"I'm a Thelemite, not a Crowleyite." Thoughts?
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"AL I.3 "Every man and every woman is a star."
The New Comment
This thesis is fully treated in “The Book of Wisdom or Folly”. Its main statement is that each human being is an Element of the Cosmos, self-determined and supreme, co-equal with all other Gods.""AL II,18: “These are dead, these fellows; they feel not. We are not for the poor and sad: the lords of the earth are our kinsfolk.”
The New Comment
This idea is confirmed. Those who sorrow are not real people at all, not 'stars' – for the time being. The fact of their being 'poor and sad' proves them to be 'shadows,' who 'pass and are done.' "That he refers to them as "not real people at all" by itself is precisely the same technique of dehumanization used by genocidal maniacs, and it is what the psychopath feels to be true.
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@Hermitas said
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That he refers to them as "not real people at all" by itself is precisely the same technique of dehumanization used by genocidal maniacs, and it is what the psychopath feels to be true."Well, I guess. If that's the view you want to have about it. I mean, we homo sapiens did destroy the neanderthal in our physical and mental evolution to get to this place on the Internet where we can discuss these ideas.
Or, rather than genocidal thoughts, perhaps what if we just treated these "sorrowful" "neanderthals" without bother? They are not of us.
What if that was an interpretation?
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What I'm thinking these days...
Hadit and Nuit are polar opposites. Opposites.
Besides comparing what they affirm (no difference versus difference), you also see a little of this in the third chapter: ". . . with my force shall she see & strike at the worship of Nu: she shall achieve Hadit. . ."
Notice here how they are juxtaposed.
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So, I'm sitting here thinking that there's got to be a better way to think about these two contrasting perspectives other than to say that "Every man and every woman is a star... except when they are not," which is what Crowley did in the New Comment.
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My best answer is to consider each an extreme and opposing perspective. Each is an abyss of its own perspective.
The two are mediated between by one's True Will, which makes all the abstract perspective into concrete action that lies somewhere in neither extreme.
Anyway, best I got for now.
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It's so completely frustrating to me. You have two things that imply the Book of the Law isn't what it superficially seems:
". . . for who doth not understand these runes shall make a great miss. He shall fall down into the pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of Reason."
and
" . . . The Book of the Law is Written and Concealed."
Yet we look and there's the master himself interpreting the damned thing literally.
I just need to step away for a while.
...if possible.
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These are important ideas you've uncovered and are grappling with.
I agree with you that dehumanizing (as Crowley appears to be doing in the new comment you quote) is harmful for the reasons you bring up.
We could simply say that (a) Crowley was wrong, and being over-literal or (b) Crowley was somehow right.
We could say (as many have already) that since the concept of self and other is a toddler's delusion, scriptures that talk about jihad can just as easily be interpreted as speaking of an inner, spiritual war.
But the struggle is important.
How can we think and talk about change and evolution and killing off the things that have outlived their usefulness, without engaging in atavistic barbarism ourselves?
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I just think it a shame when so-called "Thelemites" can't swallow the hard medicines of life. I'm comforted only by knowing that Nature has her rules and will sort it out in the long term. Fortunately we don't have to dish welfare checks to Neanderthals, and someday again we'll see the validity of certain "unpopular" points of view and the OTO will republish MWT.
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news flash...
It is neither final, nor is it the whole truth.
One day, this precious mythos will be demonstrated to be just as insubstantial and transitory as the currently reviled Osirian mythos.
It is a teaching tool. Do you think the goal is really to make blind, obsequious followers of a religion who treat these "runes" as irrefutable fact? More slaves to dogma?
"Memento: Sequor."
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@Hermitas said
"news flash...
It is neither final, nor is it the whole truth.
One day, this precious mythos will be demonstrated to be just as insubstantial and transitory as the currently reviled Osirian mythos.
It is a teaching tool. Do you think the goal is really to make blind, obsequious followers of a religion who treat these "runes" as irrefutable fact? More slaves to dogma?
"Memento: Sequor.""
This would be the neither opinion. If you find these, and are so driven by your dogma of fear and loathing in Los Libers, you are neither also.
Of course it is transitory, but it isn't going away any generation soon. It's still in infancy. "It's all about the Babe."
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Whatever, Takamba.
I can't help but see the bigger picture.
Tamas, Rajas, and a double-natured Sattva. IAO.
That's what doesn't change. The rest is passing and based more on what most people need rather than absolute reality.
Remember? Like you say: All meaning is ascribed meaning.
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Part of me want to give Takamba what he wants and say, "Who even cares if I'm not a Thelemite? See ya!"
But there's some stuff I'm greatly attached to.
First...
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Love is the law, love under will."The above is a perfect expression, yielding incredible fruit upon meditation. It's a part of me.
Second, probably actually first of all...
I'm sold on the romance between Hadit and Nuit.
And I'm sold on the concept of the child, Heru-Ra-Ha, double-natured (though for some reason the passive side is hidden like a dark secret or something).
So, you know, Takamba, I like you an everything. Sometimes you say some awesome s***. But, you know, fuck off for now. I'm gonna live it like it suits me, under the authority of my own HGA.
And I agree with other great occult minds like Regardie, who describes Crowley in The Eye in the Triangle as sometimes just being an incredibly self-important, self-inflated asshat.