St John??

[Luke Saint]

How much does Crowley's text focus on the KCoHGA?

http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib860.html

I think that is an awesome record. Not so much a good instructional....

[m1thr0s]

How much does Crowley's text focus on the KCoHGA?well it can be reasonably argued that his entire life's work is about this. Liber Aleph is a prime example but the thread runs through everything...every book...everything he ever did magickally speaking...

He actually sort of overdoes it a notch if you were to ask me...but you know...I'm a technician type so I don't want to hear so much about the HGA as the BoL...It serves its purpose, though seems to have been strangely lost on a good many folks.

Maybe that was the whole point of the overkill...more a numbers game than anything else really.

To some extent I always feel like I am being dragged into a private conversation with AC that I mostly don't much want to hear and has very little to do with me anyway. His gods are not my gods, his affections are not my affections, his loves, his fears, his hates...all his own actually and no part of any universe of mine. Where we mesh is where he finally shuts up a little about all of that and gets down to nuts and bolts. People who very strongly dislike AC also have a tendency to miss the point. There are some things in this world he was better at than any Western Ocultist to come down the pike in at least 1000 years.

You don't have to be an AC worshipper to understand this. I think what you actually need is to really be on top of your own damn game. Many people seem to think they are, who are nowhere near to this in point of fact.

m1thr0s

[Fio Praeter Humanus]

John of St.John is good and you can learn a lot from reading between the lines. If you prefer a bit more meat and details I enjoy Frater Achads journal.

[Naomi]

Crowley was very wrong on a great number of things, which caused me to ignore him mostly over the years, I loathed his translation of the Goetia with a passion, and the rest of his work except for that piece of 'fiction' he wrote about being a high priest in Egypt. Great stuff, I don't remember the name of that though.

But you know, Crowley is cool and all, and 777 has been oddly useful.

I respect the dead though.

I'm confused, is this article written by Crowley or someone else? I can barely keep up with all of my different exotic magical names....

[fr.novumorganum]

it is a diary of one of his students.

[Naomi]

Neat, I thought so. His writing reminds me of some of the people I've spoken to on Occultforums. I forget his name. I got incredible Deja Vu reading it.

[Luke Saint]

Bottom line: Take Crowley as a guide and not a goal?

[fr.novumorganum]

crowley never wanted to be a goal, in fact he spent much of his time fucking up his own reputation to avoid followers. he wanted students, and a few old ladies to pick up the bills now and then...


i think you'll learn more theoretically about magick from ac than just about anywhere else (here aside), but you need to know how to read him, and you NEED to DO THE WORK..

If you're looking for some AC to start on Book IV, or Magick in Theory and Practice.

If you want a tidy version of thelmic magick read Duquette

[Fio Praeter Humanus]

crowley never wanted to be a goal, in fact he spent much of his time fucking up his own reputation to avoid followers. he wanted students, and a few old ladies to pick up the bills now and then...
He said in Wisdom While You Waite, "No follower is worth having."

He just wanted to be able to point the way. In fact the entire spiritual philosophy of Thelema boils down to being an individual and not a follower of any kind.

[m1thr0s]

He just wanted to be able to point the way. In fact the entire spiritual philosophy of Thelema boils down to being an individual and not a follower of any kind.yeah but...he still failed to live up to my own personal fantasy projection of what a *real magickian* should be able to do and shit...cuz like you know...he didn't make a fuckload of money and crap like that plus I've been told he wasted his whole life on drugs and shit...:rolleyes: (yes, that is sarcasm...)

Xst almighty man...we're gonna need to start handing out stupid awards here pretty quick...the shit that comes out of some people's mouths...

I think maybe we need a new rule or something...unless you can demonstrate that you yourself have done everything in your power to *cause change to occur in conformity with will* over a period of, say, at least 20 years or something...maybe you actually only have the right to shut the fuck up for a change...cuz you sure as hell have no idea what you're going on about...

Aleister Crowley once defined Aleister Crowley as the dung heap on the butt end of a vast range of archetypes that he channelled...occasionally with stunning skill and articulation...but always at a cost. If you can't appreciate this then you are in no position to critique the man...he's already surpassed your worst possible criticisms.

...which eventually leads us back to the matter of stars...

m1thr0s

[Naomi]

There's no doubt he was a genius of some kind...I never had a problem with his personal life myself, it always seemed to me to be very unfitting for a group of magicians and occultists to criticize what seemed to me to be a very ideal magickal life. Yeah - go shop at IKEA now you little fad occultists. It's what I want to say to people usually. At least Wiccans are interesting to look at. Thelemites drive me up the wall with their close minded views of reality.

I like Crowley alot, but his followers are more dead to him than Crowley is dead to the world. I'm not exaggerating either - those people really cast a bad light on him he doesn't deserve.

dung heap huh? I think he needs to take it easy on himself. Victorian England...

You may recall the teapot incident. The night before I left for that awful place to do my Mithras meditation ritual I encountered a vast range of indigo draped bright sparkling stars in the scattered reflections of my teapot from Pier 1. It was really astounding and wholly profound. (This was right after I passed through Ma'at's chamber of the weighing of the Ka - purity) I don't know what it means but I think Crowley would probably understand and that's a lot more than I can say for some people in the mundane world.

[m1thr0s]

Well...I've profited from his work so I'm ok with AC and he can be 50 kinds of asshole and it doesn't really mean shit to me. A lot of brilliant people were complete trainwrecks in other respects so I don't see why things should be any different with Crowley. If you don't try to idolize him overly much you can learn a lot from the old goat.

note: part of learning from him should also involve being aware of where he himself was pooling from...that's pretty important since in many cases he was dealing with very partial informations thrown helter-skelter into his own unique vision of things. So it takes a certain sophistication to derive the good that is there but that's not as big a deal as some seem to make it out to be.

m1thr0s

[Naomi]

Oh yes, truly. His writing is scattered with his own personal insights and musings, so that when you read it you are deriving a great deal of benefit from his direct link to those same higher intelligences rather than from his more mundane scholarly pursuits.

I read (briefly) through an anthropology book discussing Ancient Sumer a few weeks ago and whoever wrote the book began their study of the Lagash archaeological discoveries by mocking the people who recorded Gudea's dream of Ningishzidda, saying that it was rediculous that they wrote it down "As if it actually happened" - this is the sort of pompous attitude you don't really encounter too much with Crowley even though he is arrogant and maybe pompous too, but at least he gives reality a fair run for expressing itself. Non-judgemental and all of that good shit.

Something tells me Crowley Crowley isn't as boring as his followers make him out to be, so perhaps I'll get into some other Crowley stuff once my other research is finished.

Oh and 777 was good, by the way, I think I finished it mostly. I also scribbled in it intently and it's covered in weird notes. They're not really very helpful but they are funny.

I think the goddess liked him alot...but maybe he needed a bit less water and more fire to synch up with his horrible little girlfriends better.

[m1thr0s]

I think the goddess liked him alot...but maybe he needed a bit less water and more fire to synch up with his horrible little girlfriends better.yeah...never could quite figure that out. He didn't exactly score real high with the womens. Probably hard to find many women of that time period aware enough to value him that weren't already pretty heavily damaged in various ways...

And his own conflicted attitudes couldn't have helped that much either...oh well...as you say...the Goddess saw something completely different in him than any of his consorts ever did...not so unusual really.

m1thr0s

[fr.novumorganum]

hey one night with bablon has got to be worth :yes::yes::yes: