Iskandar wrote: › In either case, I guess I was wrong in interpreting the issue from my angle.

Quote: › He also intended that his system, particularly his Law of Liberty be accepted by the world at large.

Iskandar wrote: › Okidoki. It seems that contemporary OTO is somewhat more embracing, as evidenced from the following:

Camlion wrote: ›

I do perceive an ever increasing rejection of the slave gods happening in a seemingly spontaneous manner, without external instigation, leaving a vacuum waiting to filled by 'something.'

zardoz wrote: › It seems Crowley also intended to free humankind from reliance and dependence upon external authority including his own.

Patriarch156 wrote: › In fact AC wanted his organisation that was devoted to promulgating the Law to not allow anyone who hadn't rejected the slave-gods and their religions (ie those four) to have anything do with his organisation.

Iskandar wrote: › Hi again, Patriarch156. I am surprised you say we are not talking about OTO but Crowley, since you yourself wrote:

Quote: › Otherwise, if you had in mind the A.'.A.'., I could of course point out the final sentences from Liber Librae.

Quote: › They must accept the Book of the Law as the Word and the Letter of Truth, and the sole Rule of Life.

This is not in contradiction with the absolute right of every person to do his own true Will. But any True Will is of necessity in harmony with the facts of Existence; and to refuse to accept the Book of the Law is to create a conflict within Nature, as if a physicist insisted on using an incorrect formula of mechanics as the basis of an experiment.

They must acknowledge the Authority of the Beast 666 and of the Scarlet Woman as in the book it is defined, and accept Their Will

"Their Will" --- not, of course, their wishes as individual human beings, but their will as officers of the New Aeon.

as concentrating the Will of our Whole Order. They must accept the Crowned and Conquering Child as the Lord of the Aeon, and exert themselves to establish His reign upon Earth. They must acknowledge that "The word of the Law is [in Greek] Thelema" and that "Love is the law, love under will."

Each member must make it his main work to discover for himself his own true will, and to do it, and do nothing else.

It is not considered "essential to right conduct" to be an active propagandist of the Law, and so on; it may, or may not, be the True Will of any particular person to do so. But since the fundamental purpose of the Order is to further the Attainment of humanity, membership implies, by definition, the Will to help mankind by the means best adapted thereto.

He must accept those orders in the Book of the Law that apply to himself as being necessarily in accordance with his own true will, and execute the same to the letter with all the energy, courage, and ability that he can command. This applies especially to the work of extending the Law in the world, wherein his proof is his own success, the witness of his Life to the Law that hath given him light in his ways, and liberty to pursue them. Thus doing, he payeth his debt to the Law that hath freed him by working its will to free all men; and he proveth himself a true man in our Order by willing to bring his fellows into freedom.

Quote: › In general, I do not disagree with you. As I said, I was not claiming but inquiring about things. Thinking aloud. Interested in what people might think. Thanks for the thoughts and clarifications.

Patriarch156 wrote: ›

I think this is a very modern an kind reading of Crowley which has no substance in either his teachings (as he formulated them) or how he acted.

zardoz wrote: › I believe you're missing the obvious. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law and Love is the law, love under will places final authority in following one's True Will.

To me, he certainly acted his whole life with little if any dependence upon external authority. He also appeared quite interested in sharing his vision with others so that they might benefit.

Quote: › Let all men obey me, The Beast, the Prophet of Nuit! For my number is 666, the Number of the Sun. That is, I am the Light and Centre of their system of Stars; and my Word is as a ray to them who are of Earth. Let them obey the light, and Impulse of that which I am in Truth, although I lie deep hidden in a body of flesh. Seek ye to know Nuit! Seek to enjoy all that may be, although ye loathe it in your souls. This is your ordeal, which ye must pass in order to be free and whole; to know all things alike, to try, to do, to love and to rejoice in all.
-Comment Called D

Patriarch156 wrote: ›

Again it is you who seems to be missing the obvious, whatever your own modern take on those words, I don't think a close reading from Crowley's own take on it follows your rather liberal take on it. A.C. clearly saw himself as the head, final authority and arbiter on many things but particularly what constitutes Thelema, this is shown in both how he acted, in what he wrote in his letters and diaries and in his actual published writings.

Patriarch156 wrote: ›
To wit:



'Let all men obey The Beast etc.' is not at all the same as 'let all men obey me, Aleister Crowley'


In fact his view of the spiritual hierarchies was such that before a new aeon commenced, he couldn't imagine a new legitimate Magus that would not accept him as the authority and either expand his work or correct people's understanding of it.

Quote: › As far as his behavior goes, Did AC rely upon external authority? Did he spend a lot of time communicating his vision and spiritual path?

Camlion wrote: › I agree that, were Crowley alive today, he would likely insist upon reigning over any Thelemic movement that prevailed, as he did during his life. Opposition to this would likely be cut from contact with him. How much of a movement there would actually be is therefore questionable. But, the fact is, he is gone and we are here.

Patriarch156 wrote: › Liberal as in that you perceived a non-strict system without even A.C. as an authority, whereas A.C. posited the opposite.

Patriarch156 wrote: ›
Note also his comments about the nations who would rule in his name would use the third chapter of AL as an instruction and how they would appeal to him when in doubt as to the understanding of the chapter.

Patriarch156 wrote: ›
You saying that Crowley wrote many things some of them apparently contradictory is not an argument, it is an unsupported statement irrelevant to this discussion. To make it relevant you would have to provide where Crowley contradicted the above and support that this in fact does contradict it and is not merely taken out of context.

Patriarch156 wrote: ›
Your attempts to do this with your reference to Liber Oz also has no bearing on this since yes living as one will is within that Law. But as Crowley additionally argues in his commentary to the declaration of the rights of Man, the absolute rule of the state (with him as spiritual head) would at the same time secure this right. There is in other words nothing that contradicts this.

Patriarch156 wrote: ›
Incidentially the declaration of the rights of Man were originally written during Crowley's magus period, a period where he stressed the sociopolitical system of his Law of Liberty with him as head and remained an integral part of it.

Quote: › As far as his behavior goes, Did AC rely upon external authority? Did he spend a lot of time communicating his vision and spiritual path?

I was referring to how he treated his disciples and how he in actual fact dealt with novel attempts at dethroning his authority, such as Mudd for example and before that Jones.

Patriarch156 wrote: ›
Again I am not saying that you can't disagree with A.C., just that your reading of him seems unsubstantiated in my eyes for the reasons I mentioned.

zardoz wrote: › You have a very inaccurate read on my comments. And you are way off on how you imagine my perceptions. You react as if I said that AC advocated rejecting all authority whereas I did not. I perceive this system as very very strict and I certainly accept and admire Crowley as an authority of it. This does not make me or anyone else dependent upon that authority.

Quote: › Appealing to authority for understanding is fine and recommended and doesn't have to indicate relying on authority to be told what to do.

Quote: › You're wrong, it's very relevant. The fact that he apparently contradicts himself a great deal indicates that one might not want to take all his writings as starkly literal dogma. A google search will substantiate that he wrote many things. A quick perusal of The Book of Lies will show much apparent contradiction.

Quote: › Perhaps you'd like to substantiate this, I don't know where this commentary is. If you already have earlier in this thread, I apologize, I missed it.

Quote: › Perhaps you'd like to substantiate this?

Quote: › You didn't answer my questions. Dethroning authority is completely different than becoming less reliant or dependent upon it. Perhaps I try to make to fine a point?

Quote: › I'm not at all disagreeing with AC. I'm pretty amazed that you don't accept clear direct unambiguous quotes from Liber AL and OZ as substantiation. Your attempts to invalidate my comments look pretty weak and unsupported, to me.