when to banish? and how??
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@Her said
"I suspect that my posts have made me sound like some sort of qabalistic newbie."
Not my impression.
"That's not the case at all. I understand the use of Hebrew words of power on an intellectual level. But on an emotional level I don't feel any sort of connection."
Got it.
It's possible that it just isn't for you. Also, it's possible that you haven't been exposed to it correctly. I'm a skilled and experienced writer, and I know of no way to convey in writing how to do this - only in person. There isn't a single book known to me in print that conveys this. (Heck, for that matter, there isn't a single book known to me in print which gives all the correct Hebrew for the Pentagram Ritual.)
"I keep thinking of a quote from Ray Sherwin's, Theatre of Magick:
"To expect a person to derive benefit from from a ritual of someone else's devising would be bizarre and arrogant. No two magicians, not even members of the same order, could be expected to react in the same way to an arrangement of actions and words."
"I don't agree with that, FWIW.
"But to go one step further and declare these "standard forms" as sacrosanct and not to changed seems a little strange to me."
Nor do I make such an allegation. In fact, I've gone through many evolutions and variations of it myself. However, I nearly always decline to discuss them. If one is so driven to make such changes in advanced private work, then so be it - but I'll start everyone from the same starting point. (PS - Again, FWIW - after all of the variations and evolutions, I still return to the basic original as what I use in practice 98% of the time.)
"The personal element is being left out of the equation. Everyone must conform or be branded as a heretic. "
I trust you know that I haven't used that last word on this topic, nor anything synonymous with it, right?
Just to be cantankerous, I'm not completely convinced that there is so much of a personal element in magick other than in the very beginning where people are finding their way. I experience it more in terms of conforming the aberrant personality to universal forms of proven worth. When successful, of course, one of the symptoms is that this unlocks enormous creativity. Whether that creativity then expresses itself in one's magical formulae, or in some area of work which is one's true vocation, is always interesting to see.
"How are we to view pre 1904 rituals in the light of Liber Legis 1:49 and 2:5 ?"
The first is: "Abrogate are all rituals, all ordeals, all words and signs," &c. I take this to mean that the prior authority was withdrawn, and they needed to be reviewed. It may mean they need to be changed, or it may mean that they be reissued (under new Authority) in the prior form. For example, the grade Words and Signs of 0=0 through 5=6 were reissued in the A.'.A.'. in exactly the same forms as under the same dispensation. This doesn't mean that they weren't reviewed, merely that there was no need to change them. In contrast, the ordeals (tasks of the grade) were changed substantially and the grade rituals have undergone significant evolution or recreation.
The second verse is, "Behold! the rituals of the old time are black. Let the evil ones be cast away; let the good ones be purged by the prophet! Then shall this Knowledge go aright." Again, this calls for a review process. "Black" can't mean "evil" here, since all of them are black, but some are "good" and some are "evil." ("Black" probably means "Osirian," but may also mean simply that they have reached a saturation point.)
"
"I hold firmly that Hebrew is the fundamental language of the Mysteries and of the Path of Initiation - a language created solely for spiritual purposes and which maps more intimately into the human cellular condition that we can yet begin to understand."I don't disagree with you Jim. But if Hebrew is as fundamental as you say it is then there's a good case for abandoning the Hermetic Qabalah altogether and reverting back to the hardcore Judaic roots."
I'd be interested in hearing your elaboration on what that good case is. It isn't self-evident to me. It is the language itself that is inherently hard-wired to the human nervous system and psyche (I suspect it is truly wired into the DNA), not necessarily the intellectual theories wrapped around. There is also a serious question of what constitutes those "hardcore Judaic roots" since, for example, the forms of the Sepher Yetzirah emerging during the Renaissance era are no more likely to be true to a Hudaic original than the Hermetic forms of the same - the former were created by a committee editing a large number of manuscripts that disagreed with each other. Then we find works such as "The Gates of Light" that are close to the core of anything that can truly be called Kabbalah, but which bear a far more striking similarity to the Hermetic Qabalah than they do to the modern and near-modern Judaic forms.
"Much of the modern hermetic qabalah is a gross bastardization of the original sources."
Some is, agreed.
"You only have to read something like Aryeh Kaplan's translation and commentary on the Sepher Yetzirah to realise this fact."
But that's one of my best examples of the opposite arguement. Kaplan documents very well that the most referenced Judaic form of the S.Y. is a latter day committee production.
"Gershom Scholem (I can't find the exact reference) points out instances where the Golden Dawn's, and hence Crowley's, use of hebrew is totally uneducated and incorrect."
As mentioned above, I agree that there are definitely some instances of this.
"It seems to me that the founders of the Golden Dawn didn't view hebrew as all that fundamental because they were clearly quite happy to bend and mold the system to suit their own ends. So much so that the Golden Dawn is the laughing stock of many Judaic Kabbalists."
Just as some Judaic Kabbalists are the laughing stock of many people trained in Golden Dawn derived systems and who have studied the ancient source material.
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Heru,
I do not think you are a neophyte, but someone who has given a good attempt, and not gotten the results that were supposed to have occured, or what you expected to occur - a feeling of joy of alignment, I guess.
So, I am curious. In your studies, have you done any of the sound and color exercises? You intone the names of God, or a letter, while looking at the corresponding color? Hebrew chanting, so to speak? Most people have a joyous response to having their bodies become a musical instrument and vibrating to the sound. It's kind of a devotional, and cheerful thing. I like it because you have to take very deep breaths to have enough wind to do the whole name of God (or archangel), and you get to bellow as loudly as you like.
All that deep breathing makes you feel relaxed, cleansed and exhilirated, if nothing else.
Tried that, too?
In L.V.X.,
chrys333 -
93,
"I understand the use of Hebrew words of power on an intellectual level. But on an emotional level I don't feel any sort of connection. "
Could I suggest a check on what the ideas surrounding the concept of 'Hebrew' represent here? I'm simply quoting my own experience below, but I remember feeling distinctly depressed that in this tradition we were using stuff associated with the Biblical God. It took me a while to deconstruct that attitude.
I was raised in a conventional Anglican (Episcopalian) environment, i.e.: 'applied agnosticism'. But along the way, I did absorb the King James Bible. By that, I don't mean in the present Christian fundamentalist way of understanding, but in terms of an 'inner grammar' of how the primary figures, event and forces of the Bible are presented. I love the language of the KJV, and I also recognise that it has violently perverted the content of that which it purports to translate.
I find, for example, that the patriarchs of the Old Testament come across rather as well-born English yeomen - linked to their flocks and herds, for sure, but a little bit reserved in manner, and speaking in a somewhat polite or respectful manner to YHVH. In the KJV, they are not really men of the hills and fields, watcing the natural cycles of birth and death, just like other pastoral peoples (the Celts come to mind) invoking their God as a protection against marauders and bad times. I remember being shocked when I first met a couple of Chasidic Jews - they seemed shockingly unreligious because their conception seemed to be one of a vital, earthy God. (I'm speaking here not of conscious beliefs, but of ingrained attitudes.)
Learning Hebrew forced me to reconsider my view of those patriarchs (and matriarchs). They were rooted in earth and shamanically linked to the heavens. They slaughtered animals, prayed for fertility, wheeled and dealed among themselves, and negotiated with YHVH. Abraham even had him over for lunch (Genesis Ch. 18 ).
But in English translations of the Bible, the KJV being partly the model for them all, there's a kind of structured politeness to their dealings with their God who is rather like an English King: wrathful, but basically a Thoroughly Decent Chap, in a fiercely ineffable sort of way. It's as if the men who did the tranlating for James implicitly portrayed their dour, paranoid Scots monarch when they described their God in their work. ("Och, ye witches shall be condemned tae tha everlastin' fire, the noo!")
It took me a year or two of working with Hebrew in this system before I realised that this stuff came from a people who were intimate with <i>power</i>.
I think Jews grow up with a somewhat different sense of the raw, sacred power in the spiritual system. Harold Bloom's books (try his recent <i>The Names Divine</i>) are excellent at clarifying this. He is an unbeliever, or at least an agnostic, who is, on his own admission, haunted and scared by the "uncanny" Yahweh.
I think once we realize the Hebrews' God is this raw Power that likes people to party in His honor, then a lot of Hebraic Qabalah starts to fall into place.
93 93/93,
Edward
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"It's possible that it just isn't for you."
Believe me, that thought has crossed my mind a few times. But I would have to ignore many life experiences and "seeming" coincidences that have pushed me in this direction throughout my life.
"Also, it's possible that you haven't been exposed to it correctly."
That's quite likely.
I think my main problem is in reconciling the use of traditional Hebrew based symbolism and the origins of that symbolism in the superstitious, monotheistic Hebrew slave cult, with the progressive New Aeon philosophy of Thelema and it's quasi-Egyptian symbolism.
I know how bizarre and pathetic that sounds. And it probably gives the impression that I can't differentiate between IHVH and Jehovah. But this is not the case at all. It just feels like I have some sort of internal resistance to using Hebrew, with all it's negative associations, that short circuits my efforts to use it effectively.
A case of "If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?
But I am very persistent by nature. So I'm hoping that if I just stick to it I might be able to work my way through my own internal resistance.
"The first is: "Abrogate are all rituals, all ordeals, all words and signs," &c. I take this to mean that the prior authority was withdrawn, and they needed to be reviewed.....
The second verse is, "Behold! the rituals of the old time are black. Let the evil ones be cast away; let the good ones be purged by the prophet! Then shall this Knowledge go aright." Again, this calls for a review process."
I agree with most of what you say, Jim. But there's something that doesn't feel right about this whole thing. Liber O is the best example. Crowley did reissue the pentagram and hexagram rituals under the authority of the A.'.A.'. But did he "purge" them? Not as far as I can see. They are classic pre 1904 Golden Dawn rituals complete with Aeon of Osiris magical formulae.
The analysis of the keyword INRI at the beginning of the hexagram ritual surely needs to be updated to make it conform to the New Aeon. But Crowley didn't do this. Why?
This issue came up recently when I was listening to an audio lecture by Richard Kaczynski. He mentioned the correspondence between Crowley and the wandering Gnostic Bishop W.B.Crow. During this correspondence Crowley tells W.B.Crow that his whole magical education and thought processes where rooted in the Aeon of Osiris. That he was only the Prophet of Thelema and that it will be up to people of the future to work out all the technical magical formulae of the New Aeon.
There was one part that I found very interesting. Crowley said that for the sake of expediency the old formulae still worked. Expediency is quite a revealing word. It suggests "stop gap" measures and convenience rather than a final solution."It is the language itself that is inherently hard-wired to the human nervous system and psyche (I suspect it is truly wired into the DNA), not necessarily the intellectual theories wrapped around."
Hebrew and DNA!!!? I find that pretty difficult to accept. Especially after reading Kieren Barry's, The Greek Qabalah. Barry puts forward a very good argument that the ancient Jews got all their who alpha-numerical system from the Greeks who were using the system of gematria and the whole idea of correspondences a long time before the Jews started using.
To suggest that everyone is born hard-wired with Hebrew seems bizarre to me. I can accept that you can train, or wire, Hebrew into your brain and can then use it to structure thought processes in the same way that the Tree of Life can be a structured reality model. But to suggest that it is objective and even organic seems a strange idea to me. A quote from MTP springs to mind:
"An excellent man of great intelligence, a learned Qabalist, once amazed the Master Therion by stating that the Tree of Life was the framework of the Universe. It was as if some one had seriously maintained that a cat was a creature constructed by placing the letters C. A. T. in that order. It is no wonder that Magick has excited the ridicule of the unintelligent, since even its educated students can be guilty of so gross a violation of the first principles of common sense"
Something from my own experience relates to this too. I first began trying to practice the Middle Pillar with the usual Hebrew form. But because of my er... problem
I decided to switch to a Greek version. And this worked fine for me. Over time I steadily built up the pillar and the sephiroth in my imagination while vibrating Greek words. But after a while I tried an experiment with the Hebrew version. And guess what! It worked just the same as the Greek version. (It was a surprise to me too. 
) This suggests to me that the actual words aren't all that important. It has more to do with the framework that you plug the names into. Your suggestion of Hebrew - DNA implies that only vibrated Hebrew should work. (Unless I've got the wrong end of the stick on this one. 
) My experience with the Middle Pillar suggests otherwise to me. -
@Edward Mason said
"Could I suggest a check on what the ideas surrounding the concept of 'Hebrew' represent here? I'm simply quoting my own experience below, but I remember feeling distinctly depressed that in this tradition we were using stuff associated with the Biblical God. It took me a while to deconstruct that attitude."
You've hit the nail right on the head, Edward.
That is how I feel about Hebrew. I think I really do have to deconstruct my attitudes, at least on some levels. Intellectually I'm fine with the use of Hebrew, but I really want to connect with it emotionally as well. I want to be enthused by it when I use it in ritual. Not just simply view it with cold, intellectual detachment.@Edward Mason said
" Harold Bloom's books (try his recent <i>The Names Divine</i>) are excellent at clarifying this. He is an unbeliever, or at least an agnostic, who is, on his own admission, haunted and scared by the "uncanny" Yahweh."
Thanks for the recommendation. It's in my Amazon basket right now.
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The Egyptians and the Hebrews all believed that to say the "name" of something, its true essence, you can control it. Also, God SAID, let there be light. The world was made by vibrations of sound, first, as sound is slower and moving in matter more than light.
Therefore, the idea that the Hebrew letters (sounds) are encrypted into human beings' DNA makes sense. Intoning the names of God, changes you, as your body becomes an instrument that resonates with that sound. Our bodies recognize and grow differently from those sounds.
In L.V.X.,
chrys333 -
I understand where you are coming from Chris, but I was always under the impression that nobody actually knows how ancient Hebrew sounded or even if it was a spoken language at all.
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Heru, 93,
Hope you enjoy Bloom.
Another book that's a bit heavy going, but has some gems in it, is Prof. Moshe Idel's Kabbalah: New Perspectives (Yale University Press, 1988). His sixth chapter discusses the issue of the two Kerubim at either end of the Ark having male/female polarity. He quotes several ancient and medieval sources in his exposition, but basically, his theory is that when these two were having sex, the world was right. When they were alienated, things were otherwise. He also quotes sources that (as I read it) imply the use of the Kerubim as theurgic images by humans having sex.
Since these two Kerubim were identified with Chesed and Geburah, they connected along the path of Teth/Lust.
In other words, sex magick was a core component of the old Jewish religion. In that sense, Thelema restores and updates the ancient cult of Jewish divine sex magick, and our use of Hebrew words and the Tetragrammaton in particular (with its own inner polarities between the letters) is a means of tapping into that original energy.
Which doesn't mean other cultures weren't doing the same thing, obvoiusly. But it does underline a key difference between ancient Judaism and the celibacy-based forms of Christianity we got later.
93 93/93,
Edward
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@Her said
"I think my main problem is in reconciling the use of traditional Hebrew based symbolism and the origins of that symbolism in the superstitious, monotheistic Hebrew slave cult, with the progressive New Aeon philosophy of Thelema and it's quasi-Egyptian symbolism."
Oh, that'll sink you, LOL.
Remember one of the basic admonishments given to the A.'.A.'. Probationer at his or her reception: Whenever you hear the name of any god, don't assume that it's any god whatsoever except the god that is known to YOU.
Don't assume that Hebrew has anything per se to do with Judaism or its religion. (It does, but don't assume it does.
Don't carry around that assumption unless it's relevant to you somehow.) Think of it (for example) simply as some master direct-access code to every level of the human psyche hard-wired into our DNA (imagine implants from space aliens if it helps! LOL).It doesn't really matter where it came from. It matters what it IS. Hebrews happened to be the people who had it and handed it down to us.
"It just feels like I have some sort of internal resistance to using Hebrew, with all it's negative associations, that short circuits my efforts to use it effectively."
Got it. Yes. I think you're exactly right. That's the thing to work on, then.
"But I am very persistent by nature. So I'm hoping that if I just stick to it I might be able to work my way through my own internal resistance."
Neither brute force nor long-term erosion is necessarily the best way through. A change of concept often will do it much more thoroughly and quickly, and with less abrasion.
"
"The first is: "Abrogate are all rituals, all ordeals, all words and signs," &c. I take this to mean that the prior authority was withdrawn, and they needed to be reviewed.....The second verse is, "Behold! the rituals of the old time are black. Let the evil ones be cast away; let the good ones be purged by the prophet! Then shall this Knowledge go aright." Again, this calls for a review process."
I agree with most of what you say, Jim. But there's something that doesn't feel right about this whole thing. Liber O is the best example. Crowley did reissue the pentagram and hexagram rituals under the authority of the A.'.A.'. But did he "purge" them? Not as far as I can see. They are classic pre 1904 Golden Dawn rituals complete with Aeon of Osiris magical formulae. "
I don't see that a review-and-purge-if-necessary requires any change at all - not if the ritual is found to still be sound in the new framework.
I also don't see anything necessarily Osirian about anything in the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. Can you name something that is? Is the only issue here that they were written before 1904? Or is there something else?
One thing that, in a sense, I could regard as Osirian is that the ritual uses the Formula of the Cross - that is, addresses the four quarters. But (a) the same thing is true of the later rituals such as Star Ruby and (b) this is natural to the First Order level. The "field of the Elements" is built on the Formula of the Cross. Our understanding of that formula itself has changed, but not the its central relevance.
It's related to something Crowley wrote to Grady in the last couple of years of his life: In all aeons, the one thing that remains unchanged is Yod Heh Vav Heh. (However, our understanding of what it means certainly changes.) It's the basis of the entirety of Qabalah as we know it, and the essential formula remains the core to... well, pretty much everything.
"The analysis of the keyword INRI at the beginning of the hexagram ritual surely needs to be updated to make it conform to the New Aeon. But Crowley didn't do this. Why?"
Yes, he did. But he didn't publish it. He created it for a specfiic venue, and kept it confidential to that venue. (Temple of Thelema also has a distinctly non-Osirian formula for this.)
But there is another point: From the Star Sapphire, we see two optinos for the Analysis of the Key Word. One can use the L.V.X. signs (which, I can tell you, means the entire L.V.X. formula) or - for those relatively few who know etc. the N.O.X. signs and their use - can use that. From context it seems he did not intend to communicate the latter except to those who had reached a particular level in A.'.A.'. - but for everyone else he expected the L.V.X. signs etc. to be used. I'm going to jump, for sake of discussion, to the conclusion that he meant "use in the same old Osirian way." There is an important point of that everyone has to make the transition of Aeons themselves and that the Osiris formula is still baseline for human beings first entering the Work. The fact that we're "in" the Aeon of Horus doesn't mean it is a universal baseline - Osiris consciousness is still the baseline or the normal, healthy human adult. Therefore, I'm sure as I can be that Crowley intentionally left the baseline form of the Analysis of the Keyword in the Osirian form.
(Similarly, in Temple of Thelema, the candidate throughout the First Order - the elemental Formula of the Cross. The transition to Second Order is the specific point where the Cross (4) is raised to the Pentagram (5) and Horus succeeds Osiris. The same is done in A.'.A.'., but you ahve to remember that Second Order in A.'.A.'. begins at 2=9. The 1=10 initiation (Liber 671) is pointedly and intentionally Osirian - the 2=9 initiation (Liber 120) shifts this to Horus.)
"There was one part that I found very interesting. Crowley said that for the sake of expediency the old formulae still worked. Expediency is quite a revealing word. It suggests "stop gap" measures and convenience rather than a final solution. "
It may mean "stop gap," but I don't know - literally don't know - if that's what it means. It may mean "pragmatic instead of ideological." In other words: Do what works!
"Hebrew and DNA!!!? I find that pretty difficult to accept."
That's fine with me. But every scrap of experience I have tells me this is the case. Hebrew isn't just the language of a bunch of Semitic wondering tribes - it is the thing which they (having no other language to use) say was given to humanity by angels. I truly believe it is THE master code hard-wired into the human physical vehicle - the pattern of which is inherited from generation to generation - and which reflects the capacity of the human nervous system etc. to sustain all specific modes and levels of consciuosness accessible to us.
Only Sanskrit has shown the potential of being anything close in its direct power to move energy, shift consciousness, make changes, etc. One day I hope to have the time to investigate the relationship of the two more intimately - I haven't had the luxury yet.
"Especially after reading Kieren Barry's, The Greek Qabalah. Barry puts forward a very good argument that the ancient Jews got all their who alpha-numerical system from the Greeks who were using the system of gematria and the whole idea of correspondences a long time before the Jews started using."
That's just gematria. I'm not sure he's correct, but, in any case, I'm not talking about anything that intellectual. - Or, to the extent that the numeric relationships are part of the pattern I'm mentioning, and if Kieren happens to be right about that point, then the fact that the Hebrews hadn't discovered the numeric patterns in their system doesn't mean they weren't always there.
"To suggest that everyone is born hard-wired with Hebrew seems bizarre to me."
Yeah, I get that. (You're apparently still thinking of it as a Jewish language.)
"I can accept that you can train, or wire, Hebrew into your brain and can then use it to structure thought processes in the same way that the Tree of Life can be a structured reality model. But to suggest that it is objective and even organic seems a strange idea to me."
I don't mind voicing strange ideas <g>.
Our visual models - e.g., the Tree - is obviously a "best representation" of something inwardly present. But the wiring that for which it is a visual model is, I am sure, objective and organic.
"A quote from MTP springs to mind:
"An excellent man of great intelligence, a learned Qabalist, once amazed the Master Therion by stating that the Tree of Life was the framework of the Universe. It was as if some one had seriously maintained that a cat was a creature constructed by placing the letters C. A. T. in that order. It is no wonder that Magick has excited the ridicule of the unintelligent, since even its educated students can be guilty of so gross a violation of the first principles of common sense"
"Exactly. You're talking about the Tree. I'm talking about the thing that the Tree represents.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"There is an important point of that everyone has to make the transition of Aeons themselves and that the Osiris formula is still baseline for human beings first entering the Work. The fact that we're "in" the Aeon of Horus doesn't mean it is a universal baseline - Osiris consciousness is still the baseline or the normal, healthy human adult."
This is something that I've felt to be true for some time, but never put into words. The whole "Equinox of the Gods" thing in 1904, the reception of the Book, etc., seems to be a larger-scale "version" of what should happen in each of us as we develop.
(I particularly like this since I'm a fan of the pre-1900 Golden Dawn, and I chafe at the idea that all of that should be thrown out...)
Just like in traditional Jewish Kabbalah - when they said that only someone who has reached the age of 40 should start studying Kabbalah - I wonder if there's some critical point of individual development prior to which it's not fruitful to even introduce the idea of Thelema!
"But every scrap of experience I have tells me this is the case. Hebrew isn't just the language of a bunch of Semitic wondering tribes - it is the thing which they (having no other language to use) say was given to humanity by angels. I truly believe it is THE master code hard-wired into the human physical vehicle - the pattern of which is inherited from generation to generation - and which reflects the capacity of the human nervous system etc. to sustain all specific modes and levels of consciuosness accessible to us. "
I don't know if I'd yet go this far with regard to Hebrew specifically. But I do have to say that the more ancient and "primal" a language is, the more I get the above feeling. Once before on this forum I mentioned the fascinating and "deep" etymological correspondences that can arise when reading, say, a dictionary of Indo-European root-words. Similarly primal and powerful!
Steve
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@Steven Cranmer said
"Just like in traditional Jewish Kabbalah - when they said that only someone who has reached the age of 40 should start studying Kabbalah - I wonder if there's some critical point of individual development prior to which it's not fruitful to even introduce the idea of Thelema!"
In the original design of A.'.A.'., one never saw The Book of the Law or heard about its doctrine until after being admitted to 2=9 - again (as mentioned before), Second Order.
This was intentionally changed after WW I when Crowley recrafted the Syllabus to put most Class E documents on the Probationer 0=0 list.
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Heru,
I get the situation now. You are right. If no one can know exactly how something was said, how can you pronounce it correctly for rites that you are doing? If you are saying it incorrectly, the wrong tones or whatever, then how can it work?
However, as Jim said, the only thing that matters is if the rites do work. Jim says that they do.
Get your frustration, now.
In L.V.X.,
chrys333 -
93
"Hebrew isn't just the language of a bunch of Semitic wondering tribes - it is the thing which they (having no other language to use) say was given to humanity by angels. I truly believe it is THE master code hard-wired into the human physical vehicle - the pattern of which is inherited from generation to generation - and which reflects the capacity of the human nervous system etc. to sustain all specific modes and levels of consciuosness accessible to us.
Only Sanskrit has shown the potential of being anything close in its direct power to move energy, shift consciousness, make changes, etc. One day I hope to have the time to investigate the relationship of the two more intimately"
Where, then would that other angelic tongue, Enochian, fit in this scheme?
93 93/93,
Edward
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Don't assume that Hebrew has anything per se to do with Judaism or its religion. (It does, but don't assume it does.
Don't carry around that assumption unless it's relevant to you somehow.) Think of it (for example) simply as some master direct-access code to every level of the human psyche hard-wired into our DNA"I think I'm beginning to understand what are you are saying here Jim. But would it be more accurate to say that the underlying structure, or the meta-principles behind Hebrew, are hard-wired into DNA. What we see as Hebrew itself is a concrete representation and external expression of these abstract, genetic principles.
@Jim Eshelman said
" (imagine implants from space aliens if it helps! LOL)."
I seriously doubt that would work for me.
Just going back to the original theme of this thread. Would it be correct to assume that the Liber O material should be mastered and perfected, in all it's variations, before any attempt is made to practice the Star Ruby? I'm basing my assumption on the fact that Liber O is assigned to the grade of Neophyte A.'.A.'., and your mention of Thelema only being introduced at the Grade of Zelator.
There's also this quote from The Constitution of the Order of Thelemites that has sprung to mind as possible confirmation:
"All Zelators shall use the daily invocations given in Liber CC, the Rituals of Liber XXV, Liber XXXVI, and Liber XLIV, and the Will before meat, as taught them in their initiation."
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@Her said
"I think I'm beginning to understand what are you are saying here Jim. But would it be more accurate to say that the underlying structure, or the meta-principles behind Hebrew, are hard-wired into DNA. What we see as Hebrew itself is a concrete representation and external expression of these abstract, genetic principles."
I don't object to that, but I suspect it's far more specific than that - that the shapes of the letters, the kinesthetic feel of making them, the exact number and patterns of them (from which the Tree of Life arises, etc.) - that all this sort of thing (in a way that applies uniquely to the Hebrew alphabet and to no other known alphabet) is what's hard-wired into us.
"Just going back to the original theme of this thread. Would it be correct to assume that the Liber O material should be mastered and perfected, in all it's variations, before any attempt is made to practice the Star Ruby? I'm basing my assumption on the fact that Liber O is assigned to the grade of Neophyte A.'.A.'., and your mention of Thelema only being introduced at the Grade of Zelator."
I wouldn't make that determination for someone else a priori or generally. (And, as of 1919, both Liber L. and the various Class E documents were rolled into the Probationer syllabus.)
But, from personal experience, I'd certainly recommending long practice and deep familiarity with the Lesser Pentagram Ritual as preliminary to later adaptations of it.
"There's also this quote from The Constitution of the Order of Thelemites that has sprung to mind as possible confirmation:
"All Zelators shall use the daily invocations given in Liber CC, the Rituals of Liber XXV, Liber XXXVI, and Liber XLIV, and the Will before meat, as taught them in their initiation."
"Remember, though, that in the Order of Thelemites, "Zelator" doesn't mean what it means in A.'.A.'. - its the title for any person who walks off the street, signs a pledge form, and is accepted as a member.
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Hm, about that hardwiring thing you talk about. It's interesting how alike chromosomes are to Hebrew letters. Those things are structures which produce crystallization at certain latitudes of fixed transformation, or however one puts it into fitting terms (hope you know what I mean). Synchronizing the thoughts with a letter that is so close to the "crystallized" (matterized) level by resonance seems like one of the best ways to create changes in the body and also learn a great deal in the process by the combination of visualization and vocalization. Wow! Magick is SO COOL! Thanks for the inspiration Jim!
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Jim, or anyone else initiated enough? Can you confirm if the hard-wire thing has anything to do with chromosomes, or how it otherwise is connected to something like it?
I thought about that some more and it seems like this to me (and I would very much like confirmation/correction 
The subconscious talks in symbols and not rational arguments, because it has more to do with the hardware than the software (synapses, of course), as e.g. our chromosomes. Those are, as far as I understand it, aligned so as to give the genes affinity to attract/enhance/produce/mimic/etc. certain specific qualities, like having blue eyes (which must have something to do with a certain frequency which the particles manifesting into blue eyes spins at, as with everything else in nature), or seeing blue or red colour rather than green or brown, and so on.
Looking at it from this perspective, it seems that if the alignment of the particular ideas, which the genes thus represent, can be manipulated by attracting other ideas at the same level*, like looking at a Hebrew letter which has the exact same appearance as the alignment of the chromosome producing a certain type of colour or sound in our consciousness, then I think it's easy to hack and reprogram the Self, and I think I understand how much of magick works, if this is correct.The subconscious has to do with hardware, but there's of course no digital limit between soft- and hardware, but analogous as with everything else, but roughly speaking I mean. At a critical point, the pattern of the organism (which I presently like to think of as the resonance that (re)generates the DNA) reaches complexity enough to gain perspective in what we call Assiah, or matter space-time with its thermodynamic laws of fluctuation, it forms consciousness and the rational process begins to spread a new pattern of divination, forming the personality...
I added this last part to really be as clear as I can about where I'm coming from.- Level of solidarity between external stimuli and internal hardware.
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@Malaclypse said
"Jim, or anyone else initiated enough? Can you confirm if the hard-wire thing has anything to do with chromosomes, or how it otherwise is connected to something like it?"
Remember that we don't have physical confirmation of anything here - but, if it is truly something conveyed from generation to generation, then it must (ultimately) be chromosomal, right?
Those 23 pairs have long interested me.
PS - Loved the hardware/software analogy.
PSS - Did you ever notice that "DNA" has three of the four letters of Adonai (ADNY)? The only thing missing is the Yod - the will - the I. (Just like Adam, ADM, is DM, "blood," with breath (A) added.)
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PS - I think it's OK for me to add that the Second Degree ceremony of Aspirants to Light has a section dramatizing the Qabalistic relationship of the 23 chromosome pairs to the inherent Mysteries passed from generation to generation.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Remember that we don't have physical confirmation of anything here - but, if it is truly something conveyed from generation to generation, then it must (ultimately) be chromosomal, right?"
Yes, I can't disagree with that, of course. But I am very curious about where or how these things have come to anyone's knowledge, because, being a Westerner programmed human as I am, if there is no physical evidence, how have the analogies been extracted? I mean that as in, I don't understand specifically how, not saying I can't believe it. Because it must be deeeeeeep indeed to get to the level of genetic encoding from the level of consciousness, and to then extrapolate something that will be meaningful at the latter level... seems incomprehensible from my present pov.
Or by the way, everything having to do with perspective is overcome if it's looked at from a great enough distance, so if the ego isn't the end, it's of course possible for people like Buddha to have reached deep enough to see the connections clearly, I guess. But the real depths start to come into focus to me now. This is incredible... I THELEMA magick!Also, if you have some recommendations for books to read about the subject I'd love to hear it.
@Jim Eshelman said
"Those 23 pairs have long interested me."
Me too, but that was when I studied biology, so I bet they're way more interesting from the magick pov. Got any book recommendations or interesting information about them too?
@Jim Eshelman said
"PS - Loved the hardware/software analogy."
Thanks. Glad to be of service for once!
@Jim Eshelman said
"PSS - Did you ever notice that "DNA" has three of the four letters of Adonai (ADNY)? The only thing missing is the Yod - the will - the I. (Just like Adam, ADM, is DM, "blood," with breath (A) added.)"
Cool! No, that hadn't struck me.