Thelemic Jihad
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Personally (and, to be clear, I am only speaking personally on this), I think it's not only probably wrong, but actively destructive. This sort of position is an example of what makes Thelemites look threatening to the rest of the world."
Well, Jim, shouldn't Thelemites be seen as threatening to the rest of the world?
Of course, strategically, if you mean it is easier to infiltrate and subvert the governments of the world, if Thelemites falsely appear kindly and beneficent (or merely metaphorical), there is that point and consideration.
But, I think Crowley spoke to this, pointing out that expressing the truth to the world is not going to clue it into anything that shall obstruct the current. And that is true, because the world will not believe there is a current to fear, until it is too late.
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Some personal thoughts on this issue, from an unpublished writing of mine:
Truly our entire world is weary from the war and suffering that has been wrought in the decades since, in the birth-throes of the New Æon. It is our belief that the apocalyptic tones of Chapter 3 of The Book of the Law refer primarily to a transformation of consciousness, such as began to touch the world in the 1960s, not an Armageddon between nations. Such radical reformation of consciousness is depicted in the Tarot Trump called The Tower. Nonetheless, we are all too aware that, if the impulse growing in humanity is denied for renewed freedom, dignity, and self-fulfillment on all planes, and if the necessary and predicted transformation of consciousness does not occur on a world-wide scale, it will indeed erupt in bloodshed and destruction that could annihilate the physical planet on which we live. Any strong desire that is suppressed becomes pathological, whether at the level of the individual or of a culture, and erupts in physical trauma in our lives if it is denied resolution within the soul.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Tarotica said
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@Edward Mason said
"Some of the rest of the piece is internally coherent, if you're into loathing and disgust as a general attitude. Though I personally do NOT want ANY state religion, Thelemic or otherwise, thank you."Then you do not want the Thelema of Aleister Crowley."
Non sequitur."
How so?
@Jim Eshelman said
"One mustn't confuse faith with reason."
Then why care about the method of science?
@Jim Eshelman said
"Just as Christian scriptures usually (always?) are not actual history, genuine Holy Books in general (such as The Koran and Liber Legis) should not be read reasonably."
And again, then why be concerned with demonstrations of "proofs" concerning their verses?
You may have faith that Liber AL commands you to eat enough cheddar cheese to turn yourself into a giant rat, and that this is your true cosmic will.
And after devouring mounds of the cheese, perhaps you would imagine you were a rat, and your faith would say it is so.
But there would be no demonstration this is the case, nor any evidence indicating how the verses of Liber AL should reasonably be read to guide a person to the determination to which faith brought you.
And a reasonable interpretation, even a literal interpretation, of the verses is both acceptable and recommended by Crowley as valid.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"It is our belief that the apocalyptic tones of Chapter 3 of The Book of the Law refer primarily to a transformation of consciousness"
When you say "our", who are you talking about? The plural you? Or some group?
Anyway, your position is simply not the one Crowley professed.
So, why should we reject his view and accept yours instead?
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@Tarotica said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Personally (and, to be clear, I am only speaking personally on this), I think it's not only probably wrong, but actively destructive. This sort of position is an example of what makes Thelemites look threatening to the rest of the world."Well, Jim, shouldn't Thelemites be seen as threatening to the rest of the world?"
No. That's so last aeon.
A world founded on the mandate Do what thou wilt is not based on threat. It's based on infinite space and the infinite stars therein. "Threat" (of one person or people to another) is a condition at odds with the core principles of Thelema actually prevailing. (PS - I don't dispute that it might be part of the road there. I do dispute that it's the goal or the ideal, or that it's the right tool to use at the moment, when freedom can best be brought about by a widescale reduction of fear.)
"Of course, strategically, if you mean it is easier to infiltrate and subvert the governments of the world, if Thelemites falsely appear kindly and beneficent (or merely metaphorical), there is that point and consideration."
No, not my meaning at all. I mean that a real Thelemite is instinctively repulsed at the idea of infringing on the Will of another. I mean that real Thelemites are, by nature, kindly and beneficent - a deep generosity and liberality that comes as a consequence of the overflowing bounty of living one's life in conformity with True Will.
There isn't any need for us to infiltrate. Thelema itself is infiltrating increasing areas of human experience and direction, even (especially)? among those who have never heard about it.
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@Tarotica said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"One mustn't confuse faith with reason."Then why care about the method of science?"
That's a method. (And, as I've often remarked, he probably should have said "empiricism" instead of "science," though it wouldn't have made so great a slogan.) Don't confuse the method (or means) with the aim (or end). Usually they are incommensurable - apples and oranges.
Faith and reason are the separate languages of different aspects of consciousness. Not just different strata of consciousness, but (to use a physical analogue) discrete organs of consciousness that function differently. Language meant to communicate to one organ of consciousness doesn't necessarily communicate accurately to another.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Just as Christian scriptures usually (always?) are not actual history, genuine Holy Books in general (such as The Koran and Liber Legis) should not be read reasonably."And again, then why be concerned with demonstrations of "proofs" concerning their verses?"
I'm long on record that so-called "prophecies" in the Book are leaks - inner forces denied expression that "splash over the edges" into the World of Action. I'm not interested in event proofs.
"You may have faith that Liber AL commands you to eat enough cheddar cheese to turn yourself into a giant rat, and that this is your true cosmic will."
Possibly you don't know my definition of faith, which is: "Direct perception by Neshamah." You are using the word (in the above sentence) in the Ruach sense of (something like) "conviction."
"And a reasonable interpretation, even a literal interpretation, of the verses is both acceptable and recommended by Crowley as valid."
Crowley recommended (in his list of how to approach a commentary) that this is where one should start. He didn't say that this is where one should finish.
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@Tarotica said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"It is our belief that the apocalyptic tones of Chapter 3 of The Book of the Law refer primarily to a transformation of consciousness"When you say "our", who are you talking about? The plural you? Or some group?"
I said it was from an unpublished writing of mine. Take that as you will.
"Anyway, your position is simply not the one Crowley professed.
So, why should we reject his view and accept yours instead?"
You have to figure that out for yourself.
BTW: You continue to speak of Crowley's positions, views, etc. You are quoting him in specific instances. His opinions evolved and changed across time, with particular audiences, and with particular purposes. You are using it dogmatically as if (1) these were his only views on a particular subject and (2) his personality opinions matter in some dogmatic way. And this has been pointed out to you (admittedly more briefly) above.
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@Tarotica said
"Liber AL doesn't encourage it. It commands child sacrifice, and Crowley plainly said this was the case."
So, then the 'blood of the moon' is something we've only had access to since the Apollo missions, right?
Besides, there is no law beyond Do what thou wilt, and sorry, but mine doesn't include human sacrifice. If it did, I would have chosen to incarnate myself into a time and place where it was acceptable.
But, I had best not continue this discussion. You are welcome to your literal interpretation. I have to go ask the wise serpent coiled about my spine for advice about putting out the fire burning in my chest cavity before it spreads to my wife's hair. I also have to freshen up the bathroom a bit with the perfume of my orison.
Good luck! and remember:
II:27. There is great danger in me; for who doth not understand these runes shall make a great miss. He shall fall down into the pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of Reason.
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@AvshalomBinyamin said
"So, then the 'blood of the moon' is something we've only had access to since the Apollo missions, right?"
Hahaha! That got me.
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Tarotica, 93,
There is so much frustration spilling out from you here that it's hard to respond to all of it, so I won't try. A couple of rebuttals:
I specifically asked you if the sword was how the Prophet Mohammed spread the faith. You missed that, and cited a Wikipedia article on the wars of expansion that followed his death, after the start of the Caliphate. But you don't seem to have examined how so many people have converted to Islam on the basis of conviction, not compulsion. The faith began to spread via traveling merchants, before Mohammed's successors got grabby and intolerant.
At its core, Islam is a faith, whatever it accretes or absorbs outside that. You don't seem able or willing to envisage that core, which is what has sustained it for 13 centuries - not the empires it has won and lost.
"Depending on the polls and the wholes, majorities of Muslims have enthusiastically supported the slaughtering of infidels, and especially American ones occupying lands of the Islamic faithful, by the means mentioned."
I'm sorry - of course, if Americans occupy a Muslim country, the Muslims should be MUCH more appreciative. Just like they were with the French, Italians and British that, for some miserable reason, the damned ungrateful rogues also resented and fought against.
The resentment levels against infidels rise and fall according to which infidels are under discussion. As a visitor in Islamic countries, I've always felt welcomed, and have soon become engaged in reasonable discussions. I guess they see I'm just one of those whussy liberals that doesn't get off on killing people, so they chill and offer me tea (or in a couple of instances, Scotch - yes, these were devout people, but Islam is always multifaceted) and start laying out what the feel western media are afraid to report.
"The problem we are running into is a Thelemic explosion happening within the Islamic world, that is parallel to own but coming through a very different paradigm
And what precisely do you mean by that?Are you saying Muslims are converting to Thelema in "explosive" numbers?
"I've made this point often, but I'll make it again. The 93 current is not simply emerging in western democracies, but across the planet. Much of the popular anger in Muslim states is a direct consequence of people responding to this impulse toward freedom, and saying "We want to run our own affairs, and not according to someone else's agenda." It is what propelled anti-colonialism in the mid-20th Century, civil rights in the later decades, and then fueled Muslim anger at the century's end.
Sure, this Muslim anger was and is appropriated and manipulated by some of the nastiest people around, then directed towards generating exactly the kind of response your own blog post provides. It's a tactic straight out of the Stalinist play-book, which Ayatollah Khomeini (to cite one major example) often quoted. The militant Islamists ***love ***people like you, because you provide the distorted response to the distorting stimulus they seek to provide."That reading took me five weeks
And at that point you were a master of Islam?Or maybe just somebody who poked his nose into the Koran once upon a time.
"Wow, you are a grumpy guy when people don't share your opinions.
I didn't claim mastery - that is your distortion of my words. I described a realization I had about it. The reading followed a period of interaction with a woman who had made the Hajj, and who was happy to discuss her faith (ooh, that frightening word again!) with someone who didn't feed cliches back to her. I didn't convert, obviously but I did have a new understanding. In some ways, that reading made me more critical, not less (she, too, is often critical of the religion, despite her piety), but I could never throw out tired nonsense about all Muslims being wannabe infidel-decapitators.And yes, I have read Liber L and meditated on it extensively, which is why I find your own interpretations flat and naive. That work taught me how to listen to other texts, and not to mistake the literal definitions of words for their meaning.
93 93/93,
Edward
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@Tarotica said
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@Agent Smith said
"Identity is a mental construct, arguably one may consider himself a Christian but yet in action conform to "Do what thou wilt.."Then he would be confused. And in need of assistance to correct his understanding. In any case, if he stands by the cross, he would be in danger when it is destroyed. "
Identity is a simulacrum. if Thelema is a Natural Law then it is essential and exists regardless of whether it is acknowledged or not, in fact the Law of Thelema must be independent of the BOL, it must be Universal. The BOL is a poetic expression of this Law. Ultimate truth cannot be expressed in words (which are simulacra), Language is the extension of Culture and has no intrinsic value. Many Christians etc are Nominal, in fact the allure of Religion as an absolute Moral and Ethical yardstick has faded in favor of general principles and individual philosophies in the modern world, these are what dictate most peoples actions. This is the very manifestation of current 93 of which you speak. The Duality of "Us" Versus "Them" is the basic flaw of all religious dogma because it is an irreconcilable paradox, since there is no failsafe means to determine who is in reality an "infidel", there is a grey area, it is never black and white. The evidence of this is the numerous sub-divisions (sects) of practically any religion you can mention all of whom claim to be the real "chosen ones".
@Jim Eshelman said
" in these times when government has accelerated the use of fear as a manipulation tactic, one of our foremost goals should be to reduce fear itself in mass mind. "
I think Fear is a useful tool sometimes to offset complacency which is the disease of modernity, it can keep one sharp: First of all there are different types of "Fear" it all depends what it is that we fear; It is it not "the tool" itself that matters, but "whom"it is that wields it, and for what "purpose", I am against governments using fear as a tool of control and restrictions, employing much the same tactics as religious dogmatism by creating an "us" vs "them" within the human sphere(divide and conquer). but if fear is amongst the tools used to** unite **all of Mankind against a common enemy(and/or to common purpose, If the enemy of "ultimate extinction" is too abstract for the common man to grasp, then it my be useful to create an illusion e.g. "alien invasion") then it may be useful; especially for the less moral amongst us who are essentially self absorbed and shortsighted. If all we are concerned about is our individual comfort level and physical body then we will be subject to fear and manipulation by default regardless.
In conclusion I think this Thelemic Jihad can be effective on the intellectual plane in a war of ideas, not the physical one, for now.Therefore i suggest Mr.Torotica that you and I begin to create a strategy to make "Alien invasion" into a very real threat
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Is the Book of the Law something to be "obeyed"?
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@gurugeorge said
"Is the Book of the Law something to be "obeyed"?"
Worse. We're instructed to obey Crowley! From Liber L. 1:32:
@CCXX 1:32 said
"Obey my prophet! follow out the ordeals of my knowledge! seek me only! Then the joys of my love will redeem ye from all pain. This is so: I swear it by the vault of my body; by my sacred heart and tongue; by all I can give, by all I desire of ye all."
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@gurugeorge said
"Is the Book of the Law something to be "obeyed"?"Worse. We're instructed to obey Crowley! From Liber L. 1:32:
@CCXX 1:32 said
"Obey my prophet! follow out the ordeals of my knowledge! seek me only! Then the joys of my love will redeem ye from all pain. This is so: I swear it by the vault of my body; by my sacred heart and tongue; by all I can give, by all I desire of ye all."
"** seek me only!** is obviously the operative culmination of the first two exclamatory phrases, which become incidental to the real imperative here, which is made exclusive by the word only
(As such Crowley himself is incidental to Thelema) -
@gurugeorge said
"Is the Book of the Law something to be "obeyed"?"
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. As the BOTL is one's best means for starting to learn one's Will, and obeying thy Will is Law (love is the law, love under will), it would seem the answer is yes.
Maybe. -
The only thing I could really think while reading the blog was "Is this person serious?". Then I looked at people's comments and your rebuttals and I see it's true.
Pure and utter garbage. Seriously, you don't seem to have a clue about the nature of religion and spirituality, nor about the history between the Muslims (and the Middle East in general) and the US (and the western European nations).
The texts of holy books are not to be read literally. They're something to reflect on and gain insight from. All of this talk about war and conflict - is it literally about war or is it...possibly...something calling a metaphor! You know, a metaphor about internal struggle.
People in the Middle East have odds with the West for more reasons than religion. Westerners have had a history of treating them poorly and history to them means a lot. What our forefathers did to insult their forefathers is the same as if we did it to them. If you look at everytime we've backstabbed someone over there, it's not hard to imagine why they'd have a dislike of us. You grossly overestimate the numbers of Muslims who would like to build an IED and destroy as many infidels as possible. I'm part of military intelligence and am involved with this every freaking day, seeing who does what and if you're buying into them all wanting us all dead, then I guess you're buying into exactly what the extremists want.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@gurugeorge said
"Is the Book of the Law something to be "obeyed"?"Worse. We're instructed to obey Crowley! From Liber L. 1:32:
@CCXX 1:32 said
"Obey my prophet! follow out the ordeals of my knowledge! seek me only! Then the joys of my love will redeem ye from all pain. This is so: I swear it by the vault of my body; by my sacred heart and tongue; by all I can give, by all I desire of ye all."
"Okay then...
@CCXX III:52 said
" I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed & blind him."
@The Law is for All by Aleister Crowley said
" Mohammed's point of view is wrong too; but he needs no such sharp correction as "Jesus." It is his face - his outward semblance - that is to be covered with His wings. The tenets of Islam, correctly interpreted, are not far from our Way of Life and Light and Love and Liberty. This applies especially to the secret tenets. The external creed is mere nonsense suited to the intelligence of the peoples among whom it was promulgated; but even so, Islam is magnificent in practice. Its code is that of a man of courage and honour and self-respect; contrasting admirably with the cringing cowardice of the damnation-dodging Christians with their unmanly and dishonest acceptance of vicarious sacrifice, and their currish conception of themselves as "born in sin," "miserable sinners" with "no health in us.""
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@kuniggety said
"What our forefathers did to insult their forefathers is the same as if we did it to them. ."
Umm, should we be indulging them in such primitive thinking - or are the towel-heads just too dim for us to expect them to be able to live up to the standards of universalist humanism like the rest of us?
There's a lot of PC "liberal" tosh being spoken about Islam here. I agree that the OP is mostly tripe, but some of the mewling pro-Islamist stuff being spoken here is pretty mindless too.
It ought to be unnecessary to say (therefore, perhaps it should be said) that nobody's got any beef with those famous "ordinary, decent Muslims". (And oddly, for all the warnings from the chattering classes about "backlashes", there haven't really been any.) The problem is with the small minority of Muslims who are plainly fascistic nutcases, and should be treated with the same contempt, and despatched with the same celerity, as the "ferocious fascists" and "cackling communists" of yore. Unfortunately, since there are a *lot *of Muslims, a statistically small minority still amounts to a *lot *of nutjobs sequestered in amongst all those nice, ordinary, decent Muslims. Which makes it tricky.
As for this stuff about the Koran being some wonderful text full of light and love. I too once decided to sit down and try to get to grips with the Koran (this was long before the current foofaraw), but I had the opposite experience from Edward (whose opinons I normally respect). There I was, quite willing to give Islam the time of day, thinking it was going to be something like the Bible - a bunch of tribalist tosh mixed in with some profundity. Imagine my surprise when I found it to be one long, appalling, vile, vicious rant, with hardly any redeeming qualities. It made me quite ill to read.
But if you think about it, that's not surprising, since, contrary to Islamic propaganda, the thing is a politicized compendium of God knows what priestcraftly nonsense from several hundred years after the supposed death of the supposed "Mohammed", based on Christ knows how much or how little of what that supposed someone called "Mohammed" might have said - if he even existed. (Really, the origins of Islam are fully as murky as the origins of Christianity - certainly, it looks like there was no "Jesus Christ", and I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was no "Mohammed" either.)
There's a tendency amongst "liberals" to rag on Christianity but give Islam a free pass because of ideological reasons ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend" - another bit of tribal tosh, come to think of it). "Liberals" need to wake the fuck up about all this. Islamofascists are a zillion times more the enemy than any Republican or God-fearing, but thankfully somewhat tame Christian in the West. It took a lot of effort to tame Christianity - do you really think we want to go through the whole rigmarole again with Islam? Oh, what's that you say - how could Islam possibly get into such a situation of power? Well, it's what the Islamofascists want isn't it? Or haven't you read any of their rants? And if nobody's going to stop them ... where does the strange sense of confidence that they couldn't get what they avowedly want (a new, worldwide Caliphate) come from?
But of course, as good "liberals", we will prefer to wait to the last minute and ensure that many more soldiers and military people, not to mention civilians, die defending our freedoms, because we left it to the last minute. They're only military nuts anyway - and probably Republicans to boot!
In all seriousness, at the end of the day, true salvation is actually with all the ordinary, decent Muslims. As Christopher Hitchens pointed out long ago, the whole Islamofascist spectacle is not directed at the West (it's not all about us) but at their fellow, moderate Muslims. We are just the tools, the useful idiots, of Islamofascist demagogues' drive to intimidiate moderate Muslims, and build numbers. The main idea is to use terrorism to goad the West into extreme measures (standard tactics for small, weak, but militant and highly motivated, highly ideological organisations). However, the West has acted pretty restrained on the whole, and targetted its responses fairly well (given the difficulty inherent in war), and we now have some semblance of a functioning democratic Islamic state slap bang in the middle of the Middle East, to hopefully serve as an example of how ordinary, decent Muslims can get on with their lives and have some everyday stability and prosperity, like the rest of us. It is the moderate Muslims who will clean their own house - by awakening to the very universalist, humanist principles that the Left and "liberalism" have left behind, in the sleepy, decaying half-life of socialism.
Thelema shares a *lot *of ideology with liberalism (and even with modern-day American "liberalism"), and it even shares a bit of ideology with socialism (at least with the nice *intentions *of socialism), but it most emphatically does *not *share the self-loathing so prevalent amongst "liberals" and Westerners today, that would have us roll over and play dead to some asinine mediaevalist revivalism.
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@gurugeorge said
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@kuniggety said
"What our forefathers did to insult their forefathers is the same as if we did it to them. ."Umm, should we be indulging them in such primitive thinking - or are the towel-heads just too dim for us to expect them to be able to live up to the standards of universalist humanism like the rest of us?"
The have a cultural difference in views and I'm just saying that if one takes the time to try and see it from their viewpoint, it is possible to get a glimpse of where they're coming at. I never said I agreed with it - I am helping fight the extremists after all.
My views on violent extremists from any religion, no matter if they're Christian, Muslim, etc. is the same. My only argument was the OP's seeming characterizations of all Muslims, just by being Muslim, are all in the same boat as the extremists which is hardly the case.