kaos

information shall be transmitted only orally. Is it just that I don’t understand the meanings
of these icons, or am I dead on when I say they are more “negative”, “dark” and “left
hand pathed”? I don’t find much light and wisdom in Baphomet and especially in the
Whore. When I think of the brilliance of Kether and the host of archangels, the Whore
is not exactly imagery that I find to be consistent with these holy creatures. Crowley
did some great stuff, no doubt, but a lot of the Thelemic followers use these symbols,
and Baphomet is not exactly a symbol of light and goodness to me. Could someone
please explain this, because I honestly would like to get things straight. Thank you…
Lux Via Est
CHRIS
You apparently have a specific idea in your mind of what Babalon is about, and have
decided you don’t like this idea and can’t see it as being “of the light”. It’s possible you
don’t have the same idea about Her that her devotees have; or that you do have the
right idea, but are unable to see that Her attributes are “of the light”.
In a Qabalistic framework, Babalon is the divine expression of the sephiroth Binah;
that is, She is the wholly divinized idea of the feminine, encompassing more aspects
than I could name here. These include ideas reminiscent of Bast and Sekhet, Shakti
and Kali, and others.
The phrase “of the light” (that is, l.v.x.) is a little misleading, too. If I were to say,
“Oh, no, you’ve got Her all wrong, She’s not of the Light, She’s of the Dark,” that would
give the wrong idea because you’d probably think I meant the Infernal darkness. I do
not. I mean the Supernal darkness, which Crowley called n.o.x. (that’s the problem of
either-or, Light vs Dark thinking). This n.o.x. is not the antithesis of l.v.x., but more
its successor in the spiritual journey. n.o.x. is the consciousness of the Supernals by the
gateway of Binah, as l.v.x. is the consciousness of adepthood by way of Tiphareth.
Think of the blissful, splendid, unending darkness of outer space that comes after one
rises into the air-refracted solar light of the atmosphere. This is not at all the darkness
that comes from digging a hole in the ground and climbing in. It is more LIGHT than
the Light. It appears dark because the personality’s sensorium cannot assimilate it. Its
“darkness” is akin to what St John called “the Dark Night of the Soul”, which is a dry
fever of love for God so passionate and overwhelming that it burns us painfully and
without release.
Babalon is called “whore” for many reasons besides the purely physical-sexual. But,
especially, She is an aspect of divinity that absorbs all—that “takes all comers”. She is
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