Thelema and satanism
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Well, by "Satan", I meant a powerful and negative entity in opposition to the autority of a powerful and good divinity, like Jehovah in the Bible. I don't really know what to think about satanism, because to me, most of what people think about this "religion" come from christian faith or medieval/Renaissance inquisition. For instance, many satanistic rituals were explained by important people of catholic church a few centuries ago.
By the way, the importance of God is something that I never really understood in thelemic philosophy. Was To Mega Therion worshiping a god of any kind or gave he a total freedom to choose a divinity to his followers ?
So many questions, guys...
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@Diogenos said
"I don't really know what to think about satanism, because to me, most of what people think about this "religion" come from christian faith or medieval/Renaissance inquisition."
Yes. One of my standard answers when someone asks me if I'm a Satanist is, "No, of course not. I'm neither Christian nor Jewish."
"By the way, the importance of God is something that I never really understood in thelemic philosophy. Was To Mega Therion worshiping a god of any kind or gave he a total freedom to choose a divinity to his followers ? "
Your question asks what Crowley was doing, but at the end seems to be a question about what's kosher in Thelema. Don't confuse the two. - To answer what I think you're asking, Thelema appears to be wide open to worshipping whatsoever divinity you choose. (Several passages from Liber L. could be cited in this regard.)
One of the most moving passages reflecting Crowley's personal relationship to these ideas is in this report of an especially powerful connection to the Holy Guardian Angel from The Vision & the Voice (14th Aethyr):
"And dimly dawning in this unutterable gloom, far, far above, is the face that is the face of a man and of a woman, and upon the brow is a circle, and upon the breast is a circle, and in the palm of the right hand is a circle. Gigantic is his stature, and he hath the Uræus crown, and the leopard’s skin, and the flaming orange apron of a god. And invisibly about him is Nuit, and in his heart is Hadit, and between his feet is the great god Ra Hoor Khuit. And in his right hand is a flaming wand, and in his left a book. Yet is he silent; and that which is understood between him and me shall not be revealed in this place. And the mystery shall be revealed to whosoever shall say, with ecstasy of worship in his heart, with a clear mind, and a passionate body: It is the voice of a god, and not
of a man." -
@kasper81 said
"what about satan referenced in Lber Samekh?
.. A-ThELE-BER-SET, "Thou Satan-Sun Hadith that goest without Will!" A, "Thou Air! ... Whirl the Wheel, O my Father, O Satan, O Sun!" *"
I was answering the exact question asked, not wandering off into every possible tangent.
BTW, that's not "in" Liber Samekh (not part of the ritual) - it's the commentary. The only part of this that is in the ritual is A-ThELE-BER-SET.
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@Diogenos said
"...Does Aleister Crowley and Thelema have anything to do with Satan or something like that ?"
Frater Eshelman succinctly responded to your query and my reply here is but an extension.there are some overlaps, yes. Crowley at points identified his Holy Guardian Angel with "Lucifer" (which some map to Satan), invoked Satan in rites, and crucified a frog christened after the Christian messiah. he styled himself as 'The Beast 666', and adopted one of the many epithets for 'satanic' cultists ('Baphomet', apparently after the calumny issued to the Knights Templar by their plunderers, later reshaped by Eliphas Levi, of whom Crowley claimed to be a reincarnation, as a Devil-like godform).
"...{I} read a website...that often explains that To Mega Therion and other occultists {worship} the devil."
websites don't explain things, people who make them do. if it doesn't have someone's attribution of authorship that you can bring here to us to evaluate them as an authority, then you should probably ignore it as a propaganda spout from conservative sources. it will just confuse you."...by "Satan", I meant a powerful and negative entity in opposition to the {authority} of a powerful and good divinity, like Jehovah in the Bible. ..."
the Jewish god of the Tanakh and other scripture is beyond any strict category of 'good' or 'evil'. it is for this reason that both Jews and Christians (primarily the latter) concocted an anti-God to attribute the negative actions and expressions described of this entity as a kind of scapegoat.complex and mature religion is less dualistic than this, and if you study it long enough you'll find that Satan as a composite is not only ambiguous of character but a kind of Frankenstein monster pieced together from diverse sources to fulfill a condemnation scheme.
"...most of what people think about this "religion" come from christian faith or medieval/Renaissance inquisition. ..."
there is a good reason for that: the entire notion of 'satanism' was invented by Christianity to use as a bludgeon against its adversaries before people who opposed this weapon took it up themselves as a kind of religion in order to repulse such subversion-oriented ideologies and the murders, pogroms, and genocides they incite. when Satanism was constructed and floated in liberated society as a religion in the 1960s it took pieces of these horror fictions and put legitimated, re-embedded components into their gaps so as to fashion something sustainable to endure legal and moral challenges. this had the effect of disrupting the propaganda.since that time it has somewhat diversified, but the ideologies and folklore against which it struggles persist and are deeply embedded in the post-Christian society it is becoming. so don't be surprised when you run into this kind of thing. it is liable to continue, and feature throwbacks and old, anti-Jewish, anti-Gnostic, and other competitive elements. the only way to understand it is to observe it in the present and see what it becomes.
those who attribute Satan to Thelema or talk about Thelema as a kind of Satanism are misguided. at most, Thelema as a will-based philosophy inspired those such as LaVey (mildly) and Aquino (heavily) to do what they did, Crowley before them a proto-Satanist who never used the term to self-describe. also, the latter wasn't wholly anti-Christian in a strict sense, more anti-Christianity as an institution. the fact that he was raised Christian (Plymouth Brethren) surely played into this attitude. he sought to employ the sociopolitical symbolism of the apocalyptics in John's 'Revelations' to his purpose in a kind of inversion all his own - adopting Babylon as Babalon and taking on the many-headed/horned Christian foe as a mantle as part of his occult career.
"...the importance of God is something that I never really understood in thelemic philosophy. Was To Mega Therion worshiping a god of any kind or {did he give} total freedom to choose a divinity to his followers?"
this is a false dichotomy. Crowley appeared to worship many gods, intentionally, and depending entirely upon the situation and timing. at his best, he provided to his followers a liberty unusual to those establishing cults in their wake. his expression, for those with eyes to read it, warned them against simplistic thinking, advocated strong doubt and critical thought, and then provided for them a host of possible faith-based attestations which they might take up and make into terrible social and personal weaknesses.in the flimsy, dualism-strewn language of castigating Christians and moralizing Muslims, Thelema is DECIDEDLY Satanic in the sense that it opposes their rife disrespect for the individual, whom they seek to demolish and subsume to their crapulous creeds.
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It all stems from a thing that Crowley did when he was a rebelliously-minded young man who had been raised as a Plymouth Brother.
He tried to invoke Satan to visible appearance and was flabbergasted to have a vision of Jesus.
That's gotta give you a bit of a fright.
Generally, "Satan" as used in Crowley's system is just a name for sexual energy, procreative energy, creative energy. It's never used in the Christian sense of "fallen Angel, adversary of God". It's the "force that through the green fuse drives the flower".
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So, after a fiew months and reading of main texts of Thelema and its philosophy, I still have a couple of questions about Satan's role in the conception of mysticism :
- I have concluded that Satan is an agent of God ; this conception is not in opposition with jewish or islamic visions of the devil. Just remember the book of Job in which Satan has a really important task as the Tentator.
-Nevertheless, what do you think about Crowley linking Satan to Adam, Seth, Saturn, Ra-Hoor-Khuit and so much other gods ? Does that makes Crowley a follower of the devil in facts and in his practice ?
-To finish, I would like to underline I now understand a little more last comments of this thread : as far as I understood, Crowley was a non-dualist, right ? So Satan could perfectly be a part of the One that has to be discover and understand, in that idea at least.
Wainting for your thoughs and comment, you can correct me if my concepts are wrong, I'm still trying to learn
- I have concluded that Satan is an agent of God ; this conception is not in opposition with jewish or islamic visions of the devil. Just remember the book of Job in which Satan has a really important task as the Tentator.
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@Diogenos said
"I have concluded that Satan is an agent of God"
Isn't everybody?
"Nevertheless, what do you think about Crowley linking Satan to Adam, Seth, Saturn, Ra-Hoor-Khuit and so much other gods ? Does that makes Crowley a follower of the devil in facts and in his practice ?"
No. Already addressed in broad strokes earlier. Most of these are an etymological link BTW: Some anthropologists in Crowley's time had identified a series of gods and heroes around the Mediterranean with -AD and -AT syllables in their names that are substantially variations on a theme - that theme being an identification with the south and the noon Sun.
So, this fact makes him "a follower of the devil in facts and in his practice" exactly as much as it makes him a follower of Adonis, Adonai, Atys, Atlantic Records, and Adam Sandler.
"as far as I understood, Crowley was a non-dualist, right ?"
Except when it was useful to be a dualist. But yeah, mostly. Especially in his Buddhist phase. (The Book of the Law is simultaneously nihilist, monist, and dualist in its three chapters.)
"So Satan could perfectly be a part of the One that has to be discover and understand, in that idea at least."
Of course. (Though putting it like that seems to me like you trying to find a way to be comfortable with it, by putting words in Crowley's mouth that he never actually said.)
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@Diogenos said
"But what is exactly the God that Crowley followed ? A initial G is often employed, but is he similar with the jewish and christian God and is there any difference between them ?"
Ultimately, there is no difference between any gods, other than in specialization.
Even the Probationer of A.'.A.'. is counseled: When you encounter the name of any god whatsoever, don't confuse it with any god at all except that god which is known to you.
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http://jungquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/21634328.mUcqsqPf.15C.G.Jung_.jpg
See this image? Look at it for a second...
When you look at it, do you see four completely different and opposed things, or four related manifestations of only one thing?
The person who understands the image as four completely different and opposed things is going to understand "Satan" to mean something different than the person who understands the image as four related manifestations of only one thing.
If these are all separate things, then God is above, and Satan is below, and you are in the center choosing between them.
If all these things combine together to make only one thing (in four related manifestations), then the WHOLE image is "God." And "Satan" is a just a name used for the (usually rejected) strong, active, desire-filled, severe, self-interested parts of "God" - parts we don't usually understand at first and usually don't like in ourselves or others.
Much of Thelema's mysticism serves to help us understand, by experience, that even the parts of the Whole that we at first don't understand and don't like in ourselves or others are ultimately very necessary, and even very beneficial, parts of life, creation, ourselves, "God," etc..
"The 'Devil' is 'God' as 'he' is misunderstood by the 'wicked.'"
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@Legis said
"
See this image? Look at it for a second...When you look at it, do you see four completely different and opposed things, or four related manifestations of only one thing?
The person who understands the image as four completely different and opposed things is going to understand "Satan" to mean something different than the person who understands the image as four related manifestations of only one thing.
If these are all separate things, then God is above, and Satan is below, and you are in the center choosing between them.
If all these things combine together to make only one thing (in four related manifestations), then the WHOLE image is "God." And "Satan" is a just a name used for the (usually rejected) strong, active, desire-filled, severe, self-interested parts of "God" - parts we don't usually understand at first and usually don't like in ourselves or others.
Much of Thelema's mysticism serves to help us understand, by experience, that even the parts of the Whole that we at first don't understand and don't like in ourselves or others are ultimately very necessary, and even very beneficial, parts of life, creation, ourselves, "God," etc..
"The 'Devil' is 'God' as 'he' is misunderstood by the 'wicked.'""
It is a little bit clearer with that explanation
I remember reading a text saying that thelemites understand the whole teachings of religions instead of separating it with dogmas and other gaps.
Thank you ! -
This podcast might interest some in this thread. Click the play button in the left sidebar. There's about 3 minutes or so of blah blah before the main topic of the podcast, which is about a half hour, and is the first of a 3 part series about Satan in Thelema. Enjoy. eechinthesilence.com/program-54-solstice-in-cancer-year-110