Does anyone have any Crowley quotes on psychology? I know that Dion Fortune and Regardie were in favor of it.
Did Crowley actually believe that magical practitioners should have psycho-analysis before or during magical practice? I don't ever remember him mention it, but then I have not gone over and read all his writings.
I've never come across anything in Crowley's writings suggesting that.
Best wishes,
Michael.
I'm pretty sure it was Regardie who always suggested seeing a shrink. Crowley would have done his best "one-up" the shrinks, I believe.
Didn't Crowley claim to be the world's greatest psychologist? ... or some term to that effect? ... somewhere? - I think so.
Didn't Crowley claim to be the world's greatest psychologist? ... or some term to that effect? ... somewhere? - I think so.
I'm sure he did, somewhere, even if in his own mind. 🙂
Well, "make severe the ordeals" is hardly psychological. Still, I've got to give it to the shrinks who try to reverse the ordeals.
I think it would be fairer to say that crowley tended to think more in the discourse of psychoanalysis rather than psychology (btw Regardie recommended analytic work rather than psychology for occultist-not to be a nit, but the difference is important).
Probably Crowley.s main writing employing the discourse of psychology is his introduction to the goetia (but even that is informed by analytic models).
Crowley comments on Freud in MWT, however, there are deeper engagements in other texts. One of the more interesting is the chapter on magickal memory in MTP, especially the sections where he talks about how to tell a useful memory from a frivolous one. In the Magickal Record of the Beast 666, from his NYC years to his time at the Abbey, Crowley deeply engages the discourse of psychoanalysis. Crowley, of course, analyzed himself (generally not possible in psychoanalysis --not saying that position is right but that is their position). IN the diary Crowley uses analysis to deeply examine his psyche, his history, and the ideas he produces.
Last, we learn in The Beast in Berlin, that Crowley was impressed with Alfred Aldler, and felt they were saying very similar things.
In Magick in Theory and Practice, Crowley writes, "The sincere student will discover, behind the symbolic technicalities of his book, a practical method of making himself a Magician. The processes described will enable him to discriminate between what he actually is, and what he has fondly imagined himself to be."
This differentiation is, of course, the heart of Thelema.
To these sentences, Crowley attaches the following footnote:
In other words, Crowley thinks that Freud understood some of this idea of magick but got a key part of it backwards: Freud understands that there are "disastrous effects on the individual" when the individual is "false to his [or her] Unconscious Self." But rather than embracing that Unconscious self, Freud committed the " the error of admitting that the avowedly suicidal 'Censor' is the proper arbiter of conduct."
Where Freud upholds a "fraud" by siding with the super-egoic "Censor," Crowley's Thelema recommends a process of unveiling that Unconscious self to the individual and embracing it.
Yes, I think that Los gets very much to the essence of the matter here.
Crowley did comment on Jung as well, usually in conjunction with Freud, I think. Cannot recall if he had anything to say about Jung's more spiritual approach, his concept of the Archetypes etc. (although I'm not certain that Jung had fully explored this by the time of Crowleys' death).
Perhaps you could carry on the good work here, Los ? (Bloody cheek, I know, ;)).