A ‘manifesto’ of the ideas I’ve warmed to.

I must admit, i’m very reluctant to believe anything though!

Belief appears to be a real restriction. If you have already found something, there is no need to look anymore. It does seem to be a natural crystallising process we are lulled into though, and we should be on guard against it if we want to optimise our possibilities.

Garlanded Goat — Louis Le Brocquy

Which ideas appeal to me?

• In an ‘upside down’ world. It is a boon to be contrary and counter-intuitive.
• The physical world we find ourselves in is not a cause or creator, it is more like the end point or effect of some process; initial ideas and notions that have turned into concrete.
• Something akin to ‘consciousness’ is a fundamental force of the ‘universe’ and physical matter is just a derivative of that.
• That all events and happenings are a communication. (originator and recipient unknown)
• That all worlds appear ‘physical’ when travelling in them. The body appears to be physical in ‘our world’. The mind appears to be physical in the ‘world of dreams’ and If we had a vehicle in which to travel to the ‘world of souls’ then that place would appear physical too.
• The appearance of ‘physicality’ then, is a symbolic, multi-sensory, ‘three-dimensional’ pictoral language and dialogue. (We are fledgelings in a child’s picture book, learning how to ‘read’) It is multi layered; The simplest ‘surface level’ message here on earth is, ‘If you put your hand in the fire, you will get burnt’
• That ‘our world’ has more of a taste of something that is generated on the hoof, rather than a persistent and permanent theatre stage. A scientist might say it is a probabilistic model; A computer programmer might say it is procedurally generated; A hopeless romantic might say, ‘It is but a dream!’
• We do not know ourselves. We are fragmented and heavily partitioned. This allows ‘movement’, novel ways of putting things together and a dialogue between parts; A creative process.
• ‘Movement’ is an illusion. We already have our fingers in all the pies. If we imagine that such a thing as ‘travelling out of the body’ into another realm is possible, then it would only entail the breaking down of a partition and a change in the focus of the observer. We are not going anywhere as we are there already.
  Like in a dream; There is no movement, just changes of focus and association. The dream may present us with the illusion of movement to alert us to the symbol of a search or fleeing from our fears or just to demonstrate a transition between different elements.
• Our experience is part of a continuum, spanning from the world of the body to the world of the soul. (via the world of the mind) Ordinarily we just flip and flit between the worlds of body and mind.

“Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don’t go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don’t try to get there at all. It’ll happen when you’re not looking for it. And don’t talk too much about it even among yourselves. And don’t mention it to anyone else unless you find that they’ve had adventures of the same sort themselves. What’s that? How will you know? Oh, you’ll know all right. Odd things, they say-even their looks-will let the secret out. Keep your eyes open. Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools.”
-The Professor”

• Ever onwards. There are no retracing of steps. Re-living past glories is a game of diminishing returns. A re-creation is always less than the original. We always want to go back to the ‘first time’ though; this is the nature of habit and addiction.
• In a time of chaos, we need to build order. But in a time of order then chaos needs to be sown. Either of these polarities standing alone should strike terror though. One destroys by asphyxiation and the other by blowing apart. But each is lost without it’s opposite.
• I like the Jungian concept of the shadow. It is a symbol of the chaos that encroaches and corrals the order of our conscious mind. We need it, but too much will destroy us.
• The natural ‘stream of creation’ issues forth, from an unknowable source and unity, becoming ever more diverse as fresh combinations are explored. It is a branching process. The stream carries us forward, for we are ‘of the stream’. To resist the rushing torrent requires effort; To turn around and head towards the source is to undertake the ‘spiritual path’. It is the way ‘against nature’. It involves suffering and effort. (This is private suffering and effort though; the opposite of the public variety.)