Clear and fair. Thanks
Mercuraen?
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seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
Well, we strive to transcend "nature," if that answers your question. Each individual will assign whatever meaning to "nature" according to their own understanding, so you won't get a clear-cut answer among individual practitioners.
Ella S.
Well-Known Member
Not only are those three very different concepts, but I'm pretty sure Gnosticism is the only Western practice that believes in said dissolution. Hermeticism, Christian Cabala, Freemasonry, Thelema, Wicca, Theosophy, etc. all have completely different goals.
I don't think so really, it depends on your frame of reference.
'Amir Alzzalam
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According to the LHP
'Amir Alzzalam
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What do you mean by 'dissolution'?
All the paths you mention have the same goal of absolving into some form of Absolute/Supreme Being thing.
Ella S.
Well-Known Member
No, they do not.
Hermeticism has the primary goal of perfecting the spirit within the body.
Christian Cabala has the primary goal of achieving salvation and gaining a deeper understanding of God.
Freemasonry has the primary goal of creating and maintaining Christendom, awaiting the crowning of Jesus at the Second Coming.
Thelema has the primary goal of finding and pursuing one's True Will.
Theosophy has the primary goal of escaping reincarnation to become an Enlightened Master in a higher plane.
Wicca, at least traditional, Gardnerian Wicca, is concerned with gaining access to the Summerland.
Some forms of Gnosticism do have the goal of dissolving themselves back into unity with the One, but the One is not the Absolute, a Supreme Being, or God, and not all Gnostics believe in this.
None of the paths I've listed have the goal of absolving into God. They don't even share the same goal with each other.
'Amir Alzzalam
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In the Hermetica, the ultimate reality is called God, Lord, Father, Mind (Nous), the Creator, the All, the One, etc. and the belief is that all created things pre-exist in God, and God is the nature of the cosmos. "As above, so below" from the Emerald tablet of Thoth, is their axiom meaning that their Magnum Opus "Great Work", is the harmonizing of God and Man. Hermeticists practice "Theurgy" of which the ultimate goal is to become united with a Divine Consciousness.
Christian Cabala, aside from being used as "a dogmatic weapon to turn back against the Jews to compel their conversion" – Harvey J. Hames. As with all faiths making use of the Tree of Life, the ultimate goal is the absolution of the ego into the Divine (God/Kether)
Freemasonry is not a religion and they take an oath declaring their Belief in a Higher Power.
Thelema and Crowley's "Black Brother," is one who fails to attain the grade of Magister Templi. At the point in which the Adeptus Exemptus chooses to cross the Abyss, which is the location of Choronzon and the illusory eleventh Sephira, a.k.a. Da'ath, the adept must surrender everything, including the guidance of his Holy Guardian Angel, and leap into the Abyss. If his accumulated Karma is sufficient, and if he has been utterly thorough in his own self-destruction, he becomes a "babe of the abyss," arising as a Star in the Crowleyan system and becomes one with the Universe and God.
On the other hand, if he retains some fragment of ego, or if he fears to cross, he then becomes encysted. The layers of his self, which he could have shed in the Abyss, ossify around him. He is then titled a "Brother of the Left-Hand Path," who will eventually be broken up and disintegrated against his Will, since he failed to choose voluntary disintegration. Make no mistake, Crowley and Thelema are ultimately RHP faiths. In fact, Crowley's incentive was to design a new and improved Christianity based on Magic.
Theosophy preaches the existence of a single, divine Absolute. It promotes an 'emanationist' cosmology in which the Universe is perceived as outward reflections from this Absolute. Again their goal is to harmonize with this Absolute.
Wicca (different from Witchcraft) is a universalist duo-theisitc cult of sexuality with the belief that the priest and priestess can, for a time, incarnate the God and Goddess respectively in order to carry out the “Great Rite” — Ritual Coitus.
The Wiccan system is clearly a Right Hand Path. Its main purpose is to reintegrate the individual into an organic model of society (in this case the symbolic coven) and nature and the cycles of nature, and the integration of the group into a universal scheme of nature embodied in the God and Goddess.
Gnosticism is firmly a RHP with its cosmology of the Pleroma, Demiurge, and Archons. Their beliefs include a Supreme, hidden God and a malevolent lesser divinity. Jesus is their savior. The only LHP leanings are their true antinomianism towards traditional Christianity. Other than that their ultimate goal is to destroy the Demiurge and return to the Supreme archon Abraxas.
**ALL RHP's
Ella S.
Well-Known Member
Absolutely not. "The Divine Consciousness" is a New Age conception, not a Hermetic one. Hermetic alchemy has, at its forefront, the process of eternal purification. That's why the operations of alchemy are constantly compared to chemical purification processes and why it's often wrapped in the allegory of turning lead into gold.
There is no concept of an "ego" in Cabala. The soul is divided into four parts, each corresponding to one of the four worlds, none of them corresponding to anything we would really recognize as "ego." Maybe Ruach, but the Ruach doesn't have to be "absolved" in any sense and it dies with the body.
Old Freemasonry, like the Scottish Rite, absolutely is. That's why they're obsessed with the Temple of Solomon and why they claim spiritual lineage from the Knights Templar, and are directly tied to the Knights Hospitaller. Even in newer Masonic lodges that have cleansed themselves of this, they keep the general symbolism of the architects of Solomon's Temple, because the entire point is that they are building the Third Temple.
The Self is rebuilt in the image of the Will after the Crossing of the Abyss. It's not absolving oneself into God. Crowley claimed to have crossed the Abyss but he didn't claim to be literally omnipotent or omniscient; he was still an individual agency.
Yes, I agree. So?
Integration with a universal scheme is now "absolving oneself into the Absolute?" ...I, uh, I don't think so.
See, this is the one I understand the most, next to Freemasonry, because I actually am a Gnostic. This is pretty inaccurate. Jesus is not my savior and my ultimate goal is not to destroy the Demiurge or return to the "supreme Archon Abraxas." In fact, I consider Abraxas to be another name for the Demiurge, so that's a doubly strange way of putting it, although it's a name that was only used by later Gnostics in a potentially ambiguous way.
My ultimate goal is gnosis, or salvific spiritual understanding gained through mystical experience, of the One. That's why it's called Gnosticism; it emphasizes the importance of gnosis. The Demiurge can have the Kenoma for all I care.
Right!
Still, what about Buddhism, "orthodox" Buddhism, not even Tantric/Esoteric Buddhism? No dissolving / absolving / merging of any self with any higher beings, no striving for any eternal unchanging paradise...
Last I checked there were several more initiatory stages past the point you mention. The grade of Magus, in particular, has a job description which shows that Crowley's mentor Allan Bennett was a poster child Buddhist.
Look, I understand you don't want to discuss all these RHPs in your subforum, but if you keep throwing us these juicy misrepresentations of other faiths, you'll have to bear with us setting the record straight.
The upside is, you get to do the same if any one of us writes nonsense about the LHP.
'Amir Alzzalam
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Buddhism is Seattlegal's specialty. The explanation of how Thelema is RHP was clearly stated, whether there are further degrees or not is irrelevant.
Certainly! I'm not asking you to take it away from her.
However, the distinction between LHP and RHP is your specialty.
Don't want to put you on the spot, just curious about your take on Buddhism in your scheme of things.
'Amir Alzzalam
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We gotta ask her!!
seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
Separation of the subjective from the objective. (Delusion is mistaking subjectively derived content for objective reality.)
seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
As far as I can discern, Buddhism checks all of the LHP boxes.
- Buddha himself started out as a LHP sadhu, practicing austerities, meditating over corpses, and the like, and became even more proficient with the practices than his teachers.
- It wasn't until Buddha started breaking the "rules" of this supposedly ruleless system did he become enlightened when he saw the Morning Star rise in the east during the third watch of the night while meditating under the Bodhi Tree.
- Buddhism is still considered Nastika (not Astika) by Hinduism to this day.
- One main tenant of Buddhism is to safeguard one's mind against Mara--(see Dhammapada I.)
- Designation of all the aggregates as not-self. (Separation of objective from subjective)
- Separation from the (RHP) Persona system as per the Joseph Campbell clip I posted elsewhere
- and, as you stated, no merging of any Self with higher beings, and no striving for eternal unchanging paradise.
seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
One more thing concerning Buddhism and the LHP: I'm going to copy and paste a very short sutta called Sabba Sutta: The All
"Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."
"As you say, lord," the monks responded.
The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. [1] Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."
I identify "the oneness" feeling experienced by mystics to be the "oneness" of one's subjective mind--as described above in the sutta. Mistaking subjective content for objective reality is delusion--one would be put to grief to describe The All as something else, as it lies "beyond range."
This is the part where one's mind is deceived into feeling accepted by "The All," when one mistakes the wholeness of ones subjective mind for the objective universe.
"Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."
"As you say, lord," the monks responded.
The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. [1] Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."
I identify "the oneness" feeling experienced by mystics to be the "oneness" of one's subjective mind--as described above in the sutta. Mistaking subjective content for objective reality is delusion--one would be put to grief to describe The All as something else, as it lies "beyond range."
This is the part where one's mind is deceived into feeling accepted by "The All," when one mistakes the wholeness of ones subjective mind for the objective universe.
'Amir Alzzalam
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How about Cino's question . . . https://www.interfaith.org/community/threads/19967/page-4#post-354319
seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
Did you miss post #76?
These "six sense bases" (for readers less familiar with Buddhism, the intellect is considered a sixth sense organ which is to cognition of thoughts what the eye is to the seeing of images) are "the All" then. This teaching is also echoed in the "Advice to Bahiya", where it is summarized as, "... in the seen only the seen ..." (for each of the senses).
Is solipsism considered a valid stance in LHP?