Talk:Thelema/Archive 1

message: This article says The Book of the Law was produced through automatic writing, but the article for that book specifically states that Crowley did not use automatic writing. JoaoRicardo 20:37, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The other article is right. Crowley's descriptions of the process make it clear that it was not automatic writing. I've corrected the article. --FOo 22:27, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Automatic writing

message: The current version of the article claims that
Thelema is a magickal philosophy of life based on Will. The individual Will in Thelema is called Had or Hadit. The Way, or the Pleroma of infinite potentiality is called Nu or Nuit.
Thelema is unique but also syncretic. Nu and Had correspond with the Tao and Teh of Taoism, Shakti and Shiva of the Hindu Tantras, Shunyata and Bodhicitta of Buddhism, Ain Soph and Kether in the Qabalah. Followers of the philosophy of Thelema may make use of the methods and practices derived from other traditions, including Alchemy, Astrology, Qabalah, Tantra, Tarot, and Yoga.
That is a rather bold statement.  I can't for the life of me see how one could equate such definitions of Nu and Had with the Buddhist concepts of Shunyata and Bodhicitta.  I suggest either a clarification or correction.  Did Crowley himself make that claim of equivalence?  Did some other named author? Luis Dantas 17:00, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This does seem a stretch, Nuit, is normally identified along these kinds of lines: The azure Egyptian Goddess of the night sky identified with AIN SOPH of Qabalistic symbolism. The continuous one of Heaven. The goddess of infinite space. And Hadit as the Lover of Nuit, the infinitely small, atomic, yet omnipresent. He is identified with Qabalistic AIN. I think Liber NV and Liber HAD, may shed some light on Crowley's angle, as well as 777 and the Law is for all. I would also say that to simply state that Will in Thelema (which means will!) is called Had is misleading and in this context inaccurate. --Solar 00:52, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not really a stretch at all. Shunyata = Emptiness and I'm sure Crowley mentions Nuit as equivalent to emptiness. He correlates Hadit to Kundalini and Kundalini is correlated to Bodhicitta in Tantric Buddhism. For someone who knows all three systems in depth, the notion of equivalence is unremarkable. I'll see what references I can find when I have time. In any case, the view is common among Thelemic Buddhists or Buddhist Thelemites. Sam Webster might be one writer who has written about the correlation... Adityanath 21:19, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: I've added two references, and will probably find more... Adityanath 21:52, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Nu and Had

message: Thelemapedia clearly belongs in the See also section. I mean, if not here in Thelema which is its topic, then where? I suspect, but haven't checked, that the Thelemapedia page is an orphan and is not linked from anywhere. If that is the case, then perhaps it should be listed on Votes for deletion. If already has two strikes against it—it started as a vanity page written by its own managing editor, which makes it autobiography as well. Adityanath 21:29, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thelemapedia again 

message: From the article -- Interior evidence supports the assertion that the Cairo Working, as it is called, was a psychic experience involving shared telepathy between Crowley and his wife, synchronicity, and Crowley's own unconscious psyche. Please cite a source for this claim within the article, and maybe explain what it means. It doesn't seem any more parsimonious than Crowley's claims. Dan 05:53, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  telepathy 

message: What is the fanetic spelling of θέλημα? So I can understand how it would sound. I am english.
:Most U.S. Thelemites pronounce it Tha-lee-mah, but some pronounce it Tha-lay-mah.  I think I read somewhere that the second pronunciation is more accurate based strictkly on proper Greek pronunciation.--◀Pucktalk▶ 04:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  θέλημα - How is that pronounced? 

message: I am going to remove the section about Thelema from the Obeah page, replacing it with a short mention. I am also going to remove the book ref  to Crowley. My reasoning is as follows: 
Obeah is jamacan folk magic. Thelema has nothing to do with Obeah. Aleister Crowley mentioned both Obeah (Jamaican folk magic derived from the Congo) and wanga (the latter a term most often found in Haitian Voodoo, meaning a magical charm pcket derived from West Africa) in one sentence in one book. The fact that he threw Jamaican and Haitian terms -- or, if you will Congo and Benin -- terms together indiscriminately indicates his level of outsidership and non-practitioner status with respect to Obeah. 
It's nice that Thelemites are somewhat interested in Congo magic, but since Crowley really knew nothing about it himself, having this lengthy Thelemitic tail wagging the Obeah dog here is a mistake.
However, the text is well enough written that i would not wish to lose it -- so i am carrying it to the Thelema talk page, where the Thelema people can decide what to do with it. Just please, do not bring it back to the Obeah page; it is not relevant here beyond the brif mention i will give to Crowley. 
This message is duplicated at the Thelema talk page. 
Thanks. 
Catherineyronwode 22:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Deleted the article from here because I've put it in the new article, Obeah and Wanga. Frater5 23:04, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thelema and Obeah material removed to Thelema Talk page 

message: Prime Qabalah & Thelema— Information on a new system of English Gematria and its application to Thelema
:This isn't that big a deal to me, but to avoid link clutter, wouldn't this link be more relevent in the Magick or Qabalah sections, rather than the Thelema article? –Frater5 
::No, I don't think so, as it relates specifically to the Qabalah of the Book of the Law and Thelema. Maybe on the Book of the Law page? Eventually there should be a page on Thelemic qabalah, and that's where it should really go. "Clutter" is subjective - I could get rid of any number of other links in the name of "clutter". By the way, your sig is wrong. It will always show the current time, not the time you posted your comment. You need to add "subst:" to each template invocation... -999 15:11, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Re: Sig...oops! Didn't notice. Thanks. Re: Link: Like I said, it's not a big deal to me...just think about it. Re: Qabalah: I agree totally that there should be a Thelemic Qabalah page. It was so central to everything Crowley did, it seems negligent not to have a page that discusses his use of it. Hard to write an NPOV encyclopedia article on it, probably... – –Frater5 (talk/con) 16:26, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Isn't this link just an ad for someones particular system? 

message: As is obvious, I have added a great deal of new info to the article. Because of this, it required a reorganization to make sense of it all. Please understand that in no way is this an attempt to undo anyone else's contributions. If I inadvertantly removed some important piece of information, by all means fit it back in. Ashami 03:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major additions and reorganiztion 

message: This article is written from the POV of Crowleyan Thelema. As not all Thelemites are Crowleyan, which was grudgingly acknowledged in the Organizations section (I think), this article needs a major revision to be inclusive of Rabelaisian Thelema, which also has its adherents. See WP:NPOV for information on how to properly cover multiple points of view in a single article.  I have started on this, but a lot more work needs to be done. -999 03:33, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Greetings, 999...nice to meetcha. In case you missed it, the section is called "Aleister Crowley's Thelema"...I think that's a smart way to work it, and allows for more "POV" langauge. Although the other sections can be made more objective, maybe, I think it's fair to say that Crowley is pretty central to modern Thelema. However, why not make a "Rabelaisian Thelema" section, so that they get a fair say? Still, considering that Thelema can be all things to all people, the article would be 100 pages long if we put in every single possible interpretation of it, don't you think? Or if we took out any and all bias, the article would lose any useful meaning at all. That being said, I like what you've been doing with the section titles. Somecallmetim 03:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't think you can document a negative unless you have a citable source. Otherwise, if would qualify as "original research". However, Rabelais used the word Theleme in his work, and Francis Dashwood and other members of the Hellfire Club used Rabelais' French version of "Do what thou wilt" (Fay ce que vouldras). -999 (Talk) 18:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

text: And I most certainly do have references which say that Rabelais was a Thelemite. What of it? The article is fine as it is, and if you want to push your point, I'll push mine, and the article will be the worse for it. Stop being such a Crowleyite bigot. -999 (Talk) 13:17, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: civility wouldn't hurt here. Bigot is an article not an epithet to apply to another editor. - Peripitus (Talk) 13:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Christ didn't call himself a Christian, either. People don't write books which have the potential to get themselves excommunicated or burned at the stake unless they believe in what they write. Anyway, my point is, that even Crowley acknowledged Rabelais as a Thelemite. Crowley was to Rabelais what Paul was to Christ. Christ and Rabelais were the original prophets, Paul and Crowley were the hacks who popularized a religion insprired by someone else. Why don't you go bug the editors of Christianity by telling them that Christ never called himself a Christian, or the editors of Buddhism by telling them that the Buddha never called himself a Buddhist. -999 (Talk) 12:58, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Making article NPOV 

message: In what sense is this a philosophy?  And what is a religious matrix? --Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 12:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, many self-professed Thelemites do not consider it a religion; some consider it a philosophy; I'd call it a way of life. What would you call it that includes non-religious Thelemites? -999 12:53, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I've changed it to philosophy of life which will hopefully satisfy the all the parties ;-) -999 15:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophy. etc. 

message: I'm not sure how there is a difference between this article and the Thelemic mysticism article. I've suggested a merge to discuss. Zos 19:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At first, I didnt actually see where it was split. I was looking for a direct to main article, but I found it at the bottom of the True Will section. Eh. I still think there is no difference though. Zos 19:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, what happened was a lot of little subarticles were created, then nominated for deletion. The author paniced and combined them into Thelemic mysticism. But then I think most if not all articles passed AfD. So perhaps Thelemic mysticism should be deleted as a duplicate? or maybe more has been added to it, not sure. -999 (Talk) 19:54, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was just figuring, if there was enough info, to add it back here, and recreate the smaller articles, and this time add citations so nothing is nominated for deletion. But its fine with me, I just thought it was the same topic. Zos 19:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah we're done voting, seeing as how my question was answered. Zos 22:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge 

message: I've reverted Dan's changes due to the unexplain removal of Dashwood from the introduction. The inclusion of Dashwood in the intro is essential to the understanding that there was at least one known practitioner of Rabelaisian Thelema and also essential to the summary quote by Mahendranath. This clearly establishes the context for multiple understandings of Thelema, namely the looser Rabalaisian form and the more formally developed Crowleyan form. As there are currently practitioners of both forms and the Rabelaisian Thelemites specifically use the term "Rabelaisian Thelema", it would appear that Dan is attempting to bias the article against this form of Thelema with this change. —Hanuman Das 05:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I just won't let y'all ignore my question. And I have a new question as well: can you cite one verifiable, notable case of someone practicing "Rabelaisian Thelema" by that name today, with no influence from Crowley? I've put a reference to Dashwood in the first paragraph. Dan 05:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I believe your changes are misguided and I do not have to prove anything to you. The usage of the term "Rabelaisian Thelema" can be easily confirmed with a Google search. Whether its practitioners have been also influenced by Crowley is immaterial. You have a bias. Go edit something else while you think about the effect of offending actual Rabelaisian Thelemites, such as the one you are speaking with. I'm quite happy to open an RfC on your discrimintory conduct. —Hanuman Das 05:19, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you mean the emails? I saw one site decribe a link as including "Rabelaisian Thelema", but the link didn't seem to work. I used notable in the admittedly offensive but widely used 'pedia sense of the term. Again, the question pertains to people calling their views "Rabelaisian Thelema". (See also my previous question, which got no response until I decided to Be Bold.) I have no problem mentioning Rabelais and Dashwood in the first paragraph. Dan 05:34, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Dan, you might wish to explain why it is you feel it neccessary to remove an inline citation. The statement clearly expresses where it comes from, but if you require an actual citation, use a cite tage at the end of a sentence. Zos 05:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ...What inline citation? Dan 05:34, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Zos, did you mean the inline reference to this book of Gargantua? The article says, Thelema is a philosophy of life initially described by Francois Rabelais. The book does not say, 'I call this philosophy Thelema,' or even 'the people at the abbey called this philosophy Thelema.' Instead, the story describes an unusual abbey with a Bible-derived name and includes one serious-sounding statement about life in the description. So far no-one has cited anybody calling this statement 'the philosophy of Thelema' before Crowley's time, much less calling their own philosophy Thelema. Certainly we have someone else saying that Dashwood practiced Thelema, but see previous discussion in the NPOV section. And H. Das, I took the phrase "Rabelais and Thelema" from the main article Francois Rabelais. Dan 06:13, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

text: When I said inline, I was refering to what appeared to be a book toward the end of the sentence where the information seemed to be coming from. I havent read the book myself, so I wouldnt know. Its up to other editors who own a copy to do the fact checking. Zos 11:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unexplained changes by [[User:Dan|Dan]] 

message: Dan, I'd just like to point out that the reason other editor's get upset with you is that you don't bother to find a way to leave their cited material in. I am not going to go through the trouble to figure out how to put that material back in. It is up to YOU to integrate your new material WITHOUT removing any other cited material. As long as you do not do so, I will continue to revert you. Such actions are rude and disrespectful to the other editors!!!! Please find a way to leave their material in!!! —Hanuman Das 03:54, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My apologies, Dan. I thought I'd read it thoroughly! Must remember not to jump to conclusions when reading only the diffs late at night when my eyes are tired!! —Hanuman Das 13:37, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, then add a big list of references. WP policy on connecting people with Satanism, at least on List of Satanists is that they have to self-identify. I'd prefer it be left out, especially if the sources mention it but dismiss it as unlikely... But if you have to, you need to give it at least one citation. Really, the question would be, what is the earliest source to allege it? —Hanuman Das 15:13, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, that was the point I was trying to make. Some (people, critics, sources) is considered a weasel word even if in introduces supportable material. You'll note on the WP:WEASEL page that the typical solution is simply to specify who said or alleged and that even one source is sufficient. —Hanuman Das 15:50, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of cited material, redux 

message: Sorry, I'm not on my account so i can't sign this, but in the first part of the article where it says "fay ce que vouldras", I believe "fay" may not be the correct spelling of the word, though it is a good phonetical spelling.  I the word may in fact be "fais", which is the second person singular imperative form of the verb "faire", meaning "to do".  I may be wrong though, the correction I'm suggesting comes from modern French, and the French used in the article may be archaic.
Friday, August 18, 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.183.31.147 (talk • contribs) 
:I think it's pretty clear that this is a direct quote in 16th century French from a 16th century book... -999 (Talk) 20:51, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible spelling error? 

message: Links to personal websites are discouraged by WP:EL. The website ashami.com is the personal website of the person who added the link, as is evident from the user name, Ashami, which is the same as the domain name. The page linked to also "does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article here would have once it becomes a Wikipedia:Featured article." In fact, it looks like a summary of the Crowleyan section of this article. —Hanuman Das 08:20, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First, the WP:EL doesn't say anything about "personal websites." Many external links on Wikipedia are "personal" sites. Despite your opinion, the Eidolons site has a lot of interesting material that isn't on Wikipedia or this article, and the "Thelema 101" introduction has a different-enough take on the subject to be worthy of a link. It doesn't take up much room, is relevant, and doesn't violate any Wikipedia policy. Thanks! Somecallmetim 15:39, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal websites 

message: Hi. I like this article and believe it is well written and sourced. I did find some small argumentation which I removed. If there is any other such then it is in need of removal or alteration. Of course alteration is preferred. Judging by the standard of this article any unsourced argumentation will not stand very long. If there are any sources for the arguments that I removed please reinstate with citations. AlanBarnet 06:04, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Argumentation