Joining the A.'.A.'.
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I can not claim to have fully attained the grade, but I am working on the task of building organizing and thus mastering myself a temple.
I have mostly worked on my own, and thus not kept written records as orderly as one should, when those records are presented to others.
I believe I could organize my notes, in such a way as to make my 7=4 thesis available in a way that is clear.
As of now it resembles Philip K. Dick's rambling exegesis, Officially I should get it together and publish it. And Ill make it a priority.
My post "property of mission control" is more or less an account of my state upon entering the grade of Zelator. Which was indeed quite an ordeal.
You may believe that I just granted this grade on myself aut of egotism, but I was tested by some other Thelemites with ties to official organizations and each suggested that I showed understanding appropriate to the Magister Templi grade
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@Froclown said
"I can not claim to have fully attained the grade, but I am working on the task of building organizing and thus mastering myself a temple. "
A very suitable 1=10 task.
"I have mostly worked on my own, and thus not kept written records as orderly as one should, when those records are presented to others."
Couldn't pass beyond 0=0, then.
"I believe I could organize my notes, in such a way as to make my 7=4 thesis available in a way that is clear."
Concretizing it is a significant part of the work - from a personal development (rather than service) p.o.v., possibly the main point of it. "I believe I could" isn't close. (And, for the moment, I've skipped the nine prior grades.)
"You may believe that I just granted this grade on myself aut of egotism, but I was tested by some other Thelemites with ties to official organizations and each suggested that I showed understanding appropriate to the Magister Templi grade"
To give some perspective: The Student test of A.'.A.'., if passed perfectly, shows an intellectual attainment equal to 7=4 on the intellectual plane. However, passing it only qualifies one to become a Probationer 0=0.
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I have just never had a need to present my work to other people that much, I never was very good at note taking. I work it out for myself then move on, I never really took notes is school or university either.
I figure if I get it, then its natural to me and well become a part of me, if I don't fully grok it and do not become obsessed with it, then that information is none of my concern. until such time as I need that knowledge or skill as a means to attain a higher level point that does draw my fascination.
I may lumber a bit on physically doing things, but I have attained much on the inner planes.
I mean the they ritual is only on aid of the Yoga, if the inner experience is attained, not much use going through the motions of physical ritual, just for show.
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93!
Jim:
"To give some perspective: The Student test of A.'.A.'., if passed perfectly, shows an intellectual attainment equal to 7=4 on the intellectual plane. However, passing it only qualifies one to become a Probationer 0=0."
Ah! Excellent clarification! So how does one know when they haved passed the test?
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@Asraiya said
"Ah! Excellent clarification! So how does one know when they haved passed the test?"
They're informed by the person grading it.
Remember, this isn't a solitary system - it's a system of person-to-person linkage, one who has crossed the ground assisting those who are preparing to do so.
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I believe that at strategic points along the way I have met with people who had gone before me "senseis" who acted as guide posts for my progress.
I am not sero following Crowley's system to a T provides the best methods though. My progress was market by Wicca/paganism providing an alternative spiritual system to the Christianity I rejected. Also delving into Discordianism and various Chaos magick systems, eastern and western philosophy, Quantum mechanics, Psychology and sociology partially along the lines of Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary, et all.
and a heavy dose of Rebelliousness and personal experiments.
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Sure. Everybody reads other stuff, wanders down different roads.
But if you haven't passed the specific landmarks outlined in the A.'.A.'.'s defining documents, you may be doing something (even something of great value to you) but it isn't A.'.A.'..
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Well i do not think those things are "different" paths.
For example I think just as each Sepheroth has a God form to be invoked, it seems to me that a GOD form comes with an entire religion or paradigm.
Thus To fully take on the atheistic materialist paradigm of Science is to invoke Hod and work towards the attainment of Practicus.
Likewise, to fully accept Wicca is to invoke Netzatch.
The perspective that all various Gods exist as a continuum which can be tuned into like radio stations, relates to Tiphereth, and facilitates the HGA experience, especially when that principle is applied to the INNER SELF vs. the external personas.
This method is based on Chaos magick and its paradigm shifts.
A complete embrace of the Nothing is TRUE: Everything is permissible paradigm opens the thresh-hold of the abyss.
The INNER SELF (HGA) is banished from its central position. In terms or the Hexagram, the SOLAR paint moves to join the 6 planetary paints, the result is the Heptagram, as in the seal of Babalon.
The Abyss is crossed by Usurption, the void becomes the new Focal point of ones being, as a Magister Templi. Represented as the open space in the center of the heptagram, which is the cup of Babalon, to be filled with the blood of saints. Which is to say the Yod, of divine spark, cast forth by the Magus.
Thus a Magister templi must construct and fortify a dewlling place or Womb in which to gestate that word. (as such it is a feminine grade).
The transition to Magus then appears to be total identification with the Yod , A full Samadhi with it, but only after one has passed the tasks of MT, can this be accomplished upon the word.
It is to these tasks that I dedicate my work,
"That I shall Interpret every event as a direct communication between GOD and my soul"
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@Froclown said
"Well i do not think those things are "different" paths. "
Of course there are. But A.'.A.'. is the name of one specific system. The fact that you want to pursue a different path is cool, but the fact that you steal an existing system's name to do it isn't cool.
Call it the Order of Froclown (O.O.F.), The Gospel of Thomas (G.O.T.), or the Make It Up As I Go Along (M.'.I.'.U.'.A.'.I.'.G.'.A.'.) - but it's not A.'.A.'. any more than it's the Girl Scouts of America.
"For example I think just as each Sepheroth has a God form to be invoked, it seems to me that a GOD form comes with an entire religion or paradigm."
I agree.
"Thus To fully take on the atheistic materialist paradigm of Science is to invoke Hod and work towards the attainment of Practicus."
Sure.
"Likewise, to fully accept Wicca is to invoke Netzatch."
Yesod, more likely - and, in terms of internal development, more Malkuth.
"This method is based on Chaos magick and its paradigm shifts."
Not to be confused with A.'.A.'., of course.
"A complete embrace of the Nothing is TRUE: Everything is permissible paradigm opens the thresh-hold of the abyss."
FWIW, I've yet to encounter a Chaos magician who had the slightest clue about the Abyss, although most are living a script of encountering what I might call "barrier thresholds" and breaking through them routinely. In casual language one might call this "an abyss," but in technical Qabalistic language it isn't "The Abyss."
" The Abyss is crossed by Usurption, the void becomes the new Focal point of ones being, as a Magister Templi."
See immediately above, and trying not to LMFAO.
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Do you have documented evidence that you have attained the official A.'.A.'. Grades up to MT.
and can yau prove that your experience and expression of these is more authentic than mine?
A was under the impression that attainment was a process in the individual and its achievement is authentic reguardless of the dogma and trappings of symbols and rituals.
That the A.'.A.'. system formulated by Crowley was a suggested set of rituals that he found would achieve results, but like any other science the system is open to challenge and alteration, in order to progress.
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@Froclown said
"Do you have documented evidence that you have attained the official A.'.A.'. Grades up to MT."
My grade isn't the question here, eh? Please review above and you will see that I haven't claimed any grade at all.
"and can yau prove that your experience and expression of these is more authentic than mine? "
You're changing the topic. It's not a matter of authentic experience, it's a matter of definition. You can't join the Girl Scouts and, by doing so, say that you're in the Boy Scouts. If you do, you're either lying or wrong.
"A was under the impression that attainment was a process in the individual and its achievement is authentic reguardless of the dogma and trappings of symbols and rituals. "
Attainment, yes. But this isn't necessarily true for attainment within a specific system. As you point out, there are many different systems, and the steps, stages, labels, etc. don't at all mean the same thing in different systems.
To use an easy example, a 6=5 Adeptus Major in the old Golden Dawn order doesn't at all mean the same thing as 6=5 Adeptus Major in the A.'.A.'.. (For one thing, the old G.D./R.R. et A.C. system is only an attainment of Geburah in Yetzirah, whereas the A.'.A.'. grade of the same number and name is attainment in Briah.) They aren't comparable other than in the broadest theoretical sense, and to say one is 6=5 in the old system carries little (if any) practical meaning in the A.'.A.'..
"That the A.'.A.'. system formulated by Crowley was a suggested set of rituals that he found would achieve results, but like any other science the system is open to challenge and alteration, in order to progress."
Not just rituals - a whole system. You stated the correct point: It was a specific system formulated by Aleister Crowley and G.C. Jones. It shouldn'[t be confused with some "generic attainment" label that a person can turn into whatever they think it should be and still call it the other system.
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You seem to think that a grade in the A.'.A.'. is like a degree from a university.
It is rather a state of being that one attains.
Sure a masters degree from Brown is not the same as one from Yale, and a degree in physics is not the same as a degree is philosophy.
However, is no less an Atheist if one cones to that conclusion via a refutation of the ontological argument or by your faith impotence against personal traumas.
The means are different, the result is the same.
Is not the A.'.A.'. to mean the sanctuary behind the cloud, and Crowley's external order, though he called it the A.'.A.'. was itself not the platonic ideal order, written of in the cloud upon the sanctuary.
IT was however directly concerned with aiding the common man in his ascension to that one true brotherhood or prophets, who experience the TRUTH behind the veils of rituals, maintained by the priests be they catholic Bishops or Thelemic whores, to administer the inner truth in a shell understood by the worldly population.
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@Froclown said
"You seem to think that a grade in the A.'.A.'. is like a degree from a university.
It is rather a state of being that one attains. "
We're close to agreeing on that. I would say, rather, that it is reflective of a state attained.
Except that's not entirely true either. While state changes to tend to occur for most people between most grades, there are only certain grade transitions that are decisively "state changes" in the (for example) "shift between Qabalistic worlds" sense. Some of the intervening ones, for some people, are much more like university grades in that they are mostly confirmation of mastering and passing examination on a specific set of skills - which are brought to play in the "big shift" points.
But this still misses the main point: Given that A.'.A.'. Grades are substantially marked by such transitions, so are other kinds of training systems, and this doesn't make them equivalent. The A.'.A.'. 5=6 Grade, for example, marks pretty much the same primary state of development of the Aurum Solis Third Hall grade - but one can't become an A.'.A.'. 5=6 and say one is an Aurum Solis Third Hall initiate, or vice versa.
You're still treating A.'.A.'. as if it's some generic.
"Is not the A.'.A.'. to mean the sanctuary behind the cloud, and Crowley's external order, though he called it the A.'.A.'. was itself not the platonic ideal order, written of in the cloud upon the sanctuary. "
Unfortunately, Crowley was sometimes confusing in his language. (I'm avoiding more than a brief mention of the digression that the "Cloud Upon the Sanctuary" partial rewrite should have been called "An Account of R.'.C.'." instead of "An Account of A.'.A.'." - it's really of a stage well below the Third Order.)
Primarily the A.'.A.'. is the name of a specific organization founded by Aleister Crowley and George Cecil Jones in 1906-07. Secondarily, the initials are sometimes used to refer to the Third Order from which that organization extends. The name of that Third Order, "Silver Star," has the initials S.'.S.'. in English, and it's much less confusing to use this name. Since the Greek initials of the same words are A.'.A.'., Crowley sometimes used them just to refer to the S.'.S.'..
Just as a point of communication, I strongly recommend just calling it "the Third Order," S.'.S.'., etc. since none of those terms applies to the specific manifest organization called A.'.A.'..
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I think you're completing missing the point that Jim is arguing, Froclown. You may be ascended to a spiritual height and may be instituting a valid system of initiation, it's just that it's not "A.'.A.'.". You have your analogy of Yale and Brown. If you graduate from Brown, you can call yourself a college grad, but not a grad of Yale... you didn't go to Yale. It's the same as that you can't call yourself a grad of A.'.A.'.... if you didn't really climb its particular system.
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Well, I was appointed to the position in the SL A.'.A.'.
I had actually advanced linearly to the grade of Practicus, but it seems my previous advancements were taken into account, and I was Granted the grade of Magus.
I considered my personal grade at the time to be the Equivellent to 7=4 is the A.'.A.'. system, having been previously dealt quite a blow in the abyss.
I still had my sights on 8=3 but felt I should, start over as a neophyte to refortify my foundations. Thus I was my reasoning for joining this order.I found myself rapidly advanced to Practicus, and then finally given total control over the order. I took displayed my title as Magus, but felt I had only proven myself up to Practicus and my actual grade that of Adept Exempt preparing for a second attempt at the abyss.
Then I spoke with one "Leo Twin" who assessed by grade as the opening of Magister Templi, and I came to realize that my attempt to cross the abyss had not failed, rather I was turning away from it, I refused to live up to the oath, I denied taking it.
Well, I accepted the oath and my inner vision became clear,un-muddled in a way that it had been.
Thus I changed my title to Magister Templi. and set out to reform this virtual A.'.A.'. to reflect the official structure af the A.'.A.'. in order that I might entice the WORD or current of the Aeon to fill it.
And this I should think the work Proper to a Magister Templi.
(Also I might add that the Grade is open to any neophyte who accepts the oath)
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@Froclown said
"Well, I accepted the oath and my inner vision became clear,un-muddled in a way that it had been."
If your posts on this forum are a reflection of this "clear, unmuddled" vision, I'd hate to see what you were thinking before your fantasy attainment.
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@Froclown said
"(Also I might add that the Grade is open to any neophyte who accepts the oath)"
The exact quote is: "Any neophyte of the Order (or, as some say, any person soever) possesses the right to claim the Grade of Master of the Temple by taking the Oath of the Grade" (One Star in Sight).
This is commonly misunderstood to mean that one actually attains the Grade by taking the Oath. In fact, it only says that one has the right to claim it. It's a trap for posers who go around claiming things. One doesn't actually get the grade that way.
BTW, the one line from the MT oath that you quoted earlier is a very worthy goal and an enormously valuable practice. It is, however, only the Malkuth clause of the 11-line 8=3 oath. Here is the entire Oath.
"I. I, ___________, a member of the Body of God, hereby bind myself on behalf of the Whole Universe, even as we are now physically bound unto the cross of suffering:
II. that I will lead a pure life, as a devoted servant of the Order:
III. that I will understand all things:
IV. that I will love all things:
V. that I will perform all things and endure all things:
VI. that I will continue in the Knowledge and Conversation of my Holy Guardian Angel
VII. that I will work without attachment
VIII. that I will work in truth:
IX. that I will rely only upon myself:
X. that I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul.
And if I fail herein, may my pyramid be profaned, and the Eye closed to me." -
Clear to me and clearly expressible in linguistic symbols does not mean the same thing.
You say that 5=6 is not the same in one order as in another.
But is it not an expression of the formula of the rosy cross, which is alchemical union of opposites. Is it not marked by the distillation of the higher or Inner Self, or Knowledge and Conversation of the HGA, which means the same thing.
Are you saying that different orders offer different HGAs?
Or shall we continue with my assertion that attainment of the HGA is the same regardless of the circumstances which bring it about, and it matters not if you call this 5=6 or uniting with ones Atman.
Crowley was given 9th degree in the OTO, without having earned the degree in succession from the order.
When Crowley and Jones formulated the A.'.A.'. Neither of them started as a neophyte and worked his way through the system. Crowley earned his outer order titles in the golden dawn, his 5=6 from persuading Mathers, and he Conferred the titles of adeptus major through Ipssissimus upon himself.
I might add that he attained these Grades, not by word with the A.'.A.'. system directly, but via his works with Aiwass and his efforts to bring about the new aeon. In fact he formulated the A.'.A.'. as part of his attainments, it was not via membership within it.
