Spiritual Lineage Explained

[Taomeow]

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

 

Here's a description of his translation of Tao Te Ching (he also translated the I Ching and introduced his own method of divination, with six coins, after using the I Ching for divination on a daily basis for a number of years):

 

"Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was uniquely qualified to produce a translation of Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching. He was called the finest English metrical poet of his generation by some of his contemporaries, and his work is anthologized in the Oxford Book of Mystical Verse. He was also a profound and experienced magician, mystic, and philosopher, trained in western esotericism, Hermeticism, the Qabalah and more traditional western philosophy, but with a deep and abiding interest in the ancient philosophies of the Orient. Crowley traveled widely in the East, and he actually walked across Southern China in 1906. His first-hand experience of the Orient made him one of the first students in the West to grasp oriental philosophy on its own terms, without a Eurocentric or Judeo-Christian cultural bias. The Chinese scholar Hellmut WIlhelm acknowledged the primacy of Crowley's work in Taoist studies. Crowley had no Chinese, and his translation is that of a poet interpreting the dry and scholastic translation of James Legge, as Ezra Pound would later do with the Confucian Analects. He contributes an autobiographical and critical introduction that discusses his religious philosophy and his lifelong attraction to Taoism, and his extensive notes and commentary to his translation help to amplify the meaning of the Chinese classic. This edition includes Crowley's verse translation of the Ching-ching Ching (Liber XXI, The Classic of Purity) as an appendix. This edition includes an editorial forward by Hymenaeus Beta, Frater Superior of O.T.O., as well as bibliography and index."

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

[Apech]

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...

 

Well of course Egypt is actually African. Its roots are in the first peoples to leave the once fertile Sahara and settle in the Nile Valley ... sites like Nabta Playa show this and are dated to maybe 10,000 - 8,000 BC (rough dates) ... these same people went on to found the great Dynastic culture. The legacy of the Egyptian wisdom is in the writings of Hermes Trismegistus which went on to influence the history of European culture (the renaissance etc.). So in this sense it is Western.

 

When Alexandria was built (about 300 BC) Egypt was already several thousand years old (Dynastic period starts about 3100 BC) and what the Greeks came to learn there was a kind of melting pot of ideas from the ancient world (Egypt and Sumer), jewish mysticism and Greek philosophy such as neo-platonism.

 

I can't see any evidence that all greek philosophers studied in Alexandria in fact some like Socrates, Pythagoras and Heraclitus seem to pre-date Alexander himself so I don't see how this can be so.

[Taomeow]

It was sort of common knowledge, far as I recall from my university course in the history of philosophy, but that was so long ago that I'd have to saddle myself with more homework than I bargained for to really "go there." One interesting fact for your consideration though: the universal western belief that Alexander founded Alexandria in the middle of nowhere is quite without merit. In reality he merely expanded the already existing and active town, Rhakotis, or Râ-Kedet, established before the fourth century B.C. in the area subsequently developed as Alexandria. It was an active port for centuries before Alexander.

[Apech]

It was sort of common knowledge, far as I recall from my university course in the history of philosophy, but that was so long ago that I'd have to saddle myself with more homework than I bargained for to really "go there." One interesting fact for your consideration though: the universal western belief that Alexander founded Alexandria in the middle of nowhere is quite without merit. In reality he merely expanded the already existing and active town, Rhakotis, or Râ-Kedet, established before the fourth century B.C. in the area subsequently developed as Alexandria. It was an active port for centuries before Alexander.

 

The likes of Plato were said to have studied in Egypt but not Alexandria. Rhacotis was chosen by Alexander as the result of a dream influenced by reading Homer and (more likely) because it was a deep water port suitable for habourage for sea going ships. he is said to have laid out the ground plan for the city himself and deliberately made it a Greek city and cultural centre. there were of course Greeks in Egypt long before this ... and Egypt had by then been conquered by the Persians anyway. Rhacotis was said to be small and insignificant especially compared with the previous capital Naucratis.

 

I think the idea that Pythagoras was Chinese is influenced by a very similar Chinese proof of Pythagoras' theorem in China. But of course as Pythagoras' theorem is true a similar geometric proof does not mean that the same person formulated them.

 

There is absolutely no doubt that Egypt influenced the Greeks enormously. Since it was already so ancient by the time they were formulating the ideas for which they became famous. The Egyptians regarded them as child-like with restless minds.

 

One of the reasons that Egypt became the conduit for wisdom from the ancient world is that it survived the collapse of the late bronze age. In around 1200 BC the other extant civilisations the pre-classical Greeks, the Hittites and the MInoans were wiped out possibly by natural disasters but definitely by attacks from the so-called Sea People. The Sea People were a group of nine tribes who marauded the Mediterranean coast during this time. By the time they got to Egypt though, the then king Ramessses III was ready and he trapped them in a river estuary and destroyed them ... thus saving Egypt from the same fate as the other great Bronze Age cultures. Little is known about the fate of the surviving Sea People ... although they had become a spent force and no longer a threat. Egyptian records indicate that one of the tribes went to the Levant and became the Philisitines (Palestinians) ... so we have to assume that the Sea People were semitic although it is speculated they originated in the area of Sardinia.

 

What eventually did for the Egyptians was of course Christianity or more particularly the Christianised late Roman Empire. Strangely Christians like to paint themselves as the great civilisers and preservers of culture and reason. Whereas they were completely the opposite - the Taliban of their day - they burned down the Serapeum in Alexandria where the remnants of the great library were housed, they closed the temples and desicrated them. They did their best to destroy our legacy. But even as they did so ... in Egypt the new Christian churches and the saints worshiped in them took on some of the features and powers of the old gods. If you take for instance the imagery of Mary and Child Jesus this is a copy of Isis and Horus and so on ... so despite the attempted cultural genocide by the Christians somehow the influence persisted.

 

[GrandmasterP]

The Xtians were pretty good at morphing extant deities into their pantheon when they took over.

Plenty of Saxon churches round here are built on earlier presumably sacred earthworks and ritual sites many along what have become known as 'ley' lines and might have been earlier pre-Xtian ritual routes or some such.

Phil Rickman the novelist covers a lot of that area in a most entertaining yet informed way.

Aleister Crowley was one of the leading mountaineers of his day.

Not a lot of people know that but it's true.

He pioneered techniques and kit still in use today for difficult traverses of overhangs.

The magician schtick was a bit of a hobby towards meeting gullible rich women and getting laid.

Alan Watts the Theosophist mage was much the same with the Buddhism.

Anyone claiming hermetic gnosis these days is deluded or a con man, possibly both; as all of it is either re-imagining or simply made up.

Edited December 16, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Birch]

I have a copy of his Tao Te Ching which I could reproduce in Hermetic if there is interest. It would be a matter of typing by hand from the book, but if enough people would like to discuss this I would be willing to. His translation is considered public domain at this point afaik so there should be no copyright issues there.

 

That would be great! Must be a pdf of it somewhere. Save the typing.

[GrandmasterP]

http://deoxy.org/taowley.htm

There ya go K

I've Pasted up in the Hermetic Thread too.

Edited December 16, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Birch]

Nice!

Thanks Mr GranP

[GrandmasterP]

Looks like The Great Beast was a better mountaineer than ever he was a TTC translator.

'Turgid' springs to mind.

[Apech]

The Xtians were pretty good at morphing extant deities into their pantheon when they took over.

Plenty of Saxon churches round here are built on earlier presumably sacred earthworks and ritual sites many along what have become known as 'ley' lines and might have been earlier pre-Xtian ritual routes or some such.

Phil Rickman the novelist covers a lot of that area in a most entertaining yet informed way.

Aleister Crowley was one of the leading mountaineers of his day.

Not a lot of people know that but it's true.

He pioneered techniques and kit still in use today for difficult traverses of overhangs.

The magician schtick was a bit of a hobby towards meeting gullible rich women and getting laid.

Alan Watts the Theosophist mage was much the same with the Buddhism.

Anyone claiming hermetic gnosis these days is deluded or a con man, possibly both; as all of it is either re-imagining or simply made up.

 

Funny if slightly too cynical for my taste

 

I don't agree about the hermetic transmission ... it definitely occurred but of course all you hear about is the likes of Mr. Crowley. But even he knew a thing or two ... he liked to play tricks though ...

[GrandmasterP]

Check out that new AC biog mate, link under Hermetic, it's good stuff.

Horses for courses is Hermetic Transmission , 'follow the money' and 'caveat emptor' etc....

Edited December 16, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Taomeow]

Apech,

 

I know you know a lot about Egypt, but I have yet to figure out how you used Egyptian magic to get me off my track and into something I wasn't talking about to begin with. Paper, papyrus -- how did we get to papyrus and Egypt from "a piece of paper means more in terms of a Chinese taoist lineage transmission than does a piece of paper to a European/Eurocentric cultivator of non-lineage eclectic (new age) traditions," which is what I was actually talking about?..

 

What you had to offer was very interesting but it did magically change the subject to a cucumber... I don't know if this old joke from my old country is known elsewhere in the world -- basically it's a recipe for finding one's way out of any question one doesn't know the answer to or doesn't care to answer: you learn absolutely everything about just one subject, anything, e.g. cucumbers, and then find a way to switch whatever is being discussed to the discussion of cucumbers, where you can truly shine. E.g., if the question is, "Who was Alexander of Macedonia's teacher?" and you don't know, you go, "Alexander of Macedonia had a remarkable teacher. Macedonia was highly developed since ancient times, with flourishing culture rooted in the most advanced agrarian practices of the time. The land produced many fruits and vegetables -- olives, apples, tomatoes, cucumbers... A cucumber (Cucumis sativus) is a widely cultivated plant in the gourd family Cucurbitaceae. It is a creeping vine which bears cylindrical edible fruit when ripe. There are three main varieties of cucumber: "slicing", "pickling", and "burpless". Within these varieties, several different cultivars have emerged. The cucumber is originally from India but is now grown on most continents. Many different varieties are traded on the global market..." and so on.

 

By the way, I know who Alexander's teacher was and who his teacher was, and who his teacher's teacher was... that's another Eurocentric tradition, to care very much about lineages of the rich and famous only, I mean, really, really care -- ask any European royalty whether they care about their lineage... and then ask them if they care about yours. And then try this with the Chinese, for comparison. You will be shocked... So, you're right, they studied in Egypt, not necessarily in Alexandria... I didn't mean "literally every single one of them" to be taken literally, should have phrased it so it's clear I'm using an emphatic statement as to the origin of their knowledge in Egypt (Alexandria has come to mean things not limited to geography or chronology). And no, Pythagoras was not "flat out Chinese" (another emphatic statement not to be taken literally) -- what I was trying to emphasize was that he knew what he knew from Chinese teachers who taught Egyptians who taught the Greeks. (And by the way, our beloved Fibonacci sequence is of the same -- documented -- origins, Leonardo Fibonacci learned it from an Arab mathematician who learned it from his Chinese teacher...)

[Jetsun]

Then where did the Chinese get their knowledge from? I heard that there is evidence of there being an Aryan European blonde hair race in the mummies in the pyramids of China but the Chinese don't like to admit it as it could mean that their knowledge may have originated from outside their country.

Edited December 17, 2012 by Jetsun

[GrandmasterP]

Origami could well be the mystic link here.

Chinese had paper, Egyptians papyrus......

Wizards Hat is a popular Origami fold....

http://www.ask.com/Q/how-to-fold-origami-wizards-hat

 

Makes sense if you think about it.

Edited December 17, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Taomeow]

Then where did the Chinese get their knowledge from? I heard that there is evidence of there being an Aryan European blonde hair race in the mummies in the pyramids of China but the Chinese don't like to admit it as it could mean that their knowledge may have originated from outside their country.

 

I don't think they aren't willing to admit the mummies or we wouldn't know about them. Whether they were Aryans is debatable because Aryans themselves are such an elusive entity.

 

As for where the Chinese learned what they knew, this gets very interesting indeed. Taoist legend has it that it was passed down from a legendary culture, known as the "Sons of Reflected Light," some 14,000 years ago. It taught scholarship, meditation and alchemy. Interestingly enough, this is the date (14,000 years ago) cross-referencing with a seemingly unrelated science, genetics. It was exactly at this time that the genes for blondness suddenly sharply spiked in all human populations studied to date. These genes were present in the human genetic pool long before that time, according to modern view due to cross-breeding of homo sapiens with neanderthals, who (unlike the ugly pictures of what they purportedly looked like we were all shown in elementary school, which still persist into many obsolete unscientific curricula of anthropology not up to speed with either archeology or genetics, and into mass media sources of course) were very tall and blond and very good-looking. (I've seen an opinion of a geneticist that neanderthals engaged in occasional cross-breeding with our kind as a form of pity sex.) But these genes were never widely represented and in fact were on the way out, being recessive. Then 14,000 years ago it suddenly changed, they became ubiquitous. Why?.. Of course the official explanation holds no water (it's along the lines of, Hollywood beauty standards prevailed and all over the planet blondes started procreating preferentially, or something equally idiotic.)

[GrandmasterP]

Blonde Chinese here.

Careful where you tread with this one though though lest you step into a big steaming pile of eugenics.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/11/no-romans-needed-to-explain-chinese-blondes/#.UM7rznwgGSM

 

One of our chaps an archaeologist and part time spy, Sir Auriel Stein (possibly the model for Indiana Jones) discovered the blonde mummies back in 1910 and the Nazis went to town making what they could of his discoveries some quarter of a century later. Which was ironic in a way as Stein was born a Hungarian of Jewish ancestry.

Edited December 17, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Apech]

Apech,

 

I know you know a lot about Egypt, but I have yet to figure out how you used Egyptian magic to get me off my track and into something I wasn't talking about to begin with. Paper, papyrus -- how did we get to papyrus and Egypt from "a piece of paper means more in terms of a Chinese taoist lineage transmission than does a piece of paper to a European/Eurocentric cultivator of non-lineage eclectic (new age) traditions," which is what I was actually talking about?..

 

What you had to offer was very interesting but it did magically change the subject to a cucumber... I don't know if this old joke from my old country is known elsewhere in the world -- basically it's a recipe for finding one's way out of any question one doesn't know the answer to or doesn't care to answer: you learn absolutely everything about just one subject, anything, e.g. cucumbers, and then find a way to switch whatever is being discussed to the discussion of cucumbers, where you can truly shine. E.g., if the question is, "Who was Alexander of Macedonia's teacher?" and you don't know, you go, "Alexander of Macedonia had a remarkable teacher. Macedonia was highly developed since ancient times, with flourishing culture rooted in the most advanced agrarian practices of the time. The land produced many fruits and vegetables -- olives, apples, tomatoes, cucumbers... A cucumber (Cucumis sativus) is a widely cultivated plant in the gourd family Cucurbitaceae. It is a creeping vine which bears cylindrical edible fruit when ripe. There are three main varieties of cucumber: "slicing", "pickling", and "burpless". Within these varieties, several different cultivars have emerged. The cucumber is originally from India but is now grown on most continents. Many different varieties are traded on the global market..." and so on.

 

By the way, I know who Alexander's teacher was and who his teacher was, and who his teacher's teacher was... that's another Eurocentric tradition, to care very much about lineages of the rich and famous only, I mean, really, really care -- ask any European royalty whether they care about their lineage... and then ask them if they care about yours. And then try this with the Chinese, for comparison. You will be shocked... So, you're right, they studied in Egypt, not necessarily in Alexandria... I didn't mean "literally every single one of them" to be taken literally, should have phrased it so it's clear I'm using an emphatic statement as to the origin of their knowledge in Egypt (Alexandria has come to mean things not limited to geography or chronology). And no, Pythagoras was not "flat out Chinese" (another emphatic statement not to be taken literally) -- what I was trying to emphasize was that he knew what he knew from Chinese teachers who taught Egyptians who taught the Greeks. (And by the way, our beloved Fibonacci sequence is of the same -- documented -- origins, Leonardo Fibonacci learned it from an Arab mathematician who learned it from his Chinese teacher...)

 

And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? 5We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: 6But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, beforeour eyes.

 

No magic at all I assure you. I wish I knew more about Egypt a lifetimes study has only scratched the surface.

[Apech]

Blonde Chinese here.

Careful where you tread with this one though though lest you step into a big steaming pile of eugenics.

http://blogs.discove...s/#.UM7rznwgGSM

 

One of our chaps an archaeologist and part time spy, Sir Auriel Stein (possibly the model for Indiana Jones) discovered the blonde mummies back in 1910 and the Nazis went to town making what they could of his discoveries some quarter of a century later. Which was ironic in a way as Stein was born a Hungarian of Jewish ancestry.

 

http://www.meshrep.com/PicOfDay/mummies/mummies.htm

 

Tocharian Mummies are interesting ... but I despise the racial theories of man's development. We are all the same species and share the same heritage.

[GrandmasterP]

I agree entirely.

Both Adam and Eve were equal opportunity parents.

Cucumbers though, good vegetable for discussion of lineage as a metaphor for dispersion of knowledge.

Cucumbers were known to be cultivated around 3,000 BCE in Egypt

Didn't reach France til the 9th Century

First recorded under cultivation in England in the 14th century and it took another 200 years for them to reach north America.

You can eat cucumbers, they have a market value; but arcane knowledge has less culinary or financial use and is consequently so much the less popular.

Just imagine then how hermeticism did or did not travel, how; and over what time scale.

No way can there be any unbroken hermetic lineage-knowledge outside of someone's imagination.

Edited December 17, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Apech]

I agree entirely.

Both Adam and Eve were equal opportunity parents.

Cucumbers though, good vegetable for discussion of lineage as a metaphor for dispersion of knowledge.

Cucumbers were known to be cultivated around 3,000 BCE in Egypt

Didn't reach France til the 9th Century

First recorded under cultivation in England in the 14th century and it took another 200 years for them to reach north America.

You can eat cucumbers, they have a market value; but arcane knowledge has less culinary or financial use and is consequently so much the less popular.

Just imagine then how hermeticism did or did not travel, how; and over what time scale.

No way can there be any unbroken hermetic lineage-knowledge outside of someone's imagination.

 

I think I'll start a thread in Hermetic sub on this cos I don't want to be accused of cucumbering this thread.

[al.]

(And by the way, our beloved Fibonacci sequence is of the same -- documented -- origins, Leonardo Fibonacci learned it from an Arab mathematician who learned it from his Chinese teacher...)

 

Hey TaoMeow

 

Fascinating stuff. Have you any references or leads to learn more about this?

 

Thanks

 

a

[GrandmasterP]

Arab guy came up with algebra too.

[Protector]

Then I guess I'm was-taught-by-a-lineage-guy-but-no-more

It was mostly pattern stuff and how to study

Now I'm just Samurai Jack-ing it away

 

 

[GrandmasterP]

Lo he speaks!

Show us a sign master!

[Protector]

MORE HORSE STANCE!!!