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The video above, along with Fenris23's latest post Playing the Victim have given me an idea towards blending Graphic Facilitation with Sigilry and Servitor creation.

The biggest roadblock to attracting what you want is if you indulge in the victim mentality. The victim is someone that dwells on what they don’t want. They abdicate their responsibility for their own lives and with it their power over it. They don’t live their lives, their lives happen to them. A result of holding this mindset is the never-ending search for people to blame for their suffering, for the cardinal sin is to blame the victim.

Read the rest of Playing the Victim over at my blog, Isle of Lyngvi.

The phrase, ’set, setting and dosage’ originally comes from the psychological studies of psychedelic substances by researchers such as Timothy Leary. Dosage refers to the need to carefully calibrate the amount of the substance to the person taking it in order to achieve desired effects. Setting is making sure the dosage is taken in the appropriate environment to enable acceptable responses. Set is the mental frame that the participants approach the experience with to create the intended results. One of the keys of reality hacking is the awareness that these concepts can be applied to more than just substances.

Read the rest of Set, Setting and Dosage over at my blog, Isle of Lyngvi.

Synchronicity is like a layer of reality beneath the everyday surface that we interact with in our day to day state of mind.  Jung identified it as an acausal connecting principle between events that are not causally linked in material space/time. The normal experience of synchronicity is that of an irruption of meaning that manifests in reality through coincidental occurrences. The connecting principle is associative as events in space/time are experienced as connected by the human capability of pattern recognition. These associations tend to be highly symbolic revealing the mythic or archetypal nature of the synchronicity experience. They tend to be constructed of unconscious material at the border of the personal and collective.

Read the rest of Cultivating Synchronicity over at my blog, Isle of Lyngvi.

The law of attraction, commonly referred to as The Secret, has become a popular conceit of the modern mindset. The idea behind it is that by maintaining a positive vision of what you want along with the proper mindset you can attract what you want to you. While how it functions is still a mystery, examples of it in my own life have been far too prevalent and in some cases dramatic for me to ignore it. The effect seems to be strongly connected to synchronicity and to operate in accordance with cybernetic principles. What follows are some of my tips and techniques for working with the law of attraction.

Read the rest of Hacking the Secret over at my blog, Isle of Lyngvi.

A good bit embarrasing for a carpenter*chuckle*

A few items, first, to give context; My time at home is spent in the 'yard'. I go indoors, if needful or feel like doing so. It is a shelter, useful in heavy rain, or to sleep, though I am often to be found sleeping in the yard (oftimes in the roomy tent), with one or all of three dogs aside me, (and me covered in misquito repellent, if not in the tent, lol). I have a small camper trailor, and rent the property and a larger trailor. This larger trailor and the source of my current injury, became over the years a storage area. (for awhuile I did not live here, but kept the place.) In the hallway of this place was a hole in the floor that I ignored; I walked over it. I did not fix it. (deliberate not so blind spot?)

Yesterday afternoon, this bit of 'reality' and I met closely, intimately. LOL  Me left leg all the way to me arse did go thru the floor and the leg through the piping underneath. After everything stopped moving, and I ascertained that nothing was broken, merely bruised and torqued,   I laughed at meself, here I am , a carpenter stuck up to hir arse in the floor of an area of hir own lair!

 Needless to say, a bit sore, and lesson learned *chuckle*

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Rupert Sheldrake at Alternatives, St James 7/8/08

Rupert Sheldrake’s overview of his Morphic Resonance theory, started with the best summary of the history of western metaphysics I’ve ever heard, focusing on the  basic dichotomy of Eternity vs Change (aha, Apollo and Dionysos I thought). It certainly sharpened my understanding. He began with the Greeks who prioritised Eternity over all else, by argueing for an unchanging essence that underpinned and ordered everything. This possibly began with a mystical experience of a timeless realm he argued, but suggested this was a fundamental error which he sought to correct. Firstly Pythagoras had claimed number and mathematics was the basis of Eternity, the fundamental root of all being, existing in an ideal realm outside Space-Time. This was expanded on by Plato, who stated that everything had an eternal, perfect archetype, or blueprint, that existed in the same abstract, ideal realm as mathematics, giving it its form (thus there was one ideal horse-form, for example, which shaped all imperfect, real horses). A very conservative form of idealism, which emphasised the ‘normal’ and ‘perfect’, and created hierarchies of ‘natural perfection’. He then pointed to the Greek opposition to this stance, typified by Heraclitus, which said the only thing eternal was Change itself, as everything was in flux and diversity the norm. But observed that even Heraclitus had argued that there was a stability to reality, ordered by the Logos, in that everything moved in eternal cycles, repeating themselves over and over in a constant pattern, like the seasons (the classical Pagan or Dionysian view?). Thus even here the ideal of Eternity was still paramount, and maintained by the Logos, the eternal Word, or Law of Nature. Plato argued the Logos was guided by the archetypal Forms, which were all aspects of one Absolute Form, the Good (the ‘solar’ centre of the cycles you could say), and that Change, or ‘chaos’ as he saw it, was a mere drift away from perfection and order, and so an ‘evil’ to be opposed. Heraclitus thought the opposite but was marginalised in Greek thought. He only briefly mentioned Aristotle, the other great Greek idealist, who differed from Plato only in the more liberal view that the ideal Forms were somehow within Nature not outside of it, and that Change was a fine tuning towards gradual perfection, but still maintained the hierarchy of perfection and the faith in the ideal. An important minority view was that of the Atomists, typified by Democritus, who argued that only Matter was eternal, and consisted of particles or atoms, which randomly combined, uncombined and recombined according to geometrical rules, and that Change was merely this random ordering.   

Sheldrake then contrasted this with the Jewish ideal of Progress, the idea that there was not some preordained perfection but rather a perfection was something in the future that we move towards, and that Change was the norm that made this possible. This was realised by the wandering nature of legendary Jewish history and search for the promised land. He prefered this but pointed out that then as now, the ‘promised land’ was full of Palestinians, and so preconcieved ideas or goals rarely worked. He then explained how Christianity emerged as a fusion of the Greek and Jewish ideals under the late Romans. Here the Logos and the Absolute Form became aspects of the Mind of the Jewish God. Progress arrived as God’s plan, but Eternity still ruled. The ideas of Plato and Aristotle were thus Christianised. However with the collapse of Imperial Rome superstitioned reigned (Note: The Father, Son and Holy Ghost of superstition could be regarded as Jehovah, Absolute Form, and the Logos of earlier philosophy, but Sheldrake didn’t state this).

The most important factor was the return to centre stage of Plato, Aristotle in the Rennaissance, as well as the new  popularity of Democritus and his Atomism, which was linked to the concept of Individualism and social organisation. But it was not until the Reformation that the Jewish concept of Progress was really absorbed he suggested, and with it came the idea of Evolution. Then experimental Scientific Philosophy began and these three ideas became merged in various combinations. Francis Bacon took this idea up and essentially began the Enlightenment and Modern Science, but he and his later followers, Newton and Wren, were all Pythagoreans or Platonists at heart. These positions were based on habits of thought however not reason Sheldrake argued. Bacon’s greatest practical innovation however was said to be the systematisation of experimentation. Bacon also argued for a process of Social Evolution, believing that Change was the rule in the Human social order, as was demonstrated by History, but that Nature was eternal and fixed. It was goverened by the Laws of Nature, which as a lawyer, Bacon described legalistically. Sheldrake regarded this as anthropomorphic, qouting C S Lewis who said ‘this makes a falling stone a man, and even a citizen’.

This was followed by a history of the triumph of the Evolutionary paradigm in Science. At first simply seen as a social phenomena, Darwin expanded it into Biology and lifeform development, drawing on Social Theory, but maintained that Nature itself was fixed. Then Einstein demonstrated the Universe was expanding, but added a ‘fudge’ called the Cosmological Constant to maintain an eternal stability. This has shown to be false he claimed, and has been replaced by the idea that the Universe itself is evolving like an organism. Once thought to be running down into heat death, it was now seen as expanding constantly and evolving. Darwinian concepts are being deployed to explain this. However Matter was seen as eternal for a long time, as were ‘constants’ like Position, but Quantum Mechanics demonstrated this was not fixed either and was all a state of flux. But still Eternity was retained in the basic Laws of Nature. Sheldrake suggested that, given the trend this would go as well, and the Laws of Nature would be seen as mere habits, as Eternity was a myth.

This was where Morphic Resonance fitted in, as the mechanism of all evolution, from the Laws of Nature, to Lifeforms, to Mind and Memory. The general idea being that everything was linked into one big field on all levels, Nomological, Material, Cosmical, Biological, Social, Mental and Psychological. All ordered forms in this field were just habituated patterns, or impressions in it, based on nodes of force resonating with each other. It was these habits that had not only created the illusion of Eternity, but the illusion itself had become a habituated thought pattern, like all thoughts and ideologies.

His argument for Cosmological Morphic Resonance was to ask scientists if the Laws of Nature existed before the Big Bang and the formation of the Cosmos, if they say yes then they are Platonists, who believe in unprovable or unfalsifiable, non-scientific elements,  and if they say no, they either believe all the Laws of Nature miraculously came into existance at the Big Bang (including Laws effecting things not then existant), or that they evolved with the Cosmos. He likewise tackled Quantum Physics by suggesting the Multiverse contravened Ockham’s Razor, and that its supporters such as Lord Rees, the head of the Royal Society agreed, but had said it did away with God and the supernatural. In contrast he proposed a Resonant Quantum Mechanics (perhaps like Decoherence Theory?). He then outlined how Morphic Resonance made Genetics redundant, or at least as nothing more than a protein factory for producing the building blocks that Morphic Resonance organised. Evidence for this was the insuffient genetic difference between species, given the complexity and diversity of life. Furthermore he argued the brain functioned by connecting resonant ideas, and particularly that memory was a resonance between past and present mental states (and possibly even future states). Even our personal identity was a resonance between our current awareness and past memories. ESP was a resonance with others according to how well the subjects were atuned or alike. Group psychology and herd formation was another kind of socio-cultural resonance. But most controversially he suggested the mind was extended outside the body as part of a universal field of which we were all part, drawing parallels with Jung’s Collective Unconscious. Even suggesting that personal memories were stored here and not in the brain, which was just a tuning device. His evidence for his memory theory drew on Pribram’s holistic mind theory and research that showed an octopuses memory was everywhere in its brain, but nowhere in particular, and how bits of the human brain could be removed without memory loss. His extended mind theory draws on his ESP experiments.

Other anecdotes he put forward were that if Morphic Resonance were true, things learnt by other minds would spread, the much contested hundreth monkey effect. But gave evidence for this in the form of the mystery of the increasing ease of IQ tests. He even argued exams could be easier by answering the questions in reverse order, so the earlier answers tackled last will already have been answered by many others. He even suggested testing  this in an experiment with  head  of exam board.

When asked if he had a metaphysical philosophy that explained how all this worked he said no, but suggested that the philosophy of Kashmir Shivaism was interesting (curiously as this is also an influence on Neo-Dionysian thought).

I was very impressed by his presentation though noted he underplayed his experiments that haven’t had good results and was sceptical of his claim that Morphic Resonance was behind every ordered phenomena at every level! A good idea become obsessive or the greatest discovery of all time? Either way I think he’s closer than most others to science of the future.    

I just took two quick shots from my window:

They are gonna play marches out there as often as they can until tuesday. The big parades are gonna take place in front of my window. It's the Schützenfest! The same festivity every year where everything looks exactly the same every year, everything sounds exactly the same every year and which makes me almost lose all sanity every year because of the fucking marches. What you see there is not real military but ordinary people who for some reason wear uniforms . They are doing that because they have always done so every year in the summer. They even have a king and a queen. The king gets his title by shooting at a wooden bird with a gun.  There's never as much drunken yobbishness happening on the streets as when it's Schützenfest. These people must assume that everybody in this place enjoys it the way they are doing it, as loud as they are doing it and with all the limitations for traffic. In a few minutes the first parade will start which is gonna go on for several hours. I hope I don't lose my mind.

Just added this for an even better impression: