The Three Aeons

[Jim Eshelman]

Kinda like contact high

It's mentioned earlier in the Introduction to the book. Basically, reading the remainder of the book and visualizing what you read will activate parts of the brain not usually used by most people. As a result, those parts become more active and integrated. Reading the book, therefore, is a type of initiation.

[the atlas itch]

Reading the book, therefore, is a type of initiation.

Ok I'm sold.

[Jim Eshelman]

It might not fit within the parameters of what you are doing with the new book, but I'd love to see some mapping of these aeons and stages of consciousness to events in civilization and mythology - tool use, agriculture, adam & eve, etc., etc..

A couple of useful statistics - "tipping points" - might be of interest to you in the above.

As a preface, remember that I'm not seeing a time-based hard line or cut-off date. There is an extensive "blurring" transition. Some elements of ego-consciousness, for example, were surely extant while other characteristics were still substantially Isis-themed.

That said, I find the following interesting: Farming has been around quite a while - at least 10,000 years - but the "tipping point" of 5,000 years ago (about 3,000 BCE) marks the point where approximately half the human race had begun farming rather than just hunting-gathering. We might crudely take this as starting point of the Osiris Aeon. - The pattern unfurled from there, since the move from hunting-gathering to farming significantly altered the gender responsibilities, minimalizing the previously dominant female place in survival duties. It also allowed for the eventual building of communities, and it was in urbanization that the minimalizaton of women was accelerated.

Also, approximately 1900 CE was the point where half the human race had daily food. That's a huge shift! Think about it in terms of Abraham Maslow's models. That means that more humans than not were meeting one of the most crucial thresholds in deficit or survival needs. The emergence of the Horus Aeon at this juncture makes a great deal of sense!

[Avshalom Binyamin]

Very interesting.

In line with this, it's interesting what a prominent role food plays in Genesis.

Adam & Eve - don't eat this, or you'll die (although with the sense that you'll be born to something new...)
Cain & Abel - animal offerings have more life force (and, therefore, value) than vegetable offerings (a hint at levels of consciousness: plant > animal > man)
Noah - don't eat blood
Abraham - use intelligence to become prosperous, and use that prosperity to show hospitality (in the form of food) and gain favor
Isaac - famine in the land
Jacob & Essau - selling a birthright for food, and later tricking the father for the blessing by bringing him his favorite dish
Joseph - sold to slavery in Egypt, where he becomes a chief administrator in times of famine

You can really see a progression of how humans handled food, and the benefits it gave them.

For example, Cain & Abel, and Jacob & Essau, seemed to be in some ways an analogous pair. In the first story, there's murder and a curse. But in the second story, the more civilized, less hairy, less hunter-gatherer type, is cleverer, and fares better.

Or the famine of Isaac's time. The shepherd nomad is less prepared to deal with famine. But by Joseph's time, the 'good guy' is helping plan for a 7-year drought.

Basically, food becomes currency, stored energy, and the ability to plan and scheme and leverage it is a major tactical advantage.

[danica]

yesterdy, I was struck by this idea of simple correspondence:

Isis Aeon - Netzach
Osiris Aeon - Tiphareth
Horus Aeon - Geburah

it shows the progressive evolution of consciousness up the Tree, and also directly points out to the characteristic major archetypes of every Aeon.

Solar qualities of Horus are inherent, they are that which is presupposed - he is the Child, the Third from the marriage of Opposites. but his Geburan & Martial qualities need to be emphasized now - and that's what we see in Liber L, Ch. III

[Avshalom Binyamin]

I think that's mixing the sephiroth and the four worlds.

Nephesh, Yetzirah, and Briah seem a simpler correspondence to me...

But, if we're going with sephiroth, why not Malkuth, Yesod, Tiphareth?

[danica]

Nephesh, Yetzirah, and Briah seem a simpler correspondence to me...

yes, that deffinitely is the best 'fit'.

if we're going with sephiroth, why not Malkuth, Yesod, Tiphareth?

that sounds better because it's the Middle Pillar, and looks more 'natural' to map the collective evolution in that way on the Tree (i.e. only with Sephiroth, not Worlds). I would have to think about it deeper.
and maybe both are ok, having in mind that we can consider Netzach and Hod as polar reflections of the relationship between Yesod and Tiphareth... (and Geburah & Hesed as polarized higher octaves of Tiphareth -- which of course reflect the upper polar pair, supreme Mother and Father)

some things that come to mind in 'defense' to Netzach-Tiphareth-Geburah correspondence:

Isis-7- love, devotion, collective consciousness, collective forms of god-worshiping; the essential idea for spiritual development was that of merging individual self with the whole (-as represented in the King/Emperor archetype, which is the symbol of the divine). 'I' is not divine, but 'we' make it possible for Human being to become divine...
graphic symbol: Ankh (or Venus-glyph)

Osiris -6 - oneself made perfect, awakening of solar consciousness, 'I' is already 'we' and by giving up of the self completely, accepting death, the eternal life is recognized; ressurection; pisces-symbol (Nun - tha Path that connects Netzach and Tiphareth)...
graphic symbol: Cross, and cross circled (inside a circle) as a transitional form towards the next phase -->

Horus - 5 - war, destruction of the old outgrown forms, spiritual development is now reached through
individuation - a necessary phase, because the main principle is action and thus the concrete..
graphic symbol: not known yet
I assume the traditional Sun-glyph (Bull's eye, the target...) is a transitional form, from 6 to 5.
also, Lamed is the Path, and many interesting ideas spring out of that correspondence...

[RobertAllen]

Isis-7- love, devotion, collective consciousness, collective forms of god-worshiping; the essential idea for spiritual development was that of merging individual self with the whole (-as represented in the King/Emperor archetype, which is the symbol of the divine). 'I' is not divine, but 'we' make it possible for Human being to become divine...
graphic symbol: Ankh (or Venus-glyph)

Osiris -6 - oneself made perfect, awakening of solar consciousness, 'I' is already 'we' and by giving up of the self completely, accepting death, the eternal life is recognized; ressurection; pisces-symbol (Nun - tha Path that connects Netzach and Tiphareth)...
graphic symbol: Cross, and cross circled (inside a circle) as a transitional form towards the next phase -->

Horus - 5 - war, destruction of the old outgrown forms, spiritual development is now reached through
individuation - a necessary phase, because the main principle is action and thus the concrete..
graphic symbol: not known yet
I assume the traditional Sun-glyph (Bull's eye, the target...) is a transitional form, from 6 to 5.
also, Lamed is the Path, and many interesting ideas spring out of that correspondence...

Crowley makes a number of adjustments to the Old IAO formula. One is a re-arrangement into IOA:
Isis
Osiris
Apophis

The Apophis being associated with Horus.


Just another way to imagine the Aeonic progression as a cosmic magical formula?

love and will

[Angel of Death]

"Basically, food becomes currency, stored energy, and the ability to plan and scheme and leverage it is a major tactical advantage."

From my sources, currency originated as a symbol for food. Specifically when humans started to store food, the original clay coins were actual accountings of how much food was in the food storeage. It seems though that clay was very easy to counterfit, and thus rob the storehouses.

Thus began mankinds love of silver and gold......