Taomeow

If I could make public some private letters re the David Verdesi debacle that were shared with me at one point, you would have to reconsider about the "cahoots." "What he got" and "where is he now" are separate questions. What he got I saw and experienced, but you won't be convinced. As for where he is now -- he was teaching seminars in China and in several other countries in Eastern Europe and Asia up until the end of 2019 -- the last one shortly before covid lockdowns began in China. He hasn't returned to teaching large groups or traveling abroad, but you have to keep in mind that lockdowns were renewed on a number of occasions in some cities in China way after they ended elsewhere, and China's overall human interactions with the West (as well as domestically) have changed pretty drastically. He's been only teaching small groups locally (in Dalian) -- perhaps as the result of a combo of circumstances and personal choices. That information is about six months old. As for Nathan -- what he got is a translation that was easier to read than the ones appearing before. There's a new (and probably better) translation just out, by Livia Kohn -- an emeritus professor of Religion and East Asian Studies at Boston University specializing in studies of taoism, one of the top Western authorities on things taoist, author of numerous significant works and translations, and a practitioner herself. I think if she wasn't phased by gossip of the kind you seem to have believed, she wasn't just being a gullible sucker when she took "what WLP got" seriously. A gullible sucker is not her style at all. (Nor is it mine, if I say so myself.)

"My friend in tao, the times have changed..." https://www.facebook.com/721843241/videos/427836879838735

The hurricane/tropical storm is a couple hours away from us per latest predictions, but some fire hydrants in downtown decided to help it along ahead of schedule. Video: https://packaged-media.redd.it/k703vjwl1bjb1/pb/m2-res_1280p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1692572400&s=6d053c7ae8deeab4e038fffffacb9f5afa090978#t=0

Wild blackberries! "Cranberries" are also wild. "Pretenders," more so.

Yes. https://hermetic.com/crowley/magick-without-tears/mwt_01

Thanks, I think I'll try to read up (always prefer to go to the original source before the "derivational tree," to use another term I recall from my linguistics course, has grown too many branches and leaves while the root has been forgotten.) This echoes something Aleister Crowley put thusly: "I therefore take "magical weapons," pen, ink, and paper; I write "incantations" — these sentences — in the "magical language," i.e., that which is understood by the people I wish to instruct; I call forth "spirits," such as printers, publishers, booksellers and so forth and constrain them to convey my message to those people. The composition and distribution of this book is thus an act of Magick by which I cause Changes to take place in conformity with my Will."

Maybe return to the Q&A format Maddie originally proposed? Personally I have no desire to argue about the subject at all or question anyone's current understanding, I have my own and it wasn't formed at an online forum and won't be changed by an online forum. So I'd rather ask about things I don't know. E.g.: In my two native tongues the word "gender" only referred to grammatical categories (yes, we have "male," "female" and "neuter" gender nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verb forms). For people there existed only one term -- "sex." The current usage of gender in the sense of self-identification came into these languages very recently as a phonetical copy of the English word -- a new vocabulary borrowing for a new notion. I seem to recall it was the case with English too until -- I don't know when. Q: when did the difference between "sex" and "gender" in humans enter the discourse in the current understanding, and who proposed this usage, and what was it based on?

If you feel it's too risky, for your peace of mind just don't eat it. I hope there's no kefir enforcement in your family! For a good probiotic food you can look beyond dairy -- for instance, fermented vegetables (not canned and without preservatives) are great. If, e.g., you mastered the skill of making homemade sauerkraut, you would be your family's hero. Tricky for a beginner, you may screw up a couple of times till you get it right, but once you know what you're doing, it's fairly easy and very healthy, not to mention tasty.

I think you can give it a try -- many people who have bad reactions to nonfermented dairy have no problem with fermented of good quality, and homemade kefir would be my first choice for such an experiment. There's people in my family who don't tolerate whole milk at all but drink kefir with no detrimental effects. Of course these things are individual, and not necessarily your case, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, no way around it.

That's a more merciful theory than mine, and probably correct in some cases... and mine, in others. 🤣

Then why do so many adult women squeak in this shrill high-pitched little girl's voice -- at least here in CA it seems to be the norm more than an exception?.. I have my theory... but I'll keep it to myself. I do find lower pitched voices more attractive -- by far. Just this past weekend I went hiking with two other people and on the trail a hiking family passed us going in the opposite direction, and the man was telling something to his kids in this very very low rumbling bass. After they went out of the hearing range, I instantly commented to my companions, "mmm... dark chocolate voice!" (I wasn't attracted to social advantages or the man himself, who was short and balding and not mine, just to the sound itself.)

Just because there is a problem doesn't mean there is a solution. -- Arthur Janov

.

He's not the type you see every day in today's CA either, but definitely people of nontraditional orientations are more visible here these days than even ten or so years ago.

Here in CA it's different. Here you are in danger of potentially being hurt if you think differently rather than look differently. But trans people (and LGBTQ+ too) get every opportunity to express themselves safely, far as I can tell. For an example: there's a store I visit quite regularly, and one of the sales people is -- well, I never asked him about his self-identification (for lack of any knowledge of the personal pronoun he might prefer, I'll use "him/his" until/unless I'm otherwise informed) but let me describe his appearance. A young male with mustache, which he dyes bright pink, alongside his eyebrows, to match his fuchsia colored hair. He wears skirts or dresses, his legs are very hairy but he doesn't shave them. Dress style -- not of a man but I wouldn't say it's the outfits of a woman either, more like kindergarten-aged little girl: extremely bright and cheerful, with pleats and ruffles, embroidered ladybugs and butterflies, stuff like that. Bright nail polish on very long fingernails (but no maintenance skills so it's usually peeling.) He's always an eyeful of colors. Very friendly, with no exaggerated mannerisms (which is my personal preferred style in men, women and trans people alike.) We usually have a little chat -- just small talk, he's curious and likes to comment on my purchases and share about his own favorites, I find him more pleasant to deal with than a couple of "regular" ladies at the same counter on different days. I've never seen anyone being rude or hostile to this guy -- and he interacts with dozens of people every day.

Yes, it's a different world. A hearsay world where we are thoroughly indoctrinated to take someone else's word for absolutely everything -- including our history and how bad our ancestors had it for a million years, how stupid and fragile they were. How on earth did they manage to survive and thrive everywhere on earth until the Flexner Report introduced a superior world a hundred years ago?.. Mystery of mysteries... I love the fact that hearsay doesn't stand in court. But then, our ancestors didn't know how to lie... I read extensive accounts of the conquest of Siberia, e.g., and the way it was easy for people from "our" world to fool the natives -- they believed everything, they had no cultural skill of lying and so didn't expect it from others. Many of them went practically extinct -- as did many peoples everywhere else when bestowed the blessings of our different world -- to a great extent due to this fatal cultural flaw. But we are doing all right I'm sure.

I read about it a while ago, and I think I even mentioned it here on TDB at the time. The article I recall was about Native American tribes where trans folks were thought of as special, sometimes became shamans because they were thought of as naturally talented toward "straddling both worlds," and so on, and not discriminated against in the least. The difference from the modern approach being, they didn't resort to surgical and hormonal sex change, they just accepted the fact of this dichotomy (body and mind of different "worlds" in the same person), much the way people accept other things about their own and other people's bodies that may not correspond to the ideal body they would prefer -- shorter or taller than average, thinner or fatter, asthenic type or hypersthenic type, boobs of all sizes and shapes with no particular size or shape fetishized, and so on. There was no inner conflict and no outer bias, pressure to conform, activism to promote, or any social disadvantages to just feeling a particular way inside one's body and making those feelings known to others. And above all, no money changing hands as a "side effect" (or as some cats would suspect, as the root cause of an exponential growth in the number of such occurrences.)

Not on this specific topic as much as on this among all others I'm not very trusting of the motives of those who promote anything that happens to be fantastically profitable for the medical cartel. The minds of the recipients of any and all of their offerings are manipulated very skillfully, in every possible area, and I'm not saying all of their offerings are corrupted by ulterior motives (money, power, 'fame and fortune' as a taoist would put it) -- but failing or avoiding to consider them as a factor is IMO a mistake in many cases. I don't know how sex/gender dysphoria would be different in this respect from a multitude of over-diagnosed, over-treated, mis-treated conditions going hand in hand with a multitude of under-diagnosed, under-treated, and again mis-treated conditions. I could give a million examples... For instance, antibiotics resistance is directly responsible for millions of deaths every year, yet research into new antimicrobials has been stagnating for decades, because, to quote a PubMed publication titled "There Is No Market for New Antibiotics," "By the early 1980s, private investment in antimicrobial research ebbed as a result of (...) a broader reorientation of private research and development (R&D) towards more focused investment in expensive yet lucrative noncommunicable (e.g., cancer and lifestyle) medications. The decline in private investment was exacerbated by the parallel closure of formerly successful public R&D efforts, as a result of the contemporary political emphasis on privatization and marketplace-oriented research." In other words, they figured they get more bang for their buck if they invest in chronic conditions requiring continuous indefinite (often lifelong) use of their medications. No one is interested in financing whatever can be cured by efficient new antimicrobials, hence their nonresearch, nondevelopment, and nonexistence. (And no media>public outcry despite an incomparably wider population affected.) Nothing personal -- they just don't care if millions die from this nonresearch and nondevelopment, as long as they can develop something that guarantees repeat customers. On the other hand, any agile kid bored with school will be diagnosed with ADHD in the blink of an eye -- and the fact that it was proved in court (sic) that there was indeed a conspiracy (sic) entered in by pharmaceutical companies and doctors aimed at overdiagnosing this condition was only mentioned in small print somewhere no one is looking... except the likes of me of course, because if I trust, I trust, and if I don't, I look closer. Cats and curiosity, you know... except I believe the proverb is misguided. Curiosity actually saved many a cat. They investigate instead of rushing into things headlong... but don't let me digress. So, I do believe that one has to look very very VERY closely in each case, and I agree with Snowmountains that Which of course would only be working if the psychiatrists weren't all indoctrinated and kickbacked in exactly the same standard of care, otherwise one or three or thirty is all the same. They will uphold whatever standard they are instructed to uphold and won't rock the boat. How do you protect a teenager, let alone a child (it's puberty blockers for children as young as 6, 7, 8 that are part of the current approach that make me go, Jesus quilt-knitting Christ...) in this situation? Like in any other -- keep your fingers crossed and spit thrice across the left shoulder?.. I've heard stories (youtube had many interviews, don't know about now, may have been censored) from young people who were brainwashed by parents who wanted a boy/wanted a girl and wouldn't give up despite the fact that the child they got was not the one they desired; by peers; by their own mistaking, due to young age and inexperience, of a plethora of gender-nonspecific behaviors and feeling (like an interest in a particular style of clothes of lack thereof) for specific for the opposite sex, and so on. I don't know. I asked a friend who is a psychiatrist with a lifetime of experience (in two very different countries) and a lot of compassion and caring. She told me she could help in 19 cases out of 20, and the remaining 1 in 20 was a case of genuine sex dysphoria, far as she was able to tell. I have no idea what these figures signify in the wider world though, but I suspect that out of some other 19 out of 20, some may not get a really good psychiatrist on their case -- let alone three of them -- and may regret the route they have taken. It is not an easy thing to resolve by cavalry attacks on "bias" and hasty irreversible interventions. But it's not different in this respect from many other things that are not easy to resolve. I think modern society in general is a helluva lot better at creating problems than at solving them.

So what I'm gleaning from some of the responses is that talking therapies that used to attempt to change the mind were horrible and unnatural (couldn't agree more), but sex change treatments currently used are natural and problem-free. And also, that those surgical and hormonal treatments treat something that is not a disorder to begin with. Good to know.

My point was, you fought with no help from anyone when you tried to change your mind, but you had everything available when you decided to change your body instead. Nevermind though, it's just me looking at the bigger picture.

That's part of what I mean. The current situation is, you have specialists to help you realign your body with your mind in case you feel they are not in correct alignment, by changing the body. And there's no one but you, yourself and your mind for the opposite way -- to help the mind align with the body, rather than change the body in order to align with what the mind thinks. Someone working on their own mind might be, in the words of (I think) Einstein, trying to solve the problem by the same means by which it was created. He wasn't a meditator so his opinion may not matter, but in his opinion, it was not the best route. Personally, I had life-saving help working on my mind at one point (on different issues altogether, but numerous and disastrous enough to lead to debilitating suicidal depression, the adult-onset outcome of childhood adversities.) But if you (or anyone else in the same situation) were to decide that, instead of changing the body to match the mind's self-perceptions, you were to seek out specialists working on the mind to help it match the body instead -- that wouldn't be available. So hence my question -- why do you think this is the case? Why does the current standard offer help only to those who choose to change their bodies, but no one is there -- not in any official capacity, with training, funding, studies, social encouragement, etc. -- for those who want to achieve such alignment via the opposite route, without changing their bodies? I'm not pressuring for an answer, just wanted your perspective in case you'd given it any thought.

Sex reassignment is accomplished via physiological interventions -- surgeries, puberty blockers, lifelong hormonal therapies. To change the physical body into a different one which will "more correctly align with the gender" is the standard practice today, with the number of such medical procedures in the US tripling every couple of years. This is aimed at correcting a person's sex, which is physical, to align more correctly with the person's gender, which is mental. At the same time, any attempts at working instead with the mind, i.e. the gender, which is "cultural and psychological identification of the mind" toward such "more correct alignment" are currently considered abusive, politically incorrect, and unacceptable. Q: why do you think this is the case?

No radio here, no TV, no more watching electricity.* ___________ *电视 diànshì -- TV -- is comprised of 电 "electricity" and 视 -- "to look at"

Soft shadows and Tears for Fears on the radio. Halagrian world.

My cat used to bring home assorted cat toys I didn't buy. Mystery was solved when a neighbor told me that those were his departed cat's toys which he was giving to my cat to play with. He didn't want them back. He was an elderly French guy and one day my cat came home with a pouch filled with vintage French postal stamps depicting cats of various breeds. Possibly valuable but I know nothing about postal stamps. I knocked on the neighbor's door to give them back, but he told me to keep them, as a gift for me for letting him play with my cat. A while ago the guy's adult son decided it was time for dad to live with his family as he was advancing in years, so new neighbors moved in. I thought the supply of cat toys from the outside would stop, and was mighty surprised when new ones started appearing with some regularity. Turned out the new lady next door was a cat lover with an allergic husband, and she happily befriended my cat and started buying toys for her. I have a large Chinese bowl, one of those in which they sometimes keep goldfish, filled to the brim with felt fish, mice, little balls of assorted sizes, cat teaser wands and so on. I don't think I bought any of them.