Atheistic Idealism ? (Mark)

[Robert Arvay]

Mark Tetzner posted a brief discourse (cut and pasted at the end of this) on his viewpoint which I characterize as atheistic idealism.

 

My take-away is that it is impossible to believe in God, if one does not believe in free will, and vice versa.

Mark’s comments seem less idealist than physicalist, which is also what one gets if one disbelieves in free will.

 

At the risk of being redundant, I listed my bullet points making the case for free will in another post, but they basically

can be encapsulated in the lyrics to the Zager and Evans 1969 hit song, “In the Year 2525.”

 

“Everything you think do and say, is in the pill you took today.”

 

I might add that if there is no free will, then you and I are powerless to choose whether or not to believe that free will exists. 

We would be biological robots, conscious observers of our lives, but not participants.

 

Here is the cut and paste from Mark’s post:

•  

Being a creature of God is not the same as being an alter of him“.  (Robert)

Exactly, which is one of the reasons some people simply prefer idealism over God.
I think that the purpose of an ontology is to take everything that is known by the
sciences and give them an interpretative roof. What you call free will, some people
(like myself) find one of the most boring subject-matters around.
I dont think we have free will because anyone wants us to be moral beings and stuff
like that. I think that Homo sapiens is nothing special compared to a bee or a fish.
The entire moral arc that comes from religions is missing in some peoples world-views.

We make decisions because evolution requires us to. They are „simple“ processes.
A biologist would maybe say it all starts with attention and then things get refined.
Cognitive abilities evolve in the process.
Predator from the right? I must swim left.
A wonderful member of the other sex? I must walk straight.
Something yummy to eat 45 degreees to the left? Lets turn there.

In Exodus it says if you work on Sunday you should be killed.
This book has partly  nothing to do with morality.
It is man-made in where it tries to intimidate, and I am not saying the cause can not be just.
There would not be societies without cultural attempts like the Bible, it would just be
blood-thirsty war all around.

So we may be alters of mind at large, doesnt mean we are not biological beings also, behaving like
bees behave. Its always interesting to find out where the sugar is.
And thats where decisions and will come from, in my view.

-

[Mark Tetzner]

Yes, thats kind of who I feel. Atheistic idealism. I think that it makes sense to be a physicalist materialist under idealistic world-view.
Which means nothing else than: Believe that the universe is mental. Dont believe in telos, God, etc.
Believe, potentially, in consicousness after death.
Being a physicalist and materialist is the right way to look at things as long as you live in the scientific world, the consensus construct.
Just not, obviously, when it comes to metaphysical speculations.
This is where most cant see the difference (naive materialism and all that other jazz).
Sorry at a gas-station right now, battery almost empty....

[Mark Tetzner]

(Its called science. I still believe in science ;)

[Mark Tetzner]

I think that things just happen....I dont think anything is designed or planned. Water-bubbles emerge from water because its a natural thing.
The universe in my view is not pursuing any plans here with us. It is not experiemting in a true sense, just a question of language.

[Scott Roberts]

On Tuesday, August 7, 2018 at 2:52:12 AM UTC-10, Mark Tetzner wrote:

The universe in my view is not pursuing any plans here with us.

Correct. Instead, we are pursuing plans with it, namely, learning to think. 

[Chuck Gafvert]

My beliefs are similar. But we don't actually know, do we? In the vacuum of experience, isn't this just a belief?

[Scott Roberts]

Like all metaphysical claims, it is just a claim. But it is one with empirical evidence to back it -- see my Idealism vs. Common Sense essay for that evidence (which will point you to Owen Barfield's Saving the Appearances).

[Mark Tetzner]

I will totally second just believing and knowing nothing.

[Mark Tetzner]

I just read your entire essay, Scott, which I know you gave to me before, but its all heavy stuff and needs focus. I just found the focus to read it.
I understood at least the majority of it.
Is there anything, I wonder, in how people live that contributed to the change of perceiving mind outside/inside?
Being in nature is also quite something, just a field, darkness and the moon shining ghostly through the clouds, and one has once again those....“outside“-feelings.
No I am not saying I want to take your time with this, that cities form and populations grow and that there is more „brick“ in the world, less skies to be seen and instead university-corridors to wander...surely is part of this development, as is....also common sense.

[Scott Roberts]

Yes, I would think living in buildings was a factor, as was having a leisure class. But these had existed for a long time before the Axial Age, so another factor was likely necessary. My guess would be divine intervention -- that superior spiritual entities decided the major civilizations were ready for incarnations as philosophers in Greece, as the Buddha, Lao-Tse, Confucius, and Vedantin mystics, and prophets of monotheism in Palestine.

Don't know what you mean "...also common sense". Seems to me that major developments are usually counter to the common sense of the time.

[Mark Tetzner]

I just meant it in the sense of „it seems obvious to me“, thanks for your reply....

[lou gold]

@Scott Roberts 

Your "line of demarcation" is consistently the Axial Age but the Neolithic Revolution started thousands of years earlier. The Axial Age may be seen as an adaptation or maladaptation to the tremendous suffering it produced and it is quite possible that both civilization and it's discontents are a repeating and deepening intergenerational PTSD rationalized as a progress. The Neolithic Revolution was produced by overpopulation of a fertile niche and concomitant deforestation and local climate change. After a couple thousand years, this maladaptation has grown to global proportions and is the disaster we all now face.

[Chuck Gafvert]

Thanks Scott, I've reread your article again and done some homework on Barfield. 

Forgive the summarization, but in the article you've proposed (among other things) a progression in the evolution of consciousness from naive idealism to naive dualism to perhaps a future collective consciousness with enhanced understanding of reality.

I'm a bit confused about your stance. Are you indicating a purposeful direction / guiding hand to evolve consciousness either by God (as defined in the article) or humans (the collective That Which Experiences)? 

Also, could not the "common sense" of society be alternately attributed to the dominant belief systems of the time? And the shift in "common sense" be a direct result in the modifications of those belief systems? In other words, the thinking remained the same, but the beliefs about the source of the thoughts changed from nature or God to oneself. 

I agree that there is historical evidence in ancient writing and writing about those writings, but don't understand how it could be called empirical. It's not directly testable, observable, or experienceable today, and is subject to various interpretations. Perhaps I've missed something.

Would you agree that even now there exists isolated tribes of indigenous people living this "original participation?" Wouldn't a baby from any modern society raised in that environment and learned stories share in that participation? I imagine that scenario might provide more promise of empiricism.

[Scott Roberts]

On Tuesday, August 7, 2018 at 1:58:33 PM UTC-10, Lou Gold wrote:

Your "line of demarcation" is consistently the Axial Age but the Neolithic Revolution started thousands of years earlier

The Axial Age marks a major change. The Neolithic Revolution marks another (and before that there must have been another major marker: language). In this context (learning to think) the Axial Age mark is the relevant one. 

[lou gold]

@Scott

It's intriguing to me that the present Hebrew year is 5778, which would place the beginning of history some millennia prior to the Axial Age. Beginning of history for the "people of the book" is concomitant with the emergence of an alphabet and written language. I believe the alphabet was already evolving prior to the Axial Age. The philosopher David Abram wrote a brilliant book called "The Spell of the Sensuous" describing how the abstract nature of the Hebrew alphabet created a "thinking" that was separate from nature. I sense that you consider "learning to think" in this way was as an unqualified "progress." I see it as a definitely mixed bag of abstract knowing arising at the expense of sensual knowing.

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[Scott Roberts]

On Tuesday, August 7, 2018 at 4:26:43 PM UTC-10, Chuck Gafvert wrote:

Thanks Scott, I've reread your article again and done some homework on Barfield. 

Forgive the summarization, but in the article you've proposed (among other things) a progression in the evolution of consciousness from naive idealism to naive dualism to perhaps a future collective consciousness with enhanced understanding of reality.

I'm a bit confused about your stance. Are you indicating a purposeful direction / guiding hand to evolve consciousness either by God (as defined in the article) or humans (the collective That Which Experiences)? 

Yes, in the past (by, I would say, whatever spiritual entities of which we are alters). However, in the present, now that we have attained some individual sovereignty, it might well be that future development is up to us.

 

Also, could not the "common sense" of society be alternately attributed to the dominant belief systems of the time? And the shift in "common sense" be a direct result in the modifications of those belief systems? In other words, the thinking remained the same, but the beliefs about the source of the thoughts changed from nature or God to oneself. 

That would be option (1), presupposed by materialists since it is consistent with modern common sense. Option (2) states that there were no beliefs about the source of thoughts, just experience of thoughts coming from "outside", while now there is experience of thoughts coming from within. 

 

I agree that there is historical evidence in ancient writing and writing about those writings, but don't understand how it could be called empirical. It's not directly testable, observable, or experienceable today, and is subject to various interpretations. Perhaps I've missed something.

You are conflating "empirical" with "scientific". Documents are empirical evidence of what was thought (or not thought) at the time of the document. And by the way, scientific evidence is also subject to various interpretations.

 

Would you agree that even now there exists isolated tribes of indigenous people living this "original participation?"

Probably, but it could also be in some cases that original participation has died out, but the language, customs, and stories haven't caught up. 

 

Wouldn't a baby from any modern society raised in that environment and learned stories share in that participation?

Probably.

 

I imagine that scenario might provide more promise of empiricism.

I doubt it -- it would require major contact, which would compromise the experiment. The ethics board might have something to say as well :) 

[lou gold]

@Chuck and Scott

even now there exists isolated tribes of indigenous people living this "original participation?" Wouldn't a baby from any modern society raised in that environment and learned stories share in that participation? I imagine that scenario might provide more promise of empiricism.

Check out the Kogi people who call themselves the "Elder Brothers." They send messages from the heights of the Santa Marta mountain range in Columbia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kogi_people

[Scott Roberts]

On Tuesday, August 7, 2018 at 4:50:12 PM UTC-10, Lou Gold wrote:

It's intriguing to me that the present Hebrew year is 5778, which would place the beginning of history some millennia prior to the Axial Age.

The beginning of history is usually reckoned at c. 4000 BCE with writings of the Sumerians and Egyptians. 

 

Beginning of history for the "people of the book" is concomitant with the emergence of an alphabet and written language.

Hebrew history starts more than a couple of millennia later, though one might quibble over whether hieroglyphs or cuneiform count as an alphabet. But they certainly count as writing.

 

I believe the alphabet was already evolving prior to the Axial Age.

Of course. The Phoenician alphabet, from which both Hebrew and Greek alphabets derive, was around for a quite a while prior.

 

The philosopher David Abram wrote a brilliant book called "The Spell of the Sensuous" describing how the abstract nature of the Hebrew alphabet created a "thinking" that was separate from nature.

The issue is not when there was writing, but what was written. Prior to the Axial Age it was all about the exploits of gods and kings, and rituals, and bookkeeping. After it there was philosophy, and monotheism.

 

I sense that you consider "learning to think" in this way was as an unqualified "progress." I see it as a definitely mixed bag of abstract knowing arising at the expense of sensual knowing.

I did call the modern age a "second fall", so I don't think I would say it is unqualified progress. But it is progress in the sense that it is necessary to pass through the mixed bag of adolescence on the way to adulthood. We can't revert to childhood, nor should we want to.

[lou gold]

@Scott

Have you read, "The Spell of the Sensuous"?

4000 BCE is very close to 5778 minus 2018 equals 3760 BCE. Wiki says: "According to tradition, the Hebrew calendar started at the time of Creation, placed at 3761 BC.^[7] The current (2017/2018) Hebrew year is 5778."  

But it is progress in the sense that it is necessary to pass through the mixed bag of adolescence on the way to adulthood. We can't revert to childhood, nor should we want to.

But we should see ourselves as Children of God and the Divine Child within as our personal essence and source of creativity. The spiritual child is definitely not an inferior adult. The passages you refer to from child to adolescent to adult are about becoming more collectively responsible and less self-centered and individualistic. I agree that the modern age is a highly reckless form of adolescence. And, there's reason that Jesus says to get into heaven be as a child. 

[Chuck Gafvert]

Scott,

That would be option (1), presupposed by materialists since it is consistent with modern common sense. Option (2) states that there were no beliefs about the source of thoughts, just experience of thoughts coming from "outside", while now there is experience of thoughts coming from within. 

I’m not taking a materialist position. I’m describing a possibility, compatible with Idealism, that ancient reports of an “outside” voice were based on hidden beliefs about their thoughts, just like our hidden beliefs about thoughts today. Our base reality is composed of those beliefs we don’t even recognize as beliefs. This is my model, and I don’t expect you to agree. But the difference has some large ramifications for us as sovereign individuals.

[Scott Roberts]

On Wednesday, August 8, 2018 at 6:52:27 AM UTC-10, Chuck Gafvert wrote

I’m not taking a materialist position. I’m describing a possibility, compatible with Idealism, that ancient reports of an “outside” voice were based on hidden beliefs about their thoughts, just like our hidden beliefs about thoughts today. Our base reality is composed of those beliefs we don’t even recognize as beliefs. This is my model, and I don’t expect you to agree. But the difference has some large ramifications for us as sovereign individuals.

Would you say that the difference between hearing someone speak and thinking your thoughts is a difference in belief or different kinds of experience? Other data points to consider: even in medieval times, most people read by speaking the words in the text out loud. Why did the Greeks have one word (legein) for speaking and thinking?

 It is, of course, a possibility that option (2) is wrong, just as it is a possibility that idealism is wrong, but just as idealism explains things so much better than other ontologies, so does option (2) over option (1). 

[Scott Roberts]

On Tuesday, August 7, 2018 at 6:39:22 PM UTC-10, Lou Gold wrote:

Have you read, "The Spell of the Sensuous"?

No, but I fail to see the relevance. Writing is a necessary condition for the rise of thinking, but apparently not sufficient given the millennia between the origin of writing and the Axial Age.

 

4000 BCE is very close to 5778 minus 2018 equals 3760 BCE. Wiki says: "According to tradition, the Hebrew calendar started at the time of Creation, placed at 3761 BC.^[7] The current (2017/2018) Hebrew year is 5778."  

 So? Anyway, Genesis is not a trustworthy historical source. 

But we should see ourselves as Children of God and the Divine Child within as our personal essence and source of creativity.

Why? Yes, we are children of God, but why not prefer the Divine Adult we can become?

 

The spiritual child is definitely not an inferior adult.

What about a superior adult?

 

The passages you refer to from child to adolescent to adult are about becoming more collectively responsible and less self-centered and individualistic.

Less self-centered, yes (and there is no one more self-centered than a child). Less of an individual, no, or do you think we should go back to herd-like behavior?

 

I agree that the modern age is a highly reckless form of adolescence. And, there's reason that Jesus says to get into heaven be as a child. 

You mean have a tantrum when I don't get what I want?

Ok, I'm getting snarky, but that's in response to what I see as a bunch of clichés rather than considering the question on its merits. The question being: is the rise and development of thinking spiritual progress or not?

 

[Chuck Gafvert]

Scott, I'm asserting the idea that belief affecting experiences is consistent with Idealism. Do you believe otherwise?

Unless Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tse, etc were beings of special dispensation (perhaps you are making this claim?), they were exactly like every other human born in the Axial Age. Therefore they themselves show how a product of the Axial Age had the capacity to awaken from former societal and cultural beliefs to see the world in a very different way. 

[lou gold]

@Scott,

Have you read, "The Spell of the Sensuous"?

No, but I fail to see the relevance. Writing is a necessary condition for the rise of thinking, but apparently not sufficient given the millennia between the origin of writing and the Axial Age.

You are speculating about about something you don't know. Abram shows not how the Hebrews launched writing but rather introduced a type of alphabet that facilitated abstraction and separation from nature, which produced a different kind of thinking. It took time for this to generate the new forms of suffering that then called forth new remedies during the Axial Age.

But we should see ourselves as Children of God and the Divine Child within as our personal essence and source of creativity.

Why? Yes, we are children of God, but why not prefer the Divine Adult we can become?

 

The spiritual child is definitely not an inferior adult.

What about a superior adult?

An emphasis on the child within because essence is something one is born with.

Less self-centered, yes (and there is no one more self-centered than a child). Less of an individual, no, or do you think we should go back to herd-like behavior?

Maybe more like ants.  See: 

http://evonomics.com/ecological-economics-superorganism-lisi-krall/

[Scott Roberts]

On Wednesday, August 8, 2018 at 11:15:59 AM UTC-10, Chuck Gafvert wrote:

Scott, I'm asserting the idea that belief affecting experiences is consistent with Idealism. Do you believe otherwise?

Yes, that beliefs affect experiences is consistent with idealism, more so, in fact, than with materialism. But not all of our experience is determined by our beliefs, and I fail to see how the difference between experiencing a thought coming from outside (as in hearing some other speak) and a thought seeming to be one's own (or at least not from some other) can be a matter of belief.

 

Unless Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tse, etc were beings of special dispensation (perhaps you are making this claim?),

It seems to me the likelier hypothesis. Especially since at the same time these special people appeared in both the East and West.

[lou gold]

@Scott

Unless this appeared in three special earthly locations uniquely suffering the consequences of ecological disruption and separation from nature. You are constructing a theory of progress from something that was not a global event but launched untethered power to eventually become a global disaster. As usual the victors write the history and self-justify. 

[Chuck Gafvert]

I fail to see how the difference between experiencing a thought coming from outside (as in hearing some other speak) and a thought seeming to be one's own (or at least not from some other) can be a matter of belief.

So Barfield's claim is that before and through the Axial Age, all humans literally heard external voices, as if someone else were talking to them, instead of internal thought?

It seems to me the likelier hypothesis. Especially since at the same time these special people appeared in both the East and West.

Got it. This clarification differentiates our models. I project a world of equal opportunity enlightenment where "God is no respecter of persons," to use a Biblical phrase.

[Scott Roberts]

On Wednesday, August 8, 2018 at 2:14:46 PM UTC-10, Chuck Gafvert wrote:

So Barfield's claim is that before and through the Axial Age, all humans literally heard external voices, as if someone else were talking to them, instead of internal thought?

Not literally as in heard with ears, but literally as in hearing voices in one's head, as with some schizophrenics, or as I do occasionally while falling asleep. 

It seems to me the likelier hypothesis. Especially since at the same time these special people appeared in both the East and West.

Got it. This clarification differentiates our models. I project a world of equal opportunity enlightenment where "God is no respecter of persons," to use a Biblical phrase.

It is equal opportunity, and the spirit world sometimes sends messengers to inform us of this opportunity, but it takes a long time (many lifetimes) for our minds to develop sufficiently to hear the message accurately, so the message has to be tailored for the audiences' capacity to understand it at the time, given how contrary it is to common sense, that of then as of now. 

[lou gold]

@Scott

Not literally as in heard with ears, but literally as in hearing voices in one's head, as with some schizophrenics, or as I do occasionally while falling asleep. 

There's another kind of communication. It's intuitive as with "seeing the symbols." Michaelangelo spoke of "seeing" the statue of David in the block of marble. Interestingly, in the mural of God and Adam he presents an image of touching fingers and not transferring thoughts or hearing words.

In Jeremy Narby's "The Cosmic Serpent" he asks the shaman how the plants "tell" him of cures? The shaman says that he sees correspondences. This is not hearing voices in one's head as with  schizophrenic. It's another way of knowing and communicating through nonverbal symbols and archetypes.

My assertion is that nonverbal and non-textual symbols deserve equal status with words as a form of communication. It seems to me that you deny this or assert some superiority to words and abstractions. Am I incorrect in assuming this?

[Dana Lomas]

My assertion is that nonverbal and non-textual symbols deserve equal status with words as a form of communication

Certainly they are equally significant, and often even more significant than words, in the context of any given, solely subjective, individual experience. But once taken out of that solely subjective context, their significance becomes highly relative in the context of communicating within a consensus construct, using a common language. Even if I could somehow show you all the bizarre symbolic imagery of the dreams I experienced last night, without translation into words, our respective subjective interpretations of that imagery would likely vary greatly, albeit somehow meaningful to each of us. Our verbal and written communication is all about coming to some kind of consensus on what the imagery means, and is how we shape a collective experience. It seems not so much that they aren't equal, but just serving very different functions. But I'll leave it at that, and let Scott chime in.

[Chuck Gafvert]

Not literally as in heard with ears, but literally as in hearing voices in one's head, as with some schizophrenics, or as I do occasionally while falling asleep. 

When younger I had a few experiences hearing someone call my name at night, 1 Samuel Ch 3 style (I didn't think it was God). Last year I'd hear my lost cat crying at the door, although she was 20 miles away at the time (she was happily returned to me after 5 months). 

It is equal opportunity, and the spirit world sometimes sends messengers to inform us of this opportunity

Perhaps I'm not understanding correctly. If Axial Age humans needed an outside change agent before they could experience an enhanced type of consciousness, wouldn't that be considered an inequity for those living previously? Humans before the "consciousness change" were discriminated against? :-)

[lou gold]

@Dana

I'm not sure if we disagree. Your assertion of verbal language as better or more consensual seems as a presumption to me. There are different ways of being in this world, different modes of intelligence and meaning and communication, some visual, some emotional, etc and all with great cultural variation. I assume you experienced this in your world travels

I do not assert one as better than others accept in a relative and conditional sense (arithmetic is best when paying bills). In my view the many different ways are part of a divinely integrated diversity.

On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 6:20 AM, Dana Lomas <d.ho...@gmail.com> wrote:

My assertion is that nonverbal and non-textual symbols deserve equal status with words as a form of communication

Certainly they are equally significant, and often even more significant than words, in the context of any given, solely subjective, experience. But once taken out of that solely subjective context, their significance becomes highly relative in the context of communicating within a consensus construct, using a common language. Even if I could somehow show you all the bizarre symbolic imagery of the dreams I experienced last night, without translation into words, our respective subjective interpretations of that imagery would likely vary greatly, albeit somehow meaningful to each of us. Our verbal and written communication is all about coming to some kind of consensus on what the imagery means, and is how we shape a collective experience. It seems not so much that they aren't equal, but just serving very different functions. But I'll leave it at that, and let Scott chime in.

[lou gold]

@Dana

I think I've mentioned that here in Brazil I do not speak the native language Portuguese and I'm with a lot of folks who speak no English and all the spiritual ceremonies are in Portuguese. It's been a fascinating learning for me. One of the most important learnings has been how well I can communicate if I act and become as a child. And how much I can learn by getting out of the verbal and into just watching and listening deeply. That's where something truly essential gets exchanged, something lovely indeed.

[lou gold]

@Dana

I truly hope you don't consider this as just word-play, because it's not. It just came to me that I often find it more significant to commune with than to communicate with. It seems more fundamental or essential to me.

[Dana Lomas]

Your assertion of verbal language as better or more consensual seems as a presumption to me

Where did I assert this? I specifically stated that it simply serves its integral function, which is to communicate with some consensus about our individually subjective experience. How else could I convey to you the message of a dream I had last night, if not in a common verbal language? Even if I painted you a picture on paper, without any verbal discussion, it would still be open to your unique interpretation, perhaps completely missing the message I got out of it. Of course we communicate in many different forms, all integral in their own way -- which makes the kind of very limited text-bound communication used within a chat forum quite problematic, absent all those other cues, like body-language, intonation, a twinkle in the eyes, etc, leaving us to fill in those blanks, often with our own projections.

[lou gold]

@Dana,

Perhaps I read more than you intended into this >>>

Our verbal and written communication is all about coming to some kind of consensus on what the imagery means, and is how we shape a collective experience. It seems not so much that they aren't equal, but just serving very different functions.

I'm not so sure that a collective silent communion without words is an inferior form of shaping a collective experience. Consider sitting together meditatively or with entheogens in a forest. Perhaps no two people "see the same movie" but I've never heard people argue over their dreams or revelations. The consensus is that it is for each to unravel his/hers own. It's also true that "no two people hear or read the same words" and their consensus is largely limits to material plane stuff. However, when it comes to spirit, I've heard many people argue over the meaning of texts. Indeed, religions and careers and wars are built on it. 

Thus, while recognizing the value of verbal communication, communion may be a superior form consensus-building for deeper questions of consciousness. I recognize you said, "but just serving different functions." I don't believe that you and I necessarily disagree but you jumped into an exchange with Scott, with whom I suspect I have serious disagreements.

[Scott Roberts]

On Wednesday, August 8, 2018 at 6:41:57 PM UTC-10, Lou Gold wrote:

My assertion is that nonverbal and non-textual symbols deserve equal status with words as a form of communication. It seems to me that you deny this or assert some superiority to words and abstractions. Am I incorrect in assuming this?

You are incorrect. I was merely indicating that verbal thinking can be perceived as coming from outside. But feeling and imagery can as well. But remember I regard all thought as feeling and all feeling as thought. Only some of it is verbal.

[Scott Roberts]

On Thursday, August 9, 2018 at 2:36:43 AM UTC-10, Chuck Gafvert wrote:

It is equal opportunity, and the spirit world sometimes sends messengers to inform us of this opportunity

Perhaps I'm not understanding correctly. If Axial Age humans needed an outside change agent before they could experience an enhanced type of consciousness, wouldn't that be considered an inequity for those living previously? Humans before the "consciousness change" were discriminated against? :-)

No, because they are the same humans. As Barfield says, evidence for the evolution of consciousness is evidence for reincarnation. Development takes time, many lifetimes to turn animals into gods. We still have a long way to go, but with our relatively new ability to think for ourselves, we can now consciously take part in this developmental process. Of course, it helps to know that the process exists. 

[Jeff Falzone]

Just to say, I've read all of Barfield and while he does show why his view of the evolution of consciousness can allow and integrate the notion of reincarnation, I don't believe he ever claims that his view is evidence. He was a stickler for words and was keenly aware of what he knew for sure and what he could only speculate about. 

What I find interesting about Bernardo's picture of 'alters' is that it allows us to imagine how a whirlpool could partially 'weaken' and then rev up again, but it makes it very hard to imagine how what we call our 'me' would be the entity 'coming back.' 

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[Dana Lomas]

I concur that being in non-verbal communion can be a powerful shared experience, within a deeply intimate group, no words required. Although, knowing the Latin American cultures that I've visited, it seems unlikely they would be non-verbal for very long, for they surely love to verbalize ... very animatedly ! :))

[lou gold]

@Dana

Although, knowing the Latin American cultures that I've visited, it seems unlikely they would be non-verbal for very long, for they surely love to verbalize ... very animatedly ! :))

ABSOLUTELY!!! As part of the dance of life and the endless negotiations of relational rather than individualistic culture. Often like children of a common mother. 

[Lou Gold]

@Scott

What about a superior adult?

I've carried a picture of Ramana Maharshi with me for the past 35 years. What I see is a superior adult exuding the beauty of the Divine Child.

[Scott Roberts]

On Thursday, August 9, 2018 at 9:43:50 AM UTC-10, Jeff Falzone wrote:

Just to say, I've read all of Barfield and while he does show why his view of the evolution of consciousness can allow and integrate the notion of reincarnation, I don't believe he ever claims that his view is evidence. He was a stickler for words and was keenly aware of what he knew for sure and what he could only speculate about. 

Here's Barfield: "The awakened clarity of retrospect...will, I am persuaded, be obliged to recognize that the gradual emergence of man from original participation amounts also to the gradual emergence of 'men' from 'man'; that it is not just the cumulative history of the race, but the biography, also, of each individual spirit. Nor do I see how this can fail to involve the recognition of individual prenatal existence -- or rather existences." (StA, p. 184). 

[Jeff Falzone]

Ah, got it. Thanks. While can follow his observations of the development from original participation through Idolatry towards final participation, I can't follow his certainty about prenatal existence of individual, unless we simply mean that a given whirlpool is respinning back into a new individual perspective. Thanks, Scott. 

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[Scott Roberts]

On Thursday, August 9, 2018 at 2:08:34 PM UTC-10, Jeff Falzone wrote:

Ah, got it. Thanks. While can follow his observations of the development from original participation through Idolatry towards final participation, I can't follow his certainty about prenatal existence of individual, unless we simply mean that a given whirlpool is respinning back into a new individual perspective. Thanks, Scott. 

I agree that it is kind of meaningless to say that "I" reincarnate, unless and until I have some knowledge of earlier lives. What I gather from various esoteric literature is something like the following scenario.

I die. I continue to have the same ego, with memories of my just concluded life. I to some extent recollect my self prior to my last life, like waking from a dream. Apparently I do not, at least immediately, become aware of past lives, but perhaps I do become aware of the decisions made for the structure of the life just lived, and so can evaluate how it went: how I did on meeting its various challenges. And with this I can then (with help from more advanced entities) structure the next life (choice of parents, etc.). Part of that structure is to not remember other lives or non-physical existence. I think the latter is because otherwise, at our present stage we would not have any motivation to stay alive in this rather painful material plane. But at some higher level all the memories and egos of these lives continue.

This would mean, I think, that a new alter with a new ego is created for each life. But there are alters within alters. 

[Chuck Gafvert]

Scott, I find some similarities with Adyashanti's awakening experience in End of Your World. A few key parts:

[EDIT]: I especially like his reference to past lives as a part of the dream; that's ultimately what we're talking about.

I will try to explain what happened experientially. At the moment of awakening, it was as though I was completely outside who I thought I was. There was a vast, vast, vast emptiness. In that  vast emptiness, in that infinite emptiness, there was the smallest, smallest, smallest point of light you could imagine. And that smallest point of light was a thought, just floating out there.And the thought was: “I.” And when I turned and looked at the thought, all I had to do was become interested in it in any way interested, and this little point of light would move closer and closer and closer. It was like moving close to a knothole in a fence—when you get your eye right up to it, you don't see the fence anymore; you see what's on the other side.

And then I noticed there were all sorts of other points, points, and I could enter each one of those points, and each one of those points was a different world, a different time, and I was a different person, a totally different manifestation in each one of those points. I could go into each one of them and see a totally different dream of self and a totally different world that was being dreamed as well.

Seeing this lifetime and the confusion at the moment of death, I immediately knew what I had to do. I had to rectify the confusion and explain to the dream of me that I died, that I fell off a boat and drowned. When I did this, all of a sudden the confusion from that lifetime popped like a bubble, and there was a tremendous sense of freedom. Many past life dreams appeared, and each one of them seemed to focus on something that had been in conflict, something that was unresolved from a different incarnation. I went through each one of them and unhooked the confusion.

As you know, I haven’t talked much about this kind of thing. I don’t want to talk to a lot of people about past lives, especially the radical nondualists who say that there is nobody who was born, there is nobody who has past lives, there are no incarnations, and so on. Of course, that is all true; it’s all a dream, even past lives. When I talk about them at all, I talk about them as past dreams. I dreamed I was this person; I dreamed I was that person.

In fact, my experience of past lives isn't that they are actually past. I call them that, because that's how people relate to them, but if I were to say what my real experience is, it's more like simultaneous lives.

It’s like if you have a dream at night, and in the dream you are a particular person. And in your dream you start to remember, say, all these past lives. Say you remember fifty past lives very intimately, very clearly. “Oh, this happened or that happened.” And it seems like it happened in the past. Then you wake up from the dream, and you're lying there in your bed and, “Wow, that was an interesting dream. I dreamed that I was somebody who had all of these past life experiences.” It may occur to you, “Wait a minute, I was dreaming up those past lives, all at once. All of them were being dreamed right now.They didn't have any existence before I dreamed them.” That's kind of how I see it.

I don't see them as past, because they’re all simultaneously occurring, all simultaneously interacting.

Waking up is dying. That’s what it is. When the awakening happened, I died. Everything disappeared, blanked out. Everything that everybody fears the most is what happened to me. Total blankness. Absolute nonexistence. Nothingness, nothingness, nothingness. At that moment, no past life, no present life—nothing—no consciousness, no birth, no sickness, no nothing. Zero. It's everything that everybody is terrified of. That's what happened to me; that's death. And it just so happens that death is itself life. We must die in order to truly live. We must experience absolute nonexistence in order to truly exist, in a conscious way.

[Dana Lomas]

Chuck ... Thanks for the Adyashanti experience. Strangely, it's very much in line with the depiction of (re)incarnation I first came across in the Seth Material. Leaves one wondering what's up with that?!

[Chuck Gafvert]

Dana, yes, for me the correlation doesn't prove anything (I suspect you neither), but it sure is interesting. 

This passage is also from End of Your World -- and is vaguely reminiscent of the dialog with the Other about death in MTA.

This moment is Spirit having this experience. If you ask me, “What’s death going to be like?” I can't relate to it as this thing we think of as death actually happening the way we think it does.I have nothing in me that relates to death as an actual fact. I relate to death as an experience. Just like the next experience.It will be wonderful to see what that experience is like. But I don't see it with a sense of finality or with any of the common connotations that we think of as death.

[Mark Tetzner]

Dana, whats your take on Seth? Scam or real?
I loved it kind of when I read it many years ago.
But then Seth started talking about our earths predecessor.
To my kowledge that must have been 4 billion years ago and is impossible to know.
Thats when I stopped reading.
Your take?

[Dana Lomas]

Mark ... IMO, there's no doubt whatsoever that Jane Roberts was a genuine mystic, accessing some transpersonal gnosis, while in a trance state, and not attempting to scam her audience. She herself fully conceded that she was not really quite sure what to make of it. And likewise, it remains pretty much a mystery to me. I just took from it what resonated, and filed the rest under 'who the f**k knows?!'

[lou gold]

@Chuck

I like these Adyashanti texts. I can't personally affirm in terms of my experiences 

but I intuitively connect. 

On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 8:51 AM, Chuck Gafvert <cgaf...@gmail.com> wrote:

Scott, I find some similarities with Adyashanti's awakening experience in End of Your World. A few key parts:

[Dana Lomas]

To my knowledge that must have been 4 billion years ago and is impossible to know

Of course, one must keep in mind that while focusing beyond this corporeal, spacetime construct, 4 billion years ago as no relevance.

On Friday, August 10, 2018 at 4:23:27 PM UTC-4, Mark Tetzner wrote:

[Chuck Gafvert]

Lou, I like that he's not a "non-dual fundamentalist." When I hang out on a related Facebook page, the most frustrating people are the ones who respond with, "There's nothing to do!" to everything. It's true from the absolute perspective, but we live in the relative world. It can be used as an excuse not to take responsibility for life. Adya emphasizes absolute honesty to embody what is realized.