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Note: these excerpt threads are
subject to continual revision and updating as opportunity and priority
permits
Lon Milo DuQuette: "Now we must briefly address an essential component of the Thoth Tarot that, for many people, demands not only an open mind, but also a great deal of spiritual courage. During his lifetime, this all-important aspect of Crowley's work was understood and appreciated by only a tiny number of his students. Unfortunately, it still remains the source of much controversy and misinterpretation. It is of particular interest to us because several of the trump cards of the Thoth Tarot are Lady Harris's dramatic renderings of a series of complex and curious visions - visions that communicate, in symbols and words, the shifts of character among the titanic forces that bring an end to one spiritual age and the beginning of another. Some of these visions are intoxicatingly beautiful; some are dark and terrifying; some seem to wallow in blasphemies. All of them, like visions recorded by prophets of old, need a key to unlock their meaning... It is understandable that anyone with a Christian background would recoil in horror when he or she first encounters Crowley's shocking use of words and imagery, such as the Beast 666, Scarlet Woman, All-Father Chaos, Whore of Babylon, or blood of the saints. While these dark 'blasphemies' effectively serve to screen out faint-hearted dabblers (and all who choose to remain self-blinded by superstition), they offer a radiant and altogether wholesome spiritual treasure for anyone bold and tenacious enough to do a little research... As we discussed in the preceeding chapter, Crowley taught that we stand at the threshold of a new aeon - a period of profound intellectual and spiritual growth and self-realization. In order to illustrate the evolutionary forces at work at this pivotal moment, he employed a venerable (but easy to misinterpret) literary device. He proceeded to hijack many recognizable terms, images, visions, and characters of Egyptian, Hindu, Greek, Hebrew, and Christian mythology. He transmuted their character and signifiance in order to communicate a new message - a message for the ears of modern men and women whose rapidly expanding consciousness has now equipped them to perceive objective and spiritual realities that would be incomprehensible to the seekers of only a few generations ago. In other words, Crowley took old terrifying concepts such as the Whore of Babylon and the Beast 666 and, in his own way, redeemed them..." [34-35] Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot "Each of us has a Secret Lover; a lover who awaits just behind the erotic images that flood our minds during sexual arousal or in sleep; a dream lover who disguises as the individuals with whom we fall in love; an ideal lover who has adored us since the beginning of our individual existence and who will never abandon us until the instant we merge our being in absolute Godhead. We momentarily feel the embrace of our Secret Lover in the ecstasy of orgasm and in moments of rapture when the beauty of music or dance or visual art or nature overcome us. Whenever we experience a 'broken heart' it is often because another individual has not lived up to the perfection of our Secret Lover. The reason sexual experiences are often better in the imagination or memory than in actuality is because it is in the imagination that the Secret Lover is nearest to us. Personal relationships will always be ... disappointing to us because in truth there can never be a relationship that matches the one we already have with our Secret Lover. It is the secret standard by which everything else is measured. The irony is that most of us are not aware of our relationship with our Secret Lover. Surrender to this Secret Lover is a central theme of most every religion... Many passages of the New Testament and the newly discovered Gnostic texts clearly reveal that the Christ is a projected image of a level of consciousness achievable to all. And until this is experienced, until we have become one with Him, subsequent higher levels of consciousness will be unattainable... The Ecstasies of the Nun Gertrude and St. Teresa are unmistakable examples of sexual surrender to the divine lover. It was only because of their religious and cultural environment that the image of their lover was that of Christ. Had Teresa been Hindu her lover may have been Krishna, Vishnu or any number of deities of devotion..." [11-12] Sex Magic - The Way of the Secret Lover Note: this book is co-authored with Christopher S. Hyatt - I am uncertain as to which actually penned the words. "Next to silence, stories are the most divine form of communication. Stories are alive. Stories are holy. Stories are gods that create universes and the creatures and characters that populate them. Stories bring to life all the triumphs and tragedies imagination and experience can summon to the mind. Stories speak directly to our souls. Stories are magick. As I begin the seventh decade of my life, I find myself more inclined to listen to a story than to study a text or reflect on an argument - more inclined to tell a story than to presume to teach a lesson or offer advice... I, of course, hope that you will enjoy this small collection of my memories, but I know that I can't possibly satisfy the taste and expectation of every reader. Perhaps this book will not be what you expected. Perhaps you will be disappointed that I haven't written yet another textbook or a more scholarly elucidation upon some great magical system or philosophical doctrine. If so, I hope you overlook my lack of apology, because I believe with this little book I am offering you something that can be far more powerful and enlightening - a gift of stories. I hope you accept them for what they are, and find your particular truth within them..." [1-3] LOW MAGICK "For convenience sake, I will henceforth collectively (and respectfully) refer to these Bible-based religions by a term I coined just for conversations such as this. The word is Chrislemew. One popular interpretation of these doctrines posits that humans are caught in the middle of a perpetual war between the armies of an absolutely good God in heaven above, and the minions of an absolutely evil devil in hell below. For reasons known only to God, the devil and his team have been placed in charge of human life on earth. Furthermore, according to this theory, God has especially charged the devil with the duty of tempting and tormenting human beings - perpetually prodding us to rebel against a curiously complex catalogue of commandments and divinely decreed roster of rules, irrational beliefs, and blindly obedient behavior that ... might earn for us after death a ticket to eternal happiness in heaven with God and his good angels. This parochial and highly polarized way of looking at things makes everything pretty simple. God is good. The devil is bad. Angels are good. Demons are bad. Heavenly stuff is high. Infernal stuff is low. For those who subscribe to the Chrislemew worldview, the choice of whether to pursue the path of high or low magick is a no-brainer. After all, who in their right mind would prefer to dabble with dangerous and deceitful evil demons from hell when instead one can safely seek the heavenly aid of the wholesome and well-behaved good angels of God Almighty... There are many people in the world today ... who believe quite literally that the above arrangement is the only spiritual game in town. It is certainly their right to do so; after all, for many of us this God/devil, heaven/hell, angel/demon morality play is the familiar foundation upon which the perversely comfortable 'faith of our fathers' was built... I must, however, be honest. I do not believe in such an all-good anthropomorphic god. Neither do I believe in an all-evil anthropomorphic devil. I don't believe in a heaven where I'll be rewarded for believing correctly or a hell where I'll be punished for my unbelief..." [11-12] LOW MAGICK "After nearly forty years of magical study and practice, I've come to the conclusion that magick is magick. It is a spiritual art form by which we collect and direct a natural and neutral force whose source is the supreme intelligence - the supreme consciousness. In the right hands and under the right circumstances, the application of magick can be creative or destructive, helpful or harmful. It is not the magick that is good or evil, or high or low - it is the magician. No matter how pious and virtuous one may believe oneself to be - no matter how seemingly altruistic one's motives - no matter how precise and eloquently one executes the invocations to enlist the favor of God and the services of his angels, a magician who has not yet grasped this big picture and achieved a significant measure of spiritual maturity, mental stability, and purity of heart is not yet equipped to recognize relative good from relative evil. Like a marksman firing a powerful weapon in the dark, the naive or superstitious magician is incapable of accurately hitting the mark or determining what magical actions will or will not be in his or her best interests. Conversely, if the magician is in touch with the Great G, there is no devil too evil, no angel too fallen, no demon too foul to be redeemed and pressed into the service of the Great Work..." [14] LOW MAGICK "On the surface, this spiritual worldview appears to be at odds with the Chrislemew doctrines we discussed in the precedding chapter. We've got God up above, and we've got demons down below, but it appears that's where the similarity ends. In fact, the whole format of Solomonic magick appears to be an incongruous mixture of high and low magick. The key to understanding this paradox lies with the person of Solomon himself. Solomon represents a new kind of human being - a person who has broken free of the old ways of looking at God and our place in creation - a person whose consciousness has expanded beyond the prison universe of good gods and evil devils - a person who grasps the concept of a supreme consciousness so absolute that all forces and powers of creation (even those that to others appear evil and destructive) are pressed into service of the Great G Goodness. A true 'Solomon' confidently knows his or her place in this new understanding of the divine scheme of things. A true Solomon is a proactive full citizen of both heaven and hell. A true Solomon is, in fact, encouraged by the Great G God Almighty to conjure the devils and put them to work doing good things! Are you confused? Don't be. You've just learned a fundamental secret of magick, and if you can free yourself from the old Chrislemew way of looking at things, you are well on the way to becoming a true Solomon yourself..." [22] LOW MAGICK "Funny thing about demons. If you're a Solomon, they make wonderful employees. But if you're not, they make terrible bosses. They are easy to call up. They run amok in our lives as the frenzied menagerie of our own uncontrolled and undirected energies. When we willfully put one to work for us, we are in essence saying to the cosmos of consciousness, 'I will conquer and redeem this demon from hell, and the battle will take the form of a character building adventure. The adventure will transform the demon into a loyal and worthy employee, and transform me into a new and different person - a masterful person...'" [28] LOW MAGICK |