/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11374921]

What does /lit/ think of Crowley as a writer and philosopher?

>Death implies change and individuality; if thou be THAT which hath no person, which is beyond the changing, even beyond changelessness, what hast thou to do with death?
>The birth of individuality is ecstasy; so also is its death.
>In love the individuality is slain; who loves not love?
>Love death therefore, and long eagerly for it.
>Die Daily.

[Anonymous No.11374958]

he's tard

[Anonymous No.11374971]

BTFO by Maugham in "The Magician"
Though Maugham does even better to BTFO Thomas Hardy in "Cakes and Ale"

[Anonymous No.11374976]

>>11374971
what does he say

[Anonymous No.11374978]

>>11374921

One trick pony. Phony baloney.

Spouting esoteric bullshit always easier than getting a job.

[Anonymous No.11374983]

>>11374978
spouting "esoteric bullshit" is always easier than not being a pseud

[Anonymous No.11375038]

>>11374976
Basically Crowley is a charlatan who has nothing to back up his beliefs and tricks or bullies people into believing him or at least backing off

[Anonymous No.11375062]

>>11375038
>buzzwords

make an actual argument next time

[Anonymous No.11375394]

>>11375038
what is someone supposed to use to 'back up' their beliefs when designing a new esoteric system that involves mostly changes within the practitioner's own psyche?

[Anonymous No.11375402]

>>11375394

stop man, you're blowing my mind
he was a confidence man

[Anonymous No.11375419]

>>11375402
sorry dude, i'm sure you've reached your opinion through study and consideration and i respect your openness.

[Anonymous No.11375703]

>>11374921

As a fiction writer, his stories are strange. In some ways, they seem amateurish to degrees, especially in comparison to the horror/fantasy writers of his age.

Yet, there is invariably a strange, dreamy atmosphere to them that saves them from being bad. Crowley has talent in description and creative rambling. For weaving decadent tales and intriguing poetry.

[Anonymous No.11375732]

>>11374921
retard

[Anonymous No.11375800]

>>11374978
Teach us Your secret, Master! yap my Yahoos.
Then for the hardness of their hearts, and for the softness of their heads, I taught them Magick.
But...alas!
Teach us Your real secret, Master! how to become invisible, how to acquire love, and oh! beyond all, how to make gold.

But how much gold will you give me for the Secret of Infinite Riches?

Then said the foremost and most foolish; Master, it is nothing; but here is an hundred thousand pounds.

This did I deign to accept, and whispered in his ear this secret:
A SUCKER IS BORN EVERY MINUTE.

[Anonymous No.11375827]

>>11374921
Just go straight to the source and study Kabbalism, Taoism, Hinduism, Freemasonry (or Western esotericism in general, including Rosicrucianism, Gnosticism, the Tarot) Tantra, and Buddhism. I think the focus on ceremonial magic is a bit cringey and LARPy. The finding something beyond death and birth in oneself, the notion of emptiness at the core of the ego/of all is much better explored in Hinduism and Buddhism. Oh yeah, not to mention Nietzsche is also the more original version of his antinomianism and sort of mysticism of immorality, without all the trappings. Try as I might, I can’t see much original in Crowley, he was just a smart but not very emotionally and morally deep guy who combined a bunch of mystical traditions together. For all his talk of “love” there was very little of the lover of mankind or saint in him, not even the crazy/antinomian saint like some other mystics. He had the crazy and antinomian side, but very little of the compassion, and seemed to just be some amoral dude puttering around amusing himself, somewhat bigoted and nasty, in fact.

I thus find his system and his character emotionally unappealing, and I get the sense that his M.O. was something like “let me do as many pleasing meditative and magical techniques and even drugs and sexual practices as possible and just play around with my consciousness so I can get into certain states that I like.” I’m pretty sure talented Buddhist/Hindu/yoga/tantric practitioners could also play around with their consciousness for shits and giggles, but that’s a temptation on the way to enlightenment. He certainly gained some insights from meditation and yoga and studying these systems but I don’t think he used them very compassionately and wisely.

[Anonymous No.11375841]

>>11375827
I agree with parts of this post and disagree with others - I think you're guilty of the classic misconception of what thelema means by "love" - but thanks for actually putting effort in your post

[Anonymous No.11375859]

Good poet, good performance artist, worthless philosopher. His "thought" consists of ripping off of actual philosophy and/or intentionally obscuring things such that it is unclear that he is either saying nothing or ripping off of actual philosophy. Never said an interesting thing philosophically.

Again, though, good poet, good performance artist. Great artist in general.

[Anonymous No.11375882]

>>11375841
Thanks, I haven’t studied Crowley in-depth enough compared to other mystical systems I’ve studied, but I think what ultimately got him was his Nietzscheanism, which was linked with extreme pride as opposed to humility. I think that when you properly go on the mystical path, you more and more go, “Gee, I’m not that good and worthy of a person as I think I am.” This feeling comes to you more and more the more you learn about yourself. It’s a painful but also a good feeling. You humble yourself before something higher than yourself and thus “clean” yourself gradually so that you can eventually partake in this higher. For Crowley, however, it seemed Nietzsche’s worldview was too intoxicating for him. Instead of, “Let me slowly remove my vices and become less vain,” it was, “To hell with morality! I love all my vices! I will affirm myself! I can be one with the All just as I am! I am already one with the All (with my Holy Guardian Angel, with my Will, with Aiwass (I was), etc” This, I think, was a great mistake. Nonduality is a dangerous and subtle concept, difficult to understand, because even though all is one, nevertheless, in a weird way, there’s a definite difference between being enlightened and non-enlightened, between sinning and doing good.

What’s precisely needed on the path to enlightenment is a sense of remorse. Crowley, however, tried to shield himself from this. It was too soft and weak for him. Thus, far from mere hatred for him like so many other people who were offended by him, I feel compassion and sorrow for him.

[Anonymous No.11375908]

>>11375882
>Instead of, “Let me slowly remove my vices and become less vain,” it was, “To hell with morality! I love all my vices! I will affirm myself! I can be one with the All just as I am!
>What’s precisely needed on the path to enlightenment is a sense of remorse. Crowley, however, tried to shield himself from this.

Which is Frater Perdurabo, and which is the demon Crowley?

The exact quote, from the man himself is …:

“So wrote not FRATER PERDURABO, but the
Imp Crowley in his Name.
For forgery let him suffer Penal Servitude for Seven
Years; or at least let him do Pranayama all the way home …
And yet who knoweth which is Crowley, and which is
FRATER PERDURABO?”

Even HE knew the difference. Or if he didn’t, he was aware that there were two guys.

>“… it is important not to keep on worrying about one’s progress; otherwise all the concentration is lost, and a mood of irritability rises, work is given up, and the student becomes angry with his Teacher. His Mind-Soul becomes as a mad elephant that rages in the jungle. He may even obtain the Vision of the Demon Crowley.”

The fact that he was made "The Wickedest Man in the World" and poster-boy for every "vice" imaginable of his time is the very reason people even know about him 100 years later.

[Anonymous No.11375923]

>>11375882
there is a strong disdain for certain types in his work but I think he understood what you're talking about, he even speaks of the magician as embodying a kind of feminine receptivity to truth, that he has to play the bottom to the absolute's top to be kinda crude about it.

i'm not really up on sex magick, and the ceremony and stuff really smacks of that Western tendency to resist the plunge into the void of non-conceptuality by still clinging to the glamour and romanticism as far as the process will allow, but still he was no philosophical slouch. the absolute being absolute negativity, light being a mode of darkness in this sense, conceptuality being intrinsically inhibiting, the need for self-simplification, to kill even the buddha, death as telos, these things you'll find probably articulated more rigorously in the works of other philosophers but Crowley's hit the mark regardless, he just prefers elucidation by symbolism, poetry, koan-like statements of inscrutable power

[Anonymous No.11377101]

>>11374921
He's a conman, a shallow fraud, situated somewhere between L. Ron Hubbard and Timothy Leary.