Aleister Crowley - In Search Of The Great Beast.

reply to post by mistermonculous

And I would aver that subjugating love to will is a slippery way of asserting the dominance of the material over the spiritual. My impression was that if he could have gotten away with dismissing Love altogether, he would have; but short of that, placing it under the boot of Will was the best compromise to be arrived at. Just saying. In addition, Will in Thelema tends to translate to control and manipulation, which is quite in keeping with Crowley freely handing over his faculties to outside entities and encouraging others to do the same. He was quite right in asserting that medium-ship was akin to making your being into an etheric toilet, but he failed to extrapolate that idea to supposed "divine channelling". Also, as far as I know, that remains one of the sole references to love in thelemic law, and it it not what I would consider an endorsement of the principle.

And you just largely articulated what I meant when I stated that I considered him a "dark individual" or that Thelema was "too dark for my tastes" at this point in my life. Not necessarily "black magick" dark but dark nonetheless. It boils down to the difference between divine will and individual will essentially. Thanks.

reply to post by coyotepoet


Any time, friend.

Originally posted by coyotepoet
It boils down to the difference between divine will and individual will essentially.

This is precisely what Crowley's teachings were based upon.

According to Crowley, Thelema, or the divine will, is the very purpose of our lives. We incarnate for the specific purpose of fulfilling this will.

The problem is, says Crowley, is that most people have absolutely no idea what their divine will really is. Therefore, people are always doing stuff that at many times is in direct conflict with their divine will, and thus their lives become horrible to live, always running into obastacles. But then again, says Crowley, those who know and follow their divine wills lead lives of ease and happiness.

This is the basic philosophical doctrine of Thelema, and explains why "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law".

Of course, that's the easy part. The hard part comes in when one asks Crowley "How do I discover my divine will?". This, says Crowley, is the real purpose and meaning of yoga and ceremonial magic. Through mastering those two disciplines, one understands the divine will.

reply to post by Masonic Light


Divine will sounds to me like an excuse to do what you want, irrespective of social boundaries. Perhaps thats the point.

ALS

Originally posted by ALOSTSOUL

Divine will sounds to me like an excuse to do what you want, irrespective of social boundaries. Perhaps thats the point.

ALS

Doing "what you want" would have nothing to do with divine will unless you are an adept (according to Crowley).

Again according to Crowley, everybody pretty much does what they want. The problem is, since most people do not know the divine will, what they think they want is in many cases not good for them.

"Social boundaries" in this regard are irrelevant since they are artificial in nature. The divine will, being the purpose of life and the very reason we're even here, is, in the big picture of things, the only thing that is not artificial. This is where, in his commentaries on Liber AL, that Crowley introduces his observation that when one follows the divine will, the entire universe supports him on the path. On the other hand, if one disregards the divine will by just "doing what he wants", he faces obstacles at every turn.

While I'm not a "Thelemite" in the sense of being a disciple of Crowley, it should be pointed out that this doctrine did not originate with Crowley, as he himself learned it in the mystery schools. It has always been a theology of the arcane sciences.

reply to post by Masonic Light


So the reason people "do what the want" is because the do not know there "divine will" or what god's purpose for them is. Are you saying Aleister knew a way to find out "gods purpose"?

ALS

Originally posted by ALOSTSOUL

So the reason people "do what the want" is because the do not know there "divine will" or what god's purpose for them is. Are you saying Aleister knew a way to find out "gods purpose"?

Crowley claimed that the way one discovers the divine will is by mastering the disciplines of yoga and/or ceremonial magic. That's why he wrote all those books on those two subjects.

reply to post by Masonic Light

This is precisely what Crowley's teachings were based upon. According to Crowley, Thelema, or the divine will, is the very purpose of our lives. We incarnate for the specific purpose of fulfilling this will.

Perhaps I misunderstood or was misdirected during that time in my life. Or perhaps I just needed to come to consciousness of divine will from another path. Interesting though, thanks.

Will amounts to volition, the capacity to make a choice or take an action. Many great thinkers have proposed that all choices are informed by environmental factors, biases, and the pressure of cultural input. Some conclude that this makes the concept of "free will" so much bunkum.

I am inclined to draw other conclusions; but regardless, I am reluctant to take advice on how to excerize my Will from a man whose life-choices led to a solitary death as an impoverished junkie.

reply to post by mistermonculous

I am reluctant to take advice on how to excerize my Will from a man whose life-choices led to a solitary death as an impoverished junkie.

Ha! Yeah, there's that too.

I don't believe in practicing magik and i especially don't condone practicing black magik so of course i'm anti Crowley, i think he was evil and dark based on a large proportion of his beliefs alone i do however cut him some slack because of his upbringing and the fact his parents were insane, so one can understand why Crowley went down the road he did but i find the whole thing ashame...

Originally posted by mistermonculous

I am inclined to draw other conclusions; but regardless, I am reluctant to take advice on how to excerize my Will from a man whose life-choices led to a solitary death as an impoverished junkie.

Just for the record, despite some claims, Crowley did not die as an impoverished junkie. He lived to the age of 72, had long since given up opiates, and met his end while living in a charming residence in Hastings. Upon his death, a small fortune was uncovered in his room, which he'd been saving in order to publish his last book, the Book of Thoth, which was indeed published posthumously.

reply to post by Masonic Light


Pardon me, but while I will agree with the Hastings boarding house bit (though it does not strike me as a particularly charming residence); he was still a regular user of morphine at the time of his death. Sources are consistent on this point. If you have found a source which contradicts this information, please provide a footnote.

On the subject of his booby-trapping his writings, I heard the following bit of hilarious apocrypha from a musician pal of mine several years ago: A UK industrial band recorded one of Crowley's incantations, specifically one intended to summon a fire elemental. Upon arriving at their basement studio the next day, they found that several pipes had inexplicably burst in the night, and that all their equipment was under several feet of water.

But I maintain that Crowley's cruelest practical joke on humanity was the O.T.O. Ha, I kid!

Originally posted by mistermonculous

Pardon me, but while I will agree with the Hastings boarding house bit (though it does not strike me as a particularly charming residence); he was still a regular user of morphine at the time of his death. Sources are consistent on this point. If you have found a source which contradicts this information, please provide a footnote.

Crowley had kicked the heroin habit in the 1920's. However, in the last days of his life, he was prescribed morphine by a physician and so did indeed use it at the time of his death. This did not qualify him as a "junkie" at the time of his death, any more than terminally ill patients who use morphine today.

See Lawrence Sutin's "Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley", p. 416, along with the biographical sketch in Lon Milo Duquette's "The Magick of Thelema".

reply to post by Masonic Light


I concede that my use of the term "junkie" was perjorative. Shall I substitute septuagenarian opiate user? However, Crowley was not prescribed morphine as a palliative against a terminal illness, but as a treatment for asthma. And if by "last days" you mean "last several years", then yes. Which smells like an old-timey Dr. Feelgood scenario to me.

Also, if someone has a long-standing habit, and lapses back into it in later life, can the habit be said to have been kicked? You either decide to discontinue a behavioral pattern you feel compromises you in some essential fashion, or you perpetuate it. I feel the passage of time is rather irrelevant.

Originally posted by mistermonculous
]

I concede that my use of the term "junkie" was perjorative. Shall I substitute septuagenarian opiate user? However, Crowley was not prescribed morphine as a palliative against a terminal illness, but as a treatment for asthma. And if by "last days" you mean "last several years", then yes. Which smells like an old-timey Dr. Feelgood scenario to me.

Crowley was prescribed heroin for asthma while a young man. He eventually became addicted to it, as did thousands of others who received it for medical purposes. It was this habit he kicked in the 1920's.

In the late 1940's, when nearing his death, he was prescribed morphine to deal with intense pain, which he took.

Also, if someone has a long-standing habit, and lapses back into it in later life, can the habit be said to have been kicked? You either decide to discontinue a behavioral pattern you feel compromises you in some essential fashion, or you perpetuate it. I feel the passage of time is rather irrelevant.

Again, while we're probably beating a dead horse here, Crowley was near death and was taking morphine for intense bronchial pain, and not from a "behavioral pattern that was compromising him". It also should be noted that while Crowley sometimes recommended the use of some drugs for mystical purposes (alcohol, absinthe, hashish, peyote), he never recommended opiates to anyone.

I am reluctant to take advice on how to excerize my Will from a man whose life-choices led to a solitary death as an impoverished junkie.

Please permit me to re-examine my initial assertions.

1. I cannot think of a circumstance more solitary than meeting one's maker at a seedy boarding house attended only by one's landlady.

2. I'm not sure squirrelling away a couple hundred pounds while living in penury qualifies as ammassing a "small fortune".

3. Crowley was an opiate addict for several years before his death. Although initially denied by you;

He lived to the age of 72, had long since given up opiates.

you were forced to concede this point when pressed:

However, in the last days of his life, he was prescribed morphine by a physician and so did indeed use it at the time of his death.

Crowley was prescribed heroin for asthma while a young man. He eventually became addicted to it, as did thousands of others who received it for medical purposes. It was this habit he kicked in the 1920's.

I hate to be pugnacious here but every account I have read credits Alan Bennett for introducing Crowley to opiates.

Again, while we're probably beating a dead horse here, Crowley was near death and was taking morphine for intense bronchial pain, and not from a "behavioral pattern that was compromising him".

So, having failed to refute my assertions with factual evidence, you are resorting to hyperbolic misrepresentaion and emotional appeals. Therefore, forgive me if I hold a mirror up to that dead horse's mouth to check for obfuscating fog.

It also should be noted that while Crowley sometimes recommended the use of some drugs for mystical purposes (alcohol, absinthe, hashish, peyote), he never recommended opiates to anyone.

He also never advocates child neglect, but was guilty of that vice as well.

I really like him and don't think him evil. So he killed a cat as a young boy over 100 years ago to prove that they didn't have 9 lives. Did you noticed that he anesthetized it first? He felt remorse and sorrow for the cat? I pithed a frog in lab. He was challenging a very restrictive Victorian worldview. It's so psychotic to my thinking that I imagine one had to be a bit psychotic to become free from it, though it seems to me he never really did.

I don't see where he deserves the title the great beast.
It's the problem of monotheism when one enters into a magickal worldview. It sure can make people battier than a bat, it's a risk one takes when moving from a sphere of fear of ONE who says this is the ONLY way, to communion with many. He always held onto the dualism on some level, and I suspect that's what all the rebellion was about.

But I find the documentary very judgmental in language. If one took all that scary language out, and just examined what the man did, you'd see his participants were willing, and he wasn't eating children or murdering people.

I also see a life that very well could have been in the clandestine service. Who'd ever suspect an old magician? They can carry around their amulets, sigils, and magick squares and no one ever thinks about their having any politico-cryptographic significance.

Originally posted by King Seesar
I don't believe in practicing magik and i especially don't condone practicing black magik so of course i'm anti Crowley, i think he was evil and dark based on a large proportion of his beliefs alone i do however cut him some slack because of his upbringing and the fact his parents were insane, so one can understand why Crowley went down the road he did but i find the whole thing ashame...

for the record, he did not practice black magic.
that's all i have to say.


Masonic Light,
it is useless to continue explaining and giving insight about Crowley to those who don't know him.
He who wishes to know already knows, those who don't know just aren't supposed to.
So why bother?

We couldn't care less if someone misunderstands, hates or doesn't like Crowley,
the fewer the better, as he himself said.

The info is out there to read and explore, any adult man with an average intelligence can decide for himself if Crowley is compatible with his beliefs and/or morals and dogma.

I'm out of this thread.

Instead of people simply demonizing the man as a weirdo you should really judge him by his own thoughts and words. Not only did he write a fair bit himself, Crowley inspired quite a few other writers on the occult who have produced some good works. He understood the occult in a way that few ever do and he lived his philosophies.

If you have any interest in the spiritual side of things then you do yourself a serious disservice by ignoring the writings of him and his students.