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I haven't really checked these boards in a while, but as always i find something currently relevant to the way I'm relating to the world. I've spent the past several monthes in a similar place, spending my time focusing on the works of Crowley, Isreal Regardie, and A.E. Waite, in addition to classical Qabalism, so I'll take a swing at it.
So are the Gnostics and the Hermeticist/GDers at odds? I don't rightly know, I've never been in a room with both at the same time. But I think the classic Gnostics would be of a variety of opinions on the subject, those that could actually extomporize on their own dogma. I'm also of the opinion that the occult rennaisance of the past 200 years, the Hermeticist/GD perspective has at its core the synthesis of the whole of western mysticism,, whereas the original Gnostic movement was a waypoint to this most recent of emergence of Magick.
Though of a variety of creeds, the Classical Christian Gnostics had some unity of theogony, the genesis story. SOPHIA, being the utmost attribution of Divine Wisdom, below only the Godhead, desired greatly for greater union with the Godhead, and this desire became twisted, and formed in the womb of SOPHIA. IALDABOATH was born of this twisted desire. Do to his impure nature the Godhead cast IALDABOATH out of the Heaven, or the Pleroma as its called in the Pistis Sophia. IALDABOATH then set about creating the Universe in his own image. In a variety of different texts, many stories where collected about the knowledge related to IALDABOATH by the various divine emanations of the Godhead before the Fall. One was that he was to make Man in his image, which he did, but since he was a creating wholly of the SOPHIA in her selfish desire for the Godhead, he was not possessed of the true spark of divine light, thus so was ADAM, the first Man, created without spirit. The SOPHIA did bless him with this, and sent her daughter ZOE, meaning "life", who after spending time with ADAM, IALDABOATH, and his archons discovered her, and attempted to destroy her. She turned into the tree, which the Gnostics identified with the Tree of Life. In the Gnostic version, IALDABOATH commanded ADAM, not to eat of the Tree of Life as it was Evil, since further communion with EVE could possibly endanger the hegemony of IALDABOATH. Gnostics also referred to IALDABOATH with the name SAMAEL and YHVH, and that YAHWAH and IALDABOATH are one the same, IALDABOATH, being some barbarization of the Hebrew term.
Now, as a studying Hermeticist, I would tell you a whole different story. AIN manifested AIN SOPH, and they manifest AIN SOPH AUR, and AIN SOPH AUR did project KETHER from itself, and in its perception of its own monad nature, the perception of itself constituted the self perceived, and the eidolon, the act of self perception, generates duality, in CHOKMAH, and the same formula produces the third eidolon, BINAH. KETHER, undifferentiated and duosexual divine light did manifest the divine male and female, CHOKMAH and BINAH, or the ABBA ELOHIM and the AIMA ELOHIM, the Divine Mother and Father, together known as ELOHIM, the deific entity which created ADAM and EVE in the Christian bible. In volumes I and II of Israel Regardies several versions of the gensis story are given, and that is one perspective. As a Hermeticist I would thus say that IALDABOATH being the creation of the SOPHIA would have to have been a birthed from the AIMA ELOHIM, BINAH, also known as Wisdom. This perspective is also reinforced by the fact that IALDABOATH is one aspect of a 7-part whole. The original Gnostics said that after its exile from Heaven, IALDABOATH created 6 other rulers of the universe, his archons, and these 7 ruled the universe together. 7 is a very specific number to use, and is also the number of sephira below BINAH, 3. Thus IALDABOATH compromises a completion of the Tree of Life, in addition to the divine mother and father, and the godhead itself.
Another point of I would identify in my analysis is the correlation of IALDABOATH with SAMAEL, the Demonic King of the Qlippoth of Kether, the highest personification of that fallen sephira. The Qlippothes being the first creation, which failed, as the Sephira created could not support the divine light, and shattered. The Qlippoths are the foundation of the current universe. GD Qabalisits seem to identify Qlippothic Tree, or the Averse Tree with either Assiah, or a sub realm beneath the Tree in the Four Worlds. So thus the Qlippothic Tree represents either the material element, or the unredeemed material element. SAMAEL being Chief of the Averse Tree is thus the Chief of unredeemed matter. Matter and existence devoid of meaning.
Now I do not believe that the universe was created in 7 days being abstract deific entities with hebrew and greek names, but the metaphors for psychological experience are profound. I would say that IALDABOATH is thspecifc intelligence which formulated the first creation, in its 7 days, being the anthropomorphization of the 7 original sephira below the supernal triad. The Fall of IALDABOATH finds and easy correspondance with the inability of the original sephira to hold the divine light, and their shattering and rendering into Qlippothes. In the second creation the YHVH formula was set upon the universe at its creation, not after the creation of the supernal triad. Thus the universe was more truly equilibrated, and managed to hold the divine light in whatever proportion is neccesary not to shatter a sephira.
I would therefore see IALDABOATH as the brute intelligence existing before initiation, the demiurge which creates flawed and empty existence because it is nature is unbalanced, therefore it cannot create balanced creation. IALDABOATH is the guy who runs the haphazard brain of the mundane intelligence. IALDABOATH is the guy who is in charge when the will is not unified with the mind, and might even be averse to the actual goals of the conscious mind. YHVH might then be the equibrated intelligence, the mind seeking to understand itself.
Correllations could also be drawn between IALDABOATH and ABRAXAS, but different from the way IALDABOATH relates to SAMAEL. ABRAXAS is a haptagrammaton, a 7-leter intelligence, as compared to YHVH, a tetragrammaton. The 7 letter name of ABRAXAS represents the Gnostic intelligence of the 7 planets, perhaps the intelligence of IALDABOATH and its unity with its 6 other archons. Also correlating to the 7 classical planets, ABRAXAS perhaps represents a sort of balance achieved through the manifestion of the planets, which IALDABOATH does not possess when it exists indepependent of its other aspects.
Sorry if I've included to much information, its hard not to when dealing with anything relating to this subject matter. |
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