College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

Here is another one. In the comments someone says that Jerry Kay did the cover illustration as well.

www.facebook.com/208699115818311/photos/a.209810419040514/3333614009993457/?type=3&theater

@christibrany said

"Can someone explain basically why swords couldn't be earth, esp. as they include primarily earth minerals/metal?"

Hmmm.... how shall I speak truth and be certain it won't become lie to the ear under-developed to such things? The sword unfortunately can cut both ways. Training in swordsmanship is required by the SCA swordsmith who along with my witness and touch crafted my first sword for me. He doesn't sell swords, he makes them and sells them only after you participate in three hours (three days, one hour each) training in handling the sword - because it litterally will cut both ways.

Symbols are indeed arbitrary. Create your own if you like. Test them out. See what happens. But the symbolism of the sword representing the mind (tarot) which includes reasoning, philosophy, law and order topics, opinions, facts, mentality, is a very good choice as is. The disk, or pentagram, is a great symbol for Earth because of the paten; the dish that holds the wafer of the Eucharist is the Bringing to Earth the Spirit Made Flesh. Oh, and coins are nothing but materialism. So there's that.

But as I said, it's all arbitrary. We chose them, they didn't arrive this way. Experiment as thou wilt and then observe the report.

Marvelous! 🆒

Have you read pages 6-19 from the link you provided?

Seem: give the impression or sensation of being something or having a particular quality

"If it can't be done in total, don't do it."

This gave me the impression that there is an implied rule here against doing it in total. I guess there's not. So it didn't really imply that after all. It just seemed to, to me.

I'm pretty happy with my word choice. And you seem to be happy with your word choice too. Yay for us! 😆

As Liber Legis says:

Had!

I finished reading this book. It was a fascinating read. It explained mathematical concepts for the layperson, and it also went into the personal lives of famous mathematicians.

It explained ideas about infinity that were fascinating.

I haven't looked up his source for his information on the Kabalah, so I still don't get that. I see that my public library system has it - "Kabbalah and Consciousness" by Allen Afterman - but I am so busy, not sure when I will get to it.

@gerry456 said

"
@AliceKnewI said
"Your thoughts?"
.......................................

@AliceKnewI said

""
she was having psychological trouble before she went to the retreat, and did not inform the staff that she was on medication.
"

End."

Kudos, gerry.

Here is a beautiful rendition of the chant, sung by two young men from Brazil:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jcXn5hb4k

🦋

@AliceKnewI said

"Do you think that her later problems with alcohol had to do with not being able to handle her psychic abilities?"

Yes. To the extent we can accept AC's accessment, she was always (my paraphrase) a leisure-minded lush, and their marriage left her exceedingly bored. Booze was her best friend after a while, and probably a good friend earlier. One would expect that undisciplined wide-open psychic abilities (impressive and no training) would amplify this a great deal. (For an easy comparison, consider the life story of Alison Dubois, the real person behind the character in the Medium TV show.)

Rose was born in Paddington, England July 23, 1874, hour unknown. Her Sun is in Cancer, exactly square Neptune. Her Moon is either in the last degrees of Libra or (as I suspect) the earliest degrees of Scorpio. She was highly sensitive, responsive, with fierce passions and no evident goal other than to satisfy them.

@Avshalom Binyamin said

"It's a heh.

"the hand shape of this brass hamsa is in the form of two birds on either side of a Star of David, with the Hebrew letter Heh (symbolizing the Divine Name) in the center."

www.judaicawebstore.com/-wall-hamsa-jerusalem-19th-century-replica-P5108.aspx

www.dokomedia.com/wallhamsajerusalem.html"

Hey, thank you so much! (pun intended)

😀

Whoops. I didn't even think about space I was taking up on Jim's servers when I uploaded my homemade Zelator and Practicus "hood ornaments" a while back. I'll go back and point my post at my own server. Sorry about that!

YOINKS!

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?"
"Poe wrote on both."

Seriously folks, I've read about several different "English gematrias" but I think the most popular one is the New Aeon English Gematria discovered by Frater Achad.

The letters are first arranged in order in a circle. Starting at A, you make a 26 point star that looks like this:

http://i1352.photobucket.com/albums/q648/Takamba93/englishgematria_zpsfcnqzqny.jpg

Starting with A=1 you find L=2 and W=3 and so on until you arrive at these numbers:
A=1 L=2 W=3 H=4 S=5 D=6 O=7 Z=8 K=9 V=10 G=11 R=12 C=13
N=14 Y=15 J=16 U=17 F=18 Q=19 B=20 M=21 X=22 I=23 T=24 E=25 P=26

😄

That's my answer to your riddles.

Exactly.

@AliceKnewI said

"I found the specific quote I was looking for.
From the Book of Thoth, page 88, IX, the Hermit:

"The card is attributed to the letter Yod, which means the Hand. Hence, the Hand, which is the tool or instrument par excellence, is in the centre of the picture."

😄"

Ah, so the confusion stems from the author of "Aleister Crowley and the Ouija Board" misquoting Crowley to say, "magical instrument par excellence." As the hand is the tool or instrument that fashions all other tools or instruments, it is indeed the "tool or instrument par excellence," though maybe not "magical" per se.

@AliceKnewI said

"
It actually lasted, I’m told, about a minute and a half, but a minute and a half is a very long time to scream at the top of one’s lungs without pause except to suck in more breath, or to lift one’s own 200-pound weight and one’s partner’s 175-pound weight on one’s feet and head.
"

Dude staying on top of her during that one and half minute: "tea or coffee?" 😆

Sandalwood is a "resinous wood," yes.

Many of these variations would work. I note that Abramelin incense fits this description as well, though it isn't the only formula.

A key thing is that Nuit's incense has no blood. In contrast, Ra-Hoor-Khuit's incense has blood.

I've always been fascinated by these "languages" that popped up in the Vision and the Voice and apparently nowhere else. They have a very evocative beauty, I think.

I suppose Crowley "translated" them the same way he "restored" and interpreted the barbarous words of Liber Samekh -- he sought resemblances with words in Greek or Hebrew, or else interpreted them qabalistically. For example, "mu" = "silence" resembles the Greek root "mu" meaning "mystery". "Telai" = "cease" and maybe "tulu" = "attain" resemble Greek "telos", meaning "completion, goal". "Melai" = "sweet" and "malai" = "honey" resemble Greek "meli" and Latin "mel", both meaning "honey. "A" = "air" because of its qabalistic association, as "u" = "initiation" because it is the letter of The Hierophant.

Nice idea. Different words, though.