Alternately, get yourself good with the fact that trying to change the universe will, in fact, change the universe. The money's gotta come from somewhere, whether from a dead parent or a scholarship fund that chooses you over some other worthy candidate or any number of other sources. Every +1 has a -1.
How strong are you in your desire? How important is the result to you? How willing are you to accept the consequences?
yep
It's not that I'm hush hush -- one of the clauses of the Tasks of the Order, from Probationer through Dominis Liminis is, after all: "He shall everywhere proclaim openly his connection with the A.'. A.'. and speak of It and Its principles (even so little as he understandeth) for that mystery is the enemy of Truth." -- just that I'd have very little to say.
Once you're accepted as a Probationer, from that point forward you have a one-on-one relationship with one person, your Neophyte. All the work is your own, s/he acts mainly as your sounding board, sparring partner, adviser, referee, and whatever else grows out of your personal dynamic. Assuming your Neophyte hasn't decided to take things into hir own hands and change anything about the system (Jim's book is by far the best roadmap that exists to verify this), there shouldn't be anything to discriminate one "lineage" from another aside from how available they currently are to taking on Probationers.
Everything of import to the system has been published or is readily available on the internet (with the partial exception of the rites of initiation which are necessarily secret so that important moments of surprise exist to catalyze change in those who actually go through them). All other benefit from formally initiating into it comes from the personal relationship built with your superior and how you use that relationship to further yourself in the Great Work... and then pass on the same service to your own Probationers.
I figured I'd give it a bit to see if anyone else wanted to jump in but, since things seem pretty silent around here, this is what I can tell you, as "someone in the know".
This lineage is not "defunct". I can confirm at least one new Probationer within the past two years (there may be more, but I'm only personally aware of the one).
That individual (K, for convenience) was in a similar situation to yourself and myself -- feeling an inexplicable drawing toward this particular lineage. K reached out via email and snail mail a few times with no response and ultimately, living in Los Angeles, ended up going to one of the Temple of Thelema public classes to talk with someone in person. At that class, K was told that the College of Thelema was, for all intents and purposes, defunct, and that Temple of Thelema was the necessary "on-ramp" for the A.'.A.'..
It was about two years into K's Temple of Thelema experience that K told me this history and further told me that s/he probably had at least another 2-3 years (or more) to go before being qualified to become a Probationer (this was about two and a half years ago). That projected timeline pretty much broke my own inexplicable drawing to this lineage and it was around that time that I wrote to the email address I gave previously and received an almost immediate reply to begin the traditional 3 month Student Grade.
I've since learned that my experience motivated K to pull some strings, push some levers -- do some Magick, I suppose -- and get admitted as a Probationer much sooner than typical, but still it was at least a two and a half year process.
That was my recalibration process, FWIW.
Unfortunately Luce, that email has been down for well nigh a decade and, if personal experience is any guide, no other lines of attack really prove fruitful here. If you're really intent on contacting the A.'.A.'., I had luck with <!-- e --><a href="mailto:cancellarius@onestarinsight.org">cancellarius@onestarinsight.org</a><!-- e -->, also part of the Soror Estai lineage, who responded within a few days.
That's the way it's spinning from your perspective. What direction is it spinning from it's own perspective, facing you?
Whether tedious or no, I for one am very much appreciating the discussion.
I've always found tension in working with the color scales, particularly the Prince and Princess colors, because the historical record shows them to have been originally codified via the astral visions of one person: Soror V.N.R. While it is entirely possible that she gathered these colors correctly from the greater empyrean, it's equally possible that she was deceived and they were, in actuality, gathered from her personal inlet with all of its personal psychological shadings. The counter-argument could then be made that, in the intervening century, her colors have been confirmed by countless astral travelers but, as seems to be the central thrust of this thread, how do we know that all of them weren't just seeing what their subconscious had been led to expect to see? If we are meant to learn the color scale first before journeying out into the Astral, we have necessarily tainted the experiment. How does one set up a control in this situation?
All of these are obviously questions of the rational, conscious, ego mind... but nevertheless, aren't they valid? Have a century of Western Magicians all been programming their minds to align with the subconscious patterns of Moina Mathers?
I find them to be an unacceptably generalized portrayal of the shortcomings of one half of homo normalis without equal weight given to the obvious and plentiful shortcomings of the other half as well.
That said, I don't typically turn to Crowley's life and attitudes as a source for my personal morality, nor would he want me to. At the end of another of his blatantly misogynistic passages, he writes the following, which I take to be the most useful way to approach the parts of his personality that run contrary to my own Path:
"...you will never, never, never find a woman or a degenerate who is capable of any trance of type higher than Vedana. Take my word for it!
No! take my word for nothing: try all things; hold fast that which is good!
y?
What the thinker thinks, the prover proves.
She chose to withhold her psychological history and current medications, despite direct instruction that this was a dangerous idea.
She chose to put herself through a rigorous 10-day meditation retreat, despite warnings that it was not recommended for those with unresolved psychological history or who were on psychiatric medication.
These are the events that occurred.
Th OP implied that the staff was negligent ("The staff should have made it routine to ask everyone about their health and medications before they are admitted."). I was simply pointing out that this was their routine and that it was her choice to ignore their warnings. My use of "Do what thou wilt..." was to highlight the idea that, in a Thelemic worldview, it is not incumbent upon the staff to go beyond that point in order to attempt to protect an individual from their own decisions.
In the other thread, Jim shared his working definition of TW as: "The resultant of all vectors (conditions and characteristics) expressed through the focus of a specific incarnation; nearly synonymous with life-purpose or deepest impulse of self-expression." In this example, her decisions to withhold relevant information and to put herself through a contra-indicated experience are two of her vectors. If her psyche were stronger than it apparently was, the experience might have taught her some really important things about herself. Unfortunately for her, it apparently fractured under the pressure.
She chose her path; the results are her karma, playing itself out.
Best not to presume, then. It's really not possible for me to dispute anything since you still haven't clarified what you think all this is "valid" for or why you felt it important to raise these questions in the first place. The stream of one-line questions without any sort of actual thinking on the issues you purport to be interested in, thus far, signals nothing deeper than your standard internet fishing expedition. Trolling for KEK, as it were.
I simply didn't want your words to be interpreted as anything close what I would say on that tangent.
@seekinghga said
"
Well, that simply won't make matters better. Gnosomai Emauton, you have some 'splainin' to do!"
Of what?
His original book is Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man. I'm guessing the rest are later elaborations or rewrites of the same material.
That's not how I would characterize it.
In context, it's meant to be an Atlantean invocation. Best guess is that Fortune created words that could feasibly have come down to Greek and Latin from a common "Atlantean" source.
@gerry456 said
"pantheon
/ˈpanθɪən/..."
Yes, I know what the word pantheon means. My question to you was: "Valid for what?"
@gerry456 said
"No correlation? Where and what are the differences?"
The gods painted on the stele 2700 years ago are:
Nut = The sky goddess. Lover of Geb (the earth) her husband/brother/complement. Daughter of Shu & Tefnut, granddaughter of Atum.
Behedeti = The Winged Sun. Avatar of Horus. Symbol of royalty and power.
Ra-Horakhty = Ra who is Horus of the Two Horizons (i.e., the Sun as it travels from sunrise to sunset)
The gods as interpreted by Aleister Crowley are:
Nuit = The continuous one of heaven. The context of all that is. The co-creator of existence as lover and equal of her Lord Hadit.
Hadit = The unseen and all-seeing point. The observer of all that is. The co-creator of existence as lover and equal of his Lady Nuit.
Ra-Hoor-Khuit = A God of War and Vengeance. An avatar of Horus as the ever-borning Child of Nuit & Hadit's infinite embrace (i.e. HGA). Twin of Hoor-Paar-Kraat and half of HeruRaHa.
@AliceKnewI said
"That meditation could trigger psychosis is new to me."
If you haven't yet, you might want to read Kundalini by Gopi Krishna. He managed to pull himself back from the ledge at the last moment, but it wasn't an easy fight. True meditation opens up natural forces that can be much stronger than expected by the meditator. Without proper training and/or self-awareness, those forces can overcome an unprepared psyche.
"So she was having psychological trouble before she went to the retreat, and did not inform the staff that she was on medication. The staff should have made it routine to ask everyone about their health and medications before they are admitted."
The staff does. She chose to withhold that information. Do what thou wilt, after all.
@https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/about/code said
"People with serious mental disorders have occasionally come to Vipassana courses with the unrealistic expectation that the technique will cure or alleviate their mental problems. Unstable interpersonal relationships and a history of various treatments can be additional factors which make it difficult for such people to benefit from, or even complete, a ten-day course. Our capacity as a nonprofessional volunteer organization makes it impossible for us to properly care for people with these backgrounds. Although Vipassana meditation is beneficial for most people, it is not a substitute for medical or psychiatric treatment and we do not recommend it for people with serious psychiatric disorders.
...
Those taking medicines or drugs on a doctor's prescription should notify the teacher."
One's psychological history and history of drug use is also an explicit question on the application.
@seekinghga said
"My thought is a desire to know why such activity is equated with the term "meditation." Meditation, dhyana as the Hindus call it, is sustained, one-pointed concentration. This young woman's unfortunate episode has nothing at all to do with anything that this forum should call meditation."
Actually, Vipassana Meditation is precisely a practice of one-pointed concentration, initially focused on the bodily processes beginning with breath.
@gerry456 said
"
I get it, I though all of the Egyptian gods are relevant to Thelema because the three holy book chapters are dictated by some of them therefore the whole pantheon is inherently valid. "
What do you mean by "therefore the whole pantheon is inherently valid"? Valid for what? And why does the visual representation of three of the Thelemic Gods taken from an ancient stele necessarily validate the religion under which that stele was created, especially considering that the Thelemic personification of these Gods bears little to no correlation to the Khemite Gods that originally inspired the image?
I recognize them increasing and decreasing with certain tides of my own life. I haven't yet noticed any correlations to global phenomena. Nothing in my record causes this past year to stand out. The past two weeks, however, have been particularly full.
fwiw