College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

Got it, thanks for your help.

What about the color attributions I mentioned? Should they be "forced into place" so to speak?

And which ones would those be? Googling I'm getting a slew of wildly different correspondence charts. Saturn seems intuitively like the root of course.

More passively, as opposed to...?

EDIT: I'm sorry, maybe you actually went on to answer my first question. If what you're saying is: Muladhara (Saturn), then Anahatta (Sun), then the others from the bottom up?

93 greetings.

During a recent psychic reading I was told that my crown chakra is too open, and that I need to close it in order to gain stability.

Did a quick lookaround for some basic instructions on meditation. Findings are somewhat conflicting of course. Several people say the crown and root should never be closed, but then again some say you should have all your chakras open at all times... I figured it was best to just get going, and work out the details later.

I have some previous experience with the Middle Pillar ritual. Some very basic knowledge of the chakras. Still finding my way into good meditation practice.

So after settling down, I start visualizing the chakras from the bottom up. Definitely feeling the root chakra. Svadhisthana is quite apparent also. Third eye is practically blazing with no effort. So no problems there.

As for the crown, my reader described mine as silvery blue. Texts usually say violet, in my vision it appeared alternately as glistening grey and very bright white, like I used to picture Kether. Don’t know how important this is. When visualizations just sort of appear I just go with it and find it hard to force them to look different, but maybe I should?

Anyway, I decided to compromise and pictured this bright light as sort of dimming, like surrounding leaves folding in leaving a much smaller globe, emitting less light, but still connected to the root through the pillar.

Feeling satisfied with this, I didn’t quite know how to go about wrapping up. I just pictured the chakras closing up rather quickly, leaving the root open.

Now as it happened I went from the bottom up. Guides generally say to go top down. I remember some Golden Dawn texts saying the same.

Anything I need to change? Any parts that can be improved? Advice is appreciated. Would also appreciate some recommended reading.

93/93

@Avshalom Binyamin said

"Interestingly, I have used up half of my life expectancy without this issue coming up once for me, personally. I may never encounter it. Thanks to the fact that people got together and figured out how to reduce violence in my part of the world."

It's certainly not unimaginable though. As a situation existing for other people, or as a situation that might exist for you some time in the future.

@Avshalom Binyamin said

"Yes, societies are established with violence (or the threat thereof) with the intention of regulating violence. In liberal, representative governments, the whole point is that more people get to decide how violence is allowed to be used, while fewer people actually have to use violence. Getting to be a pacifist is one of the perks."

I respect principled pacifism, and would be in that camp myself on many occasions, though there are things to critique about it. If you're merely delegating violence rather than exercising it yourself however, that is hardly it.

Violence in liberal democracy has been reduced to a certain extent. It remains a part of the normal functioning of society.

If one's project is to eliminate inter-human violence as far as is possible, and one's objection to Liber Oz comes from what one sees to be its glorification of violence,* I can get that. My problem is the trust in the guaranteed permanence of the present order that this reactive response often betrays.

• Regarding this part, it's still more complicated. There can be heroism in violence too, and non-violent interaction can easily be used in a top-down manner to palliate conflicts that need to be addressed. Furthermore, something might look non-violent, with the threat of violence still hidden underneath.

Good God, I'm as far away from Ayn Rand as you can get. I will punch myself if I'm giving off that impression.

My remarks on violence was simply stating a fact. The tree of liberty has been watered with the blood of tyrants and martyrs, to paraphrase Jefferson.

And violence in liberal democracy is not just used to protect rights, but also to keep people down (people who demand rights not sanctioned for instance, like occupying an empty house if you're homeless), was my point. In any case, opposition to violence is in 99% of cases not a true opposition, but an opposition with qualifications.
To illustrate: If someone was seriously thwarting your rights, say threatening to murder or enslave you, or someone close to you, what would be your response? Not exactly a great dilemma.
And if someone in that case would respond with meekness, not wanting to sully their hands, allowing the other person to carry on, surely that would be the true moral outrage.

Even if someone is perfectly at home in their society, they have to admit that this violence is sustaining it. What does it then mean, this shirking away at the thought of violence? It doesn't make sense, unless this outward display of peacefulness actually masks the brutal exercise of power.
A lot of people thought it absolutely horrible and barbaric that the heads of the nobility were rolling in France, while peasants living under the whip was just part of the God-given harmonious order. That's the kind of hypocrisy I'm talking about.

It is very strange to me, this queasiness over Liber Oz.

Let's be clear: You don't "have" rights. The space of action you are allowed to move within by law is simply a part of the social order reproducing itself. Any OTHER rights you want to claim for yourself you will only get by demanding to be recognized, by through sheer force of will carving out a new space of action that might become permanent and universalized enough that it becomes part of a new reproducing order.

Any rights you are able to exercise right now are there because of historical reasons. The right to not be a serf exists because people have been ready to kill and be killed in order to secure that right.

There is absolutely no mystery in these lines, no hidden meaning. The right to kill means the right to kill. By retreating from this declaration you are taking complete comfort in the guaranteed permanence of the present order. One from which you will get a harsh awakening sooner or later. Even more odd is for a proclaimed Thelemite to take this position, someone supposedly striving to surpass this order in whatever way.

This feeling of unease looks to me little more than an expression of commonplace liberal pacifism. And liberal pacifism is always hypocritical - verbally extolling non-violence while practically defending a social order maintained by constant violence. This violence, by the way, is the secret guarantor of your rights as they stand, and it's a pretty crass way to maintain them at that.

I have that book, but I found it to be pandering and dreadfully boring. Maybe I'll give it another chance eventually. Divination is a good idea though.

Ah, got it.

But the question is then: Isn't this a risk that would be present in any experiment you make? Or is the solution then to narrow down the possibilities of the operation? i.e. instead of vaguely attempting to get money in general, attempting to get money from this particular source, in those particular ways, and so on?

Exactly what?

93,

This might seem like a perfectly silly question, but we're reaching deep into the "what if"-drawer today.

I am looking to enter into a university program and am pondering various ways of avoiding racking up too much debt during my studies. I'll look around for scholarships, but I also thought that I might try out a sigil (either to influence the likelihood of being granted a scholarship, or getting money from some other source).

I have no previous experience with sigils nor much of other occult work besides reading about it and meditating. I just thought I'd do it as an experiment, and for fun.

But then I started thinking: What if I tried to magick myself some money, and then one of my parents died, thus leaving me with an inheritance? Needless to say, this could take you to a very dark place.

What are your thoughts?

Well well. Several times I returned to this thread, but just found it impossible to continue. Just a few short things to wrap this up.

I went out of town for a bit, getting some much needed respite. Since the start of this year, I feel oddly at peace. Vitality has returned, and none of the things bother me like they did before.

I resumed my daily practice during the holidays. Doing this, it dawned on me that I had all but abandoned it the previous half-year. No meditations, no banishings, nothing. I hardly even reflected upon it then. Funny.

I don't know where this is heading. But my head is above the surface, for now.

Thanks for your help, for what it's worth.

Happy new year!

Thank you so much for your responses.

I will have to reply in segments or I'll be here all night.

@Jim Eshelman said

"So... what changed? Was this triggered by going back to school? If so, by what exactly (if you can tell), e.g., the discipline, the energy expenditure, the locale, the performance expectations and judgments, etc.?"

All of the above, probably.

I made two previous attempts at going back, each time resulting in failure. This lack of discipline carried over into my normal life, with years of unemployment, feeling the simplest everyday tasks to be immense hurdles. Fear of falling into the same pattern was one side of the coin, causing anxiety.
(I am happy to say I have combatted this successfully. Doing the work and getting up in the morning proving far less of a problem than imagined.)

Social relations has always been an issue. Experiences in school during my teens caused me to develop social phobia. While my condition has greatly improved, I still find it hard to make contact, and maintain the relations I do have. I have doubted if it will ever get better, and it seems to overshadow everything I set out to do, all the dreams I have. This is the other, more ominous, side.

All of this is condensed into the past 2½ months. The night before the first day I felt a terror I had all but forgotten build up. For the first 2-3 weeks I was shocked, disoriented, exhausted. It evened out eventually.

Although the problems listed runs across the board, there is clearly a psychological thing about being-in-school itself. All the memories associated with it, the peculiar group dynamics, etc. I haven't been in this situation for over eight years. Which why I said I felt like waking up to reality. Like "I wanted it to be/thought it would be like this, but really it's like this".

Reading this, however

"But it's really the opposite: You were awake, and now you're back in the reactive, disoriented, "other language" of a dream."

had me thinking "ah, of course!". Hm.

"First, this is what good (insight-oriented) psychotherapy is for. Get some."

What is this, specifically? How does it work, as opposed to other types?

And while we're on the subject, how do I tell a good therapist from a bad one? I've been seeing one for a few months, but I feel like I'm just speaking out into the air, getting nowhere. She offers vague encouragements and nothing useful. Have had the same experience previously. But then I'm thinking, maybe I'm just not making the effort.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

This is a long-winded and terribly self-centered post. Silly that it should be my first one on this board. I just need for someone to hear it, and here I know there is at least one thing we all have in common.

I got started on this path a couple of years ago, fumbling my way through the dark. The Book of the Law fell into my lap during this time. A series of shattering experiences followed. All the ways in which I had continually been sabotaging my life, and the ways I tried to explain them away, became clearly visible. All the ways in which I had been trying to build an identity around superficialities and pretensions, to mask my insecurity. All the ways in which I felt myself unjustly and harshly treated by the world, when really I was just as big of an ass myself most of the time.

I realized, deeply, the role I played in my misfortune, how my own behavior drove me into despair.

But at the same time this meant that my life was in my hands. And I really felt I had the means to change it. There was no doubt. For the first time in my life, for as long as I can remember, I really felt a sense of purpose, of direction. I was invigorated, fearless, brimming with optimism.

Long story short, I eventually realized I was in a rut, and made a violent break with my then-present life. I relocated to a new city, haven't seen or spoken to any of my old friends since, for various reasons. Got rid of old habits and distracting influences (drugs, porn, facebook etc). Made attempts at developing structure in my everyday life, which worked rather less well than more, but still. Was getting ready to start school again (I dropped out of high school).

I started school in August, and past insecurities and fears have come back to hit me at full force. People reach out to me, and I push them away. I try to reach out to others, and I block myself. Every way I wanted this to be different, every way it is the same.

I can rationally observe my behavior in a new light, it is true, but it seems pointless. I continue to revert back to old patterns, sensing hostility everywhere, shielding myself. I have so much love to give, so incapable of giving it.

Even if I were to gain a connection, what do I have to give? What I really thought was me turned out false, I had to completely rethink everything up to that point. I don't know where I am, what I am. My life looks to me only a stream of failures and missed opportunities. I'm not skilled at anything, have no knowledge to speak of, nothing to show for all my years. My words and expressions feel forced, dishonest, merely masking emptiness.

This sense of empowerment that I felt, this conviction that I was on the right track, I can't find it anymore. I feel like I have been wandering in a dream, and this is me waking up. Was this all a trick I played on myself, trying to forget the painful reality of my situation?

Such high hopes I had for this. How I believed in it. How far away it all seems.

I feel so alone. So powerless.

Love is the law, love under will.