The role of the Qlippoth in Thelema
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@Edward Mason said
"But none of that is confrontation. It's something to produce a shift in the banisher's consciousness. "
What if there are forces, bad vibes, etc. that make banishing necessary in the first place? Wouldn't these forces need to be confronted if the banishing is to be accomplished?
never studied the Lunar Mansions in detail. I think a banishing may be in order...]
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@JPF said
"What if there are forces, bad vibes, etc. that make banishing necessary in the first place? Wouldn't these forces need to be confronted if the banishing is to be accomplished?"
No. It's not about doing anything to them. It's about shifting the framework of your own consciousness.
A crude, approximate analogy: It's not about interfering with germs, but about increasing your immunity.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@JPF said
"What if there are forces, bad vibes, etc. that make banishing necessary in the first place? Wouldn't these forces need to be confronted if the banishing is to be accomplished?"No. It's not about doing anything to them. It's about shifting the framework of your own consciousness.
A crude, approximate analogy: It's not about interfering with germs, but about increasing your immunity."
Ah. I see. It has to do with isolating oneself from exterior circumstances, instead of altering those circumstances themselves.
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@Alrah said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"No. It's not about doing anything to them. It's about shifting the framework of your own consciousness."Yeah - that's why women shift the furniture around.
It's a sign!
"Excuse me, but I do plenty of furniture shifting, thank you very much.
Sexist pig.
(Of course, with a Moon in Cancer, I'm probably among the select few men who understand the psychology of PMS. Or so I'm told.)
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JPF, 93,
"Ah. I see. It has to do with isolating oneself from exterior circumstances, instead of altering those circumstances themselves."
No, that's not it. My immune system doesn't work by isolating me from bacteria and viruses, but by altering my relationship to their existence.
After writing my previous post, I synchronistically came across a paragraph in Jung's Red Book (pg 79):
"....whatever I reject is nevertheless in my nature. I thought it was without, and so I believed I could destroy it. But it resides in me and has onl assumed a passing outer form and stepped toward me. I destroyed its form and believed that I was a conqueror. But I have not yet overcome myself." (Jeez, that book is heavy to move around).
The outer threat is a threat precisely because there is a corresponding charateristic in me. Or, to be strictly Jungian: because it is a projection of a part of me that lies within my Shadow. Equilibrating myself through the LBRP helps me address the issue precisely *because *I have equilibrated myself.
93 93/93
Edward
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I've really never subjected the LBRP to analysis from a psychological perspective. For me its always been obvious when it works and when it doesn't. Whether or not the profound peace that follows the LBRP has any bearing from a psychological perspective isn't (for me) the quesstion. I'm not so concerned with the "why" as I am with balancing my Will in accordance with the Universe. As I've said before, the LBRP will mean something different for every person, insofar as they immerse themselves in its beauty and subtlety.
Nevertheless, your words are insightful, and I appreciate the knowledge, as always.
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JPF 93,
"Whether or not the profound peace that follows the LBRP has any bearing from a psychological perspective isn't (for me) the quesstion. I'm not so concerned with the "why" as I am with balancing my Will in accordance iwth the Universe."
Isn't that a psychological quest? The Will is expressed through your psyche, so the more equilibrated the psyche becomes (or at least, the more it can be quelled sufficiently for unmediated insight to flow through it), the more effectively the Will can be expressed.
Much of Qabalah is a form of psychology.
93 93/93,
Edward
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Just to add some LHP perspectives;
I almost never banish. Most of my friends won´t do it either.The only times I would do it is if I have a gut feeling that I will not be able to handle a situation in an initiatory way. Only then do I do it and then I always go back to that situation to work it through.
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@atlantis said
"Just to add some LHP perspectives;
I almost never banish. Most of my friends won´t do it either.The only times I would do it is if I have a gut feeling that I will not be able to handle a situation in an initiatory way. Only then do I do it and then I always go back to that situation to work it through."
Is your method Typhonian?
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@Jim Eshelman said
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As Soror Meral said on more than one occasion: "Emotions! That's not a one of them worth anything at all. (Except love.)" And, as I mentioned previously, I think it best not to classify love as an emotion because it has so little in common with any of the others: it most resembles inspiration."But now obviously Love in this sense has a lower "emotional" manifestation a well. The one time I actually engaged very deeply into depression and victimhood to the point of experiencing what Ramsey Dukes (Lionel Snell) calls a "polarity flip", I experienced immediiately thereafter, an epiphany where all the Sufi poetry about being in love with the world (like Rumi's work) made complete cognitive sense. It was a though I felt I should consume / be consumed by the World in an act of Love (and of course, how Thelemic!) Just prior to this I actually felt an energy shift in the chakras from the Svādhiṣṭhāna to the Viśuddha.
This is what confuses me. As you said Jim, by moving things around on a lower plane it does not mean we attain a higher plane and yet for the first time in years, energy started moving and I experienced "breakthroughs". Of course the epiphany was sadly rather short lived. This is what confuses me, on a practical level I did seem to attain something "higher", but it seems contrary to typical RHP methods and there is the danger of being "lost in illusion" if one does not achieve that polarity flip and I suppose in some extreme cases being driven to acts of madness like suicide etc. My leaning right now, is that it could potentially be a valid technique but really needs to be balanced with a lot of RHP work too. On the other hand, perhaps I just experienced some lower yesodic form of self-love (which I guess could become dangerous), although I'd have to say it was not a selfish (nor selfless) Love but rather a kind of Joy towards the experience of life.
Jim, should we then approach this with the attitude that if Yesod cannot produce entry into Tipharet, at least our work on this level is to continually practice adjustment so that Yesod might progressively become an appropriate vehicle for the true will at some future time?
@Jim Eshelman said
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You had the wrong therapist. (Probably a bad one, at that.)"Well the one I have now who's a kind of Jungian occultists (very into his shamanism), who been running a course for about 30 years based on the old 60's EST training (which we've chatted about before) actually proposed the animistic technique of dialogging with my "neuroses" (emotions) as though they were spirits...and that has led me to this point! Of course that is why I purchased Ramsey Dukes' book "The little book of demons: the positive advantages of personifying life's problems".
@Jim Eshelman said
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There are common misunderstandings about N.O.X. Here you seem to equate it to "shadow," that is, to aspects of subconsciousness. That's not what it is at all. N.O.X. isn't infernal, isn't subconsciousness; it's supernal, it's superconsciousness. It's the darkness of the depths of space after leaving the earth's atmosphere, not the darkness of tunnelling underground. It's the darkness that comes from a saturation of LIGHT to overwhelming that our faculties can't register it yet, not the darkness that comes from an absence of light."Thank you for the clarification. I get it, but I obviously don't understand it yet.
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"It's the darkness that comes from a saturation of LIGHT to overwhelming that our faculties can't register it yet, not the darkness that comes from an absence of light."
Jim, i dont understand quite what you mean, i only know of the whole darkness b/c of absent of light, and what not, im not grasping this "darkness that comes from a saturation of LIGHT" thing?
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Alias 55A, 93,
"im not grasping this "darkness that comes from a saturation of LIGHT" thing?"
Liber LXV, Cap I, v 12:
Then there was silence. Speech had done with us awhile.
There is a light so strenuous that it is not perceived as light.It's not an easy concept - which is why the work of N.O.X. is the task of advanced adepts. You can't 'think it through' easily. Crowley's comment on this verse is:
"The highest degree of any given kind of energy surpasses the receptive power of the observer. Thus it appears as if of some other order."Maybe JAE can say more.
93 93/93,
Edward
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Liber LXV, Cap I, v 12:Then there was silence. Speech had done with us awhile.
There is a light so strenuous that it is not perceived as light.It's not an easy concept - which is why the work of N.O.X. is the task of advanced adepts. You can't 'think it through' easily. Crowley's comment on this verse is:
"The highest degree of any given kind of energy surpasses the receptive power of the observer. Thus it appears as if of some other order.""
like a black hole?"she is the darkness that absorbes the light" right? absorbing the creative energy.
like a black hole and the theory of singularity? absorbs all light and everything per se, condenses it, then spits it out into either (1) another universe, or (2) creates another universe.
my theory on science may be off a bit, so correct me if im wrong, thats just the only thing i could think of that might compare."
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93,
No, I don't think a black hole offers a valid comparison. The teaching is saying the darkness is the light.
I'd say this is one of those concepts that comes clearer the less we try to get a rational grasp of it through analogies and analysis. I can only suggest, as a meditative exercise, than you accept the idea, then see if it communicates anything to you. I've never come up with a good analogy myself, so this seems a better approach.
93 93/93,
Edward
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@he atlas itch said
"Is your method Typhonian?"
Not in the sense that I am a member of the Typhonian Order. I work with the Qliphothic Qabalah. Member of the Dragon Rouge.
Edward: It might not be really possible to find an anology to it. NOX is way beyond the sphere of Hod..
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Paroketh is also an abyss.
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93,
Atlantis wrote:"Paroketh is also an abyss."
With a lower-case 'a' yes, I might agree with you, though I think we need to keep clear the difference between Paroketh and 'the' Abyss. To come through Paroketh is not to lose the sense of separate selfhood, however much it might be 'modified' by the experience.
"It might not be really possible to find an anology to it. NOX is way beyond the sphere of Hod.."
For sure. Though I don't think it's just a matter of its being beyond Hod, but rather, it being a concept or experience or reality that can't be appreciated even by Yetziratic consciousness, let alone the conventional consciousness of Assiah. It would only make some sense to a person who had opened to a Briatic state. Which is the reason NOX is the work of the Adepti, and mostly of advanced ones, at that.
It's a bit like someone from 7,000 years ago trying (and here I am, analogizing) to use a flint knife to unscrew a door-handle. Until you have direct experience of purpose-designed screwdrivers, the idea of the screws and their manner of gripping the wood of the door is beyond your ability to appreciate.
Liber LXV, I, 11:
"Nor is it fitting for the cobbler to prate of the Royal matter. O cobbler! mend me this shoe, that I may walk. O king! if I be thy son, let us speak of the Embassy to the King thy Brother."
93 93/93,
Edward
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Alrah, 93,
"Those high adepti are not so high. They are infact, the lowest of the low. No baser human being walks upon the earth than they. No animal, nor worm nor creeping ameoba, nor deadly virus ranks lower than they are. "
Are you being literal, or trying to make some kind of Zen point here?
93 93/93,
Edward
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@Edward Mason said
"With a lower-case 'a' yes, I might agree with you, though I think we need to keep clear the difference between Paroketh and 'the' Abyss. To come through Paroketh is not to lose the sense of separate selfhood, however much it might be 'modified' by the experience."
It depends on what we mean with separate selfhood. We could mean alot by that. In the Qliphothic Qabalah, Paroketh is highly worked with. It is an important and groundbreaking step in the initiation. It is not really only about ego-loss, because one has had so many ego-losses before this. Paroketh is quite special.
@Edward Mason said
"For sure. Though I don't think it's just a matter of its being beyond Hod, but rather, it being a concept or experience or reality that can't be appreciated even by Yetziratic consciousness, let alone the conventional consciousness of Assiah. It would only make some sense to a person who had opened to a Briatic state. Which is the reason NOX is the work of the Adepti, and mostly of advanced ones, at that."
Concepts reside in Hod. It is one thing to understand something (understanding can be done without Hod), another to formulate it. I was talking about formulation, without saying anything about the understanding.
Things that are way too dislocated from Hod tends to be difficult to talk about. -
Atlantis 93,
"Concepts reside in Hod. It is one thing to understand something (understanding can be done without Hod), another to formulate it. I was talking about formulation, without saying anything about the understanding.
Things that are way too dislocated from Hod tends to be difficult to talk about."At the risk of hair-splitting, I'd say *conceptualizing *lies in Hod. All the sephiroth include concepts.
Your other comments, I generally agree with.
93 93/93,
Edward