It depends upon degrees of consciousness. I live on a farm that provides the meat I eat; I feed the cow, sheep and pigs, I watch them grow; I accompany them to the slaughter house. When they die do I feel that a part of me dies with them; absolutely. Do I feel as if a part of me is born when I develop a new relationship with a calf just delivered from its mother? Absolutely.
Do you feel that a part of you died when you ate animal flesh or fish that you didn’t know face to face, that you did not hold an internal mental and emotional image of?
A vegetable, maybe?
My point is anyone can attach emotions to animals they know, anim nals are adorable, but does a part of YOU die in the same way for every living being, or only the ones you get to know?
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This is where proximity in the web of significance and dependent co-arising comes into play. Of course the death of a fish or a carrot half way across he world is not going to have the same impact as the death of a partner, sibling or pet; the proximity is removed both in terms of degrees of consciousness and in terms of spatial proximity. Proximity (of space, time and consciousness) is proportional to significance in the web of relational dependent co-arising.
But now the forum is advising me that I’ve responded to you more than three times and I should continue this conversation through personal message. You are forum goddess; what should I do?
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But things can exist, live and die, wihtout you being aware of them.
Things can affect you without you being aware of them - and you can affect things without them having to be some aspect of yourself.
When you lead these animals, who trust you and expect you to be harmless, into the abbatoir, is this some deep inner aspect of your own trusting nature that you seek to destroy and feast upon?
(That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.)
Ignore the nag about the number of replies, it’s programmed in and is on all forums running Discourse, sometimes it might be helpful but it’s not a rule or anything. 
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Absolutely, and there is a mutual affectivity precisely because there is relational connectivity, albeit via degrees of separation and decreased levels of spatial proximity.
but could you affect things, situations and people if they did not have significance for you? Significance implies relational connectivity and the projection of your own desires onto the other such that the other becomes an embodiment of those desires; those desires being an aspect of you.
No, it is my own desire for a tasty steak that I have projected onto poor old Charlie such that his significance has changed from that of loving pet to juicy sirloin. The relationship has radically altered in terms of proximity of consciousness; the sirloin is vastly removed from me in proximity of consciousness than living Bovine Charlie. This change has been affected by my own desire. Charlie has become the embodiment of my desire thus an aspect of myself.
Yes: suppose I accidentally knock over some chemical into the water course while fixing up outdoor paintwork.
Miles away, that chemical causes some poor fish to grow a horrible tumour and die before its time.
I did not have a desire to knock over the chemical, I did not have a desire to affect that fish. And neither would really have much significance for me, nor would I be consciously aware of them. If I didn’t know the chemical was poisonous, and many people don’t know these things, I may not even have a subconsious awareness of this.
Can you comprehend that Charlie may feel differently about this?
Or do you honestly think he has no existence except in your mind?
If someone (to use a gruesome example) kills someone for their wallet, has thet vic become in the same absolute sense nothing other than the robber’s next fix, in your model?
Which, I say again, falls afoul of this, as do so very many:
This is discussed in the Kybalion as the Divine Paradox: the infinite All witnesses the universe as a dream; the finite (us) witnesses the universe as real. To think as God is to be in a state of detached “mountain-top consciousness” which is incompatible with everyday life and everyday consciousness with desires, hopes, etc.
The universe is; and is not - these two poles of truth are the Absolute and the Relative - and half-truths, such as when new-agers play “blame the victim” towards someone who’s manifested an illness, are a trap for feeble minds.
This seeming paradox regarding what is, and is not real, is an aspect of the Principle of Polarity described in the Kybalion.
Further questions for you to consider, regarding the relationship of mind, Mind, and observed being:
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can you create a steak by desire, without going through normal cause => effect chains? If not, why?
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Can Charlie exist when you’re in deep dreamless sleep cycles, and not conscious of anything much in your waking brain?
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Did people or animals exist before you were born? If so, what mind were they part of?
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Let’s jump back a bit in the chain of causality; your immediate item of ready-to-hand equipment (the can of chemical) had a significance for you; especially in its loss. You had a relationship of intent with it that was subverted by your accident and you most certainly affected a change in that relationship.
Most certainly Charlie feels differently about this. His projection of his desire for safety and security on to me has been utterly subverted by my own desire for steak. By virtue of the different degrees of consciousness in the relationship, there is established a hierarchical line of power between myself and Charlie, it is this line of power that enables my projected desire to dominate the relationship. These power lines exist in every relationship which is why, if one has an established ethic, a certain care must be taken such that ones projected desires onto the other correlate with once consciously adopted ethic. But of course Charlie is not just the projection of my desire, he is a projection of the desire of all who have come into contact with him (with concomitant lines power); his sense of who he is is molded by his interactions with others. Just as the victim is far more than the robber;s objectification of him, but he is a product of all the interactions that he has had in the past and is engaged with up until the moment of his death.
As for the Divine Paradox; notice that I am not invoking the existence of any supreme being; be it the Abrahmic god, Platonic Demiurge, or flying spaghetti monster. Such a being is not necessary for dependent co-arising. However, the underlying principle of ultimate versus contingent or relative reality is relevant. Dependent co-arising is the phenomenon of contingent reality, what it arises out of is emptiness, sunyata, the abyss, guningagap, the outer darkness which is also the inner darkness, the Ain Soph, whatever you want to call it.
Further questions for you to consider, regarding the relationship of mind, Mind, and observed being:
1.can you create a steak by desire, without going through normal cause => effect chains? If not, why?
2.Can Charlie exist when you’re in deep dreamless sleep cycles, and not conscious of anything much in your waking brain?
3.Did people or animals exist before you were born? If so, what mind were they part of?
I’m going to invoke quantum mechanics to answer your questions; which nicely supports the model of dependent co-arising. Quantum mechanics posits that reality is probabilistic rather than deterministic in nature. In the sub atomic world this is seen with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle which posits that you can not determine a particles position and momentum at the same time. Electrons are seen no longer in terms of particles having a fixed position and momentum but rather as a wave of probability spread out over space. If the Universe is probabilistic in nature then a steak could potentially occur without going through the usual chains of causation. If consciousness influences how sub atomic particles behave (an it does as can be seen in the double slit experiment) then such a creation is possible by an observing consciousness. I have not seen a quantum theory of magic yet but it might proceed along these lines.
Can Charlie exist when not observed? According to quantum theory he both exists and does not exist at the same time; ala Schrodinger’s cat. It is the act of observation that brings him, and all of us into being.
Did people or animals exist before you were born? Have you encountered the phenomenon of gravitational lensing before? It’s basically a larger version of the double slit experiment. The light from a distant galaxy (emitted millions of years ago) can take two paths bending around an intervening star, it’s light detected on earth. The path that the light takes is found to be dependent on it’s being observed; the act of observation in the present determines an event that occurred millions of years in the past. This violates temporal causality in a big way, in fact it inverts it.
But no desire was involved, nor consious intent, which is the point I was addressing.
You do however seem to accept that there is a Mind beyond your conscious mind in which all things are held in some degree of relationship?
“Divine” in this context, as I apologise for not making even clearer, relatres solely to the state of possessing all knbowledge and a lack of preference for any individuated self-perception within it.
Interactions with what?
Yes, because at quantum level things behave somewhat differently than they sdo at the various levels of reality that can be more reaily observed.
Which leaves out of course the animal as observer - an acceptable workaround in the thought experiment, not so when you are describing reality.
Charlie your murdered bovine is observing things and capable of a range of reactions, and of various levels of comprehension and emotion, as well.
The question you need to be asking here is whether 1. the light in and of itself is an observer, 2. whether it’s conscious of being such, and 3. whether it has an agenda or some kind of will regarding the route it takes.
Unless those things are established there is zero link to your poor murdered beefy pal, and what that means to him rather than you.
A mish-mash of Jung and quantum physics are some fairly first-grade newage tropes I’m well familiar with: none of them can unbreak an egg, though it’s highly entertaining.
@Warlock I’ve made this its own thread so as to be able to dog a bit deeper without derailment. 
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One good manhandling by something that you can’t see is usually enough to shake most people out of the whole psychology model of magic. I was perhaps fortunate to have that happen before I embarked on my magical studies. I think it helped me filter out what was real and what was armchair theory.
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“I once discussed the proof of identity for a long time with a friend of William James, Professor Hyslop, in New York. He admitted that, all things considered, all these metapsychic phenomena could be explained better by the hypothesis of spirits than by the qualities and peculiarities of the unconscious. And here, on the basis of my own experience, I am bound to concede he is right. In each individual case I must of necessity be skeptical, but in the long run I have to admit that the spirit hypothesis yields better results in practice than any other.”
~Carl Jung 10th July 1946 to one Dr. Fritz Kunkel, discussing the book THE UNOBSTRUCTED UNIVERSE, by Stewart Edward White.
Might not add anything to this conversation, i just really like that quote anytime Jung is brought up. 
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The irony is that Jung is often used to couch magical theory in psychological terms. I had never read that quote before so the irony is too damn funny.
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Its hard to say, since coiincedences or freak happenings/miracles can occur.
However, if you are fairly adept psychically, you may see synchronicities clear as day or night.
However, that’s if you train yourself to pay attention.
There are strange.energies felt, there are frightening coiincedences on.occasion.
However the magician has to be extremely aware of things and a journal kept for workings to put the workings and synchronicities together, and that requires strict organization and attention to detail.
IMO.
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accurate. 
though when ya can see what is manhandling you it is both better and worse at the same time
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I’ve had that happen several times in the early years. Never could see them. It was terrifying at the time but afterward it was both fascinating and encouraging. But most people just end up running back to church when it happens to them. No one will ever convince me that magic isn’t real or that spirits are aspects of my personality. I’ve seen too much. Maybe some people need “scientific” sounding theories to at least open them to the possibility that magic can work. To me though, all that is mental masturbation.
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Yeah ive had one with aighash that was nerve racking 
and then Azazel has popped up to startle me one way or another and drop random knowledge on my skull 
and yet I’ve never evoked him ritually… 
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I read most of this but dont have time to read it all, very fascinating discussion. In relation to dreams, though, I have a theory. I had a pretty sweet diagram drawn up at one point, but alas it was on a phone that is no longer with us. So the theory is that dreams (sleeping dreams) can be wholely mundane, wholly mental, as in zero interaction with anything except your own mind and its musings. They can be wholely spiritual, or astral/4th dimensional/whatever you refer to it as. And they can be any mixture of both (90% influenced by spirit/astral plane, 10% your mind. 50/50. 20/40. Etc)
The mundane dreams are your own mental inventions. Reflections of your experiences, fantasies, etc.
The spiritual dreams can be “divinely” inspired, given to you by some form of astral entity. They could also be your astral body/consciousness traveling about the astral plane, interacting with entities there. Or any other spiritual scenario.
The mixture dreams could be an entity influencing your mental dream. Or it could be taking place in the astral plane, but its still your mental mind (physical mind) interpreting what you see. And any other combination of scenarios.
It gets more complicated but that’s the basic theory. And I wonder if this could be applied to magic as well. You have your full-on spiritual experiences, then you have spiritual entities affecting the physical world, and you have your mental mind affecting the spiritual world, and so on and so forth.
Sure you did! Your intent and desire was to use the chemical to do enhance your garden; a relationship of intent to the can and its contents. The fact that it was accidently spilled would have brought that relationship into sharp relief by an “oh fuck” moment precipitated by the loss of the use of a tool that you had ready-to-hand.
Such a concept is not necessary for the model of dependent co-arising.
“Interactions” meaning, in this context, his relationships past and present.
I never denied that Charlie could act as his own observer; on the contrary his observer status was
confirmed when I noted that in our relationship his observation of me brought me into being in the act of dependent co-arising.
I can’t comment on the degree of consciousness of a photon. I don’t think anybody can in an evidence based way.
Jung was an earlier part of our conversation when I offered a non-literal interpretation of your dream; Jungian psychology does not influence the model we are discussing now which actually has its base, not only in quantum mechanics (perhaps at a less descriptive level than what I was employing as a research chemist but valid nonetheless), Heideggerian phenomenological ontology and Buddhist ontology.
On a more humorous note; the probabilistic model of reality that quantum mechanics describes allows for the possibility of your egg unbreaking 
But let’s be clear. I am not offering a psychological argument / explanation for magic; instead I am arguing for a model that breaks down the artificial divisions of the subjective and objective that not only offers an explanatory mechanism for magic but is much wider in its explanatory power and scope. The model permits for “one good manhandling by something that you can’t see” (as Faustus put it).
But he asks an important question; why is theory important for magic. Do we need theory at all? Or is it just “intellectual masturbation”? Perhaps we can broaden the question to include all fields of human endeavour; is theory important to any of it? Is theory important for science? I would argue that absolutely it is; theory gives us a chance to test our ideas against reality. If theory matches up with practical result; then our understanding of the phenomenon at hand, the wider universe and our place in it, is deepened and broadened. In this we have more power over our environment. Theory can then guide practice into future fruitful explorations. The discovery of Neptune is case in point; Newtonian mechanics predicted the existence and position of Neptune (calculated by Urbain Le Verrier) before it was actually observed by telescope; the calculations acting as a guide for the observing astronomers). Not bad for a mental ejaculation. It is the predictive and explanatory power of theory that can guide future work in ways not considered before.
The dependency co-arises within a web of mental connections, of perception, and of the meanings attached to that perception at levels from instinctual through emotional, intellectual, and spiritual; the term “Divine” is merely a label to denote that which accurately perceives itself as all dependent and perceptive forms without identifying strongly with any one of them.
This percpeption can be arrived at intellectually and often is; only when experienced can it be truly understood, and only when the Divine Paradox is also understood can it be used to provide a model for LHP magick, and creating effective change within the world.
Charlie’s relationships with what?
I am making the point that minds can exist and perceive without you present.
Which then nullifies using the thought experiment Schrödinger’s cat to refer to any living being, with regards to that living being’s state of being alive/un-alive at the same time, provided not observed.
So, again, using gravitational lensing and the observer effect upon light to refer to the effects of observation on a living being or entity in the past is nullified. Apples and oranges.
It’s a common model used to try and talk people out of thinking magick is real.
It notably fails when put to the test, as indeed the man himself seems to have observed, per the quote above. 
Quantum mechanics is not physical mechanics.
I’m sure you comprehend this, but this is why eggs don’t randomly unbreak on the reg, and the observer effect doesn’t measurably alter things that occur above that scale.
We already have one that works, and which is far simpler to use:
I have a feeling that in trying to reinvent the wheel here, you’ll end up with a circular thing that revolves on an axis and which provides smoother motion than dragging a cart on its shafts…
Indeed, I love a bit of theory and found that exploring this stuff along with the concepts in the Kybalion gave me a useful idea for ritual work, which has proved successful for myself and others.
So no need to apologise, it can be a fun experiment.
As can the 7 Principles provided above, which not only cover the mundane aspects of Neptune’s discovery, but also, why it happened when it did, and how to factor that into astrology, as well as astronomy.
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Umm… Loki knocked on my door 3 times when I evoked him the first time. Not like “knock knock knock” kind of 3 times. I mean, knock several times, I checked while my dogs freaked the hell out. Then back to ritual, knock again. I check again (no one outside and I live in nowhere with no neighbors). Finally, back to ritual, knock again. I stop checking. Loki materializes and I begin interacting with him. He makes a joke about the knocking on the walls and the door. Product of my mind? 
I mean maybe but my dogs don’t bark at nothing, yet they freaked out the whole time.
Just one of many reasons I think it takes more faith to be a “psychological model” guy than it does to be a “spirits are real” guy. I’ve been choked… choked… choked physically by a spirit. I’ve seen poltergeist shit, beyond synchronicity.
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Bravo 
It’s reasonable to call philosophy “mental masturbation”. I use that line of thinking to get out of my own head on a regular basis. The cycle of deep thought can eat up mental energy and lead toward apathy.
But
Well formed philosophical expression is excellent mental exercise. Warlock and Lady Eve have both done an excellent job and have gotten a bump of energy that Aristotle calls Eudaimonia.
For a muggle, eudaimonia is a feeling of comfort, confidence, and bliss that comes from achieving personal goals.
Some people call it Karma, and they aren’t wrong.
To a magician, eudaimonia is one’s mind detecting its own power.
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