Thelema, the New Aeon, and other Disciplines
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Do other disciplines recognize the new Aeon as having taking place at or around the time the Book of the Law was received? I mean whether or not they recognize Crowley as a prophet. Wouldn't this validate in a sense the overall cosmic occurence of the new Aeon? Just a short quick question.
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I can't offhand remember who said it first, either Blavatsky or Randolph (Theosophy & Hermetic Brotherhood of Light), but the New Age is as old as 1875 as far as I can first discover the phrase being coined. Crowley regarded Blavatsky like a sort of prophet, a John the Baptists crying in the wilderness about the arrival. Crowley had connections with Gerald Gardner (Witchcraft Today etc etc) and rumor has it that The Book of Shadows was written by Crowley from Golden Dawn materials. Then there's Jack Parsons who spent time while studying under Crowley with L. Ron Hubbard as a roommate. Factor in that Parsons had a great interest in Los Angeles' pulp fiction/science fiction writers scene (Gene Roddenberry included) and philosophical influence. Shall we evoke LeVay to this picture? Perhaps, perhaps not. What exactly are we meaning by disciplines?
The Jehovah Witnesses place 1914 as the start of the Apocalypse. Or at least that's what I heard in the 80s about it.
"I am the warrior Lord of the Forties: the Eighties cower before me, & are abased. I will bring you to victory & joy: I will be at your arms in battle & ye shall delight to slay. Success is your proof; courage is your armour; go on, go on, in my strength; & ye shall turn not back for any! "
I think they all pretty much put The Golden Dawn of this age at roughly the same time. It's a stretch though, as some (most) see Aquarius and not aeonic lines.
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Elaboration of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and 1914.
C T Russel, the founder, was into coming up with timelines based on his reading of the bible and his measurements of the pyramids...
Originally, 1914 was the date of the future apocalypse. And then, when it came and went, it had to be revised. So after that, the doctrine grew into the following: that 1914 marked the beginning of Christ's invisible return, that the war in heaven between Michael and the dragon happened immediately after this, confining Satan to the earth and leading to WWI, and that 1914 marked the beginning of the end, the last days, leading up to Armageddon within a generation's time.
Of course, as the remaining people who were alive at 1914 get older, they've had to modify their understanding several times since.
Other than that, the JWs were pretty much like the Plymouth Brethren.
There are a couple cool pics on his wikipedia page, both of his early timeline charts and of the pseudo-masonic pyramid headstone (there's no real evidence of him being a mason, just using esoteric symbolism, likes a cross and crown, or a winged solar disk..., in his books, etc)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taze_Russell -
There was a broad sense, in the late 1800s, that something was about to shift. In addition to what has been mentioned above, let me add two: In the Golden Dawn and related astrological circles, there was a strong sense of the Aquarian Age pending, and a general (non-specific) sense that the 20th Century was that new age.
Separately, look at the history of Baha'i. Crowley's core enunciation was broadly the same as that of Baha'u'llah, i.e., that there is one spiritual truth prevailing through all time, that it is lost as language and culture move away from the original enunciation, and that periodically God sends a new prophet to rearticulate the same thing for a new time and place.
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Thanks for the insight on these groups, I appreciate it.
If we are all interconnected then a Cosmic event would ripple through all life. Historically around this time the first World War broke out, advances in communication, transportation, medicine, etc also occured - maybe a ripple? By disciplines I just meant to group in religious, philosphical, and scientifical individuals or organizations that would reflect the ripple of the new Age / Aeon.
It raises a lot of questions for me of what exactly is guiding Humanity. I also laugh lightly and say - can I trust it? It makes me want to get involved because I want to Know. I'd like to be aware of such things and be able to adjust my course and do my part to move myself and eventually others to the correct end goal. However, I don't know enough now to know if this is even a "correct" impulse or some compulsion to have control.
Overall - I was just trying to logically validate the ideas of these cycles in Life and recognize them via the historic recognition by other groups or the occurence of events in history.
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I've been long taken with the coincidence that 1888 was both the year that the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn got started, and also the year that Friedrich Nietzsche suggested should be the new "Year One" of the post-Christian era. (Two particularly important precursors of Thelema, I think.)
Specifically, September 30, 1888 was Nietzshe's suggested new year's day, since that's when he completed the first part of his "Revaluation of all Values." Of course, at the time he wouldn't know that this was also the date of two of the five main Jack the Ripper murders in London...