1 February - (Heru-Ra-Ha) Liber L., 3:55-56
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@Metzareph said
"All Creation is Good. There is no evil. Evil is an illusion, created by our own limitation."
It's easy to say that till you sit on a tack.
"Also, with much respect, I noticed that you seem to be taking things literal."
Yes, I've been accused (justly) of that before.
First, I agree that the allegorical meaning is more important than the literal. In fact, I'd go farther and say that the allegory is in turn a veil for something "beyond speech and beyond sight." The best way to appreciate Liber Legis is to read it aloud as an invocation and let its magic wash over you and within you. At the same time, though, I don't think the literal meaning can just be dismissed. I mean, there it is. It's the first thing you encounter when you read the book. If the book doesn't mean what it says, then why does it say it?
Second, the question I'm really trying to ask, but haven't succeeded in conveying quite right, is this: much of the text of L.L., especially chapter III, is shocking and offensive. Therefore, its author must have intended to shock and offend its readers. Why (I can't help but wonder) is this?
It's as if you went to a cathedral expecting to celebrate the Mass, and instead found them showing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on a wide-screen TV.
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@gmugmble said
"Second, the question I'm really trying to ask, but haven't succeeded in conveying quite right, is this: much of the text of L.L., especially chapter III, is shocking and offensive. Therefore, its author must have intended to shock and offend its readers. Why (I can't help but wonder) is this?"
I have always thought that the intention was to shake things up in a big way - and nothing shakes things up so much as shock and offense. (There's also a borderline area - things that currently shock because of established mass-mind patterns, but that really shouldn't shock - so desensitization would be part of the purpose.)
I hold to the job duty of a minister or priest (or other religious leader) as being, "To bring comfort to the discomfitted, and discomfort to the comfortable."
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@gmugmble said
"Whatever soothing interpretation we can find for this and other apparently horrific passages in this book, we can't avoid the fact that the surface meaning is quite gruesome. If the true meaning of chapter III has to do with each person awakening to his or her divinity, why did the gods in charge of the spiritual development of humanity find images of war, vengeance, rape, torture, callous brutatlity, etc., to be the best symbolic vehicle for presenting these truths to us?
I don't have an answer to this question (or rather, I have several that I don't find entirely convincing), but I think it's one of the most important issues to address in understanding Liber AL (or L if you like)."
Perhaps because people are most averse to these things and Thelema is all about accepting all facets of the Universe, the martial aspects especially (Aeon of HORUS, my friend... look at the 20th century in terms of war and technology). If you are still averse to these words, you have not cleaned out your closet completely.
IAO131
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@gmugmble said
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@Metzareph said
"All Creation is Good. There is no evil. Evil is an illusion, created by our own limitation."It's easy to say that till you sit on a tack.
"But we all have to sit on our own tack eventually. That's why we are here and that's why we incarnated! This is how we learn, by feeling the discomfort of that poke in the ass!! If nothing, we would be sitting around and wasting time.
@gmugmble said
"
Second, the question I'm really trying to ask, but haven't succeeded in conveying quite right, is this: much of the text of L.L., especially chapter III, is shocking and offensive. Therefore, its author must have intended to shock and offend its readers. Why (I can't help but wonder) is this?It's as if you went to a cathedral expecting to celebrate the Mass, and instead found them showing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on a wide-screen TV."
That's right, 3rd Chapter can be your worst nightmare or the sweetest dream depending on you. I feel like I'm trying to convert you to "accept" the Book of the Law, and I'm felling kind of ridiculous, since I'm not trying to do that. I think every person has to decide if this book speaks to them or not. If there is an unconscious rejection to the text, maybe it is good, or maybe not...
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"(v. 200) 55. Let Mary inviolate be torn upon wheels: for her sake let all chaste women be utterly despised among you!
(v. 201) 56. Also for beauty's sake and love's!"
I think that Mary the Virgin Mother of God comes to mind here... but that is conditioning and not necessarily laid down in writing. [at least for moi]
Mary is also connected to Maris [Sea] -- the great ocean of being and becoming, the womb and the instrument of the mother, par excellent!
Perhaps the message is how Mary uses this tool, this instrument of creation as the Great Shakti? Perhaps the use of prudence and fidelity is in question here...'Restriction is SIN'. Which may be the tides of the Moon [Sin] in this case. HA!
And what about the wheels!? Are we talking about the Catherine Wheel or the Wheel of Time, the mechanism of manifestation. The clockworks are about samsara, which is another ocean unto itself. The wheels are mechanistic and not naturalistic.
The tearing or rending of space in time is a fascinating meditation in regards to these stanzas.Ultimately Beauty and Love [Tiphereth] are brought to a consolidation in regards to time and space...I think that for our sake it is incumbent upon is to sit with this valuable stanza -- also to remember that the whole of Chapter III in the Book of the Law is intended to stir our pots [Sulphur] to the works of Chapter I [Sattva] and Chapter II [Tamas]. Hmm...
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
If a decent number of people actually despise chaste women on a personal level, then this has the effect of changing the value system of popular consiousness. This is a powerful tool. After all, it seems to have worked in the opposite direction.
Of course, as with everything in this book, there is deep symbolism that could fill volumes. However, I've always seen this portion (perhaps blindly) as a direct instruction to "go public" with this portion of our beliefs in order to change the moral landscape of our culture.
Plus, if any of you have actually had the occasion to sit down and speak with a chaste woman lately (and here I'm not refering to individuals who are refraining from sex for some meditative purpose, but the kind of Southern Baptist high school senior you can still find in Mississippi that has pledged her soul to hell should she break her hymen before marriage) you will find that despising them is quite easy to do because they are, in general, bat-{guano} crazy.
Unfortunately, it seems that T.V., the internet, and Larry Flynt are doing more to change the popular consciousness of the chaste woman than anyone else. Now, if only the women who are portrayed as openly sexual were ALSO doctors and judges, instead of the victims of sexual abuse, we'd be getting somewhere. Ahhh it takes so long. Perhaps if Hillary has a sex scandal in the white house like her husband?
Love is the law, love under will.
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I know this is now getting far from bhakti on these verses, but...
@King of the Wolves said
"remember that the whole of Chapter III in the Book of the Law is intended to stir our pots [Sulphur] to the works of Chapter I [Sattva] and Chapter II [Tamas]. Hmm..."
Might you mean Tamas for Chapter I? According to what I've seen from the COT/TOT stuff posted here, I've thought it went like:
Tamas = blue ray of love = Mother/Nuit = salt = Mem
Rajas = red ray of power = Father/Hadit = sulphur = Shin
Sattva = yellow ray of wisdom = Child/Horus = mercury = Aleph...and thus the Chapters go in the ordering given above? I agree, though, that Chapter III is the "reddest" of the three and feels the most sulphurous.
(And isn't a Raja also a King??)Steve
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"Let Mary inviolate be torn upon wheels: for her sake let all chaste women be utterly despised among you!
"Reading this "wheels" jumps out at me and I don't believe it's a torture device but the Wheel of Fortune in the tarot meaning CHANGE. Since Mary the mother of Jesus was most likely NOT inviolate (it's an adaptation of the Isis/Horus myth remember) then this idea must be ripped to shreds (and I'll gladly do it too) because the notion of a chaste mother is utterly despicable! It's an abomination and it's left us desolate in our perception of human possibility because it denies us access to the tree. The mother goddess has been degraded to a whore as if it's her only duty to breed therefore FOR HER SAKE roll away the stone so we can again see her beauty and know her love...
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93,
As to the question of why the book is written with such startling and horrific imagery, I'm reminded of the words of the Great Flannery O'Connor, a writer who saw her purpose as revealing the presence of God in all events. She was once asked why her stories featured such grotesque and horrible plots, such as families getting executed in the woods by escaped convicts. She replied,
"For the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures."
Love=Law
- C
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@gmugmble said
"To claim that the verse is about liberating the feminine ideal is to claim that it doesn't mean what it says. But if the Book of the Law doesn't mean what it says, who are we, then, to say what it means?"
Do you really believe that CCXX should not be interpreted by everyone?
I feel like it's full of verses that don't say literaly what I take them to mean.
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"Do you really believe that CCXX should not be interpreted by everyone?"
This is right. Just like every person is a star, a subjektiv point of view there must be just as many way to relate to Liber L.
Sure there the comment and al but no one see things just like anyone else.
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@Jackdaw said
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Do you really believe that CCXX should not be interpreted by everyone?
"Since you asked the question, I feel like it deserves an answer -- but oh! what a slippery slope looms. Let me try.
I believe that the author of CCXX intended certain things by the words, and that therefore when someone offers an interpretation, that interpretation is (simply as a matter of fact) either right or wrong. Of course in practice, we have to interpret the book "each for himself", but I would like to know what the author's actual intention was. That may be an impossible goal -- as Kafka said in one of his more depressing moments, "We only have the text" -- but it is my goal nonetheless.
For example, people disagree over "Compassion is the vice of Kings." One interpretation is that compassion (in some sense of the word) is a snare and that a true "king" will avoid it. Another interpretation is exactly the opposite -- since "these vices are my service", then compassion is a trait of a "king" that should be cultivated. Now you can accept one interpretation and I the other and we can go our merry ways. But I believe that Aiwass said "Compassion is the vice of Kings" for a definite reason, and that one (or both) of the above interpretations is just wrong. I don't know which one -- I don't claim to have the right interpretation, only that there is one.