- Joined
- Feb 28, 2024
- Messages
- 9
- Reaction score
- 10
Greetings. After reading some books on ceremonial magic and dwelling through some LHP readings, I've realized the necessity of returning to the fundamentals since I believed to be loosing my grasp on the basics. So after a (supposedly) fruitful re-read on the Corpus Hermeticum I've decided to read The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic once again.
But I have stumbled upon this part with a basic question:
How so? Éliphas Lévi is very incisive about the necessity of separating and dominating natural passions in this initial chapter and even praises the asceticism of ancient orders, referring the "surrendering to natural passions" as an attitude of a coward. The physical world and even the elements that shapes it's own order are incredibly amoral, dependent on instinct and raw urges to get it's way in this reality.
It's quite confusing to understand where is this statement coming from, since the author explicitly performs a schism between morality/reason and nature/passion in the very beginning of the chapter. I could interpret the statement "morality is analogous to the physical order" as true, since my belief is that the rawness and brutality of nature reflects the innate morality of the universe, that it cleanses what's unnecessary through relentless violent force, and builds, transforms, through sex, pleasure and animal desire. I don't know how magic would work without this sort of libidinal momentum. But it would render the schism between nature and reason completely invalid and artificial.
So, how would the dogma of High Magic connect the analogy between morality and the physical order, since apparently the source of immorality originates from "second hand products" of the physical world?
But I have stumbled upon this part with a basic question:
"Since morality is analogous to the physical order."
How so? Éliphas Lévi is very incisive about the necessity of separating and dominating natural passions in this initial chapter and even praises the asceticism of ancient orders, referring the "surrendering to natural passions" as an attitude of a coward. The physical world and even the elements that shapes it's own order are incredibly amoral, dependent on instinct and raw urges to get it's way in this reality.
It's quite confusing to understand where is this statement coming from, since the author explicitly performs a schism between morality/reason and nature/passion in the very beginning of the chapter. I could interpret the statement "morality is analogous to the physical order" as true, since my belief is that the rawness and brutality of nature reflects the innate morality of the universe, that it cleanses what's unnecessary through relentless violent force, and builds, transforms, through sex, pleasure and animal desire. I don't know how magic would work without this sort of libidinal momentum. But it would render the schism between nature and reason completely invalid and artificial.
So, how would the dogma of High Magic connect the analogy between morality and the physical order, since apparently the source of immorality originates from "second hand products" of the physical world?