mental illness

<seethirty> It is to be remarked, in connection with the works just enumerated, that ALLAN KARDEC
<seethirty> was not a "medium," and was consequently obliged to avail himself of the medianimity of
<seethirty> others in obtaining the spirit-communications from which they were evolved.
<seethirty> that is interesting
<seethirty> he diverted his life away from 'academia' so completely, and yet wasn't a medium himself
<obli> i dunno
<obli> -trying- to be a medium seems like a path to delusion
<seethirty> well what i mean is, he visited mediums
<seethirty> but he didn't have any of these visions, or experiences, himself
<seethirty> btw, what anime do you watch?
<seethirty> do you know Yu Yu Hakusho?
<obli> yeah
<@Otter> you don't believe it's something that can be learned, Obli?
<obli> he realised he wassn't a medium
<seethirty> one of my favorites
<obli> i do otter
<@Otter> wouldn't one have to try in order to learn?
<obli> but i think the kind of person who would set out to learn it and be capible of achiving it would face a path fraught with dead ends
<seethirty> i'm speaking from a purely technical standpoint.. why write a book on the philosophy of being a plumber, if you're not a plumber?
<seethirty> that's possible yes
<obli> why write a book on advarks if you arn't an advark?
* @Otter nods
<@Otter> that's true, Obli.  it takes practice to learn the difference between signal and noise
<seethirty> touche :P
<obli> becuase advarks have remarkable qualities worthy of comment and none of the advarks have written any books addressing these points :P
<@Otter> and between useful signals and signals that encourage delusion
<obli> i think its easy to fall into trying to hard
<@Otter> in order to expand your perceptions, you have to allow yourself to suggestible
<obli> look at all the things tugging at you and dicern which one is which
<@Otter> that will get you all sorts of input, much of it quite useless
* @Otter nods
* seethirty (seethirty@50-89-37-175.res.bhn.net) Quit (Ping timeout)
<@Otter> many people don't get farther than that.  or they latch onto a sou rce that provides them with wonder at teh ex pense of truth
<@Otter> basically, they're playing an RPG with spirit partners
<obli> you'll have to eleaborate on that metaphor
<@Otter> OTOH, it's a delusion to think that the spirit world doesn't exist, or that we can't access it
<@Otter> or that we don't access it subconciously on a regular basis
<@Otter> rpg = role playing game, not rocket propelled grenade
<obli> its a complicated thing
<@Otter> does that help?
<obli> yeah
<obli> no
<obli> i mean
<obli> like its like playing an rpg as in = kids stuff or..?
* @Otter nods
<@Otter> a fantasy
<obli> yeah
<@Otter> you get to be the star, for intance, i a great struggle between good and evil
<@Otter> your spirit friends get some of your energy
<@Otter> everyone is happy
<@Otter> for a while, anyway
<obli> yeah
<obli> its probably a good trip
<obli> for a couple of days
<obli> :P
<obli> then it all starts going horrificly wrong
<obli> and it you ever realise it
<obli> if
<obli> you could never trust any spiritual experiance again
<obli> which i guess is why so many people become so uncritically accepting of any garbage they come across as long as is presented in the correct tome
<obli> tone
<obli> because everything is right
<obli> so i'm not wrong to stick to my guns all the way to the bottom :P
<@Otter> people don't like uncertainty