Basis of Aeons
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@Steven Cranmer said
"I'll have to do some more research; thanks for the references and specific calculations. At the very least, I can take what you've given and map the boundaries onto the sky to see how well "centered" the traditional constellation-figures are on the boundaries."
Remember that the usual definitions of the constellations are fairly modern. (I seriously suspect you know this!
So I mention it mostly for others.) The old Roman star charts are closer - but the Egyptian and Babalonian zodiacs evidently had rigorous 30° boundaries. One really striking example: Leo is one of the most obvious and visually-defined constellations in the sky, but much of the curve around the head falls across the boundary into Cancer. In the Denderah (ceiling) zodiac, this is shown by a goddess bearing a bow - the crescent shape of that arc of stars - at the very end of Cancer.In the first couple of millennia BC, Aldebaran marked exactly 15°00' Taurus, a minute from opposite Antars. Proper motion has now shifted Aldebaran about 3' IIRC. We don't hold that individual stars themselves define the astrological architecture of the universe. This basic alignment places Regulus at 5° Leo, Pleiades at 5° Taurus, Spica at 29° Virgo, etc. (In contrast, the most common and popular Indian zodiac uses Spica (Chitra) to define 0° Libra - but Alpha Virginis is clearly part of The Maiden, and the astro-archaeology holds up.)
"For various reasons, I've had a soft spot for Mathers' Regulus-centric sidereal system, but I haven't done the above exercise there, either. If I get free time to do this, I could make some pretty plots for "Tools and Toys" perhaps."
Always of interest.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"No, I don't know when Crowley first proposed the 3-Aeon model of Isis, Osiris, Horus. That is, I'd have to go back to the first decade or so after the reception of Liber L. and see where I could find it first mentioned. If anyone else finds early references, I'd be interested in seeing them, and it might be as early as one of the essays in his Collected Works."
I didn't find anything in the Collected Works. The oldest reference I've found comes from "Across the Gulf", in which Crowley provides a narrative of Ankh-f-na-khonsu at the exact transition between the Aeons of Isis and Osiris. That first appeared in the Equinox I.7, which came out in 1912. Curiously, Crowley says nothing of the aeons in his "Old Comment", which appeared in the same issue. So, perhaps the three-aeon system have developed sometime between the writing of the comment and the writing of "Across the Gulf".
On the other hand, Crowley hints at the existence of an old and a new aeon in Konx om Pax, from 1907. In "Ali Slopper", Crowly hints at himself, as Bowley, as being the prophet of a new religion that will last for 2000 years. Setting the number of years like that suggests the possibility that Crowley was already thinking of a sequence of aeons, each lasting for 2000 years. Though it doesn't actually provide any evidence of him developing the specific Isis-Osiris-Horus system.
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93
I don't understand much of these messages, the first one with the hierophants and so on it's just a huge puzzle for me, but none the less I think I can be of assistance.I'm not sure where Crowley first got the idea of the aeons, but it's not new. An eon is a by-product of Time, it is only natural to think in terms of cycles and "eternal recurrence" as Nietzsche has argumented in the past. All religions have some form of aeonic approach to history, due to the fact that any approach to the meaning or sense of Being inmediatly needs or provides a sense or meaning to History.
Aeons should not be, IMO, regarded as clean cut changes in the cultural atmosphere, as if from one day to the next everyone just "get's it" and that it's, is a rather complex process involving mainly "perspectives". For instance, the Aeon of Osiris, rather than being just "patriarchal" it's the aeon of Plato, in other words: A perspective from which there is THE "truth" and everything revolves around it, the philosopher or saint must, therefore, renounce his existence as false and change himself and the world in accordance to that metaphysical truth. It can be imagined as a heliocentric perspective, there is one and only sun, that is called "Being" or "God" or "Good", the rest are just planets around that sun, everything must exist or conform according to that concept, wether it's Plato's idea of "Good/Being" or the christian idea of providence and God, or the islamic notions of their theology.
The aeon of horus it's an expansion of conciousness, instead of there being only one star, there are millions, infinite number. The heliocentric view is "interiorized" so that the true will becomes that sun and each individual existence revolves around it.
This approach might be useful, at least it was useful to me.
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@asclepi said
"I'm not sure where Crowley first got the idea of the aeons, but it's not new."
I absolutely agree, though I don't think the idea of aeons is at all natural. I posted somewhere up above about other influences on the idea of aeonic histories. They were particularly popular among Enlightenment philosophers, including Condorcet, Adam Smith, and then, later, Karl Marx. Blavatsky took up this idea in an occult context before Crowley. So, I agree, it's not new. I don't mean to convey the idea that it's original with Crowley. I am primarily interested in when exactly he came up with it and where he first published it.
@asclepi said
"An eon is a by-product of Time, it is only natural to think in terms of cycles and "eternal recurrence" as Nietzsche has argumented in the past. All religions have some form of aeonic approach to history, due to the fact that any approach to the meaning or sense of Being inmediatly needs or provides a sense or meaning to History."
Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence" reflects his interest in a return to pagan values. The eternal return is a pagan approach to time and actually pretty foreign to most Westerners today. The Jedeo-Christian approach, on the other hand, is the linear and progressive sense of time that dominates today. I have been giving some thought as to where Thelema fits into this. I think, so far, that Thelema has more in common with a Christian sense of time and space than it does with the pagan sense. Crowley's aeonic scheme, like those of the earlier Enlightenment philosophers, is progressive and linear. It doesn't come back to the same place. Time keeps going forward and is a force of progress. It's also dialectical. The Aeon of Osiris is the antithesis of the Aeon of Isis. The Aeon of Horus is the synthesis to them. It will also act as the thesis to the antithetical Aeon of Maat.
The most important commonality between Christianity and Thelema is that time and history takes place outside of humanity. In the Bible, God creates the world and starts time. He will then end time. In Thelema, the aeons pass acccording to the Equinox of the Gods. It happens on a cosmic scale well beyond the scale of the human. Humans are not the primary agents of historical transformation. We're along for the ride and might as well conform to each passing aeon. In paganism, on the other hand, humans are the primary force in historical transformation.
Note: I'm still working this out. I have some doubts about the progressive nature of time in Thelema. I suspect it is a progressive conception, but maybe not in the way I'm thinking.
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93 jmiller,
You've certainly given me a lot to think about, I've spent this semester studying Heidegger and the notions of time, as well as some Mircea Eliade to balance my readings of Crowley and the issue of Time and Aeons really appeal to me. I can't help you with your quest to find when Crowley wrote about it, but I could spice up the conversation (if you please) with some notes on Nietzsche and the whole linear versus circular viewpoints of time."Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence" reflects his interest in a return to pagan values. The eternal return is a pagan approach to time and actually pretty foreign to most Westerners today. "
Actually is more than that. Nietzsche's fascination over the eternal recurrence is not in a physical sense or literal sense, nor is it in an excuse to bring back the "good old days" of paganism before the slave morality. Heidegger is clear in noting that Nietzsche was obssessed on the idea ever since it was proven to him to be physically impossible, instead of abandoning the ideal of recurrence it fueled it to the maximum, why is that? Because he speaks of the "thought of eternal recurrence" it's a thought or, more acurately, a viewpoint.
In "Thus spoke Zarathustra" the holy man stands in a path, looks back and notices that the path goes back an eternity, and infront of him it goes an infinitum, the idea is this "there is a viewpoint in which our own existence is so small and, in the big scheme of things, tragically insipid and non-important, that existence comes to a decisive point, we can feel the sorrow of existence (as Buddha) or we can elevate ourselves to become supermen". It's a matter of looking at things in another perspective, and it's quite true. In another book (I can't remember which) a demon comes up to Nietzsche and tells him that he will live his life a million times over, this creates a great deal of pain for him. Most people don't understand the subtleties of this metaphor. The "decisive point" is not brought through the angst of knowing you'll do the same over and over again, the true pain comes when you realize the fact that humanity, History itself doesn't need you, in fact, the world will keep spinning around and around wether you brush your teeth or not, you could even go to a monastery and live there the rest of your life that, in the great scheme of things, it will make no difference.
Truly, the feeling of smallness can do two things, either we become buddhist regarding existence as suffering, or thelemites, regarding existence as a playing ground, a box of toys to play with. Heidegger has a similar idea, instead of the thought of eternal recurrence, he takes the angle where you're existence has the potential to be absurd, so therefore you are obligated to take care of your own existence (it doesn't have the same punch, I'll admit, but that's the kind of guy he is).
"The Jedeo-Christian approach, on the other hand, is the linear and progressive sense of time that dominates today."
That's a common misconception, the jews had a cyclical idea of time, as a matter of fact, I dare to say (yes, I dare!) that every single religion on this planet has, someway or the other, to adopt, in some way, a cyclical viewpoint of time. Among many myths of the jews there are the ones about catastrophes, like the flood, it is a symbol of destruction and renewal, (thanks Mircea Eliade!), creation is destroyed and continued. Christ fills the same position, the end of an era (the era of the law) and begins a new one that will end with the apocalypse. The apocalypse itself is huge ideal of cyclical history, the beast is set free, then he is locked up (but never destroyed) and he will come back, the last book of the Bible predicts the events of the first book (Genesis). The main idea is to re-create a world where there is perfect comunion with God, like in the garden of Eden, and yet there is still the danger of the dragon that might be liberated (the serpent will once again start the cycle of human existence).
It seems to us, modern western people, that we have adopted a linear view of time, the error lies here: How we perceive time, either circular or linear, is a dicotomy created by our own imagination. In the end Man is Time (like Heidegger said in Sein und Zeit), what I am, what makes Asclepio be so Asclepio, it's a series of phenomenons and circumstances that has led Asclepio up to this point, then what makes Asclepio? Time, or History if you prefer.
The giant revolution in philosophy and I would dare to say (yes, I'm in the mood to dare today!) one of the milestones of the Aeon of Horus, it's the new perception of time. From Aristotle to Heidegger Time was regarded as a measurement, just like we use feet or centimetres to measure extensions, we use time to measure movement and changes. Heidegger calls this "clock time", the "linear" conception of time from many philosophers come from accepting this as the only possibility, to deny it would mean the destruction of metaphysics (as Heidegger actually does), that's how the false dicotomy was created. Heidegger changes a bit the idea by stating (I'm over simplifing here, I could expand more if you wish) that the object is inseperable of it's context, but so is the interpreter (man), therefore Dasein, Man, is history, it's time, we are born in an already existing world where the interpretations of what is good or evil, sane or insane, correct or false, etc., have already been stablish, Man is the sum of what happened to him, and how he interpreted such events (past), what is going on now (present), and what he expects the future to be, or how he perceives his own context to transform (future).
Time itself is then infinite, for there are an infinite ways of interpreting that which has already happen, and an infinite ways to interpret that which has not yet happened (Nuit, existence itself is infinite), and the present would be the atomic Now (atomic in the sense of both small and necesary, Hadit). Each man is completely different from the rest, a unique viewpoint, therefore every man and every woman is a star.
But why is the dicotomy between linear and circular false? Simple, since man is time, then it all comes down to how we wish to interpret time (which is, at the same "time", pardon the pun, his own existence and the possibility of all existence), to interpret ourselves. On the one hand we perceive that we make progress, we learn, we change through time (or time changes us, either way), but at the same time our context, even though we "feed" it and co-create it, at the same time it creates us, in a way the world can not exist without man, and man without the world, so who makes history? Man, but since man is history, in a sense, it is history that makes man, so you see when you say:
"It happens on a cosmic scale well beyond the scale of the human. Humans are not the primary agents of historical transformation. We're along for the ride and might as well conform to each passing aeon. In paganism, on the other hand, humans are the primary force in historical transformation."
I must say I don't agree, or I agree in 50%, both perspectives are true, WE make history, but at the same time history makes us. The painter is a painter because he paints the house, therefore the painting of the house is what makes him a painter and his status of painter is what makes the painting of the house. The dicotomy between object and subject is illusory.
"I have been giving some thought as to where Thelema fits into this. I think, so far, that Thelema has more in common with a Christian sense of time and space than it does with the pagan sense. Crowley's aeonic scheme, like those of the earlier Enlightenment philosophers, is progressive and linear. It doesn't come back to the same place. "
Here's something interesting, you seem to say that circular time ends where it began, the problem is where did it began? A circle is a circle in so far as one can not tell the beginning from the end, time can't go back at the same place it started because it never started, or better yet, there is no such place. The Bible is a good example, it all starts with perfect communion with God, it all "ends" in perfect communion with God, in a way it would be fair to say it is a circular sense of time, but at the same time, since it is a circle, who's to say the genesis and the garden of eden is the start?, why not start with Moses or Christ? It would make no difference, we start from there because that's how it was printed. There is no such thing as the "end of time", because man is time, and we can not think about the end of man, for some reason it's impossible to think about our own deaths from our own perspectives (we think from the perspective of our loved ones crying over our tombs and such).
Another way of seeing the paradox as an ilusion is this, if we were standing in a forest we would say the progress of the land is linear, horizontal, BUT if we could "expand" our viewpoint, see from other eyes, we would find that the so-called horizontal plane forms a circle (kind of like the game "Halo", sure you're walking a straight line but it is straight only when you can't see the fact that a circle is a line when expanded).
It should not be confused, however, the idea that time is circular as if time goes nowhere or if there is no "progress". Mainly because such categories as "progress", "circular" and "goes nowhere" need the dicotomy between linear and circular as if such differences where real, literal and ontological, instead of being a difference in points of view (we're in a line, but from an outsider such line creates a ring, or "halo").
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@asclepi said
"You've certainly given me a lot to think about, I've spent this semester studying Heidegger and the notions of time, as well as some Mircea Eliade to balance my readings of Crowley and the issue of Time and Aeons really appeal to me."
Thanks for your detailed response. Please recommend some specific texts on this topic - besides Being and Time of course. I'd like to get deeper into this topic.
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@jmiller said
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@asclepi said
"You've certainly given me a lot to think about, I've spent this semester studying Heidegger and the notions of time, as well as some Mircea Eliade to balance my readings of Crowley and the issue of Time and Aeons really appeal to me."Thanks for your detailed response. Please recommend some specific texts on this topic - besides Being and Time of course. I'd like to get deeper into this topic."
Sorry for the delay, some texts on these topics I would recomend Mircea Eliade, he has a great book "imágenes y símbolos" (I'm mexican, so must of my books are in spanish) translated it would mean "images and symbols" a colection of essays on the idea of time in the eastern philosophy and also some thoughts around the symbolism of water (the floods and so on). You might also consider other works by Eliade like his "Tratado de Historia de las religiones" that in english it would be like "treaty on the History of religion" a big book but that contains deep anaylisis on a multitude of religious symbols and traditions (including time), if I'm not mistaken he also has some books devoted entirely to the idea of eternal recurrence. I guess some googling or wikipedia might asist you in your quest.
On Heidegger, besides Being and Time, he has a small essay (and by small I mean less than 20 pages) on the subject of time, this was prior to his Being and Time and outlines the trademarks of his ideas. Of course, Nietzsche's "Also sprachen Zarathustra" (Así habló Zaratustra) that in english I'm not sure how it's translated, should be something like "Spoke Zarathustra", I believe it's in the third part that he meditates upon the idea of eternal recurrence.
I guess a key to these topics are clear definitions (what do we mean by "time"? Heidegger's ideas in his conference of time can give you an excelent perspective on the 2 different ways of conceiving it), and also keeping an eye on the duality of manifestation (how death is also birth, the end is a beginning, etc.). Glad I could be of service (at least for once!)
Happy holidays!
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
See remarks earlier on Past Hierophant. I believe the layout would be Isis in the East, Osiris in the West, and Horus in the Center - which has some absolutely marvelous patterns."If I get this correctly it's sort of a cycle of Isis-Osiris-Horus-Maat-Anubis-Isis... so the next Aeon would have Maat as Hierophant, Anubis in the West and Isis in the Center?
The Center moves to the West in the next Aeon and the West to the East while the Center continues the cycle mentioned above.Therefore, the Aeon after Maat would be Anubis in the East, Osiris in the center and Isis in the West...
Furthermore, if you follow this logic and use a piece of paper, you'll see that the procession is fixed and in fact 3 Aeons after this one, Isis would be on the throne of the East with Horus at the Center and Osiris in the West. AND the one after that (4 Aeons after this one), Osiris would be on the East with Maat in the Center and Horus in the West... once again
I think I'm right, but in any case, what do I get of all this game of Musical Chairs? The gods are playing tricks on you!
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[
Moreover, Crowley would have had great familiarity with "aeonic" approaches to history in general. Although they had largely fell into disuse by the time of Liber L, many people crafted these sorts of histories of eras characterized by unique political and economic organization and drivin by some objective and singluar impulse towards some pre-determined goal. Adam Smith, Condorcet, Marx, etc. And then Blavatsky also had her racialized aeonic history, which surely Crowley knew inside and out.============
yes and didn't Marx borrow/build from Hegel's theories on this? -
@gerry456 said
"[Moreover, Crowley would have had great familiarity with "aeonic" approaches to history in general. Although they had largely fell into disuse by the time of Liber L, many people crafted these sorts of histories of eras characterized by unique political and economic organization and drivin by some objective and singluar impulse towards some pre-determined goal. Adam Smith, Condorcet, Marx, etc. And then Blavatsky also had her racialized aeonic history, which surely Crowley knew inside and out.
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yes and didn't Marx borrow/build from Hegel's theories on this?"Yes, definitely, though they had very different ideas about what drove history. I didn't include Hegel in the list because he didn't have a clear cut set of "aeons". His history was much more fluid. I do, however, suspect that Crowley drew very strongly on Hegel for his aeonic history by employing a fairly simple dialectic of aeons.
