College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

Thank you for your answers Jim and AvshalomBinyamin. It is much clearer now.

I see in Liber 777 that the orders of Qliphoth that correspond to Ruach are the Elements. Is that saying the same thing, or am I making connections that don't exist?

What you are both saying about being in control over the elements instead of them being in control of you, makes me think of what I learned from studying Steiner's antroposophy. He seems to suggest that people have to be in control over the Luciferian powers and the Ahrimanic powers, or else they will control you. Whereas if you are in control of them - they can help you become independent of the Divine to ultimately reunite with the Divine through love - whereby the Divine gets to know itself.
The Luciferian powers being fiery and they can be used to create a creative spark and force things into being, but then the intellect has to be in control and stop the flame before it also devours what has been created and more. The Ahrimanic powers can make things disappear/become invisible and work faster in the background etc. but the intellect has to make sure that the Ahrimanic powers are not hidden from it (or force them back out of hiding in due time) or else they devour also.
Is this a similar kind of thing?

Also, I looked up if Crowley mentioned Ahriman anywhere, and it seems that he only did in Liber 777 as Arimanus - but it is as an Egyptian god (whereas I thought he was a Persian fallen angel type of character) and in relation to astrology - something I don't know much about yet. Do you know if he's mentioned anywhere else? Or what sort of forces he would correspond to in Thelemic literature?

(Sorry for the many questions - my mind is trying to connect everything I've learned so far from other systems of thought to the new language of Thelema, and I guess it's a bit messy.)

@Orione said

"Hi everyone!

I'm Orione. I am from the Netherlands and I have registered to learn more about Thelema and related subjects.

Some background: I was raised part catholic, part agnostic, which has given me a sense of mystery and ritual as well as a general skeptisism towards everything (including mystery and ritual 😆 ).
In my teens I became interested in Wicca, but I quickly figured out that the Wiccan Rede did not fit the laws of the universe as I perceived them to be.
Crowley was actively feared in the circles I was in and the little that I knew about him and his works seemed to confirm that he ought to be feared. I was really drawn to the Toth tarot deck however, and this scared me to no end. One day I decided to purchase it anyway, fully expecting to have a good look at it, decide that it was both 'too scary' and 'so-not-for-me' and get the deck out of my system (& into the trash can 😀 ). Needless to say that my other decks have been gathering dust since that day - about 10 years ago.
I have since become less skeptical about Crowley's works and have been studying them on and off. I adore his writing styles in (for example) the book of Toth, Magic without Tears, and the Eight Lectures on Yoga. It is friendly, witty and it's like learning about the universe from your favourite grandfather. But I still have quite a lot of trouble reading Liber AL and works like that with their bombastic language. (I hope I don't offend anyone by that admission.) Yet his more accessible works have shown me that he absolutely knows what he is talking about and I keep coming back to them to learn more. I feel that I should get over myself and start studying the more 'difficult' works too. (If anyone has any tips for this, I am very open to them!)

So, I have decided that it's time to stop this "will I, won't I" kind of relationship I have had with Thelema study for the last 10 years, and I have decided that indeed "I will". As a first act of getting more serious about it, I have registered here. I am impressed with the level of intelligent feedback that is given here and I hope to learn a lot from being a member.

Thank you for reading!
Orione"

Welcome Orione from Australia!..

Sapere Aude

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