when to banish? and how??
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@bethata418 said
"1st i was wondering when should a magician use star ruby over the LBPR? is star ruby just a replacement of LBRP when a magician is at a certain part of his magical career, or in some cases the magician should use star ruby, and in other cases the LBRP, and then in some cases he should use both??????"
I can't think of a single reason to ever use both on the same occasion. It seems to really jumble things.
But to the general question I'd say that it is really a matter of (a) personal taste and (b) the training system one is working.
I've had periods of doing the Star Ruby primarily. For 93% of my time in magick, though, nothing seems to beat the good ol' Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. Every now and then I use the Star Ruby because the mood strikes me or for some technical reason; for example, the forces conform better to a particular opus or (another example) there's a reason I specifically want a widdershins banishing motion.
"if this is the case what type of situations should each be used in???? like LBRP before meditation, but say star ruby before goetia??"
I wouldn't make that differentiation at all!
"would there ever be an occasion to ue both??"
I'm doing my best not to be an absolutist on this, but my sincere opinion is a flat No.
"also this also brings to mind LBHR (lesser banishing hexagram ritual), and also its sister LIHR (lesser invoking hexagram ritual), when should these 2 bad boys be put to good use?"
After one reaches Second Order
Or, if one isn't in such a system, I'd have to say that this is a very complex question that will have very different answers for most people. More often than not, the Hexagram Ritual is only taken up after one has a long experience with the Pentagram Ritual. It then (more often than not) is added to it as a "next layer."
"would you recommend using a LIHR after a LBRP or star ruby, before the magician meditates?? "
I would not mix the Golden Dawn derived Hexagram Ritual with a Star Ruby.
"and then we get to star sapphire! is this a replacement for the hexagram ritual when the magician gets to a certain part of hhis career????"
It's a new form of the Invoking Hexagram Ritual but of a very different type. Specifically, it's a ritual of invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel. No specific standards were ever published on "why & when" unless you count the fact that, in A.'.A.'., it doesn't appear in any syllabus until 2=9.
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93, Guys,
Thanks for clearing up a couple of questions I had forgotten to ask!
93s,
Fr Z. T.
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This question of why we should use one ritual or the other is quite interesting. But there is another side to this question. Why do we still use Geo-centric Golden Dawn pentagram rituals in the Helio-centric New Aeon?
Lon Milo DuQuette mentions this when discussing Liber XXV and Liber V.
"In these two ceremonies the focus of the magician's consciousness is shifted from the Earth to the Sun; from the human to the Divine. No longer do we view ourselves as standing upon the surface of the Earth (with its four quarters ruled by the terrstrial wind), or even at the intersection of Samekh and Pe. We now identify ourselves with the Sun, surrounded by the zodiacal belt."
If Thelema is a philosophy/religion that encourages us to regard ourselves as Solar beings, why do we still use an old geo-centric magical formula. Isn't there as valid case that the old rituals should be up-dated to reflect this helio-centric, New Aeon perspective. This appears to be what Crowley attempted with the Thelemic pentagram rituals. But despite this nearly everyone who practices CM still uses this geo-centric formula.
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@Her said
"This question of why we should use one ritual or the other is quite interesting. But there is another side to this question. Why do we still use Geo-centric Golden Dawn pentagram rituals in the Helio-centric New Aeon?"
The other rituals you mention aren't any less geocentric.
Lon is entitled to his opinion, and I don't agree with it. For one, there is no more "shift attention to the Sun" in those rituals than in any other. For another, it is pretty impossible for me to separate a true solar consciousness from the Lesser Pentagram Ritual.
An entire other thread (or at least essay) could address the specific issue of widdershins movement. It has many different purposes. I suspect Lon is addressing a specific purpose it has in the A.'.A.'. 2=9 initiation where widdershins is specifically used to shift perspective not to the Sun, but to the true view of our position on Earth: that we are turning counterclockwise against the comparatively stationary position of the Sun in the heavens.
But that has nothing to do with the Star Ruby, where widdreshins is used simply to invoke a banishing current, in contrast to the invoking Star Sapphire which uses clockwise motion.
"Isn't there as valid case that the old rituals should be up-dated to reflect this helio-centric, New Aeon perspective."
Uh, actually, heliocentric is Old Aeon - the fruit of the 16th Century. But that aside, sure, yes, of course things need to be updated.
Going by experience, though, nothing compares, for me, to the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram (which, btw, was first written only a few years before the New Aeon began). And it has every one of the characteristics you're citing.
"This appears to be hat Crowley attempted with the Thelemic pentagram rituals. But despite this nearly everyone who practices CM still uses this geo-centric formula.
"Again, I dispute that characterization.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"I suspect Lon is addressing a specific purpose it has in the A.'.A.'. 2=9 initiation where widdershins is specifically used to shift perspective not to the Sun, but to the true view of our position on Earth: that we are turning counterclockwise against the comparatively stationary position of the Sun in the heavens."
I understand what you are saying Jim, but Lon doesn't mention the direction of motion, either widdershins or deosil, in connection with the "shift in perspective". He focuses more on the placement of the elements around the circle.
He claims that the Thelemic pentagram rituals and their elemental attibutions correspond to the position of the Kerubic signs of the zodiac. This symbolically establishes the magician in the position of the Sun surrounded by the zodiac. This does seem to suggest a symbolic shift to me. The traditional pentagram rituals use the elemental formula of the terrestrial four winds to determine the direction of the elements. But if we are to see ourselves as solar beings surely we should adjust the symbolism of ritual to reflect this perspective?
@Jim Eshelman said
"But that aside, sure, yes, of course things need to be updated."
Ok. You've said that the traditional pentagram ritual is the one that "does it" for you personally. But aside from personal preference is there any reason why you think the student would do better to practice the traditional pentagram rituals over the more modern interpretations that are currently out there? What I mean by "modern" is pentagram rituals that aren't so rigid in the placement of the elements around the circle and also don't rely so heavily on Hebrew words of power. I have no problem with Hebrew symbolism per se., but I have to say that I do feel pretty ambivalent about it's use. It's not something that I feel I can put my heart into. And because much of magick is about "intent", how can I "put my all" into someting I don't feel I have any real connection with.
I feel more connection to the names Nuit, Hadit, Babalon, and Therion used in the Thelemic rituals, but have continued using the traditional hebrew in my practice because "that's what you're supposed to do". But sometimes, because I don't feel anything for this hebrew stuff, I wonder if it would make any difference if I vibrated the divine names "Bugs Bunny", "Porkey Pig", "Daffy Duck", and "Sylvester" around the circle. I have no more "connection" to them than I do to Hebrew.
I'm only joking of course, but it just shows how apathetic I feel towards the use of hebrew. If Hebrew was an ice cream flavour, as far as I'm concerned, it would be vanilla.
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Have you studied much Hebrew? Gematria? Maybe the associations with Hebrew are not as rich because you have not really gotten into the flame alphabet. Then again, maybe you were made to be drawn to the Egyptian manifestation of divinity, and not the Hebrew. I think they are very closely connected. I think that everything is connected to Egypt, actually.
In L.V.X.,
chrys333 -
@Her said
"The traditional pentagram rituals use the elemental formula of the terrestrial four winds to determine the direction of the elements."
Really? I've always thought it was derived more from the symbolism of the passage of the Sun through the sky (with some Euro-centric ideas thrown in): "rushing up" air-like in the East . . . at zenith at the fiery hottest part of the day in the South (only in the northern hemisphere). . . setting over the watery Ocean in the West (there's that Eurocentrism) . . . at the nadir in the north when the Sun is under the Earth.
Then there's the whole intersection of Samekh and Peh thing: facing spiritual/airy (Ruach-ish) Tiphareth, fiery Netzach on the right, lunar/watery Yesod behind, and stolid and rational (earthish?) Hod on the left. Yes, the elemental attributions aren't quite right for the Sephiroth themselves (and I've ignored any interpretations of "backing into the tree" which I think came much later than the original G.D.), but it makes some sense, I think.
"I feel more connection to the names Nuit, Hadit, Babalon, and Therion used in the Thelemic rituals, but have continued using the traditional hebrew in my practice because "that's what you're supposed to do". But sometimes, because I don't feel anything for this hebrew stuff, I wonder if it would make any difference if I vibrated the divine names "Bugs Bunny", "Porkey Pig", "Daffy Duck", and "Sylvester" around the circle. I have no more "connection" to them than I do to Hebrew. "
It helps me to vibrate the four 4-lettered god names letter by letter, rather than attempt to pronounce them as one would in Hebrew:
Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh
Aleph-Daleth-Nun-Yod
Aleph-Heh-Yod-Heh
Aleph-Gimel-Lamed-AlephDoing it this way may help open up qabalistic avenues of meditation on these names. The fact that there are 16 letter-names to vibrate in a ritual that is often related to Earth may have geomantic correspondences, but I haven't given that much thought.
I don't have much "resonance" with the four elemental archangels, though.
Steve
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@Her said
"He claims that the Thelemic pentagram rituals and their elemental attibutions correspond to the position of the Kerubic signs of the zodiac."
But they don't. It doesn't line up.
And, of course, with the Star Ruby it depends on which version you mean. The Book of Lies version (which is the higher-level version) is the same as the Macrocosmic setup of the GD - Fire in the East, Water in the North, etc.
"This symbolically establishes the magician in the position of the Sun surrounded by the zodiac."
But it doesn't. The astronomy doesn't work.
Besides, even if it did, there is no difference in the distribution of those signs around the Sun or around the Earth! Nothing has shifted.
"The traditional pentagram rituals use the elemental formula of the terrestrial four winds to determine the direction of the elements."
That was Mathers' excuse. It's not the real pattern. The real pattern is that the First Order formula is the letters of Adonai (ADNY) clockwise from the East, just as the Second Order formula is the letters of YHVH counter-clockwise from the East.
"You've said that the traditional pentagram ritual is the one that "does it" for you personally. But aside from personal preference is there any reason why you think the student would do better to practice the traditional pentagram rituals over the more modern interpretations that are currently out there?"
It's a better developed, more sound, far deeper ritual etc.
I know that sentence is so short as to be nearly dismissive. It would take something like 50 pages to explain what I mean.
One reason is that it is intimately related to the actual path of initiation.
On the other hand, there are a lot of possible formulae that would do the basic job more or less as well if all y9ou want to do is banish.
"What I mean by "modern" is pentagram rituals that aren't so rigid in the placement of the elements around the circle and also don't rely so heavily on Hebrew words of power."
Well, we differ there already. I hold firmly that Hebrew is the fundamental language of the Mysteries and of the Path of Initiation - a language created solely for spiritual purposes and which maps more intimately into the human cellular condition that we can yet begin to understand. (And why do you not want the elements carefully mapped in your framework? You are, after all, working in the field of Malkuth.)
"I have no problem with Hebrew symbolism per se., but I have to say that I do feel pretty ambivalent about it's use."
I don't. I assert it is the master pattern to which all other points and frameworks ultimately are referable.
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93
thanks JAE for answering my question.
on the hexagram ritual, i am not in any order that uses it, or at least tells you at this time you must add this. but i use to always use the LIHR after LBPR as a HGA invocation like you said, to line up the 5 with the 6. then i quit cause i realised in the pentagram rituals you are already invoking the hexagram, "you know in the column stands the 6 rayed star", would you see this part of the pentagram ritual as a invokation of your HGA??
also when would you ever do a banishing hexagram ritual???
93s
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@bethata418 said
""you know in the column stands the 6 rayed star", would you see this part of the pentagram ritual as a invokation of your HGA??"
In some ways I don't object to that interpretation - though I think I might say, instead, that it is a recognizing and actualizing the part of ourselves that eventually aspires to and unites with the HGA. (It has never felt like an invocation to me but, rather, like an acknowledgement of something already present.)
Five is "about" us - six is "within" us. Five is Heh - in this case, Heh-final - as six is Vav. Heh-final, nature, sensory manifestation is about us on all sides, while the Vav of ourselves is within.
"also when would you ever do a banishing hexagram ritual???"
The rules are the same as for the Pentagram: Always do a banishing before an invoking. Then, depending on the nature of the operation (especially whether or not the working has fully absorbed the residuum of the working), it may be appropriate to do a banishing again afterwards. (Again, this very much depends on the particular operation. It is less often necessary with the lesser hexagram ritual, i.e., when you have not invoked something specific.)
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Thanks for the replies guys.
I suspect that my posts have made me sound like some sort of qabalistic newbie. That's not the case at all. I understand the use of Hebrew words of power on an intellectual level. But on an emotional level I don't feel any sort of connection.
What are the two cardinal rules of magick? Invoke often and Inflame thyself in prayer. I have no problem with the first. It's the second one I have problems with when I use Hebrew. Hebrew just leaves me feeling flat. (Maybe I should try Energized Enthusiasm.
)It's like going to a job that you don't enjoy. You turn up on time every day. But you just go through the motions. Do a completely half assed job because you couldn't care less, while dreaming of the weekend and pay day. But at no point do you ever put your heart into it because you just don't care enough.
I've stuck with the traditional hebrew LRP in the hope that I will eventually become enthused about it. But it just ain't happening. I keep thinking of a quote from Ray Sherwin's, Theatre of Magick:
"To expect a person to derive benefit from from a ritual of someone else's devising would be bizarre and arrogant. No two magicians, not even members of the same order, could be expected to react in the same way to an arrangement of actions and words."
I can understand the need for "standard forms" of ritual in group work, where everyone needs to be on the same page. But to go one step further and declare these "standard forms" as sacrosanct and not to changed seems a little strange to me. It's like if I were to say just because I like curry but don't like pizza everyone else must conform. The personal element is being left out of the equation. Everyone must conform or be branded as a heretic.
(Has anyone else seen the variations on the LRP that the Cicero's have included in the updated edition of the Middle Pillar? They present several variations on the LRP that all conform to the traditional LRP format. Are they junk because they don't use Hebrew?)
EDIT: How are we to view pre 1904 rituals in the light of Liber Legis 1:49 and 2:5 ?
"I hold firmly that Hebrew is the fundamental language of the Mysteries and of the Path of Initiation - a language created solely for spiritual purposes and which maps more intimately into the human cellular condition that we can yet begin to understand."
I don't disagree with you Jim. But if Hebrew is as fundamental as you say it is then there's a good case for abandoning the Hermetic Qabalah altogether and reverting back to the hardcore Judaic roots. Much of the modern hermetic qabalah is a gross bastardization of the original sources. You only have to read something like Aryeh Kaplan's translation and commentary on the Sepher Yetzirah to realise this fact. Gershom Scholem (I can't find the exact reference) points out instances where the Golden Dawn's, and hence Crowley's, use of hebrew is totally uneducated and incorrect.
It seems to me that the founders of the Golden Dawn didn't view hebrew as all that fundamental because they were clearly quite happy to bend and mold the system to suit their own ends. So much so that the Golden Dawn is the laughing stock of many Judaic Kabbalists.
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@Her said
"I suspect that my posts have made me sound like some sort of qabalistic newbie."
Not my impression.
"That's not the case at all. I understand the use of Hebrew words of power on an intellectual level. But on an emotional level I don't feel any sort of connection."
Got it.
It's possible that it just isn't for you. Also, it's possible that you haven't been exposed to it correctly. I'm a skilled and experienced writer, and I know of no way to convey in writing how to do this - only in person. There isn't a single book known to me in print that conveys this. (Heck, for that matter, there isn't a single book known to me in print which gives all the correct Hebrew for the Pentagram Ritual.)
"I keep thinking of a quote from Ray Sherwin's, Theatre of Magick:
"To expect a person to derive benefit from from a ritual of someone else's devising would be bizarre and arrogant. No two magicians, not even members of the same order, could be expected to react in the same way to an arrangement of actions and words."
"I don't agree with that, FWIW.
"But to go one step further and declare these "standard forms" as sacrosanct and not to changed seems a little strange to me."
Nor do I make such an allegation. In fact, I've gone through many evolutions and variations of it myself. However, I nearly always decline to discuss them. If one is so driven to make such changes in advanced private work, then so be it - but I'll start everyone from the same starting point. (PS - Again, FWIW - after all of the variations and evolutions, I still return to the basic original as what I use in practice 98% of the time.)
"The personal element is being left out of the equation. Everyone must conform or be branded as a heretic. "
I trust you know that I haven't used that last word on this topic, nor anything synonymous with it, right?
Just to be cantankerous, I'm not completely convinced that there is so much of a personal element in magick other than in the very beginning where people are finding their way. I experience it more in terms of conforming the aberrant personality to universal forms of proven worth. When successful, of course, one of the symptoms is that this unlocks enormous creativity. Whether that creativity then expresses itself in one's magical formulae, or in some area of work which is one's true vocation, is always interesting to see.
"How are we to view pre 1904 rituals in the light of Liber Legis 1:49 and 2:5 ?"
The first is: "Abrogate are all rituals, all ordeals, all words and signs," &c. I take this to mean that the prior authority was withdrawn, and they needed to be reviewed. It may mean they need to be changed, or it may mean that they be reissued (under new Authority) in the prior form. For example, the grade Words and Signs of 0=0 through 5=6 were reissued in the A.'.A.'. in exactly the same forms as under the same dispensation. This doesn't mean that they weren't reviewed, merely that there was no need to change them. In contrast, the ordeals (tasks of the grade) were changed substantially and the grade rituals have undergone significant evolution or recreation.
The second verse is, "Behold! the rituals of the old time are black. Let the evil ones be cast away; let the good ones be purged by the prophet! Then shall this Knowledge go aright." Again, this calls for a review process. "Black" can't mean "evil" here, since all of them are black, but some are "good" and some are "evil." ("Black" probably means "Osirian," but may also mean simply that they have reached a saturation point.)
"
"I hold firmly that Hebrew is the fundamental language of the Mysteries and of the Path of Initiation - a language created solely for spiritual purposes and which maps more intimately into the human cellular condition that we can yet begin to understand."I don't disagree with you Jim. But if Hebrew is as fundamental as you say it is then there's a good case for abandoning the Hermetic Qabalah altogether and reverting back to the hardcore Judaic roots."
I'd be interested in hearing your elaboration on what that good case is. It isn't self-evident to me. It is the language itself that is inherently hard-wired to the human nervous system and psyche (I suspect it is truly wired into the DNA), not necessarily the intellectual theories wrapped around. There is also a serious question of what constitutes those "hardcore Judaic roots" since, for example, the forms of the Sepher Yetzirah emerging during the Renaissance era are no more likely to be true to a Hudaic original than the Hermetic forms of the same - the former were created by a committee editing a large number of manuscripts that disagreed with each other. Then we find works such as "The Gates of Light" that are close to the core of anything that can truly be called Kabbalah, but which bear a far more striking similarity to the Hermetic Qabalah than they do to the modern and near-modern Judaic forms.
"Much of the modern hermetic qabalah is a gross bastardization of the original sources."
Some is, agreed.
"You only have to read something like Aryeh Kaplan's translation and commentary on the Sepher Yetzirah to realise this fact."
But that's one of my best examples of the opposite arguement. Kaplan documents very well that the most referenced Judaic form of the S.Y. is a latter day committee production.
"Gershom Scholem (I can't find the exact reference) points out instances where the Golden Dawn's, and hence Crowley's, use of hebrew is totally uneducated and incorrect."
As mentioned above, I agree that there are definitely some instances of this.
"It seems to me that the founders of the Golden Dawn didn't view hebrew as all that fundamental because they were clearly quite happy to bend and mold the system to suit their own ends. So much so that the Golden Dawn is the laughing stock of many Judaic Kabbalists."
Just as some Judaic Kabbalists are the laughing stock of many people trained in Golden Dawn derived systems and who have studied the ancient source material.
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Heru,
I do not think you are a neophyte, but someone who has given a good attempt, and not gotten the results that were supposed to have occured, or what you expected to occur - a feeling of joy of alignment, I guess.
So, I am curious. In your studies, have you done any of the sound and color exercises? You intone the names of God, or a letter, while looking at the corresponding color? Hebrew chanting, so to speak? Most people have a joyous response to having their bodies become a musical instrument and vibrating to the sound. It's kind of a devotional, and cheerful thing. I like it because you have to take very deep breaths to have enough wind to do the whole name of God (or archangel), and you get to bellow as loudly as you like. All that deep breathing makes you feel relaxed, cleansed and exhilirated, if nothing else.
Tried that, too?
In L.V.X.,
chrys333 -
93,
"I understand the use of Hebrew words of power on an intellectual level. But on an emotional level I don't feel any sort of connection. "
Could I suggest a check on what the ideas surrounding the concept of 'Hebrew' represent here? I'm simply quoting my own experience below, but I remember feeling distinctly depressed that in this tradition we were using stuff associated with the Biblical God. It took me a while to deconstruct that attitude.
I was raised in a conventional Anglican (Episcopalian) environment, i.e.: 'applied agnosticism'. But along the way, I did absorb the King James Bible. By that, I don't mean in the present Christian fundamentalist way of understanding, but in terms of an 'inner grammar' of how the primary figures, event and forces of the Bible are presented. I love the language of the KJV, and I also recognise that it has violently perverted the content of that which it purports to translate.
I find, for example, that the patriarchs of the Old Testament come across rather as well-born English yeomen - linked to their flocks and herds, for sure, but a little bit reserved in manner, and speaking in a somewhat polite or respectful manner to YHVH. In the KJV, they are not really men of the hills and fields, watcing the natural cycles of birth and death, just like other pastoral peoples (the Celts come to mind) invoking their God as a protection against marauders and bad times. I remember being shocked when I first met a couple of Chasidic Jews - they seemed shockingly unreligious because their conception seemed to be one of a vital, earthy God. (I'm speaking here not of conscious beliefs, but of ingrained attitudes.)
Learning Hebrew forced me to reconsider my view of those patriarchs (and matriarchs). They were rooted in earth and shamanically linked to the heavens. They slaughtered animals, prayed for fertility, wheeled and dealed among themselves, and negotiated with YHVH. Abraham even had him over for lunch (Genesis Ch. 18 ).
But in English translations of the Bible, the KJV being partly the model for them all, there's a kind of structured politeness to their dealings with their God who is rather like an English King: wrathful, but basically a Thoroughly Decent Chap, in a fiercely ineffable sort of way. It's as if the men who did the tranlating for James implicitly portrayed their dour, paranoid Scots monarch when they described their God in their work. ("Och, ye witches shall be condemned tae tha everlastin' fire, the noo!")
It took me a year or two of working with Hebrew in this system before I realised that this stuff came from a people who were intimate with <i>power</i>.
I think Jews grow up with a somewhat different sense of the raw, sacred power in the spiritual system. Harold Bloom's books (try his recent <i>The Names Divine</i>) are excellent at clarifying this. He is an unbeliever, or at least an agnostic, who is, on his own admission, haunted and scared by the "uncanny" Yahweh.
I think once we realize the Hebrews' God is this raw Power that likes people to party in His honor, then a lot of Hebraic Qabalah starts to fall into place.
93 93/93,
Edward
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"It's possible that it just isn't for you."
Believe me, that thought has crossed my mind a few times. But I would have to ignore many life experiences and "seeming" coincidences that have pushed me in this direction throughout my life.
"Also, it's possible that you haven't been exposed to it correctly."
That's quite likely.
I think my main problem is in reconciling the use of traditional Hebrew based symbolism and the origins of that symbolism in the superstitious, monotheistic Hebrew slave cult, with the progressive New Aeon philosophy of Thelema and it's quasi-Egyptian symbolism.
I know how bizarre and pathetic that sounds. And it probably gives the impression that I can't differentiate between IHVH and Jehovah. But this is not the case at all. It just feels like I have some sort of internal resistance to using Hebrew, with all it's negative associations, that short circuits my efforts to use it effectively.
A case of "If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?
But I am very persistent by nature. So I'm hoping that if I just stick to it I might be able to work my way through my own internal resistance.
"The first is: "Abrogate are all rituals, all ordeals, all words and signs," &c. I take this to mean that the prior authority was withdrawn, and they needed to be reviewed.....
The second verse is, "Behold! the rituals of the old time are black. Let the evil ones be cast away; let the good ones be purged by the prophet! Then shall this Knowledge go aright." Again, this calls for a review process."
I agree with most of what you say, Jim. But there's something that doesn't feel right about this whole thing. Liber O is the best example. Crowley did reissue the pentagram and hexagram rituals under the authority of the A.'.A.'. But did he "purge" them? Not as far as I can see. They are classic pre 1904 Golden Dawn rituals complete with Aeon of Osiris magical formulae.
The analysis of the keyword INRI at the beginning of the hexagram ritual surely needs to be updated to make it conform to the New Aeon. But Crowley didn't do this. Why?
This issue came up recently when I was listening to an audio lecture by Richard Kaczynski. He mentioned the correspondence between Crowley and the wandering Gnostic Bishop W.B.Crow. During this correspondence Crowley tells W.B.Crow that his whole magical education and thought processes where rooted in the Aeon of Osiris. That he was only the Prophet of Thelema and that it will be up to people of the future to work out all the technical magical formulae of the New Aeon.
There was one part that I found very interesting. Crowley said that for the sake of expediency the old formulae still worked. Expediency is quite a revealing word. It suggests "stop gap" measures and convenience rather than a final solution."It is the language itself that is inherently hard-wired to the human nervous system and psyche (I suspect it is truly wired into the DNA), not necessarily the intellectual theories wrapped around."
Hebrew and DNA!!!? I find that pretty difficult to accept. Especially after reading Kieren Barry's, The Greek Qabalah. Barry puts forward a very good argument that the ancient Jews got all their who alpha-numerical system from the Greeks who were using the system of gematria and the whole idea of correspondences a long time before the Jews started using.
To suggest that everyone is born hard-wired with Hebrew seems bizarre to me. I can accept that you can train, or wire, Hebrew into your brain and can then use it to structure thought processes in the same way that the Tree of Life can be a structured reality model. But to suggest that it is objective and even organic seems a strange idea to me. A quote from MTP springs to mind:
"An excellent man of great intelligence, a learned Qabalist, once amazed the Master Therion by stating that the Tree of Life was the framework of the Universe. It was as if some one had seriously maintained that a cat was a creature constructed by placing the letters C. A. T. in that order. It is no wonder that Magick has excited the ridicule of the unintelligent, since even its educated students can be guilty of so gross a violation of the first principles of common sense"
Something from my own experience relates to this too. I first began trying to practice the Middle Pillar with the usual Hebrew form. But because of my er... problem
I decided to switch to a Greek version. And this worked fine for me. Over time I steadily built up the pillar and the sephiroth in my imagination while vibrating Greek words. But after a while I tried an experiment with the Hebrew version. And guess what! It worked just the same as the Greek version. (It was a surprise to me too. 
) This suggests to me that the actual words aren't all that important. It has more to do with the framework that you plug the names into. Your suggestion of Hebrew - DNA implies that only vibrated Hebrew should work. (Unless I've got the wrong end of the stick on this one. ) My experience with the Middle Pillar suggests otherwise to me. -
@Edward Mason said
"Could I suggest a check on what the ideas surrounding the concept of 'Hebrew' represent here? I'm simply quoting my own experience below, but I remember feeling distinctly depressed that in this tradition we were using stuff associated with the Biblical God. It took me a while to deconstruct that attitude."
You've hit the nail right on the head, Edward.
That is how I feel about Hebrew. I think I really do have to deconstruct my attitudes, at least on some levels. Intellectually I'm fine with the use of Hebrew, but I really want to connect with it emotionally as well. I want to be enthused by it when I use it in ritual. Not just simply view it with cold, intellectual detachment.@Edward Mason said
" Harold Bloom's books (try his recent <i>The Names Divine</i>) are excellent at clarifying this. He is an unbeliever, or at least an agnostic, who is, on his own admission, haunted and scared by the "uncanny" Yahweh."
Thanks for the recommendation. It's in my Amazon basket right now.
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The Egyptians and the Hebrews all believed that to say the "name" of something, its true essence, you can control it. Also, God SAID, let there be light. The world was made by vibrations of sound, first, as sound is slower and moving in matter more than light.
Therefore, the idea that the Hebrew letters (sounds) are encrypted into human beings' DNA makes sense. Intoning the names of God, changes you, as your body becomes an instrument that resonates with that sound. Our bodies recognize and grow differently from those sounds.
In L.V.X.,
chrys333 -
I understand where you are coming from Chris, but I was always under the impression that nobody actually knows how ancient Hebrew sounded or even if it was a spoken language at all.
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Heru, 93,
Hope you enjoy Bloom.
Another book that's a bit heavy going, but has some gems in it, is Prof. Moshe Idel's Kabbalah: New Perspectives (Yale University Press, 1988). His sixth chapter discusses the issue of the two Kerubim at either end of the Ark having male/female polarity. He quotes several ancient and medieval sources in his exposition, but basically, his theory is that when these two were having sex, the world was right. When they were alienated, things were otherwise. He also quotes sources that (as I read it) imply the use of the Kerubim as theurgic images by humans having sex.
Since these two Kerubim were identified with Chesed and Geburah, they connected along the path of Teth/Lust.
In other words, sex magick was a core component of the old Jewish religion. In that sense, Thelema restores and updates the ancient cult of Jewish divine sex magick, and our use of Hebrew words and the Tetragrammaton in particular (with its own inner polarities between the letters) is a means of tapping into that original energy.
Which doesn't mean other cultures weren't doing the same thing, obvoiusly. But it does underline a key difference between ancient Judaism and the celibacy-based forms of Christianity we got later.
93 93/93,
Edward
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@Her said
"I think my main problem is in reconciling the use of traditional Hebrew based symbolism and the origins of that symbolism in the superstitious, monotheistic Hebrew slave cult, with the progressive New Aeon philosophy of Thelema and it's quasi-Egyptian symbolism."
Oh, that'll sink you, LOL.
Remember one of the basic admonishments given to the A.'.A.'. Probationer at his or her reception: Whenever you hear the name of any god, don't assume that it's any god whatsoever except the god that is known to YOU.
Don't assume that Hebrew has anything per se to do with Judaism or its religion. (It does, but don't assume it does.
Don't carry around that assumption unless it's relevant to you somehow.) Think of it (for example) simply as some master direct-access code to every level of the human psyche hard-wired into our DNA (imagine implants from space aliens if it helps! LOL).It doesn't really matter where it came from. It matters what it IS. Hebrews happened to be the people who had it and handed it down to us.
"It just feels like I have some sort of internal resistance to using Hebrew, with all it's negative associations, that short circuits my efforts to use it effectively."
Got it. Yes. I think you're exactly right. That's the thing to work on, then.
"But I am very persistent by nature. So I'm hoping that if I just stick to it I might be able to work my way through my own internal resistance."
Neither brute force nor long-term erosion is necessarily the best way through. A change of concept often will do it much more thoroughly and quickly, and with less abrasion.
"
"The first is: "Abrogate are all rituals, all ordeals, all words and signs," &c. I take this to mean that the prior authority was withdrawn, and they needed to be reviewed.....The second verse is, "Behold! the rituals of the old time are black. Let the evil ones be cast away; let the good ones be purged by the prophet! Then shall this Knowledge go aright." Again, this calls for a review process."
I agree with most of what you say, Jim. But there's something that doesn't feel right about this whole thing. Liber O is the best example. Crowley did reissue the pentagram and hexagram rituals under the authority of the A.'.A.'. But did he "purge" them? Not as far as I can see. They are classic pre 1904 Golden Dawn rituals complete with Aeon of Osiris magical formulae. "
I don't see that a review-and-purge-if-necessary requires any change at all - not if the ritual is found to still be sound in the new framework.
I also don't see anything necessarily Osirian about anything in the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. Can you name something that is? Is the only issue here that they were written before 1904? Or is there something else?
One thing that, in a sense, I could regard as Osirian is that the ritual uses the Formula of the Cross - that is, addresses the four quarters. But (a) the same thing is true of the later rituals such as Star Ruby and (b) this is natural to the First Order level. The "field of the Elements" is built on the Formula of the Cross. Our understanding of that formula itself has changed, but not the its central relevance.
It's related to something Crowley wrote to Grady in the last couple of years of his life: In all aeons, the one thing that remains unchanged is Yod Heh Vav Heh. (However, our understanding of what it means certainly changes.) It's the basis of the entirety of Qabalah as we know it, and the essential formula remains the core to... well, pretty much everything.
"The analysis of the keyword INRI at the beginning of the hexagram ritual surely needs to be updated to make it conform to the New Aeon. But Crowley didn't do this. Why?"
Yes, he did. But he didn't publish it. He created it for a specfiic venue, and kept it confidential to that venue. (Temple of Thelema also has a distinctly non-Osirian formula for this.)
But there is another point: From the Star Sapphire, we see two optinos for the Analysis of the Key Word. One can use the L.V.X. signs (which, I can tell you, means the entire L.V.X. formula) or - for those relatively few who know etc. the N.O.X. signs and their use - can use that. From context it seems he did not intend to communicate the latter except to those who had reached a particular level in A.'.A.'. - but for everyone else he expected the L.V.X. signs etc. to be used. I'm going to jump, for sake of discussion, to the conclusion that he meant "use in the same old Osirian way." There is an important point of that everyone has to make the transition of Aeons themselves and that the Osiris formula is still baseline for human beings first entering the Work. The fact that we're "in" the Aeon of Horus doesn't mean it is a universal baseline - Osiris consciousness is still the baseline or the normal, healthy human adult. Therefore, I'm sure as I can be that Crowley intentionally left the baseline form of the Analysis of the Keyword in the Osirian form.
(Similarly, in Temple of Thelema, the candidate throughout the First Order - the elemental Formula of the Cross. The transition to Second Order is the specific point where the Cross (4) is raised to the Pentagram (5) and Horus succeeds Osiris. The same is done in A.'.A.'., but you ahve to remember that Second Order in A.'.A.'. begins at 2=9. The 1=10 initiation (Liber 671) is pointedly and intentionally Osirian - the 2=9 initiation (Liber 120) shifts this to Horus.)
"There was one part that I found very interesting. Crowley said that for the sake of expediency the old formulae still worked. Expediency is quite a revealing word. It suggests "stop gap" measures and convenience rather than a final solution. "
It may mean "stop gap," but I don't know - literally don't know - if that's what it means. It may mean "pragmatic instead of ideological." In other words: Do what works!
"Hebrew and DNA!!!? I find that pretty difficult to accept."
That's fine with me. But every scrap of experience I have tells me this is the case. Hebrew isn't just the language of a bunch of Semitic wondering tribes - it is the thing which they (having no other language to use) say was given to humanity by angels. I truly believe it is THE master code hard-wired into the human physical vehicle - the pattern of which is inherited from generation to generation - and which reflects the capacity of the human nervous system etc. to sustain all specific modes and levels of consciuosness accessible to us.
Only Sanskrit has shown the potential of being anything close in its direct power to move energy, shift consciousness, make changes, etc. One day I hope to have the time to investigate the relationship of the two more intimately - I haven't had the luxury yet.
"Especially after reading Kieren Barry's, The Greek Qabalah. Barry puts forward a very good argument that the ancient Jews got all their who alpha-numerical system from the Greeks who were using the system of gematria and the whole idea of correspondences a long time before the Jews started using."
That's just gematria. I'm not sure he's correct, but, in any case, I'm not talking about anything that intellectual. - Or, to the extent that the numeric relationships are part of the pattern I'm mentioning, and if Kieren happens to be right about that point, then the fact that the Hebrews hadn't discovered the numeric patterns in their system doesn't mean they weren't always there.
"To suggest that everyone is born hard-wired with Hebrew seems bizarre to me."
Yeah, I get that. (You're apparently still thinking of it as a Jewish language.)
"I can accept that you can train, or wire, Hebrew into your brain and can then use it to structure thought processes in the same way that the Tree of Life can be a structured reality model. But to suggest that it is objective and even organic seems a strange idea to me."
I don't mind voicing strange ideas <g>.
Our visual models - e.g., the Tree - is obviously a "best representation" of something inwardly present. But the wiring that for which it is a visual model is, I am sure, objective and organic.
"A quote from MTP springs to mind:
"An excellent man of great intelligence, a learned Qabalist, once amazed the Master Therion by stating that the Tree of Life was the framework of the Universe. It was as if some one had seriously maintained that a cat was a creature constructed by placing the letters C. A. T. in that order. It is no wonder that Magick has excited the ridicule of the unintelligent, since even its educated students can be guilty of so gross a violation of the first principles of common sense"
"Exactly. You're talking about the Tree. I'm talking about the thing that the Tree represents.