Question on Liber L
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Here is another example from the master.
To return. The rarity of genius is in great part due to the destruction of its young. Even as in physical life that is a favoured plant one of whose thousand seeds ever shoots forth a blade, so do conditions all but kill the strongest shoots of genius.
But just as rabbits increased apace in Australia, where even a missionary has been known to beget ninety children in two years, so shall we be able to breed genius if we can find the conditions which hamper it, and remove them.
The obvious practical step is to restore the rites of Bacchus, Aphrodite and Apollo to their proper place. They should not be open to every one, and manhood should be the reward of ordeal and initiation.
The physical tests should be severe, and weaklings should be killed out rather than artificially preserved. The same remark applies to intellectual tests. But such tests should be as wide as possible. I was an absolute duffer at school in all forms of athletics and games, because I despised them. I held, and still hold, mumerous mountaineering world’s records. Similarly, examinations fail to test intelligence. Cecil Rhodes refused to employ any man with a University degree. That such degrees lead to honour in England is a sign of England’s decay, though even in England they are usually the stepping-stones to clerical idleness or pedagogic slavery.
Such is a dotted outline of the picture that I wish to draw. If the power to possess property depended on a man's competence, and his perception of real values, a new aristocracy would at once be created, and the deadly fact that social consideration varies with the power of purchasing champagne would cease to be a fact. Our pluto-heiro-politicocracy would fall in a day.
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Quick thought - I honostly appreciate your replies froclown. Good on you for continuing the conversation.
Alright you raised some points which I need to think more about but which I wish others would jump in with their own insights.
- Will vs Gravity
"The Will of the moon to orbit the earth is not less than the Will of the earth to orbit the sun."
I think a lot of the reason I'm tripped up by True Will, is it's used in both a human, personal manner, and a "law of nature" manner. Scientists can theorize and then "prove" gravity... I'm still being stumped on how to prove TW. Also I flounder at the idea that we can just stamp TW or Will onto anything that happens. Obama won the election - it was the electorial process' True Will that he would... seems stretching...
I might be using humor to explain a point, but really now... it seems like there is absolutely nothing that couldn't be explained (in the manner you are using it) by saying True Will. (I just farted - It was my digestion systems True Will.), which again gets me back to Isn't that the same exact thing as saying "Gods Will" or "Destiny"??? How does it differ?
- Greater Than
"But the Sun is greater than the Earth and the Earth is Greater than the moon. "
What makes it "Greater Than"... this seems to degenerate into the kind of talk that EPrime could help do away with (in most cases)... like saying Mozart is Greater than Beethoven, etc. If we absolutely boil things down to utility, won't things always be changing in usefullness (greatness?). A knife maybe greater?/more usefull than a piece of paper when trying to cut a log, but it's not greater?/more usefull to me when I'm being attacked by someone with a knife (just don't pour lemon juice on my paper cut afterwards please).
- Slaves/Masters
"The WILL of the slave to serve (even if the slave may not realize his will is to serve and may not even consciously admit that he is a slave) is no better or worse than the WILL of a Master to command the slave."
I'm not a fan of the slave/master dichotomy and don't want to get into it, but it may help us in the True Will discussion if we consider the True Will the Master and the other wills/whims/wishes we have to be Slaves that should serve it. Now, how do we determine correctly the Master True Will? That is the question?
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Agreed. Very good reasoning and expressing your thought processes, Froclown. I can see where you are coming from, and actually totally agree as you present things. The problem I have, as others, is that the ideal can be corrupted by the real of unaware and unconscious people implementing the idea and wrecking it. An example is communism. Karl Marx would not think the dictatorships of Stalin and Mao were what he conceived of. Party officials and the military made up elite classes, and it was the old Russian and Chinese Kaiser and Emperor again.
Yes. Good discourse, and thanks, Froclown.
chrys333 -
@DavidH said
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- How can all experience be lawful if certain things are not. For example, killing a person is an experience, yet it is against Thelema to deprive another of their will. So, in order to get all experience, we must break our own laws? "
Isn't that what video-games are for?
Seriously, we could say that's what the entire body of fiction in literature and drama (including the Gor corpus
) is about; to give you as near as possible the experience of killing another person or committing whatever revolting trespass on another's True Will and, in the best of literature (think Nabokov's "Lolita") to take you inside the mind of one who has had that experience, without committing any such actual trespass.The best of literature or drama is also about the consequences of that act.
Parenthetically, I've just noticed that there is a curious "omission" [?] in Liber Oz
"Man has the right to think what he will:
to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will:
to dress as he will."The word "read" - or generalisations such as "receive information", included now in many nations' statements of basic rights - does not occur in Liber Oz. Is there a reason?
I notice - two layers of parentheses now - that when I GoOgle for the text, an autocomplete pops up, saying "Liber Oz publication in Class", which reminds me, I was looking for the answer to that question. Is Liber Oz a Class A publication? Is it heretical to suggest AC may have simply missed a point in not saying "read as he will"?
Exit parenthesis; exit parenthesis.
More of my thoughts on TW (particularly as regards Scarecrow's question on "Destiny") further down this thread.
OP
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@Scarecrow said
"I'd like to ask a new, but similar question of the group:
How does True Will differ from Destiny in your interpretation of the concept.
One thought I immediatly had on the subject was that destiny as it's normally understood cannot be circumvented... you are always following your destiny (or maybe I'm misguided on this subject too)... but it seems as many people have explained TW, you can NOT be following your TW.
Thoughts?"
Substantially unedited from my diary; sorry if it's wordy, but at least I'll spare you the long quote from Finnegans Wake.
“Destiny” is historically and currently used in more than one sense, indeed, almost contradictory senses, so it could be confusing to see it as the equivalent of True Will.
“Destiny”, it seems to me, is more what others will for you than what you will yourself. Someone might say “my father, grandfather and uncle all practised law, so it was my destiny to become a lawyer.” Are they relating their True Will? The (former) lawyer may go on to say: “but I now realize (interesting word) that my true desire was to be a circus clown. I followed that and I'm very happy.”
When Jamling Tenzing says “it was my destiny to climb this mountain” abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=4118257, perhaps he’s closer to True Will than the lawyer was in his use of the D word, but you still have to ask to what extent this was what others expected of him. Supposing he could have ignored unwarranted "outside influence", what would Tenzing Jr have decided for himself after simply exposing himself to the experience of mountaineering and tales of his father’s achievements?
Legend is full of tales of Will struggling valiantly to thwart Destiny. It was Sleeping Beauty’s destiny to prick her finger and fall into a coma. It was Oedipus’s destiny to kill his father, marry his mother and become an embittered self-mutilated old man and a template for generations of psychological and psychiatric theory. Could we really say this was the True Will of either of them?
We can, perhaps, only characterise True Will by saying what it is not. From a starting point of what I [think I] want to do, abstract:
(1) What I have been persuaded I want by those who stand to gain more than I do from my act (think commercial promotions).
(2) What will clearly trespass on another’s True Will, as near as I can judge that (so the exercise is recursive).AC says “follow out exactly the purpose for which [you are] fitted by heredity, environment, experience and self-development.” Should we beware of the ways we have been “fitted” by those who have had an eye to their own advantage or would press you into their mould (eg the lawyer’s father); those who in Kant’s terms use you as a means to their ends? Or should we accept their influence as part of what we are?
A question of “steering your own course” versus “fitting in”. The ancient Greeks had a similar debate, centring on "eudaimonia" - loosely "well-being".
Again from my diary, this morning (again with parentheses; it's the way I think):
You are a Star, not a planet; you have your own energy-source; your own inner convictions [thought: criminal record, conscience; of what have you convinced yourself? Of what have you convicted yourself?].
However, you are also an intelligent being (drifting further from "star" to "spacecraft"); you have navigational instruments and collision detectors; you have an eye out for potential conflict with another’s True Will and for when another’s False Will [thought FW (Wake – “strawng voice of false jiccup”)] conflicts with your own.
The "jiccup" quote is the one from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Looking it up, I was surprised to see who puts in an obvious appearance at the end of that passage.
"...(O my shining stars and body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of soft advertisement!”
Worth looking it up.
OP
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@Oliver P said
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@DavidH said
"- How can all experience be lawful if certain things are not. For example, killing a person is an experience, yet it is against Thelema to deprive another of their will. So, in order to get all experience, we must break our own laws? "
Isn't that what video-games are for?
Seriously, we could say that's what the entire body of fiction in literature and drama (including the Gor corpus
) is about; to give you as near as possible the experience of killing another person or committing whatever revolting trespass on another's True Will and, in the best of literature (think Nabokov's "Lolita") to take you inside the mind of one who has had that experience, without committing any such actual trespass.The best of literature or drama is also about the consequences of that act.
Parenthetically, I've just noticed that there is a curious "omission" [?] in Liber Oz
"Man has the right to think what he will:
to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will:
to dress as he will."The word "read" - or generalisations such as "receive information", included now in many nations' statements of basic rights - does not occur in Liber Oz. Is there a reason?
I notice - two layers of parentheses now - that when I GoOgle for the text, an autocomplete pops up, saying "Liber Oz publication in Class", which reminds me, I was looking for the answer to that question. Is Liber Oz a Class A publication? Is it heretical to suggest AC may have simply missed a point in not saying "read as he will"?
Exit parenthesis; exit parenthesis.
More of my thoughts on TW (particularly as regards Scarecrow's question on "Destiny") further down this thread.
OP"
I dont think Liber OZ is classed according to Class A, B, C etc. It would probably be Class E (or C perhaps).
Most if not all o the language of Liber OZ is about active things - reading is somewhat passive ('receiving information'). Thats my guess.
IAO131
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we must look into what is an individual self. It is a particular expression of the continuous environment as such.
A frog for example is made up of what it eats, its body is constructed of the elements of the swamp it lives in, the same is true for the fish, the insects, and the crocodiles etc. More or less the from is a re-configured but not too far varying from the relative quantities of each chemical element than makes up the swamp as a whole.
No let us consider than a Frog in not a static creation, it is animate, thus the nature of its animation is derived much as the nature of its physiology, from the elements of its environment as a whole and the orbit or Niche which it settles into. Thus not only in the frogs physical vehicle in the world a result of the flies it eats, (the maggots of which eat the fish and other decay in the swamp) but also the Frogs actions are passed on from the swamp. That is its desire or inclination to eat certain flies and to be nourished by them, is a result of the frog being a particular manifestation of the whole swamp,
Like wise is a human being a manifestation of its environment, which includes the breeding the parents, the social role of ones family, the economic accessibility to resources and the sort of information, beliefs, books, media, etc which exist in ones environment.
As such we each precipitated out of the body of Nuit, as a particular manifestation, (Hadit) and like the frog which has an orbit in it's eco system that is unique from the orbit of the fish, the insect, and the algae, so to do we have unique orbits, or niches.
Since a human has atleast in potential infinite access to the whole of the cosmos, this is why we say that a human is a whole star, and an animal merely a fragment of one. And this is why the Human Will, being not so bound by its limits, due to our particular habit of open engagement without limit to the stars and beyond, that our True WILL is more difficult to discern.
However, one can discern the WILL or niche as it applies to a social system, which is a human version of the frogs pond, (even though a human has potential beyond the limits of its social aspect) thus that particular expression of the WILL than is social can be Discerned by examining in practice the general limits that define the individual in the context of the social-economics system, and thus that individual can be aided to find the social role (all of which are man-made) to which it can best express its potential within the Limits of its own natural WILL, rather than having limits imposed upon the individual which conflict with its natural WILL. (like forcing a fish out of water) Rather its better to study the fish and realize that its natural limit is to live bellow the water line and help it to stay in the water best suited to its needs,
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When I'm asking how is TW like/unlike Destiny I am using the word in the following sense:
"1. something that is to happen or has happened to a particular person or thing; lot or fortune.
- the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events. "
Oliver P, I like the imagery of each of us being a spacecraft (blast off Spaceship Earth or even Spaceship Scarecrow)... but this begs the question which I'm meditating out loud on... who's the captain of the ship? Destiny? Fate? Me? True Will? Etc.
Froclown you seem to be defining TW as ecosystem, orbit, and niche... though I'm confused because you're not using TW, you're using WILL (all uppercase), and I don't know how that's different than will or TW...
Also I wonder how you integrate your bit about:
"Rather its better to study the fish and realize that its natural limit is to live bellow the water line and help it to stay in the water best suited to its needs,"
with both (1) Evolution - if you believed that a fish developed legs and walked on land (2) The word of Sin is Restriction
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well, fish that biologically have the ability to breath air to some degree, have a WILL to exit the water, however the vast majority of fish, it is a restriction of their WILL to leave the water. The cannot well accomplish their Natural function if they flop up on the beach and die, rather than live in their proper depth, temperature of water, with the right school of similar fish and with the right types of other organisms to feed upon ar even be fed upon by.
It is the restriction of the birds lofty freedom to plunge it from the skies, into the sea to drown, or even to lock it in a tiny cage.I Use the term WILL to mean the nature of the individual and its dynamic inter-relation to all other individuals which integrates it fully into the continuum, most expressly via its local eco-system.
un-capitalized will, I use in the since of "will it snow tomorrow" or "when will the bus arrive".
Will I use as is William.
And True WILL, is a composite of 2 words the word WILL as I defined above and True, in the since of "the arrow was true to its mark, never wavering its its path to the bullseye."
Thus when the TRUE WILL, is the state where the organism does not Waver from its proper place in the greater whole, and thus it does not precipitate a sense of self in antagonism to the local environment. The self remains fully enmeshed in the continuum, dissolved in the eternal kisses of Nuit as it were.
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@Scarecrow said
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Oliver P, I like the imagery of each of us being a spacecraft (blast off Spaceship Earth or even Spaceship Scarecrow)... but this begs the question which I'm meditating out loud on... who's the captain of the ship? Destiny? Fate? Me? True Will? Etc.""I am the Master of my Fate /I am the Captain of my Soul" (Invictus by William E Henley) - quoted, apparently, by Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh (now there's a TW worth pondering on).
On the "know your enemy" principle, I give you: www.peggiesplace.com/booster294.htm with its message: "God gave us free will, so let's ignore it and put Him (and, of course, Jesus) back in charge of our lives."We pilot the ship; no-one else decides our course and the tactics we use to travel it; but we must respect gravity and the occasional wandering meteorite, or we court disaster.
"Froclown you seem to be defining TW as ecosystem, orbit, and niche... though I'm confused because you're not using TW, you're using WILL (all uppercase), and I don't know how that's different than will or TW..."
Well that's the eternal puzzle; to what extent should we "fit" our "niche" in the Grand System of Things; to what extent are we defined by it?
I would say treat such external influences with the utmost suspicion and caution, asking the continual question journalists learn to ask: "what (s)he says seems to make sense but what's in it for him/her?"
Most people in this world [the Peggies excepted] are playing the game for their own advantage. Do I really have to fit into the "niche" and follow the pathway defined by someone else or a set of someone elses? Is there another way that respects my needs and inclinations more?
I think even Crowley was a little conflicted about the individual will versus the Grand Scheme. The early assertion of the primacy of the "Khabs" ("I think that we are warned against the idea of a Pleroma, a flame of which we are Sparks and to which we return when we 'attain'" - Comment to AL 1:8 ) is tempered by later stuff like: "...the disturbance of positive existence is annulled by absorption into the Body of Our Lady of the Stars." (The Vision and the Voice, 17th Aethyr).
It's a decision we must all make for ourselves, I think. Do what thou Wilt, even to the extent of defining what your True Will is and how far your personal "bubble" and its accompanying "wake" should reach (the idea of the bubble of Planet Earth travelling through space leaving a "wake" is from some popular astrophysics book somewhere: (I pause once again to acknowledge the prophet Finnegan/Joyce; the meaning of "Wake" as "trace of travel" threads its way through the book along with all the other meanings)).
What we are and Will ourselves to be interacts constantly with the niche the Universe and social systems (and even the fading influence of the "pale Galilean") would slot us into. There is a beauty and wonder in that. Force is in Balance and the Balance is one of Forces [or Lust requires constant fine Adjustment if you will]. And in the midst of that first twist, identified by the GD, sits the Hermit (the primal Yodh of Levi, the "axle" contemplating the Wheel of the Universe). That, I've always thought, is enough of a wonder to occupy my mind (consider the meanings of the word "vice") before I move on to the Emperor and the Star
OP
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Oliver P - it's funny that you bring up the Emperor and the Star... for some weird reason I get the image of Froclown's TW being the Emperor, and your TW being the Star... don't know why / not saying it's accurate at all / just throwing the imagery that strikes me as fitting back at ya both.
More nonsense thoughts follow:
Emperor - sits on throne of matter. Very static - I am so and so, built in such a way, in my ecosystem, and our interaction is the identity of TW. Everything has a place.
"Thus when the TRUE WILL, is the state where the organism does not Waver from its proper place in the greater whole..."
Star - I receive my external, integrate it with myself in my own way, and express it by steering the course as a balance between me and my environment.
"It's a decision we must all make for ourselves, I think. Do what thou Wilt, even to the extent of defining what your True Will is and how far your personal "bubble" and its accompanying "wake" should reach..."
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@Aum418 said
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@Oliver P said
"Parenthetically, I've just noticed that there is a curious "omission" [?] in Liber Oz"Man has the right to think what he will:
to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will:
to dress as he will."The word "read" - or generalisations such as "receive information", included now in many nations' statements of basic rights - does not occur in Liber Oz. Is there a reason?"
Most if not all o the language of Liber OZ is about active things - reading is somewhat passive ('receiving information'). Thats my guess.
IAO131"
That struck me too, a while after I posted.
However, in the jurisdiction where I currently live, New Zealand Bill of Rights Act refers to: ...the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information..." [my emphasis]
"Seek" is more active. I'm surprised AC didn't include it, or a synonym.
OP
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"The theory is that every man and every woman has each definite attributes whose tendency, considered in due relation to environment, indicate a proper course of action in each case. To pursue this course of action is to do one's true will." (confessions pg 400)
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Great quote find Froclown!
Interesting that he uses tendency and "everytime" (a proper course of action in each case) in the same sentence.
Also I like that he blatantaly states it's a theory.
Furthermore I note that it's the pursuit of this course of action and not the fulfilling of this course of action that designates it as TW... though I wonder if I'm being too word compulsive and he means the one and the same.
Anyway, good find - more to think about.
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@DavidH said
"...Liber L states that each star is an agregate of experiences, and that eventually, when each star has all experiences then the consciousness is the same as all others.... How can all experience be lawful if certain things are not. For example, killing a person is an experience, yet it is against Thelema to deprive another of their will. So, in order to get all experience, we must break our own laws?"
these aren't doctrinal requirements, but stipulated ideas which some of the Thelemic subculture finds useful or accurate.the idea is one with respect to 'orbit of (true) will' and it is supposed that this cannot be intruded upon, obviated, or in some other way encroached.
this is a type of cosmic order belief, descending, it seems to me, from the 'Will of God' notions popular amongst Christians who maintain that their divinity is in a position of control and manages all things like a grand hierarch. some Thelemic religious believe that such an ordinal system is at work discerning and making it impossible for 'individual true wills' to come into conflict. they will operate from this premise as an AXIOM but not always understand how to go about determinations of conflict due to their unfamiliarity with the instructions.
to see how the Beast tries to resolve it, see his "Magick (in Theory and Practice; Part Three of Book Four)" writings on the true will of Napoleon. it is my opinion that all of this is faith-based, projected, and unfounded. true will notions function as manipulation tools ("That is not your True Will!"), license for excuse ("It is not my True Will do to that!"), and kernels for motivation ("I am discovering that it is my True Will to achieve this!").