DIVINE TOAD SWEAT—
Copyright © 1974 by The Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church
RHETORICAL STRATEGY IN CONFRONTATIONS
WITH OCCULTISTS, COSMICMINDERS, AND
SUPERNATURALISTS
Principle One. Never let them get
away with anything.
Occultist rhetorical strategy
generally seeks to obtain your consent to some vague or slippery usage which
has a superficial resemblance to Neo-A. doctrine, but which will also permit a spatial or mechanical construction. Once you allow such a usage to "get
by" by nodding your head or simply not saying anything to correct it, they
will employ it to demonstrate that you have contradicted yourself somehow. It
is therefore necessary, in the beginning of any conversation or debate with an
occultist, to act like a mean and nasty son-of-a-bitch who refuses to
"play ball" and insists on what may seem to be nitpicking
distinctions, The occultist, in almost every case, will object to this on moral
grounds, and picture himself as a generous and tolerant "Great Soul" for
whom all such trivial differences are varieties of taste while you are a "hostile" and
"aggressive" egomaniac possessed of a mulish wish to set up
"barriers" between people.
There are various ways to reply to this strategy but the best by far, in
my opinion, is to tell your adversary
what you think he is doing and why he is doing it.
You must assume from the outset
that your major task in dealing with an occultist adversary will be to
disagree, on philosophic grounds, with statements constructed so as to seem
perfectly unobjectionable to the ignorant.
Since the ignorant are not aware that it is possible to interpret life
without the ontological assumption of a time-space continuum divisible into
plural minds, various things, etc., no
matter what you say to assert this point of view they will think you are saying
something else (conformable to their assumptions) if you let them get away with
it. In a way, your job is to make them
believe at the very least that you
are "insane" or "incoherent" or something of the sort. At that point they at least "have ears
to hear" and are beginning to "get the idea" even if they don't
agree with it. When
your occultist opponent says, "I don't agree with you"--you have
deprived him of his "out" defenses which always take the form of casting the encounter in terms of morality
or psychopathology with himself playing the role of the "Great Soul"
or Expert looking down from above on the animalistic animosities animating
lesser beings (such as Buddha, Nagarjuna, Samkara, Plato, Hume, Emerson,
Thoreau, etc.).
Ask him
why, if these distinctions are so trivial, he doesn't just accept your
definition and give up his own?
Ask him if it is possible to make
a false philosophic statement.
If he says no, refuse to discuss
philosophy with him, on the grounds that he is an imbecile. If yes, ask him to give an example of how he
distinguishes between "trivial" distinctions and important ones in
the discrimination of truth and falsity among philosophic ideas.
Ask him if the affirmation or
denial of the externality of relations is or is not an important question in
epistemology. If he says no, ask him to
name any major philosopher in the history of the world who agrees with him. Ask him to name an issue that is important.
Ask him in the name of "tolerance" and
"understanding ", since he denies that the distinction is important
to assume what you assume (non-externality) in all
his further arguments. If he won't do
so, ask him why he won't.
Inevitably, the occultist will
interpret what you are saying in terns of multiplicity (many minds with
relations between them) instead of genuine solipsism, and will try to sneak
that assumption into the conversation.
You must stamp on this insect as soon as it scuttles out of the
woodwork, or it will rapidly swell to gigantic proportions.
In other words carrying on a
debate with an occultist is not like carrying on a debate with a person of
honor and intellectual dignity. Before
the actual debate can begin, you must get him to admit that he is engaged in a
debate instead of a demonstration of your moral or psychopathological
inferiority, and you must show your audience, if any, what kind of a devious
and dishonest scoundrel you are dealing with.
Principle Two. Use the dream analogy
in preference to all others.
The thrust of occultist argument
is always towards physical reductionism and mechanization. The dream analogy is obviously "all
mental" and "all psychological" and for that reason they hate
it. It's too good for them, and they
cower back in consternation and dismay whenever it is used, like the night
scavengers of the jungles at the sudden appearance of light. Whenever you feel that your occultist
adversary has "scored a point" and enmeshed you in the toils of a
mechanistic analogy, think of the dream analogy and ask--how does this question
apply in the context of an ordinary dream?
Example:
Occultist: "Well, I have a
mind of my own, don't I?"
Solipsist: "What if a pink
elephant asked you that question in your dreams tonight? How would you answer?"
If he refuses to answer and
insists that you answer, tell him you
can only answer him the same way you would answer the pink elephant by saying:
Not to my knowledge. To my knowledge you, as a personality and
body and I, as a personality and body, are both illusions within my dream--but
it seems reasonable to me that you should see me the same way, and that you
should consider your experience to be
your dream. There is no contradiction in this for me,
since I do not consider the context to be spatial--so please consider me to be
one of your dream beings if you wish... and please notice that I am the
personality in your dream who is telling you the truth about the overall
situation.
Principle Three. Don't get trapped into a narrow definition of
"I".
Just before
Principle Four. Stick to a narrow definition of
enlightenment--that is, the realization that externality is
delusionary.
If you don't, your adversary will
inevitably attempt to impeach your enlightenment on the grounds of your bad
character by making the assumption (justified by no evidence whatever) that
enlightenment implies sainthood. Frankly
confess that you are a miserable sinner and full of all kinds of hidden lusts
and dreadful perversions of every type and point out that it would be strange
if you weren't, given the condition of the world in general, which you consider
to be your dream. Point out that you
seem to be improving in a cyclical fashion and so does the world, every time
you go through a death-rebirth experience.
If you don't take this tack, your opponent will punch your moral
pretensions full of holes (as he should).
On the other hand, if you do take it, he will squirm, for occultists are
almost invariably full of moral hypocrisy and pretense and all kinds of sexual
and affectional fraudulences of every sort, which is why they devote so much
effort to talking about sex, warm human relations, the avoidance of conflict and so on. They don't know how to be honest and direct
with themselves or others, so they make a profession
or task out of those things which for a normal person are the very woof and
weave of life.
Once you have penetrated the outer
defenses of occultist rhetoric, which is almost entirely a matter of
establishing that your position is not some bizarre variant of occultist
fantasy, but an historically and philosophically distinct and genuine line of
thought which contradicts occultist
assumptions, your adversary is likely to make the following concessions, which
are really not concessions at all, just further attempts to smudge
distinctions, even at the cost of making you out as a "high-class"
occultist.
If you are willing to settle for
that, you don't belong in the
Here are some of the concessions
to watch out for:
1.
Well, yes, it is true that no great mystical teacher in history has
advocated the development of magical powers.
However, the reason for that is that such powers will come naturally as you progress up the great Stairway to
Heaven. You will get them when you
deserve them. They
shouldn't be forced. How true. Yes, I agree with you on that point. Now, what about...
AT THIS POINT, STOP THE FUCKER
IN HIS TRACKS. If you give these people
an inch, they will take a mile. Your
reply should be along the following lines:
Powers? What powers?
There are no powers, only the twists and turns of the dream. The Great teachers never said anything at all
about your getting these little bonuses for good behavior... unless you consider
that infantile idiot-savant Evans-Wentz to be a "great teacher". (A
vicious attack on Evans-Wentz will usually disconcert and disorient your adversary,
who will have enshrined this creep in his mind as a universally beloved source
of wisdom.) Since we deny externality, there is nothing to have power
over. Within the dream, what does it
mean to say I have "power", if I can solve only problems
that I have invented in the first place?
Yes, some personalities and phenomena and ideas may be said to be more
"powerful" than others in a psychological
or dramatic or even pictographic sense, but there is no ontological power. There is
no physical (external) reason
whatever in a dream why you shouldn't read minds and move mountains or
whatever, if that's the way you want to have it, but there are many good
psychological reasons why such behavior is undesirable, since it tends to
produce a very messy, sloppy, boring and stupid story line in which it becomes
apparent very early that there is no reason whatever to do anything--which is
reflected very well in the myths of mankind and the observable practices of
spiritualists and magicians who almost always end up in some kind of infantile
paranoia. The great teachers did not
speak of magic as either a desirable objective or a reward. They spoke of it only as one of the
delusionary and petty concerns of the lower classes of the ignorant and
ignoble, and that is all that it is. Everything is magical--or nothing is, and
therefore there is no reason to be interested in the subject.
2.
Ah, yes, of course, even if that is true, the
acceptance of paranormal phenomena is a step
along the way, I'm sure you will agree.
Now, what about...
STOP THE BASTARD IN HIS TRACKS
AGAIN. If you don't, your failure to
object to the word "paranormal" (or whatever other vague usage has
been employed) will be all that your
adversary requires to cram you into one of his little pigeonholes.
Ask him what he means by
"paranormal".
His reply will show that he is
assuming an ontological mind-matter dualism and that he is assuming that any
evidence of what he calls precognitive, or "ESP" experience
demonstrates the hypothesis that mind is greater
than matter, or more "powerful", and that it is the acceptance of
this hypothesis that is a "step along the way". Further (if you keep pushing him) you will
discover that what impresses him about this kind of behavior on the part of
"mind" is that it acts like
matter, in that it "pushes things around" or "flows" or
"reaches out" rather than "merely" thinking or
perceiving. In this, he sees hope that
his mind or personality will escape death and "transcend"
matter. This is the "Buddhism"
of such as Evans-Wentz.
It is "metaphysics" as
physical reductionism, a way of turning the mind into a variety of matter that is (he hopes) "powerful" enough to
survive.
(When you attack an occultist's
theories, he will usually respond by defending the possibility that certain events have occurred. Never question the events, even though they
are frequently questionable. Admit at
once that anything may happen, and insist that it is his REASONING, not his
facts, which you find objectionable.)
TELL THAT SUCH THINKING IS NOT
"A STEP ALONG THE WAY" BUT A STEP BACKWARDS.
Visionary experience, or
"heavy" synchronicity (which is all that most "paranormal"
experience amounts to) or "breaks" in the illusion of
physical necessity and the supposed progression of cause and effect can be
valuable, but only if they are NOT interpreted in the way I have just
described. If such experience is
interpreted in an empirical spirit and with logical economy (Occam's razor) it
will lead directly to the questioning of
the hypothesis of externality.
If that happens, then such
experience may be regarded as A STEP BACKWARDS ON A FALSE TRAIL. True, you are not genuinely "getting
anywhere, in that there has been no forward motion (so to speak), but you have
at least stopped, or backed off, from a false assumption. You have returned to "where you
started" before you went wrong. (These spatial analogies are extremely
dangerous, and, if you use them in argument you should be certain that everyone
present recognizes that no "reification" is intended.)
It's
probably better to say that there are no steps along the way. All steps are steps backwards. The truth is right in front of your nose, and
all your twistings, squirmings and brave marches into distant and alien
territories will not change that fact one bit.
All effort is in the service of repression. It is your (weightless) decisions that count.
Our
country (in mythic terms, the US beast), is full of occultist wanderers, busily
flitting from one scene to another, attending conferences wherein the blind
maneuver to see which one of them will have the honor of taking the lead next
month, visiting each other to exchange prejudices and to be confirmed in
their bad habits, inventing organization after organization devoted to
"research" which will give them a reputation among their fellow
ignoramuses and perhaps make the great breakthrough which will, for once and
for all, demonstrate conclusively that thoughts are things.
If any of such stray your way,
fellow solipsists, play your tutorial role (that word, I have decided, is
better than "guru") the way you always do, and do not concede in the
slightest any "fellowship" with such.
They are if anything "lower" on the scale than your ordinary
kid student, who comes to you in honest perplexity. These occultists come to be confirmed in
their ignorance, and the best thing you can do for them is to insult their
pretensions as vigorously as possible and send them away shaking their
heads.
Do not think in terms of making
peace. No peace is possible and no peace
is desirable between the light and the darkness, between truth and
falsehood. When one recognizes this,
Something
drops from eyes long blind,
He
completes his partial mind,
For an instant
stands at ease,
Laughs
aloud, his heart at peace.
(And if occultists would stick to
writing poetry we would all be better off!)
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THE HANDY-DANDY KLEPTONIAN TEST OF PHILOSOPHIC BARBARISMS
(Inspired by a reading of The High Energies of Order by D.J.H.
Changes and an interview with Stanley Krippner in The Sun, Sun Pub., Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Instructions:
This method is intended to provide
the student with an easy and accurate numerical estimate of the quantity of horseshit in any essay dealing with
"mystical" philosophy or psychology.
Starting with a score of 100,
deduct 10 points for every attempt to explain a psychological experience in
terms of physical mechanism rather than in terms of wishes, fears, love, hate,
repression, ambition, vanity, shame, etc.
Add 10 points whenever you find
the opposite--that is, a seemingly physical or mechanistic event interpreted in
terms of psychology.
Examples:
"There is a Conservation of
Energy in every realm, including thought." Take 10 points off, for physical
reductionism.
"A retrograde Mercury is
associated with fuck-ups in communications." Add 10 points , for giving a
psychological meaning to a seemingly physical or "objective" event.
"A retrograde Mercury causes fuck-ups in communications."
Take 10 points off, for physical reductionism.
As can be seen from the examples,
it is very easy to slip back and forth on this dimension of value.
If the subject under discussion is
"life" or "thought" or "mind", deduct 5 points
for each appearance of the following words or phrases: energy, force, attracts,
substances, frequency, energies, lines, anchorage, emission-absorption, pole,
link, girdings, streamings forth, force field, field of space, lines of
force, union, stress, attenuated, size, mental substance, emotional substance,
physical substance, electron, molecular light, attenuated light, domain of
light, wave length, wave number, frequency light, domain size,
emission-absorption system, polar, positive pole, negative-pole, intuitive
substance, intuitive rate, spiritual rate, higher rate of consciousness, per
unit time, frontier of science, mental, intuitive or spiritual bodies, metabolism, rate of
change, higher bodies, lower bodies, straighten out, all chemical names,
mutation, environmental system, outer bodies, evolution, planes, seeds of
thought, karma, embodiment, press your mind, aura, distance between body
and aura, deformation, discharge pattern, registered upon the substance,
ministry of our territory of creation, all cosmic names, masters, testing
place, order of magnitude, measured consciousness, potency, territory of care,
Holy Breath, wave of unfoldment, substance of our being, et cetera.
If it is apparent that such terms
are being used as casual metaphors for psychological relations, do not deduct
any points.
Whenever such terms and usages are
disparaged, add 10 points.
It may be assumed that if a minus
total score is derived from the negative item scores accumulated in a short
article or speech that one is dealing with a dangerous paranoid character who
thinks that the world is some sort of enormous and complicated cuckoo-clock
which he inhabits as a kind of ghostly termite.
Such a person should be encouraged to read good philosophy (such as
V/H
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"The apostolic succession
from Eschylus to myself is as serious and as continuously inspired as that
younger institution, the apostolic succession of the
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