Sattvas, Rajas, Tamas on Fortune (Switch?)
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I hear what you are saying, sir TinMan.
I try to not let my imagination go in a (semi?)-logical conversation such as this, but I had to throw some far-out concepts your way to try to connect the ideas of the progression of matter. That's all.
It was a great conversation to say the least. It has me thinking more and more about what else might change in alchemy. IE: if Crowley were Crowley today, would he see further changes in the future for such things? And if he did, would he even mention them, since they are not currently at this time progressed as such?
I tell you what. Make a few maps of the alchemical elements, and their correspondences, and make them from different angles. You are a bright chap. This is actually a pretty simple thing to ponder -- I get the supreme feeling you are trying to over-complicate a simple evolution of matter.
If my spirit was unable to check akashic records, I doubt I would answer when people call me by current name. So many names from the past, as well as the name of my HGA, undulates in my brain so that the most spiritual aspects of the lives I've led come together and meet to form my present way of thinking.
It is easy for initiates, very prone to success and progression in this business, to over-complicate simple ideas. I'm sure you will find your own answer as simply as you can add two and two.
It's like looking at one of those old 3-d stereogram pictures. If you look too far into the distance, or cross your eyes, you don't see the image. Look perfectly just past the image, (into it's future?), you get the 3-d image.
G'night, TinMan. I will protest the current bastardization of oil prices so you can sit, economically, in that field of poppies with the snowfall as long as you wish.
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One concept that I must throw into the stew of this conversation:
Mercury, Sattvas, associated with preservation and fluidity, (mercurial waters of alchemical creation), is normally associated with Air, elementally. You can look at the hexagram and tree of life to see this clearly.
However, water is normally associated with Tamas, destruction, (vis 777 col LXIX.) This is an obvious evolution of the alchemical elements, (and standard 4-wind elements,) and not only that, a revealed constant interplay between them.
In the same column in 777, it is to be noted that Sattvas is normally associated with Air, key number 11. Tamas corresponds to Water and Earth in normal elemental cases.
It was only a matter of time before elemental Fire would be thrown into the dance of the alchemical evolution of the elements. This is proof, and is not to be ignored.
I sometimes playfully connect the doubt thrown around his work by the weak ones. Further research by myself always blasts away the falseness of false-falseness, something I knew would happen anyways, as I trust everything that man trusted himself to write down.
Christ. One thing you have to remember, is that he was not a normal man. He had spiritual connections through the past and the future that enabled him to know exactly what to write and when to write it. He cannot help if there are those who would doubt or give up half way and make their own errors in decisions. He expected that as well, and worded things thusly throughout the span of his work.
The man almost single-handedly brought a new Aeon into time and Creation. Well, Horus did most of the work, but who was the man responsible for killing the dying god and enabling the emergence of Horus himself? Crowley. (A name of a disciple comes to mind, for those who KNOW.)
I also cite the vision and the voice, as the Lion, devours Osiris the bull, then literally breathes the beginning of a new Universe into existence.
Let's not take this lightly nor shrug off decisions this god of a man made for us to trust him with. Divinity made for us to trust him with.
Again, I stress, map-making helps tremendously. Use 777, the book of Thoth, as well as everything you know or think you know about creation. Use a pencil, class. I'm not giving this one out.
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I'm a little surprised that no one else has commented on a fact that I believe is fairly obvious when you take a close look at the card: Hermanubis is nowhere to be found.
Crowley says Hermanubis is on there, and Hermanubis is certainly there in the Golden Dawn description of the cards. He's even found on the Rider-Waite Fortune card. But not on the Thoth version.
Hermanubis is a jackal-headed god, and not an ape. When I spotted this inconsistency, I looked high and low for any evidence that Hermanubis was ever depicted in a simian form, but wasn't able to find any. I can only find depictions of a human form with a canine head. The figure on the wheel is the Ape from the Magus card. So we still have an attribution to Mercury (and thus, Sattva), but not the way Crowley tells us.
I can't help wondering if there is a bit of a visual pun here. The Ape is the cynocephalus ape. Cynocephalus means "dog-headed," so perhaps we're to interpret the figure as "aping" the dog-headed god.
I'm not quite sure how to interpret this change. It may be an indication that there are even more blinds to be found on the found--the Ape of Thoth misleads.
The best I'm able to figure, per the BoT: "the Gunas revolve." I find it tremendously difficult to find a particular, definite Guna to attribute to any of the figures. Each can represent any of the gunas, depending on how you want to hash it out. One could spend a tremendous amount of time going round and round in circles trying to figure this card out, but the guna of each figure will continue to transform into the next guna as you consider the card closely. But we don't really want to be going in circles. From the list of short verses found at the end of the Book of Thoth with the common divinatory interpretations: "The axle moveth not; attain thou that."
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Now you've GOT this Zosimos.
I bet if you understood exactly all questions, you could explain exactly what the revolution/evolution encompasses.
We must also remember that the ape of Thoth is not inherently misleading: He speaks directly the "word" of God "himself". This means that the words of exact translation are there, but the translation is in fact a horrible lessening or bastardization of the real truth. (vis Liber 419.)
We shall attain to the smooth point, where the wheel in fact looks like it is stopped, but the continuous cycles are still there.
You have pulled out many useful ideas for this thread.
Have you ever seen a wheel, that if it turns at the perfect pact, looks as if it is stopped?
That ape! Turning "pace" into "pact" as I explain myself.
People hear certain things, words, ideas, and mislead themselves with the very things. I cite "Across the Gulf", by Crowley.
In it, as Himself, Ankh af na Khonsu, he communicates the word of the Goddess, as she speaks from behind the veil. The people always take the prophecies too literally or too lightly, and end up profaning the Goddess' name for being a false-prophetess. They are tortured and killed with Magic and Might, of course, their entrails strewn about the outer courts. This is a perfect example.
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Frater Zosimos - I've also gone round and round with those three figures attempting to fit each of the gunas over each of them in turn. I get how that goes. And maybe that's the point... that may be the still point... things won't ever fit our ideal idea of how things should be. That in itself is a good tough lesson. But, the voice of doubt speaks up, what about the Major Arcana cards meant to represent each of the 3 gunas - do they revolve for you too? No they do not - or at least not to the degree that the beasts on the wheel do. For example, I can come up with an example of how The Empress could correspond to Rajas, but it feels like reaching. So are those correspondences set for you more clearly, as they are for me? Why? (attempting to answer this myself as well)
ThelemicMage
"I trust everything that man trusted himself to write down"
but if you have blind faith... where is your doubt?
From MWT: Chapter LXVII: Faith:
"Faith in its Meaning Number One was perfectly well defined by the schoolboy: "the faculty of believing that which we know to be untrue." It is at least the acceptance of any statement as true without criticism, examination, verification, or any other method of test. Faith of this sort is evidently the main symptom of the moron, the half-wit, the village idiot. It is this kind of faith upon the possession and exercise of which religious persons always insist as the first condition of salvation."
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My doubt is actually playfully doubting anything that my consciousness or subconsciousness, (later revealed to consciousness,) picks up a not-understood, doubtful, or outright strange to my normal way of thinking or the way I have read or had things explained to me in the past.
I went to the length of saying this, that I doubt anything out of the path of normal conscious truth-discover. This means that I doubt ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, until the ultimate and undoubtable truth shines through the shadow of the doubt cast upon it.
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There was once a man who would shout
I'll doubt anything lying about
from the sun in the sky
to a warm apple pie
But of his doubt - he was certain about
inspired by you ThelemicMage with a healthy dose of Alan Watts poem about the man who said Though... -
Upon a time, a man made of tin
Thelemic in presence, showed up with a grinHis questions were right
And in poured the lightBalanced on the head of a pin
A partial answer to the age old question:
(How many angels can dance upon a pin?)A song by the grateful dead goes:
"What shall we say, shall we call it by a name?
As well to count the angels, dancin' on a pin.
Water, bright, as the sky from which it came
And the name is on the earth that takes it in
We will not speak but stand inside the rain
And listen to the thunder shout
I am, I am, I am, I am"
(Eheieh) Spirit Active, (though the thunder shouts it through _____.) -
Matter itself evolves, even the element of spirit.
This is not all complicated, but somewhat important.
It's as simple elements combining themselves, then, sharing, dancing, trading properties, then separating again with the knowledge they have gained, this is all.
I did not mean to sound condescending, but really though this should be figured out for one's self.
I thoroughly explained how to map this out, using the basic elements first, then their characteristics, differences, similarities, then it's as simple as plugging in Crowley's newer attributions, and finding the pattern.
Not a very big deal, Bear. I felt a little pushed by the way I was expected to explain my every word, when all I really see, after my explanations, and past what one should work out for oneself, is the idea of asking "why" at the end of every explanation, when it finally ends up with more questions than answers.
Children do this very often, sub/consciously asking for their own knowledge simultaneously trying to infuriate who is trying to explain the idea of something to them.
There, I put up, and I will also do you the favor of shutting up. I hate pissing off bears. They get furious in their own territory!
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"It's as simple elements combining themselves, then, sharing, dancing, trading properties, then separating again with the knowledge they have gained, this is all.
"I think there is some confusion either in your language or your schema that leads to the continuing confusion in the minds of others. It is not the continual "why," but a failure of your ability to express yourself clearly.
Consciousness evolves. Neither the 3 qualities nor the 4 elements evolve. The "qualities" and "states" are descriptors. They are not things in themselves. They all describe varying qualities and states of one thing - mind.
Consciousness evolves through those states of being, but the states of being themselves don't evolve.
Elementals may evolve.
Elements dont.In other words, H2O may transition from gas, to liquid, to solid, back to gas, and then even to plasma, but it's the H2O that "evolves."
Solid doesn't "evolve" in to liquid... The states themselves don't evolve.
I think you're confusing (A) the evolution of consciousness and (different thing) (B) the evolution of our psychological relationship to the elements with some kind of idea that (C) it is the elements themselves that evolve and take on different qualities...
If you are able to clarify whether you are talking about A or B or some combination of A and B, that's great. But right now, it sounds like you're talking about C, and that just doesn't make any sense.
Again, a chemical may in the course of its life and interactions "evolve" from red to blue. But red does not "evolve" into blue. The chemical which the colors describe evolves, not the colors.
So, based on this, do you have the ability to clarify?
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Evolution is the process of changing or mutating one's properties to fit with the change of times. Animals, Rocks, Trees, and all the elements do this.
Please.
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Look, man. I gave you enough that you should have been able to use it to explain what you actually mean even if you disagree with my semantic distinctions. You gave me, "Yuh-huh, does so."
So, I get that you're learning something that you can't really explain yet. To my mind, it would be much better if you just admitted that instead of taking condescending tones with people: "class," "children."
You simply haven't earned it. You haven't demonstrated that you can successfully articulate your thoughts to the quality of mind that gravitates here. How much less have you earned the right to chide people as "children"?
I recommend you stop. It's annoying.
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I do not mean to be condescending at all.
However, with what I feel as something so simple as matter mutating itself and changing properties.
I believe, in reading over every post on this subject, that I have actually explained this without completely connecting the ideas from post to post.
It's just that the wheel seems to be spinning uncontrollably for those who cannot make the connection. Meditation on this, after making all the necessary connections, will have one come to the realization that this is soooo simple.
If you really wish, I will get up later today and make a map of this. Then, I will scan it and post it so you can get the idea. Then, you can put it into your own words.
I've been up for days with no caffeine or other stimulant, but the power that resides within me.
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First one would do well to remember that there is something incredibly huge going on with Fire in our location of universes, not just because the Tree is projected into the element of fire.
One might say that there are huger quadrants of universes, all being in a state of one element being superior to all the others, (I quote 777 as every element has to do with sorrow and the experience of sorrow, and Fire being of the noble, eight-fold path, where one is finally free of sorrow.)
You could say it cycles like the wheel, turning element into element. Ours is in Fire, as we speak and think. The correct progression of elements in this way goes from Fire, Water, Air and Earth, the same way that the Tree distinguishes elements, downwards, with I H V H.
Also one might observe the superiority of Air in our collection of Universes as well. For instance, as soon as Fire rises up and meets with air in a perfect circle in Tiphereth, you have the "perfect" celestial object as Sol. Only in Tiphereth is Air and Fire balanced in a perfect sphere. One might note that Raphael, archangel of the sacred Air, presides over this Sephira.
One might also note the superiority of Air by noticing that Hod, the sephira of elemental Air, has Michael, the "leader" of the heavenly team, (and the strongest archangel because of Fire and Air, note his name is the prevalent archangel name used in serious evocation.)
In this way, is another progression of the elements on another scale, a bigger scale, that flow in the exact way of the wheel of the zodiac, going from Fire, Earth, Air and Water. One could call this the "Grand Zodiac", in which all other wheels are tuned into it's clockwork. Wheels within wheels.
It's kind of like having two Aeonic changes going on all the time, as with Isis/Osiris/Horus/Hrumachis, going on at the same time as the progression of the Aeons of the zodiac, but I wouldn't stress that closeness, only a way to think about it. In this Aeonic progression, we are in the element of Air, the only counterpart Fire could live and breathe with in these contexts.
This superiority of Air can be viewed as RHK being superior to the other three "devils" or "hadits" of our Universe, our dear lady Apophis of the waters, our fiery Set, and the protective Earth god Besz, RHK being of the element of Air.
You can see this mapped out on the tree of life. The obvious Chokmah, Fire, being superior in it's own right as the first manifestation of thought outside of the Tao, even though it was too intense and needed to be balanced to continue the raining-down of the Tao with Binah.
You can see the other Aeonic changes mapped out on the Tree as well, as simple as observing I (Fire), H (Water), V (Air), and H final (Earth.)
Let me gather myself a bit more and meditate on how I should continue to explain this. If you could please, bear with me, and not have to take these all literally if you don't wish, as no one should take anything literally at all since all is illusion, (however all is not the enemy of truth, gentle youth.)
Edit I am currently working on a write-up with a visual. Give me a little time, I'm learning much more about my current work as I try to put this in explainable terms.
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ThelemicMage: it's posts like your last one, and the use of the phrase "gentle youth" that make you come off as a condescending megalomaniac. You may think it's cheeky - it's not. Crowley gets away with it because he's earned it - you haven't.
EDIT: This sounds way too harsh upon re-reading, ESPECIALLY after reading Uni_Verse's poem which I like very much. I've mixed and continue to mix, my fair share of "the Old Man, Red Lion and Youth"... and it's often a heady brew...
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These links may provide you with some ideas for communicating your thoughts:
www.heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=86&t=6153
www.heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=321
Also, try to get some sleep at some point.
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@Tinman said
"ThelemicMage: it's posts like your last one, and the use of the phrase "gentle youth" that make you come off as a condescending megalomaniac. You may think it's cheeky - it's not. Crowley gets away with it because he's earned it - you haven't.
EDIT: This sounds way too harsh upon re-reading, ESPECIALLY after reading Uni_Verse's poem which I like very much. I've mixed and continue to mix, my fair share of "the Old Man, Red Lion and Youth"... and it's often a heady brew..."
That quote IS Crowley, from Knox om Pax, Essays in Light. The Devil's conversion, specifically. The Devil is talking to the Stoney
Sphinx.[And now the Devil strides and spins
Most furiously widdershins,
He causes two deceitful moons
To dance upon the driving dunes.
“If all’s illusion, gentle youth,
All is the enemy of Truth.
Where are you now?” “My worthy friend!”(I answered) “take it to the end.
I do not think you prove it quite
That truth and lies are opposite.
But upon This we can agree:
There is none other God than He.”He wrote in flame upon the grass
“This person is a perfect ass.”
He vanished in a cloud of musk.
He sent the demons of the dusk
To ramp and rage about the links
To tease me—Me, the stony Sphinx!
I smiled; I bent them to my will;
I set them dancing deosil,
And singing with seraphic glee
“There is none other God than He.”]I was making a reference to illusion, and to this poem.