College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

@zeph I love how deeply you're pondering this chapter. I'd like to provide my own interpretation of what RAW was saying about the linguistic attributes of describing an experience scientifically/objectively, how often it relies on Aristotelian logic, and the hang ups you mentioned in your response. I do not think that your ideas were in conflict with RAW at all, and instead illustrate that you have done precisely the work he is describing. To give you context, I read this chapter and took away three things from it. First, that language is abused when people try to make statements about how things are for everyone when we can only know how things are for ourselves. Second, that any measurement of reality only seems to be true relative to the instrument measuring reality (including all of the strengths and weaknesses of the instrument and the units it measures in). Third, most of the statements we make about something using the verb "to be" (most commonly seen in the form of "is"), inherently imply a true/false dichotomy and fails to acknowledge that there are further states of indeterminism. I found it interesting that you brought up feeling as if this meant RAW doesn't want us to ask questions we can't adequately use language to describe. I had not thought that far past what he was saying, and instead believed that he was emphasizing the idea of relativism. Naturally, to an initiate of Thelema, relativism might seem like a given, but to someone who has not initiated, this might seem novel. RAW's background, as you may already know, was in Catholicism. In other books, he describes Catholicism as the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas relied heavily on Aristotle to justify and fill out Christian doctrine. Aristotle, and by extension Aristotelian logic, relies heavily on "True/False" dichotomies. It does not even consider the idea of a third, or synthesis of the two terms, much less a fourth, indeterminate/unknown term. Jung has also written about how Christian doctrine largely encourages this kind of thinking, hence his emphasis on the "Union of Opposites." Of course, to someone who is initiated, this third, synthetic term is not entirely new. Needless to say, in my own experiences in life, most of my encounters are with people who largely have not pondered the idea of a third term, the opposites seemingly impossible to reconcile in their minds. I imagine that those are the people that RAW is largely trying to address, which leads me to my next point. RAW is emphasizing that language cannot describe a "deep reality" in the Old Aeon sense that what I see and am describing is objectively and ontologically correct for absolutely everyone. I am sure you have heard the old joke, If you want to kill an idea, send it to a committee? Whatever I say about reality is ultimately just describing my own experience about reality. I would be abusing language to assert to you that I somehow know better than you about what your reality is supposedly structured as, no? This flies in the face of Thelemic teaching. He also describes two forms of unknown variables in addition to true and false: Indeterminate (Not Yet Testable), and Meaningless (Untestable). I bring this up to mean that if Indeterminate means Not Yet Testable, then this provides ample reason to use language to describe things we cannot adequately symbolize in language yet. We simply have not yet developed the symbols necessary to test such a thing. This brings up a further point, how do we differentiate between Not Yet Testable and Untestable given that we cannot test either one yet? It seems like RAW is highlighting another issue within linguistics and the philosophy of language. Your statement, "All is One," is fascinating in relation to this chapter. I agree that by his definition of "noise" (noise being that which is untestable by scientific standards), it certainly can be interpreted as noise. I don't think RAW would disagree with the semantic meaning of your statement, especially given that it is not hard to conceive of creating a single symbol that collapses all of creation down into it (in this case, the word, "One"). However, I am led to believe that you are using the verb "to be" in this statement to assert that you've collected enough evidence to confirm that for yourself. I also know from your response that you recognize it is just a symbol trying to describe something but it is not the thing in and of itself. I think RAW would've been just fine with your formulation, given that you are a skillful perceiver who has been collecting data over a period of time and have found a consistent pattern. "All is One," also, is not the statement he specifically calls into question. Instead, it's, "My boss is a male chauvinist drunk, and this is making me sick." He seems to be illustrating that a statement like, "My boss is a male chauvinist drunk, and this is making me sick," does not seem to be formulated properly because it doesn't acknowledge relativism. If this statement is true, then maybe this person's boss did act this way. But we can only know that this person's boss acted that way based on this person's measurements. I have not met this boss. Depending on how well I trust the person making this statement, I might decide that this statement "is not" true. Even when I make this statement that it "is not" true, I am only making this statement for myself, based on my own information and data I've collected from my experience of this situation. Therefore, both the "is true" and "is not true" statements exist, neither fully describe the reality of the situation, and yet both appear true to each individual? This highlights a significant term he has coined, but I realize was not heavily emphasized in this chapter. We can only perceive what is within our own "Reality Tunnel." In other words, I can only perceive what I am capable of perceiving. The bandwidth of my perception is my reality tunnel, and it describes my view of the All that is One. Like I said above, I cannot tell you your True Will because I do not occupy your reality tunnel, just the same as you mine, and therefore we cannot adequately make statements about a "deep reality" that I can somehow make my reality tunnel see everyone else's and then make ontologically correct statements about the All for everyone. If I did that, it would just seem like I have a really big ego. Ultimately, he is trying to describe how the ego protects itself by creating these ontological statements through the verb "to be" while embracing irrelevant measurements. He implies to me that we often phrases things in this way to give up responsibility, instead giving in to, "This is just how things are!" Rarely do people say that when things are going well! Specifically, he is trying to illustrate how much our minds create how we perceive reality. Not, create our own reality, as that implies that one could effectively remove that unknown element out of their lives. Rather, we can craft the model we use to perceive the Universe. I think that if we take this to the logical extreme, he would completely agree with your statement that a human who has been trained to be a skillful perceiver can make much more accurate ontological statements than someone who has not. In fact, I'd venture to guess that part of what makes that person a skillful perceiver is that they have become aware of the ways in which the instrument that is our body misfires and gives us faulty or irrelevant information. All of this is to say that I do not think RAW would've disagreed with your perspective, instead, I think he would've pointed out that you have done a lot of the work he is pointing to. Nonetheless, I am biased towards RAW, so my own perceptions are equally faulty!

I don't know if I can add anything that hasn't already been said about the parable other than that I find the parable to be funny. The most obvious meaning that one can derive is if you look for externalized authority, it will never come (like those who wait for the Second Coming). You'll be stuck outside the temple walls banging on the door to be let in from the conditions outside only to die alone. The door in the story was made specifically for the individual concerned in the story, so that person must be entitled to use that door, right? If its purpose is such that this person is supposed to be the one to go through it, doesn't that mean that the door has not served its purpose until it has let this person in (not unlike Crowley's metaphor that a nail has not served its purpose until hammered into wood)? The person standing in front of the door who keeps asking the guard to let them in is told to wait and that maybe one day they'll be let in. But why would someone choose to waste their time waiting to see what's on the other side of this door, made specifically for them, even though the outcome might not even occur? What could be so great that one would throw one’s life away to wait for something that might not happen? Clearly, the individual has given a sense of Authority to the guard for the individual to let the guard determine whether the individual is able to use such a door. And for why has this individual given the guard Authority anyway. Because the guard’s armor is a powerful costume associated with “Authority” symbolism that the Nephesh finds fearsome on an animal level? What exactly is the guard even guarding? Does the guard even know what’s on the other side of the door or who the door was made for? This individual in the parable also does not choose to investigate the door. The individual does not test if the door is unlocked, if the guard will prevent the individual from passing through on the individual’s own authority (“This door was made for ME!”),or find out if there are other means of getting to the other side of this wall (assuming that moving from one side of this wall to the other is in fact what this individual wants). Is the shape of that door not an invitation (in the same way that King Arthur pulls the Sword from the Stone)? Furthermore, given that RAW was interested in Thelema, it is hard not to read the "door of the Law" as anything but the Law of the Aeon. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Is it not the Will of the individual to go through that door? Is it not the Will of that Door to allow only that Individual through? The individual wants admission to the door of the Law, but the individual is not "doing" the Law. Can the guard "make" the individual "do" the Law? Who is the guard to have the authority to determine that the individual is not allowed to "do" the Law given that the door that has been uniquely fitted to this individual and clearly won't serve its purpose until it has allowed this individual in and no one else? Can the guard even adequately perceive the door and the individual clearly enough to discover that they are in the same shape? Is this individual not righteous enough to say, "Success be thy proof!"? I am reminded of how the ego likes to demand certainty before taking an action. The ego loves to search for confirmation that an individual is uniquely chosen to take this one risk that only this unique individual can responsibly handle or accurately perceive. Often, the ego finds that these types of conditions hardly ever exist. In fact, the individual in this story has more certainty than most human beings have about the thresholds they cross, because this individual might be able to perceive that they are the only one capable of crossing through that threshold indicated by the shape of the door. We will never know what is on the other side of this door for this individual because they spend their whole life waiting to be let in. Clearly, they wanted it badly enough to wait. Whether the other side of the door was disappointing or awe inspiring, or even just plain neutral, this individual only seems increasingly foolish for sitting around and waiting for external confirmation and authority, rather than using resourcefulness to discover an analogous outcome (again, was this the only door into the Law? Maybe the individual could’ve fooled the guard by walking through the door with intention and purpose, seemingly as if they were meant to go through the door that was made for the individual?). As far as the Zen student experiences a similar circumstance, did that student at least have the benefit of knowing what was on the other side of that door? The student knew that it was the meditation hall, had probably been to the hall numerous times, and only now were they locked out. Most people, when locked out of somewhere (even somewhere familiar), react with panic, fear, and the need to get inside. Did this student only fall deeper into fear of this "Dark Parable" once this happened even though they were perfectly aware of what's on the other side of that door? This student seems to have the benefit of having a theoretical knowledge and experience of the Law (hopefully even more so than the individual in the parable since the student studies Zen). Although we do not know how this student reacts to the door, one would hope that their Zen studies would’ve given the student enough of a map of experience so that the student can adequately navigate this situation (and discover the ideal course of action). If, instead, the student forgot all the training the student has been undergoing in their Zen education, then the student has clearly not internalized the Law enough to apply it.

Hi Chad, Thanks for your last message. It's been 3 months and no sign of any Book of the Law editions being posted in your publications page. Would you happen to have any updates regarding that?

I can't speak directly to the position of HOGD, but I have heard that Paul Foster Case (trained by A∴O∴, successor of HOGD) felt that advancement beyond 5=6 was a matter between the initiate and their angel. The supernal sephiroth were not thought to be beyond the reach of living humans, but the training for it was beyond the reach of B.O.T.A.

Here is the poll for our next book: https://form.jotform.com/253374467610055 Let's vote throughout the month of December and choose one to start reading middle of January, once work flow starts back up again.

Hello and Welcome.

@aramant I should have some good news for you soon on this topic.

@jjones I took a witchcraft and heresy class in college and it was so interesting! We learned about how the Inquisition and witch trials centered much on the power of deciding who holds authority in "knowing." Plenty of the main players of western occultism operated within the dominant class, white, educated men oftentimes associated in some way with the church (at least externally). Witches were women, who barred from education, developed ways of knowing through their realms of expertise, within homes, kitchens, among natural environments and communities. There has always been a thread of folk magick and a thread of ceremonial magick, oftentimes intertwining, but put this way, divided mainly by class. It is interesting how the divide still lasts today, I feel like there are often antipathies between ceremonial magicians and witchcraft practitioners and wonder if perhaps ceremonial magick might benefit from earnestly learning from nature-based workers, and vice versa. I reckon there are far more similarities than not. Btw, the book we read in the class was The Witch in the Western Imagination by Lyndal Roper, it has some absolutely horrific details of men with mommy issues playing god on poor women. The inquisition was vast in scope and quite violent but the witchcraft trials were even worse in terms of sheer depravity, and they happened more recently! I think one could go pretty deep exploring the shadow content of the "witch," "magician," and "sorcerer!"

I see, need to keep on searching then. Thank you for the reply in any case!

@Hannah Indeed! I appreciate your response. I will be fascinated to see how you navigate that point when your son reaches the teenage years, as, in my experience, that was really when I became aware of my own Mother Complex (On a side note, Crowley writes that the Zodiacal sign of Cancer just is the sign of the Mother Complex, and Jim corresponds the sign of Cancer with the Scarlet Woman in 776 1/2. As a Cancer Sun who grew up without a biological father but had a strong attachment to mother, I feel that this explains a lot of my own habits, hang ups, shining moments, etc. hahaha). I have inferred that generally, the Mother Complex doesn't affect a biological male until they hit puberty (I cannot speak for all sexes, hence my specificity in biological males :-)). My own theory is that the shock of puberty and sexuality shatters the image of the initial image of Mother in the psyche. I theorize that someone who is maybe more equipped with tools of self soothing (and psychic Understanding) as well more comfortable with sexuality may be able to perceive the Mother Complex for what it is and avoid a more violent and painful separation. According to modern developmental psychology, parents simply need to be "good enough," and once the child is capable of realizing that their parents were "good enough" (i.e. that the child's needs were met enough of the time that they are reasonably equipped for the world we are born into) then they can move on from parental hang ups and focus on the journey of self discovery (though parental complexes never leave and we are constantly trying to live in harmony with our own psychic images of Mom & Dad). I do agree that Christianity is HEAVILY to blame for the epidemic of the Mother Complex plaguing young men in today's age (in fact, I think this is perhaps one of the biggest reasons for the Manosphere, homophobia, and the death pangs of the Old Aeon, since Christianity has really failed a lot of Male youths). Christianity's sexual repression and emphasis on celibacy creates Eunuchs, which only contributes to male impotence. Although we are not physical castrating people in the realm of Malkuth, the bastardization of Christianity indoctrinating people today creates a sort of spiritual Eunuch. I have theorized that when Crowley talks about building the Wand as a Magickal Weapon and it's relation to the Phallus, this is part of what he's referring to (healing the spiritual castration that occurs from these types of issues). I've spoken to a lot of young men who have described essentially this, that they are spiritually castrated. Christianity's blatant repression of sexuality prevents everyone from becoming comfortable with expressing sexuality, and this is precisely what Freud was pointing to when he wrote about the Oedipus Complex. Failing to sort through sexual projections breeds a strange codependent relationship in which the child does not develop the self assurance and resiliency to overcome obstacles since Mother knows best and Mother protects. Ironically, this is a source of homophobia in the male psyche, because on one hand, the male psyche (or the socialized male western psyche) is getting pulled towards the opposite sex, but it has not developed any of the shifts in awareness to truly appreciate the opposite sex. Instead, because Mother provides and protects, the individual is completely blinded by the Anima (which in this case exists solely as a projection of their Mother) and becomes possessed by it. Why would the individual need to treat the opposite properly when their experience of the opposite sex has been nothing but codependency with Mother? People that are Anima Possessed generally aren't even aware that they are expressing projections of a fantasy of the opposite sex, and hence why we get this weird behavior in some men where they believe they are objectively treating women how they should as heterosexuals, even though all they do is crush femininity and kill any real signs of eroticism. It largely stems from that lack of emotional intelligence and/or comfortability with the force of Eros. The cognitive dissonance these conflicting signals create are precisely what has bred incel culture and the type of man who claims to love women but refuses anything projected as womanly, only feeling safe to show affection towards men. In this type of Psychic Structure, the individual projects femininity as the Other and corresponds the concept of "Woman" with all of those other fears of the Other. It is no wonder that there is a correlation between all of the forms of prejudice and this disconnect between men and women. The same cognitive laziness that puts woman in the Shadow of heterosexual men is the same cognitive laziness that breeds all of the other forms of prejudice, creating a Shadow of size and magnitude that drove even the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche insane. If you know the name of the Qlippothic force that causes this, please share, as I aspire to discover the name of this demon that is plaguing society (I say this humorously, at the risk of coming off too strong since it is sometimes difficult to communicate tone over text and I realize that the Qlippoth can be a touchy issue for some). Unfortunately, since these peoples' sexuality is so unconscious, if you point to their Shadow, the victim of this type of cognitive dissonance cannot even comprehend that they are mistreating women (and that it's impossible to claim heterosexuality if you mistreat women), often resorting to gaslighting and homophobia. This homophobia is a symptom of this disconnect between the biological imperative to mate with the opposite sex and the conscious mind's fixation on the Anima (at expense of women as people and human beings because this personality type is incapable of looking past their projection of the opposite sex). Since heterosexuality is expected in young men, when they fail to experience the same level of attraction that was experienced in puberty from hormonal imbalance, they repress the feeling that heterosexuality is not yet authentic to them (since they haven't done the Work to appreciate the opposite sex, the opposite sex being the symbol of the Other since they are told that there is a hard distinction between men and women) and this expectation vs reality attacks the conscious mind (since it prefers simple answers). Interestingly Freud argued that homosexuality is the default sexuality for humanity, because it is easier to admire something you are (which is an inherently homosexual attitude), and that it takes work to develop healthy relationships with the opposite sex, since they are initially perceived as a different species of being. So naturally, the conscious mind rebels saying, "I'm straight! My partner must not be perfect otherwise I would love her because I am objectively straight and it is objectively wrong for men to show emotion, much less admit that all of my emotions are directed towards particularly male centric interests and perspectives!" Of course, this is exacerbated by the Christian virtues of Guilt and Shame, since Pride (a Thelemic virtue according to the Book of the Law) would require a level of homosexuality (for example, to appreciate the man you are would require a comparison to other men, and for a man to compare themselves to other men is an inherently homosexual action since naturally some men are going to be more appealing than others). That male anger towards women for no reason other than that women exist and seemingly withhold the love and affection of their projection of Mother is a direct consequence of this psychic structure because the conscious mind is essentially angry at itself for failing to integrate what it perceives as the Other. It hurts men, women, and trans folk across the board. It really grinds my gears because it's no one's fault that society is what it is, and yet we are forced to deal with and take seriously these ridiculous projections as the consequences of society's Shadow whether we like it or not. It's no wonder Jesus got so angry prior to Crucifixion, as he was probably dealing with a similar level of frustration at his society's Shadow. Hahaha I keep writing huge walls of text, thank you everyone for your attention. I have a bad habit of writing essays instead of short responses.

@Hannah I so agree. I read the more gendered sections of this chapter and thought, "Wow!" A lot of it reminded me of Jung's hang ups on Gender and Biological Sex, to the point where I wondered if von Franz had taken any attempt at separating Jung's own difficulty with gender from his ideas. A lot of her projections seem directly inspired by some of the more unappealing aspects of Jung's ideas on Gender (as MANY have written that Jung was NOT comfortable around women, even given his emphasis on uniting the gendered opposites within the psyche, some even going so far as to argue that the ideas of "Anima Possession" and "Animus Possession" are inherently sexist concepts used to justify and explain the female hysteria written about so prevalently in Jung & Freud's time). I know that we have the luxury of modern gender theory and modern biology, but it makes it really difficult to parse through some of the ideas. The most interesting idea that von Franz presented in terms of gender was the idea (and perhaps this was in the next chapter, I can't remember) was when von Franz describes an archetype of the Divine Feminine mating with a demon in the Woods. The reason I found this so interesting is that this seems to be a "pseudo code" for a specifically feminine shadow, and men often speak about women as if this mating with the demons is something that actually occurs (have you seen the movie The VVitch? That is the first, modern expression of this archetype that comes to mind). Von Franz, being a woman and having had to deal with patriarchy, would've been such a fascinating person to explore this as an interpersonal archetypal situation and possible solutions to get the diversity of genders to work together. Instead, she clings to Jung's weirdly male centric notion that this is just the Anima, and that the Man needs to rescue the Feminine Aspects of Psyche for her to have any value (going so far as to say that, by default, the Anima, and therefore the Feminine Aspects of Psyche, are poisonous without Masculine intervention, which has really negative implications about how Jungian thought perceives women). Again, I want to be able to overlook these hang ups, but let's be honest. If we're going to genuinely explore a polarized, gendered view of the psyche, then why are we only seeing the Male Shadow in this book? There is hardly anything that deals specifically with a Female Shadow in this book thus far, which makes me extremely suspicious of taking the polarized gendered approach seriously. I cannot find any reasonable justification as to why that wouldn't be discussed, because even from a Male, Polarized perspective, if we take gender to be "real" in the biological sense, wouldn't men want to read about the "Female Shadow"? Wouldn't it only serve to explain and make conscious these strange gendered projections we've developed from growing up in Western Society? Even if they aren't just projections, wouldn't men want to read these things to learn how to better harmonize with women? I could only imagine that exploring fairy tales that do express a feminine Shadow would be infinitely more useful than young men going on Google and looking up, "How to get a woman to like you." I hope my language in this response isn't too incendiary, and I hope that I didn't mislead anyone. It's difficult for me to justify using such polarized language in this realm of discussion, but given that this book is written from that place, I wanted to emphasize that it still fails to explore any nuance even within polarization. To put it more plainly, even if we take the notion of Biological Gender seriously, von Franz's argument still fails to provide any type of nuance on the discussions of gender, sex, and the psyche. It's really disappointing to see her, as one of the few women to achieve a level of stature at that time and in this realm of study, regurgitate Jung's own misogyny!

@anael_lucis This is such a fantastic response. I loved reading this and I love how clearly you outlined the Thelemic shadow. Your description of the Shadows of the Beast and Babalon remind me of Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. In one of the classes I took in college, the instructor made the argument that BPD and NPD are both the same phenomenon but are expressed differently because of the way men and women are socialized. I also really love that you emphasize how we're always responding to both Shadow and Self in all interactions, even when we are focusing on one or the other. Shadow and Self dance around us constantly, but it can be easier in my experience to linger in the Underworld with the Shadow at times than to acknowledge and embrace the Self in Joy. You reminded me that even the Shadow is an expression of Self.

Analyze the part where the dream shifts, because I have learned through analysis that the "phase change" is significant. What did you do to cause the change and then what happened immediately after? Why do you think that happened? In my personal experience, if I "test" an entity with a pentagram and it doesn't react negatively, that's usually a good sign, but go with your intuition. I have tested entities and received very negative reactions, so that becomes pretty obvious to discern. You can also interpret everyone you encounter in the dream space as part of yourself, as said above. I think it's a matter of convenience. Next time you go to sleep, you could seed the intention in your mind to pick up where the dream left off and see what happens.

I really enjoy reading everything on Jung for this reason. I’ve always been fascinated by dreaming, and have always had very great dream recall like I remember dreams from when I was a kid and I’m 29 now. I actually just got one of his books I’m meaning to read after I’m finished with this thelema one I’m reading now.