The blood of the Adept
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Thanks for the feedback.
Your objection to the castration p.o.v. touches precisely on the point I am trying to clarify. Is it correct to say that the adept, after the process of castration, abnegation and dessication described in Liber Cheth and having been reborn in the womb of Babalon, subsequently becomes “enkindled in God” – locked in an eternal tantric embrace with Babalon per the 156 principle?
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@he atlas itch said
" Is it correct to say that the adept, after the process of castration, abnegation and dessication described in Liber Cheth and having been reborn in the womb of Babalon, subsequently becomes “enkindled in God” – locked in an eternal tantric embrace with Babalon per the 156 principle?"
What is 'dessicated' is the personality - the prior point of identification and self-centeredness. (And even that's not entirely true. The personality / ego construction remains intact or, rather, regenerates readily, but the experience of identiying with it is displaced.) The Being who historically has had that identification is set free.
Yes, enkindled, and toward the presence of what is as rightly called 'God' as any other functional term. (That that as a simple 'Yes,' but with the caveat that the Master's understanding of the word 'God' may not resemble yours.) 'Locked in eternal tantric embrace with Babalon'? To the extent that one could generalize, I'd have to say no, actually, in Binah one is more identified with Babalon, i.e., the 'good wife' in relationship to Adonai that is Her husband. The adoration / devotion / surrender to Babalon is the work of the 7=4 and, more immediately, of the Babe of the Abyss.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"To the extent that one could generalize, I'd have to say no, actually, in Binah one is more identified with Babalon, i.e., the 'good wife' in relationship to Adonai that is Her husband. The adoration / devotion / surrender to Babalon is the work of the 7=4 and, more immediately, of the Babe of the Abyss."
I am puzzled by your description of the good wife in relation to her husband the Adonai at Binah - which seems more descriptive of KCHGA at Tiphareth. I understood the HGA is abandoned in the crossing of the Abyss since the distinction between self and inner Other, subject and object, is erased, and all that is left is the momentum of True Will drawing consciousness toward the City of Pyramids. What’s not clear to me is whether the loss of integration in the crossing implies 1) a full merging with HGA-consciousness in a sort of “upper birth” or implies 2) the loss of the HGA and whatever is left - the dust of the adept - is carried on the winds to the City of Pyramids.
Going from your description, the HGA is preserved in the crossing and the adept identifies himself with Babalon upon attainment to 8=3 and the 5+6 union continues up into the Supernals. Since the Scarlet Woman is supposed to be the representative of Babalon and the Beast the representative of Chaos, there is an odd gender role reversal going on here - perhaps shedding light on Crowley’s cryptic hint that aspirants to the A.A. are men whereas initiates of the A.A. are women (or at least his role vis-a-vis Neuberg in the Bou Saada Working).
This gets back to my original point on castration, which should not necessarily be construed in a negative sense (psychoanalysis defines it as the subjectivity of the feminine) – namely what happened to the Fool’s wand - in the sense of his male identity - at 8=3? Or rephrased, is it correct to say the perfecting of the Fool implies transforming from a man into a woman without any loss, but rather an increase, of enjoyment – which, let's not forget, is the signifier of mastery in any given situation??
Beyond all the theory, the hallways, edifices and monuments of intellect and knowledge, one hears the sound of intoxicated laughter...
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@he atlas itch said
"I am puzzled by your description of the good wife in relation to her husband the Adonai at Binah - which seems more descriptive of KCHGA at Tiphareth. I understood the HGA is abandoned in the crossing of the Abyss"
"Abandons," not "is abandoned." The HGA abandons the adept on the threshold of the Abyss, but returns (in a new relationship) once that ordeal is completed.
"since the distinction between self and inner Other, subject and object, is erased"
Hardly - since it's still convenient. I'm not quite sure where you got that particular hit on this step, although your words to resemble some other things that have rightly been said about it. For example, as One Star in Sight phrases it, "His word is to comprehend the existing Universe in accordance with His own Mind."
"and all that is left is the momentum of True Will drawing consciousness toward the City of Pyramids."
You are describing the grade of Babe of the Abyss, not Magister Templi - that is, the time of crossing, not the conditions after.
" Going from your description, the HGA is preserved in the crossing"
Not preserved. One is abandoned by the Angel for the crossing, then rediscovers the Angel after. The Angel is immortal and needs no preservation.
"and the adept identifies himself with Babalon upon attainment to 8=3 and the 5+6 union continues up into the Supernals."
The K&C of the HGA occurs in the Path of Gimel. It continues as such until the final fulfillment of Gimel. - There is, for example, no loss of duality in Binah - or even in Chokmah (wherein is the real fulfillment of the formula of 2); but duality, opposition, etc. are experienced differently. Below the Abyss, opposites are experienced as separate; above the Abyss, opposites are experienced as united, or, even more so, as identical - certainly inseparable. I'm tempted to say (on this occassion, at least) that the only real thing "lost" is separation.
"...there is an odd gender role reversal going on here"
Gender is convenient to a given situation. I suggest you not be very rigorous about it. It's nearly arbitrary.
"perhaps shedding light on Crowley’s cryptic hint that aspirants to the A.A. are men whereas initiates of the A.A. are women"
Cryptic? It's pretty straightforward. He is saying that those who have attained to Binah partake of the nature and symbolism of Binah, which is substantially that of Woman.
"This gets back to my original point on castration, which should not necessarily be construed in a negative sense (psychoanalysis defines it as the subjectivity of the feminine) – namely what happened to the Fool’s wand - in the sense of his male identity - at 8=3? Or rephrased, is it correct to say the perfecting of the Fool implies transforming from a man into a woman without any loss"
Except that's not what the word means. Castration does not turn a man into a woman because men and women are both sexual beings, whereas castration is the removal of one's capacity to be that. The testicles in the male are formed from the same cells that would have produced ova had the fetus become a woman. Removing these makes one... neither.
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JAE, 93,
The preposition caught me here:
"The K&C of the HGA occurs in the Path of Gimel."
That is, not in Tiphereth, nor where Gimel meets Tiphereth (?) I can see how the K&C would or could be an occurrence that comes about as a result of the impact of Gimel on Tiphereth, but the usual way of stating things is still to say that it happens *within *Tiphereth.
I realize that drawing mental diagrams of a kind of Briatic G-spot ("This must be the location, about a tenth the way from Tiphereth to the intersection of Teth") would be ludicrously nit-picky, but what you seem to say here is that we have to reach beyond Tiphereth to 'Know & Converse.' The state is not definitively entered into within the sephirah itself.
Correct?93 93/93,
EM
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@Edward Mason said
"The preposition caught me here:
"The K&C of the HGA occurs in the Path of Gimel."
That is, not in Tiphereth, nor where Gimel meets Tiphereth (?)"
The adept is in Tiphereth. That alone marks the attainment of Adeptus Minor Without. In the A.'.A.'. system, it is Tiphereth of Briah, which is no small attainment; but the task is then to aspire to a further mystery, and in this the relationship is between Tiphereth and Kether.
We could debate endlessly, I suspect, on whether something descends into the heart, or whether the adept is lifted up. It doesn't really matter, I think: the two are brought together into intimate union.
"I can see how the K&C would or could be an occurrence that comes about as a result of the impact of Gimel on Tiphereth, but the usual way of stating things is still to say that it happens *within *Tiphereth."
No... it happens to one who is within Tiphereth. That's not the same thing. - Tiphereth within us is still wholly human, perhaps the most human in some senses; but this particular wedding is a communion between the human and the divine.
There is an interesting doctrinal item hidden in the word Gimel. The word is spelled Gimel Mem Lamed; and these are the three paths which characterize the Word of the Adeptus Minor Within.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Edward Mason said
"The preposition caught me here:"The K&C of the HGA occurs in the Path of Gimel."
That is, not in Tiphereth, nor where Gimel meets Tiphereth (?)"
The adept is in Tiphereth. That alone marks the attainment of Adeptus Minor Without. In the A.'.A.'. system, it is Tiphereth of Briah, which is no small attainment; but the task is then to aspire to a further mystery, and in this the relationship is between Tiphereth and Kether."
Really? I'm sure I remember you saying once that the Adeptus Minor Without is in the Tiphereth of Yetzirah, and that the K&C of the HGA is their initiation into the Tiphereth of Briah. Hence the uniqueness and power of this 'first Samadhi' comes from the fact that the Adept passes through the first 50 gates of Briah in one instance.
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@PatchworkSerpen said
"Really? I'm sure I remember you saying once that the Adeptus Minor Without is in the Tiphereth of Yetzirah, and that the K&C of the HGA is their initiation into the Tiphereth of Briah."
Let's disentangle some confusion of the planes...
In a Golden Dawn model - which would include Temple of Thelema - the threshold of fully functioning in Yetzirah is Tiphereth. So the Tiphereth grade in such a system is Tiphereth of Yetzirah.
But the A.'.A.'. system is scaled differently. The Briatic consciousness is awakened by the completion of the work of Dominus Liminis. In a way that is even more obvious than in many other grades, completing the work of Dominus Liminis literally makes one an Adeptus Minor Without - that accomplishment being the successful awakening of, and a certain stabilization within, Briatic consciousness.
The K&C of the HGA is then the Heh finding its right permanent relationship to the Yod.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"The K&C of the HGA is then the Heh finding its right permanent relationship to the Yod."
What does this symbolism signify on a technical level? If the Dominus Liminis work opens one up to Briatic consciousness, what new level of consciousness does the K&C of the HGA initiate (in terms of the planes)? My guess would be the first glimmerings of Atziluth.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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"since the distinction between self and inner Other, subject and object, is erased"Hardly - since it's still convenient. I'm not quite sure where you got that particular hit on this step, although your words do resemble some other things that have rightly been said about it. For example, as One Star in Sight phrases it, "His word is to comprehend the existing Universe in accordance with His own Mind.""
My interpretation is taken from, among other quotes, the following by Crowley in MWT:
For the decision which determines the catastrophe confronts only the Adeptus Exemptus 7° = 4°. Until that grade is reached, and that very fully indeed, with all the buttons properly sewed on, one is not capable of understanding what is meant by the Abyss. Unless "all you have and all you are" is identical with the Universe, its annihilation would leave a surplus.
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I think I see how you made that leap. You wrote:
@he atlas itch said
"since the distinction between self and inner Other, subject and object, is erased"
And that was inspired by your reading the passage that ended:
"Unless "all you have and all you are" is identical with the Universe, its annihilation would leave a surplus.*"
Notice that the Crowley quote speaks of all being annihilated whereas yours only spoke of annihilating a distinction.
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well, It would seem that the annihilation of the distinction would appear as the annihilation everything, from a subjective perspective because no perceptions are possible other than as relations between Self and Other. (just as shutting the eye appears the same as if all the lights were shut off in the room).
The annihilation of ALL being itself however would be subjectively indistinguishable from the mere annihilation of distinction but objectively it would mean an end to all things. It attainment were to actually annihilate BEING rather then simply to produce a mental state that makes awareness of BEING blotted out, then if any one anywhere in the universe attained Samadhi then everyone else would blink out of existence.
It seems clear to me that since the universe still continues to exist that either, 1) no one has ever truly attained Samadhi. 2) That we must re-define Samadhi as a subjective experience.
The only other options are to give up everything we know about the world, and adopt a metaphysics that radically differs from common sense, empirical evidence, and our tradition of rational knowledge.
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@Froclown said
"It seems clear to me that since the universe still continues to exist..."
On what basis do you conclude that it still exists (rather than, for example, again exists)? (I won't event go into the separate question of whether it ever exists.)
"The only other options are to give up everything we know about the world, and adopt a metaphysics that radically differs from common sense, empirical evidence, and our tradition of rational knowledge."
That, of course, is the whole point. One has to rely firmly on common sense and empirical evidence, but shouldn't confuse that with taking them seriously.
And "our tradition of rational knowledge" is, of course, the framework that the mystic eventually has to dismantle since it is incapable of modelling what's so.
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I shall begin by defining Deconstruction, via wikipedea
"Deconstruction is the name given by French philosopher Jacques Derrida to an approach (whether in philosophy, literary analysis, or in other fields) which rigorously pursues the meaning of a text to the point of undoing the oppositions on which it is apparently founded, and to the point of showing that those foundations are irreducibly complex, unstable or impossible.
Deconstruction generally attempts to demonstrate that any text is not a discrete whole but contains several irreconcilable and contradictory meanings; that any text therefore has more than one interpretation; that the text itself links these interpretations inextricably; that the incompatibility of these interpretations is irreducible; and thus that an interpretative reading cannot go beyond a certain point."
Magick especially alchemy seems to be an example of this sort of method. Which although such a method reveals the nature of our concepts and the fundamental oppositions on which they are built and encourages a new relation to meaning, in which conception contain contradiction as necessary to their foundation, This method does not encourage a total abandonment of the knowledge, pragmatic and functional truths that those concepts have already established.
Which is to say "before zen chop wood carry water, after zen chop wood carry water"
I can't see that a total an radical change in metaphysics to the extend that well established Physical laws and the nature of our naive realist reality (Malkuth) would not be directly derived from those metaphysics.
That is we must not fall into proposing a nature of Kether which would make its expression in Malkuth impossible or highly improbable. If the ultimate nature of reality seems radically incompatible with the reality of appearances and we want to avoid delusions which prevent Willful action, it is best to question ones presumptions and perceptions.
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@Froclown said
"That is we must not fall into proposing a nature of Kether which would make its expression in Malkuth impossible or highly improbable."
We can't? Of course we can. In fact, we must. Essential to understanding reality is to recognize that it's inexpressible in any authentic way through the normal faculties of sense and psyche. In particular (since you cite Malkuth), it's inexpressible in terms of the five senses or ordinary sensibility.
"If the ultimate nature of reality seems radically incompatible with the reality of appearances and we want to avoid delusions which prevent Willful action, it is best to question ones presumptions and perceptions."
By this framing, the existence of microscopic organisms would need to be denied in the absence of a microscope. The absence of the microscope, however, doesn't condemn them to inexistence.
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Not at all.
what I am saying is that microbes that exist have to be compatible with the world we know an the larger level. Since the world we live in to the result of the activity of the smaller scale parts, that means it is not possible that the parts would exist in such a way that they can not fit together to make our world.
Put another way, when you look at the pieces than make up the puzzle, they MUST fit together to form the image we see. If we think the pieces are such that their shape and nature could not possibly form the image we see from above, then we are not seeing the pieces right.
Since malkuth is built upon or out of Kether, that means the potential for Malkuth to form must be present in the nature of Kether. If we propose a more fundamental reality or metaphysics that level of reality has to posses the potential to form level bellow it.
The blue print for yesod must exist in Tiphereth.
A seed must contain the ability to grow into the plant. If an Acorn does not have the potential to be at Oak tree, then the Acron is NOT the seed of an oak tree. If a metaphysics can not possibly create the foundation for the Physics we do know, then it can only be false.
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@Froclown said
" the Physics we do know"
Here's the issue I see:
What we do know is inductive in nature (and all reason, being based on inductive, or deductive, reasoning, is flawed. They both require making fundamental assumptions - either that the sample is representative of the whole, or that the foundation is sound). We know data, and formulae that describe relationships. In certain circumstances..An example. Gravity. We had a very nice formula for working out the attraction between 2 masses, thanks to Newton.
However, the mistake would be to assume that this formula, and the fundamental "law" of physics were one in the same.
Einstein came up with something with greater breadth (something that accommodated light - which Newton was forced to leave out).
So... until we have an elegant unified understanding of everything from an empirical point of view... my suggestion would be to not sweat the apparent contradictions to much... and to maybe read AC's commentary to II:27.
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Einsteins new Paradigm did not contradict what we already knew to be true about gravity from newton.
However, if we have to devise some kind of radical metaphysics that is demands an almost solipsist subjectivity, or whatever it would actually require to hold true that Samadhi objectively destroys the whole world. That metaphysics would make physics as we know it impossible.
If that were true nothing would be anything, anything could be anything, Cows turn into potatos, rocks that cant be lifted poping into being and being lifted anyway. black would be white up would be down. etc
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@Froclown said
"Einsteins new Paradigm did not contradict what we already knew to be true about gravity from newton. "
Yes it did. According to Newton's formula, mass would not attract light, since light had no mass. According to Einstein, it would.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gravitation
That doesn't mean that it's 100% bunk. It's an amazingly good approximation of a relationship between mass, within certain tolerances. In fact, we still often use Newton's formula, realizing its limitations.
Back to the point: not having attained Samadhi myself, I can't from experience describe the manner in which it "destroys the world" objectively or metaphorical, or somewhere in between.
I'm just pointing out that you don't have to force these two ideas into a dichotomy. But suit yourself.
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If Samadhi objectively destroyed the world, then YOU would be killed when anyone anywhere entered a Samadhi.
If you have the hallucination than your house was blown up, your dog is not killed in the explosion. If you house is objectively blown up you dog dies.
That is fundamental, and that is what no new paradigm can change.
It would be like if Einstein's theory of Gravity showed that bricks can not possibly fall to the earth. We already know they do fall down, thus no theory that does not allow for bricks to fall, can be a correct theory.
Any theory than states that a subjective cause like changing brain states can cause the UNIVERSE as a whole to actually cease to exist, goes against everything that defines reality as we know it to be.
And saying that it both does and does not destroy the universe is just a contradiction and thus carries no information content.