College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

@Frater Pramudita said

"I suppose it causes me** confusion to think of drawing spiritual energy **from the purely Divine world of Atziluth via inebriation - on paper, it sounds like a contradiction. "

Why does this cause confusion? Inebriation helps us to get out of our intellectual constructs, which helps us not to think, and thus cause confusion...a big part of magick is to suspend the "think" mechanism that has to do with belief/non-belief. Some people call this the "psychological censor".

@Frater Pramudita said

"I know in the works of Phile Hine, they often speak of different ways of generating magical energy - spinning in circles, laughter, sexual gnosis, etc. - can you clarify? "
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These are ecstatic forms of psychological manipulation -- again to manipulate our "rational" mechanisms that can sometimes stand in the way of "tapping into" this "force" -- or "energized enthusiasm".

@Frater Pramudita said

"Is this energy a "fuel" of sorts for magical operation then? "

Explain what your understanding of "fuel" for a "magical operation" is, and what specifically you are trying to achieve. Remember that Liber AL, Ch.I, v. 44 reads as follows: "For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect." This is important because sometimes what we are **trying to achieve **can sometimes stop us from effective magical work.

@Frater Pramudita said

"Although I fail at the moment to recollect where I read it (apologies), I feel like I read somewhere that the "Babe of the Abyss" transition could be equated to the the bhūmis of the Bodhisattva."

You're in the right part of the Tree, roughly. Historically, though it has not been a requirement of the grade, it has been unusually common for an Adeptus Exemptus to take the bodhisattva vow.

"I don't know if this means, in certain ways that there is a relationship with the ordeals of the Abyss with the bhūmis, or if it means that if you succeed in the Ordeal of the Abyss, and are,* "received and reconstructed in the Third Order, as a Babe in the womb of our Lady BABALON, under the Night of Pan" *(Liber CDLXXXIX, One Star in Sight), that you would be as a Bodhisattva who has completed the bhūmis,attains complete enlightenment and becomes a Buddha?"

No, that's too high for it. It's specifically a below-the-Abyss step. The single most observable effect is that the Adept begins thereafter to reincarnate continuously, rather than take rest between incarnations.

Ya there are preliminaries one should get past, cautions and what not, along with a good studie knowledge of the subject of Enochian before ones attempts it. But I think as long as you have some basis in magick, and not completely new, I dont see the harm. I've only done like one rite in enochian before, but nothing came out and bit me lol.

What is your intent in posting these essays from castletower.org?

Somebody has been reading David Bersson's website. Great Manifestation refers to the Third Order. In some lineages of the A.'.A.'. November 15 is celebrated as the Feast or Reformulation as the date in which the A.'.A.'. reformulated itself officially, as Jim said, the Triad was formed. I think it is a good idea to celebrate and mark this day every year personally, there is even a ritual that was used to mark the occasion and to "reformulate" & empower the Triad through invocation of the Supernals in turn. It was performed with 3 people, each representing an office and a sepheroth. Motta really did create some good traditions that I enjoy and wrote some beautiful, if short, rituals like the Ritual of Reformulation. Wish I could find my copy. 😞

@h2h said

"
@Frater Pramudita said
"Why did the ego arise? (Not just for my friend, but for myself, for others)."

Along gurugeorge's line of thought, I recommend Sri Nisargadatta's I AM THAT. What's great about the nisaraga path is its emphasis on natural evolution. If you have a huge ego, ask yourself how it got there without placing value judgements on it.

To give an extreme example, a study was carried out on people with multiple personality disorders. Under hypnotic regression therapists discovered that people with MPD often had extremely traumatic experiences (e.g. sexual abuse) at an early and impressionable age. What they concluded is that the mind naturally created multiple personalities to help the subject compartmentalize and deal with the trauma on a daily basis. Otherwise the memory would be overwhelming for the subject.

A similar analogy can be drawn for the ego. It's there to protect the psyche. Trauma can also be a premature awakening or insight for which our being is not ready to handle. Once the deeper issues are understood and a stronger awareness develops over time, the ego will eventually (and naturally) lessen and become irrelevant."

And as most here can probably attest, the state of just about anyone freshly entering the work is not much different. Man is a multiplicity. He says "I", "I", "I". He attributes all his characteristics to a common "I" when actually it's closer akin to a bunch of fragments. Thus is one analogy of the great work "The unification of the self"

@Jim Eshelman said

"... He is not expected to set definite tasks, nor has he authority to do so [emphasis added]. The Probationer is purposely left to himself, as the object of probation is principally that those in authority may discover the nature of the raw material."

Verily, amen, and ah-so!
This is one of the best "tests" that one can apply to a "Neophyte" [or "higher-grade" teacher] or any system that professes to be affiliated with A.'.A.'..

Sometimes the "teacher" just can't wait to get involved in telling the Probationer what to do - and of course this violates the whole concept of probation. Beginners beware!

Reminds me a little of Spare's remark in The Book of Pleasure, that "Magic is merely the power to attract without asking". Spare's system of enshrining a wish into a sigil is a means of working through the subconscious rather than the conscious mind.

Best wishes,

Michael.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Very good points and thank you for your insights. I am a person that in my life have been stricken with a form of wanderlust. I'm 29 years old, and since I turned 18, have lived in Milwaukee, WI, Houston, TX, St.Paul,MN, Boulder, CO (where I was fortunate enough to have studied at the Naropa Institute), and Ottawa, Ontario. During that time though, I have also lived in very very small towns. In high school for instance, my graduating class was 22 kids, the town had a population of 450.

Where I have landed as it where, is a decent sized city, with about 100,000 thousand people, a little less...but there isn't much for spirituality around here, other than your Christian denominations. Don't get me wrong, we have our resident Pagen store with a Pagen group that meets and practices, and spread all throughout, I can "feel" that there are people into the occult, perhaps even Thelema. But, wanting to teach as I am inclined, drawn to do, I sought out a forum to do so in, and the closest I could could was a UU Fellowship (not congregation). After meeting there for awhile, I was asked to start a Covenant on the Qabalah. I have seen teenagers pulled out of our meeting groups by their parents, and had to deal with the Board talking about disallowing our group because of the Theurgy that we talk about, or the relations to the Occult that are in the Qabalah. Believe me, it's not because of adult material, or anything like that, but this is a conservative city, and even in the UU, which is supposed to be open to all religions I and the others running this group have taken flak from people that simply associate magick with the devil. Part of me does want to make a big deal out of it. Ok, I do understand what Jim said, and with my job, my family, and now my Probationer work, I don't have time to fight the good fight, but if no one does, than who will?

If Crowley would have devoted himself wholly to his own spiritual attainment, and never published Liber ABA, or Book 4, or the Book of Law for that matter (obviously the list goes on), how would that have affected the current state of the Occult today? I'm sorry, but I believe his activism jumped our mindset forward almost 100 years.

Dude where's my car?

Where's your car dude?

THE LEOPARD AND THE DEER

*The spots of the leopard are the sunlight in the glade; pursue thou the deer stealthily at thy pleasure. The dappling of the deer is the sunlight in the glade; concealed from the leopard do thou feed at thy pleasure. Resemble all that surroundeth thee; yet be Thyself -and take thy pleasure among the living. This is that which is written-Lurk!-in The Book of The Law.* COMMENTARY 19 is the last Trump, "The Sun', which is the representative of god in the Macrocosm, as the Phallus is in the Microcosm. There is a certain universality and adaptability among its secret power. The chapter is taken from Rudyard Kiplin's "Just So Stories". The Master urges his disciples to a certain holy stealth, a concealment of the real purpose of their lives; in this way making the best of both worlds. This counsels a course of action hardly distinguishable from hypocrisy; but the distinction is obvious to any clear thinker, though not altogether so to Frater P.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

@Shadow Self said

"Now days you have to wonder what Liber AL are you getting, the kill me or fill me version."
it's far more complex than that, because the 'kill' correction is just one in a long string of them Crowley didn't get right initially. if you think there's only 2 types of Liber Al vel Legises out there, then you're not paying very close attention to their differences. see Hymenaeus Beta's excellent analysis of the history of publishing the works at the OTO site. very helpful in commencing a taxonomy of their differences. is the kill/fill Paraphrase the only thing that bugs you about their content?? seems an extreme reaction.

The person that admitted me into the AA as a Probationer pointed out to me that when I signed my Oath I didn't use decanates. It was neither a judgemental statement, nor did he indicate that it was the wrong way, but did say that he signed my Oath even though I didn't use decanates. With my nature the way it is, I thought to seek out more information on the Thelemic time system, and am researching it on a couple of websites, but a teacher is always the best source, and my direct question about it with him was met with silence, so I assumed he wants me to find the answer for myself. I know in the AA you never know the other members, but, at the same time, you're supposed to proclaim your affiliation, so I don't feel me admitting that I'm a Probationer violates that rule.

The following scroll should scroll on Internet Explorer and some other browsers.

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Aum mani padme hum... Aum mani padme hum... Aum mani padme hum... Aum mani padme hum...</marquee>

I just tested it successfully on IE (including Maxthon), Opera, Firefox, and Chrome. Only IE caught the forum-based text formatting, but the marquee tag itself now works in all of them.

@Patrick Ossoski said

"Already answered.

@Jim Eshelman said

"(...) it's the date etc. that you are taking the oath."
"

Apologies, I missed that part. Thank you for pointing it out.

KRVB MMShCh is my motto. Its number, 616, was given me during a Vision of my HGA - I later chose the motto as it matched that number & expressed perfectly the nature of that Vision. KRVB MMShCh is Hebrew for 'Kerub With Outstreatched Wings'. The Kerub is a symbolic representation of the 4 elements...Malkuth, Yesod, Hod, & Netzach of Qabalah. The 'Kerub With Outstreatched Wings' represents a willed transcendence of those elemental forces into Tiphareth, the LVX of Spirit...in short, it signifies my will to commune with my HGA.

616

93,

I agree, The changing of the name in the English version is the name of the actual Aethyr that you are going to work with.

The Enochian is the same, (Or should be) whether phonetically, or otherwise stated.

In my experiences, both English and Enochian are used.

93 93/93.'.

James