Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)
Goal and Scope of the Egodeath Theory
Contents
What's to be gained from grasping
the theory?
What do you want from Egodeath?
The Tubes: "What do you want
from life", 1975
Ever-shrinking core of ego-death
theory
Purpose of the Egodeath site and
group
Core theory of Gnosis vs. Project
of Increased Self-determination.
The goal of systematic egodeath
theory
Vindication of my framework;
combination of key ideas
The "ultimate ideas"
theory of textual meaning
Need better book knowledge,
experience, & integration available
Enlightenment as reducing cognitive dissonance
Forming a native modern version of
mystic religion
Serenity valid motive for
spirituality?
EC's psychedelic theory of history,
Objectivist theory of ego & political economics
What is
the most immediate and convenient way to gain a specific kind of enlightenment
and a certain kind of ultimate religious experience?
o Print and read the overview of the
cybernetic theory of ego transcendence at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/1
o Browse the rest of the
http://www.egodeath.com site, and this discussion group.
o Read the overview summary again while in the
loose-cognition mode through the traditional, natural use of entheogens.
o Read other books about the entheogenic
origin of religions, and philosophy overview books.
___________________
>If
your theory of ego death is "true," so what?
Nothing. That's an existential question. What is the purpose of the universe?
If it is
true, this means that when rational technical people attempt to use entheogens
for various purposes, they will run headlong into the issues I've mapped out,
sooner or later, and having this mature map readily available will help them
make sense out of the limitations of self-control they run into when trying to
explore and utilize the loose-cognition state for various purposes.
>What
does your theory offer one?
The most
amazing experience and insight
The
feeling of cancellation of moral responsibility
An
ultimate religious experience
An
intellectually satisfying solution to ancient questions of determinism.
A map of
some of the most amazing and surprising ideas and mental dynamics to be found
in the loose-cognition state, to quickly make sense of what is found there.
Beyond
these sorts of things, the theory offers nothing. No world peace, just a temporary spiritual orgasm of revelation
when the entheogen is combined with the set of principles I've gathered.
Ask the
philosophers and spiritualists and entheogenists whose ideas I have gathered --
what does any such theory offer anyone?
Lately, I've increased my commitment toward drug policy reform to enable
people to *experience* the intellectual principles in a way that packs a
punch.
This
"theory" is really now a two-part system that combines a theoretical
world-model with a particular cognitive state (loose cognition), in the most
ergonomic and convenient way possible.
Laboriously
climbing mountains is not a goal for me or the system I'm building. The goal is to bring people immediately and
conveniently to the top. Other systems
adopt the goal of loving the path, the labor of the climb. That's not a goal for me. I just want to pop people to the top of this
mountain directly, instantly, and effortlessly -- the lightning path, in a
lightning vehicle.
The
loose-cognition state by itself cannot achieve this, and theory by itself
cannot achieve this. Only a *designed*
and integrated system of theory and entheogen technique can come together to
form a reliable and convenient lightning-vehicle.
>What
can one gain from studying this theory or experiencing this type of ego-death?
Nothing
except an experience and point of view.
Humility has nothing to do with it, tranquility is an alien goal, and
world peace is not particularly associated with such a system of ergonomic
enlightenment.
If you
seek peace and joy, a certain kind may come from this system, but it's not
really motivated by commonly conceived spiritual peace and joy, so much as the
wish to find the peace and joy of intellectual integrity.
>If I
am living my entire life with my own thoughts about what kind of control I have
or don't have, what difference does it make if I start thinking of it in the
terms of the way you put it?
My first,
knee-jerk answer is, it doesn't make any difference at all. The enlightened man lives just the same as
anyone, chopping wood and carrying water -- radically ordinary. This even raises painful existential
questions, as addressed in the end of the acid-rock album Caress of Steel.
For people
who have questions, who have been filled with wonder and conflict about
self-control and religious experience, the theory and technique contains
definite answers, easily conveyed with plain language and utterly
straightforward and immediate techniques.
So you
have conquered Earth's highest mountain -- but so what? So what.
What is existence or enlightenment or anything for? What difference does *anything* make? What difference does bliss, peace,
certainty, or victory mean, and what use are they? What difference do they make?
>What
does it give me and how is that beneficial, such that one would desire to
follow through with the program you set
forth?
The
program I set forth is nothing more than spending some hours reading and
spending some sessions in the loose-cognition state, reflecting upon the
principles of the theory and encountering the control vortex and the fatal
problem of self-control.
It would
be possible to run a series of a few weekend retreats, but group activities are
not necessarily the best way to explore the concepts. A short college course with loosecog field trips would be more
than adequate.
Like some
of the commoditized personal development retreats, I emphasize convenience
first of all. If a programme of
self-development is not ultra-convenient, forget it -- a non-convenient system
would be a false, never-ending, never-fulfilling system. Either it's nearly immediate, or
never-ending and never succeeding.
It is hard
to describe how trivial and simple and un-special such a system is. I aim to pull spirituality down off its
pedestal. My only audience who
understands this is the androids. I
want enlightenment packaged as merely a $10 shareware program freely
downloadable -- any more complex and valued system is a never-reachable fantasy
that revels in the chase.
I don't
want to cut to the chase, but eliminate it completely. If I wrote a novel, it would only have the
last page. This is the only system that
cannot be called a "path" -- it's pure destination. So it's not a "programme" so much
as an immediately learnable idea that is meant to be combined with the
loose-cognition state.
>I
apologize in advance for not reading over your site, I find that I often don't
have time for long bouts of reading on the internet and that, even when I do,
it often makes me eyes hurt and/or gives me a headache.
It is my
fault for providing too much information, too many details such that you cannot
see the simple single tree in the middle.
My concept for the site is a pyramid where you start with a perfect
1-page summary at the top, then delve into details as you like.
However, I
find that I prefer spending my time expanding the scope of my knowledge rather
than polishing the site. The
comprehensive summary I've written is really not that bad.
What I
recommend that people do is print and read carefully the overview, and browse
the rest of the site, and then read the overview again while in the loose-cognition
mode through the traditional, natural use of entheogens. And it would be good to read other books
about the entheogenic origin of religions, and philosophy overview books. I want to list and review my favorite 25
books at the site.
I might
never clean up the site or publish an impressive scholarly work, but people
need a short introductory comic book, above all -- combined with loose
cognition.
My
ultimate criticism of philosophy is that it lacks the entheogen, the ability to
trigger interesting and vivid experience.
My ultimate criticism of drug-free meditation is that it is
*inconvenient* as a method for producing intense experience.
I am
engineering the *most convenient* method for producing intense intellectual
experience. I am more like writing a
compact computer program to better express the ancient insights, rather than
writing a book or creating a new spiritual tradition.
All this
large quantity of writing I have to do is just unfortunate; eventually it
should all be compacted into a short article, comic book, or learning module.
___________________
What is
the most immediate and convenient way to gain a specific kind of enlightenment
and a certain kind of ultimate religious experience?
o Print and read the overview of the
cybernetic theory of ego transcendence at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/1
o Browse the rest of the
http://www.egodeath.com site, and this discussion group.
o Read the overview summary again while in the
loose-cognition mode through the traditional, natural use of entheogens.
o Read other books about the entheogenic
origin of religions, and philosophy overview books.
>>So,
where do you go from here?
Ergonomically
systematize and package the set of simple principles and define how to use them
with loose cognition. Create a simple
quick guide that straightforwardly teaches the systematic principles of
transcendent knowledge.
>>What
does this knowledge give you? What do
you gain?
Transcendent
knowledge, which is a more accurate and coherent and refined mental worldmodel
than the egoic worldmodel.
>>Is
your life any easier than the milk man who has no cognitive awareness of such
things as a block-universe, loose cognition, or even ego death?
Cognitive
dissonance specifically regarding the intellectual understanding of time, will,
self, and control is removed or greatly lessened. One might remain an alcoholic or controlaholic, but now, one
degree more comfortable by understanding why self-control is inherently less securable
than the idealistic posi-control which self-help seminars promise as panacea.
>>If
you are in a 'loose cognition' state you are able to receive information
easier.
The mind
is able to reconceive mental construct networks easier and revise them more
deeply than in the default state of tight cognition (tight
cognitive-association binding).
>>Are
you looking to take this information and create a new human consciousness?
It is not
new consciousness; it is newly *systematized* consciousness. Scholars only know a fraction of what has
been written, but as far as we know or I know, this model is the clearest that
the dynamics of ego death and ego transcendence has ever been systematized.
>>Are
you offering this information just for those who have ears to hear?
A top
priority is to prove that the main, most important and profound aspects of
enlightenment are very simple and are easy to deeply experience, grasp, and
comprehend, despite what practically all theorists and spiritualists
maintain.
Rather
than taking an attitude of proving this model to skeptics, the best approach is
to clarify what the model is, as clearly and simply as possible, and let those
who are so inclined use their own judgement.
I intend to define a practical framework which anyone is able to do
research within if they are so inclined.
>>What
can you do with this information?
Jump to a
more coherent understanding of the relationship of self, time, world, will, and
control. Experience some of the very
most stunning experiences. Enhance the
whole of life by adding a different perspective on the scope of life and on
daily life.
>>How
can this information be translated into "daily life" and not turn out
to be some hobby [particular activity bounded in duration] that is an
externality of the libido.
How can
any one component of a full life be translated into ongoing day-to-day
life? How can the moon shot be so
translated into daily life? How do
moments of climax become translated into daily life? What is the relationship between any special or unique
time-bounded experience, versus daily life?
How can the experience of going to an exotic country be translated into
daily life -- what is our philosophical explanation about that?
Touring a
foreign land must be irrelevant to daily life, by some measure, and contributes
to daily life in some doubtful, debatable, nebulous sense: "Visiting
Timbuktu enhances your scope of what human existence is all about," so
they claim. How does playing a video
game enhance day-to-day life? If you
can tell me how you explain that, then you can tell me just as well how
transcendent knowledge has any relevance to non-mystical daily life.
It is
false that the only possible way for a particular time-bounded experience to
have any value is if that finite experience is infinitely woven, clearly and strongly,
all throughout daily life. Life
comprises differentiated compartments that have only partial overlap or
cross-influence. It is demanding an
impossibility if we insist that spirituality be fully present in the fullness
of its potency during every moment of ongoing life.
The only
sense in which that can practically happen, for ordinary people living in the
real world, is if we falsely shrink the stature of the mystic realm to attempt
to force it into a shape which it does not in fact have, together with
distorting the reality of daily life into a shape which it does not have and
will not have, in the practical real world of real people.
You can
artificially daydream about so elevating day-to-day life that it expands to fit
the shape of the full-on mystic realm, but it is not going to happen, not for
real people living in the real constraints of the real world. In practice, the mystic realm has one scope
and shape, and the realm of daily life has a different, only partly
overlapping, scope and shape. The most
awe-inspiring aspects of the mystic realm cannot and will not fit into the
scope of ongoing daily life.
If you
then disparage and discard those aspects of the mystic realm which stubbornly
refuse to submit to your preconceptions -- which refuse to be shrunken and
distorted to fit a mold of some idealized glorified daily life -- that can only
lead to delusion about the scope of the mystic realm and of daily life. It is a distortion of sex and of daily life
to try to force sex and daily life to be the same thing. Daily life cannot be, as Freud would have
it, all about sex.
Daily life
has many aspects, many of which have some, limited, relation to various realms
of experiencing. It is a form of
reduction -- distortion -- to try to define daily life wholly in terms of any
one realm -- sex, mysticism, virtual reality environments, sports, and so
on. Daily life is inspired by *many*
realms of temporally-bound experiencing, but daily life is not wholly inspired
by any one particular realm of temporally-bound experiencing which daily life
comprises.
You can't
really get anywhere without understanding the idea of differentiation of
departments of life or of knowledge, such as in Ken Wilber's Integral Theory,
or my equivalent, domain dynamics. Many
profound aspects of the mystic realm utterly elude all or most of daily
life. The most spiritual and
enlightened and elevated daily life is not the same as the distinctive aspects
of the realm of mystic experiencing.
It makes
no sense -- it's a totally incoherent idea -- to judge the value of any
temporally-bound realm of specialized experiencing in terms of its effect on
ongoing daily life. If you assert that
sexual climax totally transforms every aspect of ongoing daily life, you've put
forth a distorted conception of both sexual climax and daily life.
When you
force two partially overlapping areas to be a single undifferentiated area,
this is not integration; it's distortion and reduction, which attempts to
declare as unreal those aspects of the two realms that don't overlap and cannot
overlap. You cannot fit all of the
mystic realm into the realm of daily life: it does not and will not fit; those
aspects of the mystic realm can only have a nebulous and remote influence on
daily life.
For the enlightened
mind, the experience of chopping wood and carrying water is not entirely
elevated and transformed, and to demand that it be so, is to demand an
impossibility, which involves distorting both the nature of daily life and of
the mystic realm, claiming that daily life can be something it cannot be, and
claiming that the mystic can be fit into a shape it cannot be fit into.
Popular
spirituality has crudely overoptimistic hopes for the degree to which the
mystic realm can change daily life. A
weepy depressed disappointment is the certain outcome. Enlightenment is the greatest disappointment
in the world, for the egoic expectations of what can be gained from
enlightenment.
Beware of
the egoic conception of ego transcendence, which, through wishful thinking and
preconceived ideas, demands of life and enlightenment things that life cannot
give and that enlightenment cannot be.
The most awesome aspects of enlightenment inherently reach beyond the
realm that daily life can encompass, and that reaching beyond is much of how
the mystic realm adds value to the whole of life.
The whole
of life cannot be equated with daily life, because the whole of life includes
daily life and includes many different realms of experiencing that don't and
cannot and will not occur in daily life, as far as all real-world evidence
indicates.
It is
pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, without any real evidential basis whatsoever,
and at the extreme a denial of reality, to assert that daily life can be
elevated to the heights of profundity and intensity that the transcendent
mystic realm has. Some of the mystic
realm can have some degree of effect on some aspects of life, but for actual
people, the mystic realm has always had a partial overlap with daily life --
not no overlap, and not an entire identity, but a *partial* overlap.
The answer
to "What use is enlightenment for daily life?" is "What use is
daily life for enlightenment?"
What use is any part of life, to a distinct, only partially overlapping,
other part of life? The mystic realm in
fact does not slavishly serve and conform to the standards on ongoing daily
life, no matter how elevated one tries to make ongoing daily life.
The mystic
realm in its most definitive and distinctive form is a climax of experiencing,
while daily life has never been such a climax.
Shall we then banish that climax, or falsely and jealously declare it to
not exist? One ought to align oneself
with the diverse *whole* of life -- per Integral Theory -- rather than with
some limited subset, which is ongoing daily life with all the particular realms
removed.
Here is an
easy question: What does the transcendent mystic realm have to do with the
whole of life? It contributes much of
the most valuable and distinctive; that realm comprises a great range of
spectacular potentials that are often noteworthy and valuable because of their
difference from anything that would be practical for daily life. Since when is the daily the measure of the
whole entirety?
People are
applying harsh and unrealistic demands to the mystic, that they would never
apply to any other realm. Since when is
the hardly mystical daily realm the standard of measure to which the mystical
peaks must conform? To insist upon such
conformity is to speak untruth about the real, practical potential of daily
life and about the scope and applicability and utility of the mystic
peaks.
The
utility of those aspects of the mystic realm that refuse to just serve the
ongoing daily realm, is that they provide metaphysical enlightenment, open up a
vast realm of potential experiencing, and shine light on daily life in various
ways, to various extents.
Insofar as
pop meditation religion doesn't open up these nonordinary realms, these realms
that escape the potential scope of daily life, such meditation-religion has its
limits and does not define the limits of what religion has to contribute to the
whole of life. The whole of life cannot
be truly reduced to daily life; there are real, practical limits to how much
daily life can be transformed and elevated.
Parts of
the mystic realm will experientially tower over daily life, separate and
distinct from daily life, remotely and intangibly giving perspective on daily
life without clearly changing and transforming daily life. In practical reality, talking about actual
people and not wishful-thinking ideals and expectations, the most elevated
daily life in the world does not reach into the depth of profound value that
the mystic realm brings to the whole of life.
Parts of
the mystic realm are, by any reasonable measure, higher than and distinct from,
the most elevated ongoing daily life.
There is no evidence to the contrary -- only idealistic wishful
thinking, that ends up decapitating the mystic realm out of envy because the
daily cannot succeed at its wish to contain the mystic peaks.
It is
actually easy to create a systematic, straightforwardly intelligible,
ergonomically communicable model of ego death and ego transcendence that
explains the main part of such a kind of mystic transcendence experiential
realm.
>>You're
interested in creating exhilarating experiences and not concerned so much with
the rest of life.
People
can't easily get ahold of peak experiences because we try to blend mundane life
and religious experience too much. It
is a dogma of our time that religious experience should be measured in terms of
how it affects everyday life. But
everyday life is just everyday life, and religious experience is set apart by
its elevation or radical otherness compared to mundane life. We might be able to mix these, but first we
need to gain religious experience, before we can integrate it.
If your
goal is peace in everyday life, that is one kind of spiritual goal. I am working on the opposite kind of
spiritual goal -- how to provide a radically discontinuous and set-apart
transcendent experience that contrasts against everyday life.
>>Something
like cybernetically revised The Psychedelic Experience.
>I'm
positive that Wilber is underestimating the value of entheogens in his theory
Remember,
he is a moving target. He
underestimated entheogens in past years, but he may be caught up by now.
>>but
I think you are underestimating the real importance of meditation:
loving-kindness, compassion, etc.
It is
debatable whether loving-kindness and compassion are "the real
importance" of meditation. You are
free to draw that association, but don't be surprised if I disown that
"spiritual path" and its goal.
You may be
affirming that drug-free meditation is in fact associated with a type of
spirituality that is concerned mainly with such common values as
loving-kindness and compassion. I would
warn with Wilber overtones, however, that such a spirituality is purely
translative and not transformative. It
doesn't blow your mind or lead to a sudden discontinuous re-penting, a
transformation of thinking.
I am
interested in a sudden deep transformation from one definite particular
worldmodel to another -- a perfectly specific and clear transformation, as
opposed to the hazy feeling-oriented kind of "growth" and "spiritual
insight" as embraced by the popular meditation-oriented type of
spirituality.
The latter
belongs to the world of the ego and the egoic world-model; it is a spirituality
that soothes and reinforces the egoic delusion, at least in many ways. It is a mere translative kind of
spirituality. It is valuable, but of
lesser stature than the radical lightning-transformation discontinuous
revelation of the traditional, natural technology of entheogenic mystery-religion
such as I am mapping out.
There are
two kinds of spirituality: the common kind that overflows from the newage
bookstores, and the radical kind that I portray as an intellectual revolution
that kills ego instantly dead in a certain way. These are largely independent types of spirituality.
There are
a million people already travelling on the broad path of loving-kindness
meditation-oriented religion. I am not
terribly concerned with them. I'm
working on the gap, the *other* kind of spirituality, which provides a short
and vertical path to instant revelation, and sits in discontinuous contrast
with the daily life in which we are enmeshed.
>If the
feeling for others is not there, then meditation, yoga, you name it, seem all
to be quite the same experience-hunting and your method just might be the best
of them. I don't think Wilber talks that much about nirvana. Who cares about
"nirvana". It's so out of this world anyway.
Wilber
talks about the ultimate state of consciousness. And he has written so much, I really hesitate to assess his view
on nirvana.
He and I
emphasize entirely different things. We
don't necessarily disagree on particulars, though our world-models do in some
way disagree. We disagree on what is
important and what methods are most practical and effective, and what the goals
are -- or what the goal of religious experience is really all about. It will take more work to pin down the exact
points of dispute.
>Better
Living Through Blotters.
What ideas
do different traditions promote as constituting "better living"? What is "better" -- the worldview
of meditation-based feeling-based spirituality, or entheogen-based intellectual
spirituality? Both of these
combinations I contrast as extreme opposites may have some pro's and con's.
Entheogen-based
intellectual spirituality can have totally specific and achievable goals -- it
doesn't promise world peace, but it does deliver immediately and directly what
it advertises, unlike meditation, which, by many measures, fails to deliver on
its promises.
I work on
reigning in the promises and providing fast delivery on the few remaining
promises, with instant gratification of the desire to experience a sudden
mental world-model transformation and a kind of complete ego-death experience
together with a map that captures and rationally explains the insights that are
encountered.
It is
crucially important work to describe these promises and defining and
differentiate a "new" set of goals and methods. It is of utmost importance to define how
this approach to religious experiencing stands apart from the accustomed
approaches and worldviews.
That's the
only way an alternative approach can be viably sustained -- by being understood
as distinct from other approaches. This
is like the challenge of a mind constructing a separate ego to differentiate
the person from the environment. As the
ego must in a sense "reject" the environment as not-me, a rational
entheogen-based religious metaphysical philosophy must "reject" all
accustomed spirituality, to stand out as being truly an alternative with its own
distinct presence.
1) dealing
with these discussions concerning mind/consciousness expansion and what is
termed ego-death, what is the primary function of these debates?
To
formulate an explicit, rational, specific, simple theory of the ego death and
recovery experience.
>2)
what does the term/concept 'ego-death' truly signify?
The end of
the dominance of a mental worldmodel that assumes oneself is an absolute
creator of one's thoughts, actions, future, and movement of will. The main components of the mental model that
transform are the concepts of time, self, control, and will. A large network of concepts is transformed
all together.
>3)
what does the ego represent in terms of the mind?
The sense
of being a metaphysically free, sovereign agent that controls and truly
originates one's thoughts and actions.
>4)
what is the ultimate goal aspired to by the death of the ego?
Greater
integrity and coherence of one's mental worldmodel, especially with regards to
oneself as a controller moving through time.
This might or might not lead to a more balanced life or positive
mood. I consider mental worldmodel
integrity to be a self-existing goal in itself. The goal is also to experience the most intense and amazing
experience people have encountered. See
the earliest threads in this discussion group for more information about what a
theory of ego death is good for.
>>If
"understanding" all of this is the goal or desire then peace remains
out of reach as the person living with desire is never happy and peaceful.
Satisfaction is when the desire is gone.
It ends up that the only peaceful goal is to be psychologically free
from goals. That only happens when it is understood that it is enough to be. No
one in our society has ever been brought up with the sense that it is enough
that they simply are! Quite the opposite.
Understanding
is my goal, and I'm achieving that. I
adhere to goals, and intend to be. I'm
stressed, and that's inherent in goal seeking.
I am at peace. I used to seek
peace, and couldn't find it -- I hoped for peace and eliminating cognitive
dissonance by gaining self-mastery. Now
I seek to formally polish and publish my understanding of transcendence, and no
longer strive much for self-mastery and peace.
There is
no particular reason why we should adopt peace or lack of desire as a
goal. We are existentially free to
choose our goals. You assume too much,
without justification, about the purpose of religious experiencing and
spirituality.
Many
people consider the ultimate goal and highest value of human life to be
experiencing ego death, rebirth, and ego transcendence. I systematize ego death, but it is debatable
that experiencing or understanding ego death is inherently our ultimate
goal. Different people adopt different
goals. We can theorize with Wilber and
the mystics that people's real goal, unbeknownst to them, is realizing oneness,
and all their other activities are frustrating substitutes -- but that is
debatable.
Ego death
certainly can be considered an ultimate goal for the egoic mind, as the cross
was the ultimate goal or fate lying ahead for the earthly Jesus. Ego, when developed to fulfilment, leads to
its own self-traitorship. The
self-control power, when developed fully, is destined to cancel itself
out. Egoic control power is a trap set
for itself (Watts).
In that
sense, the "real goal" of the egoic mind is ego death and ego
transcendence. But I usually talk
instead of ego death as being "an inherent potential" of the egoic
mind, rather than saying that ego death is the real goal of the egoic mind.
Conventional
spirituality assumes, without proper debate, that the purpose of spirituality
is peace of mind. I'd say that
enlightenment does lead to peace of mind if one is vexed with the task of
gaining self-control while holding a confused model of self-control. In my experience, experiencing and
understanding ego death and ego transcendence is overwhelmingly more signifant
than the relatively petty and trite goal of achieving peace of mind. Peace of mind is not on my list of goals,
though it was, way back when I was struggling to make rational sense of Watt's
The Way of Zen.
In the
most significant sense, I achieved deep peace of mind when I discovered that
his book made sense by adopting a block-universe model into which one's
self-control stream is timelessly frozen.
On the mundane level, my mind is often full of stress rather than peace,
but on the deep level, upon the joyful intellectual discovery of a coherent
solution in January 11, 1988, I attained cognitive coherence and a peace of
mind in a deep sense. Then I began work
on connecting that space-time-control model to Christianity, which presented
various cognitive dissonances and challenges, but did not cancel my deep
rest.
In fact,
as the revelation of how to connect my core theory with Christianity was
exploding through my mind all during the day of November 14, 2001, that day and
that week were extremely stressful and vexing, presenting challenges to my
self-management and throwing a wrench in my scheduled plans.
Yet on the
deep level, I retained a certain kind of peace. In the end, the notion of peace of mind is a little too
simplistic, as are most self-help and positive-thinking books; they wilt in the
face of reality. Watts covers the
pattern of stress buildup and release in satori, in his book. But he does not simply assume that peace is
the goal and purpose of enlightenment -- he often assaults and demolishes that
conventional assumption.
The enlightened
mind may have peace or may be in conflict with itself, but it doesn't add an
additional layer of dissonance about its dissonance. If you construct a more paradoxical view of peace of mind, as
being peace about stress, sometimes there will be peace and sometimes stress,
but not an additional layer added by the dream of being spiritually peaceful
all the time. Watts emphasizes that the
enlightened man screams without hesitation as he is stabbed through; the enlightened
monk sits feeling sorry for himself and does not add an additional layer of
stress about the fact of his imperfect condition.
Enlightenment
is not simply about being in peace all the time, or about acting humble all the
time, or acting spiritual all the time.
Those are all misleading common notions and assumptions.
Enlightenment
is about seeing and understanding the way in which ego is an illusion. Those other goals are mundane
self-help. Don't confuse enlightenment
with mere banal self-help.
Enlightenment is sacred, lofty, ultimate, and elevated, and is
independent of such petty details as mood and style of personality.
Enlightenment
is not a lifestyle or code of conduct, though those who lack enlightenment
assume it to be all these mundane things.
We talk of esoteric versus exoteric Christianity, esoteric versus
popular Buddhism. The same must be true
with spirituality in general: there is esoteric spirituality, and exoteric
spirituality. People assume that
spirituality is about the goals and purposes of exoteric spirituality --
smiling and floating along in life.
Esoteric spirituality is not really about smiling and floating along in
life -- it's about understanding and experiencing transcendent knowledge. Esoteric spirituality is not a lifestyle,
personality style, code of conduct, or system of self-deprecating politeness.
Before I
sought enlightenment, I was an ordinary man.
While seeking enlightenment, I had a halo, and birds would leave flowers
where I walked. Now I no longer have a
halo, and the animals no longer pay me any particular attention.
I used to
have no opinion about my peace or dissonance of mind. Then I had great dissonance about my dissonance of mind. Now I no longer have a preference about my
peace or dissonance of mind. This
pattern of meta-dissonance and stress about self-control, leading to a
revelatory release, is found in Paul the Apostle, Augustine, and Luther.
Prostitute
becomes virgin via Christ creation.
Rebirth
implies holy family
thorn
crown (around head or heart)
heart
stabbed in woman
heart
with cross and thorns
Xns do
sacrifice and eat babies!
Sacrifice
your firstborn to Moloch!
Taste of
my oral teaching
Acid
dissolves sin, acid is Christ's flesh, HS as acid dissolving sin and blindness
-- Dissolve your firstborn child in acid to be saved. Dissolve the old
self. Throw your demon in vat acid,
cast down into, throw acid on your witch.
Mystery
Mother Mary is God. Literalist Mother
Mary is Anti-Christ.
Initiate
is whole cast/family
Paul the
runt - homunculus
Stiff
wavy snake - frozen worldline
Exodus
from Chaos-monster
Jesus
was actually a theorist of entheogenic deterministic self-ctrl cybics.
Higher/bigger
creature over lower/smaller - tho ower must sac'd, lower acts as causer/giver/
bringer/ parent of salvation.
logos=pattern
Critique
the "You/we are really consciousness" idea of Freke/Gandy. (What does "you" or "we"
point to? Sure, consciousness *exists*,
but where does or should the "you" come in? Ego slips in...)
The theory
of enlightenment I've pulled together has no more "limitation" than
metaphysical enlightenment itself has "limitations". People treat the theory like a universal
panacea and Rorsatch test: whatever they feel they need, lack, want, and wish
for, they ask -- and demand -- that metaphysical enlightenment provide it.
They,
while asserting they are unenlightened, nevertheless dictate how enlightenment
must be defined as providing everything they wish it be and assume ahead of
time that it must be. Any version of
enlightenment that fails to provide their expected goods, they judge as not
adequate, not acceptable as enlightenment.
"Everyone
knows" that, by definition, enlightened people float about and never know
dissonance. Any particular system of
enlightenment fails to make people float about, and fails to forget all
dissonance, therefore, all particular systems are deemed to be inadequate and
too-limited systems of enlightenment.
How should
'enlightenment' be defined? What are
the main kinds of 'enlightenment' that ought to be differentiated?
A. The
emancipation from oppression by religious authorities around 1750.
B. Foggy
New Age spiritual enlightenment that puts a misty glow on everything you do
during the day ("stinking of Zen", per Alan Watts).
C. Metaphysical
enlightenment about the relation between time, self, will, agents, and control.
The
cybernetic theory of ego death addresses 'enlightenment' of type C. Unless I specify otherwise, when I write
'enlightenment', I mean metaphysical enlightenment as opposed to New Age
spiritual enlightenment or early-modern political enlightenment.
How should
a theoretical model and embodiment of enlightenment be judged, for whether it
is adequate and ideal as a model of enlightenment? The model should be concise, clear, specific, distinct, simple,
elegant, summarizable, and comprehensive in coverage of all essentials. It should be theoretically integrated with
methods of nonordinary experiencing.
Does
metaphysical enlightenment have anything at all to do with improving daily
life? If so, what is the extent of this
relationship?
Enlightenment
has some limited ability to improve daily life, but the assumed extent of
overlap has been blown out of all reasonable proportion. Metaphysical enlightenment provides only a fraction
of the ideas and habits that are required for the special topic or special
skill of improving day-to-day life.
In what
sense is enlightenment 'limited'?
Enlightenment
provides a *coherent understanding* of self, time, control, will, and agency;
it does *not* provide direct *power* over these things.
_________________
What
practical benefits are to be expected and demanded from spiritual
enlightenment? I have had people
literally tell me that they take it for granted that enlightenment provides one
of the following:
Making all
moments of daily life glow, uplifted with spiritual infusion -- this is the
standard New Age spirituality notion, a project which many agree upon and
expect from enlightenment because... because many people agree and expect it.
World
peace -- per the mystic metaphor in Revelation; after the great cosmic
uncovering, all will be peaceful, lion laying down with lamb, no more sorrows.
The end to
sadness and depression -- "obviously", if one is enlightened, one
would be happy and in bliss all the time.
Ending the
WOD -- the tree of knowledge will be open for business on every street corner
of heaven, as it plainly says in Revelation
Ending
oppression -- "obviously", becoming spiritually enlightened will make
everyone be nice to each other, and no one will want to take coercive advantage
of anyone else any more.
Giving
self-integrity of personal self-management -- "obviously",
understanding transcendent knowledge of self-controllership and personal
control agency will give a person complete control over their will and
self-control thoughts.
Radically
eliminating all mental, cognitive dissonance -- "obviously", once you
are enlightened, you'll no longer experience any cognitive dissonance of any
sort; everything will go fine and nice in your life and in your experience;
you'll never be in a bad mood again.
Financial
wealth -- "obviously", being enlightened brings self-mastery, which
strongly correlates with wealth.
Ability to
create gold
Magically
commanding the spirits to provide gold, influence, power
Pious
worshipping of God, giving glory to God
Eliminating
all egotistical egoism -- "obviously", one who transcends the ego is
completely humble and self-deprecating, by definition; any thing otherwise is
of course unthinkable and a self-contradiction.
Eternal,
immortal life -- since aging is caused by cognitive dissonance, and being
enlightened means you have no cognitive dissonance any more, enlightenment
naturally results in cessation of aging.
Eternal
youth -- someone assures me that the secret of alchemy is that eating gold
makes you live forever without aging
Prophetic
ability to predict the future -- someone in the discussion group assumed that
the mystic experience of timelessness would "of course" give the
ability to see the future; "obviously", seeing timelessness is seeing
all time, "by definition".
_________________
They
mistake the transcendent Good for infinite goods.
The
specific enlightenment is the achievable enlightenment that is guaranteed to
deliver its promised benefits. Generally,
enlightenment does not provide anything but enlightenment. The benefit of getting metaphysical
enlightenment is that you get metaphysical enlightenment, which can be used for
having metaphysical enlightenment.
In terms
of the Christian myth-religion, the purpose of regeneration and salvation is
giving glory to God and gaining imperishable and mature, perfected, completed
life.
Enlightenment
does not bring world peace, despite Revelation; rather, in Revelation, world
peace is used as a metaphorical description of events from the mystic state.
Enlightenment
does not add a magic glow to all you do in daily life; it merely removes one
type of cognitive dissonance. This
localized and limited correction of one's mental worldmodel can be *combined* with
*other* improvements of thought and life that are *distinct from* enlightenment
proper. To enhance day-to-day life, use
broad-sense "enlightenment", which is a mix of narrow-sense
metaphysical enlightenment with *other* elements of self-improvement.
But
metaphysical enlightenment, though blendable and integratable with other facets
or areas of self-improvement, remains distinct and differentiated.
Enlightenment
is not a panacea; for a thousand achievements other than corrected
understanding of self-controllership, enlightenment by itself is not
sufficient; enlightenment *itself* has boundaries and limitations, just as any
tool and area of life has boundaries and limitations.
The
demands and expectations everyone has piled sky-high on top of enlightenment
guarantees that no one will ever attain *that* unreal, hazy, dreamy, wishful,
inchoate, ill-defined mirage of that "enlightenment": that is
"the hyper-inflated conception of enlightenment", which is opposed to
my concrete, finite, limited, downscaled, specific and easily achievable
*real-world* enlightenment, which cannot be anything more than one tool among
many for improving the world.
Real-world,
restricted-scope, scaled-down enlightenment is the most valuable and lofty
thing in the world, the best part of life, but no part of life could ever be a
panacea. Demand the sky, and I
guarantee you won't ever get it. Demand
mere transcendent knowledge, as one, most valuable fraction of a full and
complete life, and I guarantee you can get it, far more easily than ever,
through the controlled, bounded, and constrained theory of ego death I've
pulled together.
Get 185
people together in a discussion group, and you'll hear 185 different
assumptions demanding 185 different benefits from enlightenment, and 185
different criticisms of the cybernetic self-control theory of enlightenment for
not meeting the expectation each person has set forth, as firmly and as
confidently as thoughtlessly.
What do
*you* demand and expect from enlightenment?
How do *you* define enlightenment?
What expectations do *you* hold that enlightenment must live up to?
Anyone who
believes the kinds of benefits above is a naive fool, led about into
disappointment by their own runaway assumptions and wishful thinking about
their own preconceived notions of what enlightenment ought to entail and
provide. In the search for their own
fantasized, inflated hazy dream of what enlightenment ought to provide and
ought to be about, they don't attain the enlightenment that *is*
attainable.
Full basic
enlightenment is easy; the price is that you must reign in what you expect and
demand from enlightenment, and sacrifice your precious freewill assumption,
replacing it by a radically transcendent and emphatically beyond-rationality
kind of freedom that is specifically not the child's naïve freewill assumption.
_______________________
New Agers,
particularly in reaction after 1960s when the efficacy of entheogens for
inducing the mystic state was firmly established and universally conceded as
fact, *insist* on permanently welding metaphysical enlightenment to ethics, and
-- in the extreme yet almost typical version of this strategic stance --
literally and explicitly deny *all* value to metaphysical enlightenment itself,
and *only* grant value to the *undifferentiated combination* of
narrowly-defined enlightenment with ten thousand other "required"
goals and concerns; they stoop so low as to go out of their way to deny all
value to metaphysical altered-state mystic enlightenment itself, while, inconsistently,
they are ready to grant value to *other* isolated areas of life, such as sex,
relationships, ecology, daily life within the ordinary state of consciousness.
When
pushed against the wall by the plain ramifications of entheogens' uncontestable
superb efficacy, the jealous, entheogen-diminishing Establishment-friendly New
Age spirituality stance resorts so low as to hold this set of values:
sex -
valuable