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RELEVANCE AND PERSPECTIVE

. by
Robert S. Spencer

How many times have you, I, and other Sabian.students said or

thought that we wished Marc Edmund Jones would write the lessons
in simpler and more. understandable language? Marc's response
usually was that "simpler" merely meant more familiar, and that
he was writing to stretch our minds and not comfort them. That
brings me to a lovely sentence from Blue Letter 1038, which says,
"Nothing can be made simple for anybody except through enlarged
experience." That is what this talk is really about —- enlarging
our experience.

This is closely related to the process of initiation, in its

occult sense, as is pointed out in Blue Letter 606 -— and I
quote:
The best and most serviceable definition of initiation
is an expansion of consciousness or the broadening of
the focus of awareness as it is able to include greater
and more wonderful levels of the extended cosmic reality
on the one hand and to permit increased dimensions of
self-functioning in the matching of the structure of the
outside world with capacity for mastery in the self on.
the other.‘ This is the eternal procedure of occultism‘
and the foundation of the schematization in all Sabian _
method...Aiding the student by adding new light or
altering the perspective to give a different insight
into this matter of reality and final mastery of
self-and—its-world by self it is convenient to change
the definition of initiation or self—illumination and to
understand expansion of consciousness as intensification
of experience or the strengthening of the present moment
...We ought to know experience as exactly what we make
it to be. '
We will come back to the matter of perSpective and the nature of
reality .a bit later, although they were mentioned in this Blue
letter.

As an aside, I am not going to try to define the term

"experience," but will just assume that it is meaningful to
you.
I tried looking up its definition in Dagobert Runes Dictio
nary of
Philosophy, but found this exceedingly unhelpful.
[a
(I)
Why are we so concerned, as Sabian students, about our experience
and what we can do with or about it? Because this leads us to a
goal many of us desire to achieve, as pointed out in another Blue
Letter: ‘

Life is mastered as its significance is changed and this

is possible only by a vicarious experience such as
. builds it into a larger scheme of reality...The
spiritual seeker is not excused from every day duties
and not exempt ”from every wreal stress and strain of
experience, but he will never lack the opportunity to
look these over in the light of broadening experience or
deeper meaning. He is shown how to use his experience
rather than surrendering to its buffeting.

Is this really possible? Marc says Yes:

The great secret of occult philosophy is the realization

that man is competent, and that he can develop his
powers and actually master the world of_ his own
experience. This is a matter of know-how'and not a
passing from a state of lesser to greater privilege.
Every individual exists in a complex that both limits~
and frees his energies in a pattern of continual change.
He can do with or be done with.
Q‘

There is the challenge -- Do we want to master our world of

experience, or have it master us?

Experience Is Valid

Marc has described the philosophical viewpoint underlying the

Sabian work as a "naive experientialism." Here, Dagobert Runes'
Dictionary of Philosophy is a little more helpful -—

Experientalism: The resort to concrete experience,

whether perceptual, intuitive, activistic, axiological,
or mystical, as the source of truth. The opposite of
Intellectualism.

In this definition, "concrete" may be taken as equivalent to

"specific.° In other words, an individual's experience is to be
taken by him as valid forfhim. One should not attempt to deny
any part of the experience, or (especially) let oneself be
"reasoned" out of the validity of the experience. The fact of
the experience is its own validation; don't monkey with it on the
factual level. What we are permitted, and even encourage, to
monkey with is the significance of the experience to us. As Marc
has said:
Q9
‘0

The facts of past events are never twisted or

perverted. Rather their significance is enlarged and
the self achieves a point of view of itself unhampered
by the intricacies of present situation.-

The Sabian approach, then, is to enlarge the significance of our

experience —- even past experience -- and thereby expand our
consciousness and' enhance our mastery of our world of experience
in the here and now. The Sabian Work offers us a great many
tools for accomplishing this, and we will look at just a few of
them.

During one period, Marc placed great emphasis on the concept of

relevance, and rightfully so. This is one of those notions that
most of us feel that we understand; it seems simple enough, but
when you try to nail it down and expand on it -— suddenly it
isn't so simple after all. But let's take a crack at it anyway.

"Relevant" is pretty much synonymous with "pertinent." Something

is relevant to a given situation if it has a close connection
with the situation, becomes a necessary consideration in the
situation, or sheds some light on the situation. It should add
significance to the situation. Marc referred to it once in a
philosophy typescript, in discussing the cabala:

We are collectively learning to polish a cabala, a way

of thinking in terms of relevancies, which is what the
cabalistic way of thinking is; relevancies, not
absolutes way up in the heaven, not a divine God-given
thing, not a puppet theology: but in terms of simple
' everyday relevance. The basis of cabalistic thinking is
that you can work from relevancies, not from fundamental
meanings. It's not what a thing means, but what means
.in a certain relevance. You have to know the relevance.

“Relevancy" is one of the 1001 Sabian Concepts, assigned to the

deuce of hearts in the Brotherhood series of concepts in the
Sabian Tarot. The general concept for hearts is "knowledge", and
for deuces, "contingency." Mixing these three concepts rather
freely, we might say that we derive knowledge from something if,
and only if, we can connect it up with the situation at hand;
that is to say, if we find it relevant to the situation. Let me
point out that the relevancy has its existence in you and not in
the outside world; it is -a part of the significance that you
asSign to the experience. For example, a signature might be
defined as finding relevancy in what is otherwise superficially
irrelevant.

You, and only you, determine whether or not something is relevant

to the matter at,hand. This means that the value of experience
is not absolute, but is also determined by‘you. Or as Marc says:
‘5
 (3}
{I ,1

At ultimate, all experience is of equal value...In

literal 'fact experience can never be separated from the
experiencing entity or evaluated in such a separation.
Of itself it just is and has neither worth nor penalty
...Experience can well be visualized as a focal
intensity in self-other relationships.

Of all possible relevancies, perhaps the most important for our

purpose is the making of the maximum amount of experience
directly relevant to you as an individual. This is sometimes
referred to as bringing your experience to center, or as using
your experience .to expand your consciousness -- in other words,
the initiatory process. We do this by finding in all experience,
no matter how seemingly trivial, something to add to our store of
knowledge, some skill that is thereby extended, some inspiration
for guidance in the future, or even an Opportunity to express
ourselves. by living graciously -— giving ‘plussage or added
significance to everything we do. Thereby we make our living
more purposeful, more efficient, and much more interesting. A
great deal about Aleister Crowley was not admirable, but he was a
well informed occultist and occasionally is worth consulting
cautiously. He captured the essence of this idea when he reveals
a self—assumed obligation in which he promised to regard every
happening in his life as a direct transaction between himself and
his higher self -- or as he called it, his Holy Guardian Angel.

In concentrating on making our experience of maximum relevance to

ourselves, we develop an intensification of experience in terms
of a heightened significance of every aspect of living. Colors
are brighter, people are more interesting -- but intensification
is not all pleasant, of course. Just as intense physical
exercise will develop muscles, but at the expense of being tired
and sore, so the intensification of living has its price and also
its rewards. In the case of either. the exercise or the
intensification it must be self—initiated and self-administered;
it is not something that is forced on you. Which is
characteristic of the Solar Path.

To be significant in a spiritual sense, experience must be

shared. Marc has said:

The basic proposition of all higher understanding is the

principle that ‘nothing is real except as it is shared.
If things are what they do ultimately, and such doing is
hardly in a vacuum but must instead be in an interaction
with the doing of other things or social, this sharing
is a dynamic relationship that of necessity is sharing
or a common and mutual reality of the sort that is
universal in 'the sense that it expresses the central
genius of each thing in rapport with the illimitable
centricity of all things and so is spiritual in the
single meaning that word can have.
'0‘)

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Spiritual must be social, in a nutshell. In bringing plussage to

experience and the intensified experience to center, there must
be a rapport with all others doing the same thing, and the
plussage must be grounded in values treasured by the race. Thus
we find a transcendental reality in mundane experience and build
thereupon our immortality. Again, from one of the Blue Letters:

A necessary foundation for a living immortality is the

realization that all relationShips in any eternal
consciousness are to be themselves of immortal order and
there is to be no linkage and no receiving or giving by
which a self is ever actually brought to any sense of
reality other than on the plane of soul. Ordinary life
will have its normal and continued place in the scheme
of immortality while the person who has quickened to-
conscious eternality will continue his definite
participation in all its activities, but nothing will be
done that is not actuated in motive and realization of
the soul. And what is known or brought into awareness
will be touched transcendentally at base and not met
casually or carelessly or with but a part of selfhood or
inner reality. Life objectively is no different when it
is immortal, but it is quickened within rather than
dependent without.’ Every prime necessity of immortal
being is therefore a refusal to have relationship with
anything to which the soul cannot reach in fullness.

It's All In How You Look At It

;
It has been said that knowledge is wholly2a matter of perspective
(I suspect it was said by Marc; but I do not have the reference
handy). A perspective, point of view,-frame of reference, or
starting place is necessary for all analysis. The thread of
perspective must be seen as the warp through the weft of the
fabric of knowledge.

Why all this fuss about viewpoints or perspectives? To get a

little better feel for this matter, let's look at some relevant
comments by several authorities outside of the Sabian contex
t.
First, a famous physicist of years ago, Sir Arthur Eddington:

The mind has by its selective power fitted the processes

of nature into a frame of law of a pattern largely of
its own choosing; and in the discovery of this system of
law the mind may be regarded as regaining from nature
that which the mind has put into nature.
~
This could almost have been found in one of our lessons.
It is a
natural: inclination of the‘ mind to order its experience and to
fit new experience into the patterns thus formed.

_5_
 interest in philosophy, in his book The Expansion of Awareness:

An event has meaning when it is perceived as an

essential part of a pattern. To twiddle one's thumbs
might be considered a meaningless act, but should it be
part of an exercise to increase manual dexterity , the
act assumes meaning. it is being part of a pattern
which gives it meaning...We feel that we have explained
and understood a particular piece of human behavior when
we have succeeded in assigning it a place in some
general pattern...When, therefore, we as —- What is the
meaning of Life? -— the search for an answer drives us
relentlessly to a study of background.

The answer to the meaning of life lies in the

recognition that man lives on various levels of
consciousness and that what is a satisfactory answer on
one level is meaningless on another. Consequently there
can be many answers to any question, each satisfactory
according to the level...Actually the form in which a
question is put often discloses a whole world of thought
and accepted premises, and before attempting to answer
the question it is necessary to examine the premises on
which it is based.

An explanation must always be addressed to some system

of accepted premises, and granted the premises, the
explanation is usually perfectly logical. If a clap of
thunder is the voice of God, then it is logical and
sensible not to neglect the religious ceremonies
appropriate to the occasion...Yet the whole elaborate
structure of theological disputation collapses
immediately it is accepted that God is not shouting at
us through a thunder—cloud.

Each one of us has built around himself a body of

beliefs and accepted attitudes. This forms a mental
mesh and acts as a screen through which new facts have
to filter. Facts are accepted or rejected according to
the nature of our mental screens. The scientist will
readily admit this when he witnesses this psychological
process in connection with narrow religious attitudes...
This makes the scientist feel superior, yet he suffers
from the same limitation in another form. We all do,
more or less, but naturally much less so when we lose
our arrogance and become aware of our mental bias.

My next authority, if you can call him that, is Don Juan. I

suspect that there are very few in the room who have not read at
least one of Carlos Castaneda's books about this Indian sorcerer:
 11
15
*3

The world is such and such or so and so only-because we

talk to ourselves about its being such and such or so
and so...To change this idea of the world is the crux of
sorcery. '

The world of objects and solidity is a way of making our

passage on earth convenient. It is only a description
that was created to help us. We, or rather our reason,
forget that the description is only a description and
thus we entrap the totality of ourselves in a vicious
circle from which we rarely emerge in our lifetime...
The world that we perceive...was created by a
description, that was told to us since the moment we were
born...So, in essence, the world that your reason wants
to sustain is the world created by a description and its
dogmatic and inviolable rules, which the reason learns
to accept and defend.

The first act of a teacher is to introduce the idea that

the world we think we see is only a view, a description
of the world...But accepting it seems to be one of the
hardest things one can do; we are complacently caught in
our particular view of the world, which compels us to
feel and act as if we knew everything about the world.
A teacher, from the very first act he performs, aims at
stopping that view.

Perhaps we have here a reason behind some of the problems that

almost all of us have during our first few year of experience
with the Sabian lessons -- The extreme fluidity of the teaching,
where one thing may be true at one pointiand for a particular
purpose, and something seemingly inconsistent with it may be true
at another point, could be one example. Then there was Marc's
practice of always making the same point twice, coming at it from
at least two different directions. There was Marc's assertion
that the reformer or occult leader should always take a slightly
extreme position on the other side of whatever position was
currently most popular, to exert a corrective influence. There
was the apparent wandering from thought to thought at times in
some of the materials, without a readily perceivable order or
structure, in imitation of the universal flux characteristic of
the universe. And yet, on diligent search you could find an
underlying structure to the whole -- whether put there by Marc or
by you was never certain, and didn't matter. This structure
represented the frame of reference within which you could fit the
subject matter and give meaning to it, and that was what was
important to you.

Now ‘we .come to a very crucial point -- you can change your
perspective on any problem or other matter at will and thus gain
additional knowledge and insight that can be helpful. That is
not to say that itiseasy, but that you can learn to do it.
Another key point is that you are not restricted to one frame of

.37..
reference, but can shift back and forth as is convenient. This
is recognized in the science of physics, and has been for a long
time. There are certain phenomena involving light that can only
be explained by assuming that light consists of waves of some
sort. There are other phenomena that can only be explained by
assuming that light consists of particles. In each case the
other assumption is completely inconsistent with the experimental
facts. Is light a wave or a particle? It is agreed by
physicists that both assumptions are correct, depending on what
kind of an experiment you are going to conduct. This is known as
the complementarity principle, and it gives equal status to the
two different descriptions of light.

One set of different perspectives that we have available in the

Sabian Work is the Seven Great Keys of Knowledge as set forth in
Occult Philosophy and its precursor, Key Truths of Occult
Philosophy: there are different versions of the names of some of
them, but they are the Microcosmic, Maorocosmic, Musical,
Chemical, Physiological, Phallic, and Biological Keys. The names
are not always very suggestive of the point of view each Key
represents, without considerable study and contemplation. We
could spend a lot of time discussing them, but it would not be
particularly relevant to what I am trying to convey in this talk,
and so we will not do so, and I will confine myself to a few
general remarks about them.

In a nutshell, the Seven Keys represent, more than anything else,

seven different perspectives or points of view which may be taken
in looking at and interpreting experience. To quote from Key
Truths:

Occult philosophy turns to a device nearly as old as the

Pythagorean Numbers themselves, or to the traditional
seven great keys to knowledge established with the Solar
MySteries. These are cast into a comprehensible modern
form. As a series they conveniently represent the full
sum of possible points of view or perspectives out of
human experience and so each in turn may_be carried
through the full dimensional series.

Elsewhere, Marc said:

The seven keys are worthless in dogmatic application and

actually of little use in deduction or inference. Their
power may be perceived only by each seeker within
himself when taken by him inductively and so used as a
convenient device for holding the investigating reason
and the sensual observation to a particular intellectual
domain.

Or in other words, by using the keys as points of view or frames

of reference in interpreting experience. I recommend them for
your study.
Dr.‘ Lawrence LeShan is a consulting psychologist who has made a
special study of psychic healing, and gone from there necessarily
into consideration of alternate views of reality. In the
introduction to his book Alternate Realities, he said:

The central idea of this book is that we human beings

*invent reality as much as we discover it, and that if
this is comprehended, we have a wide choice as to how we
invent it and therefore, what sort of world we live in.
There are, the thesis continues, a number of basically
different, valid ways of organizing whatever is "out
there,"‘ and we can choose from among these the one that
will satisfy our needs and advance us toward our goals
at the moment. Many of our personal and interpersonal
problems seem to arise from using the wrong method of
construing reality to accomplish a particular task, or
from mixing two or more methods without being aware of
what we are doing. '

‘LeShan has identified and described, thus far, four different

world views:

The_ sensory modes of being give basic attention to defining

differences, boundaries, separations, similarities, and
relationships between "things." Essentially, they are oriented
toward what can be clearly defined as an entity or unitary thing,
and are adapted to things perceived as out there rather than in
here. They are concerned with separating, contrasting, and
defining things in space and time. ~
The clairvoyant modes of being are adapted to a direct
experiencing of the oneness of all being and process, to the
essential unity of the cosmos rather than -— as in the sensory
modes -- its separation into parts, into objects and events. The
entire universe, including oneself, is perceived as a "seamless
garment" in which all divisions and separations} all boundaries,
are arbitrary and in error. No object or event can be conceived,
in these modes, as separate isolated, or cut off from the all of
being. The universe is one vast flow—process not ih space and
time, but in a unitary space—time continuum, and is that
continuum;

The transpsychic modes of being do not perceive objects, events

'and the self as separate from each other, as in the sensory
modes, or identical with each other, as in the clairvoyant modes.
Rather, they are seen as separate, but flowing into a larger One
and with no clear boundary from it. The example of the wave and
ocean has sometimes been used. Each entity is seen as separate
enough to be able to be aware of its own wishes, which is not
true in the clairvoyant mode, and connected enough to be able to
sometimes communicate these wishes to the total One, which is not
true of the sensory modes. This, then, is the mode of being in
which intercessory prayer is possible; in which, so to speak, one
toe can urge the body to increase its_repair-systems working on
another, damaged toe. ‘

The .mythic modes of being are the modes used in play, art, and in
the dream. They are reflected in the myths and legends of a
culture. They have been widely reported in the study of
primitive cultures and at one time were believed to be the only
reality perceived and reacted to by these cultures. Later study
showed that this was far from true. These modes are particularly
useful in creativity, as they lead to new combinations and to new
possibilities of sets of relationships between entities and
events. -

In his book, LeShan has set forth the limiting principles of each
mode with commentary on its usefulness. Like the Seven Keys to
Knowledge, this can be a worthwhile addition to you armory of
mental weapons for dealing with experience.

And .now for a vital warning or caveat. Let's start with a quote
from Blue Letter 890:

A faulty rationalism makes the mind independent of

present or physically focused experienceiand projects
the construct of theory into a reality of a priori
certainty. Thus the great structures of relationship by
which the cosmos is apprehended in understanding or
brought to a charting of human destiny are assumed to
exist in nature, or to have what amounts to a physical
instead of a metaphysical reality...The rational
structures of occultism order experience. and expand
‘ man's reality, but only as he remains creatively
centered in himself.

In dealing with this subject, we should have painted on the wall

in large letters -— ORDER IS SUBJECTIVE. I have found in many of
those of the older generations a belief in and respect for what
they frequently call "Natural Law." They somehow’ have the
feeling that everything in nature is governed by some law or
other, intrinsic to nature, and that the role of the scientist is
merely to discover what this law may be. Archetypes of
relationships, you might say. I am pleased to note that this is
not really the viewpoint taken by today's physicists. They are
content to seek out relationships that describe the phenomena
observed, and hope that more refined experiments will either
agree with the descriptive theories or lead to new and better
theories. There seems to be little feeling that there is some
absolutely correct law to be discovered. Pearson, in The Grammar
of Science (1957), said, "Nobody believes now that science
explains anything; we all look upon it as a shorthand
description, as an economy of thought.". In fact, in some circles
there is more than a suspicion that subjective factors may well

‘10-
influence experimental results, and a wondering whether or not
the phenomena really existed before the experiments were designed
and performed to reveal them.

Patterns do not exist in the universe, they exist in you and in

me, as the framework within which we interpret our experience and
give it meaning. As Marc said:

An idea has no existence apart from that of which it

remains a representation...1deas are supported by the
realities they organize or bring into significance but
from which they have no separate real being in any sense
of making the difference that reality must be.

.Use the various perspectives available to you freely, and as

convenient to the situation at hand, because you are quite free
to choose your perspective.

an

Step Back and Take Another Look

Marc made use of what he called correctives i- devices or rules

of thumb for checking up on himself and for avoiding substantial
errors in thinking. Some of these he passed on to us, others he
just mentioned occasionally. One which is familiar to all of you
who practice astrology is the matter of looking at the sun's
position in the completed chart tO'See if that is about where you
would expect to see it in the sky at that time of day. Another
that I learned in business, rather than from Marc, was the
desirability of postponing a decision on any problem until I had
at least two different solutions to the problem in mind. Occam's
Razor is yet another that may be familiar to some of you.

One of his correctives that is important in connection with our

discussion of relevance and perspective is the necessity of
avoiding the infinite regress in any sound thinking. As Marc
said: 3
Everyone is familiar with the fact that the average
person finds the more distant pastures the greener and
often will be more concerned over remote than immediate
issues. Of course what actually touches him or becomes
vital in the immediacy of his own experience in any
tangible fashion‘will get first call on his interest and
energies, but once awareness ceases to be an operation
of directly sensed experience and enters into the realm
of the vicarious or mental contexts of reality he is
very apt to become more obsessed with the several-remove
matter and to find it fascinating beyond all more
immediate duties and social responsibilities...Greatness
in living is plussage in the here and now, and the great
souls of any and every age have been those who made

-11-
NJ '3

enduring .contribution through the fullness of their throwing of

themselves into the immediate milieu of high seminal
self-expression. Thus it can be said that the effort to
,participate in spiritual significance by going to remote things
and showing an interest in the regressive removes and distant
realities by which immediate self—responsibility is avoided is
self-defeating. ' ‘

Marc's rule for avoiding the infinite regress was that you should
never go.more than a one-remove in shifting your perspective on a
problem or situation. Figuratively speaking, if you step back or
to the side to get another view, don't take more than one step.
More than that, and you are 'in danger of thinning out the
relevance of your new perspective to the problem. On the other
hand, taking the one-remove iS‘a valuable tool in gaining a new
perspective on something.

The one—remove is a little hard to define, but in a loose way it

is the shift in perspective by altering only one factor in the
situation. Thus, a research engineer in investigating the
workings of a process, will try to vary just one factor at a time
in going from experiment to experiment. Where this is not
possible, there are elaborate statistical techniques developed
for separating out the influence of single variables from a mass
of experimental data -— you might think of this as a vicarious
one-remove. The one-remove can be defined more precisely in
certain of the Sabian occult structures, as I will discuss in a
moment.

In Marc's book Astrology: How and Why It Works, he uses the one—
remove principle to elucidate the character of the horoscopic
houses. For example, the sixth house (duties) is in a second
house relationship (possessions) to the fifth! house
(self-expression). Thus Marc says, "Self-expression on its own
account is not adequately representative of any man until it is
refined or more definitely possessed through real effort in some
disciplining pattern." Conversely, the fifth house is in a
twelfth house (subjective sustainment) relationship to the sixth
house. So Marc says, "Duty or labor as an expenditureiof effort,
whether compelled or given freely,/ obviously must depend for
inner dynamic or sustaining capacity upon the nature and degree
of the native's development of a genuine self-expression." I
think you can imagine, however, the kind of trouble you might get
yourself into if .you extended this beyond the one-remove, and
tried, for example, .to gain perspective on the sixth house by
telling yourself it is the second house of the fifth, which in
turn is the tenth house of the eighth.

Another common one-remove is the flip—flop. This is the case

where one of the factors in the situation is a dichotomy —— that
is, has only two possible values -— and you just switch that
factor over to its other value and take another look. This is a
common technique in mathematics. ‘ For example, if you want to

-12-
 rq’,
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construct a logical proofi of a certain proposition, you can

‘4‘!)

proceed by assuming for the moment that the proposition is not

true. If you can then show that this assumption leads to a
contradiction or inconsistency, you can conclude that the
assumption was false and the proposition is true. Other examples
from 'Statistical sampling theory could be cited. In a personal
problem in your world of experience, considerable insight may be
gained by considering one at a time the factors in the situation
and what it would mean if each in turn was changed. 0r,
similarly, if what you are trying to do is to manipulate the
significance to you of some experience. .

A very interesting case of the one-remove is the application of

the nearest neighbor concept to the 4x4 Magic Square. Many of
the Sabian concept structures are based on sets of dichotomies;
the 4x4 square is built on four dichotomies, and each square then
is characterized by one particular value of each of the four
dichotomies. The whole is arranged in such a way that if you
move to a neighboring square in either the vertical or horizontal
direction, only one of these dichotomies is changed in value.
Hence you have made a one-remove from the original square. This
is the kind of movement made in using the square for problem
solving. This square properly should be drawn on a doughnut--
shaped surface; but can also be shown as below. —

.5

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Since there are four dichotomies, each square has four nearest
neighbors, as is shown in this diagram'as it is not in the usual
portrayal. It is always important -to remember that in most
experience there is more than one alternate perspective that can
be helpful in making the experience more meaningful to you.

Which Reality is the Right One?

If we create so much of our own reality, and can move our

perspective on experience around so much, and can even adopt what
LeShan calls drastically different modes of being, how can we be
sure that the reality we perceive is the true or right one, that
our view of the world isn't all distorted?

Let me ask in return if you want to express your world view in

everyday English, or in the Hopi language. I quote Benjamin Lee
Whorf:

The Hopi language contains no reference to "time",

either implicit or explicit. At the same time it is
capable of accounting for and describing correctly, in a
pragmatic or operational sense, all observable phenomena
of the universe...Just as it is possible to have any
number of geometries other than the Euclidian which give
an equally perfect account of space configurations, so
it is possible to have descriptions of the Universe, all
perfectly valid, that do not contain our familiar
contrasts of space and time. The relativity viewpoint
of modern physics is one such View, conceived in
mathematical terms, and the Hopi Weltanschauung is
another and quite different one, nonmathematical and
linguistic.

LeShan goes even further. He maintains that the world view that
you adopt means that the world then can operate differently than
if you had a different world view:

The metaphysical system you are using is the

metaphysical system that is operating. A metaphysical
system is a set of assumptions about how the universe is
put together and functions. We always have one whether
or not we are aware of it. The assumptions we use about
the nature of reality make up the system. The system
determines what is possible and impossible, normal and
paranormal, within it. In an altered state of
consciousness we use a different metaphysical system.
If we really use a different metaphysical system (and
not just think or talk about it), we are in an altered
state of consciousness; These two phrases areadifferent
waYs of describing the same thing. An altered state of
consciousness means that we are perceiving and reacting

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4%? ' as if it were run on a different set of
lawsthgndugrifigigles than those which we normally believe
to be operating. This is clearly not so Simple as it
sounds, and there are many limitations and
qualifications necessary. Nevertheless, it seems to be
true that, within certain definite limits, there is at
least a choice as to which metaphysical structure you
can choose and operate successfully within.

Incidentally, LeShan did not do his work just to be able to

explain some apparently inconsistent things 901ng on. in
the
world, he used it also as a basis for the successful training
of
psychic healers -- mostly nurses. When applied, his theories
worked. ,
The Sabian view on the nature of reality is very cons
what I have
istent with
alrea dy presented. A few quotes from relevant Blue
Letters will demonstrate this:

The hardest of all realizations for the stud

ent
seems to
be that the reality of things varies with
their meaning
or that there is no fixity to exis
tence aside from
experience.
-
The greatest elements in life are who
lly transient in an
essentially paradoxical but very literal fashion.
Reality ..
never manages to be anything but
personal a quite
construct. Things in essence 'in the only
decent way of contemplating them
in human life are what
those who sustain them in a give
n reality put into them
because they the n become useful.

The mind in its separations alw

ays asks how the world of
experience can be differen
t for different people and
still be real and what
it is on its own account.
reply is that nothing The
that fundamentally is a se
has' integrated existence lf or
terms of anything bu actually can be real in
t itself. the
this world as somethi It may be presumed that
ng on its own accoun
remembered that the t if it is
something is whateve
own consciousness-may r the world's
be thought to be. Wha
i: anlover-all :ens t'that means
: is beyond the comp
on y a par rehension of what
consequence each 0 it in function an
'
of us has a quite
relat
mu st ion
k 5 h'1p W' lth the s goixperlgnce...l
'
unive rse as p n
now it out of ou a Whoa le an
beca pr iva te
r own center us e we
of experience,
. and so
a group or univ in ou r continuance of
ersal self that act
will articulate
. dimension of fu
. . ' lfillment.
but in the reality a social realit ?
that in the case
of each ofyus ig
dgsg

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own creation. Through our own special integration this sharing

comes down to what we are- able to establish in common with
others. 5 |

Multiple -views of the world are possible without facing the

question of which one is "right," indeed, that question is
meaningless. Our experience is valid, and we can have control
over its meaning for us through the perspectives we adopt. Thus
we each build our own world. If we do not like it, we should
recognize where the blame lies and realize that it is within our
power to alter that world. This is the ultimate responsibility
on the Solar Path.

July 15, 1984

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