Joining the A.'.A.'.
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@Froclown said
"when I say I crossed the abyss, perhaps this description of alchemy by Julius Evola can best explain what I consider to be that experience, Perhaps I am wrong."
What you described is representative of the attainment of Tiphereth, not Binah. It is the archetype of the Hero (the Sun) expressed especially through the last stages of the Path of Nun.
It's hard from the words alone to assess the level of this Tiphereth attainment. It could, of course, by that attainment of Tiphereth in Briah which constitutes the 5=6 of A.'.A.'.. More commonly, this kind of meticulous attention to the alchemical phases is representative of the attainment of Tiphereth in Yetzirah which is the level of the old Golden Dawn's 5=6 (or T.'.O.'.T.'. 5°) - roughly equal to A.'.A.'. late 1=10 or bridging to 2=9 through the Path of Tav.
It's a very good description of that. (The reference to the alchemical metals is especially a good mark of the old G.D. 5=6, Netzach in Assiah bridging into Tiphereth in Yetzirah.)
"I certainly was dissociated from my body and held between total dissolution and an infinite number of possible world I might end up incarnate within, and the demon of my inhibitions, fears, and such attacking me at every turn."
Chemically induced, I presume?
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chemically catalyzed I would say, it made the trance unshakable by normal means such as opening my eye or shaking by head, eyes open and shut made no difference, my mind was a shewstone, no escape.
I used the method of the soldier and the hunchback, Every though form, paradigm or ideal, I denied it, I cut to its flaw, and a new one would a arise and I would strike it down, until it was automatic, I wanted to take "nothing is TRUE : Everything is permissible" to its deepest source, but one can alway deny any ethos, an always find reason to accept any ethos. The path to this had my ego divided into what seemed like millions of bits, each one a spirit or demon that held only one ideal or desire and each one wanted to take over the now vacant seat of power in which my ego once ruled, so than it could enact its one law, be it God is real, God is a lie, drink a pepsi or kill yourself, it was a dust cloud of this. It seemed like these demons dragged by mind though not just all of history but other types of time and space, other worlds, but I just kept denying any validity to any of it. This "I" was more like an outer shell looking in than a point within the mind.
Eventualy, that all stopped when I hit a vast tension, where every action or inaction seemed equally futile and without truth or meaning, I felt like God at the instant of creation, in the void but having to reason to create this or that sort of world and no reason to create no worlds or all. I felt like I just did not want the responsibility, like if I could just fade away. Then some element deeper than reason took over, almost like a survival instinct, I realized that it was this that I had been fighting all along, that my sword of reason with its doubt had repressed, and divided against itself. I had to give myself to this deeper part of me, give up reason and just trust this to put everything back the way it should be.
in the end when I was solid and myself again, I saw great triumphant images, goddess statues with swords stabbed threw apples, the apples flashing bright colors Red Blue and Violet. and triumphant parade music. (I though Babalon, but maybe Netzatch, the image was linked with Eris though, through chaos on into the eye of the storm to return the apple of discord united with the sword).
And after a year or so of coming to terms with this organizational principle, I have come to trust those hunches, I even find that I often seem to have information I am sure I never read or heard, but just seem to know is right, and usually it is.
It certainly seemed to be like I dissolved into the void, dealt with the dispersing forces of Choronzion and came to meet a higher depersonalized force or principle of organization. (not a personified entity like an angel at all, more like a sense or dynamic vector from pre-rational mind that re-orders the rational mind and ego, when it becomes dispersed beyond its own ability to repair)
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@Froclown said
"It certainly seemed to be like I dissolved into the void, dealt with the dispersing forces of Choronzion and came to meet a higher depersonalized force or principle of organization. (not a personified entity like an angel at all, more like a sense or dynamic vector from pre-rational mind that re-orders the rational mind and ego, when it becomes dispersed beyond its own ability to repair)"
I've often told students over the years that you sometimes have to 'cross the Abyss' several times before you work your way up to being a beginner.
That is, there often are many layers of us that, when stripped away, feel like all footing and definition are lost. To that extent, they are a genuinely big deal at the time. But these experiences are more in the form of preliminary purifications before one is really ready to begin at the beginning.
I don't think I'm anything special in having had half a dozen or more experiences, such as you describe above, in just the first two or three grades of the A.'.A.'.. At the time, each seemed huge and (for lack of a better word at the moment) absolute. It would have been easy to take any one of them as the mark of some very high attainment, and in some cases I'm sure I did for a few days or weeks after.
But when one has such an ultimate event at (for example) late 1=10 and then goes on to find that 2=9 opens up entirely new levels - and there are four more grades from there just to 5=6 with significant threshold experiences each step along the way - it puts these early things into a lot more perspective. (It would be sooooo easy to mistake 1=10 phenomena for the Knowledge & Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel were it not for the fact that it is barely beginning in that experience compared to the actual experience to which that phrase is applied at the threshold of the Inner College.)
Or, to put it another way: I was quite right to be proud of my report card in second grade, and the good mariks I received were a genuine reflection of accomplishment and future promise; but to mistake them for a graduate degree would have been really silly.
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I never claimed to be anything special, I only claimed I had the experience, and that it gave me access to the layers of my own mind and to how the mind takes raw sensory data that is pre-conscious and divides its into categories to create reality as we perceive it consciously with wordls, including that the sense of meaning or importance in a thing is actually more akin to an emotion, not a property of the thing we believe to be meaningful.
Also than mastery over these aspects of the mind, constitutes magick, that many of the claims people push off as hokey in occult science is because they claims seem to express a literal miracle, when really its more psychological, or a better term is transcendent, it is a effect in the astral or pre-conscious to conscious translation
My interest is to teach this in such a way that academic science, hard science like neuro-chemistry will accept it.
But it also has social and political implications on the as this same meaning creation aspect of the mind, effect our sense of personal identity, and our duty to others and society, as well as our place in a greater transient whole.
My hope is that I could teach this science to those no specifically open to hocus-pocus rituals and ancient alchemical codes. I am trying to distill a method where by Thelema can effect all people. I feel I approached what RAW and LEARY call the 6th circuit meta-programmer. and a whole new level of reality exists that humanity should be exploring. But it seems people who have not had the experience have no idea what I'm even talking about, It's like trying to talk colors with the blind.
I know its not just a drug trip, because others who do more drugs than myself, seem to have no clue any more than those who are totally clean.
I assumed is NO ONE understands what I'm talking about I must be very advanced indeed.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
"I assumed is NO ONE understands what I'm talking about I must be very advanced indeed."
Or you could be completely wrong.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours in LVX,
-M -
@Froclown said
"I never claimed to be anything special, I only claimed I had the experience, and that it gave me access to the layers of my own mind and to how the mind takes raw sensory data that is pre-conscious and divides its into categories to create reality as we perceive it consciously with wordls, including that the sense of meaning or importance in a thing is actually more akin to an emotion, not a property of the thing we believe to be meaningful.
Also than mastery over these aspects of the mind, constitutes magick, that many of the claims people push off as hokey in occult science is because they claims seem to express a literal miracle, when really its more psychological, or a better term is transcendent, it is a effect in the astral or pre-conscious to conscious translation
My interest is to teach this in such a way that academic science, hard science like neuro-chemistry will accept it. "
Here are some key articles in my own research. I was going to put something together for my thesis using seminary students and their experiences with kataphatic prayer, but alas, the mountain is high, and appropriate and willing subjects are so difficult to come by...
Hill, P.C., & Hood, R.W. (1999). Affect, Religion, and Unconscious Processes. Journal of Personality, 67, 1015-1046. ----(A Lit Review of the common ground between liberal theologians and personality theorists, based in "affect.")
Thalbourne, M.A., & Maltby, J. (2008). Transliminality, thin boundaries, Unusual Experiences, and temporal lobe lability. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1617-1623. ----(Examines the "ease" of flow of information back and forth from consciousness to subconsciousness in the brain from a neuropsych perspective).
Epstein, S. (2003). Cognitive-experiential self-theory of personality. In Millon, T., & Lerner, M. J. (Eds), Comprehensive Handbook of Psychology, Volume 5: Personality and Social Psychology ( pp. 159-184). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons. ----(CEST is a newer personality theory that seeks to put some operational definitions on the "subconscious." It sounds like it would mesh nicely with your own directions. Ties together the other two articles.)
"My hope is that I could teach this science to those no specifically open to hocus-pocus rituals and ancient alchemical codes. But it seems people who have not had the experience have no idea what I'm even talking about, It's like trying to talk colors with the blind. "
According the Thalbourne's research on Transliminality, some people have a lower threshold for information to cross from unconsciousness to consciousness. They generally experience more dreams, "sensed presences," and mystical experiences, and they tend to be more interested and open to exploring things of a mystical and "hocus pocus-y" nature. Those with high thresholds, do not have the experiences and therefore consider it all an aberration and foolishness. Those with completely ungated thresholds are insane and cannot distinguish reality from fantasy.
The knowledge that this threshold can be lowered and this flow of information can be safely and sanely increased to Higher-Genius level functioning is beyond the range of empirical science at the moment and entirely still in the "unprovable" realm of the ancient mysteries. That will probably take a while. But it's not out of sight. The groundwork is pretty much being slowly tested and proven in our generation.
I've found that trying to present this information to the mind that doesn't have some sort of direct experience of it is like trying to convince a man burning in the desert sun that he really needs to think about coats. Talking to this same person after they have bent their mind around ANY experience of truly altered perception becomes easier. I think that may just be the nature of the beast. But I'd like the empirical evidence to be there as well for when they DO have those experiences...
"I know its not just a drug trip, because others who do more drugs than myself, seem to have no clue any more than those who are totally clean.
I assumed is NO ONE understands what I'm talking about I must be very advanced indeed."
I hear ya. When I do talk about it, people give me those looks. When I don't talk, they think I'm secretive and witholding. I'm not sure what to make of that. I think that maybe if we'd been "in the program," so to speak, then the experience would have been much more controlled and prepared for. It's easier for people to process afterward if they know about where you were "on the map" in the first place and the specific "symbol sets" you're dealing with. If not, then there are all kinds of unknowns that people seem hesitant to comment upon. Don't want to affirm someone who is just plain crazy, you know...?
That's the best I got for that part.
**
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yes, the specific program I was using was not orderly, I was a early philosophy student, and in my own time trying to understand traditional Hermeticism, Chaos magic of Carrol, Lovecraftian, and RAW style Discordianism, all of which I was attempting to organize with the tree of life.
So no particular method was used, I had no knowledge of what order to do any practices in, but had been doing daily LBRP, and had some effects from Simon's Necronomicon, and the with chaos sigils, to assure be that their was something to this after all.
But I did expect what ever result I had would match the grade structure, which I assumed was straight up, one tree each sepheroth a grade, the 4 worlds I assumed only applied at Malkuth / Yesod-Netzach-Hod / Tiphereth-Gevurah-Chesed / Kether-binna-Chokmah
I assumed that any attainment of Tiphereth was HGA.I re-read Liber O, that sounds like what I experienced actually, but I always assumed that Crowley was just exaggerating and just trying to make these things seem more intense than they actual are, to make students weary.
I thought this warning ("In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them") was just general advice to apply towards all visions or supposed supernatural events a sort of call to find a naturalistic explanation.
However I seems so clear to me now that this is an instruction meant to be particular to tho VI the part of this exersize. That only by denying with all your might, can one cast off the images and demons than assail one and rise on further and further. (I used nothing in true) as my motto to achieve this.
Maybe I should work on evoking at this point, I never was very good at it.
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You are not an 8=3, and any claim to that is ridiculous.
Your last sentence alone speaks volumes.
The whole Second Life thing is bloody hysterical!Seriously, you should count yourself lucky that people here are actually giving this absurd topic the time of day.
Im not convinced that Froclown isn't playing a big joke on the forum.
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Well, as one who has spent some time sparring with him verbally, I'm pretty sure he's quite serious.
I don't know... You touch something vast and mind-boggling... You answer deep questions within yourself that you have carried for years... You realize that if you can put that answer you found into the proper words, that it could potentially be wildly revolutionary and wildly beneficial not only to yourself but to humanity in general...
And then you have to come back to everyday life and figure out how in the world to do the work of communicating it meaningfully to others. When I came back down out of - what I guess was something of a similar experience - I became a bit of a "mad prophet" for a while. I spoke to my close friends and loved ones, trying to help them understand that I understood "HaShem" as the "Eye of the Storm...! -- The Eye of the furious and raging Storm of Love that We Are...!"
And that still means something very definite and incredibly, heart-wrenchingly beautiful to me, but it sounds like madness to anyone who was not struggling with the questions I was struggling with when the ordeal was triggered and I entered the experience.
I see Froclown as a brother.
"7 O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived;
you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long;
everyone mocks me.
8 Whenever I speak, I cry out
proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the LORD has brought me
insult and reproach all day long.
9 But if I say, "I will not mention him
or speak any more in his name,"
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot."---- Jeremiah 20:7-9
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A good point to remember is that the grades demarcate the stabilization of the gnosis, not the peak experience. This threw me off at first. One of my postulates was that anyone who attained a Samadhi upon the Ain should technically be an 8 = 3, as they transcended all and united with it. However while those experiences are very healthy and demarcate a minor progress, they never demarcate a permanent leap on the Tree. It is like an electron shooting off to the next orbital, it comes back when the energy dissipates. In speaking of initation, the electron doesn't come back to exactly the same place, but is a little more developed. It is where one is stabilized at that is the current grade of one. This doesn't imply in the high grades one is teeming with energy per the electron model, but that everything has been internalized and subtilized to a very high degree. This is admittedly hard to ascertain and also generally useful to know (heeding the pitfalls of being "hung up" about one's grade), but since the Way is in the Work the importance is rather offset.
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@Wizardiaoan said
"A good point to remember is that the grades demarcate the stabilization of the gnosis, not the peak experience. This threw me off at first. One of my postulates was that anyone who attained a Samadhi upon the Ain should technically be an 8 = 3, as they transcended all and united with it. However while those experiences are very healthy and demarcate a minor progress, they never demarcate a permanent leap on the Tree."
This just might be the best point anyone has made on this entire thread! Very well stated.
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what I really don't get is how is what I described different than say Buddha's fight with Mara under the Bodhi tree, and how is Mara different that Choronzon. If Mara is identified with Choronzon how then is crossing the abyss different from the path of ayin, the Devil.
When I look to Crowley's account of the abyss he says this "The name of the Dweller in the Abyss is Choronzon, but he is not really an individual. The Abyss is empty of being; it is filled with all possible forms, each equally inane, each therefore evil in the only true sense of the word --- that is, meaningless but malignant, in so far as it craves to become real. These forms swirl senselessly into haphazard heaps like dust devils, and each such chance aggregation asserts itself to be an individual and shrieks, "I am I!" though aware all the time that its elements have no true bond; so that the slightest disturbance dissipates the delusion just as a horseman, meeting a dust devil, brings it in showers of sand to the earth."
Now how do these dust devils, differ from the various demons and entities I experienced that all wanted to posses me, to take the place of my seat of ego, To proclaim "the king is dead, long live the king" only in this case the king is EGO. and how does that differ from mara.
and how does any of this differ from what RAW alluded to as the Chapel Perilous, which only the divine fool can pass by not being caught up in the illusions than present themselves.
and lastly how can I distinguish any of that from what the DSM IV, classifies as dissociative psychosis.
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The best answer I've heard for that last bit at least is that...
what is disorganized and meaningless in the mind of the madman is organized and meaningful in the mind of a mystic. The same synapses are firing, for sure, and similar dissociative states produced. But ideally the experience ultimately becomes integrative for the mystic/magus instead of disintegrative, as in the case of the madman. At least as far as I understand it...
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schizophrenic paranoid psychosis is marked by the individual finding deep meaning and ideas of reference in patterns were others probably don't even see a pattern or if they do just coincidence or meaningless noise, The psychotic, is worried about his safety because his ego function is compromised, this is reflected in his awareness as hallucination and belief that strange forces or secret agents are out to get him, the proof is in these self-referenced patters of deep meaning that support his sense that his identity is some how under attack.
Mystics certainly work to Deconstruct the ego, by ritual, ordeal, and drug as methods.
The only real difference is that the scientific mystic, seeks to keep this objectivity, and realize the issue is a biological one on a fundamental level, and the transcendent, spiritual etc is merely the way the brain changes manifest subjectively.I feel all the different thing I spoke of are the same things happening on the REAL, Objective, or scientific level, but if its Mara, the abyss, the results of Liber O, or the path of AYIN, its all the same event in truth, just different stories we tell ourselves to interpret and explain events that happen in the biology of the brain and we have to direct awareness to, other than in our subjective symbols and beliefs.
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If people can be members of the A.'.A.'. over the phone or through the mail, why is it absurd to use second life? (yes I am aware that occasionally initiations must be done in person) these probably can't be done in virtual space, not yet anyway.
But how hard is it to post your records online or hand them via note cards in SL, and then say ok you qualify for initiation, you need to come to this Address at this time, where you will be tested?
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Yeah...
I think you're stuck. I think you think you're DONE with your process, and you're not. When Native Americans went on their big shamanic vision quests, afterward, they were not allowed to act on what they had seen or go anywhere else until they could laugh at themselves again.
You're saying, "Hey! I went that same place in my head!" I get that! What I'm saying is that I'm not catching that healthy, reintegrated vibe from you. Coming back from that place in your head and living a balanced and mentally stable life is a whole other part of that journey if it is to be more than a psychologically disintegrative and disturbing seizure in the temporal lobes.
You ever seen the movie The Incredibles...? Remember the little kid that wanted to help so bad, whose ego couldn't take that Mr. Incredible thought he wasn't ready? Then he turns into the villain Syndrome"? And, well, you recognize that the kid's got talent, but there is just something a little off about how he is approaching the whole sitation...?
There is this "need" for something else that Buddy is trying to fulfill by wanting to be a Super Hero ---RIGHT NOW...! Like it has to be the thing to provide some kind of immediate compensation for the stress of some other deficits in his life. Whatever psycho-emotional deficits Buddy was trying to compensate for were exactly the reasons he wasn't ready to be a Super yet.
That's exactly the vibe you give. Whatever that thing is for you... I think you should be careful because it just might lead to a really big fall for you. I think you have more work to do.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
"If people can be members of the A.'.A.'. over the phone or through the mail, why is it absurd to use second life? (yes I am aware that occasionally initiations must be done in person) these probably can't be done in virtual space, not yet anyway.
But how hard is it to post your records online or hand them via note cards in SL, and then say ok you qualify for initiation, you need to come to this Address at this time, where you will be tested?"
Sigh. In addition to what Frater AVV so eloquently posted, I see it as absurd for a few reasons:
a) You are not a member of A.'.A.'.;
b) As a direct correlation to a) you are in no wise in a position to admit anyone into A.'.A.'.;
c) Second Life is, for all intents and purposes, a game!
Before you can lead anyone for any reason, you need to first temper your ego with a healthy dose of self-doubt. Allow me to demonstrate with a foray into the autobiographical.
I'm the Head of my own Order, as well as the President of a local community organization and the Praemonstrator of my Order's Outer College. I'm also an Assistant Manager in a research firm in my mundane life. In bed with the girlfriend (WARNING! PERSONAL INFORMATION!!), I take control. All of these are command positions, which led me to question why it is I seek out areas where I'm the boss, the one who people inevitably must answer to, the guy at the top of the food chain (or close enough to the top that I can see the top rung). I don't like being told what to do by anyone for any reason soever. Turns out I'm compensating for a few things here and there, leftover fiddly bits from my childhood, yada yada yada. I'm perfectly aware of this, and I've come to terms with it. This allows me to lead with purpose, without hindrance or restriction from my own personal demons. It allows me to forge a path that others are drawn to. I'm able to integrate the mystical into the mundane, or in other words, to not look like some kind of crazy person by screaming the truths that I've uncovered to anyone who happens to be within earshot. The point is, after examining myself, by "polishing the veils", I was able to let my Self shine through, and people are often caught up in the orbit of my Star.
But I need to remember to keep myself in check against falling victim to a self-aggrandizingly large ego. I recognize that the only power I really have in all of the positions I listed is that granted me by those whom I lead, and they have their own reasons for following me. It just so happens that their reasons coincide with mine. For now, anyway. When that time is over, I'll have earned some amount of rest before someone else gets swept up in the current, but I'll never allow this fact to pollute my purpose by putting myself up on a pedestal.
And I'm not done yet. Far from it! I have a long and arduous journey ahead of me still, but I will continue to forge my path, always remembering not to let the guideposts along the way cloud my vision with ideas of needless superiority.
Come thou forth and follow Me! ...if, ya know, you feel like it.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours in LVX,
V.H. Frater VM,
With Many A Title Associated to His Name (But Who's Counting?) -
@Maleficia said
"
I'm the Head of my own Order, as well as the President of a local community organization and the Praemonstrator of my Order's Outer College. I'm also an Assistant Manager in a research firm in my mundane life. In bed with the girlfriend (WARNING! PERSONAL INFORMATION!!), I take control. All of these are command positions, which led me to question why it is I seek out areas where I'm the boss, the one who people inevitably must answer to, the guy at the top of the food chain (or close enough to the top that I can see the top rung). I don't like being told what to do by anyone for any reason soever. Turns out I'm compensating for a few things here and there, leftover fiddly bits from my childhood, yada yada yada. I'm perfectly aware of this, and I've come to terms with it. This allows me to lead with purpose, without hindrance or restriction from my own personal demons. It allows me to forge a path that others are drawn to. I'm able to integrate the mystical into the mundane, or in other words, to not look like some kind of crazy person by screaming the truths that I've uncovered to anyone who happens to be within earshot. The point is, after examining myself, by "polishing the veils", I was able to let my Self shine through, and people are often caught up in the orbit of my Star.
"I have to say, your game does sound better than Froclowns.
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" LIBER LXI VEL CAUSAE
A.·.A.·.. . .
- Every man must overcome his own obstacles, expose his own illusions. Yet others may assist him to do both, and they may enable him altogether to avoid many of the false paths, leading no whither, which tempt the weary feet of the uninitiated pilgrim. They can further insure that he is duly tried and tested, for there are many who think themselves to be Masters who have not even begun to tread the Way of Service that leads thereto..."
Somewhere along the way, you're going to have to decide whether you want and/or need the abovementioned kind of aid on this Journey or not.
But if you yourself refuse it from these people, you don't get to offer it in their name.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
"I have to say, your game does sound better than Froclowns."
Thank you... I think?
"PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 8:08 am Post subject:
Quote:
LIBER LXI VEL CAUSAE
A.·.A.·.. . .
"4. Every man must overcome his own obstacles, expose his own illusions. Yet others may assist him to do both, and they may enable him altogether to avoid many of the false paths, leading no whither, which tempt the weary feet of the uninitiated pilgrim. They can further insure that he is duly tried and tested, for there are many who think themselves to be Masters who have not even begun to tread the Way of Service that leads thereto..."
Somewhere along the way, you're going to have to decide whether you want and/or need that kind of aid on this Journey or not.
But if you yourself refuse it from these people, you don't get to offer it in their name."
I'm not sure if this was directed toward me or not [...]
EDIT: Turns out not.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours in LVX,
-M