As much as Crowley disliked Christianity and wanted to transcend it, he fundamentally could not create something completely new because his entire mode of occult thinking, even at the subconscious level, was shaped by the conditions of his childhood and initiation in Rosicrucian/Hermetic mysticism which itself is deeply intertwined with the history of Christian Orthodoxy and Heresy. Thelema may be a heresy and apostasy in the formal sense, in other words, but in many ways it is structurally-isomorphic to Christianity, deviating in certain places in very similar ways to the exact sort of formal heresies that esotericists usually do, by which I mean taking things to their logical extreme when divorced from certain dogmatic boundaries (e.g., taking Theosis to the extreme by accepting Eastern Orthodox notions of the Noetic participation in God's energies while denying an essence-energies distinction, taking the Orthodox notion that "God became man so that man may become god" to its logical extreme).Thelema is, de facto, crypto-inverse-Palamist neoplatonic christianity which:1. Has a re-invented trinity of Ra-Hoor-Khuit as Jesus/logos, Hadit/Holy Guardian Angel as the Noetic element of the Holy Spirit, and Nuit as the Ashera to Christianity’s Yahweh.2. Uses apophatic poetry to reject monism3. Emphasizes personalism as an understanding of cosmology analogous to Trinitarian ontological defenses4. Has a cosmology justified as teleological expression of divine love5. Has a soteriology based on indissoluble individuality + free will (if you read Liber Al completely literally and ignore Crowley's comments)It's basically Eastern Orthodox mysticism channeled through Rosicrucianism through the lens of Victorian/Edwardian England's Egypt fetish.
>>41693940The Law of Thelema is isomorphic in *meaning* and nearly identical in *wording* to Augustine, with True Will isomorphic to "Vocation in alignment with Divine Will". Crossing the Abyss is basically just hesychasm. Pseudo-Dionysius meets Eckhart on acid in Giza.That Thelema owes a historical contingency to Christianity by way cultural and philosophical inheritance is not new and has been documented by many sociologists and religious academics. My point is that there is a much more interesting, equally obvious, and thoroughly under-researched parallel to the very structure of Thelema:Thelema: Cross the Abyss (dissolve your ego) -> Converse with your Holy Guardian Angel, which in comments Crowley associated with the innermost self -> Learn your True Will -> Practice your True Will -> Enter into union with NuitMystical Christianity: Kenosis/asceticism (dissolve your ego wherever it conflicts with noetic reality) -> noetic illumination via the Holy Spirit -> Discern Vocation -> Live vocation (implicitly in-line with Divine Will) -> Theosis/BeatitudeTo be clear, I am not arguing necessarily that Thelema owes some historical contingency to Eastern Orthodoxy specifically, it could also just be that the same sort of mysticism inherent to Western Hermetic traditions leads naturally to a convergence on similar cosmologies as that which developed in the East via the Christian mystical tradition, except without being subject to the guard-rails of Patristic dogma and Patriarchal conventions.
>>41693945In other words, Crowley grew up basically Puritan, was exposed to mystical ideas, practiced mysticism, and then accidentally re-invented an albeit unconventional structural analog of Eastern Orthodox mysticism - which, I'd argue, is unavoidable as Eastern Orthodox ideas are not so much a random assortment of axioms as simply the shared Patristic heritage when reasoned a bit farther through the lens of subjective mystical experiences (which plenty of other authors have noticed are similar between very different religious cultures).I might even hazard a guess that, had Crowley been born in Russia or Greece instead of England, his mystical impulses probably would not have really left the church in such a profound way to begin with, precisely because Eastern Orthodoxy already has a much more robust mystical tradition that is evidently in-line with what he ended up believing anyway.Crowley hated, chiefly, the degenerated Latin orthodoxy of England, not Orthodoxy in the Eastern or Oriental sense.Moreover, you can see these parallels merely by way of a critical-literal exegesis of Liber Al - even the Book of the Law is closer to Christianity in rejecting simple Advaita Vedanta. A series of truths interpreted by way of Egypt:> 1. Had! The manifestation of Nuit.The Noetic element of the holy spirit...> 2. The unveiling of the company of heaven....is the means by which Grace enters the Nous> 3. Every man and every woman is a star.Distinct and equal existences, each with their own orbit and dignity.> 4. Every number is infinite; there is no difference.The trinity is literally 1=3; math itself breaks down.> 6. Be thou Hadit, my secret centre, my heart & my tongue!This is the Holy Spirit.> 12. Come forth, o children, under the stars, & take your fill of love!> 13. I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy.This is pure Eckhart: "The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me."
>>41693948> 22. Now, therefore, I am known to ye by my name Nuit, and to him by a secret name which I will give him when at last he knoweth me. Since I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye also thus. Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt.This is a moral commandment to equality before God and an admission that the name Nuit is provisional for the prophet, not true.> 28. None, breathed the light, faint & faery, of the stars, and two.> 29. For I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union.An explicit denial of monism and Advaita. Love is the Law. If Nuit is divided for Love's sake, then the stars can never return to Nuit entirely or it would not be Love. This echoes Personalist defenses of the trinity> 34. But she said: the ordeals I write not: the rituals shall be half known and half concealed: the Law is for all.This is a reference to Noahide law.> 40. Who calls us Thelemites will do no wrong, if he look but close into the word. For there are therein Three Grades, the Hermit, and the Lover, and the man of Earth. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.There are three types of vocation: monastic/clerical, marriage, and honest toil.> 41. The word of Sin is Restriction. O man! refuse not thy wife, if she will! O lover, if thou wilt, depart! There is no bond that can unite the divided but love: all else is a curse. Accurséd! Accurséd be it to the aeons! Hell.> 42. Let it be that state of manyhood bound and loathing. So with thy all; thou hast no right but to do thy will.This is a Free Will theodicy and invocation against forced conversion.
>>41693949> 44. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.True Will is the exercise of vocation, the pursuit of the teleos is the importance, not the grasping of the end.> 57. Invoke me under my stars! Love is the law, love under will. Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well! He, my prophet, hath chosen, knowing the law of the fortress, and the great mystery of the House of God.The Dove and the Serpent; Jesus also brought a sword.
>>41693951tl;dr Crowley was a Holy Fool who had the misfortune of never knowing where the circus was.A homeless yurodivy.
itt: cryptokike worshipping
>>41693940with great power comes great responsibility
>>41694040Cryptokike is the best kind
>>41693940>Trinity >ChristianLol are you that Orthodox podcast shill that makes us look at your face in the catalog?
>>41694104No, I'm a polydrug abusing retard that practiced Lectio Divina on Thunder Perfect Mind on LSD
>>41694110Speaking of whichThunder said "I am the union and the dissolution." 28. None, breathed the light, faint & faery, of the stars, and two. 29. For I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union. 30. This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.Thunder says "I am the one whom they call Law,and you have called Lawlessness."Liber al says:39.The word of the Law is Θελημα.40.Who calls us Thelemites will do no wrong...Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.46.Nothing is a secret key of this law...
>>41694110Okay then you should already know we don't wanna see Crowley's face either, paintings count.
>>41693940What comic is this?
https://youtu.be/sPNiTv9HfqU
>>41694406https://aiptcomics.com/2024/11/27/aleister-crowley-department-of-truth/
