Initiation and experiences
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@Edward Mason said
"You were the one who said she was 8=3 because she had attained complete dhyana. And in answer to JPF above, I made it quite clear that I don't see the two as one and the same."
No, they aren't at all. (I haven't read this carefully enough to discern whether this is what she said, but am only commenting on what I just quoted.)
Dhyana is an attainment that characterizes the completion of the Dominus Liminis grade. In crude "gotta rush out the door" terms, it's the breakthrough of Yetziratic consciousness into the Briatic, which (when the advance through the Worlds is kept in pace with the movement through the Sephiroth in the particular way the A.'.A.'. does it) marks the specific pulling back of the curtain to Tiphereth in Briah: the grade of Adeptus Minor Without.
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JAE, 93,
"Edward Mason wrote:
You were the one who said she was 8=3 because she had attained complete dhyana. And in answer to JPF above, I made it quite clear that I don't see the two as one and the same.JAE replied:
No, they aren't at all...<deletion>...Dhyana is an attainment that characterizes the completion of the Dominus Liminis grade."My own phrasing was poor here, since I was actually responding to Alrah's point about "mixing up temporary states with more lingering states." However, the point about dhyana being part of the Dominus Liminis attainment is very relevant, because I think this thread has actually been (in part) muddled over the use of the terms Magister Templi and masters, when really, we were talking about Adepts and adeptship. Because 5=6 is "only" halfway up the Tree, it often appears to be seen as an intermediate step, rather than being understood as a major attainment in its own right.
93 93/93,
Edward
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Fascinating discussion. Normally, people claiming MT grade makes my arse twitch and my balls shrivel in embarrassment for them, but Alrah seems to be pretty cool (though I doubt she's MT
). Edward seems quite experienced in these matters and has a rather fine-grained perspective. It's interesting to see the two conversing.On the general subject, my understanding is that the A:.A:. is a system that's not quite comparable to Zen or anything like that. If we're comparing it to anything Eastern, it's more akin to the so-called "religious" forms of Daoism (though that's a rather out-dated categorisation now) - a complete curriculum that includes not just the mystical aspect but the magickal (i.e. to put it bluntly, what the Zennie would call "makkyo" is precisely half the interest of someone devoted to this curriculum).
That being so, my understanding is that initiation is "overseen" by "spirits" or "demons" charged by the founders of the Order (AC, the chemist guy and another) with the task of *proving *and *testing *aspirants. There's a distinct *magickal *element in this work, that's absent in a purely mystical system like Zen.
This is more or less what "initiation" is about - precisely, as Edward said, about the "ordeals". There's an element of testing, there's something to "get", and there's the possibility of not "getting" it, and of missing the mark, of failure. This is not the case with pure mysticism, in light of which all "getting" is superfluous, and "failure" meaningless.
If you got rid of the initiation aspect, you'd be creating a purely mystical system, a system that was devoted only to the path Up. The A:.A:. is about both the path Up and the path Down, about both the mystical (ascent to Home) and magickal (the *creation *of illusion, as opposed to its dispelling) pursuits.
One other point worth mentioning, I think: *Anatta *doesn't mean "get rid of your ego", it means "there *is *no ego". There's no there there, there's nothing to get rid of. We *think *we are George, Alrah, Edward, etc., but the fact of the matter, the truth of it, is that there are no such things, only the *seeming *of such things.
To put it another way, George, Alrah, Edward, etc., are notional "centres of narrative gravity" (cf. that wonderful philosopher of mind, Daniel C. Dennett) for the bundles of events and habits of the human machinery (which makes it sound rather prosaic - of course this machinery, this patterned energy, is all there is). The ordinary person is in an analogous position to the position of someone who would drill through the Earth to find it's centre of gravity. We have the vague sense that our "selves" are (at least potentially) findable things, distinct from our bodies, brains, etc. All mystical experience is the dispelling of this illusion. When the illusion that these centres of narrative gravity have existence in their own right is seen through, then what's understood (in place of the illusion) is that there is only "God".
There is really only this one "mystical experience", but it's gone through from different angles in the course of training. What the Neophyte understands is *essentially *no different from what the Ipsissimus understands. But there is a deep difference in a) thoroughness (especially in the lower triads) and b) in everyday perspective, in what's "at centre stage", so to speak.
Now, in that light, I think the distinction between the Supernal Triad and everything below it was put very well by the outstanding (although for some tastes, perhaps too West Coast
) modern Advaita/Zen teacher, Adyashanti (I paraphrase):-Up to a certain point (the Abyss) one's everyday sense is that one is a human being having episodes of "being God". No matter how sublime the experience, even if it is a complete enlightenment experience (loss of self-sense, concomitant presence of sense of being the Universe) one *returns *to being an ordinary human being, to feeling oneself as an ordinary human being, to that being one's ground state, the thing to which one returns.
Beyond that certain point (the Abyss), the everyday perspective shifts to one being "God" having episodes of being a human being. (Not having this perspective, I can't describe it, but one can sort of put the placeholder for it here.) As opposed to "glimpses", kensho, satori, etc., as opposed to *experiences *of any kind, this is full and *final *liberation, Moksha, Nirvana strictly so-called.
This Copernican shift in *everyday *perspective, in the sense of where the "ground state" is, is the fundamental difference. The MT/Magus/Ipsissimus (in Eastern terms, a Buddha) is clinically insane from any normal human point of view, because they "think they are God" (as the profane would say). They're not just (as the Neophyte, or anyone at any lower grade) a human being glorified by an *experience *of being "one with God", or even "being God", or "perceiving the Truth", etc. They ARE that Truth, that "God" - that's their *everyday *perspective, i.e. the sense of being an ordinary human being no longer has centre stage.
So I'd be very sceptical of any claims to that kind of perspective. It's rather a "big" thing, to my mind, rather delicate.
Anyway, yes if you're talking about a purely mystical system of attainment, the concept of initiation has no place, really (except in the loosest "passing on the robe and bowl" sense, a nod and a wink). But if you're talking about a "complete curriculum", like the A:.A:., there's a magickal element that's dealing with the flora and fauna of a world behind the world, with their own definite quirks and peculiarities, that requires testing, that has standards, that has "better" and "worse", that has "failure" and "success". It's *not *a situation in which we all get prizes.
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I love seeing Adyashanti quotes here, I'm in the right place.
He will paraphrase Crowley often but has no occult background.He even once said "There should be an A.A. for spirituality."
He meant support for addicts of course but it was funny.Anyway, Regardie was more Jungian than Freudian, right?
FTR:
Though lay persons commonly assume 'subconscious' to be a psychoanalytic term, this is not in fact the case. Sigmund Freud had explicitly condemned the word as long ago as 1915: "We shall also be right in rejecting the term 'subconsciousness' as incorrect and misleading".[1]. In later publications his objections were made clear:
“ "If someone talks of subconsciousness, I cannot tell whether he means the term topographically -- to indicate something lying in the mind beneath consciousness -- or qualitatively -- to indicate another consciousness, a subterranean one, as it were. He is probably not clear about any of it. The only trustworthy antithesis is between conscious and unconscious."[2] ”Thus, as Charles Rycroft has explained, 'subconscious' is a term "never used in psychoanalytic writings"[3]. And, in Peter Gay's words, use of 'subconscious' where 'unconscious' is meant is "a common and telling mistake"[4]; indeed, "when [the term] is employed to say something 'Freudian', it is proof that the writer has not read his Freud"[5].
Freud's own terms for mentation taking place outside conscious awareness were das Unbewusste (rendered by his translators as 'the Unconscious') and das Vorbewusste ('the Preconscious'); informal use of the term 'subconscious' in this context thus creates confusion, as it fails to make clear which (if either!) is meant. The distinction is of significance because in Freud's formulation the Unconscious is 'dynamically' unconscious, the Preconscious merely 'descriptively' so: the contents of the Unconscious require special investigative techniques for their exploration, whereas something in the Preconscious is unrepressed and can be recalled to consciousness by the simple direction of attention. The erroneous, pseudo-Freudan use of 'subconscious' and 'subconsciousness' has its precise equivalent in German, where the words inappropriately employed are Unterbewusst and Unterbewusstsein.
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@Alrah said
"It's my feeling that those crossing the abyss usually have some sort of evidence that they are 'once returners', and the crossing is fore-ordained rather than chosen and risked.
What is risked in the abyss is attachment and delusion, but what is risked in initiation is much more... and now that we have abberant initiators in the Thelemic orders and the GD - then I have plenty of cause for concern. "
Interesting idea. I have had similar thoughts, but I haven't been able to reconcile them with my belief that initiation is destined for all; except perhaps it's been too much too soon.
"I no longer feel that the outer orders should initiate in the same way - however... I feel that the same goal of initiation can be made with other rituals now with the same benefits."
Care to expand?
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@nderabloodredsky said
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@Alrah said
"It's my feeling that those crossing the abyss usually have some sort of evidence that they are 'once returners', and the crossing is fore-ordained rather than chosen and risked.
What is risked in the abyss is attachment and delusion, but what is risked in initiation is much more... and now that we have abberant initiators in the Thelemic orders and the GD - then I have plenty of cause for concern. "
"Alrah, what do you mean by the term 'once returner'? Haven't we all returned many times? Also, if someone's crossing the abyss is 'fore-ordained', then by who? I am trying to understand your posts but at times I am thrown by these phrases. I only have a limited amount of time to read and think about what is posted here, and to be honest, some of this seems needlessly obscure. And I agree with Edward that initiation isn't as dangerous as you describe. But this is all POV, or opinion, right? No need to prove or disprove anything as it is all subjective.
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93,
George, nice post. Thanks.
Middleman, Regardie had Jungian training, but was also very much a Reichian.
93 93/93,
Edward
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93 Alrah,
Glad you fixed your keyboard.
"Tell you what: - tell me in words what your imagination is? Define it. And define everything wordless that can be apprehended by your narrative consciousness while you're at it! Then try and define all the things that can not but are nevertheless comprehended on some level. Then define all the ways that consciousness can be apprehended by differently configured brains and/or minds."
Well, I could attempt all that, but maybe you could just respond to the request I made? "Pre-verbal ego" (to me) implies an embryonic form of consciousness centring around the concept of "there is a here, which is sort-of a me". The more we drag in poor Sigmund, the more off-track I think we might end up.
Re: whether we're talking about Adepts or Masters of the Temple:
"Again - I'm going to take this to the east. When you look at chinese lit. then you find reference to 'young masters' - either half way through the gradual school or fully attained of the sudden school.
They do all the showy things like: spit on the buddha and then ask a crowd where the Buddha is not and he'll spit there? And also - Kill the Buddha if you come across him. Whereas the adept of gradual school will go and get the mop and bucket."
So, you're agreeing with me ... ?
93 93/93,
Edward
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Alrah 93,
I don't draw - I never had the fine coordination for it. I had to learn to use words.
Agreeing with Jim is cool. I thank re-defines (or re-draws) the dialogue.
93 93/93,
Edward
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93,
Gotcha. Thanks - that clarifies.
93 93/93,
Edward