hehe, good question... I don't know, maybe I'm expecting to find some EVP in it. :-)

Zejith_Themis

Still waiting to find out the reason behind that warning.

Why ?

simply tune your dial to white noise.......

Laughter truly is the best medicine/banishing ritual.

Love that quote, and the accent shoud be on "whether they realise it or not" as all too often the study of practical paths is hindered by assuming as one's own  the arbitrary and person-specific mores of some particular teacher.

As for "following Crowley", you can't follow him anywhere, 'cause as i've mentioned in another thread....

".... 'e's bleedin' DEMISED!"

and furthermore the Grand Ol' Pouf was clear on one crucial point, though one would have to have read him to know it:

That is he expected to furnish (metaphorically speaking) a machete, some quinine and a provisory map of known paths, not take you by the hand down the path; Nor furnish the detailed "complete picture" others quite verbosely pretend to (pretend in the sense of honest pretence, not to imply any fakery).

And insofar as providing such primers I think he pulled it off rather well, though folks of our generation and younger might find the summarization of the same concepts as expressed by more modern followers of the same path to be more linguistically accessible.

In the end, you can't find out if you resonate or not with something if it's never presented to you without adulterations, filters, NOISE.  That was all I wanted to address, really. Still waiting to find out the reason behind that warning.

Well Done (As Usual).

[size=16]Zactage !!![/size]

The Ongoing kak kak kak kak kak kak kak (Spoon In Throat Gagging !) About A Given Messenger, Without Regard For Individual Response / Resonance To The Message, IS(IS) What Sparked This:

http://forum.noblerealms.org/viewtopic.php?id=3435

BTW:

bathwaterandbabythrowers:

ongoing recruitment and sponsorshit can be found here:

http://forum.noblerealms.org/viewtopic.php?id=3263

red flags and tight-ass ointment free with signup.

Following Crowley IS a waste of time, the reason being that following ANYONE is a waste of time. I love his books and I read some of them, but to put too much focus on the man and his ego and whatever about his character can, in my opinion, make a person mis out BIG TIME on other things.  Here is a shamless example from Adam Jones who plays guitar for the band Tool. He said in an interview that some other interviewers were criticizing him for being a "shoe gazer" on the stage. He said they completely missed out on all the lights and projections (and basically the message) because he wasnt rocking out swishing his hair and being a rock star.  This kind of thing goes for authors and artists all the rest. If you focus too much on the person, then the art goes (FART NOISE) gone.

There is so much esoteric stuff with Crowleys work and many others that I just pick and choose what I want. Yes I try to get the whole picture, but to claim that " I got it" is just hoo haa.   I enjoy the work of Lovecraft and have met people who havent just read his work but completely understand, on a magickal level, the power of the visions and stories.  I've bumped into a Lovecraft elemental and it was one of the more real encounters I've ever had.  He got most all of his stories from dreams and I feel that there is an archetypal dream world that he literally mapped out.  In the Esoteric Order of Dagon there is a fella that keeps trying to put a Thelema spin into the Order.   For some reason to keep hearing about true will this and true will that drove me batty. I like Crowleys stuff but I dont completely adhere to it.  I use his Thoth Deck but I'm not a Thelemite. There are some things that I just dont read because I dont feel gravitated toward it.  I agree with this one comedian I heard who was hillarious when he said he would read ANYTHING, even stuff Hitler wrote.....BUT he will not touch Dianetics lol. He said the reason being because he doesnt know what page it happens when you just lose it.  I even have a friend who says he "gets" it. (shivers) lol. Its funny, we joke about it but still. I did a little research into scientology and wooooo boy there is somthing wrong.

Zejith Thmis, wouldnt you feel that its all about what you gravitate toward?  Who is to say whats "best" for every single person like how can somone say studying Crowley is evil and what not. I mean, it's obviously evil for them and thats basically where the buck stops.  Another thing, I really like how Ian Xel Lungold defines morals and ethics. He says that Bush in fact is a very moral person along with the rest of them. What they are doing is all very moral. The point being:

Morals are a set of ascribed rules that are laid onto you and your conciousness. Morals are a blanket solution to spontanious problems.
Ethics shine from within yourself out into the world. Ethics is spontanious solutions to spontanious situations.

So, it seems folks that are trying to be as moral as possible, whether they realize it or not, are just trying to put a set of ascribed rules over everyone.  This seems to be phasing out of existence and is being replaced by ethics.

Awsome thread. I'm learning alot with this excellent forum. To keep in touch with the title of this thread in particular, I havent read too much into John Dee though I have read disinformations Book of Lies about John Dee and the apocolypse and all that. Its a really good book, but after hearing what other people have to say about enochian magick I just dunno.

druid wrote:

I think following Crowley's trail is a waste of time... and following him weakens the moral strenght we badly need.

How does it specifically weaken moral strength?

Is it possible for people to follow Crowley's teachings and not weaken moral strength?

Please define specific examples of what moral strength is and specific examples of what may weaken it.

Using lost performatives and other ambiguous semantic structures only add to confusing the situation.

Maybe druid was just giving warning.  Delving in magic might be very dangerous.  Some scary things happened over there in Scotland.  Messing with magic can be like someone asking you to operate a particle accelarator, or space/time continuum to establish an a-priori for utilizing computer controlled laser to target DNA codons which manifest a disease, at a precise point and time, with non-linear time involved in the process.

I really don't know very much at all, I'm studying Theosophy and a little study in Anthroposophy, and I'm new at it, only a few years so far.  That Zejith_Themis seems to very competent.  I've read that in Judaism, you didn't even leave the Torah to study the Qabbalah until age 40.  I've also heard of females who delved in the Wiccan ways, go to Christianity simply because of the trouble they brought upon themselves in that direction.  To me the serpent simply symbolizes Wisdom of the forces of Nature.  This is a neutal force used by both the Right Hand Path and also The Left Hand Path.  You better be able to protect yourself from all kinds of well, I wouldn't even be able to describe all the perils.  Whenever I mention any specific religion, never limit me to that specific religion. Also beware the jub jub bird and the frumious bandersnatch.  I like anti climax.  Amicable endings and all that.

http://www.hermetic.com/enochia/essay-enochiana.html

An modern Enochian practitioner's take on the system .. really he links out in his article to much else including Rowe's stuff, so no need to provide that. Rowe gives a simple presentation of the system and how it's been used. I notice his (Hildebrandt's) opinion of Tyson is "goofy".

http://www.hermetic.com/enochia/index.html

And the main page on Hermetic.com for the system.

Another site with stuff on and by many others using the western mix of cabala, hermeticism etc. is

http://www.hermetics.org/ebooks.html

who seem to have divided up that section of the site by category since the last time i checked, but it does all seem to still be there. This one was my motherlode getting started..

Hermetic, Golden Dawn, Magic, Kabalah and Grimoires cover most of what's pertinent here, i'm guessing. But pretty much the lot of it's worth getting and perusing at will... i have most of the old list dowloaded, and that done back when i was on (faulty) 56k at that. Was worth it to me then, and would be painless on any better connection.

Cheerio!

P.S. - and with regard to the original post in the thread, the 007 signature was even drawn to look like two eyes with the left hand shielding them in a  kind of salute. Dee had a real thing with the 7...  though the heptarchic enochian system is the least explored, or at least written about, of all... THAT would be the place to invent some good stories that don't have to worry about facts getting in the way, plenty of room for mystery! Even got the spooky-looking un-transcripted planetary sigils  ;-)

Dee had no access to "De Origo Mundi", as it hadn't been found yet (as far as we know). He knew the name most probably from both Hebrew mysticism and qabalistic grimoires. sorry about dropping the name without specifying that, it's just that i love that particular alternative Genesis and it was the first thing to come to mind.

I should drop some links to short expositions on the system itself. The fact is, whether you consider thier (Magicians') elective reality-tunnel to be an efficacious self-hacking method or not, simply finding out what they were (and are) on about and how they proposed to go about it helps weed out a lot of noise on the subject.

I'll hunt down the links, i know hermetic.com and some others were already nicely stacked in some thread here...

I think following Crowley's trail is a waste of time... and following him weakens the moral strenght we badly need.

How does it specifically weaken moral strength?

Is it possible for people to follow Crowley's teachings and not weaken moral strength?

Please define specific examples of what moral strength is and specific examples of what may weaken it.

Using lost performatives and other ambiguous semantic structures only add to confusing the situation.

It says above that Crowley:

The record of Crowley's working of the Enochian Aethers in 1909
   in the desert of North Africa is preserved in the document titled
   The Vision and the Voice. He possessed a profound and broad
   understanding of ritual magic, an understanding that was not
   merely theoretical but practical. No other man of the twentieth
   century was better suited to initiate the Apocalypse Working,
   even as there had been no man in the sixteenth century better
   suited than Dee to receive it from the Enochian angels.
   Interestingly, Crowley believed himself to be the reincarnation
   of Edward Kelley.

"began working on the Enochian Aethers in 1909"  Later Crowley would call one of these Aethers "Choronzon" which is just a different name used by Crowley for the very same "Enochian Aether/Angel/Spirit/Demon. That was my only point with above. Crowley picked up where Dee and Kelly had left off.

Actually, no again (sorry! not being mean i swear!).

He BEGAN working the Aethyrs in November 1900 in Mexico, and only penetrated 2 of them before being blocked. He surmised that he had not yet the effective "grade" to go further.  He picked up the keys again nine years later asisted by his pupil and part time lover Fr. Omnia Vincam (Victor Neuberg).

Choronzon is not a name invented by A.C.. It is not "another name", it is the name that appears once in the original Dee material and which Dee gives in one place the attributes of Samael, the "Blind God", which is a term used in the Gnostic document known as "De Origo Mundi" to refer to the demiurge. In another Dee opts for the imagery of the more traditional church's Devil.

Crowley did not call ANY Aethyr Choronzon. He attributed the Tenth Aethyr, which is called ZAX (enochian prounciation is always a matter of debate), to the crossing of the Abyss (Da'ath on the Tree of Life, going from Chesed to Binah, the great mother) where he maintained that one must confront the demiurgic entity of Dispersion, and abandon all attachments before being able to pass over him, on to the shores of Binah.

{edit - as for what he CALLED the Aethyr, the probability is ZodAXa, given the general scheme he used for pronunciation. there are different opinions, ZAXa being another example}

This type of article shows an undue use of dramatic language, suppositions, what-ifs presented as history, etc... but they always tend to ignore any actual mention of actual doctrines behind what these people were doing. Which, getting a gander at the list of Tyson's other titles surprises me greatly!!

I simply wouldn't expect such trite from someone who's written titles such as those, makes me wonder what those books are like. I mean if you've written on Tarot and Qabalah and read 418 you'd have to be purposefully obfuscating to write that article. I'm going to search out some tyson stuff now online, or maybe pass me some other links if you got 'em i'd like to form an idea of this character.

Liber 418 (Being of the 30 Aethyrs The Vision and the Voice) can be found here:

http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/l418/418.html

along with a ton of other informative titles on the subject concerned at hermetic.com . I started there long before i started building up a real-book library on it all.

also 418 is here in PDF:

http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/Liber418.pdf

So it's really not that arduous... it's just as easy to get these things right as it is to get them wrong, so why not?

Now i'm certaily not qualified to illuminate anyone on anything. I'm just pointing out that documentation is easy, and double-checking is easy. Playing post-office with these articles muddies the waters, waters that i find are obscure enough as it is.

And i really don't want to bruise egos, i understand what it feels like to hit on an article that get your blood pumping and neurons singing, like i said i managed to get a lot of time wasted by such articles, websites and groups before going to the horse's mouth for the skinny. I've had to bruise my own ego quite a bit, believe me!

And remember, Politicians put in work and time to say what they say with confidence too. Also qv: the term "confidence man".

As for weakening my moral strength (which is actually feeling quite fine, thank you very much!) what process would that be happening through, Druid?

Books by Tyson:
    * Scrying For Beginners
    * Necronomicon : The Wanderings of Alhazred
    * 1-2-3 Tarot
    * The New Magus
    * Enochian Magic for Beginners
    * Tetragrammaton
    * Rune Magic
    * Sexual Alchemy
    * Familiar Spirits
    * The Magician's Workbook
    * Rune Dice Divination Book
    * The Power of the Word
    * Three Books of Occult Philosophy
    * Ritual Magic
    * New Millennium Magic
    * Tortuous Serpent
    * How to Make and Use a Magic Mirror
    * Truth About Ritual Magic
    * Power of the Runes
    * Truth About Runes
    * Alhazred: Author of the Necronomicon
    * Liber Lilith
    * Soul Flight: Astral Projection & the Magical Universe
    * The New Magus: Ritual Magic as a Personal Process

Either he knows stuff that you have not learned or he may very well be full of it. I do not pretend to know. All I know is I read his article above and was blown away. The images of Dee and Kelley working in some creepy laboratory has haunted my imagination since I read it a few years back.  (and yes I mixed them up while replying - apologies) Zejith_Themis, I'm intimidated to even respond because I know you know your stuff. Yet at the same time, I think Donald Tyson has put in the work and time to say with confidence what he says/writes. I will be digging in deeper on this but please forgive my lack of abilities when it comes to cross-referencing different magical systems - my knowledge base is not that deep in these waters.

It says above that Crowley:

"began working on the Enochian Aethers in 1909"  Later Crowley would call one of these Aethers "Choronzon" which is just a different name used by Crowley for the very same "Enochian Aether/Angel/Spirit/Demon. That was my only point with above. Crowley picked up where Dee and Kelly had left off.

As I stated earlier, I will be digging into this deeper and will totally appreciate any clarification on these matters. I'm just trying to learn here and I like when I'm told that I'm wrong (despite my bruised ego). I would rather be told that the information is wrong and fix it rather than go on thinking the wrong things. Please feel free to Illuminate us!  I do not want to fall asleep in the white noise.

Till later, Bhang.

I mean it doesn't take much, just read the books you are going to name in the article. One of the most annyoing things in the world is hearing something flat-out made-up, then having someone tell you "and you can look it up here" when you own the damn book.  It's bloody pythonesque.    All quite fine when in satire, but not as information. Shades of O'Reilly.

My point is the whole premise is bollocks, but it's peppered with title-dropping, and verifiable historical snippets that make it seem to the casual reader that it's an accurate analysis.  The conclusions of the author however, are either based on the false bits, or are non-sequiturs placed after an accurate bit.

Also:

pre-point A: you cut out of the quote, but should have left at least, the definition of Choronzon as dispersion and demiurgos; the very bane of the gnostic seeker, which really is the point of ceremonially passing him over in the tenth Aethyr after having constrained him by the name of the wholy Mother/Whore/Virgin BABALON. Of course this means abandoning the author's interpretation of Apocalypsos itself and this is the blinding i'm saying such articles bring.

A: Dee didn't experience Choronzon at all, and you didn't even get that idea from THIS article.

B: Crowley DID work the system, whereas we have no recording of either Dee or Kelley ever invoking angels internal to the system.

and:

As far as Dee's intentions, That's bloody well what I said.. callin up choronzon don't enter into it.

however you have the roles backwards, and part of my point is these articles leave people with their ideas just so muddled.

Dee invoked, Kelly mediumed using Dee's crystal or mirror (crystal mentiond in certain recordings, mirror in others) , Dee scribed (wrote it down)

So Kelley was the fax machine proper, and Dee was the power generator and toner cartridge. No radios involved, no casual observers  ;-)

Furthermore the author's conclusions are based on nothing present in the material. He presents his thesis, as i stated above, as non-sequiturs and from false premises.

The inital definition of Apocalypse is an Argumentum ad populum that, from the outset, denies other interpretations of the term and put blinders on the casual reader.

The intention of my post was to adress this type of writing, which plagues those seriously trying to figure ANYTHING out in any area of knowledge, not just Magickal History Trivia and Human Eschatological Fixations, and i'm sure you've run in to as much of such bunk as i have.

That stuff just makes me itch because i remember how much time such badly done (or purposefully misleading) aritcles made ME waste. I imagine someone gettig their first whiff of a subject from this stuff and shudder... entropy is starting to feel more and more like fingernails on slate to me lately, so i get peevish when it seems artificially added.

I hope it's clear now that i wasn't peeved with you... just this noise that we all get drowned in.

and btw, i don't get this bit at all:

Methinks the non sequitur bug is contagious. Another reason i fly off at the handle at these  unctuous  meme  dumps  that some writers pass off as information.

NO WHERE is bringing Choronzon "into the world" with "his demons" to "take up residence" mentioned, much less proposed as a desireable goal in either the original enochian workings nor in A.C's. Nowhere. In fact Choronzon is represented in Crowley's

Why do Crowley's visions of Choronzon even matter if Dee was the first to experience Choronzon?

That's like me saying I just spoke with Jesus.

The whole thesis is flawed despite the very informative narrative. I admire your magical knowledge base and comprehension. I know your intentions are pure so no need for petty squabbles, I only hope to clarify your real intentions of said post.

Dee did not "desire" to "bring Choronzon "into the world" with "his demons" to "take up residence" "
he only acted as a radio...

Kelly just observed and wrote the stuff down.