Treating Spirits with respect.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
the vast majority - including crowley and motta, would agree with you
in practice, the difference is academic. regardless of "isa's" identify, the Practice in the new aeon is the same
we're far off the topic now, but something i've always found fascinating about thelema, especially in my own lodge, is that while points of view, philosophies and interpretations are many and manifold, the practice often is the same
Love is the law, love under will
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do you think a person is not an object, that is an thing that is, with its awn unique and particular nature. That is with specific properties that make each individual fit for particular results?
Fish are not suited to life on the land.
A fat man is not suited to play professional basket ball.
A dim wit is not suited to work as a rocket scientist.No matter what the personal delusions of these individuals might be, their True objective state determines their WILL. Subjective states are merely objective states that are unique to the individual. The thoughts in my head are objective events in space-time of the brain. The best tool anyone else has to access these brain states, is to ask for my personal expression of them.
So when we scientifically access what is proper to others, we must take into account their first hand "subjective accounts" However these are best treated as scientific data on par with objective measures.
now, the pulse, breathing rate, % body fat, physical condition, etc are to be accounted for as much as cognitive effects, personal aspirations, personality, affect style, and the common themes of dream states, visions etc.
These are all vital in the determination of the TRUE WILL, which although a personal matter on one level, ie ones awareness of his TRUE WILL is subjective, but the awareness indicates the objective existence of that. Thus I am able to be aware of my fingers now, because fingers actually exist objectively.
We conclude with Crowley's Scientific solution to the problem of government, that a panel of experts help to work out the WILL of individuals in conflict, such that they understand where their personal delusions about what they want, are mistaken from the objective scientific fact of what they ace fitted for objectively, their TRUE WILL.
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Your mode of thought is applicable, when speaking of things in a single moment. A vacuum without a past or future.
In a single particular moment the Will does not change, however the knowledge one posses of it fluctuates from moment to moment.
A fat man is not suited to play basketball, but if his Will was to be a professional basketball player it would first manifest as a Will to exercise and get fit. It may not be until that is accomplished that the fat mans knowledge of his Will evolves into becoming a professional basketball player. In turn, becoming a professional basketball player could be just another step.
The same applies to the dim wit (But gets more complicated). His Will may be to become a rocket scientist, unfortunately too much karmic debt has to be overcome. It may not be possible for him to fully manifest his Will in his current incarnation. Not everyone manifests their Will in a single lifetime.
Regardless, despite the Will of the person manifesting as being a professional basketball player or rocket scientist ; it is just a manifestation. The actual Will of the person cannot be said to be "become a rocket scientist" that is just how it is expressed. Will, as an objective idea has no qualities in of itself by which we can measure or define it.
True Will could be considered the fourth in which the accomplishment, doing and realization are united. A finite structure designed to express something infinite.
The panel of experts may be able to work out the Will as a reflection of the moment when the conflict is brought to their attention. It would be a mistake to assume the same solution would be applicable, even if the same conflict arose in the future.
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there is only one life, you are a machine.
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there is no "karmic debt".
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everything it the universe is of the same source it all fits together, everything has a niche in the dynamic equilibrium of the cosmos.
Thus, their is a place for everything and Thelema means putting things back in their place.
When you are is your place, there is no need to manifest awareness of ones separate existence, one is fully integrated into the environment, like a piston that fires in time, it stops knocking and back-firing.
A 500lb man will never set the high jump record. So long as he believes he can, he denies reality, then he is in conflict with himself, his true nature and his environment. The fact that he is grossly over weight shows he is already out of alignment. But it is obvious that even if he gets in shape, he will be a large man.
A is A, figure out what A is, and deal with it, your hopes, wishes, or attempts to use magick to make A something other than A will only end in failure.
Success is proof A is A and we treat A like A.
Magick is the art of understanding reality and putting each entity according to its possible and proper use.
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@froclown said
"
- there is only one life, you are a machine.
"
The path of Thelema (and mysticism in general) I view as freeing oneself from the idea that you are a machine.
I, or how I am defined through my ego, lives only once.
As you point out:@froclown said
"
- everything it the universe is of the same source it all fits together, everything has a niche in the dynamic equilibrium of the cosmos.
"
I has a part in the equilibrium of the cosmos, being a part of the cosmos. Although I and my ego may die, only living once - the cosmos (which I am a part of, and is a part of me) continues on.
If, in this life time I were not to accomplish my Will. Then the universe would manifest something else, to effectively pick up where I left off.
@froclown said
"
- there is no "karmic debt".
"
There is no "karmic debt" ; it is just a useful term in the attempt to describe a concept. The dim wit constantly saying to himself, as well as others saying to him: "the dim wit will never be a rocket scientist" accumulates as "karmic debt." This debt (whatever it may be) must be overcome before the dim wit can fulfill his Will to be a rocket scientist.
One, could possibly theorize that the fat mans "karmic debt" has manifested itself through the extraneous weight. All of his "negative" thoughts and feelings coming to physically as well as mentally weigh him down and stop him from being able to attain his Will.
I agree that the 500lb man as he is will never set the high jump record. But the 500lb man could also die (transform) to create a 150lb man that can set the high jump record. You are saying "the fat man is a fat man" as if there is nothing that can be done about the fact that he is fat.
A is always A, but was never A.
If you went around and talked to the general populace, asking "Can you do magick?" The majority will say "No." But that does not mean you can not or that they could not do magick if they applied their Will?
- there is only one life, you are a machine.
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A fat man is not recycled into a thin man. And a clay pot does not become a ceramic figurine ofter it is broken.
You are the form the atoms take, once you die that is it. There is nothing of YOU that remains, it does not matter if you decay and are used to fertilize plants, you do net become the plants. Smash a toaster and there is no more toast, the machine is gone.
A fat man can loose weight, that is not the point. Genetically he will always be a large person, he can not change that anymore than he can change his gender, if he takes pills and cuts off his junk, he only becomes a freak, not actually a woman.
Magick is not the man thinks he is a woman so he uses magick to mutilate himself, rather Magick works by the man realizing he is a man and accepting that, and casting all delusions to the contrary out of his mind, and learning to act like a man. Magick does nat propose a supernatural excuse, "oh but I have a female soul, our a female kamic debt, or I was a womon in my last life" Magick may take the fact that one has accumulated these notions from ones life, as a part of ones Psychology, figure out why this is and discove how they add into the equation of ones WILL.
Yes, a Fat man is fat, he is extra fat because he feels powerless, and he can choose to lose some weight. Or if he is in the right social situation he can choose to become a sumo wrestler. There are other options, but do insist that he really is thin, but trapped in a fat mans body, is a lie. An appeal to supernatural delusion, to blame karma for his situation is a lie. A spade is a spade. If one happens to be a spade, the fist step is to stop trying to be something else.
or as the say in AA, "the first step to a cure, is admitting you have a problem"
I thing that is more or less the first step in the A.'.A.'. also.
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Froclown wrote:
"
Genetically he will always be a large person, he can not change that anymore than he can change his gender, if he takes pills and cuts off his junk, he only becomes a freak, not actually a woman.
Magick is not the man thinks he is a woman so he uses magick to mutilate himself, rather Magick works by the man realizing he is a man and accepting that, and casting all delusions to the contrary out of his mind, and learning to act like a man. Magick does nat propose a supernatural excuse, "oh but I have a female soul, our a female kamic debt, or I was a womon in my last life" Magick may take the fact that one has accumulated these notions from ones life, as a part of ones Psychology, figure out why this is and discove how they add into the equation of ones WILL. "Were you trying to be consciously nasty here? Or was it a notion that sprang "accidentally" out of your unconscious?
EM
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My wording about the fat man dieing might have been confusing. I merely meant to imply that the fat man could "die (transform)" into a thin man through exercise, etcetera.
As for death... Take a star for example. After running out of energy, there is a supernova. The star does not die it transforms into something else, a neutron star, black hole, dwarf. We call it by a different name, but it still the same star in a different form. As above, so below.
Perhaps I was not clear, but there is nothing supernatural about karma. It is simply the reenforcement of particular actions or thoughts through repetition.So, every time the fat man says to himself "I will never be skinny" he re-enforces that idea accumulating "karma" relative to the statement.
You speak of "appeal to a supernatural delusion" but before that you said "genetically he will always be a large person." Could that be considered a scientific delusion? That someone was born fat and can do nothing about it.
All you seem to speak of is limitation...
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If you want to go by that, then you are actually just a collection ground up plant fibers, maybe some various animal flesh, inhaled gases and water.
Seeing as you constantly excrete parts of your body and take in more raw material, and every 7 years every last cell and atom is replaced, them you do not even exist at all.
Do you suppose that if you eat cut off chunks of flesh from a person and eat only that one persons flesh fou 7 years that you will become the person you ate? Of course not. Thus Reincarnation is false.
That person would die and be gone forever and you would be the same person you were before you ate that person.
There is no soul, melt down soda cans and use the molten aluminum to make foil, and the soda can in gone, the foil will not hold liquid.
Smash a computer and everything on the hard drive is gone, if you use the bits to make a new hard drive, nothing of the old one remains in the now one,
If you are given a replacement heart, arm, eye, from another man, you will not gain any of his personality, interests, thoughts, or soul, or anything.
That is how it is,
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In all honesty, it really does not matter to me whether or not we carry on afterwards.
"
Twirling round with this familiar parable
Spinning weaving round each new experience
Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate the chance
To Be
Alive and Breathing
" -
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
"froclown" wrote:
"Genetically he will always be a large person, he can not change that anymore than he can change his gender, if he takes pills and cuts off his junk, he only becomes a freak, not actually a woman.
Magick is not the man thinks he is a woman so he uses magick to mutilate himself, rather Magick works by the man realizing he is a man and accepting that, and casting all delusions to the contrary out of his mind, and learning to act like a man."
your transphobia is duly noted.
i'll remember that you think i'm a "freak" in all further interactions, and treat you and your opinions with that in mind.
i didn't realize this kind of behavior was tolerated here. i'll keep That in mind, too.
Love is the law, love under will
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
i quote from crowley's New Comment
"The Beast refuses therefore to assent to any argument as to the
propriety of any fashion of formulating the soul in symbols of sex. A
canon is no less deadly in love than in art or literature; its
acceptance stifles style, and its enforcement extinguishes sincerity.
It is better for a person of heterosexual nature to suffer every
possible calamity as the indirect environment-evoked result of his
doing his true will in that respect than to enjoy health, wealth and
happiness by means either of suppressing sex altogether, or
debauching it to the service of Sodom or Gomorrah.Equally it is better for the androgyne, the urning, or their feminine
counterparts to endure blackmailers private and public, the terrors
of police persecution, the disgust, contempt and loathing of the
vulgar, and the self-torture of suspecting the peculiarity to be a
symptom of a degenerate nature, than to wrong the soul by
damning it to the hell of abstinence, or by defiling it with the
abhorred embraces of antipathetic arms."for those of you who aren't aware, "urning" is an outdated term for a transgendered person.
Love is the law, love under will
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I am not saying to do or not do anything.
You will learn by the consequences.
The point is that a thing is what it is, and its a lot easier to change tho mind than to fight against the nature of things.
If you insist on pissing into the wind or paddling your canoe up stream, then by all means do. But do not suppose that this is the following of the TAO.
We learn by consequences of failures as much as by success. I have no interest in persecuting the transgendered, I see no reason to persecute people for their actions, natural consequences are capable of that.
I simple find that perhaps what leads one to such an act is a grass in alyas greener situation, where if one is not content with ones natural gender, one may find that becoming the other is not in reality any more satisfying than ones original state.
That perhaps the problem is one of perspective, rather than physical reality. Magick can grant the powers to change the world, so they say, but the true lesson of these powers is that contentment comes from within, from higher practices that disavow the changing ones circumstance and dedicate one to inner spiritual changes of perspective.
It is the failure to find happiness in powers and abilities, that leads one to the spiritual life. Of just accepting things as they are, not seeking to become something or someone else. It is this self denial, that is the root of suffering.
A poor farmer who desires to be a rich playboy is in the same situation. If he wins the lottery, he does not become a rich man, he becomes a freak, a fish out of water, and may very well find he is just as unhappy. He may dream of his simple days on the farm.
Do what thou Wilt = Be what you are.
Accept who and what you are, your natural place in the world and do that with 100% of of your being. Do not allow doubt or interest in other things enter your mind. When you feel the grass is greener, then yau put less into what you are, your own TRUE WILL.
A WILL divided can not stand or "be that state of manyhood...ect"
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Luxinhominefactum, 93,
"i didn't realize this kind of behavior was tolerated here. i'll keep That in mind, too. "
I think you may be confusing boredom with tolerance. I just skim Froclown's posts, and I believe most other people do, too. He has made the same main point scores of times now, and since like most people here I find it doesn't fit my own experience of things, I only glance at his .... lengthy posts once in a while.
Froclown, what I did find bizarre was your reference to male genitalia as "junk":
"if he takes pills and cuts off his junk"
.I've come across hundreds of different terms men or women have used for a penis and testicles, but never 'junk'. To my mind, since sexual identity is one of our most basic and vital aspects of selfhood, this says something about how you see your own worth, and perhaps demonstrates why you're so rigidly judgemental towards other people. Nobody would - could - opt for a sex-change without going through a wrenching reappraisal of core identity.
It's odd that you keep telling people to examine their own values and assumptions, then you dump on someone who has gone through such a process in an extremely intense and radical way.
I don't buy a word of your vacuous blethering about how knowing the True Will requires someone else not to go through with what presented itself as a major but clearly necessary change. I don't understand what it would involve, and very obviously neither do you, but that doesn't call for a hyper-critical appraisal.
Quite the opposite, at least for a sincere Thelemite.
93 93/93,
EM
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um its a common slang term, Would it be better if I had said nads?
Also, I did not even get into the holistic effects of things, the fact that gender is a social role, not directly related to physical genitalia.
That if we straightened out the social situation concerning gender roles, it may be that people do not come to be discontent with their physical genitalia.
The point here is that spirits have particular nature, and should be used far that nature, not compelled to act in ways they are not fitted for.
Likewise we are the Spirits of the material plane, and as such our physical bodies and minds are of a specific nature, because we are set to particular tasks. To compel the physical body to perform in ways it in not designed for, runs us into problems.
All things can be used by the WILL including the physical body. but if one WILL is to obtain a chlorate of gold, one must mix the proper elements, not just any two things. A beating a stick against a fire hydrant will not yield the result, no matter how many incantations we mutter to convince us it will work, the damn red thing is does not turn yellow.
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93,
"Likewise we are the Spirits of the material plane, and as such our physical bodies and minds are of a specific nature, because we are set to particular tasks. To compel the physical body to perform in ways it in not designed for, runs us into problems. "
Which, I assume, is exactly why LIHF chose gender reassignment. The spirit itself, to use your odd term (since you normally deny such non-corporeal things exist) has to make that call, not an outsider.
A human body+psyche is not comparable to a fire hydrant, other than both often attract dogs, if for widely differing reasons. An organic system is malleable, and by nature undergoes constant transformation. Each aspirant in the Mysteries has to re-calibrate their sexuality, and for some that's more of a crisis than for others. Sure, sexuality has a social aspect but it also derives from someone's inner identity far more.
Not long ago, you were telling us how feckless and messed-up most women are, other than a small minority who met your own Thelemic criteria. Now you find someone on this list who was physically male who has opted to become female. A threat! Treachery! So you attacked.
I still think your choice of "junk" is significant. It's that darned junk that draws us to them thar wimmin in the first place.
93 93/93,
EM
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
well said, edward. i noticed the "junk" thing, too
"common slang" is just that - common. last time i checked, thelemites were Royal
i'll have more to say tomorrow
Love is the law, love under will
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While I don't agree with a lot of what Froclown says, I don't see the problem with the usage of that slang word. Honestly, it's no worse than any other word out there besides using the the proper words of "penis" and "phallus".
@lux said
""common slang" is just that - common. last time i checked, thelemites were Royal"
Eh, I see that as horseshit. Royal or not, a Thelemite moving with his/her True Will speaks as they are to, not how someone else dictates a Royal should.
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Kuniggety, 93,
I'm not saying it's a 'bad word' just that, as with any of our words, it reveals an underlying attitude. In this case, I think it's anxiety masked with scorn. Anxiety's fine, scorn hurts, because it's a means of boxing someone else in - that is, restricting them, or attempting to restrict them, to what we feel is a 'safer' condition.
93 93/93,
EM
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:shifts halo to cover up horns:Pardon me while I play a little devils advocate.
@froclown said
"
...the true lesson of these powers is that contentment comes from within, from higher practices that disavow the changing ones circumstance and dedicate one to inner spiritual changes of perspective.
"That is something I whole heartedly agree with. The flesh is (eventually) to be transcended, not transfigured.
Easily placing the male genitalia (and female) under the reference of "junk." Otherwise it would be limiting masculinity/femininity to what you find between the legs (or on the chest).
Ha! Not to say I plan on taking that perspective anytime soon...
:goes off to chase some lady folks: