The Thoth Deck

Aeon418 said:

I think Crowley foresaw a collective crossing of the Path of Peh for humanity as a whole. Initiation on a planetary scale. It's interesting to note that he subtitled Atu XVI - WAR - and described it as being the preface of Atu XX. The establiment of the Aeon and the Crowning letter Shin are the three paths that intersect the Path of Teth and form the "triune light of Initiation" that crowns the Adept in Tiphareth. But that's still down the road...

In the meantime Crowley talks of 500 years of Dark Ages. And we're only roughly 100 years in. I've often wondered where he got this 500 years from. Maybe it's meant to represent the regime of the pentagram (5 x 100) which is the journey through the Outer Order grades.

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500 years is what some historians have said that the medieval dark age had lasted. Opinions seem to differ, some saying it was only 300, others say it was 800. But 500 seems to be the average count.

Why do prophets always have prescience of future doom? Never heard of a prophet who said "Hey, folks, bad times are over, everything will be a-okay from now on." It's always "in 1999 will come rivers of blood" this and "there will be a great gnashing of teeth" that.

Sure, the Aeon of Horus is good news, I just wish it came with fluffy bunnies and unicorns vomiting rainbows.

closrapexa said:

Why do prophets always have prescience of future doom? Never heard of a prophet who said "Hey, folks, bad times are over, everything will be a-okay from now on." It's always "in 1999 will come rivers of blood" this and "there will be a great gnashing of teeth" that.

Sure, the Aeon of Horus is good news, I just wish it came with fluffy bunnies and unicorns vomiting rainbows.

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Amen.

Aeon418 said:

I would agree with you if Crowley were talking about the establishment of the Word of a Magus. But in this case he's quite clearly talking about the Aeon of Horus.

In the essay, One Star in Sight, Crowley talks about how a Magus 9=2 utters a creative Word to establish his Law. There can be several such Magi in any particular Aeon. Their individual Words and the Law they establsh could evolve, peak, and decline in the pattern you suggest. In Crowley's case his Word as a Magus 9=2 was θελημα. It's highly likely that this Word will also follow the same pattern.

But θελημα is not the Word of the Aeon. (That of course being Abrahadabra.) It is just one Word uttered in the greater context of the Aeon. So that still leaves the question: where did Crowley get this 500 year figure from?

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By mixing metaphors like I did?

closrapexa said:

Why do prophets always have prescience of future doom? Never heard of a prophet who said "Hey, folks, bad times are over, everything will be a-okay from now on." It's always "in 1999 will come rivers of blood" this and "there will be a great gnashing of teeth" that.

Sure, the Aeon of Horus is good news, I just wish it came with fluffy bunnies and unicorns vomiting rainbows.

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Here you go then

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-aFpojtDL8

ravenest said:

Here you go then

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-aFpojtDL8

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Thanks. I just ate.

closrapexa said:

Why do prophets always have prescience of future doom?

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I suspect that Crowley was just being pragmatic in this case. Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. Using the Dark Ages as an analogy he's saying that that is what happened the last time a significant number of humans reached a critical developmental threshold. There was a crash and melt down period, but eventually things stabilized and got better. Until here we are today with our fully formed Ruach consciousness as the base line for humanity.

But what's going to happen when increasing numbers begin developing beyond Ruach? Will it be a Golden Age? Or will history have to repeat itself while an intransigent humanity gets a kick up the rear?

Jim Eshelman said:

Any appearance of a "prophecy" being a physical event is delusion or a "leak." (A "leak" is when something meant to be actualized internally is resisted or ignored, and spills itself into an external event - usually an unpleasant one. It's really only the negative "prophecies" that have tended to be claimed as manifest.)

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Yes, I agree. It also lends far more credibility to it, making you think about what will happen after the dark times. I doubt he meant a utopia would manifest, similar to the usual messianic prophesies about dark times, a crisis and then heaven being established on earth.

Still, no fluffy bunnies.

closrapexa said:

Yes, I agree. It also lends far more credibility to it, making you think about what will happen after the dark times. I doubt he meant a utopia would manifest, similar to the usual messianic prophesies about dark times, a crisis and then heaven being established on earth.

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I'm not convinced that these 'dark times' have to happen. It's not some sort of preordained certainty. It's ultimately up to us whether we, as Eshelman says, "resist and ignore" internal forces for change and growth and instead allow them to spill outwards in unpleaseant events that force change through at the level of Assiah simply because there is nowhere left for it to go.

Chapter III of Liber Legis is often described by some people as a horrifying prophecy. But I would argue that it really represents an internal process. It doesn't have to "spill over" and externalize. But I suspect that Crowley was resigned to the fact that there would be some degree of 'spillage' based on the common human resistance to change. That's one reason why he compared the coming of the New Aeon to Atu XVI The Tower.

Aeon418 said:

Chapter III of Liber Legis is often described by some people as a horrifying prophecy. But I would argue that it really represents an internal process. It doesn't have to "spill over" and externalize. But I suspect that Crowley was resigned to the fact that there would be some degree of 'spillage' based on the common human resistance to change. That's one reason why he compared the coming of the New Aeon to Atu XVI The Tower.

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This is fascinating seen in light of Crowley's belief that the revelation of St. John had already occurred in 1904, sans bloody rivers and pyrotechnics. Personally I think spillage is inevitable, as the institutions of previous Aeons lose their grasp yet hold on all the more tightly (not necessarily the religious ones only, but the entire structure upholding that magickal formula, including general modes of thought).

forgive the pretension, I'm in the process of studying about magickal formulae, so it's on my mind