/similar_quotes/1053

Ride the Tiger
Author: Julius Evola
Publisher: Inner Traditions International (2003)
139

Given this basic situation of a limitation exalted to a method, one can well understand that the consequence of all scientific and technological progress is an inner stagnation or even a return to savagery. Such progress is not accompanied by any inner progress but develops on a plane apart; it does not intersect with man's concrete, existential situation, which instead is left to itself. It is hardly worth mentioning the absurdity or the disarming naivete of that modern social ideology that makes science a sort of substitute for religion, giving it the task of showing man the way to happiness and progress, and sending him on that way. The truth is that man has gained nothing from the progress of science and technology, neither in regard to knowledge (and I have already spoken of that), nor in regard to his own power, and still less in regard to any higher law of conduct. At best, one could make an exception for medicine, but still only on the physical level. As for power, let no one claim that the ability of the hydrogen bomb to destroy an entire metropolis, or the promise of nuclear energy that heralds the 'second industrial revolution,' or the games for grown-up children that are space exploration, have made a single person more potent and superior in himself, in his concrete being. These forms of a mechanical, external, and extrinsic power leave the real human being untouched; he is no more powerful or superior using space missiles than he ever was when using a club, except in its material effects; apart from those he remains as he was, with his passions, his instincts, and his inadequacies.


The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
Author: Alan Watts
Publisher: kindle import (0)
50

If a description of the human body must include the description of what it, and all its 'parts,' are doing—that is, of its behavior—this behavior will be one thing in the open air but quite another in a vacuum, in a furnace, or under water. Blood in a test-tube is not the same thing as blood in the veins because it is not behaving in the same way. Its behaviour has changed because its environment or context has changed, just as the meaning of one and the same word may change according to the kind of sentence in which it is used. There is a vast difference between the bark of a tree and the bark of a dog. It is not enough, therefore, to describe, define, and try to understand things or events by analysis alone, by taking them to pieces to find out 'how they are made.' This tells us much, but probably rather less than half the story. Today, scientists are more and more aware that what things are, and what they are doing, depends on where and when they are doing it. If, then, the definition of a thing or event must include definition of its environment, we realize that any given thing goes with a given environment so intimately and inseparably that it is more and more difficult to draw a clear boundary between the thing and its surroundings. This was the grain of truth in the primitive and unreliable science of astrology—as there were also grains of truth in alchemy, herbal medicine, and other primitive sciences. For when the astrologer draws a picture of a person's, character or soul, he draws a horoscope—that is, a very rough and incomplete picture of the whole universe as it stood at the moment of that person's birth. But this is at the same time a vivid way of saying that your soul, or rather your essential Self, is the whole cosmos as it is centered around the particular time, place, and activity called John Doe. Thus the soul is not in the body, but the body in the soul, and the soul is the entire network of relationships and processes which make up your environment, and apart from which you are nothing. A scientific astrology, if it could ever be worked out, would have to be a thorough description of the individual's total environment—social, biological, botanical, meteorological, and astronomical—throughout every moment of his life.


Occult Medicine and Practical Magic
Author: Samael Aun Weor
Publisher: Glorian Publishing (2008)
11

Kalusuanga, the primeval God of light, will joyfully admit into his Mysteries the souls who are thirsty for the Mayan Ray. The clue in order to enter into the temple of Kalusuanga, the Mayan Indian Master, is the following: The disciple will sit on a chair before a table. He will place his elbows on the table and will hold his head with his left hand. Meanwhile, he will perform magnetic passes by passing his right hand over his head from the forehead to the neck, with the purpose of magnetizing himself. Thus, with force, he will thrust (with the magnetic passes) his astral body outwards, towards the temple of ‘Buritaca’, which is the headquarters of the ancient wisdom of the Mayan Ray. The disciple will unite his willpower and imagination in vibrating harmony and will make the effort to fall asleep. He must feel, while utilizing his willpower and imagination, as if he was with the body of flesh and bones within the temple of ‘Buritaca’. 11Occult Medicine And Practical Magic Samael Aun Weor He must pronounce with his thought the following mantras or magical words: OMNIS BAUN IGNEOUS. These words are pronounced in succession, prolonging the sound of the vowels until falling asleep. A while later, after some time of practice, the disciple will ‘go out’ of his physical body with his astral body, and Kalusuanga, the sublime Master of the Mayan Ray, will instruct him in his Mysteries and teach him the medical wisdom. First of all, Kalusuanga tests the courage of the invoker. He appears gigantic and terrible in order to test the disciple. If the disciple is courageous, he will be instructed in the sacred science of the ‘Mamas’


The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Author: Julian Jaynes
Publisher: University of Toronto Press (1978)
41

Reasoning and logic are to each other as health is to medicine, or - better - as conduct is to morality. Reasoning refers to a gamut of natural thought processes in the everyday world. Logic is how we ought to think if objective truth is our goal - and the everyday world is very little concerned with objective truth. Logic is the science of the justification of conclusions we have reached by natural reasoning.