Contra Esotericism
#1
Intellectually, I am a master MMA fighter that has mastered all of the most efficient attacks and defenses. A lot of supposed interesting intellectual content is very uninteresting to me because it is false or shallow or superfluous. You are like people who want to talk about wing chun and dim mak and trying to make me look ignorant for sticking to my shin kicks and BJJ.

1. Learn about biology. Learn "the central dogma of biology" and how genetics work on a molecular level in and out. You can do this even by taking a good biology 101 university class. Obviously you need to put more effort and intelligence in than your average student to the point that you understand it intuitively AND the implications of this so that you can synthesize this with economics, politics, philosophy. You probably have to be a born a genius like me to do this, but please at least try. Learn everything there is to know about IQ science and race science. The Alternative Hypothesis is the best resource.
2. Learn about finance/economics. First of all start trading stocks with actual money. Having a few hundred dollars in the stock market will be like a harsh karate master that beats the shit out of you for your retardation. Learn about EV, diversification, the Kelly Criterion, American vs European binary options, efficient market hypothesis, index funds, leverage, forex, the Greeks, etc. You should eventually learn that you are too stupid to generate alpha in the stock market because it is an efficient market. What markets are efficient and what markets are not efficient? Why are they efficient or not efficient? You should be able to answer these. Take a microeconomics course. Austrian economics is real economics, everything else is Marxist lies. The Fiat Standard and The Bitcoin Standard are probably the best books to learn actual economics.

I can add more to this. The gist of the philosophy section will be that you can just read Nietzsche and Alex Kierkegaard and skip everything else. The truth is that a small number of philosophers made everything before and after them either debunked, irrelevant, or in the best case marginal.

These are actual real things and they are part of the reason that i. am. so. much. smarter. than. you. People recommend things like Evola but it is simply not real stuff, or these people have not been able to sell it to me as anything but racist-flavored hippy shit. I would much rather read whatever YA novels are currently popular with teen girls than whatever Keith Woods reads. He is like a fake Chinese martial artist who claims he can't be knocked down because he learned how to root his Chi in the Earth from ancient scrolls.

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#2
We should all hold reverence for Billy’s humility. It would not be an overstatement to say he is the spirit of humility that has taken a corporeal form on earth to teach all of humanity.
#3
Agreed, excessive esotericism is just another form of escapism. No amount of Hidden Truths you find in some oriental scripture are going to get you out of the Warehouse.
#4
I appreciate the fighting metaphors and insistence upon practicality and grounding in observable results.

However, I am inclined to doubt the usefulness of much of what you raise here. In particular, biology. I beat up on this point a lot but only because I think someone needs to. With the finance I can just ask you how much money you have. But with biology what good comes of it? Alt Hyp knows poor people and niggers tend to be stupid? Cool. So does anybody who has lived around them. Why are the 10k hours spent studying DNA necessary now? And why are there so many libtard biologists? Yes we can say they're all retarded natural slaves incapable of synthesising true understanding from individual pieces of data. Sure, I can buy that. But then what does a smart person (like me, maybe?) need this data for? What invaluable synthesis will I be able to create from these elements?

Everything original that I've ever said that ever impressed anybody came from synthesising together my haphazardly assembled mental library of humanities works, arts, and things that have come together talking to my fellow /lit/ people. You can call it mental Wing Chun and mysticism if you like, but it still brought you here, didn't it Billionaire?
#5
I wasn't dissing you. Your knowledge is quite grounded in reality. However, it is important to know the fundamentals of how civilization works. The two big topics I thought of to get a better understanding of this were biology and economics. I am not recommending you get any more than a 101 level of understanding these things. However, you should master the fundamentals of these things to the point where you can quickly and intuitively apply your knowledge to The Arguments. That is what makes people geniuses. Psychology is equally important but it is difficult to explain. I can't just point you to read 3 books and give you some search terms to google for psychology. My point is that knowledge is like a pyramid. You need an iron-solid huge base. It's embarrassing to be an intellectual if you don't understand things like algebra and basic genetics and logical fallacies work. You will make all kinds of mistakes due to your ignorance (like thinking mixed race people are healthier lol). Calculus before Kali Yuga.

Quote:Why are the 10k hours spent studying DNA necessary now?

Read again. It's not like I am recommending you get a PHD. Just the equivalent of an intro course. Chud and rockies probably know way more than me about biology and genetics. Economics is easy too. Finance is more complicated; it gets into very heavy logical, mathematical, and philosophical puzzles that will trap you if you don't have perfectly clear thinking.

Quote:But then what does a smart person (like me, maybe?) need this data for? What invaluable synthesis will I be able to create from these elements?

This is a good example of bounded cognition. People underestimate the benefits of mental skills they haven't mastered because the benefits can't be imagined. A child who says math will never be useful, doesn't understand basic mathematics, becomes a pipefitter. They say "I never use anything I was taught in school", doesn't realize they are less efficient at work. Someone who is smart and mastered algebra will say they always use algebra in their daily life and it is quite useful. But they say calculus is not useful at all in their daily life because they can't do it in their head quickly. I'm sure that the rare people who have mastered calculus find all sorts of useful applications.

Also pardon the confused metaphor, but the point isn't that these things are useful. It is more so that they are Real and True (which is useful in the long term, but not my main point). Contrast this with mysticism, Dostoevsky, the turd position, spiritualism. These things are all thoroughly debunked by much smarter theories, much smarter people.
#6
Bravo! Death to Erroneous Doctrines! 

This thread has had an effect on me, I feel a new desire to learn about Biology and Economics. It’s said that Truth has its time and place, and this thread was what I needed to read right now.
#7
(03-09-2023, 10:31 PM)BillyONare Wrote: I wasn't dissing you.

I'm aware and wasn't reading the thread that way.

Quote:Your knowledge is quite grounded in reality. However, it is important to know the fundamentals of how civilization works. The two big topics I thought of to get a better understanding of this were biology and economics. I am not recommending you get any more than a 101 level of understanding these things. However, you should master the fundamentals of these things to the point where you can quickly and intuitively apply your knowledge to The Arguments. That is what makes people geniuses. Psychology is equally important but it is difficult to explain. I can't just point you to read 3 books and give you some search terms to google for psychology. My point is that knowledge is like a pyramid. You need an iron-solid huge base. It's embarrassing to be an intellectual if you don't understand things like algebra and basic genetics and logical fallacies work. You will make all kinds of mistakes due to your ignorance (like thinking mixed race people are healthier lol). Calculus before Kali Yuga.


I agree with the general principle of building a pyramid with a massive base. My big issue with STEM supremacy and utility focused learning is that it has a tendency to ultimately constrain one's base. I believe that you'll get more for your efforts if you're curious and open. Not so much doing the hard and tedious work of building as achieving the growing and flourishing state of intellectual curiosity. The things you collect might be haphazard and the assembly perhaps a bit eclectic, but I believe that the energy and openness are worth it. Of course ideally we'd probably start with an initial work period of hard essentials, then open and flower into our own curiosities bolstered by this now potentially useful foundation of imparted hard knowledge. Why I don't recommend this for us is unfortunately just that we're simply too damn old. The time to do this is with children. And our youths were wasted by those who held authority over us, not spent. We invested the countless hours of obedient misery, and what do we have to look back upon for our efforts? No mental garden was built. Fertile soil was almost rendered a desert.

If you're over the age of 20, have obligations, only so much energy, etc. I would recommend investing what efforts you can manage into the power to generate more growth, rather than tediously hauling individual blocks of knowledge into your base. Becoming curious and thoughtful is worth more than dragging your eyes over the pages of a thousand books cover to cover. You might read less, you might take forever to get to certain issues considered essential, but this way you'll always get somewhere. 

You say "calculus before kali yuga". I think the problem of most of the people jumping into kali yuga have is the same problem I see in people making too much of STEM. It's this totemic appreciation of knowledge as power-imparting and valuable for its own sake. With potential reality hacks and big payoffs waiting if you can somehow get it right. Esoteric is more of a mindset than a field of study.

Quote:It's not like I am recommending you get a PHD. Just the equivalent of an intro course

If I get curious I might look at something sooner or later. Also I'm touching on a little economics because Princes of the Yen interests me. Thing: Japan.

Quote:People underestimate the benefits of mental skills they haven't mastered because the benefits can't be imagined.

Sure. But this seems like more of a general argument for learning than for any particular thing. My art theory is my political theory is my personal psychology theory. I probably have more faith in the lateral application of mental tools and ideas than most people.
#8
I agree with the general ideas put forth in this thread (aside from the biology part, where I think anthony is quite right; I would like to know how YOU have practically applied the study of biology in your life, as to me it seems, while not unimportant, nonetheless not the first priority any burgeoning intellectual should have), and do believe many people get lost in ideas and live fantasy lives they believe are meaningful, but I quite disagree with this part:
(03-09-2023, 08:37 PM)BillyONare Wrote: People recommend things like Evola but it is simply not real stuff, or these people have not been able to sell it to me as anything but racist-flavored hippy shit. I would much rather read whatever YA novels are currently popular with teen girls than whatever Keith Woods reads.

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I think that literature is very important, even if the ideas put forward may have been debunked. It allows you to peer into the thoughts of great men of the past, and you glean things from these thoughts that you simply will not from even the most correct philosophers. It's true that overreading will turn you into a philonigger who speculates more than he acts, but underreading turns you into a materialistic dog. Every man should give good precedence to both practical matters such as finance, and to spiritual matters such as philosophy.
#9
(03-10-2023, 01:57 PM)Guest Wrote: I would like to know how YOU have practically applied the study of biology in your life

Since billionaire flattered me earlier in this thread, I'll defend the need to know biology. You don't need to know cell membranes or nictating membranes or even the names of the DNA bases, but you do need to know the basic mathematical and game-theoretical shapes of the things that biology, esp. evolutionary and socio-biology, posit and empirically describe. How genomes decay over time, and improve rarely and at complete random; how they scramble between generations and confer traits in predictable distributions; how social behavior arises from populations of genetically-distinct individuals; how inter / intra- sexual behavior stems from biological incentives; how certain genetic tendencies can exert a pull on society, and vice versa.

This is the substrate on which the whole human experience is based. It's alluded to in the very beginning of the Western Canon; it underlies every pastoral romance and every tale of dynasty and lineage, true or fictional. Once you really understand it you'll find yourself constantly making biological analogies to human culture and behavior. Growth and decay, profligacy and constraint, cooperation and subversion - these are qualities of the universe itself, and the domain of self-replicating DNA molecules is merely the most intriguing, fleshed-out, and intuitively-sympathetic area of study in which one can see these qualities express themselves.

Reading List (peculiar to me, that I do not expect anyone else to follow, but which may be instructive): Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene; Jared Diamond - Collapse + The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee + Why Is Sex Fun; Gregory Cochran - The 10,000 Year Explosion; Richard Lynn - Dysgenics + Eugenics; Lewis I. Held, Jr. - How the Snake Lost Its Legs + Quirks of Human Anatomy; Gregory Clark - A Farewell to Alms
#10
(03-09-2023, 08:37 PM)BillyONare Wrote: People recommend things like Evola but it is simply not real stuff, or these people have not been able to sell it to me as anything but racist-flavored hippy shit. I would much rather read whatever YA novels are currently popular with teen girls than whatever Keith Woods reads. He is like a fake Chinese martial artist who claims he can't be knocked down because he learned how to root his Chi in the Earth from ancient scrolls.

The "secret scrolls" dogma is a constraint upon the right wing. Guys who chain themselves to word salad mystical idiot shit. It "seems important" because its hard to understand, but there's nothing to understand, no arguments, no facts, no clarity at all.

The world beware a reich armed with analytic philosophy, biology, game theory, economics, BillyONare Weltanschauung, Templism. 

The karate or whatever analogy is quite good. Like karate, kung fu, tawekwondo, it takes people to stop smugly virtue signaling stupid dogmas to develop a real system of fighting.

I still think the esoteric faggot shit is good, but not for an elite. But that isn't what we're talking about here. We are not developing a strategy for mass propaganda. Instead, talking about what an elite Amarnite ought to concern himself with.
#11
I agree with OP, most esoteric ideas are simply not real and aren't worth refuting. I would like to discuss why esotericism exists in spite of its apparent worthlessness. I view esoteric philosophies as aesthetic fashions that represent the spiritual successors of Jewish Kabbalah.

A person only learns or teaches esoteric philosophies for social reasons. These ideas aren't inherently useful since they do not describe the world accurately, the purpose they serve is to signal belonging or to be used as an arena for social competition.

Some social signals convey useful information, for instance beauty signals genetic fitness and health, which has real-world relevance. Esoteric social signalling is an empty and self-referential shibboleth. All it means to signal that you know Kabbalah is to signal that you know Kabbalah, the knowledge is not backed by truth or reality. False knowledge conjured from nowhere is being used as the basis for a speculative social asset that has some similarities to cryptocurrency.

Not all aesthetic philosophical fashions are secret, and these wouldn't be considered esoteric, but I find them relevant so I will mention them here. For example, astrology has a wide appeal, especially among women. Here, purpose of the ideology is not to gatekeep an ingroup, but to provide an arena for social competition. Women read the astrology "ruleset" and then play the astrology "game" which consists of making astrological claims about themselves and others. Making these claims is similar to gossiping about hair/clothing/makeup, except the new "star sign" identity category has almost no connection to reality. Since exoteric aesthetic fashions are more vulnerable to external scrutiny, it's more necessary/contentious for there to be a kayfabe consensus where participants attempt to convince themselves and/or others that the philosophy is "real" or "true" in some sense.

Whether or not adherents actually believe these aesthetic fashions are "true", is not actually important. It's common sense even to less intelligent people (if they are being honest with themselves) that these ideologies have close to zero predictive power. The philosophy being secret is more important than the content of the philosophy itself, although certain kinds of philosophies lend themselves better to this social purpose.



Notice how this video mentions very little about the contents of these books and how they changed over time. I leave wondering what Kabbalah actually is. Is this just a bad summary, or is what really matters here the supposedly peripheral details that are given an extensive focus, about how these mystical and obscure works of "wisdom" that look like RPG magic tomes were written by the secretive Sage Rabbi Shlomo in the 13th century?

I'm not finding kabbalah.com much more informative, I am also highly skeptical that Kabbalah was intended for "people of all beliefs and backgrounds" considering what I just heard about its secretive history. Even the esoteric philosophies that don't adopt the leftist New Age aesthetic seen at that URL usually come across as vague affective nonsense to me. Like Billy said, the true science and philosophy that matters has already been discovered. There are no truths deeply hidden in secret societies; there is only the known, the unknown, and nonsense.

Religion as a whole usually isn't a pure aesthetic fashion because it concerns real world matters of governance and morality, but there are usually aspects of a religion that are esoteric (Kabbalah being the obvious example). In Christianity, the fact that words like "exegesis" and "eschatology" need to exist at all should suggest some obscurantism is going on here.
#12
Esoterica is simple, and necessary. Mathematics is the first bit of esoteric knowledge you gain. + is fairly simple, two objects or groups being put together. Multiplication is much less so. If you try to communicate with someone who does not know multiplication, you will be forced to engage in esoterical language.

This extends to other things that are fairly simple for those who know them but are completely alien to those who are ignorant. What else can you do? It is esoteric because it is esoteric. If one wants to proclaim he knows everything, then that is okay. Reality will likely tell a different tale.
#13
(09-20-2023, 12:48 AM)Mason Hall-McCullough Wrote: A person only learns or teaches esoteric philosophies for social reasons. These ideas aren't inherently useful since they do not describe the world accurately, the purpose they serve is to signal belonging or to be used as an arena for social competition.

This is wrong. First of all a person who learns esoteric beliefs is called mystic. Mystics do not learn or form their beliefs in an attempt to bolster their status(this is ridiculous). What animates a mystic to learn errant beliefs is: first a perverted personality and mind, and second a strong desire towards secret power. What these two points mean is that the mystic will aspire towards their beliefs from an internal need rather then an external prospect.
How the beliefs of mystics work is:
Max Nordau Wrote:Many erroneous explanations of natural phenomena, the majority of false scientific hypotheses, all religious and metaphysical systems, have arisen in such a way that mankind, in their thoughts and opinions, have interwoven, as equally valid components, ideas suggested by words only, together with such as were derived from direct perception. The words were either invented by mystics and originally indicated nothing beyond the unbalanced condition of a weak and diseased brain, or, whereas they at first expressed a definite, correct presentation, their proper meaning was not caught by those who repeated them, and by them was arbitrarily falsified, differently interpreted, or blurred. Innate or acquired weakness of mind and ignorance lead alike to the goal of mysticism. The brain of the ignorant elaborates presentations that are nebulous, because they are suggested by words, not by the thing itself, and the stimulus of a word is not strong enough to produce vigorous action in the brain-cells; moreover, the brain of the exhausted and degenerate elaborates nebulous presentations, because in any case it is not in a condition to respond to a stimulus by vigorous action. Hence ignorance is artificial weakness of mind, just as, conversely, weakness of mind is the natural organic incapacity for knowledge

Many mystics are actually asocial as a result of their personality and practice, although this is not the only form. The second type is the mystic who associates with a small group of fellow mystics in a type of secret society(although the word  secret society may imply a high level of complexity then their groups actually have). This social formation is a group-forming tendency which is peculiar impulse of many ‘degenerates.’ When I use the word degenerate I use it in the Lomobroso sense. Another word to use, which Lomobroso coined personally, would be Mattiod. 

Many of the people on twitter who learn these esoteric beliefs are not normal or healthy. Many of these people will call themselves autistic or claim some other sort of disability. A great example of these esoteric chasers was the Kali/acc movement. Sunny especially fitted the description of a Mattiod. Here’s a great book showing the inner workings of a mystic’s mind.
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#14
(09-20-2023, 01:39 AM)Guest Wrote: Esoterica is simple, and necessary. Mathematics is the first bit of esoteric knowledge you gain. + is fairly simple, two objects or groups being put together. Multiplication is much less so. If you try to communicate with someone who does not know multiplication, you will be forced to engage in esoterical language.

This extends to other things that are fairly simple for those who know them but are completely alien to those who are ignorant. What else can you do? It is esoteric because it is esoteric. If one wants to proclaim he knows everything, then that is okay. Reality will likely tell a different tale.

I don't think mathematics is a representative example that can be extended to other domains of knowledge. It is only esoteric at times due to inherent complexity. A mathematician tries to make their expression as simple as possible, but this can be challenging. The esoteric ideas we are talking about create artificial complexity to obscure common sense realities regarding the human condition.

Though, advanced mathematics with no practical applications can arguably be esoteric by my definition because these mathematicians are creating problems that do not need to be solved.



(09-20-2023, 01:47 AM)Guest Wrote: This is wrong. First of all a person who learns esoteric beliefs is called mystic. Mystics do not learn or form their beliefs in an attempt to bolster their status(this is ridiculous). What animates a mystic to learn errant beliefs is: first a perverted personality and mind, and second a strong desire towards secret power. What these two points mean is that the mystic will aspire towards their beliefs from an internal need rather then an external prospect.

The only "secret power" that really exists turns out to be social status in practice because ideologies that substitute their own basis for materialistic truth have no power over material reality, they can only influence the minds of others.

Quote:The second type is the mystic who associates with a small group of fellow mystics in a type of secret society(although the word  secret society may imply a high level of complexity then their groups actually have). This social formation is a group-forming tendency which is peculiar impulse of many ‘degenerates.’ When I use the word degenerate I use it in the Lomobroso sense. Another word to use, which Lomobroso coined personally, would be Mattiod.

I'm not sure we really disagree here other than that I would say this second type is much more common, especially today. Maybe I have misconstrued some mentally ill asocial mystics of the past, but even secret societies seem to be socially motivated: aren't they just slightly evolved friend groups?

I think Kali/ACK is a great example of the social component of esotericism. Their community was primarily concerned with farming attention and followers on Twitter, the confusing mishmash of aesthetics they appropriated helped to attract the curiosity of others but on the inside their clique was no different from most other social groups (aside from generally consisting of worthless people). The content of their aesthetics did not influence their behavior beyond superficial references that served as ingroup signalling.

Mental illness/weakness does predispose one to identifying with deranged beliefs to some degree, but I think the group-forming tendency you identify is probably the more relevant factor.
#15
(09-20-2023, 02:42 AM)Mason Hall-McCullough Wrote:
The only "secret power" that really exists turns out to be social status in practice because ideologies that substitute their own basis for materialistic truth have no power over material reality, they can only influence the minds of others.

I think our disagreement originated from our different goals; I’m more concerned with the personality of the mystic while you are speculating on the conscious/unconscious teleological reason for mystic behavior. I’m willing to accept an evo/psy prospective— that because their beliefs somehow end up benefiting them socially(which isn’t always the case) they were able to continue to believe in them; but I reject any cyclical stances that might claim mystics to be falsifying their beliefs for social power. Although, there are no doubt people who will take advantage of the naive and credulous mystics for said social power—mainly cult leaders. 

(09-20-2023, 02:42 AM)Mason Hall-McCullough Wrote:
I'm not sure we really disagree here other than that I would say this second type is much more common, especially today. Maybe I have misconstrued some mentally ill asocial mystics of the past, but even secret societies seem to be socially motivated: aren't they just slightly evolved friend groups?
Yes, the second type maybe more common today, or at least they are more visible. On the second point: any social motivation that leads to the formation of these secret societies(although a better word should be used, not that I can think of one) is because the mystic cannot hold healthy social bonds with normal people; instead they are forced to look for others like them. A loser joining a strange sub-culture to get friends is not necessarily a mystic. There are a plethora of exoteric sub-culture for that. Inceldom has evolved into that, which has an exoteric and not esoteric teaching.

Mason Hall-McCullough Wrote:I think Kali/ACK is a great example of the social component of esotericism. Their community was primarily concerned with farming attention and followers on Twitter, the confusing mishmash of aesthetics they appropriated helped to attract the curiosity of others but on the inside their clique was no different from most other social groups (aside from generally consisting of worthless people). The content of their aesthetics did not influence their behavior beyond superficial references that served as ingroup signalling.

Mental illness/weakness does predispose one to identifying with deranged beliefs to some degree, but I think the group-forming tendency you identify is probably the more relevant factor.
Kali/Ack did showcase an ingenious use of aesthetics, but not without sprinkled in spiritual teachings. I remember Sunny taking quotes from various spiritual practices, like Sufism, and elaborating them with something else he claimed earlier. Did Sunny actually believe in what he was posting?— well, was there a reason for him to effort-post so much instead of just sticking to quirky aesthetics? I do believe in the authentic spiritual belief of many in that group, but they may have been a minority when compare to the crowd looking for a sub-culture to join. Miya on the other hand was not really that spiritual and fits the cult leader personality perfectly.
#16
The question of whether someone "believes" what they say is not very important to me because the answer usually lies in some overlapping grey area of self-deception and conflicting intentions. Occasionally people lie blatantly with complete self-awareness, but it's hard to notice in these cases anyway. Most liars are able to believe their own lies. Also, if you're someone with dissident views you should be able to observe how most people's beliefs are rarely derived by their own individual reasoning to a significant extent, and are much more often coercively manipulated by various external incentives. Asking what those incentives are is a better angle from which to understand why they believe what they believe, rather than trying to determine their honesty.



A friend brought up the pursuit of mental states in spiritual practices, such as Zen Buddhism. This particular category seems like a valid example of an esoteric practice that does not necessarily have to be social or an aesthetic (although other aspects of Zen Buddhism invariably lean in the direction of aesthetic signalling in practice). Reaching these mental states can be inherently challenging, explaining why such a practice could be considered esoteric, and intentional esoteric obfuscation may serve to limit the conscious mind's ability to fight against the conditioning.

However, I would argue that such a practice is still about as divergent from the pursuit of truth as aesthetic signalling is. In these cases the esoteric ideology serves a functional purpose to clear, confuse, or fixate the mind so cognition can be bypassed while the desired mental state is achieved. The purpose of that mental state is generally to turn most of your brain off, although they no doubt have esoteric explanations for how it's actually something different and more meaningful.
#17
On what is an esoteric practice: one of the most common is a pursuit of metaphysics. The mystic will often times see themselves as a gnostic/prophet communicating with the true world beneath the appearances. The fact that no one else can understand their epiphanies is only further proof of their own elect status. These epiphanies are not the result of some noble sagacious characters showing its nature upon the world
Max Nordau Wrote:but [rather] the degeneration-mania of doubt and brooding thought, which is barren, because no answer, no explanation can satisfy them. For it is obvious that be the ‘therefore’ never so clear, never so exhaustive, it can never silence the mechanically impulsive ‘wherefore’ proceeding from the Unconscious.
Thus these epiphanies provide the only form of repose to their perturbed minds. Besides this repose, because of the mystics “emotionalism” they also take great pleasure from these divine insights into the unseen world.
Max Nordau Wrote:Another mental stigma of degenerates is their emotionalism. Morel has even wished to make this peculiarity their chief characteristic—erroneously, it seems to me, for it is present in the same degree among hysterics, and, indeed, is to be found in perfectly healthy persons, who, from any transient cause, such as illness, exhaustion, or any mental shock, have been temporarily weakened. Nevertheless it is a phenomenon rarely absent in a degenerate. He laughs until he sheds tears, or weeps copiously without adequate occasion; a commonplace line of poetry or of prose sends a shudder down his back; he falls into raptures before indifferent pictures or statues; and music especially, even the most insipid and least commendable, arouses in him the most vehement emotions. He is quite proud of being so vibrant a musical instrument, and boasts that where the Philistine remains completely cold, he feels his inner self confounded, the depths of his being broken up, and the bliss of the Beautiful possessing him to the tips of his fingers. His excitability appears to him a mark of superiority; he believes himself to be possessed by a peculiar insight lacking in other mortals, and he is fain to despise the vulgar herd for the dulness and narrowness of their minds. The unhappy creature does not suspect that he is conceited about a disease and boasting of a derangement of the mind; and certain silly critics, when, through fear of being pronounced deficient in comprehension, they make desperate efforts to share the emotions of a degenerate in regard to some insipid or ridiculous production, or when they praise in exaggerated expressions the beauties which the degenerate asserts he finds therein, are unconsciously simulating one of the stigmata of semi-insanity.
#18
I also meant to add that the epiphanies are not stable and sometimes only last as long as the feeling of discovery. 

Also can a jannie fix my post above? I didn’t mean to double post like that, not sure how it happened. @Chud @anthony



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