Path: Supernews!kudonet.com!not-for-mail From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva) Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.pagan.magick,alt.pagan,talk.religion.misc Subject: TMaroney: Magick and Gods Date: 18 Jun 1997 12:28:20 -0700 Organization: KudoNet On-Line Services Lines: 130 Sender: tyagi@bjt.net Message-ID: <5o9csk$si1@kudo20.kudonet.com> Reply-To: maroney@apple.com NNTP-Posting-Host: kudo20.kudonet.com X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 (NOV) Xref: Supernews alt.magick.tyagi:12960 alt.magick:105583 alt.pagan.magick:4908 alt.pagan:218569 talk.religion.misc:298507 [all from thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org: Tim Maroney ] >In the light of Crowley's "There is no God but man" is it not conceivable >that the entire concept of God/Godesses is simply an expedient method of >tuning in to certain aspects of the microcosm/macrocosm? That is, that they >are merely convenient vectors or channels for specific types of >illumination? Crowley warns against attributing objective reality to such >things, and appears to regard them solely as useful methods of obtaining a >specific result. Actually, no. If you read "Magick Without Tears", each letter in which Crowley considers the ontological status of the Holy Guardian Angel and of gods discusses them as objectively existing individuals, and not as metaphorical constructs. While it is uncomfortable for some of his more Advaitistically oriented modern followers, Crowley was a literal believer in spiritual beings. His statements about withholding belief, as in Liber O, were targeted at what he believed to be an uninitiated audience new to authentic spiritual practice, and so unable to form accurate ideas about the nature of the beings with which they were dealing. He expected that as practice continued a correct view (by his own lights, of course) would emerge but that it was impossible at first. -- Tim Maroney tim@maroney.org http://www.maroney.org ======================================================== >Looking through "MWT" I can see your point, but as this was intended - as >the title implies - as a magical primer, does one necessarily have to >regard Crowley's proposition of literal belief in the independent existence >of such entities as his definitive statement on the subject? I see MWT as a sort of summing up of his ideas at the end of his life. Many things which he had simply acted out as assumptions up until that time were finally made explicit. I do think his clear statements in MWT asserting the objective and independent reality of the HGA and of the gods should be taken as definitive. >I was thinking of points 2, 3, & 4 in Liber O, which you discount (perhaps >correctly?). They're methodological statements rather than ontological assertions. He says to avoid forming any ideas about whether such beings are objectively real or not -- this has often been mistaken for a denial of the objective reality of these beings, but it is not that at all. I have had to rely on some inference to arrive at my idea of what he was saying here. Crowley believed in progressive levels of understanding and worlds of truth through successive initiations, as is normal in an initiatory system. The truth of the higher initiate is not that of the lower and to some extent contradicts it. At another point (I forget where) he said that monotheism is false until one has achieved K&C of the HGA, at which point it is true: the kind of reality that the lower initiate would ascribe to the HGA is incompatible with the view of the person who has actually achieved its knowledge and conversation. In Liber O he is not saying that the gods aren't real, but that the concept of their reality which the neophyte would form would be incorrect. >If I read you correctly, are you stating that the deities of the >Graeco-Roman & Egyptian pantheons were considered by Crowley to be 'real' >independent beings? Yes, he says so explicitly in MWT, and there are a number of statements in MTP and the Confessions to the same effect, asserting the importance of seeking out contact with independent spiritual beings. Crowley is overtly hostile in MWT to the view that is usually ascribed to him, that the deities and the HGA are only fragments of the unconscious mind. He was willing to consider that sub-microcosmic entities like Goetic demons might be such fragments, but he never indicated that about the higher beings -- and remember that he was a strict hierarchicalist, believing there were real distinctions between these levels of being. I realized after responding to you earlier that I had neglected to answer your point about "There is no God but Man." "God" and "gods" were not at all the same thing to Crowley -- again he says this clearly in MWT. He held to the traditional distinction in pagan philosophy (Greek and Indian) between the ultimate God or Atman and the various divine characters populating myth. "God" for any being was to Crowley its own inmost nature or Will. The "gods" as macrocosmic beings had their own inmost natures which to them would be "God", but they were not the audience to whom Crowley was writing. To him, there were gods who were not men, but for humans there was no God but "oneself made perfect". -- Tim Maroney tim@maroney.org http://www.maroney.org ======================================================== I had written: >What one person experiences as the K&C may be and probably is entirely >different from what another person experiences and labels under the same >name. Acting as if they really are somehow the same experience seems like >another manifestation of the oversimplifying and leveling error that is >behind naive syncretism. On reflection the two seem even closer than I had realized. Just as syncretism comes from a universalist myth, so does a system of spiritual development through successive degrees or grades. The myth holds that there is a single great ladder of spiritual development which all the enlightened people of history have ascended. Again there is a kind of grand unification which is specious on a factual or historical level, but which as a myth is quite compelling to a great many people. On this point there is some evidence to suggest Crowley was aware of the distinction between the abstract and the actual, probably because he knew that he had himself created the systems of the A.'. A.'. and of the (post-Reuss) O.T.O., whereas he believed that he had discovered or been entrusted with the pre-existing facts of 777. Nonetheless he believed he was building his systems on a fixed and pre-existing substrate, the Tree of Life, which represented a collection of facts independent of human creative effort. He did recognize that there was a broader class of possible systems of initiation and that he had created only particular instances of this class, which he was entitled to do because his own grade was Magister Templi, with a duty to tend a garden of disciples. He believed that the same grade existed in other systems under different names and represented a fact about spiritual development independent of his creative act. For myself, I don't believe that such a linear taxonomy of spiritual development is possible or that spiritually realized people are similar enough to each other to make such a system possible. I do believe that any particular person might make spiritual progress by ceremonially affirming a particular myth of spiritual degrees, but that the achievements of different people affirming the same myth would be largely incommensurable. -- Tim Maroney tim@maroney.org http://www.maroney.org -- (emailed replies may be posted) ------- join the AMT syncretism!!! see http://www.abyss.com/tokus ---------- call: 408/2-666-SLUG!! "Sure, kid. It's the truth. Trust me. Where's your money?" - TShuler