Supreme Secret or Ultimate Joke?
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GOLD BRICKS
Teach us Your secret, Master! yap my Yahoos.
Then for the hardness of their hearts, and for the
softness of their heads, I taught them Magick.
But...alas!
Teach us Your real secret, Master! how to become
invisible, how to acquire love, and oh! beyond all,
how to make gold.
But how much gold will you give me for the Secret
of Infinite Riches?
Then said the foremost and most foolish; Master, it
is nothing; but here is an hundred thousand
pounds.
This did I deign to accept, and whispered in his ear
this secret:
A SUCKER IS BORN EVERY MINUTE.COMMENTARY by AC
.....The moral of the chapter is, that it is no good trying
to teach people who need to be taught.
Crowley, you trickster. WHAT IF Thelema was one of his jokes? "Haha.. you louts! I got you to eat menstruum and cum cakes! All in pursuit of enlightenment!" " hey, why don't you kids try and figure out what 4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L means. Go ahead my dogs of reason, exhaust your mind with a meaningless string of numbers and when you find a reason in them, you're getting closer! Also, start a Journal of Thelemic Studies because this stuff is THAT sirius!"
Oxen need to be goaded you know. You can lead a horse to water, you can't MAKE him drink, but the right guy could bullshit them into taking a swig. I think Crowley was that man. Maybe he didn't realize it at first but perhaps later, "Well damnit, if that fucking snake whispering in my ear didn't play a joke on me." But hey, truth is personal and lies are so easily shared.
Same goes for every religion. ITs all a joke 'cept you aint laughing, till you realize you're on Candid Cosmic Camera. -
I (nearly) always get the sense that Crowley encourages skepticism to begin with... I try not to accept anything until I experience it myself. Until I experience any deep truths behind Thelema (or whatever "religion") per se, I don't see myself ever becoming a standard-bearer.
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@Silenci said
"GOLD BRICKS
Teach us Your secret, Master! yap my Yahoos.
Then for the hardness of their hearts, and for the
softness of their heads, I taught them Magick.
But...alas!
Teach us Your real secret, Master! how to become
invisible, how to acquire love, and oh! beyond all,
how to make gold.
But how much gold will you give me for the Secret
of Infinite Riches?
Then said the foremost and most foolish; Master, it
is nothing; but here is an hundred thousand
pounds.
This did I deign to accept, and whispered in his ear
this secret:
A SUCKER IS BORN EVERY MINUTE.COMMENTARY by AC
.....The moral of the chapter is, that it is no good trying
to teach people who need to be taught.
Crowley, you trickster. WHAT IF Thelema was one of his jokes? "Haha.. you louts! I got you to eat menstruum and cum cakes! All in pursuit of enlightenment!" " hey, why don't you kids try and figure out what 4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L means. Go ahead my dogs of reason, exhaust your mind with a meaningless string of numbers and when you find a reason in them, you're getting closer! Also, start a Journal of Thelemic Studies because this stuff is THAT sirius!"
Oxen need to be goaded you know. You can lead a horse to water, you can't MAKE him drink, but the right guy could bullshit them into taking a swig. I think Crowley was that man. Maybe he didn't realize it at first but perhaps later, "Well damnit, if that {shagging} snake whispering in my ear didn't play a joke on me." But hey, truth is personal and lies are so easily shared.
Same goes for every religion. ITs all a joke 'cept you aint laughing, till you realize you're on Candid Cosmic Camera."Thanks for the plug!
I actually agree with you regarding your 'cum cakes' comment and the string of letters. Im not aware of one person who has done these things who is any better off - most are worse off and appear insane. That being said, the Journal of Thelemic Studies focuses on things that are practical mostly (understanding ethics, equilibrium, reviewing literature, and even interviewing people who are simply inspired by Thelema). Thelema offers many practical insights into the philosophical topics of metaphysics, ethics, teleology, etc. and various religious problems like theodicy. The Journal really isnt so serious that we're not allowed to laugh - there are actually hidden jokes in there if you look for them (besides, ever consider that people do these kind of things because they find it fun and interesting?). If Thelema was a joke, it was a very useful joke. To think that Crowley went bankrupt trying to spread this joke was all probably part it, no?
IAO131
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@Silenci said
"BTW..I was just teasing in good fun. I have read your journal and found it well studied.
And you are right, it was a useful joke."Thanks.
After all, life is just the joke of the general at the expense of the particular anyhow...
IAO131
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@Silenci said
"Crowley, you trickster. WHAT IF Thelema was one of his jokes?"
If the joke liberates you, then who cares if it is a joke... unless you can't let go personal importance.
I guess the real trick is to find the joke that makes you laugh the most and use it to your advantage.
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I think all religions are a joke on their followers. You're already liberated. You just need someone to cattle prod you into realizing it. Beliefs are like soft baby blankets to their followers. You can tell the real substance of a man when you yank it away and watch his reaction. What would you think of your beliefs and experiences if on some future determined date Crowley had an heir release a note that said, "Now this is the moral of the story, forge your own path, don't listen to anyone, and...oh yeah, go eat a cum cake! Haha, I totally made you idiots eat cum!"
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@Silenci said
"I think all religions are a joke on their followers. You're already liberated. You just need someone to cattle prod you into realizing it. "
I beg to differ. If its needs realization you arent liberated if liberation itself is a realization.
"Beliefs are like soft baby blankets to their followers. You can tell the real substance of a man when you yank it away and watch his reaction. What would you think of your beliefs and experiences if on some future determined date Crowley had an heir release a note that said, "Now this is the moral of the story, forge your own path, don't listen to anyone, and...oh yeah, go eat a cum cake! Haha, I totally made you idiots eat cum!""
Kind of like Krishnamurti and the Order of the Eastern Star (minus the cum cakes).
IAO131
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@Silenci said
"I think all religions are a joke on their followers. You're already liberated. You just need someone to cattle prod you into realizing it. Beliefs are like soft baby blankets to their followers."
I agree with Aum418, you are not liberated if you need someone to help you realize it.
I think your argument needs to be refined. You seem to be generalizing in thinking that Thelema IS a religion.
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Does anyone ever ponder the fact that the man thought he could buy the secret to infinite wealth? How do you offer money for what is priceless? What good is all the power in the world if you do not have the experience to use it?
Is it a joke?
While a Televangalist may be in it to make a quick buck,
There is a Priest with a tiny congregation preaching the word of the Lord -
You know, I tend to agree. Here's my case.
A couple of weeks ago, I was running around and testing myself against other people's theories. To make a point, I suggested to one person that anyone given knowledge of correspondences and a few other things, including what I refer to as the RPSTOVAL cipher, could prove to themselves without a doubt that THEY were "the child." I was being a bit of a smartass to prove a point.
I triggered the damn experience... karma's a bitch, right?
I'll tell you what happened. I began to experience my subjective reality as objective reality. Or, at least, I began to lose the difference.
Now, on one level this was good. It was a technique for loosening the bonds of perception. I had some very "buddha" moments, but I couldn't sustain it or live there. In fact, I've done some damned looney things over the course of the past week and a half, including solving all the worlds problems by playing mediator between very powerful organizations... in my mind... Obama, Pope, Osama, you're welcome. A check is not requested, but it would be nice.
Sheesh... Talk about embarrassed. I wince when I think about some of the things I've done. I went in full-on CIA operative mode for a while... LOL.... ROFLMAO....
oh! There went another one... wince, that is....
Well, I see what happened as both blessing and curse.
On one hand, I lived my hero story, which I hear is important. I stood up to people that I had not ever before. I discovered that which was most important to me. And I discovered that there are times where you say, "I am no longer willing to admit that this is not really happening." Of course, you question that later, and it's important to, but it's also important to find out what your criteria are. Let go of them, and you'll NEVER get out of that pit - at least not without medication and soft white walls.
It was very disorienting. I insulted Jim to his face on his own board. lol... I It wasn't as completely arrogant as it sounded, but only because it was mixed up in my delusion. I was sending him a secret message. I beg your pardon, my brother and teacher. I ended up missing a week of work and almost fatally damaging my relationship with my fiance as well. I'm begging her pardon as well, if that's any consolation.
So, three things:
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I absolutely have to confess that the technique I described is functional. It will trigger mystical experience, complete with mind-blowing synchronicites. I have recorded mine, they include clock-time, Frater number, time of insight, consistency of subject matter, and external verification.
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Also, it's not really the kind of experience you WANT to trigger precisely because you have to deal with all this "Am I the One?" ego-inflation b.s.. It's highly likely that your "hero story" will involve themes of being the antichrist or some such thing.
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If you get stuck there (in inflation land), I really think that after a while, you might just end up like that guy at the Rosslyn chapel, tormented by your own inner demons/integrity, and ingraving "this place is horrible" on everything. Not that I claim to know what really went on there. Just guesses, looking at the sense and nonsense of an apparently maddened mind.
It's not a safe practice - trying to solve the cipher. I don't recommend it unless you're just one of those psychonaut types who want to learn from the experience. And then, you really need good, honest, loyal people around you who love you. It's kind of like playing Russian Roulette with your own sanity.
I still come back to the idea that there must be a conclusive, entirely systematic solution, if one is ever to be found at all. Otherwise, people are just going to keep repeating this experience.
Is that a bad thing or a good thing? I've learned SO much in this past week and a half.
In My HO,
Frater AVV (a.k.a. - the mad prophet)
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Being natural Audacious, I dare to comment yet without quoting;
All this talk about "The Child" but what have we need of "a chilD??"have we not the HGA for guidance? what is the use of solving a cipher for apperance sake alone?!
The Universe is before Us and Time is behind us.
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I have no idea, but much like the "prophecy" concerning the coming Messiah of the Jews, there are many people who look to the prophecy of a "child" to come who may play the role of successor to the Beast.
To my mind, back in the day, many Jewish children secretly wondered if they were to become the Messiah and play some kind of important role in leading the Jews to liberation from their oppressors. There were actually several "false" Messiahs who came and led rebellions against the Romans before Jesus of Nazareth kind of "took the door prize," caused a major persecution of the Jews by the Romans, and caused the Jews to change their interpretation of the Scriptures to discourage such behavior.
I think there is something in every human mind that asks the question, "Am I special? Do I have a special, divine purpose? Could I be the hero? Do I have what it takes? What if everything depended on me?" We see heros in movies dive under the surface of the water to escape from the cave, and as children, we hold our breath with them to see if we could have made it ourselves. I
There is something of the "Hero With a Thousand Faces" to any prophecy of a coming child. And there's something of an initiatory experience in living out a "hero story" where one is tested to their limits.
For some people, this kind of initiatory experience can be generated by attempting to personally relate to being "the child" by attempting to solve the cipher. If one's mind has been sufficiently altered and flexed by qabalistic correspondences, one can begin anywhere in the universe and end up anywhere else by implementing a process of association - kind of like swinging from vine to vine through a mental jungle to arrive at the desired destination.
My point is that people are already experiencing these kind of phenomena based on their attempts to solve the cipher. They have these great experiences of synchronicity. The universe opens up to them in a way that makes sense to them. And they are tested by their own new understanding. Like I said, there's something of a common initiatory "hero story" experience to be had, so as spiritual scientists, lets USE the technique to learn some things, or at least demonstrate a process, or implement it as a specific tool along the path. If nothing else, students could be more prepared for the experience than they currently are because NOTHING seems to irritate Thelemites more than someone else claiming to have solved the cipher, to be some kind of successor to the Beast, to be living some kind of paranoid conspiracy fantasy, and to have no "authority" but their own claim to have solved the cipher.
But the most value that I find in the experience is the coming together of the universal mind to repeatedly reproduce such overwhelming synchronicity-filled, personally undeniable response that "Yes, You are the Child."
Because "the Child" is the archetype of Horus himself. Perhaps I'm not giving the correct Thelemic godname for that mysterious combination of Self that we experience in Tiphareth. But if a person uses the technique I described earlier (which is really just to say that a person has studied qabalah long enough) and asks the depth of Universal Subconsciousness whether or not they are "the Child," well, of course the answer will be yes, because we ALL participate in the archetype of the Universal Child.
Personally, I believe the experience to be so commonly reproducible that even if there is a straightforward solution to the cipher (i.e. one that demonstrates simplicity and thorough consistency of technique - i.e. a "solution") this technique could still be used to initiate the "hero story" experience in those whose minds were sufficiently receptive to the idea while still leaving the possibility open that someone would actually come and "solve" the cipher fully.
If the experience is confirmed enough through this manner, then you have several things:
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You have a response to people who have bought, hook line and sinker, the idea that they are some kind of heir to Crowley's "throne." The government is after them... etc.
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You have a genuine experiment that people can perform that will demonstrate to them the power of Universal Mind to coordinate events of a person's life down to the second - in other words to generate synchronicities, or inexplicable coincidences that cry out to be assigned meaning.
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You have a method and rationale for initiating the "hero story" experience.
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As long as you have the person's astrological data, you may actually be able to predict the timing of some of these "insights" and "synchronious events." For example, mine just happened to be triggered while the Sun and Moon were conjunct in Pisces (go figure) and while Saturn was conjunct with Uranus (ew). From my own perspective, these two events explain the nature of my own "delusional" hero story quite well. It's just too much of a coincidence for me to deny. Astrology was proven to me personally through my experience. I had not taken it as seriously before at all.
I'm just saying... I think a Great Experiment could be performed given these factors.
When Einstein was attempting to prove relativity, he looked for stars whose light would be bent around Earth's sun - visible only during an eclipse. He had to choose a star and observe its light during the relevant time period of the eclipse.
Couldn't the same thing be possible for this technique through astrological observation? Isn't that what the tradition of the Magi that visited Bethlehem is about? Isn't that why Herod ordered all the children killed? Perhaps Pharoah as well? Couldn't someone having an experience like mine be predicted while the planets where in those positions?
Isn't that the job of the A.'.A.'.? Well, I don't know. But in my mind, those Magi of old were our older brothers in this pursuit.
Only this time, instead of serving the purpose of pointing out a specific messiah, the purpose would be to develop a process where, with some predictability, people would be able to understand themselves as their own messiah - their own HGA - and have some grander sense of understanding their own True Will through their personal experience of this kind of interaction with the Universal Mind?
That's all I'm saying... Maybe it's because I don't know anything, really. But I do know that if a person throws their heart into this attempt, it seems to yield a just about as predictable, reproducible experience as I read is achieved with the Abramelin Operation. And that's seen as a pretty reliable technique, or am I wrong?
And if we're occult scientists... couldn't this be of some value?
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I am concerned with the practical side of knowledge; if one was to decipher the code for a lottery numbers generating software, or a time-machine{both of which IMO are imminent}; i think that those would be more relevant , in demonstrating a Universal understanding, than an abstract cipher, regardless of its interpretation. Is not the Book of the Law meant to explain the Universe? So if by my actions i demonstrate a higher knowledge of the universe, i become "The Logos made flesh", One may live the hero story many ways, but why get lost in abstractions? Where is the Skepticism? Where is the indisputable proof? "..... for only thereby can he fall from it..."
So from that perspective it is a joke!
ps. I have an idea for lottery numbers generating software, wanna try to outline it with me?
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LOL...! That's rich... Give me some time to meditate on the ethics of that. lol... I will say that in some of the states of mind I've swung through, that action would have to be justifiable if one doesn't want to spend time in "prison." but seriously... give me some time to think about it....
Regarding the imminence of technology, I'm more concerned about mind control and artificial intelligence - and of course mind control BY artificial intelligence. But... you know... lol... maybe the aliens will help us out of those jams...
Regarding the cipher... Well... okay... I think perhaps there may actually be a real, practical solution to the cipher. However, I think it is probably so complex that a person is going to have to enter into one of those quasi-manic, prophetic, nexi of synchronicities to find the key to it. So, while people are going there anyway and finding results of a more personal and subjective quality, let's collect data on people's experiences. Maybe it will lead to new theories and new techniques. I know the process gave me some deep deep insights into the nature of my own being and purpose, even though it had pretty ugly effects on the more practical aspects of my life.
Personally.... don't laugh... My own experience has inspired me to try to begin a site/voluntary organization where people who are *already *getting lost in these episodes can go to find a hand down out of the experience - practical grounding practices, understanding ears, and friendly yet firm voices.
I'm thinking of calling it "Thelemic Hospitallers" with the dual mottos:
Ordo Ab Chao "Order from Chaos"
and
Vires per Sanitatem "Strength through Health"
We'll see. The concept is evolving in my mind, but cases could be studied and recorded, complete with astrological data, at the same time aid was being offered. I don't know. I have a glimpse of something with potential, but I'd need some volunteers with much more knowledge than this poor, mad prophet has to offer. I imagine the site playing something of the role of Basil King Lamus in "Diary of a Drugfiend."
"Come! Be a part of our great experiment for the ennoblement of mankind!" lol.... It's evolving...
My point is that people are already attempting to solve the cipher and completely tripping out. This is simply going to happen until there is a simple, obvious solution found. So... let's investigate this mysterious phenomenon. Let's use it to advance occult science. Let's use it to help guide people out of that manic state to the point of discovering something of their True Wills... You know?
At least until the cipher really IS solved. And in the mean time, we become the go to people on this phenomena in the Thelemic community.
Am I dreaming too big?
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i think you have an unhealthy obsession with this topic, basically i feel the cipher would be solved incidentally, not intentionally. any type of obsession is unhealthy, my advice is stay away!!! "...my prophet should not seek after this..."
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Ehh... It's not really that. Honestly, I just feel like it's something that... well, I understand why people try and what the attempt does to people. There is some good in it, but, mostly, it's quite disturbing.
Remember, I'm still rather new to Thelema, but everywhere I look, I see people making the attempt and freaking out because of it. Like it or not, it's a hallmark of Thelema. Thelema is known far and wide in occult circles for its imbalanced followers. And this cipher is one of the main reasons why, IMNSHO.
I've seen people's reactions. Most people just want to act like it's not happening, and when it happens, people just ignore the poor souls as if they've done something wrong.
But ciphers are meant to be solved.
And the "prophecy" of the main book of Thelema says it will be.
There's no getting away from it. Not if you and everyone else has committed to accepting this book as perfectly inspired, or whatever you want to call it...
Frankly, I think it's shameful the way that Thelemites turn their back on people going through the experience. It's just like when Christians or Muslims ignore the parts of their holy books that they don't like and that have negative effects on people. Just pretend it doesn't happen. Just pretend it doesn't imply that. Just let people hang themselves. Just blame them for taking the book literally.
I've seen it. I've experienced it. And I'm against ignoring it. Let's either turn it into something positive, or get serious about telling people not to fool with it because we admit that it's bad for people. One or the other.
Do with that what you wish. I guess I will shut up about it and just do something instead though.
peace.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,
Brother if you have such strong conviction then like you said get to work on it,
if it is any consolation I no longer think we hold the title for the craziest people on this site! That distinction is now reserved for Ave de Prata !!!....ROFL
:newbie:
Love under Will.
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the cipher is too difficult.
Ive been reading thelematic material and chaos magick material for a couple months now. if you want to use it as a tool make it something that people would be naturally curious about not some ancient dusty texts. If you are the child you don't sit there trying to prove it to yourself with bizarre "secret" meanings of an obscure passage.
You go outside and you radiate light to the world around you. If your the Son you're the Sun.