Chaos and Babalon vs. Therion and Babalon
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There's a bigger issue I'm seeing though. Nuit is clearly an analogue for Shiva as Shiva is seen as the passive contemplative principle on Hindu Tantra and Hadit is clearly an analogue for Shakti as the creative uncoiling serpent who also manifests in the muladhara chakra. In this he reverses the male and female principles, but then places Babalon as the female conceptual principle at Binah. How then could the male Beast be the Word and Babalon be the creative female? Which actually would he the proper analogues for Shiva and Shakti in this relationship?
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Babalon = Shakti, Thereon = Shiva more or less.
But gender is a matter of convenience.
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The problem with these assertions is that they run contrary to traditional Hindu Tantra. Shiva is the passive, contemplative yogi that cannot be awoken from meditation, even from Shakti at times, and Shakti is the active and creative principle that brings the passive potential of Shiva into fruition. (I can provide academic citations for that assertion). Even the lingam is seen as Shiva's potentiality for creation in contemplative "I-ness".
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@FraterSia said
"The problem with these assertions is that they run contrary to traditional Hindu Tantra. Shiva is the passive, contemplative yogi that cannot be awoken from meditation, even from Shakti at times, and Shakti is the active and creative principle that brings the passive potential of Shiva into fruition. (I can provide academic citations for that assertion). Even the lingam is seen as Shiva's potentiality for creation in contemplative "I-ness"."
Chaos is Peace, and Babalon Power. In her, all power is given.
These are basic aphorisms of their nature. (Of course, the meaning of those is another thing!)
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I feel like this has become circular. On the one hand we have Nuit as the passive female and Hadit as the powerful creative (Solar Phallic), yet on the other hand we have Chaos as the male/passive and Babalon as the female/powerful?
To make this point clearer, the dynamic force in the Nuit/Hadit relationship is the male Hadit, where as the dynamic force in the Chaos/Babalon (Chockmah/Binah) is the female Babalon? If this be the case how then can Therion or Hadit be associated with the Choas/Babalon relationship?
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@Jim Eshelman said
"But gender is a matter of convenience."
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@FraterSia said
"If Chaos is peace why then would one associate Therion with Choas? Therion and Hadit are both the Solar Phallic force is it not?"
Notwithstanding this, there is a very important Qabalistic aphorism - even cited by Crowley in confidential papers - that Chokmah, and the male principle in general (including Therion etc.), is Peace, and that Binah, and the female principle in general, is Power.
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@FraterSia said
"I think the source of my confusion is that I am looking at it from a specific type of Tantra. Do you know what type of yoga/Hinduism Crowley specifically studied in India or otherwise?"
A variety, though I don't think he actually studied Tantra there. His view of Shiva in most cases would have been the more general "god of destruction" of the Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva triad, and the particular mode of worship inherent in the Shiva Samhita.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@FraterSia said
"I think the source of my confusion is that I am looking at it from a specific type of Tantra. Do you know what type of yoga/Hinduism Crowley specifically studied in India or otherwise?"A variety, though I don't think he actually studied Tantra there."
He probably did, in an area that is today part of Bangladesh (East Bengal), with these people:
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@Jim Eshelman said
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"Glory unto the Scarlet Woman, Babylon the Mother of Abominations, that rideth upon the Beast, for she hath spilt their blood in every corner of the earth, and lo! she hath mingled it in the cup of her whoredom."
(He didn't yet have the correct spelling of "Babalon.") He is mentioned in the same aethyr as "the crowned beast" that she rides. And then a powerful statement:"
"And the Beast whereon she rideth is the Lord of the City of the Pyramids."
Actually, there is evidence Crowley was aware of, and used the spelling Babalon five years before the work documented in The Vision & The Voice.
In the notebook titled Invocation of Hoor, which was started while in Cairo in the spring of 1904, a 36 card Tarot spread dealt in the summer of 1904 ends the notebook; in the written interpretation of the cards, Crowley associates the 2 of cups with** Babalon**, and also uses the term City of the Pyramids in the interpretation of another card: both terms are featured prominently in the The Vision & The Voice as shown in your previous post.