Angels Deamons and Djinns

Getting to know more about a specific belief

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barneythedino
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Angels Deamons and Djinns

Post #1

Post by barneythedino »

Hi

I have a special interest in angels and similar "spirit" beings such as deamons and banshees

If you believe you have any information on these constructs could you let me know anything vouchsafed to you?

Regards
Barney

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Post #2

Post by Divine Insight »

This is a topic that I have become quite interested in and have studied in some depth. I might just briefly mention also that I believe you meant daemons, not deamons. In fact, insofar as I'm aware, deamons is not even a valid word, so I'm assuming you just made a typo there. ;)

In any case, I became interested in the construction of thought-forms through which spirits might be able to commune with me. I learned so very much as I began to study this fascinating concept. I might add also that most of my knowledge has been guided by what has called to me. In other words, there is a lot of information out there. Many different ideas, claims, and beliefs. I had fortunately already learned to follow what calls to me and not to bother with those things that did not seem inviting to me. Therefore my experience is clearly biased entirely upon what calls to me. I make no secret of this, nor do I apologize for it or defend it in anyway. I'm just stating up front that this is my experience based upon what works for me. My methods may not be right for someone else.

To begin with, I learned from a very wise witch that there is much truth to the cliche, "If you build it, they will come", which was also made famous by the movie "Field of Dreams".

This idea can also be applied to the creation of thought-forms. If you build them (i.e. construct them in your mind) "They will come" (i.e. they will come to life).

It is my understanding that there are basically two ways to do this. I learned this in terms of the difference between "evoking" and "invoking". However I should say right off the bat that these terms may mean entirely different things to different people.

There is also a third way to meet a spirit or daemon via a thought-form. However, in that method you are not "creating" the thought-form but rather just allowing it to appear to you entirely out of the blue. I'm not sure how to label this last experience since it was neither evoked, nor invoked, but simply showed up on it's own out of the blue.

So let me take these one at a time:

First allow me to also say that I am using the terms "Spirit, Daemon, Fairy, Goddess, God, etc." to simply mean "a supernatural consciousness" or "a divine consciousness". Although on a more secular note they can also be thought of as simply a "subconscious consciousness"

Evoking a spirit, daemon, "supernatural consciousness.

I am using the term "evoke" here to basically mean to create from scratch. These are beings of your own creation. Your own design so-to-speak. This doesn't mean that they don't take on their own persona. It simply means that you have created them and because of this you can treat them as "your creations". In other words, you should have no problem just telling these daemons what to do for you or how they can serve you.

I don't nastily boss these beings around, yelling orders at them expecting them to obey me. But I do simply tell them what I want and expect that they will gladly do it for me just as I would expect a good friend to do as I ask without giving me a hard time about it.

I evoked four daemons as my very first experience with thought-forms. They are all female pixies. Their names are Assiah, Yetzirah, Atziluth, and Briah. I created them as thought-forms and they came alive in my mind. For me they are the sentinels to the four gates of consciousness. I call upon these pixies to open these gates to the greater spiritual consciousness of the cosmos.

This was a method that was recommended to me by the wise witch I had mentioned earlier. I not only "built" the four pixies as thought-forms, but I also built an elaborate set of gateways to these consciousnesses in my mind as well.

So I have this large mental construct of not only pixies but of a whole gateway into higher consciousness.

As I say, these pixies are "evoked" thought-forms. In other words, they are on "my side" of the gates of cosmic consciousness. I don't need to invoke them as they are always with me anytime I choose to evoke them.

In a psychic ritual I use these evoked faeries to open the four gates of consciousness. With those gates now open and protected by these pixie sententials I am now free to "Invoke" higher forms of consciousness.


Invoking "supernatural consciousnesses".

As I have said earlier, there are many different ways to do this. I choose the methods that call to me and work best for me. The method I use is to have a preconceived idea of who and what I am calling upon. Because of this, I must first chose a character thought-form. I used ancient mythologies for this.

Through these portals of consciousness I routinely call upon the following thought forms. I always call these through the same consciousness gate. I have labeled my gates, Falias, Gorias, Finias, and Murias. As you might be aware these are also the names of the four cities used in Faery lore. That's where I got these names. My choice. ;)

But in my case these "cities" actually represent realms of consciousness.

From the consciousness of Falias I call upon the following Daemons.

Ariel - The Pagan Archangel of Sovereignty
Gaia - The Goddess of Mother Earth - aka Mother Nature
Cernnunos - Father Nature

From the consciousness of Gorias I call upon

Raphael - The Pagan Archangel of Well-being.
Cerridwen - The Goddess of Gnosis.
Merlin - The Wizard of Camelot

From the consciousness of Finias I call upon

Michael - The Pagan Archangel of Protection
Hecate - The Goddess of Sorcery
Taliesin - The Bard of Camelot

From the consciousness of Murias I call upon

Gabriel - The Pagan Archangel of Love
Artemis - The Goddess of Intuition
Eros and Psyche - The Eternal Lovers.

~~~~~

There are reasons I call this particular gang. ;)

These are mainstays that I call upon often. I like to believe that this configuration is no accident. This paradigm came to be the way it is because these thought-forms actually chose to be in this arrangement. This evolved over time and was done using input and guidance offered by these Daemons themselves.

Other Daemons have shown up on their own without any consideration on my part. In fact, this is where the real "meat" of the situation comes into play.

Remember, in the beginning I said, "If you built, they will come." Well, it is true that all of the thought-forms described above have taken on a "life of their own". But the overall structure was something that I chose to build (using traditional techniques of course). The exact layout, the pixies, the names of the four gates of consciousness, the precise Daemons to choose to fill up this paradigm were basically my conscious choice. And this paradigm came "alive" in my mine as a very real psychic dream.

I also take "Shamanic Journeys" through this paradigm as well.

In any case, for a while I felt like a kid just playing with my imagination. By the way this is precisely what the wise witch I had referred to earlier told me to do. She said, "Just play like a child in your mind. Don't think like an adult. Don't judge it, just have fund and enjoy the fantasy".

So that's what I did. And then it happened.

They came.

Wandering Spirits Join The Psychic Party

One day I was playing in my psychic garden. I had evoked my pixies, opened the gates of consciousness, invoked all my Gods and Goddesses and I was just playing around in my psychic garden. (I should have probably mentioned that this whole paradigm is taking place in an imagined garden). I was actually going around talking to these different invoked daemons. We often played music together and basically had a party.

And then it happened. I noticed some girl doing cartwheels across the lawn of the garden. I never saw her before. She wasn't any of these daemons. Who was she? So I went over and asked her who she was. She said, "Raol". And then she kept doing cartwheels and gymnastics in the garden.

What? Raol? Who the heck is Raol? I kept following her around and asking her question and her answers would always shock me. They were so completely alien to anything was making up! She also seemed more real than the others. She was also more illusive. Harder to pin down. She came and went more freely and seemed to know things that I didn't know.

It was great! I met someone in my dreams that I didn't put there! She would also tell me things about myself that none of these other thought-forms would do. She was definitely unique as a thought-form. Not to mention that I didn't create or not choose her. She just showed up out of the blue. She was the first, but she certainly wasn't the last.

~~~~~

Anyway, the bottom line that I have learned from all of this is that at least one way to do this is to create an imaginary paradigm in your mind first. Make it as complex as you need to in order to "lose" yourself in it. I have a very active and vivid imagination so I needed a very busy and complex paradigm. This is why I had evoked and invoked about 16 Daemons before I could be distracted enough to get truly lost in the psychic journey. Then just wait and "They will come".

~~~~~

Is this Raol, and the others who have come since still just nothing more than my own subconscious imagination? Or are they actual real spirits?

I have no clue. Neither do I care.

As far as I am aware any secular person can do this and have this experience. Whether it's a journey into a spiritual consciousness or simply into our own deeper subconsciousness is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. It's an experience worth having either way. ;)
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Post #3

Post by barneythedino »

Divine Insight wrote:
This is a topic that I have become quite interested in and have studied in some depth.


So i see! It interests me as well, although I don't think I have put as much thought into it as you. Perhaps that's for the best or it might have manifested into something!
Divine Insight wrote: I make no secret of this, nor do I apologize for it or defend it in anyway. I'm just stating up front that this is my experience based upon what works for me. My methods may not be right for someone else.


Thats very open and honest. I would myself be repelled by the idea of just going with what "feels right" and deducing truths from my feelings. I recall as a child having to pick a leaf from my grandma's hedge each visit or I felt something terrible would happen. Since I stopped plucking the leaves in 1977 we have had a hell of a lot of wars. Hopefully the two were not connected :)
Divine Insight wrote:To begin with, I learned from a very wise witch that there is much truth to the cliche, "If you build it, they will come", which was also made famous by the movie "Field of Dreams".

This idea can also be applied to the creation of thought-forms. If you build them (i.e. construct them in your mind) "They will come" (i.e. they will come to life).


I am intrigued by "thought forms". Are these physical manifestations of thoughts? Can they move objects and they have mass? Or are they ideas within the mind?

Divine Insight wrote:There is also a third way to meet a spirit or daemon via a thought-form. However, in that method you are not "creating" the thought-form but rather just allowing it to appear to you entirely out of the blue. I'm not sure how to label this last experience since it was neither evoked, nor invoked, but simply showed up on it's own out of the blue.


I am imagining at the moment that the Djinns you refer to are thoughts and ideas within your mind. I apologize if I have this wrong. Thus what you are describing is conscious thought and unconscious thoughts which are a matter of how we perceive them. I am pretty much making this reply up "on the hoof" so as the thoughts appear they "manifest" and I type them down. Are we in the same ball park here?

Divine Insight wrote:I am using the term "evoke" here to basically mean to create from scratch. These are beings of your own creation. Your own design so-to-speak. ....how they can serve you.


I still am struggling with the actual description of the "being" here. You make it sound as if you can think of a being and it can appear and you can get it to do things.
Divine Insight wrote:I don't nastily boss these beings around, yelling orders at them expecting them to obey me. But I do simply tell them what I want and expect that they will gladly do it for me just as I would expect a good friend to do as I ask without giving me a hard time about it.

I evoked four daemons as my very first experience with thought-forms. They are all female pixies. Their names are Assiah, Yetzirah, Atziluth, and Briah. I created them as thought-forms and they came alive in my mind. For me they are the sentinels to the four gates of consciousness. I call upon these pixies to open these gates to the greater spiritual consciousness of the cosmos.


So these are arbitrary names? They did not exist before you created them? What powers do they have beyond giving you a perceived mental boost? Can you visualize them? I assume you can as they are female and pixies. If so are they visualized in the form of the Swedish Psyke or the Cornish Pixie? Without sounding flippant I hope, do they appear in the sexualised modern form? If they have a form, is this a real form for them?

Divine Insight wrote:Eros and Psyche - The Eternal Lovers.


All the above beings are well known folklore character. Do they have the attributes assigned to them in folklore? So, for example, did "Merlin" your thought construct/idea, in history describe to a british king "two dragons fighting" which was causing structural failure to a tower being built?

~~~~~

Divine Insight wrote:Remember, in the beginning I said, "If you built, they will come." Well, it is true that all of the thought-forms described above have taken on a "life of their own".


they are sentient thoughts separate from your own?

Divine Insight wrote:And this paradigm came "alive" in my mine as a very real psychic dream.


The reality of this dream means that it is different from someone who is just creating fairy stories in their head. These beings are actually real?


Divine Insight wrote:And then it happened. I noticed some girl doing cartwheels across the lawn of the garden. I never saw her before. She wasn't any of these daemons. Who was she? So I went over and asked her who she was. She said, "Raol". And then she kept doing cartwheels and gymnastics in the garden.


so you had a subconscious thought? Or did she arrive from another "realm". She could understand your language and spoke in Modern Day English?
Divine Insight wrote:She also seemed more real than the others. She was also more illusive. Harder to pin down. She came and went more freely and seemed to know things that I didn't know.


How was she more real? What things did she know? Was there anything she knew that you did not or could not?

I gather you don't care if these ideas are real, but you care enough to live a portion of your life in their company.
I would also marvel if you didn't care if a "spirit" world existed when you had access to it.

I would invite you to if you are willing, Invoke/envoke Raol at some point soon for me and I would love to ask her some questions? Perhaps we can here understand these worlds better by this exercise?

If you are willing, I will type a list of questions you could ask her and you can reply after she has been invoked?

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Post #4

Post by Divine Insight »

barneythedino wrote: I am intrigued by "thought forms". Are these physical manifestations of thoughts? Can they move objects and they have mass? Or are they ideas within the mind?
For me they have been entirely thoughts within the mind. They are totally psychic journeys that have no "physical reality" at all.

However, I must qualify this by saying that this is also true of you and me. Our conscious awareness also has no "physical reality" at all. Your very notion of yourself is a "thought-form". Your very identity as a conscious being is an imagined perception. In fact, this is necessarily true if you are going to take a secular position on the matter.

As I say I have been studying this for quite some from many different perspectives. And being a scientist myself I always entertain the secular explanations whenever possible. Because of this I have looked into psychological explanations for these things. And I have discovered something quite interesting.

From a secular point of view we are a brain that creates an imaginary illusion of having a 'self'. We can immagine this in terms of pure secular science by imagining the brain to be some sort of analog computer that has set up some type of feedback loop that comes "alive" as an illusion of consciousness.

~~~~~~ Aside:

I must add at this time that I personally have great difficulty accepting this purely secular world view. I have reasons to believe that there is more to it than this and I confess that I lean toward and Eastern Mystical worldview of reality. I won't go into that in any detail here other than to say that as philosophies the only real difference is that science begins by assuming that there is a physical world "out there" and tries to describe it using objective reductionism. Whereas the Mystical view begins by assuming that the foundation of reality reside "in here", and then approaches an explanation of as subjective holism.

In other words, science is a philosophy that begins by assuming there's something physical "out there" whereas Eastern Mysticism begins with the only thing we can truly be certain of and that is "I AM".

So I think that the mystical view actually starts on a stronger foundation. And I also believe that holism fits better with known science, especially the sciences of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

~~~~~ End Aside

Having said all of that, I have approach these physic journeys from a secular psychological point of view. Since our brains can actually create a valid "self" or individual personality, then why can they not created multiple "selves" or individual personalities. And if a brain did succeed in doing this who is to say which "self" is the real self? And which ones are 'false selves'? :-k

And this of course brings to mind the secular knowledge of things like schizophrenia and multiple personality disorders etc. Clearly the brain does sometimes create multiple personalities within a single individual brain.

So with this in mind, if Raol, is nothing more than an independent creation of my own mind, then I have certainly succeeded in doing something unique to say the least. I would have created a valid secular "thought form" that took on a life of it's own. That's pretty powerful stuff right there even in a purely secular worldview I think.

Of course this isn't exactly the same as schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder because I am not having the experience that I am Raol. I definitely view Raol as someone different from me. Even though she only visits me in psychic journeys.
barneythedino wrote:
I am imagining at the moment that the Djinns you refer to are thoughts and ideas within your mind. I apologize if I have this wrong. Thus what you are describing is conscious thought and unconscious thoughts which are a matter of how we perceive them. I am pretty much making this reply up "on the hoof" so as the thoughts appear they "manifest" and I type them down. Are we in the same ball park here?
I think so to some degree. Your thoughts come into your mind and you type them down. If you were to lose that post and need to retype it later having forgotten what you had said you might type something quite different. So even your thoughts are dynamic and not carved in stone. None the less, many of your thoughts are no doubt guided by what you believe to be true and what you believe your "agenda" might be.

I think the KEY in psychic journeys is to lose track of any and all "agendas". Only then can the "magic" of true spontaneity of thought occur. Another tool that is valuable in this quest is transcendental mediation. This is mediation where you completely detach yourself from all thoughts entirely. Of course the thoughts are still there. They are still being manufactured by your brain (or wherever they come from). In transcendental meditation you simply watch as your thoughts flow by you like a river and simply let them flow not grabbing onto any of them.

It took me quite a long time to master that. And I did that long before I became interested in actually pursuing psychic journeys of a semi-controlled nature.

So you really need to "let go" of thoughts and agendas before you can have a truly spontaneously psychic experience.
barneythedino wrote:
I still am struggling with the actual description of the "being" here. You make it sound as if you can think of a being and it can appear and you can get it to do things.
Yes this is correct. And that part is actually quite easy. Right now imagine in your mind a pink bunny rabbit. Can you visualize in your mind a pink bunny rabbit?

Now imagine this bunny rabbit picking up a wooden stake and hammer that is laying on the ground. It then stands the stake up on end and uses the hammer to pound the stake into the ground. Then it pulls out of a pocket in it's pink fur a white flag and attaches it to the pole. Imagine a breeze then makes the white flag flutter and on the flag you read, "You did it!"

And there you go. You just did it. With a little help from me you just created a pink bunny in your mind that set a flag pole and flew a flag saying "You did it!'

So that much is easy. That's the piece of cake part.

In fact, you might even say, "Your dog gone right I did it! I imagined the whole thing. No biggie there!"

But that's just how to get started.

Next you need to believe in these characters that you create. And you need to start imagining them in a way that is believable to you. If you're a naysayer than that's what you will create. That's a given.
barneythedino wrote:
So these are arbitrary names? They did not exist before you created them? What powers do they have beyond giving you a perceived mental boost?
I chose these names from another folklore. And yes, they do have "psychic powers" for me. And you can take that in a purely secular way. When I say that they have "psychic powers" I simply meant that they give the psyche a mental boost, just as you have suggested. That's correct.
barneythedino wrote: Can you visualize them? I assume you can as they are female and pixies. If so are they visualized in the form of the Swedish Psyke or the Cornish Pixie? Without sounding flippant I hope, do they appear in the sexualised modern form? If they have a form, is this a real form for them?
I created them entirely by choice. I actually used pictures of "pixies" or "faeries" as fodder to spark my imagination. And yes they do indeed appear in the sexualized modern form. They are all females, they basically appears as young women with wings similar to butterflies. I could have just as easily created pink rabbits for this part of the psychic journey, but I chose to use sexy female pixies.

I confess that this was entirely a personal preference. ;)

There are reasons why I chose these images, but that's unimportant in general terms, it's only important to me.
barneythedino wrote:
All the above beings are well known folklore character. Do they have the attributes assigned to them in folklore? So, for example, did "Merlin" your thought construct/idea, in history describe to a british king "two dragons fighting" which was causing structural failure to a tower being built?
The beauty of folklore is that it offers a wide variety of tales to choose from as psychic fodder. I don't use folklore as an anchor to weigh me down. I use it as inspiration to lift me up. Therefore I pick and choose to "create" my own personal characters from these folklore as I would like for them to be. If I read something negative about one of the characters that I chose I simply discard it. It doesn't serve my purpose. Instead I embrace the folklore that I find interesting and even embellish it. When I'm done my invoked daemons are unique to my psyche. Which they should be.

This is the method that I learned from various different teachers, and it works well for me. It may not be a method that others would choose to employ. In fact, these very teaches have suggested that there are many different ways of doing this but that this method is fine if it appeals to the psyche of the person who is interested in having a psychic experience. ;)
barneythedino wrote: they are sentient thoughts separate from your own?
I don't make that claim. But I will say that they have all taught me things. Is this just me teaching myself things that I should already know? Could be. In fact, I would argue that if this is the case then this is a very good secular psychology that works very well. ;)
barneythedino wrote:
The reality of this dream means that it is different from someone who is just creating fairy stories in their head. These beings are actually real?
I'm not sure that I know what you mean by "real". If I am "real" and I create a being in my mind, then surely that being is at least as "real" as me.
barneythedino wrote:
How was she more real? What things did she know? Was there anything she knew that you did not or could not?

I gather you don't care if these ideas are real, but you care enough to live a portion of your life in their company.
I would also marvel if you didn't care if a "spirit" world existed when you had access to it.

I would invite you to if you are willing, Invoke/envoke Raol at some point soon for me and I would love to ask her some questions? Perhaps we can here understand these worlds better by this exercise?

If you are willing, I will type a list of questions you could ask her and you can reply after she has been invoked?
I have no interest in doing that. It would not serve my purposes at all.

I have no need or desire to prove anything to you.

If you're happy that my psychic journeys are entirely nothing more than secular imagine that's fine with me. I won't even argue that point. ;)

In fact, I often say that the type of psychic journeys that I employ are valuable even in a purely secular world. If all it amounts to is a journey into our own subconsciousness, then that has secular value in and of itself.

I make no claim that I have contacted any actual "spirits".

And even if I did how could I be sure that the spirit I contacted isn't just a second construct of my own brain? Clearly even secular science recognizes this possibility as they call these things "brain disorders" and have categorized them by symptom.

If I could achieve "controlled" hallucinations of lucid conversations with other beings I would be elated. That would be cool.

I don't claim to have even achieved that. My communication with Raol is extremely symbolic and murky. But quite interesting none the less.
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Post #5

Post by barneythedino »

[Replying to post 4 by Divine Insight]

Hi Divine

Thanks for your interesting post.

It seems we are really talking about consciousness. To this end I wonder if you feel that the biochemistry within our brains is conditional to the "feeling" of self.

For example, if we switch off all bioelectrical signals within areas of the brain apart from the autonomic nervous systems do we have the "self"?

We can see this in action from brain trauma and psychosurgery, we see multiple personalities well formed with different well established personalities in MP disorders within mental health. We can see personalities reconfigure after brain damage and a different person emerge. I have 26 years working in Mental Health and quite some personal experience of seeing such events.

This is why I would argue for the self as the materialistic construct of our brains without which the self does not exist. A teapot has no self, a worm has a limited self based on fight and flight and food and warmth. A cat shows affection and solidarity, an ape has a social group and humans debate theology!

Thus I see my "self" as very much opposite to "thought forms" and i feel that this term needs some very clear definitions if it is to be useful.

Eastern Mysticism requires physical reality or the "I AM" becomes " I AM NOT....and I cant actually even think about this, or wonder if I am!"

Within MPD which is the real self? Well the one that is firing away at the time! The others are dormant and dont even know they exist as they dont fire. I have seen Susan return to the Ward I am a Manager for with a set of paints and brushes, take them to her room and wake up as Anne who wonders what the paints are doing in her room and chucks them away, quite upset that Sue has spent her money on something she hates! Its very tragic yet fascinating to see.

Raol exists within your thoughts and is uncreated as far as you are aware. The kicker here is the word aware.
I wonder how you can ever be free from Agendas? How would you be sure you were?

Thanks for the Pink Bunny. I will call her Miss Flopsy. She really is really cute and is in cartoon form. I suppose I could have created her a realistic rabbit but just with pink fur and doing anthropomorphic things. That doesn't gel with me so she is a cartoon form. Is she real? Is the realistic bunny also real? Are they independent of me now? I would need some evidence that they both were.

The Sexy Pixies is what I would have gone for too! Whats the point of making a fat frumpy pixie in a burka. I would Imagine Raoel is also friendly, happy sweet and kind.

I accept Raoel might not want to be tested. It does, and this might sound cheeky, appear as if the Fairy "Tinkerbells" mythology of being believed in as a necessity of her existence may have subconsciously formed part of creating her :)
It's a pity as it could have possibly opened up new understandings of thought and sentience.

Thanks for telling me about your experiences and again thanks for Miss Flopsy. I will no doubt like to see her again.

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Post #6

Post by Divine Insight »

barneythedino wrote: It seems we are really talking about consciousness.
Yes, and no. This can depend on precisely what we mean by consciousness. Awareness might be a better term to use.
barneythedino wrote: To this end I wonder if you feel that the biochemistry within our brains is conditional to the "feeling" of self.
Again the answer is yes and no. To begin with it's the other way around. And also I would like to replace the term "feeling" with the term "experience". Because after all you can't have a "feeling" unless you are experiencing it. ;)

With that clarification in mind, the "experience" of self is conditional on the biochemistry of the brain. However, that may not be the only conditions under which an experience of self can become manifest.
barneythedino wrote: For example, if we switch off all bioelectrical signals within areas of the brain apart from the autonomic nervous systems do we have the "self"?
The answer to this question is extremely complex. It even has to do with the concept of time in very deep ways. We naturally think of time as we "experience" time. The time that we experience is actually the time described by General Relativity. That type of time is both entropic (i.e. dependent upon entropy) and also dependent upon the macro fabric of spacetime. But that concept of time does not constitute the deeper truths of reality. And I believe that I can speak of these as truths even in a secular sense because these truths appear to have been revealed to us by secular science (i.e. through Quantum Mechanics).

Quantum mechanical "time" is quite different from the entropic time that we experience in the macro world. It is in fact, non-entropic. It is also independent of "space" or location.

Now this may seem totally unrelated to your question but it not. You ask, "If we switch off all bioelectrical signals within areas of the brain apart from the autonomic nervous systems do we have the "self"

But my first question in return is "When are you going to do this?" And that is a question of time. Most likely you are going to describe this even in terms of entropic spacetime. And the reason this is important is because the foundation of experience does not take place in spacetime, it takes place in the non-entropic time where the concept of duration is meaningless. Duration itself is a product of spacetime.

So when you talk about switching something off you're talking about a spacetime event. Not an event that takes place in the non-entropic eternal "now" for lack of a better description.
barneythedino wrote: We can see this in action from brain trauma and psychosurgery, we see multiple personalities well formed with different well established personalities in MP disorders within mental health. We can see personalities reconfigure after brain damage and a different person emerge. I have 26 years working in Mental Health and quite some personal experience of seeing such events.

This is why I would argue for the self as the materialistic construct of our brains without which the self does not exist.
Yes the "self" is indeed a construction. It's a materialistic illusion, if you like.

This is the Eastern Mysticism view of the self. So yes. I agree with this completely.
barneythedino wrote: A teapot has no self, a worm has a limited self based on fight and flight and food and warmth. A cat shows affection and solidarity, an ape has a social group and humans debate theology!
I would state this differently.

There is no obvious experience associated with a teapot.

The experience associated with a worm appears to be limited but not zero.

Even plants may be having an experience.

A cat appears to have quite profound experience.

Apes have extreme experiences no doubt being close to humans in creating their own delusions of experience from imagination.

Humans, which are themselves nothing other than advanced apes no doubt create far more experience through delusion than they actually have from physical stimuli.

If you have been studying psychology and human experience you are probably aware that if you show to human a video or picture of a very painful event (like someone having a their fingers bent backwards to the point of breaking. They will cringe and actually feel the experience of this pain just from having seen the picture or video. When in physical reality nothing has happened to them at all other than they have been fed pictures of a very painful event.

So much of our experience is created by our imagination.

Of course, physically breaking fingers is no fun either. But then again I don't deny the existence of the physical world, and neither do the Eastern Mystics.
barneythedino wrote:
Thus I see my "self" as very much opposite to "thought forms" and i feel that this term needs some very clear definitions if it is to be useful.
I agree that all terms need extreme elaboration. Terms and definitions are nothing more than our attempt as humans to use symbols to convey concepts, and typically language fails to provide an unambiguous means of communication.

This is especially true if the language itself is designed around a philosophy of a reality that it both materialistic and reducible. Those assumptions become a major thesis behind the definitions of terms used to convey concepts.
barneythedino wrote:
Eastern Mysticism requires physical reality or the "I AM" becomes " I AM NOT....and I cant actually even think about this, or wonder if I am!"
I prefer to say that it simply requires organized information. And when information becomes organized we call that "physical manifestation". So yes physical manifestation is paramount to the experience of "I AM". Especially when we experience this as "I AM THIS", or "I AM THAT", or "I AM THAT I AM".

The Eastern Mystics simply say, 'Tat T'vam Asi", meaning "You Are That".

You are what you are at any given moment.
barneythedino wrote: Within MPD which is the real self? Well the one that is firing away at the time! The others are dormant and dont even know they exist as they dont fire. I have seen Susan return to the Ward I am a Manager for with a set of paints and brushes, take them to her room and wake up as Anne who wonders what the paints are doing in her room and chucks them away, quite upset that Sue has spent her money on something she hates! Its very tragic yet fascinating to see.
That's quite interesting that you have direct experience with this sort of thing. I imagine that MPD would be a horrible experience since in those cases it is totally uncontrollable. Have you ever met any patients who have MPD who can actually control which personality they become?
barneythedino wrote: Raol exists within your thoughts and is uncreated as far as you are aware. The kicker here is the word aware.
I wonder how you can ever be free from Agendas? How would you be sure you were?
I don't think I can be free from agendas entirely. In fact, this is what makes this type of psychic journeying quite difficult for me. I almost always have an agenda. Although agendas in and of themselves are not necessarily detrimental. I think much of it can depend upon the nature of the agenda.
barneythedino wrote: Thanks for the Pink Bunny. I will call her Miss Flopsy. She really is really cute and is in cartoon form. I suppose I could have created her a realistic rabbit but just with pink fur and doing anthropomorphic things. That doesn't gel with me so she is a cartoon form. Is she real? Is the realistic bunny also real? Are they independent of me now? I would need some evidence that they both were.
Getting to the point where they become "independent" takes time. It also take trust, and as with everything it requires some belief. My pixies have done thing that have surprised me. Typically I ask them to do thing and imagine them doing them. So there's nothing new there. That's the same as the pink bunny.

But every once in a while a pixie will do something that surprises me. And then I'll realized, "Hey that needed to be done but I wasn't thinking about it at the time".

So it seemed as though the pixies were aware of something that I was not fully aware of. Of course, I may have easily been subconsciously aware of it. But still, if the pixies are doing things that I'm only subconsciously aware of that progress. ;)
barneythedino wrote: The Sexy Pixies is what I would have gone for too! Whats the point of making a fat frumpy pixie in a burka. I would Imagine Raoel is also friendly, happy sweet and kind.
They are very sexy. ;) And I chose to them to be way. And there was actually mundane logical reasoning behind this. As I was beginning to build this psychic paradigm I was also communicating with several different teachers at the time. Some where "Witches", some were Mystic teachers. And the mystical teachers came from two main schools of thought. Some where Eastern mystical gurus (i.e. Taoists and Buddhist) and others were Native American teaching "Shamanic Journeying". Added to the mix were also secular psychologists. But naturally I sought out psychologists who knew something of psychic journeying and saw some value in it. So I did choose my "teachers" with a bias for my agenda.

But all of these teachers seemed to have a common agreement that the best road to success is to follow the path that calls to you, and not to be judgmental about it. If something calls to you, just "Go with the flow" if it feels right. And starting out with sexy pixies definitely called to me. So I didn't fight it.
barneythedino wrote:
I accept Raoel might not want to be tested. It does, and this might sound cheeky, appear as if the Fairy "Tinkerbells" mythology of being believed in as a necessity of her existence may have subconsciously formed part of creating her :)
It's a pity as it could have possibly opened up new understandings of thought and sentience.
Well, it took me quite a while to get to the point where I could have a totally spontaneous experience like Raol. Treating her like a laboratory experiment at this point would be totally detrimental and counter-productive to my purposes.

I do interrogate her about the mysteries of reality and she does respond to this inquiries. But it's no where near straight-forward communication. It's not like sitting down at a table with her and simply asking, "So what's life like in spirit land", and expecting her to just ramble on about it.

My encounters with her have been far more mysterious. She doesn't talk. She communicates entirely telepathically and even that isn't in words, it's more like thoughts become entangled with mine along with symbols and visualizations. I have to sort through this stuff in an effort to try to figure out what she's saying. And I also sense that she's doing this in riddles expecting that it will take some effort on my part to grasp what she's saying.

In a way it's funny that you want to "test" Raol, because in a very real way I feel like she's the one who is testing me. I find her to be challenging as it is.
barneythedino wrote: Thanks for telling me about your experiences and again thanks for Miss Flopsy. I will no doubt like to see her again.
Well, just as a final note I feel that I can offer something that you may find useful down the road.

I can clearly see that your views are indeed materialistic. You are thinking of the world as being the results of external material. And because this is your view (your mental perception of reality), you will most likely carry that same vantage point over to thinking about any "spirit world" that might exist.

In other words, you most likely imagine a totally separate "spirit world" that is reducible as being quite different from physical reality. It is a separate world and you most likely imagine it to exist in entropic time and space. In other words, you imagine that it is filled with "individual" spirits all of whom have their own individual identities of "self".

I would suggest that it is highly unlikely that such a spirit world exists. The spirit that is you is the spirit that is me. There is only one "I AM" and it is eternal. It has no beginning and no end. It becomes manifest in organized information which we perceive to be the physical world. But all experience belongs to the one "I AM". There is no other.

I think you even recognized this in the mental health patient you referenced:
barneythedino wrote: Within MPD which is the real self? Well the one that is firing away at the time! The others are dormant and dont even know they exist as they dont fire. I have seen Susan return to the Ward I am a Manager for with a set of paints and brushes, take them to her room and wake up as Anne who wonders what the paints are doing in her room and chucks them away, quite upset that Sue has spent her money on something she hates! Its very tragic yet fascinating to see.
Are there two different "I AMs" in Susan/Anne?

Or is it the same "I AM" having multiple experiences?

We can't go into Susan/Anne's body and discover for ourselves what is actually being experienced. But we can think about other scenarios.

Here's something to think about:

Imagine that you wake up one day with total amnesia of who you are. You can't remember your name, you friends, or even were you work or what you had been doing for a living. But for some strange reason you can still talk and you know how to do things.

Suddenly you are no longer the "you" you had always been.

But "you" are still having an experience. You are having this experience of amnesia. So even though the brain had previously constructed a previous "self" that "self" is gone.

People you used to know come into visit you but you don't recognized them. They also comment on things that have changed about you. You now appear to like foods that you used to hate, and so on. Not only have you lost your old "self" but you have even lost your own desires, likes and dislikes.

Yet "you" are still the one who is having this experience.

The Eastern mystics would say, "That is the real you!"

The real you is the entity that is having an experience. And that is all that truly defines you. All else is illusion. Or an artificial creation of the material world.

Now imagine that you go to bed and fall asleep and lose consciousness. The next morning you wake up. Is this new manifestation of consciousness still "you"? I think you would agree that it is. You don't die every night and a new person is born every morning. Or is that what's actually happening? :-k

Take it one step further. Imagine that you die. Your body dies and never reawakens. But you suddenly find yourself laying in a crib as a new born baby crying. You have total amnesia of your previous life. But "you" are still having an experience. You are now a new born baby crying in a crib.

How does this work? The mystics don't know, this is why they call it Mysticism. ;)

But the philosophy comes from the idea that something is having an experience and that something is clearly "you".

~~~~~

Now let's go back to the materialistic world view. All that exists is basically innate material. Innate in the sense that it is not having any experience. So this material evolves to become complex analogy brains. Still what are those brains by this same innate material. So if that brain is having an experience, then just exactly what is it that is having that experience?

The innate material from which the brain is made?

Some kind of "emergent property" created by this biological brain?

And "emergent property" is having an experience?

The idea behind mysticism is that the stuff the universe is made of must innately be capable of having an experience. And therefore that is the essence of "you".

You are the stuff the universe is made of. We call it "spirit" for lack of a better word. There is only one spiritual entity and we are it. Tat t'vam asi.
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barneythedino
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Post #7

Post by barneythedino »

[Replying to post 4 by Divine Insight]

Hi
Sam Harris's work in neuroscience might interest you? He works on FMRI scans and proposes that we take actions before we are aware that we will take them.

I have a lot of problems with this although I am a fan of much of Harris's work.

When we start talking about space time, none of us, not even the most brilliant of minds in quantum science really actually knows what they are speaking of. It's too easy to slip into metaphysics. I accept that there are strange things within a planck time length. we don't understand them. We can even mathematically measure them, but as most mathematicians will tell you you cant trust maths at this level.

I say it dosnt matter when I switch the switch off. Perhaps the switch was never "on".
I can observe however the transformation of patients after ECT or serotonin re uptake inhibitors actually affect the "self".


Your example of finger breaking is i feel easily explained on a neurological and social level. We can imagine the same happening to us and so trigger a adverse feeling. We can do the same if we see a footballer distressed after he misses a goal, if we are really into football! We have empathy. This is a good valid social construct that enables us to be social animals and work effectively in packs. Wolves have it. They mourn their dead.

I must say I lose you when Miss Flopsy becomes independent. I feel she is a momentary series of impulses in my mind. That she has electro chemical signals going on in a sub brain of her own is ...un-evidenced..to put it simply.

My brain surprises me sometimes. I dreamed a few months back that I was in charge of a new ward. Everything was going spanners. The windows were being put through, there were AWOLs all over the places and multiple O/D's. There was no staff and as I was surveying the mess My Senior Nurse and the Acute Lead came up behind me with disappointed looks on their faces.

Turning to see them , I pointed at the Acute Lead and said to him "Arrh...this is a fucking DREAM!!" then woke up.
On waking i said out loud "Seriously brain, that's the kinda shit you feel like doing to me?". Then I rationalized. Its my fears and insecurity just really having a good old typhoon whilst my superego is on its lunchbreak.


Hopefully Raoul will get more comfortable with communication. Tell her via nonverbal telepathy, (would that be thoughts within thoughts?) if you like about our mails and i am sure if she doesn't want to say anything then she wont.

There appear to be two different personalities in the MPD client. FMRI studies on other MPD cases show the same sections of brain activity activating in different ways.

In your example of amnesia there are documented cases of people liking strawberry for example and after tasting them still really liking/ hating the experience. The pathways are still burned in the manner before the amnesia, but like a rebooting computer seem off kilter with accessing the pathways.

Sleep does not equal unconsciousness. The brain is very much chugging away and accessing the conscious during sleep. You hear a dog barking at night, you run with a friendly /angry dog in a dream.

When my body dies with no current tech to reboot the brain, the electro chemical impulses just dissipate into various other energy forms such as heat/light/ potential
. They you might say "are restored to the universe so we never die" I would say I momentarily give the universe the power to make a light bulb glow, if it could be harnessed. (which it cant!)

I am not the kinetic energy of my body hitting the ground. I am not the heat energy of my body cells breaking down or having a hot flush because I have high blood pressure.

Yes, my brain is the source of me. A platter which by means of a wonderfully intricate series of connections I am able to experience. Taske the connections away and I cant. Rearrange them and I am different.

No.

I am the collection of experiences and reactions. the genetics and chemistry that is, what I and I alone, experience as "me" until i am no more.

I cant call that spirit. That word is tied up with too much baggage.

Regards and thanks for the discussion
Barney

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Re: Angels Deamons and Djinns

Post #8

Post by Yahu »

barneythedino wrote: Hi

I have a special interest in angels and similar "spirit" beings such as deamons and banshees

If you believe you have any information on these constructs could you let me know anything vouchsafed to you?

Regards
Barney
I have known people involved but my question to you is why would you want become involved in that? Everyone I have known either repented of their involvement or died because of it.

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Re: Angels Deamons and Djinns

Post #9

Post by barneythedino »

[Replying to Yahu]

Hi.
Everyone you know who claims to know about angels and demons amounts to what? Two people? Three?
I'm not " involved " in it. I'm just interested in people's belief.
Do you have any ideas on what they are? Where did you get those ideas from?

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Re: Angels Deamons and Djinns

Post #10

Post by Yahu »

barneythedino wrote: [Replying to Yahu]

Hi.
Everyone you know who claims to know about angels and demons amounts to what? Two people? Three?
I'm not " involved " in it. I'm just interested in people's belief.
Do you have any ideas on what they are? Where did you get those ideas from?
Yes, I know what they are.

As to where I got the ideas... I got involved with a beautiful girl I met in Tech School in the Air Force. She had enlisted under a buddy program with a friend from home. It turned out that friend was a powerful witch and was the prime candidate to become the next worldwide high priestess of her goddess. That 'goddess' was just the ghost of a half-breed nephilim, ie half-human half-angel, the second ranked principality of hell.

I married the girl but spend 3 years in conflict with the witch only to loose my wife in the conflict. That conflict ended with over 100 people prosecuted and about a dozen dead. So yes, I have some experience with dealing with spiritual forces and I spent many years researching what I had been up against. Basically that battle was a modern day re-enactment of the conflict between Elijah and queen Jezebel, who was a high priestess of the same goddess.

The demonic realm is made up of spirits/ghosts not fallen angels. All angels that sinned are in prison and are not let out to interact with mankind until the time of judgement. It is primarily the spirits of their offspring, the most powerful nephilim that rule over most of the realms of the spirits of the dead.

The witch and her coven had the ability to see into the spiritual realm and see the spirits and angels around them. My only experience with angels were when they came to my aid on two occasions and the coven could see them. One of the witches repented of her involvement and became a christian and a close friend of one of my friends. I found out all about the events from the coven's point of view as a result from her and from the high priestess. That high priestess ended up in prison and abandoned by her goddess so she repented and return to her Catholic upbringing. I learned more when she got out of prison and returned home and attended the same Catholic church as my in-laws.

So I knew a girl that was deeply involved in witchcraft and was inducted into the top level mysteries of that ancient pagan mystery religion. She knew exactly who and what her 'goddess' was and that 'goddess' had been appearing to her since she had been 14. She had been my wife's best friend. Those events took place in the 1980s.

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