War In Heaven (Page 23 of 24)

Hard Rock & three schools of Magick....

Natural Mystic wrote:

From: http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/NWO/nwo9.html

Jimmy Page, of the rock group Led Zeppelin, who owned one of the largest occult bookstores in England, had purchased the mansion of Edward Alister Crowley(1875-1947),

This is very intersting. I am quite sure that Led Zeppelin was sort of a "satanic" band: i understand the term "satanic" as STS; Led Zeppelin - as i see this band was all about STS. "Stairway To Heaven" is a very nice tune, but the Band has - in my opinion - an extrem STS orientation. Not good & not cool - if you look closer there is so much pose, so much fake...  The late 1960s transition from psychedelia into hardrock was difficult, painful and produced a whole bunch of bad bands. You may see them described as "killer heavy fuzz guitarpsych/rock" , but most of the time they're dull, elephantine, pompous affairs – losing the mystique and creativity of psych...  Hendrix and "Disraeli Gears" had pointedout a proper path through the forest, but then a whole bunch of overpriced, overhiped bands emerged (or were made by illuminati) - many from the L A area and many from England, proudly displaying macho vocalists, "bluesy" moods, bombastic organ and gonzo "biker" fuzz guitars.
So, although i considered LZ to be my favourite band in my late teens, i now see clearly that they were one of those illuminati-show-biz-bombastic outfits, created in order to imprint young receptive minds with truly satanic=STS ideas in the most  insidious, mean way.
Btw, The Doors, above all Jim Morrison....the same story to me. No good.

Crowley, one of the most famous Satanists of all time,

Well, Crowley was a great pretender. He was not a black magician, he came from the White school of magick: Let Master Therion speak for himself:
1. What is Magick:
"Magick investigates the laws of Nature with the idea of making use of them.  It only differs from "profane" science by always keeping ahead of it.  As Fraser has shown, Magick is science in the tentative stage; but it may be, and often is, more than this.  It is science which, for one reason or another, cannot be declared to the profane.

Religion, on the contrary, seeks to ignore the laws of Nature, or to escape them by appeal to a postulated power which is assumed to have laid them down.  The religious man is, as such, incapable of understanding what the laws of Nature really are.  (They are generalizations from the order of observed fact.)

The History of Magick has never been seriously attempted.  For one reason, only initiates pledged to secrecy know much about it; for another, every historian has been talking about some more or less conventional idea of Magick, not of the thing itself.  But Magick has led the world from before the beginning of history, if only for the reason that Magick has always been the mother of Science.
  "The Three Schools of Magick." 
There have always been, at least in nucleus, three main Schools of Philosophical practice.
It is customary to describe these three Schools as Yellow, Black, and White.  The first thing necessary is to warn the reader that they must by no means be confounded with racial distinctions of colour; and they correspond still less with conventional symbols such as yellow caps, yellow robes, black magick, white witchcraft, and the like.  The danger is only the greater that these analogies are often as alluring as the prove on examination to be misleading.
These Schools represent three perfectly distinct and contrary theories of the Universe, and, therefore, practices of spiritual science.  The magical formula of each is as precise as a theorem of trigonometry.  Each assumes as fundamental a certain law of Nature, and the subject is complicated by the fact that each School, in a certain sense, admits the formul ¦ of the other two.  It merely regards them as in some way incomplete, secondary, or illusory.  Now, as will be seen later, the Yellow School stand aloof from the other two by the nature of its postulates.  But the Black School and the White are always more or less in active conflict; and it is because just at this moment that conflict is approaching a climax that it is necessary to write this essay.  The adepts of the White School consider the present danger to mankind so great that they are prepared to abandon their traditional policy of silence, in order to enlist in their ranks the profane of every nation.
We are in possession of a certain mystical document* which we may describe briefly, for convenience sake, as an Apocalypse of which we hold the keys, thanks to the intervention of the Master who has appeared at this grave conjuncture of Fate.  This document consists of a series of visions, in which we hear the various Intelligences whose nature it would be hard to define, but who are at the very least endowed with knowledge and power far beyond anything that we are accustomed to regard as proper to the human race... It may be suspected, for reasons which should be apparent after further investigation of the doctrines of the Three Schools, that this parable was invented by an Intelligence of the Black School, who was aware of his iniquity, and thought to transform it into righteousness by the alchemy of making a boast of it.  The intelligent reader will note the insidious attempt to identify the doctrine of the Black School with the kind of black magic that is commonly called Diabolism.  In other words, this parable is itself an example of an exceedingly subtle black magical operation, and the contemplation of such devices carried far enough beings us to an understanding of the astoundingly ophidian processes of Magicians.  Let not the profane reader dismiss such subtleties from his mind as negligible nonsense. It is cunning of this kind that determines the price of potatoes.

The above digression is perhaps not so inexcusable as it may seem on a first reading. Careful study of it should reveal the nature of the thought-processes which are habitually used by the secret Masters of the human race to determine its destiny.

When everyone has done laughing, I will ask you to compare the real effects produced on the course of human affairs by Caesar, Attila, and Napoleon, on the one hand; of Plato, the Encyclopaedists, and Karl Marx* on the other.
The Yellow School of Magick considers, with complete scientific and philosophical detachment, the fact of the Universe as a fact.  Being itself apart of that Universe, it realizes its impotence to alter the totality in the smallest degree.  To put it vulgarly, it does not try to raise itself from the ground by pulling at its socks.  It therefore opposes to the current of phenomena no reaction either of hatred or of sympathy.  So far as it attempts to influence the course of events at all, it does so in the only intelligent way conceivable.  It seeks to diminish internal friction.

It remains, therefore, in a contemplative attitude.  To use the terms of Western philosophy, there is in its attitude something of the stoicism of Zeno; or of the Pickwickianism, if I may use the term, of Epicurus.  The ideal reaction to phenomena is that of perfect elasticity.  It possesses something of the cold-bloodedness of mathematics; and for this reason it seems fair to say, for the purposes of elementary study, that Pythagoras is its most adequate exponent in European philosophy.

Since the discovery of Asiatic thought, however, we have no need to take our ideas at second-hand.  The Yellow School of Magick possesses one perfect classic.  The Tao Teh King.
...
Hoping that you are now recovered from the devastating revelations in the matter of the Yellow School, I must ask you to brace yourself for disclosures even more formidable about the Black.  Do not confuse with the Black Lodge, or the Black Brothers.  The terminology is unfortunate, but it wasn't I that did it.  Now then, to work!

The Black School of Magick, which must by no means be confused with the School of Black Magick or Sorcery, which latter is a perversion of the White tradition, is distinguished fundamentally from the Yellow School in that it considers the Universe not as neutral, but as definitely a curse. Its primary theorem is the "First Noble Truth" of the Buddha– "Everything is Sorrow."  In the primitive classics of this School the idea of sorrow is confused with that of sin.  (This idea of universal lamentation is presumably responsible for the choice of black as its symbolic colour.  And yet?  Is not white the Chinese hue of mourning?).
The analysis of the philosophers of this School refers every phenomenon to the category of sorrow.  It is quite useless to point out to them that certain events are accompanied with joy: they continue their ruthless calculations, and prove to your satisfaction, or rather dissatisfaction, that the more apparently pleasant an event is, the more malignantly deceptive is its fascination.  There is only one way of escape even conceivable, and this way is quite simple, annihilation. (Shallow critics of Buddhism have wasted a great deal of stupid ingenuity on trying to make out that Nirvana or Nibbana means something different from what etymology, tradition and the evidence of the Classics combine to define it.  The word means, quite simply, cessation: and it stands to reason that, if everything is sorrow, the only thing which is not sorrow is nothing, and that therefore to escape from sorrow is the attainment of nothingness.)
The philosophers of this School, seeking, naturally enough, to amend the evil at the root, inquire into the cause of this existence which is sorrow, and arrive immediately at the "Second Noble Truth" of the Buddha: "The Cause of Sorrow is Desire."  They follow up with the endless concatenation of causes, of which the final root is Ignorance.  (I am not concerned to defend the logic of this School: I merely state their doctrine.)  The practical issue of all this is that every kind of action is both unavoidable and a crime.  I must digress to explain that the confusion of thought in this doctrine is constantly recurrent.  That is part of the blackness of the Ignorance which they confess to be the foundation of their Universe.  (And after all, everyone has surely the right to have his own Universe the way he wants it.)

This School being debased by nature, is not so far removed from conventional religion as either the White or the Yellow.  Most primitive fetishistic religions may, in fact, be considered fairly faithful representatives of this philosophy.  Where animism holds sway, the "medicine-man" personifies this universal evil, and seeks to propitiate it by human sacrifice.  The early forms of Judaism, and that type of Christianity which we associate with the Salvation Army, Billy Sunday and the Fundamentalists of the back-blocks of America, are sufficiently simple cases of religion whose essence is the propitiation of a malignant demon.

When the light of intelligence begins to dawn dimly through many fogs upon these savages, we reach a second stage.  Bold spirits master courage to assert that the evil which is so obvious, is, in some mysterious way, an illusion.  They thus throw back the whole complexity of sorrow to a single cause; that is, the arising of the illusion aforesaid.  The problem then assumes a final form: How is that illusion to be destroyed.

A fairly pure example of the first stage of this type of thought is to be found in the Vedas, of the second stage, in the Upanishads.  But the answer to the question, "How is the illusion of evil to be destroyed?", depends on another point of theory.  We may postulate a Parabrahm infinitely good, etc. etc. etc., in which case we consider the destruction of the illusion of evil as the reuniting of the consciousness with Parabrahm.  The unfortunate part of this scheme of things is that on seeking to define Parabrahm for the purpose of returning to Its purity, it is discovered sooner or later, that It possesses no qualities at all!  In other words, as the farmer said, on being shown the elephant: There ain't no sich animile.  It was Gautama Buddha who perceived the inutility of dragging in this imaginary pachyderm.  Since our Parabrahm, he said to the Hindu philosophers, is actually nothing, why not stick to or original perception that everything is sorrow, and admit that the only way to escape from sorrow is to arrive at nothingness?...
The documents of the Black School of Magick have already been indicated.  They are, for the most part, tedious to the last degree and repulsive to every wholesome-minded man; yet it can hardly be denied that such books as The Dhammapada and Ecclesiastes are masterpieces of literature.  They represent the agony of human despair at its utmost degree of intensity, and the melancholy contemplation which is induced by their perusal is not favourable to the inception of that mood which should lead every truly courageous intelligence to the determination to escape from the ferule of the Black Schoolmaster to the outstretched arms of the White Mistress of Life.
The White School:
Let us leave the sinister figure of Schopenhauer for the mysteriously radiant shape of Spinoza!  This latter philosopher, in respect at least of his Pantheism, represents fairly enough the fundamental thesis of the White tradition.  Almost the first observation that we have to make is that this White tradition is hardly discoverable outside Europe.  It appears first of all in the legend of Dionysus.  (In this connection read carefully Browning's Apollo and the Fates.)

The Egyptian tradition of Osiris is not dissimilar.  The central idea of the White School is that, admitted that "everything is sorrow" for the profane, the Initiate has the means of transforming it to "Everything is joy."  There is no question of any ostrich-ignoring of fact, as in Christian Science.  There is not even any more or less sophisticated argument about the point of view altering the situation as in Vedantism.  We have, on the contrary, and attitude which was perhaps first of all, historically speaking, defined by Zoroaster, "nature teaches us, and the Oracles also affirm, that even the evil germs of Matter may alike become useful and good."  "Stay not on the precipice with the dross of Matter; for there is a place for thine Image in a realm ever splendid."  "If thou extend the Fiery Mind to the work of piety, thou wilt preserve the fluxible body."* We may define the doctrine of the White School in its purity in very simple terms.

Existence is pure joy.  Sorrow is caused by failure to perceive this fact; but this is not a misfortune.  We have invented sorrow, which does not matter so much after all, in order to have the exuberant satisfaction of getting rid of it.  Existence is thus a sacrament.
There is thus in this School no attempt to deny that Nature is, as Zoroaster said, "a fatal and evil force"; but Nature is, so to speak, "the First Matter of the Work", which is to be transmuted into gold.  The joy is a function of our own part in this alchemy.  For this reason we find the boldest and most skillful adepts deliberately seeking out the most repugnant elements of Nature that their triumph may be the greater.  The formula is evidently one of dauntless courage.  It expresses the idea of vitality and manhood in its most dynamic sense.

The only religion which corresponds to this School at all is that of ancient Egypt; possibly also that of Chaldea.  This is because those religions are Magical religions in the strict technical sense; the religious component of them is negligible.  So far as it exists, it exists only for the uninitiate.
The Christian religion in its simplest essence, by that idea of overcoming evil through a Magical ceremony, the Crucifixion, seems at first sight a fair example of the White tradition; but the idea of sin and of propitiation tainted it abominably with Blackness.  There have been, however, certain Christian thinkers who have taken the bold logical step of regarding evil as a device of God for exercising the joys of combat and victory.  This is, of course, a perfectly White doctrine; but it is regarded as the most dangerous of heresies.  (Romans VI. 1,2, et al.)

For all that, the idea is there.  The Mass itself is essentially a typical White ritual.  Its purpose is to transform crude matter directly into Godhead.  It is thus a cardinal operation of Talismanic Magick.  But the influence of the Black School has corroded the idea with theological accretions, metaphysical on the one hand, and superstitious on the other, so completely as to mask the Truth altogether.

At the Reformation, we find a nugatory attempt to remove the Black element.  The Protestant thinkers did their best to get rid of the idea of sin, but it was soon seen that the effort could only lead to antinomianism; and they recognized that this would infallibly destroy the religious idea as such.

Mysticism, both Catholic and Protestant, made a further attempt to free Christianity from the dark cloud of iniquity.  They joined hands with the Sufis and the Vedantists. But this again led to the mere denial of the reality of evil.  Thus drawing away, little by little, from clear appreciation of the facts of Nature, their doctrine became purely theoretical, and faded away, while the thundercloud of sin settled down more heavily than ever.
There is in history only one movement whose object has been to organize the isolated adepts of the White School of Magick, and this movement was totally unconnected with religion, except in so far as it lent its influence to the reformers of the Christian church.  Its appeal was not at all to the people.  It merely offered to open up relations with, and communicate certain practical secrets of wisdom to, isolated men of science through Europe.  This movement is generally known by the name of Rosicrucianism.

The word arouses all sorts of regrettable correspondences; but the adepts of the Society have never worried themselves in the least about the abuse of their name for the purposes of charlatanism, or about the attacks directed against them by envious critics.  Indeed, so wisely have they concealed their activities that some modern scholars of the shallower type have declared that no such movement ever existed, that it was a kind of practical joke played upon the curiosity of the credulous Middle Ages.  It is at least certain that, since the original proclamations, no official publications have been put forward.  The essential secrets have been maintained inviolate.  If, during the last few years, a considerable number of documents have been published by them, though not in their name, it is on account of the impending crisis to civilization, of which mention will later be made.

There is no good purpose, even were there license, to discuss the nature of the basis of scientific attainment which is the core of the doctrines of the Society.  It is only necessary to point out that its correspondence with alchemy is the one genuine fact on the subject which has been allowed to transpire; for the Rosicrucian, as indicated by his central symbol, the barren cross on which he has made a rose to flower, occupies himself primarily with spiritual and physiological alchemy.  Taking for "The First Matter of the Work  a neutral or inert substance (it is constantly described as the commonest and least valued thing on earth, and may actually connote any substance whatever) he deliberately poisons it, so to speak, bringing it to a stage of transmutation generally called the Black Dragon, and he proceeds to work upon this virulent poison until he obtains the perfection theoretically possible.
During the last two generations the Masters of the Yellow School have been compelled to take notice of the progressive ruin of the White adepts.  Christianity, which possessed at least the semblance of a White formula, is in the agonies of decomposition, even before it is actually dead.  Materialistic science has overwhelmed the faith and hope of the Christians (they never possessed any charity to overwhelm) with a demonstration of the sorrow, transitoriness and cruel futility of the Universe.  A vast wave of pessimism has engulfed the fortress of Mansoul.

It was indeed a deadly blow to the adepts of the White School when Science, their own familiar friend in whom they trusted, lifted up his heel against them.  It was in this conjuncture that the Yellow adepts sent forth into the Western world a messenger, Helena Petrowna Blavatsky, with the distinct mission to destroy, on the one hand, the crude schools of Christianity, and, on the other, to eradicate the materialism from Physical Science.  She made the necessary connection with Edward Maitland and Anna Kingsford, who were trying rather helplessly to put the exoteric formulae of the White School into the hands of students, and with the secret representatives of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood.  It is not for us in this place to estimate the degree of success with which she carried out her embassy; but at least we see today that Physical Science is at last penetrating to the spiritual basis of material phenomena.  The work of Henry Poincarè, Einstein, Whitehead, and Bertrand Russell is sufficient evidence of this fact....The Black School has always worked insidiously, by treachery. ... The White School has thus been paralysed.  We are reminded of the spider described by Fabre, who injects her victims with a poison which paralyzes them without killing them, so that her own young may find fresh meat. And this is what is going to happen in Europe and America unless some- thing is done about it, and done in very short order.
P.S. Our own School unites the ruby red of Blood with the gold of the Sun.  It combines the best characteristics of the Yellow and the White Schools.  In the light of M. Aumont's exposition, it is easy to understand.

To us, every phenomenon is an Act of Love, every experience is necessary, is a Sacrament, is a means of Growth.  Hence, "...existence is pure joy;..." (AL II, 9) "A feast every day in your hearts in the joy of my rapture!  A feast every night unto Nu, and the pleasure of uttermost delight!" (AL II, 42-43).

Let this soak in!

...I'm designing a T-Shirt with Fluffy and my mantra on it.