The Serpent&#39;s Wisdom

I can see how a thing like this might be empowering to say to oneself -- but to turn it around and direct it at others as an expectation on them has the opposite effect.

Interesting that you brought up empowerment, because that's a key issue here. There are people out there who are quite happy to keep people where they are, because they benefit from it, and i believe some of them actively look for ways to misappropriate empowering speech into something that doesn't threaten their benefit.

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"I think the author of this list left out the most significant form of new age bullying i've seen: where people tell you to "not let your pain control you.""

I think that's just a variation of the statement "No one can hurt you without your permission".
You already know of my temptation to treat such people with violence and then repeat that line back to them, so I guess we'll just leave it at that. Hah.

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Anyway, the phenomenon the article was talking about was brought home to me quite forcefully when I was having the continual migraines the other year and told a certain person about it and he gave me this speech about how there must be something spiritual going on that needed attention in my life and the migraines were trying to bring attention to it for me and maybe I should listen to what I was being told, which is a roundabout way of saying "It's your own damn fault, so quit whining." And when I got angry at him for saying this, he self-righteously told me "See, that kind of anger and negativity is probably part of your problem!"

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You already know of my temptation to treat such people with violence and then repeat that line back to them, so I guess we'll just leave it at that. Hah.

Kindred spirit. ♥

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"Gee sir, why are you allowing yourself to cling to the pain of me having just kicked you in the nuts? Don't you know no one can hurt you without your permission? Rise above it all, man. Say to yourself, 'This too shall pass.' And ask yourself what past karma may have led to this moment so you can let go and let god. And then remember you can't heal until you forgive, so you best forgive me now."

Mwah ha ha!

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I hope it wouldn't be too forward, nor offensive towards your partners, if I were to say, "Madam, ire becomes you."

(Okay, I gotta get rid of this Hank McCoy icon. I like it a little too much. :) )

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Anger is my muse. I realized this about 2 years ago. Tee hee.

Re: Ok, I'm giving in

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circuit-four.livejournal.com - Date: 2006-08-29 05:36 pm (UTC) - Expand

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archanglrobriel.livejournal.com

Exactly!! I have to throttle my desire to yell "Transcend -this-" *knee* It's only the flesh, after all.

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Good icon choice :)

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lassiter.livejournal.com

Sounds similar to the apocryphal "zen master" story that I think RAW repeats somewhere too.

The disciple, after many years of meditating, runs to the master, exclaiming "I understand! All is illusion! There is no you, there is no me, it's ALL ONE!!!"

The master listens expressionlessly, then suddenly kicks the disciple in the 'nads as hard as he can. The disciple turns white, and falls to the ground, unable to breathe. The master calmly asks, "Who hurts?"

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Yup.

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stacymckenna.livejournal.com

Amen.

Drives me BONKERS.

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wlotus.livejournal.com

You already know of my temptation to treat such people with violence and then repeat that line back to them, so I guess we'll just leave it at that. Hah.

The mental image I got threatens to have me guffawing here in the office, thus giving away the fact I am not working at the moment!

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I feel differently than you do about spirituality -- and the prospect of talking with you about why someday sounds entirely appealing. But this is still a great post and I think what you said about the physiology of trauma deserves to be repeated. Mind if I link to this?

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I don't mind. :)

Longtime readers of this blog can track my progress over the last four years from bright-eyed optimistic researcher of the occult into the crotchety grouchy ol' cynic i am today.

WRT the proportion of genuinely-healing spirituality to emotionally-manipulative pseudo-spirittuality, maybe i'm wrong about the actual ratio. I'd be happy if i learned that the latter is actually much less common than it seems to me right now.

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stacymckenna.livejournal.com

the crotchety grouchy ol' cynic i am today

Bah! You just haven't settled yet. You sound more like the dubious "my parent's generation can't be right about this - it all feels wrong!" teenager to me, regardless of your age. When you find a philosophy that "fits", you'll cease to come off as "cynical". I still see a great deal of spirituality in your writing, even if it doesn't follow any particular dogma or creed. And that's usually the best kind. :)

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Hmm, there's not that many philosophies left for me to try on. And even philosophies i agree with, like UUism, i find have significant shortcomings in practice. So... the philosophy i settle into may actually be grouchiness.

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stacymckenna.livejournal.com

::giggle::

fair enough!

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Yeah, whatever differences of opinion we may have, I can't claim you didn't come by them honestly. :) Besides, most self-identified "spiritual" people would probably deny that my mishmosh of psychedelia, depth psychology, madhyamika, and memetics is "real spirituality" anyhow...

That, incidentally, brings up my only real counterpoint. I think your frustration towards spirituality, especially organized religion, is totally valid. But personally, I see it as "bad" the same way shellfish was "bad" to the Hebrews -- they're good food in their own right (if you're carnivorous), but without modern hygenic functions, the little bastards are breeding farms for disease.

Much the same with spirituality. There are many things about the topic that make it very hospitable for bad ideas, bad thinking habits that are native to human brains but not incorrectible. There's nothing necessarily wrong with a typical spiritual system at its foundation -- the damn things just spoil really fast in an ignorance-rich environment like ours...

But I'm probably preaching to the ex-choir here. :)

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orb2069.livejournal.com

The xians I grew up with did pretty much the same thing, as far as I can recall. "God gave you this to draw you closer to him." is a phrasing I recall.

That whole 'Opiate of the masses' thing works on so many levels - I mean, I've seen LOTS of people do damage to themselves and others that they'd never even think of doing if they weren't all hopped up on religion.

My favorite was somebody I knew who had found a guru that demanded 'Absolute, brutal honesty' - Which basically ment giving his followers free reign to be the biggest assholes possible, while developing a massive persecution complex when nobody wants to talk to them anymore.

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archanglrobriel.livejournal.com

Eew, or remember that old nugget: "the Lord never gives you more burdens than you can bear." Um. Yes He does. He SO does. Look around...there's lots and lots of people getting more than they can handle and breaking because of it.

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liminalia.livejournal.com

Sounds like a Gurdjieffite.

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lassiter.livejournal.com

Oh godz - I know what you mean. I know, and am a "fan" of, a very talented and reasonably well-known creator of what might be termed ambient soundscapes (though they are much more than that). But he is very much of the "brutal honesty before diplomacy" school of verbal interchange, interprets stupidity or incompetence as personal attacks, and has gradually alienated a lot of his supporters and collaborators. He's pretty much broke and has life-threatening health problems, but the sheer obstacles he both creates and imagines for himself mean he has virtually no support network left. Which sucks in the extreme, because he has so much of value to offer, that should have a viable outlet.

I've read a great deal of Gurdjieff, and I have found much that is useful to my own life in his writings. I see nothing there that would automatically cause that sort of negative attitude to arise. Like so many "masters," I suspect it's the followers and disciples that end up warping the teachings and becoming insufferable assholes. See Saul of Tarsus as a good example. :)

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You know, many people who examine the question of how ideas like original sin could have become prominent in Christianity come away with the conclusion that people prefer to believe they are responsible for tragedy in some way, over admitting they have no control over it.

But that has never rung true with me -- and now i think the real reason these beliefs became prominent is that it benefits the people in authority for people to believe it. A serf with self-doubt is a serf less likely to question authority. And a minister may not even intend to harm his flock; he may promote this idea just because it seems to make people more placid and peaceful (on the outside).

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I heard a story from someone I trust. I don't remember the details. A prominant black Christian preacher with a huge congregation came to a realization that hell was not real. He had a talk with Jesus and Jesus affirmed that there was no hell. He started preaching this new message and mostr of his huge congregation left to go to other churches. So it seems that many people like to believe in hell to punish those who do not follow the rules.

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wlotus.livejournal.com

It sounds like you are talking about Bishop Carlton Pearson (http://www.higherd.org/). I heard about his so-called "falling away from the faith" in my former church. I have (thank goodness) become far more open-minded in recent years and now have a lot of respect for him for preaching the truth as he understands it.

I think your assumption about why many people believe in hell is right on the money.

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beowulf1723.livejournal.com

So it seems that many people like to believe in hell to punish those who do not follow the rules.

Since they don't have the guts to break the rules -- or have a serious guilt trip after doing so -- this is their psychological crutch. Its a wonderful way to blow off one's resentment. See Dante's placing of his political enemies in hell, his political friends in purgatory or heaven in the Commedia.

Freedom is a tough row to hoe.

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Heh, I sat around for several years wondering why I had "chosen" to be born into situations that would lead to me spending my childhoood being abused, to the point of doing a "past life regression" in which I convinced myself that I'd been a rapist in a past life and therefore deserved everything bad that ever happened to me. Because I made my own reality, right?
I am so glad I'm not 20 something anymore.

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Thank you.

I think there's a huge difference between the idea that reality is something to which we constructively contribute, and the idea that new agers have which is essentially that wishes can come true "but only if we really believe." Because the new age version of this puts all the blame for anything bad that ever happens to you back on you, and pushes you to remove doubt even in the face of evidence to the contrary. This is an idea just as pernicious as fundamentalism.

I like the way Philip K. Dick put it: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away."

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archanglrobriel.livejournal.com

Thank you so much for posting that link and I completely agree. So many times I'd see New Agers bullying someone in the name of trying to "enlighten" them by bludgeoning their spirits with their self appointed "truths".
I've been told that I'm "addicted" to my condition. That if I just exercise control over my consciousness, I won't have PTSD or OCD anymore. I'm still "letting the abusers have control" because I still react to sudden movements, still have flashbacks, still fight every day to try to live beyond the range of certain memories. I need to "transcend my fear" y'see. If I just meditated better, differently, more...I'd be free. The fact that I'm not yet free indicates that I'm not enlightendedy enough yet, that I'm holding on, maybe out of some sense of karmic debt, and I need to examine the "payoffs of pain" that I'm doubtless getting from everyone around me. I'm creating this reality after all, so I need to just re-think, envision, imagine, project, say some affirmations..
If I object or express a different perspective, then I haven't "gotten it yet" (the phrase which DROVE me from the MFA program I was attending in the New Ager University I went to).
The whole thing is the same old crap message: "I" am better than "you". I "get it" and you don't. You're a "lesser being" than I am and if you'll just do what I say and act like I act, you can convince people you're more than you are - that you've "figured it all out" and have a life filled with stripping others of their power, condescension and the dispensing of pithy simplistic advice.

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akycha.livejournal.com

I think the author of this list left out the most significant form of new age bullying i've seen: where people tell you to "not let your pain control you."

I feel this way about "forgiveness." I hate that word. As far as I'm concerned, forgiveness is an organic, physiological process, like scar tissue going away.

And I tend to get keloids.

And people blame me for it, because I don't "forgive." To me, that feels like blaming me for the damage done by the original assholes who were abusive to me.

*spit*

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Yeah, i used to buy into this idea of forgiveness. I was soundly and rightly corrected on it.

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there's only one thing I didn't like here:
"Maybe people shouldn't find comfort in this idea. Even if it's true."

1. No. If it were true, then there would be nothing to fear in the first place. But no one actually believes in God. Well, very few. Those people usually can't be found in this society. Because they would die pretty quickly. I usually don't like to confront people about this too much because they don't understand it themselves. But literally, if you had faith, nothing would be a problem. You would give everything away and live off the land till you died in short order with a smile on your face. Everyone else is just sort of ambiguously hoping that God exists...

2. And I am against all forms of the "noble lie" argument. If something is true, people should know about it. Deception is never just.

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You're right. It was mainly my frustration talking. I have a real problem with people letting their hopes for the afterlife get between them and the difficult work for justice in *this* life. I have trouble seeing how an omnipotent god could have created the universe that way, unless the omnipotent god favors injustice, which is how we arrive at the Gnostic conception of reality.

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"I have trouble seeing how an omnipotent god could have created the universe that way, unless the omnipotent god favors injustice, which is how we arrive at the Gnostic conception of reality."

Which is close to what I believe, tentatively. There are two universes interpolated into each other, one of "hell" and one of "heaven"...

On the other hand, I'm not sure I believe in "justice" - it's kind of a shaky concept. I think the best we can aim at is a marginal fairness going forward. But there's no way to fix the past. All we can do is remix it in such a way that the dead serve the living instead of the other way around...

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For a bit of a clarification, I do believe in fairness, but people use "justice" in a lot of ways that I'm not sure I can agree with. It's one of those orwellianized words like "freedom" and "selfishness" that it's hard to pin down anymore for all the baggage and contradictions that people have attached to it.
Then again the encrustation of thought is one of the big problems of our age, and orwellian concept bundling is a hallmark of the Poison Mythos. So perhaps part of the task is to reconstruct language so that it means something again.

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Yeah. This is why i talk a lot about misappropriation of the language of dissent. People who are being oppressed are usually denied a way of speaking about it. Sometimes this is really overt -- like when the native language of a conquered people is forbidden. But sometimes it's really subtle -- when the words oppressed people use to describe their experiences are rendered meaningless by misuse in other contexts, subtle redefition so that it carries a safely non-radical meaning.

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> People who are being oppressed are usually denied
> a way of speaking about it.

I have seen that in court. In one instance, a woman was explaining to the judge how her boyfriend abused her. Every time she uses explicit language, the judge stops her and scolds her for using forbidden words. She said "But, your honor, my boyfriend called me a worthless whore, then crammed his cock down my throat. How am I supposed to phrase that?" The judge banged down his gavel several times and yelled at her for using such language and threatened to hold her in contempt if she did it again. The judge then said "it is sufficient if you say he cursed at you and abused you."

Such tame language, of course, does not explain anything to the jury, and makes the jury far less prone to want to put the bastard away for a long time.

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Ugh. You know, it's one thing to have to live with the realization that some of the choices one made might have made it easier for someone else to prey on them. But to turn this into being somehow even partially "accountable" for what happens is utterly toxic.

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akaiyume.livejournal.com

Yeah. Sometimes I think that bullshit is to help people get over the fear of it happening again. So if they decide to do things "differently" then they "have nothing to be afraid of" and can get over the terrified and work on moving on. Getting over the terrified is good. But not in that way. It is a lie. One can do everything to protect themself and still get preyed upon. Or one can make themselves as vulnerable as possible and have nothing happen. The only accountable person is the one who commits harm. And short of force there is no way to control the actions of the other. The "how are you accountable" is nothing but trying to give a sense of control back to someone - when really there are many things an individual has no control over. And the price for a false sense of control is accepting a dumpster truck full of unnecessary guilt. Not a worthwhile trade at all.

I am a firm believer in the fact that there are no helpful lies. Well, outside of the ones we tell to help ourself. Telling others a lie in order to help them - never helpful to the other. The other believes a lie and it will bite them on the ass.

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elnigma.livejournal.com

Some New Agers (and Neo-pagans or Wiccans, too) borrow words like Karma - and reinterpret them incorrectly - from buddhists and leave the important contexts out.

Buddha said "Samsara has suffering". ITS HIS FIRST NOBLE TRUTH. It doesn't say you suck or are a "toxic" person becuase you hurt.

That's just the beginning of what some the New Age ignore in order to be feeling smugly superior over other people. If they don't get part one, you know they don't get any other part. I read the article, read the mention of buddhism, and saw the New Age complaints, and was like "oh great, another person who probably read Surya Das". Because like there's plenty of buddhists who teach buddhism (which s/he clearly as not learning), but there was also lots of new age writers who pretended to teach buddhism a few years back when it was the fad going around.

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Right. Part of the problem with neo-buddhists is they all think they are the buddha.

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May I quote you in my LJ? If you say yes, do you want a credit or to be anonymous?

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yes, and it doesn't matter.

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