Initiation in Occultism
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@philalethes said
"would you mind describing precisely what a Third Order or Inner Plane contact is (if these designations are in fact synonymous)?"
Oh, it's not that I mind, but it's hardly a quick answer. Let's say, in fact, that it's a lengthy essay I've not yet written. But I am speaking both of very concrete beings, and also broad classes of beings in support of them or in association with them. I have personal theories about these contacts, but they're only theories so it doesn't do anybody much good for me to spin them out.
"Also, would this be considered a criterion of legitimacy, i.e. whether or not an order is contacted in such a fashion?"
You will get diverse answers to that question; and the the debates and ego-saturated competitions that can arise from it make for painful reading.
I'll soften the blow only by saying that "criterion of legitimacy" requires that you specify legitimate what.
"If so, is it possible for a person approaching an initiatory order to determine if it possesses such contacts or is this simply a matter that must be accepted at the outset on faith alone?"
I would think that anyone sufficiently sensible to be trusted would not go very deeply into answering that question.
I don't think it requires faith as such, at least not in the sense of "things unseen." I think the right placement of the trust is in the human beings that form the leadership. They either do, or don't, have "something" about them. To the extent that there is any verifiable evidence, the proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof.
"In your latter comments you discussed the notion of a current that was transmitted from the Prolocutor, through the temple chiefs, to the ordained Hierophant. It would seem that an initiate participating within group convocation would undoubtedly be exposed to this current regardless of their degree, but that in certain circumstances it is mobilized and specifically directed to effect an alchemical transmutation within the initiate"
General lighting of a room vs. a laser. Same stuff, different form and use.
"you mentioned the magical act of the eight degree as an example of this. I would like to inquire as to what this current is and where it originates? Do different orders employ different currents?"
The root current is identical - there is only one root substance. But it does take on a particfular characteristic by the various kinds of filters it passes through. (Light, again, makes a good metaphor.)
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Greetings of peace. I was referring to initiatory orders, specifically to the legitimacy or 'effectiveness' or 'actuality' of their initiation. I suppose that according to the previous discussion it is natural to say that if one of the aims of initiation is to establish inner plane contacts, then the possession of such contacts is a necessary criteria for the effectiveness of the order in conferring initiation legitimately. My primary question is if there are more or less objective criteria that a prospective candidate may use for exercising discernment prior to joining such a group. Is there such a thing as "orthodoxy" and "orthopraxy" in occultism or are the standards of judgment entirely subjective and relative?
Having secured a preliminary overview of initiation in answer to the questions What? and How?, I would like to follow this with an inquiry as to Who? and Why?. It has been said that initiation is for the few rather than for the masses. What are the qualifications for initiation and how do occult orders determine which people are of the select few? Also, although the purpose of initiation is communicated to a degree by its definition, what is its end? People undoubtedly possess various motives for pursuing initiation but where does the path ultimately lead? What is its fruit and how does it manifest within the life of the initiate?
In Peace,
Philalethes -
While I agree with the depiction of initiation in terms of imprints and social-psychological identity construction.
I find that any reference to vague powers, mystical forces, or theoretical transcendent masters, secret chiefs and the like to be in direct opposition to the method of science.
In order to fulfill its motto, one would expect the A.'.A.'. would constrain itself fully to falsifiable theories, observable facts and tried and true known forces, cause and events. This drifting away from the hard sciences and into the metaphysically untenable presumptions is back peddling against everything Crowley worked to establish. It is true that Crowley himself did believe in such elements, however much of his work was against superstition. If we dwell on such mystical powers, we might as well go back to 18th century spiritism. Which Crowley did as much to dispel as Houdini.
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Of course! We can't let the mystical intrude upon mysticism!
Your view of "science" is excessively narrow - this aside from the fact that the phrase "the method of science" (half of the motto of The Equinox) refers primarily to empiricism. Empiricism is the central method of the A.'.A.'. system: Try a thing, write down what happens, review your notes later, draw conclusions.
If one meets a person and sits down to a conversation with that person, and repeats this experience on other occasions, it isn't the promulgation of superstition to say so. The report is based on direct knowledge.
Magick is fundamentally about the experiencing of the unknown and unknowable. The higher aspects of magick and mysticism verge directly on exceeding the parameters of reason.
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science is primarily the investigation of what is not know in terms of the known, such that the unknown becomes the known.
Mysticism is partly the experience of the unknown, but is also the alchemical transmutation of the unknown into the known,
When Columbus sailed west he entered into the unknown, and he guessed at it and called it the "west Indies" which is a nonsense term, just like "mystical powers", but over time as maps are made and drawn up, it became evident that this was a new continent and not some part of Indonesia.
Since mystical powers can be 100% explained in terms of neuro-science, information and other known science, there is no need to appeal to mystical superstitions. As such appeals come with baggage that does not fit the observed facts, and explains one unknown with some even more mysterious term.
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Froclown,
"... the aim of religion", as far as I'm concerned, is not about explaining things, or making the unknown "known" in the common use of the word. I observe, for example, that the tree of life continues beyond "Knowledge". Even Tiphareth is beyond the reach of Hod. At that level, all ideas, words, theories, feelings, and factoids are merely empty representations. As you've made a strong(ish) case for in the past, "Nothing is true." Religion aims at [that-which-is-true]. I think the aim of religion has more to do with 'Being' than 'knowing'/'explaining'.
I suspect that your idea of what "mystical powers" are or are not, is simply not the same as what Jim is talking about when he says things like "current" and "Third Order". I have never seen a "neuron", but I know people who have, and they tell me it's existence is quite verifiable. It would be somewhat clownish of me to overhear talk of "synapses" and "neurons" and then butt in, "You so-called scientists should really stick to observable facts and known forces" simply because I've never observed or known a neuron or synapse before. I would avoid this kind of thing because I, being a man of science, generally prefer to stick to facts and forces which I've known and observed, and not attempt to make proclamations about things I have no experience with.
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Speaking of literal Gods, secret chiefs, spirits, mystical powers, etc one might as well be talking about the lord Jesus Christ and his father in heaven and all his many miracles, or that the Saints really do process our prayer to God.
The whole point is to move past such superstition and define ALL spiritual or Mystical matters in terms of the physical and chemical elements and their actions in the space-time continuum of empirical observation. The imaginary worlds we see in the minds eye are not empirical data, the mind IS the brain, thus the content of visions in not really happening it is the activity of the brain in space time that we must concern ourselves with scientifically. The vision content is an indication of the sort of actual brain activity that is going on and a means by which we can semantically interact with the brain via input of symbols. (When I play a video game, I see forests, dungeons etc. and I kill all kinds of ogres and hell beasts and such with fantastical weapons. But in truth there is no world no weapons and no beasts, its all just electro-chemical events in the computer circuits creating 2D images out of tiny dots of color. If I claimed the Ogres were real and we should barricade the doors in case they attack, that would be foolish, the Ogre is a pattern of lights on a screen, it can't break down the door. Mystical powers are port of the content of a vision or used poetically on the astral plane while in a ritual, and just as ogres do not exist in my yard, mystical powers do not exist in the world outside the ritual space)
Crowley was in some respects unfortunately a poet and as such he was over taken by aesthetic rather than accurate language and metaphor rather than description. It is obvious than in his mind especially with his drug use the planes of poetry and science became blurred. Which was part of his genius.
However, if we are to advance the science of magick, the art of creating semantically controlled environments in order to creates predictable changes in perception and cognition. We really must work to separate actual causes and effects from poetic fancy, that we might find the true causes and the proper names for what is actually going on. Then to regulate the flights of fancy to the circle and banish them from the serious scientific investigation.
Crowley himself said what he was studying was once called spiritual, may currently be called supernatural, and in the future when we know more about what is really going on will have a proper name.
Rather than a "spirit" a more proper name might be "apparition phenomena of a personified unconscious attribute regulated to a medium used for bio-feed back enhancement of that attribute" With greater study the actual brain region, thershhold changes, release of neuro-transmitters and harmonization of firing rates in the brain may be mapped out, such that a proper name for the phenomena is assigned to it, which as no unwanted connotations that a other-dimensional realm of autonomous beings exists that seek to do us favors and detriments.
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"The whole point is to move past such superstition and define ALL spiritual or Mystical matters in terms of the physical and chemical elements and their actions in the space-time continuum of empirical observation. "
No, that is not THE whole point. It's clearly YOUR whole point.
What you preach is materialism. That's as narrow and blinded a religion as any to which you object and, when not founded in ignorance, is founded on fear.
You're just building a spider-webbed metaphysic of your own, as silly and pretentious and absolute as any cloistered ivory tower religion. But you're playing a small, unimaginative game and you appear too frightened to admit the enormity of the universe beyond your tight-spinctered little boundaries.
It's also rather silly that you equate any metaphysical existence that you, personally, can't perceive with any other. There are significant distinctions to be made between individual experiences that you personally have not had.
@Froclown said
"Mystical powers are port of the content of a vision or used poetically on the astral plane while in a ritual, and just as ogres do not exist in my yard, mystical powers do not exist in the world outside the ritual space) "
But wait a minute... if I admitted everything you've postulated, then, in this last sentence you have just said that they actually exist. That is, you have admitted that things which do not exist physically can be used. That makes them actual.
By limiting your window of existence to the material, you miss out on so many levels of existence that are not material - and then hide behind your definitions saying, see, they don't exist.
"Crowley was in some respects unfortunately a poet and as such he was over taken by aesthetic rather than accurate language and metaphor rather than description."
It would be more "scientific" of you to say only that Crowley was a poet (fact!) - not that it was fortunate or unfortunate.
One could as easily say that Crowley was, fortunately, a poet, often taken over by the esthetic - because there are regions of reality that can only be expressed in poetic language, that can only be described through metaphor. This, of course, is a limitation of language mostly, but also a limitation of the non-poetic, non-artistic mind.
"We really must work to separate actual causes and effects from poetic fancy"
But sometimes poetic fancy IS the actual cause, and it is certainly often the actual effect!
"that we might find the true causes and the proper names for what is actually going on."
All this sentence means is that you don't like the names that already exist. A name is a name, after all. A map isn't the territory.
"Rather than a "spirit" a more proper name might be "apparition phenomena of a personified unconscious attribute regulated to a medium used for bio-feed back enhancement of that attribute""
Then, if that's what a "spirit" is, we might as well call it a "spirit." Redefining a word doesn't mean we have to get rid of the word. Quite the contrary. It lets us begin using it with more clarity.
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A metaphor is never the actual thing.
I can say mother nature raged and bellowed her screams and tears ravaged the earth. That is a poetic way of saying that it was storming and thunder loud wind and rain were present that damaged the crops. However, my poetic fancy does not mean that there really is a large invisible old woman throwing a tantrum. The storm has only physical causes, material ones having to do with barometric pressures, due points, the wind currents and water cycles.
When in the ritual space you are IMAGINING THINGS, just like I imagined the old mother nature throwing a fit, that does not mean it was real somewhere in some way. If I draw a picture of the old woman, the picture is all in all it is, paper, ink, pencil graphite etc. There is no old woman in the picture. The mind is just a medium that holds an image, the old woman in and only is the material substance of my brain, painted with electro-chemical patters of neuron-firings.
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Froclown 93,
"A metaphor is never the actual thing."
Yes it is. The human mind works with metaphors based on images and concepts, whether you consider the word 'mind' to be a metaphor for neuron-based electrochemical activity or to refer to something less substantial.
You are good at puncturing balloons except for this one of your own. You seem to believe your observations of sense-data are "real," while all the other activity of the mind, especially different conclusions arising in other people's minds, is somehow fake or pretend. The logical step you refuse to make is to acknowledge your own conclusion as a metaphor - as a part of a personal myth based on mind being an epiphenomenon of brain activity. You write like someone who saw the freeway, but "knew" it was fake because it didn't have stoplights and intersections.
And there's the trap. The localized consciousness that I regard as "myself' does not experience itself as electrochemical activity, because it is designed/evolved to reach beyond the confines of material-plane awareness.
Each stage in initiation requires an abandonment of a previously held position, but that can't happen when we think we've hit on the absolute truth.
93 93/93,
Edward
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I don't believe I ever said there is an epiphenomena The mind is the brain in action. ONLY material substances exist, there is nothing non-physical.
I did not simply think that up and believe my "delusions", it has been tested and shone time and time again. It is a mistake that because I took drugs and saw some visual hallucination to believe those a real, or because I slept and saw a dream world to believe their is a real other world that exists. It is just as much a mistake to believe because I used ritual methods to alter my brain function and actively visualized spirits and such, that those spirits exist somewhere other than as physical events in my visual cortex.
If you say spirits actual exist, capture one on film or in a spirit trap, show some evidence than the spirit is actual the cause of on external event, other than an image in your mind.
If you say that a secret chief is running your organization then show this chief, make it not secret, show how the chief has dealt with the orders taxes or other funding issues, settled disputes, or worked to produce legislation, show its signature on some document or some proof that such a person exists. Once we know who the person is them we can evaluate claims that this person can shape-shift, transcend physical locations and perform miracles.
I have seen no evidence than these chiefs are any more Real than the wizard of OZ, nothing but a cheap ploy to insinuate authority on the part of the actual human leader. Much like a priest who claims to speak for GOD only to keep the ignorant trembling at his feet.
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93,
"If you say that a secret chief is running your organization then show this chief, make it not secret, show how the chief has dealt with the orders taxes or other funding issues, settled disputes, or worked to produce legislation, show its signature on some document or some proof that such a person exists. Once we know who the person is them we can evaluate claims that this person can shape-shift, transcend physical locations and perform miracles. "
I make no personal assertions regarding Secret Chiefs, if only because I'm not sure how such a being (or beingness) could be described. I would, however, be highly disappointed if such an entity was even interested in tax returns. Or, for that matter, could be shown to anybody in the sense you mean. Think, at least, about what such a being would actually be doing before you say you expect it to be something other than what it is.
This discussion will, obviously, spin its wheels until one day you see the constant contradictions you produce. Example:
"The mind is the brain in action. ONLY material substances exist, there is nothing non-physical. "
Look at what you've written here. In one sentence, mind, in the next, matter. You dodge your own inconsistency by denying half the phenomena you need to mention, insisting mind is really material - that is , it's the epiphenomenon that the first sentence of your last response states you had never claimed to exist.
The contradictions are compounded by the utterly unprovable dogmatism of the second sentence. You insist on an empirical standpoint but resort to materialistic fundamentalism as your last resort.
I'm not bothered by your skepticism, but by your lack of logic.
93 93/93,
Edward
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the word mind is a carry over form false beliefs of the past.
The mind is the brain.
The engine and the "engine running" are both just called the engine. the fact that it is running only means the physical the parts of the engine are moving, it's not an epiphenomena of the engine's actions; the running IS the engine and nothing more.
Brain = the inert matter of the brain
mind = the brain in action.There is no contradiction
And what does the leader of an organization do?
They deal with tax documents, legalities, fund raising, internal disputes, membership drives, expenses, distribution of materials, creating long term goals, hiring and firing people (delegating power) etc. If these secrete chiefs are doing any of these they have ot be known, they have to have ids social security numbers, they have to be REAL people that have physical bodies. If they are not doing any of this then what the hell are they doing? nothing of any practical vlaue that's what. -
October Froclown says, "My strong desire not to be duped manifest itself in the LSD intoxication as a realization that my mind was being easily convinced of anything and I had no discrimination faculty, I decided to apply the "Nothing is TRUE, everything is permissible" formula to every random ideal than appeared in my mind to claim its absolute profound truth to me."
@froclown said
"I can say mother nature raged and bellowed her screams and tears ravaged the earth. That is a poetic way of saying that it was storming and thunder loud wind and rain were present that damaged the crops."
October Froclown responds, ""NOTHING IN TRUE" that means all is false, NO, as False is just validating the opposite truth. if "it is raining" is false that means "It is not raining" is TRUE but NOTHING IS TRUE. "
@froclown said
"ONLY material substances exist... it has been tested and shone time and time again."
October froclown, "All perceptions and all thoughts, dismiss them all as interpretations with no validity. And let your mind wonder as it may trying to interpret and convince you this or that is TRUE, but do not let it convince you.
The harder my semantic mind tried to push of an Idea as the final real one great truth, the harder I resisted, and any illusion can be killed with Nothing is TRUE as your soldier, where as any illusion can be entertained as an illusion with "Everything is permissible" as your hunchback. "
Froclown, I think your October self has a point, and you could do well to listen to him very carefully. Your strong to desire to not be duped, coupled with your insistence that nothing is true, has shown you that anytime you think something is true, you are "being duped". It seems as if the more you realize this, the more you resist, and the more you desire to build up a fortress of something being true or real. That fortress is your idea of the material world.
This is your idea of the final, real one great truth:
@froclown said
"material substances exist"
These are your perceptions, these are your thoughts. "Dismiss them all as interpretations with no validity." Rain, humidity, neurons, graphite, paper, visual cortex, dreams, taxes, legislation. All of these can found and verified... by your perceptions. All of these can be rationally conceived and considered... by your mind. They are all thought-forms. You seem to be painfully avoiding the obvious conclusions which your own logic makes clear.
"Nothing is true, everything is permitted," and yet you refused to permit the original thread to continue unharassed because you thought that it was impinging upon your idea of what is true.
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Or, as Emo Phillips puts it... "I used to think that the brain was the most fascinating part of the body, and then I realized - look who's telling me that.." (paraphrased)
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Ah but you do not see that the "October me" was talking about a method of exploring the mind cut off from external perception, it was an the an attempt to find a fundamental truth, when the senses than connect the mind to the external material world are removed from the equation completely. It was the reason turned to explain the reason itself, a method by which the ruach deconstructs itself. Much like the instructions given in Liber OS ABYSMI VEL DAATH.
However lucky for us we are not self-contained ruach with no interaction to the external world. Truth is not generated within the mind but rather is a co-operative venture between the mind and the external stimulation. Indeed for the black brother or one lost in the abyss "nothing in TRUE" and every statement is as meaningless as every other statement, as truth means that the map corresponds to the territory, the statements and concepts of the ruach have to express the fundamental physical reality. The only link we have to that reality is via the sense organs and those are tested against other people's observations while also factors than may cause malfunction of the sense organs or mis-interpretation of the sensory data are removed. The truth is then built up over time, via repeated experiments the results compared and contrasted and the experiments tweaked.
That is the method of science. In order to be valid teh scientific method must work from the foundation than the Physical world in the substratum on which all reasoned thoughts, emotions, sense of spiritual planes etc. are abstracted.
That is The tree of life must be inverted the same way Marx inverted Hegel.
Kether is in a sense derived from or purified (rarefied) out of Malkuth, rather than the Physical world being the emmination of the spiritual "GOD". The Physical body is the most real, we can develop emotions, thoughts and other ability only by conditioning the physical body/brain. The process of evolution for example begins with inorganic material, which over time develops self-replication, then sexual reproduction, movement, attractions and repulsion, these refine into emotions, which over time in some animals refine into symbolic thought. But all of this is still happening to physical matter, and the attractions, emotions, and thoughts are all merely refined processes that occur via the complex arrangement and interaction of physical matter.
The method of science is aimed at religion.
the aim of religion is to understand ones personal identity as part of a larger process of life, an part of a family, society, nation, biosphere, and cosmos. Which is better achieved via the refinement of one's material ability and an understanding of oneself as part of a material chain of events, where those who came before you contributed to your refinement and you may contribute to the future. Where Magick is a science and art of honing ones concentration, visualization, self-discipline, sense of identity and social identity, in order to better fit oneself for ones place in the greater scheme of life, that ones unique place in that great work might be performed more effectively and efficiently. -
You are so full of ideas, froclown! But wait, you're not-- because ideas don't actually exist... Right? Ok, you're so full of brain, froclown! Wait... "you" is an idea, so that doesn't exist either. Ok, So much brains, froclown!
Wait a second! Isn't "**(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain:23a1bpya)" a concept/idea in itself as well?Ok, ok, I get it. "The Brain" is not a concept/idea. "Ideas/concepts" are actually The Brain (in action). And The Brain, of course, is the inert matter of The Brain. But then... what's "The Brain"? Science replies "the center of the nervous system". Oh no. For our one Brain we now have two ideas. centerness and nervous system. Hmm. This is starting to sound familiar...
Damnit! I can't seem to get around to explaining stuff without using words and ideas, all of which are merely representational. And what must they truly represent? Why, the "Physical World" of course! Damnit, I did it again! What is the Physical World?? Help me out here, Ronald McDonald.
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No you only have conscious awareness of ideas, an idea is merely a relative change in the state of the brain.
Ideas are not things, they are processes, changes in the movement of the parts of the brain. The brain is not your idea of the brain, the brain is the physical material thing of which only one tiny part of the brain is a representation of itself.
The brain like a computer is a material hardware than runs software. The ideas are the software. The software is actually just a pattern of hardware states. The computer has a little gif image of a computer with the label My computer under it. That icon is not the computer itself it is merely the software representation (idea) of the computer than is only one tiny portion of the hard dive memory space, which is a physical actual part of the computer.
Look at the word TREE, there is nothing in the word tree that is not in the letters T E R and another E. The word is made of its parts, and the there is nothing in the letter T that is no in a vertical and horizontal line and the line has to be made of a material substance be it ink or colored phosphorus illuminated by on electron pulse behind a class shield.
The word only comes to exist as you arrange the more basic matter in a certain way. An idea is relative and dynamic arrangement of brain matter.
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Greetings of Peace. Seeing that this thread has become sidetracked toward the consideration of scientific objectivity, I would like to take the opportunity to restate my last questions in the hopes of eliciting a response.
Are there more or less objective criteria that a prospective candidate may use for exercising discernment prior to joining an initiatory order. Is there such a thing as "orthodoxy" and "orthopraxy" in occultism or are the standards of judgment entirely subjective and relative?
It is a much repeated axiom that initiation is for the few rather than for the masses for whom, in the words of the introduction to the Temple of Thelema, "conventional religions are provided". What criteria, if any, are used by occult orders to determine who belongs to this few? According to occultism, are there any intellectual or moral qualifications for initiation?
Finally, although aspirants possess diverse motives for pursuing initiation, what is the purpose of initiation as determined by the occult orders? Also, how does the fruit of initiation manifest itself within the life of the initiate (or within your lives for those of you who are initiates?
In Peace,
Philalethes -
Well I would say that the practices before the first initiation are open to anyone to try them out, and have allot to do with developing the ability to concentrate, the memory, and greater control over ones psychology, part of the process is introspective deconstruction of ones identity.
These practices trigger a sort of re-construction of the mind that shifts the center of identity, and the actual initiation is more like a test to prove this has happened as well as the explanation/solidification of that new center of self via relation to external symbols and situations. The culmination of which is the invitation to form a sort of social identity than supports the new self-identity. The actual Grade and title is merely a badge or sign.
What I mean here is that as I see it the actual work of the initiation is already completed, before the group ritual itself is offered. The ritual provides more or stable set of common symbols to help provide stability for the initiate who is probably by this point feeling a bit shaken up and unsure of his new perspective.