Dreams, polyhedra, grades? (ingenuity /trickery of the mind)
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I think forums are entirely the wrong place to discuss dreams other than in basic principles. I would need to know something about this woman, the context of her life and psyche, etc., and preferably work with her through her own subconscious mind's patterns before I could say what this means. (And it seems to me unethical to discuss her to a third party without her knowledge - kind of like the long-term ethics regarding analyzing horoscopes of third parties.)
But since I have so little information, I can answer a bit more freely since there's less liklihood I'm right
Think of her dream as "thinking through" scenarios that had started running in her mind below the conscious level. Subconsciousness receives "seeds-ideas" and then gestates them - thinks them through as a background process. Dreams are more or less eavesdropping on these mid-stream.
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Perhaps it was suppose to be a octahedron with a cube inside of it?
The six verticies of the octahedron can be made to correspond to the six sides of the cube, just as the eight verticies of the cube can correspond to the eight triangular sides of the octahedron. One could be placed in the other: put the octahedron in the cube and its verticies touch the center of the cubes sides, put the cube in the octehedron and its vertices touch the center of the octehedrons sides.
The above relationship assiting in the provision of a geometric means of doubling the cube.
That is what popped into my mind
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93,
"I. Man being a finite being, he is incapable of apprehending the infinite. Nor does his communion with infinite being (true or false) alter this fact.
II. Let then the student contradict every vision and refuse to enjoy it; first, because there is certainly another vision possible of precisely contradictory nature; secondly, because though he is God, he is also a man upon an insignificant planet.Being thus equilibrated laterally and vertically, it may be that, either by affirmation or denial of all these things together, he may attain the supreme trance." - Postcards to Probationers
"The student, if he attains any success in the following practices, will find himself confronted by things (ideas or beings) too glorious or too dreadful to be described. It is essential that he remain the master of all that he beholds, hears or conceives; otherwise he will be the slave of illusion, and the prey of madness... There is little danger that any student, however idle or stupid, will fail to get some result; but there is great danger that he will be led astray, obsessed and overwhelmed by his results, even though it be by those which it is necessary that he should attain. Too often, moreover, he mistaketh the first resting-place for the goal, and taketh off his armour as if he were a victor ere the fight is well begun.
It is desirable that the student should never attach to any result the importance which it at first seems to possess." - Liber O
IAO131
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A couple points:
1.) In trying to reconstruct a magickal timeline for myself, some of the most critical information came from the content of dreams I had written down.
2.) When in really healthy communication with the self, I find I am dreaming and recalling a few dreams a night, and writing them down.
The conclusion is that making the effort to remember and write down your dreams each night puts you in a more healthy relationship with your psyche, particularly the moon side or unconscious. Writing them down lets the psyche know you are paying attention to it and are interested in it/yourself.
In trying to recall some dream content, I meditate upon a horizontal upward pointing moon crescent within which is a downward pointing triangle usually.
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@Oliver P said
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- Second phase, I gather, is to become aware, while dreaming, that you are dreaming; to recognise the typical impossible things that happen in your dreams specifically (my most frequent theme is not so much flying as taking impossibly long leaps, from which I fall very slowly. If I catch myself doing that, I hope I’ll recognise it next time).
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May I ask what methods you are following to acheive Lucid Dreams?
I myself have been working very activley in this area of late. I have had a deal of success already acheiving Lucidity. I am now focusing on increasing the frequency and length of the experiences.
Are you using the WILD or MILD methods? Do you use supplements? Are you disrupting your sleep cycles? I have also had most success when I utilise some ritual working before bed - normally working with Yesod combined with a sigil to program the subconcious with the intent to become lucid. Have you tried this? Self hypnosis is another good tool also.
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@Serpentarius said
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May I ask what methods you are following to acheive Lucid Dreams?I myself have been working very activley in this area of late. I have had a deal of success already acheiving Lucidity. I am now focusing on increasing the frequency and length of the experiences.
Are you using the WILD or MILD methods? Do you use supplements? Are you disrupting your sleep cycles? I have also had most success when I utilise some ritual working before bed - normally working with Yesod combined with a sigil to program the subconcious with the intent to become lucid. Have you tried this? Self hypnosis is another good tool also."
At present I am at the very preliminary phase of trying to remember as much of my dreams as possible and identifying any pervasive themes. Notebook handy to the bed, and that's basically it.
This is based on a preliminary web scan. I'm about to explore bookshops and library for some basic advice and will set about choosing a method when I have the "input data" phase down properly.
I'd be grateful for sources and techniques that other people have found useful at this early stage.
OP
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@Uni_Verse said
"Perhaps it was suppose to be a octahedron with a cube inside of it?
The six verticies of the octahedron can be made to correspond to the six sides of the cube, just as the eight verticies of the cube can correspond to the eight triangular sides of the octahedron....
That is what popped into my mind"Thank you; I'm well acquainted with the "dualism" of polyhedra. I did, in fact, give brief thought to what the dual of the 16-sided solid I was shown might look like; it's much less asthetically pleasing than the original.
Evolving a "double cube" via a circumscribed/ inscribed octahedron sounds interesting; I'll work out the mathematics of that. Doubling a cube by the conventional process of putting one on top of another appeals to me more; the flat view (technically "isometric projection" - rather like Wizardiaoan's avatar) of such a double cube has a nice affinity with the Tree of Life.
I take Jim E's advice that the dream was "me telling me about me"; what it may have been telling me in this case is "you know about solid geometry and it appeals to you aesthetically; might it not be fruitful to explore it as a way of looking at some of the mathematical and Qabalistic allusions in Thelemic texts?"
Speaking of which, how do you picture "I [Hadit] am the axle of the wheel and the cube in the circle" [AL 2:7]? Again an isometric projection appeals; two of the eight vertices of the cube coincide at the centre of the circle and the others appear as the corners of a regular hexagon.
This in turn has affinities with certain "symmetry" diagrams in elementary particle physics; particularly one that has electron and eta particle (the epsilon and eta of "Thelema"?) as opposite ends of an "axle" and three quarks and three antiquarks disposed at the other six corners of a cube balanced on one corner (the vertical axis is charge and the horizontal plane "colour").
It would be nice to think Liber Legis foresaw quantum chromodynamics
Is there an "authorised" interpretation of this verse?My daughter, seeing an animated cartoon cliche a few weeks ago, asked me "why does an 'outhouse' in a cartoon always have a crescent-moon cutout in the door?" Turns out (allegedly) that the moon symbol originally indicated the female facilities and the sign of the male ones was a star.
So that's my most far-fetched "interpretation" to date: AL 1:3 predicted the rise of the unisex "rest-room"
- and (a little more seriously) the dismantling of conventional gender roles.OP
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@Oliver P said
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Speaking of which, how do you picture "I [Hadit] am the axle of the wheel and the cube in the circle" [AL 2:7]? Again an isometric projection appeals; two of the eight vertices of the cube coincide at the centre of the circle and the others appear as the corners of a regular hexagon.
"A picture is worth a thousand words. Via Hadit, there is created an axis, relationships : x, y , z. Granting dimension, limitation to the infinite circle; within it creates a cube, the world, the universe that a star creates around itself.
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Your opening post reminds me of a point I was pondering some time back. What prompted it was this observation:
The Pyramids in Egypt are arrayed according to the constellation of Orion, so is there a relationship between the pyramid as a geomtric shape and the concept of a "Star?"
*Edit: Baring in mind that two pyramids with their bases joined has 8 planes, vertices aside and that the Star if often depicted with 8 points. Bit of a dicotomy but there you have it.
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@Modes said
"Thanks Jim for interesting answers!
I know this woman who dreams that I pick on her sexualy in dreams. She told me she had such dreams with another man too. She thinks and I began to believe it that this is my fault that she dreams about me! So is she sexualy frustated or there's still something about me too? Btw I like the woman.
Using Jims answers I get that she's sexualy frustated. Realy?!"If you're doing the LBRP regularly, I would say what you are experiencing comes from abusing the 8th degree. It is vampiric activity and can lead to that person obssessing over you and other undesirable effects.
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A variation on the last answer...
The two primary "attack vectors" (to use a computer security term) by which someone can (consciously or unconsciously) get hooks into our psyches are desire and fear. These are both rooted in the second chakra, which is somehow "unsealed" if she continues to penetrate your psyche without your conscious choice.
BTW, though I dubbed them "attack vectors," this penetration isn't necessarily a bad thing. For example, the energy dynamics are exactly the same if you are crazy exuberant in love with someone: Your psyche is giving them access even if your conscious mind doesn't consent. But I'm going to finish discussing this (based on the original question) on the premise that this is, for you, a negative and unwanted experience.
Yes, the Pentagram Ritual, rightly performed, should give sufficiengt protection in general circumstances. (This is even more so since the problem deals with the Mars chakra, over matters of which the Pentagram Ritual has a special affinity.)
The next magical step, then, is probably a psychological step: To examine yourself to see if you have either fear of this woman or desire for this woman (or both). If you find either or both, then you've found the door to which she (consciously or unconsciously) has the key to your psyche. Deal effectively with the fear or desire, and you'll deal effectively with the intrusion.
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Could Liber V be used to Seal the chakras?
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@Frater Pramudita said
"Could Liber V be used to Seal the chakras?"
I don't think of Liber Reguli as sealing much of anything. Rather, it is more likely to rip them open.
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@Frater MDC said
"Your opening post reminds me of a point I was pondering some time back. What prompted it was this observation:
The Pyramids in Egypt are arrayed according to the constellation of Orion, so is there a relationship between the pyramid as a geomtric shape and the concept of a "Star?""
I've been thinking of exactly that relationship.
Considering the evident allusion of my dream to Grant's two pentagrams, I tried to "map" the pyramid onto the pentagram. My first instinct was simply to "push down" the top horizontal (Air-Water) edge of the pentagram to become the "back" edge of the pyramid's square base. That means the Earth-Water and Fire-Air edges become two diagonals on the base, which are not edges of the pyramid.
Alternatively, you could "switch" the back vertices so you have
back-left-water
back-right-air
front-left-earth
front-right-fire
and, of course - top vertex of pyramid - spiritAll the pentagram edges become pyramid edges, and the two are, as mathematicians would say, "topologically equivalent". but you lose the idea of the edges crossing one another, which seems crucial to the pentagram.
I'm not sure if this is a useful idea or not.
"*Edit: Baring in mind that two pyramids with their bases joined has 8 planes, vertices aside and that the Star is often depicted with 8 points. Bit of a dicotomy but there you have it."
I've been intrigued by the fact that the "Star of Bethlehem" is often shown as eight-pointed and have thought it may be an allusion to the Mercurial (Hermetic?) nature of Jesus, which seems to lurk behind the more obvious solar attributions.*
However, it may be that to today's artists a "solar" star looks too much like the Star of David. And the five-pointed star is altogether too "witchy"
So perhaps modern artists representing stars just plumped for eight points as something that didn't have existing associations.Of course many Christmas-card designers like to use eight points so they can elongate four of them and allude to the shadow of the Cross.
I did some drawings towards a painting that has never been executed on a loosely Thelemic theme, featuring dove, serpent and star, and I unhesitatingly drew the star with eight points because of the relationship with Hadit, whose symbolism is full of that number.
Now I will go away and try to map the unicursal eight-pointed star onto the regular octahedron (your "two pyramids with their bases joined") or, better, onto the cube (eight vertices) which is the octahedron's "dual" (it has vertices at the centre of the octahedron's faces and vice-versa). A mathematical rather than a magic[k]al exercise, I suspect; but you never know.
OP
*There's a local (New Zealand) artist called Julia Morison, some of whose work plays on the theme of Hermes as "messenger of the gods" and thereby related to the idea of the divine/human avatar, eg Jesus. Coincidentally (perhaps!) as part of that theme she also plays with the inversion God/dog (cf AL 2:19) The most direct allusion is in a painting called "dog deifier/ reified God" executed in gold leaf and powdered dog excrement (no, it doesn't smell). Unfortunately, I can't find a web reproduction of it.
<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz/Collection/Infosheets/98_61.pdf">www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz/Colle ... /98_61.pdf</a><!-- w --> is a start, if you're interested. -
@Oliver P said
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@Frater MDC said
"Your opening post reminds me of a point I was pondering some time back. What prompted it was this observation:The Pyramids in Egypt are arrayed according to the constellation of Orion, so is there a relationship between the pyramid as a geomtric shape and the concept of a "Star?""
I've been thinking of exactly that relationship.
Considering the evident allusion of my dream to Grant's two pentagrams, I tried to "map" the pyramid onto the pentagram. My first instinct was simply to "push down" the top horizontal (Air-Water) edge of the pentagram to become the "back" edge of the pyramid's square base. That means the Earth-Water and Fire-Air edges become two diagonals on the base, which are not edges of the pyramid.
Alternatively, you could "switch" the back vertices
All the pentagram edges become pyramid edges..."On reflection, I think the first version, using the diagonals is better; the other is too gross a distorition of the pentagram.
So the pyramid gives you four pentagrams (as in a banishing ritual). Each slope edge of the pyramid is used twice (eg the North-Western edge is part of the North and the West pentagram). The Western base edge is part of the East pentagram, etc and the two base diagonals are part of all four pentagrams.
4 slope edges used twice = 8
4 base edges used once = 4
2 base diagonals used four times = 8. Total 20 edges for four pentagrams.The act of tracing the pentagrams ritually would be an interestingly athletic or choreographic exercise, but you can do it unicursally
As I say, above, maybe useful; maybe just a mathematical game.
OP
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Hmmm, that's interesting.
Yeah, I never did try to equate the edges of the pentagram as elemental pathways, to the pyramid, tho the pyramids havng edges aligned with the cardinal directions certainly implied an elemental attribution.
My take on it was a little more simplistic (suppose the Zen rubbed off on me after all) the 4 edges, or even the faces, became the elements with spirit aligned in the center.
I'm gonna go on a limb here and go very right brain thinking in this next bit, so bear with me.
Obviously there's the recurrency in the numbers revolving strongly around 4 and it's double, 8. Theres also 5 involved. There's some numerological ideologies that indicate that the number 4 has a lot of karma around it and using the number 8 is often the balance / solution to the karma. How good those numerology system are, I'm not yet convinced. Be that as it may, Liber AL has as it's number 220 or 31, both of which are 4 and if we include the 1 spirit point in the examle of the pyramids, near which Liber AL was written, along with it's double which is 8, leading us to the solution to Liber AL.
It requires a bit of imagination since that's what came to mind.
On another note, just counting nostril hairs of the double pyramid, there are 6 vertices, 8 planes, and 12 edges (or pathways through which the 6 travels anyone?). Which brings us back to the 20 you mentioned, since the next number in this exponentially expanding sequence that started with 6 would be 20. Unicursal sequence?
As you say, it could be a mathematical mental excersice, it could be a dream, but you never know
