Extropianism

[Eric the Green]

(01-15-2020, 06:38 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: The Toccata unfolds in seven distinct upward-moving phases, it is an audio picture of the seven major chakras

I don't believe in chakras (which are a Hindu superstition) and I don't think Bach ever did. He lived in 17th century Europe, and it's very unlikely he was familiar with Hinduism at all. Furthermore, he was a devout Protestant:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/arts/...music.html

The number 7 is prominent in many cultures because it reflects 5 planets visible to the naked eye plus sun and moon. 7 days in a week, 7 sacraments and 7 cardinal sins in Catholicism, 7 wonders of the world according to ancient Greeks, seven paradises in Islam. All of these could have inspired Bach.

The correspondence between some parts of the Toccata and the Hebrew alphabet is more likely since Hebrew was widely known in Europe back then.

I agree that mindful listening to classical music is very good for your brain. So is mindfulness. As for your meditation on the Toccata, I see it as a poem reflecting how you see reality. Music can bring the wildest associations.

Thanks for watching and listening my article; at least in part. As it makes clear, no I don't think Bach knew specifically about the chakras. They certainly are no superstition, but a directly-experienced and physical as well as mental/spiritual reality, and their account is not limited to Hindus but pervades western philosophical and hermetic traditions too. If you observe your own body and mind, you will find the chakras there. What Bach did was much as you say; he picked up on the 7-fold archetypal rhythm. He did have much background, apparently, in the worldviews concerning the seven levels of reality and unfoldment, according to his library, and such currents of thought were current in his time and place. The associations of the Toccata with aspects of esoteric and scientific truth are not "wild," of course, but are perhaps "wildly" at variance with what anyone else knows about Bach's Toccata and with many prevalent worldviews generally.

But the hero's journey archetype is well known to pervade virtually every story and epic, and Bach's Toccata in F 540 is certainly a heroic, epic and dramatic story if it is anything. The chakras, tarot, astrology, kabbalah and other such subjects are pervaded with the hero's journey archetype, and so if Bach was inspired to write a heroic and epic journey in music, as the Toccata in F is, then similarities with other hero's journey stories would certainly be expected. And beyond that, the coincidences involving Bach and his Toccata are amazing. For example, how did Schmeider manage to choose the number 540 for this work 100 years after Bach's death, based entirely on its genre and maturity among his works, and yet a number which is so mathematically and astronomically significant, embedded in eastern religious traditions and culture, and symbolic of spirit itself?

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Eric the Green Wrote:I favor transhumanism more or less as Nietzsche first defined it, and it goes back to the romantics. To become the overman requires a spiritual journey, not so much a scientific technology. It requires developing our human potential. I don't oppose technology, but do not agree that it is the key to becoming more than human. That is an ethical, psychological, spiritual pursuit. To be transhuman in the new age perspective I uphold is to be able to manifest God as ourselves. The human potential movement begun in the 2T Awakening is the path to follow for a genuine transhumanism.

What are these "ethical, psychological, spiritual pursuits" that can make us more than human? If they don't require technology, they have likely been known for ages. So why aren't we transhuman already?

Well, it will likely take that long even with technology to transcend the human. In the old age, and even in our new age, the esoteric knowledge is and has been very suppressed. Scientism believers suppress it even today, along with traditional religions. The path is practiced in some eastern religions, and in esoteric western ones like the Golden Dawn. But it is not an easy path, and the human potential movements of the sixties and seventies attempted to make the path quicker, whether with psychedelics or with trainings like est. Technology may now also assist the path, as for example the meditation aids that Deepak Chopra is offering.

Quote:I don't devalue things like art, music or psychotherapy. I always try to interpret my dreams to understand myself better. But all that has only limited potential. If we want to really transcend human limitations, we need to use biotech.

But how can biotech make us better human beings? I suspect it still requires cultivation of virtue. Can you technologically instill good character, and bring out our spontaneous and genuine love? No, it takes spiritual practice, of which meditation is primary.

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Quote:I don't think any world view for the future is viable that keeps too much of the worldviews dominant before the sixties awakening, and only if they express the sixties awakening to some degree, especially the preference for spirit over matter, are they viable for the future.

Extropianism values the mind above matter, but it doesn't try to deny that mind needs a material substrate (a brain, or a computer, or a swarm of nanobots) to exist. New Age idea of consciousness is like the ghost Casper

Also, we duly notice that the Sixties awakening was an overreaction to the evils of fascism:
-fascism praise military discipline above all, the Sixties awakening condemned all things martial
-fascism believed in racial superiority, the Sixties awakening pretended all cultures are equal
-fascism subordinated everything to the state, the Sixties awakening wanted to do away with the state
-fascism was insane collectivism, the Sixties awakening was extreme individualism

I guess extropianism looks out for common sense positions with respect to these issues. Sometimes the answer is more self-expression to allow creativity, sometimes the state and the military must come first.

I don't think extropianism values mind over matter if it holds that the mind needs a material substrate. Mind over matter means that the spirit is the substrate, and the body/brain is the vehicle. We are indeed spirit (geist, ghost if you will), but Spirit needs the vehicle to effectively manifest on the physical plane. That's why spirit has evolved the vehicles it needs to be creative here on this special planet, such as nervous systems. Evolution continues and we have much to learn, as our rather pitiful behavior continues to show.

The sixties awakening still featured much respect for the state and the collective, in the form of the strong drives for legal reform that pervaded it. The consumer and environmental movements which began in the sixties and seventies required legal remedies, and still do. So did prevention of discrimination on the basis of false notions of racial superiority. The 2T began with the passage of the civil rights bill, and then the great society legal and state programs like Medicare.

Those who wanted to preserve the power of corporations and the wealthy as well as the racists and religious traditionalists fought back against these reforms, and they put their man Reagan into office. His efforts and those of his cohorts created the 3T, in which reaction held sway against government as "the problem" with trickle-down economics as the false cure.

I don't agree that the Awakening was an over-reaction, in essence, but I agree the behavior and tactics were frequently extreme, unbalanced and unfocused, and that discredited the awakening for many people. One reason for this was its high dependence on an abundance of young people, who are naturally uninhibited and roudy. It is essential however for any progress whatever on any front that we remember and recover the movements, ideals, programs, experience and goals of the Awakening of 1964-1984. Otherwise we are merely going in circles.