Initiation as an Operating System

Egregors--easy to build all by yourself, right? No.

The line to burn me at the stake for violating modern ideas about initiated traditions (Golden Dawn, many forms of Wicca, Thelema) will soon be forming. Why? Because I am willing to say things like this:

You need both--individual and group work--to fully understand and use the [initiated Golden Dawn] system as it was designed to work. This is how it was designed--it is not a bug; it is a feature. Initiation (in a group) is like installing the operating system of a computer. The members of the group itself is like the circuits in a computer. The individual work, rituals, and study, are the programs and the owner's manual...which work best if you have the proper operating system installed, along with the suggested hardware (aka you are not working alone), and the right settings (godforms). And lineage is the official "I did not pirate this software" seal and code which (in my "healed lineage" experience) can be paid for after the fact, and allows for software patches. You would not expect a single unplugged circuit board to be able to run computer programs, so why does everyone expect the rituals of Golden Dawn to work without the set-up that was designed into the system in the first place?

The sexual misdeeds of Aleister Crowley (Creepy Uncle of Wicca and Golden Dawn)

The other day, some imp forwarded a Facebook notification to me--someone declared that it was time to reveal Aleister Crowley's sexual abuse of....


*yawn*


Seriously, is there any occultist alive today who does not know the legend of Wicca and Golden Dawn's creepy family member, the randy Aleister Crowley? Of the hearts he broke? Of the demons and drugs he ingested? Of the goats he touched?


It is not news that he did such things. In fact, I am fairly sure that he bragged about doing such things. I could be wrong about the bragging; I haven't read any of his works in over a decade.*


[*Yes, I know--I have to turn in my magical union card right now, for ignoring all the great things found in Crowley's works. But I have been busy: hexing Presidents; causing tires to fall off the back of trucks; cleaning litter boxes; debating about whether or not, I want to go back to university to earn my Masters degree; writing a horrible satire about the true history of the modern occult world--you know--unimportant stuff.]


My rule of thumb: Assume Crowley sexually harassed everyone he ever met. And that he porked everyone who didn't run away fast enough. If he was alive today, he would still be the creepy uncle saying, "You are sexy. Want to do drugs and make out?"**


[**It should be noted that there are a couple of people in the modern occult community that I think that even Crowley would say, "Thanks, but no thanks" to if the possibility of porking them ever came up. In fact, some of his greatest haters fall under the label: "So fugly that even Aleister Crowley would not do them."]


The wonderfulness about my rule of thumb is that I do not have to waste time wondering if he sexually harassed, and possibly porked someone. I can go directly to the question that his lifestyle always generates: "Could Creepy Uncle Al be right about the nature of the universe?"


And the question comes up a lot.


The genius occult leader who came out and shouted, "It is time to reveal Crowley's worst sexual misdeeds!!!" is a little late to the party.*** I understand that talking about powerful men abusing their positions and grabbing pussy while stroking their pickle is the hot topic of the month. Yes, let's hop on that flaming dumpster fire of a parade float, shall we?


[***In all fairness, the occult leader may have gone on to do something witty, like post pictures of cute goats--I don't know--I do not read his posts because: 1--I am not interested in Alt-Right politics, 2--He has been making up lies for nearly twenty years about all the greatest occultists, 3--It is more fun to clean out the litter boxes, and 4--I am banned and blocked from his Facebook group. The most important reason for not reading his stuff is number three; least important is four...because I could make a sock if I really, really wanted to read his posts.]


 That flaming dumpster fire of a parade float comes by once a day if you live near the intersection of MagicIsFun and CrowleyWasTheGreatestAdeptEver. And it has been running for years--it is more reliable than any bus or train I have ever encountered. At least once a day on the internet, someone says...


"Aleister Crowley was a sexual predator; and therefore, we should toss all his stuff into a dumpster and set fire to it because there is absolutely no way that a pervert could create a decent occult system with any merit in it."


Wait, that sounded too educated. Let me try again...


"Crowley! Sex! Drugs! Satan! Bad! Very bad! Run away!"


This is the type of person who does not listen to eighties hair metal because the musicians are indulging in Sex! Drugs! Satan!...and maybe Crowley!


Because nothing entertaining and interesting has ever been created from that evils of a rock and roll lifestyle.


And Aleister Crowley was definitely someone who lived a rock and roll lifestyle. It is expected that such people live such a outrageous lifestyle. If you met Crowley, you would be disappointed if he didn't offer you some candy and a ride in his van. (You don't want to be one of the fugly people, do you?)


So the real issue is not that Aleister Crowley was a sexual menace to society, but rather "Does the work of Aleister Crowley contribute to our knowledge of the occult sciences and its history?"


And the answer to that is: Yes.****


[****More so than photocopying the same ritual fifteen times, and declaring it a masterpiece.]


Like it or not, Crowley contributed ideas and beliefs to the modern occult world. He is a source for what the early Golden Dawn looked like. His works have been raided for lessons and rituals by many modern occultists. He influenced a lot of people, including members of both modern Golden Dawn and Wicca. He is important.


And not liking his rock and roll lifestyle does not change that fact.


Sorry.


Next time you want the internet to go wild, I suggest posting pictures of cute goats.

If you do not find Aleister Crowley sexy, then there is something wrong with you...like you have eyes.

Happy death-day Aliester Crowley

On this day, December 1st, in 1947, the Great Beast Aliester Crowley died. (In Thelemic circles, today is called the Greater Feast of Aliester Crowley.)

One of my favorite pictures of the Most Evil Man in the world.

People are still using him as an example of a really powerful magician.

Flash review of Liber L vel Bogus

Today, I received my review copy of Liber L. vel Bogus--The Real Confession of Aleister Crowley (Richard T. Cole).  The basic premise of the book is that Crowley faked the receivership of the Book of the Law. And here is a flash review of the book that I posted to YouTube.

Happy Easter!

Almost every Easter animal under the sun.

Happy Easter! Here is a delightful picture that I saw on Facebook. It has almost every Easter animal that you could want. There are a few Easter bunnies, a couple of Easter chicks, a dog and a cat. Plus a lot of foil-covered chocolate Easter eggs. The only thing that is missing is the Easter Goat...or is that just something that observed in Thelemic circles?

QoD The difference between Golden Dawn and Thelema

This quote is from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn yahoo news/e-zine forum (the more evil non-Griffin one).

"The Golden Dawn's approach to ritual is like that old saw everyone's dad told them growing up: The right tool for the right job.

The A.'. A.'. 's approach to ritual is less subtle. I would say it was, "OMG! BREAK STUFF!" but that would be over-simplifying it a bit."---Frater Amre

Scary coincidence

Here is a scary coincidence for you. As the Continential Flight #1404 emergency landing was happening at Denver International Airport (I live a few miles west of the airport), I was writing an article on the Tower card.

I realize that it is just a coincidence, but things like this happen often enourgh that I understand how some people can get superstitious and worry about the presence of magicians and witches.

Imagine if I was under the oath of the abyss, can you just see my ego swelling up?

Trollish behavior

Over the last few days, I have been watching a troll on one of the Yahoo groups that I am a member of. I am positive that it was just a troll.

It started off when someone mentioned that someone was selling Ambramelin oil on eBay. Now, I am sure that the first post was merely a sales pitch, probably by the eBay seller themselves; but perhaps not, those of us in the esoteric community do tell others of our discoveries of decent priced material and tools.

One of the responses was that one should not buy oil from someone that they do not know, with a catty comment that "I suppose that you buy your magical tools also." And they signed it 93 (this whole story, sadly, is an example of the behavior that the worst of Thelema produces).

At this point, I got involved because yes, I have brought tools and oils from other people. I asked if he grew his own food, hoping that he would see the point that I was trying to make.

Yes, I forgot my father's advice of not arguing with drunks and fanatics. He never said anything about trolls, but I suspect that they fall under the fanatic category.

There was a couple of moments of quiet. Then the troll came back that they did grow all their food and meat, and that no real magician uses tools that other people made. He also made some comments about women only having one purpose---shades of Crowley.

And I dont need to describe the rest; experienced group members can fill in the rest of the blanks.

But it always worries me to see this type of behavior. What if a true Neophyte (someone who knew nothing about Golden Dawn, or Thelema, for that matter) saw this? What if this type of behavior was your first exposure to Our Tradition?

There were some that thought that my responses should have been more impolite, or at least not so subtle. But when I saw how they were signing their posts (93), I knew that indulging in anger would accomplish nothing. And I promptly suspected a troll to boot, someone whose true purpose of posting was to cause trouble.

Now, I know some fine Thelemics, who are very smart, very skilled at magic, and who seek to enlighten others. This person was not one of those. And I refused to stoop down to their level.

So that is my complaint of the day: I hate internet trolls.

And then revised yet again

Earlier I revised the page about the disappearance of the Thelemic Golden Dawn webpage. Then I revised it yet again.

About the first revision, my opinion still stands; but I had friends in the Thelemic Golden Dawn (at least until I left), so I decided to revise it yet again. So if you read the second version during the couple of hours that it was up, I still think that not having a redirect page or making sure people knew that the site moved was a mistake.

As I said: Do not move your website without telling people that you moved it.

Of course, the most interesting thing about this revision cycle is that I checked my email after the first revision (which I wrote between classes today), and found a message from David Ch. about the first version of the page.

I am glad that he read it. At least that way, he knows that I, and many others, thought that the Order actually disappeared (like so many others have).

It was one of the reasons I considered the second revision. While David and me will never see eye to eye, I have the ego of a writer after all, I would like to think that we don't have any particular malice towards each other.

The other reason is that I realized that my ego was getting the better of me in the second version. Dislike it as much as I do, my ego is a mirror of my mother's which is a nasty piece of work. When I notice my ego acting up, I do try to rein it in. Not always successful...but David Ch. and most of my friends know that it is a big beast.

And after thinking it over, I decided to give TGD a courtesy link. I have found the information useful, and was more annoyed about the absence of the site and the lack of information about its apparent disappearance than the ego issues that made me leave the TGD.

I wish the TGD luck at rebuilding their google search rank.

Page update: Concerning the Disappearance of the TGD website

Updated the page on the Disappearance of the Thelemic Golden Dawn website.

I have never claimed to be a nice person. And personally, I think that someone should have announced the website address change to the rest of the esoteric communtiy. At the very least, it would have made better business and SEO sense than not announcing it.