From: Tagi@cup.portal.com (Tagi Mordred Nagashiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Crowley's Significance? (Hitler)
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 92 07:24:56 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
  <l9slajINNtc@west.west.sun.com>

9208.29 e.v.


Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
The word of Sin is Restriction.


Mark Trampe writes [apparently in response to Tom Tedrick]:

Now wait just a minute.  You can bad-mouth Hitler all you want (or Reagan
for that matter) but where do you get off painting Aleister Crowley with the
same brush?  


Response:

Bad-mouthing is bad-mouthing.  Humans are divine regardless of their name or
station.


Mark:

How much Crowley have you read?  Have you read his practical
books (e.g. "Liber Legis"), 


Response:

Your characterization is very interesting.

Why do you think that this extremely obtuse book is 'practical'?


Mark:

his metaphysical books (e.g. "The Book of Lies"),
his human potential books (e.g. "Diary of a Drug Fiend"), 
his ongoing
ramblings (Equinox), 
his scholarly works on the history of Fremasonry, 
his explorations of Egyptian mysticism 
from (then) recent Hieratic translations,


Response:

I thought all of his books were 'metaphysical'.  What do you mean by
this word?

'Human potential'?  Wasn't this a movement started in the 70's?

Wasn't ALL of his work an ongoing rambling (some of it profound)?

To which works do you refer when you write of Freemasonry?

And again, what tomes deal with Egyptian mysticism aside from
Liber Al vel Legis?

I'm fairly new to the Order and wish to know more about this man's
work.  Thanks.


Mark:

... have you ever read anything that he actually wrote?!


Response:

Have you?  What?


Mark:

He believed strongly in personal power but he also believed very strongly 
in personal responsibility.  He was styled (in Victorian England) as "the most 
evil man on earth", but he was actually a man with very reasonable aims and 
methods.  


Response:

My understanding is that 'reasonableness' is in the eye of the beholder.
I think that some of Crowley's writing supports this view.


Mark:

If he were alive in the second half of the present century noone would have 
noticed him because most of his beliefs are now "mystically main-stream".
While he might be "hedonistically" on a par with Timmothy Leary, Richard
Alpern and other '60s luminaries, he was scholastically (and in life 
achievements) an order of magnitude above those "merry prankseters".


Response:

I doubt the accuracy of this.  The ideas he spewed forth are still
fairly misunderstood in our culture, whether or not the words are mouthed.
Where did you get the idea that Leary, Alpern etc. were hedonists?
Why do you think that they were less 'scholarly'?  I've read some of
each of their works (and others of their ilk - i.e. Keyes), and have
come away with mixed reviews.


Mark:

Crowley's perpetual benediction was:

	'Do what thou wilt' shall be the whole of the law.


Response:

Almost...  'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I think that the capitalization scheme is important.


Mark:

People who haven't read Crowley think this is a statement of hedonistic
license.  They could not be farther from the truth.  


Response:

While your words may be accurate, I think that the statement is indeed
provocative.  I doubt that Crowley would have interpreted them for any
but himself.  Many of your ideas about how he would have done so strike 
me as contrary to the bulk of his works.


Mark:

It is a very powerful
standard that few of us (certainly not I) are able to live up to.  It requires 
us to find the purpose for which we were created, and then to dedicate 
ourselves fully to the fulfillment of that purpose.  I suspect his belief 
was that if we were fullifilling that obligation


Response:

This is what concerns me the most: that we shall begin to understand Crowley
to be moralistic.  I think that this would be the most horrid development
which those who despise him could perpetrate.  'Do what thou wilt shall be
the whole of the Law' is not an imperative.  It does not REQUIRE us to do
anything.  My understanding is that it is a statement, a description, of a
basic Law of Nature.  We may work toward making Nature the Law of People,
yet even this is not implied as an IMPERATIVE.

I like the idea of discovering our purpose (or lack thereof) and then
following it back to our Source, but I hardly think that it is either an
obligation (for what obliges us RESTRICTS us, and unless this is chosen
it is oppressive and sinful) or a worthless task (since it leads to our
liberation, and this is most worthwhile task we may imagine).


Mark continues:

	we would be making the world a much better place


Response:

The World is already Heaven.  We would be renewing our EXPERIENCE of
the World.  Big difference.


Mark:

	we would be making ourselves much better people


Response:

All people are divine.  There is no way we could improve upon the work
of the gods (our parents).  We would be renewing our EXPERIENCE of
ourselves.  Big difference.


Mark:

	we would not have the time or inclination to do wrong to others


Response:

Agreed, but largely because we would cease to think that 'doing wrong'
was possible.


Mark:

	we wouldn't need stupid laws because people wouldn't do stupid things


Response:

Agreed, but do we need them even IF people do stupid things?  I think that
Lao Tzu can be quoted as saying that 'laws make criminals', and I tend to
agree.


Mark:

Crowley felt that his purpose in life was to help others find their own.
He was actually much closer to Herman Hesse than he was to Adolf Hitler.
He was a rare blend of nineteenth century discipline, scholarship and 
romanticism.  We will not see his like again soon.  


Response:

You may be right.  My understanding is that we share our goals by virtue
of sharing the One Goal of attaining to our True Will.  Fie upon those
who would determine what this Will is for us.


Mark:

If you want to judge a teacher, judge him by his desciples ... did you ever 
hear Krishnamurti speak or read any of his work.  The "sage of Ojai" was 
selected and raised by Anne Bessant (who left London after Crowley's death) 
... and if Krishnamurti was an example of Crowley/Theosophy training, our
world could use many more like him.


Response:

Perhaps you are correct here also.  Yet often the 'disciples' of the
teacher are the worst results of the teachings.  They are the ones who
got stuck on the teacher and never took the teachings to heart.  Often
the best students take from the teacher what they can and leave with
their self-respect intact.

I've never heard anyone connect Krishnamurti with Crowley before.  Do you
really think that he was a product of Crowleyan lines?  Didn't Besant
follow more from Blavatsky (Bailey?) than from Crowley?



Invoke me under my stars.   Love is the law, love under will.


I am I!


Frater (I) Nigris (666)
Towards "the one" ...