Difference
-
Could we perhaps have a discussion on how Thelema is different than the occult and mysticism predating it? I am just having a difficult time seeing a big difference, although much of the time Thelemites themselves seem very different than other people I meet on similar paths. I feel that the huge differences in personalities has more to do with Crowley and who is attracted to his teachings than Thelema itself.
-
93
A rant and a joke..
The problem with the question, as I see it, is that you're asking for generalizations, and my experience is that generalizations are at best, unclear pictures, and at worst, gross misunderstandings. I have met some of the best, and worst people, in Thelemic settings.
Specifics, as in the case of an individual, are more accurate and truthful. E.g. If a Thelemite cheats you, you can say he or she is a cheater. But not all Thelemites are cheaters.
Then, there's the case of yesterday's truth possibly being untrue today, and instead of a profound insight it is now simply a rusty cage holding you back.
Ok...
Thelemites are the future. Everyone else is stuck in the past, man! Crowley's personality, blessedly, is a test in itself. If you find it abhorrent, loathsome and not conforming to 'proper conduct,' how much more so will you find the experiences and perhaps apparitions of your own path?
P.S. Joke's are not funny unless they have some truth to them, yes?
93, 93/93
-
There are absolutely no absolutes and, in general, all generalizations are absolutely worthless.e
That having been said, let's get on with some generalizations
- this is a great question though, as Draco inferred, a tough one to tackle.There are a lot of small points but here, I think, is the key point for part of your question: Key elements of Thelema can be seen in the teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and even Christianity from our present point of view in a way that simply couldn't have been seen in them prior to 1904 and the dictation of The Book of the Law. Capital-T Truth is eternal, and universal root principles (when correctly identified) don't change - but our understanding of them, how to articulate them, and how to apply that articulation can change. Liber L. gave new language and new perspectives which integrate those root principles in a new way, i.e., gave a new way to talk about them and think about them.
There are many similar situations in science. Shifting our astronomical model away from "the Sun orbits the Earth" to "the Earth orbits the Sun" didn't change the behavior of the universe one whit! Not a bit! It did change us, though. (And besides, neither one is correct: The Sun and Earth both orbit the Sun-Earth barycenter, the balance-point of their combined mass. It's only the fact that this balance point is nearly exactly at the center of the Sun that makes it more convenient to say that the Earth orbits the Sun. But the clarification of them both orbitting the barycenter is useful in other orbital situations. The Earth-Moon barycenter is not exactly at the center of the Earth, but IIRC a few miles away, and this changes the Earth's motion a little. A dual-planet or dual-star system is one where the masses are close enough to each other than the barycenter is outside the physical body of either of them.)
The point of all that blather is that the universe keeps on working the same, unaltered in the slightest, regardless of how we explain it. But the degree to which our internal explanation of it confirms to its actuality affects us. As our collective conversation on the matter evolves, we are changed.
That's what I think is the most important point in your question.
Now, what are these changes in articulation? There are many points, but the key one is the concept of True Will. The "True Will model," as far as I can tell, is unprecedented in religious, and possibly in philosophical, history. It isn't hard to find it now, because the idea has been picked up and is spreading like wild fire through many systems - but it wasn't there before! (Or, if there is somebody who mentioned it in the past, mass mind wasn't ready for it - it hadn't caught fire - so Liber L. marks a threshold in species-wide readiness for it.) One can see that the root ideas, under different language and with different twists on it, were present in earlier Great Religions - but until the 20th Century, our minds and language weren't so constituted to enable us to see it.
-
93 All,
-
<deleted>
-
@TripleFlower said
"Also, to be perfectly honest, I had no idea that there was a sun-earth epi-center, as Jim mentioned,"
Actually, I had a brief bout of cerebral flatulence. I should have written "barycenter" (and have corrected the original post). "Epicenter" actually does fit in a slightly strained way, but barycenter is the actual term!
"but that seems to go well with what I know concerning atu 19. And, I am unable to think of an occurance of True Will. There are occurances of the still small voice, and the beloved, however."
Glad to help