Introspection and the Higher Self

So, folks....i've been posting nothing for a long time now and iam sorry for the few fans i have of this blog. I hope you all still stay tuned.
The reason for not writing for so long is that i have been involved in a deep phase of introspection and retirement, both magical and analytical, and the outcome of this and the conclusions i draw are often so personal that i feel it is counter productive to share, seeing that everybody has its own individual way of pesonal development and i dont want to spoil the process for those who are "lesser" developed by giving answers that everybody has to conquer for him/herself.
Nonetheless, i think it is time again to share a little bit.

Its a fact that i feel i have made quantum leaps in self knowledge throughout the last two years, and the credit goes to the wonderful magical system of the Golden Dawn, as well as to my experiences as a client on the couch of my analyst.
One fundamental thing that i had to learn is that i had many false ideas and misconceptions about
myself as a person, and how i interrelate with the world around me.
Magically, this is the process that the advancement on the path of PEH, which is connected to ATU XVI, The Tower, has set in motion.
The lightning flash of higher reason that destroys outmoded beliefs, ideas and conceptions. Conceptions that hinder the process of true knowledge.
This can come as a shock, but this shock can change into a feeling of deep relief also.
Many of the insights i have got through this have thrown me into a critical phase of doubting my whole belief system and inner motives and led me to the question of what i really want to be and achieve in this world and reality.
What has really thrown me into a dark night of the soul, a phase of inner conflict that is crucial to true inner development, was the realization that i am much more a robot of inner conditioning and fear and impulses to avoid those many fears (the hydra that raises its many heads to nearly all areas of life!) than i ever thought or wanted to truly admit before myself.
I learned that you have to be very attentive and watchful in every second of your life and that it needs a great deal of honesty to accept your own faults and flaws.
But the realization of fear is the first step to overcome it or at least to handle these forces in a more healthy and careful way.
To learn that you are a robot, a slave of automatic consciousness and conditioning, is a tough thing. Especially when you consider yourself a spiritual person and somebody who wants to attain the Light and be a perfect servant for a higher Will, the Will of the One-All!
But already Buddha taught that the first step towards Freedom is to accept that Life means suffering, and that suffering comes through attachment.
And attachment can also mean holding on to outmoded infantile survival techniques and infantile self images that stand in the way between you and your divine Genius.

So, i learned a great deal about me on a very mundane level through my analytical process.
I learend that it is often good to allow oneself a certain maneuvering room between the first impulse and reaction.
Because the first impulse to the many negative situations in life is, alas, often fear!
Most of the people are driven by fear.
Fear is such a fundamental emotion. But it is the best way to face all your fears, without holding back anything, because this is the way how it can be conquered and transformed.
Then, fear can be a very useful guide and teacher.

On the magical side i learned that the attainment of knowledge and conversation with your Guardian Angel, not to speak of the perfect and constant embodiment of it! is an ongoing process and much more far reaching than i ever wanted to believe.
To bring the divine spark to full bloom in ones body and consciousness IS the attainment of the inner Stone.
And between the final attainment, the Summum Bonum, and the beginning of self transformation as with a well designed magical system like the one that is practised in the Golden Dawn, are many intermediary levels, although i understand the process to be a continuous and natural one.

On the slighty-above-average level the Genius speaks to you through your unconscious, through dreams, sudden intuitions about spiritual and magical principles (gnosis) and higher reason.
When you want to know something from your Genius, you have to be attentive, because the way His answers are revealed can come through seemingly mundane channels also.
Sometimes speaking to an outsider can reveal a very important key to something, or sometimes you get hold of a book that reveals an answer and causes a sudden flash of insight.

The most fantastic revelations are of course those that come totally unexpected.
Sometimes you ponder for weeks about some alchemical passage you have read and not understood, and suddenly, in a split second, the veil is lifted before your eyes and you understand some principles in such a profound way that you have never dreamt of before!

This is what true gnosis is about, and during the last months i have been blessed with some wonderful insights about the true nature of magic and alchemy that i now truly believe that the greatest teacher and master is residing IN YOURSELF.
An order and a teacher can give you the tools for learning the language of the secret forces of nature and your consciousness, and can ignite fruitful conditions in your soul and thereby preparing the acre by initiation, but the real answers come through personal gnosis. At least at the level where i am now.

The other thing that i have learned already many years ago, after having performed the famous Bornless invocation several times, and what i am still about to learn is that knowledge about my Angel comes through the establishment of ever more healthy boundaries between myself and the world around me.
And this is perfect in line what i have been taught about the Sphere of Sensation and what magic tries to achieve with it.
Which implies a paradox, because the aim of Theurgy is to purify oneself from the innate flaw of separateness, the realization of the One All inside!

And this is why certain mysteries cannot be told, but only experienced and conquered by constant labour.

Yours in the Light,
Fr.:. L.:.