Question on Liber L
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I've been reading Liber L again along with the commentary. I have found something which seems to be a contradiction (with my understanding), and I seek other ideas.
Liber L states that each star is an agregate of experiences, and that eventually, when each star has all experiences then the consciousness is the same as all others. This is more or less my understanding.
Now, my two problems are these: 1) Since Nuit is infinite, there are infinite experience and thus we will never get all of them.
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How can all experience be lawful if certain things are not. For example, killing a person is an experience, yet it is against Thelema to deprive another of their will. So, in order to get all experience, we must break our own laws?
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Crowley says in the commentary that it is a joke to think incarnations are had for the purpose of learning something new or gaining experience. This seems to contradict the idea of a star as an agregate of experience, and the concept of the interaction of Hadit/Nuit.
Perhaps there is a layer of understanding I do not get. Any help?
93 93/93
David
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@DavidH said
"93.
I've been reading Liber L again along with the commentary. I have found something which seems to be a contradiction (with my understanding), and I seek other ideas.
Liber L states that each star is an agregate of experiences, and that eventually, when each star has all experiences then the consciousness is the same as all others. This is more or less my understanding.
Now, my two problems are these: 1) Since Nuit is infinite, there are infinite experience and thus we will never get all of them.
-
How can all experience be lawful if certain things are not. For example, killing a person is an experience, yet it is against Thelema to deprive another of their will. So, in order to get all experience, we must break our own laws?
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Crowley says in the commentary that it is a joke to think incarnations are had for the purpose of learning something new or gaining experience. This seems to contradict the idea of a star as an agregate of experience, and the concept of the interaction of Hadit/Nuit.
Perhaps there is a layer of understanding I do not get. Any help?
93 93/93
David"
Those are 3 problems and not 2 but I will bite:
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Yes, there are infinite possible experiences. I dont think he would ever say that its actually possible to have the exact same experiences because there are infinite possible experiences and a finite amount of time to have htem. Its sort of like in On Thelema ( www.geocities.com/hdbq111/hosted/onthelema.html ) where he says that similar experiences allows us to communicate and understand each other
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I talk about this in the essay The Will considered on two planes
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The 'purpose' is not for a particular experience but for experience in general, for the joy of experience and love under will
IAO131
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hello david,
please let me say something here...
@DavidH said
" 1) Since Nuit is infinite, there are infinite experience and thus we will never get all of them."
i tend to agree with Aum418. it is all in the planes. i would add that access to "infinite experience" is for "gods" and beyond the abyss.
@DavidH said
"2) How can all experience be lawful if certain things are not. For example, killing a person is an experience, yet it is against Thelema to deprive another of their will. So, in order to get all experience, we must break our own laws?"
i see things not so black and white. not all killing is wrong... it all depends.
see liber oz.
to defend your rights is lawful.@DavidH said
"3) Crowley says in the commentary that it is a joke to think incarnations are had for the purpose of learning something new or gaining experience. This seems to contradict the idea of a star as an agregate of experience, and the concept of the interaction of Hadit/Nuit."
i would like to see the exact quote, but i would say that it depends. very few people have access to past lives, and i would think that it is high up in the tree of life that one can have complete recollection of them. so for the initiate moving up the tree, the focus is in the present and in the experience at hand.
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@miss ruby said
"i see things not so black and white. not all killing is wrong... it all depends.
see liber oz.
to defend your rights is lawful."Thanks. I am aware of that but I'm talking about killing for no reason. If any experience is lawful, then how can that be if it takes away the will of another. that is my point. Of course killing to protect oneself or your will is lawfull under Thelema. But how can Crowley say all experience is lawful if interference with another will is not?
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@DavidH said
"But how can Crowley say all experience is lawful if interference with another will is not?"
I don't remember the context of what you are quoting. However, taking only what you have written here...
To say all experience is lawful is not the same as saying that all actions are lawful.
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"2) How can all experience be lawful if certain things are not. For example, killing a person is an experience, yet it is against Thelema to deprive another of their will. So, in order to get all experience, we must break our own laws?"
ok... going back to your original question.
i see that only by going against your true will and "breaking the law", you'll learn that it is wrong. it may be the only way you'll "get it".
killing another human being not in self defense is going against your will.
however, there mere fact that it is possible to act against your will is a sacrament, because it guarantees that you learn the difference.
yes?ruby
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@DavidH said
"But how can Crowley say all experience is lawful if interference with another will is not?"I don't remember the context of what you are quoting. However, taking only what you have written here...
To say all experience is lawful is not the same as saying that all actions are lawful."
"Then why is Death 'forbidden'? All things are surely lawful. But we must work "without lust of result", taking everything as it comes without desire indeed, but with all manner of delight! " - The Law is for All
"All ways are lawful to innocence" - Heart of the Master
“There are much deeper considerations in which it appears that ‘Everything that is, is right’. They are set forth elsewhere; we can only summarise them here by saying that the survival of the fittest is their upshot.” — Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter I
“The uninitiate is a "Dark Star", and the Great Work for him is to make his veils transparent by 'purifying' them. This 'purification' is really 'simplification'; it is not that the veil is dirty, but that the complexity of its folds makes it opaque. The Great Work therefore consists principally in the solution of complexes. Everything in itself is perfect, but when things are muddled, they become 'evil'.” –New Comment to AL I:8
“…Each of us stars is to move on our true orbit, as marked out by the nature of our position, the law of our growth, the impulse of our past experiences. All events are equally lawful - and every one necessary, in the long run - for all of us, in theory.” –Intro to Liber AL, part III
IAO131
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Unless you are the person in question you can not say that killing another human being is or is not the True Will of some other person.
An no matter how much that murdered person does not want to be murdered and fights to survive, this is no indication that his TRUE WILL was no to be murdered. It could very well be that you incarnated to experience what it is like to murder humans in various ways and elude capture, and it may very well be the case that your victim incarnated to learn what it is like to be a helpless victim of murder, and to experience a relentless fight to survive against all odds, and finally submit to death.
You can't know the WILL of others and to attempt to make rules beyond Do what thou Wilt is only to create artificial restrictions that are alien to the WILL of those you apply them to,
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I don't believe that it can be anyone's true will to kill another. It is only allowable to kill when it is the only way you have to stop someone from taking away your true will. Your idea seems to be the one that the general public thinks is the meaning when they read "Do what thou wilt." They take it as a license to do anything you want. This is not the case.
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it is not license to do anything, morality is bunk, their is no authority God or man that we must acquire permission from. You can do anything you like, anything at all. You are even free to out of fear or laziness to not do your WILL and you are free to carelessly just do anything weather is a means to your WILL or not.
Thelema says do what thou wilt, which is to say all moral injunctions are dissolved.
But The master also tells us that what we think are means to satisfy our WILL, or natural desires, the fulfillment of out whole being are often mistaken to us. Thus he teaches as a scientific method which he calls MAGICK to teach us how to more effectively fulfill our WILL.
Do what thou WILT, is not a moral command, its not prescriptive of what you should do, but rather a negation of all prescriptive laws, rules, norm, and all innate authority of any God or man. I is pure science, it revokes all superstitions and all A-priori ethics. Their is no thats just how it is, or because God says so, or its the right thing to do in Thelema.
What thelema does tell us is that we are a "being-as-a-Whole-In-An-Environment-As-A Whole" to borrow count Korzybski's term. And that our thought's beliefs, symbols, and language are all part of that environment, our ideal about Love, our local grocer, the bullfinches mythology, the psycho-drama of Freud, and the antic of the looney tunes all make up our inner-outer environment and our WILL is derived from this. Thus we discern our WILL by adding and removing factors from the environment be it the inner symbols or the outer world events. We then record how these changes effect us our minds and bodies, and we discern which effects have positive effects, as discerned by beth subjective and objective factors. Then we attempt to abstract from this, rational idea or model of the general theme that make a action or mean, successful in creating the LOVE, the dissolution of ego and dispersion of the shadows of suffering.
This abstraction, like when we fit data points no an asymptote on a graph, Then is the expression of ones TRUE WILL. and the invokation of the personified ideal that asymptote represents, is the Knowledge and Conversation ritual. But at no point to we assume that it is impossible that one man may have a HGA that is fierce, sadistic, and homicidal, while onthers HGA is a passive taoist, or a gentle christ. Each of these as "lawful" an expression of the Infinite into the finite as the other.
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@Froclown said
"it is not license to do anything, morality is bunk, their is no authority God or man that we must acquire permission from. You can do anything you like, anything at all. ... etc."
Hear! Hear! Thank you for cutting through all the moral junk. We are all held accountable only by The Law of Cause and Effect.*The Book of Life and Death *(Ch 10) also addresses this issue:
"There is no free will."
Thus have the philosophers of old argued and debated.
There is only the Divine Plan. To flow correctly with the Plan: This is the Path - This is Destiny.
Those who flow fulfill the requirements of the higher, and incur no blame nor debt.
Those who exercise the free will to pander to their personal desires incur blame and debt.
This debt has been called Karma.
Free will is not free! It must be paid for in the long run.
Free will should be called Personal Desire in Action.
The true Path is of Gold and well lit. The light radiates from the pilgrim.
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93!
No where did I say there is some authority that we need permission from, only that according to Thelema, it is not lawful to clash with another person's orbit, to willfully interfere with thier right to do their will. And this is not moral junk, it IS cause and effect. For, if you are interfering with another's will, you can not be doing your true will and you will be gaining negative "karma."
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Seems that some posters have forgotten "Do What Thou Wilt" does not mean "do what you want." It also can't be used to justify every action since many actions are not the action of the True Will. Thus, some actions are not lawful, as Jim stated, because, "Do What Thou Wilt" is a paraphrase of "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law." The Law of Thelema. Which is your True Will. And if your actions are not of your True Will, you are not following the Law of Thelema, and thus, they (those actions) are not Lawful.
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93,
Is killing outlawed in cases of self-defense? In the cases of war? Are all wars against Thelema? What about a coup to dethrone dictators or aristocracy we think is oppressive? Does Do what thou wilt necessarily exclude killing others? Liber OZ would make us think not - in fact it guarantees that right. The problem then comes when does one exercise this right? Would it be pragmatic in many cases? I think not, but that doesnt mean killing is against the Law of Thelema. Do what thou wilt certainly doesnt mean do what you want but isnt it conceivable of a certain person's will to be violent, to kill another for some purpose, etc.? Do what thou wilt gives the freedom that no action is a priori wrong but that also subjects us to doing our will - but that doesnt mean any particular action is wrong unless it conflicts with our Will. And again isnt it conceivable for someones Will to include killing another?
"The formula of this law is: Do what thou wilt. Its moral aspect is simple enough in theory. Do what thou wilt does not mean Do as you please, although it implies this degree of emancipation, that it is no longer possible to say a priori that a given action is "wrong." Each man has the right – and an absolute right – to accomplish his True Will."
-Aleister Crowley, "The Method of Thelema"Also, if all experience is lawful and not all actions are what abotu the idea that All is Experience? We are only aware of actions through experience. Is the experience of killing someone lawful but the action not? That seems a bit contradictory and meaningless.
IAO131
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@Aum418 said
"Also, if all experience is lawful and not all actions are what abotu the idea that All is Experience? We are only aware of actions through experience. Is the experience of killing someone lawful but the action not? That seems a bit contradictory and meaningless."
First, I didn't say all actions aren't lawful. I just noted the distinction. Equating the two seemed to be blocking the discussion flow.
It seems to me that experience is centripitel and action is centrifugal. (You can have experience of your actions, but that requires a different level of awareness than simply action.)
Certainly, subjectively "all is experience." But it makes no sense that this is true objectively.
BTW, I'm using a standard English meaning of "experience" as "an apprenension of [something] through some factulty of sense or mind."
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@Aum418 said
"Is killing outlawed in cases of self-defense? In the cases of war? Are all wars against Thelema? IAO131"
93 Brother. This comment supports my claim. A case of self defense is protecting yourself from someone else who is attempting to take away your ability to follow your own will. As Crowley said, you have the right to kill someone who is trying to force their will upon you. This would apply to self defense, dictatorship, etc.
This is a case of another star, not acting according to thier true will, leaves orbit to collide with you. You can stop them without any negative karma. If you murder someone with no reason then it is you who are out of orbit and not doing your true will.
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does one ever act without some reason for it?
What if I kill some one to prove my physical strength, or to test how well I have hardened my heart and emancipated myself from guilt. Either of which might be my WILL.
An act is only proved successful or unsuccessful in Liber all, their is no value of moral or immoral, Right acts are successful wrong acts are unsuccessful. "Success is thy proof".
The crux of this issue is addressed by Paul in Corinthians 10:23
King James
All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.Bible in Basic English
We are free to do all things, but there are things which it is not wise to do. We are free to do all things, but not all things are for the common good.Thelema does not tell us what to do, it tells us in plane language that we are free to do anytihng, all things are lawful. But it also provides a means by which to discern what is expedient for the individual and a means to more effectively achive those ends.
Thelema can greate a better Sinner or a better saint, and does not distingush one from the other. In Thelema the inefficient and unsuccessful saint and sinner are classed as the weak that are stoped out. The successful murderous tyrant classed with the great king Solomon who rules with kindenss and wisdom.
Crowley states “After five years of folly and weakness, miscalled politeness, tact, discretion, care for the feeling of others, I am weary of it. I say today: to hell with Christianity, Rationalism, Buddhism, all the lumber of the centuries. I bring you a positive and primeval fact, Magic by name; and with this I will build me a new Heaven and new Earth. I want none of your faint approval or faint dispraise; I want blasphemy, murder, rape, revolution, anything, bad or good, but strong.”
Strength vs weakness is found in Thelema. Not Good vs Evil, or Moral vs Immoral.
Thou has no Right, but to do thy WILL.Lets re parse that. THOU HAS NO RIGHTS. DO WHAT YOU WILL
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93,
Froclown wrote:
"What if I kill some one to prove my physical strength, or to test how well I have hardened my heart and emancipated myself from guilt. Either of which might be my WILL. "
I don't see True Will as something that simply comes in from some exalted level above or outside Assiah / manifestation. To develop that idea is to create a new God as a substitute for the old one(s).
True Will is the expression of the essence of what we are, and that essence surely holds true on all planes, from Atziluth to Assiah. Its activation, therefore, is not going to be at the expense of matters in the manifest universe: I seriously doubt that my own TW, for example, requires me to seek a jail sentence or execution so that I can experience killing someone else.
I also think killing other people must be a letdown, like any observed activity, but that's another issue.
And waiting to see if "there is success" from such an act strikes me as a result of obliviousness, not wisdom.
Elevating lack of morality as a displacement of morality (which is what you seem to be doing here) is ... well, just asserting another morality.
The <i>mindset</i> of freedom from either moral constraints or lust of result is necessary in order to realize the True Will. But simply following whims is just that - following whims. Simply asserting egoic needs - "Look at my strength!" "Hey, look Ma - no heart!" strikes me as a delusory route to take, and not an emancipatory one.
Discrimination is the first skill mastered in the mysteries, because it will be necessary on all planes.
93 93/9,
EM
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Aum418 said
"Also, if all experience is lawful and not all actions are what abotu the idea that All is Experience? We are only aware of actions through experience. Is the experience of killing someone lawful but the action not? That seems a bit contradictory and meaningless."First, I didn't say all actions aren't lawful. I just noted the distinction. Equating the two seemed to be blocking the discussion flow."
On my side it seems like youre obscuring the discussion but so it goes.
"It seems to me that experience is centripitel and action is centrifugal. (You can have experience of your actions, but that requires a different level of awareness than simply action.) "
I completely fail how that idea has anything to do with centripetal or centrifugal motion.
"Certainly, subjectively "all is experience." But it makes no sense that this is true objectively. "
Huh? Its not true objectively that all experience is subjective?
"BTW, I'm using a standard English meaning of "experience" as "an apprenension of [something] through some factulty of sense or mind.""
Uh huh... and?
DavidH: Yes well isn't it conceivable that someone could construe someone as constraining their, for example, right to create as they will? Does that justify killing them? Couldnt anyone be construed as infringing on one's ability to live and die as they will (hey, that guy is crossing the street in front of me but I want to keep going straight)? At what degree does it stop being true or useful?
IAO131
IAO131