
>Date:
Fri, 10 Mar 95 22:15:14 GMT
>In
<3jounh$pv1~at~uwm.edu> cfinch~at~alpha1.csd.uwm.edu (Christopher Michael
Finch) writes:
>>present
(and the past), could we then predict the future, therefore eliminating the
concept of free will. Determinism does not necessarily "infer" (or
entail for that matter, or even suggest, really) predictability.
You are
correct. The key to solving the eternal
standoff in which we live our lives, is to oppose not
predictabilist-determinism vs. freedom, but predetermination vs. freedom. Predetermination is Fate. The Greeks were into prophecy and fate, but
were not obsessed with predictability.
The
universal error in the debate has been the fundamental error of defining
"determinism" as "predictability". That is the determinists' devil. Why do they do this? Because they lust for the power that they
expect to get from controlling the world, even though that power comes at the
metaphysical expense of their own essential freedom. But mere metaphysical legitimacy of freedom is worthless to them,
because it makes no difference toward controlling the world.
Determinism,
when defined as predictability (as it always is), is a dubious
proposition. Neither does freedom make
a terrible amount of sense.
'Predetermination'
circumvents this eternal standoff, because it does not reek of the
"predictability" assumption.
Clearly, all it stands for is preset-ness, that's all. It's a much smaller, constrained meaning
than determinism, which means 10 different things, but always with the
'predictability' assumption dominating.
To assert predetermination is to assert much less than what determinism
asserts.
This is
the way that the debate is going to be solved.
This is the central issue of philosophy and human existence. The *social* theorists are mad that this
mere abstract issue is so important... but the two realms actually have deep
connections, because if Fate or predetermination is true, then responsible
moral agency, everyone assumes, collapses.
And what then becomes of the concept of "injustice"? Only in a world of metaphysical confusion,
can we judge each other; only in a world of free moral agency, they say, can
one play the accuser and act the judge.
The
purpose of this discussion group is to form a rational and comprehensible
theory of the mystic experience of ego death and related experiences of the
mystic altered state of cognition.
Personal
mystic experiencing, or related nonordinary experience, is not a requirement
for posting.
The group
does not have the constraining purpose of improving lives, but rather, of
formulating a theory. The theory may or
may not improve people's lives. This
discussion group is not directly or primarily concerned with, or driven by,
personal improvement. The goal is
theory formulation, not personal improvement.
Although
my own recent postings have concentrated on the subject of making sense of
esoteric Christianity as allegory for mystic state phenomena including ego
death, many other subjects are on-topic.
I posted
the below material to various newsgroups last night (with the exception of the
Yahoo Groups footer at the bottom).
This posting serves to gather the evidence of my previous work on the
egodeath theory, and takes advantage of the newsgroup archival ability which
was recently brought to life again by the new Google Groups Web-based newsgroup
participation and archiving tool. Some
well-designed URLs at my site, pointing to the newsgroups via the Google Groups
web site, should enable me to participate more conveniently in the newsgroups,
wherever I am -- comparable to this wonderful Yahoo Groups environment.
_________________
The
Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence
This core
theory [attached below, in the newsgroup version of this posting] has been
stable for several years, though it may be time to rewrite and update this
compact introduction to the core concepts. My recent work has focused on
mapping the mystery-religions and Hellenistic myths onto this core theory.
In October
1985, I started investigating self-control, transcendent knowledge, ego death
and ego transcendence, and the mystic state of cognition. In December 1987 and
January 1988, the core theory crystallized, especially block-universe determinism.
1988-2001 I worked on expressing the core theory, catching up in the relevant
scholarly fields, and a general interpretation of mystery-religion allegories
in terms of self-control cybernetics.
I started
the cybtrans.com (Cybernetic Transcendence) domain name in March 1995, which I
retain as a legacy domain name. I am glad to see that http://groups.google.com
has made available the newsgroup archives since 1995. You can find my previous
newsgroup postings by searching on "cybtrans", "cybernetic
theory of ego transcendence" (best), or "cybermonk".
By
continuing to make newsgroup postings available from 1995, the start of the Web
era, Google Groups has renewed my confidence in the WELL philosophy that
"posting is publishing".
It is
ironic that I have so infrequently posted about this theory in the newsgroups,
although I have been a regular post'er in alt.guitar.amps. However, the few
postings about this theory (in this public newsgroups) do provide definite
evidence that this core theory has been complete, and available through
searching, since the beginning of the Web era.
Two things
happened almost simultaneously: Google.com took over the web-based interface to
the newsgroups (Google Groups) from Deja.com (formerly Dejanews.com), and Yahoo
took over the combined email/Web-based discussion-list interface from
egroups.com. Google Groups provides an excellent newsgroup interface, and Yahoo
Groups provides an excellent listserv interface.
These two
interfaces are still new and are just beginning to become established. Yahoo
Groups provides such a perfect interface, I almost abandoned the newsgroups,
though in principle I am a major advocate of the potential of the newsgroups.
Participating in, and searching in the newsgroups was essential for
constructing my popular Amptone.com site about guitar gear, but my efforts to
use the newsgroups for philosophy have been more halting (due to my own choice
of involvements, not due to the potential of the newsgroups).
With
Google Groups and Yahoo Groups now providing a better interface to the
newgroups and email discussion lists, I hope to coordinate use of the two, with
Yahoo Groups leading the way with the most ideal interface. (I should consider
alt.philosophy.egodeath.) I have mixed feelings about living solely in cyberspace
-- on the Net. I take to it so much more naturally than to writing printed
articles and books.
I like the
idea of not making a printed version of the theory available. Maybe that is
just silly techno-geekdom, the starry-eyed view of the Net. After the tech
stock crash, how can we still treat the Net as possessing some TechGnostic
mystic? I treasure books, but when it comes to writing, I love posting to the
Net. The Google Groups and Yahoo Groups interfaces are great and practical
because I can post from any Web terminal.
I posted
parts of the theory on the WELL.com bulletin board, in the Mondo 2000 forum,
around 1989-1994.
This core
theory has resided at the Philosophy Introduction page of the Principia
Cybernetica website http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/PHILOSI.html since January 2,
1997, as http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Annotations/PHILOSI.0.html (and
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Annotations/PHILOSI.0.0.html ) by Mark Hofmann (pen
name).
http://www.cybtrans.com
-- legacy domain
Seaspray
blurs my vision
The
waves roll by so fast
Save my
ship of freedom
I'm
lashed, helpless, to the mast
============================================
Introduction
to the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence
Copyright
1997, Michael Hoffman
[in the
newsgroup version of this posting, placed here was a copy of the text that is
in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/1
]
http://www.cybtrans.com
-- legacy domain
============================================
Memory
banks unloading
Bytes
break into bits
Unit
One's in trouble and it's scared out of its wits
Guidance
systems break down
A
struggle to exist -- to resist
A pulse
of dying power in a clenching plastic fist
>>I
want to review the core concepts of your ego-death theory. What is the URL for your article
"Introduction to the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence"?
Best
paragraph breaks:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/1
Official
URL at my site:
http://www.egodeath.com/intro.htm
Oldest
copy with a continuously working URL, at Principia Cybernetica:
January 2,
1997, as http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Annotations/PHILOSI.0.html (continued at
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Annotations/PHILOSI.0.0.html
) by Mark Hofmann (pen
name).
Oldest
copy in the newsgroups (January 1, 1997):
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&safe=off&ic=1&th=3846ddcdd5ffec37,1&seekm=5adau4%24pea%40nntp1.best.com#p
____________
Oldest
detailed newsgroup thread of mine about the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Death
found in the Google Newsgroup archives (December 27, 1995):
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&safe=off&ic=1&th=546b8aef6a30e17f,19&seekm=4bqjve%2414c%40shellx.best.com#p
The email
address shown there still works. I
don't know why the thread has no URL pointing to my domain, which I've owned
since March 27, 1995.
Poll results so far:
Popular topics:
8 -- Entheogen use, psychedelic substances
7 -- Religious experiencing, mystic altered state, visionary states, mystic experiencing, rapture
7 -- Near-death experiences, ego death, loss of sense of self
6 -- Insanity, cognitive instability, psychosis, schizophrenia
6 -- Dissociative cognition, loose vs. tight cognition, loose mental construct binding
Average topics:
5 -- Philosophy of perception, ontological idealism, time-slice solipsism
5 -- The block universe, fatedness, the holographic universe
5 -- Personhood, the nature of ego, the nature of transcending the ego, personal agency
5 -- Mythic metaphor, allegorical encoding of mystic-state experiencing
5 -- Eleusinian mysteries, cracking allegorical code of the mystery-religions, history of religions
5 -- Entheogen-oriented music, entheogens in rave culture, acid-rock mysticism
4 -- Models of time, the closed future, the preexisting future, tenseless time
4 -- Freedom of the will, determinism, free will as illusory
4 -- Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, Alan Watts
3 -- Mental construct processing, mental models, mental model formation
3 -- Moral agency, the nature of personal responsibility
3 -- The nature of self-control, personal control agency
3 -- Cybernetic self-control, loss of control, self-control seizure Unpopular topics:
2 -- Cognitive science, philosophy
2 -- Predestination, Reformed theology, Arminianism
2 -- Akrasia, difficulty of self-control
2 -- Personal management, personal self-government
1 -- Contemporary metaphysics of the continuant self
1 -- Integral Theory, Transpersonal Psychology, Ken Wilber
1 -- Other (please post an "I'd like to see X covered" message)
I'm surprised Ken Wilber isn't more popular. But he's only exciting in an intellectual way. Wilber is satisfying when he resolves poor popular thinking about the relation between different fields and different aspects of knowledge and mental development.
I've really had it with Wilber's dull repeated endorsement of sitting mediation as "action" or "practice" to supposedly complement theoretical knowledge. Wilber: "No, intellectual knowledge is not enough for spiritual development. We must also have spiritual *practice*. That means we must do sitting meditation."
To heck with that. That's been tried by many poor souls wasting away in the frustrating and life-wasting hell of the zendo: failure to achieve any interesting experience is the norm for this path.
Then we try to talk it up to put a positive spin on it: "This is how it's supposed to be, enlightenment is nothing to be attained or grasped; there is nothing to achieve and nothing to understand. Just smile weakly, with an empty and superficial mysteriousness, and have faith that this is what it's all about."
I agree, in that kind of enlightenment, there is nothing to understand and nothing to achieve, nothing at all. Let us then seek a more substantial kind of enlightenment, the lighting-fast vehicle.
It is encouraging that Wilber is starting to give altered states their due respect, which must be a high respect if the subject is at all realistically addressed.
I'm pleased to see the ready popularity of entheogens from a Dionysian angle.
I'm surprised that determinism isn't up toward the most popular group of subjects. It's a pretty hot topic in Protestantism and philosophy -- however, it's not as novel as studying entheogenic religious experiencing and the entheogen theory of the origin of religions.
Determinism as a topic in philosophy appears to be stagnant, but it actually has been making progress from decade to decade. It's easier to see the progress in leaps and bounds in the area of entheogenic scholarship.
I am interested in topics other than the one's I've been most focusing on -- the block universe... I need to read William James' dismissal of the "iron-block universe". This is such a key idea, if I found a book focusing on it, I'd drop everything and study it. A Web search revealed almost nothing on the subject.
Tenseless time is also a hot topic, a key topic for ego death, but only a narrow segment of theorists have heard of it, due to specialization.
Some aspects of mental construct processing are popular, especially loose cognitive association binding (as opposed to default, tight binding of mental associations). Terminology and concepts about mental models and mental constructs is a major part of my early theorizing.
The loosecog state presents all experience as a layer of tangible mental constructs -- *as* mental constructs that are obviously mental constructs rather than the thing represented. These are very interesting ideas and maybe I can integrate them more explicitly into ego death, which is more about time and control.
I'm looking forward to reading Schopenhauer's Prize Essay on Freedom of the Will, because as one proponent exclaimed at Amazon.com, not only is it deterministic, but also idealist.
Idealism: We can assume that nothing exists except mental constructs; mental constructs are all dangling pointers, or simplicity recommends that we assume as much. We have no more reason to postulate external, concrete objects pointed to by our mental constructs than to postulate theoretical explanatory entities such as God and demons moving things here and there.
All I know for certain is time-slice solipsism: there are now mental constructs being perceived in this mind. I don't know if other minds exist, if objects exist outside my mind, or if I existed in the past.
Some people try to save metaphysical freedom of the will by adopting idealism, but this move fails, because idealism can be true while still being fully determined. If mental constructs are all that exists, these may be frozen with respect to time in the future. So idealism does not lend support to metaphysical freedom.
I applaud that Wattsian short-path enlightenment is more popular than Ken Wilber with his strenuous years of righteous meditation. Watts is more rad than Wilber in this respect.
Wilber appears to toe the spiritual party line here: enlightenment is difficult, laborious, slow, ponderous, and a general pain in the ass, and not fulfilling at some definite point. Watts: enlightenment can be easy, simple, quick, speedy, and pleasant, and can come to a definite fulfillment quickly (I emphasize this even more than Watts).
People seem to be interested in higher levels of experiencing, "higher dimensions". This does not fit my conceptual vocabulary and terminology. In peak experiencing we may perceive and mentally focus in on the world-model of a frozen block universe with a pre-set, preexisting future -- the iron-block universe.
Then, we may seek to regain a sense of freedom and control over the will and seek to regain the sense of an open future. How does this connect to soaring about through higher dimensions?
I characterize such exploration and pneumatic-plane dramatic adventures as an exploration-space within a different mode of cognition. We enter a wonderland of loose cognition, and anything can happen that the mind puts together. The will and thought-well is traitorious. We sit watching the fountain of thoughts and will-acts that will produce God-only-knows what, next.
We have no control over it if "it" is bracketed off as a self- contained well that wells up from outside of us. What will the Ground put (or timelessly, "what has the Ground put") in the near future, given that the mind is radically loosen and de-rutted?
What if the next thought says "sacrifice to redeem your confused thinking, by violating your future-self, as a proof of understanding your lack of sovereign control relative to the Ground and the time axis". This fits the pattern of Abraham's virtual sacrifice of his only possible son (his future self, his continuity into the future).
Music for the loosecog state or other altered states remains right in the middle of popularity.
Metaphysics of the continuant self should be more popular. This means the altered-state perception of oneself as a disconnected set of completely self-contained but limited time-bubbles.
Usually the mind at each point in time very convincingly presents itself with mental constructs of oneself in the past and oneself in the future, so that personal identity stretches and reaches across time, as well as sensing movement of oneself through time, all as a tightly identified team of time-slice selves -- that is, the *set* of time-slice selves is dominant, forming the cross-time or time-binding ego.
But in the loosecog state, this team or set dis-integrates, so that the immediate present time-slice becomes dominant over the whole set of time-slice selves. This dis-integration into isolated time-slice bubbles is a very tangible experience.
Please
wait a few minutes before voting. I
will notify you in a few minutes when the poll items are correctly set up.
I didn't
know the announcement would be immediately automatically sent. I am adding more categories in a few
minutes. That will cause existing votes
to be lost. I will record the existing
votes before doing this. Anyone who has
voted so far, please do so again after my go-ahead email in a few minutes.
This
improvement will be worth the extra trouble.
The new list of checkboxes will be like the list below.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/surveys?id=10138827
_______________
What subjects
are you most interested in for discussion here?
Cognitive
science, philosophy
Philosophy
of perception, ontological idealism
Mental
construct processing, mental models, mental model formation
Determinism,
the block universe, Fatedness, the holographic universe
Models
of time, the closed future, the preexisting future, tenseless time
Predestination,
Reformed theology
Freedom
of the will, free will as illusory
Personhood,
the nature of ego, the nature of transcending the ego, personal agency
Moral
agency, personal self-government
Contemporary
metaphysics of the continuant self
Moral
agency, the nature of personal responsibility
Integral
Theory, Transpersonal Psychology, Ken Wilber
Religion,
the mystic altered state, visionary states, mystic experiencing, religious
experiencing, religious rapture
Mythic
metaphor, allegorical encoding
Eleusinian
mysteries, cracking the allegorical code of the mystery-religions
Zen
satori, short-path enlightenment, Alan Watts
Theology,
religious theory
Near-death
experiences
Entheogen
use, psychedelic substances
Entheogen-oriented
music, entheogens in rave culture, acid-rock mysticism
The
nature of self-control, personal control agency
Cybernetic
self-control, loss of control, self-control seizure
Akrasia,
difficulty of self-control, personal management
Insanity,
cognitive instability, psychosis, schizophrenia
Dissociative
cognition, loose cognition
Other
(please post an "I'd like to see X covered" message)
[Vote]
[Cancel]
______________________
The
previous votes are as follows (excluding my own votes):
Entheogen use
Mystery-religions
1 The nature of self-control
1 Freedom of the will
1 Block-universe determinism
Entheogen-oriented music
Models of time
1 Ego - its nature and transcendence
Moral agency and responsibility
Theology or religious theory
Mental construct processing
1 Dissociative or loose cognition
1 Mental model formation
1 Philosophy of perception
Other (post an "I'd like to see"
message)
_______________
What
subjects are you most interested in for discussion here?
Cognitive
science, philosophy
Philosophy
of perception, ontological idealism, time-slice solipsism
Mental
construct processing, mental models, mental model formation
The
block universe, fatedness, the holographic universe
Models
of time, the closed future, the preexisting future, tenseless time
Predestination,
Reformed theology, Arminianism
Freedom
of the will, determinism, free will as illusory
Personhood,
the nature of ego, the nature of transcending the ego, personal agency
Contemporary
metaphysics of the continuant self
Moral
agency, the nature of personal responsibility
Integral
Theory, Transpersonal Psychology, Ken Wilber
Religious
experiencing, mystic altered state, visionary states, mystic experiencing,
rapture
Mythic
metaphor, allegorical encoding of mystic-state experiencing
Eleusinian
mysteries, cracking allegorical code of the mystery-religions, history of
religions
Zen
satori, short-path enlightenment, Alan Watts
Near-death
experiences, ego death, loss of sense of self
Entheogen
use, psychedelic substances
Entheogen-oriented
music, entheogens in rave culture, acid-rock mysticism
The
nature of self-control, personal control agency
Cybernetic
self-control, loss of control, self-control seizure
Akrasia,
difficulty of self-control
Personal
management, personal self-government
Insanity,
cognitive instability, psychosis, schizophrenia
Dissociative
cognition, loose vs. tight cognition, loose mental construct binding
Other
(please post an "I'd like to see X covered" message)
[Vote]
[Cancel]
Lately
I've been in the end stretch of studying the entheogenic Jesus mysteries and
studying Christianity as a combination of pagan mystery-religions and Jewish
historicized Amanita/Ergot mysticism. I
have not been posting much about the other main subjects, because they are
relatively settled in my thinking, from several years ago.
It might
appear that I am only interested in discussing entheogenic mystery-Christianity,
but I am still working on this area after the others have settled, because this
area has been so deeply distorted and buried that it has taken a long time to
find a framework to make sense and find meaning in the origin of Christianity,
and find a different story than the orthodox one that has such deep roots.
Such
research is like digging down trying to find the bottom of the orthodox roots
at the Vatican and finally uncover the Mithraic church foundations to find what
key-holding rock god the religion was actually constructed upon.
So I have
created this poll to see what people want to cover and give each topic fair
coverage. I plan to eventually
summarize ideas about each topic, but I need to know which subjects to cover
soonest. It's natural that I will post
predominantly on whatever subject, out of the whole set of subjects, I am
currently working on.
________________________________
Results so
far - votes per category
7 Entheogen use, psychedelic substances
6 Insanity, cognitive instability, psychosis,
schizophrenia
6 Near-death experiences, ego death, loss of
sense of self
6 Religious experiencing, mystic altered
state, visionary states, mystic experiencing, rapture
5 Dissociative cognition, loose vs. tight
cognition, loose mental construct binding
5 Eleusinian mysteries, cracking allegorical
code of the mystery-religions, history of religions
5 Entheogen-oriented music, entheogens in rave
culture, acid-rock mysticism
5 Mythic metaphor, allegorical encoding of
mystic-state experiencing
4 Freedom of the will, determinism, free will
as illusory
4 Personhood, the nature of ego, the nature of
transcending the ego, personal agency
4 Philosophy of perception, ontological
idealism, time-slice solipsism
4 The block universe, fatedness, the
holographic universe
4 Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, Alan
Watts
3 Cybernetic self-control, loss of control,
self-control seizure
3 Mental construct processing, mental models,
mental model formation
3 Models of time, the closed future, the
preexisting future, tenseless time
3 Moral agency, the nature of personal
responsibility
3 The nature of self-control, personal control
agency
2 Akrasia, difficulty of self-control
2 Cognitive science, philosophy
2 Personal management, personal self-government
2 Predestination, Reformed theology,
Arminianism
1 Contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self
1 Integral Theory, Transpersonal Psychology,
Ken Wilber
1 Other
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/surveys?id=10138827
Please
vote. There is some question of what
these poll results really mean about the interests of the general population or
*potential* members of this discussion group.
Self-selection of group membership is partly an arbitrary feedback
loop. In any case, this poll could be
helpful for writers who want to post on-topic.
I will print, analyze, and reflect on the results and attempt to
generalize about people's interests in this general area.
________________________________
It may
appear overambitious, the apparently wide variety of topics I am trying to pull
together -- but they *can* be fit together into a compact system. This is no more difficult than the question
raised by the authors of Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece: what is the
relationship between Greek Attic Tragedy and the Mystery-Religions?
Key
concepts to bring together these diverse topics, concepts that deserve more
attention and combining: entheogens, fatedness, self-control, and models of
time. I have found no theorist other
than myself who is bringing together these key ideas.
o Ulansey writes about Mithraism as a
transcendence of Fate and time, but omits identifying the sacrament as
entheogenic.
o Determinism debaters omit entheogens and
have weak and uncritical models of time.
o Entheogenists haven't given thought to
fatedness and haven't risen up to a full-on general theory of self-control and
the loss of sense of self-control during the peak window, and are generally
weak at theory-construction overall, including models of time.
o Self-control theorists seem not to have even
heard of entheogenic self-control breakdown, and it doesn't occur to them to
critically construct a new model of time.
Most areas
of investigation are treated essentially in isolation, bringing in other ideas
but too often, the imported ideas are unrefined and taken in uncritically. There are about 20 areas that need to be all
*revised* when brought together -- that's the missing move, to *change* the
fields as they are brought together.
________________________________
5/30/03
results:
Votes --
Topic
24 -- Entheogen use, psychedelic substances
24 -- Religious experiencing, mystic altered
state, visionary states, mystic experiencing, rapture
21 -- Near-death experiences, ego death, loss
of sense of self
18 -- Freedom of the will, determinism, free
will as illusory
15 -- Zen satori, short-path enlightenment,
Alan Watts
14 -- Entheogen-oriented music, entheogens in
rave culture, acid-rock mysticism
14 -- Insanity, cognitive instability,
psychosis, schizophrenia
13 -- Personhood, the nature of ego, the nature
of transcending the ego, personal agency
13 -- The nature of self-control, personal
control agency
12 -- Dissociative cognition, loose vs. tight
cognition, loose mental construct binding
12 -- Eleusinian mysteries, cracking
allegorical code of the mystery-religions, history of religions
12 -- Models of time, the closed future, the
preexisting future, tenseless time
12 -- Mythic metaphor, allegorical encoding of
mystic-state experiencing
12 -- The block universe, fatedness, the
holographic universe
11 -- Cognitive science, philosophy
11 -- Mental construct processing, mental
models, mental model formation
10 -- Contemporary metaphysics of the
continuant self
10 -- Philosophy of perception, ontological
idealism, time-slice solipsism
9 -- Cybernetic self-control, loss of control,
self-control seizure
8 -- Integral Theory, Transpersonal
Psychology, Ken Wilber
8 -- Predestination, Reformed theology,
Arminianism
6 -- Personal management, personal
self-government
5 -- Akrasia, difficulty of self-control
5 -- Moral agency, the nature of personal
responsibility
2 -- Other
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/surveys?id=10138827
________________________________________
What
subjects are you most interested in for discussion here?
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/surveys?id=10138827
Below is
the current poll result, with the most popular topics listed first
(entheogens).
Entheogen
use, psychedelic substances
Religious
experiencing, mystic altered state, visionary states, mystic experiencing,
rapture
Freedom
of the will, determinism, free will as illusory
Near-death
experiences, ego death, loss of sense of self
Personhood,
the nature of ego, the nature of transcending the ego, personal agency
Entheogen-oriented
music, entheogens in rave culture, acid-rock mysticism
Insanity,
cognitive instability, psychosis, schizophrenia
The
block universe, fatedness, the holographic universe
Dissociative
cognition, loose vs. tight cognition, loose mental construct binding
Cognitive
science, philosophy
Philosophy
of perception, ontological idealism, time-slice solipsism
Models
of time, the closed future, the preexisting future, tenseless time
Mythic
metaphor, allegorical encoding of mystic-state experiencing
Eleusinian
mysteries, cracking allegorical code of the mystery-religions, history of
religions
Zen
satori, short-path enlightenment, Alan Watts
The
nature of self-control, personal control agency
Mental
construct processing, mental models, mental model formation
Contemporary
metaphysics of the continuant self
Predestination,
Reformed theology, Arminianism
Moral
agency, the nature of personal responsibility
Cybernetic
self-control, loss of control, self-control seizure
Integral
Theory, Transpersonal Psychology, Ken Wilber
Personal
management, personal self-government
Akrasia,
difficulty of self-control
Both
entheogen categories are very high.
The
problematic nature of self-control and personal control seems unpopular though
general madness and Pan-ic seizure seem popular.
Mystery
religion remains far less popular than it must become if we are to ever
understand the essence of religion -- Hellenistic mysteries are the key to
understanding sacred meals and religious myth including the formation of the
Christ religion.
Zen Satori
is less popular than would be expected from a Boomer spirituality
audience.
Primary
religious experiencing is infinitely more popular than Reformed theology.
For all
that I treat Ken Wilber as an often negative guiding light -- a complex
positive and negative guiding light, an important reference point, and the
leading theorist to beat, assimilate, and overcome -- no one here seems to give
a damn about him.
This
likely says alot about the utter impoverishment, irrelevance, and impotence
(ineffectiveness) of the "psychology" paradigm for exploring the
mind.
It
reflects the strange scholarly split that "free will" is of top
interest while no one cares to consider "Reformed theology" -- these
two topics are actually intimately related, but conventionally kept at an
alienated distance, and as Reformed theologians know, today's evangelical
thinking shuns thinking and the scandal of the evangelical mind is that there
isn't much of one.
Tenseless
time is a subject that I've been waiting to see explode, since the mid-1990s,
and here is of average interest -- a current French science magazine has a huge
cover announcement that scientists have discovered time doesn't exist. However, the *spatial* equivalent of that
*temporal* subject is more popular: the block or holographic universe --
today's spiritual metaphysics overemphasizes the eastern no-separate-self idea
and underemphasizes the concomitant western idea of no-free-will -- showing a
bias in favor of spatial thinking rather than temporal thinking. Timelessness is more devastating to egoic
thinking than spacelessness (nonseparation) -- egoic thinking likes the
proposition of spatial togetherness but loathes the idea of a closed, fixed
future; the former is "cozy and comforting like family" while the
latter is "impossibly claustrophobic".
The closer
a discussion group is to the Egodeath discussion group, the more welcome is an
announcement about it. Typical
spirituality discussion groups are of only moderate relevance to this
group. I envision this group as
standing fairly far apart from existing groups and approaches and their
"conventionally unconventional" ways of talking and thinking. A group that is *potentially* relevant to
this group is TechGnosis, which is itself potentially a distinctive approach to
what can be called 'transcendent knowledge'.
Repeated
posts announcing another discussion group are not allowed -- they are too
spammish. I will email anyone doing so,
or use the Moderation feature.
Can you recommend excellent online discussion groups about religion, mysticism, gnosis, philosophy, esotericism, consciousness, or entheogens?
Many of my
postings -- good, solid, on-topic postings that contribute substantially and
clearly *intend* to contribute -- are mysteriously omitted from various
discussion groups. Therefore, when I
repost to the Egodeath group a posting written for elsewhere, this doesn't
necessarily mean it is present in the forum for which it was intended -- it may
be available only as a reposted copy in the Egodeath group, becoming thereby a
Egodeath Exclusive, members-only posting, by default.
Cult tactics in a Gnostic group
>It is clear: the list-owner (moderator) of the GnosticsMillenium Yahoo discussion group is using cult tactics. I don't know if you followed the drama on the Gnostic Thought Yahoo discussion group. If not, I suggest you read the archives of that list. He invaded that list and flamed everybody. He worked himself into such a rage he finally announced he was banning you and George from his GM list. I assume that I and everybody else that spoke up are banned too.
I expected him to self-destruct if I turned my attention away to more profitable channels.
Hopefully the Gnostic Thought group is run by a non-cultish list-owner and will prosper, offering a better alternative to the corrupt and mismanaged GnosticsMillenium group.
I always assumed list owners were good and sought constructive conversation. I am not used to the idea of the list owner himself being malevolent and covertly manipulative.
I have no experience moderating a group but a lot of experience in online discussion. I have not tested my ideas about list moderation in practice. I have not sat as judge, with power, to evaluate who is just trying to destroy a group. Would I ban? George, list-owner of the JesusMysteriesFreeDiscussion group, banned someone once. I'm glad to hear that it is sometimes considered warranted by a responsible list-owner.
>What list are you currently posting to?
I am only cc'ing my own online discussion group lately. I will quickly skim the controversies I raised in the other groups, but it is not necessarily profitable to follow the conversational development on a daily basis. I think that there may be some value in reading the resulting postings, but it's competitive: I have limited time; should I read these scholarly books, or the contentious postings?
I am eager to contribute as a teacher or one who freely offers ideas, but I am not terribly interested in reading the replies from intellectual children who are only able to serve as inefficient backboards to bounce ideas off of. I'm in the league above the majority of scholars, not merely above the kids on the Net. Those on the Net have little to offer me. What's in it for me, except another teaching opportunity, another classroom full of relatively empty-headed students?
I am a controversial discussion-group member because I do not conform and post short messages at an even rate. My approach is more like publishing informal articles, and I contribute in sporadic heavy batches of dense postings.
The list-owner of the GnosticsMillenium discussion group has followers and supporters. I have none and need none. I have mixed feelings about the possibility of one day having followers of my own.
I am concerned that he is learning from my writing techniques and is using the knowledge for harmful manipulation. I will be sure to write against secrecy, cults, and covert manipulation, and praise openness as an ideal to be sought. I will encourage people to disagree with those who promote secrecy. He immediately tried to arrange a secret arrangement with me off-list.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GnosticThought/message/2863
> If that is Gnosticism, guess I'd settle for being Archontic, whatever that might be. That spirit appears to have blown by now.
> Jerry B
Because the "inner circle" in the GnosticsMillenium group didn't even grapple with my *actual* ideas, and only cared to veer away from *genuine* engagement by deliberately distorting my positions into absurd positions that are impossible for anyone to hold, it wasn't a real debate and I lost interest. I wanted to directly engage in debate, they wanted to evade real debate and merely win a dirty argument instead.
After I pointed out their purely avoidance-oriented strategies and how they were completely bereft of credibility by failing to address my explicitly stated actual positions, that crowd finally started directly addressing my actual positions, and so the debate finally started to become a genuine engagement rather than me advancing and them retreating while declaring victory.
That (partial) change happened when the list-owner started equating my block-universe idea with Calvinism. I was impressed that that list-owner and his inner circle started actively seeking out my writings at my site and in other discussion groups. The children will learn my ideas (which are essentially simple), but to what end?
Originally, they kept running away from a genuine engagement with me, by inserting invented absurdities into my mouth and refuting those instead of my points. This was clear and I pointed it out so that people could make their own decision of who was being genuine and sincere. It was nauseating to see George say "I think that moderator is sincere, just misguided." Sincere?! People must weigh more carefully, with a sense of evil, who is being sincere and who is only being manipulative.
I suggest people investigate Crowley's writing to look for his positions on secrecy, exclusive inner circles, and covert psychological manipulation.
It would be interesting to note which of my accusations the list-owner did not refute. Did he ever deny being a cult-type leader? Did he ever specifically deny being covertly manipulative?
I have no idea why I find online communication so fascinating. It takes time away from developing the main content of my theory of ego transcendence. This interest in communication with each other is much of what drives us together into engaging in online discussion. We love it, we don't know why, and we are drawn into fighting, we don't know why. It is our nature as social beings.
It is interesting that the list-owner's effort to refute my ideas only ends up showing how solid and reasonable my ideas are, and how I have already accounted for possible objections already. The list-owner's objections to the idea of the pre-existing future actually confirm or fit into my theory of what the Gnostics hated and what they sought after.
>>Often
you post replies to posts which did not originate at this discussion
group. Are these mostly private mails
or are the sources other Yahoo discussion groups and newsgroups? ... attach a
short note where to look for a possible remainder of the discussion.
Half are
responses to private emails, half to online discussion groups. I will consider indicating which online
discussion areas may contain replies.
Replies are generally few, off-topic, short, or empty of interesting
content, but you may have followed the few links I've posted and seen that
there are some interesting exchanges.
All of my writings, except short redundant conversational ones, are
included in the egodeath discussion group.
Only a
small percentage of surrounding postings from other people are likely to be of
much interest to the readers of the Egodeath discussion group. It should be easy, in any case, to post a
pointer to such.
I often
need to attach a note for my own recordkeeping, for when I eventually republish
the postings.
Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)