Thelema and islam.
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The notion of syncretism in holy scriptures of islam is something I noticed for a while : just consider satanic verses time or a few common points with the Talmud and apocryph christian texts and you will have a interesting parallel.
I could recommand people who are not really fond of arabian history to research a few informations about ancient pagan religion of Arabia : Allah was considered as the supreme God of a pantheon. I found this idea original first time I heard it : "how could a pagan religion build a monotheistic cult ?". But my searches and this thread are showing to me that islam didn't really come out of nowhere in history. -
The shift from polytheism to henotheism to monotheism over the course of human religious history could represent our own progress from experiencing a chaos of conflicting and competing psychological drives to having a sense of purpose and order in organizing and ruling those drives.
Thus in the tales the many gods first become lesser gods ruled by a supreme god and then over time become facets of the One God as well as angels and demons.
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@Aion said
"The shift from polytheism to henotheism to monotheism over the course of human religious history could represent our own progress from experiencing a chaos of conflicting and competing psychological drives to having a sense of purpose and order in organizing and ruling those drives.
Thus in the tales the many gods first become lesser gods ruled by a supreme god and then over time become facets of the One God as well as angels and demons."
Which in time became "I am alone: there is no God where I am."
or
"There is no god but man." -
I was wondering where it would go next - if someone was going to try to say that Thelema was henotheistic. If it is, technically so, it's a more abstract henotheism than that which pitted various gods against one another for dominance. "The Perfect and the Perfect are one Perfect and not two; nay, are none!"
The tricky bit is that Thelema seems set up to allow a person a transition from an external understanding of [God]* to an internal one. It seems to make room for people to be at more than one place on the spectrum of relating to [God].
"The other images group around me to support me: let all be worshipped, for they shall cluster to exalt me. I am the visible object of worship; the others are secret; for the Beast & his Bride are they: and for the winners of the Ordeal x. What is this? Thou shalt know."
It is one of the "secret ones," for the "winners of the Ordeal x," who says, "I am alone: there is no God where I am."
And another who says, "Let my servants be few & secret."
Well, that's my perspective anyway.
*It becomes close to impossible to choose one appropriate word to encompass the object of such a transitioning relationship in all of its stages. For this reason, I use the following notation: [God].
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Allah is just Nuit in drag. The rest is mostly labels (and personal psychological comfort).
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@Aion said
"The tricky bit is that Thelema seems set up to allow a person a transition from an external understanding of [God]* to an internal one. It seems to make room for people to be at more than one place on the spectrum of relating to [God]."
I think this is too simplistic. That is, personally, I found that the internal/external point of view that arose most naturally for me would switch each grade for a while. It didn't particularly matter what my opinion was (and my flexible opinion on the matter remained more or less the same, even if my language changed about it); but the natural perception, and the means that allowed for easiest and deepest connection, picked their own internal vs. external orientation. And (as already mentioned) this flipped predictably every new grade (oh, except it didn't exactly flip from Zelator to Practicus).
FWIW.
""The other images group around me to support me: let all be worshipped, for they shall cluster to exalt me. I am the visible object of worship; the others are secret; for the Beast & his Bride are they: and for the winners of the Ordeal x. What is this? Thou shalt know."
It is one of the "secret ones," for the "winners of the Ordeal x," who says, "I am alone: there is no God where I am.""
FWIW I've always taken "the others" in the above quote to refer to Nuit and Hadit.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Aion said
"The tricky bit is that Thelema seems set up to allow a person a transition from an external understanding of [God]* to an internal one. It seems to make room for people to be at more than one place on the spectrum of relating to [God]."I think this is too simplistic. . . "
Yes, I'll concede that quite willingly.
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Going further into islamic mysticism, I discovered some interesting elements to bring to this debate. Have you ever heard of Bohras ? This is a sect of ismaelism and was forced to refugiate in India. During this adaptation, this movement mixed with local hinduism, including some concepts and even gods of this religion. The point is ismaelis have always been fond of gnosis, using ancient greek elements at their edge. Astrology, hermetism, philosphy and occultism was their stuff.
Conclusion : they had the same Quran I have in my librairy, but they understood the idea of unicity of God with another meaning. Is that really orthodox, that is the question. According to salafis and most scholar of islamic religion, certainly not. But I know Thelema considers Islam as an old Aeon religion, so a syncretism is maybe the right response to that interrogation. And the exemple of hinduism as a cult relating a single God with His many faces is pretty relevant to me. -
I think every person may find some things especially useful to him in any religion. And each religion may have some objective specialities too. One can keep the best parts found and apply them to thelemic practice. What i like and apply most from islam is the "pure monotheism" concept (to Nuit). And if only one technique could last, it may be that
. To Nuit ! To Nuit ! Maximum dedication to highest possible God(according to one's understanding). -
The perspective I usually take is that the traditional, popular religions are the most "outer" of the "outer schools." They are the most concrete and literal, and that's where everyone starts in their early development - with the concretely literal. Many stay on that level their whole lives. But others, usually through crises of faith, develop a more holistic, metaphorical approach.
If you want to use the language of "schools," then ultimately there is only one, united, most-inner "school." But there are many and diverse outer schools, and they conflict with one another, only able to accept a part of the whole.
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Hi all. Long time, no post here.
I once had a Quran and in a rather manic state, while I was very much into Thelema, I was reading it and came up with this idea that 'Allah' actually was in reference to the Higher Self, or perhaps even the Ego. When read that way, of course, the whole text takes on radically different meaning. Was that the intention? Probably not, and that idea certainly wasn't genius. But it was interesting, anyway. You should have heard my ex's reaction at that time (an Indonesian Muslim).
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First of all, you must keep in mind that islam is not compatible with any new religion. According to islamic belief quran covers all of the previous monotheistic beliefs - judaism, christianism - and declares that islam is the final version of the true religion. Islam accepts Christ, but as a prophet not an aspect of the god. Holy trinity of christianity is a blasphemy in islam.
In the point of being a muslim thelemite, i must say that you will find that quite hard, islam wants you to accept everything in quran without question, believe that todays quran is not changed in anyway throughout 1400 years - even in the early day quran was not in written form - and state that "there is not god but Allah and muhammad is his true prophet". These are pure dogma.
I am new to Thelema but I strongly doubt that an eager mind to learn the truth and to "know thyself" is not compatible for any part of islam. I must state that I am not an Islamic Scholar but I believe that I have enough knowledge for quran and islam as a result of growing in an islamic country.
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@Patrick Ossoski said
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Well, that's true of many religions. It doesn't preclude us from using the truth contained in them."Indeed, yet my point was; Islam declares itself as the final one, and states clearly that there won't be any religion after itself, and any religion or prophet came after it, is false and those are assistants of antichrist. So according to islamic belief, thelema is a blasphemy.
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Sure. Same way as Islam is a blasphemy to Christianity. Just as Islam can come and say "Look, that Jesus guy, he's just a prophet," we can say "That Muhammad fellow, yep, he's a prophet, a bloody great one too, but last one? Nop." See my point?
They had it wrong. Just like we surely have many things wrong and will be corrected by future generations.
