Where Does the Trust of Intuition (and, in fact Will) End?
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@Contendit ut Priapus said
"I have both Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig and Techniques of High Magick by Francis Melville. For the most part the two are either copacetic or they just simply cover different aspects of High Magick. My question lies, however, in one of the limited few differences of opinion the two possess: Kraig says that the Dagger is the implement of Air, but Melville says the Dagger is the implement of Fire."
Don't you mean Francis King?
King/Skinner (and a few others) are writing from the p.o.v. a small group of British magicians who defined the wand (often conceived as a winged wand) as Air, and the dagger as Fire. They are a minority and (as was pointed out to you in another thread) they are inconsistent with the Golden Dawn tradition and things descending down from it - including Crowley's definitions. The latter are solid that the dagger is Air and the wand is Fire. (Ditto Aurum Solis - not Aurum Solaris as you wrongly wrote.)
"My Intuition and Will both clearly state that the Dagger is Fire, the Wand is Air. Should I subordinated my Intuition and Will to Doctrine, and if I don't, what could come of it? I know that it is unlikely that any QBL police will come to my private temple and arrest me, but would I risk grievous harm from astral entities, or anything which I have summoned?"
Several questions here, but let me take your big one first:
This is a variation of the similar question of solitary work vs. initiation within a system. The solitary magician can do whatever he or she wants, and rises or falls based on that. The member of a group - of a system - must conform to the definitions with the system. This is true for several reasons, the most obvious of which is that everyone in the group needs the same definitions. Another important reason is that, if the system is actually initiating, and doing the job well, then it is setting up a series of symbols that it will imply (much as in the crescendo of a symphony or the last minutes of a masterfully crafted film) to produce a climactic initiation.
There is no "right." You could define a feather as symbolizing water if you wanted, if you're working alone - you just have to wire it into yourself.
On a separate point, I don't actually believe that this is intuition speaking to you. (I could be wrong, but you're asking questions and I'm being blunt.) I think it's habituation.
Yes, I was quite familiar with the knife and cup being the male-female complement in Wiccan circles, and still have my good-footed athame up in a closet somewhere 30 years later. But that's because most so-called Wiccan forms of neo-paganism suppress the higher masculine idea and are really uniting the son and the mother, not the father and the mother. It's a perfectly good formula, but one that (like the system in which it thrives) is limited in the level it can reach.
Letting the blade rule as superior over the wand is the common real-life mistake of exalting the intellect over the will.
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"Techniques of High Magick by Francis Melville"
Should be Secrets of High Magic by Francis Melville. My mistake, sorry.
And, now that I re-read the passage on implements, he even calls the Dagger
"Athame in Wiccan Traditions"
and later in the book he even makes mention of Imbolc. Plus, he includes some weird recipe for salt derived from Hardwood ash-slurry
"Sal Salis"
. And he does quote King and Skinner considerably, given the content. I see the red flags now, as it appears that he approaches the subject as some sort of odd hybrid of European Witchcraft and Kosher Kabala, i.e. Wicca without the Goddess. I suppose that the sections on meditation still have some merit, but until I further peruse a friend's collection of Crowley's Libri, I will avoid them all save for the Middle Pillar Exercise. I should, also have Denning and Phillips' The Magical Philosophy Vols. I, II, and IIV by Tuesday at the latest, ordered them Friday Night.
Pardon my misspelling of Ordo Aurum Solis.What I don't understand, is why it is such a great grievance to subordinate Will to Intellect. I know that
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
but is intellectualizing such a dogmatic problem? Does Will not follow Intellect, even at certain and rare intervals?And, no I have no ambitions of being initiated into any tradition whatsoever. I have no issue with initiations or those established traditions, but it all seems a bit too "Organized Religion" for my personal tastes, at least at this point in my journey. Perhaps I will mature and seek initiation a few years down the road.
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"p.o.v. a small group of British magicians who defined the wand (often conceived as a winged wand) as Air"
Yes, and more to that end, the wand is often equated with the wand of Hermes Trismegistus (also certainly Thoth):
"The ancient Egyptians knew HERMES as THOTH or TEHUTI, the divine personification of WISDOM. Portrayed as the ISBIS-HEADED scribe of the gods, he was the inventor of HIEROGLYPHICS and the patron of the SACRED SCIENCES of GEOMETRY, MATHEMATICS, ASTRONOMY, MEDICINE, MAGIC, and ALCHEMY. Thoth exists at every level of being. He serves the gods but he also preceded them. Indeed, he brought them into BEING, for he is the self-creating ARCH-MAGICIAN. He has but to NAME a thing and it SPRINGS into LIFE. He is the cosmic alchemist, the INNER and OUTER TEACHER, the BALANCING POINT between all POLARITIES"
-from Francis Melville, The Secrets of High Magic, Copywrite 2002, 2003. (and yes, he used that same scheme of irritating Capitalization and italics. Through the whole book.)
I should also note that, despite giving Kameas for Sol, Mercury, Venus and Luna, he omits Saturn Jupiter and Mars, saying" You will notice that those (kameas) for Saturn, Jupiter and Mars are omitted. this is because the spirits associated with those spheres are extremely difficult to connect with for talismanic purposes Those of Mars are dangerous because they are difficult to control, and those of Jupiter and Saturn are too remote and abstract from a human point of view for any but the most experienced and skillful mages to be able to engage successfully. "
Despite that he has already given the Hexagrams and Correspondances for all seven Astrological Lords. -
@Contendit ut Priapus said
"What I don't understand, is why it is such a great grievance to subordinate Will to Intellect. I know that
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
but is intellectualizing such a dogmatic problem? Does Will not follow Intellect, even at certain and rare intervals?"The Will is cosmic in nature, utterly transcendent to the personality that supports the intellect. The Will does not originate from the personality. Subordinating that Will to the flawed, transient, imperfect personal intellect seems to go against the very logic that that intellect uses as its tool. The personal "will" should be subject to the dominion of intellect, I think, but True Will is completely different.
Following and subordinating are very different things.
93, 93/93.
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Okay, so, I think we can say definitively that Fire is representative of Will, and that Air is representative of Intellect.
But, are the implements themselves not mere representations of the elements? That is to say that they don't distinctly possess any attributes, at least not without consecration. It is consecration that therefore aligns an implement with its element. Otherwise, why would we be bothered by consecration? It is consecration that means an implement is suitable for ritual work, is it not?If this is the case, then who is to say that a Wand could not be consecrated as being the implement of Air, and the Dagger the same as being the implement of Fire?
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Okay, so it now sounds like I'm trying to convert, I am not.
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@Contendit ut Priapus said
"What I don't understand, is why it is such a great grievance to subordinate Will to Intellect."
Ash gave you a very good answer on this. By "will," we do not mean the personality characteristic of (say) purposefulness etc. That's a fiction - nothing exactly like that exists. Will, truly meant, is the inmost nature of an individual expressed through his or her most fundamental course or movement through time, space, and experience: The essential vector of an infinite being.
If all other aspects of us are not subservient to this, then it is among our first tasks to bring them into conformity with it - to make choices consistent with what we truly are.
"but is intellectualizing such a dogmatic problem?"
I don't know what you mean here by "dogmatic problem" but, in general, "intellectualizing" (which usually means rationalizing) frequently will take you off track.
Now, perhaps you meant simply "usuing the intellect." The key word there is "using." Intellect should be a tool. It should be well developed, well educated, well honed and disciplined. And you certainly should think about things, analyze them on your own, etc. But the intellect is hardly our highest faculty, and it should be cnsciously placed in the service of what we inherently are. This "what we inherently are" is expressed in True Will.
"Does Will not follow Intellect, even at certain and rare intervals?"
If you mean, "doesn't choice follow analysis," then yes. But that's not the magical idea of will. The choice is actually a function of intellect - the atentive, conscious faculty that, among other things, selects based on where we place our attention. And where we place that attention (the choices that intellect makes) should be in subservient to the truth of our deepest will.
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@Contendit ut Priapus said
"Yes, and more to that end, the wand is often equated with the wand of Hermes Trismegistus (also certainly Thoth)"
Yes, that (or a caduceus, as a variant) is the common rationalization of those who want to turn the wand into an Air implement. And, certainly, there are many wands of many styles and meanings.
You are rapidly convincing me, though, that this Melville is an author I wouldn't count on for much of anything. I don't know who he is - don't know anything about him at all - but, based on your descriptions and quotes, I'm ready to write him off.
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One more thing: Since you are Contendit ut Priapus, let's be frank that the implement of Fire (the complement of Water, the cup) is symbol of the phallus. Do you, Contendit ut Priapus, really want your Howard Johnson represented by a skinny, tapering, cross-hilted blade instead of a nice, thick, long, flaming log of a wand?
Really?
On similar grounds: The nature of Fire is unity - will is (and must be) single. The nature of Air is multiple, divisive, shifting, variable. Which of these does a sharp blade better represent to you, eh?
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While it is starting to make sense now, I still have plans on experimenting before I settle on either one.
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The more I meditated on it, thought about it, meditated on it, read about it and finally meditated on it with my wand in my hand (the implement, not it's flesh counterpart), the more the Golden Dawn/Aurum Solis system made sense. (Despite the fact that the AS goes well beyond four implements). However, I still do fully intend to keep an air wand and fire dagger on reserve, if only to ease my mind. well, actually what made sense was that working through some minor discomfort initially can and will be very strengthening to my psyche, and may very well provide for the building of much needed discipline.