Substitutes for blood sacrifice

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obnoxion
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Re: Substitutes for blood sacrifice

Post by obnoxion »

Nefastos wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:38 pm Blood ~ Animals → Linga sharîra
Semen ~ Pretas → Kâma
Flesh ~ Hell denizens → Prâna
Urea ~ Human beings → Lower manas
Feces ~ Asuras → Higher manas
This seems right. You have more fluency in using the hieroglyphic key, especially in such difficult topics as the one at hand. Although interpretations that seem authorative are available, one needs to make way into the reinforced esoteria of the tantras from one's own tradition. And that would be the hieroglyphic key.
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Nefastos
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Re: Substitutes for blood sacrifice

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Since the context of the five elixirs is unknown to me, three questions about it (whenever you, and/or our other participants, got time).

Firstly, what do you think about my approach to the sacrality-profanity symbolism concerning the elixirs? That they are pictured thus because "magnetisms are superfluous until they are in perfect balance in relation to each other, but just this intensity of seeming impurity makes them sacred. If Mary Douglas' dirt was substance in a wrong place, we can deduce that there is a place where that particular substance is lacking, making it holy." Now I understand that in the process of Black, the emphasis may be held differently, but would you encourage this approach in the process that focuses on White? I would like to keep the subject in mind, for when reading Buddhist texts, their often rigid and demanding loftiness may create an impenetrable aura of protective holiness. This alleyway might easen that charged tension that is poisonous to my particular temperament, since I have had my falls in too much rigidity.

Secondly, do you think there might be this quintessential correspondence in the body fluids and aetheric elements? The very word of "elixir" (cf. the White practice of concocting of the white elixir) turns my attention to this essentially & yet superphysically substantial interpretation in transmutation of linga sharîra. Once again, I think that the emphasis of the Black for the same might be in the levels that are more physical & more symbolical, stemming from deep astral instead of the bodily aethers.

Thirdly, would you say that they correspond to the five M's of the Hindu tantra taboo substances? It seems that the Buddhist practices often assume what seems like a hardcore mode to Hindu equivalents.
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: Substitutes for blood sacrifice

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Nefastos wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:38 am Thirdly, would you say that they correspond to the five M's of the Hindu tantra taboo substances? It seems that the Buddhist practices often assume what seems like a hardcore mode to Hindu equivalents.
I am quite certain that the five M's, the five jewels, the five ambrosias are all permutations of the same idea. The five jewels would be semen, phlegm, urine, feaces and menstrual blood. In the five ambrosias, phlegm is replaced with marrow. And in Buddhist Tantras, the flesh or meat is further divided into five categories: Beef, dog, elephant, horse and human flesh.

I will return to the interpretative challenge this idea imposes, and the other two questions, a little later.
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Re: Substitutes for blood sacrifice

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Thank you kindly. Speaking of bodily substances, I am at the moment coincidentally myself meditating on the correspondences between the embryo (as discussed by Blavatsky in her Esoteric Instructions letter 1 [p.522]) and the "auric egg of the adept-bird" I mentioned. The hermetic-hermeneutic challenge in the auric vessel is pressingly personal and brotherhood-hermeticism related simultaneously... like the Work always goes.
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: Substitutes for blood sacrifice

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Nefastos wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 1:10 pm Thank you kindly. Speaking of bodily substances, I am at the moment coincidentally myself meditating on the correspondences between the embryo (as discussed by Blavatsky in her Esoteric Instructions letter 1 [p.522]) and the "auric egg of the adept-bird" I mentioned. The hermetic-hermeneutic challenge in the auric vessel is pressingly personal and brotherhood-hermeticism related simultaneously... like the Work always goes.
On the macrocosmic level, this auric egg corresponds with the Zoharic concept of the etheric membrane that sheaths the dew filled brain in the skull of the White Head of the Old Ancient One (broadly speaking, Kether and the supernals). From the skull the dew drops down to the Small Countenance of the Microsopus (Tiphereth), and trickles down his wet black curls to Shekinah (Malkuth).

Grace F. Krophe's "Theosopjy and the Qabalah" treats these correspindences very lucidly, and the book is very cheap. Also, it is available as a pdf in the net.
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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Re: Substitutes for blood sacrifice

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Nefastos wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:38 am Secondly, do you think there might be this quintessential correspondence in the body fluids and aetheric elements?
Before answering this question, I think it would be good to have a more clear view of what are aetheric elements. Do you consider the four part "rosicrucian" division useful?
- That is; the chemical, the life-, the light- and the reflective aethers?
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Re: Substitutes for blood sacrifice

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Yes, we are speaking of the same aethers, although I'd prefer a bit different names. It can be that I simply do not understand enough the Rosicrucian basis of naming (I know the Rosicrucian model from the teachings of Ervast, and he does not clarify them in length), and because of this would like to use different terms that I personally find more understandable. But it can also be that actual difference in approaches of esoteric schools should be considered in these different emphases. I quote two footnotes from a yet unpublished article:
Names and functions for these aethers with explanations would demand an article of their own. A hopefully evocative but not too strict explanation can be given by the following string of names: aether of "heat" (fire), magnetic aether (air), auric aether (water), and identity- or memory matrix aether (earth).
Sthûla sharîra is composed of the 3½ physical elements of solid matter, liquid, gas, and heat; linga sharîra, as mentioned, is composed of the 3½ physical elements of the four aethers, of which the "heat" (fire) aether is the first.

Id est, descending from above downwards, we have astral (subtle) Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and then the "quintessence of gross matter" in the gaseous-liquid-concrete trinity. In this microcosmic Hieroglyphic Key, fire is the half-subtle half-physical plasmic element of the cross, bridging the two triads of seen & unseen physical matter.

Of course, in the models of five in substance, the quintessence in the ascending order would be the three (or four) aethers, if one considers crudely physical elements in their parts (concrete as unsubtle Earth, liquid as unsubtle Water, gases as unsubtle Air, Fire as fourth, and then the quintessence of the astral elements in linga).
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: Substitutes for blood sacrifice

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Nefastos wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:38 am Secondly, do you think there might be this quintessential correspondence in the body fluids and aetheric elements? The very word of "elixir" (cf. the White practice of concocting of the white elixir) turns my attention to this essentially & yet superphysically substantial interpretation in transmutation of linga sharîra
I think there is. (Though they are also called "jewels" in some texts, and not just elixirs or ambrosias). In all cases, I believe, these bodily fluids are meant to be transformed into ambrosia. What this means exactly, is a great mystety to me. But it must have to do with the concept of nondualism. In a way, this mystety seems to have common elements with the transubstantiation of the christian sacraments. However, in tantric nondual pantheism, the substance of the world is purely a transformation of divinity, and it is already as divine as anything else. So what happens to this elixir - which, I've understood, in hindu tantras are mixed together in a chalice, unless the substances are treated as metaphors for yogic movements or something - must be a gnostic transformation. I know that I would not drink down a mixture of such elixirs as they are, without something unimagibabily drastic happening to them. As you said...
Nefastos wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:38 am Once again, I think that the emphasis of the Black for the same might be in the levels that are more physical & more symbolical, stemming from deep astral instead of the bodily aethers.

I think there must be deep symbolism in these elixirs, and I think there must be a reason why this symbolism is tied to such substances. Based on what I have read, these substances have actually been present in some rituals, as offerings to certain deities. And it seems that these sort of rituals have been criticized strongly by people who hold in great esteem treatises like the "Vajra Rosary" quoted above. In most "high tantric" ritual the sadhaka identifies with the deity to whom the elixir is offered, so she offers it to herself. And, what is very important, everything that happens is mostly very vivid visualisation, so everything that happens might be done in a visualuzed scene (and these constant and detailed visualizations are meant to cause aetheric changes). So likely the chalice, too, is the practioner, in whom all these substances naturally abide - except for menstrual blood or semen, depending on the sex of the sadhaka, and so the presence of both of these substances demand a conosort of the opposite sex to be present.

So the quintessence of this elixir is a deep mystery for me, but a mystery that seems urgent in light of nondualist pantheist philosophy. One can only speculate without initiation. And after initiation, one is sworn to silence. But I would think it is likely that there are different levels in the interpretation of how concrete\symbolic these elixirs are in different traditions.
Nefastos wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:38 am Firstly, what do you think about my approach to the sacrality-profanity symbolism concerning the elixirs? That they are pictured thus because "magnetisms are superfluous until they are in perfect balance in relation to each other, but just this intensity of seeming impurity makes them sacred. If Mary Douglas' dirt was substance in a wrong place, we can deduce that there is a place where that particular substance is lacking, making it holy." Now I understand that in the process of Black, the emphasis may be held differently, but would you encourage this approach in the process that focuses on White?
Could you elaborate on this question, too. I am not sure if I understand you correctly, and I don't want to answer beside the point.
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Re: Substitutes for blood sacrifice

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obnoxion wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 3:24 pm
Nefastos wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:38 amFirstly, what do you think about my approach to the sacrality-profanity symbolism concerning the elixirs? That they are pictured thus because "magnetisms are superfluous until they are in perfect balance in relation to each other, but just this intensity of seeming impurity makes them sacred. If Mary Douglas' dirt was substance in a wrong place, we can deduce that there is a place where that particular substance is lacking, making it holy." Now I understand that in the process of Black, the emphasis may be held differently, but would you encourage this approach in the process that focuses on White?


Could you elaborate on this question, too. I am not sure if I understand you correctly, and I don't want to answer beside the point.


I try to put it into other words, approaching from the viewpoint that these are related to the five M's. Let's see...

The aspirant bears the cultural if not stressedly personal & self-chosen burden of some orthodox taboo. Not only such are factually present in every culture, school, and individual, but I am pretty sure he must do that, in some way (it may perhaps be collective & subconscious, or even based on biological hesitance), or we lack the intense charge of the two polar opposites: the "pure" and the "impure". Personally I would wager that stronger the charge against the taboo, the stronger also the positive influence of the spiritually accomplished ritual. (By "ritual" I also mean metaphysical, yogic experiences of any sort, not just physical ceremony.) I indicate here that going through a methodically strict path of the lower "little path" initiations before such practices would greatly build up their intensity and power.

What follows when the spiritual polarities become inverted in the ritual of five forbidden or impure substances is that one's imperfect understanding of the perfect whole becomes enlarged in a way that forms also an energetical explosion. This is the birth of the Sun in the initiation of the great turning (the 4th) I mentioned in Argarizim. The substances he had most vehemently averted are those he are in the greatest need of. They are the aspirant's complement "satan".

But actually all five are present all the time in us, in the union of the Self and the Other, or the mind and its energetics in shakti. Ritual tantra would therefore re-balance the individual. Since a human being is actually a microcosm, we cannot escape energies that enfrighten us: we simply use lacking method of pseudo-sublimation to put them in our energetical whole in the places where they do not belong. When the mystic chest (of ceremonial initiation) opens, the serpent goes into the place in us where there was a hole.

Be the method physical or not, the result would be felt in the above mentioned physico-astral (i.e. aetheric) being of the aspirant. When the energies are thus shaken, with almost chirurgical skill of the hierophant adept putting his pupil through these sacral acts of re-balancing, the bodily centers would turn into a position where the "elixir" content from each would turn into vivifying effect for the others. Corresponding results would be the opening and releasing of the similar upâdhis (principles).
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: Substitutes for blood sacrifice

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Thank you for the clarifying message!
Nefastos wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 6:53 pm The aspirant bears the cultural if not stressedly personal & self-chosen burden of some orthodox taboo. Not only such are factually present in every culture, school, and individual, but I am pretty sure he must do that, in some way (it may perhaps be collective & subconscious, or even based on biological hesitance), or we lack the intense charge of the two polar opposites: the "pure" and the "impure". Personally I would wager that stronger the charge against the taboo, the stronger also the positive influence of the spiritually accomplished ritual. (By "ritual" I also mean metaphysical, yogic experiences of any sort, not just physical ceremony.) I indicate here that going through a methodically strict path of the lower "little path" initiations before such practices would greatly build up their intensity and power.
This exactly how I see it, and I think this is more stressedly the way of the hindu tantras. In buddhist tantras, there seems to be prevalent belief in medicinal properties of urine, feaces and human flesh. In hindu tantras I see the rationale to be in transgression of ritual purity to trannscend duality. And it is this ritual realm of purity and impurity that I consider the very heart of the LHP. I understand that the method of inversion might come across as juvenile, but I think that is the core idea of Satanism and quintessence of vamacara. But unless one has learnt to speak and think with the language of the ritual, such left-handed formulae are mere senslesness.
Nefastos wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 6:53 pm But actually all five are present all the time in us, in the union of the Self and the Other, or the mind and its energetics in shakti
Indeed! I consider the commitment to LHP to mean the expansion of this ritual realm to saturate the whole being and everyday life. There are myriads of possibilities of coming into contact with the elixirs & m's in their concrete, etheric, symbolic and essential modalities. These everydayish encounters can be recognized and sanctified. And, at best, they may energize one's contemplation to nondual realization. Basically I believe that the dynamic dualism of the LHP is not good and evil, but pure and impure. And these ideas get their meaning from the context of ritual purity.

I've actually writen about this recently in another topic, "LHP compared to RHP":
viewtopic.php?f=64&p=30376#p30376
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