Edification and male/female exchanges at ILP.

[iambiguous]

On the other hand, since you have never been able to actually see how people do behave around you, how would you know what they are capable of doing by way of acting out ulterior motives? It’s true that those who are not blind often underestimate the abilities of those who are, but it can also be true that those who are blind might overestimate their ability to judge people in a world they can’t see.

@Maia

I know exactly what my abilities are, having had a lifetime to find out.

Then [of course] we think about what anyone can really know about their abilities in interacting with others very differently. I tend to focus more in on all the variables in our lives we either do not fully understand or control. You tend to focus more on what you think you are sure of about yourself despite that. Then the part where being blind or being sighted just makes that all the more problematic.

I recall that scene from the Norwegian film Blind where the blind wife is in bed with her husband. She asks him what he is doing on the laptop and he says it’s about his work as an architecture. In reality he is online with his lover. One peek at the laptop screen might have ended that marriage.

Human relationships can be tricky enough with all five senses. And all the more problematic with less than five. Especially sight and hearing. Or again so it seems to me.

@Maia

That’s just a film though. I would like to think that in real life, she would know that her husband was up to something from his tone of voice and all sorts of other clues. And in any case, if she wasn’t blind, her husband wouldn’t have done it that way, so it basically all equals out.

A film that in “real life” has played itself out countless times in our sex-drenched postmodern world.

Anyway, from my frame of mind, there are so many different possible permutations that being married and having a lover can revolve around, the only thing it all “basically equals out” regarding is what you can convince yourself that it does “in your head”. In other words, to [at times] trick yourself into sustaining the most comforting and consoling “reality”.

And, again, this [to me] has nothing to do with having or not having sight. Being blind just takes away that many more clues.

Okay, but love and sex – romantic relationships – can often be anything but fastidious and precise and practical. Perhaps that might be a subconscious or unconscious motivation for abstaining from sex…to keep that potential turbulence – passion – at bay. The Goddess then becomes a kind of psychological defense mechanism for you.

Let’s call this a “wild ass guess” on my part. Again, given the gap between our individual lives.

@Maia

I don’t think I’m any less passionate than most people. But passion wasn’t the issue. The issues were love and trust. And when those things are betrayed, it’s a real passion killer.

That’s true, of course. But sexual fidelity is often one of the most important factors of all when romantic relationships go south. My own ex-wife left me for another woman so I still recall the turbulence that revolved for me around love and trust.

And then this part…

Okay, but “it just felt like the right thing to do” still leaves me both fascinated and baffled as to how the Goddess and nature play a part in that. This is something, from my own frame of mind, you might possibly probe more deeply yourself in regard to your own thoughts and feelings…or just accept that it is a “spiritual” or “mystical” or “energy” thing?

Which, of course, in a philosophy thread in a philosophy venue becomes something else altogether. Still, I am often pointing out the gap between words and worlds. Your words and your world, my words and my world. The inevitable “failure to communicate” about things like this perhaps.

@Maia

Since I’ve always felt this connection to nature, what I have come to call the Goddess, I can’t really imagine what it would be like not to have it. Extremely boring, I suspect. As a part of nature, I know I’m part of something bigger, something magical and powerful. And sometimes I feel the need to give something back, to sacrifice something, simply out of gratitude for all the blessings of my life.

Then I suppose we are “stuck” until, perhaps, someday you are able to explain it to me in a way that allows me to understand it more…existentially. I still see it rooted in dasein…in the experiences you had that brought you to nature. In turn, acknowledging that for any number of reasons, those experiences might have been very different and you would be here arguing instead against Paganism and the Goddess. And that, given new experiences, that may yet be the case.

The way we think about “I” in the is/ought value judgment world so uniquely, individually.

I think after I explore Pagan morality, I will explore in turn Pagan sexuality. See just how far removed it is [for some] from The Wicker Man.

@Maia

Again, the Wicker Man is just a film. It bears about as much similarity to actual Paganism as Serendipity does to actual relationships.

But you are the first to acknowledge that actual Paganism revolves around each and every individual’s own path to and from nature. And that would certainly be the case in regard to sexuality. Back to the part where through nature one Pagan dives headfirst into the deep end of the sexual pool, where practically anything goes…while another yanks sex out of their life entirely. Same nature, two completely different paths. And, again, had your own life been different, you might have fit right into that Wicker Man community. Where nothing sexual would be deemed too “creepy”…only spiritually sound or unsound.

Yes, some people are less comfortable talking about sexual matters than others. And that too is no less rooted in dasein.

But how can exchanges unfold in a philosophy venue relating to things like commitments to chastity and stalking and male/female relationships online and it not revolve around our own behaviors?

So, perhaps, if you are not comfortable going there it is time for another “collapse” between us. And if that be the case, I will understand. It’s happened before for other reasons. I would certainly not feel any less respect for your intelligence, emotional depth, accomplishments, curiosity, and tolerance for other people’s point of view.

Me, I can only ever go where I think it is important to go. Discussions revolving around my own “win/win” assumptions. A discussion that might bring me up out of my hole…or bring someone down into it.

Well, you know what I think, so please bear it in mind, when you ask me things.

But how you think about this seems contradictory to me.

On the one hand, you agree that given new experiences, new relationships, and access to new information and knowledge, you might find yourself tumbling down into the hole with me. And yet another part of you seems absolutely adamant that this could never happen. Not to you.

Just as, with me, I can’t rule out the same from my end and you succeed in bringing me up out of the hole.

[Meno2 (Meno_)]

Biggy says:

“Back to the part where through nature one Pagan dives headfirst into the deep end of the sexual pool, where practically anything goes…while another yanks sex out of their life entirely. Same nature, two completely different paths. And, again, had your own life been different, you might have fit right into that Wicker Man community. Where nothing sexual would be deemed too “creepy”…only spiritually sound or unsound.”

me no answers:

“Yes and that is where sementic difference arises contradictorily with instinctive behavior.”

And universally needs to construct an ethical moralism. Maybe.

& I could also be wrong .

[iambiguous]

@Me No Make Sense

“Yes and that is where sementic difference arises contradictorily with instinctive behavior.”

Or:

“Yes and that is where semantic difference arises contradictorily with instinctive behavior.”
“Yes and that is where semitic difference arises contradictorily with instinctive behavior.”
“Yes and that is where cementic difference arises contradictorily with instinctive behavior.”

Then [of course] a Me No Make Sense sexual context.

On the other hand, how could that not be “creepy”?

[Meno2 (Meno_)]

@iambiguous

@Me No Make Sense

“Yes and that is where sementic difference arises contradictorily with instinctive behavior.”

Or:

“Yes and that is where semantic difference arises contradictorily with instinctive behavior.”
“Yes and that is where semitic difference arises contradictorily with instinctive behavior.”
“Yes and that is where cementic difference arises contradictorily with instinctive behavior.”

Then [of course] a Me No Make Sense sexual context.

On the other hand, how could that not be “creepy”?

First. and not really foremost, I like ‘allen’ better

Semiticand santicdiffetemces are actually , literallymore obvious.

The obtuseness, and not the a-cuteness of such differences are a topical opinion, true.

But underneath it all is like undressing every challenging sexual object, again, literally removing outer layers piece by piece, rather then with subtlety

[iambiguous]

@Me No Make Sense

First. and not really foremost, I like ‘allen’ better

He means ‘Alan’ of course.

But, really, when it comes to creepy philosophical gibberish like this…

@Me No Make Sense

Semiticand santicdiffetemces are actually , literallymore obvious.

The obtuseness, and not the a-cuteness of such differences are a topical opinion, true.

But underneath it all is like undressing every challenging sexual object, again, literally removing outer layers piece by piece, rather then with subtlety

…what possible difference can a name make? =D>

[Meno2 (Meno_)]

@iambiguous

@Me No Make Sense

First. and not really foremost, I like ‘allen’ better

He means ‘Alan’ of course.

But, really, when it comes to creepy philosophical gibberish like this…

@Me No Make Sense

Semiticand santicdiffetemces are actually , literallymore obvious.

The obtuseness, and not the a-cuteness of such differences are a topical opinion, true.

But underneath it all is like undressing every challenging sexual object, again, literally removing outer layers piece by piece, rather then with subtlety

…what possible difference can a name make? =D>

Now I think we may be actually on the same or cinjuctive courses.

A deeply metaphoric name say one in Shakespeare’s plays, refers to a vengeful some coming back for retribution Aginemnon and even Hamlet come to mind.

The narratives of this type of deontoliged name from a current analogous character harboring such intense motives: differ from those without.

The deontology of motives harbor personal vandetta, while the modern-functional like Utalitarianism bestow more social character upon such acts of revenge.

The deeper You get, the more split do the ethical-moral dimensions move apart.

In fact there will develop limits where the myth can no longer indicate any participative meaning between myth and it’s modern use.

[Meno2 (Meno_)]

Given that, I will rejoin you in a recon junction between fact and fiction, and incidentally that is why I indicated that we really are on the same page, as far as value of identiafiable meaning is concernedk.

[Maia]

+++Then [of course] we think about what anyone can really know about their abilities in interacting with others very differently. I tend to focus more in on all the variables in our lives we either do not fully understand or control. You tend to focus more on what you think you are sure of about yourself despite that. Then the part where being blind or being sighted just makes that all the more problematic.+++

Well, yes. I’m an optimist and you’re a pessimist. But with regard to being blind, sighted people in general really do tend to have a pretty distorted, and low opinion of what blind people can do, in my experience. That’s one of the reasons why I’m always happy to talk about it, to try and dispel such notions.

+++A film that in “real life” has played itself out countless times in our sex-drenched postmodern world.

Anyway, from my frame of mind, there are so many different possible permutations that being married and having a lover can revolve around, the only thing it all “basically equals out” regarding is what you can convince yourself that it does “in your head”. In other words, to [at times] trick yourself into sustaining the most comforting and consoling “reality”.

And, again, this [to me] has nothing to do with having or not having sight. Being blind just takes away that many more clues.+++

But perhaps offers others.

+++That’s true, of course. But sexual fidelity is often one of the most important factors of all when romantic relationships go south. My own ex-wife left me for another woman so I still recall the turbulence that revolved for me around love and trust.+++

Betrayal is not nice, and I’ve experienced it more than once.

+++Then I suppose we are “stuck” until, perhaps, someday you are able to explain it to me in a way that allows me to understand it more…existentially. I still see it rooted in dasein…in the experiences you had that brought you to nature. In turn, acknowledging that for any number of reasons, those experiences might have been very different and you would be here arguing instead against Paganism and the Goddess. And that, given new experiences, that may yet be the case.

The way we think about “I” in the is/ought value judgment world so uniquely, individually.+++

I’m sure that I’ll never abandon a Pagan frame of mind. You may respond with, how can you possibly know what might happen? But rest assured, in this case, I do know.

+++But you are the first to acknowledge that actual Paganism revolves around each and every individual’s own path to and from nature. And that would certainly be the case in regard to sexuality. Back to the part where through nature one Pagan dives headfirst into the deep end of the sexual pool, where practically anything goes…while another yanks sex out of their life entirely. Same nature, two completely different paths. And, again, had your own life been different, you might have fit right into that Wicker Man community. Where nothing sexual would be deemed too “creepy”…only spiritually sound or unsound.+++

I can only speak from long experience of what Pagan events and festivals are actually like. And nothing at all like the sexual activities in the Wicker Man take place at them. This is not to say that the Wicker Man hasn’t influenced the Pagan movement, because it has. The songs are common staples at camps, for example, and Pagans often quote lines from it to each other, as a joke. So it’s not as if it couldn’t have influenced Pagan sexual practices, if Pagans had been receptive to it doing so.

Everyone is different, and while it may well be the same nature, how each person relates to it is different. But in a way, it’s not even really the same nature, since everyone experiences different parts of it, never all of it.

+++But how you think about this seems contradictory to me.

On the one hand, you agree that given new experiences, new relationships, and access to new information and knowledge, you might find yourself tumbling down into the hole with me. And yet another part of you seems absolutely adamant that this could never happen. Not to you.

Just as, with me, I can’t rule out the same from my end and you succeed in bringing me up out of the hole.+++

No, I don’t agree that given new experiences etc. I might go down your hole. I might change my opinions on all sorts of issues, but that’s not the same thing at all.

[MagsJ (..a chic geek)]

@Maia

+++On the one hand, you agree that given new experiences, new relationships, and access to new information and knowledge, you might find yourself tumbling down into the hole with me. And yet another part of you seems absolutely adamant that this could never happen. Not to you.

Just as, with me, I can’t rule out the same from my end and you succeed in bringing me up out of the hole.+++

No, I don’t agree that given new experiences etc. I might go down your hole. I might change my opinions on all sorts of issues, but that’s not the same thing at all.

The man is obsessed with his hole. [sorry Maia… I couldn’t help it, in cracking that joke] lol.

I also need to search up on Pagan sexual practices, to see what the specifics of Pagan sexual practices actually are… tho I think I saw a video of pagan practices on KTS a while back.

[Maia]

@MagsJ

@Maia

+++On the one hand, you agree that given new experiences, new relationships, and access to new information and knowledge, you might find yourself tumbling down into the hole with me. And yet another part of you seems absolutely adamant that this could never happen. Not to you.

Just as, with me, I can’t rule out the same from my end and you succeed in bringing me up out of the hole.+++

No, I don’t agree that given new experiences etc. I might go down your hole. I might change my opinions on all sorts of issues, but that’s not the same thing at all.

The man is obsessed with his hole. [sorry Maia… I couldn’t help it, in cracking that joke] lol.

I also need to search up on Pagan sexual practices, to see what the specifics of Pagan sexual practices actually are… tho I think I saw a video of pagan practices on KTS a while back.

Believe me, it has been a real test of willpower not to make such a joke myself.

Pagan sexual practices are pretty diverse, but in my experience, at least, aren’t really all that different to society in general.

[iambiguous]

@Maia

+++Then [of course] we think about what anyone can really know about their abilities in interacting with others very differently. I tend to focus more in on all the variables in our lives we either do not fully understand or control. You tend to focus more on what you think you are sure of about yourself despite that. Then the part where being blind or being sighted just makes that all the more problematic.+++

Well, yes. I’m an optimist and you’re a pessimist. But with regard to being blind, sighted people in general really do tend to have a pretty distorted, and low opinion of what blind people can do, in my experience. That’s one of the reasons why I’m always happy to talk about it, to try and dispel such notions.

+++A film that in “real life” has played itself out countless times in our sex-drenched postmodern world.

Anyway, from my frame of mind, there are so many different possible permutations that being married and having a lover can revolve around, the only thing it all “basically equals out” regarding is what you can convince yourself that it does “in your head”. In other words, to [at times] trick yourself into sustaining the most comforting and consoling “reality”.

And, again, this [to me] has nothing to do with having or not having sight. Being blind just takes away that many more clues.+++

But perhaps offers others.

+++That’s true, of course. But sexual fidelity is often one of the most important factors of all when romantic relationships go south. My own ex-wife left me for another woman so I still recall the turbulence that revolved for me around love and trust.+++

Betrayal is not nice, and I’ve experienced it more than once.

+++Then I suppose we are “stuck” until, perhaps, someday you are able to explain it to me in a way that allows me to understand it more…existentially. I still see it rooted in dasein…in the experiences you had that brought you to nature. In turn, acknowledging that for any number of reasons, those experiences might have been very different and you would be here arguing instead against Paganism and the Goddess. And that, given new experiences, that may yet be the case.

The way we think about “I” in the is/ought value judgment world so uniquely, individually.+++

I’m sure that I’ll never abandon a Pagan frame of mind. You may respond with, how can you possibly know what might happen? But rest assured, in this case, I do know.

+++But you are the first to acknowledge that actual Paganism revolves around each and every individual’s own path to and from nature. And that would certainly be the case in regard to sexuality. Back to the part where through nature one Pagan dives headfirst into the deep end of the sexual pool, where practically anything goes…while another yanks sex out of their life entirely. Same nature, two completely different paths. And, again, had your own life been different, you might have fit right into that Wicker Man community. Where nothing sexual would be deemed too “creepy”…only spiritually sound or unsound.+++

I can only speak from long experience of what Pagan events and festivals are actually like. And nothing at all like the sexual activities in the Wicker Man take place at them. This is not to say that the Wicker Man hasn’t influenced the Pagan movement, because it has. The songs are common staples at camps, for example, and Pagans often quote lines from it to each other, as a joke. So it’s not as if it couldn’t have influenced Pagan sexual practices, if Pagans had been receptive to it doing so.

Everyone is different, and while it may well be the same nature, how each person relates to it is different. But in a way, it’s not even really the same nature, since everyone experiences different parts of it, never all of it.

+++But how you think about this seems contradictory to me.

On the one hand, you agree that given new experiences, new relationships, and access to new information and knowledge, you might find yourself tumbling down into the hole with me. And yet another part of you seems absolutely adamant that this could never happen. Not to you.

Just as, with me, I can’t rule out the same from my end and you succeed in bringing me up out of the hole.+++

No, I don’t agree that given new experiences etc. I might go down your hole. I might change my opinions on all sorts of issues, but that’s not the same thing at all.

Oh, well…

With this exchange, I’ll take the initiative and “collapse” it myself. You [apparently] can live with your contradictions and I can live with mine.

Though, sure, if, “given a new experience, relationship and access to information and knowledge” something changes at either end, we can reassess…holes?

[Meno2 (Meno_)]

A hole is a hole isn’t a whole., but then again, there are holes and there are wholes…

there are no holes which are not whole that conceivably at least can’t be escaped out of, if , and only if technological.progress can overcome today’s limitations.

Even those that today appear absolutely insurmountable.

-rage against the machine…

[MagsJ (..a chic geek)]

@Maia

Believe me, it has been a real test of willpower not to make such a joke myself.

Hahahaha! I needed the laugh, so I’m glad to have shared it… sharing some New Year cheer.

Pagan sexual practices are pretty diverse, but in my experience, at least, aren’t really all that different to society in general.

The Great Rite is a Wiccan ritual involving symbolic sexual intercourse with the purpose of drawing energy from the powerful connection between a male and female. Both receive more power. It is an uncommon ritual in a full coven, as it is used when the coven is in need of powerful spiritual intervention.

__
The Wiccan “Great Rite”— Hieros Gamos in the Modern West

Samuel Wagar

This paper deals with the core of the Wiccan religion—the small group based practices which define Wicca as an initiatory Mystery religion practiced by clergy. At the centre of Wiccan ritual and theology is an ancient idea—the hieros gamos / sacred marriage. The hieros gamos ritual, called by Wiccans The Great Rite, is a ritual of sexual magic involving intercourse between the Goddess of fertility, embodied by Her Priestess, and Her Consort, present in the Priest. It is an egalitarian erotic mystical path open to both genders and all sexual interests, most often expressed as heterosexual, valuing sexuality and the female body and challenging the sexual power dynamics in Western culture. The paper begins by outlining the theology and history of the Great Rite, Wiccan ritual in general and the Rite, then excerpts from primary documents of Priestesses and Priests reporting on their experiences of the Rite, before concluding. The sacred marriage in Wicca confirms and seals the highest level of religious initiation, third degree, and has the mystical meaning of a loving union with Godhead. Wiccan Initiates are taught the skills needed to enter into and leave mystical states of consciousness. The connection between the Wiccan religion, a feminist-influenced religion, and the practice of sexual ritual is not unexpected. What can hieros gamos be in the modern age? Why is it a central symbol and frequent practice in a modern religion? What does the practice bring to its participants?

__
google.co.uk/search?q=Pagan … ent=safari there are varying practices, it seems… depending on various factors of Self.

[iambiguous]

@MagsJ

@Maia

+++On the one hand, you agree that given new experiences, new relationships, and access to new information and knowledge, you might find yourself tumbling down into the hole with me. And yet another part of you seems absolutely adamant that this could never happen. Not to you.

Just as, with me, I can’t rule out the same from my end and you succeed in bringing me up out of the hole.+++

No, I don’t agree that given new experiences etc. I might go down your hole. I might change my opinions on all sorts of issues, but that’s not the same thing at all.

The man is obsessed with his hole. [sorry Maia… I couldn’t help it, in cracking that joke] lol.

I also need to search up on Pagan sexual practices, to see what the specifics of Pagan sexual practices actually are… tho I think I saw a video of pagan practices on KTS a while back.

I’ve come to the conclusion that, with Maia, our arguments are just going around and around in the same futile circles. I respect her intelligence, of course, but it does not flow in the same direction – philosophically – as mine does.

I’m convinced now that only if one of us encounters a new experience, a new relationship or access to new information and knowledge are we ever likely to “get” each other better than we do.

But what about you?

What about the hole that you are not in in regard to sexual behaviors? Avoiding altogether the “creepy” part where the discussion actually names them, we can keep this…“philosophical”.

Now what do I mean by being down in a hole here?

I mean that many, in not being down in the hole “I” am in, have convinced themselves that their own opinions about sex – celibacy, swinging, homosexuality, fetishes etc. – reflect either the optimal or the only rational manner in which to behave sexually. Those convinced that they possess a Real Me in sync with The Right Thing To Do.

Whereas my point to Maia is that her own assumptions, now rooted in the Goddess/Nature, unfolded largely because, given the life she lived, she was predisposed existentially to think this instead of that. And she even agrees that had her life been different, she might be in here, instead, embracing the Wicker Man mentality about sex. Also, that given new experiences, relationships, etc., she might be in here down the road championing sexual choices more in sync with, say, Dionysus. Think, say, the Patricia Kennealy character in the The Doors movie.

And yet even in acknowledging this she still insists that her own relationship with the Goddess/Nature is such that she can never tumble down into my hole. Something, what, mystical or magical in her “soul” that controls these things in her? The part I ever struggle to grasp by encouraging her to go beyond just knowing “it’s the right thing to do”.

Also, being down in the hole, while certainly demoralizing in important respects, does have its benefits as well. Once you recognize that your sexual choices are not anchored to your own rendition of the One True Path, your sexual options can explode. You can pursue experiences that bring you all manner of pleasure and fulfilment without having to stop over and over and over again to ask yourself, “will God or the Goddess or my comrades or colleagues or family or friends or ‘society’ disapprove of it”?

So, interested in exploring this more in depth? Deconstructing your own existential “I” in regard to your own sexual convictions? Putting it at risk if my own frame of mind comes to actually seem reasonable to you as well?

[Maia]

@MagsJ

@Maia

Believe me, it has been a real test of willpower not to make such a joke myself.

Hahahaha! I needed the laugh, so I’m glad to have shared it… sharing some New Year cheer.

Pagan sexual practices are pretty diverse, but in my experience, at least, aren’t really all that different to society in general.

The Great Rite is a Wiccan ritual involving symbolic sexual intercourse with the purpose of drawing energy from the powerful connection between a male and female. Both receive more power. It is an uncommon ritual in a full coven, as it is used when the coven is in need of powerful spiritual intervention.

__
The Wiccan “Great Rite”— Hieros Gamos in the Modern West

Samuel Wagar

This paper deals with the core of the Wiccan religion—the small group based practices which define Wicca as an initiatory Mystery religion practiced by clergy. At the centre of Wiccan ritual and theology is an ancient idea—the hieros gamos / sacred marriage. The hieros gamos ritual, called by Wiccans The Great Rite, is a ritual of sexual magic involving intercourse between the Goddess of fertility, embodied by Her Priestess, and Her Consort, present in the Priest. It is an egalitarian erotic mystical path open to both genders and all sexual interests, most often expressed as heterosexual, valuing sexuality and the female body and challenging the sexual power dynamics in Western culture. The paper begins by outlining the theology and history of the Great Rite, Wiccan ritual in general and the Rite, then excerpts from primary documents of Priestesses and Priests reporting on their experiences of the Rite, before concluding. The sacred marriage in Wicca confirms and seals the highest level of religious initiation, third degree, and has the mystical meaning of a loving union with Godhead. Wiccan Initiates are taught the skills needed to enter into and leave mystical states of consciousness. The connection between the Wiccan religion, a feminist-influenced religion, and the practice of sexual ritual is not unexpected. What can hieros gamos be in the modern age? Why is it a central symbol and frequent practice in a modern religion? What does the practice bring to its participants?

__
google.co.uk/search?q=Pagan … ent=safari there are varying practices, it seems… depending on various factors of Self.

It’s great, right? Sorry, a Wiccan joke there. Yes, the Great Rite is a ritual practiced in Wicca. In the group I was in, it consisted of dipping a dagger into a chalice full of wine.

[MagsJ (..a chic geek)]

@Maia

It’s great, right? Sorry, a Wiccan joke there. Yes, the Great Rite is a ritual practiced in Wicca. In the group I was in, it consisted of dipping a dagger into a chalice full of wine.

…great joke [grins]

What was the purpose of that ritual?

I did some weird esoteric stuff… when at RC school, but I can’t remember most of it. Most of our group wanted to stop doing it… because things were starting to get a whole lot creepy, so we stopped.

[Maia]

@MagsJ

@Maia

It’s great, right? Sorry, a Wiccan joke there. Yes, the Great Rite is a ritual practiced in Wicca. In the group I was in, it consisted of dipping a dagger into a chalice full of wine.

…great joke [grins]

What was the purpose of that ritual?

I did some weird esoteric stuff… when at RC school, but I can’t remember most of it. Most of our group wanted to stop doing it… because things were starting to get a whole lot creepy, so we stopped.

It symbolises the divine union between the god and the goddess, in Wiccan terminology. Wicca has a lot of rituals with symbolic meanings, often quite long-winded, and this is one of the reasons why I eventually moved on from it.

I remember at least one attempted sceance at boarding school, which I suspect is pretty universal among kids of a certain age. It wasn’t successful, fortunately.

[iambiguous]

Me:

@iambiguous

…what about you?

What about the hole that you are not in in regard to sexual behaviors? Avoiding altogether the “creepy” part where the discussion actually names them, we can keep this…“philosophical”.

Now what do I mean by being down in a hole here?

I mean that many, in not being down in the hole “I” am in, have convinced themselves that their own opinions about sex – celibacy, swinging, homosexuality, fetishes etc. – reflect either the optimal or the only rational manner in which to behave sexually. Those convinced that they possess a Real Me in sync with The Right Thing To Do.

Whereas my point to Maia is that her own assumptions, now rooted in the Goddess/Nature, unfolded largely because, given the life she lived, she was predisposed existentially to think this instead of that. And she even agrees that had her life been different, she might be in here, instead, embracing the Wicker Man mentality about sex. Also, that given new experiences, relationships, etc., she might be in here down the road championing sexual choices more in sync with, say, Dionysus. Think, say, the Patricia Kennealy character in the The Doors movie.

And yet even in acknowledging this she still insists that her own relationship with the Goddess/Nature is such that she can never tumble down into my hole. Something, what, mystical or magical in her “soul” that controls these things in her? The part I ever struggle to grasp by encouraging her to go beyond just knowing “it’s the right thing to do”.

Also, being down in the hole, while certainly demoralizing in important respects, does have its benefits as well. Once you recognize that your sexual choices are not anchored to your own rendition of the One True Path, your sexual options can explode. You can pursue experiences that bring you all manner of pleasure and fulfilment without having to stop over and over and over again to ask yourself, “will God or the Goddess or my comrades or colleagues or family or friends or ‘society’ disapprove of it”?

So, interested in exploring this more in depth? Deconstructing your own existential “I” in regard to your own sexual convictions? Putting it at risk if my own frame of mind comes to actually seem reasonable to you as well?

MagsJ

Nothing so far.

Note to Maia.

I have begun my philosophical assessment of Paganism and morality. Last post here: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p … &start=575

Just in case you have any interest in that.

Unfortunately, when I googled it, there was a dearth of really interesting links. So, if you ever do come across a Pagan with an interest in connecting the dots between Paganism and morality at the juncture of philosophy and spirituality please let him or her know of my own interests.

All No God spiritual paths fascinate me here.

[MagsJ (..a chic geek)]

@iambiguous

Me:

@iambiguous

…what about you?

What about the hole that you are not in in regard to sexual behaviors? Avoiding altogether the “creepy” part where the discussion actually names them, we can keep this…“philosophical”.

MagsJ

Nothing so far.

Something, soon… i.e. today.

[iambiguous]

@MagsJ

@iambiguous

Me:

@iambiguous

…what about you?

What about the hole that you are not in in regard to sexual behaviors? Avoiding altogether the “creepy” part where the discussion actually names them, we can keep this…“philosophical”.

MagsJ

Nothing so far.

Something, soon… i.e. today.

That’s good to hear.

You know me. I’m less interested in what people believe about “celibacy, swinging, homosexuality, fetishes etc.” and more interested in the extent to which they have thought through how and why they came to believe this instead of that.

And then, given conflicting assessments, the extent to which, in a philosophy forum, it may or may not be possible to arrive at the optimal point of view.