Double Bind - Can the lover leave or not? Liber Legis
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Liber Legis I:41 "41. The word of Sin is Restriction. O man! refuse not thy wife, if she will! O lover, if thou wilt, depart! There is no bond that can unite the divided but love: all else is a curse. Accursed! Accursed be it to the aeons! Hell.
Liber Legis III:43. Let the Scarlet Woman beware! If pity and compassion and tenderness visit her heart; if she leave my work to toy with old sweetnesses; then shall my vengeance be known. I will slay me her child: I will alienate her heart: I will cast her out from men: as a shrinking and despised harlot shall she crawl through dusk wet streets, and die cold and an-hungered.
To make it more clear:
O lover, if thou wilt, depart! There is no bond that can unite the divided but love: all else is a curse.
Let the Scarlet Woman beware! . . . if she leave my work to toy with old sweetnesses; then shall my vengeance be known.
Which is it? Free to leave as we will or not? Seems like a double-bind to me - or at least a double standard.
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It's two different contexts. The first is in general and I think it a great way to think about all and any kind of relationship from the reader's point of view (the reader who is hopefully all of mankind).
O man! Enjoy thy wife and if she departs, or if thou wilt and depart, no foul.
O Scarlet Woman who hast taken up an office, ye deem not of failure or it will be hard! Hard! Very hard!
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After further thought, I'd agree that they're describing two different kinds of things.
One's literal, the other metaphorical for a relationship where you can't unlearn what you've learned - not without psychological suppression and the damage to yourself that comes from fighting its re-emergence. Yeah, you could go crazy. That's my take, anyway.
It's ...minorly unfortunate that the metaphorical seems to contradict the literal, but it is what it is.
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From the Book of Wisdom and Folly:
"144. DE CONSTANTIA AMORIS, CORVO CANDIDO.
(On Constancy in Love, To a White Raven)
Think it not strange, my Son, that I, praising Adultery, should praise also Constancy and Delight
therein. For this is to state ill thy Question. Herein is Truth and Wisdom concerning this matter,
that so long as Love be not wholly satisfied, and equilibrated by entire Fulfilment and Exchange,
Constancy is a Point of thy Concentration and Adultery a Division in thy Will. But when thou
hast attained the Summit and Perfection in any Work, of what Worth is it to continue herein?
Hast thou two Stomachs, as has a Cow, to chew the Cud of a digested Love? Yet, o my Son, this
Constancy is not of Necessity a Stagnation. Nay, behold the body of Our Lady Nuit, therein are
found certain twin Suns, that revolve constantly about each other. So also it may be in Love, that
two Souls, meeting, discover each in the other such Wealth and Richness of Light and Love, and
in One Phase of Life (or Incarnation) or even in many, they exhaust not that Treasure. Nor will I
say that such are not in their Degree and Quality thrice fortunate. But to persist in Dullness, in
Satiety, and in mutual Irritation and Abhorrence, is contrary to the way of nature. So therefore
there is no Rule in any such Case, but the Law shall give Light to every one that hath it in his
Heart, and by that Wisdom let him govern himself. "So yes, if the "lover" sees that things don't - and won't - go well, he should leave.
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"Let the Scarlet Woman beware! . . . if she leave my work to toy with old sweetnesses; then shall my vengeance be known.
"My interpretation with this has to do with a very exalted place of universal awareness in relation to true will, or harmonic intention. I don't believe it refers to a "woman" proper, but rather an exalted role the feminine energy provides (in both male and female) in relationship to true magick. So my personal interpretation is this refers to true magick, and if the intention of the event is in harmony with the universe, in harmony with all sentient beings - then the work is "aright", but if the intention is for the self only, it pushes the will of the universe against the aspirants "false" intention which I take in this context as a collapse of illumination into utter delusion.