College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

Thank you all for the feedback on this question. It does seem to speak to the importance in timing and force. As a couple of you pointed out, being sure that the idea has incubated enough to be able to stand up against a respectable amount of scrutiny. Therefor, any changes to the original idea are deliberate and worthy. It is my experience that an idea that is spoken when it is still mushy may change form and intention so easily that its original plan is altered, perhaps without even the awareness of it's creator.

"To Keep Silent." It is such a resounding cautionary note in magickal work. Intuitively, it strikes a profoundly important one at that. But it is also one that I find myself at constant odds with as it goes against my general nature. Yes, I have a loose tongue. When I have a philosophical revelation, so to speak, it is my natural propulsion to share it with others. One reason is to get feedback to find fallacies in my reasoning. I am a scientist, so humility in the arena of reasoning is something that I am very comfortable with. But it is mostly because I feel them to be of high value to others in their spiritual evolution. Certainly we would get nowhere in human evolution if everyone kept everything to themselves and didn't donate anything to be masticated by the collective psyche.

I am interested in what others use as their criteria of what is opened to share, and what is best kept locked in behind the binds of the magickal diary.

@IASVN said

"I see no problem with that name whatsoever. Mercury, or Hermes as he is often called, the archetypal Magician, is also the archetypal trickster. Tales abound in mythologies of the trickster-god, who impels humanity to a higher consciousness with foolish wisdom.\

Not completely relevant, but my nickname here in Big Sur was "Kilo-he," which is Hawaiian for "little rascal," or "little trickster." It has a slightly more derogatory meaning in that language, though. "

Incidentally, being from Hawaii myself, I was more influence by a Hawaiian tongue when I fell upon "Heyonah."

@Solitarius said

"Actually I'm surprised that you went so long without analyzing that name."

Thank you for the link. Perhaps more accurately it was only the prospect of checking to see if it had a Hebrew equivalent that I had not explored. The spelling HWNH was simply derived from the pheonetic spelling of Heyonah and trying to distill it down to four letters. I had checked on the name "heyonah" but found nothing apart from online journals that I had posted under that name. Nor did i find anything under a search on HWNH. It was until I transliterated it into the Hebrew characters "הונה" that I made the realization.

Alternatively, I might just accept that HWNH does not directly transliterate correctly into Hebrew to be pronounced the way I intended. Perhaps it is not the word, but my spelling that is off.

It has been over a decade since choosing the name that I have practiced and identified with. I chose it intuitively, simply by uttering nonsense sounds until something fit. When the word HWNH came through, it was like a name I had went by for my entire life.

I had very limited knowledge of kababalah and no knowledge whatsoever at the time of Hebrew. It wasn't until recently that I decided to find out if it actually is a word in Hebrew and felt uneasy by what I found, the word HWNH when transliterated in Hebrew is the verb "to trick." I am perplexed as to the meaning of this.

Yet somehow I feel some ironic lesson and power within this illumination. It may serve as a reminder of how easily it is to be tricked in the physical and astral planes and to always remain humble and skeptical in my work. On the note of humility, however, I feel a bit unsure of what affect using such a name in magickal works might have on my psyche. Any knowledge, thoughts or experience with something of this nature?

Thank you all,

I will definitely be taking your advice and looking into the "The Mystical and Magical System of the A.'.A." and the "One Year Manual." A cursory view seems to tell me that they are right along the lines of what I am looking for.

\Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law//

Over several years, more intently the past year, I have given much to the intellectual understandings of the Qabalistic philosophies. The mere breadth of it treasures entices one to read book after book without graduating to the deeds of practice. In part, I want to be sure I know what I am doing a ritual and why I am doing it.

I have learned the Hebrew alphabet and many of their meanings. I have studied the tree of life upwards and downwards and meditate every day on their meanings. I have read Dion Fortune's Mystical Qabalah, Regardi's Middle Pilar (and am reading The Tree of Life), Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism (which had a rather negative attitude toward applying magick to the Qabalah), I have read much of Crowley's stuff too, where the Qabbalah can sometimes take a back seat to Thelemic princibles.

In practice, I have been doing the LBRP and QC for many years. Doing so has certainly raised my energy, but it often causes typical anxiety associated with an profound change within the body.

What I have not been able to find is a good step by step guide such as: master this, then move on to this... The Middle Pillar exercise seems to be touted by Regardi as a step up from the LBRP in terms of rising up on the planes. Are there any such resources that show a typical curriculum and the objectives of each of the rituals involved? Are these still hidden under oath in the various orders? Thank you.

P.S. I also want to send out a general word of thanks to the effort that so many member are willing to help others on their spiritual paths on this board. Thelema and Agape hover over almost every statement.

@Veronica said

""My field is biomedical research and it is my nature to synthesize mystical teachings with contemporary knowledge of biosciences..."

Hey!
I think thats what I do!
lol,
seriously though, I do what I do as a hobby;)
I had no idea I could get paid.....
."

Don't feel too out of the loop.. my paycheck is in the form of student loans

@Veronica said

"I feed my dogs very well,
yet they want to eat my chickens
No matter how much food is in their bellies
they will chase,
they will bite
they will eat them.
if given the chance

"

The book you suggest sounds very intriguing. I will be sure to look it up and most likely give it a good read. My field is biomedical research and it is my nature to synthesize mystical teachings with contemporary knowledge of biosciences. Not surprising, they fit together as if they are two sides of the same coin. Each a different perspective, but incomplete without the other.

@Jim Eshelman said

"That question helps address the modes of consciousness active in the being. However, more broadly, Thelemic philosophy depicts all elelments of the universe whatsoever as part of an integrated whole, a universe-scale dance in which each extant thing (things we normally call "living," as well as things we normally call "non-living") has its innate path."

So would this imply then that every physical manifestation has a Will of some sort? Albeit, a will incomprehensible to humans? Should we then also take great cares to not bend the will of say a spider, or a budding flower? Does the Will transcend humanity and find its teaching applicable to other species of life? The Dali Lama recently spoke on the consciousness of animals. I am eager to see the interview. It made me wonder where this scheme fits in with Thelema.

Does Thelemic philosophy, or even Qabalistic philosophy for that matter, touch on how the consciousness of non-human lifeforms fit into concepts such as the Will and becoming through the emanations of the Tree of Life at all? I have not seen this touched on anywhere.

@mojorisin44 said

"I asked the same a while back. Check out this thread: heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6319"

A-ha.. I did a cursory search for a related thread but for some reason this one did not come up. Thank you. Those are the type of responses I was looking for.

I have come across a few revisions to the GD LBRP and I know Crowley made some adjustments of his own. I am wondering what were some thoughts regarding a particular one which readjusts some of the god-names, replaced the word "A-teh" with the God name "Eheheh" in the Qabalistic Cross, and advises using the "proper" elemental banishing pentagrams in their respective corners, as opposed to using the banishing pentagram of Earth for all of them. The full explanation of the adjustments can be found at this link hermetic.com/osiris/nbrp.htm

Thanks!

I think we need to clarify the sect of Christinaity. However, Christianity tends to hold to the idea of a transcendent God that is separate from humanity, wherein the HGA is a part of who we are.

Quite frankly, there are so many qualities to the Christian idea of God that it would be almost impossible to classify "Him" within a Qabbalistic or Thelemic context. It really depends on what aspect you are referring to.
There are some aspects that can be found in every Sephirah of the Tree of Life- insofar as I have studied.

I have given a bit of reflection to "Love is the Law, Love under Will" and how that applies to the Catholic Dogma, as I myself used to be Catholic. I feel that the idea of the HGA, within the Catholic religion has almost a 1:1 correspondence with the exception that the HGA in the Thelemic context is a part of ourself, wherein in the Catholic faith, it visualized as an external entity. In either path, it is our connection to divine powers. I do, however, find tremendous correlation with the concept of "Love", as is written in the Law, and the concept of the Holy Spirit.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
That's a common doctrine - that they emerged concurrently. It is concurrently accurate to say they emerged sequentially. - These two concurrent ways of interpreting it are required by the coexistence of Chokmah and Binah <vbg>.
In some senses this is moot, however, since they exist outside the usual measurements of time. Sequentiality vs. simultaneity is a moot distinction when all sequential phenomena are concurrent."

Thanks. That is another aspect I have been trying to keep into perspective is that time need not enter into the equation at all since the tree (as well as our subjective experience of time) is more of a mental construct.

It has so far seemed counter-intuitive to me to imagine that Chokma and Binah could evolve independently. If one is the negative to the other's positive, how could one possibly exist without the other? It seems logical that Kether must split simultaneously into it's opposites just as one cannot split sodium from sodium chloride without at the exact moment splitting chloride from sodium chloride.

After reading Fortune's explanation in The Mystical Qabalah, I think I am understanding this phenomenon differently. It seems that Chokma brings the motion to the inert potentiality of Kether. With increase in motion, we also increase in "definition," as it were. The more we define something, the more we limit it, and thus springs forth form. Within this paradigm, it seems that the opposites would not be inherent within Kether, but that the very moment that one increases energy in Chokma, it defines and limits itself, manifesting as form in Binah.

While a stark contrast to my default understanding of the nature of polarity, I can see this as equally valid. Does this seem to be what Fortune is describing. How can we otherwise justify creating one force before its opposing force?

Thank you.

93,

In learning the Hebrew aleph-bet for purposes of studying Tarot symbolism, and Gematria as whole for that matter, is it useful to learn the distinctions between the character variations (for example, Bet with a dot vs Vet without the dot)? I notice in 777 there doesn't seems to be a distinction between the variants of the letters in terms of its value or translation.

Thanks so much.

@ANEA said

"Very cool!

Also, HWNH, I would recommend you take a look at the site Jim linked too. It may be something that would work for you as well.""

Thank you! I will definitely be doing that.

@Jim Eshelman said

"I would say (off the cuff):

Pursue the task at hand (getting a job). Do what you can do at each point in time (the task of the day, not the task of a lifetime). In 30-45 days, circumstances will have changed such that the question is different."

Thanks Jim. As usual your advice rings of truth. Focusing on the task of the day.. and even moment to moment is a muscle that I have been focusing on strengthening the past year. Reminding myself that peace and fulfillment never came through "lust of result".