ravenest
Book review when I haven't read the book.
I've posted in the past how I have not been that impressed with DuQuette. I have also seen here how a few are impressed with him.
I too picked up my first Thoth deck and book waaay before the era of personal computers and easily accessed web info. {My first Crowley book was Book of Lies, imagine trying to interpret what the hell that meant as a first introductory book ! }.
There is a LOT to be said for the approach Ross outlined (but I don’t know if that's even 'possible' today), it generates a different type of 'intelligence'.
E.g. Nutting out (back then) how to perform a specific ritual; how to make the required things, like ... say, Oil of Abramelin. Understanding the oils that make them up, collecting them, mixing them ... already realising their 'volatility'. ( A few years back I saw some being marketed in a new age / pagan shop ) - I smelled it - that was enough!
When I read ( In 'My Life With Spirits' ? - something like that) where he poured some of that oil on his head ... I thought; you idiot! don’t you realise what is going to happen???
A few lines later it did, causing him to break his circle in a quick retreat to flush his eyes.
The more I read of that book ... ... then there was his tarot deck ... okay he put some extra info on the cards, but the 'artwork'.....
Seriously, how much cred would he get without his OTO 'cred'?
But I can see why he is popular (the Santa Claus of Thelema I have heard him described as)
he is an answer to the Llewellyn camp and I guess that’s needed.
And he has seemed to fulfil the age long occultist’s dream of making a living out of it.
And I should really just grumble off to my dinosaurs cave filled with dusty crumbling old books and decaying paintings of Enochian squares and dust covered implements ......
..... until at least I have TRIED to read DuQuette's book on Crowley's Tarot.
But can someone assure me first that it is better than his book on 'My Life With the Spirits' ?
I've posted in the past how I have not been that impressed with DuQuette. I have also seen here how a few are impressed with him.
I too picked up my first Thoth deck and book waaay before the era of personal computers and easily accessed web info. {My first Crowley book was Book of Lies, imagine trying to interpret what the hell that meant as a first introductory book ! }.
There is a LOT to be said for the approach Ross outlined (but I don’t know if that's even 'possible' today), it generates a different type of 'intelligence'.
E.g. Nutting out (back then) how to perform a specific ritual; how to make the required things, like ... say, Oil of Abramelin. Understanding the oils that make them up, collecting them, mixing them ... already realising their 'volatility'. ( A few years back I saw some being marketed in a new age / pagan shop ) - I smelled it - that was enough!
When I read ( In 'My Life With Spirits' ? - something like that) where he poured some of that oil on his head ... I thought; you idiot! don’t you realise what is going to happen???
A few lines later it did, causing him to break his circle in a quick retreat to flush his eyes.
The more I read of that book ... ... then there was his tarot deck ... okay he put some extra info on the cards, but the 'artwork'.....
Seriously, how much cred would he get without his OTO 'cred'?
But I can see why he is popular (the Santa Claus of Thelema I have heard him described as)
he is an answer to the Llewellyn camp and I guess that’s needed.
And he has seemed to fulfil the age long occultist’s dream of making a living out of it.
And I should really just grumble off to my dinosaurs cave filled with dusty crumbling old books and decaying paintings of Enochian squares and dust covered implements ......
..... until at least I have TRIED to read DuQuette's book on Crowley's Tarot.
But can someone assure me first that it is better than his book on 'My Life With the Spirits' ?