similia said:
I've not thought of it in that way before, having always considered the HGA something somehow internal and hidden (which allows connection with something external), rather than something external in its self, which is the first step in a connection to the wider world of other external things. Its very useful to me to think of it that way.
(snip)
I'm quite taken by the way you interpret this line as descriptive of the "magical environment" but at the same time as advice or a directive even on a certain course of action. It takes the entire book from being an object of curiosity to be studied, to a functional guidebook.
I'm glad.
But I do want to say something about the idea of externality. It's not that they're just external, but rather that we are addicted to the idea that the world can be sliced into these neat dichotomies: human/divine, internal/external, man/woman, moral/immoral. What I think is fascinating about the celestial realm (and I think what was fascinating to traditional premodern magicians) is that is was BETWEEN. It was liminal in every sense, as were its denizens.
So the daemons are external AND internal. I think I always emphasize externality because moderns always feel like the so-called "science" of psychology can explain everything as an internal state. In a way, it is a magickal environment, but it interpenetrates. Like daemons interpenetrate. As Aeon says, it's a case of A/Not-A simultaneously. But language is a cage and our meaning slips between the bars. There just isn't a good way to talk about something nonlogical using language designed by/for logic. Hence my point about art above. It's no accident Crowley was a poet.
Another trap with this kind of material is that Westerners tend to think of myth literally. We think of Heaven or Hell just as geographic locations. Of spirits and divinities just as powerful people. Of magic as sparkles and noise. Science and media have suckled us on this toxic tit: that the external is more real. Which in turn makes "spiritual" folks feel that internal states are somehow more transcendant. My degree work is in Religion, and anytime I see a religious structure that starts defining things simply and literally and doctrinally, I know I'm in swindle turf watching a monumental con.
Aeon418 said:
The big difference between conventional religious veiws of God and the doctrine of the HGA is that the conventional veiw is dogmatic and rigid. It defines God for you. Tells you what God is and what God wants. And it's usually wrapped in superstitious commandmants and tribal tabbos that tell you how to behave, what to wear, who to have sex with, what bits of your body you need to chop off, what to eat, what to say, what to read, what to think, etc., etc.
Contradiction is the lifeblood of spirituality. "Thou shalts..." and "Thou shalt nots..." are gruel for the dingdongs... prechewed morality for people too lazy or stupid to take responsibility for being alive. Even in the Yahwist traditions, there's latitude for personal responsibility but (as Crowley pointed out incessantly) all that dipstick baggage misleads and hypnotizes people. It's easy to stand in the corner fondling the robes and rings rather than getting on with the real business of saving the world from itself.
In that sense, the HGA is internal and hidden AND external and immanent. There is no veil between things that
we have not woven., out of inability or the fact of ouyr mortality. Agrippa's three worlds were deeply and essentially connected. "The company of heaven" is unveiled as the celestial host AND as our infinite possibility AND as a matrix of psychosexual complexes AND as a bunch of scary nonhuman intelligences AND as the stars unfurled above us wheeling infinitely.
Modern astrologers like to say things like, "Whenever Mars is in my Ascendant I'm so angry at everything." Like Mars is transmitting the anger (a dippy pop-psych version of Kindi's stellar rays). But for traditional astrology Mars IS your anger. The sky isn't affecting you any more that you are affecting it. If things are connecte, then the link goes both ways: you move Mars and it moves you. This is why the decans were the "Lords of Time."
Another proof that the "New Age" is effectively a terrorist cell of the imagination, pretending to point the way and secretly breaking everyone's back and feeding them syrup.
cardlady22 said:
And this leads into the condemnation and fear component: What if THEY want to force themselves on us?
Sure. What if? But more importantly: if they did, then what choice would we have? They are hidden and they are powerful. So, anyone who subscribes to a scoldy faith: good luck says me. When the daemons comme you don't have a choice: whther it's haunting or an abduction or a goblin market. It's traditional for dogmatic literalist religious institutions to get very upset about direct interaction between its members and the spirit world. Not to be rude, but how can religious instituions pay their rent if people start talking to the Saints themselves, or if angels heal their children without a tithe to the church up the road? So in a sense this comes down to worldview. The world is far more populated (literally and metaphorically) with people who are content to squat in their little circle and scrape up their sustenance before being buried a stone's throw from their birth-bed. But for what it's worth, if you study the doctrinal papers of insitutions that hold truck with things like damnation and possession and bewitchment, the transgression is always stepping outside the "protection" of having someone else do the thinking for you. Hence Crowley's ridicule of Osiric faiths and rituals.
similia said:
So this leads to the question, what does the HGA want from us? Why would the company of heaven be interested in unveiling themsleves at all? Do they want to participate in some kind of exchange with us, or are we forcing ourselves onto them?
Well, that would depend on who you're talking to.
Valentinian Gnostics would tell you that the Archons want to keep us imprisoned in the bony world of Samael. Premodern Brits might say they just want a bit of food and a bowl of milk. UFO fanatics might tell you they want to convey a message of warning or blessing. The one thing that seems to be common across all cultures with this middle realm is the desire for attention. They want to be "attended" in every sense of that word. Which makes sense, because they are first-and-foremost
hidden. Every action every manifestation, every anecdote about these spirts indicate that they want to interact and be attended. The rest is thematic sauce indicative of your worldview.
So in essence there is a practical guidebook quality to BOL, but as Aeon says it's not really for us, it's a guidebook for your HGA. Until we use those "new eyes" we're like tourists using charades to order dinner. Your HGA already understands... the learning is just remembering what you already know.
Again, I feel like I'm ranting. And I know that a lot of this daemonic material is getting us ooff track... I just wanted to answer some of these excleent questions. If all this starts to seem too personal, someone give me a thump via PM and I'll shut it.
Scion
