Re: The existence of Judaism is why I believe in deitytausirhasirimFebruary 11 2006, 22:54:38 UTC
The *survival* of the Jewish nation - considering the hospitality of Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Russians, Germans, Brits et al is sufficiently remarkable that it actually annoys some historians. So be it. I use the word "miracle" sparingly, but I'll cop to it in this context.
In general, Judaism is a nonproselytic tribal culture-ethnicity-belief system, unlike, say, Christianity or Islam. It isn't in a spirit of trying to sell my identity to others that I wrote this poem, but rather, as you doubtless understand, simply to *share my experience* of it, that others may have an idea of what makes - at least one - Jewish soul tick.
One other point, which I make somewhat in my book The Roots of Magick (about to be reissued in a heavily revised version by my publisher). I think that the Authentic Tradition of the sexual gnosis in magick largely or almost entirely derives from Jewish roots in Cabbalistic mysticism, and in the ecstatic heresies and mystical revivals of the 17th and 18th centuries. Indeed, I see a considerable overlap between the Frankists and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, certain forms of 'irregular' Freemasonry and in the sexual magick tradition flowing into contemporary societies.
Re: The existence of Judaism is why I believe in deitytemplewhoreFebruary 12 2006, 04:40:14 UTC
From what I understand of Hebrew its a language that can only be understood through feeling it. The word is an experience. B'shert for example can only be understood through surrender of self to fate (God) -- without that it can mean nothing. Something of this is recognized in 1 John where it says the Word was with God and the word was God. The New Testament had some surprises in it inspite of Christianity chopping it up.
The Cabbalah for example must be experienced. Its fine learning all about the 10 sephirots and their paths, but without experiencing the paths, again they are useless. I've read Tarot for 40 years. I'm better now than when I was 10, but that's when I began. I stumbled on the Cabbalah (how do you spell that word?) while searching out whether Strength was actually a major arcanum XI or VIII. I've since decided it is the XIth card and the one anchoring the two halves of the Major Arcanum. But the Cabbalah didn't help at all.
Maybe I have the wrong sources...I'd not be surprised.
I would probably agree that there was a strong influence on Sexual Magick in the 17th and 18th centuries, but I'd hardly say the roots began there.
and it'd be difficult to connect Sumer with Egypt because the pure blooded Sumerians' culture was pretty much done before 3000 years BC. By then they'd been urbanized for around 500 years and fully engaged with the Semitic population by the time Egypt was building pyramids and writing on burial walls. That says something about the semites doesn't it? In fact doesn't it sort of mean that the semites today have a strong Sumerian strain running through the bloodline?
Re: The existence of Judaism is why I believe in deitytausirhasirimFebruary 12 2006, 05:04:34 UTC
"Something of this is recognized in 1 John where it says the Word was with God and the word was God. The New Testament had some surprises in it inspite of Christianity chopping it up."
Quite so. It is more than a bit unfortunate that Hebrew translates into English rather poorly, and ancient Hebrew all the more so. "All translation is a lie. A good translation is a polite lie, but a lie nonetheless." Robert Graves, quoted from memory.
With the New Testament, we are faced with fragmentary early Greek editions, but - while the disciples and Jesus for that matter may well have spoken bad Greek and even a little Latin, other than Paul (who never met Jesus), the NT is addressed largely to Jews and what we get is ancient not-so-good Greek from Aramaic originals, probably largely consisting of oral tales, brief collections of sayings and the like until after the Roman destruction of the Jewish commonwealth. So one wonder what "word" John's "Word" is in Aramaic or Syriac or whatever.
As to Qaballah, Kabbalah, Cabala (all are reasonable transliterations), magicians have been fascinated with this body of thought and literature for a long time, but really have a very marginal understanding of it. Magicians generally have a poor understanding of Hebrew and virtually none of the context of QBL.
" would probably agree that there was a strong influence on Sexual Magick in the 17th and 18th centuries, but I'd hardly say the roots began there. "
What I mean is the *essential system of sexual magick as transmitted and received in the West". Eastern Tantra is, of course, very much older, and quite different. There is also something of sexual magick in shamanic practice, which probably dates to the dawn of human community.
Your point about Sumer is well taken. Their origin is something of a mystery, and I'd imagine if we were to find anything of their DNA, it would be among what little is left of the Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq, though their culture was pretty much destroyed fifteen years ago in the wake of the First Gulf War. More's the pity.
Re: The existence of Judaism is why I believe in deitytemplewhoreFebruary 12 2006, 17:34:41 UTC
What I mean is the *essential system of sexual magick as transmitted and received in the West". Eastern Tantra is, of course, very much older, and quite different. There is also something of sexual magick in shamanic practice, which probably dates to the dawn of human community.
Interesting. I've not really thought of the Jewish Mysteries as being very physical -- its been more how the body reacts to the mind rather than the body being used as a mind/eye experience. I would agree that the Shakinah is a good start...but even they started from a more blissful place next to the dominant Father head. I find the Lilith aspect of taking the "darker" aspects of the feminine into the nether regions more effective than bringing the Shekinah through. I believe ceremonial magick taps into the mental -- memory -- ritual -- rather than the more animal contacting organic psyche of say masturbation. If there really are energy forms "out there" that play our deity for us so that we interact with something else...ceremony could (and for me does) block that relationship and communication.
I believe its about intent. If you're working with your own power, how to build it, raise it, make it work better, ceremonial magick is amazing. But I have to wonder about people who feel angels can be touched by enochian techniques that apparently were acquired through channeling to an angel. then you have to wonder how they channeled angels without the technique to get the technique...:)
I love this shit.
Anyway, for me its all about my relationship to deity (if that's how you communicate such concepts). If They want to talk to you, they'll do it. I'm not sure that sort of thing can be encouraged, it just sort of happens by listening close enough to the voices that are whispering through all the static.
Re: The existence of Judaism is why I believe in deitytausirhasirimFebruary 12 2006, 22:54:04 UTC
"I love this shit."
;-) me too!
"Anyway, for me its all about my relationship to deity (if that's how you communicate such concepts)"
I do, and I feel the same.
BTW, have you read the fiction of Isaac Singer? He was the son of an Eastern European Rabbi, and wrote extensively about the sexual aspects of Jewish mystical and daily life in the pre-holocaust lost world of European (Ashkanazi) Jewry. You might also reference the more recent works on the "Frankist Heresy" (i.e. Zoharism) of the 18th and 19th Century. Orthodox Jewish historians are leary of the sexual aspects, but they are pronounced. If you can find B.Z. Goldberg's "The Sacred Fire" I'd recommend reading it. Judaism is sexual-positive at minimum. Its mysticism is wildly sexual, though, as with alchemy, usually stated for the outside world in symbolic terms.
In general, Judaism is a nonproselytic tribal culture-ethnicity-belief system, unlike, say, Christianity or Islam. It isn't in a spirit of trying to sell my identity to others that I wrote this poem, but rather, as you doubtless understand, simply to *share my experience* of it, that others may have an idea of what makes - at least one - Jewish soul tick.
One other point, which I make somewhat in my book The Roots of Magick (about to be reissued in a heavily revised version by my publisher). I think that the Authentic Tradition of the sexual gnosis in magick largely or almost entirely derives from Jewish roots in Cabbalistic mysticism, and in the ecstatic heresies and mystical revivals of the 17th and 18th centuries. Indeed, I see a considerable overlap between the Frankists and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, certain forms of 'irregular' Freemasonry and in the sexual magick tradition flowing into contemporary societies.
Reply
The Cabbalah for example must be experienced. Its fine learning all about the 10 sephirots and their paths, but without experiencing the paths, again they are useless. I've read Tarot for 40 years. I'm better now than when I was 10, but that's when I began. I stumbled on the Cabbalah (how do you spell that word?) while searching out whether Strength was actually a major arcanum XI or VIII. I've since decided it is the XIth card and the one anchoring the two halves of the Major Arcanum. But the Cabbalah didn't help at all.
Maybe I have the wrong sources...I'd not be surprised.
I would probably agree that there was a strong influence on Sexual Magick in the 17th and 18th centuries, but I'd hardly say the roots began there.
and it'd be difficult to connect Sumer with Egypt because the pure blooded Sumerians' culture was pretty much done before 3000 years BC. By then they'd been urbanized for around 500 years and fully engaged with the Semitic population by the time Egypt was building pyramids and writing on burial walls. That says something about the semites doesn't it? In fact doesn't it sort of mean that the semites today have a strong Sumerian strain running through the bloodline?
Damana
Reply
Quite so. It is more than a bit unfortunate that Hebrew translates into English rather poorly, and ancient Hebrew all the more so. "All translation is a lie. A good translation is a polite lie, but a lie nonetheless." Robert Graves, quoted from memory.
With the New Testament, we are faced with fragmentary early Greek editions, but - while the disciples and Jesus for that matter may well have spoken bad Greek and even a little Latin, other than Paul (who never met Jesus), the NT is addressed largely to Jews and what we get is ancient not-so-good Greek from Aramaic originals, probably largely consisting of oral tales, brief collections of sayings and the like until after the Roman destruction of the Jewish commonwealth. So one wonder what "word" John's "Word" is in Aramaic or Syriac or whatever.
As to Qaballah, Kabbalah, Cabala (all are reasonable transliterations), magicians have been fascinated with this body of thought and literature for a long time, but really have a very marginal understanding of it. Magicians generally have a poor understanding of Hebrew and virtually none of the context of QBL.
" would probably agree that there was a strong influence on Sexual Magick in the 17th and 18th centuries, but I'd hardly say the roots began there. "
What I mean is the *essential system of sexual magick as transmitted and received in the West". Eastern Tantra is, of course, very much older, and quite different. There is also something of sexual magick in shamanic practice, which probably dates to the dawn of human community.
Your point about Sumer is well taken. Their origin is something of a mystery, and I'd imagine if we were to find anything of their DNA, it would be among what little is left of the Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq, though their culture was pretty much destroyed fifteen years ago in the wake of the First Gulf War. More's the pity.
Reply
Interesting. I've not really thought of the Jewish Mysteries as being very physical -- its been more how the body reacts to the mind rather than the body being used as a mind/eye experience. I would agree that the Shakinah is a good start...but even they started from a more blissful place next to the dominant Father head. I find the Lilith aspect of taking the "darker" aspects of the feminine into the nether regions more effective than bringing the Shekinah through. I believe ceremonial magick taps into the mental -- memory -- ritual -- rather than the more animal contacting organic psyche of say masturbation. If there really are energy forms "out there" that play our deity for us so that we interact with something else...ceremony could (and for me does) block that relationship and communication.
I believe its about intent. If you're working with your own power, how to build it, raise it, make it work better, ceremonial magick is amazing. But I have to wonder about people who feel angels can be touched by enochian techniques that apparently were acquired through channeling to an angel. then you have to wonder how they channeled angels without the technique to get the technique...:)
I love this shit.
Anyway, for me its all about my relationship to deity (if that's how you communicate such concepts). If They want to talk to you, they'll do it. I'm not sure that sort of thing can be encouraged, it just sort of happens by listening close enough to the voices that are whispering through all the static.
D
Reply
;-) me too!
"Anyway, for me its all about my relationship to deity (if that's how you communicate such concepts)"
I do, and I feel the same.
BTW, have you read the fiction of Isaac Singer? He was the son of an Eastern European Rabbi, and wrote extensively about the sexual aspects of Jewish mystical and daily life in the pre-holocaust lost world of European (Ashkanazi) Jewry. You might also reference the more recent works on the "Frankist Heresy" (i.e. Zoharism) of the 18th and 19th Century. Orthodox Jewish historians are leary of the sexual aspects, but they are pronounced. If you can find B.Z. Goldberg's "The Sacred Fire" I'd recommend reading it. Judaism is sexual-positive at minimum. Its mysticism is wildly sexual, though, as with alchemy, usually stated for the outside world in symbolic terms.
Reply
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