I think these haven't been shared yet: 
Another one: 
 

Setting aside the cult stuff and other controversies, it might be worth it to take a look at his teachings.
 

Fucking gross.
This is just a cult of bootlickers defending the guy they've put on a pedestal. Nothing more conscious or more sophisticated is happening here.
And now there's equivocation on "God." (Suddenly everyone isn't God anymore --- only Leo is God and poor God needs a lot of patience)
Now this is supposedly "corrupt" and "devilry," and apparently one main deciding criterion is whether something "helps Leo," (as if every discussion is obligated to optimize for Leo's interests.)
Meanwhile, none of you have anything to say when Leo went on his thousandth rant about science and scientists, or when he regularly opens with lines like:
"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about." "I'm the standard of epistemology." "You ought to use my definition of cult." "I'm the most awake out of all you spiritual rats." Apparently all of that is "sophisticated," "conscious," and carefully calibrated to "maximize" truth.
Or when he gaslights people for holding him to standards that he himself established. Or when he insists he never said something, is shown that he clearly did, and then ends the conversation with, "I can't be wrong because I once said self-deception is endless, therefore if I'm wrong, I'm actually right about self-deception being endless."
And the list goes on and on.
None of you actually care about tone. None of you really care about truth or substance. Your supposedly "sophisticated" or "conscious" analysis of what best serves truth begins and ends with whether Leo is the one saying it. It has virtually nothing to do with the content or with the tone of the message.

He wont answer in any straightforward way.
My predicition is that maybe after enough pusback from you guys - he will try to wiggle himself out by doing desperate , dishonest and hardcore reinterpretive work on his own past statements.
Leo is not an honest actor when he is cornered.
He will pretend that when he made those statements that he wasn't referring to having the ability to transform in this world (even though it's super clear from his statements that he was going to record himself with a camera, upload it to youtube, and shock the world with it). Whatever state of consciousness he was referring to in those statements, it was a state of consciousness where there is still a camera, there is still youtube, and there is still a world that could be shocked by the uploaded video. (Dont let him bullshit his way out of this.)
 
 
 
Typically, the cycle with Leo on this is something like this:
Leo: "X is  imagined." (He uses an incredibly broad notion of "imagination" that includes things that you can't change, but he uses this term so that he can look cool by giving the implication that shit can be changed.)
Then you ask: "Okay, but then why don't you do grandiose shit if X is just imagined?"
Leo: "Well, imagination is subtle and very intelligent, and just because it is imagined doesn't mean that you can easily change it."
So now we suddenly walk back the initial implication about shit being able to be changed easily to a position where everyone started with (where it is recognized that certain limitations are real in the sense that you don't have the ability to just change them on a whim).
 
Leo will also rhetorically use "you are just imagining X" (like "you are just imagining enlightenment") in order to undermine your arguments and claims when you disagree with him, but he will carve out endless nuance about how imagination works when he is pushed on his own claims about what is real and what is possible. All the nuance about imagination flies out the window the moment he needs to engage with your arguments and claims (everything will be just broadly "imagined," without adding any specificity or nuance to it), and then infinite nuance about imagination will suddenly appear the moment he needs to defend his claims.
 
------
Given this reasoning, it's clear why he failed to deliver on his claim. He wasn't rigorous enough, and he jumped light-years in his logic. He probably made an inference from, "I accessed infinite intelligence and recognized what is possible from that state," to, "Of course, given this previously acquired knowledge from higher states, and given that I now recognize that limitations are imagined, of course I will be able to record myself turning into an alien on camera." (equivocating between God and his ego and equivocating between different states of consciousness and what is possible given different states of consciousness).
He makes this move a lot: where he propositionalize insights that he learned from higher states and then assumes that he can operationalize all of those insights in his current state simply because he once recognized that the limitations are "imaginary." (For instance, retrospectively using the propositionalized insight that "he is God" to justify the claim that whatever his ego is aware of right now is all that exists, and that when he closes his eyes, the world ceases to exist.)
And one reason why all of this is exceptionally weird coming from him -  is because he is the one who is hardcore pushing and aggressively defending the view that different states of consciousness are robustly metaphysical and not merely epistemic models for making sense of things (and he is the one who argues that non-dual people are radically wrong from assuming that different states of consciousness arent robustly metaphysical).

This is my last reply in this clusterfuck thread and I wont waste any more time on this.
 
 
So allegedly some people here have big issues with closed-mindedness and with someone not using proper learning frames (because "lessons will be lost on them," because "they are not open enough").
I want these people to present a definition of closed-mindedness  to the readers under which they can establish that Leo isn't closed-minded (but me and Carl are). If they can't do that, then I will take it that none of them really care about any of their listed norms in a principled way, and that it is just empty mini-Leo rhetoric on their part.
Present a definition of closed-mindedness, under which a guy who has repeatedly claimed to be the most awake being in the universe, has repeatedly claimed that no one else knows what they are talking about, claimed that he is the standard of epistemology, claimed that he has little to nothing to learn from humans anymore (with regard to spirituality), and who stops 99% of his debates with "you don't know what you are talking about" and then frequently refuses to elaborate; and a guy who wants to dictate what definition of cult ought to be used by everyone; and a guy who has made multiple inferentially justified, highly confident statements about alternative spiritual pathways (like what certain forms of meditation or yoga can do for you or get you to, even though he hasn't seriously practiced them for multiple decades); and a guy who explicitly stated that he can't be wrong about being the most awake being on the planet <--- that this guy isn't closed-minded, and that this guy is inside a proper learning frame (in which he can learn new things and correct false beliefs);
but a guy who gives detailed arguments about why he thinks the way he does, who qualifies most of his statements, and who immediately acknowledges epistemic limitations and clarifies how he can be wrong <--- that this guy is the closed-minded guy, and that this guy isn't inside a proper learning frame.
[ It's very transparent that none of you seriously care about any of these norms. These norms and mini-Leo ticks (where you use one-word catchphrases like "closed-minded" to derail conversations) are exclusively used to enforce Leo's dogmas and none of them are used in a serious, principled way. The moment you would need to apply these norms to Leo, that's the moment when all of you suddenly stop caring about them. ]
 
-------------------------------------------------------
Some people here have been dead silent about a lot of things, and it's clear to me that Aurum is only interested in highly selectively engaging with arguments.
So here is Leo's alien transformation failure spelled out again, since most of you guys extremely conveniently ignored it last time. By the way, do you guys know how your trusted guy responded to @UnbornTao's  "Where is the video, Leo?" question? He said, "I'm not going to bend over backwards over your closed-mindedness." <---- Even though he created the enforcing "bullshit" standard for himself.
That's your Tier 2, epistemically responsible guy, who is true to his own standards and words, who can own up to things, and who won't discourage you from holding him accountable using the standard that he created for himself  (perfectly describes a guy, who cares a lot about not creating or contributing to cult-like dynamics, right?).
 
 
Aurum -  I dont see you holding Leo accountable , but I see you a lot throwing around the label of "closed-mindedness" towards people who do want to hold Leo accountable.
Your only way out this is to claim that you didnt know that Leo claimed these things about the alien transformation thing - but in that case , that just shows your very low level engagement with the arguments here (where you come in  here with big wide shoulders and throw the "closed-mindedness" label and implication around without having any fucking clue about the relevant context some of the Leo critiques target).
And this is just one of the points you failed to engage with, I gave you a lot more than just this, and I left other effort posts here with a lot of links and - but it is very clear at this point that you only highly selectively want to engage with things and you are disinterested in actually reading through the posts and the links in detail before you chime in with your quick uninformed emotionally baiting comments on things.
Let's correct that. He doesn't just think highly of his awakening; he thinks the highest of himself while degrading everyone else. To this day, he still makes childlike comparative judgments like "I'm stronger than you, and you guys are weak as shit compared to me," about every other being in the universe.
And yes, that claim is extremely unwarranted on his part. He is pretentiously using extremely weak inferential judgments, and that's supposed to be his "justification" for claiming that he is the most awake. He has no fucking data or direct access to who has what level of awakening. And even if he had direct access to the content of the awakenings of every other being in the universe (and to the awakenings of every being who has ever lived), he would still need to presuppose his own circularly justified notion and norm of what "being the most awake" even means.
So:
1) Let's not pretend that he has any substantive reply to any of these problems, and lets not pretend that his claim has any serious leg to stand on, or that he carefully and rigorously worked through all of this before vomited out his pretentious statements.
2) Let's also not pretend that you would ever entertain this kind of reasoning from any teacher other than Leo.
 
You conceded that it is an inferential comparative judgment, so it is subject to being wrong. Yet I haven't seen you once press Leo on his credence with respect to that claim. I haven't seen you once press him on why he makes comparative judgments in the first place, and I haven't seen you once question what purpose those explicit comparative and degrading judgments serve.
I guess all of this is also included in your "trust" in Leo, along with his infinitely delayed alien transformation-on-camera claim and his healing claims.
(Before you make your usual thought-terminating "you're closed-minded" move again, I'll qualify my position once more: the argument does not rest on the premise that these things must be impossible. The argument is about adjusting credence based on evidence and owning up to failure—and failing should obviously lower your credence in such claims.)
My original example had a lot to do with ethics, but you couldn't engage with that, so you went with your own modified version instead.
You also had a very hard time entertaining the idea that there is no contradiction in someone agreeing with Leo on all of his spiritual takes while also having issues with some of Leo's teaching methods and behavior.
But in any case, the argument that "I have seen him make awakening claims, and I managed to verify some of those claims. Therefore, the more I manage to verify, the more I'm going to trust that his other awakening claims (that I haven't yet verified) are true as well" could work. But your special privileging of Leo and your dead silence about his failures and  about some of his behavior go beyond any reasonable notion of trust you can appeal to.
Leo hasn't demonstrated a single empirically verifiable miracle yet, so you have zero reason to trust him on miracle claims. And yet, you have been dead silent about his failure to produce the alien transformation on camera and about his healing claims. It doesn't matter how many of his awakening claims you managed to verify, because there is no straightforward bridge from that to his empirical claims. It would be like taking some verifiable facts from the Bible (for example, that Jesus existed) and then pretending that it is therefore reasonable to infer and trust that every other fantastical claim presented in the Bible is likely true as well (such as the miracle claims surrounding Jesus or the claim that Jesus is the Son of God).
Given your trust standard, the exact same "I'm just trusting my teacher" argument can be made by many other people whom you would negatively label as "blindly putting their teacher on a pedestal and taking certain claims to be true from their teacher without verifying them first." Buddhist and nondual students can use the exact same argument: "Im going to trust my teacher's  w,z claims, because I managed to verify that his x,y claims were true." So I guess, all of the students who managed to verify some of the things their teacher told them are justified (by your standards) in giving special privilege to their teachers as well. And I'm sure you won't put any negative label on them for it, and I'm sure you won't reassure Leo about how these supposedly low-consciousness, cognitively undeveloped, conformist individuals are lost and not doing proper spiritual work.
 
I thought this was supposed to be about "doing the work" (like using the suggested methods) and not about special-privileging your teacher's explicit propositions and dogmas, or about maintaining some kind of polished, special image of your teacher.
But again, this is nothing more than empty virtue-signaling on your part. You don't seriously care about these standards and norms, because you make your own judgments about other teachers, and you are perfectly fine with being closed off, labeling them with a bunch of negative labels, and special-privileging Leo - even though you haven't gone through their exact methods for their exact suggested timelines. (you havent done half a century worth of meditations or yoga work and yet you are perfectly okay with placing your bets and with judging those methods and the efficacy of those methods and the efficacy of other teachers).
And the exact same shit applies to Leo as well, but you will never, ever publicly assert to have an issue with Leo being 100% confident in his stance and with him being 100% closed off to all other teachers, despite the fact that he has only directly practiced a fraction of a fraction of other teachers' methods (for a fraction of a fraction of their suggested timelines)
"One of you is going to be mistaken," but the moment I present you with similar epistemic challenges, you suddenly categorize them as "me trying to gaslight you with nonsense," even though it's clear that you have no substantive reply to those epistemic challenges. Yet you are still perfectly confident that you are right and that Leo is right, and you talk down to everyone who disagrees with you from your pretentious high horse, even though the exact same "I've personally verified claims x, y, and z relative to a different body of work" argument is equally applicable to many other people.
Neither you nor Leo has any substantive response to underdetermination issues, and neither of you arrived at your position by carefully and exhaustively ruling out all alternative options. Yet both of you pretentiously act as though you have some kind of high horse to ride and some kind of special epistemic leg to stand on. You and Leo both refuse to acknowledge your epistemic limitations, and instead you play the "I'm absolutely certain in my position" game. Then, whenever someone challenges that certainty, both of you dismiss it as "gaslighting."

I came across this unlisted video while doing some research. It is a sharp observation. (And notice that, at the same time, they still largely fell into the trap they were cautioning against)
 
This can be an extremely subtle and insidious dynamic - in many different domains. 
Do you think this video, and the very need and impulse to believe, doesn't currently apply to you?

The problem is the wordgames.
You having perceptions is also imagined. When you close your eyes and don't see anything, that is also imagined. You having a specific set of experiences is also imagined. But for some reason, some people here want to tie "what exists" to "what is currently on the screen of perception."
An equivocation game is played with words like "direct experience" and "direct consciousness" --- sometimes these words are used in perception-dependent ways, and at other times they aren't used in perception-dependent ways.
 
You have an insight that you are God, you come back from the trip, and then you take that insight and conceptually superimpose it onto the perceptions your ego has right now. "Oh, but I have already deconstructed the difference between the ego and God," says the ego, which is currently not directly conscious that it is God and is mistaking its limited and imagined perceptual faculties for what is real or what exists.

Yes. The only way you ACTUALLY know you can do that is if you do. If you’re going to make these claims, do some 5-MeO or whatever other means you say you can do it through and back it up.
False. Many people have gone into siddhi states that arise along the path prior to any realization any realization at all. They are accomplishments of the mind. In a similar way any creative work or great work within science or mathematics are accomplishments of the mind. There’s good reason why teachers that actually have siddhis always say again and again and again and again that they have nothing to do with enlightenment. Being able to levitate, walk on water, read minds, shapeshifting, bilocation, etc. are not indicative of enlightenment. You’re not onto anything new here. They are considered distractions for a reason because, at the end of the day, it’s just more nonsense and are of no real significance at the end of the day. Some people are more prone to certain siddhis than any others. We can broadly call it talent. Whether it’s genetics, a certain wiring of the brain to be able to go into certain concentration states, a natural tendency to have a lot of energy, or whatever seems to be a plausible case because all of that applies to the relative world. In the same way some people may be more talented at art or handyman work or fighting or some athletic endeavor. None of that though, at the end of the day, is enlightenment. 

I never said you did. You are making claims though of transfiguring into a kangaroo. Such examples have been claimed in shamanism and many yogis and all of them from all those different traditions make the same damn claim again and again: that ain't enlightenment. What occult powers or siddhis one attains or can do aren't indicative of one's clarity of absolute truth (should we concede to speaking in those terms). I don't deny such powers exist. I am saying though that that's not enlightenment. 
And at the end of the day, all such endeavors are honestly just silly, should you ever really encounter such phenomenon. It's just more stuff that the mind took to be greater than it actually was. Transfiguring into a kangaroo, levitating, reading minds, bending spoons, manifesting situations or even things, being able to move things with one's mind, etc. are all just more silliness that appear as shiny new toys and possibilities for the mind. As far as I'm concerned, being able to create nukes that can literally destroy the world or create technology made in the image of man (e.g. AI, the internet, and the majority of our technology) is as much as much a siddhi as anything else. They are all accomplishments that pertain to the mind. 

I don't. I'm merely citing him as one of many sources I've come across that attest to their experience of Adi Da. He certainly is a credible one. I certainly doubt much of what Peter says. His remarks for example that people can't go a little nuts from a powerful satori or even kensho and dismisses it as just the mind, even though that's technically true, I find that palatable and really out of integrity says he's even claimed going nuts after powerful enlightenment experiences. I've also heard his frivolous relationship with students that I would deem unethical, but that's something I'd rather mention over a PM. I'm certainly no "Ralstonian acolyte". 
Again, I wouldn't say we disagree. What you refer to as consciousness, which includes all states and levels and so forth, I refer to as simply mind. On that end, I'm certainly not going to claim any sort of equivalence with one of the most powerful realizers of the 20th century. The very thought of that is laughable I must admit. I certainly would never walk around and claim enlightenment. I've never claimed. I don't like talk about what I've "experienced" as far as enlightenment goes because it just doesn't feel right speaking in that way. All the different trips I've done and states though, however healing, powerful, and everything else were not nor cannot be enlightenment. Adi Da had all that power that I would attribute as an experiential by product (whether it was correlative or causal is a debatable point philosophically but a byproduct no doubt) of his enlightenment and the depth of realization. That said, all depth and so forth is relative. I don't see that as poo pooing anything, it's just a matter of honesty. It just depends what end of the street we're talking about. From POV, enlightenment doesn't cause anything. From another POV, on the experiential aspect, you're damn right it causes or allows certain stuff to really blow open. That said, there are plenty of people that are out there that I would say have a very powerful energy that I see no closer to realization than anybody else (from a certain POV).

Alright folks, in celebration of my 1000th post on this forum I have decided to let you all know once and for all who's the real BOSS in here. - So, without further ado... this is how this works:
1. I am Awake (notice the capital A), you are asleep. I am Enlightened (again, capital E), you are deluded. I am Annointed, you are retarded. I am a Sage. you are an idiot.
2. Since I am the only one on here who is awake - err, I mean, Awake, or rather AWAKE - no wait, make that AWAKE -, I have nothing to learn from you. In fact, I have nothing more to learn in this life PERIOD. You, on the other hand, have everything to learn from me. All of you are totally clueless about this whole Awakening thing; I am the only one in this b!tch who knows what's up.
3. I have completely and utterly transcended all egoic delusions, personal limitations and conceptual thinking. That's why I can confidently say that I am lightyears ahead of all you unenlightened knucklehead peasants out there and that my Personal Concepts (capital P, capital C) about Absolute Truth (capital A, capital T) are the only correct concepts, while all of your concepts are nothing but a big steaming pile of Horse Pooh (capital H, capital P).
4. The big important difference between you and me (a difference that I will never tire to point out in every single one of my posts from now until the end of time) is that I know that there is no difference between you and me. So I am talking to myself here, telling myself what an unenlightened f***ing MORON I am. Why? Because I have nothing else to do. I mean, what else would I do? Running around all day actively trying to help people and make the world a better place? Pfffff, fuck that. Trying to "help" people is complete delusion since there are no "others" and there is no "good" and "bad", so all of that altruistic crap is a total waste of time. Spending all of my waking hours in front of the computer engaging in online Nondualism flame wars 24/7 is the only worthy & dignified occupation behooving an enlightened master such as myself.
5. The degree to which you don't understand my convoluted ramblings is the degree to which you are asleep and deluded. The problem is not that nothing I write makes any goddamn sense or that I contradict myself every two seconds; in fact, all of my explanations are absolutely flawless and infallible. The problem is your own limited understanding. You don't know what the hell I am talking about? Congratulations, you're an idiot.
6. Since I am Absolutely Awake™, I have reached the highest state of perfection that anyone can possibly reach. By recognizing that all personal sense of self is delusion, I have transcended all of my petty human problems; the sun is literally shining out of my butthole. The fact that I sleep outside in a cardboard box and steal food from my neighbour's dog takes nothing away from the fact that I am a fully self-realized master who has ascended the very pinnacle of mental clarity and well-being. So if I sound like a raving lunatic to you... see paragraph 5. An enlightened one such as myself must necessarily sound like an unhinged crackpot to a dumbass like yourself. There is literally no possible way that you can convince me or make me even remotely consider the possibility that I am the deluded one here. Let me warn you in advance that I am a seasoned blackbelt champion of spiritual bypassing; all of your pathetic remarks about how I've gone off the deep end and drifted off to la-la-land will be like water off a duck's back. I can project and gaslight with the best of them, so don't try to beat me at my own game, buddy.
7. If you have the gall to point out to me that what I am going through is just a "passing stage" and that there is yet more to come, then I will respond by explaining to you that you're the one who is not fully awake yet and that you are still to reach my unparalleled level of awakening. I will debate you until you decide that the whole discussion is a waste of time and stop replying to my relentless counterattacks, at which point I will conclude that I am the more enlightened one... because DUH.
Okay, now that we have cleared this up, I am looking forward to tearing all of you dunces out there a new spiritual a$$hole. Here's to a thousand more posts by your favorite enlightened Jedi master
Bazooka Jesus
Cheers!

You guys have just gone with the assumption he has presented that he is not creative. He has not gone into any detail on what he means. Somebody who is catastrophizing like this always need to be asked to investigate their assumptions before you start validating them.

Notice how Carl managed to predict perfectly how Leo will respond and notice how Leo's non-answer was a manipulative "you dont understand " tactic for the millionth time.
Like this is perfection, Leo doesnt have a single fucking spine in his body.
He cant fucking respond to anything with substance without implying that you are a retard or mentally or spiritually impaired.
There is no disagreement with him on any issue that he cares about where you must not be dumb or misunderstanding. You either agree or you are just simply wrong.
Fucking perfection, and people here will continue to deepthroat this guy.
 
Also the allegedly non-authoritative guy btw, who wants to dictatate  how his community should use certain words, and also wants to be the exclusive judge of your level of spiritual knowledge  (since there is no one else who knows what they are talking about) and everyone else (inclduing you yourself) is unfit for that (btw you all have perfect sovereignty guys and you are perfectly legit to judge things for yourself as long as you agree with Leo, but if you dont, then we have a problem here, because  that shows that you have no understanding and you should rather ask Leo to be your exclusive judge) 
Contrast current Leo with this past Leo:
 
 

This is just another empirical claim , where you have a sample size of 1 and you make your assertions and 100% confident inferences given that sample and then you expect people to take you seriously when you create another 2 hour video on epistemology and about epistemic responsibility.
Like yeah dude congratulations for your highly intelligent inference -   mystics who dont understand any english are categorically removed from being God realized.
Given the Ralston thread it seemed that you had a basic understanding about language and label usage - that multiple different labels can be used to point to the same thing -  so I dont undersatnd given that why you make confident inferences just purely from label usage.
 
 
It seems that you give more fucks about people simulating understanding by parroting your preferred labels than about figuring out who has what level of understanding irrespective of the labels they use. 
People will use your terminology here and you will be immediately swayed by it and infer from that they have a high level  understanding of spirituality.
Given your super unsophisticated scheme for figuring out who has what level of understanding, its comically easy for anyone to trick you into thinking that they are much more profound than they actually are.

Unconsciously internalized worldview, coupled with internalized persona (similar mannerism, similar choice of words and rhetoric, constantly in teacher preacher mode, disagreement automatically means that you are wrong and that you need to be  quickly told the correct set of beliefs ).
Some of these people never seriously engaged with any philosophy or spirituality outside of actualized.org. You grow up consuming years of Leo's content and that then frames your whole life.
Even the ones who did some drugs and spiritual practices -  how interesting, that after you internalize years of actualized.org beliefs and framing that you interpret most of your awakenings and trips inside that frame and that all of those foundational beliefs that you  internalized months or years before you did any serious practice , that they are suddenly "confirmed" the moment you do the practices.
Also notice how credence works with these people. After they "confirm" a given thing their credence in Leo's other claims  go up infinitely and they dont treat Leo's unconfirmed claims in an agnostic way and hence the cycle continues "internalize beliefs---> internalized framing clouds your interpretation of awakenings and trips -----> your credence in other unconfirmed claims go up and you internalize them"

Leo still uses this confused talk  about "proper" definitions.
There is no such a thing as a "proper" definition (you can define any fucking term, in any fucking way you like and there is no law of the universe that tells you about what any given term is supposed to mean irrespective of use), but there is such a thing as investigating and firguring out how a given word is used by a given group of people (and yes, you can empirically investigate how society broadly uses a given term or how experts who study that given area use the  term).
But we can just drop the confused "proper definition" talk and just lay down multiple different definitions and then give an analysis under which ones actualized.org would be considered a cult (assuming Leo and people give more fuck about substance, than about getting lost in semantics). 
 
 
For instance using this definition:
I dont think even Heaven's gate would fall under this. It seems to be the case that Marshall Applewhite genuinely believed his own bullshit (he literally unalived himself along with the other members).
So under your use of the term 'cult' , Heaven's gate wasnt a cult.
 
 
if you are the standard of what counts as "proper epistemology" then we are fucked. If other people would apply the lack of rigor that you apply to make sense of the world and to reach conclusions about things, then we wouldnt get anywhere.
If treating the conclusions drawn from very weak inductive inferences about other people’s knowledge, experience, or awakening with absolute certainty counts as "proper" epistemology, then hundreds of millions of people on Earth already qualify as examples of "proper" epistemology. 
Like you unironically have a "God revealed to me that you are wrong and dumb" kind of epistemology.
And just to be very clear - you still have 0 reply to the issues that I and others have pointed out about the limitations of the mystic kind of epistemology and you have never ever replied to those and just brush them off or just simply ignore them (as if that would be a substantive reply to the issues that are brought up).
You are in a constant cycle of "of course I can be wrong" when pressed, and when not pressed - you immediately pivot back to "of course im the standard of proper epistemology, and Im more right than everyone else and all of you fuckers are completely wrong and have no fucking clue what you guys are talking about"
 
 
Also the double standards that you use and that you expect about how other should treat you and your owrk vs how you treat others and their work  is still very cute:
You expect and require other people to always run with such an interpretation of your statements and your work and your behavior, where you look the best and where you never contradict yourself and where there isn't any negative entailments to what you are saying that you would be uncomfortable with, but when it comes to you doing the evaluation of what other people are saying or what the entailment of their work is , then you dont do your most basic due diligence to try to check or reinterpret what they meant by certain statements.
When you interpret statements and the work of other people, you either project the most uncharitable and worst interpretations on their statements under which interpretation their statments become either obviously false  or insanely inplausible or just simply dumb ; or you just simply force your own frame and own use of words on their work and their statements (again your confused "proper" definition view in action)  and then pretend that they used those word the exact same way as you do (this is btw another sign that you are nowhere near the system thinker you think you are - you are extremely rigid and unsophisticated ,when it comes to entertaining alternative positions and alternative interpretations of things).
 
You mistake your lack of capability to entertain multiple different interpretations and hypotheses at the same time and you forcing your one and only understood frame on everything  with you thinking for yourself and being sovereign.
 
So what we are left with is something like:  
if anyone ever thinks that Leo Gura has ever contradicted himself or if anyone thinks that you ever said anything dumb or false, then your reply will be "the only reason why you interpreted my statements that way is because you are not intelligent enough to see that im right or that I was right, and of course and its obviously true, that all of my past statements has to be interpreted in a way under which what I said is true and under which there isn't any such entailment or consequence that I would be even remotely uncomfortable with"
If you have a conclusion that contradicts Leo Gura's view of things, then you better do more spiritual work or more psychedelics, because its impossible that the most awake person in the Universe is wrong and that there is someone who is more right about something related to spirituality and if you think that its possible that there is someone who is more awake than Leo, then you are just dumb and not intelligent enough to see the obvious truth.
Should Leo Gura do more work and should Leo Gura entertain that he shouldnt "settle" all disagreements about spirituality with "you are wrong , im right, do more work" , naaaah, the dude is already awake and knows his shit better than you do.
 

Call this place a cult, or not. His criticism is valid. This place is a dangerous for some people. Half the community are incels and unemployed people who haven't built a life for themselves and aren't fully grounded in themselves or their integrity. The teachings here are reckless. Leo has gotten better over the years with what he teaches, but his old library is still up. Leo is honestly super autistic and lacks maturity and wisdom to guide most people seriously in my opinion. You have to be able to keep up with his style and his chemistry and his ability to alter his state. And he is thinking of running a retreat with security armed with tasers, a tour up Mt Everest. I hope you're prepared for this because this is the one thing which if even the slightest thing goes wrong, your entire image will be fucked. The criticism is valid. Still Leo is an interesting person and a great writer and I do like him a lot, so his insights are really cool to read and learn from especially on certain topics I gravitate towards.
Oddly I don't come here for spiritual teachings, I come for insights more on life and new was of thinking/reasoning. You can split hairs calling this place a cult but yeah, Leo can be an unsafe person to lead. There are much safer and better people to learn psychedelic protocols from. A lot of unwell people will gravitate towards this personality type that lets one give up their responsibility and kowtow to a model and terms of thought that you should be sovereign and the center of yourself, your spirituality. I'm fine with videos like this. The average person should be aware that actualized.org is a dangerous place. 

@Asia P I'd give the Work by Byron Katie a go. Its a unique yet simple healing technique where  you ask questions to yourself about certain beliefs you have. Its very different to other popular belief focused techniques too.
It can work where other techniques haven't in my experience. I have serious emotional difficulties myself.
If you go google 'Byron Katie The Work' there is lots of info/ instruction on the website. 
Here is an article I found that gives an introduction to the process
https://thework.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/instr_en_18jul2019_ltr.pdf
---
If finances allow, I'd also recommend seeking out a mental health professional.
All the best to you

Hello All,
I wanted to share how I am synthesizing and integrating some of the profound insights from Actualized.org into my course at Northwestern University School of Law School.  Specifically, in an assignment for a class called Effective Professional Communication where we are taught how to apply persuasive communication, effectively and professionally.  
Coincidentally, the first time I heard Leo’s lecture on “Content vs Structure” was back in 2019 and I just so happen to be Northwestern University’s campus grounds, working on a construction project.  At the time, my beliefs were so limited I  could not envision myself as a law student because I believed I wasn’t smart enough and the effort it would take to be in the position to become a high performing student as such an institution was only a dream.  I want to give credit to Leo’s lecture as a source of inspiration and a teacher who helped me begin the process of jail breaking my mind.  As he repeated says, these teaching can take years, even decades to integrate so you might as well start now.
In a discussion post assignment this week I was asked to respond to the following prompt:  
“Describe a piece of oral presentation (in person or online) that you consider excellent.  You should limit yourself to either one aspect of the full presentation or one point of analysis.  For example, you might discuss how the tone of the speaker made a dull subject compelling.  Other aspects to highlight would include visual aids, argument structure, use of the stage, humor, audience identification, use of language etc.  In responding to posts, try to develop some norms for the specific attribute cited.  The goal is to look for both an understanding of best practices and the possibilities for creating a useful tension between expectations (norms) and enallage (deliberately misusing grammar or other rhetorical practice).”
 
My Post
When I read this assignment, I was excited because I have many oral presentations in mind that I consider excellent and, at risk of sounding grandiose, also life changing.  I love intellectually engaging lectures that help me grow.  That said, while I have many personal favorites there is one, after careful contemplation, that stands out above the others, in the context of this class and the task of this assignment.  That oral presentation is by Leo Gura of Actualized.org, titled “Content vs Structure.”  https://www.actualized.org/articles/content-vs-structure  (Other favorites at the end if you’re interested)
Now, I realize not everyone will be interested in this topic, nor will they find value in the lecture the way I did upon listening for the first time.  Therefore, if you decide to reply to my post, you need only listen to the first thirteen minutes of the long-form lecture to get an outsized gain relative to time investment (minutes 0:00 to 12:44).  That said, if you only have a minute or two to invest, focus on minutes 1:48 to 2:29 where Gura connects his core concept to the English language relative to other languages.  What makes that moment compelling is how Gura “goes meta”, prompting the listener to notice how language shapes interpretation, then grounds the listener’s attention back to the “content vs structure” frame.    
So what aspect of Gura’s lecture do I consider especially excellent?  My perspective is it is in his application of a framework called “recursive framing,” where he repeatedly returns to the core framing of “content vs structure” while exploring the concept with depth from many perspectives backed by relatable examples.  Doing so serves as cognitive cohesion for listeners via a continuous upward spiral of learning, allowing the listener to learn but also learn how to learn (the meta move).
Moreover, Gura’s meta viewpoint flags the common point of failure in value systems and worldviews, specifically pathological fixation on “content” while missing the underlying “structure” of a thing.  Such fixation creates a situation where thinking becomes locked in a particular paradigm with no way out.  That is, until the “structure” enters consciousness, creating new conditions where the mind can jailbreak itself from that paradigm.
Pedagogically speaking, the method of recursive framing creates a scaffolding for the mind, reducing cognitive load, especially when communicating dense or abstract material.  The scaffolding acts as guardrails, keeping the audience from getting tangled in their own thoughts, continually drawing attention to and bringing the audience back to the “structure.”
Additionally, recursive framing introduces rhetorical enallage by “abusing” the expectation of linear progression and the professional norms that value simplicity, getting to the point, and time efficiency.  A linear progression, by design, does not repeat itself; it does not pause to discuss what the audience might be thinking, and it rarely turns inward to assess its own assumptions.  Gura, on the other hand, breaks this norm deliberately.  He makes the meta move, commenting on the listeners’ interpretive habits, then restates the core framework to ground attention.
Last, in terms of a norm we could extract for our class, a brief “meta” communication early in a presentation could be delivered on how to listen in addition to the agenda, when the presenter invites the audience to listen with purpose and engagement.  And invite the audience not to resist the repetition, rather give it functional embrace, where each return adds purpose, clarity, correction, and application.
(Other favorites if you’re interested)
“The Psychology of the Joker,” by Alan Watts (YouTube), https://www.organism.earth/library/document/the-joker
“How Inspirational Leaders Inspire Action” by Simon Sinek (TedTalk), www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA
“Introducing The Theory” by Clare W. Graves, www.clarewgraves.com/theory_content/audio/CG_clip1.mp3

This is a megalist of *100 books, granted the first part is just going through alot of whats called the Greek Collections (First Assortment) But if you continue down youll see stuff that I got from another person's reading list (its not someone from Actualized dot org, but again, its possible some of these books have been mentioned), and it includes things ive added~that i thought were missing, that seemed to fit the aesthetic of this list in particular.
Some of the books on the reading list got removed, e.g., a couple books on magick i didnt find appealing since it involved things like locating a knife that is the length of a goat or something odd like this, as it just doesnt seem to be representative of the kind of esoteric/mystic (<3 divination, theurgia, spellcrafting and prayers, & vancian magick) that most people would respond to. You sortve have to look at the Greek & Roman entries into this field, or skip to the modern era, closer towards the third/fourth assortment, to get straight to the more modern writing tradition, attitude and novelettes n'poetry, or the scaffold of which everything has lead up2
So anyway, here's the list. If yous want any resources to websites and such (including words/term's definitions, or anything about Greek literature, e.g., reading material on Poseidon), feel free to ask me here.
Πρωτο Reading List: First Assortment
Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica
Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica
Orphic Argonautica
Petrarch, The Secret
Petrarch, Secretum
Pindar's Odes (Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, etc.)
Plutarch, Roman Questions
Plutarch, Of Isis and Osiris
Hesiod, Shield of Heracles
Hesiod, Theogony
Hesiod, Works and Days
Horace, Ars Poetic
Horace, Odes
Horace, Satire
Herodotus, Histories
Palaephatus, Peri Apiston
Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses
Apuleius, Metamorphoses
Ovid, Metamorphoses
See also, Roman de la rose, il fiore, et caetera*
Ovid, Art of Love
Ovid, Fasti
Ovid, Tristia
Aristophanes, Frogs
Aristophanes, Birds
Aristophanes, Acharnians
Aristophanes, Assembly Women
Aristophanes, Knights
Aristophanes, Lysistrata
Aristophanes, Peace
Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae
Aristophanes, Wasps
Library Of Diodorus Siculus
Library Of Apollodorus
Library Of Photius
Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Aeschylus, Eumenides
Aeschylus, Libation Bearers
Aeschylus, Persians
Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound
Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes
Aeschylus, Suppliant Maidens
Iamblichus on the Mysteries (See 'Chaldean Oracles)
Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras
Euripides, Alcestis
Euripides, Andromache
Euripides, The Bacchae
Euripides, Cyclops
Euripides, Electra
Euripides, Hecuba
Euripides, Helen
Euripides, Heracleidae
Euripides, Heracles
Euripides, Ion
Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis
Euripides, Iphigenia at Tauris
Euripides, Medea
Euripides, Orestes
Euripides, Phoenician Women
Euripides, Rhesus
Euripides, Suppliant Women
Euripides, Trojan Women
Seneca, Medea
Seneca, Thyestes
Seneca, Phaedra
Seneca, Hercules Furens
Seneca, Agamemnon
Seneca, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium *(n.18, Saturnalia)*
Bacchylides, Epinician Odes
Dithyrambs of Bacchylides
Nonnus, Dionysiaca
Hyginus, Fabulae
Fragments of Sappho
Fragments of Simonides
Fragments of Anaximander
Lucian, Reading List: Second Assortment
Lucian, Anacharis
Lucian, A True Story
Lucian, Alexander the Flase Prophet
Lucian, Consonants of Law
Lucian, Charon
Lucian, Dance
Lucian, Descent not Hades
Lucian, Dialogues of Courtesans
Lucian, Dialogues of the Dead
Lucian, Dialogues of the Sea Gods
Lucian, Double Inditement
Lucian, Fisherman
Lucian, Hermotimus
Lucian, How to Write History
Lucian, Ignorant Book Collector
Lucian, On Sacrifice
Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess
Lucian, Parliament of the Gods
Lucian, Praise of Demosthenes
Lucian, Scythian
Lucian, Ship or Wishes
Lucian, Toxaris
Lucian, Zeus Rants
Miscellany, Reading List: Third Assortment
Aetius of Amida, Libri Medicinales
See also "Full Summary on Medea, Snake Medicine & the Context around Theriac"
Hippocrates, Ancient Medicine
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura
Parmenides, On Nature
τὰ Χαλδαϊκὰ λόγια (Chaldean Oracles): Julian the Theurgist, Julian the Chaldean
Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana
Galen, Opera Omnia
Galen, On the Natural Faculties
Pliny the Younger, Epistulae
Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia
Cain, A Mystery *(Lord Byron)*
Aradia, Gospel of Witches
Sir Arthur, A Study in Scarlet
John Tzetze, Ad Lycophronem
John Tzetze, Book of Histories
Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi
Sarah Iles Johnston, Hekate Soteira
H.D., Helen in Egypt
H.D., Hermetic Definition
H.D., Hermione
Hellenica Oxyrhynchia
Antonin Artaud, Heliogabalus
Ljuba Bortolani, Magical Hymns from Roman Egypt
Julian the Philosopher, Hymn to King Helios
Julian the Philosopher, Hymn to the Mother of the Gods
Carl Ionescu, She Who Hunts
Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
Michael Marullus, Hymni Naturales
Celsus, De Medicina
Catullus, Poems
Colluthus, Rape of Helen
Pseudomonarchia Daemonum
Karl Kerenyi, Dionysus
Karl Kerenyi, Eluesis
Karl Kerenyi, Prometheus
Karl Kerenyi, Hermes
Stephanie Budin, Artemis
Alan Moore, Promethea
Pausanias, Descriptions of Greece
Sarah Iles Johnston, Restless Dead
Sarah Iles Johnston, Mantike
Fritz Graf, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife
Walter Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult
Walter Otto, Theophony
Ludwig Klages, Cosmogonic Eros
Maria Mili, Religion and Society in Ancient Thessaly
Henry Chadwick, Origen Contra Celsum
Macrobius, Saturnalia
Petronius, Satyricon
Miscellany, Reading List: Fourth Assortment (in no particular order)
The Derveni Papyri
Athanassakis, The Orphic Hymns
The Orphic Fragments of Otto Kern
Thomas Taylor, The Hymns of Orpheus
GRS Mead, Orpheus: The Theology of the Greeks
B.P. Reardon, Collected Ancient Greek Novels
Algis Uzdavinys, Orpheus and the roots of Platonism
Ἑλληνιστικοὶ ποιηταί, Nicander, Alexipharmaca (from a tradition of Orphicesque Metamorphoses, Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Sophocles, Callimachus, Alcaeus, etc.), etc.
Wasson, Ruck, Hoffman, The Road to Eluesis
Ekaterine Kobakhidze, Metaia
Herman Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund
Federico Garcia Lorca, Blood Wedding
Callimachus, Lycophron and Aratus
Carmina Profana, Romulea X (Medea)
Edgar Allan Poe, Ligeia
Edgar Allan Poe, Morella
Boccaccio, De Mulieribus Claris
Satisfactio ad Guntharium
James Clauss and Sarah Iles Johnston, Medea
Jeffery Henderson, The Maculate Muse
Jeremy Reed, The House of the Dead
Madison Cawein, The Waste Land (T.S. Eliot)
Jack Vance, The Dying Earth
Felix Gilman, The Revolutions
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Zanoni
Robert Graves, The Greek Myths
Robert Graves, The White Goddess
James Fraiser, The Golden Bough
Peter Grey, The Red Goddess
Reginald Scott, The Discovery of Witchcraft
Hans Dieter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation
Henry Corbin, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism
Jean-Pierre Vernant, Myth and Thought Among the Greeks
Marcel Detienne's The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece
Maria Mili's Religion and Society in Ancient Thessaly
The Seven books of Paulus Aegineta
Le Comte de Lautreamont, The Songs of Malador
The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean by Maurice Doreal
Note, this list does not focus on Philosophy/Greater literature of Greek thought and such (maybe youd call it "philosophical foundations and such"), Alas there's another +100 books that we could've added

New nonverbal prompt: pour a bucket of cold water over each other ❄️ 🪣 

It's your job to have it - whatever it turns out to be.
For one week, contemplate what listening is and what it requires.
Try to set aside your own baggage - especially what you think you already 'know' - and question what this act really is.
Other related questions:
What is the act of paying attention? Why am I listening (hearing or reading) to this communication - or manipulation? What am I trying to get out of it? How can I step out of my own intellectual world so that I can better hear? Where is this person coming from, and what is their experience? Or simply: What is actually going on in the other person's experience?

People define awakening differently. Although a trend seems to be to become more aware of something, and that creates a shift. But that can be on intellectual level, when people call it awakening that they’ve realized “society is corrupt” or something and they deeply question the mainstream and enter more spiritual thinking. And for sure it stirs up emotions and it can feel expansive so it’s not purely intellectual but they still stay on level of human psychology and the self. Or it could be becoming increasingly self aware, and connecting to intelligence of higher development (like deeper intuition).  But still on human development level.
 
But for me I feel there is one thing about reality that stands out from all those things and that would be insight/experience that goes beyond the self/mind. The term awakening can be useful for those above too but this is the ultimate I think. (I don’t know directly if reality is non dual but I resonate with the idea and have experienced shifts in my sense of self strengthening this questioning if it’s actually real)
So increasing metacognition I think can bring you a step closer to the ultimate truth because when you become aware of something more subtle in you, it might have required breaking down something greater in order to be able to notice the more subtle (or just moving your awareness inward) So it can be one step in process of deconstructing the mind/self.

It can maybe go both ways, if you are deeply immersed in something, someone may have temporary experience of “forgetting themselves” which might be a glimpse of some sort into non duality in some cases . But also by doing the opposite, focusing on your mind and self might aid in the deconstruction of it (my experience) so you tackle the very thing “in the way” by firstly having lots of awareness to it. 
So basically there seems to be layers and subtleties to our current reality and something like increasing meta cognition no matter your starting point might be a step to deconstructing that reality 
 

@UnbornTao there's no point in reasoning this. This is why I gave up on this forum and Actualized years ago.
If it's worth any update. I did 5-MeO just a few months ago and my report remains the same:
Powerful experience. Useful. Valuable. Insightful. I think it can be a powerful tool when used properly with the right understanding for purification, opening up the system, insight, healing, etc. 
But no. That's not it. It's a conditioned experience. Awakening is not causal.
Very grateful I did it and would have no problem doing it again. Pretty remarkable honestly how short it actually was. Might be my favorite psychedelic. Definitely doesn't drain me like LSD or mushrooms and so forth. 
Conditioned experiences don't lead to the unconditioned. People can have powerful experiences under the right set of circumstances while on psychedelics, sure. That seems to have happened. In my view this is more karmic ripeness and just the right set of causes and conditions in the same way certain traumatic experiences can break something open. It's subtle but it's not the thing itself specifically but rather just the particularly karmic set of causes and conditions. 
In the end though, I think people that argue with Leo and users on this forum are honestly just wasting their time. I accept people are just going to do what they're going to do, think what they think, and do what they want. Just accept it. They'll learn or they won't. This is part of reality (actually the thing that was just really clear during the 5-MeO trip). People can delude themselves, be angry, hateful, argue, bicker, blame, be kind, loving, etc. Doesn't negate critiquing bullshit as that's part of it too. In my view though, the arguments against the stuff has been had on this forum. Leo has heard it all so I don't think there's any point in debating. I wish him and these people the best and just let them be. 

I would commit seppuku
Death before dishonor