[Opinion] "I Come To Praise Aleister, Not Bury Him."

[Asteriskos]

It's a joke. And it's not disturbing when gays or progressives defend themselves against someone saying "Fuck you".

Post automatically merged: Jul 26, 2024

Also, I've been lured off-topic, and I've said all I want to say about Crowley, so I'm stopping here.

Amen, er... "So Mote it Be", Brother! ;^)

 

[David Wilson-Steer]

OK, Crowley gets little love in the forum. Still, he was---and remains--- immensely influential. So let's try saying something good about him. And no, saying "He had a wonderful head of hair in his youth" won't cut it.

ME: First, he had a pretty damned fine writing style (though organizational ability lags.) He had bigger balls than mine being the Alpine mountaineer he was. His working up the exhaustive lists of correspondences he did was quite a feat, and one useful---even though his work is not the last word here.

Uncle AL, as I call him, was a consummate magician. Knowing that words are magic so you can't use words to describe magic, he writes obliquely. In fact, he has a great sense of humour and writes with his tongue firmly in his cheek; or probably Vicky's cheek! Crowley's writing doesn't make sense until you do the magic yourself then you realise you can't take him on face value. He also uses a lot of codes to hide what he's doing.

Post automatically merged: Jul 27, 2024

I enjoy a lot of his writings on Ceremonial Magick and specifically Magick without Tears.

I don’t really ever feel the need to bring him up good or bad though because he is divisive as a topic of conversation.

I have not really ever had a strong pull towards Thelema especially because I’ve more than had my fill of Religion in this life.

But a person can learn a lot from Crowley’s path of Attainment.

The AA and OTO both have incredibly long Reading/Study lists and if nothing else a person could be exposed to some differing philosophical views and Methods.

Post automatically merged: Jun 15, 2024

I in my ignorance was not previously aware of Crowley resorting to Animal Sacrifice.

As it relates to our discussions in the thread on that topic.

@Xenophon and @Wintruz

My apologies Gentlemen.

He also refers to sacrificing children, but, as with everything that Crowley writes, you have to look beyond what you think the words mean.

Post automatically merged: Jul 27, 2024

Of course, Crowley was NEVER a Satanist. You can't perform the Abramelin and be a Satanist.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

He also refers to sacrificing children, but, as with everything that Crowley writes, you have to look beyond what you think the words mean.

I think it's generally held that this is code for "had a wank"

Bill Hicks: "Whole civilisations have died on my chest!"

 

[neilwilkes]

Part of the problem is that many of the people who advance this point of view actually are the crappy thing they are being accused of.

Joke from Twitter:

How to find Nazis:

1) Make a post saying "Fuck Nazis"
2) Read the comments
3) You found the Nazis

I think that's the very point I am trying to make, but you did it better & with a sense of hunmour too.

Post automatically merged: Jul 27, 2024

I tried to edit this into the above, but because it took me longer than 5 minutes to write it was not allowed.
So here we go - I come to Praise Aleister, not bury him - so had better get on with it

Crowley frightens a lot of people because I think that even today he makes them feel inadequate, pure & simple. They struggle to understand what he has written, cannot begin to understand the context in which it was written and hate him because they cannot comprehend his writing.
Solution? He must be far right, of course!
I don't need to tell the more widely read amongst us this, but before Crowley started publishing The Equinox, magickal manuscripts were by & large just that - manuscripts, and you had to make your own copies (often of copies themselves) which is why there are so many variations of certain texts such as the Key of Solomon, Lemegeton, Liber Juratus and so on ad nauseam. Yes, it could be argued that Israel Regardie did a better job of the editing when 'Gems from The Equinox' was published, but The Equinox itself carries things that Regardie left out (The Temple of Solomon The King, the various 'special supplements' such as Levi's 'The Key of The Mysteries') although my first version of The Equinox was indeed 'Gems' as in the 1980's it was almost impossible finding copies of the original 10 volumes, even the 2 volume Weiser reprint was in the many hundreds of pounds & believe me, £500 in the 1980's was a hell of a lot more to find than it is these days!
When I was Neophyte, I had to read as much as I could get my hands on and rapidly discovered that most published books are not worth the paper they are printed on and the first book that I thought was actually worth the purchase price & more besides was Book 4, part 3 - Theory & Practise. Finally things started to make sense to me and not just in a dry way, but with a sense of humour - far, far too many people always take Crowley at his written word when it should be obvious that he is simply taking the piss out of not only you, the reader, but also himself! This is plan for even the dullest intellect in his Autohagiography (and probably the reason it's almost impossible to buy a copy of it these days, too).

There is nobody who cannot fail to learn from Crowlety if only they would approach his writing as it was meant to be taken without trying to cram him into the modern woke ideal of a no-ball retard who is ashamed of who he is. Crowley was never ashamed of who he was - but neither did he take himself as seriously as some people appear to do.