User:Elseware/ideas

disclaimer: This page contains my (Elseware) personal notes on things I study like Kabalah and the Tree of Life, Tarot etc. They are going to be modified as I continue to learn and work on my understanding. I'm keeping them seperate from the main pages on these subjects as they are one view, and may be confusing to people who don't think like me.

I am not going to explain the classic definitions on this page, just link to the relevant nodes.

Please make suggestions and comments on the Talk:Elsewares Ideas page, although you are always welcome to fix my spelling. Ideas which I expand in depth, or get positive feedback, I may write into full articles.

Divine Spark / Spirit
This is a phrase used through a lot of systems. I currently think of it as meaning the same thing as Spirit, the fifth element in Alchemy. Dee described spirit as that which both binds and seperates the other four.

In my current view this is self aware consiousness. The universe does not intrinsicly contain meaning. Meaning is created by us sentients (well humans, but I see no reason to be exclusive, aliens and AI's are, I believe, quite capable of having sentience equivilent than ours, although it is likely to be significantly different) caring about stuff. We live in systems shaped partly by blind forces of nature, and partly by sentients caring about stuff.

Elementals
These are the beings in western magic which are "created by the created". ie. Lifeforms created by man, not by god. I currently consider these to be things which exist because one or more people believe they do. Foobar Corporation acts in many ways like a living creature, it grows, it protects itself, it competes for resources. However it does not exist outside the minds of men, it is pure information. It is only given power by people believing in it. When workers realised that they could strike to get better pay, they created a new way of doing stuff, layed down new patterns of behaviour which other people were then able to follow. As more people take up the idea, it becomes refined and becomes something which no single person has control of. This is what I see as an elemental.

Simpler ones exist where only few or one person believe in them.

Your self-image is an elemental (I think it may be comparable with one of the egyption souls, they had about 6 defined, but more study on my part is required). You can control your self-image with conscious effort; "I am kind". "I do not smoke". "I'm stupid and hurt those I love.". When you are not paying full attention the self-image controls you, you act with your pre-prepared reflexes. My readings about Zen lead me to think that to be zen is, or at least includes, wiping out the self-image/autopilot and flying yourself on manual controls all the time. Not letting preconceptions affect your behaviour in any given moment.

The Elements
There are four or five elements; Fire, Water, Air and Earth and these tie in with many parts of many systems. The most familiar to me is the suits of the Tarot - Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles respectively.

Fire
Creation. Inspiration. Ideas. Something coming from nothing.

Water
Empathy. Change.

Air
Communication. Seperation. Language. Stuff relating to Mercury.

Communication is all about seperation. Stick with me on this. Communication is only required once separation has occurred. Also communication requires a language (of some kind). Language also involves separating things; separating the name from the thing. The map is not the territory, but the map is a much easier way to explain the territory even though it's inherently flawed.

Swords separate one from another, cutting this from that. Not to mention the whole separating people from life thing!

Earth
Practical matters. The "real" world.

Qliphoth
There are described in a number of ways. There are qliphoth for each of the spheres in the tree, and are similar to the angelic orders, sometimes described fallen angels. They are certainly not the opposite of the forces of the sphere. They are the forces of the sphere acting "out of turn". They are seen as the evil side. Evil is not an inherent property of anything, it is in the way a thing interacts. A nuclear reaction is seen as bad in a medium sized city, but a good thing in a controlled state in a power station.

This is similar to the way many people consider a Reversed Tarot Card.

Some examples below expand the idea.

Qliphoth of Chesed
A woman who gives her all showing compassion and love for a worthless, lazy and uncaring husband. Better to show discretion and judgement, kindness in some situations can make things worse, her energies could bless others, but she wastes them.

Qliphoth of Geburah
Someone is learning to play the violin and you keep pointing out how bad it sounds compared with more experienced violinists, they get dispirited and give up. Trying to prune a seedling into the shape you want the final tree. These actions don't help something when it is growing, although they may be appropriate at a stage where refinement, not growth, is the order of the day.

Pillars
I've spent ages trying to gain a foothold on understanding the pillars on the tree of life. Here's what I've come up with so far.

One thing that bugs me is that some of the attributes of the pillars are confusing as they have lots of additional baggage in western culture and the english language.

For example the pillar of severity is described as "negative" and "female" which at first glance is kinda sexist or something. I think that this is not implying anything of the sort, but it gets the thinking off on a wrong foot.

As I see it the sephiroth represent aspects of reality. Not layers as such, but aspects of the world we live in.

Pillar of Severity
Binah, Geburah, Hod

I see these aspects as relating to the laws of nature and physics. The stuff you can't get out of by pretending it does not exist. Things in which trying doesn't count, sucess or failure is everything. Objective reality.

Pillar of Mercy
Chokmah, Chesed, Netzach

These conversely, seem to relate to subjective reality. When it's the thought that counts. This is the parts our world added by consiousness and our perception. There are things that matter to us more than logic, or the facts. This is part of our existence too.

Pillar of Balance
Kether, Tiphareth, Yesod, Malkuth

These, I think, deal with maintaining both of the other pillars in balance. To deal with life you need to keep both your subjective and objective reality in balance.

Meaning of Life Stuff
At various points in most peoples lives they wonder what their purpose is. This is normal, and people come up with more or less satisfactory answers. My working theory is a little difficult to explain so I try to explain it with a story:

Children are playing with LEGO bricks. One of the bigger kids makes sure that everyone has at least a few bricks, but some kids loads and some have almost none.

Everybody is very competitive. Trying to work out how to win. Some popular theories are that it is to have the most bricks, to build the tallest tower, to build the most elegant structures, or to have the rarest pieces in the most unsual colours. It's vital to keep an eye on the other kids nearby to see how they're doing.

There isn't a right answer, or if there is, it is not self evident. In my opinion there is not much point asking the purpose of life. Ask yourself, instead, what you can do with it.

Further things to write about

 * Morality
 * Memes
 * Life, Emergent Behaviour and elementals (2nd created)

Quotes
Gregory Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. (Foundation's Fear, 1997)