thelema & christianity
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
There are some very Thelemic things and also a lot of qabalah within it.
The Old Testament - especially (but not exclusively) the Pentateuch - is all Qabalah. There is also a huge amount of gematria that is critical in the Greek of the New testament (and that's just gematria - Christ's story itself, as a story, is substantially a Qabalistic tale.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Since the Old Testament is so well documented, let me give you three examples to wet your whistle.
Let's start with the name Jesus Christ.
It doesn't get more basic than this!
In the Greek: IHSOUS ChRISTOS. IHSOUS = 888, which should get your attention all by itself (and is part of a larger scheme in Revelations where a series of personages - of whom Christ and the Beast are merely the two most notorious examples, are all multiples of 111 as ascending variants of a common energy). Now, in the way that Greek is usually enumerated, where the ST ligature is given the value of 6 rather than the separate values of the letters Sigma and Tau, ChRISTOS = 986; but when you do the (rarer, but done) thing of valuing ST as the full 200 + 300, then ChRISTOS = 1,480.
Therefore, IHSOUS ChRISTOS = 888 + 1,480 = 2,368.
So what's the big deal, right?
The big deal is that 888 is 3 x 296, 1,480 is 5 x 296, and their sum 2,368 is therefore, of course, 8 x 296. Totally ignoring what 296 might be at the moment, the main big deal here is that the numbers 888 : 1,480 : 2,368 are in the same precise ratio as 3 : 5 : 8.
3, 5, and 8 are the lowest good-example numbers of a series of numbers called Fibonacci Numbers. It would take a lonnggggg article to explain the import of this - you can read for days, weeks, and months about Fibonacci numbers with a quick trip to Google - but the main points at the moment are that the ratios of successive Fibonacci numbers - the fractions 3/5, 5/8, 8/13, 13/21, etc. - are progressively closer approximations to a ratio called the Golden Mean. The Golden Mean is that ratio formed by two numbers when the ratio of the lesser to the greater is equal to the ratio of the greater of them to the sum - for example, with 3 : 5 : 8, 3 + 5 = 8 and (approximately) 3/5 (three-fifths, 0.6) is equal to 5/8 (five-eighths, 0.625). The larger the numbers get, the closer the literal mathematical equality - for example (to three digits), 21/34 = 0.618 and 21 + 34 = 55 and 34/55 = 0.618.
The Greeks identified the Golden Mean as that ratio which is most esthetically appealing - the Ideal of Beauty. (To this day, photographs are still most commonly present in 3 x 5, 5 x 8 sizes etc.) It is, therefore, the Tipheric ideal. The Golden Mean and, more generally, the Fibonacci series of numbers, defines the vast majority of key number distributions found in nature, especially the really cool ones - e.g., this number series describes exactly the shape, pattern, and size of a snail's shell.
So the Fibonacci series is cool and important, it gives us the Golden Mean ratio, and the Golden Mean is the Ideal of Beauty (Tiphereth). And 3 : 5 : 8 are the best representative examples used to represent the series as a whole. And the Greek for "Jesus Christ" is in the ratio of 3 : 5 : 8. "Jesus Christ" is the Golden Mean, the Tipheric ideal.
Oh, and there is one specific geometric figure whose internal ratios and structure are entirely based on Golden Mean ratios - not approximations, no shaved decimal points, but an exact Golden Mean pattern so close that mathematicians often use this one geometric figure to derive lines proportioned to the Golden Mean. That geometric figure is... the pentagram!
So, "Jesus Christ" is an expression of that same core idea which is expressed in the pentagram, which is expressed as "the lesser is to the greater as the greater is to the whole" - a phrase which, by itself, explains most of what you need to know about theurgy.
But wait, there's more!
The Hebrew word for "Christ" is "Messiah." In Hebrew it is spelled MShICh, which enumerates to 358.
358!
And if you call now, we'll also include....!
Then, in Medieval times, European Hermeticists contrived the "Qabalistic spelling" of the name "Jesus" as YHShVH - adding the Shin to the middle of YHVH for all kinds of useful symbolism - and distributed the letters of the name around the points of .... yeah, you guessed it .... the pentagram! To this day, the distribution of those letters around the points of the pentagram are the key to the meanings of the different points and the practical use of the pentagram in magick.
Now, if only there were some Qabalah in the New Testament
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Second example: Siloam. The following is a quote from Chapter 9 (on the Adeptus Minor Within) of The Mystical & Magical System of the A.'.A.'..
"Assigned to Mem is the specific method called the “Sleep of Shiloam.” Crowley refers to this several places in his writings, both public and pri-vate. Shiloam, or Siloam, is commonly treated as a variant pronunciation of ShLM, shalom or salem, corresponding to “the marriage, or equilibration [L], of Fire [Sh] and Water [M].” By this interpretation, then, the Sleep of Siloam is the “Sleep of Peace.” Yet the actual origin of this word is the Greek Siloam [NOTE: That's an Omega, not an Omicron], the name of a pool in Jerusalem referenced in John 9 [NOTE: And just unearthed a few months ago], which reads, in part:
"And as he [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man that was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, “Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but it is so that the works of God may be made manifest in him. I must work the works of the One that sent me, while it is day: for the night comes, when no one can labor. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
After thus speaking, he spat on the ground, and made clay from the spittle, and he smeared the clay upon the blind man’s eyes and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam....” He departed, therefore, and washed, and came seeing."
What is extraordinary in this passage, saturated with mystically poignant phrases, is that Siloam enumerates to 1,081 – exactly the same as the Hebrew ThPARTh, Tiphereth! One who could not see was anointed by the Holy Guardian Angel, “the Light of the World,” and then told to submerge himself in the Sphere of Beauty, the Sphere of the Sun; and, doing so, he gained sight.
It is such a mystical pool that the Adept is to submerge herself, repeatedly and profoundly."
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Example 3 (and final): Spiritual castes. In Liber Legis 3:57 we read:
"He that is righteous shall be righteous still; he that is filthy shall be filthy still."
The adept through whose nervous system Liber Legis was delivered spent his childhood reading the Bible and especially The Book of Revelations. In Revelations 22:11 we find:
"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still."
It is, at the very least, a related verse and almost certainly the inspiration of the one in Liber L. What is most interesting to me is that the original is much richer than the derivative - and that the original in Revelations appears to be a direct reference to the caste system of India or something nearly identical. The Unjust, Filthy, Righteous, and Holy are quite clearly demarcated, and worth study on their own.
And, of course, Revelations itself is, front to end, a Qabalistic work heavily encoded in gematrical language and other Qabalistic references. But that's another story (one I gave verbally in a half-day seminar to initiates a couple of years ago and still hope to get finished and written down one of these years for mass availability).
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THELEMA
so when people say "there is POWER in the word of christ" they are absolutely correct! lol
wow thats a lot of really really good information!
like the other night i had the strange sensation so pickup the bible and read the book of revelations (trust me this is really strange for me, i wasnt even rasied christian), and like it keep me up for hours cause i was so amazed:
a. how much qabalah was to be seen without "really" looking into it.
b. how much it went in hand in hand with what liber AL proclaimed.my opinion before the other night was the bible has been to manipulated by the 1000s of years rulers that have been in power, for there political gain and you know money. but what i read was some accually pretty cool stuff, 7,7,7, and the beast and babalon and the cherbims and all kinds of goodies.
on the sleep of siloam, like a week or 2 ago i read your writing on that in the AA book and for some strange odd reason decided to make a short poem out of it LOL!!!! well i am going to embrass myself and post it here, i must warn you its one of my not good poems and thats pretty bad
give unto you,
the sweetest i can brew,
the holy amrit,
the blood of the sacred IT,
having the most holy powers,
of mud mixed with christ's spit
found right here in salem
where all spirits are grim
though i will not let,
the holy light start to dim
only multiply 10 by 10
in the unity of 1
this is the alchemy of,
unifying my flesh to the love
with the life of the holy dove.i am sure i got alot of things wrong in it, but i literaly just spit it out, and didnt change it afterwards. o by the way i live in a town called salem.
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@bethata418 said
"so when people say "there is POWER in the word of christ" they are absolutely correct! lol"
Exactly. The name! And, actually, that's literally what the New Testament says. Consider, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20). Or, "Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me" (Mark 9:37). Or Acts 2:38 or 3:6 or 4:10 or 16:18. These are all technically exacting statements given the technical understanding of the Name I wrote above. It is a precise Qabalistic and Theurgic statement in Philippians that, "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth."
Consider the power of the pentagram!
On a wholly different angle, Paul Foster Case wrote a small article - available as a tiny book from BOTA - called The Name of Names. He argues based primarily on Hebrew grammar that the name Jesus translates to: "Reality shall set you free." Now, that's a Name of Power!
"like the other night i had the strange sensation so pickup the bible and read the book of revelations"
Very good to explore with an open mind. I'll give you the key, but it is going to take me a hundred pages or so to spell it all out in detail when I get to it: Revelations, thogh in the form of a Greek mystery play, is also a highly technical document - specifically, a very exacting and detailed instruction in kundalini yoga, balancing and equilibrating the centers through something pretty much equivalent to the Four Worlds, and the awakening of superconsciousness that results from it. All of this, of course, is wrapped in the rhetoric and language of a particular school of thought.
PS - On the poem, the key thing is that you are seeking to express yourself that way. That's good! You have some nice images in there, but the giving birth to it is even more important. In case you happen to be interested, several of my poems are at aumha.org/a/poems.htm - at least some of them make a good case for why I don't make a living as a poet
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THELEMA
tyeha i know in order for me to find the TRUTH in the bible, i MUST forget anything a christian has told me "such & such" means. and find the truth through god or what i call my HGA. i have already basically decided to look at it almost as i look at liber 65, maybe this is wrong, but christ to me is ADONAI.
i thank you for the key of revelations is a kundalini work! from breifly looking at it (chapter 22) it seemed like it makes things fit together, i will remember this when i begin my studues on this chapter. i am sure i will gain much from looking into this chapter of the bible looking at it from that veiw point.
any other hints you may want to give me to keep in mind while studying this? not that the kundalini doesnt seem to show much by my glance at it.
thanks alot!
AGAPE
Fr.418
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btw, i really like your poetry my favorite is AMORIS VEL CALICIS. i have read these before once, in the AA book is the "daughter of the lantern" your work?
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Thanks. Interestingly, I hadn't read Liber Amoris in a while and printed out a copy to take around with me today on the bus.
Yes, "Daughter of the Lantern" is mine, too. (I think the Table of Contents says that, doesn't it?)
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THELEMA
thats cool about the printing the poem today and showing it to people!
yes looking in the front it does say you wrote it, and that is may favorite poem!
AGAPE
Fr.418
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Well, I wasn't printing it to show people - not the way I do things
- I printed it just to take it with me and have the chance to read it for the first time in several years. -
yeah i was going to say that would be a little strange, showing that poem to random stranger. but hey i am not one to judge.
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G., I was thinking this morning that I should have mentioned - for your entertainment and enjoyment - some of the patterns in these poems.
In Amoris vel Calicis, I'm guessing you discerned the pattern in the verses numbered 1-22 - but can you tell what the pattern is for the first three verses? These are written based on a very exact qabalistic pattern (no, it has nothing to do per se with the 3 Veils), and was in fact the pattern that I used to jumpstart receiving the others, and their inspiration. That is, there is a qabalistic formula in these three verses which was inspiration of all the rest of it, and which gave me an exact approach to the rest flowing in. Can you discern it?
Second - this one is more obvious, at least once you know it - Is it clear what Locked in Love is (besides a devotional love poem)? I'll give this one away, because that opens the way to learning more things: It is a versification of the Pentagram Ritual (excluding the Qabalistic Cross).
Several of the others follow Qabalistic formulae, though usually private patterns. That is, the verses are usually inspired by Hebrew or Greek letters from some formula I was working at the time. One pretty obvious example is Thalia, named after one of the Muses, where the verses are the first two letters of her name - Theta (=Teth) and Alpha (=Aleph). I originally thought I'd go through the other letters, too, but at the end of the second verse it was done. Also, the Invocation of Israfel is a letter-by-letter working of the spelling of Israfel's name (rendered in Hebrew, though the actual name is Arabic).
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THELEMA
On the meaning of the 1st 3 verses (000-0) of your poem, i would guess it it:
000: this is nuit i would say, which is of course the all, and female. the star.
00:this would be the force of hadit, penetrating nuit, and the human uniting with her (or with the HGA) (the devil)
0.in a sexual sense i would say this would be baphomet, you know male and female force combined to create baphomet. (the fool)but from more a technical "AA" standpoint i would say its more
000=yesod- where you are looking up at your HGA with out the moon in its way, also yesod=chalice
00=samekh, traveling up that path to tiphareth, where you acheieve K&C w/ HGA
0=is you and your HGA working on your relationship, love i think in geburah, the portal to binah. or maybe this is zain as being the portal instead of geburah to binah?
but if i was a betting man i wouldnt bet money i was right. am i amy where close.
thats very cool that you put alot of qabalic thougt into your poems. i really like how that poem was written in like class A form, never thought of doing something like that.
since we are talking about qabalah like influenced poetry i will show you a poem i think is a little better than the last one i posted that has some qabalah into it. hope you dont mind.
LLLL
god guide me through the most sightless night,
giving me liberty, love, life & light,
the source of the eternal whirling fire,
enlightenment of man's desire,
this is the law of all free men,
they have abolished that which is sin.one must first discover inner liberty,
this is the 1st step to set yourself free,
submitting yourself to self restriction,
the holy knight is ruled by disiplene,
forming his mind & body into his slave,
until his true will is all thats saved.through liberty god's love comes pouring in,
devouring the knights soul in the joy of sin,
he learns that love is just as the weather,
changing from wet to dry unveiling gods treasure,
giving & receiving just as our beloved Nuit,
taking ecstacy& agony as all is sweet.the holy knight then devotes his life unto god,
giving every moment to the splendour of hod,
thru love he unites to create life in union,
conjoining as beast & babalon in reunion,
filling the ark of life with his internal light,
making himself the most holy eternal knight.only then does he understand love under will,
thru the creation of the holy elixar etheral,
this light is as bright as a moon & star-less nihgt sky,
and as the intense silence of a dead man's cry,
this light so bright it shall be called the nothing,
burning in our knights heart it ecomes all consuming.burning out every bit of himself called I,
leaving only in its place the force Coph Nia,
sitting in content no longer a knight,
but now in his place the illustrious lord
living in unity by the 2-edged sword,
he is no longer a star but the bright light,
that is known as dark night by those without sight.AGAPE
Fr.418
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The first three verses each relates to a Hebrew letter. The letters then spell something. What is it?
(I'll come back tomorrow when I'm more awake to read your poem - and give itdue attention.)
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thelema
000= heh
00= ayin
0= alephbut ot me EOA isnt really cool and 000 acually sounds like yod also now so i would say IOA which is IAO
and is cool cause yod is sperm, ayin is the hole the sperm shoots out and A is baphomet, and in the devil card you can see the little baphomet on his way out. or course IAO is also the union of male and female creating the baphomet.
- Behold the Grail, uplifted in the heart of She who is He that I adore. It is an offering of perfect love. All that is pure, amethestine splendor asparkle, refracting the fluid and liquid dance of Her kiss that sips the nectar-blood of my soul.
and the yod adores the grail, and her liquid consumes yod.
i am i right?
thanks that was fun.
AGAPE
FR.418
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Look again at the visual imagery in the second verse in particular.
The first one isn't a bad guess, but is wrong.
The qabalistic clues in the third verse are almost every word, and all point in one direction.
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THELEMA
well 000 could be i think either Ch or yod or Heh
00 either samekh or ayin
0 probably aleph if not dalethso ISA or ChSD or HAD
i dont know what is it?
AGAPE
Fr.418
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Cheth Samekh Daleth - Chesed.
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Great stuff Jim,
Can you give me any Qabalahistic viewpoints on Adam Kadmon?