College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

@Avshalom Binyamin said

"I don't speak for gurugeorge, but I think he was concisely echoing Jim's earlier statement."

You have the right of it.

Is "illusion" good or bad? It depends. Is creating it good or bad? It depends. Is destroying it good or bad? It depends. Depends on what? One's point of view, one's place on the Path, one's development.

To a mystic, it seems like a great thing to be climbing up the Tree, slaying illusions left, right and centre, as he goes, back to the one, one, one.

But what about God's will? God was perfectly happy being enmeshed in His self-created illusions before the mystic so rudely woke him up! Naughty mystic! 😀

Depends.

Charged? "Dressed?" Dedicated magically to a particular use? Dispose of them in some special way. (But usually that just means let them burn all the way through!)

Not charged, just happened to be used in a ritual for light, flame, vital force? Just throw them away. They're just candles. Nothing more distinctive about them than the air you were breathing during the ritual.

Very special occasion (such as an important initiation)? Save them and melt them down later to make a pantacle etc.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Bereshith said
"The English interpreters had to make a choice, and they chose based on the bias that the number was given to help identify the one literal person who was the Beast. "

Yeah. Whereas, in fact, it was saying, "Here is the key to understanding humanity as it is arising." (IMO a forecast of the Ruach-maturation of the Osiris Aeon.)

"But the verse does start with "Here is wisdom," so... you know, "get ready to ponder this next bit.""

And, of course, in the Greek it is sophia."

I both completely agree with that interpretation and, yet, I still have that wonder within me whether or not humanity will externalize in world events the internal conflict it may refuse to resolve - as well as whether or not it also did so during the Osirian Aeon with the ambiguously historical man called Jesus.

I'm one of them "It could've happened/It could happen (again?)" people. But I don't know, and I don't need anybody else to agree, so... I just throw it out there for those wisdomous states of mind people. And I wonder...

Thank you for your advice. I may try something like that, though it sounds a lot like skrying, which I'm also not good at. I can't use your idea of the winds, though, because the association of these archangels with the elements seems wrong to me. (I realize this opinion makes me, once again, a minority of one.) The association to the sephiroth or planets (Raphael = sun, Gabriel = moon, Michael = Mercury, Hod, water, Uriel = Venus, Netzach, fire) makes more sense to me, both in context of the LBRP as well as linguistically and cabalistically.

Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki suggests an interesting meditation. Get in touch with your own healing powers, your body's ability to resist infection, recover from injury, etc., and then project it in front of you as Raphael. Get in touch with your own inner strength, then project it behind you as Gabriel. Get in touch with your sense of wonder at the awesomeness of the universe, then project it to your right as Michael. Get in touch with your innermost divinity and project it to your left as Uriel. (This is based on the translation of the archangel's names: divine healing, divine strength, "Who is like God?" and divine fire (or light).)

If someone was deep in a vision or meditation, I surely wouldn't want to pull them out or disturb them. Depending on the severity of what was happening, I likely wouldn't do anything to directly effect them or their concentration during a ritual. If things are obviously, physically bad, I might be more open to intervene. It's hard to tell how people, even people you know well, will react emotionally to every "scenario" that could pop up.

@Selene said

"You know that Maurice Sendak died recently, and people are celebrating his famous book, "Where the Wild Things Are".

How close do you think the story in this book is to actual magick?"

I also think so.

Watch What to Expect When You’re Expecting Online Free

I will offer a stranza from a piece I am working on :

"
I ! Have! Never! Felt! So! A~L~IVE!
As-in-this-moment,
Of midnight from a Beatles eye
"

I shall leave it at that for the moment, as I do not wish to derail the thread any further. 😄

I am reading Women of the Golden Dawn by Mary K. Greer, and copied this paragraph:

" Kenneth Mackenzie, who possibly originated the Golden Dawn cipher manuscripts, defined magic as “a psychological branch of science, dealing with the sympathetic effects of stones, drugs, herbs, and living substances upon the imaginative and reflective faculties.” While some writers have regarded magic as psychotherapeutic work (Francis King and Israel Regardie, for example), others have characterized it as the discovery of the unity within all duality, the truth behind all illusions. W.B. Yeats sought the knowledge of what he called “the single energetic Mind” and its pole, “the single Memory of nature,” both of which he believed could be evoked by symbols. But I like Florence Farr’s definition of magic best: “Magic is unlimiting experience.” That is, magic consists of removing the limitations from what we think are the earthly and spiritual laws that bind us or compel us. We can be anything because we are All. "

And I found a bunch of other definitions here:
www.spiralnature.com/magick/what-is-magick.html

All this was helpful to me. Helped me round out my understanding, somehow.
😄

It strikes me that these are issues more likely to exist with impromptu groups (that is, not an established, ongoing group with a fixed membership, common training, and clear hierarchy).

As I've had no interest in that sort of group for the last 25-30 years, I have no recent experiences in this sort of thing; and, in fact, it wasn't ever more than a flitting issue. There are certain basic safeguards that would tend to keep this sort of thing from occurring, or make it readily manageable if it did appear (primarily: at least the core membership being semi-permanent or continuing; common training and careful planning; and a clear hierarchy).

What exactly is a fluffy bunny? No offense to Monty Python, but someone who must always insist on seeing the bright side of life. Not just that, not that there's anything wrong with a positive optimistic attitude, but fluffy bunny does not want to do the work - does not want to get soft fluffy paws actually dirty with muck and mud of real work.

New Age: a term that I've seen in print since around the time of the Theosophical Society from sources including Blavatsky as well as Paschal Randalph and Annie Besant.

We are living in a new age, so why make hate in your heart over a few words. And there have always throughout time been dabblers and churchianity types (so-called followers who do nothing but make a show of attendance and give a nod of agreement), so why should it be any different in an Aeon that gives personal power to the structures of one's faith and soul?

There was a time in my spiritual growth when I and a few friends would participate in what we called "Christian bashing sessions." Silly, isn't it? We grew out of that (or, I did anyway). Why did we find the need to spew vitriol at someone else's faith? Why was it necessary for the group mind I was participating in to demonize their previous direction? I got over it and went toward demonizing that group! Isn't that interesting? I thought to myself, this can't be right.

One morning I woke up and the Internet had happened. I took my acid to the net and began a crusade against fluffy bunnies and foo-foo new agers. But why? I kept asking myself. Why, when I can look back to when I was just a boy, just a young man, I was just as hopeful and innocent as them, why bash?

There are those who may irritate me with their Sun Sign hippy excuses for their behaviors, they may play like children with ancient artifacts and I may worry that they'll cause me to question my own actions, but this is a new age* after all. A new Aeon as well, in fact.

*New Age, not to be confused with Age in astrology terms, but a "new age of man."

Yes, that's always been my view.

Some people cringe at my occasional reference to a Thelemite practicing Christianity but, truth is, I know such folks.

I really think it goes back to the line I quoted in another thread (on polytheism/monotheism) the other day: "Should therefore the candidate hear the name of any God, let him not rashly assume that it refers to any known God, save only the God known to himself."

From my POV, Thelema is Pantheistic, which is a form of Monotheism. Considering Thelema with the lens of Spinoza's ethics makes a lot of sense.