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Platonic Causality: A Primer (1st ed)

Here is the first edition of a short primer on the Platonic idea of paradigmatic causality (emanation). It aims to explain the intuitions surrounding and underlying Platonic theories of causality, rather than articulate a complete theoretical argument for any one of those theories. It is not an academic work, though it is not wholly untechnical.

Hopefully it is helpful for someone trying to understand the beauty of Platonism. Any suggestions for improvement are appreciated. It was simply a labor of love (and to improve my philosophical writing, including work ethic), written over the course of maybe a week, a few pages each evening. As such, it is limited. But there aren't nearly enough short introductions to Platonism that actually get to the heart of the matter. Thus I justify my expenditure.

Another download link here: Platonic Causality: A Primer (1st ed)

We Have Always Been Gnostic (Final Draft)

We Have Always Been Gnostic:

An Essay on the Notion of Overcoming

by

E.C. Quodlibet

I

Every philosophical theory is an attempt to come to grips with a spiritual impasse, with a set of facts or experiences that underlie it like a disease to a symptom. The history of Western philosophy can be conceived as a series of increasingly radical and self-authorizing conceptual responses to what is fundamentally non-conceptual. With each theoretical revolution, each hasty overturning, each claim of a philosophical “overcoming”, thought entrenches itself further into the quagmire of abstract dishonesty. Finally it makes itself inextricable, establishing an irrefutable, singular hegemony that is operative both institutionally and in the individual thought patterns of so-called philosophers.

The primary spiritual impasse of Western civilization (and to a certain degree of Eastern too) was indicated several millennia ago by a doctrine now reviled as heretical: Gnosticism. To be clear, Gnosticism is not directly the impasse itself; it is merely a doctrine that boldly stared this impasse in the face. This impasse qua spiritual fact of experience is nothing other than dualism.

Dualism! What horror! Overly-sophisticated minds will ask: “Have we not already overcome such nonsense? We have long since surpassed gnosticism, which was mired in insoluble philosphical difficulties; it cut up the world in two, so no wonder it could not put it back together again!” A profound mind must declare our dualism to be a naive problem, for how else are the rational heirs of the Enlightenment to guarantee their progress? While my predecessors were persecuted and relegated to the madhouse, if not the afterlife, I cannot be so suppressed. The perennial truth of this so-called naive problem emerges within every age, commanding an unsurpassed fascination for those whose eyes remain unclouded by thinking.

Pathology this is not; the “modern” philosophical response, on the other hand, is fundamentally neurotic. On the basis of this analysis we shall justify a rather startling thesis: We have always been Gnostic.

II

This thesis must be explained. A “spiritual fact” has been indicated, but what is this fact? In particular, what is the facticity of dualism? What finally, is the mode of being of a spiritual impasse, an impasse that exists in such a way? Only after considering these preliminary questions can the thesis of our perennial gnosticism be engaged.

Dualism is inherent in the structure of our experience. Indeed, what could be clearer than the distinction of time and space? Or that of spirit (or mind if one prefers) and matter? Do not stop me and indicate the many logical problems of exclusionary dualism, for that would be to miss the point. First admit the apparent immediacy of dualism to consciousness, all the while refraining from translating the experience into a discursive philosophical problem. The directly perceived difference between presence to oneself and absorption in theoretical concerns ought to easily manifest merely by means of this refraining.

Although Bergson proposed perhaps the most convincing such dualism (due directly to its immediacy and untranslatability into theoretical problems), Descartes certainly provided the best known example, namely the distinction between thinking and extended substances. Note that for Descartes, despite this partial theoreticization of the issue, there remains no theoretical or logical resolution of the problem of relation between the two substances.

To say that dualism is a fact is to say that it is there regardless of our thinking about it. Whether we think ourselves out of it or not, it remains in its facticity, right before us. Do we not encounter the temptation, even as philosophers, to interpret reality as insufficient, and indeed to turn up our noses at its very vulgarity? Where is our simplicity, our naivete? Must we immediately set to changing the world? Either way, the world must be dualist for us to seek its transformation into something else, and we shall see the true nature of this “transformation” soon enough. It is the great victory of contemporary philosophy to have ruthlessly established the binary opposition inherent in everything. Each “overcoming” of binary thinking is later found to be fully as binary as its unfortunate precursors, only perhaps more subtly so – we would say more deviously.

Dualism is thus properly speaking not a philosophical orientation but an immediate fact.

III

Why is it that philosophy finds itself menaced by this fact of dualism? The fact of dualism constitutes a spiritual impasse for philosophy, against which thought is powerless. Philosophy cannot openly acknowledge this impasse without rendering itself superfluous, without transmuting its careful demonstrations of the overcoming of subject and object, mind and matter, into so many worthless linguistic games. Not one conceptual unfolding of a “subject-object” has ever produced the dissolution of an actual subject or object into one another. The problem is not our knowledge or understanding, much less our belief. The problem lies deeper still.

Just as fundamentally as we experience the reality of dualism, we experience its disconcerting and uncomfortable nature. There is something sinister in the fact of duality. Do not the two deserve to be one? Have they not earned it by their stoic resistance to every pitiable scientific and theoretical advancement that the combined might of humanity has ever wrought? The disease is spiritual – perhaps it is even impossible to disentangle the impasse of dualism from the intuition of a fallen humanity. The longing for transcendence is perennial, and it is not difficult to see why.

Philosophy attempts to deal with these feelings by transposing the fact of dualism into propositional form, as explicit concepts or positions, which it then proceeds to expose as logically contradictory or theoretically insufficient. These theoretical problems are then taken as reason to either reject the fact of dualism completely, denying that it ever existed, or, what is almost the same thing, develop a theoretical solution that contorts the original duality and leaves it behind. This approach is just as absurd as if philosophy set out to overcome the experience of the color orange by declaring it a mere mix of red and yellow.

The problem, as Wilhelm Reich knew too well, is the issue of meaning: Can we interpret away that which is fundamentally not of the order of interpretation, that which lies beyond discourse? This was the path taken by the early Freud. Once the repressed was made conscious, by way of the analyst’s interpretation, the neurosis was supposed to dissolve. But the problem of experience can in no way be resolved by developing a new “concept” of experience. Thought thus runs up against the wall of mind, or better, of spirit. The philosophical attempt to solve the theoretical surrogates of spiritual fact has in reality left that impasse far behind. Even more importantly, it blinds us to the very fact of the impasse and therefore to one of the most fundamental elements of spirituality. The unresolved has become the repressed. “Conceptual overcoming” is the true name of a degrading philosophical materialism.

Reichian analysis had to rescue bioenergetic processes from their obscure death at the hands of Freudian discourse. Today, we must likewise rescue experience, and thereby spirit, from philosophical discourse. Philosophy has the same relation to the facts of spiritual experience as character armor has to stasis-neurosis. This does not mean, however, that a rejuvenated practice of philosophy is hopeless; a holistic, therapeutic approach remains possible. Wilhelm Reich notes: “An autonomic function can be objectivized by practice and in the end be made subject to conscious control” (The Cancer Biopathy 186). Let us return to our dear Gnostics, who miss us already, I am sure.

IV

The Gnostics believed, among other things, that material existence was tantamount to the imprisonment of the spirit. Creation as such was folly; in Gnostic theology we attend to a distinction between the Demiurge, a sadistic creator rather akin to the evil genius conceived by Descartes, and the True God who neither creates nor was created. The former’s servants of ignorance and disinformation are the archons, the prison guards of manifestation. And yet there is a divine spark lost in matter, longing to return to its home. There is still hope for the spirit.

Gnosis is the possibility of this hope, and the key concept of the Gnostic system. Only by gnosis can the bonds of matter be destroyed. Gnosis, or “knowledge”, can be effected only by the spirit. The more one is identified with the body – where “identification” means something more than assent or proposition – the less free one becomes. If one is an animal, a body, then one is an automaton. In contrast, the more one identifies with spirit, the more one becomes what one truly is, the more free does one become. The spirit is pure freedom, unfathomable in its transcendence. All that separates the Gnostics from our most sublime mystics is the final reversion of absolute transcendence into absolute immanence; but one cannot blame them for this small mistake, upon which however everything turns.

But why is the emanation of matter such folly for spirit? The Gnostic emanations, like their counterparts in Neoplatonism, proceed from the One, through various higher spheres, and down to depths in degradation, finally to melt away into slime and chaos. With each step in this process, there is a restriction, a determination. Freedom, here equated with indeterminate singularity, decreases with each step. When matter is finally reached, with its attendant mythology of Sophia’s folly and the Demiurge’s deception, one is hard pressed to deny its evil. While the Neoplatonists treated evil as an illusion, so that not even the lowest forms of matter were truly evil, the Gnostics confronted this degradation head-on.

This Gnostic inclination to struggle with evil, to face it head on, can be contrasted with the Neoplatonic addiction to intellectual distinctions. Plotinus, and his successors after him (save perhaps a one), sought a monism in the grips of which all contradiction disappeared. Moving away from the existence of evil as a fact of spiritual experience, the Neoplatonists pioneered a fundamentally incomplete system of mysticism (in the words of Bergson). Now, this is not to say the Gnostics moved beyond them; rather, the Neoplatonists walked backwards from the starting line, and it was not for them to enter Paradise.

Philosophy has followed in the footsteps of Plotinus, and neither of them have cleared the way to even begin. The baleful seductions of conceptual overcoming have led them both astray. No, for a real overcoming we must look not to Neoplatonism, and certainly not to modern philosophical character-neuroses, but to Gnosticism, and above all, to our own inherent but repressed Gnostic experience, and therefore our Gnostic being.

V

Fortunately for us, the same extreme dualism found within Gnosticism is present, or so claim the philosophers of the contemporary period, in basically every thought and system whatsoever with which they disagree. Are we then modern-day Gnostics, despite our best (theoretical) efforts?

We, like the Gnostics we spurn, are believers in dualism, at least deep down. And, also like the Gnostics, we want to escape the deterministic and reductionist nature of opposition. And we too are not convinced by mere conceptual games; no, our malaise in unassailable by means of thought. But if we knew we were so close to Gnosticism, and perhaps always had been, things would be much simpler. We have taken the path of the Neoplatonists, though we think ourselves far more clever; but the problem is the same. Rigorously said: We have always been Gnostic, though we have always repressed this fact.

The Gnostics refused to reduce their experience to the One, though of reductionism they have never ceased to be accused. Rather, they confronted the contradiction and rejected the siren song of synthesis. Before us lies a similarly important task, and it is perhaps the only element of modern-day philosophy that can survive our archaic therapy. We must become Gnostic once again, not yet in practice but first in theory. The stasis we suffer, the shrinking both of life and away from life, only feeds the philosophical disease. Discourse is not the last step of our journey, but merely the first.

The means of overcoming our sick relation to overcoming can only lie in the complete avoidance of the theoretical attitude that leads to the rejection of primary contradictions; there must be, furthermore, no synthetic moment of escape. For a real overcoming of dualism, a thoroughly dualistic character is required. It cannot be fought by the philosophical weapons. Propositional projectiles pierce it not, and the swords of analysis shatter upon the real.

The entire project of philosophy as we know it is, therefore, an ill-conceived attempt to work out in theory what has been left behind in practice, like the patient who insists they are cured as soon as they connect their dream to a childhood trauma; it is indeed the patient who already knows the proper interpretations, along with the analytic theory itself, who is often the hardest to cure. Each repetition of the problematic takes on a negligibly different emphasis. The history of philosophy, its “progress”, is nothing but this repetition termed “overcoming”. The first step to waking up is admitting that one is asleep, and has always been asleep. Woe to the partisans of death, those who shut themselves up in fortresses of discourse, simultaneously isolated and colonizing, thinking they are alive! The nihilism of discourse moves in place, constantly mutating but everywhere remaining the same, its evil greatest when it insists on its own ability to act, when it dismantles the border between itself and reality.

We need not torture our bodies in the name of spirit. We need not put the cosmos to the torch. Our goal remains to pass beyond the gates of this all-too-vulgar dualism that keeps us mentally enslaved. Although the Gnostic is a far cry from the true mystic, the quest for unification requires a decisive and holistic division, which must be made in full earnestness. To be a Gnostic is to take the first step on the path of spirit, to swear an oath that one day we will not need to be a Gnostic anymore. For then the goal shall be reached.

We Have Always Been Gnostic (Version 3)

We Have Always Been Gnostic:

An Essay on the Notion of Overcoming

by

E.C. Quodlibet

I

Every philosophical theory is an attempt to come to grips with a spiritual impasse, a fact of experience and of being that underlies it like a disease to a symptom. The history of Western philosophy can be conceived as a series of increasingly radical conceptual responses to what is a fundamentally non-conceptual realm. With each theoretical revolution, each hasty overturning, each claim of a philosophical “overcoming”, thought entrenches itself further into the quagmire of the disearnest and the merely abstract, until finally it makes itself inextricable, establishing an irrefutable, singular hegemony, whether institutional or on the level of self-discipline.

The primary spiritual impasse of Western civilization (and in all likelihood Eastern too) was indicated several millennia ago by a doctrine now reviled as heretical: Gnosticism. To be clear, Gnosticism is not directly the impasse itself; it is merely a doctrine that boldly stared this impasse in the face. This impasse qua spiritual fact of experience is nothing other than dualism.

The common man will stare and blink, while the self-sure followers of so-called enlightened opinion will raise a great cry of displeasure—oh! To hear such dreadful news! But worst of all, and most unforgivable by far, is that the professional philosophers will smugly sneer, as if to say: “Gnosticism? A system of unjustifiable dualities… and religious ones at that? Have we not already overcome such a failure of thought? Is this not rather a dogmatic distortion of reality?” While I gladly and perhaps morbidly acquiesce to life in the madhouse, it is common courtesy (all will surely agree) that the offending message at least be conveyed at some length, if not taken entirely seriously.

These facts justify a rather startling thesis: We have always been Gnostic.

II

This thesis must be explained. Before turning to Gnosticism as a response to dualism, we should first examine dualism itself, and only then why it constitutes an impasse. What could warrant us to assert dualism as a fundamental fact? Fortunately, philosophy has already done much of the legwork in identifying and demonstrating the ubiquity of binary opposition, on which dualism is based.

Binary opposition is an opposition of contrast based upon two possibilities: X versus not-X, we might say. Often this not-X is given a positive name, which does little to obscure the binary nature of its relation to X: body and mind, spirit and matter, self and other, &c. Further complicating the matter, but by no means changing its essential characteristics, is the possibility of stratification: a number of different binary oppositions can each be accepted and placed into some kind of order, either a hierarchy or an organization of spheres or realms in which different oppositions have their places. For example, one might quibble over whether “green or not-green” applies to ideas; ideas may not be the sort of thing that could be either green or not-green. In the case of disparate spheres of application, the rule is dictated by ordinary language or various specifications thereof; in the case of a hierarchy, any number of logical or metaphysical principles may be at play.

It is the great victory of contemporary philosophy to have ruthlessly established the binary opposition inherent in everything. Each “overcoming” of binary thinking is later found to be fully as binary, only perhaps more subtle – we would say more devious.

So much for binary opposition; now what of dualism? Dualism is precisely when a binary opposition establishes itself over all other binary oppositions (and indeed everything whatsoever), in a way so as to encompass them and subordinate them to itself. It is a binary opposition that is inescapable, such that it leaves no middle ground, neither gap nor glut. Descartes proposed the clearest example of modern dualism in the form of thinking and extended substances, neither of which could have any (theoretical) relation or resolution with regard to the other.

Dualism is properly speaking not a philosophical orientation but an immediate fact. Even the philosophers should agree to this, since they claim to have a way out, namely the overcoming of dualist distinctions in the realm of theory. It is the heritage of critical philosophy to find the truth or essence behind the appearances, where “truth” here would indicate in some cases the resolution of a perceived tension, in other cases a forced encounter with a further mediation external to the appearance at hand. Yea, philosophy itself has taken up dualism as a fact, but one to be overcome by means of thought. But has any concept of a “subject-object” ever produced the dissolution of the subject into the object or vice versa? No, the problem is not our knowledge, much less our belief. The problem lies deeper still.

III

Why is it that philosophy finds itself menaced by this fact of dualism? It will be seen that to give power to this fact is to render the typical philosophical response to the problem hopeless.

Just as fundamentally as we experience the reality of dualism, we experience its disconcerting and uncomfortable nature. There is something sinister in the fact of duality; this is why it is an “impasse”. Do not the two deserve to be one? Have they not earned it by their stoic resistance to every pitiable scientific and theoretical advancement that the combined might of humanity has ever wrought? Indeed, something is amiss; there ought not be two. Ought there then be one? The impasse begs to be overcome.

The repugnance to dualism is not merely theoretical; it is not as if we must transpose our dualist reality into propositional form and proceed to discover the logical difficulties brought about by binary opposition, though of course that can be and has been done. There is something else at work, something not assimilable to the regime of discourse, a psychological or even biophysiological side to the impasse. Indeed, this is its wellspring, the energy source of philosophical activity itself, at least insofar as that philosophy is in the critical-discursive mode that has largely characterized its modern manifestations.

The problem, as Wilhelm Reich knew too well, is the issue of meaning: Can we interpret away that which is fundamentally not of the order of interpretation, that which lies beyond discourse? This was the path taken by (at least the early) Freud. Once the repressed was made conscious, by way of the analyst’s interpretation, the neurosis was supposed to dissolve. But the problem of experience can in no way be resolved by developing a new “concept” of experience. Thought thus runs up against the wall of mind, that is, of spirit. The problem becomes insuperable when we transmute the dualist fact into logical or conceptual form and from there attempt to solve it via conceptual or even linguistic manipulation. In reality, this process has left the impasse far behind.

On the one hand, a philosophy that did not posit a duality at least provisionally fundamental, a duality to be “overcome”, would not yet even be a philosophy, but would remain a dogmatic theology. On the other hand, a philosophy that actually faced the fact of dualism could also not remain a philosophy, could not continue to philosophize in good faith. But in what could this confrontation consist, if we are to produce a proper notion of overcoming, and even thereafter to overcome?

However, thought remains wholly conditioned by it. The unresolved becomes the repressed.

Reichian analysis had to rescue bioenergetic processes from their obscure death in Freudian discourse; today, we must likewise rescue experience from philosophical discourse: “An autonomic function can be objectivized by practice and in the end be made subject to conscious control” (Reich, The Cancer Biopathy 186). Let us return to our dear Gnostics, who miss us already, I am sure.

IV

The Gnostics believed, among other things, that material existence was tantamount to the imprisonment of the spirit. Creation as such was folly; in Gnostic theology we attend to a distinction between the Demiurge, a sadistic creator rather akin to the evil genius conceived by Descartes, and the True God who neither creates nor was created. His servants of ignorance and disinformation are the archons, the prison guards of manifestation. And yet there is a divine spark lost in matter, longing to return to its home. There is still hope for the spirit.

These beliefs led to two superficially opposed positions that nonetheless concealed a deeper unity: asceticism and libertinism. The denial of the flesh can take two forms, and herein is the truth also of hedonism, its reverse. Asceticism represents the wholesale turning away from matter in the name of spirit; libertinism, for its part, represents the minimization of the importance of matter, for the spirit is the only reality, so what does it matter whether all forms of carnal activities are pursued? The deeper unity of the two opposite practices, expressed in two opposite discourses replete with corresponding reason and argument, is here revealed.

The functional identity of asceticism and libertinism flows from a deeper source: gnosis, the key concept of the Gnostic system. Only by gnosis can the bonds of matter be destroyed – with the grace of God of course. Gnosis, or “knowledge”, can be effected only by the spirit. The more one is identified with the body – where “identification” means something more than assent or proposition – the less free one is. If one is an animal, a body, then one is an automaton. In contrast, the more one identifies with spirit, the more one becomes what one truly is, the more free does one become. The spirit is pure freedom, unfathomable in its transcendence. All that separates the Gnostics from our most sublime mystics is the final reversion of absolute transcendence into absolute immanence; but one cannot blame them for this small mistake, upon which however everything turns.

Causality, on the other hand, proceeds from the higher to the lower, where eventually it melts away into slime. Hence the basis of gnosis in spirit and not in matter, no matter how complexly organized. But why is the move towards matter a deterioration? The Gnostic emanations (Aeons), like their counterparts in Neoplatonism, proceed from the One, True God, &c., through various higher spheres, and down to depths in degradation. With each step in this process, there is a restriction, a determination. Freedom, here equated with indeterminacy and singularity, decreases with each step. When matter is finally reached, with its attendant mythology of Sophia’s folly and the Demiurge’s deception, one is hard pressed to deny its evil. While the Neoplatonists treat evil as an illusion, so that not even the lowest matter is truly evil, the Gnostics confront this degradation head-on.

Is not Restriction the Word of Sin (as the minister of Hoor-paa-kraat has revealed to us)? In their cosmic anticipation of this doctrine, the Gnostics expressed a highly sophisticated understanding of determination. The Gnostics knew the restriction of matter as sin, and indeed matter is the contraction of spirit, this separation in the heart of being. Plotinus laid aside this difficulty, believing that an imperfection in reality was merely an imperfection in thought. His successors took up that methodology and endlessly produced intellectual distinctions, none of which produced one iota of progress until Iamblichus overcame the discourse and restored the place of theurgy to the Neoplatonic tradition.

Philosophy has followed in the footsteps of Plotinus. Even when it stretches itself out towards practice, towards experience, it is in the manner of Iamblichus, that is, from the perspective of an accomplished resolution. Iamblichus himself may have truly effected this overcoming, but the same cannot be said of his latter-day imitators. No, for a real overcoming we must look not to Neoplatonism, and certainly not to modern philosophical character-neuroses, but to Gnosticism, and above all, to our own inherent but repressed Gnostic experience, and therefore our Gnostic being.

V

Fortunately for us, the same extreme dualism found within Gnosticism is present, or so claim the philosophers of the contemporary period, in basically every thought and system whatsoever with which they disagree. Are we then modern-day gnostics, despite our best (theoretical) efforts?

We, like the Gnostics we spurn, are believers in dualism. And, also like the Gnostics, we want to escape the deterministic and reductionist nature of that opposition. And we are also not convinced by mere conceptual games; no, our malaise in unassailable by means of thought. But if we knew we were so close to Gnosticism, and perhaps always had been, things would be much simpler. We have taken the path of the Neoplatonists, though we think ourselves far more clever; but the problem is the same. Rigorously said: We have always been Gnostic, though we have always repressed this fact.

The Gnostics thought not to reduce, though of reductionism they have never ceased to be accused. Rather, they confronted the contradiction and refused the siren song of synthesis. Before us lies a similarly important task, and it is perhaps the only task of the current philosophy that can survive our archaic therapy. We must become Gnostic once again, not yet in practice but first in theory. The stasis we suffer, the shrinking both of life and away from life, only feeds the philosophical disease. Discourse is not the last step of our journey, but merely the first.

The means of overcoming our sick relation to overcoming can only lie in the complete avoidance of the theoretical attitude that leads us to reject primary contradictions; there is, furthermore, no synthetic moment of escape. For a real overcoming of dualism, a thoroughly dualistic character is required. It cannot be fought by the philosophical weapons. Propositional projectiles pierce it not, and the swords of analysis shatter upon the real.

The entire project of philosophy as we know it is, therefore, an ill-conceived attempt to work out in theory what has been left behind in practice, like the patient who insists they are cured as soon as they connect their dream to their childhood trauma; it is indeed the patient who already knows the proper interpretations, along with the analytic theory itself, who is often the hardest to cure. Each repetition of the problematic takes on a negligibly different emphasis. The history of philosophy, its “progress”, is nothing but this repetition termed “overcoming”.

The first step to waking up is admitting that one is asleep, and has always been asleep. Woe to the partisans of death, those who shut themselves up in fortresses of discourse, simultaneously isolated and colonizing, thinking they are alive! The nihilism of discourse moves in place, constantly mutating but everywhere remaining the same. For gnosis we must first know ourselves to be Gnostic, and who knows where we shall go from there.

We Have Always Been Gnostic (Draft 2)

We Have Always Been Gnostic:
An Essay on the Notion of Overcoming

 

by

E.C. Quodlibet

I

 

Every philosophical theory is an attempt to come to grips with a spiritual impasse, a fact of experience and of being that underlies it like a disease to a symptom. The history of Western philosophy can be conceived as a series of more and more radical conceptual responses to what is a fundamentally non-conceptual realm. With each theoretical revolution, with each hasty overturning and each claim of a philosophical “overcoming”, thought entrenches itself further into the quagmire of the disearnest and the merely abstract, until finally it makes itself inextricable and has established an irrefutable and even singular hegemony, whether institutional or on the level of self-discipline.

The primary spiritual impasse of Western civilization (and probably of Eastern, too, but for now the thesis must be restricted pending further researches), can be summed up in one word: Gnosticism. To be clear, Gnosticism is not directly the impasse itself; it is merely a doctrine that boldly stared this impasse in the face. This impasse qua spiritual fact of experience is nothing other than dualism.

The common man will stare and blink, while the self-sure followers of so-called enlightened opinion will raise a great cry of displeasure—oh! To hear such dreadful news! But worst of all, and most unforgivable by far, is that the professional philosophers will smugly sneer, as if to say: “Gnosticism? A system of unjustifiable dualities… and religious ones at that? Have we not already overcome such a failure of thought? Is this not rather a dogmatic distortion of reality?” While I gladly and perhaps morbidly acquiesce to life in the madhouse, it is common courtesy (all will surely agree) that the offending message at least be conveyed at some length, if not taken entirely seriously.

These facts justify a rather startling thesis: We have always been Gnostic

II

What allows for the assertion of this fundamental fact of dualism? Dualism itself, first of all, allows for a number of manifestations, not all of which are equivalent translations of one another: mind and body, spirit and matter, infinite and finite, self and other, &c. These oppositions are, in fact, embedded deeply in the structure of language as such, not this or that language, but in all structuring activity whatsoever.

Dualism is the transposition of this logico-grammatical structure of binary opposition onto the metaphysical plane. This is not an activity that we necessarily set out to engage in, nor is the metaphysical aspect necessitated by that logico-grammatical structure (take for instance certain “primitive” peoples, who, notwithstanding many structural similarities, have a widely divergent lived metaphysics). There is a moment of contingency in the relation between language and the underpinnings of reality we take to be constituted on the basis of that language. At the same time, this is different from the way we represent that constituted reality via language, this last representation also being subject to great contingency, so great in fact that most systems and concepts of philosophy can be produced in the interval.

Above all, then, we act and experience these binary oppositions, often in spite of philosophical or scientific beliefs; the two registers are fundamentally different in both orientation and source. It is the philosophical gambit that this third register can wrap back around and overwrite the second, or in some cases even the first one (not that these registers are the only ones, nor are they strictly hierarchical; but the model suffices for now).

The problem, as Wilhelm Reich knew too well, is the issue of meaning. Can we interpret away that which is fundamentally not of the order of interpretation, that which lies beyond discourse? Of course, I do not claim that philosophy necessarily sees itself as doing this, but there is a certain type of philosophy obsessed with a kind of “overcoming” that justifies the current critique. The problem of those other, anti-dualistic (as distinct from non-dualist) philosophical projects is their lack of self-awareness of dualism as a problem or fact in the first place; we leave them therefore to one side.

III

There is something dastardly, something sinister and disconcerting, in the fact of duality; this is why it is an “impasse”. Do not the two deserve to be one? Have they not earned it by their stoic resistance to every pitiable scientific and theoretical advancement that the combined might of humanity has ever wrought? Indeed, something is amiss; there ought not be two. Ought there then be one? The impasse begs to be overcome.

Theoretically, a one is already a two, and therein we have three; by means of this can we prove any metaphysical doctrine at all as we like, discovering structures up even to our very own favorite numbers (that is to say, arbitrarily high). Lacan was partial to the number 3, as was Hegel (or was it 4 in the end?), whereas Descartes preferred 2; those who have preferred 1 are too numerous to name. Crowley has a unique solution to the issue.

But more important than these theoretical considerations is the question of how these numbers come to be posited. It is typically in response to a primary datum, that is, that of binary opposition, that these theoretical positions are taken. It is in order to do away with the problems and contradictions brought about by dualist metaphysics that, for example, Hegel requires the third dialectical moment of unity in difference. Hindu scholastic philosophy (that is, taken as an exercise of textual commentary and not as a spiritual practice; this can of course only be done in earnest by those unfamiliar with the tradition), to take another example, dissolves the transient and contradictory nature of self and not-self into the unity of Brahman. A system of philosophy that did not at any point posit a duality as at least provisionally fundamental would not yet even be a philosophy, but would remain a dogmatic theology.

But do these theories fix our problem of dualism? In point of fact: No, they merely add a further, conceptual layer atop the bedrock of dualist perception. By thought alone, that which is beyond thought cannot be overcome. Philosophy reveals its hidden idealism and blind faith in itself when these facts are understood; and yet, in the name of a true idealism of spirit, we must provide a corrective. We must begin from the 2, but where are we to go from there, and with what method are we to travel? Let us return now to our dear Gnostics, who miss us already, I am sure.

 

IV

The Gnostics believed, among other things, that material existence was tantamount to the imprisonment of the soul (or spirit, depending on translation and tradition). Only by gnosis, an activity of the deep Self that freed the soul from the material bonds of time and space – with the grace of God of course – could one hope to escape. Determination is here taken to be evil, and thus we have a rather sophisticated understanding of the intersections of embodiment and freedom. The Gnostics took their dualism more seriously than the Neoplatonists, who for their part attempted a reconciliation; Plotinus is another example of the merely conceptual overcoming of dualism, whereas Iamblichus in his spiritual project was perhaps at bottom not so different from the Gnostics on this front, that is, of real overcoming.

Becoming-spirit can be effected not otherwise than via the spirit itself, via gnosis. The material body is a restriction; the more one is determined by matter, and especially by the body, the more unfree one is. In contrast, the less bound to matter one is, the more free, the more is one identified with what one truly is, that being the spirit or soul, which is in itself nothing other than pure freedom, unfathomable in its transcendence.

In their metaphysics, the Gnostics took the logic of dualism to its true and inevitable conclusions; the same extremity is present, so claim the philosophers of the contemporary period, in each and every dualism… to this we can only agree, and perhaps smirk if we are feeling particularly cheeky. Good and evil – are they not also facts of our experience, quite in spite of our disagreements over their objective status and their sphere of designation?

Is not the word of sin restriction (as the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat has communicated to us)? By way of cosmic anticipation, the Gnostics knew this, and thus declared matter to be equivalent to sin. In this they are not far off, for matter is the regime of separation, in fact just is a metaphysical separateness, a self-splintering of being, that is, mind in its broadest sense as beyond thought.

And yet we have not entered the misty lands of Advaita, fond of which though you readers might be. The purity of the soul is such as to have no object, to have no separation, but it is not to be thereby empty or featureless, as if it were nothing at all from its own perspective; and from ours? Here is the riddle of duality and non-duality, which can be solved – though not here – by a non-philosophical concept, namely the unilateral duality of the professional philosopher Laruelle. More simply, and certainly more comprehensible, we can take a page from Henri Bergson, to suggest the updated gnostic position as that of pure virtuality, an immediate wholeness of self which cannot be sundered, and a oneness of will; is this not a far cry from the annihilation of the aspirant (in ego? In soul?), which may nonetheless be one way of describing to the profane the process by which true gnosis is achieved. But beware, for as always and ever, the description is not the thing, and in the mistaking thereof there cometh hurt.

V

Are we then modern-day Gnostics, despite our best (theoretical) efforts? Can we really not overcome the antinomy of being in propositional calculus? Well, why would it ever possibly be reasonable to suppose such a mode of attack? Have we really strayed so far?

We, like the Gnostics we spurn, are believers in dualism. And, also like the Gnostics, we want to escape the determining and reductionist nature of that opposition. And we are also not convinced by mere conceptual games; no, our malaise in unassailable by means of games, save only the Cosmic Game on which many more essays could be written and yet of which nothing substantial thereby could ever be said; which, in other words, must be played.

The Gnostics thought not to reduce, as is often alleged of them. Rather, they confronted the tension, nay even the outright contradiction, directly, in the process of which confrontation is all power given. And what followed from this blasphemous empiricism? In fact, we are in a good position to find this out, being the good (post)moderns we are, and thus constantly confronting precisely the same issue even after all this time. The only difference, and it may not apply in all cases (though we do look to the academy with scorn on this point), is hypocritical and disearnest discourse that is always at odds with the consciousness of them who speak it. Would that they speaketh not...

The means of “overcoming” our centuries-old dualism is first of all a complete avoidance of the entire theoretical problematic of overcoming, i.e., that of our anti-dualism! It cannot be fought by these weapons: propositional projectiles pierce it not, and our analytical swords shatter as if upon stone. I therefore cannot help but be convinced that the project of contemporary philosophy is an ill-conceived attempt to work out in theory what has been left behind in practice, and thereby to convince oneself that one has overcome that past. Each repetition of this problematic takes on a negligibly differing emphasis, and indeed these often “overcome” one another. But the solution has been with us for millenia: Instead of this extraordinary psychological self-harm, this ever-more-tortured and self-flagellating exercise in nihilism, why not sit awhile, in silence and without disturbance? In truth, it seems so vastly preferable that I cannot imagine why its cause is so infrequently taken up. And the goal is quite the same.

We Have Always Been Gnostic: An Essay on the Notion of Overcoming (Draft 1)

We Have Always Been Gnostic:

An Essay on the Notion of Overcoming 

by

E.C. Quodlibet

I

We have always been gnostic, whether we want to believe it or not. Philosophy as such, upon which our civilization is undoubtedly based, whether by subconscious mytho-historical accretion or by the all-too-conscious over-emphatic mass psychological upheavals of the short twentieth century, has its ground, fundamental origin, and sole possible justification, in the gnostic tradition, or better, on the gnostic promise and its corresponding outlook.

The common man will stare and blink, while the self-sure followers of so-called enlightened opinion will raise a great cry of displeasure—oh! To hear such dreadful news! But worst of all, and most unforgivable by far, given the circumstances and privileged intellectual position of the group in question, the professional philosophers will smugly sneer, as if to say: “Gnosticism? A system of unjustifiable dualities… and religious ones at that? Have we not already overcome such a failure of thought?” While gladly and perhaps morbidly acquiescing to life in the madhouse, it is common courtesy (all will surely agree) that the offending message at least be conveyed at some length, if not taken entirely seriously, since that is in this day and age far too much to ask of the scholarly busy-bodies of the academy.

But you, friends, are (thankfully) not the academy; let us, then, in any case, proceed. 

II

The worst enemy of thought is existence; the worst enemy of thinking is being. It is a case where the genus and the species are hopelessly confused: Is it thinking that is a species of being, or being a species of thinking? Or is there an infinite gulf between them, never the two to meet? No philosophical answer is really any good, since all of them turn upon conceptual definition or transformation and in no wise furnish anything that could be considered concrete.

But less us step back: Why this dichotomy? Who established it and why ought we to pay it any mind? But we do pay it mind, quite without any sophistical artifice. Our language itself is riddled with the dualism (one particularly potent form of which is mind-body), and the most common form of logical or grammatical relation (if not the most common than at least nonetheless ubiquitous) is the binary opposition, itself the basis of the dualistic mode of thought.

Dualism is the transposition of this logico-grammatical structure onto a metaphysical plane. Mind and Matter – is this opposition not our constant companion? Indeed, a great many notable philosophers have made it their lifework to criticize, and in some cases even to brutally annihilate, this our fact of experience; it is already clear that a merely philosophical (and by this I mean a merely discursive, as will become clear) solution can only come to naught against the rocks of that very same experience.

And yet, there is something dastardly, something sinister and disconcerting, in this state of affairs. Do not the two deserve to be one? Have they not earned it by their stoic resistance to every pitiable scientific and theoretical advancement that the combined might of humanity has ever wrought? Indeed, something is amiss; there ought not be two. Ought there then be one?

But a one is already a two; and thereby we have a three; by means of this can we prove any metaphysical thing at all as we like, up even to our very own favorite number (and many people are partial to their birthdays, for instance, quite a high number with year and all). Nay, best to stop it while we can and settle on a first layer so to speak. Shall we, like the Christians, offer up a 1 = 3? While this is certainly a valid formula, it is reliant on a dogma that forces its extension beyond the necessary means for statement. Let us say, with Crowley, 0 = 2. Here we have nothing less than the non-duality of duality and non-duality. Indeed a terrifying proposition, let us leave this to soak in the basin of the brain and return to our gnostics, who miss us already, I am sure. 

III

The gnostics believed, among other things of course, that matter was imprisonment of the soul (or spirit, depending on a complex history of translation and connotation) and that only by gnosis, a spiritual/intellectual/soulful activity (though certainly not a discursive one, for which it is nowadays liable to be mistaken, even by such admirable writers on mysticism as Vladimir Lossky) that allowed for the liberation of the true self. A dualism, then, like that of the neoplatonists, except that here the dualism has a stronger sense: it is not merely mind versus matter as two planes, but mind versus matter as good versus evil. The gnostics took the logic of dualism to its true and inevitable conclusions (this same extremity is present, so claim the philosophers of the contemporary period, in each and every such dualism… in this we can only agree, and perhaps smirk if we are feeling particularly cheeky).

Becoming-spirit can be effected not otherwise than via the spirit itself, via gnosis. The material body is a restriction; the more one is determined by matter, and especially by the body, the more unfree one is. In contrast, the less bound to matter one is, the more free, the more is one identified with what one truly is, that being the spirit or soul, which is in itself nothing other than pure freedom, unfathomable in its transcendence.

Why is matter restriction? Is not the word of sin restriction (as the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat has communicated to us)? By way of cosmic anticipation, the gnostics knew this, and thus declared matter to be equivalent to sin. In this they are not far off, for matter is the regime of separation, in fact just is a metaphysical separateness, a self-splintering of being, that is, mind (knowing which we have now answered the earlier question as to the genus-species confusion).

And yet we have not entered the misty lands of Advaita, fond of which though you readers might be. The purity of the soul is such as to have no object, to have no separation, but it is not to be thereby empty or featureless, as if it were nothing at all from its own perspective; and from ours? Here is the riddle of duality and non-duality, which can be solved – though not here – by a non-philosophical concept, namely the unilateral duality of the professional philosopher Laruelle. More simply, and certainly more comprehensible, we can take a page from Henri Bergson, to suggest the updated gnostic position as that of pure virtuality, an immediate wholeness of self which cannot be sundered, and a oneness of will; is this not a far cry from the annihilation of the aspirant (in ego? In soul?), which may nonetheless be a way of describing the process by which true gnosis is achieved. But beware, for as always and ever, the description is not the thing, and in the mistaking thereof there cometh hurt.

IV

Are we then modern-day gnostics, despite our best efforts? We, like the gnostics we spurn, are believers in dualism. And, also like the gnostics, we want to escape the determining and reductionist nature of that opposition. And we are also not convinced by mere conceptual games; no, our malaise in unassailable by means of games, save only the Cosmic Game on which many more essays could be written and yet of which nothing substantial thereby could ever be said; which, in other words, must be played.

And then there is the case of scientism: is a contrived and unconvincing monism any better? Such a thing must be a reductionism, despite the inevitable protestations of an impossibly-articulated physics, positively overflowing with positivity (in the form of an imperious positivism). The gnostics thought not to reduce, as is often alleged of them. Rather, they confronted the tension, nay even the outright contradiction, directly, in the process of which confrontation is all power given. And what followed from this blasphemous empiricism? In fact, we are in a good position to find this out, being the good (post)moderns we are, and thus constantly confronting precisely the same issue even after all this time. The only difference, and it may not apply in all cases (though we do look to the academy with scorn on this point), is hypocritical and disearnest discourse that is always at odds with the consciousness of them who speak it. Would that they speaketh not...

The means of “overcoming” our centuries-old dualism is… not to overcome it! The author is every day more convinced that academic philosophy attempts to work out spiritual dilemmas by morbidly and obstinately reliving civilizational traumas, with each repetition taking on a negligibly different emphasis; the solution to this ever-more-tortured and self-flagellating exercise has been with us for millennia. Instead of this extraordinary psychological self-harm, why don’t you sit awhile, in silence and without disturbance of any kind, of body, mind, or otherwise? Doesn’t that sound much nicer anyway? And the goal is quite the same.

The Occult: An Historical & General Ramble

[This is the outline of a presentation I gave to some peers, not as a first introduction to the occult, but as something to get them more interested. As such,, it is partially philosophical and partially a history of the occult, to indicate where interested listeners could next go. It is not complete in itself, and was accompanied by much discussion. It is also not particularly technical, either philosophically or esoterically. In any case, I thought I would go ahead and post it. Thanks to Anthony Dipofi for inspiration, most particularly as it relates to III.K.]

I. Introduction

“The occult”, and its corresponding study, “occultism” or “the occult sciences”, are designations whose meaning is typically far from clear. More or less equivalently, one often hears talk of “the esoteric” and “esotericism”. While there are clear historical lines of development, traced for example by Antoine Faivre (see his Access to Western Esotericism), it is often the case that these more scholarly presentations privelege a certain external understanding of the disciplines and their subject matter, or, also quite commonly, a certain tradition or certain time period’s definition at the exclusion of any others. Regardless, we shall try to explore some general features, whatever the academically problematic nature may be.

“Occult” means “hidden”, but the nature of what is hidden, as well as that of the hiding itself, are rather opaque. The usual way to interpret this is that occult knowledge is for the elite, that it is somehow unfit for the eyes of the unworthy. The secrets of magickal orders are frequently guarded for this purpose. However, it seems more likely that the secrets will remain secret to those not ready for them, even if those unworthy people confront them head-on in a text or try to implement them in practice. This is because the secrets are layers of interpretation; occult “secrets” need not be hidden to keep them from the unwashed masses. But this is not to be interpreted as a kind of egalitarian statement of itself; it is still true that there must be some sort of levels of initiation (or initiations in different things), though even this is likely up for debate. In any case, it is not always a matter of hierarchy.

Occult knowledge is knowledge that is hidden, a state that is sometimes called “subtle”, in contrast to the “coarse” knowledge of the natural sciences. Occult knowledge is subtle because it does not correspond to directly tangible, universally-organized scientific reality. To apprehend occult forces is itself a subtle feat, one that cannot necessarily be replicated in scientific conditions, which work to reduce or even entirely eliminate the influence of teleologies, “subjective” influences, and particularities, all hallmarks of the occult. The relationship of the hard or natural sciences to the occult is one that is fraught with technical difficulties, but I hope to return to it in a later presentation. This presentation, then, will deal primarily with the occult in general – what it is, its history and various traditions, and a brief thought about why it works (because it really does work!).

A preliminary note: To understand the occult, we must take what I will call an “internal” view of the matter. This means we must look at it from the perspective of a believer, one involved in it as a way of life. If we look at occult phenomena and practices merely from the perspective of a skeptical observer, I can tell you right now that it will not work. What you put in is typically what you get out, though magnified to some degree. It might be said that occultism is the science of belief, using belief to do psychological work; this in turn requires symbols, gestures, and all the trappings of ceremonial magick. But this is just a psychologistic interpretation of the occult, though by no means is it illegitimate. As is frequently said, the neophyte typically begins with a psychologistic, skeptical position on the occult, but as they amass more and more successes and experience more and more unexplainable phenomena, they typically become more direct believers.

In any case, it will not do to look at an occult text “from the outside”. In that case, one completely misses the point, since occultism is, as I have said, about belief, about willpower. If you do not will, you cannot understand what is meant by the various occult theses you will come upon. Occultism is unabashedly perspectival, it is not universal as is science or most other forms of discourse. It is not based primarily upon rhetorical commonalities, emotional connections, or logical deductions, and hence is not generically intelligible. Another example: having a vision can be explained scientifically by looking at certain neural firings in the brain, and so on, but this in no way even touches on the significance of the experience “from the inside”. The inside perspective is that of the occult practitioner, and it is futile to refute this from without.

II. A Brief History of Occultism

In this part of the presentation, I will not go over the entirety of the occult’s history, which is undoubtedly as long as that of humankind, stretching from prehistoric shamanism (insofar as that word can account for a long-lasting and wide variety of phenomena) to contemporary expressions of postmodern chaos magic. Instead, I will focus on a few broad traditions: Hermeticism, Enochian Magic, The Golden Dawn, Thelema, Temple of Set, Chaos Magick, and Witchcraft.

II.A. Hermeticism

Hermeticism is one of the oldest extant forms of magick of which we have a rather good record (the Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri are a good source, as well as the so-called Curse Tablets). This kind of magick started in Greece and Egypt, and was a product of several “streams” or influences: Gnosticism, Hebrew theology, Egyptian magick, and Greek magick, combined into a novel form. Hermetic magick is the single greatest influence on all magick that came after it, and there are many sorts of magick that are called “hermetic” which deviate significantly from the sort of sorcery found in the Magical Papyri.

Hermetic magick is named after Hermes (the Roman Mercury), who was equated by the magicians with the Egyptian neter (God-principle) Thoth, the god of magic and science. Typical hermetic spells were things like love spells, spells to vanquish enemies, and spells for protection from baleful spirits or forces. Casting these spells typically involved elaborate ingredients (such as “the blood of a black ass” and various rare compounded plant materials), words of power (voces magicae), and various ceremonial gestures. There were also so-called “high magick” practices (magick used for initiation or for achieving some kind of divinity), as opposed to these practical “low magick” (aka “sorcery”) operations. High magick, though, would in general not become the primary form of magick until perhaps the Renaissance.

Magick was at this point a kind of outsider art, but was practiced by the learned. Hermetic magick did not discriminate based upon culture or pantheon, itself being born from a novel mixture. Greek gods were invoked side-by-side with their Egyptian counterparts, and often gods were identified with one another more or less wholesale.

Hermeticism’s primary tenets can be found in the Corpus Hermeticum; in particular I recommend everyone read The Poimander. Later, hermeticism’s principles, which include polarity, the various spiritual worlds, and the doctrine of the elements, would develop into ceremonial magick as we know it today, including into the eclectic and in spirit thoroughly hermetic works of Franz Bardon, even exerting and enormous influence on the grimoire tradition of the middle ages and the Renaissance. A great contemporary introduction to hermeticism, in its more modern and theoretical or “high magick” form, is The Kybalion by The Three Initiates. If you are still unsure as to what hermeticism is after this meeting, I would recommend you read The Kybalion. Another good reading, more thoroughly historical, and containing translations of the magical papyri, is Stephen Flowers’s Hermetic Magic.

II.B. Enochian Magic

Enochian magic was transmitted to Dr. John Dee and his seer, Sir Edward Kelley, during the reign of Elizabeth I. Kelley would gaze into a crystal ball while Dee performed ceremonial gestures, chants, prayers, and so on. In the crystal, Kelley perceived angels who gave him a language, Enochian, the “language of the angels”, as well as various invocations or “keys”, containing according to one theory the power to, if successfully performed, open the watchtowers at the edge of the universe and let in the forces of chaos (the demon Choronzon), effectively ushering in the apocalypse.

The angels told Dee and Kelley all kinds of very disturbing things, urging them to share their wives in common, to endanger themselves by denouncing Emperor Rudolf and admonishing him to follow the angels’ teachings, and to cast aside morality. Kelley asked an angel why they were telling them to commit so many sins, and the angel replied, “What is sin?”, after which the two men attempted an explanation, to no avail.

Enochian magick is extremely powerful (I have very little experience with it). The works of Aaron Leitch are supposed to be very good for anyone who is interested. Aside from being so powerful, the story of Dee and Kelley is worth looking into in much greater detail than I can provide here.

II.C. The Golden Dawn

Undoubtedly the most prominent magickal order of modern times is the Golden Dawn, active primarily from the end of the 19^th century through the first few years of the 20^th. The Golden Dawn was headed primarily by S.L. Macgregor Mathers, who found a secret “cipher” manuscript written by a German adept and containing the authority to set up a new magickal order in England. Mathers decoded the cipher and wrote to the adept, who, by her authority derived from the “Secret Chiefs”, gave the go-ahead to Mathers.

Why did Mathers need such authority? At the time, it was a common occult assumption that there was a secret society of world-historical proportions that had been guarding ancient secrets for millenia; the society is sometimes termed the “Great White Brotherhood” or the “White Lodge”, the members thereof being termed the “Secret Chiefs”, transcendent masters who were working behind the scenes to guide humanity to spiritual evolution. This is, then, a rather concretized version of the so-called perennial philosophy.

In any casy, the Golden Dawn quickly became a potent force in the occult world. Two of its most famous members are Aleister Crowley (greatest magician of the age) and W.B. Yeats (the poet). The Golden Dawn combined qabalah (the Hebrew “Tree of Life”, a kind of meta-mythological emanationist philosophy/theology, dealt with more below), tarot, Enochian magic (as noted above), hermetic magick (including especially elemental magick), and so on. The Golden Dawn had an elaborate grade structure based upon the spheres of the Tree of Life. The Golden Dawn system of magick is very white-light, very pious and holy, its primary instruments of practice being based strongly on Judeo-christian mythology interspersed with Greek and Egyptian paganism. In any case, a crisis precipitated the demise of the Golden Dawn, though several spiritual successors and supposedly legitimate offshoots now exist.

The classic work on the Golden Dawn is simply titled The Golden Dawn, collected or “revealed” by Israel Regardie, Crowley’s one-time secretary. A better introductory work is undoubtedly Peregrin Wildoaks’ By Names and Images: Bringing the Golden Dawn to Life.

II.D. Thelema

After Crowley left (or was kicked out of) the Golden Dawn, he eventually formed his own occult philosophy called “Thelema”. While in Cairo on a honeymoon with his wife Rose Kelly, Crowley received a text called The Book of the Law. It happened something like this.

Rose became despondent and began going into trance states, though she knew nothing of magick nor mysticism. She started saying strange occult things to Crowley, who thought she was just trying to trick him. She said she was the messenger of Horus, so Crowley took her to the museum in Cairo and asked her to point out Horus to him, thinking to expose her game. She walked straight to the Stele of Revealing, numbered in the museum as exhibit 666, and pointed to Ra-hoor-khuit, a composite god made from Ra and Horus. Crowley was astounded. She then began to give him ritual instructions for the invocation of Horus. Crowley, now believing her to be the messenger of that god, took her back to their living quarters and did as she said. On three successive days, March 20-22, from noon until 1pm, a figure appeared in their temple (a room in their apartment) and dictated to Crowley three chapters that would become The Book of the Law.

The first chapter is the perspective of Nuit, the Egyptian star-goddess, goddess of the night sky, a circle of infinite circumference. Nuit is a goddess of love, representing, among other things, the macrocosm, the universe, and non-duality. The second chapter is the perspective of Hadit, whose name is a mistranslation/mistake, but who is represented as a kind of winged disk on the Stele of Revealing. Hadit is the infinitesimal point within, the highest contraction of the soul, the serpent who raises his head to unite with Nuit in bliss. Finally, the third chapter is the perspective of Ra-hoor-khuit, in other words Horus. This chapter is incredibly brutal, prophesying and even advocating violence and brutality. In this chapter, Horus is the crowned and conquering child ushering in the New Aeon.

The Book of the Law indicated that Crowley was the prophet of the New Aeon, the Aeon of Horus. This aeon succeeded the previous Aeon of Osiris, which in turn succeeded the Aeon of Isis (the characteristics of those gods supposedly having some bearing on the general constitution of the age). The Aeon of Horus was supposed to be one of force and fire, brutality, war, but also freedom. In the Aeon of Osiris, the cult of the dying god ruled; it was an aeon of restriction and suffering, represented by solar gods such as Osiris (and also Jesus Christ). In the Aeon of Osiris, the sun going down at night represented death, and the dawn the rebirth to new life. The Aeon of Horus, by contrast, is supposed to be stellar rather than solar, and to represent the insight that the sun does not die, but is constantly burning. It is a very Nietzschean sort of aeon, one of freedom, of will, and of love.

Crowley’s system can be summed up in two doctrines: “Do what thou wilt shall be the Whole of the Law” and “Love is the Law, Love under Will”. The goal of Thelemic magick is to achieve “Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel”, in other words to find your True Will, and then to do it. Crowley, it would seem, mixed the “high magick” and eclectic approach of the Golden Dawn with genuinely blasphemous heterodoxy and a kind of emancipatory focus on will and freedom.

One can read many of Crowley’s own texts for more information. In particular, I recommend Gems From the Equinox and Magick: Liber ABA, Book IV. Everyone should read Liber AL vel Legis: The Book of the Law!

II.E. The Temple of Set

The Temple of Set was born from the ashes of the Church of Satan. The Temple of Set, however, is also a kind of successor to Crowley. The focus of the Temple is “Left-Hand path” occultism, in other words instead of seeking union with God, it seeks the deification of the individual, a kind of full realization rather than an annihilation of the ego. It too seeks a kind of “True Will”, but it tempers the libertinism advocated by Crowley with its deep concern for autonomy and the integrity of the self and the will.

The Temple of Set advocates for a split between the “Subjective Universe” and the “Objective Universe”, in other words something rather similar to my own thoughts about the “interior” and “exterior” perspectives, this time applied to individual human beings. One should work to strengthen and control completely one’s Subjective Universe, though magick can also influence the Objective Universe from time to time. The Temple, therefore, has an eclectic and non-dogmatic approach to magickal systems, though always with the above focus.

The best readings on the Temple are probably as follows: Uncle Setnakt’s Essential Guide to the Left Hand Path by Don Webb, and The Seven Faces of Darkness also by Don Webb (for a more immediate and Hermetic approach). Michael Aquino’s The Temple of Set is a good account of the doctrines and history of the Temple.

II.F. Chaos Magick

Chaos magick is basically postmodern magick that eschews any kind of systematization. It is radically individualist, believing that one should use what works and discard the rest, with “what works” being irreducibly individual. Beyond that, there is not too much to say about “chaotes”, as they are often called. Chaos magick is usually non-symbolic or personally symbolic, breaking rituals down to their simplest psychological components.

Good introductions to chaos magick include: Peter Carroll’s Liber Null and Psychonaut, Stephen Mace’s Stealing the Fire From Heaven, and most stuff by Robert Anton Wilson.

II.G. Witchcraft

Generally speaking, there are two primary forms of witchcraft around today: “wicca” and “traditional witchcraft”.

Wicca was consolidated (or invented, depending on who you ask) by Gerald Gardner in the 20^th century. Wicca is primarily a form of New Age moon goddess-worship. It does utilize magic, but is not really part of the usual “occult” trajectory, being more a religion than an occult system. Therefore I will not really deal with it here.

“Traditional witchcraft” is the name given to non-wiccan pagan witchcraft. It is typically still based on the myths and folklore of the British Isles, though it is far “darker” in tone than wicca. Some forms of traditional witchcraft are almost full-on Luciferianism, worshiping entities described in apocryphal biblical texts (like Azazel and the “Watchers” from the Book of Enoch) right alongside the Horned God and Earth Goddess types. The most esoteric and by far the most interesting form of traditional witchcraft is the Cultus Sabbati, formed and developed by Andrew Chumbley (who, if he had not died young, would certainly have been the next Aleister Crowley!). He wrote Azoetia and The Dragon Book of Essex, mixing Sufism, traditional pagan witchcraft, Crowley-type stuff, and an emormous dose of Alpha Draconis-based dark spirituality.

A good introduction to traditional witchcraft is lacking, but I would probably recommend starting with Robin Artisson’s The Witching Way of Hollow Hill.

III. Occult Techniques & Theory

Now that we have a basic grasp on the history and contemporary traditions of occultism, we can take a brief look at the actual workings of occultism, though in this area things get a lot more subtle, and a lot more tentative.

III.A. Myths & Symbols

Myths and symbols are a huge part of occultism. Occult practice functions primarily through symbol. Occult knowledge, it is sometimes said, can only be transmitted in the form of symbol. Why is this? It is because the imagination, particularly the symbolic imagination, has a privileged position with regard to the Soul or Spirit (depending on what vocabulary one uses, these words switch meanings). The Spirit as the higher (or even highest) faculty of the human being cannot be interacted with on the discursive level. In order to interact with it, we must use symbol. The direct apprehension of the subtler aspects of reality, therefore, must be transmitted via symbol. If we “translate” the occult symbol into words, it loses this ability and typically becomes a rather ridiculous sort of thesis. Often, when trying to explain to people occult truths, both me and the listener end up saying “what? That’s it??”

Myths, furthermore, are just moving symbols, strings of symbols put together to create (or rather express) more in-depth occult truths.

III.B. Qabalah

The qabalah is more or less the universal master key of the practice of magick. Crowley explained that the Tree of Life was a “filing cabinet” in which to place whatever element of reality. The Tree of Life is more or less an enormous set of correspondences, a meta-mythology. Osiris, for example, can be placed into sphere 6 of the Tree of Life, Tiphareth. Odin can be placed, in his aspect as King of the Gods, in the fourth sphere, Chesed; in his role as initiator and god of magick, he can be placed in sphere 8, Hod. So you see the flexibility of the qabalah as a meta-mythological filing cabinet.

Aside from this aspect, the qabalah has a definite philosophy associated with it, derived from Jewish mysticism (the spelling often differentiates the Jewish Kabbalah, Christian Cabbalah, and hermetic Qabalah). It is a philosophy of emanation wherein God manifested himself in 10 different aspects or “Sephiroth”, and in a definite order. At the top are the three “veils of negative existence”, the AIN SOPH AUR (the limitless light), AIN SOPH (the limitless), and AIN (nothingness). After this, God manifested as a pure point, Kether, the Crown. From here, God emanated into Chokmah, or Wisdom. Chokmah is pure force, also associated with the Father. Wisdom then gave birth to Binah, Understanding, the Mother, pure form. Next comes the Abyss, which separates the top three, the “Supernal Triad”, from the other seven spheres. The Abyss has great significance for initiation, as it separates divine consciousness from the ego.

After the Abyss comes a strange thing: a non-sephirah, a sphere that is not one: Daath, Knowledge. In the Fall from the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve ate from the “Tree of Knowledge”, they ate of Daath. As the 11^th Sephirah, Daath is hidden, and is often described by Jewish kabbalists as “the false sephirah”. Its mysteries are deep, and we cannot plumb them here, but suffice it to say that the Fall of Man resulted in the death of Daath and the creation of the Abyss between the Supernal Triad and the lower sephiroth. There is a reason the Tree of Life is not perfectly symmetrical now, though it once was.

The first sephirah below the Abyss is Chesed, Mercy. It is after Chesed that the right-hand pillar on the Tree of Life is named “The Pillar of Mercy”. After Chesed comes Geburah, “Severity”, naming in like manner the “Pillar of Severity”. After Geburah comes what is basically the center of the Tree, in the Pillar of Mildness, Tiphareth, or Beauty. Tiphareth is the Sun, the higher consciousness, harmony, and so on. Attaining Tiphareth is attaining Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. After Tiphareth comes Netzach, Splendor, corresponding to Venus, inspiration, art, and so on. After Netzach is Hod, the analytical intellect, Mercury, intelligence, and magick. Then comes Yesod, the “Foundation” (of the manifest world), corresponding to the Moon (on the middle pillar below Tiphareth, the Sun), dreams, and so on. Finally, there is Malkuth, the Kingdom, representing the Earth and the manifest universe as we know it. It is in Malkuth where we begin our quest.

Finally, there are said to be 4 “worlds” in qabalistic philosophy: Assiah (the material), Yetzirah (the astral), Briah (the mental or creative), and Atziluth (the archetypal or causal). Assiah is self-explanatory, corresponding to Malkuth. Yetzirah corresponds to Yesod up through Chesed, and is roughly equivalent to the imaginal world of image; almost all magick works through the astral world. Briah’s associations vary, but usually it corresponds to Binah and Chokmah. It is kind of like Plato’s world of Ideas, but more mystical. Finally, Atziluth corresponds to Kether and is almost completely beyond human understanding.

There is an enormous amount of information out there on the qabalah. The Golden Dawns’ grades are based on the spheres on the Tree of Life.

III.C. Ceremonial Magick

The practice of ceremonial magick is usually based on the qabalah. But even if it is not, it usually functions by two primary magickal means: names and images.

Holy names or words, voces magicae, are in a ritual setting inseparable from the concept which they are supposed to “signify”. Words thus have a very different function in a ritual, being not mere significations, but active doings. They activate Mental (Briatic) powers. These words are to be vibrated rather than just spoken – that means they should be projected loudly and slowly, using muscles in the chest and throat to increase resonance. They should sound almost like Tibetan throat singing if done correctly (this is hard, I admit).

Images, in the context of ceremonial magick, invoke aspects or forces in the astral world. Images are particularly signaled by color; color imagination is very important in Golden Dawn style magick in particular. An image of a spirit or angel, for example, is supposed to actually take on the powers and significance of that angel itself, and should really be inseparable from that of which it is the image. One way to think about it might be this: we create an image of a spirit we wish to interact with, making it as lifelike as possible, including the correct colors. Then with a magick word we breathe it into life (the Briatic world is also called the “creative” world). This is how we invoke or interact with, for example, the archangels in the typical Golden Dawn rituals for banishing or invoking.

Speaking of which, there are two general forms of Golden Dawn magick: banishing and invoking. Banishing works just like it sounds, getting rid of unwanted influences in the spiritual or even material realm. Banishing is best done before moving on to other more delicate procedures. Invoking rituals, on the other hand, summon a specific power to inhabit the body of the magician or the temple in general. Dramatic invocation is a particularly potent form of invocation, where a particular god is called to inhabit the magician’s body and mind; this is different from spirit possession (also called “mediumistic possession”) because the magician does not lose control over their body or mind, but are rather filled with divine consciousness and presence of the specified type.

A typical ceremonial magickal working might include the following: first a banishing ritual to clear the air and create an aura of sanctity; then a preliminary invoking ritual or rituals of some kind; then the steps of a dramatic invocation, such as reading hymns to the chosen god or so on; then, if necessary, another banishing ritual to once more clear the air. Of course, not all workings are straightforward invocations of a single god.

Much ceremonial magick works through associations, and invocation particularly so. For example, the east is associated with the archangel Raphael, the season of Spring, dawn, the element air, the color yellow, the divine name YHVH, and so on. Stringing together associations can produce a rapid accumulation of surplus meaning or sense, which can then be put to use in magickal activity, which activity can then itself be thought of as a kind of interpretation (one that transcends mundane reality, of course).

Or again: in an invocation of the god Aries, I might proceed as follows. I adorn my altar with the color red, placing an iron rod in a central location. A picture of Aries hangs from the wall. It is warm in the room, and there is as much fire as I can safely produce. Atu XVI, The Tower, is displayed prominently. A martial song is playing in the background. And so on. The goal is to make the mind oversaturated with the imagery of the desired deity. The fact of association is more important than the “objectivity” of the association. That is, even if we think that no association is in itself necessary, we might consider (in a structuralist way) the chain of these signifiers as differing from other chains to be what is important. Tables of associations are easily obtainable online, but one must really actively associate the elements strongly in one’s mind for such an invocation to work.

III.D. Divination

Divination is not merely the predicting of the future, as if the divination itself were external to the matter. Through divination, we can influence the outcome, or come to understand it better, and not merely register it as an inevitability. Tarot is probably the most fleshed-out and flexible system of divination, though runic divination and the I Ching are also effective.

Divination cannot be explained by scientific principles, because science deals with universalities, in this case specifically probabilities. But when we draw a card in a tarot reading, we are not drawing a probability, we are drawing this card, and even if explained “you had a 1/78 chance of drawing that card”, the irreducible specificity of this card does not even enter into the equation (and indeed, it cannot on principle).

The best divination is done for oneself, where you draw the cards and, through long association and connection with outcomes of real events, you immediately know what the cards mean. In other words, you use your subconscious immediate reaction to understand your own hidden associations with the relevant cards. This is at least a good psychologistic interpretation of the powers of tarot divination.

III.E. Numerology

Much of occultism is based on number. The qabalah is the most obvious example, each sephirah corresponding to a number and the qualities associated with that number. Pythagorean number mysticism is another example.

Numerology, in particular qabalistic “gematria”, is an easy way to build associations. Each letter (in Hebrew, Greek, or English) is given a value. Each word is the sum of the values of the individual letters. Large resulting sums can furthermore be broken down into single-digit numbers by taking the “cross sum”, that is, adding together each digit. This can be repeated as necessary. For example: the sephira “Geburah” is, in Hebrew, “GBRVH”, that is, 3 + 2 + 6 + 200 + 5 = 216. Furthermore, the cross sum of 216 is 2 + 1 + 6 = 9. We can look up the associations of the number 216: wine, a man, fear, cleanness, profound. Or, less significantly, for 9: to be strong, powerful one, brother, to despise, to heat. This will supposedly give us some insight in to the nature of Geburah. It is easy to get carried away with gematria; take it with a grain of salt.

Another interesting thing to consider is the numerical nature of conceptual relations. We can, for instance, think of the four elements as the conceptual apparatus corresponding to the number 4. Lacan said somewhere that the number of concepts already tells us a lot about what the possible meanings and relations of those concepts could be. Two concepts is obviously a duality of some kind, while if there is a third it offsets or transcends that duality. Four concepts is a stable set of axes, while five offsets the two axes in some manner. Hence we find the number 4 to signify stability, while the number 5 signifies strife or discord. I think this would be an interesting path to pursue.

III.F. Astrology

Astrology has a poor reputation because it often bleeds into semi- or pseudo-scientific claims (depending on who you ask). Astrology is in general the study of the influence of the heavenly bodies, i.e. the seven classical planets and the zodiac, on the life and activity of humanity and the cosmos as a whole.

The most important astrological facts for each of us, based on the day and hour of our birth, are: sun sign, moon sign, and “ascendant” sign. The sun sign will be the most prominent and important sign, with the moon sign second, and the ascendant third. One can consult the internet for specifics, but again, take it with a grain of salt, especially because a complete birth chart will give a very different picture than a mere sun sign. For example, it is not only the individual signs itself (and there is a sign for each of your planets, as well as other designations like “ascendant”), but also important is the relationships, that is, the angles between any two planets, which can form trines, semitrines, and so on, which each have different meanings for your life.

It should also be noted that each sign is either cardinal, fixed, or mutable; each sign also has an element and a planetary ruler. The signs’ designations are as follows:

1. Aries – Cardinal – Fire – Mars
2. Leo – Fixed – Fire – Sun
3. Sagittarius – Mutable – Fire – Jupiter
4. Cancer – Cardinal – Water – Moon
5. Scorpio – Fixed – Water – Mars
6. Pisces – Mutable – Water – Jupiter
7. Libra – Cardinal – Air – Venus
8. Aquarius – Fixed – Air – Saturn
9. Gemini – Mutable – Air – Mercury
10. Capricorn – Cardinal – Earth – Saturn
11. Taurus – Fixed – Earth – Venus
12. Virgo – Mutable – Earth – Mercury

The planets have a powerful influence on us because they are so big and close. The stars, and consequently the constellations, are typically viewed as more subtle and supernal powers. The difference between lunar, solar, and stellar occult traditions is one about which much could be fruitfully said.

III.G. Microcosm, Macrocosm

As you read in the reading for this week, the human being is a microcosm, a holographic reflection of the universe as a whole, at least in its spiritual respects. To change yourself is to change the cosmos – to go within yourself is to go outside yourself. This is the traditional view of how magick works, according to hermeticism and its derivative traditions.

But this does not automatically work. If the human vessel is corrupt or spiritually damaged, the correspondence to the macrocosm will not work, and hence the magick itself will be much weakened. We must make ourselves microcosms. That is the first goal of magick, and is represented by the balancing of the elements within oneself. It clarifies or cleans the mirror of our soul, so to speak, and allows passage to be made from the spirit to the material body and vice versa.

III.H. The Great Work

So what is the point of the occult? Why would one practice occultism? There are generally two primary answers: to develop spiritually, or to get shit done.

Spiritual development is itself split into two traditions: the Left-Hand Path and the Right-Hand Path. The LHP seeks self-deification, while the RHP seeks to dissolve in union with God. Both traditions, however, typically have a two-step process: first, Knowledge and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel, in other words contact with the True Will; and second, transcending the mundane ego. In the LHP this transcendence results in a kind of identity with the True Will and a transcendent individuality separate or isolated from others (not in a bad or lonely way; it merely describes the singularity or autonomy of the self). In the RHP this second step is merging with God, annihilating the self and becoming everything (or nothing!).

The other answer is to get stuff done. Sometimes the occult is used for its “low magick” or “sorcery” potential, to improve one’s life by influencing external factors; for example, one could cast a spell to pass a test, or to get a lot of money, or to overcome anxiety, and so on. The earliest kinds of magick of which we have a record are usually of this type, but since the days of the Golden Dawn this kind of magick has taken a backseat to “high magick” or “theurgy”.

We should talk about precisely what we want to accomplish in this group, although we are nowhere close at present to our True Wills, or to making a decision between the LHP and RHP. And in the early stages of (elemental) work, high magick and low magick are relatively close together, since the magician must balance the self (which is inherently beneficial in life as such) before moving on to theurgy. In any case, magick is not merely a thing you do, it is a thing you are, more a way of life than a hobby, at least if it is done as intended.

III.I. Yoga & Meditation

No magickal practice could be complete with meditation and possibly other yogic practices (pranayama, breath control, prime among them). Meditation is the means for trance states, by which spiritual and subconscious messages can be communicated.

Meditation is generally of two types: concentration and insight. Concentration is focusing upon one single thing for an extended period of time, usually the feeling of the breath as it moves in and out of the nostrils. Important stages of concentration meditation are as follows: pratyahara, or “withdrawal from the senses”, when one sort of subtracts one’s mind from the body and from external reality; dharana, or “thought control”, where one can willfully hold the object of concentration steadily for a period of time; dhyana, when, according to Swami Vivekananda, “...the mind has been trained to remain fixed on a certain internal or external location, there comes to it the power of flowing in an unbroken current, as it were, towards that point”; and finally, the ultimate stage of yogic meditation, samadhi, or god-consciousness. Crowley first achieved dhyana after reducing his breathing to one breath per minute for a full eight hours.

To do concentration meditation, sit or lie as still as possible. Do not move at all while you are meditating. Do not think of anything but the feeling of the breath in the nostrils. If your mind wanders from the breath, firmly but gently return it to the breath with your will (here will be a profound early encounter with the magickal will…). It may help to count down from 10 with deep breaths (i.e. breathe in and say or see the number “10”, then breathe out “10”, then in “9”, and so on). Concentration meditation is almost certainly the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, and even though I’ve been doing it for quite a while now I am still not very good at it. The key is to practice strictly and regularly, to breathe deeply, and to stay as utterly still as possible. This is the backbone of any mystical or magickal practice, and you will probably get more immediate results from meditation than from magick. Try to do this at least 15 minutes a day, if possible. There really is no upper limit when concentration meditation stops being beneficial, but even most yogi masters stick to about 4 hours per session.

Insight meditation is in some sense the opposite of concentration; where concentration closes off the mind and turns consciousness inward, insight meditation seeks to experience everything at once as a single whole. To do insight meditation, try to focus on everything you are feeling at once; do not divide up the experience into the feeling of your head, of your feet, etc. Then add to that sensation everything you are hearing; try not to differentiate between hearing and feeling. Finally, add everything you are seeing. While doing this, breathe deeply and try not to let any words enter your mind. Try to see the oneness in all that you are experiencing. If you gain some proficiency in this, normal waking consciousness will feel profoundly unconscious, for you will have experienced an expansion of consciousness that you could not even conceive before. This meditation is good because you can do it anywhere at almost any time, and is not as fragile or time-consuming as concentration.

III.J. Occultism and Language

Occultism has a strange relationship to language. The realm of discourse has a decidedly negative or damaging effect on experience, according to the occult traditions. This is because language takes us outside of ourselves. Put another way, language takes things externally, refuses to inhabit their inner processes, and thereby stops us from coming to true knowledge. We fail to experience a movement or concept as it is in itself when our experience becomes lost or othered in language.

Consequently, the language used in occultism is either of an evocative kind (to produce a certain mental state), an intentional kind (to announce one’s will and thereby objectify it), or a magickal kind. This last kind makes words transcend language and interpretation, instead manifesting directly as force, as a magickal action and as the presencing of the entity whose name is vibrated.

According to Kenneth Grant, the “barbarous names of evocation” work in this magickal way precisely because they are so barbarous. These names – “GOLACHAB”, “ABLANATHANALBA”, “IO ERBETH, IO PAKERBETH, IO BOLCHOSETH, IO APOMX”, and so on – activate a certain part of the back of the brain (the reptilian brain) via their barbarity and function as terrible and divine. Whether any barbarous name would do or whether there really are particular names or sounds corresponding to particular forces I leave to you all to discover for yourselves.

III.K. Occultism as Philosophy

The word “philosophy” actually means “love of wisdom”. Wisdom is not knowledge, nor is love possession. Philosophy, then, is an activity: the science and art of striving for wisdom. What is wisdom? Wisdom is not a thing, not something that can be known on a correspondence model of knowledge or truth, and not something that can be apprehended externally. Wisdom is much more a way of life, something almost completely lost in contemporary academic philosophy. To strive for wisdom is to seek truth, certainly, but it is to seek truth as a process of living. This implies the greatest taboo in all of contemporary philosophy: Know Thyself! Note that this knowledge is not at all like the external knowledge of correspondence, of argumental superiority, and so on.

I say this is a taboo because the academy is not about you or me – it is about knowledge, something if not objective, at least objectively studied and presented. Personal issues have no place – the closest we get to that is Nietzsche, but even then our pious commentary ruins the effect. We are not philosophers, and the academy is no place for a philosopher. Rather, the academy is for scholars, for those who comment upon other works, who deal always externally with everything. Scholarship is an inherently external activity, and for that reason it always clashes with philosophy, and treats philosophy with mistrust.

But it was not always this way. Experience of oneself, mastery of oneself, used to come first – see Plato, or Pythagoras. Without knowing yourself, how can you possibly know what truth is? How can you possibly know reality? How can you know wisdom?

What must once again be reconstituted is an occult philosophy, a striving for wisdom that externalizes itself and aids in other strivings, that opens pathways to the divine and blazes trails of thinking and being. This is the most vital task of philosophy today, and we cannot accomplish it if we do not take into account the insights of millenia of occult speculation on the nature of the self, the will, truth, reality, and of course the divine.

IV. Conclusion

This has been a relatively broad and general introduction to occult traditions and several of the practices associated with occultism. If there are any particular areas of interest, I can write something up on those, or merely discuss them with you. This has been intended to showcase the breadth of the occult tradition. Questions?