Franz Bardon questions
aikeena
> IMO, no. That depends to a degree on what you're already familiar with,
> though. Personally, I wouldn't buy anymore of Bardon's books. I think I
> have "Initiation to Hermetics" stuck in a box somewhere. I've never had
> reason to reference it since I initially read it some time ago.
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Tzimon Yliaster
In his book, he mentions that the accomplishment of many feats which are
nowadays often considered improbable or impossible that ought to be
possible for anyone to accomplish. Do you think he was serious in his
claims, and do you think that it is possible and feasible to be able to
perform these feats as he outlines them?
nguyen
Black Dragon
Franz Bardon. The reviews I read of it on Amazon.com tend to state that
it's better than all the other Magick books read, and that these are the
only Magick books you need. I'm curious as to what people here who've
read Franz think of his books in terms of quality. How do Franz Bardon's
books compare to those of Crowley, Regardie, Kraig, and other Magickians?
Is there any reason why I should buy any of these four books if I already
have books explaining Magick by Crowley and D.M. Kraig? I'm wondering if
there's anything that makes these books stand above the rest that makes
them worth buying if these other Magick books are already possessed.
I'm also curious as to peoples' opinions as to books such as "Seven
Hermetic Letters" by Georg Lomer and the books of Jakob Lorber. Thank you
for your responses.
Apsaras
Black Dragon wrote in message ...
>Greets! I'm thinking of buying a few books by a Magickian by the name of
>Franz Bardon. The reviews I read of it on Amazon.com tend to state that
>it's better than all the other Magick books read, and that these are the
>only Magick books you need. I'm curious as to what people here who've
>read Franz think of his books in terms of quality.
They're OK. Personally, I find reading Bardon a lot like reading a
cookbook. I would *definitely* disagree that they're the "only books you
need." I doubt even Bardon would have agreed with that.
>How do Franz Bardon's
>books compare to those of Crowley, Regardie, Kraig, and other Magickians?
His are, to my mind, the most boring read of the lot, at least amongst "big
name" authors on magick.
>Is there any reason why I should buy any of these four books if I already
>have books explaining Magick by Crowley and D.M. Kraig?
There's no reason that you should buy them, and no reason that you
shouldn't. Every author gives a different viewpoint, so it's a matter of
whether or not you'll find the books useful. Not knowing you, I couldn't
say either way.
>I'm wondering if
>there's anything that makes these books stand above the rest that makes
>them worth buying if these other Magick books are already possessed.
IMO, no. That depends to a degree on what you're already familiar with,
though. Personally, I wouldn't buy anymore of Bardon's books. I think I
have "Initiation to Hermetics" stuck in a box somewhere. I've never had
reason to reference it since I initially read it some time ago.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tzimon Yliaster
Tools of CHAOS
http://www.xiqual.com
PO Box 26362,
San Francisco, CA 94126
Unknown
Dragon) wrote:
>Greets! I'm thinking of buying a few books by a Magickian by the name of
>Franz Bardon. The reviews I read of it on Amazon.com tend to state that
>it's better than all the other Magick books read, and that these are the
>only Magick books you need. I'm curious as to what people here who've
>read Franz think of his books in terms of quality. How do Franz Bardon's
>books compare to those of Crowley, Regardie, Kraig, and other Magickians?
>Is there any reason why I should buy any of these four books if I already
>have books explaining Magick by Crowley and D.M. Kraig? I'm wondering if
>there's anything that makes these books stand above the rest that makes
>them worth buying if these other Magick books are already possessed.
>I'm also curious as to peoples' opinions as to books such as "Seven
>Hermetic Letters" by Georg Lomer and the books of Jakob Lorber. Thank you
>for your responses.
Bardon's books -- especially the first two -- are excellent and any
serious magician should have them. He did adopt an air of
infallibility which is irritating to contemporary readers. Some of
this can be put to bad translation. Essentially Bardon is a program
for the solitary practitioner. He use tantric and raja yoga techniques
on a Western Hermetic framework (good combination). The idea here is
to train yourself to develop astral vision and hearing. Many programs
(Kraig, etc.,) skip over this and emphasize ritual. Bardon is very
short on ritual and long on practice. The problem with Bardon IMO (and
I've used and taught his system for years) is that he tells you what
to do, but not how to do it. Get a good background in raja and tantric
yoga along with a good book on self-hypnosis as ponies while you work
your way through Bardon's *Initiation Into Hermetics*. When you get to
"The Clock" (where most of the magical pussies bail out) e-mail me.
Gnome d' Plume
http://members.aol.com/CHSOTA/welcome.html
Apsaras
Gnome d' Plume wrote in message <383dc28e...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
>Bardon's books -- especially the first two -- are excellent and any
>serious magician should have them.
Unless their not interested in Hermeticism. Or, specifically, in things
like fluid condensor theories and such.
>He use tantric and raja yoga techniques
>on a Western Hermetic framework (good combination).
"Raja yoga" means mastering all yogic disciplines. It's not a discipline
unto itself. His Tantric material is quite shallow, really.
>Get a good background in raja and tantric
>yoga along with a good book on self-hypnosis as ponies while you work
>your way through Bardon's *Initiation Into Hermetics*.
Getting a good background in Tantra will take many years longer than getting
through a book. Or an encyclopedia, for that matter. If you're going to
get a solid footing in Tantra, I suggest focusing on Tantra.
Apsaras
aikeena wrote in message <3839F2...@yahoo.com>...
>In his book, he mentions that the accomplishment of many feats which are
>nowadays often considered improbable or impossible that ought to be
>possible for anyone to accomplish. Do you think he was serious in his
>claims, and do you think that it is possible and feasible to be able to
>perform these feats as he outlines them?
I'm sure he was serious. Honest is another story; I have no way of judging
that unless I decided to dedicate myself to following his examples and find
out for myself. Possible? Sure. Feasible? I don't know.
These questions could be asked about any author of any magick-related work,
though. For myself, I don't worry much about objectivity. My comments were
intended to be directed specifically at his books, not at Bardon himself.
I'm in no position to judge the validity of Bardon's personal experience.
Apsaras
Gnome d' Plume wrote in message <383dee3f...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
>****Then what are you doing on alt.magick?
Well, I've been here for a few years. Old habits are hard to break.
>Magick by the very
>definition of the word is Hermetic.
That rules out a significant number of things that aren't Hermeticism that
have been discussed at great length on this newsgroup over the years.
>I'll wager that your problem with
>Bardon lies in the essential "work, study and practice" method that he
>insists on. What do you do, swallow your enlightenment in pill form?
No, what I do currently is practice Tantra. I "work, study and practice"
every single day. Some days more than others, because there are also
obligations I still have in my life that I need attend to. I have spent the
past two years and change devoted entirely to the study and practice of
Tantra. I don't have a problem with Bardon; I simply critiqued his book.
Bardon's fine if you like that sort of thing, as I mentioned to the person
who initially asked the question.
>Or were you born with a screw loose?****
Nice touch. Why does a simple critique of someone's literary style get you
so worked up?
>****Raja yoga is the yoga of the mind. It partakes of all yogas
>because it is the King of all Yogas. Raja means "king", grasshopper!
Considering that I've spent the past few months working on a translation of
the Bagalamukhi Rahasyam, I was quite aware of what "raja" means. My
Sanskrit is far from flawless, but it gets a little better all the time.
>What you know about raja yoga and tantric yoga could probably be
>summed up in a very few words; one of which would certainly be
>"neophyte."
While I'm no expert, and often feel like a neophyte because I discover new
things in texts and am taught new things by my guru all the time, I do have
some grounding in the subject at this point.
Raja Yoga is called "king" because the practitioner (sadhaka) has mastered
the various forms of yoga, and thus become a king, a master.
My Tantric yoga is good enough to have been accepted by a guru in the line
of Matsyendranath. He's not someone who teaches classes or accepts payment.
However, if you feel like giving me a pop quiz, feel free. I can give you
one as well, if you like.
>When I first encountered Bardon I had a similar uninformed
>impression. After many years of study along Eastern lines I have come
>to appreciate his synthesis more each time I re-read his book. For all
>its failings it is still a masterpiece. Any magical student who
>dismisses it out of hand shows himself to be a beginner or a fool.****
I find Bardon to be dull. Sorry this upsets you so, but it doesn't change
my opinion of his writing. I find his understanding of Tantra to be shallow
based upon my own period of intensive study and practice.
>****In this case you are certainly right. So stop acting like an
>authority and complete the work you now admit you haven't done.
Completing the work of Tantra takes a lifetime. I'm not an authority; I
don't have to be one to have an opinion.
>But
>then what are we to expect from a Chaos magician? (Translate that
>"lazy" magician). The very nature of your philosophy discredits you in
>this argument.****
When I did chaos magick, I did it with much energy and put a great deal into
it. And I got a great deal out of it. Then I took on a new challenge and
learned new things. People who know me may call me many things, but I doubt
that you'd find any of them calling me "lazy".
As I've stated on numerous occasions, I don't do chaos magick anymore. I've
dedicated myself to something else now. Yes, I have a lot to learn. But
I've also learned quite a bit so far. As I said, you're welcome to give me
a quiz if you like. I'm not aware of any way otherwise to determine whether
or not I'm telling the truth about "being lazy". Perhaps I should give
references, eh?
And while it's true that many people who call themselves "chaos magicians"
are indeed lazy, this is equally true of anyone who calls themselves
magicians of any sort... as well as those who don't. You can't see the
fruits of someone's lifelong labors on the Internet. You're just getting
upset because someone pointed out an imperfection in one of your personal
heroes... one who himself put on an air of infallibility (to quote your own
words). But nobody's perfect.
And I'll stick with what I said about Bardon, regardless of how many
personal insults you decide to throw about because of it.
Unknown
wrote:
>
>Gnome d' Plume wrote in message <383dc28e...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
>
>>Bardon's books -- especially the first two -- are excellent and any
>>serious magician should have them.
>
>Unless their not interested in Hermeticism. Or, specifically, in things
>like fluid condensor theories and such.
****Then what are you doing on alt.magick? Magick by the very
definition of the word is Hermetic. I'll wager that your problem with
Bardon lies in the essential "work, study and practice" method that he
insists on. What do you do, swallow your enlightenment in pill form?
Or were you born with a screw loose?****
>
>>He use tantric and raja yoga techniques
>>on a Western Hermetic framework (good combination).
>
>"Raja yoga" means mastering all yogic disciplines. It's not a discipline
>unto itself. His Tantric material is quite shallow, really.
****Raja yoga is the yoga of the mind. It partakes of all yogas
because it is the King of all Yogas. Raja means "king", grasshopper!
What you know about raja yoga and tantric yoga could probably be
summed up in a very few words; one of which would certainly be
"neophyte." When I first encountered Bardon I had a similar uninformed
impression. After many years of study along Eastern lines I have come
to appreciate his synthesis more each time I re-read his book. For all
its failings it is still a masterpiece. Any magical student who
dismisses it out of hand shows himself to be a beginner or a fool.****
>>Get a good background in raja and tantric
>>yoga along with a good book on self-hypnosis as ponies while you work
>>your way through Bardon's *Initiation Into Hermetics*.
>
>Getting a good background in Tantra will take many years longer than getting
>through a book. Or an encyclopedia, for that matter. If you're going to
>get a solid footing in Tantra, I suggest focusing on Tantra.
****In this case you are certainly right. So stop acting like an
authority and complete the work you now admit you haven't done. But
then what are we to expect from a Chaos magician? (Translate that
"lazy" magician). The very nature of your philosophy discredits you in
this argument.****
Gnome d' Plume
Tom Schuler
Apsaras <Aps...@xiqual.com> wrote in message
news:81kvt4$2nfk$1...@nnrp9.crl.com...
>
> Gnome d' Plume wrote in message <383dee3f...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
>
> >Magick by the very
> >definition of the word is Hermetic.
>
> Hermeticism that have been discussed at great length on
> this newsgroup over the years.
I'm interested in hearing Poke's definition of magick. I hope it's not
"magick is hermeticism". That would be no help at all.
Claudio Solis
: Apsaras wrote:
: > IMO, no. That depends to a degree on what you're already familiar with,
: > though. Personally, I wouldn't buy anymore of Bardon's books. I think I
try
http://www.lava.net/~pagios or use deja old archive setting 'pagios' as search
tim scott and paul allen will help, too
some clues here: http://puck.dhs.org/links.html
there is a yearly convention in bruxelles, too
try also usine www.dogpile.com with your search
good evocation!
p.s.
beware the dark force
t8
: > have "Initiation to Hermetics" stuck in a box somewhere. I've never had
: > reason to reference it since I initially read it some time ago.
: >
: > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: > Tzimon Yliaster
: In his book, he mentions that the accomplishment of many feats which are
: nowadays often considered improbable or impossible that ought to be
: possible for anyone to accomplish. Do you think he was serious in his
: claims, and do you think that it is possible and feasible to be able to
: perform these feats as he outlines them?
: nguyen
Claudio Solis
Claudio Solis
: Apsaras <Aps...@xiqual.com> wrote in message
: news:81kvt4$2nfk$1...@nnrp9.crl.com...
: >
: > Gnome d' Plume wrote in message <383dee3f...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
Besides William Mistele, there is the 'Hermit' and Paul Allen who sure do know q
uite a bit upon the august subject.
In nomen et lamen Elipinon
anantadeva sesanaga sankarsana uvaca
ver neit nubti
: >
: > >Magick by the very
Sznog
Apsaras wrote:
> Black Dragon wrote in message ...
> >Greets! I'm thinking of buying a few books by a Magickian by the name of
> >Franz Bardon. The reviews I read of it on Amazon.com tend to state that
> >it's better than all the other Magick books read, and that these are the
> >only Magick books you need. I'm curious as to what people here who've
> >read Franz think of his books in terms of quality.
>
> They're OK. Personally, I find reading Bardon a lot like reading a
> cookbook. I would *definitely* disagree that they're the "only books you
> need." I doubt even Bardon would have agreed with that.
Bardon assumed the reader has a basic knowledge in Cabbala when he wrote
"Keys".
>
>
> >How do Franz Bardon's
> >books compare to those of Crowley, Regardie, Kraig, and other Magickians?
>
> His are, to my mind, the most boring read of the lot, at least amongst "big
> name" authors on magick.
He can be a bit of Nazi in terms of not moving on until you have mastered
certain things.
>
>
> >Is there any reason why I should buy any of these four books if I already
> >have books explaining Magick by Crowley and D.M. Kraig?
>
> There's no reason that you should buy them, and no reason that you
> shouldn't. Every author gives a different viewpoint, so it's a matter of
> whether or not you'll find the books useful. Not knowing you, I couldn't
> say either way.
>
> >I'm wondering if
> >there's anything that makes these books stand above the rest that makes
> >them worth buying if these other Magick books are already possessed.
>
> IMO, no. That depends to a degree on what you're already familiar with,
> though. Personally, I wouldn't buy anymore of Bardon's books. I think I
> have "Initiation to Hermetics" stuck in a box somewhere. I've never had
> reason to reference it since I initially read it some time ago.
His book on evocation is helpful.
Sznog
Unknown
wrote:
>
>Gnome d' Plume wrote in message <383dee3f...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
>
>>****Then what are you doing on alt.magick?
>
>Well, I've been here for a few years. Old habits are hard to break.
>
>>Magick by the very
>>definition of the word is Hermetic.
>
>That rules out a significant number of things that aren't Hermeticism that
>have been discussed at great length on this newsgroup over the years.
>
>>I'll wager that your problem with
>>Bardon lies in the essential "work, study and practice" method that he
>>insists on. What do you do, swallow your enlightenment in pill form?
>
>No, what I do currently is practice Tantra. I "work, study and practice"
>every single day. Some days more than others, because there are also
>obligations I still have in my life that I need attend to. I have spent the
>past two years and change devoted entirely to the study and practice of
>Tantra. I don't have a problem with Bardon; I simply critiqued his book.
>Bardon's fine if you like that sort of thing, as I mentioned to the person
>who initially asked the question.
>
>>Or were you born with a screw loose?****
>
>Nice touch. Why does a simple critique of someone's literary style get you
>so worked up?
>
>>****Raja yoga is the yoga of the mind. It partakes of all yogas
>>because it is the King of all Yogas. Raja means "king", grasshopper!
>
>Considering that I've spent the past few months working on a translation of
>the Bagalamukhi Rahasyam, I was quite aware of what "raja" means. My
>Sanskrit is far from flawless, but it gets a little better all the time.
>
>>What you know about raja yoga and tantric yoga could probably be
>>summed up in a very few words; one of which would certainly be
>>"neophyte."
>
>While I'm no expert, and often feel like a neophyte because I discover new
>things in texts and am taught new things by my guru all the time, I do have
>some grounding in the subject at this point.
>
>Raja Yoga is called "king" because the practitioner (sadhaka) has mastered
>the various forms of yoga, and thus become a king, a master.
>
>My Tantric yoga is good enough to have been accepted by a guru in the line
>of Matsyendranath. He's not someone who teaches classes or accepts payment.
>
>However, if you feel like giving me a pop quiz, feel free. I can give you
>one as well, if you like.
>
>>When I first encountered Bardon I had a similar uninformed
>>impression. After many years of study along Eastern lines I have come
>>to appreciate his synthesis more each time I re-read his book. For all
>>its failings it is still a masterpiece. Any magical student who
>>dismisses it out of hand shows himself to be a beginner or a fool.****
>
>I find Bardon to be dull. Sorry this upsets you so, but it doesn't change
>my opinion of his writing. I find his understanding of Tantra to be shallow
>based upon my own period of intensive study and practice.
>
>>****In this case you are certainly right. So stop acting like an
>>authority and complete the work you now admit you haven't done.
>
>Completing the work of Tantra takes a lifetime. I'm not an authority; I
>don't have to be one to have an opinion.
>
>>But
>>then what are we to expect from a Chaos magician? (Translate that
>>"lazy" magician). The very nature of your philosophy discredits you in
>>this argument.****
>
*****Tzimon:
First let me congratulate you on a fine reply, especially in
light of the really insulting tone of my critique on your Bardon
opinion. I sincerely apologize for the vitriol I spewed at you, but I
don't feel too guilty about because it wasn't a personal ego thing
with me, but rather a knee-jerk-reaction lash-out at something that
goes on too often on this newsgroup. New people come here for
information, and some of them -- like the guy who asked the Bardon
question -- are potentially serious students. The way these newbies
are treated is appalling! What you might have said was: "Franz Bardon
is considered a classical in modern magick. It is a rare synthesis of
Western theory and Eastern technique. You should have it in your
library...But....." and then launch into all the things that Bardon
should have done better (or left out, or put in). You may have noted
in the past that I have critiqued Bardon for various failings -- but
always from the position of admitting that his first book is an
essential classic.
Now, with that out of the way, let me also congratulate you
for outgrowing Chaos Magick (unfortunately you still label yourself as
such, so I ask a little smidgen of forgiveness in that regard). It
appears to me that your tantric studies are quite astute and that you
are going to make some real contributions -- even beyond your own
enlightenment. Quite frankly your sanskrit is probably better than
mine. I did have an advantage of being carefully led (hand-guided and
spoon-fed) through the entire Vajrayogini program, along with numerous
other initiations, by the Sakya Order. It was during this period that
I began to realize what a treasure we had in Bardon's first book. I
will admit that before my vajrayana training, I also thought old Franz
was quaint and a bit goofy (actually he is, but oh to be so quaint and
goofy!) Anyway, please forgive me for chewing your head. Let us both
render advice to the newbies on how to get through Bardon. It ain't
easy!
Gnome d' Plume
>
>
>
Ganasevita
Gnome d' Plume wrote in message <383ec01e...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
> First let me congratulate you on a fine reply, especially in
>light of the really insulting tone of my critique on your Bardon
>opinion.
Thanks.
>I sincerely apologize for the vitriol I spewed at you, but I
>don't feel too guilty about because it wasn't a personal ego thing
>with me, but rather a knee-jerk-reaction lash-out at something that
>goes on too often on this newsgroup.
Apology accepted. Very big of you to do so publicly. May I point something
out... something I've myself only recently learned... that might be of some
assistance? Those "knee-jerk" reactions are as much a personal ego activity
as any conscious decision to become defensive, etc. Perhaps the most
important lesson I've learned from my guru is exactly that; I'll paraphrase
what he told me a couple of months ago and hope that I can get the meaning
across adequately.
We tend to think of ego as something that acts consciously, but in reality,
it usually isn't under our control. Every value judgment that we make is
also ego acting. When the reaction is the least conscious is when it tends
to be the most powerful, because its then that we're the least in control of
the reaction. When the action is conscious, and thus being examined by
ourselves, we have at least some control... but when it just "slips out",
then it isn't our-self that's in control, but the ego. Tantra teaches that
self and ego (atman and aham) are two different constructs (this is
inaccurate, as atman isn't a construct, but I don't really know a good word
in English that accurately expresses the essence of "atman"). It takes a
very long practice of self-observation and its resultant insights to turn
over the controls, as it were, to atman. These slips, when the ego acts
unchecked, are the most telling... and often the most damaging. As my guru
mentioned, our psyche is like a car. Some people are good drivers, and
others never learn to drive... they become passengers. For such passengers,
the psyche has a sort of cruise control; that's the go. Cruise control is
good as long as you don't have to steer; but as soon as there's an obstacle
in the road, you either start driving or you've lost control of your car.
Sooner or later, you end up crashing. The crash most likely won't kill you,
but it will probably put you out of commission for awhile and halt your
forward momentum.
I hope this makes sense.
>You may have noted
>in the past that I have critiqued Bardon for various failings -- but
>always from the position of admitting that his first book is an
>essential classic.
I haven't noticed; to be honest, I don't read a lot of your posts. That's
nothing personal; my interests don't lie in Thelema or Hermeticism and the
like. I generally restrict myself to threads dealing with Tantra. I just
happened to read that new person's post last night because, at that moment,
I had nothing else to do and I was killing some time. I really don't know
who you are, what your involvement with magick in general or Bardon in
specific is, etc.
> Now, with that out of the way, let me also congratulate you
>for outgrowing Chaos Magick (unfortunately you still label yourself as
>such, so I ask a little smidgen of forgiveness in that regard).
What happened was that in the course of studying the work of Austin Spare
(who many chaos magicians regard as the grandfather of chaos magick) I came
across references to practices, as well as a drawing in one of his works,
that made me think that perhaps his work was based on something previous. I
went looking for that thing, and in the course of my search (because some of
the things I saw in Spare triggered thoughts based upon a then extremely
limited knowledge of Tantric symbolism) I came across a Tantric work from
the 9th century called Vijñanabhairava. This led me into delving further
into Tantra, at that time as a possible ancestor to chaos magick. I found
that the elements which had drawn me to chaos magick in the first place had
been much more thoroughly developed in the Tantras, and so I decided to
pursue that course further.
As to the label... I don't label myself as a chaos magician at this point.
I think you're getting that label from my .sig, because I have a website
wherein a good deal of information about chaos magick is archived. There's
also a growing body of Tantric material there, and eventually I'll split the
site in two. So, am I a chaos magician currently investigating Tantra, or
am I a Tantrika who was formerly a chaos magician? Does it even matter? To
quote Sri Popeye-ji, "I yam what I yam." I'll leave it to others to come up
with descriptions and apellations. I could call my-self anything, but what
it is is what it is. Such names really don't mean anything.
>I did have an advantage of being carefully led (hand-guided and
>spoon-fed) through the entire Vajrayogini program, along with numerous
>other initiations, by the Sakya Order.
No offense intended, but what did this training teach you about
self-control, discipline and knee-jerk reactions? I do get the occasional
scolding now, novice that I am, for sometimes confusing an intellectual
understanding of the theory of a subject with its actual incorporation into
everyday living. Its one thing to understand what sattva is and another
thing entirely to be sattvika. For most, this is exactly the trap that
keeps us a rajasikaviras instead of sattvikadivyas. As in Cabalism,
knowledge exists as an interaction between a knower and the known; such
interaction, metaphysically, takes the form of friction and creates heat.
The heat produces agitation (rajas). Everyone needs to acquire knowledge,
and so such agitation is inevitable. But the point of Tantra isn't just to
acquire knowledge; it's to fundamentally incorporate that knowledge into
ones very self (or, perhaps more accurately, to use that knowledge as a tool
to free the self, which is there all along but bound up by its
interactions). When all the objects of knowledge have become the nature of
the sadhaka, and there is no more subject/object dichotomy, the vira becomes
divya. This should be the end result of Tantric practice, regardless of
which sect or order or what have you is teaching it and what its specifics
are in attaining that end.
>Anyway, please forgive me for chewing your head. Let us both
>render advice to the newbies on how to get through Bardon. It ain't
>easy!
There's nothing to forgive you for. I doubt I'll render much advice on how
to get through Bardon; I've read a couple of his books, and that's that. I
haven't gotten through it myself, and don't really know anyone whose put all
of his material into practice, so I'm not the one to advise others on how
they should do it.
Unknown
wrote:
>
>Apsaras <Aps...@xiqual.com> wrote in message
>news:81kvt4$2nfk$1...@nnrp9.crl.com...
>>
>> Gnome d' Plume wrote in message <383dee3f...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
>>
>> >Magick by the very
>> >definition of the word is Hermetic.
>>
>> That rules out a significant number of things that aren't
>> Hermeticism that have been discussed at great length on
>> this newsgroup over the years.
>
>I'm interested in hearing Poke's definition of magick. I hope it's not
>"magick is hermeticism". That would be no help at all.
>
****Tom:
Good question! As long as we recognize semantic quibbling for
what it is we can get some worthwhile discussions out of it. Some
people (or some Thelemites) have gone so far as to imply that Crowley
trade marked "Magick" like Burroughs trade marked "Tarzan". I don't
see it that way. Magick was the Old English spelling of the word
before street conjuring moved on to the big stage as theater
entertainment and opted the title: "magic". Crowley used the older
form to distinguish between the two.....So what does "Magick" (the
Western equivalent of Eastern Tantric Yoga) include? In a large sense
it encompasses Hermetic, Gnostic, ancient Egyptian, Jewish
kabbalistic, Assyrian, Persian, Greek and Greco-Egyptian, Harranian
Sabian and Arabic Sufi traditions and elements. Magick has always been
ferociously eclectic. The Jews lifted from the Babylonians, Persians
and Egyptians, the Gnostics and Hermetists lifted from the Greeks and
blended it with everything the Jews had lifted, the Sabians in Harran
lifted from everybody -- and the Arabs copied it all down for us!
We almost might want to define "Magick" by what it is not:
It is not as sedentary in practice as tantra. Magicians do it
standing up.
It is a literate tradition having some form of traditional
magical alphabet as the basis for manipulating the universe. (It
differs from Wicca and shamanism in this respect -- although this is
open to challenge.)
It partakes of the mystical, but it differs from mysticism in
that it is active. The magician takes Heaven by storm, and harrows
hell to bind his minions.
It seeks to bring about changes of consciousness, access
secret information, and manipulate various states and circumstances of
the human condition by theurgic and thaumaturgic method.
It is a romantic extension of the imagination and the will
that has as its ultimate goal a transcendence to self-deification ---
And in this sense, its worst failing is ego inflation.
Next?
Gnome d' Plume
>
>
Unknown
****Oh yes it does -- and on a deeper level than you perhaps realize.
I am reminded of a Seasonal Festival at the Montsalvat Hermitage
Temple years ago. I was frankly in my cups and having a lively
discussion with the late David Jackson (fine magical scholar whose
brilliant work should be published) about my efforts to plot out the
complex astro-magical system in 4th Agrippa. David was acting a bit
too authoritative (so I thought) and I began to give him a lecture
about his ego. . . I really got warmed up (my engine was well
lubricated and running on high octane fuel!) and I began to
pontificate about the virtues of humility that he needed to understand
and acquire -- meanwhile David very carefully, so as not to distract
me from my olympian discourse, got down on his knees. Others began to
notice and formed a circle around us. I was oblivious to the trap I
had stepped into until David raised his hands in prayerful adoration
and looked up at me as if in the presence of a Saint.
Nobody laughed -- but I would certainly have deserved it if
they had....Nuff said on that, don't you think?
*****I think Austin Spare owes a lot to William Blake, and as a
magical artist I appreciate that. ****
****You're so right that I'm down on my knees looking up at you in
prayerful adoration......****
>
>>Anyway, please forgive me for chewing your head. Let us both
>>render advice to the newbies on how to get through Bardon. It ain't
>>easy!
>
>There's nothing to forgive you for. I doubt I'll render much advice on how
>to get through Bardon; I've read a couple of his books, and that's that. I
>haven't gotten through it myself, and don't really know anyone whose put all
>of his material into practice, so I'm not the one to advise others on how
>they should do it.
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Tzimon Yliaster
> Tools of CHAOS
> http://www.xiqual.com
> PO Box 26362,
> San Francisco, CA 94126
Gnome d' Plume
http://members.aol.com/CHSOTA
P.O. Box 403
Silverado, CA 92676
>
>
Sznog
Gnome d' Plume wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Nov 1999 11:19:28 -0800, "Ganasevita"
> <Ganas...@xiqual.com> wrote:
>
>
> ****Oh yes it does -- and on a deeper level than you perhaps realize.
> I am reminded of a Seasonal Festival at the Montsalvat Hermitage
> Temple years ago. I was frankly in my cups and having a lively
> discussion with the late David Jackson (fine magical scholar whose
> brilliant work should be published) about my efforts to plot out the
> complex astro-magical system in 4th Agrippa. David was acting a bit
> too authoritative (so I thought) and I began to give him a lecture
> about his ego. . . I really got warmed up (my engine was well
> lubricated and running on high octane fuel!) and I began to
> pontificate about the virtues of humility that he needed to understand
> and acquire -- meanwhile David very carefully, so as not to distract
> me from my olympian discourse, got down on his knees. Others began to
> notice and formed a circle around us. I was oblivious to the trap I
> had stepped into until David raised his hands in prayerful adoration
> and looked up at me as if in the presence of a Saint.
> Nobody laughed -- but I would certainly have deserved it if
> they had....Nuff said on that, don't you think?
HeHe! Sounds like a great party trick. Get some new age Huckster to start
defending the concept of humility and then bow down to them when they are in a
total hissy fit. I am going to do try that tonight.
Sznog
Sznog
Ganasevita wrote:
> I don't really know a good word in English that accurately expresses the
essence of "atman").
Which is why I think the notion is silly. You will never catch the meaning of
it, because it has no meaning to begin with. You can spend years looking for
the atman and perhaps one day convince yourself that you have found it.
Meanwhile your guru gets a lot of attention.
> It takes a
> very long practice of self-observation and its resultant insights to turn
> over the controls, as it were, to atman.
No insult to you, but I left behind a great deal of Eastern Mysticism for
precisely this reason. I think it is a load of crap. My early indulgences in
chaos magick where very liberating after falling for this line of bullshit for
many years. Taking up Rune magick, which is really just a very sophisticated
form of chaos magick was a godsend.
> These slips, when the ego
What is the ego? If you define it as uncontrolled impulse, I will have to
disagree with you.
> acts
> unchecked, are the most telling... and often the most damaging. As my guru
> mentioned, our psyche is like a car. Some people are good drivers, and
> others never learn to drive... they become passengers. For such passengers,
> the psyche has a sort of cruise control; that's the go. Cruise control is
> good as long as you don't have to steer; but as soon as there's an obstacle
> in the road, you either start driving or you've lost control of your car.
> Sooner or later, you end up crashing. The crash most likely won't kill you,
> but it will probably put you out of commission for awhile and halt your
> forward momentum.
>
> I hope this makes sense.
It just seems like more high self vs low self silliness. Perhaps I am missing
the point (no surprise there).
>
>
> >You may have noted
> >in the past that I have critiqued Bardon for various failings -- but
> >always from the position of admitting that his first book is an
> >essential classic.
>
> I haven't noticed; to be honest, I don't read a lot of your posts. That's
> nothing personal; my interests don't lie in Thelema or Hermeticism and the
> like.
The concept of true will is also akin to high self vs. low self dogmas. All
these divisions tend to create a healthy dose of multiple personality syndrome.
It sends the beginner on some sort of quest for an indefinable and vague holy
grail. Years are wasted going after something very illusive. The hear and now,
where magick is often very evident, is often overlooked.
>
> What happened was that in the course of studying the work of Austin Spare
> (who many chaos magicians regard as the grandfather of chaos magick) I came
> across references to practices, as well as a drawing in one of his works,
> that made me think that perhaps his work was based on something previous.
Yes. It was most likley Rune Magick. If you trace the real history of this
stuff, you will fine a great deal of tantric like methods, so it is easy to
confuse. Spare's concept of sigils is identical to Bind Rune methods that have
been used for centuries. Spare had some early exposure to a witch who would
have most likley used Rune methods given where she was from and the type of
folk magick used there.
> I
> went looking for that thing, and in the course of my search (because some of
> the things I saw in Spare triggered thoughts based upon a then extremely
> limited knowledge of Tantric symbolism) I came across a Tantric work from
> the 9th century called Vijñanabhairava. This led me into delving further
> into Tantra, at that time as a possible ancestor to chaos magick. I found
> that the elements which had drawn me to chaos magick in the first place had
> been much more thoroughly developed in the Tantras, and so I decided to
> pursue that course further.
That is no surprise. Chaos magick borrows from so many disciplines. It really
is hard to attribute any one source to it. In fact, it is anathema to the
concept of chaos magick to begin with.
>
>
> As to the label... I don't label myself as a chaos magician at this point.
> I think you're getting that label from my .sig, because I have a website
> wherein a good deal of information about chaos magick is archived. There's
> also a growing body of Tantric material there, and eventually I'll split the
> site in two. So, am I a chaos magician currently investigating Tantra, or
> am I a Tantrika who was formerly a chaos magician? Does it even matter? To
> quote Sri Popeye-ji, "I yam what I yam." I'll leave it to others to come up
> with descriptions and apellations. I could call my-self anything, but what
> it is is what it is. Such names really don't mean anything.
This is the real issue, I think. Models are helpful but at some point they
dissolve. Becoming fixed in a certain model can be crippling. This is why so
many find chaos magick so silly. It seeks to create structures for something
essentially structureless.
>
>
Sznog
porter235
"Sznog" <Sz...@sznog.net> wrote in message
news:383F0EB3...@sznog.net...
>
> This is the real issue, I think. Models are helpful but at some point
they
> dissolve. Becoming fixed in a certain model can be crippling.
Agreed!
> This is why so
> many find chaos magick so silly. It seeks to create structures for
something
> essentially structureless.
>
> Sznog
I thought the point of chaos magick was to adopt those helpful models at
times when they are truely helpful, then to drop them when they dissolve
and adopt a different one that will satisfy the the current problem.
p235
Sznog
porter235 wrote:
Yes the point is to never fear putting aside a model and try something
different. In fact, try something you would not ordinarily adopt.
>
>
> p235
Tom Schuler
<Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:3840cf09...@cnews.newsguy.com...
What you related here described some features of magick, as you see it, but
that is not the definition.
What is your definition of magick? Maybe if you tried using fewer words...
Ganasevita
Gnome d' Plume wrote in message <383ef0f0...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
>****You're so right that I'm down on my knees looking up at you in
>prayerful adoration......****
That would be silly. I haven't said anything that a thousand people haven't
realized before me. In fact, I'm just repeating what someone else taught
me. It has nothing to do with any sort of great enlightenment... just a
very basic, simple ideal of Tantra.
I've just come from a bar and poolhall where I lost every game I played. My
guru has taught me nothing of how to sink tricky combination shots. When
I've achieved the ability to do that, then you're welcome to worship me if
you wish. Until then, I'm just another Tantrika who can't sink the 6 ball
for the life of him.
Ganasevita
Joshua O'Brien wrote in message <383F7CC7...@nsw.bigpond.net.au>...
>I'll bet that you made your opponent happy. Which is greater?
Who knows? I picked up the tab for the drinks, and we weren't really
competing or anything. Still, I'd have like to have sunk a couple of the
tricky shots that he could make.
Unknown
>
>
>Gnome d' Plume wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 26 Nov 1999 11:19:28 -0800, "Ganasevita"
>> <Ganas...@xiqual.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> ****Oh yes it does -- and on a deeper level than you perhaps realize.
>> I am reminded of a Seasonal Festival at the Montsalvat Hermitage
>> Temple years ago. I was frankly in my cups and having a lively
>> discussion with the late David Jackson (fine magical scholar whose
>> brilliant work should be published) about my efforts to plot out the
>> complex astro-magical system in 4th Agrippa. David was acting a bit
>> too authoritative (so I thought) and I began to give him a lecture
>> about his ego. . . I really got warmed up (my engine was well
>> lubricated and running on high octane fuel!) and I began to
>> pontificate about the virtues of humility that he needed to understand
>> and acquire -- meanwhile David very carefully, so as not to distract
>> me from my olympian discourse, got down on his knees. Others began to
>> notice and formed a circle around us. I was oblivious to the trap I
>> had stepped into until David raised his hands in prayerful adoration
>> and looked up at me as if in the presence of a Saint.
>> Nobody laughed -- but I would certainly have deserved it if
>> they had....Nuff said on that, don't you think?
>
>HeHe! Sounds like a great party trick. Get some new age Huckster to start
>defending the concept of humility and then bow down to them when they are in a
>total hissy fit. I am going to do try that tonight.
>
>Sznog
>
****When you do we shall all form a circle around you, get down on
floor (so as to be beneath your kneeling position) and look up at you
in prayerful admiration.****
The New Age Huckster
Joshua O'Brien
>
> Gnome d' Plume wrote in message <383ef0f0...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
>
> >****You're so right that I'm down on my knees looking up at you in
> >prayerful adoration......****
>
> realized before me. In fact, I'm just repeating what someone else taught
> me. It has nothing to do with any sort of great enlightenment... just a
> very basic, simple ideal of Tantra.
>
> I've just come from a bar and poolhall where I lost every game I played. My
> guru has taught me nothing of how to sink tricky combination shots. When
> I've achieved the ability to do that, then you're welcome to worship me if
> you wish. Until then, I'm just another Tantrika who can't sink the 6 ball
> for the life of him.
I'll bet that you made your opponent happy. Which is greater?
Unknown
<Ganas...@xiqual.com> wrote:
>
>Gnome d' Plume wrote in message <383ef0f0...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
>
>>****You're so right that I'm down on my knees looking up at you in
>>prayerful adoration......****
>
>That would be silly. I haven't said anything that a thousand people haven't
>realized before me. In fact, I'm just repeating what someone else taught
>me. It has nothing to do with any sort of great enlightenment... just a
>very basic, simple ideal of Tantra.
>
>I've just come from a bar and poolhall where I lost every game I played. My
>guru has taught me nothing of how to sink tricky combination shots. When
>I've achieved the ability to do that, then you're welcome to worship me if
>you wish. Until then, I'm just another Tantrika who can't sink the 6 ball
>for the life of him.
****Oh, but I insist that am an even worse billiard player than you
are! I gouge the felt and scratch on the break. I am the lowliest of
pool guppies (much lower on the food-chain than pool sharks). I will
continue to worship you until you arrive at an understanding of the
symbolism behind my adoration****
Max Katz
> Gnome d' Plume
>
>
> >
> >
Many people would quote 'magick is the art and science of causing reality to
change in conformity with will' at you as the definition of magick. Clearly,
tantra fits perfectly into this category, albeit in a limited aspect. I,
however, use the definition of magick that I learned as a child, since it's
not some arrogant asshole's pet definition, and much closely the
widely-accepted traditional definition: Magick is that for which there is no
explanation.
That is a crude, but elegant definition, and anyone who would bitch at me for
the semantics can go fuck themselves. (Preferably whilst exercising tantric
practices. =P)
People can theorize all they like, but despite their self-centered 'I know
everything' god complexes, noone knows why qabbalah works. Nor ceremonial
magick. Nor wicca. Nor raja yoga, nor tantra yoga, nor salvia divinorum for
that matter. Thus, these are classified under 'magick'. But my definition is
not the only definition, and my views are not everyone's views, so your
mileage may vary. This is just my two cents. You're welcome to take it or
leave it.
-Max
Ben Dover
Max Katz wrote in message <383FD6B3...@earthlink.net>...
Mahaaketu
Sznog wrote in message <383F0EB3...@sznog.net>...
>> I don't really know a good word in English that accurately expresses the
>essence of "atman").
>
>Which is why I think the notion is silly. You will never catch the meaning
of
>it, because it has no meaning to begin with. You can spend years looking
for
>the atman and perhaps one day convince yourself that you have found it.
>Meanwhile your guru gets a lot of attention.
You think something is silly because an equivalent concept doesn't exist in
English? That's a pretty harsh criteria, and doesn't make much sense. No
language translates exactly into another. And atman isn't something you go
looking for. It isn't even a thing. Finally, my guru gets a lot of
attention? If he's getting so much attention, then perhaps you can tell me
his name? He gets attention from me because he gives me something of real
value. I get as much attention from him. It's a mutual admiration society;
we think highly of one another, and thus have become two halves of an
extremely intimate relationship. People fall in love every day, you know.
>> It takes a
>> very long practice of self-observation and its resultant insights to turn
>> over the controls, as it were, to atman.
>
>No insult to you, but I left behind a great deal of Eastern Mysticism for
>precisely this reason. I think it is a load of crap. My early indulgences
in
>chaos magick where very liberating after falling for this line of bullshit
for
>many years. Taking up Rune magick, which is really just a very
sophisticated
>form of chaos magick was a godsend.
I think Rune Magick is a dead end for me, which is why I don't do it. After
all, the people who did do all ended up converting to Christianity or dying
out, and their culture was ultimately obliterated. Their magick didn't end
up doing very much for them in the end.
The idea that whether something is appealing to you or not is a
determination of its validity for anyone else is a rather egocentric view of
the world, don't you think?
>What is the ego? If you define it as uncontrolled impulse, I will have to
>disagree with you.
The ego is that part of us which defines us as being separate from
everything else.
>It just seems like more high self vs low self silliness. Perhaps I am
missing
>the point (no surprise there).
Yes, you are. There's no question of "high" or "low". There are goals to
be achieved and means of achieving them; some things are useful in achieving
those ends, others aren't.
>The concept of true will is also akin to high self vs. low self dogmas. All
>these divisions tend to create a healthy dose of multiple personality
syndrome.
>It sends the beginner on some sort of quest for an indefinable and vague
holy
>grail. Years are wasted going after something very illusive. The hear and
now,
>where magick is often very evident, is often overlooked.
In Tantra, every aspect of life is ultimately integrated into the process
(one reason why its called Tantra in the first place; one meaning of the
word is "weaving together"). There are no indefinables; there are some
words which don't translate into English accurately. That just means
there's no good definition in English.
>Yes. It was most likley Rune Magick.
It was nothing like rune magick. The drawing in question is from "Earth
Inferno", which in one place makes a clear, unequivocal reference to Tantric
thought. I'd note that Spare never, ever makes any mention of Norse runes
in his work.
>If you trace the real history of this
>stuff, you will fine a great deal of tantric like methods, so it is easy to
>confuse.
Please tell me specifically what these Tantric methods are.
>Spare's concept of sigils is identical to Bind Rune methods that have
>been used for centuries. Spare had some early exposure to a witch who would
>have most likley used Rune methods given where she was from and the type of
>folk magick used there.
Spare never mentions runes. He does mention, for example, "om" in Earth
Inferno, which also contains a drawing which contains *all* of the elements
of a Tantric Panchamakara rite, including the appearance of a kundalini
serpent on an individual who is clearly a feminized version of Spare's
depiction of himself in the same drawing. Note, too, that one of the most
famous magickal abilities Spare attributes to Mrs. Paterson -- her
projecting an image of herself as a young woman -- is also recorded
elsewhere in Tantric literature.
>That is no surprise. Chaos magick borrows from so many disciplines. It
really
>is hard to attribute any one source to it. In fact, it is anathema to the
>concept of chaos magick to begin with.
Chaos Magick was invented around the year 800 AD, and its principles are
recorded in a work called Vijñanabhairava. Every single element of "chaos
magick" was already present in Tantra by the 11th century AD.
>This is the real issue, I think. Models are helpful but at some point they
>dissolve.
The question, then, is... at what point do they dissolve, and why? I've
found Tantra to be extremely useful on every level for the past two years.
It hasn't shown any sign of dissolving as of yet.
>Becoming fixed in a certain model can be crippling. This is why so
>many find chaos magick so silly. It seeks to create structures for
something
>essentially structureless.
I find it silly because so many of its practitioners that I've known over
the last seven years have either ended up leading dissatisfied, miserable
existences, or exploding into fantastic displays of psychotic egotism in
which they begin to believe that they are in a position to know all and
judge all. I've seen people become paranoid (not just suspicious... we're
talking about paranoia complete with delusions of grandeur, etc), die of
drug oversdoses, declare bankruptcy, and even become violent. I've seen
people get so rigid about their self-manufactured beliefs that they wind up
pinpoint-focused on some tiny aspect of their magick for years at a time,
even while it was doing nothing at all good for them. I've stood by and
listened to lectures by "chaos magicians" about subjects they clearly
weren't versed in at all. I've watched good friends turn into one another's
most vicious enemies because of arguments over ill-defined, mutually
misunderstood concepts.
And I'm yet to find a "chaos magician" who has wound up in any sort of
position of power, or had a measurable influence upon the rest of the world,
or really excelled at whatever it is they do outside of ritual space.
So, perhaps the model that needs dissolution here is the current model of
chaos magick? It's a thought... but it's really not my problem.
There are four aims of life in Tantric (and most other Indian) thought; kama
(love), artha (wealth), dharma (correct action) and moksha (liberation).
Tantra is a means by which these ends may be achieved. It has nothing to do
with... in fact, doesn't even recognize... "higher" and "lower". Legitimate
gurus get attention because they have something valuable to offer their
student (*no* legitimate gurus are in the limelight, and don't seek to be.
You won't find them teaching class at your local Newage shop or the Learning
Annex).
You'd do well to know something before passing judgment on it.
James W. Revak
<snip>
> Magick by the very
>definition of the word is Hermetic.
<snip>
Then the Aborigine in the Australian desert, who doesn't know Hermes
Trismegitus from a whole in the ground, can't possibly practice
magick. Complete nonsense!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
JAMES W. REVAK - San Diego, CA, USA - jre...@cts.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sznog
Mahaaketu wrote:
> Sznog wrote in message <383F0EB3...@sznog.net>...
>
> >> I don't really know a good word in English that accurately expresses the
> >essence of "atman").
> >
> >Which is why I think the notion is silly. You will never catch the meaning
> of
> >it, because it has no meaning to begin with. You can spend years looking
> for
> >the atman and perhaps one day convince yourself that you have found it.
> >Meanwhile your guru gets a lot of attention.
>
> You think something is silly because an equivalent concept doesn't exist in
> English?
You have said yourself that you are not very sure what Atman is. Furthermore,
since I don't know sanskrit, or would ever care to know it, I am certainly not
interested in anyone's vague translation of it. I certainly would not go on
some illusive quest, looking for it. At least, not anymore.
> That's a pretty harsh criteria, and doesn't make much sense.
Well lets be honest here, that was your assumption not mine. You tell me, now
that you know some Sanskrit, can you define your terms any better, at least for
yourself?
> No
> language translates exactly into another.
Yes. All translators are murderers.
> And atman isn't something you go
> looking for.
Yet you admit that the ego rules where atman should. You can't deny that you
are at least on a quest to gain that awareness. Are you not involved in any
practice? Are we to suppose that by doing nothing this will happen on its own.
If so, then we are all fine and there is no problem. Better just to shut up. I
learned that years ago. No need for Guru to tell me that.
> It isn't even a thing.
Then how do you come to value it over the ego. Is the ego a thing?
> Finally, my guru gets a lot of
> attention? If he's getting so much attention, then perhaps you can tell me
> his name? He gets attention from me because he gives me something of real
> value. I get as much attention from him. It's a mutual admiration society;
> we think highly of one another, and thus have become two halves of an
> extremely intimate relationship. People fall in love every day, you know.
Ok. So meanwhile the guru gets a lot of love.
>
>
> >> It takes a
> >> very long practice of self-observation and its resultant insights to turn
> >> over the controls, as it were, to atman.
> >
> >No insult to you, but I left behind a great deal of Eastern Mysticism for
> >precisely this reason. I think it is a load of crap. My early indulgences
> in
> >chaos magick where very liberating after falling for this line of bullshit
> for
> >many years. Taking up Rune magick, which is really just a very
> sophisticated
> >form of chaos magick was a godsend.
>
> I think Rune Magick is a dead end for me, which is why I don't do it.
My point was not to interest you in Rune magick. I only wished to point out
that there are many directions one can go. Tantra was not the only source for
Spare's work.
> After
> all, the people who did do all ended up converting to Christianity or dying
> out, and their culture was ultimately obliterated. Their magick didn't end
> up doing very much for them in the end.
What do you suppose it should have done? Cultures die. Civilizations fall. Has
tantra prevented any of that? India and China, for instance, have had many
cultural changes. Governments have come and gone.
>
>
> The idea that whether something is appealing to you or not is a
> determination of its validity for anyone else is a rather egocentric view of
> the world, don't you think?
I certainly do. What interests me is why you thought I felt otherwise.
>
>
> >What is the ego? If you define it as uncontrolled impulse, I will have to
> >disagree with you.
>
> The ego is that part of us which defines us as being separate from
> everything else.
Once you define anything, you have managed to separate it from everything else.
Can we assume that even a Sanskrit definition of Atman would fall into this
example?
>
>
> >It just seems like more high self vs low self silliness. Perhaps I am
> missing
> >the point (no surprise there).
>
> Yes, you are. There's no question of "high" or "low". There are goals to
> be achieved and means of achieving them; some things are useful in achieving
> those ends, others aren't.
You just spent the last few minutes telling me you are not on a quest.
>
>
> >The concept of true will is also akin to high self vs. low self dogmas. All
> >these divisions tend to create a healthy dose of multiple personality
> syndrome.
> >It sends the beginner on some sort of quest for an indefinable and vague
> holy
> >grail. Years are wasted going after something very illusive. The hear and
> now,
> >where magick is often very evident, is often overlooked.
>
> In Tantra, every aspect of life is ultimately integrated into the process
> (one reason why its called Tantra in the first place; one meaning of the
> word is "weaving together"). There are no indefinables; there are some
> words which don't translate into English accurately. That just means
> there's no good definition in English.
I like Einstein better, (I paraphrase) if you can't tell someone what you are
doing in a few words or less, it probably isn't worth doing in the first place.
I assume Einstein included English when he considered this. Still, I will grant
you that there maybe a cultural bias here. I have always had to understand
different cultures, so I understand. Yet in the end, I chose to leave what is
Hindu to the Hindus and what is Christian to the Christians etc...
>
>
> >Yes. It was most likley Rune Magick.
>
> It was nothing like rune magick.
Spares method of sigil magick is identical to Bind Rune methods that have been
used for centuries.
> The drawing in question is from "Earth
> Inferno", which in one place makes a clear, unequivocal reference to Tantric
> thought.
I was not referring to the drawing, I was speaking of Spare's sigil magick.
That the drawing has some similar tantric ideas is not surprising, either.
Tantra is a very large body of thought. There are many ways one could draw
comparisons to such things. Spare's sigil magick is not a comparison, it is an
identical technique, but applied to other languages.
> I'd note that Spare never, ever makes any mention of Norse runes
> in his work.
Like Tantra, there are many forms of Rune Magick. The Norse methods are one of
many. That Spare was heavily influenced by the folk magick of his area is
undeniable. Spare admits that his early exposure to magick was from a witch in
his area (Mrs. Paterson). It is very likely that she used runes given where she
was from. In any event, it is all speculation, just as much as speculating that
Spare draws mainly from Tantra.
>
>
> >If you trace the real history of this
> >stuff, you will fine a great deal of tantric like methods, so it is easy to
> >confuse.
>
> Please tell me specifically what these Tantric methods are.
I don't have all day to draw comparisons. My point is that Tantra is a large
body of thought in which it is easy to draw comparisons from other models.
There are many forms of tantra. Some Tantrics are celibate, while others
aren't. There is also left and right hand tantric models. There are also
Buddhist and Hindu concepts. It is simply impossible to answer this question.
> Note, too, that one of the most
> famous magickal abilities Spare attributes to Mrs. Paterson -- her
> projecting an image of herself as a young woman -- is also recorded
> elsewhere in Tantric literature.
And in many other sources of traditional witchcraft, as well. Furthermore it
was common for Rune magickians to look to Tantra for guidance in how to
reconstruct the old Rune methods. Many felt that historically Rune magick
played an important role in the development of Tantra and Sanskrit in Spare's
time. If they where right or not is another question, but it still doesn't
surprise me that Spare borrowed from Tantric Literature.
I just don't think you have enough evidence to conclude that Chaos magick is a
watered down form of Tantra. That Spare was really just a Tantric. It seems
like wishful thinking at best and equally pointless. If Tantra or rune magick
interest someone and they find similarities in other models, that is great. I
was only trying to point out that Chaos Magick borrows from many sources and
there are a many reasons why one would choose a more defined path.
>
>
> >That is no surprise. Chaos magick borrows from so many disciplines. It
> really
> >is hard to attribute any one source to it. In fact, it is anathema to the
> >concept of chaos magick to begin with.
>
> Chaos Magick was invented around the year 800 AD, and its principles are
> recorded in a work called Vijñanabhairava. Every single element of "chaos
> magick" was already present in Tantra by the 11th century AD.
So too in Rune magick, which of course, predates 800 AD. I am not kidding when
I say this. I have yet to find anything in Chaos literature that wasn't. Nor
am I surprised by this at all. Chaos Magick managed to boil things down by
borrowing from anything potentially useful.
>
>
> >This is the real issue, I think. Models are helpful but at some point they
> >dissolve.
>
> The question, then, is... at what point do they dissolve, and why? I've
> found Tantra to be extremely useful on every level for the past two years.
> It hasn't shown any sign of dissolving as of yet.
For me this is true of Rune magick, but for more than two years. To be honest,
I don't care when or if it dissolves, I'll be ready to let it go if need be. I
never cared too much about models.
>
>
> >Becoming fixed in a certain model can be crippling. This is why so
> >many find chaos magick so silly. It seeks to create structures for
> something
> >essentially structureless.
>
> I find it silly because so many of its practitioners that I've known over
> the last seven years have either ended up leading dissatisfied, miserable
> existences, or exploding into fantastic displays of psychotic egotism in
> which they begin to believe that they are in a position to know all and
> judge all. I've seen people become paranoid (not just suspicious... we're
> talking about paranoia complete with delusions of grandeur, etc), die of
> drug oversdoses, declare bankruptcy, and even become violent. I've seen
> people get so rigid about their self-manufactured beliefs that they wind up
> pinpoint-focused on some tiny aspect of their magick for years at a time,
> even while it was doing nothing at all good for them. I've stood by and
> listened to lectures by "chaos magicians" about subjects they clearly
> weren't versed in at all. I've watched good friends turn into one another's
> most vicious enemies because of arguments over ill-defined, mutually
> misunderstood concepts.
>
> And I'm yet to find a "chaos magician" who has wound up in any sort of
> position of power, or had a measurable influence upon the rest of the world,
> or really excelled at whatever it is they do outside of ritual space.
That doesn't surprise me one bit.
>
>
> So, perhaps the model that needs dissolution here is the current model of
> chaos magick? It's a thought... but it's really not my problem.
Well, you have certainly done that for yourself. I was under the impression
that you where a very rich guy. Was this before or after Tantra. I am also a
wealthy person. I excel in my field and am in a position of power. Some things
happen in the world that you may not always get to witness.
>
>
> There are four aims of life in Tantric (and most other Indian) thought; kama
> (love), artha (wealth), dharma (correct action) and moksha (liberation).
> Tantra is a means by which these ends may be achieved. It has nothing to do
> with... in fact, doesn't even recognize... "higher" and "lower".
But you speak of Atman vs. ego stuff. That was the whole reason why I replied
in the first place. Either you are deluding yourself, or you are
misrepresenting Tantra. I personally don't care either way. It is just more
self contradictory nonsense that makes it all seem ridiculous to me. If there
is a paradox in it or not, I'll leave it to you to decide. I only brought this
up in hopes you could clear some of it up. It seems you can't.
> Legitimate
> gurus get attention because they have something valuable to offer their
> student (*no* legitimate gurus are in the limelight, and don't seek to be.
> You won't find them teaching class at your local Newage shop or the Learning
> Annex).
>
> You'd do well to know something before passing judgment on it.
Now, I am wondering if you do. Please excuse me if I have offended you. Since
we will not be able to continue this conversation without pointless insults, I
will yield the floor.
Good day,
Sznog
Jerry Adams
exercises and the "beasties" for possible later use. His fascination with
magick as a magnetic or electrical fluid hinders a lot of stuff that could
be useful. All my opinion of course. If you have the money though it is good
to keep his books for reference and possibly later study or comparison.
Sznog wrote in message <383EC884...@sznog.net>...
>
>
Sznog
Remi Sussan wrote:
> In fact, chinese
> writing itself evolved from magical pictograms becoming more and more
> abstract, loosing touch with their original appearance.An historical
> sigilization process.
There may be some interesting comparisons but they are not identical to
Bind Rune methods as Spare's was.
>
> Above all, sigils are not the center of Spare's system, and it's unfair
> to reduce his complex philosophy to this simple "trick".
Who did that?
> At the core of
> Spare's thinking, there the idea of Kia, the "atmospheric self", and the
> Neither-Neither meditation process. I don't know if it's tantric, but it
> is certainly Eastern, hindu with a touch of taoism. and if the "atman"
> concept is silly, what to think about the "Kia"?
Spare's concept of Kia is not something that is exclusive to eastern
mysticism. In fact, it is very similar to the Runic Notion of creation and
how consciousness emerged out of the primordial chaos.
Sznog
Sznog
Jerry Adams wrote:
> I read his books, disregarded most of what was in them. Sparing only some
> exercises and the "beasties" for possible later use. His fascination with
> magick as a magnetic or electrical fluid hinders a lot of stuff that could
> be useful.
Yes. Bardon did seem to focus on the magnetic fluid in "initiation". "Keys" on
the other hand puts emphasis on sound and proper intonation of key words. It
may be that magnetic fluid makes a nice substitute for what Bardon felt was
really the true application of Quabbala that being vibration. Magnetism does
seem to be a good stepping stone into the deeper aspects of magick. Thinking in
terms of some sort of universal life energy would certainly appeal to folks
more scientifically inclined in Bardon's day. In fact, it is a pretty new age
and hip think to to belive even now. I hope folks outgrow it.
Sznog
Tom Schuler
<Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:38419407...@cnews.newsguy.com...
>
> All kidding and banter aside, I think I did a good job answering your
> question -- and it takes just about that many words to get a grasp of
> what various historical and cultural elements have gone into creating
> The Western Esoteric Tradition (Magick).
I wasn't asking abouot the Western Esoteric Tradition. I was asking for
your definition of magick. You are obscuring the meaning in a flurry of
words.
> Do you want to be a Western magician, or would you rather be
> a hoo-doo man? I'm sure you can turn that into a clever repost,
> but I think the point will stick.
I see what you are driving at, but I think you are much too exclusive. In
fact, you are so exclusive that I wonder how much you really understand
about what you're doing. Your inability to appreciate the magick within
shamanism or of Eastern spiritual practices seems to indicate that you don't
see them as arising from the same processes as what you do.
It's your privilege to limit your vision to the extent you choose, but I
don't think I'll buy into the ethnocentric and elitist value system that is
its result.
Remi Sussan
Sznog wrote in message <383F0EB3...@sznog.net>...
>Spare's concept of sigils is identical to Bind Rune methods that have
>been used for centuries. Spare had some early exposure to a witch who
would
>have most likley used Rune methods given where she was from and the
type of
>folk magick used there.
the system of sigils can be found almost anywhere. In fact, chinese
writing itself evolved from magical pictograms becoming more and more
abstract, loosing touch with their original appearance.An historical
sigilization process. Buddhist "dharanis" (mnemotechnic sentences,
apparently meaningless, made from combinations of letters) can also be
seen as a mantric version of sigils.
Above all, sigils are not the center of Spare's system, and it's unfair
to reduce his complex philosophy to this simple "trick". At the core of
Spare's thinking, there the idea of Kia, the "atmospheric self", and the
Neither-Neither meditation process. I don't know if it's tantric, but it
is certainly Eastern, hindu with a touch of taoism. and if the "atman"
concept is silly, what to think about the "Kia"?
--
Remi Sussan
http://perso.cybercable.fr/tlon/
Unknown
wrote:
>On Fri, 26 Nov 1999 02:40:13 GMT, (Gnome d' Plume) wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> Magick by the very
>>definition of the word is Hermetic.
>
><snip>
>
>Then the Aborigine in the Australian desert, who doesn't know Hermes
>Trismegitus from a whole in the ground, can't possibly practice
>magick. Complete nonsense!
****No James, not complete nonsense at all. I went to considerable
length to explain the derivation, history and connotation of the word
"Magick". An Abo in the Outback does not practice magick. He doesn't
practice Tantra, or Voodoo, or Ju-ju, or Dawa, or Santeria, or
Polo-Moyumbe either. He has his own form of shamanism for which he has
his own term in his own language (somebody will no doubt supply it for
us.) Magick in its Elizabethan English sense was considered one of the
"Hermetic Arts" along with its cousin Alchemy. Actually the term is
not Jewish, but does encompass those elements of the Jewish kabbalah
that were absorbed into European Magia (a similar Latin term covering
almost the same parameters) during the 14th and 15th centuries in
Spain and Italy. Personally I don't mind discussing other forms of
practice on this newsgroup because we can and do learn much from other
traditions, but let's try to keep our basic terminology straight.****
Gnome d' Plume
Unknown
wrote:
>
><Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:3840cf09...@cnews.newsguy.com...
>What you related here described some features of magick, as you see it, but
>that is not the definition.
>
>What is your definition of magick? Maybe if you tried using fewer words...
>
Tom:
All kidding and banter aside, I think I did a good job answering your
question -- and it takes just about that many words to get a grasp of
what various historical and cultural elements have gone into creating
The Western Esoteric Tradition (Magick). Magick is a unique
Elizabethan English spelling that imposes its own ethnic-cultural
parameters and tone on the definition. If we try to strip "Magick" of
its historical, philosophical-religious and ethnic background, we are
throwing out the baby with the bath water (a medieval expression; the
baby got bathed last and the water was often so dirty, and the
lighting so minimal, that the poor kid went out the window with "Ware
slops!"). Making magick = shamanism in any form leads to statements
like James Revack just made implying that Abo's in the Outback
practice "magick". They don't -- but if we drop the
historical-cultural connections in our term, then they will -- and
pretty soon we won't, because our traditional term will have lost its
meaning. Do you want to be a Western magician, or would you rather be
a hoo-doo man? I'm sure you can turn that into a clever repost, but I
think the point will stick.
Gnome d' Plume
Unknown
Back when Bob Word (Sar Draconis) used to promote rampant medieval
supernaturalism here on this newsgroup I was the one who was waving
the banner for a sophisticated, subjective (Jungian-hypnotic) approach
to operative magick. Now I find myself somewhat on the opposite side
defending Franz Bardon's "quaint" Mesmeristic "fluids" and such -- but
if we see Bardon's "volts" and "electric-magnetic" fluids as methods
of controlling energy flows in the body (whether the terminology is
currently scientifically apt or not) we have acquired a Westernized
Taoist internal alchemy analog much like the Microcosmic Orbit (see
Mantak Chia's excellent books on this). As magicians we use our
imagination to drive mental and/or bio-chemical-electric forces in our
minds and bodies. The human imagination is our greatest tool and
weapon. Visualization in traditional mythic symbols is what drives the
psychic engine. At a certain point the true magician (IMVVVVVHO) must
stop dissembling, quibbling and qualifying, and start WORKING. At such
a point he/she can do no better than to follow the example of the
Tibetans (who have a 600 year head start on us practice-wise) and make
for yourself a magical religion. Create Gods, Goddesses, protective
and wrathful deities, hot and cold running forces, become the master
of your own vividly created and reafied universe. As we've said
before, you can do this on Disney characters if you want to (Donald
Duck goes in Geburah, BTW) but it is better by far to link with the
cosmos of your ancestors and drink from the deep well their tradition
than to swallow your own psychic saliva. This is why I believe that
Franz Bardon's first, and to some extent his second, books are so
important. He lays out the master plan for creating a personal
Western Magical Universe on an Eastern work-study plan. Those few who
finish the work laid out in Bardon's first book are so far ahead of
those who have walked through five degrees of the G.D. or the O.T.O.
(doing minimal work) that there is virtually no comparison. And to
compare Kraig's *Modern Magick* with Bardon's *Initiation Into
Hermetics* reminds me of the old joke about the comparison between
"the puny penis of a Peruvian pimp and the rustic rod of a Roman
gladiator!"
If you think Bardon is quaint, out-dated, superstitious and
pretentious, then I suggest you write a better book yourself ,or --
and this is something that really would be valuable -- come up with a
"How to Do Bardon" book. That really is needed because his program is
not easy, and yet it is the best we have (again IMVVVVHO).
Jerry Adams
references. Also, It would be better if this model of magic(k) were
explained as such. A modern reader is prone to dismiss the good bits because
of the inaccurate science. Although to be fair in his time many mages
expected a quick reconciliation or convergence with science. I think he did
believe what he wrote was a valid scientific explanation for magick and not
a model or analogy. Another problem with it is the length of his training
regime and it's rigidity. I made use of his elemental descriptions and some
of his training though more in theory than in practice. At the time I
favored near term results such as can be found in Donald Michael Craig's, DR
John Mumford, or Robert Bruce. After all, whats more likely to keep a newbie
interested?
Gnome d' Plume wrote in message <3840b328...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
Unknown
wrote:
>
><Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:38419407...@cnews.newsguy.com...
>> On Fri, 26 Nov 1999 19:45:31 -0800, "Tom Schuler" <d...@teleport.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >What you related here described some features of magick, as you see it,
>but
>> >that is not the definition.
>> >
>> >What is your definition of magick? Maybe if you tried using fewer
>words...
>> >
>> Tom:
>>
>> All kidding and banter aside, I think I did a good job answering your
>> question -- and it takes just about that many words to get a grasp of
>> what various historical and cultural elements have gone into creating
>> The Western Esoteric Tradition (Magick).
>
>I wasn't asking abouot the Western Esoteric Tradition. I was asking for
>your definition of magick. You are obscuring the meaning in a flurry of
>words.
>
>> Do you want to be a Western magician, or would you rather be
>> a hoo-doo man? I'm sure you can turn that into a clever repost,
>> but I think the point will stick.
>
>I see what you are driving at, but I think you are much too exclusive. In
>fact, you are so exclusive that I wonder how much you really understand
>about what you're doing. Your inability to appreciate the magick within
>shamanism or of Eastern spiritual practices seems to indicate that you don't
>see them as arising from the same processes as what you do.
*****I have no idea where you are getting the impression that I don't
understand and/or appreciate Eastern spiritual practices or shamanism.
Do you have me mixed up with someone else? Have you been paying
attention to this thread and my reasons for supporting Franz Bardon's
Eastern training approach? As I recall we once exchanged information
on our backgrounds in academic, fraternal and occult studies. Have you
forgotten that quickly? Haven't you even been following this present
discussion? Wake up and smell the coffee. . .****
>
>It's your privilege to limit your vision to the extent you choose, but I
>don't think I'll buy into the ethnocentric and elitist value system that is
>its result.
****It's fine with me if you want to include all the ugga-bugga from
New Age channeling to Nigerian Ju-ju under the standard and accepted
definitions of "Magic" and/or "Witchcraft", but please don't classify
them under "Wicca" and/or "Magick". Those are culturally specific
terms and should be respected as such. Now in this case I'm the
cultural anthropologist and YOU AIN'T! So, visualize me in my little
Cartman cop outfit (from South Park) while I shout at you: "Respect my
Authority!"*****
(Now let's see how "high and mighty" you be after that.....)
Gnome d' Plume
>
>
James W. Revak
<snip>
>At a certain point the true magician (IMVVVVVHO) must
>stop dissembling, quibbling and qualifying, and start WORKING.
Oh, it isn't *that* humble of an opinion. Anyhow, you are right.
<snip>
Tom Schuler
<Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message
> On Sat, 27 Nov 1999 23:46:27 -0800, "Tom Schuler" <d...@teleport.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Your inability to appreciate the magick within
> >shamanism or of Eastern spiritual practices seems to
> >processes as what you do.
>
> *****I have no idea where you are getting the impression that
> I don't understand and/or appreciate Eastern spiritual practices
> or shamanism.
Read it more carefully. "If you don't appreciate the *magick* within..."
> As I recall we once exchanged information
> on our backgrounds in academic, fraternal and occult studies.
> Have you forgotten that quickly?
Not a bit, Poke. I know you are, as compared with the average person, fairly
well read on the subject of Eastern thought and practice, though neither of
us can legitimately pose as scholars in this area. It has never been made
clear before that you don't consider these practices to be magick.
> >It's your privilege to limit your vision to the extent you choose, but I
> >don't think I'll buy into the ethnocentric and elitist value system that
is
> >its result.
>
> ****It's fine with me if you want to include all the ugga-bugga from
> New Age channeling to Nigerian Ju-ju under the standard and accepted
> definitions of "Magic" and/or "Witchcraft", but please don't classify
> them under "Wicca" and/or "Magick". Those are culturally specific
> terms and should be respected as such.
Your classifications are important to you, but they don't seem particularly
significant to me. I sort things somewhat differently. I'm not dividing
human experience all on the basis of culture and I consider magick to be a
common experience of every human, not a practice reserved to Western Europe
alone.
> Now in this case I'm the
> cultural anthropologist and YOU AIN'T!
The Law of the Hammer states that when you give a child a hammer, suddenly,
everything needs pounding.
Cultural anthropology is the study of humans, considered as part of their
culture. However, there are other, equally legitimate ways of considering
human beings. To declare one of these views as the true one and all others
false seems very limiting.
Magick, in my experience, has created opportunities to expand my vision
beyond my original cultural set. So, I see it as free from the culture and
available to all, to be expressed in their own manner. This would include
shamanism of all cuts and stripes, from Cat Yronwode's African folk
traditions to Tzimon's tantric practices, and all kinds of religions, from
Taoism to Wicca.
> So, visualize me in my little
> Cartman cop outfit (from South Park) while I shout at you:
> "Respect my Authority!"*****
>
> (Now let's see how "high and mighty" you be after that.....)
How high and mighty had you made me? Appeals to authority are rarely
convincing unless you have a night stick to apply as punctuation.
Erik Jordan
of magic and then explain why you consider it so?
By the way, on a note of ethnic pride, Ju-ju is not "Nigerian" in origin, it
is an off shoot of a form of worship commonly called voodoo, the oldest and
perhaps most complete form of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religion, dating
back to before any written history. Ju-ju of course combines many of the
local (Niger delta) deity schemes and yes superstitions with the original
faith but is none the less full of magic.
If you doubt the power of voodoo's ritual magic consider it incorporates the
use of what we'll for sake of this discussion call, yantras and mantras, as
well as, music, dance, prayer, and transcendental mediation, not to mention
alchemy, geomacy, astral projection, and of course scared sex.
No offense but it's amusing to witness peoples of such young self centered
cultures discuss magic.
Tom Schuler <d...@teleport.com> wrote in message
news:Rsj04.54930$C7.24...@news1.teleport.com...
Chip
<Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message
Tom Schuler
<Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:3841c783...@cnews.newsguy.com...
> >
> *****The South Park Cartman gimmick was a failed attempt
> to get you to see yourself in mirror.
Perhaps because it's not a reflection of me at all.
> You may think that this "magick" vs. "magic"
> vs. "folk-magic" argument that you are engaging in has
> some universal humanist multi-cultural appeal, but from
> an anthropological standpoint you are almost as silly as
> Rosana Rosana Dana (Gilda Radner on Sat. Nite Live)
> screaming: "What's all this talk about endangered feces?"
Right actor, wrong character. This seems somehow appropos. The "What's all
this about..." character was Emily Litella.
You still are fixed on your anthropological view of magick as a social
function. This isn't surprising for a guy who has been running a social
club for practicing occultists. My view is phenomenological, not
anthropological. There are bound to be some differences.
> You are out of your element in this one and you can't let go
> because YOU are little Cartman in his cop outfit shouting:
> "Respect my authority!"
I'm not shouting anything at all, Poke. I'm merely not buying your
definition of magick as a white-bread social function.
> I was trying in a nice way to show you that. Now I'll put
> it bluntly: A Nigerian babolorisha practices Ju-Ju, a Hatian
> Papaloi practices Voudoun, a Congolese fetishman practices
> Dawa, and a European (especially and Enlgish-speaking
> European ceremonial magician practices Magick.
Only when you define magick as white-bread property.
> They ALL practice various forms of magic, or
> folk-magic.
Since "magick" is merely the archaic spelling of "magic", you are now
contradicting yourself. Crowley changed the spelling to differentiate his
practices from the use of illusion as stage entertainment, not to
differentiate it from "folk-magic".
From the Book of the Law, I,37:
"Also the mantras and spells; the obeah and the wanga; the work of the wand
and the work of the sword; these he shall learn and teach."
Now please tell me, what European magical tradition uses the obeah and the
wanga? Clearly, these are terms Crowley considered to be part and parcel of
magick. Or wasn't Aiwass talking about magick here?
How about Crowley's letters on the subject of the Three Schools of Magick,
in "Magick Without Tears"?
"But Magick has led the world from before the beginning of history..."
Was Crowley saying that an invention of Western Europeanoccultists actually
led the world since before history? Otr was he saying that magick is not
the property of any particular culture, but a guiding force in all of them?
"The Yellow School of Magick possesses one perfect classic, the Tao Teh
King".
If the Tao Teh King is a perfect classic of magick, according to Crowley,
then it must have been written by a European, right? Since they are the
only ones who practice magick, according to you.
I could go on and on, quoting time after time that that man who coined the
term "magick" did not mean what you assert. So, even Crowley must bow to
your Cartman-esque "authoritah", apparently, since you know better than he
did what he meant.
> If you make the term "Magick" universal, then you are
> saying i.e. that every other culture has a right to a distinctive
> name for their tradition of practice EXCEPT US!
Poor fellow! Everybody's got one but you. The fact is that our culture, as
a whole, thinks your brand of magick is a bunch of superstitious nonsense.
That's why it has no specific name. You don't get to decide for a whole
culture what the proper name for its mystical practice is. You can invent
your own private meanings, if you like, and they can apply to you and
whoever you can cajole into accepting it, but you can't decide it for
everybody.
> Now that might be a usable position for an anti-romantic,
> anti-occult, anti-New Age, anti-Wiccan self-styled social
> critic to take -- but for those of us who have some pride
> in our own tradition (and respect for the unique traditions
> of other cultures as well as our own) I find your position very
> suspect and highly questionable.
Oh, twaddle! You are no more traditional in your practices than the Wiccans
are. How about your "tradition" of using a hypnotic technique to evoke
Goetic spirits? Is that "traditional" or did you personally invent it, as
you claim? Don't hand me that "traditional" crap, Poke. You're about as
traditional in magick as Mormonism is traditional in Christianity.
> And back to South Park again. Cartman is screaming at you:
> "You're afraid to read Rupert Sheldrake! If you don't read
> Sheldrake you're a PUSSY!"
I see you have abandoned the pretence that your use of Cartman is a
reflection of me. It is quite clearly an expression of your own feelings.
Tom Schuler
Erik Jordan <e...@swbell.net> wrote in message
news:04m04.3824$cq6....@typhoon01.swbell.net...
> Would either of you, (Tom Schuler or Gnome d' Plume), please
> give an example of magic and then explain why you consider it so?
Certainly. One of my favorite examples, because it is measuable and
verifiable, is the "placebo effect". A placebo is a medically inert
substance that is imbued with healing power by the belief of the individual
that it has efficacy to cure them. When a person takes a placebo while
under the impression that it is a powerful curative agent, in a clear
majority of cases, the symptoms of the ailment subside. Sometimes the
ailment itself vanishes completely.
This is magical because it is a phenomenon that occurs due entirely to the
mental attitude of the individual and not to any known physical benefit from
the placebo itself. This conforms to Crowley's definition of magick, "the
art and science of causing change to occur in conformity with will" and with
the unknown author of the Goetia, "the Highest, most Absolute and most
Divine Knowledge of Natural Philosophy, advanced in its works and wonderful
operations by a
right understanding of the inward and occult virtue of things; so that true
Agents being applied to proper Patients, strange and admirable effects will
thereby be produced."
It also is an effect acknowledged by scientific researchers but for which no
mechanism has yet been identified that could account for it.
> If you doubt the power of voodoo's ritual magic consider it incorporates
the
> use of what we'll for sake of this discussion call, yantras and mantras,
as
> well as, music, dance, prayer, and transcendental mediation, not to
mention
> alchemy, geomacy, astral projection, and of course scared sex.
Err... sacred sex, I suppose. Bit of a humorous typo there.
> No offense but it's amusing to witness peoples of such young
> self centered cultures discuss magic.
No offense taken. I'm used to culture-bound people feeling superior to
others.
Grrr
wrote:
>I thought the point of chaos magick was to adopt those helpful models at
>times when they are truely helpful, then to drop them when they dissolve
>and adopt a different one that will satisfy the the current problem.
Chaos has points?
When did this happen?
Unknown
wrote:
>
><Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message
*****The South Park Cartman gimmick was a failed attempt to get you to
see yourself in mirror. You may think that this "magick" vs. "magic"
vs. "folk-magic" argument that you are engaging in has some universal
humanist multi-cultural appeal, but from an anthropological standpoint
you are almost as silly as Rosana Rosana Dana (Gilda Radner on Sat.
Nite Live) screaming: "What's all this talk about endangered feces?"
(And in case you can't grasp the meaning of that. She was
confusing "feces" with "species", get it?)
You are out of your element in this one and you can't let go
because YOU are little Cartman in his cop outfit shouting: "Respect my
authority!" I was trying in a nice way to show you that. Now I'll put
it bluntly: A Nigerian babolorisha practices Ju-Ju, a Hatian Papaloi
practices Voudoun, a Congolese fetishman practices Dawa, and a
European (especially and Enlgish-speaking European ceremonial magician
practices Magick. They ALL practice various forms of magic, or
folk-magic. If you make the term "Magick" universal, then you are
saying i.e. that every other culture has a right to a distinctive name
for their tradition of practice EXCEPT US! Now that might be a usable
position for an anti-romantic, anti-occult, anti-New Age, anti-Wiccan
self-styled social critic to take -- but for those of us who have
some pride in our own tradition (and respect for the unique traditions
of other cultures as well as our own) I find your position very
suspect and highly questionable.
And back to South Park again. Cartman is screaming at you: "You're
afraid to read Rupert Sheldrake! If you don't read Sheldrake you're a
PUSSY!"
Gnome d' Plume
Joshua O'Brien
On being universal:
"Magick is the Highest, most Absolute and most Divine Knowledge of
Unknown
>And back to South Park again. Cartman is screaming at you: "You're
>afraid to read Rupert Sheldrake! If you don't read Sheldrake you're a
>PUSSY!"
>
>Gnome d' Plume
****P.S. --While you are in this marvelous multi-cultural neo-semantic
Orwellian-Hiedrickian "New Speak" creative mood, why not suggest to
Don Kraig and Llewellyn that they re-title "Modern Magick" as "Modern
Western European Magick" so all the other cultures not included won't
be offended -- and (even though Crowley was not concerned about
offending people) you might suggest re-titleing "Magick in Theory &
Practice" as "Western European Magick in Theory & Practice". While
you're at it don't forget "Western European Magick Without Tears." You
have a lot of work ahead of you in re-education, consciousness raising
and spiritual political correctness and compliance. However, if you
don't find time to read Rupert Sheldrake Cartman will still continue
to call you a PUSSY!****
Gnome
Joshua O'Brien
>
> ****P.S. --While you are in this marvelous multi-cultural neo-semantic
> Orwellian-Hiedrickian "New Speak" creative mood, why not suggest to
> Don Kraig and Llewellyn that they re-title "Modern Magick" as "Modern
> Western European Magick" so all the other cultures not included won't
> be offended -- and (even though Crowley was not concerned about
> offending people) you might suggest re-titleing "Magick in Theory &
> Practice" as "Western European Magick in Theory & Practice". While
> you're at it don't forget "Western European Magick Without Tears." You
> have a lot of work ahead of you in re-education, consciousness raising
> and spiritual political correctness and compliance.
Western European Magick is still Magick.
Let's outlaw the word "thing" while we're at it.
Dharmadeva
I
I discovered this site
far from Zala's homeland
it came to me - was it free
the site of yesterday's dreams
now the older generation let slide
their anguish at the young enlightened
spaces from comic book heroes
to silver lined laces of fantasy
crystals break into the tapestry
of faces hidden in clover luck
charming aren't they who trace their ancestry
to ancient far away places of Shiva and Shakti
breaking through the barriers of thought
qualification of mind lost
in hindsight not a problem
the energy of ten gods lay in five mountains
which vibrate all over the body of saints
lost in unqualified consciousness
found in seven expressions
all leading to non-duality
face it said the thoughts in back mind streets
creepers could be more intelligent
than some of us reliant on lust and envy
Hal the computer is looking for 3001
and demonized it has become
only Chopin sings dee dee diddly dee
to me a mantra of liberation
II
Chopin had a dream of the music
in the ether it comes to sing
where is the mantra hidden
in a trauma can?
my emotion doesn't gel
with the mantra in a hidden cell
of anguish no there is no such task
to accomplish that does not love
in an ideation of non-fulfilment
so they run after sex and roll in a drug
to see a Mistress without an objective
a Master wearing a foolish tint of similarity
both without direction caught in a joke
they call satisfaction without right angels
in a dominating fall from grace
the people laugh all round the grave
solemn anger of being misled face
to face is best to teach the light
with a mantra of inner sound
not external show of chained strength
Hal, you are may computer lost from 2001
can you find a song for my awakening
a tantric guru strict as Krsna
in a battlefield or must He come
to me on the strength of my desire
III
To sell your bondage for a limitation
saves no hope in ecology of mind
life reduces urging crude implications
in the guise of happy contradicting sad
Ananda knows no pleasure beyond it
undisturbed high transcends pain you see
but to feel others' dreadedness is gifted
with only motive render revolutionary service
alleviate their suffering comes all freedom
without Ananda and whole service
inevitable misuse of serpentine
renders ego into a shrine without
vibration catching calls to that longing
such state feels no longing for the God
all wants feel petty in no fortitude
strength wanes and wanders
rebirth complexity is transfigured
rages to stone for what could be holy
which propensity of mind helps
the holy want more than others
desire for infinite no causality in love
endless flow in unattributed Peace
relative is lost here where mind
cannot point to anything too immersed
no rewards for being found no return
since lost in omni-telepathic Soul
Dharmadeva
1999
Dharaadhaataa
>the system of sigils can be found almost anywhere.
Indeed, some variant of it is found in nearly every culture. Not all, but
most.
>In fact, chinese
>writing itself evolved from magical pictograms becoming more and more
>abstract, loosing touch with their original appearance.An historical
>sigilization process. Buddhist "dharanis" (mnemotechnic sentences,
>apparently meaningless, made from combinations of letters) can also be
>seen as a mantric version of sigils.
Going even further with this...
The process of constructing yantras in the various Tantric traditions is the
closest I've found to the way in which Spare constructed his sigils. Spare
doesn't seem to have used any sort of alphabetic method, but instead created
glyphs relative to the concepts in question in his own mind and combined
them to create a magical statement of intent. This is exactly the way in
which yantras are created in Tantra, with the difference being that (as far
as can be shown from Spare's own writings), the glyphs he created were
useful only to himself. He called these glyphs an "alphabet of desire", but
clearly they didn't constitute an alphabet in the usual sense of the word
(i.e., the glyphs weren't letters combined to make words; they were concepts
combined to make diagrams of desire). In Tantra, the glyphs were considered
universal within the system; an inverted triangle had the same basic set of
correspondences regardless of who was creating the diagram (yantra). Some
yantras were adopted more-or-less universally, but there were also lots of
one-off, unique yantras created for specific, one-time purposes.
The thing to keep in mind when looking at Mrs. Paterson, Spare's
quasi-mythical tutor and guru, is that nobody really knows much about her.
As far as I've been able to research, there's no written documentation of
her work or, indeed, her existence whatsoever. Thus, its not really
possible to state with any authority what her own background was. There are
some tentative conclusions that can be drawn from Spare's recollections of
her, and that's about it.
We can, however, look at Spare's earliest recorded magickal work, "Earth
Inferno", which was written and illustrated in 1904, when Spare himself was
18 years old. In this appear several clues, the first in a section entitled
"A Creed of Despair":
"My ambition is DEAD,
Died premature and with it the love of care,
Also the Jewel in the Lotus.
The morrow holds nought for me
Save Sin and Death.
I am even exempt from my own created
PLEASURES.
The barrenness of this life but remains.
Yet in despair we begin to see true light. AMEN.
In weakness we can become strong.
REVERE the KIÂ and Your Mind will become TRANQUIL."
This is nearly word-for-word a reproduction of an initiatory
question-and-answer used among the Bhairavatantrikas.
The above piece is accompanied by an illustration entitled "The Despair", in
which is depicted what appears to be a ritual. A woman faces directly out
from the picture. If you examine this illustration closely, the woman has a
snake crawling up from between her breasts (kundalini at the level of
Anahatachakra, the minimal level of the rise of Kundalini for the state
called "vira", in which one becomes eligible to participate in the central
Tantric rite of Pancamakara). The woman also needs a shave; in fact, the
face of the woman is the same as Spare's own. She stands to Spare's left in
the illustration, which is the position that a yogini/bhairavi would be
located during the performance of pancamakara. Her arms are cross behind
her back in a rather off position. Her hands appear to be making some sort
of gesture (mudra) over the woman on the table that appears to be the focus
of the rite. This prone woman is surrounded by three candle-flames; the use
of three flames (one at the head, one in hand and one at the feet) is also
common in Tantric rites (although oil-lamps are used instead of candles).
>Above all, sigils are not the center of Spare's system, and it's unfair
>to reduce his complex philosophy to this simple "trick". At the core of
>Spare's thinking, there the idea of Kia, the "atmospheric self", and the
>Neither-Neither meditation process. I don't know if it's tantric, but it
>is certainly Eastern, hindu with a touch of taoism. and if the "atman"
>concept is silly, what to think about the "Kia"?
Indeed... from the statements made about Kiâ in "The Book of Pleasure", its
not at all a leap to the Tantric concept of Atman:
"Of name it has no need. I call it Kia -- I dare not claim it as myself.
The Kia which can be expressed by conceivable ideas, is not the eternal Kia,
which burns up all belief -- but is the archetype of "self". Endeavoring to
describe "it,", I write what may be -- but not usually -- called the "book
of lies"... The Kia which can be vaguely expressed in words is the
"Neither-Neither", the unmodified "I" in the sensation of omnipresence...
Its emanation is its own intensity, but not necessariness, it has and ever
will exist, the virgin quantum -- by its exuberance we have gained
existence."
Similar description of Atman abound in Tantric literature, but for
convenience sake, I'll just reproduce what Abhinavagupta had to say about it
in his "Paratrisika Vivarana", a work of the Kramatantra, written
approximately 1000 AD:
"Here in every case, it is not the limited "I" identified with the body that
is referred to. The limited "I" being an object of the senses is obviously
incompatible with that real, unlimited I. Thus this unlimited I is of the
nature of the self-luminous Shiva. Therefore of the universal, unlimited
consciousness which is self-luminous, there is neither any diminution nor
augmentation. Both diminution and augmentation... cannot be an aspect of
the Light of Consciousness."
The words are different, and Spare wrote in English, Abhinavagutpta in
Sanskrit... but the concepts are the same. Nothing can be said of this
transcendental/atmospheric I, because its beyond qualities that can be
assigned to it, and is self-existent and self-generated. It isn't an "it",
because it can't be localized. This is the gist of Spare's Neither-Neither,
which makes its appearance in various Tantras as "Neti-Neti". Description
is possible only in negative terms when an attempt is made to view it from
without.
Tom Schuler
<Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:3842129...@cnews.newsguy.com...
>
> ****P.S. --While you are in this marvelous multi-cultural
> neo-semantic Orwellian-Hiedrickian "New Speak" creative
> mood,
What a bizarre description of something very simple and straight-forward.
You seem to think you can make the idea go away by heaping shit on it.
However, it's all your own shit.
Remi Sussan
Dharaadhaataa wrote:
> He called these glyphs an "alphabet of desire", but
> clearly they didn't constitute an alphabet in the usual sense of the word
> (i.e., the glyphs weren't letters combined to make words; they were concepts
> combined to make diagrams of desire).
And this is exactly the process used to create new chinese ideograms.
You use basic concepts you combine together to form a new one.
> The thing to keep in mind when looking at Mrs. Paterson, Spare's
> quasi-mythical tutor and guru, is that nobody really knows much about her.
> As far as I've been able to research, there's no written documentation of
> her work or, indeed, her existence whatsoever.
To speak frankly, I personally doubt of Mrs Paterson existence. I
remember, somewhere in Kenneth Grant writings, that he said that Mrs
Paterson was from a line of Salem witches. as anybody knows there never
were witches in Salem, just collective hysteria. As almost nobody today
would deny this, I wonder if this sentence was not a kind of warning :
"caution, you are entering in a mythical part of the story now".
> We can, however, look at Spare's earliest recorded magickal work, "Earth
> Inferno", which was written and illustrated in 1904, when Spare himself was
> 18 years old. In this appear several clues, the first in a section entitled
> "A Creed of Despair":
>
> "My ambition is DEAD,
> Died premature and with it the love of care,
> Also the Jewel in the Lotus.
> The morrow holds nought for me
> Save Sin and Death.
> I am even exempt from my own created
> PLEASURES.
>
> The barrenness of this life but remains.
> Yet in despair we begin to see true light. AMEN.
> In weakness we can become strong.
>
> REVERE the KIÂ and Your Mind will become TRANQUIL."
>
> This is nearly word-for-word a reproduction of an initiatory
> question-and-answer used among the Bhairavatantrikas.
(snip other very interesting stuff)
BTW, I'm amazed by your erudition in this domain. But if this poem is a
reproduction from a tantric initiatory text, it makes me wonder about
the origins of Spare's Zos Kia. Until now, I thought that Spare, a
little like Crowley, was a very intuitive man, able to reconstruct for
himself tantric or taoist doctrines just by reading some classics and
scholarly books.I also suspected he was introduced to eastern thinking
during his short collaboration with the A.A (perhaps through Alan Bennet
?). but here we find a 18 years old boy, able to quote very hermetic
hindu texts (and this before he met Crowley or the AA...). What was
exactly the information available on Tantrism in 1904 London?
I'm impatient to see your site "split" in two parts. I hope we'll have
all soon access to a lot of this fascinating tantric material!
catherine yronwode
>
> Until now, I thought that Spare, a
> little like Crowley, was a very intuitive man, able to reconstruct
> for himself tantric or taoist doctrines just by reading some
> classics and scholarly books.I also suspected he was introduced to
> eastern thinking during his short collaboration with the A.A (perhaps
> through Alan Bennet ?). but here we find a 18 years old boy, able to
> quote very hermetic hindu texts (and this before he met Crowley or
> the AA...). What was exactly the information available on Tantrism in
> 1904 London?
Quite a bit, actually! Hargrave Jennings had been collecting and
publishing material on sexual religions of the worls, taken more or less
at random from whatever Indian, Egyptian, and Celtic texts and
traveller's tales were available to him, and editing them into a series
of books on Phallism (later called Phallicism) beginning in the 1850s.
By the time of his death, in the 1890s, he had published more than a
dozen of these books, most of them anonymously. Titles include
Phallism: A Description of the Worship of Lingam-Yoni in Various Parts
of the World, and in Different Ages, with an Account of Ancient and
Modern Crosses, Particularly the Crux Ansata (or Handled Cross) and
Other Symbols Connected with the Mysteries of Sex Worship
"Nature Worship and Mystical Series" [#1]
Privately Printed, 1889, London.
Reprinted as "Phallicism"; Privately Printed, circa 1890-91, London
viii + 107 pp., with a bibliography
Ophiolatreia: An Account of the Rites and Mysteries Connected with the
Origin, Rise, and Development of Serpent Worship in Various Parts of the
Word, Enriched with Interesting Traditions, and a Full Description of
the Celebrated Serpent Mounds and Temples, the Whole Forming an
Exposition of One of the Phases of Phallic, or Sex Worship
"Nature Worship and Mystical Series" [#2]
Privately printed, 1889, London
viii + 103 pp.
Fishes, Flowers, and Fire as Elements and Deities in the Phallic Faiths
and Worship of the Ancient Religions of Greece, Babylon, Rome, India,
etc., with Illustrative Myths and Legends
"Nature Worship and Mystical Series" [#5]
Privately printed, [1890?], London.
??? pp.
Nature Worship: An Account of Phallic Faiths and Practices, Ancient and
Modern, Including the Adoration of the Male and Female Powers in Various
Nations and the Sacti Puja of Indian Gnosticism
"Nature Worship and Mystical Series" [#7]
Privately printed, 1891, London.
105 pp.
And so forth, and so on. (By the "Sacti Puja of Indian Gnosticism,"
Jennings meant tantra yoga, of course; he was simply trying to make a
language-bridge for his British readers.)
For a full bibliographical list of Jennings' books, with commentary on
the contents, go to
http://www.luckymojo.com/tkbibkioa.html (the anonymous works)
and
http://www.luckymojo.com/tkbiblioj.html (those under his own name)
And Jennings was not the only source open to Spare. The African-American
author, lecturer, and world-traveller Paschal Beverly Randolph, from the
mid-850s and until his death in 1875, had published prodiigiously on the
subject of sex-magic and sexualized religious devotions, based mostly
around his personal contact with the Nusa'iri of Syria, who, althougb
nominally Muslims, practiced a form of sex-worship similar to both the
tantric and gnostic faiths, and probably deriving from a common
neolithic root. Randolph was, by the way, a friend and correspondent of
Hargrave Jennings, and visited him in England in the 1850s and probably
again in the 1870s. For more on Randolph, and his influence on Crowley
and Spare, see
http://www.luckymojo.com/tkpbrandolph.html
cat yronwode
Karezza and Sacred Sex ------ http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredsex.html
The Esoteric Archive --------- http://www.luckymojo.com/esoteric.html
The Sacred Landscape ------- http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredland.html
Freemasonry for Women ------- http://www.luckymojo.com/comasonry.html
Lucky Mojo Curio Co. http://www.luckymojo.com/luckymojocatalogue.html
Send e-mail with your street address to heyp...@luckymojo.com
and receive our free 32 page catalogue of hoodoo supplies and amulets
Miss Felicity
<snicker-snack>
> You are out of your element in this one and you can't let go
> because YOU are little Cartman in his cop outfit shouting: "Respect my
> authority!" I was trying in a nice way to show you that. Now I'll put
> it bluntly: A Nigerian babolorisha practices Ju-Ju, a Hatian Papaloi
> practices Voudoun, a Congolese fetishman practices Dawa, and a
> European (especially and Enlgish-speaking European ceremonial magician
> practices Magick. They ALL practice various forms of magic, or
> folk-magic. If you make the term "Magick" universal, then you are
> saying i.e. that every other culture has a right to a distinctive name
> for their tradition of practice EXCEPT US! Now that might be a usable
> position for an anti-romantic, anti-occult, anti-New Age, anti-Wiccan
> self-styled social critic to take -- but for those of us who have
> some pride in our own tradition (and respect for the unique traditions
> of other cultures as well as our own) I find your position very
> suspect and highly questionable.
There are also various Western European traditions that have different
names, though. Pythagorean, Quabbalah (Hebrew and Christian),
Hermeticism, Thelema, Alchemy, Wicca, etc. I'd always assumed that
"magic" was stage magic, and "magick" was the generic term for _all_
folk traditions. It has become an exclusively European term because
people tend to be more impressed by tomes written in Latin and six-hour
ceremonies than by oral traditions and rituals you can do in five
minutes.
> And back to South Park again. Cartman is screaming at you: "You're
> afraid to read Rupert Sheldrake! If you don't read Sheldrake you're a
> PUSSY!"
Who him?
Miss Felicity
E. C. Ballard
Eoghan
--
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Nsambiempungo l'acutara
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ebal...@sas.upenn.edu
Unknown
wrote:
>
><Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:3841c783...@cnews.newsguy.com...
>> >
>> *****The South Park Cartman gimmick was a failed attempt
>> to get you to see yourself in mirror.
>
>Perhaps because it's not a reflection of me at all.
******Oh, it isn't? Have you ever heard of Transactional Analysis?
They teach it to business execs and managers these days. The gist of
it is that if one adult conversationalist adopts a position of
authority and speaks to the other adult as if he is a child, there is
no communication. Now I'm guilty of this sometimes; anyone who is
knowledgeable in their field tends to be -- but I try to lighten up,
apologize when I'm wrong, and even laugh at myself. You, on the other
hand, are consistently self-righteous and authoritative. To make it
worse you don't contribute very much to this newsgroup even though you
post more than anyone else. Caustic criticism with no suggestion for
improvement seems to be your main offering. This is why I used the
little Cartman-cop image. I was trying to show you a reflection of
yourself.****
>
>> You may think that this "magick" vs. "magic"
>> vs. "folk-magic" argument that you are engaging in has
>> some universal humanist multi-cultural appeal, but from
>> an anthropological standpoint you are almost as silly as
>> Rosana Rosana Dana (Gilda Radner on Sat. Nite Live)
>> screaming: "What's all this talk about endangered feces?"
>
>Right actor, wrong character. This seems somehow appropos. The "What's all
>this about..." character was Emily Litella.
****Rosana Rosana Dana was Gilda Radner's character. At least get your
trivia straight even if your anthropology is a bit weak.****
>You still are fixed on your anthropological view of magick as a social
>function. This isn't surprising for a guy who has been running a social
>club for practicing occultists. My view is phenomenological, not
>anthropological. There are bound to be some differences.
****We all know you are anti-group work so the "social club" remark is
to be expected. But if your view is actually " phenomenological", it
is a lot closer to viewpoint of the Amazing Randi than even my
Jungian-hypnotic-subjective approach. There is so much in magick that
you dislike and disapprove of that it is difficult for us to get any
idea of what kind of a magician you are -- or aren't.****
>
>> You are out of your element in this one and you can't let go
>> because YOU are little Cartman in his cop outfit shouting:
>> "Respect my authority!"
>
>I'm not shouting anything at all, Poke. I'm merely not buying your
>definition of magick as a white-bread social function.
****A "White-Bread social function". Thanks for that one. It explains
more about you than a thousand words.****
>
>> I was trying in a nice way to show you that. Now I'll put
>> it bluntly: A Nigerian babolorisha practices Ju-Ju, a Hatian
>> Papaloi practices Voudoun, a Congolese fetishman practices
>> Dawa, and a European (especially and Enlgish-speaking
>> European ceremonial magician practices Magick.
>
>Only when you define magick as white-bread property.
****Thanks again!****
>
>> They ALL practice various forms of magic, or
>> folk-magic.
>
****I'll lump all the above together and easily answer it in one short
paragraph: As I said: Magick is ferociously eclectic and uses
techniques, methods and concepts from many far-flung traditions from
Taoism, Tantra, Magism, Gnosticism, and on and on -- but it digests
them, integrates them and incorporates them in its own "universal"
system which -- if you bother to study the Golden Dawn -- you will
discover is a unique, totally encompassing magical universe of
interlocked corospondances. Crowley was aware of this synthesis but
did not see any need, at the time he wrote what you are quoting, to
qualify his elcleticism in order to defend Magick from being
word-napped by militant multi-culturalist political agitators.****
>
>> If you make the term "Magick" universal, then you are
>> saying i.e. that every other culture has a right to a distinctive
>> name for their tradition of practice EXCEPT US!
>
>Poor fellow! Everybody's got one but you. The fact is that our culture, as
>a whole, thinks your brand of magick is a bunch of superstitious nonsense.
>That's why it has no specific name. You don't get to decide for a whole
>culture what the proper name for its mystical practice is. You can invent
>your own private meanings, if you like, and they can apply to you and
>whoever you can cajole into accepting it, but you can't decide it for
>everybody.
****Well, like I said, let's get Don Kraig to re-title his book
"Modern Western European Magick" so all those other cultures he left
out won't be offended. ... Now let's look at a little Freudian silp
of yours: "The fact is that our culture, as a whole, thinks your brand
of magick is a bunch of superstitious nonsense. That's why it has no
specific name."
Now, neighbor, ifin I was as mean and ornery as Devil Anse
Hatfield, I'd give you 'bout five minutes to git off our newsgroup
afore I dusted your overalls with a load of rock salt
With that "your brand of magick" remark you have shown
everyone on this group what your real opinion of "us" is.
>
>> Now that might be a usable position for an anti-romantic,
>> anti-occult, anti-New Age, anti-Wiccan self-styled social
>> critic to take -- but for those of us who have some pride
>> in our own tradition (and respect for the unique traditions
>> of other cultures as well as our own) I find your position very
>> suspect and highly questionable.
>
>Oh, twaddle! You are no more traditional in your practices than the Wiccans
>are. How about your "tradition" of using a hypnotic technique to evoke
>Goetic spirits? Is that "traditional" or did you personally invent it, as
>you claim? Don't hand me that "traditional" crap, Poke. You're about as
>traditional in magick as Mormonism is traditional in Christianity.
****Did anyone ever tell you that you're cute when you're mad?***
>
>> And back to South Park again. Cartman is screaming at you:
>> "You're afraid to read Rupert Sheldrake! If you don't read
>> Sheldrake you're a PUSSY!"
>
>I see you have abandoned the pretence that your use of Cartman is a
>reflection of me. It is quite clearly an expression of your own feelings.
****No, you have me mis-identified in South Park. I'm actually the
King of the Underpants Gnomes --- and we just got yours!
King Gnome d' Plume
>
Unknown
wrote:
>
><Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:3842129...@cnews.newsguy.com...
>>
>> ****P.S. --While you are in this marvelous multi-cultural
>> neo-semantic Orwellian-Hiedrickian "New Speak" creative
>> mood,
>
>What a bizarre description of something very simple and straight-forward.
>You seem to think you can make the idea go away by heaping shit on it.
>However, it's all your own shit.
>
*****Oh my gosh! Now Tom wants to be Mr. Hankey!
But you know what Mr. Hat says: "Keep it clean,
children."****
King Gnome strikes again!
Unknown
wrote:
>Would either of you, (Tom Schuler or Gnome d' Plume), please give an example
>of magic and then explain why you consider it so?
>
>By the way, on a note of ethnic pride, Ju-ju is not "Nigerian" in origin, it
>is an off shoot of a form of worship commonly called voodoo, the oldest and
>perhaps most complete form of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religion, dating
>back to before any written history. Ju-ju of course combines many of the
>local (Niger delta) deity schemes and yes superstitions with the original
>faith but is none the less full of magic.
>
>If you doubt the power of voodoo's ritual magic consider it incorporates the
>use of what we'll for sake of this discussion call, yantras and mantras, as
>well as, music, dance, prayer, and transcendental mediation, not to mention
>alchemy, geomacy, astral projection, and of course scared sex.
>
>No offense but it's amusing to witness peoples of such young self centered
>cultures discuss magic.
>
******No offense taken. Africa, especially West Africa, is an ancient
source for some of our very important magical techniques. The use of
the reflection/distortion phenomenon in mirrors may come from there
(also used in eastern Tantra). Our Geomancy system (the Western
counterpart of the Yi Ching) comes from the Yoruba tradition. You may
be aware that "Ju-ju" has become a dirty word with Western
anthropologists. Geoffrey Parinder will go to great lengths to avoid
using it in print. I do think that you might be just a little mixed up
about which came first, Ju-ju or Voudoun. Voudoun was a Ju-ju revival
in French colonial Haiti in the 1700s. It became a synthesis of Roman
Catholic Saints and Ju-Ju Rishas (Voudoun Oguns). Recently there has
been a return of Voudoun to West Africa from Haiti. I like to think I
had a small part in this because back in the early 1970s I sent a copy
of Maya Duren's "Divine Horsemen" to a corespondent in West Africa who
wanted to "reconstruct" what was left of his native religion. He loved
the book and passed it through many hands. Have you read Isaiah Oke's
"Blood Secrets" on Ju-ju? Of course he is a born-again Christian
writing an expose, but he did claim to have been an apprentice of Dr.
Draco's in Nigeria. Comments?
Gnome d' Plume
http://members.aol.com/CHSOTA/welcome.html
>>
>
James W. Revak
<snip>
>
> -- if you bother to study the Golden Dawn -- you will
>discover is a unique, totally encompassing magical universe of
>interlocked corospondances.
If you mean this literally, I am LOL! The GD may have been highly
eclectic/syncretic but it hardly comprises a "totally encompassing
magical universe".
Lucky Mojo Curio Company
This discussion started elsewhere on the net, but as it is of interest
to folks in alt.religion.orisha (dealing with African diaspora
religions), i am forewarding it for comment by people who may have some
further information:
Gnome d' Plume wrote:
>
> On Sun, 28 Nov 1999 "Erik Jordan" <e...@swbell.net> wrote:
>
> > By the way, on a note of ethnic pride, Ju-ju is not "Nigerian" in
> > origin, it is an off shoot of a form of worship commonly called
> > voodoo, the oldest and perhaps most complete form of the Judeo-
> > Christian-Islamic religion, dating back to before any written
> > history. Ju-ju of course combines many of the local (Niger delta)
> > deity schemes and yes superstitions with the original faith but
> > is none the less full of magic.
> >
> > If you doubt the power of voodoo's ritual magic consider it
> > incorporates the use of what we'll for sake of this discussion call,
> > yantras and mantras, as well as, music, dance, prayer, and
> > transcendental mediation, not to mention alchemy, geomacy,
> > astral projection, and of course scared sex.
> >
> > No offense but it's amusing to witness peoples of such young self
> > centered cultures discuss magic.
> No offense taken. Africa, especially West Africa, is an ancient
> source for some of our very important magical techniques. The use of
> the reflection/distortion phenomenon in mirrors may come from there
> (also used in eastern Tantra). Our Geomancy system (the Western
> counterpart of the Yi Ching) comes from the Yoruba tradition. You may
> be aware that "Ju-ju" has become a dirty word with Western
> anthropologists. Geoffrey Parinder will go to great lengths to avoid
> using it in print. I do think that you might be just a little mixed up
> about which came first, Ju-ju or Voudoun. Voudoun was a Ju-ju revival
> in French colonial Haiti in the 1700s. It became a synthesis of Roman
> Catholic Saints and Ju-Ju Rishas (Voudoun Oguns). Recently there has
> been a return of Voudoun to West Africa from Haiti. I like to think I
> had a small part in this because back in the early 1970s I sent a copy
> of Maya Duren's "Divine Horsemen" to a corespondent in West Africa who
> wanted to "reconstruct" what was left of his native religion. He loved
> the book and passed it through many hands. Have you read Isaiah Oke's
> "Blood Secrets" on Ju-ju? Of course he is a born-again Christian
> writing an expose, but he did claim to have been an apprentice of Dr.
> Draco's in Nigeria. Comments?
>
> Gnome d' Plume
Well, i am just a bystander here, but i didn't know that the Nigerians
needed outside help to "reconstruct" their religion.
And, maybe i have this all wrong, but i thought Voudoun derived from the
Fon religion of what is now Benin, while Santeria (which mixes in
Catholic saints) is derived from the Yoruban religion of what is now
Nigeria.
And who are the Ju-Ju Rishas?
cat yronwode
Lucky W Amulet Archive --------- http://www.luckymojo.com/luckyw.html
Unknown
wrote:
>On Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:39:40 GMT, (Gnome d' Plume) wrote:
>
><snip>
>>
>> -- if you bother to study the Golden Dawn -- you will
>>discover is a unique, totally encompassing magical universe of
>>interlocked corospondances.
>
>If you mean this literally, I am LOL! The GD may have been highly
>eclectic/syncretic but it hardly comprises a "totally encompassing
>magical universe".
>
>*****Don't start laughing yet. Of course I don't mean it literally! But
figuratively it is very true. One of the essential differences
between Eastern and Western magical systems is the concept of Maya, or
"everything is illusion" in the Eastern way of thinking vs. the more
concrete "everything is a degree of reality" ( tending toward Dualism
and supernaturalism, unfortunately) in the Western way of magical
thinking. Therefore synthesizers from Trithemius, through Agrippa,
down to the Golden Dawn have tried to make everything in the microcosm
tie in to everything in the macrocosm, like a big Newtonian clockwork
-- whereas Tibetan vajrayana practitioners have different (even
contradictory) correspondences for each of their deities, and Hindu
mythologies for many Gods are apparently in conflict as to which one
did what -- but, this doesn't bother the Easterners at all. We, on the
other hand, treat the Universe like a machine for which we must have a
set of sequential blueprints. This is what the Golden Dawn managed to
do more effectively than any previous Western mystical society.
Certainly they didn't succeed, but they did try -- and they got
farther than their predecessors. Ludvig Prinn and I had a go-round
recently on the Sepher Yetzirah. Prinn was totally wrong about The
Naples Arrangement being found in Kaplan's version of the book, but
the Kaplan Sepher Yetzira is the best yet. I mention this because the
Sepher Yetzirah is the linch-pin and key to the construction of the
Golden Dawn Universe. If you are really interested in the
Hermetic-kabbalistic derivation of the G.D. Tarot (and it is the most
widely used of the Tarot architectures) watch for our new edition of
"Secrets of the Golden Dawn Cypher Manuscript" coming early next year.
http://members.aol.com/CHSOTA/productions.html
Gnome d' Plume
Gnome d' Plume
Unknown
wrote:
>On Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:39:40 GMT, (Gnome d' Plume) wrote:
>
><snip>
>>
>> -- if you bother to study the Golden Dawn -- you will
>>discover is a unique, totally encompassing magical universe of
>>interlocked corospondances.
>
Gnome d' Plume
Gnome d' Plume
>
Unknown
*****I didn't say that my corespondent was from Nigeria.
>
>And, maybe i have this all wrong, but i thought Voudoun derived from the
>Fon religion of what is now Benin, while Santeria (which mixes in
>Catholic saints) is derived from the Yoruban religion of what is now
>Nigeria.
****I think we are probably both right. But remember, there were
people from all over West Africa being "exported" to the Caribbean
from the 1600s through the 1800s. To say that Hatian Voudoun came only
from Fon might be a bit limited -- especially if we take the Rada
(Gold Coast) and Petro (Congolese) aspects into consideration, but I'm
basing my thoughts on Maya Duren, Zora Hurston, and W.B. Seabrook, so
if they are wrong, then I'm wrong.****
>
>And who are the Ju-Ju Rishas?
***Orishas (my mistake) and that comes for Isaiah Oke's book "Blood
Secrets" which I'm not recommending. I would, however, like an opinion
on it from someone more specialized in this. Any Babalorishas out
there?****
mdhjwh
Dharaadhaataa/Mahaamanas//Yudhaampati/Sukrta /Tryaksa /Dhrtimaan /
Matimaan/Gopalla/Hara/
Hiranyabaahu/Jitendriya/Suraapa/Bhuutavrta/Apsaras/Ganasevita/Mahaaketu wrote:
>Her hands appear to be making some sort
of gesture (mudra) over the woman on the table that appears to be the focus
of the rite. <
As yantra and mandala reflect each other - does the use of mudra in this rite
imply sigil ?
John H
Remi Sussan
catherine yronwode wrote:
> Quite a bit, actually! Hargrave Jennings had been collecting and
> publishing material on sexual religions of the worls, taken more or less
> at random from whatever Indian, Egyptian, and Celtic texts and
> traveller's tales were available to him, and editing them into a series
> of books on Phallism (later called Phallicism) beginning in the 1850s.
> By the time of his death, in the 1890s, he had published more than a
> dozen of these books, most of them anonymously. Titles include
>
>
> And Jennings was not the only source open to Spare. The African-American
> author, lecturer, and world-traveller Paschal Beverly Randolph, from the
> mid-850s and until his death in 1875, had published prodiigiously on the
> subject of sex-magic and sexualized religious devotions, based mostly
> around his personal contact with the Nusa'iri of Syria, who, althougb
> nominally Muslims, practiced a form of sex-worship similar to both the
> tantric and gnostic faiths, and probably deriving from a common
> neolithic root. Randolph was, by the way, a friend and correspondent of
> Hargrave Jennings, and visited him in England in the 1850s and probably
> again in the 1870s. For more on Randolph, and his influence on Crowley
> and Spare, see
> http://www.luckymojo.com/tkpbrandolph.html
Thanks, Catherine, for all these useful references. I will certainly
check them out. I was aware of P.B Randolph (but not of the Nusa'iri
-very interesting). Of Jennings, I knew only a short and quite ironic
reference in Francis King's _Ritual Magic in England_.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that Spare, (especially if Tzimon was right
about the Earth Inferno passage), far from being involved in a quite
universal sex-worship, was deeply involved in the philosophical
subtleties of Tantra, and not of of the most known sort: for instance,
as you rightly pointed out in your site, Randolph's magic was
gender-centered, as Crowley and Reuss's was male-centered. But Spare's
system is of an other kind; it is, so to say, orgasm-centered or
exhaustion-centered.In the _book of pleasure_, he says that playing
tennis would lead to the same results.It is based on a theory about
"micro-void" states that one can only, to my knowledge, find in the
Vijnanabhairava tantra(and perhaps in Dzogchen? I'm not sure, Dzogchen
is quite difficult to understand).Was this text translated by Jennings,
for instance? As I said, earlier, I thought that this similarity was
just an analogy, that Spare discovered the idea by himself. But now
Tzimon comes with this word-for-word reproduction of a tantric ritual!
And he was 18 !
Thanks for your help!
Remi
zara...@my-deja.com
adept and his hermetic books are very good for cutting directly to the
essential materials. The man knew his stuff and was initiated to a very high
degree. Hermetics can be dry reading from any author and a possible knock if
any on Bardon's earlier editions was the translation from German to English
was alittle off in a few places but accurate overall. Frabato the Magician
has some fine insight for anyone wondering just how nasty some lodges can be,
although as I am an initiated Knight of Baphomet (KOB) among other titles, I
felt the reference of Baphomet in that autobiography was more of a editorial
extension to flesh in the frame work of details given by Franz Bardon.
Moreover every single spritual ruler that Bardon lists in the earth zone that
I have been able to personally meet has been what I feel to be a factial
recording from that adept. That spirit previously known as Franz Bardon is a
hard working teacher in what most refer to as the astral plane, as Franz
Bardon he refered to it as the earth zone. Some 20 years ago I picked up his
complete book on evocation and was almost immediately impressed by his
knowledge and the manner in which he listed many of the spiritual rulers he
had contacted. This being from a high priest of 3 years of the Black Dragon
Coven, teaching the same at the University Level to grad students (University
of Oregon), a 2nd degree initiate of Crowleys old temple of the OTO and
having previously invocated and evocated many spirits before that time. I
went back and picked up his first book on Initiation into Hermetics and later
took the chance in buying his Complete book of the Quabbala. I've never
regreted it and I'm happy that I did. No followup, just accept that I am
recommending his books. 93's Frater Metatron IV/PI Malecum Nsala, Tata
Mitchell Nganga Nkisi Siete Rayos
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Naikataanarata
Remi Sussan wrote in message <3842BC8C...@yahoo.com>...
>To speak frankly, I personally doubt of Mrs Paterson existence. I
>remember, somewhere in Kenneth Grant writings, that he said that Mrs
>Paterson was from a line of Salem witches. as anybody knows there never
>were witches in Salem, just collective hysteria. As almost nobody today
>would deny this, I wonder if this sentence was not a kind of warning :
>"caution, you are entering in a mythical part of the story now".
Could be. I don't know what to think of Mrs. Paterson; she seems to have
vanished without a trace, and Spare (as far as I've been able to find) never
gives her first name. Note, too, that it's Grant who makes this comment; I
don't think Spare did. Grant does have a tendency to embellish frfom time
to time. :=}
I think Paterson is quasi-mythical; that is, I think there was someone who
was "Mrs. Paterson", but whether she was even female is open to question.
Her name itself is somewhat suspect. "Pater", in Latin, is "father"... Mrs.
Paterson may have been male. Pure speculation on my part, though. In any
case, I think there may well have been a real person, but Paterson may not
have been his/her name. Or, Paterson may have been more than one person.
>BTW, I'm amazed by your erudition in this domain. But if this poem is a
>reproduction from a tantric initiatory text, it makes me wonder about
>the origins of Spare's Zos Kia. Until now, I thought that Spare, a
>little like Crowley, was a very intuitive man, able to reconstruct for
>himself tantric or taoist doctrines just by reading some classics and
>scholarly books.I also suspected he was introduced to eastern thinking
>during his short collaboration with the A.A (perhaps through Alan Bennet
>?). but here we find a 18 years old boy, able to quote very hermetic
>hindu texts (and this before he met Crowley or the AA...). What was
>exactly the information available on Tantrism in 1904 London?
Not a heck of a lot. In fact, in terms of the known Tantric texts, there's
*still* only a fraction of the total that's been made available in a modern
language. Most Tantric material still awaits translation.
It wasn't until several years later that the translation of Tantric material
began, and even here the only person publishing to the general public was
Arthur Avalon/John Woodruffe (around 1913). The translation of
Vijñanabhairava, the first (and perhaps still the only) Bhairavatantra text
didn't occur until many years later, so its extremely unlikely that Spare
got that passage I quoted from a book. Up until the point that Avalon's
work began to be published, what little mention there was of Tantra was a
mere footnote, if that much. Specific information really wasn't available
in 1904 England.
I don't think this takes away from Spare's creativity or intuition, in any
case. Every magickal system is based upon that which has gone before it,
and Spare was certainly the first to really be able to put words to some
very difficult concepts (although, admittedly, his own writing can be rather
dense and poetic at times). He may have had some inside knowledge from
which to start, but throughout his life, he significantly expanded from that
base and adapted it and certainly made it his own, complete with his own
insights.
>I'm impatient to see your site "split" in two parts. I hope we'll have
>all soon access to a lot of this fascinating tantric material!
One of these days, when I have lots of spare time (pun only somewhat
intended), I'll get around to it. In the meantime, check out
http://www.hubcom.com/magee/tantra if you haven't already.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tzimon Yliaster
Tools of CHAOS
http://www.xiqual.com
PO Box 26362,
San Francisco, CA 94126
Naikataanarata
mdhjwh wrote in message <384378BA...@ozemail.com.au>...
>
>
>Dharaadhaataa/Mahaamanas//Yudhaampati/Sukrta /Tryaksa /Dhrtimaan /
>Matimaan/Gopalla/Hara/
>Hiranyabaahu/Jitendriya/Suraapa/Bhuutavrta/Apsaras/Ganasevita/Mahaaketu
wrote:
You know, this is going to turn into a very, very long list of names if you
keep this up. :=}
>As yantra and mandala reflect each other - does the use of mudra in this
rite
>imply sigil ?
I don't know if I understand what you're asking... yantra and mandala are
two words for the same thing (mandala is used more in Buddhist tradition).
But mudra could be looked at as a sigil made with the hands, I suppose. All
of these elements (yantra, mantra, mudra, etc.) are just expressions of a
single principle through different mediums.
Eoghan
A friendly word. It helps if you delete some of the preceeding info. I
really couldn't tell without reading the whole post all over again, what
your latest additional comments were. Thanks.
Eoghan
Eoghan Ballard
Center for Folklore & Ethnology
University of Pennsylvania
Erik Jordan
Now there's a bit of magick.
All humor aside ... that's a great example and a pretty clear definition.
By the way my sense of superiority is not culturally based.
Erik
"Tom Schuler" <d...@teleport.com> wrote in message
news:faq04.55233$C7.24...@news1.teleport.com...
>
> Erik Jordan <e...@swbell.net> wrote in message
> news:04m04.3824$cq6....@typhoon01.swbell.net...
> > Would either of you, (Tom Schuler or Gnome d' Plume), please
> > give an example of magic and then explain why you consider it so?
>
> Certainly. One of my favorite examples, because it is measuable and
> verifiable, is the "placebo effect". A placebo is a medically inert
> substance that is imbued with healing power by the belief of the
individual
> that it has efficacy to cure them. When a person takes a placebo while
> under the impression that it is a powerful curative agent, in a clear
> majority of cases, the symptoms of the ailment subside. Sometimes the
> ailment itself vanishes completely.
>
> This is magical because it is a phenomenon that occurs due entirely to the
> mental attitude of the individual and not to any known physical benefit
from
> the placebo itself. This conforms to Crowley's definition of magick, "the
> art and science of causing change to occur in conformity with will" and
with
> the unknown author of the Goetia, "the Highest, most Absolute and most
> Divine Knowledge of Natural Philosophy, advanced in its works and
wonderful
> operations by a
> right understanding of the inward and occult virtue of things; so that
true
> Agents being applied to proper Patients, strange and admirable effects
will
> thereby be produced."
>
> It also is an effect acknowledged by scientific researchers but for which
no
> mechanism has yet been identified that could account for it.
>
> > If you doubt the power of voodoo's ritual magic consider it incorporates
> the
> > use of what we'll for sake of this discussion call, yantras and mantras,
> as
> > well as, music, dance, prayer, and transcendental mediation, not to
> mention
> > alchemy, geomacy, astral projection, and of course scared sex.
>
> Err... sacred sex, I suppose. Bit of a humorous typo there.
>
> > No offense but it's amusing to witness peoples of such young
> > self centered cultures discuss magic.
>
> No offense taken. I'm used to culture-bound people feeling superior to
> others.
>
>
>
Tom Schuler
<Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:38430fb9...@cnews.newsguy.com...
> On Sun, 28 Nov 1999 23:32:15 -0800, "Tom Schuler" <d...@teleport.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >Perhaps because it's not a reflection of me at all.
>
> ******Oh, it isn't? Have you ever heard of Transactional Analysis?
Yes, it was a pop psychology fad in the 70's.
> They teach it to business execs and managers these days.
"They" being the seminar circuit dog-and-pony shows. They'll spout any sort
of shit, if it will delude workers into feeling less dysphoric about their
pointless jobs.
> The gist of it is that if one adult conversationalist adopts a position of
> authority and speaks to the other adult as if he is a child, there is
> no communication. Now I'm guilty of this sometimes; anyone who is
> knowledgeable in their field tends to be -- but I try to lighten up,
> apologize when I'm wrong, and even laugh at myself. You, on the other
> hand, are consistently self-righteous and authoritative.
My, you have a very rigid conception of me. I wonder why you are so
selective in your perceptions?
> Caustic criticism with no suggestion for
> improvement seems to be your main offering.
I offer quite a few suggestions. They aren't suggestions you credit,
however, so you pretend they don't exist.
> >> You may think that this "magick" vs. "magic"
> >> vs. "folk-magic" argument that you are engaging in has
> >> some universal humanist multi-cultural appeal, but from
> >> an anthropological standpoint you are almost as silly as
> >> Rosana Rosana Dana (Gilda Radner on Sat. Nite Live)
> >> screaming: "What's all this talk about endangered feces?"
> >
> >Right actor, wrong character. This seems somehow appropos. The
> >"What's all this about..." character was Emily Litella.
>
> ****Rosana Rosana Dana was Gilda Radner's character. At least get
> your trivia straight even if your anthropology is a bit weak.****
You got the character name wrong, too. It's Roseanne Roseannadanna. And
Radner had a number of characters, including nerdy Lisa Loobner, rock star
Candy Slice, and, the one you are confusing with the brassy Roseanne, the
well-intentioned but misguided editorialist, Emily Litella. Emily always
began her editorials with the line "What's all this about..." and going on
to rant about something she misheard on the news. Chevy Chase would correct
her and she'd respond, "Oh, that's different. Never mind!"
Roseanne was the outrageous consumer reporter whose tag line was "It just
goes to show, it's always somethin'!"
Now, what were you saying about apologizing when you're wrong?
> ****We all know you are anti-group work so the "social club" remark is
> to be expected.
To turn that around, we all know you are compulsively dominant so the Eric
Cartman yelling is to be expected.
> But if your view is actually " phenomenological", it
> is a lot closer to viewpoint of the Amazing Randi than even my
> Jungian-hypnotic-subjective approach.
At least, so it would appear to an occultist.
> There is so much in magick that
> you dislike and disapprove of that it is difficult for us to get any
> idea of what kind of a magician you are -- or aren't.****
It should be quite clear. I'm not one like you. There is nothing in
"magick" that I dislike or disapprove. There are a lot of people who study
magick who have drawn conclusions I dispute. You seem to be equating your
personal religion with magick. This is one of the conclusions I dispute.
> >> You are out of your element in this one and you can't let go
> >> because YOU are little Cartman in his cop outfit shouting:
> >> "Respect my authority!"
> >
> >I'm not shouting anything at all, Poke. I'm merely not buying your
> >definition of magick as a white-bread social function.
>
> ****A "White-Bread social function". Thanks for that one. It explains
> more about you than a thousand words.****
And about you as well, although you don't seem ready to see that. Declaring
magick to be the sole property of Western European culture makes your view
of magick a white-bread social function and not an inherent activity of all
human beings, which is what Crowley was saying.
> ****I'll lump all the above together and easily answer it in one short
> paragraph:
That's a good way to avoid answering any of the specific questions I asked
about particular examples of Crowley's views on the term he coined and how
it differs dramatically with your opinions.
> As I said: Magick is ferociously eclectic and uses
> techniques, methods and concepts from many far-flung traditions from
> Taoism, Tantra, Magism, Gnosticism, and on and on -- but it digests
> them, integrates them and incorporates them in its own "universal"
> system which -- if you bother to study the Golden Dawn -- you will
> discover is a unique, totally encompassing magical universe of
> interlocked corospondances.
It's not unique. It's a hodge-podge of stuff drawn from here and there
quite selectively in order to produce a patchwork theology of its own, just
like any other religion.
> Crowley was aware of this synthesis but
> did not see any need, at the time he wrote what you are quoting, to
> qualify his elcleticism in order to defend Magick from being
> word-napped by militant multi-culturalist political agitators.
That's pretty convoluted reasoning.
And you forgot to add Spiro Agnew's "nattering nabobs of negativism" to your
diatribe. "Political agitators". "Word-napped". Heh.
> ****Well, like I said, let's get Don Kraig to re-title his book
> "Modern Western European Magick" so all those other cultures he left
> out won't be offended. ...
Does Donald Kraig agree with your assessment that the term "magick" can only
be applied to Golden Dawn-style ceremonial magick and not to any religion or
folk tradition of any other culture?
> Now let's look at a little Freudian silp
> of yours: "The fact is that our culture, as a whole, thinks your brand
> of magick is a bunch of superstitious nonsense. That's why it has no
> specific name."
> Now, neighbor, ifin I was as mean and ornery as Devil Anse
> Hatfield, I'd give you 'bout five minutes to git off our newsgroup
> afore I dusted your overalls with a load of rock salt
"Respect your authoritah"?
What "Freudian slip" would that be? Do you even know what a "Freudian slip"
is?
All I see is another of your lame attempts at playing dominance games. As I
told you before, that works if you have a night stick handy, bully-boy, but
it doesn't work when you are reduced to merely conveying your thoughts as
best you can.
> >Oh, twaddle! You are no more traditional in your practices than
> >the Wiccans are. How about your "tradition" of using a hypnotic
> >technique to evoke Goetic spirits? Is that "traditional" or did you
> >personally invent it, as you claim? Don't hand me that "traditional"
> >crap, Poke. You're about as traditional in magick as Mormonism
> >is traditional in Christianity.
>
> ****Did anyone ever tell you that you're cute when you're mad?***
Yes. Did anyone tell you how stupid you look when you're arguing this silly
twaddle? And how impoverished your reasoning appears when you dodge
questions by resorting to derailing tactics?
> ****No, you have me mis-identified in South Park. I'm actually the
> King of the Underpants Gnomes --- and we just got yours!
Step One: Collect underpants.
Step Two: ?
Step Three: Profit.
Sounds right. Except for the "King" part.
Erik Jordan
"Lucky Mojo Curio Company" <heyp...@luckymojo.com> wrote in message
news:384333...@luckymojo.com...
> Hi,
>
> This discussion started elsewhere on the net, but as it is of interest
> to folks in alt.religion.orisha (dealing with African diaspora
> religions), i am forewarding it for comment by people who may have some
> further information:
>
> Gnome d' Plume wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, 28 Nov 1999 "Erik Jordan" <e...@swbell.net> wrote:
> >
> > > By the way, on a note of ethnic pride, Ju-ju is not "Nigerian" in
> > > origin, it is an off shoot of a form of worship commonly called
> > > voodoo, the oldest and perhaps most complete form of the Judeo-
> > > Christian-Islamic religion, dating back to before any written
> > > history. Ju-ju of course combines many of the local (Niger delta)
> > > deity schemes and yes superstitions with the original faith but
> > > is none the less full of magic.
> > >
> > > incorporates the use of what we'll for sake of this discussion call,
> > > yantras and mantras, as well as, music, dance, prayer, and
> > > transcendental mediation, not to mention alchemy, geomacy,
> > > astral projection, and of course scared sex.
> > >
> > > centered cultures discuss magic.
>
> > source for some of our very important magical techniques. The use of
> > the reflection/distortion phenomenon in mirrors may come from there
> > (also used in eastern Tantra).
>> Our Geomancy system (the Western
> > counterpart of the Yi Ching) comes from the Yoruba tradition.
"Our Geomacy system"? Please explain?
Geomacy is the practical use of geometry ... for magickal results.
I'm no expert but in some West Afrikan religions isn't the Creator hailed as
"Divine" for having divined the universe?And geomacy used to immulate or
understand the Divine. Geomacy has been used throughout human history all
over the globe. A rather developed form must have in use as the first
pyramids went up ... which of course predates Yorba culture by a few years.
The root religion of Ju-ju and Fon (like geomacy) is extremely old and was
most likely brought from the southern Nile valley to West Afrika during the
Bantu migrations (with a multitude of Congolese influences no doubt) over a
very long period of time. The core ideal of (Fon, Ju-ju, Voodoo, Santeria,
Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Koptics ... all of which now seem focused
on various rituals involving persons and beings which became Saints,
Orishas, Profits, Oguns, Gods, Angels ... ) is all based in the monotheist
ideal born in Nile valley several thosand years ago. Dating perhaps back to
Adam, (at least to before the great flood).
Some of these sects seem pagan at first glance and many have reverted to
idol worship and other profane stuff, but the core
idea is that all things resulted from a magickal "divine" act of Creation by
a personally involved willful Supreme Being with whom we can commune is the
point of all these faiths.
These induvigual sects are often like blind men grabbing parts of an
elephant ... each assumes they deal with a different reality and miss the
whole for lack of vision. But the whole is there.
>>You may be aware that "Ju-ju" has become a dirty word with Western
> > anthropologists. Geoffrey Parinder will go to great lengths to avoid
> > using it in print. I do think that you might be just a little mixed up
> > about which came first, Ju-ju or Voudoun. Voudoun was a Ju-ju revival
> > in French colonial Haiti in the 1700s. It became a synthesis of Roman
> > Catholic Saints and Ju-Ju Rishas (Voudoun Oguns). Recently there has
> > been a return of Voudoun to West Africa from Haiti. I like to think I
> > had a small part in this because back in the early 1970s I sent a copy
> > of Maya Duren's "Divine Horsemen" to a corespondent in West Africa who
> > wanted to "reconstruct" what was left of his native religion. He loved
> > the book and passed it through many hands. Have you read Isaiah Oke's
> > "Blood Secrets" on Ju-ju? Of course he is a born-again Christian
> > writing an expose, but he did claim to have been an apprentice of Dr.
> > Draco's in Nigeria. Comments?
> >
> > Gnome d' Plume
It's a bit limiting to start discussing the origins of West Afrikan
religions with the Dispora. Especial when the nature of magick is the core
subject. Although induvigual magickal practises and traditions are
interesting stuff, the source of magick is the key.
>
> Well, i am just a bystander here, but i didn't know that the Nigerians
> needed outside help to "reconstruct" their religion.
I love you cat, and appreciate the sentiment, but most cultures could use
some help ... like the blind men.
>
> And, maybe i have this all wrong, but i thought Voudoun derived from the
> Fon religion of what is now Benin, while Santeria (which mixes in
> Catholic saints) is derived from the Yoruban religion of what is now
> Nigeria.
>
> And who are the Ju-Ju Rishas?
I hope I've given a wholistic answer to that question..
E. C. Ballard
Keep the fur flying yersel'!
Eoghan
Tata Enkise 7 Rallos Quimbisa Santo Cristo Buen Viaje
Folklore & Folklife
University of Pennsylvania
Tom Schuler
> Wow. A brilliant example ... and from Tom of all mystics.
I occasionally act in unexpected ways.
> By the way my sense of superiority is not culturally based.
Just a personal acquisition?
Chip
change. Do me a favor do not let up until he screams uncle :).
Chip
<Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:384669f5...@cnews.newsguy.com...
> On Tue, 30 Nov 1999 09:56:04 -0800, "Tom Schuler" <d...@teleport.com>
> wrote:
>
> ****Well, if you want me to concede how clever a debater you are on
> various points of argument, I certainly will. But as a strategist
> (read The Book of 5 Rings) you are your own worst enemy. Let's cut to
> the line: --
> >
> Gnome to Schuler: But if your view is actually " phenomenological",
> it is a lot closer to viewpoint of the Amazing Randi than even my
> Jungian-hypnotic-subjective approach.
> >
> Schuler to Gnome: At least, so it would appear to an occultist.
> >
> ****Tom, old boy, this is what's called shooting yourself in the foot.
> We are all occultists on this newsgroup. Some of us are dingy, some of
> us are not very sophisticated, and some of us are well-educated, but
> this group is "alt.magick", not "alt.skepticism", or
> "alt.debuk-a-kook". You were certainly right when you admitted that
> your were not an anthropologist (you don't get along very well with
> your tribe!) And now we all know that you are not a magician. So just
> what are you doing putting up 230 posts on this newsgroup in the past
> month? Inquiring minds want to know....
>
> ****Let's take this a little further.....
>
> Gnome: As I said: Magick is ferociously eclectic and uses
> techniques, methods and concepts from many far-flung
> traditions from Taoism, Tantra, Magism, Gnosticism, and on and on
> -- but it digests them, integrates them and incorporates them in its
> own "universal" system which -- if you bother to study the Golden Dawn
> -- you will discover is a unique, totally encompassing magical
> universe of interlocked correspondences.
>
> Schuler: It's not unique. It's a hodge-podge of stuff drawn from here
> and there quite selectively in order to produce a patchwork theology
> of its own, just like any other religion.>
>
> *****And let's not forget your all-time prize toe-blaster:--
>
> Schuler: "The fact is that our culture, as a whole, thinks your brand
> >> of magick is a bunch of superstitious nonsense. That's why it has no
> >> specific name."
>
> ***Now after that I don't think there is any doubt that you are a
> dog-in-the-manger on this newsgroup. You post more than anyone else
> (230 in 30 days!) and yet all of your posts are "RE". You don't offer
> anything. You are also incapable of apologizing, conceding any
> personal fault or mistake, and you obviously hold the majority of us
> here in contempt --- as you have proven from your own keyboard. Don't
> you think it's time you changed your approach, or perhaps changed your
> venue?****
>
> Gnome d' Plume
Fate's Knight
Erik Jordan wrote:
Over simplifying things a bit. Like saying all Kabbalah started in India because
there is sex magick in Kabbalah.
> Some of these sects seem pagan at first glance and many have reverted to
> idol worship and other profane stuff, but the core
> idea is that all things resulted from a magickal "divine" act of Creation by
> a personally involved willful Supreme Being with whom we can commune is the
> point of all these faiths.
And others from nowhere near the area. See the Great Spirit.
> These induvigual sects are often like blind men grabbing parts of an
> elephant ... each assumes they deal with a different reality and miss the
> whole for lack of vision. But the whole is there.
"Hey, who's grabbing my ass?"
> >>You may be aware that "Ju-ju" has become a dirty word with Western
> > > anthropologists. Geoffrey Parinder will go to great lengths to avoid
> > > using it in print. I do think that you might be just a little mixed up
> > > about which came first, Ju-ju or Voudoun. Voudoun was a Ju-ju revival
> > > in French colonial Haiti in the 1700s. It became a synthesis of Roman
> > > Catholic Saints and Ju-Ju Rishas (Voudoun Oguns). Recently there has
> > > been a return of Voudoun to West Africa from Haiti. I like to think I
> > > had a small part in this because back in the early 1970s I sent a copy
> > > of Maya Duren's "Divine Horsemen" to a corespondent in West Africa who
> > > wanted to "reconstruct" what was left of his native religion. He loved
> > > the book and passed it through many hands. Have you read Isaiah Oke's
> > > "Blood Secrets" on Ju-ju? Of course he is a born-again Christian
> > > writing an expose, but he did claim to have been an apprentice of Dr.
> > > Draco's in Nigeria. Comments?
> > >
> > > Gnome d' Plume
>
> It's a bit limiting to start discussing the origins of West Afrikan
> religions with the Dispora. Especial when the nature of magick is the core
> subject. Although induvigual magickal practises and traditions are
> interesting stuff, the source of magick is the key.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. Power is power, how we perceive it makes
a religion.
> >
> > Well, i am just a bystander here, but i didn't know that the Nigerians
> > needed outside help to "reconstruct" their religion.
>
> I love you cat, and appreciate the sentiment, but most cultures could use
> some help ... like the blind men.
Hu-uah.
> >
> > And, maybe i have this all wrong, but i thought Voudoun derived from the
> > Fon religion of what is now Benin, while Santeria (which mixes in
> > Catholic saints) is derived from the Yoruban religion of what is now
> > Nigeria.
> >
> > And who are the Ju-Ju Rishas?
>
> I hope I've given a wholistic answer to that question..
>
> >
> > cat yronwode
> >
> > Lucky W Amulet Archive --------- http://www.luckymojo.com/luckyw.html
Fate's Knight
Tom Schuler
<Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:384669f5...@cnews.newsguy.com...
> wrote:
>
> Tom, old boy, this is what's called shooting yourself in the foot.
> We are all occultists on this newsgroup.
Well, no wonder it appears that way to you then. I wonder if it appears
that way to everyone who reads this newsgroup. I'll bet it doesn't.
My foot feels fine. Every kick I aim lands squarely on your ass.
> You were certainly right when you admitted that
> your were not an anthropologist (you don't get along very well with
> your tribe!)
I've known a number of misanthropic anthropologists. I've also known
misogynistic gynecologists. Knowledge doesn't automatically bring sympathy.
Do you feel you get along with your tribe, Mr. Anthropology Student? Have
you ever been a part of a tribe in which you weren't the leader most of the
time? I suspect you escape from those tribes as soon as you can.
> And now we all know that you are not a magician. So just
> what are you doing putting up 230 posts on this newsgroup in the past
> month? Inquiring minds want to know....
I'm posting my thoughts. Isn't it obvious?
Why are you inquiring? Has it anything to do with your being upset that I
dared to disagree with you? I think it most assuredly does. You ran out of
cogent arguments and this is all you have left.
I don't think you want to discuss the subject of our debate any more. You
just want to pretend I'm inferior to you. Well, I don't believe your claims
in that arena either.
Unknown
wrote:
I agree, and when I'm not wrestling with a socio-political commando
like Schuler I do just that -- unfortunately when the fur flies some
of this stuff get disjointed, so it seems best to run it as a
continuing sequence. BTW you guys at Univ. of Penn have statred a
regular little Warburg Institute in the (Western European) "Magick"
area. There are a few of us who appreciate it. Keep up the good work.
Gnome d' P. (MA cultural anthro, Cal State, Northridge, 1980)
http://members.aol.com/CHSOTA
Unknown
wrote:
****Well, if you want me to concede how clever a debater you are on
various points of argument, I certainly will. But as a strategist
(read The Book of 5 Rings) you are your own worst enemy. Let's cut to
the line: --
>
Gnome to Schuler: But if your view is actually " phenomenological",
it is a lot closer to viewpoint of the Amazing Randi than even my
Jungian-hypnotic-subjective approach.
>
Schuler to Gnome: At least, so it would appear to an occultist.
>
****Tom, old boy, this is what's called shooting yourself in the foot.
We are all occultists on this newsgroup. Some of us are dingy, some of
us are not very sophisticated, and some of us are well-educated, but
this group is "alt.magick", not "alt.skepticism", or
"alt.debuk-a-kook". You were certainly right when you admitted that
your were not an anthropologist (you don't get along very well with
your tribe!) And now we all know that you are not a magician. So just
what are you doing putting up 230 posts on this newsgroup in the past
month? Inquiring minds want to know....
****Let's take this a little further.....
Gnome: As I said: Magick is ferociously eclectic and uses
techniques, methods and concepts from many far-flung
traditions from Taoism, Tantra, Magism, Gnosticism, and on and on
-- but it digests them, integrates them and incorporates them in its
own "universal" system which -- if you bother to study the Golden Dawn
-- you will discover is a unique, totally encompassing magical
universe of interlocked correspondences.
Schuler: It's not unique. It's a hodge-podge of stuff drawn from here
and there quite selectively in order to produce a patchwork theology
of its own, just like any other religion.>
*****And let's not forget your all-time prize toe-blaster:--
Schuler: "The fact is that our culture, as a whole, thinks your brand
>> of magick is a bunch of superstitious nonsense. That's why it has no
>> specific name."
***Now after that I don't think there is any doubt that you are a
Black Dragon
A few posts back, a couple of people make comments about a book known as
"The Holy Kaballah", by Arthur Edward Waite. I am studying Qabalah at the
moment and I'm curious as to what the content of this book is, such as :
What does it offer compared to other books on the Kaballah/Qabala/Cabala,
and would this tome still be worth getting if the potential buyer already
has A Garden of Pomegranites by Israel Regardie, Mystical Qabalah by Dion
Fortune, and 777 and other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley, by (
guess who )? Thanks and such.
Unknown
>It is nice to see someone for once pin "ole Shuler's ears down" for a
>change. Do me a favor do not let up until he screams uncle :).
>
>Chip
>
><Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:384669f5...@cnews.newsguy.com...
>> On Tue, 30 Nov 1999 09:56:04 -0800, "Tom Schuler" <d...@teleport.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> ****Well, if you want me to concede how clever a debater you are on
>> various points of argument, I certainly will. But as a strategist
>> (read The Book of 5 Rings) you are your own worst enemy. Let's cut to
>> the line: --
>> >
>> Gnome to Schuler: But if your view is actually " phenomenological",
>> it is a lot closer to viewpoint of the Amazing Randi than even my
>> Jungian-hypnotic-subjective approach.
>> >
>> Schuler to Gnome: At least, so it would appear to an occultist.
>> >
>> ****Tom, old boy, this is what's called shooting yourself in the foot.
>> We are all occultists on this newsgroup. Some of us are dingy, some of
>> us are not very sophisticated, and some of us are well-educated, but
>> this group is "alt.magick", not "alt.skepticism", or
>> "alt.debuk-a-kook". You were certainly right when you admitted that
>> your were not an anthropologist (you don't get along very well with
>> your tribe!) And now we all know that you are not a magician. So just
>> what are you doing putting up 230 posts on this newsgroup in the past
>> month? Inquiring minds want to know....
>>
>> ****Let's take this a little further.....
>>
>> Gnome: As I said: Magick is ferociously eclectic and uses
>> techniques, methods and concepts from many far-flung
>> traditions from Taoism, Tantra, Magism, Gnosticism, and on and on
>> -- but it digests them, integrates them and incorporates them in its
>> own "universal" system which -- if you bother to study the Golden Dawn
>> -- you will discover is a unique, totally encompassing magical
>> universe of interlocked correspondences.
>>
>> Schuler: It's not unique. It's a hodge-podge of stuff drawn from here
>> and there quite selectively in order to produce a patchwork theology
>> of its own, just like any other religion.>
>>
>> *****And let's not forget your all-time prize toe-blaster:--
>>
>> Schuler: "The fact is that our culture, as a whole, thinks your brand
>> >> of magick is a bunch of superstitious nonsense. That's why it has no
>> >> specific name."
>>
>> ***Now after that I don't think there is any doubt that you are a
>> dog-in-the-manger on this newsgroup. You post more than anyone else
>> (230 in 30 days!) and yet all of your posts are "RE". You don't offer
>> anything. You are also incapable of apologizing, conceding any
>> personal fault or mistake, and you obviously hold the majority of us
>> here in contempt --- as you have proven from your own keyboard. Don't
>> you think it's time you changed your approach, or perhaps changed your
>> venue?****
>>
>> Gnome d' Plume
>
****Thanks Chip. I may need some help. Actually I probably deserve Tom
Schuler, but the rest of you folks don't. ****
Gnome d' Plume
Odysseus
sorc...@mailcity.NOSPAM.com (Black Dragon) wrote:
>
> A few posts back, a couple of people make comments about a book known as
> "The Holy Kaballah", by Arthur Edward Waite. I am studying Qabalah at the
> moment and I'm curious as to what the content of this book is, such as :
> What does it offer compared to other books on the Kaballah/Qabala/Cabala,
[snip]
Sesquipedalianism.
_________
93 93/93
—Odysseus
James W. Revak
>On Tue, 30 Nov 1999 02:35:25 GMT, jre...@cts.com (James W. Revak)
>wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:39:40 GMT, (Gnome d' Plume) wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>>
>>> -- if you bother to study the Golden Dawn -- you will
>>>discover is a unique, totally encompassing magical universe of
>>>interlocked corospondances.
>>
>>If you mean this literally, I am LOL! The GD may have been highly
>>eclectic/syncretic but it hardly comprises a "totally encompassing
>>magical universe".
>>
>>*****Don't start laughing yet. Of course I don't mean it literally! But
>figuratively it is very true. One of the essential differences
>between Eastern and Western magical systems is the concept of Maya, or
>"everything is illusion" in the Eastern way of thinking vs. the more
>concrete "everything is a degree of reality" ( tending toward Dualism
>and supernaturalism, unfortunately) in the Western way of magical
>thinking. Therefore synthesizers from Trithemius, through Agrippa,
>down to the Golden Dawn have tried to make everything in the microcosm
>tie in to everything in the macrocosm, like a big Newtonian clockwork
<snip>
This makes a lot more sense. Although no group in my opinion has ever
quite succeeded at this.
>If you are really interested in the
>Hermetic-kabbalistic derivation of the G.D. Tarot (and it is the most
>widely used of the Tarot architectures) watch for our new edition of
>"Secrets of the Golden Dawn Cypher Manuscript" coming early next year.
<snip>
I can't imagine there are any secrets left in that easily available,
over-studied, over-analyzed, syncretic forgery. But maybe I'm wrong.
James W. Revak
Dragon) wrote:
>
>A few posts back, a couple of people make comments about a book known as
>"The Holy Kaballah", by Arthur Edward Waite. I am studying Qabalah at the
>moment and I'm curious as to what the content of this book is, such as :
>What does it offer compared to other books on the Kaballah/Qabala/Cabala,
>and would this tome still be worth getting if the potential buyer already
>has A Garden of Pomegranites by Israel Regardie, Mystical Qabalah by Dion
>Fortune, and 777 and other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley, by (
>guess who )? Thanks and such.
It is in no way like any of the above. Waite tries very hard to
investigate and write about the *Jewish* QBL; he is not terribly
concerned about the Western Esoteric/Magical QBL, except to show that
these forms of QBL have little to do with the real, i.e. Jewish, QBL.
For what it is worth some traditional Jewish QBL-ists consider this
one of very few works on QBL by a Christian which is even remotely
accurate or knowledgeable.
What is a bit amusing is that Waite keeps hinting that the QBL has a
powerful message under its many veils. Finally, on page 550 or so he
let's the cat out of the bag. Although he uses much more complex and
florid language he says that one of it's most important lessons is:
sex is good, sex is holy. Please don't ask for details; you'll have
to read it for yourself.
So, if you want a view of QBL with isn't terribly magical/hermetic
most of the time of if you want to read about QBL as viewed through
the lens of Christian mysticism you may want to dig in. And I do mean
dig in; it is about 600 pages. If you are looking for more Fortune,
Crowley, et al. you will probably want to look elsewhere.
Even if you buy it, be forewarned: unfortunately, as ever, Waite's
style is extremely verbose and stuffy. He was a great occultist and a
lousy writer.
Unknown
wrote:
****Kuntz's version has no summary, no analysis and no footnotes, --
and you haven't read ours yet, so please don't keep making snap
assumprions. We'll have something interesting for you by April
2000.***
Gnome d' Plume
Unknown
wrote:
>
><Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message news:384669f5...@cnews.newsguy.com...
>> On Tue, 30 Nov 1999 09:56:04 -0800, "Tom Schuler" <d...@teleport.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Tom, old boy, this is what's called shooting yourself in the foot.
>> We are all occultists on this newsgroup.
>
>Well, no wonder it appears that way to you then. I wonder if it appears
>that way to everyone who reads this newsgroup. I'll bet it doesn't.
>
>My foot feels fine. Every kick I aim lands squarely on your ass.
>
>> You were certainly right when you admitted that
>> your were not an anthropologist (you don't get along very well with
>> your tribe!)
>
>I've known a number of misanthropic anthropologists. I've also known
>misogynistic gynecologists. Knowledge doesn't automatically bring sympathy.
>Do you feel you get along with your tribe, Mr. Anthropology Student? Have
>you ever been a part of a tribe in which you weren't the leader most of the
>time? I suspect you escape from those tribes as soon as you can.
>
>> And now we all know that you are not a magician. So just
>> what are you doing putting up 230 posts on this newsgroup in the past
>> month? Inquiring minds want to know....
>
>I'm posting my thoughts. Isn't it obvious?
>
>Why are you inquiring? Has it anything to do with your being upset that I
>dared to disagree with you? I think it most assuredly does. You ran out of
>cogent arguments and this is all you have left.
>
>I don't think you want to discuss the subject of our debate any more. You
>just want to pretend I'm inferior to you. Well, I don't believe your claims
>in that arena either.
>
****There is an old expression from classical times that goes: "He
whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad." Now I agree with
you that we've run this one out and it is getting boring for most of
the newsgroup. It does appear that the Gods made you a bit madder
than they made me, but that's the way you wanted it. When you finish
Sheldrake, you might try "The Book of Five Rings" to improve your
strategy. Better luck next time.***
Unknown
wrote:
>On Wed, 01 Dec 1999 04:57:34 GMT, sorc...@mailcity.NOSPAM.com (Black
*****James, this time I agree with you. Waite's Holy Kabbalah is
certainly worthwhile, but his prose is so qualified and convoluted
that it almost nullifies any value in the book compared to what is now
available. I'd suggest Gershom Scholem's "Kabbalah" (excerpted from
his Encyclopedia Judaica entries I believe...) and the one Ludvig
Prinn suggested : The Sepher Yetzirah translated by Kaplan. I have
four other versions of the Sepher Yetzirah but Kaplan's is really the
best yet (even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with Crowley's
"Naples Arrangement".) When I posted the "Beginners Book List" I
suggested Charles Ponce's "Kabbalah". This is a great introductory
survey. It's actually far more conservative than all the illustrations
of Tarot, chakras and other non-rabbinical QBL stuff the publishers
garnished it with. Like Regardie's Garden of Pomegranates, its easy
reading -- Waite, on the other hand, will drive most readers straight
up the wall.***
Gnome d' Plume
.
Josh Geller
Remember, folks: if you take money for teaching, eventually you end up
like this, and you don't even necessarily make a very good living
either.
We should all be grateful to the folks who sacrificed themselves in
this manner, in the recently ended Dark Ages, and tolerant of the ones
who can't come out of the mindset, now that the Dark Ages are over (at
least for the moment).
In article <384669f5...@cnews.newsguy.com>, Gnome d' Plume <> wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Nov 1999 09:56:04 -0800, "Tom Schuler" <d...@teleport.com>
> wrote:
> ****Well, if you want me to concede how clever a debater you are on
> various points of argument, I certainly will. But as a strategist
> (read The Book of 5 Rings) you are your own worst enemy. Let's cut to
> the line: --
> Gnome to Schuler: But if your view is actually " phenomenological",
> it is a lot closer to viewpoint of the Amazing Randi than even my
> Jungian-hypnotic-subjective approach.
See, Poke is more interested in scoring points, here, than in
communicating.
> Schuler to Gnome: At least, so it would appear to an occultist.
> ****Tom, old boy, this is what's called shooting yourself in the foot.
> We are all occultists on this newsgroup.
Not actually.
Personally, I default to null. When I pay the rent I'm generally being
an engineer.
Josh Geller
Chip <chipp...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> It is nice to see someone for once pin "ole Shuler's ears down" for a
> change. Do me a favor do not let up until he screams uncle :).
You are an extremely silly man.
Dharmadeva
the reflection of the state of knowledge, of the Supreme.
The difference between unit soul and Supreme Soul exists only so long as
there is the `I' feeling of the unit soul.
Every unit soul has the the pure `I' feeling (I exist). This arises because
the Supreme Soul germinates a special `I' feeling and it becomes a unit
soul.
By being absorbed in Him, man gets liberated from the worldly attachments.
How is liberty attained? What is the object of a unit soul?
The mind takes the shape of its object. Hence when the mind will make Him
its object it will be transformed into Him. By suffusing itself with Cosmic
feelings, it attains infinitude and sees the entire universe contained in
Him. When the Unit `I' is transformed into the collective or Cosmic `I' then
his A'tma'n attains oneness by fusing into the soul of the collective `I',
that is, it unifies or becomes one with the A'tma'n of Sagun'a Brahma.
The mental tendencies of appetite, sleep, fear, and sex-urge are found alike
among men and the beasts. Then wherein lies the difference between the two?
In fact, the distinction between man and beast is the sense of Dharma, of
the former Man practices Dharma but the beast does not. Man can advance from
subtle to the subtlest or degenerate from crude to the crudest, according to
his own propensity. Performing painful actions generally has an obvious
impact on the mind and body. Hormones and glandular structure are affected
and the body becomes weak and looses energy. Excessive sex urge also
reduces the vitality of the body because
There are simple ways to overcome any lower desires that result in
transcendence not suppression or denial, eg moral ethics (Yama and Niyama),
a'sanas (physical postures), pra'n'a'ya'm, sense withdrawal during
meditation.
Dharma is to attain perfect happiness and perfect happiness is the
attainment of the soul there being only partial happiness anywhere else.
The happiness of heaven and the fear of hell are absolutely mental. Dharma
has no fear, since through Dharma one attains the original state.
But merely by seeing the reflection or shadow, can we realize the real God?
Certainly not. From the shadow of a tree we cannot say whether it is a mango
tree or a jackfruit-tree. To know the tree it is necessary to look at the
tree, not at its shadow. To know Brahma, it is no use keeping oneself
engrossed in His illusory reflections. All the tendencies shall have to be
applied towards His original self. Just as the egoistic mind is the subject
of the living being, so is Purus'a the subject of mind.
Only on attaining his original form, man can be liberated from this illusory
world. Attaining one's original self is attaining the Universal Purus'a. The
object-free Universal soul are perfectly one and the same entity.
If all the tendencies are inclined towards Him, they would become subtler
and subtler and will ultimately merge in Him. when there are no tendencies
there is no mind. You will go beyond the access of the mind. You will be
released from the feeling of pain and pleasure, and will attain the Self
ultimately.
One has to advance, keeping the mind scrupulously away from the vices,
with full endeavors. Never let your mind's purity be polluted in any way.
After practicing this for sometime, you will observe that the very mind that
has been the sustainer of your vile tendencies has become you greatest
friend. All your purposes will then be served by your mind. Let it have
constant inspiration from your soul. Enlighten your mind with the refulgence
of the soul. The Absolute Truth will reveal Itself in you automatically.
With the dissolution of the unit mind there remains only the pure self. But,
to attain or not to attain this pure self is equal for a sadhaka because
after the dissolution of the unit mind, the Consciousness reflected on the
unit mental plate does not get any base in the temporal factor and returns
to the original Macrocosmic bearing, and becoming one with Purusottama. That
is to say, whenever sadhakas realise the unit soul, they discover that the
unit soul and Brahma are the same. Once the impurities are removed from the
mind, the separate existence of these two entities is lost.
As long as the feeling of individuality exists, unit beings see the
diversities in the multi-dimensional imaginative flow of the Supreme Entity.
Their vision impaired by non-integral knowledge they run in pursuit of these
diversities and thus make themselves the slaves of various discriminatory
entities. Wherever there is a unit mind there will be spatial, temporal and
personal factors. The One who is beyond the periphery of these three factors
is eternal. He is the Absolute Entity, others are only relative truths. This
endeavor to liberate the unit consciousness from the unit mind, the base of
all relativities, is what is termed sadhana. And in this endeavor one must
free the self from the domination of the eight fetters (bondage of culture,
vanity of culture, false sense of prestige, etc.) and the six enemies.
The degree of bondage on the human mind is determined according to the
intensity of the propensities which are of various types: some pertaining to
physicality, some to reactive momenta, some to education, etc. The unit mind
can only guide and control its propensities when its actions are original.
In all other cases the mind is guided by the propensities themselves. One's
propensities may be good or bad. The propensity through which one expresses
one's psychic power depends in most cases (except in the case of original
actions) on the influence of physical constitution, education, or the
environment. Hence, to maintain purity of the psychic propensities, the
purity of the body, the reactive momenta and the environment is crucial. It
is not altogether impossible for someone to be transformed into a virtuous
person if his or her neighbours are good people. We can describe the
collective endeavor of ideal neighbors as the purification of the body,
education and environment with the help of the collective mind. We are
perfectly aware of the fact that if education , the environment, etc., are
uncongenial it becomes impossible for even honest people to be virtuous.
In our practical life we call those people great who, knowingly or
unknowingly, keep their unit minds engaged in cosmic ideation.
What is Purus'a? He who is lying quiescent is Purus'a; He performs no
activity. Who is the doer? Prakrti, the Operative Principle [creative energy
of God]. Paramapurus'a is the Cognitive Principle, the witnessing entity.
Purus'a is acquainted with all that is done by an entity. Whatever the unit
mind performs is known to the unit Soul at once; that is, whatever your mind
does is known to your a'tma, your Soul, at once. Whatever action, vice or
virtue, is performed by your mind, it creates an impression on the unit
Soul, and the impression of the actions on the unit Soul is at once conveyed
to the Cosmic Soul.
Whatever action the Cosmic Mind does is not really an action because
everything is internal. But whatever the unit mind performs is both internal
as well as external. For instance, if a desire for stealing is aroused in
your mind, that can be internal when you don't translate it into action. But
whatever the Cosmic Mind does is all internal, totally within His mental
arena; there is nothing external for Him -- all is within. Whatever He does,
He does inside Himself. Without your knowledge He steals away your mind,
your Soul. One fine morning you will find that you have lost your mind. Your
mind is not existing, as He has stolen it away, and you begin dancing just
like a lunatic. How He has managed to steal it away is a mystery to you.
Therefore, He effects everything inside Himself -- everything is
within, nothing without. Suppose your boss arrives; you will welcome him and
say, "Please come, sit down and have something to eat." You flatter him but
inside you speak, "What a trouble has arrived! When will he go?" This is not
known to your boss. Thus, two "I's" are within you: one performs action in
the external world, and the other is inside. You are well-acquainted with
this inner "I", but others do not have the correct information about it.
Sa'dhana, therefore, is to unify the two, the internal "I" and the external
"I", into one.
Twoness in one single personality of man is his disease. The greater
the gap between these two "I's", the more you will undergo psychic torment.
You must remember that in this second half of the 20th Century there is a
great gap between the internal "I" and the external "I". And because of the
trouble in adjusting these two "I's" there is an increase in the number of
lunatics. This is the greatest disease of the 20th Century.
But regarding Paramapurus'a there is no double personality. Everything
is internal, the entire world is
internal for Him. That which is the external world for you is internal for
Him. Whatever you think or do in your mind is also internal for Him. He
enters your internal world, your mind, and you don't know that He has
entered. Entering it, He will steal away your mind and you will not know it.
A man also wants God to steal away his mind. I told you that one of
His names is Makhanchora ["stealer of butter," one of the names of Lord
Krs'n'a]. He will steal away the Atman [Soul] of a man and his mind will not
know it. As the butter is the essence of the milk, so is the Atman the
essence of the body. He steals away the Atman, so He is Makhanchora.
Generally man tells God to come to him, but actually God is already
with him. Man is simply unable to see Him. When God appears, the sa'dhaka
surrenders himself completely to Him, however, only with his conscious mind.
In the most
Now you know that in the mind of each and every living being is this
feeling of "I exist." "I am, I exist." This "I" is the subtlest mind. But
don't you know that there is the feeling of "I exist" in you? You know it.
You know this fact, that there is the feeling of "I exist" in you. Don't you
know it? Then "I know the fact that I exist.I know the fact that there is a
feeling of "I exist" in me." Now here, the "I" of "I exist", the subject of
the sentence "I exist", is the subtlest mind. And the "I" of "I know", the
subject of the sentence "I know that I exist", is the atman, is the Spirit,
is the SOUL. It is not the mind. There is the feeling of "I exist" in me. "I
exist" -that is the subtlest mind. And the feeling that "I exist" is in me,
is known to me. That knowing "I" [I know that I exist], the "I" of "I know",
is the atman, the Spirit, the Soul.
Now this "I exist" is the subtlest mind and it is called guha in
Sanskrit. And what is the essence of Ba'ba' -- Each and every individual has
an "I". That "I" is connected with external physicalities, with external
objects. Now when "I" is connected with external objects, that "I" is the
subtlest portion of mind. "I exist." While saying "exist," indirectly we
say, "I exist in this world," exist in such-and-such place." The object is
mute here; the object is not expressed but the object is understood. This
"I" of "I exist" is the subtlest portion of mind.
Now you know that in the mind of each and every living being is this
feeling of "I exist." "I am, I exist." This "I" is the subtlest mind. But
don't you know that there is the feeling of "I exist" in you? You know it.
You know this fact, that there is the feeling of "I exist" in you. Don't you
know it? Then "I know the fact that I exist.I know the fact that there is a
feeling of "I exist" in me." Now here, the "I" of "I exist", the subject of
the sentence "I exist", is the subtlest mind. And the "I" of "I know", the
subject of the sentence "I know that I exist", is the atman, is the Spirit,
is the SOUL. It is not the mind. There is the feeling of "I exist" in me. "I
exist" -that is the subtlest mind. And the feeling that "I exist" is in me,
is known to me. That knowing "I" [I know that I exist], the "I" of "I know",
is the atman, the Spirit, the Soul.
Now this "I exist" is the subtlest mind and it is called guha in
Sanskrit. And what is the essence of spirituality? The "I" of "I know." "I
know that I exist." That "I" of "I know" is the essence of spirituality.
Such is the nature of a unit. He fears, and holds in regard what is beyond
his own limit, i.e., what is greater than him. You will certainly be afraid
of him who is your better in education, intelligence, wealth and power.If
you do not have a sense of oneness with him, He who has realized that
Purusottama is the Life of his life, the Soul of his soul, i.e., in whom the
sense of oneness with Him has awakened, will not be afraid of Him, but will
love Him - will become a theophile or lover of God, and he who is always
conscious of his unit-hood, will be afraid of him - will become God-fearing
and pharisaic. So, as I was saying, He will certainly be frightful
(Bhiisanam) to certain entities.
Whatever you see, whatever you think or feel. Whatever is beyond your
vision, thought and perception - all are Saguna Brahma or Onunkara. Your
soul is also Brahma. There is unicity or oneness between your existence or
world and Brahma or Onunkara. Your existence, the world and Brahma are
O Sedate! Onunkara is the image of your bow. Here the twanging or plucking
of the bow means the acts of Pranayama (a yogic method of breath-control),
i.e. stirring up the vital or spiritual force. If you use your soul as an
arrow and shoot it aiming at Brahma-like target with a deeply concentrated
(absolutely unwavering) mind, then your soul will certainly merge in the
Supreme Soul, just as an ordinary arrow gets stuck in its target.
Try , O Sadhaka, to know only Him, in whom are held the sky, the
world, the void, in whom are ensconced the mind, the five vital forces and
the sensory and motor organs. Shun all other pointless considerations except
your efforts to know Him. You are mortal, except your efforts to know Him.
You are mortal, suppliant to death. Your desire of establishing yourself in
deathlessness dates from eternity. And that very Brahma is the bridge,
leading to that state of deathlessness. So you will reap the real good, if
you can just know Him.
Just as the spokes of a chariot are situated in the nave of the wheel,
so are sheltered in Him all the nerves, veins and arteries. The soul that is
situated in the Sahasrara (the uppermost gland of human structure) of the
unit-body is their chief refuge. In other words all the spokes of this
world - this Cosmic system, are situated in that fission (that eternal sonic
expression) that Cosmic Nucleus, the Purusottama. Carrying emotions and
ideas is what the word nerve stands for. The life-center or nucleus of all
emotions and ideas is He - that Supreme soul, the Soul of souls. Concentrate
on that Om, His characteristic Self. You have come into the field of Sadhana
in order to enter the kingdom of Light beyond the shores of darkness. May
your journey to the Empyreal region be glorious and triumphant. Bon voyage
to you.
How is the relation between the soul and the Supreme Soul? It is as
though on a single tree there are two beautifully winged birds, perching
together intimately, one eating the tasty fruits of that tree and the other
witnessing it only as the knower without eating them.Here the fruit-eating
bird is the jiivatman or the unit-soul, for the unit-soul is taking the
exact impress of whatever auspicious or inauspicious (good or bad) fruits
growing in the mind-like tree, or is getting smitten by them, and the
Supreme Soul, as the Knower of all mundane entities, is also perching on the
same Psychic tree but He is not taking its fruits. He is just going on
witnessing as the Omnipresent Entity. He is the Original Manifestation and
the jiivatman is His psychic reflection.
The jiivatman of the unit of the very same tree is being smitten by woes and
sorrows for his limitations due to lack of divine qualities. But when he
receives the blessings of the Supreme Spirit - when he is benefited by Him
(i.e., when he is given an opportunity to learn the esoteric pass-word for
meditation), he becomes free from pain, being enlightened in His glory, as
he realizes His majestic Lordliness, i.e., His Limitlessness.
A Sadhaka gradually realizes the Self-effulgent Purusa as the result of his
progress in the path of Sadhana or intuitional practice. This Purusa, being
imperishable Himself, is the Lord or Controller of all decays and
perishabilities. Brahma is the 33 embodiment of decay and non-decay (Ksara &
Aksara), and the One who remains as the Original Cause of this Cosmic
System - as the Nucleus of decay-cum-non-decay Brahma, is the Brhamayoni of
the Cosmic Womb. This Nucleus (Purusottama) can be explained briefly thus:
suppose, you are thinking about Monghyr within yourself. So a part of your
seity of self-entity is changed into mind-stuff and this mind-stuff takes on
the form of Monghyr. The remaining part of your mind-stuff remains the seer
or witness of your mentally created Monghyr. Now the part of seity, which
has neither the visibility nor the observer-ship and yet remains as the
knower of your visibility or observer-ship - that subtle part or bearing, if
taken in Brahmic or theistic context, will be regarded as Purusottama. If
this effulgent entity of Brahma be realized, the imperishable Brahma or
nuclear sonic expression can also be known. Man of calm and sedate intellect
becomes Nirainjana or flawlessness itself after gradually giving up both
virtue and evil, for then comes in him the right sort of equilibrium neither
having the frivolity of any sentiment nor the high waves of any
manifestation. All his clashes or discrepant impacts merge in the ultimate
tranquility of the bottomless Sea of Brahma.
The soul is smaller than the molecule. It can be known only through
consciousness. This absolute consciousness manifest itself only in the
innermost recess of a Sadhaka. A Sadhaka gets opportunity for Sadhana for
the realization of Brahma as long as the five vayus like Prana, Apana, etc.,
are active in his (human) body. But generally such an opportunity only
rarely comes to the lot of man, for the minds of most men being
extrovertive, they run after external objects due to the propulsion of their
senses. So when a man's mind gets purified through Sadhana, he becomes free
from his sensual influences, and then alone he realizes within himself the
super-effulgence of the Supreme Being. The self-realizer is he who sees the
Supreme Soul in his soul.
The knower of the Soul or the Self-realized man gets whatever he sets
his mind on. The object takes exactly the same form in accordance with his
desire. Hence he does not have to run unnecessarily about the external world
in search of any object. He is all-satisfied and fully contented. That is
why, every ambitious man, desirous of all-round progress and development,
adores the one, who has realized one's Self.
The very person who is called a king by virtue of royal insignia may be
called wrestler if he holds a cudgel. As for instance, Vishvanath will be
known as a kind if he is decorated with royal insignia, whereas he will
called a wrestler if he holds a cudgel. But Vishvanath continues to remain
the same Vishvanath on withdrawing the royal insignia and the cudgel.
Likewise, the difference between Jiiva (unit soul) and Parama'tma'n
(Universal soul) is on account of the difference in connotation. On
eliminating the connotative distinction from the unit soul, it merges into
Brahma. What there is no connotative distinction, there is Satya and that is
the true recognition. Sa'dhana' is meant for this, that is to say, Sa'dhana'
is the establishment of Satya after foiling the untrue. The Lokas and Kos'as
are all degenerations, not the Absolute Truth.
The great sa'dhu replied, "You're making a mistake. There's no dog here.
What you call a dog is nothing but the manifestation of Vis'n u. I am a
manifestation of Vis'n'u, the dog is a manifestation of Vis'n'u, the food
and plate are also a manifestation of Visn'u. Sarvani Vis'numayam' jagat! He
is all pervasive. There is nowhere in this universe where you can hide
because Vis'n'u is everywhere. Sarvavyapii sarvabhuta'tantaratma'. Parama
Purus'a is the soul of every entity. The external force of atman is
jiva'tman or unit soul and the internal force of atman is Paramatma.
Whatever one does physically and mentally is witnessed and known by jiivatma
and whatever the jiivatma's know is known by Paramatma'. That is, jiivatnia
is omnitelepathic to the unit mind and Paramatma is omnitelephatic to
jiivatma. Hence nothing can remain concealed from Him.
Worldly actions are either Shukla or Krs'n'a or Shuklakrs'n'a. Only an
action or reaction related to sama'dhi, that is spiritual sa'dhana', can be
called Ashuklakrs'n'a karma. It is because spiritual actions take one beyond
the state of pain and pleasure. When the vibration of an action remains in
'Va'sana', then that is known as the seed of reactions. The sam'ska'ra gets
destroyed by an actional vibration which is equally powerful and opposite to
the original action. Every living being having a physical body has a mind.
The A'tman or soul is the reflecting plate of the mind. Other things also
exist as the objects of the A'tman. As long as the vibration of human
existence is reflected in the A'tman, human beings are considered alive.
Videhii mana (bodiless mind) cannot function at all. The vibration of
existence does not arise in the videhii mind. The existence of the Videhii
mind means only Karma'shaya (bundles of sam'ska'ras), and this Karma'shaya
rests on the spiritual base. This is why the videhii A'tma cannot function
as a witness to the action and existence of Videhii mana. Only karma'shaya
works as a witness. As a rule, Karma'shaya is continually formed until the
moment of death.
Due to Avidya', the mind is connected to the self. Because of the sentient
factor, the soul reflects on the mind. When the mind is influenced by
Tamogun'a, it gets caught up in mundane objects, and because of the
influence of Rajogun'a, the mind reaps the consequences. When a person is
goaded by the propensity of mundane enjoyments, he or she continues enjoying
without interruption, so that they become desperate for it and allow
themselves to drift in the flow of the static force. At that time their
unrestrained flow is not resisted by any kind of vibration and it directly
hits the Va'sana' Bha'n'da (pot of desires). This causes a mutative reaction
which originates the Va'sana'bhan'da. Human beings undergo reaction as per
their original action. If a sick person, a helpless person, a saint, a
sheltered person or a reliable person experience any kind of blow, the
person inflicting the blow will immediately undergo a reaction of the same
intensity. This is because the sick, the helpless and saints never create
obstacles in the way of Sam'ska'ramu'laka karma of evil-doers. Whether the
Pratyayamu'laka karma of a person is good or bad, reactive momenta are bound
to be created.
Namen Los
> Gnome d' Plume
I like that name.
> >Magick by the very
> >definition of the word is Hermetic.
>
Here the word Magie seems very old, while I do not even know what Hermetic is,
and doubt that the teachers of the old religions and magic knew about it.One of
the two main gods is the magic god, doubtful as one might find his ways.
As far as I recall he`s supposed to have been around for quite a bit. Anyway,
I`d guess longer than some term like Hermetic.
What does that mean by the way?
swallow your enlightenment in pill form?
> 1/3 - 1/2 of a spaceship-E, after a while folllowed by an ooold orange
> dragon, not too bitter, and then pot might get one a bit closer, but also to
> a load of frontal cortex and other damages.
> >Or were you born with a screw loose?****
From a magic point of view people tend to get born without screw in them,
though there are some who for insulting reasons might leave realistic outviews
and maybe go to even rather non-constructive path.
>It partakes of all yogas because it is the King of all Yogas. Raja means
"king", grasshopper!
> Many might like to be called kings or other such terms used in the Medieaval
> Ages and other times where some people took themselves or some title as more
> important than others.
>Sanskrit
What is the grammar like?
> >summed up in a very few words; one of which would certainly be
> >"neophyte."
>
> While I'm no expert, and often feel like a neophyte because I discover new
> things in texts and am taught new things by my guru all the time, I do have
> some grounding in the subject at this point.
> Raja Yoga is called "king" because the practitioner (sadhaka) has mastered
> the various forms of yoga, and thus become a king, a master.
>
If aspiring kingship still, and not realizing that there is so much to learn
that mastership over all will not be there but that life-long being a student
can be there,from afar this kingstuff does not sound that progressed to me.
I might be able to teach a parrot different stuff as well, and also the words
"I am a king".
(And if I can repeat the words of several parrots I might remember to call
myself the king of parrots
and parroting. ;-)
To understand all akasha there is to me seems impossible as a human, and though
some might get far in some areas, in the time where they are busy with those
there are other experiences that they do not make in that time.
Different people are into different things. That diversity of interests might
see to humanity being more versatile than if all were into the same stuff.
If there were not that many humans convinced that what they are doing is THE
whatever over what others are doing, then there might be less aggression.
Though I must admit that I enjoy orcing around quite often, too. ;-)
> He's not someone who teaches classes or accepts payment.
> :-)
> >Any magical student who dismisses it out of hand shows himself to be a
> beginner or a fool.****
I just popped in and have not read the start, so I do not know which book it is
about.But I observe that in many cultures around magic is transferred magically
and not in written form.
Simplified, how would you want to write about the old art of telepathy with a
certain brain?
Brains are different and as long as you have not linked to that one someone
else telling about it might be like someone describing the face of a person in
a book with words.
It is not the same as seeing it and "seeing".
But that in Germanic public magic books are not custom but private magic
exchanges about magic data , does not mean that there are not very fascinating
books about magic where one can learn a lot.
I am currently very interested in thalamus magic crafts.
Any data about that here?
> I find his understanding of Tantra to be shallow
> based upon my own period of intensive study and practice.
>
> >****In this case you are certainly right. So stop acting like an
> >authority and complete the work you now admit you haven't done.
>
There is something in the answer I do not follow, but that might be because I
just popped in.To me it sounded like the first person tries to say that if you
are busy with something for a while reading from someone else stuff that for
oneself does sound shallow is not that interesting.
Maybe like being able to speak English O.K. enough and finding a book like
"Tibby is a cat, Toby is a dog, this is Mr. Scott, this is Mrs. Scott, Mrs.
Scott has a basket. ..." And finding the level not that interesting, even if
there might be stuff still to learn in there and even if oneself might still be
far from good.I did not get the part about acting like an authority.
Actually there is already something in the authority thinking that sounds weird
to me.
Also that you are ordering someone to complete some work.
If there is a work to complete
then a person might decide to complete and be finished with it themselves.
Maybe some are not interested in that.
To push someone that he must do something might be helpful in some cases, but
in other cases it might more seem too pushy to the person and leave negative
impressions.
> Completing the work of Tantra takes a lifetime.
Just one?
> >But then what are we to expect from a Chaos magician? (Translate that
> >"lazy" magician).
Might depend on how lazy, if just mentally or also physically chaotic (MBD),
which genetic background and tuning abilities are there and so on.Without
having been in magic linking with another, it might be hard to tell from the
distance.
I mean, there are people where when they talk one realizes that they are still
so unknowing about energy tuning and alterations that it sounds like they are
not having the basics for many other areas. However generalizing chaos magic as
such to me sounds like generalizing lots of individuals in a rather "unseeing"
manner, the way some might who are out for portraying others whom they do not
really know well for egocentric purposes.
> When I did chaos magick, I did it with much energy and put a great deal into
> it. And I got a great deal out of it.
In chaotic magic I tend to have a certain care with the amount of energies I
broadcast, but then again I once had someone off on the floor for a while after
not paying too much attention in chaotic magic stuff, which is one of the
reasons I might be hesitant about too much energy.Apart from not being able to
"generate" much.
Also there are a lot of other structures that do not seem to appreciate being
transtuned into too forcefully too far off their stages of akasha.
...Though this might not be how you meant what you said.
> People who know me may call me many things, but I doubt
> that you'd find any of them calling me "lazy"
Me they do call so and I am myself, too.And I enjoy it.
Someone could not understand how some other woman and also me could sleep 16
hours and more in a row and believed that to be a waste of life.
That woman and me told him that loafing around in bed is one of the most
comfortable places where to be, and that dreaming can be fascinating.
Sort of comfortable fascination.
And that we did not mind to spend quite a part of our life like that.
> Perhaps I should give references, eh?
>
Why, are you some Westie that you need a lot of written stuff, maybe even of
other people in order to prove yourself or something like that?
> And while it's true that many people who call themselves "chaos magicians"
> are indeed lazy, this is equally true of anyone who calls themselves
> magicians of any sort... as well as those who don't.
I am not a magician but have a certain interest in gray magic, studying magic
itself.From there to me it seems that if "seeing" someone already the halo can
tell quite a bit?
But I rather leave such discussions to magicians and magic ones.
> You can't see the fruits of someone's lifelong labors on the Internet.
Maybe not lifelong, but I did meet someone into arts of dreaming and
brainsurfers and practicers of magic and other crafts where what they said
certainly did not sound like something Mr. Average learns overnight.
> You're just getting
> u ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tom Schuler
Chip <chipp...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:8226kd$p...@chronicle.concentric.net...
> It is nice to see someone for once pin "ole Shuler's ears down" for a
> change. Do me a favor do not let up until he screams uncle :).
Heh. You seem to think that a shotgun flame has some sort of negative
effect on me. This is incorrect. Of course, being incorrect is nothing new
to you, as I have demonstrated before.
Tom Schuler
<Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message
Tom Schuler
<Gnome d' Plume> wrote in message
> >
> ****Thanks Chip. I may need some help. Actually I probably deserve Tom
> Schuler, but the rest of you folks don't. ****
I think I'll use a Clint Eastwood quote here. I know Poke admires Clint's
macho style.
This is from "Unforgiven". Clint, as the incarnate Angel of Death, is about
to execute the sadistic sheriff who complains that he doesn't deserve to die
like this.
"Deserving's got nothing to do with it."
Tom Schuler
Dharmadeva <u96...@student.canberra.edu.au> wrote in message
news:c4814.603$gb7....@ozemail.com.au...
> There are two types of `I' feeling - one is egoistic mind and the other is
> the reflection of the state of knowledge, of the Supreme.
24K doesn't stand for 24 karat in this case. It stands for excessive
length.
Can I see a show of hands to indicate how many folks decided this post was
rambling nonsense by about the fourth sentence or less and stopped reading
it?
How about a show of hands of those who read it all the way through and felt
their time was well spent?