While I don't know much about numbers (numerology) and planets, I do know that there's a lot to know.

Like there being 13 points in Metatron's Cube, which can be derived from the Flower of Life pattern; Metatron's Cube having in it the shape of all 5 platonic solids, which when combined make up the shapes of well, everything.

I'm a firm believer in the power of shiny rocks, I mean, we're riding one and orbiting one and in a wonderful, divine and magical dance with every shiny rock in the sky and that's quite lovely indeed. Why, the profile picture I've chosen is of a meteorite that I encountered in my travels.

This is the first time I've really considered the correlation between numerology, astrology and entheogens, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a deep inter-connectivity could be found between the three fields and infinitely many more.

What I suppose I'm trying to say is that there's infinite meaning in the things that we ascribe infinite meaning to.

Makes me ponder the numerology and astrology aspects of the Solanaceae family of plants, and if there'd be different aspects between the different Alkaloids. Hmmm. Lovely stuff.

That's not what I meant. I meant I'm not believing they are more than coincidences because people who are involved in numerology think so.

Of course, the intricacy of it must be very appealing. Especially when dealing with psychedelic substances. I'm just not sure whether it's something from which actual value can spring.

So, you're unsure if there's value, but you're sure that you don't want to believe the people saying so?

That seems like a very closed-minded approach.

Unless of course, you're actively studying Numerology through your own means and forming your own opinions on its significance....are you?


Don't forget that if you explained to the average person the significance of your own psychedelic journeys, they will likely call you crazy.

What I've noticed here at this forum is that such closed-mindedness is rare.

I think you should be consistent. If you're open to transcendence or multidimensional travel or any other metaphysical phenomena, you should at least wait until you know more about a subject before casting such aspersions.

Don't you agree?

I am sure I don't believe that the results of numerology are based on anything more than coincidences, yet I was wondering if there still might be some value in it. Perhaps insights that would not otherwise have occured, or something like that.


I think I understand the gist of it, yeah.

Please don't be too quick to dismiss my posts as close-mindedness. I am merely trying to keep my feet on the ground, and examine critically the ideas I encounter. This seems like a healthy thing to do, always.

I must disagree with this, notably, the 'always' part.

If you acknowledge the possibility of a spiritual self, then you are limiting your understanding if you are only perceiving with your organic brain, body, and 5 senses.

Critical thinking embodies the opposite of how a spiritual self perceives.

What a person feels, what they 'sense' beyond their 5 senses, is paramount to spiritual growth.

It's widely put forth that a person who is too analytical, too 'left-brained', will have a hard time grasping the metaphysical. This is because the metaphysical cannot be perceived with our organic body. Meta means 'beyond'. Therefore, the metaphysical is beyond the physical.

I was once purely logical. It's all I valued. Incredible are the experiences I've had when I abandoned that mindset.


Your certainty bewilders me.


I live by this:

The only thing we can be certain of, is that nothing is certain.

You disagree with me that it is a good thing to examine ideas critically? This is basically dismissing the idea that one should think for oneself (yes, always). I can honestly not see why anyone (except tyrannic leaders ) would advocate that.


I don't see why a "spiritual self" (whatever that may be) can't be purely and entirely a product of the organic brain.


Maybe you should be a bit more open-minded towards critical thinking

What exactly do you mean by sensing beyond one's 5 senses? Things like intuition, or more things like love? Something like awe and wonder at the vastness of the universe, or at the intricacy of nature?


I disagree. Max Tegmark comes to mind. He is a scientist, so you would probably call him analytical and left-brained, but he has developed an interesting metaphysical theory (called the "mathematical universe hypothesis", btw).

Our brain is part of our organic body, and metaphysical things can be perceived with our brain, and thus with our organic body.
Saying that metaphysics is something which can not be grasped with our brain because "meta" means "beyond" doesn't make sense to me.


Good for you, I'm glad you had amazing experiences. Personally, I believe incredible experiences can be had without abandoning logical thinking.


Your certainty bewilders me just as much


This is true indeed.

No, I disagree with what you said...which is that critical thinking is always healthy.

A person with a troubled past or a bad childhood will not get anywhere with as much critical thinking as the person can muster. However a single profound psychedelic journey can outright cure the darkness people feel from such circumstances. No critical thinking was had. Critical thinking is a great process for much of what we encounter...just not all of what we encounter, in my opinion.




That's ok, I can. I'll tell how down below.



I really have nothing against critical thinking, and for my entire life up until recently, I've thought of logic as the ONLY correct way to perceive the world around us.

I just don't feel that way anymore.



Yes, both, actually.

You cannot touch, taste, see, smell, or hear love or intuition. There is not a single organic sensory of ours which gives us the sensations we get when we experience love. This is a prime example of sensing beyond one's 5 senses.



Please refrain from speculating on what I will probably do, for the simple reason that it makes a terrible argument.

That Max Tegmark, an analytically thinking scientist, can grasp the metaphysical, in no way conflicts with the statement I made.




But is our mind part of our organic body? What shape is it? What does it look like?

The disconnect here, might be due to the fact that I consider our minds and our brains as different. Our mind is arguably not organic. Although as noted above, a mind, which to me is a metaphysical part of our being, could be considered a product of our organic brain.




I feel like this is kind of an attack. I never said anything about abandoning logical thinking.

I feel like you're getting defensive. I can stop sharing my opinions if you like?

Just a passing sidenote, but my understanding is that Numerology and Astrology will work if you believe in them. Problem is many cultures have developed different forms of these systems, and there are many aspects that are contradictory. When you memorize a correspondence system (like Crowley's 777 charts, or Vedic or Taoist systems, etc) you are providing the forces behind the scenes that shape your daily experience a language to communicate to you with. For me and others I have spoken to, synchronicity and signs don't start appearing to you on the spiritual path till you have chosen a set of symbols that have personal meaning, and you actively seek guidance from the outside (this is assuming you believe in god(s) or spirits). This is how divination works, and how reading sand dunes in Mali or a fire-cracked shoulder bone or cowrie shells can all provide meaning that has validity, despite not belonging to any universal code of objective correspondences.

Divination is where the subjective/personal and objective/universal worlds of experience meet. It is also the same territory where schizophrenia resides, so a person needs a firm grasp on probability to make sure that randomness is not mistaken for a message. My theory is that this is where the dopamine-schizophrenia connection is, because elevated dopamine causes increased ego, which causes a black hole type effect where everything is personally relevant, and the subjective starts to fully overlap the objective. Methamphetamine psychosis shares many similarities with classic paranoid schizophrenia. For this reason I wouldn't do any strong stimulants doing a reading, your coincidence filter will be off.

If you don't believe in non-physical external intelligences Numerology/Astrology/Tarot/Kabbalah won't work as a communication vehicle because the forces at work won't bother. This subjective/objective moving border is why high dose LSD can cause seeming miracles to happen around the observer, i.e. people speaking your thoughts aloud as if they are external aspects of your mind, physical objects flying, random chance events bizarrely skewed. Even an atheist on high dose psyches must admit the existence of a personal reality because if you could manipulate shared objective reality just by being on a drug we would all be dosing ourselves on acid and gambling at casinos. I have thought about trying that just for kicks tbh though..

This was awesome.

Thanks!

Maybe for clarity, I should have said "critical thinking" instead of "logical thinking". Those two terms are almost synonymous, though. In this same post you do say something about abandoning critical (/logical) thinking:

I'm sorry you feel this as an attack, I didn't mean it that way.


I think the word you're looking for here is "consciousness".


I hoped a single counterexample would be enough to show that it is nonsense to make assumptions about people's ability to grasp the metaphysical on such an overly simple basis.


You admitted that Max Tegmark is analytical, so the argument was not that terrible after all


I don't think you can attach concepts like shape to an abstract thing like the mind. Of course our minds and our brains are not precisely the same thing. I didn't mean to imply that. Our mind is embedded in the brain, which is part of our organic body.


I'm not sure why you're calling me defensive. Please don't hesitate to share your opinions, they don't frighten me.

---

I was confused once. I thought I knew it all. I was given a shot of haloperidol, and came to realize I did not know it all. In fact, I knew very little, and was misguided by my confusion. Yet, one year after my psychosis, I think I did learn a lot from the experience.
All I'm trying to say is: don't get caught up in the bullshit (excusez le mot).

We've drifted too far; too arbitrary.

I don't even know much about Numerology.

I think the main idea that I should have expressed to you, is that, from my perspective, I have come to realize that all of these things:

Numerology
Meditation-Vedic/Siddhi/Buddhist, etc
Astrology
Psychic Ability
Paranormal Phenomena
Monotheist religions like Judaism/Kabbala, Christianity, and Islam
Pagan religions like Wicca, including
Native/indigenous/aboriginal religions
Scientology
Alchemy
Hermetics
Eastern Medicine
Ancient religion like Egyptian and Mayan


have some kernel of truth to them. I don't know what the kernels are, and I used to think that every single one of these was complete bullshit. Then I learned about government corruption, and saw how the truth is very hard to come by and most often hidden. Then, one day for me, it clicked. Where there's smoke, there's fire, they say, and I began to understand that it's all connected. These are all overlapping secular languages for describing the same cosmic force, in my opinion.

Cheers

I don't think we've drifted too far at all. It's too bad you don't want to discuss this any further.

Some things on that list I wouldn't dismiss as complete bullshit (a culture, for example, doesn't sound like bullshit to me). Others I would (scientology, for example, is a scam). This is what I mean when I say you have to think critically at all times. Thinking critically allows you to see the difference between a scam and something of genuine value.

Are you saying the government is hiding truth from us? What truth would that be, exactly?

Culture was a mistake. I wanted to say religions of those cultures. I edited to reflect.

Again, I'll repeat, I used to think 100% of Scientology was bullshit. I was using critical thinking to come to that conclusion. I also was using critical thinking when I noticed that their talk about 'thetans' resembles in many ways the energy that not only ancient religions spoke of, but that now scientific observation is acknowledging. Then I noted the amount of seemingly critically thinking people who join that institution. What were they interested in? Should I just count them all as duped? Or absent critical thinking? Or should I give some respect to that which I don't know for sure, and keep the possibilities in mind. Critical thinking doesn't include dismissing an idea based on its low probability.

This doesn't mean that I 'believe in Scientology' or that I'm refuting that there are people scamming people with it, btw.



Is this a joke? Sarcasm is hard to sense sometimes over the internet.

Oops, didn't catch the sarcasm for some reason I didn't find it strange that you were paranoid.

I think what you are saying now boils down to the fact that you now understand religion/mysticism/spiritualism because you had a religious/mystical/spiritual experience yourself. Am I right?

Wow, you're going there? Calling me paranoid? You're implying that a person is paranoid if they are under the impression that the government hides truths?

It is a universal fact of human nature my friend, that governments hide truths. This is an absolute irrefutable fact, with respect to rationality that is.



No, it seems silly when you put it like that. It's the sum of everything I've ever experienced both religion/mystical/spirtual and non, that leads me to believe that there are kernels of truth in these.

It's not as if a single experience led me to a finite conclusion on these things.

I learn more every single day, and my understanding of them changes along with that. Sometimes, my opinions change as I learn more.

I'm not implying a person is paranoid if they are under the impression that the government hides truths. Governments indeed do hide truths. However, thinking the government is hiding truths with regard to mystical experiences does sound a bit paranoid to me. The government has nothing to do with mystical experiences. Note this is why I thought you could maybe have been paranoid, before I had caught the sarcasm.


Alright, I understand that. Of course non-spiritual experience is also very important. I do think we have kinda reached common ground.