The central problem of Thelema in regards to preserving European traditions and folk religion is it is a *universalist* approach - it's Masonic in its scope, outside of nation and blood and soil.
While Crowley certainly loved Wagner, he has no interest in Germanic religion or even Celtic religion in any reasonable sense - he new ages out on the buffet of the past, equating all together in a meaningful (and blasphemous) pastiche.
Similarly, he was a hipster of his time, fascinated by the East and all the forbidden things that were
exotic. He doesn't extole European virtues - he's too busy, as noted by Yorke in "666, Sex, and the O.T.O." buggering Arab boys and doing lines of coke.
Note as well the passing over of the British folk tradition that is Enochian magick - it's included because it was with the Golden Dawn, is central to his Holy Books, but is ignored utterly after the failed return to Algeria in 1910 after the 1909 reception of 418. He doesn't stress its importance, doesn't really understand it, and ignores and manipulates the manuscript of 418 (which I painstakingly restored over several years, unlike those vaunted literary guardians).
Nowhere does Crowley even acknowledge orlog in relation to that "divine will" of Thelema - nor does he name said gods or show any reverence to them. The gods themselves are largely meaningless to him, things to be used and discarded at will like whomever he was bedding for a time.
I wish I could be more complimentary of the man, but I've spent decades on a man I grew to despise the more I got through the archives.
One other mistake you make is the assumption that the people criticizing him in the folk-based movements aren't familiar with his teachings and philosophy. Flowers, McNallen, McVan, et al - all the modern progenitors of the Germanic folk revival - know him intimately. They studied ANYTHING they could get their hands on.
But there's no divorcing Thelema as practiced from the universalist taint of the Judeo-Christian egregore and Freemasonry without substantial revision.
Great points. Yes, absolutely, concerning the older esotericists. I don't think younger students begin, middle or end with Crowley nearly as much though, in large part due to Crowley material being actively throttled by the perfidious OTO, but also because Thelema doesn't pander to Character Creation Kits such as new age spirituality and paganism offer.
Crowley's lack of personal reverence for native traditions is due to him seeing himself as being above them. In the A∴A∴ the vantage is the assembly of ascended masters who see any given tradition or religion as merely a mechanism. In OTO the vantage is an international coalition of philosopher kings. But this does not mean that local traditions were thrown away.
Like I've gone into in my essay "Liber Oz - a double take," I believe Crowley saw a sort of religions caste system where the multitude could appreciate their particular traditions but that there was also a sort of super-tradition that refracts through them, the "Inner Order" that he speaks of in Liber 30.
I wonder if the primary sin of the "Judeo-Christian egregore" is its aniconic impulse. Previous traditions subsumed conquered peoples' gods into their own schema. 220.3.22 (The other images group around me to support me: let all be worshipped, for they shall cluster to exalt me.) endorses the old method.
The whole "Great White Brotherhood" is pure Theosophist crap, that somehow there's a secret universalist order of things.
Remember that Liber 30 isn't AC - it's a Golden Dawn leftover straight from the knowledge lectures.
OZ its own ball of wax, I've never been enamored with it simply because it's a grievance list of "I don't wanna face up to what I've done" for Crowley's life (including getting tossed from countries because HIS actions, eta l).
I find no value in any of the Judeo-Christian egregore - the former half begin parasitic, the latter being poisonous!
The central problem of Thelema in regards to preserving European traditions and folk religion is it is a *universalist* approach - it's Masonic in its scope, outside of nation and blood and soil.
While Crowley certainly loved Wagner, he has no interest in Germanic religion or even Celtic religion in any reasonable sense - he new ages out on the buffet of the past, equating all together in a meaningful (and blasphemous) pastiche.
Similarly, he was a hipster of his time, fascinated by the East and all the forbidden things that were
exotic. He doesn't extole European virtues - he's too busy, as noted by Yorke in "666, Sex, and the O.T.O." buggering Arab boys and doing lines of coke.
Note as well the passing over of the British folk tradition that is Enochian magick - it's included because it was with the Golden Dawn, is central to his Holy Books, but is ignored utterly after the failed return to Algeria in 1910 after the 1909 reception of 418. He doesn't stress its importance, doesn't really understand it, and ignores and manipulates the manuscript of 418 (which I painstakingly restored over several years, unlike those vaunted literary guardians).
Nowhere does Crowley even acknowledge orlog in relation to that "divine will" of Thelema - nor does he name said gods or show any reverence to them. The gods themselves are largely meaningless to him, things to be used and discarded at will like whomever he was bedding for a time.
I wish I could be more complimentary of the man, but I've spent decades on a man I grew to despise the more I got through the archives.
One other mistake you make is the assumption that the people criticizing him in the folk-based movements aren't familiar with his teachings and philosophy. Flowers, McNallen, McVan, et al - all the modern progenitors of the Germanic folk revival - know him intimately. They studied ANYTHING they could get their hands on.
But there's no divorcing Thelema as practiced from the universalist taint of the Judeo-Christian egregore and Freemasonry without substantial revision.
Great points. Yes, absolutely, concerning the older esotericists. I don't think younger students begin, middle or end with Crowley nearly as much though, in large part due to Crowley material being actively throttled by the perfidious OTO, but also because Thelema doesn't pander to Character Creation Kits such as new age spirituality and paganism offer.
Crowley's lack of personal reverence for native traditions is due to him seeing himself as being above them. In the A∴A∴ the vantage is the assembly of ascended masters who see any given tradition or religion as merely a mechanism. In OTO the vantage is an international coalition of philosopher kings. But this does not mean that local traditions were thrown away.
Like I've gone into in my essay "Liber Oz - a double take," I believe Crowley saw a sort of religions caste system where the multitude could appreciate their particular traditions but that there was also a sort of super-tradition that refracts through them, the "Inner Order" that he speaks of in Liber 30.
I wonder if the primary sin of the "Judeo-Christian egregore" is its aniconic impulse. Previous traditions subsumed conquered peoples' gods into their own schema. 220.3.22 (The other images group around me to support me: let all be worshipped, for they shall cluster to exalt me.) endorses the old method.
Thank you for your feedback! Always valuable.
The whole "Great White Brotherhood" is pure Theosophist crap, that somehow there's a secret universalist order of things.
Remember that Liber 30 isn't AC - it's a Golden Dawn leftover straight from the knowledge lectures.
OZ its own ball of wax, I've never been enamored with it simply because it's a grievance list of "I don't wanna face up to what I've done" for Crowley's life (including getting tossed from countries because HIS actions, eta l).
I find no value in any of the Judeo-Christian egregore - the former half begin parasitic, the latter being poisonous!