I recently suggested to a friend that he contact a large and active A.'.A.'. lineage if he was interested in pursuing the Great Work on a formal basis. I briefly toyed with the idea of mentioning my own lineage to him, but quickly dismissed the idea, in part on the basis that although the lineage exists and functions, I am, to all intents and purposes, not part of it except in the formal sense. Partly because people seeking to join a group come to it with expectations, and I doubt those would be met given our lack of Thelemic public figures, formal temples, and the rest. For the great majority of aspirants, the strange hermit with nothing to teach except silence, and a lineage that strictly minds it's own business and is practically unknown aside from the few who find our doors isn't exactly what they were looking for.
The lineage I grew up in, now only exists at all because I declined to disband it when I myself was cut adrift at the resignation of my teacher. As far as I know it continues to function and initiate people to this day, but it does seem to attract a certain anchoritic type. The aforementioned friend, by no means a complete beginner but an experienced magician in his own rite, but very much the extravert, would probably have stagnated in such a small pool, and to my mind is really the sort who would require a certain pedigree. Not to mention the fact that I really dislike crossing the planes, friends do not typically make good students.
Some like it this way. The true Hermits and independent types who need nothing more than a magickal link and someone to check their progress once in a while, or to sit with them occasionally and share a quiet drink, the true fellow pilgrims. Such is the sort of initiate I am, isolate and noninterfering. Those that continue in the lineage of which I currently serve, seem contented to remain unknown among the unknown, 'dust lost in dust' we might say, avoiding the occult 'scene', with its attractions and dramas, to pursue the path for its own sake.
For me, had opportunities arisen earlier on when I was more attached to externals, I would probably have attached to the Jane Wolfe > Seckler lineage as being probably the only one with an unbroken chain of succession of known Adepti, at least that I am aware of. However, by the time the chance arose when my superior departed, I was already in the Inner College, and had students of my own to consider. The lack of responses from various Cancellarii meant that one of the larger lineages was never going to even speak to me, let alone accept me as a student, at the time I was essentially a drop-out with little to recommend me except enthusiasm, I had yet to find my place in the world.
And now, nearly 15 years later and in a considerably different place, it's very much a done deal. I don't believe you can you can redo the Outer College grades, and you can no more complete the Knowledge & Conversation Operation at 5=6 twice than you can lose your virginity twice. Not to mention the fact that those under my care were quite content with the state of affairs, so at a time when I was looking for a new linkage, I declined the offer to start again as a Probationer and have all my students do likewise, I didn't have the right to reset everybody's path for my own vanity. This seems, nearly 8 years later, to have been the right decision.
These days, although not explicitly Thelemite even, I continue the 6=5 work, the paths of the Hermit, The Wheel of Fortune, Temperance, in utter isolation, with only occasional and suggestive contact with a Link in the Supernal Order. Only rarely am I contacted by a colleague in the Outer Order, and then only briefly. This is as it should be, and from what little I see things work well enough without my applying the 'long screwdriver' to manipulate things from a distance or otherwise interfere. It has to be said that the few occasions I have tried this haven't gone well, so now I leave well enough alone. I've effectively taken the Taoist approach to my role, but I am aware that for the majority of aspirants, the whole thing looks very ad hoc, and not really an Order at all, much less anything that deserves the title A.'.A.'..
To this end, though people continue to apply to the Chancellor, these tend to be the true Hermits, a rare breed. The majority are probably much better suited to the collegial and formalised atmosphere of a large and established lineage and the associations and structure they can provide.
An analogy can be taken from Ursula LeGuin's, 'A wizard of Earthsea'. The Young apprentice is initially taken on by the old hermit wizard on the mountainside. However, this silent and earthy environment isn't at all what the apprentice imagines or really needs to grow. Despite part of himself wishing to 'learn to be silent' with the old wizard, what he really needs is the lively and rigorous, formalised, and in some ways legitimised, college where he can earn his staff and study with the best and brightest teachers, and a group of peers to study and grow up with.
Not that I see myself as the wise old hermit on the hill, at least not the wise part. My approach, and that of those still affiliated with my line is very much in that mold. There is a certain glamour and official sense to those who train in the larger, formalised colleges of the A.'.A.'., a legitimacy that will, I feel, enable the Order to persist through the generations, and which I have no wish to try to emulate. Whereas smaller, unrecognised lineages such as mine, formed when some long dead initiate split from a teacher through death of disagreement, yet continued to teach, will likely eventually wither away as their all but invisible initiates remain undetected and the last aspirants decline to enter the portal, if they can even find it.
There is no regret in this. Things are as they are. Looking back on how they have developed I can see that there was no other way, and water doesn't flow under the same bridge twice. I have essentially sunken into the background, completely irrelevant as far as Thelema as a movement is concerned, and am content to remain so. I was never a good teacher, and at this point in my life I have no time or inclination to do more than occasionally write about my experiences, perhaps there's teaching enough in that.
In the meantime, people will occasionally come past my 'hut', and ask directions from the fellow sitting in an old chair on the porch; they will ask "which way to the Holy Order?", and 93 times out of 100 they mean the large and established college, its crystal towers glistening in the sunlight, not the old guy in the hut on the hillside, so I gladly direct them to the distant spires.
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