Invoking without initiation
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@Takamba said
"Regardie didn't "out" Crowley. Crowley "outed" himself ages ago. The problem is that in Crowley's day you couldn't out and out just "out" yourself or you'd go to prison and hang with the likes of Oscar Wilde. Regardie's purpose in making things perfectly clear was so that you could go back to Crowley's works (specifically several essays on magical practices, his poetry, and diary journals regarding Victor Neuburg) and read exactly for yourself how the change in information changes what you find when you read it."
I think Crowley made as much clear exactly as he wanted to, and since it was his magickal working, and his life, I don't think Regardie had any right whatsoever to comment on it publicly in the way that he did.
My point is that it's not Regardie's right to speak of AC's sexuality in a book. Crowley spoke for himself. Crowley explains his life in his own way and that's sufficient to my mind. I feel that Regardie had far too much to say about AC, who was his magickal superior in every possible way. Yet the lesser man seemed to think he could summarise the greater.
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I suppose we should not write biographies at all. I mean, how dare Paul (nee Saul) write about Jesus when he'd never even met the man!
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"I don't think that this point needs defending at all, he was writing a biography about the man, there would be no purpose in dodging around the fact that Crowley liked to have sex with men sometimes.....it doesn't damage his character in any way to people who are not homophobic.
"Regardie didn't even like Crowley and yet he wrote an entire book about him and his bitterness seems a grudge that he never relinquished. He republished and commented on Crowley's works and yet didn't have very much good to say of him. I really think that's extremely strange behaviour.
He seemed to me to want to be the final word on Crowley and I don't think he was qualified to appraise AC because Crowley was a giant compared to Regardie. Crowley never said that he liked to have sex with men. Regardie's book encouraged that reading of AC. AC rants on in his letters against homosexuality and effeminism to Lady Frieda Harris.. So it's a much more complex subject than Regardie's portrayal of the subject.
I don't want to slander Israel Regardie by the way. I'd be very silly if I tried to overlook his enormous contribution and I'm fairly ignorant about magick anyhow, but these are just my impressions in any case. My point was originally more about Crowley not having many loyal friends, and Regardie being among those who weren't very much of a friend.
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@Takamba said
"I suppose we should not write biographies at all. I mean, how dare Paul (nee Saul) write about Jesus when he'd never even met the man!"
Paul was at least a very good magician and Kabbalist. I think that the real pity of Paul was that he was a terrible biographer. He doesn't write anything of the teaching he received and it was of course very soon suppressed.
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@Sean White said
"My point is that it's not Regardie's right to speak of AC's sexuality in a book. Crowley spoke for himself. Crowley explains his life in his own way and that's sufficient to my mind. I feel that Regardie had far too much to say about AC, who was his magical superior in every possible way. Yet the lesser man seemed to think he could summarise the greater."
Regardie wrote the Eye In The Triangle to give the public a more accurate picture of Crowley because some other biographers painted a horrible picture of him in their shitty biographies. While you may be perfectly content with the way in which Crowley explains his life, I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of most people will get hooked by the slanderous bullshit written about Crowley over the years. Even to this day, he is still portrayed as a really bad dude.
And in regards to mentioning Crowley's sexuality, he didn't just re-state what people already knew about Crowley's sexuality, he made a point to provide the context in which Crowley held the whole scope of sex and sexuality, and that context was the context of athletics.
"In a jocular vein, Crowley had written elsewhere that there would be no clear thinking on the matter of sex, continence or erotology until it was clearly understood "as being solely a branch of athletics.""
- Regardie, Eye in the Triangle, Falcon Press 3rd edition, pg 12.
But anyways, at this point we're getting way off topic from the original post.
If you are truly committed to effectively practicing magick then it will require letting go of some of the intellectual and emotional baggage you have. I say that with love and respect. You will have to give yourself over to force you're invoking. You're magick seems ineffective because you have some resistence to surrendering to it.
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"If you are truly committed to effectively practicing magick then it will require letting go of some of the intellectual and emotional baggage you have. I say that with love and respect. You will have to give yourself over to force you're invoking. You're magick seems ineffective because you have some resistence to surrendering to it."
Thanks for the good comments Al-Shariyf. I just have no idea how to let go of my intellectual and emotional baggage. Is it a matter of being okay with my past or being optimistic that helps to actualises magick? I don't know how to surrender to magick at all. I know that Crowley was at one time advised to improve his concentration because he wasn't getting any results. In my case I think my concentration seems ok, so I'm all ears for where I need to improve.
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"Regardie didn't even like Crowley and yet he wrote an entire book about him and his bitterness seems a grudge that he never relinquished. He republished and commented on Crowley's works and yet didn't have very much good to say of him. I really think that's extremely strange behaviour. "
I think you'll find Regardie in an interview with Christopher Hatt nearing the end of his life stated he admired and was thankful of Crowley. Either in that interview or elsewhere he did state Crowley was helpful to him, and he was very young and naive at the time. However, it was the Golden Dawn system which helped him the most, he left Crowley a neophyte, it was the Golden Dawn which turned him into an adept.
He also actually knew the man and had to put up with him, he has a right to have an opinion on him and if that opinion was not a nice one upon reflection, that's his right. I have met many people who could present themselves as brilliant to others, whom I can't stand. People are people, and Crowley had one huge ego- I never met him, but his writing sure shows it in places, also in the way he treated others.
I prefer an actual, factual representation of a persons life in their biography, Crowley was not always a nice man, you are speaking about him as if he was a hero. It is Thelema, not Crowleyanity, he was a human with flaws and imperfections. He was very quick to pick up on other's imperfections too.
"He seemed to me to want to be the final word on Crowley and I don't think he was qualified to appraise AC because Crowley was a giant compared to Regardie. Crowley never said that he liked to have sex with men. Regardie's book encouraged that reading of AC. AC rants on in his letters against homosexuality and effeminism to Lady Frieda Harris.. So it's a much more complex subject than Regardie's portrayal of the subject."
If not Regardie, a man who met him, then who? We have Kenneth Grant, John Symonds, one wrote about Crowley as if he was a great man, the other had mostly bad things to say about him. Grant fancied himself and accomplished magician, Regardie was an accomplished magician, there is no debate about that.
If you are waiting for a ippissimus or master of the temple to write a book about Cowley, you may be waiting a long time, grades, past achivement only matter to the individual. If you knew someone, could understand their work and make it accessible to a larger audience, then that is a good thing.
Regardie has offered a lot to the occult world, and has also taught others who have furthered Crowley's legacy.
"My point was originally more about Crowley not having many loyal friends, and Regardie being among those who weren't very much of a friend."
Regardie was his secretary and his student, friendship cannot always blossom under such circumstances, as I pointed out Crowley was not the nicest person to everyone he met, and had also slandered Regardie.
For what it's worth, apparently Regardie would defend Crowley if someone who did not know him ever said anything bad about a man they did not know. He knew him and had a right to dislike some of the things which occured whilst he was in his company.
"I just have no idea how to let go of my intellectual and emotional baggage. Is it a matter of being okay with my past or being optimistic that helps to actualises magick? I don't know how to surrender to magick at all."
In my opinion, it is a matter of accepting that the past is the past and the only real thing that you can change and should be concerned with is the present. The past should not define you, you- who you are at this moment, should define you. Then you must ask where you want to go, and then start heading there!
I modified a ritual I found in a book, which I forget the title of, where I wrote down events which I needed to let go of and where still influencing thought and behaviour patterns, along with a list of false beliefs. I then banished, invoked with the middle pillar, then called upon Adonai (don't know what the angel is, never met it, or saw it. It just felt appropriate. I went through the list and analysed each item and used a combination of rhythmic breathing and visualisation to release these energies out of myself, and affirmed that they were no longer part of me. I then burned the list. I then banished and did the Middle Pillar once more giving the sign of silence afterwards. I felt much better, and this ritual, however simple, still had a great impact on my thought patterns and attitude to life, I have redone this ritual once more with other items I have discovered.....of course most people would just go and see a therapist, others don't need such a thing.
Everyone is different. I have found that if I am feeling down I will not be able to get enthusiastic about magick or meditation and find it difficult to do them, maintain complete focus and get a result. I must be enthusiastic and able to enflame myself in prayer- if sometimes I have to force it so be it. For me enjoying life means you will enjoy all aspects of life which includes your spiritual practice, if one aspect is unbalanced every aspect could come tumbling down.
93, 93/93.
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@Sean White said
"I personally however don't think it was commendable that your friend outed AC so publically in the Eye in the Triangle."
IMVHO I think you missed the point of what Regardie did. He was outing himself, not Crowley.
Crowley leveled a snarky public attack on Regardie after Golden Dawn came out. Regardie (a very young man at the time) responded in the spirit of "Yeah? And I gave your mother herpes, too!" He had then languished for decades under embarrassment over both Crowley's actions and his own, and he put that behind him by publically discussing both AC's assault on him and his own answer.
By that time, there were no significant secrets about Crowley's sex life.
"Personally I think AC was entitled to have a completely private sex life with whomever he wished, and I think outing him in a book is quite a betrayal in at least of confidence."
Crowley had outed himself over and over again. I have to disagree with you fiercely because Crowley went to great lengths to push his sexual libertinism in the public's face. The only reason - truly the ONLY reason - he wasn't explicit about his homosexual relationships is that homosexuality remained a felony in England (I think it remained thus through his entire life - not sure when it was changed). So, instead, he hinted at it instead of saying it quite outright. (But it was so obvious that he was clearly keeping no secrets - just refusing to be so obvious that he would incriminate himself in a felony.)
"I also feel that Regardie had far too much to say about AC, when I think AC's work and legacy speaks for itself and he was easily the better magician and teacher."
I disagree. AC was relatively unintelligible to most people (and remains so). Regardie dedicated much of his life to clearly elucidating Crowley and his work. It was hardly anything malicious or improper: He was, in fact, perhaps the only person on the planet capable of undertaking the job, and has my enormous gratitude for it.
"My opinions aren't terribly informed, so I hope you don't mind me expressing my impressions, and I sincerely mean no offence."
I'm sure you meant no offense to me or anyone else here, but I actually think you did mean to be offensive regarding Regardie. (Perhaps I'm misreading you.)
"It just makes me sad I guess that reading through all these many books on AC, that I don't often see much love or friendship in them for him."
He swore as a young man to sacrifice all of that, and lived his life in a way that created almost no friends (and then they were primarily admirers, not friends per se). He created it. You wouldn't want people to bullshit about a different kind of relationship with him, would you?
"It seem to me that nobody alive today really needs to know who AC slept with or his sexual inclinations."
But Crowley wanted people to know that sort of thing. Much of his mission was about smashing through cultural patterns of sexual narrowness. He is one of history's greatest libertine activists, except for not crossing the line that would land him in prison.
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@Sean White said
"
"Sean - "..I fear that the gods are indifferent and cold."Jim - "They are. One might say, they don't care one way or another: They express themselves through whoever aligns his or her consciousness with them, and without any more judgment or compassion or warmth or viciousness than you would expect from gravity or light or the passage of time.""
I think this is the most disturbing thing I've ever heard. What's worse is that I believe it."
It would be an error to attribute human personality characteristics to primal forces of the universe.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Sean White said
"
"Sean - "..I fear that the gods are indifferent and cold."Jim - "They are. One might say, they don't care one way or another: They express themselves through whoever aligns his or her consciousness with them, and without any more judgment or compassion or warmth or viciousness than you would expect from gravity or light or the passage of time.""
I think this is the most disturbing thing I've ever heard. What's worse is that I believe it."
It would be an error to attribute human personality characteristics to primal forces of the universe."
So then Jesus doesn't love me?
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"I'm sure you meant no offense to me or anyone else here, but I actually think you did mean to be offensive regarding Regardie. (Perhaps I'm misreading you.)"
Hi Jim, I think I'm perhaps just getting into a subject that I don't really understand as well as you all do here. I can only judge what I've read of Regardie, and what I read seems to have a strong agenda that's not in favour of Crowley however much he may make concessions and occasionally praise him. Having said that, I don't mean to be offensive towards Regardie so I should perhaps be better advised to not talk about what I don't really understand very well. I see AC as being much like Mozart, who although a genius had some deep social lacking.
In any case, I don't think I'm well informed enough to press my point, so I hope I haven't annoyed anyone. I've enjoyed hearing everyone's opinion too in any case.
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"So then Jesus doesn't love me?"
Jesus loves you, but Horus hates your guts.
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@Sean White said
"I look at my world and it disgusts me. I hate all the gods but I'm too afraid to speak against them. I'm bound to this awful world, where a beautiful old dying poet-magician can't get his teeth fixed and worries about the cold. Everywhere I look I see mindless idiots caught in trivia, and I'm frightened that there's nothing else in this world. I call the names of the gods, and they won't reply. I'm powerless and it's unbearable, but I'll just go out and buy another book on magic and my accumulation of knowledge has no result."
Dear Sean White,
I sense a somewhat ”bitterness” towards Life... That she hasn’t, and continues not to fullfill your expectations & beliefs. In my own case I have come to understand that she doesn’t care at all about my opinions, expectations and beliefs. She keeps acting like a trashy prostitute throwing filth at me, mocking my poor standards and ideas of nobility (thus testing my strengh & endurance). That’s why I found it better to start dropping my beliefs; accepting things as they are – instead of trying to change her.
@Sean White said
"I'm afraid that the wheel of fortune is just a torture wheel."
Yeah, I know for a fact that she’s a bitch (I have been down in this abyss of darkness for years now.), but I’m married to her for life! So what is one to do? I love her, then I hate her. Then I love her and hate her; back and forth. It seems to have stabilized towards the ”loving”, and perhaps one day I will love her wholehearteldy even though she’s a bitch?
I have personally been down on my knees for years crying buckets of tears in utter dispair, feeling nothing but heartache, total hoplessness and suicidal feelings. In my darkest moments the weight on my heart was so great that when I knew no one saw me I would complain lodly using the phrase ”I want to die” as a mantra!
I really did everything in my power to endure our relationship thinking it was the ”ordeal of the abyss” (what a horrible marrige I’d tell you!
), but the darkness & pain just kept on growing; having my situation becoming more and more unbearable. So finally it all escalated into me buying a rope with the intention to hang myself. And you know what? Do you know what that bitch told me at the brink of suicide? She told me to be grateful! – in my darkest moment in life that whore expected me to thank her!?Argh! But so I did... I surrendered...
”Love thy enemy” as Jesus said, Amen to that! To my experience women gets grumpy if they don’t feel appreciated. That’s why I once again would invoke ”gratitude” if she would try to torment me in the horrible way she has tormented me these last years! Just a little appreciation (currently I spend time in mediation) and for a while she stops ”nagging” and giving me a hard time.
Sometimes she’s so sweet and sometimes she’s so bitter... but I guess I love her no matter what...
Peace
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@Sean White said
"
"So then Jesus doesn't love me?"Jesus loves you, but Horus hates your guts."
Jesus hates you, it's your eternal soul he wants to love.
Horus hates the weak, the warrior spirit he loves. -
"I sense a somewhat ”bitterness” towards Life... That she hasn’t, and continues not to fulfil your expectations & beliefs. In my own case I have come to understand that she doesn’t care at all about my opinions, expectations and beliefs. She keeps acting like a trashy prostitute throwing filth at me, mocking my poor standards and ideas of nobility (thus testing my strength & endurance). That’s why I found it better to start dropping my beliefs; accepting things as they are – instead of trying to change her."
Thanks for the insightful response Hawkheaded Child. I don't think that it's so much that I am bitter, but I see the world and it just doesn't conform to my heart. When for instance I see a journalist being beheaded by a religious nut, or I have a friend dying in agony from cancer - I look at this world and I detest it. It's beautiful and it's wonderful but it also seems to be awful. Now I see many people say things along the lines of accepting the miraculous display of the universe, or that everything is an illusion so therefore should be embraced etc. and you hear this kind of thing everywhere. I just don't believe it in any kind of sincere way, at least I pretend I believe it and doing so helps me endure life, but secretly I want to escape these chains of fate. That's what I mean when I say that I am afraid of condemning the gods and yet I hate them. I feel like a child that's been born in a prison.
Why would I bother studying magick and invoking my will to change the world when I could instead just sit there and say "let thy will be done"? I don't believe it! I think that it is likely that there are many mages that just make excuses for the fact that they can't make any changes to their world. As for me, my invocations can't manage to win $10 on a scratch ticket. I don't want to let the universe or the indifferent gods or karma etc decide my life. I think I understand the wisdom in what you say but I want to escape! I want my world to conform to my will and not the other way around. It might be wrong to think in this way, but I can't help feeling it. It's like we're all so beaten down that we don't even dare to dream of escape.
"Sean White wrote:
I'm afraid that the wheel of fortune is just a torture wheel.Yeah, I know for a fact that she’s a bitch (I have been down in this abyss of darkness for years now.), but I’m married to her for life! So what is one to do? I love her, then I hate her. Then I love her and hate her; back and forth. It seems to have stabilized towards the ”loving”, and perhaps one day I will love her wholeheartedly even though she’s a bitch?"
I want to be free of her rule over me. It's like being chained to a corpse.
"I have personally been down on my knees for years crying buckets of tears in utter despair, feeling nothing but heartache, total hopelessness and suicidal feelings. In my darkest moments the weight on my heart was so great that when I knew no one saw me I would complain loudly using the phrase ”I want to die” as a mantra!
I really did everything in my power to endure our relationship thinking it was the ”ordeal of the abyss” (what a horrible marriage I’d tell you!
), but the darkness & pain just kept on growing; having my situation becoming more and more unbearable. So finally it all escalated into me buying a rope with the intention to hang myself. And you know what? Do you know what that bitch told me at the brink of suicide? She told me to be grateful! – in my darkest moment in life that whore expected me to thank her!?Argh! But so I did... I surrendered...
”Love thy enemy” as Jesus said, Amen to that! To my experience women gets grumpy if they don’t feel appreciated. That’s why I once again would invoke ”gratitude” if she would try to torment me in the horrible way she has tormented me these last years! Just a little appreciation (currently I spend time in mediation) and for a while she stops ”nagging” and giving me a hard time.
Sometimes she’s so sweet and sometimes she’s so bitter... but I guess I love her no matter what..."
To me at least, chains of gold and chains of iron are all the same. This world of Malkuth seems to be one of chance and death. I don't mind being alive and I don't mind the bitterness and the sweetness of life but I can't just sit back and pretend that it's all 100% okay because my heart says that something is very wrong. The something wrong is me of course. This world isn't complete in some way. I don't know if it's the HGA or whatever it might be, but the world just isn't right to my eyes. I'm not saying that it's wrong for anybody else, but it's terribly wrong for me. I pretend that I don't see it or feel it, but it just won't go away.
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"Jesus hates you, it's your eternal soul he wants to love.
Horus hates the weak, the warrior spirit he loves."Quite lovely words, thank you.
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"It would be an error to attribute human personality characteristics to primal forces of the universe."
Is Kether truly a dreadful empty throne?
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Despite the very helpful and positive advice, I've checked again, and it feels that I'm not at all welcome in the Sephirahs. I feel I'm being pushed out because I have no right to approach them. The higher I attempt to go, the more quickly and powerfully I'm shoved out. Perhaps those of you who have been initiated are entitled, but it seems clear to me at least that I'm just not welcome or perhaps worthy.
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@Sean White said
"I don't think that it's so much that I am bitter, but I see the world and it just doesn't conform to my heart."
So, see the world differently. (It's all selective perception anyway. All you're seeing is yourself reflected on a screen, which means it really is reflecting your heart OR is you wrestling with yourself, etc.)
Please note that I'm not saying "it's all illusion." I'm saying, though, that the meaning you put on things, the subset of things that you selectively choose to see, etc., is your own particular illusion and is entirely self-expression. I actually think that there is an objective (or, at least, shared) base reality, but that doesn't mean I think anyone has the capacity to actually perceive it. It's basic characteristic is a highly polished mirror: You are seeing yourself reflected. (So be reflective
)"secretly I want to escape these chains of fate."
"Fate is free will when that will is truly free." Destiny is just a destination.
If you don't like your current journey, take a different one. (But maybe you just don't like the current terrain.)
"I feel like a child that's been born in a prison."
Not a bad metaphor, since you're a god locked inside a human being.
"Why would I bother studying magick and invoking my will to change the world when I could instead just sit there and say "let thy will be done"? I don't believe it!"
That's because it's incomplete. It should read, "Thy will, which is mine, be done."
"As for me, my invocations can't manage to win $10 on a scratch ticket."
Money is possibly the single hardest magical topic because most of us are really fucked up about money, and that has to be healed and disentangled first. Try other stuff. (You have 776.5, yes? Try the 10-ritual curriculum in the back, in the order they are given.)
"I don't want to let the universe or the indifferent gods or karma etc decide my life."
You don't want the universe to decide your life?
What, you think your personality can make right choices? "I think I understand the wisdom in what you say but I want to escape! I want my world to conform to my will and not the other way around."
Yes, if I'm reading this correctly, you are interpreting "your will" to mean your personality's desires and choices. That's not will. The personality has no "will." It's meant to be a channel of a deeper will, coming from something immortal and fundamental within you, and the first big part of the path is getting the personality the fuck out of the way.
"It's like we're all so beaten down that we don't even dare to dream of escape."
But... escape from what? Really, the limitations that matter - that are really affecting you - are self-created. Deal with those, and the rest become like lines in the road leading you the way you (the deep you) chooses to go.
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@Sean White said
"Despite the very helpful and positive advice, I've checked again, and it feels that I'm not at all welcome in the Sephirahs. I feel I'm being pushed out because I have no right to approach them. The higher I attempt to go, the more quickly and powerfully I'm shoved out. Perhaps those of you who have been initiated are entitled, but it seems clear to me at least that I'm just not welcome or perhaps worthy."
Not sure what this means. The s'fiyroth aren't exactly taverns or restaurants, they're states of being.
Does this mean you are trying to explore them astrally and getting nowhere? Or something else?
On the one hand, this is a place where formal initiation helps, because one is given keys that grant access to certain levels on the astral. On the other hand, if one has the basics all in place and is practicing correctly, one should be able to gain astral access to the conditions corresponding to the s'fiyroth after a bit of practice.
"The higher I attempt to go, the more quickly and powerfully I'm shoved out." That's pretty normal. Read Crowley's comments on "rising on the planes" in the last section of Liber O for a hint. The practical question is, can you access Y'sod?