Kundalini vs K&C of HGA
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Alrah, 93,
"But unless you have your ink signed on the paper - it counts for nothing and you will never qualify as being an adept or anything else in the eyes of the western magick school tradition because these orgs are run by masters without vitality that adhere to the teachings of their masters too much. They are slaves, but yet are awakened, without the wherewithall for direct transmission. Students with inner vitality are feared by these kinds...(as Freud feared Jung) as they might just cut their own paths into the mountain which would make a mockery of the silly hierarchical structures they've built and the authority they assume as 'teacher'.
In two words: Old aeon. Don't bother with the grades. Carve your own path."
This is still your hobby-horse, isn't it? You do love to get crabby over this one - you've not been initiated into a contacted group, but from time to time you slam such 'orgs.' (Are we scientologists now? That's getting REALLY mean).
Nobody should be playing with kundalini (nor, say, Enochian magick) without firm, experienced guidance. We all should know and heed that.
What so many people who get caught up in this system-bashing don't grasp is that the phase of formal instruction in the mystery schools is provisional. It takes people to the point where they can follow their own direction, while honorably continuing to teach what they were taught on their own way up. Those who might look like 'masters without vitality' are simply people who have sufficient awareness and wisdom not to screw up their students by personalizing the system too much. Bringing a student to the point where the ship sails off on its own is often the work of many years, but that depends on the aptitude of the student, not just the 'silly hierarchical structures' that help them slip their outmoded moorings.
Please - criticize the system AFTER you've actually experienced it. As for non-recognition of non-system Adepts, do take note of the regular monthly postings about Thelemic saints, almost none of whom were (so far as we know) trained in formal Hermetic schools.93 93/93,
Edward
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"":2afseilt]Is Kundalini awakening synonymous to K&C of one's HGA?"
No. Not at all.
For example, in A.'.A.'. kundalini awakening often occurs as early as 1=10, and is a required step in 3=8. K&C is a task of 5=6.
The closest correlation I can find is that those who have not previously had significant kundalini movement do often report it as part of K&C breakthrough.
"So where does this Kundalini Awakening put you in the grades of the A.'.A.'. ?"
It doesn't "put in" anyplace in terms of the grades. Grades are recognized solely by having completed the prior grades and the specific assigned tasks of the present grade.
This awakening occurs at different times for different people. But, as I said above, it does often result as a consequence of the work in 1=10 and, by the time Meditation SSS is assigned in 3=8, its rare that some significant part of this hasn't already occurred.
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Alrah, 93,
"But no... wait! Where are your teaching female masters? Roll out their names so that we may appreciate that this just isn't so man!
"My A.A. teacher is a woman, and younger than me too. Obviously, I'm not going to divulge actual names in a public forum, but more than once I've had a female teacher in my own progress.
So yes, this just isn't so, woman."What I grasp very well Edward, is that you need a system and that the system and a place within it's hierarchy provides you with a feeling of security. That you fear the BIG BAD that may happen to you if you get uppity and abandon it. That you need to cling to it. Sorry boy, but most folks aren't that insecure."
I disagree with your last sentence. I don't know many people who don't need and appreciate a community for spiritual work, and I've yet to meet a spiritual teacher who's impressed me, who hadn't spent a long period training in some recognized system. We progress far faster without having to carry our various insecurities as solo students.
I don't apologize for being part of a hierarchy, especially one that allows a large amount of latitude to its members as does the T.O.T. I also recognize very clearly that the security of a group can be constraining. I now live thousands of miles from such support, and I follow my own track in a life-system with very few exterior supports. Alrah - please stop talking angry nonsense, okay?93 93/93,
Edward
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I can hear your concerns, Alrah. I really can. Yet, I also want to offer a different perspective on the system.
I once touched something of a spiritual power cable - left me with with a gushy-feeling, moving mass of pressure in the center of my brain-case and a psychic receiver that had no tuner, no off-switch other than medication, and very ultimatlely no one I felt I could trust.
Man of the Tombs - bouncing to and fro, up and down the Tree and the Worlds; shouting at security cameras; giving Buddha's blessing to the Matrix avatar-people examining me in hospital; telling an MRI scanner I loved it; pushing the "Cancel" button on the nurse call-box in order to avert nuclear war; communicating psychicly in broken sentences with my psychiatrist (an Indian who was obviously the reincarnation Jesus Christ); watching commercials on TV for products that cannot yet exist; knowing the Vampire was very close to appearing; slamming my staff into the ground and prophesying at the top of my lungs and with all my strength to the lightpoles at the local little-league baseball park; playing along with TV gameshows for the fate of the world; being instructed about myself and my ordeal by Hannah Montana.... I could seriously go on, but I'll just cut to the end... faking sanity at work until it actually returned...
There are some really deep holes to fall into, and they deal expressly with premature and unsupervised Kundalini awakening. In fact, in my inner world, I simply refer to that place I was as "jail." And while you're there, you have to make your case to be let out. If you can't do it, and do it with great intelligence and subtlety, you're just f****d. At least, that was my experience of it. And I'm not willing to deny that alternate reality - perfectly unreal as it is.
At the time, I had no framework or names (other than my own) with which to classify my experiences. I remember sitting at work, wondering if the government employees were in fact spying on me outside my window from their big white van, realizing that was an absolutely mad thought, and somehow stumbling upon the intuition that my madness might become more manageable if I categorized my experiences according to the four qabalistic worlds. I began naming each perspective within me according to the Tree and the four worlds, and thus began my descent into un-medicated sanity.
While you feel over-restricted by the structure, I thank God for the definitions. I can look in Jim's book on the grade system and say, "Oh... I was in this or that state of mind... only without this skill from an earlier grade... and that was all the trouble..." I don't have an Eastern master to study with. I got books, and I got internet, you know?
I don't see the A.'.A.'. as a group that promotes its way as the best or only way to enlightenment. As far as happiness and enlightenment go, or even the ability to lead others to it, the A.'.A.'. system is completely unnecessary. I'm reasonably sure its members will say that as well.
The A.'.A.'. strikes me as an order of professors. I see the A.'.A.'. as a school with a set curriculum and degree system of the type where professors of this system of mysticism and magick instruct aspiring professors of this same system of mysticism and magick. Yes, its degrees have the potential to be mere ego-masturbation just as sure as any university's degrees have that potential. At the same time, I want my own doctors and psychologists to have had to pass a test or two..., you know?
Alrah, when I hear you speak of these Kundalini awakenings where everything just appears to flow naturally and everything that opens up opens up properly and is stimulated to the degree it should be in order to achieve the classic experiences... I'm jealous, honestly. That's what I expected to happen to me when I took that great existential plunge and threw myself over the brink without anything reserved. I completely cold-booted my brain (if not the entire Universe [apparently not
]) without realizing that was what was about to happen. It was much, much more messy than I ever imagined it could have been, and it took much, much longer to completely come out of than I would wish on anyone. My intent, whether misguided or not, is to protect people a bit from their own egos, especially in the case of a Kundalini awakening.Anyway, that's my two on the topic.
...clothed and in my right mind.
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Alrah, 93,
" The only difference is I'm not spraying any territory. "
As you can probably imagine, I disagree. I think this particular exchange is adding nothing to the discussion on kundalini, and I propose taking it out of the visible online debate.
93 93/93,
Edward
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Alrah, 93,
"If these groups are so bent towards preventing mental breakdowns and other disturbances that are actually the periods in our lives that we most learn from - then how can they actually support people undergoing it? If they see it as a 'failure'? They can't!"
Every system provokes crises, and aims to guide people through them. If that's what you mean by mental breakdowns, fine, but you speak of actual madness. Everyone fears insanity, with good reason. Crowley asked how any of his fellow Magi had been able to continue after he reached 9=2, feeling at the time that his reason had left him, and he was very frightened that as he attained 10-1, he would be asked to prove his non-attachment by committing some act of violence, such as killing another person. He was as capable of fear as anybody else.
Fear of disorder is healthy. And you are being very strict in your interpretation of how the orders "actually support people undergoing" their crises. There are plenty of times when a wise teacher working within a system leaves the student to struggle, falter, and recover.93 93/93,
Edward
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Alrah,
I was thinking of this one other thing that has been absent from the discussion so far.
Western systems, as I have had the fate of seeming to require them, benefit me in one very specific way that I deeply need.
As someone brought up from youth as a sincere and devout follower of Jesus Christ, as he was incorrectly taught in the region and time of my birth, I have required a very unusual set of circumstances and teaching in order to approach these Mysteries. What was supposed to be the symbol of my enlightenment was corrupted and became the symbol of my bondage. And that's a pretty superhuman mindf**k to have to undo...
The approach to these mysteries that Crowley embodied is like... like a complex chemical formula that makes sure to eradicate a very specific virus, and it's specific to the way that oppressive versions of Christianity affect the psychological development of children (imho). It is the cure to a very specific disease of mind, unintentionally communicated to Christian children in their formative years.
I have wondered in the past what anyone coming from a non-Christian background would need with all Crowley's Beast and Babalon talk. He's speaking names from the Revelation of John to me, and to some of my most deeply programmed fears. I can absolutely appreciate that not everyone needs mysticism and magick in this form. But I have to admit that I absolutely do. It's the preservation of a very specific formula. That's the best I know how to describe it.
As someone else who has taken a swing in the monkey-room, can you grasp the enormity of the kind of thing Crowley's madness helped me through...?
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@Alrah said
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@AvshalomBinyamin said
"No, kundalini and K&C HGA are not synonymous."How do you figure that?"
Because I had Kundalini rise to the crown chakra several times. It changed my life, it was huge, but it wasn't K&C. I didn't even begin to have phenomena of visions of adonai until afterward. Everything I've read and understood about K&C indicates that it's not the same as my Kundalini experience. Others who have experienced both say there is a difference.
But it sounds to me that you already believe that, even if related or with causative links between them, they are not the same thing.
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@Alrah said
"I agree with you that Crowleys system is a panacea that is probably most effective for specifically Christian hysteria, but I wonder if it can also act as a universal panacea? "
That is my hope. Though I haven't met any Thelemites (that I know of) who actually come from Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Muslim, or "Indigenous" upbringings, it seems to me that Therion worked feverishly to live up to his Universal ideals of incorporating all of them. But then someone like you comes up with your background in the East and seems to say, "What's all this for...?" lol...
"Christianity could not have taken hold of the western psyche with such a grip that it did, unless it fed off something already present in the pre-christian pagan psyche that is still present to this day: *** it's something designed to keep the monsters at bay***, and there are monsters in the human psyche in every culture around the world. "
[above emphasis mine] - The source of heirarchy...? er.. The perceived need for heirarchy...?
"These days, on film and TV there's been a veritable explosion in monsters!
I have a friend that wrote to me recently asking if I could think of a new monster for the 21st century, and it proved to be a difficult task. Script writers have plundered almost everything in existance - from the bizarre to the mundane and made a monster out of it. Vampires, werewolves, the dark, fog, intelligent viruses, 'they' and 'them', no stone has been left uncovered if it promises something slimey and appalling underneath... but here's the question: which are the best monsters? There's certainly something attractive about the more formless, inverted spiritual ones, as they plug into childish fears, but I tend to think the monsters that have some type of gender are the most fascinating to the adult. For instance - recall when you first watched 'Alien'. When it popped out the guys stomach everyone screamed in horror, but it wasn't until we learned Alien was a female rather than just an 'it' that she became a really fascinating scarey monster. And would Dracula be the same as an 'it'? The little grey aliens with the bug eyes are commonly thought of as sexless beings as they appear in our culture, and for that reason they're kind of 'cute' really (think Speilburg), but as soon as Whitley Strieber gave his abducting grey a female gender she became altogether a figure that evoked another type of fear, in a way that 'the fog' or 'the blob' never really managed.
With Babalon and the Beast, we have two wonderful archetypal gender figures that are capable of transforming those fears. The characteristics we find fearful in monsters are instead seen as things that are natural, that should be embraced and even celebrated, so they are capable of being significant cross cultural symbols that all human beings can appreciate. There's really nothing like it in Zen for instance, and although I find close affinity between Babalon and the Indian Goddess Kali, the latter is so universal that it's difficult to make a personal connection with her, while Babalon trascends the universal to the personal, and the same with the Beast."
Fascinating analysis of gender, monsters, and archetypes...
"In some ways, your early entanglement with Christianity gave you a specific focus for the transformative work. Your demons had definate shape and context. "
Yes! The Beast and the Harlot!
[
Bad! Bad! Shameful sex-drive! Bad! Bad! Shameful instinct to survive! Bad! Bad! Shameful personal will! Bad! Bad! BAAAAD...! ]"It may actually be somewhat harder for people coming from a non-religous background, in a society where monsters abound in frenetic prolifiration, to identify and then confront the ones that have taken up dominant residence in the unconscious."
And that's a mouthful...
Get some rest. Get better. Watch some Sci-Fi. Ever seen Whedon's Firefly series? Rent it immediately! We can always argue Monday.
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@Alrah said
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@AvshalomBinyamin said
"But it sounds to me that you already believe that, even if related or with causative links between them, they are not the same thing."Yes, I think K&C HGA is a natural consequence in the aftermath of full blown Kundalini rising - specifically when the anja chakra has been turned inward allowing kundalini to sweep up to the crown."
But "natural consequence in the aftermath" is not the same as "the same."
Do I think they're related? Sure!
Do I think they're the same thing? Of course not! -
It would be helpful if a clearer distinction was made between kundalini and KCHGA rather than merely insisting it’s not the same. If you read John St. John or Crowley’s comments upon formal completion of Abramelin and attaining to Adonai, it’s undeniably a description of full-blown kundalini arousal.
Now I have no problem with anyone insisting that KCHGA is “more” than kundalini. I would simply like to have details. In what way is it different? Once the crown chakra is fully illuminated, does that then lead to a clear vision of one’s Adonai? Hear His Voice? What are the signs and marks by which one distinguishes KCHGA from mere kundalini?
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Have you read the two chapters on 5=6 in The Mystical & Magical System of the A.'.A.'.? I said there pretty much everything I probably can say. There is a strong ethic among adepts not to attempt to describe this out of a respect for not distorting someone's experience with misdirection from words having gotten in the way. (A few thing I said way too much.)
I will add this: The K&C of the HGA is a profoundly intimate union with a specific, distinct other.
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Yes I have read the two chapters in your book.
I suspect that as the New Aeon progresses, this traditional secrecy around KCHGA will gradually disappear and ppl will become more open in speaking about this event.
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It's not secrecy. It's that talking too much about it would be fucking with you.
I've probably written as much about it as anyone BTW.
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@Alrah said
"At the moment - you have all the information that can possibly be accrued without you actually having KCHGA, and **none of it **is in the slightest way useful to you. You're wasting your time pursuing any further external investigation."
Exceedingly presumptious comments, Alrah. Perhaps you should join some school and get your ego under control?
The problem, as I see it, is this.
KCHGA is preceded by kundalini awakening, but those comments on KCHGA might equally apply to the reality and dangers of full blown kundalini awakening. Crowley does make a few comments in John St. John that hint Adonai is beyond kundalini (my question: how would Crowley know this unless he had already made contact with his HGA?). Memory is hazy, but he writes somewhere about how he rejects the firework displays, the aural coronas lighting up from the illumination of his crown, and pushes on toward his Adonai. But then he clams up on giving specifics at the end of his diary – which is extremely uncharacteristic of him.
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@he atlas itch said
"Crowley does make a few comments in John St. John that hint Adonai is beyond kundalini (my question: how would Crowley know this unless he had already made contact with his HGA?)."
He had. JSt.J was his 6=5 initiation. He'd fulfilled te 5=6 work two years earlier.
But, of course, it was only to a certain point. I don't want to suggest that the exact threshold he described for himself in the start of JSt.J is a generalizable limen between 5=6 and 6=5, but I do want to emphasize that, once the K&C is established in 5=6, and the link secure, there is still a great deal more development of the relationship each person has to undertake, and this is essentially the work of the later Adept grades.
I don't want to generalize it because, so far as these details are concerned, there is a lot of individual difference. That is, these aren't the details that actually matter in the grade progress. (There are specific other developments of it that 6=5 and 7=4 bring about, and those details are in print.)
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@Alrah said
"Tai - I've been reading you, here and on other forums for a few years now. May I know how long I should have waited to point out that you're wasting time? Or would you have felt that observation to be presumptious from anyone at any time?"
Alrah - the fact you’ve been reading me for years is irrelevant. You would need to know the other person’s Will before being in a position to assert they are “wasting time” and you are not privy to that information. I recommend you stay within your two areas of expertise - Tarot and smoking pot. Now let's get back on topic ok?
Jim - I will take another look at the grade descriptions in your book. But it would be useful to know whether other older traditions or systems prior to Crowley have written about KCHGA - specifically, the HGA as an other waiting beyond kundalini. To my knowledge it doesn't exist.
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@he atlas itch said
"But it would be useful to know whether other older traditions or systems prior to Crowley have written about KCHGA - specifically, the HGA as an other waiting beyond kundalini. To my knowledge it doesn't exist."
You only have to go a few chapters in to Genesis to find a Kundalini awakening that doesn't result in K&CHGA.
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That doesn’t sound correct.
Even if we interpret the serpent as symbol of gnosis or initiator, the Garden of Eden represents a pre-Fall state of consciousness whereas we live in a fallen state of consciousness. Hence after eating from the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and Eve fall into duality and become self-conscious. That would suggest their original consciousness was located in either Tiphareth or the Supernals (maybe someone can clarify this point - Gunther makes a few references in his book) and then fell down to Malkuth. To me, that would suggest the chakras of Adam were already open in the original state, rather than the serpent opening them, but they subsequently closed down and became dormant in the fallen state. The lifelong conditioning to a dormant consciousness is precisely what makes kundalini awakening so potentially traumatic and dangerous while it also provides a first glimpse, or reawakening, into the original consciousness of Adam.