jprussell | (Reply)

From:

Hah! Not a context I expected to encounter a reference to Mr. Tsatsouline! I haven't given much thought to the spiritual significance of kettlebells, but maybe I should.

More seriously, yes, I think there's a lot of truth there. In the post, I didn't stress a current part of my epistemology, which is that our brains just aren't that great at understanding reality "as it truly is" (if that's even a meaningful concept outside of a perceiving consciousness!), which of course I have also gotten from JMG. Practically speaking, this shakes out to "acting like this is true gets me these results, but I have very little idea if I 'made them true' by believing, if I had a belief that was true in some objective, external way, or if it was a lucky coincidence." For most experiences, it is very likely some combination of all of those, since as you say, your beliefs shape what you perceive and how you interact with it (at least, again, who knows what they may do beyond that!)

I very much agree with the second paragraph, and it builds on what I was saying above - does praying to Frigg and Freyja as "different Goddesses" reach Beings that are as distinct as anything can be? Does it follow different paths laid down by the worship of others to get to the same Being? Are any Beings involved the same one(s) that were called upon in Sweden 1000 years ago? In England 1600 years ago? The same as Aphrodite in Greece even longer ago? Hard to say, and the only answer that seems reasonable to me is to hold any theories about what's "really going on" loosely and focus on what we can do and experience.