Prisoner of the Role/Narrative

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Nefastos
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Prisoner of the Role/Narrative

Post by Nefastos »

Have you noticed in yourself (or perhaps in a close relative) a tendency to become imprisoned in a certain kind of role of self-made narrative?

I do not mean primarily our social roles ("I am the guy who always acts like this and this when people meet, whether I would like it or not"), but the roles which tend to work more like magic, in a way that things happen to you in a certain way, even when it actually does not make sense.

I start this discussion here in Philosophy instead of Psychic phenomena, so we could discuss it from several different persectives – in case you are interested.

I think this is something which might sound weird at first, but actually becomes a very important part in one's occult life. And especially so for those who see beauty and meaningfulness in the archetypes of Satan and Azazel, the Adversary and the Scapegoat, and thus easily become loaded with very dangerous roles and narratives of those difficult archetypes.
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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Insanus
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Re: Prisoner of the Role/Narrative

Post by Insanus »

I do believe that sense of identity is a way to take a position in a system of meanings. I mean that the sense of one's place in the world filters and frames possible experiences a priori similarly to how we see more yellow cars if we're looking for them. Some situations are behind "energetic passwords" and we can't access the inner meaning of them even if we get the same outer experience and limited meanings result in limited narratives too. In Baudelaire's diaries there's an entry that reads roughly "I have to write an explanation of the proverb 'passion makes all things relate to itself'" and I think this is the same key point: there are deeply held meanings that demand expression in our symbolic comprehension, as a narrative, myth, seeming causality or similar. It's like the ego-role is the attempted symbolization of the point where the rock hits the pond behind the curtain and our relative freedom or imprisonment is in how we relate ourselves to it.
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Soror O
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Re: Prisoner of the Role/Narrative

Post by Soror O »

I see that in a way (the lower) ego is a story we are telling to ourselves... and we receive just what we think we are deserving. Ofcourse this is a simplification, and these ego narratives are mostly subconscious. Therefore it is dangerous to think that one is completely outside of these identifications... As humans, we are "wired to identify". To what, it is the big question...

I have played out many roles. The role of a scapegoat (I have had enormous amount of internalized guilt), the role of a femme fatale (quite dull, must admit), the role the beneficor, the role of the villain - and my absolute favorite: the role of an outsider. Now I'm playing the role of an entity which doesn't play roles anymore.... hahahah. Or atleast, plays them consciously? Yeah, right. I think the "real self" is beyond conceptualizations and narratives, that's why people love sex so much. When the shit gets real, the narratives seize. But to really buid oneself up to that point, requires - narratives. It requires owning one's story, and then re-writing it. It requires the narratives about a boy/girl who was brought up in such and such way, who's core wounds were such and such, who's thought this and that, who felt this and that. And so on. And doing it so called right, requires an ability to let go of the narrative - once it is truly internalized and brought to life. To let go of victimhood requires the courage to face oneself as a victim etc.
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Re: Prisoner of the Role/Narrative

Post by Nahumatarah »

At the threshold of adulthood, there were attempts coming from outside that tried to suppress my feminine side pretty hard, so it became internalized. Years later it started to resurface, coincidental (or not) with a lot of magic workings. Being the rebellious person that I am, I took it then to an unhealthy (il)logical extreme and started to express femininity in a very untrue to myself, and in your face blunt sort of way. When I later started to get really in touch with this feminine side I felt in me, in a more honest way, a lot changed. I no longer saw myself as feminine man I had thought of myself to be, but rather as an androgyne. These separate gender expressions in me had now blended together. I saw my physique then in a new light too. No longer that of a "feminine man" but androgyne capable of expressing both male and female genders in satisfying ways. You could say it felt a bit like "breaking out of a self-made prison". No longer I had to come up with ways to express myself, since it seemed to have started to flow naturally out of me.
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Nefastos
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Re: Prisoner of the Role/Narrative

Post by Nefastos »

Thank you for your answers! It seems that we all face this question a bit differently, regarding to where and how the "I" is put into the equation.

One of the most interesting questions about this is what you all touched in a way: which one is the role, and which one is the role-player? From the occult viewpoint, it is easy to say that the manas is the latter and the kâma manas is the former, and thus what happens in the world is the story that the Self weaves for itself, first to live and then to contemplate. But this removes the most important factors, karma and dharma. Something calls for these roles to be played, and we must act them out in a certain way, to be not only skillful players, but also meaningul creators. From our point of view, it can also appear like the inner being (manas) holds an immovable destiny, and only the outer personality has some resemblance of freedom. Although one may put a question is it real freedom to avoid one's "actual" (fated) role and put on roles that are not actually one's own? In old occultism it is stated that, on the contrary, one paradoxically becomes more free the more one is able to actually act out one's own destined role, because in so doing one taps to the spiritual source and becomes a real being, able to work in depth dimension, unfettered for the first time. (I have touched this question in Discordamelior.)

It is very unintuitive for a modern person to consider that these roles come with a ready cast of fates and events, but that seems to be occult reality nevertheless. Archetypes less in the way of how Platonism is usually considered, and more in the vein of Rupert Sheldrake (acting things out in a certain way creates a universal resonance which makes things to act in the same way in the future, and after thousands of years, some events are extremely hard cast to happen; theosophsts call these astral elementals) – or the antique, medieval or Oriental plays, where the quite limited set of roles remain the same in different plays.
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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Re: Prisoner of the Role/Narrative

Post by Smaragd »

Althought the difference between a social role and the curse like narrative one gets imprisoned to can be recognized, and we’re not talking primarily of the former, the connection should be made clear in order to find similar tools to prevent oneself falling in to these traps. It seems to me that social role and imprinsonment to a vaster role are more like different layers of the same problem: while the usual social role imprisons by the most surficial social interfaces – the persona and the tools/powers it has grown closest to –, the curse like narrative comes closer to the more fresh cause and effect chains. Fresh meaning actions-consequences that are further from the prison of habits.

Both of these relate to the archetypal powers we are trying to use with every single action of ours. The social role is often determined by the archetypal powers we have the most rehearsed relation to, but it can becomes a prison – a dead form – if we are unable to spark life out of it through it’s opposing pair (Mars-Venus could be seen a classical example of a pairing) and the whole of the seven. The curse like role, in it’s own turn, seems to take place within the attempt of balancing, reaching for less familiar archetypal powers, or the attempt to take a revivifying action out of the dead forms. Thus it’s closer to magic than the most obvious and stuck social role.

Now that I have one foot on the ground, a bit deeper dive in to the subject might be at it’s rightful place. Doesn’t it feel like when, for example, the Scapegoat role is cast on you as if a curse, that it comes unjustly? The situation itself might give no reason whatsoever for it to happen, and then, after thorough self-reflection within the situation, it starts to feel like the speck is completely in the eye of the other(s). Might it be so that such magic/curse like narratives are cast upon the students of the occult who seek more alive and thus more balanced connection to these archetypes, meaning that these archetypal roles, suchs as the role of the Scapegoat tries to direct the student’s self-reflection to a larger view of the cause and effect chain? This would mean that the self-reflection would reach closer to the reasons what one has done to be in this situation in the first place, and perhaps there were something that was off in one way or another. While this might sound awfully simple, does it not revivify the student from the prison to a truly strong position of not being a victim of oneself (the helping Master and the Adversary’s guiding upside-down attempts) in a more subtle way, and thus rises one to a more balanced and alive place amidts the archetypes?

This subject is really close to a problem we discussed face to face with some fraternity members recently: I was wondering if there are situations when one is allowed to point the speck in someone elses eye. Where does the line go? A brother challenged this idea of setting oneself above the other, but I wasn’t quite sure because I had particularly difficult settings in mind. I think the above clarifies a bit where the line might go, or might the line move ever further as we follow the chain of causality further and further, mirroring the mystical process where these archetypal roles come to trial us? To some degree yes, the line tends to escape as the process furthers, but I don’t think it is so simple because these archetypal powers have meanings to them, they are not mere empty masks, but they have certain type of powers to be used that need to be found a balance with: drawing the line from being somehow bend and perverted in to the role of a Scapegoat, and accepting the role. It seems like every time I’m trying to take a step somewhere from here, it becomes a slippery slope and I return to the idea of balance real quick.
Nefastos wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 1:09 pm
From our point of view, it can also appear like the inner being (manas) holds an immovable destiny, and only the outer personality has some resemblance of freedom. Although one may put a question is it real freedom to avoid one's "actual" (fated) role and put on roles that are not actually one's own? In old occultism it is stated that, on the contrary, one paradoxically becomes more free the more one is able to actually act out one's own destined role, because in so doing one taps to the spiritual source and becomes a real being, able to work in depth dimension, unfettered for the first time. (I have touched this question in Discordamelior.)
It seem to me that modern people often take this immovability of destiny to be almost ridiculously fantasy like, although philosophically perhaps understandable. The real meaning here seems to be that the inner being's immovable destiny is rather like the sky above the moving clouds, meaning that the destiny and the direction it tries to give to the lower self is immovable in the sense that the lower self has the freedom to choose, but every choice and variation is inevitably and intriguely in relation to this destiny. One can not look up to the clouds without having the sky in the background, although the weather may become so cloudy that the sky remains occulted from view.

Nefastos wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 1:09 pm It is very unintuitive for a modern person to consider that these roles come with a ready cast of fates and events, but that seems to be occult reality nevertheless. Archetypes less in the way of how Platonism is usually considered, and more in the vein of Rupert Sheldrake (acting things out in a certain way creates a universal resonance which makes things to act in the same way in the future, and after thousands of years, some events are extremely hard cast to happen; theosophsts call these astral elementals) – or the antique, medieval or Oriental plays, where the quite limited set of roles remain the same in different plays.
Here we come to the problem of pointing the speck in the eye of others, even millenias having its grip of us trying to compulsively re-enact, for example, the Yom Kippur scapegoat ritual. It is a wondrous thing how one might answer the problem of the speck in the eye indirectly, not by taking the bull by it's horns (perhaps such a bridge between the bovidae metaphors is allowed) but rather first making a question of why I'm in a bullfighting arena and not feeding this bull hay in the barn. Might the way out of the compulsive repetition be found from accepting the role of a Scapegoat, taking it truly and self-reflectively spanning a wide spectrum of the cause and effect chain, but hiding within the role something, concealing the only treasure - the black jewel one holds on to when the desert calls. Although the jewel's surface might reflect hate, despair and patterns of bitterness - the Harrowings of Hell -, I do believe that focus on to it's pure core will radiate out the change first in oneself, and gradually within the millenias themselves that are to come. Coming back down to a really concrete things between two or more human beings, such focus on to the core jewel eases my struggle with this problem. I do not have to cling and be the upkeeper of forms that compulsively tries to repeat the harmful narratives, but I can radiate the alive core in all silence or with few words, if they are accepted.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Re: Prisoner of the Role/Narrative

Post by Nahumatarah »

I'm mainly elaborating my earlier response, inspired by something fraters Smaragd, and Nefastos wrote.

It took me almost two decades to really start accepting and embracing the role of "The Outsider", another role that I feel is descriptive of me, as anything more than unjust. Struggles with intimacy, communication and so on, left me feeling like I was missing out a lot. On the other hand it was the role of the outsider that helped me embrace solitude, to turn inward and seek meaning.

The role of the outsider goes hand in hand with my gender identity issues, since had the society been more accepting of me in the past, I might have stayed in that earlier mode of expression, and it might have become my tomb. Instead I needed to work on this myself, to turn inward in search of truth. All of this has led me towards realizing what profound meaning there is in turn in Adversity. When I'm now looking back to all of it, it has started to seem like a grand unfolding rather than curse.
"The time has come to turn your heart into a temple of fire."

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Nefastos
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Re: Prisoner of the Role/Narrative

Post by Nefastos »

Nahumatarah wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 6:42 pmIt took me almost two decades to really start accepting and embracing the role of "The Outsider", another role that I feel is descriptive of me, as anything more than unjust. Struggles with intimacy, communication and so on, left me feeling like I was missing out a lot. On the other hand it was the role of the outsider that helped me embrace solitude, to turn inward and seek meaning.
&
Smaragd wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 3:55 pmHere we come to the problem of pointing the speck in the eye of others, even millenias having its grip of us trying to compulsively re-enact, for example, the Yom Kippur scapegoat ritual. It is a wondrous thing how one might answer the problem of the speck in the eye indirectly, not by taking the bull by it's horns (perhaps such a bridge between the bovidae metaphors is allowed) but rather first making a question of why I'm in a bullfighting arena and not feeding this bull hay in the barn.

The real challenge for the brotherhood is that we act out the role of the Outsider in an inside out manner. While (and because) this is the esoteric manifestation of the archetype, it is often both hard to grasp and intuitively repulsive for those who would rather act out archetypal impulses as they come, which means, in an easy, exoteric manner. (It does not really matter if one chooses to call their world view "esoteric" or "occult," in case things are acted out without questioning and purifying them in order to open the depth dimension. Believing in spirits has never made anyone spiritual.)

The easy, instant way to think about Azazel is to think about one driven out. This is the mistake many people make, and both themselves identify to the one driven out, and at the same time, start to drive out others. Surprisingly often these two are strongly intertwined, and one starts to provocate and criticize because one tries subconsciously to fit into the archetype of the outcast. And what would be easier way to become outcast but to provocate struggles and then act like a martyr? I have seen this happening so many times, and by very different temperaments, that it has taught me much about human psychology.

But whereas the profane way of creating unity by the outcast victim is the (often downward path) idea of seeking common enemies and thus making the society stronger, there is the opposite way of making the unity stronger by realization that we are actually all outcasts in one way or the other, and even the enemies are such only when they so choose, and there can never be actual deep-rooted hostility between human beings. For when there are no ultimate bonds that unite us into tribes, there are neither ultimate separations that make us hate and fear the outcast other.

This, in a nutshell, is what the Star of Azazel as a socio-esoterical school is about.
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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Re: Prisoner of the Role/Narrative

Post by Smaragd »

Nefastos wrote: Wed Nov 17, 2021 11:19 am The easy, instant way to think about Azazel is to think about one driven out. This is the mistake many people make, and both themselves identify to the one driven out, and at the same time, start to drive out others. Surprisingly often these two are strongly intertwined, and one starts to provocate and criticize because one tries subconsciously to fit into the archetype of the outcast. And what would be easier way to become outcast but to provocate struggles and then act like a martyr? I have seen this happening so many times, and by very different temperaments, that it has taught me much about human psychology.
I’m imagining a novel writer at work looking truthfully in to the soul of the characters and seeing the most believable course of action to each. Some might have a tough upbringing, some might have indulged in to a certain kind of behavior for too long, both backgrounds writing the characters narrative towards their predictive destination. Still, there might be some climatic moment where a character transcends their original narrative and creates not only a needed turn for the novel to gain it’s worth and to have a reason to be written at first place, but it also might reach this higher sense of truth: ”Yes, this is what must have been fermenting within the soul of the character throughout the struggles, this is the answer!”

When looking at the self-sacrificial of Jesus Christ, the heart of it, transcending the ”imitatio” of the most fanatic natured martyrs, could be pointed from Luke 23:34 ”Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.” Here martyrdom is not a bitch-slap to the executors as in the usual definition of martyrdom: ”I am a victim for my beliefs and my executors will see justice.” No, there’s a vast difference to the actual forgiveness of Jesus and his understanding of greater heavenly movements where the soldiers seem almost mere cloakroom attendants, only these attendant will keep these earthly raiments according to their own, geometrically defined destination marked by the numbers the lots give. The latter has also a sort of justice there, but Jesus' attitude is what has most crucial meaning here.

Thus I’m arguing the typical martyrdom narrative needs transcending. When martyrdom starts to mean mostly just avoiding one’s own responsibility by playing the role of the victim, it could be said there’s even more work to be done with the narrative. From this perspective, narratives without transcending factors are just really sad knots holding psyches from entering anything more alive than repeating their perpetual doom scenarios over and over again.
Nefastos wrote: Wed Nov 17, 2021 11:19 am This, in a nutshell, is what the Star of Azazel as a socio-esoterical school is about.
The society can be a bit more easy surrounding to practice these things, although it can also create this false fraternity in to the mind - a tribe of sorts. Amongst fratres, sorors & sodales, mutual respect is much easier to be upkept and is a fine way to take steps forth, but it must be kept in mind that the whole idea of a fraternity or occult society is to create a "nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity". I'm sure there was also a bible quote for not falling for only showing the easiest kindness that is the one shown to one's brothers, but I couldn't find it now. Luke 6:35 comes really close, and makes a circle back to the Passio.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Re: Prisoner of the Role/Narrative

Post by Nefastos »

Smaragd wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 1:07 pmI’m imagining a novel writer at work looking truthfully in to the soul of the characters and seeing the most believable course of action to each. Some might have a tough upbringing, some might have indulged in to a certain kind of behavior for too long, both backgrounds writing the characters narrative towards their predictive destination. Still, there might be some climatic moment where a character transcends their original narrative and creates not only a needed turn for the novel to gain it’s worth and to have a reason to be written at first place, but it also might reach this higher sense of truth: ”Yes, this is what must have been fermenting within the soul of the character throughout the struggles, this is the answer!”

Very interesting that you brought this up, for I have been thinking about something similar just today. I am now, after a long while, reading once again Dostoevsky's Adolescent, and it is particularly about this thing (among some other topics, like idolizing fatherlessness, which also has connections to this, and to Azazelian symbolism).

Smaragd wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 1:07 pmThus I’m arguing the typical martyrdom narrative needs transcending. When martyrdom starts to mean mostly just avoiding one’s own responsibility by playing the role of the victim, it could be said there’s even more work to be done with the narrative. From this perspective, narratives without transcending factors are just really sad knots holding psyches from entering anything more alive than repeating their perpetual doom scenarios over and over again.

Someone has said that Jesus was the first and last real Christian. I tend to agree. The idea Christians instantly (and even before Jesus' death, according to gospels!) created about his death was an evil caricature of his surrendering in love. It is hard to imagine an institute more tortured, pervert and evil than Christian martyrdom.

Smaragd wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 1:07 pm
Nefastos wrote: Wed Nov 17, 2021 11:19 amThis, in a nutshell, is what the Star of Azazel as a socio-esoterical school is about.

The society can be a bit more easy surrounding to practice these things, although it can also create this false fraternity in to the mind - a tribe of sorts. Amongst fratres, sorors & sodales, mutual respect is much easier to be upkept and is a fine way to take steps forth, but it must be kept in mind that the whole idea of a fraternity or occult society is to create a "nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity". I'm sure there was also a bible quote for not falling for only showing the easiest kindness that is the one shown to one's brothers, but I couldn't find it now. Luke 6:35 comes really close, and makes a circle back to the Passio.


There's an esoteric instruction given just before that one, which I consider utmostly important in actual spiritual working (and/equalling life which seeks to live true to its source, the Master within):

Luke 6:32 wrote:For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.

Like I have said many times in this forum, I consider this to be one of the worst parts of our modern world, that people are so eager to grasp tribal motives and tribal loves, and escape to them the actual demand of understanding the whole. It is very easy to understand in a broken, feverish time of ours, where the ground shifts under almost everyone; but that is no excuse except for those who would claim to be nothing but reaction machines themselves.

By the way... I wouldn't necessarily consider the society (SoA) being necessarily easier atmosphere. For some temperaments and some phases in one's work, it can be harder (and more fruitful when succeeding).
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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