contemporary Black Brothers
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For all my reading of Crowley, I can't really grasp who the Black Brothers are, and why they are so dangerous. Isn't an instruction in Latin saying "they need to be persecuted" or something to that extent?
Anyone here with experience care to venture what these Bros. must be like in modern society? Are they meant to be negatively influential on the population around them? Are we talking a Hitler-type, a mass-suicide cult leader, a Wall Street economy crasher? Or just some messed-up deluded person who lives in a cave somewhere?
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None of the above. In particular, note that they are not eve necessarily evil in any usual sense.
Their singular characteristic is that they refuse and resist the Abyss. They are Knowledge at its sterile extreme, but ultmately ingorant o the nature of love.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"None of the above. In particular, note that they are not eve necessarily evil in any usual sense.
Their singular characteristic is that they refuse and resist the Abyss. They are Knowledge at its sterile extreme, but ultmately ingorant o the nature of love."
Thanks - but why is Crowley always warning about them? Doesn't he say Hitler is "only" a black magician, implying Black Brothers are even worse?
Also, any reputed examples of them? I've heard Nietzsche before.
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The Black Brothers are all talk and no trousers.
They are The Dogs of Reason, and once they have hold of a bone they refuse; cannot, let go.
They are those that refuse to play the game, who set themselves apart, with their ideas, and their logic, with their hearts closed to Love and their fingers lodged tightly in their ears, screaming to the world "I am right! I am right! I am right!
They are not evil, not in the usual sense, because evil does not exist in the usual sense, but they are like flowers that refuse to relinquish their petals and become seeds.
They set themselves against the inertia of the Universe and expect to win, and the realization that they cannot win makes them bitter, which is why they may often appear "evil", or at least unpleasant to be around.
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Although, technically one cannot become a Black Brother until one has reached a point equivalent to Adeptus Exemptus in ones own spiritual path; it is possible that at some point in our careers we can all show traits proper to a Black Brother.
One of the reasons for the years of work before we plunge into the abyss is to ensure that we have unraveled all of those complexes and ego ideas, so that when we finally step out the door we don't trip over our own shoe-laces -
@Escarabaj said
"why is Crowley always warning about them? "
I think because someone on the magickal path could become one, and must guard against this. He wants you to look for the various traits of a black brother in yourself as much as in others.
And also perhaps to disincline the reader from joining other peoples orders.
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The black brother are those who have attained but use their attainment to promote the easy life, the safe life, the tranquil life, rather than the hard life, the overcoming of obstacles, the self overcoming to manifest the will to power.
The those who promote the slave mentality in others in order to serve their own slave morality. They get the herd to serve them, by making life easy for the herd and this makes life easy for themselves. But this results in no one doing their will, everyone being lead by base passions and their desire for the " last man" rather than to become the overman.
The black brother when faced with the nature of the abyss, resents it, resents the world as it is, and in his heart he says NO to life. Rather than embrace the nothingness and meaninglessness of cold hard facts of the abyss, retreated into his "personal reality" I to his illusions and his comfortable self image and what he wants the world to be like. He does this knowing the truth, and thus cuts himself off from life and the real world. Then he proceeds to create his lies in the world, which leads to teaching his doctrine of resentment of truth and a morality of self denial, of fear and hatred of the world as it is.
The major institution of black brotherhood is still modern Christianity, the more removed from Catholicism the blacker. This also includes the derivative ideals that are Christian black values only with different theology. They include, humanism, liberalism, democracy, republicanism, commercial capitalism, and socialism. Those forces that oppose the monarchy and the link of the true philosopher king to the truth and acceptance of the world as it is.
That is all those forces that promote dreams in place of the foundation in the supernal. Those masters who teach a doctrine other than truth and foundation in the reality behind the veil of personal bias, are black doctrines.
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@Froclown said
"The black brother are those who have attained but use their attainment to promote the easy life, the safe life, the tranquil life, rather than the hard life, the overcoming of obstacles, the self overcoming to manifest the will to power. "
This sounds like something far below that stage of development.
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Well, my first impression of black, the one I have to get past first, is that it can merely represent the opposite of myself. And I can't let it be that simple. That's the hardest thing.
I can only think that, given my hypothesis of collective Mind, the Black Brother (dunh, dunh, dunh...!) does not report for duty, so to speak, for whatever team to which he owes his attainment. He or she is, afterall, still choosing to enjoy the experience and benefits of living, so... ante up with the service to life. So to speak.
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Considering that the formal definition is an Adeptus Exemptus that turns back from the abyss (paraphrasing), and that the vast majority of the people with the ideological positions Froclown defines are not Adepts, at best one could say (presupposing we even agree with Froclown's ideological stance) that these were on the path to becoming Black Brothers.
But, the only sense I get out of Fro's definition is: everyone who I disagree with. What a neat coincidence that would be--that the black brotherhood would align perfectly to every idea we reject.
(EDIT: Interesting that our thought-forms are a little similar on this point, Lusate)Jim, when you say they are "ultimately ignorant of the nature of love", what part of the nature of love are they are not getting?
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The content of many of Froclown's posts form excellent examples of the sort of doctrine that emanates from the Black Brotherhood. (I'm not characterizing him personally. One normally credits the originators, not their apologists.)
In the world of religion, L. Ron Hubbard is a good example - all intellect and ego and measurements leveraged for the domination and constraint of others, perhaps under the guise of building a better world. And I'm sure he advanced as far as 7=4, so he's in the running.
In politics, we don't see many, because they are more likely behind the scenes. Few statesmen have undertaken the personal journey sufficiently to be taken so seriously as Hitler.) One would suspect a Karl Rove before one suspects those he served.
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Av, the resistance to love is the unwillingness to die - to experience ego death - to cease as who one has been in order to discover who one actually is. That sort of thing.
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Thanks.
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There is a certain inexorable truth to Froclown's ideology - given the limitations of his spiritual realm.
I have tried to help champion, with him, the atheistic, scientific part of the method of Scientific Illuminism: the method of Science, the aim of Religion.
Is this an impasse?
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This seems like the fulcrum to me.
We (collectively) seem like the fulcrum to me.
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Everything in the human subjective mind is a lie, an illusion. Only objective data can reveal truth.
The spiritual is just the delusional the dreams in the mind.
Initiation is the pursuit of reality, not the belief in spiritual dreams. The supernals are not spiritual sources of physical reality, they are the hard factual physical reality, from which all thoughts and dreams, perceptions and astral spiritual subjective awareness arises. To cross the abyss you have to leave yourself behind, that means any notion of personal feeling, intuition, subjective awareness, to destroy everything of ones mind, body and soul and address rue hard factual reality itself, with the subjective totally annihilated and left behind. Only the objective truthful gets across the abyss, nothing of a "personal subjective reality" and no feelings or spiritual anything of self at all.
You must be an empty shell, pure material substance to cross the abyss, the angels bid it to pass, for there is no life there in. There he shall be laid to rest in the city of pyramids and Nemo shall me his name.
No name as you have reduced self totally to material substance, without any subjective inner world at all. Bina is pure matter striped of all spirit. Is Saturn, who devours his own children as matter ultimately creates and destroys all things recycles all back into itself.
Thus. Attainment is acceptance of a purely scientific materialism reality, and the leaving behind total all that is the inner, spiritual, or subjective awareness. The hardware stripped of all software, is the body without a name. And that is the Magister Templi as opposed to the black brother who refuses to give up his name, his soul, and his subjective perspective "personal reality" over to the cold meaningless objective truth of the abyss.
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@Lusate Auton said
"There is a certain inexorable truth to Froclown's ideology - given the limitations of his spiritual realm."
The Ruach is a closed loop, a self-contained circuit. Within a person's intellect, all hamsters run on the same wheel.
One would at least expect robotic knee-jerks from that part of any of us, if not out-and-out consistency.
"I have tried to help champion, with him, the atheistic, scientific part of the method of Scientific Illuminism: the method of Science, the aim of Religion."
You're entitled.
I particularly like, though, your use of the word "part," since this is a subset of the bigger picture. (Once you get over the hurdle of realizing this is only part of the bigger picture, then you find that the parts are primarily separated by semantics and points of view.)"Is this an impasse?"
Is what an impasse?
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@Jim Eshelman said
"The content of many of Froclown's posts form excellent examples of the sort of doctrine that emanates from the Black Brotherhood. (I'm not characterizing him personally. One normally credits the originators, not their apologists.)"
Funny, I had exactly the same thought.
Love and Will
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@Jim Eshelman said
"L. Ron Hubbard is a good example ... I'm sure he advanced as far as 7=4"
Seriously?
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Wondering if anyone has seen the movie. Dead Man's Chest, which was the sequel to the Disney Pirates of the Carribean?
In that movie we meet a monster, named Davey Jones who I think in some regards fits the bill of a Black Brother. He certainly is a very complex character, to say the least. And if you follow the story through to the third, we are given some insights on the nature of love, and what rejecting that does to a person.