College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

@Froclown said

"This achievement marking my full integration into the Grade of 8=3 and preparation for the assumption of 9=2. "

Is your 7=4 thesis available for us to read?

I am suspicious of Crowley's comment on the title. It only makes sense if Aiwass merely verbally dictated Liber L. But there are many places in the book where there are seemingly important capitalizations of words. You can't hear a capitalization. Nor can you dictate the shape of words, which we are told not to change. This rule only makes sense if Aiwass was also guiding Crowley's hand during the dictation. In that case, I doubt that Aiwass misspelled the title.

@gerry456 said

"[Moreover, Crowley would have had great familiarity with "aeonic" approaches to history in general. Although they had largely fell into disuse by the time of Liber L, many people crafted these sorts of histories of eras characterized by unique political and economic organization and drivin by some objective and singluar impulse towards some pre-determined goal. Adam Smith, Condorcet, Marx, etc. And then Blavatsky also had her racialized aeonic history, which surely Crowley knew inside and out.

============
yes and didn't Marx borrow/build from Hegel's theories on this?"

Yes, definitely, though they had very different ideas about what drove history. I didn't include Hegel in the list because he didn't have a clear cut set of "aeons". His history was much more fluid. I do, however, suspect that Crowley drew very strongly on Hegel for his aeonic history by employing a fairly simple dialectic of aeons.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
Her last (quoted) sentence simply refers to the fact that there are other rituals where one finds oneself at exactly the same juncture - the intersection of Samekh and Peh on the Tree."

But what about the earlier sentence when she refers to "this version" and says it's different than that used by the Golden Dawn?

@Jim Eshelman said

"
BTW, it isn't "Hod and Earth... to the North." It's Hod to the South - hence Mikhael."

From the "Notes":
You are facing Tiphareth (the Sun), thus on your right hand is Netzach (Venus), on your left hand Hod (Mercury), and behind you Yesod (the Moon).

That should put Hod to the north, unless Tiphareth is in the west.

This thread just won't die.

Going back to the very beginning of the thread and the issue of the sephira...

I just read v.I, n.1 of In the Continuum. Soror Meral, in her letter on the LBRP, reprints Crowley's "Notes on the Ritual of the Pentagram". I imagine she would've been one of those among whom this "Note" orginally circulated. In introducing it, she suggests that the Note is not actually on the LBRP, but is an instruction for a variation on or alternative to the LBRP, which she refers to as a "Thelemic Ritual of the Pentagram" (see her quote below). In this variation, you place yourself at the intersection of Samekh and Pe.

So perhaps there is no need to try to explain how, for example, both Hod and Earth could correspond to the North. Is there anything on the provenance or intent of the Note that I'm missing or misunderstanding?

@Soror Meral said

"
I am going to add some "Notes on the Ritual of the Pentagram" by Crowley, which I believe have not been published elsewhere but which had circulated in O.T.O. Lodges. I might also add that this version of the Lesser Banishing Ritual is different from that used in the Golden Dawn and by various authors. ... These "Notes" by A.C. would be useful in certain types of magical work as they ask that you imagine you are standing on the Tree whereas in the usual type of work you need to imagine that you are the Tree itself."

@DavidH said

"I would not think that "Detachment" is really a standard Thelemic practice. It seems more the opposite, that is a total emersion into all experience and action. Or perhaps I misunderstand your meaning of detachment?"

I deleted the sentence that would have clarified it. I modified detachment by saying that it wasn't one in which we deny emotion, pleasure, or pain. Crowley's versification of <em>Tao Te Ching</em> had a big impact on my understanding of Will.

Like Arjuna (I know, it's not an example from the Tao Te Ching), we might, if it be our Will, go ahead and fight our cousins and friends. We shouldn't moralize it. We needn't take pleasure in it either; go ahead and feel the horror of war and experience it to the fullest. But don't judge this experience or decision as distinct from the decision of the person who refuses to fight because it violates her Will. But this also isn't saying that all actions are equal. Actions must be in accordance with one's Will, about which most of us have no clue. Love under will.

@DavidH said

"What exactly is "Love" in thelema, and how is it best expressed?"

As best as I understand it, Love means the uniting and transcending of opposites. "Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing and any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt."

So far, I interpret its expression in every-day life as a Taoist-like detachment from actions and experiences. "But whoso availeth in this, let him be the chief of all!"

But what does the film portray as that which makes people happy? It seems to me that they present American middle-class aspirations and lifestyles as spirituality.

At his public lecture in New York a few months ago, Jim said that "Do what thou want" is at least a good start, because it forces people to consider what they actually want. But the Secret doesn't go beyond that. It doesn't suggest that we may want to understand why we want certain things. It certainly doesn't take us to the point of moving towards doing what we Will - not that we should expect it to, since it isn't a Thelemic film.

I don't expect anything revolutionary from this film. In fact, I see it as reinforcing the dominant culture while making people feel like they're obtaining great spiritual insight.

A new translation of a longer and older copy of Abramelin is now available. My copy should arrive tomorrow.

Aaron Leitch gives some history about the book and info about the new translation here. Perhaps Abraham was pretty much exactly who he said he was.

@asclepi said

"You've certainly given me a lot to think about, I've spent this semester studying Heidegger and the notions of time, as well as some Mircea Eliade to balance my readings of Crowley and the issue of Time and Aeons really appeal to me."

Thanks for your detailed response. Please recommend some specific texts on this topic - besides Being and Time of course. I'd like to get deeper into this topic.

@asclepi said

"I'm not sure where Crowley first got the idea of the aeons, but it's not new."

I absolutely agree, though I don't think the idea of aeons is at all natural. I posted somewhere up above about other influences on the idea of aeonic histories. They were particularly popular among Enlightenment philosophers, including Condorcet, Adam Smith, and then, later, Karl Marx. Blavatsky took up this idea in an occult context before Crowley. So, I agree, it's not new. I don't mean to convey the idea that it's original with Crowley. I am primarily interested in when exactly he came up with it and where he first published it.

@asclepi said

"An eon is a by-product of Time, it is only natural to think in terms of cycles and "eternal recurrence" as Nietzsche has argumented in the past. All religions have some form of aeonic approach to history, due to the fact that any approach to the meaning or sense of Being inmediatly needs or provides a sense or meaning to History."

Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence" reflects his interest in a return to pagan values. The eternal return is a pagan approach to time and actually pretty foreign to most Westerners today. The Jedeo-Christian approach, on the other hand, is the linear and progressive sense of time that dominates today. I have been giving some thought as to where Thelema fits into this. I think, so far, that Thelema has more in common with a Christian sense of time and space than it does with the pagan sense. Crowley's aeonic scheme, like those of the earlier Enlightenment philosophers, is progressive and linear. It doesn't come back to the same place. Time keeps going forward and is a force of progress. It's also dialectical. The Aeon of Osiris is the antithesis of the Aeon of Isis. The Aeon of Horus is the synthesis to them. It will also act as the thesis to the antithetical Aeon of Maat.

The most important commonality between Christianity and Thelema is that time and history takes place outside of humanity. In the Bible, God creates the world and starts time. He will then end time. In Thelema, the aeons pass acccording to the Equinox of the Gods. It happens on a cosmic scale well beyond the scale of the human. Humans are not the primary agents of historical transformation. We're along for the ride and might as well conform to each passing aeon. In paganism, on the other hand, humans are the primary force in historical transformation.

Note: I'm still working this out. I have some doubts about the progressive nature of time in Thelema. I suspect it is a progressive conception, but maybe not in the way I'm thinking.

@Jim Eshelman said

"No, I don't know when Crowley first proposed the 3-Aeon model of Isis, Osiris, Horus. That is, I'd have to go back to the first decade or so after the reception of Liber L. and see where I could find it first mentioned. If anyone else finds early references, I'd be interested in seeing them, and it might be as early as one of the essays in his Collected Works."

I didn't find anything in the Collected Works. The oldest reference I've found comes from "Across the Gulf", in which Crowley provides a narrative of Ankh-f-na-khonsu at the exact transition between the Aeons of Isis and Osiris. That first appeared in the Equinox I.7, which came out in 1912. Curiously, Crowley says nothing of the aeons in his "Old Comment", which appeared in the same issue. So, perhaps the three-aeon system have developed sometime between the writing of the comment and the writing of "Across the Gulf".

On the other hand, Crowley hints at the existence of an old and a new aeon in Konx om Pax, from 1907. In "Ali Slopper", Crowly hints at himself, as Bowley, as being the prophet of a new religion that will last for 2000 years. Setting the number of years like that suggests the possibility that Crowley was already thinking of a sequence of aeons, each lasting for 2000 years. Though it doesn't actually provide any evidence of him developing the specific Isis-Osiris-Horus system.

@Steven Cranmer said

"
While I'm sure that this does happen, it feels "off-topic" as far as the specifically religious aspects of suffering that the New Aeon (to me) appears to specifically eliminate or supercede."

Ayn Rand does a great job of describing the dynamic of sacrifice in this sort of context (perhaps the only thing she does well) - as opposed to the world as inherent suffering sort of context. It's a primary theme of Atlas Shrugged. It was through this novel that I really began to understand how people make claims upon one another and demand sacrifice or use sacrifice to make those claims on one another. It doesn't operate on the cosmic scale that you see as primary to Liber L, but it's probably more real in our daily lives.

@Steven Cranmer said

"Hey, nowhere does it say a slave must remain a slave forever. I see a lot of "equality of opportunity" in Thelema. Any star can shine if it has the will to shine."

Of course. In fact, I think Crowley hoped to elevate the majority of people to kinghood through the spread of Thelema. But this isn't the same sort of "I'm okay, you're okay just as we are right now" equality that we often gets expressed today. It also isn't an equality before the law sort of equality. It's a potential for superman transcendence of dominant morality and law. Perhaps we're equal at the level of stars, but Liber L seems to describe things this way at the level of the ego-selves.

@Steven Cranmer said

"
Is suffering really so highly valued today, in 2006, in the Western world?"

Abosultely, particuarly when we think of it in the context of sacrifice. What happens when you critize our occupation of Iraq? Someone says you're insulting the "troops". Supporters of the war and soldiers themselves will use their own suffering and sacrifice as a means of forcing others to subordinate their own wills to those of the soldiers or president. Their suffering trumps your own reason and judgement. We do the same with police. Their supposed sacrifice makes them largely exempt from responsibility for their actions, like murdering someone, at least among the middle class. I wasn't supposed to oppose the invasion of Afghanistan or the decline of civil liberties because the suffering of people in New York and DC trumped my judgement and will. I was, instead, to just fall in line behind Bush and militarist Democrats and Republicans who supported him without reservation or question. I see all of this political dynamic as grounded in Christian valorization of suffering based on the example of the sacrifice of Jesus and his Sermon on the Mount.

@Steven Cranmer said

"Hmm, if you put aside the kings/slaves issue from item 1 above, I don't know if I see a lot of aristocracy in Thelema itself."

I don't see that aristocracy in the traditional sense of having an elite group of rulers chosen by birth. I don't claim to really understand it, except that Thelema seems to demand a space in which genius can emerge and act freely.

@evolver said

"I was a big fan of Nietzsche long before i ever knew anything more of A.C. than Ozzy wrote a song about him and Jimmy Page bought his house. this goes a long way to explaining why your above list is very natural to me. "

That makes sense.

@asclepi said

" That doesn't mean it's easy in "every-day-life" it's very difficult going to college and trying to be nice even to the ones I really don't like, but at the same time knowing they're slaves."

I don't even begin to try to distinguish between kings and slaves. I still have a long way to go to disentangle myself from my own slavery. For now, I just mind my own business, do the best I can, and keep engaging in the most honest self-analysis I can.

I appear to have had a very different experience with Thelema. Liber L looked like old-school Social Darwinism and fascism to me the first time I read it. I wanted nothing to do with it. I thought it did and still do think it conflicts substantially with contemporary Western values. I found nothing obvious about Thelema, except for a vague sense of tolerance for individual expression.

I experienced a substantial collapse of my belief system as part of a series of initiations (not in a Thelemic context). It was only then that I could seriously reevaluate Thelema and begin to come to terms with those elements of its philosophy that conflict with dominant values. I continue to struggle with this. Thelema has forced me to completely reevaluate my own values and how I operate in the world.

I suspect that if Thelema seems easy and obvious then we're not taking it seriously. Or maybe we're just looking at the superficial level of it. If everything's just fine as it is now, then why bother with Thelema at all. It adds nothing to the world.

Elements of Thelemic philosophy that conflict with dominant values (at least as I see it through my new and limited understanding):

1. A division between kings and slaves - antithetical to egalitarianism and equality.
2. Rejection of self-sacrifice and the valorization of suffering.
3. Radical individualism opposed to collectivism or even a half-hearted and conflicted Western individualism.
4. Aristocracy

Reading Nietzsche helped me to re-orient myself in my understanding Thelema. There are definite differences between Thelema and Nietzsche, but Nietzsche made some of the same critiques of the West and Christianity that Thelema made.

@Steven Cranmer said

"
Interesting! My primary association for Hadit is usually the sephira Chokmah, which is even further "beyond" normal ego-consciousness than is Nuit/Binah. In other words, the lightning flash naturally produces Ra-Hoor-Khuit (in Tiphareth) only after Hadit and Nuit are manifested. RHK is their first "merging" in the middle pillar as the lightning flows down."

I should point out that he discussed this in the context of spiritual evolution from one Aeon to another, with the predominance of subconsciousness during the Aeon of Isis, ego-consciousness during the Aeon of Osiris, and super-consciousness during the Aeon of Horus. So don't take this as him saying that Nuit is primarily or only subconsciousness and Hadit consciousness. And also take into account my misunderstandings of what he said.

I am trying to understand the relationship, if any, between Isis and Nuit and Osiris and Hadit.

At Jim's lecture in NY last night (which was excellent), he/you drew an excellent diagram showing Nuit as the circle, Hadit as a point, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit as a new thing emerging from the combination of Nuit and Hadit - a circle with a point in the center: the Sun. He/you also spoke of Nuit as subconsiousness, Hadit as ego-consciousness, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit as superconsciousness emerging as an "overtone" created by subconsiousness and consciousness existing harmoniously.

Horus, however, is the son of Isis and Osiris. This suggested to me a relationship between Isis and Nuit and between Osiris and Hadit. What is it?

Are Nuit and Hadit New Aeon understandings or representations of Isis and Osiris? Perhaps Isis and Osiris on a higher arc? Or subconsiousness and consciousness in a balanced state as they can more easily exist in the New Aeon?

Yes, I have changed my username (previously Sasha), but anyway...

@jmiller said

"
@Jim Eshelman said
"Just as an example, here is aone of the four invocations of the quarters I've written for a self-dedication ceremony we'll be publishing before the year is out. These verses have several different kinds of symbolism involved, resting foremost on the "solar quarter" symbolism."

I have adapted these four invocations to my Liber Resh work. For almost the last two months, I have recited the appropriate one prior to each of my daily solar adorations. I find that it adds a great deal to it, providing much material for meditation. The invocations have a very devotional feel to them that stengthens the adorations for me."

I have now worked with these invocations for more than nine months. The power of it continues to grow for me. They have basically become daily prayers to my HGA. Praying four times each day, every day to her has begun to have an impact on my understand of Will in general, my ability to pick up clues about my Will, and my relationship to my HGA. Certainly I could attribute these impacts to the sum total of all of my magical work, but I think these prayers deserve the bulk of the credit. So, again, I recommend the practice to others. And I'd love to hear about the experiences of others with this.

I should say that I see Resh also as partly a set of prayers to my HGA, but much less direct than the above prayers. The two seem to have taken on different roles for me and to produce differing results or states of consciousness.