Greetings to all who read this.
I am Harko and I am here seeking to increase both the knowledge and practice of Magick. I believe that I have done all I could individually and as A. Crowley states, “Even in Magick we cannot get on without the help of others.”
I approach this area from what I think is a fairly firm knowledge-based background (Crowley, Milton, Blake, Swedenborg, Freud, Le Bon, Nietzsche, Zhuang Zhao, Lao Tzu, to name but a few- Hence, the Scholar aspect) and am now attempting to branch out into the practice. I mainly focus on ancient texts and if anyone can recommend some on the same level as these, that I may have missed, I would be most appreciative. I prefer ancient texts as they tend to lack modernity biases.
I have been researching the Occult for about six years now completely independently and found the results, so far, most effective to my goals (To gain complete self-possession). And this was with minimal formal practice. I once suffered immensely from sleep paralysis, for example, and now no longer do so. And all I did to solve this was pick up and read a couple of Occult texts. I once hit an intellectual brick wall with regards to the nature of good and evil, put forth a general inquiry into this matter, and received a most striking answer…from both realms.
And to the Scribe aspect - The passage from the Marriage of Heaven and Hell which led me here, to this path (I was extremely hesitate for many years, contemplating whether it was for me or not - This was the clincher as I was the monkey devouring its own tail). I looked to see if this forum had it and disappointingly, I found it not. From my perspective, I cannot see how a true Occultist can be unaware of this passage.
A Memorable Fancy – by William Blake
An Angel came to me and said: ‘O pitiable foolish young man! O horrible! O dreadful state! Consider the hot burning dungeon thou art preparing for thyself to all eternity, to which thou art going in such career.’
I said: ‘Perhaps you will be willing to show me my eternal lot, and we will contemplate together upon it and see whether your lot or mine is most desirable.’
So he took me through a stable and through a church and down into the church vault, at the end of which was a mill: through the mill we went, and came to a cave; down the winding cavern we groped our tedious way till a void, boundless as a nether sky, appeared beneath us, and we held by the roots of trees and hung over this immensity.
But I said: ‘If you please, we will commit ourselves to this void, and see whether providence is here also; if you will not, I will?’
But he answered: ‘Do not presume, O young-man; but as we here remain, behold thy lot which will soon appear when the darkness passes away.’
So I remained with him, sitting in the twisted root of an oak; he was suspended in a fungus, which hung with the head downward into the deep.
By degrees we beheld the infinite Abyss, fiery as the smoke of a burning city; beneath us at an immense distance was the sun, black but shining; round it were fiery tracks on which revolved vast spiders, crawling after their prey, which flew or rather swum in the infinite deep, in the most terrific shapes of animals sprung from corruption, and the air was full of them and seemed composed of them: these are Devils, and are called Powers of the air.
I now asked my companion which was my eternal lot?
He said: ‘Between the black and white spiders.’
But now, from between the black and white spiders, a cloud and fire burst and rolled through the deep, blackening all beneath, so that the nether deep grew black as a sea, and rolled with a terrible noise; beneath us was nothing now to be seen but a black tempest, till looking east, between the clouds and the waves, we saw a cataract of blood mixed with fire, and not many stone’s throw from us appeared and sunk again the scaly fold of a monstrous serpent; at last to the east, distant about three degrees, appeared a fiery crest above the waves; slowly it reared like a ridge of golden rocks till we discovered two globes of crimson fire from which the sea fled away in clouds of smoke, and now we saw it was the head of Leviathan; his forehead was divided into streaks of green and purple like those on a tiger’s forehead; soon we saw his mouth and red gills hang just above the raging foam, tingeing the black deep with beams of blood, advancing toward us with all the fury of a spiritual existence.
My friend, the Angel, climbed up from his station into the mill; I remained alone, and then this appearance was no more, but I found myself sitting on a pleasant bank beside a river by moonlight hearing a harpist who sung to the harp, and his theme was: ‘The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.’
But I arose, and sought for the mill, and there I found my Angel, who, surprised, asked me how I escaped?
I answered: ‘All that we saw was owing to your metaphysics; for when you ran away I found myself on a bank by moonlight hearing a harpist. But now we have seen my eternal lot, shall I show you yours?’
He laughed at my proposal; but I, by force, suddenly caught him in my arms and flew westerly through the night, till we were elevated above the earth’s shadow; then I flung myself with him directly into the body of the sun; here I clothed myself in white, and, taking in my hand Swedenborg’s volumes, sunk from the glorious clime and passed all the planets till we came to Saturn; here I stayed to rest, and then leaped into the void between Saturn and the fixed stars.
‘Here’, said I, ‘is your lot, in this space, if space it may be called.’
Soon we saw the stable and the church, and I took him to the altar and opened the Bible, and lo! it was a deep pit, into which I descended, driving the Angel before me; soon we saw seven houses of brick; one we entered; in it were a number of monkeys, baboons, and all of that species, chained by the middle, grinning and snatching at one another, but withheld by the shortness of their chains; however, I saw that they sometimes grew numerous, and then the weak were caught by the strong, and with a grinning aspect first coupled with and then devoured by plucking off first one limb and then another, till the body was left a helpless trunk; this, after grinning and kissing it with seeming fondness, they devoured too; and here and there I saw one savourily picking the flesh off of his own tail; as the stench terribly annoyed us both, we went into the mill, and I in my hand brought the skeleton of a body, which in the mill was Aristotle’s Analytics.
So the Angel said: ‘Thy phantasy has imposed upon me and thou oughtest to be ashamed.’
I answered: ‘We impose on one another, and it is but lost time to converse with you whose works are only Analytics.’
Opposition is true Friendship.