#knowledge and conversation

[intimatedetails]

Longevity counts

Balance in all things. Surety of purpose weighed against knowledge and wisdom.

[nihilosphere]

Journey Within

[hijodelagua]

The first Initiation, Chapel Perilous, is overcome when the aspirant takes the skeptical way out. Then he needs no more a solid narrative on reality. Every narrative is shown to be false.

It is only from this position that the Initiate becomes able to truly recognise the inner source of Truth in the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel.

[justinbthemagician]

The Practice of the Holy Guardian Angel

Alan Chapman is one of the co-founders of the Open Enlightenment project (www.openenlightenment.org) and author of Advanced Magick for Beginners (Aeon Books). He…

[hijodelagua]

Once the HGA awakens inside the Adept, it will carry him to the Abyss to tear down his limited identity. From another perspective, it will devour his psyche from the inside until there is no choice but to surrender to that which has been fully awakened.

There is no other path once the Knowledge and Conversation has been attained. 

The only thing the Adept can do is to accelerate or slow down the process. He might even try to stop it completely, after realizing the destiny that awaits him. This is the making of a so-called “Black Brother”.

From “Magick Without Tears” (Aleister Crowley):

“But then (you ask) how can a man go so far wrong after he has, as an Adeptus Minor, attained the "Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel"?

Recall the passage in the 14th Aethyr "See where thine Angel hath led Thee", and so on. Perhaps the Black Brother deserts his Angel when he realises the Programme.”

[hijodelagua]

[hijodelagua]

Assiah, Yetzirah, Briah: Three guides to get through three worlds

Assiah, Yetzirah, Briah: Three guides to get through three worlds

[read original in Openmagick]

by yemeth

‘I am half sick of shadows’, said the Lady of Shalott.

The Unconscious appears to us as a guide through three aspects or archetypes. In each of the qabbalistic worlds we have to go through in the initiatory path, its task will be to help us reach the next one.

If we adopt the convenient terms Jung coined, these archetypes would be the shadow, the anima/animus, and the Self. We will meet them in the worlds of Assiah, Yeztirah and Briah, respectively. However, it might not be a good idea to resort to Jung for information on the Self; it may appear there was a moment in which he decided he had had enough.

The shadow

The first contact with the unconscious guide happens to the uninitiated seeker in the world of Assiah (Malkuth), and its structure conforms with the archetype of the shadow.

The terrifying shadow is a guide whose goal is opening to us the gates of Yetzirah (the “astral”, Yesod-Hod-Netzach). With that purpose it floods our subjectivity with synchronicities, making us aware of the astral currents which traverse the physical. These currents are shaped by the contents of our personal unconscious. And even though the astral door is already half-open, this initiation is a must for the magician to establish him or herself in the world of Yetzirah.

The shadow holds negative contents from our personal unconscious we may neurotically project over others. These are negative traits we haven’t taken responsibility for. In order to successfully get through this initiation, we’ll have to turn neurosis into psychosis. In lacanian terms, we need to “traverse the fantasy”, after successfully “forcluding the Name of the Father”. We will be dragged by astral currents that will appear to us like all-powerful gods. And once this Lesser Guardian of the Threshold finally allows us to pass, the veil of Qeseth that separated us from Yetzirah will be gone.

“The horror which confronts every adventurer into the Unseen [...] Shall he be condemned to wander in the realms of illusion? Shall he be turned back on to the planes of form, or shall he be permitted to pass on into the Light?” -- Dion Fortune

The Tree of Life and the Four Worlds in the A.·.A.·. system

Anima and Animus

Just like we needed the shadow to reach Yetzirah, we’ll need a different guide to travel from Yetzirah to Briah. In Yetzirah, the guide is the unconscious anima/animus archetype. Whereas the shadow contains the personal unconscious contents we repress and neurotically project onto others, the post-psychotic whose base has been established in Yetzirah needs to integrate a deeper part of the unconscious. This part is usually positive and results in sexual desire when projected onto others. It is the things we desire in others. It is personal power that has been cut from us. We have to bridge the divide and turn the two into one.

That is to say, to reach Briah we need to balance -in classical terms- our masculine and feminine sides. Does this mean there’s truly things that are “masculine” and “feminine”? Absolutely not. It means that due to our gender socialization there’s parts of us that we’ve suppressed because they didn’t match whatever was expected of us. This is a consequence of social and cultural norms and the narrowness of such structures, specifically those related with gender socialization.

The anima/animus work involves taking ownership of those parts of us that form the basis of our sexual desire towards others (remember that Yesod is strongly associated with sexuality!). In addition to the astral relationship with the anima/animus, it seems to be common that a romantic relationship is involved. Usually we project our anima/animus onto our lover, but we must learn to detach it, and this is the meaning of the Ordeal of the Siren/Vampire. Later, after we’ve already detached the anima/animus from our lovers, we will have to incarnate it and integrate it.

At least in the case of male magicians, such anima is as well Hadit and the Kundalini snake. This has far-reaching implications for our magickal practice. This isn’t just detaching the anima/animus from our lovers, but there is a deep work with this archetype in Yetzirah, the astral world.

“I am the Snake that giveth Knowledge & Delight and bright glory, and stir the hearts of men with drunkenness. To worship me take wine and strange drugs whereof I will tell my prophet, & be drunk thereof! They shall not harm ye at all.” -- Aleister Crowley, Liber AL II - 22

We need to bridge the divide that is symbolized by The Tower. This Major Arcana corresponds to the path between Hod and Netzach, and symbolically separates both sexes. When the conscious is united with the unconscious that the anima/animus represents, the gates to Briah (the sephiroth of Tiphareth, Geburah and Chesed) can be opened.

The Angel

The third aspect of the unconscious is the one that the western tradition and specifically the A.·.A.·. calls the Holy Guardian Angel, even though this term is used interchangeably to indicate every manifestation of the unconscious as a psychopomp who helps us penetrate the secrets of reality. This “Angel” roughly corresponds to what Jung called the Self.

This liberal use of the name “Holy Guardian Angel” is such that the meeting with the shadow is often called “Vision of the Holy Guardian Angel”. This easily becomes confusing, so it might be better to distinguish between these three phases of the unconscious guide. This is the aim of this article. Often those who’ve experienced the “Vision” mistakenly believe they attained to the “Knowledge and Conversation”, or otherwise think that the frightening travel through the realities astral currents appear to solidify is the crossing of the Abyss that separates Briah from Atziluth. Such things only add confusion to an already complex matter.

In the A.·.A.·. system, the first task of the magician that has rendered the veil that separates him from Briah, is to contact his Angel. This will happen in this third world of the Qabbalah. For the A.·.A.·. this event is so important that the grade that corresponds to Tiphareth is divided in two: “Adeptus Minor (without)” and “Adeptus Minor (within)”, depending on if the magician has attained to the “Knowledge and Conversation” of this guide that will take him to the Abyss.

Our conscious self seems to be unable to attain alone to the next world beyond their world. This happens in each of these three worlds: Assiah, Yetzirah and Briah. In order to reach the next world, we need to take the hand that is extended to us from our personal psychopomp and overcome his ordeals.

The shadow is the guide that manifests in Assiah and helps us open the gates of Yetzirah. The anima/animus is the guide that manifests in Yetzirah and helps us open the gates of Briah. And the Angel is the one who takes us from Briah to the Abyss.

No human guide, no guru, no magickal order. Nobody knows better the intricacies of your mind, nobody knows better which are the appropriate methods for you, nobody knows better how to guide you in the initiatory path, than your own unconscious.

[hijodelagua]

Article on the event known as the Vision of the Holy Guardian Angel, tracing its references in the A.·.A.·. system and the -usually ignored- remarks Crowley wrote about it.

The Vision of the Holy Guardian Angel The Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel and the Crossing of the Abyss are usually considered as the most important achievements on every magickal career. As a consequence, there’s a lot of speculative writing around these events. Confusion emerges since too many magicians wish they had already climbed whatever separates them from the loftiest grades, and too many self-proclaimed gurus need chelas to feel their own worth. Grades of attainment function like a map, but they become worthless if the map doesn’t actually map the territory. What use is a map if we can’t locate where we are? If distances are wrong, if we’re conferred grades that tell us “you’re here” but we aren’t, the map becomes useless. It will only pander to our ego, maybe getting even more lost. In “The Mystical Qabalah”, Dion Fortune assigns a spiritual experience named “Vision of the Holy Guardian Angel” to the Malkuth sephira. This is a good way to summarize this entrance into High Magick and our first meeting with the Angel, an event so intense and deep (in a magical way) that it is often mistaken either as the Abyss (since the jungian Shadow or Lesser Guardian of the Threshold looks close to what we’re told about Choronzon), either as the Knowledge and Conversation (since we actually meet the HGA). Since this is a common mistake and initiates who make such mistakes sometimes write magical texts, it is something we should really take into account when reading books and articles on the initiatory path. Aleister Crowley himself barely wrote about this first initiation. But he did. In the Book of the Law it is said, “Let him come through the first ordeal, & it [The Book of the Law] will be to him as silver.” [AL III, 64]. Three verses complete the description of the four great initiations: (“65. Through the second, gold. 66. Through the third, stones of precious water. 67. Through the fourth, ultimate sparks of the intimate fire.”). The very Book of the Law is a text that reflects the initiation of the reader, and therefore mostly useless for the uninitiated. These four initiations, are also the four gates to one palace we are told about in AL I, 51. As we focus on the first door, that which will turn the Book of the Law into silver and in which “The gross must pass through fire” (AL I,50), we find a clarification in Crowley’s New Commentary on these enigmatic verses: “This Book is now to him “as silver.” He sees it pure, white and shining, the mirror of his own being that this ordeal has purged of its complexes. To reach this sphere he has had to pass through a path of darkness where the Four Elements seem to him to be the Universe entire. For how should he know that they are no more that the last of the 22 segments of the Snake that is twined on the Tree?” Those who aren’t High Magick initiates, even if they’ve successfully used magickal techniques, be it spells, divination or any other device, internally conceive the universe as if it was solely composed by the old Four Elements. That is to say, matter is taken at face value, even by those who hold religious beliefs or maybe some sort of spirituality. What we’re dealing with here is a practical personal experience on magick and the collapse of standard reality. Non-initiates basically live in the world of Assiah, and there’s no order neither human being who can “provide” Initiation. The path of darkness Crowley wrote about teaches the magician that his perceptions about the universe are wrong. That the world isn’t as solid as he believes, so that a strong enough air current could make it crumble. That matter is kind of “alive”, that there’s a world inside the world he was unconscious of until he finally crossed this Threshold. This is the world of Yetzirah, the “astral”. The astral plane is not just some part of our imagination, but a layer of reality that overlaps those we usually perceive. It seems to magically bring life to matter, creating coincidences, ordering events. The magician tunes in with a series of threads of meaning that look like a huge intelligence who knows his innermost secrets. In Yetzirah, we learn to perceive the silver reflections that will ultimately guide us to the distant Sun of Tiphareth. In this initiation to Yetzirah, the Lesser Guardian of the Threshold turns into the Greater Guardian. Thus, we enjoy the Vision of the Holy Guardian Angel. This encounter might make us fall in love for the rest of our lives, treading towards Tiphareth and the Knowledge and Conversation, as we open ourselves to the plane of Briah. An ordeal of terror and darkness The opening of the world of Yetzirah isn’t a bed of roses. Quite on the opposite, it is a terrifying experience in which insanity becomes a real threat. It could make you so afraid you never ever practice magick again. You might end up in a nuthouse. The mind becomes terrified, because it realizes reality is way different than it expected. And this is coupled with the fact that the astral is actually reflecting the unconscious contents of the magician’s mind. Everything that’s buried deep within will try to devour the magician from the outside, as the world looks like it has become alive and reality directly speaks to us, in such a surreal experience that we could speculate as to whether we’ve become insane, or whether we’re dead and reality is melting around us, and an endless spring of ideas on reality that could carry us to a dead end if they were to solidify inside our minds. The most spectacular case in our times, might be the famous science-fiction author Philip K.Dick, who probably could never reach the other side safe and sound. However, he left us a fantastic account of his experiences in his Exegesis, and in his pseudo-autobiographic novel VALIS as well. May it then become a warning to the dilettante: Those who aren’t ready to lose everything for a kiss of Nuit shouldn’t take a single step on this path. Crowley wrote on the same verses [AL III,64] in the New Comment to the Book of the Law: ”Assailed by gross phantoms of matter, unreal and unintelligible, his ordeal is of terror and darkness. He may pass only by favour of his own silent God, extended and exalted within him by virtue of his conscious act in affronting the ordeal. This is the path we need to walk if the Book of the Law is to be as silver to us. This is a very specific path, numbered 32. It connects Malkuth and Yesod and thus corresponds in its deepest sense to the evolution from Neophyte (1°=10□) to Zelator (2°=9□). The true Zelator has overcome the terrifying ordeal of volatilizing that which was fixed, and he’s also brought down to earth the energies that were released through Initiation, and thus “a certain Zeal will be inflamed within him, why he knoweth not.”, as it is written regarding the Zelator grade. The 32nd path is related to Saturn, which makes illusions appear solid. This planet is also related to the Binah sephira. If we consider the legendary tenth verse from Crowley’s Oath of the Abyss (“that I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul”) and the similarities between the Lesser Guardian of the Threshold and Choronzon, it all becomes confusing enough so that many who’ve gone through the 32nd path (and thus rendered the Veil of Qeseth) think they’ve won the ordeal of the Abyss, mistakenly proclaiming themselves Masters of the Temple and picturing themselves at the Atziluth heights, whereas they’ve just opened the moonlit door to Yetzirah. The magician will conclude this cycle when he manages to control the energies that were released in his experience of the Duat, in which he defeated his own demons. Then he will be definitely and irrevocably walking the initiatory path. And this shall not be taken lightly. Since, as Crowley writes on the Zelator Task (Liber Collegii Sancti, CLXXXV), “He may at any moment withdraw from his association with the A.'.A.'. simply notifying the Practicus who introduced him. Yet let him remember that being entered thus far upon the Path, he cannot escape it, and return to the world, but must ultimate either in the City of the Pyramids or the lonely towers of the Abyss.” Do not underestimate this warning. Because even if the Initiate wouldn’t continue, the path will continue without him and throw him unprepared into what’s ahead. One day such distant future will inevitably become the present, so facing it well-prepared must become a top priority for the magician.