rigorousintuition.ca

Great and necessary piece from an RI contributor.

https://auticulture.wordpress.com/2015/ ... occultism/

The piece opens with a visual highlighting some Crowley passages from a book I am unfamiliar with, but the quotes will be all-too familiar:
https://i0.wp.com/auticulture.com/wp-co ... rifice.jpg

"For the highest spiritual working one must accordingly choose that victim which contains the greatest and purest force. A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim."

...

"It appears from the Magical Records of Frater Perdurabo that He made this particular sacrifice on an average about 150 times every year between 1912 e.v. and 1928"

...

"Those magicians who abject to the use of blood have endeavored to replace it with incense. For such a purpose the incense of Abramelin may be burnt in large quantities. Dittany of Crete is also a valuable medium. Both these incenses are very catholic in their nature, and suitable for almost any materialization.

But the bloody sacrifice, though more dangerous, is more efficacious; and for nearly all purposes human sacrifice is the best. The truly great Magician will be able to use his own blood, or possibly that of a disciple, and that without sacrificing the physical life irrevocably."

...

"Further evidence that Crowley favoured the involvement of children in occultic rites is furnished later. Page 347 gives the formula..."

Crowley later claimed that his comment about performing the child-sacrificial ritual 150 times a year was a joke-reference to masturbation. Back in the day when I was more naïve about these things, I took him at his word. Now I’d counter with two points: firstly, even if it were a joke, or “joke,” he could hardly not have known that countless people who read this passage (in his most famous book) would have taken the exhortation at face value. In how many cases might the words have been acted on? Did Crowley care?

Secondly, from what I’ve come to understand in the past few years of looking into the systemic, ritual abuse children in the UK and elsewhere, one of the standard methods of these practitioners is to make “jokes” about what they do—or rather to speak openly about it and then, if they are met with a shocked response, claim to have “only been joking.” Apparently this same method was practiced by Neil Kramer on and after the recent podcast we did together. Those who take the boasts seriously but are not disturbed by them, on the other hand, can be trusted with further disclosures.

This doesn’t mean everyone who makes “jokes” about such stuff is applying this method; for all I know Crowley and Kramer were/are as innocent of the dark dealings they like to brag about as their respective legions of followers need to believe they are (or at least need others to believe). At this point I don’t really care. Joking about such stuff and/or professing it to be irrelevant betrays a complete lack of sensitivity to the stark reality that’s being both concealed and facilitated by these cavalier attitudes.

I confess that currently I am suffering from an extreme allergic reaction to this sort of overly intellectual, starkly insensitive “masculine” energy, hence this post comes from a desire to be as clear as possible about my personal feelings about this, without trying to assert that it is necessarily anything more than that (personal).

I have an extreme sensitivity to alcohol too, probably partly because my mother drank while I was in the womb (and even during my birth process). As a result, I can’t have a glass of wine without suffering from a hangover the next day, and so I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol in years.

At this point, I feel the same way about occultism. Whether it is due to the toxicity of the substance or my own allergy to it is largely irrelevant, to me at least; either way, I wish to create some distance.

Crowley later claimed that his comment about performing the child-sacrificial ritual 150 times a year was a joke-reference to masturbation.

Masturbating 150 times in a 365 day year?! Given Crowley's rep, I would say it's either a gross underestimation or a gross lie.

Glad this was helpful, useful, meaningful, whatever. Thanks for sharing.

The Neil Kramer podcast, with a brief debate in comments section, is here: http://auticulture.com/the-liminalist-1 ... il-kramer/

Kramer's comment is in the last 10 minutes.

Back in the day when I was more naïve about these things, I took him at his word. Now I’d counter with two points: firstly, even if it were a joke, or “joke,” he could hardly not have known that countless people who read this passage (in his most famous book) would have taken the exhortation at face value. In how many cases might the words have been acted on? Did Crowley care?

....Crowley was a notorious self-publicist for whom his reputation as a fount of diabolical depravity, fostered by the yellow press for the titillation of its readership was a mutually useful asset in keeping him in the public eye

...but he was still a serious player & that is reminiscent of Dion Fortune's warning about the nature of the material Crowley was disseminating in Magick:

....the Tantrics (especially of the Sakta Division) avoid all use of the number eleven because it is considered inauspicious. This number, which plays a major role in Crowley's Cult, has been adverselycommented upon by Dion Fortune:

Crowley's Magick is valuable to the student, but only the advanced student could use it with profit. The formulae, too, on which he works, would be considered averse and evil by occultists accustomed to the Qabalistic tradition, for he uses 11 instead of 10 as the basis of his battery of knocks, in the magical ceremonies, and 11 is the number of the Qliphoth. No hint of this is given in the text, and it is an ugly trap for the unwary student.

http://tomegatherion.co.uk/achiddengod.pdf

The Crowley Trap, something I heard about in my 20s in Paris.

I am not sure I buy the "it's OK for advanced students" disclaimer: sounds suspiciously like a good cop/bad cop routine to me; and which occultist wouldn't flatter himself that he is 'advanced' enough to spot the trap and avoid it, thereby ensuring a headlong plunge into it? (I offer myself as a example )

It seems reasonable to suggest that the whole of Western Occultism can be described the same way: as the spiritual equivalent of Spinal Tap's "11" setting.

guruilla » Thu Jun 18, 2015 11:22 am wrote:The Crowley Trap, something I heard about in my 20s in Paris.

I am not sure I buy the "it's OK for advanced students" disclaimer: sounds suspiciously like a good cop/bad cop routine to me; and which occultist wouldn't flatter himself that he is 'advanced' enough to spot the trap and avoid it, thereby ensuring a headlong plunge into it? (I offer myself as a example )

It seems reasonable to suggest that the whole of Western Occultism can be described the same way: as the spiritual equivalent of Spinal Tap's "11" setting.

In recent days I have revealed myself and temporarily come out of my lurkdom at RI so ......

Caveat: "The whole of Western Occultism can be described the same way: as the spiritual equivalent of Spinal Tap's "11" setting" is an excellent description of my attitude toward Thelema and Crowley and other occultism. I am entertained by the fringe and high weirdness and unusual people. I like the blues and I like rock and roll and was entertained and giggled by Spinal Tap. I am a student and a book collector and used to like to attend weird events. I am weird myself.

The "93" on my screen name is a Thelema troll. I have intermittently posted on the internet since 1994 and often incorporated "93" in my handle to see who would bite.

That said I was an associate (non-initiated but dues paying) member of the Caliphate OTO from 1993 to 2003 to get access to books, minds, and entertainment. I became acquainted with OTO people in Berkeley, Portland, and San Jose/Santa Cruz. My library is awesome (note PKD list in another recent thread), evidence of obsession, and varies in narrow topics from natural science to anthropology to history to literature to culture, serious works to those in the specific grooves. I have maybe 70 Crowley works including a 1st Edition of Magick in Theory and Practice and book #13 of the original OTO edition of The Book of Thoth. Between 2000 and 2003 I attended a number of OTO events, closed such as Rites of Mercury and open Gnostic Masses, largely because of a GF (from 2000 to 2003, funny that) who was too young and too wild for me. She perused my books and I directed her to specific works and she concluded, "You actually know some of these people? I want to see more". Sex magick. We first went to a closed Gnostic Mass performed by Lon Milo DuQuette for a dying RAW, I thought cool to meet RAW as RAW, Leary and PKD are what lead me to this path of entertainment and book collecting, not practice nor belief but influence on an evolving world view.

Edit to add:

"For the highest spiritual working one must accordingly choose that victim which contains the greatest and purest force. A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim."

This phrase is considered an insider jape by practitioners and scholars of Thelema. IMO it was a typical attention getting device by Crowley who also IMO is not a particularly savory role model but was a brilliant man of many interests. The line refers to masturbation. Crowley added to his enduring infamy and saddled future occultists with this catch by critics and fearmongers.

Also Lawrence Sutin wrote the definitive Philip K Dick biography, Divine Invasions (1989). Sutin has written one other biography, Do What Thou Wilt - A life of Aleister Crowley (2000). Again IMHO, Sutin's bio is the fairest look at the life of Crowley.

lunarmoth » Fri Dec 25, 2015 5:49 pm wrote:Aeolus Kephas = anything to do with Acephalous ?? looks likely...

The following day I got back on the Yellow Bus and headed for Skye. On the way out of town, our driver stopped for a panoramic viewpoint over Loch Ness, and to point out Aleister Crowley's house in the distance on the far shore. It stood not far from where I had cycled the previous day, i.e. that stone circle was probably one the Great Beast used for his rituals. The Scottish driver had long red hair and made a forceful speech about Crowley, saying what a loathesome man and mass murderer he was and how many local children he had killed,and how the people around here felt about him, and so on. This seemed conclusive as far as I was concerned. If I had ever felt the slightest curiosity about studying his work, that speech killed it.

The word 'appropriation" keeps coming up as I type this. There is spiritual energy, existing everywhere, and then there are the creeps and monsters who attempt to appropriate and control it for their own grandiose and petty ends. And we can spend endless amounts of time recording their sad little projects and all the associated misery --

I wonder why. Perhaps as a cautionary tale. Or because it's so fascinating when things go bad and fall apart. But that's just our human twistedness talking. Maybe. Evil as a trampoline to higher dimensions? Let's go there sometime instead.

Anyway, I've spent a few hours here and all I know is: Crowley keeps coming up everywhere I look these days. Let's discuss him. I mean directly. Who is Crowley, to you?

I transposed this to a different thread since the main focus is Crowley, who seems to be floating ectoplasmically around the edges of this forum lately, what with the Lam image at Occult Yorkshire and the Baphomet statue at this thread.

The OP quotes my current view of Crowley, more or less, though the the distaste continues to deepen, what with the Kinsey/Crowley exploration, for example.

And yet, it would be impossible to separate my current distaste for Crowley and his work from the fact that I have a longstanding and deep affinity with both. Astrologically,the Moon in my chart is in the same degree as Crowley's moon (the Sabian symbol for this degree is psychic phenomena). I was totally taken by Liber AL (The Book of the Law) and Horus became probably the archetype/deity I most consistently evoked and identified with (not counting Lucifer, whom Crowley sometimes equated to Horus). Since Divide & Conquer has brought up his Christian affiliations, I'll add that, throughout all of this, Christ was and continues to be an even more powerful archetypal resonator for me; so it was never about either/or but both/and. (Unlike AC I wasn't raised Christian but atheist, and my admittedly quite strong anti-Christian sentiments are really more of an aversion to dogma in general than to Christian teachings per se.)

As I think I mention above, I was aware very early on that Crowley's work was a trap, but I think this is true of all systems of belief, worship, or personal development, and certainly of the Bible/Christianity.

I had not heard the term acephalous before now, but it seems relevant. Meaning is:

1
: lacking a head or having the head reduced
2
: lacking a governing head or chief

I used to sign "Aeolus Kephas" with the A as a penis, the same as Crowley did. I really had no clue, did I?

The Egyptian gods (neter) were said to be headless (hence the animal heads).

The penis is sometime referred to as a "little head."

Perhaps the inherent truth of "Do What Thou Wilt" pertains to having no outside authorities, including "God"(head). With this I wholly agree because the only possible meaning of God is the Totality, that which everything exists within and as. The Spirit or Implicate Order moves through and as us, not acts upon us. "The word of sin is restriction" maybe has some truth to it also. Actually there's a lot of truth in AC's output. It's just that it's part of a larger package which is so unsavory that I now consider those truths to be Trojan Horses for an invasive ideology (occultism) that may be the oldest ideology of them all, the Will to Power.

I think the main flaw in all of these systems is that they are, and have to be to make intellectual sense, hierarchical. And where there is hierarchy there is power and where there is power there is abuse.

as for this:

There is spiritual energy, existing everywhere, and then there are the creeps and monsters who attempt to appropriate and control it for their own grandiose and petty ends. And we can spend endless amounts of time recording their sad little projects and all the associated misery --

I wonder why. Perhaps as a cautionary tale. Or because it's so fascinating when things go bad and fall apart. But that's just our human twistedness talking. Maybe. Evil as a trampoline to higher dimensions? Let's go there sometime instead.

Christ told Peter, upon this rock I will build my Church; a few lines later he called Peter Satan.

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)

But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. (Matthew 16:23)

There is a Girardian riddle here, pertaining to "the hidden function of the sacred." If I have time I will pick it up at the Mimesis thread.

Maybe the question to ask about Crowley is, where did he go?

....I find Crowley's obscene writings like White Stains & Snowdrops from A Curate's Garden pretty difficult to stomach leaving aside his occult works.....but he seems to enjoy vastly more (pop)-cultural cachet than other equally powerful figures like Dion Fortune or Austin Spare ( a brilliant artist aswell as pro-genitor of chaos magic ) which must be due in large part to the whiff of brimstone & sexual shenannigans he trailed behind him...

lunarmoth » Sun Dec 27, 2015 12:30 pm wrote:Maybe the question to ask about Crowley is, where did he go?

Everywhere? He seems pretty ubiquitous at this point.

Maybe you should interview him.

now that would make for an interesting session.

better re-calibrate the bullshittometer !

It sounds like Boleskine House was 'gutted by fire' a few days ago.



Sounds like it was an accident, but can't help but wonder if someone was trying to clear the place...

I can't help but feel good about that.

Fire started Dec 23rd, halfway between Solstice & Christmas. It is traditional to light a fire during these four days as a means to summon the Sun back during the darkest period of the year. That's what all the sparkle and decoration of Christmas is for.

guruilla » Tue Dec 29, 2015 12:46 pm wrote:Fire started Dec 23rd, halfway between Solstice & Christmas

hah, what an interesting coincidence