{"id":3936,"date":"2017-04-12T17:01:42","date_gmt":"2017-04-12T23:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/?p=3936"},"modified":"2017-04-12T17:01:42","modified_gmt":"2017-04-12T23:01:42","slug":"the-tower-shiva-conflicting-realities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/?p=3936","title":{"rendered":"The Tower, Shiva, Conflicting Realities"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was doing some more reading on the Tower this morning and came across something in Crowley’s Thoth book that put into words a concept I’ve been unable to clearly articulate in life. At the root of it is this habit I have of contradicting myself: I’ll say one minute that I don’t believe in something, and then the next week I’m practicing that belief. It’s become somewhat of a joke among friends of mine. Sometimes not believing in something is the road to believing in it. Other times I feel there is no difference between Right and Left (ESPECIALLY right now), past and future etc… so I can exchange belief systems at will. Whatever feels real on that particular day. <\/p>\n

Whenever I try to express this idea to empirical-minded materialist people I usually get the stink eye. That’s okay but I still feel like it benefits me in my life to operate like this. <\/p>\n

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Sometimes getting the stink eye about my world view can bum me out, to be honest, so it’s nice to get some unexpected validation from an old wizard. Here’s a few passages from the Book of Thoth that I zoned in on:<\/p>\n

“Shiva is represented as dancing upon the bodies of his devotees… the ultimate reality (which is Perfection) is Nothingness. Hence all manifestations, however glorious, however delightful, are stains. To obtain perfection, all existing things must be annihilated. The destruction of the garrison [the crown of the Tower – Jesse] may therefore be taken to mean their emancipation from the prison of organized life, which was confining them. It was their unwisdom to cling to it. <\/p>\n

The above should make it clear that magical symbols must always be understood in a double sense, each contradictory of the other [He is referring to an earlier contrary interpretation of the Tower card – Jesse]. These ideas blend naturally with the higher and deeper significance of the card.<\/p>\n

…Bathed in the effulgence of this Eye [the eye of Shiva – J]… are the Dove bearing and olive branch and the Serpent…These represent the two forms of desire; what Schopenhaur would have called the Will to Live and the Will to Die… The nobility of the latter is possibly based upon the recognition of the futility of the former. This is perhaps why the renunciation of love in all the ordinary senses of the word has been so constantly announced as the first step towards initiation. This is an unnecessarily rigid view. This Trump is not the only card in the Pack, nor are the “will to live” and the “will to die” incompatible. This becomes clear as soon as life and death are understood… as phases of a single manifestation of energy.”<\/p>\n

I wrote a little note to myself in the book reminding me of my thoughts on “sublime violence”, which revolves around the representation of violence in media as an allegory for the maximum proof of human and animal Will. “Death is Life” is a sentiment I’ve carried around with me for some time now, and you can can apply that relationship to many aspects of our consensus reality.<\/p>\n

Even in my current, ego challenging series of pilot rejections I’m finding validation for my work, and a path opening to better goals. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was doing some more reading on the Tower this morning and came across something in Crowley’s Thoth book that put into words a concept I’ve been unable to clearly articulate in life. At the root of it is this habit I have of contradicting myself: I’ll say one minute that I don’t believe in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3936"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3936"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3939,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3936\/revisions\/3939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}