Path: typhoon.sonic.net!not-for-mail From: 333 Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.satanism,alt.pagan.magick,alt.paranormal.spells.hexes.magic Subject: Crowley, Black Mass, Booby Traps (was Magick in Theory ...) Organization: Sonoma Interconnect,Santa Rosa,CA(us),http://www.sonic.net Lines: 328 Sender: yronwode@sonic.net Message-ID: <9ouc7m$vr2@bolt.sonic.net> References: <01c12ccc$12983500$d8865f18@federalist> <3B8ACB09.5CEA@Xtra.co.nz> <9o0ct5$vmh@bolt.sonic.net> Reply-To: nagasiva@yronwode.com X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.4 (NOV) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 05:08:07 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.201.224.36 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sonic.net X-Trace: typhoon.sonic.net 1001567287 208.201.224.36 (Wed, 26 Sep 2001 22:08:07 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 22:08:07 PDT Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick.tyagi:29633 alt.magick:266745 alt.satanism:188708 alt.pagan.magick:30215 alt.paranormal.spells.hexes.magic:32105 50010926 VI! om Hail Satan! Hail Baphomet! Hail Saul-Paul! paulhume@lan2wan.com (Paul 'Knight of Salad Forks' Hume): >>>This "Crowley rituals are boobytrapped" chestnut has been around a >>>long time, and repeated frequently, but it just ain't so. 333: >> how can you be so sure? paulhume@lan2wan.com (Paul Hume): >Cuz I dun them a lot an nuthin bad happenz yit. I kan still rite kleer >an spress me self gud an my brane stil wurkz. but you may not be the one for whom they are booby-trapped. sometimes inversions become tradition and lose their liberational value. >Now mind you...if getting a whack of what is sometimes called the "93 >current" and finding it is of use in one's search for answers is a >booby trap, then OK, they are all ticking bombs. no, we're talking about what LaVey called 'Black Masses' but impressed upon the faithful without intention. effectively it would undermine their religious tendencies and beliefs, possibly leading to a problem if they tended toward fundamentalism or fervency of religion in any area (esp. magic or mysticism). >And if that same response disturbs someone's balance, then that is >a booby trap...but so is eery other magical or religious operation >which produces a detectable result (g). the intent, as I can surmise it, is to indicate that the rituals are skewed *against* certain backgrounds. if you have not the background, then it won't 'spring' the trap on you. I suspect that I don't because I am not sufficiently Christian and have less regard for traditions of symbolism (developing my own). >> >North in the ritual in question (you may also be referring to facing >> >Boleskine) aims one at the quarter attributed to Nuit, as Source and >> >Mother of All, in the context of that ritual. >> >> the context of the ritual is not the same as the context from which >> the assessment is being made. >Sorry I was not explicit...that is exactly why I don't feel it is >valid. Like someone assuming the presence of a fylfot on a thanka >means Vajrayana Buddhists are Nazis. I don't gather that we're talking about misperceived symbolism here, but symbolism constructed in an *antagonistic relation* to that which came before it from a particular (probably fundamentalist Christian, unsure) perspective and background. >> my memory also is that Fortune is not >> as extreme as is being made out here -- i.e. she allowed for the >> possibility that Crowley's methods might yield value, but that the >> indications, due to the character mentioned, were negative. I'll be >> happy to be corrected. >I'd have to dig out the Applied Magic reference myself to see how >Soror Deo Non Fortuna pitched it. not too long ago I scoured that text in search of practical excerpts along with Levi's "Transcendental Magic" and Blavatsky's "Studies in Occultism", all of which I found mystical and skimpy on any details about how to actually do things. I placed these in a file at: http://www.luckymojo.com/esoteric/occultism/ref.hermoccexcerpts.txt and since we're talking about this more seriously and I've got the text without having to type it in again, I'll quote it at some length below, adding my commentary: from D. Fortune's "Applied Magic" and "Aspects of Occultism" re PRACTICAL HERITAGE (Mathers/Crowley/Regardie)] # It will be obvious to anyone who compares [Regardie's "The Tree # of Life", Crowley's "Magick"] with each other and with the method # that is explained in my book "The Mystical Qabalah" that the same # system is being used in all three.... she confirms the identity of the "system". # ...all three are drawing from the same source, which.... ...was # reorganized and made available for English students by the late # S.L. MacGregor Mathers.... He claimed to have got into touch with # the sources whence these MSS emanated.... circumspect in her identification of Mathers' sources. # ... # # Crowley published the bulk of MacGregor Mathers' secrets in his # magazine, *The Equinox*.... # # ... # # Mr. Regardie acknowledges his indebtedness to MacGregor # Mathers and Wynn Westcott, but he only quotes from their # published works. He quotes so extensively from Crowley, # especially from his four-volume work, *Magick*, in which is # reprinted the best of the *Equinox* articles and some # additional material, and his viewpoint so exactly expresses # the best aspects of Crowley's teaching, that I conclude that # Crowley's Order, the A.A., not Mathers' G.D., is his source. this is an important consideration. I'd be interested in contentions by those who are presently involved in both. # The A.A., however, drew its magical system from the G.D., # therefore for all practical purposes Regardie is using the # Mathers' system, just as I am myself. this is the modern origin line of thought I was arguing in opposition to the assertions of BTD that the 'principle and instruments were the same as used by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks' (which I disputed, arguing they were more modern and less alike to these ancient religiomagical systems and cultures, though they may try to associate). # Crowley's *Magick*, of which Regardie makes much use # and to which he acknowledges his indebtedness, is also very # valuable to the student, but only the advanced student could # use it with profit. ...much of it is deliberately obscure and # allusive. The formulae, too, on which he works, would be # considered averse and evil by occultists accustomed to the # Qabalistic tradition, for he uses 11 instead of 10 as the basis # for his batteries of knocks in the magical ceremonies, and 11 # is the number of the Qliphoth, or Evil Sephiroth; a batter[y] of # 11, therefore, is an invocation of the Qliphoth. No hint is given # of this in the text, and it is an ugly trap for the unwary student. here's the contention she has. you dispute that the description she provides, I presume, is truly relevant from *your* perspective. could you see how, approaching from *her* viewpoint, encountering Crowley's materials might seem booby-trapped? # Crowley also gives the North as the holy point towards which # the operator turns to invoke, instead of the East, 'whence # light arises', as is the classical practice. Now the north is called # 'the place of greatest symbolic darkness', and is only the holy # point of one sect, the Yezidis, or devil worshippers. It is # obvious, therefore, that the student who is rash enough to # experiment with a battery of 11 knocks and an invocation to # the north, is not going to contact what most people would # consider to be desirable forces. here she demonstrates her fundamentalism. not only does this only hold in the Northern Hemisphere (else North would be as South the residence of the annual Sol), but she associates it with devils. consider the Square of the Sun and 666 for possible alternatives provided within her own system. # Crowley's .... ...practical methods... are... too dangerous to meddle # with in any shape or form. she's talking about for *beginners* here, and I've even heard this kind of caution from people who LIKE Crowley, like Bonewits whom we shall discuss below. you disagree that those who are fans of Fortune and her ilk might find Crowley's riteforms to be adverse to their cosmological or symbolical taste and/or perspective/system? she seems to relate this to "qabalism", and you are saying that the discernments between Regardie and Crowley can't be made as she seems to be making them with any substance? you can find the 'symbolic and procedural problems' from Crowley also in Regardie or in the expression of other Golden Dawn members? # ...MacGregor Mathers, Crowley, Regardie, and myself [sic] are # all working on the same formula, the formula contained in # the mysterious cipher MSS discovered by Mathers; Regardie # draws from Mathers via Crowley; I imagine, however, that he is # alive to the alterations in the formulae that Crowley introduced, # for they do not appear in his books, and the formulae he gives are # the ones familiar to me in the Golden Dawn workings. # 60-64 again, are you aware that these items of which she speaks *do* appear in the books by Regardie? in any other Golden Dawn source? >However, the story has in any case >grown with the telling, and the impression as presented by John, and >cited in many modern works, such as Isaac's "Real Magic," is presented >as a bald statement of fact without further elaboration. I happen to think Bonewits' book "Real Magic" is exceptionally good (maybe because I got it right after "Magick in Theory and Practice" as my beginning magical studies and am biased in their favour), so I'm looking it over and think I know to what you refer. I can adequately defend Bonewits here. this is the text to which you probably refer: # While it would be worth your time to study the *theoretical* # works of Crowley, most of his baroque-rococo rituals have # rotten stage directions, along with the usual sexual references # and occasioally dangerous practical jokes* that permeate the # the rest of his writings. # [*AUTHOR'S NOTE: They are not booby traps for the # experienced, who can understand the paradoxes # involved, only for the beginner, who will take # things literally.] # --------------------------------------------------------- # "Real Magic", by Isaac Bonewits, Weiser, 1989; p. 163. # _________________________________________________________ he's talking about human sacrifice mentioned in "Magick" here that was an allusion by Crowley to masturbation. I'm sure there are probably other examples that could be derived, but this is likely what he means. he is otherwise quite complimentary of Crowley *and* Fortune (see p. 17 at the end of Chapter One, the Laws of Magic). >> >The symbols in question have different meanings in the context of >> >Thelemic ritual. You could say they are "booby traps" for anyone >> >fiddling with that ritual structure without understanding what it >> >means, but the same applies to virtually any ritual structure. >> >> "what it means" varies depending upon the context within which one >> interprets it. from Fortune's perspective she saw too many 'bad signs' >> to give it her seal of approval, perhaps assessing that Crowley was >> working with 'negative energies and qliphotic fragments' and was >> therefore not to be relied upon, perhaps even avoided. >Even there, she would be judging the ritual outside of its context, as >you note. not exactly. I am not a fundamentalist of "its context". I don't think that rituals have a cemented context. by "Thelemic ritual" above I meant 'acculturated to the standards of symbolism peculiar to those who follow in the wake of Crowley and his ideas'. she would be judging the ritual from the perspective of one coming from her own system, which is reasonable, and one from which she should certainly speak. looking at Grant's expression on Crowleyan rite I can't say she is too far from the mark. ;> >> >Simply saying "Well, in my system these things mean X, so they must >> >mean X in that system" doesn't do it, however. >> >> true, I'm not sure anyone is doing that. >And yet, we keep hearing the "Crowley's rituals are booby trapped" >argument, year after year. in the context of the Black Mass notions of rites, it seems to be a supportable notion. Bonewits was talking about "practical jokes", though, not symbolic variation, from what I can tell. perhaps he is talking after all about the variation from GD to 'Thelemic' cultural associations, but my guess it is about blinds and jokes. what you don't seem to be taking into account is that they may be booby trapped for certain TYPES of beginners (those who haven't taken him seriously otherwise in terms of adequate education and research prior to doing any of his rites). judging from the number of wayward Crowleyan mages Fortune and Bonewits may have points. >> >And that seems to me to have been the basis of the "booby trapped >> >rituals" canard every time it has cropped up. >I've seen the argument that Reguli (the ritual I think most of the >people in question call a booby trap) was built to reverse or re-spin >much of the most treasured principles in Golden Dawn ritual >engineering: averse pentagrams, knell of 11, "switching" North and >East, etc. > >And yet every one of these techniques has a rationale in Thelemic >ritual engineering...though some of those premises may well have been >reverse engineered from the particular working of the ritual to shore >it up by inventing a general principle. the point en toto. you've just supported the argument with strength. care to detail the changes made between Golden Dawn standards to Crowleyan renovation for my archival? I think this is a very very important discussion to have in public magical forums. >There was a good argument some time ago...on t93? I think Cavalorn >raised the premise?...that while many systems start with general >principles from which one builds rituals, Thelema seemed to have >situations where we had the rituals, and floundered around trying to >posit general principles from them. I'm not sure whether this is supportable overall. it seems to depend upon the creativity of the magicians or ceremonialists in question as to whether one starts with principles or rituals. it also seems to depend upon the theoretical expressive ability of one's predescessors. depending on what time period you're talking about, any bit of it may have been scrapped for the purpose of cannibali- zation ("The old rituals are black [of uncertain value]" and are deserving of being set aside), inclusive of cosmology, magical metaphysics, or symbolic taste. this reaches it apotheosis in the 'tradition' of Chaos Magick, where any remnant of tradition may be sacrificed for personal style and efficiency, whether or not it really works to this end. eventually even this has encrusted itself in sociocultural history into a formalized (however rudimentarily) structure. >On the flip side, taking the mechanism apart, seeing how it works, and >experimenting with its structures is a spiffy way to learn how to do >it. exactly, this is one of the activities I've found valuable in a variety of contexts. I'd like to make it more plain to mages of all future times that this is not a novel innovation but happens cyclically based on the volition and taste of each new generation. how we determine what 'works' and what doesn't seems to be the most important aspect of this revisionism and learning process. one of the ways that Thelema-related mages and mystics (even the areligious types) learn is by creating *inversions* of that which they found objectionable. this is the idea behind the LaVeyan 'Black Mass' which I have been mentioning. if Crowley found parts of the Mathers/Regardie system objectionable (as I and many other nonChristians have), then it would seem reasonable that he might, for himself and those like him, have constructed his rites in a way that was defusing or inversive, intensifying the power and risk of engaging them. to some of those who followed him there might be no real risk at all, but to those from whose premise he shared, he may have set up a roadblock or obstacle which few but the truly advanced would have interest or ability to hurdle. I'd consider this to be the case with my Blood Pact with Satan, for example, which I don't expect many Christians could handle. blessed beast! 333 -- emailed replies may be posted ----- "sa avidya ya vimuktaye" ----- "that which liberates is ignorance" http://www.luckymojo.com/nagasiva.html hoodoo catalogue: send postal address to catalogues@luckymojo.com