ATT: Non-superstitious people, I need your help!

OPEN DAMNIT. LIGHT OUR DARKEST HOUR.

Just give it your best shot. If it's really so dangerous, I'm sure it'll work.

Also, I don't understand the comment about steroids.

Giambi is giving you a different mantra this time!

-"Jambi"(or "Jiambi," depending on the episode) is a floating head

-"Giambi" is a first baseman, his head floating after too much of "the cream" and "the clear".

He is a bit annoyed, as the flat is a bit of a tip.

The only sense in which such knowledge is 'hidden' is that one can only talk about it using metaphors or symbols, which generally garbles it and all too often makes it appear ridiculous.

There are a lot of these esoteric systems running around, trying to look mysterious and ultra-profound, but if you strip the clown suit off a clown, all you find is another naked human and a pile of clothes. If there's anything to them at all, they are all alike underneath.

[/rant]

are we talking literally, physically hidden? Historically there were certainly hidden schools of thought - the Kabbalah, for example, at its highest levels was only passed down orally to married Jewish men over the age of 40 who were devoted to its study. The "knowledge" they gained was for all intents and purposes "hidden" from the rest of the world. Now, I would argue that what the "knowledge" they were concerned with was basically analogous to "secret teachings" of a host of other religious disciplines - its just the localized trappings that differentiated it. Nowadays, you're right, this method of preserving an esoteric school is complete anachronism and doesn't really exist anymore. You can look up detailed descriptions of Jack Parsons' workings on the internet, for example. But I think yr missing a larger rhetorical point behind a lot of magical systems - and that's that what they're calling "hidden" is right out in the open, hidden in plain view. There are just many who choose not to see it. At any rate, I don't place any value on something being "hidden" or "secret" - being preoccupied with secrecy may have served its purpose in the past, but now it just seems quaint.

"The only sense in which such knowledge is 'hidden' is that one can only talk about it using metaphors or symbols,"

"the tao which can be spoken of is not the true tao" etc. I don't see why this approach is inherently illegitimate. I think there are things that exist that our language cannot fully express - consciousness is certainly one of them. From what I've investigated, magical systems are basically attempts to symbolically map the human psyche. Language fails to properly catalogue certain experiences. Symbols and metaphors and magickal systems that acknowledge this limitation can thus be helpful in such situations.

"There are a lot of these esoteric systems running around, trying to look mysterious and ultra-profound, but if you strip the clown suit off a clown, all you find is another naked human and a pile of clothes."

this is the beauty of it, to me. people attempting to lose themselves in service to a larger idea. You're correct, the people behind these systems are often small and corrupt and petty - if there is a more direct example of the fallibility of "leaders" and the importance of pursuing your own path, I can't think of one. Not coincidentally, this is often the first lesson of any magical system: "know thyself" (not "follow the guru").

A) Superstitious sorts would be too afraid

B) Non-superstitious sorts should really be sports and prove it to us and themselves that nothing happens when they make a seriuos effort to use the above "Hell Opening" chant-mantra.

Now, come on, you bunch of chickenshits, and make with the serious attempt at opening hell into your homes. Give it a good, honest shot. Unless you're too scared. Pluck, pluck!

what you've described above is in no way a "serious attempt", to the "nonbeliever" it's just reciting a bunch of nonsense syllables.

Get thee to Blockbuster and rent the 6-hour/6-part DVD interview set ($4 rental) of the PBS special series "The Power of Myth". Bill Moyers intervews Joseph Campbell and he explains easily enough to understand what hidden knowledge is and why it is indeed hidden and not just a cool-sounding term. It is something that metaphors can only point to, only experience can grasp and which language can not describe. Therefore, it is "hidden" until one experiences and understands for himself.

x-post

what you've described above is in no way a "serious attempt", to the "nonbeliever" it's just reciting a bunch of nonsense syllables.

Listen, you jackass, I said to chant it as a mantra. According to legend, that should be enough. None of the traditional magical concepts apply here. This is the thing that eventually convinced Crowley that demons were NOT aspects of your mind, but "real things out there" and for this reason, he gave the formula only backwards and vaguely alluded to, as you see above.

Sazaz Adanatasan Sazaz Sazaz.

There, now ILE is going to Hell.

Well, more so.

Just as I thought, a bunch of pussies and a couple of know-it-all pussies.

Thanks for nothing, guys.

Ahh, happy days.

Wow, now there is a fuckin' genius thing to say. Thanks, genius. Go back to Hebrew school where you will realize this is not a backwards transliteration, but pronunciation. Don't worry, though, exact pronuciation isn't required.

Are you saying that it's quaint because ideas were hidden to avoid persecution and that's not necessary anymore? What about the possibility that an idea that is hidden or encoded might take on an extra degree of importance to the person who uncovers it? If you state a philosophical or spiritual idea directly and openly it is much easier to dismiss or to think the idea is trite in its simplicity. On the other hand if somebody has to work to gradually decipher a secret teaching then they might gain a deeper understanding of the idea being communicated. In this sense the "secrets" of masonry are essentially the same thing as a zen koan. It wouldn't work to directly state "you yourself are the temple innit?" or whatever the underlying idea is.

This implies you don't know what happens and I assume Satan or Beelzebub or whatever name he's going by today would have a fair knowledge of his own little pranks and tricks.

Not that I've ever studied the system that incantation came from, but I've looked around enough to make a good guess how it works.

Most of these things bear a family resemblence to a Rube Goldberg machine, in that the words (or syllables, or even the letters, the number of breaths or some other 'hidden' significance) is supposed to act in the same way RB contraption does when it kicks the poodle, who knocks the water bucket, which spills the water onto the 'Dweller in the Abyss' (which is again a symbol for some other force or idea) who sputters awake and bumps its head into the 'Gates of Hell', opening them.

This is because the actual signifigance of every part of the story has been carefully swathed in a whiole series of clown suits that only the initiate can penetrate the meaning of. Nothing works straightforwardly. Everything is a layer of indirection.

So, when Giambi The Outsider, snickers at the Initiates for wambling on and on about Dwellers in the Abyss and other such obvious side show freaks, the Initiates get to feel all warm and superior because they can decipher all the mumbo-jumbo back into a sensible and somewhat meaningful form - which just describes some relationship in the universe that anyone could probably figure out on their own if they sat a while and looked carefully enough. As I say, I can't swear to what this particular mumbo-jumbo is supposed to mean, but this is the usual apparatus involved.

So, Giambi, you've been taken in by the elaborate ruse. Which is the whole purpose of it. You've marked yourself as an Ignorant One. Learn the handshake, fer cryin' out loud.

*puff of brimstone*

Just do your best.

Zazas Zazas Nasatanada Meatza

Sorry walter, I didn't see this post at first. Um, yeah, that's generally what I'm referring to. A lot of these systems were developed at a time when literacy wasn't necessarily common and persecution for various reasons was. Nowadays, printing presses and means of distributing and archiving information are not so rare, nor do they need to be as clandestine when it comes to these subjects. So an emphasis on secrecy, to me, seems like a throwback to a different era.

"What about the possibility that an idea that is hidden or encoded might take on an extra degree of importance to the person who uncovers it.... if somebody has to work to gradually decipher a secret teaching then they might gain a deeper understanding of the idea being communicated."

oh yeah, totally agree on this point. In this respect, the gradual accumulation of knowledge is supposed to lead to a revelation of "the secret" (which cannot be spoken of, or related directly, etc.) - yes, the zen koan model.

http://www.bebosh.com/youngones/boring/boring07.jpg

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drg100/g122/g12298whuhd.jpg

Me too, but after a couple hours or so it popped into my head (as if ... by magic).

covers stuff like Crowley, freemasonry, novus ordo seculorum, the Moorish Science Temple of America, etc.

oh yeah, and quantum physics.

You don't just say a few "magic" words and *poof*

Make yer mind up!

However, I am standing in front of the Gates of Hell, if that makes a difference.