Hermetica edited by W.W. Westcott, contained a
very interesting chapter called “The Gnostic Magic
of Egypt”, from which the following quote:
Let us first consider the essential principles
of Gnosticism, which are briefly as follows:
First - A denial of the dogma of a personal
supreme God, and the assertion of a supreme
divine essence consisting of the purest light and
pervading that boundless space of perfected
matter which the Greeks called the Pleroma. This
light called into existence the great father and the
great mother whose children were the æons or
god-spirits. That is to say from the supreme issues
the nous or divine mind and thence successive
emanations, each less sublime than the preceding.
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The divine life in each becoming less intense until
the boundary of the Pleroma, or the fullness of
God, is reached. From thence there comes into
being a taint of imperfection, an abortive and
defective evolution, the source of materiality and
the origin of a created universe, illuminated by the
divine but far removed from its infinitude and
perfection.
Now the Gnostics considered that the actual
ruler and fashioner of this created universe and its
beings good and evil was the Demiurgos, a power
issuant from sophia or wisdom. By some it was
said that the desire of souls for progression caused
the origin of a universe in which they might evolve
and rise to the divine.
The Gnostics definitely believed in the
theory of cycles of ascent and return to the
evolutionary progress of worlds, ages, and man;
the ascents & descents of the soul; the preexistence
of all human souls now in worldly life; and the
surety that all souls that desire the highest must
descend to matter and be born of it. They were the
philosophical Christians.
The rule of the Christian church, however,
fell into the hands of those who encouraged an
emotional religion, destitute of philosophy, whose
members should be bound together by personal
ties of human sympathy with an exalted sufferer
and preacher rather than by an intellectual
acceptance of high truth.
The Gnostics dissented from the creed then
being taught, on the ground of the inferiority of
the hero-worship of Christ to the spiritual
knowledge of the supernal mind, which they
considered he taught.
The Gnostics were almost universally deeply
imbued with the doctrines of Socrates and Plato;
and a religion of emotion and reverence, combined
with moral platitudes, did not seem to them of a
sublimity sufficiently intense to be worthy to
replace the religious mysteries of Egypt, India, and
Persia, the theocracy of the Jews, or the sublime
truths hidden in the myths of Greece.
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In Religion in Ancient History S.G.F. Brandon
comments:
In his “First Epistle to the Corinthians” Paul
had occasion to contrast his teaching with that of
other systems known to his readers. In so doing he
was led to give this significant account of his own:
“Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect: yet
a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this
world, which are coming to naught: but we speak
God’s wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that
hath been hidden, which God foreordained before
the worlds unto our glory: which none of the rulers
of this world knoweth: for had they known it, they
would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (ii.
6-8). In our official English translations the
proper meaning of this passage is obscured at two
crucial points. The Greek word translated as
“world” here, severally in its singular or plural
forms, is aion, which does not mean this physical
world or Earth, but “time” or “age”.]
Paul’s use of aion here accordingly shows
that he was thinking in terms of an esoteric system
of “world-ages” that probably derived ultimately
from Iranian and Babylonian sources, and that in
various forms was much in vogue in current
as “rulers of this world” ( archontes tou aionos
toutou) do not refer, as is popularly supposed, to
the Roman and Jewish authorities who were
responsible for condemning Jesus to death. They
denote dæmonic beings who were associated with
the planets and believed to govern the lives of men
on Earth.
As Farr and Brandon both go on to observe,
Gnostic Christianity was regarded as a very serious
threat to the Christian church and was intensely
persecuted. Had it become prevalent, the 2,000
years might have evolved very differently in Western
civilization - with a very intellectual, philosophical,
and initiatory religious climate instead of the
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intolerant, ferocious, and ignorant horror of
dogmatic Christianity.
Now we are beginning to see this term æon in a
new light. The Æon of Horus is not just a period of
OU time when ideas symbolized by Horus are
dominant. Rather it is a Ding an sich, a noumenon:
a CSU of purely rational apprehension, not
perception by the senses.
Thus in what one might term the Lesser Black
Magical (LBM) sense, an æon is simply an
attitude which one chooses or is conditioned
to adopt. This is what is meant by saying that
different people “exist in different æons”: that a Jew,
Christian or Muslim exists in the Æon of Osiris, a
Wiccan in that of Isis, and a Thelemite in that of
Horus.
Accordingly, while æons are “pyramidal” in
sophistication, after the fashion of Plato’s “pyramid
of thought”, there is no reason to consider them
linear-time-sequential, each new one superseding
and obliterating the one before it.
In a LBM sense, therefore, the population of
the world continues overwhelmingly in the grip of
the Æon of Osiris, the best intentions of Aiwass
notwithstanding. The Æon of Isis is the next
influential, followed by that of Horus.
The Æon of Set, of which the CSU Age of Satan
was the explosive harbinger, highest on the pyramid
and demanding to comprehend and indwell, is the
most rarified and exclusive of all.
As with degrees of initiation, it would be
excruciating if not impossible to spend all of one’s
time in a “higher æon”. When we go about our
affairs in the profane world, we are usually Osirians,
peering with curiosity and vague alarm at ecological
activists (Isis) or avant-garde artists (Horus). Yet
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we experience periods of Isis and Horus too - and,
when we wish to, that unique Æon of Set.
Crowley,
who suggested that æons were OU-
linear in “catastrophic succession” - I presume in
order to more forcefully advance the cause of the
Æon of Horus - predicted in the Equinox #I-10 that
following the ÆH:
... will arise the Equinox of Ma, the goddess of
justice. It may be a hundred or ten thousand years
from now (1913), for the computation of time is
not here as there.
In 1921, in his “new comment” to Liber Legis,
Crowley speculated that the next æon would be that
of Thmaist, third officer in the G.'.D.'. Neophyte
ritual. On the other hand, he continued, “It may be
presumptuous to predict any details concerning the
next æon after this.”
Is there a Greater Black Magical (GBM)
sense of æonics as well?
Seen through the lens of GBM, an æon is in fact
a living entity, in which its initiates are “cells”.
This is the secret which the Gnostics brought
from antiquity, and which so frightened the
Christian dogmatists.
The “god” of an æon is thus a creature of the
total magical and philosophical energy of material
beings who are initiates of that æon, i.e. who are
aware that they are “avatars of the god”. [Are you
now beginning to see the ancient origins of Hegel’s
concept of an “overmind”?]
Understood in this sense, a GBM working is a
way of the “part’s” reaching out to contact,
experience, and/or manifest the “whole”. This is why
true GBM is not even remotely like “prayer” as the
profane practice it. Nor is it mere meditation, in
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which the mind of the meditator merely extends to
its own limits. It is the greatest secret, and the
greatest fulfillment, of unique existence.
Once an æon is apprehended thus, a great
many veils fall away, a great many mysteries of what
magic is and why it works are revealed, and indeed
the entire “why” of human consciousness is
absorbed: the Grail is attained. All you need is the
nœsis to perceive it; when you are ready for it, It will
be ready for you.
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11: Gods and Devils
A. Objective Universal
1.
Multiple
Of crucial importance to an understanding of
the OU is not just its existence and regularity, but
the reason why this regularity exists as it is, and
why it is enforced in this configuration instant to
instant.
As Aristotle realized, the whole of the OU
necessitates a prior genius to conceive, establish,
and to continually compel its order and
consistency. This is the collective, interrelated
genius of the natural neteru, whose existence is not
merely proved but necessitated by the OU
omnipresence & omnipotence of NL.
It is clear then that there is neither place,
nor void, nor time, outside the heaven. Hence
whatever is there, is of such a nature as not to
occupy any place, nor does time age it; nor is there
any change in any of the things which lie beyond
the outermost motion; they continue through their
entire duration unalterable and unmodified, living
the best and most self sufficient of lives… From
[the fulfillment of the whole heaven] derive the
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being and life which other things, some more or
less articulately but other feebly, enjoy. 64
This “Necessity Supreme” cannot be ignored:
I find no hint throughout the universe
Of good or ill, of blessing or of curse;
I find alone Necessity Supreme
With infinite mystery: abysmal, dark,
Unlighted ever by the faintest spark;
For us the flitting shadows of a dream. 65
Absent the neteru there is no explanation for
the OU’s existence vs. nothingness, for the almost-
unimaginable intricacy of its constituent elements
and their interaction, and for the instant-to-instant
identity of these.
Absent them there would simply be chaos in all
OU phenomena, if indeed the OU existed in whole
or part by mere happenstance.
The question follows: If the neteru exist and
are prior to manifest OU existence, how did they
come to exist? Doesn’t this merely ratchet the
problem of “Creation” up one notch, leaving us with
the same dilemma?
The answer is at once obvious and alien to
humans’ accustomed way of thinking, and it has to
do with the concept of “time”.
Time (4D) is an exclusively-OU phenomenon: a
measurement of change occurring relative to two or
more OU-objects or -energies. It is nonexistent,
meaningless in the SU.
The neteru exist in their respective SUs,
from which they generate and order the OU.
64 Aristotle, De Cælo, I.9, 279 a17–30.
65 Thomson, James, The City of Dreadful Night, 1874.
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This is, precisely, timeless. As such, there was
never a “point in time” for their Coming Into Being,
nor for their time-endurance. They simply are, or
more comprehensively in the Egyptian hieroglyphic,
Xeper.
Why should humans apprehend the neteru as a
multiplicity [“gods”] instead of a singularity
[“God”]?
To some extent there neither is nor need be an
answer to this, as the complete OU-expression of the
neteru is internally harmonious. How this harmony
is achieved is unresolvable by reason (Platonic
dianoia).
However there is a compelling argument for
multiplicity, and it is once again the existence of Set:
a neter completely distinct from and alien to the
natural neteru.
A “divine singularity” would preclude such an
exclusion; therefore what exists other-than-Set, to
the extent that it is indeed integral and harmonious,
implies, if not indeed requires that it be divisible
and the parts each fully-functional in its own
essence.
Beyond this, as the Egyptians, Pythagoras, and
Plato also acknowledged, the neteru are not
discernible through algorithmic reasoning within
the mechanisms of the OU (the aforementioned
dianoia), but only through the higher faculty of
intuitive apprehension: nœsis. This is a supremely-
refined and -disciplined mental process achieved
through the exercise of the Dialectic; it is not mere
phantasy or dreaming [though both of these are
lesser manifestations of the mind’s suprarational,
Setian capabilities].
To the Egyptians, all of the OU is actively-
alive: the direct consequence of the wills of the
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neteru. Nature was intelligible not just through
inanimate, automatic, general regularities which
could be discovered via the “scientific method”; but
also through connections and associations
between things and
events perceived in the
human mind. There was no distinction between
“reality” and “appearance”; anything capable of
exerting an effect upon the mind thereby existed.
Hence a dream could be considered just as
“real” and thus significant as a daytime experience.
No more eloquently has this been summarized than
by She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed to Allan Quatermain
in ancient Kôr:
[Allan] “I have heard of Isis of the Egyptians,
Lady of the Moon, Mother of Mysteries, spouse of
Osiris whose child was Horus the Avenger.”
[Ayesha] “Aye, and I think will hear more of
her before you have done, Allan, for now
something comes back to me concerning you and
her and another. I am not the only one who has
broken the oaths of Isis and received her curse,
Allan, as you may find out in the days to come. But
what of these heavenly queens?”
“Only this, Ayesha: I have been taught that
they were but phantasms fabled by men with many
another false divinity, and could have sworn that
this was true. And yet you talk of them as real and
living, which perplexes me.”
“Being dull of understanding doubtless it
perplexes you, Allan. Yet if you had imagination,
you might understand that these goddesses are
great principles of nature: Isis of throned Wisdom
and strait virtue, and Aphrodite of Love as it is
known to men and women who, being human,
have it laid upon them that they must hand on the
torch of life in their little hour. Also you would
know that such principles can seem to take shape
and form and at certain ages of he world appear to
their servants visible in majesty, though perchance
today others with changed names wield their
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sceptres and work their will. Now you are
answered on this matter.” 66
2. Singular: Judæo/Christian El
The roots of Judaism go back to Bronze Age
(3300-1200 BCE) Canaan, on the eastern
Mediterranean coast in the area of modern
Palestine.
The various Canaanite settlements, from which
the nomadic Hebrews67 emerged as one of various
traveling tribes, worshipped many gods, including
Ba’al, Dagon, El, Tanit, and Moloch.
The Hebrew Tanakh (“Old Testament” source
texts) specifically identify the later-renamed
“Yahweh/YHVH/Jehovah” as El, one of the most
intolerant and bloodthirsty. As constant wanderers