College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

I think I got confused because in the Donald Micheal Kraig book, 11 Lessons in Modern Magick, he has the readers doing: morning - air (Ra), noon - sun (Ahathoor), sunset - water (Tum) , midnight - earth (Kephra)

Are those Golden Dawn correspondences or something? I realize Liber Resh is a Thelemic ritual, but Im just trying to figure out where the hell he got that formula."

I think he just made it up. The use of these signs if someone doesn't have an A.'.A.'. grade come from marginalia Crowley wrote in his own copy of The Equinox, and Donald Craig likely didn't have access to that information so he made up something he liked.

Yes, those attributions of elements to directions form the Microcosmic scheme of the elements, which is what the Golden Dawn used in its First Order. The scheme comes from taking the letters of the name Adonai (ADNY) clockwise from the east.

OK, thanks for clarifying. So are these the correct correspondences for liber Resh?

Ra - morning, east, earth
Ahathoor - noon, south, fire
Tum - sunset, west, air
Kephra - midnight, north, water

When performing Liber Resh, if the adorant is not in the A.A., they are advised to use the signs of the elemental grades. For example at noon we would make the sign of fire and recite a prayer to Ahathoor. My understanding is that we are invoking the goddess Ahathoor when this happens.

In holding the pose of the sign of fire, is the adorant also invoking the element of fire?

I personally am still not satisfied by just the most basic question (I have) which is what does a Thelemite mean by "God"? Bringing it back to Crowley's quote from Magick in Theory and Practice, it looks to me like by "God" he meant one's own Holy Guardian Angel.

"There is a single main definition of the object of all magical ritual. It is the uniting of Microcosm with the Macrocosm. The Supreme and Complete Ritual is therefore the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; or in the language of Mysticism, the Union with** God**."

Beyond that, it looks like there is a Thelemic cosmological model of "the formula of 0=2," which seems to be somewhat comparable to the Buddhist "Dharma" or the Taoist "Tao."

Can we all argue on that?

Blythe, that's funny you mention Hawking because I was just thinking about that! Could the pre "Big-Bang" theory of negative singularity be likened to Hadit, "which is a consequence of undifferentiated Everything" (Nuit)? The resulting manifestation (Ra-Hoor-Kuit), sounds similar to descriptions I've heard of the Big Bang theory. Could that be right?

Guys, lil help here!

@Jim Eshelman said

"The closest equivalent is not so much in Thelema as in Crowleyanity, though the model can be applied to Thelemic cosmology. It is the formula of 0=2. That is, "In the beginning there was nothing," which is a consequence of undifferentiated Everything. Once anything ("A") is defined within that Nothing, then Everything is automatically divided into "A" and "Not-A.""

I'm confused, are you saying the above formula is merely the closest equivalent to veritas_in_nox's ideas in his original post or is it** also** that this formula represents what a Thelemite means by "God?" In this formula would "Nothing" be likened to Hadit and "Everything" be likened to Nuit?

I always thought if there were a Thelemic interpretation of the word "God" it would be the Thelemic Trinity (Nuit,Hadit, Ra-Hoor_Kuit).

Another interesting perspective I thought I would share comes from the Chaos Magicians. Peter Carroll wrote that:

"Religion takes the view that consciousness preceded organic life. Supposedly there were gods, angelic forces, titans, and demons setting the scene before material life developed. Science takes the opposite view and and considers that much organic evolution occurred before the phenomenon of consciousness appeared. Magic, which has given more attention to the quality of consciousness itself, takes the alternative view and concludes that organic and psychic forms evolve synchronously. As organic development occurs, a psychic field is generated which feeds back into organic forms. Thus each species of living being has it's own type of psychic form or magical essence. These egregores may occasionally be felt as a presence or even glimpsed in the form of the species they watch over. Those who have perceived the human egregore usually describe it as God. Communion with the morphic field of beasts is of great importance to the shaman and sorceror, as it conveys intimate knowledge of the actual creature and allows the magician a certain power of the species. It may also allow him to appropriate certain of the beast's powers, particularly on the aetheric plane. This is the reason for the world-wide occurrence of totemism amongst hunting peoples and the prevalence of animal headed-human bodied gods in most mythologies."

Another one is: "If the word is of Greek origin it seems to connect with the idea of watchers rather than leaders. Cf. [ho egre^'goros] = Vigil, in the Septuagint. A.E. Waite, note to Éliphas Lévi, The History of Magic

So yes, in my first post I had purposefully capitalized the "G" in "God" to indicate what I think of as some people's belief in the idea of an actual entity which was self-aware, in contrast to a lower case "g" for "gods" which I think of as some people's belief in the idea that "gods" are merely symbols or archetypes of the collective unconscious seen from a purely mundane, psychological point of view. Having revisited the concept of **"egregores" **I can see how my original post could've reflected a "few" people's opinion but perhaps not even the "common" outlook of modern magicians.

veritas_in_nox wrote:

"With all of this in mind, why are there people if their True Wills are, as I understand Crowley's perspective, to simply rejoin w/God again? It seems a bit self defeating."

Jim Eshelman wrote:

"Whether that's a workable model or not, I'd be interested in seeing your documentation that this was "Crowley's perspective." I might ber able to argue that it was if I applied myself, but it's much easier to argue that it was not."

I think veritas_in_nox may be referring to "there is a single main definition of the object of all magical ritual. It is the uniting of Microcosm with the Macrocosm. The Supreme and Complete Ritual is therefore the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; or in the language of Mysticism, the Union with God."

This was taken from Magick in Theory and practice. p.144

So far from what I can tell, there seems to be a pretty big difference between what most moderns occultists think of as a god and the way they were thought of in ancient times. If I understand this correctly, the modern outlook is that a god represents psychological attributes of the human mind. I've also heard gods described as symbolizing a state (or states) of human consciousness. A well developed pantheon of gods is considered to represent the full spectrum of the human psychology. War, love/beauty, wisdom, death, knowledge, sex/creation, parent, child, etc. If I missed someone may they strike me down in furious anger!!

I'm gonna try to leave the monotheistic idea of the One God or Supreme Guiding Intelligence out of it because I have a feeling that is a different topic altogether and one which probably deserves it's own dedicated post. I would however, love to hear some perspectives on the Hermetic take on angels.

It seems to me that although Occidental religions (of the age of Osiris) professed to believe in the One God, at the same time they also developed the idea of angels, which to me seem to serve the exact same purpose of the pantheon of pagan gods which came before them.

So to clarify, in the system of Thelema there seems to be a few different categories of gods that apply to certain preferred uses. There are historic gods (typically Greek or Egyptian) which are preferred for use in general invoking rituals, often ones involving planetary work. There are (New Aeon) gods which are specifically Thelemic dieties which to be honest I dont really understand but they seem to be similar to historic gods except more applicable to the spiritual make-up of current human evolution. Then there are angels which seem to be used when with rituals that are specially Qaballistic.

My guess is that there are no fast rules for which gods/angels are used where, so long as the correspondences work out. In other words one could map the Greek pantheon onto the "enumerations" of the Tree of Life but it would be more convenient to simply use the Jewish pantheon of angels since they both emerged from that particular system.

Am I gettin any of this right??

OK fine, maybe it's not the massive breakthrough in technology I was hoping it was. I was studying the Soldier and the Hunchback and a lot of the Google translations seemed like they were working. There's no footnote for the passage "C'est son métier", but google translate says it means "It's his job." I ran a search for "Cogito, ergo Sum" and got "I think, therefore I am." I ran a search for coniuntio and it said "conjunction," Then when I changed the spelling to coniunctio (with a C) it said "union." I don't really know what a proper Latin accent sounds like but I felt like "coniunctio" as spoken in google translate sounds more convincing than the way I had been pronouncing it!

The rest was just talking dirty to my girlfriend in languages I would have no way of confirming!

So just now I tried "Omnes sunt, qui cogitant" and got "all of them are, that study" but the footnotes of Soldier and the Hunchback said "all are, which think."

So, what's the consensus here? Fun to play with if you're stuck on a few words but take it with a grain of salt?

There's a new toy out that is WAY cooler than anything Santa could've ever come up with! its called Google Translate and it even speaks the translated sentence in proper pronunciation! The Hebrew one is still in the works it looks like but there's Greek and Latin that totally work. ranslate.google.com

Think if we bug 'em enough they'll one for Enocian? hahah!

Personally i found all these posts pretty helpful!

So, there is a specific event that happens literally? Some line that is crossed permanently? I have definitely experienced "contact" many times to varying degrees and they typically happen when i have been in deep meditative states or copious amounts of mind altering substances.

I can study and meditate and talk all about being of service, but as soon as I show up at the office, all that spirituality seems to go straight out the window! haha! It would be nice one day to be able to really live it.

BRING IT!!! hahaha!

That's a good point! I'm still learning about all this myself but I'd like to have a go at it while my studies are still fresh in my head.

It is interesting that new Aeon magickians would use old Aeon concepts to explain these three paradigms. According to Lon Milo Duquette, "a formula is a statement of perceived cosmological fact or theory. It can be a set of symbols revealing the mechanism of natural law. It can be a single word that initiates an entire age." Some of the examples he uses are "as above so below", "an apple a day keeps the doctor way!", "E=MC2." My guess would be that New Aeon use of an Old Aeon formula is for the purpose of comparing and contrasting these very different ways of perceiving reality.

During the Aeon of Isis, there was a strong focus on the divine feminine, the mother earth, and mysteries of birth. Our New Aeon idea of Nuit is "the infinitely-expanded circle whose circumference is unmeasurable and whose center is everywhere."

During the Aeon of Osiris, there was a strong focus on the divine masculine, our father the sun, and the mysteries of death and resurrection. Our New Aeon idea of Hadit is "the infinitely small point within the core of every single thing."

We have now entered the Aeon of Horus -- the formula of the Crowned and Conquering Child. The product of both it's parents, symbolizing the reconciliation of opposites. "It is the interaction between these two cosmic principles that creates the manifested universe similar to the gnostic syzygy."

Nuit and Hadit to not adequately capture the mentality Old Aeon ways of perceiving. Better to use Isis and Osiris for that.

When Rose Kelly informed Crowley that "Horus" was going to contact him she brought him to the Stele 666 to show him who she meant. She pointed at the historical Horus or I guess technically Re-Harakhty ("Re-Horus of the Two Horizons") and not to be mistaken for the Thelemic Ra-Hoor-Khuit ("Ra who is Horus on the Horizon.") Then he's contacted by Hoor-pa-kraat ("Horus the child") and I'm guessing you're going to say not to be mistaken with Harpocrates ("Horus the Child"). How am I doing so far?

I guess I can accept that these are completely new gods but there must be some kind of connection at least to the ancient Egyptian current of energy or something, right? I mean these names are still translatable in Egyptian. Ra-Hoor I think means something like "the body of the sun in its highness" if I'm not mistaken. If these gods were completely unrelated to historical Egypt they wouldnt have Egyptian names. They'd be in something else like Enochian. Or English! Aren't the images of gods on the Stele of Revealing now referred to by Thelemites as Thelemic gods, i.e. Nuit instead of Nut or Ra-Hoor-Khuit instead of Re-Harakhty? If these gods are different why are we still using the ancient artwork to represent them?

You say it's like Paul McCartney sing Michele to the First Lady I say its more like some charater out of a David Lynch movie!!

Also I revisted stuff I had on the Thelemic pantheon of gods and it still doesnt seem like the gods from Resh (Ahathoor, Ra, Kephra, Tum, Tahuti) are part of the Thelemic pantheon, with the exception of maybe Ra-Hoor unless he's different than Ra-Hoor-Kuit. So is it possible that Crowley was instructed to insert the gods of Resh for the purposes of a new Aeon solar formula while still retaining their historical identies???

OK, so the Book of the Law was delivered to Crowley by the god Horus via Awaiss correct? So it's not like Crowley invented the Thelemic pantheon of gods they were dictated to him. Is that correct? I just don't understand the point of keeping the names of the gods as well as the use of ancient images of these gods if these are not the same gods. In addition to this, every Thelemic website Ive ever seen on Liber Resh refers to historic descriptions of these dieties. The solar stations are different but the gods same to the same.

It really seems like some of the historic gods used in Thelema are the same while others are often completely different. Pan for example doesnt seem anything like the Greek god I used to read about as a kid. I've also noticed that the historic egyptian aspects of self are sometimes slightly different and other times absolutely opposite in meaning. The way Crowley describes the "Khu" to me seems like almost the exact opposite of the historic meaning.

I find this all incredibly confusing. Is there a purpose or benefit doing things this way? So its the Law now but it wasnt the Law a couple hundred years ago? Why isnt there more accessible information on this? I'm starting to feel like this all was designed to be intentionally confusing.

" It's even better! It's an historical artifact that was mistranslated, and then paraphrased, and then the paraphrase of the mistranslation is what got put in Liber Legis. From that moment on, it became The Word! "

Hahahaha! FINALLY!! an honest no bullshit answer! @#$%#$%^#^&!! But seriously thank you for keeping it real. Of all the people I've approached about this you're the only one who just laid it out. Thats actually refreshing.

So how does one perform Liber Resh four times a day knowing its full of mistakes? How can you take it seriously? Why is that the Word, so to speak? At this point it kinda seems like it'd be better to just come up our own new formula? That sucks! hahaha! Why would someone who realizes all this still choose to continue doing Liber Resh? Or Thelema in general for that matter?

There are a lot of opinions floating around out there that the formula as found in Liber Resh -- Ra (morning), Ahathoor (noon), Tum (sunset), Kephra (midnight) is not correct or at least not historically correct. One modern practitioner of the Golden Dawn, Chic Cicero, even went so far as to create his own version of Liber Resh to correct this, using what he felt was a more historically accurate formula -- Kephra (morning), Ra (noon), Tum (evening), Amun (midnight). Even wikipedia under "Ra" says "by the Fifth Dynasty he had become a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the mid-day sun."

On the other hand, I've heard that the high priests were assigned the task of creating a new sun prayer with each new dynasty. I'm still trying to find more information about this but so far I have found four different ancient Egyptian sun formulas, one of which places Ra in the morning. I can give details if there's interest in that, but for now I feel confident that it is not accurate to say there is one historically accurate sun formula. There were probably many.

An excellent example of this would be the fact that the Stele of Revealing is in fact an historical document which describes a sun formula! Liber Resh is definitely based on the Stele of Revealing, therefore it's impossible to say that Liber Resh is not an historically accurate formula.

The question I do have is whether or not the formula found in the Stele of Revealing as written by Ankh-f-n-Konsu was the official solar formula of the dynasty at that time or simply a private one the priest wrote for himself.

@Iugum said

"Banishing "an aspect of yourself" is not a bad thing especially if this aspect is one which causes discomfort, paranoia, pain (emotional or physical), jealousy, laziness, etc. Say (for example) the impulse of sexual violence towards the opposite sex is something you enjoy acting upon, an aspect of yourself, a part of your character, that doesn't mean that you should not attempt to "banish" or correct this trait, quite the opposite. Just because this is an aspect of you that does not mean it should go unchecked or uncorrected simply because it is of you. "

According to the Law of Conservation, energy can not be created or destroyed but can change it's form. Energy is -- period. "Banishing" as I understand it does not mean to completely annihilate energy, it simply displaces it away from the here and now. This can be invaluable to ceremonial magickians as a means of clearing one's space or clearing one's mind before a ritual or any (temporary) situation, really. The idea that one can banish as a means of correcting a character trait to me sounds like this character defect gets suddenly blasted into oblivian, never to return. Nothing could be further from the truth.

According to the Law of Opposites, everything in existence is a combination or unity of opposites. If this is true, than every idea you have about yourself (the ego) will always have an equal opposite (the unconscious aspects of self). If you banish a character trait you do not find acceptable, you are essentially suppressing that side of yourself. This is how the shadow aspect of self has been created in the first place. If I am right that the manifestation of the Old Hag is a combination of the shadow and anima then every time you banish an undesirable character trait you simply make her more powerful. It seems to me that integration would make more sense.

Jungian psychologists offer a solution to this called "active imagination" which to a ceremonial magickian should come very easily. Another even easier approach would be to buy a blank canvass a simply "project" the shadow onto the canvass with paints. This allows you to acknowledge repressed aspects of self in a safe and controlled setting. You could also use music, poetry, automatic writing, etc. And then banish! haha! My hope is that all of you be free of sleep paralysis. Or even better learn to like it!

"What you resist, persists," and what you accept, you neutralize.

What if the experience of being "hagridden" is actually a manifestation of unconscious archetypes? If you perceived this as an attack from some sort of malevolent being or magickal attack from some magician you pissed off, naturally you would want to perform a banishing, right? However, if the "Old Hag" is really a manifestation of your own unconscious then what would happen if you were to perform a banishing on an aspect of yourself?

It seems to me you would only be repressing these sides of yourself even deeper. According to Carl Jung, the anima and especially the shadow are created by repressed or rejected sides of ourselves. So if you are being hagridden, it seems to me you are being presented with an opportunity to experience the reconciliation of opposites. Jung also refers a lot the the alchemical concept of the "Coniuntio" or "the sacred marriage."

Instead of banishing the Old Hag as a form of self defense shouldn't we be proposing marriage? An offering of unconditional love and acceptance of repressed aspects off self.