🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (26 tweets)
like this https://t.co/Twilwp5Ket
Hillman reminds us that "our ideas about the psyche affect the psyche," and that it matters what language we use to talk about things that matter, the language can empower or destroy, Midgley reminds us that the myths and metaphors we use to think about something can help us or harm us, can lead us to answers or lead us to ruin Hofstadter claims that analogy is the core of thought, and thus that the analogies we use to think about things, consciously or unconsciously, can entirely change what thoughts it is possible to think Asma, similarly, tells us that Mythopoetic Cognition is the engine of mind, and that the embodied myths that drive our thought literally change the shape of the world we inhabit, and what actions make sense within it Hillman, again, reminds us that myths are what constellate human energy into configurations that interpret the world for us and drive action within it WHEN WE APPROACH SUBJECTS FROM THE WRONG MYTHS, THE WRONG ANALOGIES, THE WRONG METAPHORS AND LENSES, WE'RE WALKING INTO QUICKSAND
and like this https://t.co/KxT8WGjDB1
I was just reading Tantra Illuminated, and the way they are describing mantras - or mantra beings, because mantras in Tantra are identical to their sound, and their effects, and their associated deitiesand they are described as agents of transformative change, or action, in the same way that @Morphenius describes memes. Memes as spirits, ideas that have people, instead of people having ideas, and memes as behaviors. As simultaneously the information and the behavior itself, and the abstraction that a behavior is downstream of.
@QiaochuYuan Nothing is real, only self-reifying.
Stage magic and real magic exist on the same continuum. Stage magic is linear ➡️. Magician performs illusion to entertain an audience. Real magic is nonlinear 🔄. Magician performs illusion to bootstrap a chicken-and-egg feedback loop that becomes self-reifying (i.e. real).
@QiaochuYuan @sonyasupposedly You, reader, are experiencing magic right now: staring at a magic black glass slate covered with glowing dynamic runes, causing you to hallucinate the existence of others and communicate instantly worldwide.
@QiaochuYuan This is a good point! I think a lot of psychosis actually stems from a cultural disbelief in the possibility of psychic abilities or magic being real Like if you lived in a world where most people were deaf except you & you tried describing sound & they called you crazy
@QiaochuYuan Have you come up with a good description of magic that works as.a bridge to the concept for a secular modern person? I'm trying to find something palatable for my non-philisophically minded friends & family.
@QiaochuYuan There's a wave of trendy occult and magic things happening (always seems to happen when the world doesn't make sense huh, wonder if there's anything psychoanalytic about that) and this is the perfect way to grift/bait tpot discourse.
@QiaochuYuan My go-to approach is something like radical agnosticism. If it doesn't seem real, I probably just don't get it yet. Though I only really apply this to ancient magic. Modern stuff is nowhere near as time tested and is often tied up with profit-motivated reasoning.
@QiaochuYuan Touma, the MC from the anime A Certain Magical Index is exceptional for having no talent with magic or the "science" based abilities in the series, instead having only the ability to negate everyone else's maybe it negates his luck as "faith" is a kind of supernatural power https://t.co/fMzqzIjE8v
