Q.B.L. by Fr. Achad
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Draco Magnus said
"I would add that since he jumped from the grade of Neophyte 1=10 to Master of the Temple 8=3, he in fact got no further than Yesod, since his writings rave about the importance of it, it being the generative organ of Man and thus spawning an infinite number of Trees, etc. "Worthy observations.
Probably worth adding in comment to this: There is a fairly common phenomenon at the end of A.'.A.'. 1=10 and the transition into 2=9. The experience (reported by many of us, but not everyone) is that there is an experience that seems to be crossing the Abyss.
I think there are several things involved. One is that the scope of transition between 1=10 and 2=9 is huge, likely waaayyyyyy beyond what a person has experienced previously or thought likely. Second, there is a symbolic relationship between Yesod and Da'ath and between Yesod and Binah (see 11th Aethyr - how the "frontier of the Abyss" is painted in almost exclusively Yesod symbols). Third, every Sephirah has a sub-Tree in it, and (if my experience is any clue) that is a direct experience near the end of 1=10 of passing through the Supernals-of-Malkuth. (These sub-Sephiroth experiences were exceedingly common in all of my early A.'.A.'. grades.)
I was, therefore, suspicious years ago when I revisited the available part of Achad's diaries and noticed his specific experience of passing not just into Binah but of "overshooting" it into Chokmah and "eventuating" in Kether. This was very familiar to me - but as the Supernals in Malkuth!"
EXCEEDINGLY interesting.
(I know the previous remark does not offer much to the conversation, but I felt the urge to post it.)
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This is an extremely interesting thread. Personally I think there is a great deal of substance in Achad's work, as well as a welter of rather tenuous threads. It was he, after all, who discovered the key of LA / AL to The Book of the Law, and I also think that the Word which he vibrated in 1926 - ALLALA - is extremely interesting though I'm not as yet convinced by his assertion that it was the Word of the Aeon which Crowley had failed to utter.
I also find of great interest Achad's contention that the Aeon of Maat dawned in April 1948, the first cycle of which was the Daughter or Ma-Ion. He set out this position in the voluminous correspendence with Gerald Yorke in 1948-9, a correspondence which forms part of the Yorke collection, and upon which Grant draws in the course of Outside the Circles of Time.
Achad's work is highly imaginitive and, inevitably, he took wrong turns. Intuitions are by their nature sometimes spot on, and on occasions turn out to be wrong. Gematria is essentially an art, not a science, growing out of our magical and mystical experience. For instance, I have a passionate interest in Lam and in the Amalantrah Working, and certain numbers which arise in the record of the latter - for example 33 - have become very meaningful for me, incorporated into my magical universe.
If the original poster has decided, as a result of some of the more dismissive remarks in this thread, not to read QBL or other works by Achad, then obviously it's a matter for him or her but I think they're missing out.
Best wishes,
Michael.
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Actully Fraters Achad's QBL was one of the books I was going to pick up for a number of reasons.
when you refeared to Achad mistakes in regard "Intutions are by their nature sometimes spot on, and on occasions turn out to be wrong" that is very well said.
Even Adepts have hang ups and mistakes.
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I just ordered it now BTW
Damn I love amazon..I need to stop ordering books I have like 5 new ones on the way on Kundalini Tantra among other things as well.
Im not trying to be a arm chair musician eather but really going into full gear on studying.
Grants books are next on my list.
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@SetiDraconis said
"I just ordered it now BTW
Damn I love amazon..I need to stop ordering books I have like 5 new ones on the way on Kundalini Tantra among other things as well.
Im not trying to be a arm chair musician eather but really going into full gear on studying.
Grants books are next on my list."
while i don't discourage reading Grant, let me let you borrow some copies or read some pdf's which are available before you spend the vast amounts of cash his works go for these days..
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Jonathan ive found a few of Grants work that are pretty cheap and are some rereales etc
But totally what ever you have is cool to and like I told you I have Maat Magick you can borrow along with some other books as well.
Oh just ordered Chicken Qabalah as well along with Achad"s book.
Thanks again
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@Jonathan said
"while i don't discourage reading Grant, let me let you borrow some copies or read some pdf's which are available before you spend the vast amounts of cash his works go for these days.."
These PDFs are unauthorised reproductions of Grant's work, and as such are - whatever the motive - a copyright violation.
Grant's Outside the Circles of Time will be republished in February or March, and others volumes of the Typhonian Trilogies will be republished in a phased programme thereafter, including Beyond the Mauve Zone and The Ninth Arch which are presently the most expensive of the out-of-print volumes to obtain.
In the meantime, please do not encourage the proliferation of pirated copies of these works.
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Understood Michael...I will be buying some of the Starefire press's books soon of Grants work.
I was looking at Mandrake press but looks like I have to order them from the UK.
Unless you know a North American distrubter I can order them from?
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These PDFs are unauthorised reproductions of Grant's work, and as such are - whatever the motive - a copyright violation.
"Are there authorized ones? I think there should be.
In the mean time, I will just have to wait for Hecate's Fountain to magically appear in my mail box.
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hahaha oh man,damn thats how I feel some times about getting any of Grants books...I feel like I got to jump over firey pits and climb mountains to get his books...or have ALOT of money lol
I really want to read Hecates Foundation to,to be honest.
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Mr Staley,
On the note of "Hecates Foundtion" will this be rerelased in the future at all??
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93,
"Our way is no more TRUE than his way, but when 99% of available material uses a certain attribution, not to mention the millions of adepts who have "built" these correspondences on the "astral" plane, or in the "collective unconscious"(however you choose to see it) it behooves us to take advantage of the labor of others. "
This is a great quote.
I've been doing archetype (active meditation) work for about 17 years now, and one thing that quickly becomes apparent is that even repetition on your own "builds the thought form" that makes things better perceived, not only in inner-senses, but in terms of seeming to have 'more power'. (Not sure this is a reality, might be as much a perceptual variation as time and space and direction, in that state.)
IMO the universe is infinitely divisible and indivisible. The Tree of Life and the Tarot and Astrology (and probably i Ching and whatever else) are different ways of "broadly categorizing the universe" of energy, but since it's the same universe (internally) they have correlations. (I am zero expert on any of those btw.) I have found that using archetypes that have a great deal more thought-form history (I love the Thoth deck) have a power (or perceived power) that is experientially different from other archetypes, even those which are uniquely personal and powerful to me for my own reasons.
Over time I've come to consider it a sort of secondary thing. I think one could look at the constellations for example, and they are archetypes you can work with internally, but those stars could just as easily be worked into completely different patterns, some left out and others now unused included. There is only 'tradition' that it must be the way it's been laid out (and the tradition varies by culture, though I will caveat here that 'insight' is probably involved in the choices at some point). But I think that the historical thoughtform on a given pattern (e.g. Knight of Wands; or, Aries) creates a sort of extra-effect running through the human experience of it. I'm trying to say that I'm not sure the effect is 'real' as concerns primal energy (for lack of a less retarded sounding term), I just think that it is genuinely-experienced (meaning it may be something more about human experience of the universe, than the universe, if this makes any sense at all).
Anyway, I think using existing, traditional archetypes is a good thing for this reason. They are no more or less real than the infinite alternatives. And I'm all for being creative and letting your inner divine and guides, aeons and soul-siblings and so on guide you into creative and unique things if that's where it leads. But there is something else I don't have a word for, that "traditional" forms provide just as a result of being the oft-used familiar of our species.
93 93/93,
RC -
Crowley wrote to Jones regarding QBL, and in particular, the Appendix:
"From what I can see of the Appendix generally, it appears to have some very interesting ideas, but I think it is a case of rushing into print. The best ideas are none the worse for being allowed to mellow. The real interest in the Appendix is that it illustrates your rough working, and if we let it go as that instead of making a dogmatic revolution, it is impossible to take any objection to it. I think you have failed to realize that Atbash is no better and no worse a Temurah than any of the other systems. What I dislike about your proposed rearrangement of the Sephiroth, is that such changes merely upset a meaningless convention. It is therefore the blow of a sword in the water. There is no point in proving that Sunday ought really to be Saturday because humanity has missed a day since the day of creation, unless there is a day of creation; and as we know there isn’t, it is much best to support the conventional calendar. I think you could have brought out all the truths of your Appendix without upsetting the language."
- Crowley to Jones 9 January 1923.
In this appendix to QBL, Jones partly outlines his reversed Paths for the Tree of Life. To illustrate, in the Golden Dawn system, Path 11 refers to 0, the Fool, whereas in Jones’ system, it refers to XXI, the Universe. Path 12 is similarly I, The Magician against Jones’ Last Judgement. Path 13 is II, The Priestess against XIX the Sun. Path 14 is III The Empress against XVIII The Moon. And Path 15 is, in the Golden Dawn IV, The Emperor but with Jones, Path 15 is XVII The Star. Similarly, the GD has Path 28 as The Star but Jones has Path 28 as The Emperor.
Crowley wrote in Book 4, Part III, Chapter 0:
"One who ought to have known better tried to improve the Tree of Life by turning the Serpent of Wisdom upside down! Yet he could not even make his scheme symmetrical: his little remaining good sense revolted at the supreme atrocities. Yet he succeeded in reducing the whole Magical Alphabet to nonsense, and shewing that he had never understood its real meaning. The absurdity of any such disturbance of the arrangement of the Paths is evident to any sober student from such examples as the following. Binah, the Supernal Understanding, is connected with Tiphareth, the Human Consciousness, by Zain, Gemini, the Oracles of the Gods, or the Intuition. That is, the attribution represents a psychological fact: to replace it by “The Devil” is either humour or plain idiocy. Again, the card “Fortitude”, Leo, balances Majesty and Mercy with Strength and Severity: what sense is there in putting “Death,” the Scorpion, in its stead? There are twenty other mistakes in the new wonderful illuminated-from-on-high attribution; the student can therefore be sure of twenty more laughs if he cares to study it."
It is passing strange that Crowley states that there are "twenty more laughs", because this would necessarily include his own Star and Emperor Tarot Exchange, which he, along with Jones, adopted in 1923.
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Frater Achad was an egomaniac obsessed with his own intellect. Crowley took an interest in him only out of desire to see his "child" realized. Yet remember the verse in Liber Legis: "Let him not seek after this, for only thereby can he fall from it."
As far as Achad discovering the "key" to Liber Legis: any intelligent student of the Qabalah can undertake such permutations. Notice also that he failed to expound upon fundamental mysteries of the book, i.e. the cipher, and the "circle squared." No, Frater Achad is a putz, unworthy of the title "Master of the Temple," and his books are an auto-erotic manifestation of his own deluded ego.
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Egomaniac? Are you guys serious. Jones held a job unlike crowley. Was married and adopted a number of children. There is an interview on occultofpersonality with one of frater achads adopted children. I think you guys should get your facts straight.
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Sorry it was on thelema coast to coast....His sons name is Tony Stansfield Jones. Here is the link.