Did receive my email confirmation for the talk; slightly different emphasis from Rachel, but I'm pleased to say that we are both in agreement about the topic  🙂

"This talk is a consideration of inspired messages and teachings received from higher spiritual sources, with a particular focus on Aleister Crowley's Cairo Working of 1904 and his receipt of The Book of the Law.  There will be a brief historical overview and some other examples for comparison.

Although it will focus on Liber AL and Thelema, the talk will also incorporate other esoteric transmissions and ideas.

There will, of course, be time for questions and discussion later."

Actually, this is just an excuse to keep in the current topic listings, to give more people a chance to see it - one positive response, so far.

Ill be there satansadvocado if you want to pay for my plane fare and let me sleep in some park somewhere. 😉 sounds good though. I wonder what other texts are in discussion.  I would think they would go for the voice in the silence by blavatsky maybe, or something else of hers. 

I can't imagine a discussion of "inspired transmissions" that would be complete without a reference to William Blake's poems:

"Of the Sleep of Ulro! and of the passage through
Eternal Death! and of the awaking to Eternal Life
This theme calls me in sleep night after night, & ev'ry morn
Awakes me at sun-rise, then I see the Saviour over me
Spreading his beams of love, & dictating the words of this mild song."

Are they going to be discussing Joseph Smith Jr., and L Ron Hubbard as well? These characters should fit right in with the topic of conversation. Hopefully they will also talk about how most the people who make these types of claims are quacks, like HP Blavatsky, who worked with "mediums" and circus side shows for years before declaring she had come in contact with mahatmas.

Smith was a convicted felon, caught up in a confidence scheme involving treasure hunting, and dowsing for water in the 1800's, he went on to found the LDS church. Blavatsky was known to hang around mediums and spiritualists at circus side shows, she "borrowed" their techniques when starting her own sideshow called theosophy.

We all know about Scientology... how much longer before we can place Thelema or OTO or whatever in this category?

I'm pretty sure most people already do place Thelema in this category (or they would, if more people knew about it).

Obviously, a great deal of people throughout history who have claimed to receive "transmissions" have been charlatans or nutjobs. William Blake is an interesting case because even though he clearly had some kind of mental disorder, he produced exquisite and fascinating poetry that was the product of (what he mistook for) "spiritual experiences."

Usually, these "communications" result in nothing more than rambling nonsense or wishy-washy attempts to sound "poetic" or "Biblical." Blake's work is like that in some regards, but it's also just great poetry in its own right, something that's difficult to say about most of these other supposed "transmissions."

Emphasis mine.

What do you mean by "mistook for spiritual experiences"?  I recall you saying something to the effect of "people can and do have magical/mystical/spiritual experiences but the problem comes when they attribute reality/objectivity to them".  He had a "spiritual experience" and his life and poetry were enriched by it.  So what, Los?  I don't understand why you have such a problem with this stuff.  Why do things like this bother you so much?  You are always calling people out on anything magical/mystical/spiritual (and Blake no less!).  None of these things have ANY real impact on you or your life, obviously, so why don't you quit being a busy body and just "do you"?  Can't you come up with ANYTHING better to talk about here?  Seriously?!?  Its the same bullshit over and over, ad nauseaum.  ::)

Ah, What fun it would be to have all you guys at my little talk on Tuesday evening !

Think you'll have to have a stab at astral projection, el christo, if you want to be there (check the location out on Google Earth/Satellite and start from there, given the weather forecast we'll probably be in the back garden).  There are some good parks in Sheffield, but you'd be welcome to sleep on my sofa.

Spoilt for choice as regards inspired transmissions it must be said - intend to have a quick run through Ezekiel, the author of Revelation, Mohammed, John Dee, Blavatsky, and the GD with its Secret Chiefs, actually.

William Blake's poems are some of my favourites, but I won't be going there and I don't have any plans on covering mental disorders.  However, as the subject has come up, I did have the beginnings of a migraine yesterday and as the vivid lights and colours were starting to impose themselves on my sight I did initially mistake the experience for a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Thanks for the invite SA 😀 I will try my best to extemporise and excorporealise myself!