College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

Dara 93,

"18 + 22 = 36
18 + 26 = 40"

???? 'Splain, please.

93 93/93,
EM

93,

Close - but its love UNDER will, not over. Important diff.

I used to write about flexible packaging for a living - EVOH and polymeric barrier materials, tie-layers, lamination and such. But I never tried eating 50 boiled eggs.

93 93/93,
Edward

93,
Thelemic Mage wrote:

"I think it is a huge deal that the ancient Egyptian, Chinese, and Mayan calenders have humanity's age ending in 2012.
"
It's arguable about the Mayan calendar - most Mayanists are saying this is bunk. I've been into Egyptology for 40-plus years, and there is no Egyptian prophecy about 2012 that I've ever seen. Constructing one from extrapolations, optimism and fantasy doesn't make a valid one exist. I don't know much about Chinese calendrical practices, but I've never seen an indication that there's one predicting an "end." The whole "end" thing - prophecies, mindset, assumptions of a definitive and final judgement - is strictly a Christian perspective, later picked up by Islam. It's one of the hang-ups Thelema attempts to dispel.

93 93/93,
Edward

93,

"Coptic was ancient Egyptian in Greek script."

Coptic has its own script, deriving from various eastern Mediterranean sources, though Greek is a primary one. It derives from late Ancient Egyptian, but it isn't the same language. It has a similar relationship to Ancient Egyptian to that of early forms of Italian to late Latin. It has never fallen entirely out of use as a liturgical language, but scholars assume there has been a gradual shift in pronunciation over the centuries.

93 93/93
Edward

93,

Shadow Self said:

"Honestly, I never understood this obsession that Thelema has with the Qabalah. I understand it as something "essential to learn about cause people like to discuss it." But I haven't found it useful in the practice of magick. "

That's fascinating. The Book of the Law is an entirely Qabalistic text, and incomprehensible without deep knowledge of the subject. And most magick employs Qabalistic formulae at some point. Maybe you have a different idea of 'Qabalah' to other people?

(Or am I being really slow about an April Fool's joke?)

93 93/93,
Edward

93,

The Warburg Institute is a research facility and graduate school, not an actual museum. It can and does cooperate with various other organizations on exhibitions, but it has no serious display space of its own.

93 93/93,
Edward

93,

For someone to reach 5=6, I'd assume that the ego had been examined to some extent, even if, obviously, not entirely vanquished. Why, then, might somebody continue to pursue an obviously egoic path for themselves at 7=4? I'm not denying that it happens, since I think I briefly clashed with such an individual earlier this year. At least, he seemed en route to such a destination. I'm just curious what the traps in the path might be that would lead someone to fall into what appears to be a kind of spiritual narcissism, when transcending the mundane self has already been a significant and necessary attainment.

93 93/93,
Edward

Galzu 93,

I think you and I are working from fundamentally different assumptions. I never see the LBRP as "blocking incoming forces." Rather, it's one way of aligning my own being with the HGA. For me it's a ritual that's inclusive, not exclusionary.

If I wanted to try to control nature, I'd do exactly what you've been doing. But I'd look on that as a form of unremitting bashing of my own head against solid concrete. I'd end up producing a series of problems, none of which would provide very much illumination, unless I changed course and abandoned my efforts to dominate That Which Is.

I want to become aligned with my own deepest nature. "Thou hast no right but to do thy will." On the way to that, yes, I perform various magical operations to control specific aspects of nature, so that I can comprehend my relationship to them better. But the LRP, in either its invoking or banishing aspects, centres and attunes us to our essential core, where the True Will can be encountered and known. Making the assumption that I need to prevent the effects of things I have casually assumed are interfering with me is going to obstruct the life-lessons. Sure, we need to practice basic psychic and magical hygiene, but the LBRP takes care of that automatically.

93 93/93,
Edward

PainMeridian, 93,

"I don't think anything can grow and change without some terrible pain or suffering associated with it. "

How terrible our pain and suffering are depends on the degree of our unwillingness to accept change. That's something my wiser friends remind me of every time I protest that I'm experiencing suffering and pain. The Universe is constantly adapting and adjusting to what is done to it and within it, yet most of us are taught early on to aim for stability, not flexibility. But the amount of global change that's happening now is far more drastic and intense than what I experienced in my first 40 years on the planet, and the big effects are still coming in. That is going to be reflected in the everyday details of our human lives also.

"Die daily," saith the Prophet of the Aeon. I know: "Easy for him to talk." But accepting the HGA's agenda does tend to open the path to new energy and growth.

93 93/93,
Edward

Galzu, 93,

"I would honestly appreciate it if you or anyone else could offer any insight as to why when the regular Golden Dawn LBRP produces negative result an LBRP performed with inverted pentagrams and drawn widdishins produces the positive results the original LBRP is supposed to? "

That would be easier to comment on if I could be in the room as you perform it, and could observe visually and intuitively. I can only throw out a wild guess from where I am right now.

The key that cracked it for me was to realize that as a magician performing this ritual, I was a mediator, not a commander. I call on the Divine Names to set up the circle, then on the Archangels to step down the energy to a level that my conscious mind can accept. The final Qabalistic Cross brings it fully into myself. There is, to use an expression unpopular in Thelemic circles, an act of faith occurring in that I don't try to dominate the Divine force coming in. I intone the Names with focus and as much power as I can without disturbing other people in the house, but I allow the ritual to do the work for me.

If I were using inverted pentagrams and working widdershins, it could be because I was trying to be the Master of the Rite in all ways. But if the idea is that the magician must be in the role of absolute director, rather than the summoner of the Powers, then what you're doing could work, at least as far as consciously known and sought goals is concerned.

But True will is discovered, in my experience, as much by the pratfalls and (apparent) humiliations that come up as by any conscious direction of force. Magick for me is something that I use to open up a back door for the HGA to communicate. I stick to the rules of good practice, but I allow that the real educational process is going to show me all sorts of stuff that I've spent most of my life trying to dodge, repress or ignore.

93 93/93,
Edward

93,

Galzu wrote:

"Regarding your negative experience of the LBR. It goes to prove you just cannot rely on the Golden dawn to get anything right"

After 16 years of daily experience with the LBRP, I have to say I don't think you could be any more wrong. It is a marvellously concise operation that steps down divine energy in a perfectly balanced way. As Crowley says, properly performed it is "the medicine of metals and the stone of the wise." I have used it to calm myself when afraid, exhausted, confused or unable to sleep. I used to perform it in my office on Fridays before leaving, and that helped work operations considerably.

But magick is only as good as the magician. Many magicians don't recognize the extent to which their own subconsciousness affects their lives, and they don't want to be bothered with the slow, tedious work of finding out and equilibrating themselves. Just as many, if not far more, have a conceptual block on accepting that their own subconsciousness is so directly and intimately linked to the so-called outside world that this world is constantly providing feedback on their own unbalanced drives and tendencies.

PainMeridian, I think you do grasp it, since you wrote:

"I''ve pointed a finger absently at a machine and it goes down.
I've vibrated AUM at a machine and it goes down. "

But the key thing for a magician is discovering exactly why, for him, such things happen. because hidden within the knots of misperception and misunderstanding, are crucial clues to the nature of his True Will.

93 93/93,

Edward

93,
Greetings, O hermit of the frozen Outouais! Glad to see you're doing better these days.

If you don't have my email any more, you can PM me here.

93 93/93,
Edward

93,

I always took 'globéd priest' to refer to the Egyptian practice of having trained priests shave their heads and wear a close-fitting cap. The appearance of the head is then quite spherical. Thus, the village shrines might have used a prominent local farmer to perform the sacrifices, but in the major temples, someone raised up in the tradition - a globéd initiate - took care of things.

93 93/93,
Edward

93,

"They are written not, i.e. by Nuit (in her aspect of Lamed)."

That's a very compressed statement. Care to clarify about Lamed? I hazarded a guess as to your intent, then I hazarded another one, so all I got was confusion.

93 93/93,
EM

Robert, 93,

Given that I'm well into Erikson's seventh stage, I have a passable idea how the arc of my life will probably play out from here. I don't think "relaxation" is in the cards. And even the final stage would require a certain degree of psychic energy. We can't assess our lives without having the inner spark, the vitality, to step back from the mind. I know any number of people who just let it slide after 65 (or even earlier), and hanging out with them was - is - extremely boring.

I also know a few people who are 15 or 20 years past that, and who are "Still too curious to see what comes next" to just sit back and take a long nap. That quote, BTW, is from the legally blind mother of a friend of mine, who has to be 82 or 83 at least.

True detachment requires an investment of mental energy. JAe referred to it as a stage of Wisdom, and Chokmah is not the place for a siesta.

93 93/93,
Edward

JAE, 93,

So, I don't have to be dead in order to be at my last developmental stage. That's some comfort... I think.

Thanks for the clarification. I found the 6=5 material especially relevant.

93 93/93,
Edward

JAE, 93,

"This last developmental stage is, I think, the biological equivalent of the 8=3 grade, Binah. (It's quite easy to track the three prior stages of adult development to the middle triad on the Tree - leaving this one, quite appropriately, to Binah.) "

That's a very compressed statement, or couple of statements. By "biological equivalent," you mean, I think, a point of tranquility in later life. Or maybe you don't. As for the three prior stages, I'm assuming 5=6 is young adulthood (in a broad sense of general maturity as much as actual years), 6=5 is middle age/maturity and full potency, and 7=4 is ... well, the next bit.

Could you expand on what I quoted?

93 93/93,
Edward

93,

"As in when and where words are involved?"

I'd hope it goes beyond verbal contact.

93 93/93,
Edward

93,

I've not been following this thread much, but it happened that the Lovers came up in something else I've been working on, so I fell into the rhythm here. My attention was drawn strongly to the Queen scale color, mauve, which is also the color of Hermes' robe. The Archangel of this path, Ambriel, is popularly connected with communication, which had an immediate click with Hermes as the Hierophant in this card. The imagery kept dissolving into separate components that then appeared identical at root.

Perhaps that's the secret of actual communication - the lack of separating barriers, except on a superficial level? For me, it clarified why AC was told this card should be called "the Brothers." The opposing elements are always from the same origin.

93 93/93,
Edward

Priory Soul, 93,

When you refer to the self with a lower-case s, I assume you mean the mundane ego.

I wouldn't and won't generalize about whether someone with K&C hears words or engages in an inner dialogue. Same goes for identifying the HGA with a capital-s Self.

93 93/93,
Edward