Path: news.bjt.net!news.vaultline.net!news.infinex.com!news3.crl.com!nntp3.crl.com!howland.erols.net!europa.clark.net!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!supernews.com!Supernews69!kudonet.com!not-for-mail From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nigris (333)) Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.magick.order,alt.thelema,talk.religion.misc,talk.religion.newage Subject: Tents, Thelema and Organizations Date: 21 Jul 1997 17:05:06 -0700 Organization: KudoNet On-Line Services Lines: 64 Sender: tyagi@kudonet.com Message-ID: <5r0tfi$7q5@kudo20.kudonet.com> Reply-To: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nigris (333)) NNTP-Posting-Host: 27747@165.227.52.9 X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 (NOV) Xref: news.bjt.net alt.magick.tyagi:866 alt.magick:5876 alt.magick.order:148 [Orig-To: thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org (Thelema93-Listserv)] 49970714 aa2 Hail Satan! E6 I remember recently Soror CLK's mention of a tent, and in Crowley's writings his use of this analogy as an indication for the necessity of structure in the creation of any lasting personal or social edifice. recently I was watching 'Tinsel and Sawdust', a Swedish film by Ingmar Bergman in which the lives and philosophies of the Theater were contrasted with that of the Circus. quite aside from the film itself, part of it included the raising of the main tent and how this was accomplished. the way it was accomplished was by first securing into place the main masts or central pillars of support for the whole (numbering two in the case of the film). these were strapped all around in a vertical position with ropes. then the massive tent itself was wrapped around the poles and secured to a ring which would ride up and down the posts through means of a pulley, all the circus members hoisting on the rings to lift the tent-top to its uppermost level at the apex of the poles. when I've heard this used as an analogy, the central posts, whether one, two, three or more in number (typically one for conventional ideologies, but perhaps two in Thelemic religion -- thelema/agape), these poles and their rigidity, presumably along with the stability of the fabric of the tent and the ropes which secure all of it together, represent (beyond phalli) the regularization of certain social structures and standards. usually the analogy is used to justify such a standardization or the use of particular rules and regulations. however, very infrequently is the actual manner of the *construction* of a tent of any size and its raising discussed as far as the principles necessary to secure the structure desired. in particular, and reflecting on the circus tent I mentioned, it seems significant that 1) all the circus members (or at least many of them) were required to lift the tent into place once the central pillars were secured and 2) the construction of the tackle and placement of the posts determined how *high* the tent could be raised, whom it would cover, and in what proportions. why I mention this at all is that in the evaluation of 'Thelemic' social structures utilizing this model it becomes imperative to identify what elements should be associated with the various modular components, what is the 'tent', what is/are the 'central pillar(s)', and perhaps most importantly, what will ensure that 'the ring' holding the structure of the tent will actually be capable of lifting sufficiently high on that/those pillar(s) while fastened to the tent such that the structure envisioned will come to pass. that there are other tents and means of raising them would not surprise me, though as regards very *large* examples I have rarely seen or heard descriptions with any detail, and the circus appears to be appropriate both for its size, especially when speaking of universal religion, but also for the events which it tends to house. ;> E666 _______________________________________________________________________________ nigris (333) -- tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com -- http://www.hollyfeld.org/~tyagi/ -- (emailed replies may be posted);join the AMT syncretism!!;call: 408/2-666-SLUG! see http://www.abyss.com/tokus; "Clement of Rome taught that God rules the world with a right and a left hand, the right being Christ, the left Satan."