Invoking without initiation
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Despite the very helpful and positive advice, I've checked again, and it feels that I'm not at all welcome in the Sephirahs. I feel I'm being pushed out because I have no right to approach them. The higher I attempt to go, the more quickly and powerfully I'm shoved out. Perhaps those of you who have been initiated are entitled, but it seems clear to me at least that I'm just not welcome or perhaps worthy.
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@Sean White said
"I don't think that it's so much that I am bitter, but I see the world and it just doesn't conform to my heart."
So, see the world differently. (It's all selective perception anyway. All you're seeing is yourself reflected on a screen, which means it really is reflecting your heart OR is you wrestling with yourself, etc.)
Please note that I'm not saying "it's all illusion." I'm saying, though, that the meaning you put on things, the subset of things that you selectively choose to see, etc., is your own particular illusion and is entirely self-expression. I actually think that there is an objective (or, at least, shared) base reality, but that doesn't mean I think anyone has the capacity to actually perceive it. It's basic characteristic is a highly polished mirror: You are seeing yourself reflected. (So be reflective
)"secretly I want to escape these chains of fate."
"Fate is free will when that will is truly free." Destiny is just a destination.
If you don't like your current journey, take a different one. (But maybe you just don't like the current terrain.)
"I feel like a child that's been born in a prison."
Not a bad metaphor, since you're a god locked inside a human being.
"Why would I bother studying magick and invoking my will to change the world when I could instead just sit there and say "let thy will be done"? I don't believe it!"
That's because it's incomplete. It should read, "Thy will, which is mine, be done."
"As for me, my invocations can't manage to win $10 on a scratch ticket."
Money is possibly the single hardest magical topic because most of us are really fucked up about money, and that has to be healed and disentangled first. Try other stuff. (You have 776.5, yes? Try the 10-ritual curriculum in the back, in the order they are given.)
"I don't want to let the universe or the indifferent gods or karma etc decide my life."
You don't want the universe to decide your life?
What, you think your personality can make right choices? "I think I understand the wisdom in what you say but I want to escape! I want my world to conform to my will and not the other way around."
Yes, if I'm reading this correctly, you are interpreting "your will" to mean your personality's desires and choices. That's not will. The personality has no "will." It's meant to be a channel of a deeper will, coming from something immortal and fundamental within you, and the first big part of the path is getting the personality the fuck out of the way.
"It's like we're all so beaten down that we don't even dare to dream of escape."
But... escape from what? Really, the limitations that matter - that are really affecting you - are self-created. Deal with those, and the rest become like lines in the road leading you the way you (the deep you) chooses to go.
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@Sean White said
"Despite the very helpful and positive advice, I've checked again, and it feels that I'm not at all welcome in the Sephirahs. I feel I'm being pushed out because I have no right to approach them. The higher I attempt to go, the more quickly and powerfully I'm shoved out. Perhaps those of you who have been initiated are entitled, but it seems clear to me at least that I'm just not welcome or perhaps worthy."
Not sure what this means. The s'fiyroth aren't exactly taverns or restaurants, they're states of being.
Does this mean you are trying to explore them astrally and getting nowhere? Or something else?
On the one hand, this is a place where formal initiation helps, because one is given keys that grant access to certain levels on the astral. On the other hand, if one has the basics all in place and is practicing correctly, one should be able to gain astral access to the conditions corresponding to the s'fiyroth after a bit of practice.
"The higher I attempt to go, the more quickly and powerfully I'm shoved out." That's pretty normal. Read Crowley's comments on "rising on the planes" in the last section of Liber O for a hint. The practical question is, can you access Y'sod?
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Sean,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
@Sean White said
"Thanks for the insightful response Hawkheaded Child. I don't think that it's so much that I am bitter, but I see the world and it just doesn't conform to my heart. When for instance I see a journalist being beheaded by a religious nut, or I have a friend dying in agony from cancer - I look at this world and I detest it. It's beautiful and it's wonderful but it also seems to be awful. Now I see many people say things along the lines of accepting the miraculous display of the universe, or that everything is an illusion so therefore should be embraced etc. and you hear this kind of thing everywhere. I just don't believe it in any kind of sincere way, at least I pretend I believe it and doing so helps me endure life, but secretly I want to escape these chains of fate. That's what I mean when I say that I am afraid of condemning the gods and yet I hate them. I feel like a child that's been born in a prison.
I don't want to let the universe or the indifferent gods or karma etc decide my life. I think I understand the wisdom in what you say but I want to escape! I want my world to conform to my will and not the other way around. It might be wrong to think in this way, but I can't help feeling it. It's like we're all so beaten down that we don't even dare to dream of escape. "
Yeah I know how you feel, and you can keep embracing ”false-views” and causing all this suffering within yourself – because She our Mother, Life, won’t change even if you wish her to. This is why I usually think of the beginning of the journey as a trying to escape from the world and the near completion of the Great Work as an ”embracing of it.
@Sean White said
"I want to be free of her rule over me. It's like being chained to a corpse. "
This is another ”false view”, a missunderstanding and a distortion of perception. You see She is Life and the giver of life and she will later take it away from you. She’s the blood runing through your veins. The woman haunting you and that which you struggle against, is your own Mother. You’re the one suffering & turning into a corpse due to your own failure to comply.
Now why do you fight her? Isn't it this kind of struggle against ourselves and our own nature, that has our hearts hardened and surrounded by darkness from the very beginning? Isn’t it this kind of dark and gloomy mood that makes us no better than anybody else, making us a center of pestilence and a part of the problem we see in the world around us? Shouldn’t we instead aim to rise above all these pietyful feelings & circumstances, making ourselves a light unto ourselves and others around us?
You really, really have to drop those ”false views” Sean. Don’t be stubborn now. Don’t cling to that which is false and keep on creating trouble for yourself.
@Sean White said
"Why would I bother studying magick and invoking my will to change the world when I could instead just sit there and say "let thy will be done"? I don't believe it! I think that it is likely that there are many mages that just make excuses for the fact that they can't make any changes to their world."
I personally don’t want that current mood of yours to act upon the world thinking itself making things for the better, when it’s actually a part of the problem. I don’t say that what you see around you is an ”illusion”. No man I’m not that kind of reality-escaping-Hippey (Life’s a bitch remember). What I’m saying is that your reaction to all ”negativity”, creates the same kind of energy you so much despise and thus is making yourself a part of the problem.
Therefore let me get down on my knees and plead to that good honest heart of yours:
We the people need Hope! For gods sake Sean, don’t give into the darkness of the abyss! Strive to rise above it all and give us hope! Sean we the people demand that you be our ”guiding star” and give us hope! How else are we to fight the evil in this world, when the mood & moral of our General is down to the average level found in a psychiatricward? No! Don’t lie there in bed sucking on your own thumb embracing self-piety! Come on Sean:
”I who am all pleasure and purple, and drunkenness of the innermost sense, desire you. Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour within you: come unto me!”
Yeah that’s whats I’m kind of waiting for... I’m like a woman yearning for it to happen...
Love is the law, love under will.
Peace
PS.
The only thing that I would recommend as a ”practice” is reading the Book of the law, ”prayer-like” aloud, from the heart – feeling it deeply from within – without the involvement of reason. Mastering this existence is all about raising one’s own spirit, having it hoovering above the ”waters of life”, never letting it mix with any of it’s experiences (detachment), and certainly not letting it be dragged down into the depth of the abyss like this.
By reading Liber Al vel Legis in this way, will for sure light that fire within... Reading it with power, will force open the gates of the heart invoking all those ”noble feelings” (Glory, strength, beauty, love etc.) we never get to know growing up in this soulless commercialized society where people ”feel little” and are clinging to ”weak joys” – thus leaving no room for that gloomy mood of yours.
Replacing that mood with what you lack: ”Force & Fire”, letting you get in touch with ”the self”, that core of your star currently hidden from you; which is light, joy & love. It’s impossible to stay low when the thunder of your voice roars feverishly:
”Be strong, o man! lust, enjoy all things of sense and rapture: fear not that any God shall deny thee for this.”
After all it’s a holy book & and I've personally experienced it’s powerful magick (I get chills all over my body thinking about what you really have in your hands. It just makes me want to weep thinking of it’s splendor and beatitude!). It’s the book to make love to in this new era of mankind and it shouldn’t lay around collecting dust.
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I just wanted to say thanks to the askers and.repliers in this thread.
To the askers: the struggle (of perceiving the infinite universe through an anthropomorphic lens) is the human condition, at it's core. It's ok to struggle, and by sharing our doubts and concerns, you're helping the rest of us relate to our own struggles.
To the repliers: thanks for your clear responses.
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It just occured to me that Sean mentioned he was working the IAO formula (among others).
Sean, in my experience, whenever I work (or have worked) with the IAO formula, things start off great and then the shit hits the fan and I am faced with some circumstance in which the "me" I current am is not equipped to deal with.
I have to shed it and become the "me" specifically equipped to handle the situation. In other words, me as I know myself, must "die" and the death process is slow and painful and not very fun. But I eventually make it through to the other side, rejuvented, invigorated and feeling like (and being) a "brand new me". Try this on and if it fits, keep it. If it doesn't, disregard it.
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Thanks Jim and Hawkheaded Child. Your heartfelt responses have given me a great deal to reflect on. I hope you don't mind me playing devils advocate but I really want to sincerely figure this stuff out instead of just towing the party line. I'm very grateful for all the very insightful comments everyone has given me. This is quite an amazing forum!
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"invoking without initiation" like theres a difference or something. Powerful formula. I could mantra it Beats up the mind.
in a sense profane is the highest grade
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Hi Hermes, personally I have found that there is a huge difference because I wasn't allowed to connect with the sephirots until Jim gave me the right advice.
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Personally, I've learnt a great deal from my frustration. I could have just assumed that I was in fact a great and powerful mage that could do whatever the hell I wanted, but in actual fact I've been humbled by the experience and seen that I was quite arrogant to assume that I could invoke these forces without first tipping my hat to them. I think my arrogance could have been my undoing in this.