001 Whatever Happened to Us?

08/11/22 • 63 min

The first time we met; both of us doing the same thing in a chaos magick guise; a chaos magick mentor who suggested Thelemic magick; from magickal power back to something more traditional; influences from Daniel Ingram and Aleister Crowley; different ways of describing what was unfolding for us; The Viking Youth Power Hour; paranormal experiences as the beginning of the awakening process; suspicion of the self and the spark of the divine; a pretence at a career in music; being groomed by Crowley from the age of nine; a silly fantasy novel comes to life; slumming in London; the attraction of practical magick; the chaos magick scene; the current aversion to magical group work; The Colours of Chaos (2008); disagreement in the context of friendship; objectionable opinions; all opinions are objectionable; all beliefs are imposters upon the Great Work (TGW); the false belief of TGW as the end of suffering; the false belief of insight as a reward for morality; what fulfils is nothing in this world; magicians are united by something outside the world; the weirdness of “objectionable views”; disagreement as an existential threat; the necessity of turning inwards; TGW involves concerning oneself only with oneself; the aversion to discussion of personal experience; discussion as an avoidance of truth; woke witches as a contemporary simulacrum of magick; gatekeeping; defending TGW is not TGW; how this played out in the organisation we were members of; the banality of the mainstream; how the occult scene is becoming occult from itself; self-doubt and disillusionment; focus and effort and the role of personality; our separation after The Baptist’s Head trilogy (2009-10); creating a unique expression of TGW; the delusion of “expressing” TGW; true nature is inherently moral; all tactics are the compensation for an absence that never was; evil versus the cultivation of good; regaining identity versus occupying it; humanity versus false identity and drama; the under-realisation of human potential; an invitation to teach; frustrating experiences of teaching meditation; syncretism and tradition; students looking for something behind the traditions; explorations in Anglicanism; training as a therapist and hiding occult trappings; Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli; how Jung hid his true insights behind psychology; the spirit of the depths versus the spirit of the times; The Red Book enabling talk of spirituality in psychological contexts; the ludicrous voice of the spirit of the times; fear of the wild; the lack of mystery and soul in psychology; the manualisation and automation of therapy; medicalisation and pathologisation of spiritual experience; increased incidence of spiritual experience, or like attracting like?; the Master of the Temple as cultivator of a garden; therapeutic approaches to disturbing spiritual experiences; normalisation; spiritual bypassing; conflict between therapeutic and spiritual ethical frameworks; how “do no harm” can do harm; healing is discovering how we were never sick; therapy as “to accompany”, “to go along with”; parallels with Dante; the roles of the teacher and the student; Virgil and Beatrice: Dante’s two guides; the mainstream view of the teacher as a conveyor of techniques; the further you go the harder it gets; the teacher as the divine self; Philip K. Dick’s The Divine Invasion.

Intro music by Alan Chapman. Outro music from loops by users mildperil, Tumbleweed, and VladEisch at looperman.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Intro music by Alan Chapman. Outro music from loops by users mildperil, Tumbleweed, and VladEisch at looperman.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

002 What Magick Looks Like

A new branch of the Arcanum Arcanorum; two kinds of connection to the lineage: institutional and inner; how the conflict of institutional and inner played out in Crowley’s life; union with the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) achieved by a vision and by inner means; the necessary uniqueness of the ritual to achieve connection with his HGA; the role of extraordinary loss in awakening; the expression of this connection to the divine through his magical order; the primacy of the inner work; parallels in our own experience; self-determined instructions to engage in the process; the role of institutions in the Great Work; grades as a substitute for realising one’s true nature; Crowley as the singular giant of western occultism and as a total failure; a critique of “post-Crowley Thelema”; the lack of magick in this perspective; reading Crowley to change ourselves rather than to change Crowley; the unconscious versus the subconscious; deviations from contact with the HGA; contact with the Secret Chiefs; the Tempe workings; the prophetic veracity of these workings; the sole function of the Great White Brotherhood is humanity’s salvation; the nature of prophecy; an expression of love; falling from prophecy by chasing it; prophecy as prediction of terrible events; its purpose is not to avoid this, but to forewarn about consequences; a recommendation to contact the Secret Chiefs; predictions as an opportunity for manifestation and participation; awakenings as already having happened; how the “test” of awakening was never really a test; the consequences of saying “yes” or “no” to experiences; creation in the hands of the created; absolute faith as accepting incapability of doing anything worthwhile; extraordinary intelligence is never absent; criticisms of the lineage; the unity of path and purpose; the tendency to try to make experience conform to expectations; failed attempts to create a western esoteric lineage; the influence of “the spirit of the times”; massive failure; the new order and its origins in a vision of the seventeenth aethyr; the current mood of the occult scene; the contents of the vision of the aethyr; teachers who are Masters of the Temple but also black brothers; the worst kind of teachers; how our encounter with Andrew Cohen shaped our understanding; the error of fixation upon awakening; self-realised people are idiots; the impossible nature; a controversy over Voudon; meeting with Vinay Gupta; defining the term “black brother”; two examples of black brothers; the left-hand path; crossing the abyss and the oath of the abyss; Vinay, his circle, and how he describes himself; receiving initiation from Vinay; the members of the lineage back to Crowley; Dadaji (Lawrence Miles) and AMOOKOS; the story of the meeting between Crowley and Miles; a thoroughly messed-up lineage; following the prophecy against personal preferences; a prophetic dream concerning Thelema; Magia tied to the Arcanum Arcanorum as a demonstration of its validity; the expression of the dubious nature of the lineage demonstrates the validity of the prophecy; using darkness to create light; the action of the divine in transforming the irredeemable; the denial of magick in occulture; the worst becomes the best.

Links to the video of “The Scrying of Aethyr 17”: https://youtu.be/ASo740AiZeE (Part One); https://youtu.be/npC2FSugyPI (Part Two).

Intro music by Alan Chapman. Outro music from loops by users mildperil, Tumbleweed, and VladEisch at looperman.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.