Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Yeaaahhh except there is an excerpt from one of his books where he suggest thats sacrificing a child produces the most potent magic possible, but you totally shouldnt do it (wink wink)
[dead]
Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
101–110 of 123 posts
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#102Highly recommend W. Sommerset Maughm's "The Magician" for a treatment of Crowley's personality and influence. The occult is full of tedious charlatans, and yet they reappear in history in influential forms like Machiavelli, Rasputin, Crowley, Mesmer, Bernays, Marcuse, and other literal mesmerists, with lesser lights as 20th century cult leaders, and I think Klaus Schwab and his transhumanist hokum is the current equi…
Marxism is materialist, how is it predicated on occult or gnostic premises?
I wondered at that too.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#103For anyone insterested in reading Crowley, I was told Liber four is the most straightforward writing of his. His collection of poems "White Stains" is just amazing as well - mostly speaking about human secretions of all kinds and ingesting them. Edit:"White Stains, a collection of Crowley's poetry praised by W.B. Yeats, published in paperback for the first time, has been called 'the filthiest book of verse ever writt…
To me, to not make up your own rituals is to not really understand any of this.
A good modern Crowley ritual based on the Absinthe book is to get some wine and other substances of choice, get quite inebriated over many hours and listen to Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion. Even better with a lover involved.
To just copy Crowley is to not understand that every man and woman is a star.
To treat Crowley as just some author of text is pure blasphemy.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#104Crowley, and his forebear Eliphas Levi, are responsible for the stupid air of sulphur which hangs around a lot of modern esoterica. AC has his apologists, and he was obviously clever, but he was unquestionably a complete turd, and created a religious system which was fundamentally Satanic, wrapped in enough layers of obfuscation that it can fascinate intelligent people, especially those who have received a substandar…
> ...substandard education in theology. Isn't most of theology just folks getting red faced arguing over things which are ultimately just made up, and are unknowable anyway in the first place? It's only a step away from a couple of guys shouting at each other about how the warp nacelles work in Star Trek.
I've always been fascinated by the idea that there's this arcane knowledge, hidden from ordinary people, mastery of which allows the universe to be one's plaything.
Math, programming, science, economics: These things seem to be as close to the real deal as one can get. Which makes them quite satisfying on the one hand, but also a little disappointing. Those things are...too limited, not magical enough, not...powerful enough to deal with many Real Problems. There's still sickness, death, weakness, evil, conflict...
On the one hand, our resources and technology are incredible by the standards of any prior period in history. On the other hand, we seem to be beset by problems on all sides. I badly want magic to be real, and humanity to have an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent father figure to help solve its problems and guide its development.
Christianity has some fascinating hints of supernatural powers. It's a real shame religion is so obsessively focused on the moral lessons. As a child learning about the Bible for the first time, I had so many more practical inquiries that I've never gotten adequately answered:
- Jesus went around healing people with a touch. What exactly were the mechanics of this? Is it only usable on leprosy specifically, or did it work for other diseases? Did other people have this ability? Has anyone come up with a plausible explanation of how the healing powers worked on a molecular level? Could this be a clue to useful cures for diseases today?
- Death and resurrection. How was the resurrection practically achieved? Can anyone be brought back to life, or do you have to have the kind of relationship with God that Jesus did? If we figure out the process Jesus used to come back to life, could we create technology to repeat this process and bring other dead people back to life? Is the power far beyond our current technology? Or is there some fundamental limitation making it a power that only God can use?
- The relationship between God and Jesus is super confusing to me. Jesus is commonly explained as the Son of God, but also he's sort-of like a body part of God -- and there's also a Holy Ghost involved that's sort-of a third thing, but also the Holy Ghost is also sort-of another body part of both Jesus and God -- I really don't understand it, but apparently it's super important and something that caused major disagreements among early Christian scholars. What are the practical implications?
- God talking through the burning bush. What the heck was going on there? Is there any explanation of why the burning bush was the form God chose to manifest? Has anyone else managed to set a bush on fire and hold an actual conversation with the Creator of the Cosmos? Has anyone tried performing, say, 10,000 experiments, setting 100 species of bushes on fire with 100 different firestarting methods, with a super sensitive microphone in case the voice is very faint, and a bunch of fancy physics gear to look for weird particles or radiation that might be emitted as a side effect of opening a DM to the Sysadmin of the Universe?
- One of the Old Testament prophets (Elijah I think?) at the end of his life, was taken into Heaven on a chariot of fire. That's exactly how I'd expect people from a couple millenia ago describe a rocket launch. Could this have been an instance of space travel?
- The angels come from heaven and look super weird -- apparently frightening to humans because they always open conversations with "Do not be afraid". Could angels be aliens?
- The city turned to ash in a flash of light. Could this be a description of a nuclear bomb? What about the survivor who turned around to look at it, and got petrified into a pillar of salt? Is there any known physical phenomenon that could account for that? Has anyone found those ruins and tested them for radiation, weird isotopes, etc.? Has anyone found the pillar of salt? Is it good old NaCl, or some other kind of salt? Is there DNA preserved in it? Is there any evidence of other ancient cities being nuked, or people being turned into pillars of salt?
- The Ten Commandments etched into stone tablets with lightning. Are there any other known instances of lightning carving useful information in human language into stone or other materials? Are the tablets themselves still around? Has anyone tested them for radioactive isotopes or other weird stuff that might still be around a couple thousand years later, either from the lightning or from God's power directing the lightning?
- I'm super confused about why God doesn't do more. If I was God, I'd definitely smite some evildoers with lightning bolts. Heal those who are sick and shouldn't be. Resurrect those who are dead and shouldn't be. Set a bunch of bushes on fire everywhere and start reminding people they should be good. Use lightning to write a proof or disproof of P=NP on a stone tablet during the Super Bowl in front of thousands of live witnesses, and millions more watching on TV.
- I'm super confused about how God is supposed to be good. He gets super mad at us when we follow the sinful urges he built into us when he designed us, floods an entire country with water for 40 days because too many people were bad, punished people for crap their ancestors did, and only stopped when we killed his son? That sounds like a narcissistic bully who's prone to falling into murderous rages. Not any father figure I'd want to have.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd prefer if you actually made an argument to support that this happens, because this simply does not match my experience at all. And you just asserting otherwise doesn't change that. And why won't you reveal what this wonderful method of "squaring the circle" is, since you seem so confident in its superiority? You're coming off quite smug about it, without providing any substance to back it up.
As regards the drugs and sex, I'm speaking from personal experience of people I've known. Easy enough to google "Tantra Scandal" and find examples, but you could argue that plenty of individuals in mainstream religions have abused their authority in a similar way. I'd argue that it's more prevalent in the places focused directly on sex and drugs, but I don't have a study of any sort to back me up.
I think that would probably be impossible to quantify. Would you consider amount of sexual abuse per religion, per believer, per cleric, or what? And, of course, reliable historical data on sexual abuse is unavailable.
I think your impression is likely a result of “deviance amplification”—-i.e, hearing about all the bad shit that goes on in more obscure religions, and taking that as indicative of prevalence.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#106There seems to be interest on HN when it comes to articles about Crowley and similar figures. Can some one help me understand why it's popular with this audience?
"The method of science, the aim of religion." Crowley appeals to people who have had enough religion to recognise that there's something to it, but can't reconcile it with the scientific materialism in our dominant culture, and are intelligent enough to want to try.
I think it’s more that he was a provocateur and beloved by prominent figures in the psychedelic subculture.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#107I was heavily into this as a kid. There were some websites back in the early 2000s which would sell infomercial products about the Art of Sorcery and Aleister Crowley (The Wickedest Man In The World!) which were the creme de la creme. Later I learnt about his K2 expedition and other things.
I remember stumbling across the angelfire site for a defunct occult order (the master, “Sir Faustus” or something like that, had apparently mysteriously disappeared). I understood maybe 1% of what I was looking at, but it felt very momentous. They had hierarchically organized lists of books and films that contained occult knowledge. Fun memories.
Yes occult masters, Kabbalah and sexual transmutation were my bread and butter in search of the truth.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#108Crowley, and his forebear Eliphas Levi, are responsible for the stupid air of sulphur which hangs around a lot of modern esoterica. AC has his apologists, and he was obviously clever, but he was unquestionably a complete turd, and created a religious system which was fundamentally Satanic, wrapped in enough layers of obfuscation that it can fascinate intelligent people, especially those who have received a substandar…
Crowley might have been a drug-addicted sophist and not a good source for seeking ultimate truths. But was he a good sophist? I am interested in occultism and symbology, but only as entertainment. I am certain of my materialistic beliefs. It might be that he is so popular here because he is clever and decadent, something shocking and thrilling if you don't take it as truth.
Also, was he actually a fun sophist? You seem to have read a lot so I would ask for your opinion. Is he worth reading for entertainment?
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#109Highly recommend W. Sommerset Maughm's "The Magician" for a treatment of Crowley's personality and influence. The occult is full of tedious charlatans, and yet they reappear in history in influential forms like Machiavelli, Rasputin, Crowley, Mesmer, Bernays, Marcuse, and other literal mesmerists, with lesser lights as 20th century cult leaders, and I think Klaus Schwab and his transhumanist hokum is the current equi…
> it's what you believe when you don't have belief I know it's trendy to dismiss energy, chakras, astral projection out of hand, but there's some weird shit that feels every bit as real as any other experience if you know how to tap into them. Someone entering trance states (like Crowley's wife apparently) and interacting with those levels of consciousness isn't engaged in belief , they're having experiences that are…
Probably because they make completely wild claims that fall flat at the first hint of scrutiny.
Then compounding that, I think a lot of people haven't had a 'religious' experience like that but have probably felt pressured to claim otherwise at some point.
The result being that such talk appears completely ridiculous and clearly fictional.
Which is all kind of a shame because it seems that these kinds of experiences are intrinsically human experiences, albeit completely internal, and discussion of it probably doesn't deserve to have 'belief in the supernatural' as a prerequisite.
Re: Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats get into an occult battle (2016)
#110Crowley, and his forebear Eliphas Levi, are responsible for the stupid air of sulphur which hangs around a lot of modern esoterica. AC has his apologists, and he was obviously clever, but he was unquestionably a complete turd, and created a religious system which was fundamentally Satanic, wrapped in enough layers of obfuscation that it can fascinate intelligent people, especially those who have received a substandar…
Crowley might have been a drug-addicted sophist and not a good source for seeking ultimate truths. But was he a good sophist? I am interested in occultism and symbology, but only as entertainment. I am certain of my materialistic beliefs. It might be that he is so popular here because he is clever and decadent, something shocking and thrilling if you don't take it as truth. Also, was he actually a fun sophist? You se…
Absolutely! He's very entertaining.
As a committed materialist, what do you make of the Kalaam cosmological argument and others which make similar points? How can something come from nothing?