Question on Liber L
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Froclown, 93,
You and I are talking about different ideas. We aren't having a conversation at all.
Nor are we likely to have one.
93 93/93,
EM
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@Froclown said
"I don't see how you don't see why Feudal systems are Thelemic.
A caste is an orbit, a specialized role or path.
So we have a star in every orbit, and we try to make sure we have an orbit open to every star."
93,
I think the reason not everyone is jumping onto your Feudal System bandwagon, Froclown, is that there are at least two fundamental disagreements at work.
1 - What is and is not "Thelemic." You claim that this type of government is clearly "Thelemic," yet there is no kind of agreement on what the term "Thelemic" means, or what it encompasses, much less the issue of what is or is not "Thelemic." Further, I doubt that this forum, or any forum of modern Thelemites would be able to come to a consensus on this issue.
For example, months ago on Lashtal this very issue of "Thelemic Government" came up. To give just two pespectives, as I recall Erwin argued that a Thelemic Government's function would be to prevent people from doing anything other than their True Will, while Aum 418 asserted that Thelemic Government was more akin to Libertarianism. (Forgive me if I misquote anyone).
2 - There is a fundamental disagreement about the nature of Free Will, which Scarecrow has valiantly attempted to clear up. You seem to be saying that the True Will of people is akin to that of fish, dogs, and other animals. Many of us disagree.
While I can't speak for others, I can speak briefly about why I disagree.
According to various personality tests I have participated in over the years, my personality is categorized as INFP, or "The Healer," as Keirsey terms it. Now this dictates certain career choices that would seem suitable to me - IE Teacher, Therapist, Writer - and some that seem unsuitable - IE Soldier, Litigator, even Chef (not sure why). Now assume for a moment that these tests are 99% accurate. It seems perfectly reasonable to give them to children, and then sort those children into different schools in order to cultivate their unique talents. I wish someone had done it to me when I was a kid so I could have spent more time studying T. S. Eliot and less time flunking out of Pre-Calculus.
It seems to me that you're saying that this is it, great, now we have a Thelemic Society. But even though my personality may be an element of my True Will, it is not the totality of it, and it cannot be so easily categorizied. You may be able to predict and categorize someone's personality, but I do not think you will ever be able to easily categorize someone's True Will. Crowley expressed his own True Will as "To teach the next step." The beauty of such a statement is that it is almost infinitely applicable, because the step is always changing. What caste would you put Crowley into? I dare say he would have made an awful professor.
I just think that while it's a nice idea, a feudal caste system is far too restrictive to accommodate the True Wills of such a government's citizens, and would inevitably collapse under the weight of the conflict between caste and True Will.
I know you will argue that the Will can be objectively determined and we've already been over that, but perhaps now you understand why we do not agree?
Love=Law
- C
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Thelemic means that in the order of nature everything has a place and a purpose, and making sure that each think is perfectly placed and free to act within it's place without being forced out of its orbit.
as for Crowely, if we work with the Gorean system, he would something of a white caste, the preists and clergy who mediate between the giant insectoid masters of the planet and the gorean people.
Thelemically He would be in the grade of the hermit, atleast that was his attainment.
He was best classed an an aristocrate a wizard like merlyn, and would have done well to have worked along political power, as an occult adviser.
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"Thelemic means that in the order of nature everything has a place and a purpose, and making sure that each think is perfectly placed and free to act within it's place without being forced out of its orbit."
It's interesting to me that I've often pondered Crowley's words on each star having it's place and orbit in the universe to be quite similar to the Albert Einstein often misquoted (by myself) bit about the universe and dice:
"Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the 'old one'. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice. "
But then the limey bastard (AC) goes and makes Chaos his Chokmah...and a figure in his pantheon...
Makes me wonder.
Also makes me think of the 2 POVs shown in such places as the Discordian religon (ANERISTIC vs ERISTIC) or in the philosophies of Caterine Vauban vs the Jaffes in I Hear the Huckabees...
It appears to me Froclown that you are equating Thelemic with a clockwork conception of the universe... I don't know if I buy that AC had this similar view... his starsponge vision seems to me a romantic, chaotic, vision of an artist and not a scientists... but that's probably me filtering it through my own POV.
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Each cell in the body is its awn unique cell, even i it has the same DNA' it is still a different cell from its parent cell.
That being the case however, we do know that the body has several different types of cells, where lots of individual cells can be grouped together by type. We know that the cardiac cells function in the heart to produce smooth muscle tissues, and that a cardiac cell is different than a lung cell or a red blood cell. We know that the Cardiac cell requires different nutrients, a different environment and a has a whole different life style and WILL than a red blood cell. Just because we can not plot the exact course of the life of each cell taken as an individual does not mean, we can not discern what TYPE of cell each individual is, and Invoke the nutrients that it requires, and promote the practices than benefit those types of tissues etc. While also banishing from those cell environments those elements which are harmful or toxic to those cells.
The problem as I see it, is that you admit that each human is unique, but you will not admit that their are differences between races, sexes, heredity. breeding, social class, and chance development that create classes of people, some BETTER than others in various was, and a select few better than the whole species, it is to these select few, That Thelema is most dedicated, to the breeding, nurturing, and selecting of these Few Geniuses, and to the proper placement of the lesser men in orbits around these Geniuses or "Christs" granting these elite few the control of the culture and the tools they need to advance the Race which they represent.
Each advancing its own race, advanced the progress of all mankind, the Great work, to which each member of the A.'.A.'. is supposedly taken an Oath to work towards. -
Keeping in mind I know little to nothing about stem cells, and that your cellular metaphor is exactly that... a metaphor...
I guess I would look at each individual as a sort of stem cell, with the ability to differentiate into specialized cell types, but also with the ability to continue changing, and perhaps even to hold more than one specialization at a time... (I think it's evident I'm havind a bit of a hard time continuing your metaphor...)
so I think I hear you saying something like (these are my words not yours) "it's the True Will of a red blood cell to do red blood cell things..." while I'm not convinced that humans are like specialized cells. We are not an oxygen molecule. We are not a monad. My point is we are, each of us, legion, and a continually changing legion to boot, so what's up with the idea of 1. True Will? 1. Destiny? 1. Purpose? 1. God. 1. Way to do things. 1. Path to follow. Etc.
My other point has been what makes True Will, capital T true..., which seemingly is part and parcel of the 1. problem as stated above.
I'd rather not get into an elitest argument about better in terms of classes, sexes, races, etc... maybe we can focus on why/how/with what authority we classify some Will as "better" (ie. True), versus some other will.
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The Will of the moon to orbit the earth is not less than the Will of the earth to orbit the sun.
But the Sun is greater than the Earth and the Earth is Greater than the moon.
The WILL of the slave to serve (even if the slave may not realize his will is to serve and may not even consciously admit that he is a slave) is no better or worse than the WILL of a Master to command the slave.
The only harm is when we do not discern tho true nature of a slave or a master and we put masters who could potentially lead us to greatness and glory in the chains of slavery and we allow the hubris of a slave to lead him to sit on the throne of the master and lead us into degradation.
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Here is another example from the master.
To return. The rarity of genius is in great part due to the destruction of its young. Even as in physical life that is a favoured plant one of whose thousand seeds ever shoots forth a blade, so do conditions all but kill the strongest shoots of genius.
But just as rabbits increased apace in Australia, where even a missionary has been known to beget ninety children in two years, so shall we be able to breed genius if we can find the conditions which hamper it, and remove them.
The obvious practical step is to restore the rites of Bacchus, Aphrodite and Apollo to their proper place. They should not be open to every one, and manhood should be the reward of ordeal and initiation.
The physical tests should be severe, and weaklings should be killed out rather than artificially preserved. The same remark applies to intellectual tests. But such tests should be as wide as possible. I was an absolute duffer at school in all forms of athletics and games, because I despised them. I held, and still hold, mumerous mountaineering world’s records. Similarly, examinations fail to test intelligence. Cecil Rhodes refused to employ any man with a University degree. That such degrees lead to honour in England is a sign of England’s decay, though even in England they are usually the stepping-stones to clerical idleness or pedagogic slavery.
Such is a dotted outline of the picture that I wish to draw. If the power to possess property depended on a man's competence, and his perception of real values, a new aristocracy would at once be created, and the deadly fact that social consideration varies with the power of purchasing champagne would cease to be a fact. Our pluto-heiro-politicocracy would fall in a day.
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Quick thought - I honostly appreciate your replies froclown. Good on you for continuing the conversation.
Alright you raised some points which I need to think more about but which I wish others would jump in with their own insights.
- Will vs Gravity
"The Will of the moon to orbit the earth is not less than the Will of the earth to orbit the sun."
I think a lot of the reason I'm tripped up by True Will, is it's used in both a human, personal manner, and a "law of nature" manner. Scientists can theorize and then "prove" gravity... I'm still being stumped on how to prove TW. Also I flounder at the idea that we can just stamp TW or Will onto anything that happens. Obama won the election - it was the electorial process' True Will that he would... seems stretching...
I might be using humor to explain a point, but really now... it seems like there is absolutely nothing that couldn't be explained (in the manner you are using it) by saying True Will. (I just farted - It was my digestion systems True Will.), which again gets me back to Isn't that the same exact thing as saying "Gods Will" or "Destiny"??? How does it differ?
- Greater Than
"But the Sun is greater than the Earth and the Earth is Greater than the moon. "
What makes it "Greater Than"... this seems to degenerate into the kind of talk that EPrime could help do away with (in most cases)... like saying Mozart is Greater than Beethoven, etc. If we absolutely boil things down to utility, won't things always be changing in usefullness (greatness?). A knife maybe greater?/more usefull than a piece of paper when trying to cut a log, but it's not greater?/more usefull to me when I'm being attacked by someone with a knife (just don't pour lemon juice on my paper cut afterwards please).
- Slaves/Masters
"The WILL of the slave to serve (even if the slave may not realize his will is to serve and may not even consciously admit that he is a slave) is no better or worse than the WILL of a Master to command the slave."
I'm not a fan of the slave/master dichotomy and don't want to get into it, but it may help us in the True Will discussion if we consider the True Will the Master and the other wills/whims/wishes we have to be Slaves that should serve it. Now, how do we determine correctly the Master True Will? That is the question?
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Agreed. Very good reasoning and expressing your thought processes, Froclown. I can see where you are coming from, and actually totally agree as you present things. The problem I have, as others, is that the ideal can be corrupted by the real of unaware and unconscious people implementing the idea and wrecking it. An example is communism. Karl Marx would not think the dictatorships of Stalin and Mao were what he conceived of. Party officials and the military made up elite classes, and it was the old Russian and Chinese Kaiser and Emperor again.
Yes. Good discourse, and thanks, Froclown.
chrys333 -
@DavidH said
"
- 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? "
Isn't that what video-games are for?
Seriously, we could say that's what the entire body of fiction in literature and drama (including the Gor corpus
) is about; to give you as near as possible the experience of killing another person or committing whatever revolting trespass on another's True Will and, in the best of literature (think Nabokov's "Lolita") to take you inside the mind of one who has had that experience, without committing any such actual trespass.The best of literature or drama is also about the consequences of that act.
Parenthetically, I've just noticed that there is a curious "omission" [?] in Liber Oz
"Man has the right to think what he will:
to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will:
to dress as he will."The word "read" - or generalisations such as "receive information", included now in many nations' statements of basic rights - does not occur in Liber Oz. Is there a reason?
I notice - two layers of parentheses now - that when I GoOgle for the text, an autocomplete pops up, saying "Liber Oz publication in Class", which reminds me, I was looking for the answer to that question. Is Liber Oz a Class A publication? Is it heretical to suggest AC may have simply missed a point in not saying "read as he will"?
Exit parenthesis; exit parenthesis.
More of my thoughts on TW (particularly as regards Scarecrow's question on "Destiny") further down this thread.
OP
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@Scarecrow said
"I'd like to ask a new, but similar question of the group:
How does True Will differ from Destiny in your interpretation of the concept.
One thought I immediatly had on the subject was that destiny as it's normally understood cannot be circumvented... you are always following your destiny (or maybe I'm misguided on this subject too)... but it seems as many people have explained TW, you can NOT be following your TW.
Thoughts?"
Substantially unedited from my diary; sorry if it's wordy, but at least I'll spare you the long quote from Finnegans Wake.
“Destiny” is historically and currently used in more than one sense, indeed, almost contradictory senses, so it could be confusing to see it as the equivalent of True Will.
“Destiny”, it seems to me, is more what others will for you than what you will yourself. Someone might say “my father, grandfather and uncle all practised law, so it was my destiny to become a lawyer.” Are they relating their True Will? The (former) lawyer may go on to say: “but I now realize (interesting word) that my true desire was to be a circus clown. I followed that and I'm very happy.”
When Jamling Tenzing says “it was my destiny to climb this mountain” abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=4118257, perhaps he’s closer to True Will than the lawyer was in his use of the D word, but you still have to ask to what extent this was what others expected of him. Supposing he could have ignored unwarranted "outside influence", what would Tenzing Jr have decided for himself after simply exposing himself to the experience of mountaineering and tales of his father’s achievements?
Legend is full of tales of Will struggling valiantly to thwart Destiny. It was Sleeping Beauty’s destiny to prick her finger and fall into a coma. It was Oedipus’s destiny to kill his father, marry his mother and become an embittered self-mutilated old man and a template for generations of psychological and psychiatric theory. Could we really say this was the True Will of either of them?
We can, perhaps, only characterise True Will by saying what it is not. From a starting point of what I [think I] want to do, abstract:
(1) What I have been persuaded I want by those who stand to gain more than I do from my act (think commercial promotions).
(2) What will clearly trespass on another’s True Will, as near as I can judge that (so the exercise is recursive).AC says “follow out exactly the purpose for which [you are] fitted by heredity, environment, experience and self-development.” Should we beware of the ways we have been “fitted” by those who have had an eye to their own advantage or would press you into their mould (eg the lawyer’s father); those who in Kant’s terms use you as a means to their ends? Or should we accept their influence as part of what we are?
A question of “steering your own course” versus “fitting in”. The ancient Greeks had a similar debate, centring on "eudaimonia" - loosely "well-being".
Again from my diary, this morning (again with parentheses; it's the way I think):
You are a Star, not a planet; you have your own energy-source; your own inner convictions [thought: criminal record, conscience; of what have you convinced yourself? Of what have you convicted yourself?].
However, you are also an intelligent being (drifting further from "star" to "spacecraft"); you have navigational instruments and collision detectors; you have an eye out for potential conflict with another’s True Will and for when another’s False Will [thought FW (Wake – “strawng voice of false jiccup”)] conflicts with your own.
The "jiccup" quote is the one from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Looking it up, I was surprised to see who puts in an obvious appearance at the end of that passage.
"...(O my shining stars and body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of soft advertisement!”
Worth looking it up.
OP
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@Oliver P said
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@DavidH said
"- 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? "
Isn't that what video-games are for?
Seriously, we could say that's what the entire body of fiction in literature and drama (including the Gor corpus
) is about; to give you as near as possible the experience of killing another person or committing whatever revolting trespass on another's True Will and, in the best of literature (think Nabokov's "Lolita") to take you inside the mind of one who has had that experience, without committing any such actual trespass.The best of literature or drama is also about the consequences of that act.
Parenthetically, I've just noticed that there is a curious "omission" [?] in Liber Oz
"Man has the right to think what he will:
to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will:
to dress as he will."The word "read" - or generalisations such as "receive information", included now in many nations' statements of basic rights - does not occur in Liber Oz. Is there a reason?
I notice - two layers of parentheses now - that when I GoOgle for the text, an autocomplete pops up, saying "Liber Oz publication in Class", which reminds me, I was looking for the answer to that question. Is Liber Oz a Class A publication? Is it heretical to suggest AC may have simply missed a point in not saying "read as he will"?
Exit parenthesis; exit parenthesis.
More of my thoughts on TW (particularly as regards Scarecrow's question on "Destiny") further down this thread.
OP"
I dont think Liber OZ is classed according to Class A, B, C etc. It would probably be Class E (or C perhaps).
Most if not all o the language of Liber OZ is about active things - reading is somewhat passive ('receiving information'). Thats my guess.
IAO131
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we must look into what is an individual self. It is a particular expression of the continuous environment as such.
A frog for example is made up of what it eats, its body is constructed of the elements of the swamp it lives in, the same is true for the fish, the insects, and the crocodiles etc. More or less the from is a re-configured but not too far varying from the relative quantities of each chemical element than makes up the swamp as a whole.
No let us consider than a Frog in not a static creation, it is animate, thus the nature of its animation is derived much as the nature of its physiology, from the elements of its environment as a whole and the orbit or Niche which it settles into. Thus not only in the frogs physical vehicle in the world a result of the flies it eats, (the maggots of which eat the fish and other decay in the swamp) but also the Frogs actions are passed on from the swamp. That is its desire or inclination to eat certain flies and to be nourished by them, is a result of the frog being a particular manifestation of the whole swamp,
Like wise is a human being a manifestation of its environment, which includes the breeding the parents, the social role of ones family, the economic accessibility to resources and the sort of information, beliefs, books, media, etc which exist in ones environment.
As such we each precipitated out of the body of Nuit, as a particular manifestation, (Hadit) and like the frog which has an orbit in it's eco system that is unique from the orbit of the fish, the insect, and the algae, so to do we have unique orbits, or niches.
Since a human has atleast in potential infinite access to the whole of the cosmos, this is why we say that a human is a whole star, and an animal merely a fragment of one. And this is why the Human Will, being not so bound by its limits, due to our particular habit of open engagement without limit to the stars and beyond, that our True WILL is more difficult to discern.
However, one can discern the WILL or niche as it applies to a social system, which is a human version of the frogs pond, (even though a human has potential beyond the limits of its social aspect) thus that particular expression of the WILL than is social can be Discerned by examining in practice the general limits that define the individual in the context of the social-economics system, and thus that individual can be aided to find the social role (all of which are man-made) to which it can best express its potential within the Limits of its own natural WILL, rather than having limits imposed upon the individual which conflict with its natural WILL. (like forcing a fish out of water) Rather its better to study the fish and realize that its natural limit is to live bellow the water line and help it to stay in the water best suited to its needs,
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When I'm asking how is TW like/unlike Destiny I am using the word in the following sense:
"1. something that is to happen or has happened to a particular person or thing; lot or fortune.
- the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events. "
Oliver P, I like the imagery of each of us being a spacecraft (blast off Spaceship Earth or even Spaceship Scarecrow)... but this begs the question which I'm meditating out loud on... who's the captain of the ship? Destiny? Fate? Me? True Will? Etc.
Froclown you seem to be defining TW as ecosystem, orbit, and niche... though I'm confused because you're not using TW, you're using WILL (all uppercase), and I don't know how that's different than will or TW...
Also I wonder how you integrate your bit about:
"Rather its better to study the fish and realize that its natural limit is to live bellow the water line and help it to stay in the water best suited to its needs,"
with both (1) Evolution - if you believed that a fish developed legs and walked on land (2) The word of Sin is Restriction
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well, fish that biologically have the ability to breath air to some degree, have a WILL to exit the water, however the vast majority of fish, it is a restriction of their WILL to leave the water. The cannot well accomplish their Natural function if they flop up on the beach and die, rather than live in their proper depth, temperature of water, with the right school of similar fish and with the right types of other organisms to feed upon ar even be fed upon by.
It is the restriction of the birds lofty freedom to plunge it from the skies, into the sea to drown, or even to lock it in a tiny cage.I Use the term WILL to mean the nature of the individual and its dynamic inter-relation to all other individuals which integrates it fully into the continuum, most expressly via its local eco-system.
un-capitalized will, I use in the since of "will it snow tomorrow" or "when will the bus arrive".
Will I use as is William.
And True WILL, is a composite of 2 words the word WILL as I defined above and True, in the since of "the arrow was true to its mark, never wavering its its path to the bullseye."
Thus when the TRUE WILL, is the state where the organism does not Waver from its proper place in the greater whole, and thus it does not precipitate a sense of self in antagonism to the local environment. The self remains fully enmeshed in the continuum, dissolved in the eternal kisses of Nuit as it were.
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@Scarecrow said
"
Oliver P, I like the imagery of each of us being a spacecraft (blast off Spaceship Earth or even Spaceship Scarecrow)... but this begs the question which I'm meditating out loud on... who's the captain of the ship? Destiny? Fate? Me? True Will? Etc.""I am the Master of my Fate /I am the Captain of my Soul" (Invictus by William E Henley) - quoted, apparently, by Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh (now there's a TW worth pondering on).
On the "know your enemy" principle, I give you: www.peggiesplace.com/booster294.htm with its message: "God gave us free will, so let's ignore it and put Him (and, of course, Jesus) back in charge of our lives."We pilot the ship; no-one else decides our course and the tactics we use to travel it; but we must respect gravity and the occasional wandering meteorite, or we court disaster.
"Froclown you seem to be defining TW as ecosystem, orbit, and niche... though I'm confused because you're not using TW, you're using WILL (all uppercase), and I don't know how that's different than will or TW..."
Well that's the eternal puzzle; to what extent should we "fit" our "niche" in the Grand System of Things; to what extent are we defined by it?
I would say treat such external influences with the utmost suspicion and caution, asking the continual question journalists learn to ask: "what (s)he says seems to make sense but what's in it for him/her?"
Most people in this world [the Peggies excepted] are playing the game for their own advantage. Do I really have to fit into the "niche" and follow the pathway defined by someone else or a set of someone elses? Is there another way that respects my needs and inclinations more?
I think even Crowley was a little conflicted about the individual will versus the Grand Scheme. The early assertion of the primacy of the "Khabs" ("I think that we are warned against the idea of a Pleroma, a flame of which we are Sparks and to which we return when we 'attain'" - Comment to AL 1:8 ) is tempered by later stuff like: "...the disturbance of positive existence is annulled by absorption into the Body of Our Lady of the Stars." (The Vision and the Voice, 17th Aethyr).
It's a decision we must all make for ourselves, I think. Do what thou Wilt, even to the extent of defining what your True Will is and how far your personal "bubble" and its accompanying "wake" should reach (the idea of the bubble of Planet Earth travelling through space leaving a "wake" is from some popular astrophysics book somewhere: (I pause once again to acknowledge the prophet Finnegan/Joyce; the meaning of "Wake" as "trace of travel" threads its way through the book along with all the other meanings)).
What we are and Will ourselves to be interacts constantly with the niche the Universe and social systems (and even the fading influence of the "pale Galilean") would slot us into. There is a beauty and wonder in that. Force is in Balance and the Balance is one of Forces [or Lust requires constant fine Adjustment if you will]. And in the midst of that first twist, identified by the GD, sits the Hermit (the primal Yodh of Levi, the "axle" contemplating the Wheel of the Universe). That, I've always thought, is enough of a wonder to occupy my mind (consider the meanings of the word "vice") before I move on to the Emperor and the Star
OP
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Oliver P - it's funny that you bring up the Emperor and the Star... for some weird reason I get the image of Froclown's TW being the Emperor, and your TW being the Star... don't know why / not saying it's accurate at all / just throwing the imagery that strikes me as fitting back at ya both.
More nonsense thoughts follow:
Emperor - sits on throne of matter. Very static - I am so and so, built in such a way, in my ecosystem, and our interaction is the identity of TW. Everything has a place.
"Thus when the TRUE WILL, is the state where the organism does not Waver from its proper place in the greater whole..."
Star - I receive my external, integrate it with myself in my own way, and express it by steering the course as a balance between me and my environment.
"It's a decision we must all make for ourselves, I think. Do what thou Wilt, even to the extent of defining what your True Will is and how far your personal "bubble" and its accompanying "wake" should reach..."
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@Aum418 said
"
@Oliver P said
"Parenthetically, I've just noticed that there is a curious "omission" [?] in Liber Oz"Man has the right to think what he will:
to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will:
to dress as he will."The word "read" - or generalisations such as "receive information", included now in many nations' statements of basic rights - does not occur in Liber Oz. Is there a reason?"
Most if not all o the language of Liber OZ is about active things - reading is somewhat passive ('receiving information'). Thats my guess.
IAO131"
That struck me too, a while after I posted.
However, in the jurisdiction where I currently live, New Zealand Bill of Rights Act refers to: ...the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information..." [my emphasis]
"Seek" is more active. I'm surprised AC didn't include it, or a synonym.
OP