Student Reading Curriculum Help
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Let me start off by saying that I am a Student of the A∴A∴ associated with the O.T.O. and I am posting here mainly because this is really the only active Thelema forum I know of. I have already sent the question the Order, but it is taking them awhile to respond.
My question is how should I go about studying the Student Reading Curriculum. For some books this is relatively "simple" for instance Raja Yoga. I am currently having the most difficulty with the material written by Crowley. How does one go about studying 777, The Goetia, or the more cryptic portions of The Equinox?
It is extremely frustrating. There simply must be a more productive way about going through this, or I fear I will never become a Probationer.
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@Ioaness said
"My question is how should I go about studying the Student Reading Curriculum. For some books this is relatively "simple" for instance Raja Yoga. I am currently having the most difficulty with the material written by Crowley. How does one go about studying 777, The Goetia, or the more cryptic portions of The Equinox? "
Read. Understand. Think about. Know how to reference various kinds of content.
Remember, this is exclusively an INTELLECTUAL preparation.
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@Ioaness said
"What do I need to memorize though? Surely someone who hasn't even become a Probationer can't be responsible for knowing all of the tables in 777?"
It's not that kind of test. You need to truly know the material. No "studying for the exam" - just read and become really familiar with the material. -
A good standard (my suggestion, but not official dicta) is: Could you sit down with someone else who really knows the work, without warning, and have an intelligent, informed conversation about the work and its relationship to other mystical and magical approaches? And, could you sit down with an intelligent, interested person who is quite unfamiliar with the book and meaningfully explain to them what it's about and what they might find of value in it.
I'm not saying you will ever have to do these things. I'm suggesting that this is the level of familiarity with the book that I think you should target, and that will serve you both in the examination and in any future work.
"Surely someone who hasn't even become a Probationer can't be responsible for knowing all of the tables in 777?"
Correct. But you can be expected to know what 777 is all about, and the kind of information that is there, how the rows are structured. (For example, to know when you might take it off the shelf as a reference, and how you would go about using it to look something up.) In this particular case, if I asked you what kind of information was tabulated, I'd be surprised if you couldn't rattle off a dozen different column names without thinking too hard.
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@Ioaness said
"Let me start off by saying that I am a Student of the A∴A∴ associated with the O.T.O. and I am posting here mainly because this is really the only active Thelema forum I know of. I have already sent the question the Order, but it is taking them awhile to respond.
My question is how should I go about studying the Student Reading Curriculum. For some books this is relatively "simple" for instance Raja Yoga. I am currently having the most difficulty with the material written by Crowley. How does one go about studying 777, The Goetia, or the more cryptic portions of The Equinox?
It is extremely frustrating. There simply must be a more productive way about going through this, or I fear I will never become a Probationer."
I would like to add that for me, when I am reading material that I am to master, I take a lot of notes, I journal about what I read, asking myself questions, highlighting certain things that really spoke to me, bullet pointing ideas, names and dates.
The act of writing things down has a lot of merit in helping one remember and integrate the concepts.
