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

[AshvinP]

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.

Well I may not even disagree, because in some real way we are all potential 'second coming' of Christ within, as spiritual archetype and living process. My point is, can Christ as primary symbol in the 'West' help us remember that or do we need something entirely 'new'? I lean heavily towards the former.

[Lou Gold]

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.

Well I may not even disagree, because in some real way we are all potential 'second coming' of Christ within, as spiritual archetype and living process. My point is, can Christ as primary symbol in the 'West' help us remember that or do we need something entirely 'new'? I lean heavily towards the former.

Yes, we may not disagree (except for the Devilish details ) The Cross, Christ and Holy Mother, are primary symbols in my Heart. I cannot speak for the West or for others. I honestly don't even know if the symbols are from something called Christianity. I do know them as the greatest Gift I've received. Weird as the experience can be, my Faith grows always stronger in Center. To say that It extends in all directions, does not indicate that I'm lost. It means I keep finding the Way in a Divine Process.

[Soul_of_Shu]

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

[Lou Gold]

Like a tango, it takes two. Methinks you love it too.

[SanteriSatama]

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.

Anti-pragmatic? Replace?

I don't know what you mean. At least in the mathematical context, it is the set theoretical foundation is highly anti-pragmatic. Hilbert arbitrarily declares highly abstract language game, which for the most part can't be constructed in numbers, not written in any form, not even as generative algorithms. He declares that there exists "numbers" that cannot be demonstrated and computed, but despite that are "able" to do basic arithmetics, even though only in principle but never in practice. The current theory is very literally declaration that Emperor has new clothes. To believe in non-constructible theory of non-demonstrable "numbers", to believe in very literal Emperor's new clothes, that is a very curious form of willful blindness.

There's no suggestion to replace anything else but the set theoretical foundation. To improve the pragmatic aspect of mathematics, to be able to write continua and construct communicable mathematics, instead of the authoritarian axiomatic declaration that continua are literal Emperor's new clothes.

Somehow your thought and emotions seem to create a scenario, where JP and a better foundation of mathematics are mutually exclusive, opposite forces. Doesn't that scenario emerge from combination of either-or and turning JP into an object of worship, instead of compassion with his humanity and spiritual journey. Does that attitude of objectifying and externalizing do justice to Jordan, a fellow human being and his suffering, his care? In your heart, do you really want to keep on repeating that pattern of human sacrifice, to individuate and separate Jordan into your shaman tool?

You seem offended by observation of willful blindness. Is your shadow integration complete? Can it be complete? Could the feeling of offense be a defense mechanism of the Shadow against it's integration in the light of consciousness?

[Soul_of_Shu]

Like a tango, it takes two. Methinks you love it too.

The best ones perform a not-two duet

[SanteriSatama]

in some real way we are all potential 'second coming' of Christ within, as spiritual archetype and living process. My point is, can Christ as primary symbol in the 'West' help us remember that or do we need something entirely 'new'? I lean heavily towards the former.

Yes, the idea of 'second coming' happening is a distributed way in each of us is not new, and the idea connects both intellectually and spiritually with many. And yes, Christ in this context is just a certain culturally dependent frame of interpreting a process that is going on. Not at all unimportant frame of interpretation, but also not a frame that works for all, or can be demanded to work for all. Again, it's not an either-or situation.

If I may, I'd like to share an anecdote. I was once in a mutual support group of people with relatively high degree of spiritual transformative experiences. Mutual support group, because as you know from Jung etc., such experiences often come with a degree of loneliness that is unable to share with people with so far lower dose of such experiences, and the lack of enough common ground of shared experience prevents meaningful communication of many aspects, and it is a great relief to be able to share your experiences and concerns related to those and feel to be understood. In that mutual support group, somebody asked how many have tripped being Jesus, at some point of their path. Almost all raised their hands.

[Cleric K]

Santeri, thank you!

Now I'm few steps closer to understanding your exact point of view. I could go through your arguments and address them but that would just keep us bouncing on the surface. We need to get to the crux of the matter. If you don't mind, I would like to ask few more questions in order to triangulate ourselves even more precisely.

You speak about the "collective spirit of the tribe" and I take it that you use this in a real sense and not only as a figure of speech. So I'll use that as basis. This collective spirit is known by different names in different traditions. It's sometimes called Folk Spirit. In Christian esoterism it's called Archangel. The Finns, for example, have their Folk Spirit which acts as a common aura that brings the individual souls into certain harmony. The most important expression of that harmony is language. (I'll be interested to know if there's a Finnish word for Folk Spirit)

Let's stir our Imaginative abilities a little. If we imagine a spiritual condition, not yet reached the mineral stage, we can first imagine a hypothetical situation of only separate souls. In the soul realm these soul might not even recognize each other's presence - in this world every being perceives what it is attuned to. If they are not attuned to each other they may pass through each other, so to speak, without noticing. In ordinary life a boy and a girl may like each other but they are both shy to speak to the other. But if they have a common friend he or she may introduce them and then their souls begin to have exchanges. We can imagine in a similar way (one of) the roles of the Folk Spirit. It's like a common aura that introduces certain commonness to the souls within it, it helps them to be attuned to each other so that they can have exchanges. Now the souls can experience the presence of the others and reflect each other's inner states as Imaginations and Inspirations, as if by resonating with each other.

Let's now imagine how the spiritual condition gradually decoheres. As the souls become more and more entangled in their personal corporeality they become more rigid and can't reflect so easily the soul states of others. To be able to reflect the inner state of another we need to be very innerly mobile, much like the way the octopus (posted in another thread) resonates with the shapes and colors of its environment and imitates them. In this analogy, a fixed skin color and texture would correspond to the inability to break from our rigidness and take the 'shape' of another soul's inner state. If nothing else happened, the souls would lose contact with each other, they would experience only their own inner state and sense perceptions. They would be able to know something about the other souls only through the sensory perceptions - their movements, gestures, etc. But certain beings intervened and made it possible that the Imaginations and Inspirations of the soul life reflections could be preserved in some way. This is what became language. Through language, even though in a much more limited way, the incarnated souls could still reflect their inner states to each other, although through the intermediary of sensory sound. So in this sense language has its origin in the workings of the Folk Spirit and the way it attunes the souls so that they can reflect each other's states. The common character of the language and its specifics is directly related to the character of the Folk Spirit itself.

The Finnish language is pretty unique (doesn't fit in any of the large language groups) and so is the Folk Spirit. I'm writing all the above to bring the conversation into context, to get the living feeling for the collective spirit, the Archangel of the Finns.

Now I would like to ask you few questions. To avoid too many posts I'll ask them all at once but since they are interrelated, depending on the answers, some/most of them may become irrelevant.

1. The first thing is your inner relation to the Folk Spirit. As you said, the shamans of old could become inspired by the collective spirit. This could precipitate into the shaman's soul as vision, sound, sensation, anything, as long as the shaman is capable of grasping the meaning and how it relates to the sensory realm. In this mode it's clear that the shaman's soul experiences the Folk Spirit as something spiritually spread out, interpenetrating the individual bodies and supporting the harmony in the group. For the regular members of the tribe all this is completely instinctive, only the shaman can receive more concentrated messages of the collective. My question is do you envision this collective as something self-conscious? Do you see the Folk Spirit as a spiritual being that has the clear understanding for its own existence and finds itself, for example, in relation to the Folk Spirits of other tribes, similarly to the way how human souls find themselves in relations between each other?

2. If the answer is yes, do you envision a way for human consciousness to be able to experience something of the direct perspective of the Folk Spirit and not only inspired visions? Assuming we are non dualists, this should be possible at least in principle. If we imagine that every being's consciousness is an opaque sphere, which every being sees only from the inside, then there's not much place for non duality. True monism suggests that all conscious experience is on the 'same side' of the sphere of consciousness. So if we imagine the Folk Spirit's and our human "I" experience as spheres, obviously ours much 'smaller', if we are able to make these spheres concentric it should be possible, as far as our cognitive toolset allows it, to experience something of the perspective of the Folk Spirit as if overlaid, merged with our perspective. Do you envision such a possibility?

3. If no, do you envision such a possibility after crossing the gate of death?

4. If yes, do you think that there's some hard boundary between the incarnated and disincarnated state that makes the two completely orthogonal and in principle impossible to experience something of the disincarnated states while in a body?

5. If yes, how do yo see this fitting with the non duality paradigm? What causes this hard boundary?

[Lou Gold]

in some real way we are all potential 'second coming' of Christ within, as spiritual archetype and living process. My point is, can Christ as primary symbol in the 'West' help us remember that or do we need something entirely 'new'? I lean heavily towards the former.

Yes, the idea of 'second coming' happening is a distributed way in each of us is not new, and the idea connects both intellectually and spiritually with many. And yes, Christ in this context is just a certain culturally dependent frame of interpreting a process that is going on. Not at all unimportant frame of interpretation, but also not a frame that works for all, or can be demanded to work for all. Again, it's not an either-or situation.

If I may, I'd like to share an anecdote. I was once in a mutual support group of people with relatively high degree of spiritual transformative experiences. Mutual support group, because as you know from Jung etc., such experiences often come with a degree of loneliness that is unable to share with people with so far lower dose of such experiences, and the lack of enough common ground of shared experience prevents meaningful communication of many aspects, and it is a great relief to be able to share your experiences and concerns related to those and feel to be understood. In that mutual support group, somebody asked how many have tripped being Jesus, at some point of their path. Almost all raised their hands.

Yes, INDEED! Because the Archetype is of a Magical Child whose development was distorted by the experience of childhood trauma or stress (in child or mother). Attention Deficit Disorder being one of Doc Maté's specialities might make it obvious why he might want to debate Prof Peterson on the topic of compassion, especially since GM realized that the impact of childhood stress is not even taught in the medical discipline of pediatrics. The rebirth of the Magical Divine Child is a powerful archetype.

[Lou Gold]

Like a tango, it takes two. Methinks you love it too.

The best ones perform a not-two duet

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

It's fun to bang on your bell. It always reacts.