Post by vajranagini on Dec 28, 2011 5:37:45 GMT
One thing that has always struck me during my meditations on the TOL is that it is the seemingly "insignificant" and "trivial" planets Mercury and Venus that compose the Paths on the "Supernal Triangle"., and that the planet Saturn was the only one of the Sacred Seven that was admitted to this exalted status at the top of the Tree. This is, of course, because "relativity" (Venus) and "communication" are the pivots around which revolve the emanation of the Supernals into the realm of time and space.
Thus when I came to meditate upon my TOL (hand-painted by me) I chose the Sephira of Binah and Geburah as the focus of my first meditations. Thus it was that I was eventually brought around to the subject of the Knights Templar and, later on, Freemasonry, since both of these organizations come under the auspices of these Sephiroth. I also easily established communications with Da'ath, which is the 'Crossroads" of the Tree and the "bridge across the Abyss". Saturn is "Lord of Karma and of Time", and thus to be on good terms with Binah means that "the Abyss has been crossed".
It was only after I joined OTO and received my "Second Degree" (actually a 'Third Degree' of sorts if you consider that OTO has a "Minerval (zero) Degree" preceding the "First Degree". reflecting the same way the Tarot trumps precede "The Magician" with "The Fool") that I came to discover, by various means that I was in fact part of a curious lineage that stretched back to at least Elizabethan times (and involved a very well-known and well-documented period in America's history with Britain). Also that my father and my father's father had been Freemasons.
In fact if I were to write it out as I received it, it would sound like a reprise of "The Da Vinci Code" complete with Rosslyn Chapel, irrefutable confirmation of having lived past lives, mysterious "Egyptian" Rites such as Crowley described in "Energized Enthusiasm" (He was a full initiate of the rites of Memphis and Mizraim, BTW.) But I digress.
It was a saga told me by my HGA, which, thanks to Aleister Crowley, I had established relations with, and by precisely the same methods, which had come to me by way of this most curious and transforming of astral relationships! Crowley did not teach me; he merely confirmed the method. but there was one piece of advice he propounded that I will repeat here.
It served to confirm what I also had found: that complete identification with the HGA had an undesirable effect fraught with danger (especially in the absence of a "pure" life and a lack of what Sufis call "work on the Commanding Self" ) and that it was much better and safer to maintain the impression of 'yourself" as separate from the Angel.
I daresay Brother Brad has this problem; he has gotten caught in the ego-trap that lies in wait for adepts at this point and is now unable to dissociate 'himself" from his chosen God-form, who he is now convinced he "was".
I have seen a similar "conviction" many times in members of OTO, who were convinced to a man that they were "the reincarnation of Aleister Crowley". I even myself almost fell prey to this delusion; it was only having observed it previously in others that saved me from its clutches.
I was told not to entertain thoughts and fantasies of this "connection"on the subject but to "move on to the holier place", which of course, was to visualize myself as a child on the lap of the Angel.
Later on, I liked to think of myself as a book, part of an ongoing story in the annals of my genetic and spiritual heredity- and of course, this brought to mind the depiction of "The High Priestess" as seen in the Rider-Waite tarot (that was the deck I originally "learned the ropes" on).
Thus when I came to meditate upon my TOL (hand-painted by me) I chose the Sephira of Binah and Geburah as the focus of my first meditations. Thus it was that I was eventually brought around to the subject of the Knights Templar and, later on, Freemasonry, since both of these organizations come under the auspices of these Sephiroth. I also easily established communications with Da'ath, which is the 'Crossroads" of the Tree and the "bridge across the Abyss". Saturn is "Lord of Karma and of Time", and thus to be on good terms with Binah means that "the Abyss has been crossed".
It was only after I joined OTO and received my "Second Degree" (actually a 'Third Degree' of sorts if you consider that OTO has a "Minerval (zero) Degree" preceding the "First Degree". reflecting the same way the Tarot trumps precede "The Magician" with "The Fool") that I came to discover, by various means that I was in fact part of a curious lineage that stretched back to at least Elizabethan times (and involved a very well-known and well-documented period in America's history with Britain). Also that my father and my father's father had been Freemasons.
In fact if I were to write it out as I received it, it would sound like a reprise of "The Da Vinci Code" complete with Rosslyn Chapel, irrefutable confirmation of having lived past lives, mysterious "Egyptian" Rites such as Crowley described in "Energized Enthusiasm" (He was a full initiate of the rites of Memphis and Mizraim, BTW.) But I digress.
It was a saga told me by my HGA, which, thanks to Aleister Crowley, I had established relations with, and by precisely the same methods, which had come to me by way of this most curious and transforming of astral relationships! Crowley did not teach me; he merely confirmed the method. but there was one piece of advice he propounded that I will repeat here.
It served to confirm what I also had found: that complete identification with the HGA had an undesirable effect fraught with danger (especially in the absence of a "pure" life and a lack of what Sufis call "work on the Commanding Self" ) and that it was much better and safer to maintain the impression of 'yourself" as separate from the Angel.
I daresay Brother Brad has this problem; he has gotten caught in the ego-trap that lies in wait for adepts at this point and is now unable to dissociate 'himself" from his chosen God-form, who he is now convinced he "was".
I have seen a similar "conviction" many times in members of OTO, who were convinced to a man that they were "the reincarnation of Aleister Crowley". I even myself almost fell prey to this delusion; it was only having observed it previously in others that saved me from its clutches.
I was told not to entertain thoughts and fantasies of this "connection"on the subject but to "move on to the holier place", which of course, was to visualize myself as a child on the lap of the Angel.
Later on, I liked to think of myself as a book, part of an ongoing story in the annals of my genetic and spiritual heredity- and of course, this brought to mind the depiction of "The High Priestess" as seen in the Rider-Waite tarot (that was the deck I originally "learned the ropes" on).