Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)

Aleister’s “The Book of the Law” is very short, and I used to have a thing about reading very short books, (I guess if it were sexual, you’d call it a hang-up, lol)—I read all of Shakespeare and counted it as one book, to take the extreme example. But I am glad I’m reading this as a separate work, because it’s very different in style from a lot of his other work, for example “The Book of Lies”—a great book, incidentally. The title is like some punk band calling itself Pale Zombie, or something—like, “Dude we are so above trying to prove to you people that we are better than everyone else, the way that everyone else is. Over it!” (Sometimes those old Edwardian or whatever radicals will surprise you….) Although it’s funny, “The Book of the Law” could almost equally have been called, “The Book of the Un-law”, and “The Book of Lies” could equally have been, “The Book of Truth”. That’s the other thing about the “Lies” title: ALL words are lies, interpreted in a brittle, inappropriate way….

But yeah, “Lies” is like spiritual psychology—spiritual philosophy…. This is more like special interfaith, (I was a cool Christian who read “interfaith” books when I was just trying to drain the shit out of the Christian house so that I could live there, and now, with some strange conservatism, I call the books that I relate to the most as “interfaith”, as some kind of “I am the universe” objectivity, although I’ve reformed it by dividing interfaith into two groups, general and special), occultist religion. A lot of Aleister’s stuff is more philosophical than religious, and he’s never really one for authority, and this is much more philosophical than Wicca, for example…. But it does seem like this is a sort of religion. (He also called it a religion, but I always have to decide things for myself, lol.) It is a very abstract religion, with more the philosophy/theology thing, without too much mythology, except as a metaphor or illustration, not as a story, right—but if authority is maybe not quite the right word, it is certainly a case of revelation, and perhaps if he’s not “revealing” that you have to follow his way, that’s it, (the way that Paul did when he was in jail, lol), he is I suppose “revealing” his own authority over his own life, and how you can do likewise, if that makes sense…. Unlike say, “Magick in Theory and Practice”, which sounds kinda, conversational, almost…. Although that’s not why I stopped reading temporarily; it was more—I mean, in the long run, there’s no separation, just like there’s no separation between indigenous mythology and paleface mythology and science, in the end; there’s no separation, in the end, between philosophy and magick, spiritual philosophy, and ritual…. But having read kinda a lot of the Wayne Dyer/Carlos Castaneda type, over the years, since even before the goosecap years with the first of those two, I was worried that my ship wasn’t quite balanced, so to speak….

(shrugs) But yeah: that’s all just to multiply words—in the end, just, ~Yes, it’s not “How To Live A Normal Life: The Liturgical Church and the Christian Walk Today”, you know.

Because, just…. No, right. Just, no. Yes to LIFE, no to…. All that, basically.

…. Little Child Horus want you be his friend.

We have to help the children, you know. We have to start telling them the right way to go. The children live inside us; we should help them….

…. It is a very high magic: and it is delight.

(shrugs) And you know: sometimes stylistically I don’t know about it; ‘magick’ with a ‘k’ lol; and I shall appreciate it better when I brush up on the Egyptian myths and on numerology: Aleister’s friend could have saved me some time and written like a little poem about each special number, right….

But it is quite beautiful poetry. Some of the poets in the ‘standard canon’ are alright, including some of the ‘best’, but just BBC announcer voice/factory school homework can make short work of it, you know…. A lot of the Bible is poetry, too; “if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you”, Jesus, (I won’t give the next line, lol: too perfect~~~) isn’t a line from the Bible, but maybe it should be, right…. Resentment can make quick work of a Christian of any description, until even the honest critic is left wondering what else was behind it all…. Was there a good god before there was a bad one?

But yeah: this book is pretty much exactly what poetry should be, you know. Maybe it’s ~poetry~ that’s ’high magic’s aid’, you know. Angels know that those old poets were wizards, not cunning-men from the villages, right?….

But yeah, the greatest thing is not to see division: not between all the this and all the that: and not even between, ~the people who saw no division first and those who saw it second, or between those of the first way and those of the second…. Between the Wizard and the Fool, basically.

…. It is true that there is much danger in the “pit called Because”. Mentation, philosophy, can be very debilitating—very disempowering. “And then the philosopher sat down to discover whether he existed, and whether anything at all existed.” Even Epictetus the philosopher cautioned people about that sort of philosophy, you know.

And then the journalists sit and come to tell why the bad things fly like bats unhindered over the face of the whole earth, and why the good things only are illusory, and why ten years ago or whenever, there were good things, but they have flown to fairy-land which does not exist…. And if you try, almost to reason with them, or to show them the flower of the Goddess, they close their eyes and shout loudly: ‘Because Because Because!!!’

Such is their own path, but it is not well to be like them….

And it is true that to esteem death and suffering is simply to do poorly, you know: and most of what is called compassion is merely to esteem suffering, and to value its cultivation. Sometimes the true strength, the true help, is to give your friend a sudden shake, to help dispense with the cultivation of suffering, you know—and not the voluminous words of a Dickens, praised by his contemporaries for showing people the way of pity, you know…. Poetry is stylized rather than technical, but I think a lot of pity is almost to praise someone for suffering, because you think their suffering brings out something good in you—namely suffering, you know….

But yeah, another point: Buddhists and Christian contemplatives, Thomas Keating the monk and all those people, say that the greatest thing is silence, and value it over the divine words that float up from silence. I value the practice of silence less than I once did, but it is easy to overestimate the difference between words and silence, really. For before there can be divine words, there must be silence. And well have they said, that you cannot force the deep silence or the divine words, you can only experience what comes up for you: what the gods within present to you, as a gift.

Perhaps they have neglected to say that sometimes at least you ought to be indeed enjoying what comes up, however.

…. Yup, the introduction said that the third chapter wasn’t going to make sense: and it didn’t. Bible promise made by the prophets in the Old Testament, Bible promise fulfilled by JESUS in the New Testament. 👌

lol.

Aside from the whole aspect of you know: (softly) if you try to convert me one more time, I’m gonna tell you what I think of you, boy, (raises voice) And, I’m Going To Tell You What I Think Of Your Mother!

👹😮‍💨

Although, yeah: words like “war” can mean a lot of things, right. There’s a “war on drugs”. My Trump-y father talked to me about a Christian movie called “War Room” once, you know. But supposedly, we as a society do not gun down unbelievers or irresponsible teenagers, right. That’s for people you like. Malcolm X talked about “self-defense”, but he never actually gave any orders for gunning down whitey, right. He was such a violent epithet, though. Whereas if, I don’t know, Guns and Glory 7 comes out, then Henry Standardissue isn’t REALLY talking about gunning people down right…. Or at least, he wouldn’t be if it were: Guns and Glory 7: Guns of the Confederacy, right…. Or at least, if there were a big NASCAR character who listens to country music and MAYBE, Talks About owning a Confederate flag, right: talk about how he feels emasculated by the civil rights movement, how he’s oppressed now by the….

And, you know: that’s not to promise Aleister anything. I’m not a Thelemite really, and maybe if I read a book about the Mysterious Chapter, it would seem like a dud, right.

But yeah: there’s a passage of the Bible, I forget which one exactly, where Jesus promises the Little Englanders that the sword will never depart from the witches and the trolls and the opponents of the British Empire, and the Jesus Christ Mission of Democracy & Progress, right…. Until Mr. Green can rest and be serene, roses in every room!

And Richard Dawkins would be all, Fuck the witches and the trolls, sure: fuck everybody: fuck the LOSERS, bro: until the Ghost of Chemists Future and the Spirit of “Pride and Prejudice” unite to bring smugness to all the English people, and all the children—except for the ones that I don’t fucking like because they’re losers, right. Bro, I’m telling you: non-atheists are LOSERS, bro! They’re weird! “But at least some of them aren’t going to HELL, in the Circle of the non-British non-humbug non-collaborators with the Little England Project for Decency and Empire!”

And yet, I would never imply that those people don’t view me with the utmost respect and that they don’t carefully guard my rights from any “marginal” types in society that would dissent from our broad societal consensus of kindness, respect, and mutually acknowledged self-worth, right.

Hmm. Well, okay.

Revision: And yet, in public, I would never imply that….… (altro)

Obviously Aleister has a reputation, and it does seem like some of his books are a little dicey: I wouldn’t do hard drugs, irresponsible drugs, you know—or really anything that’s illegal, as people view illegal drug taking as being like Naziism squared and it’s so not worth it. But as far as de-stigmatizing things that are different from the whole gossip girl reputation that they have (God I love that show: but I digress), I want to give you a slightly edited passage—slightly simplified; it is what I call fancy occultism; it came from the generation of guys who were very labyrinthine in their writings, although there are reasons hidden down there somewhere—and you can decide for yourself if everything he wrote promotes cocaine (Coca-Cola, lol) and “devil worship” (non-Church of Dickens, lol), etc.

After all, the “proper” Crowley/Crawley in those days was Matthew, and you know—come on. Come on, right. Grow up, eek.

Ok:

“[triad #1]
[1] Nothing is
[2] Nothing Becomes
[3] Nothing is not
[triad #2]
[4] GOD the Father and Mother is concealed in Generation
[5] GOD is concealed in the whirling energy of Nature.
[6] GOD is manifest in gathering: harmony: consideration: the Mirror of the Sun and the Heart
[triad #3]
[7] Bearing: preparing
[8] Wavering: flowering: flashing
[9] Stability: begetting
THE TENTH EMANATION
[10] The world”

And if that’s not numerology for the Minor Arcana, I’m a writer for “Downton Abbey”, you know.

…. It’s notable how it’s a sort of non-stereotypical, non-Christ-o-form Buddhism…. “Lies” could be read to mean, “statements not to get attached to”, you know.

…. Of course, it’s not really about Tarot, exactly—Tarot is just one thing—but it’s just such nice philosophy, you know. Philosophy not made out of stone….

…. It’s a bit like Castaneda, but not really. Castaneda is like shamanic philosophy, the man from the beginning of time reasoning it out about life; Crowley is fancy occultism’s philosophy, the riddle-man telling you all about life…. If only you knew. 😉

…. He’s like a ‘bad’ Buddhist. Not totally unknown in the Mahayana countries, that sort of thing, if not exactly how Buddhism gets packaged to the skittish post-Christians and the bored-by-the-Hollywood-scene, shock-me-with-a-little-asceticism crowd, you know.

…. I guess Aleisty IS the ultimate shock to the system to the England normies, you know. (Don’t feel! Don’t think! Don’t embarrass yourself! Don’t embarrass US, dammit!) I can think; I can see beyond the veil of the apparent…. And I can feel; I can be courageous. And you don’t like it, but: were you under the impression that I cared? Would anybody ever REALLY, ~like~ that, really? And what would they be like, if they did?

I remember when I was small they had the village cops come to tell us about ‘drugs’—just say no; just be normal. But there are so many ‘drugs’, so many substances; many are legal, and more should be so, and this idiot perfectionism just sets people up for failure, you know. And there are so many bad-drugs, and instances of substances taken irresponsibly, you know: and there will be more of both, inevitably. And you need so much more to manage any incorrect desires in that situation than, ‘Your parents sent the village cops to teach you idiot perfectionism’, you know…. No one knows everything, or even all that much, really, and plenty of emotionally okay people might have to ask questions that seem a little basic to the cool kids and the specialists and the (god damn) journalists, you know…. But it’s hard to have an open heart, a healthy heart, with a closed mind, and that’s the traditional teaching of the Christian village, you know—huddled round the church.

…. “If I really knew what I wanted, I could give up Laylah, or give up everything for Laylah.”

But I don’t, so I’m normal, you know.

Apollo, that’s profound.

…. “Some men look into their minds and into their memories, and find naught but pain and shame.”

The Morrigan’s a rough girl, but then, I’ve been issued a red card in my day, too. Sometimes better to foul the fucker and make him go to the line and earn it again, (to change the metaphor), than just…. You know, Ah no! Another field goal! You guys are good! Way better than my team! ~you know

~ Although incidentally, things like soccer used to be illegal because theoretically everyone was either working (farming, mostly), “praying” (I just hope things will be alright! I hope Charlie has to get married raise some kids before they realize they’re a para-alcoholic!), doing military training (to protect us from our brother Christians, who are not to be trusted), or maybe yeah, raising about ten kids. But soccer? Whom does that help you control?

…. He really resists stereotypes, it’s great. Not to be a priest who kills poets, or a poet that lies and doesn’t work so that you have to work for him, right: but a priest-poet. Body and soul.

…. What is is part of what isn’t, and what isn’t, is; there’s no dividing them, separating them, or being ‘careful’—so long as you don’t lie to yourself.… (altro)