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Tarot and the Medici Patience. Grimoire
Homework No. 7
Rice Attention! Smile, comrade! Don’t be bashful, don’t clam up… Let us continue tending to our usual affairs… Done! Svetochka—file it away in the case… that one, you know… well, you’re in the know…154
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1. Who watches over the builder's work?
Who keeps an eye on the seller's labor?
Who oversees the warrior's service?
Who monitors the doctor's work?
Who keeps vigil over the electrician's craft?
Who supervises the programmer's work?
List, provide examples.
How far does control reach?
Substantiate your answer.
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2. Watch the films based on the novels by Sergei Lukyanenko: 'Night Watch' (2004), 'Day Watch' (2006), and 'Draft' (2018).
Check out the music video by Uma2rman, 'Night Watch,' on YouTube.155
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3. If it strikes your fancy, read Sergei Lukyanenko’s series of novels, 'The Watches'—
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Вселенная_«Дозоров»
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Remember—keys to Understanding are strewn throughout the text not only by the author of this book!
A fairy tale—a lie.
There's a hint in there!
A lesson for valiant youths!
(folk wisdom, voiced by a classic)
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Rice Life—no sooner is it born than, whoooosh, off it goes! Blink and you'll miss it; before you know it, it’s already ended.156
4. Identify and compile a list of significant events and processes in human society that are controlled by no one and nothing.
About ten.
Substantiate your answer.
Draw your conclusion.
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5. Suppose, for argument’s sake, that angels exist (uproarious laughter, the disorderly beating of wings, and countless soft bumps into floors and walls, all on the Astral—author’s note).
Alright, maybe, let's just suppose.
Who, purely in theory, could control this entire aviary—sternly, yet with absolute justice?
Consult that unimpeachable source of 21st-century truth—Wikipedia—and find an article on the subject.
To ensure you've located precisely the right article, gather a dozen candidates and treat them to an uncompromising casting, natural selection, and a good old-fashioned knife fight.157
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Rice Over the course of life, there are three paths: to stand still, to move forward, or to step aside. And each must decide for themselves: are they a mere passerby, or the Temple itself?158159
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6. What is the zone of responsibility?
Can a hero simply stroll past a crime?
How is the zone of responsibility entwined with duty, power, privilege, and punishment?
Under what circumstances does each of these concepts awaken and manifest in the life of the common mortal?
How does an ordinary soul come by power? What does one receive along with power?
How does one lose power—and for what reason?
What responsibility falls upon the slave, and what upon his Mister?
According to ancient Roman law, if a crime was committed by a slave, who compensates the damage caused to a citizen?
How are rights and duties interconnected?
What is the meaning behind the Little Prince’s phrase, ‘We are responsible for those we have tamed’?
What is the meaning of Kant's phrase, 'Freedom is conscious necessity'?
What is your zone of responsibility? Why?
What is your power? Why?
Compose a table, diagram, poem, ode, or mosaic panel to show how these concepts are connected.
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Rice Years roll by, gathering into centuries. 'Confiscate and redistribute!' – comes the cry from every corner.160
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7. What are the boundaries of responsibility, and why, whence, and for what purpose do they arise?
To grasp this—imagine a world with no boundaries of responsibility.
Conduct a thought experiment.
Write down your musings and conclusions.
Substantiate your answer.
Rice And just like that—click—fate—broken… or was it, as always, just my imagination?161
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8. What are key events? Why are they called 'key,' rather than something else?
Offer an example of The Ten key events from the war between the USSR and Hitler's Germany. Why do you consider them key points?
Give a few examples of events from WWII. Why do you consider them key points?
What are key points and positions on the battlefield?
Google it. Reflect upon it. Be inspired.
Provide examples of ten key positions on the map of the USSR during the war between the USSR and the Great Germany. Justify your choices.
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9. Returning to the subject of our chapter—why is human fate analogous to railway tracks?
Record your thoughts and conclusions.
Substantiate your answer.
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10. Familiarize yourself with the notion of the 'Emerald Tablet.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet
What does the Law 'As above, so below…' speak of? Write down its full and proper formulation.
How is this Law entwined with analogies?
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11. In what language does the left, logical hemisphere of the human brain speak?
What does left-hemisphere dominance bestow upon human thought?
Provide examples of individuals with a vivid dominance of the left hemisphere.
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12. What language does the right, imaginative hemisphere of the human brain speak?
What does right-brain dominance provide in human thinking?
Give examples of people with pronounced right-brain dominance.
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Rice While the bookworms bleat and moo, Insta reigns and revels! (status of an unknown heroine).162163
13. Answer question 9 again, this time using the language of analogies to support and justify your conclusions.
Provide, in writing, ten analogies from this chapter as examples.
Which style of thinking predominates among men?
Which style of thinking predominates among women?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of left-brain versus right-brain dominance in thinking?
Which type of thinking is at the core of the exact sciences? For example, Programming?
Which type of thinking underlies the arts? For example, sculpture or Painting?
What gives rise to jargon?164
Which dominant thinking style processes large quantities of real-world information more swiftly?
Why?
What sort of thinking characterizes a Magician, a Stalker, or a witch?
What kind of thinking do you possess?
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Rice Master, by the whiskers of the cat, how are you? Still not knocking yourself against the doorframe?165
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14. In what language does the human Subconscious speak?166
In what language does the human Superconscious speak?167
Why do Gurus, prophets, and saints speak in parables and verse?168
Why do scientists of the exact sciences and narrow specialists 'speak Chinese'?
How can we easily distinguish the musings of theoreticians from True statements?
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Chapter 8. The Secret of the Sekret, or the Mysteries of the Divine Secret Service.
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Rice – Daaad, hey daaad, why do the rails keep clattering? – Because the Clock of Fate ticks loudly, my boy.170
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In the previous chapter, it came to light that, at the causal level, the destiny of most ordinary people (Mages and Stalkers not included, for now) is steered not by inner, but by external causes.
In other words, for the train of fate to change direction, the switchman must throw the switch, while the passengers—still locked in eternal debate over a glass of murky liquid in the third compartment, endlessly wrestling with 'who, you see, is to blame and what ought to be done'—can happily go on arguing forevermore.
This mechanism is a safeguard by which freedom of will becomes possible for certain individuals—at least, until a certain moment or some threshold value is reached.
But who are those mysterious switchmen who flip the levers? The answer is both paradoxical and simple. But first, an Anecdote:
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…A devilish commission strolls into the hall where cauldrons full of sinners are merrily boiling.
Suddenly, a fellow leaps out of the first cauldron, scurries over to a table conveniently stationed beside it, grabs a bottle of moonshine, fills a glass to the brim, knocks it back, and sprints straight back into the cauldron. And at the table, dozing, sits an ancient devil. The head of the commission asks: where, pray, is the security? But the old devil replies that no security is needed: the Russians are boiling away in their cauldron. All they require is to have a bottle of vodka close at hand—they need nothing else in this life.171
As for the second cauldron, it was guarded by a horde of devils brandishing pitchforks. ‘That’s where the Jews are simmering,’ explained the infernal steward. ‘If even one manages to climb out, he’ll haul the others up after him.’
And the third cauldron was left entirely unguarded. To the commission head’s silent inquiry, the steward replied: ‘Oh, that’s where the Ukrainians are boiling.’ ‘And there’s no guard, because if one of them tries to climb out, his own people will drag him back down by the legs.’
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As the saying goes, every joke contains a grain of joke. Everything else, as they say, is pure, as pure as a baby’s tear—naked truth…
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Rice—How are you, brother?172
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Let us proceed in the manner of Christ—teaching with anecdotal parables:
Once upon a time in Western Ukraine, there lived two brothers – Taras and Gritsko. Then the Soviets came to power. Taras joined the collective farm and took his seat on the tractor, while Gritsko remained on his own homestead. When the Germans arrived, Taras joined the partisans, while Gritsko became a policeman.
The Soviets returned once more. Taras emerged from the Forest and went back to the collective farm, to his tractor. And Gritsko? Off he went to Siberia, to the logging camps.
But time flies swiftly, and at last Gritsko returned home. But he didn't stay on in the village; they never forgave him his police bravado there. He found work in the district center, as a mechanic in the Machine and Tractor Station. You blink—and he's already a brigade leader, then a shift chief, until at last he ascends to chairman of the district agricultural machinery administration. And his brother, Taras, is still in the collective farm, driving his tractor. One day he came into the district, dropped in on his brother, they sat down, drank some horilka.
"I just don’t get it, Gritsko." "All my life I've worked honestly, and yet I’m still just a simple tractor driver." So, you—the traitor—sat out in the camp, and yet became a big boss?
– Exactly so. And in my file, who's listed as my brother? A heroic partisan! And you? A police collaborator!
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Rice Paw to paw, body to body. Both to keep warm and to listen in.173
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That’s exactly why the devout and those seeking spiritual evolution often withdraw to monasteries. There, as they care constantly for one another, they evolve themselves and help others to do the same.
So, to the question: who is this nefarious scapegoat? Who has cut off the oxygen for me—so talented and remarkable as I am? Who has fastened my trousers to my shirt?
At which point, the crowd can gleefully shout in unison, “МММММММММММЫЫЫЫЫЫЫЫЫЫЫЫЫ – T H E C O L L E C T I V E!!!”…174
And often, much like in the Anecdote, people will gouge out their own eye, just so their neighbor won't have two.
All of this would be funny, if it weren’t so sad. From this point of view, the childish and naïve slogans of Christianity—‘Love your neighbor as yourself’—look a bit different. Strange as it may sound, this algorithm actually works—and what’s more, it’s even strategically advantageous. Napoleon would have understood.175
Still, folks who have been through the wringer tend to wise up quickly, and soon they’re stampeding en masse to certain saints and priests, pleading, ‘pray for us, won’t you?’
Thus, from everything said above, it is fair to assert that the switchmen (for the average soul) are simply everyone around them, to one degree or another.
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Rice Food! Food! Food! Let me through! Move aside! Yes, move aside, you scoundrels! Why are you all pushing your way in so brazenly, cutting the line? Let me pass! I reserved this spot back in my past lives!176
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Nonetheless, there exist other mechanisms for deflecting the arrows of Karma.
Chief among these, and strangely enough, is sleep. For it is in sleep that one enters the collective unconscious, and there, much of one’s fate is inscribed.
Yet, few realize—or even suspect—that their own dream is at once, and in part, the dreams of others. As a Rule, one's nearest kin, friends, and acquaintances. And, first and foremost, one's spouse and children.177
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Fig. I'll wait a little longer. Perhaps he'll come out onto the road.178
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This is why respectful regard for women is held in such esteem, and precisely why gentlemen are always fortunate. For it is the dreams of women that first and foremost shape the Karma of men—or rather, the realization of their desires in the Real.
This Law of the Mirror is the world's defense against those who are a bit too grand, with eggs that clang too loudly. They can huff and puff to their heart’s content, shaking their fists and brandishing their Weapons all their Life.
But a so-called 'weak and defenseless' woman, in her sleep, will weave his fate just as he deserves. And she’ll arrange it not only in this Life, but in the ones to come as well.179
Were it not for this protective mechanism, the toughest would simply become tougher, driving everyone else into the ground up to their ears. And his offspring would finish off the rest completely.
Yet, in reality, this never comes to pass. This, of course, is precisely why every dictatorship and empire eventually crumbles. This is exactly why any family or lineage with a formidable tyrant at the helm will invariably degenerate by the third generation. There's even a proverb about it: 'Nature rests on the children of geniuses.'
As soon as Karma becomes distorted at the causal level, certain key qualities unravel—and after two or three generations of despotism, the dynasty collapses of its own accord.
It is precisely these mechanisms—unseen and beyond anyone’s control—that serve as Divine Providence, wielded in the delicate hands of the 'weak and defenseless' ladies. Those very same unseen guardians who sustain the Balance of the Universe. 180
To one who cannot perceive the succession of generations and their evolution, it may not seem so. But once you extend your gaze across even a few centuries, this becomes perfectly obvious.
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Rice. xррррррррр… Xрррррррррррррр… Xрррррррррррррр… xррррррррррррр… ххххххххgrrr… xxgrrrr? xxGRRRRR??? xрррррррр!!! xррррррр. There we go! Now, everything is just as it ought to be.181
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So, what do the Mages and stalkers make of all this?
First and foremost, Mages are skilled in entering lucid dreams—a state they label as trance—and by orchestrating events within the dream, they’re able to tweak their fate from the outside.182
And not just their own, but, it would seem, entirely foreign destinies as well.
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Rice And the boundaries melt, melt away… Everything that was frozen stirs back to life!183
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Yet a dream is such a curious thing – it is marvelously multifaceted. Moreover, the deeper one digs, the nearer the schism from the Real, and there is Recoil – the dream 'slips' from the Mage’s grasp.
And the presumptuous Mage is cast out into the 'real.' Sometimes not only cooled and cold, but slightly spoiled as well.184
This is the World's second defensive wall. It protects the World from mages who are a little too crafty for their own good.
The Stalkers, however, chose a different path.
They do not attempt to alter fate through their own dreams. They simply understand what Life is, and where the reverse and the face of it lie, far more clearly than apprentice mages.
Through purely scientific and practical inquiry, they found that a human life is the dream of God, in which we all ‘live.’ What seems real to us is, in truth, the dream of a single vast being, which itself is but the reflection of the dream of the multitude of lesser consciousnesses that constitute it.
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Thus, stalkers do not descend into dream-trance for magical operations like mages, but instead interact directly with the sleeping consciousness of God, who perceives everything as the Real.185
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So, what's the difference, you may ask?
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Rice – Halt! Who goes there?! Password?! – Password. – Prrrrrroceed…186187
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And the difference is that someone is watching the dream, whether you're aware of it or not. And since God is constantly reviewing your life as a dream, He is the one who shapes it.
And if one plays Life by certain rules, as an Actor does, this dream (your reality) will change according to particular mechanisms.188
As those acquainted with the theater know, there are only about a dozen fundamental plots, and the storyline determines the end when played out in a certain manner.
Many sneer at Actors, but as the classic noted, 'all the world's a stage, and the people upon it merely Actors.' Whether they realize it or not.
Furthermore, if you try to steer the dream by way of dream-trance, you inevitably come up against the defensive mechanisms of the World, which are rather tricky to navigate inside the dream. At least, for the ordinary mortal.
Yet, by moving through the Real as if in the dream of God, one may engage with these mechanisms—both directly and obliquely—with a far grander range of freedoms.
Though, even here, certain drawbacks lurk. Well, you can't have strengths without weaknesses.
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Homework Section No. 8.
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Rice The life of a simple gymnasium student is both troublesome and rather lacking in glory. To become a champion, you truly must toil and sweat!189
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To complete this and other homework assignments, use the Internet and any other sources you see fit.
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1. What is a reflex in biology?
What varieties of reflexes are there?
Provide a dozen examples of reflexes.
Where are they encoded?
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2. What is an unconditional reflex?
Give, for example, five unconditional reflexes.
What would happen to you if these reflexes failed to function?
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Rice And someone, with a sovereign hand, delivers a kick to the back of your knee. And the proud bird, the Penguin, takes flight—overcome by love.190191
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3. What are species survival reflexes? Why are they needed? Provide examples.
What are survival archetypes? Why are they needed? Provide examples.
What might happen to a species if its survival programs and reflexes cease to function?
In which situations do survival programs and reflexes manifest and operate?
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4. What is meant by the priority of a program's operation?
What sorts of priorities might survival archetypes and reflexes possess?
Under what circumstances, and for whom, can the priority of a species’ survival programs change? Provide examples.
What has the power to activate and deactivate the survival archetypes and species reflexes?
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5. In which domains of consciousness do species reflexes and survival archetypes dwell and perform their work?
Is it possible for the user to perceive and control both unconditioned and species reflexes, as well as survival archetypes?
Please provide examples.
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6. How does a conditioned reflex differ from an unconditioned one? Please provide examples.
Can a conditioned reflex be harnessed in service of survival archetypes?
Where, how, and for what reasons might unconditioned and species survival archetypes intersect with conditioned reflexes? Please give examples.
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Rice The squirrel spins the wheel, and the gears grind away. No one really knows what or where anything is happening. The mechanism is rather subtle. And so, all of Life passes by. From birth to the grave.192
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7. Devise the most comprehensive table of species-specific reflexes and survival programs in women.
Divide the table into sections, such as: 'Name of Reflex,' 'Description,' 'Reason for Emergence,' 'Outcome When the Program Functions Properly,' 'Outcome When the Program Malfunctions,' and so forth.
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8. Devise the most comprehensive table of species-specific reflexes and survival programs in men.
Divide the table into sections, such as: 'Name of Reflex,' 'Description,' 'Reason for Emergence,' 'Outcome When the Program Functions Properly,' 'Outcome When the Program Malfunctions,' and so forth.
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Rice. Strange games. Strange dances. There is no place in them for simple ragamuffins.193
