The Magical Revival CH2 - Metaphysical bases of Sexual Magi

[chapter53]

Ok, I really am excited about this study group and no-one seems too keen to keep going so I'm starting this thread.

[chapter53]

"When the first world war broke out, Crowley suspected that the end of civilization was imminent"
He thought this about WW2 as well right?
Sorry, not super profound, I just want to help get the ball rolling

[Vadge Moore]

Chapter53, this is a theme that runs throughout Crowley's work as well as Grants; that there is an imminent collapse of civilization in the offing. Crowley was wrong, clearly, about the end coming in the 20th century, but is it a stretch of the imagination to think that this collapse might occur in the 21st century instead? The ups and downs of the world economy, religious wars, destruction of the eco-system and the seemingly more frequent occurrence of meteors hitting the earth and solar flares? Not to sound like a doomsayer, but if we are to believe that a real Thelemic civilization can rise out of the ashes of the destruction of Old Aeonic forms...than this is a real possibility. Grant hints at this in his "An Official Statement Concerning Ordo Templi Orientis" issued by him on June 21st, 1998.

[chapter53]

I've always felt that preparing for the worst is something that should be done in conjunction with living and succeeding within the society we can't help but be a part of. Another way to look at it is to be ready for the worst but don't expect it. I knew a guy a few years ago who was really into Terence McKenna and genuinely believed that we were all going to spontaneously evolve on December 21st 2012. Consequently he spent an awful lot of time and energy preparing this and neglecting practical skills in the real world, he couldn't hold down a job didn't go to college etc. I haven't seen him since but I've heard that he's putting his life back together. If he had balanced his approach and worked toward the possibility of change while continuing to grow and prosper down here in Assiah (which gives us the opportunity to grow and prosper elsewhere as well). Sorry, not meaning to rant, millennialism just makes me cringe. I agree that the possibility of widespread collapse is something we should be ready for, but if we're going to build a real Thelemic civilization, shouldn't we have the skills to feed, clothe, and shelter the people within that society.
Once again, sorry for ranting

[jcurwen]

I feel that one purpose of the Aeon of Horus, Horus being a warrior God, associated with Geburah, is destructive, wherein institutions hostile to human evolution are dissolved. This may happen slowly, over hundreds of years, but will unfortunately result in some sort of collapse. The human race will have deserved this for unnecessary use of resources, overpopulation, and general irresponsibility concerning the environment. If Crowley were alive today he would im sure be disgusted with the overpopulation and pollution. He also stressed that for a civilization to survive there is no room for (or pity for) the weak and stupid. "this is the law of the strong, this is our law and the joy of the world"...not to promote tyranny, but to inspire courage and endurance to hardship, the positive traits of the Mars sphere. One thing western occultists seem to miss the point on is that in places where life is extremely difficult and resources scarce, spiritual training serves the practical purpose of helping people survive in jungles, freezing mountains, deserts, etc. One cannot accomplish ones Will if one starves to death first.

[Vadge Moore]

Well put jcurwen...I could not agree with you more.

[Marc]

I think the real collapse is going to be when we remember who we really are. That will be the time when we realize that the way the world is going, we have become a cancer to the planet and all its creatures. Most humans not only don't know who they really are ... but are not even in control of their own bodies most of the time, let alone their minds!

[Marc]

I think the human body/mind is an antenna and the original signal has been hijacked. The purposes are sinister.

[Vadge Moore]

Oh, and Chapter53...didn't mean to ignore your post. I completely agree. Obsessing on what MAY happen and forgetting how to live your life with strength, love and passion is no way to live at all.

[Michael Staley]

I take this chapter in conjunction with chapter 7, 'Star Fire'. We use various names such as kundalini, star-fire, ophidia, etc because we see and experience a diversity of facets of what is basically a unity. In my experience, sex-magick and indeed sexuality in general is intimately related to creativity. On the face of it this seems obvious, sexuality being the means of procreation, creating the next generation, etc. Of course, that is not the only application of the creative drive; it's creativity, in whatever form.

Like I suspect many of us, I used to anticipate coming across secrets of sex-magick - that techniques would be imparted to me when I had reached a high-enough grade which would enable me to penetrate to the most secret arcanums. It's not like that, of course. These are secrets, but only in the sense that they are incommunicable, beyond verbalisation, and - more to the point - intrinsic; they have to be discovered afresh, because we are all different.

Crowley wrote in The Confessions and elsewhere that the O.T.O technique of the Ninth Degree was all-powerful, and only the technique remained to be honed by experimentation and research. Be that as it may, the fact is that he had not honed the technique by the end of his life, by which time he had had many years of experimentation. He went further in his commentary, De Arte Magica, remarking that sometimes these techniques worked; at other times they didn't; at still other times they had an effect opposite to that intended.

All the information we need is out there, but its application is and can only be intrinsic.

[Deleted]

A difficult and dense chapter for me, hard going. So much so that I cannot articulate a decent question. But I'll keep going ... reading it like a poem, so understanding is not paramount. Thank you Michael for giving some thematic orientation.

[uu]

Nov 20, 2013 16:58:19 GMT Vadge Moore said:

Chapter53, this is a theme that runs throughout Crowley's work as well as Grants; that there is an imminent collapse of civilization in the offing. Crowley was wrong, clearly, about the end coming in the 20th century, but is it a stretch of the imagination to think that this collapse might occur in the 21st century instead? The ups and downs of the world economy, religious wars, destruction of the eco-system and the seemingly more frequent occurrence of meteors hitting the earth and solar flares? Not to sound like a doomsayer, but if we are to believe that a real Thelemic civilization can rise out of the ashes of the destruction of Old Aeonic forms...than this is a real possibility. Grant hints at this in his "An Official Statement Concerning Ordo Templi Orientis" issued by him on June 21st, 1998.

 

It depends how you define civilisation, I suppose. The old order (Empires of Europe, monarchies) suffered a major systemic catastrophe with world war 1, due to the sheer devastation that increasingly technologically advanced states could unleash upon each other once they had use of aerial & long range bombing, automatic weapons, chemical weapons etc - all powered by the resources of huge empires, and drifting inevitably towards conflict due to quests for hegemony, and defensive alliances.

After the initial conflict, there was an armistice in the form of the inter-war period, but inevitably conflict erupted again, and when it was over the balance of power quickly changed, the empires disappeared, monarchies began to lose their influence, globalisation replaced imperialism, mass media arrived, the middle classes gradually expanded and consumerism took off, secularism gained momentum, women and minorities became enfranchised, a more liberal attitude towards sex and marriage developed, nuclear weapons added the prospect of global annihilation for the first time... if you compare western Europe in 1893 to 1993, I think you could make a pretty strong case for one civilisation having displaced another.

Certainly the post-war order is far more conducive to the spread of Thelema