In search of the praeternatural
In The HGA as an individual, we touched on the difficulties involved in assessing communications from the “Holy Guardian Angel”, however one defines that. In this entry, we will look more closely at the idea of the “external praeternatural being” theory.
In his Confessions, Aleister Crowley writes the following:
To return the the general question of religion. The fundamental problem has never been explicitly stated. We know that all religions, without exception, have broken down at the first test. The claim of religion is to complete, and (incidentally) to reverse, the conclusions of reason by means of a direct communication from some intelligence superior in kind to that of any incarnate human being.
The theory as to the “truth value” of any religion is simple; human reason is imperfect, and cannot currently – and maybe never can – answer the kinds of fundamental questions we put to it. Therefore the solution is to receive a communication from a kind of being who can answer such questions, or who can at least provide us with some guidance based on such answers, even if we cannot directly comprehend the answers themselves. This is a similar line of reasoning that he employed when making the following statement in Magick Without Tears that we also quoted in The HGA as an individual:
My observation of the Universe convinces me that there are beings of intelligence and power of a far higher quality than anything we can conceive of as human; that they are not necessarily based on the cerebral and nervous structures that we know; and that the one and only chance for mankind to advance as a whole is for individuals to make contact with such Beings.
Once more we see the implicit idea that such “Beings” possess knowledge that we either do not or cannot, that we “need” such knowledge, and that the only way – at least currently – to obtain that knowledge is to receive it from such “Beings”.
Clearly, there is no evidence for the existence of such beings, subjective, personal, experiential “evidence” being unworthy of the term. However, it is not unreasonable to suppose that beings more “advanced” than us – maybe extremely more advanced – may exist somewhere in the universe. After all, mankind today would seem almost impossibly more advanced as compared to the average man as little as two hundred years ago, right here on earth.
Leaving aside for the moment the possibility of contacting such beings, if they exist, it will be instructive to look at the underlying assumption behind these ideas. Firstly, it certainly does not follow that just because a being is more “advanced”, that they have the answers to the questions that we are looking for. As we just mentioned, mankind has advanced significantly on earth over recent years, yet we are still no closer to answering fundamental questions of existence than we were then. Indeed, we are still no closer to understanding whether or not such questions are even capable of being answered. There is no reason to suspect, therefore, that contact with such beings would represent a “chance for mankind to advance as a whole”, except maybe technologically.
Even if it were true that such beings were capable of answering these fundamental questions, it does not follow that they – at least not all of them – can actually do so. For instance, mankind today is capable of answering some questions as to the early history of the universe – even though that understanding is far from being complete, or even substantially complete – yet there still exist many people who, if asked, will express a belief that “God” created the world in six days and then planted dinosaur bones in the ground to make it appear as if it had existed for much longer. Clearly, advances in understanding and knowledge are no antidote to simple idiocy.
This leads us to another problem; even if we accepted that it was, on rare occasion, possible to contact one of these beings, how could we be sure that we weren’t speaking to one of the creationists of the “praeternatural community”? After all, if there are a large number of such beings, but human contact with them is rare, it may well be because they simply are not inclined to communicate with us lesser beings, and that the ones who do are motivated from an inability to convince their peers to take their ridiculous ideas even remotely seriously. Beings such as “Aiwass” may in fact be the laughing stock of the “praeternatural community”, driven to communicating his foolish views to us base humans because we represent the only chance he has of getting someone to take him seriously for once. One is inclined to draw a comparison between this type of being and the type of aged “rebellious” 40 year old human who is compelled to spend most of his time with teenagers, being unable to find any friends his own age who don’t treat him with the contempt and the ridicule he deserves. This idea is reinforced when we consider the type of person these beings are often purported to contact; gullible, credulous “abductees” on the one hand, to pimply schoolboy fantasists who seriously think that they are attracting the attention and respect of impossibly advanced creatures by drawing imaginary pentagrams in the air, concentrating seriously on their “Muladhara Chakra” with the intensity of one inflicted by constipation, and vigorously “constraining the spirit to appear” in a pompous and self-important tone of voice. One is forced to wonder where anybody could get the idea that a being capable of being impressed and enticed to appearance by such embarrassing and self-evidently ridiculous antics could possibly be a being worth listening to in the first place.
Indeed, the common notions of the Christian “God” echo this theme, that creature of popular fiction seemingly to suffer from a bizarre compulsion to have everybody “worship” him. There is no reason at all to suspect that such a “God” – even if he did create the universe – is either intelligent, sane or benevolent. The problems with the “divine command” theory of morality – are things “right” because God commands them, rendering the concept of “right” utterly meaningless, or does God command things because they are “right”, implying that morality is something existing separately from God and not arising from him – are well known. For “right” to have any meaning we have to assume it to exist separately from the creator himself, which apart from being logically inconsistent, results in the stark possibility of God himself being an “immoral” creature (this certainly appears to be the case from a brief perusal of the Bible, for instance) and that therefore humans may sometimes have a moral imperative to disobey him.
Once more, just because information, guidance or commands come from a creature impossibly more advanced than us, that in no way guarantees that the information is accurate, that the guidance is sound, or that the command should be obeyed. Indeed, if we examine the paltry and ineffectual results of the so-called “communications” with such beings that some people claim to have received, we are struck by a remarkably consistent and striking theme: the utter worthlessness and puerility of the “received” messages themselves. If this is all such beings have to offer, then they are welcome to keep it.
Furthermore, even if we do assume that such a being possesses the knowledge that is imputed to it, there is no reason to suspect that it must necessarily desire to communicate that to us. Again, we can observe this happening right here on Earth. Governments routinely suppress information from the population “for their own good”. Parents, far more “advanced” than their children, routinely fill their children’s heads with stories from Jesus, to Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the stork, all in the interests of prolonging their childhood and “letting them be little”, before they are forced to worry about small things like facts. If such beings impossibly more advanced than us exist, they may have similar motivations, and may in fact be feeding us a complete pack of lies precisely to keep us in the dark.
All this suggests that the idea of information being valuable and correct simply because it came from a more advanced being is utterly foolish, and that if such beings exist, far from it being the “one and only chance for mankind to advance as a whole” to converse with such beings, it may in fact be necessary to challenge, contradict and disobey such beings. Again, even in the most extreme case of the creator god, the fact that he is a creator god does not for a moment imply that his communications are wise, or that his instructions should be followed. Mankind can forge and create a sword, but it cannot tell an iron molecule the reason for its existence; the “fact” that a God created the universe does not even remotely imply that such a God has these kind of answers, or indeed that he has any answers at all, and it certainly doesn’t imply that his motives towards us are benign.
Thus it turns out that the “fundamental problem of religion” does not lie in proving the existence of such beings at all, because we can see that such a proof contributes nothing towards the motivations for religion, to the search for truth. The very fact that a communication comes from a more advanced being means it should be treated with the utmost skepticism, since a more advanced being would possess far more sophisticated means of misleading us, just at the Christian missionaries possessed sophisticated means of hoodwinking poor natives into converting to the blatant falsehoods of Christianity. Once again we see these occultists who, whilst insistent that they are seeking “truth through experience”, are in fact acting to demonstrate that they are really interested in faith and the suspension of reality.
Those who search for such beings are, therefore, motivated by nothing other than a desire to be commanded, a desire to relinquish responsibility and to follow the orders of a more powerful being. Viewed from this light, the idea that some people equate Thelema – a system devoted to discovering the individual will – with contacting such extraterrestrials to obtain instructions reveals the sheer magnitude of their stupidity. The search for “hidden masters” of any kind represents an abrogation of will, not a fulfillment of it.
13 Comments on “In search of the praeternatural”
How can you be an 8=3 if you’ve never been in touch with the Secret Chiefs? Impossible.
How can you be an 8=3 if you’ve never been in touch with the Secret Chiefs? Impossible.
I could answer this one for you, but you’d have to be an 8=3 to understand it. Sorry!
I am, but only part-time. I will therefore look at your answer when I’m in my 8=3 mood.
I am, but only part-time. I will therefore look at your answer when I’m in my 8=3 mood.
Right-o. Since the answer will be readily apparent to you when you’re in your “8=3 mood”, I won’t trouble the rest of your being by actually giving it to you.
Suit yourself. Don’t count on any promotions until you show us the warez, though.
Suit yourself. Don’t count on any promotions until you show us the warez, though.
In the event that I need you to promote me, you can rest assured that you’ll be the first to know.
I hope this isn’t too removed from the topic of this post, but listening to the two of you banter back and forth a little about 8=3 and such, I was wondering if since both topics touch on the idea of “communication” if that “communication” could be something as simple as the “self” but as a deeper aspect of itself.
To put it another way, some say that Tiphareth represents the “KCHGA.” There are several more sephira after that one though. Isn’t there a point where the “self” (or Will) becomes as unreal and/or transparent as the mind and seen, like the mind, as a mere tool to aid? Thinking along these lines, wouldn’t it make sense to think that at some point this “self” or “individual” would cease expression as an “individual” and exist more along the lines of something as perhaps “collective,” and that in some way this accounts for so-called “communication?”
I hope this isn’t too removed from the topic of this post
Certainly not. “Directly related to” a topic would include development of that topic, perhaps in unexpected directions.
Isn’t there a point where the “self” (or Will) becomes as unreal and/or transparent as the mind and seen, like the mind, as a mere tool to aid? Thinking along these lines, wouldn’t it make sense to think that at some point this “self” or “individual” would cease expression as an “individual” and exist more along the lines of something as perhaps “collective,” and that in some way this accounts for so-called “communication?”
Well, certainly at some point “this ‘self’ or ‘individual'” certainly does “cease expression”, due to death if nothing else.
As for the last sentence, though, what is “communication” if not interaction between distinct objects? And, for that matter, what is a “collective” a collection of if not of individuals? For the self to communicate with something, it has to perceive that something as being external to itself, which obviously requires itself to think of itself as being individual. Not really sure where you’re trying to go with this.
When an individual ceases expression as an individual, rather than existing more along the lines of something else, it simply ceases to exist. Individuality is a very tenuous and vague concept, “existing” solely as a construct of the mind. People speak of “annihilating the ego” as if it’s some fantastic other-worldly achievement, but the reality is the ego is only hanging onto its existence by a thread to begin with. The vast majority of stuff people associate with individuality in their minds actually has nothing to do with it.
I am being imprecise with my words again.
The “self” I’m referring to is the “core self” as opposed to the conscious sense of self that we mistake as the “self.” As far as I think I know, that “self” doesn’t cease to exist at all.
The point I’m trying to get at is that shouldn’t there be a point where the “core individuality” becomes as illusory as the mind itself?
Maybe my questions are leaking into topics such as whether the will is eternal, and if that will is itself the expression of something else.
Hopefully I’m making my questions a little clearer.
The “self” I’m referring to is the “core self” as opposed to the conscious sense of self that we mistake as the “self.” As far as I think I know, that “self” doesn’t cease to exist at all.
The point I’m trying to get at is that shouldn’t there be a point where the “core individuality” becomes as illusory as the mind itself?
I don’t think you’re being imprecise with your words; I think I’m probably not being clear enough with my response.
Let’s imagine that we look at a clock and say that it has a will, being to tick every second, to move its hands in a particular way, etc. Then, we look a little deeper, and find out that its made of cogs, springs, hands and everything else. We figure out that the clock doesn’t have a will at all, it just looks like it does, because all these little parts have wills, and the combination of those makes the clock appear to have one.
Then we look deeper still, and find out that those cogs, springs and hands and made up of yet smaller parts, and it is the combinatorial motions of those which make the cogs, springs and hands look like they have a will. And so on.
Which is the thing or things that has or have the wills, here? The answer is that it depends where we draw the boundaries. If we stand back and say that the clock is the thing, then the clock has the will. If we step forward a little, and perceive the individual parts, then it’s those parts that have the will.
The point is when we talk about “individual clock” or “individual cog” we aren’t talking about something that is real. The individuality is a quality attributed to something by the mind. When we say that it is the will of the clock to interact with its environment in a particular way, we are drawing an arbitrary boundary between “clock” and “not-clock” and saying that is where the interaction is occurring, and that is where the will resides. There is nothing out there in reality which requires such a boundary to be in any particular place.
It’s the same thing with the “core self”. The core self only “exists”, and only appears to have a “will”, because that’s how the mind is perceiving things. The “core self” may well consist of real “stuff” existing out there in the universe, but its core individuality is not “real”; it’s imaginary, it’s a quality ascribed to it by an observer.
Thus we talk about the “true will” being the dynamic aspect of the “core self”, and we exclude from that “core self” the “wills” of, say, the liver, the hair, the skin, and most importantly of all, the mind itself. Why should we define the “core self” in this way? Because that’s how we’re choosing to perceive it, because we are capable of perceiving something underneath the body and the mind which appears to exist apart from them, although not separately from them.
But, there is no reason to stop at this something. We can go further and perceive that that “core self” doesn’t really exist either, that even that is just a boundary we choose to draw for convenience. At this point the “‘core individualty’ becomes as illusory as the mind itself”, or, more accurately, becomes perceived as being illusory, and we have “annihilated the ego”. Everything exists as it does before, we can still perceive the same things, but we are just no longer drawing the boundaries in the same way that we did before; we no longer perceive the “self” as anything but an arbitrary boundary we have drawn for our own convenience, and hence we cease to give any credibility to the interests it appears to have. Yet, for all that, the physical reality inside the boundary we were previously drawing remains there, and the 8=3, being not individual, has no reason to interfere with that.
Hence when the boundary of the self “ceases expression”, it doesn’t expand to encompass some larger “collective”, but contracts into nothing at all.
That made sense to me, particularly the part about “contracts into nothing at all.” There’s a part of me screaming “Duh” at this point wondering why I bothered with notions of “collectivity” at all.
“There’s a part of me screaming “Duh” at this point wondering why I bothered with notions of “collectivity” at all.”
Possibly because it’s much more comforting to imagine becoming part of something “greater” than to imagine completely disappearing into nothing. If we believe we become part of a collective, we can tell ourselves that *something* of the self remains, even if not our individuality, which on a certain level allows us to cling to that sense of individuality. Plus it leads to other comforting ideas, like the possibility of reincarnation, of some kind of ‘akashic record’ or whatnot, of spirits and non-corporeal entities, and all the other beliefs Erwin picked apart above.
Contracting into nothing at all closes the door on lots of fantastical ideas that are somewhat accepted -or at least accepted as a possibility- among most people into magick. So then we’re challenged with “well if you don’t believe X, how can you practice magick?” So I think we tend to leave the door open on certain ideas, even if they don’t make sense to us, because we believe on some level that if we don’t accept the possibility of X we then must drop everything else too.
So I think we tend to leave the door open on certain ideas, even if they don’t make sense to us
Not directly related to this thread, but I think it’s important to distinguish between “open-minded” and “credulous”. There appears to be a culture of promoting ignorance amongst occultists, these days. You hear things like “isn’t it better to just admit that we don’t ‘know’ anything?” and people paranoically describing their comments as “only opinions” as if that somehow makes their wild and specious claims any more acceptable or exempt from criticism.
The time for being ‘open-minded’ is when we have no other sensible choice. For instance, the theories of quantum mechanics and general relatively have both been experimentally verified to almost unimaginable accuracy, but they are known to be inconsistent. Past experience suggests that it is likely that a theory reconciling them can be determined, but precisely what that theory is, nobody knows. Therefore one is compelled to be “open-minded” about it, and nobody with any sense seriously claims that they have the answer yet.
It is not sensible to be “open-minded” with regards to bizarre and random hypotheses which fly in the face of just about everything we think we know about the universe, just because it cannot be “proven false”. This is credulity, not open-mindedness.
I think this promotion of a culture of ignorance is precisely encouraged in order to avoid any possibility of criticism, and in order to avoid having to admit that one’s pet beliefs are false. It’s conceptually no different from the outcry when the Bible was first translated into English; the established church simply felt horror at the idea that individual people could look at the Bible themselves and figure out what an utter pile of horseshit they were being fed.
Occultism, dealing as it does with the concealment of facts, is fundamentally threatened by skeptical inquiry and the advancement of knowledge, and so there is a natural tendency for occultists to dress their claims up as “opinions”, or “gnosis”, or anything else that can be argued to be something other than a factual claim, because when subjected to skeptical inquiry the fundamental beliefs – properly so-called – of occultism topple like a house of cards, every single time. The acceptance and promotion of ignorance is, to put it simply, an essential quality of the occultist.