From: oispeggy@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Peggy Brown)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: (Was shields down) Now: morality of love as force
Date: 11 Sep 92 13:43:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <199209100158.AA02485@intercon.com>, amanda@INTERCON.COM (Amanda Walker) writes...


Note: To save time and space I've combined a few posts similar 
posts from Amanda & Eddie.  Sorry if I screwed up any of the 
attributions, which I probably did.

Amanda:
> >The strongest shield you can mount is perfect 
> >love.  Love overcomes fear, and transforms enemies into friends. 

Peggy:
Rather a limited worldview IMO.  In quaballa, don't you want the 
sephiroth to be balanced?  There is a place for hate and anger 
as well as love.

Old Peggy:
> I'd settle for being disinterested -  not always, but most of the time.

Amanda or Eddie - I'm not sure who:
> It has been my personal experience in this world that apathy is 
> generally is as much a danger to all that I hold to be useful, good, and 
> sacred as hate or antipathy is.  

Eddie:
I do hope however, that you are not advocating apathy as a good world-view 
in general.  

Peggy:
We have some definition problems here, as usual.  Following are 
definitions for Disinterested and Indifferent.  I am using 
definition #1.  I think you are using definition #2.  I do not 
see anything "dangerous" about my use of these two words.  A 
certain amount of detachment helps one transcend the personal.

Disinterested - 1.) not influenced by personal interest or 
selfish moties; impartial; unbiased  2.) uninterested; 
indifferent: in this usage a revival of an obsolete meaning.

Indifferent - 1.) having or showing no partiality, bias, or 
preference; neutral 2.) having or showing no interest, concern, 
or feeling; uninterrested, apathetic, or unmoved  3.) of no 
consequence or importance; immaterial  4.) not particularly good 
or bad, large or small, right or wrong etc.; fair, average  
5.)not really good; rather poor or bad 6.) neutral in quality, as 
a chemical, magnet etd.; inactive:chiefly in scientific use  7.) 
capable of developing in various ways, as the cells of an embryo 
that are not yet specialized.

Amanda:
..the opposite of love is indifference, not hate.  

Peggy:
I've heard this commonly said and I don't agree.  Love is a 
strong emotion, so its opposite would have to be an equally 
strong emotion, thus hate.  Indifference is neutral, between the 
two extremes, and can be used to *transcend* personal experience.

Also, there are different types of love (you might think of more):
 Eros:  sexual desire, the biological urge, organs lusting for
        organs. AN IMPERSONAL LOVE
 Amor:  aka crash & burn, an intense personal love between 2 
        people, finding one's spiritual counterpart, often but not 
        always involves eros.  A PERSONAL LOVE
 Agape: spiritual love, love they neighbor as thyself.  This is 
        the same as compassion, which is the word I prefer to 
        use, to avoid confusion.  AN IMPERSONAL LOVE

When I made the comment about being disinterested, I did not rule 
out Agape, or compassion.  This is an impersonal love.  (A few, 
like Mother Theresa, make it personal, but that is an exception.) 
Most religious feeling is about compassion.

I think our difference of opinion is caused by you two interpreting 
my comments in terms of a judeo-christian view, which often 
causes one to see things as dualities (good/evil, hate/love, 
male/female, good/bad).  I prefer a more transcendent approach, 
like that used in many eastern religions.  If you filter my 
comments through a judeo-christian bias, then you'll just end up 
seeing conflicts and opposing dualities.

As I mentioned before, there is a place for the "negative" 
thoughts and emotions.  The "bad" must be balanced with the "good" 
- and accepted as part of life.

Afterall, anything "good" that happens to you is at someone or 
something else's expense, even in an act as basic as eating.  You 
can't avoid this.  This is often difficult for people to accept.  
To accept the world AS IT IS, is hard.  People always want 
to accept with conditions, i.e. "I will accept the world only if it 
turns out to be the way I want it to be."

I think is useful to be able to use both the transcendent view 
point and the duality viewpoint.  The transcendent view helps one 
gain perspective and detachment, so that situations are not viewed 
personally and emotionally.  Yet it is often easier to 
act on a specific problem when seeing it in terms of dualities.
So both views are useful, but my bias is toward using the 
transcendent view more.

Old Peggy - about love: 
> But it keeps you stuck in the mud with everyone else too.  And it sounds 
> like just another type of shield. 

Amanda:
Yes and no.  Yes, it's a "shield" of a sort, but it is one by being a source 
of strength rather than an application of power.  There's a difference.  
After years of trying other approaches, I have had to conclude that it's the 
only approach that actually works.  To take a rather banal example: Usenet.  
I'm a frequent poster to this newsgroup and alt.pagan, and evidently well-
liked and respected as such, despite being Christian and quite open about it.  
Unconventional, I will grant you :), but Christian nonetheless.  And as a 
result, I get challenged about it on a quite regular basis, from both 
Christians and everyone else.  Some of these challenges are simple confusion, 
but a fair number are what by Usenet standards are fairly vicious flames.  I 
could get defensive and try to counter them, or cynical and ignore them, but 
I don't.  I respond honestly, often agreeing with and sharing many of the 
complaints people throw up as "evidence," but trying to show why I see things 
differently.  And it works.  I've (to my surprise) had people write back 
saying, "wow, you've changed my mind about some things; I'll have to go think 
about this."  For similar reasons, I've ended up on quite cordial terms with 
even the resident curmudgeons like Josh, and have taken incipient flames and 
ended up in fruitful discussion (as was the case recently with Carol, for 
example).
[ lots of other stuff deleted...]

Peggy:

Now you went and wrote a big personal/emotional example.  
You'll probably find my opinion of your example to be 
disappointing, but you seem interested in hearing my view, so 
here it is:

Josh is a curmudgeon?

One comment Josh made once was to the effect that you can learn 
everything you ever wanted to know about human relationships by 
watching a National Geographic documentary on baboons.

Applying this too usernet, your *success* in manipulating people 
to accept you is an adaptive strategy.  It means you are at the 
top of the baboon-heap, but does not necessarily mean you are 
right about anything, or a better baboon than anyone else, just 
more effective than average.

Most of what anyone says all boils down to opinion.  There is no 
rock bottom to base things on.  Some people are better than 
others at expressing their opinions and getting them accepted.
That's all.

Eddie and/or Amanda (I can't tell at this point):
> I believe that Amanda was referring to the concept of 
> Love as the perfect force.  There is nothing that can restrain someone 
> who acts from perfect love.
> I myself have a tendency to equate perfect 
> love with the proper expression of perfect will.
 > No matter what I do, if 
> I am acting through my will properly, then I am expressing it through 
> the medium of perfect love.
> Love isn't wizardry, it's magick.  
 Or, as someone else put it, "Magick is nothing but the science of love."

Peggy:
What about perfect hate?

Eddie: 
I hope you don't mind that I took your incidental remark and ran off on a 
tangent which isn't really directed at you, Peggy.  But I saw a possibility 
that others might misinterpret your direction in the way I described above, 
and I felt strongly about it.  

Peggy:
I don't mind.  But I find your concern about how other's may 
interpret things to be overly protective.  People should 
interpret things however they want.  And there are many who would 
find your view and Amanda's view limiting.

- Peggy -