Liber Librae part 20 question
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Hello everyone,
Liber Librae seemed to be a good starting point for my studies, so I've been reading it and I think I get most of it on a conceptual and practical level, except for part 20:
So shalt thou gradually develop the powers of thy soul, and fit thyself to command the Spirits of the Elements. For wert thou to summon the Gnomes to pander thine avarice, thou wouldst no longer command them, but they would command thee. Wouldst thou abuse the pure beings of the woods and mountains to fill thy coffers and satisfy thy hunger of Gold? Wouldst thou debase the Spirits of Living Fire to serve thy wrath and hatred? Wouldst thou violate the Souls of the Water to pander to thy lust of debauchery? Wouldst thou force the Spirits of the Evening Breeze to minister to thy folly and caprice? Know that with such desires thou canst but attract the Weak, not the Strong, and in that case the Weak will have power over thee.
I can only 'get' it to the level of: "Don't try to dissolve anger by getting fiery/angry." But when I try the same line of thought on the others: "Don't try to become serious by thinking", "don't try to stop greed by working", "don't try to stop lust by getting emotional" etc. it doesn't make sense to me and I get stuck.
I have the feeling I am entirely missing the point. I hope someone can help me out!
Thank you for reading,
Orione -
You're almost there.
A person who summons gnomes to pander to avarice isn't trying to stop their greed; they're following their greed.
In general, we tend to be pulled by our interests and dominating traits. This is fine for finding subjects for study, as it keeps you interested. But when you start getting into serious personal transformation, via ceremonial magick, personal alchemy, invocation, evocation, etc., then you need to be careful to instead transform yourself by incorporating your deficient traits - what you lack.
But there is a second point. And that is that evocation, etc., should be used to lead to Knowledge & Conversation. (After that, it should always be used in harmony with your True Will). To get sidetracked by the temptation to fulfill baser desires is dangerous, as you will actually transform yourself in the process. And the temptations are very frequent once you start working with serious magick, because you will have more power to act upon the temptations.
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Or, in simple psychological terms: If you surrender to the lower, cruder manifestation of an elemental (or other) principle, then you have surrendered to it. It controls you, not the other way around.
In summoning elementals, the correct approach (for the magician working in Yetzirah) is to establish your Ruach as being in control. (This is also good practice in establishing your conscious power of choice as the ruling power over your own lower aspects). They should surrender to you, not the other way around.
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Does meaningfully 'dedicating' your rituals to your HGA, perhaps by devotional recitation at the beginning of your ritual meet the requirement of centering your intelligence in Ruach for a not-yet-adept?
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Thank you for your answers Jim and AvshalomBinyamin. It is much clearer now.
I see in Liber 777 that the orders of Qliphoth that correspond to Ruach are the Elements. Is that saying the same thing, or am I making connections that don't exist?
What you are both saying about being in control over the elements instead of them being in control of you, makes me think of what I learned from studying Steiner's antroposophy. He seems to suggest that people have to be in control over the Luciferian powers and the Ahrimanic powers, or else they will control you. Whereas if you are in control of them - they can help you become independent of the Divine to ultimately reunite with the Divine through love - whereby the Divine gets to know itself.
The Luciferian powers being fiery and they can be used to create a creative spark and force things into being, but then the intellect has to be in control and stop the flame before it also devours what has been created and more. The Ahrimanic powers can make things disappear/become invisible and work faster in the background etc. but the intellect has to make sure that the Ahrimanic powers are not hidden from it (or force them back out of hiding in due time) or else they devour also.
Is this a similar kind of thing?Also, I looked up if Crowley mentioned Ahriman anywhere, and it seems that he only did in Liber 777 as Arimanus - but it is as an Egyptian god (whereas I thought he was a Persian fallen angel type of character) and in relation to astrology - something I don't know much about yet. Do you know if he's mentioned anywhere else? Or what sort of forces he would correspond to in Thelemic literature?
(Sorry for the many questions - my mind is trying to connect everything I've learned so far from other systems of thought to the new language of Thelema, and I guess it's a bit messy.)