The Middle Pillar
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I typically follow the MP by a technique very close to what is being mentioned here. The light flows up from back of legs to crown, then down the front, then I add up right side and down left, then spiraling up (clockwise) from feet, wrapping the body up like a blanket until reaching the crown, exploding out in a cascade of shimmering light like a slow-motion fountain, and falling back to my feet to repeat the cycle. This is all just extra and on the outside (aura/ egg?) of my body, not the core. It takes a while to get all this done, but it feels pretty good to move energy around.
Two more questions about the overall MP:
I was taught at the end of the ritual to imagine the light becoming invisible (not dissappearing... it is still there) and doing the sign of silence afterwards to veil the chakras and prevent you from walking around "glowing," in which case presumably people are unconsciously drawn to you in a potentially ego-feeding way. Typical or poppycock?
Second, some folks additionally vibrate the appropriate archangel names, presumably invoking them in some way in order to archetypicallize (??) the energy of that chakra. Helpful or no?
Many thanks,
Love is the law, love under will.
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@jlpugh said
"I was taught at the end of the ritual to imagine the light becoming invisible (not dissappearing... it is still there) and doing the sign of silence afterwards to veil the chakras and prevent you from walking around "glowing," in which case presumably people are unconsciously drawn to you in a potentially ego-feeding way. Typical or poppycock? "
To anyone with "eyes to see," and to any denizens of the astral, you're going to walk around glowing regardless - unless you are actually making the light go away.
If "making it invisible" simply means removing your attention from it, so that it is no longer in your field of awareness, then that's cool. But actuall fading it out can, it seems, only go one of two ways: (1) actually turn off what you've just turned on, or (2) make it invisible only to you, since astral denizens are going to see you lit up like a Christmas tree anyway.
In any case (to answer your specific question), this isn't a typical instruction.
"Second, some folks additionally vibrate the appropriate archangel names, presumably invoking them in some way in order to archetypicallize (??) the energy of that chakra. Helpful or no? "
Different technique. Nothing wrong with it. Just note that it's not the same technique.
The Middle Pillar ritual was created by Israel Regardie based on an older, and less defined, Stella Matutina technique of building up the Tree of Life in the aura. In learning that technique, the Middle Pillar Sephiroth were practiced first, and the outer pillars added only after the first stage was stable. In doing this, entire hierarchies could be employed, according to the level of manifestaton sought - it was very loosely defined. But the MP form has emerged as a distinctive ritual with quite different properties and advantages, and not simply as a preliminary practice of the quite different other technique.**
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@Jim Eshelman said
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If "making it invisible" simply means removing your attention from it, so that it is no longer in your field of awareness, then that's cool. But actuall fading it out can, it seems, only go one of two ways: (1) actually turn off what you've just turned on, or (2) make it invisible only to you, since astral denizens are going to see you lit up like a Christmas tree anyway.
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There is a Martinist technique where one uses a cloak (astral and physical) to make the glow invisible to outside entities but the light continues to shine within, under the black cloak.
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93!
So I too read the book by Regardie recently. I noticed a similarity with the Middle Pillar Ritual and one I've practiced a bit called the Merkaba (field around your body in the shape of a 3 dimensional 6 pointed star) Meditation taught in Drunvalo Melchizedek's Flower of Life workshops. It has you do both breathe the light down from your crown chakra, out through your heart (you can fill a room with prana or send out some good vibes to the world), back in then down to your base chakra (since we're dealing with the chakra system it's a sitting meditation opposed to standing, going out your feet- You are suppose to imagine an anchor hanging from the end of your spine going deep into the earth grounding you), then back up recirculating it and so forth. I like it slightly better because of the emphasis of opening the heart center! From my experience you won't get much out of raising kundalini (or worse) without an activated heart chakra so perhaps it is best to use the Middle Pillar ritual before attaining 5=6 (?!- not that I have officially..) Unfortunately it doesn't fully go into it here but you can find it explained in his book without going to an actual workshop, or rent/buy videos of the complete workshop which I think is amazing! www.floweroflife.org/tmerkaba.htm
I've noticed there's different forms/traditions of magick. Some would have you burn something to purify it, others bury it or give it back to the earth. Since as above so below I guess it doesn't really matter since Kether is in Malkuth. I'm currently confused as to whether Malkuth is the planet Earth or Pluto since the heart or Sun is Tiphareth but that's just my trip at the moment....
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@DavidH said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"If "making it invisible" simply means removing your attention from it, so that it is no longer in your field of awareness, then that's cool. But actuall fading it out can, it seems, only go one of two ways: (1) actually turn off what you've just turned on, or (2) make it invisible only to you, since astral denizens are going to see you lit up like a Christmas tree anyway.**"There is a Martinist technique where one uses a cloak (astral and physical) to make the glow invisible to outside entities but the light continues to shine within, under the black cloak."
I would be interested to hear about how one can cloak his/her presence on the astral when doing LBRP, MP or other rituals.
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"I would be interested to hear about how one can cloak his/her presence on the astral when doing LBRP, MP or other rituals."
Take a look at a book called "INVISIBILTY" by Steve Richards. It shows a good technique for forming the astral cloud that enables one to do this.
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93,
Asraiya said:
"I'm currently confused as to whether Malkuth is the planet Earth or Pluto since the heart or Sun is Tiphareth but that's just my trip at the moment...."
Crowley has a chart in the Eight Lectures on Yoga which puts Pluto in Kether. Pluto is (to put in simplistically) about "being utterly different" and Kether is about uniqueness, hence the correspondence.
93 93/93,
EM
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93!
Edward Mason wrote:
"Pluto is (to put in simplistically) about "being utterly different" and Kether is about uniqueness, hence the correspondence."
Well thanks for validating that I'm not way off in left field in my thinking but it seems so backwards still to me. I originally thought for quite some time that Kether was the Sun because it felt like the ultimate attainment (which it likely is actually) and finding it represented by Tiphareth was fine by me making it half the distance and way more possible to reach.. But if Pluto/Kether is about "being utterly different" and unique why is that precisely what we manifest here on this plane? (wait where am i?) I always thought Kether is where we finally become ONE again.
But this thread is about SLEEP so I must be dreaming which brings me to why would you want to cloak your light in the astral or any other place? What have you really got to hide or hide from?!
I say let it shine! Here this sums it up perfectly:
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93,
Asraiya wrote:
"I originally thought for quite some time that Kether was the Sun because it felt like the ultimate attainment (which it likely is actually) and finding it represented by Tiphareth was fine by me making it half the distance and way more possible to reach.. But if Pluto/Kether is about "being utterly different" and unique why is that precisely what we manifest here on this plane? (wait where am i?) I always thought Kether is where we finally become ONE again. "
I seriously doubt whether most of us can grasp just what does lie beyond Tiphereth, and certainly not what's across the Abyss. Yes, we can do so in a speculative or abstract sense, and we can all trot out our Buddhist, Vedantic or Qabalistic vocabulary to prove that. But in terms of just what it would be like to experience consciousness on that level, it's past the point where our reasoning minds can reach, or at least, past what we can express with verbal precision. All we have as a means of communication at that stage is symbols.
My take: We are each unique as we appear in Malkuth. At Kether, we are both unique AND identical with everything else. It is a universalized state in which there also lies a singular perspective, which is then expressed down through the Tree to culminate in a unique personality in Malkuth.
Along that route, there's Tiphereth, which (seen on the way 'down' or 'out' from Kether) would presumably appear to be a transitional state where there is consciousness of both divinity and separate individuality. On the way back 'up' or 'in', Tiphereth would give us the first understanding of what unified consciousness might be like. And since reaching that seems like an attainment from our perspective here in Malkuth (or really, from here in Yesod, the Foundation, since our personalities are creations of mind more than of body), it looks as if it would be a stable, permanent condition.
In Tiphereth, since divinity (the HGA) is included, then we have the semblance of Oneness. It's a Oneness our conscious minds can more or less accept, and (I assume) eventually integrate. What actual Oneness would be like - that is, what the Kether 'experience' would be like ... well, again, words fail.
93 93/93,
EM
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Scrivener - thanks for that tip on INVISIBILITY. I checked out Steve's book on Amazon and it appears to be heavy on theory but little on technique and practise. Does the book provide a specific technique for cloaking one's aura with quintessence and, if yes, can you describe it?
@Asraiya said
"But this thread is about SLEEP so I must be dreaming which brings me to why would you want to cloak your light in the astral or any other place? What have you really got to hide or hide from?!
I say let it shine! Here this sums it up perfectly:
"Asraiya - I think the need to be invisible on the astral depends on each person's experience. After a few spectacular and humiliating magickal blowbacks, one becomes less idealistic and more wary of feeding the local egregore.
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93
h2h wrote:
"Asraiya - I think the need to be invisible on the astral depends on each person's experience. After a few spectacular and humiliating magical blowbacks, one becomes less idealistic and more wary of feeding the local egregore."
I've reconsidered my statements and I do recall a certain time in my life when I can only describe that it was necessary to for me walk into a very dark place (if you could call it that) or situation where it was critical for me to be sort of undercover and conceal my purpose or intention as it felt I may be destroyed. I had to dim down my light to just a spark so that I could hide my true nature and wait til the time was right to fan it back to life. I can hardly describe exactly what the operation was only that it came from a higher calling but it was certainly mandatory to not draw the attention of the egregore like you said so I think I do understand to what you're referring...
Edward Mason wrote:
"Crowley has a chart in the Eight Lectures on Yoga which puts Pluto in Kether."
Do you think in light of more recent astronomical discoveries since AC's time like the declassification of Pluto as a planet to that of a moon more or less that perhaps we should examine the possibility of placing Kether in Nibiru/Planet X/or Eris?? That would be utterly unique since this planet, fact or fiction, supposedly has an elliptical orbit and is traveling in the opposite direction as the rest of us. Hmm... All Hail Discordia!
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Asraiya, 93,
You wrote:
"Do you think in light of more recent astronomical discoveries since AC's time like the declassification of Pluto as a planet to that of a moon more or less that perhaps we should examine the possibility of placing Kether in Nibiru/Planet X/or Eris?? That would be utterly unique since this planet, fact or fiction, supposedly has an elliptical orbit and is traveling in the opposite direction as the rest of us."
You could, sure. Trying to <i>pin down</i> Kether to any one astrological idea strikes me as an ongoing exercise in self-frustration, though.
Back in the day, the Rashith ha-Gilgalim, the First Stirrings or the Nebulae, were attributed to Kether. Then it was Neptune for while for a few people, then Crowley proposed Pluto. But these things function on a consensus that forms around particular ideas. Magick works better, at least within the context of a specific group or community, if we all sing from the same hymn-sheet.
Playing "Choose your favorite Kuyper Belt object" is intriguing, but I think Pluto works fine in Kether, and personally, I don't want to tinker with it. I like the idea that Pluto as a deity is the Underground Guy, hidden in darkness until he snatches Persephone/Malkuth. That marriage between Pluto and her ties in with the "Kether is in Malkuth after a different manner" idea.
93 93/93,
EM
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93
It might be useful to remember that the planetary attributions are just that:
attributions, and not the sephira itself.As I see it, the planets are utilized among the other correspondences to describe the idea that the Sephira represents.
93 93/93
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@Flight93 said
"Any suggestions as to where RMP would fit in Liber V.V.?"
The Ritual of the Middle Pillar didn't uyet exist when Liber V.V. was written, and doesn't exist anywhere in the A.'.A.'. system. Therefore, it doesn't go anywhere in this document.
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Sure. But you were asking about Liber V.V., and that's specifically a map of the A.'.A.'. system. So the Middle Pillar doesn't go on it.
As to where it could go... I can think of several places, depending on the particular system and framework.
As one suggestion, you might consider it the lower-octave expression of Work to be done on the Path of Samekh.
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93
AHA!! GOT YOU THERE,"JIM"!
The REAL Jim Eshelman would surely have known that the RMP covers Kether-Gimel-Tiphareth-Samekh-Yesod-Tav-Malkuth, and thus, you are hereby exposed as an IMPOSTER!( dramatic music)
Kidding.
No, that actually seems a fair attribution. Thanx for the suggestion.
93 93/93
I actually had this one confused with the other thread I posted on (Sleep) last night... Please do forgive my insecurity in assuming I must be off on a tangent as usual.. Hey, I was actually right on target for a change! 