Conceptualising the Daemon/HGA

[Wintruz]

I'm generally dismissive of those who conceive of their Daemon/HGA in frames that have been drawn from lazy places. What I mean is that someone buys "Radiant Rainbow Hawaiian Angel Cards" (or a "LHP" equivalent), draws a card, once, at random and then proceeds to identify their Daemon, their highest, most sublime Secret Self, with what they've randomly drawn. Sometimes this occurs in less obviously self-deceptive ways: I remember hearing an elderly relative describe a presence in their life that was manifestly their Daemon. They then proceeded to call this presence "Jessica" because a "psychic" (a known charlatan) in 1960s Leicester Square told this relative that they could see a Victorian nurse called Jessica following them around. I'm not saying a lecture on Neoplatonic theology was needed but "your Higher Self is guiding you" might have allowed the conscious mind to engage with things in a more open and powerful way.

In a certain sense, those who project a transparent need onto their Daemon are closer to things. Those who claim that their Daemon is Cleopatra or Satan himself might be unwittingly revealing what they lack, what they hope will enter their lives through contact with their Daemon. If it's powerful enough, that need may well actually draw their Daemon closer to them, the mask of Cleopatra/Satan dismissed the closer a "Knowledge and Conversation"-type encounter comes (for wise people at least, I'm sure there are fifty-five year old maniacs who claim that Satan is their personal Daemon).

I too do this at times: I conceptualise my Daemon as a historical personality who so utterly encapsulates the atmospheres and qualities that I've glimpsed when I've made breakthrough contacts with my Daemon/HGA. Because this is all so personal, I'll keep the historical figure to myself (no Xenophon, it's not Hitler) and I'm almost certain that it is a mask, merely a means by which the Daemon and I communicate with each other (at this stage though, the synchronicities are getting so ridiculous that I'm not sure I can dismiss out of hand that I've cottoned onto something by giving it this face and name). The Daemon doesn't mind what they're called, they will work with whatever rope we throw to them if it's done with sincerity.

Does anyone have any thoughts to offer on this? Any experiences? I know there are traditional and Cabalstic methods for deciphering names and so on but I'm more interested here in personal ways of conceptualising the HGA.

 

[Xenophon]

I'm generally dismissive of those who conceive of their Daemon/HGA in frames that have been drawn from lazy places. What I mean is that someone buys "Radiant Rainbow Hawaiian Angel Cards" (or a "LHP" equivalent), draws a card, once, at random and then proceeds to identify their Daemon, their highest, most sublime Secret Self, with what they've randomly drawn. Sometimes this occurs in less obviously self-deceptive ways: I remember hearing an elderly relative describe a presence in their life that was manifestly their Daemon. They then proceeded to call this presence "Jessica" because a "psychic" (a known charlatan) in 1960s Leicester Square told this relative that they could see a Victorian nurse called Jessica following them around. I'm not saying a lecture on Neoplatonic theology was needed but "your Higher Self is guiding you" might have allowed the conscious mind to engage with things in a more open and powerful way.

In a certain sense, those who project a transparent need onto their Daemon are closer to things. Those who claim that their Daemon is Cleopatra or Satan himself might be unwittingly revealing what they lack, what they hope will enter their lives through contact with their Daemon. If it's powerful enough, that need may well actually draw their Daemon closer to them, the mask of Cleopatra/Satan dismissed the closer a "Knowledge and Conversation"-type encounter comes (for wise people at least, I'm sure there are fifty-five year old maniacs who claim that Satan is their personal Daemon).

I too do this at times: I conceptualise my Daemon as a historical personality who so utterly encapsulates the atmospheres and qualities that I've glimpsed when I've made breakthrough contacts with my Daemon/HGA. Because this is all so personal, I'll keep the historical figure to myself (no Xenophon, it's not Hitler) and I'm almost certain that it is a mask, merely a means by which the Daemon and I communicate with each other (at this stage though, the synchronicities are getting so ridiculous that I'm not sure I can dismiss out of hand that I've cottoned onto something by giving it this face and name). The Daemon doesn't mind what they're called, they will work with whatever rope we throw to them if it's done with sincerity.

Does anyone have any thoughts to offer on this? Any experiences? I know there are traditional and Cabalstic methods for deciphering names and so on but I'm more interested here in personal ways of conceptualising the HGA.

The historical personages gambit can be used a number of ways. One rite I perform involves reference to the coming Cakravartin. I have found it helpful to identify this one with a succession of historical personages who strike me as exemplifying some of that one's needed virtues. Personages of lesser fame than Cleopatra or Satan or Caesar. Say, recipients of the "Knight's Crossed Garters Order awarded by the Duchy of Elbonia in their National War of Self-Immolation."* Genuine heroes all, but not perhaps commonly thought to have attained apotheosis.

Likewise where you use the non-Fuehrer, I draw on a historical figure who represents a folk whose history has been less than sterling (and which ones peed in my gene pool), who caught between a rock and a hard place stayed stubborn and got squished. This less out of personal masochism than the notion that one has to distill aether out of the unlikely stuff that one was born.

(* not being snide---I have a list of such ones, all historical, but drawn from a source I do not wish to name. Surprise, these were all in a conflict that did NOT befall 1939-45.)

 

[HoldAll]

Does anyone have any thoughts to offer on this? Any experiences? I know there are traditional and Cabalstic methods for deciphering names and so on but I'm more interested here in personal ways of conceptualising the HGA.

Here is a quote from Peter J. Carroll's "Liber Null & Psychonaut" (chapter "Augoeides"):

If any unnecessary or imbalanced scraps of ego become identified with the genius by mistake, then disaster awaits. The life force flows directly into these complexes and bloats them into grotesque monsters, one of which is the demon Choronzon.

Borrowing Crowley's favourite bogeyman is of course a scare tactic and not to be taken literally but I think it's true, and it's especially true when one inadvertently endeavours to squeeze a basically ineffable being into a familiar shape, at worst into an an idealized version of oneself which one then calls one's Higher Self because that road invariably leads to narcissism. From my own personal experience (I'm still in the early stages) I've found that it's best for practical reasons to follow the lore that the HGA gets assigned to us at birth as an objectively separate entitiy, which means ditching the psychological model altogether in favour of the spirit one; there is less of a temptation to project one's own egotistic notions into an 'alien' being than into a supposedly 'higher' aspect of one's own mind. In this way, the HGA remains an unknown quantity instead of just an exalted instance of myself that I'm free to explore (and mould) at leisure.

It's enough for me to sense a presence. I don't insist on any visuals. If that means speaking to thin air as Carroll and Brand recommends, which I briefly do several times a day, so be it, after all that's what I do every time I make a phone call. I've made a few attempts to have the angel answer back in the beginning but all I got was the voices of people familiar to me in real life telling me what I expected to hear (LARP country, in a word), so I immediately stopped. On the other hand, that presence I've begun feeling recently expresses itself in an unusual and unexpected way which I consider enough evidence that the experience is really genuine and I'm not busy creating a tulpa, thoughtform or whatever.

That's my personal approach. I want my HGA to be an otherwordly mystery, something that surprises me and defies expectation, something beyond the range of my imagination. As a result, I strive to conceptualize it as little as possible. Should I encounter a visual construct genuinely created by my HGA at some later stages, I'd assume it wants to tell or show me something, not because it is its genuine appearance. As of now I don't receive any visual or auditory input, and that's fine with me.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 1:10 PM

Right now I'm following Damon Brands "Magickal Destiny", very down-to-earth and commonsensical. Abramelinasque ordeals are unnecessary to attain the HGA, IMHO.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 1:11 PM

Sustained consistent effort is, I wanted to add.

 

[The God-King]

This seems to be a phenomenon by New Agers or novices. Smh.

 

[HoldAll]

One of the best pieces about the HGA I've ever read is tellingly called "Never Again Alone" by Rufus Opus in "The Holy Guardian Angel" anthology:

The Holy Guardian Angel is your Holy Guardian Angel, and it will be what it will be whatever you need it to be, whatever is necessary for you to become what you are supposed to be. It is an agent of your attainment. It brings you spirits, it connects you to wisdom, it teaches you, it provides for your needs, it gets you favorable attention and hides you from unwanted attention. It is your guide, your servant, your teacher, your informant, your mentor, your butler, your trainer, drill sergeant, Mother, Father, and Cool Uncle rolled into one.

Above all else, it is your friend.

Damon Brand takes the same line: the HGA is your friend. People tend to forget all about the future relationship between them and their Guardian Angel; they see it as a hard-won prize they feel entitled to after all those hoops various gruelling methods made them jump through. How would you wish to be things between you and your HGA? Although I don't think it will lend itself readily to the figure of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from "Full Metal Jacket", even if it gives you a well-deserved kick in the ass from time to time, but that's just me - call me naive and sappy but I like the idea of the HGA as my friend. I can't think of any character to conceptualize this notion right now but Lee Ermey's definitely not going to be it.

 

[Faria]

Does anyone have any thoughts to offer on this? Any experiences? I know there are traditional and Cabalstic methods for deciphering names and so on but I'm more interested here in personal ways of conceptualising the HGA.

Abramelin introduces the angel as the way to bind the four demon princes and their underlings, to have guidance and protection, and to execute some of the more benevolent and personal conjurations from Book 3. Since He is otherwise absent, this version of the angel looks a lot like a stand-in for Jesus Christ. If you're a 16th century Jewish mystic, it's understandable to want to exclude that fellow from the book, but from my perspective it looks very similar in tone and substance to people going off on a pilgrimage to find the Lord.

Crowley emphasizes the pilgrimage as well, and begins Magick with comparisons to Moses, Buddha, and Mohammed who all go off on their own and return as a prophet. He builds the whole system of Magick around this idea, to find your real self and its principles, to become a personification of the Will of God, much more than identifying a spirit assigned to be your buddy. Nonetheless it confused him throughout his life and at one point he even identified his HGA as a physical person he met by chance.

I believe that the True Will is whatever you actually end up doing. My True Will might be something awesome, but in reality I'm typing here, so that is my True Will. I think a lot of people really are looking for meaning and purpose in life more than just a spirit contact point, which they expect will be unveiled after a retreat from society and a determined effort to expose it. Unless I have completely misunderstood the majority of Thelemic literature, this is expected to be something more profound than a servient or protective spirit. I don't think it's something you can find or attain, and certainly not a separate entity, just a way of life that recognizes spiritual power in every person.