Category Archives: uncle al

depression, medication, mushrooms, pictures, uncle al

depression art?

210617 stele progress
210617 stele progress
it has taken a really long time to get this far, and i have been going miserably slow, because i’ve had to source materials (and made some pretty dramatic “compromises” in order to simply get the project started… 😒), and because of other things (read “databases”) taking my attention…

AND because i’m being a perfectionist about it, and not being satisfied with the work that i’ve already done… seriously, there have been a couple of times when, despite the work that i’ve already done, i’ve thought about trashing the whole thing and starting over, because ONE TINY DETAIL is slightly askew, which nobody except the most hard-core thelemite would notice…

but, see, that’s the thing… i’m making this because I AM a “hard-core thelemite” (among other things), and, seriously, i want it to be as close to the original as absolutely possible, while, at the same time, being 40% smaller, and entirely made by hand…

AND, BUT, ALSO… a NEW CAR!! 😒 no, no, no… AND because i have been depressed enough that, even when i am doing nothing else, for EXTENDED periods of time, i have been having difficulty finding the motivation to work on it, and i kind of DON’T want it to turn into “depression art”, it being a spiritual piece, and everything…

what i am doing to combat depression:

  1. taking 100mg of bupropion every day. whether it’s doing anything or not remains to be seen.
  2. taking mushrooms occasionally, but not as frequently as i’d like (the most recent time was last tuesday, three mushrooms). along those same lines, i am still:
    • planning on growing mushrooms in the near future
    • got expert advice on call
    • got the spores
    • got the substrate: “Uncle Ben’s 90 minute rice — 90 minutes, perfect every time!”
    • got a still-air egg incubator
    • still need to find information about how and when to transfer from the sterile substrate to “growing boxes”
    • bought some size 00 capsules. am going to try grinding the mushrooms and putting them in capsules to see if i can standardise the dosage a little better. 😉
  3. read “Wired For Love”, planning on buying the book.
  4. convinced moe to read “Wired For Love” (she starts it this weekend)
  5. going as slow as necessary
  6. being as easy on myself as i can.

possibly other things i don’t recall at this time.

whether those things are actually having any effect remains to be seen. i’m afraid to think of what comes next if they’re not having any effect. 😒

enlightenment, uncle al

i’ve been puzzling myself with this for some time now, and i thought i would put what i’ve figured out so far into actual words that i can see and attempt to appreciate…

i’ve wondered for some time about my tendency to be a believing athiest. in other words, i don’t believe God exists, but i believe God exists, if you know what i mean. i believe that God exists, and God talks to me constantly, prodding me to investigate further, or guiding me away from things that might distract. and i believe that the very same God who talks to me, talks to everyone else, as well, whether they know it or not… but at the same time, because of the fact that i can’t prove, and, honestly, have no interest in proving that God exists, i have to say, and i can, honestly, say that God doesn’t exist.

it’s interesting, because by saying that God both does, and doesn’t exist, at the same time, would frequently get people committed to the loony bin… but my impression is that to say God exists without also saying that God doesn’t exist exhibits an incomplete understanding of God which is typical of “christians” and other nefarious doodlehums who want to control other people for profit, and other entertainment. a good example of that is glen, who refuses to talk to me – with the exception of ordering new business cards every few months – because i continually responded to his jeezis arguments with counter-arguments that didn’t make any sense from his point of view.

it all goes back to that chapter of Liber CCC – The Book of Lies called The Looby, which says:

Only loobies find excellence in these words.

It is thinkable that A is not-A; to reverse this is but to revert to the normal.

Yet by forcing the brain to accept propositions of which one set is absurdity, the other truism, a new function of brain is established.

Vague and mysterious and all indefinite are the contents of this new consciousness; yet they are somehow vital. By use they become luminous.

Unreason becomes Experience.

This lifts the leaden-footed Soul to the Experience of THAT of which Reason is the blasphemy.

But without that Experience these words are the Lies of a Looby.

Yet a Looby to thee, and a Booby to me, a Balassius Ruby to GOD, may be!

it has taken me years to understand what uncle al was talking about, and more years to actually realise, in my own body, the experience he is referring to when he talks about “a new function of brain”… but he is right that THAT, after all, is what one experiences when one undertakes “to accept propositions of which one set is absurdity, the other truism”, which is EXACTLY what i am doing when i say that i believe that God both exists, and does not exist, at the same time… WITHOUT CONTRADICTION.

as rational and realistic as i have come to be over the years, i can still say, with pride, that i am a crazy mystic that belongs in a loony bin, because that’s exactly what i am.

important things to remember, uncle al

A Proposal For An All New Ten Commandments

yeah the old ones lost their magick so I thought I’d give you all some new ones…

#1 If you cannot respect the rights of others than you yourself shall be denied your rights.

#2 Shun all forms of social status and classes, these are mere illusions that attempt to justify ignoring the needs of society.

#3 If you make children, you are responsible for their health, education and happiness. If you take a person into your household or join a person in their household that has children of their own you are to accept full responsibility of their care as if they were your own.

#4 When you view someone as a burden to society, know this line of thinking is a much worse burden and more detrimental to society than poverty or handicap.

#5 When your religion, belief, ideology or personal opinion justifies violating the rights of others, know you are an enemy to the cooperative.

#6 Live a full and happy life, shun rewards and promises of heaven. Be sincere in you words, deeds and love. Make every day of your life the paradise you seek.

#7 Do not lose your individuality to fads and peer pressure. Your uniqueness is your contribution to society.

#8 Defend yourselves and your domains, but leave justice and punishment to the cooperative for none of us alone are God but all of us together are.

#9 If you cannot gaze upon the masses with civility then lower your gaze.

#10 Abide by these ten commandments and in so doing, Do what thou will shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will.

enlightenment, uncle al

also…

i had some maintenance to do on my flickr account, and when i logged out, i was delivered to the front page of Yahoo!

i don’t know for sure that they’re tracking what kind of news stories i read, especially when i’m not logged in, but i think that, when i’m not logged in, they don’t really care – plus i’m paranoid enough that i register every cookie from every web site i visit, and i know for a fact that i don’t have a tracking cookie from yahoo or any of its affiliates…

which makes my experience all the more telling. with all the furor and hoopla that’s going on in the world, the FIRST link that showed up at yahoo was about increased speculation that barack obama dyes his hair… 😐

i guess that’s a drawback of being enlightened: you see where people really need to be taught, and those are the exactly the same times you are effectively prevented from teaching. as uncle al said, it is no good trying to teach people who need to be taught.

uncle al

Skidoo!

THE BOOK OF LIES is a very profound book, and one that contains a fair amount more Truth than the name would imply. today i’ve been taken by Skidoo!, chapter 23. the fact that it is actually chapter 23 (2+3=5) does not escape me, although which came first is quite obvious (the book of lies was first published in 1913, and the principia discordia wasn’t published until the late ’50s or early ’60s). but it’s crowley’s roundabout, poetic way of stating the plain and obvious which makes it so infuriating and intriguing. if he’d just said “The Way out is THE WAY” and given concrete examples of exactly how “The Way out is THE WAY” i probably would have gotten it when i first read the book, in the late ’70s. as it is, i am still pulling threads of wisdom out of it today, and i’m not sure that i’ll ever figure out exactly what he was talking about.

imaginary pooperty, uncle al

i guess i’ll take this as a compliment…

i have posted a number of aleister crowley’s writings on the net, including The Book of Lies, which has been more or less in the same place at least since 090520. my recollection is that it was at a similar location prior to that, and i originally posted it around 1998 or thereabouts.

i was poking around on the web this afternoon, when i found a complete copy of the book of lies down to the "publisher’s imprint" on the title page, and the META reply-to tags with MY email address in it on every page, at Biblioteca Pleyades – which, to it’s credit, makes the claim that “Everything on this Site has been obtained on the Internet… Nothing herein has been produced by us.”

also, my understanding is that the book of lies is one of those books on which the O.T.O. is not, currently, actively pursuing legal complaints when people post it online, but… they COPIED my HTML without even ASKING… 😐

i guess i should remember uncle al’s own words, ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΠΗ…