LBRP Divine Name Sequence
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Both of you are misreading my post. I've said time and time again that I don't hold anything at all against Jim for not posting the secret. He promised, and I respect that. I've also made it clear how grateful I am for all the things he does post. Jim has no obligation to share anything. Moreover, I'm a "guest" here in that I'm on the TOT forum without actually being in TOT. I see that as an amazing privledge.
I thought it'd be interesting to segue this thread into a discussion about secret-keeping in general. I wanted to hear what people's thoughts were about it. I'm done complaining and I was curious on the issue. But being met with the same thelemic drivel is definitely off-putting. I'm tired of the many watered-down thought-terminating clichés that plague discussions on Thelema. Thelema literally has its own special class of abused phrases that ought to be blacklisted.
But I guess I'll let this thread die now. If anyone has any thoughts about the reason behind privledged information (besides the two I've mentioned, that Jim echoed) I'd like to hear them. I truly am intellectually curious on the reason that some methods are kept secret, if those methods do not fit the two criterion mentioned already (protecting an adept from harm and withholding an initiation ritual or magical word so it's more powerful later). This isn't me bitching anymore; I'm legitimately interested on this issue, and I think it's related enough to my OP to not be off-topic. But if people are going to interpret everything I say as complaining and ingratitude, I'd rather not hear it.
TL;DL: Everyone, stop implying I'm ungrateful. I am indebted to Jim for his help. I'm interested in continuing a discussion concerning the reason and morality behind magical secret keeping. If no one else is interested (or if the discussion has become too emotional and can't continue healthily) I'll happily let this thread die.
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It's best to start a new thread for a new topic.
That keeps the forum in better shape in general - makes it more functional for research purposes because people can look for discussions in threads that have a relevant name, etc. Otherwise, it's all a mess.
Also this current thread probably will be deleted one of these days soon, and if you start a new subject that, n fact, generates discussion on a different topic, then that would all go into the dump bucket at the same time.
@Luce said
"I'm tired of the many watered-down thought-terminating clichés that plague discussions on Thelema. Thelema literally has its own special class of abused phrases that ought to be blacklisted."
That might make an interesting new thread on its own. Feel free to start one and discuss what you think those phrases are and why they need to go.
"I truly am intellectually curious on the reason that some methods are kept secret, if those methods do not fit the two criterion mentioned already (protecting an adept from harm and withholding an initiation ritual or magical word so it's more powerful later)."
Another related but distinctive reason: Some information is almost certain to be misunderstood most of the time by most people - until they are ready for it. If it were to be simply incomprehensible, that wouldn't be a problem. But, worse, most people are likely to put a wrong interpretation on many things because normal passage through our society hasn't prepared them to think certain thoughts and understand certain things. To put out information that has a high likelihood of outright misleading someone is irresponsible, so some concepts are withheld until someone demonstrates their readiness for them. (Within an initiatic system, the overall structure - when things are done right - is designed to lead people to readiness for certain ideas a little bit before they are given out).
"Everyone, stop implying I'm ungrateful."
I have not perceived you as ungrateful
"I am indebted to Jim for his help. I'm interested in continuing a discussion concerning the reason and morality behind magical secret keeping. If no one else is interested (or if the discussion has become too emotional and can't continue healthily) I'll happily let this thread die."
I haven't seen it getting emotional at all, but it is OT to the present thread.
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I'd be happy to continue a conversation about the relative merits of magical secrets or about what you're misinterpreting as Thelemic clichés, but this isn't the thread for it. If you do want to have that discussion, start a new thread, not in the Qabalah sub-forum, with a title and OP that reflects what you're actually interested in discussing.
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Thanks for the explanation, Jim. That makes sense to me. Kinda like how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I can see that. I wouldn't tell a child how to put keys into the ignition of a car and turn it on... Until I was ready to fully teach him how to drive.
I understand why this thread might be dumped; thanks for the heads up though. I've memorized any info I think might be helpful, and I don't want what I've said to give anything away (but I probably haven't gotten that close yet).
I'll keep my search going! I've read three of the primary pre-zohar kabbalahistic texts and nada so far, but who knows, right? I just hope I haven't read it already and didn't know it xD
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OMG I GOT IT. I freaking got it! All that hard work... I finally got it!!!!!!!
OMG.
Jim, I wanted to check with you to see if you are online... I was reaaallly hoping I could post it to see if you delete it, but I wanted to make sure if I was right, it wouldn't be hanging around on the forum for all to see.
Soo...
will you be super mad if I post it? Is that okay?
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I'm here.
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You are very much on the right track in terms of sources. What you have uncovered just might lead you to it eventually
Good work. -
Slightly off topic, and apologies for that, but just wanted to remark that this:
@Jim Eshelman said
"you might want to observe that any ritual that has you charging east, south, west, and north in sequence with Cube of Space attributions stimulates four chakras in sequence, from throat downward."
...is really cool. Connecting with the fibonacci sequence in the geometry of the pentagram: 3, 5, 8... 358 = serpent = messiah. Revealing the "central magical force" at the root of this "Medicine of Metals and Stone of the Wise".
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BTW, if U ignore Cube of Space and simply take the elemental sequence around the circle (Air, Fire, Water, Earth), then this is also a descending sequence of chakras, but starting at heart instead of throat.
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Mem-shin-yod-heth...
Nun-heth-shin...
Serpent in Eden was... Messiah??
Creepy.
Makes me think of Wake World, when the Fairy Prince brings the sleepy one through the path of Ayin... "He's the Savior of the world" or something like that.
I must have heard that before but shit. That's a decently large number too. The larger the number, the less chance of mere coincidence (like rolling two dice: the probability is a bell curve, with the larger numbers being one of the tails).
"And Moses made a serpent [nachash] of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." -- Numbers 21:9
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up" -- John 3:14
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"The Serpent is the Savior" - a doctrine so powerful and socially disruptive that it was hidden for millennia under a veil of shame.
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OMG is it true?? What does that mean? What does that mean about the Christian concept of Original Sin?
It seems that eating from the tree was good. But then why is man so naturally evil? I mean, I know thelemites like to say we aren't evil, but when you see the crap that happens in the world... It seems SOMETHING happened to us that made part of us have the potential for great injustice.
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@Luce said
"OMG is it true?? What does that mean? What does that mean about the Christian concept of Original Sin?"
It's bogus. I take that to be kinda basic. I reject it outright - at least, in the sense that the Christian's conceive of it.
The actual "original sin" that the myth veils is become self-conscious - developing a Ruach. That's the step that fits all the symbols and fulfills all the criteria of the story.
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And is the Serpent Satan? I know xians always assume, and Jews did identify him with Satan at some point BC. And Revelation identifies Satan with the Devil and the Ancient Serpent. Do you think the Serpent is Satan? By Satan I mean the being that's mentioned in the Bible, like in Job when he terrorizes Job's family, or when Saran stands accusing Joshua in the book of Zechariah.
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I should probably make a new thread for this... Or maybe this has already been hammered out on this forum.
I know original sin is seen as bogus, but I guess I still accept it in the sense that there sure is SOMETHING wrong with people. It's one thing to say our proclivities toward sex aren't wrong, but it's another thing to see genocide and think that everything is peachy. When you have people that are able to torture and dismember children, clearly something is wrong with people.
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@Luce said
"And is the Serpent Satan?"
It isn't stated explicitly in Genesis. That's a common interpretation. But remember that Satan's earliest named appearance, in Job, has him being God's collaborator.
I suggest reading Elaine Pagels' book The Origins of Satan for some deep insight into this.
"Do you think the Serpent is Satan?"
Close enough. But one must understand the nature of Satan, who is a great Briatic figure comparable to an archangel (which even the Christian legend says he once was).
Look at his name; Shiyn Teyth Nun. A letter of Fire, one which means "serpent," and one of which is the serpent of Scorpio.
"By Satan I mean the being that's mentioned in the Bible, like in Job when he terrorizes Job's family, or when Saran stands accusing Joshua in the book of Zechariah."
You've read Job incorrectly (but in a popular way). He isn't terrorizing Job's family. God is terrorizing Job and his family (though partly through his agent, Satan, his good buddy good pal, who is at most a prosecuting attorney and actually appears to be more a management consultant).
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@Luce said
"I know original sin is seen as bogus, but I guess I still accept it in the sense that there sure is SOMETHING wrong with people."
You and I disagree on this. I regard people as originally perfect. At least until they are born, then, at worst, originally under-developed and immature. We're all children! We have growing to do. But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with us.
Other than accidents of ignorance, somebody had to become damaged to do truly bad things.
" It's one thing to say our proclivities toward sex aren't wrong, but it's another thing to see genocide and think that everything is peachy. When you have people that are able to torture and dismember children, clearly something is wrong with people."
Yeah, they got fucked up along the way. But they didn't start like that. They weren't born like that.
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Okay, fair enough. I guess I just think that it can't be turtles all the way down! If someone is, say, a molester, but they were molested as a child, etc. etc. someone still started the molesting. Actually, that's a common psych myth anyway... Most pedopbiles weren't molested as children (though a lot are, of course). I don't know if that view makes a lot of sense though... That we only do fcked up things if we were badly damaged. I mean, what happened to Hitler to cause him to act that way? Moreover, I think it disagrees with the findings of modern psychology. Look at APD for example: it manifests at a very young age! But, you could say, I suppose, that the BRAIN in damaged. Maybe the "pdrson" is pure but the brain corrupts their true selves.
I'm not sure how much we do disagree on this. I have come to the revelation that people have bad tendencies because of their DNA. Survival of the fittest means that selfishness, murder, cruetly, etc. are literally bred into us. We have millions of years of selfish genes to overcome! I think being human means overcoming these proclivities. Because you see all forms of "evil" in animals. All things that xians call evil: necropbilia, pedophilia, sadism, rape, murder, cannibalism, etc. All of those are found in the animal kingdom. I think a human's job is to be self-conscious and overcome those. I actually made a presentation on that topic, called "an evolved hamartiology" (clever name, huh?). I'm thinking of using that topic for my thesis at the suggestion of one of my profs, as I think the xian concept of Original Sin is corrupted and needs to be properly understood. The presentation was quite unorthodox but was very well received, oddly enough.
You and I would differ in that I see much of those animalistic traits as something to be overcome, including things like promiscuity. I think growing into God's image is overcoming these natural proclivities, not embracing them. Surely you think some of them should be overcome though, like rape and pedophilia (though these are very much natural and all throughout the animal kingdom including our evolutionary history).
Lastly, when I look inside myself, I realize something is not as it ought to be. Naturally, I do not seek God. Naturally, I do not help people. I'm a selfish brute of a man. If I didn't make a conscious effort to seek God, I'd be a horribly selfish and cruel person. I call that "my sinful nature." I would argue that we all agree with that, but we call it different things. Thelema teaches to do one's true will, which means not doing those things that aren't our true will. I call those things sin!
Do what thou wilt is oddly similar to what I consider true Christianity. I find thelema and Christianity incredibly harmonious, oddly enough. There's a conservative pastor who is a household name amongst Christians named John Piper. His tag line is "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." He calls it Christian Hedonism. The idea is that what we truly want to do is what God wants us to do! We have no right but to do our will!
Jim, do you know that the whole do what thou wilt thing comes from Augustine? I'm sure you probably do, but in case anyone else doesn't, Augustine said "love, and do what thou wilt" in the third or fourth century! That's the first historical instance of something like that being said! Now, maybe Augustine meant something different... But maybe not.
And yes, I do understand Satan's role in Job. I took an entire graduate-level class on Job. Satan is still not cast in a good light when you study the text. Yes, God is using him, yes many people skip that part, but Satan still chides God and says the only reason Job worships God is because Job has nice things and God's protection. Satan does seem to want to terrorize Job, and he does. God gives him permission, of course, and even recommends Job as a target!