Hello all! Today I went to a mall for the first time since pre-COVID. I wanted to check out a new metaphysical store in the area since my usual one had moved. Turns out, they’re in a mall. The metaphysical store was wonderful and I found out it’s family and BIPOC owned. I’m excited to support them again! While I was there, I stopped into a few stores and I noticed there were a lot of little things that gave me witchy vibes, but I didn’t think much of it until I got into the book store (a chain that many in the US have probably heard of) and it was everywhere! I found this really cool book about queer religious figures that have been erased throughout the years, Queer Magic by Thomas Prower. When I opened the book, I read about these 3 queer Goddesses who had been revered until a God offered them up as temptation and it all spirals from there…because the male gaze taints them spiritually and they are no longer holy, I guess? I’m excited to read more. That was my first stop, and while I was looking around, I noticed a table of magic books: herb magic, crystal magic, candle magic, moon magic and others. After that, there was a display with about 12 witchy romances. I’ve had a couple of those books on my TBR list, so I noted that. Then I found a huge discount section with more magic stuff. You could buy crystals in a box, pendulums, tarot decks, palm reading books, fortune telling books, and there was a Goddess magic book I own and it was cheaper there than where I bought it. On my walk out, I found a mini crystal ball, a moon phase notebook and couple mini spell books.
I feel conflicted! On one hand, it’s cool to see my spirituality around me, normalizing it. As a kid who longed to be a witch and secretly mixed up my own “potions” with grass, sticks, rocks, in any outdoor space away from my family of origin; I think it would have helped me find my own craft much more easily if I had seen it around me like in the bookstore. Wicca and Goddess work have been a big piece of healing complex childhood trauma, so I would have preferred to find my Wiccan identity much earlier. On the other hand, it feels like capitalism is exploiting this really meaningful part of my identity. We were literally burned to death (I know it’s more complex than that, any dissenting person who didn’t fit the cis-het traditional gender stereotype was murdered in the name of witchcraft), and now we’re trendy? Wtf happened?
I apologize if I’m late to the party on this. I gave up all my social media the day after the 2016 election, but I gained Reddit and found wonderful communities like you all. So, I don’t know how to feel. Similar to how Pride started as a riot and now rainbows are put everywhere in June for financial gain, because apparently our money isn’t dirty anymore (I’m bi and gender queer she/her &they/them)? But violence and hate continue around us, but corporations get to look good for a month and like they aren’t funneling money into politicians who promote hate…but I think about all of those young closeted kids who get to go into a store in June and see that love and their queerness celebrated, even if some assholes are profiting off it…maybe that’s enough to keep them going? And now our craft is being sold to us by corporations who don’t know anything about Wicca and Witches…but maybe a child who is writing stories about witches in her diary and mixing potions out of grass and dirt in their backyard feels safer because of this?
I’d love to know your thoughts. Blessed be, witches! 💜

i went into a metaphysical store at the mall and was wondering if those stores are usually trustworthy to buy crystal bracelets and necklaces? let me know guys I was tempted to buy some things but not sure if the stuff is fake 😭😭

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Old Scheduled Q&A Threads

New to Neville's teachings? Start here!

The below links contain essentially the entirety of Neville's teachings.

• Wiki
• Sidebar
• Neville Goddard's Brief Biography
• Rules

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I manifest xyz?

Yes, anything is possible.

How do I manifest xyz?

All manifestations use the same technique(s). To get good simply takes practice and imagination.
Neville's Basic Manifestation Techniques:

• The Neville Goddard Method
• Revision: The Complete Guide

What scene should I choose?

Any scene which you believe you would encounter after your wish is fulfilled.

What should I start reading?

We recommend The Law and The Promise or The Power of Awareness first for beginners. This is because Neville includes several examples and success stories from students, in addition to being lighter on Bible references, which can be off-putting or confusing to beginners.
If you want a physical copy of his books, publishers continue publishing new copies of Neville's works. Please check your library, locally owned book store, or search online for Neville's works. If you purchase a new physical copy, we recommend The Power of Imagination: The Neville Goddard Treasury, as it contains all of Neville's books in one volume.
All of Neville’s books and lectures are in the public domain and can be searched online for free, and are included in the Wiki and Sidebar links mentioned previously.

What is an SP?

Specific Person. Usually in reference to a person’s romantic interest or crush. The term was popularized by so-called, self-professed online manifestation coaches and "experts". /NevilleGoddardSP is a dedicated, expert subreddit for that.

What is a Mental Diet?

Avoiding negative conversation and media, paying attention to positive conversation and media.

What is SATS?

State Akin To Sleep (SATS) refers to the deep state of consciousness during meditation or just before falling asleep. In SATS, the body is relaxed, but control over the mind is retained. It is used to create vivid visualizations in imagination for the purposes of manifesting.

After you have decided on the action which implies that your desire has been realized, then sit in your nice comfortable chair or lie flat on your back, close your eyes for the simple reason it helps to induce this state that borders on sleep. The minute you feel this lovely drowsy state, or the feeling of gathered togetherness, wherein you feel- I could move if I wanted to, but I do not want to, I could open my eyes if I wanted to, but I do not want to. When you get that feeling you can be quite sure that you are in the perfect state to pray successfully.
Neville Goddard, 1948 Lecture Series, Lesson 4

What is the Lullaby Method?

In SATS, instead of visualizing, repeat an affirmation to oneself again and again, building the feeling of it being true.

What is Revision?

Revision is revising in imagination events that have happened in the past as a way of mitigating their effects in the future.
See also: Revision: The Complete Guide

What is Door Slamming/You are in Barbados/Living in the End/State of the Wish Fulfilled?

Closing your mind to any other possibility besides your outcome. Assuming your desire is true and not questioning it.

Do we have Free Will?

Yes, and no. It’s complicated. See here.

What is "Everyone is You Pushed Out" (EIYPO)?

On a practical level, what you believe is what you get. The world only shows you your own beliefs. On a metaphysical level, we are all the same God interacting with Itself through an infinite number of different points.

The whole vast world is no more than man's imagining pushed out. I must qualify that by saying that the world outside of man is dead, but Man is a living soul, and it responds to man, yet man is sound asleep and does not know it. The Lord God placed man in a profound sleep, and as he sleeps the world responds as in a dream, for Man does not know he is asleep, and then he moves from a state of sleep where he is only a living soul to an awakened state where he is a life-giving Spirit. And now he can himself create, for everything is responding to an activity in man which is Imagination. "The eternal body of man is all imagination; that is God himself." (Blake)
Neville Goddard, The Law lecture

What if everything is going wrong? What if I am manifesting the opposite of my desire?

Failure is generally due to a lack of consistent faith or belief in the outcome, not feeling as though it had already happened. However, if the one has consistently been loyal to their faith, then we are reminded that all manifestations have their appointed hour (Hab 2:3). Neville writes about the causes of failure here.

What about (my sick mom, my crazy grandpa, the homeless, starving children, etc.)?

In Neville's view, there is one being that is God (who is pure imagination), and has split Itself into infinite smaller forms to undergo a series of good/bad experiences across lifetimes until these smaller pieces realize they are God and reintegrate. The less fortunate are to be helped, not looked down upon, but understanding it is necessary for God to realize Itself (to experience bad and good).

What happens after I die? What is The Promise?

Neville’s prophetic vision of an individual’s reintegration with God.

Can I manifest multiple things at once?

Yes. Here is Neville's answer regarding how to manifest multiple things from Lessons Q&A:

\5. Question: Is it possible to imagine several things at the same time, or should I confine my imagining to one desire?
Answer: Personally I like to confine my imaginal act to a single thought, but that does not mean I will stop there. During the course of a day I may imagine many things, but instead of imagining lots of small things, I would suggest that you imagine something so big it includes all the little things. Instead of imagining wealth, health and friends, imagine being ecstatic. You could not be ecstatic and be in pain. You could not be ecstatic and be threatened with a dispossession notice. You could not be ecstatic if you were not enjoying a full measure of friendship and love.
What would the feeling be like were you ecstatic without knowing what had happened to produce your ecstasy? Reduce the idea of ecstasy to the single sensation, "Isn't it wonderful!" Do not allow the conscious, reasoning mind to ask why, because if it does it will start to look for visible causes, and then the sensation will be lost. Rather, repeat over and over again, "Isn't it wonderful!" Suspend judgment as to what is wonderful. Catch the one sensation of the wonder of it all and things will happen to bear witness to the truth of this sensation. And I promise you, it will include all the little things.

What if I have another question?

Please use Reddit's search feature or post it here in the Q&A thread.

​

SONGS OF ANALYSIS: I am outside my body watching it float from one shapeless void into another. The first void contains a voice humming a tune, yet no presence. As I pass through each, one by one, another voice joins in harmony. I try counting the voices, but I am not sure if I should be adding or subtracting as they fade into one, and in my confusion I lose any memory of numbers at all. I feel a tether pulling me back into being and see myself waving goodbye. A voice burrows into my mind as the serenading songs become discordant, ugly.
The voice becomes louder, and I awake.
Exegesis

Contents

Foundation: Of Final Shapes Past

• Exploring extant Darkness subclasses and their relationships to each other, their Light counterparts, and their ultimate origins.

The Spectra of Arc

• Analyzing Arc, its properties and relationships, and what it reveals about the final Darkness subclass.

You Are The Waves

• The properties of sound with regard to matter and emotion.
• The confluence of music and emotion
• The mathematics of Cymatics and Music

Taming Resonance

• Differentiating our relationship with Resonance from that of the Witness and its Disciples.
• Quantum Mechanics, Wavefunctions

It’s Just a Phase

• Exploring waveforms when scaled by paracausality

Musica Universalis

• The heart of the third Darkness element.
• Exploring the relationship with Sacred Geometry
• Geomancy, the "Science of the Sand"

Aesthetics

• The potential appearance and trappings for the third Darkness subclass.

Manifestation: "Stanza" - The Symphony

• How the third Darkness subclass can manifest, and the Nine's involvement.

tl;dr

• tl;dr

~*~

Foundation: Of Final Shapes Past

I know more of Darkness now. It is not violence. It is something more: something that hums and flows and resonates, knife or song by equal measure.
The Dark Below

So far, the Darkness subclasses have been multifaceted and complex, embodying conceptual principles, psychological ideas, quantum mechanics, and even mythical elements. It's my belief the Darkness classes each embody and expand upon a different aspect of the previous Final Shape:
The Vex.
Stasis yields a computronium that generates unending calculations. It is the very embodiment of cold, hard logic. It is remarkably similar to the solid phase of Radiolaria, which we see adorning the Vault of Glass. Its associated phase of matter is solid, and as such can be understood as representing physical permanence. Elsie Bray manifested it with a focus on Control. Finally, Stasis stands in opposition to its Light counterpart, Solar. This relationship is reinforced by Stasis' deep blue being the inverse of Solar's red-orange.
Strand is a networked mentality, a union of mind. This embodies the shared, singular consciousness of the Vex and, along with the Veil, possibly representative of Karl Jung's Collective Consciousness, consensus reality. By way of Neptunian cultural associations with The River, Strand can be likened to the liquid phase of matter, and as such can be understood as representing immateriality and impermanence -- flow. In stark contrast to Stasis's manifestation of Control, Osiris associates Strand with Surrender. Finally, it Strand likely stands in opposition to Void, as it represents a plenum of thought - an omnipresent framework of consciousness and interconnection. This relationship is reinforced by Strand's lime green being the inverse of Void's lavender.
As we see, Stasis and Strand are part of several spectra, both in regard to each other (Control and Surrender being opposite yet complementary), and in regard to their Light counterparts (thermodynamics and emptiness/fullness for the Solar-Stasis and Void-Strand axes, respectively, relationships reinforced by the inversion of their colors). There also appears to be an relationship with the phases of matter, with Stasis being a Solid, and Strand, fluid.
The cold, logical calculations of the Vex have been expanded upon by Paracausality; with a simple exertion of will, Stasis imposes a spontaneous emergent structure on matter, regardless of material state or composition. The Weave offers a unifying substrate for communication, expanded by Paracausality so the network and physical universe are made malleable to will.
The Vex originated from a wholly causal existence, embodying the systems of their own universe and achieving dominion. But now they exist in a universe where paracausality reigns supreme, overthrowing their once-unrivaled strengths. The patterns of which the Vex were once a part have been elevated beyond their grasp by the Light and Dark. The modern universe of Destiny is psychogenic, influenced by will, thought -- and emotion.
With these relationships and spectra in mind, let's turn to the final subclass and its potential opposite.

The Spectra of Arc

Osiris characterizes Arc in this way:

Arc is the element of motion and conduction, and is created when the electromagnetic forces of our universe struggle to achieve balance. According to Ikora, Arc teaches us that change is a fundamental aspect of the universe. 'To wield it is to ride the storm of the unguessable.'

Electromagnetism. Motion. Conduction. Change.
A surface level reading of these characteristics might yield the following inversions:
Repulsion. Stillness. Insulation. Permanence.
Already we run into a problem, as these characterize two extant subclasses: the Stillness, Insulation and Permanence of Stasis; and the Repulsive (gravitational manipulation) aspects of Void.
Another tact we might take is to analyze Arc in terms of its fantasy elemental trappings: Lightning. Traditionally, Lightning is countered by Stone and Earth. Now, this may seem a bit of a stretch; how can we expect to summon stone spears and rocks to throw at our enemies, especially when fighting in the expansive nothingness of the Ascendant Plane? Such a play style would be inherently grounding, so to speak, in a game about movement and possibility.
Let's put a pin in that, we'll return to it.
So, barring Stone and Earth as recourse, what other relationships might Arc be a part of?
One interesting real-world phenomenon is called Peizoelectricity. This is the process of converting electrical energy into mechanical energy, and vice versa. Applying an electric field to certain crystals (often a quartz) yields vibrations, and application of mechanical force can yield an electric field. It flows both ways. Real-world applications include clocks, ultrasonic nozzles, and transformer components.
An interesting relationship: a direct conversion of electricity into mechanical waves

You are the waves, which are battles, and the battles are the waves.
XXXI: battle made waves

Let's briefly return to the first Final Shape, the Vex, and an interesting phenomenon we've seen associated with them:

The whispers have taken on a soft hint of Ulurant grammar, confirming Uldren's suspicion. This is a place where abstract patterns war for survival, fighting to propagate themselves by preying on each other. The Vex are singing to see how the Garden changes their song, and even this conversation has fertilized the air.
On the Hunt

Now, if we move on to the Color Theory pioneered by u/LettuceDifferent5104, the inverse of Arc's color (anywhere from Vivid Cerulean to Dodger Blue) ranges from Bronze to Ochre. We've already seen these colors with Resonance.
So, is Resonance the final subclass? Not quite. Just as our Guardians encountered two aspects of Darkness and "purified" them, I don't think we will be wielding Resonance directly.

Taming Resonance

The universe is wide, my child—- his Witness would chide. —-With wrath matching if not exceeding yours in its vastness. Seek it before it seeks you. Or it will be your end.
Resonant Fury Greaves

We now wield two aspects of the Darkness: the Authority of Stasis, and the Surrender of Strand. While the Witness embraces and masters the former, mastery over Strand seems to have eluded It. Instead, It seems to have created Its own version of Strand, a sweeping paracausal network linking items and minds to Itself. However, where Strand is characterized by surrender and symbiosis, Egregore is distinguished by unequivocal submission to the Witness.
I believe the Witness has likewise eschewed the third and final Darkness element.
If I'm right, and the final aspect of Darkness embodies Emotion and Collaboration, then the Witness's own creed could prevent it from achieving mastery over it. According to Mara Sov, who briefly communed with the Witness , the Witness is a being of simmering rage.

I touched the mind - the being - of that terrible distant force but once, and that was more than sufficient... A cacophony, an overwhelming weight of presence and thought and intent... Beneath all else, that being cradles rage enough to burn the stars themselves to cinders.

This is reinforced by Its interactions with Calus aboard the Imperator, where It reacted with disgust towards Calus' indulgences, and with barely-restrained rage when Calus' offered defiance.
For the Witness, there is no room for nuance or gray areas. There is only authority and control.
This is the shape of victory: to rule the universe so absolutely that nothing will ever exist except by your consent. This is the queen at the end of time, whose sovereignty is eternal because no other sovereign can defeat it. And there is no reason for it, no more than there was reason for the victory of the atom. It is simply the winning play.
This is the heart of the Witness's creed: using the Darkness's teleological power over consciousness to collapse all possibilities until there is only one reality.
The Witness's very presence appears to fracture spacetime. Reality screamed at the touch of the Hive, but it shatters under the weight of the Witness's gaze.
But with Egregore being a facsimile of Strand, could Resonance also be an impure manifestation?

BUT a certain Hidden contact, Eris Morn, has informed me that the fungus is similar to a synapse within a nervous system. She claims it is a physical manifestation of the Darkness, like Stasis. But unlike Stasis, it appears to be an "impure" manifestation—her words, not mine. There are a lot of implications there.
Eidolon Shell

On Lubrae, the Witness imparted a portion of Its twisted power to Rhulk, who saw it as a glimmer in the shadows of the dark, as Luster.
But what is Resonance itself?
In our fight with the First Disciple, Rhulk summons spiraling pillars of ochre energy. Concept art describes this energy in terms of waves - oscillations, amplitudes, frequency. What's curious is the manner in which Resonance is used -- by both Rhulk and ourselves with Resonant Materials -- to create physical objects. Whether Resonance is shaping incidental material in a manner akin to Stasis, or manifesting new matter, is unclear. However, it bares a striking similarity to the concept of Morphic Resonance, an (apocryphal) phenomenon posited by Rupert Sheldrake whereby organisms develop according to a metaphysical template encoded in "Morphic Fields". Sheldrake believed that memory is a tangible feature of reality.
This theory, of course, precedes the discovery of epigenetics, which coordinates protein expression in growing organisms, obviating the need for a Morphic Field. But Resonance undoubtedly has the ability to encode information, allowing it to be "saved", "read", and "opened", not unlike Glimmer, or the fifth state of matter, Engrams.
The Witness wields the Darkness with authority and rage. But as we’ve seen, the Darkness is not limited to the negative aspects of the human experience; in and of itself, Darkness is not a corrupted, corrupting force. The Witness’s creed may limit its ability or willingness to command the different aspects of Darkness.

You Are The Waves

You are a lone power, and a part of something greater. A bright particle, and a rising wave.
Unity Clade

Sound is a pattern of vibration, mechanical energy jostling particles as it propagates through a medium. There are many extraordinary qualities attributed to sound waves.
There are claims to the healing effects of low-frequency vibrations. This is often associated with cats, whose purr frequency ranges from 25 to 150 Hz. Though it's far more likely this is due to vibroacoustics, which activates mechanoreceptors in nerves and thereby block pain receptors, an effect called pain-gating (though this can help relax muscles and alleviate inflammation, potentially allowing the body to heal more efficiently).
Surprisingly, there is also research showing low frequency sounds of 10 - 200 Hz can cause anxiety.
The Limbic System, which in part is the seat of emotion, responds strongly to music. According to Abby Dvorak, PhD.;

“Music can activate or downregulate the amygdala, which is the intense-emotion center of the brain,” Dvorak says. “Someone who is feeling very sad and who needs a cathartic moment — listening to a piece of sad music may allow them to cry, and so get back to homeostasis.”

Even in individuals with brain damage, music's influence on the brain remains intact. Music is even used in therapies for emotional and neurological injury, potentially easing inflammation due to it's virboacoustic effects.
But there's another aspect to sound, unique in its production by humans, with surprisingly profound influences on biology: music.
There is such universality to music that it bridges cultural divides, as shown by US and Chinese researchers. Studies show that participants felt similar emotions when exposed to the same tracks.
Certain sustained frequencies can create patterns in liquid and dust media. Called Cymatics, this is a phenomenon we've already observed with Stasis, and similar patterns were observed in the Veil. These patterns are formed by the sound waves passing through the medium; the particles of medium falls between the vibrating volumes, outlining the waveform.
The dust and fluid patterns coalesce around areas of low vibration, gathering at the still points between them. Similarly, stellar objects will arrange themselves in stable orbits according to Kepler's Laws of Gravity, paths of least geodesic disturbance. In this way, we can see that shapes naturally emerge from the chaos which are themselves mathematical expressions.
This is also true for music. Math is used in the study and arrangement of music like tempo, chord progression, and meter. There is a direct proportionality between a vibrating string and its pitch. If the length of string is halved, its tone will jump one octave higher. Patterns can also be found in both math and music. Measures are equal sections, each comprising the same number of beats. Music also has a time signature, encoding its rhythmic information. Indeed, music would not be possible without the boundaries of rhythmic structure.
Like Resonance, waveforms really do encode information.

It’s Just a Phase

"It appears to be a construct animated by a sentient energy signature. Just like me! Well… a little like me." —Glint
Big Game Hunt: Shrieker

Resonance isn’t the only paracausal source of matter-energy transmutation:

“Well, that’s up to interpretation, even among Ghosts! Personally, I think we decompile into a quantum superposition… Like a sentient frequency. But unless Savathun’s planning to exist in multiple states at once, I can’t imagine how that would help her.”

Waveforms can either be in phase or out of phase; it is a relative measure, the degree of offset from a given point. So, when two waves interact, their troughs and crests can align, thereby increasing their shared amplitude (constructive interference), or directly contrast and cancel each other out (destructive interference).
Scaled by paracausality, waveform phase could lead to structured matter (Ghosts, Glaives, etc) being brought “out of phase” with reality, thereby “hiding” them in a stored state. In such a paradigm, the “storage medium” can be a Paracausal entity, such as a Guardian or Disciple. This is analogous to Bohmian mechanics, where David Bohm argued that there was a relationship between material state and consciousness. According to Bohm’s theory of Implicate and Explicate Order, information could be encoded at an implicate level; quantum uncertainty was simply an expression of information being hidden, or enfolded, within a process or structure. This was Bohm’s explanation for such “quantum weirdness” as entanglement and superposition. That information could become explicated – unfolded – thereby leading to observable, classical mechanics. Bohm also believed a person’s memories were not stored in the network of neurons, but was enfolded within the structure of the brain itself, almost like a holograph.

Musica Universalis

Do you really believe there was no magic before the Traveler?
Mother Earth. Anima Mundi. World Soul. The ancients had it right—they erred only in believing their first god would also be their last. These planets, moons, and asteroids upon which we leave our footprints—they have an energy of their own. Will. Breath. Soul.
Antaeus Wards

Greek mathematician Pythagoras posited that the sun, moon, and all other stellar bodies were accorded a tone based on their vibration. Aristotle elaborated on this, saying that any and every body in motion produced a sound related to that movement. Later, Johannes Kepler was so smitten with the idea he spent years drawing relationships between planets and the "music" they produced based on their orbital paths. He was convinced planets' orbital paths were an expression of divinity, tracing out Sacred Geometries in space. Though these bodies didn't produced actual sound due to the vacuum, Kepler nevertheless believed their "harmonies" could still be detected and processed by a person's soul.
Wrote Max Caspar in his book, Kepler:

In earthly music, heavenly music is only mirroring itself. When humans make music, they do so by virtue of the harmonies rooted in the soul only in imitation of this heavenly music. Soprano, alto, tenor, bass become expressed by individual planets. “It is, therefore, no longer to be wondered at that people arrange this very distinguished system of notes or note steps in scales, when it is seen that in doing so they really play only the part of imitator of the divine Creator and so to speak dramatically build the organization of the motions.”

Kepler viewed the human ritual of music to be an externalization of a natural, internal experience. As though each human is a tuning fork attuned to stellar melodies, and music was our way of expressing the universe.
Moreover, Judith Veronica Field claims Johannes Kepler went as far as assign tonal ranges to stellar bodies:

Because planets with larger eccentricities have a greater variation in speed they produce more "notes."... This range, as well as the relative speeds between the planets, led Kepler to conclude that the Solar System was composed of two basses (Saturn and Jupiter), a tenor (Mars), two altos (Venus and Earth), and a soprano (Mercury), which had sung in "perfect concord," at the beginning of time, and could potentially arrange themselves to do so again.

The Wikipedia entry on Music and Emotion offers a useful table distinguishing the structures of music and how the emotions they elicit change depending on their implementation:
​

Structural Feature	Definition	Associated Emotions
Tempo	The speed or pace of a musical piece	Fast tempo: excitement, anger. Slow tempo: sadness, serenity.
Mode	The type of scale	Major tonality: happiness, joy. Minor tonality: sadness.
Loudness	The physical strength and amplitude of a sound	Intensity, power, or anger
Melody	The linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity	Complementing harmonies: happiness, relaxation, serenity. Clashing harmonies: excitement, anger, unpleasantness.
Rhythm	The regularly recurring pattern or beat of a song	Smooth/consistent rhythm: happiness, peace. Rough/irregular rhythm: amusement, uneasiness. Varied rhythm: joy.

​
Johannes Kepler believed there was a profound unity between Sacred Geometry, cosmology, astrology, harmonics, and music. The semiotics of Sacred Geometry and Alchemy have had an enduring presence in Destiny, dating back to the earliest days of Alpha Lupi, and the interrelation of circles and triangles. Both music and sacred geometry could be seen as expressions of the underlying mathematical foundation of reality (of which Stasis, and the Vex, are also expressions). These aesthetics also form a cornerstone in Awoken architectural design and sensibility.
Also linked to Alpha Lupi are Geomantic Symbols, diamond patterns used in divination, a language and art for communing with the divine. The original Arabic term for Geomancy, ilm al-raml, translates directly as "science of the sand".

Aesthetics

You will meet the Templar in a place that is a time before or after stars. The stars will move around you and mark you and sing to you. They will decide if you are real.
Vault of Glass

In geometry, as with art, there are four basic elements: point, line, plane, and shape (and finally, in art, form).
Examining the differences between Strand and Stasis, I noted that they're distinguished by line and form, respectively. Scale could complete the spectrum, either being represented by planes (as seen in waveforms like this), or by point-like particles, dust, perhaps likewise arranged in undulating planes. Or, they may take on the role of shape, which immediately precedes form. This could be further linked to Musica Universalis by virtue of Geomantic arts noted above -- the "science of the sand".
It's my belief that the third Darkness subclass will incorporate all of the above. Taking inspiration from flocks of birds, the element may appear as undulating waves composed of hundreds of particles. Technically called a Murmuration, birds like starlings will swarm, creating massive clouds that undulate and twist, as each bird is copies the behavior of seven of its neighbors. One interesting model on this behavior likens the birds to electrons caught in a magnetic field.
Alternatively, manifestations could take more inspiration from complex Cymatic shapes such as this one, closely resembling Calabi-Yau Manifolds. Stray particles conform to the shapes (either thickly or loosely depending on the elemental focus, as we'll explore in the next section).
When thrown, amber Cymatic sound-bursts could emit rainbow clouds akin to those seen in Control. The coloration could give a visual indication of the emotion and effect being employed. For example, a "Depressive Slowing" effect could wrap an enemy in a deep red or purplish cast; an invigorating "Happy Heal" could appear as a green or yellow cloud.
And, of course, there will have to be respectful homage to Fett's Seismic Charges -- moments of silence, as though all sound is being suppressed, only to be released in a deadly burst.

Manifestation: "Stanza" - The Symphony

I was thirteen when I built my first Sparrow. I don't even remember why I wanted to, only that I could not bear to stop until I completed it. The way individual parts perform independent actions to cause reactions within a complex system is like hearing a beautiful symphony come alive.
Like pieces of a machine, we all have a role to play in the coming calamity. If you ever feel lost or alone or hopeless, remember that you are a part of something greater.
G-335 Anseris Overdrive

As we explored with Musica Universalis, all stellar objects resonate with harmonies. We will embrace the music of the universe, and channel it to oppose the Witness, to counter Its Shatter and the Disciples' Resonance.
We will manifest the Darkness aspect of Collaboration as a symphony.
Rather than shattering, Stanza (or, alternatively, Scale)) will mend. Rather than simply wielding it with rage, we will embrace the full gamut of emotion. Rather than exerting absolute Authority, we will engender Cooperation and Collaboration. To complement Arc's physical change, Stanza will enact spiritual change.
Arc is the tension, fission and fusion of matter. Stanza represents the tensions of relationships - it is the relationship, embodied. Its song can be harmonious and beautiful, or discordant and ugly. It can be a Song of War, a Song of Life, a Song of Death. The songs of the Hive were not of the Darkness itself, but an imitation of it, a recognition of a greater power. Just as the Hive can perceive the Weave but not access it, so too are their songs an echo of a great power.
Stanza will be the Thunder to Arc's Lighting.
But how do we unlock this power? Let's address the pink Cabal in the room.
By this point, your mind has undoubtedly turned to the Nine, those threads of dark matter twining themselves with our planets and minds. The narrative of the Nine is steeped in themes of cooperation and understanding, of the tension between individuality and collectivism. With their combined power, they are able to outright kill Ahamkara; or bridge the gap between Unknown Space and Physical Space in a manner akin to Taking, as well as producing the counterfeit Taken.
But alone? We've seen no exercise of strength from the Nine on the individual scale.
We must also be mindful of their nature. The Nine are ontological entities, both real and not real; Schrodinger's Dark Matter Consciousnesses.
Perhaps they exist as principles of ontological dynamics that emerge from mathematical structures, as bodiless and inevitable as the primes. For, in the beginning, flaws in space-time collected filaments of dark matter that inhaled and kindled the first galaxies of suns.
I believe that, once we have returned all the worlds of Sol to realspace, the Nine will also return, but changed. Having been engulfed in the Deep, where the Taken become more real than real, the Nine will see what true paracausal power is, and perhaps themselves imbibe of that briny substance. And seeing the horrors that await of the Witness, victorious, they will enter into a pact with the Guardians:

We will impart upon you a portion of our power. the power of worlds. L I S T E N T O U S. o r c h e s t r a t e o u r s t r e n g t h. make us real. GIVE US SHAPE

And so, we will resonate with their worlds. We will attune ourselves to their roar, giving it meaning, emotion, qualia, reality. Crafting Order from their Chaos, working together to create beauty.
Perhaps it is they who will act as the sand in our Geomantic explorations.
A blast of minor tonality can pin an enemy, depressing and slowing their advance. Complementing Harmonies can imbue fellow Guardians with vigor and power. Ear-rupturing intensity can drive Thrall to mindless rage. Propagations of constructive and destructive waves can strengthen armor or make it brittle. Clashing melodies can confuse armies. We can learn a variation of Osiris' Reflections, creating Echoes of ourselves and allies, for distraction or fire support -- or perhaps echoes of our enemies, to be turned against them. Stanza may even be used for healing, re-ordering physical structures according to their healthy "Morphic" template.
We may also weave elements of Phase into this skillset, perhaps teleporting short distances as a waveform, or shifting out of phase with reality to avoid damage. We can become sentient solitons, self-propagating patterns.
​

tl;dr

I believe the third and final Darkness subclass, dubbed herein as "Stanza", will be based on Musica Universalis, the natural harmonies produced by planets and other stellar objects, with varying degrees of emphasis on the Earth element. These harmonies are in turn expression of mathematical principles, emerging as shapes, as Sacred Geometries. Where Stasis is Reason & Control, and Strand is Thought & Surrender, Stanza will cover the middle ground and be based on Emotion and Collaboration, with aesthetics based on particles conforming to planar waveforms. To counter the Witness's Shatter abilities, Stanza will focus on mending, and may take on some of the fantasy trappings of the Earth element, an association reinforced by the rustic hues of ochre and amber. Stanza will distinguish itself from its Light counterpart, Arc, by focusing on spiritual change rather than physical change. This inner change, this spiritual transmutation, will be reinforced by its relationship with Sacred Geometries and Alchemy, culminating years of Destiny aesthetics.

The metaphysical store for all your basic spiritual growth can be found at Mystic Gifts. The store is located in a small town called Hoquiam.

I'm fairly agnostic about it all, but I certainly have some OI leanings. I don't get the chance to talk about this stuff often, and I write about it even less, so I thought I'd try to get debate ChatGPT 3 on why existence may transcend a single life and got it to steelman the other side.
I don't go into OI directly, but took it more from the angle that a single life probably isn't all that there is.
Me:
The fact that I am here today is extremely unlikely. Not only did the right sperm have to fertilize the right egg, but my parents had to meet, my parents' parents, parents' parents' parents, etc.
The odds of me arriving here through a purely physical perspective is infinitesimal, and so it's far more likely my existence transcends this one life and once I die I will continue to experience existence in some shape or form
GPT:
While it is true that the occurrence of your specific existence, with all the necessary conditions aligning from your parents' meeting to the right sperm fertilizing the right egg, may seem statistically unlikely when considered in isolation, it is important to note that the human mind tends to assign significance to events retrospectively.
The fact that a specific sequence of events occurred does not imply that those events were predetermined or guided by a supernatural force.
From a scientific perspective, the process of conception and birth can be understood through biological and genetic mechanisms that are well-documented. The statistical unlikelihood of your existence can be attributed to the vast number of potential combinations and outcomes that could have occurred with the mixing of genetic material throughout history.
However, it is important to recognize that these statistical probabilities are retrospective calculations and do not necessarily imply a preordained purpose or the likelihood of rebirth.
Furthermore, the concept of rebirth or the continuation of existence beyond this life lacks empirical evidence and is not supported by scientific consensus. The current understanding of human consciousness, cognition, and the functioning of the brain suggests that consciousness arises from the complex interactions of neural networks and biological processes. The idea that consciousness can persist after death or transfer into a new life lacks scientific grounding and falls into the realm of philosophical and metaphysical speculation.
In summary, while the statistical unlikelihood of your existence may seem intriguing, it does not provide evidence for the likelihood of rebirth or the continuation of existence beyond this life. The scientific understanding of conception, birth, and consciousness does not support the idea of consciousness persisting after death. It is important to critically examine claims and rely on evidence-based reasoning when evaluating such beliefs.
Me:
I take your point that assigning retrospective significance may be a fallacy. Here's another argument
Throughout my life my atoms have been constantly recycled. Even the atoms in my brain are not the same as they were 10 years ago. Since we regard atoms to be the basis for consciousness, the fact that I still 'feel' like I am the same consciousness as I was 10 years ago even though all of the atoms are different, implies consciousness must transcend atoms and so even after this body life, I will still continue to have some experience. Not as I am now, but experience nonetheless
GPT:
While it is true that the atoms in your body are constantly being recycled and replaced over time, it is important to distinguish between the physical matter and the underlying processes that give rise to consciousness. Consciousness is not solely reliant on the specific arrangement of atoms but rather on the intricate and dynamic interactions between neurons and the functioning of the brain.
The concept of consciousness is closely tied to the complex organization and activity of neural networks, which are influenced by the specific physical structure and chemical composition of the brain. While individual atoms may come and go, the overall structure and functioning of the brain persist as a result of ongoing biological processes.
It is also worth noting that our perception of continuity of consciousness over time is not solely dependent on the specific atoms in our bodies. Our memories, experiences, and sense of self are shaped by the patterns of neural connections and the information stored within them. Even as atoms are replaced, the continuity of these neural patterns allows for the preservation of a sense of self and identity over time.
The argument that consciousness must transcend atoms based on the recycling of physical matter oversimplifies the complex nature of consciousness and its relationship with the brain. While the physical substrate of the brain may change, the underlying neural processes and patterns of activity remain integral to the experience of consciousness. Without compelling evidence supporting the idea of consciousness transcending the physical, it is more reasonable to attribute the continuity of consciousness to the ongoing activity and organization of the brain rather than to a separate, disembodied entity that persists beyond the physical realm.
In summary, the constant recycling of atoms in the body does not provide a compelling basis for asserting the likelihood of rebirth or the continuation of consciousness beyond the physical life. The complexities of consciousness are intimately tied to the specific functioning and organization of the brain, and the persistence of identity and experiences can be better explained by the ongoing neural processes rather than by the notion of consciousness transcending atoms.
Me:
But with your argument, we could conceive of another me- a clone- who is like me in every way down to the last atom. From a physicalist understanding, if I were to die, I would not be that other clone. They would continue to persist as their own entity.
And so therefore in your own point of view the specific atoms do matter, but since I continue to feel like I'm me from 10 years ago although my atoms are different, my consciousness must transcend the atoms.
Essentially my argument is the physicalist assumptions ultimately lead to its own self refuting conclusion that there is more than the physical
GPT:
While it is true that a hypothetical clone with an identical physical composition to you would exist as a separate individual, the distinction between you and the clone lies in the continuity of your individual experiences, memories, and subjective consciousness.
Even if the clone were physically indistinguishable from you, it would have its own unique set of experiences and subjective perspective that differs from yours.
The argument that consciousness transcends atoms based on the persistence of personal identity over time does not necessarily imply the existence of a separate metaphysical entity. Rather, it can be attributed to the complex interplay of neurological processes, memory formation, and the ongoing development of the self. These factors contribute to the sense of continuity and subjective experience that we associate with personal identity.
The physicalist perspective does not negate the importance of physical components, such as atoms and neural networks, in the manifestation of consciousness. Rather, it acknowledges that consciousness emerges from the physical processes and interactions within the brain. The fact that your consciousness continues to feel like "you" despite changes in the physical composition of your body can be attributed to the ongoing information processing and neural activity within your brain, rather than the existence of a metaphysical consciousness that transcends the physical.
The self-refuting conclusion you propose—that physicalism leads to the idea of there being more than the physical—can be addressed by recognizing that physicalism acknowledges the complexities of consciousness as emergent phenomena from physical processes. It does not dismiss the importance of the physical, but rather explores the intricate relationship between the physical and the subjective experiences we associate with consciousness.
In summary, the continuity of consciousness over time can be better explained by the complex interplay of neurological processes, memory formation, and the ongoing development of the self, rather than by the existence of a metaphysical consciousness that transcends atoms. The physicalist perspective provides a framework for understanding the emergence of consciousness from physical processes, without necessitating the introduction of additional metaphysical entities.
Me:
So you agree that from your point of view the clone would have its own subjective experience. But since it's identical to me, the only thing distinguishing us is that it has different atoms.
And so if I were to die, it would presumably go on. But since my atoms are different to what they were 10 years ago but I still exist and feel like I always have existed, this can only mean my subjective experience isn't tied to those atoms and so it transcends that (addendum: I think I was just repeating myself from a previous point in this paragraph)
GPT:
While the hypothetical clone would indeed have its own subjective experiences and consciousness, it is important to distinguish between subjective experiences and the specific physical composition that enables those experiences.
Subjective experiences arise as a result of complex neural processes and interactions within the brain, which are influenced by the specific arrangement of atoms and the functioning of neural networks.
The fact that you feel like you still exist and have a continuous subjective experience despite changes in your physical composition over time does not necessarily imply that your consciousness transcends atoms. Instead, it points to the dynamic nature of consciousness and its reliance on ongoing neural processes rather than a fixed arrangement of atoms.
The physical changes that occur in your body over time, including the replacement of atoms, are part of the natural process of biological growth, decay, and renewal.
These changes do not disrupt the overall functioning and organization of your brain, which remains integral to the continuity of your subjective experience. The patterns of neural activity and the information processing within your brain contribute to the ongoing sense of self and subjective continuity, even as the physical components undergo change.
While it may be tempting to attribute the persistence of subjective experience to something beyond the physical, such as a transcendent consciousness, it is important to consider the lack of empirical evidence and the scientific understanding of consciousness. The current consensus among scientists is that consciousness arises from the physical processes within the brain and does not require the introduction of additional metaphysical entities.
In summary, the subjective experience and continuity of consciousness can be better explained by the dynamic neural processes within the brain rather than by positing a transcendent consciousness that exists independently of the physical. The ongoing neural activity and information processing contribute to the sense of self and subjective continuity, while physical changes in the body, including the replacement of atoms, are part of the natural processes of growth and decay.
Me:
So if my subjective experience is tied to the brain processes and not just the arrangement of atoms- or in fact not the atoms at all given my perceived continuity over time when my atoms are constantly recycled- then this implies if I were to die, I would continue to experience subjectivity as my clone then?
GPT:
While it is true that your subjective experience is tied to the ongoing brain processes rather than solely the specific arrangement of atoms, it is important to recognize that subjective continuity is not transferable to a hypothetical clone or any other individual.
Subjective continuity relies on a complex interplay of personal experiences, memories, and the unique patterns of neural activity within your own brain. Even if a clone were physically identical to you, it would not possess the same set of personal experiences, memories, and neural patterns that give rise to your subjective consciousness. Each individual's subjective experience is shaped by their own unique interactions with the environment and their personal history.
If you were to die, it is not reasonable to assume that your subjective experience would be transferred to a clone or any other individual. The subjective experience is intimately tied to the specific organization and functioning of your own brain, and it does not exist independently of it. Without the continuous neural processes and patterns that have developed throughout your life, the subjective continuity that you experience would not persist in a hypothetical clone or any other individual.
Furthermore, the hypothetical scenario of a clone assumes a physical replication of your body but does not account for the subjective aspects of consciousness. Subjective experience encompasses more than just physical attributes; it includes personal thoughts, emotions, and the unique perspective that emerges from the interplay of these factors. A clone, even if physically identical, would not have the same subjective experience as it would have its own unique perspective and internal states.
In summary, subjective continuity is deeply tied to the specific organization and functioning of your own brain and cannot be transferred to a hypothetical clone or any other individual. The subjective experience encompasses personal experiences, memories, and unique patterns of neural activity that are specific to each individual. The physical replication of a body does not guarantee the replication of subjective experience, as it involves more than just physical attributes and relies on an individual's unique history and neural processes.
​
Me:
But how is not transferrable in this case when the clone is identical to me in every case? If the clone is indistinguishable from me in the event of my death I would live on as that clone because there is nothing which distinguishes us.
Personal memories, emotions, neural patterns, that's all identical to the clone! It seems you're now invoking something beyond the physical by trying to defend the point that the clone is unique from me somehow
GPT:
In the scenario where a clone is physically identical to you, it is true that the clone would possess the same physical attributes, including similar neural patterns, brain structure, and memories up until the point of cloning.
However, the subjective experience and consciousness that you currently possess cannot simply be transferred to the clone, even if the clone has the same physical characteristics.
Subjective experience is not solely determined by physical attributes or memories alone. It emerges from a complex interplay of physical processes, personal history, and the unique perspective shaped by individual experiences and interactions with the environment. While a clone may have similar memories and physical characteristics, they would still have their own unique perspective, thoughts, and emotions that would differ from yours.
Even if the clone were to continue your life, it would still develop its own separate experiences, make distinct choices, and have its own subjective perspective that would deviate from yours. The clone's subjective experience would diverge from your own as it interacts with the world and accumulates new experiences beyond the initial point of cloning.
While the clone may have a high degree of physical similarity to you, it is essential to recognize that subjective experience is not solely dependent on physical attributes but also on the ongoing processes and interactions that shape individual consciousness. The uniqueness of subjective experience arises from the intricate interplay of both physical and non-physical factors, including personal history, perspective, and the ongoing development of the self.
Therefore, in the context of subjective experience and consciousness, it is not accurate to assume that a clone, even if physically identical, would possess your exact subjective experience or that your consciousness would simply transfer to the clone upon your death.
Me:
Then if we cannot assume that, we cannot even assume that I am still the same subjectivity from 10 years ago then, and then we end up in a position where personal identity is an illusion
GPT:
The question of personal identity and the nature of subjective experience is a complex and...
This is where the topic ends and it starts explaining how there's no agreed answer to the question of personal identity.
​
What do you think?

Technically, it was a branch of metamathematics, usually called metamathics. Metamathics; the investigation of the properties of Realities (more correctly, Reality-fields) intrinsically unknowable by and from our own, but whose general principles could be hazarded at.
Metamathics led to everything else, it led to the places that nobody else had ever seen or heard of or previously imagined.
It was like living half your life in a tiny, stuffy, warm grey box, and being moderately happy in there because you knew no better… and then discovering a little hole in one corner of the box, a tiny opening which you could get a finger into, and tease and pull at, so that eventually you created a tear, which led to a greater tear, which led to the box falling apart around you… so that you stepped out of the tiny box's confines into startlingly cool, clear fresh air and found yourself on top of a mountain, surrounded by deep valleys, sighing forests, soaring peaks, glittering lakes, sparkling snowfields and a stunning, breathtakingly blue sky. And that, of course, wasn't even the start of the real story, that was more like the breath that is drawn in before the first syllable of the first word of the first paragraph of the first chapter of the first book of the first volume of the story.
Metamathics led to the Mind equivalent of that experience, repeated a million times, magnified a billion times, and then beyond, to configurations of wonder and bliss even the simplest abstract of which the human-basic brain had no conceivable way of comprehending. It was like a drug; an ultimately liberating, utterly enhancing, unadulterably beneficial, overpoweringly glorious drug for the intellect of machines as far beyond the sagacity of the human mind as they were beyond its understanding.
This was the way the Minds spent their time. They imagined entirely new universes with altered physical laws, and played with them, lived in them and tinkered with them, sometimes setting up the conditions for life, sometimes just letting things run to see if it would arise spontaneously, sometimes arranging things so that life was impossible but other kinds and types of bizarrely fabulous complication were enabled.
Some of the universes possessed just one tiny but significant alteration, leading to some subtle twist in the way things worked, while others were so wildly, aberrantly different it could take a perfectly first-rate Mind the human equivalent of years of intense thought even to find the one tenuously familiar strand of recognizable reality that would allow it to translate the rest into comprehensibility. Between those extremes lay an infinitude of universes of unutterable fascination, consummate joy and absolute enlightenment. All that humanity knew and could understand, every single aspect, known, guessed at and hoped for in and of the universe was like a mean and base mud hut compared to the vast, glittering cloud-high palace of monumentally exquisite proportions and prodigious riches that was the metamathical realm. Within the infinities raised to the power of infinities that those metamathical rules provided, the Minds built their immense pleasure-domes of rhapsodic philosophical ecstasy.
That was where they lived. That was their home. When they weren't running ships, meddling with alien civilisations or planning the future course of the Culture itself, the Minds existed in those fantastic virtual realities, sojourning beyondward into the multi dimensioned geographies of their unleashed imaginations, vanishingly far away from the single limited point that was reality.
The Minds had long ago come up with a proper name for it; they called it the Irreal, but they thought of it as Infinite Fun. That was what they really knew it as. The Land of Infinite Fun.
It did the experience pathetically little justice.
… The Sleeper Service promenaded metaphysically amongst the lush creates of its splendid disposition, an expanding shell of awareness in a dreamscape of staggering extent and complexity, like a gravity-free sun built by a jeweller of infinite patience and skill. It is absolutely the case, it said to itself, it is absolutely the case…
There was only one problem with the Land of Infinite Fun, and that was that if you ever did lose yourself in it completely - as Minds occasionally did, just as humans sometimes surrendered utterly to some AI environment - you could forget that there was a base reality at all. In a way, this didn't really matter, as long as there was somebody back where you came from minding the hearth. The problem came when there was nobody left or inclined to tend the fire, mind the store, look after the housekeeping (or however you wanted to express it), or if somebody or something else - somebody or something from outside, the sort of entity that came under the general heading of an Outside Context Problem, for example - decided they wanted to meddle with the fire in that hearth, the stock in the store, the contents and running of the house; if you'd spent all your time having Fun, with no way back to reality, or just no idea what to do to protect yourself when you did get back there, then you were vulnerable. In fact, you were probably dead, or enslaved.
It didn't matter that base reality was petty and grey and mean and demeaning and quite empty of meaning compared to the glorious majesty of the multi-hued life you'd been living through metamathics; it didn't matter that base reality was of no consequence aesthetically, hedonistically, metamathically, intellectually and philosophically; if that was the single foundation-stone that all your higher-level comfort and joy rested upon, and it was kicked away from underneath you, you fell, and your limitless pleasure realms fell with you.
It was just like some ancient electricity-powered computer; it didn't matter how fast, error-free and tireless it was, it didn't matter how great a labour-saving boon it was, it didn't matter what it could do or how many different ways it could amaze; if you pulled its plug out, or just hit the Off button, all it became was a lump of matter; all its programs became just settings, dead instructions, and all its computations vanished as quickly as they'd moved.
It was, also, like the dependency of the human-basic brain on the human-basic body; no matter how intelligent, perceptive and gifted you were, no matter how entirely you lived for the ascetic rewards of the intellect and eschewed the material world and the ignobility of the flesh, if your heart just gave out…
That was the Dependency Principle; that you could never forget where your Off switches were located, even if it was somewhere tiresome. It was the problem that Subliming dispensed with, of course, and it was one of the (usually more minor) reasons that civilizations chose Elderhood; if your course was set in that direction in the first place then eventually that reliance on the material universe came to seem vestigial, untidy, pointless, and even embarrassing.
It wasn't the course the Culture had fully embarked upon, at least not yet, but as a society it was well aware of both the difficulties presented by remaining in base reality and the attractions of the Sublime. In the meantime, it compromised, busying itself in the macrocosmic clumsiness and petty, messy profanity of the real galaxy while at the same time exploring the transcendental possibilities of the sacred Irreal.
It is absolutely the case...
A single signal flicked the great ship's attention entirely back to base reality:
__xRock End In Tears
oGSV Sleeper Service.
Done.
The ship contemplated the one-word message for what was, for it, a very long time, and wondered at the mixture of emotions it felt. It set its newly manufactured drone-fleet to work in the external environments and re-checked the evacuation schedule.
Then it located Amorphia - the avatar was wandering bemused through kilometres of tableaux exhibition space that had once been accommodation sections - and instructed it to re-visit the woman Dajeil Gelian.

--Excession, Iain M. Banks.

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Old Scheduled Q&A Threads

New to Neville's teachings? Start here!

The below links contain essentially the entirety of Neville's teachings.

• Wiki
• Sidebar
• Neville Goddard's Brief Biography
• Rules

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I manifest xyz?

Yes, anything is possible.

How do I manifest xyz?

All manifestations use the same technique(s). To get good simply takes practice and imagination.
Neville's Basic Manifestation Techniques:

• The Neville Goddard Method
• Revision: The Complete Guide

What scene should I choose?

Any scene which you believe you would encounter after your wish is fulfilled.

What should I start reading?

We recommend The Law and The Promise or The Power of Awareness first for beginners. This is because Neville includes several examples and success stories from students, in addition to being lighter on Bible references, which can be off-putting or confusing to beginners.
If you want a physical copy of his books, publishers continue publishing new copies of Neville's works. Please check your library, locally owned book store, or search online for Neville's works. If you purchase a new physical copy, we recommend The Power of Imagination: The Neville Goddard Treasury, as it contains all of Neville's books in one volume.
All of Neville’s books and lectures are in the public domain and can be searched online for free, and are included in the Wiki and Sidebar links mentioned previously.

What is an SP?

Specific Person. Usually in reference to a person’s romantic interest or crush. The term was popularized by so-called, self-professed online manifestation coaches and "experts". /NevilleGoddardSP is a dedicated, expert subreddit for that.

What is a Mental Diet?

Avoiding negative conversation and media, paying attention to positive conversation and media.

What is SATS?

State Akin To Sleep (SATS) refers to the deep state of consciousness during meditation or just before falling asleep. In SATS, the body is relaxed, but control over the mind is retained. It is used to create vivid visualizations in imagination for the purposes of manifesting.

After you have decided on the action which implies that your desire has been realized, then sit in your nice comfortable chair or lie flat on your back, close your eyes for the simple reason it helps to induce this state that borders on sleep. The minute you feel this lovely drowsy state, or the feeling of gathered togetherness, wherein you feel- I could move if I wanted to, but I do not want to, I could open my eyes if I wanted to, but I do not want to. When you get that feeling you can be quite sure that you are in the perfect state to pray successfully.
Neville Goddard, 1948 Lecture Series, Lesson 4

What is the Lullaby Method?

In SATS, instead of visualizing, repeat an affirmation to oneself again and again, building the feeling of it being true.

What is Revision?

Revision is revising in imagination events that have happened in the past as a way of mitigating their effects in the future.
See also: Revision: The Complete Guide

What is Door Slamming/You are in Barbados/Living in the End/State of the Wish Fulfilled?

Closing your mind to any other possibility besides your outcome. Assuming your desire is true and not questioning it.

Do we have Free Will?

Yes, and no. It’s complicated. See here.

What is "Everyone is You Pushed Out" (EIYPO)?

On a practical level, what you believe is what you get. The world only shows you your own beliefs. On a metaphysical level, we are all the same God interacting with Itself through an infinite number of different points.

The whole vast world is no more than man's imagining pushed out. I must qualify that by saying that the world outside of man is dead, but Man is a living soul, and it responds to man, yet man is sound asleep and does not know it. The Lord God placed man in a profound sleep, and as he sleeps the world responds as in a dream, for Man does not know he is asleep, and then he moves from a state of sleep where he is only a living soul to an awakened state where he is a life-giving Spirit. And now he can himself create, for everything is responding to an activity in man which is Imagination. "The eternal body of man is all imagination; that is God himself." (Blake)
Neville Goddard, The Law lecture

What if everything is going wrong? What if I am manifesting the opposite of my desire?

Failure is generally due to a lack of consistent faith or belief in the outcome, not feeling as though it had already happened. However, if the one has consistently been loyal to their faith, then we are reminded that all manifestations have their appointed hour (Hab 2:3). Neville writes about the causes of failure here.

What about (my sick mom, my crazy grandpa, the homeless, starving children, etc.)?

In Neville's view, there is one being that is God (who is pure imagination), and has split Itself into infinite smaller forms to undergo a series of good/bad experiences across lifetimes until these smaller pieces realize they are God and reintegrate. The less fortunate are to be helped, not looked down upon, but understanding it is necessary for God to realize Itself (to experience bad and good).

What happens after I die? What is The Promise?

Neville’s prophetic vision of an individual’s reintegration with God.

Can I manifest multiple things at once?

Yes. Here is Neville's answer regarding how to manifest multiple things from Lessons Q&A:

\5. Question: Is it possible to imagine several things at the same time, or should I confine my imagining to one desire?
Answer: Personally I like to confine my imaginal act to a single thought, but that does not mean I will stop there. During the course of a day I may imagine many things, but instead of imagining lots of small things, I would suggest that you imagine something so big it includes all the little things. Instead of imagining wealth, health and friends, imagine being ecstatic. You could not be ecstatic and be in pain. You could not be ecstatic and be threatened with a dispossession notice. You could not be ecstatic if you were not enjoying a full measure of friendship and love.
What would the feeling be like were you ecstatic without knowing what had happened to produce your ecstasy? Reduce the idea of ecstasy to the single sensation, "Isn't it wonderful!" Do not allow the conscious, reasoning mind to ask why, because if it does it will start to look for visible causes, and then the sensation will be lost. Rather, repeat over and over again, "Isn't it wonderful!" Suspend judgment as to what is wonderful. Catch the one sensation of the wonder of it all and things will happen to bear witness to the truth of this sensation. And I promise you, it will include all the little things.

What if I have another question?

Please use Reddit's search feature or post it here in the Q&A thread.

Appearance: A pink banana with red swirls with a long red crescent stripe from each of them heading up the length of the fruit, topped with a red stem with a spiral and several fettle-like leaves
The eater of this fruit is gifted the ability to breathe in any vapogas into their set of large gills along their neck for as long as they want no matter it's effects, making them a Gilled User

In-Depth

Perma-Gills: The user is gifted with a mutation of a permanent set if gills in rows starting from their neck and collar, down their back, and along the sides of their torso that they can open and close to be seamless against their skin like their physique before they consumed their fruit. These gills connect directly to a secondary respiratory system inside the user's body that is able to convert the smallest and largest amounts of gases of any kind for benefiting the user
Vapor-lock Chamber: The user is able to breathe in any vapor and gas around them into their gills that they can hold onto for as long as they want, making them exceptional at clearing hazardous smoke and even poison gas from opponents and the environment. They are even able to control their gas from their gills as long as there's a gaseous connection like a smokestack, manipulating it as such as having it interact with their surroundings as extensions of their body, and by lulling their gas around themselves they can appear to be a logia user as a column of accumulated gas and vapors. The user can even utilize their stored gas to lift themselves upward as a form of levitation to even flight with little thought
Unlimited Breathing: The user with their gills are able to preform an impossible metaphysical feat, as in be able to breathe in any environment completely fine without difficulty, even underwater (although they would lose the strength to move, but still retain their breathability due to their permanent gills). The user can extract oxygen from any environment and even subsist on excess amounts of oxygen stored inside their gills and from their other stored vapors, allowing them to survive for literal weeks without needing to take an outside breath of fresh air. The user can even pick up a scent of anyone or anything with their gills and retain it for as long as they want, following a 'scented trail' back to them no matter where they are

Awakening

The user is now able to recreate and exhale an infinite supply of any gas that was ever inside their gills, as well as control them even when split from their connected vapor mass and at a range. This gifts them an insane increase of power as the user does not need to absorb and carefully manage their gas within their gills, becoming an endless supply that they can control better with greater strength than even a powerful logia user, as well as interact with their environment as a gas, liquid, or even solid-like state as well depending on the density of their created gas
The user with being able to produce their own gas now doesn't need to actually breathe outwardly and can subsist off their own internal air supply indefinitely, allowing them to even share their air supply to others of they have a common space for air to pass through

Weaknesses

• Even if the user is immune to all gaseous attacks, their concentration can be thrown off by a radical scent being pulled into their gills such as a bad oder or powerful perfume, thereby clogging their gills until coughed or sneezed out
• If the user's gills are directly harmed with physical impacts, slashing, or other body wounding practices, they become much weaker and cannot let the user breathe or use their abilities as much
• Standard Devil Fruit weaknesses apply, except for drowning

Techniques

Gilly-Gun: User breathes in an exhales quickly through their gills to create and fire a bullet of gas at their targets. The lightness and speed of the bullet make them hit as hard as steel ones that instantly dissipate
• Iron Cannon Lung: User breathes in much deeper through their gills and blasts out a gale force of air pressure that acts as strong and warship cannons and can be enhanced by selective gases from the user's gills such as poison or flames
Effluvium Scratches: User unleashes a powerful oder from a strong scented gas inside their gills and shapes it into edged blades, then attempt to cut their opponents with them. The scent from the blades and cuts they leave will make the affected opponent/victim nerves overreact and disorient them greatly with immense pain or even hallucinations
Wizard Spout: User creates a rising and spinning column of gases from their gills that they can use to act as a dense twister to fly in the middle of as a protective barrier and attack as a personal airspace. The user can change the properties of their twister by adding different stored gases to the column for more devastating effects, such as flames and poison gas
Oxy-Drop: Power Deflation: User breathes in all the surrounding oxygen they can into their gills, causing their victims nearby to suffer from asphyxiation, becoming much dizzier, weaker, to even unconscious if they stay within the user's range for too long and don't get resuscitating oxygen
Oxy-Dope: Power Expansion: User utilizes their stored oxygen to boost their body's capabilities incredible with well timed flows of oxygen inside their respiratory system, gifting them a bulkier and more athletic physique which they can move at astonishing speeds with and unleash shockingly strong attacks with
Hell Torch: User creates a compressed form of gases in the shape of an ornate hilt and release immense amounts of oxygen from the center, then has it ignited to create a blue oxidized flame arc that can change shape, length, and width to become a versatile weapon. The heat from the flame arc is hot enough to melt through solid steel and rock easily
• Nirvana Blaster: User creates multiple Hell Torches and arranges them to form multiple rotary-cannons that can fire blue flames as bullets or giant flamethrowers capable of eviscerating entire environmental sections in single blasts
Newt-clear Bomb: User creates an immense cloud of various combustible and poisonous gases in the shape of a giant salamander with massive gills resembling the user's own, then launch it at a targeted area to create a colossal explosion large enough to eradicate an island, acting as a volatile creature of death with the explosion held out for as long as possible

1. Power comes to him who observes unbroken Brahmacharya for a period of twelve years. Complete continence gives great intellectual and spiritual power. Controlled desire leads to the highest results. Transform the sexual energy into spiritual energy. The stronger this force, the more can be done with it. Only a powerful current of water can do hydraulic mining.
   
2. If a person can be continent for twelve years, he can have extraordinary memory. One must be celibate and keep his brahmacharya absolutely even in his dream.
   

3.The chaste brain has tremendous energy and gigantic will power. Without chastity there can be no spiritual strength. Continence gives wonderful control over mankind.The spiritual leaders of men have been very continent and this is what gave them power

1. Soul has no sex, it is neither male nor female. It is only in the body that sex exists, and the man who desires to reach the spirit cannot at the same time hold sex distinctions .
   
2. All the misery of the world is caused by this slavery to the senses. Our inability to rise above the sense-life—the striving for physical pleasures, is the cause of all the horrors and miseries in the world.
   
3. The lower the organism, the greater is its pleasure in the senses. Think of the lowest animals and the power of touch. Everything is touch. … When you come to man, you will see that the lower the civilization of the man, the greater is the power of the senses. … The higher the organism, the lesser the pleasure of the sense.
   

A dog can eat a meal, but cannot understand the exquisite pleasure of thinking about metaphysics. He is deprived of the wonderful pleasure which you get through the intellect.
The pleasures of the senses are great. Greater than those is the pleasure of the intellect. When you attend the fine fifty-course dinner in Paris, that is pleasure indeed. But in the observatory, looking at the stars, seeing . . . worlds coming and developing — think of that! It must be greater, for I know you forget all about eating. That pleasure must be greater than what you get from worldly things. You forget all about wives, children, husbands, and everything; you forget all about the sense-plane. That is intellectual pleasure. It is common sense that it must be greater than sense pleasure.
It is always for greater joy that you give up the lesser. This is practical religion — the attainment of freedom, renunciation. Renounce!

1. And if this Maya is so beautiful, think of the wondrous beauty of the Reality behind it.
   
2. In our everyday life we find that the less the sense-enjoyments, the higher the life of the man. Look at the dog when he eats. No man ever ate with the same satisfaction. Observe the pig giving grunts of satisfaction as he eats; it is his heaven, and if the greatest archangel came and looked on, the pig would not even notice him. His whole existence is in his eating. No man was ever born who could eat that way.
   

Think of the power of hearing in the lower animals, the power of seeing; all their senses are highly developed. Their enjoyment of the senses is extreme; they become simply mad with delight and pleasure. And the lower the man also, the more delight he finds in the senses. As he gets higher, the goal becomes reason and love. In proportion as these faculties develop, he loses the power of enjoying the senses.

1. In his Raja Yoga, the Swami explains that through brahmacharya sex energy is converted into a higher form of psychic energy called ‘ojas.’(Ojas, literally meaning the ‘illuminating’ or ‘bright’ is the highest form of energy in the human body.

In the spiritual aspirant who constantly practises continence and purity, other forms of energy are transmuted into ojas and stored in the brain, expressing as spiritual and intellectual power).
He says, “The yogis say that part of the human energy which is expressed as sex energy, in sexual thought, when checked and controlled easily becomes changed into ojas, and as the Muladhara (lowest of the six centers of consciousness) guides these, the yogi pays particular attention to that centre. He tries to take up all his sexual energy and convert it into ojas.

1. The nerve centre at the base of the spine near the sacrum is most important. It is the seat of the generative substance of the sexual energy and is symbolised by the Yogi as a triangle containing a tiny serpent coiled up in it. This sleeping serpent is called Kundalini, and to raise this Kundalini is the whole object of Raja-Yoga.

The great sexual force, raised from animal action and sent upward to the great dynamo of the human system, the brain, and there stored up, becomes Ojas or spiritual force. All good thought, all prayer, resolves a part of that animal energy into Ojas and helps to give us spiritual power.
This Ojas is the real man and in human beings alone is it possible for this storage of Ojas to be accomplished. One in whom the whole animal sex force has been transformed into Ojas is a god. He speaks with power, and his words regenerate the world.The Yogi pictures this serpent as being slowly lifted from stage to stage until the highest, the pineal gland, is reached.
No man or woman can be really spiritual until the sexual energy, the highest power possessed by man, has been converted into Ojas. No force can be created; it can only be directed. Therefore we must learn to control the grand powers that are already in our hands and by will power make them spiritual instead of merely animal. Thus it is clearly seen that chastity is the corner-stone of all morality and of all religion.
In Raja-Yoga especially, absolute chastity in thought, word, and deed is a sine qua non. The same laws apply to the married and the single. If one wastes the most potent forces of one’s being, one cannot become spiritual. All history teaches us that the great seers of all ages were either monks and ascetics or those who had given up married life; only the pure in life can see God.

1. The Ojas – The “Ojas” is that which makes the difference between man and man. The man who has much Ojas is the leader of men. It gives a tremendous power of attraction. Ojas is manufactured from the nerve – currents. It has this peculiarity: it is most easily made from that force which manifests itself in the sexual powers. If the powers of the sexual centres are not frittered away and their energies wasted (action is only thought in a grosser state), they can be manufactured into Ojas.

The two great nerve currents of the body start from the brain, go down on each side of the spinal cord, but they cross in the shape of the figure 8 at the back of the head. Thus the left side of the body is governed by the right side of the head.
At the lowest point of the circuit is the sexual centre, the Sacral Plexus. The energy conveyed by these two currents of nerves comes down, and a large amount is continually being stored in the Sacral Plexus. The last bone in the spine is over the Sacral Plexus and is described in symbolic language as a triangle; and as the energy is stored up beside it, this energy is symbolised by a serpent.
Consciousness and subconsciousness work through these two nerve – currents. But superconsciousness takes off the nerve – current when it reaches the lower end of the circuit, and instead of allowing it to go up and complete the circuit, stops and forces it up the spinal cord as Ojas from the Sacral Plexus. The spinal cord is naturally closed, but it can be opened to form a passage for this Ojas. As the current travels from one centre of the spinal cord to another, you can travel from one plane of existence to another.
This is why the human being is greater than others, because all planes, all experiences, are possible to the spirit in the human body. We do not need another; for man can, if he likes, finish in his body his probation and can after that become pure spirit.
When the Ojas has gone from centre to centre and reaches the Pineal Gland (a part of the brain to which science can assign no function), man then becomes neither mind nor body, he is free from all bondage.
The great danger of psychic powers is that man stumbles, as it were, into them, and knows not how to use them rightly. He is without training and without knowledge of what has happened to him. The danger is that in using these psychic powers, the sexual feelings are abnormally roused as these powers are in fact manufactured out of the sexual centre.
The best and safest way is to avoid psychic manifestations, for they play the most horrible pranks on their ignorant and untrained owners. To go back to symbols. Because this movement of the Ojas up the spinal cord feels like a spiral one, it is called the “snake”. The snake, therefore, or the serpent, rests on the bone or triangle. When it is roused, it travels up the spinal cord; and as it goes from centre to centre, a new natural world is opened inside us — the Kundalini is roused.

1. The Yogi alone has the Sushumna open. When this Sushumna current opens, and begins to rise, we get beyond the sense, our minds become supersensuous, superconscious — we get beyond even the intellect, where reasoning cannot reach. To open that Sushumna is the prime object of the Yogi. According to him, along this Sushumna are ranged these centres, or, in more figurative language, these lotuses, as they are called.

The lowest one is at the lower end of the spinal cord, and is called Mulâdhâra, the next higher is called Svâdhishthâna, the third Manipura, the fourth Anâhata, the fifth Vishuddha, the sixth jnâ and the last, which is in the brain, is the Sahasrâra, or “the thousand-petalled”. Of these we have to take cognition just now of two centres only, the lowest, the Muladhara, and the highest, the Sahasrara. All energy has to be taken up from its seat in the Muladhara and brought to the Sahasrara.
The Yogis claim that of all the energies that are in the human body the highest is what they call “Ojas”. Now this Ojas is stored up in the brain, and the more Ojas is in a man’s head, the more powerful he is, the more intellectual, the more spiritually strong.
One man may speak beautiful language and beautiful thoughts, but they, do not impress people; another man speaks neither beautiful language nor beautiful thoughts, yet his words charm. Every movement of his is powerful. That is the power of Ojas.

1. Competitions for life or sex-gratification are only momentary, unnecessary, extraneous effects, caused by ignorance.

Even when all competition has ceased, this perfect nature behind will make us go forward until everyone has become perfect. Therefore there is no reason to believe that competition is necessary to progress.
In the animal the man was suppressed, but as soon as the door was opened, out rushed man. So in man there is the potential god, kept in by the locks and bars of ignorance. When knowledge breaks these bars, the god becomes manifest.
Source: celibacylife.blogspot.com

1. Power comes to him who observes unbroken Brahmacharya for a period of twelve years. Complete continence gives great intellectual and spiritual power. Controlled desire leads to the highest results. Transform the sexual energy into spiritual energy. The stronger this force, the more can be done with it. Only a powerful current of water can do hydraulic mining.
   
2. If a person can be continent for twelve years, he can have extraordinary memory. One must be celibate and keep his brahmacharya absolutely even in his dream.
   

3.The chaste brain has tremendous energy and gigantic will power. Without chastity there can be no spiritual strength. Continence gives wonderful control over mankind.The spiritual leaders of men have been very continent and this is what gave them power

1. Soul has no sex, it is neither male nor female. It is only in the body that sex exists, and the man who desires to reach the spirit cannot at the same time hold sex distinctions .
   
2. All the misery of the world is caused by this slavery to the senses. Our inability to rise above the sense-life—the striving for physical pleasures, is the cause of all the horrors and miseries in the world.
   
3. The lower the organism, the greater is its pleasure in the senses. Think of the lowest animals and the power of touch. Everything is touch. … When you come to man, you will see that the lower the civilization of the man, the greater is the power of the senses. … The higher the organism, the lesser the pleasure of the sense.
   

A dog can eat a meal, but cannot understand the exquisite pleasure of thinking about metaphysics. He is deprived of the wonderful pleasure which you get through the intellect.
A dog can eat a meal, but cannot understand the exquisite pleasure of thinking about metaphysics. He is deprived of the wonderful pleasure which you get through the intellect.
The pleasures of the senses are great. Greater than those is the pleasure of the intellect. When you attend the fine fifty-course dinner in Paris, that is pleasure indeed. But in the observatory, looking at the stars, seeing . . . worlds coming and developing — think of that! It must be greater, for I know you forget all about eating. That pleasure must be greater than what you get from worldly things. You forget all about wives, children, husbands, and everything; you forget all about the sense-plane. That is intellectual pleasure. It is common sense that it must be greater than sense pleasure.
It is always for greater joy that you give up the lesser. This is practical religion — the attainment of freedom, renunciation. Renounce!

1. And if this Maya is so beautiful, think of the wondrous beauty of the Reality behind it.
   
2. In our everyday life we find that the less the sense-enjoyments, the higher the life of the man. Look at the dog when he eats. No man ever ate with the same satisfaction. Observe the pig giving grunts of satisfaction as he eats; it is his heaven, and if the greatest archangel came and looked on, the pig would not even notice him. His whole existence is in his eating. No man was ever born who could eat that way.
   

Think of the power of hearing in the lower animals, the power of seeing; all their senses are highly developed. Their enjoyment of the senses is extreme; they become simply mad with delight and pleasure. And the lower the man also, the more delight he finds in the senses. As he gets higher, the goal becomes reason and love. In proportion as these faculties develop, he loses the power of enjoying the senses.

1. In his Raja Yoga, the Swami explains that through brahmacharya sex energy is converted into a higher form of psychic energy called ‘ojas.’(Ojas, literally meaning the ‘illuminating’ or ‘bright’ is the highest form of energy in the human body.

In the spiritual aspirant who constantly practises continence and purity, other forms of energy are transmuted into ojas and stored in the brain, expressing as spiritual and intellectual power).
He says, “The yogis say that part of the human energy which is expressed as sex energy, in sexual thought, when checked and controlled easily becomes changed into ojas, and as the Muladhara (lowest of the six centers of consciousness) guides these, the yogi pays particular attention to that centre. He tries to take up all his sexual energy and convert it into ojas.

1. The nerve centre at the base of the spine near the sacrum is most important. It is the seat of the generative substance of the sexual energy and is symbolised by the Yogi as a triangle containing a tiny serpent coiled up in it. This sleeping serpent is called Kundalini, and to raise this Kundalini is the whole object of Raja-Yoga.

The great sexual force, raised from animal action and sent upward to the great dynamo of the human system, the brain, and there stored up, becomes Ojas or spiritual force. All good thought, all prayer, resolves a part of that animal energy into Ojas and helps to give us spiritual power.
This Ojas is the real man and in human beings alone is it possible for this storage of Ojas to be accomplished. One in whom the whole animal sex force has been transformed into Ojas is a god. He speaks with power, and his words regenerate the world.The Yogi pictures this serpent as being slowly lifted from stage to stage until the highest, the pineal gland, is reached.
No man or woman can be really spiritual until the sexual energy, the highest power possessed by man, has been converted into Ojas. No force can be created; it can only be directed. Therefore we must learn to control the grand powers that are already in our hands and by will power make them spiritual instead of merely animal. Thus it is clearly seen that chastity is the corner-stone of all morality and of all religion.
In Raja-Yoga especially, absolute chastity in thought, word, and deed is a sine qua non. The same laws apply to the married and the single. If one wastes the most potent forces of one’s being, one cannot become spiritual. All history teaches us that the great seers of all ages were either monks and ascetics or those who had given up married life; only the pure in life can see God.

1. The Ojas – The “Ojas” is that which makes the difference between man and man. The man who has much Ojas is the leader of men. It gives a tremendous power of attraction. Ojas is manufactured from the nerve – currents. It has this peculiarity: it is most easily made from that force which manifests itself in the sexual powers. If the powers of the sexual centres are not frittered away and their energies wasted (action is only thought in a grosser state), they can be manufactured into Ojas.

The two great nerve currents of the body start from the brain, go down on each side of the spinal cord, but they cross in the shape of the figure 8 at the back of the head. Thus the left side of the body is governed by the right side of the head.
At the lowest point of the circuit is the sexual centre, the Sacral Plexus. The energy conveyed by these two currents of nerves comes down, and a large amount is continually being stored in the Sacral Plexus. The last bone in the spine is over the Sacral Plexus and is described in symbolic language as a triangle; and as the energy is stored up beside it, this energy is symbolised by a serpent.
Consciousness and subconsciousness work through these two nerve – currents. But superconsciousness takes off the nerve – current when it reaches the lower end of the circuit, and instead of allowing it to go up and complete the circuit, stops and forces it up the spinal cord as Ojas from the Sacral Plexus. The spinal cord is naturally closed, but it can be opened to form a passage for this Ojas. As the current travels from one centre of the spinal cord to another, you can travel from one plane of existence to another.
This is why the human being is greater than others, because all planes, all experiences, are possible to the spirit in the human body. We do not need another; for man can, if he likes, finish in his body his probation and can after that become pure spirit.
When the Ojas has gone from centre to centre and reaches the Pineal Gland (a part of the brain to which science can assign no function), man then becomes neither mind nor body, he is free from all bondage.
The great danger of psychic powers is that man stumbles, as it were, into them, and knows not how to use them rightly. He is without training and without knowledge of what has happened to him. The danger is that in using these psychic powers, the sexual feelings are abnormally roused as these powers are in fact manufactured out of the sexual centre.
The best and safest way is to avoid psychic manifestations, for they play the most horrible pranks on their ignorant and untrained owners. To go back to symbols. Because this movement of the Ojas up the spinal cord feels like a spiral one, it is called the “snake”. The snake, therefore, or the serpent, rests on the bone or triangle. When it is roused, it travels up the spinal cord; and as it goes from centre to centre, a new natural world is opened inside us — the Kundalini is roused.
12.The Yogi alone has the Sushumna open. When this Sushumna current opens, and begins to rise, we get beyond the sense, our minds become supersensuous, superconscious — we get beyond even the intellect, where reasoning cannot reach. To open that Sushumna is the prime object of the Yogi. According to him, along this Sushumna are ranged these centres, or, in more figurative language, these lotuses, as they are called.
The lowest one is at the lower end of the spinal cord, and is called Mulâdhâra, the next higher is called Svâdhishthâna, the third Manipura, the fourth Anâhata, the fifth Vishuddha, the sixth jnâ and the last, which is in the brain, is the Sahasrâra, or “the thousand-petalled”. Of these we have to take cognition just now of two centres only, the lowest, the Muladhara, and the highest, the Sahasrara. All energy has to be taken up from its seat in the Muladhara and brought to the Sahasrara.
The Yogis claim that of all the energies that are in the human body the highest is what they call “Ojas”. Now this Ojas is stored up in the brain, and the more Ojas is in a man’s head, the more powerful he is, the more intellectual, the more spiritually strong.
One man may speak beautiful language and beautiful thoughts, but they, do not impress people; another man speaks neither beautiful language nor beautiful thoughts, yet his words charm. Every movement of his is powerful. That is the power of Ojas.

1. Competitions for life or sex-gratification are only momentary, unnecessary, extraneous effects, caused by ignorance.

Even when all competition has ceased, this perfect nature behind will make us go forward until everyone has become perfect. Therefore there is no reason to believe that competition is necessary to progress.
In the animal the man was suppressed, but as soon as the door was opened, out rushed man. So in man there is the potential god, kept in by the locks and bars of ignorance. When knowledge breaks these bars, the god becomes manifest.
Source: celibacylife.blogspot.com

Hello all. In a recent comment about a study on cooperatives, I got some criticism for promoting piracy. So in this post I'll write a quick blurb about why piracy is important in resisting the privatization of knowledge.
Under capitalism, information can be owned and put behind a paywall. Not physical books or hard drives containing information, but the actual metaphysical information itself. According to one study, 72% of scholarly articles are behind a paywall. Another study about medical research noted that:

While just over half of all biomedical research was found to be open access, substantial variations were found by discipline; for example, 84% of publications in tropical medicine were open access, while only 7% of pharmacy publications were open access. Another study focused on global health research found that 42% of scholarly articles were published behind a paywall. Paywalls thus continue to represent a substantial barrier to freely access medical knowledge.

Ownership over information is devastating to a free society. You can be forced to pay for studies that are used to create policies that effect you. You can be forced to pay to see the research behind the medicine you take. You can be forced to pay for historical records that inform your worldview.
There is no coherent deontological justification for ownership over information. Let's say that you claim to own the contents of something that I want to access. If it's a research article, I use Sci-Hub to effortlessly pirate it. If it's a book, I use Library Genesis.
What exactly do you own now? If I'm viewing it through my computer screen, do you own the electrons flowing through my monitor? If I download it, do you own the ones and zeroes on my hard drive? If I print it out, do you own the paper? If I memorize its contents, do you own the neurons of my brain responsible for storing that memory? If I discuss the research finding with another person, do you own the sound waves that contain "your" information?
There is no coherent answer to these questions. Information is memetic. There's nothing tangible to own. Therefore any claim of ownership over scientific articles is illegitimate. Open access is the only legitimate way to publish anything. Free information, free education, free humanity.
R&D would still occur if the government didn't enforce copyright. Government organizations, corporations, nonprofits, and NGOs still need to write reports and conduct studies to function, so research would still be funded. Charging for access is just another way to squeeze profit out of the sciences.
From the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto written by Aaron Swartz (rest in peace):

There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.
We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.
With enough of us, around the world, we’ll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we’ll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?

I've recently started an online store selling metaphysical products like crystals, tarot cards, etc. I've created an Instagram account for the store but despite regular posts, engagement and follower count are not growing as expected.
Any advice?

Not sure where to start with this. I'm helping a group to create a fantasy setting based in the real world for an AR game. We don't want to use stereotypical fantasy races or regular magic, but something more realistic.
For context, this was initially inspired by a debate involving the memories/time-travelling concept in Assassins Creed games, the hidden wizards society in the Harry Potter books, and the Timelord race in Dr Who!
So we have a very ancient race referred to as the 'Elders' that existed several millenia ago, that died out around the same time as neanderthals were around. This race had a 1000 year lifespan, were entirely nocturnal, had much greater cognitive and other abilities, could move between different dimensions and were tasked with guiding progress on earth so that humans (who were a noobie race) could one day access the other dimensions and join with the greater cosmic 'family tree' (the background plot is based on the idea of having multiple 'layered' dimensions within the world and young races being restricted to only their own dimension until they 'prove themselves', at which point they are told to help out a new race in return).
Things didn't go as planned, and the Elders ended up dying out long before they were supposed to. They knew they were going to disappear, but wanted to ensure that humans still had a chance (and also leave the door open for their race to be brought back later on). So they devised a way of creating 'triggers' in our dimension that would alter the DNA of humans at certain points and create individuals with similar enough genetics that memories of an Elder could merge with them (these memories were stored in the 'arcana' dimension, which is like a metaphysical 'spine' dimension that the other physical dimensions join on to). The Elders also created non-sentient beings in the arcana dimension called 'watchers' that would keep hold of these memories long after the Elders disappeared, until human matches were created, then ensure the memories were transferred to humans in the physical dimension.
The memories start appearing in our world as dreams once the matching human reaches adulthood and they start receiving not just the memories of their metaphysical ancestor, but also other traits of that Elder. For example, they start to develop certain skills the individual had, routines, personality characteristics, they become more nocturnal, sensitive to daylight, have extended lives, are stronger, have increased perception and other cognitive abilities, and can also learn how to view the arcana dimension (although not travel to/from it at will, like the Elders could).
So basically they turn into hybrids. But it's mostly focused on the metaphysical rather than physical. These hybrids now have the equivalent of two psyches sharing one body (but with the original human one still entirely in control). Over time, the individual can learn how to access more of the Elder part of themselves, unlock more memories in more detail, travel to the arcana dimension while asleep or in other altered states, and walk around it as their Elder ancestor.
These new hybrids are 'found' by other existing hybrids and tasked with continuing the work that their ancestor Elder started, both in terms of guiding humans and also continuing to build the timeline in the arcana dimension, which ended prematurely when the Elders died out. If the arcana timeline gets completed as it should have been, it will make it possible for the Elders to return in a physical dimension. As the arcana dimension is linked to all the physical ones, changes made in the arcana dimension manifest in our physical world too.
We are trying to brainstorm a few things and would love some random input:
a) how to create an entirely separate secret society hidden within the human one that these hybrids interact in? And how that society would operate/look? (the hybrids essentially take on a new identity/life/purpose once they get the Elder memories/traits, and can still interact with humans but not explain what is going on)
b) how to create conflict in this setting? (we're thinking maybe the process of downloading the memories/traits can sometimes go wrong and a warped version of the Elder gets merged with a human instead, that later turns rogue and joins other rogue hybrids)
c) what to call these hybrids to differentiate them from humans/elders/watchers?
d) any other weird but not immediately obvious characteristics we can give the hybrids to make them distinct from humans?
e) how the metaphysical 'arcana' dimension might look/work?
f) do you know of any similar fantasy races/beings to the above that we can look into - that focus more on metaphysical traits? (other than the assassins, wizards, timelords we mentioned) Most fantasy races seem to focus on physical traits like size, fangs, wings, scales or other body parts, drinking blood, etc.
g) anything else you can think of that might work in this setting?

Why Physical Aionios Can’t Explain The Contradictions?
Here is the thing: In order to understand the lore of this game, I think it is very important to be to able explain the nature of these 'exceptions' in an internally consistent manner with your theory.
And what I'm about to explain is going to shred all the possibilities of 'Physical Aionios' being true. Keeping 'Parallel Universe Aionios' or 'VR Aionios' THE default position.
I want you to realize most people ‘accept’ Physical Aionios as the default position without realizing it is an impossibility due to revelations made in FR.
This post will address some of the hints and paint a clearer picture for everyone. I’ll make a detailed post on XC3 and FR’s plot and metaphysical nature soon but I want to keep things compact in this post.
But before we begin:
UPDATE: Here is little sneak of my XC3 post to come which will continue to shred the possibility of the physical Aionios being true:
I want to give you a very challenging statement from FR, you'll find extremely hard to reconcile with your physical Aionios paradigm. This might be the final nail in the coffin that argument if you are observant enough.
At the end of FR, A said the following to Matthew:

'Alpha was...and I'm an avatar. The spirit of YOUR world (reffering to Aionios - Matthew is the city people, new life born in Aionios) Just like Alpha needed all of you....you AND your world, you need me!(Ontos/Origin)'

This is THE clearest connection of Origin (The OS being Ontos trinity processor) AND Aionios!
This worls IS run by Ontos(previously Alpha) as a DIRECT reflection of Origin's data metaphysically. Not a freezing mid point in collision as many of you believe it is.
I want all of you to explain to me EXACTLY what she means by 'need me' phrase.
In fact, it is the opposite in your paradigm where if Ontos (Origin's OS) desire, she could easily 'unfreeze' and solve the problem. Especially as Z HASNT seized Origin yet. What stopped her?
Because what she means by these sentences inarguably connect the very nature of as Origin=Aionios!
----
These were explanations I was holding out for my Xc3 and FR explanation article. But just wanted to give all of you another statement you will have to explain and 'fit' in your physical a paradigm where NO SUCH intimate connection between Ontos and Aionios resides in your paradigm that can 'support' such clear sentences made by A.
Now lets start the post
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First of all, I want everyone to be on the same page.
I hope that we all think these 8 people - Shulk, Rex, Linka, Panacea, Melia, Nia, Poppi, Riku - that have their memories intact and is being reffered to as 'exceptions' in Linka's final community dialogue (we'll analyze this soon) are NOT existing in Aionios due to RANDOM chance or accident, but due to INTENTIONAL reasons!
Here is why a deep level of planning is involved in the existence of these 8 people. Understanding this accurately will inform the next step in our argument.
1- Nia is giving lots of hints in the base XC3 that like 'Our plan worked' or 'We've been waiting for this moment' etc sort of phrases that establish the existence of Nia and Melia having a very intentional purpose.
Both of them are key characters that provide lore information BEFORE the existence of Aionios. They have their memories intact unlike the rest of Aionios as well.
2- In Linka's final community dialogue, Rex says the following:

'Linka and me, we did what we could to exist , to be here and to meet you. That’s all there is to it, I reckon’

The way the phrases are interlinked matters and show the intentional nature of not just Rex and Linka but also all the 8 people’s reasons for being in Aionios.
Finally, it is VERY UNREALISTIC to assume these 8 very important and key people from the previous games were random, by pure chance surviving a physical collision while EVERYONE ELSE dies in the collision.
The intentional reason for their existence in Aionios is very clear at this point.
****
Secondly, I want to refer to Linka’s final community dialogue:

‘When Aionios was born, most people were assimilated by Origin, they were also exceptions such as us.’

First of all, I hope you already realized all the world’s data was already backed up in Origin before Aionios, and within Aionios, Mobeius is using Origin’s data to supply cradle pods for infinite reincarnations. This said reincarnations are soldiers of this world – Agnians and Kevesi – stamped with a 10-year life span.
The key information that resides in this sentence is how Linka says ‘We (referring to these 8 people with memories intact) are DIFFERENT from Origin’s assimilations AND city people (who are new life born within Aionios).
In different terms, she is telling you ‘Our metaphysical nature is different compared to soldiers (most of Aionios) and city people.’
These people are THE exceptions you need to make room for in your theory explaining the story of XC3 and FR. Something that Physical Aionios paradigm fails to do.
This will be important to remember for the future.
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To make things clearer, the Physical Aionios argument doesn't work because of the following 3 reasons:
1- It is probabilistically nonsensical: It is unrealistic to assume that ONLY 8 key characters from previous worlds have survived the collision (via miracle) and not some NPC in XC2 while everyone else is dead.
Remember this is a planetary PHYSICAL collision. But not just that.
A physical collision that is facilitated by anti-matter of XC1 and XC2 worlds in which if you know some elementary physics, is a deadly combo within proximity!
This already seeds HEAVY doubt into Physical Aionios but surprisingly this is not the only reason why it doesn't work.
2- Assumes Pure Chance: For Physical Aionios to work, you need the existence of these 8 people be an accident. (which goes against the first pillar of our agreement we discussed above in regards to intentional existence)
If you make a derivative argument for Physical Aionios, the following discrepancy arises:
‘Well, everyone was actually physically backed up in Origin while these 8 people waited in their respective planets. (Remember intention matters) When Z stopped worlds, these 8 people survived the collision’– This argument is an impossibility.
Here is why: 8 people waiting for this collision INTENTIONALLY in the physical Aionios can’t work! There is NO WAY for these 8 people to KNOW Z’s freezing of the collision 100% so that they can make such a plan.
In this paradigm, these 8 people are literally sacrificing their lives IF Z doesn't intercept and worlds collide physically. Everyone else stored in Origin will be reborn but these 8 people will die because they were waiting for Z (or such a threat) to freeze the worlds mid collision
….Do you see the nonsensical and impossible nature of this argument? That can’t be prepared for beforehand and they couldnt have known Z’s interjection to such a certain degree.
Z’s creation of Aionios was a spontaneous event that can't be prepared for within physical Aionios paradigms.
Physical Aionios assumes PURE CHANCE and is irreconcilable with intention and planning in regards to the existence of these 8 people! VR Aionios/Paralel Universe paradigm that I’ll talk about soon explains this contradiction.
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This brings us to the next subtle argument we need to make.
3- The mechanics of HOW or WHY they came to exist in Aionios eludes them due to the comment made by Linka:

‘That I do not know. The reason for our existence here is unclear’

IF Physical Aionios was true, Link would say something along the lines of:
‘We exist here BECAUSE we survived the collision of the planets via this and this. Thats how we were able to exist free from the reincarnation process unlike the rest of Aionios’ – But she DOESNT say that now, does she?
Remember these 8 people have their memories INTACT. You can’t make the argument she ‘forgot’ the physical collision. For this sentence to make actual internal sense, Aionios should be a reality where the reason AND mechanics of how they came to arise eludes them.
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Explaining Everything: Parallel Universe/VR Aionios Paradigm
To explain this VR Aionios fully, I’ll have to explain the entire plot of XC3 but I wont do that in this post. I’ll just explain the true nature of these 8 people and how they came to exist within this paradigm.
And an explanation that circumvents and solves all the contradictions that physical Aionios fails to address above.
A full explanation of this theory is needed for you to understand every little ‘open ended’ aspects of XC3, but for now, just think Aionios as a separate dimension, VR existence of Origin’s making RATHER than the physical mid collision freezing point.
In other words, A patchwork existence of XC1 and XC2 data using Ontos Trinity Processor (Origin’s OS) precipitated by Z in the fear of the physical collision.
Now, refer back to everything we already talked about.
Here is HOW and WHY these 8 people exist in the world of Aionios:
1- In the construction of Origin, Melia and Nia realizes the potential risks of such the project of Origin and inserts ‘fail-safes’ in case a threat like Z or Alpha or anything else arises that might jeopardizes this project.
2- Within their individual Origin Arks before the intersection point, Fail-safes of ‘Rex, Shulk, Nia, Melia, Linka, Panacea, Riku, Poppi’ are ADDED within the hard code of Origin in its construction.
3- The purpose of this hard coded fail-safe being a precaution:
- In case Origin boots up a reality of its own making (like Aionios), These 8 people will have intact memories of their lives, an unspecified length of life and will be free from external contingincies (like the reincarnation process or 10 year life spans).
- Because of this, they will be able to carve a path to ‘the proper reboot of Origin’ by assisting and helping the inhabitants of this potential reality. And this explains their purpose within the story of Future Redeemed and even XC3.
More accurately,
1- Linka and Panacea is setting the foundation for the new lives born within Aionios – city people. Since city people are the foundation of Pneuma’s power within Origin’s simulation, they need to be taken care of in this existence.
Linka is taking care of community projects, management and stuff like entertainment etc as this is important for a well functioning and psychologically healthy communities of people.
Panacea has the role of teaching fighting and self defense to the people of the city.
2- Rex and Shulk are pretty self explanatory. They are one of the most capable warriors and leaders of their respective worlds.
3- Nia and Melia knows all the ins and outs of Origin and its systems. They need their memories to be intact and accurate and needed in this potential existence.
4- Riku is a skilled master crafter nopon that can be infiltrated within the existence of Aionios, someone who can help with technical sides of thing and form the link between the this project and assimilations of Origin (him being a part of Kevesi troops in XC3)
5- Poppi is allowing for Nia and Melia to have ‘eyes and ears’ in this world of Aionios. A way for them to be free from danger but still know the ins and outs of what is happening.
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Final words:
My Parallel Universe/ VR Aionios theory explains the existence of these 8 people in an internally consistent manner and doesnt fall into the pitfalls of the physical aionios paradigm we discussed in the begining of this post. In fact, those flaws are so severe that it invalidates the physical aionios paradigm altogether.
At this point, since I wasn’t able to go back to XC3 and FR and sequentially explain everything, you may have questions in regard to the details of this theory.
But dont worry, I’ll write a detailed post explaining it soon. But for now, I hope this was a useful.
Much love,
UPDATE: Here is little sneak of my XC3 post to come which will continue to shred the possibility of the physical Aionios being true:
I want to give you a very challenging statement from FR, you'll find extremely hard to reconcile with your physical Aionios paradigm. This might be the final nail in the coffin that argument if you are observant enough.
At the end of FR, A said the following to Matthew:

'Alpha was...and I'm an avatar. The spirit of YOUR world (reffering to Aionios - Matthew is the city people, new life born in Aionios) Just like Alpha needed all of you....you AND your world, you need me!(Ontos/Origin)'

This is THE clearest connection of Origin (The OS being Ontos trinity processor) AND Aionios!
This worls IS run by Ontos(previously Alpha) as a DIRECT reflection of Origin's data metaphysically. Not a freezing mid point in collision as many of you believe it is.
I want all of you to explain to me EXACTLY what she means by 'need me' phrase.
In fact, it is the opposite in your paradigm where if Ontos (Origin's OS) desire, she could easily 'unfreeze' and solve the problem. Especially as Z HASNT seized Origin yet. What stopped her?
Because what she means by these sentences inarguably connect the very nature of as Origin=Aionios!
----
These were explanations I was holding out for my Xc3 and FR explanation article. But just wanted to give all of you another statement you will have to explain and 'fit' in your physical a paradigm where NO SUCH intimate connection between Ontos and Aionios resides in your paradigm that can 'support' such clear sentences made by A.

That’s to say there are general traits that we’re capable of exhibiting (through genetics and maybe a bit of magic), and those traits are shared equally among the human population. I imagine those traits as their own entities that separate themselves from the “self” (which is just a rain bucket for our lives) but re-appear in another life? Like if someone is funny or considerate , that trait is stored in their archetypal bank and withdrawn for the next body that their spirit inhabits. The next question would be, “what is the spirit” and all I can say is some type of universal data. Obviously we’re also a result of time and struggle, think about our ancestors longg ago, but I also think there’s more to our story as a species, metaphysically. And right now the only ways to uncover that story are meditation and drugs. I think the world needs a new philosophy that can connect w humans on the same level as the archetypes. What is it?

I am looking for a lady to spend my free time with. I want to go to the movies or dinner or the comic book store, heck I might even go to the park or something. I want to talk about ideas and metaphysical concepts and why bacon is so darn tasty.
A little about me: I am 42 and live in Clarksville TN. I am a Navy veteran and single dad (older kids). I have a steady job, my own home and a decent vehicle. I am a big nerd (comics, video games, Star Wars, D&D). I am religious, my Christian faith is very important to me. Lastly (the new big thing) I have autism, so I am a bit awkward on the front end but once we get past all of that I think I am a pretty normal guy.
A little more about what I am looking for: I am looking for a woman between the ages of 28 and 42 (preferably around 37ish) who lives with in an hour drive. I would like someone who is a bit more quite and reserved but can also be a real fighter when it's called for. Lastly, because I am, it is important that you be drug, alcohol and tobacco free.
Things I would prefer you not be are: poly, any thing other than a woman, pregnant, looking for more kids (the ones you have already are cool), fiscally unstable, stay at home full time single mom, expectant of me to carry the conversation (remember I have autism) or a gold digger.
If you have read this far, thanks for being awesome. I hope all of this isn't too much. Stay groovy Reddit.