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*
05:41 / 18.11.07
Hi, folks. Over there in policy there's a thread—a really big and long-running one—about Temple moderation. The common themes that have kept it going have (to my eyes) included such notions as:

* Do/How do people who come to Barbelith for the Temple affect the rest of the board?

* What do we expect in Temple in terms of avoiding language and behavior that is oppressive to particular groups of people? How does that interact with Received Lore (RL)/Unverifiable Personal Gnosis (UPG) that just happens to assert that, say, X Group is inferior because they do/don't do/can't do/shouldn't do Y Practice?

* What makes a strong argument in Temple? How much do we value empirical arguments vs. UPG? What about RL?

* What do we want from this forum, and from moderators of it?

I'd like to try talking about some of those things here, to let that policy thread have a rest so it can get on track. (Which is also why I'm not linking it, even though you all know right where it is. It's not laziness. I swear.)

This thread is for talking about general community standards and agreements, supported where appropriate by examples. Let's talk behavior in this thread, not people or personalities. Let's not, for example, say that Boromeerkat Eaglebrain is a detriment to the Temple because ze has Issues. It's not particularly helpful, aside from all the other reasons it's problematic.

Let's also where possible talk about things that have made Temple really great, or that have been useful for us in our practices.

To start off...

I appreciate that the Temple, generally speaking, places a lot of emphasis on experience, and on discussing experiences in a way that doesn't presume beforehand how we will make sense of them. Over the last year or two, this attitude has become more incorporated into how I experience my own practice. Rather than rushing to understand my experiences in the way I already view the world—theorizing in advance of the facts—it's given me a chance to expand my understanding of the world based on examining my experiences.

I want to stress that it hasn't been waxing fantastic about "reality tunnels" or "smashing the dominant paradigm" that has done this for me. I'd already done a lot of that, but in the long run it didn't have that big an effect on my practice. In that phase of my life I considered all "reality tunnels" equally valid, philosophically speaking, so I would just pick whichever one was most attractive, and in retrospect I see that wasn't very challenging. What has improved my practice is actually working to understand my experiences, even when it's hard or painful or boring or annoying, rather than paint a pretty picture around them of how I'd like to imagine them.

So what I'd like more of in Temple is practice reasonably discussing experiences and the merits of different ways of understanding them, rather than considering all ways of understanding equally valid and picking the shiniest one.

I think meeting this desire of mine would require a few things:

* A community commitment to practice the behavior that leads to that kind of discussion.

* Moderators who are able and willing to artfully steer conversations toward the former mode rather than the latter.

* Support for the moderators in doing that.

* Some plan, although it need not be anything as solid as a rule or a system, for helping people who are having trouble understanding the difference between those two modes and why there's a valid reason to favor the former rather than the latter.

* The acceptance that when that fails and someone is persistently going to be "SMAHS1NG UR REALTY TUN3LZ!" in disruptive ways, moderators will have to take action so that there is space for useful discussion that moves us forward as a community.

I'd also like to see, because I think it's helpful, a commitment to find some way to give the moderators a break now and then. A lot of discussion has focused on how tiring it is to always be dealing with the same kinds of disruption, apparently without any understanding or support from the community. It is tiring. I've never been a mod and I get tired of seeing the smashers of reality tunnels who see no distinction between experimenting with the way you understand the world and following whatever whimsical model of reality happens to catch your fancy at the time. It leaves the mods without much energy to start creative new topics or engage with the forum as fellow-travelers, and I think that's a loss to the board since at one time the way you got to be a mod (if I understand correctly) was partly by having a lot of good things to say and reasoned ways of going about saying it.

I welcome other thoughts about this. This is sort of first-draftish, while there are a lot of other people who have been thinking about this longer and more deeply than I have. And there are a lot of other opinions regarding, say, how much we should emphasize direct experience vs. RL, or the ethics and necessity of banning or mod actions in general. I've put out my opinion, backed by experience and some bouncing around with other people, not because I want to act as if it's the one truth but to start a discussion, one that I hope will be respectful, flexible, and open.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
08:49 / 18.11.07
This thread is for talking about general community standards and agreements, supported where appropriate by examples. Let's talk behavior in this thread, not people or personalities

Perhaps a definition of those standards would help, and as a pre-requisite to the priveledge of posting, an online exam be sat regarding what those standards are. A review of fallacious arguments would also be helpful - as you've noted, some areas of concern are in regards to what makes a strong argument and how to avoid oppresive language/behaviour, and as such an awarness of how such things are communicated seems like it would be helpful to avoid them.
 
 
Quantum
08:53 / 18.11.07
Sorry, an exam?
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
08:59 / 18.11.07
Yes, around about the time an email has to be sent requesting membership to these forums in the first place.
 
 
Saturn's nod
09:31 / 18.11.07
Nice points, zippy.

I think that exact approach - what is the merit in picking this particular way or that other way of interpreting that experience? - is one of the things that most attracts me about good Temple discussions. It's valuable to me not only because of the added rigour but because it invites the richness of anti-oppressive approaches of all kinds, it gives a space to people's situatedness and how that affects the interpretations we find more and less attractive.

I love to hear about people's experiences when their larger intentions - life-scale intentions - shine through, and I associate that kind of writing with having good and convincing answers to questions about why their particular approach was chosen.

Your illumination of that point makes me realize that it's the inverse of it - lack of self-awareness maybe? - that I find repellent when people don't seem to have any willingness to engage in examination or justification of the interpretation they have chosen when invited to.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
09:49 / 18.11.07
- lack of self-awareness maybe? -

I think it's more a case of cognitive dissonance, whereby conflicting thoughts are avoided/filtered in order to maintain/reinforce ones established beliefs. When coupled with critical evaluation as opposed to a genuine invitation to expand upon ideas in a non-judgemental manner, it's more likely to result is a defensive stance than a pursuit of insight.
 
 
*
15:27 / 18.11.07
Hi, Mako, Quants, Pluto.

Mako, I think the reason for having a discussion thread first, from my perspective anyway, is that there can't be any community standards without community support for a) having standards in the first place, and b) either consensus or peaceable majority agreement as to what the standards are. That's why I'm not telling, I'm asking.

I can't speak to what people feel when embarking on the reality-tunnel smashing, all-models-equal arguments that I find less helpful. It might be cognitive dissonance or lack of self awareness (how do we distinguish?) or it might be just a sense of adventure and play. I find it reminiscent of childhood imagination games in the sense that there is an infinite field of possibility open*. From this perspective—that all possibilities are open and equally valid—those who have "chosen" (from the tunnel-smasher's viewpoint) particularly boring make-believe games are old grayfaces, especially when those make-believe games challenge their own. From this perspective, a "nuh-uh" style of arguing is pretty much the only way to respond to such a challenge, since all the games are equally valid. And that's part of what makes that approach extremely tiring from my point of view. "Nuh-uh" style arguments are boring for me, and they can only ever go in circles, forever.

I find this interesting: When coupled with critical evaluation as opposed to a genuine invitation to expand upon ideas in a non-judgemental manner, it's more likely to result is a defensive stance than a pursuit of insight.

How would you characterize the tangible differences between "critical evaluation" (I think you mean the colloquial use of criticism as negative opposing arguments, not the way we often use it here to mean a process of questioning and testing) and an invitation to expand? Because I often see cases on Barbelith where they are confused, not by the poser of the question, but by the respondent, and I wonder if it's not the defensive stance itself that makes the difference. To me real criticism, by which I mean a process of questioning and testing, involves invitations to expand, questions, and countersuggestions, and usually ends in both positions having changed slightly from what they were before. To those already in a defensive posture, though, the most innocent "What do you mean by X?" is taken as an argumentative attack.

That's not to say there isn't naked argumentative attack on Barbelith, of course there is. Often when people are sick unto death of "nuh-uh" assertions, or otherwise irritated, frustrated, or hurt, we lose patience. Not a good thing, but also not surprising... I'd like to do it less often myself and I'd also like to make a commitment to deal with it better when other people lose patience with me.

*I'm not drawing the analogy to be belittling. I see nothing wrong with childhood imagination games continuing throughout one's lifetime. I think that's good and healthy. Awareness of the differences between imagination play and experiences of reality is also good and healthy. I don't, however, see anything redeeming about "nuh-uh" arguments.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
21:14 / 18.11.07
there can't be any community standards without community support

I agree, which is why I suggest defining what those standards are - if they are then defined, we can call them into question, as opposed to leaving them hazy and for those 'in the know'. For instance, there is no definition that using 'hir' is most appropriate when referring to people; this I think is a good thing, as such a standard is more a question of style (for instance we might say 'they' or 'the person') however it's also good that, as a standard, we appreciate that gender biases are generally not helpful or acceptable.

We can of course fail to define such standards and teach them either implicitly through using them ourselves and hoping others pick up on them, or explicitly through calling others out on them when they fail to use them, however this seem to be an inefficient process. Better to define and have people prove they at least know what those definitions are, than to constantly teach based on no set defintion. Smart laziness is about doing hard work today to develop a system which works tomorrow and the day after, so that tomorrow and the day after we can pursue other forms of work that we find to be more desirable.

It might be cognitive dissonance or lack of self awareness (how do we distinguish?)

I think we take it on faith that just as we are able to be self aware and use inputs to come to an informed decision, so too are others. The majority of people fit within the centre of a bell curve, so unless we are on a far reaching outlier (i.e forrest gump or steven hawking territory) then making the assumption that we're self aware and others arn't, is not a safe assumption to make. Cognitive dissonance on the other hand, can go perfectly well with self awareness; both are expected products of the average human mind, if not all minds no matter how gifted they may be.

I might for instance be self aware enough to know my views on a friend are heavily influenced by the fact that he is a friend, and that I expect my opinions on what makes someone to be friend-worthy to be well informed and justifiable - I may even have the self awareness to know that I am subject to cognitive dissonance, and that my opinions may in fact not be well informed and justifiable. Having such awareness however, is not going to prevent me from disbelieving or filtering any information which states that he may not be friend-worthy; if someone else were to label him a thief, I would most likely set this aside as it conflicts with my thoughts on him, or I might decide that he didn't steal, but rather he found.

From this perspective—that all possibilities are open and equally valid

Valid in the sense that everyone has a valid right to an opinion, however not all opinions are valid - a racist has as much right to an opinion as anyone else, however this does not make their point of view correct in that all members of a certain race look alike, act alike, etc. I find it hard to fathom the 'all opinions are equally valid in regards to content' school of thought, and thankfully only encounter it on rare occasions; I have a suspicion that it's C.D based in that if only some content is valid, that means that one has a strong liklihood of being wrong, and so the safest way not to be wrong is to say that all content is valid.

How would you characterize the tangible differences between "critical evaluation" (I think you mean the colloquial use of criticism as negative opposing arguments, not the way we often use it here to mean a process of questioning and testing) and an invitation to expand?

Basically in the delivery, and the lack of consideration to the recipient. For instance, in being told that my friend is a thief, this is a judgement in terms of (a) what he is and (b) what he is bad - naturally, I'm likely to be defensive. This is not only because I like him, but also because (a) in my mind, he isn't a thief and (b) he's my friend, so he isn't bad. If on the other hand, a certain aspect of his behaviour is described, such as "I saw your friend take someone's wallet" then it's not a judgement in terms of what he is and whether or not what he is is bad, but rather it's a statement of behaviour, instead of a position which needs to be defended.

To those already in a defensive posture, though, the most innocent "What do you mean by X?" is taken as an argumentative attack... Often when people are sick unto death of "nuh-uh" assertions, or otherwise irritated, frustrated, or hurt, we lose patience.

Very true, which is why a consideration of that posture must be taken into account to effectively communicate the lack of clarity/correctness in that stance. For instance, in communicating that "SMAHS1NG UR REALTY TUN3LZ!", you seem to be communicating that this is (a) bad, and (b) childish* - if you're correct in this, than acting poorly and immaturely in return isn't going to make the situation any better; it's more likely to lead to bickering, continued frustration, etc. as humerously shown in The argument sketch by Monty Python.

It's not always what we have to say that's the problem. Sometimes it's just how we say it.

*I agree, as I find leet speak to be somewhat immature and annoying, just as I find the concept that my reality is a bad reality to be annoying and very, very arrogant.
 
 
*
06:28 / 19.11.07
I agree, which is why I suggest defining what those standards are - if they are then defined, we can call them into question, as opposed to leaving them hazy and for those 'in the know'.

I think you misunderstand. There's no way for any one person to define what those standards are right now, because they aren't predetermined. I'm not about to say "These are the standards" because they aren't up to me, nor have they been given to me by anyone else. I think, in fact, they haven't been decided at all. There have been a bunch of folks acting on what we believe to be the right sort of guidelines to follow for the community to work in the best possible way, but we all have similar but not quite the same ideas of what that looks like. Standards, it seems to me, will be decided by talking like we're talking now: "Okay, folks, what standards do we want to have?" So we have to do the questioning first, before we do the defining. I'm sorry. The truth is, we're all of us making it up as we go along.

I think we take it on faith that just as we are able to be self aware and use inputs to come to an informed decision, so too are others. The majority of people fit within the centre of a bell curve, so unless we are on a far reaching outlier (i.e forrest gump or steven hawking territory) then making the assumption that we're self aware and others arn't, is not a safe assumption to make.

This sounds like you're saying that self-awareness is a product of quantifiably normal intelligence, not life experience. I disagree. I think self-awareness is much more linked with life experience than with intelligence. I know that I am more self-aware today than I was last year, and more self-aware last year than I was when I was 15. Therefore I can project ahead and infer that barring unforeseen occurrences I will be more self-aware in a year than I am now, and still more so in 15 years, and I can presume that there are people both more and less aware of their own strengths and weaknesses than I am of mine. I think "intelligence"—the Gump-Hawking factor, whatever that is—is of less impact in this matter than variety and challenge of life experience.

Basically in the delivery, and the lack of consideration to the recipient. For instance, in being told that my friend is a thief, this is a judgement in terms of (a) what he is and (b) what he is bad - naturally, I'm likely to be defensive.

I'm having trouble seeing how this is applicable to the present situation. Temple rarely has instances of "Your friend is a thief," it's much more likely to be something like "I don't think we're talking about the same otherworldly invisible radiation spirits," or "Your idea of X does not seem to be based on experience, tradition, or reason; would you tell me what it is based on?" or "This thing you are saying is causing offense." So I don't know that your example works here. In addition, delivery and consideration to the recipient are notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to be clear about over the internet. We have no facial expressions or tone of voice or gestures to guide us in understanding delivery—only context. And we can never really know whether someone is being appropriately considerate of their hearer's feelings, even in person. They could just be a good actor. (Does it matter if they're acting and don't actually give a toss about you, so long as they come across as polite?)

At any rate, these things are in the eyes of the beholder in the majority of cases, and therefore aren't any kind of thing to base a community agreement on.

For instance, in communicating that "SMAHS1NG UR REALTY TUN3LZ!", you seem to be communicating that this is (a) bad, and (b) childish*

Well, I tried to address the childish part. I think it's reminiscent of certain kinds of childhood play in particular ways, but not in totality, and I stated I don't think this is in itself bad. However, the resulting kinds of argument—"I believe this way because I like to, and you can't prove me wrong"—are lacking in their ability to reflect the complexity that we all know exists in the world, and thus not very functional either in the world or in a discussion board where people seek to engage their brains in an effort to come to know more about the world.

if you're correct in this, than acting poorly and immaturely in return isn't going to make the situation any better; it's more likely to lead to bickering, continued frustration, etc.

I never said it would. Two things, however: It's debatable what actually is "acting poorly and immaturely in return" and what is simply an appropriate response that allows the person responding room to express their feelings. Having consideration for the hearer is to no avail without some consideration for the speaker as well. In addition, it's debatable that acting "maturely" by the standards you've hinted at has proven more effective. It's been tried before. If you credit everyone with the same self-awareness as you have, you must realize that the mods and old-time members here have in fact thought of this before, and it's not coming as a surprise or shock to hear someone suggest that we try being reasonable.
 
 
Quantum
12:14 / 19.11.07
I think Zippy's right, Mako, you're getting ahead of yourself- we can't provide a definition of things (never mind an exam) until we decide what they are.

To answer the questions from my pov;
* Do/How do people who come to Barbelith for the Temple affect the rest of the board?
Weeelll, historically either they enrich it with a perspective that complements the dominant rationalist/atheist found here, or they come across as gullible lunatics and assume everyone on the board is a chaos magician.
I'd like to encourage the former obvs.

* What do we expect in Temple in terms of avoiding language and behavior that is oppressive to particular groups of people?
I expect the same as anywhere else on the board i.e. to stick to a high standard of non-hatespeech.

How does that interact with Received Lore (RL)/Unverifiable Personal Gnosis (UPG) that just happens to assert that, say, X Group is inferior because they do/don't do/can't do/shouldn't do Y Practice?
Just as in the Creation it would be unacceptable to publish and discuss a racist diatribe as fiction, it should be vigorously challenged when it's UPG as well. There are plenty of places on the net to discuss racial purity or men-only magic, we shouldn't tolerate it here.
Not to say those things can't be discussed of course, but if someone presents their view of women as inferior (say) they can expect a good textual kicking.

* What makes a strong argument in Temple? How much do we value empirical arguments vs. UPG? What about RL?
I value experiential accounts much more highly than received lore or theory. I think a strong argument takes into account the persuasiveness of the evidence to someone else. If I'm not from your trad and haven't had the amazing experience you had I'm much less likely to take your assertions as fact.
F'rexample, a strong argument might go 'I had a powerful dream that Isis came to me and told me to utilise Lapis Lazuli in my blessing ritual. That fits with what my trad says about Lapis (link, source etc.) and what other sources suggest (link source etc.) so I tried it, and then I had a lucky escape from a car crash and won £100 and the feeling of foreboding I was having went away. What experience of Lapis in blessings do you have?'
A weak argument might go 'Lapis is the best thing for blessings, Isis told me so, you should all use it'

* What do we want from this forum, and from moderators of it?
I want high quality discussion of interesting occult subjects from a variety of backgrounds, where everyone respects each other and co-operates to share what we've discovered. From the mods I want thread-herding, discouraging rot and theoretical musings.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
13:20 / 19.11.07
I'm sorry. The truth is, we're all of us making it up as we go along.

No doubt, and I'm not suggesting otherwise - what I am suggesting is that there are some standards which could at this stage be easily defined, such as in relation to misogynistic harrassment of members, and that through discussion others can be defined as well. I just think that once this process is completed to a satisfactory level, it not be set aside, but rather employed as part of the membership process in order to avoid the types of abuse that make the defintion of standards necessary in the first place.

This sounds like you're saying that self-awareness is a product of quantifiably normal intelligence, not life experience.

I'm not a fan of quantifiable normal intelligence, but rather situational intelligence - for instance, self awareness is a form of intelligence, just as the more traditional considerations of I.Q such as verbal and mathmatical are. I.Q is based on the concept of an average intelligence level, where some people are above and some are below, but the majority of the population is in the centre of the distribution, and I think the same is true of self awareness. Whether self awareness be product of quantifiable normal intelligence or life experience, to say that the reason why some people might not be willing to examine/justify their opinions is due to a lack of self awareness, isn't statistically sound - granted, there is no doubt a level where self awareness is so low as to prevent examination and justification, such as can be found in those with narcissistic personality disorders, however that's a pretty low level and a rare occurence.

I'm having trouble seeing how this is applicable to the present situation. Temple rarely has instances of "Your friend is a thief," it's much more likely to be something like "I don't think we're talking about the same otherworldly invisible radiation spirits," or "Your idea of X does not seem to be based on experience, tradition, or reason; would you tell me what it is based on?" or "This thing you are saying is causing offense."

Or "Silver Ravenwolf, whilst being an entirely valid author on the subject of magic in her own right, seems to attract a following of people with little appreciation for the dynamics of magic in a wider context". It's because guidance of intent is so difficult over the net, and we rely so strongly on text alone, that consideration of delivery is so important - some things do come across rather well, sarcasm for instance, and because they are not offset as they would be face to face by such things as body language which implies it's of light-hearted intent, their sting can be more intense because of this rawness. These things may well be in the eye of the beholder, but the person who makes the delivery is still responsible for the delivery they make in the first place - some things are going to be viewed in ways which we can easily estimate, a product of our self awareness and awareness of others, and so responsibility for the receivers response is in part due to the person making the delivery.

Having consideration for the hearer is to no avail without some consideration for the speaker as well.

I agree - in circumstances such as this, communication is a two way street. Speaker and hearer trade posistions, and become mutually responsible for the conversation. I also agree that it's debatable what acting poorly and immaturely in return is, but then isn't this debate (in part) the purpose of this thread? To discuss and define what Temple standards are?

If you credit everyone with the same self-awareness as you have, you must realize that the mods and old-time members here have in fact thought of this before, and it's not coming as a surprise or shock to hear someone suggest that we try being reasonable.

Not everyone and not the same, but the majority of the population and to a comparible level. I agree that the mods/members have gone through this before and so show a high level of awareness, and that I'm probably not suggesting anything new. What I am suggesting is that, as shown by Banning thread: Epop, there's still more to learn and more to consider for everyone here - if it takes 9 pages to communicate a point, than chances are that communication can be improved.

This is the value of defining standards of communication in the Temple, to point us in direction where we need to improve both in terms of what Temple expects of us and what we can expect from Temple, but also how we can improve Temple and ourselves.
 
 
darth daddy
01:11 / 20.11.07
First of all, "nuh-uh". These kind of restrictions makes me feel like Ismael in Moby Dick, creating a strong desire to knock peoples' top hats off. Second of all, since when has "SMAHS1NG UR REALTY TUN3LZ!" become a bad thing on this board? I owe an enormous gratitude to all the posters who have shared incredible wisdom and weirdness on this board. Should we define all weirdness as Unverified Personal Gnosis?
 
 
*
01:34 / 20.11.07
darth, I think you may have misunderstood my meaning and intentions. There's nothing wrong with weirdness in general, nor unverifiable personal gnosis that is understood as such. By "smashing reality tunnels" I'm referring to particular behavior that comes out of a certain set of prior assumptions:

1) All models of reality are equally true, valid, or useful.

2) My model of reality (part of which is that #1 above) is particularly special—more true, more valid, or more useful. (This can be reconciled with #1 above only by a series of cognitive backflips identifying one's own model of reality as, in fact, a meta-model or hypermodel or otherwise bigger than other people's mere "reality tunnels.")

3) I am extremely special for having thought of it/seen it in the Invisibles or Illuminatus Trilogy and realized how much more true, valid, and useful it is.

4) The world, or perhaps just this message board, is divided into two groups of people: Those special ones who "get" my special model of reality, and dumb boring people who will have never heard of it before or are incapable of comprehending how especially true, valid, and useful it is.

This produces behavior that is particularly irritating and non-conducive to discussion and learning. It's also very difficult to challenge, because the response to such a challenge can only be (as I said earlier) some form of "nuh-uh."

One problem with such behavior is that, aimed as it might be at smashing reality tunnels or fundamentally altering the way others see the world through the diligent application of bewilderment and social transgression, it almost never produces any insight of use. I think that folks who have wisdom as well as weirdness to offer and who are capable of avoiding causing actual offense or dealing with it maturely if they do are in no particular danger from any kind of community guidelines that Temple posters might agree on.

That said, I would up and leave pretty quickly if the Temple became a "no chaos magic" or "no challenging established precepts" or "no talking about weirdness" zone. I don't think you need to worry about that.

Can you think of anything that you would like to see more of, or less of, in the Temple than you do at present, darth?
 
 
Quantum
07:20 / 20.11.07
These kind of restrictions makes me feel like Ismael in Moby Dick

I'm not clear on what restrictions you're talking about there, darth- the ones preventing hatespeech?
 
 
Unconditional Love
09:14 / 20.11.07
The one thing that has got me in all my time here is the relationships that are largely intolerant of pop culture magic and other elements like otherkin and otakukin.

There is a lot of dynamics going on there about identity, very interesting stuff to do with non traditional self conception that gets dismissed as fantasy and having nothing to do with ' real ' magic or at worst gets written over as dysfunctional psychology because it does not fit with the magic as religious extension model that a majority of 20th century magical traditions conform too, even chaos magic to a very large degree encapsulates some kind of supposed lineage to 20th century forms, it nods its cap.

Whats most annoying to me is alot of young new voices are being told to shut up before they even begin to redefine magical culture as each generation should do.

Technology as well gets hit very hard by those that seem to think technology and magic are separate subjects, that is very misleading.

I found it really quite difficult when i was younger to relate to traditional ideas, i just wanted to kill tradition completely to be frank about it, and i think each generation has a right to redefine everything and learn how to make fire all over again if needs be.

Stuffy and stagnant is not good, creativity and innovation should be valued and not lashed out at, that can happen within acceptable limits but not those that preclude humane open discussion.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:36 / 20.11.07
The one thing that has got me in all my time here is the relationships that are largely intolerant of pop culture magic and other elements like otherkin and otakukin.

Wolfangel, if you're going to throw around accusations like that you should make some kind of effort to substantiate them. The reason people here are not more "tolerant" of some of the subcultures you mention is because of the high degree of maladaptivity and weak thinking that exists in those subcultures. WRT "Otherkin": I'm quite sure that if someone with generally healthy stable practice that had an overall positive positive effect on hir life who just happened to also be a were-llama succubus or something turned up, we'd all be cool. The were-llama succubus part might be interrogated, because the mechanisms by which were-llama succubi might come into existsnce and maintain themselves are somewhat outwith the shared experience here, but ze wouldn't be run out of town by people screaming "BURN THE WERE-LLAMA!"

I'd also point out that I know several were-somethingorothers, people with totem animals, and people who work closely with animal spirits, and that many of them cringe and put their head in their hands at the mention of "Otherkin." The subculture has a reputation for dysfunctionality which is richly deserved.

WRT Otakukin: Okay, Otakukin are not people who work with pop-culture figures in a magical context. They are people who belive themselves to BE pop-cultural figures in a NOT VERY WELL context. Why the everloving fuck you'd think people who were Aeris from Final Fantasy in a past life and are having Cloud's twins on the astral plane would be a positive addition to the board I do not know.

And where are all the young voices that are being stifled? We've got a fair few younger posters here. Just because they aren't banging on about the kinds of things that you think a young magician should be banging on about doesn't mean they're not young. About the only young Otherkinny type poster I can recall getting anything resembling a really hard time around here was Daynah the vampire, two or three years ago, and that was largley due to the fact that the belief system she had embraced seemed founded on a very shaky version of the energy model--and more to the point, appeared to be making her actively less happy.

How, pray, is the Temple telling these hip young Otherkin mages of teh future to shut up? It's not like the internet isn't crawling with Otherkin, psychic vampires, and people who like to dress up in horribly ill-advised Sailor fucking Moon costumes. If these people really are re-defining magic for the next generation, you will of course be able to provide links or references to some of the fascinating work being done. I wait with bated breath.

On the pop-culture magic angle: I would ask you to go back over the many, many discussions we've had on this topic where people here have related details, in depth, of their own delvings into pop-culture magic, and the reasons why many of them ditched it wholly or entirely for something else. That's practice BTW, not stuff that was made up on a wet Wednesday while waiting for Eastenders to come on and sounded cool at the time.

Technology as well gets hit very hard by those that seem to think technology and magic are separate subjects, that is very misleading.

Reference this, please. A well-thought-out thread on the overlap between technology and magic would be very welcome here. Vague noodlings of the "hey, videogames give some people seizures right + people with seizures have been thought to be shamans in the past + hey yeah woo fnord + ????? = PROFIT" variety, less so. The problem is not a reluctance to discuss technology and magic, it's that a lot of the people who reckon they want to discuss technology and magic can't be arsed to think things through and create meaningful topics on these oh-so-important subjects, expecting that the rest of the board will either do their work for them or go "ooh videogames cool."

In other words, you're re-hashing a lot of vague, unfounded and frankly rather spiteful accusations that you've made several times in the past and have never been able to back up. Either back them up now or stop doing this, please.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:38 / 20.11.07
PS: Thank you for making me go through this immensly tedious argument a-bloody-gain, it's really cheering. Like when you've just spent 3 hours fixing a punctured bicycle tyre in the rain, wobble off down the road, and run straight over a broken bottle.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:43 / 20.11.07
Darth, can I add another request for you to outline just waht you're talking about when you mean restrictions? Thanks.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
10:50 / 20.11.07
Just to say, quickly ere lunch:

Mordant - right the f~~~ on.

Wolfangel: Are you blind? There's a range of discussions where the blending of magic and technology AND science (which many tend to leave unseparated) is subjected to both conceptual and experiential criticisms with both positive and negative conclusions. There's been discussions galore on the relationships between biofeedback, psychopharmacology etc etc and to my mind a lot of these have been cautiously optimistic.
 
 
darth daddy
11:11 / 20.11.07
You caught me, I can't stand the restriction against hate speech. Come on.

It was the suggestion that a test regarding "falacious arguments" and moderators "skillfully" guiding discussion in a predetermined manner that got my goat.

I have been exposed to untold number of interesting concepts and authors on this board. For example, the parkour thread introduced me to a practice I had never heard about. While I don't go around jumping over walls, making a conscious effort to break habitual herd type behaviour in a city has been extraordinarily fun and productive.

Pretty much all "occult" work is received via personal gnosis. Would we simply mock a young Crowley should he blather on about Aiwass? Or would we support his work and provide useful direction?

Also, I don't know about any those "were llamas". I'm into
"were spiders".
 
 
illmatic
11:51 / 20.11.07
Would we simply mock a young Crowley should he blather on about Aiwass? Or would we support his work and provide useful direction?

Just to sidetrack a second, Crowley was very much into proof and substaniation, and made a lot of intellectual effort to pull the same out of his work, using gematria amongst other things. He defintely wasn't into simply acceptance of one's visions and gnosis. he said something like "every spirit up to God himself, is out ot decive you" - I think that kind of spirit of critical interogation of one's own experience, would be welcomed
 
 
Papess
11:53 / 20.11.07
DD, you start out seeming fairly reasonable even if a little sarcastic. I rather see your point about restrictive, predetermined discussion and tests, although I have not formed an opinion on it mostly because I don't understand what it entails.

However,
Also, I don't know about any those "were llamas". I'm into
"were spiders". I just don't understand in the context of this discussion. In light of our recent discussion in the Deity Yoga thread, it seems like you are trying to humourously reference that.
 
 
darth daddy
12:02 / 20.11.07
Mordant went off about "were llamas" in her post regarding otherkin. I found it funny.
 
 
Papess
12:10 / 20.11.07
DD: Ahh, didn't initially register that. Thanks for clarifying.
 
 
Papess
12:18 / 20.11.07
[ot]I really apologize, I totally missed a whole paragraph in Mordant's post. I think I need to change the batteries in my mouse.[/ot]
 
 
Quantum
13:53 / 20.11.07
It was the suggestion that a test regarding "falacious arguments" and moderators "skillfully" guiding discussion in a predetermined manner that got my goat.

Ah, Mako's exam- I don't think that's getting implemented anytime soon, fret ye not. I think it's fair to expect rational polite discussion on a message board though, and it's wrong to attack someone just because they disagree with you (ad hominem), civilised debate isn't too much to ask.
Moderators guiding discussion is simply things like saying 'stay ontopic' or, as shown by Mordant above, 'Please substantiate your groundless and spiteful accusations'. That's hardly a restriction, is it?
 
 
darth daddy
14:29 / 20.11.07
Such moderation is fair and useful. I read the opening thread to be far more intrusive.
 
 
*
15:00 / 20.11.07
So we have a couple of voices of concern saying they'd rather not see the Temple become more restrictive. I am personally not advocating for more restrictive guidelines, just clearer ones, so we all know we're on the same page.

I think there is the minor risk that someone new with something interesting to say might lead off with a bit of chaos magic to be met with groans of "Not THIS again," but in actuality, they're not going to be run out of town and the misunderstanding would be pretty quickly resolved. It's not a case of chaos magic vs. magic as extension of religion as Wolfangel suggests. Not all the Temple posters are interested in religio-spiritual modes of magic, and I think we're generally pretty good at dealing with those differences with a few sparks here and there.

I think we need people to realize that we don't have to buy their model of reality to hold an intelligent discussion with them... but whether we buy their model of reality or not there will be challenge, preferably both ways, about our differing models of reality. If you are afraid that your model of reality will not stand up to challenge, and you are not willing to adjust, you're going to have an uncomfortable time here.

I can entertain a lot of theories about how and why magic works, but when you get right down to my practice, it's a pretty kludged together version of animism and energy. I studied chi kung and traditional Chinese medicine for a few years, and now I'm practicing with a bunch of witches who are all about the "raising the cone of power" business, and all of that relies on some view of the human body and the world being acted on by an indwelling power that one can at least imagine as a kind of immaterial substance. I've had close personal friends who were rocks. None of this is really defensible on here or anywhere else, and I'm okay with that. I'm willing to engage in critical thinking about it, adjust as necessary, and at a certain point I might just say "Okay, it's not defensible and it's not going to stand up to logic... but it's the way I practice, at least until I hit on something better." I don't feel excluded or belittled for it here, probably because my self-esteem isn't wedded to it.

I for one don't feel the necessity for any of those beliefs to be protected from scrutiny or criticism. In fact I'd much rather that people in Temple felt free to question those beliefs and try to make sense of them, even if that gets into a fairly heated discussion—so long as we all remain civil and considerate of one another. Anything limiting people's freedom to question my beliefs I would consider overly restrictive. Guidelines that (for example) tell people clearly what exactly an ad hominem attack is and why we're not to do it, however, I'm all for.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
19:15 / 20.11.07
Hey, I happen to be a were-spider. It's not a joke it's a REAL TRUE SERIOUS and above all MELANCHOLY condition.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
19:55 / 20.11.07
Also, darth d., how is anything in that first post "intrusive"? Could you point out the elements that you yourself feel would intrude upon a solid, meaningful, or even just plain fun discussion of the theory and practice of magic + related stuffs?

I would tend to second the points that zippy makes here, where he outlines the elements of his own practice which could likewise be subjected to heavy objective scrutiny and might not stand up to same, yet are meaningful to him. Much of what is discussed here is subjective as all get-out, yet is still valued and respected if it seems to spring from personal experience--be that experience everso subjective.

For example, were I to spend a wet afternoon cataloguing the various household products in my kitchen and bathroom, assigning properties to them at random, concocting potions based on this scheme from said household chemicals, and writing a post on same without having done anything so onerous as to try it out IRL, I could expect to have this critiqued along the lines of: "That's nice. What have you used it for? Oh, you haven't used it for anything? You haven't made any of the potions, you haven't done any work, you just randomly decided that the Pine Fresh Sparkle Floor Shine is symbolic of Love, and the Blue Ocean Facial Splash symbolises male potency, and suggest mixing them up to get laid on Friday night. Jolly good, now try it for a couple of months and tell us how it went." If I did not do so but persisted in telling people how great the concept of mixing Pine Fresh Sparkle with Blue Ocean Facial Splash was compared to their stuffy old practices, the tempers of those people who have actually dedicated a fair bit of time and effort to mixing various substances together with magical intent and observing the results would likely fray.

While I'm here, I'd like to thank you, darth daddy, for your contributions to this topic. It's good that you have familiarised yourself with the issues at hand, carefully read the Temple page in the FAQ, and perused the recommened links before adding your helpful and insightful comments. Such a degree of investment after only 14 posts is truly to be congratulated. I'm sorry if your laudable urge to knock off top hats has been evoked by this discussion. As you will no doubt have observed, the trickster or coyote figure has a long and colourful history on Barbelith. Do feel free to give us your edgy forthright views in future.
 
 
Unconditional Love
21:02 / 20.11.07
Well mordant i was talking about 3 or 4 years ago when it was more of an issue, i should of made that more clear. I was also talking about reactions from way back then to Taylor Elwoods book Pop culture magick, which i am currently working through, and its well written with some great ideas and practices.

I have come the other route i have worked with traditional forms and now have started to work with pop culture forms, and the thing is i cannot find a great deal of difference in results or wisdom to be honest. I see alot of ancient cultures as the Media of there times, the pop cultures of there times as well.

Look at Thelema, if you look at what was popular around Crowley intellectually and how that changed in the times he wrote different literature within, then you can see a lot of reflections to popular culture of the time the same with the golden dawn and wicca. Popular fiction, Theatre, film and cartoons all bear an influence.

As to identity in otherkin and otakukin, think about the amount of investment in identifying with those forms, now break that down and think just how easy it would be to invest all that acting and ideating into other forms of identity work, very useful techniques. Used as a crutch yeah a complete waste of time, but reformulated and focused onto real goals a powerful form of personal developement, everything has to start somewhere and its just a case of seeing where it can evolve too, and things do seem to have this habit of evolving.

As to technology, yeah computer games are a good place to start as it goes especially with the mythologies they are beginning to adopt into interaction, Enochian for example, representations of Cabala and elemental systems, the potential to help visualisation and the formulation for pathworking. The whole trance aspect of cinema and games and the environments they take place in, there is a whole magickal structure inherent.

The problem is 20th century magic carries a whole plethora of anti technology influences and the dead weight of other ideaologies into spirituality from a variety of angles. (not that that is all bad or good)

I am talking as much about myself as my experiences of barbelith. I have been vocal in attacking otherkin in the past as well as defending them and the same goes for my own attitudes to technology, chaos magic and non traditional forms of practice. I see alot of that in me comes from unexamined ideas based on rebellion to or faith in other ideas and philosophies, i no longer find that a very helpful place to be in.

So for example theres alot about going back into the past to save the future in late 20th century spiritual forms, as if we should all turn backwards or look elsewhere to find a spiritual experience, when actually viewed from a certain angle life as it is now with all its attendant technologies and popular culture can be experienced that way without looking backwards or drifting off sideways.

This may seem off topic, but , its an example of how i talk about magic on barbelith and what i value about the community, diversity and to be able to express an unpopular opinion and receive feedback which leads in turn to self examination.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
21:28 / 20.11.07
Wolfangel

I was also talking about reactions from way back then to Taylor Elwoods book Pop culture magick, which i am currently working through, and its well written with some great ideas and practices.

Presumably you mean this thread ?

Anyone told blantantly to "shut up" (well, apart from Sypha) or being "dismissed" ? I can't see it. Yes, some of Taylor's ideas got vigorously critiqued - and things got a bit heated for a while, but overall, I thought it was a pretty good thread for throwing ideas around.

Whats most annoying to me is alot of young new voices are being told to shut up before they even begin to redefine magical culture as each generation should do.

If you're thinking of Taylor here, then you should be aware that he's still out there, writing books and articles.*

(*Hopefully better than Pop Culture Magick tho' which I've also read, and thought was bloody awful).

Perhaps you can point to a post on that thread which illustrates your point?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:14 / 20.11.07
Wolfangel: I have come the other route i have worked with traditional forms and now have started to work with pop culture forms, and the thing is i cannot find a great deal of difference in results or wisdom to be honest. I see alot of ancient cultures as the Media of there times, the pop cultures of there times as well.

Yeah, well, I hate to say this (also I only know you through your posts on the B and may be completely wrong in my assessment therefore) but in all the time we've been interacting I have never seen you stick with one single trad, godform, or way of looking at the world for more than a few weeks together. Seriously. I have never, ever, seen you engage with any system for any length of time. If I'd spent one weekend working with Odin and the next working with Giles off of Buffy, I might well arrive at the conclusion that there was not much to choose between them in terms of results or wisdom. It'd be a shit conclusion based on shit work though.

Now, it happens that I know people who have functional, productive magical practices involving both "traditional" Gods and comic-book or TV characters. And I respect those people. When they talk about the work they do and what they get out of it, it's evident that they've hit on something meaningful and productive for them.

If I thought for one moment that you, Wolfangel, fell into that category I'd be fighting your corner right now instead of chewing you out, but as far as I can see you don't.

Prove me wrong. Tell me, in detail, how you spent 6 months of daily workings with Captain Kirk, and that got you as much juice as the 6 months you spent in daily work with [insert deity here]. Tell me how your deep long-term engagement with the Star Wars mythos got you further than your engagement with the Greek Gods. Because right now I see a guy who has never stuck with one course of magical action for more than a few weeks if that telling people who have actually done this, who have actually put in the time and done the donkey-work, how they should be framing their discussions.

There's a crossroads not far from where I live, with four oak trees nearby and park benches underneath them. And every week I walk up there and I pour out a libation to my main God, and I sit on the North-facing park bench, and I smoke a cigarette, and I pray. Every week. Without fail. The only days I've missed were when I was in another town or another country, or doing something even more intense in a different liminal space. I've missed, by my count, maybe five nights all told, and on each of those nights I offered something equivalent or better than the crossroads devotion. And I've been doing this for about year and a half, summer and winter, rain or shine.

I don't offer this to show everyone what a hardcore little witch I am. I offer it as an example of phoning it in. It's the absolute least, the barest minimum, that someone might do to demonstrate their engagement with a tradition. Just this one small thing, every week, over time. Can you say you've done the same for Bart Simpson, Jack Frost, Professor Xavier? If you have, why aren't you talking about what you've done rather than how mean people here are?

There are plenty of communities out there where God of the Month (or God of the Week, or God of this project I happen to be working on right now) club is the rule not the exeption. I have to ask why, if you need your level of engagement affirmed so badly, you're still here and not there.
 
 
*
23:07 / 20.11.07
Speaking up from the nice end of my pendulum swing over here: I'm not that committed, myself. I'm a youngster and my spiritual beliefs haven't settled, and they might not settle when I'm an oldster, either. I haven't been made to feel unwelcome or unworthy of contributing to the Temple... sometimes I've felt shy to post, but that's all my responsibility, I'm learning. If there's a difference, it's probably that I try not to make absolute statements as if my experience is universal... but there may be more to it than that.
 
 
EmberLeo
00:02 / 21.11.07
Heck, I'm 29, that's in the middle right? I've been putting in the work - at least weekly - for many years now, and more casually for my entire life before that. I'm pretty clear on some of my beliefs and a lot of my experiences, and I still feel insufficiently educated or clear-minded to post in response to much of the Temple.

But I don't feel this is necessarily bad. I don't expect to fit perfectly into some kind of group identity. Partially this is, I admit, one of my own issues with relating to group identity, but it's also that the Temple is a fairly motley crew, and that's on purpose as far as I know. It's what I like about the Temple.

--
Quantum: men-only magic, we shouldn't tolerate it here. Not to say those things can't be discussed of course, but if someone presents their view of women as inferior (say) they can expect a good textual kicking.

I'm assuming you mean "men only" from the "women can't do magic in general" perspective here. I mean it's pretty restrictive to say you can't explore the implications of being a heterosexual, born XY male and how that fits into the greater scheme of things - especially if it's ok for women to explore women's mysteries and genderfluid folks exploring those mysteries, etc. etc.

Similarly, I have no desire to partake in racism, and I think "racial purity" and "cultural purity", aside from being anywhere from slightly to incredibly offensive and dangerous, are both pretty well illusory concepts. But I don't think there's anything wrong with people choosing to explore their own heritage, whatever it happens to be. My heritage may not be better, but it is mine, and I have no desire to be swatted for exploring it just because I happen to be lily-white and a quarter German.

Also, I keep noticing a distinction made between Experience and Recieved Lore, and being a bit baffled. For me, at least, recieving lore is an experience. So.. I'm a little confused? I mean I'm not going to assert that my revelations have shown me the One True Way and declare that everyone should drop everything and follow me, but is there something wrong with saying "I was doing trancework with my lover, and we found ourselves carrying Freyr and Freya, and a conversation was then had about the nature of Odr, which seems to be quite revealing. What do you think of this take on the subject? What are your perceptions, interpretations, and experiences of Odr?"

My point being, I'm sure that my desireable examples are fine, but I'm not sure how to define what makes them okay and what makes what you were trying to say NOT okay?

It was the suggestion that a test regarding "falacious arguments" and moderators "skillfully" guiding discussion in a predetermined manner that got my goat.

Darth, I think there's a difference between form and content being addressed here. The content can be anything, really, but the best content in the world can be presented in a form that undermines it's value, or emphasizes it. I think Quantum addressed this better than I am here, but it sounds like you're worried about content being guided or censored when the others are more concerned with the implementation of good form.

--Ember--
 
  

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