Aleister Crowley - Fundamentalist

[aish_mlchmh]

During a recent conversation, a friend of mine identified himself unabashedly as a "fundamentalist" and admittedly, there have been occasions when I've been labeled this as well. Not surprisingly, this term has been lobbied about by detractors and has even been embraced in part for this reason. One could always read "fundament" or the ninth

Comments

[aish_mlchmh]

Culprit??

"Culprit" in the sense of where the 'evil' of this "fundamentalism" emanates.:)

Fundamentalists (of any stripe) tend to pick and choose.

There is an emphasis with what people commmunicate generally. However, there are plenty of areas of agreement from which to draw and if the world view one brings to the table is rooted in the practices and teachings, it hardly follows that that amounts to a negative.

The bible and for that matter Crowley's corpus, contains numerous pieces that seem contradictory.

I don't see the comparison. Crowley was at pains in numerous ways (commentaries, essays, short stories, novels, etc.) to communicate his message.

If there is a singularity located somewhere within the assortment of texts that constitute "The Bible" feel free to point that out to me.

Xian fundamentalists see the bible as inerrant and infallible.
Thelemic fundamentalists see Crowley as inerrant and infallible.This is a false dichotomy in that "inerrancy" and "infalibility" aren't meaningful concepts within Thelema (hence I

[aish_mlchmh]

It is a very curious way to argue, but one that I find is becoming increasingly prevalent in this post-modernist age of deacadence.

There is a notable lack of accountability in this perspective.
By attempting to provide a negative about one's peer or superior (typically), it provides the person aserting the negative with an assurance in their own perspective - however flawed - and effectively circumvents any possibility for a serious analysis. Its essentially nihilistic.

However anyone trained in scientific and philosophical discourse knows that actual rational inquiry demands that they demonstrate their own claims, not invalidate those of others if they want to say something intelligible about their own claim.

Right, and when there is zero onus with demonstrating the claims that are made - based on the anti-individualistic notion of equality - superstition and stupidity (blind acceptance) of the worst sort eventually rise to the top.

It is simply not enough to merely point out a hazy argument that there are contradictions in

[stevensteven]

When I go to my kung fu class, I expect to be taught kung fu - not tae kwon do or karate.

This is a critical point. To continue with your analogy: If a Kung Fu school is really teaching mostly Karate it is going to drive away those students seeking KungFU. But it is not going to really attract sincere Karate students because they will go to a real karate school, so what you are left with is a Kung Fu school with half-hearted karate students.

After a point even if you were to replace the master instructor with someone that teaches KungFu it will be too late because the school will be full of half-hearted karate students with little to no interest in Kung Fu.

It is for this very reason that Crowley said that we should get rid of the half-hearted and the triflers and that we don't need anymore drifting occultists.

clumsy comparison

[paradoxosalpha]

I don't think that Crowley (a man whose life is exhaustively documented with historical precision, and whose writings were intended to promote a fairly coherent agenda) and the Bible (a book made up of heterogeneous texts of uncertain provenance with a common cultural heritage) make for neat comparison to one another