Whence Cometh Spring?

April has come and there are only a few indications that anything much has changed from winter to a verdant spring. It is a cold and lifeless spring so far, which is probably just as confusing for the returning geese as it is for the humans and creatures that have endured the long winter. While the snow is slowly receding, the lakes and ponds are still iced up, and only the brilliant sunshine seems to indicate that the season has indeed changed. We got an early spring last year and this year we get to experience a very slow transition, which will likely extend winter like conditions into May. This is not unusual for this part of the country, but it is somewhat depressing. The receding snow only reveals a brown and lifeless undercoat with no indication of any kind of new life. Also, the spring peepers are mostly silent, although I have heard, from time to time during the sunny afternoons, some singular croaking somewhere in the fields.

(Of course, as I was writing this article, Mother Nature dropped a couple of inches of wet sloppy snow on the land, and it looks again like a winter-scape. Well, so much for spring! I guess we’ll have to wait a few weeks for warmer temperatures in order for all of the snow to completely disappear. It is depressing in a way and also a slight shock to one’s sensibilities. The supposed end of winter had many starting to come out of their months long hibernation, but now they have receded back into the winter-like torpor. Welcome to the tundra-like experience of the northern Midwest plains.) 

The long harsh winters make all of us here in Minnesota avid seekers of any sign of spring, sometimes even desperately. Some will even wear shorts when the temperature gets into the late 40's or early 50's. My career workload has finally dropped down to just maintenance, and I am now contemplating a period of self-study and training to assist me in making the transition from my current project to future projects once this one has lapsed. I have also put together my resume and sent it to the corporate leaders as requested so that they can find new prospects for me to be assigned, and I have also indicated that I am willing to relocated, provided that the relocation package is reasonable and helpful.

This means that my tenure in the tundra is nearing an end, since my company has now indicated that they are open to relocating key employees once again. This is how I managed to move every few years back in the 1990's and into the early 2000's. I have decided that I will pursue employment possibilities in other locations by undergoing yet another corporate move. I have endured six corporate relocations, but this time I am a home owner and not a renter. It will obviously be more complicated than previously. Since I have proven my value quite dramatically in the last several months to my corporate overlords, I am quite certain that I will be getting a new project to work on in the months ahead, and also, a relocation deal.

Over the course of the last few months I have still not engaged in any ordeals or extensive magical workings. It has been a period of reading, research, pondering over the meaning of this or that, and a lot of self-examination. Lately, this has become very productive indeed, since I seem to have stumbled upon a mother lode of insightful and thought provoking treasures.

Two lines of thought have guided my steps recently. These thoughts have produced two different directions for research, and they have both now converged together. The first thought was that if the Chaldean Oracles would represent an actual sacred book, at least for the late Classical period of Neoplatonism, then having the original Greek language version would be very helpful. I wanted to find this text because it would fit in with my thoughts about building up a completely Greek version of the Qabalah. To build a Qabalah, one needs to have sacred writings in the basic language proposed - in this case, Greek. So, I began to search for a book that contained the original Greek language version of the Chaldean Oracles. It turns out that there was only one book that fit this requirement and it was long out of print.

My other line of thought was that somehow Neoplatonism could be completed by adding some strains of Indian Philosophy to it. I have long felt that there was something very important missing from Neoplatonic philosophy, and that “something” can be identified by a simple concept. As a practicing ritual magician and witch, I have long known of the fact that there is within me (and every other human being) a Deity, which I have called the God/dess Within. This concept is analogous to the Indian concept of the Atman. However, according to Advaita Vendanta, there is no difference between the Absolute Godhead and the Individual Godhead, where it is said that Brahman and Atman are one (and indivisible). (I have discussed this idea previously in an article, and you can find it here.)

What that means is that we all have within us a direct path to the realization of our own Godhead as revealed in the One. Assumption of the Godhead is one mechanism to developing this realization, but what it means is that there is no complete separation and distinction between the Absolute Godhead and the Godhead within each and every human being. This is quite a profound realization and, I might add, it doesn’t appear in the various Neoplatonic writings where the distinction between humanity and the Godhead is quite rigorously enforced. This is why Neoplatonism talks about the theurgy of  “ascension” as a method of returning to the One. However, it would seem that returning to the One is actually not possible for anyone but a very small minority. In Indian Philosophy the concept of “returning” doesn’t exist. It is more of an internal revelation (a transformation and a spiritual evolution); it is, in a sense, discovering what was a fact inside of oneself from the very beginning. I believe that this distinction between Indian and Neoplatonic philosophy is also to be found in the practice and experience of modern witchcraft and paganism, or at least where Godhead assumption (as the Draw) is central. 

So over the course of the last few weeks I have been very busy reading and studying the books "Chaldean Oracles" by Ruth Majercik and the anthology "Neoplatonism and Indian Philosophy" edited by the late Paulos Mar Gregorios, which I might declare is very heady stuff. Yet the combination of these two perspectives is helping me to make a breakthrough of sorts.

I believe that Neoplatonism and Indian Philosophy are both monist systems developed within a pagan religious environment. However, Indian Philosophy has had a much longer and continuous evolving life-span. In fact, I suspect that Indian philosophy made breakthroughs that Neoplatonism might have made as well if only it had continued in the same spirit and direction over the course of centuries instead of being uprooted from Athens and Alexandrian and then slowly waning in the remote fastness of Harran.

Another distinction is that Indian Philosophy is, for the most part, a living religious and philosophical tradition, where the praxis that represents its foundation is still being worked today. This is so unlike Neoplatonism, which has had to be reinvented based on a lot of fragmentary lore. I believe that it might be possible that certain schools of Indian Philosophy, such as the Indian Tantras, could be used to help complete and evolve Neoplatonic philosophy to a more complete and mature form, and perhaps even help to formulate a comprehensive praxis. That is my belief and the intention behind my work, however, we will see how it works out in the months ahead.

One thing that is tragic about the Chaldean Oracles as they exist today (and it’s something that I hadn’t fully realized) is that this work exists only in fragments. The complete text has never been found. What we have are the quotations that other late classical authors have written about it and these quotations were preserved to the present times. However, at least now I have those remaining fragments in their original Koine Greek. Ms. Majercik's book has been out of print for years and is only available as a scanned copy that can be downloaded from the internet. I realize that downloading a copy (as I have done) is to facilitate a process that I can’t fully condone, but the only copies that are available are being sold for over two thousand dollars. I could also maybe get a copy through inter-library loan and then wait for weeks if it does show up, but this was the quickest way to get a copy. I am hoping that someday the author or publisher will deem to reprint a new version and make it available to everyone who wants a copy.

Yet I am once again quite taken with this mysterious work. If ever there was a book of sacred writings for Hermetic Pagans, it was the Chaldean Oracles. This book was produced through a form of magical skrying, where the senior Julian acted as the magician, and his son, the skrier. As quoted from Ms. Majercik’s introduction, “The Chaldean Oracles are a collection of abstruse, hexameter verses purported to have been ‘handed down by the gods’ (theoparadota) to a certain Julian the Chaldean and/or his son, Julian the Theurgist, who flourished during the late second century C. E.” She goes on to say that the oracle verses were derived from the theurgic techniques of calling and receiving. It is, therefore, quite singularly amazing that these verses derived from theurgic rituals were regarded as authoritative from Porphyry to Damascius (3rd to 4th centuries). Even so, what has come down to us today are just some of the verses, or at least the most important or profound of these. We also don’t really know the sequence that these fragments originally occurred in the original work, and it can only be hoped that some future discovery will locate a complete copy of this work.

Still, what fragments we possess have always astounded and perplexed me, but Ms. Majercik's commentaries are the most illuminating that I have ever read. The Gnostic sect, the Sethians, particularly were engaged with this work and its inspirations can be found throughout those Naghamadi texts that have survived. We can see the effects of this work in the magical texts of the Greek Magical Papyri, too.

With these books in hand, I feel like I have some pretty profound answers to some questions that I have been asking for quite a long time. I will write all of these musings up in my blog in the very near future.

Frater Barrabbas

Non-Duality, Magick and the Qabbalah

 

I recently read a book review that Allogenes wrote up on his blog, “The Magical Messiah,” which examined a book entitled “Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction” by Eliot Deutsch. I have some knowledge of the Indian mystical philosophy called Vendanta, but I couldn’t define what the specific sect of Advaita was and how it related to the essential tradition. In order to sensibly read over Allogenes article, I had to research what Advaita Vendanta was, and that research helped me to resolve a long term issue that I have been mulling over for many years. 

 

Since Advaita Vendanta is a “living” tradition, that is, it is still being taught and practiced in India, I found the whole concept of reconstructing it, or better yet, mutating it so that it better corresponds to a Western philosophic perspective, was problematic at best, or clearly misguided at worst. I am glad that Allogenes found this proposition to be somewhat dubious as well, since in order to master a tradition, one must become an adherent and be completely immersed in it. Attempting to de-construct a living tradition would be a formidable task even for a master of that tradition, not to mention a “fools” errand for one outside of it. Needless to say, I lost interest in Eliot Deutsch’s book due to its basic premise, but I found myself interested in knowing more about Advaita Vendanta. That interest led me to examining some webpages where I discovered something that completely amazed me. 

Prior to making this search, I had learned years ago that Vendanta was an Indian mystical philosophical system of some antiquity that sought to comprehend the nature of deity directly through the intellect. The intellectual basis of Vendanta is founded upon the holy scriptures of the Upanishads, Bhadavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras. Vendanta literally means in Sanscrit, the “goal of the Vedas.” Vendanta requires the assistance and discipline of a guru, and uses the mechanisms of mental discipline, ascetism, and the techniques of meditation and contemplation. The source of all wisdom and intellectual illumination are to be found in the proper interpretation and realization of specific passages in the above named sacred texts.

Vendanta is a very intellectual approach to realizing the Godhead, but it relies far more on an intuitive and a subjective understanding of the nature of that cosmic deity, known as Brahman. The methodology used to gain that understanding was to reduce what is known about the Godhead by a process of intellectual reductionism. Vendanta can be summed up as the mechanism of knowing and realizing God through the elimination of what it isn’t as opposed to what it is. This is exemplified through the “neti neti Brahman” (not this, not that, is Brahman) approach to the Godhead. In this manner, Vendanta is similar to Mahayana Buddhism and also Taoism. In fact, some have said that the inspiration for Vendanta came from the impact of Mahayana Buddhim on Indians who sought to propose a counter philosophy that was fully grounded in traditional Indian religious culture.

Advaita is a specific subsect of Vendanta, and probably the oldest and best known. It was founded by Shankara Bhagavadpada (Adi Shankara) sometime around the first half of the 9th century CE. Advaita means “non-duality,” so this form of Vendanta was concerned with a fundamental philosophical question, which is whether or not there is a difference between the Cosmic Godhead (Brahman) and the individual godhead (Atman). According to the tenets of Advaita Vendanta, there was no difference between Brahma and Atman. To state otherwise (that the cosmic and individual godhead are distinct) is to commit the error of duality. Therefore, the principle philosophical tenet can be stated simply as “Atman doesn’t dissolve into the unity of Brahman - it is always directly equivalent, since Brahman must be non-dual and without attributes.” Brahman is therefore the supreme cosmic spirit - the One, the whole and the only reality. It is the undefined source of everything spiritual, mental and material. It is the source of consciousness itself. Perhaps the most succinct and comprehensive article that I have found on this topic is in Wikkipedia. You can read that article for yourself, here.

What completely astonished me while I was reading this article is the statement “Atman doesn’t dissolve into the unity of Brahman.” I was so startled by this statement because it was clearly the opposite to a statement that I have made myself many times when talking about an individual’s Higher Self or God/dess Within and the Cosmic Godhead. I have said or implied that the Higher Self dissolves into the unity of the Godhead, or exists in a state of separation for the sake of the being of individualized incarnation. This, I suddenly realized, was questionable. If I were a proponent of non-duality as the ultimate state of being (and I suspect that am), then it would have to be true that there is no difference between the Higher Self and the ultimate Godhead. They are one and the same, thus making each and every one of us a direct participant in the nature and being of the Godhead.

This realization also makes a lot of sense in regards to the Qabbalah, since the highest attributes on the Tree of Life are the negative veils, representing that aspect of the Deity which is the unknowable and absolute Godhead from which all things have their origin, and I might say, their return. It is the One that is the None, and this would agree with Advaita Vendanta, as well as Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism, Qabbalah, and other mystical traditions which have sought to realize and teach the nature of non-duality.

The key to this conundrum is the statement that the Atman doesn’t dissolve into Brahman, or, the Higher Self doesn’t blend into the Absolute Godhead. There are no differences between them; but the Absolute Godhead functions as the absolute reality, where everything else is just a temporary illusion, or what the adherents of Vendanta call Maya. Since according to their philosophy, the absolute reality must, by definition, be non-dual and non-material, then the Godhead must, by definition, be the ground basis for all reality, whether spiritual, mental or material. The true nature of that non-dual source must be hidden and unintelligible to all conscious beings, which is analogous to what Plato said in his dialogues - that we only perceive the shadows and play of light on the walls of the cave (and not the true reality outside of the cave). This premise is also found in the Qabbalah as well. (You can look over my article about the mysteries of creation espoused in the Qabbalah, which is found here.)

Human beings derive and build up the attributes for the Deity, or perceive it grounded in mental models or divine images, even though it actually has no attributes whatsoever. This human propensity for creating illusions for spiritual phenomena becomes organized and intelligible to us as the domain of symbols, myths, spirits, deities and demigods; but it doesn’t have any reality beyond our own limited perceptions. It is a human creation that masks the real truth, yet it is also important, compelling and useful, too. Also, if we reside in a fashion within the Absolute Godhead, then all of our perceptions of that Being arises from within us as a manifestation of that individual godhead called the Higher Self or Atman. It is through that mechanism that such beliefs that “God is watching everything I do and judging me,” or that certain (or even all) “events in my life are caused by the hand of God” can be explained. This perspective is uniquely human, since it indicates that all of humanity is capable of sensing the Deity in a very intimate and direct manner. Yet such statements would otherwise be absurd without the stipulation that the Absolute Godhead is non-dual.

We are, therefore, a direct and dynamic part of the Deity, whether we can either mentally perceive that union, intuit it through our emotions in some manner, or else it remains to us wholly unrealized. If we loose the context that the deity that we are relating to is through our internal god aspect, then we can assume a kind of privileged association with what we believe is the Cosmic Godhead. Monotheism can foster the egoic illusion (through a misinterpretation of its own theology) that the immanent experience of the internal godhead is synonymous with the greater Godhead. This causes a kind reversal that amplifies the importance of the individual or the religious sect, and it has led to all sorts of terrible religious persecutions and conflicts. The actual truth is just the opposite, since we partake of the cosmic Godhead and interpret it through our own individual and internal connection.  We are the created illusion of this unified, singular and non-dual expression of Godhead, and not the other way around. Disengaging the ego from religious or mystical experiences is very important, and represents the first step to gaining any form of spiritual union. (All of the saints in every form or sect of monotheism have made this perspective abundantly clear by promoting humility and selfless devotion.)

What this means is that the Cosmic Godhead is the greatest and only magician, engaging in pure creation (and destruction) for its own sake; but the true reality is grounded completely into its own being, and is found nowhere else. This might seem a bit confusing or that it somehow negates the importance and priority of the spiritual, conscious and material universe of the individual, yet this is not true. What is created by the Cosmic Godhead is done through love (unity) and a corresponding reverence for all of the facets of that creation. We are, therefore, not a meaningless expression of an exalted Deity who is beyond our realization. Our destiny is to realize this Cosmic Godhead through our own internal godhead. The methodology of achieving this destiny plays an important part in the conceptual frame work of Theurgy, Ritual Magick and Mysticism, and rules how these elements work together to give meaning and significance to the world that we live in. If the Cosmic Godhead is the magician creating (and destroying) the universe, then we are (though our individual inner godhead) simultaneously creating and destroying the universe. When we practice ritual or ceremonial magick, we are emulating that process through our own microcosmic attribute of creation and dissolution - the natural cycle of everything.

Another concept that is fundamental to magick and non-duality is that the joining of polarities, the merging through the artifice of spiritual love of the archetypal masculine and feminine within ourselves, emulates the essential union of all being, and triggers, through ecstasy, the realization of our internal godhead, which is the Higher Self or Atman. We approach this ultimate resolution of selfhood in stages and in phases, but the final act is where we discover the One within ourselves. This is the foundation for working magick through a process of spiritual alignment that leads to spiritual union. Theurgic magick promotes this objective, and so do various forms of religious mysticism. They begin with the process of mastering the multiple layers of manifestation, and ultimately end with the perfect realization of union with the Godhead.

These concepts that I have attempted to explain in my own limited way appear to be somewhat contrary to the writings of Neoplatonism and of Western religious philosophy. Christian theology maintains a powerful distinction between the Absolute Godhead (as the trinity) and the individual souls of humanity, and this can also be found in Judaism and Islam as well. In my recent readings of the philosophical tenets of Iamblichus, it would seem that even he maintains a distinction between the classes of spiritual beings, stating that human souls cannot evolve or reach to the level of the Gods, but could only perhaps rarely ascend to the next level, that of angels. 

 

However, my own experiences within the context of magickal phenomena would seem to agree with the Indian masters, that within humanity appears to be an aspect of deity operating, and through which the spiritual domain, as well as divinity, can become realized. In assuming the Godhead in the practice and work of ritual magick, I am, over time, activating my own Atman or Higher Self, which causes direct and permanent spiritual transformations. That is how I define theurgic forms of magick, and that does appear to differ from how Iamblichus has defined theurgy. What was missing in my speculation (which is far from complete) was to define this process in a manner that would eliminate the duality of the Absolute Godhead, and the God/dess Within.   

So the key is that there is no difference between the internal godhead and the greater Cosmic Godhead. They are one and the same! That is a profound paradox, and one that can never be resolved so long as we live in a state of duality and multiplicity. Only by resolving everything into the One that is None will we truly realize the non-dual truth, that all is Godhead, and nothing else is either real or true. At that moment of realization, though, our individual selves will cease to exist, and the true reality will be finally revealed. Until that time, we are given the task of completing the Great Work, however long that takes.

Frater Barrabbas