Dogmatic Exoteric Religions for mystics

Someone I know of claimed to be interested in enlightenment (whatever they meant by that term) and magick.

This person went from being Into "some random thing" then the person Joined the OTO and became extremely, religiously Thelemic (the kind of people who actually worship Horus) then when the 7pointed star neklace had just lost its shine, the person became interested in the Temple of Seth, After this there was a period of random magick, then I lost track, then the person, now in late twenties, went back to Uni, and actually, genuinely went to a Catholic priest and confessed and became a Catholic.... now, suddenly not even that is cutting the mustard and the person is now deciding to become a sensual atheist... right.

Needless to say, I saw this coming a mile off. You always can tell. Some folk are looking for something but they don't really know what it is they are looking for. The religions out there are odd, so they turn to something esoteric, but that requires thinking and work, so they make the esoteric teachings into something exoteric, then they go to the exact opposite of where they started, materialisst often trying Buddism and Spiritual people being all, "lets drink and have lots of sex" then, there is the moment of repentance when they return to their roots, and then, finally after years of flitting back and forth they end up doing nothing.

Thats the fun part because if they are lucky they will then continue with doing nothing, if not and they are truly unlucky they will forever feel the pull, but will never act on it and have simply confined their current incarnation to misery, or at least a very expensive and damaging midlife crisis.

There are many people who seek something, but are not sure what they are looking for, which is fine. I believe that if you knock then you shall find, but unless you come knocking to my door I'm not going to evangelize. Coming to this blog means you are interested in my thoughts so this doesn't count.

Also, there is nothing wrong in Exoteric religions, but then you are not a mystic, you are not a Gnostic, you are not searching for an esoteric understanding, then you are just very devout, or missguided. Or possibly wondering how Magick can be reconciled with your current religous practices.

Below follow a few points from an Esoteric point of view. Keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with using magick, whether you do it from an esoteric or exoteric point of view, in that case it doesn't matter, this is only relevant if you choose to work in a mystical spiritual manner as well-

1 Organised Religion is created by people who adher to the teachings of an enlighetened master without realising that these teachings are meant to guide you into realisation and not be taken literally. Parables and mystery is just that. You cannot logically or scientifically explain the mystery of the highest realisation.

2 There is no religion that will suit you if you are questioning your current one. You will either end up head over heels and become a scary convert (for a while), or you will find something that is wrong with that religion aswell. Get in line. No religion is perfect if taken literally. Especially if you're seeking things from an Esoteric point of view and then only looking at the Exoteric revelations.

3 As a searcher of truth you should and can ignore the rules of Organised Religion and stop searching for truth upon the map of a map. You cannot be catholic and not accept that the pope is right with everything. You cannot be a jew without being a monolatrist. At least not according to the Organised religious exoteric view. Yet there are so many initiates who parttake of the Exoteric element as part of their esoteric practice. As a good catholic, you are aware that you should not work with Raziel, right? Only Gabe, Raffe and Mike are accepted Saintly angels....

This is why magicians and mystics are outside of the pall of the societal aspects of religion. Try going up to a completeley fanatic Thelemite and expain to them that the book of the Law only applies to Crowley nobody else, he missunderstood a personal revelation as a Universal revelation due to ego issues, and then you will see what I mean...

4 It is possible to find peace in that God is there and loves you and that that is all that is needed.
If you feel the need to convert to Islam or Orthodox Christianity becasue of the way the Nicean creed is phrased then you need to get over yourself. Do you think the Godhead cares?
You need to ask yourself the question whether its a community you want or spirituality.
Do you need a priest to stand between you and your spirituality? Then you have no business being an esoteric/mystic.

Historically in xtian times many mystics were laymen who were harrassed by the organised church and most nuns and monks understandig of the religion was about as far away from the mainstream understanding of the same as vodou is from hoodoo. The priests were the scholared ones, The Monks were the ones who actually sat in a 2X2 cell and prayed day and night.

5 Try and avoid a childish inexperienced understanding of what enlightenment means, based on text based preconceptions and projections. This is a side note, based on several PhD thesis in a library 200m from me where real genuine academics studying theology actually discuss whether the Mass should be a remembrance ala protestantism or a Eucharist ala transfiguration. after reading several I realised that most peoples issues with the religous aspects of an esoteric path is due to identification with the child archetype. *yawn*

6 In case you did not know:
Mystics of all ages and all exoteric denomination state that "God" is not a person, he/she/it is not Jehova, Allah or Horus or Satan. The Godhead IS godhead. I cannot believe that India has had it right for so many thousands of years yet Westerners are stuck...

7 Most importanlty, Faith cannot be forced. Faith is certainty. If you do not have faith then outer systems will never give it to you.

8 If you do have faith, ask yourself whether you have belief in what other people say, or faith. is the bible really the word of God, or is it a small collection of texts from a formerly existing mystery tradition mixed with Mithraism, the cult of Saint Michael, a badly understood jewish influence and the mysteries of Isis and Osiris that were Oh so chic in Rome? One comes from within the other one means accepting someone elses word for it and just hoping that its true. (shaky use of words here but you get what I mean as you are smart)

9 Do never ever start to work with any mystial, or magickal system because you "have to" to or feel you "need it". This shit only works if you want to do it for joy and fun.

----

Now put on Bjork and sing along:

"All is full of love

you will be taken care of

all is full of love"

On Enochian apocalypses (re-posting an old guestpost)

I wrote a comment a few months ago on another blog that turned into a Guest post.
Since I am extremely busy right now, I thought I repost it on my site since I doubt that my readers read the other blog.

The contets are due to the urban legends surrounding the enochian system. If you spend a few minutes googling you will see what I mean.
I am referring to odd ideas that the enochian system is fake, or that it is alien transmissions or that they make you insane when working with them etc etc.

Anyway, enjoy.

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Wednesday, May 19, 2010

I have worked with the Enochian system for over ten years now and I have never -ever- experienced the meltdown effect as described by the internet-urban legends abounding.The way I see it is that systems, aside from their specific entities also have an overarching hive-mind, or, if you will, egregore. (Now, there are systems, 200 years older than kaosmagick that also work with egregores so don't dis the concept out right). Each system's egregore, and all egregores for that matter, will have a specific feeling and behavior. At first, the experience will be a mix between your expectations of the egregore and its true flavor. Then, over time, if the practitioner is a mentally balanced person, the true flavor will emerge and the expectation linked experience will pass. Compare this with an European left-wing person traveling to USA the first time after only seeing American sit-coms and you are on the right track, or the projections people do on their loved ones the first 6-12 months in a relationship.

Enochian has a specific feeling because the egregore IS a form of esoteric Christian amalgamation. Esoteric Christians of all eras have understood the end times to be imminent from a myth perspective, because in a way they are, in the same way as the Logos is ever coming ever redeeming, and not a single reborn Christ. That myth image is just as ingrained in the enochian egregore as duality is in gnostic myths. The truth is we are all Christ, as the emergence of the Christ-consciousness during some initiatory processes shows, but this doesn't mean we have also done the work needed to truly support this Christ consciousness. We can get megalomaniacal, or exhibit messiah syndrome or believe that because we understood the one truth by reading page 75 in playboy magazine collected, volume 2, 1975 whilst drinking cappuccino, then that is how everyone else will see the light and we end up a bit odd.
By communicating with the angels of the enochian egregore, we assume the role of someone with a Christ consciousness, and as we know, by faking it you make it. No matter how unbalanced someone is, they will get that sense. If you combine this with a slightly unusual preconception of the egregore projected unto the angels, then you have what some people call the meltdown effect.

As to the nature of the angels, like many practitioners, myself included, usually say that the enochian “angels” are very strange “angels”. However, if we look at how the enochian angels of the tablets behave, feel like and what their place is in the spiritual hierarchy of the 17th century angel mages, we’ll notice that they are what the universe is made of. In Martinez Pasqually’s system they would be the sentient angels who have entered the time-flow and created matter. Even from a non-dualist non-gnostic perspective this makes sense. If we are all inside the mind of God, hermetically speaking, then everything in The Mind of God is a thought and “living” entities. The Angels are thus the sentient building blocks of our reality, prison, or whatever you want to view the world as. Their job is to oversee the universe and they like to talk to us, because they love us and they want to teach us the things they can. The egregore is contactable stupidly easily. You don’t need more then the calls and a tablet on paper to start getting a very powerful connection.Explore and try and see what’s there instead of what I or anyone else says and makes you expect. But keep the context and mythological setting of the system in mind when doing so.

Love your western traditions.

Sometimes I just get extremely tired of bozos who have no idea what they are talking about bashing various Western orders, groups and the Western system, without knowing what they are bashing and for the completely wrong reasons.

(ohyes, it is rant time)

Are there big orders that claim they do X and Y and in reality are nothing more then reenactments of the real orders? Of course. But there are people in Haiti claiming to be Mambos and Houngans selling tourist voodoo ceremonies and fake Tantrics who'll have sex with you, take your dollar and then say "screw you yank" in hindi as your "holy mantra."

The difference is that in those foreign cases the locals know who's who and whats what and who's fake and who isn't. We in the occident (and with we I don't mean the royal we I mean westerners) are duping ourselves as 90% of the population is, thanks to you, oh Glorius WW2 and postmodernism, a Tourist in its own culture. This is why we are so intimidated by Islam, by cultural traditions that are more than skin deep...

Imagine if all we here in the West knew about tantra were the same ideas that we picked up in the 20s and the bullshit sacred sex bollocks that are advertized in bookstores and in Western tantric groups.

Imagine if Hollywood style voodoo with satanic orgies and snake rape was all you ever would find out about Voudu.

Imagine, if you actually genuinely believed that Gardner was an initiate into something even remotely witchy and that Wicca is the true religion from before Christianity.

Imagine if all the rest of the world knew about Christianity was that we killed off every alternative version of our religion and that we believed in a childgod who got crucified for our sins, who we eat on sundays....

Imagine, if you were stupid enough to believe that 1000 year old eggs are actually a thousand years old, and not just a name for Chinese styled pickled eggs.

Odd huh?

Well, Sherlock, this is what is happening in the west with our own orders and our own traditions.

We don't have to travel outside the reach of the western traditions to get a fucked up view of them. No, its enough if we read stuff written by people claiming they know what they are on about.

You see, apparently, orders are simply in existence because people like reenactment. All magicians are fluff/goth/pagans with no social skills.

How could this be? Is this true?

After all, the Golden Dawn is useless. isn't it? Of course, all orders are useless! there is absolutely no reason for any of the orders or groups that are open about their existence or that exist in silence, to exist. No, its just stupid empty tradition.

-I sincerely hope that my acidic sarcasm is noticeable here.

It seems that the most loud and visible of our so called celebrity magicians are the ones who have the least clue about what is going on here in the west.

These are the fake mambos and houngans, and people whove read books by those initiated by fake mambos and houngans, metaphorically.

it is this legacy from the 20s that we should aim to remove, NOT to throw the bay out with the bathwater.

Guys n gals, for every visible order that you know of or that you think you know something about,there are another 10 groups that you haven't even seen.

In Shaktic Hinduism, ie. tantric hinduism, it is a well known fact that a lot of the formerly occult has become Exoteric. This happens with the best of systems and lineages. At some point some wanker will fail, and get stuck with the map of the map as reality and spread the empty dogma. Welcome to the world of some of the most loud groups in the west that are the tip of the iceberg and are completely the mirror image of what happened to tantra when it came to west.

Instead of our sacred rituals being exported outside of the Occident and there turned into something meek and false, we have managed to do that to ourselves. This is not jujst due to the "normal" exoterization of esoteric teachings. This was due to exploitation, government repression and postmodernisms rejection of science as a saviour and its own kul de sac in philosophical history.

It is as if the american tantra of fucking yourself into enlightenment would have become the biggest tantric order in Mumbai....

Instead of attacking what exists, and thereby showing absolutely no understanding for what is actually present and only focusing on the appearance we should have a more humble attitude.

Humbleness will take us further then aggression. we have spent so much time in the West breaking things down, academically, intellectually.

The church is shit so Im going to destroy it. The golden dawn is useless (based on dropout members from the groups that created their order based on published material written and compiled by someone who never even understood the system or sat as hierophant) so therefore all order are useless. Masonry is just old people shaking hands without any spiritual use. oh, I just base this on wikipedia and Mr Brown.

Come on, People. Is it really so hard to believe in ourselves, to believe that we actually have something truly beautifull and mysterious here in the western mystery traditions?

Is it so hard to be humble and search deeper and understand that maybe everything isn't published or that Ravenbloodvampire's blog about his golden dawn experience is not really....representative?

Jung managed to find, on his own accord the spark of the true tradition just by genuinely studying the texts. People in Europe exist who truly are in possession of the philosophers stone.

It is not harder then to ask and be honest. If you just spend enough time truly understanding what is going on then you will penetrate the veil and the right master will show you the way. But if you're looking in the wrong place you will not find truth.

Tantrics don't go to America for a sacred sex weekend workshop to get empowerment. Alchemists don't as a 9th gade chemistry teacher to help them decipher the tomes.

It is time for these spokespersons who speak as if they knew something to realize that they are spewing the same rubbish about the western mystical traditions as a 10 year old boy who, having managed to jerk himself off last sunday night is telling his mates on monday morning how he had sex with a hot chick he met and what sex really is.

Streamlining and modernization are good. I don't want to talk Latin to my bishop and I don't want to listen to 17th century language in an initiation, but could it be that certain things should stay as they are for a reason?

I guess.

I also have a creepy nagging suspicion that where people who start mickey mouse systems, or believe that they have finally cracked a code that has been uncracked for hundreds of years misstake the process with the actual end result.

If I spend 10 years trying to evoke demons and angels into visible appearance and therefore nowadays do not need to build a circle and all that, I just call and they appear, does that mean that when I teach evocation I should do without the ortodox systems? Hell no.

In the same way as an olympic weighlifter easily lifts 50 Kilo's. a 12 year old kid who weighs 42 Kg probably shouldn't start with that weight.

Spare was very highly initiated before he did his own thing. There is a difference between magickal intuition, ecstasy and understanding together with inspiration and then turning to kaos or doing the same from scratch.

End rant.

The leap of faith - ramblings

I have students coming to me asking for ultimate truths.

As an academic I cannot give them one. Philosophically there is no ultimate truth, and I would probably loose all standing and my job if I did claim there was one.

How about when it comes to something like Gnosticism. Is there an ultimate gnostic myth?


100 years ago, I could have easily pulled out a copy of a codex that nobody had seen outside of the circle of initiates. I could have let my psychic friend read the text. The text would have been a revelation and We could both agree to work with it.


Today that is not possible, as almost all the different Gnostic myths are out there.

Tha various tantras are translated and sutras as well. Sometimes you will have the hidden wisdom of the Qbl be at odds with the hidden wisdom of a theosophic revelation from Boehme that is at odds with the knowledge transmitted within secret groups.



This can be frustrating and leads people to jump systems and to try and find one ultimate system or truth that somehow is beyond or better then the one they have.
Worse, someone with no clue might try and actually create a synthesized worldview trying to fit Qbl, gnosticism and the worldview offered in the grimoires into one whole.
(I am not saying that a synthesized worldview is wrong, per se, I just question the synthesis being done by someone who doesn't truly grasp the worldviews themselves)

It also becomes a bit strange when QBL and Gnosticism are laid ontop one another, considering they have completely different goals and their explanations as to the why and how are completely at odds with eachother.

It gets very tiring in this (post?)modern world when you are trying to lead someone to realisation and you're almost there when the person suddenly says

"dude, you're teaching me how to rise above the archons... but I read in a different gnostic myth then the one we use that there are 7 archons, not 365 as the text we use. However some of the names are assigned to different beings. which text is right?"

*sigh*

What this actually boils down to is the breaking of the hermetic vessel. There is a reason silence is important, there is a reason mystery schools were progressive and did not give you their last initiation first. There is a reason you cannot be an Aghori and a devout Sufi at the same time. and to hell with what chaosmagick says.

It is not possible to change the references when you are working towards something, especially not with mystical, religious traditions. the number 5 cannot be both the number of Satan and jeheshua, Unless the tradition that says so also claims that these two are the same...
philosophical and logical thinking, have, unfortunately, no place in this scheme. You canot and will not be able to solve this riddle by thinking. It doesn't work. thinkers are psychics, not Gnostics. too much mental wanking only leads you astray on the astral in the well-trodden well designed labyrithns of the Archons.

One thing I have noticed is the lack of faith and the need people have for proof. But, mystical work is completely the wrong tradition in that case! There are tons of magickal and ritualmagickal systems that work by A leads to B leads to C, but this is not quite the same in mystical traditions.

You cannot perform the spiritual exercises of Ignatius Loyola if you do not accept the catholic faith. So how do you expect to be able to pray to Sophia if you consider her to be a formula and not an Eon?

To work with mystical traditions the leap of faith is the single most important tool anyone can have. Without which, there can be no progress.

Does this mean that there is an ultimate Gnostic myth?

Yes. There is. Listen carefully. The only one true gnostic myth is the one you can accept and work wit and that INSPIRES you to perform the leap of faith.

All gnostic myths are true especially the ones that are at odds with eachother, but, theyre not true at the same time. entities may have different names, or a larger concept might be broken down into many smaller ones. Some explanations of the pleroma are simple some are more complex. But that does not matter as long as you work within that tradition.

If your guru, bishop, whatever tells you to do x you do it. S/he is there and hase gnosis you are not. They are Shiva incarnated you are not. You are a Hyllic becomin a Psychic searching for Gnosis. If you are told to eat raw flesh as a vegetarian then that probably has a good initiatory reason that would be completely lost and useless to someone who already is a meat eater.

You can only break a taboo if you have the taboo.

Modern gnosticism, has in almost all cases been changed to relfect a gnosis using the Christian myth. But Gnosticism is not Christian per se, it is Gnostic and Gnosticism existed before the inkarnation birth of the one we call Christ.

But, modern Gnosticism, which is the only gnosticism that can be used by a westerner is Christian.

If you already have faith then there is no problem, then you know for a fact that most religious people are so called Hyllics, they need a rulebased religion and are lost to blind faith based on the interpretations of true gnosis with several intermediaries.

As a psychic you feel that there is more to the world, the universe and everything then what they have explained. you question your faiths dietary requirements. or the fact that your society is so secularised, yet yuo don't feel that any Church quite gets what you get because you have a certainty of God, but the outer (Hyllic) explanations don't quite do it for you.

Beware that you don't misstake the forest for the trees, or the tree for the forest, as, with proper guidance from a Gnostic even completely catholic Christianity can be used as a means of scaling the archons and return to the Pleroma.

What myth is used is only and solely dependent on YOU. what plugs fit. But you have to have the leap of faith, you have to choose a myth knowing that it is a choice, knowing that it is about as important as whether your jaguar is red or orange, but once you chose, see it through.

Car metaphor coming up:

Gnosticism is like wanting to drive to the North Pole.

If you Want to get there you will work towards it. You need to Know there is a north pole and you need to believe that it is possible to get there.

A hyllic will not be certain and care about the north pole as a 10 year olf cares about odd quarks.

Your choice of vehicle only matters, (the vehicle being your Bishop/Guru) but the color of it doesn't matter. Every time you swap one 4 wheel drive for another, you are just swapping cars but not getting there. every time you change GPS (myth) things will look different.

Son, purleahse get into the bloody car and just drive.