Despair - A Blessing of Satan

Rational discussions on metaphysical and abstract topics.
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Nefastos
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Re: Despair - A Blessing of Satan

Post by Nefastos »

By many simultaneous events, Despair has once again been underlined in what I am going through, reading (Kierkegaard's Sickness Unto Death by chance), and writing about.

In the quotations thread, fra Obnoxion posted yesterday van Gogh's thought that –

obnoxion wrote:"To express hope by some star, and eagerness of a soul by a sunset radiance. Certainly there is no delusive realism in that, but isn't it something that actually exists?"


I opened the discussion & saw that post right at the point when we were talking with brother Fatuus about stars as the symbols of hope, and despair in relation to their actual physical existence.

Since the Star seems to be quite universal symbol of hope & regeneration, one of the deepest reaches of despair is – I think – the point when this symbolism has been inverted or twisted. Few examples:

1) Lovecraft's idea about the ultimately meaningless, but still occultly "evil" universe, where gods do exist but their whims are not in any synergy or sympathy with human ethics or faith.

2) UFO beliefs where from the starry sky come superior beings to frighten, probe, and dissect helpless people & animals because of unknown & unfathomable reasons.

3) My personal experience when seeing the especially well lit celestial vault lately: a nausea and existential horror "that the material world expands everywhere, trapping all these innumerable atoms (including human beings) into blinded, semiconscious existence practically forever, without a real possibility to escape".

I think that all of these, and similar, psychological effects tell about deep personal/cultural fractures, verily, of the soul's "sickness unto death". (By which Kierkegaard didn't mean something that kills the patient, but something that keeps him eternally alive; cf. Brothers Karamazov citation I chose for the motto of Discordamelior's.)

Kenazis wrote:Kenazis and Kenaz are two different persons (for at least what I'm aware off)


Ah, my apologies... I meant in the Spinozan sense of one substance, of course.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
obnoxion
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Re: Despair - A Blessing of Satan

Post by obnoxion »

I have just purchased a fine three volume set of the complete letters of van Gogh, with all the drawings from the original letters included. This collection is widely considered to be world literature, and one of the most importan exchange of letters in history. I am very excited about it.

For me the above quote means that here is a whole, difficult to grasp, that equally manifests as starry sky and human hope; and that the radiance of sunset is identical with the eagerness of the soul in such a profound manner, that it is not a meaningless fancy to hint that man's inner life takes part of the phenomena in the sky; rather, it is one of the more useful instructions towards experiencing the meaning in ouf lives. It is more priceless than all the factories of the world, and the one thing on which our happiness depends.

I very seldom feel despair. The constantly expanding space is but the mydriasis of Her adorable pupil, intimate with unutterable ecstacy and eternal peace. The world, I feel, is the veritable city of sacred Kamarupa, thick with honey-like nectars and the deep buzzing of the bees of Her mystery. I have had a period of deep despair that lasted for three and a half years, but even that proved to be an interval in a vibration of exquisit bliss.
One day of Brahma has 14 Indras; his life has 54 000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. The lifetime of Vishnu is one day of Shiva.
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Heith
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Re: Despair - A Blessing of Satan

Post by Heith »

obnoxion wrote:I have just purchased a fine three volume set of the complete letters of van Gogh, with all the drawings from the original letters included.
Interesting; just few days ago myself and three other members of the Star of Azazel visited the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam together. It was a very moving experience.
Kavi
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Re: Despair - A Blessing of Satan

Post by Kavi »

Nefastos wrote:By many simultaneous events, Despair has once again been underlined in what I am going through, reading (Kierkegaard's Sickness Unto Death by chance), and writing about.

In the quotations thread, fra Obnoxion posted yesterday van Gogh's thought that –

obnoxion wrote:"To express hope by some star, and eagerness of a soul by a sunset radiance. Certainly there is no delusive realism in that, but isn't it something that actually exists?"


I opened the discussion & saw that post right at the point when we were talking with brother Fatuus about stars as the symbols of hope, and despair in relation to their actual physical existence.

Since the Star seems to be quite universal symbol of hope & regeneration, one of the deepest reaches of despair is – I think – the point when this symbolism has been inverted or twisted. .
This is really fascinating point of view. In some persian poetry is sung about "Northern Star" as something beautiful but also unmovable, unreachable and has been seen as a metaphor as such for reaching out towards Beloved.
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Jezebel
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Re: Despair - A Blessing of Satan

Post by Jezebel »

Nefastos wrote:
crow wrote:Am I the only one who finds it amusing that despair is listed in the cardinal sin?
I think that it is just desperation, which can keep the religion even stronger...


If one overcomes it, yes. But despair itself means already losing one's faith in something. Then we can only hope that the thing that was lost was just an outer apparition & not the inner spirit.
This far in my life losing faith has been a positive thing. It is painful, but in the end, when I have overcome it, I have seen I’ve had my faith in a wrong place anyway. This does not apply only to spiritual searching, but also in certain, important relationships, such as with parents. Despair is the last step before giving up, and this far giving up has been purely positive for me. It has something to do with some personal traits, such as control issues, but it has also been an integral part of growing up, and staying sane. Now I welcome the despair, whenever it hits me, and let I let it purify me. The change is slow, but feeling the despair makes it happen.
Kenazis
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Re: Despair - A Blessing of Satan

Post by Kenazis »

Jezebel wrote:This far in my life losing faith has been a positive thing. It is painful, but in the end, when I have overcome it, I have seen I’ve had my faith in a wrong place anyway.
Like you (in a way) said above there's difference of losing faith in general or losing faith in certain things. Losing faith completely and permanently isn't a good thing at all. Or losing faith to important and essential things like faith in life, faith in yourself etc. Losing faith to wrong kind of things is a start of purification indeed. Losing faith to false gods is good, but losing faith to divine in general might be very different thing.
"We live for the woods and the moon and the night"
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Nefastos
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Re: Despair - A Blessing of Satan

Post by Nefastos »

Kenazis wrote:Losing faith to wrong kind of things is a start of purification indeed. Losing faith to false gods is good, but losing faith to divine in general might be very different thing.


There are so many layers of faith, too.

As I always stress, there is no view that would be wholly free of faith, for example, fully rational. Everything we believe or think is based on some assumptions, and these assumptions are based on other assumptions, and so on. To have assumptions is to have faith, that is, to believe in something. Everything we are is practically faith, our subconscious faiths are the cohesive force of our telos. Dharma.

No wonder that the occult process has often been compared to the journey towards Earth's core. And, in some other stages which reverse the process, the journey into outer space. In both of these directions, humanity first starts to crack, then changes, and finally ceases to be (as we usually see humanity).

In such liminal spaces, there are powers of both holistic and disintegrating kind to take hold of the aspirant. It always happens and cannot be avoided that he, if he keeps on going, will be devoured. But will that losing of his own former identity bring about something greater, or will he be shattered and not remade? It depends on how actualised was his union with those holistic powers in the unconscious layers of faith.

How does this human animal keep going, how does it keep from breaking? This is what I have thought, looking at myself (that is, the pillars of this diminutive prison world within human mind) with horror & disgust all my life. The answer is that there must be unconscious spiritual vitality, some inner faith in the foundations so deep that they are always left unseen, however deep the conscious tremor & terror of being thus imprisoned.

To be actually alive would be to explode in fire, free of mind, free of body, in one realisation, as a soul, as a star, without faith, having become the (God-)essence itself.

Until that, how can there be anything but absolute despair? In these cells made of faiths?
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Mimesis
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Re: Despair - A Blessing of Satan

Post by Mimesis »

I have been thinking about this topic in relation to Greek tragedy, and what we can potentially learn from it, if we view it symbolically - or, in truth, even literally, if done carefully - but either way, as the depiction of despair as a human inevitability.

If I consider the name of the thread, the blessing of Satan in this context is to me the ability to accept, or at least understand suffering and despairs place and necessity in the world, as opposed to its delivery necessarily being the master’s gift.

Suffering and despair are objective as well as subjective truths, but I think the blessing comes in our capacity to accept, understand and essentially live with that, however hard and crushing this may often bare itself on ones soul.

Perhaps despair and suffering, be it objective or subjective, are made harder to live with given the nature of the modern world.
Whether it be in the large monotheistic, right hand path religions or the ideals that society tries to sell, we are constantly reassured of this certainty in salvation, in whatever context. Whatever subjective suffering one may experience, any objective or greater inevitability are always denied, meaning belief and faith is given to ignorance.

The Greek tragedians essentially saw damnation within the world, as life. But rather than expose this view in a nihilistic way, I think they offered an emotionally enriching experience of seeing something far greater than themselves behind the inescapable and objective despair imposed on the world objectively, and people subjectively.
It asked them (us) a question, and challenged them (us) to answer.

The idea and message of staged tragedy is largely dead today. For example, the idea of a Christian tragedy is almost impossible, because the promise of salvation always blocks the point of understanding the inevitability of despair. There is certainly subjective and personal suffering there, but often these are brought about by choices; the lesson presumably being what choice one ‘should‘ make, in order to avoid this with hindsight.
But in Greek tragedy, suffering and despair come largely at the cost of things that one could not know, choose or control.

I am not sure if I have said this well at all, but to put it crudely, I guess I see Satan’s blessing in this as the symbolic imposition of Greek tragedy. The challenge and the question of how to understand and frame inevitability, rather than deny it.
This, for me, strengthens the divinity and holiness of faith.
"We are such stuff. As dreams are made on, and our little life. Is rounded with a sleep."
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Smaragd
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Re: Despair - A Blessing of Satan

Post by Smaragd »

Nefastos wrote:In such liminal spaces, there are powers of both holistic and disintegrating kind to take hold of the aspirant. It always happens and cannot be avoided that he, if he keeps on going, will be devoured. But will that losing of his own former identity bring about something greater, or will he be shattered and not remade? It depends on how actualised was his union with those holistic powers in the unconscious layers of faith.
This brings me back to the symbolism of oil in Matt. 25 and what you wrote about it in the blog post on the Unseen Masters: ”But if we can actually reach the spiritual world, its sentient powers will notice that as clearly as we notice a match ignited in the dark. This ignited flame in the spiritual levels will need fuel to live on however, and concerning this the mystic parables should be studied from the 25th chapter of the gospel of Matthew.”

Placing the story on the back of my mind I've come back to it every now and then and found the symbol of rock very much related. Rock is the foundation or the cast by which the whole structure is defined. The ideal structure leads the way from ethics to day-to-day patterns of supporting needs, making way for the burning liquid to stream without obstruction where it needs to. Our despair might be seen as the devouring darkness where the match is ignited, and if those foundations of faith fail to support the life force to the surface the structure grumbles and one has to start looking for another way to build.

In this I see the blessing. If something in the structure is making discord I'm being notified and have a chance to fix it before the whole tower grumbles down. I placed the rock in a wrong place and the master reviews my work and gives critique. So the master's gift can be seen also as the delivery of the message, although the delivery was caused by the "lower servants" in ourself making the error in the first place.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
obnoxion
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Re: Despair - A Blessing of Satan

Post by obnoxion »

I consider despair in a pantheistic way as a form of presence. Even the absence of God is the presence of the absence of God – if you know what I mean.

Perhaps a poetic analysis will not be out of place here:

In Sufi poetry Jasmin is the flower of hopelessness, and it reminds the poet of his separation from God. This might stem from the name of the flower – ya’s-e man, “my hopelessness”; or ya’s, “despair”.

But if we read from the Shaiva poets, they testify that Shiva is “jasmine-tender”:

Like
treasure hidden in the ground
taste in the fruit
gold in the rock
oil in the seed

the Absolute hidden away
in the heart

no one can know
the ways of our Lord

white as jasmine

(Mahadevyakka, translated by A.K. Ramanujan in “Speaking of Shiva”)

Hopelessness or despair are like strange flowers that one only sees by the graves. It feels bad to look at them, because they remind of helplessness and loss. But if one could become like the black bee, who finds nourishment from the flowers that the honey bees shun, perhaps even despair could become a spiritual feast, where cup after cup of supersensual nectar are enjoyed. This nectar could be undesrtood, for example, as the inherent bliss on being, which could be realized when life seems stuck in a dull limbo.

So the pale flower jasmin can be a center of despair at graveyard of hopelesness; or it can be the inherent jasmine-tenderness of the omnipresent divinity, the center of our hearts.
One day of Brahma has 14 Indras; his life has 54 000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. The lifetime of Vishnu is one day of Shiva.
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