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Pretty much dealing with 'man's search for meaning', better ways of looking at our current system, ways in which we're missing core components of what it is to live fulfilling lives and ideas on how to get there, etc.

I'm going to generally avoid anything clearly 'new age' or anything that deals with dogmatic deposits of one type or another rather than psychology in its various forms - however if I see a good reason for breaking that rule occasionally I might.

In general - it's good to have some kind of ballast here other than politics, which by its nature is depressing, and hearing people talk assessment and solutions seems like it's healthy listening when it's done right.

Anyway a few upfront offerings:

I like the concept behind this thread. Thanks! I'll be bringing some content for analysis shortly.

Critical Condition and PhilosophiCat talking about esoteric traditionalism via Evola and how the better portion of his ideas can be matched against our current situation for women and men:

Hmm. When I hear Jung, I can't help but think 'temporal lobe epilepsy'.
Basically, I'm wondering: can a person without this specific brain abnormality find or experience Jung's version of enlightenment? - maybe, on drugs, but that wouldn't feel authentic, if one admits to oneself that one was on drugs. (And if one tries different kinds, one learns that all the experiences are experiences of altered brain chemistry, rather than some truth about the external world).

So.... I don't know....

We've talked about this before but, I'll reiterate my take:

It comes in two layers.

The first layer isn't controversial at all. Any kind of occult or esoteric practice, and in a more clinical setting depth psychology the Groff and later stuff, is about finding ways to build new mental resources out of what you already have but haven't come up with means as sophistocated as you could yet for shaping them. It's a bit like if life gives you a chasm and there's some chance you can cross that chasm if you can find the motivational resources this gives you tools for building such bridges where without those tools contemplating the task clearly would be incredibly difficult. It actually hits on something that Robert Kegan said about the stages of personal evolution and cognition, ie. self-authoring and stages that come post self-authoring. These stages, ie. knowing how to lever your own internal resources don't deal with anything essentially 'supernatural' as you might put it.

The second layer, ie. experiences of the sort that are convincingly revealing contact with forms of consciousness that aren't physically embodied or having an experience of a unified field, that's something people can have with or without drugs, just that without drugs it takes a significant amount of meditation (Mouthy Buddha has talked about some of his experiences). I can't think of any reason why a person couldn't have them at all without psychedelic experiences, if anything psychedelic experiences give a general sense of what can be expected but using them regularly isn't seen as a particularly good goal.

So for the controversial nature of the second layer - I think we can agree that it's at least an exotic state of experience people can enter into, similar to how Sam Harris mentioned in Waking Up the 'headless' state or the 'oceaning feeling' of breakdown in separation between observer and observed.

The thing about it, if you ever find yourself in one of these states you see quickly that they have a lot of richness and utility, even if it's purely for adaptive purposes and even if they didn't point at any absolute truth about the universe.

I think a non-controversial take on Jung might be that he knew something of the road map to these states and experienced them often enough to have a lot to say about them. A person can provisionally consider that they're literally true (they may find that the quantity of NDE's out there suss that out), they might be highly skeptical but wonder what it would like to be in those states or what those states say about human neurological resource, I think for the purposes of the thread I don't want to haggle one way or the other and it's part of why I mentioned that I'd try to avoid specifically 'new age' stuff like new thought, manifestation, etc., being that a lot of that's dogma and it's stuff that there's too little evidence that it's credible whereas I think there's a lot here that has value without getting into those sorts of claims.

Speaking of Robert Kegan on Rebel Wisdom:

shlaifu, come to think of it I think there is someone who you could read or listen to that might be able to shed some light on your questions - Robert Anton Wilson. He's a guy who did all of the above, tried doing the Golden Dawn Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel on acid, ended up having the experience of contact from a being from Sirius, that went on for a while, and per his analogy when that happens you either go off the deep end or come out an absolute agnostic - he came out agnostic and he tends to talk about these sorts of things, along with politics, religion, and just about anything else with a George Carlin'esque sort of humor.

I haven't jumped into his stuff for a while, this title looked interesting: High Tolerance Of Ambiguity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXRzIriVz20

i Like Iain McGilchrist's Ideas on the Overall Differences
of Right Versus Left Hemisphere Ways of Feeling Sensing and Overall Perceiving Reality
as that applies to an overview of an Entire Picture of Perceiving our Worlds as compared to what
Happens when one is trapped a Bit in an Analytic Mechanical Cognition mind way of Being like
being an Accountant or Other Statistician Way of Life Problem Solving the Hours of the Day Away.

The Rational Sciences and Mathematics Were always easy for me but another part of me intuited
that indeed that intuitive part of my Intelligence was drowning in the Smaller Picture Think of Analytical
Reasoning; and in Fact, working with People my Autism Quotient Scan Score was much Lower than when
my Entire Day was centered around Financial Management and Information Technology Support Services
for the Military then. Eventually, my AQ Score reached the High 30's and after spending a Couple of years
on this Internet Site that is mostly Dominated with Left Metaphor Brain think this Environment increased
my AQ Score all the way into the Mid-Forties until i found my Way into Poetry and Eventually Meditative Movement
in a Free Verse Flow Dance of that Activity too.

It's True for me at least an Entire new World of Social Empathic Cognition and More Wholistic Intelligence Arrived
for me. It was like i suddenly literally opened up an Entire New Hemisphere of my World and According to my
Psychiatrist as assessed first with Asperger's Syndrome, his analysis was my Way of Perceiving the World was
as if i didn't have access to the other Half of my Brain; and it surely felt that way in terms of missing Half of
My Human Potential then.

I will turn back the Mechanical Cognition on a Flip of a Dime and become A List Making and Labeling Machine
with all the Specific Definitions of a Materially Reduced World; but in doing so My Actual Feeling and Sensing
Experience of the Environment at Hand becomes Black And White as opposed to Yes, an Oceanic Feeling
and Sensing of an Eternal Now in Flow; and sure enough later i found this State of Awareness to be well
studied and Empirically assessed to increase Human Potential 400 to 500 Percent as that is surely what
Happened to me in Creativity after Breaking through to the other Side of my Human Potential for Metaphor of course.

Sure; it's easy to travel back now to the Mechanical State of Cognition State of Reasoning Problem Solving
And Labeling/Defining Life in a Material Reductionist way of Thinking and Perceiving the World; i would
go back more if i had to make a living doing it for pay; but as far as Living in Technicolor versus
Black and White Soul For Metaphor; Nope, no thanks.

It's impossible to explain the benefits of the 'other place'
for folks who have yet to seek and find the Benefit of it which
truly is beyond measure in "Left Brain Metaphor Prison" as that is surely the way i see it
now that i score an 11 on the AQ Scan Test instead of 45; and a 95 on the Emotional Intelligence
Test opposed to the mid Fifties; and moved from INTJ Personality to ENFP in the Span of a Few Months
in the Summer of 2013 as i documented that on this Internet Site then; as truly the Doctors saw it as a Miracle;
but for me; meh; i was just being Reborn out of a Cocoon into the Flow of Flight of a Butterfly Gaining His Wings.

This experience is widely documented Cross-Culturally in both Poetry and Sacred Text too.

This Real Experience is Scientifically Studied and Empirically Measured now in terms of Phrases like
Transient Hypo-Frontality Flow and an Autotelic State of Being Generating our own Happiness within through
a Bio-Feedback of Continuous Flow Activities that may be Precipitated by many increasingly complex activities
without too much Fear inducing Stress/Anxiety; where we control the Faucet of Neurochemicals and Neurohormones
as Brain Scans of Brain Activity indicate are stimulated through Bio-Feedback as such. Anyway, for all practical intents
and Purpose the Four Professionals who Diagnosed me on the Autism Spectrum have seen 'the Butterfly come
out of 'the Cocoon'.

It Worked for me;
And it's worth a Shot
for anyone who might be
a bit disgruntled living in what other wise may feel like a Drab
Cocoon as i really can't imagine a Much better metaphor for 'the
other place' in Prison of reduced Human Potential then. One thing
for sure is as in all stuff existence Use it or Lose it applies; we have incredible
Potential in Neuroplasticity and Epigenetics for Either Positive or Negative Adaptation
depending on the Challenges we take up or the ones we do not take up now and yes Self-Direct
too; Problem becomes if one has no Reference Point of out where they currently reside or no clue how to get out.

Hmm; for me at least;
i would have paid close
attention to the Video long
before now if it was available;
We are really Fortunate to have the
almost unlimited Resources we have access
to online that may make a Spark of Difference
between Eventually Living in what feels a whole lot
more like Heaven on Earth Within now than Hell and that's for sure; at least for me.

Let's Face it folks we are encouraged to do a whole lot of Stuff in life that we are not
Naturally evolved to do at all; just a small example, sitting at a desk all day long more
unhealthy than a pack of Cigarettes; we will fools our selves all we like but we will not Fool
Millions of Years of Evolution now for what we adapted to before that we no longer adapt to now.

Humans have a Unique Opportunity to Co-Create Hell or Heaven on Earth now for Real, particularly within.

But true; Humans Tend to Stagnant in their Traditions versus the practicality of their Human Potential so much more.

^

The system we have right now, and a lot of it's problems and abuses, are based on 'all that we can imagine'. Fore example we imagine that the two competing models for social structures are civic nationalism and race/tribe nationalism. We assume that neoliberalism is the only economic model that can work and from there we've fallen into a rut that assumes that human beings will always have to give every drop of blood to competing against fellow human beings for economic survival because that's what we do and that's how nature structured us to be, even if we can feed, shelter, and cloth everyone. I think McGilchrist, and also to a large extent David Sloan Wilson, help give the lie to the notion that we're seeing 'reality unfiltered' in our current pessimism.

^^^

Reminds me of "A Song"
While it is Natural that Human
Beings Allow "Yesterday" to Dictate Tomorrow
There are Other Options for Tomorrow to Pursue
even if 'Jesus
and John
Lennon'
Are Totally
Forgotten For Tomorrow
Things are not to Borrow the
Same Song "Yesterday" For Tomorrow;
The Same Names; the Same Lyrics; The Same Music;
Change
is the
Reality
Tradition
is An Ultimate
Human Illusion Dominated
By the Symbols We Create that
Stay the Same out of Constantly
Changing Living Nature Where the
Reality is an Intermittent Gratification
And Punishment of Pleasure and Pain Now;
Smiles; i Enjoy 'Symbols' too Much to Go Back
to the "Old New Way"; Now, A Best of Both Worlds
is when Technology becomes A Slave for Original Creativity
And We are No Longer Slave to A Tradition of Symbols that rarely Change;
But Honestly, in the Rush of Work and Raising Families Who in the World is
Gonna be not distracted
enough
to do it;
sure as
usual; a
Few who
Choose and
Create a Different Way;
But As Your 'By Line' Clearly States;
As i rather Paraphrase Than Quote, Hehe;
There is No 'Target Audience' To Make Money off
of Doing Something Originally New in Creativity Still;
In other Words, Being Financially Independent Frees the Bird from the Master
of not only the Tradition of Technology; But Older Target Audiences For Pay Staying in Yesterday Again.

This current pessimism actually has a name: "capitalist realism".
(A phrase coined by a british guy, Mark fisher, who was an accelerationist in the 90s, but then got depressed about the 00s... Other 90s accelerationists of that particular grouping tirned ethno-nationalist. I find that a sobering trajectory... - Fisher's book by the name 'capitalist realism' is worth reading.)

It's a poor choice though. When I feel like the whole world is inviting me jump down a well of despair I don't see the point, it seems like unimaginable call to conformity of the 'lets all drink spiked Koolaid together' and I'm too aspie apparently to think that's the logical or sensible way to go.

We seem to be up against present human limitations of creativity and imagination. I don't mean those two things in whimsical or escapist ways, I mean them in the way which I think Bret Weinstein means to in his 'Game B' model.

I mentioned David Sloan Wilson further up the thread and maybe this is a good place to interject an interview he did back in March with Robert Sapolsky. My guess from what David Sloan Wilson is saying here, we've been on a particular kind of cultural path that we're getting tired of, the trends will be changing in proportion to that and more accurate science will be overcoming the preponderance of 'selfish gene' type thinking:

I find Marshall Mcluhan fascinating. Much of what he complained about was the poor use or advancement of media technology and it's effects on those who use it.

I think this can be relatable to what McGilchrist is talking about with unbalanced approaches to the world or maybe the media leads us easily into Left Brain thinking.

Another consequence of the media is bringing us all closer together virtually, but in some spaces being to close is toxic or as put here to abrasive. He thinks this is what triggers Tribalism as a push back and as we advance technologically we're tending to regress socially.

While this is a commentary on technology, I think it does address the nature of man struggling to adapt to it. Some people within tend to be more Individualist and others adapt a more Tribal identity.

TY. Guy's brilliant, and he seems to have been saying a lot of things John Gray was saying in the early and mid 2000's thirty years earlier.