There's a lot more to the PMC than this. Working class people are less and less able to function well in the current world and a mass movement cannot exist with just them at the helm. You can do all the rituals you want, but they will not compensate one iota for a mastery of managerial systems, self-control, demeanor, patience, restraint, deferred gratification, values, etc.
Thelema is about the liberation of the strong individual - it's not about the middle class people managing fractious and trouble working class and lumpen elements. I didn't want to "take care of" and "mentor" troubled, ignorant souls in the OTO and I don't want to do it in any other group. In the end, the people "helped" by these processes join leave to join the mainstream anyway. No thanks.
Crowley's disparaging comments about group work and the need for group affiliations never make into these discussions. Weak people look to groups to make them feel empowered. I don't want to hang out with weak people.
Going through these rituals is a lot easier than jettisoning a metaphysics and a set of values. Many of the OTO's liberals bristle at the suggestion that their ethical and moral values system is rooted in, and directly descends from, Christianity. It takes a lot more work, and a lot more commitment and skill, than just performing a ritual, to see that.
Where are you going to get your Professional Managerial Class (PMC) from anyway? Someone needs to pay the bills, do the goal setting, and handle all the practical, day-to-day chores of running the organization on all levels. You may not like the stable, middle class liberals in the OTO, but where are the people you can get to do their jobs going to come from? Resentful, angry, working class people have not proven themselves up to these tasks, which is why they will usually defer to the liberal left - who are more educated and more self-disciplined.
You may not appreciate these people and their anti-Thelemic values, but they are in charge for a reason. They have the skills to do the work that others do not. There are not a group of talented, dedicated, self-disciplined people waiting in the wings to take over... and a few cool rituals cannot make that problem go away.
AI and automation could take over what little paperwork they do.
I think a more organic model whereby locals are allowed elbow room and can stake a claim in OTO government by virtue of their achievements. The alternative is apparently the clique of gender queer middle management sizing you up over their thick spectacles and wondering if you're going to increase their workload.
In Kjetil's talk that I referenced in the beginning he presented an organic model of development taken from Crowley's papers that was a sort of ground-up OTO. You begin organizing and initiating as a Camp until you get so many Minervals, then you're chartered to initiate beyond that, and once you have so many of X degree then you get chartered to work beyond it. His numbers were very ambitious, but the idea is a good one, that success in promulgation would be rewarded with advancement and rights. In the current OTO you're rewarded with regalia and title if you manage to not annoy Klingsor X° for long enough.
I can remember arguing with Wasserman in the late 80s, that he was choosing quantity over quality. They let every whacko in and the decent people found nothing worth staying for. Later I came to see that this was about the making of money, and the OTO so-called adepts were nothing but book publishers who had never experienced initiation. So they created their autocracy and perverted the formula that Crowley set forth.
Interestingly, Motta put the renunciating idea into practice with the First Grade of his SOTO.
I couldn't agree with you more on both the issue of the renunciation formula and the corrup;tion of the OTO Hierarchy.
There is simply no way to correct the ship that is sailing; the OTO and all Masonic means of initiation have proven to have failed to initiate. As the Califate wanes due to the loss of control over the copyrights, there is greater opportunity for other Thelemic groups to emerge and develop into their own communities. Indeed, they're already with us; prefering quality over quantity.
Yea, figured I'd be the one to point it out in case it hadn't been noticed.
And that's the thing that all the Islam apologists don't grok - the Islam of Crowley's time was far different (at least in terms of what was visible in the West, with anything radical hiding out of the sight of colonial empires and without the inflammatory ugly of the existence of Israel and the West's eternal meddling in their affairs) than what has existed in the post-war era.
I'm not sure what they have to do with this. Are you referring to the Disputation of Paris?
I think the "liberal" objection to book burning stems from them still pretending they value a free market of viewpoints and how the reason of mankind will cause the cream to rise to the top. Of course their aggressive censorship betrays how they no longer believe this in the slightest, and while they're right to be skeptical they're wrong to point the finger in the other direction.
There's a lot more to the PMC than this. Working class people are less and less able to function well in the current world and a mass movement cannot exist with just them at the helm. You can do all the rituals you want, but they will not compensate one iota for a mastery of managerial systems, self-control, demeanor, patience, restraint, deferred gratification, values, etc.
Thelema is about the liberation of the strong individual - it's not about the middle class people managing fractious and trouble working class and lumpen elements. I didn't want to "take care of" and "mentor" troubled, ignorant souls in the OTO and I don't want to do it in any other group. In the end, the people "helped" by these processes join leave to join the mainstream anyway. No thanks.
Crowley's disparaging comments about group work and the need for group affiliations never make into these discussions. Weak people look to groups to make them feel empowered. I don't want to hang out with weak people.
Going through these rituals is a lot easier than jettisoning a metaphysics and a set of values. Many of the OTO's liberals bristle at the suggestion that their ethical and moral values system is rooted in, and directly descends from, Christianity. It takes a lot more work, and a lot more commitment and skill, than just performing a ritual, to see that.
Where are you going to get your Professional Managerial Class (PMC) from anyway? Someone needs to pay the bills, do the goal setting, and handle all the practical, day-to-day chores of running the organization on all levels. You may not like the stable, middle class liberals in the OTO, but where are the people you can get to do their jobs going to come from? Resentful, angry, working class people have not proven themselves up to these tasks, which is why they will usually defer to the liberal left - who are more educated and more self-disciplined.
You may not appreciate these people and their anti-Thelemic values, but they are in charge for a reason. They have the skills to do the work that others do not. There are not a group of talented, dedicated, self-disciplined people waiting in the wings to take over... and a few cool rituals cannot make that problem go away.
AI and automation could take over what little paperwork they do.
I think a more organic model whereby locals are allowed elbow room and can stake a claim in OTO government by virtue of their achievements. The alternative is apparently the clique of gender queer middle management sizing you up over their thick spectacles and wondering if you're going to increase their workload.
In Kjetil's talk that I referenced in the beginning he presented an organic model of development taken from Crowley's papers that was a sort of ground-up OTO. You begin organizing and initiating as a Camp until you get so many Minervals, then you're chartered to initiate beyond that, and once you have so many of X degree then you get chartered to work beyond it. His numbers were very ambitious, but the idea is a good one, that success in promulgation would be rewarded with advancement and rights. In the current OTO you're rewarded with regalia and title if you manage to not annoy Klingsor X° for long enough.
Why do the Boomer Leftists ruin literally everything?
Wise in their own conceit.
I can remember arguing with Wasserman in the late 80s, that he was choosing quantity over quality. They let every whacko in and the decent people found nothing worth staying for. Later I came to see that this was about the making of money, and the OTO so-called adepts were nothing but book publishers who had never experienced initiation. So they created their autocracy and perverted the formula that Crowley set forth.
Interestingly, Motta put the renunciating idea into practice with the First Grade of his SOTO.
I couldn't agree with you more on both the issue of the renunciation formula and the corrup;tion of the OTO Hierarchy.
There is simply no way to correct the ship that is sailing; the OTO and all Masonic means of initiation have proven to have failed to initiate. As the Califate wanes due to the loss of control over the copyrights, there is greater opportunity for other Thelemic groups to emerge and develop into their own communities. Indeed, they're already with us; prefering quality over quantity.
In this, we must support each other.
Thanks for a marvelous article!
I note that for whatever reason you don't include Islam in the renunciation list.
Yes, I also noticed that. Definitely a glaring oversight, especially in 2015.
Yea, figured I'd be the one to point it out in case it hadn't been noticed.
And that's the thing that all the Islam apologists don't grok - the Islam of Crowley's time was far different (at least in terms of what was visible in the West, with anything radical hiding out of the sight of colonial empires and without the inflammatory ugly of the existence of Israel and the West's eternal meddling in their affairs) than what has existed in the post-war era.
I'm not sure what they have to do with this. Are you referring to the Disputation of Paris?
I think the "liberal" objection to book burning stems from them still pretending they value a free market of viewpoints and how the reason of mankind will cause the cream to rise to the top. Of course their aggressive censorship betrays how they no longer believe this in the slightest, and while they're right to be skeptical they're wrong to point the finger in the other direction.