Kundalini vs K&C of HGA
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Alrah, 93,
" The only difference is I'm not spraying any territory. "
As you can probably imagine, I disagree. I think this particular exchange is adding nothing to the discussion on kundalini, and I propose taking it out of the visible online debate.
93 93/93,
Edward
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Alrah, 93,
"If these groups are so bent towards preventing mental breakdowns and other disturbances that are actually the periods in our lives that we most learn from - then how can they actually support people undergoing it? If they see it as a 'failure'? They can't!"
Every system provokes crises, and aims to guide people through them. If that's what you mean by mental breakdowns, fine, but you speak of actual madness. Everyone fears insanity, with good reason. Crowley asked how any of his fellow Magi had been able to continue after he reached 9=2, feeling at the time that his reason had left him, and he was very frightened that as he attained 10-1, he would be asked to prove his non-attachment by committing some act of violence, such as killing another person. He was as capable of fear as anybody else.
Fear of disorder is healthy. And you are being very strict in your interpretation of how the orders "actually support people undergoing" their crises. There are plenty of times when a wise teacher working within a system leaves the student to struggle, falter, and recover.93 93/93,
Edward
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Alrah,
I was thinking of this one other thing that has been absent from the discussion so far.
Western systems, as I have had the fate of seeming to require them, benefit me in one very specific way that I deeply need.
As someone brought up from youth as a sincere and devout follower of Jesus Christ, as he was incorrectly taught in the region and time of my birth, I have required a very unusual set of circumstances and teaching in order to approach these Mysteries. What was supposed to be the symbol of my enlightenment was corrupted and became the symbol of my bondage. And that's a pretty superhuman mindf**k to have to undo...
The approach to these mysteries that Crowley embodied is like... like a complex chemical formula that makes sure to eradicate a very specific virus, and it's specific to the way that oppressive versions of Christianity affect the psychological development of children (imho). It is the cure to a very specific disease of mind, unintentionally communicated to Christian children in their formative years.
I have wondered in the past what anyone coming from a non-Christian background would need with all Crowley's Beast and Babalon talk. He's speaking names from the Revelation of John to me, and to some of my most deeply programmed fears. I can absolutely appreciate that not everyone needs mysticism and magick in this form. But I have to admit that I absolutely do. It's the preservation of a very specific formula. That's the best I know how to describe it.
As someone else who has taken a swing in the monkey-room, can you grasp the enormity of the kind of thing Crowley's madness helped me through...?
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@Alrah said
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@AvshalomBinyamin said
"No, kundalini and K&C HGA are not synonymous."How do you figure that?"
Because I had Kundalini rise to the crown chakra several times. It changed my life, it was huge, but it wasn't K&C. I didn't even begin to have phenomena of visions of adonai until afterward. Everything I've read and understood about K&C indicates that it's not the same as my Kundalini experience. Others who have experienced both say there is a difference.
But it sounds to me that you already believe that, even if related or with causative links between them, they are not the same thing.
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@Alrah said
"I agree with you that Crowleys system is a panacea that is probably most effective for specifically Christian hysteria, but I wonder if it can also act as a universal panacea? "
That is my hope. Though I haven't met any Thelemites (that I know of) who actually come from Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Muslim, or "Indigenous" upbringings, it seems to me that Therion worked feverishly to live up to his Universal ideals of incorporating all of them. But then someone like you comes up with your background in the East and seems to say, "What's all this for...?" lol...
"Christianity could not have taken hold of the western psyche with such a grip that it did, unless it fed off something already present in the pre-christian pagan psyche that is still present to this day: *** it's something designed to keep the monsters at bay***, and there are monsters in the human psyche in every culture around the world. "
[above emphasis mine] - The source of heirarchy...? er.. The perceived need for heirarchy...?
"These days, on film and TV there's been a veritable explosion in monsters!
I have a friend that wrote to me recently asking if I could think of a new monster for the 21st century, and it proved to be a difficult task. Script writers have plundered almost everything in existance - from the bizarre to the mundane and made a monster out of it. Vampires, werewolves, the dark, fog, intelligent viruses, 'they' and 'them', no stone has been left uncovered if it promises something slimey and appalling underneath... but here's the question: which are the best monsters? There's certainly something attractive about the more formless, inverted spiritual ones, as they plug into childish fears, but I tend to think the monsters that have some type of gender are the most fascinating to the adult. For instance - recall when you first watched 'Alien'. When it popped out the guys stomach everyone screamed in horror, but it wasn't until we learned Alien was a female rather than just an 'it' that she became a really fascinating scarey monster. And would Dracula be the same as an 'it'? The little grey aliens with the bug eyes are commonly thought of as sexless beings as they appear in our culture, and for that reason they're kind of 'cute' really (think Speilburg), but as soon as Whitley Strieber gave his abducting grey a female gender she became altogether a figure that evoked another type of fear, in a way that 'the fog' or 'the blob' never really managed.
With Babalon and the Beast, we have two wonderful archetypal gender figures that are capable of transforming those fears. The characteristics we find fearful in monsters are instead seen as things that are natural, that should be embraced and even celebrated, so they are capable of being significant cross cultural symbols that all human beings can appreciate. There's really nothing like it in Zen for instance, and although I find close affinity between Babalon and the Indian Goddess Kali, the latter is so universal that it's difficult to make a personal connection with her, while Babalon trascends the universal to the personal, and the same with the Beast."
Fascinating analysis of gender, monsters, and archetypes...
"In some ways, your early entanglement with Christianity gave you a specific focus for the transformative work. Your demons had definate shape and context. "
Yes! The Beast and the Harlot!
[
Bad! Bad! Shameful sex-drive! Bad! Bad! Shameful instinct to survive! Bad! Bad! Shameful personal will! Bad! Bad! BAAAAD...! ]"It may actually be somewhat harder for people coming from a non-religous background, in a society where monsters abound in frenetic prolifiration, to identify and then confront the ones that have taken up dominant residence in the unconscious."
And that's a mouthful...
Get some rest. Get better. Watch some Sci-Fi. Ever seen Whedon's Firefly series? Rent it immediately! We can always argue Monday.
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@Alrah said
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@AvshalomBinyamin said
"But it sounds to me that you already believe that, even if related or with causative links between them, they are not the same thing."Yes, I think K&C HGA is a natural consequence in the aftermath of full blown Kundalini rising - specifically when the anja chakra has been turned inward allowing kundalini to sweep up to the crown."
But "natural consequence in the aftermath" is not the same as "the same."
Do I think they're related? Sure!
Do I think they're the same thing? Of course not! -
It would be helpful if a clearer distinction was made between kundalini and KCHGA rather than merely insisting it’s not the same. If you read John St. John or Crowley’s comments upon formal completion of Abramelin and attaining to Adonai, it’s undeniably a description of full-blown kundalini arousal.
Now I have no problem with anyone insisting that KCHGA is “more” than kundalini. I would simply like to have details. In what way is it different? Once the crown chakra is fully illuminated, does that then lead to a clear vision of one’s Adonai? Hear His Voice? What are the signs and marks by which one distinguishes KCHGA from mere kundalini?
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Have you read the two chapters on 5=6 in The Mystical & Magical System of the A.'.A.'.? I said there pretty much everything I probably can say. There is a strong ethic among adepts not to attempt to describe this out of a respect for not distorting someone's experience with misdirection from words having gotten in the way. (A few thing I said way too much.)
I will add this: The K&C of the HGA is a profoundly intimate union with a specific, distinct other.
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Yes I have read the two chapters in your book.
I suspect that as the New Aeon progresses, this traditional secrecy around KCHGA will gradually disappear and ppl will become more open in speaking about this event.
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It's not secrecy. It's that talking too much about it would be fucking with you.
I've probably written as much about it as anyone BTW.
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@Alrah said
"At the moment - you have all the information that can possibly be accrued without you actually having KCHGA, and **none of it **is in the slightest way useful to you. You're wasting your time pursuing any further external investigation."
Exceedingly presumptious comments, Alrah. Perhaps you should join some school and get your ego under control?
The problem, as I see it, is this.
KCHGA is preceded by kundalini awakening, but those comments on KCHGA might equally apply to the reality and dangers of full blown kundalini awakening. Crowley does make a few comments in John St. John that hint Adonai is beyond kundalini (my question: how would Crowley know this unless he had already made contact with his HGA?). Memory is hazy, but he writes somewhere about how he rejects the firework displays, the aural coronas lighting up from the illumination of his crown, and pushes on toward his Adonai. But then he clams up on giving specifics at the end of his diary – which is extremely uncharacteristic of him.
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@he atlas itch said
"Crowley does make a few comments in John St. John that hint Adonai is beyond kundalini (my question: how would Crowley know this unless he had already made contact with his HGA?)."
He had. JSt.J was his 6=5 initiation. He'd fulfilled te 5=6 work two years earlier.
But, of course, it was only to a certain point. I don't want to suggest that the exact threshold he described for himself in the start of JSt.J is a generalizable limen between 5=6 and 6=5, but I do want to emphasize that, once the K&C is established in 5=6, and the link secure, there is still a great deal more development of the relationship each person has to undertake, and this is essentially the work of the later Adept grades.
I don't want to generalize it because, so far as these details are concerned, there is a lot of individual difference. That is, these aren't the details that actually matter in the grade progress. (There are specific other developments of it that 6=5 and 7=4 bring about, and those details are in print.)
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@Alrah said
"Tai - I've been reading you, here and on other forums for a few years now. May I know how long I should have waited to point out that you're wasting time? Or would you have felt that observation to be presumptious from anyone at any time?"
Alrah - the fact you’ve been reading me for years is irrelevant. You would need to know the other person’s Will before being in a position to assert they are “wasting time” and you are not privy to that information. I recommend you stay within your two areas of expertise - Tarot and smoking pot. Now let's get back on topic ok?
Jim - I will take another look at the grade descriptions in your book. But it would be useful to know whether other older traditions or systems prior to Crowley have written about KCHGA - specifically, the HGA as an other waiting beyond kundalini. To my knowledge it doesn't exist.
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@he atlas itch said
"But it would be useful to know whether other older traditions or systems prior to Crowley have written about KCHGA - specifically, the HGA as an other waiting beyond kundalini. To my knowledge it doesn't exist."
You only have to go a few chapters in to Genesis to find a Kundalini awakening that doesn't result in K&CHGA.
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That doesn’t sound correct.
Even if we interpret the serpent as symbol of gnosis or initiator, the Garden of Eden represents a pre-Fall state of consciousness whereas we live in a fallen state of consciousness. Hence after eating from the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and Eve fall into duality and become self-conscious. That would suggest their original consciousness was located in either Tiphareth or the Supernals (maybe someone can clarify this point - Gunther makes a few references in his book) and then fell down to Malkuth. To me, that would suggest the chakras of Adam were already open in the original state, rather than the serpent opening them, but they subsequently closed down and became dormant in the fallen state. The lifelong conditioning to a dormant consciousness is precisely what makes kundalini awakening so potentially traumatic and dangerous while it also provides a first glimpse, or reawakening, into the original consciousness of Adam.
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@he atlas itch said
"But it would be useful to know whether other older traditions or systems prior to Crowley have written about KCHGA - specifically, the HGA as an other waiting beyond kundalini. To my knowledge it doesn't exist."
You gotta be kidding me....
How about of the numerous offshoots of the Northern India Sant Mat...? (anything that mentions the Sat Guru...etc.)
Not to mention the obvious testimony of so many Christian saints....
Dante Alighieri?
Maybe not prior but certainly independent...Robert Monroe.
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@he atlas itch said
"That doesn’t sound correct.
Even if we interpret the serpent as symbol of gnosis or initiator, the Garden of Eden represents a pre-Fall state of consciousness whereas we live in a fallen state of consciousness. Hence after eating from the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and Eve fall into duality and become self-conscious. That would suggest their original consciousness was located in either Tiphareth or the Supernals (maybe someone can clarify this point - Gunther makes a few references in his book) and then fell down to Malkuth. To me, that would suggest the chakras of Adam were already open in the original state, rather than the serpent opening them, but they subsequently closed down and became dormant in the fallen state. The lifelong conditioning to a dormant consciousness is precisely what makes kundalini awakening so potentially traumatic and dangerous while it also provides a first glimpse, or reawakening, into the original consciousness of Adam."
Not quite. You need to look through the moralistic surface text.
While moving from the Edenic harmony of their original unconscious state, to the conflicts of their conscious state, appears to be a demotion - it was really an ascent, not a descent.
Remember, according to Genesis, Adam was made as a living soul, a nephesh. This corresponds to Assiah.
The self-awareness, sexuality, and shame that were the side-effects of eating the fruit were related to the opening of the Svadisthana chakra, yesod, and the dawning of ruach consciousness.
It can be confusing, because of our ambiguous feelings toward the Unconscious. On the one hand, we crave the state of Edenic harmony and uniting the two sides of the Unconscious and Conscious is an important part of K&CHGA. On the other hand, we fear being overwhelmed by our Unconscious animal nature, which is why the archetypal forest is full of monsters or dangers. But this is just a tangential point, back to the main topic...
There are many more examples, if you look. Kundalini energy was present (as symbolized by his rod/serpent) with Moses from his first initiation with the burning bush, his first sightings of Adonai, learning his HGA's name, all the way through K&C and his crossing of the Abyss to return with his word.
It's not complicated. Kundalini is a force. K&CHGA is an event. K&CHGA happens only once. Kundalini energy can rise a thousand times. They are related, and Kundalini energy can be a big part of the K&CHGA event.
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@he atlas itch said
"Jim - I will take another look at the grade descriptions in your book. But it would be useful to know whether other older traditions or systems prior to Crowley have written about KCHGA - specifically, the HGA as an other waiting beyond kundalini. To my knowledge it doesn't exist."
The HGA is mentioned by Abramelin. Since that point in time, there is almost nothing of substance written about it, certainly not with any detail. The closest one could find would be in works like The Varieties of Religious Experience (James) and Cosmic Consciousness (Bucke). But possibly the best is Gopi Krishna's autobiography. Please note that in these last three, the same language isn't used - you'd have to read between the lines on the "symptoms."
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The term "Holy Guardian Angel' can be found in Abramelin but interesting enough you won't find the term "Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel" anywhere in such...
The term "Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel" was created by Crowley ( and popularized by Case, Regardie, and Fortune ) so that no one would attempt to intellectualize or equate existing concepts such as Kundalini or Samadhi to the landmark Spiritual Experience he associated with the Adeptus Minor (Within)...