Marc

Sean,

I view synchronicity and repeating numbers as a sign that I'm letting my life be in flow, so for that reason I'd take it as a good sign. I'd also take the choice of synchronistic number to mean that something ego-related is going on, but it certainly doesn't have to be an undesiable sign. As an example, at one point of my life I was shaking loose a big chunk of my childhood Christian conditioning and fear. The number 666 started crawling out of every available situation to greet me. It was unnerving at first, but eventually I started to view it as 'normal', even liked it and it stopped being the preferred repeating number. In retrospect, it was kind of a detox effect that gave me an idea of what was being released.

I highly recommend The Temporary Autonomous Zone by Hakim Bey for a poetic and generally awesome exposition on creative chaos. Bey also wrote a nice little book called Aimless Wandering, the Chaos Linguistics of Chuang Tzu.

But anyway, Choronzon isn't something to avoid - just another (thorny) thing to integrate. Have fun with the exploration & best wishes.

-Marc

Sean,

(disclaimer: all in my current view, subject to change, error etc.)

Wuji & the Greek Kaos are the same - the unmanifest. The meaning of the word chaos has evolved over time in our culture to mean disorder, but the original word described something more primal, predating order and its breakdown. Choronzon is not the chaos force at all, but rather the force of restriction, the ego or false self ascendant and deified. If there is an entity that embodies the chaos force/ Wuji, it's Baphomet (at least in the chaote pantheon, where there is a polarity between B. as the unconditioned Source and C. as the restriction and limitation of the false intellectual self).

DMT doesn't come across as being very informed, replace Choronzon with Baphomet in that quote and you get something much more in keeping with the mythology.

I'd also like to toss in that C is not 'evil' in a moral sense. But for someone on a spiritual path, it can certainly be the adversary.

-M

edit: garbled sentence.

"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you" - Nietzsche

 

Over the past ten years I've gone through several periods of time, lasting between a few weeks to a few months, where my awareness of the number 333 occurs so frequently and synchronistically it's as if some form of communication is being attempted via this number. I will suddenly look up from my work to look at a clock the second it turns to 3:33. My total at the convenience store comes to $3.33. I get the urge to stop and eat at a new restaraunt and realize after I place my order it's #333 on the block. etc, etc. Anyone familiar with the history of Western magick will immediately recognize the signifance of the number. It's the dreaded number of the demon Choronzon, named by the famous John Dee and Edward Kelley who stumbled across it in one of their Enochian workings I believe. Later Aleister Crowley reportedly battled Choronzon and even came to define "it" as pretty much the closest thing to evil; a caustic legion of nasty guardians of The Abyss between samsara and Enlightenment.

Perhaps Chaos is only "evil" when viewed through the distorted lens of an ego disconnected from awareness of metaphysical oneness with the Tao. The incomprehensible complexity and diversity of Chaos, of the noun-less, dynamic, shifting sea of phenomena is only terrifying to an ego clinging to the ever-dissolving parenthesis of the little self. From the perspective of Enlightenment, maybe Choronzon is more like an aspect of Geburah. Or maybe even more like Binah herself! The Mother of form, the dark, primordial sea from which all forms emerge and also ironically the home of The Goddess Babalon who Crowley saw as the very power keeping Choronzon in check. There is also an archetypal resonance with Shakti, the raging force coiled at the base of the spine anxiously waiting for an opportunity to swath a fiery path of wanton purification through your nervous system. Thoughts of the wrathful diety Mahakala even come to mind; perpetually in motion as a holy being, but a terrifying encounter for the weak and evil aspects of your self. And in another sense, and this is probably most in alignment with DMT's perspective, is Choronzon as a personification of Tao itself. Unnameable. Even as Unameable.

 

At the very least I feel that contemplating Tao in it's untameable organic wildness as Chaos provides an interesting contrast to the typical mindset we (or at least I) fall into when inundated by the heavy Western emphasis of Tao as Order or Tao as One in the naively simplistic sense of one as lacking color and energy and diversity.

Sean.

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I never use it. It seems (never tested it to see for certain) like a very bad idea to me. Learning to move things energetically isn't hard, just takes a few months to get halfway competent at it. Despite the bashing of Chia's sex practices that's occurred, his outline of using the power lock, then the big draw seems like a perfect transition in learning the technique.

Hi, it's like everything else, it's going to depend on the teacher, not the style per se.

Quoted for truth. Go with your intuitive response to the teacher. Styles are less relevant than the student-teacher dynamic and the level of the teacher. Best wishes with whatever style you choose.

Yes, we got hit pretty hard by Katrina, but I think it's the beginning of something really productive. I'm excited to be here and participate in rebuilding - lots of fun now that the damage is done and life is resuming.

Meridian's about 3 hours north of here. There's a cool stream for canoeing up there, the Chunky.

Thanks for the welcome & the good wishes

PS Mistele is great, he's very into Taoist practice in addition to the Bardon stuff.

Hello all. This is my response to the 'draw out the lurkers' email I received.

My name is Marc & I live in Biloxi, MS. I'm an occasional visitor to this & the HT board. I've been practicing Taoist methods and other things I've picked up along the way since 1996 or so.

Best wishes to everyone- from my limited exploration of this site, it seems like a great community.