Failure in an HGA operation?
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If you reached The Day in a planned HGA operation, be it Abramelin, Liber VIII, or otherwise, and "nothing happened", what would you do?
I'm assuming here that you've had some serious breakdown/reconstitution into Briatic consciousness during the process so you know something is happening, but the day comes and it's just not there?
Would you conclude it had failed and give up for a time? Or would you just go "I guess my HGA won't be kept to a timetable" and continue the daily practices until it happened?
This is assuming you don't get specific instructions from the Angel along the way, of course ... which, those of you more experienced than I, maybe you'll say "this couldn't happen the way you describe, because if you got any Briatic progress at all, you'd have been instructed." But in the Proserpinus record in Black Pearl, he speaks at the end of "performance anxiety". I guess I ask: What would you have done if The Day came and went?
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Initially: laugh. Possibly hysterically. Then... Who knows? If this ever happens to me, I'll be sure to keep a record and share if you're still around.
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To allay the obvious concern here... Somewhere in AC's commentary on Liber LXV he remarks that a failure in an HGA invocation is a correctable erroir - just do it again - in contrast to a failure in an intentional effort to cross the Abyss, for which one just needs to kiss one's karmic ass goodbye.
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By the way, your comment about the difference between a failure at HGA and a failure at the Abyss makes me ask something that's sometimes been at the back of my mind:
What would the "average" or "mundane" or "scientific" person think of a Black Brother who had failed the Abyss? I've read Crowley's thoughts about how he clings to an old formula of magick which no longer applies, and clings to "I am I", etc. But how would this manifest in Assiah, as it were?
Would the person be "noticeably" insane? Would they exhibit psychopathy or psychosis? Or might they be entirely "high functioning" for the rest of their normal human lifespan?
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@sk4p said
"What would the "average" or "mundane" or "scientific" person think of a Black Brother who had failed the Abyss?"
I suppose that would depend on the particular "average" person (whatever that is) and the particular Black Brother.
"I've read Crowley's thoughts about how he clings to an old formula of magick which no longer applies, and clings to "I am I", etc. But how would this manifest in Assiah, as it were?"
Everything from a Baptist preacher to a rationalist-materialist to ... all sorts of things.
"Would the person be "noticeably" insane?"
Oh, heavens, no. (At least, not most of the time.) Their essential nature is the epitome of rationality.
That's not inherently a problem before the point where it comes time to put away one's old sweetnesses and move on; and, even after that, a king may be garbed in the disguise of the impoverished, e.g., it may be useful to have a really smart homunculus (one's former body) to walk around and be really smart and do useful things. But, other than at a couple of breaking points, there's no reason to think that someone would appear overtly insane to most people when the fundamental character of their state is one of refusing to surrender ego-anchoring reason and old conventions.
"Or might they be entirely "high functioning" for the rest of their normal human lifespan?"
Certainly in many cases.
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Thanks, Jim; I hadn't considered it from the supreme rationality standpoint.
To my original question, I still wonder if anyone has further recommendations, though, if the Day came and one got no "fireworks."
Aaron Leitch (pretty well-known in the online Hermetic/Abramelin-discussing community) says in an essay of his that he did not experience the extraordinary vision, etc. on the appointed day; he therefore simply proceeded on the following days to the Convocation of Evil Spirits as planned, trusting that his Angel was with him and would not let him go astray.
Then about a month later at an event when he was reading Tarot cards for people, the Spirit, as it were, moved him and from that night his relationship with his Angel has ever deepened and flourished.
That seems at variance from other accounts of attainment I've read, where everyone describes the final Day in the most exalted terms. But every HGA is different, so ...
So on the one hand, as someone planning to embark on this voyage, on the one hand I go, "Cripes. What will I do if it doesn't work? Start all over? Just keep going a few more weeks/months and hope?" ... but on the other hand, I think that if I had gotten that far and seemed to be getting somewhere all along, it does feel like a "given" that I would be guided in how to proceed next.
Maybe I've answered my own question.
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In the "What happens if it doesn't occur just right at exactly the right time as planned" sense, consider that those who spontaneously have the experience outside of a formal working of any kind have "missed the mark" in substantially the same way as those you are talking about.
That which is outside of time doesn't necessarily check your watch and calendar.
But yeah, if you concluded it didn't work, just do it again or do something else. If it works, you'll be spending the rest of your life doing it again or doing something else instead anyway, so...
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I mean, I get the "it's outside of time and will not stick to your timetable", but in all the accounts I've ever read of someone doing it successfully (or being told about it in person by magicians in whom I have confidence), except Leitch's, and including yours, Jim, it does stick to the timetable when one has been set by the magician. And so that's kind of statistically interesting. I mean, no, ten or so does not make a huge sample size, but it's all I have ...
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Beware lust of result
As of a day before mine was over, I was mentally hedging my bet by thinking that really I'd already gotten a great result weeks earlier and there was no reason to think that anything big was coming. (Protecting myself from disappointment, right?) It wasn't until midnight, a few hours before sunrise of the last day, that I had any hint that there was something big still coming.
Then again, beware lust of result.