Thanks a lot, Danica! I have actually read The Book of the Law. I've read it at least five times and read reviews about it and I'm not gonna lie, I am still lost! It is a riddle to me and all the explanations I've read online were not any more meaningful than the book itself was! Would you still recommend that I move on to The Equinox even though I have not fully grasped the content of Liber Al Vel Legis?
Thanks again!
Allow me to reintroduce myself! The name is Adam Sheikh, from Saudi Arabia. Having grown up in the society into which I was born, I learned to be a muslim by conformance in an attempt to fit in and survive. After a while I found that I've actually gotten used to and bought into the ideas of islam and became a believer, willfully. But, having been a skeptic by nature, I begun to question and have doubts as to the validity of the religion of the geographical region in which I was born. At the age 16 I officially became an agnostic, a year later a full blown atheist. I am 22 years old now and I still think about religion a lot more than the average atheist does. Perhaps it is due to the fact that in a country like Saudi Arabia, I am exposed to much more religion than the average atheist that I have been somewhat unable to be fully comfortable with not having a religion. Therefore, I began to think of going for substitutes as I am fully convinced that islam is false and I've reached the point at which I've debunked many of its ideas and found flaws in its holy book. I started viewing the fact that I am sort of lost as a good thing. I started feeding my interest in religion by reading a lot about different belief systems and surprising as it was to me, I found that the parallels between islam and those other religions, even the non-Abrahamic ones, were astonishing. One of the main observations that I found was that all the abrahamic religions stole bits and borrowed others from religions they had fought over the course of their evolution. Judaism and christianity had stolen bits and pieces from ancient Egyptian religion and Islam from the stolen bits of both its predecessors. my search finally lead me to Thelema. I found after I read about Thelema that it was a rather interesting religion and even though I did not know much about it, I learned few things from the basic knowledge I had. I learned that Aleister Crowley was certainly not the man depicted by the Judeo-Christian advocates and scholars which lead me to want to learn about the man and his religion more and more. About a year ago, I stumbled upon this forum in my last attempt to learn about Thelema and I almost took the attempt seriously, but I ended up abandoning the site as I took a slightly different direction in life and decided that I needed to focus a little more on my studies as a materials scientist and an engineer. This year, however, I am back and determined to finish this task and am willing to give the process as much time as it needs until I become a thelemite indeed and finally understand what it means to be one and experience how it truly feels to be one!
I apologize for this extremely long thread but I felt like I owed you guys this much explanation. I am now trying to start somewhere and find a path after which I walk I'd become a thelemite. Could anyone point me to a good start? I noticed that Thelema, unlike many religions I've read about, is based on the writings of Aleister Crowley, which are all over the place and that understanding the religion entirely is a lifelong process. I am willing to take the journey just as long as I see progress at some point as far as my understanding of the religion, the life transformation it does me and the betterment of the way I perceive the world and existence. Thank you very much!
Avshalom, shokran akhi !!
Patthana, thanks a lot
you guys are great I'm glad to be a member as I feel surrounded by awesome people in an awesome online community. I am definitely learning a lot that I now know I was absolutely clueless when I started browsing and am not any less clueless now that I know that there's a long way to go! But, am certainly glad to have the people to ask for information, share experience and walk the journey with!
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thanks a lot, Patrick. I will definitely dedicate much time to reading and educating myself as this is exactly why I am here!
Zazazas214, you seem to have a good background about Islam and the Quran and to have genuine interest in getting to know the teachings of the chapter inside out. I am surely more than glad to offer any sort of information to the best of my knowledge as you know the religion is quite complex and only the very few are considered know-it-alls..
Hello everyone! My name is Adam, I am from Saudi Arabia. I am currently studying materials science and engineering at the university of Tennessee, at Knoxville, USA with a minor in philosophy. I have been reading some of Crowley's writings since I stumbled upon a few websites quoting him so I read about him and became very interested in learning more about Thelema for I am very new to it, and this board seems to be a good source of information for that matter. I'm glad I found this forum and am so excited to start sailing in the sea of wisdom!