Hi
Zan! I'm here. My eyes can only go so long reading on-screen, so I haven't read Liber Al yet. I promise I will try to catch up and try still to get some of these in print. I live in a rural area so my access to hard copies is limited.
Aeon418 said:
Have you read Crowley's essay, BERASHITH: An Essay in Ontology? It really is required reading if you want to understand what Crowley means by Zero.
Thank you Aeon, for the essay recommendation and the link, it certainly gave me a place to start and it led me down an interesting path. I understand it completely in the Qabalist sense, but, I struggled with the full meaning of what Crowley was saying and this certainly helped. A non-dual state is automatically thought of as Unity, 1. It is even present in the equation (sort of!
). But then the abstraction at that point is not complete and there lies the source of my conflict with you involving the differentiation. I now see what I was missing and clarity of your earlier example - and I should add the 'negative' aspect.
I was left scratching my head with his leaps in logic around one of the equations in the essay. I discovered in Chapter 5 of "Magic Without Tears" he acknowledges that the algebra might be found questionable by some. It certainly did for me. The indices yielded a result that didn't seem to jive in the larger equation. Following the assumptions of another part of the same equation into higher algebra proved to be quite fascinating in potential. I followed the questions it raised in me as far as my elementary understanding of algebra could take me, all surrounding 0 to the power of 0, 1/0 and (∞x0) and it led me to union sets, Aleph Null and the Riemann sphere and I was quickly out of my league - But it is worth looking those up because I was blown away by the implications. My algebra is too weak to do anything but meditate on the possibilities. I wonder if this is actually what I perhaps should be seeing - even if in the strictest sense, the equation isn't really 'accurate'? I expect I'll be working with that for a little while!
His other analogies in Ch. 5 are also more visual for those so inclined. The logic in one of those examples uses intersecting sets, so I am still reconciling that with the earlier ideas, even though this is very straight forward by comparison.
(Sorry to ramble on - but it's not enough just to know it, I need to internalize it so I can use it)
Grigori has shared the link to the site with all of Crowley's writings on another thread, but I'll include the specific link to "Magick Without Tears" here if anyone is interested. It is a really interesting read:
http://hermetic.com/crowley/magick-without-tears/
As for your last comment Aeon, I am so sorry my apparent ignorance offends you. You are certainly not required to bear it by any means. Pointing me in the right direction was very helpful and for that I am grateful. It is in that vein that I hope you will choose to continue. The implication was inappropriate and, most certainly, unnecessary.
