Contingency in the work of Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley’s art, more specifically his literature, is a unique and particular collection of works that covers many ideas and constantly shifts style. He has published material in almost every literary genre, ranging from poetry and dense philosophy, to fiction and instructional guides, and has connected them all in a way few can accomplish. Crowley’s “art objects”, as with other conceptual or process based art, blur lines between what could be viewed as the most important part of the artwork. Crowley’s art, which involved many practical exercises, needs actual practitioners. These practical exercises were released in combination with many stories, both fiction and non-fiction, so that the practical elements are backed up with philosophical ones and vice versa. The art object then could be viewed not as the books themselves, but as all the experiences one occurs while traversing the tight-rope to this heightened state, while following his loose directions. But it could also be viewed another way, in that Crowley has basically appropriated what he calls the “silver star” as his art object, meaning anyone who happens to get in contact with something unexplainable is now experiencing what could be viewed as Crowley’s art object. 

Most of his work was released in the form of published books, often published by friends in small quantities for friends, with the direct oversight of Crowley during the process. But going deeper, the books themselves hardly constitute as the “art object.” Crowley’s ideas are a culmination of many world philosophies that he had studied while traveling to various parts of the world in the early 20th century. He was one of the first comparative religion scholars, and used this knowledge to create his main body of work, called The Equinox. All of Crowley’s writings are connected, in either a fairly explicit manner by him actually referencing other writings, and in other ways that are much more subtle. It is quite difficult to read just one of his books at a time because of all the connections that begin happening. This forces the individual importance of each book further away than the importance of them as a collective, or as a pack. Crowley felt this as well because the final publications of The Equinox had all of his writings written prior included. 

Crowley, being quite an overly-obsessed occultist, was very interested in the non-material world and learned a certain amount of intuitive cooperation with the elements that make up this less concrete, more abstract side of our world. The Equinox is a collection of essays and writings, not exclusively written by Crowley, intended for those who wished to cultivate a similar intuitive cooperation with the manifestations of infinity. This collection of writings was then used as a series of text books for a new magickal order that Crowley had devised from a amalgamation of all the mystic philosophies he had studied up to that point, which included Buddhism, Taoism, Egyptian magick, and western occultism. He called this organization the A.’.A.’., or Astrum Argentum, which can be translated in a few different ways. The most common translation is “Silver Star,” although some have translated it as “Angel and Abyss,” or “Secret of Secrets.” These names describe fairly well the goal of this organization, which is realize the secret of secrets, which Crowley thinks is encountering archetypal energy packets in the abyss of infinity. He calls these manifestations “silver stars” for many reasons. He uses this descriptor to describe all light-emanating concentrations of energy in the broadest sense, which many others would dogmatically call angels, ghosts, aliens, etc… The Equinox was his compilation of writings about how to put ones self into a state of mind where a silver star can be contacted.  

The impossible thing to talk about that is involved in occult practice is the actual encounter with some anthropomorphized concentrated energy that takes on an archetypal personality, allowing it to communicate with the practitioner in one way or another, in the broadest sense of all terms. If we are already beyond fundamental materialism, this notion is not as outrageous as previous thought. Crowley’s collection of books is not just a description of his ventures beyond the material world, but directions and exercises for those interested in practicing on their own. If the goal of Crowley’s art is for others to practice his suggestive course to contacting whatever is eventually contacted, his specific art object becomes much harder to tie down. 

This is quite similar to a lot of conceptual art pieces that involved direction or text in their realization. Conceptual artist Sol LeWitt produced a series of pieces that present a similar issue in terms of directions in the context of artwork. Instead of producing pieces himself, he would write directions that would explain, sometimes in detail, what should be drawn. This means that LeWitt’s art object could be argued in a few different ways. It could be argued that the art object is specifically the words he chose to describe the painting, or claiming the directions are a poem, and it is still Sol LeWitt’s poem regardless of what piece of paper it was printed on, but coming from a visual arts background, LeWitt could also argue the art object is the actual page he printed out with his directions, of which there would only be one. We then come to the idea of the realizations of these directions. Another interpretation of the art object could be Sol LeWitt realizing the directions himself. He would know exactly what they meant, and would therefore produce the “perfect version.” I would imagine that would completely undermine the reason for providing directions in the first place. That then points towards the idea that a “genuine” Sol LeWitt drawing would technically be anybody’s whole-hearted realization of the directions. Sol LeWitt’s piece could not be fully represented by only the directions, or only a realization of the directions, but by some combination of them that was constantly in flux depending on the context of how people were exposed. 

This is directly analogous to the dilemma of Crowley’s art object(s). The first publications of Crowley’s writings were funded and planned by Crowley himself, showing he cared quite a bit about the quality of the production, implying an artistic focus on the book itself. The words in the books, which now have been republished many times, (the original books are impossible to find,) still take on a life of their own. People have scanned, transcribed, and uploaded versions of all of his writings for ease of distribution because of the scarcity of the original publications, and are now available in many formats. These newer publications still retain some element of the art object, because the original publications would be nothing without the words. But still, within these actual material objects, there is message inside meant to be interacted with. Just like how LeWitt’s art object could be each individual realization of the directions, Crowley’s art object could be each individuals personal experience with the directions. Instead of having an a drawing at the end of the process, one has encountered some version of a silver star like entity. Having all of these options for an art object gives us more to analyze. If the art object is represented by the original publication itself, it almost serves no use to attempt to talk about it, because we have no access to it, but retains the mystic quality of the arche-fossil. The original publication cannot seem to be the whole art object. If we move to the actual linguistic content as the art object, then we have access, because this material is out there and can be experienced. But reading the writing does not necessarily mean that the experience that is being discussed will actually occur. Often times in amateur occultism no results are ever experienced, even if the one attempting had put in much effort. This must mean that as much of the art object does exist in the text, it does not contain the entirety of it. The experience of contacting a spirit is what Crowley claims is a main goal of his teachings, which could potentially be viewed as spirit contact in general reconsidered as part of his art object, regardless of whether he was directly involved not. The art object could be viewed as the whole implicit realm in general, and that Crowley basically appropriated that mystic space as his art. Anything that gets you to that state, regardless of it being related to Crowley, could potentially viewed as part of his art practice. It’s fairly egotistical to think that a population will devote the amount of time and energy Crowley expects for this brain shift to encounter unexplainable entities, but Crowley left such an immense amount of information that once one is hooked, there’s no way to stop seeing connections. But this also leaves open the option that someone could experience what was intended by the artwork without having any experience with it at all. This is what removes Crowley’s art from LeWitt, and introduces something that could be considered ancestral, if multiple people, generations apart, happen to encounter the same strange space. 

This ambiguity in the art object is another thing that permeates all musical practices. Having process, or unfolding-time involved, means that performances that happen at separate times will have to be different, bringing in the same multiplicity issue. Also, to have musical scores that represent a piece of music means that maybe the performances aren’t the important part of the music and that the page is the true art object. This again seems ridiculous because music is heard, not seen, so the art object cannot only be the page or a single performance. Both Brassier and Meillassoux continually stress being non-dogmatic when assessing complex ideas, so it might be more appropriate to say that the art object includes all these things, and contingently shifts and changes according to how we come at it. 

Meillassoux’s idea of contingency and its importance in the development of life in new and unexpected territories plays an important role when the individual encounters the breadth of Crowley’s writings. The interpretation of Meillassoux’s writing is always in question, but it seems he is attempting to say that which we have not yet experienced cannot yet be accounted for in terms of future theory because all radical changes occur in the peculiar combination of events that have not yet happened, and therefore cannot have theory exist about them already. This seems as if he was attempting to describe what happens when an adept of occultism encounters their first experience that breaks down their conception of experience, more specifically ideas regarding materialism, archetypal metaphor, and the line between hallucination and perception. Crowley’s art attempts to accomplish this goal and to continually shift the foundation that one thinks they are securely stationed upon, which can be seen as analogous to Meillassoux’s conception of the nature of reality. 

If we look through the aperture which we have opened up onto the absolute, what we see there is a rather menacing power–something insensible, and capable of destroying both things and worlds, of bringing forth monstrous absurdities, yet also of never doing anything, of realizing every dream, but also every nightmare, of engendering random and frenetic transformations, or conversely, of producing a universe that remains motionless down to its ultimate recesses, like a cloud bearing the fiercest storms, then the eeriest bright spells, if only for an interval of disquieting calm. We see an omnipotence equal to that of the Cartesian God, and capable of anything, even the inconceivable; but an omnipotence that has become autonomous, without norms, blind, devoid of the other divine perfections, a power with neither goodness nor wisdom, ill-disposed to reassure thought about the veracity of its distinct ideas. We see something akin to Time, but a Time that is inconceivable for physics, since it is capable of destroying without cause or reason, every physical law, just as it is inconceivable for metaphysics, since it is capable of destroying every determinate entity, even a god, even God. This is not a Heraclitean time, since it is not the eternal law of becoming, but rather the eternal and lawless possible becoming of every law. It is a Time capable of destroying even becoming itself by bringing forth, perhaps forever, fixity, stasis, and death.

 

This is an intimidatingly powerful quote where Meillassoux explains what he thinks is absolutely necessary in the universe, which is a hyper-complexity where all things are subjected to shifts that are all contingent on the complexity unfolding beneath us. 

Claiming to “know” Crowley’s art is a difficult task because the world that he is accessing with his art, the implicit uncertainty that prevails, is ancestral. It is a zone that is unknowable unless one is placed in a quite particular zone, that only some people think is worth while attempting to get to. Once humans ventured into this strange mental space, (that might just a project of our sub-conscious, (which would actually make it non-ancestral,) but also might exist outside of us,) it is immediately reduced to symbols and archetypes that we recognize in the three spacial dimensions and one temporal dimension we happen to exist in right now. Therefore, it is often difficult to assess whether one really made it to the same mental zone Crowley was adamant in exploring, or if there was another one discovered. I would imagine Crowley being more adamant about the individual discovering their own brain stretching space then working against ones self to fit, uneasily, into his. This seems to imply then that Crowley’s art is not the experience of something he designed or organized, but rather pointing the perceiver into a direction where things can emerge from the creative potential of their own mind, but through very specific and rigorous practice. A quote from Crowley shows that he believed what he was accessing was something of the ancestral.

 

It is the one really important science, for it transcends the conditions of material existence and so is not liable to perish with the planet, and it must be studied as a science, skeptically, with the utmost energy and patience. 

 

Crowley’s evidence to the ancestral claim of the space his art addresses comes from his comparative religion studies, which took him all over the world, finding different cultures accessing the same mental or physical space he was interested in, but had achieved it through varying techniques, which weren’t completely consistent between cultures, even though the results were the same. The encounter of others who claim to have reached this zone brought forth a whole history of practice from all over the world of people entering this strange malleable space that is always around us but less accessible than the information necessary for our immediate survival. When Meillassoux describes the nature of ancestral things, it seems to align very well with how Crowley also attempts to describe this space. 

…that outside which was not relative to us, and which was given as indifferent to its own givenness to be what it is, existing in itself regardless of whether we are thinking of it or not; that outside which thought could explore with the legitimate feeling of being on foreign territory – of being entirely elsewhere. 

 

What separates Meillassoux’s idea of the ancestral from Crowley’s ancestral claim is the lack of the arche-fossil, which is necessary in the assumption that an ancestral exists. There is no ancient piece of proof that exists today that claims this space is a true tangible thing, but nonetheless, it has come up time and time again in things that could not be considered true ‘arche-fossils,’ such as myth or legend. 

Crowley’s instructions also explicitly ask the reader to invent particular exercises for his or her self, implying that this is not a passive art experience at all, and requires full investment from the practitioner. This participatory element makes his art much more difficult to discuss in terms Brassier’s idea of extinction. After our idea of the world eventually fades, Crowley’s art retreats back into the implicit and we are left with unrecognizable interpretations left unknowable. Brassier might even go so far to say that what Crowley is accessing is nothing. The nothing that everything comes from might only be perceived and interpreted by us with feeling of anxiety cured by the creative force inherent in the life-generator. This participatory element does relate to what Meillassoux calls the correlationism inherent in perception, and Crowley’s writing explicitly accounts for this idea, explaining that whatever is is being contacted will always be warped by how the individual encounters it. Another quote from Meillassoux helps describe the prominence of correlationism in our thinking, but also where it falls short. 

1. If the ancestral is to be thinkable, then an absolute must be think able. 2. We accept the disqualification of every argument intended to establish the absolute necessity of an entity – thus the absolute we seek cannot be dogmatic. 3. We must overcome the obstacle of the correlationist circle, while acknowledging that within the strong model which grants it its full extent, the latter not only disqualifies the dogmatic absolute (as did the refutation of the ontological argument,) but every form of absolute in general. It is the absolutizing approach as such, and not just the absolutist one (based on the principle of sufficient reason,) which seems to shatter against the obstacle presented by the vicious circle of correlation: to think something absolute is to think an absolute for-us, and hence not to think anything absolute.

 

Meillassoux then goes on to discuss how he this it is possible to experience an absolute that is not only for-us, through a concept called facticity, which is defined by him as “the absence of reason for any reality; in other words, the impossibility of providing an ultimate ground for the existence of any being.” Crowley’s message seems to be fairly similar because his practices tend to show the practitioner the impossibility of being able to provide a basis for the existence of anything. I think that any experience that presents that idea gets us closer and closer to knowing in some sense an absolute, which might itself be depicting a multiplicity. One of Crowley’s most famous quotes regarding the practice of his magickal order explains his point clearly.

In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth & the paths, of spirits & conjurations, of Gods, spheres, planes & and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether they exist or not. By doing certain things certain results follow; students are nost earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophical validity to any of them.

 

This quote is fascinating because any new age groups that discuss any of these strange personal encounters in terms of validity are missing the actual point of this research, which is to attempt to remove all philosophical grounds on which to stand, and not just stand on the ones far hidden from the surface. This is where Brassier’s analysis of Nietzsche begins to line up with Crowley’s message. 

 

According to Nietzsche, nihilism reaches its apogee in the pivotal moment when truth, hitherto the supreme value, turns against itself – for it is ‘truthfulness’ itself that calls the value of ‘truth’ into question, thereby subverting all known and knowable values, specifically the valuing of reality over appearance and knowledge over life… ‘the most extreme from of nihilism would be the view that every belief, ever holding-something-true is necessarily false because there is no true world’ … Disbelief in any reality beyond appearance cannot be converted into belief in the reality of appearance. Since the collapse of the reality-appearance distinction undermines the intrinsic connection between belief and truth, it is not something that can be straightforwardly endorsed or ‘believed in.’ … How then are we to think the apparently unthinkable thought that nothing is true, which, for Nietzsche, looms at the nadir of nihilism, yet also harbours the key to its overcoming?

 

Brassier seems to find the perfect Nietzsche quote to back up Crowley’s claims of reaching a state where all belief systems are thrown into question, even the belief of all beliefs not being true. Brassier says, “the disbelief of any reality beyond appearance cannot be converted into belief in the reality of appearance,” where I think he is trying to say is that those who say they do not believe in the beyond-material world can’t say that they truly believe in the reality of appearance, or that it is false to think that one believes in the material world because they don’t believe in what is past it. Crowley thinks that getting to this point of no-belief can be achieved through particular actions and rituals. Belief does not necessarily come into play when pure action is involved. Therefore, “by doing certain things certain results follow,” and with enough things causing enough results, most of which may tend to be contradictory, it becomes harder and harder to believe in any of it. Those that end up believing some part of it end up starting esoteric cults or new age self-help groups, but those that realize the process until the end will find anything but pure experience is just another act. The unthinkable thought can become known through pure action and experience, to get one to a state where the uncertainty intrinsically known, devoid of all conscious thought. This is what the practices described in Crowley’s books are supposed to accomplish for the experimenter who, as it is now shown, must be devoted enough to attempt all of the practical exercises without any prejudice or lust. 

Two other artists, the writers Robert Anton Wilson and Philip K. Dick, both had a similar experience where they encountered other entities that presented information that was unknowable in any other way. The difference between the two was Wilson, who had been writing about occult topics most of his career, was a follower of Crowley’s art. Being contacted, for Wilson, was not necessarily a shock in the same way a sudden death is, not to say that this experience didn’t rock his world. Dick on the other hand, had this experience thrust upon him suddenly, without any previous encounter with occultism or the non-material world. The juxtaposition of their two experiences show quite clearly both the ancestral and correlationist issues that arise. The experiences that these two writers had seemed too similar to be disconnected. They were both told of information that was impossible to know, Dick learning that his young son had an undiagnosed hernia that could have been fatal had it continued to go unnoticed, while Wilson, in the same year, began having strange mental connections with his three children, which helped him find his son who was at one point lost. The fact that Dick got thrown into this oblivion without trying means it is something that exists beyond us and maybe have preceded our existence, but the differences between the individual experience and the way these experiences were described shows that each nervous system is particular and skews the way this ancestral infinity is depicted within ourselves. It is interesting to notice that the most important theme in both Wilson’s and Dick’s novels is the malleability of reality, and how it can shift and alter drastically at any time. 

Meillassoux and Brassier’s ideas are radical and present many new ways of looking at the nature of the emerging universe. The constant shifts and changes that Meillassoux’s ideas allow in nature seem to coincide with my experience, making this a quite compelling argument on the complexity of existence. These extremes are difficult to talk about, but it can be done, with proof from these books. Using these ideas while analyzing Crowley and his art practice has helped elucidate the complexity involved in occult practice, that was only intuited prior to this research. 

 

 

Bibilography

Brassier, Ray. Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Print.

 

Crowley, Aleister. The Blue Equinox: The Equinox, Vol. III, No. I. York Beach, Me.: Weiser, 2005. Print.

 

Crowley, Aleister, and Israel Regardie. Gems from the Equinox: Instructions. San Francisco, CA: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2007. Print.

 

Meillassoux, Quentin. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. London: Bloomsbury, 2008. Print.

 

Wilson, Robert Anton. Cosmic Trigger. Scottsdale, AZ: New Falcon Publications, 1977. Print.

Identity and the Self

No topic in philosophy has more discourse than the ideas of “self” and “individuality” in connection with the larger social system that exists beyond the individual. Some ideologies lean towards the cultivation of the individual, i.e. capitalism and other competition based systems, while others lead more to a social collective theory, i.e. Marxism, hive-mind theory, collective ritual/trance. Sufism, along with other mystical orders, finds itself drawing from both individualism and collectivism at certain times, but leans towards a complex brain changing theory involving the loss of the concept of ones identity, called Fana, or self-annihilation, in order to attain malleability and control over ones personal actions and fit more efficiently and less stressfully into the inevitable social complexity that has continually evolved with society. Sufi’s discuss many ways of achieving this loss of “self,” using an array of metaphors, including death, love, intoxication, and poverty, to attempt to explain things that verge on and even cross over into the unexplainable.

Understanding the reasons for the birth of an identity is important in discovering why one should attempt to loosen its grasp. It does not exist for no reason, and many mystics often dwell on the fact that their self is (seemingly) gone without realizing the importance of a sense of grounding one gets when feels self-identified. We are born egoless, and our selves are shaped little by little by creating patterns, being rational, and noticing consistency and order. Imagining a child that made their way through adolescence without cultivating an identity almost seems absurd, seeing how prevalent hierarchy and competition are in child development. In the eight-circuit model of mental development theorized by Dr. Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson, they explore the birth of the self and its use in our lives. They relate the first two circuits to Freud’s oral and anal stages, and discuss it in terms of maternal bond and paternal struggle. The maternal bond helps decide whether the infant generally feels safe and able to explore or feels endangered and attached to one comfort place (the forward-backward, first-dimensional circuit.) Once this is established, then comes the development of the second circuit, which follows the realization of the political structure of the family. The father is realized as the alpha male, while the mother continues as the source of food and comfort (the upwards-downwards, second-dimensional circuit). This forces the infant to realize that the father could get in the way of the infants access to food and comfort, which is the birth of the “Oedipus Complex,” but more importantly, the infant begins thinking in terms of self, and self-need. These first two circuits prepare the infant for the idea of an ego, or the self, to emerge. The eight-circuit model could be viewed less as a straight line starting at one and ending at eight, and more as a circle, where zero is both before one, and after eight, which is access to the collective ego, the hive-mind, or the ultimate reality. Many of the sufi’s practices relate to the stimulation of the higher octave circuits of five through eight, and both have the goal of reaching some state of undefined unity in diversity. Without going to far into the other circuits, the third and fourth circuits continue to refine the self and getting to the fifth circuit is usually a groundbreaking experience for most individuals, which begins to shine the light on the waning necessity of a self, which continues through the eighth circuit, or Fana.

Possessions, various claims to ownership, extending to all material prefaced with the word “my,” tend to push our brains more and more towards believing we have the right to owning or having things, things that are separate from us, and separate from other things. This begins fragmenting our perception, making it difficult to see how the same material that makes me also makes you, leading to egocentricity. Sufi’s have a practice for not falling into slavery of materialism and consumerism and it is the relinquishing of all material possessions and devoting oneself to a life of poverty, often at the mercy of generous passersby or less spiritually devoted friends. This practice, called Faqr to the Sufis, is common in a few other mystic ideologies, most prominently in Buddhism and Hinduism. One of Aleister Crowley’s close friends, Allan Bennett, who is known for establishing the first Buddhist Mission in the United Kingdom, spent many years of his life in Asia, first Ceylon, and later Burma, studying Buddhism and practicing to become a Bhikkhu, or a Buddhist monk. The word “Bhikkhu” can be literally translated as “beggar,” and they are known for wearing only a donated robe to protect them from the climate. They live their life in poverty, which Bennett was forced to do anyway in England due to his low social status, and devoted their lives to reaching nirvana. This is virtually identical to deeply devoted Sufis, who strive for Faqr and wear nothing but their wool robe. Practicing to lose ones attachments to all things physical is quite a tough undertaking. It is a practice that no amount of mental picturing can help. Only in the true relinquishing of all physical materials can one begin to realize the illusion of discreet objects and their separation. Being dependent on the kindness of others is a strange and interesting situation, because it places those who assist you into a nurturing category, embodying the archetype of the mother, or the feminine protection, which makes it much easier for the idea of God to seem more like a nurturer than a dictator.

Sufi’s often used the term “The Beloved” to describe their God. This is quite a profound statement when one begins to analyze the political implications that exist in this change of relationship between a human and their God. If a political structure is heavily based on hierarchy, than those in power would want to propagate a religion that mimics their hierarchy. God never struck down or murdered Her people until humans did and then had to explain to other humans how it was okay. To go back to circuits one and two, those in power want God to seem like the fatherly figure that prevents the individual from finding comfort and acceptance, which also is then perpetuated by God’s new label as Him. Making God a woman no longer allows the archetypal God that punishes or destroys in drunken rages. God can now be somebody who nourishes and caresses, and even makes love. Rumi’s poems discussing love often touch upon these themes,  for example, the poem This is Love.

This is Love: to fly toward a secret sky,

to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.

First, to let go of life.

In the end, to take a step without feet;

to regard this world as invisible

and to disregard what appears to be the self.

Heart, I said, what a gift it has been

to enter this circle of lovers,

to see beyond seeing itself,

to reach and feel within the breast.

Rumi’s last line relates directly to the reduction of God from a second circuit controller to a first circuit nurturer. This immediately becomes controversial in a system where most people want God to be a man and can’t handle a God that accepts every-body due to their childhood acceptance issues. In high competition environments, i.e. paternal environments, the illusion of the right to a large ego becomes more and more present. Removing the competition from the accepted cosmology suggests the idea that ego’s do not get one closer to God, but rather to Narcissus, and that “power” is no longer decided by ones ability to control, but rather their ability to provide comfort and nutrients.

To take the God as Woman metaphor even further, into the deeper depths of mysticism, God is now something that male, and potentially female, philosophers can have sexual desire towards. Sex is often discussed as an ego-loss generator in mystic circles, mostly the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Ordo Templi Orientis, as well as in Tantric Yoga in Buddhist and Hindu philosophy and “the bedroom arts” of the Taoist philosophy. The fact that it is one of the few powerful rituals that requires at least two different people is telling. The ritual itself cannot be completed without the full devotion of two separate egos, and it’s result, sometimes, is the creation of a third wholly different ego, made by the conjoining of the two. This seems like the ultimate breaking of a binary, showing how opposing spectrum placement combination can create something that transcends both of the original positions. Tantric Sex is a technique of postponing sexual climax as along as can physically be done, causing more focus on potent sexual energy that is often overlooked when orgasms are rushed, as well as an extreme explosion during climax causing both egos to be forgotten entirely for sometime. I believe Rumi is talking about this in his poem, Love has Nothing to do with the Five Senses.

Love has nothing to do with

the five senses and the six directions:

its goal is only to experience

the attraction exerted by the Beloved.

Afterwards, perhaps, permission

will come from God:

the secrets that ought to be told will be told

with an eloquence nearer to the understanding

of these subtle confusing allusions.

The secret is partner with none

but the knower of the secret:

in the skeptic’s ear

the secret is no secret at all.

I might be called a heretic for claiming that some of Rumi’s poems are discussing Tantric Sex, but I’m sure Rumi would think it is funny. An analysis of this poem might elucidate the position. The first two lines reference the five senses and the six directions, which is referencing logic, order, perception, and orientation, and how Tantric Sex places one in a mental state that is beyond all that. (If one adds five and six, it presents eleven, or drawn in arabic numeral, 11, or two lovers in union, and if subtracted presents 1, full unity.) The only goal of Tantric Sex is to experience as fully as possible the attraction “exerted by the Beloved,” which can be rephrased as the holy and intimate attraction between the two stimulated sexual organs of lovers. The next lines talk about the wisdom and secrets that will be told, which is the loss of ego, the experience of cosmic union with the Beloved. The secret that is mentioned is only known to those who experience the shared intimacy of that extended experience. The last two lines are interesting in the way they’re phrased. The secret isn’t a secret to the skeptic, which shows that this experience is a closer, more focused look at something people experience all the time and often overlook. Sex is something people often do, and make nothing of it, so explaining how great ones Tantric experience was to somebody who hasn’t experienced it is like telling somebody how amazing ones sip of water was. “Of course it was a great sip of water, it’s always great to drink water,” would seem like an appropriate response, but Rumi is talking deeper than that. If one were to extend the time length of that sip of water, God could probably be found just as easily, but without the communion with another ego. The secret is only a secret to those who have tried it, and the words mean more after the experience has actually occurred. It seems that there is a trend in mysticism to exist on fringes, in more ways than many realize. Sex, being the birth of a new life, is on one fringe of existence, and on the other end of the spectrum, becomes the fringe of death, which is equally as present in mystic philosophy.

Sufis, along with many other mystics, discuss the metaphor of death while attempting to describe egoloss. This makes sense, seeing as pre-birth and post-death could be placed into the zeroth circuit, or the egoless collective mind. Sufis usually put it much more dramatically, in terms of annihilation, which often doesn’t imply pain or suffering, but does imply great intensity. Many modern mystics have used the metaphor of death as well to describe similar things, obviously referencing and paying homage to earlier poets and mystics, many of which were sufis. The English mystic Aleister Crowley in particular has a great deal of poems on egoloss, many of which parallel themes in poems by Rumi. The first few lines of Rumi’s poem Die Before You Die presents his position.

Die before you die.

Until you become reborn, you won’t know what Life is.

It’s the same with anything — you don’t understand until you are what you are trying to understand.

This message has permeated mystical groups about as long as the sexual union message. Almost all intense rituals used in mystical orders involve instilling enough fear to literally simulate the fear of dying right then and there, so that one can see life as some version of a “newborn” or born-again human who is able to be re-imprint oneself with love and compassion. Once one has died, one can now become something that wants to be understood. This idea resonated very deeply with Crowley, who uses similar ideas in his mystic group. Crowley’s magickal order involved an exercise which placed certain juxtaposing personalities into particular jewelry or clothing, that were then used to practice embodying the personalities while wearing them. The ability to take on other personalities became much easier as the adept experienced more death-simulating rituals, and was more familiar with the reborn-like mental state. Crowley’s poems involve tons of mystical imagery, which often has many different meanings depending on how the poem is read. One poem, from a collection of poems titled The Book of Lies (So Falsely Called…), entitled “The Gun Barrel” discusses egoloss as death very explicity.

Mighty and erect is this Will of mine, this Pyramid

of fire whose summit is lost in Heaven. Upon it

have I burned the corpse of my desires.

Might and erect is this phallus of my Will. The

seed thereof is That which i have borne within me

from Eternity; and it is lost within the Body of

Our Lady of the Stars.

I am not I; I am but an hollow tube to bring down

Fire from Heaven.

Mighty and marvellous is this Weakness, this

Heaven which draweth me into Her Womb, this

Dome which hideth, which absorbeth, Me.

This is The Night wherein I am lost, the Love

through which I am no longer I.

This poem has quite a lot to it, and it relates to various other topics discussed as well. The title of “The Gun Barrel” immediate references both death, (even suicide,) and the phallus. This can be interpreted that both death and sex can lead to self-annihilation. Crowley uses the word Will to describe ones true path in the universe, quite different from desires, which he mentions he has burned. He also describes his Will, or all Wills, as a pyramid with divine influence. Crowley’s sexual imagery is much more unmasked than Rumi’s, of course. The fourth through seventh lines reference the intimate relationship created with God, which Crowley put into explicit sexual metaphor. He also is calling God a woman, using the name “Our Lady of the Stars.” He then moves to the idea of removing his identity, using some classic sufi paradoxes such as “I am not I,” being nothing but a hollow tube channeling knowledge and intensity from infinity. He then makes fun of the cultural misinterpretation that femininity is weaker than masculinity buy calling the Goddess “Weakness,” while also calling her mighty and marvelous. The final lines then discuss how he continually gave himself to infinity, and became absorbed by his beloved. The last two lines, he uses the metaphor “The Night” to describe the Goddess, and when their love is consummated, he is no longer himself.  It is only in the sexual union that one ceases to exist. The duality of humans becomes one through the interpenetration that occurs in sexual union. Crowley reminds me a lot of Rumi if he was much more confrontational and openly taboo-breaking.

Using death as a way of mental expansion often puts practitioners into very strange mental situations in which the concept of the individual is no longer a practical thought. This makes living quite difficult when people expect us as humans to remain consistent as individuals and to cultivate who we think we are, rather than who we think we are not yet. Many mystics realize the powers of our brain and come to the conclusion that it is a waste of intelligence to assume only one entity can take up that precious gray-matter, and have begun practicing their abilities to see things from many different perceptual angles essentially through disciplined method acting. The sufi parable of the five men and the elephant is a great example of what these practices are attempting to overcome. If one can fulfill the role of a few people, ones interpretation of the elephant can be that much more complete. This is the goal of Crowley’s personality exercises as well. The metaphor of unveiling the self is often used in Sufi poetry, and is discussing a similar practice. Anything, whether it be an idea or an emotion, that inhibits one from knowing or understanding something is described as a veil that should be lifted to see a more accurate view of the universe.

Deleuze and Guattari, in their philosophical masterpiece, A Thousand Plateaus, repositions the Fana in a different way. They begin by describing the importance of multiplicities, and pack organization, and how one of an ego begins as a unit. If their becoming plays out correctly, the importance of the pack will be realized and ones specific niche role within it. They mention that when these sorts of realizations happen to those unprepared, it can seem extremely ground-breaking and anxiety-causing. They quote a story from the author H. P. Lovecraft, where he discusses the feeling as if it were thrust upon an unprepared mind.

…Lovecraft recounts the story of Randolph Carter, who feels his “self” reel and who experiences a fear worse than that of annihilation: “Carters of forms both human and non-human, vertebrate and invertebrate, conscious and mindless, animal and vegetable. And more, there were Carters having nothing in common with earthly life, but moving outrageously amidst backgrounds of other planets and systems and galaxies and cosmic continua…. Merging with nothingness is peaceful oblivion; but to be aware of existence and yet to know that one is no longer a definite being distinguished from other beings,” nor from all the becomings running through us, “that is the nameless summit of agony and dread.”

Lovecraft, being a “horror story” writer, would of course put a self-annihilation experience in the context of someone who is afraid of it, but he is touching all of the same ideas. Lovecraft makes a distinction between normal death and the death of the self, saying that dying is much easier and peaceful when the body and mind leave together, as opposed to one who is still consciously alive having the same annihilation experience. It also shows the difference between those who “get by,” and those who adamantly search for the “nameless summit of agony and dread,” (sounds quite like Crowley’s description, “this Pyramid of fire whose summit is lost in Heaven,”) showing the extreme nature of most mystic orders. This quote comes from a chapter in A Thousand Plateaus called “Becoming-Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible,” the label could be analyzed on it’s own as in depth as any quote. Deleuze and Guattari use the term “becoming-” before things to imply temporal shifting and information transfer between things. This quote can be read as almost a formula for Fana, with the first term, becoming-intense, describing the initial shift to an inspired worker, not in any specific sense of the term, but rather one who has the ability to do intense work, regardless what it is. Once the becoming-intense stage begins, one is now continuously on the search, whatever it is, moving towards where their intensity is pulling them. The second term, becoming-animal, discusses the beginning shift to understanding social dynamics, or pack-life. To quote them directly again,

We do not wish to say that certain animals live in packs. What we are saying is that every animal is fundamentally a band, a pack. That it has pack modes, rather than characteristics. even if further distinctions within these modes are called for. It is at this point that the human being encounters the animal. We do not become animal without a fascination for the pack, for multiplicity. Is it a fascination for the outside? Or is the multiplicity that fascinates us already related to a multiplicity dwelling within us?

Once one starts the becoming-animal stage, multi-perspectivism begins to originate, and one begins to practice fulfilling other various roles in the pack, rather than just a single one. The cultivation of multiplicities is paramount to the annihilation of the self, which is the next stage, becoming-imperceptible. The becoming-imperceptible stage is a ground-breaking stage, that usually results in the ultimate hive-mind experience, not too unrelated from Wilson’s and Leary’s higher circuits of conscious-ness. It is described in A Thousand Plateaus as following a similar trajectory of the fears in our pop-culture movies, which began as other humanoid beings, then started to become smaller smaller animals, until what fears us most now in this modern age becomes the antagonist of the movie: imperceptible, atom sized enemies, i.e. chemical warfare/nanotechnology. In context closer to Sufism, the becoming-imperceptible stage is homestretch of the removal of veils. It is a point where enough veils have been lifted to realize some of the broadest similarities between everything. Becoming-imperceptible is what Lovecraft was talking about when he said, “Carters of forms both human and non-human, vertebrate and invertebrate, conscious and mindless, animal and vegetable…,” it is the loss of binary conceptualization and facilitates the loss of the self. The term “yoga” directly translated into english means union and this is another name that many Buddhists and Hindus have used to describe the becoming-imperceptible. Crowley mentioned it in the phrase, “When I am no longer I,” and Attar as well, “You, cease to be! This is Perfection’s way; and loose your Self, there is no more to say,” they are all referencing the same idea that Deleuze and Guattari have called becoming-imperceptible, and the Sufis have called Fana, to eventually achieve Tawhid, or unity with God.

Sufis often use the metaphor of intoxication to describe the amount of zest and passion one should have while existing. This metaphor works well because intoxication forces new perspectives inherently. Ancient Persian leaders, faced with a difficult question to be answered, would often make two decisions, once while sober and once while intoxicated, to allow different parts of ourselves to emerge and have a say, and to help realize the multiplicities present in all humans. Many mystics have advocated experimentation with substances that alter ones perception, even Jesus Christ, (according to some), or Hassan al Sabbah. A sufi poet who often discusses the importance of intoxication and altered mental states is Omar Khayyam. Khayyam mentions wine quite often in all of his major works, urging readers to live as if they’re in Heaven already. A stanza from Khayyam’s poem, “Rubaiyat,” demonstrates his position.

Khayam, if you are intoxicated with wine, enjoy!

If you are seated with a love of thine, enjoy!

In the end, the Void the whole world employ

Imagine thou art not, while waiting in line, enjoy!

A different translation of the same stanza-

In life devote yourself to joy and love

Behold the beauty of the peaceful dove

Those who live, in the end must all perish

Live as if you are already in heavens above.

Seeing the difference in two translations made from a single text is pretty incred-ible. Themes are basically the same, but the actual content is so varied, the second translation doesn’t even mention wine. One prominent element of being intoxicated is its ability to make one notice the moments occurring then and there, or a sense of “being here, now,” that is often overlooked when humans are confronted with the stresses of societal living. Multiple perspectives combined with a sense of focus on the unfolding moment is often called meditation by many, and is essential to many mystic groups.

One of the most important Sufi teachings is that there are infinite paths to God, and that every individual has to discover ones own path. This paper hopefully demon-strates a few different paths to this similar goal: the dissolution of our selves into the limitless infinity. These other examples of self-annihilation are only a few that have crossed paths with this seemingly infinite research trajectory I’m attempting to ride on without falling off. These ideas permeate virtually every culture that has existed on Earth in one way or another, and it is up to us to find the parts that connect most with us, and if they don’t already exist, then to generate our own mystical adventure towards God in some form of art, which I believe most people are doing, whether or not they realize it. I hope most people open up enough to understand the implications of all these mystic thinkers, and join the fight with Rabe’a, torch and bucket in hand.

Im am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I’m going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God.

Bibilography

Aṭṭār, Farīd Al-Dīn, Dick Davis, and Afkham Darbandi. The Conference of the Birds. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1984. Print.

Crowley, Aleister. The Book of Lies: Which Is Also Falsely Called Breaks. York Beach, Me.: S. Weiser, 1980. Print.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1987. Print.

Jalāl, Al-Dīn Rūmī, Fereydoun Kia, and Deepak Chopra. The Love Poems of Rumi. New York: Harmony, 1998. Print.

Jalāl, Al-Dīn Rūmī, and Coleman Barks. The Essential Rumi. San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1995. Print.

Omar, Khayyam, and Edward FitzGerald. Rubaiyat. New York: Crowell, 1964. Print.

Regardie, Israel. The Eye in the Triangle: An Interpretation of Aleister Crowley. Las Vegas, NV: New Falcon Publications, 2011. Print.

Wilson, Robert Anton. Cosmic Trigger. Scottsdale, AZ: New Falcon Publications, 1977. Print.

Wilson, Robert Anton, and Israel Regardie. Prometheus Rising. Phoenix, AZ: New Falcon Publications, 1997. Print.