Friday, July 06, 2012

Yay, Faith in Fate Debate!

So Jason disagrees with me about FATE.

Or... does he?
Basically, I reject the notion that this is all some pre-written fucked up kabuki dance where  there are people we are meant to be with, things we are meant to do, and things we are not meant to do. If that fatalistic idea of God as micro-manager is true, then any alteration thereof is also part of that plan so it is not even worth thinking that way. If it is not true, then we have to take some responsibility for ourselves, including our initiatory paths.
That's the quote I'm aiming at. Especially the italicized parts.

Jason's expressing the belief that "fatalism" and "free will" are "opposed." One must negate the other.

But... think about it.

Jason and I agree that there is the Body and the Not-Body aspects of the Complete Human Entity. There is something that continues to exist after the body is gone. Conjurations of the dead, exorcisms of the same, veneration of the dead as saints, ascended masters, or what-have-you tend to indicate the belief that the death of the flesh is not the end of the entity.

The Body and the Not-Body coexist while we're living. It's an intimate partnership between two beings operating on different levels of existence. The Not-Body gets certain desires and necessities met, and the Body likewise gets to claim its due. It's symbiotic, and it goes both ways.

Does the Body have Free Will? Can it make me do anything it wants? Am I its puppet?

Or is it Fated to do what I tell it to? Can it deny my commandments? Can it refuse to obey?

The only honest answer to any of these questions is "sometimes."

And I say that's because "fate" and "free will" don't matter in the discussion of the human entity. It's the wrong language to talk about the relationship between the physical and spiritual manifestation of the human being.

I think the relationship between the Body and the Not-Body parts of the self is very much an analogy of the relationship between the Source and the Image of the Source, between God and Man. God-the-micromanager is really the Big Chief, and he really sets everything in stone the way it has to be. And then he manifests in it, and becomes His Own Self and Not His Own Self at the same time. He follows his will and materializes, becoming us. His Will manifests through "us" the same way "our" will manifests through the flesh.

So is everything predestinated? I think so. But it can't happen without us. Yes, it will happen, but as a result of us making it happen. And we do it because we really want it to happen.

Fate? Free Will?

Do you feel fated? Because I don't. I feel like I get to do what I want when I want to. And things always seem to fall together as if there were a plan. A purpose. Maybe that's my Body framing the experience so it can be processed logically and stored for increased probability of survival in a hostile world.

Does it matter? Ultimately, it does not.

Back to Jason's main points:
If that fatalistic idea of God as micro-manager is true, then any alteration thereof is also part of that plan so it is not even worth thinking that way.
Why isn't it worth thinking that way? You're doing what you meant to do, exactly what you want to do. And if you don't want to do it, you can do something else, and you can't fuck anything up, no matter what. Knowing whatever you want to do is the Will of God makes you more free and powerful than anything else I've experienced. And knowing that even if you're "wrong," it will be ok anyway?

I think it's totally worth thinking that way.

And second point:
If it is not true, then we have to take some responsibility for ourselves, including our initiatory paths.
If it's true, we still have to take some responsibility for ourselves, including our initiatory paths, because the Will of God doesn't manifest without us making it happen.

I'm a relatively powerful magician, in a lot of ways. I can make pretty much anything happen that I want to, within reason, almost always through totally "natural-looking" means, even though I totally cheat by calling on powerful relatives in high places who understand me better than I understand myself. 

But the magic doesn't do itself. The wands don't up and cast the circle, the spirits don't conjure themselves, and the whiskey doesn't make itself a libation without my immortal will and my flesh working together with these material spirits, any more than the body fasts on its own to bring spiritual attainment, or the spirit wills to ascend on its own without the Source willing it to ascend at the same time.

13 comments:

  1. Maybeness is another name for Kether.

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  2. The problem with fate thinking is multiple:

    1. It can promote crappy behavior: I want to steal money from people, so that must be gods will.

    2. It transfers responsibility from your shoulders, to the shoulders of agents of Gods will: ie Angels and the HGA.

    3. It leads one to have all kinds of assumptions about the insight of beings into minutia that they just honestly dont care or have any reference for.

    There are others, but I am tired.

    The mind/body thing. Yeah dude, the body betrays the mind only about 99.9999999999% of the time.

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  3. Those problems are all delusions and don't hold up under reality.

    1) You steal money, you suffer, you learn suffering sucks, you stop stealing money, or you suffer more until you do. Sometimes generations of bankers and royals can get away with it, but then comes the Revolution and the guillotine.

    2) There are no other shoulders.

    3) That puts the whole importance of the minutia into perspective.

    Mind/body thing...

    Mind or body's fault:
    * Carpal tunnel syndrome?
    * Suicide?
    * Addictions?
    * Obesity?

    I don't have any easy answers. They all look like "both" to me. Partnership.

    Can the body betray the mind?

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  4. So when Hitler make the Holocaust he was doing God's Work? or he got it wrong and he is learning unconsciously in another life that it was wrong? Or he was an instrument to punish the Jews or all Europe for past sins?

    I am not saying that you are wrong Opus but it is something very relative, acording to you:

    You kill, you suffer, you learn suffering sucks and then you stop killing, and what about all the people that get killed because of you? It was part of God's Plan that all that people get kill because one little human need to learn a leason? because one little human do not see that killing was wrong?

    Maybe all is not God's Will per se, but a cause and an effect, it is a mix between what the Divine wanted to happen and what the humans, because of our causes, produce as an effect. The Cords of Destiny exist, yes, but our actions are the ones that makes the hands of the Moires to move in one direction or another, we are part of the Plan of the Supreme, but we are co-creators, not just puppets, the strings are there, but is up to us moving them to one place or another.

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  5. We DO have free will, no doubt. However, if the choices we make take us off the path of our destiny (or fate), we'll know. Let the suffering commence.

    As a magician, you know you're on the path that is best for you, performing your work in the manner best suited for you, when everything flows well. It seems as though everything you touch turns to gold and everything works out the way you intend. You're making choices based upon your free will, but you are also on the path of your soul's destiny (or fate).

    I used to question destiny and fate, but no more. When I strayed from that path, the red flags popped up. I heard them but did not heed them. I continued, exercising my free will, but the shit storm hit in a major way. That is when I realized it was time to tear everything down. I made that choice, once again exercising my free will, yet knowing I'd most likely lose everything along the way but that may very well be necessary to move me back on the path of my destiny.

    I've now recovered from all that and I'm back in the flow. While I continue to make choices using my free will, things are flowing incredibly well which signals to me that I've returned to my fated path and all is right in my life once again. There will be glitches, yes. I'll make some free will decisions which may take me a bit off that destined path here and there in the future once again, but I know the signs and signals to assist me with getting back to it more quickly now.

    This is how I view free will in conjunction with fate. They do work together, in my opinion.

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  6. @RO: I am really trying to follow your logic here, but you are losing me.

    1. This in no way refutes the idea that thinking everything is everywhere it is "supposed to be" and some part of a Dieties plan cal lead to negative behavior.

    2. No other shoulders than whose? Your own? That is MY point, but fatalistic thinking suggests otherwise, especially when you get into thinking that celestial beings other than yourself are also all-knowing operators of this plan.

    3. huh?

    Also, the mind/body thing. WTF does this have to do with the argument at all ???? :-)

    I am not the smartest guy in the world, but your response is all over the place.

    @ Rose. I get what you are saying but rather than see it as fate or destiny, it is more like living in line with your nature. There is a BIG difference.

    If it is true fate, than everything is progressing along some pre-written plan and you have no real free will at all.

    If the idea is that there is a pre-written plan but you have the free will to deviate, but deviation will cause problems and suffering, than that leads to all kinds of theologoical issues like who wrote such a shitty plan for life and why.

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  7. @Jason, sometimes my logic astounds even me. :D

    I'll break it down a bit further though, I skipped over some stuff.

    1) Yes, thinking things are where they're supposed to be can lead to negative behavior, unless you realize you are ultimately the one responsible for things being where they're supposed to be. When you realize that "you" are as much a manifestation of "God" as your "body" is a manifestation of your "not body", there is no one else to blame for shit, no way to justify being evil, doing negative things.

    2) The "other" entities are also manifestations of God, different parts of him, just like we are. They are no more all-knowing than we are. They just have a different perspective on things.

    3) We care a lot about the minutia. The celestial brothers and sisters of eternity don't care for them so much. They don't have a frame of reference for it. You said something about how we've both had entities subjectively fuck us over when we asked for help in our businesses. We didn't get what we expected. But we got what would have helped us be more successful in our occult careers than anything else: Total reliance on it for our existence. Nothing motivates you to succeed like no other option.

    We thought it sucked at the time because we valued the comforts and luxuries more than the opportunity to succeed. They aren't worried about our comfort because our comfort is ultimately meaningless. the minutia they don't care about or even understand aren't that important.

    The mind/body thing... those are all examples of the mind and body seemingly betraying each other. My mind knows my typing gives the body carpal tunnel. Do I stop, or even bother with mitigating ergonomic adaptations? No. My mind is betraying my body, right?

    But at the same time, the reason I don't care about the carpal tunnel thing is because we've evolved to believe we're invincible. Chemicals flow that make the self-preservation and health-maintenance aspects of life ingorable.

    Suicide is the ultimate betrayal of the body by the mind, I think. But the body has to participate for it to be possible. Depression is a chemical issue, not just a mental-spiritual issue.

    Addictions are the result of the body getting physically addicted to something terrible for it. The mind is also addicted, and fails to stop the body from getting its fix. The mind enjoys the high and lets the body have its addiction. Addictions that are more mental also make the body happy, releasing pleasure chemicals and shit. It's bi-partisan collaboration, body and mind together.

    Obesity, same thing. It's terrible for the body, but the body loves to eat.

    All that mind/body stuff is an allegory for the God/Mind thing. Our minds are the extensions of God the same way our bodies are extensions of the mind. We can't do shit without God, and God can't fate shit without us. We're the ones doing it, not some bearded sky daddy. Our FATE is what we do. What we DO is our fate.

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  8. That's some seriously deep shit right there, man. I think I'm totally enlightened.

    Why am I not rich? :D

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  9. @ Rose. I get what you are saying but rather than see it as fate or destiny, it is more like living in line with your nature. There is a BIG difference.

    If it is true fate, than everything is progressing along some pre-written plan and you have no real free will at all.

    If the idea is that there is a pre-written plan but you have the free will to deviate, but deviation will cause problems and suffering, than that leads to all kinds of theologoical issues like who wrote such a shitty plan for life and why.

    @Jason: I see your point. I'm still struggling with the words fate/destiny, but really had no other way to explain it... although I have used the phrase, "path to my true Will", and others similar to that. I think that is more in line with what you're saying. I can agree with that. It makes sense to me.

    Basically, what I was getting at, and I think you are as well, is that we have free will, but stray too far from the course of what is in line with the core of our truest Self, and we're gonna get smacked up side the head until we listen and move back from the detour and back on course. Please correct me if I have your idea wrong, but this has been my experience.

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  10. I'll be quick. As a working astrologer, "Fate" and "Will" are both incredibly important concepts for me and my practice.

    That said, some things are Fated, while some things are not, at all. Much of life falls in between, tendencies that are either easy or hard to change.

    Knowing what category something falls in is incredibly important.

    -Austin

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  11. Goddamnit, Rufus. I hate your comment system. That said, I will retype what I was going to say.

    As a working astrologer, Fate and Choice are incredibly important categories. What I have seen, quite clearly, is that some things are Fated, some are not. Most are somewhere in between. Habits, with varying degrees of stubborn-ness.

    People have different degrees of Fated-ness and Free-ness. Knowing the difference is incredibly important.

    -Austin

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  12. It's fate, A. You're destined to post the same things twice to my blog forever. ;)

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  13. Note to folks who wonder, Austin Coppock, one of my favorite living astrologers, always always always submits basically the same comment twice on my blog. I usually delete the one that I feel doesn't have as much meaningful information to my audience, but it's basically the same message. Usually the first one has more details, I suspect because he's pissed that he lost everything he just wrote.

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Thanks for your comments, your opinions are valued, even if I disagree with them. Please feel free to criticize my ideas and arguments, question my observations, and push back if you disagree.