By Golly, Holy Smoke and the Seven Dwarfs 😮  It does say that, doesn't it? I never noticed that before. How unusual of Baphomet. Like him ... I am perplexed ???

From the very same document:

And though this name of Jesus Christ hath been universally blasphemed by Christians, yet this Name hath been acknowledged by the true Brothers of the Rosie Crosse: and this which is written of Him in the Evangels and in the Epistles and the Apocalypse is true, if it be interpreted in light by the adepts of the Stone.
For in God-man is our salvation; in Him We are both GOD and man. Yet the Testament thereof, being
betrayed and given to the multitude, hath been profaned; as it is written, Cast not your pearls before
swine, lest they turn again and rend you!
Therefore for their ill guarding of the secrets have the adepts been persecuted these two thousand years. See thou to it, Very Illustrious Sir Knights, that through no fault of thine the truth be lost. Trust not a stranger; fail not of an heir.

Even though some posters here want to downgrade the whole doctrine of Thelema itself as some rebellious antithesis of Crowley's religious upbringing with the Plymouth Brethren, it is clear that Crowley certainly did appreciate and even employ lot of the esoteric symbolism found in the Gospels.

Cowan, skidoo!

Yes, he did. Everyone who ever set forth anything about anything always employed elements of what they already knew. What else did they have as a foundation?

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law!

Shiva and Ayino, thank you to you both for responding.  There is a certain amount of danger in broaching touchy subjects such as Thelema's relationship to Christianity as well as secret teachings.  But, I have not received the 9th degree teachings under the seal of a vow as yet, so better to have everything out in the open and in the light of the Sun. 

I can't say I feel perplexed, Shiva.  When I first read Liber C, my reaction was laughter... a laughter of recognition.  Baphomet had reconciled all paths in himself and then handed them over to the Jesus of the Gospels.

Y

Love is the Law, Love under will.

Well, that's your opinion. You're basing an awful lot on a just a few words at the end of Liber Agapé. Taking his work as a whole, Crowley seems to have had a poor opinion of Christianity; he seems to have been more interested in Eastern Mysticism, in particular Taoism.

In his novel The Fish, Crowley refers to Christianity as "leprosy of the heart". Brilliant! But the question remains why he invoked the deity of Christianity in Agape. He was certainly not as anti-Christian, as some would have us believe, nor was he a christianophile, as Yeheshuah seems to think.

Markus

"I possessed a theology of my own which was, to all intents and purposes, Christianity. My satanism did not interfere with it at all. I was trying to take the view that the Christianity of hypocrisy and cruelty was not true Christianity. I did not hate God or Christ, but merely the God and Christ of the people whom I hated." (Confessions)

More often though A.C. was very critical of Christianity. I recall reading somewhere that He wrote that He was the "sacred heart of Jesus girt about with the serpent" and that Christianity had not shown courage since Christ faced his fate at Jerusalem and during the Crusades, but I cannot remember where?

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law!

Falcon, the work you are looking for is Regardie's The Eye in the Triangle.  But the notion that Crowley used the title "sacred heart of Jesus girt about with the serpent" was Regardie's speculation.  Regardie was trying to solve the mystery of Crowley's 5=6 motto, I believe.

It is true, I am putting a lot of weight on a few words to make Crowley a Christian, at least in what I have written.  Without listing all of the evidence, let me be suggestive: King's The Secret Rituals and Reuss and Crowley's Rituals and Sex Magick (edited by AR Naylor) leave little doubt in my mind that the higher reaches of the OTO are Christian in character.  This does not mean, of course, that the AA or Thelema are Christian, as the OTO, AA and Thelema are not coextensive. 

Y

Love is the Law, Love under will.

I wonder how much of this might be a confusion of "Christianity" with the crucifixion formula of death and rebirth on which both the myths of Christianity and much of the core initiatic traditions are based. I don't have any secret OTO documents from which to prove that speculation in this case, but it is relatively common for exoteric traditions to overshadow and thereby misrepresent the esoteric framework underlying them, crucifixion being one of the most common.

Crucifixion being one minor theme among the others, the whole Gospels and their symbolism in-itself provide the complete system if considered esoterically and astrologically. Twelve disciples represent the zodiac. Jesus considered as the Sun and Mercury in it's modifications etc:

I repeat:
Cowan, skidoo!

.............
Hahaha!  - Shiva IX[sup:1a8fklt8]o[/sup:1a8fklt8][/align:1a8fklt8]

The “Christian” words and phrases from Liber Agape, which was originally  intended as an O.T.O. IX[sup:1i8dx87d]o[/sup:1i8dx87d] document commissioned from Crowley by Theodor Reuss, were probably a sop to the beliefs of the Order under Reuss at the time A.C. wrote them. 

As I have highlighted before in another thread, these beliefs were not (to begin and end with, anyway) Thelemic but instead based upon what the Order labelled “Gnostic Neo-Christianity”, a sort of esoteric and rosicrucianised version of Judaeo-Christianity the essence of which was also shared by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.  It may even also reflect an element of Crowley’s own perception and beliefs before he was “possessed” by the truth of the spirit of The Book of the Law as it “came into his possession” at some point between 1906 and 1909.

I agree with Markus’s comment in Reply #6: Crowley’s attitude towards Christianity itself is more often than not ambivalent, and inconsistent throughout his lifetime; but I find the statement in Confessions from which Falcon quotes in Reply #7 to also be pertinent and more or less correct. 

Crowley also intended to publish his lengthy study of Christianity called "Liber Jesus sub figura 888", otherwise known as "The Gospel According to St [George] Bernard Shaw" (and later to come out, edited by Francis King, as "Crowley on Christ") in Volume III Number 2 immediately after The Blue Equinox.  We are still waiting for this to appear under the C.O.T.O.'s auspices nearly thirty years after the unexpurgated text was first announced to be ready "in galley proofs".

Norma n Joy Conquest

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law!

Falcon's quote from the Confessions points in the same direction I am pointing... I think.  Christianity is not a monolithic institution, but a variety of different, overlapping institutions, groups and individuals, much like Thelema.  Crowley's Christian theology is an example of that variety. 

Liber 888 does much the same thing as Falcon's quote, insofar as it takes the Christ of the Christians to be objectionable yet finds a possible value in Jesus.  It has been a while since I read 888.  From what I remember, Crowley proposes a non-historical Jesus who takes on the role of the initiate in a theurgical drama. 

As far as I can tell, Crowley and Reuss envisioned a long course of initiation, bringing the initiate back into a purified Christianity.  There would be no condemning law in that Christianity, only the freedom of grace.  The word of Sin is Restriction.

Y

Love is the law, love under will.

There is no grace, there is no guilt.
This is the law....

Knowing Crowley's multidimensional character/personality and ability to appreciate many different, apparently opposing points of view, as well as his immense sense of humour, I don't find the above Liber as something terribly un-crowley-like.
Crowley certainly was able to differentiate between the contemporary perverted christianity and the true teachings of Master Jesus the man (if such even existed), as was, for example, mentioned by Falcon in reply #7.

If we look at this in that way, this whole "our Lord Jesus Christ" can simply be read as "our True Will".

Also, let me remind you of an excellent quote from "Book 4", Part II: "It was that Master whose Will was so powerful that at its lightest expression the deaf heard, and the dumb spake, lepers were cleansed and the dead arose to life, that Master and no other who at the supreme moment of his agony could cry, "Not my Will, but Thine, be done."

Based on the document referenced in your first post, there is no question Crowley compromised his dislike for Christianity in order to accommodate the O.T.O., but you're attempting to invert the concept envisioned by Crowley. Your vision of Christianity encapsulates Thelema, whereas Crowley's vision of Thelema encapsulates all of the known religions, including Christianity.

I wonder if the full text of Crowley's letter to William B. Crow, where he maintained that the task of the O.T.O. was "to restore Christianity to its real status as a solar-phallic religion" is available anywhere?

http://www.lashtal.com/forum/http://www.lashtal.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4

Thank you for the book recommendations.

I will be forever puzzled by how many people still don't know that the A∴A∴
is one of many names the Priory of Sion has used over the centuries.

that Master and no other who at the supreme moment of his agony could cry, “Not my Will, but Thine, be done.

I like that... they are not my words very close though.. mine are ... Be U so U can B

thanking you... for the data reminder about Assholes Anonymous...

ps: I will be forever puzzled by how many people still don’t know that the A∴A∴
is one of many names the Priory of Sion has used over the centuries.

The Priory of Sion, was a fringe fraternal organisation, founded and dissolved in France in 1956 by Pierre Plantard as part of a hoax. In the 1960s, Plantard created a fictitious history for that organization, describing it as a secret society founded by Godfrey of Bouillon on Mount Zion in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099, conflating it with a genuine historical monastic order, the Abbey of Our Lady of Mount Zion.

After becoming a cause célèbre from the late 1960s to the 1980s, the mythical Priory of Sion was exposed as a ludibrium* created by Plantard as a framework for his claim of being the Great Monarch prophesied by Nostradamus. -Wikipedia

* Ludibrium is a word derived from Latin ), meaning a plaything or a trivial game. See also: Magister Ludi - The Glass Bead Game.

If you remain "forever puzzled," you will not obtain/attain to Liberation. All Orders are sacred and all Profits true; too bad they don't have the complete picture.

If these astral-mental entities, personas, and Orders used "A.'.A.'.", that's their business, but they certainly did not infiltrate The Great White Brotherhood known as the A.'.A.'., because that was just Crowley's emblem that he superimposed over The Invisible Order that has No Name amongst us Savages.

Technically speaking, this is all a reference to The Spectrum of Consciousness, upon which EVERY serious, secret, arcane, frivolous, selfish, self-centered, and selfless Order, Group, Coven, or Collegium has been based ... accurately, sort-of-accurately, or skew-wise.

what was that Brazilian word for mother?

I must see this in person IT IE north south are/not thing