Oliver P
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Had contact with various species of Magic[k] throughout life, starting with being brought up a Catholic – good training for believing six impossible things before breakfast and venerating the Shekhinah. An unashamed dilettante, I drifted from Gardnerian witchcraft through a GD-descended order in the UK (obtaining my grounding in literal Qabablah but never “passing the veil”) and more ascetic variants of the quest, such as a Sufi circle in Oxford.
First encountered Aleister Crowley through a radio broadcast at age 12 or thereabouts. Fascinated by his declaring himself to be The Beast 666 and his evident questioning of reason. Still groping my way to an understanding of what “reason is a lie” might mean [Kant, Nietzsche, Godel, etc].
Through the 1960s/70s, collected and read books by and about AC, being fascinated by the depth of the thought behind the partial images of the man. He kept coming into my life in odd ways.
On the 100th anniversary of his birth (12th October 1975), I had a strange experience (again in a Catholic community) which seemed to reflect a Thelemite vision and led to the passing belief that the church had found a way of deviously canonising AC. Hence my pseudonym; though there does appear to have been a real St Oliver Plunkett (tiddely-om-pom; see “Haddo”)*.
Still searching along many byways and have veered back to a study of Qabalah (as a reaction to its recent popularisation); whence a re-pondering on the gematria of certain Thelemite words….and here I am, wanting to listen to some knoweldgeable followers and have another shot at “understanding where AC was coming from”.- www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=372 Note canonisation date.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.