Greeting others with the Law
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In my opinion, AL III:39 isn't some command to give everyone you meet a copy of the book of the law, or to greet every person with a verbal declaration of the Law of Thelema necessarily. "...it is the Law to give."
What is the Law?
The Law is Do what thou wilt.
The Law is Love.
The Law is to give.I believe these are three ways of expressing the same thing. So, to each man and woman that thou meetest, were it but to dine or to drink at them, if what is written of in the Book of the Law is in your heart, you will be gifting your fellows. Then they shall chance to abide in this bliss or no; it is no odds.
I don't believe it is necessary to even utter the slightest reference to Thelema or the Book of the Law in order to give this gift. The Thelemic letterhead is typically a courtesy among Thelemites. Feel free to try it out as an introduction to a business letter. See what happens. I think one lesson of the Law of Thelema is that it's important to be adaptable. Adaptability means being able to remove your turbin if wearing one will interfere with the effectiveness of your magick.
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Yet we have it stated in the open letter, Liber CI thus:
"THIRD HOUSE
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4. The Brethren shall be diligent in preaching the Law of Thelema. In all writings they shall be careful to use the prescribed greetings; likewise in speech, even with strangers." -
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The essential ideal of thelema is no more "to each his own" than the ideal of Buddhist is every man for himself.
Their is a true correct everything for an individual but it is not up to your arbitrary desire, whim, or what ever you happen to think is right for you. You have to use the scientific method to discover what you really want.
you maybe want to eat candy all day, you do it and vomit, now don't you wish you understood the consequences before hand, so you would know that you don't really want to eat candy all day. True Will is to eat food that does not lead to vomiting, your random inclination to eat sugary food because evolution designed us for places where such foods are rare, leads you away from your true WILL. The wants conflict with WILL.
The same goes for interpretation, you can't decide that Love is the Law means that you have to eat goats and punch clowns. If you do, your interpretation in wrong. This rampant subjectivism must end, Crowley wrote what he did to MEAN exactly what he wrote it to mean. If it means whatever you want it to mean, he might as well had wrote random words, letters, and little ink blots, Hell why bother writing anything at all, you can just make up crap without any text to look at.
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"Yet we have it stated in the open letter, Liber CI thus: "
Yes, an open letter to those wishing to join the OTO. Not A.'.A.'., not Thelemites in general.
"This rampant subjectivism must end, Crowley wrote what he did to MEAN exactly what he wrote it to mean."
Yes, it's silly to assert your True Will in terms of trivial whims before you know your True Will.
However, the first step towards knowing your will is to Know Thyself - and things like eating until you puke, punching clowns, and otherwise engaging in rampant subjectivism could very well legitimately be a part of your path to obtaining a knowledge of the nature of one's being (and later, learning to control them, and even reject them to learn more about your True Will).
In fact, to pretend that we are doing anything but subjective, trivial (but perfectly legitimate) experimentation before we've attained to K&C of the HGA is just posturing, in my humble, rampantly subjective opinion.
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@Froclown said
"no one ever said not to do those things, I said the words "love is the law" is not a command to punch clowns. And you can't just interpret any words to mean any other words, The words mean what they mean, not what you want to make them mean."
Agreed, mostly,
However, if there is an absolute, objective meaning it exists in spite of the fact that our experience and understanding of meaning is entirely subjective in this sphere of existence. What makes you think that your understanding of "Do what thou wilt" is any less flawed than a person who (mistakenly) interprets it as "Do what you feel like doing?".
Do you have K&C of your HGA, such that you know what true will truly is? I know I don't yet, and so all I can do is experiment until I learn enough about myself to find out.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
"Do you have K&C of your HGA, such that you know what true will truly is? I know I don't yet, and so all I can do is experiment until I learn enough about myself to find out."
My honest opinion on this is the whole (will, HGA) is getting a little strict and should not be interpreted in such a way, i have not reach such a unity with my HGA though im not going to say i dont know what my tru will is in certain circumstances. From experience if you start to be too focused and strict when interpreting your own True Will you can become stagnate, and just makes things more complicated then they are, just follow your heart, and especially align your heart with your consciousness, you dont want them to be against each other or you wont realy have clarity.
simply following your heart, (or the most positive magnet pull) in my opinion is sufficient enough until one reaches there HGA, though i doubt your heat will be aligned with beating the crap out of a clown, thats trying to interpret will to whim, but as humans we are we can do stupid things and experience hard times, but only to learn from them and gain wisdom.
"do what yah want."
not quite, too vague of an interpretation that can lead people to make decisions regardless of whats best or what their heart saise, and can lead people to ingnorance and arrogance.
About putting the statement on paper to strangers, work, and such, I would probly wait until one has alteast reached such advancement with their HGA later on and is considered an adebt. Personal Opinion saying it and writing it on everything and everyody as a beginner on the path of the Great Work would seem to dogmatic and brainwashed if you shove it that far in your vocabulary, "EVERYTHING WITHIN MODERATION", unless we were in the movie fight club as a secret organization planning to flip credit scored to 0
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@Progress said
"I'd avoid looking to others for advice."
I'm not the only one who sees the irony in this advice, am I?
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Very ironic, lol.