It's no big deal... And I want to I don't want to get all militant about these threads, imagine it 6 months from now or a year from now someone wanted to follow up on the conversation with chris knowles. they start going through this thread and then they'd hit page after page of trump stuff.
that's why I think it's helpful to try and stay on topic.
Also, there was some really great stuff in the interview that we haven't discussed. I want to know what y'all think.
I bought his book - and sadly, I'm a slow reader... The thing that stuck out to me was this -
Chris said that he saw "evil people" as people who actually started out thinking they were good and that their actions were good and justified... and that they grow into the evil doer while maintaining their view and justification.
And he also briefly mentioned, as an exception -
I don’t think people, except for like some weirdos who are into Satanism or whatever, nobody sets out thinking, “I’m going to be evil.”
...and there's no mention of psychopathy (and its cousin, sociopathy) and I think all three have to be considered and thus, discussed.
To use a Clint Eastwood movie metaphor - The "good' (those who think they are good and think they do good yet are and do anything but), the "bad" (those who consciously choose a dark, Left Hand Path pathway, like some forms of Satanism as an example) and the "ugly" - the pure psychopaths.
And then there's the idea of a force most of us would call "evil" and it is hard to disregard the possibility this force exists as a fundamental of form that arises just beyond (yet paradoxically within) what I believe is, as Kastrup once referred to it, the universe of consciousness. Alex's deep dive into good and evil has been an excellent journey and has adjusted my focus from my own view of the nature of good and evil as it relates to "life promoting/life preserving vs life restricting/life destroying" which I had concluded was fundamental to "good vs evil."
As it was Alex and a few guests hit upon... "the moral imperative" (and opportunity this "shared reality" form of life may present) which has started to take hold within me... and then I wonder, about the discussion ya'll had with regards to practical magick - especially black magic and the calling up of demons / angels to do one's bidding. And it just struck me as so obvious that it shouldn't be avoided because of the risk it poses to one's life (or soul if they are open to such) as that is a selfish reason
not to when the reason one justifies doing so is similarly
selfish or, driven by one's confusion they hold the highest wisdom and thus to use such with the goal of imposing one's opinion as to what the world should be and thus hubris.
To me, the reason to disdain the use of intentional practical magickal techniques is because it is, pure and simple, cheating. It is not playing fair. And that, to me, is an ethical standard (to never cheat) that I would place very high in the set of "the good."