Oeaohoo

Being traditionally oriented doesn’t necessarily correlate to voting for the Republican party. The Republicans might have grown more right-wing but they certainly haven’t become better representatives of tradition. It is the neocon free-market strand of the right which is just as vacuous and subversive as the socialism of the left. Also, the white majority in America is getting smaller (I believe it is around 60% now) and non-white people of a traditional orientation are much less likely to vote Republican. I would describe myself as traditionally oriented but I would never vote for a party like the “Conservatives” of my country or the Republicans because I don’t think they stand for any real tradition.

I have more of a Dionysian temperament. Leo’s deepest teachings are more profound but Nietzsche has been more important to me personally. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and Nobody was the first book that I read religiously, in the sense of returning to it again and again and always discovering a deeper level of meaning. What about yourself? Incidentally, the name Oeaohoo is from a Theosophical text which my favourite composer Scriabin used to great effect in the choral part of his symphony Prometheus: The Poem of Fire. This is very Dionysian music. It means Logos or the Absolute:

@AtheisticNonduality Condensing what I have said above, I would say that Nietzsche was a prophet and a magician (in the sense of one who seeks to unite contemplation with action) whereas Leo is more of a contemplative and an intellectual (in the higher sense). In Nietzsche’s own terminology, he is more Dionysian whereas Leo is more Apollonian. What makes you say that 40% of Americans are like this? Is this from a poll or was it how many people voted for Trump in the last election?

Haha, it made sense before anyway! I see what you mean about teaching style. I have recently been reading some Gnostic texts and they were extremely insistent on emphasising the apophatic aspect of God. On the one hand it is a very enigmatic and intuitive way to express truth; on the other hand, it is quite imprecise and lends itself to a vague and formless teaching which could be exploited to smuggle in anti-spiritual ideas. Incidentally, some of the Gnostic Creation myths have a slightly “hyper-dimensional” quality in that out of the “Pleroma” or Silence are produced various different worlds or “aeons”. It might be interesting to expand this model to include those metaphysical systems which fit in between the gaps of the levels you currently have. For example, I would say that the German idealism of the 1800s (Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche) exists somewhere between Physicalism and Analytic Idealism in that, whilst everything here is seen as Will and Idea, the “everything” in question is mostly physical. I don’t have such a clear idea on what would fill the gaps of the other levels but here are some examples: between animism and religious dogmatism would be modern forms of paganism which are now forced to set themselves apart from Christian dogmatism, and between religious fundamentalism and physicalism would be Biblical literalists.

@Bird Larry None of the people you mentioned denigrate knowledge except as a possible hindrance for certain people and at a certain point on the spiritual path. For example, OSHO was probably confronted with a lot of mediocre intellectuals who had a merely bookish knowledge. Buddha was confronted with Brahmans who could recite the Vedas but didn’t know their true Self. This kind of knowledge is stagnant and dead. However, there is another kind of knowledge: why else did all of these people spend most of their time speaking to people? What else is Gnosis? Jnana Yoga is literally “the path of knowledge”! One translation of Buddha is: “One who Knows”.

@AtheisticNonduality I assume Leonian means Leo’s philosophy? The thing I have always valued most highly in Nietzsche is his radical disdain for all of the mundane ways in which people divide up their lives: work and play, for example. Even in the preface to his first book on Greek tragedy he had criticised those ‘who will find it distasteful to see an aesthetic problem taken so seriously, if they can see art as no more than an entertaining irrelevance, an easily dispensable tinkle of bells next to the “seriousness of life”: as if no one was aware what this contrast with the “seriousness of life” amounted to. Let these serious people know that I am convinced that art is the supreme task and the truly metaphysical activity of this life”. Leo on the other hand loves to distinguish between different areas of life: you can work on your relationships, your career, your business and so on, “ad infinitum”! Nietzsche largely rejected progressivism - “progress is merely a modern idea, that is to say a false idea” - and even evolutionism whereas Leo strongly believes in progress. The Last Man, the most despicable man, that Zarathustra prophetically describes is very much in conformity with the eschatology of other religions whereas Spiral Dynamics denies this in favour of a seemingly infinite evolution. There is an overblown hyper-masculinity in Nietzsche (the “blond beast” and so on) whereas I would say that Leo’s teachings and even more so the Actualized community are more feminised. Their style of presentation is probably the most noticeable difference. As part of the project of active non-duality that I have already mentioned, Nietzsche sought to abolish the distinction between style and substance: ‘The more abstract a truth which one wishes to teach, the more one must first entice the senses.’ Leo, on the other hand, speaks in a mostly neutral, if a little preachy, tone and only occasionally slips into an emotional outburst. In MBTI terms, I would say that Nietzsche is much stronger with Te and Leo with Ti: Nietzsche is probably an INTJ (like us, I believe) while Leo is an INTP. On the other hand, they have a lot in common. Nietzsche had a very clear vision regarding the limitations of positivism, materialistic atomism, the false idol of scientism and all of that sort of thing which Leo is also very strong on. The perspectivism and radical deconstruction of late Nietzsche is similar to some of Leo’s teachings, and whatever remains in Nietzsche of Schopenhauer’s metaphysical idealism would also be in accordance with this. There are many hints towards even a metaphysical non-dualism in Nietzsche’s later works, but - in my opinion these works represent a study in the Left-Hand path - it is a sort of inverted non-duality where, like in Heraclitus and in certain strands of Buddhism, everything is reduced to mere flux and becoming: “Now just as people distinguish between lightning and its flash, and interpret the latter as the action which is performed by a subject which is called lightning, so also does popular morality distinguish strength from the expression of strength, as though behind the strong man there existed some indifferent neutral substratum which enjoyed the freedom to express strength or not. But there is no such substratum, there is no “being” behind the action, the effect, the becoming; “the agent” is a mere accessory to the action. The action is everything. In point of fact, people duplicate the action, when they make the lightning flash, it is the action of an action; they make the same phenomenon first a cause, and then, secondly, the effect of that cause. The scientists fail to improve matters when they say, “Force moves, force causes”, and so on. Our science is still, in spite of being cool and calculating, a dupe of the tricks of language, and has never rid itself of that superstitious channelling “the subject”…’ It is a variation on the teaching of anatman, with a peculiar emphasis on immanence and a certain kind of naturalism that are motivated by his anti-Christian prejudices. This makes his philosophy quite dangerous because he refuses the necessary self-annihilation and opening up of oneself to transcendence, which in my opinion is why he went insane. Another thing I have always valued in creators of any kind is the sense of witnessing the unfolding of a character, which I think you can see very clearly in Nietzsche and Leo’s work. There is probably much more that could be said but this is all that comes to mind right now. The best commentary I have come across on Nietzsche is this little essay: https://www.anthologiablog.com/amp/cosmopolitan-view-of-nietzsche-by-ananda-coomaraswamy

A summary if you still can’t see it: It’s a guy interviewing some senile and misguided Trump supporting Americans about the January 6 Insurrection hearing. Most of them are ignorant of it (two typical modern bimbos don’t even know it happened!) or deny it altogether. It reminds me of that joke: Why wasn’t Jesus born in America? Because they couldn’t find a single wise man!

I had the same problem. You should be able to see it here: https://mobile.twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1540125156705714177 (I think this is the same thing!)

Exactly. I was originally going to suggest that you remove the old top one (mystics who teach that “the truth cannot be spoken”) because almost everyone within the “mysticism” category would already agree with that. In a way, even scientists who believe that everything is physical believe that! It is hard to speak in pure physics… What makes you say that only the new top one is “hyper-dimensional”? The lower form of mysticism and even the idealism you describe could integrate hyper-dimensions within their metaphysics: there is no separation between dimensions, all dimensions occur within the mind.

To paraphrase Woody Allen: What if Spiral Dynamics isn’t true and progress isn’t real? In that case, I’ll definitely have cast the wrong vote! I suppose if these are just synonyms for the most wise and integrated person this could still be true. Vote instead for the people who want to make sure as many children as possible can have their genitals cut off? Who want to make USA stand for Usury, Sodomy and Abortion? The whole “democratic” system is morally bankrupt! The choice is between the tyranny of high finance or the tyranny of over-socialised leftist nut-jobs, and increasingly - because global capitalism likes to use progressive ideology as a disguise and even a tool - this isn’t even a choice… That being said, there is a sense in which the right today are more corrupt, even from the anti-progressive viewpoint, and that is their basic inauthenticity: we must remember that the left-right distinction comes from the French Revolution which was itself a radically leftist movement; since that time and thus by definition, all the conservative right has had to “conserve” are the progressive victories of the left, which has reduced them to hypocrisy and to the status of a vacuous vessel to be filled by the corrupting influence of malicious interests. After all, what is the point of trying to conserve something which seeks only to destroy itself? Like Zarathustra said, “that which you cannot teach to fly, teach to fall faster!”

I think this is just a convenient way of speaking, implying that the centre or general state of one’s consciousness has shifted to a new level. It doesn’t necessary imply that you have totally jettisoned the previous stages. That being said, the “next” stage does tend to demonise the one before it, tendentiously highlighting its worst aspects: for example, Orange and Green like to paint all traditional religiosity (Blue) with the colours of modern evangelicals and religious fundamentalists; Green likes to portray all state-craft as Machiavellian despotism and colonial racism; and even Yellow views Green as dangerous, naive and misguided. At least as I understanding it, according to Spiral Progress it is only once you reach “Tier 2” than you can truly start to “transcend and include” the lower stages. Why not? I can see that this alone isn’t enough but the actions people take tell you a lot about them.

Aristotle, one of the most influential political theorists of human history, would completely agree with you: Anyway, the type of politics you are describing today is a total sham so you aren't missing out on anything in avoiding it!

There are plenty of Blue stories about all of these things (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, even Beowulf!) and overcoming weakness and temptation are absolutely Blue values, so I'm not sure what you mean by this. These are aspects of the so-called "Hero's Journey" which can be found in even "Stage Purple" cultures... Of course, in saying that "everything in Tolkien is tradition and characters fulfilling their super-ordained and pre-destined role" I didn't mean to exclude all possibility of learning, growth and adventure; all of this, however, occurs within the context of a Blue mythology and worldview. I think, based among other things on his strong Roman Catholic faith, his disdain for modern materialistic expansionism and his love of pagan mythology, that he is a Blue reaction against Orange. Anyway, probably not worth dwelling on this for much longer...

None of the values he espouses in his mythology are Orange and none of his positive characters are Orange. Everything in Tolkien is tradition and characters fulfilling their super-ordained and pre-destined role. The Ring of Power is basically Orange materialism. There are many exceptionally deep stage Blue thinkers; much more than at stage Orange! Makes you wonder… All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. - said no Stage Orange person!

You can investigate reality anywhere. Being in a community confers certain advantages - you are surrounded by people who will trigger your egoic biases and projections and ideally force you to confront them until they are resolved - whilst being alone confers certain others, mainly freedom. This online community seems to be particularly biased against community! Men are interested in truth, women are interested in love. Both can be paths to true awakening. Continuing what I have just said, mental masturbation is generally done by men who have strayed off the path towards Truth, whilst living only for a sense of community, attention and love is generally done by women who have strayed off the path towards Love. Otherwise you are probably right, I don’t see many people on here or elsewhere today awakening any time soon. I’m just here to burn through some karma!

If you are willing to do all of this, why would you waste your time making predictions about the future or getting lost in “astral realms”?

@Heart of Space I agree with @Carl-Richard that what you are speaking of is more of a psychic than a mystic. I will explain why psychic is a more appropriate term for everything you have described: It is true that these psychic faculties are often not consciously willed by the individual and that they are often activated without being deliberately pursued beforehand. Nevertheless, from the point of view of mysticism strictly defined, they are a distraction from the real task; like you said, “it is extremely easy to become attached to the supernatural experiences”. True mysticism is neither masculine nor feminine. Nevertheless, it has always been understood that psychic capacities are found more in women than in men. Even in the modern day, the advocates and practitioners of New-Age channeling have almost all been women: Helena Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Alice Bailey, Dion Fortune, and so on… Relating to your example of the schizophrenic: perhaps this is why women are much more likely to be schizophrenic, while men are much more likely to be autistic. No, the truly mystical state is a unification of subjectivity and objectivity, personality and impersonality! The psychic state, however, is mostly subjective and personal.

For most forms of programming mathematics is not very important. What type of thing are you doing? I suggested the following in another thread about this here a while back: “I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter, from whence derives the famous idea of the "strange loop". You might also like David Foster Wallace's book Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity, tracing the work of mathematicians like Georg Cantor. It is claimed that Plato only ever gave one public lecture titled 'On The Good'. He spent the whole time talking about mathematics, leaving most of the attendees puzzled. Unfortunately, this lecture has not been passed down, but Pythagoras also used mathematics as the ideal vehicle for expressing metaphysics and philosophy. His surviving works have been compiled in the book Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie. You could also investigate practices such as Gematria and the use of numerology in the Kabbalah. Mathematics today has almost entirely lost its essential nature and is largely the whore of the physical sciences and man's lust for technological power. At best, it is the more or less idle luxury of an elite class of ivory-tower academics who know nothing of true spirituality. On this note, the best book that I can recommend to you is The Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus by René Guénon.” The last book I mentioned is the best. Guénon would have crushed Spiral Dynamics like an insect but he was at least “Stage Yellow”. Hope this is helpful to you!

You put Martin at Green but Tolkien at Orange? Game of Thrones - or, A Song of Ice and Fire… - was an absolute encapsulation of Stage Orange. Tolkien, on the other hand, was much more Blue than Orange. After all, the world that he created was largely a revival of pre-Christian mythology portrayed through the lens of his Roman Catholic faith, drawing from texts like the Finnish Kalevala and the Nordic Eddas. I recently described Shakespeare elsewhere on here: I would say that Shakespeare is early Orange, with a lot of Blue (inspiration from late medieval literature and even pagan morality) hanging over, and some anticipations of Green (love of perspective, fetishism of human relationships, relativism).

Most spiritual - in the higher sense, and even including many mystical - paths view things such as divination and clairvoyance as distractions to be avoided. The attainment of these supernatural faculties has generally been valued primarily as a sign and reflection of a specific spiritual state. I would also say that in a certain sense clairvoyance is not really supernatural: it is just a sublimated and refined form of nature, like water vapour compared to ice cubes! These are all very feminine applications of mysticism so if there is anyone here like you describe, they are likely a woman… To digress a little, this is a good example of the influence of feminism on the New-Age conception of spirituality. After all, from the Oracle of Delphi to the Nordic Voluspa, female priestesses have always been valued for their capacity to foresee the future and channel various supernatural influences. I hope no one would be upset if I said that their natural passivity and receptivity make them the perfect vessels for wisdom to pass through; that is why in alchemical terms the feminine is lunar and the masculine is solar. This is also seen here in that all of the things you describe as mysticism involve applying spiritual capacities to earthly ends: the woman as Mother Earth/Nature and the Goddess Gaia. Mysticism is a somewhat confused concept, which is appropriate because the forms of spirituality it refers to are generally also somewhat confused. Though the word derives from the initiations and Mysteries of antiquity, whose purpose was the deliberate union of the initiate with the Godhead, it’s meaning today is inextricably bound up with the Christian context in which it emerged. Given the more dualistic nature of this context, particularly the duality between creature and Creator, mysticism came to refer to the emptying out (Kenosis) through various ascetic practises of the fallen and sinful creature so that they could become the perfect receptacle of their Creator. In it’s final phase, which is even somewhat noticeable in the late Christian mystics such as St. Teresa of Avila and certainly in your description of mysticism above, it has come to refer to the passive reception of certain advanced spiritual state which, however, are almost always not Theosis; that is, annihilation of the self and total union with God.

Haha. Reactionary tends to be a term used to denigrate right-wing thinkers who staunchly oppose all ideas of progress. Seems you have something else in mind! Reaction videos and things like that seem to be a great example of postmodern hyperreality, in which you see the progressive loss of all contact between the signifier and that which it is supposed to signify. Online media was already a big step in this direction because all content is mediated through this media itself. When watching a reaction video, it is even worse. You are watching somebody else watch something, and that something itself is generally something not real, adding yet another degree of removal from reality!

@JoeVolcano I will leave this here but the rhetoric is using words like “cattle” and “herd” to refer to society whilst using phrases like the “authentic, self-born” and “atomised individual”. This is a way to rhetorically exalt the individual above all forms of social organisation. I only mentioned neoliberalism because what you say is in exact conformity to this ideology: “there is no society, only individuals”, as Thatcher said! I didn’t mean to convey any superiority. That individual is beyond any distinction between the atomised individual and society!

@JoeVolcano Ironically, I believe you have fallen into the very trap you claim to oppose! This rhetoric of the superiority of the atomised individual over all forms of social organisation is exactly what the present neoliberal society advocates… It is the trap of forgetting to deconstruct the values which you have inherited from society. Corrupt society is a fear-based defence against Truth. The ego is the internalised form of that corruption. You as an atomised individual are just as much of a dream as human society so why exalt one above the other? Society is a diminished reflection of what, who and where I am. I am a diminished reflection of what, who and where I am!

There is still a nihilism and a subtle denial of the uniqueness of the human purpose in saying that human society and ant society are equally significant. A human birth is uniquely congenial to spiritual realisation because we have access to both the transcendent and animalistic realms, whereas an ant is basically just an animal (still being symbolic in a way of a spiritual reality, as all things are). That is why basically all human societies throughout history, from the most "primitive" to the most "advanced", have been oriented around a central transcendent Principle. Human society is an expression of Truth and exists within in reality. A society which is in alignment with Truth will be good and beautiful; a society which is out of alignment with Truth will be evil and depraved. Human society is even more significant to life! It would be very difficult to live without society. This is a very specific conception of society: society as something which seeks to smother your ambition, neutralise your individuality and your desire to express your deepest dreams, beat you down and strip you of your "freedom" so as to make you into a mere cog in the wheel. It is the "Disney-world" conception of society... A real society seeks to make you into a cog in the wheel of the Dharmachakra! Society can be a trap, so can turning your back on society! I do agree that for most people today society can only be a trap, but there is another perspective.

What a lot of rubbish! Ant = ant = ant = ant, human ≠ human ≠ human ≠ human. That is the difference and why human society is far more significant than ant society. What else is an "authentic, self-born individual"? Have you ever met any "authentic, self-born individual" ants?! I think this itself is one of the traps that seems particularly common around here: retreating into some solipsistic pursuit of self-advancement away from all integration into society. Then again, it is an understandable reaction to the total banality of modern profane society.