Hairetikos: So I’m curious to know what other Thelemites think about this. Is television antithetical to the discovery of your Will?

I don’t care, but I’m going to hijack your topic, in an attempt to get some sort of substantive technical discussion going.

The concept of will, or the “true” will, is obviously fundamental to Thelema. It should come as a bit of a surprise, therefore, to reflect that there is very little — if any — substantive discussion or analysis as to what true will actually is. The lack of such an understanding is completely fatal to any attempt to implement Thelema on any level whatsoever.

There are a variety of possible definitions which are true on their own plane.

1. The true will of an individual is defined by what he actually does. Under this definition, whatever the individual does is by definition, and by necessity, his true will. The fact that he has done something — and by implication has not done everything else — is what makes it “true”.

“If a man like Napoleon were actually appointed by destiny to control Europe, he should not be blamed for exercising his rights. To oppose him would be an error.” — Magick in Theory and Practice — Introduction

“There are much deeper considerations in which it appears that ‘Everything that is, is right’. They are set forth elsewhere; we can only summarise them here by saying that the survival of the fittest is their upshot.” — Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter I

“‘Slay that innocent child?’ (I hear the ignorant say) ‘What a horror!’ ‘Ah!’ replies the Knower, with foresight of history, ‘but that child will become Nero. Hasten to strangle him!’ There is a third, above these, who understands that Nero was as necessary as Julius Caesar.” — Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter XXI

The truth of this definition is practically impossible to deny. If we are to discuss “right” (as in, “thou hast no right but to do thy will”) then its only sensible meaning can be equated with “ability”. All talk of “natural rights” outside of this context is arbitrary, and contains no truth value. Thus, if one has the ability to do something, one has the right to do it. Ability is only ultimately confirmed by manifestation, and is the only reliable arbiter of “truth”. Read the rest of this post »

Aum418: All this thinking about what Thelema IS might be considered the fall of Because.

Depends what you mean by “thinking about”.

These folks who ask “is such-and-such an act ‘Thelemic’?”, presumably with a view to providing an answer to the question “should I, as a Thelemite, therefore do and/or support such a thing?” are not only missing the boat, they got lost on the way to the ocean. If it was “Do what the Book of the Law says shall be the whole of the Law”, it would say so.

This, I think, is the real meaning behind the comment. To “discuss the contents of this Book”, or to attempt to form a consensus as to what is “right action” according to the Book, to attempt to form a moral code based upon it, is the polar opposite of what the Book actually exhorts, and any who attempt to do this should rightly be “shunned by all, as centres of pestilence”. From Crowley’s commentaries on II:28 (before Regardie’s incompetent hack-job):

“There are no ‘standards of Right.’ Ethics is balderdash. Each Star must go on its orbit. To hell with ‘moral Principle;’ there is no such thing; that is a herd-delusion, and makes men cattle. Do not listen to the rational explanation of How Right It All Is, in the newspapers.”

From the same comment, with regards to a previous discussion on “Karma” in the Book of the Law and to your comment on “because” above:

“We may moreover consider ‘Because’ as involving the idea of causality, and therefore of duality. If cause and effect are really inseparable, as they must be by definition, it is mere clumsiness to regard them as separate; they are two aspects of one single idea, conceived as consecutive for the sake of (apparent) convenience, or for the general purpose previously indicated of understanding and expressing ourselves in finite terms. Shallow indeed is the obvious objection to this passage that the Book of the Law itself is full of phrases which imply causality. Nobody denies that causality is a category of the mind, a form of condition of thought which, if not quite a theoretical necessity, is yet inevitable in practice. The very idea of any relation between any two things appears as causal. Even should we declare it to be causal, our minds would still insist that causality itself was the effect of some cause. Our daily experience hammers home this conviction; and a man’s mental excellence seems to be measurable almost entirely in terms of the strength and depth of his appreciation thereof as the soul of the structure of the Universe.”

Despite popular misconception, there is no hint in the Book that one “should not interfere with others” — only that one should not interfere with others (or anything) if it is not one’s true will to do so. If the world were to accept Thelema tomorrow, it would not end conflict — stars and entire galaxies do indeed clash and collide, the implication being that it is their will to do so. We may, of course, reasonably assume there will be less conflict if one strictly mind’s one’s own business, but it will not eliminate it. To think that Thelema requires some form of noble altruism, or non-aggression, is a mistake. This idea of morality, this idea that we “should” do this because it is “right” or that we “should not” do that because it is “wrong” is meaningless jabber. Moral statements have no truth value, and to base action upon them is to “fall down into the pit called Because”. Read the rest of this post »

Aum418: I think that there is a lot of ‘arguing’ on the subject of the HGA. A lot of over-thinking, over-analyzing, over-intellectualization. The best way would be to see for yourself.

This all sounds good and virtuous, but the problem with it is that if you send a man to go see Mount Rushmore when he doesn’t know what it looks like, he may well end up at Mount Rainier and think he’s there, and spend the rest of his life sitting around thinking what a great navigator he is. Similarly, a man doesn’t learn to build a suspension bridge by going to see one for himself. Why, then, when we talk about “spiritual” matters, does it all suddenly become so different?

The whole point of having the occult/spirituality/religion/whatever as a field of study is so people don’t have to find out by trial and error what it’s all about every time. Why else would the market for occult books be so healthy?

The important thing to remember is that the HGA is not real — it is a term representing something else which is real. It is this “something else”, this real thing, which people need to focus on if they are interested in pursuing this subject. And this highlights the need for analysis in this area — there is a lot of flowery gobbledigook spoken about the “HGA”, but there is little indication that more than a tiny minority have any clear idea about what it actually is, and this is exactly what needs to be communicated. All this talk about KCHGA being too “personal” to discuss in this manner is just that, talk. It’s just a convenient excuse for folks who don’t know much about the subject to blather on about it and pretend that they do. It’s a symptom of intellectual laziness, and it’s a symptom of fear, a fear of moving out of a soothing, witchypoo comfort zone and actually getting into the reality of the matter, actually facing up to the task itself. People may comfort themselves that they do four hours of asana or multiple repetitions of the LBRP every day, but if they are not facing up to the reality of what their task actually is then all that work is just an energetic running away from the issue for the sake of maintaining a form of glamour, in exactly the same way that merely talking about it is. This is exactly the kind of misinterpretation that KCHGA resolves, so any amount of work done with this attitude will serve only to perpetuate the illusion, and a significant number of “occultists” are always quite happy to indulge in that. People need to decide what side of that divide they want to be on if they are to have any hope of real success.

Nobody can learn to fly from reading a book, but they can learn what they need to go out and do, they can learn what they need to be working at, and they can learn to recognise signs of success as well as signs of failure. Similarly, nobody achieves KCHGA by discussing it, but as in any other field of study the process of communicating pertinent facts about it can, for instance, turn a 1,000 year task into a 5 year one. People have been there and done it, in the same real world that everyone else lives in. The clarity of the map such people have laid down may be a long way from perfect, but to discard it in favour of maintaining a comforting illusion and avoiding facing up to the reality of task is certainly an attractive option, but it is not the path of wisdom in the “occult” arena any more than it is in any other.

Most people who approach what, for the sake of convenience, I will call “spiritual development”, do so because they are unsatisfied with the way things are now, and they do so in the hope that they will be able to change things into a state that they are happy with, whether that is an actual change in their environment, or a change in their capacity to cope with their environment.

I think I might have said this here before, but then again, I might have dreamt it, so I’ll say it anyway. The child thinks “if only I have this, or that, then I’ll be happy”. Everybody’s done it when they were a kid — “if you get me this, mom, I’ll never ask for anything again.” Most people with an ounce of sense see through this strategy pretty quickly, and get over it. Then they move away from a focus on stuff, towards a focus on what they do — “if only I was able to work for myself, or find the perfect spouse, or was able to live in the country, then I’d be happy”. A lot of people stop here, andspend the rest of their lives chasing that kind of stuff. Other people, some of them inclined towards a spiritual path, start thinking they’re pretty clever, moving to “if only I was able to shed myself of the need for this kind of stuff at all, if I could get rid of desire, if I could attain, then I’d be happy”. And that’s why a lot of people meditate, because they think it will help them change themselves, they think it will help them get to a state where they can “transcend” these sorts of desires, or to a state where they can focus on what is “really” important, whatever that might be.

All these things are identical. They all come back to the little kid, crying to his mommy, “I just want this, and then I’ll be happy”. It’s all symptomatic of a desire to change the way things are now into something that is better, and if you meditate with the idea that it is work, and that you should do work, because that’s how you attain, and you should attain, that’s exactly what you are doing, striving for something else, because you think that something else is going to be better than what there is now. “Spiritual development” is just a replacement for the toy car, or the new house, or the better job, except it has the distinct advantage that the practitioner can quote any number of “ancient texts” to happily convince himself that it is unattainable, thereby cunningly avoiding having to face up to reality, which is what he would have to do if he ever figured out that this idea of “spiritual development” helping him was as illusory as his childhood idea of his toy car making him happy. Read the rest of this post »

“Divination”, according to American Heritage, is “the art or act of foretelling future events or revealing occult knowledge by means of augury or an alleged supernatural agency.” Almost all current and ancient systems of magick stress the importance of divination, and rightly so. This essay will examine the theories on which divination does — or is purported to — operate, and discuss the value that it has for the practitioner. We will restrict our discussion to those forms of divination in which the symbols are manipulated by the magician (such as the tarot, the I Ching, and geomancy) as opposed to those in which the magician is purely passive in the production of the symbols (such as necromancy, astrology and augury).

In terms of “foretelling future events”, the various operational theories of divination can be classed into three broad categories:

1. An agency — either external or internal to the magician — with both a knowledge of the divinatory system being used and a knowledge of future events, is able to influence the movements of the magician into manipulating the symbols so as to produce — according to the rules of the art — a symbolic representation of those future events;
2. An agency — either external or internal to the magician — with both a knowledge of the divinatory system being used and a knowledge of present events or the hidden causes behind them, is able to influence the movements of the magician into manipulating the symbols so as to produce — according to the rules of the art — a symbolic representation of those future events or causes, and the magician is then able to infer future outcomes from this knowledge; and
3. The layout of the symbols is based purely on chance, and is unrelated to either present or future events.

The theory of the agency with a knowledge of future events is the most “traditional”. As Crowley writes in Magick in Theory and Practice:

The theory of any process of divination may be stated in a few simple terms.

1. We postulate the existence of intelligences, either within or without the diviner, of which he is not immediately conscious. (It does not matter to the theory whether the communicating spirit so-called is an objective entity or a concealed portion of the diviner’s mind.) We assume that such intelligences are able to reply correctly — within limits — to the questions asked.
2. We postulate that it is possible to construct a compendium of hieroglyphs sufficiently elastic in meaning to include every possible idea, and that one or more of these may always be taken to represent any idea. We assume that any of these hieroglyphics will be understood by the intelligences with whom we wish to communicate in the same sense as it is by ourselves. We have therefore a sort of language. One may compare it to a “lingua franca” which is perhaps defective in expressing fine shades of meaning, and so is unsuitable for literature, but which yet serves for the conduct of daily affairs in places where many tongues are spoken. Hindustani is an example of this. But better still is the analogy between the conventional signs and symbols employed by mathematicians, who can thus convey their ideas perfectly without speaking a word of each other’s languages.
3. We postulate that the intelligences whom wish to consult are willing, or may be compelled, to answer us truthfully.

The theory of the external agency with knowledge of future events is fraught with the most insuperable difficulties, most of which should be familiar. Firstly, of course, there is no reliable evidence whatsoever of the type of entity whose existence is being postulated. The world is full of stories of gods, angels, goblins, fairies, gnomes and spirits, yet never has any convincing evidence of their existence been found. Whilst we cannot state with confidence that they do not exist, we may consider their existence to be so unlikely as to make placing any weight or reliance on their supposed communications exceedingly unwise. Read the rest of this post »

Another one.

> > “He [the HGA] is not, let me say with emphasis, a mere abstraction from
> > yourself; and that is why I have insisted rather heavily that the term
> > ‘Higher Self’ implies ‘a damnable heresy and a dangerous delusion.’

> > “If it were not so, there would be no point in ‘The Sacred Magic of
> > Abramelin the Mage.’

> > “Apart from any theoretical speculation, my Sammasati and analytical
> > work has never led to so much as a hint of the existence of the
> > Guardian Angel. He is not to be found by any exploration of oneself.”

> It would be helpful to provide the source of your quote from Crowley.

“Magick Without Tears”

> I
> was under the impression that Crowley thought that Aiwass was his HGA,
> is this correct

He said a variety of things along those lines, the popular quotes
being:

“I now inclined to believe that Aiwass is not only the God or Demon or
Devil once held holy in Sumer, and mine own Guradian Angel, but also a
man as I am, insofar as He uses a human body to make His magical link
with Mankind, whom He loves, and that He is thus an Ipsissimus, the
Head of the A.’.A.’.”

as well as:

“I lay claim to be the sole authority competent to decide disputed
points with regard to The Book of the Law, seeing that its Author,
Aiwaz, is none other than mine own Holy Guardian Angel, to Whose
Knowledge and Conversation I have attained, so that I have exclusive
access to Him.”

both from Equinox of the Gods. Read the rest of this post »

Another old post that deserves reprinting.

Absorbed wrote:
> I’d like to discuss various manifestations of fear.
> The first I will describe as a job interview. Let’s say someone is
> going to a job interview and is an extremely nervous person. What
> methods could he use to maintain calm during the interview itself? My
> own personal method for this type of situation is visualising myself
> acting confidently, or having a lengthy discussion with myself in my
> journal before the situation, but I am interested in other methods.

This is a good question.

There are two real approaches to this. One is what you could call the
John Basedow approach, which is pretty much what you are describing.
This approach basically assumes that fear is something that affects
you, and is therefore something that you have to overcome. The two
methods you describe rely on this being the case. The main benefit of
this approach is that it does not require a lot of preparation.

The other is what you could call a magical approach. The real problem
with fear is that it makes you perceive things that are not there; it
makes you pay attention to what is in your head rather than what is
real. The example of a job interview is a good example of this. To put
it simply, fear evolved to make people run away from lions (more
correctly, people who ran away from lions were more likely to survive
than those who didn’t). Unless said job interview is your last chance
to save yourself from starving to death, there is no earthly reason
whatsoever to feel the slightest fear. The actual facts are that there
is very little difference between talking to a potential employer at a
job interview, and talking to your brother down the pub. The two
situations are almost identical. It should be easy for most people to
appreciate that when you are 72, retired, and sipping wine on a warm
sunny evening on your back porch, the idea of being frightened in so
small a matter as a job interview you had 50 years ago will seem
amazingly silly. Read the rest of this post »

The Qabalistic Cross (QC) is a simple ritual with two ends in mind:

1. To expand the magician’s sphere of consciousness; and
2. To bring down the divine light.

We shall examine what both of these mean below. Much has already been written about the QC, so we will not reinvent the wheel here. We shall outline the basic procedure, and then describe the essential points.

To perform the Qabalistic Cross:

1. Stand facing the East, where the sun rises
2. Touch the index finger to the forehead and say “Eheieh”
3. Touch the index finger to the solar plexus and say “’Malkuth”
4. Touch the index finger to the left shoulder and say “ve Geburah”
5. Touch the index finger to the right shoulder and say “ve Gedulah”
6. Clasp the fingers together and hold the hands to the center of the chest, and say “le olahm amen”
7. Touch the index finger to the closed lips

The aspirant should take some time to practice this. It is important in the beginning to actually stand, actually move the hands, and actually say the words out loud. As proficiency is gained the entire procedure can be performed mentally, but the aspirant should not rush to do this; he is looking to make a definite change, and this is best achieved by involving as many parts of his being as possible, by performing actions he would not usually perform, by entering into the spirit of things.

Once mechanical proficiency has been obtained, and the procedure committed to memory, the aspirant can begin refining the process. The first refinement relates to the way in which the words are spoken. Tradition has it that the words should not be merely enunciated, but vibrated. This is a practice which is difficult to describe, but actually simple to discover for one’s self with a little practice. The aspirant should experiment with changing the tone of his voice until he finds a note which causes his body to vibrate. This note may be higher or lower than his normal speaking voice. He is looking for a sonorous quality which, if done effectively, should cause him to shiver, and “shake him to his marrow.” In reality, the physical effect will not be quite so dramatic as this, but it should give the aspirant an idea of what he is aiming for. With a little trial and error, he should have little difficulty finding an effective tone. The words should be pronounced slowly and evenly, each syllable taking the same amount of time. In the beginnings of his practice, the aspirant may wish to vibrate each word more than once before moving on.

Once this is achieved, the aspirant should use his imagination to direct the vibration, so that he is able to make individual parts of his body vibrate when he speaks. The relevant parts are the crown of the head, the feet, the left and right shoulders, and the center of the chest. The reason behind this will become clear shortly. Read the rest of this post »

I have added a “resources” section to the web site this weekend. This is intended to house interactive tools, learning and practice applications, information and correspondence tables, other reference material, any anything else along those lines.

Already added are:

• A live tool to simulate a random I Ching divination. All calculations are shown, enabling a beginner to see easily how to create one. In addition, the full results are shown, so a more experienced reader could obtain an “I Ching divination of the day” with this tool. He could get a different divination every three seconds, for that matter.
• An identical tool to simulate a random geomancy divination. Geomancy is an oft-neglected art (for good reason, some may argue) so this may prove to be of interest.
• Tables and notes detailing the Signs of the Zodiac and their decans along with the astrological Houses of Heaven.

This section will be progressively added to. Any suggestions will be given due consideration.

The Negative Veils

The Tree of Life exists within the negative veils, so called because they necessarily hide whatever is behind them, being not in existence. The outer veil is Ain, “nothing”, and represents nothing in its most positive form. Ain is the absence even of space. The next inner veil, Ain Soph, is “limitless”, and represents infinite space, pure emptiness. The innermost veil is Ain Soph Aur, “limitless light”, and represents infinite space with the potential for creation. In order for something to come out of nothing — which we explain in the next section — there must somehow be the potential for it, even though there is quite literally nothing there.

The fact these these are termed “veils” suggests that — in our current state of knowledge at least — we cannot penetrate them, that we cannot explain the mystery of something arising from nothing. Yet it should be clear that it is nothing, and not one, that is the source of creation. This error has been made by all the monotheistic religions. One cannot be subdivided into creation, because it must by definition already contain everything. It cannot be expanded into creation, because if it was so capable then it could not be all encompassing, and therefore would not be one. It cannot be changed into existence, because being one, it has no qualities, no characteristics. One is not a suitable basis for creation therefore, and zero is the only sensible interpretation. The fact that the ancient tribes (including the Jews) had no number for zero may go some way towards explaining their lack of insight into this matter.

The “big bang” theory also supports this position, the “singularity” referring to Kether and the negative veils being the mystery as to where this singularity came from. The idea of a singularity therefore, when carried back far enough, suggests an “infinitely small” point which, being so infinitely small, cannot be said to exist, and the theory therefore implies that the singularity originated from nothing. If the singularity contained the seeds of creation in itself, then because one has no qualities this is equally as inexplicable as the idea that it came from nothing. In addition, the idea the space curves around a mass suggests the possibility of a universe with no space at all. Indeed, this is required in the case of a single singularity; as well as all the matter and energy, all the space in the universe is also contained within the singularity, its infinitely strong gravitational field containing it in an infinitely small point, and space only comes into being once the singularity begins to expand. We also have the idea of multiple universes which must always be separate; if each of these universes contains its own space, then there is necessarily no space “between” them (“between” naturally ceases to have much meaning in such a case) and hence no way to get from one to the other as there is no medium through which we can travel. We would have to escape the space in our own universe, as well as figure out how to traverse the “nothingness” shielding the other one, before such travel could be possible. Thus the idea of Kether can represent the crystallization of multiple universes from one principle of Ain, the lack even of space. Ain Soph, limitless, applies to our own universe, but will be different for any other universes; Ain, however, will be common to all. This suggests ancient understanding that even empty space had to be created, which is remarkable given that only now are we ourselves coming to this same conclusion. It also suggests that either we may have been a little harsh in our criticism at the end of the previous paragraph or, as is rather more likely, that the idea of the negative veils may be a relatively modern invention.

Ain Soph Aur, the “limitless light”, therefore, is the seed of the singularity once the empty space has been created. This does not contradict our previous statement that empty space only comes into being with the expansion of the singularity; it is the “principle” of empty space that is created here, for once the singularity begins to expand the expansion of empty space must always precede it, or else there will be nothing in which to contain the expanding matter. Empty space must be there before the singularity becomes anything other than infinitely small, i.e. its first appearance must be preceded by the creation of empty space, its first appearance is indeed the beginning of its expansion. This is further confirmation that the singularity does indeed come out of nothing. We cannot conceive of a existing singularity, infinitely small, beginning to expand; we must instead conceive of expansion occurring from zero. The best way to think of this is a cone; a cone does indeed taper to a point, but it does not stop there. It continues to taper until even the point does not exist, i.e. it tapers all the way to nothingness. In the same way, a “cone of existence” does not expand from a point, it ultimately expands outwards from nothing. Read the rest of this post »