TMaroney: Why Crowley Doesn't Suck
G Leake
mar...@apple.com wrote:
Crowley was a poet, perhaps only of the second rank, but a poet by nature
nonetheless, and the grace and beauty of the poetic sentiment infuses all
his rituals and meditations.
*personally, I think he's quite under-rated in academic circles. His
essays are quite good--Eight Lectures on Yoga for instance.
megalomaniacal essays proposing ultimate answers
to questions he did not understand --
*take my example--he does well there to dispell false notions of Yoga.
The one really successful group ritual he created was the
"Gnostic Mass," and even that still creates for many observers the false
impression that it is a mere mockery of the Catholic Mass.
*that's funny, I find both Masses boring.
Despite its
strengths, the Gnostic Mass institutionalized Crowley's misogynist ideas
about the sexual magic that was central to his system. His belief that
"man is the guardian of the Life of God; woman but a temporary expedient;
a shrine indeed for the God, but not the God" reduces the priestess,
despite a promising introduction, to a mere functionary for the priest,
waiting passively as he does all the work in which the real sacredness
resides. This point is not lost on most observers and serves to
discourage many women from pursuing Crowley studies.
*actually, I got the opposite impression witnessing the Gnostic Mass.
Crowley's longer writings about ritual and meditation practice, of which
the best examples are "Magick in Theory and Practice" and "Eight Lectures
on Yoga", exist in a gray area. The grayness results from Crowley's
unfortunate attempts to delve into philosophy and his self-aggrandizing
accounts of his own spiritual authority. To consider only MTP, it leads
off with a ridiculous philosophical claim to have reconciled nihilism,
monism and dualism by simply attributing each to one to the Thelemic
trinity of gods. MTP is riddled with megalomaniacal passages and specious
philosophical observations. Yet when Crowley simply explains how he
thinks rituals work, what feelings he associates with particular points
of ritual, styles appropriate to particular points, and how the parts
integrate into the whole, he presents a comfort with and knowledge of
Western occult modes that would be difficult to find anywhere else.
*I guess I didn't get that from MTP. I'm more concerned with certain
historical claims and problems in the chapter describing the manufacture
of ritual tools. What stands out foremost in MTP and elsewhere is the
insistence that the student has got to figure these things out for her or
himself.
I have in the past faulted MTP for parochialism,
*yeah, well, what about Henry James for that matter?
in that Crowley seems to
take a particular ritual formula as paramount when in fact there are many
other forms of magical ritual, and for exegesis instead of analysis,
since he generally fails to jump to a meta-level of analysis to engage
basic questions, such as why we would want to do ritual in the first
place or why rituals should involve mythic figures such as gods.
*I'm more concerned with issues like hinting in the Book of the Law that
Christianity is one of the religions of the Slave Gods, yet using
Christian elements in his philosophy and magical practice. Sex magick has
heavy Eucharistic elements, for instance.
For these issues one will have to go to ritual studies and anthropology.
Still, the fact that he fails to contribute here does not mean that he
makes no contribution at all. His account of his own practice and of his
thinking about it is unusually detailed and beautifully rendered, and
deserves general study as a unique window into practice.
One more of Crowley's strong points deserves mention, again related to
his writing. The Equinox is half mystical encyclopedia and half literary
journal. While its literary contributions are not stellar, they are good,
and the playful, knowing feel of the whole is as pleasant now as it was
almost a century ago. Mystics and magicians today are often faced with a
great cultural divide from their spiritual ancestors, and simply to see a
magician being very much a man of the twentieth century is a useful
lesson.
*that dovetails nicely into one of my main criticisms of Crowley, in
Equinox III he has a suggested reading list for students--and since you
speak of the divide with ancestors, one of my criticisms of Crowley is his
failure to acknowledge very important works such as many alchemical works,
key mythic works, and to mention Barrett's Magus but ignore Agrippa's De
Occulta Philosophia. One gets the singular impression that his suggestions
are mere guidelines always, that the serious student should be able to
discern what's really important and what's crap.
Of course, none of this excuses Crowley's more egregious personality
failings
*I've seen so much beating around the bush on this point, I simply don't
take it very seriously any more. OK--so he gave Neuberg a hard time. What
else? He mooched money off of rich friends...that certainly isn't
admirable, but usually when I think someone's soaking off of me, they
usually get some kind of swift confrontation.
or his dilettante excursions into areas he was unable to
understand,
*"a man's reach must exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for?"--Robert
Browning.
which I will continue to underline as the opportunity
presents itself. In the future, though, I will try to give equal time to
the good and the bad, rather than allowing myself to be drawn into the
reactive mode of constantly correcting his followers when they demand
that Crowley be showered with unearned rewards.
--
Tim Maroney t...@maroney.org http://www.maroney.org
--
Therefore all those who desire to attain the blessing of this art should apply themselves to study, should gather the truth from the books and not from invented fables and untruthful works. There is no way by which this art can truly be found (although men meet with many deceptions), except by completing their studies and understanding the words of the philosophers
Theatrum Chemicum. Volume II. (Hæredes: Zetzner, 1659), page 387
George Leake
tali...@mail.utexas.edu
Madness
In article <5r0ra7$6...@kudo20.kudonet.com>, ty...@houseofkaos.abyss.com
says...
>
>[from thele...@hollyfeld.org: Tim Maroney <mar...@apple.com>]
>
<big snip of psuedo scholarly goat whipping>
Blah. A lot of people have said worse. Some probably even had grounds.
Always a bridesmaid, & critics are just failed artists.
Madness
Praemonstratrix
so =
> *"a man's reach must exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for?"--Robe=
rt
> Browning.
> =
> which I will continue to underline as the opportunity
> presents itself. In the future, though, I will try to give equal time t=
o
> the good and the bad, rather than allowing myself to be drawn into the
> reactive mode of constantly correcting his followers when they demand
> that Crowley be showered with unearned rewards.
> =
> --
> Tim Maroney t...@maroney.org http://www.maroney.org
> =
> --
> Therefore all those who desire to attain the blessing of this art shoul=
d apply themselves to study, should gather the truth from the books and n=
ot from invented fables and untruthful works. There is no way by which th=
is art can truly be found (although men meet with many deceptions), excep=
t by completing their studies and understanding the words of the philosop=
hers
> =
> Theatrum Chemicum. Volume II. (H=E6redes: Zetzner, 1659), page 387
> =
> George Leake
> tali...@mail.utexas.edu
Mitch Goldstein
On 23 Jul 1997 03:14:05 GMT, msw...@pop.srv.ualberta.ca (Madness)
wrote:
> critics are just failed artists.
>
>Madness
>
Well put indeed
----------------------------------------------------
Mitch Goldstein "Also ye shall be strong
mitc...@concentric.net in war." AL III:28
G Leake
*there are many great critics and authors
Oscar Wilde
Aleister Crowley
Ezra Pound
and many others
In article <33dd268c...@news.concentric.net>, mitc...@concentric.net
(Mitch Goldstein) wrote:
Well put indeed
--
Therefore all those who desire to attain the blessing of this art should apply themselves to study, should gather the truth from the books and not from invented fables and untruthful works. There is no way by which this art can truly be found (although men meet with many deceptions), except by completing their studies and understanding the words of the philosophers
Theatrum Chemicum. Volume II. (Hæredes: Zetzner, 1659), page 387
George Leake
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