Crowley's stupendous 9=2 initiation.
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@Jim Eshelman said
There is a similar reaction, to a similar thing, in one of the upper Aethyr visions in The Vision & the Voice. I'm forgetting which one right now. (Looking now...) Ah, here it is. See the Vison of the 6th Aethyr.
Jim, besides coming out with 776 1/2, you need to write a book, chronologically organized, of nuggets of Truth from Crowley's life.
I'd buy it. You've been studying Crowley, from what I've read about you before, for well over 20 years?
It'd be a shame to not come out with a book with "moderately" hard to find facts, and then go into the rarities.
Your name, Title could be "Nuggets of Crowley: A comprehensive chronological database of...." , big money Jim. You could even throw the proceeds into a huge commune for Thelemites who would be put through the hardest of the 3 kinds of tests from the book of the law, ending with the lofty ones in the highest.
Just an idea.
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From the Cry of the 6th Aethyr:
"And all this which I have seen (being all the thoughts that I have ever thought) is, as it were, a guardian of the Aethyr."
The projection of his ultimate enemy? All the thoughts he has ever thought from a lower perspective than this?
"None shall pass by me except he slay me, and this is his curse, that, having slain me, he must take my office and become the maker of Illusions, the great deceiver, the setter of snares; he who baffleth even them that have understanding. For I stand on every path, and turn them aside from the truth by my words, and by my magick arts."
Hmmm... I'm just gonna stream-of-consciousness this..
It's not intellectually that we have a problem with identifying ourselves with what we understand as God. It's psychologically. The intellectual truth is so simple. The psychological truth is much more difficult, mainly because the simple "I" of "God" is so absolutely unrestrained, energetic, and on this level, amoral or pre-moral. How do you embrace that unrestrained, pre-moral energy as yourself and still have any relations with others that are not completely Id-based and unrestrained by anything? Its freedom... the feeling of freedom it gives is absolute. What functions to guard us from the insanity of its full embrace? Everything we have ever previously thought, especially about good and evil.
..... I don't know. I don't know any of this... But I thought a lot about it all when I was coo-coo-catchoo, and this is what resonates. Ponderings....
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The closest I ever got to anything kind of thing that reminds me of this came with the ....realization?... that evil is completely relative and therefore an illusion, that events everywhere and always follow the law of past action and that all past action is the result of the first action...., I could put more words to it, but you get the idea... Heady stuff...
There was a psychological identification with something for which wrong action was entirely impossible. It could do no wrong because for it, wrong did not exist.... (analysis: did not exist for it yet. Pre-illusion. Pre-moral.)
I still struggle with the ramifications of some of the deeply implanted ideas from this experience. It's made me quite lazy regarding progress... Or, it might be more accurate to say that some intensely motivating insecurity got blasted away. But the effects are similar either way.
Back to the first.... I guess I think of this experience because having in some way experienced the felt-truth that evil is an illusion... You just can't.... It's of no use to anyone. Not anyone in the illusion, looking for help with morals in the illusion, looking for a philosophy of life in the illusion, feeling the pain of the illusion.
That's why any attempt to speak to those in the illusion, for the sake of the illusion, is necessarily a "lie."
But the truth is of no use to them anyway...
Even in calling it an illusion, I feel like I'm perverting speech. It's not an illusion, unless you're really, really aimed at discovering the truth about the Self and nothing else.
A necessary, well-guarded threshold... beyond which everything seems as illusions...
I don't know. I'm not a good liar.
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Dar, it's useful... until it's no longer useful.
Whatever the Tree of Life is for one's personal journey... it remains the single most powerful, comprehensive, usable tool we have for drawing aspirants along the Path.
Even when one sees through it completely, that doesn't make it any less useful. (I think it probably makes it more useful, but differently.) Seeing through one's projections (for example) doesn't invalidate them; rather, it more deeply empowers the tool of witnessing one's projections.
Possibly something I wrote a while back on Gimel (and its working in the 9=2 grade) would be of use? (I mean the second post in the thread linked below.)
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I don't try to place my experiences on the Tree anymore. I'm just still too inexperienced, and it's not helpful in terms of what I still need to do to get my game/illusion straight.
But I do know that I was scattered to the four winds, having all kinds of experiences that I did not understand.
It was the Tree that... I needed the Tree to climb down. Even now, the more I've learned the categories of experience related through the Tree, the more I've been able to function sanely in the game. So... I guess I do kind of categorize, but not in the sense of advancement. Only in the most practical "which way is North?" kind of sense.
Ehhh... Anyways, still useful for me.
[Don't pull up my stakes, I'll get lost...!]
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Remember me going on and on about the "cursed lie"?
That was me still processing.
There are moments when I still find myself cursing the lie, but all-in-all, and more and more quickly, I accept its necessity.
Not doing so doesn't get me anything but bigger and uglier resistance.
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I should have said that I long ago stopped worrying (most of the time) about whether anything is true. The correct question is usually whether it is useful.You don't get away without lying. You just have to pick your lies carefully so that a particular auditor is likely to come to a true conclusion.
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Hmm... I read, I think in Fortune, about the mystics "path of the arrow," straight up the Tree, ignoring the magicians path through all the rest of the sephiroth. Dar, your words remind me of that.
Sometimes, I think in my sincere desperation to unlock the morality of this whole philosophy before daring to take up any real magical practice, I think I went straight up to the top in short order, had some experiences that blew my mind, and then pinballed all around the rest of the Tree for a lot longer until I began to use the Tree to organize my experiences and "come down."
It's weird. Sometimes I think I came down the Tree instead of going up. I mean, going up was so fast. Coming down was much, much slower. I'm not talking about full initiation into whatever or stabilization of particular experiences. I'm just talking about touching some things that were truly too great for me and then having to put it all together. But even just maybe touching these things... I don't know if it makes sense. It feels sometimes like I spent way more time going down than up... like backwards through the journey instead of forward... filling in the middle as I went.
So, I have a lot of thoughts about stuff way, way up there, but I'm missing a lot of stuff lower down... control, theory, generation of force, experience with altered states... etc..
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Sorry I'm so chatty and self-focused today, but I'm on to something about myself, and I tend to get that way...
For me to function in the world of the "sane" requires my participation in a very complex lie - so complex that I lose myself in it - must lose myself in it - or I become a complete bugabear... Part of that complex lie includes the idea that I have progress to make toward some goal because another part of that lie involves me wanting better for myself than I currently experience.
The daily interaction with people part, I have down now. The part where I take up the Work with the same intensity I had before... that part's still hard.
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[Noting that my world hasn't upended for saying all that out loud. That's new too. Also, noting the potential and carefully backing away from the applecart...]
Bring me home again, Lynyrd...
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I think at this level, it's also a lie to call it a lie. In other words, the language just doesn't do it justice. It's more of some sort of threshold between two states of consciousness. Whether or not those states of consciousness correspond to actual levels of Being, well.. that's the $93 million question. Keeping that thought in mind, it's that state of consciousness that may be the illusion...
But if it does correspond to a level of Being, then it's not really a lie anymore than pain is a lie, nor an illusion any more than pain is an illusion. They're real.
But to that state of consciousness (Being?), it feels like an illusion.
Below that state of consciousness (Being?), knowing the feeling of freedom and illusion, there is added a hint of guilt and accusation, of acceptance of the responsibility of the necessities of creation (manifestation), and it is called "lie." -
Each small step up the tree, and each little glimpse of the road ahead, seems like enlightenment at first glance.
This causes initiates to rest on their laurels for a period after each successive "initiation".
This is why we need "Dark nights of the soul" to show us that something is not quite right.
Lets face it, if we were perfectly content we would not trouble ourselves to do the work.
Discontent is what drives us onwards, therefore, cherish discontent.
93 93/93
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@Dar es Alrah said
"
@Archaeus said
"Each small step up the tree, and each little glimpse of the road ahead, seems like enlightenment at first glance.This causes initiates to rest on their laurels for a period after each successive "initiation".
This is why we need "Dark nights of the soul" to show us that something is not quite right.
Lets face it, if we were perfectly content we would not trouble ourselves to do the work.
Discontent is what drives us onwards, therefore, cherish discontent.
93 93/93"
Sometimes a good mystery can be just as good.Nuit says 'existence is pure joy'. Not just 'Tiphareth' but* all existence* - including Yesod and Malkuth.
As the personification of spacetime, Nuit's view seems to be in direct contradiction to the Buddhist view that dis-ease is a quality of all sentient beings...
Who/What do you think Nuit is in the Buddhist mythos - and what are the implications of this regarding the work?"
I think it depends on one's POV.
For someone like me, who is admittedly not particularly enlightened, and limited by my contradiction dis-ease can appear to be quite real.However, I don't take myself that seriously, thankfully, and wholeheartedly accept Nuits POV, with the aim of making my own match it.
Otherwise I'd be a Buddhist, not a Thelemite
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@Jim Eshelman said
";) I should have said that I long ago stopped worrying (most of the time) about whether anything is true. The correct question is usually whether it is useful.
You don't get away without lying. You just have to pick your lies carefully so that a particular auditor is likely to come to a true conclusion."
Haha! Love it, Jim.
Belief is the calvary of the mind. An unorganzied calvary will be inefficient.
Nothing is true - but we use the truth to believe.
We use truths/beliefs to achieve our goals:[excerpt from an essay below]
You are an amalgamation of everything that you have been taught.
You are an amalgamation of your inherited biology.
These are both flexible, they can be manipulated by known methods.[look up psychosomaticmedicine.org, epigenetics, biofeedback, brainwashing, behaviorism, etc.]
Our vehicle of perception is “inside” or subjective (psychological).
What we perceive is “outside” or objective (material).
They influence each other in a recursive feedback loop.Manipulating this feedback loop has two facets.
Manipulating the “material” can be considered with a biological model.
Manipulating the “psychological” can be considered with a symbolic model.To manipulate the biology and/or the psychology, we must first have models.
Manipulation can only be achieved through belief in a model.
We must choose models that we can believe in as a reality*.Scientific and psychological models are costly, at the expense of growth and accuracy.
Scientific models are quantitative and can never encompass all variables.
Psychological models are qualitative and can never encompass all variables.All variables can never be known due to limited measurement technology.
Therefore, all models are relatively true for the time being.
As the models are extremely flexible, the “truth” they describe is relative.Manipulating relative truth can be done by manipulating the variables:
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Let T represent TRUTH – a unit believed to be a reality.
[Since truth is relative, it is merely the space between the POV of the "outside" or objectivity, and the POV of the “inside” or subjectivity]
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Let i represent INSIDE – a unit believed to be “inside” (psychological or “absorbed”) -
Let o represent OUTSIDE – a unit believed to be “outside” (material or “observed”) -
Let m represent MAGNITUDE – a unit to represent the degree of belief in any unit of i or o. -
Let D represent DURATION – which is the length of time a belief is considered a reality.
Since T is infinitely flexible, as the variables of psychology and scientific observation are infinitely flexible, then the equation of "belief as truth" is represented as such:
T = (i x m)-(o x m)/D
The “scientific” community at large is the group considered to have the authority on truth by the majority/masses. This ambassador of truth was previously the religion via clergy, it is now science via media. The truth with the best PR campaign usually wins. This normally translates to how much money is backing the truth. Which is generally the idea that the reality of the masses is controlled by those with the most wealth.
The above paragraph is simply a model created from belief. How useful is it?
** I propose that we learn how CLAIM OUR OWN REALITY AND TRUTH, when and where we choose, based on careful observation as to what is best for any given situation for us subjectively, and be able to employ OUR OWN REALITY AND TRUTH AT WILL SUCCESSFULLY.**
Hopefully this was okay for me to share.
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I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it.
That's off saucerfull of secrets I believe. Either that or Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
Poor cid. All he had to do was slow down. "Delinquents" back then did not know proper procedure for treating schizophrenia with psychedelics like L and Mush.
Believe it or not, thousands of people with schizophrenia so bad they couldn't get out of bed, were made completely normal by:
Dosing very small amounts of LSD or Psilocybin, in the 20-25mcg range and getting them used to it a few times. Upping the dose gradually and slowly until you're at that point where 500mcg has opened up every pathway in the coral maze we call our brain, and the person finds their way out of their own illusion.
Many old heads will know what I mean. When you first start tripping, you have a lot of hypnogogia going on, (the patterns change into known objects and patterns like dancing rows of candy.)
After you've been way into your own brain a few times, the hallucinations dissapear into auras and visible energy throughout the universe.
You could look at a schizophrenic person as one who has not broken out of the first stages of hypnogogia and are in their own world singing with dancing rows of candy, ... .. ... along with paranoia, suicidal or homicidal thoughts, and poop-flinging. (I'm trying to lighten the mood. I've a family member that I love very dearly with schizophrenia.)
Aaahh, the old days.
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I can tell you exactly what it was, I think.
The "tolerance" to LSD comes from something you may call "one-mindedness", further into "nothingness", but let's focus on the one-mindedness.
When it comes down to anything, the highest form or pattern of it is Circular, no matter what. (I will not here, go into how it relates to things of three right afterward.)
LSD brings you, idealistically, and the entire time subconsciously, to the point in the beginning of the "Clear Light", I'd call it "circular" even though it is way more than that. "Of everything that is round and perfect" would be a better way to put it.
When you've stared at it all night, again ideally, it takes you double the dose the next night for the same effect. (Strange that things with Powerful Things and Acid, and psychedelics in general, and the illusion of Darkness, come in Doubles. "Double, sinister and deadly.) The one-mindedness you experienced that held the acid at "bay" was your own smaller version of the "clear light" in the form of very important work you were doing. Now your work isn't as "powerful as" the clear light of reality, so it didn't totally dismiss the LSD, only prolonged the time of onset.
(ON-Set. Another word/word set to look at qabalistically. Major relation to psychedelics seeing as psychs are the drug MOST paid attention to in regards to Onset.)
Congratulations, you have successfully made something in your own life/mind temporarily as important to you as the Clear Light of Reality. This is rare. You have the ability to dose or meditate and hold the clear light for hours on end, I know this for a fact.
Some, it takes only the time to eat a meal, some the time to blink an eye, (then, years and then YEARS later, they complain of "flashbacks" of a "flashlight-like" circular light at the center of their vision every once in awhile -- again, very strange.)
Peace and Power to You and Yours
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@Dar es Alrah said
"Isn't Yesod the 'Treasure house of images?'
Take the energy up and away from Malkuth and Yesod and the images disappear. All there is left below is the black and empty matter of the material body receding away."
Better stated, I think, in terms of the World of Yetzirah rather than Yesod - but your point is made well either way
(Yesod is the repository either way.)"Of course, the Buddha's say everything is unsatisfactory also. And I wouldn't say that exactly."
Me either. Or, rather, it depends on what you mean by "everything." The key syllable is thing.
So, again, it's a matter of the four Worlds, not the sephiroth. In my early days of digging and exploring, I thought the basics of Buddha's philosophy applied much farther upstream. At some untraceable point along the way, I came to realize that this isn't so - that one laughs much sooner than I once thought.
It wasn't until I was writing Visions & Voices and compelling myself to describe some technical terms for the glossary that I got clear what I really thought about some of these matters. (Compelling yourself to written definitions can have that effect!) I ended up defining each of the "three characteristics" in ways that applied only to Assiah and Yetzirah (paraphrased as "physical and psychological"). FWIW, here they are:DUKKHA. n. Buddhism. One of three characteristics that all things have. Often translated “sorrow” or “suffering,” a more nuanced translation would be “dissatisfaction.” The principle is that all things physical and psychological are ultimately insufficient or unsatisfying.
ANIKKA. n. Buddhism. One of three characteristics that all things have. It means “impermanence,” i.e., that all things physical and psychological are continually changing.
ANATTA. n. Buddhism. One of three characteristics that all things have. It means “not-self” (no atman, “self”). At one level of understanding, it means that nothing physical or psychological that one can witness is oneself.
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@Dar es Alrah said
"And I consider Nuit - the consciousness of spacetime - to be identical to the Atman.
"Hmmm... agreeing more than disagreeing (it's another definitions thing).Speifically:
I don't consider Nuit as "consciousness of spacetime." I consider Nuit to be spacetime. I then agree that the Atman (Kether) is the point of innocent consciousness of Her (the Zero).
So, in that sense, I think we agree except in word usage.
"That sounds like I'm disagreeing doesn't it? lol. I'm not. I agree there is no self/persona really. Yet consciousness is a pervasive quality of spacetime/yesod nevertheless - and I call this Atman.
"Oh, well, now I disagree that we agree.
I hold that there IS a self - just not one that's unchanging, or that has psychological or physical characteristics that are ultimately satisfying. -
Jim's explanation of "DUKKHA" reminds me of what Crowley defines clearly as "Welchmertz", where everything in the universe is partly responsible for everything else's sorrow.
The other definition he gave was,
"Eternity grown and travaileth until now."I guess by "now", he means until the point of explanation. I guess there's a hidden subliminal meaning by that last definition to make humans temporarily unaware of welchmertz, or try to move away from the experience of it.
The ceasing of sorrow is very healing, though. I guess, in our universe, two of the operative incarnations of evolutionary catalysts seem to be fire and water. In buddhism, I believe, Fire corresponds to the noble eight fold path, a way to move away from the sorrow of eternity.
Water corresponds to the ceasing of sorrow. Is something higher trying to tell us that we are being looked after, almost spoiled by the universal makeup of bringing beings to their higher selves --
or is it telling us that to live and evolve is ecstasy and to take a lesson from Ra Hoor Khuit and leave sorrow behind, taking the high road. -
Dar, I'm not sexist at ALL by any means, but I was going to ask you if you place Nuit/Atman in Yesod because of your female role in active creation?