Visitors will note that I have temporarily removed access to the LAShTAL.COM Forums.
The following is the text of an email I received at home a short while ago from a member of the site. Other than to remove an email address and user name, the text is unedited. I reproduce it here because it is my intention to radically revise the site and I believe it will prove useful in generating discussion, by way of Comments to this News item, that may influence the direction the site takes. Of course, it might well be that the criticism is generally considered well-founded, in which case the result might well be even more radical than I plan…
Dear Webfuehrer Paul,
I request a refund of my recent 6.66 GBP donation ($13.61 American at the time, [date deleted]) to the upkeep and development of Lashtal.com. You may credit it to my PayPal account at [email address deleted].
It is a pittance, I know, and I don’t need the money, but I cannot bear to think that my money will, in any way, support a website that treats aspirants to the Light, Life, Love and Liberty of the Law of Thelema the way I see you treating anubis1.john, as the most recent example, newbie though he may be. That attitude will more effectively kill Thelema than any Judeo-Xian fascist pogrom ever could.
Thelema, as portrayed by Lashtal.com, has become no more and no less than a circle jerk. You and your ilk seem to think that you OWN Thelema, and Aleister Crowley for that matter, and you don’t. The cats are long out of the bag and you folks are running around trying to herd the cats back in, to no avail. Thelema is a force, a current, a FIRE in the heart of man, it is not a commodity to be hoarded and parcelled out to the good old boys (ladies admitted to the Club only if good looking and subservient). Your attitude, and that of the subscribers who continue to seriously support your site, is a huge disappointment to me, because it seems those who continue to support it and you are doing it only for some sort of pathetic validation of their own wrong-headed interpretation of the Law. The attitude seems to be it’s not what you know, it’s not what you have to share, it’s WHO you know that is important. What a crock of crap. Insititutionalized Thelema, your Thelema, is like I said no more than a circle jerk. And we see it. And we laugh.
I can only hope I live long enough to see the fire of Thelema burning down the flimsy vessels built to contain it.
Show me the money.
Regards,
[Username deleted]
Needless to say, there’s not one thing in the email with which I agree – and I’m aware that the hurt felt by the person sending it is based on his affection for an ex-member – but it does raise some issues that need to be considered if LAShTAL.COM is to continue to maintain its position as the definitive online source of intelligent discussion of Thelema, if only to ensure that the Guidelines are rewritten so as to be more effective.