crowley
I've finished about half of the book of the law. Willing to risk "being shunned like a centre of pestilence", my opinion thus far is that the book paints a drastically different portrait of what I'd thought to have been 'Love'. It seems belittling and elitist. I don't feel uncomfortable reading it, but it truthfully makes me slightly uncomfortable to recognize the high esteem in which so many people hold it. The things to which I can relate and with which I agree are by no means exclusive to this book but rather appear to be common values in a perverted context. Admittedly there are a lot of passages that I simply do not even sort of understand at all, but the overall theme strikes me as coming across as a sickening ambition, and I'm getting mixed messages (likely due to my inability to interpret these words consistently) between the loving of all unconditionally, and the exclusion of the weak - who are painted as dogs - maybe sick dogs from which to feed and on which to prey. Torn am I between its intention of greed and love - while I associate Love with Compassion, this book associates love with what I'd previously seen as Hate.
"Pity Not the Fallen! I never knew them. I am not for them. I console not: I hate the consoled & the consoler"
Actually a little sickening, a lot of these passages are.
If someone has read, and doesn't mind sharing an interpretation of these perversions . . .
I'm trying to find resource material on a spirituality or belief that is void of unnecessary dogma, void of a god incarnate, maleable, and full of the potential for lovely positivity. I understand that there is an immense body of energy to be tapped into, but have yet to find channels that I can relate to while still maintaining the virtues that I believe to be right - the ones that work for me.
(note to please pardon any lack of consistencies or presence of hypocrisies in my opinions, as I'm trying to straighten these thoughts out in my head as they stream by). I guess now that it is important to distinguish what it is I want to achieve from a spirituality, and what I do not want to achieve. The riches and extravagencies, although probably (hopefully) metaphorical, described by Crowley do not interest me. I have all that I need and most that I want. I far prefer the Jesus idea to the Crowleyan. I will find myself gravitating towards the atheistic spiritual practices (I will, as a rule it would seem, lose the ability to relate as soon as a spiritual practice manifests or deifies any ultimate or absolute energy - it needn't a name and I'm inclined to lean towards it not being external or segregated from neither mind nor matter (for that matter, 'it', as a term, is unfair as well)). I think it fine that in the TBOTL's Nuit's self-declaration of being 'None' - yet it sure has a strong opinion and sense of self-righteousness for being an existential concept. Even Nuit has very strong monotheistic tones according to my initial impression. That which I seek does not need segregative discriminations. I'd still like to believe that anyone on a spiritual path, period, is headed in the right direction. "The only law is do what thou wilt". Fine. To each his own. Choose what works. But I don't need to be called a heretic for deviating from the preconceived pattern of ritual. I need nobody else's mantras - they were written by someone for whom they worked personally - which is great - but English is a very relative language, and language a very subjective idea - another's words hold very different weight, and their methods, as long as they occupy a different body than myself, are likely to be culturally biased. Do what thou wilt. I appreciate folklore, myth, and testiments, but deem them unnecessary beyond entertainment. My past holds no gods, no faeries, no creators, no saints nor avatars. I can not relate to these things consequent to the building of others' beliefs. Christianity pulls so much from the mythology of the Old Testiment - and though I value that of which Moses spoke, I knew no Moses, nor did he know me. It is unlikely that he was the first to have said such things. Crowley refers to his Aiwass voice - I have never even heard of the gods to whom this book refers. Horus I've heard of, but he holds absolutely no relevance in my present and is therefore useless to me. Is this arrogant of me to assume that these characters - fact or fiction - are unnecessary to what I look to achieve? They appear to me as trails of bread crumbs used to remind those in search of spiritual development that there IS SOMETHING to fall back on.
My 'religion' must be more chaotic than this. As many different enlightments may exist as there are beings able to become enlightened. Rituals can not be imposed as being fundamental to achieving access to anything ethereal.
"Pity Not the Fallen! I never knew them. I am not for them. I console not: I hate the consoled & the consoler"
Actually a little sickening, a lot of these passages are.
If someone has read, and doesn't mind sharing an interpretation of these perversions . . .
I'm trying to find resource material on a spirituality or belief that is void of unnecessary dogma, void of a god incarnate, maleable, and full of the potential for lovely positivity. I understand that there is an immense body of energy to be tapped into, but have yet to find channels that I can relate to while still maintaining the virtues that I believe to be right - the ones that work for me.
(note to please pardon any lack of consistencies or presence of hypocrisies in my opinions, as I'm trying to straighten these thoughts out in my head as they stream by). I guess now that it is important to distinguish what it is I want to achieve from a spirituality, and what I do not want to achieve. The riches and extravagencies, although probably (hopefully) metaphorical, described by Crowley do not interest me. I have all that I need and most that I want. I far prefer the Jesus idea to the Crowleyan. I will find myself gravitating towards the atheistic spiritual practices (I will, as a rule it would seem, lose the ability to relate as soon as a spiritual practice manifests or deifies any ultimate or absolute energy - it needn't a name and I'm inclined to lean towards it not being external or segregated from neither mind nor matter (for that matter, 'it', as a term, is unfair as well)). I think it fine that in the TBOTL's Nuit's self-declaration of being 'None' - yet it sure has a strong opinion and sense of self-righteousness for being an existential concept. Even Nuit has very strong monotheistic tones according to my initial impression. That which I seek does not need segregative discriminations. I'd still like to believe that anyone on a spiritual path, period, is headed in the right direction. "The only law is do what thou wilt". Fine. To each his own. Choose what works. But I don't need to be called a heretic for deviating from the preconceived pattern of ritual. I need nobody else's mantras - they were written by someone for whom they worked personally - which is great - but English is a very relative language, and language a very subjective idea - another's words hold very different weight, and their methods, as long as they occupy a different body than myself, are likely to be culturally biased. Do what thou wilt. I appreciate folklore, myth, and testiments, but deem them unnecessary beyond entertainment. My past holds no gods, no faeries, no creators, no saints nor avatars. I can not relate to these things consequent to the building of others' beliefs. Christianity pulls so much from the mythology of the Old Testiment - and though I value that of which Moses spoke, I knew no Moses, nor did he know me. It is unlikely that he was the first to have said such things. Crowley refers to his Aiwass voice - I have never even heard of the gods to whom this book refers. Horus I've heard of, but he holds absolutely no relevance in my present and is therefore useless to me. Is this arrogant of me to assume that these characters - fact or fiction - are unnecessary to what I look to achieve? They appear to me as trails of bread crumbs used to remind those in search of spiritual development that there IS SOMETHING to fall back on.
My 'religion' must be more chaotic than this. As many different enlightments may exist as there are beings able to become enlightened. Rituals can not be imposed as being fundamental to achieving access to anything ethereal.