Zhongyongdaoist

If you understand physics and the history of physics you don't need 'freaky physics' and a big laboratory to understand that there is something funny going on in the world. All you need is Fermat's Principle. Just about everyone has seen this demonstrated many times, the most common observation being that a stick placed in water seems to be bent. These observations go back to antiquity, being noted both by Hero of Alexandria and the astronomer/astrologer Ptolomy. They were formulated by Fermat in the mid-Seventeenth Century into a principle called 'least time', meaning that light always travels in such a way as to take the least time to its 'destination'. It was noted at the time that there was no proper 'mechanical' explanation for this principle. To quote from the Wikipedia article on Fermat's Principle: Which can be found here: Fermat's Principle on Wikipedia The Principle of Least Time was generalized in the early Eighteenth Century by Maupertuis as the 'Principle of Least Action'. Two hundred years later George Fitzgerald was to express his dismay with the Principle of Least Action to his friend Oliver Heaviside, complaining that it seemed to make the present depend on future states, which of course implies that the past depends on the present, but Fitzgerald did not mention that. Maybe it hadn't occurred to him. Max Planck was to make observations about photons seeming to possess knowledge and make calculations. In the 1970s Arthur Young was to take these observations and write The Reflexive Universe, a very suggestive book, though perhaps a little too much influenced by the Mahatma Letters and the Cappadocian Fathers and not enough influenced by Plotinus for my taste. The problem presages later developments in Quantum Physics which arise in the 'double slit' experiment, which you can read about here: The Double Slit Experiment on Wikipedia The double slit experiment is one of the prime examples of 'quantum weirdness'. There is no satisfactory mechanistic explanation for any of this, only one in wave 'mechanics', and for centuries the question of Fermat's Principle was 'solved' by the idea that wave phenomena happen among the myriad light rays reaching the eye creating the phenomena, but the 'single photon' version of the double slit experiment was to shatter that explanation, for it demonstrated that a single photon would act 'as if' it were in company of a mass of waves, even though it was the only one reaching the target any any one time. One possible explanation is the idea that the missing waves exist in multiple surrounding 'realities' which are interfering with each other, trillions of them if not an infinite number of them, but definitely more than seven, and creating the wave phenomena. One can take the simple fact that the stick in the water seems bent as experimental proof for their existence. No 'freaky physics' is necessary. There are other issues that have came up in the above discussion, such as retro-causality and and apparent calculations being performed and maybe I will address them at another time. All of which would please manitou, but give Marblehead an attack of the conniptions. He wants that old time science, if it was good enough for Nietzsche, it's good enough for him. However, my fundamental point stands, since the inception of mechanistic materialism in the Seventeenth Century there has been counter evidence that rests on a common everyday observation. The physics of the Twentieth Century all revolves around a phenomena observed and formalized in the Seventeenth Century and the results of Twentieth Century physics can be viewed as a type of Reductio ad Absurdum refutation of mechanistic materialism. QED. Oh, as a curious side note, ants just love Fermat! Maybe ant nests are even more elegant proofs of his conjecture than the book length one that appeared a decade or so ago: Ants do the darnedest things.

Sorry, apparently I was writing my correction while you were trying out the original post. See above: Corrected Version If you continue to have problems, PM me and I will email it to you.

Try this: http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/docserver/18725082/v1n1_splitsection3.pdf?expires=1386593494&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=998D6A5A1D1653C09058C2C85F21CF24 It will take you directly to it, but it does seem to have a time stamp (expires = guest etc. is in the link), which might mean that the link will not be good after a certain time (days, hours?), or that it will only be open for anyone who opens it for a limited time. (Checked today and as I suspected it might the link has expired, I am rewriting the instructions below so that the will be clearer.) It will open a PDF file which you can print directly or download for long term storage. Otherwise, follow the original link which I repeat here: http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/187254707x194645 to the right and below the essay title is a little box that reads: Full text article: Below it is a bright blue button that reads: Read Click on it and it will take you to the PDF file above and then you can print or download as the wish. Dillon is a well known academic authority on Middle Platonism and Neo-Platonism. I don't completely agree with all of his opinions. Neither do some other respected academic, such as John Rist. Dillon was part of the team that made the modern academic translation of Iamblichus De Mysteriis. Edit: Added note about link not working. bolded instructions on the article page for clarity, and added last paragraph about John Dillon.

Daoism begins when someone starts using the character 道, pronounced something like dào, as a simple label for the self existent cosmogenic principle which is both the source of our experience and a normative principle for successful living. Anything else that talks about these subjects and even contributes to the eventual content of Daoism, but does not unify them under the label 'Daoism' is proto-Daoism. Dào (道) has many meanings in Chinese and a long prehistory before 'Daoism', thus: Because of this it is used in a lot of words that have nothing to do with 'Daoism” for example: Yikes, So many words use 道 (dào) and only a few have anything to do with Daoism! (Again courtesy of MDGB.) It should now be clear that the use of dào is multitudinous and varied and a source of some confusion, thus this guy's reaction: One of my favorites scenes in the 10,000 movies by the way (pun intended). That the Dao De Jing contains teachings which meet the criterion cited above can be seen in Chapters: One Twenty-five Thirty-two Forty-two The texts look to be derived from Paul Carus' early Twentieth Century translation and are from: Chinese Text Project; Dao De Jing Where one can find them along with the Chinese text. Whoever unified these concepts under the label Dào (道) is the originator of Daoism, whether the semi-mythical Laozi or someone else. Around these fundamental concepts a number of themes from Warring States era writings were woven and the exposition of these ideas became the text we know refer to as the Dao De Jing. If there is such a thing as a Classical Period of Daoism it would begin with this act of labeling, whoever made it and whenever it was made. The Dao De JIng would be an important part of it. There is much more to all of this and if I have time I will post more.

Gödel's Way; Exploits in an undecidable world, Gregory Chaitin, Newton da Costa and Francisco Antonio Doria, CRC Press, 2012 Kurt Gödel (I finally figured out how to put umlauts in these posts!) is one of the single most influential people in my life. Among other things Gödel contributed to my accepting the Dao De Jing as a fundamental text (though S. I. Hayakawa's work on General Semantics and my high school physics teacher's oft repeated statement that physics was just 'modeling' contributed). So it is only appropriate that I post on a book called Gödel's Way on the Tao Bums. I don't remember exactly when I first became familiar with it, but I think it was about the time I turned seventeen and was taking an advanced math class in number theory my senior year in high school. Gödel's notion of incompleteness seemed to be a rough equivalence to the first chapter of the, at that time, Tao Te Ching (D. C. Lau translation, Penguin Books, 1963), about how the way that could be spoken is not the eternal way, in other words no account that could be put into words was ever going to be a complete account. That combined with the fundamental theory of General Semantics, that the map is not the territory and some of my own musings about the relationship between mathematics and physics, lead me to see Laozi as having possessed a profound insight into the nature of reality and so I decided to make the Dao De Jing my fundamental mystical text. Gödel opened the doorway to infinity for me, since the implication that I drew at the time was that there was a world that could be endlessly, explored, endlessly formalized and never be exhausted. As I decided at the time, 'We will never be bored', because we will never have all the answers. All that was forty-six years ago and my life since then has been a strange Dao indeed.

Given this response And your response Then it would seem your concern is with the correspondences of the Microcosm to Macrocosm, such as Qing Emperor of the east, to Jupiter, to Wood, and to Liver, a great deal of which has become available in sinological literature in the past 50 years or so, and their use in Taoist and meditation and ritual. Is that correct? If so, then you are in luck because a great deal of this is now in print and one can get a good idea of what is going on by doing some research. However practice without a teacher is not recommended.

There were various Gnostic sects and they had different terminology, what they had in common was the idea that the world we experience was evil, created by an evil creator God and a trap for souls. There was also a transcendent God who was our true 'father'. Jesus was sent by this transcendent God to lead us out of this evil world and return us home to the realm of the transcendent God. Thus Christian gnosticism in which 'Christ' could not be the son of the Creator of this world, whatever name you gave to him. There are a lot of other details from Gnostic sect to Gnostic sect, but that is the basic idea.

Are you talking about Deity pairing like Amoghasiddhi and the Green Tara, paired personifications of divine powers? There are such pairings as the Azure Lad of the East and Queen Mother of the West and as a further point the Queen Mother of the West has a court of Jade Maidens who serve a dakini like function.

just can't do the homework: You are not the person who needs to do it. When great masters tell us to Know Thyself, it's because when one knows themselves, they know others as well: That about covers it. I read books myself and then when I need to, I go and find something on the internet for the people who don't. I'm sorry that you didn't find this site edifying. About a year ago I read Marco Iacobini's Mirroring People (Farrar. Straiss and Giroux, 2008). On p. 116 he starts a section called 'Empathic Mirrors' and on p. 121 a section called 'I feel your pain', in which he describes the neurological mechanisms for these ideas. Granted the book is a popularization, over simplified and lacking in the types of charts and graphs that some more technical types, myself included, might have wished to see, overall he makes a good case. Someone concerned about his credentials and the technical aspects of his research can check him out here: Iacobini Old Site Iacobini New Site Iacobini Publications it just aint the same as breaking your own arm in intensity or duration or duress: Iacobini says that the body responds to the sight of injuries by a sympathetic response in the same area of the viewers body. A response involving a complete re-experience of the injury would not be useful and one could argue that evolution provides for empathy, but is aimed at motivating action. Feeling the pain to excess would hinder that action. Generally speaking I could care less about brain research, but I have been reading up on it in the past few years. The techniques used and the results obtained are still at a primitive level and I only mention them because they have to do with recent research in a changing field. Yesterday's neurology just doesn't make it anymore. overstated to the extent of implying that which is technically unfactual or really amount to bombast If you have 'factuals' to counter these 'unfactuals' that actually are critical of the research rather then an expression of your own or someone else's incredulity, that might be interesting, but it is exactly this type of discussion that I characterized as: A point admirably illustrated by the past history of this thread. I simply don't have the time to get into extended discussions of any of this, but do wish to point out relevant ideas and resources.

Apologizing to your chair is probably not necessary and ritual propriety might require an occasional sacrifice to the God of Cockroaches, but eating a cabbage is genuinely problematic. Which is why ritual propriety has always demanded harvest Thanksgiving as an essential part of civilized life. (Please insert smiley emoticon of choice, but the above is only partly tongue in cheek.)

This is interesting Brian, could you give us a little more on this? Obviously you are straining the credulity of some people here, but bearing in mind what has been discovered about quantum computing in complex organic molecules and their harnessing by 'living systems', such as plants, I don't find this to be too far out of left field. New Age nonsense on Photosynthesis

Since empathy has been introduced by me as part of the discourse, I think that I should bring everyone up to speed on modern neurology and empathy, just in case someone here has not been following the most recent developments. Here they are in edifying videos everyone will understand: Empathy Central Enjoy.

Looks like a wonderful site, but my old brain is too tired to go through it completely. Could you translate your familiarity of this concept to what we are talking about here? That is, if you can figure out what we are talking about here, lol. Leaving out the complex game theoretical background, what Robert Axelrod: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Axelrod And Anatol Rapaport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatol_Rapoport managed to do was to demonstrate that 'Golden Rule' like strategies are viable strategies in strictly utilitarian terms. In essence that 'doing or not doing unto others... ' was a simple and effective strategy for individuals and the communities which they made up to pursue, which resulted in a robust and prosperous community, that amounted to a real 'commonwealth'. Contrary to common belief 'Golden Rule' ethical injunctions are not 'religious' in origin, but are common to both ancient Greek and Chinese philosophy and can be viewed as a normative precept involving self-knowledge and empathy rather than a religious 'revelation'. Often invoked as an ideal of conduct, what Axelrod and Rapaport did was to demonstrate that this was also a practical strategy as well as a an ideal, with the implication that it would evolve naturally in living systems. I first read about it in Axerod's original article in 'Science' http://www.sciencemag.org/content/211/4489/1390.short Way back in 1981 and immediately saw its implications. Axelrod wrote a book about it, which you can see here: http://http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-evolution-of-cooperation-robert-axelrod/1111766607?ean=9780465005642 From the book description given there: Would be 'Anarchists' should pay particular attention to what is bolded above. The Reviews on Amanzon are informative: http://www.amazon.com/The-Evolution-Cooperation-Revised-Edition/dp/0465005640http://www.amazon.com/The-Evolution-Cooperation-Revised-Edition/dp/0465005640 And this blog has a nice, simple summary: http://http://lawrules.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/the-axelrod-tournaments/ I hope that this is helpful.

You might visit: http://daoistmagic.com/guide-to-buying-books/ Where they have a guide. I checked on Amazon and what they have there is Volume One for $119, which seems a bit much since I believe that they are available directly from Dr. Johnson's organization for $65.00 per volume plus shipping. As I mentioned Volume Two is the one that deals with introductory topics on Daoist magic and is actually very helpful, but Volume One has a lot of useful information in it and they make a great introduction to the subject. Just by themselves a person could lay a good foundation in a couple of years and also find out if one had a real vocation for this type of practice. We also have Dr_D here who is an ordained Daoist Priest/practitioner here and he may be helpful to you in this regard.

Hello Zed, Welcome to the Tao Bums. Congratulations on your apparent progress with the Microcosmic Orbit, or MCO as they usually call it here. Since you are new here you are not completely familiar with our structure. This section was created so that Tao Bums with an interest in Western traditions could post and while pretty much all of us who post here are well versed in Daoist meditation you might find a better response in the section called 'Taoist Discussion'. You can have this moved there if you like by contacting one of our mods. Apech is in charge of this section, but Baquakicksass can also help too. You can contact them through private message and they can move it if you want. Again, welcome to the Tao Bums and I hope you find your time here fruitful.

Any 'scientific' discussion of ethics has to begin with game theory which since the 80s has been largely dominated by the results of Axelrod's work and the success of Rappaport's 'Tit for Tat' strategy, the implication of which is that it is a 'dog help dog' world and that cooperation will tend to evolve in any system in which there is more or less continual interaction. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat

In Daoism "remote perception" is often taken as a fruit of advanced meditative disciplines, but is also cultivated as a specific skill. If I wanted to go through a pile of books I could cite a lot of examples of both types. One that comes immediately to mind is the discussion of and instructions for such practices in Jerry Alan Johnson's books. He starts to deal with the matter in Volume 2 of his medical qigong series beginning on p. 165 he deals with such matters in the context of shen training. He develops the matter in considerable detail in his various books on Daoist magic.

Shortly after I posted the above, it occurred to me that solar power might be connected to Stirling Cycle type engine, which brings us back to the more tractable part of this thread, so I searched and found this which might prove useful to you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Powered_Stirling_Engines

Thank you for pointing that out. Especially in the context of this thread that would seem to be a necessary caveat. I know thermodynamics too well to think otherwise, and that was emphasized in the 'Scientific American' discussion, but because I was in a hurry I didn't mention it. However on a practical level since: If he has gas bottles for cooking, he can set up some sort of compressor and that was all I was attempting to address. The other issues on this thread are an intellectual 'Tar-Baby' of sorts and I don't want to get stuck in them.

You might want to check this out instead: http://www.icestuff.com/~energy21/vortex.htm I first read about this effect in 'Scientific American' when I was a teenager in the sixties. It may have been in the 'Amateur Scientist' section. The device there was much simpler and was in a 'T' shape with hot air coming out of one side of the 'T' and cold air out of the other.

As I have pointed out before: Crowley says that he decided to use the Holy Guardian Angel “ . . . in order to avoid the clouding of the mind by doubt and metaphysical speculation.” He summarizes his attitude here: That this failed is obvious from the fact that a hundred or so years later we are still engaging in 'metaphysical speculation' on the subject of the Holy Guardian Angel. Also, I suppose this means that the contributors to, and possibly the readers of, this thread are simpletons, but then I have not limited myself to Crowley's opinions on these matters for decades and I don't think anyone else should either. Traditional sources would agree with Baquakicksass on this point and I hope over the next few days to quote some of them so that us poor simpletons can benefit from the writings of other poor simpletons such as Plato, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Ficino, Agrippa and finally the author(s) Adeptus Minor curriculum of the Golden Dawn. Having watched this thread between posts, I think that the distinction between the Greek/Latin Daimon/Daemon and demon as used in modern usage may bedevil us, so I recommend some posts that I made early on which I have tried to salvage here: Theurgia-Goetia, on Gods and Demons By creating a series of links to them which begin here: http://thetaobums.com/topic/27141-theurgia-goetia-on-gods-and-demons/?p=405624 and which trace the evolution of the concept of 'demon' from its origin in the Greek 'daimon' from the writings of Plato to the end of the Hellenistic period. A review of this may save some misunderstanding as I proceed in my next few posts on this thread. Edit: Added 'Emphasis mine' note in Crowley quote.

Earlier in this thread I posted here: http://thetaobums.com/topic/26014-holy-guardian-angel/?p=388183 and here: http://thetaobums.com/topic/26014-holy-guardian-angel/?p=388370 references to material that predates Crowley and is contemporaneous with Abramelin and some that goes back to Antiquity. I have been rather busy of late and have not been able to return to this thread, though I have thought about enlarging upon the material above. I may be able to put some time in the matter shortly and would particularly like to address the confusion between the Higher Self and the Holy Guardian Angel.

Thanks Traveler, an interesting discussion. Whatever a modern or Nineteenth Century Mason might think the Royal Secret to be, by selective quoting Pike has concealed an important part of what Plato said. Here again is the Pike quote: Here is the original from the Republic Book Ten: The passage is well known in Plato studies and Pike may have thought that his readers would grasp what he was saying fairly quickly. This brings up the interesting question of Plato's third eye, with which he was credited in antiquity and is the reason that Diogenes the Cynic, referred to in an early post, could not see the forms, having only the two eyes of sense, whereas Plato, whose "eye of Reason" was open could see them quite clearly. Traveler's discussion points to the location often assigned to it in relation to the body. I had already intended to post on Plato's third eye and its relation to his theory of knowledge anyway. Perhaps with this discussion as a lead in I will try to put something together in the next day or so. Edit: Change Republic to Republic in two locations.

Ok, that would be Spleen 8, which can help the Kidneys hold on to jing. According to five element theory the Large Intestine channel which is metal, generates the water which nourishes the Kidneys while the wood of the Liver is draining the Kidneys so you sedate the Liver to reduce the drain on Kidney energy thus helping to strengthen the Kidneys. The Spleen is the Earth element which controls the Water of the Kidneys, keeping it in appropriate bounds and not letting it leak away. Hurts like hell though: Did it hurt because he was manipulating the needles while they were in, like twisting them around and moving them in and out? If so that is very traditional. The manipulation is supposed to help direct the qi flow.

Double Post, the one below was intended as an edit.