Coming to an Understanding of "Religiosity," and How Death Can Inform Worship

After a fairly good hiatus, I'm back, here today to talk to you about what's been on my mind since I left. I've been thinking about exactly what makes an experience "religious," and what makes the ceremony of worship so inspiring.

Directing a church choir has forced me to look at this question in greater depth, since it's part of my responsibilities to foster a sense of devotion and solemnity to the music we make. But I have found that parishioners are very rooted in music that does very little to anyone in regards to inspiration. In some ways, I believe that they are only attached to this music because it represents their comfort zone, and is just what they're used to. It's "pretty" to them, but not exactly profound. But trying to nudge them out of this safe territory into more interesting repertoire is incredibly difficult, and it becomes an issue of politicking and negotiating, which only gets in the way of the work we're supposed to be doing.

As a result, I started to think about several questions. What actually determines the beauty and efficacy of a piece of worship music? What makes something "religious?" And how do you instill people with a sense of adoration for something entirely intangible?

"What actually determines the beauty and efficacy of a piece of worship music?"
In order to answer the first question, I actually turned to the Tree of Life, and looked at what Beauty is influenced by. Of course, "Beauty" is the name of the central sephira Tiphareth on the Middle Pillar, so it receives and exerts a number of influences. Most importantly, it receives direct influence from Godhead in Kether, the Crown. But it also is shaped by the masculine and feminine archetypes of Chokhmah and Binah. As such, it represents on a fundamental level the balance and harmony between all kinds of force, but also the interrelationship between force and form. It is at once passive, active, and fluid, and also represents the union of drive (Chokhmah) with purpose/form (Binah).

It also receives influence from Chesed and Geburah (Mercy and Power respectively), so Tiphareth is constructive and destructive equally. It is a therefore a perfect representation of creation or Life in manifestation, and it can be conceptualized as a snake that moves in a given direction through undulation, or the endless flow back and forth between positive and negative. Life is based on the same principles. Remember that Tiphareth is represented by the sun, and the sun can be equally generative and destructive. It burns away what is unnecessary and cultivates new life from the ashes. Tiphareth is therefore also associated with the phoenix.

Tiphareth emanates Netzach (Victory), Hod (Splendor), and Yesod (Foundation) and from here we start getting a definite sense of form in the literal sense. The first is connected with Venus, the second with Mercury, and the third with the moon. Netzach is almost primal, natural, raw, ecstatic, and lusty, whereas Hod is regimented, logical, analytical, and focused. Yesod is an interesting amalgamation of all the above influences, which produces an astral double or imaginary image of the created idea. Yesod is fantastical and illusionary, and therefore sometimes misleading. It is the source of our subjective subconscious, the shadow self of Jung, and a part of our personality that acts automatically and reflexively. The first major step in the process towards initiation is overcoming Yesod by wedding it to the light of the True Self as expressed consciously in Tiphareth.

To summarize all this, Tiphareth, or Beauty, must be a perfect balance of inspiration and understanding, benevolence and suffering, emotion and intellect. The importance of Yesod in all this is that I believe by participating in adoration balanced by the above principles we can work to regulate our subconscious. We do this by showing it the existence of something greater than itself. Living under Yesod's influence with our subjective consciousnesses grounded in Malkuth, we often act out under the misguidance of Yesod, and disregard the clearer, more beneficial advice of Tiphareth. If the quality of our worship and praise music matches that of Tiphareth, then we are more apt to gain for ourselves the healing and rewards of Tiphareth. If we worship with mediocre methods, then the actual religious effect will be greatly diminished. Choosing pieces simply because they're easy or because "that's what we've always done" is misguided.

"What makes something religious?"
I believe that we can answer this question simply by looking at basic aspects of human religion around the world. The form a religion takes is through its ritual praxis. Ritual gives us a kind of art piece to look at and contemplate, but the real importance of that piece is the artist's intent behind the actual images. In other words, ritual is an abstract performance art. It exists on a stage-like field and even suffers from "fourth wall" syndrome. While this is not absolute, oftentimes ritual is set up with the dichotomy between initiates and uninitiated in mind, the former directly participating and the latter simply observing. Initiates are allowed to actually practice the ritual because they supposedly understand the deeper significance of it. They see the ritual from the level of Tiphareth, whereas it is expected that the audience sees it from the perspective of Yesod. In fact, this is very often the case seeing as religious ignorance abounds in much of the world. The people who have attained any amount of initiation are relatively few, and it is highly likely that whole congregations of people gathered for the celebration of a specific ritual have absolutely no idea what the ritual is trying to express to them on the allegorical level. In some ways the ritual becomes a kind of taunting game - even though it's right in front of our faces we are unable to penetrate behind the veil of images. (Of course, penetrating the veil requires spiritual nerve and courage - something many people unfortunately lack, particularly in America.)

The purpose of this, however, is not only on one level to mislead people (for the Mysteries must be given and protected simultaneously), but also to create a space that is alien to the audience. The everyday world is dominated by false images created by Yesod and Malkuth, even Hod and Netzach. But the truth behind events and images is revealed in Tiphareth, which is the source of these experiences in the first place. Therefore a real sense of religiosity must exist on the level of Tiphareth, outside the sphere of normalcy.

I also think it's important to turn to Victor Turner's model of liminality to unpack this question. Turner was writing about medieval pilgrimages and was trying to get at the heart of their appeal to medieval laity. I'd like to summarize his model for you here.

1.) The pilgrim begins at home surrounded by what he or she knows. Home for them represents the sum total of what they know to be reality. Obviously there is a lot more of the world out there to explore, but for the medieval man or woman the world was incredibly small and confined to their immediate surroundings. The individual then decides to take a pilgrimage to a given shrine for any number of reasons. Perhaps they feel they require penance, or they are looking to be healed from a sickness, or maybe they simply want to go for the thrill of traveling on "vacation." Whatever their reason they begin their journey.

2.) The pilgrim joins other pilgrims while on the road to their particular shrine á la The Canterbury Tales. They share resources and hopefully help each other to survive the arduous and most likely on-foot trek to their destination. Along the road the pilgrims encounter a number of other shrines with relics. They stop at these locations to pray, seek the aid of the patron saint, and are simultaneously introduced to symbols, pictures, and allegories in the form of religious artwork. Oftentimes there are certain motifs that are replicated at other shrines along the pilgrimage road so that by the time the pilgrims have reached their ultimate destination, they have been bombarded by the same symbols many times through different artistic interpretations.

3.) At this point the pilgrim has been exposed to a number of experiences outside of the realm of the ordinary. Most importantly, the pilgrim is physically in what Turner calls a space of "liminality." Approaching this space of ultimate spatial/chronological/psychological distance from what the pilgrim considers "normal," they become much more pliable. They experience a kind of "death" and are in turn made more susceptible to the religious experience - witnessing of miracles, visions, ecstasies and lamentations, etc. By the time the pilgrim approaches the final pilgrimage site, the individual has been forced to discard their precepts of normalcy and thereby enter the liminal space of the miraculous. One becomes much more prone to experiencing the presence of God - that which is greater than ourselves. The pilgrim is literally overwhelmed by the experience and is thus transformed by it.

4.) The last step is reintegration. The pilgrim must return home to their original space of normalcy after having experienced something entirely unique, foreign, and life-changing. The person can never quite deal with their original place of normalcy in the same way they used to ever again. Those who surround the pilgrim do not understand what they have experienced, and there grows an inevitable and unsurpassable gulf between the individual and their peers.

While Turner's model has been recently given a fair amount of criticism, I believe this general model is very helpful to us as we try to track down what the religious experience is all about, especially since the process of individuation is very much a psychological pilgrimage. Our psyches are vast worlds of which we only know a small portion. Thinking this is all there is, we remain stagnant, uninspired, ignorant individuals. One thing is clear: the religious experience is absolutely abnormal, and involves a kind of death of the normal. Following this there is a psychological "resurrection" which leaves the person forever changed and more enlightened about their personal condition.

"Religion," therefore, must consist of the individual's confrontation with greatness. The "pilgrim" so to speak must be overwhelmed by liminality to the point of metaphysical death. The greater the liminality the more profound the religious experience.

"How do you instill someone with a sense of adoration for that which is entirely intangible?"
This might be the trickiest question of all because everyone has a unique relationship to the Divine. "Every man is the master of his own temple," and therefore the Law is different for each of us. It is quite difficult for one person to determine what will fill another with a sense of adoration. But if we base our answer on the answers to the previous two questions, then we might say that it all has to do with encouraging people to move into the space of liminality. The hierophantic or pastoral duty becomes one of adhering to the general framework, but adapting it to fit the needs of a given person. Presumably, everyone who is participating in a religion has chosen it because it is the method of attainment that they believe is best for them. We must not assume, however, that this is accurate. An individual might make a much better Buddhist than a Catholic, but until circumstances force the individual to actually reappraise their beliefs they will not be allowed to grow in this direction.

Central to all of this is the idea of death. Religion is that which deals explicitly with it both through mythology and ritual praxis. Much of religion is focused exclusively on the sacrifice of the "lower self," that part of our being that considers our physical condition to be the only aspect of our total condition. Living our lives from such a rigid perspective inevitably leads us to cultivating redundant habits and ignorant world-views, all of which contributes to the handicapping and stunting of society and culture at large.

Therefore, from a psychological standpoint, religion of any respectable tried-and-true form is crucial for the development of any human being. The details of the religion are largely irrelevant, as what matters is the formula of attainment it follows. It must be capable of instilling in someone a sense of reverence for that which is greater than themselves, but to do that one must first get a sense of what "that which is greater than themselves" is actually like. One does this by setting Tiphareth as the goal of their worship and thereby opening themselves up to the experience of death. Death under these conditions is sweet, benign, and even beautiful.

Perhaps this is even why the average person shuns the religious experience by preferring watered-down, ineffective, bland forms of worship - because these represent a world they can easily understand, one that is very similar to their own mundane, normal sphere of existence in the here and now. But as we have talked about, God transcends the mundane and is also outside of it. You cannot expect to be transformed for the better, to experience or understand God's benefits, without first enduring the death of normalcy, and we all know how much humans want to reject death of any kind. Until one's consciousness has been pried open by the recognition of something greater and more powerful than itself, then that person's consciousness will perpetually perceive reality as a mixed jumble of non-related events and "accidents" that God may or may not have rewarded or punished them with. This view of reality becomes a license to stop growing, to remain clueless about responsibility, to take things for granted, and to do no real work on one's person. The individual stops functioning as a source of life for the world around them and instead becomes a source of death.

Christ tells us, "For whoever loses his life shall find it." Religion teaches us that death is the necessary complement to life, but also that religion itself is about Life, capitalized so as to represent summative existence, the flux between life and death. He who rejects the religious or spiritual impulse rejects themselves, and emits the signal to their True Self that they are wholly uninterested in who they are in totality. He who believes they are complete without initiation, without surrendering to the Mystery that is Self, suffers from vanity. And vanity, being the cause of Original Sin, is ugly.

"He was despised:" Christmas and the Messiah

Madonna and Child with St. Anne

I would like to begin this post by noting that it took me a long time to figure out exactly what I wanted to write about for this post, but I also knew I could not let Christmas go by without writing something about it. I thought I would simultaneously revisit a previous topic on this blog – the nature of Atu XV The Devil from the tarot. While this seems like an unlikely subject to bring into a discussion about Christmas, there’s, as always, a reason for doing so.

As I get older (and one would like to imagine, wiser), I keep feeling this deep urge within myself to search out the religious experience with greater enthusiasm. For me, the holiday is not so much about presents, food, or celebrations, but has become more about meditation and penance, as well as great hope. I recognize that I am a contemplative person naturally, but this season in particular – perhaps because of the increasing cold and barrenness, the way nature wants to make us slow down – seems geared toward greater introspection.

Advent, if you may be aware, is a penitential season, not one of celebration. We are reminded that Christ is “coming” in order to die a wretched death, not to be coddled and cooed over like every other baby. This is why it is so important in Luke’s Gospel that Christ is born in a manger, shunned by everyone in Bethlehem. Christ comes into the world undesired and for the most part unloved. He dies hated for being a rebellious religious upstart, after having healed many who did not necessarily deserve His blessing.

Therefore, I cannot help but feel that there’s something profoundly bittersweet and sad about Christmas. Part of the Christmas celebration is about recognizing the salvation that comes with the Nativity, but we conveniently forget that that salvation comes at a tremendous price. I also think of the old Renaissance paintings of the Virgin and Child, where Mary looks slightly melancholy in her contemplation of the God she holds, and the Christ Child restlessly squirms in her embrace, nervous but anxious to do His Father’s Will. Both of them know what will happen. How is it that we seem to have forgotten what will happen?

The true joy of Christmas then, cannot have anything to do with transitory things that grant momentary pleasures. The pure blessings of happiness the season is supposed to bring must be received in acknowledging that we are entirely unworthy of so great a gift. It is through humility and fear of the Lord that we come to appreciate the religious significance of the holiday.

But instead, the holiday has been degraded into a time when children look forward to receiving endless things, and adults (myself included) struggle and grope to recreate the Christmases of their youth. And while there can be beautiful aspects of these as well – that is, the ideas of charity, innocence, nostalgia, and tradition – they seem to reflect only parts of the central idea without laying it bare and honestly. I sympathize with the people who want to “put Christ back in Christmas,” but also with the people who want to celebrate the holiday with exciting parties alongside their families. But if we are to be realistic with ourselves, these things make Christmas a chore, not a joy. By distracting ourselves from the main source of joy in Christmas with several other little and transitory joys, we have missed out a great deal. And we have also created an awful lot of stress and financial burden for ourselves.

I promised that I would somehow include XV The Devil into this post, and now might be a good opportunity to try. Of course, your average Christian will look at the Devil’s presence in the tarot and immediately jump to irrational conclusions about the practice of divination – “it’s satanic!” or “you’ll go to hell!” etc. All of these are of course entirely false. First of all, XV The Devil (at least in Crowley’s tarot) represents an initiated individual who has recreated their own morality based on the nature of their divine True Will. People label something as “a devil” or “evil” if they are afraid of it, or if they do not understand it. An individual who has questioned set modes of morality and made up their own mind on the subject may be unconventional or less inhibited, and could in that case be considered such absurd things by others. But at the same time, psychologists argue that real maturity comes from being able to dissolve morality learned from parents, societies, and religious institutions, and reassemble it back into a better understood, more flexible, and unique framework. The individuals who never take steps to question morality never fully develop as people, and remain in the darkness of ignorance. They are also the people who are most likely to not understand why something is right or wrong. Let this be clearly understood by those who would irrationally and rashly jump to conclusions about the Devil trump card, or tarot in general.

This is a significant aspect of the Devil card, as Crowley writes that he is a symbol of the Messiah revealed to the initiated. Indeed, some Gnostic Christians (albeit “heretical” Christians) believed that Satan and Christ were two sides of the same coin. For them,  Satan lead man to truth and wisdom and thereby redeemed man from his state of ignorance. But Christ Himself fits the description of the Devil card’s personality: He is rebellious; He disobeys the Law of the masses because He possesses greater authentic understanding of it; He advocates preaching of the Gospel by all, despite their ability to do so or not; He is hated by many, and is condemned from the moment of his birth until his Passion; He wields miraculous power over natural substances, whether it be the body, food, or wine; and He is “the Word made flesh.”

I will try to explain this last bit as succinctly as possible, since I realize it is probably the most esoteric part of this post so far. XV The Devil represents the reconciling of the highest with the lowest – the incarnation of the spirit in the flesh. In Kabbalistic term, it is the notion that Kether (IAO, the masculine Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is contained in Malkuth (the body, the Bride of Christ, and the Tabernacle of the Holy Spirit). Kether is the First Mover of the Aristotelian cosmology, and is seen as the First Logos (Word or Will) as well, since a God is synonymous with its Will. In fact, a God may only be contemplated by understanding of its Will, since His name is ineffable and His presence concealed – hence why we come to know the Father through the Son, who represents the Father’s Will. But of course, Christ was made incarnate in the flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit, and through the womb of the Virgin Mary. It is said that in this moment, God reconciled the difference between the highest and lowest, and thereby granted salvation. The Devil card is therefore a representation of the Messiah – the Zeal of the Lord of Hosts descending in joy upon the earth, Malkuth, or the lowest aspect of an individual, and thereby anointing him/her (“Christ” means “anointed one”), granting them prosperity and fertility.

There is nothing “Satanic” about this. Satan in the form Christianity has given him – the glowing red, black-winged, pitchfork-wielding human-devourer – is a fallacy invented by the ignorant in their fear of death. But the image of Satan as the fusion between the Spirit and the animal self that we cannot deny we bear, is entirely relevant.

To return to the matter of Christmas. XV The Devil in its most negative connotation is seen as materialism, and indeed as we have seen he does represent that to some extent, as it represents the incarnation of the spirit in the bowels of the earth. But there is a danger to this, as we are all too aware. When we become too materialistic, we breed egotism, ignorance, and evil. This is the real “Devil” of Christianity, whose force is exhibited in the Seven Deadly Sins, each of which is based on some base desire of the body. These, then, are the meanings contained the spectrum of meanings for the symbol of the Devil. On one hand we have Godliness and the birth of the Messiah – on the other hand, materialism and wickedness. Christmas itself contains both these polar meanings; one is superior, the other far less desirable. In our eagerness to turn Christmas into a meaningless celebration of consumerism, we have substituted the benevolence of God’s gifts with our own, and these could, based on what I have previously written, be considered “evil.”

Once again, it seems that we have rejected the Messiah because we do not try hard enough to understand Him. Like the image of the Devil in the tarot, He is despised for His independence and almost foreign nature. What Christ brought with His message was almost revolutionary. The idea of divinity incarnating as man, thereby coming to understand human suffering, and thus developing enough sympathy for man so as to grant him salvation was not new. This was the basic premise of the Dionysian mystery cult, after all. But the notion that God comes into the world hated and shamed, but still willing to sacrifice Himself out of love even for those who hated Him, was truly unheard of. What Jesus did through His acts was unheard of. His idea of morality was not understood by the majority of people, and because he resisted the power of the moral authority, He was targeted, labeled by many who feared Him as "evil," or even "demonic," and was ultimately slain. 

But of course, there are shades of gray to my argument as far as Christmas is concerned. I don’t mean to suggest that all material aspects of the holiday should be abandoned, only reevaluated. When we place all our expectations for the season in its abundance, we miss out greatly. And frankly, there is an allegorical value to the prosperity Christmas celebrations are supposed to represent. As I mentioned before, the Devil/Messiah is also a symbol of fructification and fertility, success, ecstasy, and supreme happiness. It’s as if all our cultural materialism in regards to the holiday is a reflection of God’s humor; we’re close to understanding it, but simultaneously disastrously distant from it. 

I’d like to end in the same witty vein: XV The Devil represents the sign of Capricorn, which is the sign the sun enters on the 22^nd of December. That’s right – Jesus is a Capricorn.

Da capo section of "He was despised" from Handel's Messiah

[I hope this post did not offend anyone, and only offered some points to meditate on. I would like to include as a disclaimer that I do not consider myself a Satanist in any capacity. I am simply an anti-dogmatist, and I believe in the value of pushing people outside their bounds of “right” and “wrong.” Otherwise, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a blessed New Year.]

State of the Union: A Thanksgiving Tarot Reading

Here's a reading I did on the general state of our country (the US) in honor of Thanksgiving. I asked about the general mindset of our country politically and where we're headed. Hope you find it interesting - I certainly did!

The Story the Thoth Trumps Tell

Here is my attempt to read the trumps as a circle, given their esoteric meanings. I hope it's relatively clear! I tried to keep it simple.

0 The Fool
The Universe as complete Nothing. The sum potential of existence before it has manifested itself as something.
I The Magus
The Masculine Will of the Universe. Presents the doctrine that the unmanifested Being is a unity, or God. This Will is capable of organizing the original chaos of Nothing into categories, though at this stage it is difficult to say that there is concrete differentiation between these categories. There is only the potential for these categories to exist.
II The Priestess
The Feminine counterpart to the Will, or the image of that Will. She is the body of light the Universal Will will shape its creations from. She is therefore the Truth of form - all form is an illusion of the Divine Light.
III The Empress
The result of the affinity between the Will and the Light - impregnation. Because the Will has moved within the Divine Light, there is a concrete something waiting to be born.
IV The Emperor
The sovereign individual point who is Lord of his own Universe. This is a point of perspective and consciousness that may conceivably distinguish itself from the macrocosmic Universe. It itself is a Unity, and therefore a God.
V The Hierophant
The individual learning through experience. Alternatively, this individual point is master of its own knowledge and truth.
VI The Lovers
The doctrine of duality. There is a firm distinction between microcosm and macrocosm. But the two could be considered twins, as they bear the same attributes. Because of this separation, the individual point is capable of drawing insight from the Whole and vice versa.
VII The Chariot
The point endowed with a soul for a vessel. This allows the point to move within the body of the Universe as is its will. Because of duality, the illusion of space and time is now possible. The idea of indestructibility is also implied.
VIII Adjustment
Now that the point is capable of motion and experience, it must now learn the virtue of Free Will, and the karmic repercussions of that. For every action there is a reaction.
IX The Hermit
Now we finally have the concept of the physical body, which, perhaps because of Free Will, has fallen into a less desirable state. But the Godhead (the point), which dwells secretly within the body, is the initiator of the True Will - the path of Rectitude and Virtue for that given point of consciousness. It has inherited this from the Will of the Universe. In secret the Godhead of the individual works to "redeem" the physical body from its state of disobedience, and guides it towards maturity and self-understanding.
X Fortune
The resulting combination of all these forces. The various parts of the human being vie for supremacy, and thereby create various events in the individual's life. The point remains the axle of the wheel, and therefore does not move. It is perpetually the center of its own universe.
XI Lust
A particularly interesting response to Fortune. One reading shows that it is the fusion of all the individual's components through the act of "love under will." The energy contained in each part can be guided toward the realization of a desired outcome - i.e. a magickal act. Another reading reveals this to be the Red Tincture, or lion, of the alchemists. It is the masculine, solar, creative energy bound up in the individual. At its most basic level, this stage represents the sexual act in general.
XII The Hanged Man
From the perspective of ritual magick, this represents the sacrifice of the potential life in the male semen as a result of orgasm. It may also appear as the illusion of the creative urge being stifled as a result of the orgasm. If the sexual act is used for procreation, however, the card can represent the infusion of the spirit in a new life form. Being associated with water, both acts are seen as a kind of baptism; the former is a baptism for the magician, the latter is a baptism for the newly conceived physical being.
XIII Death
The mystery of Resurrection on several levels. Firstly, it represents the recovery of the male after the "death" of orgasm. Despite the supposed "death" of the libido after its release, it eventually returns. The libido is immortal, and can only be transformed into various guises. Secondly, it represents the reincarnation that took place in Atu XII, in which a baby was conceived. The idea is that this infant is at its core is an indestructible point itself, and that whatever form it decides to take in this life is a result of its experiences and choices in previous lives. Lastly, the card represents the White Tincture, or the eagle, of the alchemists. It is the feminine, lunar creative impulse, which is passive and destructive, as opposed to the masculine, which is active and creative. One must remember that both Creation and Destruction are polarities that makeup the general idea of Life.
XIV Art
Having undergone the process of Creation and Destruction, the individual is prepared for the actual moment of Resurrection. This is the culmination of the INRI formula (which I encourage you to look up). It is the representation of the doctrine of evolution; the positive plus the negative equals a third thing which is different from the original two, but bears some of their traits. This card is also the fulfillment of VI The Lovers and IX The Hermit. The individual has been able to fuse the masculine and feminine parts of his/her identity and has thus become androgynous. They have disintegrated the boundary between higher self and lower self, and has become whole, as well as an entirely new Being. By doing this, they are set on the path of the True Will. Lastly, the card speaks of the alchemical command to "find the hidden stone." This is none other than the original point of consciousness concealed in the physical being.
XV The Devil
The god Pan and the above-mentioned "hidden stone." In this stage, Pan is Pangenitor, All-Begetter. This is the newly created individual after having undergone the formula of Resurrection. They are complete, and have ascertained their original godhead. They also have discovered the nature of their True Will, and they set out to manifest it with utmost ambition and enjoyment, despite the response from other people. This person now may be misconstrued as "a devil" because they have attained autonomy, and therefore are not dependent upon the consent of others. They are unapologetic for fulfilling their purpose, and by doing so they infuse the material universe with prosperity. The union of the highest and the lowest has been complete, and the individual has begun his/her work to redeem the material universe.
XVI The Tower
This is Pan as Panphage, All-Devourer. Because of the individual's reformation process, their perspective on the material world has been entirely eradicated. They have learned that the material plane is one of illusion. The distinction between Self and Other has been destroyed, and all material events and things are seen as an extension of Self.
XVII The Star
At this point, the veils covering the Divine Self are removed. One realizes they are a unique conduit for the Divine Will of the Universe, and are allowed to be because they are a royal child of the Universe. Perhaps we could say that as much as the material universe is the full extension of the individual, so is the individual the full extension of the unmanifested Universe. This is the optimistic revelation that, through one's existence, the limitless potential of the Universe comes to be. Internal change results in external change. What seems impossible is possible with God.
XVIII The Moon
The revelation of the Universe as stagnant without the intercession of the individual's action on the path of True Will. The True Will is creative, and is culmination of the Divine Will. The Universe as a metaphorical womb is left stagnant and infertile as long as this Will is left unfulfilled. Sin is the result of inaction, or action taken in a direction away from that of the True Will.
XIX The Sun
Fertility reasserted. Triumph and victory over darkness. Light is brought to the darkness by the virtue of the individual. The realization of the True Will resulting in Love, Liberty, Light, and Life.
XX The Aeon/Judgment
As a result, stagnation is purged from the world, and the world is redeemed. The proper order of things is established. The beginning of a new era because of the work done by the individual.
XXI The Universe
The individual point of consciousness, having completed the Great Work, finally returning to the Origin of All, the Nothingness of unmanifested Being. But there is the implication that the sum total of All was always Nothing all along, and that the whole experience was but a game, or a play. As Goethe writes, "Alles vergängliche," "all is allegory." The process is now ready to repeat itself, not for any purpose, but for the sake of Universal evolution and enjoyment.

The Sacred Feminine: The Christian and Thelemic Perspectives

The Hodegetria

Since we are in a Marian devotional month in the liturgical calendar, I have of course been meditating a lot on the Virgin Mary and her allegorical purpose. Personally, I believe that she is one of those figures in the Bible that cannot be taken at all literally, and that she must solely be interpreted allegorically. Otherwise she makes no logical sense, and of course we must always put our faith to trial by the fires of intellect and experience. In recorded history prior to the invention of artificial insemination, there are no births by Virgins as far as I am aware. There are many in mythology, however! So quite clearly Our Lady, like many figures from the Bible, is a mythological personage who expresses a sublime philosophical idea regarding nature. This is not to lower her position or to degrade, for by all means she is still mightily exalted. Thus we must regard her nature as such, and not view her with certain mundane interpretations.

I think what my first issue thinking about Mary was that she is known as "the mother of us all." Now, I understand that to many this would have to do with the fact that Mary is also the Church, and through her we are baptized in the name of Christ. Thus we are "reborn." But are we not already baptized in Christ merely by existing? For "through Him all things were made." He is that which is, and through Him beings have their ability to exist. Nothing may be said to exist unless it partakes in a fundamental union with the Logos. (I prefer to refer to Christ as the Logos for that is what He represents. It is better to use general terms such as these in order to not exclude anyone who is not necessarily "Christian." Because of course the Logos/Christ is not a concept only contained in Western thought, and we should remember this.) Again, the Logos is that fundamental defining purpose for an existing being. It is its DNA, if you will - the coding for its manifested existence.

But the Logos in and of itself is useless. Like a man with no female partner, it cannot create by its own means. Therefore it must create for itself a feminine counterpart, or a passive extension and image of itself. If we look at the Sephiroth, this is clearly illustrated for us. Kether, sometimes referred to as the first Logos, first mover, etc., begets Chokhmah and Binah, the Father and the Mother respectively. Kether is the original point of unextended, impartial existence. Nothing can be said about it other than the fact that it exists. Chokhmah, the more overt Logos and the first sephirah on the Pillar of Mercy, is Kether's first more defined force or wisdom. Now we can say something about the original point of existence - we can characterize its will. However, we cannot really understand it. Binah, understanding and the first sephirah on the Pillar of Severity, teaches us the limitations of this wisdom and thereby balances out Chokhmah's infinite stream of force. The harmony between these two factors, the masculine active will and the feminine passive will, or the Will of God with the Image of God, results in the birth of something definitive and glorious. It is the birth of the Word made Flesh.

I hope now you see the obvious correlation between the Sephirotic/Neo-Platonic philosophy and the Christian Mystery of the Incarnation. They are strikingly similar. The Virgin Mary is a representation of Binah, the Divine Feminine, and Christ is more or less Chokhmah and Kether sort of conglomerated, or the Divine Masculine. It's difficult to really fit Christ into the Sephiroth because they're simply different systems of interpretation, and they do not intersect seamlessly. Christ is somewhat akin to the Ain Soph, Kether, Chokhmah, and Tiphareth all at the same time. I believe it depends on how we are talking about Him. If we refer to the Logos as that which is coeternal with the Father, then we are referring to the Ain Soph. If we mean Him to represent the Cornerstone of any existing being, then we mean Kether. If we speak of Him as the Life or Will of any existing being, then we mean Chokhmah. And finally, if we mean to speak of Him as Jesus Christ, the dying and resurrecting man-God, then we mean to say Tiphareth, or consciousness at the level of Tiphareth.

Regardless, the Virgin Mary still fits very neatly into the category of Binah, or even the Ain Soph Aur. For our purposes, however, let us stick to the idea of Binah, and leave the Ain Soph Aur for even more lofty discussions. Frankly, the whole business of Ain-anything is really confusing, and is meant to be so. Being at the very top of the Tree of Life, it is the most hidden, the most esoteric, the most difficult to describe, and yet it best describes the idea of God as unmanifested, unmade Being. But leaving all that aside, let us instead return the original Marian myth: the Annunciation. In the story, Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel, who pronounces her to be the future Mother of God. She humbly accepts the divine command issued by the archangel, calling herself "the handmaid of the Lord," and as a result is infused with the Holy Spirit and conceives Jesus. By giving birth to God, Mary in effect gives birth to all things that are made, and essentially baptizes all those things in the waters of her womb in the name of Christ. Note that Mary's name has the obvious etymological connection to the word "mare" in Latin, which translates to "sea." St. Jerome was the first Christian writer to write about this connection prominently, and it is from him that we get the imagery for the famous Marian hymn Ave maris stella (Hail, Star of the Sea). Mary therefore has an overt connection to the ocean and the womb. In Genesis as well, remember that "the Spirit of God moved across the waters" and brought life from chaos.

Atu III The Empress represents the Feminine
as the Vessel of Nature. Her letter is Daleth
which means "door." Her path on the
Sephiroth connects Chokhmah to Binah.

Mary then is not just a humble maiden mother. She is the womb of Nature, and is the Feminine will to live. She is rightly called "the door of life," for through her all things are born. The sacred Word that Christ represents is "Life," and she is its vessel. When she accepts the Divine Will to Live, she accepts Life in its most chaotic form. Remember that Chokhmah is barely defined, and Kether has virtually no definition. Chokhmah in particular is simply the infinite force and vigor of Life itself, the original impartial point of existence extending its energy outwards. With the third point, Binah, that energy is confined in the shape of a triangle - a metaphorical womb. Mary is associated with virtue and prudence because she Understands the proper course for Life. She is coequal with the Father, Chokhmah, and is the final direct expression of Kether, the Crown. By her means, Kether is able to manifest itself in space and time, and thereby experience itself as a made Being.

However, because she is "virtuous" does not mean she is so in any human sense of the word. Virtue is highly subjective, and in this case the example she sets for us by her humility does not mean we should humble ourselves to the point of absurdity. For example, women should not necessarily be housewives and remain subservient to men. Chastity is not necessarily a "good" thing, for by it we restrict the force of Life. Mary's passivity is the acceptance of Life in whatever form it can come in. She is understanding of God's wisdom because she knows how best to limit it for its own wellbeing. This limitation is more or less known as death. The Divine Feminine is the great recycler, being both the Fertile Mother and the Sterile Mother. She is fairness and justice in its highest notion, for she is balanced. For as much life she brings forth she also brings forth as much death. But this is how existence is allowed to remain intact. Can you imagine if nothing died? It'd be anarchy! In some ways we should be really thankful for death, even though it's obviously something most of us don't look forward to (myself included).

Now to bring in Mr. Crowley on this. Crowley equates Binah with the Whore of Babalon, and Chokhmah with Father Chaos, which of course all sounds very Satanic and icky. But at the same time, these descriptions make sense. Chokhmah has no sense of restriction, whereas Binah is the original notion of restriction. However, Binah does not restrict herself from impregnation with God's Will, no matter what form it decides to come in. We are more than aware of the diversity of Life - Life constituting all existing things, be they "alive" or "inanimate." The Divine Will to create Life then is equally diverse, and infinitely so. Binah/Mary as the humble Feminine accepts these creations and births them, but on the condition that they must eventually die. Binah/Mary as the Virgin remains ever fruitful, for her womb is never deprived of its fertility. She loves all of her creations equally, and subjects all of them to the same fair treatment out of this love. The love she has extends beyond the individual and encompasses the Universe. This is how the desires of the individual are not necessarily equivalent to what is actually best for that individual, given their relationship to the Universe at large.

So those of us who are lucky enough to raise their consciousness to the level of Binah effectively "die." They lose all sense of individuality, because they have ascertained their connection with the World. Their personal desires and identities are rendered meaningless in the sight of all that is made. Binah, like the Virgin Mary, shows us the Way of God, which is in Christ. She is our Guide, our Fountain of Life, our Protector, our Mother. The medieval tropes that continue to survive in modern Marian prayers certainly have some validity to them. By knowledge of the Mother we may come to knowledge of the Father/Son, and through knowledge of Him, we attain knowledge of God.

Gabriel with his scroll dispenses the
Will and Word of God to the Virgin
in the form of the Holy Spirit.

I'm sure some of you are still feeling weird about the correlation I have drawn between the Virgin Mary and the Whore of Babalon. I admit it is a stark comparison. First of all, remember that Crowley's whole linguistic methodology was based on juxtaposition. He used old concepts and renamed them things people found repulsive. By doing this he teaches us a great lesson - we cannot decide what God should and should not be based on subjective personal or cultural preference. God simply Is. Second of all, remember what Crowley says about existence above the Abyss, that "contradiction is unity." The concepts of virginity and whoredom are polarized against each other. But who can really say one is "positive" and the other "negative?" Above the Abyss, their contradiction becomes unity, and they come to represent the same thing impartially.

I think what is most important about all this is to see the foolishness of Christian morality regarding sexuality and women. It is not necessarily God's Will that everyone should be chaste, nor is it possible that he prefers chastity to sexuality. It is not reasonable to say that woman is below man. Outside of the realm of sexuality and women, it is also foolish to say that baptism only occurs through the Church, when simply by being born we are baptized through Mary in the name of the Logos. Etc.

Limiting the Circle

There is a particularly disconcerting section of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians – 4:8 through 4:9.

“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

While this is at first a seemingly lovely passage, it makes no logical sense after further review. If God is infinite unmanifested Being, an eternal, infinite circle, if you will, how can we say anything definitive about Him? Furthermore, no one shares the same ideas of “purity,” or “goodness.” Your concepts of these things may be entirely different from mine, and so therefore we cannot take Paul’s advice literally. We cannot suggest that there are universal concepts of “goodness” which apply to God. Rather, more generally, we must accept that God can be expressed by the sum total of potential goods, as cognitively defined by an infinite number of potential people.

Therefore, we must also include things that are “bad” in the understanding of God, for what makes something “bad” other than the fact that it does not immediately satisfy the needs of an individual? One man’s “bad” is another’s “good.” The philosopher Nietzsche wrote extensively on this concept, and of course he is absolutely correct. I could say that a given bacteria is “bad” because it makes me sick, but from that bacteria’s point of view, my white blood cells are “bad” because they’re trying to kill the bacteria. But of course my blood cells in my opinion are quite “good” because they ensure my survival. Survival and security are perhaps the most important things to us on the most fundamental part of our beings. Our emotional needs, such as our need for love and attention, stem from our need for security. When we feel like we do not have these, we are more susceptible to committing faults against others.

Needless to say, God cannot be understood as the “supreme Good,” unless we conceptualize that as being the sum total of all potential goods, which would be infinite. Since of course, all of these would be different, nothing definitive can be said about the nature of God’s goodness. We can only agree in as neutral a sense possible that God is “good.”

The individual perspective is terribly important, and it is a shame Christianity fails to realize this. Its message of self-sacrifice and community building has been so warped that it no longer makes any sense. If we want Christianity to sound less like babbling idiocy and more like a sensible philosophy, we must weed through a tremendous amount of muddled muck. For a religion that is supposed to be so “standardized,” its symbols and myths are too confused, and do not clearly state an obvious doctrine that resonates with human experience as a whole. It projects a very Western mindset. Of course there are many aspects of Christianity that people across the world connect to, particularly ideas of suffering, charity, and equality.

But the human experience at the biological level, the natural level, does not agree with it. In fact, nature, the manifestation of God’s divine law, wholly rejects most of Christianity’s notions. Competition, death, and violence are inherent building blocks of nature. Nature produces itself through these methods, and since they seem to threaten our individual survival, we proclaim them to be bad and use religion to invent a hypothetical desired future-world where none of these things exist. God will supposedly wipe these things clean and there will only be “goodness,” and “peace.” But what would be the consequences of this? How would we deal with overpopulation of every species? The unfortunate reality is that disease, war, and famine are absolutely necessary for every species. God is not just in any moral or human sense of the word, but He is exact. The justice of God ensures that creation is measured appropriately, so that the universe as a whole maintains a perfect equilibrium. Otherwise, imbalance would lead to chaos, which would lead to collapse. So our wistful notions of “peace” are impossible, and are ignorant of reality. We are moving from God and knowledge of Him even further when we focus on goals such as these.

Peace, then, must be on the individual level. Everyone knows of the inner battles we all wage within ourselves. One part of us wants one thing, another part the opposite. Our biological needs contest with our moral desires and vice versa, and thus our decision-making is cluttered and unfocused. But we can ask God for peace in this regard. We can ask the Lord to grant us the power of His Son, His Will and His Word, who represents a sublimely focused willpower. The Divine Will is that which is capable of binding our own disparate will into one complete force. By doing this we attain a state of great power, calm, and wisdom. No longer do we feel insecure and threatened by others, but instead we feel prepared to face greater challenges. We begin to trust that the doors that were once closed will open for us. This is the sense in which peace may lead to progress. This is the kind of inner peace that will lead to better, purer relationships between humans. But “world peace” will never do this. That sort of peace could only be instituted by governments with pens and papers, and could do nothing to truly bring the minds of men and women to peace. Discord starts at the individual level and emanates outward from us, affecting all around us. Fix the issue at the source and spread peace around you in this fashion. But do not believe that peace should come from others sacrificing or effacing themselves for your sake, so that you might have it easier. Sometimes they are wrong and sometimes you are wrong, but these are easier to deal with if at least one of the individuals can approach the situation with calmness, security, and clarity, and not with unchecked, foolish emotions.

Religions have the very unfortunate tendency to dumb doctrine down into myths and stories so that the masses may have access to their wisdom. The issue arises when the masses don’t have the courage or intelligence to see beyond the veil of these stories by checking them against their own experiences and knowledge. It is true that there are some things about God that we cannot logically understand, particularly as was previously demonstrated. Very little can be intelligently and definitively said about God, if anything at all. But logic must not be seen as pointless in terms of spirituality. We must treat life as a science, in which we learn about the world through experimentation. Every experience is an experiment – some yield fruit, others do not. Everyone has the right to choose for themselves which experiences they wish to strive for in order to reap the greatest result. Let no one consider these experiences “bad” or “good,” but only as neutral experiments. Do not invoke God in order to enforce a specific morality. Doing so is to blaspheme against His very nature – to limit His Being. We can no longer say that Judeo-Christian values are the only important values in the world, for we know that many people have gotten along fine without them. Instead, let us yearn to know a God that is far mightier and less petty. Let us desire the Lord who is All, who is Being unmade, and not the idealistic invention of individuals.

A Truly Polyphonic Post

Hello all,

I realize I haven't made a blogpost in over a month! I hate to have been so negligent, but I honestly just haven't felt the need to write anything. After a fairly lonely summer (or at least until the tail end of it), one full of endless contemplation and thinking, it has been nice to not worry about the universe so seriously, or so intensely for awhile.

But in the meantime, there have been many things I've been thinking about as I continue to grow and learn through God's wonderful guidance. Please allow me to share them with you here.

1.) Know that you know nothing, no one else knows anything either, and all of that's alright.

The first thing I learned this summer was pretty simple. Despite my copious factual knowledge of all sorts of odds and ends regarding occultism, Christianity, and philosophy, I know absolutely nothing definitively about the universe. At first, this was truly terrifying for me. I'm the type of person who likes to feel they have the answers to puzzles and problems, and to finally be convinced of my own inadequacy in this regard was really troubling for me. But then it seemed to just pass, and now I'm perfectly ok with it. If anything, I feel more excited to pursue more experiences in life, because I also think this moment in my life taught me to rely more on my own experiences. The hackneyed statement that "experience is the greatest teacher" has a lot of truth in it.

This summer I also began working for the Church, and it got out that I read tarot. Unfortunately, some closed-minded individuals were greatly displeased with this information, and confronted me about it, and eventually left the organization I run. Needless to say, I was pretty distressed by this. Was my ability to read tarot "evil?" or "sinful?" I had to conclude that it wasn't, since it hasn't brought me much of anything other than a simple happiness, and a much stronger faith in God. If anything, it has humbled me more than exalted me, showing and reminding me constantly of my own inabilities and failings, and demonstrating the far superior guidance of God, which even though I trust, I can never seem to obey. In short, I am wretched. But I trust that I am where I should be, and that these are all tests for me. I trust that whatever miseries I create for myself shall be converted into even greater goods by the Lord (or whatever name you wish to give Him/Her).

Through this humility, I have been taught quite sternly and fairly the reality of the above statement: "I know nothing." But if I know nothing, then it is just as likely that no one else knows anything either. And so I came to see that we can only really know about who we are, and how we fit into the universe - that is our sublime ability. But, on the other hand, knowledge of the Universe as a whole is often kept from us, and we must trust that that is what's best for us. We must be content with the knowledge we garner from our own experiences of the universe, for this alone may bring about great happiness.

2.) Fear less, trust more.

Along the same lines, I believe now so firmly alongside Julian of Norwich that we must place all our trust in God, for when we fear, we are more apt to commit faults against other men and women. The man who feels secure has no need to attack others, but the man who feels unfounded develops fear, and this is the root of most evil. For it is true that humans are animals, and we are therefore an aggressive species at times. Certainly there are times when it is best to be aggressive, but not because we feel affronted by our peers. Competition is a necessary aspect of the universe, and it ensures growth, change, and evolution. This is how the universe may attain even greater perfections - this is the wonder of the world. That that which is already so wonderful can become even more wonderful over the ages. True, change is a fluctuation, and it is better to conceptualize development more as a spiral than a line... And as usual, I digress. The point is this: we must believe and have faith that God is constantly with us, observing our trials, our actions, and our thoughts, and He holds all of them in the palm of His hand. There is nothing outside of God's power, and it is best to thank Him for all the constant work He does and support He gives us.

With less fear, we can begin to experience and learn more, and thereby shed our ignorance bit by bit. "Question, O man!" Discover for yourself your own nature, your own truths through your experiences. Accept that all experiences are valid, that none is superior to another, for each experience is the creation of a new reality. Through each moment, God creates anew, and we are witness to it. My friends, as I write this, I cannot help but feel slightly overwhelmed by the magnitude of that statement, and again, I am humbled once more and thankful to the point of tears. There is so much to be thankful for, through good and ill, and we must trust that this is so, even though from our perspectives things may seem entirely bleak at a given moment. But remember that "My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts." Do not be afraid to learn more about life, for our Creator also bears a great zeal for existence, and a deep love for His creations. He does not bar us from participating in any experience, and we must know that the idea of sin is much more specific than was once believed. Sin is personal, and is based on our own recurring trials - for truly life is composed of a spiral of trials and tests that are meant to bring us to even greater glory. Only through trust in the Lord may we triumph over these. Please believe me, for everything in my life has only told me that this is true, and I feel it to be true so strongly within myself that I can do nothing other than speak it aloud.

3.) Do not fear death or loss.

It is only natural to fear these things, but we must again trust that they are not as relevant as we may think them to be. Fear of these things comes from too much focus on the mundane, or from objectifying people. On a personal level, we must remember that the important things of our life are contained safely in our memories, and have left an indelible mark upon our world schema. Through the memory, a being is able to preserve their experiences, and is thus able to grow perpetually through them. Likewise, the same experience may be revisited throughout one's life in order to be observed from different perspectives. Sometimes we do not have the correct tools with which to experience something fairly, and so we have an improper emotional reaction to it. In a simple example, we often think that when people are rude to us it is our fault entirely, or that the individual is just a bad person socially. But later we may come to discover that that person was having tremendous financial difficulty at home, or that one of his loved ones was ill, or even something much more basic - they hadn't eaten and were hungry, so they were quick to snap at others. Obviously there are many possibilities and I'm sure you get the point. But it's easy for us to forget this in the moment, and it is good to keep in mind while experiencing anything of note, that we will most likely not be able to adequately analyze that moment until much later in life. This is how we grow and become more profound individuals - we gain wisdom this way, and more moderate temperament. Thus, fear not for the loss of an experience materially. Instead, trust that if it was truly important to your development as a being, it would remain in your memory, and that it would leave a mark on your identity in some fashion. For instance, attending a class on early music in college has undoubtedly left its mark on me. As much as I miss that class and long for that moment in my life, I know that I am perpetually preserving that experience simply by pursuing other interests in early music. Thus, that moment or experience has not really "died," nor have I lost it.

And as far as literal death is concerned, we must first remember that it is natural, and will happen eventually. We are lucky to be natural beings, but the price of that is subjectivity to death. But I personally believe we must trust that death is not the end of anything, but merely a transmutation of our current energies and identity into something different, so that we may continue to experience. Nature teaches us that death is rarely finite, though of course, this is one of those things that I have learned to just think about less. I can't tell you what happens after death. I can just suggest that it doesn't help to worry about it.

4.) Respect yourself before trying to respect others.

It is impossible to sincerely give charity to others until you give charity to yourself. Firstly, accept that you are flawed, but simultaneously accept that you are learning. Allow yourself to learn and make mistakes, and to try new things. Know yourself well, and know what your needs and capabilities are. Confront the dark parts of yourself fearlessly by treating them impartially. This is not possible immediately, but comes with time. That is the beauty of the memory - we may revisit trauma and the details associated with it endlessly until they all hurt us less. But we must first choose to confront them in the first place, as a solitary soldier may take on many. The courageous will fight until they have emerged victor, but the weak will only give in and be trampled. Courage takes faith, and faith must be in God. Know that strength is available to you, but you must decide to look for it, and you must choose to wield it justly against your enemies. Look for these enemies not outside yourself but within, for indeed they lay in wait very near to you, ready to ambush you at any given opportunity. Therefore, be vigilant and wary - protect yourself with the armor of your experience, intellect, and faith and you will surely survive. The devil is not in your friends, but is in you.

Along these same lines, the idea of a "devil" is confusing. We must not believe that there is a being so turned against God that he desires to confuse and mislead all of God's creations. This is foolishness, for anything that may call itself a being has its existence through God. Thus, the idea of the devil really speaks of that-which-does-not-exist. And since God is all-pervasive and the only reality, there is no such thing as a Satan or devil, unless that figure is an aspect of God. There is so much scorn for this figure because we see only the bad things that this figure causes for us, but in doing so we fail to see that it is not an external enemy that is causing the grievances, but rather an internal one we have created ourselves, willingly or unwillingly. These become trials for us, and we learn and become stronger through them. We find faith through them. And so this is how we may come to laugh at "the devil" and how we may see "him" as "good," and how we must accept that his actions are for our improvement and come from the will of God. For truly no other agenda may exist, and no other being may exist. There is only God and the will of God.

Benedicite Domine!