College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

Besides the first, pretty solid advice.
Personally, I take a shower prior to performing the Work.
Formulating the intent of washing myself clean,
Purifying my self of the entanglement of the material
To seek the spiritual

@Patrick Ossoski said

"They had it wrong. Just like we surely have many things wrong and will be corrected by future generations."

I am just in love with this perspective of you thelemites. 🏓

This is a great thread. Thanks all for your contributions! 😀

It got me thinking and then I wanted to share a few things...

@Book of Thoth, Atu XVI said

"Bathed in the effulgence of this Eye (which now assumes even a third sense, that indicated in Atu XV) are the Dove bearing an olive branch and the Serpent: as in the above quotation. The Serpent is portrayed as the Lion-Serpent Xnoubis or Abraxas. These represent the two forms of desire; what Schopenhauer would have called the Will to Live and the Will to Die. They represent the feminine and masculine impulses; the nobility of the latter is possibly based upon recognition of the futility of the former. This is perhaps why the renunciation of love in all the ordinary senses of the word has been so constantly announced as the first step towards initiation. This is an unnecessarily rigid view. This Trump is not the only card in the Pack, nor are the "will to live" and the "will to die" incompatible. This becomes clear as soon as life and death are understood (See Atu XIII) as phases of a single manifestation of energy."

@Book of Thoth Atu XIII said

"The serpent is sacred, Lord of Life and Death, and its method of progression suggests the rhythmical undulation of those twin phases of life which we Call respectively life and death."

He goes on to talk about how the Serpent energy is Martial (Geburah) and how Lust and the Hanged Man are both Paths that are connected to it. Also, note the balance of these two in Adjustment (the other Path connected to Geburah, the one that leads to Tiphareth)...the balanced force leading into the Sun (the enjoyment of Life).

You can even look further to see the reflection in Venus (Netzach) and Atu XIII, which also has the "result" of where this Martial force leads (Atu XIII being ruled by Mars, yet is also a Water sign). It really goes a long way into seeing how Venus and Mars are related in the Ruach.

In the end, it is this life-force that gives birth to the passion in living Life, in all its circumstances: the build up (active - Love), the act of giving up to the beloved (passive - Love), The Lust ends in Death (the completion of that Event), then a rebirth etc.

The Tower in a nutshell. We're all here on planet earth building/tearing down individual Towers into one BIG TOWER...ever show that one, Parfaxitas? 😆

Also compare the Formula of IAO - Which is Chapter V (Book 4, Part III) for a reason. The life and death as every phenomena and how we unite, separate from that phenomena, and what we take away from that Union - "initiation has made him master of the Event by giving him the understanding that whatever happens to him is the execution of this true will"...that Chapter shows the whole formula of Initiation in a nutshell...

For practicality, I like to relate these principles to this lovely chapter (18) from Liber 333, which I think is a positive spin as we go through life dealing with "The Will to Live/Die":

"
Each act of man is the twist and double of an hare.
Love and Death are the greyhounds that course him.
God bred the hounds and taketh His pleasure in the sport.
This is the Comedy of Pan, that man should think he hunteth, while those hounds hunt him.
This is the Tragedy of Man when facing Love and Death he turns to bay. He is no more hare, but boar.
There are no other comedies or tragedies.
Cease then to be the mockery of God; in savagery of love and death live thou and die!
Thus shall His laughter be thrilled through with Ecstasy. "

"But we can infer a lot by acknowledging that he claimed to be the reincarnation of Eliphas Levi, and several other figures before that. That would imply that he expected to be reincarnated again."

I am certain Kenneth Grant mentions that Crowley believed he would be reincarnated as a woman upon his death, I forget which of his books he mentions this in, and I don't believe he gave a source for this claim. (I don't trust a lot of what Grant writes). I also believe it was mentioned he would be of Chinese descent, but I could be adding that bit on.

Of course the same man also stated that past life memories are false memories created by the imagination- and whilst may serve some purpose, should not be taken as truth. My point is, Crowley appears to change his mind on things throughout his life, I would say he didn't truly know what to believe about the afterlife!

In his letter in magick without tears, written shortly before his death,

[About reincarnation]

"Do I believe in it?
Yes.

Why?

(1) Because I remember a dozen or so of my previous lives on earth. (See Magick, Chapter VI.)

(2) Because no other theory satisfies my feeling for "justesse," for equilibrium, for Newton's Third Law of Motion.

(3) Because every religion asserts, or at least implies, it in some sense of other."

"What is it that reincarnates? We have had this before, in another connection; it is the Supernal Triad of Jechidah, Chiah and Neschamah that clothes the original Hadit or Point-of-View, with as much of the Ruach as the Human Consciousness, Tiphareth, has been able during a given life to attach to itself by dint of persistent Aspiration. If there is not enough Ruach to ensure an adequate quota of Memories, one could never become conscious of the continuity between one life and the next."

I feel it is also important to point out, that Crowley's personal beliefs on life after death have absolutely nothing to do with Thelema, and don't necessarily dictate the 'official' opinion of Thelemites.

@Diogenos said

"My bad for the mispelling ; nevertheless, my remark was pretty relevant to me since I only possess a french translation of libert 4 (Yes, I'm a froggy) in which it was explained in the commentary that To Mega Therion was considering Sankhya as a man in his work about yoga... I misunderstood the meaning of that commentary. I guess original version is always better when studying that kind of document. 👼
That seemed to be unlogical, but I see clearly now 😄"

I'll post the original English here (highlights mine):

@Liber ABA said

"The word Asana means "posture; but, as with all words which have caused debate, its exact meaning has altered, and it is used in several distinct senses by various authors. The greatest authority on "Yoga" is Patanjali. He says, "Asana is that which is firm and pleasant." This may be taken as meaning the result of success in the practice. Again, Sankhya says, "Posture is that which is steady and easy." And again, "any posture which is steady and easy is an Asana; there is no other rule." Any posture will do."

Never trust a French translation, they can be a bit froggy. 😆

You can probably find some correlation to some idea if you add subtract divide multiply enough. But I would suggest also experimenting with different ciphers like English qabbalah and experimenting with middle last names and initials .

This podcast might interest some in this thread. Click the play button in the left sidebar. There's about 3 minutes or so of blah blah before the main topic of the podcast, which is about a half hour, and is the first of a 3 part series about Satan in Thelema. Enjoy. eechinthesilence.com/program-54-solstice-in-cancer-year-110

@kasper81 said

"Maybe he was open minded enough to consider the fact that we are composed of different levels of varying intelligence? Afetr all this is a man who said he was Perdurabo and The Great Beast 666 and V.V.V.. and Alastor Wanderer of the Waste and "The word of the aeon" and a Russian Count and a Sumerian god and "the demon Crowley" etc etc"

It's simpler than that: Crowley recognized, and routinely worked with, a vast array of independent spiritual beings, all the way from elementals, up through human beings he never physically met, through angels and gods. His biography is utterly clear on this matter, at least so far as his own understanding of it. (I suppose he could have been wrong; but the issue of the moment is what he meant by it.)

In the quote above, he is saying that you have to get past your personal psychological creations and reflections to get to a point where he can communicate with other objective beings, "from whom alone he can learn anything new." In the present passage, he is not talking about encountering other human beings out in the world, on the street, etc.; he is talking about contacting other beings on the astral, some of which have no bodies and some of which might have bodies yet would never meet him in person. (This was in the days before the Internet, btw, Shockingly, Crowley didn't know how to use a web browser. On the other hand, he didn't have to pay monthly ISP fees.)