Monday, December 8, 2014

The Tree of Life IV - Qabalah is the New Black

Over the years I have engaged in many arguments with practitioners of the WMT regarding one of their hugely corrupt and dangerous central glyphs - the Kircher Tree.

Normally the argument runs something like this:

Blogos: Hey the Kircher Tree breaks the rule of 3, 7 and 12 i.e. 3 horizontal paths = 3 mothers, 7 vertical paths = 7 doubles, 12 diagonal paths = 12 simples - have you noticed?

WMT 101 Drone: Errr...

Blogos: Did you at least notice that there are 3 horizontal paths and 3 mother letters?

WMT 101 Drone: What? To be honest - no,  I dogmatically obeyed the Kircher Tree as *the Tree* as it is described that way in virtually all WMT books relating to the QBL ( we are talking about a lot of text here! Mathers, Crowley, Regardie, Fortune...)

Blogos: Did you build the Kircher Tree into your aura and astral body through continuous work on it?

WMT 101 Drone: No I don't have the will required to build up an astral body or even to memorise the associations but I do refer to them occassionally in the ''Tarot for Dummies''* guide to the mysteries that has been so useful in developing my full potential as a learner.

Blogos: Well thank Christ for that, you would have completely mangled your aura if you had!

The more sophisicated users of the Kircher Tree, who have hardwired it into their systems, are all crazy so the arguments are normally a little more ''frothing at the mouth''.  If the Kircher Tree was *purposely* adopted by the Western Orders in genuine awareness of and therefore breaching the rule of 3, 7 and 12 cite a source otherwise I have to come to the conclusion that it is a terrible error.  d'Aquin to Kircher seems to be the source-line and the error was inserted here and not corrected.

Sometimes amongst the more educated elite who have squandered their years in QBL studying the Kircher Tree, failed to encounter texts like those of Aryeh Kaplan early enough and now having rejected the QBL practise another form of magic - the argument runs somewhat differently.  They normally argue for a more pluralist approach defending the Kircher Tree's *obvious* flaws by suggesting that ''whatever works'' - to simplify this means it doesn't matter what arrangement you use if it works it works.  My problems with this argument are as follows.

1. It shows great cultural ignorance - check Jewish sources, the Ari and the Gra Tree show the rule of 3, 7 and 12.  The onus is on the WMT practitioners and texts which very often present the Kircher Tree as *the Tree* to show that it is but one variant.  Sometimes this argument feels like the crippling inertia in the WMT made flesh.  I also feel that these more intellectual practitioners would not have rejected the QBL *if* they had been informed about 3, 7 and 12 from the beginning since I am sure they would not champion such cultural ignorance.

2. The argument suggests there are 22!** possibly variations of the Tree - do they each work better at a particular task?  Pray tell me oh post-modern master who hath done the experiments necessary to assess this potential plasticity?

3. A great many of those variants, like the Kircher Tree, will break the rather *obvious* rule of 3, 7 and 12 which is so *obvious* that, for example, the commentary on the doubles and the verticals in Kaplan's SY is ''The 7 double letters are associated with the 7 vertical paths.''

4. Pragmatism bias - ''if it ain't broke don't fix it'' a) Many don't know its broke because they never get far enough to *use* it beyond a clumsy tarot reading and this is part of the general trend of the WMT in decline b) Different types of cars ''work'' differently, the Kircher may ''work'' but far less *effectively* than other arrangements, i.e. those that follow 3, 7 and 12 - but again who really out of the WMT as it stands has explored these different arrays and subjected them to that kind of test?

ETZ HA SHAARIM - TREE OF GATES

Anyway there is a pluralist solution to the Tree of Life problem that I call the Etz Ha Shaarim or Tree of Gates.  This is actually a very powerful piece of ''psychic machinery'' which I will continue to explore under the auspices of the 231 Gates project.  This Tree, shown above, reimagines each Sefira as a wheel of the 231 Gates showing that 22! potential manifestation.  If we truly believe in the pluralist approach to the Tree the above diagram should be adopted by the Western Orders and the students should be encouraged to study all *available material* and come to the conclusion that they are comfortable with through experimentation.


*I wrote this and then just discovered its an actual book.  FML.
** 1.1240007e+21

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

The Western Mysteries and Falling out of Fashion


In this blog entry Jason Miller talks about concepts like the Astral Temple and Visualization falling out of fashion* and it got me thinking again about the terrible state of the Western Mystery Tradition, what other fundamentals might be falling out of fashion and indeed what is ''in fashion''.

I wonder if this notion of what is fashionable has been influenced by my stating that Qabalah is the New Black**.  If you have an idea about what has become fashionable or disagree with anything on my list feel free to drop a comment or a message.

In Fashion:

  • Magicians as socio-cultural anthropologists
  • Magicians as event managers
  • Magicians as journalists - look at my interviews: I'm on tv or I'm a reporter!
  • Magicians as craftsmen - look at my material sunthemata!***
  • Magicians as scholars/academics - look at my article on translations regarding obscure deity/saint x
  • Magicians as geeks/nerds
  • Magicians justifying day-jobs
  • Advertising
  • Identity politics - where are you on the sexual spectrum fellow magus - QWERTYUIOP?
  • Conspiracy gnosticism (a fusion of conspiracy theory and Gnostic mysticism)
  • ''Micro-traditions'', I guess a bit like hipsters are fascinated by micro-breweries
  • Empty motivational rhetoric + chat
  • Sycophancy


Falling out of Fashion:

  • Magick
  • Astral Work
  • Healing
  • Qabalah
  • Dialogue


One of the reasons dialogue is so out of fashion is that there is no material incentive to have disagreements with peers and then form compromises in public.  It makes it look like your ''grandmastery'' of a subject is less than perfect and might affect sales of your books****.  Of course without dialogue stagnation of the tradition occurs as we can see.  If this post annoys you a little - good - you need to be annoyed by it, really.  There is a serious lack of internal criticism in this community - lets not get decadent people.  Its better to be self-critical.



*My own thoughts on the ''Astral Temple'' can be found here:  http://hermeticlessons.blogspot.cz/2014/11/metabolism-vii-cellular-membrane-and.html
**It is.
***Its easy to make money selling something physical.  Its difficult to profit from Nous.
****Which apparently most authors can't support their lifesyles on anyway - I cite Aaron Leitch, Nick Farrel, etc.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Metabolism VIII - The Living God and its Dog Name

There has been a bit of talk recently about what it means to be a living God and whether magick makes you one or not.  Within this conversation there have been many grand claims and some fairly empty but motivational rhetoric.  Lets examine the actual details.

The ego, which is effectively a structure in the mind that formed around your learned responses to your given name (your ''dog-name'') - does not survive death and is not a God.

The DNA spiral that you actually are - which I term ''Feelix the Perfect Helix'' - is a Living God.  You don't have to go another dimension to find this Living God it is inside you and motivates all living things on the planet.   It reincarnates by propogating itself and has preserved and adapted its infomation spirals from the very beginning of life.  It shapeshifts, it co-locates (think twins but on a more general level that we will get to - genetic archetypes) and it is virtually invincible surviving on desolate asteroids in deep space. 

The stoics believed the soul was ''material'' and there is no other better candidate for a material soul than the DNA  - though the actual matter is irrelevant, its the information it contains which propagates.  You are that being - your dog name is just that, its a name, its not the dog.  The dog might think it *is* the name, but that doesn't make it so.  By loosening the grip that ''dog-name'' has on you, the more access you have to the powers latent in the information spiral that you are.


FEELIX THE PERFECT HELIX

Another way that you are ''a God'' is in the way you express certain genetic archetypes that are immortal and directly related to the Metabolism of Time.  Although complete within ourselves we are also differentiated within society - there are hunters, teachers, warriors, lovers, entertainers, etc.  These archetypes at our local level scale up into ''Gods'' - Goddess of the Hunt, God of Love, etc.  By pursuing your genetic True Will and achieving excellence within that true will you are living that aspect of those Gods in your real life.  If you pursue the whims of your dog-name you are a pale shadow of that God within and probably crippled by the diseases of it. 

In the sections on physiognomy on the Blogos there are images and supporting information to help you discover the nature of your closest genetic archetype and therefore your ''true will''.  Often these genetic archetypes produce what people consider to be problems - fat storage, skin problems, memory failure, balding, etc - but those are symptoms of the underlying genetic power.  In confronting and understanding those problems one can uncover their true will.  Over abundance of fat storage in adipose tissue in the abdomen generally tells me that person has great power over dreams, visualises very well, and has the ability for tremendous release of energy (be it emotional, physical, or intellectual) at critical moments.  Skin conditions normally indicate the person is capable of multi-tasking to a very high level, handling the accompanying stress and because of this can be a great dancer or lover.  However if your dog name is consuming you with anxiety about your weight or skin and contributing to self-perpetuating the problems through that stress you're hardly a God are you?

As I mentioned in previous posts, I don't believe in the lego-brick approach to genetics, I believe that the fundamental part of that life-spiral is ''quantum'' and that ''quantum-mechanics'' have been incorporated into our metabolism and our evolution.  There is increasing evidence for this.  As readers of the blog will know as well Feelix is correlated to the time spiral, indeed Feelix is a ''time-spiral''.  In this way we are all Zurvan, the God of Time.
 
To repeat - the ego or ''dog-name'' is not a God, it is a dead man walking and that is why it is so full of fear, anger, anxiety, etc, ad nauseaum.  Breaking that name's hold is one of the first tasks that must be undertaken in order to achieve any sense of the God within.



FEELIX WITHIN CONSCIOUSNESS

Monday, December 1, 2014

Addressing the Failure Rate


As I understand it most of the ''101'' literature on magic is about getting oneself from the Earthly plane to the Lunar plane.



What is the Lunar Plane? - This is where the astral world opens up, one can access directly the bloodstream of the universe, its ''dream-stream'' and encounter the various beings that lurk there - it is the beginning of Yetzirah.  At first one's ability to percieve the Lunar plane is hazy or shadowy but as one continues to practise astral projection and develop the astral body one's sight grows clearer and one's ''muscles'' grow stronger.  One's ability to grow and utilise the opportunities afforded by astral projection can only happen when the other planetary spheres (of Yetzirah) are developed as well.  Systematic approaches to this work best.  In the WMT this is typically associated with ''Yesod'', the ninth Sefira which is often linked to the Moon.

For example - works like Dion Fortune's Mystical Qabalah or Donald Michael Kraig's Modern Magick (which I consider fairly solid 101 texts if ultimately misguided by the Kircher Tree like most texts in the WMT) spend most of the time teaching the students very basic Earthly plane work and end with Lunar plane style ''pathwalking'' teachings - which they see as guided meditation or visualization.

Other 101 works are completely limited to Earthly plane work setting up ''strange attractors'' through spells, altars, talismans, sigils, bound spirits, etc to manifest that which they are designed to attract and fail to even comment on the Lunar Plane and how their strange attractors interact with it.

At any given phase of the development of the new initiate (be it Earthly, Lunar, Solar, etc) into the Western Mysteries there is a huge failure rate.  I have met many people in the course of my life and work that have shelves *filled* with 101 ''introduction to magic''/''magic made easy'' style texts and have still failed to develop an astral body or complete the most basic memorization required by the Western Mysteries.  These failures are often some form of flake or spiritual tourist that often move on to another tradition although some of them stay and clog the stream (although they provide good fodder for the 101 magickal author).

Of the few that succeed they must now complete further trials and tribulations to access the Mercurial Plane which requires a completely different set of skills and a great proportion fail here.  People attaining to an understanding of the Mercurial plane and the subsequent further development of their astral body therefore make up a small percentage of our initial pool.  Precious few achieve *genuine* ''adepthood''*.
 
If you are writing for personal financial profit there is absolutely no material incentive to develop texts for what I will refer to as the ''Mercurial market'' - the only thing that can motivate you is love of the tradition and the knowledge that it contains - maximum Mercurial market potential is very limited in relation to the ''terrestrial'' market and they are hardly all reachable.**

There are very few texts aimed at this market - texts that ''dumb down'' Mercurial work under the auspices of making it ''accessible'' do no-one any favours because they simply reduce the need to develop the cross-disciplinary critical thinking skills which are absolutely essential in completing ''Mercurial'' work and developing one's inner Mercury.



In order to address the failure rate and allow more people to escape the 101 loop it is absolutely essential that we create effective *peer* support.  There is way too much teacher-student, cult leader-follower mentality and therefore way too much incentive to continue to milk the cattle.  The old orders also reinforce this mentality with their hierarchical thinking.  The ''Master-disciple'' structure is imbedded in the DNA of the WMT but it needs challenging.

I have been fortunate enough in the past to benefit from a *student-led* study group.  The students in that group gained far more ground in less time with core texts and a coherent study structure than they would have working with a teacher - I guarantee that.  The confident learner, sharing their insights in a supportive circle of like minded individuals, can make more difference than a small publication of 101 books to a larger group most of whom will *fail*.

When one has learned about and experienced their astral body and gained some access to their ''magickal memory'' then one is ready for the Mercurial work.  This typically involves immersing oneself in the grimoires themselves - whether they be angelological, kabbalistic or alchemical (for the WMT).  Most Mercurial work is undertaken with parallel studies in the mundane world - architecture, psychology, genetics, quantum physics to name the more popular disciplines.  The Mercurial work also works alongside the further exploration of the Astral.

The failure rate guarantees the eventual death of our tradition.  The higher-ups need to consolidate the learning of the intermediate practitioner rather than caring about the masses.

Let me finish this post with some questions:

- Do you consider yourself to be (at least) Mercurial?  Does the material you post on your blog contribute to a Mercurial dialogue amongst your peers?
- Do you have an astral body?  What is it like?  How much time do you spend in it?  What are your capabilities?  Do you post your experiences of the astral on your blog?  If not - why not? Are you contributing to a dialogue about what the Astral is, and the nature of those experiences?  Should you be spending more time in the Astral and less on ''chat''?
- Are most of your posts terrestrial in nature?  Why do you post only Earthly material?  Is this important for grounding students?  How does your posting of Earthly material contribute to addressing the failure rate?  Are your blog readers discussing magick - or are they actually discussing identity politics, conspiracy theory, your 101 book, etc?

*I appreciate there are many more with the title, but that's about all they have.
**We often hear authors bemoaning on their blogs about how you can't make any money out of writing books about magick.  If this is the case I have to ask why bother?  Why not just contribute freely to the dialogue?  And, as has come out recently, if you're a magickal author, but, unlike Jason Miller unable to support yourself through your authorship, have to support yourself with an unbecoming dayjob (unbecoming to your ''magickal glory'' I mean), why not quit writing about magick and re-train for a different job in your free time, giving you a better lifestyle and allowing you to contribute freely?