John Knox’s Journal

Working through Robert Bruce’s Defense against the Dark Arts. As I suffer from neg attacks, this is useful to me.

5 Likes

As I’m also Jewish I’m exploring Qabbalah, but mostly from the Qlippothic side.

To anyone interested I use this app: Sefaria Jewish know-how in English
It’s completely free and useful to me.

Maybe, I’m spreading myself too thin. I should focus on one field. We’ll see.

6 Likes

Today, it’s supposed to :cloud_with_rain:. I hate it.

Love the cold, but hate the rain.

Rain in my country appears to,

at least to some degree, be acidic, so not good

for you.

I wonder if there’s a connection between the weather and the spirit world?

I bet there is: my theory is hell is supposed to favor hot climates, while heaven rainy ones. But, it’s an over simplification:

Rain is definitely good for crops, but too much rain is a flood. Sun is also good for crops, but too much sun makes a desert.

So, refining the previous theory heaven/nature/god/source is balance v. Hell/purgatory/qlipoth are imbalance/excess.

Everything in this world has a measure: time/space/consciousness. Therefore, a limit, because a portion is finite and all finite things are limited.

3 Likes

What’s the line between balance and imbalance? Who sets the rules of the playing field?

It cannot be the players, because they’d cheat, so it must be a party/parties not playing.

Who are those? They’re unknown. How do they survive?

They obviously need energy to survive. They don’t participate in the game of heaven and hell.

Where do they get their power from?

They get their power from everyone. Why? Why not, if they can. They feed on them. Therefore, my hypo is that they are vampiric.

Do they also feed on each other? makes sense unless there’s a code of conduct: bylaws so to speak.

You can call them the lesser unknowns & the greater ones.

1 Like

Who are the lesser/greater unknowns?

If they’re lesser, then it means they’re less powerful. Where do they come from?

The name: “The powers that be” in my eyes is a reference to them. Let’s dissect the grammar: to be- was, is and will be.

Meaning forces beyond time, but as they’re still limited under place, ergo bound to a specific physical place.

Obviously, they don’t need to eat and drink regular food, just energy.

Now to the greater ones: beyond space. Are they unbound? No, because then they’ll be slaves to the tides of the Astral. So, they can change their space binding.

Who do the greater ones feed on? If we use the analogy of a black ocean, the big fish eat the small ones.

So, the greater unknowns feed on the lesser ones. Why? They need much more energy than the “the powers that be”. Obviously, they’re unmanifested.

Why? everything manifested must be either bound in time or space.

Why? the meaning of the word “manifest” is showing a quality or feeling by acts or appearance.

The stress here is on “showing”. If you’re bound, then you cannot be fully unknown.

Yes I think this way of thinking about it is closer to reality. Temperance is another word for balance. The Sun is the most temperate of the Planets, and signifies great Joy and Power and Health. Balance was considered important to health in pre-modern times, as we see from Medical texts as well as Astrological texts of the time.

Temperance (perfect balance) is perfect health, and perfect happiness.

Imbalance is destruction of the body, ill health, depression, torment, extreme self-destructive and corrosive rage.

Look towards the weather in the world to see this in effect in the Macrocosm.

The Gods are singular in their nature, completely unified, as Aristotle says. We have conflicting natures in us, which leads us to pain and fear.

As Plato says in his The Republic, it must be impossible for a God to wish to change themselves. This is because they are perfect. If they were to change, it would only be for the worse, because they are at the peak of goodness and perfection.

I’m not sure if you could describe their state as perfect balance, since they have a single unified nature. But, perhaps you could say perfect balance imitates that state. So, it is no mistake that it leads to happiness and health.

I disagree. In the Medieval Ages and the Renaissance, it was seen that Generation and Corruption only occurs in the material world, not even in the immediate world above.
When looking closer, we also realise that the destruction of the material world is only an illusion. Only the form is destroyed. But what the form was composed of is dispersed, and enters new things, and takes up new forms. The difference is that in the world above, the forms are eternal, making them perfect.

On the Gods, unified by the singular divine Demiurgos, as in Platonism, who is entirely benevolent (Unlike in Gnosticism. Plotinus, who was once a Gnostic, makes lengthy agruments against them in his Enneads), they are said to entirely rule the world. See the Orphic Hymn to Zeus (Who the Greeks identified as the Demiurgos):

“O Jove much-honor’d, Jove supremely great,
To thee our holy rites we consecrate,
Our pray’rs and expiations, king divine,
For all things round thy head exalted shine.
The earth is thine, and mountains swelling high,
The sea profound, and all within the sky.
Saturnian king, descending from above,
Magnanimous, commanding, sceptred Jove;
All-parent, principle and end of all,
Whose pow’r almighty, shakes this earthly ball;
Ev’n Nature trembles at thy mighty nod,
Loud-sounding, arm’d with light’ning, thund’ring God.
Source of abundance, purifying king,
O various-form’d from whom all natures spring;
Propitious hear my pray’r, give blameless health,
With peace divine, and necessary wealth.” (Orphic Hymn to Jupiter, Translated by Thomas Taylor)

And the Orphic Fragment to Zeus, which is quoted by Aristotle and Proclus:

“Zeus is the first. Zeus the thunderer, is the last.
Zeus is the head. Zeus is the middle, and by Zeus all things were fabricated.
Zeus is male, Immortal Zeus is female.
Zeus is the foundation of the earth and of the starry heaven.
Zeus is the breath of all things. Zeus is the rushing of indefatigable fire.
Zeus is the root of the sea: He is the Sun and Moon.
Zeus is the king; He is the author of universal life;
One Power, one Dæmon, the mighty prince of all things:
One kingly frame, in which this universe revolves,
Fire and water, earth and ether, night and day,
And Metis (Counsel) the primeval father, and all-delightful Eros (Love).
All these things are United in the vast body of Zeus.
Would you behold his head and his fair face,
It is the resplendent heaven, round which his golden locks
Of glittering stars are beautifully exalted in the air.
On each side are the two golden taurine horns,
The risings and settings, the tracks of the celestial gods;
His eyes the sun and the Opposing moon;
His unfallacious Mind the royal incorruptible Ether.” (Ancient Fragments, Orphic Fragments, I.P. Cory)

The Demiurgos creates all things and has given life to all of the Gods. You recognize that there must be rulers of the world, it cannot be us. However, this acknowledges that they existed before the material world, and so they do not need us. There was a time before space was created, there was a time before time was created. The Gods in Platonism are considered to exist outside of space and outside of time.
They do not need us.

However, the Demiurgos is not the highest. Rather, they are considered to arise out of a primordial state, for lack of a better term. Plato called this, “The Good” (However, no names can truly be applied to it) and is otherwise also called “The One” in Platonist texts. Almost all cultures have seen this, and have often seen the Demiurgos.

The One does not need the Gods, nor does The One need the entire cosmos. Iamblichus says that The One is similar to a fountain, its goodness overflows. The Demiurgos arose out of it simply because it is in the nature of The One that its goodness overflows. Similarly, the Gods create the world and give their blessings simply because their goodness overflows. As some Roman philosophers said, you cannot bribe the Gods. The gifts given are gifts, not bribes. They do not need it, and it is simply an expression of gratitude to them. After all, if they are the creators, giving gifts to them or “offerings” is simply giving their own gifts back to them.

Also an important note, Socrates rejected the anthromorphism of the Gods. Rather, from him it is considered that the Gods do no evil.

This is my thoughts on it, which may be helpful to you or it may not be!

3 Likes

Good/Bad to whom? For example, development is good for men and bad for nature.

That’s human = dualistic thinking. Taumiel the two-headed god on the tree of death signifying this thinking.

Obviously, the material world exists for a reason.

Did you ever consider why there’re so many parasites?
One can say the astral is a parasite on the material.

This world is a foundation of all other worlds, if it weren’t there’d be no point in creating such a flawed matrix.

If we take your hypo and the one/source is perfect why create flaws? Why not create eternity and perfection…

Before the one comes zero, the unmanifest.

It’s basically greater than it.

1 Like

Essentially, everything. Order is maintained in the entire cosmos, and the forms of heaven are eternal, indestructible. The Spirit in everything is also eternal. The Soul moves itself and is immortal.

Platonists largely did not quite recognize evil. Rather, some things are more like a “darkness”.

Why is this so obvious?

Now personally I have only ever encountered a “parasite” or imposter once or possible twice in my practice. I see these more as malevolent spirits who cause troubles. So, it’s no surprise that people with more risky practices encounter more parasites.

As to the material world being the foundation of the other worlds, as I have said elsewhere, this seems improper, as the Celestial World has power over the material world. If the material world were older, it would seem to be the other way around. Things up there also become sparser. There is one Celestial Scorpion, which contains the Idea of the Scorpion. Yet in the material world there are scorpions in many different forms, taking different shapes and colours, but we recognize them all as being scorpions. Further, as Thabit Ibn Qurra in his De Imaginibus shows, when certain Celestial factors are in place with the Ascendant in Scorpio, all factors aiding, and a figure in the form of a Scorpion is cast in a suitable metal, and the figure appears mangled, this causes Scorpions in the area to flee and to be harmed. In this way, the Spirit dominates the Material, not the other way around.

On your third question, firstly, traditionally The One/The Good is not a spirit or an intelligence.
As to why there appears to be imperfection in the world (perhaps impermance is better a term?), the material world is the closest to perfection the material can get. Plato says in his Timaeus that the world is modelled after perfection. However, it is created, and something that is created (has a beginning) cannot be eternal. So, time was created, so that the world may continue on for eternity.

With this, time is the world’s image of immortality. Similarly, generation is the image of immortality within species. Every material being has a beginning, and so an end. Generation, as the beautiful image of immortality, allows these forms to continue on.

Now, the material world has recieved many influences and descends from many worlds above. With that, it is the world that partakes the least of The Good. So there appears to be a certain darkness at times, similar to a cave that extends deeper into darkness.

The One/The Good is also the 0. However, it is said that attributes to The One cannot be applied in a positive way, such as “The One is 0”. Rather, we could say, “The One is Unmanifest”. However, that is not the full truth either. The One cannot be understood, since it is beyond the intellectual world.

2 Likes

What about negative numbers, rationals,
irrationals etc?

Numbers are the highest abstraction I know, correct me if you have a better abstraction.

I see the divine as a predator of especially humans,
I believe in the term: “prayer parasites”. People pray for praying’ sake.

It’s just a hidden predator, the infernal is more truthful. For example Azazel taught humans to wage war. The original god wanted human to be good little children.

To the divine we’re just oxen.

I posit the predatory/vampiric triad is unified in the monad stemming from nothingness, the zero.

But, by some math people, zero is still a natural number, -1 for instance is not.

I think that order needs disorder, because the latter is the more natural state. Think about it, with inaction chaos spontaneously appears.

Now, to maintain order/divine/source whatever you need energy.

To use an analogy of a spring, starting on the mountain top and ending in the sea. The sea here is the material world. Without it the source of the spring has no purpose. No energy to sustain it. At the peak of the mountain the water has potential energy, but only because there’s a lower place for it to go- the sea.

As above, so below.

What if there were many material worlds destroyed? We just don’t know…

1 Like

Why does it need energy?
I believe that idea mostly rests on the idea that the spiritual world springs from the material. If that were the case, we would not be able to influence the world with magick like we can. The material world would have power over the spiritual.

I’ll say this, I’ve cast more than 900 Geomancy charts (ignoring the other forms of divination I’ve practiced), and only 10 or less times have I found a chart to be wrong. If there is disorder, it seems there is a miniscule amount of it in the world.
Most skilled diviners note the same to be the case.

This quote is a good example. This is taken from the Emerald Tablet (not to be confused with the modern Emerald Tablets), a Hermetic source. This was largely understood to mean that the world mirrors the movement of the stars and the heavens above. And in practice, this is indeed so.

In practice, everything appears to be so supremely ordered that the entire heavens is arranged in such a way that it answers a question about the future the moment the question is understood by the astrologer. This is the field of Astrology called “Horary Astrology”.

Plotinus says this is possible because the entire cosmos is One Unified Living Being. This is like a physician who looks at one part of the body, and is able to gather information about another part. This also beautifully fits with “As Above, so Below”.

As for this, this is simply one view held by a rather specific group of people. For example, the ancient Jews did not have a concept of “Demons” in their theology for a long time, since the concept of an adversary is simply not compatible with the idea of a supreme God. It is not logical, either. Even the Christians did not understand the concept of Demons the same way most people understand it today until the modern era.

One reason for this change in understanding is because of the dominance of a materialist philosophy that took over since the “enlightenment”. However, this philosophy holds that magick and divination is impossible.

1 Like

I disagree. I know magic to be real and my magic gets results.

If magic is a car I want to be the driver and get results and not the mechanic and deal with entities…

1 Like

I mean that materialism (a philsophy which rejects the spiritual, holding that only the material world exists) rejects magick and divination to be possible. What I was speaking of is far from materialism, and I am certainly not a materialist.

1 Like

What I meant is that I’m a materialist. I only believe the physical. Entities have forced themselves on me.
Possessing people I know, when I completely closed myself to everything spiritual.

Hell, angels threatened to kill my mom and I felt intense fear. It was not an idle threat. I was doing really dark stuff, because of Ashmodeus possessing me and my own stupidity…

1 Like

Apologies! I didn’t understand what you meant considering that this art is mostly considered to be spiritual.

That is certainly a fine view. I’m afraid science won’t agree with you, however, since they find no material cause for spirits or divination or astrology etc. And most are rather certain to the point where they don’t believe in it (Since in materialism if there is no material cause, it is impossible).

In the end, however, you cannot so much argue about these things. It simply depends on what framework you view it in. All traditional cultures believed spirits to be able to possess people and cause material effects, etc. But this was not because they were believed to be material, but rather because the spiritual is believed to have power over the material. Similar to how the soul is seen to have power over the body, as an example.

That is simply my view.

1 Like

But, we can agree that the body also has power over the soul?

“a healthy soul in a healthy body”

The entities have material bodies. They need them to manifest on this plane in my life.

There’s definitely a third force besides light and dark and I’ve experienced their wrath.

1 Like

I disagree. As Plato explains in Phaedo, things that are moved by other things are impermanent, like the things we see in the material world, but the Soul moves itself. It is eternal and immortal.

As far as I’ve seen, most traditional cultures did not see the Soul to be able to be afflicted. Rather, it is always in good health and eternal.

I believe the saying you are quoting comes after the Mind was confused with the Soul. It’s more complicated than this traditionally. But generally distemperment was seen to proceed from the Spirit’s (which is lower than the Soul) effect on the body.

As I said, the traditional view does not hold this as a necessity, because everything springs from the higher worlds. So spirits can cause events through their spirit, and this is how traditional Alchemists are able to transform one metal into Gold.

“For as the powers of our soul are communicated to the members of the body by the spirit, so also the Vertue of the Soul of the World is diffused through all things by the quintessence: For there is nothing found in the whole world, that hath not a spark of the Vertue thereof. Yet it is more, nay most of all infused into those things which have received, or taken in most of this spirit: Now this spirit is received or taken in by the rayes of the Stars, so far forth as things render themselves conformable to them. By this spirit therefore every occult property is conveyed into Hearbs, Stones, Metals, and Animals, through the Sun, Moon, Planets, and through Stars higher then the Planets. Now this spirit may be more advantageous to us, if any one knew how to separate it from the Elements: or at least to use those things chiefly, which do most abound with this spirit. For these things, in which this spirit is less drowned in a body, and less checked by matter, do more powerfully, and perfectly act, and also more readily generate their like: for in it are all generative, & seminary Vertues. For which cause the Alchymists endeavour to separate this spirit from Gold, and Silver; which being rightly separated, and extracted, if thou shalt afterward project upon any matter of the same kind (i.e.) any Metall, presently will turn it into Gold, or Silver. And we know how to do that, and have seen it done: but we could make no more Gold, then the weight of that was, out of which we extracted the spirit. For seeing that is an extense form, and not intense, it cannot beyond its own bounds change and imperfect body into a perfect: which I deny not, but may be done by another way.” (Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book I Chapter 14)

And indeed, scientist have not seen any material cause for spirits or anything else in the occult.

1 Like

I’ll give an example: a mouse is acting very strangely- it started eating wood and borrowing through my floor. When I tried setting a mouse trap it didn’t respond.

At night, it would come to my bed and just stand at its feet and stare at me with its beady eyes.

When I just blocked it’s path a snakelike entity started attacking me at night: it would attack my feet and slither to my head and attack the back of my head.

1 Like

These sorts of stories are quite common in our traditional texts. There are many stories of spirits materializing and this is seen as very possible. If I’m not mistaken, De Occulta Philosophia has some examples of this, and appears very frequently in traditional folk stories. Like I said, the traditional view is that these spirits have power over the material world, since the material world springs from the spiritual. To appear in a physical body and cause physical effects is not such a difficulty for them, since they are above the material world. That is largely the purpose of invocation, calling on spirits to cause effects in the material world, because the idea is that they are more capable of doing this than us, since they have power over it and are above it.

I like our discussion although I don’t agree with you.

I feel like the spiritual snake is somehow the boss of the mouse, birds and other creatures bothering me.

It feels vampiric to me and malevolent.

2 Likes

I enjoy our discussion as well! Its good to contemplate these things through discussion, even if we don’t agree!

If you’re dealing with this right now, that is cerrainly something to sort out! Another member on here recently had a similar issue with a certain demon possessing a rooster to desecrate his altar. @anon75849095 may have advice on how to get rid of the spirit.

2 Likes