ArsHeretica
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Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole of the Law
Hello everyone!
I'm a Turkish student of Thelema currently residing in The Netherlands.
I have had a somehow turbulent but fascinating relationship with Thelema and the spiritual/initiatic path in general. I was exposed to Thelema and Esotericism when I was 16 (I'm 29 now) via various sources. I remember my first time reading Liber AL as a part of the webpage of the Temple of Thelema in the very first days of the opening of public internet “cafés” in my country.
The path of the genuine enthusiast led me to delve deeper into the corpus of many systems and to absorb and synthesize every piece of knowledge I could seize from Spare'ian Chaos Magick to New Age beliefs. I never took any official Thelemic initiation but practised my own ecclectic path and did some (again ecclectic, Neo-Pagan) group work while preserving my orientation as a Thelemite.
However I have to admit that though my intentions were not “harmful”, I was self-absorbed, fascinated with the shadowy side of the things and dangerously bereft of any solid aim. I have muddled the initiatic (i.e. the very personal/trancendental) with philosophical investigations in the very po-mo, “word-obssessed” sense of the term – can be interpreted as sth which we were warned against in II:27.
My unguided and extravagant pursuits led me to a spiritual crisis in 2004 after which I stopped and ignored everything and took a materialistic point of view (it may sound comfortable but Gods know it was not).
At the moment, I'm sort of experiencing a re-awakening and letting go of the fears with a clearer picture of the spiritual and of course of my own self.
I want to beg your excuse in advance for my possible stagnancy and tainted intellectual knowledge on Thelema and Crowleyana, I may be not as apt as I was in referencing sources other than essential texts.
I am very happy to be closer to the community who introduced me to Thelema
Love is the Law, Love Under Will
M. -
93,
Interesting story. Materialism can look like safe ground, but as you say, that's misleading. But it's still worth exploring, if only to determine this for yourself.
Welcome to the forum.
93 93/93,
Edward
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93,
Thank you very much!
Yes, many people may regard some sort of materialistic point of view as a refuge but
I do not think one can "unlearn" things after being immersed into the
experience. One can only disassociate and ignore.93: 93/93!
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There's no need to unlearn or disassociate; just take the lessons and skills with you, and employ them when you see fit.
The ability to fearlessly explore the dark side is a useful skill, as is the ability to examine things dispassionately and empirically. The point of various life experiences is that you grow a range of behaviors and attitudes that you can choose from later, when it is appropriate to do so.
So, the 'error' of a life focused obsessively on the dark side, or the materialistic side, is merely that it is done to the exclusion of everything else.
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93,
Thank you for your comments!
You have reason, being able to explore the dark side provided quite
a useful toolkit. The knowledge of the shadow side (as to stress that
i hold no dualistic pov, i could say the "narcissistic" or the excessive,
non-responsible side) actually attracts,
sooner or later, sparks of the knowledge of emancipation.But it could also breed some form of trauma and worse, a consecutive
post-trauma that urges swinging wild to the other extreme.93:93/93!