True Will
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I've pondering the following quote:
What then determines Tiphareth, the Human Will, to aspire to comprehend Neschamah, to submit itself to the divine Will of Chiah?
(Little Essays, Man, p. 15)My questions:
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Is it false to associate True Will with KCHGA at Tiphareth?
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Should True Will be identified solely with the Word of the Magus uttered at Chokmah?
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Is it correct to say True Will is undoing the Fall of Man - i.e. the closing gap in thought between the Real, which is Ideal, and the Unreal, which is actual?
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Is it correct to say part of the Great Work and establishing the Word of the New Aeon is causing the desert of the Abyss to flower and grow? (Book of Lies, Chapter 49)
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Is it correct to say the change caused by True Will manifests by undoing conditioning to reveal something that has always and already been in our consciousness - as opposed to, say, creating something out of nothing?
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@he atlas itch said
"1. Is it false to associate True Will with KCHGA at Tiphareth? "
Yes. It's a common mistake. True Will is usually consciously known long before K&C of HGA. (Though I wouldn't tend to hard-assign it hee, I've seen it emerge fully a great many times at about 2=9).
In any case, True Will itself is rooted in Chiah, in Chokmah. I've often distinguished the articulation of True Will from the K&C by calling it "the Voice of the HGA." This emerges in many places. For example, the part of the human psyche where it connects is Geburah. Perhaps it is through an inherent relationship between Chokmah and Yesod (the Yod-Sod, or Yod-Secret), it does seem to emerge at Yesod. And, of course, it finds action and expression in Malkuth.
And a few people don't have conscious knowledge of this before the full K&C. But, for the most part, confusing knowledge of True Will with the experience coded in the words "K&C of the HGA" would be a mistake.
"2. Should True Will be identified solely with the Word of the Magus uttered at Chokmah? "
No.
Let me try analogy: One can say Qabalistically that the only true Identity is in Kether. Yet one's clear, integrated sense of one's own identity emerges at many earlier stages than 10=1. This doesn't change the fact that all of those other points of clarification of identity are dependent on the central truth of it in Kether.
"3. Is it correct to say True Will is undoing the Fall of Man - i.e. the closing gap in thought between the Real, which is Ideal, and the Unreal, which is actual? "
That myth has too many different meanings for too many different people, and you've added some Greek philosophical technical terms. I fear answering this one would end up spending more time disentangling word meanings, so I'll graciously pass.
"5. Is it correct to say the change caused by True Will manifests by undoing conditioning to reveal something that has always and already been in our consciousness - as opposed to, say, creating something out of nothing?"
Not necessarily. It could be the other way around. That is, undoing conditioning may be (often will be) necessary before one can consciously grasp True Will. It could go either way.
But yes, you'll find that it has always been in you - resting under and motivating every gross and subtle stream of your consciousness and being.
OTOH, somethings one has to get to "nothing" before one drops enough bullshit to get what's right in front of them - so, in practice, it might come across as "something out of nothing."
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Jim - thanks for taking the time to clarify those points. It's very clear and helpful.
I note you did not address question no. 4. The question arose while pondering the function of True Will in relation to a passage by Daniel Gunther. In his book Initiation in the Aeon of the Child, the chapter titled "Christeos Lucifitias," he writes:
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In the Aeon of the Child, the Thunderbolt is one of the symbols of the Messiah, as it is revealed in the Holy Books:*Blessed, blessed blessed; yea, blessed; thrice and four times blessed is he that hath attained to look upon my face. For I will hurl thee forth from my presence as a whirling thunderbolt to guard the ways, and whom thou smitest shall be smitten indeed. And whom thou lovest shall be loved indeed.*-
Vision and Voice, 1st Aethyr
*Is not the starry heaven shaken as a leaf at the tremulous rapture of your love? Am I not the flying spark of light whirled away by the great wind of your perfection?
Yea, cried the Holy One, and from Thy spark will I the Lord kindle a great light; I will burn through the grey city in the old and desolate land; I will cleanse it from its impurity. And thou, O prophet, shalt see these things, and thou shalt heed them not. * -
Liber LVX, V:2-4
It is written that he shall "guard the ways," for the Flaming Sword "which turneth every way" is placed at the east of Eden to "keep the way of the tree of Life". As it is written beneath the Trigram [dot<yang<yin] in Liber Trigrammaton:
*The master flamed forth as a star and set a guard of Water in every abyss. *
- Liber XXVII
By the phrase "every Abyss," we are to understand the five paths intersected by the Abyss, that link the Supernals with the lower Sephiroth: * . A "guard of Water" (also called the "Heart of Blood") placed in each path conceals and reveals the Name:
Now and again Travellers cross the desert; they come from the Great Sea, and to the Great Sea they go.
As they go they spill water; one day they will irrigate the desert, till it flower.
See! five footprints of a Camel! V.V.V.V.V.- Book of Lies, chapter 49
(J. Daniel Gunther, Initiation in the Aeon of the Child, pp. 119 - 121)
The idea of the desert becoming irrigated until it flowers suggests transformation of formerly sterile human knowledge.
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@he atlas itch said
"I note you did not address question no. 4."
Too poetic to permit a concrete answer. There is a place for poetry, of course; but a question that uses undefined terms doesn't usually lay open to a concrete answer.
The wording you employed comes partly from a Crowley description of the specific work of the Magister Templi; but it was all convoluted by the time it made it through multiple hands to your question.
And you, in particular, used "the Great Work" without defining WHICH G.'.W.'.. Its nature evolves as we evolve. Most immediately, for most people in this time, if we are going to use it in the generic we normally would be referring to the 5=6 stage - until that is attained, nothing else really matters. But the quotes you give place all the attention on the 8=3 stage. In any case, if you were speaking primarily of 8=3 in the rest of your questions, then that wasn't clear; and, if you weren't, then Q4 is confusing at best.
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The Great Work may refer to the work of various grades, but I understand it in the sense of the alchemists, expressed in the universal formula "solve et coagula" - fixing the volatile and volatilizing the fixed. Crowley associates the alchemical glyph of Azoth, which contains the seven stages of the Great Work, with the Father Chokmah. Crowley writes "and by this Word he createth Man anew, in an Essential Form of Life, so that he is changed in his inmost Knowledge of himself" (Liber Aleph, chapter sixty-eight). The spiritualization of matter hints of various future scenarios, but two quotes come to mind:
*"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" *- Stephen Joyce, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.
"Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last Trump: for the Trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."- 1 Corinthians 15:51,52
My questions:
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Is True Will *identical with *Had or an *expression of *Had?
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Should Had be identified with Chokmah or Kether or does Had represent the Supernal Triad as a whole?
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There are seven letters in the Formula of the Aeon before the sequence commences again: A B R A H A D... Would it be correct to identify these *seven letters *with the *seven stages *of the Great Work?
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Should the first four letters (A B R A) be identified with the lower realm of the Tree - that is, with the concept of foundation and building the pyramid from the base up - and the remaining three letters (H A D) with the Supernal Triad?
<edit: corrected description of the 418 formula from "Word of the Aeon" to ""Formula of the Aeon">
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@he atlas itch said
"The Great Work may refer to the work of various grades, but I understand it in the sense of the alchemists, expressed in the universal formula "solve et coagula" - fixing the volatile and volatilizing the fixed."
At the level most relevant to most people, and at the level the alchemists surely meant, this is fulfilled at Tiphereth.
There are successor applications of this and related formulae, of course.
"Crowley associates the alchemical glyph of Azoth, which contains the seven stages of the Great Work, with the Father Chokmah."
And in the G.D., it was taught in 4=7, i.e., in the Fire stage. There's flexibility in the symbols. You said you meant it "in the sense of the [presumably classical] alchemists," and it's pretty certain they were talking about an attainment at Tiphereth, or even a lower-octave expression of Tiphereth.
This doesn't mean that someone can't subsequently find value of the same symbols at a later stage. Take, for example, the symbol of alchemical Fire mentioned above. In the context of Malkuth, it means one thing (one segment of the immediate environment). Within the framework of the First Order, it means Netzach. This doesn't prevent it from meaning Chokmah when looking at an entirely different scale.
""Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last Trump: for the Trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."- 1 Corinthians 15:51,52"
Speaking of Fire, these phenomena actually manifest when working the Path of Shin in the A.'.A.'. sense of it, and then are (typically) clearly manifest by the K&C of the HGA.
"1. Is True Will *identical with *Had or an *expression of *Had?"
This is an abstract question framed in terms of symbols, so I'll answer it in terms of the same symbols: I would say True Will is the "going" of Had.
To put it in more general Qabalistic terms: Kether is represented by the number 1, one point, nondimensional, etc. We might reasonably call this "identity." Chokmah is represented by the number 2, two points, formulating a line (which, however, on an infinite landscape is indistinguishable from a circle etc.). It therefore represents motion, going, Will, etc. Mathematically, Chokmah is the "first Delta" is Kether, i.e., the measurement of its change or motion.
In the vastest sense of YHVH, Yod is attributed both to Kether and Chokmah. Simplistically, the first is the Identity, the second is the Will, or Going. Hadit = Kether (to tie it into your question).
We can't measure or articulate identity directly. Either the expression or articulation of identity is just behavior. "Will" (defined as the first Delta, or rate of change, or course, etc.) of that Identity - its Motion - is the deepest we can in a practical sense presently describe and discuss.
"2. Should Had be identified with Chokmah or Kether or does Had represent the Supernal Triad as a whole?"
Hadit = Yod answers that question. Not the whole Supernal triad, since Binah incorporates other, polar-antithetical ideas. But, in many ways, he is also expressed well by Beth, but much in the same sense that Beth and Chokmah have vast symbolic interchangeabilities.
"3. There are seven letters in the Formula of the Aeon before the sequence commences again: A B R A H A D... Would it be correct to identify these *seven letters *with the *seven stages *of the Great Work?"
I don't know. If so, then you've discovered something nobody else has discovered.
I'm inclined to say no, because Abrahadabra expresses the completion of the Great Work more than its process (though there are, of course, "process formulae" in it), and its most important internal structure is the intersection of 5 and 6: 5 occurrences of A plus 6 consonants.
But, of course, that's just my interpretaton. Want a 7? Go with A.R.A.R.I.Th.A., FIAT L.V.X., and others (including BABALON).
"4. Should the first four letters (A B R A) be identified with the lower realm of the Tree - that is, with the concept of foundation and building the pyramid from the base up - and the remaining three letters (H A D) with the Supernal Triad?"
There are multiple ways to articulate this formula and graph it, non definitive. (Crowley's experimentation led to many and diverse patterns, even at the beginning.)
Personally, I don't thing a Sephirothic mapping is the best approach, but I encourage you to doodle with it as many of us have done over the years.
"<edit: corrected description of the 418 formula from "Word of the Aeon" to ""Formula of the Aeon">"
"Word of the Aeon" is correct.
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@Jim Eshelman said
" At the level most relevant to most people, and at the level the alchemists surely meant, this is fulfilled at Tiphereth."
Now when I think back on the alchemists' descriptions of the Great Work - "journey from the one to the One", "When the Great Work is finished then one may call God his brother", the longevity and health conferred by the red powder, the focus placed on the elements, Nature, planets and metals - I would agree it does seem located at Tiphareth (not to be confused with the hidden gold of the 49-petaled Rose/Babalon). For now leaving aside why Crowley mapped Azoth on to Chokmah and any correspondences between alchemy and the Tree, my questions aim at the nature of True Will. For example Tiphareth implies attaining perfect harmony and balance with one's environment whereas True Will seems more transgressive and chaotic in nature.
@Jim Eshelman said
"In the vastest sense of YHVH, Yod is attributed both to Kether and Chokmah. Simplistically, the first is the Identity, the second is the Will, or Going. Hadit = Kether (to tie it into your question)."
So if True Will is 1) the "going" of Had, 2) Had = Kether and 3) True Will causes real change, do you agree the manifestation of True Will (momentarily) undoes the mental conditioning created by cause/effect and chronological time that characterizes consciousness below the Abyss - thus explaining why it is so difficult to describe these experiences to others without sounding insane or having it labelled a psychotic episode? It seems the discovery of True Will brings the realization that *consciousness itself *is the source of causality of our respective universes as we gradually transition from a mechanical existence, conditioned by habit and external forces, into a conscious active existence.
@Jim Eshelman said
"Hadit = Yod answers that question. Not the whole Supernal triad, since Binah incorporates other, polar-antithetical ideas. But, in many ways, he is also expressed well by Beth, but much in the same sense that Beth and Chokmah have vast symbolic interchangeabilities."
I would be interested to hear more about the significance of Beth and interchangeability with Chokmah. I presume this alludes to "the name of thy house 418".
@Jim Eshelman said
""Word of the Aeon" is correct."
Ok, this gets a little confusing. You mentioned before on this forum that ABRAHADABRA = the Word of the Aeon and Thelema = the Law of the Aeon. But as others noted on lashtal.com, if so, why does Crowley sign his name at the end of the introduction of part 3 MTP as:
"The Beast 666, Magus 9=2, A.A. who is the Word of the Aeon THELEMA"?
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@he atlas itch said
"...my questions aim at the nature of True Will. For example Tiphareth implies attaining perfect harmony and balance with one's environment whereas True Will seems more transgressive and chaotic in nature. "
Not chaotic at all! - at least, not in the common, conventional, everyday use of the word. True Will in and of itself is the simplest and most direct of things.
Now, since most people's lives are inherently chaotic, perhaps you mean that when the simple, elegant, straightforward, direct, and singular voice of True Will strikes through, it does sometimes (especially at first) play hell with the conventional circumstances of life. (See the Tower card.) But that's due to the fact that the life is out of balance and unfocused and misdirected.
Which leads me to what I wanted to say regarding the above and Tiphereth: It's all about the purity and transparency of the lens. True Will strikes through singularly and true, like a beam of perfectly whole white light, to the extent that the lens is polished, true, and at the right angle of refraction. Any apparent conflict between one's True Will and the circumstances of one's present life are due to misallignment of the life.
PS - Though you wrote it correctly, I want to be sure you understand what you wrote: Tiphereth does not correspond to perfect harmony and balance in one's environment but, rather, a high level of harmony and balance within one's self. (Perhaps not even "perfect" harmony and balance - that's subject to definition and context - but, especially, harmony and balance within all the Sephiroth below Tiphereth, and equilibrium of the heights and the depths, one's Kether and one's Malkuth.) In the course of approaching and attaining harmony and balance within oneself, this quite commonly will massively destabilize the world you previously built for yourself based on false premises. It's a good reason to let as deep an understanding of True Will as possible penetrate and become the singular guide to your life long before reaching the grade attributed to Tiphereth.
"So if True Will is 1) the "going" of Had, 2) Had = Kether and 3) True Will causes real change, do you agree the manifestation of True Will (momentarily) undoes the mental conditioning created by cause/effect and chronological time that characterizes consciousness below the Abyss - thus explaining why it is so difficult to describe these experiences to others without sounding insane or having it labelled a psychotic episode?"
You have a very low opinion of the Abyss. I must suppose you mean the Abyss that is within the sub-Tree that is in Malkuth, because that (or an analog) is all you usually have to surpass to reach this alienation from most other people's mental patterning.
Here's the first thing I notice - I've been noticing this throughout your posts and haven't exactly said it. You're making this all too complicated. You're building vast, independent metaphysical realms of complex wording and intertwining words with no universal meaning and stringing together ideas that have developed some kind of transient association in your mind and I bet it's rarely entirely clear to anyone else quite what you mean. (I know that I have to struggle to get some inkling of what you're saying most of the time.) This tells me that your mind is chaotic, and that, yeah, simple truth is going to feel like it's blowing the shit out of your framework.
I haven't any idea what "these experiences" are in your sentence because I don't have any idea (1) what experiences you've had or (2) which of them you're putting these labels on. But I get that you've been having some sort of experience that, when you try to explain it to some group of people, you believe they think you are insane or having a psychotic episode.
I suspect this is more of a communication issue than anything else. You don't communicate your ideas very well here, where a higher percentage of people are likely to by sympathetic to your experiences and likely to be speaking the same language. I suspect that you are communicating less effectively on these subjects to other people who aren't in this philosophical loop. I'm not in on those conversations, so I don't have much to offer other than to suggest that you pay more attention to communication, understanding that communication is not about how you want to say it but more about how an individual recipient best can hear it.
"It seems the discovery of True Will brings the realization that consciousness itself is the source of causality of our respective universes as we gradually transition from a mechanical existence, conditioned by habit and external forces, into a conscious active existence."
Or the other way around. I knew that consciousness itself was the source of causality of my universe years before I knew my True Will.
I assume by "mechanical" you mean "automatic and unthinking." I agree with you on that. (I might use "mechanical" in an entirely different way that would lead me to disagree; but one has to have crossed the Path of Tav to understand that.)
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Hadit = Yod answers that question. Not the whole Supernal triad, since Binah incorporates other, polar-antithetical ideas. But, in many ways, he is also expressed well by Beth, but much in the same sense that Beth and Chokmah have vast symbolic interchangeabilities."I would be interested to hear more about the significance of Beth and interchangeability with Chokmah. I presume this alludes to "the name of thy house 418"."
Chokmah, as Sephirah 2, and Beth, as letter 2, and both being the Magus have an unusually tight interchangeability. Chokmah is often called "the higher Mercury," and the three Paths opening to Chokmah are Heh, Vav, and Daleth = HVD, Hod. (Gimel and Binah, as 3, are similarly semi-cognate.) Also, from the point of view of the Master of the Temple, there are only two paths of further aspiration, one being to Chokmah through the Path of Daleth, and the other (not yet open to her) being along the Path of Beth. Chokmah is the continuous, inseminating, instructing Word in her heart, to which the M.T. automatically gives birth. Beth is the impression of the (thus far inconceivable) Light of Kether striking the surface of the Great Sea. In practice, it's way easy to confuse them.
And, when you read the upper aethyr visions in The Vision & the Voice, you'll see where these are often used almost interchangeably in Crowley's mind.
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@Jim Eshelman said
""Word of the Aeon" is correct."Ok, this gets a little confusing. You mentioned before on this forum that ABRAHADABRA = the Word of the Aeon and Thelema = the Law of the Aeon. But as others noted on lashtal.com, if so, why does Crowley sign his name at the end of the introduction of part 3 MTP as:
"The Beast 666, Magus 9=2, A.A. who is the Word of the Aeon THELEMA"?"
I don't know. Why don't you ask him? (Don't make mountains out of mole hills and then cry that you the mountain wouldn't come to you and you had to go to the mountain.)
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Jim - thanks, your answers have clarified for me the singular importance of True Will.
I had to go back and recheck my information to see where the confusion and miscommunication was coming from. One of my comments that may have sounded odd was suggesting Crowley mapped Azoth onto Chokmah. I read somewhere that he linked Azoth with the Word of the Magus, but my subsequent research has been unable to retrieve the quote. So that may explain your comment below:
@Jim Eshelman said
"You're making this all too complicated. You're building vast, independent metaphysical realms of complex wording and intertwining words with no universal meaning and stringing together ideas that have developed some kind of transient association in your mind and I bet it's rarely entirely clear to anyone else quite what you mean."
To respond to your other comments:
@Jim Eshelman said
"PS - Though you wrote it correctly, I want to be sure you understand what you wrote: Tiphereth does not correspond to perfect harmony and balance in one's environment but, rather, a high level of harmony and balance within one's self."
That's a good point about Tiphareth being in harmony and balance within oneself rather than toward the environment. I did experience a massive destabilizing of my world - like an ontological earthquake (I would describe it as the Tower and Adjustment cards). The outcome - I radically cut all contact with the life I had for 15 years with zero regrets.
@Jim Eshelman said
"You have a very low opinion of the Abyss. I must suppose you mean the Abyss that is within the sub-Tree that is in Malkuth, because that (or an analog) is all you usually have to surpass to reach this alienation from most other people's mental patterning."
I am not sure why you think I have low opinion of the Abyss based on what I wrote. My question was trying to map True Will on to the Tree and clarify how its first manifestation is *subjectively experienced *. My previous comment ("thus explaining why it is so difficult to describe these experiences to others without sounding insane or having it labelled a psychotic episode") was aimed at trying to understand why the experience of True Will is difficult to communicate to others - at least that has been my experience. It's not a question of "did something really happen?" and no one believing my story, but noticing the difficulty I had in communicating the experience to others. The explanation I arrived at is as follows:
- True Will is rooted in Chokmah - i.e. beyond duality.
- The person who experiences the first manifestations of True Will is in Malkuth and therefore conditioned by duality
- Consequently a manifestation of True Will is perceived by that person as having both an objective and subjective character.
- The fact the manifestation of True Will is perceived as both objective and subjective, while creating undeniable and real change, renders it difficult to communicate into neat categories of cause and effect, subject and object.
I don't want to divulge too many details, but it felt like my consciousness was causing a massive destabilization - without me realizing it - while, on the other hand, it felt like the blinds were suddenly lifted from my eyes and I could see an immense surreal effect that was already there. What really happened? Did my consciousness create that effect or did the banishings/invokings awaken me to what was "really going on". What no one would deny is that I was in the center of an unbelievable scenario.
This leads me to believe that one way of awakening True Will is by placing oneself in extreme situations as a shock to the system.
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@he atlas itch said
"I had to go back and recheck my information to see where the confusion and miscommunication was coming from. One of my comments that may have sounded odd was suggesting Crowley mapped Azoth onto Chokmah. I read somewhere that he linked Azoth with the Word of the Magus, but my subsequent research has been unable to retrieve the quote."
FWIW, I did some more hunting and tracked down the sources for the Azoth = Word = Chokmah.
Azoth represents the seven stages of the alchemical Great Work and is known as the Universal Mercury. Daniel Gunther's chapter Christeos Lucifitias covers it extensively. See also Crowley's comments on the Word = Universal Mercury = Christ in the Paris Working:
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@Jaivala said
"I must ask you maybe a naive question: Are the conscious knowledge of the True Will and its articulation products of some external voice, for example that one hears the Voice of HGA, who articulates for the aspirant his True Will or should it be understood in the sense that one has intuitive knowledge and insight into the direction of ones own True Will?"
The nature of the experience will vary from person to person.
"I have noticed that you wrote :"articulation of True Will from the K&C by calling it "the Voice of the HGA." This emerges in many places.", but I just have to ask once again to be sure that it really as that one has to hear the articulation of own True Will from the HGA."
It's a metaphor. Or, alternately, it's literal if you don't limit "voice" to the usual meaning but, rather, intend something like, "the ongoing or recurring utterance of the Word."