Seth Ananda

I think there is some good advice in here. I have been pondering it and thinking about the different kinds i am aware of. Its arbitrary I know, but I decided to divide up the charisma producers that I am aware of into two sections based on 'stage or state' 'Stage' means its a fairly consistent foundation of who you are. The Stage you are at. I think confidence is a key factor in all the 'stage' types of charisma. 'State' means its triggered by practices or events and is not yet integrated into who you are, and may wear off soon if practice wains, or if the practice only produces the change sometimes. Section 1. Stage: Highly creative people {which could be artists, creative thinkers, dreamers, comedians} can be quite charismatic, or at least weird and interesting, because they see and express in unusual ways. That is because people tend to like being entertained, and have a {at least} slight desire for diversity of views. People who are deeply comfortable within themselves, are also easily likable because they are relaxed, so people feel safe around them. Also again, being relaxed in who they are means they express them selves easily. Then there are the natural leaders or just egomaniacs who tend to be assertive, and are not easily intimidated. They may not necessarily be relaxed in themselves but they certainly believe in themselves, and make themselves the center of attention The primal vitality types of people. they have a wildness and depth or animalistic kind of nature. they may feel dangerous in an exciting or frightening kind of manner. Mystics and magic users that are actually tapped in and not just pretending. They are enchanting in person, in ways that are hard to describe because they have allowed themselves to be deeply enchanted by their world view. They slowly de enchanted themselves from the mainstream worldview and became enchanted with a new way of seeing and experiencing the world they live in. They may be the result of the following 'state' practices. Section 2. State: LDT work. When going well you feel like your ldt is a powerful burning ball at the center of the universe. It makes you feel centered and unshakable. Other people cant help feel that that is how you feel, and respond accordingly. Pranayama, or stuff that builds your vital energy or aura. Heart sex connection. When the two are flowing together you just stand out more. Post workout charisma. After a good exersize bout, people always look at me a lot more. Inner smile is also one. Creates a positive state that people just respond to. Magic. The more deeply you plumb your (and the) depths, the more you discover about yourself and the various levels you exist on, well, the more confidence you gain, the more agency you have. It also allows you to re-enchant your world, to start noticing things others dont, having insights others dont. Potent stuff.

The Dalai Lama or someone like him can only see so many people. A struggling person may not really have the time to practice and benefit from the teachings, so maybe its better that the affluent get to see them, who have the time to utilize the teachings. As a result they may become more generous, or less conservative, and start backing plans and politics that will ease the struggle for the people in hardship. Who knows? I don't. To me its all a joke anyway. I tend to think that only the rarest people {from any walk of life} have the tenacity, and possibly the potential to become 'high level' practitioners. The rest would be better served by learning good relationship skills, cultivating a stress free, healthy, loving life and having a good financial planner to prepare them for old age. As for the rare individual, its probably good that the wealthy keep the Teachers in business so that they are available when that rare student turns up. Exactly. If the drive is there, you will get there. If not, why should the teacher spend all day online wasting time on drive-less 'seekers'? There is a billion 'what ifs' and the prayer is just silly. There are 7 billion + people in the world. Who can talk to even one fifth of that. No one. Unless you mean some telepathic super siddhi, and if they could do that, and for some reason don't, then they must have an extremely good reason not to. Or they are just a prick, lol.

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Its hard to talk about magic as which magic are you referring to? There is the magic of here, there, these people, that group ect. That said, for me what you describe is just the surface appearance of the spirit work type of magic. You can use magic just to acquire things, but the deeper reason for these practices is to start associating with the deeper level of life, where the interconnected nature of the universe is clearly seen, and to once again be in relationship with the forces that surround us. Thats fair, if your perception of why not to get involved is based on your above statements. If however you see a deeper purpose to such practices, which for me there is, then they suddenly become quite profound. Perhaps there is. A method for learning to hone your intuition among things.

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That is one way of looking at it, but far from the only way. Thats all well and good until you find yourself out of body, witnessing a friends dinner party and can recount the conversations, including jokes and messup punchlines, conversations with funny interruptions and the food they were eating.

I think that people who think they know themselves, are either quite mistaken, or are incredibly shallow. Sure, some people might ossify into rigid character patterns, and walk around telling themselves and the world that they are a 'meat and potatoes' kind of guy, and that they will never change. In my book that is just knowing the rigid identity that they have settled within. Who knows what may one day shake this certainty delusion. Falling in love. A weird dream that unsettles their whole value system. A child dying or going missing. A psychotic episode or near death experience? Who they thought they were was really a joke, and the further they dig for answers, the deeper and stranger everything becomes.

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I do my best to completely avoid psychological interpretations of magic, or at least 'psychological only' interpretations of magic. Yet I would never say that various forms of magic dont have psychological effects.

As usual Zhongyongdaoist, Respect!

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There is plenty in that direction as well. http://www.quareia.com/ has a free learning program with very little Kabbalah in it, and aims at setting up good foundations to be able to use {really well} whatever system you find yourself gravitating towards. There are various Celtic reconstruction, pagan and Druidry movements out there. The Norse Asatru is a huge movement. And then you get to my personal favorite which is Traditional Witchcraft, which is more folkloric in flavour, and Is very influenced by both Celtic and Norse sorcery practices and theory.

The people I know who have done it are very happy with it. For a few of them it was what finally got them from the arm chair to consistently doing magic daily. He teaches a basic structure that is found within lots of traditions, in a way that allows you to swap out whatever doesnt work for you, or to replace stuff with the spirits of your own system if you have one, but with good common sense teachings spread throughout. I like Jason a lot, and will probably do it myself when my own apprenticeship is finished.

what makes people think that intuition belongs to the pineal gland? Do they seriously believe that people who don't have one, don't have intuition?

I guess I like to ask myself what I might be missing or not seeing in any given situation. What angles I have failed to view or perspectives I have ignored. I like to ask what assumptions I am functioning from. I especially like to consider what or who is influencing me, how and why, and its usefulness or not. Also I regularly like to ask myself how I am influencing my world and the people in it, how and why, and do I need to step up my influence or calm something down. Sometimes I ask who really needs my help or who needs their asses kicked or worse today, and how can I achieve this?

I have to wonder if its not the drive itself that is the problem, but your attitudes around it that need examination and possibly 'correction'? Do you have expectations or some sense of what 'should' be happening? Where does the suffering start? You meet someone and at some point start feeling attraction to them? At what point does it get bad? What exactly happens? I have an immense drive also, but it really doesn't bother me. I can go long periods without sex, or have sex many times a day, without much thought about it.

5. Placebo cure sometimes means placebo alleviation, and thats it.

Groan. Placebo wont cure this thread... Placebo is tricky. Really really tricky. It is a highly contextual subject for one. 1. It depends on the condition. Certain conditions, like some auto Immune diseases are consistently highly susceptible to placebo cure. If I remember rightly effecting as many as 1 in 3 people. Other conditions like bone cancer it does almost nothing to. 2. The reason it is banned in many countries is because even in positive placebo conditions, It only works on 1 in 3 people. It would be a violation of duty of care to give a 'medication' to someone that potentially did nothing to them because it was just a sugar pill. 3. Placebo cures can be triggered in people who are resistant to it {that other 2 out of 3} if its with the right condition, by mixing it in and out with real treatments such as chemo, because the person is more likely to really believe they are getting the goods. That is amplified when the real medication has side effects that make the client know and believe they are on it. One indicator that a client is accepting the placebo is that they display a nacebo {negative placebo} responce to the medication, like hair falling out and nausea from 'Chemo'... But, Even when that is happening, it still does not guarantee a cure, but just shows that they believe they are on it and are getting better. It can also be amplified by fake surgery, {like arthritic knees} where people think they have been fixed, are told to expect some stiffness for a few days but will be walking fine in a week. 4. Generally medicines are expected to perform at much higher success rate than placebo. One exception is anti depressants and anti psychotics, which generally barely scrape past.

There is something in you that is deeper and wiser than your thinking mind. Your thinking mind thinks it is in charge, and finds the L.O.A. to be a most suitable prop to its self aggrandization. But Its position in the scheme of things is vastly overrated. Its ability to understand is negligible. It takes decades to even decipher clearly what Ideas are ideas that were programed into it, or that it actually 'chose' to believe. Even ideas that it think it 'chose' may just be logical flow ons from earlier indoctrination. Or it just chose what ideas felt best based on faith in or reaction to previous sets of worldview... not on truth or reality. Its ability to control the body is negligible. It partially manages walking and talking while the lions share is looked after by the ever patient deeper place. Just try being 'totally conscious' of walking down the street. Make sure you are 'choosing' to move every single muscle, choosing to perform every stage of breath, toe position, spine alignment, knee bending and straightening... Thinking mind and its awareness are specialists. They generally, or hopefully can do what they are concentrating on,. as long as it is one thing. It can focus like a torch, sharp and pointed or wider and more diffused {multitasking} but that is it. And you want to give that part primacy over the rest of you? The part that could potentially believe in any stupid thing, like people who believe in scientology or Hitler or my little pony? The part that is so easily misled? L.O.A. is newage crap, twisted away from a much greater set of teachings, by 'spiritual' narcissists who are too afraid to admit that they are not in control of everything, and that bad things might happen to them.

I dont really have anything meaningful to add here, but my delighted heart wanted to say it brings me such joy to see subjects like panpsychism, pantheism, panentheism, and animism starting to regain a foothold in the perspectives and hopefully experiences of the collective. carry on...

I find the opening question so strange. "Can we not love our brother as ourselves?" My answer is no, depending on how we classify the definitions for the 'we'? Obviously some people can, and others cant, because the world is always made up of people with many different perspectives, stages of awareness, sets of conditioning, wants, needs and personal or collective ideals. Similar questions like "Why cant we all just get along?" make me want to answer "Because we can't god dammit it, and we never will!" The world is just not like that. For every Idea there are opposing or contradictory Ideas, and people who are ready to fight to defend them. I should add that I believe in violence as a means to solve certain problems. Freedoms have to be fought for at times, and oppressive regimes {someone elses or ours} also have to be fought at times. Weirdly I have found more peace in accepting this view. I don't feel in conflict with the fact that there is conflict. It doesn't mean I like it, [usually] but i no longer sit around wringing my fingers asking "Why, why??" about conflict. Because there just is.