The Alien Channel and Other Spiritual Circus Sideshows

well said my friend. i agree wholeheartedly with your words. as someone who has never been interested in these pre-rational regressive worldviews (and sometimes even perceived of as not open or “blocked” due to my lack of interest in aliens or conspiracy theory) i’m wondering where intuition belongs in this rationally based worldview that you (and wilbur) describe.

in terms of this bashar guy, in my mind he is clearly delusional and if he was making predictions that the audience didn’t like he’d be locked up and heavily medicated. i’m less interested in these extreme examples and more curious about the commom misperception, i believe, that moments of being in a deeply connected and integrated state are often described as experiences where something from the outside (i.e. a spirit, guide, ancestor) is “coming through” you.

we’ve spoken about this before- that i believe that sometimes people claiming to be “channeling” or “manifesting” their reality according to what the “universe” has in store for them, are actually just tapped into to an intuitive intelligence that guides their choices and then creates a flow that feels like it is coming from some mysterious external force but is actually being generated from within them.

the feeling that one is channeling could actually be a feeling of being tapped into one’s “higher self” or to put it in more scientific terms, to be tapped into an intelligence that is coming not simply from the neo-cortex but from all 3 parts of the brain, the limbic and reptillian brain as well. this intelligence is more embodied, rational and emotional and sensational (coming from sensation).

for example, someone may do some sort of ritual (i.e. a sweatloge) that yielded positive results (a mate, a good job, a breakthrough). if they take the experience literally (pre- rational thought), they will believe that the act of doing the lodge “spoke” to the spirits and brought them their good fortune. this is a big leap of faith.

in this case, it is the INTERPRETATION of the origin of one’s experience which becomes misguided and causes the experiencer to be led down a faulty path.

instead, what i believe really happened is that the ritual space opens us up to being in a different headspace (literally) (read Ritual as Resource by M. Picucci) ritual can open us up to a “felt sense” the kind of intellegence and inquiry that is more embodied and less limited only to thoughts. the ritual container opens us up to a particular set of experiences that can feel extra terrestrial, but really they are just outside the realm of the limited, numbed out existence that most humans operate in.

they are very special, but not for the reasons often given.

the ritual invokes and experience that feels magical, and it is, but not because some outside force visted us but because we have a chance to connect to ourselves in a holistic, embodied way.

so i am making the case that there is a group of people (i’m one of them sometimes) who are having experiences that feel magical and they are, but not because the “universe” makes it so or because the planets are aligned a certain way, but because we are tapping into parts of ourselves that feel mysterious and magical. if we lack a rational explanation we default to a pre-rational explanation for an experience that might actually be quite healthy and not regressive at all.

for example, in febuary i did a ritual cleanse with a few friends. we all set intentions for what we were desiring in our lives. my intention was to open myself up to having a relationship. during the cleanse i got clarity on things that i was still holding onto that were preventing me from being truly open to a man. before the end of the cleanse i met the man that i have now been with for 8 months.

it was not the ritual that “manifested” him. the ritual helped me get an embodied sense of what i wanted. this caused me to behave in a way (both consciously and unconsciously) that helped to yield the result i desired (meeting a man i am interested in). there may have been biochemical and behavioral changes in me that attracted him to me and vice versa. and these changes in me helped me recognize him as a potential mate.

if i didn’t have a sophisticated understanding of somatic pschology and psychology in general, i would have had to come up with an alternative explanation; probably a regressive one. but my behavior wasn’t necessarily regressive, just my explanation.

again, the danger lies in adopting a regressive worldview and applying it to future endeavors.

nice to read both of your ideas…two wonderful minds, i must say….but, yes, it definitaly comes down to interpretation…and personally, i do not really see any empowerment in believing that any of this comes from outside forces…like, we have discussed, julian, it is simply giving your power away…the opposite effect so many are seeking when making somewhat ludicrous (i can say this becasue i have made them) interpretations of spiritual experiences…and Hala, i really like what you have to say about the ritual…i think they are extremely useful and so empowering when we realize whats really going on…and understanding that it is our own inner transformations that can benefit greatly from such practices…all in all…you both fucking rule!

Hi Julian!  (and good to read you Sa'Ra and Hala - great description of the ritual).

This is going to take some multi-browser tasking here. I'd like to respond 'publicly' to your response to me above ( and thanks for the compliment, btw).  I haven't figured out if there is a function here where I get to reply to actual bits of your post here in this window ( other than copy and paste). I guess I ain't that intelligent…

Ok.  So.  Here goes.

I'd like to say upfront that  I'm more or less total agreement with your conclusion:

——————–

i think the solution is

a) to begin sharing with people the important intellectual distinctions that allow a mature adult process to emerge
b) to encourage authentic psycho-spiritual practice that is about inquiry rather than naive belief
c) to debunk pre-rational spirituality and show why it matters that we keep evolving into rational and trans rational stages through genuine hard work and transformation

———————–
But some of your journey to this conclusion lands over here as somewhat fascistical.

You say:
either you think bashar really is channeling from an alien civilization or you dont.

I know there no room for “I don't know?” In your tightly argued piece. (I'll go more specifically to this I don't know stuff later)

Nevertheless, I will say I don't know if Bashar is channeling. I am certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that you do not know either. Sorry, but there it is.  Regardless of how much proof you'd like to dig up, none of it adds up to an Absolute Truth.

The main point is, or my main point is: I don't actually care. I'm not looking to him for The Truth, I'm not looking to him as an authority. I'm listening, seeing what my response is, intellectual and emotional, and looking at THAT.

Perhaps it's worth mentioning that I do not to actively seek out channeled material, I take a look at what other people suggest to me, people who I consider to be intelligent, rational, highly evolved people in their emotional, spiritual and intellectual capacities. Or I just stumble across things on the Internet.

I  have found wisdom in the strangest places. I learned about generosity from Balaram, a leper in Dharamsala who had nothing to give. I learned about my arrogance from all the lepers I met there.  I've learned about the impact of national Internet backbones  from a PHD  & professor in global Internet studies. He's bi-polar.

Okay, to go further on this: you say there is insufficient proof that Bashar is channelling, therefore he should be discounted.

Insufficient proof? What does that mean, exactly? Many of quantum mechanic's theories have not yet been proven,  but we don't say it is all codswallop because of this ( although some scientists might in fact do so. I'm in touch with a PHD student of higher mathematics and according to him a lot of his professors think QM has no practical or inspirational use).

There was, once, insufficient proof that the world was not flat. Remember that one?

You go on to talk about murderous islamic imams and others who may have 10% truth, and suggest that it's useless to spend time listening to them for that truth. Well I agree, IF I am only looking for truth in the words themselves.  And if I am *only* listening to murderous islamic imams. By learning, 10% or otherwise, I mean, although I agree I did not say, I include looking at how I am in response to such people. Do I feel anger, hate, violence? Do I feel stupid, or arrogant, do I feel humility?  It is by this we really learn, not only by the content of what is said. I can ask myself, am I able to make a positive difference in my and other people's lives by this information - whether the information come from the words or my response to the words. (and this, of course, begs the question what is a positive difference, but I think we can safely put that aside for now).

 So to take the channeling thing.

I would say, by the length of your response, that you have some energy here. I guess you could say you are fed up with people listening to New Age pap and bandying it around with narcissistic, wooly thinking, and sometimes in an irresponsible fashion ( eg the fortune teller who says you are going to die soon). I'm with you here.

And I would also suggest  your energy has more to do with you, and your great desire to know. Not to know, I would suggest, is somewhere you'd rather not go.

AND, I'm not talking about the “I don't know” position of simple laziness, not wanting to really look, but rather to sit on the sidelines and not get your feet dirty position.

the well-meaning fantasy that we should listen to everyone with an “attitude of not-knowing” breaks down here.

For me, the place of not-knowing is possibly the hardest and scariest to delve into. It has nothing to do with listening to 'everyone with an attitude'. It has to do with letting go of my arrogance, my self-righteousness, my beliefs, preferences  no matter how much they seem to be authoritative & useful theories ( eg spiral dynamics). It means letting go of who I think I am, and actually asking the question: who am I? as a practise of spiritual inquiry.

he actually believes he is really chanelling an alien intellligence that speaks through him from another dimension/galaxy - and is therefore delusional and probably not a good person to take as a spiritual authority for this reason

Okay, so are you saying 'delusional' is an immediate disqualification to listen to anyone? Have you seen the hoo ha on Ken Wilber this year? Most of the relevant links are on this page:  http://www.integralworld.net/index.html?visser15.html . In an earlier email to me you put Wilber on a list of men who ” have nary a shred of the garbage that makes up 90%.”

If you go to the page above, you will see that there are a lot of highly educated, rational, intellectual 'authorities' who posit that Wilber *is* delusional, narcissistic and full of hyperbole.

I personally have not read enough to make an opinion, but even if he has somehow crashed  head first into his own persona, I still think what he has written, and still writes (including his blog which set everyone off) is really stunning and inspires me to inquire more deeply into what it is that I think I know.

We live in a theoretical world. Perhaps you disagree. Perhaps you think it is possible to judge, quantify everything you read, see and feel based on what is provable at this point in time.  Science and  biology are continually crossing new frontiers, so to discount anything that is not provable by today's tools is a very limited position.

I suggest that by taking the position you take on all this, and I do say it is a position, you end up 'knowing' the cost of everything and not the value.

Perhaps I'm arguing a different point to the one you were.

As Sa'Ra says, there is no empowerment in believing channeled information comes from outside sources. I totally agree. But this does not mean the information itself is not worth looking at - if only to watch your reaction to him saying he is an alien.

The pathological green meme - it is a kind of relativism that believes that there is something wrong with making ratiional judgements and wants to embrace all possible view points so as not to oppresive or arrogant.

I love spiral dynamics, particularly because it made me question so much of my own behaviour/choices/ attitudes (yes, green indeed for the most part).

There is a bunch of 'channeled' material that is frightful. A lot of Ramtha, for example. I'll be the first to say it's crap. There is some channeled material which I find very interesting, and has proved very useful in my own work (relationship counseling etc). If I find similar material from a non-channeled source, I'm likely to use this precisely because of the reactions people like yourself have to  anything “channeled”.

And I do agree, there is a large group of people who would actively gather towards channeled material rather than, say Wilber's stuff or even easier reads ( Bruce Lipton for example), because they want to believe in higher powers, in alien guardian angels or whatever.

Perhaps your kind of approach is a much needed antidote to this blindly security seeking 'position'. I also suspect you will alienate (excuse the pun) many of these people by your own position, which has exactly the same underlying 'flavour' as 'entities' like Ramtha  / Bashar etc:

“I know.”

Do you like Lao Tzu? I hope so.

One of my favourite quotes from him is :

“Not-knowing is true knowledge.
Presuming to know is a disease.”

I might add a c) to your conclusion above:

To continually question any position you take along the stages.

I am totally for arguing a point. I love it when people are definite about something. And I've noticed that all of the finer speakers in the world I've heard ( Ken Wilber, Fred Kofman, Nelson Mandela) all have shown me a certain vulnerability. If they don't understand, or more importantly if they disagree, rather than immediately defend their point, they ask: tell me more? 

I miss this vulnerability in your share, Julian.

I believe it is possible to be forthright, certain, and utterly rational with a stack of people of note supporting my certainty about something, and leave a door open for the unknown, the unknowable. Green? I'm not sure. Perhaps you will argue yes, it's Green.

I'm suggesting we both look outward, to the ever unfolding nest of holons, and see how far we can see, but not make the mistake of assuming that the furthest we can see is a final, ultimate all encompassing  holon (a non sequitur anyway).

Thanks Julian, for the inspiration and encouragement.

Due to some technical problems Julian was not able to post his response to my comment above on the zaadz interface  - and so I am doing so for him: he sent me a personal email which got past the internet gremlins.

So, please note: The following is Julian's response, not mine - although if we are all one, then I guess he is simply expressing a part of the One that I am too :-)

—————————

first:

yay! glad we agree on the conclusion of my post. this is great. i should
say upfront that i am working on a book and your well written
challenges,feedback and arguments are most useful to me - i think so
much better in the process of dialog - so thanks for taking the time!
you also seem like an awesome human being and i am glad to know you -
even through the limited medium of typed webwords… :O)

next:


Fascist or Just Reasonable?

i have questions for you. do you think the following are examples
of a fascist (or as you say “fascistical”) approach/attitude?

1) popular new age hero and what the bleep “scientific expert” masuro emoto claims that he has scientific proof for his theories
about water and the energy of thoughts, but:

a) refuses to submit to actual double blind studies,
b) cannnot present any actual scientific evidence to back up his claims c) refuses to reveal the “device” he uses for measuring the “hado” value of different waters and people.

masuro emoto is offered $1000,000 to reproduce his experiments and their evidence (a standard scientific procedure for assessing validity, yes?)
- and does not do so.

given the above, is it fascist or merely reasonable to come to the conclusion (until it is proved otherwise) that masuro emoto cannot actually back up his claims about the power of thought to affect water molecules? is itfascist or merely resonable (and in fact scientific) to say that his “scientific” claims are fallacious?

is this a matter of opinion that one should remain open minded on, or a
matter of simple fact that one can accept without seeming arrogant or
fascist? when does one come to a conclusion and rest there until it is
demonstrated otherwise?

accepting facts and following reasonable scientific method does not mean
one is not open to further evidence that might change ones mind though!
not at all, right? the scientific method is to proceed from hypothesis
to experiment to results in the search for what is provably true. this
may change over time.

to use your example, we “believe” the world is round because it has
been proven, not to believe it in this day and age is just silly.
but thinking that we  might somehow one day realize that actually the
world is really flat and we have been rong thus far about it's spherical
shape is also just silly. it's regressive, not open-minded and certainly
not an example of mystic “not-knowing.”

are the above fascist assertions, or common sense?

the essence here is in where one draws the line about what is true and
what is not true. of course there are shades of grey. but somewhere
everyone everywhere has a line. and where you draw the line determines
not only your subjective worldview but also your objective sanity.

sandra i suggest to you that perhaps like many spiritual people you have
a well-defined line in the rest of your thinking but for some reason
spirituality (or religion for that mattter) becomes an arena in which it
is almost taboo to have a line…..it is as if part of the definition of
spirituality excludes have well defined critical thinking based lines.
the intention is to have an open flowing mental state/perception of
relaity - the result is a mush of silly nonsensical fantasy mixed in
with meaningful insight. and as i am fond of saying - it's the
half-truth that will kill you.

the SDi-influenced pathological green position i was refering to seems to think that “making no judgements” is more evolved consciousness. i would say that making very good judgements andnuaced distinctions is actually what is called for and the making nojudgements or being open to everything/everyone's point of view actually results in clearly brilliant minds like your own being confused aboutwhere to put people like bashsar, masuro emoto, and who knows what or who else?

i suggest that the challenge to make spirituality matter in this century
has something to do with bringing that same adult and scientific
critical thinking to bear.

2) consider for example, if the next presidential candidate made some of
the claims bashar is making, would you consider voting for him? or even
more to the point, when george w. bush makes unprovable claim after
unprovable claim about a reality that the facts prove is actually
completely different, is it fascist to say he is lying, or wrong, or
delusional, or a charlatan who should be impeached, or my dear sandra,
is it *actually enabling of fascism to go along with his distortions of
REALITY?*

is keith olbermannn being a fascist when he takes bushm to task so
eloquently on his lies?

is it fascist for al gore to state in no uncertain terms that he has
scientific proof and rational argument for global warming and that his
opponents are plain wrong and are lying and manipulating in order to
protect the bottom line of their corporate cronies at the expense of
future generations?

or is this reasonable and actually it is supporting REAL fascism to go along with half-baked neo-con arguments and propoganda against al gore's claims?

how might this all relate to spirituality?

Shifting the Burden of Proof

to continue, in the established discipline of logical argumentation
there is a useful set of tools that have to do with recognizing logical
fallacies, not merely to arrogantly win arguments, but to find out if an
argument is logically consistent and therefore likely to reveal truth.

of course this implies that one should actually be interested in what is
true, not as a dogma, but as a guiding principle a la, say, the roots of
greek philosophy. opinions aside, what is provably true and how do we
then proceed from these truths in a resonable manner?

spirituality can and should do this if it to have any meaning.

one such recognized logical fallacy is called “shifting the burden of
proof.”

here is a link to a neutral explanation of this common concept:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html

it's simple really, but something that is easy to miss and get confused
by.

for example:

if i say i - have a blue, fuzzy, 8 foot monster under my bed
and you say - prove it
and i say - you cant prove that i dont.

i have “shifted the burden of proof”.

simple.

the burden of proof for an extraordinary claim like having a blue,
fuzzy, 8 foot monster under my bed is on me.

you do not have to prove that it is not so in order to come to that
conclusion, until otherwise demonstrated.

if we accept the fallacy and go along with the idea that unless there is
proof to the contrary it must be treu - we end up in a quite a pickle…..

for example:

can you prove that we are not really all on a giant computer program,
as slaves to lines of code written by “the architect”?

can you prove that torturing someone is not actually a way to enlighten
them by taking them beyond their “judgement” of pain?

can you prove that rape victims are not manifesting this reality in
order to learn something karmic from the rapist?

and finally, of course, can you prove that bashar really isn't
channeling an alien intelligence that knows out future and speaks in the
remarkably consistent language of new age contemporary mythic fantasy,
while offering no evidence and never going beyond back page weekly
newspaper astrology faux profundity?

does not being able to prove these things false make them therefore
true, or is the burden of the proof on those who claim they are true to
actually prove them?

while it may seem fascist to you, science, philosophy, logical
reasoning, psychology, sociological research, and spirituality all rest
on truths that either match these kinds of methods and principles or
plainly are not true.

this is the reason why, when someone claims they have an 8 foot fuzzy
blue monster under their bed and seem quite terrifyingly convinced of
this - and we look under the bed to find nothing - we suggest that
psychiatric evaluation is a good idea!


Doubt, Proof, Truth and Belief

hmmmm now you say you are “certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that neither i nor you know if bashar is channeling an alien intelligence…”

it is interesting that this is the one thing you choose to have absolute
certainty of!

in philosophy, as you might know, this could be in the category of the
“performative contradiction.”

go slow here, it's confusing but fun!:

in your own words, you say you are absolutely sure beyond a shadow of a
doubt that neither of us can, on principle, be sure about wether or not
bashar is channeling aliens….ummm well in that case - how can you be
sure of that statement? how do you know that i don't know?

your principle is contradicted by it's performance - and this is a
classic hallmark of the green no-judgement fallacy, do you see?

all opinions are equally valid. except of course, the opinion that all
opinions are equally valid, which is itself more valid than the opinion
that some opinions are more valid than others…..oops - fascist!

it becomes an infinite regress because it is a fallacious argument, ie:
it does not prove its point. in this case, it contradicts it.

if all opinions are equally valid then my opinion that contradicts this,
namely: that some opinions are less valid than others, must be equally
valuable and so you have either a performative contradiction or a
meaningless stand-off…..welcome to the new age!

the antidote - a little thing that came along about 250 years ago and
helped greatly reduce religous “faith-based” tip-of-the-sword tyrrany
over politics, art and science. a little thing called reason.

you and i have accepted different interpretations of the relationships
between doubt, proof, truth and belief. i suggest that my interpretation
is actually better. this would be arrogant if these things were purely
arbitrary and relative, but as i have tried to show above, they actually aren't, so it actuallly isn't….


Not-Knowing

seeing as you chose to make a personal interpretation about my interest in these subjects, let me assure you - i am absolutely commited to inquiry-based spiritual practice and have an absolute love affair with the states of not-knowing out of which creativity, spontaneous gestures of love, emotional revelation, mental insight and meditative bliss emerge.

as someone who has been meditating, practicing yoga and ecstatic dance, exploring tantra and expressing myself as a musician, DJ, and writer for all of my adult life, I - like you - am a huge fan of being in the flow of not-knowing and opening with courage and compassion into the mystery..

but let's not confuse mysticism with abandoning critical thinking.

and lets not imagine that the two are in ANY way mutually exclusive.

let's not confuse open-mindedness with being brain dead.

let's not confuse the new paradigm with regressing into prerational cognition and fantasy.

lets also not pretend that the acceptance of bashars vulgar and commonplace new age cosmology, his badly acted and accented chanelling and circus sideshow prophecy, and his asolutely certain tone as being possibly real and meaningful is in ANY way an act of not-knowing!

in fact, the OPPOSITE is true. do you see?

the whole new age hoopla about mayan astrology, 2012, angels, aliens,
thought reeated reality etc etc is one intricately insipid atttempt to
explain and know and believe in something for all the wrong reasons.

genuine noy-knowing of the mystic variety begins after letting go of
all of that neurotic clinging to the over-explaining reality with junk
science, omnipotent wish-fulfillment and claims by people of
questionable sanity and intent…

so far i have only been writing about the importance of critical
thinking, spiritual discernment and adult rationality. it's a good subject.

my deeper point is that these qualities serve as a healthy container and foundation for adult spirituality with all the room in the world for REAL intuition, mystic not-knowing, creative imagination, heart centered
devotion, mental insight, archetypal revelation, ecstatic bliss etc….

so to finish - there is a difference between pre rational and trans
rational spirituality. a difference betweeen pre rational and trans
rational not knowing.

may i respectfully suggest that if someone finds this statement insulting or “fascistical” it might be becuase they (to use your phrase) “have energy” on needing to hold onto the pre rational stuff - now thats all well and good and we all hold onto our defenses against pain for a
reason - but if we are having a theoretical discussion it behooves us to
call a spade a spade, and if we are healers, teachers or guides it
behooves us to inquire very deeply into these questions and be somehwat
unflinchingly honest with ourselves and eachother in the interest of that little thing called truth.

because ultimately it is the truth that sets us free and it is the
distortion of truth that holds us captive, especially when that
distortion is masquerading as a “higher truth”.

i want to add that i totally agreed with you about  hala's post too and think it is all about the interpretation and that the interpretation is a function of ones worldview which more often than not is a function of ones psychological process combined with ones cognitive development….

lastly - do i “have energy” on this? absolutely! i am writing a book
about it - i have had energy on it for about 15 years and i find it
fascinating, stimulating and satisfying to tease out these distinctions
and help lay the foundation for a grounded and genuinely transformative
holistic and integral 21st century spirituality.

oh and the wilber controversy. whatever - i diagree with him on some things i think he can be n ass sometimes - but no-one has done anywhere near the depth and quality of work he has done, ever, period. AND you will not find a shred of the 90% (by your estimate) new age nonsense found i folks like bashar - and the same is still true of all the other brilliant sane spiritual authors/teachers i mentioned, without exception - regardless of the theoretical and ad hominem arguments they may get into…

peace

~julian

Hi Julian, Andra, Hala,

Sandra pointed me to this discussion here and asked, if I might have some comments… and indeed I do :-)

Julian, in his first letter proposed - after having demolished some (unknown to me) channeller who seems to propose that he is the bullhorn of some alien creature - offers 3 points that a true spiritual practice should help us to, amongst other things:

1) be more rationally grounded in reality
2) take care of our own spiritual well being
3) cultivate healthy critical thinking and intellectual/spiritual discernment

what is this symbolic activity about ?  we might make yet another distinction:

the symbolic psychological activity of generating mytho-poetic symbols be they religious, spiritual, psychotic/delusional, dreams, fantasies, wishful thinking etc is a way to try and process and/or represent our conflicts….

so i am making the case that there is a group of people (I'm one of them sometimes) who are having experiences that feel magical and they are, but not because the “universe” makes it so or because the planets are aligned a certain way, but because we are tapping into parts of ourselves that feel mysterious and magical. if we lack a rational explanation we
default to a pre-rational explanation for an experience that might actually be quite healthy and not regressive at all.

Therefore genuine meetings are another essential element of this spirituality; meetings in which we open to the other and his or her experience without bias and without reducing him or her to some position on the ladder of spiritual development. Because however much anyone has developed their talents and consciousness, their spirit, head, heart and belly, exchanging what’s essential is always a factual possibility – What did you experience? How did the experience come about? How do you value it, and which role does it play in your life? etc. This can then be further looked at cooperatively and intersubjectively in conversation and practice. This form of spirituality cherishes communication in which one can at long last be vulnerable as ones counterpart doesn’t put him or herself above or below us. A meeting and communication in which one can, unprotected by preconceived teachings, explore countless dimensions of ones spirituality. Cooperative spirituality is of the whole body, it is autonomous, collaborative and communicative.

Julian is still unable to respond on the site for some reason that they are working on…
So, here is his response to Mushin above:
——————————————————-

loved your post.

i agree completely with you about the beautiful importance of symbols and feel that the pre/trans distinction still stands and is part of what you are saying…

i have been a wilber reader for over a decade and am very familiar with much of the criticism of him, some of which i agree with. i used to be a regular in the forum at the site sandra linked me to. am quite familiar with frank and some of the very good writers there critical of wilber.

i also have followed the wyatt earpy stuff and find it hilarious!

wilbers current phase of work is an attmept to move beyond the perrenial philosophy as well as metaphysics in general and i am relieved to see it as i imagine you might be….

he also has stopped endorsing crazy muthas like adi da, but unfortunately continues an association with the egomaniacal enlightened master andrew cohen…

yes wilber is imperfect and yes i do think for myself.

i wonder if you saw my response post above yours that sandra posted using her icon?

i addressed some of your points already there - would love it if you would read that and maybe post this for me using your account and making it clear as a response from me….

i am over-valuing reason as an antidote to the new age abortion of critical thinking and reason as well as  old world religion's unreasonableness. i value reason as a way to grow up spiritually and as a way to make healthy distinctions between pre and trans rational - the kinds of distinctions missing from the osamas, bushes, tedd haggerd's, heaven's gaters, bashar followers etc etc..


i think this is very important and that a trans rational adult spirituality that stands on the shoulders of:

a) healthy rational development and critical thinking
b) emotionally grounded psychological process and
c) genuine process-based spiritual practices

can then be in an even more powerful and meaningful dance with the mystery, the archetypes, the symbols, the poetry, the ecstatic energy, the cosmic consciousness of it all - but with a lot less collateral damge!

capiche?!

:O)
~julian

So this one is actually me responding! Although I actually do feel in some sense that all of this is me, simply in dialogue.

So:

Thank you Julian for your response to me, and thank you Mushin, for touching on something I could 'taste' at the back of my mouth, as it were, but couldn't quite put my finger on.

I've noticed how much in my life I have vacillated between considering rational and a-rational as if they fit into some kind of hierarchy.

I'm attracted to your ability to argue, Julian and I notice how much I would like to be able to express this back of my mouth 'taste' in the same form as you do.

I suspect my attraction comes from partly childhood conditioning - my mother is a staunch empiricist, my father was a scientist, my brother is a scientist and at the head of his field in technological communications. However my mother is also an artist, and I stopped going to school at the age of 12, only to return head first by taking a university degree in Classical Studies, the antidote to which was going into mime and so on and so forth. I veered from one approach to another, looking for… 'the truth'. Perhaps the truth is simply in the journey.

I'm very much enjoying this dialogue, as it is uncovering aspects of my own programming and process. I see there is value in both rational and a-rational, and even more, value in a deeper exploration of both fields.

And, I doubt the one can ever 'meet' the other, as perhaps  they are simply two different things. It's like comparing apples and oranges.  Or more specifically, it is like trying to transfer the exeprience of the taste of apples with words

Today I read a passage from a book called ”Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate: The  Essential Guide for Progressives.”

The passage is written by George Lakoff, who teaches cognitive science at Berkeley. He talks about 'framing'. You probably know this, I didn't, but 'framing' essentially describes how:

”...every word, like elephant, evokes a frame, which can be an image or other kinds of knowledge: Elephants are large, have floppy ears and a trunk, are associated with circuses, and so on. The word is defined relative to that frame. When we negate a frame, we evoke the frame.”

He goes on to describe how frames draw you into the position, the point of view, of another:

”The words draw you into their worldview.  Framing is about getting  language that fits your worldview. It is not just language. The ideas  are primary— and the language carries those ideas, evokes those ideas.” (http://www.alternet.org/story/19811/)

I sat with this for a bit, and realised I had been tunneling down your worldview, Julian, trying to express something using your frames, in particular what you call reason, or rationalism.

You say to me:

Where you draw the line determines not only your subjective worldview.

I would posit to you that the esteem you place on what you call 'reasonable or rational' is a subjective worldview.  That you have chosen 'rationality' over “non-rationality” as Mushin puts it - and I mean 'over' in the sense of a heirarchy.

I do wonder if not to “know” - or more specifically, not to have proof, is something disturbing for you - shakes up your identification with being a “rational” and therefore” intelligent” and therefore “valuable” person?

To return to a less personal approach:

You say:

to continue, in the established discipline of logical argumentation there is a useful set of tools that have to do with recognizing logical fallacies, not merely to arrogantly win arguments, but to find out if an argument is logically consistent and therefore likely to reveal truth.

My understanding of logical argumentation is to consider both the validity of the premises of the argument and the validity of the relationships between the premises. Your statement above seems to suggest that the premise of there being such a thing 'truth' is not arguable.

I would say that the vocabulary of the rational argument is not sufficient to carry us through from one arena - a person's experience, (e.g. having a blue, fuzzy, 8 foot monster under their bed or believing they are from an alien civilization), to the arena of right/and/wrong reality, i.e., “proof.”

And why try to prove that someone's experience is right or wrong? What might be gained from it? I know you say that you are over-valuing reason as an antidote to wooly new age thinking, but this seems to me to totally ignore the people who are thinking in this way - the people, I presume, you are writing your book for, ( unless you are satisfied with preaching to the converted).

A friend of mine put it this way:

“How can anyone these days prove they are non-delusional? To whom are they going to prove it? Will the future judge them to be non-delusional? Who in history would be considered non-delusional today?  Will aliens consider him to be non-delusional?”

So, why not, instead of trying to prove someone's experience as being real, why not ask them - to repeat Mushin's words:

What did you experience? How did the experience come about? How do you value it, and which role does it play in your life? etc.

The form of these sentences struck me. They are questions.

As I was wandering about the 'net in the last days, I came across a very interesting paper by Anthony Judge, who must be up there with Wilber in terms of intellectual output, called Am I Question or Answer? ( http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/musings/questans.php)

The general implication of his paper is that we are an answer obsessed society, although he is specifically referring to the possibility that we may be “enculturated to associate our identities with an “answer” to a “question” such as “who am I” and that “Identity may however be more fruitfully associated with the process of asking the question itself rather than with any answer to it.”

He goes on to quote John Herlihy from The Modern World: a traditional inquiry into the nature of scientific knowledge :

”Modern science questions, judges, and presides over the acquisition of knowledge concerning an objective reality, but is it ever questioned regarding its purpose and identity?…. The modern scientific elite, who are the high priests of the modern world and who alone have power to speak ex cathedra on such questions as the nature of reality and the origin of mankind, have established the fundamental criteria through which modern man understands the nature of reality and the human beings who inhabit that reality. They alone have the right to form the fundamental interrogatives that make up the parameters of the scientific inquiry.”

I call this 'modern scientific elite' approach fascist - and by fascist I mean an authoritarian ideology. Masaro Emoto may not be using 'accepted scientific' processes to prove his theories, this might make him unscientific, but not necessarily fascist. He has not, to my knowlege suggested that his reasoning is 'better' than another's.

You say, referring to new age hoopla:

The antidote - a little thing that came along about 250 years ago and helped greatly reduce religous “faith-based” tip-of-the-sword tyrrany over politics, art and science. a little thing called reason.

To return to where I started, what I get here is the 'frame' of your argument, which is essentially a belief that reason is 'better'.( - ergo: authoritarian ideology.)

Regarding the history of rationalism and reason - whatever happened to Socrates? Aristotle? Pythagoras? And never mind the Greeks, what about  philosophers from non-western cultures? Lao Tzu; the philosphers of the Sankhya and Nyaya-Vaisesika schools? India's rationalistic period has been considered to begin in 1000 B.C.

Which brings me back to your self-acclaimed position of over-valuing reason.

I would actually like to know, what were your personal experience(s) which brought you to this choice.

As I so often encourage in my writing workshops - show me why you value what you do, rather than telling me.

By showing me, perhaps I might be able to have a deeper sense of what you are pointing at, rather than a deeper sense of the tool by which you are pointing, your talent - your preference, for logical argument.

To finish, for now, thank you all for inspiring me to ask more questions of myself.

Perhaps my desire to 'put my finger' on something is simply not possible, at least in the way I was trying to do so.

With love,

Sandra

hi julian,

You write: i also have followed the wyatt earpy stuff and find it hilarious!

Frankly, I don't. And if you read Franks Vissers reply he doesn't either, especially not being called #!$&&%$!!!. Coming from a man who is as highly regarded as Wilber it is actually way beyond nasty, it is destructive.

And it does pertain to the question here. You see Wilber is doing exactly the same kind of thing - only much better - than the “woolly” new age people you are slashing with the sharp sword of reason. He is positioning himself at a huge altitude to then tell the people 'below' what is right (criticism) and what is wrong (criticism). The only difference in the tactic is the eloquence.

He says, what he is saying is coming from a source we cannot really grasp (turqoise or whatever) and so he is beyond our criticism… now that is really bad news. Finding it hilarious, which many adherents of his teachings do it seems, is just adding to the suffering caused by this approach.

The reason I have moved away from this kind of 'developmental, integral spirituality' is precisely that it causes so much suffering all around.

You say:
i am over-valuing reason as an antidote to the new age abortion of critical thinking and reason as well as  old world religion's unreasonableness. i value reason as a way to grow up spiritually and as a way to make healthy distinctions between pre and trans rational - the kinds of distinctions missing from the osamas, bushes, tedd haggerd's, heaven's gaters, bashar followers etc etc..

Now I'm with you on the osamas, bushes etc. But what about the Dalai Lama, Genpo Roshi, Indian Shamans, wicca, aura-healers, etc.? To throw them all in one bag and then hit hard works counter to what you might be aiming at: educating people about how they construct their world view and how they might expand by using reason. As I said, I'm all for taking in reason as a guiding light - but not as THE guiding light.
Reason is one of the players in the constellation we are facing in modern times, and it will not change the scene much if used more. Trouble is that believing that - and in my family they have been believing in the healing powers of reason for the worlds ills for three generations as far as I know - is in itself pretty irrational.
The Germans pre WW2 were known to be among the most advanced nations philosophically and technologically. Many of Wilbers celebrated philosophers are German… now that didn't stop us from starting the most technologically advanced and rational war ever. No, reason is to be tempered by all kinds of 'frameworks'.
To find these and dialogue along the lines that come up in this quest is my passion.

Than you write:
i think this is very important and that a trans rational adult spirituality that stands on the shoulders of:

a) healthy rational development and critical thinking
b) emotionally grounded psychological process and
c) genuine process-based spiritual practices

can then be in an even more powerful and meaningful dance with the mystery, the archetypes, the symbols, the poetry, the ecstatic energy, the cosmic consciousness of it all - but with a lot less collateral damage!

You surely understand that I do not position the innovative spirituality needed these days on any shoulders. It's not to be higher - it's to be other than, and alternative to what has gone on so far in finding and living meaning, truth, joy, beauty and and love.

And surely your three points have to be integrated.
But really what seems to be needed is opening up to a genuine dialogue and fostering that. Our dialogue here stands in the very beginning of what is needed in my view. And it is all about opening up to the other and allowing them (even supporting them) in expressing themselves, and then responding genuinely and openly.

There is one and the same thing lacking in “woolly” and “rational” circles - the ability to take the other and allow him/her to be just the way they are, and most of all listening, listening, listening. Usually, I find, when one is willing to do that, than the between-presence that is thus co-created really can make hitherto unknown creative possibilities appear. (Most of the woolly people hardly have anyone that really listens, asks questions and doesn't try to impose their view on them; never mind what they do…)

Much Love,
Mushin

Once again the words below are Julian's - his posting to zaadz technology issues are still ongoing:
—————————————–
hey sandra

thanks for the personal info on your back and forth between science and art. this makes a lot of sense viz your important struggle to carve out a place for non-rational knowing.

thanks also for almost perfectly playing the worldview that i need a lot of practice responding too! good practice.

as i have said, i am a musician and a lover of poetry, dance, meditation, yoga, tantra and other non rational delights…

it seems that you didnt really read my previous post.

i responded specifically to several of your points and i am sorry but your recent response is mostly pretty vague - perhaps you dont have as much invested in this particular dialog as i do? if so i can totally respect that….if not:

as a response to your post, i will restate (perhaps more clearly) some things that you misunderstood because (i imagine) of skimming what you responded to:

1) when i asked if the masuro emoto thing was fascist or simply reasonable - i  *didnt* mean (as you inferred) that emoto might be labelled fascist by your standards (which of course you refuted) - but that evaluating his unsubstantiated claims as being invalid (even after he was offered $1 million to reproduce his experiments!)  might seem fascist to you and a lot of wishful thinking new agers - but it is actually merely reasonable.

emoto is making scientific claims and science is not relativistic, it strives to be objective. scientific claims - by definition - are reproducable and backed up by certain irrefutable evidence. that what makes it science and that is what he is claiming.

why does this matter? why do i “have energy” on it?

could it be that i have pathologically uncomfortable with “not-knowing” in some spiritually stunted way, and that when i become more enlightened i will see that wether or not masuro emoto's claims about water holding the energy of thought are actually provably true is an unimportant rigid subjectivist trifle? perhaps then i will realize that the validity of bashars claims about channeling an alien intelligence are beside the point, or that wether or not the astrological predictions around 2012 - which will either come to pass or wont - but when they dont will unfortunately not become a reason for new agers to finally ditch this nonsense….one day i will see this doesnt really matter and i am merely quibling over humbling unknowables in an immature way?

hmmmm probably not…. :O)

*it matters because truth matters, because reason helps us to find truth and truth enables us to have accurate pictures of reality and accurate pictures of reality allow us to live in ways that keep unfolding genuine wisdom and compassion - not perfectly, but tending toward freedom from delusion , which is the absence of truth - which produces bondage - wether that bondage is political, religious or psychological.*

2) you responded to my mention of the rational enlightenement bringing to a substantial end the tyranny of religious faith (and those who dictated it) over politics, art and science - by saying that reason itself was oppressively authoritarian!

au con-fucking-traire dear sandra :O) i am sure you are familiar with the history… reason as evidenced by the rational enlightenment is THE single force that confronted and offered an alternative to oppressive authoritarian abuses….through the application of reason we see that:

a) the divine right of kings is wrong
b) religious oppression a la the inquisitons are wrong
c) not seperating church and state is wrong - not to mention seperation of religious dogma and scientific method or artistic expression - is wrong

these wrongs are not scientific/empirical - nor are they relative - they are discoverable moral/ethical principles that modernity with all of it's gifts are based on.

they make possible the further development of:

a) civil rights for all races
b) voting rights for women
c) freedom of sexual orientation

these things were (amongst many other actual fascist oppressions) entirely absent from the pre-rational real world in which the intuitive knnowing of religious authorities was valued as a mandate to execute, torture and otherwise harm those who had reasonable disagreement with their dogma…

3) the 8 foot blue fuzzy monster example.

you ask : why does it matter!?

well it matters because someone who literally believes that there is an 8 foot fuzzy blue monster under their bed that is plainly not there on rational evaluation desperately needs treatment and perhaps medication to REDUCE THEIR SUFFERING!

the relativist interprative stance you propose is very useful in certain instances and i applaud it - but in direct response to my example? irresponsible and ungrounded.

4) my overvaluing of reason.

my dear we live in a time when:

a) highly unreasonable fundamentalist terrorists want to blow up the world if it doesnt go along with their irrational beliefs - one of which is that they will be rewarded with 70 virgins in paradise for following this holy mandate…
b) the neocon take over in the USA has empowered the irrational conservative christians to infiltrate the government even more effectively - not only with their attempts to:

1) turn back the clock to a time when evolution was a “theory” and creationism is taught in schools
2) erode roe vs wade step by tenacious step
3) restrict the civil rigghts of gay people
4) turn back the seperation of church and state
5) limit scientific progress like stem cell research

but to also get people in the white house who hold an unreasponable faith in the christian notion of “the rapture” and their possible role in binging the prophesized end of the world to pass!

this is all based on faith in unreasonable arguments for why these ideas and actions are correct.

c) when the liberal minded, multi cultural new age movement is so mired down with the kind of nonsense of which bashar is a perfect example that having any kind of effective interaction with the world is lost in prerational fantasy that makes all spiritual people look not only ineffective but like complete idiots!

how do we reclaim the moral high ground form the cynical neo con poseurs? by promoting 2012 astrological channelled policies in the next election, by trying to pretend we are actually really chrisitans ourselves, or by reclaiming a humanistic, non-religious morality based on reason and compassion?

today people are voting in the american midterms - i hope they use evry iota of rationality that they have at their disposal to make their decisions - dont you?

5) rationality is an expression of spiritual development a la manjusri. spirituality that is pre rational is just an early devlopmental expression - lets see it as such and help it to keep evolving.

my suggestion is that we get stuck in pre rational spirituality because of 3 things:

a) painful early trauma that we manage by rationalizing and fantasizing.
b) a lack of cognitive development due to a taboo against healthy critical thinking and/or an anti intellectual zeitgeist.
c) existential angst that we manage by denial and avoidance.

these two things are workable through psychological awareness/healing, cognitive excercise and authentic spiritual practice.

this leads to the hard won development of genuine trans rational modes of both knowing and not knowing that create none of the collateral damage that pre rational worldviews (including spirituality) create…

there is a massive distinction between pre rational and trans rational spirituality - and it is one that i intend to keep defining and championing in response to the world situation i described above - i think it is essential.

i am fine with this being our last round if you are ready to move on sandra. please post this for me if you dont mind and feel free to comment or not.

have a great day!
~julian

I am going to give a very brief overview of what I think about this whole topic. I would love to touch on all the individual points but am under some time constraints.

In the original post, Julian does touch on some very serious issues regarding the continuing pre-rational interpretation of trans-rational truths, where a rational interpretation would certaintly serve humanity better.

I watched the video clip and I miss Julian's link between this channelling and the channeller being a spiritual teacher. What he basically does is predict furture events involving interactions between humanity and extraterrestial beings.

I consider the question as to whether he is genuine as being a non-sequitur. It is simply a matter of waiting to see if the events occur and if they do, I shall have more interesting things to ponder than the channeling being genuine.

To the Ken Wilber debate… I recall once that someone reading the internalism website said to me (on IRC) something along the lines of: “If [such] is not proven to be [so] then you will be defeated.” To which I responded, “I am not my model, how could I be defeated?”

Whatever Wilber's behaviour, it does not affect the veracity of his model. (And if he is in that territory that he has mapped then I, for one, whould have no way of telling whether he is delusional or not.)

There is a wonderful flipside to the thesis of the above paragraph: if Jesus did, in fact, rise from the dead then how does that imply that everything he said was right? Some of Einstein's theorems have been disproven.
 

thanks also for almost perfectly playing the worldview that i need a lot of practice responding too! good practice.

<<grin>> You are welcome, Julian.

And once again, I wonder what your book is for -  is it to support the opening and deeper understanding of people with the worldview you think I have?

One of your goals on your profile is to practise the art of transformational dialogue. Well, I could say I *am* transformed by this dialogue here, but I suspect not in the way you would prefer ;-)

So far what I get from you is an increasingly entrenched point of view.

it seems that you didnt really read my previous post.

I did, more than once. I definitely missed a few things when I got down to replying, and thanks for catching those.

I decided not to engage in the point- by-point approach you seem to prefer which to me seems to take us away from any kind of intuitive, feeling place, and place us solely in the domain of 'logic'.

While I love logic, it is not the only way, and if used without a grounding in the heart, it is my experience that discussion becomes dryer and dryer and more and more removed from the original heart-beat of what brought us together in the first place.

perhaps you dont have as much invested in this particular dialog as i do? if so i can totally respect that

Invested.

What do you have invested? This is what I mean by the word 'energy'. It seems to me that you are invested in a certain outcome: that I agree with you. That I see the light and bow down to the god of rationality.

When I use 'energy' in the way that I have with you, I mean an attachment to an outcome, an identification with an idea of who you are - a need to defend yourself, your position, your viewpoint.

Which is why I asked you what personal experience  brought you to “over-valuing reason”. This might support me to feel with you, to travel the journey you are travelling, and see the things you are seeing, feel the things you are feeling, understanding the things you are understanding. You at no point have answered this question.

What I am getting from you are a bunch of conclusions that you have made; a large variety of opinions on what is going on in the world and has gone on and how it should go on.

Opinions and conclusions do not support transformation, at least I have never seen this kind of approach do anything but preach to the already converted, or transform the already transformed, if you will.

So. While you rightly indicate out where I missed with the Masaru Emoto point, you decide not to answer any of my own questions. And if you want to really really be logical, then it does not do logical discourse any service to say that Bashar is delusional and therefore everything he says is not worth listening to, and then simply brush away my suggestion that perhaps the same thing could be said about Ken Wilber with “oh and the wilber controversy. whatever”.

I'm not arguing the relative worth of either man. And I'm not saying Wilber is delusional, I'm not qualified to make that diagnosis, but if you are really interested in quality dialectic, then you need to take a look at the 'controversy' and ask yourself, well, is Wilber delusional? And if there are indications to this being possible, you need to ask yourself what this means to you - does this affect how you feel about his work to-date? Or not?  And how does this relate to your judgement of Bashar being delusional?

And, in the end, is it a pertinent question? Is not the pertinent question: how am I affected by what Wilber says here, or here, or here, how does it serve or not serve me (or the world)? How am I affected by what Bashar says here, or here, or here, and how does this serve or not serve me? And do I know what serves me or the world anyway?

Perhaps I am ( or you, or whoever ) is to go so deeply into complete and utter belief of Bashar being from an alien civilization so that they can come out the other end and say, you know what, that was a fun ride, and I got to see all my 'ideas' about things and I got to see that they all mean nothing. Or… something else. 

Perhaps it serves us to go so deeply into Wilberitus that we can do the same thing?

And I agree with Darren (Darkchanter): the question as to whether Bashar is genuine (i.e. delusional or not) a  non-sequitur.

And it is curious how much is bandied about that Bashar talks about aliens, it's probably the least of his topics.

2) you responded to my mention of the rational enlightenement bringing to a substantial end the tyranny of religious faith (and those who dictated it) over politics, art and science - by saying that reason itself was oppressively authoritarian!

au con-fucking-traire dear sandra :O) i am sure you are familiar with the history… reason as evidenced by the rational enlightenment is THE single force that confronted and offered an alternative to oppressive authoritarian abuses….

We (as in white middle class western we) believe so much that the world we live in today is 'better' than the ones of the past. Somethings are better, yes, and somethings are worse.

I have not said that reason per se is authoritarian. I am saying that a point of view which insists that it is 'better' than another is authoritarian. Authoritarian regimes are hierarchical, and the way your words are landing over here imply a thoroughly hierarchical approach to reason, rather than an holarchical approach. You tell me you do tantra, dance and so on, I believe you.  I don't see evidence of the insights that such practises bring in your words to me.

I have experienced transformation through dialogue, so I'm not sure it is just that I can't here. I say this because I have a sense you might be saying about now, “Sandra does not get it, and can't get it. I guess we should do some tantra together and then she'll see.”

;-)

they make possible the further development of:

a) civil rights for all races
b) voting rights for women
c) freedom of sexual orientation

Okay, so if I wasn't female, would you still have used the following phrases, with the (potentially) superior and chauvinst use of the word 'dear' :

au con-fucking-traire dear sandra ?

my dear we live in a time when:

Now I took absolutely no personal offence, you can call me whatever you want, but something smells awry given what you are trying so hard to defend.

these things were (amongst many other actual fascist oppressions) entirely absent from the pre-rational real world in which the intuitive knnowing of religious authorities was valued as a mandate to execute, torture and otherwise harm those who had reasonable disagreement with their dogma…

You are speaking about the whole world, world wide, in all history? You know this? What about early matriarchial societies, what about certain aboriginal societies which did not make women or homosexuals/lesbians secondary citizens?

Mushin has already pointed out that “reason is one of the players in the constellation we are facing in modern times”, and that “the Germans pre WW2 were known to be among the most advanced nations philosophically and technologically.”

Would you agree that the constitition of the United States is a document that confoms with a rational viewpoint? In the prologue, the first words are: We the people of the United States of America…

The people, however, do not include slaves, women,oppressed workers and unwanted immigrants. Thomas Jefferson himself had illegitmate children with one of his slaves.

Was Jefferson delusional? Or just a man? His rather large blind spots do not discount everything he did, not at all. Does Hitler discount all of Germany's advances? No of course not.

But your take seems to be that rationality has no holes. That if you are a rational person, you will always act rationally, and this will be a 'good' thing. A better thing than what all those pre-rational people did.

well it matters because someone who literally believes that there is an 8 foot fuzzy blue monster under their bed that is plainly not there on rational evaluation desperately needs treatment and perhaps medication to REDUCE THEIR SUFFERING!

You are implying that the person who believes this is, in fact suffering.

I would say that *If* someone is suffering, for whatever reason, then yes, it behooves us to take a look. We might also take a look at ourselves and what we believe to be 'suffering' (I'm sure lots of people thought that burning women was putting them out of their suffering, for example).

Given that you used the example of our dear friend the 8 foot fuzzy blue monster to describe what the definition of a delusional person is in reference to your opinion that Bashar is delusional, I'm a bit confused: I'm not sure Bashar is suffering at all, he seems to be doing just fine. But you would like to put him out of his misery, yes? even though he appears not to be suffering any misery?

this is all based on faith in unreasonable arguments for why these ideas and actions are correct.

I agree, and applaud your desire to have things differently. I'm suggesting that there might be another way than the one you have chosen - or at least a more effective way.

You can't win War with war.
I see you just bashing away at the bashers. (Pun not intended, surprisingly!)

>reclaiming a humanistic, non-religious morality based on reason and compassion?

Do you know Thich Nhat Hanh's piece on anger from “Being Peace” ?

He talks about if we are fully aware, everyone will identify with the criminal as well as the victim. As he wrote in a poem:

 “I am the 12-year-old girl, refugee / on a small boat, / who throws herself into the ocean after / being raped by a sea pirate, / and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable / of seeing and loving.”

Do you know the Hawaiian healing and approach to 'problem solving' called Ho'oponopono ? It basically means taking 100% responsibility for whatever, and I mean whatever is going on 'out there' - wars, disease, you name it. Haleakala Hew Len is the person most well known in this field - he is known to have 'cured' a complete ward of the criminally insane (um, delusional?) using this method.  Here is a good interview: http://hooponopono.org/Articles/100_percent_responsible.html

I hear your anger, I hear your frustration and rage at what is going on in the United States and elsewhere. I'm with you.

My sense is that there are many ways through and out, many ways to serve the world, and that these include your brilliant abilities in logic, without a doubt.

We need minds like yours to speak to people who have the same kind of ability but use it to 'prove' all Muslims are evil, that stem cell research should be abolished and so on.

i am fine with this being our last round if you are ready to move on sandra.

I'm not sure this is about moving on or not. You wrote to me personally that we 'disagree', I'm not sure we do, actually. I'm not sure it is about agreement, but so much more about the listening Mishin called our attention to.

It is about what Sam Harris says, and who you quote on your profile (thank you for the pointer):

“a willingness to have our beliefs updated and revised by conversation, because when the stakes are high we have a choice between conversation and violence, both at the level of individuals and societies.”

He goes on to say:

“so my pitch to you, really,  is that the end game for civilization is not about political correctness and  tolerating all manner of absurdities, it's about reason, reasonableness and an open-ness to evidence.”

I suspect alien civilizations are the least of our 'problems', the least of the absurdities to which Harris is referring to.

Let us, rather, talk about what these absurdities actually are, and how we ourselves participate in them. Let us listen to our demons, our own 8 foot monsters - and to each others.

I would suggest that telling a person they are delusional is not going to do anything about those monsters, but listening to this person, with our whole being, not just our logical minds, might lead us to deeper understanding of ourselves and each other, and this approach  just might indicate what the next step is towards a 'better' world, small or large.


With love,

Sandra

Okay, I’ve had a chance to read the stuff on “Marshall” Wilber. And I posted a blog and started a pod thread on it.

Just a few words more:

“sam harris’ whole central argument (have you read him?) is that irrational beliefs are at the center of our crisis right now”(Julian)

My take on the trouble with new agers – but not only with them but with all kinds of people – is the communication breakdown that often occurs. There is no really communication in my view as long as there is no dialogue.

In a discussion we can insist that all participants use, for instance, rational arguments. Which then excludes everyone that is maybe not so good at wielding those kinds of arguments, or maybe they are not as well educated to be able to appreciate the beauty of what European Enlightenment has brought to us.

But a dialogue is open, and in my experience much more effective when having to deal with ‘irrational believers’ in whatever. So when confronted with the Bahars of this world one could start by asking:
“So you believe you are channeling an extra-terrestrial…?”
“How does he/she appear to you?”
“Does he/she have experiences in being a human?” (if not, “Why do you feel he/she has something truly significant to say about our human condition?”)
“How has this contact impacted on your daily life?”
And so on.

 If I am imposing a certain line of reasoning that the person I’m with cannot relate to (or, as is often the case, is very judgemental about – the atrocities put in the world by rational scientists, etc.) then there will be no communication and probably no learning.

So what then am I doing? I’m implicitly saying, “Take what I say as truth. I’m wiser than you.” But this – the positioning myself as being wiser etc. (even if that might be the case) – is causing the person I’m with to rebel, and then they will be busy with proving me wrong, at least in their own mind. They cannot listen anymore to what I have to say but will rather take anything I say as an affirmation of their belief afterwards.

So most of the time when I engaged in (rational) argumentations I actually reach the opposite of what I was aiming at: helping a person to see a larger or more enhanced view of reality.

Nevertheless, Julian, if you want to reach the academics and intellectuals and open them for spiritual vistas than your approach will probably be very helpful. They love to pound on irrational behavior of ‘nit-wit new agers’, so lining up your view with theirs like this will open them probably to your further arguments.

Much Love,
mushin

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. - Buddha

There are as many paths to truth as souls to walk them - me.

I bleed your wounds and cry your tears. The knowings whisper as they brush my surface and scatter the reflection of the moonbeams, stirring my  liquid skin…

My heart lays open completely in unknowing, only to shrink at the slice of the scalpel carving deep, deeper with exacting precision-steel to separate one strand from the next, one note from the next, one chord from the next, looking, looking, looking for evidence of my song to harden somehow like concrete beneath the tempered blade, to become manifest for the pleasure of examination.

But I am invisible. Like the surface tension across the mirror of my mind. I am that. And the I that is that is the I that imagines all perception into being, from a soup of infinite metaphor and dream dances all language, all ideology, all slice-and-dice sequential, if-this-then-that logical structures, which arise like crystal cathedrals from the wild within… To be admired, to be refined, certainly. But not to be mistaken for the only answer, the only path to the truth from within which all constructions, and deconstructions, arise…

To worship the construction is to worship a false idol. To dress yourself in imaginary finery is a story told in the remnants of a folk-tale, a myth developed and preserved by those irrational and uneducated souls of yore:  “The Emperor's New Clothes.”

To argue self-reflexively that Logic is the only approach to truth is a wyrm eating its own tale: How does Logic define its premise? Does it assume there is a truth amenable to its scalpel? Does it assume that the Truth that does yield to its blade is the only Truth? If Truth is what is, the honest answer to every question, then what happens when it is divided? What do we call it then?

The truth divided is an opinion. Thus by definition an opinion is never the Truth. Truth cannot be spoken, only appreciated when the mind is very still, utterly innocent, unknowing and open to whatever is.  And yes, this is my opinion…

A game is played to win, and many emotions of competitive striving are evoked. The water is roiled by storm and the truth recedes beneath the noise and confusion of warring factions, hurling weighty opinions across the once-perfect calm waters…

Yes, delusion is rampant. It is very important to understand the nature of delusion, so that we can recognize the filmy layers as they almost imperceptibly collect to swathe our eyes, and ears, and nose, and tongue and skin, and dampen our exquisitely resonant emotional strings, and dim the lasor-lightbeam running the length of our spine…

Join in a joyful search for truth, for in the Whole is perfect Truth. Perfect. But be still, beware, for she is sweet and shy, and steals away like a shadow in the night – just as you think you have her she is gone, and only the wispy, gathering fog of delusion remains.

Lovely, Mary. In a way it would be beautiful not to add any further comment, and rather let this connection here seep into the mystery of your words.

And, I decided to address some of my own less poetic perceptions of this dialogue on my own blog, perhaps a bit sneaky of me, but I do sense that the dialogue between myself and Julian as it stands has no where to go. So perhaps a little movement across zaadz space will help! And thank you all for the journey.

http://sandrajensen.zaadz.com/blog/2006/11/logic_vs_aliens