College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

For me, perspective on the HGA and what it was would change with every A.'.A.'. grade I took in the Outer College.

He moves in, He moves out, He moves all about... the formula built up would necessarily collapse near grade's end, like a shedded snakeskin, to make way for the new recognition that would emerge soon after I took the next grade oath.

I hold to the pragmatic position I've stated many times (including in my article on the HGA in the first issue of Trigger93 that just came out) - it doesn't matter what opinion you hold.

I do, though, think that it matters what practical approach you take (which is quite a different issue from what opinion you hold). The HGA must be approached as "other." The union must be approached as intercourse, not masturbation. Where that Other is "located," what methods you use for the approach etc., is enormously personal; and the question of approaching the Angel as "other" is not necessarily the same as believing the Angel is "other." (You might believe that, or the opposite, or neither, or both.)

But everyone asking what the Angel is seem never to ask the question which I think is more important in the equation, viz., what they themselves are.

@Mahanta70 said

"So since I conceive of this as a possible creative act(I have not approached it that way in ritual) does that mean I likely am not connecting with the Bornless One and am instead messing around with an artificial creation?"

I don't know. It's hard to tell this from "the outside." But even in the best of conditions there is a certain measure of one's projections getting in the way for a time. Although there seems to be always something worthwhile to gain from this practice, it would be unusual for someone to have significand success without having first travelled well down the path of initiation. (Remember, you are striving for an effect that is the specific task of the seventh grade in the A.'.A.'. system.)

"How does the magician know the Bornless One he invoked using the Bornless Ritual is in fact the real Bornless One and not some mocked up copy or artificial creation?"

That's one of the things gained from having walked through the grades in order, step-by-step. One's truth-sense becomes stronger and keenly honed, and one's relationship with the Angel establishes itself at earlier levels that progressively lead one closer and closer to the center.

@Jim Eshelman said

"I'd like to think he took it out before publication because he thought it was simply wrong. The equation of Dhyana as a basic, defining characteristic of the Adeptus Minor grade simply seems (to me) to be far too low a threshold, and only distantly relatable to the phenomena of the K&C of the HGA.

But, on the rare occasion I actively think about it, I worry that it's what he actually thought. Worse, I'm pretty sure that a significant group of his present-day students have that opinion.

Such a characterizing certainly puts the 8=3 passage in a different light. It would leave us with a system where 5=6 is marked by Dhyana, and 8=3 by Samadhi. To me, this is a serious and significant degradation of the A.'.A.'. grade system."
Maybe he put it out because, from what he'd seen, the occurrence of the K&C happens either in dhyana or a low kind of Samadhi?

I've read the document many times. Funny that I've had just exactly the same question in my head often. To have Samadhi only in 8=3 seems ridiculous, and, from what I can criticize myself (not well), I'd have to put myself THERE, because... it seems that I can produce a Samadhi of some kind. That in and of itself puts the thing out of the question, and I'd say that I really don't think a low kind of Samadhi is a rare phenomenon.

Maybe one attains some kind of a Samadhi at, say, 6=5, and has developed Samadhi to its fullest at 8=3? This is how I've thought of it before. I've got a memory that you've written that you've attained 8=3? Am I right? So what is your experience?

Ok. So the Magus goes on and becomes the master of Magick. Another question I've had is that doesn't Samadhi change at all at this stage?

@Mahanta70 said

"I am interested in learning more about the Qabalistic/Judaic interpretation of the soul parts : the Nefesh, Ruach, and Neshama."

Which? The Judaic, or the Qabalistic?

"Which is the best English language book available on this matter for the practicing magician?"

Presuming you mean the Qabalistic, I'll offer that my forthcoming book Visions & Voices has as solid a short section as you can find.

For a long, deep discussion, I'd recommend The Triumph of Light, which is Vol. IV of the 5-volume series by Denning & Phillips.

Is there something specific you want to know?

@Mahanta70 said

"
@Jim Eshelman said
"I wouldn't be serving you well to answer "yes.""

I guess that means yes! 😆 😆
That explains everything!
Now it all makes since! 😉"

It would be a mistake - possibly a serious one - for you to interpret my sentence as meaning that the answer is Yes.

@Mahanta70 said

"I have a friend I talk to off and on who claims he has on ongoing contact with his HGA. But he says that he is not pure enough to be a proper vehicle for it, so he contacts infrequently. He says he can digest the information he receives through communicating in 'bits' with his HGA.
He claims that the HGA is not an independent being but at the same time, he defines himself completely as being himself + his HGA.
He says that if he communicates too often with his HGA, he feels physically and emotionally intoxicated and does not play well with others and feels like a jumbled mess. He says he goes mentally "supernova" if he initiates contact too many times with what he calls the HGA.
I've seen the transformation in him so I believe him to a certain degree.
I've read reports of others as well.
So what I'm getting at is that maybe contact (any kind) with the HGA may not seem beneficial to us if we are not in the proper condition to receive it.
Then I wonder that maybe if I encounter the HGA, the experience may not be as pleasant as I imagined it.
The Tibetan Mahakalah and other terrifying visions of the divine come to mind as I write this."

My HGA and I are one in the same as well, 2 halves of 2 different halves of a whole(oddly enough).

When a human is confronted with "holyness", they feel thier own lack, and very well should. They realize how far they half to go.

but 2 be blunt thiz doez not sound like a HGA

@Mahanta70 said

"
Thank you for your response. It is not often that someone of your caliber posts such potent words of clear insight regarding the HGA. I have some questions for you if you don't mind. I have not unified with my HGA so I guess I'm stuck with asking questions and doing rituals.. 😆
how did you meet your HGA? did you use the bornless ritual?

You say you have knoweldge of your HGA's past, do you mean past lives? are they different past lives than the ones that you have had as an individual or are they all shared?
Why do you and your HGA prefer darkness over light?
I hope my questions are not seen as being out of line or disrespectful.
Respectfully,
Larry
seeker of the angels of light and darkness"

I do not perfer rituals at all. I "speak" things into existance. I "see" things into existance". I "Believe" things into existance. A ritual to me would only amplify what I am, who I am, and I would be able to "use" the ones involved in the ritual more effectively.

I do not know many that have joined with thier HGA's, besides myself and Crowley. But I am sure more exist. I did no ritual at all. I always understood that the HGA and myself were connected, and I was 13 years old when it hit me like a ton of bricks. I "accepted" that we were one, I came to terms with understanding. That is the best I can explain it. It is more of a revelation of truth.

How did i meet my HGA? I am gifted/cursed with sight. Since a child I often seen things that were not "there". I was about 13 when I was having a terrible nightmare and my HGA entered my dream and we fought/wrestled. After I was done worn out he said "Be Still". I listened and the nightmare was no longer a thing of terror, but something I realized I was not part of, it was something I was witnessing. That was the first time I heard his words, but I understood than, and now, that he was always talking, just most of the time I was not listening or thought of it as a "inner voice".

My HGA has a past, yes. But you can not consider it a past life. For it to be a past life, one has to die, and he has never died. My life and his life are shared, 2 halves of 2 halves of a whole. We have always been one, time is a interesting thing, it really only exists here in the mortal realm.

We perfer the darkness over the light cause it is easier for us to move and "act". Move, as in, moving between realms and around this world. Act, as in, the act of "Magick". Not all HGA's are like mine. I have found no one living like me either.

Among many other results, the most important to me is that consistantly, the first thing I think about when I wake up is aspiring to the K&C of the HGA. That allows me to dedicate myself to the GW for the day, before even wiping the sleep from my eyes. The second thing, I identify the Sun with my HGA in a much stronger way that I have before, and it seems to grow. This helps to sense a "constant presence". Third, I've been able to gain a much deeper meaning of the symbol of the reflection of the sun upon the moon, bringing the Tree of Life to life, so to speak.

Someone said it before, but it dials me into the proper frequency.

@Mahanta70 said

"Quick question..
To "inflame oneself with prayer" would be an act of evocation, right?

I mean any attempt to contact a force that does not include assuming union with it(invocation) would be ultimately an act of evocation...so all prayer (even those who are non magicians) is really a form of evocation."

The Solomonic model of magic, or Goetic magic, requires you to pray to god in order to get things rolling. I think some sort of union is implied, even if it is just a symbolic union or how else will you be able to get the attention of the archangels?

But this part of the procedure isn't the evocation part. That happens much later, after you have established the chain of command from the highest, God, down to the immediate superior of the spirit you are trying to evoke. It is assumed that this spirit is not a microcosm—it is a planetary spirit, or elemental, or a demon.

I think it would be a mistake to pray to this lesser being, since you are supposed to be its god, not the other way around.

The part where you pray to the highest, while not strictly a full-blown invocation, is definitely not evocation, imo. I mean, you would only pray to something that commanded your respect, right, so any association or indwelling of that potency would not be unwelcome.

Pretty much what AEternitas1 said.

At least, that is my understanding of how it is supposed to work, not having done anything like it myself. This is all mapped out pretty fully in Magick in Theory and Practice.

You must have missed my answer on one of your other threads. There is no universal prerequisite for this, and no way that any other person can know the specific things that you need for this.

Hi Maha,

I expect there is some value in creating one and then some value in actually using one.

But it really depends on the ultimate Goal.

My Goal is God-Realization

anything on the astral/(kinda -sorta-Yetzirah?) level is of dubious value in that respect. But under particular circumstances it might be meaningful in an Eternal sense.

@Mahanta70 said

"Thanks for the great advice Jim. I'm putting it into practice. I'm also practicing drawing a tree chart with all the correspondences , including the Hebrew letters, in colored pencils."

Not only do I agree with you (that it's great advice and that I will be practicing it at some point), but now I officially have a legitimate reason to buy colored pencils.
This has never happened to me before. 😆

@Mahanta70 said

"Now in regards to invocation, how would you best approach your HGA in invocation."

From One Star in Sight:

"It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which a man may attain to the knowledge and conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel; for that is the particular secret of each one of us; a secret not to be told or even divined by any other, whatever his grade. It is the Holy of Holies, whereof each man is his own High Priest, and none knoweth the Name of his brother’s God, or the Rite that invokes Him."

It's quite a good 3 minutes from Bill!

@Mahanta70 said

"Now my question is, is not some four sided (cube) with a tree of life on each side not a more appropriate representation of Qabalah then just the Tree of Life (which would be one of the four faces)?"

What are you trying to represent with this? First, a cube has six faces, not four. Second, it isn't a very good representation of the four Worlds because it isn't hierachical. A much better way is one above the other, or one within the other. (Above = within.)

"It may sound trivial, but all the visual representations of the Qabalah I have seen just show the Tree..why not a Cube?"

Paul Foster Case did contrive a way to represent as a cube the directional vectors of the 22 Paths (22 Hebrew letters) given in Sepher Yetzirah. You'll find this discussed in various places under the name "Cube of Space."

Not sure if this has been dealt with elsewhere on this forum, but I have found the use of incense to be helpful. The tables of correspondences for perfumes in 777 can be treated as something of a cookbook in this regard. It's also a great way to learn this column of correspondences! There are two columns, one having to do with the traditional Yetziratic attributions of the 32 paths, and the other having to do with the four elements and the their sub-elements (earth of water, air of water, etc). I found this second list of elemental attributions much more intuitive and satisfying to work with than the former.

There were times when, apart from any other prep I might have made for an excursion, the perfume acted as a powerful invocation in its own right. Though, invocation is probably not the correct word. Maybe it's enough for me to say that the images had greater depth and the vision overall seemed to unfold for me more dramatically from what I was used to without this aid.

Of course, you can easily spend several hundred dollars acquiring a complete set of samples. I personally wasted a fair bit of money because I had to experiment with various forms of some substances to figure out which produced the cleanest scent, as well as how best to activate them. Cedar and Myrtle, for example, can readily be purchased as wood or leaf, but they don't burn well, smelling more like burning wood or leaves than anything specific. It took research to clue me into the fact that both are sold as essential oils and that an aroma-lamp was the best way to activate their scent. My biggest expense was purchasing a stainless steel plate that I suspend over the flame of an alcohol lamp. This allows me to heat some of the more liquid resins like Galbanum or Siamese Benzoin without the necessity of producing a lot of nasty smoke. Indigo, on the other hand, is meant to be smokey, and so a decent incense burner that is designed to handle live charcoal does the trick; this is also required for the harder resins like Mrrrh, Sumatra Benzoin, and Opoponax. Camphor is just left out on a plate and allowed to evaporate on its own.

I don't know, maybe you already do something along these lines, but if not, maybe its worth an experiment or three!

Peace and 93

Robert

@pinealman said

"Personally i found all these posts pretty helpful!
"

Me too!
I believe that while there may not be a one size fits all for K&C (every man needs to cut his own path, no one knows how to contact your HGA but you, etc.), there are road marks from those that have walked the path.
I think the more we know how others carved their own way to the HGA, the more we may be able to accomplish the work ourselves and assist others to do the same. If I ever attain K&C, I will post in in toto right here!
I'm going to read Liber Samekh tomorrow (and the dreaded 'scolion') so maybe I'll have it all figured out this weekend 🍸

@Mahanta70 said

"Just an observation... If the Bornless One is in Tiphareth and we are in Malkuth,
Just an observation... as performed by Aleister Crowley (and later revised by him as Liber Samekh), the ritual is specifically directed at those who are in Tiphereth.

This doesn't mean someone else can't perform it. But it is worth noting that it is issued explicitly to the Adeptus Minor of A.'.A.'..

"it is blatantly obvious that Yesod is the link between the two."
"

There is a very worthwhile principle based on exactly this. Have you studied Crowley's Scholion to Liber Samekh?

Skimping on the meditation aspect will definitely hinder your growth. The meditation helps channel your focus from a million things going on in your daily life down to the single task at hand. It calms your body and mind and helps to prepare you for any rituals you plan on engaging in. Meditation before magick is like the warm-up before the run. Hope this helps.

duly noted brother

I think it is less an issue of my not being open minded, but more that I can be somewhat reactionary, especially on a forum like this. I apologize for everything except my comments about the Batman cape and paying for ritual instruction.