Reddit mentions of The Little Book of Demons: The Positive Advantages of the Personification of Life's Problems

Okay, I hope everything goes more smoothly for you soon.

I keep running into obstacles myself. Now that I'm getting over the mental obstacles, I'm old enough to be hitting the physical obstacles of growing older.

Do you think I should delete this thread? It doesn't seem to be generating any advice from anyone who knows about such an idea as "archons" in Buddhism and I'm not sure the idea has helped you any...what do you think? Did it give you a clear idea to work with or did it just make your worst fears about the situation even worse?

In my opinion, a healthy attitude toward such things is found in Aristotle's quote:
>It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

In other words, if it is useful to us and we can not prove otherwise, we can act as if we are facing obstacles from such beings in order that we can work with that idea in some positive way. One benefit I can see right away is that it frames the predicament in such a way that it motivates us to practice and we can stop feeling guilty for falling into such ruts by realizing it is not your choosing. Even if it were to turn out there are no such beings, it is clearly not your choosing to feel this way, so it is accurate enough to frame it this way.

If this seems 'crazy' to anyone, keep in mind we personify things quite a lot in daily life without even thinking about it. We personify our cars when they won't start, for example. We really give "old Bessy" a feeling of hope and faith and love on a cold winter morning when we pump the gas pedal just right and gingerly turn the key in the ignition. She starts and we cheer for old Bessy. Then, we promptly shift out of "crazy" mode and into sensible thinking again. But, when old Bessy doesn't start, we are profoundly disappointed and sad...and not just because we will be late for work and see an auto mechanic bill in the near future. When the car fails to start, before we dissolve the idea of old Bessy as a living car with feelings, we feel flashes of disappointment that she let us down, sadness that she is dying and empathy for that old car that served us well for so many years and maybe even a tinge of guilt for being angry at her for not starting.

It might be beneficial for you to check out the Feeding Your Demons book. I'm not sure. I checked it out but decided it wasn't for me.

I did read Uncle Ramsey's Little Book of Demons and found it fairly entertaining and informative. It's not a Buddhist book, but if you could relate to the idea of "old Bessy" it might interest you.

> Sorry, I tried watching the video, but I can't take people that credulous seriously. You shouldn't believe anything without some evidence or a logical explanation. Anything else is a demonstrably terrible way to try to gain knowledge.

Heh, he's one of the most critically thinking people I know. He's exactly on the other side of the spectrum of credulity. He's famous for being a contrarian and free thinker. Now I have to confess that I let my guard down a little because of who he is but I don't spot obvious flaws to formal logic. If anything the fact that he consumed it with such enthusiam made me realize that it isn't necessarily an endeavour for idiots.

>Perhaps you would like to provide example of an occult belief you think I should take seriously?

Well, what is something you take seriously? Often the occult really just provide thinking tools.

One such thing would be this: "Uncle Ramsey's Little Book of Demons: The Positive Advantages of the Personification of Life's Problems."


The argument is akin to if for instance astrology enables you to unravel subconcious issues that are bubbling under the surface of conciousness, then the exercise has positive applications. You just shouldn't believe in the message but what the message tells you about your mind as how it was derived and what you connect. I think many occultists are rationalists with a hood on cause it's fun, some like Aleister Crowley are nutters but really interesting people. EDIT: Here the author explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EPhMu69JSg



Keep in mind that the point of the video isn't really occultism but more mysticsm and reality modes. Also observe your own reaction of the matter to dismiss it outright. I'm not at all that interested in the occult by the way, I've recently just been dabbeling and cherry picking what I like about it for my own personal interest. I also find the people who get absorbed in it to be unpleasant to be around. Now mysticsm a la Alan Watts and Terrance McKenna to an extend I enjoyed immensely. The bridge to them was Sam Harris "Waking up".

>I would stick to researching the scientific experiments in quantum mechanics and take many of the interpretations of those experiments with a grain of salt. Especially when they start trying to apply quantum concepts to anything larger than subatomic particles.

I'll try to read around more. It's a little bit frustrating. I felt like I did my due diligance by reading the book I linked you (or rather skimmed it to be fair) and I've also tried to read into it because I was interested in quantum computing. I've recently found myself in that situation all too often.


Edit2: I just remembered a fun idea which Robert Anton Wilson called the "Cosmic Schmuck principle" and is very much the same as "knowingness".

http://overweeninggeneralist.blogspot.de/2012/07/the-cosmic-schmuck-principle-and-some.html

I had a hearty chuckle and had to confess that this was very much me at many points in this conversation.