Spiritual Lineage Explained

[RiverSnake]

I took this excerpt from an interview Josephine McCarthy did with the website Occult of Personality on her book The Exorcist Handbook . She explains her view of Lineage. First i would just say i don't if any thing she said is true but i thought it was interesting and there has been a lot of talk on the forum about Lineage. Here it is:

 

 

 

Interviewer: "Another i think a qualification if you will, a support you mentioned in your book is connection to some sort of Lineage, can you talk a little about that and the importance of the connection?"

 

 

Joesphine MCcarthy: "Yeah, it has to be a real Lineage, one that has Inner Quality and not pieces of paper that you buy on the internet after a 2 day workshop that costs you 500$. A spiritual lineage, when your consecrated into a spiritual line you become the sum total of everything thats in that line, you become like a Hive Being from a consciousness point of view. Now this not an initiation but a consecration, so from a Christianity point of view it is the difference between, say a priest and a bishop because the bishop has the epistolic of succession which is a consecration and so thats the High of consciousness, so you draw upon that. And if your working in the depths of the abyss you can draw on all the consciousness and knowledge of that line and all of its energy and protection, its like a form of Eggregor.

 

If your not a part of that and you and start doing major work, your on your own...literally. The other thing with that is that some consecrated lines have many Beings that work with that line and have done for 1000 of years. And so those Beings, you have automatic protection that clicks in, that works with you, and you may not see them, you may see them, you may not recognize them but there their and they do work with you. And you still have your own responsisbility for your own safety but you draw on this line of consciousness at the same time so if you come up against something.....and i'm sure if your involved in an independent sacramental movement you may come across this yourself is that your put in a very difficult situation from a spiritual point of view but suddenly you just know how to deal with it and it may go as soon you done it, you forget how you did it.

 

Thats drawing on that Line, that consciousness works through you, and it can limit as well because when your a part of that certain Line, obviously you have got a lot of humans involved in that with human failings which is also attached to the Line, so you also have to be aware of that to. So you have to be very careful about what line you choose to be attached to. Because a lot of baggage can come with them, but along with the baggage often also comes knowledge. And this is part of our spiritual respnosibility for each generation if your consecrated into a line your responsibility is to do your job of cleaning and adding too, not only do you clean and purify the Line to the best of your ability, you also do and learn whatever you can to add to the consciousness for the people that are going to come after you, too draw upon you."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

There is a link to her interviews in this other thread i made on her book: http://thetaobums.co...ical-knowledge/

 

-My 2 cents, Peace

Edited December 12, 2012 by OldGreen

[GrandmasterP]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_succession

It's a common concept is lineage, apostolic succession and the like.

Magic heritage.

One magic person passing the magic on to the next and so on.

Belief is a wonderful thing.

Edited December 12, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[RiverSnake]

I contacted Josephine as i posted this thread and asked her to give any insights she found valuable. She sent a couple comments regarding the original post via email:

 

"HI, I think you have a bit of confusion over the difference between a lineage as understood in the US and a consecrated line. A lineage in general is where an initiate is taught and eventually they go on to teach the next generation... thus creating a lineage of people. There is a big deal made out of lineages in the US, and is often given more kudos than the actual ability of the person. A line of consecration is a hands on passing on of a spiritual line connects those consecrated to each other both corporeal and non corporeal; so it becomes like a working team.

 

Apostolic succession is a form of consecration. It was a method used in Ancient Egypt, Babylonian and Assyrian religions, in the Roman, Etruscan and Greek religions also... it is nothing new, it is nothing glamorous, it is nothing special, it is simply a logical step in the path of an adept when they begin more dangerous work or have to carry great burdens.

 

It is not something you can list on your website, put with letters after your name and it does not give you a grand title. All of that is just dressing up. I discuss my own process with this briefly at the beginning of the Exorcists Handbook. Also Im afraid your transcribing of the interview struggled a bit with my accent.... you wrote: " you become like a High Being from a consciousness point of view. " I did not say 'high being', but HIVE being, you become part of a larger consciousness that you can access. > Josephine"

 

Thanks for the feedback and corrections Josephine.

 

-My 2 cents, Peace

[GrandmasterP]

I like Josephine McCarthy, anyone who can describe Bradford as a 'magical city' deserves respect. Her concept of someone within a lineage as being a 'Hive being' is rather good too.

We've kept bees and having read some of the claims of lineage people on here and elsewhere I'd say 'hive being' is quite an accurate analogy for some of them.

Edited December 12, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Taomeow]

Opinions of people who don't have a lineage teacher fall into two major categories in my experience.

 

Leaving out the total beginners, the perpetually clueless, the dabblers, and brief exploration ride takers, cultivators who don't have a lineage teacher usually know what they're missing, and they know that until they have that, they will have to either admit to themselves and (importantly) others they flat out don't have it -- or else fake having something better. This is a bifurcation in the road of a prospective cultivator. The ones who take the "I don't have it yet" road will probably have it or not, eventually, depending on what they do and what destiny does, it will be the process of co-creation between their effort and destiny. The ones who take the "I don't need it because I am special" road will never have it. Destiny is a lineage. Destiny works with what went before. What went before is destiny.

 

Those who take the road of "I don't need a lineage because I'm special, because it's overrated, because it's for the gullible sucker which I'm not -- I'm sophisticated, smart, magical, creative, special, special special special -- lineage is for the average Joe and I'm a way-above-average Joe," etc., go deeper and deeper into their trouble. The trouble is a divorce between what their real destiny is and what they're faking. This makes them uneasy around those whose inner lives are not split by this conflict. Toward these, the former take defensive, offensive, or passive-aggressive stances. Call them names too. "Hive beings" my ass.

 

And they have to keep lying... to themselves, to others, eventually to students if/when they amass their own. Why do they have to keep lying? Because there's difficult, baffling, incomprehensible junctures in real lineage cultivation, invariably, and a lineage means hundreds or even thousands of years of others running into the same obstacles before you, and sorting out what to do about them. (E.g., a teacher in my lineage told me that about 800 people died trying to solve one particular cultivation problem before it was solved -- 900 years ago. It's been taught safely since then.) A lineage also means massive discoveries on the way, not by one person but by the collective cultivation luck of, well, the whole lineage. A lineage teacher has it all to offer you at the right moment, he or she knows how to proceed. The one who doesn't have that will have to pretend the obstacle never happened. Lie about what it is they are doing banging their heads against this bar or that. Say it's for to open the third eye, e.g.. Say it's to get a light bulb to go off at the crown. Whatever. But what they are really doing is banging their heads against an impenetrable stone wall of their own hubris.

[GrandmasterP]

But Josephine McCarthy who coined that 'hive beings' descriptor seems to defend the lineage position.

Having read some of her stuff hers would be an Hermetic line one suspects.

It's all good. People believe whatever they choose to believe in, when they believe in it.

Some people believe several different things either consecutively or even, sometimes; concurrently.

We are a believing species. There are even some very devout atheists out there.

[Taomeow]

But Josephine McCarthy who coined that 'hive beings' descriptor seems to defend the lineage position.

Having read some of her stuff hers would be an Hermetic line one suspects.

It's all good. People believe whatever they choose to believe in, when they believe in it.

Some people believe several different things either consecutively or even, sometimes; concurrently.

We are a believing species. There are even some very devout atheists out there.

 

There's no such thing as a "Hermetic line." A lineage means real live human beings teaching other real live human beings in an unbroken teacher-to-student succession. It's very simple. And very unavailable in the Western tradition because it was destroyed -- the lineages have been meticulously destroyed, they don't exist anymore. That's why some of us have chosen taoism which still has unbroken lineages. The name of the game is "whole." A real "hive" is not a collection of individual bees -- it is a whole, complete entity. A lineage cultivator is not a bee in the hive. She is the hive.

[GrandmasterP]

Jolly excellent it sounds too.

As long as belonging within a lineage brings peace and contentment to an individual then it's all to the good.

[RiverSnake]

There's no such thing as a "Hermetic line." A lineage means real live human beings teaching other real live human beings in an unbroken teacher-to-student succession. It's very simple. And very unavailable in the Western tradition because it was destroyed -- the lineages have been meticulously destroyed, they don't exist anymore. That's why some of us have chosen taoism which still has unbroken lineages. The name of the game is "whole." A real "hive" is not a collection of individual bees -- it is a whole, complete entity. A lineage cultivator is not a bee in the hive. She is the hive.

 

Josephine emailed me again and asked if i would post her response to this post given she thought there was some misunderstanding regarding the topic at hand:

 

"I think you have both misunderstood my comments and also have a very

limited knowledge of the Western Mysteries, at least in the UK, Yes

Lineage is important, (though not essential) but my point is that it

is often used as a badge, as a hierarchical tool to play ego games

with. The lineage is acknowledged but often the power/ability of the

individual is not. So what I am saying there is a lineage does not

guarantee quality, the line may identify the style of magic and

indicate a level of proficiency, but that is all. So for example I

would judge a magician on their magical and emotive maturity, their

knowledge and ability to apply that knowledge practically - their

lineage only tells me how they trained. I was not commenting on people

who do not have a lineage, which is a different issue again.

 

I found your comments regarding the western mysteries interesting.

Just because you are not aware of lines existing, does not mean they

do not exist, it just means you are not aware of them. There are many

lines of magic passed from teacher to student in the West and always

has been. I taught for many years, I was taught by a teacher (more

than one) and they in turn were taught by teachers etc. So I am not

quite sure what your understanding is. If you are talking about the

direct initiation line of the Golden Dawn then yes, that line of

specific initiation within that specific magical pattern was broken.

But that was just one and it did spawn many teachers who in turn

carried on passing on technique and knowledge. I think it is

important to be careful about making sweeping statements about things

you do not know much about. I would not presume to comment on the

teaching of Daoism for example.

 

I am not a lineage cultivator... I am one of many magicians of my

generation, who were taught by the wartime generation, who before that

were taught by their elders/betters. I have learned from many people,

most of whom came out of the same stream of magic. Most of the

magicians of my generation in the UK either know each other or at

least know your teacher/ co workers because it is such a small

community.

 

I hope that makes it a little clearer.

 

Josephine "

[三江源]

I cant help thinking that the title of this thread is misleading.

 

So far this thread is actually

 

"J MCCARTHY gives her concept of magical lineage"

 

.. it's very local, very specific.

[3bob]

800 people getting themselves dead trying to solve a power puzzle is nothing to brag about in or of a lineage...

 

in fact a true lineage has no brag to them only divine service, for it is not they who have the power it is the divine power that has them.

 

Om

[Taomeow]

Josephine emailed me again and asked if i would post her response to this post given she thought there was some misunderstanding regarding the topic at hand:

 

"I think you have both misunderstood my comments and also have a very

limited knowledge of the Western Mysteries, at least in the UK, Yes

Lineage is important, (though not essential) but my point is that it

is often used as a badge, as a hierarchical tool to play ego games

with. The lineage is acknowledged but often the power/ability of the

individual is not. So what I am saying there is a lineage does not

guarantee quality, the line may identify the style of magic and

indicate a level of proficiency, but that is all. So for example I

would judge a magician on their magical and emotive maturity, their

knowledge and ability to apply that knowledge practically - their

lineage only tells me how they trained. I was not commenting on people

who do not have a lineage, which is a different issue again.

 

I found your comments regarding the western mysteries interesting.

Just because you are not aware of lines existing, does not mean they

do not exist, it just means you are not aware of them. There are many

lines of magic passed from teacher to student in the West and always

has been. I taught for many years, I was taught by a teacher (more

than one) and they in turn were taught by teachers etc. So I am not

quite sure what your understanding is. If you are talking about the

direct initiation line of the Golden Dawn then yes, that line of

specific initiation within that specific magical pattern was broken.

But that was just one and it did spawn many teachers who in turn

carried on passing on technique and knowledge. I think it is

important to be careful about making sweeping statements about things

you do not know much about. I would not presume to comment on the

teaching of Daoism for example.

 

I am not a lineage cultivator... I am one of many magicians of my

generation, who were taught by the wartime generation, who before that

were taught by their elders/betters. I have learned from many people,

most of whom came out of the same stream of magic. Most of the

magicians of my generation in the UK either know each other or at

least know your teacher/ co workers because it is such a small

community.

 

I hope that makes it a little clearer.

 

Josephine "

 

Thank you for transmitting both ways.

 

If I was talking to Josephine directly, I would ask why she chose to chalk up my assertion regarding no unbroken Western lineages to my lack of knowledge and exposure without any information to that effect offered by me.

 

I may be wrong, but I base this assertion on the work of the very leaders and forefathers/foremothers Western tradition acknowledges, who all point out its eclectic nature. Moreover, a comparative study of this tradition against the taoist magical arts reveals where exactly the breaks have occurred. ( Mr. Crowley himself did figure that out -- hence his extensive taoist explorations, and an attempt to use the I Ching to mend some of those breaks in his own system. I would say that was too little too late, but don't let me digress.)

 

I don't deny the possibility that some wise women or even men (though it's less likely) quietly taught their daughters throughout the witch hunts (or even their sons, which is even less likely), religious persecutions, political and later "scientific" marginalization, illegal status of such knowledge and its practitioners on the books for hundreds of years (England repelled these laws only as recently as the 1950s if memory serves and Gardner is to be trusted... and if he isn't, who is?..) But this is as proof-less as the peaceful existence of taoist immortals thousands of years old in the mountains of Maoist China -- I mean, sure, I personally have reasons to believe that, one can believe anything... So Josephine iterated her beliefs. That's fine. But a lineage is something that has proof, documented proof, which is neither better nor worse but definitely different from a "belief." It doesn't make a lineage tradition "better" or "worse" than an eclectic tradition except in the eye of the beholder, but that's what makes it a lineage. There's no such lineages in the Western tradition older than several decades of documented age. I assert it not because I don't know but because I do. So... Stet.

[Taomeow]

800 people getting themselves dead trying to solve a power puzzle is nothing to brag about in or of a lineage...

 

in fact a true lineage has no brag to them only divine service, for it is not they who have the power it is the divine power that has them.

 

Om

 

Sometimes people say things which they see as relevant to the point they're trying to make. That was the context of "800 people died" -- it was part of a logical train of thought on its way to the destination of the point being made. I wasn't aware of this being definable as "bragging" -- thanks for a brand new perspective on the usage of the concept.

 

What were you bragging about when you said "om?"

[Apech]

Thanks for this interesting discussion.

 

Perhaps I make a few points from my perspective.

 

The Western Tradition has its roots in ancient Egypt and Sumer. But these ancient cultures themselves represent particular cultural formulations of knowledge going back to our earliest roots as nomadic hunter gatherers and pastoral cattle herders in East Africa maybe 200,000 years ago. But of course there is no written traditions going back further than 5000 years or so. So any attempt to document a lineage of that sort of age is not possible. So any lineages we might encounter today are in this perspective quite modern.

 

Whilst it is true that the western tradition has been persecuted and driven underground for periods of time during recorded history ... and so explicit records of transmission are not available it does not mean that it was destroyed. Rather it evolved, hid itself, and pops up from time to time explicitly in historical records ... mixed with some dubious claimants it is true ... but nevertheless still there ... it pops up in the form of individuals expressing themselves in the context of the time and culture which they are born. Does this constitute a lineage to compare with eastern traditions? Possibly not. But it does not mean that it is artificial or invented as some have tried to say.

 

I think you have to ask yourself want exactly comprises a lineage. And i don't think it is enough just to produce a historical family tree. X was taught by Y, who was taught by Z and so on. This is what you often find. I understand the reason for this ... since it reassures people that the current teacher is teaching the same (or a version of the same) form as the older teachers. But of course it supposes that X has understood what Y was teaching and so on. Rather like a royal bloodline a bastard teacher might be better than a blue blood if he'she has truly grasped the teachings. So I think a real lineage, if I might use that expression is saying a little more than this.

 

If I can take the example of a Tibetan Buddhist lineage with which I am familiar, the Karma Kagyu, the origin of the lineage is not said to be a historical person, but a Sambhoga Kaya deity Vajradhara. The first teachers of the lineage received their transmission directly from Vajradhara (Dorje Change) and not from a historical person. Each member of the lineage, and in particular the current root guru is seen as an embodiment of Vajradhara ... and so the lineage comprises both/and a historical line of actual persons who received and transmitted the teachings and realisations of the traditions AND what you might term a linking in-break of an eternal and timeless self-realised consciousness. The particular way in which the Tibetans did this was to seek out a child who reflected the mind stream of the dead teacher and train them up to the level of realisation thus ensuring an unbroken transmission. Think what you may of the validity of this process.

 

So you might compare this with what has happened in the west by saying that in each generation individuals have revealed to themselves the timeless truths inherent in themselves as human beings and in embodied in their culture ... and this is the lineage. This is better than a piece of paper or certificate signed or stamped. And, provided the realisations are true, is entirely valid.

[GrandmasterP]

Good points all.

Whatever validity is claimed for any lineage those claiming it enact whatever it has transmitted in the here and now.

Lineages drift in and out of fashion.

The Theosophical lines claimed direct descent, flourished for a while and are now moribund. Gardnerian Wicca came and went as did Alexandrian both the Alex and Maxine Sanders lines which both Josephine and I are familiar with.

The Bradford Golden Dawn was a Theosophist/ Masonic splinter group that was popular amongst the younger wilder sons of prosperous wool merchants up to but not beyond the first World War,. Nostalgic echoes remained into the forties and there was something lf a mini renaissance in the flower power sixties but that came and went as it was mainly one intake at the School of Art over three years between 1967 and 1970 who were involved. The real , vitality; money and interest in Bradford Hermeticism died in the trenches of France.

Hermetic lines pop up and disappear regularly. sometimes it's just one man and his hermetic dog and a website, now and again a few friends gather around a figurehead, it rocks on for a while then Folk fall out or move on and it disappears, sometimes leaving a book or two behind.

There is no encultured concept of lineage in Tibetan Buddhism at all. Tibetans belonged by birthright and as nothing else was available locally to the sect representing their tribal linguistic grouping. Lineage narratives emerged when Buddhism came west and as it first came through Theosophical Lodges the idea of lineage via hermeticism was cobbled in and has stuck.

I am assured that there is no word as such for 'lineage' in that Western-transmission context in either the Ritual Tibetan or Pali or Sanskrit languages.

Same in Chinese and Japanese, no concept of lineage as it seems to be presented in some threads on here as something magical that is transmitted by mystical osmosis or ritual. That idea is simply Apostolic Succession rebranded and has no foundation whatsoever in the Ur sources where that root-Xtian idea never existed.

As I am the current Southcottian medium for the last prophetess Octavia...

Here's my 'lineage' should anyone be interested...

http://www.panacea-society.org/visitati.htm

 

And if you consider that claim to be potty then please do so through the same lens used to examine others' claims to a 'valid' lineage.

Frankly, my dear; there's no such thing.

Taken to their logical conclusion some of the arguments put forward by pro-lineage wonks on here might be summed up thus...

 

"I have a lineage, you do not. I am right, you are wrong. Only those in MY lineage know anything worth knowing, all those outside know nothing . And that includes YOU , you no-lineage puppet!"

Edited December 15, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Apech]

Good points all.

Whatever validity is claimed for any lineage those claiming it enact whatever it has transmitted in the here and now.

Lineages drift in and out of fashion.

The Theosophical lines claimed direct descent, flourished for a while and are now moribund. Gardnerian Wicca came and went as did Alexandrian both the Alex and Maxine Sanders lines which both Josephine and I are familiar with.

 

Ah! Alex Sanders ... I was initiated by a student of his way back when ... I also knew a friend of Gardener ... who helped him write his Book of Shadows ... called him 'Bunny' Gardener for some reason I never understood ... (just name dropping by the way lol) ... if you want a treat go to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford they've got all the old witchy stuff there and shrunken heads too! Witchcraft appealed to me because it seemed practical and not just pie in the sky wishful thinking. This guy who initiated me told me that everything you want to know is in the Egyptian Book of Dead which started me on many decades of study ... getting slowly closer to some truth there

 

The Bradford Golden Dawn was a Theosophist/ Masonic splinter group that was popular amongst the younger wilder sons of prosperous wool merchants up to but not beyond the first World War,. Nostalgic echoes remained into the forties and there was something lf a mini renaissance in the flower power sixties but that came and went as it was mainly one intake at the School of Art over three years between 1967 and 1970 who were involved. The real , vitality; money and interest in Bradford Hermeticism died in the trenches of France.

Hermetic lines pop up and disappear regularly. sometimes it's just one man and his hermetic dog and a website, now and again a few friends gather around a figurehead, it rocks on for a while then Folk fall out or move on and it disappears, sometimes leaving a book or two behind.

There is no encultured concept of lineage in Tibetan Buddhism at all. Tibetans belonged by birthright and as nothing else was available locally to the sect representing their tribal linguistic grouping. Lineage narratives emerged when Buddhism came west and as it first came through Theosophical Lodges the idea of lineage via hermeticism was cobbled in and has stuck.

 

Er what! Are sure? Looky here

 

http://users.iafrica.com/b/bs/bscases/refugetree/refugetree.htm

 

I am assured that there is no word as such for 'lineage' in that Western-transmission context in either the Ritual Tibetan or Pali or Sanskrit languages.

Same in Chinese and Japanese, no concept of lineage as it seems to be presented in some threads on here as something magical that is transmitted by mystical osmosis or ritual. That idea is simply Apostolic Succession rebranded and has no foundation whatsoever in the Ur sources where that root-Xtian idea never existed.

As I am the current Southcottian medium for the last prophetess Octavia...

Here's my 'lineage' should anyone be interested...

http://www.panacea-s...rg/visitati.htm

 

And if you consider that claim to be potty then please do so through the same lens used to examine others' claims to a 'valid' lineage.

Frankly, my dear; there's no such thing.

Taken to their logical conclusion some of the arguments put forward by pro-lineage wonks on here might be summed up thus...

 

"I have a lineage, you do not. I am right, you are wrong. Only those in MY lineage know anything worth knowing, all those outside know nothing . And that includes YOU , you no-lineage puppet!"

 

Of course here is some serious lineage if you want some:

 

[GrandmasterP]

I knew Maxine better than Alex back in the day when she lived at Notting Hill Gate after they'd split up

Happy times.

That Karma Kagyu silk is a panoply of Heavens tanka thingy, likely they wouldn't have used the word 'lineage' for it in the context our chums on here are doing.

Ashmolean has Dr Dee's scrying table with the original angelic sigils.

Pitt Rivers covets it.

Edited December 15, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Apech]

I knew Maxine better than Alex back in the day when she lived at Notting Hill Gate after they'd split up

Happy times.

They have Dr Dee's scrying table in the Ashmolean, Pitt Rivers covets it.

 

Them's were the spooky times alright.

 

They've done up the Ashmolean to make it make sense ... so its worse ... just some curators trying to justify their existence. Nothing compares to the glass cabinets of Pitt Rivers ...

[GrandmasterP]

It's a mess and no mistake that bleddy gift shop takes up half the ground floor now.

I was at Ruskin just down the way on Walton Street we have our fellows do's in the Randolph.

[3bob]

There are no lineages without Om, there is no power of universal sound or light without Om, there are no worlds or Beings without Om...and in rounds Om takes all back inside...

[GrandmasterP]

Yep Tao's about the same I reckon.

It's all Tao when you come down to it.

[Taomeow]

Africans learned their lineages by heart and were supposed to be able to recite them by age 6, beginning with the (invariably) mythological, animal, or off-planet ancestors. No written records kept were no obstacle to preserving the knowledge of where the knowledge came from. Native Americans -- same deal. The totem pole was a reference to the ancestral lineage of the traditional way, the most sacred concept in all their cultures. Siberian shamanism -- same deal. Australian aborigines -- same deal. Since the dawn of human history, preserving and transmitting what went before was seen as the only way to avoid a cultural Alzheimer's, a cultural schizophrenia, a cultural death.

 

The Chinese were only different in that they invented bureacracy as an aid to record-keeping so early in the game, and in that their civilization never collapsed, never disappeared into rubble. "A piece of paper" so many seem to loath is something that was as sacred to them for thousands of years as the totem pole to the Native Americans, the kayak of the ancestors to the Tundra tribes, the songs of the ashok to pre-literal Armenians, the clay womb retaining the memory of where things came from to pre-Columbian Mesoamericans, and so on. There were boxes placed in the streets of Chinese cities for collecting any and all pieces of paper no longer needed by the owner -- they were not to be considered garbage, they were collected and handled as sacred objects. If a doctor wrote a prescription for an herbal formula, the patient boiled the piece of paper together with the herbs because the piece of paper itself carried the healing qi transferred to it by the doctor of his or her own qi, and if the patient couldn't afford the herbs, the medicine was made of the boiled piece of paper alone. The major Chinese magical tradition, talismanic, which is thought of as more potent than any other, is all about pieces of paper. The Chinese invented paper, remember? -- it hasn't been the same profane thing to them as it was to the peoples appropriating this bit of another culture's accomplishments and understanding only its surface usefulness for their own purposes and not the deeper meanings, energies, and magical properties thereof.

 

Paper is a Wood-Water interface (it grows and expands like Wood and it flows and circulates like a river) and as such is a type of qi with properties not considered, understood, or even suspected by those who are not part of the tradition which discovered both paper and qi.

 

This is true for every single phenomenon Westerners undertake to discuss from their perspective when talking about cultural phenomena taken from elsewhere which they treat as their own simply because of this cultural Alzheimer's the whole civilization suffers from. Whatever you steal becomes yours, and the first thing you do of course is forget in a hurry who it really belonged to before you stole it -- THAT seems to be the tradition, the only unbroken Western lineage... Surface skimming, grabbing for a quickie consumer satisfaction and discarding like so many paper cups -- and the resulting disdain, of course. What they really should disdain is their own ignorance mistaken for progress, sophistication, creativity, what not... but they believe they disdain the "piece of paper." Ah well. Whatever floats whoever's boat...

[Apech]

yes paper was invented by the Chinese ... the date given is usually around 104 AD. Egyptian papyrus, from which the word paper comes started at least by Dyn 1 so about 3000 BC although it is speculated that it was in use from around 4000 BC. So not everything western is stolen I think.

[Taomeow]

yes paper was invented by the Chinese ... the date given is usually around 104 AD. Egyptian papyrus, from which the word paper comes started at least by Dyn 1 so about 3000 BC although it is speculated that it was in use from around 4000 BC. So not everything western is stolen I think.

 

No, not everything. But Egypt was looted bare. You seem to be doing exactly what I object to -- counting Egypt as something "Western" just because we took so much from it and made "our own." How Western is Egypt?.. All Greek philosophers studied in Egypt, at Alexandria -- I mean, literally every single one of them. That, at the height of the Great Silk Road cross-polinating Egypt and China -- I've read some research that seems to point toward Pythagoras having been flat out Chinese, how's that? And the rest of them may have realistically had a few -- or scores -- of teachers who were taoists, for all we know. (That's the thing -- when lineages are destroyed, libraries burned, scholars murdered, what remains is second best at best. And more often than not it's the perpetrators themselves who rewrite history as soon as they derail it. Support their claim to legitimacy thus achieved?.. Not me.) But we don't write that in our history books. We write "The Greek Miracle," we make sure we Westernize the miracle and never mention its real source. And nonchalantly make Egypt, when looking for "our" roots, as "Western" as Alabama. Not all stolen? I sometimes wonder...

[Birch]

I'm interested in what Taomeow says Crowley knew. Suppose that one gets moved to the Hermetic discussion?