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Posted May 1, 2004
Look at it from their point of view. Of course Woman #1 isn't going to tell you about how she's expressing her sexuality. 2-3 times a week she's watching you flounder with your own. Cues? It sounds like you're always dodging them.
Look at your first line, "I have never been involved in a real relationship." Yes, yes, I know what you mean, you've never had a steady girlfriend, but, damn, Woman #1 sounds pretty real to me, and seeing someone 2-3 times a week, that's a substantial amount of time and attention. That relationship is REAL as can be. To say otherwise is to say that if it's not sex, you don't feel it's real, if she's not blowing you, she's not real. Actually, it *is* possible to have a dynamic, good nonsexual friendship with a woman. And it can even be filled with sexual innuendo. But you can't have it unless you are both pretty sure about yourselves. You can't have it unless you both show up for your whole lives.
Woman #2, she may be frustrated or delighted with your Step'n Fetchit role, but has no responsibility to change it for you, and what's more, she has no responsibility to collude with your own self-reassuring judgements of yourself. When you took a step to change (said no), and she said you're a nice guy and only 'trying' to not be nice, she was right. You ARE a nice guy, and there's nothing wrong with that. What you need to do isn't stop being a nice guy, but to ADD something else to your niceness. What do you add? You show up. You embrace reality.
I get the image of you that you're in a cocoon, and you want other people to take responsibility for getting you out. Well, one time there was a science experiment about just that. Scientists took a bunch of butterflies and helped them get out of their cocoons. Just a little trim here and snip there. You know what happened? The 'helped' ones couldn't open their wings. When a butterfly comes out, it pumps liquid into its wings to get them to their full size, and then it dries itself. The muscles that pump the liquid get their strength for the job from the massive effort of breaking open the cocoon. If they don't have that, they don't get strong enough to pump.
Nobody is manipulating you but yourself. Depending on the maturity of these women, they may be doing anything from quietly despairing about your unavailability to them (or even to yourself) as a friend, to heartlessly taking advantage of your confusion, but they are understandably reacting to your nonpresence.
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Latest reply: May 1, 2004
Shinobi stealing skills
Posted Oct 11, 2003
1. Maintain balance control by allowing your body weight to sink and be carried by deeply flexed knees.
2. Remember to breathe along with your movement. Unconsciously holding your breath can unknowingly produce unneeded muscle tension, and could result in gasping release of breathe if you are startled or accidentally unbalanced.
3. Stay alert to the entire scene. Do not become so engrossed in watching your feet that you do not notice other people an elements entering the surroundings.
4. Use all joints for movement, emphasizing fluidity through the engagement of the ankles, knees, and hips for stepping. Avoid the lazy and dangerous habit of stiffening knees and swinging the entire leg from the hip.
5. Maintain your weight and balance on your grounded leg while you move the other leg into position to bear the weight. When absolute silence is a must, avoid distributing your weight over both legs at the same time.
6. If practical, allow your hands to float lightly in front of and beside your torso, one arm higher and one arm lower, to detect possible obstructions before your committed body weight encounters them.
7. Pause and hold your position if you feel that you have accidentally caused too much noise. Listen for signs that you were heard, such as the movement of others or the immediate silencing of background noise following your slip. Sink a little lower on your knees to physically relax that could normally jump into your body with alarm. Take a deep breathe and release it slowly to further relax. Continue your pause for as long as you feel is necessary to regain composure and allow possible listeners to decide they did not hear anything after all.
8. Be as patient as possible. If speed of travel is not important, take as much time as you can. Impatience and the resultant hasty movement that it encourages are the greatest dangers to the person who must move silently without detection.
9. Keep your movement appropriate to your surroundings. Do not go to greater lengths than necessary to conceal your movement, while at the same being aware of what others entering the area may see if they cannot hear. Total silence may not be needed when moving through wooded or densely populated areas where scattered noise is a natural part of the environment. Also be aware that low profile crawling or sliding ma be the only way to move silently without being seen in some locations.
Excerpt from "The Mystic Arts of the Ninja" by Stephen K. Hayes
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Latest reply: Oct 11, 2003
How to handle a girl who is going out with a jerk whom you want to date.
Posted Sep 11, 2003
Say: "Hey, when you get sick of dating that asshole here is my number" and then never talk to her again.
Its brilliant because:
1)States the fact that she is dating an asshole
2)States the fact that you are not an asshole
3)Lets her know that you want to date her
4)Lets her know that she loses a good friend as long as shes dating an asshole
5)Lets you get it all off your chest
6)Puts ball in her court
7)Lets you forget about it because if she doesnt call back...shes dating an asshole. and doesnt deserve to be with someone cool.
8)Lets her know that you arent a pussy
9)Will probably have her look back on some shit youve done as friends and tried to see you as a boyfriend which might lead to her..
10)Dumping an asshole.
Rememeber to land a girlfriend you need to SHOW
1)Confidence/ a talent (COURAGE/CONFIDENCE)
2)Effortless unselfconciousness (TEMPERANCE/COOL)
and
3)Some style/ grooming/interests (WISDOM/SAVVY)
4)And , as much as you may hate it, you have to play the numbers game somewhat.(Do yourself some JUSTICE, your worth it!
IN SHORT WOMEN LOOK FOR THE 4 CLASSIC ROMAN VIRTUES:TRUE!!!
Dont believe that Sincerity Integrity and Loyalty don't matter. They do. Very much so if you intend to keep her. But guys they look for it AFTER you got them into bed. The Good Knight got girl but after he slew the dragon with his paticular sword skill so to speak.
hope this helps.
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Latest reply: Sep 11, 2003
This webpage-alchemy
Posted Aug 2, 2003
Quite a definitive page:
www.ormus.ws/~alchemykey/p4.pdf
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Latest reply: Aug 2, 2003
alchemy
Posted Jul 2, 2003
The writings of the Hermetic Alchemists have exercised a fascination upon the imaginations of scholars and casual seekers alike for centuries. On the one hand, the Hermetic writings have a well deserved reputation for being among the most obscure writings ever penned. But on the other hand, they have also managed to retain their status as one of the most authoritative original sources of ancient wisdom.
Hermetic Alchemy was one of the first branches of esoteric knowledge that I studied in my youth, drawn thither by my studies of Carl Jung, whose researches on Alchemy absorbed his attention throughout most of his later years. Something about the Alchemical symbols spoke to me very powerfully; I understood Jung's thesis that throughout the history of Alchemy, these symbols have welled up from the souls of sensitive people all over the earth, taken from the same ultimate source -- the ?collective unconscious? in the words of Jung.
Alchemy is Change. The Process of Change is the ultimate ?Atom? of the ancient Greeks, the original building block of the Cosmos. All of the symbols of Alchemy emphasize the aspect of Change: the transmutation of the baser metals into Gold through a process of Solve et Coagula, Separatio et Coniunctio (?disintegrate? and ?unite;? ?separate? and ?join?). Alchemy is the ?spagyric art,? from Greek words meaning ?to tear apart? and ?to bring together.?
Whenever I run across some path for personal growth that seems to suggest that the seeker need only sit on a shelf, meditate on his navel, and suddenly find himself rising ever upward on a linear path towards perfect clarity or Nirvana, I feel all the more strongly how much more power there is in the Alchemical symbols. (I should suggest here an appropriate way to study alchemical texts or any expressed idea of philosophy -- rather than reading with your blue pencil, deciding what is right or wrong, it is better to try to figure out what true idea the author is trying to convey with his sometimes limited or misleading words. In the case of an exclusive emphasis on the journey inward, for example, the student must supply for himself the complementary ideas which are necessary for the true illumination of wisdom.)
Since the earliest times, Alchemists have been interested in applying their Hermetic wisdom towards the perfecting of the body and soul of man -- the quest for Gold being left to the ?puffers.? For the Alchemist, the first stage of the ?Great Work? is the Nigredo, the stage of Blackness, disintegration, chaos, where the material (metal, the soul of Man, or what have you) is reduced to the ?prima materia? or formless original stuff, before it can proceed to the second stage, the Albedo (whiteness), where the material may be unified once again. The Alchemical process is circular, alternating between solve and coagula on its path towards perfection.
Originally, ?Alexandrian Alchemy? had as its purpose the transmutation of the baser metals into Gold. Although this goal was quickly superceded by the loftier notions of the Alchemical Adepts, it is instructive to review the original understanding of the old ?Masters of Fire.? Aristotle laid the groundwork with his famous dictum: ?Nature strives towards Perfection.? This was an article of faith that defined for proponents of the ancient wisdom the source of the whole underlying pattern of order in the cosmos.
Next, it is necessary to understand that metals were considered to be alive in some sense, and already undergoing a very slow process of gradual evolutionary growth towards perfection. That is, the most primitive form of metal was considered to be Lead (Saturn). If left in the earth on its own, it would eventually evolve its way towards Tin (Jupiter). Centuries later it would grow to become Iron (Mars), followed by Copper (Venus), Quicksilver (Mercury), Silver (the Moon), and finally, at the end of a very long road, it would achieve the ultimate realization of Perfection: Gold (the Sun). This was already happening on its own; nothing at all needed to be done -- if you had sufficient patience. Now the Alchemist comes along and decides to speed up the natural process: the Art of the Alchemist replaces the Time of Nature.
So Alchemy is not black magic; no one was trying to make silk purses at the hog farm. The Alchemist thought that, by diligent searching into the ways of Nature, he might be able to imitate the natural process in his laboratories in order to realize the perfection of gold in his own lifetime, instead of waiting centuries for the same thing to happen more slowly. So from the point of view of Hermetic philosophy, it is a matter of no consequence that the ancients were laboring under mistaken ideas about the nature of metals.
The Four Elements of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth (established by Aristotle) illustrate the four cardinal points of change, of which the four Seasons are the most common analogy. Since the process is circular, we can not really speak of first, but, to start with a new beginning, we start with Fire (?Young Yang? to students of the I Ching), corresponding to Spring. This is the stage of ?Active Concentration.? At a pivotal point, the energy suddenly changes to ?Active Expansion,? Air, Summer (?Old Yang? ): COAGULA. The next change is very gradual, as both the activity and the expansion peter out, being followed by ?Passive Contraction,? Water, Autumn (?Young Yin?). This accelerates until there is a sudden change at the point where the energy turns to ?Passive Expansion,? Earth, Winter (?Old Yin?): SOLVE. The next change is very gradual, as the active yang energy re-asserts itself in a fresh ?Active Concentration.?
The most famous theory of the composition of the metals held that all metals were some sort of compound (?marriage?) of Sulphur and Mercury (the King and the Queen, the Sun and the Moon, the Fixed and the Volatile, the Tiger and the Dragon, etc.) Then, along about the sixteenth century, Paracelsus, a famous Swiss Alchemist and Physician (the real father of holistic medicine) introduced Salt as a third essential ingredient in the work. Paracelsus was one of the most stunning Alchemical writers of all time. His ideas must have been rubbed fresh from the ?collective unconscious? because they were immediately absorbed into the dogma of orthodox Alchemy.
The esoteric significance of the number three has impressed occult philosophers since time immemorial. The Sulphur and Mercury theory expressed the polarity of Yang and Yin, but the introduction of Salt elevated the theory to the heights of classic occult metaphysics.
The same fundamental ideas keep turning up in one's readings, but it is not all the same idea. There are many expressions for the most primary ideas of occult philosophy, but the numbers of mathematics suggest the most logical catalog of primary mysteries. According to this idea (dating from Pythagoras), the number ?One? expresses the highest mystery, about which nothing more can be said. (Wittgenstein: ?Whatever can be said at all can be said clearly; whereof one cannot speak, thereon must one be silent.?) The number ?Two? represents a mystery that can be spoken of: it is the Distinction between undifferentiated primal Unity expressed as Yang and Yin, Expansion and Contraction, Solve et Coagula, etc. But it is the number ?Three? which suggests the point of perspective which separates the two complimentary illusions that are the consequence of every distinction.
Does this make any sense yet? Let me present one of my favorite analogies to occult metaphysics: the origin of the Cosmos ex nihilo as a consequence of God laughing at His original Joke: the Distinction between Zero and Infinity. First, I quote from the beginning of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (D. C. Lau translation):
?The Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way; the Name that can be named is not the constant Name. The nameless was the beginning of Heaven and Earth; the named was the mother of the myriad creatures. Hence always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its Secrets, but always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its Manifestations. These two are the same, but diverge in Name as they issue forth. Being the same, they are called Mysteries. Mystery upon Mystery, the gateway of the manifold secrets.?
In order to understand how the Universe was created, it is necessary to have an understanding of the fundamental nature of Reality. We start with the Perfection of God, at rest, at a Point at the Center. The whole concept is meaningless, of course, until it is contrasted with the concept of Error, or movement away from the Center. This corresponds with old notions of the Devil as distance from God, moving away from the Perfection at the Center. Now, in order to maintain the existence of any deviation from the Center of Perfection, an alternate and complimentary deviation in another direction must be simultaneously sustained. There it is in a nutshell, the whole secret to the existence of the Manifest Cosmos as a Knot in the Aether composed of an intricate Field of Vibration of opposing concepts which, taken altogether suggests the illusion of our visible world. All of the energy of the Cosmos taken together adds up to Zero (or Infinity).
?Zero? and ?Infinity? are examples of a Distinction created out of an undifferentiated sameness through the process of applying divergent names. Zero and Infinity both represent absolute states which can not even be imagined precisely, since they are beyond the consciousness of finite man. They seem to represent two different concepts only because we can only conceive of them at all by means of a process of movement between them. We can imagine a very large sphere which we expand mentally until our impoverished imagination fails us; likewise, we can imagine a dot vanishing towards nothing. But at the approach to the limit in each case, the last to go is nothing but location: the point where the dot is vanishing, or the center of the sphere which is trying to become all-encompassing. So there is the Joke: you establish two Names which are really the same thing at the Limit, but then by alternating between them you set up a Field of Vibration which presents the Illusion of finite Manifestation (?the Gateway of the manifold Secrets?)! Hilarious. So when God made this Joke, the vibration alternating between ?Zero? and ?Infinity? was the Laughter of God which created the finite Universe.
When I read old Alchemical manuscripts, I do not try to piece together the symbols explicitly in order to work out their significance as if it were some sort of cryptic puzzle; I read through the words, keeping a sensitive ear tuned for hidden meaning. The writings of Paracelsus, for example, are filled with ideas and insights way ahead of his time. Some of these ideas, however, just wouldn't have any impact at all if they were just presented baldly in ordinary English (or Latin, or even the vulgar Swiss-German that Paracelsus sometimes employed). Too precise an attention to specific terminology might easily result in missing the most important ideas altogether.
I would certainly have a hard time explaining every line of the Coelum Philosophorum, (Seven Canons of the Metals), by Paracelsus, for example, and I am sure there is much that escapes me; but what I do understand is enough to secure my veneration of Paracelsus as a brilliant philosopher of the highest order who certainly understands the deepest mysteries of Hermetic philosophy.
The most famous original source of Hermetic Alchemy is the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. While there are lots of writings attributed to ?Hermes,? there is little agreement about the actual authorship of any of these writings. However, the author of the Emerald Tablet, whoever he may have been, is the Hermes who has given his name to ?Hermetic Philosophy.? The basic Hermetic axiom is expressed there: As Above, so Below. This line has more than one meaning. In the first place, it suggests that the laws of the Cosmos may be found mirrored in Man: as the Macrocosm, so the Microcosm. But many other ideas are linked by the doctrine of correspondence. For example, there is a plane of pure energy, magnetism, or electrical field ?above? that corresponds to the physical body of Man ?below.? Even Plato voiced a similar idea: the Form of the Good (for example) exists ?above? in correspondence to some physical reality of some good thing ?below.? We might go on: Astrology posits the movements of the Heavenly bodies to exert corresponding influences on earthly events. Likewise, Sympathetic Magic is the art of establishing associative correspondence between objects not demonstrably connected (as in Tarot cards or Voodoo dolls).
By ?Alchemy? is usually understood the Western Alchemical tradition which may have come from the Arabs of the Middle East and reached its highest development in the famous European Alchemists, but it is very interesting to notice that a parallel alchemical tradition has flourished in China with no perceivable connection to the Western Alchemical tradition, but which has symbols that are strikingly familiar. In The Secret of the Golden Flower, for example, there is described a process of evolution towards perfection featuring a ?circulation of the light? that is practically a translation of the Emerald Tablet (from the Emerald Tablet: ?It rises from Earth to Heaven, and then it descends again to the Earth, and receives Power from Above and from Below.?) But this is, finally, not really surprising. I quote from another Chinese philosopher, Ko Ch'ang:
?. . . it may be objected that this method (Taoist Yoga) is practically the same as that of the Zen Buddhists. To this I reply that under Heaven there are no two ways, and the wise are ever of the same heart.?
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Latest reply: Jul 2, 2003
phoenix
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