frater oz
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Thelema is a very cheesy religion. The only religions more ridiculous are Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster, and Discordianism. The rituals are like modified Hip-Hop and Zumba moves, set to an LOLable nonsense poem. I could go on and on pointing out everything silly about it, and don't think that you are any less ridiculous for sitting here having a "serious" discussion on Thelema.
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@Shadow Self said
"Thelema is a very cheesy religion. The only religions more ridiculous are Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster, and Discordianism. The rituals are like modified Hip-Hop and Zumba moves, set to an LOLable nonsense poem. I could go on and on pointing out everything silly about it, and don't think that you are any less ridiculous for sitting here having a "serious" discussion on Thelema."
That seems a bit trollish here, don't you think? Was that your intention?
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I like Frater Oz. Good on him for making the videos. I don't see many others promulgating Thelema on YouTube.
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I think he does an excellent job at explaining Thelema in a way that normal people can understand. In my experience it's a hard religion to sum up or explain to someone who doesn't already have occult interests. Also, he's definitely an OTO apologist, so he may be a useful source for people wondering if the OTO is for them.
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I love Oz personally, he's a great guy in my correspondences with him. His accent does kind of whip me out of the readings at times though LOL
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I don't think Fr. Oz and other commentators (I believe Tanhaus is another's nom de plum) are helping that much, because while they spread the "word" they are filling a vacuum which gives them a disproportionate influence on shaping outsiders' opinions. I don't know if youtube videos are Thelema's "best foot forward" and I don't know if I'd be inclined to take it particularly seriously if I saw these guys as my sole exemplars when I was a complete newbie.
Regarding the "troll" (?) post above - I am aware that the world of occultism, Thelema included, seems crazy/weird/silly/ridiculous to a lot of outsiders... I think it all comes down to the reverence one brings to it, and a lot of folks don't have much to go round.
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youtube videos couod be better, if thelema was presented properly as science and not as variations on the "law of attracrion" and leftist socialism.
Maybe Keith418 and John crow could give a clear exposition on what Thelema is, reviving their work from Thelema coast to coast.
Also a statement from Erwin Hessel woukd be very productive.
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@Escarabaj said
" I don't know if youtube videos are Thelema's "best foot forward" and I don't know if I'd be inclined to take it particularly seriously if I saw these guys as my sole exemplars when I was a complete newbie. "
I wonder if Frater Oz holds to the rule of not discussing the contents of Liber al vel Legis. This seems to be explicitly forbidden by the author.
Does this forum also follow that rule?
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@Zos said
"This seems to be explicitly forbidden by the author."
The author of the Book of the Law is Aiwass; the author of the Tunis Comment is Ankh-f-n-khonsu.
The comment also says, "There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt."
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The author is This man Edward Alexander Crowley.
Authorship is not dependent on real or feigned dissociative identity disorder, no matter what mystical or literary purposes this device has been employed for.
Aiwass in no more the author of the book of the law, than the Persian prophet Zarathustra is the author of Thus spoke Zarathustra, or the blind film critic "Zampano" in the author of any part of "House of leaves" or aliens from Serius B are the authors of Cosmic Trigger, God in the author of the bible, or Harvey the Pucca directed the movie Harvey.
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@Froclown said
"The author is This man Edward Alexander Crowley."
He never claimed it (and he claimed all sorts of things). He specifically disavowed it. And he was the only witness, so there's no basis for doubting his uncontested testimony.
"Authorship is not dependent on real or feigned dissociative identity disorder"
Agreed. None of those things are required for communication with transhuman beings.
"Aiwass in no more the author of the book of the law, than the Persian prophet Zarathustra is the author of Thus spoke Zarathustra, or the blind film critic "Zampano" in the author of any part of "House of leaves" or aliens from Serius B are the authors of Cosmic Trigger, God in the author of the bible, or Harvey the Pucca directed the movie Harvey."
Except... the only witness to the writing down of the book says that Aiwass was the author, and that witness had every opportunity to abscond with all the credit. Reason demands we believe the witness.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
@Froclown said
"The author is This man Edward Alexander Crowley."He never claimed it (and he claimed all sorts of things). He specifically disavowed it. And he was the only witness, so there's no basis for doubting his uncontested testimony.
"I think that's not entirely true. Rose Edith Kelley was a witness, enough so that she could produce corrections to some of the texts. Am I mistaken that that qualifies as a witness?
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Well, I excluded her as a witness because she wasn't in the room. (Crowley was clear that he was alone in the room.)
But if you count Aiwass talking to her directly, too, then (though she wasn't a witness to the dictation) I think we can count her as a witness to the "third party."
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Well, then I stand corrected.
And we now have to question her corrections (or at least I do) based on a video experiment I once participated in where at first I was certain that the perpetrator wore a yellow shirt (whereas later showing of the video proved it was a passer-by who wore a yellow shirt). -
Seeing as there are no such things as transcendent beings, you can not count them as authors of anything.
Crowley had some sort of mental phenomena, hallucination or dream, or dissociative episode.
Everything in the book of the law, is foreshadowed in his earlier works, that one can have brain episodes than improve creativity and produce strange ways of thinking that shock even yourself is not a new concept, and is well documented, proven, and the causal mechanisms explained.
That a long dead Egyptian priest could in some way transcend death and space time, concentrate his existence into a shadowy figure, and beam his thoughts into a man who will not even be born for centuries, in order to communicate a message on behalf of beings some how conscious though not consistent of any material nor localised in space time, such that a single man, who happens to be drug addict in a self admitted semi-delusional state (Possibly related to health issues.) Has no grounded in any sort of sensible science or fact, has never been observed to happen in a controlled situation, and has no evidence of any conceivable mechanism by which it could even be possible.
So despite Crowely's delusions as to the nature of his experience, we have no reason to accept that his subjective account is accurate. "A casual stroll through the insane asylum is proof that faith does not justify truth"
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"Crowley had some sort of mental phenomena, hallucination or dream, or dissociative episode."
This is an interpretive description
"a long dead Egyptian priest could in some way transcend death and space time, concentrate his existence into a shadowy figure, and beam his thoughts into a man who will not even be born for centuries, in order to communicate a message on behalf of beings some how conscious though not consistent of any material nor localised in space time"
This is an interpretive description
That said, I think that having thoughts beamed into your head by a long dead Egyptian priest qualifies as a sort of mental phenomena.
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If you accept that what Crowley claimed the experience to be, that such other worlds and unverified and infact counter factual things exist. Then why not accept David Ike's assertion than Crowley was actually an unwilling pawn being lied to by aliens reptiles linked to the dog star, and that he was bred for the purpose via cross-mating as a manchuran candidate used to create a psychic army against the grey aliens and others races or trans-dimensional aliens using modern day "prophets" to secure their power source in the pyramid of Atlantis.
If you accept some utter bullshit, you should be equally open to ALL utter bullshit.