Duality and Thelema
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Sure, if we limit "passive" to the single, non-magical definition of "inert" we can say that there's no such thing as passive. That's missing the point.
Passive and active are simply perspectives. Subject and object of a sentence. Giver and receiver. Learner and teacher. Reader and writer.
Whether or not a cup or an electrical wire engages in activity is completely irrelevant. The perspective exists.
By rejecting the perspective, we could fool ourselves into thinking we've transcended it, when all that's really happened is that we've allowed our personal prejudices to prevent us from experiencing a specific perspective.
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It's not some old teaching that is learned by wrote.
It's the initial language of unconscious imagery.
Just the other day, someone who has no qabalistic training at all was relating a dream he had: Looking for mushrooms in a forest, he came upon the royal personages of the King and Queen. He didn't learn that from alchemical or qabalistic study. It arose spontaneously from his unconscious.
The symbols are naturally occurring reflections of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
One may, by reason, make an excellent case (as you have) against the ultimacy of these symbols, and one may have an excellent argument for their ultimate transcendence (as you have).
But I think to demand that this be understood from the very beginning of The Work is to work against the natural evolution and growth of these symbols by restricting the meaning of their early and naturally occurring symbolism in the psyche.
In my view, we don't create and decide the symbolism. We record it as it occurs and use it to communicate and instruct.
It's the communcation part that becomes difficult without these relative constructs.
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@Dar es Alrah said
"Gentlemen - what use is this error to the work?
Success is thy proof - so tell me! Do you go up a grade when you can add this abstraction to the tree? Does it help in meditation or ritual towards the two essential tasks of the magician? If so - how? (And please be as specific as you can if you attempt this.) Does it aid you in expressing yourself as sexual beings? Perhaps resolve some type of Amfortas wound? Or help you in your relationship with your mother or HGA? Does it help to confront your demons? How does it mesh with your projections? Infact - does it do anything besides providing your ego with yet another place to stand?
There are many erroneous perceptions in the world that are of no use at all.
And I don't know of any unconscious imagery that means 'passive' except by the application of conscious abstract labelling after the fact, in the fashion that Crowley described so elegantly in his poem.And Sardonyx - if you don't get the foundations of your temple right from the start, then you'll find you have a lot of building and reconstruction work to do when the walls fall down later."
You are the one making the charges here (accusations), so success is your proof. Tell me how your perspective (or lack thereof, depending on who is describing it) helps you in those things? Tell me how someone who projects their own issues passes beyond knowledge of the Secret of the Knights of the East and West?
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@Dar es Alrah said
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@Takamba said
"You are the one making the charges here (accusations), so success is your proof. Tell me how your perspective (or lack thereof, depending on who is describing it) helps you in those things? Tell me how someone who projects their own issues passes beyond knowledge of the Secret of the Knights of the East and West?"Takamba - there is a whole body of Buddhist literature on the subject of Anicca. I suggest you read some of it, and then post your question on the Knights of the East and West on another thread."
I asked my question in cross examination. You opened the door with your question: "Do you go up a grade when you can add this abstraction to the tree?" We are not talking about Buddhism.
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It is immensely warming to see a tedious, intellectually-rigid, intensely polarized see-saw of ideas here that was not started by a man.
(Without a trace of sarcasm, I should add that the above is not a comment on the virtue of any of the individual points of view expressed here. Indeed, laissez le bon temps rouler.)
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Honestly, I just regret attempting to participate in your highly emotionally charged pet topic once again while you once again berate us for taking egoic postures.
That sucked.
I'm going back to being passive/active now.
You tell me what that communicates...
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@Dar es Alrah said
"Success is thy proof - so tell me! Do you go up a grade when you can add this abstraction to the tree? Does it help in meditation or ritual towards the two essential tasks of the magician? If so - how? (And please be as specific as you can if you attempt this.) Does it aid you in expressing yourself as sexual beings? Perhaps resolve some type of Amfortas wound? Or help you in your relationship with your mother or HGA? Does it help to confront your demons? How does it mesh with your projections? Infact - does it do anything besides providing your ego with yet another place to stand? "
Why yes, but I'm not so silly as to get into those personally things in this conversation that hasn't been about anything but providing our egos with yet another place to stand.
After all, my personal success is irrelevant to you...
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Just to throw my two cents in:
Alrah, I have found particular use for the active/passive dichotomy in my life. I think of it more as initiator vs receiver, or force vs material. For example, when I type on these keys of my keyboard, I am the force, and this keyboard is the material. I am the "active" part of this union, and the keyboard is the "passive" part of this union. However, the keyboard is "active" in the sense that it takes the impulses of the keys being pressed and turns it into electrical energy, which it then sends down the cable into my computer, which registers it. The computer is then "passive" from that viewpoint. This "switching" of roles continues ad infinitum, all parts being both "active" and "passive" in relation to each other.
We can get even more specific, of course. We could say that the neural impulse that resulted in my typing any individual letter is "active", and the rest of my brain is "passive" and receives it, and translates it into a perception of the intention to type, etc.
For example, lets say I have an addiction, and I feel the craving of that addiction right now. I feel pushed by it to satisfy the craving. In this example, my ego-center is being passive in relation to the subconscious/physical signal that alerts me to the craving, because it receives that signal. If I mindlessly follow through with it, I have then allowed my ego-center, "I," to remain passive in relation to the drive, which was "active." I can resist this, of course, by refusing to take that "passive" approach - the choice is an active choice of mine, of course. These are nested layers, and are all relative. But I find this kind of thinking to be very fruitful for me. The passive can be active in remaining passive, and the active can be passive in allowing the force to flow through it without interference. Again, the layers are nested, and are relative.
I think the entire active/passive and male/female dichotomy hinges on the fact that the (typical) male has a penis, and it is inserted into the vagina, which the typical female has, which receives the penis. That doesn't mean the man is active or the woman is passive, as any experience with the cowgirl position will make clear. It means that it can be useful as a symbol that the subconscious can understand. Thing that gets inserted: active. Thing that receives the insertion: passive. This has nothing to do with the person that the reproductive organ is a part of, their gender identity, their personality, their socio-economic status in the predominantly patriarchy society they find themselves in, etc - it's just symbolism based on what goes into what.
Also, I can think of a clear example of active/passive in ordinary life (and please correct me if I am wrong, Alrah): If I go up to someone I dislike and I punch them in the face, I (or my fist) am active, and the person (or their face) is passive - it receives my impulse. It is active in the sense that it applies resistance to my fist (electromagnetic force keeping the atoms apart, IIRC), and it is active in its transmitting of the pain signal to that person's brain, but in the grand view of the situation, there is clearly an initiator and a receiver in any interaction, and this is visible on all levels. All things play both roles in relation to different things.
93, 93/93.
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@Dar es Alrah said
"Nobody on this forum goes to sleep worrying about the personal success of the others here, and when we aren't reading each others words or trying to figure out something, I doubt we think of each other at all.
I love to see good people get on, but I don't get upset when they don't either. If I did then it would just make me a part of their problem in some fashion or other."
Agreed to an extent, but I do know that most of us wish each other well.
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OK, I know this may be going further off topic, but I have to say it:
participating in the discussions here is not just 'reading & posting on some internet forum' etc. --- what we open our perception for, what we allow to enter into our span of attention, one way or another, creates what we are!
every single 'input from the outside' that we experience modifies our consciousness. some inputs are smaller, some we recognize as greater, etc. but every single one does it.
thus, so far, from my experience, chit-chatting here with all of you guys is changing my life
and I actively accept being thus passive
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@danica said
"I actively accept being thus passive
"That's exactly what I was getting at! The terms are very useful, but it shouldn't be forgotten that, in practice, they are deeply intertwined. Any individual object can be in both roles for a myriad of other objects.
93, 93/93.
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Good evening, everybody!
Good luck in your devotional practices to your non-gender-specific, de-personified, goddish concepts!
Hail to that thing that is an old abstract concept in its setting! Even unto that thing that is an old abstract concept in being satisfactorily related to others! That passes from one mind to another in its idiom at the apparent downgoing of the sun. Wisdom is a good thing for guidance, and heartfelt emotion is good motivation. Hail to the old abstract concept from the metaphorical abodes of day!
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Hmm... Interesting segue...
Well, if you liked what I wrote, then that actually explains some things to me.
"Success is thy proof - so tell me! Do you go up a grade when you can add this abstraction to the tree? "
Don't know.
"Does it help in meditation or ritual towards the two essential tasks of the magician? If so - how? (And please be as specific as you can if you attempt this.)"
Yes, bhakti devotional practice aids in "enflaming oneself."
"Does it aid you in expressing yourself as sexual beings? "
Yes.
"Perhaps resolve some type of Amfortas wound? "
Perhaps.
"Or help you in your relationship with your mother or HGA? "
Absolutely.
"Does it help to confront your demons? "
Forces it, actually, when the mind is forced to hold the image of the particular energy in its most psychologically positive form.
"How does it mesh with your projections?"
It helps categorize them and make sense of them.
"Infact - does it do anything besides providing your ego with yet another place to stand?"
The ego has to have a place to "stand" in order to take "the next step."
Your line of questions seems set up to be belittling to the advanced magician, as if such things would be beneath him or her. But you gotta start somewhere. That's really my whole point.
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Not speaking for Sardonyx, but giving answers from my p.o.v. "over here" ...
@Dar es Alrah said
"How do you appreciate bhakti practice as 'passive'?"
Great question. Bhakti is inherently affirmative, "active," passionate. OTOH I think there are... more nuanced answers here than this off-the-cuff.
On any matters of love, and especially of sexuality, I think we have to keep in mind that both the pitcher and the catcher are on the same baseball team; that both pitching and catching are essential functions; and that, despite their names, both the pitcher AND the catcher throw the ball and catch it.
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"Or help you in your relationship with your mother or HGA? "Absolutely."
Curious! In what way?"
One of Phyllis' favorite passages to quote instructively, from Liber VII, Chapter 5:
*46. Nor by memory, nor by imagination, nor by prayer, nor by fasting, nor by scourging, nor by drugs, nor by ritual, nor by meditation; only by passive love shall he avail.
47. He shall await the sword of the Beloved and bare his throat for the stroke. *
