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

[Always Wondering]

What a wonderful conversation!

Originally Posted by Aeon418

I assume you know the connection between angel names and how they are a key to the nature of the angel. In the case of most people their HGA's name is a key to their own personal and private Great Work.

Where would I read about this?

AW

[Aeon418]

Originally Posted by Fianic

I suppose it depends what personal trifles really mean. What about stuff that's not directly related but can get in the way of the Great Work if not solved? Or if it's just something that's important to you.

Originally Posted by Aeon418

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

Originally Posted by Fianic

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.

I'll quote from the chapter in question with emphasis added.

Originally Posted by Aleister Crowley

As was said at the opening of the second chapter, the Single Supreme Ritual is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. "It is the raising of the complete man in a vertical straight line."
Any deviation from this line tends to become black magic. Any other operation is black magic.

.........

If the magician needs to perform any other operation than this, it is only lawful in so far as it is a necessary preliminary to That One Work.

How does one determine with certainty what is and is not a necessary preliminary to That One Work? In the vast majority of cases the simple answer is, Solvitur Ambulando!. You can get as many second opinions as you like, but until you actually try something you can't really know for sure whether a certain course of action is right or wrong. You can always appeal to your HGA, listen to your subconscious, and try to intuit an answer. (In fact this is something that must be enhanced and refined as you progress towards K&C.) But you still can't get absolute 100% certainty until you act. Success is your proof. But on the flip side of the coin, so is failure.

Originally Posted by Fianic

Although I have to say his definition of Black magick is rather extreme. That'll essentially make most of witchcraft Black Magick. Very snobbish.

The definition seems quite reasonable to me. Magical acts in line with the Will are fine. Magical acts that run counter to the Will are deemed to be Black Magick? What exactly do you find objectionable in that?

Originally Posted by Fianic

Didn't exactly stop anyone (even Adepts and Crowley) from doing it either.

Indeed. But Crowley's later views paint a very different picture. The following lengthy quote is from Magick in Theory and Practice, chapter 16.

Originally Posted by Aleister Crowley

The first step of the Aspirant toward the Gate of Initiation tells him that purity — unity of purpose — is essential above all else. "Do what thou Wilt" strikes on him, a ray of fierce white flame consuming all that is not utterly God. Very soon he is aware that he cannot consciously contradict himself. He develops a subtle sense which warns him that two trains of thought which he had never conceived as connected are incompatible. Yet deeper drives "Do what thou wilt"; subconscious oppositions are evoked to visible appearance. The secret sanctuaries of the soul are cleansed. "Do What thou Wilt" purges his every part. He has become One, one only. His Will is consequently released from the interference of internal opposition, and he is a Master of Magick. But for that very reason he is now utterly impotent to achieve anything that is not in absolute accordance with his Original Oath, with his True Will, by virtue whereof he incarnated as a man. With Bill Sykes love and murder are not mutually exclusive, as they are with King Arthur. The higher the type of man, the more sensitive he becomes; so that the noblest love divines intuitively when a careless word or gesture may wound, and, vigilant, shuns them as being of the family of murder. In Magick, likewise, the Adept who is sworn to attain to the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel may in his grosser days have been expert as a Healer, to find that he is now incapable of any such work. He will probably be puzzled, and wonder whether he has lost all his power. Yet the cause may be no more than that the Wisdom of his Angel depreciates the interference of ignorant kindliness with diseases which may have been sent to the sufferer for a purpose profoundly important to his welfare.

In the case of THE MASTER THERION, he had originally the capacity for all classes of Orgia. In the beginning, He cured the sick, bewitched the obstinate, allured the seductive, routed the aggressive, made himself invisible, and generally behaved like a Young-Man-About-town on every possible plane. He would afflict one vampire with a Sending of Cats, and appoint another his private Enchantress, neither aware of any moral oxymoron, nor hampered by the implicit incongruity of his oaths.

But as He advanced in Adeptship, this coltishness found its mouth bitted; as soon as He took serious Oaths and was admitted to the Order which we name not, those Oaths prevented him using His powers as playthings. Trifling operations, such as He once could do with a turn of the wrist, became impossible to the most persistent endeavour. It was many years before He understood the cause of this. But little by little He became so absorbed in the Work of His true Will that it no longer occurred to Him to indulge in capricious amusements.

Yet even at this hour, though He be verily a Magus of A.'. A.'., though His Word be the Word of the Aeon, though He be the Beast 666, the Lord of the Scarlet Woman "in whom is all power given", there are still certain Orgia beyond Him to perform, because to do so would be to affirm what He hath denied in those Oaths by whose virtue He is That He is. This is the case, even when the spirit of such Orgia is fully consonant with His Will. The literal sense of His original Oath insists that it shall be respected.

The case offers two instances of this principle. FRATER PERDURABO specifically swore that he would renounce His personal possessions to the last penny; also that He would allow no human affection to hinder Him. These terms were accepted; He was granted infinitely more than He had imagined possible to an incarnated Man. On the other hand, the price offered by Him was exacted as strictly as if it had been stipulated by Shylock. Every treasure that he had on earth was taken away, and that, usually, in so brutal or cruel a manner as to make the loss itself the least part of the pang. Every human affection that He had in His heart — and that heart aches for Love as few hearts can ever conceive — was torn out and trampled with such infernal ingenuity in intensifying torture that His endurance is beyond belief. Inexplicable are the atrocities which accompanied every step in His Initiation! Death dragged away His children with slow savagery; the women He loved drank themselves into delirium and dementia before His eyes, or repaid His passionate devotion with toad-cold treachery at the moment when long years of loyalty had tempted Him to trust them. His friend, that bore the bag, stole that which was put therein, and betrayed his Master as thoroughly as he was able. At the first distant rumour that the Pharisees were out, his disciples "all forsook Him and fled". His mother nailed Him with her own hands to the cross, and reviled Him as nine years He hung thereupon.

Now, having endured to the end, being Master of Magick, He is mighty to Work His true Will; which Will is, to establish on Earth His Word, the Law of Thelema. He hath none other Will than this; so all that He doth is unto this end. All His Orgia bear fruit; what was the work of a month when He was a full Major Adept is to day wrought in a few minutes by the Words of Will, uttered with the right vibrations into the prepared Ear.

But neither by the natural use of His abilities, though they have made Him famous through the whole world, nor by the utmost might of his Magick, is He able to acquire material wealth beyond the minimum necessary to keep Him alive and at work. It is in vain that He protests that not He but the Work is in need of money; He is barred by the strict letter of His Oath to give all that He hath for His magical Attainment.

Yet more awful is the doom that He hath invoked upon Himself in renouncing His right as a man to enjoy the Love of those whom He loves with passion so selfless, so pure, and so intense in return for the power so to love Mankind that He be chosen to utter the Word of the Aeon for their sake, His reward universal abhorrence, bodily torment, mental despair, and moral paralysis.

Yet He, who hath power over Death, with breath to call back health, with a touch to beckon life, He must watch His own child waste away month by month, aware that His Art may not anywise avail, who hath sold the signet ring of his personal profit to buy him a plain gold band for the felon finger of his bride, that worn widow, the World!

[Aeon418]

Originally Posted by Always Wondering

Where would I read about this?

I'll have to get back to you on this. Off the top of my head I can't think of a place where this is dealt with as a subject in it's own right. It's the kind of thing seems to mentioned in passing and is mixed in with other things.

[Always Wondering]

Actually if I think of the ten angels on the tree it makes more sense. Except that Adonai is in Malkuth, which again makes sense, though I relate him to Tiphareth so much I now wonder about Eloah va-Da'ath.

72, not so much. I suppose they are wonderfully organized on the tree as well. I have yet to take on much Enochian writings.


AW

[Grigori]

Originally Posted by Always Wondering

Where would I read about this?

AW

The Cicero's talk about this in a little detail in their book on angel magic. Using the hebrew letters to interpret physical attributes and character traits. It wasn't greatly detailed, but was interesting. e.g. Raphael, Resh = Solar, etc..

[Always Wondering]

Thanks Grigori, I found it. Haven't cracked that book open in a while.

AW

[Aeon418]

I still haven't found the quote I was thinking of, so this one from the Scholion to Liber Samekh will have to do in the mean time. (Emphasis added.)

Originally Posted by Aleister Crowley

To this end, I, the Beast, have made trial and proof of divers devices. Of these the most potent is to set the body to strive with the soul. Let the muscles take grip on themselves as if one were wrestling. Let the jaw and mouth, in particular, be tightened to the utmost. Breathe deeply, slowly, yet strongly. Keep mastery over the mind by muttering forcibly and audibly. But lest such muttering tend to disturb communion with the Angel, speak only His Name. Until the Adept have heard that Name, therefore, he may not abide in the perfect possession of his Beloved. His most important task is thus to open his ears to the voice of his Angel, that he may know him, how he is called. For hearken! this Name, understood rightly and fully, declareth the nature of the Angel in every point, wherefore also that Name is the formula of the perfection to which the Adept must aspire, and also of the power of Magick by virtue whereof he must work.

[Always Wondering]

For hearken! this Name, understood rightly and fully, declareth the nature of the Angel in every point, wherefore also that Name is the formula of the perfection to which the Adept must aspire, and also of the power of Magick by virtue whereof he must work.

Sounds like YHVH to me. Guess I've got to get back to Eshelams' book.


AW

[Fianic]

The definition seems quite reasonable to me. Magical acts in line with the Will are fine. Magical acts that run counter to the Will are deemed to be Black Magick? What exactly do you find objectionable in that?

What I find objectionable is that he deems that anyone who is content not to cross the Abyss as evil. That's practically EVERYONE with enough good sense to be cautious about it. Especially since those who supposedly have, haven't been good examples of having positive endings.

[Aeon418]

Originally Posted by Fianic

What I find objectionable is that he deems that anyone who is content not to cross the Abyss as evil. That's practically EVERYONE with enough good sense to be cautious about it. Especially since those who supposedly have, haven't been good examples of having positive endings.

Sorry Fianic, but you've completely lost me. I have no idea what you're talking about.

Can you provide a quote or a reference so I can see where you are getting your ideas from?