luka

Well-known member
so r u saying the approach i'm trying now, even though it's explicitly against ready-made systems like Chaos or Crowley, is misguided? or just that i'll eventually have to Let Go of all the accumulated knowledge and just... go into it, go into the space

How are we supposed to know? If we'd made it we wouldn't be talking to you would we?
 

other_life

bioconfused
im home from the southwest and have tons of Posting to do, here and at the calzzone. ended up driving instead of flying bc of family emergency that required Ma here. had a really positive experience w the goddess and will start work on the poetry thread first, probably.
 

luka

Well-known member
The First Path is called the Admirable or the Concealed Intelligence (The Highest Crown) - for it is the Light giving the power of comprehension of that First Principle which has no beginning, and it is the Primal Glory, for no created being can attain to its essence.

The Second Path is that of the Illuminating Intelligence it is the Crown of Creation, the Splendor of the Unity, equaling it, and it is exalted above every bead, and named by the Kabbalists the Second Glory.

The Third Path is the Sanctifying Intelligence, and is the basis of foundation of Primordial Wisdom, which is called the Former of faith, and its roots, Amen; and it is the parent of Faith, from which virtues doth Faith emanate.

The Fourth Path is named Measuring, Cohesive, or Receptacular; and is so called because it contains all the holy powers, and from it emanate all the spiritual virtues with the most exalted essences: they emanate one from the other by the power of the primordial emanation (The Highest Crown), blessed be it.

The Fifth Path is called the Radical Intelligence, because it is itself the essence equal to the Unity, uniting itself to the BINAH or Intelligence which emanates from the primordial depths of Wisdom or CHOCHMAH.

The Sixth Path is called the Intelligence of the Mediating Influence, because in it are multiplied the influxes of the emanations; for it causes that affluence to flow into all the reservoirs of the Blessings, with which these themselves are united.

The Seventh Path is the Occult Intelligence, because it is the Refulgent Splendor of all the Intellectual virtues which are perceived by the eyes of intellect, and by the contemplation of faith.

The Eighth Path is called Absolute or Perfect, because it is the means of the primordial, which has no root by which it can cleave, nor rest, except in the hidden places Of GEDULAH. Magnificence, which emanate from its own proper essence.

The Ninth Path is the Pure intelligence so called because it purifies the Numerations, it proves and corrects the designing of their representation, and disposes their unity with which they are combined without diminution or division.

The Tenth Path is the Resplendent Intelligence, because it is exalted above every bead, and sits on the throne of BINAH (the Intelligence spoken of in the Third Path). It illuminates the splendor of all lights, and causes a supply of influence to emanate from the Prince of countenances.

The Eleventh Path is the Scintillating Intelligence because it is the essence of that curtain which is placed close to the order of the disposition, and this is a special dignity given to it that it may be able to stand before the Face of the Cause of Causes.

The Twelfth Path is the Intelligence of Transparency, because it is that species of Magnificence., called CHAZCHAZIT, which is named the place whence issues the vision of those seeing in apparitions. (That is, the prophecies by seers in a vision.)

The Thirteenth Path is named the Uniting Intelligence and is so called because it is itself the essence of Glory. It is the Consummation of the Truth of individual spiritual things.

The Fourteenth Path is the Illuminating Intelligence, and is so called because it is itself that CHASHMAL which is the founder of the concealed and fundamental ideas of holiness and of their stages of preparation.

The Fifteenth Path is the Constituting Intelligence, so called because it constitutes the substance of creation in pure darkness, and men have spoken of these contemplations; it is that darkness spoken of in scripture, Job xxxviii. 9, "and thick darkness a swaddling band for it."

The Sixteenth Path is the Triumphal or Eternal Intelligence, so called because it is the pleasure of the Glory, beyond which is no other Glory like to it, and it is called also the Paradise prepared for the Righteous.

The Seventeenth Path is the Disposing Intelligence, which provides Faith to the Righteous, and they are clothed with the Holy Spirit by it, and it is called the Foundation of Excellence in the state of higher thing.

The Eighteenth Path is called the House of Influence (by the greatness of whose abundance the influx of good things upon created beings is increased) and from the midst of the investigation the arcana and hidden senses are drawn forth, which dwell in its shade and which cling to it, from the cause of all causes.

The Nineteenth Path is the Intelligence of all the activities of the spiritual beings, and is so called because of the affluence diffused by it from the most high blessing and most exalted sublime glory.

The Twentieth Path is the Intelligence of Will, and is so called because it is the means of preparation of all and each created being, and by this intelligence the existence of the Primordial Wisdom becomes known.

The Twenty-first Path is the Intelligence of Conciliation, and is so called because it receives the divine influence which flows into it from its benediction upon all and each existence.

The Twenty-second Path is the Faithful Intelligence, and is so called because by it spiritual virtues are increased, and all dwellers on earth are nearly under its shadow.

The Twenty-third Path is the Stable Intelligence, and it is so called because it has the virtue of consistency among all numerations.

The Twenty-fourth Path is the Imaginative Intelligence, and it is so called because it gives a likeness to all the similitudes, which are created in like manner similar to its harmonious elegancies.

The Twenty-fifth Path is the Intelligence of Probation, or is Tentative, and is so called because it is the primary temptation, by which the Creator (blessed be He) trieth all righteous persons.

The Twenty-sixth Path is called the Renovating Intelligence, because the Holy God (blessed be He) renews by it, all the changing things which are renewed by the creation of the world.

The Twenty-seventh Path is the Exciting Intelligence, and it is so called bemuse by it is created the Intellect of all created beings under the highest heaven, and the excitement or motion of them.

The Twenty-eighth Path is the Natural Intelligence, and is so called because through it is consummated and perfected the nature of every existent being under the orb of the Sun, in perfection.

The Twenty-ninth Path is the Corporeal Intelligence, so called because it forms every body which is, formed beneath the whole set of worlds and the increment of them.

The Thirtieth Path is the Collecting Intelligence, and is so called because Astrologers deduce from it the judgment of the Stars, and of the celestial signs, and the perfections of their science, according to the rules of their revolutions.

The Thirty-first Path is the Perpetual Intelligence; and why is it so called? Because it regulates the motions of the Sun and Moon in their proper order, each in an orbit convenient for it.

The Thirty-second Path is the Administrative Intelligence, and it is so called because it directs and associates, in all their operations, the seven planets, even all of them in their own due courses.

END OF THE SEPHER YETZIRAH
 

luka

Well-known member
Anyone seen the history of language exhibition at the British library? I'm supposed to be going to it with my mate who is like an older, Texan version of other-life.... Says things like

"before the invention of farming, humans couldn't say the word "farming" (even though they called it something else)

cooking and farming changed the shape of human mandibular joints -- this made room for bigger brains and made new phonemes possible to articulate. you can't say F without an overbite.

indicative fricative."
 

luka

Well-known member
Anyone seen the history of language exhibition at the British library? I'm supposed to be going to it with my mate who is like an older, Texan version of other-life.... Says things like

"before the invention of farming, humans couldn't say the word "farming" (even though they called it something else)

cooking and farming changed the shape of human mandibular joints -- this made room for bigger brains and made new phonemes possible to articulate. you can't say F without an overbite.

indicative fricative."

https://www.bl.uk/events/writing-making-your-mark

This
 

luka

Well-known member
am i getting this luke... can we play the game...
[editing to make certain phrases italic]

Prelude: Questions raised by Prynne on Metal; his more salient points; spitballs/medications/meditations:

“...the theory of quality as essential...” - Does he mean by this that the concept of qualitative change itself starts here, in the mirror of metalworking? [He does.]

Gist of a brilliant passage – Prynne's starting point looks a magical-religious one, so he contrasts metal and stone by comparing the internal, practical qualities which lend them their magical properties, and the sort of artifacts they lend themselves to, in turn. Weight is the thing of stone. I immediately thought of the earliest symbolic artwork: a 70,000 year old compact stone, scratched with a rudimentary diamond-chain pattern (see paragraph in next section). Prynne must know small talismans and idols of this type would be the first thing to come to mind, because he instead invites us to consider the cave-surface and the chamber-tomb. These are communal, and large scale.

Copper, tin, and everything which follows from their discovery and first applications, lends itself to “less mixed and specific” qualities: Prynne lists “brightness, hardness, ductility and general ease of working.”
A metal artwork glints in the sun, and announces itself this way (though its material must be mined). A cave insides are obscured, it must be lighted for the art to be seen. Small stones embed in the earth and are covered with dirt (though they can more easily be cleaned than ores mined). Stone and wood tools wear much faster than metal. Ore can easily be shaped as its worked into tools, stone and wood do not so easily lend themselves to this (wood especially not without metal).
Prynne also does seem to assert that the working of metals is the basis in practice for later concepts of internal properties and their qualitative change (even in psychology). The mirror of metalworking...

How did the Sumerians pull off importing so much tin? With tin scarce where they ended up, how did they first come into contact with it, and get the idea of smelting bronze? Prynne intimates subjugation. The acquisition of durable metal also improved the means of subsistence/reproduction: “Animal hides could be sewn up with metal bodkins and fish taken with fine wire hooks. The metal ploughshare could cut deeper into the soil with less effort.” The ability to feed so many more people and clothe them with such durable clothing is the basis for large concentrations of people, and metal-worked weapons the basis for defending these large populations, and expanding the continuing acquisition of these means... Was Prynne familiar with Morgan, or Marx and Engels? What did he think of them? [He bases his arguments on Vere Gordon Childe, and later mentions an “exilic (left-wing) history of substance”, so probably he was, and thought well of them.]

“The new quality of spiritual transfer was concentrated in these most durable forms of leading edge, seen especially in the flattened motive of ornament, and the history of substance (stone) shifts with complex social implication into the theory of power (metal).” I don't even have anything to add, it's just brilliant on different levels, innit. Encapsulates the entire development in one sentence. The whole next paragraph, too. Salient points: metalwork sends man deeper into matter; knowledge of death is both the condition of life and its limit, and a, if not the central metaphor of all ritual: “...persistence through transmutation was an ego-term (even when socialised), rather than one concerned chiefly with the outer world...”. The marked grave or the chamber-tomb, the teraf in likeness, or shaped around the skull, of an ancestor.

Sendentary horticulture and agriculture lending to fundamentally different religious conceptions than hunting: “transfer of life as power” vs. “reap what you sow”.
Sedentary agriculture as complementary to the practice and intentions of mining: the rudimentary bases of cities, classes and states? [Yes.]
The subtle and specified qualities of worked metal and processed grain lending to an abstraction of value, and thus to “specialised function”, “rate of exchange” and “a politics of wealth” (literally the germs of capital).
Gradual developments in turn from value by weight to value by numeracy. Perhaps even the genesis of the very concept? [Yes!] Aes rude > aes signatum > aes grave (refining currency forms).
Relative connectivity of the 'ancient world': “In the early Bronze Age, peninsular Italy, central Europe, the west Baltic coastlands, and the British Isles were united by a single system for the distribution of metalware, rooted in the Aegean market [and from there presumably connected to climes much further east...].”

Mediterannean sea-farers contrasted with inland polities of western and central Asia: 'transfer as exchange [displaced matter, abstraction, numeracy...]' vs. 'substance as exchange [wealth measured in real means of subsistence: flocks, herds, storehouses, tools, etc.]' Minted coin, and bimetallic currency-systems emerge in the eastern Mediterranean of the late Bronze Age.
Lydians and Ionians in a central place: “...received goods from the caravan routes and river communications across Asia. They had access to safe and sheltered harbours for easy coastwise trade. They exported their famous Chian wines, their purple dye [Phoenicians?...] which gave its name to Erythrae, and their Samian pots, but above all they were renowned for their gold [is the metal with the broadest shoulders], which provided the fabulous wealth of Croesus, and still more the fabulous wealth of Midas.”
Development of political economy from earliest metallurgy is a history of increasing diplacement and abstraction; the objective role of middle classes is to refine the very same displacement and abstraction [barbarianism transformed into civilisation].
Reminds us these developments [i keep mistyping this one it seems] are discontinuous, yet accelerated. Transformation of displacement and abstraction of matter: from keen awareness of “the mirror of metalworking” as new base for magic, into prosaic money economies. “Stone is already the abstraction of standing; and dying is still the end of man's self-enrichment, the 'reason' why he does it.

Questions left standing:

How did the Sumerians pull off importing so much tin? With tin scarce where they ended up, how did they first come into contact with it, and get the idea of smelting bronze?”
“If we are confident over the more developed consequences, at the unrecognised turn [oops] we are still at a loss to say where or why.
@Benny B
 
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