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Did you get another copy of the Lemegeton, or did you read other occult books next?

I spent a substantial time of my adolescence in a South-East Asian country with a culture deeply steeped in Theravada. I found the texts and teachings to be very lucid and detailed, which appealed to my mindset.

Thanks, here is mine: During my childhood and adolescence, my family moved home over three continent. I grew up in countries with Muslim, Buddhist, and Christian majority societies. My parents were an interfaith couple of sorts, but we children got raised protestant Christians. I married early...

A quandary is being in the position to choose between two equally unsatisfactory options, right? (I had to look it up.) So if one's faith is full of equally unattractive alternatives, here's my question: Why have faith at all? Or put more positively, what makes it worth the continued torment of...

I'm locking this thread, thank you all for your reports and for standing up.

@wil was suggesting some kind of online get-together a while ago. So why not an online interfaith brunch kind of thing? If there's interest, maybe we can pull it off withing the next year even!

This thread keeps veering off into general Western Esoteric topics, so I'm moving it to a more appropriate subforum.

Welcome, @666morningstar999

Sounds like it, though we seem to draw different conclusions. Awareness by the mind of itself - the "itself" seems to imply a kind of loop-back which may just be a manner of speaking, but which to me is incidental. Maybe this is where our world-views differ?

My usage of these terms: Perception is a rather mechanical process, sights get processed by the nervous system, or a memory or thought is apprehended, for example. Consciousness lights up these perceptions, they gain significance, they are observed. The perceptions which, when made conscious...

Yes, obviously. If you feel like going into detail regarding the "and more...", I'd love to read it.

How do you call that which "lights up" to perception the Psyche/Soul/Greater Self? I would call that consciousness, but that's different from the phenomena arising in it, such as the Self.

How do you use the Iblis Pentagram? Is it embroidered on robes or altar cloths? Engraved in Jewelry? As a focus for meditation? Or for philosophical contemplation?

You Brits with your taste for understatement! Good to have you around again. Be well, Thomas.

Looking forward to your input here, @RabbiO

Tell more?

Some thoughts (these are my ideals, I aim for them but certainly don't reach them consistently) My experience is that the best way to go about this (agreeing to disagree) is to use "I-messages" instead of absolutes. And to be mindful of telltale words like "but" or "you", in such a context -...

Didn't always use to be like that, though. In the old days of the Big Religions, there were Defenestrations, Cardinals storming out on each other and unilaterally changing single words here and there in the prayers... even the Buddha wasn't above arguing with opponents until their heads would...

Highly recommended. How do you do that yourself, @Tony Bristow-Stagg ? Which beliefs of yours are you questioning right now?

Not the worst way to go 😉 (I understand the metaphor of course.) Lovely poem! Yours, @RJM ?