If you were not a Thelemite, what would you be?
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*CCXX 1:56
"All words are sacred and all prophets true; save only that they understand a little..."CCXX 3:22
" The other images group around me to support me: let all be worshipped, for they shall cluster to exalt me."*"I take these as core demonstrations of Thelema's fundamental ecumenicalism,"
Weighed against the majority of the language of Chapters II and III, and much of Nuit's instruction to AanK in Chapter I, I:56 can at best be reasonably regarded as a statement that, from their own points of view, other religions have some kind of internal consistency, but since their doctrine is incompatible with the formula of the present Aeon, their devotees will at best "understand a little".
The "other images" dicsussed in III:22 do not appear to me to be the trappings of other religions.
22. The other images group around me to support me: let all be worshipped, for they shall cluster to exalt me. I am the visible object of worship; the others are secret; for the Beast & his Bride are they: and for the winners of the Ordeal x. What is this? Thou shalt know.
If Ra Hoor Khuit is the visible object of worship, then the only object we should be seeing in the temple (of which our mind must be at least a minor extension) is his image, which I assume must be the Stele. If the others are secret, then doesn't that kind of disqualify the ubiquitous trappings of all these other popular old aeon systems?
It seems the only ones who would know what these secret images are would be the Beast, his Bride, and the winners of the Ordeal x. Since Liber HAD is written for this latter group, we must assume that these winners must be fully and strictly identified with Hadit in accord with all the apparently strenuous requirements of that practice.
Are there any people on this list who have won this Ordeal X, and successfully identified themselves with Hadit according to Liber HAD? Maybe they can help shed some light on what these secret images are, and how they should be worshiped.
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"For the colours are many, but the light is one.
Therefore thou writest that which is of mother of emerald, and of lapis-lazuli, and of turquoise, and of alexandrite.
Another writeth the words of topaz, and of deep amethyst, and of gray sapphire, and of deep sapphire with a tinge as of blood.
Therefore do ye fret yourselves because of this.
Be not contented with the image.
I who am the Image of an Image say this.
Debate not of the image, saying Beyond! Beyond!"Ok, but is this for most of us on this list to be trying at our level? Who is the aspirant here? Who is the HGA?
My brother was in Navy EOD for most of my childhood and teenage years. He had to go through years of training in order to be fit to handle the many varieties of live ordnance that he disarmed throughout his career. I am sure if he had been haphazardly encouraged to mess around with whatever he found attractive during his early training, he would not have made it through, and I would be less one brother. Still such as it is that he is still around, he has had more reconstructive surgery than most celebrities due to stuff blowing up in his face.
11. Nor is it fitting for the cobbler to prate of the Royal matter. O cobbler! mend me this shoe, that I may walk. O king! if I be thy son, let us speak of the Embassy to the King thy Brother.
How many of us on this list are above the level of the cobblers mentioned above? If we were all successful adepts, I strongly doubt we would waste much time in forum posts about this kind of subject. If we were already at the level celebrated in your quote, this entire question would be a silly trifle.
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"Ok, but is this for most of us on this list to be trying at our level? Who is the aspirant here? Who is the HGA?"
This passage is for anyone who has attained to yetzirah - it's written in words, so it can be read.
"Adonai spake unto V.V.V.V.V" Lister=Adonai Aspirant=V.V.V.V.V."
However, this document is given to probationers, well below Tiphareth."How many of us on this list are above the level of the cobblers mentioned above?"
I can only speak for myself. But I consider myself to be a microcosm, having parts of me that are concerned with cobbling, and other parts that speak of royal matters to the king.
But I think we're talking across from each other. It sounds like you are interested in replacing the old dogma with new dogma. I'm not. Both points can co-exist, but you did jump into this thread, not the other way around.
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Out of respect for individual interpretation, I'm not going to debate this, only make my above statement of p.o.v. and respond to a few of your subsequent lines.
@igniprimum said
"The "other images" dicsussed in III:22 do not appear to me to be the trappings of other religions."
On this, you and I disagree. I see them as every god or object of worship from every pantheon or personal path - everything external, every image at all.
Crowley's commentary IIRC makes clear that this word is from the ineffable inmost, of which even RHK is merely one outer expression.
In any case - and above all - "let all be worshipped."
"If the others are secret, then doesn't that kind of disqualify the ubiquitous trappings of all these other popular old aeon systems?"
I don't think "The other images" and "the others" are referring to the same thing. I take "the others" to mean Nuit and Hadit. It is they who are "for the Beast & his Bride are they: and for the winners of the Ordeal x," RHK being the "front man" for the pantheon.
"It seems the only ones who would know what these secret images are would be the Beast, his Bride, and the winners of the Ordeal x."
On this we agree, but I thought it unfair to use that as an argument.
"Since Liber HAD is written for this latter group, we must assume that these winners must be fully and strictly identified with Hadit in accord with all the apparently strenuous requirements of that practice."
Liber Nu is written for them, too. This seems to support the position, handed down to me by my Superior, that "the winners of the Ordeal x" are Adepts of A.'.A.'.; for Liber Had and Liber Nu are issued to the Dominus Liminis for the use of the Adeptus Minor.
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@igniprimum said
"How many of us on this list are above the level of the cobblers mentioned above?"
I've never taken that as a "level" (or vertically hierarchical) reference. Cobblers have one job and context; princes have another job and context.
"Nor is it fitting for the plumber to prate of the electrical matter. O plumber! snake out my pipes, that I may flush. O electrician! if you are licensed, be sure to hire a good sub-contractor."
"If we were all successful adepts, I strongly doubt we would waste much time in forum posts about this kind of subject. If we were already at the level celebrated in your quote, this entire question would be a silly trifle."
Then why wouldn't it be a silly trifle even if nobody on the thread were adept?
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"It seems the only ones who would know what these secret images are would be the Beast, his Bride, and the winners of the Ordeal x."On this we agree, but I thought it unfair to use that as an argument."
Why would it be unfair? Is it more unfair to recognize a hard-won attainment, or to pretend that everyone's opinion is of equal merit regardless of what work they've done?
I am ready to accept that my opinion may be next to worthless against that of someone who has put up more of their own honest blood and sweat than I have in order to understand whatever is at issue, but I also want to see the proof that they actually have.
Comfortably claiming to be a "Thelemic (whatever)" seems to me the opposite of such proof.
Why should we encourage people to put themselves in that position and develop in that direction?
In contrast to this, a serious undertaking of Liber HAD and Liber NU seems to me like it should take about a year of dedicated practice to achieve any notable results (mostly to give the average Thelemite enough gym time to have a fighting chance at meeting the physical requirement, and to dedicate a year to observing a full course of the Thelemic Feasts specifically for the purpose of this practice).
I'm on, I guess, my 10th-12th attempt at a magical diary and regular observance of Resh, Will, and certain other degree-related practices, in addition to my normal gym habit. I've kept it up daily, mostly without fail, for just over 5 weeks now. It is my best attempt in the 12 years or so that I've been trying to work this system, and while it seems like it will stick this time, I also have to accept that if it doesn't stick, it will be due to my own failure and nothing else.
One thing I've realized as a result of getting it together to do even just this much, is that while it has taken me beyond the majority of the armchair occultists out there who seem to think a book collection is more important than practical application in real life, it is still just a beginning, and fits me in no way to take a serious stab at Liber HAD or Liber NU.
If I can keep up my current practices for a year while maintaining my current rate of physical improvement and saving enough money to procure the material components for the rites in accordance with the magical admonition against penny-pinching, then perhaps in the future I can attempt these more advanced practices with some chance of success. In any case, even if I failed utterly, I wouldn't be likely to put much stock in the opinion of someone who wasn't ready to conceive of putting up the same effort. If they claimed to successfully work through both over a single weekend, then even as a failure I couldn't reasonably allow that their views could have any merit at all.
I haven't been physically around the community for many years, but when I was physically around, the "Thelemic (whatever)s" I encountered were exactly the kind of people to seriously make this kind of "weekend attainment" claim. In retrospect, as a new member of the community, I suppose the greatest danger it presented to me was the possibility of falling into this type of persons' habits, and becoming like one of them.
I find it baffling that the leaders of the community don't seem to care about this danger, and would even encourage it by letting people believe that Thelema is something like Unitarian Universalism, only even more inclusive.
On that note, has anyone ever been to a Unitarian service, or hung out with Unitarians? I have, and I never met one who wasn't simply a castaway from some other marginal religion, or a recently reformed dabbling fugitive from Christianity who dabbled so much that when they finally realized that they really were Christians after all, were so tainted by their dabbling that they couldn't quite return to their original denomination, and so exiled themselves in the UUC. Even as a 16 year old, I could see how disingenuous and conflicted these people were, and how empty they actually were despite their smiles and effusive claims of open-mindedness at all costs.
I couldn't handle those people for more than two weeks, and I was living with "White-Light-New Age-Native American-Adoring-Neo-Animists". Do we really want the Thelemic Community to become like something that a 16 year old borderline WLNANAANA couldn't even take seriously?
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"If we were all successful adepts, I strongly doubt we would waste much time in forum posts about this kind of subject. If we were already at the level celebrated in your quote, this entire question would be a silly trifle."Then why wouldn't it be a silly trifle even if nobody on the thread were adept?"
To adepts, I imagine it would be a silly trifle. To the rest of us, if we aren't vigilant, it could be a very dangerous trifle.
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"It sounds like you are interested in replacing the old dogma with new dogma. I'm not."
I think you are just as interested in advancing a dogma as I might be, although you honestly may not take your own dogma as such, since it is modern and bourgeois, and therefore passable in polite society. It may have even passed by you.
The only difference between our dogmas is that:
My dogma runs against the generally accepted principles of the "kicked back and mellow" relativism that takes the edge off the bitter reality that modernity leads to nothing but empty nihilism.
Your dogma honors those principles.
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Baha'i, although I'm not a thelemite. Baha'ism is a bit like thelema in that it sees all the religions as one, though it doesn't talk about magic, nor does it see as many flaws in past religions (flaws being in rewritings and reinterpretation) as thelema.
But I also particularly embrace sufism, zen-Buddhism and many others. I've been born Christian so it still has an effect.
Funny to hear that this kind of "Weekend warriorism" has also come to spiritual matters. Sounds a bit teen-agey, now that I think of it. Oh, those teenage years
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@igniprimum said
"
I think you are just as interested in advancing a dogma as I might be, although you honestly may not take your own dogma as such, since it is modern and bourgeois, and therefore passable in polite society. It may have even passed by you.The only difference between our dogmas is that:
My dogma runs against the generally accepted principles of the "kicked back and mellow" relativism that takes the edge off the bitter reality that modernity leads to nothing but empty nihilism.
Your dogma honors those principles."
I think this only works if you stretch the definition of dogma beyond it's accepted definition. I'm not really interested in this kind of etymological relativism.
I don't believe in relativism in all matters; I just have learned to recognize that there difference between fact and personal opinion. The exact image of the god you worship falls in the realm of the personal.
I think if you want to continue this conversation, you might want to start a new thread, so that we don't drag this one off topic.
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@igniprimum said
"On that note, has anyone ever been to a Unitarian service, or hung out with Unitarians? "
They tend to be good people—educated, relaxed, and genuinely interested in doing the right thing, however they define that for themselves—it usually means making personal sacrifices, paying higher taxes for the general good of the community, canvasing for note-worth causes, etc.
Having said that there is a famous joke about Unitarians. There is a modicum of truth in it:
A Unitarian has died and is walking along a path in the afterlife that will take him/her to heaven. He/she comes to a fork in the road with two arrows pointing up each fork. One says 'to heaven,' the other says 'to a discussion about heaven.' She/he quickly makes up his/her mind on which one to take—they would never think of missing a discussion about heaven!
@igniprimum said
"I'm on, I guess, my 10th-12th attempt at a magical diary and regular observance of Resh, Will, and certain other degree-related practices, in addition to my normal gym habit. I've kept it up daily, mostly without fail, for just over 5 weeks now. It is my best attempt in the 12 years or so that I've been trying to work this system, and while it seems like it will stick this time, I also have to accept that if it doesn't stick, it will be due to my own failure and nothing else."
I kind of get where you are coming from, and I respect it. You are prepared to do whatever it takes to make this real for yourself, and a community that doesn't feel the same way as you will only make it harder, if not impossible. It's a commendable attitude, and part of a genuine understanding about what it is going to take to truly align yourself with the ideal you are hinting at.
To this end, I suspect your open criticism of the community is simply something you are going to have to let go of because it will hurt your efforts in the long run. My two cents is that it's just another distraction.
Love and Will
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@AvshalomBinyamin said
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I think this only works if you stretch the definition of dogma beyond it's accepted definition. I'm not really interested in this kind of etymological relativism. "Another thing you're not really interested in. If you're so uninterested, then why do you respond?
A guy I used to know in the Thelemic community was very fond of calling his online opponents on incorrect usages of language. He usually posted a dictionary definition to go along with his call. Since you only executed half of his technique, I'll do the other half for you:
from www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dogma
*Definition of DOGMA
1: something held as an established opinion; especially
a: a definite authoritative tenet
b: a code of such tenets <pedagogical dogma>
a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds2: a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church.*
Since this whole business of "All faiths point to the same thing, and are all therefore equal" conforms to
1a among pretty much all modern people in the developed world who have a view about faith and don't belong to a fundamentalist sect of one of the major religions,
1b within certain academic departments (religious studies, anthropology, humanities, and the like,) and
1c among all of the above,how is this spiritual relativism that you are putting forth as authoritative without adequate grounds not a dogma?
I'm not saying we should be burning churches or temples, or anything like that. More power to the other faiths for actually having their own churches and temples, as ours are at best, as far as I know, in rented commercial spaces.
My humble study of Crowley does not include any instances where he encouraged his readers or associates to pursue other faiths as though they were on a par with Thelema, or as though they should become active members of those other faiths in addition to considering themselves Thelemites. In fact, the only direct detailed accounts I can remember him giving of other systems (Eight Lectures on Yoga springs immediately to mind,) was as one who claimed to have stripped them of all the useless garbage (which he seemed to think comprised the majority of their teachings,) and extracted only the useful principles and techniques that he was interested in, while giving some warning against being taken in by the garbage aspects.
From my experience (which is fairly dated, I know, but the contents of this thread suggest that nothing has changed,) it seems the "Thelemic (whatever)s" within the community are more bedazzled by the garbage aspects of the secondary systems they follow, oftentimes more than they seem interested in Thelema itself. This of course assumes that Thelema is not in fact the secondary system.
Two of my best friends from those days, both of whom were heavily into Hinduism (and one into Voudon,) when I knew them back in 2000-2003, were in the OTO, initiated at least to II*, and where are they now?
One is a dedicated Voudon practitioner who claims that Thelema is the real garbage that she wasted her time with.
The other is a dedicated Muslim who likewise rejects Thelema, although not as vehemently as the first friend.
I still consider them friends, and I am happy for them that they found their true spiritual calling, but why does the OTO and the Thelemic community want to be this kind of gateway, only to attract people who are simply passing through on their way to some other system, or to encourage otherwise potentially dedicated new community members to pass through in the same fashion?
Why should I not find that alarming?
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I suppose as its my thread I should have a little bit of input.
I think some people come to Thelema because on the outside its kooky and different, and when they mature they want something a bit more settled and laid back.
As a member of the OTO myself I can say that there are indeed a lot of flaky people that are in it for the weird factor, although there are also genuine aspirants as well, sometimes it can be hard to tell which is which.
Actually I think that they are all genuine aspirants, although a lot get caught up in one thing or another and don't make much progress as a result.As I said, I am essentially a Taoist, with a heavy Dose of Sufi and a touch of Christian Mysticism; I follow the A.'.A.'. system because it is easier for me to get my western mindset around its ideas and structure, and being more or less elastic it allows me a freedom of expression unthinkable if I were to label myself in any way; at this point I need something more substantial to chew on than inscrutable Chinese abstractions, and something with a bit more spice to it than bland Christianity, and a bit more structure than ecstatic Sufism, for me the A.'.A.'. covers all these in turn, especially in the outer college grades.
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"Why should I not find that alarming?"
A better question: Why do you find it alarming?
What is your image of what *should be *happening?
What practical steps would you take to accomplish that in your personal sphere?
And what do you imagine the results would be?
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@igniprimum said
"Since this whole business of "All faiths point to the same thing, and are all therefore equal" "
It's in quotes, but not something I said.
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I'm a big fan of Vivekananda's statement to the effect that, until one has direct experience of God, it's better to be an atheist than a hypocrite.
That general mode of thinking applies to so many things in the course of spiritual development.
For example, it's a fairly spiritual mature perspective that all external forms of worship share the same Holy of Holies - that, behind all visible systems is a shared, deep reality of which the best of the outer systems is but a veil.
This idea is expressed rather well in Liber X: Porta Lucis, and meant to be intellectually assimilated near the beginning of one's formal journey - but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily understood or appreciated at the beginning.
And, until one's mature journey lets one look back on the Path - look back down the mountain, so to speak - one isn't likely to see how many paths lead up the same mountain.
It is both understandable and admirable that someone would take a stand for what is evident to their own mind and senses, rather than buy into a theory that they just can't see.
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@Aegis55 said
"A better question: Why do you find it alarming?"
An even better question: Why don't you?
But I'll bite on yours. If you read what I've written before in this thread, you might find some clue as to why I find it alarming.
"What is your image of what *should be *happening?"
I don't think I should have to formulate an alternative to what we have all by myself. Equinox I:1-10 contains articles that describe the image, and Equinox III:1 and III:10 are almost exclusively devoted to further developing that image. If you think that we have now is already like what is described in those books or even a reasonable approximation given the time we've had to work on it, then I would like to sell you a bridge in Brooklyn.
"What practical steps would you take to accomplish that in your personal sphere?"
Please see the answer to your first question. I've already described some details of my personal work.
"And what do you imagine the results would be?"
I can't imagine what the results would be, but I can safely guess that the product of dedicated and focused individuals all working energetically toward a common goal must be better than that of indecisive and scattered individuals all working haphazardly on something they can never agree on.
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Well, I can't complain that you put the question back on me, but it assumes that I have more desire and energy to put into a debate that has already solidified in my mind. I will, however, fill you in on where the debate stands as I understand it:
Primitivism vs. Evolution: A fundamental presupposition that people usually forget to question is the degree they ascribe to primitivist vesus evolutionary viewpoints.
The primitivist viewpoint is that "it was perfect in the past, we have fallen from it (because that's what we expect from people), and we need to return to that pristine perfection."
The evolutionist viewpoint is that "knowledge and understanding continually increase, and we have more of both at present (because that's what we expect from people)."
Either viewpoint can be reduced to absolutism and thus be negated, but regardless, it seems to lie as an unexamined assumption in your argument, and you will have to take a position (along with all its inherent weaknesses) if you wish to re-establish the debate at the level it has occurred in the past.
All possible positions (including middle ground), except for the dogmatic primitivist position, assume the practical necessity of the relativism you regard as error and wish to correct.
However, in that dogmatic primitivist position, one must necessarily align oneself perfectly with Crowley's own position and thinking - something I'm under the impression he discouraged - rather, encouraging students to examine absolutely every idea and practice for themselves - in accordance with their Will - a position that seems to leave room for his own thoughts to be relativised according to the life, experience, and Will of the student.
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It's just a question, you know. A good thelemite should be researching on all kinds of disciplines, and it has in itself very many. If someone here would say he'd be some kind of New Zealandish zombie-maker, then maybe someone else will get interested. I mentioned Baha'i, as some others, though I bet not many have researched on it. Maybe someone will get interested, you know.
Also, it tells of a person. If someone embraces Discordianism (which I could, too; in fact my eldest brother happens to), it's a bit different from being a Tantric Buddhist or a Hindu Shivaist. It tells something of the person: if he hadn't bumped onto this, where would he be.
E. also, you're barking at wrong trees about realization in here.
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I might be getting ready to pull the plug on this off-topic migration and delete all the off-topic posts, To save them, please swing this back to the original topic.