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The Identity of Self Through Personhood As Such

08:55 / 04.07.04

So, here we all are. As far as I can tell, each one of us is experiencing something. Each human partakes in some sort of world, and generally this world is, for each individual, divided between I and not I. Certainly there is common ground amongst the I and not I, and there is also difference, but each I has some sort of experience of being.

So I guess I am wondering, as I often do, about this I. Who or what is this self anyway? To what extent does any being know this self and to what extent does this self remain unknown to any being?

Some people say, and indeed I’ve read people here write it now and then, that magickal practice and mystical practice intersect at some point. I wonder if these practices intersect about notions or experiences of self (Whatever that is!) ?

So what do you figure people? What do you figure about your I: do you know it, do you know your self? How has your magickal and/or mystical practices, thoughts, experiences or whatever influenced your notions of identity, or have they?

I’d like to talk about it, if anyone’s game to put his or her thoughts, feeling or beliefs about the subject into words. Let’s share our views on this I, and without knitpicking one and other for them. If we want to quote scripture or people, or books or whatever, I think that’s cool so long as it’s recognized we are not quoting for support of our thoughts, but as apt expressions of our thoughts and feelings (in our own opinion, ‘natch). Thus, it’d be best if we didn’t debate about our beliefs and sources, but instead try to explore the experiences of self that are related by those thoughts, feelings, quotes, or whatever, ya’ dig?

So, quoting the band known as a grumph:

Who do you think you are?

And why this or that I?

Nietzsch E. Coyote

09:27 / 04.07.04

MAgick and mystic tend to coincide with other when it comes to me. That is my magick and my mystick relate to my gods who are not me, but they care about me.

Except when they are me, or I am drunk
like now
sorry

18:24 / 04.07.04

My name is Legion...

I is an umbrella term that allows various facets of Consciousness to mingle.

The smallest I is ego, who used to believe its I was solitary and its duty was to stand apart from Not-I. There is a larger "I" that cradles the ego's I, a more vast and quiet Consciousness that is not sure of its boundaries or its relationship to the dimly perceived Holy All which may or may not be Not-I.

We all spend time under the umbrella of I, but we are spending more time contemplating the edges of that shelter/prison. And when we stand at the edge of the ocean, feel/hear/see it surge and boom, we know it's not raining...

12:49 / 06.07.04

If the duality of "I" and Not-I" is defined by the limits of the physical body and its functions, then perhaps the effect of Magickal or Mystical practice is to blur or even erase that line of demarcation, so that "I" encompasses and blends with "Not-I". The "I" can perceive and interact with "Not-I" on the material level, but through Magickal practice, may one learn that the material can be affected non-physically, and through the Mystical that there are levels of existence/interaction beyond the material? Thus rendering the physical body an effect of selfhood rather than a cause? And if so, then where does the "self" reside?

Ergh, sorry if this doesn't make much sense, trying to articulate an idea I can only see the edges of...

19:22 / 07.07.04

A friend of mine goes with the theory that there is no self, rather that he is a configuration of infinite diverse elements in a state of constant change. Probably not doing it justice, but that's it in a nutshell.

The thing is, he's very tall with darting eyes and lots of energy, which is manifested in the way he moves his arms and legs, and also in a lot of his facial expressions. He talks a mile a minute, and has a very jumpy thought process, which makes it very hard to follow his train of logic.

That physiological type (of which he is as much of an archetype as anyone I've met, although it's never that simple - maps and territories and bullshit like that) is typically associated with a violation of the right to exist between the ages of 0-6 months. There being no dividing line between mind and body, the one will effect the other throughout developmental stages.

Is it any surprise that someone of that physiological type would chose a theory of self in which no true self exists, in favour of a set of elements in constant motion? Not that I necessarily disagree with the theory: it seems to contain a lot that I'd agree with. I'm just flying the flag for the physically manifested self.

20:33 / 07.07.04

That physiological ...is typically associated with a violation of the right to exist between the ages of 0-6 months.

Could you explain this a little more?

For what it's worth, he sounds like a textbook Vayu/"Air" type in ayurvedic medicine.

08:19 / 08.07.04

It's some of Sandy Cotter's unhelpful phrasing. She's from the school of body-mind psychology that started with Wilhelm Reich, and went through Alexander Lowen and Melanie Klein. The idea is that specific events in early childhood have a dramatic effect on the developing mind and physiology, which she labels as the violations of rights to exist, receive love, be fed, plus a couple of others that I can't recall (I'm waiting to get sent notes so I can learn the model in detail). You could state it more simply as the perception of being ignored, of people acting as if you are not there. The fast speech, high energy levels, jerky movements and tall body, are all ways of reinforcing existence to the self through relationship with others.

I was talking to another person of this type about a bloke she fancied, and she literally used the phrase, "he doesn't even know that I exist." It's fascinating to see how the model relates to the reality, how far it works. So far it seems pretty damn accurate most of the time, but it's still only a generalisation and doesn't define anyone in their entirety. I'll let you know more as and when the notes arrive.

09:41 / 08.07.04

Do you know your self?

Well, I think the problem here is that we are not knowable as such because we are the knower. A commonly used trope in Eastern-derived mysticism (I've seen it in popularisations of Ch'an Buddhism, Hinud mysticism and the work of Alan Watts) is that is that the knower cannot be an object of knowledge for the same reason the eye cannot look at itself. It is the thing that does the looking. Of course, most of these systems then posit some kind of experiential derived knowledge - "gnosis" - that is held to supercede our mental conceptions.

Incidentially, this is why I think our culture is so full of exhortations to find your true self, normally through the medium of consumption. The "true self" will always remain a chimera, as it's a mental conception which will always fall short of this totality which is what we are. Attempting to find one's "true self" might be helpful and even theraputic process, but essentially, you're just exhanging one conception of yourself for another - neither are necessairily true.

Unconditional Love

14:11 / 08.07.04

said another way it could be called chasing your own tail or how can you find yourself when you are yourself?

i think most of us are looking for some kind of perfect me, i was, its that image,eidolon that seems to stand up and shout look at me, relaxing and not being too arsed seems to allow my true (lmfao) self to be.

18:26 / 08.07.04

Oh, personhood! I thought you said parenthood and got all excited. Not enough discussion of childrearing on da B -- not any, in fact, far as I can tell. I tell ya, all these issues just disappear at four in the morning with a screaming, teething toddler. Or rather, they get clarified to triviality. :-)

Anyway. Figuring out who the !I! is, or at least negotiating some kind of liveable compromise, is part of what magick's all about, innit. Who's doing the asking in a ritual? Who are you asking? Who's replying? Did you turn the gas off?

It helps if you listen to "Heart of the Congos" and "Arkology" a lot, BTW. True.

19:56 / 12.07.04

Been meaning to add my few bits to this thread fro a while now...

I think the Self is like an onion. You continue to peel layers off, getting deeper and deeper, until suddenly there's nothing left. The outer shell is egotistic and self-referential. It is the embodiment of the biosurvival instinct wrapped in personality and memory. As we go deeper into the Self, peeling away the layers, we get farther from the personal self - ego - and nearer to the universal Self (where self-reference is non-existent). The more we peel away our consciousness, the more we are absorbed back into the One Self.

Somewhere in between the personal self (lowercase) and the universal Self (uppercase) lives the Witness (to use a term from Sri Nisargaddatta), who is like the mediator between the two poles. This is roughly analogous to Crowley's Holy Guardian Angel. It is a form of our selves more in tune with the will of the Higher Self, less concerned with defending our ego constructs. Identification with this Witness is one goal along the mystical path towards union with the universal Self.

01:32 / 13.07.04

I apparently had this thread in the back of my mind somewhere during meditation a couple of days ago, and I had what might have been an insight (or maybe just a 'shroom flashback).

I got a visual impression of something resembling the Magic Mirror/God-entity from the Invisibles - big shiny undulating quicksilver spheroid, reflecting all of existence on its surface fractally. Suddenly it occurred to me that all it would take for this thing to become a Universe would be for it to turn inside out (thereby reflecting all of existence inward, and containing it within itself). This led to the thought that perhaps the Universe/Universe-Creator is in fact projecting here what seems to be our Selves, when in actuality "I" am only the Universe's perception of a greater, more-real Self on the Outside. In the same way that every object or being we encounter theoretically exists in (at least) two places: one, the "objective" reality of the outside Universe, and two, the perceived reality inside our heads. The "I" or self which exists inside the mind of the Universe is not the True Self, but only the self that the Universe/Creator perceives. We in the physical Universe are only as real as the Universe believes us to be.

Which, I suppose, would make us a sort of hologram, existing in the mind of God, and I know that's been done before. Didn't say it was necessarily an original idea. But the overall implication is that even if the Universe ceased to exist, our True Selves would still be out there...