baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Coincidentally I went to a place in Benin (which is modern day Dahomey right?) which was a Catholic church mixed with a snake temple! It was great! Massive religious syncretism there.

Yeah, Dahomey is Benin. The independent Republic of Dahomey existed from 1960-1975, apaprently - never knew that.

The Dahomey people were quite vicious though, it must be said:
"Four thousand Whydahs, for example, were sacrificed when Dahomey conquered Whydah in 1727. Five hundred were sacrificed for Adanzu II in 1791. The sacrifices for Gezo went on for days. Human sacrifice was usually done by beheading, except in the case of the king's wives, who were buried alive."
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
when i said it's rich life i did not say without social ills and many kinds of superstition is without very obvious and commonly known horrible consequences such as the virgin cure for AIDS.

that would be absurd.

what i AM saying is that the spirit dimension ALSO enriches life in many ways. which is a neglected area in common place anti-superstition progressive discourse.

pop culture reference point, don't Miyazaki cartoons give you a sense of wonder? those are adaptaions of ancient stories of ghost cities, demons and dragons, very similar to, because it is derivitive of, many tales i heard as a child -- and that is the China i mean, as modern as it is today, even after communism's attempts to wipe it out, much older sensibilities still survive there, and in some areas such as the humanities, saturate it.

saw an exhibition of indonesian spirit world artifacts like masks and such, and reading about them and their place in an entire world view, and it was so fascinating...

That stuff is fascinating even if you don't believe in spirits. Why does it have to be a binary opposition, us/them, this/that, either/or.

The point is that you don't have to believe in "spirits" to have a rich culture. There are plenty of rich cultural traditions and memes and such in cultures that don't believe in spirits. Russian constructivism is pretty damn cool and fascinating and it was made by athiests and communards.
 

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
when i said it's rich life i did not say without social ills and many kinds of superstition is without very obvious and commonly known horrible consequences such as the virgin cure for AIDS.

that would be absurd.

what i AM saying is that the spirit dimension ALSO enriches life in many ways. which is a neglected area in common place anti-superstition progressive discourse.

pop culture reference point, don't Miyazaki cartoons give you a sense of wonder? those are adaptaions of ancient stories of ghost cities, demons and dragons, very similar to, because it is derivitive of, many tales i heard as a child -- and that is the China i mean, as modern as it is today, even after communism's attempts to wipe it out, much older sensibilities still survive there, and in some areas such as the humanities, saturate it.

saw an exhibition of indonesian spirit world artifacts like masks and such, and reading about them and their place in an entire world view, and it was so fascinating...

So how practically, in real terms can I move more towards the model you describe?

Yes i feel wonderment watching amazing movies, art, anime, sculpture and hearing music.
Yes i feel wonderment seeing nature in it's full glory.
Yes i am capable of love, passion etc like the next person.
Yes i am an atheist.

What should i do in my life practically to move more towards the model you describe. I am genuinely curious to see what i behind all the general poetic hyperbole.
 
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DannyL

Wild Horses
One thing you could do is write down your dreams. I found this took me up to the limits of what is rational, in that there are seperate parts of me with distinct agendas that seems to know more than I do (consciously). You can say this is just my "subconscious" giving me messages - and I might agree with you - but the model of the subconscious to explain what happens isn't one I've encountered in any rationalist discourse. The model required would have to show the subconscious as very rich, very active, and capable of processing events and dispensing clear advice - it's much more than the dumping ground of the day's events with a few random Freudian impulses. It's still pretty alarming when you're given a clear message and then woken up at 4 in the morning. Well, the first few times anyway.
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
One thing you could do is write down your dreams. I found this took me up to the limits of what is rational, in that there are seperate parts of me with distinct agendas that seems to know more than I do (consciously). You can say this is just my "subconscious" giving me messages - and I might agree with you - but the model of the subconscious to explain what happens isn't one I've encountered in any rationalist discourse. The model required would have to show the subconscious as very rich, very active, and capable of processing events and dispensing clear advice - it's much more than the dumping ground of the day's events with a few random Freudian impulses. It's still pretty alarming when you're given a clear message and then woken up at 4 in the morning. Well, the first few times anyway.

I think everyone should do dream experimentation for a while in their lives, it should be compulsory, like national service.

I found I was lucid dreaming within a month - going to bed excited by what I was going to do next, and got up to all sorts of things I couldn't do in real life, it was very interesting, especially as I always thought people who said they could control their dreams were lying up until that point. It gives you a weird version of reality for the time you're involved. I'm not sure it's healthy to do all the time though.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I'd agree re. lucid dreaming all the time. I wonder if you'd be tired if you did it constantly? Not switching your brane off.

I got a bit bored with it tbh - all I used to do was fly around and then shag someone.
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
this is a bit OT but the whole lucid dreaming thing is something that is intriguing but i just wanted to share in bed last night around 2 or 3am, not asleep, and i had the most physical sensation for about two seconds of as if an invisible house-cat had jumped on my face, temporarily almost smothering me for a couple of seconds, that is the only way i can describe it. genuinely very weird.

(i have no cat, am slim and reasonably healthy, don't have any breathing/chest etc issues in the slightest.)
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
One thing you could do is write down your dreams. I found this took me up to the limits of what is rational, in that there are seperate parts of me with distinct agendas that seems to know more than I do (consciously). You can say this is just my "subconscious" giving me messages - and I might agree with you - but the model of the subconscious to explain what happens isn't one I've encountered in any rationalist discourse. The model required would have to show the subconscious as very rich, very active, and capable of processing events and dispensing clear advice - it's much more than the dumping ground of the day's events with a few random Freudian impulses. It's still pretty alarming when you're given a clear message and then woken up at 4 in the morning. Well, the first few times anyway.

Well, there's a difference between "unconscious" and "subconscious" in psychoanalysis.

But I'd be wary of dismissing the whole psychoanalytical discourse as overly "rational", especially if you don't have any experience with it. If anything, most "scientist" types (if there are indeed "types" of people who are more rational than others-- I'd question this, too) think psychoanalysis is far too preoccupied with the unconscious and "irrational" motivating forces that aren't physiological and biomedical.

Edit: Scott sounds kind of like sleep paralysis. I get "electric dreams" from my seizure meds (I think, not really sure to be honest). Really really bizarre.
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
big big love to Massrock and Nomad re the paralysis, that sounds very likely

cheers guys, very interesting :cool:

actually my brother's partner gets this a lot, come to think
 

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
big big love to Massrock and Nomad re the paralysis, that sounds very likely

cheers guys, very interesting :cool:

actually my brother's partner gets this a lot, come to think

yeah i get that every month on so. it's pretty scary! You know you are awake but can't move. I have found the more i have ahd it the less scary it is as you know what is happening. I also have this thing where sometimes for the first 3 or 4 seconds after i wake up whatever i am looking at my brain makes into a person, cloths on the floor, coats on the back of the door, furniture, shadows whatever.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
But I'd be wary of dismissing the whole psychoanalytical discourse as overly "rational", especially if you don't have any experience with it. If anything, most "scientist" types (if there are indeed "types" of people who are more rational than others-- I'd question this, too) think psychoanalysis is far too preoccupied with the unconscious and "irrational" motivating forces that aren't physiological and biomedical.

Yeah, but that's just what I'm talking about - I haven't encountered many models - psychoanalytical, scientific or otherwise, that account for, or take seriously, the experiences I'm talking about.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
what i am for is indetermincy, intuition, empathy, emotional logic, music, the sensuality of incense and ritual, the poetry of shadows, a spirit world interwoven with the everyday, folk tales like endless tapestry which saturates every aspect of life

I don't see how any of that is mutually exclusive with science. intuition is a key facet of scientific inquiry. some of the other stuff, not so much, but no one (except you, accusing other ppl of saying it) has ever said that myths & folklore & whatever are bad in & of themselves.

you can call it "exoticizing the other" if you want to. makes not the slightest of differences to me or the people who get it and appreciate it.

well it's not your attitude (or mine) that really matters, is it. I'm just saying, for a dude who has, to paraphrase, "a bone to pick with colonialism", you get into some pretty sketchy areas. I'm sure it's all quite reverential & well-intentioned. anyway, whatever. it only bothers me when you use it (which isn't new, btw, Westerners appropriating bits & pieces of other cultures & shoving them all together into a decontextualized mess of misunderstanding) to accuse the dastardly villains of your strawmen Science/West/whatever of seeking to crush your spirit world in their grimly rational claws.

colonialism set [] peoples against each other is of huge importance, as is the re-writing of history

all undeniably true, but it is isn't as if things were "forward-thinking" specifically because b/c of being rooted in animism/tradition/spirituality/whatever nebulous forces Zhao is trying to get it. and, inversely, the flaws of the West weren't all rooted in rationalism. certainly some were/are in both (the transition from superstitious to pseudoscientific - pseudo mind you - anti-Semitism around the late 19th/early 20th century comes to mind) but not systematically in either case. which is the counter-argument you'd really need to be making.
 

grizzleb

Well-known member
Yeah, but that's just what I'm talking about - I haven't encountered many models - psychoanalytical, scientific or otherwise, that account for, or take seriously, the experiences I'm talking about.
What about quantum physics? You can shoe-horn in any old shite into that epistemological black hole.

I always found psychoanalytic discourse, though not without it's own problems to be good fun for talking about this sort of thing more than anything else. I wouldn't say the point is that it's 'accurate' in any scientific sense, more than it lets you look at things from a variety of viewpoints etc.

I lucid dream quite frequently, used to do it more when I took 5-htp regularly for depression. Was amazing, the richest most colourful things I've ever seen. Pretty awe inspiring, and you end up waking up laughing. Would recommend it to anyone.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I don't think introducing quantum physics into the debate helpful -see your second sentence. I don't think it's got any power to explain what I'm talking about.
 

grizzleb

Well-known member
well it's not your attitude (or mine) that really matters, is it. I'm just saying, for a dude who has, to paraphrase, "a bone to pick with colonialism", you get into some pretty sketchy areas. I'm sure it's all quite reverential & well-intentioned. anyway, whatever. it only bothers me when you use it (which isn't new, btw, Westerners appropriating bits & pieces of other cultures & shoving them all together into a decontextualized mess of misunderstanding) to accuse the dastardly villains of your strawmen Science/West/whatever of seeking to crush your spirit world in their grimly rational claws.
I think what's interesting about our current position, is that culturally, you can appropriate whatever you like and take it on as something that 'for you' is valid, we in the (and I know it doens't fully apply but hey) rational, scientific, west use culture as a formless base on which you can pick and choose what you like, and science sits untouched at the top. So you can be into american indian culture and pop idol without any clashes. You couldn't be (authentically) simply both a tibetan monk and an african tribesman, but with mediation from western cultural relativism you can dip your toes into all those waters and more. The problem is there isn't any 'authentic' cultural experience anymore, that is, opera is just fat people singing and a native dance is just people bashing drums, the sublime isn't there anymore, it all becomes twee and naive (when engaged in by people who truly beleive in it as viewed from the outside).

So culture becomes not important in looking for answers and becomes about some sort of personality/lifestyle choice, when culture really in many ways is authentically about the abscence of choice, or a shared choice of a community which evolves over time.
 

martin

----
I tried writing down my dreams once. But multiple plane crashes, Hitler still being alive, a woman who can turn into a wheelbarrow at will. loads of fictional records (I still need to hear "Spiderman Goes Mad" by Prince Jammy) and endless trawls through massive office complexes / embassies didn't really bond into anything constructive for me. Lucid dreaming sounds like fun though, do you actually get physical sensations when you do it?
 

grizzleb

Well-known member
That's an interesting question - where do your dreams usually take place? Borgesian infinite shopping malls are a common locale in mine.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
and, inversely, the flaws of the West weren't all rooted in rationalism.
Yeah, I think there's a definite conflation of rationalism (or at least empiricism), materialism (in both the technical and popular senses) and yer generic features of living in a specialized, urbanized, technology-rich society. I mean, I feel that I don't get enough connection with nature not because I don't believe in tree spirits but because I live in central london and do things with computers for a living.

And this is before we get into the vaguely early-20th-century mass-culture-theory view of the dull, sheep like working classes^w^w masses with their menial, joyless existence and dull inauthentic pleasures...
 
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