>Hi Steve/Kao,
>Have you thought of contacting Robert Place through his website >below? He's
>very down-to-earth, and would offer sound wisdom as Tarot is his >expertise.
>http://thealchemicalegg.com/
>Are you an "Independent Scholar" as well?
>Kathryn LaFevers Evans
>Independent Scholar
>Chickasaw Nation
Yes I certainly am, independent scholar, researcher, magician :)
Thanks for the link, I’ll flesh out my research a bit more and put him on my mailing list.
>re:
>Well that's the question - opinions vary as we know : )
They certainly do!
>An important thread within magick is surely that there is some separation between mind and body -
and that the mind, soul, atman (whatever you want to call it) is a spiritual substance that can return to the source etc.
I'm not sure how Pagan theology/cosmology etc can work otherwise and all the techniques of "astral projection"; "path working", >"dream incubation" etc etc.
Quite, I think that’s the dominant historical paradigm and the popular explanatory model (often matched by experiential evidence). My problem with it is its impossible, given the modern breakthroughs in science and philosophy. On the other hand I’ve first hand experience of it, so I conclude the model must be a delusion, and a hallucination generated by the unconscious to mask what’s really happening (either that or its all nonsense and the phenomena itself is a delusion). I guess an explanatory fiction is fine instrumentally, but I suspect if taken literally as ‘otherworldly’ evidence in support world rejecting forms of religion it could cause all sorts of harmful psychological and social problems. As we already know repression of the libido is one of the main causes of our social problems. So I’m looking for a wiser alternative. My current one is identical to Blake’s vision that spirit is unmanifest body and body manifest spirit, i.e. the
Spinozan thesis that its all one substance. All those interesting ‘astral’ experiences are thus explicable as experiences of non physical extensions of a single body (even if we shed a few skins on death). As for experiencing separate ‘astral bodies’, the brain plays funny tricks when it tries to rationalise using physical categories.
>But even if these questions don't both you - from a purely naturalistic perspective - we can do things with our bodies and we can do things that are more mentalistic -
thus we can practice yoga (physical postures) on the basis that they have a special impact on thinking (they calm the mind etc) .
There are probable other examples of physical practices that can have some sort of gnostic effect -
so-called "sexual magick" for example - or "Tantra"
isn't that about using the physical as a tool to liberate the >mental??
I’d say that’s proof mind and body were the same ‘thing’. I would suppose Tantra may be about regaining contact with our total body, especially the non-physical bits. To liberate our full mental powers while remaining physical as long as possible.
Part of the issues here may be semantic of course.
>PS: As to Tarot another possible origin for Tarot images is the Renaissance carnival (see J Burckhardt "Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy") - Don't know the Parzival myth enough to say whether it is crucial - according to Wiccan tradition the Tarot represents the journey of Horus - from "Fool" >(disenfranchised) to "Kingship".
There are several sources of course, the Carnival is also central, not sure about Horus, was he even known in the Rennaissance? They seem mostly Christian then. And the Bible is another major source for Tarot imagery of course.
>I am really interested in the mind-body thread and it has moved me to de-lurking.
Yay!
>Without claiming to a particularly informed view on this I wonder if whether the difficulty in thinking about this issue is how we conceptualise the boundary between spiritual and material reality. I agree with Mogg that from an observable and logical perspective a level of decoupling is evident, but is it a decoupling from all kinds and levels of physical substance or could we think of it as at a far more subtle level, molecular to use Deleuzian terms? In this sense we would have to think of the body as less boundaried and connectivity and modulation as the fundamental aspects that allow such practices and events. In this sense there is no separation of tool and body, body and world, just more or less permeable spheres of influence >and influencing.
I think that’s interesting, but I’m still studying Delueze, so only have an intuitive attraction to his ideas. I know he was very influenced by Spinoza.
I agree with the decoupling evident from a logical and observable perspective. But I suspect logic doesn’t apply to reality only our possible description of it, and perception if appearance is conditioned by our conceptual categories.
Mogg, as for Indian Philosophy I’d say all the cool stuff is in the non-dualistic philosophies.
Steve
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