Jordan Peterson “Beyond Order” book excerpt: Aeon of Horus, Osiris, Star Wars, Jung and Crowley

[Cleric K]

Santeri, you say "collective spirit of the tribe and it's ecosystem individuating a human body into its vessel and a tool.". You also say "Jungian way, which reflects the very old way".

To me this seems exactly reversed. The old way of shamanism, which is also historically older, reflects the time of instinctive relations to the spirit. The shaman becomes a visionary, the collective spirit projects the higher order patterns of existence within the shaman's soul substance. The shaman's human role is to act as gradient for the visions so that they can be used as guides in the sensory world affairs (healing, places for hunting, weather patterns, etc.). But the collective being remains in the spiritual world. You put that very well when you say that the collective turns a human body into a vessel and a tool. The human soul in the body must step back, so to speak, so that the collective can speak in visions, which the shaman's soul must then incorporate into the life of the tribe.

In the course of evolution the collective spirit of all men (not only of a certain tribe) descends closer and closer to the sensory realm as experienced in each individual human experience. This descent of the collective from above is reflected in the waters below, within the individual body, as the gradual awakening of the "I". But there's marked difference - in the new Initiation the human "I" is not displaced by the collective. This doesn't make sense, it would be like to expect that the closer you get to a mirror, the farther your reflection should go. In fact, the limited human "I" turns out to be what the universal collective human being experiences as "I" within the confines of human bodies. Note the difference: in old times the collective spirit overshines the human being and inspires Imaginations in it from 'distance'. When the collective spirit inspires the shaman it doesn't say to itself "I am that human being". It feels itself spread out in the spiritual world and caring for its offsprings so to speak. In the new times the collective spirit itself descends to the level of the physical human beings. Now the collective can in full consciousness say "I" within a human body, it feels incarnated in the body.

What we call "I" has always been the refraction of the human universal. But this "I" is torn between different influences so it has to decide what it wants to give way to. As said, unlike the old way, the new Initiation doesn't subdue the "I" in order to receives communications of the spirit through visions. This doesn't make sense, it would mean that the collective spirit subdues itself! Instead, the collective says to itself "I am lost and torn asunder by various influences. Among these influences are also those of my own higher nature that is spread out in the Cosmos. What I now experience is only a small aperture of it. Even though we are the same being, my higher self is so much vaster than what I currently experience, that it will be untruthful if I claim that I, in my limited state, am the higher self. Yes, we are the same essential being but for all practical purposes my higher self is an independent and infinitely wiser being. I can only become this, my own, higher self if I fully consciously work to become like it, by sacrificing everything that makes me different from it. This requires conscious and unceasing effort to recognize the different influences and in full freedom to align with those of my own higher nature."

In the ancient times the collective inspired visions in the shaman. Through evolution these visions were becoming more and more focused and palpable. What did they become? Thoughts! In Greek times the collective was close enough that it could be experienced in philosophical thoughts. But the Greek philosopher couldn't yet say "I think" in the way we do it today. For him thinking was a mysterious process, something that was flowing in spiritual ways. It was not that much that he thought but he was carried on the waves of thinking. In other words, thinking was proceeding purely instinctively (as it is for many people even today by the way, although not in the exact same way). That's why the Greeks spoke of the Muses, the Logos as realities. They still felt that thinking has spiritual origin. The Greek philosophers were the shamans of the day, they were transducing the inspirations of the collective, which were now experienced much more intimately, as crystalized thought-visions of the spiritual world, just as the shamans of old were transducing living, mobile visions of the spiritual world. So there's a tradeoff - the thought-visions become more and more personal so that the collective itself can experience its own reflection in them more and more clearly, but at the same time these thoughts become more and more sensory-like and rigid, they lose the living mobility of the shamanic visions. What for the shaman was the vision of the spirit of the forest, for the Greek was reduced to the concept of the forest.

What we can experience today in our thinking is something that neither the shaman could experience in relation to the visions, neither the Greek in relation to the thoughts. We experience that we create our thoughts. Previously, the collective was creating the visions within the shaman and the thoughts within the Greek but now the collective has found its contact with the world of perceptions. Now the collective, experiencing itself as a limited "I", creates its own visions and thoughts. It is at the same time the collective source and the shamanic perceiver.

From this point on follows the ascending path where these thoughts regain their Cosmic character again, first becoming living expression of the spirit, then being raised into living and mobile Imaginations (the analog of the shamanic visions) - but this time experienced from 'the other side' - from the side from which visions and thoughts have always been created.

This is the struggle of today, admittedly going through trial and error in many ways. Battles that Jung was fighting, that JP is fighting and many others. We are rediscovering the reality of the myths and archetypal beings but this can happen in the evolutionary correct way only if we discover them not as visions as they were experienced in the past (as something coming externally to us, which we can only receive if we subdue the "I") but as thoughts and Imaginations that we rediscover from our own experience within the world of living idea-beings. In certain sense we perceive the higher beings when we are able to recreate through loving resonance the thoughts and Imaginations of them, through our own forces (the forces of the higher self).

[Cleric K]

PS: I would like to add something to avoid confusion. It was said that the visions for the shaman became crystalized into thoughts for the Greek. This may sound inconsistent: are we suggesting that there were no thoughts before the Greeks? Here we must make an important distinction that is not made even by prominent philosophers today. There's difference between thought and word.

In pre-Greek times the human souls experienced words. They heard inner and outer words, they spoke words. But these words flowed in a completely instinctive and dream-like way. Only the Initiates knew something more about the deeper origin of the words. At the time of ancient Greece it was already becoming apparent that words are carried on the streams of thoughts, even though the Greeks didn't yet feel causally involved with the existence of the streams themselves. The thought element was completely invisible for ancient man, the dream was thinking, the soul only heard the words. Now the Greek philosopher was already experiencing something of the actual spiritual being of thoughts which expresses itself in sensory-like perceptions. This is the great difference, and as said, even thinkers of today have the greatest difficulty to make the distinction. The philosophy of the Greeks exploded because the thoughts (and not only the words) were becoming perceptible. The words were already there even before that but now a completely different element was emerging which was explaining the existence of the words. Furthermore, this spiritual thought element seemed to have life on its own - thoughts just as any other beings, were having their own relations between each other. That's how mathematics, logic and so on were becoming object of investigation. Previously they were completely hidden behind the words, now they were emerging as a new layer of reality that could be explored in its own domain and in its relations to other domains.

Just for an analogy, it can be said that the world of Imaginations presents something similar for the man of today. Just as thoughts were explaining the existence and relations of words, and at the same time were representing a higher level of cognition, so today it's possible for those on the frontlines, to experience Imaginations, which add additional layer of reality that explains thoughts and all other aspects of the contents of ordinary consciousness, through the Imaginatively perceived mobile and living activities of beings, leading to a correspondingly higher stage of cognition.

[SanteriSatama]

Cleric,

not just visions, also direct "silent" knowing, as exemplified by this story: An anthropologist is visiting a Siberian tribe. Hunters of the tribe come to tell the shaman that the deer are not where they usually are this time of year. Shaman gives new directions and the hunters return with food for the tribe. Anthropologist asks the shaman: "How did you know where the deer would be?" Shaman answers with a question: "How do you know where your hand is?"

Spirit possessions come in many degrees and varieties, the dynamics can't and should not be oversimplified. They need not feel "otherwordly" at all, most if not all of us experience some levels of flow states, inspirations, synchronicities, communion with some place in nature, moved by music, etc.

I don't agree with your theory of universal "I", which sounds like projection of the European subject-individual, which is a local and historical phenomenon.

I say Jung reflects the ancient, because that's what integrative individuation is about. Individualism is much much later Eurocentric historical mechanised process of a certain kind of ideological possession, very closely linked with the emergence and development of mathematical concept of 'set' (cf. dissociated and separated alter). The short history of word-concept "individual" in my language reveals, that its core meaning is administrative, a countable object of quantitative administration. The willful blindness is not an "individual choice", it's willed by the administrative possession, possession by collective ideology of quantification that in some ways imitates individuation, but instead of integrating, separates into countable units that can be most efficiently used by the mechanized technocratic society.

The separation issues, introduced by purely static model of Aristotelean logic and it's bivalent continuations, the all-ruling Either-Or, run very deep in European experience, as it has been conditioned by millennia of slavery and ideological possession by discrete quantification, ie. closed intervals aka sets.

In spiritual-animistic experience, which my language preserves and carries, situation is very different. Each sentient being is both genuinely unique, but never separate, as there's always some level of integration in the spirit, and also awareness of the integrated aspect. It's the integration, not the separation, which makes us unique and gives each unique form and duration of life inherent value. The value that quantitative administration and commodification denies and disrespects, extending and expanding it's colonizing machine character and metaphor to conquer and subject more life.

When situation requires countability, e.g. when doing a restaurant reservation, we don't ask "How many atoms/individuals/persons?" We ask: "How many of the spirit?, in the partitive case which signifies relation of belonging to a larger inclusive whole, as well as the imperfective aspect of the whole. And no, I don't pull the "how many atoms" from my hat, that's the question in Modern Greek, as individualized common modern European has become translated back to modern Greek.

Clerick, Ashvin, all. I love you, I love having these discussions with you. But this is also serious spiritual business, vital for all of us. My diagnosis of the European sickness, the collective ideological possession under the layers of various possessions of political and religious possessions, is a mathematical possession. Mathematical possession by separating and integrity destroying discrete number theory that makes Europeans unaware and allows them to colonize other peoples, to assimilate them under same possession, to become colonized colonizers themselves. To colonize other species and ecosystems, not able to care about them more than they care about themselves in their unaware, possessed state.

Perhaps, perhaps, you now start to see the spiritual intention, meaning and care of the new mathematical foundation I'm offering. The Gospel of continuous integration to heal the trauma of separation and alienation by discontinuous quantification. There is much good in mathematics and it's blessings, many gifts we want to preserve and improve. Mathematics has the potential to take us to world peace of a caring global society. But as it is now, in its current state, the poison aspect is dominant, not the medicine aspect.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin

[AshvinP]

Clerick, Ashvin, all. I love you, I love having these discussions with you. But this is also serious spiritual business, vital for all of us. My diagnosis of the European sickness, the collective ideological possession under the layers of various possessions of political and religious possessions, is a mathematical possession. Mathematical possession by separating and integrity destroying discrete number theory that makes Europeans unaware and allows them to colonize other peoples, to assimilate them under same possession, to become colonized colonizers themselves. To colonize other species and ecosystems, not able to care about them more than they care about themselves in their unaware, possessed state.

Perhaps, perhaps, you now start to see the spiritual intention, meaning and care of the new mathematical foundation I'm offering. The Gospel of continuous integration to heal the trauma of separation and alienation by discontinuous quantification. There is much good in mathematics and it's blessings, many gifts we want to preserve and improve. Mathematics has the potential to take us to world peace of a caring global society. But as it is now, in its current state, the poison aspect is dominant, not the medicine aspect.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin

There is a certain anti-pragmatic bias here which wants us to replace what works very well to mitigate separation and alienation, as established over many centuries and throughout many different cultures, with what most people will barely understand, and what will feel entirely foreign to their soul-spirit. JP's alleged willful blindness is literally transforming thousands of people's lives with the symbols he employs and the way he employs them, bringing some back from the brink of suicide. Will the rather cold, detached (but new!) mathematical foundation you are proposing do the same? Will it provide people with enough 'why' to live so they can bear any 'how'? I highly doubt it.

[Lou Gold]

Clerick, Ashvin, all. I love you, I love having these discussions with you. But this is also serious spiritual business, vital for all of us. My diagnosis of the European sickness, the collective ideological possession under the layers of various possessions of political and religious possessions, is a mathematical possession. Mathematical possession by separating and integrity destroying discrete number theory that makes Europeans unaware and allows them to colonize other peoples, to assimilate them under same possession, to become colonized colonizers themselves. To colonize other species and ecosystems, not able to care about them more than they care about themselves in their unaware, possessed state.

Perhaps, perhaps, you now start to see the spiritual intention, meaning and care of the new mathematical foundation I'm offering. The Gospel of continuous integration to heal the trauma of separation and alienation by discontinuous quantification. There is much good in mathematics and it's blessings, many gifts we want to preserve and improve. Mathematics has the potential to take us to world peace of a caring global society. But as it is now, in its current state, the poison aspect is dominant, not the medicine aspect.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin

There is a certain anti-pragmatic bias here which wants us to replace what works very well to mitigate separation and alienation, as established over many centuries and throughout many different cultures, with what most people will barely understand, and what will feel entirely foreign to their soul-spirit. JP's alleged willful blindness is literally transforming thousands of people's lives with the symbols he employs and the way he employs them, bringing some back from the brink of suicide. Will the rather cold, detached (but new!) mathematical foundation you are proposing do the same? Will it provide people with enough 'why' to live so they can bear any 'how'? I highly doubt it.

Ashvin, This is starting to sound almost precisely equivalent to the Grand Inquisitor drama. "You are an elitist, offering Truth for the few. We gave them symbols and took the burden upon ourselves."



Keep counting, Shu. I'm sure this won't end it.

[ScottRoberts]

Dynamic tetralemma:

1) increases <
2) decreases >
3) both increases and decreases <>
4) neither increases nor decreases ><

Another shorthand for variety of such interdependent verbs is more-less. \
...

I have concerns, but will start another thread.

[AshvinP]

Clerick, Ashvin, all. I love you, I love having these discussions with you. But this is also serious spiritual business, vital for all of us. My diagnosis of the European sickness, the collective ideological possession under the layers of various possessions of political and religious possessions, is a mathematical possession. Mathematical possession by separating and integrity destroying discrete number theory that makes Europeans unaware and allows them to colonize other peoples, to assimilate them under same possession, to become colonized colonizers themselves. To colonize other species and ecosystems, not able to care about them more than they care about themselves in their unaware, possessed state.

Perhaps, perhaps, you now start to see the spiritual intention, meaning and care of the new mathematical foundation I'm offering. The Gospel of continuous integration to heal the trauma of separation and alienation by discontinuous quantification. There is much good in mathematics and it's blessings, many gifts we want to preserve and improve. Mathematics has the potential to take us to world peace of a caring global society. But as it is now, in its current state, the poison aspect is dominant, not the medicine aspect.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin

There is a certain anti-pragmatic bias here which wants us to replace what works very well to mitigate separation and alienation, as established over many centuries and throughout many different cultures, with what most people will barely understand, and what will feel entirely foreign to their soul-spirit. JP's alleged willful blindness is literally transforming thousands of people's lives with the symbols he employs and the way he employs them, bringing some back from the brink of suicide. Will the rather cold, detached (but new!) mathematical foundation you are proposing do the same? Will it provide people with enough 'why' to live so they can bear any 'how'? I highly doubt it.

Ashvin, This is starting to sound almost precisely equivalent to the Grand Inquisitor drama. "You are an elitist, offering Truth for the few. We gave them symbols and took the burden upon ourselves."

Are you implying Santeri is the second coming of Christ?

[Soul_of_Shu]

Keep counting, Shu. I'm sure this won't end it.

Of course not, because you can't end it ... anyway, I stop counting after about the 20th time.

[Lou Gold]

Keep counting, Shu. I'm sure this won't end it.

Of course not, because you can't end it ... anyway, I stop counting after about the 20th time.

Oh, I can. Just don't wanna. Too much fun poking, which is part of the play.

[Lou Gold]

There is a certain anti-pragmatic bias here which wants us to replace what works very well to mitigate separation and alienation, as established over many centuries and throughout many different cultures, with what most people will barely understand, and what will feel entirely foreign to their soul-spirit. JP's alleged willful blindness is literally transforming thousands of people's lives with the symbols he employs and the way he employs them, bringing some back from the brink of suicide. Will the rather cold, detached (but new!) mathematical foundation you are proposing do the same? Will it provide people with enough 'why' to live so they can bear any 'how'? I highly doubt it.

Ashvin, This is starting to sound almost precisely equivalent to the Grand Inquisitor drama. "You are an elitist, offering Truth for the few. We gave them symbols and took the burden upon ourselves."

Are you implying Santeri is the second coming of Christ?

That would depend on whether Santeri can stay silent. I surely can't. However, when Don Hoffman speculated in a recent video posted here, that there might be a transformational mathematical basis for a new Abundance Consciousness, it opened in my mind a possibility that a math idiot like myself had never considered.