Comments on: Can I Play With Madness? Crowley.

By: Nate

Nate — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 09:19:41 +0000

The phrase “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” is very troubling to many people, but I find that in context the Will in question is most certainly not the Ego…especially when one considers that a great deal of Thelemic practice centered around ego dissolution. If one really wanted to make Pseudo-Niezschean Ego worship into a supposed “Occult” practice, one would drop $200, join the Church of Satan, and loudly proclaim ones Godhood against all evidence to the contrary. In this case, one would simply be a shmuck short of the necessary self-discipline and, in this case, $200 better spent on a nice meal.

I’ve had discussion with Lon Milo Duquette wherein many of the same questions were raised and the answer was simply to act with a higher purpose. In effect, to Will what one does in accordance with ones higher purpose. The Ego serves a base purpose, so in this context the Ego can not possibly be the “True Will” posited in Thelema.

An aside, do I detect allusions to the Qlippoth in your response? While I do appreciate the inclusion of the links, I already count the source material as pieces in my personal library…and I find the polarization of magic to be very pointless indeed. Those who seek to know the All and through such endeavors come to know the Self attain mastery. Those who shrink from a challenge attain nothing save for the illusion of knowledge. It is very romantic to believe in a static formula behind all that is, but reality shifts.

By: Paul Freedman

Paul Freedman — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:55:45 +0000

We disagree that the elevation of will (do what thou wilst) can mean anything other in the final analysis of its application to elevation of the ego and not to an inner calling and in its wider macrocosmic incarnation the overlordship of those who are stronger not in analytical or magical power but in brute strength. That is not to say that there will not be much of interest in the deliberate syncretistic fabricature of a Thelamic network of references. So my answer is that the 6. ends up being annulment of the individual being of the other if the radical subjectivity of doing what “thou wilst” programmatically is posited as the replacement for all those conventional boundaries.

It has been remarked, and this is to be taken cautiously Nate, that to some degree (if tragically) in the inner eye of the Creator there is no difference between his Self and the external projected garbs of creation, nor between his prescriptions and his proscriptions. This is however, an ontic truth as regards Hisself and what is appropriate to Adam Ha Kadmon is not a recipe for success for even the First Primordial Adam much less his progenitive offspring, and, as regards the very Crown of Adam the Old Father, there is the suggestion of a shadow or fissure. Leo Strauss has written quite sympathetically of the role of the Serpent in Human freedom even though, at days end, the prescription remains the same, the Serpent is elevated through binding it as a garter above the waist whereupon it is converted to its truer nature as a Screen, very un-Crowley admittedly but that is the recommended Way.

Recommended introductions into the right-handed path are:
http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/2373?/eng/&main

Introduction to the Book of Zohar and The Science of Kabbalah are free downloads and are own personal to do list as is the free Zohar download found here:
http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/learning-center/learning-center

By: Nate

Nate — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:55:56 +0000

While we are on the subject:

ni⋅hil⋅ism

–noun
1. total rejection of established laws and institutions.
2. anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity.
3. total and absolute destructiveness, esp. toward the world at large and including oneself: the power-mad nihilism that marked Hitler’s last years.
4. Philosophy.
a. an extreme form of skepticism: the denial of all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth.
b. nothingness or nonexistence.
5. (sometimes initial capital letter) the principles of a Russian revolutionary group, active in the latter half of the 19th century, holding that existing social and political institutions must be destroyed in order to clear the way for a new state of society and employing extreme measures, including terrorism and assassination.
6. annihilation of the self, or the individual consciousness, esp. as an aspect of mystical experience.

Save for broad applications of definitions 1 and 6, how exactly does Thelema fit into a Nihilistic worldview?

By: Nate

Nate — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:28:52 +0000

While you are correct in asserting the Crowley’s work is derivative of Kaballah ( as is the majority of Western Occultism ), your usage of the word “evil” strikes me as profound ignorance of the subject. I am certainly no Thelemite, but I have studied Crowley at length and have come to the conclusion that such knee jerk reactions are the result of a refusal to separate Crowley’s body of work from how he chose to live. Was the man a detestable lout? All evidence certainly points to that claim being fact. Is Thelema “evil?” Thorough reading on the subject fails to prove the veracity of such a claim. Perhaps you could explain what it is about Thelema that you find so repulsive?

By: Paul Freedman

Paul Freedman — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:38:55 +0000

You know a lot of Crowley’s mumbo jumbo *is* debased kabbalah. Don’t get your notion of what kabbalah is from the latest pop star or her supporters or your notiions of mysticism from a nihilistic occultist hack like Crowley. Of course evil appears interesting on the surface but anybody can fall off a cliff drunk, flap their arms, and shout out “I’m flying on the dark side”–all goes well until the inevitable splat.

Far more difficult to be grounded, to be functional, to be at peace with the physical world around you but to be open precisely through that groundedness to the highest levels of Gods grace. This is what kabbalah is and does plus it gives you the math behind the balance if you are of a geek frame of mind and wish to study the source code.