Issue Number 4
Volume I - iv
October 3 02 NLE
Copyright © 02 NLE H☿D
Contents
- Thoths from the Editor
- Reworking and Transforming Anger by Stephanie Lovecs
- A Perspective on the Monad by Brandon Lee Rogers
- Cloudy Day Roses: Artwork by S Lynne Price
- Crossword Puzzle
Thoths from the Editor
by Etu Malku
September brought us a Blood Moon just in time for the Equinox Rites to our Patron Dæmon CÆ☿
Congratulations goes out to Lord Ain Volk and his succseful premiere of 'Spirit of the Ages', a play written by Ain Volk and Tarik Rever of ANKH: Allied Night Kindred Houston that traces predatory spirituality from Egypt to Greece to Japan and ultimately to today! The Cell LHP Masonry has been reestablished by Brandon Rogers, the 777 Cell continues to work through Thomas Karlsson's 'Qabalah, Qliphoth and Goetic Magic', and the Book of Mercury is also getting a read through hosted by Michelle Schaefer. I have stepped out after several years of musical inactivity and performed with a good friend from New Orleans playing Voodoo Funk guitar and Maga Lynne has embarked on a self-discipline ensured to attract her Dæmon by executing 30 paintings in 30 days!
Project Hephæstus' Forge: Reworking and Transforming Anger
by Stephanie Lovecs
Anger doesn't seem to get any respect.
Many people try to avoid or repress the negative emotions like anger, envy, and jealousy, because they can take over your mind and influence you into negative behavior. However, some people get some sort of satisfaction from these emotions, in spite of the negative influence they have on our minds. Repressing these emotions can lead to extreme behavior when they finally do surface, so repression is not a satisfactory option. Satisfying these emotions as they arise makes you a slave to them with only short term satisfaction and often with long term problems that will have to be cleared up. So is there another way of dealing with the wrathful emotions? Indeed, there is.
One aspect of the Left Hand Path is to examine the more negative aspects of your personality in order to understand them and transform them into something more satisfactory, so let's take a quick look at them to get some understanding, and then apply a bit of reasoning that may lead to a way to transform them.
The wrathful emotions are based upon dislike, and are useful in removing or getting around unsatisfactory obstacles. You can approach obstacles from an intelligent manner and skillfully resolve them, or you can try to use force to smash through them. Anger will give you an adrenaline rush that could be channeled into force, but is there another way to channel this extra energy? Let's examine anger a bit more closely:
When you are angry, the accompanying adrenaline rush not only energizes your body, but it also energizes your mind. Before you became angry, your mind was relatively clear and calm, like a lake or a slow moving stream. However, a myriad of energized emotions screaming for attention can quickly turn the calm waters into a cloudy, boiling rage that is anything but clear. With an energized body and a clouded mind, it would seem that the option of dealing with obstacles by force would be the only way, as it is difficult to go the intelligent route by examining the obstacle when your mind in such a state. Your clouded state of mind is an obstacle to the intelligent route. {Wait a minute--aren't wrathful emotions useful in removing or getting around obstacles? Indeed they are!}
Your first obstacle to deal with is your clouded, boiling raging mind. Direct the energy from the adrenaline rush there first, and remove the clouded state from your mind first. Then you will be able to think clearly enough to take the intelligent route for the external problem. {You apply Greater Black Magick to yourself, first, and then you turn to the objective universe ;)}
Anger is a quick and strong emotion. It can quickly silence the other disturbing emotions within your mind to still the boiling activity impeding your ability to think clearly. Once the mind has been cleared, the rush of energy can then be channeled into mental activity in order to find an intelligent solution to the external problem, instead of resorting to force. You have overcome not just one obstacle, (the external problem,) but two obstacles (counting the obstacle of the clouded mind.) When you realize and appreciate benefits of this, the disturbing emotions will welcome and respect anger, and energy will not need to be expended in silencing these disturbing emotions, as they will be pacified by anger. However, when this point has been reached, anger doesn't seem to resemble what it used to be. It has transformed so much that even the name "anger" doesn't seem to fit anymore.
So, what has this emotion formerly-known-as-anger become? What name would be suitable for this force that can quickly clear the mind, yet super energize it as well? {Wow! It sounds almost magickal, huh?} I have some names for what a thought-pacifying-mind energizing force can be used as a basis for, including:
⦁ Mushin (Zen)
⦁ Samatha (Eastern religions)
⦁ the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Rupa Jhanas (Buddhism)
⦁ Shyine (Tibetan)
⦁ Samadhi (Eastern religions)
⦁ Pure Awareness (Advaita)
⦁ Clearing the Grounds to Alaya (Yogacara)
⦁ The Magickal Trance described in Peter J Carroll's Liber Null (Liber MMM)
⦁ Kensho (Zen)
The only real name that I have come across to describe this transformed anger is Great Mirror Wisdom. (If you know of any other names for it, please let me know.)
Whatever you may call it, it can be the platform/basis for all of the spiritual practices listed above and more, as well as the more down-to-earth tool for dealing with mundane obstacles in everyday life. So, even if you are not spiritually or magically inclined, it is still worthwhile to apply Hephæstus' Forge to your anger and transform it for the clarity of mind and problem-solving ability it gives in everyday matters, as well as liberation from being enslaved to its more base expression.
Free your mind!
A Perspective on the Monad
by Brandon Lee Rogers
In refining my Masonic scholarship a long with my work in H☿D I thought about a huge correlation to the Monad from a Masonic lecture and perspective. From one of our learning lectures it states that a point is dimensionless figure, or an indivisible part of space, and a line is a point continued, and a figure of two dimensions, namely, length and breadth. This statement has taught me a lot, especially after I meditated on this for a bit. This statement has showed me that the "point" as a figure, and to our work with the order, is yet another excellent representation, and if not an exact description of the Monad and it's function.
The Monad or higher-Self, is an indivisible part of our intelligence, and once that point becomes a line, it can take shape, and mold into whatever the Mystai desires. On the other hand when it does take form, it can lose it's existence by becoming something. The Monad would have to simultaneously be something, but nothing all at once. . . this is what creates the duality, and delusion, then the demise of the higher-Self.
When one would try to see this perception through a mathematical equation, it can make more sense, for example, 1 < 5, or 1 >0, they both are either greater or less than the other number, but then we can take this to the next level in comparing a dimensionless number. . .Zero is neither less than or greater than Zero itself with compared with the same number of zero, this being the dimensionless number, or "point" if you will. The Monad is the beginning and the end, the "Alpha and Omega", but it is still and will always be nothing, but something in no exact substantial form of result.
"Cloudy Day Roses" by S. Lynne Price
Oil painting on Raymar Museum Panel - 6x6 in
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This little jewel is the second in my 30 in 30 En Plein Air Project.I have four peach drift rose bushes and one bush is still blooming.They are quite a different rose going from yellow to peach to intense pink.And, now, in the fall, they have red speckles!
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