College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

Aum418,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

@Aum418 said

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Some are more suited to their childhood religion for innumerable reasons. Some are more suited to eclecticism. It is a trivial point.

There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.

IAO131"

Absolutely - there's definitely something to be said for feelings of certainty and a strong belief in the accuracy of one's perceptions, as opposed to the dogmatic hogwash that some people want to ram down your throat to make themselves feel like experts. As if THEY have all the answers, gonna tell you "HOW IT IS"... possessors of "THE ONE REAL TRUTH"(tm)... HA!

But you find those people in every community; religion is no different. Gotta love it!

Thanks for the reminder!

Love is the law, love under will.

L

David,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

@DavidH said

"Rosecrucian texts as well as the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage highly suggest that one keeps the religion you grew up with while adopting the deeper understanding of the adepts in context to your own particular religion, as opposed to completely throwing out that religion.

There are many reasons or theories as to why this is the suggestion:
1- to avoid persecution
2- one is 'hardwired" to their cultural religious upbringing
3- to avoid society or family conflict
4- to help change your religion "from within" to bring a deeper understanding to the non-adepts.

Any comments on why this suggestion is good or bad, why they made it, and why Crowley thought it a bad idea?"

I have always found this an interesting suggestion. In my own upbringing, I had a pretty inconsistent experience attending various Christian churches until around 8 or 9 when my dad and soon-to-be-stepmom started taking the family to a Methodist church most Sundays.

But by then I had been bombarded by TV culture and knew a heck of a lot more about Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk and Kung Fu Theater than I did about Abraham, Moses or Jesus. In fact I would frequently find excuses to skip church to stay home to watch Kung Fu Theater instead of go someplace I really had little interest in.

So... should I stick to Methodism, Christianity... or Kung Fu?

Love is the law, love under will.

L

Friend,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

@case said

"
@Jim Eshelman said
"Not sure what you mean here. You're calling the Word of the Aeon "swill"? "

I'm showing my vast amount of inexperience. My apologies. I was referring to this infantile book, which I picked up a while ago. I, in all honesty, have very little understanding of most thelemic tenets, the word of the aeon being among them. My position is a difficult one. I can't stomach the majority introductory books that have complete contempt for the reader, but what I've read of Crowley thus far goes, mostly, way over my head."

Have you read all of the recommended reading referred to in Rodney Orpheus' "Abrahadbra"? They're listed at the end of each chapter.

If not, those would be great places to start.

Love is the law, love under will.

L

Trey,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

@Trey said

"I am curious as to the reading, and practice of Thelema's Curriculum. What first 3 or 4 books shall I study, what rituals or practices should I begin to observe and what about initiations for Man of the Earth??

Thank you."

What other philosophy, theology or magical literature have you read so far? What other religious or magical practices do you have experience with?

And... Why are you doing this?

Knowing these things will help people make more specific recommendations.

Here's a generic list I compiled for some others recently:

• “12 Steps to Spiritual Enlightenment”, 2nd edition known as “The One Year Manual”, by Israel Regardie – a great beginner's book, extremely deceptive in it's simplicity

• "Tree of Life" by Israel Regardie (this is somewhat mis-named, as it's more a general survey of magic than a technical treatise on Kabbalah, sephiroth, paths etc.)

• "A Garden of Pomegranates" by Israel Regardie - this is the more technical treatise you would expect "Tree of Life" to be

• "Foundations of Practical Magic" by Israel Regardie

• "A Kabbalistic Handbook for the Practicing Magician" by Lisiewski – despite Lisiewski's questionable credentials as a "physicist", this is a fantastic book for anyone starting out in ceremonial magic, but also has some great advice for how to develop your own magical practice regardless of what tradition or path you follow

• "Abrahadabra" by Rodney Orpheus – excellent “beginner’s Thelema” book

• "Prime Chaos" and "Condensed Chaos" by Phil Hines – very insightful whether you have any interest in Chaos magic or not

• "Shamanism" by Mircea Eliade – classic academic text very useful to any student or practitioner

• "The World's Religions" by Huston Smith – another classic academic text for a solid overview

• "The Law of Attraction" by Michael Losier - make sure it's Losier's, not the others – a bit on the “Oprah” side of things, but this is an awesome little book; it’s real NLP that anyone can use

• "3d-Mind" DVD set by Tom Vizzini at Essential Skills

As for Thelemic-specific, practically every Thelemite will likely want/need the following:

of course, “The Book of the Law”; I would recommend offering the small paperbound version instead of the larger hardback
“Magick in Theory and Practice” by Aleister Crowley - Dover edition is out of print, but worth buying used as it collects a ton of info in a very compact space
“Book 4” (this is Part 1 and 2 only; NOT the “big purple” book Liber ABA which is all 4 parts) by Aleister Crowley
“The Magick of Aleister Crowley” by Lon Milo Duquette
“The Holy Books of Thelema”

"New Aeon Magick" by Gerald del Campo was also quite useful to me when starting out, even if his Greek is shite and it has other errors here and there; but you won't find much better for a clear view on daily practices that anyone can start right away

HTH!

Love is the law, love under will.

L

93 KRVB MMShCh!

@KRVB MMShCh said

"93 luceo156!

I have worked with vegetable alchemy in the past. This primarily centers around taking an intention & working it out in the form of a tincture. Say, for instance...

93 93/93"

Thanks so much for responding with such a straightforward example. Did you obtain positive results? If so, what compelled you to stop doing this work, ie. why not keep doing it if it's working?

93 93/93,
L

All,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

While I have a fairly good grasp of basic Kabbalah and Tarot, Alchemy remains a subject I have hardly engaged at all. Upon first observations, it seems the world of alchemists divides into two basic camps - ceremonial and practical - ie. those who use alchemical symbolism as a basis for ceremonial work (including sexual), and those who conduct laboratory operations and experiments to create medicines and metals, if not also improve themselves in the process. Some do both, and some see both as different reflections of the other; and you will also find the "mine is the real way and that other is the fake way which is just symbolic of my way" attitude... from both camps!

So I have 3 questions for those of you who have practiced either or both of these methods:

1.) What perspectives do you have on this division and how did you decide which to practice?

2.) What books would you recommend as starting points?

3.) What specific Thelemic materials deal with alchemy, more or less overtly?

I have perused Frater Albertus' handbook, Mark Stavish' intro book and David Goddard's book. Frankly, laboratory work has little appeal to me at this time (I'm trying to limit my time sitting on my butt), but Goddard's work seems to have a hit-and-miss reputation (and there's the contention that he is simply republishing Servants of Light material without crediting them), and I have yet to encounter another detailed ceremonial system such as his that might provide a starting point for solitary non-lab work. This more or less leaves me with the impression that either non-lab approaches, ie. ceremonial approaches, amount to "interpretive dance" applied to lab alchemy (which may or may not "work"), or that hard-core alchemists have seriously closed ranks to present lab alchemy as the sole public face of the subject so they can control it's spread and usage by those who would harm themselves or others with true ceremonial alchemy.

Anyone have any insight here?

Thanks!

Love is the law, love under will.

Haven't used this one but did use the Palm version linked on that page, created by my friend Brian Berge. It was pretty rad, although I later broke my Palm... don't ask.

Aum418,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

@aum418 said

"
@Uni_Verse said
"
If is of my opinion that the absolute or theoretical Will is the same as the practical Will. As it is the Will of the All, that All returns home ; rather from whence it came (to avoid being 'poetic'- if that is even possible (for me)). The practical application being the formula through which one reaches this state of knowing the theoretical. "

Exactly. There aren't two Wills - theoretical & practical - they are simply two viewpoints from which to view the same Will. One is more theoretically sound one is more practically effective, yet both have their place.

"In other words : By continually uniting one Self with other 'things', one becomes more and more 'in tune' with the theoretical Will. Until they are consciously recognized as being the same.
"

This is quite true - especially by uniting one Self with other things like knowledge about free will, determinism, and Samadhi where one identifies fate & free will, god & self & universe.

IAO131"

You sound like quite the expert, thank you for sharing your wisdom with us!

Love is the law, love under will.

L

93 Jim,

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@luceo156 said
"When a task (whether ritual, a particular reading, or whatever) is assigned and it grates, repulses, etc. - or even lesser forms of resistence - then you can be sure that it's a personality issue. Your ego is resisting something...

The issue is one of discipline - of taking something because you were told to do so, with an inner conviction (or at least acceptance) that the person who told you knows more than you do on the subject. - In this particular instance, the perseverence in this light is, itself, an act of devotion and adoration."
"

I had considered this and don't really feel this is the case, but I will make a 90-day programmed experiment with them given your advice. I still have a few concerns, for which I will reserve mention until after the end of my experiment if they still have relevance at that time.

Thanks Jim!

93 93/93,
L

93 Ankh,

@Ankh said

"93 all,

Under the tread: Liber Resh and Liber Al...

These are the ones I use, they were writtin by JAE. I have found them to be extremely useful and suggestive. "

Thanks for these; I see their value as alternatives, and yet they retain enough of the style of the original that I might as well start with the originals if I'm going to do either. At least for now; afterwards I might try Jim's.

93 93/93,
L

@Asraiya said

"93

luceo 156:

"Should I just rewrite them? Find an alternative? Push through and do it anyway?

Has anyone else ever had this response/reaction to the language of Resh?"

YES on all 4!

... I'm not sure what a bark is... I can tell you though I eventually got over the silly feeling and noticed results almost immediately which always helps with taking yourself and the Work seriously. Hope that helps for whatever it's worth "

93 Asraiya,

I appreciate your comments. FYI, a bark or barque is simply a boat, thus the references to the "prow" and "helm", which are the front part and the steering mechanism, respectively. The imagery then suggests Tahuti and Ra-Hoor manning a boat that carries the sun through it's various aspects of travel throughout the day/night cycle.

93 93/93,
L

I searched and read a bunch of the previous threads regarding the Resh adorations, but didn't see any that address my specific problem.

Which is... I absolutely friggin' hate the language/phrasing! When I read Resh it grates on my every last nerve. It just sounds ugly and stupid to me, not at all conducive to an attitude or experience of adoration.

But I want to do some kind of 4x/day solar adorations. Should I just rewrite them? Find an alternative? Push through and do it anyway?

Has anyone else ever had this response/reaction to the language of Resh?

@aum418 said

"
@SetiDraconis said
"Aum418 and Teckpriest thank you for your responses and hello jim."

No problem. Hope that site helped.

As an aside: I once had an OTO member in conversation and he was telling me about the chakras being aligned with the degrees as if it was some super secret, also about how Minerval is symbolically being conceived, 1st degree is birth, 2nd is death, etc. yet it is all there in plain language for every to read! I call the attitude 'secret-mongering.' How many people do you know like this? (rhetorical)

IAO131"

I have been an OTO member for over 6 years and participated in local bodies in various parts of California and Texas and I have never met anyone who I thought seemed to take something public domain and act as if they were special for knowing it or divulging it. Doesn't mean this never happens, but I have never had that experience.

On the other hand, I have had plenty of experience both inside and outside of the OTO of "know-it-alls" who will never progress another step in their develolpment as long as they're obsessed with comparing themselves to other people to alleviate their own inferiority impulse or gain the approval of others. Maybe that's what this person was doing, maybe not, I dunno.

But that's just one of those things about being human... gotta love it!

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@luceo156 said
"Jim - would you please forward him my email address?"

I will.

I've also edited your post to remove the address. Don't ever ever ever post your email address where it is visible on a forum or web page - that step (or equivalent harvestable public disclosure) accounts for something like 90% of all spam."

Thanks Jim! As for email harvesting, I put that address on there intentionally as a test of my new hush.com account which supposedly uses strong filtering and encryption, but I appreciate you removing it as a best practice. I actually worked at one of the major stories in corporate email filtering (Postini) for over 2 years, as well as one of the "grey hat" "email deliverability providers" (Skylist/now Datran) so I'm pretty familiar with both sides of email offense/defense.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@SetiDraconis said
"I just read some were that Jim wrote this book?

Jim can you tell me were to buy this book by you if its for sell?

I cant find it on amazon."

It's currently out of print. I'm responsible for some errata before we take it back into print. There might be a couple of copies left in our Grand Imperator's possession and I could forward him your email address if you like.

While I'm very proud of how the hard cover was manufactured, and generally recommend, I do have a (very) few copies of the Version 3 softcover. If you're just interested in the content, you might want that."

Jim - would you please forward him my email address?

Thanks!

@Jonathan said

"let me give a tip, recently I went back to some journals from 14 years ago.. i found that i always wrote down my experiences, but never exactly what i did to create those experiences, the formula i used persay..

which made my journal rather useless from a scientific point of view.. how the hell do i recreate those experiences?

moral of the story - write your journal as you would a scientific record, record exactly WHAT you did.. not just the result..

definately a little lesson for me..."

This comment touches on a point I've been kicking around in my head for a while about the behavior of scientists (ala the so-called "Method of Science") as it relates to magical/occult/spiritual practice, which point could have an important impact for all those struggling to achieve a scientific standard in their occult work, or for those presuming to hold others to that standard.

Scientists need to control initial conditions as much as possible in order to recreate the "same situation" which allows them to isolate and analyze the influence of variables. But I question whether life outside of a scientist's lab ever presents truly identical initial conditions, owing at the very least to the function of memory across time; even if we reposition every atom in the known universe precisely as arranged the first time, nonetheless, the first time "in the past" exists as seperate from the 2nd time, "now". Memories and their interpretations become one of the variables. "One can never step in the same river twice..." ala Heraclitus.

As a contrast, the physical systems that scientists typically study would seemingly not present this problem of memory as a variable, since we often do not consider physical systems as having memories in the same qualitative way that humans do. The scientists can't step in the "same river", but they can make the same water run through the same crack in the land at the same rate for the same amount of time, and most people would not stop to ask the water how it felt about the whole affair.

So this constant operation of memory in experience - even if it serves as the ONLY difference from one experiment to the next - leads me to see magical practice as likely more similar to the methods of Art and Engineering than of Science proper.

And no doubt artists and engineers frequently adopt an experimental attitude that resembles what scientists do, and clearly the best artists and engineers in any period often leverage the latest discoveries of science in their work, using new techniques to manifest new modes of expression and construction. But behaving similarly to scientists and using their learnings does not qualify you as a scientist or necessarily mean that your activity counts as scientific.

So... I wonder if a failure to recognize the importance of memory as one of the initial conditions in any action might confuse those occultists who would seek to emulate scientific method in their practice by misguiding them towards goals incommensurate to their domain of activity, and if instead we might serve ourselves better by viewing our activities as more accurately employing the methods of Art and Engineering than Science (or Religion for that matter), producing portfolios, discographies, filmographies and the like as historical records of our experiences rather than merely quasi-scientific logbooks that achieve the look but not the reality of scientific rigor.

These thoughts of course really help more in the matter of how to interpret one's journals in light of yielding "scientific" knowledge, rather than serving as an excuse to avoid keeping a journal, which I am horrible at.

Anyways, just some thoughts. Not sure if any of that made any sense to anyone but me.

As someone new to this forum, I'm going through threads with interesting titles, please ignore me if you feel I'm resurrecting old news to no good end.

"Views on CM" seemed interesting to me; I have reorganized the various points in the original post to respond thematically:

@Kingsolomon said

"
There will be some who will say, I dont know what i'm talking about..."

Honestly man (or woman or whatever), I wouldn't say you don't know what you're talking about, but personally I had a hard time figuring out what you were talking about! I'm guessing English is a second language for you, and if so, I applaud you for tackling such complex subjects in another language! Maybe you could make an attempt to organize your thoughts a bit more by grouping ideas together as I have done with your post? Or not - as you Will.

"
It seems to me that Thelemites, and individuals who are not thelemites but are associated with it some kind of way have WAY TOO many opinions about Ceremonial magick in it's essence."

So... you want to cure the world of too many opinions by creating one more? That probably won't work. But really, why do you care? What difference does it make to you what or how many opinions anyone else has? (I'm not suggesting you shouldn't care, I'm just curious to know why you do, what impact do you feel it has on you? Are their opinions interfering in your enjoyment or effectiveness in some way?)

"
If someone is proficient in magick and wants a better job, magick will help him get a good job better than he dreamed of or get the job exactly as he wanted it. no if's and's and but's

You can do anything you want with Ceremonial Magick, if youre good and proficient. anything."

Ok, um... do I need to point out that it's a bit silly to end a passage with "no if's and's or but's" that you started with "If..."? Not that I'm above being silly.

More importantly, this statement confuses me as it seems to "beg the question" in that it already assumes a definition of magick as "performing actions which can lead to results like getting a better job", and then leads to the assertion that someone can get a better job if they are good at magick. So I have to guess based on what you have said that what was originally at issue for these pessimists you speak of is whether "getting a better job" is really a good defining example of a possible result of magick. And if someone already agrees with you on that point, they wouldn't need to be told that someone can use magick to get a better job. But if they do not already agree, then this statement doesn't move them any closer to agreement - they can agree to it as trivially or mathematically true, and still they may not agree that it validly describes their experience. You may have articulated your disagreement, although it might not have "built a bridge" from their experience to yours, so they can understand your point of view.

Does that make sense?

"
nothing wrong with making anything happen with magick.. instead of theoretically discussing nonsense.

I know everyone knows what i'm saying, and it's nothing new, but i'm just upset of the people that i've come across in my new found study, and they are so pessimistic about magick..

there, I had to get that off my chest.. I just see too many statements about magick and not enough practice and result. I despise people who have never done magick and if they did, they were not good at it, and say, well magick is this and magick is that..
"

It's in these passages that I think I'm perceiving the meat of what you wanted to express - you're fed up with everyone talking and not doing, especially people who you feel have not done enough practice, but nonetheless want to say that some things won't work, or that no one can expect certain results. And you feel they're "full of b.s.", because they have never tried, so how can they know what is possible for someone else.

Is that a fair restatement of what's bugging you about these people's attitudes?

If so, I think most of us have been in your place at one time or another. Especially those of us who spend time discussing magick on the internet.

My question to someone in this position would be - how will you help these people learn to stop being stuck in their negative thoughts and start moving into a more active practice? How will you show them yourself that magick works, and gets results that they never dreamed it could?

Indeed, how can you use magick to help enlighten them?

@Michaeljwjr said

"So basically this book is the A.'.A.'. version of Israel Regardies's The Golden Dawn? I seriously hope it's not nearly as expensive when it's released. I've always found it confusing that in order to spiritually develop, you have to be financially successful first."

That's a curious concept - what makes you believe that you need to be financially successful in order to spiritually develop? What does it mean to you to spiritually develop?

93 All,

By way of introduction, I'm a member of the Caliphate OTO, formal liberal arts education in philosophy, classical Greek, art, art history and psychology, informal education in the pleasures of programmatic symbolic thinking through an ad hoc career as an AIX/UNIX systems administrator after college, even less formal education (think "sink or swim" on-the-job-training) as a master bullshit artist (ie. "Account Executive" for software/technology companies) for the last 5 years.

Interested in finding better, more enjoyable ways of getting from here to there faster, more relaxed, more reliably and with increasing precision, with less worry, less frustration, less trouble, and less stress.

Find myself drawn to the typical Western Hermetic/Ceremonial material, as well as Anglo-Saxon currents/heritage, "new"/eclectic/pomo stuff (ie. "Chaos"), and Chinese/Taoist material, among other stuff like Cultus Sabbatai etc.

Currently spend most of my "praxis time" with a lesser-known style of a lesser-known "internal" Chinese martial art (Sun Lu Tang style Baguazhang, within the ShenMenTao system as taught by Sifu Gary Stier <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.shenmentao.com">www.shenmentao.com</a><!-- w -->), eschewing theory as much as humanly possible for now.

Currently spending my "theory time" with Ramsey Dukes, Stephen Mace and gnashing my teeth at Joseph Lisiewski's remarkable attitudes towards anything other than his "Old System Magic" (despite being published and introduced by people arguably within the "New Age" he vehemently rails against), and working towards an Abramelin system that feels right to me.

Arrived at the ToT forum as a result of my desire to discourse with other fellow travellers on the Way upon various subjects of interest, hopefully to mutual benefit.

Yay, more talking about myself. Thank God that's over. I trust you get the picture.

93 93/93
luceo156