Thanks! u/Graphenium:
The worldview expressed in the Law of One/“Ra Material” and the Hidden Hand interview
https://www.wanttoknow.info/secret_societies/hidden_hand_081018
The way I see things, these two sources explain existence, the state of our world, and the meaning of life far more accurately than any other. One is a “channeled” work, and the other is a long series of Questions and Answers between a conspiracy forum (RiP ATS) and a self-proclaimed world-controller. I see them as complimentary, showing a deeper reality by showing two sides of the same coin. One side being that of Service-to-Others, and the other being Service-to-Self
https://communities.win/c/Conspiracies/p/1ASG9Vy4Tl/round-table-suggestion-thread/c
Thread will stay open for 3-4 weeks thanks to a very helpful suggestion.
Almost like it’s some type of catalyst for growth! And a pre-requisite for growth at that! (Note: someone had to break Butters’ heart to catalyze that growth he experienced). Just as every story needs an antagonist and every achievement requires struggle, I can’t imagine the world where we get all the benefits of “growth” with none of the negatives (e.g. sadness, heartbreak, death, etc.)
Think of the Garden - was existence before the fall more or less static than it is today? Was there more, or less, capacity for growth?
Honestly I agree with most of your takes in isolation, but at the same time I see them re-affirming the content of HH/LoO, while you clearly understand them as doing the opposite, which is interesting
well thats the thing... The pre-requisite, the real catalyst for growth is truth. That someone told Butters the truth and that broke his heart. Misalignment naturally arises from our own perceptions, and the catalyst for transformation is our encounter with that truth, not some external agent or evil.
Me either. The truth can produce those struggles and negatives we feel. Truth can be perceived to be evil even... funnily enough.
The Garden certainly had the highest latent potential for growth. Adam and Eve had some expectations I'm sure, but I'm not sure that the fall was caused or catalyzed by a Satan... rather he just brought their concerns to the front. I think that is the nature of finite beings. The catalyst did not start until they encountered the truth and reality. Misalignment is a natural rise from finite perception. I suppose that is a whole discussion in of itself.
Right, the language is shared but our ontology is different. My lens shows me relational experience, monistic in its purpose. But the Hidden Hand and Law of One show a dualistic system. I think the HH/LoO must show a dualistic system so that they may justify themselves. BUT I think with the view I'm presenting, it does render them unnecessary.
Do these texts not present a picture in which the duality of physical existence (something I think is undeniable) ultimately reconcile in the monad (aka God)? That’s how I read them certainly.
Does this picture you paint not imply that up until that encounter with truth, Butters/we are immersed in a very real (in the sense that it can be experienced) untruth? If he never believed “she loves me”, then the truth (and furthermore, the perspective that truth brings) that “she doesn’t love me” wouldn’t be something he could experience, right?
Idk… I know where you’re coming from regarding dualism, but I don’t see that reconciliation happening at our level of existence. It seems to me that Duality is real, but a reality which ultimately springs from a Monad and is eventually reconciled in that Monad. Duality is almost an epiphenomena of existence. In order for something to “exist” in our physical reality (or to have anything approaching “meaning”), so too must exist the possibility of “ceasing to exist” in that physical reality.
Edit to add
See, I have a totally different read on the order of events there. Before satan introduces his “lie”, the Garden is in a state of static and unchanging “Truth”. They had “the truth” but without the option to choose. Untruth didn’t yet exist, according to the story. And thus there was no death, no suffering, and logically, no growth. So I see growth as an epiphenomenon of the introduction of the catalyst of “untruth” in the Garden
Their lie, the illusion, is the duality. No, when it comes to reconciliation, whatever is false is obliterated. They do not merge together say... or integrate. Finite beings encounter truth partially. That partial encounter creates tension, contradiction, fragmentation. That fragmentation is felt as duality.
What the texts say rhetorically works and it is compelling because the duality feels real. It is phenomenological. But it is not ontological.
Yes, in a sense he is immersed in something experientially real. But he is experiencing reality through a misaligned interpretation. The "real" untruth can feel coherent because his mind fills in gaps and his assumptions and emotions reinforce his interpretation. The untruth is not a reality in of itself... it is an illusion or delusion built on the misreading of reality. Butters wasn't living in a false world, he still lives in the real wrld but interpreting it incorrectly until truth exposed the gap.
Yes, duality is an epiphenomenon of finite, misaligned perception encountering a unified reality. It is experientially real, but not ontologically fundamental.
Well, this is the death thing I wanted to clarify on. Is death transition or ceasing to exist? A leaf "dies" and becomes soil. A belief "dies" and gives way to truth. Butter's illusion "dies" but reality remains. Nothing fundamental disappears, but configurations change.
Meaning in things does not require a counter-force, it just takes participation in that something. and that participation leads to change and transformation or a "death" per se. In John's gospel we are asked to follow first and then these things emerge from that participation. Alignment.
The garden always had choice. Boundaries were set with the tree of knowledge without another reality. And I can hear the cries (extrapolating from the texts) of why oh why was this forbidden tree created in the first place?.. What God would do such a thing to where this is possible? Surely it was Satan's suggestion that saved us from bondage of this static world... and that misses the whole point of what reality is. The tree of knowledge allows the finite being to participate with the created order from whence meaning and understanding emerge... what untold wisdom and knowledge would we have had we participated in these rules? But man chose non-participation. Misaligned, fallen, degenerate... and thus when man encounters something true, it transforms him.
I think this duality notion might be the thing to try and drill into? If you’ll forgive what im sure will be a tangled mess of thoughts.
I agree with this, regarding what is false - but I don’t believe duality is false. Let me ask how you integrate the following (which you’re surely familiar with) into your beliefs:
> I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
That strikes me as indicating that “Creation” (as we, in our finitude, can know it) is a dualistic place via design. I’ve infact raised this in the c/Christianity community, seeking an answer that made more sense than this. Yes, yes, I know some men, very important men, labeled these ideas “Heresy”, but these discussions to me are about making an appeal to our God-given gift of reason, not an appeal to “authority”. Forgive the tangent lol. It’s all to say, the best argument I found was based on the notion of Creation being, well, created, ”all good”. And, to cut a long story short, while that sentence can be the Truth in isolation, I don’t find it convincing wholistically, I find it to be a “pushing off of responsibility”. If an omniscient being comes up with a plan to create Creation, He knows what that entails. He thus creates both Good, and Evil, and existence is all the richer for it (as I believe can be read in the Bible, and as I believe the HH/LoO stuff just kind of…updates for our time the same divine wisdom) and trying to skeeve the existence of evil off onto “Satan”, Adam, Eve, the Nephilim, you, me, whoever! just does a disservice to the true majesty of God’s creation. It’s a simplifying of the story for children. We all have a role to play, including those “vessels meant for destruction”
Did it though? Without “knowledge of Good and Evil”, what kind of choices could even be made? - “What should I eat right now?” “What should I call this animal?” - I see the choices we are capable of in a state of innocence are far more restricted than the state that came after, don’t you? They were like perfect Children at that point, babes…your baby doesn’t know right from wrong, and no parent would punish a baby for their choice made in innocent ignorance
Anyway, think I can cut myself off there, hopefully enough of that gets through lol. I’ll just say, i quite appreciate this conversation. If I ever come across combatively, it’s just because of how important I actually think the subject is. Cheers
My current take, and I will come back to it, is that the material contains such overt contradictions that your extra work reconciling it is better spent with less illogical material. I'm the one saying to unspoil all things and to find the valid concerns in things, but I don't see you distancing from contradiction but excusing it.
List the top three contradictions in your view, but note that if they are reconciled in the text that you apparently still haven’t finished reading, 5 years after I first linked it to you, I will be starting each sentence with “what are you, retarded?”
The problem with Eden is that we can't know how the Lord would have taught us these things 'that way' instead of in our present predicament, but He teaches either way, didn't have to betray Him to learn is my meaning.
I trust that the Fall was necessary to escape the stasis of forced innocence
I think it was a risk not an inevitability.
Regardless, it is what it is (that is - the current state of things). “Coulda, woulda, shoulda” arguments are arguments I don’t see as having a place in the discussion of the “plan” of an omnipotent and omniscient being.
I think we can know, and Perelandra speculates on it. There may come a point in eschatology where creatures can enjoy the full Adamic experience without the personal need to fall. But it is necessary to fulfill prophecy that a traitor arise at times.