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The importance, use and power of modern pop icons in (chaos) magick...

  
  

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Z. deScathach
04:59 / 11.06.04
It’s not so much the concept of archetypes that I’m critical of, as it is the tendency within occultism to construct a glib psychological model of magic around that concept. I understand the term “archetype” to mean something more than a sub-routine of the brain, to the point where the word “archetype” becomes entirely synonymous with words like “Goddess”, “Saint” or “Power”.

Yes, that's my thought about it as well. When you look at it, these "archetypes" are very much representations of fundamental natural forces. As life evolves, it evolves through the engine of those forces, in a sense. The warrior archetype, for instance, is a reflection of life's tendency to compete with life, as well as it's desier to protect itself. Life is both symbiotic and competitive, and competition in the case of evolution fosters growth. I would bet that on other worlds with intelligent life, many of them,(but I would assume not all), have similar archetypes due to the forces of evolution. So who is to say that these forces do not have a fundamental consciousness? We probably require archetypes and godforms to relate to them BECAUSE they are so primal.
 
 
illmatic
07:51 / 11.06.04
I don't feel I have a great deal to add to this discussion, but I love that Jung quote. I stated my feelings about archetypal material above. Perhaps the characteristic that this shares with "external" material is a feeling of power and a sense of independent agency. With this material, for me there's a sense of close to the power source of things (kinda reminecscent of what you said about Yog Sothoth actually, Gypsy) but I'd always taken this to be rooted in my biology or the deeper levels of my mind. And these things may well be in my head - but that hasn't stopped them commenting forcefully on my life at times, and given me a perspective I wouldn't have thought of if left to my devices. I think the key here is that it's all "beyond the ego" - there isn't a sense that I just "made this up" that I would associate with pop cultural stuff. Having said that I never worked with PCS (can we call it PCS? Can we? Please? I think things sound so much more clever if they have a acronoym) extensively, I can see how it could become "real" over time with sufficient devotion.

On the subject of devotion vs. subservience, there's a nice Crowley quote, (can't remember the source") "Beware, O Brother, lest thou bend they knee", which I take to be a critque of "subservient devotion" - the surrender of all of one's personal responsibility, morality and choices over to an external force rather than managing this stuff yourself.
 
 
Unconditional Love
16:22 / 11.06.04
chaos magic does seem to have become orthodox at least within the magikal community, a new heresey would be prefered, as the orthodox often becomes the religion.
that quip aside.

pop icons of any age, mediated archetypical structures are the controlling tools of the priest hood in any city or national state. they define days in a week (in a historical context) in amodern context what media you will be consuming on what day what market forces you will be paying attention to for the next release.

the priesthood defines national holidays (holy days) and at earlier stages the number of days in a week and the number of hours in a given day.

modern gods use air waves the net comic books posters etc, older gods use statues, temples, artifacts specific to them to embody there idealogies and spirits in the mind of the recipiant.

the priesthood directs the flow. the priesthood controls the perception of time and space through its gods, attach your self to its gods and attach yourself to there flow.

culturally god forms no matter how embodied are used to define exceptable parametres of thought within a given culture. as are demons, which are needed to reinforce the value of the given god forms. and also to offer the nessecary conflict for the stories of the gods to be played out.

there is a tendency to romanticise the past, for it to become an escape, city states like sumer, and london all need there thought police, gods and godesses and pop icons act as identity fulfillment so the stories are played out by the participants mentally as much as the characteristics are to be desired physically by the myth imbiber.

mythocracies are just as controlling as pretend democracies.

in my personal opinion nothing much has changed since money writing and government were invented, the faces may have changed, but the controlling forces are the same.

feeling a little paranoid today.
 
 
LVX23
17:17 / 11.06.04
OK, just getting caught up here - I just read through the entire thread: Great stuff! Now let me try to focus my head for a sec...

My feelings are that archetypes are like the basement floor. They are the simplest representations in the once-emergent human consciousness; they are reflections of the fundamental drives of nature: hunter, woman, phallus, circle, spiral, force & form, etc. They can be imagined as the imprint of Creation on the evolving mammalian brain.

As language and ego evolved and the initial sparks of self-awareness brought us into dualistic relationships with these archetypes and with the world surrounding us, Godforms were created to explain the mysteries we were witness to. The Godforms were embodiments of the mysteries within and without us and, hence, were imbued with great power, just as a solar eclipse would provoke existential crisis in the infancy of humanity.

The power of Godforms has been preserved through their adoption and use by culture. If we consider them as memes, they grow in strength by their own propogation. The more people who adopt and feed the meme, the stronger it becomes. Thus, Godforms, as anthropomorphic representatives of archetypes, are empowered by the priests and shamen and magicians who invoke and feed them. In a sense, the magicians are giving power back to the archetype which was diluted by the intial anthropomorphization (the Godform is a limiting container for the archetype) and preserving the mystery it holds.

This is why Godforms which have been active for millenia, continuosly invoked and fed by the priesthood (for lack of a better term) are qualitatively different than invoking Barbie the Lennon Slayer. The new gods don't have the power and inertia behind them - they are newer memes. They may be extremely popular reflections of archetypes, but the depth of that popularity covers only a brief amount of time in the human record. In time, with continued devotion and invocation, they may become full Godforms. To quote Jello Biafra: "Will Elvis take the place of Jesus in a thousand years?".

My criticism of Pop Magick is that, as Gypsy has suggested, it seems so easy and simple and light and "just wank off to this scribble and you'll get that job you always wanted". This isn't to say that it is without merit or efficacy, but it lacks the confrontation with the Powers of Creation that I believe is critical to real personal (and species-wide) development. If you just enchant for the little material things you want out of life, well, that's basically selfish black magick, isn't it?. What good is it for your Soul?

But I digress. The magick I feel is most important is one that is confrontational and devotional. One that breaks down the illusions and trappings of modern culture and falls to its knees (Crowley be damned) in humility and awe at the sheer power and wonder of creation.

Someone mentioned in this thread (Nobody?) that they felt no reason to be subservient to Gods. That we are already Gods. I agree and disagree. The devotional path allows us to essentially find a role model in a God that falready igured it out. We have not yet figured it out. I know I'm a god but I also know that I don't behave as one nor have the right to call myself enlightened. I came to the conclusion recently that my invocations and adorations of Godforms were entirely devotional; that I am tryiing to invoke these ideals into my life so that I can learn to be a better God.

I trust Horus and Nuit, Christ, Buddha, and Osiris to teach me more than I trust Elvis or Buffy or even Grant Morrison.
 
 
macrophage
17:40 / 11.06.04
I think in the good ole USA there exists a Temple of Elvis straight up. Say look at "Wild at Heart" and see Nicholas Cage communicating with the egregore of Elvis. Don't we have statues of Beckam and Princess Di adorning certain Far East Temples? Makes you think don't it. Mother Theresa got sainthood from the Vatican and that was the fastest yet. When we are looking at fictional characters that some people embrace they must see some sort of perfected idea of self from that. I know I do. I find Thor from the comics much more presentable than say of the old nothern legends. Thing is, alot of the old stuff - was it just metaphors and fictionalised, passed down from generations? As alot of the grimoires of old have doubtful origins, so who cares about fictionalisation?
 
 
LVX23
17:52 / 11.06.04
I absolutely feel that the myths need to continously be reinterpreted and updated. Lord OT Rings is a great example of a successful modern mythology that still preserves the values and teachings of the old myths.

My main point about Pop Icon Magick is that the deities invoked are still young and weak and malleable. More importantly most were created in the spirit of profit and capitalism, rather than as guides or representatives of spiritual truth. As someone else (Gypsy?) noted, how do you know your not just invoking a product brand when you invoke Buffy?

Now, there is certainly value in co-opting them from the corporate progenitors and rebranding them as magickal patrons. In this way we have the opportunity to help define the myth and to educate the young Godforms. Like Skellington, perhaps they want us to acknowledge them and teach them how to mature into responsible deities. Whereas the old Godforms might adopt us as devotees, perhaps we can adopt the new Godforms...
 
 
Samael
19:02 / 11.06.04
Would it be fair to consider some part of using popular figures as iconoclastic necromancy? It is one thing to invoke the powers of a character, but what about someone who was alive at one point? It has been mentioned earlier in this thread that when working with folks like Marilyn Monroe and such that you aren't dealing with the spirit of the actual human being, but then, why not? Why not call upon Lenny Bruce to give advice on being a comic? Why not call upon Crowley for advice on being more charismatic? In these situations, would it be more effective to call upon a pop icon's archetype/image, or the pop icon him/herself? Just a thought.

When it comes to the actual "power" of a god or diety, be they ancient or new, I cannot help but feel that that is a personal thing. Sure, Kali and Horus have been around the old block a while longer, but I do not feel that this constitutes being more potent by default. I have a friend who calls herself a priestess of Elvis, and she could give a cup of monkey piss about Kali, Horus, or any old godform. I see the logic in viewing the power of a god in relation to thier age/popularity, and in considering these newer godforms as learning to walk, so to speak. I think that if a particular image/godform/diety/what-the-hell-ever has importance to the mage, then it will be potent, regardless.

Use belief as a constructive device, not a hindrance. I also feel that, if only once in a while if not always, that one should feel free to wing it and go with what they feel. After all, when one thinks too hard, one ends up with an expression that makes himself look like he just took a big dump in his pants.
 
 
LVX23
19:46 / 11.06.04
I think that if a particular image/godform/diety/what-the-hell-ever has importance to the mage, then it will be potent, regardless. Use belief as a constructive device, not a hindrance.

Absolutely. Belief is key. If you've constructed a detailed mythology around Hello Kitty, imbuing the deity with vast power and wrath, then invoking said feline will no doubt be a powerful experience. Similarly, if you think Buffy is cute and cool, your invocation of her will likely be soft and benign.

I think in a sense Chaos Magick has attempted to wrestle power away from the gods and place it in the individual. Wether one engages an Old Aeon god or a New Aeon construct, your belief - the mythology you use to address the entity - will govern how it appears to you. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Was the ignorance of prehistory more capable of creating admirable Godforms, or are we in our materialism and solipsism?

I wonder... If I knew nothing about Horus, then constructed my own mythology around him, totally divergent from tradition, would an invocation of him adhere to my own myth, or would the original Godform push his way through and set me straight?
 
 
Unconditional Love
21:19 / 11.06.04
lvx23,

one way to try this would be to steal a trick from the old polytheists, egyptians etc and create a combination god combining an older representation with a modern pop icon or several older reps with several modern reps

say horus with the bird man of alcatraz, blackhawk the comic character and jesus( from a gnostic stand point )

i think certain forces have been represented by the media of there age whatever that art form may be and the images should not be mistaken for the forces themselves, just as i would not expect to mistake my ego for godhead, nor should i mistake the image/persona of a god/goddess for its spiritual force or power. cultural factors should also be considered in how these manifest spirits choose to appear in the human context.

as various cultures came into contact with each other each absorbed the others mythological frame work, especially as they traded, there is no purity of spirit, the very idea of purity creates an isolation from external environments, the spirits are shapeshifters.

as humanity becomes absorbed in its stories so its stories become the new mythologies, if i were a god or goddess and i had my wits about me id be manifesting in all sorts of art to propagate my spiritual power, why lock myself into a static age in history? create a stopping point.

eventually if i dont move and cycle in oppertune moments i would die, how many gods and goddesses are lost because of cultural change and the unwillingness of there priests to adapt to cultural movement?

as the world cycles and evolves so do its spirits,

perhaps.
 
 
---
22:26 / 11.06.04
I think that if a particular image/godform/diety/what-the-hell-ever has importance to the mage, then it will be potent, regardless.

I agree with this aswell, and have been reading this thread from the start, there's been some really good posts in it.

This is one of the main things i'm focusing on at the moment, and is one of a few reasons that have helped me to realise that even when i think i've dropped the magick, i'm still practising it regularly, even if it is in a less ritualistic fashion.

One of the things that always remains a part of my life is characters, and these can be called archetypes, aspects of self, whatever you want to call them, but when i stopped the small amount of rituals that i was doing, the fictional characters remained as sources of power, also my anima and even a few God and Goddess forms, which.........takes breath heading for the end of the sentence........leads onto what's being discussed here.

as humanity becomes absorbed in its stories so its stories become the new mythologies, if i were a god or goddess and i had my wits about me id be manifesting in all sorts of art to propagate my spiritual power, why lock myself into a static age in history? create a stopping point.

eventually if i dont move and cycle in oppertune moments i would die, how many gods and goddesses are lost because of cultural change and the unwillingness of there priests to adapt to cultural movement?

as the world cycles and evolves so do its spirits,

I'm glad my PC just crashed in the middle of this post because this wasn't here when i first started writing this, and it links in with part of what i was going to say.

Most of the time i imagine the Gods and Goddesses as being a more powerful/experienced and evolved set of powers that as Gypsy has said a good few times now, have a lot more to them than the modern fictional icons/forms, and most of the time i agree with this, but sometimes i'm not so sure.

It's possible that as our way of life has become more materialistic and so much more people are around that don't really care for religion/magick etc, the Gods and Goddesses, the powers, have decided to manifest through art and evolve, like wolfangel has just said if i'm reading rightly.

In this case the fictional heroes such as Superman, Batman etc, could be used as suits/archetypes that the powers invest certain amounts of energy into, whilst at the same time using the more familiar forms that they have for others via the more traditional channels. Also that these fictional icons can serve as gateways to the higher forms of power, which could then lead them either to the older forms, or even to transcending this altogether and reaching the source. (As much as i don't favour computer analogies this could be seen as different GUI's, (Graphical User Interfaces) on different levels that access the same root. Possibly with the older forms closer to root in a tree like system.) The source that all of the God's and Goddesses come from aswell. Like the essence of the Tao instead of it's manifestations, it's various suits.

Some poeple don't feel confident enough to approach these older forms and relate more to modern day icons, some just flat out prefer working with them full stop. I personally try and balance between the two but with me writing and drawing, reading comics and occasionaly going to the cinema, watching a DVD or a video, seeing more and more of the modern day versions of power, tend to use the modern forms more.

What this means for me i don't know, but i try to respect the older forms as much as possible but have the idea that even though they may have a lot more to every aspect of them, (apart from modern day coolness, trendier outfits, easier to relate to etc) the modern day icons/characters/fictional God's and Goddesses could be used by any powers as an easier method of interacting with way more people than they would of been able to otherwise. Or maybe these present forms are standalone powers all in themselves, the genuine new Gods and Goddesses.

I'm not about to drop one bit of the constantly growing respect i have for the older forms, respect that i've gone through years of hard work for, but it could be like wolfangel said :

as the world cycles and evolves so do its spirits

And if the universe really can be viewed as a single, growing entity, then it's possible that the older God's and Goddesses have multiple suits. Suits for each age.
 
 
LVX23
04:43 / 12.06.04
Rob wrote:
In this case the fictional heroes such as Superman, Batman etc, could be used as suits/archetypes that the powers invest certain amounts of energy into...

Perhaps this ties in to what Crowley was getting at about the spiritualization of matter. Maybe the Godforms are far more present now than we realize, just wrapping themsleves in modern culture, replicating and multiplying through the myriad forms of hypermedia. Perhaps as we hurtle towards the fabled Omega Point, the Godforms are infiltrating every aspect of our lives, reasserting their presence as the archetypes are unveiled before us. Isn't this revealing what Revelations is really about? Could the apocalypse be the unveiling of Heaven on Earth, Godforms running about everywhere, dogs and cats living together??

But once again, I digress. I really like the notion that the Gods are donning modern fiction suits in order to interact with and appeal to the new age. Again, rebranding. Makeover for the gods. Postmodern Eye for the Archetypal Guy, or something...
 
 
the cat's iao
06:48 / 12.06.04
This is not the answer. I apologize in advance for the nature of the following piece.

Time is an unreality—it is part and parcel of the manifested world, which is, of course, the veil of maya (an illusion). When the young Einstein showed that time and space are inseparable, well, that seems to me to show that if what occurs in space is some delusion, then so is what occurs in time. Point being: the age of a deity seems irrelevant to any sort of discussion about its status as an entity of power. Like someone else said above, the old tales of particular entities can and do change over time—a deity’s traits are as malleable now as they ever were; thus, there doesn’t seem to be a crystallization of any divinity that is beyond the narratives it is known by. Certainly, a narrative can have common elements over an extent of time, but again, time cannot be the measure of the beings power.

It seems to me, (and this was stated and mulled over a tiny bit in that thread by sine regarding advanced brain machines that appear to induce “religious” experiences) that it is a pointless task to identify any sort of entity as entirely independent nor entirely dependent upon any individual or collective group. If we decide that we want to assert that working with archetypes is merely an internal experiencing, or if we desire to assert that there really are deities “out there” in the external world, then we have fallen for the rending of the unification of opposites. Namely, we split the unification (the image represented by the androgynous & hermaphroditic being) of the internal & external with the polarized internal or external. Point being: it is not all in your head, but it is not entirely out of your head either. The question then becomes (and is hinted at earlier by someone above) what is mind? This question can turn, on a personal level, into the question “what is Self” or simply “who am I?”

Is it enough or simply that “I am God” or that “We are all Gods”? Perhaps or perhaps not, but what does that mean? This is a statement of language, and as far as I am concerned, the experience of such a state of being is neither approached nor related in words, and indeed, words will ultimately prevent or usurp the experience. A linguistic representation becomes glib and ineffectual—hence, the greatest of all secrets cannot be spoken of or related by any means (not that I pretend to “know” that secret—rather, I do not intend to deceive myself into thinking that language will reveal, capture, or otherwise contain it). In this vein, “subservience” and “obedience” become words that cannot by necessity convey what it is to enter into a relationship with any sort of deity. The relationship between a “godform” and a “magician” must be one of interdependence that exists purely in proportion to the divine in the mundane, and the mundane in the divine. Put differently, a deity is only as divine as the being that relates to it, and the mundane is within the deity insofar as the being relating to it is of this world, and indeed, as mundane as anything else.

The idea of the “modern” faces of divine beings as manifestations of older divinities also dissolves under the scrutiny. Again, the premise of time as an illusion diverts any investigation into such an avenue of explanation (feel free to reject the premise, of course) as a dead end. A metaphor, although loose and not intending to show much beyond a way to “point to”, is that of the fractal structure found in certain types of mathematics. A property of the fractal is its self-similarity: the tendrils of a mandlebrought will display repetitive patterns—not strictly identical, but merely similar. If we choose, we can picture a “godform” as having a similar property such that it displays itself repeatedly through time and space, but each representation is a little different from the last yet still maintains some sort of similarity with each manifestation. To sum up: no one mask is the divinity, as no one mask is the magician. The question, again, seems to me to involve not questions regarding what can be thought of divine entities and their potential power, but what lies behind the masks that the real wears in order to manifest within this matrix of space-time.

Again, please consider the above with a grain of salt—a rant even. Thanks for your time.
 
 
gravitybitch
15:00 / 12.06.04
I love this and agree to some degree, but must respectfully disagree with the conclusions...

Time is an unreality—it is part and parcel of the manifested world, which is, of course, the veil of maya (an illusion)... ...we have fallen for the rending of the unification of opposites. Namely, we split the unification (the image represented by the androgynous & hermaphroditic being) of the internal & external with the polarized internal or external.

There is no power/action/motion in a great undifferentiated grey-goo unified anything, however Holy it might be. From the moment that first great "I AM!" roared forth, there was also something which was NOT. That dance between I and NOT I which birthed the universe is one we replicate now in all the varieties of "self vs other" that play out daily, and we learn from those conflicts (sometimes) and occasionally grasp the mystery of how the illusion of difference coexists with absolute glory of contrast.

Are we less real for being the dream of a God?
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:50 / 12.06.04
I think that if a particular image/godform/diety/what-the-hell-ever has importance to the mage, then it will be potent, regardless.

I don’t think anyone is really arguing that pop culture gods don’t have potency if the magician invests belief in them and puts effort into working with them. What’s under discussion seems to be the qualitative experience of working with different types of entity.

It’s easy enough to speculate from an intellectual position that there should be no discernable difference between working with new pop culture entities and more established entities. However, most of the people in this thread that seem to be challenging that notion are not doing so because they think its an aesthetically pleasing idea, they are doing so because their own personal experience and observation seems to suggest something else. Which is quite interesting.

Certainly, based on my own experience, I would say that there are tangible qualitative differences between working with different categories of entity. Someone earlier posited that working with Xena when her show was at the height of its popularity would yield better results than working with her now. That makes perfect sense to me. Similarly, there seems to be distinct observable differences between working with newly created entities compared to entities that have a long established history of interaction with human consciousness. You could possibly make a clumsy comparison with artificial intelligence, such as those pokemon type things that become more self-aware the more you feed and interact with them, but I think there’s more to it than that.

There is also a very noticeable difference between working with ancient entities that haven’t been interacted with to any large extent for thousands of years, such as ancient Sumerian Gods; and entities such as the Lwa who have been continually worshipped for thousands of years and are often as willing to utilise the language of pop culture and the modern world as we are.

These different types of entities do seem to operate along different lines. The experience of working with them is markedly different. I don’t think they are all just the same thing, or much of a muchness, or whatever. I’d go as far as to say that the lines between the concepts of “sigil” and “servitor” are considerably more blurry, than the qualitative differences between working with, say, Dangermouse and one of the Lwa. The fact that Lepidopteran, on the other side of the world and entirely independently, can report experiences of working with specific personalities that precisely match my own, does seem to undermine the “it’s all just in your head” perspective to some extent.

I think a framework that suggests all entities operate in exactly the same way, with exactly the same level of self-awareness and exactly the same ability to function physically within the world, is at best a terribly reductive over-simplification. I’d be interested to know how many of the people forwarding this position are doing so based on actual experience and observation of working with these things, and how many are just forwarding it because they think it’s a nice metaphysically egalitarian idea.
 
 
LVX23
15:55 / 12.06.04
the cat's iao wrote:
Point being: the age of a deity seems irrelevant to any sort of discussion about its status as an entity of power...

Put differently, a deity is only as divine as the being that relates to it...

Hmm, this seems to me to be somewhat contradictory. On one hand it's suggested that since time is illusory the power of a Godform is a constant, regardless of how long it has existed in human culture and consciousness. But on the other hand, the power of the deity is only as strong as the human interfacing with it.

Ultimately I think this is a semantic issue and could be resolved by assuming a difference between a Deity/Godform and the power it represents. The Godforms are representatives of timeless archetypes that have always and will always exist. But the masks they wear and the distillation of those archetypes into the human sphere are dependent upon their integration into the culture. The mask of Horus is only strong because it has been adopted by humans and fed by persistent invocations over thousands of years. But the forces that Horus represents are indeed vastly greater than anything we could hope to consciously grasp or convey in any logic structure, and will surely exist whether or not we do.

The Godforms are assumed to make the incomprehensible forces of the Absolute more pallatable to us human animals. To get slightly Kabbalistic, the Godforms are the vehicles through which the powers of the Supernals can step into time and interface with human consciousness.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
17:20 / 12.06.04
Yeah, I think I agree with that LVX23.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
17:25 / 12.06.04
Fucking excellent thread, by the way. One of the best discussions we've had around this subject I reckon, I've learned loads. You just wouldn't get this level of debate about magic in any other forum I've visited. Respect.
 
 
Z. deScathach
19:02 / 12.06.04
I think one thing that needs to be looked at is dealing with these forces through a godform that is essentially "revealed", through a contact ritual. I've done this with Caitlin Matthews's 9 fold paradigm of Energizer, Measurer, Protector, Initiator, Challenger, Deliverer, Weaver, Preserver, Empowerer. What I found was that I could deal with the personifications of these forces directly, allowing a symbolic godform to reveal itself in my mind, through pathworking and ritual. As the actual symbolic qualities of the diety are assembled from my subconscious, those qualities will contain both archetypical and personal material. Still, to me, those godform representations are not the territory, they are the map, a way to connect with a vast force that would be overwhelming to my puny ego, and perhaps more importantly, difficult to communicate with.
 
 
LVX23
19:26 / 12.06.04
Yeah, this is what I'm talking about when I suggest that Godforms are strengthened through human use. The rituals that are passed on through the millenia essentially create the mask - they are the interface between the magician and the Godform. Repetition of the rituals defines and hardens the mask, deepening the cultural channel through which the deity is revealed. The Godform itself could then be regarded as the summation of these components:
1) The primordial force it represents
2) The cultural mask it wears
3) The ritual used to reveal the mask
4) The consciousness of the mage invoking the force through the mask
In this respect the mask will always vary to some degree, bound to cultural trends and the psychological constructs of the invoker. These will color and personalize the experience of the force. My Horus is arguably different than yours, though they are both of the same source. Your own personal Jesus!

Great thread, folks! It feels like we're really getting into the meat of things.
 
 
Unconditional Love
13:06 / 13.06.04
in regard to the interaction of external and internal, treated as static states it becomes problematic, ie self and not self, i think personally and in my own experience this is a process, a dynamic interaction between matter and consciousness a material consciousness or a conscious materialism if you will, to seperate tham is what causes the conflict, to acknowledge there interaction allows them to be viewed as a singular holistic process.

the ideas surrounding everything and nothing and form and emptyness intrigue me, as i was once left chanting after a trip for a few days everything is nothing and nothing is everything, emptiness and form understood as shiva and shakti or yin yang has given me some awareness of this state, but i still have alot of work to do in this area.

the gods and goddesses masks are also worn in consciousness in the dreams of the devote in the language in the feel of a sentence of thought as at flows through awareness in there interactions with others and can take the form of the clothing worn the jewellery etc if consciousness and energy are percieved as the mingling and the spiritual force as a merging, a kind of cauldron is formed, an alchemy of the soul as the devotes conscious environment is transformed by his or her acts of love towards the spiritual force, this in turn begins to interacte with the energetics in the aspirants life attracting certain media, people,ideaologies etc at the same time it can create a repulsion in others whose energetic structure is aligned within differing focuses, this attraction and repulsion seems nessecary in human terms as much as it is portrayed in the worlds of polytheistic spirit.
 
 
the cat's iao
04:11 / 14.06.04
Yeah, you know iszabelle, I generally agree. An undifferentiated (?) is none of those things (power, motion, action): it likely simply is. But, at the same time, it is all of those things and more, because, well, without being anything, then it is likely nothing at all. Kinda’ like wolfangel is getting on about nothing is everything and everything is nothing. From (some? all? sombunal?) Buddhist views the form is empty. So I like totally jive with an I AM being played off an I AM NOT, but clearly, or at least transparently to some, the real is exactly that relationship. So yes, we humans appear to exist, learn, and grow within a “self vs. other” environment, but I feel that the universe manifests not because of a “vs.” but because of an “and”. So, I feel that yes, the universe is a dance between “I and NOT I,” however, humans often seem to interpret this as an “I or NOT I,” which I feel is mistaken and leads to all sorts of conflicts and misunderstandings.

I tend to feel that we are our own dreaming: an empty Self that dreams of its own negation.

“On one hand it's suggested that since time is illusory the power of a Godform is a constant, regardless of how long it has existed in human culture and consciousness.”

I don’t think I suggested this, but if I did, then it’s not what I meant. I merely meant that time, or duration of myth over time, cannot be the measure of a deity’s power. I did not mean that the power of a deity is constant. I feel that at any moment (now being the only reality) any given deity could be at a lesser or greater power within the particular moment. I simply don’t feel that the deity’s presence or lack thereof over time has anything to do with the potency of a deity.

I also don’t know if we can say that archetypes have always existed, or that they will always exist. I guess it depends on what is meant here. In a homogenous unity it seems that there can be no archetypes, but then again, if nothing and everything are an identity, then all the archetypes have existed, but merely as undifferentiated maybe?—as potential? I don’t know. Language becomes a hindrance at times. I seem to recall that Jung’s idea was that the primary archetype is the Self, which is entirely empty. But then, other archetypes are derivatives from the Self, and these have, erm, substance (or something). I certainly agree with your second and third to last statements though, LVX!

A query, which is somewhat like the initial query restated, if a magician chooses pop icons as masks for primordial forces, then is the culture really responsible for the mask the force wears, or is it the uniqueness of the magician’s own interpretation of the pop image that gives the force its mask?
 
  

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