Gnosticism & The "Real" World Part 11

The Book of the Law not only was important in "predicting" -in a fashion-the importance of the youth movemnent-it also predicts the victory of the rebellion of Woman. Aiwass believed that Woman-whose body is the door to the manifest (material) world and that is should never be closed: "Let Mary inviolate be torn upon wheels for her sake
let all chaste women be utterly despised among you!"

"We do not foul and flatter women; we do not despise and abuse them. To us a woman is Herself, as absolute, original, independent, free, self-justified, exactly as a man is...We do not want Her as a slave; we want Her free and royal, whether her love fight death in our arms by night...or Her loyalty ride beside us in the Charge of the Battle of Life..."

From Gnostic Philosophy on page 353: "Crowley was prepared to go to virtually any lengths to unite esoteric bodies behind this system, whether it was recommending that Krishnamurti be brought into the OTO (Rudolf Steiner had been a member) or, as in the following letter to the German OTO G.M. Herr Hopfe, urging contact with Adolf Hitler, written on January 20, 1936:

"Under the present circumstances, if I understand them aright, the only means of propaganda is to address the leader himself [Hitler] and show him that the acceptance of these philosophical principles is the only means of demonstrating to reason instead of merely enthusiasm the propriety of the measures he is taking for the rebuilding of the Reich. Unless he does this, the Churches will ultimately strangle him; they have an almost infinite capacity for resistance and endurance for this very reason tha their systems are based on a fundamental theory which enabled them to survive attacks and restraints. They bow as much as they are compelled to bow by force and they subsequently excuse their yielding on the grounds of expediency. If the Fuehrer wishes to establish his principle permanently he must uproot them entirely and this can only be done by superseding their deepest conceptions.

Enthusiasm for a man or an outward system dies with the man or with the circumstances which have brought the system into being. The Law of Thelema being infinitely rigid and infinitely elastic is an enduring basis. Love is the Law, Love under ?Will."

Tobias Churton in Gnostic Philosophy on page 354 goes on to talk about Hitler's will and the balance of forces: "Hitler's will was already irredeemably perverted, and its duration was consequently short, overpowered as he was by unconscious forces that he was utterly unable to balance under the point of crisis. His ego simply grew and then cracked under the strain of those reactionary forces he had himself evoked and that manifested themselves all over the planet. In magick as in nature, equilibrium is all. Should a country ever lose grip of the Golden Mean, we shall know what to expect."

"The key to equilibrium may lie in a consideration of sexual magick: balanced forces of male and female, right and left, Jachin and Boaz, sun and moon, positive and negative, the duality whose apex is the unknowable One, projected in creation. Crowley denied the ascetic, encratite, and Buddhistic view that duality must mean evil. According to Crowley, "Love is the uniting of opposites" In a letter of May 27, 1913, to George Macnie Cowie, Crowley wrote: "I have just got back and have read Transcendental Universe. It is rather interesting but I think of no great value. This alleged contest between intellect and spirit makes me tired. It shows a totally wrong conception of the nature of the cosmos. It is just as bad as the alleged antagonism between mind and body."

There is a universal archetypal recognition that the sun-the Solar Principle-symbolizes the creative, conscious, generative and male aspect of God. The moon represents the Feminine Principle and sybolizes the receptive, unconscious, female aspect of God. It can't be stated to strongly that this view of the Feminine Principle is no insult-no "women are less than men" type thinking. I am about to say something that reminds me of the great religious and philosophical scholar-Huston Smith-said about the same subject/experiences with consciousness altering hallucinogenic drugs-with the same preamble he used (in his book The Perrenial Philosophy if I remember correctly)-"The Chinese have a saying: "Know ten things, tell nine." You will see why I think.

In the vast literature that has accumulated over the years about people's experiences wiht these consciousness altering drugs-both synthetic and natural (I also prefer "Brain filter" shutter downers" when I think of these substances as I truly believe they open vistas to the infinite reality that lies just beyond human perception, because the brain "filters" out 99 percent or more of a reality that we are immersed in -yet lies just beyond most people's perception most of the time-especially during "normal" waking consciousness.

When men and women both, report back on what they experienced when they "returned to earth" so to speak-many report that their consciousness was subsumed into -or at least witnessed a "formless void" that seems to be "pregnant with all possibility." This "void" that appears to contain all things in their as yet unrealized potential of course sounds extremely important- and maybe even "before-prior-or containing" all things. So this "feminine" void that is "pregnant" with all possibilities is at as important as the male "active" principle if not more so in some ways.

Going back to Churton's Gnostic Philosophy on pages 354-355: "As the Christian declares that "the sun and moon bow down before Him," the Hindu holds to the view that the God of which the cosmos is an expression (Brahman) has no attributes and can be considered to be absolute zero (the philosophical Nothing). While some of the early Gnostics postulated theories as to how 0 came to generate 2, the Hindu is satisfied that such things are beyond thought; from Brahman came an egg that divided into two, male and female, and their uniting created the universe in which we move. The Vedantic Vnishnava and Shivite sects worship the male principle; the Shakti sects worship the female principle. Some scholars assert the necessity of remarrying the opposites and merging into the resultant union (samadhi, and the meaning of Crowley's "stars separated for the sake of union").

Thanks everyone for your continued interest in this series and fantastic comments and links! I am sorry it is going somewhat slow-the information posted today has been ready to go since the 27th of December. I am hoping this exhausted feeling will go away soon and I will have more energy. I do think we are getting close to the end of the "Crowley" information of the series. I am indebted to the information in Tobias Churton's Gnostic Philosophy for this series. I have his book as a library book now and can't wait to order it and have a copy for myself to have around all the time-and would suggest to anyone who has any interest in Gnosticism-and the history of it -personalities and different philosphical and religious views of it to order the book! When the "Crowley" series is finished and I have done just a bit more at my other blog, I will be taking a 3 week break from blogging to work on my writing or attempts at perhaps I should say. I will try to keep up with friends and their blogs during this timeframe. All the best to anyone stopping by!