Service to Self, Service to Others
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Redd Fez said,
"Had some thoughts recently about this that are hard for me to flesh out on my own. Is there an underlying idea in Thelema that service to self and service to others is really the same thing? "Yes. Is that the message?
I understand that Thelema means will. I understand that if we align ourselves to the True Will, that is the divine purpose for us being on earth, that is is our true will. The will to good is the love of whatever creates us. I think. The creator has joy in creating.
Do what thou wilt means then, to me, go with the flow of your life, accept who you are and what you want, and fulfill your desires, because ultimately it is all the same purpose - for us to realize our godhood. You need to escape from being what you think you ought to be, to being all that you are, fully, completely.
I would like more information on this, too.
In L.V.X,
chrys333 -
@Redd Fezz said
"Is there an underlying idea in Thelema that service to self and service to others is really the same thing?"
From One Star In Sight, in the context of a discussion of the Exempt Adept: "...should be already prepared to perceive that the only possible course for him is to devote himself utterly to helping his fellow creatures."
It's not that service to self is the same as service to others. Say, rather, that service to others is service to self (as well as service to SELF).
93s
Dan -
Good responses! Maybe if Thelema hasn't been brought into the political and economic arenas, someone should get the ball rolling! I wonder how it would work. Everytime I start to envision it, I get lost in a sort of anarchist kind of fog... the crucial element escapes me that would get the "big picture" working-- a truly free society. Maybe that's something that can only be figured out after 500 years of darkness.
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Thank you, Dan.
That was great.
In L.V.X.,
chrys333 -
@ar said
"
From One Star In Sight, in the context of a discussion of the Exempt Adept: "...should be already prepared to perceive that the only possible course for him is to devote himself utterly to helping his fellow creatures."It's not that service to self is the same as service to others. Say, rather, that service to others is service to self (as well as service to SELF).
93s
Dan"This brings up an interesting point regarding Crowley. I'm sure you can guess where this is headed... which brings me to my next quote...
@whitewolf said
"Comparing to other philosophies/beliefs, Thelema is pro-active, and will probably influence political thinking at some point in the future.
Or maybe not. Maybe Crowleyanity will be the influencer, and Thelema (like Christian Gnosticism) will be reserved for the few. "
Crowleyanity vs. Thelema: the sort of thing these questions ultimately led me to wonder about, yet again! Why was Crowley's behavior sometimes at odds with this basic message of Service To Others?
I've read that Crowley's failings guarantee he will not be revered as God the way Jesus was, but (1) I doubt this was his plan, since he always had a mean streak in him, and (2) whether it was his plan or Divine plan to contrast the man so much with the message for this purpose, Crowleyanity still exists. In fact, it seems to me (keyword: seems) that popular interest in Crowley is mostly due to his personality and his black sense of humor, which is often taken at face value by wannabe Satanists. Just go over to Aeclectic Tarot's website, click on "thoth deck" and right at the top of the list is a years-old thread called "Crowley is god!"
So, if the message of Thelema is "Service To Others," why the selfish actions, the morbid fascinations, and the justifications/ rationalizations for selfish actions by the very prophet of the New Aeon himself? Somewhere in "Magick Without Tears," Crowley pontificates that for a man to beat a woman, it must be the woman's true will to be beaten[1]. This line of reasoning is guaranteed to justify whatever you can get away with as Service To Other, To Self and To SELF.
What say you all?
[1] I could be remembering partially or incorrectly, but this is my memory. The idea struck me as so twisted, that I read it over and over believing there must be a joke in there somewhere. If there was, I couldn't find it.
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"It's not that service to self is the same as service to others. Say, rather, that service to others is service to self (as well as service to SELF).
"I fundamentally agree with this statement. Just as in mathematics, the x, y, are interchangeable.
It DOES serve self to follow your True Will, just as it is service to others.Service to self comes from selfish action, but there is positive selfish action, and negative selfish action. Most often, when people use the term "selfish", it is used in the negative fashion, and is thus misleading. Ignorance of the meaning leads to misunderstanding.
As for AC's "bad behaviour," you can't have the fruits without the roots.
93, 93/93
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"Reading through Crowley's diaries, I am struck by his self-effacing honesty. He did not engage in hypocritical fictions and myth-making regarding some sanctimonious, special holiness, or chosen status conveyed on his person by his spiritual office as Prophet. In fact, he insisted on minutely describing his reveling, even wallowing, in his humanity. He openly and honestly shares his failings, weakness, poverty, confusion, despair, and cravings. His approach is completely unique among spiritual teachers. His promise seems to be that as a demonstrated, self-proclaimed, fellow human being, he attained. And our common humanity is the seal of the availability of attainment to us all.
Aleister Crowley and the Practice of the Magical Diary ~ James Wasserman"
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@Her said
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"Reading through Crowley's diaries, I am struck by his self-effacing honesty. He did not engage in hypocritical fictions and myth-making regarding some sanctimonious, special holiness, or chosen status conveyed on his person by his spiritual office as Prophet. In fact, he insisted on minutely describing his reveling, even wallowing, in his humanity. He openly and honestly shares his failings, weakness, poverty, confusion, despair, and cravings. His approach is completely unique among spiritual teachers. His promise seems to be that as a demonstrated, self-proclaimed, fellow human being, he attained. And our common humanity is the seal of the availability of attainment to us all.Aleister Crowley and the Practice of the Magical Diary ~ James Wasserman"
"That is a great quote, but it's not really an answer to the question posed regarding Service To Others. I mean, service to others should not just be lip service, but obviously the goal of any Thelemite would be to constantly live this in reality. So, if failing in this regard means nothing, then the concept means nothing itself, does it? Or does it?
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@Redd Fezz said
"That is a great quote, but it's not really an answer to the question posed regarding Service To Others. I mean, service to others should not just be lip service, but obviously the goal of any Thelemite would be to constantly live this in reality. So, if failing in this regard means nothing, then the concept means nothing itself, does it? Or does it?"
It may be the goal, but being human means that sometimes you fall short of the goal. I've never met a perfect human being. Have you? (I don't think it's valid to look back at ancient masters in this respect. Jesus, Buddha etc. We know nothing about their private lives. We know everything about Crowley and that makes all the difference.)
Crowley may have been capable of reaching high states of consciousness, but was he always working from those states 24/7? I doubt it.I used to be a little bugged by Crowley's bad behaviour. But these days it doesn't bother me all that much. The sort of things that Crowley did seems to be a common feature among many spiritual masters. They all have faults of one kind or another. And sometimes harsh treatment is just par for the course. Check out how some Zen masters treat their pupils. It's a real eye opener.
I'm also reminded of the arival of the first Zen masters in America. Those poor guys were expected to be great saints and gurus. What a shock it was when they turned out to be less than perfect.
But who's fault was that? It wasn't the Zen masters fault. They were just themselves. Their only failing was that they failed to live up to other peoples unrealistic expectations.As for service to others, how do you really know what someone else needs. (Most people can't even help themselves half the time.
)
That reminds me of something that the Buddhist master, Chogyam Trungpa said (apart from being enlightened he was also an alcoholic and slept with many of his students. ) about people not being fit to help others until they became fit to help themselves. -
@whitewolf said
"I fundamentally agree with this statement. Just as in mathematics, the x, y, are interchangeable. It DOES serve self to follow your True Will, just as it is service to others."
Acting in accordance with one's True Will is foremost the reduction of friction among component units of the whole.
The result is of concurrent and inseparable benefit both to the component units and to the whole. The Hadit perspective and Nuit perspectives both reduce pain and increase pleasure as a result (to anthropomorphize what is essentially a mechanics problem in the optimization of the workings of the universe).
"Service to self..."
...changes in how we understand it as our understanding of "self" changes.
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@Redd Fezz said
"Don't get me wrong, I realize the man spent every last penny in the attempt to better himself and humanity, but wasn't a saint, was he?
""Saint" means "one who is sanctified." Technically, therefore, and aside from, say, the Roman Catholic procedures for identifying and labeling (which AC would have passed but for the political qualifications), a saint is one graced by Neshamah. (There are surely better words for that, these are just the ones that tumbled out.) In that sense: Hell ya!
And - to knowingly stir a controversy that might need its own thread - what does character (or behavior in general) have to do with sanctity? Yeah, I know that some historic religious perspectives have related the two, but I honestly think the two have little to do with each other directly. Character can determine how easy it is to attain sanctity (the personality can be both a support or hindrance when one is undergoing spiritual training), and how easy it is to carry out one's gifted purpose thereafter (human relations usually is a factor in one's effectiveness dealing with others), but these are more or less collateral matters. I am suggesting that there is neither inherent nor necessary relationship between behavior and sanctity.
Crowley's Confessions has a particularly fascinating section discussing the year after he attained to Master of the Temple (essentially the whole of the year 1910). The key point was that the awakened Master of the Temple, performing its own inward work, freed the personality called Aleister Crowley to go its own way without control or hindrance by the M.T.! That year was one both of unusually fine and prolific expressions of genius, and a persistent pattern of being an utter ass. Meanwhile, indifferent to what the personality Crowley was doing, the Master of the Temple, S.'.H.'. Fra. V.V.V.V.V, went about His work.
My reading of this is that a couple of things had happened, and perhaps both are part of the necessary adjustment (sometimes taking years - possibly taking a lifetime) that the 8=3 initiate has to undergo in a similar way to how the new 5=6 finds all of reality completely remapped and represented. In both cases, the whole universe appears so vastly altered - or, at least, one's relationship to it - that one has to rediscover it almost from first premise forward. (Yeah, that's good, I think - because it's one's First Premise that has been so altered in those steps, and everything else has to be brought back into relationship with that before anything much makes sense.)
One thing that has occurred is that the new Master of the Temple (surely unconsciously) puts the actions of the personality in an entirely new perspective, and reacts to them as if they are of no more particular consequence than the weather (which we only tend to notice more than passingly when it is particularly horrible or outstandingly fine). The exception, of course, is when He needs it for some particular purpose - viz., we notice the weather more when planning a picnic. Or, one may only notice the hole a shirt when one has to pick a garment to wear that will give a specific impression (or when the weather is bad! <g>). The personality is not that different from a shirt in some ways.
Another thing that has happened, I think, is that there has been a change in the personality's focus and efforts. To frame it in terms of the most common situation: However intimate the relationship between the Adept and the HGA has become, and no matter what expanse of the universe one perceives and what measure of Understanding one has been gifted to receive, even the G.'.H.'. Adeptus Exemptus 7=4 still experiences himself or herself substantially in terms of the personality; and that personality is, among other things, one that is aspiring (sometimes as a "front burner" preoccupation, sometimes with a pot further back on the stove top) to that which still lies beyond. On entering the Abyss, however, there is a change - effective "effort," in any prior sense, just isn't possible any longer. Thereafter, on attaining to Binah and the 8=3 Grade, quite a few things have changed. For one thing, there is no longer a "center of identification" with the personality in the old sense, and so how we "shore ourselves up" self-consciously isn't the same. For another, just as a runner stops the "give it everything" striving soon after crossing the finish line, or just as the particular momentum of the body and psyche commonly cease their prior activity and "switch gears" soon after orgasm, the personality "is done with" its prior activity after 8=3 is attained and tends to "doze off" semi-forgotten to stumble about its own way, usually with no particular attention from what we judgmentally regard as its "best part" - its profound spiritual part - which, in the hour (or for weeks or months or years) has its attention elsewhere.
I haven't reread this and don't know if it makes any sense. It's been mostly a "dump," and shouldn't be regarded as a contemplated essay. It's here for what good it may do anyone (and for the "trouble" it can cause, I suppose). I've enjoyed watching this thread develop unmolested by me. A few of today's posts gave me something specific to which to respond, so there you go.
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@Her said
"I used to be a little bugged by Crowley's bad behaviour. But these days it doesn't bother me all that much."
Frankly, when turning on a light switch I don't recall ever contemplating Edison's character or the details of his life except (very rarely) to think about those character traits which led to his success as an inventor.
In riding in a car, I suspect I have never contemplated Henry Ford's character a single time.
In literature, where there is so much of the author, I have occasionally indulged in speculation about the life of the author that poured into it - thoughts of Poe's depression, curiosity of Shakespeare's life, etc. - but really only when I had a separate curiosity about the person and his or her life, or when occasionally struggling to connect what I'm reading with the human experience through the person who wrote it.
But this isn't even necessary for all writing. I love the books by Gail Sheehy over the years and, while understanding that her digging into life's transitional stages was surely motivated by passing through them herself and seeing people she loved do so, I've never particularly cared to learn how well she handled her own life-passages.
Those who have a particular interest in the life of Jesus nonetheless seem not to ask the question of how many times he smashed his thumb with a hammer while Joseph taught him to make benches. Gandhi has been the subject of intense biographical scrutiny, yet if there is any reference to his losing his temper ever then it is usually just as a plot device to show his rededication later (when he still lost his temper!). Speaking of lost tempers, Paul Foster Case was repeatedly described both as a gracious gentleman and as a person with a ferocious temper, but his successors tend not to mention that and to focus on the work he left behind.
I regard Crowley, in the list above, closer to Edison than any of the others. He was a scientist who left a huge body of work including - and, to me, foremost - a specific step-by-step process which, if followed diligently and precisely, will produce a specific set of scientific results. Although I had an interest in the personality of Crowley long before I had anything else of substance to think about him, and though his diaries and biography are enormous source materials for me as a scientist in the same field, and I have often studied them as I would any other scientist's lab notes, there is another side of it: When I apply the science he developed and forwarded, I rarely stop to even think about the person who developed it or what his life was like or how he behaved - no more than I think about Edison routinely when flipping a light switch.
YMMV.
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@Redd Fezz said
"I am not talking about his crankiness or passive bad behavior, such as ignoring the screams of a dying man rather than helping him. I am thinking, for example, of this entry in his private diary:
"[Rose Kelly] hath given Her two year old bastard boy to her lover’s whim of sodomy...She hath tounged Her five-month old girl, and asked its father to deflower it."
Unless I am missing some great joke here...?"
What does that have to do - one way or the other - with the subject of this thread?
It's a hurt and pissed-off ex-husband's emotional remark. (What's the date on that, btw? Provenance, please.)
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Redd Fezz said
"I am not talking about his crankiness or passive bad behavior, such as ignoring the screams of a dying man rather than helping him. I am thinking, for example, of this entry in his private diary:"[Rose Kelly] hath given Her two year old bastard boy to her lover’s whim of sodomy...She hath tounged Her five-month old girl, and asked its father to deflower it."
Unless I am missing some great joke here...?"
What does that have to do - one way or the other - with the subject of this thread?
It's a hurt and pissed-off ex-husband's emotional remark. (What's the date on that, btw? Provenance, please.)"
To abuse such innocent children can't be "service to others," can it? Which is why I asked if I was missing something about the intentions of this diary entry. Is he not referring to himself there in the 3rd person as he does? Is something else other than pedophilia implied there?
JIM: Please note, if anything I have written is bogus or a misunderstanding, I wish you would do everyone the favor of deleting it or putting a moderator note next to it explaining the error. I don't mean to slander the man or spread misinformation. I am only trying to understand the man! And I do not mind at all if erroneous comments are deleted or whatever. In fact, I appreciate it.
As for the origin of that quote you asked for, I found it whilest Googling for info and, as I re-enter the phrase, I now see it is primarily something that only pops up on anti-crowley / anti-masonic websites. I suppose that could mean it is entirely fabricated or taken out of context. I figured someone here would be familiar with the quote, which is why I brought it up. It is disturbing to me and I would like clarification. thanks!
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@Redd Fezz said
"1. the sexual molestation of his 2 year old son and 6 month old daughter? Uh... joke?"
I have no reason to believe this event ever occurred.
"2. Liber Samekh, being an invocation of Satan, means that he has replaced the Abramelin operation, which prays to Jehovah, with one that, instead, prays to Satan."
Long subject - not given to short answers - but, to me, irrelevant. It's not a "prayer to Satan" regardless. Ultimately, Satan is just another name, just another Qabalistic formula. In the Abramelin working, after the attainment of the K&C there is a distinctive stage in which one calls forth a series of beings beginning with the Four Great Princes of the Evil of the World - one of whom is Satan - and these are pledged in harmlessness and service to oneself and one's Angel.
This particular step was key to my own initiation to a certain A.'.A.'. grade. Therefore, when asked if I worship Satan, I thoughtfully and truthfully respond: No, not at all, in fact he occasionally worships me.
The reason a full answer would take a lot of time is that one first has to understand who and what Satan is.
But one thing of great importance in answering your question: The ritual Liber Samekh most specifically does not include the name Satan at any point. The document Liber Samekh includes it in a commentary line in the Invocation of Air. The "barbarous name" A-ThELE-BER-SET is Qabalistically interpreted as "Thou Satan-Sun Hadit that goest without Will!" "Satan" is used here where "Set" is written, I suspect because it will be more understandable to the intended audience. But FWIW that's not a line that is read or recited in the performance of the ritual. Similarly, in the Invocation of Fire, the name AR-O-GO-GO-RU-ABRAO is Qabalistically interpreted as "Thou spiritual Sun! Satan, Thou Eye, Thou Lust! Cry aloud! Cry aloud! Whirl the Wheel, O my Father, O Satan, O Sun!" where "Satan" and "Eye" and "Lust" are interpretations of the syllable O - that is, the Hebrew A'ayin, which the mildest and most pious of Christian Qabalists calls "The Devil." (Ditto a few lines later where OOO - A'ayin A'ayin A'ayin - is translated effectively as "The Devil! The Devil! The Devil!" (in Crowley's more elaborate words, "Satan, thou Eye, thou Lust!"). - He didn't write the Greek original, he just commented on it according to pretty ordinary Qabalistic conventions. - Ditto in the Earth invocation with the O at the end of the name AThOR-e-BAL-O, and the name OO in the Spirit section.
"This would lead one to believe that Crowley's HGA, Aiwaz, was Satan himself."
Everybody's H.G.A. is Satan, in the precise sense that he meant it in his commentary: solar, fiery, passionate, ecstatic, etc.
"3. Crowley indeed said Aiwaz was Satan. Aquino from Temple of Set and Grant from the Typhonian O.T.O. agree. Set = Shaitan = Satan = Aiwaz."
Which means what, exactly?
I reminded of a conversation I had with a dear sister in another Order long ago where I was serving as a Chief. She overheard my mate and me say that we were "not Christians." This through her for such a loop that she went to the third Chief and asked for help. In the resulting meeting among the four of us it came out that, in her mind, "Christian" and "good, decent person" were synonymous, and that she thought we were proudly proclaiming, "We are in no sense good, decent people!" That not only didn't match her perception of us, but she couldn't understand why anyone would do that. All it took was her knowing that we didn't mean what she thought we meant - and she was quite happy again.
So with the remark above. I'd bet money that you are equating the name Satan with, say, some variety of inherent evil. That's a preconception of language that you are carrying into your reading (and don't forget that Aquino has a serious axe to grind on the matter - everyone he can convince that he and Crowley were teaching the same doctrine is a serious win for Michael, right?).
But this meaning isn't historically or etymologically or Qabalistically true. Lay out the Tarot cards corresponding to the Hebrew letters Shin, Teth, and Nun, meditate on them for 10-15 minutes, think about it for a day, and then tell me what the name "Satan" means. Deal?
On a more day-to-day level: Would you hire a perfectly good Anglo-American job applicant whose name was Alan Kaida? Would you hire Ben Hitler?
"This kind of blows the whole idea out of LaVeyan Satanism out of the water."
I have no idea what that means or where the logic goes in it.Besides, Anton was an incredibly sweet hukster. He wrote a wonderful book that had a profound and positive effect on my life around puberty, but in person would be the first to say (after Act 1) that he was just a carny.
Which also is off the track and a digression. I don't know what that has to do with anything either.
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@Redd Fezz said
"To abuse such innocent children can't be "service to others," can it?"
Ah, that's your poiint. You think he was describing something he did? Nonesense.
"Which is why I asked if I was missing something about the intentions of this diary entry. Is he not referring to himself there in the 3rd person as he does? Is something else other than pedophilia implied there?"
Please cite the date of the diary entry so that I can look it up. Provenance, man, provenance!
"JIM: Please note, if anything I have written is bogus or a misunderstanding, I wish you would do everyone the favor of deleting it or putting a moderator note next to it explaining the error."
You can edit your own posts - click the Edit button when you are logged in - I'm not inclined to distort someone else's words like that, but you can change them as you see fit.
"As for the origin of that quote you asked for, I found it whilest Googling for info and, as I re-enter the phrase, I now see it is primarily something that only pops up on anti-crowley / anti-masonic websites. I suppose that could mean it is entirely fabricated or taken out of context. I figured someone here would be familiar with the quote, which is why I brought it up. It is disturbing to me and I would like clarification. thanks!"
It could also have been from one of his diaries - but not referring to anything he personally did. This was a pissed-off remark about his ex-wife. It may even be legitimate. But if it's going to be presented as a quote from a diary, it would help to know when he may have written this so that we can look it up in context to find out (a) whether he wrote it and (b) the context.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"But if it's going to be presented as a quote from a diary, it would help to know when he may have written this so that we can look it up in context to find out (a) whether he wrote it and (b) the context."
I actually figured this would be one of those things everyone was familiar with except me... similar to when I first asked about 'child sacrifice." If you don't know where this is from, it's probably irrelevant, since I'm pretty sure you know your stuff.
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@Redd Fezz said
"LaVeyan Satanism is the idea that Satan isn't a real entity at all. Crowley said Aiwaz definitely was something other than a product of his mind-- a definite external entity-- and he identified it with Set, which probably makes a lot of sense, right? Unless I misinterpreted something. I did note that the Aiwass group put horns on a red, goateed Aiwass when they put on the 3-day book of the Law play here in Manhattan, giving him the typical "devil-look.""
While the understanding of the name Aiwass was especially Crowley's job to accomplish - a piece of the deciphering of his own soul - there is a simple way for getting at least an outward (Yetziratic) understanding.
Lay out the Tarot cards corresponding to the Hebrew letters A'ayin, Yod, Vav, and Zayin - The Devil, The Hermit, The Hierophant, and The Lovers. Meditate on these individually and in series, over one-to-three days. Wait a couple of days and, if you wish, share with us the fruits of your understanding of the inherent value of the name-formula.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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Lay out the Tarot cards corresponding to the Hebrew letters A'ayin, Yod, Vav, and Zayin - The Devil, The Hermit, The Hierophant, and The Lovers. Meditate on these individually and in series, over one-to-three days. Wait a couple of days and, if you wish, share with us the fruits of your understanding of the inherent value of the name-formula."I'm getting the feeling this method works for anything?! If so, thanks because I haven't learned this in BOTA yet. (Slow going... I just painted Key 9 corresponding with Tarot Fundamentals. A total noob.)
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@Jim Eshelman said
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Lay out the Tarot cards corresponding to the Hebrew letters A'ayin, Yod, Vav, and Zayin - The Devil, The Hermit, The Hierophant, and The Lovers."Woops, I just did Aleph, Yod, Vav and Zayin. You can imagine the smile this put on my face. Now, I will consider A'ayin. But why not Aleph? It's not the "A" sound?
For the SaTaN key correspondence— even though I only briefly looked at the cards, it seems to already be indicating what I had gleaned from Levi's "The Great Secret": there is no Satan; only the laws of cause and effect in the world and you will reap what you sow. This has been my belief regarding Satan for quite some time, anyway: that he does not exist as a literal being attempting to thwart your every move. It is an idea based upon the illusion of matter (Saturn/Satan) and separateness combined with the cause-effect reality of Unity and the Universe.
This was why I was surprised to find Crowley stating plainly that Aiwass was without doubt an external intelligence and the God/Devil of Sumer. That's Set, the twin of Horus, right? The template for the idea of Satan? The story goes that Set was punished for killing Osiris and Horus avenged his father's death. So, the whole Aeons thing is a bit strangely confusing if Liber AL was dictated by a literal external intelligence of Set about the coming of Horus after the death of the Aeon of Osiris. Are Set and Horus buddies now? Is Horus glad Osiris is dead? The conflict in my mind relevant to this discussion is the difference of attitude between Set and Horus: Set kills dad (jealous, service to self), Horus avenges dad (justice, service to others). They fought a long battle. Horus lost an eye. Now they get together and anticipate the death of dad again? After Isis went to all that trouble to bring him back? What does Thoth think of all this?
Just my initial thoughts. I'm sure I'm being too literal, but the myths represent the basic energies/ideas, right? Will be meditating on both Aiwaz and Satan more in the upcoming days with the Keys.