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crowley
    #457629 -

i would like to hear some of your opinions on Aleister Crowley's life, beliefs, and writings.

It seems that everyone who writes about Crowley paints him as a "Satanic" "wizard", the "wickedest man alive", or worse. The only book I have read is Diary of A Drug Fiend, which I thought was very good. And, from this very preliminary glimpse into his apparent philosophy, I see nothing wicked or Satanic about him... the entire message of that book was essentially "Love is the law, love under will", meaning that the development of an individual's True Will is the ultimate goal of each individual, and Love is the means to achieve this goal. Could some people who are more knowledgeable of his other writings explain his philosophy further and enlighten me as to why he is "The Great Beast 666"? Is it because this philosophy makes no preference as to whether one's True Will be directed towards good or evil ends?


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Re: crowley [Re: Amoeba665]
    #458141 -

I'm no Crowley expert, but I thought one of his main philosophies was. "Let the whole of the law be, do as thou wilt."

I think he just opted for the left-hand path over the right-hand path. I don't think he was truly evil.


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D_Tox

to understand other people….to be aware
to understand animals….to be a decent person
to understand plants….. to be a refined individual
to understand the mushroom…to be enlightened

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Re: crowley [Re: D_Tox]
    #458203 -

All I know about Crowley I know because I read The Diary of a Drug Fiend. I don't know much else about him. I think the reason he is considered evil is because he believes in will as the ultimate goal of any person, and christianity preaches the exact opposite. That you should use your life to serve others. So anyone who just wants to serve themselves is evil.


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"If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the 'Fuck you' signs in the world."- J. D. Salinger

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Re: crowley [Re: Amoeba665]
    #458453 -

Wasn't he the spiritual guru of Hitler?

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Re: crowley [Re: Amoeba665]
    #459174 -

uncle al styled himself as the great beast...
he was the first person in the 20th century to stage a complete black mass (invoking lucifer, eating a deconsecrated communion wafer from a menstruating woman's snatch as she lay back upon the altar all draped in black... (one of the participants had to be carried out strapped to a stretcher to a sanitarium --- and this was well before rauwolfia or thorazine...)
filing his incisors to points to give a real "love bite"...
cutting the safety rope on his mountainclimbing partner when trouble hit (was that on the matterhorn?)
cocaine for breakfast, brandy for lunch, morphine for a bedtime snack... and sex with whoever was still conscious (or sometimes perhaps not) and could still nod his/her head...
channeling for aliens beaming messages from sirius as crowley & his wife stood in egyptian antiquitites museum, stele 666...
~~~
if i had to go for an early 20-th century spiritual prankster, i'd prolly go with gurdjieff over crowley... ymmv...
~~~
& most modern witches & students of that part of the occult european tradition will observe the rede "an it harm none, do as thou wilt"
ahimsa...
but that clause seems to be missing in much of the thelemite school teachings...
i know there's some thelemites around here somewhere, or at least used to be...
whatever...


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old enough to know better
not old enough to care

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Re: crowley [Re: gnrm23]
    #460155 -

hmm. i suppose that could be it.

i don't think it was simply his choice of left-hand path over right-hand path. i think (of course i'm not very knowledgeable on this subject) that a follower of the LHP can still be a very good person.. darkness doesn't always imply evil intetions. i have a feeling he changed significantly in the years following the writing of diary of a drug fiend.


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Re: crowley [Re: Amoeba665]
    #7813304 -

Crowley was smart enough to know the devil drama sold.
He was a great writer, and traveled in some influential circles.
Check em out on wikipedia if you want more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley

Complete history of mushrooms is interesting to say the least as well.
Jordan Maxwell has some good information on them that intrigues curious minds.

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Re: crowley [Re: Amoeba665]
    #7813494 -

If you read The Confessions of Aleister Crowley and you see his incredible arrogance, bigotry, misogyny, disregard for magnificent animal life (big game hunting), one with any sensibilities cannot but conclude that this guy was an incredibly big asshole. I have read Crowley since I was 19 years old, and I have had a fascination with his grasp of Jewish Qabalah (despite his crude antisemitism) as well as his experimentations in ceremonial magick (which I abandoned at age 19 or 20). He refused to teach his secretary, Israel Regardie, ceremonial magick, who became a Qabalistic magician in his own right anyway (as well as a psychotherapist).

Because of the nature of my own mind, I have made it a point to read about, but not to emulate the practices of magick after the writings of Crowley. Compassion is sorely, if not utterly lacking for one thing, and I subscribe to the words of the mystic Meister Eckhart:

"You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion."

For another, compassion is humble, not arrogant. Crowley claimed to have mastered Yoga and to reside in the highest levels of Yogic Samadhi. He claimed to have passed through the 'Abyss'between the Ethical and Supernal Triangles, through Gnosis, which is protected by the [Enochian] demon Choronzon. Essentially this means that he was boasting that he had become One with God in the Supernal Triangle represented on the Qabalistic Tree of Life. YET...he continued to be the unregenerated personality that I described above. Bulls**t! If you want to model yourself on a bulls**t artist of the highest calibre - Crowley's your man (IMO).

Now, read Goethe's and Marlow's versions of Faust. Goethe's Dr. Faustus was modelled on a real magus who was astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I - Dr. John Dee. It ALL starts with Dee (and his skryer Kelly AKA Talbot), Enochian magick and the lot.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: crowley [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7813516 -

Whatever I read from Crowley showed an intelligent grasp of humanity and human nature and insight into philosophy and spirituality. How much of it he lived out himself is another question. Like all humans he was flawed. I really liked reading his work on magick. I felt I really had a grasp of it then. He's great fun to read.


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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: crowley [Re: Icelander]
    #7813599 -

"Love is the law, love under will"

While the implications of this saying seem to be good, I have always regarded it with an amount of suspicion because of 'love under will'. I sometimes think that it would be better for it to be 'will under love', but that seems to take away from the meaning of 'will' to begin with.. so my discrepancy with the phrase remains.

Perhaps, if Love (+) is to be likened to the Yang and Fear and Hate (-) to Yin, then maybe Will is the force that holds the two together?  :yinyang:

Debate about Crowley (basically, the proper way to judge him) will go on and on. You have to admit though, he was a man of many experiences.


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Re: crowley [Re: WScott]
    #7813618 -

Love under Will means AWARE love. Means love without the distractions of losing one's temper.
The Will here is to remain focused on love.


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:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs
:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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Re: crowley [Re: WScott]
    #7813628 -

Crowley advised Winston Churchill to use the "V for victory" mudra to win the war.

Dietrich Eckhart advised Hitler...

Like most geniuses, Crowley is usually completely misunderstood.

Love is under Will as it is our Will decide, but we actually have no real Will until we are self-actualized, imo.

Crowley had a wicked smart sense of humor, unfortunately most people just don't get the Joke.

ALL teachers have failings, Crowley had more than most, but the teacher's weaknesses do not negate the teaching.

Crowley would say, "Don't throw the baby out the window with the bath water."

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Re: crowley [Re: Middleman]
    #7813646 -

Right!:thumbup:

I have spent many a day pondering "I am separated for the sake of love. For the chance at union."


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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: crowley [Re: gnrm23]
    #7813658 -

gnrm23 said:
i'd prolly go with gurdjieff over crowley... ymmv...


I agree, but only after a thorough study of both.. The Struggle of the Magicians.

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Re: crowley [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7813667 -

MushroomTrip said:
Love under Will means AWARE love. Means love without the distractions of losing one's temper.
The Will here is to remain focused on love.


Where is that extrapolated from?

If Love is the focus, why does it seem, to me at least, that Love is being subordinated to the Will rather than being magnified by it?


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Re: crowley [Re: Amoeba665]
    #7813678 -

Crowley's bigotry was indeed disturbing, but if his Jewish secretary, Israel Regardie, could overlook it, I suppose I can too. I've met quite a few Thelemites, and they all seem like good people. The one thing I find about Crowley is I have a very difficult time understanding his writings.


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Re: crowley [Re: WScott]
    #7813694 -

Because many times love is confused with lust or need.
Exercising one's Will translates in getting closer to one's TRUE nature, eliminating what's fake.


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs
:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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Re: crowley [Re: Silversoul]
    #7813695 -

All of us have a hard time groking Crowley.

My favorite book by him is "John St. John (Keeping a Magical Dairy)"
It's a minute to minute record of one his invocations of the Holy Gaurdian Angel.
It is one of the most honest and inspiring books I have ever read.

He wrote a children's story about the secrets of the "Great Work" called Konx om Pax,
which is some of the most potent and poetic symbolism I have ever read.

The Book of Lies (falsely called) and Liber Aleph are also more poignant and easier to understand, than most of his works.

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Re: crowley [Re: Middleman]
    #7814466 -

Crowley was brilliant. He forcasted the nature of the modern times better than anyone else which is why people keep returning to him again and again, thus he truely was a prophet.

The black mass stuff is bullshit. He was never into Satinism. Satanism, as anyone knows is just Christianity, which is something Crowley would never have gone for under any term, inverted, perverted, or verted. He borrowed the 666 of gematria which stands for Tiphareth of the Otz Chiim as the sign of the Sun, thus he was saying he was The Sun of God and also The Beast. It's a kabbalistic conceit.

Kenneth Grant is the one who blew all the 'most evil man alive' shit way out of proportion to sell Kenneth Grants books on Crowley such as his edited, "Confessions." Crowley was a genius in the way that most people are not any longer. He could play countless chess games in his mind without needing boards, etc etc etc. He wrote close to 100 books. He tried to rework all extant philosophies into some sort of universal order.

He also created the terminology for "The Great Work." And I bet not a single one of you understand what his Great Work was, though it's broadcast as main title in his hugest works. If people get hung up on him in a dualistic sense, not realizing him for the questing spirit of reconciliation of religion with science and spiritual method, as the original mind of the New Age, but rather they get hung up on some aspect of his hype and typecast him as 'evil' or as 'satanic,' then such a person is probably an agent for some fascist religion like Christianity, or Judaism, or Islam, any of which were considered by Crowley to be fanciful, and inherently evil.

In huge ways Crowley was a great humanitarian, by using his own personality to leverage others away from superstitions while not eschewing religion outright he paved the way for personal exploration of our myths. If Jesus was to Judiasm and Buddha was to Brahmanism then Crowley was to Rosicrucianism. He tried to parlay the mystic arts down to the street level. And in this way he was ipso facto brilliant. By not keeping secrets he allowed any who wished to enter the Secret Brotherhood. And he broke down walls of insipid secrecy and egotism of has-been occult wanna-bees, like Mathers, instead touting actual practice no matter how extreme. Always he stressed The Truth.

Okay, I said enough.


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...or something






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Re: crowley [Re: Icelander]
    #7814573 -

Yes, but then, f-u-n are the first three letters in funeral. I enjoy magick too much as an idea, an archetypal idea stretching back to the beginnings of Homo Sapiens Sapiens history. Archaic languages, words of power, symbols, sigils and circles (Hell, I sound like Faust!) all bring out a kind of wishful, childlike fascination with the possibility of bending the fabric of space-time, assuming that psyche is the other side of the coin of matter, with magick ritual. So, I do not indulge myself too much. Even if rituals work some of the time, it is only adding to the illusion of who I 'think' I am and reinforcing my egoic mind.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: crowley [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7814813 -

The power of all magick and mysticism is the power of attention. The greatest magical work will be to unify various systems of people of trained attention towards potentiating a goal of greater sentience for all. And thus raising the consciousness of the collective.


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...or something






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Re: crowley [Re: Amoeba665]
    #7815198 -

I like this quote by Crowley...

“Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales.”
- Aleister Crowley


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The best way to live
is to be like water
For water benefits all things
and goes against none of them
It provides for all people
and even cleanses those places
a man is loath to go
In this way it is just like Tao        ~Daodejing

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Re: crowley [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7815764 -

MarkostheGnostic said:
Yes, but then, f-u-n are the first three letters in funeral. I enjoy magick too much as an idea, an archetypal idea stretching back to the beginnings of Homo Sapiens Sapiens history. Archaic languages, words of power, symbols, sigils and circles (Hell, I sound like Faust!) all bring out a kind of wishful, childlike fascination with the possibility of bending the fabric of space-time, assuming that psyche is the other side of the coin of matter, with magick ritual. So, I do not indulge myself too much. Even if rituals work some of the time, it is only adding to the illusion of who I 'think' I am and reinforcing my egoic mind.


I disagree with that view.

Gurdjieff said that Ritual Magic was only to be practiced by those who have already consolidated their egos, transcended self-ishness, and have fully realized their divine nature.

What else would there be to to do when one has realized true Grace, but have a whole lotta FUN?

Though personally, I'm sticking to theory over practice until I'm a little less sleepy...

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Re: crowley [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7816362 -

Before calling Crowley a Prophet
Look at his Teachings and his Education and Knowlege
He said many things, but examine their base
Although hes enlightened, hes a man in a race
Go read and examine, and decide for yourself
keep appealing to greater youll go down in the list
and when your at nero your hands will untwixt.




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Masonry jumped the wall

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Re: crowley [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7817715 -

Even if rituals work some of the time, :wink:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: crowley [Re: eve69]
    #7817732 -

And I bet not a single one of you understand what his Great Work was,

It was Crowleys 5th symphony (or 9th) (or 3rd):confused::shrug:.:mushroom2:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: crowley [Re: Icelander]
    #7818185 -

Yeah but do you?


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...or something






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Re: crowley [Re: eve69]
    #7818635 -

He may have noticed a world of empty heads
Used the devil to interest you (need a selling point)
and injected himself into the culture
when he saw people we'rent mostly capable
he used music and literature
his points all based with education and thought
mostly fell on minds that wanted to be open and tryed
but were focused on nothing but everyday grime
we were stupid then and we're stupid now
but smart men dont care
youre worth a cows weight, get it?

dont take other peoples words for anything until u have something you find on your own.
point at the news blatently obvious
5 panel crossfire of celebrities party lives l o l
also look at the news years crowds
bunch of drunken grobbeling or the drugs they pick
i wondered and looked around and wondered through crowd
what the best conversation was....and all through night ill wonder
and ill wonder tommorow
what classics and revelations if any were made, and if they were made good go spread it.

and to the magick studier, u aint gonna do it without space aite
take a gander and imagine even slight psycic power because if it came real those are some gates! id imagine would overflow and drive you crazy, i wouldnt think it would peaceful lol
so consider that- then rethink your plan

crowley wanted people to think and in his plan he invented the holy guardian angel BEST WAY TO summon, gotta use your own material.


-------
Masonry erased the three, eleven, and seven then invented a number you never heard of

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Re: crowley [Re: Masonry]
    #7819281 -

he didn't invent the HGA, he borrowed that from the Abremilin the Mage workings grimore.


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...or something






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Re: crowley [Re: Masonry]
    #7819823 -

He may have noticed a world of empty heads
Used the devil to interest you (need a selling point)
and injected himself into the culture
when he saw people we'rent mostly capable
he used music and literature
his points all based with education and thought
mostly fell on minds that wanted to be open and tryed
but were focused on nothing but everyday grime
we were stupid then and we're stupid now
but smart men dont care
youre worth a cows weight, get it?

This sounds just like Icelander.:lol:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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