Tannhäuser Question

[V]

I've read Tannhäuser by Crowley several times, and an analysis from Star in the West.

I am a little confused about one point.

So, Tannhäuser begins with a prayer of double meaning, where he enters a world of ecstasy (Venusberg), and he essentially dies at this point.

So now Tannhäuser is absorbed with lust and completely distracted from his quest for spirit. Later he suddenly remembers his child-hood love Elizabeth. His memory of her is very childlike, and she represents purity in his mind. He finally breaks away from Venus so he can peruse Elizabeth (Leaves Lust for Purity) which is equally foolish.

The overall theme of this drama as I understand it, is to walk the middle path and not solely on vice or virtue.

So when he wakes up (Reborn as Osiris?) he is suddenly a very wise man and his holy guardian angel presents itself very shortly after.

So at some point between his transition from Venusburg back to earth, he attained a God-head.

Can someone please explain how he attained this in the play? I don't understand how his attempt to trade vice for virtue suddenly gave him a god-head. Perhaps if he fell on the path of Vice, AND fell on the path of virtue, perhaps this would make more sense.

Perhaps I am missing something.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Danica

...maybe something along the lines of: virtue is balance - some particular virtue represents balanced 'force' of a particular Sephira, and vice is that same principle but unbalanced.

and when I think of balance, I often imagine Cross and it's arms - the only place of balance is the point where the Four (the Two, the Many) meet -- in the center. and in order for it to be balanced it has to be in motion, i.e. it becomes a circular object, and the arms are spokes, and we see a rim now - and we see it as a radiation from the point in the middle... conclusion: the balance of the Four comes from the Fifth - the Elements and Spirit ; and we can say the same for the Two: Parents and the Child...
so, the only 'thing' that balances some particular phenomena, part of ourselves, is it's connection to the Center of our being.
virtue = this part is Under Will, an expression of True Self (it's "pure")
vice = it lacks this quality... *

Vlad

Thanks for that allegory. Very nice.

Shadow Self

How do you people manage to read through that whole thing? I thought it was one of the worst plays ever written. I could not get through it.

I like to think of it this way, "Crowley insured that examples of his poor writing would exist for all eternity by making himself into an occultist."

[V]

Thanks for the help!

@ Nameless,
I'm fairly new to Crowley's material too. Its pretty crazy how difficult it is to interpret, but I am getting a lot better & see real progress in my notes.

My suggestion to you, is actually write notes to summarize each paragraph as you read.
Also use JFC Fuller's Star in the West analysis on some of his work to help guide you.

Avshalom Binyamin

As a writer, I think Crowley would probably get too bored by doing the kind of revisions to improve the structure of longer works. Generally, I believe he wrote quickly with little or no revision. And I agree that it makes it hard to be drawn in the way a good novel might.

Some of his sentences fail. Some are full of Glenn Gould like intricacy of contrived meters and obsessive alliteration. And some are like streams of Proustian prose, somewhat meandering and slow to the point, but reflective of a mind that could gracefully sweep around several points before making their way home.