Death of loved ones
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I thought I was a strong person but recently my friend of 15 years died. It was an unexpected fatal heart attack and with no history of heart trouble, but he was a diabetic with all of it's associated problems. It took me 4 days to get over the intense sorrow and heartache but I started to come out of it as I remembered relevant passages of Liber Al.
On day 2 of the news I tried to contact (on Facebook)) as many people as I could (people that knew him that is). This helped with the pain of grief. I wept hard, privately at home, a few days after I received the news. I only wept in front of someone after his wife phoned me personally offering to allow me to sit in the family funeral car as "he talked about me, fondly many times".
Today was the funeral and his sister did a reading about him which mentioned that he talked about me fondly. I wanted to be strong and not be a blubbering mess as I think that blubbering messes are of no use to anyone. I did introduce this person to chaos magick sigils and I introduced him to Liber Al but he never took to it. He did, however do some sigils but his family never knew about this.
My main query is how have you handled such loss? Did Liber Al play a part in bringing you out of sorrow and heartache? Was your heartache sustained? Did Liber E exercises help?
In fact would you even actually mourn the loss of a Thelemite friend? It's something to be celebrated, right?
The other major point is this; in the West it would appear that upon our demise, we cannot escape the fate of an xtian ceremony full of all talk about "the deceased has left this world but through Christ we shall meet him again and through Christ we attain everlasting life" etc etc. During my friend's funeral/the xtian ceremony, passages of the Bible were read and xtina hymns were sung. I never join in, instead I secretly and quietly repeated phrases of Liber Al to myself instead of the usual xtian mass responses.
Finally have you made plans for your funeral ceremony i.e. do you want to try and take the xtianity out of it and imbue it with Thelema/paganism as Crowley did when someone read "Hymn to Pan" at his funeral?
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@gerry456 said
"My main query is how have you handled such loss? Did Liber Al play a part in bringing you out of sorrow and heartache? Was your heartache sustained? Did Liber E exercises help?"
The most Thelemic path (to this and to anything) is to be authentic and genuine to who you are. This means owning and feeling your feelings. (A separate subject: emotional reactivity etc. where one is really reacting to unresolved stuff in the past and not responding in the present. I mention that in passing, not to derail.)
So you have to feel the feelings that arise. If you're feeling blubbering, then there is likely unresolved stuff. It's Thelemic to resolve it in yourself and with others (as appropriate).
It's genuine to miss someone that matters to you. This is separate from whatever view you have of whatever happens to them next.
It helps enormously - perhaps more than anything else - if you have personal experience that confirms our inherent immortality and our persistent existence outside of the physical body. Absent that, it helps significantly to have a genuinely held conviction of such immortality. Absent that, you have to deal with the event in the framework of your own thoughts, views, etc.
Liber E? Well, to answer your question as asked, no, then has never been of use to me because the above items have been most useful. However, such things as pranayama would assist in restoring equilibrium and calming emotional overflow without suppressing it.
"In fact would you even actually mourn the loss of a Thelemite friend? It's something to be celebrated, right?"
No contradiction. Mourning is about being complete in your own experience. One can celebrate a life and someone's new adventure while still feeling a loss that you won't be in touch with them. (See my "Crawford" article in Black Pearl No. 6, included as a chapter in Pearls of Wisdom, for my own journey through one occasion. It shows particularly well the balance between grief and celebration.)
"Finally have you made plans for your funeral ceremony i.e. do you want to try and take the xtianity out of it and imbue it with thelema/paganism as Crowley did when someone read "Hymn to Pan" at his funeral?"
There will be nobody having anything to do with my final arrangements that would think to put those elements into the occasion. I've specified cremation, and expect Temple of Thelema members to perform our standard requiem rite within 2-3 days if they choose, and then the people closest to me to have whatever other events they choose (I haven't involved myself in that). I probably will leave some very good bottles of wine behind unless Marion decides she's keeping all those for herself!
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First off, gerry, my condolences. I lost my mom a year ago this month when she died from complications 2 days after "routine outpatient" gallbladder surgery, so I have some recent-ish thoughts to bring to this.
@gerry456 said
"On day 2 of the news I tried to contact (on Facebook)) as many people as I could (people that knew him that is). This helped with the pain of grief."
This makes a lot of sense to me. Shared grief tends to be easier to bear. And in some sense, whatever else one may say or hope about personal immortality, some portion of your friend lives on in you and all the others who knew and loved him.
"I wanted to be strong and not be a blubbering mess as I think that blubbering messes are of no use to anyone."
No one (at least no one IMO worth worrying too much about) would fault you for being a "blubbering mess" at such a touching moment as the reading you describe. I do agree with Jim that there'd be a point at which a lot of "blubbering" might indicate you were having some difficulty coping with things, but at a particular moment like that it seems natural.
"Did Liber Al play a part in bringing you out of sorrow and heartache?"
I cannot give a fair answer -- last year I was still going through my "am I really a Thelemite" troubles which lasted several years. So I did not really turn to The Book. I actually turned to the Bible, not because of my own beliefs, but because of hers. The night before she died (she was already on the brink) I performed (literal) bibliomancy and opened the Bible to a passage which really, really spoke to me about the (wonderful) kind of person she was.
In some sense, just knowing that I could reach out to the cosmos for some comfort and get it in a book I'm not that big a fan of was helpful.
"Was your heartache sustained? Did Liber E exercises help?"
Sustained? Yes. Liber E? As Jim says, pranayama was helpful to me at times.
"In fact would you even actually mourn the loss of a Thelemite friend? It's something to be celebrated, right?"
Well, my mom wasn't a Thelemite, so now I get hypothetical, but of course you'd mourn. Even if your friend achieved the accomplishment of his True Will as it says in Liber XV, you miss him. It's like you'd feel for a friend who got their dream job but moved across the globe to take it: you might be happy for them but miss them like hell. Only much much worse, of course.
And if your friend did not feel that he had discovered and accomplished his True Will despite being a Thelemite, then IMO one would feel all the sadder.
And having said that, I think my mom is still a good example: She would frame it in Christian terms, but I think she did know and accomplish her True Will. So that did mitigate my pain a bit, but it certainly did not negate it.
"we cannot escape the fate of an xtian ceremony"
Can't speak to this bit. Mercifully, I've not been at any funeral yet that wasn't conducted according to what (I think) the deceased believed in. It would be frustrating, though, I'm sure.
"Finally have you made plans for your funeral ceremony i.e. do you want to try and take the xtianity out of it and imbue it with Thelema/paganism as Crowley did when someone read "Hymn to Pan" at his funeral?"
To the extent I've made plans (they're not intensely detailed): The Christianity is out of it for certain. I haven't yet decided what will happen instead. Hopefully I'll know better in a year when my current "realignment" is done/further along.
If I had to guess, it will have some nods to Thelema, but I would rather not be so heavy-handed with religion at my funeral. I have Christian, atheist, Jewish, Shi'a, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha'i, Thelemite, Wiccan, Pastafarian, Zoroastrian, and Discordian friends. I see no reason to make any of them feel awkward if they bother to show up and honor my memory.
My wife and my very closest friends, yeah, I'll probably ask them if they would do something a little more Hermetic/Thelemic.But again, I'm sorry for your loss. Clinging to your sorrow is unhealthy, but experiencing it is natural. You're going to be sad. Don't let anyone tell you that you shouldn't be.
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I was long-winded enough replying to gerry's own post so I'll be brief:
@Jim Eshelman said
"The most Thelemic path (to this and to anything) is to be authentic and genuine to who you are. This means owning and feeling your feelings."
Jim, your comments in Pearls about the personal tragedy which befell you at the beginning of the HGA Operation -- and your comments about "shouldn't an Adept be above this? no!" -- are some of the simplest and best words I've seen to this point.
"It helps enormously - perhaps more than anything else - if you have personal experience that confirms our inherent immortality and our persistent existence outside of the physical body."
Amen to that. Fortunately ... well, my mom provided some of that as she died and a few weeks afterward. (Which is part of why I've had a spiritual renewal since.)
"I probably will leave some very good bottles of wine behind unless Marion decides she's keeping all those for herself!
"My wife and I don't share beer preferences, so my friends who like dark sweet Trappist-style are going to score.
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My condolences about your mother.
Thanks for the reply Jim.
Before I study the points raised, I forgot, the day of the news about my friend or the day after, I googled "quotes about grief" and all kinds of helpful sayings arose from Shakespeare and poets and so on.
Also, in Liber Al we have "i hate the consoled and the consoler" and "who sorroweth is not of us". This is so relevant to what happens circa the loss of loved ones and funerals and grief.
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In other words, don't come from separation. Come from connection.
And don't confuse sorrow with grief.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
The most Thelemic path (to this and to anything) is to be authentic and genuine to who you are. This means owning and feeling your feelings. (A separate subject: emotional reactivity etc. where one is really reacting to unresolved stuff in the past and not responding in the present. I mention that in passing, not to derail.)
So you have to feel the feelings that arise. If you're feeling blubbering, then there is likely unresolved stuff. It's Thelemic to resolve it in yourself and with others (as appropriate).
It's genuine to miss someone that matters to you. This is separate from whatever view you have of whatever happens to them next.
It helps enormously - perhaps more than anything else - if you have personal experience that confirms our inherent immortality and our persistent existence outside of the physical body. Absent that, it helps significantly to have a genuinely held conviction of such immortality. Absent that, you have to deal with the event in the framework of your own thoughts, views, etc.
Liber E? Well, to answer your question as asked, no, then has never been of use to me because the above items have been most useful. However, such things as pranayama would assist in restoring equilibrium and calming emotional overflow without suppressing it.
"In fact would you even actually mourn the loss of a Thelemite friend? It's something to be celebrated, right?"
No contradiction. Mourning is about being complete in your own experience. One can celebrate a life and someone's new adventure while still feeling a loss that you won't be in touch with them. (See my "Crawford" article in Black Pearl No. 6, included as a chapter in Pearls of Wisdom, for my own journey through one occasion. It shows particularly well the balance between grief and celebration.)
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Yes authenticity, True Will, HGA.
So if someone has not achieved that, then death for them is sorrow. These are "the dogs" spoken of in Al? The folk that don't get it?
There is nothing in Al about after-death i.e. Hindustani/Buddhist beliefs on reincarnation. The body of the king is said to "dissolve" not reincarnate.