Aeon418 said:
Excellent post noby !
Personally I feel uncomfortable saying that Crowley's sexual exploits were bizarre, whether I agree with them or not. Sexuality is the most basic expression of the True Will of any individual. I think that's why Crowley saw sexuality as a part of spirituality. Of course western society is still riddled with Christian notions of "spirituality" and it's rejection of nature and natural processes.
I agree with you about the sexism in Crowley's writtings, but only up to a point. Some of Crowley's writting is very pro-feminine in my opinion. See the commentaries on The Book of the Law in The Law is for All.
Thanks Aeon, you make good points.
"Bizarre" is certainly a relative term. I'm a fan of Dan Savage's sex column,
Savage Love, and what I've gotten out of reading it is that expressing one's true sexual self is very important for one's health and fullness of being, and yet, so difficult in a society where everything beyond a certain set of sexual experiences is considered "freaky."
I'm really open-minded about others' sexuality and fetishes. But there's a few areas where I draw the line, and mainly it has to do with not causing harm to others. And I'm not talking about BDSM, in which pain becomes pleasure, but rather, sexuality which is nonconsensual and/or psychologically harmful. That's a vague thing, and to be judged on a one-to-one basis. And it seems more than one person left sexual relationship with Crowley psychologically damaged. And scat play and bestiality are not high up on my list either... But of course, I have no idea to what extent reports of Crowley's life are accurate or pure invention, or somewhere in between those two extremes.
spiral said:
You ascribe yourself a great deal of power if you think that you can wave your hand and dismiss the illusions of others. This power is illusionary. People will come to realisations on their own accord. If one's influence/presence steers the course (slightly) of those around (and seemingly causes "awakenings") then that is because something that is already in that person is resonating in harmony.
Excellent, excellent point, spiral. Thank you for clarifying this. It would indeed be absurd if one thought that another's "awakening" was one's own "creation"! As you rightly point out, one can only help others, but one cannot do the work for them or create the result. There's the metaphor in Zen of the mother hen and the chick, the chick (the student) tapping at the eggshell from the inside, the mother hen (the teacher) pecking from outside at the right time and place. The only thing one really can do for another is to refuse to help build up their egotisms by playing up to them. And of course, this is not so straightforward, as one first has to be able to recognize that another is acting from crusty beliefs in the first place, which
is a "power" I believe people can develop... but how do we judge whether our impression is delusive or not? How do we know whether we actually have that "power" yet? It is difficult!
People speak of a Zen teacher's function being to take away one's toys or to pull out the rug from under one with a quick and piercing response, either verbal or non-verbal. I've experienced this somewhat in working with teachers, and it's amazing how a good teacher can see through what you're saying to what you're
really saying, and with just a handful of words, punch straight through to the heart or gut. In that way, they help, by clearing away all the junk and getting to what's real. But they certainly don't give the student anything or create the student's awakening!
It may be that my will dictates that I should amass a great fortune in order that it may continue it's work. It may be that my will is best served by being highly prominent in the public eye, thus able to address the greatest number of people. It's very easy to dismiss those acts or pursuits as having no worth, when really it is more likely that they simply have no worth for YOU.
More good points--thank you. My point was not that wealth or fame have no worth or are never useful. Rather, what I was trying to get at is that the neurotic need to amass wealth or fame as a form of comfort or security fall away as one's view becomes more expansive. One might be an "awakened" individual and still enjoy nice cars and being the star of the show at the party, but one does not clutch after those things to secure the sense of self.
From my (admittedly limited) understanding, I'd say that the litmus test is the motivation for one's act, whether it arises from unconscious habit patterns that attempt to ease neurotic anxieties, or arises from something more direct and "plugged in." Another test would be whether one can let go of that desire if the situation changes and after one realizes pursuing that desire no longer reflects being "plugged in" to what's happening, but instead, rises out of some deluded craving or reaction of the small self. It's all so subtle, and I can't claim to fully understand it.
But I can say from what I do know from my practice that acting out of the petty desires of the small mind to confirm the solidity of its existence takes away one's natural freedom. If someone is straining after fame just because they want their "name in lights," not in order to give them a place of prominence from which to teach, or out of the natural play in the moment, but because they crave recognition, that is an act of the enslaved mind. And of course, this is a hard thing to judge from the outside, if not impossible, though there seem to be hints in how a person, say, handles fame, goes about getting it, deals with it when it passes away, etc.
I'm interested that you think that. I haven't read all of Crowley's work, admittedly, but I have yet to come across anything which has lead me to the conclusion that he was a mysogynist. Which passage(s) have lead you to this conclusion?
This is a good starting place. See the "P.S." section which describes the different "classes" of women and which concludes that all women are subordinate to the True Will of the man. (For now, I'm ignoring the blatantly "sexist" bits at the beginning and end of the letter, because they seem intentionally satiric.)
And while I think he makes some good and interesting points in
this letter about the sentimentalizing of instinct, he also goes on to define women's "essential" nature as that of the "vampire" and "devourer," while defining a man's innate nature as that of the "noble" hero. The problem here is that I can see where Crowley is coming from regarding archetypes, but his equation of archetypal qualities with the nature of individuals based on sex and gender is not only misogynist, but weak intellectually.
Also, he chooses to focus on a negative archetype of the woman, and a positive archetype of the man. He could just as easily draw the opposite conclusions of "nobility of soul" by focusing on the archetype of the man as a controlling and destructive force, and the woman as a nurturing and creative force. Any conclusion about the relative worth of a particular sex based on biased selection of archetypal qualities, whether favoring male or female, is not simply "non-PC," but also weak intellectually. Crowley isn't the first thinker whose genius seemed to falter when it came to gender.