Joining the A.'.A.'.
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**Buddhists don't need permission or lineage to start Buddhist temples, and Shinto priests can build shrines anywhere they like. **
Dear Froclown
Much as I don't want to appear like I am ganging up on you, I can only reiterate what James has been telling you. Unfortunately, you are simply incorrect on basic points.
I am a Chan (Zen) Buddhist priest and let me tell you, you DO need permission to open a Buddhist temple, IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE THE NAME OF A LINEAGE TO GRANT IT SOME VALIDITY. You can open a Buddhist study group, if you wish, but if you were to suggest or infer it it a part of an established lineage, you need to be able to show WHO has conferred that right. As with the A.A., you will require authorisation from your appropriate superior to do so.
Now, this does not mean that you cannot call yourself an AA Magus or a Buddhist Abbot, it just means you are appropriating a title and an authority you simply do not have. That authority must be conferred. If you call yourself Magus within the AA, you are simply misleading people. No-one with any legitimacy conferred that right.
Froclown, you are continually misunderstanding the difference between attaiment and entitlement. You are more than entitled to call yourself Magus, you can even call yourself the Supreme Unguent of Kether, Grand Poobah of the Cup of Babalon, or Crowley's Unacknowledged Son, if you wish. You can call yourself anything you want. And what you achieve and attain may even be sacred - of course, from my Chan perspective, the very concept of a difference between sacred and profane is at best purely for convenience but almost invariably a non-sensical indulgence - but that doesn't mean you are in any way entitled to being able to claim recognised office in an organisation.
I am legally ordained Buddhist priest, but I can't just open a VALID temple, even if I am wise and enlightened beyond the experience of Buddha himself, without the permission of my Abbot.
Do you see?
Ta Mo
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No I do not see,
Did Alan Watts or Kin Wilber have to get a special charter to teach Buddhism or to invite people to their home to meditate?
If I want to be a Buddhist, all I have to do is read a book about Buddhism and set my self to practice what I read their in. If I then believe I have myself attained the same Trance, hallucinations, or whatever you want to call the sate Siddhartha achieved under that tree, then I am just as much an enlightened (awakened master) as the student who was taught in most revered monastery in Tibet that claims lineage to Buddha himself.
On what authority was the Golden Dawn derived, not from direct lineage, rather Mathers claimed to formulate it from some ancient texts he found.
likewise anyone with a bible can start a protestant church in his basement, and the only test is if the church doctrine follows the bible or not.
If I have access to the cakeacola recipe, I and I follow that recipe I can make my own coke at home, even if I don't have the authority of the coke company to do so, their only retribution in that I broke copywrite laws, However the A.'.A.'. sources are mostly open source.
To that extent, the A.'.A.'. is open source. like linux. Any nerd with the gumption can download the linux kernal and create his own version of linux, likewise anyone who wants to pull the A.'.A.'. material out of the public domain, can create their own REDHAT A.'.A.'. or a Ubuntu A.'.A.'. or even an A.'.A.'. Second life release
If you don't believe Crowely was part of the Open Source movement, look at how he published the G.'.D.'. material, and his expressed views against "Mystery"
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Does anyone know of all the various "authentic" lineages which can be traced back to Aleister Crowley and George Cecil Jones? How do they differ? There seem to be tons of lineages... how do you know if they are "authentic?"
If the bottom line is "By their fruits shall ye know them" what fruits are we looking for? Scholarship? Writing? Publishing? Changing the world?
What point does the AA teacher to student relationship go beyond 1 to 1? For some reason I have it in my mind that the whole thing was established to be a chain, where each student, after raising a grade, then becomes a teacher to a single student below them and so on. If that were so wouldn't there only be 2 possible "authentic" lineages?
I'm trying to understand the "authenticity" thing better as like Froclown (oh I can't believe I said that), I've been doing things from books/internet and on my own and have had some positive subjective results.
However it seems clear to me that certain "authentic" AA's might contain additional material, better insight, or different experiences... however as described above in this thread, many occult groups seem to be full of nuts... so what are some realistic options out there?Thoughts?
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Frowclown wrote:
**No I do not see,
Did Alan Watts or Kin Wilber have to get a special charter to teach Buddhism or to invite people to their home to meditate?
If I want to be a Buddhist, all I have to do is read a book about Buddhism and set my self to practice what I read their in. If I then believe I have myself attained the same Trance, hallucinations, or whatever you want to call the sate Siddhartha achieved under that tree, then I am just as much an enlightened (awakened master) as the student who was taught in most revered monastery in Tibet that claims lineage to Buddha himself.**
With respect Frowclown, what aren't you getting here? No, Alan Watts or Kin Wilber did not need a special charter to teach Buddhism. Nor do you need a special charter to teach Thelema. HOWEVER, if they chose to teach Buddhism within a specific tradition of Buddhism which clearly stated and explained a required charter of succession or relevant authority to do so, then they WOULD need that "special charter".
You can teach Buddhism any way you want. But don't say you do it with the authority of a temple or lineage if you don't. Same with the A.A.
As I clearly said, I myself could be MORE enlightened that Buddha (assuming the possibility of the concept), and more entitled to start a world religion, but that doesn't mean I can open a valid temple in the name of my lineage without my Abbot granting that right.
TaMo
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ok you say I can teach buddhism but just no open the specific temple of one order or another which is fine.
I agree that if you run Bob's zen shack I can not claim to operate by own Bob's zen shack as affiliated with your type and mythods of zen without your permisison.
However, if you called your temple just Zen rather than Bob's Zen shack, you can clearly not claim that no one else in the world can open a Zen temple, or run a Zen monastery, just because you chose to call your particular temple just Zen, rather than something specific.
I never claimed that I was running an official specific extension or charter of the A.'.A.'. that was created by Jones and Crowley.
Rather I claimed that I was working on creating an order which teaches the same school of thought on which Crowely based his A.'.A.'. and used the same base texts and syllabus of Crowley's order, but also included some original methods and contents.
For example first baptist is a particular christian church and so is the latter day saints a particualar christian sect they both teach from the same base text the bible and they use similar methods, and some sects share methods and specific teachings openly. There may be one church is called Christian, not christian church, just chrisitian, if some one opens a sect that is also a christian sect, that uses the same bible, organ music, preaches in a church, but calls itself Christian church of St.Paul, Can you claim that this church does not teach christianity, just because it calls itself chrisitan without the official charter of the original Chrstians?
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Froclown,
It's more like you say you are a Roman Catholic priest and can dispense forgiveness of sins and initiate everyone into the different sacraments, like marriage, death, etc. Then, you tell everybody, you really aren't affiliated with Rome or the Pope, or with what everybody else calls a Roman Catholic Church.
You can do what you want, Froclown. It's just hard to agree with the way you use vocabulary. You use the vocabulary of another tradition, and the people of that tradition are saying, that's not what they consider the correct meaning.
Why do you even care? Do what thou wilt.
In L.V.X.,
chrys333 -
the A.'.A.'. is like the internet,
this one order of A.'.A.'. is one server on the internet.
A.'.A.'. means the hidden college, its the sanctuary behind the cloud, its a metaphysical state that is shared by people who never met each other, do not know each other in the physical incarnation at all, but are linked only by their shared achievement of that state.
The Order Crowley built was one of many stairways that leads up the mountain to that sanctuary, not the sanctuary itself.
All stairways leading to the A.'.A>'. can rightly be called the order of the A.'.A.'. especially those who use the public domain source material of Crowley's order.
Anyone who wants can take the Vedas and the Upanishads and teach Hinduism from them, build a temple to the gods etc, and anyone can take the source materials of the Master Therion, including his material on the structure and system of the various orders he created, to re-construct them.
If I took Crowley's diaries and re-constructed his abbey, could I not call my abbey an Abbey of Thelema, or do I need direct permission from some lineage of Crowely to do so?
If I want to teach grammar in my home for free, do I have to get sanctioned by the Modern Language Association? Am I not allowed to call it Grammar School, because elementary grade schools in the 1800s where called grammar school, and people might expect I am teaching vitalism and luminescent ether?
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93, All,
Well, this was a hell of a coffee break. Thanks for the inoculation, Froclown!
Just to give some perspective, you started posting on this thread on 10/30/07. It's 1/19/09! What's in a name? Give it up, sir.
BTW, I'm just some guy with no A.'.A.'. affiliation at all. Sometimes I teach basic yoga at the local OTO Lodge, but as a fellow explorer and student who may have a few tips based on personal experience and simply wants to share and not to gratify my ego or as an aid to develop the hubris needed to claim the authority to start an Holy Order or Magickal System.
In fact, I continually wrestle with the responsibilities inherent in dealing with any sort of perception that I'm any sort of authority at all. That's not really a problem if all of the attendees are Brothers and Sisters within (or proximate to) my circle of friends. However, the Lodge's weekly class is also an important part of reaching out to the local community, and the possiblility of being misconstrued as someone possessed of a high degree of attainment is always there. I do my best to dispell such notions right away.
So really, such teaching is more like show and tell than anything else. My main goal is to demonstrate to class attendees that there is something you can do right now to bridge the gap between the desire for spiritual attainment and the obviously huge amount of work to be done. In fact, I care less about the details of the classes themselves than achieving this goal! I could care less if someone actually uses my suggestions and would rather see them recognize the possibility of building such a bridge themselves (which is all I've really done anyway).
It's natural for a person to want to aid others in avoiding the mistakes and blind alleys that they spent so much time in. I see no way to alleviate such suffering in any appreciable fashion.
Challenges are as the Challenged is. Or something.
Perhaps you might realize that it could be common for many Students of the Mysteries to feel the call to teach what they know in the interests of sharing. It would likely be of benefit to realize that such sharing is done without any real Comprehension--Yetziratic, Briatic or otherwise.
Anyway, I feel as if I've awakened from a very long sleep.
Plently of work to do!
All the best...
93s,
Br. C.
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Froclown, look at the recent OTO inc. vs Starfire case. OTO says it's a trademark and Starfire that its just an universal name or something like that. Starfire lost the case in Great Britain. The topic is on lashtal.com. I have to say I agree with Froclown.
"By their fruit you shall judge them" meaning if you learn something useful, practical from a Order - it's good. Every prophet is true save they know a little. It's not like you're selling your virginity. If you think one Order, system, teacher doesn't suit you anymore go to another. Somewhere Crowley mentions about being a whore. Don't be affraid to make a mistake because that's still learning. -
"A.'.A.'. is the one true and invisible Order which has operated under various names and guises throughout history to guide the spiritual evolution of humanity. The goals of the A.'.A.'. are those which have motivated spiritual exploration and religious inquiry throughout human history. Its methods are those of science; its aims are those of religion.
It is the Arcanum Arcanorum, and the Holy of Holies wherein the Sacred Ark rests inviolate. Every legitimate magical order, mystery school, religion, or other agency disseminating some portion of Wisdom or Light is or has been but an Outer Vehicle of this Inner Fellowship of Light."
From the A.'.A.'. website.
As you see EVERY LIGITIMATE ORDER that desseminates SOME PORTION of the wisdom, is an outer vehicle of the A.'.A.'.
Since it was and may still be my plan to set up an order that disseminates the wisdom and light, thus my order would therefore be a Ligitamate outer order ofthe A.'.A.'.
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I believe the relevant distinction is that anyone can access the vast corpus of A.'. A.'. teachings and do a significant portion of the Work of the A.'. A..'. System "on their own". But by joining an A.'.A.'. Linage that directly descends from George Cecil Jones and Aleister Crowley, one also receives a degree of "objectivity", i.e. the person that tests you for the requirements of a particular grade has tested for such by someone who was tested by someone, etc. This ensures a degree of competence.
If you have not been formally tested and passed for a grade by someone who has done the same back to Jones and Crowley, then how can you be sure you have mastered the grade at the appropriate level?
And there is, of course, the matter of the tangible but not not always measurable issue of apostolic succession, i.e. that "something" which is passed on from Initiator to Initiate...
So either you are an Initiate of an A.'.A.'. Lineage or you are not; if you are not, then it is more appropriate and honest to simply state that you practice the A.'.A.'. System of Spiritual Attainment and believe you can help others just getting started...
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I don't actually have to even acknowledge the external order of the A.'.A.'. at all, and can still call by order an external order of the inner A.'.A.'..
that seems to be what you are missing here.
Moses was a magus and thus a teacher of the A.'.A.'. system as was Buddha, Mohamad and the originator of hinduism.
My intent was to create an external shell order, using available texts and sources, and to tend to the congregation of initiates, and to clear a space in the temple, where the Magus of the A.'.A.'. could appear to administer the word of the Aeon. (To deliver a rod with an ark of knowledge to shine as a beacon of righteousness and truth as a flame in the midst of our palaces) Preparing the Cup to receive the word, is the work of the inner order A.'.A.'. is it not?
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You can call it anything you want but if you call it A.'. A.'. you will be causing confusion because the use of these Initials are currently associated with Jones and Crowley's particular manifestation of such...
If your purpose is to deceive the public then this is a great idea; if your purpose is to truly serve those who can use your help then this is not a good idea, in my opinion...
As you Will...
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I think the confusion comes from the fact that Crowley called the true invisible order the A.'.A.'. and a particular external school/lineage of teaching the A.'.A.'. In using the same name, some people (like Froclown here) simply can not grasp that Crowley, in his writings, is writing about two very distinct things. Yes, anyone who has "attained", ie crossed the Abyss, can create an outer vehicle/school for leading others to the true and invisible order, the A.'.A.'. HOWEVER, calling their outer school the A.'.A.'. would be outright fraudulent, if they did not initiate and raise up through one of the valid lineages out there. It would be like opening a church and calling it a Roman Catholic church but not answering to the Pope and partaking in the lineage of Bishops. Yes, you might open a perfectly valid church, but it's not a valid Roman Catholic church.
To answer Scarecrow, there are lineages that can trace themselves back to Crowley. Does a person have to belong to one of these to ascend/work the A.'.A.'. system? I don't think so. Crowley made the teachings available to the public for a reason. However, there is a system to his outer school where one learns being in both the student and the teacher role and I think it would be misleading to oneself to assume that any success with the system that they have automatically correlates to any "grade" within the A.'.A.'.
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I am in general agreement with Froclown, as long as he states where his authority is coming from: the universe. Others can help and focus the universe to initiate, but initiation is still a very intimately personal thing, coinciding with human physical and spiritual evolution. The magickal baton of the Quintessence was not handed down by Crowley and does not exist truly as such. He himself self-initiated into the higher grades, and then formed orders based upon his experience and Will. He acknowledged he had connected with the universe intimately which gave him his authority. He called this one universal magickal order of initiation the A.A.
It doesn't matter to me if you shook hands with Crowley, nor if someone was initiated by him; you can't beat a God into a Dog as it were. Crowley was hard up for initiates his whole life it seems to me, I doubt the quality control that was present myself. I feel anyone working in the Thelemic vein of Crowley, ideally an 8 = 3, has the right to use the name A.A. for their school, to denote their foundational basis in Thelema. It is the Will of others to use the teachings or counsel as they will.
The only authority in the universe is spiritual rank. In the present A.A. structure, Buddha himself couldn't pass the knowledge exams. So what if he didn't know that the Hebrew letter Kaph was associated to Jupiter, this knowledge is obviously not mandatory for enlightenment. Thus the A.A. system grades are to some extent phony or superficial. I self-initiated myself wonderfully, and so have a bias to it. It enabled me to non-attach myself to all the squabble and remain pure to the path. It is unjust to say I have no rank in the universal A.A., when I know full well I do. You can say I have no rank in your system or school which is fine, but then your school must not be representative of the universal A.A. (or contain non-essential elements).
Eventually the A.A. and Thelema will be established, I think along with one central government, but it will always be important to check it from being too dogmatic and narrow, and ensure it is as free and loose as possible to all. The magickal child has the innate authority to unite the many into one, which is what is going to happen. That one will now probably manifest aeonically or at each "Equinox of the Gods", with the primary will to set the law and order aright. I would be interested in how you feel the A.A. Grade structure should be affiliated with government and education, or how it shouldn't be. I'm not for any kind of dominance/submission stuff lol; the A.A. is a spiritual order, even the "slaves" should be tried to made ascend up in evolution. Keeping people down, without due opportunity, does nothing but degenerate things further, rather than progress.
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@Froclown said
"I don't actually have to even acknowledge the external order of the A.'.A.'. at all, and can still call by order an external order of the inner A.'.A.'.. "
As far as I'm aware, you could only do this if you've been contacted by the Secret Chiefs of the Order and instructed to do so. Or as has already been said if you had gone through initiation in a current lineage beyond the point of crossing the abyss.
Why not just start up a group and call it something original?
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@Wizardiaoan said
"
The only authority in the universe is spiritual rank. In the present A.A. structure, Buddha himself couldn't pass the knowledge exams. So what if he didn't know that the Hebrew letter Kaph was associated to Jupiter, this knowledge is obviously not mandatory for enlightenment. Thus the A.A. system grades are to some extent phony or superficial. I self-initiated myself wonderfully, and so have a bias to it. It enabled me to non-attach myself to all the squabble and remain pure to the path. It is unjust to say I have no rank in the universal A.A., when I know full well I do. You can say I have no rank in your system or school which is fine, but then your school must not be representative of the universal A.A. (or contain non-essential elements)."FYI, my particular branch of the A.'.A.'. doesn't follow the traditional grade structure. Yes, in the universal sense of the A.'.A.'., it is based on mystical experiences. In the outer vehicular sense, it is a school and while you may think that the grade work is to some extant phony or superficial, they do work... for some people. There are multiple paths up the same mountain that all get to the same place. That doesn't mean one's work in one school automatically directly translates into a "grade" in another. Crowley took a particular school of thought/training and put a name to it, A.'.A.'. If someone takes that name and applies it to their school, the natural assumption of others is that their school of training/thought is what Crowley put together. If it's not, then why use the same name? It just doesn't make any sense to me. That's also why I say personal initiation into the A.'.A.'. system does work, it does bring about the mystical experiences, but there is a learning process built into the student/teacher relationship that you're skipping/missing out on and so how can you (or better yet, why would you want to) say that you're of a particular grade in a particular school? The only need I see of claiming any particular title would be based in Malkuth.
"Eventually the A.A. and Thelema will be established, I think along with one central government, but it will always be important to check it from being too dogmatic and narrow, and ensure it is as free and loose as possible to all. The magical child has the innate authority to unite the many into one, which is what is going to happen. That one will now probably manifest aeonically or at each "Equinox of the Gods", with the primary will to set the law and order aright. I would be interested in how you feel the A.A. Grade structure should be affiliated with government and education, or how it shouldn't be. I'm not for any kind of dominance/submission stuff lol; the A.A. is a spiritual order, even the "slaves" should be tried to made ascend up in evolution. Keeping people down, without due opportunity, does nothing but degenerate things further, rather than progress."
Politically, I'm all for Democratic Republics. If it is one's will to become a leader in that system, then so be it. If is another's will to be content in the laws created by another, then so be it. Really, I look at Thelema as something personal, even though it is at the same time a current that encompasses more than the person. Any government that allows freedom is good... I don't see the need to specifically model the government off of what one thinks fits Thelema.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Froclown,
If you want to form an Order using the same source material, grade structure, et cetera as the A.'.A.'. and throw in some additional supplemental material, power to you... Do what thou wilt! Your Order may be in service to the universal AA that Crowley wrote about, but it isn't the Ordo A.'.A.'. as such: it's an Order created using the same skeleton.
I'll admit, I did the same, but I know and my students know that our Order is not the A.'.A.'. in any way, shape, or form. As I said, our Order is in service to what we will call the AA, or the Great White Brotherhood, or whatever other name you feel like calling it, but we make no claim to the title of the Astron Argon, because... well... we aren't that body.
"Why not just join the A.'.A.'. itself, in that case?"
Good question. Again, do what thou wilt.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours in LVX,
-M -
Ok maybe I can not claim the Grade of any particular order per-sey
but my understanding is that the only criteria for 8=3 in the A.'.A.'. is to have experienced the crossing of the great abyss. Which based on the descriptions crowley has given for what it is like to have this experience, I feel I have experienced it.
The attainment of this nature I see not as having met some official criteria of the order, of passing and sort of examination of occult knowledge etc. Rather its an experience or state one attains like having an orgasm. You can't see that some one did not ever have an orgasm just because they did not study for 20 years in your particular sex school, nor can you claim they had not attained beyond the grade of virgin just because the person they had sex with was not a member of your club.
However, if one used your orders methods free-lance to attain the result your order claims, ie that a partner will have sex with you to orgasm. Then I should thing you are qualified to teach those methods, as well as your own material, to help others achieve that same result.
(that is if the purpose of the order is to get as many people to experience this result as are capable of it)
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
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but my understanding is that the only criteria for 8=3 in the A.'.A.'. is to have experienced the crossing of the great abyss"Uhh... I'm certain Jim will correct me if I'm mistaken, but I cannot believe that is the ONLY requirement for attaining to 8=3. Certainly, it is one of the primary requirements, but there are undoubtedly other very important ones that go along with it. Such as, for example, all the other grade work and preparation that is to be undertaken before it.
In any event, I don't see what 8=3 and Crossing the Abyss have to do with what I posted.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours in LVX,
-M