various verbiage

I’m confused why NYT countenances such illogic, unless it’s their effort to balance their oft-castigaged ‘leftward-leaning’ Op-Ed pages.
I deconstructed a similar article here.

Here we go again. First off, the circular reasoning fallacy is repeatedly evoked. The author presents a scenario of “magical thinking”, then tacitly labels it [ridiculous]. Next they state that there’s ‘brain structures’ which somehow must create MT, but that can’t be evolutionary, can it [ie, denying physical evidence]? Then they show that we can fool ppl into MT-based behavior [a similar test, "can we fool tax experts into giving wrong answers", is done each year by Better Business Bureau; they call IRS & ask 20 Agents the exact same question, & get 20 different, usually wrong answers. Oh wait-- is this MT too??].

Then they move right into the perfect example of circular reasoning: “The question is why do people create this illusion of magical power?””. Sorry, did we accidentally neglect how Tiger, Jordan, Lance, Jenner, & etc top peak performers all swear by visualization? And that there’s been multiple double-blind tests confirming that visualization not only helps, but is *essential* to peak performance?

Funny– we all recognize false choice fallacy when Fox News rigs one of their frequent polls (cf. Colbert’s lampooning): “Question: Are you for Supporting the Troops, God, & Country, or Treasonously Retreating from Iraq?”

So why aren’t suitable options made visible here? Perhaps “Magical Thinking” and/or “Magical Power” do in-fact work, but these psych’s & shrinks aren’t very good at measuring it? Not to mention, that psych’s & shrinks have historically been labeled ‘fuzzy science’, & thus are particularly antagonistic to intuitive paths to knowledge.

But it’s particularly jarring when these same ‘clinical psychologists’ and/or university researchers pretend to be objectively studying the matter. Fer crying out loud, wouldn’t the very topic they’re studying (ie, how belief affects physical world), be potentially undermined if they’re starting-out w/ the assumption it doesn’t work?

By the logic they’re using, it’s not implausible to say they’re actually undermining their own experiments. By ‘believing’ MT doesn’t exist, they affect both their test-cases, as well as their logic itself.

I’m esp. amused that they finish-off the article w/ a list of psychiatric disorders which “MT could lead to”, coupled w/ discounting evidence as “coincidental”. First illogic, then ‘you’re crazy”.

And note they carefully distinguish MT from religion, ie “These habits have little to do with religious faith, which is much more complex because it involves large questions of morality, community and history”. What silliness; the average fervent church-goer isn’t thinking of any of those things when they pray… they just want their prayers to work (& the lectant usually gives praise the next week if/when they did).

Hmmm. Closed thinking, hostility, & church-banner waving. Since when did the neo-cons care about ‘magic’? You’d think they were on shaky ground; “faith” in their not being “left behind” sorta sounds like MT to me.

So back to why the discussion of “ego” has been ‘programmed-out’, if you will, in many of the western intuitive/meditative disciplines today.

The reduction of Ego is systemic in traditional Eastern training– you shut-up, & practice. The Teacher is Right, so again– shut-up, don’t question, & do the same [basic] training, over&over&over. And in the same way that this kind of ‘basic training’ often helps you break-down bad [physical] habits — such as standing-meditation for hours teaches the body to stop using hard muscular force (by dint of painfully screaming muscles) — a similar mental submersion of one’s will to that of someone else is a very effective technique to diminsh one’s ego’s ‘lock’ on one’s personality.

But we in the West have no patience for that. If only i had a nickel for every Martial Arts Teacher who said, “traditionally you’d have to practice [this technique] for a year before you get the next one, but we teach you all 3 the first day”. IOW, “forget all that ‘mental’ stuff, & let’s get to the ‘good stuff’”. How many of you have gone to Yoga or T’ai Ch’i classes, whose Teacher never even mentions the word ‘meditation’? Well, this is not a ‘win’.

Nevertheless, with all the excesses racked-up by Guru’s in West, the whole idea of the guru-chela relationship is viewed with some suspicion… & for good reason. We would rather to treat our Teachers initially with a bit of deference, a bit of respect over time, but certainly not ‘putting-aside’ our own ego’s, thank you very much. But perhaps we’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater?

Actually, I think it’s more of the lingering residue of Hubbard & Erhardt, whose mental beliefs still can be found all over what’s left of the Consciousness Movement. Those two did a startlingly good job gleaning some of the more powerful mental practices of various eastern spiritual disciplines, combined it with some military boot-camp confrontational tactics, & invested it with a tremendous load of obfuscatory, pseudo-mystical belief.

On the one hand, many of those techniques are effective, even quite powerful. But on the other hand, the [schools] in which they are taught often turn-out ppl more messed-up than when they started… as much psychosis, if you will… but now with a whole lot more mental decisiveness, “Certainty” if you will, as well as unstoppable belief in their inner ‘Rightness’. Their egos, as Chogyam Trungpa, would say, have been “reinforced by spiritual techniques”.

I’d love to get a similar nickel for each person I’ve met who after year(s) in a meditative community/discipline, comes-out with an (insufferable) conviction of their own Rightness, & a huge interest in sharing it with everyone around them. Perhaps Erhardt’s masterstroke was tying-together his students’ conviction in their own ability to “Get It”, with the number of fellow students they’d recruited.

I always want to say, to those who come to my door hoping to save my Immortal Soul, “I’m so very happy you’ve discovered Truth or Spirituality; I’ve found my own too, let’s share what we’ve learned with each other!” But that, unfortunately, only results in them smoothly switching to another of their well-rehearsed scripts, along the lines of “Your Truth isn’t any good; ours is the Right one”.

Alas. I’ve read a few books, been in a few schools, ‘been meditating for some years… I bet we’d've had a fun conversation… if it only could start.

in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The UnBeliever (Stephen R. Donaldson; terrific, a close second to LOTR imho), there is the concept of the “Test of Truth”.

basically, using knowledge/wisdom/experience (or “lore” for short), the Tester questions the Testee… to determine what is True. not if something specifically is ‘correct’ or not, objectively verifiable or whatever… but rather if the person is True.

there is a correlate in the ‘real world’:
What do you do if you don’t trust your shrink?

this is a fundamental question, which boils-down to–
– is it the shrink who is fucked-up, or
– is it you?

if you break it down into “information” and/or “technique”… then that is separate from personalities, & you can learn that from many different ppl. or in other words, it could be that shrink who’s fucked-up, so “go get a second opinion”.

but if it’s a question of something core… then it’s going to come up again & again.

so even then, you don’t have to ‘worry’ about it…
…unless you keep leaving & leaving.

the 12-Step programs (AA, NA, Al-Anon, OA, SA, etc) have a concept called “pulling a geographic”. iow, you leave, & (hope) that you ‘leave your troubles behind’.

unfortunately, that’s not how it works– the troubles were inside of you, you carry them with you, & thus you’re just gonna ‘find’ them again, in wherever new town you end-up in.

{…to be continued}

so, Buddhism has an incredibly-huge canon of texts, myriads of schools, & a gen-u-wine Enlightened dude wandering around singing its praises.
Despite all that, Buddha found it useful to refine his philosophy into a simple, easily-digested mouthful, a la “Four Noble Truths”:
1) Life is Suffering
2) Suffering is caused by Desire
3) Desire can be controlled
4) Desire can be controlled by the 8-Fold Path.

…but that’s hoary & Eastern & who knows what that ’8-Fold Path’ is, anyway?

…so w/o further ado, here’s “The Four Practical Truths” for the Practical Mystic: {with apologies to Buddha}

1) Life is Great
2) if Life Sucks, there’s just shit in your Space
3) you can clear (energy/pictures/beings) from your Space, -and-
4) Growth can be managed via the 4-Quadrant Path

…is when you say “my school is better than your school”
or “i know more/better than you”

…but the best is
“i’m oh-so-cool b/c i meditate & stuff”

Chogyam Trungpa calls this the “golden chain”, & is the last (& hardest) egoic barrier to enlightenment.

i call it the “new age curse”, & i see it everywhere, here in the Bay Area.

or as this old drunk told me, as we narrowly missed being mowed-down by a volvo while jaywalking on Telegraph,
“see that bumper-sticker? ‘Visualize World Peace’.
“You gotta watch those new-age bastards, they’ll run you down soon as look at you.
“I’ve had rednecks, school buses, even Hell’s Angels stop & let me [jaywalk] in front of them… but not those volvo-driving bastards…
“they’re ‘me-first’ all the way…”

God Bless you, Mr. Drunk. In vino veritas, or whatever. (“in wine there is disk-management software”?!)

so, the meditation school i attend has this concept of a “growth period”.
it’s like when everything seems “just fine” but you nevertheless have this annoying tendency of walking into walls.

another way of putting it, is that your spirit (if you believe in such a thing) & your body (we’ve all got one of those) are just at different ‘times’ today. It’s as if one just woke up, while the other has already finished the daily chores & is off to bed.

when you feel kinda ‘psyched’ but sluggish, your “spirit is ahead of your body”. we’ve all felt this after finishing a tough climb, a long project, or [finally] getting off the phone w/ mom. it’s like we have the creative energy to go for ‘miles’, but yet can’t seem to make our body move.

when you feel energized but sorta brain-dead, that’s when your “body is ahead of your spirit”. This can happen to ppl who drink coffee at nite, experience a sudden shock, and/or are having ‘hot flashes’. we can’t seem to go to sleep, but can’t seem to do anything creative either… reading a book, watching a movie, ugh– everything ‘bores’ us pretty quickly.

{tune in later for some tips/tricks on dealing with growth periods}.

so all that sounds like fun, right?
er, why bother meditating, anyway?

all i can say is
- after a pretty depressing childhood
- years of attending shrinks
- a college-life which cemented a pattern of severe up’s ‘n down’s
- a series of post-college years spent bopping from admin (secretary, not system) to admin job, overqualified & underpaid
- the requisite series of bad relationships
- even a swing thru the Erhardtian consciousness movement & Tony Robbins

…nothing, & i mean nothing has got my head on straight like plain ‘ol meditation.

…& that’s just the ‘work’ part. ‘fixing’ yourself, if you will.
meditation is also fun– it can take you places wouldn’t've believed possible. i used to live at a veggie commune, so i’ve done my share of psychotropic experimentation, & i’ve never hit a state [back then] which i’ve not been able to get to w/ meditation…

…plus, there’s no hangover in the morning.