The Dialogue of Eris and Angelos
ANGELOS: Hello, Eris. I should’ve known I’d find you here. This is a great occult bookshop. They’ve got everything, haven’t they? Are you researching something specific?
ERIS: You know what I’m like, Angelos. I’m looking up some references for the latest paper I’ve written on the history of occultism since Aleister Crowley.
ANGELOS: Sounds interesting.
ERIS: Not as interesting as what I’ve heard about you. Someone told me you’d fallen in with a religious crowd and had turned all mystical.
ANGELOS: Well, kind of. You could say the work I’ve been doing recently has been an exploration of how mysticism sits with contemporary magick. One of the problems with chaos magic, when it appeared in the late seventies, is that it has left out the dimension of spiritual practice and development.
ERIS: Yes. Recently I’ve heard people on the magick scene using the term ‘results mysticism’ – which is quite a striking idea.
ANGELOS: Well, that wasn’t us, but yes. However, one of the ways in which we’ve gained results from mysticism is through the realisation that magical and esoteric traditions (if they are genuinely that, because many of them aren’t) are all pushing towards the same goal – namely, The Great Work, which in the eastern traditions is known as enlightenment.
ERIS: Woah – hang on there, Angelos! This idea that all traditions lead to the same goal is one that I have tremendous difficulties with. Each tradition presents a point of view that is socially determined. You know that, surely? Each is a product of the language used by a social group, and other cultural factors besides.
ANGELOS: Do you have to be anywhere in the next hour, Eris? I’m asking, because it’s probably going to take me a while to explain why we need to move on from ideas like that.
ERIS: Move on? That’s a little presumptuous! You have my full attention, Angelos. I only hope the rumours I’ve heard about you aren’t true.
ANGELOS: I’m touched by your concern. But consider this, Eris: if the esoteric traditions are purely socially determined and therefore incommensurate, then in what do you suppose lies the fundamental difference between ‘The Great Work’ in the western tradition and ‘enlightenment’ in the Eastern?
ERIS: Well, it seems to me quite clear. The Buddhist seeks the annihilation of the self (yes, I accept that that’s simplistically phrased, but this isn’t my main point) whereas, in the western tradition, the magician works through successive states of awareness, with the assistance of the Holy Guardian Angel. The Great Work aims toward the knowledge and conversation of the angel, and then union with it. Clearly these aims are not commensurate at all.
ANGELOS: I appreciate that they may not appear so on the surface. Yet in our explorations and practise we’ve discovered that the higher grades of the A∴A∴, which Crowley represented on the Tree of Life as Magister Templi (Binah), Magus (Chokmah) and Ipsissimus (Kether) are mappable with surprising consistency onto the stages of awakening described in the Theravada Buddhist model: sottapana (‘stream-enterer’), anagami (‘never-returner’) and arahat.
ERIS: But this shouldn’t surprise us, Angelos, because Crowley was influenced by the Buddhist model and incorporated it into his own.
ANGELOS: So couldn’t we say he incorporated the Buddhist model because he found it corresponded with his own experience so well? You’re right that my friends and I may have re-invented the wheel, but it’s not our aim to find new models, simply models that work. Should it trouble us, as long as our re-invented wheel takes us where we want to go?
ERIS: Yes, I think it should, because the idea that there is somewhere to go and that it’s the same place for everyone regardless of tradition is itself an idea that arose at a particular moment in history. It came from Helena Blavatsky, if you’d like to know. Before her, it was not generally supposed at all that different paths led to the same place.
ANGELOS: It still isn’t, as far as I can see. Eris, I wouldn’t impose on anyone that they should follow any path to anything. I’m skeptical of this view that no one had this idea before Blavatsky, but I want to avoid an argument over the historical precedence of ideas. What’s more striking is that it seems to me this is where you situate your notion of truth – in the circumstances of the origin of ideas. You’re talking like a historian! This is very odd to me, because we both practise magick, and surely you would not suggest this historical approach is necessary to practise magick successfully. If any practice yields a useful result, it’s not due to the circumstances of its origin, is it?
ERIS: Angelos, Truth (with a capital ‘T’) is something I would be at pains not to situate anywhere! As I said earlier, that which appears to us as truth is the product of socially-constructed cultural processes. Consider: science does not require a notion of truth in order to arrive at its findings. A neurologist, for instance, demonstrates that certain types of stimulation of the brain result in particular states or experiences without any recourse to their supposed ‘truth’ or ‘validity’ or ‘significance’. These states simply are. How they are interpreted by the person that experiences them – as ‘God’ perhaps, or a vision of an angel – is another question entirely. If you, on the other hand, assert that there is Truth, then you are going to have to explain in more detail what you consider it to be.
ANGELOS: Well, it’s ineffable and absolute.
ERIS: Beyond human experience, then?
ANGELOS: No, because it requires human consciousness in order for us to be aware of it. In fact, it arises only from our experience of it.
ERIS: But do you not see how this leads to awful problems? For instance: if you have no direct experience of the Holocaust, let’s say, then you’re asserting it’s not ‘true’; it didn’t happen.
ANGELOS: Come on, Eris! Give me some credit! The truth of the Holocaust lies in the experience of others, but their experience can enter into mine through my reading (for example) and their testimony. I’m not advocating solipsism here. And besides, a social-constructivist view doesn’t deal with this problem any better. Yet is it really a problem? Consider: where’s the sense in accusing an isolated tribe living in the Peruvian jungle of ‘holocaust denial’ if they should have the temerity to claim they know nothing of it?
ERIS: Yet you’re unable to say anything substantial about this absolute truth of yours, which – on the basis of only subjective evidence – you continue to assert.
ANGELOS: Because talking about it isn’t point. If truth lies in our experience of it, then it lies with experience and not words nor ideas. This is why it doesn’t matter in a wider sense what tradition or means of experiencing truth we chose to follow. For instance, our group has been comparing notes very closely with Buddhist practitioners, and we’re able to talk to each other across our respective traditions very easily, so long as we remain focused on the specific details of our practice and its experiential results.
ERIS: And as I said before, this is completely unsurprising because Crowley’s model was derived from Buddhism. You won’t be taken seriously by any of the authorities in these fields if you insist on a notion of absolute truth (which you still refuse to define) or your view that self-evident differences between the traditions are not significant.
ANGELOS: Eris, I’m astonished at how you can be satisfied by a notion of truth – or in your own terminology perhaps I ought to call it ‘a dominant view’ – that depends entirely on consensus. I look around this bookshop and I can see works by Crowley, Steiner, Blavatsky, etc., and I wonder at your concern that my views might place me ‘beyond the pale’ of academic orthodoxy because surely all of these writers received similar criticism in their life-time for holding similar views on truth to mine? I find it strange that you value these writers only from a historical perspective, rather than for what is to be gained from engaging in the practices they taught.
ERIS: But I do engage in those practices.
ANGELOS: You’ve sought the Knowledge and Communication of the Holy Guardian Angel?
ERIS: Yes.
ANGELOS: And you were successful?
ERIS: Yes. I experienced all kinds of visions, synchronicities and deep states of trance.
ANGELOS: And you experienced these as the actual presence of your angel?
ERIS: Well, yes and no. I experienced them as the angel, because that was what I had chosen to believe in at the time – what I had chosen to interpret these experiences as. But simultaneously I was aware that there were any number of ways in which these experiences could be interpreted, and if I’d chosen to follow a different tradition they would’ve taken on a different significance.
ANGELOS: You were using your belief as a tool, then, as a means of influencing your experiences?
ERIS: Yes – but surely you know this as well as I do. We both practise magick, and so we both accept – I imagine – that this is how magick works. Our reality is determined by our perception, and our perception in turn is shaped by our belief. Most of the time, our belief is unconscious or involuntary, and thus we can become prisoners of our own reality. Magick helps set us free from this.
ANGELOS: You mean, of course, it frees us because it enables us to intervene in the process by which our belief shapes our perception? I’m certainly in agreement with you on that!
ERIS: Yes. I choose a particular way of seeing things, and therefore my so-called ‘reality’ lines-up in that way, determined by my way of seeing. But if you agree with this, why do you insist on there being ‘Truth’, with that ludicrous capital T, when you’ve now admitted that what we call reality is after all a matter of belief?
ANGELOS: You’ve never directly perceived truth, then?
ERIS: No. But, as I’ve said, I’ve sometimes chosen to believe that certain things were true, with the conscious intention of changing my reality. So you’re telling me, now, that you have directly perceived it?
ANGELOS: No, I haven’t. Because truth is apprehended through knowledge, and knowledge is neither belief nor perception. It is outside either of those.
ERIS: That sounds like mystical word-play! If this Truth of yours can’t appear, how do you know it exists?
ANGELOS: Because we can know it. And this is not mystical at all, Eris, but in fact very ordinary. Consider: if we had to perceive something in order to know it, then how would we ever be able to plan for situations that weren’t immediately present to our awareness, or even hold abstract concepts in our minds?
ERIS: Then this truth of yours is simply your belief. Don’t you see? If it can’t be perceived, as you admit it can’t, then how else would you describe your clinging onto something that can’t be seen or spoken about, and which, therefore, has no discernible effect upon anyone, unless – like you – they choose to believe in it?
ANGELOS: Because it lies beyond perception. Up to this point we’re in agreement, it seems to me, and we are both happy to call ourselves magicians. Only it also seems to me that in being a magician it’s necessary to step beyond perception and into knowledge, if one wants to connect with that realm of absolute truth that is the aim of The Great Work.
ERIS: I understand what you’re saying, Angelos. However, that which is supposedly beyond perception cannot be perceived or experienced, and therefore can only be an object of supposition or belief. How can it be otherwise?
ANGELOS: You said a while back that we can become prisoners in our reality, because that reality is made of perceptions and beliefs?
ERIS: Yes. Unless we choose among our beliefs carefully.
ANGELOS: Or we choose to see beyond them altogether. Because isn’t our notion of what perception is merely derived also from our perception?
ERIS: Yes. And our reality is therefore malleable to a degree, because of that.
ANGELOS: Then what if our perception of our perceptions were inaccurate? What if, in actuality, our consciousness were arranged in such a way that what you described as ‘beyond perception’ were not really so, but only appeared as such due to a mistaken and involuntary belief about the nature of ourselves?
ERIS: Then I would ask how you could have possibly arrived at this knowledge, which – according to the circumstances you propose – would be impossible for us to arrive at.
ANGELOS: But it wouldn’t be impossible, not if we adopted as a practice the habit of making our perception the object of itself, and at the same time took care to protect this practice against influence from our mundane beliefs, on the one hand, nor allowed the results of our practice to solidify into anything we mistook for a concrete ‘reality’ on the other.
ERIS: I can see where you’re trying to take this! It sounds like the Buddhist technique of ‘insight’ meditation. But I can’t see how it bears any resemblance to the western magical tradition and the Holy Guardian Angel.
ANGELOS: The basic practice is the same in all traditions and it leads to an identical result. The ‘angel’ is another term for that ‘true self’ which I described as hidden from us by our habitual beliefs. This ‘true self’ is what the Buddhists term ‘no-self’, a deeper, actual level of consciousness that sees ‘beyond perception’ because it’s not limited by the way that our habitual false beliefs shape our everyday idea of what ‘self’ is.
ERIS: This still sounds to me simply a point of view. It’s the regurgitation of the ‘perennial philosophy’; it’s simply Blavatsky all over again.
ANGELOS: Come on, Eris. Let’s get out of this dusty bookshop and go and get a coffee somewhere. Without leaving behind ideas and turning around instead to examine whom you suppose is having them, it’s unlikely things will appear to you any other way.
ERIS: You’ve got a lot of work to do to convince me, Angelos. But if you’re buying, I might be persuaded to listen some more.
Enlightened Ethics
Morality has been a perennial concern for humanity. Many religions and spiritual traditions promote a set of rules for how to live, and although some ethics were originally prescribed as a means to facilitate enlightenment, today mainstream religions simply dictate their own specific morality in the belief that adherence to a set of rules will please their deity.
Most religions do however agree that we should be nice to each other, and even those that reject religion or spirituality outright – perhaps favouring a more rational approach – would probably concur.
But the absolute truth – experienced as enlightenment – reveals that no product of the human mind, no matter how altruistic, is the truth itself. If we cannot define the absolute in terms of the relative (in this case, ethics), exactly how is the enlightened person to behave? How should anyone behave for that matter?
Some teachers of enlightenment have opted to consider morality as a separate line of development to enlightenment; after all, enlightenment isn’t limited or defined by any kind of behaviour.
But this neglects to consider the fact that although the Absolute is not affected by the Relative, the Relative is most certainly affected by the Absolute. Indeed, enlightenment itself can only occur as a relative event.
Experience of enlightenment, at whatever stage in the process that leads to enlightenment proper, brings with it many relative affects, such as bliss, peace, certainty, equanimity, compassion, and direction in life. Of course, we can’t define enlightenment with a list of these relative affects, as they most assuredly come and go; but we can say that the absolute brings with it a morality or set of behaviours that reflect the absolute at a relative level; not through conscious deliberation, but through direct, personal experience.
However, a lifetime of accrued behaviours, habits and opinions rooted in the separate sense of self do not just disappear with a single experience of the Absolute, and not even with enlightenment proper. It is even possible to become enlightened with your behaviour left uninvestigated, with practitioners returning to everyday life as if their direct experience of the absolute truth has no bearing on their lives outside of the temple or meditation hall.
The event of enlightenment is not enough on its own; integration is required, unless the ignorance that dictated our behaviour before enlightenment remains unchallenged in our lives, and lives on in our actions. This requires a mindfulness of our behaviour from the perspective of enlightenment, at whatever stage in the process, which in turn leads to an expression of the knowledge of the absolute truth in our everyday actions.
When the absolute is consciously expressed through the individual, we call this behaviour Enlightened Ethics. When a person engages with Enlightened Ethics, they can be said to be living enlightenment.
Enlightened Ethics is not a set of rules or behaviours, but the unique individual expression of the affect of the absolute on the relative world: in a general sense, the movement towards wholeness; in a specific sense, this is nothing less than discovering who you are and what your purpose in life is. Enlightened Ethics is the promise of wholeness for yourself and everyone else.
The Three Hares Symbol
The first known example of the symbol of the Three Hares with conjoined ears is dated to 600CE, and it can be found in Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Buddhist sites across the globe in England, Western and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East . Its historical meaning is unclear; although the hare as a spiritual archetype is well documented.
Its spiritual but transcultural nature makes the Three Hares the perfect symbol for Open Enlightenment, and the symbol can be used to demonstrate the one commonality between all the paths that lead to enlightenment, in what I call the Three Hares Teaching.
The Three Hares represent three elements respectively:
Philosophy
An individual’s philosophy is determined by experience.
Philosophy is how an individual understands the world, what they value (ethics), who they believe themselves to be (identity), why they believe they exist (purpose), and when (as an activity) they actually consider any of the Big Questions (contemplation).
The practice of philosophy and the ideas examined will determine the focus or direction of the individual’s actions in life.
Focus or Direction
What an individual decides to do, what their focus and direction in life is, and how they prioritise what actions are most important to them – whether conscious or not – is determined by their philosophy. The focus is the reason for doing anything, the sum total of a person’s experience and philosophy thus far.
Action or Experience
An action is determined by the focus or direction of life. The action is also an experience that in turn informs an individual’s philosophy.
So philosophy informs direction, direction informs action, action informs philosophy, and so on.
The Three Hares represent the endless cycle of human behaviour: each one of the hares always follows on the heels of the other, and each hare only ‘has ears’ for the other two.
The unexamined life
For the most part, people spend a very small fraction of their lifetime examining their lives and beliefs about the world, and so their philosophy remains mostly inherited and unconscious. Their intentions are therefore those of their culture and remain unquestioned (‘I must acquire money, I must please God, I must dress a certain way, etc.’). Actions or experiences follow suit accordingly, and so most people simply work, eat, sleep, entertain themselves and exercise faith in untested beliefs, mostly unconscious of any one of the hares and their interrelationship, until the day they die.
Or do they?
The search for wholeness or completion
If we look at the Three Hares symbol we can see that the hares are circumscribed by a circle. This is a symbolic representation of the fact that philosophy, focus and action revolve solely around completion or wholeness.
The search for completion or wholeness is the driving force of the universe.
Enlightenment is the discovery of wholeness.
The spiritual practice
No one changes until experience forces them to. The repetition of events and experiences that fail to deliver completion or wholeness informs a person’s philosophy. Previously unconsidered notions such as the fact happiness isn’t found in cultural habits or that certain personal beliefs might actually be wrong begin to surface. Gradually the focus of life changes, and the person begins to perform new actions that bring forth new experiences, that in turn further develops their philosophy…
Eventually only one focus will remain, and this is the root of all spiritual teachings, traditions and practices or actions that lead to enlightenment. As diverse as all of these relative paths to awakening might be, in a general sense they have all reached the level of philosophy where the process of growth symbolised by the Three Hares has become a conscious concern, a single focus has been formed and a specific action or set of behaviours is devised and performed for one reason only:
Transcendence.
The specifics of spiritual philosophies may differ, but transcendence is the single unified focus or direction of every genuine practice or action that will lead to enlightenment (and the absence of this focus is the sole reason for a practitioner failing to achieve the goal. They simply do not have the will to enlightenment).
A person’s direction in life is informed by his or her philosophy; and so it follows that not everyone is interested or finds value in enlightenment, and even those that may act as if they are concerned about enlightenment may simply be acting the part for very different reasons, from cultural expectations to matters of personal identity.
The Three Hares Teaching is a philosophy that I hope will be of use to those that are ready for it, and will go some way to facilitating the understanding that genuine spirituality is not a specific tradition or technique, but the essence hidden behind all religion.
What is Enlightenment?
Enlightenment is the sudden and irrevocable knowledge of the absolute truth.
Enlightenment is not an idea or a belief; enlightenment is a personal, direct experience.
Enlightenment is the root of all genuine spirituality. Although the experience itself is often described in many diverse and unique ways by those spiritual traditions that teach personal experience over dogma or faith– such as Taoism, Buddhism, Sufism, Platonism, Vedanta, Christian Mysticism, Jewish Mysticism, and Magick (to name but a few) – all of these traditions share a number of key deep features or characteristics that indicate the modeling of the same experience. Enlightenment is therefore also known as realisation, liberation, awakening, union with the divine, and anamnesia.
Enlightenment is a natural, human development that has been misunderstood and persecuted throughout our short history. Enlightenment is what happened to Lao Tzu, Moses, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed. These enlightened men expressed their experience and presented their teachings in an appropriate means for their culture and times in order to lead others to the absolute truth. Sadly, most of their original work is now either lost, misrepresented or degenerated to such an extent that it is no longer accessible, relevant or reasonable to a human living in the 21st Century.
Both in the East and West, enlightenment has been reduced to blind faith in God, with horrific consequences. However, there have been people experiencing enlightenment for as long as the human race has graced the earth, and there are many enlightened people walking on this planet right now.
The time has come for us to address enlightenment with the honesty, respect and reason that the absolute truth deserves.
Welcome to Open Enlightenment.
How do I become enlightened?
The experience of enlightenment can be expected to happen after performing certain practices and undergoing a specific process over a number of years – the exact duration differing with each individual – that includes becoming familiar with a whole range of mystical experiences, from trance states to visions to synchronicities to spiritual depression to blissful equanimity, with the experience of the absolute progressing from a peak to a plateau to a permanent knowledge. However, although there are most certainly key features to the experience and process of enlightenment that allow us to recognise the experience for what it is, these do not necessarily include the duration of time it takes and the specific surface or relative features of the experience. Determining where you might be in the process or whether or not you’ve had a genuine experience of enlightenment takes careful observation, study, familiarity with various mystical phenomena and patience. It helps to have access to a group of experienced peers.
Although any new experience may befall someone by accident, it is the people who search for such an experience that have the greatest success in finding it. It may be claimed that enlightenment has and will occur for some people by chance, but the abundant available evidence for enlightenment depending upon a certain level of investigation of reality (even with those who have performed no formal practice), and the experience of a very specific and recognisable process beforehand, renders such considerations negligible.
Enlightenment is sudden because it is a discontinuous experience from what has gone before: the knowledge gained is of an absolutely different order to anything that has been experienced previously, or will be experienced thereafter. As a discontinuity, we can say that enlightenment is not determined by practice or tradition; however, practice and tradition are necessary to reaching enlightenment, just as scaffolding is necessary to erecting a building but is not the building itself, or a crutch is necessary before one can walk.
Enlightenment is irrevocable because it is nothing less than a transformation in identity. Even the first glimpse of enlightenment is enough to change the individual in a profound sense, and each progressive stage of enlightenment is equally transformative, up until the occurrence of knowledge of the absolute truth as a permanent trait with enlightenment proper.
Enlightenment is always sudden, but as a discontinuity from a very specific type of practice and process.
What does it mean to be enlightened?
Before enlightenment, one is distinct and separate; after enlightenment, one is distinct and whole.
Before enlightenment, one lives in search of completion and wholeness; after enlightenment, one lives life for its own sake.
Enlightenment is the knowledge of completion at a fundamental level – the search for the answer to the nature of reality is over, and the quest is finished in an absolute sense. Everything else at a relative level remains however, and so life continues exactly as it did before with all the same relative problems. Although the enlightened person is no longer separate, he or she is still distinct. There is no loss of identity or personality, and money, food and sex are just as much a pleasure and a pain as beforehand. It is here that Enlightened Ethics make all the difference.
There are also a number of relative effects that enlightenment brings: rest, certainty, bliss, comfort, and the ultimate perspective on everything, from small issues such as your own peculiar attachments and desires, to the big Issues such as death. These effects most certainly come and go, and are therefore not absolute; but they are still nevertheless wonderful, and the transformation of one’s behaviour is most certainly easier once enlightened, as is the ability to enter various forms of mystical states and exercise various magical skills.
What is the criteria for identifying an enlightened person?
Because enlightenment is knowledge of the absolute, it cannot be defined or limited by specific behaviours, characteristics, ethics, magical powers or physical attributes.
However, enlightenment is the acquisition of a certain and specialised knowledge; it follows that the sole test for identifying an enlightened person is their ability to impart such knowledge. In other words, the facilitation of the experience of enlightenment for others. ‘By their fruits you shall know them.’
Beyond this, there is the inherent ability in every human being to recognise knowledge of the absolute in another just as we can recognise someone in grief or love. The more experience of enlightenment you have, the better equipped you are in determining the real from the fake.
But isn’t enlightenment wholly subjective? How can we possibly know someone is enlightened just on their claiming such an attainment?
All knowledge is subjective. And like all knowledge, whether it be knowledge of engineering, plumbing or gymnastics, enlightenment can be accurately described, the technicalities demonstrated and the acquisition of the knowledge replicated by the student.
Is it not silly to believe knowledge is something that can be seen, touched, tasted, smelled or heard? And yet this is the argument made by those who deny the reality of the absolute on the grounds it is not physical.
The sole validation of any knowledge is its replicability. Can enlightenment be replicated? Absolutely – it has been for thousands of years. I have replicated the experience for myself, as have many friends. But can you replicate it? Certainly, and I hope what is written here will help you do just that.
But how do I spot the frauds? Where should I begin?
The classical attributes of the enlightened person are detachment, equanimity, peacefulness, blissfulness, and compassion; yet these are all relative phenomena. Although enlightenment may very well engender these qualities in an individual, we cannot define enlightenment by these terms, because the absolute transcends any relative phenomena whatsoever. The frauds can be spotted by their insistence on defining enlightenment in relative terms – such as certain physical attributes, miraculous abilities, or some kind of permanent emotional state – that are most certainly unobtainable by any decent and able human being, and usually for a large fee.
The biggest pointer to identifying the genuine enlightened person is to begin the experiment yourself as best you can by finding those teachers or books that speak directly about practice and enlightenment in useful and practical terms. Practice with only a moderate amount of success will furnish you with enough knowledge to help identify the wheat from the chaff, and you will begin to cultivate the ability to recognise the truth in others.
There are as many unique traditions and schools of enlightenment as there are unique individuals who have become enlightened. Perhaps the biggest step towards enlightenment is discovering those traditions and teachings that work for you most.
Open Enlightenment will endeavour to provide just those teachings, teachers, talks and retreats that will lead to enlightenment, should this be your direction in life.