Thoth and Crowley

?!

It sometimes seems that Scripture, Holy Books, whatever, are designed, not to reveal truths, but to challenge interpretation and intellegence. If you start interpreting them literaly all sorts of difficulties arise. So the interpretation must be symbolic, but according to whose interpretation or what school of thought?

I always assumed that the nasty bits of Al Ch3 were some sort of prediction, not advise as to how to behave. I assumed that was common sense? It is not a code of inverse ethics. As far as prediction goes, I see much of it enacted on the evening news, and Ch 3 isnt far wrong. One has to get a grip on the rest of the book before Ch 3 can really be taken in context.

As far as character goes .... these guys have been dead for years, who cares?

Crowleys systems live on, thru Tarot, ritual, books, etc. What matters is the effectiveness of these.

Aeon418 - I never meant to imply Crowley's use of the word "Devil" was meant in a negative sense.

-fof

Really? Then why did you use the term in a negative context in connection with Aiwass?

fools_fool said:

Aiwass, who seems almost totally lacking human moral feeling, appears to be more Devil than Angel. Indeed Crowley would eventually come this conclusion himself.

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Aeon418 - It's only a negative context if you believe it's a negative thing to be a Devil, or negative to lack moral feeling. I have no such belief.

-fof

The problem people have with AC is they don't have an opinion of their own, in that they've never read anything he's written, or they didn't understand that which they have read.
Buy the cards, read the book, use the cards, make a decision!

Devil or God

If one would like to get a bit clearer on this AC Aiwass / devil thing there is an excellent analysis done in Book IV (Magick - by A.C.) revised ed. by H.B. in the editors introduction. Here this is rather fully explained and far surpasses the previously faulty editorial work done by Symmons in previous ed.s of Book IV. Symmons (and Grant) put rather varient (to Crowley) ideas on to this and unfortunatly many still persist.

There is also some confusion as to morals when we talk about "praeterhuman" (sic?) intellegence (whatever that means?). I see some of these 'higher' energies and forces directly relating to evolutionary mechanisms and of course there is no moral or ethical code involved.

A friend recently gave the example of a wasp who lays eggs in a caterpiller so the grubs may eat the caterpiller from the inside while it is alive as evidence that God could not exist as who would create something as horrible as that? Another friend asked me why my semi-pet / feral butcher bird had a long curved prong on its beak. I replied it was used for stripping the flesh off small birds after it hangs them by the neck in a forked tree branch. She didnt believe me "How can anything that cute do something that bad?" was her dilema.

There are, of course, obvious answers to these questions. But untill we live in some type of J.W.'s paradise where the lamb and lion lay together (eating vegetables?) we will just have to realise that there are things out there that dont give a HOOT about our individual existance nor suffering.... and that doesnt make them bad, it just shows up our ability to focus on the little picture and the individual self in the present.