THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
	a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects.

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.magick.order,alt.thelema,alt.pagan.magick,talk.religion.misc,talk.religion.newage
From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nigris (333))
Subject: The Law (of Thelema) is Offensive!
Date: 13 Jan 1999 03:18:12 -0800

49980501 aa2 Hail Satan!  

SPOILER >>>(warning: OTOites, potential IX' secrets inside)<<< SPOILER


"Michael J. Rae" :
#>#># the mysteries of OTO itself, to which Thelema is a 
#>#># secondary graft. 
 
nigris (333):
#> ...this exaggerates the distance between the Law and the
#> Order.  ...Baphomet (AC) did more than add a Thelema 
#> prosthetic to the organization, instead REVISING the whole 
#> to conform to the Law itself....

"Michael J. Rae" 
# ...OTO has a distinct theology and initiation scheme; AC
# revised that scheme to incorporate teh Law.

revised that scheme so as to enter into conformity to the Law.
your descript as a 'graft' bears no justification.  the whole
was revised in order that OTO would continue into the New Aeon.
without such a revision it was doomed.
 
 
# "what if OTO had never been made a specifically Thelemic order, 
#  but had remained more of its original universal character?".

without being Thelemic it could never have been truly universal,
only a facade of such.

 
#># non-Thelemites can't join the Order without being dishonest, 
#># ...OTO has such great potential to unite the divided.
 
#> where is dishonesty a requirement for membership for non-Thelemites?

# Relatively quickly in the MOE, one makes certain affirmations regarding
# the Law, which a non-Thelemite could not, in honesty, make....

this is false based on a specific (if popular, then foolish) 
understanding of what 'the Law' means (vide infra).


#> what is a 'Thelemite' that your meaning of 'non-Thelemite' has any
#> significance? 
 
# At a minimum, acceptance of the Law itself.

'the Law' which you later describe as the Evul Book.  what does 
"acceptance of the Law" mean in terms of the Evul Book?  how can
this apply in any practical sense while associating to the phrase
"do what thou wilt"?  why and how does Rabelais fit in?

 
#> as OTO is ostensibly a Thelemic organization, isn't
#> it valuable to have such an exclusion...?
  
# Yes, since it IS a thelemic organization.  That is my point.  

whether it is Thelemic depends as much upon one's notion of what
'Thelemic' means as whether an org *can* be such.  your specific
bias automatically qualifies any cult that obsesses over a text 
it identifies as "Thelemic" (ha!), for whatever reason, to be
considered 'Thelemic'.  I feel that this is like putting on a
mask of Nixon and insisting to be taken seriously as his 
reincarnation.  it is laughable, and those who are taken in by
such interpretations deserve the ridiculous and inevitable
repurcussions of such folly.

 
# If OTO had REAMAINeD a not-specifically-Thelemite Order, this 
# exclusion would not exist.  

and OTO would become elitist and obsolete in no time, never to 
have provided a foundation for the liberation of human beings.


# Thelemites could join, and so could other people of an "occult
# Masonry" bent.  

they can now, but if they are not aware of the proper Keys, then
they will self-exclude based on their ignorance.  those who
swallow the cult's dictates deserve the slavery they create for
themselves.  it is a dangerous tightrope, perhaps worth the effort.


# this latter tendency has been slowly purged from mainstream 
# Masonry....  and I suspect that that is why orthodox Masonry 
# is falling rapidly into decline while OTO, despite appeaaling 
# to a minority religion exclusively, continues to grow.

Masonry lost the Keys.  they were incapable of tapping the
Current of universalism which the religious establishments
have also sullied and destroyed.  OTO grows because it is
a New Aeon organization, and those who have a firm grasp on
the vision and conceptualization of the Great Beast are 
best prepared to initialize the reign of the Crowned and
Conquering Child King.

now if the OTO can keep from ossifying under a cultish myopia,
enslaved to the hollow bogey of Ankh-f-n-Khonsu and obsessed
by a monster-VSL, without enduring virtue beyond its ability to
shred the librum-insanity of the West and world, we may be able
to say we are contributing to the lasting liberation of humankind,
and, more importantly as I see it, to preserving living diversity.
 

uncited:
#># ...I'd STILL be a member if [(c)OTO] hadn't adopted the Law.  

333: 
#> what does "adopted the Law" mean here?  are you talking about what
#> I consider to be a facile identification of 'the Book of the Law'
#> 'accepted' in the Order with the flimsy piece of parchment over
#> which the modern OTO has become obsessed? 
# 
# Yes.

what brings you to this identification?


#> ...the Evul Book is like a very frightful mask upon the entire 
#> enterprise of Holy Books, exploding the tradition through a 
#> mockery of its mechanism as it includes such a ridiculous set 
#> of internally-inconsistent assertions and proclamations 
#> (entertaining and useful as they may be).
 
# I certainly don't see it that way, but won't go into why.

is that because the Priest of the Princes has instructed his cult
not to discuss it else become a COP?  do you see how perfect it 
was created so as to ensnare those without vision that would meekly
follow in the Master's footsteps, convinced without adequate
reflection that this tarbaby was the New Holy Text?  I think that
Crowley was sick of Bibles and figured out how to liberate humans
without the silly bibliomancy mucking things up in any major way.

the liberated accept Crowley as a crafty fox whose genius paved 
the way for those of comparable spirit to enhance the inroads he 
created.  whether OTO or his tarbaby bears any fruit, it seems to 
be allowing for the flowering of a Thelemic community (not a cult) 
whose leaders bask in the heat of their will and whose loyalty is 
to life, not a batch of dead parchment, and whose membership is
not defined by any earthly roster.  that the OTO may symbolize 
this through VSL-enslavement is an important mystery.

 
# > as the religious and fanatic set about weaving social traditions
# > out of the mishmash and tatter of this "holy scripture", so is
# > their activity a demonstration that *any* wad of ravings, if
# > sufficiently convincing to the malleable mind, will be engrained
# > as a new imprint and used to rationalize the guilty wills of
# > those who cannot accept direct responsibility for their acts but
# > must somehow foolishly buttress this through bibiomancy and
# > cultish slavery.
 
# I, for one, accepted the Law because it crystalized my existing
# convictions....

the Joshua Norton Cabal said it best:

	"Convictions cause convicts."


# after rational reflection, and not under circumstances likely 
# to lead to imprint vulnerability.

you think that we can always tell when we are so vulnerable?  
the perfect co-option is that which seems a verity.

 
# 'Sides, Nigris, we all know you love the Evil Book :).

actually I love the Law which informs it, and this a Thing far
greater than any stinking "revelation" written by an imperialist
poet with a penchant for ritualism.  for me the VSL has always
implied something far grander than a pulpy mass of dead words,
and could never be contained therein, no matter who penned it.

I love Evul Books because they explode the known parameters of
that use toward which we put them.  they challenge us to go
beyond a bibliomantic worship and an adulation of words and
rather to take up the standards which, in their best forms,
they imply.  always going, the 93 Current is not a zoo animal 
to be trapped inside a cage of papyrus or vellum.
  

# ...OTO had its own identity before accepting the Law

just another masonic Rosicrucianry, fascinated by that which
it could glimpse but would never obtain.  only the genius of
such as Crowley could bring it into the New Aeon as a fomenter
of liberation and pulsing life.  only we have the ability to
see that this continues.  those who stultify it with cultish
brooding and religious claptrap will be its death.


# ...it is for THAT that I joined it

then you joined a shade, transformed and given flesh by the
Master for purposes greater than the amusement and self-
glorification of a petty elite corpse.  without being revised
along Thelemic lines it would have proved a need for disposal,
just like most Rosicrucian and GolDawnian remnants continue,
languishing, falling and become buried by their ignorance.


# ...not inasmuch as it happens to be a vehicle for Thelema.

if I were to presume that your meager 'Thelema' could have a
worthy vehicle (it can't as I understand it), then such an
occupant and vehicle would deserve a swift death and would be
subject to precisely this if not seen for the Secrets it may
contain.  nay, this is why the Order is burgeoning, on account
of the excellence of its prophet, whose image forms the exact
proper resolution of puritanism and abased hedonistic temper.

in fact the only worthy organizations deserving of continued
life are those which serve as a vehicle for Thelema (as I am
referring to it, a principle and liberating force, not just
some book of religious ravings).  the others should be cast
away like so much dust, shells to the vibrancy of the Magus.

 
#> why would any organization founded on the support of the 
#> individual will and its sovereignty be that with which any 
#> self-respecting magician or mystic of individualistic
#> character might take issue? 
 
# You can support these beliefs without being a Thelemite.  

in the sense you mean it of course, but that is a waste.  any
idiot can "accept the Law" by pledging allegiance to a book of
pithy lines, a batch of half-formed ideas, enslaving oneself to 
even that which provides hir with visions, crystalizes existing
convictions, and lends the aura of a manifested icon for worship.
it thereafter becomes nothing but a graven image of Thelema.


# I realize you define Thelema in an extremely inclusive manner, 
# but your use of the word is quite idiosyncratic.  

is this because of the proper application of the term or because
a glamor of cultists have applauded the specific usage which
serves to inculcate additional marks to the feedtrough?  Thelema
is no pyramid scheme, even it takes pylons to set it standards
flying.


# Any biographer who wrote that John Stuart Mill was an ardent 
# Thelemite" would rightly be told s/he was full of shit, even
# tho' JSM certainly embraced, and lived, ideals which, broadly 
# speaking, are "Thelemic."

being told by the profane that one's meanings are false is like
hearing the sheep bleet from the field on account of the roaring
of a brief gale.  it no more convinces than do the complaints of
slaves unto kings that it is impossible to become a king.  those
who have eyes to see will envision the Thelemic nature of any
worthy and holy bard.


# ...other folks who CAN't join the Order because of that 
# "piece of paper"....

any who identify the 'Law' with 'that "piece of paper"' are
probably best excluded or dominated into silence through
restrictive oaths and prohibitions from the Master.


# > # It was _C_ and related documents that convinced me to do so.
 
#> ...Liber C vel Azoth, also known as
#> _Liber Agape_, is one of those 'secret documents' at least
#> partially published in Francis King's _Secret Rites of the OTO_
#> as well as occasionally distributed by Order members to those
#> whom it favors (though perhaps this activity was terminated 
#> with the regularization of its internal structure).

#> are you saying that you joined the Order with the sole purpose
#> of obtaining, or or putting into application with people of
#> like mind, the contents of this document (that is, sacred sex,
#> some creation of a fabulous "Elixir of Life" from the secretions
#> of perfectly attuned and trained adepts of the Sanctuary of
#> Gnosis -- IX' initiates supposed to have some special abilities)?

# I joined the Order because it was the fountainhead of the wisdom 
# in C and the other high-grade instructions, 

why don't you tell us something about what convinced you of this
fountainhead.  the intimations and terrible tyrannies foisted by 
Francis (Universal Current) King are all that I have seen of this 
"C", and it does not speak to me of a Wisdom Supreme or Summum
Bonum.  no, in King (omit your disclamations of his "error" 
please, they become tedious), it looks like some sort of 
Christian sex magick, and I do not understand that its content is 
all that unique (though at times poetically interesting) or wise.
is a Christian Agape such a mindblowing suggestion or an enviable
focus of arcane mysteries in the Aeon of Horus?
  

# which blew me out of my fucking socks, 

what was it that blew you away so completely?


# and not just because of their practical applications.

here is what I'd love to see delineated for our education.
what are the practical applications of the wisdom of this
mysterious Secret?


# ...I identify with the Law;  I identify with the Order.  
# Their conjunction is of benefit to the Law and its adherents, 

you identify with the Evul Book?  very odd!  how can one come to
identify with a mere book?  it would seem one identifies with an
irresolvable jumble on par with any 'Bible'.  you identify with 
the Order?  this would seem admirable.  presuming that the Law's 
adherents are those who take a silly book for its entirety seems 
to have missed so much of even the Evul Book's content that I am 
flummoxed.


# but the Order's mysteries interest me in and of themselves, 
# without their secondary Thelemic accretions.

the mysteries have ALWAYS been Thelemic in nature.  this is why
they have been of value to human beings since ancient times,
though upon occasion they be taken for duty-bindings and a
forced enslavement to a slave-god.  the "accretions" of which
you speak are merely the interpretations of a cult which forms,
as smegma, in the cavities of Perfect Members.

blessed beast!
nigris (333) 
-- 
tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (emailed replies may be posted); cc me replies;
http://www.abyss.com/tokus; http://www.luckymojo.com/mojocatSPELLS.html