The role of the Qlippoth in Thelema

Jim Eshelman

@Jastiv said

"That does not sound right to me. Maybe some Thelemites have an alternate set of definitions as to what most other people mean when they refer to the left hand path vs right hand path.

Typically right hand path has meant conventional religion of some sort. It is considered the safe path, you follow a series of predetermined steps. You get where you are going to get by following through the program."

Or, to put it more crudely, RHP is "good" and LHP is "bad" in the most simplistic way. (Except in some Eastern schools, where LHP is "good" and RHP is "bad.")

But the reason for the good/bad has nothing to do with conventional religion per se, but the specific characteristic of evolutionary vs. resistant to or avoidant of the full course of evolution. (That is, continuing in one's course vs. starting to drive in reverse thinking it's a better way to "get back").

Your definition of RHP doesn't at all describe a large number of conventionally RHP schools.

"Left hand path is the opposite. It is considered to be the dangerous path for the heroes. It typically starts with some sort of blasemphy against conventional religion and social norms. Then it goes from there. "

Not historically. If you want to make up your own definition, then fine.

BTW you've just described Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, to name a few examples.

Alias55A

"(Except in some Eastern schools, where LHP is "good" and RHP is "bad.") "

thats more like it

ok, lets be a bit more specific, heres my opinion.

RHP, christianity, islam, buddhism ect.. what jim said.
Alternative RHP, white magick, GD , buddhism, mainstream wicca lol

white/black magick: just using it as a lableing of any "soft, safe boring fluff bunny stuff", and black as the usual LHP Goetia, enochian, satanism, new age satanism, luciferianism, and anything dark in general.

LHP, satanism??? something against mainstream religino
Alternative LHP, black magick and stuff said above revering to black magick.

from my understanding comming from reading some of jims opinions on the qlipoth(however u spell that), not much difference except for some "fine" points in relation to the AA system.
so how can one system be more "aligned" to the progression of the soul when not everyone follows the same path? some people like the darker side better and spiritualy and emotionally it is more healthy and satifying for them then others.

thoughts? (will return later, food calls...)

Edward Mason

Alias 55A, 93,

The qlippoth are understood to be the shells of the dead - what's left of old ideas and outmoded energies. I don't think becoming my great-great-grandfather (or his ideas and proclivities) would be a progressive spiritual step.

They are inherently unbalanced because they are no longer part of the evolutionary stream of life. Sure, they could be cool to play with, because that very imbalance is going to make them seem dynamic and exciting. Ever hang out with a convicted fraud? I knew one once, and he was charismatic and fascinating, at least until he violated his parole and went back inside.

But setting up an either/or scenario between 'white light Qabalah' and a sort of death-metal Qabalah (which is usually how this realm is presented through cultural motifs) is an inaccurate way of representing the situation. Q'lippothic energies need to be dealt with in their time (and I don't mean merely beaten into submission, either), but deliberately making a qlippothic scenario the core of your practice is putting yourself out of kilter. Sure, it's fun to get roaring stoned at times ... but at some point, ya gotta chill and come home again, and that means you need to remember just where - and what - home, the Hadit-light within Nu, actually is. Often, LHP people tell me (in effect) that there's no such place. Does that mean I'm wrong, or does it mean they've lost their inner compass?

Playing the unbalanced game qlippothic forces need you to play (which requires you to sacrifice some of your powers of discrimination and will) doesn't strike me as an evolutionary step onward. Evolution is towards greater awareness, not just incorporation of energy from the shadow-side.

And I personally find a kind of qlippo-fundamentalism among the LHP crowd. They 'know' they're the lords of darkness (or somesuch), the ones who are really rocking out with the cosmos, while I'm being all prissy and white light. That, to me, smacks of misplaced elitism.

93 93/93,

Edward

Allogenes

@Liber Tzaddi: said

"33. I reveal unto you a great mystery. Ye stand between the abyss of height and the abyss of depth.

In either awaits you a Companion; and that Companion is Yourself.
Ye can have no other Companion.
Many have arisen, being wise. They have said "Seek out the glittering Image in the place ever golden, and unite yourselves with It."
Many have arisen, being foolish. They have said, "Stoop down unto the darkly splendid world, and be wedded to that Blind Creature of the Slime."
I who am beyond Wisdom and Folly, arise and say unto you: achieve both weddings! Unite yourselves with both!
Beware, beware, I say, lest ye seek after the one and lose the other!
My adepts stand upright; their head above the heavens, their feet below the hells.
But since one is naturally attracted to the Angel, another to the Demon, let the first strengthen the lower link, the last attach more firmly to the higher.
Thus shall equilibrium become perfect."

Alias55A

"The qlippoth are understood to be the shells of the dead - what's left of old ideas and outmoded energies. I don't think becoming my great-great-grandfather (or his ideas and proclivities) would be a progressive spiritual step. "

true, even though i dont know much on the qlippoth subject, theres gotta be something else, other then shells of the dead(just a hunch).
i.e. the tree of life must have a shadow, as the sun rises and sets, and the moon pops out, if there is "night" side to it, what is it like? do we know much about it, the reason i say this the dark is got greater then the light, or vice versa, its an equal balance, thats where my "hunch" comes in to play that there has to be something of worth in this "night" side.

"Often, LHP people tell me (in effect) that there's no such place. Does that mean I'm wrong, or does it mean they've lost their inner compass? "

well like in all systems of magick you got ppl who know something and got somewhere or just dumbasses, in which i dont know which type your describing. Some of my friends follow the LHP, and i wouldnt say they have lost their compass, some if not most of their senses are better then mine, and ofcourse are very independent ppl, so i think they rely on themselves instead of a concept.

"Playing the unbalanced game qlippothic forces need you to play (which requires you to sacrifice some of your powers of discrimination and will) doesn't strike me as an evolutionary step onward. Evolution is towards greater awareness, not just incorporation of energy from the shadow-side. "

agree, but from what you are describing to me about the qlippoth, it doesnt seem the best LHP system to work with. As there are other LHP system's that push towards awareness, evolution and what not.

"And I personally find a kind of qlippo-fundamentalism among the LHP crowd. They 'know' they're the lords of darkness (or somesuch), the ones who are really rocking out with the cosmos, while I'm being all prissy and white light. That, to me, smacks of misplaced elitism. "

lmao i know what you mean, theres a goth club in ybor city florida that i hand out at sometimes when i can afford it, and it draws the LHP big time there, and a nice vampire coven that usually hang out in what they call the "red room" its nice and so is the energy omg!! but most have ego's which is a downer, but most RHP ppl have "self rightiousness" :::shruggs:
and old christian concepts of the darkside of things which gets very old and annoying.

Edward Mason

93,

"agree, but from what you are describing to me about the qlippoth, it doesnt seem the best LHP system to work with. As there are other LHP system's that push towards awareness, evolution and what not.
"

Sure, okay. But this thread was about the qlippoth.

Last year I gave a course in Tarot, and some of the meditations and explorations I did on the connecting paths beyond Tiphereth were not about what I expected, or had previously encountered.

And I think this is the nub of it. Something like LHP work has always been part of the advanced Second Order curriculum. But people saying "Hey, this looks co-o-o-l!" and jumping in before they get to that stage are in deeper waters, with faster currents, than they realize. The instruction to the rest of us has always been "Wait for that stuff," and I think that makes simple sense.

93 93/93,

Edward

Alias55A

"Last year I gave a course in Tarot, and some of the meditations and explorations I did on the connecting paths beyond Tiphereth were not about what I expected, or had previously encountered. "

interesting, you got my attention, care to explain

"And I think this is the nub of it. Something like LHP work has always been part of the advanced Second Order curriculum."

whoooo! good, i was a little worried the AA curriculum may not be balanced lol.

"But people saying "Hey, this looks co-o-o-l!" and jumping in before they get to that stage are in deeper waters, with faster currents, than they realize. The instruction to the rest of us has always been "Wait for that stuff," and I think that makes simple sense."

lol that was me 4 1/2 yrs ago, they told me to wait and stick with mastering the basics, and i went jumping from one system to another looking for a power kick lol, didnt happen, well mabye a little lol
but im still stuck dealing with more crap and energy on my plate then when i started lmao"

Edward Mason

93,

"EM wrote:
Last year I gave a course in Tarot, and some of the meditations and explorations I did on the connecting paths beyond Tiphereth were not about what I expected, or had previously encountered.

Alias 55A wrote:
interesting, you got my attention, care to explain "

Just that I found myself looking at much more primal energies than I'd encountered before. Now, it was a stressful time where I worked, with repeated layoffs and similar joys, and I don't know how much this environmental input affected what I was getting. But I found some of the imagery I got had (for want of a better phrase) a 'pre-human' feeling. It wasn't at all comfortable, for example, to deal with the paths above the Abyss, which had an atmosphere of the world before biological life came to it. There was little or no human feeling or imagery to any of it. I felt relieved each time I finished one of the exploratory exercises. It made sense, but it wasn't what I'd either read or intuited previously.

On the other hand, a path like the Chariot, which is famously dark and heavy, was positively playful.

So, when people start talking about the Left Hand orders, I feel I was seeing a particular stratum of the Tarot system that's close in nature to what they work with.

93 93/93,

Edward

Alias55A

now see if ppl would put better input in the tarot, it might appeal more, but i do have to get better at meditating a lil first, i suck at imaginative journeys of any sort.

i have had a pre-human experience before, but wasnt frightening though, one sunny day i took my wife and her kid out to indian rock beach here in florida and when i stepped onto the edge of the water and sand, it was like bliss, nothing but smooth beautifull ocean and the sun at eye level in front of me, i cant realy describe it except it felt like i was one with the universe, like starring at the sands and waves of time with the glimmering sun, i felt as if i was the universe experiencing the beginning of time but in god form, absolutley amazing.

i was a sick that day though, for some reason when im sick i can connect to and feal energy better, more open then usual.

atlantis

@Jim Eshelman said

"Or, another way to say the same thing, is that some people today are using the term LHP in their own way, neglecting what the term has always meant."

What would you say that the Left Hand Path has always meant? Certainly not what Crowley writes. Since he was completely off the track when talking about the Left Hand Path. He made the mistake of working further on Blavatskys definition of the Left Hand Path, which incidently has nothing to do with the Left Hand Path at all. This is also why we see so much strange writings from Crowley concerning tantra and probably why the american stream of what wrongly have been called Left Hand Path have arrived at their position: the ego is god. Based on Crowleys misinterpretation..

@Jim Eshelman said

"If you only meant that you have problems understanding how one "would ever arrive at Will" without confronting and owning the suppressed, denied, pathologized aspects of their own psyche, then I'd agree with you completely - it just doesn't happen. But that doesn't appear to be all that you mean, and I imagine we would disagree both on method, and on the undesirable secondary effects that might come from one method vs. another."

Indeed it is beyond that. I would not even say own, because own could describe a relationship of power, where one is over the other. The Sephirothic parts of the mind should not own the Qliphothic. They should not either be in balance. Further, the qliphoth is way much more than only these things. It concerns enormous vistas of conciousness to which one needs the correct qliphotic keys.

@Jim Eshelman said

"I'm not sure what "conquered the ego" means, so I don't know if I agree with you entirely. (For that matter, I just realized I may not know what you mean by "arrive at Will." It's a very strange, ambiguous term. "Will" isn't a destination.)"

The conquering of the ego is the twofold success of both being able to transcend the ego whenever needed, and arriving at a position where the ego can be remodeled to suit the needs of the Will.
I often write arrive at Will or something like it to point out that the Will is trancendental, it is not something one have before initiation. Will could be described as a train to which you have obtained a ticket and you have to go on it, wherever it may take you. You have to sacrifice everything without hope of Will to be something that pleases the ego. To be able to do this, the Qliphoth is needed – within a qabalistic perspective.

@Jim Eshelman said

"Part of the confusion in such discussions is that, while there are useful conventions in speaking of the Sephiroth and Q'lippoth in forms such as two mirrored trees, etc., that's also misleading. The Q'lippoth are part of the Sephiroth: just one more layer to the multi-World layering within each Sephirah."

I agree. This is also a very important point. The sephiroth with 10 distinct spheres could also be misleading. The map, the theory will in the beginning not work optimal because there is not sufficient experience to base that theory on. When one knows basic things like how to astrally project at will, how to communicate with angels and demons, how to enter trancestates that disintegrates the ego at will or whatever, then one will be able to use the theory as a tool, to be able to discuss with others. One will notice that the huge theoretical wall between Qliphoth and Sephiroth is not really there. But just as there is a point of talking about Binah and Yesod as separate, there is a point in talking about Sephiroth and Qliphoth as sepate. Everything has its own time, its own function.

@Jim Eshelman said

"First, in the East and West, LHP vs. RHP often have meant exactly opposite things."

From what do you arrive at that position? I don´t think I have ever met someone that would describe it this way. Could you elaborate?

@Jim Eshelman said

"The main characteristic of LHP historically is that one is moving counter to natural spiritual evolution by trying to back against the current rather than go forward through the necessary changes of a soul's rightful evolutionary progress.

Yes, you can diagram this with "involution-evolution" cycles, and that communicates to some people, though it's at least somewhat misleading - because the two phases aren't really separate."

This might be a part of the theroetical framework within certain Left Hand Path systems. See for instance the system of Austin Osman Spare concerning Esoteric Atavism. This is a clear and good example of how this theoretical framework is fused with an underlying practice that given the course of initiation will arrive at

It is however wrong to state that the Left Hand Path only seeks out the past. It is equally interested in the future. This is true also with eastern Left Hand Path, which is concerned with both. Just as the tradition I am in. The work of going against the grain pushes you backward and forward. After a while it pushes you outside time itself. Kenneth Grant for instance talks about it in ”Outside the Circles of Time” and ”Hecates Fountain”. Thomas Karlsson has some words to say on it when discussing Thagirion in ”Qabalah, Qliphoth and Goetic Magic”.
And as I already said, this is true both for the real western Left Hand Path systems and the eastern. There is no such thing as eastern only being interested in atavism for instance.
The Left Hand Path is a step outside causality.

@Edward Mason said

"The qlippoth are understood to be the shells of the dead - what's left of old ideas and outmoded energies. I don't think becoming my great-great-grandfather (or his ideas and proclivities) would be a progressive spiritual step."

Come on.. The motif of the shells of the dead is part of a larger qabalistic context. The multitude of ways on how to interpretate the Qliphoth is deeply related to how one views the Sephiroth and Qabalah in general. I have gone through this in another thread, but I will post some of it here just so that you get the drift:

On Qabalah, Qliphoth and the Gietic Magic:

"If you read the book through pages 21-105 you will notice that it presents a multitude of different kabbalistic ideas on the qliphoth, creation, etc etc..

For instance we find on page 100 a series of examples on different kabbalistic interpretations of "The root of Evil" as:

Ain Soph
Binah
Din or Geburah
Hod
Malkuth

On page 101 one can note that Karlsson writes that Geburah is the most common, among these ideas - it does not say it is the idea, or even his idea. The Dragon Rouge is not limited to one theory. Theory is a tool at the hand of the adept of the Left Hand Path."

We might of course sit here and giggle and point at words such as ”Evil” and say that oh, these Dragon Rouge people has not come out of the Good-Evil dicotomy yet. This is incorrect, the word Evil is here used only because of it´s traditional significance, to make it easier to read the classic Qabalistic literature afterwards.

So the whole point here is that before we start to analyse the meaning ”the shells of the dead” we should look at the qabalistic litterature, not just go ahead and talk about the problems of our grandfarthers. Thomas book is a great start.

@Edward Mason said

"They are inherently unbalanced because they are no longer part of the evolutionary stream of life. Sure, they could be cool to play with, because that very imbalance is going to make them seem dynamic and exciting. Ever hang out with a convicted fraud? I knew one once, and he was charismatic and fascinating, at least until he violated his parole and went back inside.
But setting up an either/or scenario between 'white light Qabalah' and a sort of death-metal Qabalah (which is usually how this realm is presented through cultural motifs) is an inaccurate way of representing the situation. Q'lippothic energies need to be dealt with in their time (and I don't mean merely beaten into submission, either), but deliberately making a qlippothic scenario the core of your practice is putting yourself out of kilter. Sure, it's fun to get roaring stoned at times ... but at some point, ya gotta chill and come home again, and that means you need to remember just where - and what - home, the Hadit-light within Nu, actually is. Often, LHP people tell me (in effect) that there's no such place. Does that mean I'm wrong, or does it mean they've lost their inner compass?

Playing the unbalanced game qlippothic forces need you to play (which requires you to sacrifice some of your powers of discrimination and will) doesn't strike me as an evolutionary step onward. Evolution is towards greater awareness, not just incorporation of energy from the shadow-side.

And I personally find a kind of qlippo-fundamentalism among the LHP crowd. They 'know' they're the lords of darkness (or somesuch), the ones who are really rocking out with the cosmos, while I'm being all prissy and white light. That, to me, smacks of misplaced elitism."

The evolutionary stream is a casual process out of which the Left Hand Path tries to get out. Atavism is a tool in this, so is it´s opposite. The point in the end is as I wrote above to get outside Time. But that´s just halfway through the system.

@Edward Mason said

"And I think this is the nub of it. Something like LHP work has always been part of the advanced Second Order curriculum. But people saying "Hey, this looks co-o-o-l!" and jumping in before they get to that stage are in deeper waters, with faster currents, than they realize. The instruction to the rest of us has always been "Wait for that stuff," and I think that makes simple sense."

I have a hard time believing or understanding why anyone would get into the Left Hand Path because it is cool. Maybe they would get into the theoretical material, maybe they would misunderstand it to such a point that they feel that it resonates with what they are at the moment. Just a bit of tapping on the underlying current of the Left Hand Path would however make sure to that person that what he is to be dealing with is nothing of the sort he was hoping for. The Qliphotic initiation is not a pleasant practice.
But then again, I don´t live in the United States, where there is a lot of confusion concerning what the Left Hand Path (just look at people like LaVey, Aquino, Ford.. I mean come on. What´s the deal?). I would not even call these things Left Hand Path. It has nothing to do with it. It is just an ego-game.

Btw, Allogenes: Great quote!

atlantis

@Alias55A said

"now see if ppl would put better input in the tarot, it might appeal more, but i do have to get better at meditating a lil first, i suck at imaginative journeys of any sort."

For Atavistic cards I would recommend you take a look at (I use the Tarot de Marseille)
La Lune, Le Diable.

Further, the tunnel of Parfaxitas has strong atavistic powers. It is not present in La Maison Dieu, but in Crowleys Thoth Tarot, the atavistic aspects of the Tower are more present.

All cards of the deck is related to both the paths and the tunnels.

Edward Mason

Atlantis, 93,

"The evolutionary stream is a casual process out of which the Left Hand Path tries to get out. Atavism is a tool in this, so is it´s opposite. The point in the end is as I wrote above to get outside Time. But that´s just halfway through the system."

I don't accept the evolutionary stream is casual. The Universe I look at has tended towards complexity since its beginning, and from that I infer something more than a casual process. It's in no hurry (by human standards, anyway), but after thinking this through from various directions and standpoints over a few decades, I think it's headed "somewhere," and that somewhere is, I would agree, out of Time.

I might agree on non-use of the word 'evil' regarding the qlippoth - that could be a long, nit-picky discussion. My only practical concern here is that yes, in blighted North America, there are people who do say "Way cool!" and don't realize the degree of subversion of their standard self-concept that happens with qlippothic workings ... and can't get back to their start-point when it's time to review just what's happened.

93 93/93,

Edward

atlantis

Complexity, yes. Entropy and determism is no dicotomy.
I believe that also Crowley had some sort of critique of the determinism that is life without Will, and that Will is a totally different thing, outside the continuum of the physical world, not controlled by it. Anyway, this is my take on it. If someone knows the place where Crowley talks about this maybe that person could post it. Could be somewhere in Magick Without Tears.

And as I said earlier. I think that the problem of the "cool" Left Hand Path is a highly specific american phenomenon. The first self-proclaimed european Left Hand Path people are of a completely different sort than LaVey and Aquino. I am thinking about people like Julius Evola and Kenneth Grant. But also people that did not use the term but which definately could be said to be related to the Left Hand Path are of a completely different sort:
Joseph Antoine Boullan, Maria de Naglowska, Eugen Grosche, Austin Osman Spare and others.

Interestingly enough, the US has some interesting examples aswell, like Paschal Randolph, however mostly completely forgotten.

Jim Eshelman

@atlantis said

"Interestingly enough, the US has some interesting examples aswell, like Paschal Randolph, however mostly completely forgotten."

That is so funny! PB Randolph was almost the defining classic Right Hand Path figure of his century in America.

Which furthers my emerging theory that most of this is a competition of labels.

Alias55A

"For Atavistic cards I would recommend you take a look at (I use the Tarot de Marseille)
La Lune, Le Diable.

Further, the tunnel of Parfaxitas has strong atavistic powers. It is not present in La Maison Dieu, but in Crowleys Thoth Tarot, the atavistic aspects of the Tower are more present.

All cards of the deck is related to both the paths and the tunnels."

I have "Tarot of the Elves" by Mark McElroy, great artwork! anyone heard of this deck? i like it, i connect with the graphics realy well and use the book of thoth interpretation.

tunnel of parfaxitas? tunnels? explain please.

Modest

Alias is a perfect example how a newbie gets into magick and is comfronted with too much information from a wide range of books... and where to start?..

Alias55A

"Modest
Post Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 6:05 pm Post subject:
Alias is a perfect example how a newbie gets into magick and is comfronted with too much information from a wide range of books... and where to start?."

uh ya, you can bit me ,
no, and yes, high magick is much more complicated subject then witchcraft, but i would not label myself really a newb to magick, just high magick

atlantis

@Jim Eshelman said

"
That is so funny! PB Randolph was almost the defining classic Right Hand Path figure of his century in America.

Which furthers my emerging theory that most of this is a competition of labels."

Interesting that you would see Randolph as RHP. But then again, I often see Crowley as LHP. Especially after reading Kenneth Grant this becomes clearer. But Liber AL in it self, and Liber 333 is very LHP.

Did you get my post at
Wed Jan 06, 2010 2:09 am?

Competition of labels.. Well. I have never felt it that way.

@Alias55A said

"
tunnel of parfaxitas? tunnels? explain please."

According to some Qabalists, for each path between sephiras, there is a tunnel between qliphas. Hermetic Qabalah often attributes the paths to the tarot. The tunnels are attributed in the same way.

See for instance Liber 231:
www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/liber231.pdf

See also "Nightside of Eden" by Kenneth Grant
and "Qabalah, Qliphoth and Goetic Magic" by Thomas Karlsson:
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.ajnabound.com">www.ajnabound.com</a>

Al-Shariyf

93,

Would anyone care to clarify what is meant by Left-Hand Path and Right Hand Path? I apologize if its already been done in this thread and I'm just too dense to grasp it. I don't have a frame of reference for them so as I'm perusing this thread I keep coming away with the notion that there's certainly a play of labels that's making the discussion more difficult to follow that it really needs to be. I get the idea of the Qlippoth. I get that they are "shells" and ultimately need to be worked with, preferrably when one has a attained a suitable level of personal balance. What I don't get is LHP vs RHP.

93 93/93

modernPrimitive

@Jim Eshelman said

"The less important (but still important) half of my view: Aside from that general equilibration, any monkeying with the Q'lippoth is likely a masturbatory toying around below late 5=6 or even 6=5. When eventually tethered to the inmost center of one's being, one can (and, actually, must) hurl oneself into all corners of the unconscious. Until then, only the very rarest of people would have a psycho-spiritual bungee that could do the job."

Jim, just a quick question relating to this, if I may.

I have found that daily LBRP exacerbates "suppression". While this is positive in the sense that the day-to-day conscious mind starts to get along well without it's neuroses, the negative spin-off is that these neuroses are not dealt with and can "haunt" one psychically, so to speak, or alternatively "haunt" one during certain sleep states, where one wakes with blood shot eyes and feeling "gut wrenched". Is the idea to "push through" with LBRP practice long enough in the hopes that these get buried far enough to not be a "haunting annoyance" (until one reaches 5=6 and begins to work with them proactively) or if they manifest in this particularly disturbing way might it be indicative of having to deal with some neurosis at an earlier stage?