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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick.ethics,alt.traditional.witchcraft,alt.satanism,alt.pagan,alt.religion.wicca
From: nocTifer 
Subject: SatanoWiccaThelemoChristian Religious Ethics
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 03:49:31 GMT

50031030 viii om 

michael regarding his spiritual 'Wiccans':
#>#> Their vary foundation of " Do as thou will but Harm none
#>#> For Love is the whole of the law."  Is biblical text and
#>#> the teachings of Christ.

talk about a confusion of styles.

"janet" :
#> (I think it's Augustine, but I'd have to go look....) :)

'Love and do what thou wilt' maybe. this has been discussed
before with respect to where Crowley got it.

paghat@netscapeSPAM-ME-NOT.net (paghat):
# Heh heh. This so-called "wiccan rede" sounds more like 
# Ashley Brilliant than Augustine, though it actually 
# originates as Satanist teachings from Aleister Crowley.

quite rational.

# It is called the Thelemic Law of Love (Agape) and Will (Thelema). 
# Some have tried to pound it into a "biblical" origin citing 
# love-slogans from christian gospels that are nowhere near this 
# quote, 

I've never seen that, just the citation of Augustine.

# but who knows, maybe Crowley had biblical verses in mind 
# when creating his own unrecognizable paraphrase. 

Christian for sure. he had a difficult time escaping that.

# Crowley & LeVay & Gardener all promulgated this law. Crowley
# said specifically in The Book of Law "Do what thou wilt shall 
# be the whole of the law; love is the law, love under will" 

pretty much. these are separated and slightly different in
capitalization (hey, the religious make it important :>):

	Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

	Love is the law, love under will.

both from his 'Nuit' partition of his scripture but separated
by a good bit of space that makes neither dependent upon the
other for their importance.

# which wiccan crackpot Gerald Gardner quite decently 
# credited to Crowley when paraphrasing it in the now
# familiar "Rede" form, 

I got the impression he concealed this in constructing
his original Book of Shadows. you sure about the credit?
if so, where did he provide it?

# "So long as it hurts no one, do what thou wilt, for
# love is the whole law, there is no other." 

nice, where is this from? the only ones I know are like:

	Harm none and do what thou wilt.
or
	Do what you will so long as ye harm none.

# There is no great difference between the meaning of two 
# versions really, t hough Gardener's version is clearer; 
# but both refer to "Will" or Thelema as a restraining factor on
# "Love" or Agape -- neither Crowley nor Gardener is saying you can do
# ANYTHING you want to call Love, because whatever is done MUST factor 
# in the safety & desires of others because what They love is of equal
# importance.... 

whereas Crowley takes these as a *pair* in his correspondence
and his Thelemic Greetings, Gardner/Wiccans combine and require.

Crowley's is a descriptive "law", Gardner's is a PROSCRIPTIVE "rede".
your rough equation of them is therefore supportable, though I can
also see room to argue to the contrary about each of their intentions.

# So its a Satanist teaching (Crowley's) 

conventionally it is considered polite to consider him a "de facto"
Satanist, because he just took the Devil as his Angel ('Aiwass')
and invoked Satan (in ritual), preferring not to name himself as
such beyond identifying as the Beast of the Christian Apocalypse
(a book I doubt he even considered Christian scripture, by the
Plymouth Brethren conservatism -- anyone know?).

# ammended by a Wiccan (Gardner) --

the first Wiccan, apparently.

# but bare in mind both men came from a Christian tradition & get their
# entire notion of Agape & Thelema from the Greek christian gospels, and
# indeed both satanism & modern wicca have more to do with christianity than
# paganism, having been devised by christians rather than by Jews or Moslems
# or Buddhists or Saktists or Gypsies or anyone other than just christians. 

well said!

# Even when Jewish ideas are incorporated like in the Golden Dawn circles,
# the dominance of Christian thinking makes these versions of Kabbalah
# pretty hoky & comical compared to the original, because there were way too
# few Jews guiding the interpretations & only an underpinning of Christian
# thinking informs these understandings. 

again, very true! the standards of Pico della Mirandola and syncretists
attempting to *include* potential Jewish religious gives way to those
suffering from some novel limiting dogmatism substituting for their
former-Christian chains by which they've become completely conditioned.

this makes itself extremely evident in the *anti-Christian* and often
*anti-Jewish* attitudes put forward by members of these religiomagical
traditions (Crowley's bigotted attitudes are quite well-known; Gardner
makes it plain that he finds the association with and inquiry into
'Satan' in his books; Satanism dives headlong into Hitlerianism and
Stalinism). sometimes the best that may be said is that these folks 
'hate the sin (of Christianity) but love the sinner (the Christ whom 
they all but worship)', at others it's just some kind of competition 
('*P*agan!') or co-option ('Qabalah'). at worst it becomes monstrous
as a complete loss of rationality (as with fascist Satanists).

# Virtually all neo-pagan movements 
# labor under the cultural norms that shaped the minds of each allegedly
# "pagan" movvement as constructed by christian, ex-christian,
# heretic-christian, or renegade christian founders & followers. 

few involved with these religiomagical traditions have seen this,
and I'm curious what kind of background it takes to clearly observe
this facet of what I've identified as post-Christian Hermetic society.

# You can find more authentic & vastly more ancient elements christians
# would regard as "pagan" in a reform synogogue in Denver or a hassidic
# community in Brooklyn than among self-avowed pagans!  

ah but if it was Judaism that would be part of the horrible Religions
of the Book from which so many Neopagans and Satanists are running in 
fear and loathing.

# Happily more than a few pagans do now embrace the Divine Shekhinah 
# and study the Kabbalah, but still almost always through the filter 
# of their own christian culture or upbringing.

this is to be expected to a degree. distance from the home-tradition
makes more possible and palatable a return to previous values and
clearer insight into what alternatives are truly available.

# Satanism & wicca both dwell equally in reaction to the christian 
# culture that produced them. 

it depends. I've seen what I'd regard as nonreactive syncreticism
by those who were interested in variety but didn't have hang-ups
about the surrounding cultural mores (perhaps by which they were
not conditioned or traumatized).
 
# Jewish tradition does not require such reactionary neo-faiths 

it might be argued that Christianity is precisely an example of
such a neo-faith, modelled on the ideals of the parent religion.

# because in traditional Jewish teachings to the kabbalistic
# side, Satan (Samael) is merely the Evil Urge of G-d and there 
# is really no conflict. 

it varies. the Jobian Officer Satan can be said to be integral
to the divinity also. JBRussell has some commentary on the
development of demonology in Judaism, whether from a captivity
or as a result of inability to ascribe evil to the Jewish G-d.

# G-d is demonic when we live badly; by 
# living good lives we purify G-d. But essentially figures like 
# Lilith can be recognized and embraced as Light Bringer (Lilith 
# is called the first step of Jacob's Ladder, an aspect of the 
# Divine Light that is closest to the earth & thus most polluted, 
# but still at the heart of her is a pure goodness). 

strange. Lilith's past as a demon both outside and inside 
the religion of Judaism would seem somewhat contrary to this
contention. is Lilith a Herd-winnower of sorts, by your measure?

# So too
# who really requires a Dianic replacement for God when we already have 
# the Divine Shekhinah as that component of divinity that is closest to
# humanity, that dwells with us in exile from paradise, & all traditional
# prayers may as easily be addressed to She as to It or Him. The Shekhinah
# IS Ishtar and Inanna and Cybele and Isis and Sekhmet -- the holy Zohar of
# Safed states categorically "Asherah is the Divine Lady," Malkhuth the
# Kingdom, feminibne presence of G-d. 

to a good number this is an alien landscape. the European background of
many Neopagans, for example, makes the projections of Jungian and race-
based religiomagic necessary to find compatibility and recognition. how
can the Euromigrant or conquered-by-Christianity-European truly commune
with a Middle-Eastern Current? will the Roman Horror need be vanquished?

# For christianity to have any similar
# teaching would require a schism, and that schism brought forth satanism &
# neo-paganism as a direct response to their christian upbringing. Jews only
# have to become increasingly aware of the mystic edge of fairly normal
# conservative judaism to know She is with us. Hence the derth of Jews in
# pagan circles, the dominance of "ex" christians, if "ex" at all.

I'd agree that where Jews are included in Neopagan circles they are not
always "ex", but there *are* more Jews than Buddhists and Santerians
floating within that Neopagan Soup, alongside the ex-Christians. at times
they would describe to me their favour of pomp, symbolism, and ritual
they could not find in their childhood religion but were attracted to
in Roman Catholicism which they could not (successfully) convert.

# So it's not that suprising that christians can't tell the teachings of
# satanists & neo-pagans from those of St Augustine, & it is amusing that 
# in fact the Crowley teaching is OFTEN quoted as Jesus's teachings in
# christian sermons by exactly the sort of know-nothing dweebs who are apt
# to become christian ministers or promulgators. Not all promulgators are
# that dumb of course; I bet you can't find any Cappuccins quoting Crowley
# for Christ, but of your typical know-nothing tepid worshipper, Ashley
# Brilliant, Aleister Crowley, and Jesus the Nazarene do all sort of blend
# together as the same person.

Crowley puts more emphasis on 'doing the will', obliterating this in
an equivocation about whether that will 'might' be the divine will
(as you have said, with a precursing Christian envelope). as such 
he may be compared with Anabaptists and Baptist Protestants 
rather than the more orthodox Augustine from which he draws.

also, it should be said that you are NOT representing LaVey very well
here with his 'Do unto others *as they do unto you*' (my emph.), in
which he says nothing about harm or love or whatever, extending in
some measure the same dictum under the rubric of an elite intelligence
(eshewing 'stupidity' as if this is absent from his own expression).

# In the best sense that even if innocent love and erotic love are one and
# the same thing, the innocence of REALLY loving one another restrains one
# from doing harm by succumbing to lustful feelings as easily as sentimental
# ones. By this satanic teaching Lucifer is restored to Light-bringer and
# has no negative conotation. The reason Christians kill each other (&
# everyone else) & even pagans including wiccans spend most of their active
# faith flaming & cussing on UseNet but never doing anything valuable, is
# because either they can't get laid (which skews their capacity for
# innocent love) or they can't actually love innocently (which causes their
# lustiness to become hate-filled whoremongering).Whoever cannot harmonize &
# balance innocent love and erotic love go out of kilter & end up being no
# good at either end of the scale.

this is a valuable assertion that I'll consider carefully. there are
clear indicators that your words are relevant to the Neopagan *and*
Satanist communities (the controversy about child-molestation and 
protecting of the innocent in Neopagan communities and the linkages
with NAMBLA in some Satanist cults is just one of these which must 
be considered).

# Some of these satanic principles ARE such good ones they might as well 
# be coopted by pagans & christians equally; that such central satanic
# principles have been coopted by pagans & christians alike reflects pretty
# well on the merits of Crowley's point of view, which has seeped into both
# mainstream & alternative religion with equally good fit. 

I would be hesitant, when dealing with Crowley and LaVey, and to a
certain extent Gardner, in ascribing to them leadership roles which
they wish to promote as theirs. Crowley was playing on Frenchies
like Rabelais (whose Gargantua and Pantegruel was a SMASH in Europe
and featured the satirical 'Abbey of Thelema' that Crowley ran with).

Gardner was primarily responding in his dyslexic writings to 
Pennethorne Hughes, whose exposes of fabricated Witchcraft and
Satanism rivals the fabulous stories of Michelet's "Satanism and
Witchcraft", though in the guise of an anthropologist). Gardner's
clear attempts to give the impression that he was 'discovering lost
religiomagical cults of devilworshippers' ('pagan remnants') is a
reflection of his British anti-witchcraft-law-overthrow preceding
his book publishing, and spurred their popularity to an extent.

LaVey was very clearly attempting to describe the malaise of
American Middle Class post-Christian materialism as a reflection
of his Satanism, providing something into which the critical
and hedonistic could fit, converting the plainly anti-Christian
to his cause as icons of growing discontent in Protestants.

as such I'd say that their writings *reflect active elements
in the cultures that absorbed them* rather than that they actively 
started something novel or represent a clear majority.

# Similar "balances" within satanism would include the manner by which
# Gluttony is restrained by Vanity since no one can be vain about their
# rolls of fat; Anger is restrained by Lust since it's hard to get laid
# while screaming with rage; Greed is restrained by Pride since the ego is
# so greatly inflated by having done good for others; Sloth is is restrained
# by Envy because we want to get what others have gotten & are motivated to
# action; but simultaneously Greed is restrained by Sloth because fuck it
# it's too much trouble to accumulate all that crap. Sloth's just SO good at
# restraining ALL the other sins in fact. Anyone who practices all the sins
# equally will discover that any given sin restrains the other Six, & the
# practitioner ends up living an essentially moral (rather than moralistic)
# life! It is only when bonehead moralists start ticking off some of them
# that things go awry.

interesting. not having been raised by Christians the concept of
sin was lost on me until I discovered Jewish alternative interps.
these various comparisons never occupied much of my time even in
philosophic reflection, and are interesting and novel as you
explore them (themselves alien to my thought-processes).

# Many smily-button wiccans, just like god-is-love christians, will deny it,
# but they have absorbed as much from Crowley as from any other religious
# teacher of the last hundred years. But then, the same can indeed be said
# of Rod McCuen or Ashleigh Brilliant, so all it really means is that people
# today tend merely to be pretty stupid & even the things they believe to be
# the most important in their lives they know very little about. Alas.

# -paghat the ratgirl
# -- 
# "Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
# "Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
#    -from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
# See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

BEAUTIFUL. thank you for your incisive criticism, blessed beast!.

nocTifer
______________________

        [The Church of Satan] is so gung-ho about its 
        prohibition on animal sacrifice that it _opposed_ 
        the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing animal 
        sacrifice!  
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