20 February 2004: The Inanna Dialogue, Part Four

More of my correspondence with Lila. She's the one in purple.

I recommend reading Parts One, Two, and Three before you try to make sense of this one.

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Hey Nicky,

“The experience of that which has never occured to one before and for which one can never truly be prepared.” Yes, that sounds about right.

You’re also completely right about the “continued progression” of my “exposure” in my episodic initiations into bondage. I won’t go into detail about any of that here, because I’ll be continuing to chronicle my bondage experiences in my blog, and I don’t want to spoil the suspense for any of my readers who are also reading this.

You’re also right about the parallel with the Inanna myth. “That’s interesting,” as Captain Jack Sparrow would say. (Did I tell you that in the past two months I’ve had three dreams where I was Captain Jack Sparrow? My first trans-gender dreams ever, and I get to be played by Johnny Depp!) (Also interesting that my trans-gender dreams happened around the same general time as your trans-gender ritual experiences. Another one of those “coincidences” you love so much.)

What are you getting at, here? That experiences of erotic submission that bring one to new levels of exposure are reflections of the same archetypal initiation myths as experiences that bring one to new levels of mystical consciousness? That’s a pretty mind-blowing concept, but I think you’ve got something there.

The experience of being tied up and tormented/tickled/teased to hysteria is definitely an experience of an altered state of consciousness. I don’t know how it compares with psychedelic drugs, since I don’t do those, or with other mystical experiences, since I don’t do those either. Here are a couple of thoughts, though:

1.) Crowley, and all the people I know who are into yoga and meditation, talk a lot about stopping “mental chatter” as being the key to reaching “satori” or other states of mystical consciousness. Well, let me tell you, there’s nothing like being tickled and erotically tormented into hysteria to get rid of mental chatter. I’ve heard zen-heads talk about satori as being “in the now.” Believe me, when I was being tickled during my second bondage experience, my mind was on nothing but the present moment. Is that a satori? How would you “map” it on the Tree of Life?

2.) You talked about the infant god in Crowley’s Aeon card symbolizing “the magician’s body renewed,‘rebirthed,’ and sanctified.” It’s interesting comparing that with the infant-like state I was reduced/regressed to at the end of my second bondage experience. And my “sleeping like a baby” afterwards. As you’ve seen for yourself, being tied up and pushed to my limits still has that effect on me to this day.

Your turn again.

Dear Lila,

Ah! Thank you for those observations. This is exactly why I wanted to have this dialogue with you.

“Experiences of erotic submission that bring one to new levels of exposure are reflections of the same archetypal initiation myths as experiences that bring one to new levels of mystical consciousness.” Beautifully put. Better than I could have said it. And yes, that is indeed exactly what I’m getting at.

How would I “map” your bondage-induced altered states on the Tree of Life? What a great question!

I agree that the “rebirthing” effect you experience is an example of the action of the “Perpetual Intelligence” of the Shin or Judgment path. In any initiatic experience, it’s the activation of that intelligence, the act of tapping into that path, that allows physical experience (e.g.,my ritual movements, the dance of a Sufi or a raver, your erotic torment) to induce major shifts in consciousness, and that allow those shifts in consciousness, in turn, to act upon the physical body.

But that’s just what sets the stage. That’s the creation of the charged mind/body state that creates the potential for other consciousness shifts to happen, the way plugging in a computer and hitting the “on” switch creates the potential for you to access the computer’s other capabilities.

I think that the big shift in consciousness you experience when tied up and “erotically tormented to hysteria” is an experience of accessing Netzach via the Tower path: the collapse of coherent language-based thought and ego structures under the onslaught of a tidal wave of feeling, of overwhelming somatic/emotional experience.

This explains the “regression” effect: you’re experiencing what it’s like to not have those thought and ego structures filtering your sensory and emotional experience – which is the state that babies live in.

A few notes:

1.) This is only one aspect of the Tower path, one way of experiencing it. I could write a whole book on just the Tower path. The Tower path encompasses all of the infinite possible interactions between Hod and Netzach. The particular natures of Hod and Netzach dictate that the path that connects them must needs encompass an even wider range of phenomena, an even wider range of possibilities, and an even wider range of interpretations than most other paths. I mention this in the hope of preventing our readers from forming the misconception that my above statements constitue my comprehensive assessment of what the Tower card “means,” or of the “right” way to experience the Tower path.

2.) This seems like a good time to mention a principle that I never see other Kabbalah writers mention explicitly: the means by which you access a sephira shape your experience of that sephira. The experience of America, for someone who sneaks across the Mexico/Texas border with nothing but the clothes on his back, is very different from the experience of America for someone who flies first-class from Stockholm to Boston to begin a lecture tour of Ivy League colleges. Works the same way with experiencing a sephira: The experience of Netzach that you get from being “erotically tormented to hysteria” is different from the experience of Netzach that I get from doing paratheatrical ritual work, which in turn is different from the experience of Netzach that one gets from doing a large dose of cannabis, which in turn is different from the experience of Netzach that one gets from doing Ecstasy at a rave.

(Aargh! I said “doing Ecstasy at a rave!” I can’t even begin to imagine how many Google searchers that’s going to draw to this page! Pederast Clown Syndrome strikes again! Speaking of which, would you mind if I reprinted your delightful step-by-step description of how Pederast Clown Syndrome works?)

3.) Just as the Judgment path is associated with the awakening of a form of intelligence called the “Perpetual Intelligence,” the Tower path is associated with the awakening of (you’ll like this) the “Exciting Intelligence.”

Hey Nicky,

Yes, by all means, reprint my description of how Pederast Clown Syndrome works! My new goal in life is to get the term into common enough usage that every net-head knows what it means, and it ends up getting into a dictionary somewhere.

Here’s the description (which all your readers have permission to reprint anywhere, to help me spread it):

1.) You mention pederast clowns in your blog.

2.) Pederast clowns start to visit your site after it shows up in their Google searches for pederast clown sites.

3.) You check your referrer logs, and you’re distressed to see that your site has become a magnet for pederast clowns. You mention this in your blog.

4.) The additional mention of pederast clowns causes your site to appear nearer to the top of the list of Google search results for pederast clown sites, which causes your blog to get even more visits from pederast clowns.

5.) You post an angry rant about all the pederast clowns who are flocking to your site.

6.) Because the term “pederast clowns” shows up repeatedly in your angry rant, your site is now the number one search result that Google returns when someone does a search for “pederast clowns.”

7.) Your site is now visited by thousands of pederast clowns every day.

 

Thanks for all these interesting and thought-provoking Tarot and Kabbalah lessons you’re giving me in this conversation. I love your explanations and your “mapping” of experiences, because they answer the question that none of the books I’m reading answer, the question that one would think would be uppermost in most students’ minds: “How can I actually get to these states of higher consciousness you keep going on about?”

Even more amazing than the depth and scope of Crowley’s knowledge, even more amazing than how much writing he managed to do in a life that crazy, is the way he can go on about the details of the Great Work for that many pages without saying a single thing that’s helpful in any practical way.

Okay, just one more Tarot question, and then we can get back to Inanna and kinky sex: I notice that in your version of the Hierophant card (which I love), the hot naked chick bears a highly suspicious resemblance to Inanna (as she’s portrayed in Promethea), and also to Promethea herself. Intentional? And, if so, what’s it mean?

 

The Inanna Dialogue
continues next entry.