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Reality, and some questions about the nature of it.

 
 
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03:52 / 03.08.04
What are we dealing with here?

To put it in my own wierd way :

They know.
They know that i know.
They know that i know that they know.

But who are they?

OK i've been the joker around here for a while now, so it's time to clear away or come to a better understanding of some of this.......stuff that's in my head, because it's full of it. There's so many mad and crazy experiences that i couldn't possibly recount them all, they're just too numerous and my memory isn't very good any more.

So this year's been pretty fucking mad, just as mad as any other year i guess, but i'm here to get some ideas and opinions from you people because to tell the truth, i don't think i could be in a better place. I'm totally sober right now so there's no drunken madness in me, just some wild ideas and some questions.

I've had run in's with entities for a long time now, about four to six years, and not all of it's been bad, but the problem is i've never been very open about what i'm doing with myself because it's always been hard knowing what to say and what not to say to others. So i've seen these Grays, and i've fought one of them, (i've heard that there are two kinds and i believe that, i have also had good experiences with the more astral type, but not as memorable or real, possibly because of the physical nature of the negative experience.) i've seen one of these Reptiles, and although i thought that i'd be having a fight with that thing aswell, i didn't. It just looked at me. I've woken up in the middle of the night, sat up in my bed and i've been shoved onto my back by something unseen, i've been fucked up and nowhere in a hostel and i've woken up to see a robed, dark figure looking down on me from the side of my bed. Many other wierd things aswell, but these come to mind first.

The big question is : how real is this? Are we in an illusion where this stuff just appears, or is it all somewhere in the mental processes? Do these things make your mind merge planes with them or do they just come into ours? If someone else had been in that hostel room with me that morning, would they of seen the same figure?

I can call up a Vampire as an ally, is it real? Is it part of me or is it part of something else? Did it come from the Orion system or from Sirius, or did it just come from a plane nearby? Is it real or is it in my head?

Well i've wrestled with some of these fuckers, and i'll tell you something : it feels pretty real to me. The best bit is making peace with them and then having allies, but what about when the next thing comes along? What about the next thing after that? And the next? When does it stop? In a full blown, visible magickal war?

There must be some answers to these questions. Pick one out if you want and tell me what you think. I'm pretty sure that this forum is one of the best places to do this on the whole net, and i don't think i even have to see the whole net to say that.

Barbelith visited me, and it burned right through my head with it's light. It was the realest thing i've ever felt in my life. So real that i refrained from posting about it because i was too scared about what to say and what not to say. Now i'm doing it because i have to.

Science says that everything has it's equal opposite. Ok then, where is ours? On this planet with us, or in some other parrallel universe? Is there a way through? What do you believe about Dulce, Area 51, The Manhattan project, Grays, Reptiles, Elves, Agartha, Sirians, Orion(ites?!), Andromedans, Freemasons, Skull and Crossbones, Illuminati, GM Crops, Dragon lines, Ley lines, Vampires, Nanotechnology, Satellite surveilance, Microwave rays from the Military, CIA mind control?

Of course i'm not asking a seperate question for each of these things, i'm just trying to put across ideas so that you can think about these things, because maybe it will trigger a reply that has more things to associate from.

This isn't a conspiracy forum, i know that, but if we can be as powerful at times as we can, then think about what we could do if we had the power and resources to do more or less what the hell we wanted to do, and the free time to do it. No more work that we didn't want to do, just infinite focus on our goals. I'm sure we could do some pretty wild stuff. Some hugely magickal stuff.

Some people have the power and the resources to do more or less what the hell they want to do.

Buddhism connects with the Matrix when it comes to making things real in our heads. Buddhsim tells us that the world is a projected illusion that we make real with our minds.

Neo says to Morpheus in the Matrix : "I thought it wasn't real."

Morpheus says : "Your mind makes it real."

It's only a film you idiot, get off it already.

Yeah i get that, but i was just giving an example. I'm no Matrix freak no more, i used to be, but now i'm more or less over the obsession. The first film was a buzz. The wierd thing is that in the third film Neo is told that Smith is his opposite. What is our opposite? And where is it? The Invisibles uses the same ideas to get it's point across. It's just two sides of the same thing. I saw a thread about Lentation, well if you use fiction Magick, like invoking characters and stuff like some of you do in here, you can do some pretty fucking insane stuff when you use some of the ideas from the Matrix aswell.

But that's not the point of the thread. The Matrix has finished, so has The Invisibles, but our lives go on, i get that. That's why i'm here, because after years of obsession with fiction, art, conspiracy and magick, i'm in need of a clearout, a new start, and i figure that if i can get some of your opinions on some of, any of the things in this thread, i'll be in a better position to make some decisions about what i'm going to do next.

I could just as easily just make them now, but some of you are a lot wiser than me, and i'm kind of need of some help.

Thanks for reading this.
 
 
LVX23
05:06 / 03.08.04
Well, first off, what is "real"? Real by the standards of science? Rational? Is a memory real? How is a ghost or demon different from a memory or a vision?

Real is whatever you choose it to be. Belief is the name of the game, but a very skeptical utilitarian belief. Know that you are choosing to believe in something, but don't get too caught up in it. To hold on too strongly to any belief is dogmatic and limiting.

Real is a consensual agreement, a shared hallucination. This keyboard is more space than matter. Science tells us that. So do the Buddhists. Yet it feels solid. "The Matrix" is the interference pattern of the hologram as perceived by our sensory apparatus.

The opposite of human is human. We are our own opposites. We shine in our art and expression, our empathy and emotion. Our darkness builds bombs, exploits children, and conducts inhumane experiments. Look at the Art card.

Belief is a fiction suit. Wear it to reflect a mood or to get into the right clubs. Just remember that you're naked beneath it all.
 
 
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05:33 / 03.08.04
Thanks, that's give me some stuff to think about.

The opposite of human is human. We are our own opposites.

That's cool too, but what about the polar opposites of ourselves and the things that we do? Do you think that each human has an opposite human, or is this just plain wrong? Do you believe in Archons, or Demons, and if so, are they the opposing energy to all of the good things that we do? Why the hell would we come into this place just to experience life if we knew all of the problems that it causes?

This is getting into strange territory now, but i sometimes wonder how much we chose to be here sometimes. Are we here because we're addicted, forced, to help, or just to experience it? All of the above, none of the above, or just some?

I'm kind of asking myself here aswell, i don't honestly think that you know all of the answers, but thanks again for the reply, and it definately looks like you know some of them.
 
 
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05:39 / 03.08.04
Or maybe we came here to experience it, and then something went wrong, like many people believe.

Then again that's just a belief. Has it only gone wrong if we believe it has, and is the consensus holding together everything that's wrong? I think that if we stopped believing how fucked up things actually are, or seem to be, that they would fix themselves sometimes.

It's late anyhow, and i need sleep. Hopefully i can manage that, but something tells me i've got too wired to manage to drift off now.
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
09:07 / 03.08.04
Real is that which, even when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. At least according to PKD. By this metric Grays aren't real, at least not to me. I stopped believing in them and they stopped bothering me.
 
 
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11:23 / 03.08.04
That's more or less what happened to me. I stopped believing in them, and then left magick alone for a while, and then when i came back i didn't fear them anymore. The connections that i had with them through fear had caused me so many problems........anyway, i also figured that whatever there is in this universe you don't really get a race of beings that are all bad. I don't believe in them or not anymore, just half and half i suppose.

When i went, or before i went to bed earlier on though, i felt like my ability to believe in what i wanted to had been increased, and that i could focus on what i wanted to with more energy, maybe because i'd shuffled so much information around my head that i'd freed up some trapped part of myself. It felt really good. It's still here now but not as much, because i feel tired and i've just woken up, but i'm happier and healthier for it.

After making this thread, and reading Seths thread i feel like i understand myself and how my mind works a little more. And mainly how belief can be used as a tool more than i did. Also how wrong beliefs, or negative beliefs can use you as a tool if you don't deal with the things that you don't like to think about sometimes.

Or maybe if you just think too much.
 
 
Skeleton Camera
00:54 / 04.08.04
Per Mr. Coyote's comment and PKD's adage I don't think the division is between Belief and Reality. The divisions are smaller - the fringes of many different areas of experience and being. Grays aren't real for you because you stopped believing in them: you shut the door, so to speak. BananaRob, it sounds as if you yanked the door open blindly (to start with). Not a bad way to go but brace for the flood!

There is no "objective" filter as to what is real, despite what we may try to find. There is movement between different manifestations, though - or whatever you care to call them: spheres, planes, etc. And trickily enough, just because you shut one out does not mean it IS or IS NOT there.
(Quantum psychology?)
Grays are NOT real for Nietzsch E. and ARE real for you. Both are true.

(Aaargh...can't think tonight. Must...go...bed...)
 
 
Digital Hermes
02:52 / 04.08.04
Then again that's just a belief. Has it only gone wrong if we believe it has, and is the consensus holding together everything that's wrong? I think that if we stopped believing how fucked up things actually are, or seem to be, that they would fix themselves sometimes.

This struck me rather strongly. How much of our reality might be consensual? A state of subconcious agreement with somethingn easily recognized as a problem. Never even minding the metaphysical, the fact that an entire global populous, let alone the population of the nation in question, could let the Iraq war go as long as it did(has)? Or to not be as specific, how much of our lives are made up of choices we generally know are wrong?

Throwing out a bone, if we snap it up maybe we can talk some more.
 
 
the cat's iao
03:29 / 04.08.04
How much of our reality might be consensual?

Well, and this is off the top of my head, it's late, and I'm a little sleepy so bear with me, I would hazard that all of our reality is consensual.

Now, this can be seen in at least a couple of ways, the most obvious of which is our linguistic reality. We often feel that there is power in names, and names reflect our understanding. A language game is a shared way of naming, and so, reflects a consensual way of understanding and interpreting the experiences that we have.

A less obvious way is to note that our biological reality is also based upon a consensus in that most humans have similar physical sensations of the world. Now this might be seen as a stretch of the word 'consensus', but I don't think it is. There certainly is a general agreement amongst humans as individual biological systems as to how experiences are to be sensed via the body.

I might be able to say more later..until then!
 
 
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11:36 / 04.08.04
Grays aren't real for you because you stopped believing in them: you shut the door, so to speak. BananaRob, it sounds as if you yanked the door open blindly (to start with). Not a bad way to go but brace for the flood!

I did stop believing in them for a while, or to put it better i stopped thinking about them, but now i just try to see them as equally real or unreal as myself. To say they are real would be to put too much belief in them, but to say they aren't would be to shut the door like you said. I did yank the door open though, and i got the flood after it. It was crazy for me at the time but that was because i'd got heavily into conspiracy theory, aliens etc before i learned anything like magick, taoism or buddhism, and i didn't feel like i had anyway of protecting my mind from the negative aspects of what i was getting into for a long while.

That's what caused me a lot of the difficulties i had when first getting into these areas.

There is movement between different manifestations, though - or whatever you care to call them: spheres, planes, etc. And trickily enough, just because you shut one out does not mean it IS or IS NOT there.

Yes i agree, that's why i try not to shut things out anymore, because often when i've done that in the past it's had the opposite effect, like i shut things out for too long and it was causing an imbalance in what i was doing. Like i was selecting what i thought was good or bad and not working on what i should of been working on.

Or to not be as specific, how much of our lives are made up of choices we generally know are wrong?

That's something that i'd love to know the answer to, i'm sure i'd be shocked if i found out. Something that would also come down do each individuals awareness of their own actions from day to day.

We often feel that there is power in names, and names reflect our understanding. A language game is a shared way of naming, and so, reflects a consensual way of understanding and interpreting the experiences that we have.

Yeah, and i often wonder what other associations we sometimes have with words and names that are under the surface, subconscious associations that we don't even realize are there. Also what would happen if or when we start changing our language and other names start getting added, how much they will affect the consensus. Or if words get taken out, how they can bring about a change in the way we think. Something that i've seen is also being discussed here in the Laboratory.

Roots of words gets brought up here aswell, and i think that subconsciously the roots of these words will always have an affect on us, moreso if we aren't aware of what the roots actually are. Burroughs is mentioned there too, apparently he got really deep into it from what i've read about him.

I suppose the more things that we find to question and the more parts of our minds we use, the freer and more fluid reality becomes for us.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
14:14 / 04.08.04
I think the main question I want answered relating to the above, centres around why Illmatic isn't in this thread shouting at you yet? Eh? What have you done with him?
 
 
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15:47 / 04.08.04
Ha, maybe Barbelith's hidden it from his browser to give him a rest.
 
 
Seth
16:39 / 04.08.04
Yeah. Or maybe he put you on ignore. Which reality is more likely? A sentient board or Illmatic bored?
 
 
Skeleton Camera
21:06 / 04.08.04
Gypsy: good question. Mr. Ill has all the right to be bored. These type of conversations can get veddy tiring after a point, but at the same time, there's still something to be learn-ed from them. Great, I'm the justifier. It's just difficult to balance them on the intelligent-discussion scale because WE'RE difficult to balance on said scale.
 
 
LVX23
21:21 / 04.08.04
Well, people don't just post here to have intellectual discussions. Sometimes they really just want help finding some answers. They may be answers that others have already dealt with ad nauseum, but that doesn't invalidate the questioner.
 
 
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21:41 / 04.08.04
I can understand how this type of questioning can get boring for people who've been here a while, and even for some that haven't, but i just wanted to ask for some advice with a few things that have been on my mind.

I do feel better for the answers i've had so far though, so thanks to anyone who's replied to this, i bunched a whole load of stuff up and put it into the first post because i thought it would be a lot better than making another thread on the same type of thing in a few weeks or something, so that's why i ran through a bunch of things.

I don't really post in here much now, and i equally enjoy just lurking here and reading the threads so i'll probably get back to doing that now because i don't feel that i have as much to add in this forum as i did when i first arrived here. I can also just browse through the backthreads aswell and learn a lot more from them.

Thanks to everyone who posts in here though, because my perception and understanding of these areas has definately changed for the better in the last five months or so.
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
02:58 / 05.08.04
Yeah. Or maybe he put you on ignore. Which reality is more likely? A sentient board or Illmatic bored?

Who cares which is more likely? A sentient board is more fun.
 
 
illmatic
07:11 / 05.08.04
I agree. I'm not bored really, just don't want to kick off all the time. I don't think I could answer any of Banana's questions anyway. Someone else's odd experiences are hard to judge and comment on over the net.

Anyway, I've been in the shed making alien head masks out of eggboxes and doublesided sticky tape.
 
 
Digital Hermes
03:30 / 09.08.04
First off, I hope I'm not just whipping a horse that was good and buried. Been mulling over a thought or two, thought I'd throw and see what sticks.

We were looking at the consensual nature of reality; how much of things are the way they are because we allow them to be that way. An element of the individual in association with the group. What about just the individual? How many personal choices create our own realities? One answer would be that everybody is doing that, all the time, I suppose.

This board seems like a good example of that. There is a freedom here to be somebody other then who you are at work or with your loved ones. I do not imply that anyone is lying about who they are on the site; rather I am excited about the possibilities of re-invention, the therapeutic effects of creating fictionsuits in a sustainable forum such as this.

So who says our real-world lives, the bodies we are in, are not just very convincing fictionsuits? With each of us as the writer? Each of us as our own god, creating the gods we pray to?

Jeez, I hope I'm not smited by (mine, or anyone else's) God, for that last comment. I'm not trying to enrage anyone here, just putting out an idea.
 
  
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