Quote:
Originally Posted by Found Goat
According to one scholar, there was a time in history when it was commonplace for humans to experience auricular locutions, to live in symbiosis with the gods, so to speak. One can only imagine what a marvelous delight this must have been for those living at the time, to have been born innately clairaudient.
It has only been in western society primarily, and specifically beginning with the soulless age of the Enlightenment, that Voice-Hearing has been largely demonized and deemed irrational, pathological. How little do the scientific priest class know or care to know with regard to this phenomenon, what with it being beyond their empirical understanding to grasp and totally at odds with their materialist worldview. ... Etc.
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Excellent observations and commentary, Goat. I agree with you about the 'poverty' of the kind of 'soullessness' that stems from a purely materialistic point of view. Much 'correction; is called for on this account.
But I think simply going 'back' to 'hearing voices' will just add more trouble to the mix.
I remind you, The Quran is such 'voice' 'dictation'. Logical analysis and rational thought has to be applied to what is 'heard' if people are not to
blindly dig and fall into ditches'.
I have done so in relation to the 'God' concept in my (freely downloadable) book titled
Godspeak 2000 and treatise titled
What Did Jesus REALLY Mean? should you or anyone else here be interested.
Here's an excerpt from the book which deals with the issue
integrating 'intellect' with 'intuition' (hearing voices is phenomenally related to the latter):
"5:1 Let’s be honest. Ultimately, no good comes from denying or distorting truth. Like it or not, each of us is a relatively minor aspect of Being. Yet every one of us is genuinely valid and vitally important, for we are essential features of Life's expression—both the flower and seed of ongoing Creativity.
5:2 Let us therefore recognize that, no matter how superior or inferior one may be relative to others in terms of specific traits and attributes, grandiosity and obsequiousness are really pretentious postures, equally unbecoming. Given his or her circumstance, the best anyone can do is choose, from available options, the ones that will be most fruitful. If and when we “judge” ourselves or others, it should be on this score.a Besides the fact that no more than this is possible, the quality of Life depends on the degree to which each of us manages or fails to do so.
5:3 We’d better be mindful, however. Even with such criteria, because of partiality of knowledge, emotional bias, or both, our judgments may well be flawed. While critical evaluation is necessary for response-ability to be creatively exercised at any given moment, mistakes will not be corrected and consequences will be less than optimal if one doesn’t remain open to new information and broader perspective. In particular, because they are what guide (or misguide) us, we should continually examine our opinions and readily amend them when we become aware of oversights and errors.
5:4 And we’d better be careful. Even when accurate, discrimination and judgment do not in and of themselves serve good purpose. They are, in fact, quite often put to ill use. Many awards of merit and approval, for example, are just bribes aimed at procuring allegiance. And much criticism and penalization, instead of being constructive, is anti-Life in spirit and function, basically hateful. What passes for righteousness is often no more than self-serving affectation—let’s not fool ourselves and let’s not be fooled. Besides being discerning, one must be concerned enough to discover why those involved (including oneself) don’t do better and conscientious enough to do what will promote more optimal actualization,a if one is to creatively contribute.
5:5 In such quest, adages and directives should not simply be accepted and uncritically followed, no matter how esteemed their source or how brilliant seeming their interpretation.a Life is too multidimensional and its components too intricately interwoven for guidelines and prescriptions to always be applicable. As the occasional appropriateness and equally occasional inappropriateness of such oft-quoted maxims as “Haste makes waste” and “A stitch in time saves nine” makes quite clear, what will or won’t do the most good depends on circumstance. In this regard, there are no canonical absolutes.
5:6 However, one shouldn’t therefore decide it is better to just rely on what is thought of as intuition instead. Though spontaneously arising thought-feeling gestalts and prompts may frequently be totally appropriate and Life-affirming, they are often purely reflexive phenomena, like the excitement of Pavlov’s dogs upon hearing a familiar-sounding bell, heavily influenced by, if not completely a function of, prior patterns of perception and conditioning. As demonstrated by the fact that acclaimed clairvoyants also make erroneous pronouncements, intuition is not a totally trustworthy indication.a Even the most impressive revelation does not derive from direct perception of Life’s actual layout, but is a subjective ‘projection’ based on what is ‘alive’ in the domain of one’s personal or group psyche at the moment.
5:7 You may be confused, even make quite regrettable mistakes, at times, particularly when you first begin to proceed independently, not being ‘bound’ by either behavioral rules or personal predilection. Don’t let this deter you from seeking to know and actualize what is best, however. If you use the furtherance of Creativity as your yardstick and let Intelligence be your guide, you will gradually become more and more able to decipher what is truly (and what truly isn’t) Life-affirming and Life-enhancing in any given context.
5:8 The following brief is designed to functionally orient you and really get you going in this regard. By bringing crucial issues into focus and advising you how you may best use your own innate capabilities, it will facilitate the integration and resolution of what may otherwise seem a disparate mass of conflicting principles and values."