Black Brother
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I wrote the following in the last chapter of The Mystical & Magical System of the A.'.A.'.:
"There are those, however, who are unwilling to make the transition. Their ego-centers still hold sway over their deeper being. Ultimately, they are afraid to die. This is the same as saying that they are afraid to love, which is equally true. Even as the self is lost in the Belovèd in the depths of love – even as the ego softens or surrenders its warding and defining barriers in the rapture of orgasm – so is the Fear of Death always a Fear of Love. Those who thus fear are known as the Black Brothers. This is not the same as a “black magician,” who is generally of a much lower grade, and a much more ridiculous phenomenon. Nor is it the same as the Black School of Magick, which, with the White and Yellow Schools, form a triad of root philosophies among the world’s initiates. Finally, the term is not racially motivated. The basis for the “black” metaphor will be evident in the quotations that follow. For now, you simply need to know that a Black Brother is a very advanced initiate, an Adeptus Exemptus, who from an unexpunged fear (often masked by other, hollow motives) resists the natural forward momentum that otherwise would have carried her, naturally and in the proper hour, into the embrace of the Third Order."
The term "Black Brother" stands in contrast to the “Great White Brotherhood” by which the A.'.A.'. identifies itself.
I suppose recalcitrant female Adepti Exempti are legitimately called “Black Sisters,” despite the entirely different mental picture that phrase brings to mind!
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Black Brothers are those who have acquired power, but have failed to apply it to the service of God. As you approach Kether, the world becomes very small - so small in fact that it becomes relatively simple to believe that you are like God/s themself. This is a temporary illusion. The so-called Black Brother ascribes to the notion, and thereby fails to cross the Abyss. The Abyss of course is everything less than Kether, and from Kether's perspective. The ultimate danger is being so intoxicated with Da'ath that you forever shut yourself off from the original goal - service to a higher being. From there some choose to serve themselves, and in worse cases pursue demonic appetites whence they are consumed by the unity of the Qlippoth. The latter two instances characterize the Black Brother. Crowley knew this is to be the enemy. Generally speaking, until the ego is annihilated, you are unknowingly a Black Brother in infancy, and which amounts to psychic subjugation from the sodomite continuum.
My advice: Do not take up arms against your family or anyone until you free yourself from yourself. As you grow, so does your environment, albeit initially unrecognized. "First, take the plank out of your own eye, and then you see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." (Matthew, 7:5)
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I was able to follow most of this but the meaning of the following escapes me:
@Virgil said
"...which amounts to psychic subjugation from the sodomite continuum."
Maybe I don't think too good. Please 'splain.
thanx,
Dan -
@Jim Eshelman said
"Aside from all the characteristics that can be used to describe it, the definition is really straightforward and simple: A Black Brother is an Adeptus Exemptus 7=4 who resists and pulls back from the Ordeal of the Abyss when it is presented."
There is some support for the ideas I initially quesitoned on pages 218 and 219 of The Law Is For All regarding the sexual satisfaction of women and modesty. "The Christians to the lions!" is a damnation of ordinary, non-Abyss-crossing folk (unless I don't understand the Ordeal of the Abyss, which I admit I don't!
)And this is what I was referring to: my mother's perfectly Christian HATRED for innocence and life-- SEX-- which has probably made her completely neurotic. She has some new "family package" of television channels that includes only a handful of crappy channels like PAX, etc. No more ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX for her-- they were getting TOO SEXUAL! She used to always complain that tv is all "sex sex sex" (never complained much about the violence, though!) and when she finally recently told me that she can't watch NBC because she no longer gets regular TV at all, I realized that she's repressing her natural sex instincts. If she wasn't, it wouldn't BOTHER her that tv was full of sex. And I know if I told her all this, she would adamantly disagree: "Noooo, not at all. I don't want to watch that garbage. If I don't want to watch that garbage, why should I? Right?" I'm beginning to really understand Crowley's repeated assertion that these people just really should die, even if these people are my family.
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@Redd Fezz said
"I'm beginning to really understand Crowley's repeated assertion that these people just really should die, even if these people are my family."
93 Fezz,
In my opinion it's really an unhealthy view to wish someone to die simply because their view does not mesh with yours (sounds like a really terrible world to live in). A truly Thelemic view would be to say that she can do whatever she WILLS, including not watching channels that you THINK she should. As long as she is not cutting off your cable (will), then she has her own life and can think and do whatever she wishes. LIBERTY
As for Christians, I know hundreds of them and very few hate life. I've met many more occultists who hate life in fact. I will agree that many (Christians) have messed up attitudes on sex however.
ALL Religions CAN lead to God.
P.S. If I were your mom I'd throw out the TV completely! Much better things to do with time. So maybe she is halfway there?
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@DavidH said
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@Redd Fezz said
"I'm beginning to really understand Crowley's repeated assertion that these people just really should die, even if these people are my family."93 Fezz,
In my opinion it's really an unhealthy view to wish someone to die simply because their view does not mesh with yours (sounds like a really terrible world to live in). "
That's not what I am saying.
@DavidH said
"A truly Thelemic view would be to say that she can do whatever she WILLS, including not watching channels that you THINK she should."
A truly Thelemic view is presented in The Law Is For All in which Crowley explicitly states that by their own WILL the Christians will find true division, hate, torment and death in Choronzon. That is what I'm saying I am beginning to agree with; it seems a natural end. Their meddling morality interferes with not just their own lives, but others as well.
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@Redd Fezz said
"[Crowley explicitly states that by their own WILL the Christians will find true division, hate, torment and death in Choronzon. That is what I'm saying I am beginning to agree with; it seems a natural end. Their meddling morality interferes with not just their own lives, but others as well."
Crowley had a personal problem with Christianity due to his upbringing. I would say that any fundamentalist view of an exoteric religion brings about the same end (division, hate, etc.), whether Christianity, Islam, Judiasm, etc. By singling out one to attack we are also creating division, hate, etc. This is just a general statement and I'm not saying you are doing it here.
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@DavidH said
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@Redd Fezz said
"[Crowley explicitly states that by their own WILL the Christians will find true division, hate, torment and death in Choronzon. That is what I'm saying I am beginning to agree with; it seems a natural end. Their meddling morality interferes with not just their own lives, but others as well."Crowley had a personal problem with Christianity due to his upbringing. I would say that any fundamentalist view of an exoteric religion brings about the same end (division, hate, etc.), whether Christianity, Islam, Judiasm, etc. By singling out one to attack we are also creating division, hate, etc. This is just a general statement and I'm not saying you are doing it here."
You're right... and I'm not attacking anyone and I'm not creating division, hate, etc. You're right about those religions, also-- they are hate disguised as love in the name of the "one true god." And this is the attitude that condemns these people. Crowley had a beef with Christianity due to his upbringing, sure. But, he would have enough reason for a beef with it even if he was raised by wolves.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Redd Fezz said
"There is some support for the ideas I initially quesitoned on pages 218 and 219 of The Law Is For All regarding the sexual satisfaction of women and modesty. "The Christians to the lions!" is a damnation of ordinary, non-Abyss-crossing folk (unless I don't understand the Ordeal of the Abyss, which I admit I don't! ) "Gosh, I've always taken that to mean the following:
Lions = Leo = Teth = Atu XI, Lust
Meaning: Give the Christians a sex life!
"That makes sense, but for them to "grow up" spiritually, their old husks must die, correct? This is how I take the comments about torment, death and the Abyss. He says something about not feeling sad for these people and "what is always was" and, in the dissolution of the Abyss, Love conquers all. (Or words to that effect).
Also: p. 231: "We have no fear then to throw the Christians to the lions. If there be indeed true men among them, who happen through defect of education to know no better, they will reincarnate all right, and no harm done... Consider the right attitude to adopt in the matter of cholera. One should love it, that is, study it intimately; not otherwise can one be sure of maintaining the right relation with it, which is, not to allow it to interfere with one's will to live (And almost everything that is true of cholera is true of Christians)."
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I'm confused by the symbol of the adepts that sit like Pyramids encamped upon the Sea.
Specifically I am having trouble reconciling that at one point they seem to be Masters of the Temple (waiting to become dust and carried into Chokmah?)... (following quotes from Vision and Voice)
"And the Angel sayeth: Behold where thine Angel hath led thee! Thou didst ask fame, power and pleasure, health and wealth and love, and strength and length of days. Thou didst hold life with eight tentacles, like an octopus. Thou didst seek the four powers and the seven delights and the twelve emancipations, and the two and twenty Privileges and the nine and forty Manifestations, and lo! thou art become as one of These. Bowed are their backs, whereon resteth the Universe. Veiled are their faces, that have beheld the glory Ineffable.
These adepts seem like Pyramids—their hoods and robes are like Pyramids.
And the Angel sayeth: Verily is the Pyramid a Temple of Initiation. Verily also is it a tomb. Thinkest thou that there is life within the Masters of the Temple that sit hooded, encamped upon the Sea? Verily, there is no life in them."
...And at another point they appear to be Black Brothers:
"And a voice sounds: It is most terrible for the one that hath shut himself up and made himself fast against the universe. For they that sit encamped upon the sea in the city of the Pyramids are indeed shut up. But they have given their blood, even to the last drop, to fill the cup of BABALON.
These that thou seest are indeed the Black Brothers, for it is written: He shall laugh at their calamity and mock when their fear cometh. And therefore hath he exalted them unto the plane of love.
And yet again it is written: He desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness. Now, if one of these were to cast off his cloak he should behold the brilliance of the lady of the Aethyr; but they will not."
What am I missing? Are they Black Brothers, or Masters of the Temple, or Babes of the Abyss who need either:
- cast off their cloaks and become Masters of the Temple
- stay wrapped up as Black Brothers
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Those aren't even in the same vision. One is in the vision of the 14th Aethyr, and one in the vision of the 7th Aethyr. Why are you equating them in any fashion? (It's like pulling a barn out of two separate dreams and wondering why the door is open in one case and closed in the other.)
The first is indeed a vision of the Masters. The second, though, is a discussion of "those wandering souls, that have sought restricted love, and have not understood that 'the word of sin is restriction.'" The former are sitting most still. The latter are "constantly hurrying about."
And the 7th Aethyr vision differentiates them all by itself. It speaks first of the Black Brothers: "It is most terrible for the one that hath shut himself up and made himself fast against the universe." It contrasts this to the Masters: "For they that sit encamped upon the sea in the city of the Pyramids are indeed shut up. But they have given their blood, even to the last drop, to fill the cup of BABALON." The first have 'made themselves fast against the universe,' and the second have give all of the blood.
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Would it be appropriate to state that this "Black Brotherhood" fears women's sex, or more specifically the power of a sexual women?
I am thinking that a fear of death could be equated with a fear of the feminine nature.....
I think that the reason women have been supressed (regardless of our part in our supression) and controlled has a direct corelation to this fear, and to this brother hood.
I was just given a book "The Ancient White Mystical Brotherhood" by Frater Achad, is this the same Brotherhood?
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@Veronica said
"Would it be appropriate to state that this "Black Brotherhood" fears women's sex, or more specifically the power of a sexual women?"
That might be a particular form it takes, but not a good generalization. That is, it's a subset of the broader category of forms of surrender.
Also, don't forget that "Black Brothers" can be women also.
"I am thinking that a fear of death could be equated with a fear of the feminine nature....."
For some men, that would be true.
"I was just given a book "The Ancient White Mystical Brotherhood" by Frater Achad, is this the same Brotherhood?"
No, it's the White Brotherhood - one of the titles of A.'.A.'..