College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

"Write, and find ecstasy in writing! Work, and be our bed in working!
—The Book of the Law"

I understand the allure of not wanting to do the work, of wanting to be able to simply make mushy generalizations at will without any concern as to whether one is reinforcing stereotypes or the type of delusions common to inbred groups. But it doesn't make it right. And I don't think it is very Thelemic—at the very least we should challenge this kind of thing in our own ranks and raise the level of responsible debate. So much for my point of view.

I expect you to do the work. Of course, you can tell me to go to hell, but then that says something about the integrity of your beliefs, doesn't it?

@ldfriend56 said

"however I did say it was just my opinion and i ain't gonna write up a paper on it."

And this is part of the problem. You assume you can simply make statements here and that we will all just nod our heads in agreement because you assumed there were a set of precepts we should never challenge, not if we call ourselves Thelemites. For example:

@ldfriend56 said

"I did not think that this would even be a somewhat controversial statement to make, I just assumed many thelemites could also see this."

Your posts are a study in the use of fallacious argument and reasoning.

@ldfriend56 said

"nah, not really. In the past 30 years, our species has made dramatic differences that are indeed quite historical, not just for our species, but for the history of our planet- space migration, collective intelligence increase, expanded longevity. Our collective behaviors have changed more rapidly in the past 10 years than the previous 1000. It's not the validity of the highly exponential times we are in that your calling into question, what your really calling into question is if there is any validity to the concept of the Aeon of Horus."

The real problem here is not my position, but your analysis. Your argument seems to be that I am not a very good Thelemite because I challenged your assumptions. See the fallacy? You are taking refuge in what you imagine to be a community bias, and that is simply not a real defense. All you have is the idea that it just seems obvious to you. And frankly, that's not very much.

Structurally it is no different that the claims made by Family Radio and Harold Camping about the end of the world. All the same elements are present. The assumption that such statements about what is happening in the world can only have one explanation; that this explanation will receive the assent of everyone in the group and; anyone who challenges the fallacious arguments and lazy reasoning is not a true 'whatever'!

For the record. I have made no statements about the Age of Horus. Should the moment arrive where I am prepared to make claims or present an argument I will not waste any ones time with lazy platitudes.

See my point here?

Love and Will

@ldfriend56 said

"i DO see it unfolding - and quite elegantly I might add. I did not think that this would even be a somewhat controversial statement to make, I just assumed many thelemites could also see this.

True, change happens. But there is change that is gradual (like say genetic mutations and selection in evolution), and change that happens in paradigm shifts (like say what is happening in the middle east with the arab spring).

Culturally, this is indeed happening and to me the internet and social media is a manifestation of new aeon intelligence."

Okay, I'm in a feisty mood.

These are pointless, unsubstantiated statements. They can't be proved, only asserted. They are the epitome of what it means to be general. They could apply to anytime and anyplace, and still sort of be true enough as an article of faith, but only in the most uninteresting and unhelpful way: "say man, this fire thing is a sure sign of the dawning aeon of Isis, don't you think?" Unless of course you have some specific point to make that you haven't made? If so, out with it! Otherwise...

Yeah, I do object. And no, being a Thelemite does not mean your banalities are obvious. IMHO, it generally means nothing is straightforward or obvious.

I shouldn't object. After all, I got nothing to gain from pointing these things out other than a bit of entertainment at your expense, or not at your expense. I guess it all depends on how much of a sense of humor you have.

But like I said, I'm in a mood!

Love and Will

@ldfriend56 said

"
@veritas_in_nox said
"I read a lot of SF, and it occurred to me that none of those novels predict a spiritual/occult revolution the way Thelema predicts for the later Aeon of Horus. So I was wondering-- what would happen in that situation? Imagine a few hundred years hence and the Aeonic change still doesn't appear to be coming anytime soon; how would we Thelemites reconcile that with our understanding of the Aeons?*

*I will admit that this question is partly motivated by the fact that I don't see anything like the seeds of the predicted change right now, and it's kinda worrying."

really? i see it all over the place. to me social media itself is a manifestation of the third chapter liber al. structures are collapsing left and right."

A passing thought as I walk out the door. If things are collapsing, it will be more than obvious soon enough. It's possible any number of things are happening now, not collapse related, or only marginally related. Things change, and then again, some things don't. Not yet at any rate.

To quote an artist friend of mine: wait for it...

Love and Will

I definitely need to get a hard copy of these books for my library!

My favorite Hamlet quote seems appropriate:

"Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me."

Or, as I like to imagine Shakespeare playing with the pun of how the french word sounds to an English speaker:
It's a do!

Love and Will

gmugmble,

...a wonderful post.

Thank you...

Love and Will

I am to blame. I spoke the name we do not mention on another thread and woke the ancient evil.

My apologies to the forum.

Love and Will

All light is one...

Love and Will

I was traveling, just got back a few hours ago...

A couple of magical curiosities:

The person without a gun—a weapon of any sort, something that is based on inflicting blunt physical trauma—has proved dramatically more powerful, and more effective than a person with a gun. This is a historical fact. Only in the crudest measure of success—dead or alive—is the opposite true (i.e. that guns are a source of power.) (Sorry for the repeated reference to gun ownership, it's just easier to use this as a symbol for being a macho prick—the kind of thing I think Thelema is not about.)

A true individual is the weakest and most ineffective thing imaginable. Individuals only have power by virtue of their ability to identify themselves with and direct much larger currents of energy, generally created by the common interests and shared goals of others. Hence power is only possible to the degree a person stops being an individual. This idea is almost pure Magick in Theory and Prcatice.

Exceptions to the above often involve very wealthy individuals who can create change by forcing or buying the cooperation of others. By contrast, Thelema, and Crowley as well, imagined a class of ‘individual’ who could lead because they commanded love and respect. The wealthy person is the lesser of the two and ultimately subject to catastrophic failure, even if they seem to prosper for a limited period of time—see the doctrine of the Black Brother, and the general, magical problem of making bargains with lesser spirits for limited, short term gains.

Behind all esoteric doctrines, including Thelema, is a "love for the world" framework in which all strategies and teachings must of necessity be understood. In other words, if this base-line desire to heal and generally make things better is not appreciated, and does not form the background for an action, that action is black, and links the person directly to all other persons with guns, or the individual who believes they can simply take what they want for themselves: "I'm not worried about the coming chaos because I have a gun."

EDIT: I was tired when I posted, and most of the post was so badly written I decided I would just delete it, leaving only the not quite as bad parts. I'm aware that what I am saying makes little sense to the general movement of the thread at this point. So it goes...

Love and Will

@Takamba said

"You are both coming from two different points of view, which are both right and wrong. And You can't argue from the other's point of view until you achieve Understanding and until then, there is no peace. Equilibrium is Justice now."

But I want to fight!
I'm in the mood. Unfortunately, this is not the place for a long, involved back and forth about second amendment rights, which I am ready to go to the mat with, but there are other forums for that. Read my first post.

No one will ague that militaristic point of view, so far. So maybe the literals are a scarce breed.

If Kedwards really thought Thelema was about the 'law of the strong' in a literal sense, that would be dandy, but it seems all he wants to do is justify owning semi-automatic weapons, or some such—yes, I'm assuming things about him I shouldn't. Basically, all he has said is that he is not worried about anything because he has a gun. And he quoted a bit of Crowley's commentary on The Book of the Law. He hasn't really argued anything. This makes him little more than an object I can point to and say: see, this is the kind of person who inspired my first post in this thread.

There is a lot of other things to be hashed out, but we won't get to them if all we do is argue about guns. The topic is about the nature of Thelema—about how we should 'not' view the Book of the Law. Sounds restrictive, I know, but there it is. Anyone who literally takes the injunction to perform blood sacrifices seriously is a deranged fool, in my not so humble opinion.

There is a real question here. As such, I want help in crafting my response to what I see as an adolescent, and genuinely misguided fixation as regards Thelema. If people argue with me I can see this point of view more clearly for what it is—I can make assumptions about the underlying psychological immaturity behind it. So my motivation is selfish, and I don't expect the arguments to change anyone's point of view, just help me craft my own sort of weapon, for myself to use, in terms of what I believe Thelema is not. The thread is a parting gesture on my part because this is still one of those unanswered considerations best dealt with in a community. Then again, maybe I will wake up tomorrow and feel the impulse has expended itself and I can simply walk away from it.

Literal interpretation, or how literal, or not at all?

Anyone?

Love and Will

@kedwards said

"Let every man bear arms, swift to resent oppression, generous and ardent to draw sword in any cause, if justice or freedom summon him! -Aliester Crowley; The Law is for All ; An Extenuation of The Book of the Law."

I'm not sure what this is supposed to prove. Seriously. What's the point?

It seems like a very mean quote to justify "I'm ready for the chaos with my guns to keep me warm" philosophy that is what one has come to expect from at least one other of your comments on another thread.

Even if Crowley did mean people should have lots of dangerous toys to make them feel secure, which he obviously didn't, it's still unwise to accept everything he wrote just because he wrote it. Fact is, violent conflict doesn't have a very good record for making things better, or even rectifying wrongs. The most successful, transformational movements, having to do with principles of 'justice or freedom,' which is clearly an important qualifier for Crowley, have all been non-violent.

I shrug!

Love and Will

@kedwards said

"Everyone depends on guns to keep them safe. Especially pansy liberals. They just want someone else to wield it for them. They want someone else to put themselves in harms way so they don't have to. They say that they want everyone to attain K&C of the HGA, but what they don't realise is that if the scientific facts of K&C were to be made public it would cause a civil war."

1. your reply is off topic. It's a talking point of the gun lobby. Personally I might care if you want to have a gun or lots of them, and I might care a lot more if you want to make it possible for every unbalanced soul to get one as well. But that's a fight for the courts and the for the ballot box, and for the lobbyists. I will point out however, that outside of a standing army, there have been, and there are communities, and whole countries that have kept the peace with no one, not even the cops, possessing fire arms. It's a fact, so I know it's possible.

2. your reply may not have been off topic if your comments centered around Thelema and whether you think guns are somehow mandated by the Book of the Law.

Love and Will

Every now and then someone turns up who asserts that the hard-assed, hard-line attitude in the Book of the Law, especially in the third chapter, is indicative of how we should live—stock-piling weapons, laughing at the misfortune of others, trampling on the weak, persecuting the outcast, and generally living the life of an uber-survivalist. The book says, in no uncertain terms that we should harden our hearts, hence libertarian sympathies.

By contrast we have efforts to understand the versus along the lines of this earlier thread:
<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5349">viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5349</a><!-- l -->

By this later approach, it's all a question of interpretation. The words are a puzzle, and there is something deeper and truly transformational in them that is definitely not about sacrificing children, ever.

But lets face it, a lot of the book reads as concrete advice on how to live, it's hard to ignore the 'style' of the book in this regard. If the book is a literal text, then the problem arises of where we are going to draw the line, or not, choosing instead to build the sacrificial fires. What makes some lines a literal command, and others not?

I'm precisely interested in the gray zone where a person draws a line between the lesser admonitions in the book and the more serious commands to kill animals and possibly children; or the binary decision where someone has decided to read the text as something more akin to metaphor, as opposed to literal commandments.

Disclaimer: I'm a pansy liberal. As such, I think the Thelemic, gun toting believers are adolescent dummies—dense heads with an unmerited self-righteous attitude. Similarly I don't think Thelema is a progressive philosophy either. In fact, anyone who uses the Book of the Law as a guide to forming a political position is way off base as regards its value. This places me squarely in the Book as Talisman/Metaphor/Spiritual Activator camp.

In starting the thread I wanted to air my annoyance with those people who turn up, as stated above. Maybe there is a lively discussion in this thread. Or maybe someone will say something I will find useful. I'm on the way out, and this is one of the last things that still pushes my buttons. I'll either hate myself for starting something new, or I will walk away a better man for hashing it out in public.

What say the you?
Let slip the dogs of war!

Love and Will

36. Wail, O ye folk of the grey land, for we have drunk your wine, and left ye but the bitter dregs.
37. Yet from these we will distil ye a liquor beyond the nectar of the Gods.
38. There is value in our tincture for a world of Spice and gold.
39. For our red powder of projection is beyond all possibilities.
40. There are few men; there are enough.

Funny. Makes me think of a woman's menstruation, even a miscarriage or abortion of sorts. Lunar tides, annual inundations, and the purging flood of red, monthly blood. And poof! Karma has been swept away and avoided, and everything is made clean and new again.

Love and Will

26. So also I went down into the great sad city.
27. There dead Messalina bartered her crown for poison from the dead Locusta; there stood Caligula, and smote the seas of forgetfulness.
28. Who wast Thou, O Cæsar, that Thou knewest God in an horse?
29. For lo! we beheld the White Horse of the Saxon engraven upon the earth; and we beheld the Horses of the Sea that flame about the old grey land, and the foam from their nostrils enlightens us!
30. Ah! but I love thee, God!
31. Thou art like a moon upon the ice-world.
32. Thou art like the dawn of the utmost snows upon the burnt-up flats of the tiger's land.
33. By silence and by speech do I worship Thee.
34. But all is in vain.
35. Only Thy silence and Thy speech that worship me avail.

Gertrude Stein:
the light is the light is the light

Shakespeare:
the light by any other name would smell as sweet

...be it the light of madness, illusion, of a deathly, cold moon, or that which shines upon the great sea.

I'm in a rewriting vein!

Love and Will

No argument. I'm a big fan of those connections a person makes for themselves. I do it all the time myself. I have no problem saying, or more often thinking "to hell with the orthodox interpretation." Not that I am not still interested in what the official interpretation, or the traditional association should be; but if it doesn't work for me, there is very little the correct answer can provide until I understand its necessity.

But in terms of the various possibilities, when there are several, it often seems to me the different technical points add up to more or less the same idea. For example: The Star tarot trump could, and has been used, as conceptually synonymous with Nuit—if not the goddess herself, then her priestess with the starry body of Nuit overhead.

A personal example: Kether as Dais would never work for me because of what my image of what a dais is—there is usually more than one station on it, at least in my experience, so the supernal triad as a group is a better fit. That's just what works for me. I also tend to think, and this is just my experience with such things, when anyone, especially Crowley uses the word Emperor it usually means the tarot trump. But this later point could be modified if I were to find a number of good exceptions to meditate on.

@gmugmble said

"and the star = Vav (which is the pentagram by Tarot"

Vav?
If so, I'd love a fuller explanation. EDIT: fifth trump, but why make the connection—what does it do?

Love and Will

Being an ex-Catholic I had always assumed that the EGC made some sort of claim similar to the church in an Apostolic Succession. I guess I had even assumed that Crowley meant to imply a magical link had been formed with the succession of the Catholic church itself.

I don't know why I think that. I guess I must have read something at some point; but also, the Gnostic Mass is obviously based on the christian Catholic and Eastern Orthodox versions. It always seemed patently obvious to me, by writing Liber XV, he was updating the ritual along thelemic lines. As such, it would be a natural gesture to claim a continuity with other elements of the Catholic catechism—namely, the Apostolic Succession.

Love and Will

20. Thou and I are beloved of the Emperor.
21. See! he has summoned us to the Imperial dais.
The night falls; it is a great orgy of worship and bliss.
22. The night falls like a spangled cloak from the shoulders of a prince upon a slave.
23. He rises a free man!
24. Cast thou, O prophet, the cloak upon these slaves!
25. A great night, and scarce fires therein; but freedom for the slave that its glory shall encompass.

It used to be the Emperor Card was assigned to the Hebrew letter Heh and and the 15th path. This passage seems more logical with the newer attribution of the Star, not the Emperor, imho.

Thou and I are beloved of the Priestess of the Silver Star.
See! she has summoned us to the Imperial dais.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but Crowley was still using the old system when he transmitted/wrote this book?

If it wern't for the fact that I see in these versus the essential, sensual nature of Luna—freedom of body and spirit, an end to shame, I would have been reluctant to have rewritten the text; but it seems appropriate since the theme is pretty much: do what thou wilt.

EDIT: I wanted to add this observation, and then spaced it:
Thou and I are beloved of the Emperor.
I = Tiphareth; and Thou = Chokmah. These are the two ends of the 15th path.

Love and Will

**14. There are deep secrets in these songs. It is not enough to hear the bird; to enjoy song he must be the bird.
**

I am aware of my inadequacies in terms of some of the sections of the book; in all the sections actually. But I am especially aware that I have more affinity with some chapters than with others—it's the others that bother me.

And still, something wakes up inside me, and by the end, after seven days of looking at the words, repeating them to myself and wondering how the notion of a given planet relates to the text, I feel I start to get it. In LXV I was warned about the elemental attributions, but it's hard not see and relate to the subject heading each time I browse the daily meditation. It's a place to start from, and so the planets have been a diving platform of sorts.

By holding onto the notion of Luna I bore a hole into the images, and sometimes something in me shifts. It would be nice to deal with these chapters out of context—to do something with them that was only about the chapter itself, just work on Luna for a month, for example.

Out of necessity we never go as deep as we should, trusting that this depth will happen piecemeal over a longer arc of practical work and meditation—see, here is my greater affinity for Saturn making muddy the watery depths of Luna...

Love and Will

I know that using the tattwa's as astral doorways has been dealt with in many books since, but one of the first that I am aware, if not the first, and one of the best imho is Regardie's The Golden Dawn, Volume Four.

You may already be familiar with this instruction, but just in case you are not. It's my opinion that it is worth checking out because it is probably an original source for this sort of practice among magicians, as well as being a fairly complete, and helpful guide...

Have fun!

Love and Will