What to do when you can't go any further?
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@draco210 said
"What about the Student Grade? My last book is in the post and will be coming through my letter-box shortly. Can I be accepted as a Student, take the test, and if I pass, become a Probationer when I move over?"
Whoever you're dealing with on that - they have nothing to do with us, nor us with them. So that's in the category of "your own business." Please don't confuse that with anything you would be doing with us.
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@draco210 said
"I'm confused here Jim. I was asking you about the Student Grade in the A.'.A.'., not someone else."
You were asking about a Student curriculum you signed up with someone for, yes?
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Sorry, didn't see this yesterday.
If you were within geographic reach, had studied the material for three months, and then passed examination in the material, then yes, of course you'd get your own probation officer
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I am having trouble finding the first post in this thread.... Was it deleted?
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What did Crowley write about dry periods?
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I found this:
Even those dreadful periods of “dryness” and of despair seem but the necessary lying fallow of the Earth. All those “false paths” of Magic and Meditation and of Reason were not false paths, but steps upon the true Path; even a tree must shoot downwards its roots into the Earth in order that it may flower, and bring forth fruit in its season.
— Aleister Crowley, from the Prologue of Liber DCCCLX, or John St. John, The Record of the Magical Retirement of G. H. Frater, O∴ M∴
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@AliceKnewI said
"I am having trouble finding the first post in this thread.... Was it deleted?"
It must have been. There is no Draco210 on the forum any longer, so either he deleted it himself, or it was purged with other posts if he was administratively moved.
From the parts quoted, it looks like the question wasn't one of despair, but of hitting a wall - of trying to be self-guided but having, for the moment, hit the limit of that and thus not being able to go further without assistance.
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Consider that as Love is mighty to bring forth all Ecstasy, so absence of Love is the greatest craving. Whoso is balked in Love suffereth indeed, but he that hath not actively that passion in his heart towards some object is weary with the ache of craving. And this state is called mystically “Dryness.” For this there is, as I believe, no cure but patient persistence in a Rule of Life.
But this Dryness hath its virtue, in that thereby the Soul is purged of those things that impeach the Will: for when the drouth is altogether perfect, then is it certain that by no means can the Soul be satisfied, save by the Accomplishment of the Great Work. And this is in strong souls a stimulus to the Will. It is the Furnace of Thirst that burneth up all dross within us.
But to each act of Will is a particular Dryness corresponding: and as Love increaseth within you, so doth the torment of His absence. Be this also unto you for a consolation in the ordeal! Moreover, the more fierce the plague of impotence, the more swiftly and suddenly is it wont to abate.”Aleister Crowley, Liber CL נעל A Sandal De Lege Libellum L— L— L— L— L
