Tree of Life- Averse Reflection
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The word most often translated "litigators" is probably more literally "hagglers." I tend to think that, as Q'lippoth of Tifereth, they represent lack of equilibrium and (ahem) just proportion.
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@Freya said
"Why is the Tree of the Qlipoth called the Tree of Knowledge? I have seen elsewhere that it's called the Tree of Evil. Do any of you know?"
It isn't called the Tree of Knowledge AFAIK. There are passages (e.g. in one of the GD rituals) that give that impression if read a certain way but, in fact, are referring to Malkuth as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil (e.g., can branch either way).
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@Freya said
"ok thank you
(i saw it written on the picture kindly posted by frater INRI). Has the Qlipoth tree a specific name?"Yeah, they (Order on the link above) have somewhat different system of thought from ours. They seem to call it 'the tree of knowledge'. Its all in the book on the link provided.
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@Freya said
"Does Thelema follow the left-hand path?"
Thelema tends to move avoid sharp either-or dichotomies.
If the question might be expressed as, "Is there anything called Left Hand Path in the curriculum of A.'.A.'., or in anything Crowley ever endorsed?" then the answer is No.
If you ask, instead, whether the Thelemic philosophy per se is aligned with or avoiding of LHP, then the answer is that the Thelemic philosophy is averse to a priori polarities,
The matter is complicated further because the modern LHP-identified community uses the term in ways that don't necessarily have anything to do with how the term has been used in the history of the world (including the way Crowley used it).
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
Thelema tends to move avoid sharp either-or dichotomies.If the question might be expressed as, "Is there anything called Left Hand Path in the curriculum of A.'.A.'., or in anything Crowley ever endorsed?" then the answer is No.
If you ask, instead, whether the Thelemic philosophy per se is aligned with or avoiding of LHP, then the answer is that the Thelemic philosophy is averse to a priori polarities,
The matter is complicated further because the modern LHP-identified community uses the term in ways that don't necessarily have anything to do with how the term has been used in the history of the world (including the way Crowley used it)."
Well said, Jim.
Balance.
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@Freya said
"So how would a Thelemite refer to the averse reflection of the Tree of life? What is the correct term? would tree of the Qlipoth be correct or tree of evil as I saw written in a book? (can't remember which one)"
It's not a Thelemic issue. It's a Qabbalistic terminology issue, neither inherently Thelemic or un-Thelemic.
As Takamba said, you can just call them the Q'lippoth. The "Tree" idea is just one way of modeling it. You can equally think of a mirrored tree reflected downward from Malkuth, or a dense layer (what I sometimes jokingly call the Fifth World, or World Minus-1) of the Four World stack, or other ways.
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@Freya said
"I must get the book, it's on my wishlist.
The book by Dragon Rouge describes Samael as the one who tempts with knowledge. This is quite different from "false accusers" which one is correct?""False accuser" is a title, not a translation. The basic idea is a distortion, degradation, and reactive-defensive misapplication of Mercury ideas.
For a literal translation, sm- refers to a category of poisons, drugs, and other related chemicals. I like to call Samael (SMAL) "God's Dope."
There is significant reason to believe, though, that a lot of the ideas related to Samael are concatenations of Mars ideas, caused by confusing the name with Zamael (ZMAL), the Angel of Mars.
