"Can't we all just get along?"
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Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law.
My initial impression of the Heruraha site was that there was way too much testosterone for my liking. Most of what I read was a lot of “male dominant monkey mother f@#kers” (for lack of a better term) doing their best at some verbal jousting.
It got tiresome stepping back in time and wading through the halls of Anytown High School U.S.A. to gain some nugget of wisdom alluded to in the title of the post, three pages prior. So, I began analyzing the personalities of certain colorful enthusiastic posters to pass the time. Generally speaking, I found that it seems as if there are two prominent archetypes/personalities on this message board: [1] the “average” Thelemite (from which myriad sub-classifications can be made) and [2] the sadly misinformed, Pseudo-Pop Culture “Evil Satanist”; a lycanthropic wanna-be who still plots the revenge of some second grade slight which robbed him/her of his/her self-confidence.Since the latter types are stereotypically less physically developed (abnormalities being the unfortunate exception) they often turn inward, training and focusing on the brain; the result being the usual “pompous windbag” who attempts to impose his/her own will on others through verbal intimidation and intellectual dominance. You know the type: constantly vomiting out random bits of information as to appear worldly and knowledgeable. They usually exude the casual attitude that they’ve “got it all figured out” and an array of cleverly crafted come-backs are often at-the-ready. It seems like these nerds of newfound power have already forgotten what it is like to be ridiculed and bullied, themselves. The oppressed has become the oppressor. They have become the personification of the very thing through which they undoubtedly suffered.
Being a hard-headed, know-it-all, verbally abusive bully is not only ignorant but pointless for anything other than ego gratification. Confirmed graduation from this drowsy state should be a prerequisite for temple initiation. It’s one thing to have a strong opinion from which you will not allow yourself to be moved without a fight. However, when it crosses the line and degrades into blatant disrespect and flat out name-calling, haven’t you lost hold of the message of Thelema? Is not Love the Law? If you agree with the tenet that “Every man and every woman is a star” then shouldn't we all strive to acknowledge the God within each other; that Divine Spark that is the heart of life in every star? **“All words are sacred and all prophets true; save only that they understand a little.” ** Therefore shouldn't everyone’s word be, at least, respected? I do also recognize that Do What Thou Wilt is The Whole of The Law. So, if it IS anyone’s true will simply to be an A$$h@le, let no one say nay. I guess.
At the same time, I believe that there shouldn’t be any gold standard or one “approved” way to do or interpret things. I just don’t understand the relentless compulsion to force your opinion on others. That is the ultimate losing battle. Once this is truly understood, you can relax and liberate the energy you have invested in perpetuating that paradigm. You won’t feel the need to constantly overcompensate for your perceived short-comings through arrogant abusive verbiage while safe in the comfy confines of your computer chair. Beer-goggles’ pesky cousin Internet-balls is probably often the contributor to many a late night Heruraha retort. In which case, Thelema could definitely benefit from an increased female presence. As a female friend of mine put it, ‘There are just way too many guys who are getting laid way too little with way too much time on their hands and they’re all arguing on that site.’ (Paraphrased) “Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love”.
I’m just saying, enough with the “No. You’re wrong because I know THIS…” never ending arguments. They are completely ego-driven and most often pointless in multiple contexts. One viewpoint is that true strength is rarely abusive or oppressive. As Rumi wrote, Why boast of your strength? The same wind that can topple a tree, Caresses the grass. Strength can be having the courage and confidence to entirely express the True Self that you know is deep within but also successfully express it without, extending to all aspects of your life; in the darkness and in the light. Then again, maybe it is one’s true will to be dominant and oppressive? Who knows!? In the meantime, why not stop the bickering and stick to contributing to the community with constructive and mature exchanges and not dominating or distracting from the originally intended purpose for the website and message boards. It'll be good for your will, regardless.
Comments and criticism welcomed and encouraged.
Love Is The Law, Love Under Will.
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Well myself, I do not wish to insult any person, but I do find it necessary to correct views, as ultimately physical actions and social-political networks are the result of beliefs and ideals. Dawkins likens a belief to a virus with his notion of memes, a virus than infects the mind of the persons and like the genetic virus infects the mind of a bee in the end becomes a bee hive, its hexaform geometry, likewise a memtic belief blended with Egyption DNA and formed into the pyramids. As every lodge, hippie commune, nation, state, or yachting club is a result of some belief manifestic collectively over time. And we all agree than some types of manifest organizations are more hurtful than beneficial, the spanish inquisition and the Nazi consentration camps to give extreme examples, and some are repressive to more individuals than they liberate, some hold back human potential rather than support and nourish it.
The idea is that we can discern what the intention of at ideal or belief might be, and use than knowledge to prevent personal expression from deviating too far from the teleos, so that the manifestation of those ideal is as a fruitful as possible, as well as the fruit of the right kind becoming manifest. (This is simply the Law of thelema, the theorems of magick applied to the work of Thelema itself)
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"V.I.T.R.I.O.L.[299]: I’m just saying, enough with the “No. You’re wrong because I know THIS…”"
"Froclown: Well myself, I do not wish to insult any person, but I do find it necessary to correct views"
LMAO
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VITRIOL,
Lao Tzu said, "Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know." Of course, it would be a mistake to take this phrase to its most literal extreme, but I think that internet forums often disclose this principle. I know for a fact that there is a large number of very knowledgeable, wise people who use these forums. My guess is that more than half of them mostly lurk and make public posts and comments rarely enough that they are almost nonentities (observe the extremely high "views" to "replies" ratio). Their reasons for not making more of a visible presence on these forums probably varies greatly. I can only speak for myself when I say that my reasons for not piping up more often are 1) I type somewhat slowly, and don't usually have all that much time to spend on the internet, 2) many subjects on this forum are beyond my level of expertise, 3) I don't contribute to noisome debates because I find them to be a waste of time and adding more cluster to a clusterfuck never helped a clusterfuck die down to a gentle screw.
On the other side of the coin, it is an unfortunate fact that people who want to fight tend to walk around looking for fights. A hall of study only needs one or two shouting people to be an undesirable study environment, no matter how many reasonable, calm people are present. "One bad apple..." etc.
I would be careful about judging the more raucous and red-faced among us as easily as you do in your post, or to assume so quickly that you know exactly why it is that they choose to behave in the manner that they do. Assumptions of that ilk are mighty effective kindling for the very flame-wars we are discussing. It is generally said that the most aggressive person in the room is the one who is the most afraid. People who are afraid aren't bad guys, they're just people who are afraid of something (god knows what). Generally, I approach fear from the perspective of therapy. Sometimes the most therapeutic thing to do is just to shut the hell up and leave the situation alone.
As amazing as this forum is, I think it could be made better. The complaint your friend made has been echoed many times. I don't think a solution would come from trying to select and exclude posters/posts that are impolite, I think a solution would simply be to increase the level of authentic, creative, calm, and humble dialogue. The problem with that solution is that it can't be enforced except by individual members.
In conclusion, I would encourage everyone to only make posts when you're calm and collected!
That's really the best I can do, I guess.
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Bryan,
You make some good points, as does the OP. I think Joseph Campbell paraphrased the comment as, "He who thinks he knows, knows not. He who knows he knows not, knows."
I hesitate to post sometimes becaue of some of the same reasons; basically, limited time and energy to put into a response that may become just fodder for antagonistic posts. Most women I know say they don't post online much because they don't have the need to always be right, or always have the last word. It isn't a contest. I do think that if more sane, non-threatening people post, it will attract still more who are now just reading. -
not a matter of being right or wrong.
We can safely assume that everyone can see than the soviet union was a manifestation of Marxism. The Ideals become reality, by hard work, dedication, and Focus on a narrow interpretation of the ideal one is manifesting. If it were allowed that everyone interpret Marx it mean anything and everything under the sun, so long as you personally feel what was being said was right for you an individual. The founders of the USSR, would be all over the place, some would think marx supported storing gold, some that he supported jewish kings, others than he was in touch with alien overlords whom we should built a temple to invite to dictate to the workers. And nothing collective could have been achieved. The Czars would still rule today, which may or may not be so bad and according to RAW they still rule american drug policy.
In any effect the US also only was able to manifest because the ideals were adhered to with a narrow degree of interpretation, if everyone just believes any random crazy theory about everything, the WILL of the author becomes irrelevant, and practical application and material manifestation of the ideal becomes impossible, and since everyone will just interpret any words no mean anything they want, why even bother to read others word, we can all just pull crack-pot theories out of out asses and go around feeling self righteous and smug, that our personal Bullshit smells as good as everyone else's.
While the whole world falls apart under "That state of manyhood" rotting away the inter-social, as much as indiscicion and schizophrenia the fragmenting of the WILL and ego, rot away the Inner Mind. Making both ineffective.
Let us not take modernist "God is dead" and run with in, deny any and all attempts at any form of collective or higher unity, truth and power, and just disperse ourselves into chaos, Maddness and the death of the human species. Thelema is a call to unity and concentration of energy to a point, not the hippie adage, "like everyone believes their own thing man, and its like beautiful". Rather it is everyone dedicate their own skill, talents, and personality to the UNTIY of WILL, a singular ends, the great work.
To achieve the great work, everyone must understand objectively and without the noise of personal feelings. We must realize what Crowley meant and what HIS intentions were with Thelema, not what you or I may want or the values we hold going in.We are the old aeon, our values, beliefs, feeling, are what is destroyed by fire, so that the Child can manifest within. That we are children of a new aeon. Dedicated to the ideals, ethics, principle, and political agenda of Thelema to replace all the worlds political and religion foundations. To burn them away and reshape the face of the globe.
Which is only possible if we UNIFY to that ends, not simple hold hard and fast to the same liberal modernist ideals that we were indoctrinated with, and use random quotes and passages taken out of context and twisted to support ideas we already believe.
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93,
VITRIOL [299] wrote:
"My initial impression of the Heruraha site was that there was way too much testosterone for my liking. Most of what I read was a lot of “male dominant monkey mother f@#kers” (for lack of a better term) doing their best at some verbal jousting........ I just don’t understand the relentless compulsion to force your opinion on others."
Yup. As a medium of conveying strongly held opinions, an online forum is excellent. As a means of expanding understanding and acceptance, it's often counter-productive.
A year or two back, Jim Eshelman started posting daily texts from the Thelemic Tephilah, to start a devotionally oriented thread, or process. Ultimately, it bombed - people still wanted to debate and discuss fact and the meaning of words.
Online fora tend to be 90 percent Hod, 8 percent (shadow-side of) Geburah and 2 percent Netzach. It's hard to move out of that. And it also partly explains why people who embody more of the feminine qualities (regardless of their actual gender) tend to get turned off by Thelema. Hence the occasional "Why are there so few women in Thelema?" threads.
93 93/93,
EM
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to better explain I think I was unclear.
We can have unity without destroying diversity.
An automobile has hundreds probably thousands of different worknig parts, each have unique properties and unique functions, but in order for the car to work you have to arrange all the parts such that the singular goal af producing an effective car is achieved. The spark plugs, the crank shaft, the seatbelt even the radio and the AC have a single unified purpose. The TRUE WILL in manor of analogy of all the parts in to produce a transportation tool that moves a human safely, efficiently and with maximum comfort.
The TRUE WILL of any individual therefore will also have to include the WILL of all other people and in fact of all things whatsoever than in any way effect the individual. Thus ones own personal WILL is unified with all other WILLs to achieve a unity.
Just as the park plug and water pump seem to perform different purposes and the water pumps task of keeping the engine cool may seem at odds with the spark plugs heating it up. In the big picture apparent opposition and conflict is actually co-operation towards a unified purpose.
We need this Unity or we can not any of us truly claim to have manifest our WILL. Attempts make to yolk the parts together so than their tendency to divide and go their separate ways, may seem like conflict and hostility, but in truth this conflict in the big picture is the yoga than binds thelemites, ultimately seeking a Samadhi called the Great work. The appearance of division and even hate, is actually the Agape than glues us together.
If we didn't fight "as brothers" then we would no longer influence each other, we might as well not communicate at all and just go "every man for himself" (Which is not the central message of Buddhism)
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@Tinman said
"LMAO"
Indubitably! This thread seems to be kind of like a picture book. Accompanying the text on the subject matter are illustrations of the subject matter. It is very helpful. Thanks for your contributions, froclown.
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I hope this is not too off topic to the OP... I read this article recently, and found it interesting:
www.erwinhessle.com/writings/pdfs/The_Ethics_of_Thelema.pdf
The perennial question seems to be when to shrug your shoulders at another, and when to pipe up.
Can two wills be in conflict? Two stars can collide can't they? (of course, it's not often, and when it does, it's cataclysmic)
So, I've made a personal resolution to "let go" of any conflict (not to say an intellectual debate is a conflict, per se), unless my true will is being obstructed. And if so, I should be prepared to take it all the way, without compunction (until my path is clear). As a "plus" that mindset underscores the seriousness of my will, and of not treating trivial stuff as my true will...
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I'm singing in the rain, just singing in the rain....
@Edward Mason said
"A year or two back, Jim Eshelman started posting daily texts from the Thelemic Tephilah, to start a devotionally oriented thread, or process. Ultimately, it bombed - people still wanted to debate and discuss fact and the meaning of words."
I miss that
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@Uni_Verse said
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@Edward Mason said
"A year or two back, Jim Eshelman started posting daily texts from the Thelemic Tephilah, to start a devotionally oriented thread, or process. Ultimately, it bombed - people still wanted to debate and discuss fact and the meaning of words."I miss that
"I missed that too. I joined to forums shortly before that section went away. I'd probably contribute if it came back.
Need more Netzach at Heruraha.net!!
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One major issue I find confusing is that there seems to be this mixed message being “preached” in Liber Legis. On one hand you have, “Come forth, o children, under the stars, & take your fill of love! I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy.” At the same time you find, “We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them die in their misery. For they feel not. Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world.” You find, “Love one another with burning hearts” as opposed to, “Mercy let be of: damn them who pity! Kill and torture; spare not; be upon them!”. It seems painfully obvious, despite what some clowns my like to think, that such passages are not condoning rampant murder, at least to me. Is this a display of the nature of dualism, an Eastern yin-yang thing or some Crowley mind-fuck? Interestingly enough, you often find people generally fall into one of the two broad categories when it comes to their personal interpretations of Thelema: “hippie“ or “hater“. Liber Legis even makes an effort to warn those who have ears to hear, “There is great danger in me; for who doth not understand these runes shall make a great miss.” Any more sage advice out there?
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Not sure anyone can resolve the Hadit and Nuit for you.
In words and symbols we can certainly invoke the 5=6, the rose and cross, the sexual union, and many others, but these are sign posts than point the way. The reason tends to hold one or the other, or the rationalize and resolve the one in the terms of the other.We can switch between one view or the other, but resolving the opposites can not be done fully by the reason, much less by the emotion.
When you have fully explored the details of both views so that each seems to contain and transform into the other. Then and only then You would be advised and admitted to practice the formula of the Rose and Cross.
If you are ready, I would suggest you begin such practice and perhaps conjoin this with an Abramelin ritual like Liber Samekh.
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I guess that notion of opposing forces constantly jockying for position in order to acheive that perfect delicate balance is the inherent structure of Liber Legis: Had! The Manifestation of Nuit and Nu! The hiding of Hadit culminating in the Reward of Ra Hoor Khut.
Has anyone ever able to attain that sublime merged state signified by the 6-pointed star (the red and blue triangels meeting) and remain there? Or are there only glimpses of this available? Is this life defined by the dance between the pillars as the very human personification of the ever-evolving Middle Pillar of Equilibrium? (Woo! L.A. Confidential!)
At a certain point the futility of it all overcomes me. Still, I see too many instances where caution and humility are encouraged:
"Yet, oh aspirant, let thy victories bring thee not Vanity, for with increase of Knowledge should come increase of Wisdom. He who knoweth little, thinketh he knoweth much; but he who knoweth much hath learned his own ignorance. Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool, than of him.
"Be not hasty to condemn others; how knowest thou that in their place, thou couldst have resisted the temptation? And even were it so, why shouldest thou despise one who is weaker than thyself?
"Thou therefore who desirest Magical Gifts, be sure that thy soul is firm and steadfast; for it is by flattering thy weaknesses that the Weak Ones will gain power over thee. Humble thyself before they Self, yet fear neither man nor spirit. Fear is failure, and the forerunner of failure; and courage is the begining of virture."
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VITRIOL,
I learned a lot about the apparently dual-sided nature of existence that Liber Legis speaks of (by the way, some other authors who speak of this as well are Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu) through the practice of martial arts. Fighting is a practice that naturally tends to encourage things like aggression, tension, fear, hatred, unyielding strength and so on. Yet almost paradoxically, the most effective fighters are those who can remain calm, relaxed, unafraid, loving, yielding, and even therapeutic in their actions, even if those actions are knocking an assailant unconscious, breaking limbs, or even perhaps killing them if need be.
One thing that Liber Legis displays is that one can be merciful and severe at the same time. The brutality of unhindered force without love is misguided. Love without selectively directed unstoppable force is ineffective. If you've ever tried being truly honest with yourself about yourself, you've probably found that it can hurt like hell, and that we cover ourselves from ourselves with layer upon layer of protective (hiding) mechanisms. One who has not the capability to be "cruel" or "harsh" will have trouble being truly honest. One who has not the capability to be loving and caring will have trouble being truly honest.
In learning how to balance ourselves out, it is easy to swing from one side to the other. Most of us on this forum are in the process of learning this balancing act and will be for decades to come. It's best to bear with the hippies and haters and recognize that we're just learning.
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"":kw9gcu3q]One major issue I find confusing is that there seems to be this mixed message being “preached” in Liber Legis. On one hand you have, “Come forth, o children, under the stars, & take your fill of love! I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy.” At the same time you find, “We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them die in their misery. For they feel not. Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world.” You find, “Love one another with burning hearts” as opposed to, “Mercy let be of: damn them who pity! Kill and torture; spare not; be upon them!”. "
I've long found it most useful to realize that Liber L. is presenting three distinctive points of view - one in each chapter - and allowed the three separate (and often disagreeing) aspects to simply coexist.
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"":2rmazenk]I guess that notion of opposing forces constantly jockying for position in order to acheive that perfect delicate balance is the inherent structure of Liber Legis"
It need not be seen so competitively. They can simply coexist. (See, you've adopted a particular poiont of view in your labelling of them.)
"Has anyone ever able to attain that sublime merged state signified by the 6-pointed star (the red and blue triangels meeting) and remain there? Or are there only glimpses of this available? "
That's a great (even insightful) question. The answer to the question as asked is, of course they have. But I think the question you mean to ask is more about the typical reaching of that place.
There does come a point where (speaking symbolically) the two triangles, instead of naturally gravitating apart unless held together by concentration, switch to naturally falling into each other. A union is made that is permanent. But, that link being deep rather than superficial, it is in the individual's depths that it's experienced, and not necessarily in his or her surface or superficial aspects that it is always evident. In some ways one could say that, the fusion having been made, one is "visited" by it here and there with greater frequency. But at the same time, if it was authentically made, the link is continually present, even in the personality's worst moments.
The personality isn't dispensed with, nor is it where the transformation essentially takes place. It does, however, undergo healing for years thereafter simply by its exposure to the deep union that never departs.
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To Love a person with a burning heart is to kill them. For Love unites, and in its fiery embrace there ceases to be separation.
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Well, I hope not.
chrys333