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Jan. 31st, 2010 10:26 amI'm almost feeling bac to normal. My head's still foggy, and my throat still aches, but not as much as before.
Warning, jargon-filled spirituality talk ahead:
I finally got myself a copy of The Middle Pillar, by Israel Regardie*. (Garden of Pomegranates, too, though I haven't started on that one yet.) I haven't read it since J left, but it influenced me a lot way back when. Now that I'm more mature and focused, I'm able to consider it more deeply. It works as a very good Guide To Understanding Large Swaths Of My Philosophy, so I'm letting myself mark it up with comments and underlines, something I never, ever do. The edition I got has comments by the Ciceros, which I'm grateful for because I agree with them that sometimes Regardie pulls a WTF. It drives me bonkers that he identifies the Freudian id with the highest levels of the Qabalistic soul. Even if I didn't just want to leave Freud out of the picture entirely, I'd say the id=nephesh** and leave it at that.
*Recent occultist who studied Qabala through a Jungian lens. Re-reading him, it looks like he's got the same Catholic slant that I've got.
**to be simplistic, the animal soul. If ever you see the word "ghost" or "corpse" in the Old Testament, the original word may well have been "nephesh." One the reasons I like Qabala is that it gives me a new way of looking at the Bible and faith I grew up with. It's gone a long way to reconciling grown-up me with childhood me.
Warning, jargon-filled spirituality talk ahead:
I finally got myself a copy of The Middle Pillar, by Israel Regardie*. (Garden of Pomegranates, too, though I haven't started on that one yet.) I haven't read it since J left, but it influenced me a lot way back when. Now that I'm more mature and focused, I'm able to consider it more deeply. It works as a very good Guide To Understanding Large Swaths Of My Philosophy, so I'm letting myself mark it up with comments and underlines, something I never, ever do. The edition I got has comments by the Ciceros, which I'm grateful for because I agree with them that sometimes Regardie pulls a WTF. It drives me bonkers that he identifies the Freudian id with the highest levels of the Qabalistic soul. Even if I didn't just want to leave Freud out of the picture entirely, I'd say the id=nephesh** and leave it at that.
*Recent occultist who studied Qabala through a Jungian lens. Re-reading him, it looks like he's got the same Catholic slant that I've got.
**to be simplistic, the animal soul. If ever you see the word "ghost" or "corpse" in the Old Testament, the original word may well have been "nephesh." One the reasons I like Qabala is that it gives me a new way of looking at the Bible and faith I grew up with. It's gone a long way to reconciling grown-up me with childhood me.
