Ontology and Thelema:

 

Ontology and Thelema:

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

As I was musing over the idea of pure consciousness, after my son had asked me what Hadit is; and I tried to explain ontology to a seven-year-old. I thought that I would try and figure it out for myself. From my understanding, the closest a person can come to Anatta as Buddha called it, or what Thelemites refer to as Hadit expanding into the infinite body of Nuit, is to get a glimpse of it. It is the complete unfolding of being, wherefrom self is shattered as a consequence of direct experience. So, the question for me becomes, how does this transcendent union occur, or what are the pieces that need to be perfectly in place for this state to be reached?

I guess a person has to look at the constituents of the soul to find a good enough theory, these are--the physical body, the sub-conscious, the ego, the intellect and the unconscious and then there is Hadit. Hadit is in a sense tied up with Aether, but Hadit is deeper than the unconscious, as it was him who created it. As a newborn my first experience was light, no thought, just light, this interaction created the sub-conscious and all my experiences from that point onwards were stored in this part of my being. From the time I am able to differentiate between the world and myself, or when I become self-conscious, the ego is formed and starts to develop along with the unconscious creating the sub-conscious. For lack of a better word: I use sub-conscious for this part of the psyche, and unconscious for the deeper one as the unconscious is already established in the womb. Even before the ego is formed intelligence is apparent, as development is dependent on learning and certain infants learn faster than others, which means they are smarter.

Aether according to Orphism is light/brightness, therefore it may have something to do with the mindless interactions of an infant and its relationship with the world. The child’s senses and intuition are its primary means of cognition, if the child experiences any pleasure or discomfort, it must be perceived or filtered through these lenses, although there is no need to intellectually understand any of it, the child cries or giggles, depending on the type of stimulus it experiences. This is still very much purely Hadit’s interaction with Nuit and Aether, (the latter, which is more often referred to as L.V.X. is what unites all souls and our individual experiences in the realm of pure feeling) and it’s through the relationship of these three that the unconscious is created. The reason for differentiating between the unconscious and sub-conscious, is that the sub-conscious is to an extent deliberately created by the ego and intellect, although some of what bubbles up into the sub-conscious, more than likely comes from the unconscious. However, I presume, to a larger extent, repressed emotions and impulses occupy this space and for this to be the case, a person needs to be self-aware. In other words: a person needs to have already developed prejudices and these can only be found in someone who has an ego.

Hadit’s unfolding and his final expansion into the body of the Goddess may according to the logic here presented, be compared to a newborn experiencing consciousness for the first time. And if this is true; sense perception, lack of prejudices, the unconscious perceiving as intuition, and the ego no longer in control, makes it direct experience between subject and object. Since a person at this level of experience is not hindered by the ego and intellect, one could say that it is a falling away from self into nothingness. This expansion is made possible by Hadit, who--without the ego serving as a barrier between him and Nuit, becomes undifferentiated consciousness, and brings about the phenomenon which some call oneness with God. I assume that when all the different parts of being have been perfectly equilibrated. The pressure of these faculties being in perfect harmony and working as one, becomes so overwhelming, that the intellect and the ego cannot cope with the experience, leaving the most primordial elements intact and leads to the annihilation of self, which culminating in the above experience, nothing is perceived as everything.

Note: It is worth noting that the intellect must be a part of the experience as this faculty is necessary for recalling the experience and it is via this faculty, that the self must be reconstructed. The intellect is also not something that can leave the body such as the ego, which is an abstract construction of individual consciousness. Therefore, the intellect must remain intact throughout, albeit overwhelmed by the intensity of realization. However, in a sense, the ego is destroyed, if only for the time being. The pressure which results in the experience more than likely results from the fact that complete union is at odds with the ego, which is a reflection of the world of duality, thus the world of contraries must be at odds with experiencing pure Being or Universal Oneness, although driven by momentum, the pressure keeps building until release is found in annihilation.

“Love is the law, love under will.”