Our Bodies Have to Be As Sensitive As Fingertips and As Intuitive and Conforming As The

Cammy

Our bodies have to be as sensitive as fingertips and as intuitive and conforming as the lull of the ocean waves - strong and calm but armed only with our attentive minds and nourished by the enlightening rays of the sun. In this way can move among the people, and through the streets, with a scratch or perhaps a bruised ego rather than self-denial. We can survive in our day-to-day lives, voice out the tears and squeeze out the juices necessary for our hearts to breathe, and even love and laugh. We live in the moment and plan the future of our dreams and ambitions after what seems like a lifetime of the past, which now presents itself in the occasional deja-vu.

However our desires are somehow jaded like overplayed music, and we fight the animal urge to breed and play house like everyone else out of sheer boredom. Confidence has nowhere to go and we imagine life to be an invincible circle. We cautiously avoid chaos in spite of death itself although we deem ourselves ready for the next leap forward. Mediocrity ensues by thinking we have seen and done it all after we've sown our wild oats...

But it's only just begun. And what of the soul? This is insanity. Yet we still hope to carve our names in stone, or make a mark upon the masses so that eternity smiles upon us. From within our libidinous will we hammer out these words:

This small place is no longer our world, these shoes no longer fit and your kiss no longer tells. But we will always be ourselves.

Hi Cammy,

This seems like a passage from Nietzsche's Zarathustra. And you can see why in the end, people would come to revile him. He shoots down the mediocrity of the common man at the very dawn of the age of the common man. Such truth could never be appreciated by such a mob. There is no immortality in making babies, nor in carving your name on the headstone of your grave. And yet, this is what all the slave religions, cursed by AL, have given us over the centuries. Knowing this, one should be compelled to take the next step and find something more authentic.

But the real danger of the slave religions is that people have become unaware of their innate quest for immortality. They've been deluded into thinking that's already a given; and only that they need to secure a heavenly afterlife, in contrast with the torturous hell that scares them into a false love of their god.

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The fundamental problem with the idea of immortality

is that it is commonly misunderstood to imply a

continuity of personality. At best, the continuity of

personality from one lifetime to the next is a symptom

of the possibility of immortality. At worst, it is a

sure sign that One is breaking down into its elements,

and become divided within itself.

AUMGN, AMEN & AGAPE

Rommial

Hi Charles,

While I don't see immortality as the continuation of personality, per se, it would be interesting to hear your explanation of 'breaking down into its elements and become divided within itself.' What I do see is the continued coagulation of the astral body and its memories, as well as the opening up into full conscious comprehension, one's past lives...perhaps even one's future lives in light of modern physics.

Memories are of course, an important part of this, which is why the Major Adept in the A.'.A.'. is charged with the task of recovering these memories. The personality is really a function of the physical body and it seems to me, that whatever unconscious elements might be a part of that, would be a function not just of early natal and pre-natal experience, but also of past-life experience.

And so, in each subsequent incarnation (assuming reincarnation is attained; as I don't believe it is a given for any one human being), the new emerging personality would seem to cumulatively based on all previous incarnations.

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I wrote it but yes, I was inspired by Nietzsche :)

Hi Cammy,

I knew you were reading Nietzsche, but I'm delighted to see it's your essay; good work. You've obviously found some real inspiration here.

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more...

Cammy

We speak words that matter. But unless our feet move in truth time will pass us by.

Interrupt your habits in deference to the tendency to write. The muse givesus inspiration in word-images, color-sounds and feeling-thoughts.

But it isn't ours. It is a stream-of-consciousness in whichwe pick out pieces from thin air that we then make tangible and concrete enough to stand up on their own against sharp winds. A jigsaw puzzle to put together and make sense out of.

Hi Cammy,

Yes, the feet don't lie and talk is cheap.

But more interesting is the 'stream of consciousness', something the Beats and particularly Allen Ginsburg took a strong interest in. In Magick, part of the goal is to get beyond the stream of consciousness to the 'listener.' This is a Vedantic exercise. And Carl Jung claimed that the stream of consciousness was somehow connected to the collective unconscious.

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'breaking down into its
elements and become divided within itself.'

By which I mean: When One recognizes that those aspects of One'spersonality which have persisted are merely symptomatic of the continuation of the existance of a much more subtle and sublime element, there will be, as the Chinese might say, "no error".

But when the opposite is true; when individuals cling to those personality traits which do persist, as the essential part of their being and becoming, the laws of change and stability will tend to assess an agenda of destruction against them. We see this often enough in the machinations of the more talented individuals in the "New Age" movement. Having gained many glimpses into this akashic record, they begin to so identify with those memories, that they lose track of that core about which those memories are built, and become divided against it. This is also a problem which I predict will arise as a result of a continued insistance on clinging to the Osirian Formula. For, rare indeed is it, or so I must imagine, that there might be some "core" that has pesisted through many Aeons being capable of assimilating and changing itself and thereby avoiding the aforementioned "agenda of destruction". i liken it to PAN dancing about the ruins of the Blasted Tower.

Also, it might be remarked that this is at least one mode of reasoning behind Crowley's repeated insistance that One make it a poiint to violate One's own "nature"; in order that they might turn aside the grip that those tendencies which they have built about themselves might have. And, speaking from experience, though it an ugly and hoorible feat to face, initially, it is, once accomplished, and unfailing source of pleasure.

AUMGN, AMEN & AGAPE

Rommial

Hi Charles,

Thanks...very interesting. I could imagine that there might be some personality traits inherent in the essential character of any star, that would then not be culpable to any modification through subsequent incarnations. These traits would then have some affect upon other, lesser personality traits that are a part of a star's present incarnation. Identifying with these lesser traits in the present or any previous incarnation would be the same error that is routinely made by the lower personality that has no contact with the 'asar un nefer.' The fragmented character then is that that is exhibited by most people in the world today.

It was Jung who really first talked about the idea of 'integration' in order to bring the psyche to some point of whole-ness. Crowley was not so direct in his assertions, as it seems he didn't feel the need to. He expected his readers to already be well read and he expected his Neophytes to be doing the work of self-analysis. And by being well read, one would have come across and seen the importance in the Hermetic Axiom: Know thyself.

It is also interesting that Gurdjieff also saw this fragmentation in the personality; presenting a very radical means for unification, which bordered on the sadistic treatment of some of his students. And of course, the ego-losers try to avoid the issue entirely by attempting the absolute abandonment of any egoic orientation. I think the danger in this is that such a desire to lose the ego is but one of the fractured elements of the egoic function. And as I have seen, always leads to a moral breakdown.

The problem as I've seen in so many people that I've talked to is that people think they know themselves, basing it upon knowing their desires. But they don't see how their personal taboos edit out those desires that they find repulsive. Hence, the projections onto other people that they unconsciously love or hate. This is where Crowley and for that matter, Gurdjieff, both succeed. They ask of their students to monitor the tendencies with no real attention paid to the desires. And this is where so many Occultists, including the New Agers; and even especially, Thelemites, Wiccans and Chaos Magickians, fail. They focus on desires and attempt to create Magicks that will fulfill such desires. The Temple OV Psychic Youth and the Setians are extreme examples of this.

Recently, I watched a devout Setian working in this area and traveling through Masonic circles, succumb to a complete personality breakdown because of this. He ended up in a psychiatric ward in a local hospital and I haven't heard of him since. For my own part and personal experience, I've seen when I've capitulated to this, the psychic exhaustion has proven to be overwhelming. And it does take some time to recharge those batteries.

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I've personally found that creativity can also be tiring...which is probably why some peopleare misdiagnosed as beingbipolar (manic-depressive) since their energy levels go up and down, when they're really just creative. But creative to a fault? That can lead to compulsive lying and variousaddictions due to the illusions one has about oneself and/or the people around them (defining themselves through others and self-projections)). And being a sort of "psychic sponge" where one absorbs around them is likewise exhausting. The energy exchange between people (to paraphrase from Motta) is a symbiotic relationship and anything outside the 'normal' range is a form of vampirism (draining the life-force). Finally, it is found that when you go to a better environment and hang out with better people, your outlook will improve. A change of pace and scene. "Tell me who you walk with, and I will tell you who you are."

Speaking of desire...it's hard to let go of people when you are wishing for the person you want them to be, or thought they were, or they used to be etc. Sometimes the desire for love is so great that one feels they can put up with anything and should take the so-called "love" in whatever form it comes in.

Cammy

Hi Charles,

I thought it worthwhile to reproduce Blavatsky's ideas on reincarnation; I'd be interested in your comments on this (see below).

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THEORIES ABOUT REINCARNATION AND SPIRITS

(Reprinted from The Path, November, 1886.)

OVER and over again the abstruse and mooted question of Rebirth or Reincarnation has crept out during the first ten years of the Theosophical Society's existence. It has been alleged on prima facie evidence that a notable discrepancy was found between statements made in"Isis Unveiled,"Vol. 1, 351-2, and later teachings from the same pen and under the inspiration of the same master.*

In Isis, it was held, reincarnation is denied. An occasional return only of "depraved spirits" is allowed. "Exclusive of that rare and doubtful possibility, 'Isis'allows only three cases -- abortion, very early death, and idiocy -- in which reincarnation on this earth occurs." ("C. C. M." in Light, 1882.)

The charge was answered then and there as every one who will turn to the Theosophist of August, 1882, can see for himself. Nevertheless, the answer either failed to satisfy some readers or passed unnoticed. Leaving aside the strangeness of the assertion that reincarnation -- i.e., the serial and periodical rebirth of every individual monad from pralaya to pralaya** -- is denied, in the face of the fact that the doctrine is part and parcel and one of the fundamental features of Hinduism and Buddhism, the charge amounted virtually to this: the writer of the present, a professed admirer and student of Hindu philosophy, and as professed a follower of Buddhism years before Isis was written, by rejecting reincarnation must necessarily reject KARMA likewise! For the latter is the very corner-stoneof Esoteric philosophy and Eastern religions; it is the grand and one pillar on which hangs the whole philosophy of rebirths, and, once the latter is denied, the whole doctrine of Karma falls into meaningless verbiage.

Nevertheless the opponents, without stopping to think of the evident "discrepancy" between charge and fact, accused a Buddhist by profession of faith of denying reincarnation, hence also by implication -- Karma. Adverse to wrangling with one who was a friend and undesirous at the time to enter upon a defence of details and internal evidence -- a loss of time indeed, -- the writer answered merely with a few sentences. But it now becomes necessary to well define the doctrine. Other critics have taken

[[Footnote(s)]] ------

* See charge and answer, in Theosophist, August, 1882.

** The cycle of existence during the manvantara -- period before and after the beginning and completion of which every such "monad" is absorbed and reabsorbed in the ONE soul, anima mundi.

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 32 APPENDIX.

the same line, and by misunderstanding the passages to that effect in Isis they have reached the same rather extraordinary conclusions.

To put an end to such useless controversies, it is proposed to explain the doctrine more clearly.

Although, in view of the later more minute renderings of the esoteric doctrines, it is quite immaterial what may have been written in Isis -- an encyclopedia of occult subjects in which each of these is hardly sketched -- let it be known at once that the writer maintains the correctness of every word given out upon the subject in her earlier volumes. What was said in the Theosophist of August, 1882, may now be repeated here. The passage quoted from it may be, and is most likely, "incomplete, chaotic, vague, perhaps clumsy, as are many more passages in that work, the first literary production of a foreigner who even now can hardly boast of her knowledge of the English language." Nevertheless it is quite correct so far as that collateral feature of reincarnation is therein concerned.

I will now give extracts from Isis and proceed to explain every passage criticised, wherein it was said that "a few fragments of this mysterious doctrine of reincarnation as distinct from metempsychosis" -- would be then presented. Sentences now explained are in italics.

Reincarnation, i.e. the appearance of the same individual, or rather of his astral monad, twice on the same planet is not a rule in nature, it is an exception, like the teratological phenomenon of a two-headed infant. It is preceded by a violation of the laws of harmony of nature, and happens only when the latter, seeking to restore its disturbed equilibrium, violently throws back into earth-life the astral monad which had been tossed out of the circle of necessity by crime or accident. Thus in cases of abortion, of infants dying before a certain age, and of congenital and incurable idiocy, nature's original design to produce a perfect human being, has been interrupted. Therefore, while the gross matter of each of these several entities is suffered to disperse itself at death, through the vast realm of being, the immortal spirit and astral monad of the individual -- the latter having been set apart to animate a frame and the former to shed its divine light on the corporeal organization -- must try a second time to carry out the purpose of the creative intelligence. (Vol. I, p. 351.)

Here the "astral monad" or body of the deceased personality -- say of John or Thomas -- is meant. It is that which, in the teachings of the Esoteric philosophy of Hinduism, is known under its name of bhoot;inthe Greek philosophy is called the simulacrum or umbra, and in all other philosophies worthy of the name is said, as taught in the former, to disappear after a certain period more or less prolonged in Kama-loka -- the

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 33 THEORIES ABOUT REINCARNATION AND SPIRITS.

Limbus of the Roman Catholics, or Hades of the Greeks.* It is "a violation of the laws of harmony of nature," though it be so decreed by those of Karma -- every time that the astral monad, or the simulacrum of the personality -- of John or Thomas -- instead of running down to the end of its natural period of time in a body, finds itself (a) violently thrown out of it whether by early death or accident; or (b) is compelled in consequence of its unfinished task to reappear, (i.e. the same astral body wedded to the same immortal monad)on earth again, in order to complete the unfinished task. Thus "it must try a second time to carry out the purpose of creative intelligence" or law.