I had been corresponding via IM with a young man born in 1989. I've gotten so old that it took me quite a while to realize that someone born in 1989 today would be 19 years old! The young man and I didn't chat long, as I didn't fit his idea of someone worthwhile talking to, but he did tell me something interesting about himself. He had mentioned that he had very dark hair and very light blue eyes. It would be sort of hard to track where those features might come from, as among Slovaks, the Dutch, the Greeks, and so on among people who are more dark-featured, every once in a while there is an instance of blue eyes.
Blue eyes that are very light in color are very rare anywhere, and are somewhat impractical as eyes of such a light color have a tendency of developing cataracts. In fact, people with blue eyes in general have a very tough time with cataract problems as they age. For myself as a diagnosed diabetic, I need to be very careful with my regimens and my eyes, and will likely have problems with my eyes no matter how well I handle my self.
I had met the young man at an Internet forum that I'm forbidding myself, so I can't talk to him directly. However, he mentioned that his mother had told him a story that his father's family originated in Romania. He also mentioned that he had once had a dream about a name called, "the Dragescu." I talked to him several times, and no longer speak to him, but as it turns out I turned up something with my research skills.
"Dragescu," certainly has a Romanian ring to it, as the, "sc," syllable, which is a harsh expressive, "shh," sound transliterated into English is quite common in the Romanian group of languages. However, I assumed the young man had simply turned the name up in a book of vampire fables, or in some ridiculous roleplaying game corebook. Still, I had been toying with searches, and there was an article that mentioned this small city north by northeast of Ivanovka called Maeraza and the surname, "Dragescu," on the Internet on the same page.
I had heard music performed by the Kronos Quartet by a female composer from Azerbaijan two years or so ago, and so I was not totally unfamiliar with the name. Apparently Azerbaijan is very Turkish in character, yet also has a Slovakian-European element to its character. As with the Slovakian region in general, this small locality has a fierce concept of its own identity, and is now apparently recognized as a sovereign nation amidst the now quite fragmented nations of that region. The area sits with Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and then Iran to the south.
I am not going to contact the young man again, but the information did kind of interest me, even though the information I had was so limited. Perhaps, "Dragescu," is a common surname in the region. I guess what got me thinking was that the young man had a Romanian father, and that his little tidbit about this, "dream," did in fact turn up a relationship between the surname and a region fairly close to Romania in geography. Perhaps the young man was growing nearer through these tales to finding his own tribe.
I'll be back indirectly, and then we'll have more to discuss, eh?
Monday, February 2, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Lineages and Legacies: We are the New BREED
I want to tell this as a story instead of just saying it like it is a fact, because this is a result of my visions, and even for me this is not just showing up at the wrong soccer stadium. However, I've had a result come up from these visions and I want to show some pride. Look - I take shame on myself for what has happened because I think that is Ma'at, not to blow air or for any other reason.
Still - I work so durned hard, and I feel I have a right to some pride. If I could just get this thing with my family worked out in some reasonable fashion. There does have to be a reasonable solution, even for the dove-poo that arose from the chlamydian sea. That isn't my blood. That kind of blood falls off like treetard from family trees. But I've got to heap the ashes of responsibility on my head because that is what is right - as far as I can see at the moment.
So this particular article deals openly with two fundamental issues. First, I want to talk about the origins I think I actually have, rather than my superman origin stories, and the neo-human. I'm just going to come out and talk about these dangerous topics.
One of the good things about being labeled psychotic is that the sub-breeds can put it off to a bad day or not enough sedatives in your pill box. I'll be open and let us see how hard I get nailed for it. Even on a closed site and a labeled half-wit, this might go foul. A gamble. I'll spin the two coins and let them fall where they may.
So here's how I'll tell the tale. A group of tribes arose in remote Nepal, and cast out of the mountains and swept southward through Asia and towards Europe. They were split tribes called the Ariannan, and they were a golden people. They also loved blood and war, and they fought within their tribes within certain limits to prove their strength.
Things ran afoul for the Ariannan - mostly they had themselves to blame - and a group split off, renaming themselves the Oraku. That name translates as "Those whose voices see." They fled across the sea, finally arriving in South America, and took their small tribe across the north of the Amazon jungle into Chile, where they were lost.
So here is me, likely an adopted foundling, a believer in his bizarre tale that he was once of the Oraku. I'll be taking a good depakote-induced power nap very soon, don't worry a bit. Best use for depakote in my opinion.
The New Breed of Evolution, and the Neo-Human
As I've told you, the Aryan has a reputation today for living in a world of myth. At some time around 6 or 7 thousand years ago, on both sides of the Himalayas, two very different sets of humans started keeping significant written records. At somewhere around 23 or 24 hundred years ago, two very different philosophical traditions are born on either side of the Himalayas.
At roughly 2000 years ago, a chaotic time in Middle Asia (the Arabic nations) forms a pivotal period in history for the whole world. Roughly 100 years ago, most of the world is connected significantly, and industrialization sweeps the world. 50 years ago, man develops unimaginable abilities to manipulate matter and the very stuff of life.
Somewhere no more than 5 years ago, the neo-human has arrived. We are all here. Now, as a descendent of a world of myth, I am not the scientist that nearly all neo-humans are. Yet, I've decided that if there is to be a tribe for myself, an official one and not a collection, that it will be called, the Invid. A story about a rootless, childless man? - or the evolution that will now sweep a globe of mostly sub-breeds?
Invid translates from my knowledge as, "venom," and I also like the translation, "the afflicted," or, "the affliction." The Invid shall make war. Again if I'm axed for making a hate site, at least a few eyes will have seen it.
There is a neo-human. The topic is final. What I and other neo-humans can do makes you look like fools. I am not a scientist, as a descendent from Ariannan --> Oraku --> Invid, I am a neo-human that lives in a world of neverending stories. I make war every day, and as the cage of the grid of the sub-breeds dissolves, the Invid will make of the new world that emerges a place of blood and war, never-ending stories, and also healing and love.
You need some skalds in the world, and as with any tribes, we will fight, but I hope that will also be arrived at by a reasonable solution. Also, a Clan in a new world needs a new name. A warrior-poet, head of Clan Invid, signs off for a nice legal power nap, and will return when he has more to say. If the material goes down, at least a few will see.
My path begins in a circle, and terminates at the end of the song of my knife. For the song of my knife is my only vision and voice, for Invid is the only weapon of the Invid.
Still - I work so durned hard, and I feel I have a right to some pride. If I could just get this thing with my family worked out in some reasonable fashion. There does have to be a reasonable solution, even for the dove-poo that arose from the chlamydian sea. That isn't my blood. That kind of blood falls off like treetard from family trees. But I've got to heap the ashes of responsibility on my head because that is what is right - as far as I can see at the moment.
So this particular article deals openly with two fundamental issues. First, I want to talk about the origins I think I actually have, rather than my superman origin stories, and the neo-human. I'm just going to come out and talk about these dangerous topics.
One of the good things about being labeled psychotic is that the sub-breeds can put it off to a bad day or not enough sedatives in your pill box. I'll be open and let us see how hard I get nailed for it. Even on a closed site and a labeled half-wit, this might go foul. A gamble. I'll spin the two coins and let them fall where they may.
So here's how I'll tell the tale. A group of tribes arose in remote Nepal, and cast out of the mountains and swept southward through Asia and towards Europe. They were split tribes called the Ariannan, and they were a golden people. They also loved blood and war, and they fought within their tribes within certain limits to prove their strength.
Things ran afoul for the Ariannan - mostly they had themselves to blame - and a group split off, renaming themselves the Oraku. That name translates as "Those whose voices see." They fled across the sea, finally arriving in South America, and took their small tribe across the north of the Amazon jungle into Chile, where they were lost.
So here is me, likely an adopted foundling, a believer in his bizarre tale that he was once of the Oraku. I'll be taking a good depakote-induced power nap very soon, don't worry a bit. Best use for depakote in my opinion.
The New Breed of Evolution, and the Neo-Human
As I've told you, the Aryan has a reputation today for living in a world of myth. At some time around 6 or 7 thousand years ago, on both sides of the Himalayas, two very different sets of humans started keeping significant written records. At somewhere around 23 or 24 hundred years ago, two very different philosophical traditions are born on either side of the Himalayas.
At roughly 2000 years ago, a chaotic time in Middle Asia (the Arabic nations) forms a pivotal period in history for the whole world. Roughly 100 years ago, most of the world is connected significantly, and industrialization sweeps the world. 50 years ago, man develops unimaginable abilities to manipulate matter and the very stuff of life.
Somewhere no more than 5 years ago, the neo-human has arrived. We are all here. Now, as a descendent of a world of myth, I am not the scientist that nearly all neo-humans are. Yet, I've decided that if there is to be a tribe for myself, an official one and not a collection, that it will be called, the Invid. A story about a rootless, childless man? - or the evolution that will now sweep a globe of mostly sub-breeds?
Invid translates from my knowledge as, "venom," and I also like the translation, "the afflicted," or, "the affliction." The Invid shall make war. Again if I'm axed for making a hate site, at least a few eyes will have seen it.
There is a neo-human. The topic is final. What I and other neo-humans can do makes you look like fools. I am not a scientist, as a descendent from Ariannan --> Oraku --> Invid, I am a neo-human that lives in a world of neverending stories. I make war every day, and as the cage of the grid of the sub-breeds dissolves, the Invid will make of the new world that emerges a place of blood and war, never-ending stories, and also healing and love.
You need some skalds in the world, and as with any tribes, we will fight, but I hope that will also be arrived at by a reasonable solution. Also, a Clan in a new world needs a new name. A warrior-poet, head of Clan Invid, signs off for a nice legal power nap, and will return when he has more to say. If the material goes down, at least a few will see.
My path begins in a circle, and terminates at the end of the song of my knife. For the song of my knife is my only vision and voice, for Invid is the only weapon of the Invid.
Thelema, the Big Al, Rabelais, and the Question of Human Freedom
I decided to get lazy and just re-write the article I have sort of banked in the organic-RAM module without looking for a previous article on the topic. I have far more thoughts on this topic today than when I conceived my last version of the article, and in fact, my most particular, "hard philosophy," research is in - long words - excellent words - "the ontology of human will." I've considered making a reference to Big AL Crow in the essay, since the essay will probably not be published until I meet my demise. LOL! Just to be an SOB. My tribes do that too.
So let us start with Rabelais. I keep wanting to date Rabelais as 19th century, but everything keeps pointing to late-Renaissance. Rabelais makes the Western Great Books list. His major work is called, "Gargantua and Pentagruel," is explicitly scatalogical, and also includes a long list of human perversions that don't make the Western Great Books list.
He is worthy of academic study, according to academia. Your problem is that as a scholar you get one and only specialty - and a lifetime of Rabelais does not suggest a very healthy mind. If you start with a healthy mind, a career like that is sure to cause leprosy.
Rabelais was a very defiant man, what they called a, "free-thinker," back then, and he made some people a little more than peeved, so they sent him off to a cloister. Rabelais escapes the cloister, and he sets to pen one of the best satires written in the West since Petronius' "Satyricon," before being summarily burned at the stake for being even more free-thinking and annoying than he started out.
"The Satyricon," and the "Gargantua and Pentagruel," are similar as works in character to one another, although they do not have a similar theme. What Rabelais experienced in the Cloister was that every minute of his life was planned and watched, and it drove him - insane. Yet Rabelais was no fool, and what happens in GnP shows that amply.
Rabelais creates a satiric monastery and writes a satiric monastic rule. The monastery is called the, "Abbey of Theleme," and Theleme is actually a fairly good Attic Greek declension of somewhere around, "human freedom." Typically monastic rules stretch out for page after page - the Qumran Indices is a sterling example - but in the Abbey of Theleme, there is one monastic rule - "Do what you wish."
So we begin GnP with farcical clowning. The Abbey is tons of fun, and nothing gets done because everyone sleeps well into the afternoon and - you can kind of guess! As the work proceeds however - this total anarchy leads to total degradation, and at the end, our Abbey of Theleme burns to the ground with Gargantua and Pentagruel trapped inside it.
So let us consider of the dramatization of the theme. Clear in Rabelais' mind is that having every minute and decision monitored and controlled in a cloister is not freedom. Clear from our satirical Abbey is that total anarchy is not a very rational sort of freedom.
So we are presented with a question, "What is human freedom?" Scatology and total degradation - not human freedom. Precise control of my every move - not human freedom. This is the point of this satire, and it is just an incredibly explicit satire. That is the basic problem with the work. It is also very well written and realized.
So here comes the issue with the Big Al. Al was familiar with Rabelais. Al was an aristocrat from a fairly notable aristocratic family in England. All from England can heave a sigh of relief knowing that no one can remember what notable aristocratic family that was, as he got into big trouble with the law and proceeded to be - deleted. In fact, Alex Crow was a slang term for a nasty sort of character in England, and he Latinized it to, "Aleister Crowley."
Now Big Al was genius quality material. Big Al's problem was that he had no self-discipline. He contacted the Memphis Rite of German Freemasonry, which had been ejected from German Freemasonry for its wild practices. The Memphis Rite reformed under some of Crowley's principles to form the Ordo Templi Orientiis. However, Big Al couldn't get very high in the ranks, and wandered off in a rage.
Big Al may have lived in Asian India for a while, as he was familiar with yogic practices and yogic tantra. Asian India was a British colony at the time, and it is possible. By the way - just as associating with esoteric mysticism in the West might get you forked fingers at the local Jungle Jim's and a mark to ward off evil on your door, they feel the same about tantric practices in Asia. Still - broadminded people in Asia - just as in the West - might say, "Which version of esoteric mysticism/tantra are you speaking of?" - as sometimes people who pontificate on the wrong soccer field do get a modicum of respect in both Asia and the West.
So we arrive at the kick in the pants to the establishment, just to be an SOB. Crowley had a few ideas that are interesting, and it's not so much that they are original, but that they are unique in their re-casting. The first is - remember - explanation will follow - "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law," or, "There is no law but do what thou wilt."
So we see from Rabelais' satiric drama that anarchy isn't a working model. Also, Crowley recast the idea (yes, phony archaicisms, heave a different sort of sigh) using the word "will," as a pun. So we have a statement that could mean, as Rabelais satirized, "Do what you wish," but could also mean, "What you are capable of doing is what you are free to do."
Crowley discussed how this statement touched on a fundamental reality - capability to do something is the freedom to do something. That is an ontology, and not just, "flit and flout about following your whims." The idea is so fundamentally interesting, as what we see is - consider - as an existence I am capable of saving this draft and taking a nap instead of finishing this article. That is a freedom I have. I don't have the freedom to walk all the way to the store, as I'm not physically strong enough to walk all of the way there.
We're not making an ethical statement about freedom - important to think about as well (?) - but we're making an ontological statement about freedom. What can I as an existence achieve within my limitations as an existence? Sometimes we may not be aware of a freedom we have in this sense, and that is also an ontology - because we look at where our knowledge of existence meets the reality of our existence.
The other question relates to a different piece of my work and it deals with "losing lust for results." In the Eastern part of the West, this is a massive part of Byzantine Orthodox Christianity. It isn't whether you believe in being a Christian or feel it will achieve "eternal bliss," it is about practicing as a Christian. Understood that Christian salvation is also of faith, but what the Orthodox are getting at is that it is the practice of being Christian that is the faith of Christianity.
In Orthodoxy, no mortal man or woman can determine salvation, and the tradition is that the best member of a congregation - blameless and a stout practitioner of the faith - can still obtain perdition. Salvation is up to the Lord, and not the member of the congregation - or its leaders. By contrast, there are tales in Orthodoxy that Judas the Iscariot could have obtained salvation - for all we know - the worst sinner of all time - and why? - because the Lord preferred it to be that way, and for no other reason.
Obtaining a good confession before death - as in Catholicism - is considered a great blessing and a very good omen, but that is all you get for such a confession. In Catholicism this is really a core tenet as well, or it is meant to be - one is Catholic because one shows up at Church, shows up at Confession, and practices the faith - and no one knows much more than that, but the cast in Catholicism differ in some significant ways. Both true Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity are incredibly austere, and very few people practice for a long period - much less their entire lifetime.
So - my reason for the interest is this - in life we meet the Mother I call An, and in her face - we don't know so much as we would like to think. So we practice the, "art of living," whether it is what will be my, "Work of Completion," or some other art of living. We just practice being alive, and there is a great gaping wound where almost all of our knowledge just pours right out - to be poetic - pours right out into our graves!
Seen in this light, we live not to achieve results, but to practice being alive. We don't worry if someone with my talent posts at a freebie blog and doesn't get a paycheck - did I misplace that too? - and remains fundamentally alone in his surrounding world. We practice living to live - a verb - with no concept of what the results will be. Very simple, very austere, and a very simple fact about life. I never use the word, "fact" - a powerful and curious word in English - except in a certain sense, and in this case, I use it by no mistake.
This is going to lead back to the philosophy blog, where I'm going to do that article on categories I've been planning for weeks. I've held off because the work is incomplete, and my processors are still trying to form the piece a bit better. Still - I want to make a stab at it today, and the completed book on logic will get done if I don't die too quick. I don't think I will. I'm that bad of an SOB.
So let us start with Rabelais. I keep wanting to date Rabelais as 19th century, but everything keeps pointing to late-Renaissance. Rabelais makes the Western Great Books list. His major work is called, "Gargantua and Pentagruel," is explicitly scatalogical, and also includes a long list of human perversions that don't make the Western Great Books list.
He is worthy of academic study, according to academia. Your problem is that as a scholar you get one and only specialty - and a lifetime of Rabelais does not suggest a very healthy mind. If you start with a healthy mind, a career like that is sure to cause leprosy.
Rabelais was a very defiant man, what they called a, "free-thinker," back then, and he made some people a little more than peeved, so they sent him off to a cloister. Rabelais escapes the cloister, and he sets to pen one of the best satires written in the West since Petronius' "Satyricon," before being summarily burned at the stake for being even more free-thinking and annoying than he started out.
"The Satyricon," and the "Gargantua and Pentagruel," are similar as works in character to one another, although they do not have a similar theme. What Rabelais experienced in the Cloister was that every minute of his life was planned and watched, and it drove him - insane. Yet Rabelais was no fool, and what happens in GnP shows that amply.
Rabelais creates a satiric monastery and writes a satiric monastic rule. The monastery is called the, "Abbey of Theleme," and Theleme is actually a fairly good Attic Greek declension of somewhere around, "human freedom." Typically monastic rules stretch out for page after page - the Qumran Indices is a sterling example - but in the Abbey of Theleme, there is one monastic rule - "Do what you wish."
So we begin GnP with farcical clowning. The Abbey is tons of fun, and nothing gets done because everyone sleeps well into the afternoon and - you can kind of guess! As the work proceeds however - this total anarchy leads to total degradation, and at the end, our Abbey of Theleme burns to the ground with Gargantua and Pentagruel trapped inside it.
So let us consider of the dramatization of the theme. Clear in Rabelais' mind is that having every minute and decision monitored and controlled in a cloister is not freedom. Clear from our satirical Abbey is that total anarchy is not a very rational sort of freedom.
So we are presented with a question, "What is human freedom?" Scatology and total degradation - not human freedom. Precise control of my every move - not human freedom. This is the point of this satire, and it is just an incredibly explicit satire. That is the basic problem with the work. It is also very well written and realized.
So here comes the issue with the Big Al. Al was familiar with Rabelais. Al was an aristocrat from a fairly notable aristocratic family in England. All from England can heave a sigh of relief knowing that no one can remember what notable aristocratic family that was, as he got into big trouble with the law and proceeded to be - deleted. In fact, Alex Crow was a slang term for a nasty sort of character in England, and he Latinized it to, "Aleister Crowley."
Now Big Al was genius quality material. Big Al's problem was that he had no self-discipline. He contacted the Memphis Rite of German Freemasonry, which had been ejected from German Freemasonry for its wild practices. The Memphis Rite reformed under some of Crowley's principles to form the Ordo Templi Orientiis. However, Big Al couldn't get very high in the ranks, and wandered off in a rage.
Big Al may have lived in Asian India for a while, as he was familiar with yogic practices and yogic tantra. Asian India was a British colony at the time, and it is possible. By the way - just as associating with esoteric mysticism in the West might get you forked fingers at the local Jungle Jim's and a mark to ward off evil on your door, they feel the same about tantric practices in Asia. Still - broadminded people in Asia - just as in the West - might say, "Which version of esoteric mysticism/tantra are you speaking of?" - as sometimes people who pontificate on the wrong soccer field do get a modicum of respect in both Asia and the West.
So we arrive at the kick in the pants to the establishment, just to be an SOB. Crowley had a few ideas that are interesting, and it's not so much that they are original, but that they are unique in their re-casting. The first is - remember - explanation will follow - "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law," or, "There is no law but do what thou wilt."
So we see from Rabelais' satiric drama that anarchy isn't a working model. Also, Crowley recast the idea (yes, phony archaicisms, heave a different sort of sigh) using the word "will," as a pun. So we have a statement that could mean, as Rabelais satirized, "Do what you wish," but could also mean, "What you are capable of doing is what you are free to do."
Crowley discussed how this statement touched on a fundamental reality - capability to do something is the freedom to do something. That is an ontology, and not just, "flit and flout about following your whims." The idea is so fundamentally interesting, as what we see is - consider - as an existence I am capable of saving this draft and taking a nap instead of finishing this article. That is a freedom I have. I don't have the freedom to walk all the way to the store, as I'm not physically strong enough to walk all of the way there.
We're not making an ethical statement about freedom - important to think about as well (?) - but we're making an ontological statement about freedom. What can I as an existence achieve within my limitations as an existence? Sometimes we may not be aware of a freedom we have in this sense, and that is also an ontology - because we look at where our knowledge of existence meets the reality of our existence.
The other question relates to a different piece of my work and it deals with "losing lust for results." In the Eastern part of the West, this is a massive part of Byzantine Orthodox Christianity. It isn't whether you believe in being a Christian or feel it will achieve "eternal bliss," it is about practicing as a Christian. Understood that Christian salvation is also of faith, but what the Orthodox are getting at is that it is the practice of being Christian that is the faith of Christianity.
In Orthodoxy, no mortal man or woman can determine salvation, and the tradition is that the best member of a congregation - blameless and a stout practitioner of the faith - can still obtain perdition. Salvation is up to the Lord, and not the member of the congregation - or its leaders. By contrast, there are tales in Orthodoxy that Judas the Iscariot could have obtained salvation - for all we know - the worst sinner of all time - and why? - because the Lord preferred it to be that way, and for no other reason.
Obtaining a good confession before death - as in Catholicism - is considered a great blessing and a very good omen, but that is all you get for such a confession. In Catholicism this is really a core tenet as well, or it is meant to be - one is Catholic because one shows up at Church, shows up at Confession, and practices the faith - and no one knows much more than that, but the cast in Catholicism differ in some significant ways. Both true Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity are incredibly austere, and very few people practice for a long period - much less their entire lifetime.
So - my reason for the interest is this - in life we meet the Mother I call An, and in her face - we don't know so much as we would like to think. So we practice the, "art of living," whether it is what will be my, "Work of Completion," or some other art of living. We just practice being alive, and there is a great gaping wound where almost all of our knowledge just pours right out - to be poetic - pours right out into our graves!
Seen in this light, we live not to achieve results, but to practice being alive. We don't worry if someone with my talent posts at a freebie blog and doesn't get a paycheck - did I misplace that too? - and remains fundamentally alone in his surrounding world. We practice living to live - a verb - with no concept of what the results will be. Very simple, very austere, and a very simple fact about life. I never use the word, "fact" - a powerful and curious word in English - except in a certain sense, and in this case, I use it by no mistake.
This is going to lead back to the philosophy blog, where I'm going to do that article on categories I've been planning for weeks. I've held off because the work is incomplete, and my processors are still trying to form the piece a bit better. Still - I want to make a stab at it today, and the completed book on logic will get done if I don't die too quick. I don't think I will. I'm that bad of an SOB.
Enoch and John Dee, Magister of the Court of Queen Elizabeth the First
First, John Dee was a real historical figure, who served as a diviner and an oracle - a magister - for the court of Queen Elizabeth the First. Before we sit up and laugh, consider Nancy Reagan and her pricy astrologer! There are indeed many lies of the, "liberal media," but that particular news-segment wasn't a lie. She was spending some 10 thousand dollars a year on professional astrology. QE1 had a similar sort of system going with John Dee.
John Dee was incredibly prolific, and wrote nearly all of his texts in what is - apparently - very good ecclesiastical Latin. At one time there was a massive archive of John Dee texts on the 'Net that had been fairly well translated into four or five major languages. A google/search or a category search should turn it up fairly quickly.
He wrote mostly treatises on alchemy. He also composed a translations of Arabic grimoires, some treatises on that Book of Enoch I already mentioned, and so on and on into maybe 3 or 400 texts, some of fairly large size, but most about 20 pages or so in length. The texts regarding the system of Enochian Magic(k) do not even actually number among the texts that we are fairly sure that he wrote, and that deserves a story.
It goes like this. You have a man of lower-middle class, a scribner really, named Elias Ashmole, in England just around or just before the Industrial Revolution. The name itself is likely a pseudonym, although it is a possible name in England at that time. We've already gotten pretty sketchy and we're not even near started with the story.
The man had peculiar interests, and he purchased an antique chest, to discover these Enochian documents at the base of the chest. There are five texts to this particular set of documents, named merely by a Latin ordinal: The primus, the secundus, the tertius, the tetras, and the pentus. The texts are mathematically encoded, show some pretty heavy math knowledge, and are written in both ecclesiastical Latin and Attic Greek.
Mimeographs of the first four are available online, and we arrive at our next problem. These texts would be considered more than unimportant to the general scholar, but they would be housed at a museum - simply because of the age of the texts. So how do we arrive at a pdf of these documents? The pentus I have never seen, but it may float onto a google/search on my computer one of these days.
My knowledge of Latin and Greek is not smashing, but the texts look like whoever wrote them knew their Greek and Latin pretty durned well. I'm not sure I know enough Latin and Greek to spot a total forgery, but it looks about right. The mathematical knowledge required to encode the texts would also have been huge, psuedo-scientific documents or not. That is what I see in these mimeographed pdfs.
Contemporary origin? Well, another issue is that what is marketed today as Enochian Magic(k) has no relationship to these texts, and you'd be better off with a cotton-candy-fluff Scott Cunningham book than one of these popularized Enochian Magic(k) books. I've had people try to roll up on me like they knew history and textual study better than me - ah the wonderful swindler - I smell the naphtha this evening - and I've pointed them to these texts. Have a nice day spending years on specialized Latin lessons and auditing Attic Greek classes! You might want to try some advanced combinatorics at a good University and lessons on Hebrew gematria with a private tutor - just to polish it off!
Further, there is another figure in these documents named Edward Kelly. Kelly was a native of the lower-class in England, who made his money through seances and charms and herbs and minerals - and you might guess what else! It is well-known that John Dee got himself into some trouble for associating with Edward Kelly, as Kelly was a notorious, "demonist," at the time.
Kelly fled to Spain and pulled "alchemical hoaxes," but hadn't regarded that there was an Inquisition going full-swing in Spain. The result of his forgetfulness was that he was burned rather quickly at the stake. I think he lived in Spain for no more than a year.
So the Enochian documents set up like this. Dee has found a very good sulfur-quartz skrying crystal, and puts Kelly to work at the crystal and takes notes as to Kelly's skrying at the crystal. As each session comes to a close, a new development is introduced, to culminate in the as-yet-unearthed, "pentus," document. The skrying sessions are dated as having lasted for almost 6 years of intermittent activity.
The goal of the text is first, to understand the esoteric meanings of the Book of Enoch - the popular one. Second, the goal is to understand the mysteries of the Angels of Heaven - as the original (erm... original being a bit of a loose term in this case) Book of Enoch was intended to explicate. So there you have it.
Now, just a couple of words to close. I have a pretty unusual way of viewing the world, a real bizarre Optik - if you will - and if you want to pray or worship angels, or even try to understand the mysteries of angels - more power to you! As I stated, I believe in El, and that he'll judge me just the way he prefers - no need for you mere mortal to intercede! - and so you need to pave your own yellow brick road.
The thing is that in every case - even though there was such a court magister - just such an Edward Kelly - and even texts similar in character attributed to John Dee - we need to look for an obfuscation. In particular if you are interested in esoteric mysticism, you need to refine your BS-detector finer than any scalpel made today. It is this subject that is subject to obfuscation more than any other. Further, think of what I said of history - I see it that we've obfuscated history - from ourselves! - to the point where 50 years ago is a bin of spam treats!
Alright, well yours truly may have more to say this evening. I ate a light dinner earlier, and maybe the Big Al article, or - maybe a new inspiration might strike. A short break, another cup of coffee - where the breath mints, baby? - more cigarettes, and then we'll see where to go on the old blogger/blogspot-freebie blog. Hang in there people. The world is pretty fouled up, but it is pretty rational and sane and won't end with any great immediacy. Time enough for one more cup of joe, one more marlboro - and time enough to love.
John Dee was incredibly prolific, and wrote nearly all of his texts in what is - apparently - very good ecclesiastical Latin. At one time there was a massive archive of John Dee texts on the 'Net that had been fairly well translated into four or five major languages. A google/search or a category search should turn it up fairly quickly.
He wrote mostly treatises on alchemy. He also composed a translations of Arabic grimoires, some treatises on that Book of Enoch I already mentioned, and so on and on into maybe 3 or 400 texts, some of fairly large size, but most about 20 pages or so in length. The texts regarding the system of Enochian Magic(k) do not even actually number among the texts that we are fairly sure that he wrote, and that deserves a story.
It goes like this. You have a man of lower-middle class, a scribner really, named Elias Ashmole, in England just around or just before the Industrial Revolution. The name itself is likely a pseudonym, although it is a possible name in England at that time. We've already gotten pretty sketchy and we're not even near started with the story.
The man had peculiar interests, and he purchased an antique chest, to discover these Enochian documents at the base of the chest. There are five texts to this particular set of documents, named merely by a Latin ordinal: The primus, the secundus, the tertius, the tetras, and the pentus. The texts are mathematically encoded, show some pretty heavy math knowledge, and are written in both ecclesiastical Latin and Attic Greek.
Mimeographs of the first four are available online, and we arrive at our next problem. These texts would be considered more than unimportant to the general scholar, but they would be housed at a museum - simply because of the age of the texts. So how do we arrive at a pdf of these documents? The pentus I have never seen, but it may float onto a google/search on my computer one of these days.
My knowledge of Latin and Greek is not smashing, but the texts look like whoever wrote them knew their Greek and Latin pretty durned well. I'm not sure I know enough Latin and Greek to spot a total forgery, but it looks about right. The mathematical knowledge required to encode the texts would also have been huge, psuedo-scientific documents or not. That is what I see in these mimeographed pdfs.
Contemporary origin? Well, another issue is that what is marketed today as Enochian Magic(k) has no relationship to these texts, and you'd be better off with a cotton-candy-fluff Scott Cunningham book than one of these popularized Enochian Magic(k) books. I've had people try to roll up on me like they knew history and textual study better than me - ah the wonderful swindler - I smell the naphtha this evening - and I've pointed them to these texts. Have a nice day spending years on specialized Latin lessons and auditing Attic Greek classes! You might want to try some advanced combinatorics at a good University and lessons on Hebrew gematria with a private tutor - just to polish it off!
Further, there is another figure in these documents named Edward Kelly. Kelly was a native of the lower-class in England, who made his money through seances and charms and herbs and minerals - and you might guess what else! It is well-known that John Dee got himself into some trouble for associating with Edward Kelly, as Kelly was a notorious, "demonist," at the time.
Kelly fled to Spain and pulled "alchemical hoaxes," but hadn't regarded that there was an Inquisition going full-swing in Spain. The result of his forgetfulness was that he was burned rather quickly at the stake. I think he lived in Spain for no more than a year.
So the Enochian documents set up like this. Dee has found a very good sulfur-quartz skrying crystal, and puts Kelly to work at the crystal and takes notes as to Kelly's skrying at the crystal. As each session comes to a close, a new development is introduced, to culminate in the as-yet-unearthed, "pentus," document. The skrying sessions are dated as having lasted for almost 6 years of intermittent activity.
The goal of the text is first, to understand the esoteric meanings of the Book of Enoch - the popular one. Second, the goal is to understand the mysteries of the Angels of Heaven - as the original (erm... original being a bit of a loose term in this case) Book of Enoch was intended to explicate. So there you have it.
Now, just a couple of words to close. I have a pretty unusual way of viewing the world, a real bizarre Optik - if you will - and if you want to pray or worship angels, or even try to understand the mysteries of angels - more power to you! As I stated, I believe in El, and that he'll judge me just the way he prefers - no need for you mere mortal to intercede! - and so you need to pave your own yellow brick road.
The thing is that in every case - even though there was such a court magister - just such an Edward Kelly - and even texts similar in character attributed to John Dee - we need to look for an obfuscation. In particular if you are interested in esoteric mysticism, you need to refine your BS-detector finer than any scalpel made today. It is this subject that is subject to obfuscation more than any other. Further, think of what I said of history - I see it that we've obfuscated history - from ourselves! - to the point where 50 years ago is a bin of spam treats!
Alright, well yours truly may have more to say this evening. I ate a light dinner earlier, and maybe the Big Al article, or - maybe a new inspiration might strike. A short break, another cup of coffee - where the breath mints, baby? - more cigarettes, and then we'll see where to go on the old blogger/blogspot-freebie blog. Hang in there people. The world is pretty fouled up, but it is pretty rational and sane and won't end with any great immediacy. Time enough for one more cup of joe, one more marlboro - and time enough to love.
The Book of Enoch: What Was and What Was Not
"Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him."
Genesis, 5:24, NRSV
In the traditions regarding creation, we would normally say that anything that El creates, he never completely annihilates. If you have been made, he won't destroy you utterly, even if you might wish he did un-make you. Now, we look at this passage, and the first interpretation out of my mouth would be that with El there is an exception to every rule, and that Enoch was the exception to this rule of creation and was annihilated. However, then we have the next problem, "because God took him," which does not suggest divine punishment.
This little passage represents a massive riddle, and it is one of the major reasons that Enoch has been such a special focus among apocryphal literature among Western Scriptures. In the Catholic tradition that I was raised in, there is one and only one passage that a Catholic may read from any, "Book of Enoch," and it appears in the Pastoral Letter According to Jude. In fact, the Catholic Church lists the Book of Enoch as the only worse heresy than the Gnostic heresy, and by canon law - today! - you can be formally excommunicated for owning or reading the Book of Enoch.
Formal excommunications are rarely served - even less today than before - but I've seen it happen several times in my life. One of the problems is that even as an apostate - I have to admit - these particular individuals had become pretty scandalously offensive in their behavior. I myself have received no formal papers - but there is really no need.
I have less chance for an absolution in confession - living the mostly pure life I live today - than when I exited drug rehab with a host of grave sins on my soul at 20. I'm informally excommunicated - latentiae sapientum - to be specific. That would roughly translate as, "holding censured knowledge." I didn't get that part of canon law in my Catholic education, but I managed to find the appropriate legalism for my apostasy at the VIS website.
There was a particular Book of Enoch that has been extant for a very long time in Western history, and it is the one quoted in the New Testament. There are libraries full of versions of the Book of Enoch, but that version has always been the most popular version. The simple reason for that is that in the West, part of pietism - once the monotheistic absolute set in - was the worship of angels, and that particular Book of Enoch intends to explicate the mysteries of the Heavenly Hosts.
That particular form of the Book of Enoch is considered the most blasphemous book ever written by Catholic canon law, except for that passage in the Pastoral Letter of Jude, and that passage is Scripture, the Word of God Himself - Who Is God Himself - by Catholic dogma. Further, it should be noted that Jude was the name of the betrayer of Christ the Savior, and that this letter represents something a little special in Christian Scripture. That was noted all throughout Catholic history by scholars and writers within the Catholic faith, and I learned this in my Catholic education.
Let us quote the poignant passage from the Pastoral Letter of Jude:
"It was about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying 'See the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.'"
Jude, 1: 14 and 15, NRSV
Being the obedient Catholic that I am, I've skimmed over the Book of Enoch in question, and it is interesting, but not of much use to me. What we really see is that angels fill the place that pagan gods might have - bringing iron or certain crafts to the new generations of Adam, and we see that there is a judgment made as to which angels will be imprisoned by their maker and which will continue to serve him. The judgment is one dependent on their behavior regarding man, and the prophecies of this mysterious Enoch.
It might be worth noting that in the Western tradition, the real meaning of "prophecy," was "one who spoke the words of God." Today we think of, "prophecy," as an oracle or divination into the future, but whether the prophet was a Major Prophet chosen from among a very small few, or a minor prophet or prophetess chosen out of many other madmen or madwomen, the prophet was never intended to be an oracle in Western tradition. He (or more rarely, she) was one who spoke, "the true words of God."
Another aspect of the Book of Enoch is that its long lists of names and their associated crafts or auspices make it a great deal like a Dark Age grimoire. In the Dark Ages, the, "grimoire," was a certain category of text that listed familiar spirits and their uses. It is actually likely that the Book of Enoch had this aspect before the Dark Ages - and of course - there are other more ancient versions of texts similar to the Dark Age grimoire.
So now we've introduced the Book of Enoch, and we will move on to John Dee and Mr. Edward Kelly, of Enochian Magic(k) fame. The two are indeed intimately connected. Also, - it is beyond the pale how silly people are. Also - the Enochian Magic(k) is a big target for swindlers. We'll go over it. It is rather strange, even for Western history.
Genesis, 5:24, NRSV
In the traditions regarding creation, we would normally say that anything that El creates, he never completely annihilates. If you have been made, he won't destroy you utterly, even if you might wish he did un-make you. Now, we look at this passage, and the first interpretation out of my mouth would be that with El there is an exception to every rule, and that Enoch was the exception to this rule of creation and was annihilated. However, then we have the next problem, "because God took him," which does not suggest divine punishment.
This little passage represents a massive riddle, and it is one of the major reasons that Enoch has been such a special focus among apocryphal literature among Western Scriptures. In the Catholic tradition that I was raised in, there is one and only one passage that a Catholic may read from any, "Book of Enoch," and it appears in the Pastoral Letter According to Jude. In fact, the Catholic Church lists the Book of Enoch as the only worse heresy than the Gnostic heresy, and by canon law - today! - you can be formally excommunicated for owning or reading the Book of Enoch.
Formal excommunications are rarely served - even less today than before - but I've seen it happen several times in my life. One of the problems is that even as an apostate - I have to admit - these particular individuals had become pretty scandalously offensive in their behavior. I myself have received no formal papers - but there is really no need.
I have less chance for an absolution in confession - living the mostly pure life I live today - than when I exited drug rehab with a host of grave sins on my soul at 20. I'm informally excommunicated - latentiae sapientum - to be specific. That would roughly translate as, "holding censured knowledge." I didn't get that part of canon law in my Catholic education, but I managed to find the appropriate legalism for my apostasy at the VIS website.
There was a particular Book of Enoch that has been extant for a very long time in Western history, and it is the one quoted in the New Testament. There are libraries full of versions of the Book of Enoch, but that version has always been the most popular version. The simple reason for that is that in the West, part of pietism - once the monotheistic absolute set in - was the worship of angels, and that particular Book of Enoch intends to explicate the mysteries of the Heavenly Hosts.
That particular form of the Book of Enoch is considered the most blasphemous book ever written by Catholic canon law, except for that passage in the Pastoral Letter of Jude, and that passage is Scripture, the Word of God Himself - Who Is God Himself - by Catholic dogma. Further, it should be noted that Jude was the name of the betrayer of Christ the Savior, and that this letter represents something a little special in Christian Scripture. That was noted all throughout Catholic history by scholars and writers within the Catholic faith, and I learned this in my Catholic education.
Let us quote the poignant passage from the Pastoral Letter of Jude:
"It was about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying 'See the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.'"
Jude, 1: 14 and 15, NRSV
Being the obedient Catholic that I am, I've skimmed over the Book of Enoch in question, and it is interesting, but not of much use to me. What we really see is that angels fill the place that pagan gods might have - bringing iron or certain crafts to the new generations of Adam, and we see that there is a judgment made as to which angels will be imprisoned by their maker and which will continue to serve him. The judgment is one dependent on their behavior regarding man, and the prophecies of this mysterious Enoch.
It might be worth noting that in the Western tradition, the real meaning of "prophecy," was "one who spoke the words of God." Today we think of, "prophecy," as an oracle or divination into the future, but whether the prophet was a Major Prophet chosen from among a very small few, or a minor prophet or prophetess chosen out of many other madmen or madwomen, the prophet was never intended to be an oracle in Western tradition. He (or more rarely, she) was one who spoke, "the true words of God."
Another aspect of the Book of Enoch is that its long lists of names and their associated crafts or auspices make it a great deal like a Dark Age grimoire. In the Dark Ages, the, "grimoire," was a certain category of text that listed familiar spirits and their uses. It is actually likely that the Book of Enoch had this aspect before the Dark Ages - and of course - there are other more ancient versions of texts similar to the Dark Age grimoire.
So now we've introduced the Book of Enoch, and we will move on to John Dee and Mr. Edward Kelly, of Enochian Magic(k) fame. The two are indeed intimately connected. Also, - it is beyond the pale how silly people are. Also - the Enochian Magic(k) is a big target for swindlers. We'll go over it. It is rather strange, even for Western history.
"What Path are You On?"
I've already told you the two basic translations of this statement, and your best response will almost always be, "I need to log out, as you are a chump and you are wasting my time." However, the concept of "path," is very important to esoteric mysticism, and there is actually a fundamental and traditional way of viewing this concept of path in the tradition - oh yes! - of esoteric mysticism.
First, people on occult-related sites are always throwing around, "LHP," and "RHP." These concepts are not easy to grasp the meaning of, even if someone would bother to tell you what they thought they meant. Usually, "RHP," means either "frigid old hag," or, "grumpy old wet blanket," and LHP means, "I'm gothic and RAHR!-y." If you knew the blasphemy that represents to me and others like me - where did I leave that flight carrier with the Tornadoes and the exocets! This is my gut reaction to this kind of swindler.
Since most people don't have a background in esoteric mysticism, let us start with STAR WARS! This is the easiest lead-in for the whole problem. So - the "light side of the Force," is the Right Hand Path, and the "dark side of the Force," is the, "Left Hand Path." This is very crude and oversimplified - barbaric really - but it is an effective lead-in to the rest of the concepts.
To move on, we look first at the ma'aseh Bereshais, or the work of Creation in the Book of Genesis. El, the creator, takes and separates light from darkness. Light on one side, and Darkness on the other, becoming Day and Night.
The next place to look is the key passages (there are two accounts) regarding the building of the Temple of King Solomon for his Lord. Before the Temple stood a great pillar called, "Boaz," on the left side, and a pillar called either, "Joachin," or, "Jacinth," on the other side. In between the two pillars was the gate to the great Temple.
So, in a typical Kabbalistic interpretation, the right-hand-path is ruled by the Day, the Sun, and by the pillar of Joachin or Jacinth. In a typical Kabbalistic interpretation the left-hand-path is ruled by the Night, the Moon and the Stars, and the pillar of Boaz. So now let us look at the right and left hand paths in a more complex interpretation.
So we imagine our dark side. Unlike in Star Wars, the Night is as necessary as the day, and a Temple needs two pillars and not one. In the Kabbalistic Sepher-Yetzirah, it is at least implicit that both the left and right sides of the paths lie on the Tree of Life, and that both paths lead to life and not destruction.
However, there are two distinct traditions. The first is that the right pillar was, is and always will be superior to the left pillar. Period. The second is that whatever those on the right pillar may know in their superior virtue, purity and justice, those on the left pillar - however necessary and even blessed with life (very important, that left path is also salvific!) can never know what those on the right pillar know. It is also explicit in most primary texts regarding Kabbalistic mysticism that those on the left path can never enter the gate to the Temple - ever!
There are also some implications - most likely the Zohar, which I am most familiar with - that those on the left pillar may know things that those on the right pillar do not. However, those on the left pillar remain inferior, forever - regardless of any unique knowlwedge they may have - in the traditional Kabbalistic way of thinking. My sense from the texts I've studied is that to be on a pillar at all is a huge gift, and that next - the pillar chooses you rather than you choosing it.
In other words, it would be El's determination on which salvific path you have come to fit, and not yours. I may be pagan, but El is quite stalwart in his judgments. I know from experience that it does me no good to whine at my maker to change his mind.
Before we go back to Star Wars, let me also say that those chosen by El for a pillar at all in some sense live in two entirely different creations. That is not exact, but it is very close. Those chosen for the right pillar and those for the left do not even live in the same Multiverse - in other words - and when I've run across a true Joachin - the sense I get of that unfamiliarity of dimension is immediate and overpowering.
So now let us return to the Star Wars movies. Let me say first that all six Star Wars movies are good entertainment, and do contain a little more than mere entertainment. I don't have much interest in movies, but I would consider watching the Star Wars movies again. They are religion to some people, and I question that, but I have met some sincere people who saw their world through a lens of Star Wars. That isn't an idiot, it is just a person who thinks very differently from me.
So let us discuss what I call, "the Nightside Path," as this is the path of my own experience. First, we have to remember that the path is salvific, and not a path of degeneration. That would be more like the Sith, who are corrupt and destroy themselves in their own corruption. One thing remains the same, the left hand path is easier and progresses with more speed than the "Path of Day."
Also, many people begin on the Night Path, but its processes can be very insidious and pernicious. The result is that nearly every one who makes a beginning on the Night Path winds up as little more than a sarcoma-ridden corpse in the matter of a few short years. You may laugh - but this is truth to me, and I have seen it first-hand. The bizarre nature of the deaths alone should make people wonder if the government should start keeping actual case-files on supernatural events.
This bit is more obscure, and I have found no primary text to support it, but I believe the pillar of Boaz to be partially split into twilight and true night paths. In the ma'aseh Bereshais, the twilight is not mentioned, and there are not three pillars. Also, it is quite clear that Boaz may never enter the Tabernacle. It is an oft-repeated part of Kabbalistic literature.
So I think it would be correct to say that my twilight path is one ruled by the Moon and the Stars of the night, and by Boaz, yet it is slightly different in character. It is, "LHP," but it is different. I have known 3 and only 3 successful left-hand practitioners of the left pillar of the great Temple. One is myself, and the other two were a strange duo I happened on at around the age of 20 on the now defunct MSN-chat servers.
The first used the handle, SorcererSupreme. SS had been a full member of the now-defunct California OTO, which was fairly large in size. He had obtained the 3rd degree that any member willing to do the grade work in the OTO has a right to, and was stuck in what are called, "the chairs," or the Zero-Four, as they are an honorary fourth degree. The OTO was a very dark organization, but was not wildly obscene as most imagined.
While he was moving through the chairs without much luck, he had encountered a group of African emigres in his area - near San Diego - who were practicing the old shamanism of Palo Mayombe. The group had initiated him to their highest level, and he had rights to a familiar spirit of the old Palo to call his own. In Palo, one chooses a familiar spirit, and it is considered to be the person himself. The person's real name is the name of that spirit.
Sorcerer Supreme got a lot of jokes. The OTO was known for its use of sexual tantra, so you can imagine how that stained his machismo. His work with the Mayombe got a lot of racial African jokes. Also, the Taco Bell jokes were inevitable with the handle "SorcererSupreme." The truth was that SS was very wealthy, quite powerful in the San Diego area, and though he never seemed to notice the insults - beneath a very Californian veneer of a light personality - you did not chase this adder to its den or poke at it with a stick.
The other was a woman who used the name, "OldCrow." Crow made no bones about being well over 60 years old, and she was the blackest witch I have ever met in my entire life. She was that other form of "traditional Satanist," I mentioned. She knew anything about any herb you might mention, and lived around Reno growing some pretty strange little potted plants.
She had also heavily studied the Seal of Brass (not for this blog people!) and I was deathly afraid of her. She was also high-larious, a ton of fun, and shepherded people around in that community almost selflessly. She took the, "hag," jokes without remark, but one time someone did something very wrong in that community - inexcusably wrong - and there were pictures on the news people - of an X-File. I knew the origin of that X-File and everybody who knew about Crow did.
Crow was no joke. She was definitely not twilight, but a total night-sider. I assume she has passed on, but I think Crow - though gothic - had the balance necessary to move on down the Night Path when her body finally gave out. I'm not so sure about SS, though he was at least 48 and had not lost his balance up until that point. I would like to meet OldCrow further down the road, and I certainly wouldn't hesitate to ask for her advice or instruction, even as fearsome as she was.
Another thing to note is that I do have enough balance on "my own path," that I do not fear falling off into an abyss every day. Still - though I may find more importance in certain of my spirits than El, El is stern in judgment, and I if he decides to throw my hide off the tightrope, I won't be arguing much about it - or not with too much effect.
I would like to finish off with something about El and the Jewish tradition. When I think of the principle of creation, he who crafted the world, I think of El, which is Jewish tradition. Yet I'm a pagan. It occurred to me once to pray a prayer that I might be "an exile among Judah."
I think that was a permissible prayer, and I made my best attempt to pray by a name used for the Jewish Lord only in prayer, which it is not even permissible to transliterate into English letters. Further, you are only supposed to write that name in certain texts. It is a very stern passage in the Mishnah, which I feel it is better not to violate.
The meaning of, "exile among Judah," is very specific in rabbinical tradition. It is a blessing, but it also deals with the prophet Daniel. Daniel was not one of the most blessed members of Israel. In fact, Daniel was one of the most cursed members of Israel. Not the most cursed, but among the most cursed by El, the craftsman of creation.
So now imagine: I go to a site on esoteric mysticism. I have chosen a very low status in even my own terms. A secondary path, a secondary tribal membership among Jewry, and the knowledge that yes - I too can fall into that abyss whenever my maker feels pleased to make me fall. Then you - a common swindler - takes these difficult, complex, and very sacred concepts - and not just sacred to me - and bowdlerizes them and tries to swindle me with them. I always wonder where I misplaced my flight-carrier and an Air-to-Surface missile to send directly to the front of your computer desk.
Still - vengeance is a prickly issue, even for one who is on the left-pillar. As a man of Boaz, I have the right to vengeance, but time and time again I hold back my hand. There are two reasons. First, I don't feel its my right to vengeance every time I am slandered. As common as the event has become, I would do nothing in my entire life but grasp at revenge.
Second, I do not tip my full power to anyone. Call that statement psychoses if you want. The few times that I have opened the hand of vengeance, I have opened it just enough and no more. I have never been forced to tip my full hand. That to me is ethical for one of Boaz, and it keeps me balanced enough to walk down the pillar towards life a bit more. In the meantime, will munificent El be done with me? I do not disregard El, but I cannot force his hand. All that I can do is simply wait to see what he judges for me.
So ends this bit, and then I think we'll do the, "Enochian," article next.
First, people on occult-related sites are always throwing around, "LHP," and "RHP." These concepts are not easy to grasp the meaning of, even if someone would bother to tell you what they thought they meant. Usually, "RHP," means either "frigid old hag," or, "grumpy old wet blanket," and LHP means, "I'm gothic and RAHR!-y." If you knew the blasphemy that represents to me and others like me - where did I leave that flight carrier with the Tornadoes and the exocets! This is my gut reaction to this kind of swindler.
Since most people don't have a background in esoteric mysticism, let us start with STAR WARS! This is the easiest lead-in for the whole problem. So - the "light side of the Force," is the Right Hand Path, and the "dark side of the Force," is the, "Left Hand Path." This is very crude and oversimplified - barbaric really - but it is an effective lead-in to the rest of the concepts.
To move on, we look first at the ma'aseh Bereshais, or the work of Creation in the Book of Genesis. El, the creator, takes and separates light from darkness. Light on one side, and Darkness on the other, becoming Day and Night.
The next place to look is the key passages (there are two accounts) regarding the building of the Temple of King Solomon for his Lord. Before the Temple stood a great pillar called, "Boaz," on the left side, and a pillar called either, "Joachin," or, "Jacinth," on the other side. In between the two pillars was the gate to the great Temple.
So, in a typical Kabbalistic interpretation, the right-hand-path is ruled by the Day, the Sun, and by the pillar of Joachin or Jacinth. In a typical Kabbalistic interpretation the left-hand-path is ruled by the Night, the Moon and the Stars, and the pillar of Boaz. So now let us look at the right and left hand paths in a more complex interpretation.
So we imagine our dark side. Unlike in Star Wars, the Night is as necessary as the day, and a Temple needs two pillars and not one. In the Kabbalistic Sepher-Yetzirah, it is at least implicit that both the left and right sides of the paths lie on the Tree of Life, and that both paths lead to life and not destruction.
However, there are two distinct traditions. The first is that the right pillar was, is and always will be superior to the left pillar. Period. The second is that whatever those on the right pillar may know in their superior virtue, purity and justice, those on the left pillar - however necessary and even blessed with life (very important, that left path is also salvific!) can never know what those on the right pillar know. It is also explicit in most primary texts regarding Kabbalistic mysticism that those on the left path can never enter the gate to the Temple - ever!
There are also some implications - most likely the Zohar, which I am most familiar with - that those on the left pillar may know things that those on the right pillar do not. However, those on the left pillar remain inferior, forever - regardless of any unique knowlwedge they may have - in the traditional Kabbalistic way of thinking. My sense from the texts I've studied is that to be on a pillar at all is a huge gift, and that next - the pillar chooses you rather than you choosing it.
In other words, it would be El's determination on which salvific path you have come to fit, and not yours. I may be pagan, but El is quite stalwart in his judgments. I know from experience that it does me no good to whine at my maker to change his mind.
Before we go back to Star Wars, let me also say that those chosen by El for a pillar at all in some sense live in two entirely different creations. That is not exact, but it is very close. Those chosen for the right pillar and those for the left do not even live in the same Multiverse - in other words - and when I've run across a true Joachin - the sense I get of that unfamiliarity of dimension is immediate and overpowering.
So now let us return to the Star Wars movies. Let me say first that all six Star Wars movies are good entertainment, and do contain a little more than mere entertainment. I don't have much interest in movies, but I would consider watching the Star Wars movies again. They are religion to some people, and I question that, but I have met some sincere people who saw their world through a lens of Star Wars. That isn't an idiot, it is just a person who thinks very differently from me.
So let us discuss what I call, "the Nightside Path," as this is the path of my own experience. First, we have to remember that the path is salvific, and not a path of degeneration. That would be more like the Sith, who are corrupt and destroy themselves in their own corruption. One thing remains the same, the left hand path is easier and progresses with more speed than the "Path of Day."
Also, many people begin on the Night Path, but its processes can be very insidious and pernicious. The result is that nearly every one who makes a beginning on the Night Path winds up as little more than a sarcoma-ridden corpse in the matter of a few short years. You may laugh - but this is truth to me, and I have seen it first-hand. The bizarre nature of the deaths alone should make people wonder if the government should start keeping actual case-files on supernatural events.
This bit is more obscure, and I have found no primary text to support it, but I believe the pillar of Boaz to be partially split into twilight and true night paths. In the ma'aseh Bereshais, the twilight is not mentioned, and there are not three pillars. Also, it is quite clear that Boaz may never enter the Tabernacle. It is an oft-repeated part of Kabbalistic literature.
So I think it would be correct to say that my twilight path is one ruled by the Moon and the Stars of the night, and by Boaz, yet it is slightly different in character. It is, "LHP," but it is different. I have known 3 and only 3 successful left-hand practitioners of the left pillar of the great Temple. One is myself, and the other two were a strange duo I happened on at around the age of 20 on the now defunct MSN-chat servers.
The first used the handle, SorcererSupreme. SS had been a full member of the now-defunct California OTO, which was fairly large in size. He had obtained the 3rd degree that any member willing to do the grade work in the OTO has a right to, and was stuck in what are called, "the chairs," or the Zero-Four, as they are an honorary fourth degree. The OTO was a very dark organization, but was not wildly obscene as most imagined.
While he was moving through the chairs without much luck, he had encountered a group of African emigres in his area - near San Diego - who were practicing the old shamanism of Palo Mayombe. The group had initiated him to their highest level, and he had rights to a familiar spirit of the old Palo to call his own. In Palo, one chooses a familiar spirit, and it is considered to be the person himself. The person's real name is the name of that spirit.
Sorcerer Supreme got a lot of jokes. The OTO was known for its use of sexual tantra, so you can imagine how that stained his machismo. His work with the Mayombe got a lot of racial African jokes. Also, the Taco Bell jokes were inevitable with the handle "SorcererSupreme." The truth was that SS was very wealthy, quite powerful in the San Diego area, and though he never seemed to notice the insults - beneath a very Californian veneer of a light personality - you did not chase this adder to its den or poke at it with a stick.
The other was a woman who used the name, "OldCrow." Crow made no bones about being well over 60 years old, and she was the blackest witch I have ever met in my entire life. She was that other form of "traditional Satanist," I mentioned. She knew anything about any herb you might mention, and lived around Reno growing some pretty strange little potted plants.
She had also heavily studied the Seal of Brass (not for this blog people!) and I was deathly afraid of her. She was also high-larious, a ton of fun, and shepherded people around in that community almost selflessly. She took the, "hag," jokes without remark, but one time someone did something very wrong in that community - inexcusably wrong - and there were pictures on the news people - of an X-File. I knew the origin of that X-File and everybody who knew about Crow did.
Crow was no joke. She was definitely not twilight, but a total night-sider. I assume she has passed on, but I think Crow - though gothic - had the balance necessary to move on down the Night Path when her body finally gave out. I'm not so sure about SS, though he was at least 48 and had not lost his balance up until that point. I would like to meet OldCrow further down the road, and I certainly wouldn't hesitate to ask for her advice or instruction, even as fearsome as she was.
Another thing to note is that I do have enough balance on "my own path," that I do not fear falling off into an abyss every day. Still - though I may find more importance in certain of my spirits than El, El is stern in judgment, and I if he decides to throw my hide off the tightrope, I won't be arguing much about it - or not with too much effect.
I would like to finish off with something about El and the Jewish tradition. When I think of the principle of creation, he who crafted the world, I think of El, which is Jewish tradition. Yet I'm a pagan. It occurred to me once to pray a prayer that I might be "an exile among Judah."
I think that was a permissible prayer, and I made my best attempt to pray by a name used for the Jewish Lord only in prayer, which it is not even permissible to transliterate into English letters. Further, you are only supposed to write that name in certain texts. It is a very stern passage in the Mishnah, which I feel it is better not to violate.
The meaning of, "exile among Judah," is very specific in rabbinical tradition. It is a blessing, but it also deals with the prophet Daniel. Daniel was not one of the most blessed members of Israel. In fact, Daniel was one of the most cursed members of Israel. Not the most cursed, but among the most cursed by El, the craftsman of creation.
So now imagine: I go to a site on esoteric mysticism. I have chosen a very low status in even my own terms. A secondary path, a secondary tribal membership among Jewry, and the knowledge that yes - I too can fall into that abyss whenever my maker feels pleased to make me fall. Then you - a common swindler - takes these difficult, complex, and very sacred concepts - and not just sacred to me - and bowdlerizes them and tries to swindle me with them. I always wonder where I misplaced my flight-carrier and an Air-to-Surface missile to send directly to the front of your computer desk.
Still - vengeance is a prickly issue, even for one who is on the left-pillar. As a man of Boaz, I have the right to vengeance, but time and time again I hold back my hand. There are two reasons. First, I don't feel its my right to vengeance every time I am slandered. As common as the event has become, I would do nothing in my entire life but grasp at revenge.
Second, I do not tip my full power to anyone. Call that statement psychoses if you want. The few times that I have opened the hand of vengeance, I have opened it just enough and no more. I have never been forced to tip my full hand. That to me is ethical for one of Boaz, and it keeps me balanced enough to walk down the pillar towards life a bit more. In the meantime, will munificent El be done with me? I do not disregard El, but I cannot force his hand. All that I can do is simply wait to see what he judges for me.
So ends this bit, and then I think we'll do the, "Enochian," article next.
Dispelling Disastrous Delusions, Part 2
Let us move on to the Neo-Pagan movements, and sort of go across some very broad problems and types and discuss the whole mess. It is a huge mess! First, Neo-Paganism could probably be broken down very broadly into two distinct types, which overlap to some degree. Those two disctinct types are "New Age," and "Reconstructionist." The goal with New Age Neo-Paganism is to develop a pagan belief that means something to you in light of New Age teaching or contemporary culture. The goal with reconstructionism is to look at significant archaelogy and re-construct old Pagan practices.
First, reconstructionism as an absolute has to fail, as we live in a different time in a different setting. Absolute reconstructionists are usually merely swindlers, looking to chump someone who wants the,"real deal." However, there are reconstructionists who spend years learning Egyptian heiroglyphs, or old Gaelic languages, or what have you - expensive and time consuming - with the belief that they can draw a more accurate depiction of these pagan beliefs into today.
Where do I stand as a Neo-Pagan. With a foot on both sides and a seat on the fencepost - to some degree. I have heavily studied heavy primary and secondary sources as part of my development of my beliefs, but my beliefs are also a personal belief meant for me alone and influenced by New Age and contemporary culture. I'll discuss a bit more on that somewhere else.
So let us start with WICCA! LOL! Alright, a first thing. The term "Wicca," was a Latin word that probably deserves to be pronounced, "Witch - ah." Still - almost no one pronounces it that way, so - whateva. The word could refer to a midwife in Latin cultures, or it could mean you'd get a mark on your door and a painful public execution.
Even pagan cultures treated witchery and sorcery as a strict taboo. These people might have gone to a witch-doctor for a special trick with a mineral or herb - or even a hex or a simple charm. Still - no matter what civilization on the planet you might name, you wound up dead if things went too far. Just as today, it was a counter-culture and you covered your hiney as best as you could to avoid persecution.
When it comes to the New Age form of Wicca, the best books are the two Solitary Guides by Scott Cunningham, and both of those are still in print on the mass-market. They are pretty fluffy books, but they encourage spirituality and independent thinking, and they also contain some other good materials. There are a few other good books on the market, but we might attack that bit of sod at another time.
In terms of reconstructionist paganism, there are no titles on the "metaphysics shelf." You have to go to either a place on the 'Net where such people congregate - good luck finding any sincerity! - or procure worthwhile primary and secondary texts. There are numerous types: Gnostic, Kemetic (Egyptian), Hellenic, Latinate, Saxon and Celtic, Welsh, and so on and so forth.
Another interesting point is that I had a fairly lengthy set of chats five or six years ago with a woman about my age at the time who was what Kemetic reconstructionists (there is a minimal community) call a Tamera or a Tamerand. This means that the person is involved in Egyptian historical study, but practices a New Age form of belief. I had a lot of admiration for this young woman, and it seems good to note that our counter-culture creates its own pidgeon-holes to disambiguate some of this huge effing mess that Neo-Paganism represents.
Another note is a bit controversial but interesting. There was a super-mod in the very late period at OF who was a halakhic Jew. The kosher laws mostly involve dietary restrictions and hygiene practices, but also include some sexual censures. To be halakhic means to go beyond being kashrut. Being kashrut - literally, "pure," - is plenty of a task enough, but living halakha requires incredible dedication. This is true even understanding that the man was not even able to practice all of halakha. However he practiced it as best as he could, and according to halakha that is all that is required to be halakha.
One of the things about Talmud is that you can find everything in there from Greek paganism to the rites of Molech to fables to kosher law - and so on and on for over 50 volumes for both sets of volumes of Talmud. The decision-maker as to what is halakha in Talmud is made by the Mishnah, and sorcery is strictly forbidden to a Jew if he or she doesn't want to stop being a Jew and gain a very harsh form of perdition.
However, there is some breathing-room as to what is halakhic and what is not in the Mishnah, and this man was very involved in studying that breathing room in the Talmud. The man had enough Aramaic to study both sets of volumes of Talmud fairly extensively. He knew both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Hebrew backwards and forwards, which differ significantly enough to cause major trouble in trying to switch back and forth. He also had a mass of knowledge of both mystical texts like the Zohar (in the original Aramaic!) and traditional Jewish texts - like the Mishnah and the Midrashim.
The thing about this man was that he was - gothic. I mean just terrifying. He lived a life of purity that most monks could not hold to, but I mean - terrifying in his visage. Still - I admired that guy, and almost no scholars in America had his kind knowledge of Judaism and its related languages. I'd pay that 100 dollars flat down for some documents from that individual as well. He was amazing!
Further, he was interested in two Egyptian concepts, and I don't know how these fall in halakha, though these are not negative concepts. The first is called, "Ma'at," and it would have translated from Egyptian as "right justice." As hard and cruel as the Egyptians' lives were, they believed that a right justice governed their world.
The other is called, "Xeper," probably pronounced "Skeh - peir," although the diphthongs are a bit tough to manage. It literally meant, "rolling," and was an Egyptian concept something like, "growth," or "building," or, "evolution," or "process," or "progress." Just as "evolution," would have made no sense to an Egyptian, "Xeper," can't really translate well to us. Still - one of the reasons for their reverence of the scarab was that it, "rolled," its little balls of dung along, and this was associated with "Xeper."
That pretty much finishes up a broad look at the Neo-Pagan dung-heap. There are sincere people out there who are interested in Neo-Paganism now, but they mostly do like I am doing here. They stay away from online communities, run closed websites and stick to themselves. This is because the Golden Age was mostly a scam, and now all sincerity seems to have entirely evaporated.
I'm going to check the articles at the sites for a previous Big Al article. Then we shall attack, "Thelema," in the way that I understand it for myself today. One of the best things about Thelema as a principle is that whether Crowley stuck to it or not in his own life, the whole principle behind Thelema is independence of thought and action, and so we shall see.
I also want to do a disambiguation on talking about, "our path," in the occult underground, This is a very hackneyed and overused term among us - usually for, "I will now feed you chump so that you will send me an un-secured platinum card number," or sometimes, "you will now sit and listen to my psychotic delusions for a long period of time." I will see how I want to do this, because both articles are more than worth doing.
I also want to dispel some delusions about John Dee, Edward Kelly, and the Enochian Magic(k) System. Plenty of time, we'll see where I decide to head with this.
First, reconstructionism as an absolute has to fail, as we live in a different time in a different setting. Absolute reconstructionists are usually merely swindlers, looking to chump someone who wants the,"real deal." However, there are reconstructionists who spend years learning Egyptian heiroglyphs, or old Gaelic languages, or what have you - expensive and time consuming - with the belief that they can draw a more accurate depiction of these pagan beliefs into today.
Where do I stand as a Neo-Pagan. With a foot on both sides and a seat on the fencepost - to some degree. I have heavily studied heavy primary and secondary sources as part of my development of my beliefs, but my beliefs are also a personal belief meant for me alone and influenced by New Age and contemporary culture. I'll discuss a bit more on that somewhere else.
So let us start with WICCA! LOL! Alright, a first thing. The term "Wicca," was a Latin word that probably deserves to be pronounced, "Witch - ah." Still - almost no one pronounces it that way, so - whateva. The word could refer to a midwife in Latin cultures, or it could mean you'd get a mark on your door and a painful public execution.
Even pagan cultures treated witchery and sorcery as a strict taboo. These people might have gone to a witch-doctor for a special trick with a mineral or herb - or even a hex or a simple charm. Still - no matter what civilization on the planet you might name, you wound up dead if things went too far. Just as today, it was a counter-culture and you covered your hiney as best as you could to avoid persecution.
When it comes to the New Age form of Wicca, the best books are the two Solitary Guides by Scott Cunningham, and both of those are still in print on the mass-market. They are pretty fluffy books, but they encourage spirituality and independent thinking, and they also contain some other good materials. There are a few other good books on the market, but we might attack that bit of sod at another time.
In terms of reconstructionist paganism, there are no titles on the "metaphysics shelf." You have to go to either a place on the 'Net where such people congregate - good luck finding any sincerity! - or procure worthwhile primary and secondary texts. There are numerous types: Gnostic, Kemetic (Egyptian), Hellenic, Latinate, Saxon and Celtic, Welsh, and so on and so forth.
Another interesting point is that I had a fairly lengthy set of chats five or six years ago with a woman about my age at the time who was what Kemetic reconstructionists (there is a minimal community) call a Tamera or a Tamerand. This means that the person is involved in Egyptian historical study, but practices a New Age form of belief. I had a lot of admiration for this young woman, and it seems good to note that our counter-culture creates its own pidgeon-holes to disambiguate some of this huge effing mess that Neo-Paganism represents.
Another note is a bit controversial but interesting. There was a super-mod in the very late period at OF who was a halakhic Jew. The kosher laws mostly involve dietary restrictions and hygiene practices, but also include some sexual censures. To be halakhic means to go beyond being kashrut. Being kashrut - literally, "pure," - is plenty of a task enough, but living halakha requires incredible dedication. This is true even understanding that the man was not even able to practice all of halakha. However he practiced it as best as he could, and according to halakha that is all that is required to be halakha.
One of the things about Talmud is that you can find everything in there from Greek paganism to the rites of Molech to fables to kosher law - and so on and on for over 50 volumes for both sets of volumes of Talmud. The decision-maker as to what is halakha in Talmud is made by the Mishnah, and sorcery is strictly forbidden to a Jew if he or she doesn't want to stop being a Jew and gain a very harsh form of perdition.
However, there is some breathing-room as to what is halakhic and what is not in the Mishnah, and this man was very involved in studying that breathing room in the Talmud. The man had enough Aramaic to study both sets of volumes of Talmud fairly extensively. He knew both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Hebrew backwards and forwards, which differ significantly enough to cause major trouble in trying to switch back and forth. He also had a mass of knowledge of both mystical texts like the Zohar (in the original Aramaic!) and traditional Jewish texts - like the Mishnah and the Midrashim.
The thing about this man was that he was - gothic. I mean just terrifying. He lived a life of purity that most monks could not hold to, but I mean - terrifying in his visage. Still - I admired that guy, and almost no scholars in America had his kind knowledge of Judaism and its related languages. I'd pay that 100 dollars flat down for some documents from that individual as well. He was amazing!
Further, he was interested in two Egyptian concepts, and I don't know how these fall in halakha, though these are not negative concepts. The first is called, "Ma'at," and it would have translated from Egyptian as "right justice." As hard and cruel as the Egyptians' lives were, they believed that a right justice governed their world.
The other is called, "Xeper," probably pronounced "Skeh - peir," although the diphthongs are a bit tough to manage. It literally meant, "rolling," and was an Egyptian concept something like, "growth," or "building," or, "evolution," or "process," or "progress." Just as "evolution," would have made no sense to an Egyptian, "Xeper," can't really translate well to us. Still - one of the reasons for their reverence of the scarab was that it, "rolled," its little balls of dung along, and this was associated with "Xeper."
That pretty much finishes up a broad look at the Neo-Pagan dung-heap. There are sincere people out there who are interested in Neo-Paganism now, but they mostly do like I am doing here. They stay away from online communities, run closed websites and stick to themselves. This is because the Golden Age was mostly a scam, and now all sincerity seems to have entirely evaporated.
I'm going to check the articles at the sites for a previous Big Al article. Then we shall attack, "Thelema," in the way that I understand it for myself today. One of the best things about Thelema as a principle is that whether Crowley stuck to it or not in his own life, the whole principle behind Thelema is independence of thought and action, and so we shall see.
I also want to do a disambiguation on talking about, "our path," in the occult underground, This is a very hackneyed and overused term among us - usually for, "I will now feed you chump so that you will send me an un-secured platinum card number," or sometimes, "you will now sit and listen to my psychotic delusions for a long period of time." I will see how I want to do this, because both articles are more than worth doing.
I also want to dispel some delusions about John Dee, Edward Kelly, and the Enochian Magic(k) System. Plenty of time, we'll see where I decide to head with this.
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