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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.religion.christian,alt.christnet,talk.religion.newage,talk.religion.misc,alt.consciousness.mysticism,alt.mythology
From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nocTifer)
Subject: Jesus Magician, Jungian Great Work
Date: 17 Feb 1997 10:11:12 -0800

49970217 AA1  Hail Satan!

peace be with you, my kin.

what happened to y'all?  found this yesterday and thought it pertinent not
only to the practice of Christian magick but a kind of seed-overview of the
framework which I am attempting to manufacture.  I'm sure there are others
out there, but this was the first I remember coming across within the last
few years (sometimes I'll dig up Crowley's comparable entry):

	E.M. Butler was one scholar who didn't fall into the trap
	of trying to make his subject mysterious.  In his book,
	_The Myth of the Magus_ [anybody got this?  nocT.], he set
	out ten elements common to the stories of all the great
	historical magicians.  From Jesus to ...anonymous 
	shamans ..., the mythos of a magician's life remain
	remarkably consistent.

	First, a magician's origin is supernatural or mysterious.
	He may be a divine or a demonic infant, but he is never
	ordinary.  Second, there are portents at his birth to
	indicate his mysterious origins, and his supernatural
	powers.  For example, when Mohammed was born the story
	is that all the idols of the world fell down.  In a more
	familiar tradition, think of the star that led the three
	magi to the baby Jesus.

	The third common element is that the baby magus is imperiled
	in his infancy.  Evil wishes, or simply the power of evil,
	try to do the magus in at birth.  A fourth element is some
	kind of initiation.  Austerities and temptations occur which
	are either preceded or followed by a fifth stage, of distant
	wanderings.  The magus wanders either to seek for wisdom,
	or to spread wisdom he has already acquired.  The journies
	may be supernatural.  They may involve a descent into the
	underworld, or an ascent into heaven.

	Again it is easy to locate Jesus in this tradition.  Allegedly
	he went into the underworld.  The esoteric traditions of the
	Gnostics tell of a Jesus who journeyed to India to study with
	the sages there.  Other stories tell that Jesus went to the
	Himalayas, and was initiated there.  The place for initiation
	in the Himalayas would be, of course, the legendary secret
	chamber that opens onto Shangri-la.

	In his sixth stage a magus faces a magical contest.  Butler
	maintains that this is a constant feature in the lives of
	all Magicians, both legendary and real.  He offers, for
	example, the biblical contest between Elijah and the prophets
	of Ba'al.  The seventh stage almost always holds a trial or
	persecution.  Eighth, there is a last scene, which often
	includes a solemn and prophetic farewell.  The Last Supper
	clearly fits into this eighth stage.

	In the ninth stage there is often a violent or a mysterious
	death, and in the tenth, a resurrection or an ascension.
	These last stages throw a very interesting light on human
	nature.  Why a trial or a persecution?  Because human beings
	are virtuosos of denial.  People work very carefully to be
	unaware of any problem when awareness might require taking
	an active part in finding a solution.  The trial comes because
	the Magician knows too many uncomfortable truths and calls
	for action.

	An individual becomes a community scapegoat when he reveals
	his community's Shadow.  If we consider the story of Jesus
	in this respect, we see a man who knows a lot, reveals a lot,
	and is killed for his efforts.  But interestingly the myth's
	tenth stage suggests how hard it is to kill the truth.  There
	is a vindication at the story's end, because the magus comes
	back, transcending his torturers.  And it is his truth that
	ultimately is remembered.

	...

	The institution of the sacred kingship seems to have arisen,
	at least in Africa and Central Asia, from the office of
	rainmaker or shaman.  In other areas of the world, the most
	difficult struggles were between tribes rather than against
	the weather, and kings there came from the warrior class.
	But in all sacred kingships, the king was believed to
	mystically embody the vital center of the created world.
	Through him the various dimensions of reality came together,
	working harmoniously for the good of all things.

	All of the king's offices thus grew out of the shaman's
	responsibilities.  Before the king it had been the shaman's
	office to bridge the gaps between the underworld, the
	earthly plane, and the heavens.  It was the shaman who had
	first imposed order upon chaos through the force of a
	powerful will, and by intuited directive from the Self.
	Thus it had been the shaman once who [sic] constellated
	the *axis mundi* -- the center of the world -- for his
	tribe to build their lives around.

	There is much room for scholarly disagreement over when
	exactly these shamanic duties were taken over by the king,
	and also why this happened.  And because of their similar
	tasks, it can be difficult to make a clear distinction
	between shaman and king.

	What scholars find difficulty unravelling, the popular
	culture has confused even further.  Sacred kings were
	always believed to embody magical powers, including the
	power to heal their subjects and kingdoms, and the power
	equally to strike them down.  Certain magicians have
	likewise been popularly vested with kingly attributes.
	Jesus the Magician was believed by the earliest Christians
	to be the true King of Israel.  Later worshippers dubbed
	him Christ Pantocrator, the cosmic King.  The three magi
	who came to worship the infant Jesus -- the three astrologer
	magicians, probably from Persia, borrowed by the Gospel's
	author from an ancient account of Zoroaster's birth --
	are often called kings.  In Mexico they are "the three
	magician kings," and we hear this association clearly in
	an English carol, "We three kings of orient are."

	...

	[try substituting 'Self' or 'soul' for 'Ego', 'God' or 
	 'divine' for 'archetype', and 'Satan' for 'Shadow'
	 with Hir 'bipolar aspects' being those of the heresy
	 of Dualism, in the text below -- nocT.]

	Our theory emphasizes -- in a way that Jungian psychology
	since Jung has not -- the vital importance of the Ego in
	relation to the dynamic archetype structures.  If the Ego
	is not properly accessing the archetype as a whole 
	(including the bipolar Shadow, integrated into the archetype
	as a transcendent third), then the Ego will be possessed by
	the Shadow, and left oscillating between the Shadow's two
	poles.  One pole will lead to "positive inflation," or the
	explosion of the Ego, and the other pole will cause the
	implosion of the Ego, or "negative inflation."

	When the two poles are integrated into a transcendent third
	they lose their pathological impact.  In their resulting
	fusion, their pathology is transformed into a creative
	advance -- reminiscent of Saint Paul's Christ, whose death
	is "swallowed up in victory."

	The key to this transformative experience is the action of
	the Ego.  It must position itself for the maximum 
	apprehension of the intimation of the archetype "above space
	and time," in the world of the "spirit," or the collective
	unconscious.  The Ego acts like an attractive body, as do
	the three elements of the archetype, each exercizing a kind
	of gravitational pull on the others.

	In the collective unconscious the archetype is whole, with
	the Shadow fully integrated into it.  The Ego functions
	properly as an occasion for the archetype's embodiment in
	space and time.  In the fragmenting dimention of space and
	time, the archetype appears to the Ego largely in its bipolar
	Shadow form, communicating only intimations of its wholeness.
	The Ego must perceive the wholeness sufficiently well to keep
	it from mistaking the fragments of the Shadow for the 
	archetype as a whole.

	The bipolar Shadow is akin to the Symplegades -- the Clashing
	Rocks between which the Ego must steer a middle course,
	guided by its intuition of the archetype, lest it be 
	destroyed.  If the middle course is managed, the Ego fashions
	the vital Ego-archetypal axis by which energy exchange is
	made possible.  The Ego needs the lure of the archetype in
	order to experience creative advance.  And the archetype
	needs the Ego in order to become augmented and enriched for
	future creative action in the world.

	By the Ego's actions the opposites of the bipolar Shadow
	can be integrated into the archetype as a whole.  The Ego's
	methods for achieving this include analytical techniques
	such as dream interpretation and active imagination.

	...

	The shaman ... uses the modes of perception and thought
	equally -- in some ways his *modus operandi* is more a 
	woman's than a man's....

	_The Magician Within: Accessing the Shaman in the Male Psyche_,
		by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, William Morrow
		Publishers, 1993; pp. 67-8, 72-3, 75-7.
	_______________________________________________________________

perhaps this text will go some distance to explaining why I maintain
that Satan must be hailed/healed in order to accomplish the Great
Work as a Magus.  

I would compare the last statement as regards the modus operandi of the
Magician with Crowley's and others' commentary about the nature of the
soul, adeptship, and the divinity of woman (more often than not the soul
is ascribed feminine qualities and women are considered to be more near
to the divine than men; deservedly as I see it).

Crowley's text in his _Book of Lies_ which may apply:

			THE OYSTER

	The Brothers of A.'.A.'. [the Order of the Silver Star]
	are one with the Mother of the Child....

	The Brothers of the A.'.A.'. are Women: the Aspirants
	to A.'.A.'. are Men.


commentary/query welcomed.  and peace also be with you,

nocTifer
tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com
-- 
see http://www.hollyfeld.org/~tyagi/nagasiva.html  and  call: 408/2-666-SLUG!!!
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