College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

@Jim Eshelman said

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@LipsoftheFly said
"there is much literature that tells us that the most powerful of all shamans were the most deeply neurotic ones. aleister crowley's legacy could certainly be seen as a revival of sorts of this ancient primordial figure of divinity."

I think it would be hard to argue that Crowley was one of the most deeply neurotic of his kind. He had some issues; but, compared to magicians and mystics as a whole, he was a model of mental health.

"as neurosis is primarily sexual"

I dispute that. That's very Freudian, and Freud was likely wrong.

Much neurosis is sexual, and the suppression or distortion of sexual energies makes most people a little whacked. But money also makes people whacked; and there are many other causes. I think your statement (perhaps inadvertently?) perpetuates a sexually suppressive point of view that is factually wrong.

"in other words, do you think the reason crowley or the shamans of various literary works transcended themselves so far was because they were sexually neurasthenic?"

I dispute the premise, so I dispute the conclusion. (And I don't think Crowley was sexually neurasthenic at all. He had hang-ups, but as an adult he pushed passed his suppression with great fervor. He did not go around in a psychologically and physically exhausted and depleted state - the actual meaning of neurasthenia.)

By the way, concerning the statement in your title that "the way of mastery is to break all the rules" ... Is that a rule?"

"the way of mastery is to break all the rules" is a crowley quote. i believe i have been misinterpreted here. i'm not the greatest at communicating myself so bear with me. i believe you agree with me in a way although i'm not quite too sure of where we in fact disagree as the nature of the argument has yet to unfold itself.

i believe crowley was in his earlier days WAS psychologically exhausted to a degree most were not as a result of certain traumas. He DID however push himself past suppression with great fervor as you have said. have you ever heard that saying "the harder you fall the higher you rise"? this has something to do with what i'm getting at.

I believe he was a model for psychological health and all this in his later days of attainment...but i cannot bring myself to believe this to be the case in his younger years.

i'm more of a lacanian myself (a neo freudian analyst). he revises freud into a more palpable way of digesting him by adding a linguistic twist to it but ultimately called for a return to freud. i believe most of the anti freud propaganda in our culture is merely fashionable. crowley himself propounded the idea that the orgasm is a degraded form of spiritual ecstacy. although freud never cured anyone i believe he was right in his assertion that all neurosis is sexual. this is often misinterpreted, however, as there are differing degrees of neurosis and not all such cases are so explicitly pronounced.

all of this is centered around the issue of taboos, however...which is where the argument gets interesting. i believe that neurosis has everything to do with how to interpret your own body and the subjective difficulties associated with your model of where to begin (ie your parents)

there is more than one way to define masculine or feminine. masculinity can be responsible and protective or it can be assertive and volitional. although the greater culture defines masculinity a certain way, crowley defined it differently. he began as sexually weak, attempting to define himself amongst a world of people who see his body as different than he did. but he ended sexually strong as he attempted and succeeded in defining himself the way he saw his body. in this way it was not he, but rather it was his TRUE WILL, to break the rules of consensus interpretation to establish a new paradigm. his pitfalls on the way have much to teach us about the positive as well as the negative aspects of BOTH interpretations of these universal forces.

my question is this: do you think crowley attained such high states of consciousness by virtue of having to struggle against this alternative definition of himself with himself and the greater culture??

there is much literature that tells us that the most powerful of all shamans were the most deeply neurotic ones. aleister crowley's legacy could certainly be seen as a revival of sorts of this ancient primordial figure of divinity. as neurosis is primarily sexual could it be said that sexual neurasthenia or sexual abnormalities in general could lead to a greater aptitude for mysticism? in other words, do you think the reason crowley or the shamans of various literary works transcended themselves so far was because they were sexually neurasthenic?

i can certainly resonate with some things that have been said. there IS quite a bit of pomo jargon because i don't know how to percieve it any other way. i've tried searching my sould but i've found that sexual identity is all bound up in morally relativisitic taboos. as crowley wrote: there is love and there is love, the dove and the serpent. choose ye well. or something like that.

i tried picking up the commentaries on the holy books but they were far too espensive for me right now. i'm interested in what edward mason had written in terms of interpreting the experience quabalistically. if there were contrary ideas formulated on the interface between briah and yetzirah, how would one go about clearing up this confusion?

@Alrah said

"I sometimes wonder how doctors would react to a hermaphrodite trapped inside a single gendered body. muse"

www.amazon.com/Herculine-Recently-Discovered-Nineteenth-Hermaphrodite/dp/0394738624

www.amazon.com/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0060929596/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263733816&sr=1-1

check these out.

when i say there are two forms of being that extend into opposite directions, i mean there is myself as it exists in the immanence of my body and there is myself as it exists in the transcendental nature of my libido. i feel there is no highest, deepest or truest self because all arguments contradict themselves. that's kind of how i feel about my sexual identity. it contradicts itself. it's like my sexuality is centered in the abyss. the signifier (the word) and the signified (the meaning of the word) do not match. at times i interpret this position to be a great gift but since i am unenlightened and my mind cannot yet percieve unity (at least not consistently) i also many times realize the same position as madness. it's a difficult cycle.

in a thelemic context one could question the meaning of will. is it an individual constitution or a collectively imposed illusion? again this is a duality through which no extremes can be taken literally or meaningfully. the answers are always both simultaneously. my problem is that since the dichotomy of man/woman is so pertinent to me, the so-called "correspondences" of every dichotomy imagineable presents itself in my mind as my unenlightened mind oscilates between these two extremes of how to interpret my body (either as the immanent or the transcendental)
what glimpses of unity i have had have told me that it does not matter what choice you make. "all paths lead to nowhere" as the zen roshis would say. but the sheer magnitude of every choice i make is magnified by such dichotomies as free will vs destiny, individuality vs collectivity, subjectivity vs objectivity, and perhaps the example which is most illustrative: what is different vs what is the same.

many transgendered people surgically alter their bodies to embrace that transcendental aspect of themselves while denying the immanent. i do not entirely resonate with this narrative so i am unsure of how to interpret the best path for myself. when i welcome pros and cons i mean so on an ethical level. i understand that thelema is profoundly anti-ethical but if anyone can clear some things up for me that would be fantastic.

surgically altering one's body is not only completely against nature, it reproduces gendered stereotypes to a certain degree, though not completely. it says bodily parts MUST NECESSARILY mean this and not that. it's also extremely dangerous and such medical interventions are life threatening.

there are many transgendred myths out there. it's not a matter of finding legitimacy it's a matter of choosing. i ultimately see my true self or dharma as whatever i choose it to be. maybe i'm lucky to say that. perhaps not everyone can deep down convince themselves of that statement. i'm stuck in a place where dichotomies are apparent everywhere and i'm stuck with the most difficult choice of all: to choose or not to choose?

hello all,

i am relatively new to magick and have not been initiated into any order although i plan to. i'm in a bit of a spiritual crisis in regards to my sexuality, however. i identify as transgendered. there are many ways to interpret this but the most common way of expressing it is that i feel like a woman trapped in a man's body. it feels similar to how amputees define their phantom limbs, except my phantom limb is my entire body.

the ontological paradox of this identification is unnerving. there are two forms of being that extend in opposite directions. although being can be rejected for doing and the ethical discourses (mainly primitivist vs. transhumanist) will resolve themselves according to will under the presidency of choice itself as paradox, i find it difficult to accept that commiting myself to such a path will hinder my search for the wholly other.

i would very much appreciate any INTELLIGENT, SOPHISTICATED perspectives on this subject, whether it be a pro or con argument. gender variance can be made into a system of magick itself and i am often led to the assumption that gendered embodiment determines sexual orientation and that orientation can be changed if we deconstruct the signification of bodily parts.

those interested can consult the works of kate bornstein, judith butler, donna harroway, susan stryker, riki wilchins, sandy stone to name a few