The Road to Kether

ESSAY - DEFINING SPIRIT

2008-07-23T13:06:42Z

If we wish to pinpoint what Spirit represents on an elemental realm we must look at what its manifestations are on the physical and extrapolate as per the Hermetic axiom ‘As above, so below’. Spirit is also known as the fifth element or Quintessence. It is said to be the source of all the other elements, and yet is something apart from them. It’s tattva is known as Akasha, the astral record and its symbol is either the Cosmic Egg or the Vesica Pisces.

Before we go any further though we must look at the end products of Spirit; the other four elements. Aristotle developed the theory that all of physical reality is made up of the four classical elements (earth, air, fire, and water) in varying degrees. Thus it can be said that we can find the elements on a more fundamental level than just their obvious manifestations. In the physical realms everything is either on one of four tangible states; solid, liquid, gas, or plasma.

Solids have the lowest energy. They are comparatively strong, and can be described as ‘cold and dry’, in that they lack the energy for their constituents to become fluid like liquids and gases. So they cannot flow like water and are not animated as is fire. Solids thus correspond to the element of earth.

Liquids, by the same token, flow, they have more energy than solids, allowing their individual particles to move about, but they still have less energy than gases and plasmas;
thus, giving them the quality of cold and wet. They correspond to Water.

Gases, still flow like liquids but are not limited energetically. They move a lot easier and are capable of being held by naught but moving air (a mixture of gases in itself). They have a higher energetic state than the previous two states but lack the energy of fire. They are thus warm and moist. Gases correspond to Air.

Plasma is the little known fourth state of matter. It is what happens when a substance obtains such a high amount of energy that all the electrons in the outer reaches of its very atoms fly away. It is in this state that light is commonly emitted. Plasmas do not generally flow in the same way as what liquids and gases do, making them dry, and they are of a higher energy state than gases making them warm. Their macrocosmic analogue is fire.

Once a substance reaches the plasma state all the extremities of its substance are stripped away leaving its atomic core. The very thing that defines what it is. Thus spirit could be thought of as the very thing which holds the atom together, the nuclear force. But, just as with the lower forms, when given energy it gives way to higher forms.

Solid → Liquid → Gas → Plasma → Light (Pure energy)

When we supply the stable portion of spirit with energy (that is the force binding the atom itself together) we disturb the inherently static equilibrium of that atom, breaking away its remaining earthly bonds and transmuting it into various forms of light and pure energy.

So we have passive spirit which is the force that binds together (in physical reality it is the weak and strong nuclear forces, the gravitational force and the electromagnetic force, in humans it is unconditional love), and we also have active spirit that force which transcends its current limits fully to become a step closer to the divine.

Let us examine light for a moment, as this seems to be the final form of things in this dimension. We start out as crude matter and slowly through attaining higher and higher energy states we transmute into energy. Thus there is no actual dividing line between the things, but rather a spectrum from the physical Malkuth-like state to the luminal state of Kether.

Light is generated by the interaction between electrical and magnetic fields. As one oscillates it causes the other to do the same and thus a wave is propagated. The grossest manifestation of electricity on this plane is lightning. Because of its overt, projective, and highly energetic nature, lightning (and hence electricity) is thought of as being masculine. Whereas magnetism (often associated with the earth, which is one massive magnet) is subtle, and draws things to it by covert means, and thus is inherently female. So it could be said that the flow of energy between male and female is in itself spirit.

Like spirit, (and unlike the grosser elements of the physical planes) light does not know time or space, and indeed the more one behaves like light (eg travelling at the speed of light) the more one, too, exhibits these qualities. By embracing the divine and allowing oneself to transcend physical existence we do not know age, or mortality as it exists on this realm. We become able to move to any time or place within this pocket of 4-Dimensional space. Thus are we able to examine the akashic records transcending time, and thus are we able to travel though that in-between place known as the Correspondence point or the Astral Plane.

In closing, spirit is that element that represents the source of all things; The Alpha and the Omega, the Zero-Point Field, the Cosmic Womb, and the Font of God, it is also the binding force that unites the universe in harmony that is known as Love, that greatest of all magics.

From Tuesday night

2008-07-23T12:55:28Z

For a while now I have thought of myself as having filled my head with rubbish; confusing myself with a pulsating morass of facts that have no place in my shamanically wired mind. And therefore the goal was to undo the damage of trying to cram a lifetime’s portion of qabbalistic study into a decade of brainspace. It was my mandate to unlearn all the ceremonial constructs that I had learnt and to re-learn, and re-awaken all those atavistic functions I had been ignoring.

For the last 5 years I have been battling a malady akin to depression, I refrain from calling it such because I have never been formally diagnosed, as thus have no real claim to that label. It alternates between moments of pure joy and giddying bliss, when I can feel the earth moving beneath my feet, and live changing and growing all around me, and other moments where I feel hollow and full of pure oblivion. Where a quiet, unceremonial death by my own hand seems preferable to the conflagration I know the gods have prepared for me.

I played the blame game in various forms. I first blamed Anita for all of my woes. She was not loving or attentive enough. Our intimate life was virtually non-existent and so I had to find other avenues to express what should have been with her. Things like this which when I reflect back seem like the mewling drivel or a self obsessed adolescent.
I then blamed myself. I wasn’t a good partner. I was a wolf amongst the sheep. I was a dark, anti-social individual who always wanted what was not theirs to have. And when I look back on this, I find the incarnation of me at that life stage just as annoying as the first one. After I blaming people I turned to things and concepts. Magic was to blame. I would pull away from it. But I found I could not, for man is awakened to the truth of colour, can he ever go back to living in a monochromatic world? Or worse, a totally darkened one, and not feel loss? It was not the magic that was to blame.

I then threw myself in the opposite direction. Perhaps magic would be the solution to what it was that plagued me, but the more I learned, and the more I studying, the more I realized that I had discovered nothing newer than what I already knew. To the point where I was and still teaching other people the Ars Magica. Knowledge, whether it be physical, mental or metaphysical was not the key.

So here I am, at the point where I have come full circle, and the only thing that I have found different, the key to all my woes, the key the emptiness, and the forever chasing Pwyll’s hart is this. The answer was within all along.

I had turned from myself. In an effort to become what I saw in others as being stable, and perfect, I’ve come to the realization that I am as perfect as they, and that is not at all. My magic was always with me. I didn’t need to memorize a swag of tables or correspondences. I didn’t need to learn how to intone in godly names in barbarous tongues, I don’t need to conform to a hierarchy of peers to be considered good. None of this matters. I am at the point where I was realized that everyone has their problems, their falls and foibles. And if they seem to have a better handle on stuff than I do its because, either my view is flawed, or they are extremely great at acting.

My answer is not in all the extra knowledge I now have at my disposal, but neither is this knowledge the source of my woes. During my second degree, the diverse and divergent sections of my own mind can to a truce. There would be no vying for things. They would all work together to the benefit of the holistic organism which is Me. But what they need to do, what I need to do is turn back to myself. Re-discover me, all the joys of me, and where me ends and you begin. Because I think I will find there won’t be an ending. But a spectrum. We are not discrete, we are not atomos we are waves that meld and grow and change, and we all ride of the same ocean. The issue I have, is this, the Me that is me is different to the one when I was 15, 18, 22, or 25. And thus while I am at the core the same, I have experience, and knowledge to assimilate.

It is not a matter of mastering the various aspects of me, it is a matter of joining them all together, uniting the Bard, the Mystic, the Warrior, and the Trickster together into a King that would make Arthur shake in his boots. So this is my Magnum Opus for my Third Degree. I used to think of the degrees as being stepping stones, or plateaus on the way up. Now I think of them as being vantage points for seeing the whole self. And I think my teachings will now reflect this. Happiness does not rest on the shoulders of Achievement. They are companions that help the Self down the Path of Life. The key is not to let either drive overrule either the Other of the Self.

The thing I think my happiness relies on is me, and how I interact with me. Do I give myself the life I deserve, or the scraps and seconds that remain after I sacrifice the rest to everyone else?? I think I deserve the best. I owe it to myself to eat properly, the exercise, to spend good time with Sara, and pursue my life’s passions. But more importantly I owe it to myself to take a step back and get to know myself better.

The Beginning

2008-05-03T03:56:29Z

This journal is a record of my journey through life while studying for my Third Degree in Alexandrian Wicca. At times it will be ugly, and if it offends I apologise. It also is a viewing place for any essays I write in the course of this study. I am not going to bother with LJ-Cuts and as such you have been warned. If you add this to your friends list then expect big posts. Anyhow having said that, on with the show.

I have been told by my High Priestess, Inanna to keep a journal of all my thoughts and feelings once I step aside as I High Priest of the Coven of the Howling Moon in the nxt few weeks. But me being the obstinate shit I am have started earlier.

I guess main feeling I had originally was fear.

Firstly, having created the Coven from the ground up and having different ideas than most 'Traditional' groups, I have always introduced people into the group the idea that as free thinking individuals our group should aim to have a great deal of autonomy and independence from the mainstream BTW community. We observe our own Sabbat Rites, have our own badges of office and while we share the common experience of initiation, and have a great body of knowledge common to the rest of the Alexandrian, there are some fundamental differences. Things like the introductions of therianthropy and its use as a means of re-building the individual into a fully evolved being. I was afraid that the things that linked us within the group would be eradicated, and in my absence the group would be indoctrinated into some cookie-cutter mould Trad Wicca.

Secondly, I have always had the fear of irrelevance. That no matter how much I do, no matter how much I work for something, that in the end I would fade into the background as if I never was. With me gone for a period, it would be an opportunity for others to prove themselves. And while this is a good thing, there was/is a small part of me that feels that if others prove to be more than just compitent at their roles I would no longer figure into the equation.

Thirdly, I've had an irrational fear that my partner (our current High Priestess) is going to leave me for my replacement. I know how her and I started out as teacher and student, and eventually that evolved into priest and priestess and further still into life partners. I have been worried that, again, with me out of the picture there is the opportunity for things to develop there along those lines.

Finally I guess I'm afraid that the group would fall apart without me. Without my constant putting into the coven it would cease to be and slowly drift apart. And the last few years would've been an illusion.

So as you can see I have a massive issue with letting go. I have however resolved myself to doing certain things. For starters, if things go awry, I can always address them upon return to the role. If I have done things properly and both my High Priestess and her student, my replacement (who is doing it as part of his training) will have no problems doing things. I will have built a stable house. If not then I simply need to review what has been done, where it went wrong and how to correct it. Either way my stamp has been left, and like a lot of others who have attempted to master the Ars Magica, becoming history is immortality, not irrelevance.

If the coven falls apart in my absence then there is something very wrong, and the group probably was not meant to function in the first instance.

I need to learn to trust my partner. I have not always been the best to her and as such I get scared that she will justify any indiscretion with reference to our past. I need to let go of that past, and not be scared of it. In that way I need to learn to trust her perfectly both in and outside of circle.

Now that I think of it, there is an unresolved issue of history outside of coven, but between one of my teachers and a now ex-girlfriend. Or more to it between the teacher and I. I guess at the time I saw someone who seduced my girlfriend away from me. And there is a fear that this may happen again to some point with things. Its stupid, I know this. And while I've realised that the ex and I are too far apart in our developmental directions to ever be together, this event still haunts me.

I have issues with trust and attachment. My past plays a lot on my mind. I've done a lot of crazy and, sometimes, downright wrong things in my time. And I've come though them relatively unscathed. I'm waiting for karma to bite me on the arse, and as such I'm ever watchful for how that could happen. I guess I'm too busy watching how my life could go wrong to actually enjoy it. It means a lot of work on ridding myself of certain vulnerabilities. And while being vulnerable is not in itself bad. Issues of relationships, finances and sanity need to be worked on now, so I can concentrate on the more important stuff later.

I need to learn how to love unconditionally, without attachment. Because the moment attachment is added into the equation, fear of loss for the thing I'm attached to creeps in and all my worse doubts and fears come into play diverting essentail energies from the tasks at hand. I need to stop being s paranoid about things and do things that help me feel confident about me.

I think I am at the point where, qaballistically, I am on the verge of making the assay into the Abyss and confronting all those things which make my life difficult, dark, and downright depressing. If I can let go of all those attachments and appreciate things for how that actually are then I can move forward and become a worthy servant of the Gods.

Now for something totally different. I post up my essay on Defining Spirit.

DEFINING SPIRIT

Before we go any further though we must look at the end products of Spirit; the other four elements. Aristotle developed the theory that all of physical reality is made up of the four classical elements (earth, air, fire, and water) in varying degrees. Thus it can be said that we can find the elements on a more fundamental level than just their obvious manifestations. In the physical realms everything is either on one of four tangible states; solid, liquid, gas, or plasma.

Solids have the lowest energy. They are comparatively strong, and can be described as ‘cold and dry’, in that they lack the energy for their constituents to become fluid like liquids and gases. So they cannot flow like water and are not animated as is fire. Solids thus correspond to the element of earth.

Liquids, by the same token, flow, they have more energy than solids, allowing their individual particles to move about, but they still have less energy than gases and plasmas;

thus, giving them the quality of cold and wet. They correspond to Water.

Gases, still flow like liquids but are not limited energetically. They move a lot easier and are capable of being held by naught but moving air (a mixture of gases in itself). They have a higher energetic state than the previous two states but lack the energy of fire. They are thus warm and moist. Gases correspond to Air.

Plasma is the little known fourth state of matter. It is what happens when a substance obtains such a high amount of energy that all the electrons in the outer reaches of its very atoms fly away. It is in this state that light is commonly emitted. Plasmas do not generally flow in the same way as what liquids and gases do, making them dry, and they are of a higher energy state than gases making them warm. Their macrocosmic analogue is fire.

Once a substance reaches the plasma state all the extremities of its substance are stripped away leaving its atomic core. The very thing that defines what it is. Thus spirit could be thought of as the very thing which holds the atom together, the nuclear force. But, just as with the lower forms, when given energy it gives way to higher forms.

Solid → Liquid → Gas → Plasma → Light (Pure energy)

When we supply the stable portion of spirit with energy (that is the force binding the atom itself together) we disturb the inherently static equilibrium of that atom, breaking away its remaining earthly bonds and transmuting it into various forms of light and pure energy.

So we have passive spirit which is the force that binds together (in physical reality it is the weak and strong nuclear forces, the gravitational force and the electromagnetic force, in humans it is unconditional love), and we also have active spirit that force which transcends its current limits fully to become a step closer to the divine.

Let us examine light for a moment, as this seems to be the final form of things in this dimension. We start out as crude matter and slowly through attaining higher and higher energy states we transmute into energy. Thus there is no actual dividing line between the things, but rather a spectrum from the physical Malkuth-like state to the luminal state of Kether.

Light is generated by the interaction between electrical and magnetic fields. As one oscillates it causes the other to do the same and thus a wave is propagated. The grossest manifestation of electricity on this plane is lightning. Because of its overt, projective, and highly energetic nature, lightning (and hence electricity) is thought of as being masculine. Whereas magnetism (often associated with the earth, which is one massive magnet) is subtle, and draws things to it by covert means, and thus is inherently female. So it could be said that the flow of energy between male and female is in itself spirit.

Like spirit, (and unlike the grosser elements of the physical planes) light does not know time or space, and indeed the more one behaves like light (eg travelling at the speed of light) the more one, too, exhibits these qualities. By embracing the divine and allowing oneself to transcend physical existence we do not know age, or mortality as it exists on this realm. We become able to move to any time or place within this pocket of 4-Dimensional space. Thus are we able to examine the akashic records transcending time, and thus are we able to travel though that in-between place known as the Correspondence point or the Astral Plane.

In closing, spirit is that element that represents the source of all things; The Alpha and the Omega, the Zero-Point Field, the Cosmic Womb, and the Font of God, it is also the binding force that unites the universe in harmony that is known as Love, that greatest of all magics.