From thelema93-l-owner@www.hollyfeld.org Thu Sep 30 19:18:08 1999 Return-Path: thelema93-l-owner@www.hollyfeld.org Received: from www.hollyfeld.org (209-67-233-180.bst0.flashcom.net [209.67.233.180]) by prop.sonic.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA10182 for ; Thu, 30 Sep 1999 19:18:07 -0700 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by www.hollyfeld.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id WAA22436 for thelema93-l-outgoing; Thu, 30 Sep 1999 22:33:32 -0400 X-Authentication-Warning: www.hollyfeld.org: majordom set sender to owner-thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org using -f Received: (from kender@localhost) by www.hollyfeld.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id WAA22432 for thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org; Thu, 30 Sep 1999 22:33:31 -0400 Received: from marine.sonic.net (marine.sonic.net [208.201.224.37]) by www.hollyfeld.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id WAA22318 for ; Thu, 30 Sep 1999 22:24:19 -0400 Received: (qmail 13343 invoked from network); 1 Oct 1999 02:07:56 -0000 Received: from prop.sonic.net (208.201.224.193) by marine.sonic.net with SMTP; 1 Oct 1999 02:07:56 -0000 Received: from 208.201.230.116 (d61.pm.sonic.net [208.201.229.61]) by prop.sonic.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA08855 for ; Thu, 30 Sep 1999 19:07:23 -0700 X-envelope-info: Message-ID: <37F35F0D.4A34@luckymojo.com> Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 06:01:00 -0700 From: catherine yronwode Organization: Lucky Mojo Curio Co. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Macintosh; I; 68K) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org Subject: Re: Defense of Adept Crowley Vacant (was OTO confederacy...) References: <199909241750.KAA28216@bolt.sonic.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org Precedence: bulk Reply-To: thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org Status: RO nagasiva@luckymojo.com wrote: > > do as you please. Feel free... > 333: > # > one of the first racists I ever met was > # > in a van going to an OTO Mass. those present who were members > # > of the Order (and were providing him a ride) enjoyed wearing > # > Confederate flags and thought his rude and disgusting comments > # > were 'humorous'. > > A S : > # the attempts at classifying 'spirituality' as some objective measure > # of 'goodness'was to be expected > > no, you completely misunderstand me. the *capacity* for compassion, > tenderness, agape in short, is to what I am referring. I am hard- > pressed to identify that Aleister Crowley had such a capacity, and > in that thelema and agape are in some sense identical according > to the man's *own* teachings (due to their enumeration at 93), he > appears to lack signs of mastery. perhaps contrary to what Cavalorn > may have been claiming about egos, I think the consistent petulance > and blatant disaffectation evidenced in the man's "Confessions" is > sufficient to display his spiritual vacuum. > > # but you know I find this(the above) a rather curious criticism > # especially from a self reported 'freemason'. > > I have never reported myself as a "freemason" or a "mason". you > are mistaken. my fiance, sri catyananda, is a co-mason, but we > are in no way connected in this regard aside from an interest in > ritual symbolism and sociology -- she was initiated before I ever > met her, and also I was initiated in the (c)OTO before we ever met. Yeah, tyagi is a member of (c) OTO and i am a member of the AFHR, a Co-Freemasonic group. From what follows, it seems that you identify Freemasonry with racism, and although it is a bit off-topic for discussion here, i feel that such a slur cannot go unanswered. To put it bluntly, i have never seen eveidence of racism either officially or unofficially sanctioned (as tyagi saw on the way to a (c) OTO meeting) during my association with Co-Freemasonry. > # among the numerous racist accomplishments of certain american > # freemasonic members in the past has been the very founding of > # the KKK. *gasp* Dont buy this? Have you ever witnessed one > # of their 'initiation' rituals? > > no, I understand that Pike was a founding member of the KKK and > that his Scottish Rite has had a great deal of influence on > Crowley and the OTO rituals and degrees. I would never 'witness > a KKK ritual' because racial supremists are repugnant to me. I > do have a copy of an initiation rite in "Secret Societies" > edited by MacKenzie, Appendix 3, but I haven't studied its > details. are you claiming that it is "masonic" or something? Whoa. Stop. Back up, both of you. 1) Albert Pike was a Freemason. 2) Albert Pike was a Confederate soldier. 3) Albert Pike was reportedly a co-founder of the original KKK (no primary documentation exists, because the act was done in secret, but i personally believe he was involved, based on secondary sources). a) The original KKK was an armed group of Confederates organized to resist "Yankee" take-over of Southern economics and culture in the wake of the American Civil War. b) Many people confuse this group with the revived, 20th century KKK, but although both were racist in dogma, the great misdeeds of racial *hatred* (lynchings and cross- burnings and hate-crimes against African-Americns) that are rightfully laid at the door of the post-WWI KKK cannot be directly linked to the short-lived KKK of the immediate post-Civil War era in which Pike participated. 4) Albert Pike imported to America a FRENCH system of degrees called "The Scottish Rite" which is NOT MASONIC. a) Unlike Masonry, which traces itself back to the mid-1600s (for speculative Masonry) and to the 1200-1400s (for Operative [craft guild] Masonry) in England, the Scottish Rite is a 19th century creation and came from France. b) Pike did not create the Scottish rite; it was created in France, home of the original Knights Templar and hotbed of much Templar mythification in the 19th century; the term "Scottish" refers to the myth that some Templars escaped the Pope's disbandment of the group and survived intact in Scotland. c) To this day, any Mason can tell you that the Scottish Rite -- like the similarly 19th centruy Templar-mythic York Rite -- is not "Masonry." You must be a Freemason to be initiated into either rite, but they contain NOTHING essential to the study of Freemasonry, its rites, or its symbols. > if you think that Pike, the Scottish Rite, and whatever else > Pike may have been instrumental in fomenting are the essence > of Freemasonry, or that the KKK started out as a racist cult, > then perhaps your sources of information are very different > than mine, since I had the impression that all of these were > falsities. The sad legacies Pike inadvertently left Freemasonry are three-fold 1) His imported and revised French "Scottish" Rite proved incredibly popular (especially in the South, where its myth of noble but ultimately doomed Templar Knights played well against the sentiments of Confederate soldiers who had just lost a Civil War) and this fact, coupled with his presumed involvement in the KKK allows ignorant people to link Freemasonry with his politics. 2) His misguided and rather arrogant attempt to "fold" Freemasonry INTO his own version of the French Scottish Rite (by unilaterally decreeing that the first three degrees of the Scottish Rite were the three degrees of Freemasonry) did NOT meet with success -- and in fact were HUGELY opposed by Freemasonic authories of his time and to the present -- but his published book, "Morals and Dogma of the Scottish Rite" includes this bald-faced assertion, so that to the ignorant who read that book, and do not inquire of Freemasons, it looks as if there are "33 degrees of Freemasonry" -- namely The Scottish Rite. 3) His attempts to add "scholarship" to his explanation of the symbolism of the Templar myth, via the ponderous tome "Morals and Dogma of the Scottish Rite," included typically 19th century references to Chaldean and Egyptian deities and contained the word "Lucifer," which led mid-20th century Christian fundamentalists to accuse Freemasons of being "Satanist," a charge with is both irrelevant (since the Scottish Rite is not Freemasonry) and false (since Pike was not a Satanist and did not advocate the worship of infernal, Hadean, chthonic, or wild spirits. I am not an apologist for Albert Pike -- in fact, i quite despise him -- but if you want to accuse Freemasonry itself of racism, you'll have to use a better tool than Albert Pike. > are you attempting to derail the conversation by > resorting to ad hominem slurs which prove baseless, or do you > really have something to add to your defense of the > spiritually handicapped (Crowley) as some fantastic authority? Thelemites don't do THAT, do they? I thought they were all incredibly intelligent, thoughtful people whose scholarship is impeccable due to their understanding of the need for respectful speech in a culture in which every member not only follows his or her will, but is also a STAR! > love is the law, blessed beast! Love is something, but i'm an anarchist, and woof woof to you too. catherine yronwode Freemasonry for Women ------- http://www.luckymojo.com/comasonry.html ____________...oooOOO---thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org---OOOooo..._____________ To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe" to thelema93-l-request@hollyfeld.org To unsubscribe your@email.com send "unsubscribe your@email.com" To unsubscribe from the digest send to thelema93-l-digest-request@hollyfeld.org http://www.hollyfeld.org/heaven/elists/thelema93-l.phtml