LBRP
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RF, 93,
I like the imagery here. But I still think that if Hadit is perpetually striving to attain to Nuit, to achieve dissolution in Her, then that will happen as Kether into Ain Soph; and also as a Tipherethic experience/viewpoint dissolving into the Neshamah in Binah; as Yesodic consciousness entering into Tiphereth ... and so on.
I personally can't see restricting Hadit to Kether, unless we were to say that Hadit is the Kether of Malkuth, the Kether of Hod, the Kether of Geburah, etc. etc. That strikes me as unnecessarily nit-picky. Hadit's union with Nuit is ecstatic, and not something I'd want to analyze down to the Nth degree of Qablistic exactitude. Analyzed ecstasy, to me, is like congealed spaghetti. It's still food, but .... eewww.
Kether is in Malkuth and Malkuth in Kether - but, as you note, after a different manner. While not entirely forgetting that they are two sides of one cosmic coin, this side of attaining full Neshamic consciousness, I think it's more helpful to keep them separate in our work.
93 93/93,
Edward
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Hi Ed, thanks for chiming in here.
I wasn't restricting Hadit to Kether. I was saying, "Yeah, it seems like Hadit would be there, too, I think" as a response to Virgil's and your previous posts. Hadit is what eventually crosses the Abyss, right? So I would imagine it goes higher than Tiphareth at some point, anyway.
BTW, as to your previous comment about muddying up the LBRP with all this hexagram stuff, believe it or not, I'm trying to understand the LBRP. I really don't get it, so I'm trying to get the big picture to see what the hell is going on. You start out facing East, Tiphareth, and draw a pentagram. What does that represent, spirit over the 4 elements? Then you turn toward the South, which is where, Netzach? Then West is Yesod and North is Hod? So then Tiphareth represents Air, Netzach = fire, Yesod = water (okay, that makes sense), and Hod = earth? Seems like Malkuth would be earth, if you ask me.
Since you're at Samekh and Peh, you're not actually IN the center of the "solar system," but you wind up facing that center, Hadit, to receive its influence. Is that right? -
I'm not sure I'd say that it's Hadit that crosses the Abyss. The Abyssal experience would be an abandonment of Hadit into the Ocean of Binah, I'd have thought: individuality is saturated and dissolved into a vast Understanding. Ultimately, yes, it would be Hadit doing it (I think...) but recall Crowley's descriptions in the Confessions. He was not conscious, in the conventional sense, of a dividual self during that intense work with G.C. Jones.
I found getting to understand the LBRP came from practice, not from knowing all the 'stuff'. I've always found the Peh/Samekh info bothersome and distracting, to be honest.
I look at the LBRP as a way of parsing out or analyzing the personal self. I don't get too hung up on the elemental attributions of the sephiroth, I just allow the Names and Archangels to represent the elements of their Quarters, as they have done for centuries, well before the HOGD started up. We conventionally say Yesod is Air because it's on the Middle Pillar, but it's also watery. Netzach also does a kind of double duty, both as fire expressed on the personality level, and as an earth-related sephirah. It's green, after all, and being at the bottom of the Pillar of Fire, it's receptive to the sephiroth above it. It feeds 'information' to Malkuth through Qoph (subconsciousness - remember Qoph is the back of the head, and the cerebellum).
In my own work, I simply see Raphael as Air, and as therefore representing information or realization. Gabriel is Water, and is thus deep understanding. Mikhael is Fire and thus divine energy. Auriel presides over Earth, and is thus about formation and finalization. Gabe and Auri are receptive to their opposites, Raph and Mike. The Names set up the primary orientation of the temple, and the Archangels step down the energy or summarise it.
I re-center and balance myself through this, and that allows me to release whatever I'm hanging onto. There are levels to that process, and I wouldn't like to try and summarize it all in a few paragraphs. It would vary a bit from practitioner to practitioner, I'd say, but it should be an energized exercise, and not mumbled.
I do find it helpful to allow consciousness, or the centre of mental activity, to shift a little (or a lot) to the Archangels. The realer they are, the more I can release whatever's hanging me up.
The center, as I understand it, is not what's in front of me, but what's at the center of me. Hadit (in this exercise) is the absolute core of my own being, at the heart. To the extent I can become Hadit, or allow it to Be, and thus give up any effort at 'being in control', the ritual is effective. To the extent I try to force it to work ... it doesn't.
The pentagram is Spirit ruling over the four elements, yes. I also see it as an expression of the human form at its ideal best. Which is, I feel, what happens when Spirit is in charge.
In L.V.X.,
Edward
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Actually, Hadit doesn't exist at all without Nuit. "Had! The manifestation of Nuit."; "Nu! the hiding of Hadit." Note also that Nuit achieves Hadit as the Scarlet Woman.
I think its good to a degree that people involve themselves in study at this level. Past a certain point, there are many pitfalls. For instance, unless the "chosen one" is united with Nuit - no one here can achieve Hadit. Hadit extends from the ascension of the prophet, and not just anyone. The Deity exists on multiple levels, as does the very real and very true prophecy of BOTL - but its also case specific. This is the fundamental problem with modern OTO and such. They are devoid of leadership, and the very highest grade among any of them independent of Hadit is Adeptus Minor. Furthermore, I don't see any evidence for that grade. What you have is a mish-mash of intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals, and many of which have a chip on their shoulders. To turn the work of saints and God no-less into a personal play-pen is a very real danger.
Also, astral projection is a very real phenomenon. You go places and effect changes in physicality - in the so-called real-world. Unless you have achieved this ability, you haven't made it off of Malkuth. And, furthermore, even if you didn't, that doesn't mean anything. Its the pursuit of power that trips people. This is not the point of any religion. I didn't have a choice and that is what the Book of the Law is really about. More accurate is to say that I had a choice, and my choice was the creation of The Book of the Law so as to leave me with no choice. IT WASN'T fun and games nor 'exploitation and profit'.
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@Virgil said
"Actually, Hadit doesn't exist at all without Nuit. "Had! The manifestation of Nuit."; "Nu! the hiding of Hadit.""
Right, out of the Void comes the Black Flame and return to the Void it does. Like Yin and Yang, you cannot separate the two. Yin/Dark/Receptive. Yang/Light/Active.
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Redd Fezz, 93,
In my last post I wrote:
"I look at the LBRP as a way of parsing out or analyzing the personal self."
That's not a good way of putting it, since what's being parsed out is anything but 'personal'. That's why we use God-names and the Archangels. The LBRP is dealing with the Universe/Nuit on a somewhat elemental or microcosmic level, but that's still a pretty big game.
I agree that Nuit and Hadit are interdependent, and that one makes no sense without the other. That's self-evident. But I can't see any way to grasp what that inter-relationship is all about without dealing with them separately first.
So one way of looking at the LBRP is that with it, we ritually set up a version of Nuit, with sacred 'somethings' in all the main directions. We start from the centre by making the Qabalistic Cross, and then we work back to that centre after having discovered the vast Periphery, the final discovery being Hadit-within as we intone 'Amen'. In this sense, it's a ritual of the interplay of Hadit+Nuit. Maybe I was slower to grasp this than most people are, but the day that clicked I found the ritual flowed much more easily.
93 93/93,
Edward
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That sounds about right.
I just drew the 6 of Wands and so looked up THE FOUR SIXES in the Book of Thoth. Interesting reading! Then, I read the description for 6 of Wands -- not so interesting, but not terribly boring, either. In THE FOUR SIXES, the point is made that Tiphareth is the only Sephirah below the Abyss that communicates directly with Kether. This is self-evident looking at the TOL, but somehow reading it clicked with what we've been discussing, including your last comment, Ed, which relates to the rest of THE FOUR SIXES comment as well. Good. After LBRP and MPR, what's the next ritual I should attempt?
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@Redd Fezz said
"After LBRP and MPR, what's the next ritual I should attempt?"
Perhaps start yoga along with these two rituals, instead of focusing on a new ritual right away. Spend some time with these three things before moving on to something new. Except Liber Resh. Do you do that?
These rituals take time to start creating changes. And you need to develop more than just the outer forms of the rituals. Do them every day without fail. Allow the visualizations and sensations to develop organically as your understanding of and connections to the rituals develop. You can burn yourself out, while getting little positive result if you rush through rituals to quickly without securing your foundations first. I learned that from personal experience and pretty much ended up starting all over again from scratch.
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"Octagram"
Was that a joke, Virgil?
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Hi Everyone,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Virgil, I have some questions about several statements
">For instance, unless the "chosen one" is united with Nuit - no one here can achieve Hadit. Hadit extends from the ascension of the prophet, and not just anyone. The Deity exists on multiple levels, as does the very real and very true prophecy of BOTL - but its also case specific.
"Could you clarify each of these statements?
"> This is the fundamental problem with modern OTO and such."
Of course, the above requested clarification might help me to understand.
">They are devoid of leadership, and the very highest grade among any of them independent of Hadit is Adeptus Minor."
I’m really trying to understand this…
"> Furthermore, I don't see any evidence for that grade.
"????
"
> What you have is a mish-mash of intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals, and many of which have a chip on their shoulders."Is this information gained from experience or unfounded opinion? If the latter, it is getting very close to what some people might consider slander.
Love is the law, love under will.
Thanks,
Fr. Z. T.
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I checked out Virgil's website and it looks like he's created his own organization based on Liber AL. But, so far, I've read all of Virgil's comments on this board and none of them seem to jibe with the lucid explanations in Crowley's own comments found in The Law Is For All.
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The Tarot designs on Virgil's site are quite beautiful. I can't relate the imagery to any concepts of Tarot with which I'm familiar, though, whether Christian, Thelemic, or general pagan.
Virgil, you seem to be operating from your own private Cosmos, and the usual criteria of Hermetic Qabalah apparently don't apply there. Have you crushed an universe, so that only the incommunicable remains?
Edward
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Hi -
Zo - yes and no to all questions. Meditation on the origin and root-cause will illumine my statements. I have nothing personally against anyone involved in the study of the mysteries. I despise thieves.
Redd - in a personal sense, it is my book. Crowley was a scribe and prophet, but he never found the key - nor could he.
Jim - thanks for the compliment. The OPQ Tarot is a living Journal. All cards are based upon lucid vision upon the paths.
To understand the 'ACTUAL' knowledge you will have to wait and/or join me. If not, then not. It doesn't matter to me. I'm just being responsible.
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93 Everyone,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Virgil, with all due respect, that's merely an evasion.
It's no problem if you don't want to answer. I'll respect that. Usually though if one comments on a subject one should be prepared to respond the subsequent questions otherwise why post in the first place?
Love is the law, love under will.
Fr. Z. T.
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Redd Fezz, 93,
Virgil's site isn't working right this evening. He might be updating or amending it. Last evening, I clicked on the hexagram with a key on the left of the home page. Then, by clicking on the sub-headings under Hathor, I came to the Tarot imagery.
I agree that this thread is no longer about the LBRP. Virgil has, quite ingeniously, swung the attention to himself, mostly by dropping obscure or oracular hints then not responding. Either we are open to his ideas (whatever they actually are...) or we can remain in mystery and darkness. That means any of us who are not supportive end up in the wrong.
I don't want to play somebody's games ad nauseam, but I have to concede he has gotten attention. Following your suggestion, I'm opening a 'Virgil' thread in General Discussion, just to try and clear the air.
93 93/93,
Edward