93 jmiller,
You've certainly given me a lot to think about, I've spent this semester studying Heidegger and the notions of time, as well as some Mircea Eliade to balance my readings of Crowley and the issue of Time and Aeons really appeal to me. I can't help you with your quest to find when Crowley wrote about it, but I could spice up the conversation (if you please) with some notes on Nietzsche and the whole linear versus circular viewpoints of time.
"Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence" reflects his interest in a return to pagan values. The eternal return is a pagan approach to time and actually pretty foreign to most Westerners today. "
Actually is more than that. Nietzsche's fascination over the eternal recurrence is not in a physical sense or literal sense, nor is it in an excuse to bring back the "good old days" of paganism before the slave morality. Heidegger is clear in noting that Nietzsche was obssessed on the idea ever since it was proven to him to be physically impossible, instead of abandoning the ideal of recurrence it fueled it to the maximum, why is that? Because he speaks of the "thought of eternal recurrence" it's a thought or, more acurately, a viewpoint.
In "Thus spoke Zarathustra" the holy man stands in a path, looks back and notices that the path goes back an eternity, and infront of him it goes an infinitum, the idea is this "there is a viewpoint in which our own existence is so small and, in the big scheme of things, tragically insipid and non-important, that existence comes to a decisive point, we can feel the sorrow of existence (as Buddha) or we can elevate ourselves to become supermen". It's a matter of looking at things in another perspective, and it's quite true. In another book (I can't remember which) a demon comes up to Nietzsche and tells him that he will live his life a million times over, this creates a great deal of pain for him. Most people don't understand the subtleties of this metaphor. The "decisive point" is not brought through the angst of knowing you'll do the same over and over again, the true pain comes when you realize the fact that humanity, History itself doesn't need you, in fact, the world will keep spinning around and around wether you brush your teeth or not, you could even go to a monastery and live there the rest of your life that, in the great scheme of things, it will make no difference.
Truly, the feeling of smallness can do two things, either we become buddhist regarding existence as suffering, or thelemites, regarding existence as a playing ground, a box of toys to play with. Heidegger has a similar idea, instead of the thought of eternal recurrence, he takes the angle where you're existence has the potential to be absurd, so therefore you are obligated to take care of your own existence (it doesn't have the same punch, I'll admit, but that's the kind of guy he is).
"The Jedeo-Christian approach, on the other hand, is the linear and progressive sense of time that dominates today."
That's a common misconception, the jews had a cyclical idea of time, as a matter of fact, I dare to say (yes, I dare!) that every single religion on this planet has, someway or the other, to adopt, in some way, a cyclical viewpoint of time. Among many myths of the jews there are the ones about catastrophes, like the flood, it is a symbol of destruction and renewal, (thanks Mircea Eliade!), creation is destroyed and continued. Christ fills the same position, the end of an era (the era of the law) and begins a new one that will end with the apocalypse. The apocalypse itself is huge ideal of cyclical history, the beast is set free, then he is locked up (but never destroyed) and he will come back, the last book of the Bible predicts the events of the first book (Genesis). The main idea is to re-create a world where there is perfect comunion with God, like in the garden of Eden, and yet there is still the danger of the dragon that might be liberated (the serpent will once again start the cycle of human existence).
It seems to us, modern western people, that we have adopted a linear view of time, the error lies here: How we perceive time, either circular or linear, is a dicotomy created by our own imagination. In the end Man is Time (like Heidegger said in Sein und Zeit), what I am, what makes Asclepio be so Asclepio, it's a series of phenomenons and circumstances that has led Asclepio up to this point, then what makes Asclepio? Time, or History if you prefer.
The giant revolution in philosophy and I would dare to say (yes, I'm in the mood to dare today!) one of the milestones of the Aeon of Horus, it's the new perception of time. From Aristotle to Heidegger Time was regarded as a measurement, just like we use feet or centimetres to measure extensions, we use time to measure movement and changes. Heidegger calls this "clock time", the "linear" conception of time from many philosophers come from accepting this as the only possibility, to deny it would mean the destruction of metaphysics (as Heidegger actually does), that's how the false dicotomy was created. Heidegger changes a bit the idea by stating (I'm over simplifing here, I could expand more if you wish) that the object is inseperable of it's context, but so is the interpreter (man), therefore Dasein, Man, is history, it's time, we are born in an already existing world where the interpretations of what is good or evil, sane or insane, correct or false, etc., have already been stablish, Man is the sum of what happened to him, and how he interpreted such events (past), what is going on now (present), and what he expects the future to be, or how he perceives his own context to transform (future).
Time itself is then infinite, for there are an infinite ways of interpreting that which has already happen, and an infinite ways to interpret that which has not yet happened (Nuit, existence itself is infinite), and the present would be the atomic Now (atomic in the sense of both small and necesary, Hadit). Each man is completely different from the rest, a unique viewpoint, therefore every man and every woman is a star.
But why is the dicotomy between linear and circular false? Simple, since man is time, then it all comes down to how we wish to interpret time (which is, at the same "time", pardon the pun, his own existence and the possibility of all existence), to interpret ourselves. On the one hand we perceive that we make progress, we learn, we change through time (or time changes us, either way), but at the same time our context, even though we "feed" it and co-create it, at the same time it creates us, in a way the world can not exist without man, and man without the world, so who makes history? Man, but since man is history, in a sense, it is history that makes man, so you see when you say:
"It happens on a cosmic scale well beyond the scale of the human. Humans are not the primary agents of historical transformation. We're along for the ride and might as well conform to each passing aeon. In paganism, on the other hand, humans are the primary force in historical transformation."
I must say I don't agree, or I agree in 50%, both perspectives are true, WE make history, but at the same time history makes us. The painter is a painter because he paints the house, therefore the painting of the house is what makes him a painter and his status of painter is what makes the painting of the house. The dicotomy between object and subject is illusory.
"I have been giving some thought as to where Thelema fits into this. I think, so far, that Thelema has more in common with a Christian sense of time and space than it does with the pagan sense. Crowley's aeonic scheme, like those of the earlier Enlightenment philosophers, is progressive and linear. It doesn't come back to the same place. "
Here's something interesting, you seem to say that circular time ends where it began, the problem is where did it began? A circle is a circle in so far as one can not tell the beginning from the end, time can't go back at the same place it started because it never started, or better yet, there is no such place. The Bible is a good example, it all starts with perfect communion with God, it all "ends" in perfect communion with God, in a way it would be fair to say it is a circular sense of time, but at the same time, since it is a circle, who's to say the genesis and the garden of eden is the start?, why not start with Moses or Christ? It would make no difference, we start from there because that's how it was printed. There is no such thing as the "end of time", because man is time, and we can not think about the end of man, for some reason it's impossible to think about our own deaths from our own perspectives (we think from the perspective of our loved ones crying over our tombs and such).
Another way of seeing the paradox as an ilusion is this, if we were standing in a forest we would say the progress of the land is linear, horizontal, BUT if we could "expand" our viewpoint, see from other eyes, we would find that the so-called horizontal plane forms a circle (kind of like the game "Halo", sure you're walking a straight line but it is straight only when you can't see the fact that a circle is a line when expanded).
It should not be confused, however, the idea that time is circular as if time goes nowhere or if there is no "progress". Mainly because such categories as "progress", "circular" and "goes nowhere" need the dicotomy between linear and circular as if such differences where real, literal and ontological, instead of being a difference in points of view (we're in a line, but from an outsider such line creates a ring, or "halo").
93 93/93
It's actually scary.... I agree fully, Magick is life, or better yet, Magick are the only moments when you are trully alive. And yes, Nietzsche did come to mind as a perfect example.
Out of the blue we find ourselves discussing technicalities of complex rituals filled with magical weapons, robes, altars, incence, etc.
I guess what you said about words (in the Thelema and Islam discussion) it's true yet again!