College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

@Mercvrivs said

"It is worth considering some of Rabelias' inspiration via the Benedictine Abbey of Maillezais, beautiful, and full of incredible, and symbolic stone carvings and statues ( the giant is amazing). Behind the building is the legend of the Melusine, whose magick erected the Abbey for Guy de Lusignan (mentioned above by another poster)--and also serves as informative commentary on themes including love, as a love story is the background. She is a water-sprite, and assimilated with figures such as "Lady of the Lake", and her role in Avalon. So, an "esoteric Rabelianism" has in its character not just a Medieval nature--but something also distinctly of the Northern and Celtic tradition. Josephine Peladan elaborates on the "corporate", thus guild (and therefore operative grade system) symbolism in Rabelais, and of course interprets matters esoterically. And, although I lack the resource at the moment, I've heard it that Rabelias contains a type of cypher and gematria of its own (or some unique) internal correspondences (perhaps even Liber Al's prophecy concerns this). Now, not to say these are all and the only esoteric interpretations of Rabelais--but to indicate just how much is wrapped up in his "system" itself--Thelema then ends up absorbing something of Rabelaism--profound as it is in itself--while including and being much more."

Indeed, indeed! Like Crowley, Rabelais had a way of disguising esoteric truths behind seemingly meaningless or obscene material. For instance Panurge would list a description of the various types of balls (testicles) that would go on for a number of pages. While funny in and of itself, it became obvious to me that there was something going on under the surface. I realized after contemplation that the adjectives used to describe the balls were in fact a system, each subsequent adjective representing the exact opposite of the adjective before. Thus Rabelais was using the technique of the union of opposites that Crowley was always harping about (no thing is true without containing its opposite, etc.)

The Abbey of Thelema described by Rabelais is much like the cryptic description of the Palace in Liber AL. What is interesting is that when I first started studying Thelema, and before I knew of Rabelais, I had a dream in which I saw the exact Abbey as described by Rabelais.

I just finished all five books on a road trip to Alaska. At the end of the last book they enter the Temple of Bacchus, and there is a lengthy esoteric description of the Temple itself which contains all manner of Qabalistic hints and information. When Panurge receives the Oracle of the Holy Bottle ("TRINC"), the Priestess also gives a Qabalistic interpretation of the Oracle. There's a great deal of occult ("hidden") material in the books, and also I might mention that the title page for the books states Rabelais as the "Extractor of the Fifth, or Celestial Essence." So it's obvious that somebody was reading their Agrippa.

@Jim Eshelman said

"I was always taken with the fact that 260 is one of the great numbers of Mercury - the value of each column and row of an 8x8 kamea.

I don't know what this means... but it seems necessarily locked into the pattern of the numbers."

Well, from what I understand the Maya paid particular attention to the planet Venus, but used its place in the calendar to predict auspicious days for warfare. The fact that the Tzolkin cycle of days (I just wrote Tolkien out of habit, 😆 ) relates to Mercury might relate to the fact that the Tzolkin, or sacred calendar, was essentially related to the Scribe-God of the Maya, as the Priest-Scribe relationship in their culture was as tight as that in ancient Egypt.

In fact, as I stood at the ritual apex of many of these temples and chanted the mantram of Thelema, I had the distinct impression that I was in touch with energies related to that of Egypt. Both were the most advanced civilizations of their time and had similar cultural hierarchies and so forth.

I thought there would be more interest on a thread devoted to such an interesting topic. The Mayan cosmology is so beautiful and intricate--and it's right at our back door!

@Mephis said

"Well, that's fine--I'm more of a barstool Thelemite anyways. "

Nothing wrong with an arts degree. Is this an invitation for a drink?

@Mephis said

"Which is why I remain a practicing carnivore. "

Rare for NorCal. No pun intended. 😀

@Mephis said

"44 also gives us "to absorb/swallow up" and "garment/carpet," so, by reverse Aiq Bekar (applied to the M.A.L.A.R.K.Y. formula) I read this as a warning against carpet munching, nothing more."

Advanced! 😆

Christians always advise against the stuff that they love (i.e. judging others, carpet munching, etc.) -- they just usually need more secret codes to admit it after they've converted to Thelema, no?

@kasper81 said

"By the way no offence but writing a thread entitled, "magick in Shakepeare" is analogous to writing one called " communism in Das Kapital" with Shakespeare being a corner stone of metaphysical though and all."

Thank you for your most informative comments. My aim was, in fact, to do a light survey of various Magical topics alluded to by Poets of Note, specifically Shakespeare and Goethe. I was impressed by Shakespeare's tone, which is noble in the uttermost and quite exemplary in its wording and content: thus, an excellent example of composition in a ritual mindless. However, in light of the de-volution of this thread into useless, muddled banter--more befitting schoolboys than students of High Magick--I call to mind the adage "pearls before swine," and continue with my studies in quite unconcerned isolation.

It is not so much chagrin and frustration, but rather a respect for the sincere and gifted contributors to this forum, that fills me with shame when I see lofty topics denigrated by the feeble chatter of dumb apes, as is all too common of late.

@Miss Dara 217 said

"You think he was including the curvature of spacetime?"
I've never been quite clear on that. Thinking about it now, it's almost as if in drawing the hexagram you end up drawing two lines (e.g., lower right to upper left and upper right to lower left in drawing a solar invoking hexagram) that recede to an infinite distance from you and then return from infinity, as it were. And then you've got the five petaled rose located at the convergence/vanishing point. Maybe that expresses something about the microcosm/macrocosm relationship, like that their union involves a completed infinity... like squaring the circle... hmmm...

"Perhaps we should animate the thing in continual motion in a sphere?"
Go for it.

@Mephis said

"The Book, or Books, are called the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, and were printed in Europe around the 18th century, and became popular among European immigrants who practiced folk magic."

My ancestors some 4 generations ago came from Germany to Brazil. They were farmers with no education living in the middle of nowhere, so I guess no access for reading. I remember my dad telling me a story he heard from my grandfather that besides the first five books in Old Testament, there were the sixth and seventh. If a person read them, the devil itself would appear in front of you. 👿

Thank you all for your replies. Along with my own analysis, I've come to the conclusion I was looking for. The main issue I was having with the ritual wasn't so much a lack of success, but a tendency to force/devaluate the ritual itself. My first experience of this invocation (at least what I'm willing to share about it) was this: after several days of preliminary banishing and sexual abstinence, I did a dry run of the ritual (just reading the text) while in an armchair. The results were rather astounding. I became carried away with this success, and confusing "quantity" with "quality," thought I could replicate results through daily repetition.

I understood beforehand that this is a very pure and powerful ritual, but I'd never acheived such identity with a God before, so naturally I wanted to immediately replicate the results, when in reality I should have spent more time investigating the data.

I noticed something interesting: usually after the performance of a ritual I classify its results in general terms, i.e. bad/fair/good/excellent, etc. This applies mostly to rituals I perform daily, like the LBRP. More involved and complex rituals usually require a paragraph or two of description, so as to record the basic condition, performance, results, and other such aspects of the ritual. When the ritual is properly and successfully performed, I am usually quite glib in my description--proud of my accomplishment, as it were.

Not so with this invocation. I was literally shocked into silence. I found, after I'd recovered my "self," that I was very reluctant to record the performance of the ritual and my impressions. It wasn't laxity or inability, but reluctance pure and simple. I can't bring myself to say anything much more than "I acheived identity with the God." What was it Crowley said about the Enochian system, "Most Magick requires skill--this requires prudence!" Indeed.

"I can't tell if this is a serious statement or not. I know you have a good sense of humor and I find myself cracking up at your sarcasm quite a bit. "

Serious, for once. While I tend to gravitate towards the humor in any situation, I actually spend the majority of my time doing solitary, usually intellectual work. I can switch between business- and pleasure-mode at will. The problem is this: at certain times the modes seem to alternate with a will of their own. Thus, sometimes I assume a frivolous persona in my off-hours to balance the strictly machine-element of my Gemini-prominent personality, and at other times I find myself spouting spontaneous nonsense just for the sake of hearing myself talk. Thoth seems a natural choice to bring these two aspects into harmony, but as recommended I've developed a scheme that allows for more assumption and meditation on the God-form rather than outright, daily invocation. Once a week seems a better frequency for such a powerful ritual. (I tend to practice rituals ad nauseum until I'm satisfied that it is being performed perfectly.)

@HPK said

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Dove & Serpent? 😕

Love is the law, love under will.

B."

💡

many thanks for the kind words and appreciative feedback all, i've started work on a couple more - jupiter and moon shall be next (plans for a mercury one also which should be all voice) - this will be the first place i shall post about them when they are done.

I long to entangle my being around ideas, I have found much pleasure first in the occult world,
and now more so with the scientific.

In high school I was in a bad place and didnt take advantage of learning, esp. math and science. When I attempted algebra back then, I remember being so arrogant as to think...."how is this going to help me live my life!" Yet I delved into the occult and discovered hidden worlds. I was fasinated by the fact that it worked, I could cast a spell and make magick according to my will! Yet no one would really say why. Well a few decades later I see quantum physicts explaining to me exactly how magic works. I recently read how science is de-occultizing the world, how there is apparently little mystery left, we know why the thunder booms, we see how the flower unfolds, we see how the egg splits.....

The fabulous thing I have found is that when these theories explain, when these questions are answered, it opens the door for such new worlds, such new perceptions that we can hardly recognize our own thoughts and feelings. It invited us to ask new questions and to look deeper.

So magickally while I know that I can be in two places at the same time, it is such a fun and exciting process to apply this concept to my day to day life. I cant tell you how much joy I have found just thinking about the fact that I am not really touching anything, that while I think I am in physcial contact with an object, I am not. Being able to wrap my brain around these ideas is so empowering, and helps me become so much more then I ever could have been if I had not looked into what was really going on in my world. I know I have heard the term "arm chair occultist" yet I think that for me it is more true to say, that while I am folding laundry, doing the dishes, mopping the floor my mind is entangled in a world that goes far beyond these tasks. Applying esoteric ideas to your real life, walking in both worlds at the same time is for me at least more powerful then any incantation, magic circle or bubbling cauldron.

My first dose of physics was via Ramtha, and the group from What the Bleep Fred Wolf's video of Dr. Quantum are brilliant and fun to watch. Even my little babes understand him! As I read these books and learned these teachings I kept saying to myself, this is what the occult teaching are, this is what I have known in my being and it is nice to see that science is backing up what I knew in my heart to be true.

While I know it is going to take me some time to grasp any of the "everything" theory, I know that I am going to have fun trying.

I cant find anything with my limited resources here.
As per my profession though, you should call your local library (I see you are in Monterey, USA) and ask the librarian, as they have several resources in print and through subscription that may be availible.
You may have to really push up your sleves on this one, and get down and dirty. I worked in the geneaology dept. for many years, and trying to find actual birth dates can be very time consuming.
When you do find out, you may want to share your findings so that others can avail your work:)

There's also the not so well known Ibn 'Arabi.

Sophia (remember, wisdom, aka Chokmah) was associated by some early Christians as the Holy Spirit, and if you go back to Genesis 1:2, the Holy Spirit was hovering over the watery deep.

In the Sophia myths, her yearning (to understand and unite with the unknowable primal father, or to create, or to have gnosis of the universe) leads to her falling into the abyss, and simultaneously giving rise to the physical matter of the universe and imbuing it with a divine spark. Sophia herself is often seen by Gnostics as being the most anthropomorphic of the Aeons (Gods).

Interestingly, there is a distinction made in both Genesis, and the Gnostic myths, between the void/abyss/watery deep, and the surface. Sophia hovers and plays along the surface. Several people in the thread have mentioned the concept of "reflection", and the surface of still water is the original mirror. She pursues the reflected illusion, and disturbs the surface with her hovering/swimming, at once shattering illusion and passing through the other side into the abyss (Alice in Wonderland anyone?). In the abyss (as pointed out, meaning bottomless, or no-ground, or nothing solid, physical), which is a sort of chaotic pre-matter from which she gives birth to the physical world.

Also, some traditions associate Sophia with the archetypal mother, which seems a bit more Binah/Babalon to most of us, naturally. I wonder at the idea of Babalon being the womb/gate of life hints at an association with the surface of the abyss.

In other older gnostic traditions she is associated with Astraea, the star maiden, a female Prometheus-like character. Interesting that the Star is the tarot key associated with the path from Chokmah through the abyss....

Sorry, kind of went off-tangent a bit... but was just trying to add more fodder to the discussion.