Before taking up our subject as outlined at the close of the previous volume, I would like to speak a word as to the symbolism we will employ in discussing egoic and personality control. All that is said in this connection is in an attempt to define and consider that which is really undefinable and which is so elusive and subtle that though we may call it energy or force, those words ill convey the true idea. We must, therefore, bear in mind that, as we read and consider this treatise on psychology, we are talking in symbols. This is necessarily so, for we are dealing with the expression of divinity in time and space, and until man is consciously aware of his divinity and demonstrating it, it is not possible to do more than speak in parable and metaphor with symbolic intent - to be ascertained through the medium of the mystical perception and the wisdom of the enlightened man.
Alice BaileyRelated topics
attempt bear call close connection control define employ force idea ill man metaphor mind parable perception possible psychology read space speak symbolism taking talking treatise wisdom word words undefinableRelated quotes
The subject of a gestalt demonstration knows that his perception has shifted because he can make it shift back and forth repeatedly while he holds the same book or piece of paper in his hands. Aware that nothing in his environment has changed, he directs his attention increasingly not to the figure (duck or rabbit) but to the lines of the paper he is looking at. Ultimately he may even learn to see those lines without seeing either of the figures, and he may then say (what he could not legitimately have said earlier) that it is these lines that he really sees but that he sees them alternately as a duck and as a rabbit. ...As in all similar psychological experiments, the effectiveness of the demonstration depends upon its being analyzable in this way. Unless there were an external standard with respect to which a switch of vision could be demonstrated, no conclusion about alternate perceptual possibilities could be drawn.
Thomas Samuel Kuhn
And this in turn makes it plain that the Right Man problem is a problem of highly dominant people. Dominance is a subject of enormous importance to biologists and zoologists because the percentage of dominant animals - or human beings - seems to be amazingly constant. Bernard Shaw once asked the explorer H. M. Stanley how many other men could take over leadership of the expedition if Stanley himself fell ill; Stanley replied promptly: "One in twenty." "Is that exact or approximate?" asked Shaw. "Exact." And biological studies have confirmed this as a fact. For some odd reason, precisely five per cent - one in twenty - of any animal group are dominant - have leadership qualities. During the Korean War, the Chinese made the interesting discovery that if they separated out the dominant five per cent of American prisoners of war, and kept them in separate compound, the remaining ninety-five per cent made no attempt to escape.
Colin Wilson
Even the asexual has a deviation - his asexuality. It is far more abnormal to have a lack of sexual desire (unless illness or old-age, or another valid reason has caused the wane) than it is to be sexually promiscuous. However, if a Satanist chooses sexual sublimination above overt sexual expression, that is entirely his own affair. In many cases of sexual sublimination (or asexuality), any attempt to emancipate himself sexually would prove devastating to the asexual. Asexuals are invariably sexually sublimated by their jobs or hobbies. All the energy and driving interest which would normally be devoted to sexual activity is channeled into other pastimes or into their chosen occupations. If a person favors other interests over sexual activity, it is his right, and no one is justified in condemning him for it. However, the person should at least recognize the fact that this is a sexual sublimation.
Anton LaVey
Behind the top hats, a little lady wearing lila-coloured tights was balancing on a tightrope in the middle of all that blue-grey tobacco-laden air. I sauntered in among the standing clientele. I was on the lookout for an attractive girl. Yes – that one wasn't bad. When she became aware of my gaze her facial expression changed to that of a frozen mask and she stared emptily into space. I found a stair – and collapsed into it – tired and listless. Everyone clapped. The Lila-clad tightrope-walker curtsied, smiled and disappeared. A group of Romanian singers took her place. There was love and hate – and longing and reunion – and lovely dreams – and that soft music melting together with the colours. The melted notes became green palm trees and steely blue water floating in the blue haze of the room. An artwork is a crystal. A crystal has a soul and a mind, and the artwork must also have these.
Edvard Munch
So much of modern mathematical work is obviously on the border-line of logic, so much of modern logic is symbolic and formal, that the very close relationship of logic and mathematics has become obvious to every instructed student. The proof of their identity is, of course, a matter of detail: starting with premisses which would be universally admitted to belong to logic, and arriving by deduction at results which as obviously belong to mathematics, we find that there is no point at which a sharp line can be drawn, with logic to the left and mathematics to the right. If there are still those who do not admit the identity of logic and mathematics, we may challenge them to indicate at what point, in the successive definitions and deductions of Principia Mathematica, they consider that logic ends and mathematics begins. It will then be obvious that any answer must be quite arbitrary.
Bertrand Russell