Talking Statues and Bitch Swords

Going on from gillyflower’s comment on the reverence for sacred items, “ Some people really do enjoy seeing something that induces pleasure just by seeing or touching something that provokes an immediate emotional response. “ …true, and if you want to see attachment to holy items in a purely behaviourist way, many would agree. I freely admit to being someone who emotionally enjoys reverence, a quality much-lauded by the early Hermetics. (I’m not sure my reverence is quite their reverence, maybe it’s reverence 2.0 ^_^).

But something tells me there’s a little more to some sacred objects than that, so here is a small multi-practice and -faith rundown.


Take Draja Mickaharic’s complex instructions for making a magic wand (“The Obi Stick, or Staff of Hermes”, A Century of Spells) which involve talking some vines into growing around the twig of a tree one has befriended, a process taking a couple of years. Or look at the various wands described by Franz Bardon in The Practice of Magical Evocation which require multiple loadings with various forms of energy, that get absorbed into the physical matrix of the wand by so-called ‘fluid condensers’, building up an inherent charge. Similar processes have been involved with many other items in the western mage’s toolkit for centuries, for example magic mirrors. What all these practices have in common is that they make the object more than a normal one by special work -- it then has to be looked after accordingly of course.

But the real shenanigans ensue when an item is ‘ensouled’ or endowed with intelligence by energetic means, an operation for which Bardon also gives detailed instructions. I’m not advanced enough to try this yet, but it involves specially-made figurines and/or paintings brought to life with elemental energies. I do know people who have got this to work.

Such practices are as old as the hills. ‘Enlivened statues’ were well-known to the ancient Greeks, and the processes used by Medea to make hers (of Artemis) do not differ in many essentials from the ones given by Bardon, involving pharmaka -- magical herbs -- etc. Another famous ensouler of statues was the god Hephaestus. (See Faraone, Talismans and Trojan Horses, for a scholarly overview.) The statues used in temples were often said to be ensouled – they basically are the ‘idols’ for which ‘idolatry’ is famous, and there is a section of the Hermetic ‘Asclepius’ devoted to them, telling how they know the future and mete out justice.

If the Greeks practiced this, the Egyptians (like the Assyrians for that matter) did so even more – the famous ‘Opening of the Mouth’ ceremony, performed on their sacred statuary and mummies, is a perfect case in point. The Buddhists still do such things, with their stupas for example, if reports are to be believed. The Hindu ‘murti’ are another instance -- http://www.thenewyoga.org/MURTI.pdf for a nice discussion, if a little over-worthy for my taste, in which the enlivening process is described, a rather different one from the Hermetic method but with points of similarity. As its author, the redoubtable ‘marxist yogi’ Peter Wilberg, puts it:

The idolization of a Holy Book is a recognition of the truth that it is more than a material artifact of paper and ink. Similarly however, there is more to a temple, cathedral, synagogue or mosque than brick or stone, more to music than man-made material instruments and the sound vibrations they produce, just as there is more to a painting than its pigments, more to a great religious sculpture or ‘idol’ than wood, stone or bronze or some idle fancy of the sculptor.

His mention of music is apt. The wonderful singing bowl/gong musician, Frank Perry, for example, says he has several Tibetan bowls which have had spirits deliberately placed in them. He goes hunting for them all over the East.

More than one person has also insisted the British Museum is crowded with very old objects that remain ‘alive’. A well-known teacher and writer on astrology, for example, told me that a statue of an Egyptian goddess had spoken to him on a visit there. He wasn’t usually one for this kind of woo-woo, more the staid and academic type. (To his consternation she still speaks to him even though he’s back in the states.)

Most people in that museum will go to the Egyptian stuff first if they are looking for ‘ensouled’ items. But not Glenn Morris, my first teacher – he always headed straight for the Japanese swords. He used to say there were a couple in the British Museum still ‘putting out’ (chi), and in a not-altogether-nice vibe at that. Since much else he told me has turned out accurate, I believe him.

Glenn’s story of his ‘bitch sword Lydia’, from Path Notes of an American Ninja Master, has become quite well-known in the circles he used to frequent – essentially ninjutsu and tantric Kundalini and Taoist types of people. It’s a very cute tale, here is Glenn’s inimitable telling:

I have an old sword made by Yoshida Tamekichi of Seki. It’s a night sword, which means the blade is mottled and smoky in appearance so that it’s hard to see. Same principle as bluing a knife or gun. I bought it from an antique dealer for $75 as it was pretty beat up and the bloodstains in the officer handle wrappings weren’t particularly attractive. Its owner probably didn’t make it home. Every time I tried to sharpen it or clean it up, I’d get cut – once to the bone on my left thumb knuckle. I read a biography of Tesshu (one of the last great samurai swordsmen to achieve enlightenment) and decided to try running energy into the blade as well as meditating with it in my lap. One night as I was meditating the sword became very cold and a woman’s voice spoke to me saying, “You keep that ninja to (short straight-bladed sword favored by boat warriors) beside your bed instead of me. How can you be such a fool? Don’t you know I deserve better treatment than this?!”

I got up, moved the to out of the bedroom, and put her beside my bed. She has been light and easy to handle ever since. I haven’t been cut since. I had her scabbard and handle decorated by my mystical jeweller friend for a whopping fee. I had her nose redone even though it dropped her value as a bushido collector’s item by ten thousand dollars. The sword sometimes seems to move about me on her own when I do sword drills as a form of compassionate compensation. I don’t have the faintest idea how a swordmaker trapped a female spirit in a sword three hundred years ago.


Glenn named the sword ‘Lydia’ after Kenneth Roberts’ Lydia Bailey, and passed it on to his student Rob Williams before his death:

http://www.kundaliniawakeningprocess.com/rob_williams_soke.html

(see last photo)

I can’t say I’ve had anything so spectacular, just enough experience to realize it ought to be possible, never mind all the reports from people I trust. So it’s a judgment call. Maybe I’ll make my way to the British Museum when I think I have the sensitivity, already tried it once a few years back but nada. (Learned much since though.) But I do tend to treat even humble incense burners I use ‘as if they were relics’ as Bardon says. For one thing, if I do ever make or meet something more serious, I will have had practice. Wouldn’t want to be gauche.

Hmmmm...Okay, that's a whole different ballgame as I see it.

I dunno. Psychometrists operate on the principle of an "imprint" being put upon even ordinary objects that are used often or especially valued by their owner for some reason (not necessarily intrinsic, of course.)

In that context, I still have an old butter paddle that was used by my maternal grandmother.

When I was cleaning out my childhood home after my father's death, I found the thing still in the kitchen drawer where Mom kept it. Bad memories for me as that was what was used to spank me a few times when I did something so willful that a simple swat wouldn't do in Mom's opinion. On one such occasion, I got whacked a few times with the butter paddle by Mom and again by Dad when he got home. (I richly deserved it, btw.)

Interestingly, anymore I feel less of my mother's anger and frustration emanating from it and more of what seems to be its original energy. I believe Mom said it was carved by my grandfather for my grandmother. She used it regularly to shape butter for her family's use, I know.

So, while I've never encountered such an object that I know of, I'm open to the idea that created "inhabited" things exist.

Right. The techniques I was talking about here just involve mastering the kinds of energy throughputs you're talking about and then doing it all consciously on kind of a big scale. It's cool that the family thing sometimes opens the senses because it makes it personal.

The 'signature energy' can be wacked up by using a fluid condenser which will store energy on it -- 'fluid condenser' is the modern western term, I don't know what they are called elsewhere. Basically herbal mixtures, chamomile and calendula are simple ones but they can get very complex.

I do know it's not just taught in Bardon's system as Draja Mickharic mentions it in Magical Practice and I know John Michael Greer is onto it as well. It's true I don't remember Crowley mentioning it, and come to think of it the DuQuette-ish guys don't seem to either, but this stuff is definitely around. It's the ones who are into herbology or practical lab alchemy who talk about it.

I've used fluid condensers and they did seem to work. But I have a ways to go before I will be comfortable 'ensouling' anything.

P_Synthesis wrote:It's true I don't remember Crowley mentioning it, and come to think of it the DuQuette-ish guys don't seem to either, but this stuff is definitely around. It's the ones who are into herbology or practical lab alchemy who talk about it.

Hmmmm...I've a niggling memory of AC's having referred to making this sort of thing...somewhere in the couple dozen or so books of his I've got. Couldn't begin to say where, that's for sure, but I may think of it.

Frankly, the way he talks about finding the Stele of Revealing in the museum in Cairo smacks of precisely the sort of thing we're discussing here...an object imbued with specific energies whether or not herbology or any other similarly material means is used to accomplish that.

Of course, this presumes that we can believe Crowley's account of how his wife Rose directed him to the stele, which I have my doubts about. He was so accomplished at spinning fanciful tales that I'm typically somewhat doubtful when he sets forth such claims. In this case, doubtful because it's such a helluva good story.

But I have a ways to go before I will be comfortable 'ensouling' anything.

You and me both!

Frankly, the way he talks about finding the Stele of Revealing in the museum in Cairo smacks of precisely the sort of thing we're discussing here...

Yeah that's a classic one, with the additional vibe of a quest object to boot.

Tools acquire power not by magical means, but by practical ones. One of the differences between Wiccans and Asatru, is that our "magical weapons" are scarred and battered by hard and frequent use. Hammers pitted and scarred from hard work and sacred ritual, blot knives that have been used for offering, for ritual, for butchery, cutting lines, carving, trimming rope, cutting clothes, and occasionally use as prybar, hammer, or screwdriver when its what we had handy.

The knife I swore my oaths on has shed blood in sacrifice, has shed blood in battle, has been used to cut away clothes in life saving, has done ten thousand mundane tasks as an extension of my will. It holds power. When my grandfather was dying, I felt the Valkyries ride for him, I felt the thunder of their passage in the steel.
When my daughter was lying in hospital, it was from my steel that the touch of Frigga came to sweep away my fear, even as at the same moment, she had swept my daughter down out of pain and into blessed sleep for the setting of her bones.

I've seen a lot of pretty dress toys on alters. I've felt the power on some battered pieces of steel, including some firearms, who have been filled with the soul of powerful men and women who used them to work their will in this world so powerfully they were answered by other worlds. Few belonged to those who styled themselves magicians then you would think. Power, real power, has less to do with magical awareness than strength of soul, and commitment to action.

John, my magical weapons are scarred and battered by hard and frequent use in my kitchen. Still, some Wiccans do like pretty dress ritual trappings and I'm sure there is the occasional Asatru that does too. It is kind of like military dress uniforms and going to military balls as opposed to everyday uniforms. Sometimes one likes to dress up and have a bit more pomp and circumstance.

With the weapons of steel and firearms, what do you feel that the power of the object does?

That's the interesting thing, the power that I have felt in most weapons has a calm to it, like the deeps of the ocean below the surface storm, or the stillness of forest twilight where the day creatures have gone silent and the night ones are yet still.

The power that fills these weapons is that of life. The potential to do whatever the wielder turns it to. Unlike the tools that are used in spellwork primarily, they do not seem to become attuned to any one action at the expense of others. They remain totipotent, not focused.

Oddly, the only time I have ever felt hate in weapons were one cheap edgeless display piece used by a twit who hadn't figured out that magical ill wishings draw spiritual predators to the caster like bleeding baby seals in shark waters, and a girl whose razor was a cutting tool for her flesh, not a shaving one.

Once I picked up someones wooden spoon in the kitchen and got such a flash of erotic power off of it that I both learned way too much about their private lives, and determined that I would be stirring the cheese sauce with something else .

@John T Mainer, glad to see the hypothesis that some objects have inherent power doesn't immediately strike you as false. This is really the main case I wanted to make.

Once I picked up someones wooden spoon in the kitchen and got such a flash of erotic power off of it that I both learned way too much about their private lives, and determined that I would be stirring the cheese sauce with something else .

lol!

Personally, I think the idea that "Tools acquire power not by magical means, but by practical ones" really depends in some way upon the traditions. Not that I think that anything can be made 'sacred' without "Strength of soul and commitment to action" (which in Hermetics come under the heading of Will), but I also strongly suspect that there are particular actions which will have particular effects on particular objects, aside from the acquisition-by-osmosis-of-will.

If the characterful real-life-use you describe is one way that objects can acquire power, the ancient 'Opening of the Mouth' ceremony, for example, I suspect is another. The buildup of reverence in a culture and, yes, the ability to sense certain energies, can build up enormous power in a purely ritual context. I also suspect that, in some forms of magical object-making, awareness is more the key note. You see that for example in the Yogic use of Murtis which are about attunement to the divine in an idol, a rather different use than a ritual weapon.

I found your description of your grandfather's death moving. I think it also goes to show that there is no need to define the 'divine' too closely. If we say that there is something deeper, higher, finer, and that the different traditions see it differently and evolve into different kinds of relationship with it depending on many factors, that seems enough to me, rather than always worrying about the points of difference. I also loved your description of the sense of the calm within the power of the weapon. This is something that I associate with the element of earth.

I mentioned the Mull Island Stone Circle in the other thread as another example of a 'sacred object' -- if you are interested, each stone in it according to my acquaintance Bill Mistele has an individual character http://shell.lava.net/~pagios/mull.html .

Personally, I think the multitude of different kinds of magical object is cool, so I would not want to restrict them to any particular definition or method, let alone tradition. Simply that they exist is the case I was trying to make -- the idea that a power in an object is actually 'in' or associated with the object itself, rather than only our experience of the object, and genuinely connected to something 'divine', however one might define that. I didn't want the idea that this was an invalid point of view to pass unexamined, because so much suggested the contrary to me.

OT (a bit) PT you said "If we say that there is something deeper, higher, finer, and that the different traditions see it differently and evolve into different kinds of relationship with it depending on many factors, that seems enough to me, rather than always worrying about the points of difference."

The only quibble I would have from my religion's point of view is that we don't see our gods or the Divine as "deeper, higher, finer." They are just different. We see the ourselves and the gods and the Divine as a mixture of light and dark, which is very different from how TED, for example, views the Divine.

Back on topic: John, do you think others feel the same things from the objects? I am not challenging your experiences but have wondered if objects really do hold people's emotions or that they trip some long lost connection in the brain, that we put together sub-consciously clues and make connections.

I am not totally against objects holding something, an aura, BTW! In college, I had a reputation for being able to pick out the oldest pot shards from the younger ones.

Another thing to think about, are all objects blanks? Could they be conduits for the gods or have their own auras?

gillyflower wrote:The only quibble I would have from my religion's point of view is that we don't see our gods or the Divine as "deeper, higher, finer." They are just different. We see the ourselves and the gods and the Divine as a mixture of light and dark, which is very different from how TED, for example, views the Divine.

What's TED? Sorry, new here...

I never said anything about light and dark. In what way are the gods in your religion said to be 'different' then?

are all objects blanks? Could they be conduits for the gods or have their own auras?

IMO no object is a blank, all objects pick up on the vibration of the attention-story with which they are associated. However you can prepare objects so they are more sensitive and condense those energies better as I mentioned. As for whether they can be conduits for divine powers, IMO certainly yes -- both the 'idol' statues of the ancient temples and the Hindu 'murtis' do exactly that.

All the methods of divinizing an object would involve working with its energy which would include transformation of its aura as a natural consequence. (In the Bardon method for example elemental energies are used.) Strong, bare, repeated intention is going to affect the energy of an object for certain. It is this 'story feeling' that you pick up on from the imprint of an object.

Waldo Vieira writes in Projections of the Consciousness that once, whilst Out of Body, he saw a tombstone in a graveyard that had accumulated a wonderful sensation of love from many people projecting their thoughts at it, so that its non-physical energy was shining.

However for an object to acquire a personality a spirit has got to be placed in it somehow, and that is a different kind of operation.

TED is a poster here, sorry, and his view of the Divine is that it is higher and finer. My gods are "different" in that they are their own species. And I am off to Writer's Group so I'll read and respond later.

gillyflower wrote:My gods are "different" in that they are their own species.

I don't know for certain, but I'm inclined to agree with Gilly that what I might call gods could well be spiritual entities that are quite natural. They have different abilities and powers than we because they exist in spirit. That this is the case doesn't necessarily make them either higher or finer than we, just somewhat different.

I've met a few entities that were pretty nasty bastards from my point of view.

But then, I think it's all too easy to fool ourselves that such perceptions aren't heavily skewed by our perspective. What after all are "good" or "bad" spirits but beings often quite unlike ourselves characterized by our perceptions of their natures?

This is turning into a much different conversation from what I expected... all to the good!

Please don't assume that 'Higher and Finer' means 'morally better' to me! As a sword, Lydia was certainly higher and finer, but not morally superior necessarily...

(Also DNIO I don't understand what is meant by the idea that deities 'could be quite natural' -- what is the alternative?


My 'Higher and Finer' idea was a way to try to avoid saying 'spiritual', since I was told not everyone believes in spirit in any literal way, and then DNIO goes and says:

They have different abilities and powers than we because they exist in spirit

... which confuses me mightily.


Take this for example:



... a fairly standard map of 'levels of being' in a human being, the lowest being the densest = the physical body. In western occultism these are called the physical, etheric, astral, mental and spiritual levels. The Hindus have their own names, as do the Buddhists, etc. -- eg., the zulus talk about the inyama, isithunzi and umoya whilst the Taoists refer to Jing Chi and Shen. Etc. Victor Anderson of Huna and Feri Wicca will call them the alpha, beta and gamma bodies, etc. These are all not quite equivalent -- some divide into more levels, some less, and some refer to the mentality of each body, some to the substance from which it is said to be made.

But what they all have in common, and what the illo shows, is that the spiritual parts of a human being are Higher and Finer -- they are finer because they are literally made of finer stuff, for example, whilst their 'height' is (to be quick about it) to do with their causative nature or their essentiality.

Now some (like me) take this stuff literally, whilst others think it is more a metaphor -- I have no problem with either view. But what I am saying is that objects too have these levels of being. And what I am saying also is that the 'Gods' as I understand them 'exist in spirit' as DNIO was saying, that is they are not physical but the 'substance' from which they are made is something else.

Not everything that is made from finer substances is a 'god' IMO -- for example the character of Glenn's sword Lydia is a non-physical being using the sword for a living place, but is not a god. There are other non-physical beings apart from gods IMO. This is down to the tradition again. But I still think a human life in contact with something like Lydia is 'higher and finer', and so I would place her and her physical sword-body into the 'sacred' category.

It could well be that some traditions see that which is also a 'nasty bastard', as DNIO says, as sacred. I could even think of some nasty entities that I might apply that to myself. Lydia was quite a nasty bastard of course. But mostly, I don't think religions take such entities as their sacred basis, as what they are about.

I think most entities that form a major part of a religion, do so not only because they are in Spirit, but because they have an important role to play in human life, whether in terms of physical or non-physical effects, and that effect is judged to be necessary to the way the people in the religion want to live. It can be that the gods control the weather or the harvest, but equally, they can have the power to change the hearts of human beings or multitudes of other effects. So although I am not trying to limit 'Higher and Finer' to 'the best in all of us', I do think I would say something 'sacred' is something which gets us into contact with things that have Import on a number of interesting levels.

Having said that, getting into contact with the Highest and Finest in oneself has often been said (in multiple traditions) to help in getting in contact with Spirit. Whether that is true or not is something I'd leave open to debate... and I would also ask John T Mainer, for example, whether the Valkyries that rode for his grandfather's passing were not to him something 'higher and finer', not necessarily quite equating with 'morally better', but certainly with 'more spiritual and essential', and meaningful.

gillyflower wrote:TED is a poster here, sorry, and his view of the Divine is that it is higher and finer. My gods are "different" in that they are their own species. And I am off to Writer's Group so I'll read and respond later.

I thought I heard my ears burning!

I may be the only one, but when I read the title of this thread, all I could think of was this:

http://valdemar.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

I have known lots of others who have been able to get what I have from the tools and weapons I have felt the power in, or in some cases vested in, or cleansed of power. This may simply be a matter of us being attuned to the same frequencies, or open to the same spectrum, and thus perceiving similar power.

Others with dissimilar focus may react differently to what I perceive as positive, or simply perceive things that I cannot, while missing things that seem obvious to me. This has everything to do with who we are, and what resonates with us. Some energies I just have no affinity for, and others are easily accessed. It is a bit like a dog and a hawk observing the same rabbit. The hawk and dog will both have deep and insightful observations, using widely dissimilar senses interpreted through entirely different processes. Neither perceives more, just differently.

P_Synthesis wrote:This is turning into a much different conversation from what I expected... all to the good!

Please don't assume that 'Higher and Finer' means 'morally better' to me! As a sword, Lydia was certainly higher and finer, but not morally superior necessarily...

I'm not. I was simply attempting to exclude from the discussion the common thinking that gods = spirits = beings superior in every imaginable way to humans.

(Also DNIO I don't understand what is meant by the idea that deities 'could be quite natural' -- what is the alternative?

The so-called "supernatural" of course, another term as indefinable as most that we've been tossing about thus far. When people use this word, they usually are referring IME to things believed to exist but which cannot as yet be proven to do so.

Thus, my expressing the belief that entirely spiritual or "higher and finer" entities may exist and might simply be naturally occurring beings that we are largely unable to discern and certainly unable to define except through legend, myth and lore.

Please note that despite all the blather about levels of being set forth by humankind in various eras and cultures, I don't think anyone has definitively demonstrated that any such DO exist. Hence my remark about human perception possibly being nothing more than our vivid imaginations running overtime and dangerously close to overload.

As Dickens's Scrooge says of Marley's ghost, he might easily be a bit of undigested beef because our senses are so good at fooling us. Human perception is remarkably flawed.

PS: My 'Higher and Finer' idea was a way to try to avoid saying 'spiritual', since I was told not everyone believes in spirit in any literal way, and then DNIO goes and says:

"They have different abilities and powers than we because they exist in spirit."

... which confuses me mightily.

What's to confuse? "Spirit" = "higher and finer" modes of existence than dense physical bodies, i.e. same basic things.

But what they all have in common, and what the illo shows, is that the spiritual parts of a human being are Higher and Finer -- they are finer because they are literally made of finer stuff, for example, whilst their 'height' is (to be quick about it) to do with their causative nature or their essentiality.

Now some (like me) take this stuff literally, whilst others think it is more a metaphor -- I have no problem with either view.

I don't either, because the bottom line is that we don't really know what the hell is happening when a statue presumably speaks or a sword seems to be inhabited.

Btw, please call me Dot, simpler and fewer keystrokes.

P_Synthesis wrote:
Having said that, getting into contact with the Highest and Finest in oneself has often been said (in multiple traditions) to help in getting in contact with Spirit. Whether that is true or not is something I'd leave open to debate... and I would also ask John T Mainer, for example, whether the Valkyries that rode for his grandfather's passing were not to him something 'higher and finer', not necessarily quite equating with 'morally better', but certainly with 'more spiritual and essential', and meaningful.

Beautiful and terrible beyond words. Purpose and focus beat the air like the hammer of heavy guns or thunder, there was a purity of purpose that was beyond human. I would describe them as higher (meaning sharing more of the divine essence) and finer (more focused). They were not gods, they were not mortals, they were not to be turned aside by any power save that which loosed them. While their presence was a joy to me, as my Grandfather has won his place in the shining hall, the defiance that snarled from me, or the fearful looks of others who felt their passage were just two sides of the same reaction to the very real fear these Valkyries bring.

Let me see them again before the end, but not soon.

John T Mainer wrote:I have known lots of others who have been able to get what I have from the tools and weapons I have felt the power in, or in some cases vested in, or cleansed of power. This may simply be a matter of us being attuned to the same frequencies, or open to the same spectrum, and thus perceiving similar power.

Others with dissimilar focus may react differently to what I perceive as positive, or simply perceive things that I cannot, while missing things that seem obvious to me. This has everything to do with who we are, and what resonates with us. Some energies I just have no affinity for, and others are easily accessed. It is a bit like a dog and a hawk observing the same rabbit. The hawk and dog will both have deep and insightful observations, using widely dissimilar senses interpreted through entirely different processes. Neither perceives more, just differently.

It may be too that you use tools and weapons so much, like you say, that you notice things (energy differences) that others might not. And the same with my pot shards. Thanks!

deleted

@John T Mainer

Others with dissimilar focus may react differently to what I perceive as positive, or simply perceive things that I cannot, while missing things that seem obvious to me. This has everything to do with who we are, and what resonates with us.

Agree.

Beautiful and terrible beyond words. Purpose and focus beat the air like the hammer of heavy guns or thunder, there was a purity of purpose that was beyond human. I would describe them as higher (meaning sharing more of the divine essence) and finer (more focused)... the defiance that snarled from me, or the fearful looks of others who felt their passage were just two sides of the same reaction to the very real fear these Valkyries bring.

See, now you're talking.


@Dot:

I was simply attempting to exclude from the discussion the common thinking that gods = spirits = beings superior in every imaginable way to humans.

Well coolio then.

The so-called "supernatural" of course, another term as indefinable as most that we've been tossing about thus far. When people use this word, they usually are referring IME to things believed to exist but which cannot as yet be proven to do so.

I see the confusion... personally I think that definition might need a bit of sorting out though. When I use the word 'supernatural' I don't necessarily mean that -- and BTW I normally don't use it, because I agree with you that the divine is 'natural'. In fact I cannot imagine anything that is unnatural. I do however believe from experience that a materialist conception of the universe is radically incomplete. I guess I'm used to people using the term 'supernatural' to mean "that which contradicts ordinary expectations and recognized theories of the physical world", but since my experience suggests that what many call 'supernatural' is perfectly natural... well you see where I'm going with that.

Please note that despite all the blather about levels of being set forth by humankind in various eras and cultures, I don't think anyone has definitively demonstrated that any such DO exist.

Sure... for the simpler reason that such a demonstration is impossible.

This goes to what I mentioned about lucid dream vs. OBE on the other thread. Anyone at all who has had a real OBE tends to feel that the levels of being are literally real -- like me. Why? Because you actually experience it directly in a way impossible to refute. (It only takes one real OBE to do it, and there are some good manuals nowadays as I mentioned in the astral projection thread elsewhere.)

But without that experience, there is no way to 'definitively demonstrate' anything. What kind of proof would suffice? That being the case I of course don't ask anyone to agree with me that levels of being are literally true... although I would argue that the persistence and compatibility of such 'beliefs' worldwide represents a highly interesting fact, especially since it is confirmed every week by new students at the Monroe Institute (say.)

Let's just recognize, ultimately, that although there is no 'proof', there is such a thing as an experience which legitimately obviates the need for proof on a personal level.

Now personally, when you say this:

the bottom line is that we don't really know what the hell is happening when a statue presumably speaks or a sword seems to be inhabited

... I think you are missing the fact that, like I said, there are actual instructions on how to make such statues in one of the streams I follow, which some people with whom I'm acquainted have got to work. (And not only in that one stream either of course.) No I have not tried it yet -- but I've tried other similar things enough to know that it is possible. (eg. fluid condensers and this say: http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Magickal-Entities-Complete-Creation/dp/1932517448/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263815476&sr=1-1 )

Therefore some of 'us', ie. perfectly real and ordinary human beings, do actually know how some of these things work, and anyone can, in principle. If you bracket it as 'supernatural' you perhaps miss the fact that it is all perfectly natural and follows a certain 'system' even (although I don't like that word).

IME when people say 'we do not know' what they are falling back on is 'the physicalist paradigm cannot explain'... to me that's nugatory. I'm not unacquainted with the flaws in human (physical) perception, but I also happen to know there are certain things which cannot be explained as illusory if you have experienced them.

What it comes down to is that, from experience, I define 'natural' differently from you. Nothing I talked about in the OP seems unnatural to me.

gillyflower wrote:It may be too that you use tools and weapons so much, like you say, that you notice things (energy differences) that others might not.

Definitely true also IMO.