Have you entered Chapel Perilous?

Recently here on ATS I have seen some threads from people that are having some trouble with the over load of information from sites like this. Sometimes it can be scary, and lonely, and even change your perception of the most mundane things.

People may see you as paranoid, or crazy. You may even see yourself that way.

I wanted to share something that has helped me in my time of research, when I was scared, and lonely, and felt like I could never be my old self again, because now I damaged my mind with scary thoughts, and I could never go back.

There was a term that I heard called "chapel perilous", and it explained how sometimes we can find ourselves possibly going insane by overwhelming ourselves with so much doom and gloom, that some people can go "literally" crazy, or even suicidal. But after finding and reading this, I found out that there is a process to research.

Its not just about finding the truth, because the truth is there. Its when you find out who are the players, how long you've been in the dark, and how many people are in on it, whether on purpose or not.

So I present, For readers not familiar with "Chapel Perilous" I will give Robert Anton Wilson's definition of that god forsaken place.

"In researching occult conspiracies, one eventually faces a crossroad of mythic proportions (called Chapel Perilous in the trade). You come out the other side either stone paranoid or an agnostic; there is no third way. I came out agnostic.

Chapel Perilous, like the mysterious entity called "I," cannot be located in the space-time continuum; it is weightless, odorless, tasteless and undetectable by ordinary instruments. Indeed, like the Ego, it is even possible to deny that it is there. And yet, even more like the Ego, once you are inside it, there doesn't seem to be any way to ever get out again, until you suddenly discover that it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside thought. Everything you fear is waiting with slavering jaws in Chapel Perilous, but if you are armed with the wand of intuition, the cup of sympathy, the sword of reason, and the pentacle of valor, you will find there (the legends say) the Medicine of Metals, the Elixir of Life, the Philosopher's Stone, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness.

That's what the legends always say, and the language of myth is poetically precise. For instance, if you go into that realm without the sword of reason, you will lose your mind, but at the same time, if you take only the sword of reason without the cup of sympathy, you will lose your heart. Even more remarkably, if you approach without the wand of intuition, you can stand at the door for decades never realizing you have arrived. You might think you are just waiting for a bus, or wandering from room to room looking for your cigarettes, watching a TV show, or reading a cryptic and ambiguous book. Chapel Perilous is tricky that way.

You can read more about this at www.mindmined.com...

This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I wanted to share for those that might be interested.

Peace to you all ...



[edit on 18-8-2010 by NoRegretsEver]

reply to post by NoRegretsEver


Liked your post so much I Flagged and Starred it

I might be incorrect here, but in order to prevent your post disappearing, it might be best if you enclosed the Wilson content in a quote-box ?

If you don't know how, you need simply put the word 'quote' in brackets at the beginning of the Wilson material. Then, at the end of the Wilson material, you do the same thing, only with a slash before the word 'quote'

like this: /quote (but inside brackets again)


Nice work



.


[edit on 17-8-2010 by Dock9]

reply to post by Dock9


Thank you for that, I never knew how to do it, and it looks much better. BTW, I'm glad that you enjoyed my thread.

Peace to you...

Wasn't Robert Anton Wilson a science fiction writer? I remember reading a book by him a long time ago that seemed like it was a parody of the whole Illuminati thing. Maybe it was someone else.

reply to post by NoRegretsEver


good # man, I've read the book your quote is from, along with pretty much every non-fiction book RAW has made...

a lot of people on this forum could stand to read his material... I hope many of them do, because without something to ground you, this whole "conspiracy culture" that is growing can become outright dangerous.

speaking from personal experience, i would say RAW is right about the "Chapel", and enlightenment is indeed waiting on the other side if you can navigate your way through chapel perilous, which is more or less facing the largest fears there is to fear here on planet earth....ie coming to terms with all the hard truths of being human.

you have to be partially awake to end up in the chapel in the first place...many who exist with their heads in the sand (called the "sheeple" on this site) never approach it.... and it stands to swallow up those who stumble upon the truth only partially awake....and it forces you to awaken completely or to completely lose it.

i dont claim to be totally enlightened, because enlightenment comes and enlightenment goes, but i certainly have had enlightened moments and enlightened experiences...and i try to use the wisdom gained from them to guide me through my more hypnotized moments....

nothing is more dangerous than being introduced to an idea before you are ready for it.... i've seen people become outright schizophrenic just through their own exploration.... this is not to steer anyone away from seeking, more power to you, but know yourself otherwise you are going to be in some trouble...


and if you truly know yourself....you will have very little left to seek.... after all....as above, so below

Woah, I haven't heard the term "Chapel Perilous" in years. Takes be back away, it does.

R.A. Wilson is an interesting character for many reasons. The term was also used by another fellow named Antero Alli who might have been friends with Wilson.

Still earlier, a mid-20th-century group of esoteric bohos used to call it "the dark forrest."

Whatever you call it, this kind of thing certainly does happen. Hold on tight.

"Don't worry about it too much, because you're gonna get there anyway" -R. Crumb

reply to post by NoRegretsEver


If by agnostic it speaks in terms of religion, what happens if you come out paranoid AND agnostic. While my complete rejection of religion came partially from a college philosophy class, some came from reading here. I've also read things about certain subjects on ATS I won't soon forget and have indeed ruined my happy ignorance. I like knowing the truth, but when the truth affects me how it did, I could have done without. I have known this chapel perilous.

reply to post by NoRegretsEver


also by the way....i read your blog...you seem kinda hung up about Cosmic Trigger....a little advice, read Prometheus Rising and Quantum Psychology if you haven't yet....starting with Cosmic Trigger is pretty intense, RAW certainly gets into some of his most far out stuff in that one, it is more personal / biographical, its a good read but not as useful in a philosophical sense (in my opinion)

Also, as much as I love RAW (pretty much my favorite author / philosopher) he is not without fault. I think his brand of generalized agnosticism is wonderful and very Zen-like... but I also think he is guilty at times of perhaps going a little bit too far... what I'm saying is, what RAW has done in his life, particularly with drugs and the occult, might have been good for him but it is not for everyone. basically you can take away a lot of the knowledge there is there and leave behind some of the more questionable stuff...

And, if you read his material with an open and non-dogmatic mind.... the only way it was meant to be read.... I think you will find a few points even he is guilty of being a bit hypocritical about. It takes time to spot them but maybe you can find some of them. I'd like to imagine Bob, if he were still around, would appreciate his readers second guessing him...

I'm not saying he is a devil worshiper or he is illuminati, (although, anyone who has read him enough knows you can't rule it out ) but I am saying I do think he is a bit guilty of having a few Belief Systems (B.S.) after all.... good luck figuring out what they are....


And it's no big deal, we all have some amount of Belief.... true agnosticism does not exist.... but that shouldn't stop us from striving

Oh my Goodness... this must be my freakiest Sincronicity EVER.. just yesterday, i quoted Cosmic Trigger, the exact part with the Chapel Perilous to my Girlfriend.

24 hours later, i read this here... i never talked to anyone about the chapel before. Freaky things happen around here

IMO people sometimes don't realize that they have stumbled across a place where they see no good in research, or fear being the only thing ahead.

In fact, there is sometimes a sigh of relief when you realize that going over that initial hurdle and surviving was probably the hardest part. What I think is the part that can get derailed in research, is sometimes getting caught up with a particular brand of focus, and not seeing all sides.

I have always found it easier to debate my own cause, if I hear something that sounds to "good" to be true, I immediately find anything about it that has been debunked, as to not lose sight of the duality of all scenarios presented.

Peace.

love this post!! good reminder for me!
I a big Wilson fan ! one very smart man

I really liked that business about all the the sword the cup the pentacle the wand

S&F

Absolutely fantastic thread.

My dad turned me on to RAW when I was 10 or so. What a mind-trip thing to do to a kid, right? I decided to pay it forward though. RAW is a bit outside what my kids are into, so I turned my son on to Michio Kaku (he's 8) and my daughter on to HP Lovecraft (she's 12).

Why in the world would I do such a thing to my own kids?

To prepare them for the inevitable day when they will be called upon to read "The Cosmic Trigger".

By the way, I still read RAW yearly. This year, I read the Illuminatus! Trilogy. It gets funnier, every time I read it.

Blessings and stuff, plus S+F

Oz

Originally posted by 0zzymand0s
...I turned my son on to Michio Kaku (he's 8) and my daughter on to HP Lovecraft (she's 12).

Why in the world would I do such a thing to my own kids?

To prepare them for the inevitable day when they will be called upon to read "The Cosmic Trigger".

I bet the dinner conversations around the table at your place are pretty interesting

Perhaps signal nonlocality studies will undergo a renaissance with the rising generation...

reply to post by 0zzymand0s


I was also wondering how I was going to introduce this curriculum for my children to get them into the world of "different" aspects. I think that its great that your parents showed you a path to learning that things might not always be as they seem.

Peace.

Thanks to you both!

Just make sure that you are there to help answer any questions that they have, or point them in the general direction of the answers, and all is well.

I remember RAW describing the CP also as some kind of "supernatural" state or an entity/force which has guided/influenced you over a distance. Not necessarily a negative influence.

It's blooming in the age of the Internet. Remember, there are 6 billion people out there. Some of them really messed up