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WET Zero
Since i got a compliment on my post on the Western Esoteric Tradition i decided to post another. The core of wet is numbers as fundamental bases on which everything else is built on. The WET built their system on the Hebrew Tree of Life. It is fairly complex to explain and i can’t claim to know all of its intricacies but i pretty much know how it works. Everything begins with what is normally depicted as three arcs representing nothingness, the nothingness of nothingness, and the nothingness of nothingness of nothingness. There are prettier names for it the light, the limitless light, and the mirror of limitless light, i believe. We might want to think of say a gas tank, it could be empty – containing nothingness, or non-existent and not just non-present, or it could even be impossible a deeper state of empty. I put this in for the sake of completion not claiming to be able to fully appreciate it in any practical way.
You can also think about things starting with zero. An interesting number mathematically and philosophically having more in common with infinity than any number imaginable. It helps us to imagine the infinite. It is the nothingness of freedom from desire, akin with Nirvana. In Tarot, or The Book of Thoth which i prefer, it is represented by The Fool. Traditionally depicted as a hermaphroditic youth dressed as a jester preparing to step off a clif with a little dog barking in the background. In Haiku form:
Fool walks towards the cliff
not hearing the warning cry
Fool does not need to
We think of nothingness as the potentiality of everything. This works on a practical level as a point of meditation. There is an emptiness that comes with meditation. If you have ever felt it, it is akin to being one with everything. An experience i can’t hope to describe. Which is why archetypes have power. Recognizing the Fool as Parsifal from the Grail legend helps us see the zero as innocence rather than ignorance and a lack of self consciousness to freely do the next right thing naturally and without effort.
Poetry Archive #1 (behavior mod. notebook 03-04)
unfinished novel page 25
(circa 2003)
don’t want to lose people
in unimportant details
but must establish
an understandable framework
to launch new memes.
as the only way to get
over the sun
enter Archetype Heaven
Unique Universal Knowledge
constructs contain ego-energy
we walk long swordblades
immutable in their truth
infinitely cruel
a tool of severity
excising kindness blob
of easy indifference to cancer
###############
selection from unpublished novel
Mitch is cold and dissatisfied with winter. a defuse chill that has begun to ache in its familiarity begetting contempt for himself and consequently the universe. He’s thinking about mirror shots and what they mean in movies, television, mitch’s mind. Watching from the outside not in a peeping tom kind of way but a stolen glance of a private place, in a public space. He has to watch to know. data collection. focus group testing, personal science. grist for the mill of mitch’s mind. working not the subconscious calculus of the thrown ball but its close kin….applied
the western esoteric tradition
Usually I say something else when someone asks my spiritual tradition but of them all this one most resonates with me though i see powerful truths in all traditions. The Western Esoteric Tradition (WET) encompasses a number of other traditions, and potentially all of them. In its most advanced form Aleister Crowley put together a table of correspondence that includes 20 or so different faiths, systematized according to the kabalistic tree of life. It identifies a meta-thought to see the same universal truths conveyed in each traditions variety. I’ve hardly met anyone who also looks at the world this way and those i have i’ve largely thought had a cartoonish and slightly silly hold on it. For me its more of a philosophy, a lens through which to view the universe, something to be felt mystically and powerfully, but perhaps not ritualistically.
Moving to the specific might clarify some of this. The WET is heavily tied into the jewish mystical tradition. The Hebrews believed the name of God was divine and could not be spoken and was used in a number of different ways. That name in english is YHVH, in Hebrew Yod He Vau He, or Window Hand Knife Hand. Some WET practices involve a lot of this and one I got from Israel Regardie has been especially meaningful to me. It involves vibrating each of the letters of the name, feeling them in you as you silently project them out and visualize them going to the end of the universe and feeling the echo as it bounces back empowered by the vibrations of the godhood. He also recommends a specific posture that i think of as Pharoahnic standing stiffly right arm at your side left arm bent with your left finger in front of your lips like your shushing someone. In Garden of Pomegranits, i think, he writes what to do after this: “Standing quietly in this sign (the finger over the lips posture) I meditate upon the spiritual value, involved in the nature of The Name I have used, and it dawns upon my mind, by direct perception, an understanding and a wide wide sympathy, for that spiritual power”. This to me is a spiritual exercise type of prayer. One of a vast mosaic of practical prayer techniques. I have found it immensely profound on an experiential level. I write about this because when i talk to people about prayer and i do it seems 99% of what people talk about are just one sided conversations asking for stuff in words and sometime being thankful, again words, laundry lists, with or without feeling. Nothing wrong with that, i do that to, but “to pray without ceasing” seems to be a laudatory goal. Connections are what make us human, conscious. Mostly i think “cut wood and carry water” prayer of living and working in the Tao. But there are times when more seems in order.
I largely feel, not misunderstood, but certainly ununderstood. This blog is largely my attempt to remedy that. If anyone is interested i will post more on WET. I am happy to address any questions, critiques, or topics of interest.
whats up
I was scanning the archive list and saw i’ve hit every month since i started. It seems like i’ve hardly put up anything when i think of all the things i’d like to say but haven’t. I did some editing on going crazy part 6, strengthening the ending mostly. I haven’t gotten a lot of comments on the series and i know it makes some people uncomfortable. It is a story i like to tell though. The most transformative time of my life and i’ve lived in continuous transition. I only settle down now as constant transition is static. I have been blessed to see significane and meaning in what i do pretty universally. Sometimes in the moment i lose that, working for dr tod and with cortez i felt that way, also as a case manager for folks with developmental disabilities. But even in those eras, for me a year or two in more objective time i had these tremendous moments; the call from guy whose color blindness was cured by cannabis, mastering batterer intervention, teaching a sociopath to feel, getting an agoraphobic out of the house after 3 years so she could go to her son’s graduation, doing cutting edge stuff with autism. But mostly i allowed the routine of it all to override the joy. Mostly because intensity has its costs. These days, this era, I am more intense. I am more conscious of what i have learned and what i am doing. I am more engaged less detached and more heavily invested. Not bound but tied certainly.
yawning dogs
Within the last month or so i heard a story on NPR about dogs. It covered a study proving what i had already observed that yawning, which is known to be contagious, is so between dogs and our own naked primates. It also pointed out that yawning is not contagious with folks with autism, theorized to be a lack of empathy. Therefore dogs have empathy. I already knew all of the facts of the story but had not put those things together, though i am not surprised. Dogs are very emotion based. We know from other studies that dogs are more able to identify human emotions than even our close cousins the chimpanzee. To the extent that dogs have consciousness, not being able to pass the Mirror Test they presumably lack self-consciousness, i believe it is built emergently out of emotional processes unlike our forebrain centered consciousness that is presumably built out of administrative functions. Consciousness is an information process and is not to be confused with the biological processes that support it. “When the finger points to the stars the dog looks at the finger”. Self consciousness is more heavily clustered in mammals with fore brains, us, the great apes and elephants(?). But dolphins, and presumably whales though yet to be tested, pass the mirror test and demonstrate other traits of personhood (tool use for ex.- wild-dolphins put sponges on the tips of their noses to root for food in corral). A self-consciouss built out of the mammalian brain is possible. And what of bird self-consiousness? some can pass the mirror test. Consciousness built out of reptilian survival drive. Our consciousnesses, information processes, than probably carry theses subustructures of emotion and drive information systems that have the potential to achieve self consciousness. I welcome any correction on my musings on neruo-science, socio-biology, and philosophy.
end of the birthday season
I turned 40 this week and now i am a man. It feels good, i am happy with where i am with my life. Better than i thought it would turn out. I am thankful and greatful and i feel gifted and strong. I’m getting promoted. Same job different title, more money most likely, an extra meeting a week when i can swing it to be part of the administrative team. Sweet. I gave this kickass presentation on my birthday day when the agency rewrote the treatment plan to how i do treatment plans. My team who’ve heard all this before because i am a big believer of the 5 minute workshop, and just give me a chance to pontificate, said i was preaching. And I was. We build on individuals strengths not their problems. We look at problems as “opportunities for development”, to be aware of, not to base your life upon. We ask “if you woke up tomorrow and your life was perfect what would it look like?” It puts us in the Miracle Business instead of the Problem Solving business. I talked about setting goals: significance, achievability, time limited, postively stated,
more than just 2 lines
I got a compliment on the 2 line poem i posted, which didn’t make sense until i looked at the page. I had put in 2 complete poems and then it crashed. When i started it back up the poems were still there so i hurriedly published and lo and behold 2 lines. Second times the charm….
Magic
I believe in magic and god and all good things
I believe in the power of the soul
To touch the mindlike basis of material reality
And so become the whole
I believe in angels and fairies and listening to canaries
When they say the mine’s gonna blow
Watching for signs and divining designs
And knowing which way to go
############
I believe that the universe exists
For i have seen and heard parts of it
I have tasted of the summer fruit
And smelled the coming rain
Felt the gentle breeze
As it rolled across the plain
Not first in nobodies’ heart
We walk this world alone
Like a single set of polar bear tracks
Covered by the blowing snow
We are destined to live out our lives
And then it is our lot to die
Never knowing what will be our fate
When we leave this world of lies
But i believe that i am body, soul and spirit
For i have lived and loved and felt the One
I have felt the power of god
And danced with a spirit
Felt my soul leave my body
To touch someone near it
Not first in nobodies’ heart
We walk this world alone
Like a single set of polar bear tracks
Covered by the blowing snow
We are thinking machines
But so much more
We carry the spark of the divine
And our souls can live for all eternity
Look to your dreams for the sign
belief poems
i believe in magic and god and all good things
i believe in the power of the soul
This page still gets some hits on searches based on the title. I actually have two belief poems i had tried to post here but in a technical glitch they didn’t pop up. Check out the link I’m rather proud of them. and kudos to you for such a great search term, hope you follow the link.
am i a christian?
I got that question recently and as i often do i gave a rather bungled answer. For one i’ve put some thought into and answered regularly you’d think i’d have an answer. I do but i have lots of them, talking points depending on who asks. Sometimes none of them really seem to fit and i sputter around trying to answer the question. As with perhaps all binary questions the real answer is yes, no, neither yes nor no, both yes and no, and the question is meaningless. Its a big universe.
What i would have liked to have said might be something like this. I believe in the universe for lots of good reason. I believe in my own existance for many more. I have looked to see what i am and have some preliminary conclusions at least. I am consciousness with volition, the ability to process sensory information, remember the past, imagine almost anything, and i have some degree of self awareness. I know my consciousness arises in a process of emergence, self organization of simple routines. I believe the universe is likewise. Like my brain and body spinning off mind stuff that has achieved self awarenss it is conceivable to me that the universe has done likewise. The physical universe is perhaps 18 billion years old. I am fascinated by science and believe it is telling a largely self consistent narrative of how things came to be and see no serious reason to doubt the universe began with a Big Bang some time ago. As the first stars formed planets coalesced as well, perhaps 17 1/2 billion years ago. On one of those planets life arose which achieved self consciousness for the first time. On that planet one being had to be the first, allowing the first conversation and the creation of the information universe. Before this the universe consciousness had no one to talk to and without another there is no self consciousness. We are created through conversation. Words are the component of the internal dialogue the matrix of the self. In the beginning was the word and the word was god and the word was with god. Information has no particular location nor time. It just is. This first being achieved self consciousness and created the information universe and for all practical purposes invented god as they reflected each other. I have no reason not to think this first being incarnated on this planet as Jesus. I have had religious experiences that lend this idea credence, I don’t ask you to believe on my word but i challenge you to have your own experiences in whatever way is meaningful to you. Spirituality to me is less about what you believe and more about what you experience, though of course our experiences are mediated by our beliefs. the 2 forces that shape our higher consciousness are love and meaning. Deny a newborn love and it will die. Once we exist we can live without it, i have seen evidence of this but there is no evidence a self consciousness can develop without love. Nor can it exist without meaning. Meaninglessness would prohibit communication and we are created in a social context. No man is an island but every man and every woman is a star. A luminous being of the light of consciousness. We shine in this world and another, though it be just a story that is alright. Thats all anything is, anything real. Until its a story its existance is only as potential. probability. Reality breaks down into probability without an observer. Why is heaven referred to as the Book of Life? Jesus said both i have made many mansions and ye shall do far greater things. He quotes Psalm 82:6, ye are gods but shall die like men. Each of us creates our part in the universe of ideas. Mediated by our experiences in the material world we create a self and equip it with tools; ideas, language, stories, memories, the capacity for imagination and conversation. These are the treasures of heaven that moth and rust cannot destroy. The ideas of things are more real than the things themselves. So i am a christian in that i am a co-heir with christ. I am a child of the god that made the universe, if not by creation than observation, as i suspect the universe made god as much as the other way around. The god i tip my head to is the sum total of all things, the emergent organization of all mind in the universe, all that is and all that has ever been, and all that anyone could ever imagine anywhere and anywhen, and probably more as well. Its too big for words. All words lie in that they create necessary assumptions that obscure the total truth.
talking about primates
While writing that last post I got a work call. A client was passed out drunk and there was some homeless guy with more beer locked my co-worker out of the house and wouldn’t let her check on the client. I told her she’d had a long day and to go home and i would get in and check on client and try to talk him into going to detox. Random Dude wouldn’t answer the door and a neighbor filled me in on the scene and got Random Dude to come to the door. I put my business card in the door and told him to let me in and check on client’s safety or i would call the po-pos to do it for me. He let me in my client was safe for the moment, not ready to evict the homeless and go to detox, so i scheduled an appt. for the morning. I could have strong armed him into detox and put smug little random dude on the street but i respect peoples right to choose, even badly. Frankly between you and me most people’s choices seem ill considered to me. Look at the planet and you’ll see what i mean. We broke the weather for god’s sake. I could have justified my ape dominance behavior. Drag the crippled monkey where i wanted him to go. Make the little chimp go sleep in the streets because i could and he defied me. But being aware that most human interaction is chimp politics. Dominance and submissive behavior. I sat on the floor when i talked to the drunk and apologized for intruding to both with my only castigation a fact based account of how they were destroying my client’s life. I called my co-worker to update her on the situation and i said we assertive community treatment not aggressive. I feel like it is easy for me to rationalize almost anything i do to give it at least the appearance of being reasonable. Who said The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance?
Multiconstruct 
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