palindrom wrote:the void outside of wyrd. have you been there? what is it like?
I've walked the web of wyrd and looked across it. I haven't been "in" the abyss and I have not crossed it, but I have been to its gateway. It is...like the space between planets and atoms, like the open spaces in a spider web. It's more than "the beyond," it is "the in between."
palindrom wrote:...i just know (in theory at least) from things on the other side of an abyss from the kabbalistic tree-of-life-idea. although friedrich weinreb doesn't really mention this whole abyss-stuff greatly. maybe it's more a magic-style kabbalah thing...
is there something on the other side of ginnungagap? i don't remember having read about that in my northern tradition books so far...
Gunningagap isn't really a hierarchal thing like the kabbalistic abyss. It's all around you, all the time. It's like the space between planets, between atoms - it is simply there, omnipresently. Yes, there is something on the "other side" of it, but getting there with pagan methods tends to be a bit different than with modern hermetic based methods. Daoist ascension may be the closer comparison, where you work on tuning yourself into nature and unifying yourself with it.
palindrom wrote:how do you feel when you are a part of nature like this?
Like you are a drop of water in a lagoon in a vast and endless sea, where the sea is always with you, the lagoon always a part of you, and you yourself are the immortal child of
everything.
At least, that's what Odr is like for me.
palindrom wrote:ok, i can try to see me as a germanic or celtic woman, being swiss. but what about being indian, when i'm fascinated by sanskrit and yoga?
Early on in my training I held a deep fascination with sanskrit and yoga, as well. I even worshiped Shiva with traditional Bhakti Yoga for several years, and I had opportunity to learn and remember things about Yoga that I've found in only a few books. Then one day Odin showed up and claimed me, explaining that those things that are my native roots in this life are easier to work with than those things that were my native roots in another life. I've been walking a the path of my roots, both Native European and Native American, ever since.
Whether you want to be a Germanic woman or an Indian woman, that is something you have to decide at some point unless you
are both. They are two very different cultures, and I can tell you from personal experience that at some point you are going to get hit with a culture shock. And, at the end of the day, no matter what cultures influence you - you are simply
you. Be true to who you really are, to your Spirit, and you will live a good life. The rest, that's just dress up. Fun, sometimes kinky dress up that is never as important as what's inside the package. [wink2]
palindrom wrote:would you mind telling me a bit more about what you think gd missed, and what crowley missed less, and how you came to this conclusion?
i'm veeery interested in this!
(and since it is my own thread i take the freedom to lead it away from the main-topic, if you're inclined to follow...)
That, my dear, would require entire volumes to fully explore.
In general essence, anyone who mixes occult traditions without fully understanding the native culture (which is hard to do without being a native) end up corrupting those occult traditions by only looking at the principles at hand through their own native lens. The founders of the GD were students of the Rose Cross tradition, of Theosophy, and of what was becoming popularly known as Hermetics. They took things from Kabbalah without really understanding Jewish Lore and Tradition, and they took things from other traditions without really understanding their native culture either. There's also the edition of the Goetia that Mathers published, which scholars today understand to be a thoroughly flawed translation
of a thoroughly flawed translation.
Theosophy was much worse, since they had the terrible habit of simply throwing everything together and expecting their students to figure out what occult and spiritual principles are universal without understanding the native lore of the symbolism and principles they often employed. Some Rosicrusian schools followed in this tradition, looking at the entire world through the lens of their own beliefs and expecting everything to simply fit and apply to the Rose Cross paradigm.
Crowley got some things less mixed up because he did a remarkable amount of work on his own. He used the principles he learned from Mathers and others to found his own school, and to employ an Egyptian mythos that nobody else was using. His work is most certainly not traditional Egyptian Mystery, but it's an often decent paradigm. Alas, he also falls into the habit of looking at everything through his own lens, as broadly displayed in Liber 777 (though much of that, itself, came from the GD).
It is important to remember, when working with any tradition, that your point of view is not the most important - the point of view that is most important is the native one, which has been there for, in some cases, many thousands of years.
As to how I came to these conclusions...well, I've been around the block, seen and read a fair bit, and seen the difference between foreigners who look at Mysteries through their own lens and natives who truly understand those same Mysteries through the lens in which they were established. A Tibetan adept will always understand his Tibetan stuff better than Chinese Daoist stuff, and the Chinese Daoist adept will always understand the Chinese Daoist stuff better than the Tibetan stuff. Yet, the two adepts will be able to talk about the same spiritual experiences, will be able to demonstrate the same siddhis, and will be able to achieve the same enlightenment.
This differences are a difference of Path. Everyone has a natural path suitable for them, as per what Crowley dubbed True Will. Cosmologies can be vastly different and end up in the same spiritual places. But when you are on a certain path, it can be very different from other paths, and these differences are important if you are going to walk a particular path correctly.
Native European spirituality, as but one example, is vastly different from the ascetic spirituality of Ashrams and Temples found in India. You can't simultaneously be a meat eating, drinking, polyamorous pagan and a vegan, sober, celibate Yogi. You can do one or the other, but trying to mix those two particular examples is like mixing oil and water.
palindrom wrote:what is a cosmologigally neutral paradigm?
A paradigm of practice where principles are used simply because they work, regardless of what gods you pray to or what names you give to the spirits or what have you. Things like Life Force, Consciousness Development, The Sight, Journeying and many other Lesser Mysteries - training in these things can be done in any culture or paradigm, with any cosmology.
Bardon's IIH is a good existing example of such a paradigm, but it does have a fair bit of cosmology as well that comes from Greek tradition. Chaos Magick works very hard to be a Meta Paradigm, but it tends to get caught up in...yeah.
Perhaps the best example of exactly what I mean in this context is my Fundamental Development work. It doesn't matter what god you pray to if any, it doesn't matter whether you call nature spirits elementals or faeries, and it doesn't matter what type of magio-social label you stamp on yourself. It's just simple, independent, fundamental
practice that works. Period. My entire method of magick is just like that. Rooted in old school tradition, revised for modern meditative practice, and completely stripped of almost all initiatic veils simply because I believe most of them to be out dated and I'm not bound by oaths to keep secrets anyway.
~:Shin:~
