Doubts about initiation. Suggestions, please :?
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93,
Fooling yourself into thinking you can do it all alone only means you haven't reached that point yet. Yes, the work lies on us, the work is ours, but to do it alone means you fall alone without that helping hand to get you back on your feet. Which leads to the lengthy process of getting back up. Who knows, though, maybe this works for some. I did it alone for long enough.
I have to agree with Jim, taking a teacher, for the good or bad, is a teaching process. And if you got half a brain cell, you'll not leap into the first teacher's arms, but feel it out. I don't think the analogy fits very well, with the wife thing. While most aren't virgins when they marry, it's pretty much exactly what's wrong with marriage today. As far as the teacher, it's not permanent, it's not going to take your kids, house, and money, and even if (s)he proves incapable of teaching, you've still learned something to move on with.
Just something to think on. Then again, my teacher found me. Not the other way around. The world presents many opportunities every day. -
93,
A second thought: A teacher is not there to control you, but to guide you. That's the idea behind the A.'.A.'. system. You learn from someone who has passed through that point, and someone who will guide you through the ups and downs, the pit-falls, and the false revelations, etc etc.... -
93
@JPF said
"True, but there are certain common mistakes a teacher can help one avoid, like doing the LBRP with the wrong quarters for over a year.
"Or unwittingly performing the rituals as published in the popular literature, blinds and all.
93's
A.
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@JPF said
"If you think about it, no great religious teacher acheived "enlightenment" by his fellowship with men. Jesus went into the desert. Mohammed had his cave. Guatama chained himself to a tree (or something like that); Crowley spent most of his early adulthood climbing desolate mountains... It's a deeply personal thing, and the final leap is always undertaken alone."
Yes, the final leap.
But - going by the biographies attributed to the individuals you cited - this was, in all cases, something that occurred after many years of earlier spiritual training. They didn't start at the end - they ended there.
"All a fraternity can provide is guidance"
Using the word "fraternity," I might agree. Had you said "genuinely contacted Order," I'd disagree much. It can provide far more than you apparently can even dream of.
"Initiation happens long before anybody joins an order. Like marriage, the ceremony is a mere formality: the real romance needed no Priest to take root."
That is totally silly. It may be true of a rare person here and there, but, in general, you might as well say that copulation occurs long before losing one's virginity - your statement is that absurd. Initiation is not just a formality. Initiation into a contacted, live extrusion of the Inner Order provides a life-altering linkage that generally inaugurates - initiates! - the most important journey one can and will ever take in life.
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Just to clarify, I did say teachers can be helpful; and what I mean by that, partially speaking, is that one is and can be on their own, and choose a teacher to assist at the same time, if one wishes, or it is one's will to do so, or not to do so. For the record, teachers can be equally and distinctly unhelpful as well.
I think that the notion that one can't initiate oneself or that one can't do it on their own is a huge red flag. This totally puts me off. Regardless of all the other knowledgeable things said here regarding magick, quabala etc., I only listen to and trust my self, and I don't mean my ego, but my HGA, and I don't require anybody for that. Like I said, if I want a teacher, a friend, an enemy a mentor, a student, I can learn from all of them, but I am solely responsible and capable.
There are only two kinds of religion: true and false. True are those that teach Gnosis, that the truth and initiation can only be found and bestowed from within. False are those that teach the same can only be found or bestowed from without.
Let him who has ears to hear, hear. -
Did you have teachers that helped you get in contact with your HGA, or did you do it alone?
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@nderabloodredsky said
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There are only two kinds of religion: true and false. True are those that teach Gnosis, that the truth and initiation can only be found and bestowed from within. False are those that teach the same can only be found or bestowed from without.
Let him who has ears to hear, hear."I really can't think of a religion that doesn't require membership or alignment in some form. All major western ones do, before a person can fully participate in all the rites of that faith. If I may use an old aeon example, only Catholics may receive communion. The point is that, in that tradition or in a magical one, something is passed along to the person in a rite, whatever you want to calll it, that you can't get even if you became a scholar in that tradition. I remember Joseph Campbell saying a little sadly to Bill Moyers in one of his interviews, that he knew he was a scholar, not an initiate, of any of the many traditions he studied. I think it may be possible rarely, to bypass that route. But not having anyone to compare notes with could be confusing for even the most gifted person, I would think. And most of us are far from that.
And yes, it is true that you may find a teacher who turns out to be abusive or too controlling. It happened to me. If that's the case then its time to leave. But one bad teacher does not condem the whole system. -
I continue to chuckle that so many are speaking of the end as if it's the beginning.
Every joke has its punchline; but it isn't very effective without the right setup.
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Exactly!
And how things actually are for almost everyone is... We approach this subject ignorantly, uneducated, unskilled, without clear direction. The best solution for this is: Find someone informed, experienced, and skilled that can teach and give direction.
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@Alrah said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Exactly!And how things actually are for almost everyone is... We approach this subject ignorantly, uneducated, unskilled, without clear direction. The best solution for this is: Find someone informed, experienced, and skilled that can teach and give direction."
So... all new students are numbskulls? raises an eyebrow
"Everyone born is ignorant. That is, we are born not knowing stuff.
Notice I didn't say stupid. Just uninformed, unskilled, etc.
You aren't born knowing language. Or how to form and maintain a relationship. Or how to repair a computer. Or how to play chess. Or, for that matter, how to train yourself to exceed the baseline of human evolution and move into leading edge spiritual realms that the species as a whjole won't tap for centuries. These things all have to be learned.
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@Alrah said
"Or they can preordained."
I'm not talking about the four or five on the planet at any given time who are in that Dali Lama like category. I'm talking about most people.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Using the word "fraternity," I might agree. Had you said "genuinely contacted Order," I'd disagree much. It can provide far more than you apparently can even dream of."
I wasn't trying to denigrate any Order of Thelema. In fact, I have nothing but good things to say about you guys. But the fact stands: intitiation is not dependent on, nor will it ever be dependent on membership to one order or another. For one, mundane initiation is a proper and necessary step. Others appeal directly to the source, the fountainhead of all Light, Love and Power.
All according to one's Will.
"That is totally silly. It may be true of a rare person here and there, but, in general, you might as well say that copulation occurs long before losing one's virginity - your statement is that absurd. Initiation is not just a formality. Initiation into a contacted, live extrusion of the Inner Order provides a life-altering linkage that generally inaugurates - initiates! - the most important journey one can and will ever take in life."
Perhaps it is silly of you to assume who is rare and who isn't.
Some people need no middleman: they have an intimate and tangible link with the divine.
Again, I mean no disrespect to any Order or School or System. But it is not everyone's Will to be initiated in that way. There are many here who are members of no Order, students of no School, and yet they have as tangible a lnk to the Source of Life as any "Initiate." Not everybody, sure, but sometimes the Powers that Be take an aspirant's training into their own hands.
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93
"JPF wrote:
But it is not everyone's Will to be initiated in that way. There are many here who are members of no Order, students of no School, and yet they have as tangible a lnk to the Source of Life as any "Initiate." Not everybody, sure, but sometimes the Powers that Be take an aspirant's training into their own hands."Surely, though, the two combine? Even the most exalted tulkus in the Tibetan traditions - and I do include the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama and the other top-ranked bodhisattvas - are put through the empowerments. The Sixth Dalai Lama, who was not formally recognized until his teens, had become a very non-priestly person by the time he was discovered. He is still recognized as a valid Incarnation of Chrenrezig, but his career wasvery non-standard.
It's simply assumed by the Tibetan authorities that *anybody *needs guidance and correction. The Dalai Lama has always had his own teachers, for example. This thread seems to assume that a teacher in Thelema is an Indian-(or other Asian) style guru, to whom you might offer worship and unquestioning obedience. Teachers in our tradition are guides, and in the early stages they take you into and through Malkuth, which teaches the virtue of Discrimination, not slavery.
A person working on his or her own can make great progress, but is still closed to fresh info and fresh perspectives that could both accelerate progress, and broaden understanding.
93 93/93,
Edward
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Alrah, 93,
I wouldn't say Crowley got an 'open house' reception' from most people. He knew he needed training, and looked for it almost frantically in the late 1890s.
And he had training at key junctures - from the G.D. and Mathers initially, then Allan Bennett, then (extremely important for dhyana) Oscar Eckenstein. The yoga training Ceylon followed. He was an apt pupil, but he never shunned nor disparaged the need for initiation and training. You should also note (I'm taking both Regardie's and Kenneth Grant's remarks into account here) that often, he withheld direct instruction. He *wanted *students to seek on their own.
I'll place a small land-mine in this discussion, by saying I don't think it's actually about initiation and teachers. Rather, it's about the fear of finding yourself once again stuck with a bad parent. Reprising childhood is, for many people, a terror worse than anything the adult world can offer.
Similarly, teachers - any of them - take on a parent projection, and they need to have been through the mill themselves to handle this. So the first question anyone should ask someone who might become a teacher or instructor is on the lines of : "Can you tell me if you ever made a total fool of yourself in your own training?" The answer to that should tell you whether to proceed or not.
93 93/93,
Edward
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@Alrah said
"but I also see naff teachers who shun engagement through fear and just adopt an overly authoritarian attitude and see thier students failings as a reflection of thier own attachment to being 'a good teacher' and reject them (and from the students perspective - again)."
We would be an agreement that this is crap.
I would add, though, that many people need a serious "ordeal of discrimination," and there are few things that give this so thoroughly as picking a bad teacher!
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Alrah, 93,
"Well - if they (the teacher) doesn't back off from the mess when the student is flailing around and all sorts of infantile shite is surfacing from the loss of autonomy and the regression - then Ok. Things can be learnt for those students that need to be regressed and parential issues addressed. I think some people think teaching isn't about getting involved and engaged in that area of a students psychology and most aren't prepared for it. I see people who have a proper engagement and then a proper seperation from thier teacher and it's good for people, but I also see naff teachers who shun engagement through fear and just adopt an overly authoritarian attitude and see thier students failings as a reflection of thier own attachment to being 'a good teacher' and reject them (and from the students perspective - again). So yeah - a teacher who can be completely honest about their own failings in the past and take the ego 'lightly' - is something worth testing. "
Such a perfect teacher would be very safe and is, I imagine, a very, very rare find.
A properly run mystery school uses the type of graduated system you tend to disparage. People come in as new initiates, stumble and fumble, make some progress, get stuck, misunderstand, misconstrue, get a realization and move on a bit, get stuck again, and so on ... but they still grow through persistence.
Just like they would in regular real life 'out there', but working under intense, self-critical scrutiny. Mystery schools are not New Age-style escape pods.
Anybody who survives six or eight years of this might be a sadomasochistic flake, but it's far more likely that that individual will have become wise enough to know his/her limitations. Not necessarily someone who "can be completely honest about their own failings in the past and take the ego 'lightly'," but someone who can take a deep breath when things are getting iffy, and ask a few pertinent questions of him/herself as well as of the student.93 93/93,
Edward
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@JPF said
"Had you said "genuinely contacted Order," I'd disagree much."
"How do you know if an order has been genuinely contacted?
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@gmugmble said
"How do you know if an order has been genuinely contacted?"
Excellent question. And I think the answer is that there is no absolute test, no retina scan or fingerprinting. You have to trust your intuition and common sense to guide you. (Which means that the decision is already part of the training.)
The standard guideline to prime your common sense and intuition is: By their works ye shall know them.
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@Alrah said
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Alrah said
"Or they can preordained."I'm not talking about the four or five on the planet at any given time who are in that Dali Lama like category. I'm talking about most people."
Dalai Lama bosh! ...."
Are you saying that The Dalai Lama is not any more wise or spiritually advanced than 4 or 5 thousand others, who are keeping a low profile? Just want to understand. And you feel that he is not the incarnation of anyone, that he was taught his lineage's wisdon by others? Then he too belonged to a mystery school or tradition.
I am wondering how you arrived at your conclusion that some people are preordained? Just want to understand your POV. -
@Edward Mason said
"Surely, though, the two combine? "
Absolutely. As I've said, the Systems of Thelema are the best and most perfected forms of initiation currently on the planet. But it's stupid to think that they're the only forms of initiation.
"I would add, though, that many people need a serious "ordeal of discrimination," and there are few things that give this so thoroughly as picking a bad teacher! "
Yes. i began my spiritual quest under the guidance of a deluded, perverted swine. Naive and ignorant, I allowed myself to be fooled by his seeming "wisdom." In the end, it turned out that his only aim was to take advantage of me sexually, an aim he accomplished.
A hard lesson, yes--but the best lessons are always the hardest.
I went through a lot of such "mentors," becoming increasingly disillusioned each time. After a while I decided it was best to take my training into my own hands. A difficult path, yes, but it garnered a sense of independence and strength that would be hard to develop in a more traditional system.
"I'll place a small land-mine in this discussion, by saying I don't think it's actually about initiation and teachers. Rather, it's about the fear of finding yourself once again stuck with a bad parent. Reprising childhood is, for many people, a terror worse than anything the adult world can offer. "
Interesting point. And that is exactly why I tend towards Thelemic systems above any other. There is very little of the charlatanism/power-lust I despise. I've always been treated with the utmost respect--and I've never been pressured! That is a sure sign of a true system of attainment: an utmost respect for each and every aspirant, and a lack of desire to fool people into attendence.