First, Nils :
> > > And (also
> > > generically), one would not normally actually wish to _return_ from
> > > such a state at all.
> >
> > ... but there's the usual terminology problem here. Non "mystics",
> > non "orthodox" mystics, "failed" mystics, and, generally,
> > non-Easterners
> > (including the GLs themeselves) would (IMO) normally expect to
> > return to a state of personal consciousness ...
>
> I agree about the failed mystics, but not the others.
... should have said :
"would (IMO) normally _want_ to return to a state of personal consciousness"
... and that they therefore would likely expect to do so (perhaps mistakenly), ie they wouldn't deliberately seek to lose themselves in the flow of Infinity/whatever.
Should remove non "orthodox" mystics from the list, true.
> > ... and what special name would you use to describe a mystic HQ
> > anyway ?
Actually, Joerg's suggestion of "Trials" is a pretty damn good one.
Joerg :
> Leave the Zero be until you have become One with the universal
> consciousness. Having achieved Oneness, then the One may deal with the zero.
> I doubt that mystics have any better answers here...
Sounds about right.
It's all smoke and metaphors anyway ... :-P
> >>I imagine that few cosmogonies out-and-out
> >>contradict the GL elemental progression
>
> >The GLs were the ones doing the contradicting AFAIK, not the other
> >way round ...
>
> Is this Julian wearing his GL hat? ;-)
:-)
> >> .... darkness being the "first element" ...
>
> > ... that idea would be abhorrent to any Yelmite, Easterner, or
> >Sedenyan (etc) worth their salt ...
>
> Abhorrent to Yelmites, but to me the entire Yelmite worldview is based on
> some sort of self-deception.
You are mistaken IMO.
The GLs would have agreed with that statement, certainly, but the Yelmite worldview shiningly proceeds from the Light of Truth, is communicated to Men by the Light of Inspiration, and it is those with no Inner Eye nor Fire nor Divine Light of their own that live in shiftless self-deception, failing to understand, forever in shadow, doomed to Hell in this life and hereafter. Burn them !!!
> They even have a myth about how long it took
> Yelm to perceive his shadow...
Showing that the GL model isn't good for all worldviews.
Or, if we _really_ want to be extra-godlearnerish, "proving" that before the Storm Age, the Earth completely and hermetically separated the Darkness and Fire one from the other ...
So, "proving" the elemental progression model to be "True" !!!
:-)
(Dontcha just luuuuuuurve that circular GL logic ?)
> Sedenyans will tell you that the cycles came first,
... and that no Darkness is possible without Light ; no Fire without Ice ; no Being without Nothingness ; no Chaos without Lunar Redemption ...
> >But I still think that the GLs would have considered it as the first state
> >of _physical_ being ; and given their basic materialism and humanism,
> >probably the first state of >non-Divine/Created being, full stop/period.
>
> Non-Divine (in a Western, non-theist sense) Being = 4th Action, maybe even
> 5th. Darkness probably is the earliest material in 2nd or 3rd Action, but
> comes after the Demiurge.
I've only seen earlier versions of the Western texts in Revealed Mythologies, but it seems to me that (theologically) the Demiurge is part of Creation ?
Anyways, the Second Action was Manifestation : that's when what we'd think of as physical matter first appeared. Presumably there are long philosophical treatises devoted entirely to the History of the Second Action ...
You know, the most excruciating question I've ever asked Greg is "Did the GLs believe that God is Material in Nature ?" to which he replied "Yes. Prima Materia", which was delightfully satisfying as an excruciating answer.
It of course leaves us with the same Aristotelian vs. Neo-Platonist conundrum that plagued Christianity (particularly, Catholicism) for over 1500 years (resolved, unhappily for the Church, by Post-Structuralism).
Nevertheless, I think that the GLs would have had some concept similar to the "ultra-matter" of RW 20C neo-platonist theologians (probably expressed less confusingly though), where various states of matter would be directly caused by variations in states of consciousness (notably, of God's Mind) as expressed in the Movements, Actions, and Elemental Cosmogony of the Monomyth.
Pessimistically interpreted as a "devolution", a Brithini idea.
Ultra-matter is 1st Action or even an uncreated state of being ?
> >States of mind actually sought out more often via animist ecstasy than any
> >other magical method (orthodox Mysticism is quite different, as you
> >suggest), although it's also part of "deep" Western Materialism to attempt
> >to gain a certain purity of physical existence as a God-created being that
> >can involve a denial of personal Consciousness, as an Inner World Flaw.
>
> >Or not.
>
> Well put. What were you saying?
:-)
Less obtusely, that there is a tendency in "deep" Western Materialism to believe that individuality is a Flaw, a Sin, as doing violence against one's own True Being (which is exactly the same as all other men's, Castes notwithstanding) and against God Himself.
Western hermits mortify their individuality, seeking such perfection.
Of course, the majority of Malkioni believe no such thing, ordinary Church doctrine suggesting that the Will to effect changes in the World is God's Gift to Man. Hence, properly Malkioni theological conundrums, blasphemies, and heretics.
...
Also that animist ecstatics can lose their individuality and/or consciousness and/or Being when the spirits manifest during "deep" ecstatic trances.
Alex :
> I suppose the difference is that theists
> (say) go to the Green Age essentially just to experience being chucked
> out of it,
Nice one !
( Simon Phipp : )
> > Don't the Buddhists have examples of people who have achieved enlightnment
> > but have chosen to return to help people here?
Buddha, for one ... ;-)
I think the idea is that they don't "return" as such, but "wait" for a time in a liminal/transcendental position where enlightenment and existence in the material world are simultaneous. Easier said than done.
(Back to Alex)
> Trouble is, there is, as far as I know, no single magical or religious
> system that gives you a "choice" as to whether to go back to a "Black
> Age" on the one tentacle, or a "Blue Age" or another.
Through the Annilla cult perhaps, not that I pretend to understand it.
> You pretty much
> just get one "first state of consciousness". So it's generally only
> possible to compare the two in an external sense:
Yeah, that's right : but that was of course exactly your run-of-the-mill GL modus operandi.
> to wonder whether
> "Black Age Consciousness" for the Uz is truly more primal/early than is
> "Blue Age Consciousness" for the merpeeps. I don't know that one can
> usefully distinguish between them in anything like an "objective" sense,
Well, yes you can IMO, to some extent anyway : whatever else, those Primal Elemental Consciousnesses would keep their objective & subjective elemental nature(s), so that "Blue Age Consciousness" is a liquid state and "Black Age Consciousness" a Dark one (whatever that might be).
This issue, really, is whether moving from one state to another involves any movement in "Time", or not : and if it did, would the Questor be able to perceive any such movement ? But here I do actually agree with Alex' position, that no usefully distinct answer can be had for the first question, because the answer to the second question is "no" (not even any a priori or imaginary perception of "Time", because the "Dark" and "Liquid" properties of both those "Ages" would hopelessly prevent any chance for those perceptions to actually occur).
> so it's tempting to say they're mythically distinct, but as states of
> consciousness effectively interchangeable. But maybe the GL sequence
> does indeed have some deeper meaning here -- I dunno.
As an abstract materialist myth about the devolution of Primal Matter, as understood by the GLs, yes.
The resolvable question (but it's a hard one), apart from the fairly interesting exploration of the Elements themselves as Alchemical Substances/Racial Memories/whatnot, is whether the GLs had actually discovered * the * correct pre-historical sequence of the Elements' mixing together, from a "mixed" & _objective_ Inner World point of view, or whether they hadn't just imposed the chronology of the Movements, Actions, and God's Devolution et cetera on the Monomyth, as a basic flaw of subjectivity in their archeological methodology.
> Anyone mad enough
Anyone for Annilla worship ?
> to try and subjectively experience both, from within
> each native tradition certainly gets my "psychoanalyst on danger
> money" award for the year. ;-)
:-)
Julian Lord
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