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To: alt.magick.tyagi
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (Hsi Wang Mu)
Subject: Re: Claims of Attainment
Date: 30 Sep 1994 19:47:17 GMT

Quoting: |kchap@ripco.com (Karen Chapdelaine) 
         |>BHeidrick@aol.com 
         |>|kchap@ripco.com (Karen Chapdelaine) 

|>|All this is predicated on the idea that one "attains" and
|>|is done, ...

|>No.  Once the Abyss has properly been crossed, AND the person so attaining
|>returns to life below the Abyss, everything starts.  That is the real
|>point at which the work begins.  Everything is nearly the same as it was,
|>but now there is no longer the isolation of a single, first duty toward
|>one's self.  Now one must work for everybody and everything, based solely
|>on the "insight" (Word) attained.

|It occurs to me that I know lots of people who are not oriented towards
|"duty to one's self" as a primary focus.  Most of them are female.  However, 
|the standard cultural "duty to others" is not it, either.  There is a 
|"duty to one's self" that is also a "duty to others" (though personally I 
|hate the word "duty").  Where the "female training" seems to fall down is 
|on the "veil of tears" idea.  Where the "average" male needs to get a 
|sense of love for others, the "average" female needs to stop feeling the 
|pain of the world and being paralyzed by it.  Of course, then there are 
|all these non-average folk who don't fit into nice little boxes that come 
|in pairs.

Thank you for stating this so plainly.  I have consistently noticed this
as well, and it is part of what inspires me to dedicate my life to women 
and to the feminine (if there really is a 'cause').  I see that my culture
really does not yet properly support this difference and attempts to address
various symptomologies with the same sort of ointment.  What works for many
women (detachment skills) only makes many men's situation worse (in that
they are already trained out of hypersensitivity quite often).


|>|I find your perspective very linear.

Most of the Hermetic tradition I've ever seen was so.  Crowley's attempt
at integrating tantric and taoist perspectives into the magical writings
has helped a little, yet I continue to see the 'Wisdom Tradition' glorified
(largely ascetic, linear and male-oriented within my culture) while the
the 'Compassion Tradition' (when it appears often diluted and dissolving of
attention to oneself) given short-shrift.


|>At the instant of crossing the Abyss, the dimensions of the hyper cone hit
|>zero, a dimensionless point, the "singularity" or "event horizon": death. 

|Hmm.  Why should the "event horizon" be death?  

[Note that I'm responding from my own bias here, not trying to represent Bill]

The 'event horizon' is both death and rebirth, destruction and recreation.
The ascetic, detachment-oriented mysticisms of the world will focus upon
death of the ego so as to dissolve personal power (sometimes prematurely).


|Is not what is required simply to abandon fear and abandon ego?  

Depends on the path.  I have found that there are at least two approaches
to the Abyss.  The first is the one spoken of by Crowley and others, in
which one attempts a 'crossing'.  The other is described, often from a deep 
bias, by these same mages: the path of the Black Brother.  Usually this 
is described as a failed attempt (often 'catalysmic'), yet I think that
rather it is merely an alternate route which is not recognized or (perhaps
in the case of Crowley) not directly acknowledged.  

The alternate route is INTO the Abyss rather than ACROSS, and it is much 
more painful, much more daring an Adventure.  See _Liber Nigris_ for 
details: ftp://ftp.shell.portal.com/pub/ss/Usenet/Avidhyana/libernigris.fn).

Thus, abandoning fear is not always the best method.  Sometimes encountering
it, feeling it deeply, coming to KNOW it for its sheer visceral experience
is important.  Same with the ego.  At times it is best to abandon it, and at
others it is more important to feed it, coddle, embrace, revel in it.


|To abandon preconceptions?  

Easily said. :>  Yet even this is not always a valuable idea.  Sometimes
preconceptions keep us from trespassing our boundaries too soon, allow us
to 'go at our own speed' (releasing them slowly, sort of like lowering
oneself down from a great height without plummetting), or test a situation
or ourselves by intentionally presuming certain key items.


|To be "accepting"?   

No way.  This is great when it comes naturally, but I don't recommend
the 'accepting' route for any but the most integrous, intelligent and
fortitudinous.  Our boundaries are important.  They are like casts,
shielding our weaknesses, and just removing them for the hell of it is
daredevilish to the extreme (something I personally might and have done),
yet the average mage might be blasted apart by this (and I've seen it
happen in my company).

'Being taken advantage of' is also the result of 'acceptance' as put on,
rather than as a deliberate practice engaged with strength and open eyes.


|...The deviations I have seen (i.e., "black magick") are the ones 
|who hold on tightly to an idea they gained in their journey to Tiphareth 
|about themselves and their ego, about their "path" and their "true will", 
|and do not allow themselves the experience, so to speak.  They fight it, 
|do not let it wash over them, and then sink.  

Ah, but what happens when they SINK?  You see, this is where most of the
'Abyss Crossers' lose contact with (or cease to understand) those upon the
path of Frater Nigris.  Compare this to watching the alcoholic slip yet
again into their self-destructive drinking.  We say that they are 'falling
off the wagon', and yet *their* 'wagon' may not yet have truly arrived.

The path to Hell is very very important (perhaps why Christ was portrayed
as going there).  Just because it seems painful and deadly doesn't
necessarily mean that it is not the best possible course for the individual
involved.  I know that in my previous experience I had to sever most of my
familial and friendship ties in order to pursue a route which would be, by
today's 'Just Say No' standards, considered 'dangerous'.  I'm glad I did it
and feel that if people had tried to 'stop me from sinking' at those points
in my life, I would have been worse off for it.
 

|I hate to call this "black magick", because their ego and self are waiting 
|on the other side.  I see it more as a sad state of being where someone 
|cannot see the forest for the trees.   In their fear, they sink, some 
|eventually learn to swim in spite of this, or at least paddle back to shore.  

And I see this as overly judgemental on your part (though I can't truly
be sure about the expertise of your perceptions).  Yeah, we might have
guesses about what another person needs, but we've been taught to take
care of others (and I've found this true for women more often than men)
to the *detriment* of their instruction - parenting them into perpetual 
childhood.

I think that Crowley's discernment about 'black magick' can only be faith-
fully applied to oneself.  With introspection, can we *really* say whether
our act is taken in pursuit of Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy
Guardian Angel?  If we see that we are 'just grasping blindly', hoping
that another will recognize our plight and rescue us, or if we are after
some less grandiose though perhaps no less tantalizing objective, then it
makes sense to me to call it 'black magick' in a *nonjudgemental* way.
After all, what have you people got against 'black'?  Maybe black magick is
necessary preparation prior to attaining to the HGA relation.  Many mystics
have certainly taken this route (see Milarepa as an example).


|>...There is no difference above or below the Abyss beyond the quality 
|>of the vertical linear axis.  This view is not accurate and, as an 
|>analogy, breaks down in multiple places.  Nonetheless, it is helpful
|>in conceiving the matter and in providing an insight into "Keter in Malkut
|>and Malkut in Keter."

|Yep.  Same landscape, but looks a lot different.

Bah, it seems just as accurate to me to say they are different places as
to say they are the same place with different lenses.  'First there is
a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.'  All depends on
one's personal location with respect to the 'place'.  Even the 'place'
depends on this (I know, I know, radical subjectivism ::grin::).


|>|And oriented towards the idea that "existence is a veil of tears".

|>I can remember that impression.  Crowley mentioned it too.  You have to
|>get over it.  That's one of the harder dimensions to drop.

|Oh, I dunno.  I found it kinda easy to drop, eventually.  I certainly 
|don't miss it.

I'm unsure I'm truly understanding this.  If this isn't Samsara and
dukkha you're talking about, then what is it?  If it is, then I think
you're both dreaming if you think you 'dropped it' somewhere along the
line.  There is no escape from the Terrible One.


|Idea here---the "Word" of this Aeon, still being in formulation, many 
|more "prophets" need exist.  But we have all learned the word of the last 
|Aeon, and we are all learning in pieces what the new word is.  I suspect 
|it will not come in the expected form:  Perhaps "prophet" is a bad word.  

This sounds like Thelema Fundamentalism to me.  Ever heard of the multiple-
universes theory?  Well, Crowley was living in the 'universe in which the
Word of the Aeon was Thelama' (or Abrahadabra or whatever, I can never get
those two straight :>).  I don't find that my universe continues to 
incorporate this Word, perhaps yours does.  I think generalizing is 
dangerous, and I'm beginning to think that the Word I generate shall be 

			 

				FUCK


|Perhaps there need be a community of prophets, a vision not crafted by 
|one, or even a few.  

Perhaps the many manifestations of the prophets will be revealed as the
expression of the Prophet of the One (many muslims think so :>).


|>...Crowley's method of Abyss crossing is not the only one. 
|>Crowley used massed crisis and the idea of "initiation".  Most methods
|>emphasize a more detailed concept of "initiation" and a less massive (read
|>"concreted from fragments") crisis.  

Thanks, Bill.  I'll have to contemplate this one a while.  Perhaps your
responses to Kathy's questions will enable me to understand you more.


|I find so many things that I just "do" that I find out later are 
|"what is done", or a piece falls into place and it would have been 
|so nice to have that little piece earlier. Not just in the area of 
|CM, either.

I know what you mean, though sometimes the discovery on our own is
part of the beauty of the experience.  This is sometimes given as a
justification for the bane of secrecy. :>

Hsi Wang Mu
tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com