College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

In a funny kind of way, I reckon this wouldn't make a bad unofficial manifesto for the Era of the Hierophant.

@Jim Eshelman said

"I personally equate Pluto to Kether, but I don't teach this attribution because Qabbalah does not have this attribution. It's a personal invention. I'm entirely settled in my reasons for this and it serves me in practice. Three things about Pluto might help explain my view: (1)Pluto, at root, is that particular transformation that occurs one one truly gets trans-form, i.e., outside of any "extensions" into particular pattern. (2) Pluto, in practice, especially when interacting with other planets, represents complete disinterest or reaction against anything arbitrary, artificial, forcing into molds or patterns that are not intrinsic to what a thing is. (3) Pluto is inherently solitary, "outside the herd," outside the pattern."

Continuing along this line of thought, how would you connect this attribution with the fact that Kether emanates Gimel, the path of the Moon?

Based on my own musings, this makes me think that Pluto, the planet of the solitary, the unusual and of 'the extremes' emanates the Moon - the fundamental expression of the Divine Feminine.

When compared against the Masculine ideal, which more often represents the centre or 'core' of being (the Sun), the Feminine ideal is often said to contain 'both the highest and the lowest' within it. For me, this is an interesting parallel to Pluto being the planet of extremes and of the farther reaches - making the idea of the Moon emanating from Kether (Pluto) both a reasonable and a fascinating one.

An elemental is usually described as being distinct from the Microcosm.

That is to say, human beings are described as containing all elements in a balanced fashion,and so being in the 'perfect image' of God. Elementals on the other hand refer to beings that are unbalanced, containing only a part (or parts) of the Microcosm.

As human beings are microcosms that contain all of these elements, these elements can be evoked in a process known as evocation, thus bringing forth separate elementals.

Animals have often been called elementals, as they contain the divine spark but not in a whole and balanced equilibrium.

Really interesting stuff Jim - the new Tarot sequence for Aquarius-Leo was exactly the line of thinking I was going along. Definitely an idea that goes deeper and deeper.

@Jim Eshelman said

"it has to do with loops in the zodiac card sequence that seem to have been a way to track the procession of the equinoxes. (Notice how the zodiac card numbers pivot around Pisces and Virgo, where the equinoxes have been for the last 1,794 years: the cards that seem out of place are the axes Aries-Libra and Leo-Aquarius.)"

Fascinating... Interesting to ponder what this all might mean, and how a connection with the equinoxes might differentiate the Tarot sequence from the Hebrew one as a whole. I wonder if the Tarot sequence is more... "temporal".

I see, thanks.

Why you attributed the 22 days (and thus readings) of the Thelemic Holy Season to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, rather than to the 22 Tarot trumps. I have no personal sway either way - I was just curious as to what made you choose one over the other.

@Jim Eshelman said

"The sequence is the Hebrew letters, not the Tarot numbers. Thus, Tzaddi (The Emperor, Atu IV) follows Qoph (The Moon, Atu XVIII)."

I know this is from a few years back, I guess it's a good time of year to ask though.

Are you able to explain at all why this is what you settled on? It makes sense to me that we should go from Tav to Aleph, but I'm curious as to why the days are not numbered by Tarot numbers, a la the Thelemic year format.

I have a feeling it might have been taken around a Mass of the Phoenix ritual. I believe the symbol might have been either a simple 'Earth' planetary one, or perhaps an O/X Rosy Cross-style glyph, carved or drawn onto her skin.

This is all from something I read somewhere a while ago, so take it with a shake of salt =P

Thought I'd share this great essay I found, it expands on McLuhan's predictions in Understanding Media and examines the effect of the Internet on world culture. To me it speaks on how the New Aeon is unfolding through the cultural effect of the Internet:

2012diaries.blogspot.com/2012/05/man-becomes-sex-organs-of-machine-world.html

As we create countless new ways to transmit information, these mediums instantaneously 'push back' and shape us. We become unwitting coequals - not masters - of our own creations. This environment we manufacture in turn moulds our collective unconscious, shaping our culture and way of life in ways we are unaware of for generations to follow.

IMHO the Internet is a essential physical factor and medium in the unfolding of New Aeon consciousness, and its integration into our world is the current stabilisation and major cultural shift of our time.

On a more abstract note, this illustrates to me how the forces shaping humanity's destiny remain external to our rational selves - no matter how hard we try to 'step outside the game' and act like we run the place. Technology moulds us in equal or greater proportion to our moulding of it.

One and the same.

A good translation of the phrase would be 'Away and behind every evil spirit', which is effectively synonymous with 'Get thee behind me, Satan' (!)

This confirms for me how this is primarily an Adept's ritual. Before K&C of HGA, one wouldn't have much clout in commanding Infernal entities to stand back and do your bidding (cf. final stage of the Book of Abramelin).

@Jim Eshelman said

"Moon exactly square Neptune and Saturn is very depression prone. It's more complicated than that - the tendency comes from very legitimate, positve, competing characteristics - but that's the bottom line. With a Virgo Moon it runs a further risk of compromising the logic faculty leading to psychosis, but this isn't standard. "Standard" for this aspect cluster would be depression and morbid self-revulsion and psychological pain until one discovers the real causes within oneself and owns certain (probably unpopular) truths about oneself - unique to each person.

(Please only wear the above shoe if it fits.)

Furthermore, Sagittarius' "favorite bad feeling" is "not good enough." This comes from a sincere sense of what real aristoracy, achievement, and cultural elegance should be, and a frustration anytime these are seen to fall short - whether within oneself or others. Several things spin off of these. But it is useful to see the trait of responding to sublimely, divinely high standards and to unreasonably hold oneself to standards higher than one can possibly (presently) meet. After a while, it may just feel comortable wallowing in the familiar pain of inadequacy. (If one can't be the best, one can at least by the VERY MOST inadequate!) <g>"

I have a Virgo Moon square (but not partile) Neptune and Uranus (both in Sagittarius). Would that have similar effects to what you described above? I have a feeling that they'd balance each other out.
Though with me it would definitely be a dynamic balance, like a rip-roarin' sine wave. I tend to let the two of 'em fight it out.

"Hey Jim, any chance the lecture might be recorded?"

Maybe. We usually have better luck getting that done in LA, but maybe. - This one, also, will be pretty dependent on the visuals I'll be projecting.

"Congrats on the book by the way, looks fantastic."

Thank you I'm pretty excited about the content, too.

Welcome to the forum mate, where are you from?

@Alrah said

"Patchwork Serpent - I think I may have answered most of your questions when it comes to the mysteries when I replied to Ash above?"

If what you say is accurate, then yes. This is the first time I've heard that the Yoni is solar - where do you get this from?

I've known the Lingam as the ultimate solar, active, generative force; and the Yoni as the ultimate lunar, passive, receptive force. Is not the Lingam the symbol of Chokmah, and the Yoni the symbol of Binah? The former the Sun, the latter the Moon?

Great post Alrah; my only gripe is about gender differences on the physical plane.

@Alrah said

"The Sun and the Moon may be ever symbolised in their duality as masculine and feminine, and Beast and Scarlet Woman are symbolic of them in their respective external roles, but both forces are expressed through the Phallus and the Yoni and in the experience of the internal Sun."

How true is this?
Does this mean that physiological characteristics, mental patterns, style of living - everything that makes man and woman unique on the physical plane - becomes entirely irrelevant in the New Aeon?

Does that fact that women cannot produce sperm and men cannot carry children count for nothing?

At some point, don't women reach a stumbling block with the Phallic Mysteries by, uh, not having a phallus? Don't men reach a stumbling block in the Yonic Mysteries by not having a physiology consistent with its symbolism?

I feel like some essential principles are being blurred and diluted.

After all, we have a Scarlet Woman - not some vague, androgynous Scarlet Person.

Greetings from Melbourne!

YES!

Fantastic. Both the long-awaited availability of Black Pearl and the announcement of your new book. Congratulations!

On a more general scale, I've often taken the averse pentagram to represent incarnation/involution, with the upright pentagram representing evolution.