"Kill/Fill" - not "Kill Bill"
-
@Jason R said
"The New Comment
(...)This injunction was most necessary, for had I been left to myself, I should have wanted to edit the Book ruthlessly. I find in it what I consider faults of style, and even of grammar; much of the matter was at the time of writing most antipathetic. But the Book proved itself greater than the scribe; again and again have the 'mistakes' proved themselves to be devices for transmitting a Wisdom beyond the scope of ordinary language.*""
By the way, the "mistakes" Crowley is talking about here are the apparent mistakes in grammar throughout the Book (e.g. "be me" instead of "be I," and all the unusual capital letters throughout).
He's not talking about those passages where he was instructed to add something to the Book and then later mistquotes the thing he was supposed to add.
-
@Los said
"Anyone who thinks the "essence" of Thelema is about contact with oogity-boogities needs to go back and read the core Crowley texts again."
Hmm. I think that Book 4 is a core text. And, of course, so is the Book of the Law.
Remember, a WHOLE SECTION and the CLIMAX of Book 4 is designed to "make the case" and calculate probabilities -- to mathematically PROVE that Aiwaz is a "Being of intelligence and power immensely subtler and greater than aught we can call human."
Also, see below:
@Crowley said
"This Book [the Book of the Law] proves: there is a Person thinking and acting in a praeterhuman manner, either without a body of flesh, or with the power of communicating telepathically with men and inscrutably directing their actions."
Don't argue with me, argue with Crowley -- he's saying here that the BOL is proof of your "oogity-boogities" as you call them. And that this discovery is about as important as the invention of the Wheel, etc...
Sounds important to him in regards to the "essence" of Thelema.
Again, I'm not arguing for or against Crowley's belief of a praeterhuman origin -- I'm simply stating what Crowley wrote directly about this in relation to the significance of the BOL -- which is THE CORE TEXT of Thelema. If we agree that the BOL is the "essence" of Thelema, while ignoring what Crowley is saying here (btw - he is swearing an oath about this specific significance), we would be omitting key evidence as to what he thought the BOL stood for. These are hardly "trappings."
But, let's not get off topic because of your bias and blatant disagreement with Crowley's oath. If you want to pursue further, don't derail Jim's thread -- start your own.
Good day, Los.
@Takamba said
"I don't believe this warning/injunction was a prediction and I said with Jim that it is being made too important as such. It is, in my opinion, a good example of what and why this injunction is about - and also do not agree that William Breeze's arguments for his "correction" are strong enough to warrant the correction."
Agreed. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal. And there is no such thing as "bad publicity."
-
@Los said
"
@Frater 639 said
" btw here is the essence"Anyone who thinks the "essence" of Thelema is about contact with oogity-boogities needs to go back and read the core Crowley texts again."
There's not a consensus on what the "core texts" are.
-
The is a PDF addendum to Hymenaeus Beta's explanation of the "fill/kill" correction to Liber CCXX released today (5/7/13) published on the OTO website.
HB writes:
"“ Ritual CXX, called of Passing through the Tuat, ” or “Liber Cadaveris,” appears as the first of several papers in a MS. notebook, Yorke Collection O S 26. It is immediately followed by the MS. of an O.T.O. degree paper, Crowley’s second version of Liber C, Agape Azoth , which is dated internally to December 1912. “ Ritual CXX ” is therefore earlier, but probably not by much. It is important to bear in mind t hat Crowley sometimes worked in multiple notebooks at once, and the contents are not always strictly chronological , i.e., they do not necessarily appear in the order they were written . In other words, he sometimes wrote on a paper available basis . But the se two papers appear with no intervening blank pages. I therefore believe that “ Ritual CXX ” was written in 1912, around the time that Crowley made the correction from “fill” to “kill” in III:37 in his copy of Thelema , i.e., concurrently with his publication of the MS. of Liber Legis and the Stèle Paraphrase in The Equinox I(7) (spring 1912) or soon thereafter.
"Still, the manuscript says "fill" independently of these documents. And we can go back and say that Crowley never published Liber 220 with "kill"
-
@Frater 639 said
"the "essence" of Thelema"
The essence of Thelema -- which means "Will," remember -- is discovering and carrying out the True Will. The clue was in the name all along.
True Will is the essential Thelemic concept. Anything else is just bells and whistles.
-
@Los said
"
@Frater 639 said
"the "essence" of Thelema"The essence of Thelema -- which means "Will," remember -- is discovering and carrying out the True Will. The clue was in the name all along.
True Will is the essential Thelemic concept. Anything else is just bells and whistles."
Again, you pick and choose your arguments. Convenient. Now go back and say something meaningful about Crowley's claim that his reception of Liber L demonstrates all the proof of religious effort in toto; the concept of other worldly beings.
Also, answer me this if you will - is it your True Will to simply bore us with the same old story?
-
@Takamba said
"Again, you pick and choose your arguments. Convenient."
It certainly is convenient to be able to pick and choose correct arguments and evidence to support factual claims, such as pointing out that Thelema is named for its central concept.
"Now go back and say something meaningful about Crowley's claim that his reception of Liber L demonstrates all the proof of religious effort in toto; the concept of other worldly beings."
Ok. It's a completely ridiculous claim -- one not supported in the slightest by the so-called "evidence" he cites --that pretty much any reasonable person in today's world would shrug off as the ravings of a nut.
What's clear is that that particular claim -- which pertains to the supposed source of the document that defines Thelema -- is separate from Thelema itself, which is a philosophy of individual action centered around the Will. If I claimed that a spirit gave me the plans to build a car, and then I built that car, there's nothing about the actual car itself, or the driving of it, that would have anything to do with spirits. You could still get in it and drive around whether there are spirits or not. It's the same with Thelema.
-
So, the "thou" in "Do what thou wilt" doesn't really matter; it's the "do", "what", and "will" that matter?
-
@Los said
"It certainly is convenient to be able to pick and choose correct arguments and evidence to support factual claims, such as pointing out that Thelema is named for its central concept. "
The above proves someone else in their opinion (correct) of you. I think it's called inductive reasoning when you seek evidence to support an ***a priori ****"central concept."
*I know how much that Latin bothers you.
-
@Los said
"Ok. It's a completely ridiculous claim -- one not supported in the slightest by the so-called "evidence" he cites --that pretty much any reasonable person in today's world would shrug off as the ravings of a nut."
If he's a raving nut when it is convenient for you, what right do you have (in your alleged "right" mind) to use his points in any other direction? You must be a raving lunatic to trust even what you imagine is not "ridiculous" of him to claim.
-
@Avshalom Binyamin said
"So, the "thou" in "Do what thou wilt" doesn't really matter; it's the "do", "what", and "will" that matter?"
Huh?
-
@Takamba said
"If he's a raving nut when it is convenient for you, what right do you have (in your alleged "right" mind) to use his points in any other direction?"
Because the possibilities aren't limited to some kind of mutually-exclusive liar-lunatic-lord paradigm. Just because the guy said some nutty things doesn't mean that everything he said was nutty. The stuff he said that is reasonable and/or supported by evidence is reasonable and/or supported by evidence, independent of who said it.
You know all of this already. Stop trying to get me to pay attention to you.
-
@Los said
"
@Takamba said
"If he's a raving nut when it is convenient for you, what right do you have (in your alleged "right" mind) to use his points in any other direction?"Because the possibilities aren't limited to some kind of mutually-exclusive liar-lunatic-lord paradigm. Just because the guy said some nutty things doesn't mean that everything he said was nutty. The stuff he said that is reasonable and/or supported by evidence is reasonable and/or supported by evidence, independent of who said it.
You know all of this already. Stop trying to get me to pay attention to you."
I'm not asking you to pay attention to me (you will that on your own), I'm only informing the masses that may read your bitter fruits.
-
@Los said
"Huh?"
The "thou", the divine (as opposed to "you", the mundane) is central to Thelema, in the most concise statement, in the source text. If you're not interested in the source text, or in the source of the will (the divine, not the individual), and you're not interested in Crowley except where he can be corroborated by others, why bother with Thelema at all?
Why not just go make up your own, or adopt another, that doesn't include the supernatural or divine.
Honestly, it's the silliest thing ever, to go grab an existing term, with an existing meaning, according to the first prophet and proponent of the concept, and insist that unless everyone adopts your new, narrower definition, they're all wrong.
Thelema isn't yours to define.
-
"Because the possibilities aren't limited to some kind of mutually-exclusive liar-lunatic-lord paradigm. Just because the guy said some nutty things doesn't mean that everything he said was nutty. The stuff he said that is reasonable and/or supported by evidence is reasonable and/or supported by evidence, independent of who said it."
“Nothingever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the onset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have a malady in the less attractive forms.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas CarolKeep "laughing" in AC's honor, and pray your right.
-
93
I'd like to hold up a bit of information for scrutiny here, if you will. I believe it's rather important, and I haven't seen it brought up anywhere else (at least in the Google searches I've made.)
There is evidence that Crowley quoted verse III:37 in its entirety, using the word "fill", separately from both Liber CCXX and the Stele Paraphrase, both before and after 1912 (when both the pencil edit to the Crowley-Windram copy of Thelema and the Liber CXX MS are believe to have been written).
The instance is in a ritual titled "An Evocation Of Bartzabel The Spirit Of Mars" that appears in The Equinox Vol I, No IX, which was published in March of 1913. On page 129, it includes the following:
"(The Magi kneel at three sides of altar, all clasping spears in the proper manner.)
I adore Thee in the Song :
I am the Lord of Thebes, and I
[…]
To stir me or still me !
Aum ! Let it fill me !*All say, repeatedly:* A Ka dua Tuf ur biu[etc …]"
I would guess that it was in the process of being proofed sometime after Jan 1, 1913. The original MS from which this was published also exists, however. The evocation was performed on May 9th, 1910, according to AC's Confessions. A version was edited and published the OTO in The Equinox Vol IV, No II (1998) as an A.'.A.'. Class C document,* Liber CCCXXV* (pages 257-285). This version is noted as being more identical to the actual MS:
"The MS of the ritual is preserved in a notebook at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin. […] For publication, abbreviations have been expanded and missing punctuation supplied; doubtful readings are given in brackets. The ritual has been made to conform to the MS in order to reproduce faithfully its original performance. Some ritual instructions and several diagrams only appear in the MS; there are also instances of variant wording. Some diagrams illustrating practical details have been taken from Crowley's sources, as cited. The opening titling, summary and Latin phrase are not in the MS; other material not in the MS, but in The Equinox, is noted. The Equinox version had two misreadings of the MS ("grey" for "fiery" and "enclose" for "unloose")." (page 427)
On page 274 of this version we also see the exact same adoration quoted, using the word "fill".
However, we'll only know for sure if Crowley wrote "fill" with his own hand in the 1910 MS if the original scans become available. (This could have been changed by HB, as in the contemporary works, without a footnote added.)
Regardless, we still have an instance of the verse being published immediately after the 1912 pencil edit and CXX MS where Crowley indeed uses the word "fill" in print. If he had wished to correct it to another word, being fresh in his mind after writing the note in the Windram book, this would have been the perfect opportunity as it would have had to have been inserted and re-typeset specifically for this piece regardless. Not to mention it also survived proofing by a man who had committed The Book of the Law to memory.
Note: I am presenting this here for purely academic reasons… I respect HB's decision, and he has a job to decide what goes to print. However, I believe everyone who cares about this should make a choice for themselves after investigating the evidence thoroughly. I invite your opinions on this.
93 93/93
-
Really good catch! (It was even a Mars ritual.)
-
@Los said
"
What's clear is that that particular claim -- which pertains to the supposed source of the document that defines Thelema -- is separate from Thelema itself, which is a philosophy of individual action centered around the Will.."
I believe you are raising some important points.
That particular claim you mention is not separate from Thelema itself.
On the contrary, it is intrinsically an aspect of Thelema.
There is definite significance in that Aiwaz and Thelema are both equal to 93.This should be moved to a different thread...this particular OP shouldn't be derailed for obvious reasons.
[please note that the following is the beginning of Book 4, Part IV -- which is a very large part of the core texts of Thelema. It is titled "Thelema." This part of the book aims to prove the bold below, with logic and mathematical probability]
*The Summons
On April 8, 9 AND 10, 1904 E.V., this book was dictated to 666 (Aleister Crowley) by Aiwass, A Being whose nature he does not fully understand, but who described Himself as "the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat" (the Lord of Silence).
The contents of the book prove to strict scientific demonstration that He possesses knowledge and power quite beyond anything that has been hitherto associated with human faculties.
The circumstances of the dictation are described in [Chapter VI]; but a fuller account, with an outline of proof of the character of the book is now here to be issued.
The book announces a New Law for mankind.
[...]
Its solution of the fundamental problems of mathematics and philosophy will establish a new epoch in history.
But it must not be supposed that so potent an instrument of energy can be used without danger.
I summon, therefore, by the power and authority entrusted to me, every great spirit and mind now on this planet incarnate to take effective hold of this transcendent force, and apply it to the advancement of the welfare of the human race...
*
-- The Priest of the Princes, ANKH-AF-NA-KHONSU
Book 4, Part IV - Thelema - The Law - The Equinox of the GodsIn a new thread, it would be great to see a list, point by point, of which parts you disagree with -- so I can fully understand your stance(s). I'm actually pretty interested in discussing this...
It has everything to do with Thelema as "essence." I'm sure you agree.
-
93,
All the "fil me" camp needed was one version of the verse that says "fill me" and is not a copy of Liber 220 to conclusively disprove the typo theory. Now we have that! Thank you Bryce! That was the catch of the year! I can see it on hermetic.com which reproduces the original type from the typewriter in 1909: hermetic.com/crowley/equinox/i/ix/eqi09016.html
(Note the spelling of ' Ankh-f-n-Khonsu' in this copy rather than the spelling 'Ankh-af-na-khonsu' in Liber 220, which shows that this is not merely a reprint from that.).
We've won! Someone tell HB! We've won!!
I'll going to have a feast tonight while I wait for HB to acknowledge it and rescind his decision (which he is honour bound by his oaths to do).
From now on, on May the 8th each year I am going to have a feast day to celebrate the saving of the Book of the Law!
Best Alrah. 93 93/93
-
I have finally reached a full conclusion that satisfies me and if William Breeze acts counter to the evidence I see, my entire opinion of the OTO since he took office stands affirmed (Not that I'm saying it was his taking office that lead me to my opinions of the OTO).
Evidence
- Liber Legis has always been printed with "fill me."
- The Paraphrase has, separate from Liber Legis, has been printed with "kill me."
- The Opening of the Taut ritual incorporates the Paraphrase and has "kill me."
- For reasons unknown, there's a crossed out "f" and penciled marginal "k" in a personal copy of Thelema at III:37 in Liber Legis.
- The invocation of Bartzabel (in both hand written and printed copies) uses "fill me."
Clearly Crowley could have at any time changed the letter in the printed copies of Liber Legis (be it in its separate publications as a book or when published within any edition of any book that includes it) BUT HE DID NOT DO THIS. Why? Because William Breeze says he was lazy and forgetful. HA! I doubt that really. William Breeze says this little pencil jot in a book he gave away (him... it was a book he gave away... that's a point too) is an indication of something called "intention." Nope. I don't believe so. Instead, even had Crowley the "urge" to look at "Aum! Let it fill me!" and wish it were "kill me," he observed diligently (as a prophet himself would!) the injunction to change no so much as the style of a letter. This proves William Breeze very weak in Will and maybe very big in want.