Why did Crowley reject Buddhism and Bennett reject Thelema?
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93,
"I don't like the idea of leaving a part of me behind. I understand, at least very simply, the idea of transcending the ego when crossing the Abyss. But it strikes me that if one were to cross the Abyss and surrender, that all those elements of you that are below, would be left without Life. They truly would be shells."
Honestly, at least in my own experience, it is nowhere near that "cerebral." I mean this is armchair theory to talk about it. But up close the level of decision isn't 'surface' stuff, it's pretty profoundly deep.
On the bright side, I don't think most people run into this until it's possible for them anyway. I think if a person went into that experience and couldn't continue they would be left insane in varying degrees; too far in without completion I think they'd die. That was my overwhelming feeling upon reflection after it, in any case (I am certainly no expert on these topics).
Anyway my point is I don't think there is any need to worry about it, because I don't think there is any kind of conscious decision or intellectualization you could come up with now, in planning, that can begin to touch the deeper parts of you at that point.
93 93/93,
RC -
@Redd Fezz said
"This goes along with the Crowly's concept of treating every interaction as a direct communication with God. I know I'm not supposed to do this until I'm a Master of The Temple or something, but I've been doing it anyway."
Just a small aside: I think it's a common misconception that "treating every interaction as a direct communication with God" is identical with taking the Oath of the Abyss. Crowley's Oath of the Abyss had 10 points, of which this is one. But this practice comes from the Golden Dawn, and has been recommended to ordinary aspirants by people ranging from Ann Davies to Louis Culling. -
@gmugmble said
"Just a small aside: I think it's a common misconception that "treating every interaction as a direct communication with God" is identical with taking the Oath of the Abyss. Crowley's Oath of the Abyss had 10 points, of which this is one. But this practice comes from the Golden Dawn, and has been recommended to ordinary aspirants by people ranging from Ann Davies to Louis Culling."
Excellent point. I'd like to fine-tune it.
That wasn't Crowley's Oath of the Abyss. That was his Oath of the 8=3 Grade of Master of the Temple. Different things.
And yes, that particular clause - Clause 10, referring to Malkuth - describes a process that is extremely active earlier. It's common as a central feature of 5=6. (I'm tempted to say it's nearly universal, but we're cautious discussing anyone else's 5=6 process.) It's a natural p.o.v. in 1=10, in fact.
I remember early on in my A.'.A.'. work that I felt an internal pressure to commit to interpreting each phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul. The pressure was strong, and was matched by a fear of prematurely hurling myself into the Abyss. Soror Meral praised my good sense but made clear that the fear had served its purpose as an alarm mechanism and I didn't need it any longer. "Don't take an oath," she chuckled. "Just do the practice."
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Don't take an oath," she chuckled. "Just do the practice.""
Oh, yes. That too
Actually, at one point I turned Crowley's whole 8 = 3 oath into a sort of 10 commandments. It didn't seem dangerous since I wasn't taking an oath, just encouraging myself to adopt certain attitudes.Since I've derailed this thread (I didn't mean too -- the preceding discussion was quite interesting and valuable to me), let me bring something else up. Ann Davies says somewhere (probably her book on the tarot) that when you "treat every phenomenon as a dealing of God with your soul", the soul in question is nephesh. I suppose is could be nephesh, ruach, or even neshamah at different stages of the game.
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The word "soul" in that phrase does mean Nephesh - even in the 8=3 oath.
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@JPF said
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@Jim Eshelman said
" The pressure was strong, and was matched by a fear of prematurely hurling myself into the Abyss. "Is it possible to do such a thing?"
Yes. One can, for example, start dismantling the ego (or one's linkages to it) before it is fully developed and matured. It's possible to go the Nietzsche route of hurling oneself into the void without having an unequivocal link to the Supernal - something that is corrected when the K&C of the HGA is full and secure before the approach.
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JAE, 93,
"hurling oneself into the void without having an equivocal link to the Supernal "
Did you mean to use 'equivocal' here? If so, could you expand on why you used that adjective?
93 93/93,
Edward
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I absolutely meant to type 'equivocal.' Of course, I also meant to put un- in front of it. I suppose I'll go back and do that right now.
(I do write most of this stuff while doing three other things at once, and get interrupted a lot. I've already stopped and handled two micro-crises between these two paragraphs. So it's usually "fingers on blurt mode.")
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JAE 93,
You've just never mastered constructive goofing off.
93 93/93,
Edward
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@JPF said
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@Jim Eshelman said
" The pressure was strong, and was matched by a fear of prematurely hurling myself into the Abyss. "Is it possible to do such a thing?"
Yes. One can, for example, start dismantling the ego (or one's linkages to it) before it is fully developed and matured. It's possible to go the Nietzsche route of hurling oneself into the void without having an unequivocal link to the Supernal - something that is corrected when the K&C of the HGA is full and secure before the approach."
Did you mean "Nietzsche"?
I like this post a lot Mr. Eshelman, it warns against the spiritual equivalent of a drug-induced dementia/addiction due to inadequate preparation and understanding. It is most important to "know thyself" BEFORE undertaking any great spiritual measures; Liber E, etc.. -
@Jim Eshelman said
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@JPF said
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@Jim Eshelman said
" The pressure was strong, and was matched by a fear of prematurely hurling myself into the Abyss. "Is it possible to do such a thing?"
Yes. One can, for example, start dismantling the ego (or one's linkages to it) before it is fully developed and matured. It's possible to go the Nietzsche route of hurling oneself into the void without having an unequivocal link to the Supernal - something that is corrected when the K&C of the HGA is full and secure before the approach."
Ah. Now that I consider it, it seems that a great deal of "psychedelic casualties" fall into this category. It also seems that a great many mental illnesses can be explained by this phenomenon.
And Nietzche is an excellent example. His letters from after his madness illustrate the term "dismantled ego" perfectly.
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I think I need to correct some of the posts. Alan Bennet was NOT a tibetan buddhist...he was a thai buddhist which is a completely different way of practice. There are no gods that are worshipped. And it is a very simple and clear path, if I met crowley I wouldnt want to get wrapped up in his ego trips either lol. Anyway the main text of buddhism is the dammapada which is a short text that everyone really should read. Its pretty sad that most buddhist schools do not use that text even though it is the most authentic buddhist text.
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93
@darrene2002 said
"Alan Bennet was NOT a tibetan buddhist...he was a thai buddhist"
Bhikku Ananda Metteyya studied and received ordination in Myanmar. Both Thai and Burmese Buddhism are Theravada but there are differences.
@darrene2002 said
"Anyway the main text of buddhism is the dammapada which is a short text that everyone really should read. Its pretty sad that most buddhist schools do not use that text even though it is the most authentic buddhist text."
Only in the Pali Canon, and therefore to Theravada Buddhism. Mahayana and Vajrayana are considerably different paths from the original Theravada, and each have their own rich literary traditions.
93 93/93
A.
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@seekinghga said
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I like this post a lot Mr. Eshelman, it warns against the spiritual equivalent of a drug-induced dementia/addiction due to inadequate preparation and understanding. It is most important to "know thyself" BEFORE undertaking any great spiritual measures; Liber E, etc.."Quite right. I had to renounce intoxicants for some time after a Nietzche-like experience. Luckily, after a long period of spirtual penance, I've come back to my faculties. Some haven't been quite so lucky.
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"seekinghga wrote:
Smile I like this post a lot Mr. Eshelman, it warns against the spiritual equivalent of a drug-induced dementia/addiction due to inadequate preparation and understanding. It is most important to "know thyself" BEFORE undertaking any great spiritual measures; Liber E, etc..Quite right. I had to renounce intoxicants for some time after a Nietzche-like experience. Luckily, after a long period of spirtual penance, I've come back to my faculties. Some haven't been quite so lucky."
ya drug induced is not bad whatsoever, i do it with cannabis a bit, but you have to be aware and know yourself, no you dont have to been in complete contact with your HGA, what messes people up is that they do that shit and have issues, or it brings something suppressed out(bad trip) and can screw your mental and emotinal faculties for a bit. properly a person who know thyself and uses intoxicants to iduce altered states of mind are "psychonauts" but its not an easy path, like i said you have to be aware for many reasons of yourself in a sense for one so you dont get addicted, psychologically of course, you have to be a stable person enough mentally and emotionally to do the shit anyway.
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I think the use of Psychedelics may be warranted to start the process as they make one aware of the "inner planes" which we are either not aware of or perhaps we are as children but over time this awareness is conditioned out of us. However I believe that the continuous use of drugs after this priming period is dangerous, unnecessary and can actual be detrimental to ones practice. Even with Crowley's iron clad will power and drive, I feel his opiate addiction did more to reduce his potential than to aid his work.
I will produce here the entire authors note from Phillip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly, first because I believe it is an important lesson from a morally neutral stance on drug use from personal experience, and second I think that it shows how drug misuse can be an example of Liber Legis III-57 (57. Despise also all cowards; professional soldiers who dare not fight, but play; all fools despise!) But it was a lesson not truly learned until after the social experiments of the 1960s. There are ways to use drugs and there is a time and place for play "And it's called college" (south park)
"This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed--run over, maimed, destroyed--but they continued to play anyhow. We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was beyond belief: even when we could see it, we could not believe it. For example, while
I was writing this I learned that the person on whom the character Jerry Fabin is based killed himself. My friend on whom I based the character Ernie Luckman died before I began the novel. For a while I myself was one of these children playing in the street; I was, like the rest of them, trying to play instead of being grown up, and I was punished. I am on the list below, which is a list of those to whom this novel is dedicated, and what became of each. Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is "Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is, then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary human existence. It is not different from
your life-style, it is only faster. It all takes place in days or weeks or months instead of years. "Take the cash and let the credit go," as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime.There is no moral in this novel; it is not bourgeois; it does not say they were wrong to play when they should have toiled;it just tells what the consequences were. In Greek drama they were beginning, as a society, to discover science, which means causal law. Here in this novel there is Nemesis: not fate, because any one of us could have chosen to stop playing in the street, but, as I narrate from the deepest part of my life and heart, a dreadful Nemesis for those who kept on playing. I myself,I am not a character in this novel; I am the novel. So, though, was our entire nation at this time. This novel is about more people than I knew personally. Some we all read about in the newspapers. It was, this sitting around with our buddies and bullshitting while making tape recordings, the bad decision of the decade, the sixties, both in and out of the establishment. And nature cracked down on us.
We were forced to stop by things dreadful. If there was any "sin," it was that these people wanted to keep on having a good time forever, and were punished for that, but, as I say, I feel that, if so, the punishment was far too great, and I prefer to think of it only in a Greek or morally neutral way, as mere science, as deterministic impartial cause-and-effect. I loved them all. Here is the list, to whom I dedicate my love:To Gaylene deceased
To Ray deceased
To Francy permanent psychosis
To Kathy permanent brain damage
To Jim deceased
To Val massive permanent brain damage
To Nancy permanent psychosis
To Joanne permanent brain damage
To Maren deceased
To Nick deceased
To Terry deceased
To Dennis deceased
To Phil permanent pancreatic damage
To Sue permanent vascular damage
To Jerri permanent psychosis and vascular damage. . . and so forth.
In Memoriam. These were comrades whom I had; there are no better. They remain in my mind, and the enemy will never be forgiven. The "enemy" was their mistake in playing.
Let them all play again, in some other way, and let them be happy."