The Ordeal of the Siren.
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Through this ordeal, Liber AL, II.67, has served me as a sturdy pylon:
""Hold! Hold! Bear up in thy rapture; fall not in swoon of the excellent kisses!"
"I don't think relationship is impossible when embarking upon this Work, but it is definitely challenging. I am changing and growing so much in this current, and it has the tendency to destabilize the bond with my significant other. There's also a propensity to dilute my zeal, rather than to embody it, and for the old persona to erect a heady distraction to avoid its own uprooting.
For things to flourish, I must be firm in my resolve and courageous in my forthrightness and my silence, the affinity must be absolutely electrifying, and my partner must be unreasonably patient and accepting.
When I hold all of that together, the payoff is huge, but I have to be vigilant not to settle for less....
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@milkBoxx said
"The only problem I see is that there should be a clear classification of this
personality. So, that one can be properly prepared to handle the ordeal."One of my respected teachers shared the following bit of wisdom, which has served me well for a long time:
All ordeals are either ordeals of perseverance, or ordeals of discrimination.
The thing is, we never know which.
If we did, it wouldn't be an ordeal.
PS - The ultimate enemy is your own undisciplined Nephesh. However, knowing that won't help much. Here are the only two published remarks by Crowley on the nature of the ordeal:
@Liber 24 said
"It is even said that to every Neophyte of the Order of A.'.A.'. appeareth a demon in the form of a woman to pervert him; within Our own knowledge have not less than nine breth-ren been utterly cast out thereby."
@The Confessions of Aleister Crowley said
"I believed then, and believe now, that... the neophyte is nearly always tempted by a woman."
"Thanks Jim, as always your wisdom is greatly appreciated
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@P is for Pomegranate said
"93's, all.
For those who passed that particular test... What were the characteristics of a "Siren" as opposed to a good friend and true lover for you in retrospect?
Also, is this Ordeal universal to all Probationers/aspirants?"I think thats a huge question that rises another huge questions.
I will share my personnal experience about sirens. I think i took the oath of the neophyte, without knowing about it, very early in life. As a kid !
Because i had astral visions, synchronicities, and stuff, from as far as i remember, and i always wanted to know and control the unknown... So, at the age of 6, i already asked about philosophy, undertook training in martial arts, tried to astral travel consiously, was looking always for "magick" movies, and so on... Some might think i'm crazy, but i saw Lilith in a lucid dream when i was a kid. 
It was a huge spiritual experience that influenced my whole childhood.At the latence period it got more calm, but it awakened again during puberty, and Lilith manifested through projection, using a classmate. She was a friend of mine, but "she" fucked up my last year of highschool(psychologically). Also, i lost a lot of magickal power at this time. Before that year, i was pretty good at everything i did... sports, school, social, girls, music... But, when the "shift" happened, i forgot everything, even my identity. I lost everything. It proved years later to be a good thing, and i got everything back, but it was hard as hell back then. The greatest thing about it is i felt love for the first time.
Honestly, i think i have just passed the ordeal, 10 years later
. When i undertook "real" initiation about 3 years ago, well, a little while after that i met a girl, who became the only girlfriend i really loved, and whith who i had a long term relationship. Well, she proved to be a siren. It went really bad, and destroyed me again. But during this, i had huge spiritual experiences. Also, at the end of it, i learnt about GD, AA, and... Lilith. That's Lilith who actually helped me break up the relationship, as crazy as it may sound. I was like she told me "stop projecting me ! here i am ! it's not them(the girls), it's me !". That definitely made me pass the ordeal on the physical plane, but not the ordeal as such, as i believe it involves yetziratic parts, and the actual Lilith.
So, basically, i started a relationship with the real Lilith.
And i fall in love with the real thing. . I went very far in my madness again, and it is a little too recent for me to tell all of what happened. But basically, she acted like a counter-weight with initiation. I would work like a madman in the path for a couple of months, then think only about the goule for the next couple of months, spending time just with her. I cannot establish rules from that, but in my case it was just my path, i had no choice. I just happened this way.I'm still close to her, and i can say i love her(the real one). But now she is not an obstacle, not even a counter-weight anymore. She's just a subtle being, with her qualities and her hard parts, like evreyone. It's up to me to be a real man, with her or without her. On the physical plane, i still deal with a siren, but she does not bother me. She just keep on trying.
I might actually be her male siren, without being conscious of it. I say this because i keep on trying(unconsciously) initiate her, whereas it seems it's not her path. So, i may act like a siren myself, trying to make her forget her own path.So, to conclude and answer more directly to the question, i dont think there are objective caracteristics except the "forgetting the path" part. It's more of a "dynamics of relationship", and of "libido economy" question. It may be very different from one person to the other, according to past experiences, personalities, karma and so on.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
All ordeals are either ordeals of perseverance, or ordeals of discrimination.The thing is, we never know which.
If we did, it wouldn't be an ordeal."
It reminds me of a Christian prayer:
“God give us strength to change what can be changed, acceptance to accept what cannot be changed and wisdom to tell one from the other.”
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@Faus said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
All ordeals are either ordeals of perseverance, or ordeals of discrimination.The thing is, we never know which.
If we did, it wouldn't be an ordeal."
It reminds me of a Christian prayer:
“God give us strength to change what can be changed, acceptance to accept what cannot be changed and wisdom to tell one from the other.”"
Ah, I see you are acquainted with the not-so-occult AA.
I get the feeling Crowley would want us to revamp the Alchoholics Anonymous prayers and steps in a Thelemic format. "Ascending the sobriety tree..."
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This comes from the A.A. that does not drink wine? I should start to attend to their rituals.
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Marcelo Motta was once attacked by a man who accused him of being in the "A.A." and he thought he was referring to the Order.
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Motta hen? In his case it is a very reasonable mistake. I might have committed it myself.
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@Horus Amin said
"I think thats a huge question that rises another huge questions.
I will share my personnal experience about sirens. I think i took the oath of the neophyte, without knowing about it, very early in life. As a kid !
Because i had astral visions, synchronicities, and stuff, from as far as i remember, and i always wanted to know and control the unknown... So, at the age of 6, i already asked about philosophy, undertook training in martial arts, tried to astral travel consiously, was looking always for "magick" movies, and so on... Some might think i'm crazy, but i saw Lilith in a lucid dream when i was a kid. It was a huge spiritual experience that influenced my whole childhood.At the latence period it got more calm, but it awakened again during puberty, and Lilith manifested through projection, using a classmate. She was a friend of mine, but "she" {******} up my last year of highschool(psychologically). Also, i lost a lot of magical power at this time. Before that year, i was pretty good at everything i did... sports, school, social, girls, music... But, when the "shift" happened, i forgot everything, even my identity. I lost everything. It proved years later to be a good thing, and i got everything back, but it was hard as hell back then. The greatest thing about it is i felt love for the first time.
Honestly, i think i have just passed the ordeal, 10 years later
. When i undertook "real" initiation about 3 years ago, well, a little while after that i met a girl, who became the only girlfriend i really loved, and whith who i had a long term relationship. Well, she proved to be a siren. It went really bad, and destroyed me again. But during this, i had huge spiritual experiences. Also, at the end of it, i learnt about GD, AA, and... Lilith. That's Lilith who actually helped me break up the relationship, as crazy as it may sound. I was like she told me "stop projecting me ! here i am ! it's not them(the girls), it's me !". That definitely made me pass the ordeal on the physical plane, but not the ordeal as such, as i believe it involves yetziratic parts, and the actual Lilith.
So, basically, i started a relationship with the real Lilith.
And i fall in love with the real thing. . I went very far in my madness again, and it is a little too recent for me to tell all of what happened. But basically, she acted like a counter-weight with initiation. I would work like a madman in the path for a couple of months, then think only about the goule for the next couple of months, spending time just with her. I cannot establish rules from that, but in my case it was just my path, i had no choice. I just happened this way.I'm still close to her, and i can say i love her(the real one). But now she is not an obstacle, not even a counter-weight anymore. She's just a subtle being, with her qualities and her hard parts, like evreyone. It's up to me to be a real man, with her or without her. On the physical plane, i still deal with a siren, but she does not bother me. She just keep on trying.
I might actually be her male siren, without being conscious of it. I say this because i keep on trying(unconsciously) initiate her, whereas it seems it's not her path. So, i may act like a siren myself, trying to make her forget her own path.So, to conclude and answer more directly to the question, i dont think there are objective caracteristics except the "forgetting the path" part. It's more of a "dynamics of relationship", and of "libido economy" question. It may be very different from one person to the other, according to past experiences, personalities, karma and so on."
So much of this has happened to me in more or less words, shifting minor details, that I'm not even going to begin commenting and listing them off.
So,
I getchu, dawg
Thanks for sharing, it helps.
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@P is for Pomegranate said
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So much of this has happened to me in more or less words, shifting minor details, that I'm not even going to begin commenting and listing them off.So,
I getchu, dawg
Thanks for sharing, it helps."Maybe you too have worked with liber "480"...?
If you know what i mean...
Crazy stuff...
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I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by "Liber 480", common ground between experiences besides.
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@kasper81 said
"what if someone was to say that this Siren thing is all a bunch of bull-(****)? There is no Lillith? It's nothing but an abstract metaphor. There is simply, the ego, that uses a relationship with the opposite sex to regain it's hold on the psyche as the will tries to destroy and reintegrate the ego it into Self?"
In which case I would say: Try it, and see for yourself
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@kasper81 said
"what if someone was to say that this Siren thing is all a bunch of bull-(****)? There is no Lillith? It's nothing but an abstract metaphor. There is simply, the ego, that uses a relationship with the opposite sex to regain it's hold on the psyche as the will tries to destroy and reintegrate the ego it into Self?"
I would say you described the siren right there. Are you expecting something actually to appear out of the invisible and become your siren? The siren is the belief that the woman you have fallen in love with is from your angel, you have attained your reward, and this will in effect distract you from further work.
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@Takamba said
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@kasper81 said
"what if someone was to say that this Siren thing is all a bunch of bull-(****)? There is no Lillith? It's nothing but an abstract metaphor. There is simply, the ego, that uses a relationship with the opposite sex to regain it's hold on the psyche as the will tries to destroy and reintegrate the ego it into Self?"I would say you described the siren right there. Are you expecting something actually to appear out of the invisible and become your siren? The siren is the belief that the woman you have fallen in love with is from your angel, you have attained your reward, and this will in effect distract you from further work."
That's pretty much on the button I'd say, I think Kasper was just playing semantics.
From my own observations, and not just of my own work, it appears that Probationers; maybe due to their newby status, tend to get all het up about the Order and from this comes the possibility of betraying the Order. One way in which I have seen this happen is when they get concerns about which is the 'real AA' (The lineage thing, as an example of one possible source of this particular ordeal). With Neophytes it seems that a siren can be a lover, but can also be a trusted adviser or confidant who distracts the aspirant or somehow causes then to leave off the work.
One interesting thing to note is that the Classic siren Ordeal quite often comes at 0=0 and causes the aspirant to leave off the work to "Toy with old sweetness's" .
Personally I feel that the kind of person who can persevere through 0=0 and 1=10 is likely to be extremely well motivated and unlikely to be dissuaded so easily. Therefore the Ordeals serve to weed out those who don't have the dedication that marks a true aspirant.
I seem to remember (I think it was from J Cornelius, but don't quote me) That something like 1 in 10 probationers and 1 in 7 Neophytes pass through to the next grade, and that after that the failure rate drops off dramatically.
Maybe Jim can shed some light on this?
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@kasper81 said
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@Archaeus said
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@kasper81 said
"what if someone was to say that this Siren thing is all a bunch of bull-(****)? There is no Lillith? It's nothing but an abstract metaphor. There is simply, the ego, that uses a relationship with the opposite sex to regain it's hold on the psyche as the will tries to destroy and reintegrate the ego it into Self?"In which case I would say: Try it, and see for yourself
"I am well beyond the Probationer level my friend
did I experience any females trying to break my magical will with devastating consequences?
You betcha!!
Was it Lillith Herself using a host girl to {****} me up? Was it my weak slacker ego trying to use the honies to divert my higher purpose? Maybe that too"
In which case I fail to see why you wrote such a banal post
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@kasper81 said
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@Archaeus said
"In which case I fail to see why you wrote such a banal post
"you failed to see because it wasn't banal"
Your asking a lot of seemingly daft questions these days; Your not stupid so I can only assume you are going through some sort of intellectual re-modelling, so I'll leave you to it. There's no point in making a meal out of it.
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@kasper81 said
"what if someone was to say that this Siren thing is all a bunch of bull-(****)? There is no Lillith? It's nothing but an abstract metaphor. There is simply, the ego, that uses a relationship with the opposite sex to regain it's hold on the psyche as the will tries to destroy and reintegrate the ego it into Self?"
I believe that it should be clear to someone that is beyond Prabationer, the Neophyte drills on astral and magick seems to be able to give a better knowledge of the subject. In any case your Zelator or the one above you in the A.A. should be able to clarify this point
My 2 cents are simply this. Of course that Lilith is a metaphor! But in the plane of Yetsirah metaphors are very real and objective beings (or at least, they are very real to the right side of your brain). Forms that embodies psychic energy.
The ordeal seems to be an inner conflict (neurotic) projected upon an external human being who is able to elicit the kind of emotional reaction that connected to the conflict. It is no one else
s fault but yours, not even Liliths fault.What would Lilith have to do with it? I suppose this conflict puts you in the same psychic frequency that people experiences the “being” called Lilith.
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And in this case the enemy would not be the Ego-complex, but on the contrary, it is the victim. (Ego as the enemy of the Will sound more like Adept stuff) It is more likely the anima (or animus), unleashing great amount of subconscious energy to overthrow the dominion of the Ego-complex. Nephesh declaring war on Ruach.
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I think I'm going through a soft version of this right now. Last month when I increased the Work I do daily a situation, or better yet, a stream of situations presented itself in a fashion that wears me off (it's been 3 weeks now) when I have to Work. Yes, it's because of a person, though it's more the situation itself that arouses my mind. In fact, it's nothing new, but it's coming to a head and that perspective takes up a huge amount of my attention. The good part is: it's gonna end soon because I'm putting an end to it; I do the Work anyway (even if it's lame sometimes); and when I miss something, I compensate it the next day.
To be fair, I should be working right now, but I wanted to get that off my chest.
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@kasper81 said
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@Patrick Ossoski said
"I think I'm going through a soft version of this right now. Last month when I increased the Work I do daily a situation, or better yet, a stream of situations presented itself in a fashion that wears me off (it's been 3 weeks now) when I have to Work. Yes, it's because of a person, though it's more the situation itself that arouses my mind. In fact, it's nothing new, but it's coming to a head and that perspective takes up a huge amount of my attention. The good part is: it's gonna end soon because I'm putting an end to it; I do the Work anyway (even if it's lame sometimes); and when I miss something, I compensate it the next day.To be fair, I should be working right now, but I wanted to get that off my chest.
"hey everybody how about this
every and any adolescent goes through pangs of intense lovesick bulls.hit that f.ucks his (****) up, whether they have ever read a book on the occult or not. Most neophyes and practitioners are usually adolescents so how about this Lillith Siren thing is a bunch of mystical ,non-verifiable bol.lox? A neurotic spiritualization of a purely , natural normal phenomenon?
WHY MUST I BE A TEENAGER IN LOVE? ETC ETC"
I was 30 when I did that phase of the work, so maybe I'm just emotionally retarded, although for me the Siren was only partially sexual in nature
Although to be fair I parted company with my then Girlfriend within about three days of passing Throa.On the other hand I agree fully that the candidates superior would need to be able to distinguish between teenage angst and a bona-fide Ordeal. Although who's to say that if the candidate is also in their teens then this might not be a perfect time for this particular Ordeal; it would certainly make them grow up fast
My pet theory on the matter is that some people have their s**t sorted out in one area or another and if so then that particular Ordeal won't necessarily appear. If the Ordeal does appear then this is because the process of initiation tends to stir things up in specific areas depending on what exactly is being worked on, so it an aspirant has a weak point corresponding to a particular Grade then that Ordeal will manifest accordingly at the appointed time. So if the aspirant is a teenager or emotionally insecure and needy then the Siren might well be a stumbling block, for a Zelator sensuality and laziness, the Practicus intellectual masturbation or over-critical analysis etc etc on up through the grades.
Like I said, just my pet theory
