Thursday, January 14, 2010

Gnosticism & The "Real" World Part 13


Now I would like to turn to Gnostic Philosophy yet again to talk about Crowley's supposed Satanism from page 356: "...Crowley regarded Christianity as hostile to sex, associating it with sin, the work of the devil, immorality, and so forth. His experience of Kundalini convinced him that sex was a manifestation of the archetypal creative power of God. It is such a simple idea that it beggars belief how sex could ever have been seen as wrong.

Nevertheless, Crowley was intrigued by the association of Satan with sexual energy, and with darkness. He came to the conclusion that Satan or Shaitan, the Hebrew being derived from the Egyptian god Set-the sun in the south that blackens everything (and becomes to the physical eye invisible or occult)-had acquired his evil overtone from a war between rival solar priests in Egypt. Osirian priests, taking the myth of the murder of their god by his brother somewhat literally, eventually triumphed, and Set's followers went underground.

Crowley sometimes identified Shaitan with Aiwass, his unconscious self-or the self of which he was largely unconscious. The Hebrews had simply taken over from the Egyptians this idea of Satan, the Adversary (as he appears as God's servant, the one that tempts, in the biblical Book of Job). In time he became the actual and cosmic adversary in their more Osirian (or in Greek mythology Apollonian) god, with the resultthat Set/Shaitan became ever more the receptacle for ideas of evil, anti-God or antihuman, and so on.

Now from page 357 of Gnostic Philosophy: A similar range of ideas can be seen in Nietzche's Birth of Tragedy, in which the German philosopher pits the Apollonian (sun god) virtues and classical Greek theater against the earlier demonic and instinctive, cthonic and unconscious life, symbolized as Dionysus. Dionysus is the energy of the Bacchic revel that tears the ego to pieces (as the body of Osiris was found in pieces and reconstituted by Isis, the Earth Mother). We are accustomed to thinking of the artist (magician) as being driven by his demon, careless of the values of the world. All this explains why dominant Western culture has had such a problem with the bohemian (Bohemia had been the home of Hermetic alchemy in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries). The artist, the reveler, the Falstaffian figure, the rock-and-roller-all have been treated with contempt until contained and the joy or ecstasy controlled. Materialist culture is fearful of what Crowley was and stood for. It is the urge for order over what is perceived to be chaos-and repression by almost any means is the tool.

Apollo is inevitably a materialist in this context, clinging to the hope of the solid, the visible, the stable, while the whole universe (ignoring Newton and praising Bohr) is crying out that things just ain't that way! This is what Blake means when he sees the sun no as "a golden guinea" but as a host of angels crying out "Holy! Holy! Holy!" Apollo here corresponds to the Gnostics' Demiurge or Blake's Old Nobodaddy, the archrationalist, the divider, the cosmic accountant-likewise the disrespect of Gnostics fo the God of the Law. But it happened, according to Crowley's way of thinking,that the Osirian and Jehovistic wing got hold of the Christian Church, linking it up to the legality and force of the Roman Empire.

One thing that has always fascinated me is if Crowley really thought he himself was the man who was the harbinger of the New Age. It would definitely appear that he thought that the ancient conflict between Osiris (or in Greek mythology Apollo-the rational, clockwork, "materialist" god-Blake's Old Nobodaddy) and Set (or Satan. Shaitan of the Hebrews, who over the centuries became identified with all that was evil-Crowley, of course, sometimes identified Shaitan with Aiwass) intensified in April 1904 when Horus-the Crowned and Conquering Child, came to rule over the future of humanity. His involvement with the Invocation of Horus during this time and his basic anti-Christian viewpoints may indeed have led him to believe he was the Beast (the solar man, 666) of the Apocalypse.

However, depending on the light one is viewing Aleister Crowley in-this may have actually been a "good" and necessary event. Obviously if one is a fundamentalist Christian, the prism you would view anyone proclaiming themselves to be the Beast of the Apocalypse would be very different! Overall-as a human being-it is very hard to see where Crowley was any more or any less evil that the great mass of humanity. In Gnostic Philosophy on page 358: But has it not occurred to his detractors that the Satan of their personal mythology would find it more appropriate to infiltrate quietly, subtly, stealthily, under guise of being something else? In the Hermetic scheme of things, the real darkness comes from repressed energies, mangled, regrouping, and then overwhelming the psyche. It is the unrestrained Apollonian total-control, total-order, total-law states that have generated the greatest evil. The worst murderers have been found to be cool, orderly, calm, often distinguished by the ice of intellect that has frozen out the Love under Will that is, according to Aleister Crowley, the agent of the world's salvation.

Here is part of a letter that Crowley wrote to his son taken from the "Notes" section of Gnostic Philosophy. Written in the last year of his life this letter certainly doesn't evoke any "Satanic" images in me!: My dear Son, This is the first letter that your father has ever written to you, so, you can imagine that it will be very important, and you should keep it and lay it to your heart [...] I want you to learn to behave as a Duke would behave. You must be high-minded, generous, noble, and above all, without fear. For that last reason you must never tell a lie; for to do so shows that you are afraid of the person to whom you tell it, and I want you to be afraid of nobody. [...] There is one more point that I want to impress upon you! The best models of English writing are Shakespeare and the Old Testament, especially the Book of Job, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. It will be a very good thing for you to commit as much as you can, both of these books and of the best plays of Shakespeare to memory, so that they form the foundation of your style: and in writing English, the most important quality you can acquire is style. [...] Your affectionate father, Aleister

That brings to an end the Aleister Crowley part of this series. I very much appreciate the wonderful, kind and intelligent comments from everyone who has enjoyed this series-the links too Anadae! I have ordered Gnostic Philosophy by Tobias Churton-I enjoyed this part so much and the many other aspects of Gnosticism he talks about and enjoy his style of writing enormously-the book is over 400 pages long and has very detailed (and lengthy) Notes, Bibliography and Index sections. I would like to return to the subject of Gnosticism fairly soon-after taking a break to work on some other things-both for this blog-and other stuff. All the best to anyone stopping by!

5 comments:

human being said...

really enjoyed reading through this... the subject matter being one of the most important themes of my thoughts...
do you know what was the original name of my blog?
you can find it on my profile page...
:)

think through history different and in part opposing things have been attributed to satan (in Persian we say shaitan too)...

the way to light passes through darkness
and the way to god passes through satan

satan brought awarness to adam and eve imprisoned in an immature state of childhood paradise... the knowledge of good and evil...
this story is talking about the growth of an individual as well as a society... a culture...

he is the same as prometheus...

but the people in power who have used religion to captivate minds, imposed a negative aspect to him... poeple in power are not much in favor of others implementing free will... they need blind followers...
when we start implementing our free will... to think and decide by oursleves, the satan in our paradise comes to life... then in each step we can choose... and our choice creates a duality in the world...
if i can see truly, i see myself as well as others... then my choice does not harm... if i am hasty... not being able to probe deeply, then my choice harms... as i have seen myself as the center of the universe...

good is when we know
evil is when we do not

and what helps me to see truly?
seeing things together... all as links in a chain...
and we should be trained to see like this by ourselves or our parents or teachers (better to be done from an early age)...


and yes the sexual force is an archetype of creative power...

people in power keep it just in the lowest level... limiting it just to some physical passion... thus vanquishing it... not letting it to transcend to the higher levels... as it makes people so powerful and independent...


thanks for sharing these with us...
whenever i visit here, i feel lots of energy flowing in my soul... as i can read and think about the subjects i love...


i was so down these past days and missed some posts... but surely i will return to read them...

you are a great human being, Devin...

namaste!

Alex Robinson said...

Hy Devin
I agree with fine human being who left your first comment - really enjoyed reading this too. I must admit I had only really heard the name of Crowley & it's link with apparent demonics - this has been most thought inspiring - more to do with the perception of people that comes hazily thro snippetts of info rather that being looked at squarely. For years I thought David Icke was some cult freak because of bits I heard in the media & I'd would have scurried over broken glass to avoid him. Yet it turned out that his words had a great impact on me at crossroads time in my life.

You have given me food for my blogging thought :)
I wish you a spectacular night & day with xtra high spirits thrown in for good measure :)

Devin said...

human being-thanks so very much for stopping by MFM!! and your wonderful comment-I will check out original name in a bit!!
I loved how you put "good is when we know" and "evil is when we do not" plus the other fantastic points you brought up- I am so glad this blog does something for someone- I wanted it to be so much more- but am finding out "sometimes all you can do -is all you can do"
you are also a wonderful "human being" :-) too- I hope to chat soon-peace and love!!

Alex thanks so much for your thoughts here-I always treasure them- and with me also- I had only ever heard of Crowley in the very negative sense- I would highly recommend-for anyone that can afford to -I know times are tight for all of us- that anyone with any interest in esotericsim,Gnosticism-and yes Crowley order the Churton book-I am happy to say that I did-and after one more of my "In the news" things here- I want to say things about some other books-including poetry-that have really caught my eye-
I am so happy this provided you with some ideas-can't wait to chat again-your friend always and forever!!xx

Middle Ditch said...

As always a very interesting read Devin.

Devin said...

Middle Ditch-as always I can't tell you how much your friendship and stopping by when you can means to me!!
I normally don't ask this but if this is Monique or David -could you come by awhile later -it won't be the very next post-but the one after that (hopefully both done this am)?
the reason being is that i would like to say a few words about a poet's work- these won't be the only words about this poet or book-but i want these first few words to be good and make sense-and you know me at my best of times:-) but tonight/this am i have been awake for a long time with back pain (last night it was neighbors haha)
either one of you would be absolutely fantastic to let me know if these first few words (they will be short) are a good start!!!!
all the best as always and please tell all the crew at MD I said hi an hugs!!