Visions & Voices

Aeon418

James A. Eshelman's new book, Visions & Voices, may be of interest to students of the Thoth Tarot. The design of many of the cards was directly inspired by this set of visions obtained by Crowley in 1909 and published as Liber 418.

The "original landmark study" mentioned below can be found in, Black Pearl. A link was made available in a recent thread.

http://www.amazon.com/Visions-Voice...=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294573161&sr=1-9

Visions & Voices
Aleister Crowley’s Enochian Visions
with Astrological & Qabalistic Commentary


by James A. Eshelman
Cloth, 600 pp., US$49.00
Scheduled release date: January 2011
Published by College of Thelema
ISBN 0-9704496-4-X


“The Æon of Wonder is come!”

In 1909, Aleister Crowley and his protégé Victor Neuburg obtained a series of 33 mystical visions. At once beautiful, horrible, and inspiring, these inner world explorations (and two earlier ones) were published in 1911 as The Vision & the Voice.

A classic, both of the Enochian magick of Elizabethan wizard John Dee and of Crowley’s then-emerging Thelemic magick, The Vision & the Voice remains a living work, its value increasing with each generation.

Astrologers also will find a previously unexploited treasure in this collection: Most of the visions include exact dates, times, and places they were received, providing a unique opportunity to study astrology’s relationship to magical vision.

This research bonanza lay untapped for nearly a century.

In Visions & Voices, James Eshelman joins the text of Aleister Crowley’s Enochian visions with horoscopes for each. To this he adds a masterful astrological and Qabalistic analysis, expanding and deepening his original landmark study (1997-2001). It is his most mature work to date, blending rare expertise in many subjects.

Preliminary chapters provide a valuable introduction to Qabalistic and astrological topics including: the Four Worlds, the Tree of Life, Qabalistic psychology, Enochian magick, the Three Æons, the Holy Guardian Angel and the Abyss, the impact of astrological factors on deep psychological states, and induced mystical vision as a means of exploring the personal and collective unconscious.

The lengthy Glossary will be a standard reference on many an occultist’s book-shelf for decades to come.

Visions & Voices will be of considerable interest to astrologers, ceremonial magicians, devotees of mythology and comparative religion, and all who are interested in the operation of symbols (and the archetypes that engender them) in the workings of the human psyche and in crises of transformation.

This book also describes historically rare, extraordinary spiritual states that are becoming increasingly accessible to living women and men. By its words and images, it engenders a contagion of a higher mode of consciousness spread by sympathy. Reading this book mindfully will provide one form of spiritual initiation.

Additionally, it portrays an eclectic spirituality that enthuses our universal need to intimately connect with our own spiritual ideals, rather than dictating what that ideal should be.
 

Grigori

Thanks for posting Aeon, I'd not heard of this one. I've read V&V in the Regardie edition of Gems of the Equinox, though not gotten much past playing "spot the tarot card".
 

Kenshin Gordon

Anyone with feedback of the book? Is it as enlighting as we anticipated?
 

Professor X

From what is described this sounds like something I would have a hard time putting down once I started reading it.

If this book is as good as it sounds then it could be groundbreaking.
 

brightcrazystar

His publication Black Pearl, in association with his Temple of Thelema is where alot of my expectations of this work came from. There are ten volumes and each has three aethyrs in it. These are free on his site thelema.org. I would suggest a donation, and they are very worth looking into. I expect he put in a bunch of other information in besides the articlles in Black Pearl. I also expect I will still have the same question of integrity for him.

Note, I am not questioning HIS credibility, but rather the credibility of Crowley's times recorded in Liber 418, The Vision and the Voice. The book is peppered with smal things like him saying they are on the roof of the Royal Hotel, hiding from the sun in the shadow of the minaret, except that the hotel has no minuret at all, and there never was one since postcards of it from the early 1900's. Furthermore the note at the end of the record says something like 9:30 pm, so what shadow of the sun is out past its bedtime? It might have meant to say 9:30 am, but that is still to early for a shadow to hide them from such a low hanging sun. I love the V&V but there are many things that it simply leaves hanging unanswered.
 

Aeon418

Hopefully I should have a copy of this book within a week. If anyone is interested I will review it.

Just checked the tracking page and it's still languishing in some place called Hebron, Kentucky. :(
 

Aeon418

Thanks for the link, I will definitely buy this one!
It's a 586 page quality hardback (no soft cover or Kindle planned), so it is a bit on the expensive side. But the investment is well worth it. I haven't been so impressed with a book for a long time.

I especially cherish the 13th Aethyr and its lengthy narrative regarding "NEMO" (Latin for "no man" or "no one.") I can't help but think that Crowley was having some fun with the play on words throughout that text.
The description of NEMO is exceptionally beautiful and very profound. By following the progression of the Aethyrs it gives you a glimpse of what it means to be NEMO.

From Eshelman's intro (p.8):
James Eshelman said:
With this step, Crowley shifted from a human being with occasional superconscious experiences, to a superconscious being having human experiences. In the language of initiation, he passed from Adept to Master.

I'm now re-reading it more for content than to wallow in the exalted prose.
Actually Eshelman suggests that you do initially "wallow in the exalted prose" while imagining the visions in your minds eye. In his opinion Crowley's accounts of the 30 Aethyrs are "carriers of a contagion of enlightenment. By sympathy they can ignite higher and more radical modes of consciousness". I'm inclined to agree.
Also he suggests meditating of the Tarot cards that correspond with the name of each Aethyr. In this way you can 'prime' your subconscious before beginning the journey. I found it well worth while.
 

Barleywine

It's a 586 page quality hardback (no soft cover or Kindle planned), so it is a bit on the expensive side.

Not by present standards. I paid nearly twice that for Crowley's "The General Principles of Astrology" and it was bound more like a college textbook (that is, in extra-stiff coated cardboard) than a quality hardback.

Crowley's accounts of the 30 Aethyrs are "carriers of a contagion of enlightenment. By sympathy they can ignite higher and more radical modes of consciousness". I'm inclined to agree.

This is wonderfully apt. Much of Crowley's writing is inspirational in this way. It kind of "seeps around" all of one's intellectual filters.
 

Barleywine

Actually Eshelman suggests that you do initially "wallow in the exalted prose" while imagining the visions in your minds eye.

And it works! I've never forgotten the vivid image of NEMO scourging the roots of the garden flowers to goad them into profuse growth. Do you know if this vision preceded or followed Crowley's "cutting" exercises?
 

Aeon418

I've never forgotten the vivid image of NEMO scourging the roots of the garden flowers to goad them into profuse growth. Do you know if this vision preceded or followed Crowley's "cutting" exercises?
I'm not sure when Crowley wrote Liber Jugorum, but it first appeared in the fourth issue of The Equinox which was published in the Autumn of 1910. That's almost a year after the his Enochian work.

Is there a connection between that practice and NEMO? Possibly, but I see the actions of NEMO more as a symbolic expression of the Compassion of the Master. His care is directed towards the roots of his plants, and always in a way that appears hurtful. Pouring acid on one, cutting another. He burns the roots or tears them completely out of the soil. But in this his Compassion is revealed as doing exactly that which is necessary to the well being of his garden. But it is only by virtue of his work being conducted in "absolute darkness" (Supernal Understanding) that he "tendeth the garden" and "shall not see the reward." He works without 'lust of result.'