19 May - (Air) Liber LXV, 2:20-22
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20. A little crazy boy that rode with me spake unto the swan, and said:
21. Who art thou that dost float and fly and dive and soar in the inane? Behold, these many æons have passed; whence camest thou? Whither wilt thou go?
22. And laughing I chid him, saying: No whence! No whither!This passage is almost totally gratuitous, It serves nothing that furthers the story other than to introduce a new character. We learn nothing new that we didn't already know about swan riding!
This is not a complaint, just a simple observation; and so it must be the point of the passage—to suggest a dynamic stasis point, a glorious flight that goes nowhere because necessity is not a factor here. "Even the demands of the narrative, of telling a good story are nothing to us."
The crazy boy is too obviously The Fool so I won't bother to explain the relative position of the path of Aleph to Kether. But the idea of being crazy is new, since The Fool is only a fool, but being crazy is something more. It is something the mind does not, and cannot fathom, and so it calls it crazy! 'Unhinged' would be an apt synonym—without moorings, truly free, wayward, the heart of chaos, and on and on... He is beyond understanding, even beyond wisdom in any conventional understanding of the term.
"We are not persuaded by any argument or cause. We are free." And that thought should make your heads explode! The point is so smooth that nothing adheres to it...
Love and Will
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"Behold, these many æons have passed; whence camest thou? Whither wilt thou go?
- And laughing I chid him, saying: No whence! No whither!"
This is like, so literal to me that I'm at a loss of words.
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I mark a bit of a different interpretation than you RobertAllen and it's probably being heavily influenced by Crowley's comments:
"The boy is the human reason, which demands measurement as the first condition of intelligible consciousness. Aware of time, he cannot understand why all this motion has not brought the swan nearer to some fixed point, or how the relation of the point of origin to its present position is not an ever-present anxiety. He cannot conceive of motion without reference to fixed axes.
I reply that, apprehending the continuum (Nuit) as such, no “space- marks” exist."
Now on one hand, I can see the fool card serving to represent this "little crazy boy", however, if the boy is the human reason, and he is aware of both time and space, doesn't that put him lower down on the Tree of Life then Aleph? He has to be aware of both Chesed and Geburah to have knowledge of matter and motion...
...is he Tiphareth then?
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@Jim Eshelman said
"**20. A little crazy boy that rode with me spake unto the swan, and said:
- Who art thou that dost float and fly and dive and soar in the inane? Behold, these many æons have passed; whence camest thou? Whither wilt thou go?
- And laughing I chid him, saying: No whence! No whither!**"
Tinman hit the point with which I was going to open:
Thus far, in this second parable, we haven't had a clue about the p.o.v. of the "speaker" - what part of the psyche he represents. The "little crazy boy" is the Ruach - the psychological organ of reason and ordered 'sanity,' here seeming "crazy" to the observer - who, therefore, represents Neshamah.
Why Neshamah? Well, Ruach doesn't seem crazy to Nephesh, it's just keenly "other." (Notice how reason can be employed as a tool in dreams, even though it isn't their normal language.) But to Neshamah, reason often at least seems rambling and babbling.
Therefore, we have a Master serene in ecstasy outside of time and space. Reason says, "Hey! Wait! Where are we going?! Are we there yet?!?!?!?!?" Neshamah gentle responds.
The mindfulness meditation this suggests to me for today is: Abiding in Neshamah, to witness how Ruach appears to me.
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@Tinman said
"I mark a bit of a different interpretation than you RobertAllen and it's probably being heavily influenced by Crowley's comments:
"The boy is the human reason, which demands measurement as the first condition of intelligible consciousness. Aware of time, he cannot understand why all this motion has not brought the swan nearer to some fixed point, or how the relation of the point of origin to its present position is not an ever-present anxiety. He cannot conceive of motion without reference to fixed axes.
I reply that, apprehending the continuum (Nuit) as such, no “space- marks” exist."
Now on one hand, I can see the fool card serving to represent this "little crazy boy", however, if the boy is the human reason, and he is aware of both time and space, doesn't that put him lower down on the Tree of Life then Aleph? He has to be aware of both Chesed and Geburah to have knowledge of matter and motion...
...is he Tiphareth then?"
More generally, the Ruach—all the powers of mind from the fourth emanation down to the ninth, inclusive?
It's suggestive, Crowley's commentary. But it also seems a bit arbitrary. I can have it both ways—all I have to do is insist on one over the other. I would have asserted that the 'crazy' boy is without reason, a characteristic of the mind/Ruach. By contrast, Crowley seems to be saying that reason in inherently illogical, it being itself a form of madness, though it does not see itself in that light—naivete and youth being equated.
If I go with the crazy boy = Ruach analogy I become very dissatisfied only because I feel the text is repeating itself—I find redundancy annoying. And I think: why would it do that? I am also aware that my sense of redundancy might be an illusion, which I would then chalk up to my simply not being able to relate to the exalted reality being described. A fair criticism, but one which requires no apology on my part—it just is what it is, today.
Love and Will
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@RobertAllen said
"I can have it both ways—all I have to do is insist on one over the other. I would have asserted that the 'crazy' boy is without reason, a characteristic of the mind/Ruach."
Yes, I can assume either p.o.v. also. And my first impression (which was a reasonable interpretation, was that the crazy boy was Divine Folly.
I was swayed when actually starting by looking at it from the view of someone already sailing serenely on the back of such a swan. If a crazy voice intrudes then, where is it coming from? Only the Ruach, it seems.
I then reason that true craziness can only be caused by reason, is only a fruit of reason, only truly abides in the dysfunction of reason.
I think the new information in this verse is to establish us in seeing the conversation between Ruach and Neshamah from Neshamah's perspective.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@RobertAllen said
"I can have it both ways—all I have to do is insist on one over the other. I would have asserted that the 'crazy' boy is without reason, a characteristic of the mind/Ruach."Yes, I can assume either p.o.v. also. And my first impression (which was a reasonable interpretation, was that the crazy boy was Divine Folly.
I was swayed when actually starting by looking at it from the view of someone already sailing serenely on the back of such a swan. If a crazy voice intrudes then, where is it coming from? Only the Ruach, it seems.
I then reason that true craziness can only be caused by reason, is only a fruit of reason, only truly abides in the dysfunction of reason.
I think the new information in this verse is to establish us in seeing the conversation between Ruach and Neshamah from Neshamah's perspective."
What you write—what can I say—I like it!
It makes a certain amount of sense; hmmmmmmm, does this mean I should distrust it?
And laughing I chid him, saying: No whence! No whither!Love and Will
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Because you know I love "them cards", a random thought:
If, as I mentioned previously, the last verse is related to the Chariot card.
Then this verse could be related to the Adjustment card in the sense that the Ruach demands the duality of action/reaction. The Ruach, demands some adjustment to the situation. The Neshamah sits enthroned in a moving/non-moving tranquility which is akin to the Silence that is not the opposite of sound.And continuing this runaway train of thought, the Lovers card should hold a key to these twin verses... back to "them cards"!
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"The mindfulness meditation this suggests to me for today is: Abiding in Neshamah, to witness how Ruach appears to me."
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For some reason when I read
" A little crazy boy that rode with me spake unto the swan, and said: "
I thought of pan in his youth or a person in his/her youth. This sounds much like the dream of the two self’s. The unlearned (younger less experienced) and the learned. Much like I still understand that there is a child in me that is learning, so the self asks
"Who art thou that dost float and fly and dive and soar in the inane? Behold, these many æons have passed; whence camest thou? Whither wilt thou go?” "
This is much like asking God if he has a beginning and an end
The learned self answers.
"22. And laughing I chid him, saying: No whence! No whither! "
This is the learned self (or higher conscious) saying that there is no beginning or end to God because God is the beginning and the end of all things and is ever present.