College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

Here's an interesting take on the HGA that I thought might be of interest. Thoughts?

josephinemccarthy.com/2014/03/08/magic-the-holy-guardian-angel/

I don't believe in Secret Chiefs. However, having had some unusual experiences myself, I don't rule out their existence.

Describing these unusual experiences to a skeptic is like trying to convince a lifelong desert dweller of torrential downpours, vast oceans, lush vegetation and lands of snow and ice. It puts them in the awkward position of having to take my word for it.

The fact is, I can not prove my experiences any more than I can prove that I dreamt of rainbow coloured badgers last night. The fact that some unprovable claims may seem more plausible to a desert dweller than others is irrelevant. Their perspective, based upon their own limited, meager experiences, in no way defines what is possible.

Los,
As said elsewhere, you argue the couch is real because other mental apparitions that you experience (people) agree with you. Consensual reality. Is it any wonder that similarly wired instruments from the same factory get similar results? If we were in a fictional reality like the one described in the Matrix, all your neighbors would agree the couch exists. And yet Neo and company would know that what you call a couch is actually a mental manifestation; an illusion.

We have the ability to distinguish one thing from another; we can slice and dice the experience stream however we choose. We make many distinctions habitually and subconsciously, and we may believe in their objective reality. But that does not make it so.

Having said that, being able to reliably distinguish a couch is handy if you want to sit.

Infinite coastline?

8 Simple Questions You Won't Believe Science Can't Answer

See: #2. The Length of the U.S. Coastline (Or Any Coastline, For That Matter)

www.cracked.com/article_19442_8-simple-questions-you-wont-believe-science-cant-answer_p2.html#ixzz1r2ghkaBS

My take:

Fluffy Bunny: I prefer five. 2+2=5.

Me: Well, not according to mathematics.

Fluffy Bunny: Spare me the boring "theory". Five has a nicer feel than four. Five just feels right to me. It came to me in a dream!

Me: Ok, well lets take two apples, add another two apples and count what we have...

Fluffy Bunny: Who invited you anyways??

@Froclown said

"Science is not opinion in any way. It collects objective data. "

I appreciate your idealism. But for someone so enamoured with materialism and objectivity, you sure have your head in the clouds!

@Froclown said

"...always deny yourself before data....
...either you know the physical cause backed by data, or you suspend all belief about it until you find a physical hypothesis that is subject to test, and either test it, or hold it up to professional evidence from other experiments. "

The problem is: you have to rely on someone else's data! What happens when professional science turns out to be just as human as any other endeavour? When it's discovered that ideology/ego/belief/fantasy driven science has corrupted the data and interpretation to the core? Never mind political influences! Ultimately, you have to do the experiments yourself if you really want to know. Until then (and even so), you simply don't.

@Jim Eshelman said

" Getting this from... "

I was trying to understand what Thalassos was saying, and having some fun with the idea.

Here's what I think he was saying: the "Great Year" has seasons that correspond to the annual seasons, except the solstice points (from a northern hemisphere perspective) are opposite, similar to how the tenth house is the brightest time of the day while Capricorn is the darkest time of the year. The idea of a summer solstice (at the beginning of the age of Capricorn?) in the "Great Year" is an interesting thought.

But yeah, entirely speculative fun.

If I'm understanding the above, there's a suggestion that Leo, in terms of the great year, is essentially wintertime, also analogous to nighttime when people are sleeping. Interesting thought. Ayin fits the pattern as well, being the eye at the top of the pyramid, the peak of the great year.

You can review part of DuQuette's book here:
**(http://books.google.ca/books?id=4pO_3ZrXsmkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=thoth+tarot+duquette&hl=en&ei=I-oPTbLtM5G4sAPTobSnDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Unfortunately the review doesn't include the (rather poor) section on the individual cards.

In terms of companion books, an excellent companion book to PFC's Tarot-Key to the Wisdom of the Ages is 'The Spoken Cabala: Tarot Explorations of the One Self', formerly published as 'Thursday Night Tarot' by Jason C Lotterhand.

I didn't care for DuQuette's book on the tarot. I did enjoy the first third or so, which discusses the system. But the section on the tarot (and especially the court cards) I found to be thin in content and thick on filler. Due to the format, many pages are mostly blank. The book is most interesting when he quotes from Crowley, which is alot. But I already own the Book of Thoth.

In practical terms, I rarely reach for this book when I want to look up a card. If someone could use a gentle introduction to Crowley and the Thoth deck, then perhaps this would be a good choice.

My favourites:
Qabalistic Tarot, Robert Wang
The Tarot, Key to the Wisdom of the Ages, PF Case
Book of Thoth, AC

An old correspondence course by PFC has been published recently and it has some excellent content on the tarot.

www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/qbl-1.tx

I've often wondered whether the term "common sense" was coined as derisive aristocratic mockery.

As such, it's all too "common".

I think this attribution is based on the fool being path 31 (which is the missing path). So path 11 is the Magician/Beth, path 12 is the priestess/gimel etc, which would make Shin path 30. Also, path 18 is Justice and path 21 is Strength.

Regardie is using elemental attributions, including spirit (white).

No, it mean he has reached his peak for this lifetime and from here on out - whatever.

"The texts of holy books are not to be read literally. They're something to reflect on and gain insight from. All of this talk about war and conflict - is it literally about war or is it...possibly...something calling a metaphor! You know, a metaphor about internal struggle."

When they say "Kill the unbeliever", they mean "Kill the unbeliever in your heart".

Funny how some metaphors, when taken literally (nobody ever does that), exhort us to wage war and kill the infidel. Oops!

If a new dark ages were to appear, I think it would most likely manifest via one of the three Abrahamic religions. (I won't say which one...)

Here are some books that to some extent were pivotal influences.
*
[:avd4cmi4]Dune - Frank Herbert[/avd4cmi4]
[:avd4cmi4]Trance-formations - Grinder & Bandler[/avd4cmi4]
[:avd4cmi4]Voltaires Bastards - John Ralston Saul[/avd4cmi4]
[:avd4cmi4]Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling - John Taylor Gatto[/avd4cmi4]
[:avd4cmi4]The Way of Zen - Alan Watts[/avd4cmi4]
[:avd4cmi4]The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle[/avd4cmi4]
[:avd4cmi4]Marriage of Heaven and Hell - William Blake[/avd4cmi4]
[:avd4cmi4]Christ Conspiracy - Acharya S[/avd4cmi4]
[:avd4cmi4]Secret Teachings of All Ages - Manly P Hall[/avd4cmi4]
[:avd4cmi4]A Treatise on White Magic - Alice Bailey[/avd4cmi4]
[:avd4cmi4]Mystical Qabalah - Dion Fortune[/avd4cmi4]
[:avd4cmi4]The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages - Paul Foster Case[/avd4cmi4]

" [Wait, Buddha existed, right?]"
Nope.

Christ could have been based on a single man. Or he could have been based on a group of men. Perhaps he embodied some groups concept of the HGA. Perhaps Jesus was based on Philo or Apollonius. Or a melding of the two and/or others. Was Mithra a historical person? Was Hercules? It's all speculative.

I don't think it matters that much, except that a mythical Christ takes Christianity firmly out of the literal realm and into the metaphoric/symbolic/allegoric.