Michael Sternbach

Hi Archie,

And nice to see you here. 🙂

I agree with Nungali: Timing an undertaking with astrological conditions is not the same as astrological magic. It's called electional astrology. 

This is sometimes being used for the purpose of optimising magical operations, to be sure, as well as for choosing the most favourable times for all kinds of other things.

Nungali is also right about there being many other factors involved. Just imagine arranging a fight between a boxing champion and a newbie using electional astrology. Although the event's chart may be in favour of the newbie, in all likelihood he will be beaten to a pulp regardless.

Furthermore, bear in mind that the designation 'Hermetic' is not exactly trademarked. Its potential usage by dubious organisations doesn't make the latter representatives of Hermetic philosophy any more than the Aum Shinrikyo folks would have been true proponents of Buddhism. Thus, linking your supposed conspiracies to 'Hermetic' societies may be misleading to the less well informed.

By the way, sorry about the error message that you and some others receive when accessing the Skyscript astrological forum. As you correctly stated above, the issue (while annoying) is quite harmless, though, and there is no malware involved; one can safely return to the previous page and have another go. As we (i.e., myself and the other members of the Skyscript administration) are currently upgrading the site to a more modern format, this issue will be resolved soon. 🙂

7 hours ago, Aether said:

Ya problem is they wont say it to your face. They feel safe behind their keyboards so they think they can say whatever they want. Keyboard warriors.

And yes, there are keyboard warriors out there as well.

3 hours ago, Nungali said:

Go home Lizard Man

 

But by all means, let Lizard Lady stay! She does look kinda hot... 😉

2 hours ago, Nungali said:

What 'time period' is that ?

 

A period is a major rank below an era and above an epoch. It is the geochronologic equivalent of a chronostratigraphic system.^[7][12] As of April 2022 there are currently 22 defined periods/systems.^[2] As an exception two subperiods/subsystems are used for the Carboniferous Period/System

 

 

so, which one ?

Now don't be nitpicking please. 🙄

By the way, I can't help thinking that the word 'period' must imply something periodically recurring? Are people actually referring to a theory of cyclic time whenever they use the term? 🤔

2 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

Its only fair to warn you though  .... if you do decide to continue with this surrealist   ' ping-pong '  , that I ..... ahem ...

 

I just happen to be  .....  THE Australian Champion !   ....   AND I even made it to TV !

 

Now I dont ever do this as it exposes my true identity ... but what the heck . I have been demanding proof here about other's  wild claims .... its only fair I  too put up my proof  ;

If you are the Australian ping-pong champion, then I am...

"Warriors we must be." Elvis Presley

9 hours ago, mcoolio said:

 

Yeah, indeed, cant really do this on a forum.

 

Gonna start with doing some reading on Crowley's life. Seems like he knew how to live one :D. Then maybe some of his works.

 

 

Besides that

 

Concept of true will. Many traditions have this idea of course. Such a big topic.  What surprises me is that the term astrology hasn't appeared in this topic. Should have some indicators of the true will. Wouldn't be surprised that that is also employed in some systems for finding it.

Studying your horoscope chart could indeed help you find your True Will. The MC (Mid-Heaven), North Node, and Part of Fortune could be relevant in this regard, amongst other indicators.

19 hours ago, Nungali said:

Well , Gerald Gardiner did an invocation  ... and look what he ended up getting  !

 

 

His True Self! And/or his Guardian Angel.

On 26.8.2022 at 9:56 AM, mcoolio said:

 

Knew someone who seemed to know a few things about magic. Had a story about this:
 

Imagine your are standing on your street side balcony on 4th floor apartment in a large city.

 

You start shouting at the people on the street.

 

"Hello! Hey you! Answer me!"

 

First one to to respond is the drunk hobo on the corner of the street.

 

He was the only one who had something to say!

34 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

Well then ... you must have 'Happy Nappers '  advert then .      

 

" Little Johnny LOVES his Happy Napper , he plays with him ALLL day , and when he is tired, he just unrolls and snuggles up inside . "

 

Then we see little Johnny sleeping peacefully   .....    

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside a sharks stomach  with his head sticking out the mouth ! 

 

 

     

Seems like Little Johnny ain't the only one happily napping inside a shark.

On 11.2.2022 at 1:21 AM, Lairg said:

 

Being a mystic is an optional stage between being a self-centered human and being an enlightened operator in the local cosmos.

 

Mystics see and feel whatever comes their way - depending upon the frequencies in which their consciousness lives.  

 

Eventually, to progress, all mystics must become doers rather than watchers.

What does 'an enlightened operator in the local cosmos' do, exactly?

10 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

Bindi. I am sure you realise  that by not going on reading any books, or direct teachings from original source and relying on one internet youtube  is not the way to go .

 

As far as supporting Crowley or not, thats not really the issue here , its a bout the thread title and that concept . Unfortunately everyone seems to think its an original Crowley concept, hence that focus .

 

I'd rather stay on the topic of the principle rather than start watching  youtubes  about Crowley and commenting on their veracity or not .

 

I mean, look what the uneducated have been saying here !  I cant imagine the rubbish that appears on any youtube about it .

 

if it makes people happy, then yes, you can see him as  crazed homosexual drug taking satanic baby eater ..... whatever .    And I openly admit that most of that was not only his fault himself, but he actually cultivated it  .... probably to keep people that are thinking like that away from him   .

 

The man's goods and bads,  valuable teachings and quackery should be the subject for a different thread , here it is the principle of True Will  and  some are having enough trouble with  that  alone already .

 

I will let Michael speak for himself  as he might have different ideas than me   (   )  and he may well be a  bad, nasty , homo, drug taking  Satanist baby eater himself . 

 

I have nothing to add. 😜🤣😎

11 hours ago, Bindi said:

Am I correct in thinking that @Nungali and @Michael Sternbach are actually positive about Aleister Crowley and value what he has written?

Nungali and I both dealt with AC in our own way as part of our occult 'education'. We are kind of regulars in Crowley related threads and try our best to rectify what we perceive as misconceptions about his teachings... Or misconceptions in the questioner's personal philosophical outlook, for that matter! 🤭

Since Nungers already appropriately and eloquently discussed AC's colourful personality, let me just share a few things about my personal approach to Crowley here... 

Our first contact had everything to do with Crowley's famous Tarot deck. For when I became interested in Tarot some 35 years ago, the Thoth appealed to me the most with its dreamlike symbolism and visionary beauty, and it was the very first deck I acquired. Exploring its symbols led me quite naturally to some of AC's other works and to John Symond's The Great Beast - The Life of Aleister Crowley. 

Well, the Thoth turned out to be a veritable compendium of AC's vast  knowledge and introduced me to (or at least made me take a closer look at) various esoteric systems. There was without a doubt much of value to be found in Crowley's books as well, as he had been intimately familiar with an impressive number of both Western and Eastern traditions.

And yet, he had not been sitting in the British Library gathering dust all day like his counterpart in the Golden Dawn, Arthur Edward Waite! Here was a man of profound esoteric knowledge and phenomenal creativity, but also a Cosmopolitan adventurer and most assuredly a fun loving child. I don't hesitate to confess that this specific combination of traits resonated with me more than just a bit back then in my early 20's, and heck, it does to this very day.

This is not to deny that Crowley had some personal weaknesses (to put it mildly). But why should this keep people from reading his books? Maybe it's just me, but I found little evil in them.

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I haven’t read Crowley’s writing, but watching this video I can’t see that anything true or valuable could have come from him. Is the documentary wrong, or am I missing some occult secret that allows Crowley to be anything other than horrifying? 
 

 

OMG, what a biased, one-sided, propagandistic BS! 😲

That said, I can't help thinking that AC may actually have enjoyed a presentation of this kind. After all, he spared no effort to style himself as the Great Beast.

Part of it no doubt was a rebellious counter reaction to his Puritan upbringing, and on top of that, I am pretty sure that he simply enjoyed taking the piss out of his audience by playing up his 'wickedness'.

58 minutes ago, waterdrop said:

@terry  How i can improve my understanding of i-ching except consulting it ?
 

By studying its underlying Natural Philosophy. Working from First Principles, that is. 

58 minutes ago, waterdrop said:

To sit and stare at the different hexagrams all at once ?    move one by one and stare at each 5 minutes ?  10 minutes ?

i assume to stare at hexagrams  -  and not at triagrams alone right ?

There's nothing wrong with contemplating both hexagrams and trigrams, but I would do neither too much. A better exercise in the long run might be to contemplate how the hexagrams develop from one another, and how they are interrelated.

58 minutes ago, waterdrop said:

Also wonder what is your thought about using yarrow stalks vs coins ?   i was adviced  to not use coins only yarrow stalks  so i wonder if you agree with that and what is the reason for it ?

Statistically, yarrow stalks stack the odds a little differently than coins, i.e., more in line with the I-ching's inner workings. Alas, they're also a bit impractical to use. Personally, I consult the oracle using coins. But if you feel drawn to yarrow stalks, hey, by all means... 🙂

36 minutes ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

Being kind is not true kindness. being loving is not true loving. It is the being of self getting in the way of true understanding.

 

Wu Wei is one expression of this understanding. Without knowing one is kind or trying to be kind and all actions from the true will manifest as kindness without want or need of something in return. Then we get to graduate  from our impermanence of body and mentality.

I think it starts with being one with your actions. Letting go of the doubts that often hold us back. To do what you do.

Which is another interpretation of "do what thou wilt." 😊

56 minutes ago, helpfuldemon said:

So give me some examples of True Will.

Your True Will could be to live in a different place. But the egotistical personality might hold you back due to fears or not wishing to leave its comfort zone.

In this case, Crowley's advice would be to follow your vision regardless.

56 minutes ago, helpfuldemon said:

What is beyond the egotistical personality?

Your Self.

On 18.8.2022 at 1:57 AM, helpfuldemon said:

You keep saying "True Will" and I keep saying free will.  So tell me, how do you find this elusive "True Will"?   How is it different from free will? 

Free will is simply the ability to choose A over B. The concept of True Will is based on the 'assumption' that you have (or are) a Self that exists beyond what most people identify as their personality.

So True Will ties in with your True Self, whose purpose goes beyond the aims of the egotistical personality.

On 18.8.2022 at 1:57 AM, helpfuldemon said:

What tools did Crowely give us to find the "True Will"?

There are no hard and fast rules. Finding your True Will may take many forms and often presupposes an inner process.

It would be no exaggeration to say that finding the True Will is central to Crowley's whole work.

On 18.8.2022 at 1:57 AM, helpfuldemon said:

And, if there is a "True Will", how can there be any individuality? 

Au contraire! The True Will expresses the True Self, which is the very core of your individuality. 

On 18.8.2022 at 1:57 AM, helpfuldemon said:

For if there was a "True Will", then certainly all would act accordingly.  

This is not so. Rather, all those who  actually follow their True Will (for it is your free will not to do so!) play their individual role in the Universal Whole to the utmost degree.

The Whole needs its agents not only to act in very different areas, but sometimes even in apparent contradiction to one another; for balance and so that all sides of an issue could be worked out.

On 16.8.2022 at 9:20 AM, helpfuldemon said:

 

You would think it would be simple to act with love. 

No. Noone said it was easy.

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Doing things out of love, if love is the law.  But if the law is freedom, then we don't have to act with love, do we? 

Is it easy to act with freedom?

Quote

We are free to act with whatever Will we desire. 

With the True Will - not "whatever Will"! You will find that what the True Will wills constantly has to do with Love in one form or another.

Quote

But we don't all agree on what a loving act is, do we?  Some people think tough love is the way to go, while others believe it is kindness and generosity.

Crowley's guide lines refer to general principles, not to the specifics of their application. 

Quote

Crowely called Nietzsche a Saint, and Nietzsche believed we like adversity, to be denied things, and to be forced to earn them to prove to ourselves our strength and dominance.

Not quite sure how this fits into this topic, but it is actually an interesting consideration in its own right!

Quote

  If the law is do what thou wilt, then we don't have to act out of love.  We can act out of greed and selfishness.  

This misconception is not a new one. When - already in his own day - Crowley saw some young Thelemites interpreting those lines from the Book of the Law the way you suggested, he was seriously dissatisfied with their level of understanding. 

4 hours ago, helpfuldemon said:

Gods Will cannot be to love and to be free, for both don't fit together perfectly.  It is either one or the other; love cannot be the law if the law is do what thou wilt.

Act with love. 

7 hours ago, Cheshire Cat said:

It's not disrespectful to ask the same question during that period of time to see if something has changed.

I agree, you can ask the same or a similar question later to see if there is another aspect to consider yet. 

I was just stressing that the constant repetition of the same question (even several times a day!) which the OP suggested is not a good idea.

I recommend keeping a record of all your readings so you can review them later and see if/how they manifested. You will learn using the I-ching (and other oracles) much faster, taking that kind of systematic approach.

And I like to add a few lines of my own interpretation to every received hexagram.

The I-ching and other oracles indeed don't respond very well to overly repeated questions. Not because they feel pissed of, but simply because they tend to reflect the mind of the querent. Therefore, a scattered mind will receive scattered answers. Also, it will be hard for the latter to reach the level of intuitive contemplation required to interpret the answer fully and correctly anyway.

Testing the I-ching this way won't give you satisfactory results. Its answers are hard to objectify even under the best of circumstances. Ultimately, they depend on what your (hopefully intuitive) mind sees in them.

A more recommendable way of 'testing the I-ching' (as well as your ability to read it! ;)) would be to first thoroughly contemplate the answer received and put it in relation to the event in question. And bear in mind that, every so often, what exactly it meant will get clearer as the situation develops.

So instead of asking the same question several times, it's better to read the answer several times!

9 hours ago, exorcist_1699 said:

Not only jing (essence ) can be used as fuel to burn and enhance our qi , in fact, all emotions , such as  anger , jealousy, fear , anxiety.. etc  can all be used as fuel to burn and grow our qi. 

This is true, essentially, but only works out if those emotions are being transformed in the process.

9 hours ago, exorcist_1699 said:

Xing gong ( spiritual effort ) is in fact linked with Meng gong ( physical practice to increase jing and qi ) , and should not be separated from it . 

17 hours ago, SigmaTropic said:

Skaktipat is an interesting subject. 

 

Skaktipat is not something you want to get from anyone.

Indeed. And it's always a two-way-street.

5 hours ago, exorcist_1699 said:

Seemingly Zen's way talks not much about  emotions, sex drive , habits  of life..etc , which gives people an misconception  that Zen ignores them .  In fact, Zen's way is an unique , thorough one , that people  call it   'Abrupt Enlightenment ' (' 頓悟')   , which implies no steps, forms , attachments .., an  one-stroke act of  entering  the core of what our  deep spirit is .  In that case , it enables  a sudden , concentrated  solution or treatment to most  fundamental problems ( sickness, love , failure , aging, death , ..)  of   our life that similarly Taoist alchemy targets at , yet skipping Taoist tedious steps of accumulating jing,  paying attention to what time /location that qi arises significantly , eating what nutritious food..etc ., a shortcut offered to those geniuses , al least talents , but not ordinary people .

The solutions offered by Zen's "instant enlightenment" and Taoist Alchemy respectively are different though. The former approach negates that the conditions you mentioned are actually problems, whereas the latter aims at avoiding or improving them.

"Love" as such should not be seen as a problem anyway, though.

Pocahontas

Snoopy

On 29.5.2022 at 9:47 PM, old3bob said:

I'll bite, if you want to expound on that...

Sure.

The busy to-and-fro of the dualistic mind comes to a halt when it understands that truth is inherently bipolar. Any statement it is able to make is both true and false, depending on context.

The transcendent state of the non-dualistic Self is being approached once the mind reconciles the conflicting views it holds, seeing them as two sides of the very same coin. This way, it reaches a state of balance and ascends to a more sophisticated level.