Metamorphoses of the Spirit: Breaking Bad Habits

[Soul_of_Shu]

It does seem somewhat incongruous how this all went from "Ashvin, I really enjoyed reading this. Is there more to come?" to seemingly being dissed as a poorly argued pseudo-philosophy. What brought this on, I'm not sure, but it's now degenerating into the kind of exchange that is not in keeping with rules of engagement on forum conduct. Let's get the focus back on metaphysics.

Shu I'm happy to clear this up as best I can, with your help and input.

"Ashvin, I really enjoyed reading this. Is there more to come?" Remains true and a genuine comment about that specific essay.

"to seemingly being dissed as a poorly argued pseudo-philosophy." As I have tried to express,theology and philosophy are different domains. Not my opinion but from the disciplines themselves. I have tried to point out that philosophy is about valid and sound arguments, again not my opinion, just a statement of fact. I'd be happy to read a philosophy essay here on this forum, just as I would be equally happy to read a theological discourse elsewhere.

"Let's get the focus back on metaphysics." It would be helpful if you could clarify the distinction for me as this is my understanding:.

"Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality...."

Theology "There is a relationship between theological doctrines and philosophical reflection in the philosophy of a religion (such as Christian philosophy), philosophical reflections are strictly rational. On this way of seeing the two disciplines, if at least one of the premises of an argument is derived from revelation (such as 'Jesus said'...my words), the argument falls in the domain of theology; otherwise it falls into philosophy's domain."

I'm not trying to be deliberately awkward but I came to this forum from a link on Kastrup's website believing that as it is a forum closely associated with Kastrup, and bears his name, it would be discussion relating to the rational philosophy of analytic idealism rather than a conflation with theology. Just let me know your rules hey...

There's no issue with respectfully arguing the case for the distinction between philosophy and theology ~ although, as mentioned above, given BK's overall body of work I'm not sure he would make such a distinct bifurcation as you do. Case in point, check out the video below, in which he talks about More Than Allegory. My only issue is that the mutual exchange was turning from benevolent to more belligerent, and was no longer primarily metaphysically focused, but rather too personal.

[Simon Adams]

Shamanism was practiced here in the UK as far back as 26,000 years ago and lasted until the Christians arrived and slaughtered them

Ehm … can you clarify what you mean by this? The Romans that invaded Britain weren’t Christian. By the time the Vikings invaded, Christianity had spread widely, but I’m not sure which christians you have slaughtering which ‘shamans’?

(PS: I’m not getting involved in the debate as I have a different view from all parties, just find it strange when this type of comment is randomly dropped in a conversation about evaluating our knowledge).

[Apanthropinist]

There's no issue with respectfully arguing the case for the distinction between philosophy and theology ~ although, as mentioned above, given BK's overall body of work I'm not sure he would make such a distinct bifurcation as you do. Case in point, check out the video below, in which he talks about More Than Allegory.

I have that book sat on my shelf along with 4 others of Kastrup's books, it's probably my favourite, which I suspect will sound contrary. I understand the point you are making and I have a lifelong interest in religions and mythology and latterly Jung's analytical psychology as well as philosophy. They all make so much more sense to me now after discovering analytical idealism. But as Kripal notes in his introduction of More Than Allegory "After all, if we are dreaming our own stories, we can always dream others. We can tell new stories. We can develop new myths, perhaps even myths that point back to the myth maker. We do not have to keep living in stories that have long ago spent their shelf lives. We do not have to be so naive."

Point being that in analytic idealism 'Gods and Devils and Deities' are not necessary and so perhaps that in itself is a liberation of mind, unencumbered by any associated dogma or doctrine and we can begin to realise that we were all along telling stories of a Mind At Large of which we are a dissociated alter. Other Non Western traditions have pointed towards something similar but now we have the possibility of an argument for it. We need not throw any tradition out with the bathwater, just understand it from a different non theological perspective so that everyone, theist/atheist/agnostic, can see that we were simply telling stories about a larger, deeper, richer, more mysterious 'reality'. That's unifying and that's my personal hope.

I hope you'll follow my meaning and thank you for your measured response, it's appreciated.

My only issue is that the mutual exchange was turning from benevolent to more belligerent, and was no longer primarily metaphysically focused, but rather too personal.

Agreed and I'll be taking a break for a while as I'm due for a course learning to programme and I can acknowledge my presence here is disruptive. I apologise to both Ashvin and Cleric, I have no desire to offend you or anyone else.

[Eugene I]

But as Kripal notes in his introduction of More Than Allegory "After all, if we are dreaming our own stories, we can always dream others. We can tell new stories. We can develop new myths, perhaps even myths that point back to the myth maker. We do not have to keep living in stories that have long ago spent their shelf lives. We do not have to be so naive."

Point being that in analytic idealism 'Gods and Devils and Deities' are not necessary and so perhaps that in itself is a liberation of mind, unencumbered by any associated dogma or doctrine and we can begin to realise that we were all along telling stories of a Mind At Large of which we are a dissociated alter. Other Non Western traditions have pointed towards something similar but now we have the possibility of an argument for it. We need not throw any tradition out with the bathwater, just understand it from a different non theological perspective so that everyone, theist/atheist/agnostic, can see that we were simply telling stories about a larger, deeper, richer, more mysterious 'reality'. That's unifying and that's my personal hope.

Bingo, and that is what I was trying to say on this forum all the time. We have a great story with our creator-Deity (if there is one), our humanity, our myths in collective unconsciousness and what's not. But that is just one story. That does not mean it's "unreal", secondary or anything like that. No, it's the story where we live right now, and for us it is real. But still, that is very likely not the only story and not the only Deity (if there is one) in the entire universe, and there is not a single "true" perspective on this story and not a single one "right" way to traverse through it. We are not the prisoners of it and of a single road along which the whole story drifts. Even if there are "Deities" who had a telos of the story in mind, we do not have to follow it. That perspective gives us freedom from the domination of the "spiritual dictatorship" of a single "true" meaning of the story and single "true" path through it. Even if that Deity had a meaning or telos in mind when creating the story, that does not mean it's the only meaning or goal in the story possible.

I see absolutism and domination as problematic in all areas: in society and politics, in philosophy and in spiritual life too. The impulse to force others to comply with the way I see or do things, as well as the opposite impulse to comply with what the authority tells us to think or to do, is IMO just an ancient psychological domination-submission mechanism that our ancestors developed when living in small groups. It makes practical sense, organizing those groups hierarchically into little dictatorships with alpha-dictators at the top and the rest of the group submitting to them was very efficient for survival. The problem is, at our current stage of development it became harmful and counter-productive, but the domination-submission mechanism is still functioning, most often with us not even recognizing and realizing it. any philosophy or spiritual tradition that claims that it knows the single and ultimate truth and the single true path that everyone has to comply with (or else they will face consequences) is simply an expression of this ancient domination-submission mechanism.

[Apanthropinist]

Shamanism was practiced here in the UK as far back as 26,000 years ago and lasted until the Christians arrived and slaughtered them

Ehm … can you clarify what you mean by this? The Romans that invaded Britain weren’t Christian. By the time the Vikings invaded, Christianity had spread widely, but I’m not sure which christians you have slaughtering which ‘shamans’?

(PS: I’m not getting involved in the debate as I have a different view from all parties, just find it strange when this type of comment is randomly dropped in a conversation about evaluating our knowledge).

26,000 (or older) burial site:

https://oumnh.ox.ac.uk/red-lady-of-paviland-0

https://guerillaarchaeology.com/2012/06/08/449/



Christian Persecution of Paganism:

The ancient world was a relatively tolerant place in the world of religion. There were occasional bursts of persecution of this or that sect but as a rule many religions existed side by side.

During the years 390 CE to 395 CE all this changed when Christianity established itself as the only religion in the Roman Empire and launched an all out campaign of religious terror against all other sects.

What follows are quotes from the legal code of the Roman Empire as set forth by the Emperor Theodosius at the request of Christian leaders to crush competing religions. The legal persecution of non-Christian religions by Rome marked the beginning of a wave of religious terror that would remain in place until the eighteenth century.

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/ ... line28.asp


I can't find the associated link for this below:

According to St Augustine and others, Jesus had clearly authorised forcible conversions: "Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled" (Luke 14:23). Whole countries were won over in this way. The Saxons were forcibly converted at sword point. Charlemagne offered them the choice of adopting Christianity or instant death. In a single day, according to Christian Chronicles, 4,500 Saxons chose to die rather than forsake their own religion.

The pattern was similar in Franconia after the death of Clovis in AD511. First, Christians were favoured at court. Then non-Christian public worship was prohibited. Soon, even private worship was made illegal, and forcible conversions were enforced from 625 under Dagobert I.

The pattern was similar in England. Pope Gregory the Great (AD590 - 604) initially authorised the destruction of pagan temples, but later reconsidered the benefits of a more practical approach. On reflection he decided that the temples should be siezed and converted into churches. Now only the pagan icons were to be destroyed and replaced by Christian relics. To assure continuity he also authorised the sacrifice of oxen even after the temples had been converted into churches with Christian alters*. Christian chroniclers did not always make records of the pagans they executed for refusing to convert, but archaeologists can sometimes reconstruct events. The Execution Cemetry at Sutton Hoo contains the bones of hundreds of Saxons, which is difficult to explain except as one of an unknown number of mass executions of Saxons who refused to convert

[AshvinP]

Agreed and I'll be taking a break for a while as I'm due for a course learning to programme and I can acknowledge my presence here is disruptive. I apologise to both Ashvin and Cleric, I have no desire to offend you or anyone else.

Apology accepted and don't feel the need to stop posting because of that, it's no big deal. You clearly have philosophical IQ and insight and that is always a good thing, because our views should be constantly challenged and tested. I came across this review by Owen Barfield of Julian Jaynes and The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, as you referenced in your original comment. I am definitely interested to hear your thoughts.

Professor Julian Jaynes, a teacher of psychology at Princeton University, has given us a theory of the development of consciousness and (to employ one of the many neologisms, some of them useful, with which he sprinkles his book) of the psychohistory of mankind in terms of a varying relation between the two hemispheres of the brain. “The right hemisphere, perhaps like the gods, sees parts as having a meaning; it looks at wholes. While the left or dominant hemisphere, like the man side of the bicameral mind, looks at parts themselves.” The psycho-history of mankind, he says, can be understood only as an age-long progress, or transition, from the dominance of the right hemisphere, through a “bicameral mind” period when the two hemispheres were both about equally effective, into the dominance of the left hemisphere, which largely prevails today and which may end either in the total atrophy of the right hemisphere or, better, in the reestablishment of a proper balance between them.

His insistence that our mistake up to now has been to distinguish too sharply, or perhaps to distinguish at all, between the physical and the psychic does give rise to a good many difficulties, and one could spend a lot of time on them. One wonders, for example, what exactly the preposition “in” and the verb “to be” signify in a system that proclaims on one page: “There is nothing inside my head or yours except physiological tissue of one sort or another,” and on another that the development of religious concepts was “going on in the right hemisphere”; on one page that “consciousness is not necessarily located in the brain,” on another that mind and memory were formerly “still in the voices of those organizations of the right temporal lobe that are called gods”; and on yet another that “the gods were in no sense ‘figments of the imagination’ of anyone. They were man’s volition.”

But obstinate questionings of that sort, if pursued further, would leave no time to give an idea of the actual substance of the book. Bicameral men “did not imagine, they experienced.” If, as is assumed, they experienced the right hemispheres of their brains, together with such other parts of their physical organisms as had become “aptic structures,” they did not experience these as structures and hemispheres, they experienced them as gods, Muses, divine Voices, and the like. Consequently it is only by examining these latter that we can get at their neural substrates. “We can only know in the nervous system what we have known in behavior first.” Moreover these phenomena of consciousness were themselves causal. The genetic theory must be abandoned, and natural selection was not nearly as determinant as is generally supposed; even in individuals “the early developmental history . . . can make a great difference in how the brain is organised”; and a fortiori for mankind as a whole. Nor are they to be regarded as subjective; for the mind of primitive man had no subjectivity, and it is a common error to project our own subjectivity back into him. In short, Professor Jaynes’s approach to the past history of mankind has to be, and is, not cerebroarchaeological and cerebrohistorical (I made those two), but psycho-archaeological and psychohistorical.

It is in fact an extensive, well-documented, and competently indexed account of the evolution of human consciousness, out of a primitive condition that must, it seems, be designated “mental” – though it was neither experience nor consciousness – through the stage of mere consciousness and on into the detached self-consciousness of modern humanity. And as such it has indeed shining qualities and contains very much of interest, whether the author is discussing Egyptian mythology or the egoless psychology of Homer’s heroes, or considering the relation between “topic” and “song” in the development of Greek accents, or presenting the Old Testament as a majestic and wonderful record of “the birth-pangs of our subjective consciousness.” All these riches, and much more, the judicious reader will discover for himself. A reviewer may be pardoned for raising the perhaps irritating question: Then why all this stress on the not-very-relevant physical brain? If the division of labor between its two hemispheres in any particular epoch is likely to have been organized by cultural and aesthetic activity, and is in any case only inferable from cultural and aesthetic phenomena, to what exactly is it the master key?

Our age is characterized by a variety of generalizing theories, each of which is applied to everything in the universe except itself, and each of which would fall to the ground if it were so applied since it at once becomes apparent that it has been busy sawing off the only possible branch on which it could have been sitting. The “strident rationalism” of the eighteenth century, Marxism, behaviorism, psychoanalysis—Professor Jaynes avoids and criticizes them all. They all result from the breakdown of the bicameral mind. He undermines them both historically and analytically.

In a section on language, and much concerned with metaphors and models, he even insists that science itself, that all theories in fact, including his own, can really be interpreted only as metaphor. All theories, that is, with one exception. The privileged exception is the received theory of evolution in its earlier stages, and this makes the title of the book a little misleading. For, however radically we may have to revise our ideas of the development of consciousness, its ultimate origin, as preconscious “mind,” stands just where it did before the revolution. Consciousness, together with all those limboish “things that in the physical-behavioral world do not have a spatial quality,” did in fact “emerge” somehow or other from a purely material universe. That theory is the literal and historical truth, not just an interesting product of the breakdown of the bicameral mind. To doubt it is not only (horresco referens) “metaphysical”; it is “ontological nonsense.” Therefore although, when Hesiod describes how the Muses “breathed into me a divine voice,” and so forth, “this should be believed literally as someone’s experience . . .,” and although the Muses and their like were neither objectified concepts nor figments of the imagination, they were, they must have been, “hallucinations” (a word that recurs more persistently than any other throughout the book); and “hallucinations must have some innate structure in the nervous system underlying them.”

I personally should not much like the job of distinguishing ontologically between a figment and a hallucination; or alternatively between hallucination, as Jaynes chooses to extend the term, and perception. Why could not the Muses, and so forth, equally well have been things – not less, but certainly not more metaphorically – “outside” the physical-behavioral world that do not have a spatial quality? Perhaps because that might mean beginning to take seriously people like Rudolf Steiner. And yet so slight a readjustment would have made the whole book so much clearer, leaving its convincing central narrative stripped athletically bare of all the uneasy hairsplittings. It seems strange that one who has no difficulty in attributing practically the whole of modern consciousness, including its science, to the “dualism” that, since Descartes, has been “one of the great spurious (my italics) quandaries of modern psychology” should stop precisely at that point. Surely it must be staring him in the face that our whole scientistic and popular picture of a quondam mindless universe is the product of that very dualism as it culminated in the still more spurious uniformitarianism of Lyell and Darwin.

[Eugene I]

The Execution Cemetry at Sutton Hoo contains the bones of hundreds of Saxons, which is difficult to explain except as one of an unknown number of mass executions of Saxons who refused to convert

If we count the number of atrocities over the human history, by far most of them were inflicted by political or religious absolutists.

This conversation may be relevant here too. What we are talking about is really a proper place of restrictive-vs-libertarian philosophies and spiritual practices, and their appropriate place in our development. When children are small, they need more control and restrictions from parents, when they grow up they become mature enough to live without those restrictions. So both have their place and time to be applied, it's not the question of which one is "true", but a question of an efficient use of them.

[Apanthropinist]

But obstinate questionings of that sort, if pursued further, would leave no time to give an idea of the actual substance of the book.

Remind you of anyone? Should I hide in the corner

I'll get back to you on this later because I find Jaynes work hard to digest in the sense we are asked to 'think' in a way entirely unfamiliar to us. He does make some great points about how some languages have no specific time references, the Hopi for one.....and I find that really interesting.

I may have to take a bit of time Ashvin because I need to start learning this programming and it may consume me. If you do get a chance to read Jaynes book I would recommend it because while I am not persuaded I also think there is a lot to ponder in there as a matter of perspective.

[Simon Adams]

Shamanism was practiced here in the UK as far back as 26,000 years ago and lasted until the Christians arrived and slaughtered them

Ehm … can you clarify what you mean by this? The Romans that invaded Britain weren’t Christian. By the time the Vikings invaded, Christianity had spread widely, but I’m not sure which christians you have slaughtering which ‘shamans’?

(PS: I’m not getting involved in the debate as I have a different view from all parties, just find it strange when this type of comment is randomly dropped in a conversation about evaluating our knowledge).

26,000 (or older) burial site:

https://oumnh.ox.ac.uk/red-lady-of-paviland-0

https://guerillaarchaeology.com/2012/06/08/449/



Christian Persecution of Paganism:

The ancient world was a relatively tolerant place in the world of religion. There were occasional bursts of persecution of this or that sect but as a rule many religions existed side by side.

During the years 390 CE to 395 CE all this changed when Christianity established itself as the only religion in the Roman Empire and launched an all out campaign of religious terror against all other sects.

What follows are quotes from the legal code of the Roman Empire as set forth by the Emperor Theodosius at the request of Christian leaders to crush competing religions. The legal persecution of non-Christian religions by Rome marked the beginning of a wave of religious terror that would remain in place until the eighteenth century.

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/ ... line28.asp


I can't find the associated link for this below:

According to St Augustine and others, Jesus had clearly authorised forcible conversions: "Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled" (Luke 14:23). Whole countries were won over in this way. The Saxons were forcibly converted at sword point. Charlemagne offered them the choice of adopting Christianity or instant death. In a single day, according to Christian Chronicles, 4,500 Saxons chose to die rather than forsake their own religion.

The pattern was similar in Franconia after the death of Clovis in AD511. First, Christians were favoured at court. Then non-Christian public worship was prohibited. Soon, even private worship was made illegal, and forcible conversions were enforced from 625 under Dagobert I.

The pattern was similar in England. Pope Gregory the Great (AD590 - 604) initially authorised the destruction of pagan temples, but later reconsidered the benefits of a more practical approach. On reflection he decided that the temples should be siezed and converted into churches. Now only the pagan icons were to be destroyed and replaced by Christian relics. To assure continuity he also authorised the sacrifice of oxen even after the temples had been converted into churches with Christian alters*. Christian chroniclers did not always make records of the pagans they executed for refusing to convert, but archaeologists can sometimes reconstruct events. The Execution Cemetry at Sutton Hoo contains the bones of hundreds of Saxons, which is difficult to explain except as one of an unknown number of mass executions of Saxons who refused to convert

Gibbon’s 18th century views that coloured history for so long have been almost entirely rejected by modern historians and archeologists, and yours is even more extreme than Gibbon’s!

You can try this Wikipedia article for a summary of this, maybe go straight to the “Evaluation” section -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecuti ... prov=sfti1

Persecution and murder are not actually very good ways to change people’s beliefs, and usually end up doing the opposite. Yes the past was brutal in many ways, as Christians themselves experienced under several emperors. But the idea that Christians “slaughtered all the pagans” is just plain wrong, one of the many legacies from the anti-religious bias of Gibbon that influenced the study of history for centuries.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Point being that in analytic idealism 'Gods and Devils and Deities' are not necessary and so perhaps that in itself is a liberation of mind, unencumbered by any associated dogma or doctrine and we can begin to realise that we were all along telling stories of a Mind At Large of which we are a dissociated alter. Other Non Western traditions have pointed towards something similar but now we have the possibility of an argument for it. We need not throw any tradition out with the bathwater, just understand it from a different non theological perspective so that everyone, theist/atheist/agnostic, can see that we were simply telling stories about a larger, deeper, richer, more mysterious 'reality'. That's unifying and that's my personal hope.

I hope you'll follow my meaning and thank you for your measured response, it's appreciated.

Sure, I'm open to non-theistic versions of idealism. However, having been raised in an entirely secular fashion, such that there was no mention of God, religion, spirituality, atheism, or metaphysics of any sort, and thus no default narrative, nonetheless, from a very early age I was subject to indelible experiences of some numinous presence(s) that I would eventually realize were left entirely unexplained by the materialist paradigm. And so, to this mind, the search for some explanation for those experiences was inextricable from the search for the fundamental nature of reality, other than what materialism offered. It was only a matter of time before I would then come to learn that those experiences were by all accounts in keeping with the revelations of mystics talked about in almost all religions. As such, I'm also open to more Divinity-based versions of idealism ~albeit, not resonating much with some personified Divinity.