Thelemic view on death?
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I was wondering what are the views of death from a Thelemic prospective? Also when death is sudden and tragic, do souls linger?
thanks in advance...Flora
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The core point is that each of us is eternal - no beginning or end - individual emergent expressions of the whole that we call Nuit.
Within that, there is a lot of room to move!
Crowley accepted reincarnation as an actuality, and you can find explicit discussion and implicit assumption of this throughout his major writings.
As for your last question - I don't know what we could call this a "Thelemic" matter any more or less than it's a "non-Thelemic" matter - and offhand I don't recall Crowley addressing this in particular. From my own experience, though, I can say that when death occurs in extreme fear-emotion, it is sometimes really hard for the deceased to let go of that - just like it's hard to let go of persisting negative emotion in life. This can stretch things out a lot. I'm not sure that "tragic and sudden" in general fits this, because "sudden and without warning" doesn't necessarily cling at all.
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@kasper81 said
"I think he was pretty sceptical about past lives in his Liber Thisarb instructions, Jim"
Actually, that's one of the places he was quite pointedly instructing the Zelator or Adept to access them. The essential practice is to discover who one is across the entire stream of lives.
The alternate title of Liber Thisharb is Liber Viae Memoriae, "The Book of the Way of the Memory." Its ultimate purpose is the discovery of the True Will in a very pure way, and the rendering of it comprehensible to the powers of reason; or, as Liber Thisharb itself describes the practice, "its results define the separate being of the Exempt Adept from the rest of the Universe, and discover his relation to that Universe." The full, formal method given for accomplishing this involves the recovery of past life memories so that the Adept can see a greater length of the road he or she has been traversing. The Adept’s powers of meditation then are applied to the analysis of what has been learned, to the end of identifying who he or she is and what service he or she is able to offer to the Third Order. Examples are given of how these questions are to be approached:
"There is no minutest atom of his com¬po-sition which can be withdrawn without making him some other than he is, no useless moment in his past. Then what is his future? [...]
So the adept has military genius, or much knowledge of Greek: how do these attain-ments help his purpose, or the purpose of the Brothers? He was put to death by Calvin, or stoned by Hezekiah; as a snake he was killed by a villager, or as an elephant slain in battle under Hamilcar. How do such memories help him? Until he have thoroughly mastered the reason for every incident in his past, and found a purpose for every item of his present equipment, he cannot truly answer even those Three Questions that were first put to him, even the Three Questions of the Ritual of the Pyramid ; he is not ready to swear the Oath of the Abyss."
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@floralfirebird said
"I was wondering what are the views of death from a Thelemic prospective?"
AL I:58: I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death; peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy; nor do I demand aught in sacrifice.
AL II:44: Aye! feast! rejoice! there is no dread hereafter. There is the dissolution, and eternal ecstasy in the kisses of Nu.
From AL III:37:
Unity uttermost showed!
I adore the might of Thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death
To tremble before Thee: --
I, I adore thee!As you can see, The Book of the Law does not offer the false promises of some “dread hereafter,” including the idea of heaven, which Christopher Hitchens famously decried as a celestial version of North Korea, where everyone will be forced to praise the supreme dictator (with one crucial difference, as Hitchens points out: “At least you can f—king die and get out of North Korea”).
Instead, the Book simply offers our dissolution back into Nothing. This is a total eradication of individuality, and is thus “peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy” in its purest form (because no one is there to experience it: if there was someone around to experience those things, it wouldn’t be very peaceful, restful, or ecstatic…at least not for long).
Some people are very upset at the idea that their life – this very life, the one you’re living right now – is the only one that they will ever have, but that feeling of upset is nothing more than a product of the mind, which (obviously) tends to place value on its continued existence.
In actuality, the fact that your life is the one and only life you will ever live makes this one life infinitely precious. It’s the only thing that gives your actions any meaning: each action you take limits the finite number of actions you have remaining, making it crucial that each act be an expression of your True Self. If you don’t live according to your True Will – your authentic inclinations – in this life, you never will, because you’re not going to get other lives.
There’s a pretty good speech in the movie Troy – which is a movie that is horribly unfaithful to Homer’s amazing Iliad, including the line I’m about to quote – where Brad Pitt (speaking supposedly as Achilles) says,
@Brad Achilles said
"I'll tell you a secret, something they don't teach you in your temple. The gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now, and we will never be here again."
And it’s true.
At any rate, there sure as shoot is no good reason to think that any of the afterlife claims of any religion are true, including claims of reincarnation, Crowley’s speculations and idle daydreams notwithstanding. In all likelihood, this is the one and only shot you will ever get at living, ever.
How are you going to spend it? What is your Will?
This is, in short, your one and only chance to take your pleasure on the earth among the legions of the living.
Here’s the thing, though: when you realize this – actually, seriously realize that “you” are just a temporary piece of the universe that’s been given a little toy (called “life”) to enjoy for a short while until you vanish and that “your” mind hates the idea of its death but that that is nothing more than an idea and that the universe will keep rolling right along without you as it did for billions of years before there was a “you” – then the fear of death just goes away.
You have to really realize all of that, though, and not just intellectually: you have to assimilate an understanding of its truth until you feel it in your bones. And then it’s like a bubble pops. Fear of death is gone. It exists – when it crops up at all – as merely one thought among others, as a shadow (one of the shadows that pass and are done).
And that’s what it means to make death tremble before you (there’s something very John Donne about that idea…isn’t there a sonnet in which he laughs at death? [Edit: Duh, I was thinking of "Death be not proud" Silly memory....]) Death literally has no power over you – but not because you’re a super immortal being on a mission here on earth from the planet Krypton….because you’re a mortal who accepts mortality as just another part of life. There's a tremendous amount of power in that.
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All praise Los! Think not, o king, upon that lie: That Thou Must Die: verily thou shalt not die, but live. All praise the wisdom of Los for eternity! Be his enemies damned & dead! Amen. There is death for the dogs. Dost thou fail? Art thou sorry? Is fear in thine heart? Where Los is these are not.
There is a veil: that veil is black. It is the veil of the modest woman; it is the veil of sorrow, & the pall of death: this is none of me. Tear down that lying spectre of the centuries: veil not your vices in virtuous words: these vices are my service; ye do well, & I will reward you here and hereafter.
Ah! Ah! Death! Death! thou shalt long for death. Death is forbidden, o Los, unto thee.
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Death, as it is normally considered in modern society, I see as a mere shedding of skin.
A FEAST for Life, and an even GREATER ONE for DEATH!
For contained within Death is Life,
Another opportunity, another iteration of Nu -
@kasper81 said
"I guesse that is the, "Thelemic attitude to death" to celebrate the passing of a loved one as oppose to being depressed. Similar to the Tibetan Buddhist attitude. Party time
"Even, if we, "the living" remain skeptical, doubtful of anything that follows the here - at the very least we know they have experienced the greatest mystery life has to offer.
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@IAO131 said
"This article seems to be exactly on the topic you are asking about: Death in Thelema"
This is quite excellent!
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@IAO131 said
"This article seems to be exactly on the topic you are asking about: Death in Thelema"This is quite excellent!"
93,
Hey, thanks! BTW I'm currently reading your new book Pearls of Wisdom and greatly enjoying it. One of my favorite quotes so far is hidden in the footnotes and asserts Babalon is a MILF-goddess. Golden.
93 93/93
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Explains a lot about people with prominent Neptune in their charts...
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@IAO131 said
"Hey, thanks! BTW I'm currently reading your new book Pearls of Wisdom and greatly enjoying it. One of my favorite quotes so far is hidden in the footnotes and asserts Babalon is a MILF-goddess. Golden."
Thanks
