How Would We Know of a Spiritual Reality?

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Dr Moore
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Re: How Would We Know of a Spiritual Reality?

Post by Dr Moore »

doubtingthomas wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 5:12 am
Dr Moore wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 5:04 am
By the way, to be clear, I do believe in something beyond the observable physical world. My experience with it is my own subjective reality. I have no idea what it is - I simply don’t know. But that belief remains, however irrational it might be.
Why do you have to believe it? Are you highly confident that there is something beyond the observable physical world?

Do you believe that some people see aliens during a DMT trip?

More than half of those who identified as atheist before the experience no longer identified as atheist afterwards. The experiences were rated as among the most meaningful, spiritual, and psychologically insightful lifetime experiences, with persisting positive changes in life satisfaction, purpose, and meaning attributed to the experiences."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32345112/

"Why people encounter what appear to be non-human entities while on DMT but not on other drugs is currently unknown." https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... ity-part-1
I have yet to experience such things, and it’s outside my domain. So, I have no opinion on the theories or the data. It’s all super interesting and I look forward to what this frontier discovers. To your first question, I don’t have to believe, but I do anyway, based entirely on the subjective sum of my life’s experiences.
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Re: How Would We Know of a Spiritual Reality?

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Dr Moore wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 5:23 am
To your first question, I don’t have to believe, but I do anyway, based entirely on the subjective sum of my life’s experiences.
I understand. Wouldn't it be better to believe in Transhumanism or the idea that you can upload your "consciousness" to a computer? Or Cryonics? or life extension?

And are you sure the subjective sum of your experiences are not just a coincidence?

I am just curious. Not trying to be rude.
"I have the type of (REAL) job where I can choose how to spend my time," says Marcus. :roll:
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Dr Moore
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Re: How Would We Know of a Spiritual Reality?

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doubtingthomas wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 5:34 am
Dr Moore wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 5:23 am
To your first question, I don’t have to believe, but I do anyway, based entirely on the subjective sum of my life’s experiences.
I understand. Wouldn't it be better to believe in Transhumanism or the idea that you can upload your "consciousness" to a computer? Or Cryonics? or life extension?

And are you sure the subjective sum of your experiences are not just a coincidence?

I am just curious. Not trying to be rude.
I’m not sure at all. The more specific, the less I am inclined to believe it.
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Re: How Would We Know of a Spiritual Reality?

Post by Don Bradley »

DrStakhanovite wrote:
Thu May 19, 2022 4:18 pm
In my opinion, if you are gonna go do the whole perennial philosophy shtick, you ought to go straight down the rabbithole with M. Guénon and his 'The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times'. Near as I can tell, the great Kali-Yuga seems almost upon us.

Guénon lays out for us the phases of destruction: Anti-Tradition, Pseudo-Initiation, and then the rise of Counter-Initiation when the true enemies of spirituality are made manifest. The markers of counter-initiation are fairly clear...
  • debased Esoterism
  • decrepit Syncretism
  • compromised hierarchy
  • History valued over Revelation
  • Promethean magic
  • Spiritual evolutionism as progress
There is a growing consensus that the above describes Bahaism, but I think it could describe the Brighamite Church as well. Take a spiritual inventory Don, because you've been swimming in the waters of the counter-initiation for years now.
Hey Stak!

How goes it?

To clarify my post above, it's about religious epistemology, not about modern academic models used in the study of the perennial tradition.

Given the perennial character of the perennial philosophy--its having existed across millennia and across faith communities--the path to knowledge of ultimate reality in that tradition is open to people of various faith communities, and they are not cut off from that access by the opinion of a modern analyst of the tradition.

Don
"People can find meaninglessness in just about anything if they convince themselves that there is no meaning in that thing." - The Rev. Dr. Lumen Kishkumen
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Re: How Would We Know of a Spiritual Reality?

Post by Don Bradley »

Hey Stak!

How goes it? That's cool you've delved into studying the perennial philosophy. Per the topic of this thread, what sort of practices do you do in pursuing that path, assuming it's more than an academic interest for you.

Don
"People can find meaninglessness in just about anything if they convince themselves that there is no meaning in that thing." - The Rev. Dr. Lumen Kishkumen
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Re: How Would We Know of a Spiritual Reality?

Post by DrStakhanovite »

Hi Don,

I’m doing good! Thanks for asking.
Don Bradley wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 6:06 am
To clarify my post above, it's about religious epistemology, not about modern academic models used in the study of the perennial tradition.
Well it is and it isn’t. The more popular advocates of the perennial tradition like Aldous Huxley and Hutson Smith playfully dance around the issue with just barely perceptible nods and sly winks, but at the end of the day you’ll find the perennial tradition is an occultic perspective. I don’t think you can separate it out.

It is present even in the text you quoted:
Huxley wrote:The Perennial Philosophy is primarily concerned with the one, divine Reality substantial to the manifold world of things and lives and minds. But the nature of this one Reality is such that it cannot be directly and immediately apprehended except by those who have chosen to fulfil certain conditions, making themselves loving, pure in heart, and poor in spirit. ... It is only by making physical experiments that we can discover the intimate nature of matter and its potentialities. And it is only by making psychological and moral experiments that we can discover the intimate nature of mind and its potentialities.
This is exactly how Renaissance magicians conceived the nature of their craft, it was occultic practitioners that pioneered experimental methodologies over and against the Aristotelian systems that dominated in the Universities. It isn’t a coincidence that Isaac Newton, the man largely responsible for providing the basic physical mechanics that got us to the moon, wrote more about the occult than he did about physics.

Or why Newton’s rival and co-discoverer of calculus, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, spent an inordinate amount of money and months of his time scouring western Europe looking for a set of secret notebooks supposedly kept by René Descartes having to do with alchemy.

So when you show me a text that is talking about getting your inner-life properly sorted by being humble in spirit with pure intention and putting it into alignment with your outer-life (properly conducted experiments) and then ask this:
Don Bradley wrote:What more consequential and ultimately promising experiment could we possibly perform?
I’m looking to see if you have a broadsword hanging off your waist with the secret to eternal life hidden in the pommel.
Don Bradley wrote:Given the perennial character of the perennial philosophy--its having existed across millennia and across faith communities--the path to knowledge of ultimate reality in that tradition is open to people of various faith communities, and they are not cut off from that access by the opinion of a modern analyst of the tradition.
But you can’t *do* anything with perennial philosophy until you take it to a level like Guénon did. I’ll show you…
Dr Moore wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 1:34 am
I appreciate Don's post. And DrStak, I used Google search at least 7 times to fully understand that comment. This stuff is all way above my pay grade.

I'll offer an analogy -- the real number line.
Where:

* Integers, or whole numbers, represent things that are objectively verifiable or observable. This is the realm of hard science -- things, facts, ideas which can be replicated through predictive experimentation.
* All of the non-integer real numbers in between (the non-integer rationals and irrationals) represent things or ideas which cannot be replicated through predictive experimentation. Mysticism. Spirituality. Love.

This is too simplistic, but hopefully the basic ideas come across.
Dr.Moore is fundamentally engaged in the same project as Guénon; he is drawing upon a large pool of observation held in common, then translating it into an idiom that is commensurate with a body of science. Dr.Moore is using Number Theory, Guénon is using his own blend of terminology taken from occultic tradition; they may look completely different now, but 400 years ago they would have been peas in a pod.

Or 80 years ago if you party with Jack Parsons and Aleister Crowley at the Agape Lodge.
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Re: How Would We Know of a Spiritual Reality?

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huckelberry wrote:
Thu May 19, 2022 6:10 pm
Dr Stakhonovite, a curious post you have made.
The purpose was kind of like flashing someone your masonic ring or rolling up your sleeve to display an ICP Hatchet Man tattoo: I am down to clown.
huckelberry wrote:I look up Kali Yuga and am told it is the current age and has been and will be for a long time.
Perennial Philosophers have a way of appropriating terminology while doing their anthropologic endeavors.
huckelberry wrote:I am left not knowing what you see coming.
I don’t actually see anything, but if you inhabit the same mental landscape as my boy Guénon does, you can’t help but see the eschaton. It isn’t all that different from viewing the world in the manner of a conspiracy theorist; a complex web of associations that can only be gleaned if you take the time to learn just how to see them.

Which goes back to the occultic themes and initiation.
huckelberry wrote:I am actually a bit curious about your Bahai comment. A consensus of whom?
There are huge communities of people who take Guénon and others like him deadly serious, they are extremely suspicious of newer religions (probably verging on paranoia if I’m being honest) and they often single out the Baha'i for criticism.
Dr Moore wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 1:34 am
I appreciate Don's post. And DrStak, I used Google search at least 7 times to fully understand that comment. This stuff is all way above my pay grade.
Gonna need more than Google my friend, Guénon was a veritable Scott Weiland.

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Re: How Would We Know of a Spiritual Reality?

Post by Philo Sofee »

doubtingthomas wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 3:55 am
Dr Moore wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 1:34 am
Just like the odds of any specific real number being picked out of a random gap in between any two real numbers is also statistically zero, given infinite possibilities.
And there are more non-integer real numbers than natural numbers. So I guess there are more infinite subjective realities than infinite people?
Considering one person can have billions of different thoughts and ideas and views, by golly I think yer on to something... :D
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Re: How Would We Know of a Spiritual Reality?

Post by Philo Sofee »

Marcus wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 3:56 am
Philo Sofee wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 3:41 am


The professor is attempting to help the student learn something valuable and all the student wants to do is skateboard to the Beach Boys old songs... :D
If you are referring to kishkumen and me, to my best understanding we are BOTH professors at Universities. He is a historian, my area of expertise is in one of the hard sciences. He doesn’t seem to like me much. I’m sure it’s not my gender, but rather my dislikable personality.
I think Kish likes everyone, a lot. This is just a fun topic and we are enjoying the banter.
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Re: How Would We Know of a Spiritual Reality?

Post by DrStakhanovite »

Don Bradley wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 6:49 am
Per the topic of this thread, what sort of practices do you do in pursuing that path, assuming it's more than an academic interest for you.
I got a taste of perennial philosophy from Mircea Eliade, who himself was sympathetic to it but not really onboard with it. I’ve grown pretty disillusioned towards the practice of comparative religion and what it can accomplish, so I’m opposed to perennial philosophy on a pretty foundational level.

That said, I view people who pursue it as fellow travelers and I’m more than happy to encourage the pursuit. I think the experience of being in a state of altered consciousness can be pretty important for character development as well as intellectual development, but I’ve come to the conclusion that what it gained isn’t what people imagine it to be.

I’ve experienced such states when I was in the military. I got a euphoric “runner’s high” during a twenty mile run on some fire breaks at Camp Mackall that had me thinking humans were put on earth by aliens for some inexplicable reason. To this day I have no idea why that thought popped into my head or why I even entertained it for so long, but for about an hour I thought that was an obvious and undeniable truth. Once in 2004 I had just arrived in Afghanistan and stupidly volunteered to carry a bunch of radio equipment up a mountain to a remote observation point. During the climb, I found out real quick I wasn’t properly acclimated to the elevation and physical exertion and lack of oxygen had me thinking the ghost of Alexander the Great was following me, like I actually saw him climbing with us. I totally get why Sherpas see Yetis now.

When I got to college on the G.I. Bill I became a psychonaut whilst doing my philosophy degree (I know I know…). I did DMT and encountered a being that others refer to as a “clockwork elf”, I even dropped LSD with one a former participant of these esteemed forums (the user known as gramps, but he has since passed), and I did ketamine before climbing into one of those deprivation chambers where you float in a saltwater solution. All of that was pretty cool, but if I’m being honest, what was gained wasn’t as valuable as people might suspect.

Nowadays I seek more permanent ways of expanding perception by making fundamental alterations to my consciousness that actually last. Learning languages and to draw have probably done more to change the way I see the world more than anything I’ve tried since.
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