College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

I am interested right now in Invisibility in a specific sense - I read a bit of the discussion on here about invisibility on another thread and it talked about invisibility like, you know... If you are walking past people and don't want to be bothered how you can ensure that you won't be bothered. But I am interested in invisibility in another sense and maybe an older sense which I have seen used a few times - invisibility as a type of Immunity; if I am invisible the rules, social rules generally, which apply to other people do not apply to me for I am invisible. I am the exception. I've always experienced a bit of this personally, and I think perhaps this is part of the positions I've been in in my life, where the rules that apply to everyone else can't apply to me - I have been the poor kid in the rich kids school, the catholic in the protestant school, the lesbian in the girls locker room, heh heh heh... So I am always the exception in this way. And maybe I have developed magical invisibility in this way as a response to being put in these situations, you know... I have learned how to slip into the cracks. I think all poor kids have this, really, and lesbians, and irish catholics.

So I am curious about this kind of invisibility/immunity/exceptionalism. Not so much How Do I Cultivate It Magically, I have seen plenty of invisibility spells & plenty of goetic demons are said to grant the gift of invisibility, & so on. But just wanting to talk about, see if anythings been written about it... From reading around on this forum I gather the images of invisibility are the Fox, Jupiter, & I feel perhaps the Trickster archetype (Loki, the Rogue/Rascal, pirate-coward/Jack Rackamm/Jack Sparrow, etc)

thanks,
Laura.

"I don't need to practice it often [...] that's something growing up in a working class environment can teach you-"

So true! Honestly, I'm not personally at the stage of 'doing' magic yet, but if I was I can't imagine doing so for change in Assiah very much... Maybe it'll be different when I get there, but yeah - maybe some of the 'Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism' type stuff, even those times when I am starving I'd probably never think to do anything magical about it. Really is that stiff-upper-lip type working poor attitude... I think maybe even a harmful attitude - back to what Rocky says about the car radiator, and all. (Though, that being said, I could use it a lot for health, and do hope to)

To reply to your OP briefly, Rocky, and since we're on classism, I have this thought: perhaps a lot of magicians denigrate magic in Assiah because they have no need for magic in Assiah. Maybe rather than denigrating that magic, they are actually denigrating the people that need it...

"(1) Kasper says that Crowley wanted to take the folk-lore out of magic and embed the Hermetic principles with Vedanta and scepticism so it becomes a modern science and philosophy and so Kasper therefore is "classist" and "snobbish". I'm sorry but you're conclusions are incorrect. "

Well, no. Crowley had some classist attitudes, a lot of high magicians of that time did, they were the borugeoisie and by and large supported sexist & racist western imperialism. They were a lot better than a lot of people in England at that time! Crowley especially, I think, when you get past a lot of his awful attitudes, he was at least a 'progressive' - but these harmful attitudes were still there, and one of those attitudes was that condescending approach towards peasant magic. What is classist is when you say that thelema has no place for working class magic, that thelema's raison d'etre was to get rid of working class magic - your attitude is borderline exterminationist. And: I'm not saying 'Kasper is a classist', I'm saying your classist attitudes are common in this type of discourse over magic. (However, when someone working class asks you to challenge your views on the working class, and your response is telling them they're being illogical, you might well be a classist, fratrer)

"(2) Kasper claims and provides precise examples of there being mundane and practical means in the West for alleviating starvation and desperation and he thinks that discussions about "last resort magic" are silly. Ergo, again Kasper is being "classist" and "snobbish""

This is exactly what I mean. As someone who clearly isn't starving, telling someone who is that my concerns aren't really real, if I was in any real danger surely this society would look after me, blah blah - which is basically saying, 'shut up and quit complaining, be grateful for what you have' etc - this is pure classism.

"the African states are not on parr with the West in their social provision."

Yeah, uh... And this is basically descending into scientific racism. The poor oppressed third world, huh? The poor Africans who can't even rule themselves, right? 'Better bring back the Empires' - I mean, this is a horrible attitude, come on.

"However yes if I thought Rocky was only addressing African and Third World Thelemites on this forum then he should've stated so in the OP."

I mean, I'm not even suggesting he is. He may not be. But I'm trying to say: why is that discourse shut off from this discussion? Why do we have to explicitly mention these narratives from the get-go for them to be valid to bring up? More than this: I, as a poor magician, bring up how magic of this kind means something very different to me than it might to you, and you shut me down immediately by saying it's unnecessary, that I'm lucky to be part of a civilized first world country (Ireland is third world, btw - go look it up), and that I'm not logical - and with the tone of, 'don't talk about the magic you find useful, it's distracting/not thelemic.' Whatever... If an African magician did come into this thread, I don't think they'd find their narrative very well received.

"that done, to try and follow their inclinations which I'm guessing would be to try and GET OUT of the nightmare rogue-state which they inhabit!!"

Is this your position, though? Like, this is your reaction to me saying - magicians who face oppression may find so-and-so to be true for them... You say: magicians who are oppressed should try and get out of their oppression first. Christ, what is magic for, if not for that? You are really quite literally saying: magic is only for the white bourgeoisie. That's horrible essentialism.

"By the way Laura , y'know fopr someone whose ,"classist" and "snobbish" I have a weird way of showing it. That's why I make threads like this viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13139&start=0 in which I try to get across that uneducated folk are sometimes no different to "high adepts" as far as initiation goes."

[clutches heart] Oh! Oh! How mistaken I was! All is forgiven! I did not know that you made a thread saying Garbage Men don't know what the A.'.A.'. is. Clearly you value the working class enough to assume we haven't even heard of thelema, nevermind that we could ourselves be thelemites. When we're not eating from the tomorrow's date section in Asda, of course. And of course we could never become High Adepts.

Anyway, my GOD, Kasper, there are thelemites in Africa. Thelema isn't 'first world white boy only magic'
(and, nice job saying Africans aren't civilised - real nice, pal)

"If you do desperately need food in the wonderfully advanced civilized UK, there are plenty of charities that will provide. www.trusselltrust.org/ma. There's also a section in any ASDA with cheap food that is near it's eat-by date. This isn't Africa we don't let people starve and the powers that be will do all they can to prevent Communism."

This kind of snobbish, willful classism is the kind of thing I'm talking about I think is common in magical discourse and yes, I know, comrade, Crowley was a bourgeois who lived off his inheritance, I am not particularly interested in what he had to say about peasant magic & as many people would say, Thelema is not 'Crowley-ism'!

"If I don't "like" it, I change my "like" on the inside -- or, if it's easier to change the surroundings (the outside), I do that...this flow and momentum to me is synonymous with the True Will. If that is securing a new job with magical voracity or calming my desires down to live within my means, they are up the unique Will, and the one who can "listen and act" in accordance with their "orbit" has the least discomfort."

This attitude also, even - I do not mean to denigrate you, Frater, you're a good man, but I must bring it up I mean, I was always taught that this was one of the highest alchemical secrets - this, if you don't like your situation, change yourself so you do like it... This is kind of... I mean, as I said before, this is alright for comfortable-living Mr Petit-Bourgeois Magician, but for magicians who live in poverty, or Magicians who face racism, etc, this seems ridiculous advice. I could not picture Clarence 13x, upon attaining to some powerful sphere, suddenly bending his knees and saying, 'thank Allah for you, White Officer, I'm so glad you're out here brutalizing my brothers' - or whatever. Or, even that I may some day attain to some great degree in the A.'.A.'. I do not imagine I shall ever be happy having to forgo meals or having my heat cut, or that I may celebrate my disability which leaves me bedridden and say to everyone 'oh you really must try it...' - I mean... All I'm saying is: when we consider this kind of attitude in terms of Oppression, you know? It seems to fall apart? It seems to presuppose that the magician benefits from the structures put in place by Colonizer Capitalism. It seems to me that for someone who suffers from those structures, the most powerful magician is the one who doesn't like her oppressive surroundings, who rises up and changes those structures, etc

Ah, I am being harsh on your comments, of course. I do not think that you nearly suggest that if the oppressed want to do magic they should be happy with their oppression. I'm just saying: a part of the discourse which is missed by a lot of these discussions, I think, is that there are people doing magic who aren't wealthy, white or able-bodied!

@Takamba said

"
@kasper81 said
" Last week I needed a banana. I took some money to the supermarket, collected a banana, took a banana to the till, paid for it and SHAZAM!! Result. I acquired a banana."

What if you didn't have the money for a banana? Would you just convince yourself that it wasn't your Will to complete your recipe?"

Yessssss, this this this. I feel like a whole lot of this 'a real magician doesn't need to use magic for material things' is a really classist attitude. This may be true for Mr Petit-Bourgeois magician who lives quite comfortably and never has cause for such magic. But, lets remember, most magical traditions centered around generating wealth, etc., are not created by bored suburban teens with no greater sense of their Truer Will, it's created by ex-slaves, farmhands and artisans. A spell for a big meal might seem superfluous to someone like Kasper, it's very seductive for someone like me...

I don't really have the energy to reply right now, but, I just want to say: thankyou, thankyou, always, friends, thankyou so much. You have all of you been such a great help to me! I will reply in full another time. Thankyou so much

Ah, thank you a lot, Los. I love the idea of making the days events into a list of magical tools. I can't really just force myself out of the off-body clock (when I say I have health problems causing this I do mean it quite seriously, unfortunately - I cannot just force myself to sleep by willpower any more than a paraplegic can force themselves to stand by willpower) however I can certainly do my damnedest to get through the night truly and surely and I think your advice will help me a lot. Thankyou, Los.

Mmm. I wouldn't say bored.

Something did happen that scared me a bit. I had one experience with Resh that was particularly intense, with the Midday Resh, which was perhaps one of the most intense experiences I'd ever had, certainly the longest magical experience. It had me gasping - it was very pleasant, but... It felt like I was flooded with that firey light that I so adored, and it left me gasping and very rattled and I was shaking for four or five hours afterwards. It felt very much as though I had pierced through something, which I had never experienced before (or - the only similar experience was when I took far too much of a particular hallucinogenic and immediately lost ego - it was similar, but pleasant and not nearly as earth-shattering or horrifying, and I still had an ego). Regardless, it was a little too much for me and I was quite anxious and for the next few days and purposefully didn't put as much effort in, lest such a thing happen again. After that, life got in the way - my girlfriend left me and that made me sad - very sad - I am still sad - and then my sleep schedule totally screwed up. The regularity that Resh provided is no longer there because I don't know when I will sleep or when I will wake up - that's a big part of it, I think. I want to fix my sleep schedule but, I've had this problem for years, I don't really have much control over it (I have a few very serious health problems, which often flare up and throw off my body clock). And with all this my awareness of anything at all has just sort of slipped away. My willingness to do anything has slipped away.

I guess it isn't just a Resh thing, you know. Maybe I'm expecting too much of poor Resh. I can't be inflamed with marvelous awe at the center of our system if I can scarcely summon up the effort to eat breakfast. Hmm...

I've hit a rough spot with my saying of Resh. I've been saying it for almost a month, now, and at first I was really excited and invigorated and I was joyed to do it and I centered my days around my saying of Resh. Now, it has become a chore. I dread saying Resh, I frequently miss the times by half an hour or so, and in general I find it difficult to summon up much motivation. What do I do? Persist? I've been persisting, saying - do it anyway, and I'll break through it. Like a 'dark night of the soul' thing. And also, it's going to strengthen my will, getting up and saying it and forcing my concentration as best I can on the sun, even when I groan at the thought of it. And, I have to say - I'm impressed with my willpower to do it. I've never persisted with anything this long, not even brushing my teeth!

Regardless, it's a pain. I'm just asking: should I keep doing it? will this change eventually? Or, should I make changes about myself/life/day, or do a different daily adoration perhaps?

Thanks a lot,
Laura.

Well! How often do you review your magical diary? I've only started mine so I can't really give an answer.

Those were really really powerful thoughts thankyou so much Tkamba! Very effective!!!

I just started doing Resh two days ago (on a full moon no less!), it really is a different kick to the day. It changes the whole functioning from one of dreaming to one of action, from one of theory to one of praxis, at least for me who has done no magic before. It's very beautiful. The first time I did it I noticed a really sharp and sudden change in consciousness but I haven't noticed that since - perhaps I have sustained it to normalcy! Regardless. I'm very very glad I started doing it.

What are you supposed to meditate upon, though? When it says, compose thyself to meditation on the sun. That's really vague and I don't really understand it and I haven't been able to find anything out about it. I feel that I'm missing out on that part of the show.

It's funny that you say that I should continue with professional help - of course usually I would agree with you, however, that very day that I made this thread my psychotherapist, who gave me the diagnosis in the first place, said I had come on so much she really didn't feel I needed professional help anymore. And I agreed! So, I am definitely in a very good place or at least on a very good road, mentally.

"I personally think that at the time of these events, you did the best you were capable of doing at that time, and that this whole ordeal was exactly what you had the capacity to effectively deal with.
What ever that entity was that you were relating with/to served you well, at that time. It would appear to me though that this relationship ran it's course, and you no longer have a need for it. You outgrew it you could say. "

Yeah, absolutely.

"separations can be (usually are actually) painful and confusing. When one disentangles oneself from another, sometimes we get little kinks, bumps, bruises.....which can become an issue only if not smoothed out, nursed and addressed. That's what your dinner was supposed to be. Sometimes though, the Other has a misperception that it is not capable of fully sensing, or realizing. Yet.
The best advice I can give you is to know that you have the power within you to heal yourself, fully, of any dis-ease or imbalance. At that moment you acted as skillfully as you knew how, but you are different today and today you have more skills. Be confident in your ability to deal with what ever comes your way, and act from a place of love."

This is really great advice, thankyou very very much.

"In my mind I am thinking of how as a teen I would break up with boyfriends. I didn't do it very well, and I'm pretty sure I hurt some feelings. If I was to run into those men now, I wouldn't apologize from breaking up with them, but in some cases I may apologize for my unskilled manner in which I did it. It would an offering of Love, to acknowledge that I disrespected them and treated them undignifiedly.
We cannot go back and do things over, but we can remember and grow, reflect on ourselves and carry that forward into each new moment."

This really helped me a lot the past few days. This is really good, you are absolutely right. It is not that I did anything wrong, per se, but that I do not have the maturity to do it right. I was worried that terrible things would happen to me, really, but the past few days have been... Amazing. Really amazing. Really amazing! In terms of magic and everything I have begun a lot of very important things, and so on. My life seems to have very suddenly went in a very different direction and it is wonderful, really wonderful! I think this, you know, farewell, even if a shaky and nervous farewell, a farewell to the spirit of these past four or five years, was a really good thing.

Thankyou both for the advice and everything, it helped me a lot

So. I really need help, guys. I'm sorry to be such a damn amateur and get obviously way above my head. But, I really need help. So, anyone with any advice for me, thankyou so much.

About... Five years ago, a spirit of some kind came to me. It appeared in visions and... blah blah. I wont name it publicly. So, I identified with this spirit, called myself by its name. You must understand: I suffered from schizophrenia at this time. So having visions of entities wasn't a strange thing, and I always knew they weren't real or at least 'not real' not real if you know what I mean. Maybe they were real, in some abstract Lacanian way, or in some astral way, but they were certainly not actually there. But this one was different. Anyway, blah blah, skip forward a few years. This spirit is guiding me through my madness and basically he is responsible for me not having schizophrenia anymore, or rather, without him I could never have done it. My psychiatrist just today was saying she's never seen such a miraculous recovery - within a few months all symptoms stopped and now almost two years on they've never recurred. That's just not how schizophrenia works. So, good lord, you know?

Anyway, blah blah. We had a falling out. I at one time believed he was my Holy Guardian Angel, and I think that grew to some tensions because we disagreed and it wasn't just me ignoring my better nature, we disagreed over politics and philosophy and damn... Sports. We were like angry flatmates. So we 'broke up' you might say. I told my mentor and he said, well, hey, it happens. You get one teacher, and eventually you move on to the next teacher... He suggested, in order to make things up, I cook him a meal some night, sit down and eat it with him, apologise, thank him, and we'll go our separate ways amicably.

So I did that. I cooked fish & bread, set up two glasses and a bottle of wine and a candle at the table, with two chairs. I laid out the meal, and when everything was ready, I opened the back door, symbolically, and welcomed him. I came in, pulled his chair out, and closed the door behind me. After I did that, well...

My mother found me outside, calling her to come back (she had gone out to give me some time alone with him - we live together, she's sweet). I was shivering & terrified. What happened was this: when I closed the door, I looked up and he was there. He was there! He was there! Not in a gross physical way, he was not there in flesh. But the whole room was golden-yellow, which I knew to be his colour (he corresponded to Tipareth, as best as I knew - possibly Resh instead idk, gold & sun), and the whole room was swirling and moving around and unreal and not there and there was terror in my heart, real terror, and I said to myself 'he's here'. And I ran outside and called my mother. Anyway, I figured it was bad, and also rude, but a bad idea, to just leave him there, so I went and retraced my steps, opened the doors, etc., and I said, at the back door, like I thanked him for coming, apolgoised for not being able to eat with him, thanked him for everything he'd done for me, apologised for things going sour, said I hope I see him again some time. (All of this with my eyes closed), and cya. Then I closed the door and ran to the front of the estate to wait for my mother, lol.

After throwing the food away, I burned white sage (a recommendation from a Cherokee friend from a long time ago, as a banishing/purifying herb) & touched the four corners with the smoke, the light, and sat it on the floor and prayed to God & the saints that I could be protected from bad spirits and whatever else. Waiting for the fire to go down me and my dog had a good loud long barking match and then I opened the doors, the window, and ate something else, and had a chat with my girlfriend on Skype (she said it reminded her of how Angels always had to tell people not to be afraid of them). Anyway. That's what happened.

Did I do okay...? Is this okay...? I realise what I was doing was more or less a primitive evoking ritual. I got what I paid for, I guess. Was my banishing okay? Did I treat the spirit with enough respect? What should I do now? This is coming from somebody who does not practice magic or mysticism at all, I burn herbs now and again that's it, all experiences thus far have been totally passive. I thought it'd be good to resolve this before going on to do actual magic (planned to start Liber Resh tomorrow & am meeting with an OTO body this week), you know, to enter into a new stage clean and with clean hands and no lingering guilt or whatever.

I'm just saying... Is there anything else I need to do? I thought about maybe writing him a letter telling him everything I wanted to tell him but didn't get to because of the terrible fear, and/or making a votive offering somewhere in the nearby hill (we've had lots of experiences up there). Good idea? Bad idea?

Thank you so much for all the help and again, I'm sorry for being such an amateur.

Just had a look at Liber Ru (Liber CCVI - RV vel Spiritus) for interests sake, saw the section now quoted:

"4. Second practice. Pranayama. --- This is outlined in Liber E. Further, let the Zelator accomplished in those practices endeavour to master a cycle of 10, 20, 40 or even 16, 32, 64. But let this be done gradually and with due caution. And when he is steady and easy both in Asana and Pranayama, let him still further increase the period.
Thus let him investigate these statements which follow: ---

a. If Pranayama be properly performed, the body will first of all become covered with sweat. This sweat is different in character from that customarily induced by exertion. If the Practitioner rub this sweat thoroughly into his body, he will greatly strengthen it.
b. The tendency to perspiration will stoÿ as the practice is continued, and the body become automatically rigid.
Describe this rigidity with minute accuracy.
c. The state of automatic rigidity will develop into a state characterised by violent spasmodic movements of which the Practitioner is unconscious, but of whose result he is aware. This result is that the body hops gently from place to place. After the first two or three occurrences of this experience, Asana is not lost. The body appears (on another theory) to have lost its weight almost completely and to be moved by an unknown force.
d. As a development of this stage, the body rises into the air, and remains there for an appreciably long period, from a second to an hour or more.
"

Seems to be exactly what you guys are talking about. 'The body hops gently from place to place,' especially that 'movements of which the Practitioner is unconscious' - seems very similar to what Jim was describing, and d. seems to be referring unambiguously to the so-described levitation. Crowley seems to suggest that the levitation is a direct result of the movement from place to place.

"Plus, I really think that the quality of content that has resulted on this forum in response to his presence has really improved."

A.J. Ayer, a fierce empiricist and logician who's brutal thrusts against the lofty slopes of philosophy would put even dear Los to great shame, in a later interview in the 90s, when he admitted that Logical Positivism (which sought to 'cut away' all metaphysics and epistemology and bring it all back to testable, reliable logic & science) failed miserably (with fond laughter), he said if anything it was important because it 'made all the continental philosophers self-conscious'.

Found a slightly relevant quote from Crowley when reading 'Energized Enthusiasm: A Note on Theurgy', which made me giggle thinking of this old thread;

"Consciousness, says the materialist, axe in hand, is a function of the brain. He has only re-formulated the old saying, “Your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost.”! "