"Enough of this error..."
 

Enough of this error of conscious life. It shall be passed down no longer to those innocents unborn

These words written by Thomas Ligotti in TCATHR affected me on a personal and philosophical way.
Since I was much younger than now I always stated I would have never bred. At first it was nothing more than a feeling, the feeling that it was simply WRONG. But in time, by developing "my own" ethics, I realized that it is much more a philosophical conclusion than just an irrational feeling.
Breeding is spreading the disease, is giving to someone else the burden you're carrying in your own life...what for?
Still to this day someone would react to my statements with these words "Wait till you're thirty or something, you will find someone and you will want to have a family". These people offend me and my Weltanschauung, which has developed in time by reading and thinking, not by things happening around me.

To me even personal relationships of a sentimental kind are an issue.
How much can you share with another person?
How irrational is the feeling that you are sharing something with another person?
How lonely are we in the end?

I would like to know what other people on this board think about this topic...

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

Back in my 20s and 30s, the idea of bringing another human life into the world seemed to me abominable.

But, some time in my 50s, I started to wish that I'd had children. No doubt signs of that are clear enough in my book. Oh well... And, in the words of mehitabel the cat...

but wotthehell
little archy wot
the hell

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

There is a song by a bosnian rapper which notes:
"it's a sin to begot a child
here where the bullets fly"

Ligotti seems to be quite a cheerful fella :)
Some of his philosophical ideas look like they're inspired by old gnostic teachings
You know, those christian heretics who believed that we are all angels imprisoned by an evil Demigod and that...
Bah, wiki it up ;)

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

Oh yes, i read a lot about gnosticism in my early twenties. There were several different sects, some of them were pretty extreme in seeing the world as created by a devilish force and consequently as a place of death and sorrow. Life was a path to try to see the light of the "real" God, who was totally detached from human lives (like the "Pistis Sophia")...the Bogomils thought the world was created from the vomit of Satan!
Then old good christians burnt them all ...
It's difficult to have an objective report of what gnosticism really was because we have only a few documents about them and most of all are written from christians who portray them as evil and corrupted. I read once of this gnostic sect that lived underground eating their own children and drinking menstrual blood....well...I guess that did not correspond to the reality of facts.

It is still possible to find a sort of gnostic tendency on many contemporary authors and philosophers...some have said that Heidegger's philosophical view is based on that, the falling of men into time...

As for Ligotti, there's a lot of pessimism, and the idea of a puppet master beyond human life is close to that of an evil demiurge...

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

mmm...back to the original topic of the thread...as for breeding i always took the stance in my youth that if i had a partner and it would fit perfectly i would have children...since i am a man it is easier to say because you're not defined by your children like a woman is done in public conciousness...and it was always something like when you're thirty and something you will settle down when you have found the right woman...although i think that it is just a stereotypical ideal of the bourgeois era after the wars which doesn't have much in common with our postindustrial times in the west..and this went hand in hand with the relationships i had...i had three long engagements always with women with a psychological background ((either they wanted to become a prison psychologist)the mother of my last girlfriend was even the chairman of the psychological society in germany but smoked my gfs weed and she had to hide it from her))...i thought damn long about it but all of the relationships had one thing in common, basically these women ran their families because of the absence of a strong mother figure and in the long run i became over protected by them, too...which always was the time when i tried to get some distance between us...i always shared all my thoughts and emotions with them which is probably the cause why it became scary/disturbing in the end...since then (a timeframe of about 5 years) i have affairs (probably just out of boredom) with women who are either too shallow to talk about interesting things or they are pretty scary in a bad way (did anyone of the other members had ever sth with a woman with an affectation for trampling?)...so I'd say that i don't want to risk another person coming close to my inner self 'cos the risk that sth really bad would happen is imminent

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

While completely alone, silent in your thoughts and dreams - you are mostly protected and no real harm can come to you from other people.
Physical pain is just a temporary nuisance and not sharing your thoughts with anyone - you are safe.

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

It can't help the gnostics' reputation that the fatuous Crowley described himself as a gnostic. I used to regard myself as a gnostic - but these days my beliefs are Kemetic.

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

One of O.T.O. rituals, which is public and open to people who are not a member yet, is in fact the celebration of Liber XV, the gnostic mass...but i don't think it has a lot to do with the ancient gnostic sects!

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

I read about gnosticism only through the Nag Hammadi collection and books by writers like Elaine Pagels, and I see similarities between the collection of movements and some Eastern philosophies. It's difficult for me to accept it because it can also refer to itself, i.e., the claim that conscious life is erroneous is itself based on a conscious life.

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

No, I shouldn't think that it does have a lot to do with ancient gnostic sects. I believe that neo-Platonism weighed heavily with the ancient gnostics. A bit more dull than drinking mentrual blood (as mentioned in a previous post) . :( Not that I expect that the OTO do that, either. (They, too, in their own way, are surely more dull.) Still, if people are going to drink blood at all, drinking menstrual blood is about the most harmless way of doing it.

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

how interesting that now we're talking about gnosticism; yesterday evening i rediscovered in a pile of books an edition about the influence of gnosticism on modern philosophy and aesthetics , it is also online (if you can read German)

Dithyrambiker des Untergangs:

Dithyrambiker des Untergangs ... - Google Buchsuche

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

and the most disgusting one! Anyway, it is very far from my aim to say that gnostic sects did weird rituals ... What I find more interesting are the common topoi one can find:

-duality: the existence of a good and an evil demiurge (in both cases detached from the real God) ...this duality reminds me a lot of pre-islamic Iran (Zoroastrism and Manicheism)...
-the earth seen as a place of sorrow
-the body rejected and scorn (also through sexual abstinence or its opposite)
-the search for another reign (which is in fact very platonic)

I think the concepts of gnosticism have been very present also in literature and philosophy.

p.s.: Thanks Cyril for the book advice...it looks very very very interesting and i didn't know about its existence! :eek:

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

You have now reached a set of ideas I find repellant, and which contrast strongly with my own Kemetic outlook. I would counter with:

• Duality... yes - this is important, but in a more supportive way. Ma'at (translatable as order, good, justice, etc.) is in itself to do with balance. There is also a balance to be struck between ma'at and isfet (chaos). Opposites can support one another. There are balances within balances.
• The earth seen as a place in which we can take pleasure. (See the joy in life evident in Egyptian tomb painting - not so much "even in joy we are amid sorrow" as "even in sorrow we are amid joy".)
• The body accepted and celebrated. Sex as the agent of divine creation. (The acceptance and celebration of the body was surely the motive behind the ancient practice of mummification.)
• Searching for ma'at within this reign. Being in the here and now.

I have a feeling that, in all of this, I am against the general current of this board.:confused:

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

Menstrual blood you say?
Not my cup of tea, sorry

Blood for the rituals should be from an innocent source, therefore blood of animals, children and virgins is the most common choice. Your own blood is also very powerful and quite fun to get. :)

On topic, there are many interesting apocryphal texts (like from earlier mentioned Nag Hammadi library) just waiting for us to study.
Oddly, there seems to be some kind of connection between all of them.
Hidden truth in hidden lies

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

...I didn't say I support a gnostic view...i'm just a simple pessimistic, hyper rational, nihilistic chick! ;) interested in what happens around...

Anyway, now i'm curious about this Kermetic point of view...I must admit i don't know a lot about it!

About Nag Hammadi codes I found this interesting website. A couple of years ago in Italy the "Gospel of Judas" -part of the Nag Hammadi discoveries - has been published.

The Nag Hammadi Library

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

No, I didn't think you did support that view. I just wanted to take the opportunity to state an opposite viewpoint.

Kemetic refers to the religion of ancient Egypt, which is the only religion that makes any sense to me. (From Kemet, the ancient Egyptian word for Egypt -- hence alchemy or al chemy meaning of Egypt.)

If you're interested, I wrote at some length on the subject in Golden Goddess and Bloody Times which I posted to my literary blog -- there's a link to it in my signature.

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

I don't think you are.
But whether you are or not "against the general current of this board", your religious views and sentiments are very relevant to this board, I feel.

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

Thank you... and I think that they probably are.

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

I see a balance between Pessimism and Optimism, strengthening each other by symbiosis (I am P, you are perhaps O, Odalisque) ... not that one can adequately summarise such a power of polarity by these shorthand words of Pessimism and Optimism. I personally have no religion. But I do have faith in ideas that have a power all of their own once we set them in motion.

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

I agree with you, in fact i believe that human ideas created god ...

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

And goddess?

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

Why goddess? I think 'god' is genderless, if this idea of godhood subsists as such.

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

we can be politically correct and say that ideas created goddess too....:) just kidding
anyways, the point is that i share the theory, much better expressed by Feuerbach (and others), that the idea of a god/goddess/godhood/ godhead is originated to tame human fears ...

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

For me, I think, sexual diamorphism lies at the heart of divinity. And, it seems to me, this brings us back towards the departure point of this thread.

Is it just me, or does the idea of taming human fears bring to mind an image of a human fear tamer, like a lion tamer, wearing a human fear tamer's cap, armed with whip and chair.

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

ahahaha...maybe it's because my english is pretty crap and I used the wrong word! :rolleyes:
but I hope the concept was clear...still the human fear tamer's cap sounds funny!

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

Your English seems very good (and clear) to me.

It's the mischief in me that made me raise the idea of a human fear tamer... All the same, it's an idea with which to conjure --- of someone going into a cage full of human fears, fending them off with a chair, cracking a whip. Having formed the concept, it seemed too good not to share. ;)

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

Such a divinity, arguably, could instil dimorphism in that divinity's worshipers, but does it not resonate better with any concept of divinity for that divinity to be either genderless (or perhaps multi-gendered?) in itself if one assumes that there can only be one divinity in any system of divinity?

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

My assumption is that divinity is multiple.

I wouldn't preclude there being ultimately a one-spirit pervading the entire universe, but such a concept is so far beyond our finite experience that I don't think that we could even begin to contemplate what such a one-spirit might be like. And I don't think that there is any any useful point is so much as positing such a thing. Indeed, it seems to me that positing such a thing has been entirely harmful -- people can only attribute to such a overarching deity properties that could belong (at most) to minor godlings. In my view, this has been responsible for a great many of the troubles of the world.

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

Well, I agree with that!

Re: "Enough of this error..."
 

How pleasant to agree! :):):)