Our ability to engage in Narrating as a tool of the Gift of Set has two additional capacities that can either disable or empower our use of this tool. These are the ability to animate and scale our narratives.
Our ability to animate relies upon our capacity to “freeze” images and ideas into static elements and then “unfreeze” them. The “freezing” process involves nominalization, the treating things that function as processes as if they were static, unchanging objects. This can provide a powerful alternate point of view for trying to understand what is occurring by simplifying and abstracting. Conversely, re-animating such nominalizations allows you to see the more extensive process that may be occurring.
For many people, the animating process of nominalization can have a chronic quality. The nominalizations made to simplify thinking become static in their mind, causing them to react to their abstractions rather than reality. Such situations lead to the problems of behaving as if abstractions had the same level of reality as an actual object. By identifying where you have created nominalizations and frozen processes into abstract nouns, you can begin to re-animate these things.
Much of the antinomian activities suggested to Setians derive from practices aimed at denominalizing and re-animating abstractions enforced by culture. These tend to be “big targets” in that they are pervasive, and their limitations tend to be relatively well-known. This is done to free the individual from non-beneficial social restrictions and as training for the more difficult challenge of applying these methods to your own misguided, self-imposed restrictions. You free yourself from restrictions by learning to use the capacity to animate as a means of Narrating. You can overcome stasis within your subjective universe.
The other ability that can empower our use of Narrating can be called “scaling.” This means the scale level within our narratives, from high levels of specificity and low levels of abstractions to shallow levels of specificity and high levels of abstractions. No single dimension of this range is superior in and of itself.
High levels of specificity are very beneficial for creating actionable plans with clear and tangible results. It is much easier to fulfill an “I want to weigh 160 lbs. at 12% body fat with 110/70 blood pressure” plan than to fulfill “I want to feel healthy.” Specificity of Vision provides a means for seeing feedback and knowing if you are headed towards or away from your outcome.
Overly specified Visions can be traps of their own. Many a would be Setian has faltered by holding on for an overly specified ideal outcome only to miss the actual manifestations of their Desires. Rather than engaging in Black Magic, which inherently means an engagement with the Unknown in a manner that will change you, they are trying to lock out any possibilities of the Unknown and thus their need to change.
Having enough specificity in your Visions provides a tangible means for taking action and determining results. Holding enough abstraction in your Visions allows the unknown to manifest through them. Scaling overall provides a means of controlling for these two factors and enriching your use of Narrating.
Setemheb 