noonespecial

Still cheaper than the SF Bay Area.

What is a 'life' or what constitutes our definition of life beyond a matrix of memory patterns based on sensory impressions? If all is from One Thing, it follows there is only One Life, making any personality, past, present or future distinct from that Life an illusion. Likewise, what would be the point of a redemptive Christ figure, a stone or elixir if not to break away from that One Thing, it all gets very Faustian very quickly

wow.

I dont know, does it?

We get the god we deserve, not the one we want. - jewish proverb

To give and receive, duh.

Its a copy and paste from wiki - but i cant think of any real commentary beyond the dry facts , just find it fascinating that the basic tenets of western occultism were put into an official form in 1000AD. Their symbol is the Pentagram. ----- The Druze conception of the deity is declared by them to be one of strict and uncompromising unity. The main Druze doctrine states that God is both transcendent and immanent, in which he is above all attributes but at the same time he is present.[78] In their desire to maintain a rigid confession of unity, they stripped from God all attributes (tanzīh). In God, there are no attributes distinct from his essence. He is wise, mighty, and just, not by wisdom, might and justice, but by his own essence. God is "the whole of existence", rather than "above existence" or on his throne, which would make him "limited". There is neither "how", "when", nor "where" about him; he is incomprehensible.[79][page needed] In this dogma, they are similar to the semi-philosophical, semi-religious body which flourished under Al-Ma'mun and was known by the name of Mu'tazila and the fraternal order of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Ṣafa).[33][page needed] Druze do not believe that the esoteric meaning abrogates or necessarily abolishes the exoteric one. Hamza bin Ali refutes such claims by stating that if the esoteric interpretation of taharah (purity) is purity of the heart and soul, it doesn't mean that a person can discard his physical purity, as salat (prayer) is useless if a person is untruthful in his speech and that the esoteric and exoteric meanings complement each other.[88] The Druze strictly avoid iconography but use five colors (“Five Limits” خمس حدود khams ḥudūd) as a religious symbol: green, red, yellow, blue, and white. Each color pertains to a metaphysical power called ḥaad, literally 'a limit', as in the boundaries that separate humans from animals, [clarification needed] or the powers that makes the animal body human. Each ḥaad is color-coded in the following manner: Green for ʻAql "the Universal Mind/Intelligence/Nous", Red for Nafs "the Universal Soul/Anima mundi", Yellow for Kalima "the Word/Logos", Blue for Sabiq "the Potentiality/Cause/Precedent", and White for Tali "the Future/Effect/Immanence". The mind generates qualia and gives consciousness. The soul embodies the mind and is responsible for transmigration and the character of oneself. The word which is the atom of language communicates qualia between humans and represent the platonic forms in the sensible world. The Sabq and Tali is the ability to perceive and learn from the past and plan for the future and predict it. The colors can be arranged in vertically descending stripes (as a flag) or a five-pointed star. The stripes are a diagrammatic cut of the spheres in neoplatonic philosophy, while the five-pointed star embodies the golden ratio,phi, as a symbol of temperance and a life of moderation.

In his Cratylus, Plato gives the etymology of Athena's name, the goddess of wisdom, from Atheonóa (Ἀθεονόα) meaning "god's (theos) mind (nous)" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous I rather like this, wisdom as God's mind.

Whats interesting is hokmah is a masculine sefirot and partzufim, where as it is feminine both as the Greek Sophia (which also just translates as wisdom) and in Proverbs, but i guess the big 'mystery' (LOL) was just as the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, the same goes when looking at the ToL.

Got me to thinking how some of the earlier forms of hip-hop and electronic music were 100% the result of an alchemical process, separating the samples from a diverse group of older songs, a horn from here, a snare from here, kick drum, melody, a bassline from here, purification, eq'ing the samples, filtering the shit parts, editing and arranging them, removing the dross, the boring parts, coagulating, bringing them back together for a new better song even unrecognizable from the original material in some of the more masterful work, final mixing, mastering and arrangement - now we have a song that could possibly even cause the chills, a direct psycho-somatic effect upon listening, the auditory equivalent of ingesting an elixir.

I think you can easily plug in any Greek anthropomorphic view of Wisdom into the Qabalah.

Oneness does not equal sameness. In fact it could be argued what makes us the same is that we are all unique. So completely respecting your fellow human's uniqueness then leads to oneness. Center everywhere, circumference nowhere, the fullness cancels out the nothingness and vice versa, it's all related.

This is something i wrote to myself, thought i would share - Problems with Gnosticism - I mean classic Gnosticism, ie. this world is the result of a lesser god, with malevolent intentions, the dreaded demiurge, Ialdobaoth - and we are food for this system - hit the youtube scene and variations of this theme are basically everywhere, the world is a matrix, a hologram, the alien shit, etc. Yet I plead guilty, what ultimately led me to Hermeticism and Daoist strains of thought and practice was a feeling that we are indeed trapped... One of my first real book purchases as a teenager (that is, purchased on my accord) was Behold a Pale Horse by William Cooper, it’s really an occult classic in it’s own way, the first of it’s kind, the internet before the internet, youtube knowledge before youtube, perfectly blending Apocalyptic ‘ Hal Lindsey style ‘ Christianity, alien life forms, roswell, drugs, alphabet agencies, all under the watchful eye of a government cabal who answers to a worldwide cabal, it doesn't get any better perfectly representing the gnostic/conspiratorial microcosm. As it is below, so it is above - meaning these earth conspiracies are small versions of universal ones - conspiracy amongst men merely reflects the conspiracy among the angels, therefore the conspiracy amongst angels represents the conspiract amongst the gods, no escape huh - it seems to be shit all the way to the top levels. Bummer. Somewhere down the line, after bouts of religious fervor here and there, and extreme polarization I came to Christian Gnosticism, Gospel of Thomas and the rest of the classics, Gospel of Magdalene, Aprocyphon of John, I devoured the whole of the Nag Hammadi - and here we have the grand conspiracy, what we thought was God is actually a false God, nay, the God of the Bible none the less - now through Gnosticism and Google, I eventually came to know and practice an exercise known as the Middle Pillar with quite unexpected results, my body shook, visions occurred, my soul was jarred, astral projection is real and not just active imagination - and ultimately this was my introduction to Golden Dawn style spirituality, the mysteries and all the other crazy shit attached to ceremonial magic - all fine and dandy, what a better way to explore the conspiracy than to join in it, everyone knows the bad guys do Qabalah right? BUT - I learned something interesting along the way, there is a certain wisdom inherent in the duality, it is hidden beneath fear, and angst, and shells of our thoughts and emotions - hidden in the very cruelness of nature and unfairness of the world. But this is all a multiplication of a basic duality, a me vs you ad nauseam, 0s and 1s - but dare we admit that we enjoy this game of duality, the drama of being separate and the drama of competition, yes, we enjoy this individuality, and ironically that is why we fear death, we fear losing our separateness, so we hate the hate that hate made in the end, do you see? In fact, can we even conceive another way of living, would life and beingness have any sense of urgency if there was no expiration date. What I was left with after my adventures in Qabalah and magick was a deep understanding of the necessity of suffering as the beginning of wisdom, the necessity of duality in discovering the value of non-duality.. Living forever is worthless if you don't know you are living forever - there is no eternity therein, just boredom. So now I realize Gnostics are what they are, as are their conspirator cousins, another group of polarized individuals who believe everything would be alright if everyone else, consumed and believed the same material as they do, no better than the sheeple they criticize, or the governments and religions they hate - that is not to say there are not valid conspiracies out there, but watching a documentary on dmt, or 9/11 or listening to hours of terrence mckenna is not going to help anyone in actuality - 10 minutes of mindful breathing a day would probably do more good for the world, change yourself remember, break down differences, blessed is the peace maker, peace makers do what? They reconcile opposites towards equilibrium, equilibrium is what? Peace. The world is what it is, have faith in the process, but do your part is what i tell myself. So oddly enough, the evil Qabalah has led me to the beginning of Wisdom, back to the Tree and her Guardian, the master of dualism and her Knowing, and I am left with an understanding of God that Islam or Christianity could have never delivered. Ultimately, we have to look at our own polarization before we can see properly, and this requires the dreaded word, responisbility - therefore I realized Gnosticism is just another blame the other guy philosophy, at least in Orthodox Christiniaty it is mankind who is to blame - which is ultimately true. We are no angels, and it doesnt seem to be because of any malevolent space alien demon archons, it is merely our own dull self-awareness and dead empathy causing all this shit, our clinging to separation, country, patriotism, racial allegiances, we take pride in these things, yet they only lead to our estrangement from ourselves and our planet. Know thyself.

Had a strange dream, infinite black and violet waters, as soon as a form would coalesce, it would shatter into fractals of itself, moving so quickly that my reasoning faculties could not lay hold of what I was witnessing, then without notice, three lights appear hovering above the waters, a transparent impression of a triangle, almost UFO like in quality, in fact all of this is more of witnessing a state, or process rather than anything solid, now what this triangle would do is keep the coalescing forms together, selecting and choosing, controlling what would appear on the surface of the depths, the trinity of lights would switch positions, different combinations, different forms correspond to the position of the lights. I awoke to a name, silence at 2am, void, then a slight wind strikes the wind chimes outside, it is the most melodious sound. Was I granted a vision of the abyss? Is the feared abyss of modern Thelema influenced western occultism the Anima Mundi herself, upon which the spirit of the Lord hovers, that is the Supernal Triad, the triangle wherein the eye emerges, and is this is a process that is continuously occurring, and we on earth only bear witness to a fraction of what stretches infinitely in all directions, beyond direction and time.

This is actually a really good point. For the most part I believe the police, armed forces, judges etc have replaced that function in western society and the ones with the power are very aware of it.

Everybody is different.

Well... IMO it's the attachement to impermanence that causes suffering - all that must be changed is one's internal persepctive. I'm 'happier' than 90% of the people I know, always smiling and cracking jokes and yet I have become almost completely non-polarized and stoic, and it is from this equilibrium of emptiness that true, i want nothing from you, compassion, and empathy for all of creation emerges and this state leaves no option but living in the absolute present however shitty it might be. By the way I am not Buddhist, but reached this state through hermeticism but I still have a long way to go.

Extinguish the desire to reincarnate by fulfilling ALL desire vs. extinguishing Creation by extinguishing Mind by extiguishing human pro-creation. I'd probably say neither lol.

Its def not a blanket term, there were different schools. But yes, I mean gnosticism in the classically understood sense, that is matter and creation are evil and have no inherent worth.

Arabic translation A new translation bypassing the Latin has just been published by Nineveh Shadrach from the original Arabic of Book of Causes attributed to Apollonius of Tyana.[1] 1. It contains an accurate commentary that can't be doubted. 2. It states: What is the above is from the below and the below is from the above. The work of wonders is from one. 3. And all things sprang from this essence through a single projection. How marvelous is its work! It is the principle part of the world and its custodian. 4. Its father is the sun and its mother is the moon. Thus the wind bore it within it and the earth nourished it. 5. Father of talismans and keeper of wonders. 6. Perfect in power that reveals the lights. 7. It is a fire that became our earth. Separate the earth from the fire and you shall adhere more to that which is subtle than that which is coarse, through care and wisdom. 8. It ascends from the earth to the heaven. It extracts the lights from the heights and descends to the earth containing the power of the above and the below for it is with the light of the lights. Therefore the darkness flees from it. 9. The greatest power overcomes everything that is subtle and it penetrates all that is coarse. 10. The formation of the microcosm is in accordance with the formation of the macrocosm. 11. The scholars made this their path. 12. This is why Thrice Hermes was exalted with wisdom. 13. This is his last book that he hid in the catacomb.

get your mars on

I now realize i know nothing of martial arts.