Saturday, March 1, 2014

Who Says You're Intelligent or Not?

What makes each of us intelligent? Is it our IQ? That subject has been hotly debated by scholars themselves since those tests first appeared. Some claim that the mental state you’re in, how you’re feeling, health-wise and so forth also determines how well you’ll do on an IQ test so are such tests truly an indicator of true intelligence? Yes I know those who administer them are believers but hey in all fairness, their jobs depend on them just like HR people in corporations depend on the sometimes silly hoops they make job applicants jump through when applying for a job such as length of resumes.

We often look at success factors as indicators of intelligence since after all if you’re successful at something, you obviously know how to do it right, right? Many would disagree and state that there are numerous examples of morons who run successful companies into the ground by accident or design and that those who succeed often have Dame Fortuna dancing with them. Still success at something does point towards doing the right things at least to the motivational crowd.

What about old fashioned common sense? Now that’s something that often gets thrown out there for everyone to examine and it is amazing at how many “agreed” responses to a statement such as “Common sense is so rare it’s almost classified as a super power.” And still look at how many otherwise rational people make bad decisions and wind up in a smelly pile of dung. They often get pointed at with disdain while snickering, “Look at those fools!” And are they fools? Perhaps or did they just make one bad decision that got them caught?

Does a sheepskin automatically make you intelligent? I don’t think it does and I’ve been to college. What it does is prove you can follow a course of study, read pre-selected materials, analyze them, write up reports on them and memorize data to use in tests. Period. The sad part is very few college grads I have talked with have ever really used their degrees. I didn’t get a degree myself though I wanted to finish it at the time but life got in the way. I got a certificate in an Associate’s program which simply means I took the core courses & passed them. Not having a degree has left a few doors closed to me over the years - I say a few because I’ve been involved in sales & marketing and trust me, I have mad skills at those subjects and people wanted me on their team. Thus even companies with bachelor’s degrees required often waived them to get me on board and a few others I know went through the same thing.

So what makes one ‘intelligent’? I think it is the ability to go and find what it is you need to know to solve a problem or issue. People bandy the term ‘smart’, ‘brilliant’ and ‘genius’ around these days and true there are a number of folks who seem to be walking encyclopedias but a lot of these folks live in their parent’s basements which is something I never understood. You can solve complex mathematical equations but you cannot have a simple relationship with a man or woman? What is up with that? How is it you can rattle off lists of math formulas, chemistry tables & even write out some useful algorithms but when it comes to dealing with Joe & Mary Sixpack, you’re an abject failure? Wow, you’re definitely BRILLIANT aren’t you?

I’ve sat in groups, chat rooms, forums & what not watching scads of these intellectuals arguing the finite details about everything from philosophy to religion to High MagicK to earth science and yet a number of these eggheads are horridly terrible with just being a nice person to others. It’s like they feel they must have the absolute last word in about everything or else their universe will implode. How sad and pathetic. Hey I know it stings and hurts like hell to be put in your place by someone but to continue beating the horse after the life has left it only shows you’re a moron not the other person.

Have I been guilty of this? Absolutely! It’s taken me some serious soul searching to come to these conclusions and to realize that I don’t know everything. For years I have maintained that my specialties in the world of the Occult are Sorcery, Armenan Runes and Spirits. Those three subjects cover a helluva lot of ground and rightfully so but still those areas are vast and I cannot lay claim to knowing everything there is to know about all of those things. However what I DO know, I KNOW because I have the practical experience to back it up. 

Back in the day, I used to collect every book, every grimoire out there and then one day a realization came over me: most of these books are wrong. Once you get really initiated and I’m not talking about some McWiccan or Ceremonial Moron initiation but a REAL initiation, then things change and you learn what’s real, what’s hokum, what works and what’s horse shit. Unfortunately for your peers, they’re on their own and stuck with the miserable crap that comes out as ‘learned’ Occult material. 

(Hey I feel for you but not my problem anymore!)

There are people running around in the world of the Occult playing at pseudo-intellectual, mostly in the Ceremonial Moron groups. Why? Misery loves company I guess. But there are some dynamite Ceremonial Magicians just as there are some outstanding Wiccans who I would never hesitate to send someone to. Before Jason came along, I had no one other than my old pal Brujo Negro to send anyone to who was looking for authentic Sorcery. Why? It’s hard to find someone who is rational, intelligent, composes himself well, and knows how to throw down when the shit hits the fan. Brujo Negro & I go way back to the late 90's so we have history; Jason & I have history from other old Yahoo Groups when he used to go by Inondinandium (sorry if I misspelled that, Jason!).

There are a lot of folks pretending to be practitioners who just collect books & comment on them giving lectures & theses on them and they often have me wondering if they are actually just some yucks from some university studying abnormal psychology who are having fun with us. Oddly enough, it’s not just the western magicK side of the coin either as there are oodles of wannabes in the ARS (African Religious Systems) who pretend to know what they’re doing and they don’t know squat. The ARS is rife with folks selling Elleggua heads as authentic when they’re not; of peddling Spirits when they have no right to do so; or selling Ngangas or Prendas when they’ve never even had their head washed in the Yoruban system. As much as I can’t stand most Yoruban practitioners, I don’t like seeing people ripping their system off just like I don’t like to see the same sort of dipshidiots doing the same sorts of things to the Fon either.

When you look at it as a whole and boil it all down, it’s personal choices that make us intelligent or not. And I also want to state that I think our intelligence waxes & wanes just like the Moon does because even the smartest people make stupid decision at times. I know because I’ve witnessed many of them doing it! And it’s funny! Especially when you either know or have a strong idea of what’s going to happen once their decision has been made final. I don’t believe intelligence is static and I believe it grows and declines in all of us as we choose our various interests to pursue.

One man who proved you could be highly intelligent without much education was Henry Ford. He realized that if you drew upon the resources of others, there is nothing you could not achieve. He even went to court to prove this theory and did so. The prosecution called him all but an idiot and yet Ford remained calm and explained that by the push of a button, he could call in any man into his office to answer any question known at that time. That’s power. That’s real intelligence. Remember it’s not about what you memorize or how big your cranium is, it’s how you utilize it and the other resources at your disposal.

If others call you a simpleton, moron, dufus, idiot, fool - so what? Greater men and minds than yours have been called that and more. I don’t think they lost any sleep over it nor should you. Be yourself. Don’t try to compete. Just be you.