The new Aeon
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"Yes.... I can see you're very clear about the thrusting part ... lololololol"
Well of course, and with emphasis added!
The whole descending, Flaming "Sword" image is, in my view, the first part of the IAO formula. The divine phallus (the dying god) is thrust from Kether into Malkuth, from truth into the yoni of it's lover, illusion. Each thrust into her is a death of sorts and it's also a planting of the seed in the womb of mother/matter/illusion. It grows in the womb of Malkuth until it is ready to born out of illusion once again and to move back up the tree to Kether. -
"So where does that leave your metaphor?"
There aren't two things. There is one thing that enters into something that it possesses, namely it's own ability to go inside of it's own illusion. The truth can't remain hidden and covered forever, that is not it's nature; it is infinite, but the false is finite. And so the finite must give way as the truth reemerges. This is how the birth occurs.
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This whole death and rebirth formula has to do with the mystery of how the One may give and receive when there is no other to give to or receive from.
From: unusmundus-melie.blogspot.com/2009/09/writing-by-me-freeform-thought.html
Enlightenment is understanding that you are coming from and going to infinite perfection and that your purpose is to give and receive unending fulfillment. It is the realization that the deepest core of your being is the infinite source of creation behind all things. You are both empowered and without ego because you see that One is all there is. Enlightenment is also the understanding that the way in which giving and receiving is accomplished cannot be reasoned since the means of accomplishing this feat is to abandon reason. (This is where one enters into the womb of the Mother/illusion.) Enlightenment is seeing the full circle of existence and discovering that to be filled one must first become empty. It can only be said that when you are full you cast away your oneness (this is where you give, this is where you abandon reason and this is where the illusion begins) (And, again, this is where one enters into the womb of the Mother/illusion.) Illusion is finite but Truth is infinite, therefore illusion must give way as you awaken once again to the joy and peace of your unchanged infinite perfect state of being. (This is where you receive, this is where you find your reason, and this is where the illusion ends). -
"For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union." That quote, to me, is about the dying god formula and it speaks of the journey from Kether to Malkuth and back to Kether. The One, divided, descends and moves into a death stage in Malkuth. Malkuth is not only a tomb, but a womb. Truth is unchanging (the One can never, really be divided), but truth implanted in illusion appears to grow and change. What really happens is that that which is concealing truth is false and therefore finite and it withers and falls away from truth. As the false and finite withers and falls away, the truth reemerges unchanged, whole and undivided, just as the Sun that was always shining.
"Sacrifice was not merely a one-time-only thing, but a spiritual method, at least for serious aspirants: self-flagellating Jesuits, fasting Franciscans, fervently praying Carthusians, and any number of lone-wolf seekers, alchemists, heretics, syncretics and what have you. And, for those who stuck with it, it frequently produced results. It was the formula of that Aeon, and in conformity with that Aeon's nature and requirements."
I am still trying to better understand the change in the new Aeon, such as, did a change occur in the paths between Malkuth and Tiphareth that has resulted in there no longer being a need for ascetic methods employed in the previous Aeon? Maybe I'm looking for where it says on the map (maybe the map is the Tree of Life, maybe it is in procession of the equinoxes, maybe something else, maybe both combined) that says that when we reach this point on the map, there will be this change.
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You're lookng for too technical of an answer. I'll try to go back to your early posts (now that I'm back in town) and give some sort of useful answer, but the main thing I see (over the whole range of posts) is being too mappish and making the whole thing way too complicated.
The main point, I think, is this: Due to many converging causes, the essential archetypes most likely to lead humanity overall inward on its spiritual journey have changed. The old ones are not "broken" so much as outgrown - and new ones replaced them.
The most important cause of this, I think, is that the species-wide maturation of the ego as a distinctive "organ" of the psyche had pretty much finished. (As I have often said when lecturing, "We don't have to keep taking that class on Ego. We passed. We do ego good. Time for the next class.") Several other things have supported this, including:
- The antiquation of the astronomical model underlying prior spiritual and religions formulations
- The threshold being crossed in early 20th Century that over 50% of all people in the world didn't go to bed not knowing where tomorrow's food would come from
But the main point is the ego-maturation threshold: Time to drop gods (i.e., markers of the path inward) that existed primarily to help us in that developmental task, and move on to others.
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"did a change occur in the paths between Malkuth and Tiphareth that has resulted in there no longer being a need for ascetic methods employed in the previous Aeon? "
I think Edward's point was about the role of ascetic methods in the old aeon. Since the prime work for most humans was to develop and stabalize Ruach (rational) consciousness, Nephesh (sub)consciousness was often stamped down to prevent it from pulling us back into a previous state of consciousness.
It's not that there could be no use or need for ascetic methods. Just that ascetism to deny the self, and maintain rigid ego control of our entire existence is not really necessary or even a good thing for most people any more.
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""We don't have to keep taking that class on Ego. We passed. We do ego good. Time for the next class.""
Ok, now we may be closing in on something that could shed some light for me. When you say, "We don't have to keep taking that class on Ego.", in what way were the dying gods a class, or instruction on Ego? Now that that phase of learning is complete and "We do ego good.", how do we make use of this tool in the new Aeon and what do we begin working on in the new Aeon that surpasses the Ego?
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(Not trying to answer your question in Jim's place, but adding some thoughts)
Are you familiar with the basic Christian themes of Jesus on the Cross? What message does the standard story line teach us?
The adult god-man (ego) dies, and is resurrected, and if you follow the rules or accept that sacrifice there's hope for your ego to live on too. -
@kerlem93 said
"When you say, "We don't have to keep taking that class on Ego.", in what way were the dying gods a class, or instruction on Ego?"
The Osiris Aeon marked the emergence of Ruach, or ego-consciousness - the emergent distinction of the individual from the herd. (Wasn't that covered in the article to which I pointed you?)
This maturation is a distinctly solar development. The Sun became the projection-object of religions and other inner paths of development. The Sun was seen as passing through a daily cycle of rising, coming to its fullness, and dying. This looked like the course of human life. Humanity created gods that could take it one step further and actual "rise again" like the Sun. - The comparison to the phallus (which rises, dies, then rises again) was, of course, also emphasized. - Humanity divinized the ideal of the rise-set-rerise behavior of the Sun as part of the process of identifying its evolutionary self with the Sun - of pushing the development of the solar part of the psyche, the ego-center.
"Now that that phase of learning is complete and "We do ego good.", how do we make use of this tool in the new Aeon and what do we begin working on in the new Aeon that surpasses the Ego?"
For your first question - that's the domain, first, of psychology (the field that explores and assists the fully functional, healthy manifestation of an adult ego structure, among other things). On spiritual matters, I couldn't answer that first question adequately without writing a somewhat lengthy treatise on the whole course of initiation - It's something one learns, for example, in Temple of Thelema over the course of several degrees (and, correspondingly, several years of life).
Drop your words "in the new Aeon" in that first sentence and see your question for its simpler form: How do we make use of a mature, healthy developed ego? That's the practical question. - From an initiatic p.o.v., part of the end-of-the-road answer (and the reason for calling it a "tool") is that the ego isn't really what we are. It's one layer of us. We need to develop it to its fullness, but in the healthiest and most effective way possible. In time, when our development shifts our p.o.v. to a deeper level, we'll recognize the ego as just another garment - not all that different from a well-learned skill - something we can bring into play to accomplish our real purposes.
As for your second question: Well, that's what the schools of initiation are all about. To state it differently: The species overall will develop this naturally in the centuries to come. Some of us, though, are impatient with natural evolution and want to push the issue, and for that there have been developed ways of training that stabilize the present gains and push the emerging capacities.
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@kerlem93 said
"In 777 Crowley never explicitly assigns any of the corresponding Tiphareth figures to different Aeons. The main point of the work of correlating all the information in 777 appears to be (aside from being a reference book for practical work) to show that in many times and in many cultures there were numerous figures that represent the same thing."
The main purpose of 777 was to use the 32 Paths of the Tree of Life as a cataloging method for showing cognate ideas, or those with related themes, across a wide range of religions, philosophies, and other systems.
And, while that goal wouldn't tend to take him down the path of talking about aeon-differentiation, this is even more the case because, when 777 was written, Crowley had lost The Book of the Law manuscript and was actively avoiding the book and the ideas in it.
"The dying god formula represents death and resurrection only to the onlookers. But to one that attains to the resurrection stage, it becomes clear that the Sun is always shining, that death is as a shadow that fades with the coming of the light and that duality was dependent upon that shadow which, once dispelled, no longer has power over perception."
Yes, but all of those symbols are for those who haven't yet reached this realization. Those who attain to (and mature in) Tiphereth mostly don't continue to worship solar ideas. It's actually a little startling (and rather captivating) to see how quickly (even in the middle of the 5=6 ritual itself) these ideas rotate to where Binah archetypes start pulling one almost at once. Horus is the visible object of worship - for the masses - but, once the K&C is attained, the path forward is a winding route that eventually (in one life or another) terminates at the shore of the Abyss.
"The main reason for making such a big point of wiping away the old names was to assist in moving humanity into a new, previously esoteric, understanding. The way that Crowley did that was by proclaiming a new age, with a new name, so that the baggage (the exoteric understanding that was predominant in the old Aeon) could be let go of along with the old names. Would you agree, or am I still missing a key piece somewhere?"
Your words imply that this was a conscious plan by Crowley. If that's what you mean, then I definitely disagree. It was thrust on him. He fought against it. It was Liber Legis that proclaimed these things, not Crowley - until he took up the task of pushing Liber Legis.
There are other things you've written above with which I wouldn't exactly disagree, but OTOH would not say the same way. I don't know that in your mind they miss the point, but I think they run a risk of being understood by others in a way that would lead them to miss the point. For example, I'm not sure of the purpose of saying that the new formulations "was to assist in moving humanity into a new, previously esoteric, understanding." I'd say, more simply, that it was time to drop roads original built to lead us to terrain we've now moved past, so that new roads were needed. (Toys to help a three-year-old expand language skills may still be of some limited value to a 9-year-old but, in general, need to be put away and a new set of toys and techniques is needed - since the whole species is older and more mature overall than it was even a short while ago.)
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"The adult god-man (ego) dies, and is resurrected, and if you follow the rules or accept that sacrifice there's hope for your ego to live on too."
Yes, I'm familiar with that type of coercion. I think it was an exoteric understanding of the dying god formula, but I don't think that is what would have been taught by someone that had achieved the resurrection stage of that formula. It's hard to say. From the little that I have been able to gather about the subject, there are various "moods" of devotion, as they are described in yogic terms.
From: www.workofthechariot.com/TextFiles/Practices-Moods.html - "The moods of the yoga of devotion to Small Face (name your diety here) vary. Some devotees may have a strong emotional sense of being creatures in the Lord YHVH’s (or any other Small Face Chosen Ideal) dream-universe. Others may feel like servants of the Lord YHVH the Master; or like the Lord YHVH’s dear friend, sister, or brother; or like the Lord YHVH’s wife, or husband, or secret paramour."
So maybe the mood that you described may work as a spiritual practice for some and maybe it is even aimed at an audience that is in a stage of their spiritual development where that is the only type of practice they are capable of. The problem with it is that we don't know who's rules they are. There is too much room for the possibility that those rules originated from some other persons poor interpretation of what they "think" you are supposed to do as opposed to being of any true, divine origin. If it said something like, "Raise yourself up that you may be able to know the true Will of your higher god-man self, then you may be brought to the accomplishment of the Great Work and marvel that the symbols of resurrection were a foretelling of your own.", then I could probably go along with it.
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"For example, I'm not sure of the purpose of saying that the new formulations "was to assist in moving humanity into a new, previously esoteric, understanding." I'd say, more simply, that it was time to drop roads original built to lead us to terrain we've now moved past, so that new roads were needed."
The point of saying that was because, my interpretation is that the dying god formula does not lead us to terrain that we have now moved past. We may have moved past the terrain that an exoteric understanding of the formula pointed to, but we haven't moved past the terrain that it has always represented to the few who were already far ahead on the path. The "terrain" that the dying god formula really represents (I'm postulating...) is the full terrain of the divine dying god's own journey from Kether to Malkuth and back to Kether. That means **your ** (I'm emphasizing 'your' because it isn't about duality as in you **and **I. I could have just as well said I, but it's not **both **as in two things.) journey, not the journey of a dead idol hanging on a wall. The key point that takes this idea from an exoteric understanding to an esoteric one (...that most people, especially in the old Aeon, wouldn't have been aware of unless they were undergoing special training...) is that the dying god is not just an idol to be gawked at and worshiped, it's something you DO, it's something you are **already **doing; well, at least the resurrecting part, because we have already completed the first part of descending from Life into the womb/tomb of our mother. It is the formula of the breath of life, the in and out of the Flaming Sword, the phallus that is the dying god (You) descending into Mother/illusion and returning to Father/truth. Manifesting in Malkuth represents the midpoint. What lies ahead is the great return, or the resurrection.
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@kerlem93 said
"The point of saying that was because, my interpretation is that the dying god formula does not lead us to terrain that we have now moved past."
Got it. I now understand your position.
I disagree with it for the most part, but do now understand what you're saying.
"We may have moved past the terrain that an exoteric understanding of the formula pointed to, but we haven't moved past the terrain that it has always represented to the few who were already far ahead on the path."
These formulae were never for those who have already attained but, rather, for those who haven't. They are well-paved roadways. When someone truly attainsone of these main plateaus, they routinely move on to a different formula in most cases.
"The "terrain" that the dying god formula really represents (I'm postulating...) is the full terrain of the divine dying god's own journey from Kether to Malkuth and back to Kether."
Yeah, that's where I think you're all off track. It was never about that. It was about realizing the solar mystery.
That doesn't mean that it can't be applied to someone who wants to hold onto an old formula. But saying it can be applied is different from saying it applies.
"The key point that takes this idea from an exoteric understanding to an esoteric one (...that most people, especially in the old Aeon, wouldn't have been aware of unless they were undergoing special training...) is that the dying god is not just an idol to be gawked at and worshiped, it's something you DO, it's something you are **already **doing; well, at least the resurrecting part, because we have already completed the first part of descending from Life into the womb/tomb of our mother."
The whole idea of death and resurrection is a tired, past formula. The new formula is one of the eternally borning.
"It is the formula of the breath of life, the in and out of the Flaming Sword, the phallus that is the dying god (You) descending into Mother/illusion and returning to Father/truth. Manifesting in Malkuth represents the midpoint. What lies ahead is the great return, or the resurrection."
Yeah, don't think so. This is part of what I meant about you making it way too complicated. The need to substantiate a variant theory of something by a complex metaphysic should always alert us to the possibility that it's all blather.
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"Got it. I now understand your position.
I disagree with it for the most part, but do now understand what you're saying. "
Ok, that's good. Now you must have an idea of what I'm missing.
"When someone truly attains one of these main plateaus, they routinely move on to a different formula in most cases."
That's what I'm trying to understand. What the new formula is and what it implies.
"It was about realizing the solar mystery."
Ok, what is realized?
"That doesn't mean that it can't be applied to someone who wants to hold onto an old formula."
I don't want to hold onto it if I can gain a broader perspective. I would be the first one to be as giddy as a little kid if I could get something to click and I could see a wider horizon.
"The whole idea of death and resurrection is a tired, past formula. The new formula is one of the eternally borning."
Well how did we get here then? into a position where we need to climb back up the tree if a death and decent into the womb didn't occur? We are always borning if we don't remember the fall and all we see on each cycle is the returning.
"Yeah, don't think so. This is part of what I meant about you making it way too complicated. The need to substantiate a variant theory of something by a complex metaphysic should always alert us to the possibility that it's all blather."
Complicated? People spend 20 years studying Qabala. How many books did Crowley alone write about all this? How many books could you fill on the subject? I would love it if you could take the two sentences that you highlighted as complicated and turn them around into a simple, understandable, correct statement. I'm not saying that it wouldn't still need the direct experience of these things to mean so much more, but there must be some way to at least put the concepts into a concise statement. I know I must be frustrating, but I'm a person a fair intelligence. There must be some way that I can get what the alternative, "correct" understanding is, into my head.
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Nowadays, 3rd graders are taught that the sun "setting" is really the earth revolving, and that the seasons are from the tilt of the earth. They don't really partake of the "mystery" of the dying sunlight every night, or during the winter solstice, because it's not a mystery anymore.
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"3rd graders are taught that the sun "setting" is really the earth revolving, and that the seasons are from the tilt of the earth. They don't really partake of the "mystery" of the dying sunlight every night, or during the winter solstice, because it's not a mystery anymore."
True, but how did we get in a position where we are reascending the tree unless we are going through a rebirth process right now due to a previous death phase?
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I agree that it is no longer a mystery to those who can intellectually comprehend that the sun is always shining, and even less so for those that can experience it directly, but doesn't the fact that we didn't know this previously, and that now we do (or, for some of us, we are only starting to), imply that a death, a decent into unknowing occurred, something that divided us from truth, and now we are in a phase of returning to truth from illusion, delusion, confusion, unknowing, whatever you want to call it?