03-10-2014, 09:08 AM
Re A E Waite, I'm sure you know he was a member of the Golden Dawn and was a Freemason - being a member of the Societas Roscruciana in Anglia, which was the home lodge of the three founding members of the Golden Dawn (Wynn Westcott, MacGregor Mathers and William Woodman).
I would look to these two organisations for the transmission of his knowledge that led to his deck (which again, as I'm sure you know, was illustrated by another member of the Golden Dawn. Some of the teachings and techniques of the Golden Dawn were profound. Not many members of the Golden Dawn were equal to the task, however. But this is the story of humanity as a species, I would argue.
In those days, almost everything about the occult was privately published and kept secret, only being circulated amongst lodges and schools. There were almost zero open transmission. Even later in the Sixties and Seventies the amount of information publicly available was still limited and what was available was only sold in two bookshops in London, hidden away in back streets. You were unlikely to trip across them by accident (it was probably different in the US, I suspect).
Today each school still retains it's own unique information that is transmitted only to senior members and is not made public -- although so much previously secret information is now in the public domain, that a diligent researcher with a budget - and a penchant for Indian, Egyptian and Chinese lore etc - could pull the underlying techniques and aims together fairly well. Yet this would only provide you with limited understanding. Looking at a meal prepared by a Michelin star chef and knowing the ingredients and techniques used to prepare said meal is intellectually stimulating but in no way allows one to taste and participate in the meal - which is, of course, the entire purpose of it.
And I would add that, in the last analysis, the origin, transmission and discovery of knowledge, throughout history, depends entirely upon actual participation. This is the the key to the raison d'être of all genuine schools. If this were not the case they would be next to useless.
Anyway, Jung's Collective Unconscious explains why this is so.
I would look to these two organisations for the transmission of his knowledge that led to his deck (which again, as I'm sure you know, was illustrated by another member of the Golden Dawn. Some of the teachings and techniques of the Golden Dawn were profound. Not many members of the Golden Dawn were equal to the task, however. But this is the story of humanity as a species, I would argue.
In those days, almost everything about the occult was privately published and kept secret, only being circulated amongst lodges and schools. There were almost zero open transmission. Even later in the Sixties and Seventies the amount of information publicly available was still limited and what was available was only sold in two bookshops in London, hidden away in back streets. You were unlikely to trip across them by accident (it was probably different in the US, I suspect).
Today each school still retains it's own unique information that is transmitted only to senior members and is not made public -- although so much previously secret information is now in the public domain, that a diligent researcher with a budget - and a penchant for Indian, Egyptian and Chinese lore etc - could pull the underlying techniques and aims together fairly well. Yet this would only provide you with limited understanding. Looking at a meal prepared by a Michelin star chef and knowing the ingredients and techniques used to prepare said meal is intellectually stimulating but in no way allows one to taste and participate in the meal - which is, of course, the entire purpose of it.
And I would add that, in the last analysis, the origin, transmission and discovery of knowledge, throughout history, depends entirely upon actual participation. This is the the key to the raison d'être of all genuine schools. If this were not the case they would be next to useless.
Anyway, Jung's Collective Unconscious explains why this is so.
Quote:The collective unconscious is an universal datum, that is, every human being is endowed with this psychic archetype-layer since his/her birth. One can not acquire this strata by education or other conscious effort because it is innate.We may also describe it as a universal library of human knowledge, or the sage in man, the very transcendental wisdom that guides mankind.
Jung stated that the religious experience must be linked with the experience of the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Thus, God himself is lived like a psychic experience of the path that leads one to the realization of his/her psychic wholeness.
Jung about the Collective Unconscious
The collective unconscious - so far as we can say anything about it at all - appears to consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all nations are its real exponents. In fact, the whole of mythology could be taken as a sort of projection of the collective unconscious... We can therefore study the collective unconscious in two ways, either in mythology or in the analysis of the individual. (From The Structure of the Psyche, CW 8, par. 325.)
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Carl Jung - Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14