A Critique of Crowley
The Ab-ul-Diz working parallels Dee and Kelley’s material in numerous ways. We all know that Crowley admired Kelley’s skepticism and strove to emulate it, but you can clearly see in both cases, and with the original reception of Liber AL, the would-be prophet bungled slightly by not doing what he was supposed to do because the idea seemed ludicrous. I know it is important to guard against self-delusion, but some things simply don’t get done if you don’t take a leap of faith. Crowley didn’t have confidence in the book and publish it when he was supposed to. He sort of rejected Aiwass’ message, abandoned Thelema for while, and only came to realize the mistake he had made when he began to suffer the prophesied ordeals. Crowley was frustrated with Ab-ul-Diz, and I get the sense that Magick in Theory and Practice, as amazing, brilliant, and valuable as it is, was not what the wizard Ab-ul-Diz had in mind. Dee and Kelley had the same problem. The angels wanted them to travel. They complained that they couldn’t take all of their stuff and servants and wives with them. So they dicked around. They were still given the keys and the watchtowers, but no clear way of using them. How much more might they had been given if they had done what they were instructed to do?
I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I get very hostile when people advance ill-informed critiques of Crowley. This one, however, I get from a lot of time spent reading his works. Crowley does not apologize for this approach, but he recognizes, as you can clearly tell by the portions of the Confessions in which he discusses these matters, that he saw it was a problem.
Me? I’ve stopped arguing. I’m used to that feeling of my heart falling a thousand feet a minute, trying to reach around for another interpretation, arguing with it, trying to convince myself that I am deluding myself and not seeing and hearing the things I am seeing and hearing, avoiding writing it down and hoping that I forget, and so on. There’s no way around that. You can only go through it, and hopefully, do the thing anyway.
I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I get very hostile when people advance ill-informed critiques of Crowley. This one, however, I get from a lot of time spent reading his works. Crowley does not apologize for this approach, but he recognizes, as you can clearly tell by the portions of the Confessions in which he discusses these matters, that he saw it was a problem.
Me? I’ve stopped arguing. I’m used to that feeling of my heart falling a thousand feet a minute, trying to reach around for another interpretation, arguing with it, trying to convince myself that I am deluding myself and not seeing and hearing the things I am seeing and hearing, avoiding writing it down and hoping that I forget, and so on. There’s no way around that. You can only go through it, and hopefully, do the thing anyway.