Purpose For The Hga Options

So as I was theorizing on this very subject after reading The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage and doing a bunch more research on this notion, it left me to wonder if contacting your Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) was the main priority or top goal to achieve through one's spiritual journey and if not, then why not? Maybe it's a notion interpreted differently by others or perhaps unbelieved entirely, although if one is to entertain the ideas of what occurs after contact with the HGA, a new life so to speak, would be introduced for the individual as well as sharper and a more accurate ideology of their life.

I can't imagine it would be an easy task to gain 'the knowledge and conversation of the HGA' but had someone successfully accomplished it, wouldn't that person be quite different and significantly more competent in certain areas? Not to mention more in control of their own lives, actions and morals?

What are you perspectives on the matter? Have any of you ever undertaken the task to contact your HGA, if so what happened? Did you succeed?

Any input whatsoever considering the idea of this topic would be beneficial to hear! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_popcorn.gif)

So as I was theorizing on this very subject after reading The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage and doing a bunch more research on this notion, it left me to wonder if contacting your Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) was the main priority or top goal to achieve through one's spiritual journey and if not, then why not?
I think of that as the main method, rather than the main goal itself. the main goal, in my view, would be The Great Work. But yes, I think that HGA work would be more useful towards that goal than any other magical pursuit.

Maybe it's a notion interpreted differently by others or perhaps unbelieved entirely, although if one is to entertain the ideas of what occurs after contact with the HGA, a new life so to speak, would be introduced for the individual as well as sharper and a more accurate ideology of their life.

I can't imagine it would be an easy task to gain 'the knowledge and conversation of the HGA' but had someone successfully accomplished it, wouldn't that person be quite different and significantly more competent in certain areas? Not to mention more in control of their own lives, actions and morals?

I'd agree with your concept of how an HGA dialog could affect one's life.

As far as the difficulty in gaining conversation with the HGA, I don't personally feel that this is something which can be measured in 6, 12, or 18 months or fasting or effort or sacrifice. I feel that it is very much an issue of readiness for a teacher-student relationship. ie- are you in a position, spiritually, mentally, ideologically, emotionally, socially, etc. where such a conversation would be very likely to prove fruitful? And if not, why not and what could be done about it? I don't think the answer to those questions would be very similar between different people. Anyway, I don't envision HGA's as entertaining human whim. If such a dialog isn't likely to serve a functional purpose, then what's the point? I think a key question to ask oneself, is "What is an HGA looking for in a prospective pupil?"

What are you perspectives on the matter? Have any of you ever undertaken the task to contact your HGA, if so what happened? Did you succeed?
well, it depends on semantics. You can do the same thing, or a very similar thing, and different cultures will name it differently. Did I contact my HGA? or did i play the role of tantrik hero engaging shakti? or did i contact my higher self? or have I formed a bond with a pagan deity? I think you could view it through any of these lenses, but it might more reflect the lens than the subject matter. I have regular dialog, and great intimacy, with an omniscient being, whom I view as a sort of spiritual gateway between self and 'the infinite'... label that however you like.

I didn't try to contact an HGA. She came very shortly after I quit my former religion and went through a rapid lineup of major paradigm shifts & epiphanies. But yeah, she came to me, rather than the other way around. I don't think a person could force such a meeting, I think it kinda has to be the omniscient being's idea, or at least they'd have to be highly amenable to the idea.

anyway, personally I view contact with the HGA (or whatever other label) as "the begining" of something, rather than 'the culmination' of something. or at least that has been my experience of it.

Hi,
Frankly I did contact the HGA about five years ago (maybe more). But you know that even with the Crowlyian referntials and all the spiritual / magick theories you find aroud the web I still can't get the point of it.
Once I've asked the question: what comes next to it?
People onely told me that : "besides contacting the HGA everything is black magick" and that "after that you'll know what you're true will is"! Thanks a lot folks! I can read for myself!
Basiccally, after having contacted the HGA you start to find (even without looking for it) ancient books and methods and spells that you've never dreamt about. For an example I've found the true manual of the black hat bouddhism (Bön) with which Milarepa the black magus ascended into Nirvana during his first incarnation and after having caused a blood bath in his village with magick. After what he's entered lamaism, learned to fly and ascended!
So long for the Black magick besides contacting the HGA!
And for what my true will is! Well, It has been to talk to God! And I've actually found the book original of Moses that explains how to achieve it. So what? Will you say!
Frankly nothing!
But with the ages I've stopped with pseudo intellectual talks about magik, discoridanismand all the modern theories and concentrated myself on the more traditionnal technics (ceremonial) and theurgy.
And by the way, for the Sacred Magic of Abarmlin the mage, it's not the HGA but the Unholy guardian angel that must be used! If you've read the book you could figure it out for yourself: it's goetian applied to the field!
Good luck

what comes next? my answer would be The Great Work. I think that's kinda the whole point of the HGA's involvement with a finite, semi-sentient, hairless monkey, living on a muddy little rock, orbiting a quaint little star, somewhere int he unfashionable arm of the milky way galaxy (IMG:style_emoticons/default/13.gif)

Anyway, I kinda loosely associate the HGA with an ethereal bodhisattva, and associate The Great Work with getting out of Samsara and achieving communion with Aum. But I am ideologically closer to taoism and tantra than I am to abrahamic monotheism.

I don't particularly believe in 'black' magick. rainbow labeling means little to me.
my interaction with HGA hasn't lead me to any dusty books though, I lead myself to dusty books because I'm a die-hard bookworm (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) meanwhile 'She' (HGA,Patron,Guide,Higherself, thingie) teaches things which aren't in any books.

as for goetia, that's only a few hundred years old. personally I don't really differentiate between a qliphothic vs. kabbalistic approach to magick. I'm sort of the philosophy that all roads have the potential to lead to Rome (some more directly than others though). I don't think that any interaction with an 'infinite' being could occur without encountering all possible extremes, as all extremes exist in 'the sum of all things'. So yeah, tree of death or goetic styled HGA approach seems as valid to me as something more 'whitey lighty'. Along the way to the ultimate destination I think you'll end up covering all the bases anyway. just my view (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Kate

This post has been edited by Kath: Nov 2 2009, 03:15 PM

With all due respect!
The great work is an alchemical concept! From all the occult approach it's the onely one I've never touched!
Mais reason is that it's a Rosicrutian concept and that I'm not in PAris anymore so I don't have any contacts in Africa.

So you're a bookworme? So Am I! And a quite hard one too! But you know, contacting the HGO is quite easy once you go the spiritual path and mix it with magick rituals. And even if you're a bookworme, you know that you can read a text onely in it's original language or from direct teaching from a master! This means to know foreign languages. I know 5 but all the others in the professionnal field also! that's not special, but at least one must talk a semite language (Arabic, hebrew, aramean, coptic wich isn't exactly semitic and available in arabic) Latin an grec. If you ever find a book on how to learn sumerian I would be grateful.

So you think I'm supposed to contact higher beeings? Ok! I've been into chaos for 8 years now and have incarnated any kind of God forms. From monotheistic patriarchs to hindou gods, frankly, if it expands you're awareness and make the kabbalistic works easiers (by the way, I'm pleased to know about the root of the tree of life but if you had been in real magick school, zaouia or Yeshiva you'd understand that things are defined by their opposite). But I didn't gain any ESP throught it. I had to go through classical rituals.

This week, I had a discussion with a creature from the other side. Again!
I'm so tired of these encounters that doesn't bring me any answers (that I could understand... yet!) and they always bring up more questions!

For an example, what exactly is Shamballa? What's my link to them! The onely stuff I've found about them is that they are "the bad guys". Depressing!
One goes to the cathechism, to the yeshiva and stuies islam and all the other religions he could approach and at the end some negative entity tells you that you're profile interests him and ha wants to work with you!

I believe in the nececessity of Hell. The must be a punishment for the pedos, the rapists and serial killers, but man! Can't someone else take care of those people? As long as I'm concerned, I'm not Batman, and not even interested in the Job

Ito

In the 14th century, a book surfaced called The Book of Abramelin, attributed to a German Jewish Kabbalist. It outlines material on ceremonial magic and specifically is a very long and involved magical operation to realize a “Holy Guardian Angel.” After attaining this, one is promised all kinds of magical powers not unlike siddhis known in yoga (eg,, powers of magical flight, materialization, longevity, and other special powers).

At the turn of the 20th century (1897), this book was partially and somewhat inaccurately translated by Samuel MacGregor Mathers, who was the founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He conflated the term with the Neoplatonic term Augoiedes. Aleister Crowley, who belonged to the Golden Dawn and spun off the Ordo Templis Orientis and other lodges from it, began to do work with and write about the Holy Guardian Angel and developed his own ideas about what it was and rites about achieving it. You can find these rites online. The idea is more or less the same as in Hinduism and Buddhism—to become your divine ideal and become empowered by it. For Crowley, this was to realize your true self and True Will.


The term Augoeides means “luminous being” in Greek. The term was used by a Neoplatonist named Porphyry who lived during the 3rd century and was the student of the father of Neoplatonism, Plotinus. Plotinus referred to it as a personal daimon in commentary on content from Plato (10th chapter of the Republic and the end of Timaeus, also Phaedo). It is described as a perfect, divine idea of oneself to aspire to. Through it, a person transcends the limitations of his incarnation and circumstance.

With all due respect!
The great work is an alchemical concept! From all the occult approach it's the onely one I've never touched!
Mais reason is that it's a Rosicrutian concept and that I'm not in PAris anymore so I don't have any contacts in Africa.

the only alchemy I practice is within.

"The Great Work" appears under many names in many MANY religions & occult systems.
It's hard to imagine a person being familiar with eastern mysticism, platonic philosophy (thanks for the great description there Sodor), alchemy, crowley, golden dawn, etc. without touching upon this concept. It is a multicultural idea which spans 5 continents, under numerous names, in numerous traditions & belief systems. Body-of-light/Ascension appears even in christianity.

Anyway, if we presume that the "HGA" is an interface between our finite being, and the divine 'all', then I'm not sure I see any other really obvious topics of conversation to have with an HGA other than The Great Work (by whatever label, in whatever belief doctrine).

I'm sorry but you're putting too many things together
If you say that alchemy is the work within than you've got the chinese Qi Gong and tai chi perspective. They used to claim that the transformation within leaded to the emergence of a foetus inside one's body without being a woman.
this beliefe in inner transformation can be found in Bön bouddhism, one of the dark wizard who later became a saint's disciple left the spiritual path to get merried. Once he's got stabbed and it is said that instead of blood, semen was shed!!! (Yuk!!!)
But when you read the journals of great alchemists, when they talk about "Red lions" and stuff, they basically talk about a medicine aganst all deseases and really look for a way to become immortal (the main reason for the travel towars east if you know it: Sanjo, Sangoku and the other's story very poorly told in a manga).In the onely journals I've found in the Rosicrutian library in Montpellier they never went further than the Red Lion and a way to melt perls and precious stones together. No transformation of lead into gold or silver whatsoever!

How ever, nowadays, in Crowley and Chaos most of the Archmagus explain that what you call the great work is in fact a magnum opus. Le chef d'oeuvre! But the expression of this work comes from the cathedral builders in the franc empire (Charlemagne who's cousin you find depicted in old card games: the king of swords) but it was actually a test showing how keen you are in you're job!

If it's just a matter of having produced an intellectual production! It's already done (well I'm not Dan Brown or Rowling, not that that I admire their work but their bank account make me horny, I mean greedy) ! the only problem after having reached a certain level of practice is: it solves none of the metaphisical questions one asks himself which is basically the onely reason why people get started in magick!

If one onely wanted to adhere to a cosmogony and epistemology (an explanation of the origin of the world and where it's going), one would simply enter a religion and become a devotee!

My beliefe is that magick is about power, but the kind of power you only get by learning and practicing.

But well, sometimes I fall too deep in the cartesian principle (taken from René Descartes Discours de la méthode): Dubito dubito cogito ergo sum. Doubt, doubt, I think therefore I am!
The methodical doubt is they key to real knowledge! that's what allows me to make experiences, to repeat them after what I can estabish rules based on a scientific approach and not on pure beliefs, perception and false references which would mean that some autors are better than others! Wich isn't obvious!

But If yu've got a suggestion! I'll take it!

that's a lot of dropped names...

I'm really not even sure where to start in addressing your comments. you say I am mixing things too much, I would argue that you are failing to draw obvious parallels... but what's the point of such a discussion? It is possible, though not common, to fall victim to the fate of reading too much, and thinking too little. Not that there is really such a thing as reading too much per say, but that one can fill themselves with facts & figures and fail to see any forests.
but then again, it's all a matter of perspective.

anyway, we differ in viewpoint probably too much to actually go over it on a point by point basis. But I am vexed by trying to figure out what you meant in this comment:

How ever, nowadays, in Crowley and Chaos most of the Archmagus explain that what you call the great work is in fact a magnum opus.

what does translating things into or out of latin have to do with anything?

This post has been edited by Kath: Dec 1 2009, 06:58 AM

For an example I've found the true manual of the black hat bouddhism (Bön) with which Milarepa the black magus ascended into Nirvana during his first incarnation and after having caused a blood bath in his village with magick. After what he's entered lamaism, learned to fly and ascended!

That sounds pretty interesting. I have long been interested in Buddhism and its traditions, particularly Bön - the oldest religion in Tibet. Could you tell me any more about it? Can you provide me with this manual? Any information is much appreciated.

Sorry Kath, maybe we should terminate this discussion. anyway I've enjoyed it, and I thank you, but If you can't handle latin quotes how could you handle greek. My I reminde you that Hecate was the founder of the witches? As well as Orpheus?

That sounds pretty interesting. I have long been interested in Buddhism and its traditions, particularly Bön - the oldest religion in Tibet. Could you tell me any more about it? Can you provide me with this manual? Any information is much appreciated.

Actually Bön is a kind of chamanism that couldn't be erased by lamaism so it has been assimilated and now it's lesser dark.
I've got a book but I don't know the original title. It's supposed to be the first of a serie of scrolls that Milarepa has studied to levitate (I know that it sounds crasy but if you read about awakening the siddhis or occul powers of the mind or just look for it in youtube you may be surprised) Anyway the title means the path that dissipates the darkness and ignorance (my translation may not be that good). and yes I can post the material but I apologize in advance for my poor english

Sorry Kath, maybe we should terminate this discussion. anyway I've enjoyed it, and I thank you, but If you can't handle latin quotes how could you handle greek. My I reminde you that Hecate was the founder of the witches? As well as Orpheus?

that's a convoluted and interesting set of sentiments there.

I think I can handle latin quotes hon, I was asking what you meant by a statement which read like "what you call water is in fact 'aqua'! ". I get the impression that you were trying to redefine 'the great work', and inform me of something, but what does translating it into latin do in terms of redefining it? It still means the same thing, it's just in latin.

btw, there is no letter 'c' in greek, it's 'Hekate' (or Ἑκάτη in greek script, though it looks a bit different in the original archaic greek script, but there's no font for that...)

anyway, I'm afraid I am a poor choice for the sort of dialog you have in mind. Seriously, it won't go like you intend. Honestly though it's not the best tact for what you're trying to accomplish anyway, even if you found someone a bit easier to share the stage with.

The best way to become a respected student of the occult would probably be to immerse oneself in study & practice, building up experience & education in the occult side by side, over an extended period of time, with as much creativity and diversity as possible in your learning. If you love the material, it's not really a chore, it's more like an enjoyable hobby, or in my case more of a driven obsession. The other side to being someone other occultists look up to, is to avoid condescension, and show good humility and kindness to everyone else, a good number of people will admire you for this. Myself I have the obsessive desire to progress in the occult, but I don't really have any desire at all to be admired for it, so I tend to be very frank instead of being supportive or showing humility. But if you want admiration, trust me, that's the way to go about it.

This post has been edited by Kath: Dec 13 2009, 08:03 AM