College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

I thought it was generally known that Crowley wrote the "is forbidden" just to stop one student, possibly Norman Mudd, from sending him reams of Cabalistic gematria analysis of Liber Al. As has been pointed out, Crowley never stopped discussing it. The commandment should be seen as one of Crowley's "joke traps" for those over-literal!

The enire concept of "race" is an unsupportale construct created at a particular time when people of one particular set of skin and eye characteristics enslaved a large number of people with a different set. These characteristics meld into one another across historical boundaries. However, academics wishing to justify this mass kidnapping invented "race" and started studies to justify their advantageous position in euro-american society. It is all so much shit, genetics has shown this, and any so-called Thelemite who furthers this nonsense is no true child of the New Aeon.

You are all welcome to disagree but frankly I don't care.

Oops, my bad

It's worth remembering that knowledge of Hebrew amongst the GD and early AA was comparitively sparse. Crowley was unaware that Sephardi Jews pronounce Hebrew differently than Ashkenazi Jews, hence Crowley's unfair criticism of Regardie's Garden of Pomegranites, which used Sephardi pronunciation, such as Sephiros for Sephiroth. IMO Sephardis are more likely to be "correct".

Just my usual reminder, True Will is not a phrase that appears in the Book of the Law. Pure Will does, and an egoless will seems quite possible, it's what led the Buddha to teach rather than to just dissipate.

IAO is more or less a universal, all-aeon formula. Simply stated it can be seen as Initial - Alteration - Outcome. The Isis Apophis Osiris formulation has never sat with me as being new aeon and we use three different deities to express this formula in the new aeon - this will hopefully be published soon.

Just a reminder - the rituals of the old time are black.

Yes, I think so but would like to know where to buy the book - Lurianic Cabala is responsible for a lot of nonsense about "Daath", because the shortage of, and difficulty of obtaining earlier Cabalistic documents made it impossible for the Cabalists of that age to realise that earlier references to Daath were simply a shorthand way of describing the upper triad, just as "En Sof" was used as a shorthand way of describing en, en sof and en sof aur. This led to the error of thinking that "Daath" was some hidden eleventh sephirah.
I haven't seen a good book on Jurianic Cabala so would like more info.

Crowley's attitude to Yoga, and Asana in particular, was typical of the 19th century Western attitude to the mind/body relationship and not typical of the actual attitude of Yogis. To the Englishman who climbed mountains and crossed deserts, the body was a servant to be mastered. In Yoga it is a vehicle to be steered. The idea of holding an asana until it becomes painful is regarded by actual yogis as ridiculous and counterproductive. It was spawned by the sort of physical exercise regimes popular in the Victorian age, such as doing sit-ups with a straight back - actually very damaging to the back - becvause "straight" equalled "good" to that mindset.
Asana should be comfortable and requiring minimal effort - but just enough effort to keep the mind alert (rather than going to sleep).

@Solitarius said

"I want one,
Where can I get one plz?"

I got mine here, US members should google hebrew and scrabble, but this is lower postage for UK members:

www.grantandcutler.com/book/28020

The demiurge is a gnostic concept only partly accepted in Cabala, it relates (sort of) to Chesed. Ialdabaoth comes from a tradition lost, but glimpseable through Mandaen writngs such as the Ginza R'ba.

Don't know why it took me so long, but yesterday I finally took possession of a Scrabble set made for the Israeli market. I don't need to explain to experienced Cabalists how useful it is to have scrabble tiles with the Hebrew alphabet, but yesterday I drew three tiles, looked up the six combinations and got "bursting forth", which I certainly did a few hours later (more of that later this year).
So what Roger Bacon spent ages devising - his machine for selecting Hebrew root words at random using a machine - I now have for $60 including postage courtesy of Spear's Games.
I recommend it!

One of the problems with Liber Al is knowing when it is addressed to everyone and when just to Crowley. In this case I think it's addressed to Crowley and should be seen as prophecy, accurate as always.

@_aLL_seEIng_eYe_ said

"Yet the comparison runs deeper still, geometrically both Earth and Malkuth take the form of a sphere."

Malkuth does not take the form of a sphere, it is drawn as a circle, but that's just a drawing. The use of the word "sphere" is probably because some peoplecannot resist thye similarity between sphere and sephira, although the latter probable means "chapter" (of a book, not an Order).

Mormonism has always fascinated me, if only because it has been so successful. However, apart from its later success it was not unique in its time. There was a whole slew of "mound builder" novels and speculations, trying to explain away the huge mounds, such as those in Ohio still, most of which were ploughed away with the coming of the modern tractor. White settlers refused to believe that "the Indians" could have made these sophisticated structures. However, one pastor decided differently, and this entry should fascinate anyone:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_the_Hebrew

All in all, Joseph Smith seems to have cobbled together a religion from anything he could get his hands on, gaining followers in spite of the problems. As the Soth Park episode on Mormonism says, dum dum dum dum dum!

Nice to see yet another UK member, and from Hastings as well! Home of the I Spy Club (and Crowley, of course).

I have to disagree with your example, Uni_Verse. Striking up a conversation with someone because you want sex with them is not impure, it's just social play. Caring about whether you succeed is impure, that's the lust of result, but unassuaged means never satisfied, always having purpose, not having no purpose.

I personally think that this is Liber Al's way of describing the highest state of consciousness, corresponding to Nirvana, Moksha and other (descriptions of) ultimate states. It is, after all, a definition of "Pure Will". The annihilation of the ego that drives the will leaves the will itself unassuaged of purpose - so there is still something to be done - but delivered of the actual lust of results from action. This state is then described as "in every way perfect". It seems to correspond to the state of an enlightened being that has taken the boddhisattva vow, responding to questions but not initiating action, in order (in that case) to teach.

Hmm, bad wording. I didn't mean that Malkuth is ruled by what current scientists believe are the Laws of Science. They keep changiong their mind anyway. I mean that the Laws that control materiality are before and beyond human interpretation. This is why Karl Popper developed his Philosophy of Science - the best we can do is to know that theories can be proved false because experiments based upon those theories don't work. Human science is about functionality, not absolutes.

Sorry, but "by definition" is meaningless. All such terms are indicators, not definitions. The term does not indicate who is the King, only that it is ruled. Nowadays, we understand that Malkuth is ruled by laws of science that transcend individual will - I cannot "Will" Hydrogen to gain an extra Proton without it becoming Helium, for example. And even then I employ terms that arise from interpretations. I strongly suspect that the interpretations are correct, but do not direct my Magick regarding attainment of the sephirah Malkuth towards justifying such interpretations, instead I attempt to move below interpretation itself - and then move to other sephiroth.

To me, it is the sheer difficulty of attaining Malkuth - but then having 9 other sphiroth to attain - that attracts me to Cabala. And to me, it is the sim plistic "we are all in Malkuth, so the first thing is to go higher" that has wrecked the use of Cabala in so many Orders.

IMHO of course.