Kyrins Jedi Apprentice Training Journal - Alan

LESSON ONE

Wu-Wei
non-action
non-presence
without personal qualities

Dao-de-jing chapters:
48, 64, 29, 43, 57, 58

Wu-Wei is a primary core concept of Taoism or “The Way”. Its translated meaning is "nonaction" or “non-doing” or "effortless action". On its surface the term sounds like a philosophy of relaxation or even laziness but it is not this at all. The text of the Dao De Jing states that “The way never acts, yet nothing is left undone”. This can be a seemingly paradoxical expression. But Wu Wei does not mean lack of action; it means to carry out a task with maximum skill and efficiency. It’s a state of profound concentration or “being in the flow” of things. Its thinking is one closely connected to the natural world in that our efforts should not go against the natural intended course of things. We are to not enforce a will that is outside these things but instead bend to them and come into harmony with them. This will produce the greatest intended results with the least effort. It allows us to separate ourselves from our consciousness and let us respond to the true demand of situations.

This does not mean that we are not able to change or effect things. But instead of taking a violent approach we need to be like water. Water is soft and bends to the shape of its environment while at the same time having the power to carve the hardest rock. This is the concept that we are not to attack a problem with force but instead use careful evaluation to determine proper direction and then apply gentle erosion to the problem. We should not have a controlled or controlling mindset but instead one of passivity and compliance.

In order to understand what effortless action is one must first understand what effort is. I think the best analogy I have ever seen of this is through a test called the Stroop test. This is a test where you are presented with a color in the form of a word. However the text itself is a different color than what the word describes. You are asked to say the color of the text and not the color the word itself represents. For example, say the color of the following two words.


When you are asked to say the color of the first word this should come fairly easy, “BLUE”. However, when you are asked to say the color of the second word, “RED” you are either forced to pause or you said the wrong color and had to correct yourself. It is this feeling of having to stop yourself and override a natural reaction that represents going against the natural flow of Wu Wei. That self-control and effort that is required to process the second word draws energy. So in contrast to that, Wu Wei is a philosophy of least effort to achieve maximum effect.

Employing Wu Wei means that you are very effective and are moving through the world in a very efficient way socially and physically. You don’t have a sense of effort but instead you lose yourself in whatever activity it is you’re involved in. It is a process of naturally attracting things to you vs exerting force or control to obtain them. This is an effective skill of leaders who can draw people to follow them naturally. A true master of Wu Wei acts only with purely natural behaviors or actions aligned with the Tao. Such actions contain no willfulness, no overtly controlling or micromanaging tendencies, no willful strategizing or trying to force things to go a certain way. Instead, those exhibiting Wu Wei simply go with the flow of things.

This philosophy caused me to think about some of my past training, particularly that of magical work. A common definition of magic is the art and science of affecting change in accordance with one’s will. For some, this implies the accessing of esoteric or hidden power within one’s self that is then manifested through that energy field to cause change in one’s environment. This can be an extremely dangerous thing because often times effects or results are manifested that were not intended due to the fact that the magical working was not thought all the way through nor all consequences considered.

In my magical life I have come to believe that this energy field is nothing supernatural that can defy the laws of physics. Instead it is a result of the natural connection we all share and thus works within those laws not outside them. Because of those connections, when we effect change within ourselves, that is recognized by others and they respond to it in a natural way without even consciously recognizing that effect. Of course this can manifest in a positive way or a negative way but that’s not the point of my thought. Instead it is in considering if that sort of action would be in compliance with the philosophy of Wu Wei or not.

I would think that magic, as I have defined it, would fall into this sort of philosophy while the earlier definition may not. I would characterize my definition of magic as one in which you make yourself attractive to a situation or to others in some way vs forcing your will onto them. In this way we manifest things into existence that did not exist previously such as a favorable opinion or a certain attraction. What now “is”, has come from that which previously was “not”, in a natural way. And of course if aspirations manifested within yourself are not the path of the Tao they would not come to pass and we must also accept that. In this acceptance either way, one has not tried to enforce an artificial form of control over the situation and so a natural course of events unfolds. We exist and are a necessary part of the proceedings that unfold but our presence does not unduly influence the course of events in a negative way.

Some might interpret this in such a way as to consider taking no action at all or never take the lead in any action. And while this might be a valid course of action I think a better way to look at it is to only take action after careful consideration of any situation. This will take constant awareness of your environment. It does not matter whether your actions are a reaction to a set of circumstances or if they are initiated by you to set off a course of action. We must be aware of what it is we are trying to accomplish and also accept the consequences for any action we take. This is why it is imperative to always be as informed about what it is you are about to do as possible. This is done through constant self-mindfulness. And we must always keep in mind that, many times, to take no action is the wise “action to take”.

I wanted to take a bit of time detailing my thoughts on each of the assigned chapters of the Dao-de-jing.

Chapter 29
Be in harmony with nature and have balance within yourself. Both sides of our nature should be embraced, deployed with self-control and each side kept in balance with the other. We must understand that both the aggressive and passive sides of our nature also contain elements of the other. We should never be unbounded in anything we do and we should always work in harmony with nature instead of trying to subdue or dominate or control it. The universe is a power beyond our ability to control. It is a sacred thing and everything within it serves a function. We need to remove from our lives any excess or extreme and learn to live in harmony with nature.

Chapter 43
The natural function of things serves us as much or more than us trying to push or force things. What will be, will be no matter how hard we try to make it something else. We need to stop wasting effort and just go more with the flow of things and allow them to become what they were meant to become. Water is shapeless and soft yet its flow will cut the hardest rock or shape the deepest channels. We cannot stop these things or control them. We can only work within these processes for our benefit by allowing the water to do what it does naturally with no effort on our part and be ok with its outcome no matter what that may be.

Chapter 48
Our will should not be enforced because there are other wills and there is the collective will. We will never overcome those without great effort. However the more knowledge and wisdom we gain the more we understand these dynamics and are able to let things that do not affect us go as well as work within the natural flow of others to gain the greatest advantage with the least effort. As we gain knowledge we lose the desire for other things. We strive for a simpler existence.

Chapter 57
To prepare for something you do not want will only bring that thing upon yourself. To prepare for war will bring war. We should not be scheming or conniving in our approach to life. To follow the natural flow of things will bring about the greatest good. We should remain honest and forthright in our approach to things as this will then be revisited back on us. Don’t try to change people or control people. Let them be who they are going to be.

Chapter 58
Less control brings greater prosperity. Greater control brings rebellion. We must be balanced in ourselves and with nature and with others. Non-interference breeds productivity and invention and ingenuity and prosperity. If this is not done the people will turn to devious ways and this is not beneficial.

Chapter 64
Communication not procrastination is the path to peace. Be proactive in your approach to all things. Small issues can grow out of control if they are ignored or not addressed. Let things work themselves out in a natural way but always follow things through to completion by knowing when to act and when not to act. Balance is the key and undue attachment to ideas, concepts, plans, desires or possessions are not beneficial. Instead constant adjustment and following the flow of a situation brings about positive results.



I want to close this lesson with a few relevant real world examples of the use of Wu Wei. The first is in our career lives. Our career/job is something that can be quite difficult and stressful with little opportunity for advancement or it can be something that we seem to glide through with little or no effort and still achieve great things and amazing advancements. It does not matter what job or position we have. We can take any station in life and bring it to a place of advantage if we practice the principles of Wu Wei.

It is up to us in which way our career/job goes and those that are most successful in their careers are using these Wu Wei concepts. This starts with a total awareness or mindfulness of our work environments as well as those we work under and work with. The political environment of the work place is one of either low politics where everyone is supportive and there is little division among colleagues, medium politics where there are highly cohesive teams but some competition among those teams or high politics where individuals are more prone to conflict and competition.

Just as office politics function in this way, individual personalities operate as well. People are either purists, that function well in cohesive cooperative environments, team players that function well in smaller teams or individualists that function best on their own. It is best to quickly evaluate which political environments we work in and what individual personalities the people we work with exhibit so that we can identify key persons to build strong and strategic relationships with. This takes a high level of emotional intelligence to evaluate the motivations and intent of others. However once we have those points identified we can work within those parameters to seamlessly navigate our work environment.

It’s about more than just getting along. It’s about leveraging those inherent qualities in every interaction and situation to your advantage with the least amount of effort. We build mutually beneficial strategic relationships with those key people in our work environment and avoid those that can only serve to the detriment of goals. By employing tactics of collaboration, demonstrating mutual respect, offering help and guidance and controlling emotion in accordance with the natural flows of our environment we can benefit ourselves the greatest with the least amount of effort. Others will see us in a positive manner and will reciprocate those things. These tactics lead to effortless cooperation, reward, advancement and promotion. It will seem to others like these things just come to us with no exertion on our parts.

Lastly I considered how to apply Wu Wei in something like quitting smoking or losing weight. These are two things that most people consider incredibly hard to do. So, on the surface, the practice of Wu Wei may imply to not try to do these things since self-discipline seems to grind against our natural tendencies so much of the time. It’s so much easier to not be hyper focused on our weight and eat what we want or give in to our cravings.

But Wu Wei is not about taking the obviously easy path. It’s about a way of living. If we approach these things from an intellectual standpoint through a process of self-discipline we will fail every time. What we must do is tackle these things from an emotional standpoint. Take small steps and be happy with where we are in our accomplishments. Our bodies know what needs to change for its betterment. We need to listen to our bodies and take things at a natural pace in harmony with that. I think over time the small changes we make to improve our weight or get rid of a bad habit will become second nature. We stop thinking about those things and we just do them. Before you know it you have reached your goals with what seemed to be no effort at all.

For me Wu Wei is not only about following a natural flow in your own life but also allowing that flow in all things. People spend so much time complaining about this issue or that issue and they make statements to the effect of “if we could just get everyone to understand things in X Y or Z terms this world would be a much better place”. I think those people are missing the point of Wu Wei. As a species we will never be able to achieve a state of nirvana or a “heaven on earth” or a global “higher state of consciousness” or whatever you want to call it.

People are individuals and every single one has their own experiences and opinions and no matter how hard we try we will never be able to bring that into a single state of consensus. I think Wu Wei is about letting that idea go and allowing people to be who they are and believe as they do and be ok with that just as much a within ourselves. We will never achieve a state of perfection in this life because I think that goes against what the Tao wants. It is in our diversity that we find the natural flow of life, not conformity. Instead we must strive for harmony and balance as much as possible not only within ourselves but with others and our environment and be ok, even happy in that.

LESSON TWO SUPPLEMENTAL
Questions asked by my Mentor and my responses


My Text: “If any definition is left up to the individual then…”
Alan's Response: What do you think of the idea that some interpretations (definitions) are better than others? What makes one interpretation better than another?

My Answer: As cognitive beings we form concepts in our minds. But if we want to share those concepts, they can only take on a value outside ourselves when we are able to communicate them to others. We use definitions to do this. The formation of a concept isn’t really complete until you have a definition that you can communicate outside yourself. These definitions are typically expressed in words and they attach the specifics and necessary sufficient conditions for the concept (which can also be expressed in a word or words, Jedi as an example) to be a member of a specific set. Basically a definition can be taken to be a statement of the essence of a thing.

For example, A Christian can principally be defined as a follower of the teachings of Christ. This is the essence of a Christian. The details and interpretations of those teachings and the myriad of sects that evolve out of those details is irrelevant. Any Christian, no matter whether they call themselves Baptist or Catholic or Evangelical and all the descriptions that entail those denominations, can still basically be defined as a follower of the teachings of Christ. This is a basic, core, universal representation of what a Christian is no matter the details of his or her personal belief or interpretation of those teachings.

Definitions allow us to define and quantify our reality. If someone tells you they are an honest person, how would you know what they meant without a definition of what Honest was? By having the definition of honesty clear in one’s mind it helps us to comprehend that when one is a liar, they are not an honest person. The behavior of the individual will conform to the actual reality of them either being honest or being a liar as defined by the definition. So one cannot truly call themselves honest while they are a liar.

So an accurate definition of a term allows us to define the reality of that concept. If I call myself a Jedi and I have a definition of a Jedi I cannot then behave as a Christian and yet call myself a Jedi. The two are mutually exclusive since the definitions we use to describe them differ. This is important because when I identify myself as Jedi to others I want them to have the most accurate definition that most closely conforms to reality of what it means to be a Jedi. The accurate definition of Jedi is the way to communicate to others what a Jedi is so they can distinguish one who belongs to the set of Jedi from one who belongs to the set of Christian, as an example.

In order to be practically functional, this definition of Jedi must be at the most basic level, universal and describe the necessary conditions and specifics that are to be included in the set of Jedi. This is a definition that confirms most closely to the reality of what a Jedi is without defining any details or specifics of individual belief or experience and can be recognized universally by anyone in possession of the definition. Anything outside these parameters becomes muddled and confusing to communicate or interpret.




My Text: “Archetypes are a major component of this function. They are highly developed structures of our hidden psyche that emerge in our species as a result of our shared experiences across cultures and time.”
Alan's Response: What if the ‘shared experiences’ are the result of the evolutionary adaptations of the human species? Hidden in the sense that we have hunter-gatherer brains incapable of understanding our own evolutionary biology. Might the order we make of the universe merely one of the adaptations of our evolutionary biology? By ‘order of the universe’ I could also have called it ‘cosmos’ or ‘Force’ or ‘Dao’.

My Answer: I absolutely think that much of the Archetype structure is there as a result of evolutionary adaptations. Jung describes the subconscious as being two separate but interacting systems. The first is our personal unconscious, consisting of forgotten information and repressed memories as well as collections of thoughts, feelings, attitudes and memories that focus on a single concept. Jung called these collections “Complexes”.

Beneath this personal unconscious lies our transpersonal or collective unconscious. This is a level of unconscious shared with other members of the human species comprising latent memories from our ancestral and evolutionary past. At this level the human mind has innate characteristics “imprinted” on it as a result of evolution. The symbols from different cultures are often very similar because they have emerged from archetypes shared here by the entire human race. So in effect our primitive past becomes the basis of our human psyche.

Jung claimed to identify a large number of archetypes but paid special attention to four – the persona or our outward face, the anima/animus or the mirror image of our biological sex, the shadow or our animal side and the self or our unified psyche as a whole. I believe these four core archetypes make up the most basic building blocks of who we are. Beyond that I think other archetypes emerge as a result of the interaction between our collective unconscious and the “Complexes” of our personal unconscious.

This is the reason some of us identify with an archetype such as the Warrior Monk while others do not. It is a combination of our evolution combined with our personal experiences and how that interaction has influenced us to become who we are. I believe that as sentient beings we do ponder the nature of our existence and we can’t help but try to understand that. But because of the nature of existence (called the cosmos or Force or Dao) and our own limited corporeal nature we can never truly grasp but small parts of it.

These comprehensions will emerge in our “self” as archetypes that we find personally meaningful and aspire to understand better. This process will be different for each individual since we all have unique combinations of collective and personal subconscious as well as ego consciousness. So while our core archetypes are common among all, these otherwise uniquely emerging combinations of other archetypes are how we each personally make sense of something that is otherwise unfathomable.

I have always found Jungs theories particularly fascinating. I believe his theories speak well to who we are and the energies we manifest as discrete beings. Many will say that when they find perfect love that their partner has “completed them”. I don’t buy into this idea. I think we are each complete and whole unto ourselves. In other words, we each contain all qualities/archetypes we need to be whole, both masculine and feminine energy and etc. But it is when we find that perfect partner, lover or even a friend that we deeply connect with it is because each can manifest energies that perfectly compliment the other. I have always had a strong relationship with my anima and my wife complements that perfectly because she has always had a strong relationship with her animus.

To put it more succinctly, I function most times in a realm of feminine energy and she functions in a realm of masculine energy. We are each whole in ourselves but it is the melding of our energies in harmony that creates a new wholly complete creation. To me this is the Dao or Force of whatever you would like to call it. You can’t describe it because not only are you are a part of it, you are also that in its entirety. The macro is the micro and that is something you may glimpse but never fully know. You can only really ever experience it but never capture it.




My Text: “We need to understand what a Jedi is in purely mythological terms. This needs to be a universal definition from the collective unconscious that encompasses all who call themselves Jedi no matter what specifics they believe or follow. We need to look at the very archetype of Jedi.”
Alan's Response: What about a warrior monk who is not ascetic? Develop this archetype to include other kinds of lifestyles. The discipline of the warrior applied to the study of…

My Answer: I tried very hard to find a definition that would encompass all aspects of a basic Jedi lifestyle while leaving out all extraneous or subjective elements. It seems that I have not quite met that criteria as of yet. When I used the word Ascetic I think my intent was to use it in its more original sense or meaning. The original usage did not refer to self-denial so much as to the physical training required for athletic or other events. Its usage evolved from there to include rigorous practices that are used in all major religious traditions, in varying degrees to attain redemption and higher spirituality. However, I do see your point that in modern usage this term could be misconstrued and in general does limit my definition.

I still believe the usage of Warrior Monk is valid but I also think the definition needs to be refined somewhat. While we are at it lets convert Warrior Monk to Jedi.

A Jedi is a modern day embodiment of the Archetype of Warrior Monk. A Jedi combines aspects of being a monk, such as deep spiritual and sacred devotion to her path and a constant pursuit of knowledge while striving to maintain a balance and harmony with the forces of nature as she defines them, with being a warrior, trained in the arts of fitness, discipline and patience as well as the capability to engage in conflict, (sometimes violent conflict). A Jedi is one who strives to achieve the highest levels of training in these areas so that she may protect herself, her ideals and any other life that cannot protect itself while exercising what she considers to be her rightful political, economic and spiritual rights in the never ending search for truth and wisdom.

I think this refined definition much better defines what a Jedi is. There are certain aspects of a Jedi’s lifestyle that should be universal to all Jedi. One of the most important is having a spiritual sense of connection to “cosmos” or force etc. (however the individual defines it) and a desire to achieve balance and harmony with that. In this case it does not matter whether they live an ascetic life or not. It’s up to the individual to define the parameters of their life that attunes them with their spiritual side. The important part is that they pursue that attunement, not the details of that pursuit. Other very important core aspects of a Jedi are the constant betterment of mind and body through the persistent pursuit of knowledge and physical training as well as a sense of greater connection to other life. A Jedi should have a willingness to do what it takes to improve and protect not only their life and inherent rights but any other life’s wellbeing as well. This extends beyond just human life to ALL life, no matter the form.




My Text: “Maybe it’s another evolution of our journey from magic to religion to science;”
Alan's Response: What if there is no progress from one form of thinking to another? Magic has its own logic and explanations regarding causality, as does religion. Magic and religion are only other ways of explaining causality, that is, how and why things happen. Each of these ways of explaining causality might co-exist in a particular way of thinking. Science is simply another kind of thinking with its own criteria for explaining causality.

My Answer: This question was one that I found most intriguing. I think maybe a better way to express this concept is not that we are on a progression from religion through magic to science. Instead I think a better way to consider the progress of our relationship to these three models is one of refinement and separation. When man first emerged on this planet and began to build the first civilizations religion, magic and science were all rolled into one ball so to speak. There was no clear delineation between the three. Man was at the mercy of nature and his own superstitions and ignorance. But as we have progressed through the millennia we have begun to separate and refine these three concepts into separate and distinct models that each have a distinct yet separate function in our lives.

Religion has evolved to be a way for us to define those things in our lives that we find awe in. It is the infinite and it is Deity. It is those things we find greater than us that are really incompressible to our finite minds. These are forces outside our control (whether sentient or not) that can affect the very fabric of our existence. Religion is less purpose-motivated but has its sights set on longer-term goals. Religion is dependent upon the will and sentiment of the gods or other such “forces of nature”.

Magic on the other hand is concerned with bringing some aspect of the forces of religion under our control or influence in some way to effect some change. Rather than leaving things to the will of the universe magic is used to bring the universe to our will. Magic is unconcerned with establishing causality, only repeatability and it is employed to achieve clear and immediate goals for an individual. Unlike religion, magic is a technical exercise that often requires professional skills to fulfil an action. Ritual is an example of this.

Science on the other hand is concerned with causality. It is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. It is a study of the material world and empirical observation. Subjects like biology, mathematics, social interactions and chemistry are the focus.

It is a postulate of Frazer that there is a complete continuity between magic and religion and science. In his book he tries to establish some fundamental distinction between magic and religion and science with the idea the magic emerged out of religion and in turn magic is a form of proto-science or pseudoscience. I think this may be true to some extent But instead of one emerging from the other I think they all have always existed and over time we have just been able to distinguish them from one another. We started out with a complete lack of knowledge of our universe but over time as we learned more and more about the nature of the world we live in we were able to separate the religious vs the magical vs the scientific aspects of our lives from each other.

However that does not mean that one aspect has gained or will ever gain more dominance over the others. Just because we exist in a very scientific world that we continue to learn more and more about every day does not mean that we will ever get to the point where religion or magic will eventually go away in our lives. I think our existence can be defined as being made up of multiple facets that can be described as body, mind and spirit. I think each of these areas can be served by different paradigms of religion, magic and science. Science serves us well in a corporeal aspect. It allows us to explain and understand the workings of our corporeal world which in turn gives us better lives through technology and medicine for example. But when it comes to those aspects of our lives that we will never be able to comprehend such as an infinite universe or the workings of time itself or the emotions we feel those aspects of who we are can, often times, best be served through our religious practices. And finally our spirit is best served through our magical connections. It is our will and our determination and our drive to be better, to do better and achieve things we never thought we could ever achieve both personally and as a species.

In the end I think these things all serve each other in the never ending spiral that is life. Over time they evolve and change and morph but they always remain relevant in some form because they are as much a part of our existence as any other thing we experience in life. They can be denied but they can never be eradicated.

LESSON FOUR

If you find some more of [The Birth of Tragedy] that interests you, please post more. One of the aspects of our shared Jedi influences from neo-paganism and Shinto is the worldview or self-view that we are not separate from the earth. Both religions (and Nietzsche) reject the dualism of subject/object, a thing with properties. I'd be very interested in reading more about your relationship with nature. If it is not distinct from who we are then...



Why is there something rather than nothing at all? This is the greatest of sublime and awesome mysteries; not how the world works but why the world exists at all. This is a question we as a species have been obsessed with since the beginning of our history. Leibnitz was one of the first to ask “why do we exist?” For him this was a simple question to answer, the world exists because God created it from nothingness. But this begs the question, “Why does God exist and where did he come from”? This leads to an infinite regression – Who created God and who created the thing that created God and so on. To leave God out of it we might take a Buddhist approach. Instead we could see the world as nothingness and it is simply our desires that enslave us to believing there is something. And if we release our desires so they no longer have a hold on us we will then begin to see the world for what it truly is, nothing. But if there truly is nothing, then why am I here pondering this question?

To an atheist none of the answers found in religion are satisfactory. Instead he may turn to science. And in fact physicists have posited theories of the emergence of “existence” from nothing through quantum fluxuation out of the void. These are highly complicated mathematical hypotheses that I won’t go into here. The problem with these sorts of hypotheses is one again of emergent property. It equates the laws of nature to something similar to divine commands. It implies that they have some sort of ontological power to inform the abyss that it’s pregnant with being and thus call a universe to existence out of nothing. But these laws of physics are nothing more than representations of patterns in nature and as such they don’t exist outside the universe, time or space. Therefore how can they call a world into existence before they themselves exist? In essence equations can’t breathe life into reality. So we are again left with the question, “Why do these laws and their representative patterns in nature, that we experience in this reality, exist, instead of nothing at all?

To take this one step further we might contemplate to ourselves, “Why this particular universe and not another”? There are endless combinations of valid and perfectly cohesive amalgamations of mathematical laws that could have given rise to a reality. So why this particular one? Is there a reason? Did some form of intelligence or otherwise ontological power pick this particular combination for some purpose beyond our ability to ascertain? Of course this gives rise to the notion that ours is not the only reality that exists. In fact there are theories in physics that describe the possibility that every valid combination of universe that could exist does exist. However we only have visibility into the tiniest sliver of this “multiverse” reality in the fact that we can only perceive our particular universe. This idea goes back to Plato who first put forth the notion of “The Principle of Plenitude” which asserts that the universe contains all possible forms of existence. This is the idea that the nature of reality is one that drives it to become as comprehensive as it possibly can be as a form of completeness or fullness and thus perfection. What this concept means is that reality is and quite possibly always has been as far removed from nothingness as it could conceivably be.

Given these ideas, can we ever discern the nature of our reality or why we exist at all? While I don’t think we can ever know with definitive certainty the answers to these questions I think we can make some inferences to arrive at a probable answer. Obviously there is something and not nothing simply because of the fact that we are here considering it. By that same token it seems fairly obvious that we do not live in a perfect multiverse reality. We have strife and suffering and pain and struggle. If we were to live in a perfect reality those things would be meaningless to us. We would have no conception of them and in turn our choices would become meaningless. Any struggle an individual would have with a moral question, for example, would entail an infinite number of different versions of that individual making the correct choice and an infinite number of that individual making the incorrect choice. So any choice made would become worthless and in turn our existence would be pointless. Thus the need for reality would become pointless and we would be right back at nothingness again. So what we can conclude from all this is that, for some reason beyond our comprehension, reality is necessary and that reality must be a generic, mediocre, randomly selected reality.

So what is the mechanism that drives this selection? We are really left with two choices. Either there is some force that is external to reality that is driving this or there is something that is inherent within reality itself that is driving this. The idea that we can contemplate questions about seemingly emergent abstract concepts like where consciousness, free choice, morality, mathematics or laws of logic come from give rise to the notion that there might be "something more" to our subjective experience than just matter moving around. We have this perception that our minds seem to be something distinct from our bodies; that our consciousness goes on after physical death in some form of energy spirit or soul; that morality or the laws of logic are absolute and were created by some force that exists somewhere outside physical reality. We humans have this capacity to prop ourselves up and contemplate the idea that we are an anomaly within nature, that we were placed here and exist within this universe by some ongoing external process to function as a “special case”; that we are made up of both physicality and some form of spirit. This is the concept of dualism.

The fallacy in much of this lies in the fact that things such as morality or the laws of physics do not really exist outside of our own perceptions of them. In my mind, to ask where morality comes from begs the question, “Well, where is it now?” If “it” came from somewhere then “it” must be somewhere now. But to ask where morality is now is nonsensical and thus the original question as to where it came from also becomes nonsensical. It didn’t come from anywhere, it is nothing more than a construct of our own minds over time. These concepts are just abstract properties that our brains treat as existing "out there". In actuality they are representations we use to describe the reality we experience. In that sense, they exist but they exist only as patterns within physics. They are concepts that we use to organize our thinking about the single, physical substance in which we are embedded.

So what about us personally? Is our mind separate from our body or do we have a soul? When it comes to dualism of the self, there are two possibilities. The first possibility is that an ethereal realm exists that houses some spiritual component of our being but it doesn't influence physical events. In this case, what is it supposed to accomplish? Why do we need an entirely separate non-physical thing if it doesn't contribute anything? You might say that the extra substance explains why we have a sensation of "something more" but that's not right, because the statement that "there's something more" is happening within physics, and if the ethereal isn't affecting the physical, then physics itself accounts for why you feel there's something more. But if physics itself explains why you feel there's something more, then nothing is added by assuming there is something more and any concepts of the supernatural become meaningless.

The second possibility is that some spiritual component of our being exists in this ethereal realm and does have interaction with physical components. Examples of this could include our ethereal “mind” having interaction with and influence over our physical brain or our physical bodies functioning as vehicles for our ethereal soul/consciousness or even a transcendent God interacting with his creation. However if this is the case, the idea that these two separate components are functioning in two separate realms become superfluous. Anything considered ethereal that has influence over the physical becomes a part of the system it is influencing and so the need for the “extra-physical” is not needed. Instead the ethereal realm just becomes a different part of physics in the physical realm; albeit maybe a part we don’t fully understand as of yet. If the natural force of gravity, for example, can be overridden or otherwise manipulated in a manner beyond what we currently understand there must be some means, such as a physical law we are as of yet unaware of, that regulates this. The same thing goes for telepathy or any other ability labeled as supernatural or paranormal. In this case the supernatural just becomes the natural.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with the ultimate synthesis. A synthesis between nature and the supernatural and ultimately between nothingness and everything. It espouses the idea that “everything” is necessary. There are no unnecessary aspects to reality. The void would not be, without the universe. It would become meaningless. Both the void and the universe are but facets of what is actually one thing. There are no component parts as we might try to define them and it is actually perfect in what we perceive as its imperfections. Our experiences of opposing forces in reality of good and evil, suffering and joy, pain and ecstasy, living and dead are really just aspects of a single neutral balance that the very essence of reality endeavors to be. Because we exist within that dynamic we experience those things as “separate, opposite” parts or sides of a duality in our lives but at the core of reality they really don’t exist. We, as individual aspects of realty, perceive them as such only because it is necessary so that the universe may become aware of itself and experience itself.

For me, this is “why” the universe exists – simply because it is better to exist than to not exist. And to exist without experiencing that existence is futile. We are creations way of experiencing itself through this mysterious emergent property of consciousness. Anything beyond that, we can never know. For example, this idea does not answer the question of whether a God exists or not, nor should it. All it really says is that if God (or Goddess) does exist, that entity is an immanent part of creation. In the end we each need to answer the question of whether some form of sentient Deity exists or not for ourselves. And if we come to the conclusion that a Deity does exist, we should then strive to use our experience and critical thinking to discover what that Deities nature and character are.

To ascribe a poetic aspect to my view of reality, Goddess is reality itself and we are her sentience. I view the universe as having given birth to itself, simply because it could do nothing less and that is an aspect of nature that is definitely a feminine trait so I describe it as such. If that is the case then everything intrinsic of that occurrence is a part of it. We are not transcendent of nature nor placed here by some external (or internal) entity to subdue our surroundings. Instead we are an innate part of nature itself – not born in nature but born of nature as brief unique manifestations that allow Goddess (creation, the universe, etc) to experience herself. We don’t come from anywhere and we don’t rejoin anything when our time as these “bubbles of coalesced energy” is over. We simply bubble up, exist for a bit and then “pop” and meld back into the medium we formed in. We were already an intrinsic ingredient of Her in nature before and we will always be after and there will never be two that are identical.

We as a species not only naturally perceive the world as made up of contrasting components and conflicting dynamics, but I think that because we each want to view ourselves as special or singly exceptional, we actually actively resist or fight against the melding of these aspects of nature into what could be considered their true nature as necessary components of one other. I think that Nietzsche tapped into this concept as well in his “Birth of Tragedy”. The early Greeks characterized this separation in the Gods Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo is the God of reason, calm, wisdom, logical thinking and the rational while Dionysus represents chaos, emotion, instinct and impulse, runaway passion, sex and madness. They saw this as a duality in nature and actively depicted them as separate components. However over time they began to recognize that each of us carry both aspects of Apollo and Dionysus. There is the side in each of us that wants to understand and longs for calm and wisdom and then there is the side of us that is drawn to darkness, chaos, sexuality and madness. They came to the idea that it is not the suppression or eradication of one side of our nature or the separation of them or ourselves from each other that we should strive for. Instead we should strive for the synthesis of both sides of our nature. They saw this same interaction in the universe itself and so they merged these two contrasting dynamics into a single harmonious balance in the Greek Tragedy. They had glimpsed the idea that this was the true nature of creation, one of synthesis and harmony in the balance of both sides that are actually one.

Nietzsche writes a lot about our perceptions of duality and how they play out in our lives. I really like another concept that he writes about and that is the idea of master and slave morality. Nietzsche argued that there were two fundamental types of morality: 'Master morality' and 'Slave morality'. Slave morality values things like kindness, humility, and sympathy, while master morality values pride, strength, and nobility. For example when it comes to a concept such as envy, it is generally considered to be a negative or evil emotion. But according to master morality there is nothing wrong with envy as long as we use it as a guide to what we desire. Things that make us envious should be used as indicators to what we might one day become. It’s not that we will defiantly achieve those things one day but we should face up to our true desires and put up a heroic fight to achieve what we want. This is the concept of being a superman. On the other hand to have slave morality is to lack the stomach to fight for what we really desire in life. Instead they make virtues of this cowardice. It is a philosophy of denouncing what they desire because they lack the drive to pursue it and instead praise what they did not want but already have. This is a herd mentality where sexual abstinence turns to purity, weakness turns to goodness, submission become obedience and vengeance gives way to forgiveness.

Nietzsche equated slave morality to a giant machine for bitter denial vs the master morality mentality of living dangerously and boldly. He saw these different dynamics played out in Christian vs pagan (Satanist) ways of life. The first espouses an absolute morality and a division from a fallen nature while the second rejects any form of absolute morality and an embracing of nature as a perfect part of us. Joseph Campbell speaks of this as well when he contrasts various myths as either depicting nature as fallen (Christian) or nature as a natural manifestation of divinity itself (pagan). It seems to me that we can also see this same dynamic in Jedi vs Sith mentalities. I wrote extensively about my views on the Jedi doctrine at this temple and my issues with it. In fact I have modified most of the Jedi doctrine in my studies here for my personal use to better fit my view of life, which leans much more heavily towards a Pagan or Master morality perspective but one that also rejects the apparent duality of nature.

I consider my personal “doctrine” the view of being the balance between the Jedi and Sith opposite ends. I think Nietzsche would have called this a revaluation of morals. This is the exaltation of life rather than the focus on suffering, abstinence and denial. It is an acceptance of our every instinct and the pursuit of our every “lust” as a natural part or who we are. Every characteristic of our makeup is valid and worthy of pursuit not sinful or evil or something to be denied. It is embracing our sexuality and having a reverence for the power of the creation of life vs the demonization of the female form as one that caused the fall of the world. We must realize that, as Campbell says, “We each need to answer the question of whether we are going to say yes to the adventure or no to the adventure.” We need to realize that “Love of the adventure is the burning point of life that contains both joy and sorrow and to say no to life because of its pain is a childish attitude because love is the pain of being truly alive.” To take up the adventure is to embrace our undeniable place as a part of nature in its true syncretic state.

It is because of this philosophy of life for me personally, that I rejected Christianity. For that matter it’s also the reason I rejected Buddhism as well, but found Paganism so appealing. Even so, my paganism has evolved greatly over the last 10 years and continues to evolve today. When I started in Paganism I called myself eclectic, embracing a philosophy of taking components from many different pantheons and mingling them together. Then I found a formal Dianic tradition and studied under that for many years. During that time I liked the idea of no longer having to force components of different paradigms together. However in the end it was the dogma and rigid doctrine that I found stifling and so I left that path as well, to continue my search. That was when I stumbled upon Jediism.

Through all of this, and all my life really, I have studied as much philosophy and other spiritual systems as I could. Much of what I study does not align with my personal view of life but I have come to know a few specific philosophies of life that speak to me and so I have incorporated them into my spirituality. Shinto is one that believes in an animistic view of the world. I believe Goddess is immanent in all creation so this speaks to me. I also follow aspects of some Native American traditions. Mostly Cherokee because I have Cherokee in my ancestry and Sioux because I grew up with them in the Black Hills. They consider all life sacred and every act an act of worship. They strive to walk the red road of peace and not the black road of war and death. They have a strong connection to the land and to nature as well and live is a symbiosis with nature. To accept the adventure is to accept that life is made up of suffering as well as joy and because of that there are times when you will have to fight. So I have also begun studying the Bushido way. It is a warrior’s code of frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honor until death. I find it quite appealing given my background as a United States Marine and especially since I have recently taken up Taekwondo and Koryo Gumdo sword.

Finally, my Jediism is showing me how to live all these aspects of my spirituality in a syncretic fashion. This is a perfect blending of these things into one full and rich spirituality for me verses my previous eclectic “attaching on” of things in a haphazard fashion. It has taught me that spirituality is not something to do but something to be. I had always considered my spirituality as something “out there” but instead what I am finding is that, just as we are one with nature, our spirituality is one with us. In the end we will never know the absolute truth of why reality exists. But the point of existing is not discovering the answer but taking the journey in search of the answer. As Campbell says, to say yes to the adventure and embrace the journey as an integral part of this universe with all its joys and sorrows as it was meant to be. In fact it can be no other way and in that pursuit I think we will find that the conclusions we each derive will be just as different as the individual but just as valid to the universe.

LESSON FIVE –
Part Two


CHAPTER TWO – What Does It Mean to Be Conscious?
There is probably nothing in our world that is more familiar to us than our own personal consciousness. Physicalists will try to argue that our consciousness is something physical while Functionalists try to give a functional account and so forth. However these are limited to bounds of the theory itself. But when we delve beneath the surface of these theories and begin to ask what is included in consciousness we get wildly different answers. If we can’t even define what should be included how can we develop a theory about “What it is?”

One might say that being conscious means being awake. But what about subconscious states or dream states. To begin to answer this most basic question we need to explore what sort of things are conscious. We can begin by exploring our environment. For example it appears that rocks do not have consciousness. So we can conclude that consciousness exists in living things. Unless of course you ascribe to the concept of Panpsychism which claims that everything including non-living systems has some degree of consciousness. But if we put that aside for the moment we can concentrate on living systems where consciousness seems to be more evident.

So how do you know when you’re conscious? What criteria do we use? Does it entail memory, self-awareness, emotion, behavior? Many earlier philosophers concluded that it was our ability for introspection that gave us consciousness. Descartes said “I think, therefore I am”. The idea that one is aware they are thinking means they are conscious. But how do we tell if another entity outside ourselves is conscious? We can never be absolutely certain that any other organism is conscious but one fairly safe conclusion would be that, from a practical point of view, it’s probably safe to assume that at least other humans possess a similar capacity. But where does that consciousness reside?

We know that we can use anesthesia to induce an unconscious state. Anesthesia affects neural circuits so is that where consciousness resides? If we explore that question we find we can’t get from simple physical electrical impulses and chemical transmitters to the conscious experience. There is no apparent mechanism to bridge that gap. Maybe there is no “center of consciousness” at all. Experiments have been done on “Split brain” patients where it appears that some form of independent conscious state operates for each hemisphere of the brain. Each one is unknown to the other, raising the question as to whether there is any way to pin down where consciousness resides.

In light of this, it’s been suggested that consciousness is actually a “collection of capacities” that have evolved over time. This would explain the apparent different levels of consciousness in animal’s verses humans. This could also mean that every living thing has some level of consciousness but that will be different based on the evolutionary complexity of their mental processes. I think this would start at an instinctual level. The sensing of pain, or sounds, or sights and then progressing towards cognition as more and more complex faculties are added. The most robust collections of these capabilities will lead to self-awareness and social interactions on a societal level as is the case with humans. In this case the term consciousness is applied to a variety of distinct phenomena each of which requires its own explanation.

Three approaches could be applied in this search. The first would be a search for “necessary and sufficient conditions.” These must be applied and met in order for the term to apply. This would be a difficult undertaking. For example if you specified memory as a necessary and sufficient condition for consciousness then those that suffer from amnesic syndrome would be disqualified although the remain conscious in every other way. The second approach would be through familial association. In this method one identifies families of attributes that are somewhat similar but also somewhat different. An example of this would be the term ‘game.” A game is simply a convenient label for a family of things that are somewhat similar and somewhat different. The third and final approach would be through prototype theory. This eliminates the need to fulfill necessary and sufficient conditions and leaves us simply with a search for prototypes. This is a method of categorizing things in paradigms. In order to construct a theory of consciousness we need to use these methods to be clear about precisely what phenomena one is describing.

The author of the book then goes into detailed explanations about many of the theories of consciousness currently being explored today. These include the Cartesian view that Descartes put forward as the conscious mind is a “thing that thinks” to several high order theories that state consciousness arises from the relation between mental states and finally a theory of global workspace where mental process all compete for the ability to broadcast their information. Most of these theories are quite abstract and as far as I could comprehend almost completely useless in describing consciousness in any sort of practical terms. However the last part of the chapter briefly touches on a few “other approaches” to consciousness and these seemed to ring much truer for me so I want to briefly touch on those.

The first is the idea of “Biological Naturalism”. This is the idea that consciousness is a causally emergent property of interactions among systems of neurons in the brain. It is indeterminate as to exactly which sorts of interactions cause this but the conclusion is that consciousness is not reducible to brain states because the subjective experience that is essential to it can’t be eliminated. This leaves consciousness in a state of being all its own but not necessarily one of substance or physical dualism. In fact the theory claims these distinctions are mistakes because neither God nor the mind is objectively viewable. Instead “Mind” is a real part of a real world as consciousness is both a cause of events in the body and a response to events in the body.

The second theory I found intriguing was one called “The Mysteria”. It argues that our minds are so constituted that it is impossible for us to ever understand consciousness. Our minds are simply not able to form the concepts we would need in order to understand it. It would be analogous to a mouse trying to understand quantum physics. It states that consciousness surely arises from properties of the brain but because the brain is physical our concepts of brain properties are essentially spatial while our concepts of consciousness are not. Because of this we will remain incapable of forming concepts that encompass the two. Thus the nature of consciousness will forever remain a mystery to us. Of course the mystery remains the challenge right? We don’t stop at the mystery. I equate this to the study of spirituality in general. We will never unravel the true mystery of creation but we will forever search for the meaning and origin of that anyway. It is the journey that is important, not the destination. So in effect the search for consciousness may never reveal what it is or where is resides but that is not as important as exploring the questions.

The final theory I found interesting was one called “Eliminativism”. This is the idea that there really is no such thing as consciousness. It says that if you list any number of phenomena that could be included in the paradigm of consciousness any of these could also be programmed into a machine to make it function in the same way. However we would still not consider that machine conscious. Therefore consciousness really does not exist at all… except in our minds. (LOL! had to throw that in) Counters to this argument entail the spontaneous emergence of feelings and emotion that a programmed machine would never have or the ability to deviate from that programming.

The questioning of whether consciousness is even real or not leads us to another question. What is the function of consciousness anyway? It is possible that consciousness might have no function at all. However that seems counterintuitive. One of the most commonly put forth ideas is that consciousness gives us flexibility in our dealings with our environment. It would seem impractical for evolution to hardwire every aspect of our behavior so instead it came up with a system to replace this otherwise rigid reflex mechanism with flexible guidance systems that can respond dynamically to a variety of stimuli. It enhances our chances of surviving and thriving in a social context as well, by allowing us to attribute to others the same sorts of motivations expectations and interests in the form of introspection.

All this leaves us struggling to make sense of ourselves to ourselves. What is this “Ghost in the Machine” that we experience? Is it real or is it something we just made up? I think the struggle to find this answer has often times led us to fill in the gaps of the nature of our existence with religion. We have used Gods or otherwise supernatural forces existing outside of our reality to explain why we are here, what our purpose is and how we experience reality as we do. But it obviously goes much deeper than this. It is our struggle to consolidate these two realms into a single cohesive composition that drives our spirituality as Pagans/Jedi. The idea that Deity is not a transcendent being or even an immanent one. In fact Deity/The Force is not an entity at all but an experience. I think of consciousness in a similar way; that it is an extension of, or interlink to, creation, To Goddess herself, if you will.

These Forces of Goddess/The Force and consciousness are not physical. They are the very underlying aspects of the essence of the fabric of space-time itself. There they intertwine these two aspects of our reality, spatial and spiritual that can never be broken apart, for they are really one thing. We are free to choose our path but only within their will. Because in the end, they always determine our destiny. Any attempt to circumnavigate that only brings us closer to our fate. We are the conduit that Goddess uses to experience herself though her senses made up of each living creature’s individual consciousness. This is the nature of “Goddess/The Force” in relation to our conscious conception of the human condition. But the enigma in the search for the meaning in this relationship between Goddess/The Force and consciousness is where things get a bit paradoxical. Because the deeper we delve into their mysteries the more we begin to comprehend our place in creation. That is in so much as we attain purpose in the pursuit of these questions, we are as equally doomed to the fact that these mysteries are not meant to be understood.

LESSON FIVE –
Part Four


CHAPTER FOUR – Did the Mind Evolve?
This seems to be a self-evident question given the overwhelming factual evidence that the scientific theory of evolution is the only valid explanation of our current state of existence. However evolution does not answer the question of abiogenesis, namely the origin of life. Where did life come from and why is it here? More importantly is it a completely natural process or is there a mystical component to it that exists outside or throughout physical creation that governs reality? If this “super-real phenomenon” exists did it create our mind as well in a process outside the natural laws of nature we know? When considering such things it’s a good critical thinking practice to consider whether or not a theory is consistent with other theories you take to be true. So we evaluate to see if such a thing as mind could spring fully formed from nothingness or if it is a thing that could have evolved slowly over time.

If we take a book such as the bible and compare its account of the origins of living things, it is quite different from that of an evolutionary standpoint. According to Genesis all plants and animals sprung to life in an instant and have remained virtually unchanged from that time. Evolution on the other hand espouses a gradual development of species over exceedingly long periods of time through a process of natural selection. Obviously the two are incompatible with one another. But which one is more correct?

The theory of evolution has been around for centuries. However it was Charles Darwin that finally popularized it in his book On the Origin of Species. Darwin’s arguments rely on gradual variation in the properties of systems that could eventually lead to the development of new species. This is easily provable through fossil records and DNA. However how does one track the evolution of mind? Perhaps the most obvious reason for thinking the mind is a product of evolution is the fact that everything else about us appears to be. We might consider the development of the brain in this. Fossils of skulls can point to certain characteristics of brains, changes in size and structure for example. This gives us at least a preliminary idea that the mind, dependent on the brain as it is, might have followed a similar path.

Behavior might be another area we look at when considering the evolution of the mind. Minds themselves don’t leave fossilized evidence but there is evidence of its activity in such things as the ability to use tools, create artwork, or bury their dead. Early tools date back to over 1 million years ago although modern humans did not emerge until about 100 thousand years ago. Neanderthals also buried their dead. These are a few evidences of purposive behavior that developed early as examples of rudimentary concepts, beliefs, desires and artifacts. More and more complex illustrations over time show the evolution of these ideas over the centuries to what we know today.

Other areas we could look at to provide evidence of the minds evolution include comparing similarities between humans and other living nonhuman species. The human body shares its evolutionary history with primates in a common ancestor. It makes sense to see what mental functions we might share with them as well. Can other animals feel fear, happiness? Can they recognize danger or realize others are in danger and help? Anyone that has heard a story of a dog rescuing his master from an animal attack or pulling him to safety after falling in a lake would agree that animals are in fact capable of such things. We have been able to teach Gorillas sign language proving that they can at least master basic language skills. Animals in their natural habitat communicate with each other as well. For example Veret monkeys have different distress calls for different predators. When a Veret monkey makes an ‘Eagle” call the rest look up and when one makes a “Leopard” call the monkeys climb and look down showing they also have a cognition of what these calls mean. Dolphins and whales also have rudimentary communication systems they use to communicate variable information in this way. Squirrels are prodigious problem solvers when it comes to securing food sources such as a bird feeder. Certain monkeys have been known to spontaneously pick up new behaviors such as washing fruit and then teaching that to others upon which the behavior becomes a part of that society.

It seems clear that evidence shows at least some nonhuman animals behave in ways that strongly indicate some degree of mental function. All of this seems to support the view that mental functions, mental capabilities, mental states are a product of evolution. So we need to take a closer look at the mechanism evolution uses to progress a system, namely natural selection. We have to ask if mental functions can be explained by a process of small variations, gradually accumulating over long periods of time. These small variations could include things like an improved ability to perceive ones environment, increased memory capacity, increased ability to learn from conspecifics, more refined awareness of spatial and temporal relations or recognizing causal relationships for example. These come about through a random, progressive process of accidental variation that happens to be advantageous in a particular environment. Based on our current understand it seems clear that our mental functions are a product of evolution by natural selection. This is a continual process that is ongoing even today but has no specific goal.

Even so, there remain some arguments against this concept and I will just briefly touch on them here as they are fleeting at best. The first is the concept of anthropomorphism. This is the concept that we as humans tend to see human characteristics in other species or objects when they are not really there. We speak of a computer as being stubborn for example. And while it is true that we really have no way of telling what is actually going on in other animals, the same could be said for other humans as well. So this idea that there is some unbridgeable gap between human and animal mentality holds no water. A second major argument is a religious one. They believe that the mind is a direct creation of a divine being. This goes back to Descartes substance dualism. If “substance”, i.e. mind, exists outside the realm of nature then natural selection could have no influence over it. Other connotations of this include the idea that natural selection cannot account for the complexity or future selection of mentalities not currently needed or the emergence of consciousness from physical matter. Of course much of this equates to a “God of the gaps” mentality that says if we can’t find a reasonable explanation for it, then God must have done it. It is a false dichotomy at best.

All in all this chapter was fairly straight forward in its approach and concise in its arguments for the evolution of mind through natural selection. It seems pretty evident to me that our minds did evolve along with our bodies and that this process is the same for every other animal on this planet. It is plainly obvious that animals possess some functional set of mental processes similar to humans. I can come home from work and see my dog run to his box and retrieve his harness before coming to me and sitting in front of me looking into my eyes. He is asking me “Hey dad, want to go to the park?” in a language that is as clear as the spoken word to me. Then when we get into the car he leaps into my lap and give me kisses and affection while wagging his tail. I only need to experience this to know that he loves me and wants to spend time with me because he has missed me that day. And I would not even characterize his mental capacity as something less than mine, only different, as it is perfectly suited to his environment, just as evolution would naturally drive it to.

LESSON FIVE –
Part Six


CHAPTER SIX – Could a Machine Have a Mind?
We have all watched the science fiction shows like Terminator or The Matrix or Battlestar Galactica and wondered if someday we will have to fight for our very lives or be replaced by sentient conquering machines that we ourselves have brought into existence. Or will the future hold a different possibility as depicted in shows like Star Trek where we accidently bring about a rare instance of sentience in a machine that is benevolent and unique through some combination of manipulations that we fail to ever be able to reproduce again. These concepts all concern the possibility in principle that someday a machine might be created or otherwise evolve to have a mind. As has been discussed in earlier posts, this concept of mind is not one of some singular unified all or nothing thing but one of some collection of mental capacities, processes and functions that give rise to true consciousness. What will this new form of life think of its creators? One can only speculate at this point because we have yet to accomplish this daunting task.

When asking these questions one must first ask what even counts as a “machine?” There seems to be an obvious difference between living things and non-living things. However there is also no reason to consider even the human brain as anything other than a machine with enormous numbers of parts that work in perfect accord with physical laws. Or course brains are also constructs that are capable of mental functions. So what makes them different? For many this difference was thought to be because of something called vitalism, the idea that living organisms are radically different from non-living things in the fact that they are controlled by some internal vital force beyond the physical forces. However science has never found any evidence of such a thing but instead show we function only through physical chemical-electrical events in the nervous system. So the question remains, can a non-living (non-biological) system be capable of any mental functions that would bring about consciousness?

There are several groups of AI (artificial Intelligence) theorists that are working on this. The first group is called Symbol-System theorists. This is the idea that a form of symbol system language could be created for a machine that would bring about independent mental processes. The problem with these systems to date has been the fact that the machines are intrinsically unable to handle ambiguous or incomplete input or situations not governed by the programmed rules. The more complex these languages get the harder it is for these serial systems to construct timely output. This sort of issue leaves the machines unable to cope with any variety of problem outside its limited scope. For example a machine that is programed to play chess can eventually learn to improve its game though practice, but it cannot apply that ability to learn chess to any other situation or problem. General intelligence of the sort that could handle any problem continues to prove elusive.

This whole concept of programming a computer to the point that consciousness emerges always seemed quite artificial to me. Instead of having to program each aspect of a computers code I would think that a better approach would be to program a boot code in such a way that the machine would begin to learn on its own. This would be a form of self-programming through experience and training that would not be unlike a small child growing up. We as humans write our own code, so to speak, through the process of living. That process produces consciousness and I would expect for any machine to be able to achieve that, a similar process must take place within that machine. For example when we arrive at a party we don’t have to go through a list of facts about parties in order to know what to do. We develop a level of know-how that guides our behavior without any need to review a set of factual propositions about parties. Because of our experience in the natural and social world we have a direct sense of how things are done in any give situation and our global familiarity with our environment thus enables us to respond to what is relevant and ignore what is irrelevant without planning for it.

As humans we experience things in a context, not in isolation. That context includes not only other objects and events but also our own active engagement with things in ways that reflect the fact that we are living bodies with needs and interests. We see things as relevant to situations because we use them, we need them, or we are interested in them. What makes programming such things so difficult is that in our lives anything is potentially relevant to anything else depending on the circumstance. The task of trying to tell a machine “everything” would require such an immense amount of programming that it becomes impractical. For example how do you program such a thing as common sense? How do you program a sense of self-preservation or curiosity? Since computers are not alive (biological) they have no body chemistry and hence no way to experience emotion. They would have no sensation like pain or hunger. They would have no interests of their own that could provide them a framework for evaluating things in relation to those interests. As a digital construct with no room for ambiguity can a machine know the beauty of something like an analogue painting?

There are AI theorists that are trying to solve some of these mysteries through a programming process called Connectionism or parallel distributed processing. In effect this new process is being designed to solve the symbol based processing limitations. This new connectionism AI is designed so that it operates in a parallel manner making it more flexible, able to degrade more gracefully when damaged, better at pattern recognition and better able to make generalizations. It can learn from experience, is better at dealing with soft constraints and has sufficient memory for all this processing. Evidence strongly suggests that human cognitive functions are also carried out in this parallel processing way on a massive scale so these parallel machines are designed based on the functioning of the human brain. These systems consist of nodes that are linked with one another by way of excitatory and inhibitory connectors similar to neurons in the brain. These are referred to as neural networks. These systems contain no rules but instead a “trainer” provides the system with input in the form of a problem. Information is passed from unit to unit and each unit builds on the data from the last in a parallel fashion. Over time, as adjustments are made, the system will learn to produce the correct output. Like the human mind there is no central processing unit and everything is controlled by the weights of the connections, sometimes with feedback from the trainer.

However even this AI system has its drawbacks. Many critics say this system lacks the characteristics of a language so they lack the productivity, systematicity and inferential coherence that language and therefore thought requires. Since the system is not governed by rules it is incapable of forming inferential relationships among representations that are essential to the process of reasoning. Essentially the system would be unable to distinguish between the concepts of “John loves Mary” vs “Mary loves John” for example because these systems lack syntax. Such ideas would not reflect real connections among the things they represent but would merely be associations in the mind of the entity in which they happen to occur. In effect the ideas would relate to one another but be disconnected from experience.

Needless to say AI still has a long way to go before it produces any model of true mental function that is adequate to call consciousness. Both forms need to find mechanisms that bring about purpose and goals to be picked up from an ongoing cultural environment. Theorists may decide we need some combination of the two forms of Symbol based and Connectionist AI. This sort of system would capitalize on the strengths of both and avoid the weaknesses. Beyond that what can be said about consciousness in nonliving systems? We have explored the idea that one of the primary functions of consciousness is to provide flexibility in our environment that is not preprogrammed. Our mental processes play an enormous role in keeping us alive and well. That means a good deal of the information we actively seek and the relationship that has to our behavior is a function of our interests and needs and continued well-being. Non-living systems obviously do not share that need to maintain life and health. Maybe in addition to a combination of AI systems, future computers would need some bio-chemical or bio-mechanical additions to their electrical components in order to produce consciousness. So when this new life emerges what will it think of us? Only time will tell.

Who am I? Why am I me and not someone else or even nothing at all? What is it that makes me aware of myself? I understand that I am not the same person I was as a child nor am I the same person now that I will be in the future. And yet I can look through my life and find common themes, even a common core to who I am. There is something there that makes me who I am. It does not change. I can see this in my writings over time. The same themes and beliefs and worldview pops up again and again. And yet I am also different. As I have followed life’s path it has changed me. It has been a continual process of confronting the dark, pulling out pieces of me, some I did not initially know where there, examining them and then integrated them into my life. My training this past year has been no exception to that. I know now, better than ever, who I am and where I am heading. I find myself happily straddling that terminator between light and dark, as yet the journey continues.

I took a religious meaning college course in my 20s. The final for that course was to create my own perfect religion. I still have that paper to this day and over the last year, as I have studied Jediism, I pulled it out and re-read it. I was really amazed to see themes and beliefs that I had back then are still the same today. They were not as evolved as they are today of course, but their core remains the same. These are beliefs I have always innately “known”. But for much of my life I had either chosen to suppress or not explore them except on rare occasion, such as this course. It was my fairly recent discovery of paganism that finally started me on the path to acknowledge and accept those beliefs. I had come out of the “Christian closet” so to speak. Through Paganism I have been able to clarify my views on once nebulous spiritual concepts in a way no other “religion” had been able to. And in turn, my addition of Jediism to my spirituality has continued that trend. Another means to further crystalize those enduring beliefs.

But given this, I also see parts of me that have changed, evolved into new beliefs and ways of thinking. For example, when I was younger, I struggled with beliefs like the concept of homosexuality. This is a seemingly basic philosophical core belief that for a long time I did not find as a natural part of existence. However, over time, I have been able to change that view. In my earlier days I may have been brainwashed by my environment or not in touch enough with my own sexuality to be ok with such a concept. Or maybe it was a little of both. In any event, over the years I learned to think for myself outside of any other paradigm and truly evaluate things for what they are. It changed me in fundamental ways and I wonder now if I have just embraced more truly who I am through that process or has who I was evolved into something else? And I wonder what the difference is between the things that have never changed and those that have – those steadfast things that seemingly make up the core of who I am.

When I look inward I can experience this core. I find it is a richly diverse, multi-faceted entity. It is the manifestation of the yin and the yang, anima and animus. It is a product of my emotional self. It is a conglomeration of conscious and subconscious states and my environment that in turn generates belief. I sense I know who I am now more than any other time in my life. But don’t we always feel that way about ourselves? How do I know I truly know myself at this point in time? I wonder what beliefs I currently hold could be subject to change in the future and which ones will not be. And I wonder why those things that will not change stay the same. What is it about those things that make me who I am at a most fundamental level?

I love Hume’s interpretation of these facets of our being in his descriptions of emotions as Calm and Violent. I think this analogy is the perfect description that can be used to get away from traditional views of dark and light. In his analogy love and hate are both classified as violent emotion, not one as light and the other as dark. To further this analogy I view our feminine sides as introspective, a deep lake that is hard to stir up, our masculine sides as projective, a raging river cutting a path through its environment. I think any of our emotions can manifest in either aspect of these two natures and thus exist in both the violent or calm realms. If we don’t understand that and subsequently fail to embrace, explore and balance all these aspects of our being, we are not truly living our lives as who we were meant to be. And I say “meant to be” like we were designed or predestined to be a certain way. I don’t think we were. Instead we just are “who we are” by a unique combination of DNA fused together at the moment of conception. That magical moment in turn inexplicably produces a being capable of generating a process of consciousness that is able to contemplate its very existence, even beyond the corporeal.

So how do we know we are living our lives as beings that are as close as possible to who we are “meant to be?” I think this is simple, it is when we are truly experiencing joy in our lives. The emotion of joy is different than the feeling of happiness. Happiness is a fleeting feeling that skims the surface of our consciousness from time to time. The slightest change of events in our lives can alter our happiness and so it comes and goes in rapid succession. Joy is not like this. When we experience joy, it is a deeply ingrained emotion that is profoundly embedded into our consciousness. It is enduring and it remains no matter what life events may be happening to us. The question then becomes, how do we attain this state of joy in our lives?

I think we come to a state of joy through the balancing of the different facets of our core. There are aspects of my personality that are undeniably dark, i.e. violent, within me. They can’t be denied for they serve as great a function as any other part of my being. And those things must be watched, carefully controlled and equalized. This is because that capacity for unbalance is always there, waiting like a beast in the shadows for the opportunity to devour us. If that happens, if we allow those things to control our lives, it only brings undue suffering and misery. I know this because I have personally experienced it in my life. For many years I was without joy. Anger and hate and aggression ruled my life. In fact I had existed in this state for such a long time that I began to believe this was my true self. I spent a great deal of time trying to control the behavior of others. I was living as others wanted me to be, not for myself, and I refused to make the hard decisions to let go of things that were no longer working in my life.

Slowly over time my life became more and more untenable. I finally began to realize I needed to let these things go or this unbalance in my life would consume me. When I finally recognized I could not control my surroundings, only myself, I began to take steps to shed those dead things in my life I had been dragging. This process started a transformation in me. My perception that everyone was out to get me disappeared and I realized I had been telling myself self-deceptive lies. The process was one of great strife and suffering and pain but it also had a healing component which was different than the brutal, unwavering torment I was living before. This was necessary in order to regain the balance in my life that I had let slip away. Through this progression I began to realize this transformation was not resulting in a change in who I was but a return to my true self through a re-centering. My life was returning to one of balance by stripping that shell of uncontrolled anger and aggression away; that dark violence that had encrusted me, and I began to experience joy in my life again.

It did not matter if I had a bad day at work or was frustrated with medical bills or any other of life’s perils. Yes it is true that my happiness and anger ebbed and flowed with those things but the underlying joy and resultant peace I had found in my life was always a constant throughout. I see people on the boards all the time asking how they can suppress their dark half or how the can resist the call to the dark side of “The Force”. What they don’t realize is that resistance only delays the inevitable. Instead those dark and violent aspects of who we are need to be embraced and integrated in a seamless balance with the light calm introspective forces of our being. My discovery of my bliss, as Campbell puts it, did not come about through the eradication or suppression of my “dark half”. Instead it came about only through a carefully controlled balance of it with the other aspects of my personality. That dark spirit is still within and even comes out to play sometimes. However, even though it remains a welcome part of me, it will no longer rule my life. And even though my experience was with the violent aspects of my nature I think this can happen with our passive side just as easily. Unbalance here would constitute a disconnection from reality. The experiences of Eckhart Tolle come to mind as an example of this when he talks of wandering aimlessly and living on park benches for two years.

It was during this time that I also discovered Paganism and I met my spirit-mate and best friend. These things happened naturally without any undue effort. They were the result of my transformation. In this journey I had begun to first view and then treat the world in a different light. I no longer saw the world through those unbalanced violent forces that had ruled my life. And the world responded in kind. I had always felt very strongly about humanities roll in nature and for the first time in my life I began to encounter others that felt the same way. What was even more surprising was that I realized I had always held these pagan beliefs in my life. Even through years of counter-programming by trying to mold myself to other religions like Christianity. I realized that the years I spent trying to control my environment were done in vain. Now that time in my life only serves as a valuable lesson that the only thing I have power over is myself. But to exercise that power we must also be true to ourselves. It is only through this that I can effect change in anything else.

For me it has been a hard lesson to learn - that in order to change or better the world you must first find that change within yourself! This was always a core tenet during my study of magick as well. And yet, during these years I would occasionally still fall into some of these old habits. Specifically by continuing to follow mentors that I realized were manipulative and teaching doctrines I did not fully ascribe to because I kept thinking that around that next corner the answers would be revealed to me. It took the careful patience of my wife and my eventual study of Jediism to finally solidify the concept that we will never find meaning in external mentors or doctrines or spiritual paradigms. These are not the things that will illuminate the path to meaning in life. I had been searching for that secret in external sources but that meaning had been within all along in these core beliefs I have always carried. This was another profound revelation in my life. For me this has been the epitome of the never ending hero’s journey where constant practice and perseverance through failure progresses us towards excellence lol!

Over the last year my exploration of these things has caused me to also ponder why it is that I, as me, have such a deep attachment to these beliefs about the ways of the world? Why are these things so deeply ingrained inside as part of that core thing that makes me who I am? Obviously it is not environment alone. If that were the case I could just “choose” what to believe and I would still be Christian or I would still be following those old mentors. Instead I could only fool myself for a while but in the end the fact that I could never convince myself that these things were actually true tells me it is something more than simple choice. It must be a combination of many things. Like our consciousness, the core of who I am must be made up of an almost incomprehensible array of components and experiences and makeups all working together as one functioning ‘thing” to produce the resultant state of my “selfness”. And in that process what we come to believe is produced through a means that we have a very limited control over.

I grew up without any sort of organized religious influence and as a result I experienced the world as a young child through organic influences like my mother’s beliefs and just nature itself through life on a ranch. I suspect these things had a profound effect on me but that environment alone was not my only input. When I started school I had one of those birthdays that allowed me to start school at the age of 4. This left me younger and typically weaker than most of my classmates, who typically started at 5. I was also quite an introvert with a great deal of anxiety growing up. This combination of traits left me a good target for bullying. And so I grew up in a world full of terror. However I seemed to possess another trait that helped me through these years. One that would eventually serve me in great capacity. I refused to accept defeat in anything. I defended myself from the teasing in the only way I knew how, by never letting them change who I was. I never “stayed down” so to speak. I always got back on that (Shetland) horse. I was never going to allow anyone to prove I was what they perceived me to be.

It was this combination of experience and personality that later drove me to successfully serve as a United States Marine, Solo an aircraft, become a master scuba diver, pursue a degree in Astrophysics, travel the world, build an amazing technical career and marry my spirit-mate. Those traits of introversion and anxiety still persist for me but I never allow them to control my destiny. I work to conquer them each day because nothing in life will keep me from the things I want to accomplish. I look back on my life and I can’t tell if my anxiety created the environment I endured which resulted in creating my perseverance or if my perseverance was there first and that set me up as a target which in turn created my anxiety. I don’t think any of us know where these things inside of us come from or why they interact as they do. It is as great a mystery as consciousness itself. However I do feel the combination served to create the only worldview I have ever remembered possessing – that of a pagan orientation.

Growing up as I did, I had few friends. So I turned to animals as my friends. I began to identify myself as one of them and I started seeing the world from their point of view. Never take more than you need, always fight for what is yours but never inflict undue harm and know that life is a constant struggle against a natural order that is inherently unfair and indifferent to your life or death. And while animals can be brutal in the way they live their lives, they are nowhere near as cruel as most humans can be. I think as a natural consequence of my persecution by humans I developed a heightened sense of empathy. Not for other people though, they would be removed from any sort of compassion or empathy. It was for my animal friends. Once again I’m not sure if I had the empathy and I disassociated it from humans due to my experience with them or I developed my empathy towards other forms of life as a result of my societal interactions and my perception of human treatment of other forms of life.

In any case, over these years I came to understand the idea that the thin veneer of society that humans have created could not hide the fact that we as a species are really nothing more than another form of animal. One that was highly intelligent, socialized and living in communities of course but also in constant competition with their environment and with each other, no different than any other animal species on this planet. This is not only the way things are, it’s the way they are supposed to be in our reality. It is only through competition that excellence is bred. This is the most basic tenet of evolution. Steel sharpens steel only through the violent interaction of opposition to one another. No amount of assertion that a creator God had built an overarching element of ultimate fairness and justice into our universe could ever convince me otherwise. No amount of assertion that a creator God had built an overarching element of ultimate fairness and justice into our universe could ever convince me otherwise.

Nature, of which we are a part, is one of continuous struggle and we have evolved to thrive in that antagonistic state where survival of the fittest is the only law and freedom and prosperity is achieved only by applying yourself and fighting for it. And even though intellectually I know that human kind is capable of great benevolence as well as great cruelty, the worldview I formed and the constant evidence of humanities sadistic capacity for cruelty leaves me in a constant struggle with myself to feel that empathy towards humanity in general. Because of these things I equate the social order of our species with that of wolf packs. Now I know we are not wolves but it makes a convenient analogy to describe my life and my social interactions from that point of view. Within this context “The pack” is a fluid concept that could equate to just immediate family and friends, or an organization or even a nation. Within the dynamics of most packs I belong to, I understand that I am not an alpha wolf. That’s ok though, as I do not desire that position. But I also know that I am not an omega wolf. My sense of perseverance tells me that. I equate my life to one of being a Beta wolf.

In this concept I developed “rules” that I would follow to interact with society. Rules such as the idea that the members of any pack protects its own. The Alpha’s takes the most risk and therefore reaps the greatest reward. (This would be true of any alpha in society). This hierarchy flows down through the rest of the pack as social classes – those who put in the least effort reap the least reward. A Beta steps up to leadership when necessary but does not prefer the spotlight. Within the social order of the pack, every member performs a job suitable to their class and in turn the stronger protect the weaker or those that can’t protect themselves. The hopelessly sick and the weak that can no longer perform a function are forfeited to their fate for the good of the pack. (Survival of the fittest). The pack as a whole always fights for freedom and to defend territory when necessary. These are rules that any social species of animal lives by. They can sometimes seem cruel but that is the way of nature. I see no reason to think that we, as human animals, would live our lives in any different manner. Of course I also understand that the nuances of our society are infinitely more intricate and complex than I have described here. As humans our philosophical constructions of morality are always at play but at a high level I think these rules apply. We are just highly evolved animals fighting for survival, no different than any other.

Because of this worldview I have never understood a socialist point of view. It seems artificial to me. Why would anyone want to give up individual freedom and the opportunity to compete so that they may flounder in a state of false equality? We are not meant to be equal, only have equal opportunity. This is the way our pagan ancestors lived and it’s the way we live. It seems to me that most modern day pagans have forgotten this for some reason. The thin veneer of civilization that entices the possibility of free this and free that in exchange for our individual freedoms has blinded them. Those things are an illusion because someone will always disagree and someone else will always have more power. In this artificial system, those that fight harder will be punished and those that are lazy and fight less will be rewarded. It stagnates diversity and in fact it is our diversity that has allowed us to thrive as a species. Unfortunately it is also the thing that will never allow us to unify under one banner on any subject including world peace. That is the natural order of our reality and it is futile to try and rage against that. Instead what we can strive for, the best we can hope for, is balance.

Beyond these limited perceptions of reality I think there is little we can ever know with any degree of certainty. Although we try ever so hard to unravel those mysteries I think we also know inside that we never will. As I have stated before, it is not the goal to reach the destination, only to never give up trying. I think that is what groups like Jedi strive for. That understanding that we can never give up the journey and the first step onto that path is one of realizing we can know nothing. This is the beginning. We are not on a pursuit of the knowledge of understanding, for this is not a thing that can be conquered. We must surrender to that fact, enter symbiosis with it. Only then will we begin to comprehend that we must shift our point of view from self to cosmos. In that shift of perception we as individuals become nothing. However we must be careful to also realize this is not a melting away of the ego. I think this is the mistake that teachers like Buddha or Eckhart Tolle make. Instead we need to maintain that point of reference to keep from losing ourselves in the void. What we need to understand is that the ego, while it remains, is also nothing in relation to the all.

As infants we have no sense of self. We see everything as connected. Our desires are instantly manifest through our mother whom we view as part of us. Initially we know nothing but the connection. But over time we begin to recognize that as an illusion. And so a gap forms. A gap between us and mother, us and our environment, us and our desire. We realize that our desire is not the cause of manifestation but something external to us through the void. We spend the rest of our lives trying to understand that and to fill that void with substance. Comfort objects are the most basic form of this. Initially teddy bears and security blankets fill that void. But over time they become not enough and they give way to other, more complex things. Material possessions and the pursuit of wealth and relationships and sex and drugs and rock and roll! These things are not bad in and of themselves. But if they are not taken in the proper context they become detrimental. We need to realize that we do not pour energy into a thing. We are not modifying that object of desire, it is modifying us. Our goal is to never allow those things to consume us “OR” to become so meaningless that we lose connection with reality itself. A balance must be maintained between ego and cosmos.

As Jedi we can learn to take a step back from the lure of filling this void and can glimpse the idea that it is actually the void that is the illusion. “The Force” becomes a symbol for our perception of how we begin to recognize the order of the cosmos. The order is not the same as that which we perceive to be the order. We come to understand that there is an absolute truth, but we can never know what that is. We can only ever perceive distorted shadows of that truth. Objective or subjective not absolute. Our minds are an emergent property of specific combinations of the physical. But in the end both can be reduced to one single thing – vibrational energy of the string. This is the purest form of symbol representing actual reality. In this we realize there can’t, “not be” an absolute truth. In other words, some absolute truth of reality must exist, even if that truth is that the nature of our existence is a wholly subjective one or possibly that we do not even exist at all.

Enlightenment is not about a solution. It’s about accepting things as they are and always will be because of our reality. “Emotion yet peace” does not mean we have to sacrifice emotion for peace. It means we can experience the emotion for what it is but we also need to be ok with the fact that we are feeling it – no matter whether the emotion is calm or violent. This means we also need to maintain a certain disconnection from the emotion. It’s the idea that what is happening is the way things are meant to be and our emotions are a reaction to that. We have to deal with the emotion and process it in a healthy and balanced manner. We cannot let those emotions take over our lives and control who we are or consume us with guilt. The idea that life will not always be what we want it to be should remain engrained in everything we do. Life is not structured to be fair or free of suffering and we need to accept that and deal with it. In fact we need to recognize that it is through suffering and strife and adversity that we grow. This is the nature of the competitive reality we find ourselves in. To deny these things is to deny who we are as human beings.

Going through this process of training to become a Knight of the Jedi I have come to a deeper understanding of who I am under this mantle. I am a culmination of my ancestry, my consciousness, my spirit and my experience. I am neither light nor dark, calm nor violent, anima nor animus, Jedi nor Sith; because I am the suitably balanced integration of all these things. This is a place where titles become limiting and ultimately meaningless. I may be recognized by the world though a title and that’s ok. But for me personally it is not required. I do not consider myself as carrying a title, only following a path. This is a cohesive path of spirituality commonly called Grey in the Jedi circles because it is made up of both the light and the dark. But it is more than just this because I also possess a unique combination of beliefs and experiences that I brought with me. And as is the syncretic nature of this path I am also able to seamlessly integrate those things into my Jedi spirituality. It is a blending of my life’s experiences, my Shinto and Native American and pagan witch beliefs as well as my Jediism. I call this path Kamikeedi. In this path my current incarnation of tenets are described below. This is who I am.


Creed of the Kamikeedi Path
1. Have an unbounded love of all forms of life and love those close to you unconditionally
2. Always approach life in an altruistic manner, until given ample reason not to
3. Forever chase the mystical – strive to become one with your idea of the divine
4. Nurture curiosity to the extreme – always question and think critically
5. Live life as honestly and as sincerely as you can – always be loyal, fair and truthful
6. Strive for joy in your life through an all-inclusive balance of every aspect of your nature
7. Never dread the unknown – try everything you can at least once – never refuse an opportunity
8. Abstain from violence unless absolutely necessary – and then show no mercy

9. Take from life what you want but only within the bounds of the first 8 tenets.
10. Welcome challenge, always confront adversity, but also know that suffering is inherent
11. Never regret failure or loss – instead learn from them and let them make you stronger
12. Do not fear death, know it and accept it as a fact of life.
13. Understand that life is inherently unfair - There is no such thing as universal justice
14. Hold reprisal as an inalienable right if it is warranted and you can reasonably manage it
15. Know everything has a season, let things go when it is time or they no longer serve you
16. Never conform – fight for things that promote independence and freedom above all else

Tenets of the Kamikeedi Path
1. All life is bonded at the most basic level with each other and with the universe itself. The Kamikeedi path describes this bonding as Goddess or “The Force” and descriptions of what this is vary from esoteric energy fields to the idea that everything is literally made up of the same star dust. Other spiritual paradigms may use different terminology but to a Kamikeedi follower this is no matter. They accept all mythological descriptions of unity as different attempts to quantify that which otherwise cannot be described.

2. All myth describes the spiritual circumstance of the human condition. In this view no one myth or set of myths is definitive. In fact is the culmination of all myth that comes the closest to describing that spiritual core within us that makes us human.

3. As a follower of the Kamikeedi path one pursues the concept of the mythological “Hero’s Journey”. This can be described as having a lust for life and a pursuit of adventure. It is a philosophy that espouses the concept that a Kamikeedi follower tries something new every single day that terrifies us. It is a place where one does not seek power but accepts and undertakes leadership whenever it presents itself.

4. Followers of the Kamikeedi path are disciples of the “warrior monk” archetype – as modern day embodiments of this Archetype a Kamikeedi follower combines aspects of being a monk, such as deep spiritual and sacred devotion to her path and a constant pursuit of knowledge while striving to maintain a balance and harmony with the forces of nature as she defines them, with being a warrior, trained in the arts of fitness, discipline and patience as well as the capability to engage in conflict, (sometimes violent conflict). A Kamikeedi follower is one who strives to achieve the highest levels of training in these areas so that she may protect herself, her ideals and any other life that cannot protect itself while exercising what she considers to be her rightful political, economic and spiritual rights in the never ending search for truth and wisdom.

5. The Kamikeedi Path is one of mentorship. Kamikeedi followers believe it is best to not walk the path alone but instead to walk the path with a worthy mentor. This guide is one who walks a similar path beside you and serves as an adviser on lessons but also one who never dictates your direction or opinion. This can, and often times will, be a reciprocal relationship as they are a life companion that one can discuss philosophies and spiritual concepts with on an equal footing.