Ps418:

I forgot to mention an aspect of Crowley's spiritual system that I now find most ridiculous -- his system of numerical cabalism. His holy books have "secret keys," hidden holy numbers which "unlock" certain key passages in the Book of the Law. These are in turn combined with a system of correspondances which are used to interpet the books. It can be a quite complex system.

For instance, a given word or letter corresponds to a given tarot card, a different I Ching hexegram, a different planet, a different sephiroth, a different angel, a different kind of incense, a different element. That kind of stuff.

Crowley produced extensive commentaries on his own "inspired" holy books, interpeting each verse in terms of cabalistic sybolism. It got to be very complicated with all those corrsponances, so Crowley published a lengthy list of correspondance tables which he published, appropriately enough, as 777.

Crowley was into the "bible code" business before it was cool.

He was fascinated by all that stuff. He was also fascinated with playing out fantasy roles, living under aliases, becoming those grand literary and poetic figures he read about in books. The literary style of the holy books is heavily influenced by 19th century literature and poetry. Oh well, I guess that's better than the garbled incomprehensibility and general irrationality of the biblical texts.

At the time the angel Aiwass "dictated" the Book of the Law to Crowley in 1904, he was living as Prince Haiwa Khan in Cairo, with his new clairvoynat wife, Rose. He wore a big outrageous turban with a big jewel in the middle.

Anyway. Part of Crowley's holy book contained a sequence of several apparently random letters and numbers, along with the prophecy that someone would later explain their clear meaning. I wonder if anyone has ever found such an interpetation?

If anyone figured out Crowley's esoterica it would be Regardie who has written a bio on him and several books on the Golden dawn and Crowley's system....

You'll grow out of, trust me. If you read more poetry, read more sacred literature, you will get over it. It won't happen over night, but it will happen.

Quote:

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">PS - Does anyone else in here know what Crowley meant by God-eating?

Something about Eucharistic ritual? We are what we eat, take a substance, make it God and eat it to become God?

Ps418:

Its all about sex magick . . .

The Eucharist for Crowley consisted of sperm, and other bodily liquids, ritually produced and consumed, or used for other purposes. He doesn't come right out and say this in his books, but he does describe it over and over again in slightly veiled terms. These rituals constitute the "secrets" of the IX, X and XI degrees in the OTO.

The Holy Grail is the vagina. The wand of course is the penis, symbol of creative power. The sperm is the logos, the 'elixir of life,' symbolized by the dove descending into the grail on the OTO symbol. Other magickal rituals include masturbating onto a talisman which has been constructed to achieve some magickal end.

Crowley believed this type of sex magick to be the most powerful and potentially dangerous method whereby one can cause change in conformity with will.

And no, I'm not kidding.

Ps418

Originally posted by ps418:

Not everything he wrote was worthless and deluded, though. Some of the passages in the "Holy Books" move me to tears.

Waning Moon:

You'll grow out of, trust me. If you read more poetry, read more sacred literature, you will get over it. It won't happen over night, but it will happen.

Ps418:

Agreed. Most of his good stuff is pretty much ripped off from Shelley and other poets. There's a funny anecdote about the schism between Crowley and W.B. Yeats back in the Golden Dawn days. Crowley thought Yeats was just jealous of his superior poetic skills. LOL. Crowley never suffered from lack of confidence!

I think one of the reasons some of the passages make me emotional is because in my own mind I picture Crowley as a little English school boy, and I feel deeply sorry for him. I don't know why that is though.

Ps418

(aka. Chroronzon)

The Great Beast...a little English school boy..?...I like it...
On the other hand...maybe he knew something we don't.

He wrote a very funny book called Diary Of A Drug Fiend.

Dr. Wu

Just wanted to tell you that your posts make sense to moi Salutations and namaste

JP

The only thing I can add to this:

He influenced Led Zeppelin (they even stayed and recorded at his former house in the Lake District to gain inspiration), and appeared on the front cover of Sgt Peppers' (showing the Beatles must have "dug" him too).

So, I guess he did something good, cause they both ROCK!

Ps418:
Although Page doesn't like to discuss the matter, he is or at least was an avid Crowley-file. In fact, he bought Crowley's old home (Boleskine house) in Inverness, Scotland. As far as I know, he still owns it.

Crowley thought the house was charged with energy. Thus the Thelemite was supposed to direct his energies towards Boleskine, the same way Muslims pray towards Mecca.

Here's some pictures of the old Thelemic Mecca:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Part...69/bole-2.html

http://www.crowleyana.co.uk/crowley/bole.htm