"Clear Light" ways of thought; "White Light" religions.
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I have seen the term "Clear Light", regarding what may be construed as the "ultimate truth" of reality, conveyed in a number of ways by Thelemic authors, including 666 himself. The first time I probably read the term "clear light" was in the Tibetan Book of of the Dead, and the Psychedelic Experience, by Timothy Leary.
When we look at the implications of Light and Darkness in relative awareness, we see that darkness absorbs Light, in my mind in such a way that it is almost nourished by it. I give the great Seas and abysses of the world as an example.
When one bypasses the normal, human, childlight instinct to be spiritually moral in one's ways and thinking, one might find one's self a victim of the obstacle of "white light" religions, by one confusing one's identity as replicating the idea of light, without absorbing much of it.
The "darker" religions usually manifest themselves as being truer to the Way than these other religions, and stigma is laid upon the darker ones as a cruel joke.
"My forefathers, I have good news."
"We do not care for your good news."Might these lesser ways of thought be attempting to appeal, in any way either legitimate or no, to their ancestors, (as every white light religion has some reference to a paternal, all-knowing, all-powerful "helper",) to help their followers to forget the true nature of reality?
I am aware of the fact that the basis for all of these lesser religions is tied deeply in with true Magick, though the true counsel never makes itself known beyond the inner circle.
Just some recent thoughts.
Love is the Law,
Frankie -
Please study the way of the essay. You have some interesting thoughts, but I don't feel you form them completely nor lead to any conclusions.
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I concur.
I was very sleepy and somewhat sedated when I wrote this. Just a couple of ideas that have made their way through my mind in the past few months.
I suppose I was trying to ask how fellow students might make midways between the two thought-patterns, to save others or themselves from falling out of our crazed instution and university of the stars, that might connect between "incarnations", or "manifestations" whose principal identifiers would be memory and intuition.
Thanks,
Love is the Law,
Frankie -
The relevant use of the term from Liber Legis is in verse 1:56: "All words are sacred and all prophets true; save only that they understand a little; solve the first half of the equation, leave the second unattacked. But thou hast all in the clear light, and some, though not all, in the dark."
Make of this what you will.
You have some valid points and, I think, should follow them through and develop them to see where they take you... whether they lead to clear conclusions for you. I think this might be your own process of searching in the space between the clear light and the dark.
Crowley, at least, understood "clear light" to mean Ruach, as in the common phrase, "the clear light of reason;" and he understood "darkness" to mean the unconscious. That is, he interpreted this verse as meaning that we have more or less "the whole story" in terms of rational truth, and only partial mystic truth.
I think your initial thoughts have not yet incorporated the distinctions between radiant light and *reflected * light. They are reciprocal. Black, as radiant light, means no light at all - no colors, no wave lengths - whereas, as reflected light, it means (as you say) that there has been complete absorption, that the "black" object has, within itself, all wavelengths, having absorbed them all and reflected none. White is the opposite. White, as reflected light, means no light (no colors, no wave lengths) has been absorbed, the object has been impervious to penetration; whereas, as radiant light, it means all wavelengths, all colors. To be seen as dark (black) is to have received all and rejected nothing (for example; there are other metaphoric twists, of course). However, to extend white light is offer that which contains all things, from which another can extract (absorb) exactly what is needed according to their own nature (just as a "green" object, by its inherent nature, absorbs all light wavelengths except for green).
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I am hearing you, Jim. What you may be explaining to me is that there may be connections through different realitiies, or "incarnations", but those connections are stronger when one has taken the appropriate paths in their "spiritual" movement.
Thanks,
Frankie