Your thoughts on Crowley's opinion of divination...

[LRichard]

Originally Posted by Fianic

......On the other hand I don't think Crowley was altogether above the intellectual pride of being Master of the Temple either.

That's another thing that bugs me. According to Crowley, “Thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that and no other shall say nay. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.” There is a lot to be said in favor of Thelema as a philosophy of life, but I'm not certain that the Eastern concept of "selflessness" is a reasonable prerequisite. Pure selflessness is about as far as one can progress in certain versions of Eastern mysticism. That seems to be asking far more than can be expected from a potential Thelemite. But maybe I'm wrong.

[Aeon418]

Originally Posted by LRichard

After Tiphareth, according to Aeon418, I shall need to upgrade my Tarot deck to something more capable, wherein The Star leads to Chokhmah. Now, however, my immediate goal is LVX, not NOX. I'll worry about what lies beyond Sephirah 6 when the time comes.

LRichard, I don't know whether listening to podcasts is your thing. But I think you might appreciate this one.

http://speechinthesilence.com/episod...rius-year-106-

Jump forward 30 minutes into the podcast to get to David Shoemaker's talk on LVX and NOX.

[Aeon418]

Originally Posted by Fianic

i agree with you on the last point. I'm not altogether sure we SHOULD cross the Abyss. No one that I know of who supposedly has done so has had a good ending.

Originally Posted by LRichard

I've had that same thought. Maybe they got impatient and tried to do so before they were properly prepared, or perhaps their "HGA" was an imposter and misled them. In any case, I doubt that I'll be ready for it in this lifetime.

In my opinion the vast majority of people who claim to have crossed the Abyss are confusing it with a whole host of other "crossings and passages" that occur along the way. I've sat and listened to quite a number of people who have made this claim, and nearly everyone of them described something that corresponeded to the passage of the path of Tau-Saturn. That particular Saturn is a long way from Binah-Saturn. But people often over estimate the importance of break-through experiences in their work. (Crowley warns about this danger in Liber O. But who reads the boring foundational stuff these days? )

It's also worth pointing out that according to one model there is an entire Tree of Life in each of the Sephiroth, complete with it's own little abyss. Crossing each of these may indeed be a astounding moment of revelation to many people. But it's a mistake to confuse any of these things with crossing THE Abyss.

[LRichard]

Originally Posted by Aeon418

LRichard, I don't know whether listening to podcasts is your thing. But I think you might appreciate this one.

http://speechinthesilence.com/episod...rius-year-106-

Jump forward 30 minutes into the podcast to get to David Shoemaker's talk on LVX and NOX.

Yes, that may be the one I heard on YouTube. I'll check it out. Thanks!

ETA. The David Shoemaker talk in that link was about Jungian dream analysis. Here is the one I listened to on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vcbFzTrZPU

[Aeon418]

Originally Posted by LRichard

ETA. The David Shoemaker talk in that link was about Jungian dream analysis.

Sorry about that, LRichard. The link I posted earlier is the correct download page for episode 14. But for some reason the embeded player on that page has got the latest episode (34) on it.

Originally Posted by LRichard

Here is the one I listened to on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vcbFzTrZPU

That's the one. I didn't know Shoemaker's segments had been uploaded onto Youtube.

[Ross G Caldwell]

One day a man was tending his strawberries, when a stranger happened by.

"Do you know where the Master lives?" asked the stranger.

"Which master?"

"The Master of Initiation who lives in this town; they told me I'd see his sign."

"Oh, you must mean the man with the sign 'Master of Initiation' on his gate, about three doors down from here."

"Thank you very much!" said the stranger, and walked on past the Master.


Commentary - AL II:58-59. We all have a preconception of what mastery will look like, and we therefore overlook that which does not fit that preconception. Even if we go to the wrong house a few times, if we persist we will finally find the right door.

[Aeon418]

Originally Posted by LRichard

That's another thing that bugs me. According to Crowley, “Thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that and no other shall say nay. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.” There is a lot to be said in favor of Thelema as a philosophy of life, but I'm not certain that the Eastern concept of "selflessness" is a reasonable prerequisite. Pure selflessness is about as far as one can progress in certain versions of Eastern mysticism. That seems to be asking far more than can be expected from a potential Thelemite. But maybe I'm wrong.

I think one potential source of confusion is the mistaken assumption that all Thelemites are the same and that everything applies equally in all contexts and situations. The opening post of this thread is an example of that sort of assumption.

In AL I:40 the Book of the Law makes it quite clear that it is perfectly ok to group Thelemites together under one label, but only if it is acknowledged that there are different kinds of Thelemite.

"Thou hast no right but to do thy will" may mean one thing to the Hermit/Master of the Temple and something quite different to the Lover/Adept. In the former case the Master has become a vessel for the Will. But the Adept, while having conscious perception of the Will, still has to work on conforming his/her ego-self into better alignment with the Angel. Just because he/she has attained K&C it does not mean that their is complete and total rapport between all aspects of the self and the angel. There's still work to be done.

And where does that leave the poor old Man or Woman of Earth? His/her connection to the angel is primarily subconscious, which means that the Will is more intuition based and a lot less certain. There's a great deal of trial and error involved, as you would expect when traversing the path of Samekh. The ego is still grapling with the illusion of free will and the notion that "thou hast no right but to do thy will" is more like a lesson that needs to be learnt, instead of some sort of direct spiritual reality.

Now then, back to my book...

[Fianic]

Originally Posted by Aeon418

I think one potential source of confusion is the mistaken assumption that all Thelemites are the same and that everything applies equally in all contexts and situations. The opening post of this thread is an example of that sort of assumption.

In AL I:40 the Book of the Law makes it quite clear that it is perfectly ok to group Thelemites together under one label, but only if it is acknowledged that there are different kinds of Thelemite.

"Thou hast no right but to do thy will" may mean one thing to the Hermit/Master of the Temple and something quite different to the Lover/Adept. In the former case the Master has become a vessel for the Will. But the Adept, while having conscious perception of the Will, still has to work on conforming his/her ego-self into better alignment with the Angel. Just because he/she has attained K&C it does not mean that their is complete and total rapport between all aspects of the self and the angel. There's still work to be done.

And where does that leave the poor old Man or Woman of Earth? His/her connection to the angel is primarily subconscious, which means that the Will is more intuition based and a lot less certain. There's a great deal of trial and error involved, as you would expect when traversing the path of Samekh. The ego is still grapling with the illusion of free will and the notion that "thou hast no right but to do thy will" is more like a lesson that needs to be learnt, instead of some sort of direct spiritual reality.

Now then, back to my book...

Well I didn't assume. If I did I wouldn't have asked and this thread wouldn't exist. It's just that Crowley said it as if this rule was universal. Or that was the impression I got. Which it didn't feel right to me.

Crowley occasionally contradicting himself (sometimes even deliberately) doesn't help either.

A third opinion? Your question makes me think of someone having sex for the first time who needs to call their friend to verify the experience for them.

Lol. People DO do that you know. I don't see anything wrong with the act or the analogy. How else do we learn if not from others? What guy doesn't talk about past sexual encounters with their mates?

Let's use a different analogy, let's say you're trying to employ someone for a job, and it seems like they have the qualifications to you, but you want to ask another's opinion (someone experienced in the field) to see if that person is the real thing and not a quack. Or in this case a masquerading spirit.

That's reasonable, no?

I get the feeling that you are somehow confusing the K&C of HGA with ordinary spirit summoning. The HGA isn't some spirit you can summon and constrain within a triangle so you can have a chit-chat. If anything it's the other way around. From the perspective of the macrocosmic angel you are the little elemental spirit in the triangle.

I don't quite believe on "summoning" spirits. Whether they're full microcosms or not is still up in the air for me. For now I stick with the idea that you can call a spirit but whether they answer is up to them.

As for the HGA, now that you mention it, I've never though of it as a Master-subordinate relationship, with the HGA as Master. Even though I have read this idea before.

And no I don't think of HGAs to be our subordinates. I've interpreted them to be our guides, but not our masters.

[closrapexa]

Originally Posted by Ross G Caldwell

One day a man was tending his strawberries, when a stranger happened by.

"Do you know where the Master lives?" asked the stranger.

"Which master?"

"The Master of Initiation who lives in this town; they told me I'd see his sign."

"Oh, you must mean the man with the sign 'Master of Initiation' on his gate, about three doors down from here."

"Thank you very much!" said the stranger, and walked on past the Master.


Commentary - AL II:58-59. We all have a preconception of what mastery will look like, and we therefore overlook that which does not fit that preconception. Even if we go to the wrong house a few times, if we persist we will finally find the right door.

Luke searching for a "great warrior" when he went looking for Yoda!

Originally Posted by Aeon418

I think one potential source of confusion is the mistaken assumption that all Thelemites are the same and that everything applies equally in all contexts and situations. The opening post of this thread is an example of that sort of assumption.

In AL I:40 the Book of the Law makes it quite clear that it is perfectly ok to group Thelemites together under one label, but only if it is acknowledged that there are different kinds of Thelemite.

"Thou hast no right but to do thy will" may mean one thing to the Hermit/Master of the Temple and something quite different to the Lover/Adept. In the former case the Master has become a vessel for the Will. But the Adept, while having conscious perception of the Will, still has to work on conforming his/her ego-self into better alignment with the Angel. Just because he/she has attained K&C it does not mean that their is complete and total rapport between all aspects of the self and the angel. There's still work to be done.

And where does that leave the poor old Man or Woman of Earth? His/her connection to the angel is primarily subconscious, which means that the Will is more intuition based and a lot less certain. There's a great deal of trial and error involved, as you would expect when traversing the path of Samekh. The ego is still grapling with the illusion of free will and the notion that "thou hast no right but to do thy will" is more like a lesson that needs to be learnt, instead of some sort of direct spiritual reality.

Now then, back to my book...

Excellent post, and I think I remember reading something of the kind. Was it Crowley who said that one could be a Thelemite without opening a single book or knowing the how and why? Could actually be Duquette who said that the life of an Adept wasn't for everyone, but that you could still gain much in any case.

[Fianic]

You might find the Scholion to Liber Samekh informative. In particular section G. Crowley's description of the relationship between the Angel and the Adept is most illuminating.

Thanks for pointing this out, it really helped.

Magick in Theory and Practice, the opening section of chapter XXI should answer your question. Read it carefully.

I've read this before. But the question is whether it's valid to involve the HGA in them, not whether "black magic" is ok. Here he only mentions invocation of other spirits/gods.

Although I have to say his definition of Black magick is rather extreme. That'll essentially make most of witchcraft Black Magick. Very snobbish. Didn't exactly stop anyone (even Adepts and Crowley) from doing it either.