I made a short response video to this video expressing my concerns with using the word 'satanic' too much, as these forms of cults can worship anything from Satan to Moloch to a made-up-brand-new cult diety. We don't want to be overly specific, best keep the focus around chid trafficking rings and child sexual abuse rings
It covers every possible deification or pseudo-deification of 'Scientific Illuminism' (as Crowley called it), right down to the belief that every man/women themselves, is the only 'god' of consequence.
The Spirit Cooking and sexual sacrementalization using 'handkerchiefs', is specifically derived from Thelemic transgressionalism. The best quote that there is about Thelema is the following:
Regarding Crowley's antidemocratic, racist and misanthropic writings, followers point out: "The reason [...] aspects of Thelema are omitted [in public discussion] indicates the actual problem with presenting Thelema as a religion and attempting to get Thelema sanctioned by the government or approved by the public: Thelema is ultimately in contrast to and transgressive of normative society. Thelema rejects the morals and values of normative society and acts to transgress and violate these norms. From the inclusion of intoxicants in ritual, to the positive view of sexuality, which frequently is seen as promoting promiscuity, to the pro–authoritarian and Nietzschian aspects of Thelema, normative society has much to reject in Thelema and conversely, Thelema encourages its adherents to reject most aspects of normative society."(O.T.O.'s "Journal of Thelemic Studies", 1;2, 2008, http://thelemicstudies.com/JoTS1–2.pdf, pg 40)
As a Christian my bias would be to call it Satanic, because all of this self-deification is the Biblical definition of Satanic ideology, though you are probably correct that certain occult and elite communities would use pedantic specificity as an argument against generality towards comunal, even ritual, organized transgressive behavior. Abramovic and the Podesta's obviously revel in their association with transgressive 'art', and try to use this as a cover for their true inner beliefs (though Abramovic's Twitter handle included the number 666; revealing at least a Thelemic foundation).
They use the term 'Satan' or 'Satanism' as a canard in little word games to mock their detractors.
As such, we should use specificity against them, and just call their belief systems Thelemic. Nuance can work both ways, and would interest third parties more in the topics being discussed, because the word 'satan' just invokes the usual glazed eye syndrome where people instantly turn off from the discussion, like someone blew a dog whistle in their ear.
Aquino is high priest of the Setian Church. The temple of Set is the evolution of LaVey's church of Satan, and has replaced the old Satanist model. They consider themselves"puritan Satanists", if you will.
You will see in that essay that Satanism and Thelema are certainly not the same thing, they say it outright.
First of all, I'll be the judge on what I do or don't know about Crowley; you only read a short post of mine on a forum, so you're neither an expert on what I know, or on my ability to lay aside my bias to achieve a stated agenda -- the agenda being to avoid the glazing-over-of-the-eyes of a person being engaged about Pizzagate.
Second, Thelema can be WHATEVER it wants to be to any particular practitioner, but it provides a greater catch-all category for deliberate TRANSGRESSIVE behaviour.
Thirdly, why the hell would the words of Satanists/Thelemites themselves be considered valid? These people also openly declare that the greatest of all transgressive behaviors, that they revel in, is DECEPTION.
These are the kind of people, like Hillary Clinton, who tell lies simply for the sport of doing so; they get-off on it.
The Biblical definition of Satan, is the love of oneself and belief in only the WILL of the individual. This was Crowley's own definition of Thelema: "Do as thou wilt, will be the whole of the law" (or, 93 93/93 ... etc...). Whether you identify this ideology with a horned demon is irrelevant, because the Bible also never describes Satan as a horned demon; to hell with Hollywood stereotypes when I'm talking simply about the effective use of words.
I'm only suggesting people use the term THELEMA rather than SATANISM, for the reason that the former will be more psychologically effective, because the latter has become a cultural dog whistle. Come up with all the nuanced interpretations or apologetics by satanists/thelemites that you want, this was not the point I was making, and you have no idea what I know ... and I won't assume either what you do or don't know about the occult. because I couldn't possibly know you.
Go ahead, downvoat me for telling the truth, I dare you.
I didn't downvote you nor do I intend to, you seem fairly reasonable. I just feel like by taking one thing and calling it something completely different to get a desired effect out of people who don't know any better you are perpetuating exactly the kind of "deception" you're so worried about. See what I mean? The only thing that can save us all now is pure, untainted truth.
And for the record, what you claim about crowely's idea of Will is one of the things that is different from Satanism. Satanists believe in the will of the individual and that's all. Crowely was about finding the true will that the universe/god has in store for the individual. Crowely is about Unity, Satanism is about individuality.
Ok, I see you are reasonable too, but, if I could clarify, the task of defining what an occult group does or does not truly believe, is a fools errand (in my opinion). Degree structures shield initiates from possible dogmatic revelations. We all have bias, it is part of being unitary and conscious, sentient beings; we are all limited in our knowledge, thus we all have much more to learn than we could ever know. I have read many biographies of Crowley--all tainted by the bias of the particular author--and have read his diary, also his catalogues of pseudo-literary gibberish posing as ritual and enlightenment, but I am quite sure that only one categorization is definitely true of Thelema:
Transgressive behavior maintained by institutionalized and deliberate hyper subjective dogma, manifesting as willful cognitive dissonance; either self reinforced by the group into some form of egregore, or purely within the individual mind.
All that can be said about Thelema is that it deliberately constructs an us-and-them between the cult grouping and the outside world, and then attempts to deliberately reject and transgress the norms of the outside world (the functional similarity with a pedophile ring is striking). Theologically, however, Crowley deliberately contradicted himself from one work to another. From the man who literally wrote a book of trash called the "Book of Lies", to define Crowley other than his love of transgressive behavior, is to partake in a great folly; and it took me a long time to work this out. His most honest statement was probably when he said "There is no god but man", which is simply pure Satanism in its modern pseudo-academic format (its public face).
It's just pure Atheism outwardly (other than a childish fascination with mortuary fashions and Gothic dress-up), but with a redefinition of deity as being the self ... thus, internally a pseudo-religion, but from a Book of Genesis perspective, a clear cut textbook definition of Satanism; the words of the snake; rebellion against the idea of an omnipotent benevolent creator offering free will, at a price. Buddhism is actually no different; it is anti-Theistic at its core, but of course different schools of Buddhism confuse the initiate as much as Crowley did regarding the nature of the 'enlightened void'.
Crowley sums up Thelema and Satanism best in his own autobiographical work;
“It is very important to mention that the mind of the child [Crowley] was almost abnormally normal. He showed no tendency to see visions, as even commonplace children often do. The Bible was his only book at this period; but neither the narrative nor the poetry made any deep impression on him. He was fascinated by the mysteriously prophetic passages, especially those in Revelation. The Christianity in his home was entirely pleasant to him, and yet his sympathies were with the opponents of heaven. He suspects obscurely that this was partly an instinctive love of terrors. The Elders and the harps seemed tame. He preferred the Dragon, the False Prophet, the Beast and the Scarlet Woman, as being more exciting. He revelled in the descriptions of torment. One may suspect, moreover, a strain of congenital masochism. He liked to imagine himself in agony; in particular, he liked to identify himself with the Beast whose number is the number of a man, six hundred and three score six [666]. One can only conjecture that it was the mystery of the number which determined this childish choice.”
– Crowley, Aleister. “The Confessions Of Aleister Crowley”, (Autobiography~1928)
Modern academic Satanists, in my opinion, are worse than Crowley, because at least Crowley had the honesty (which is itself ironic) to own up to being a sadomasochist and psychopath at heart. I don't believe people like Aquino when they remonstrate about a modern academic definition of Satanism. I only see a true religion. One where deception is given a high throne as a replacement for a natural moral code.
The Temple was established in the United States in 1975 by Michael Aquino, an American political scientist, military officer, and a high-ranking member of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan. Dissatisfied with the direction in which LaVey was taking the Church, Aquino resigned and – according to his own claim – embarked on a ritual to invoke Satan, who revealed to him a sacred text called The Book of Coming Forth by Night. -- Wikipedia article on Temple of Set
So, Aquino only believes in his own deification, but wanted to invoke Satan? ... write a new 'scripture' revealed to him by a cognizant non existent deity ... and have his own occult fiefdom where he confused the crap out of the people who joined his franachise, by writing mountains of contradictory trash? Maybe he was simply imitating Crowley because he had a lack of originality? Same goes for LaVey. Personally, the best thing for western civilization that I can say about all forms of Satanism/Thelema, is that they schism so much, being led by hyper-arrogant sectarians not content to be 2IC's beneath other great 'leaders'. The same goes for Theosophy and other transient New Age belief systems.
I'm only interested in the elite super-cults that maintain their membership through fear of reprisal, such as the original Order of the Bavarian Illuminati, or a possible modern continuation/clone; also their ability to tap legacy wealth networks to maintain the power of their structures ... the rest of these schismatic cults are but minor bouts of herpes compared to a HIV/AIDS infestation.
To me, Thelema is at least honest about what Satanism is ... a love for transgressive behavior; thus BDSM and moral relativism towards pedophilia (etc), are technically just forms of Satanism manifesting with different degrees of outward group-organization and/or formal ritual. Such people see no requirement for a moral code, because they see no greater authority that they will ever be answerable to for their depravity other than themselves (an analogical match for a full blown Satanic self-deification). Pedophile rings are just formalized manifestations of Satan dwelling in the hearts of men without the moral code of God, but it would take a Christian to see the truth in this respect, and, as such, my bias is admitted.
Genesis 3:4-5]And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.[The only textbook definition that ever mattered]
Ironically, if the whole world were to become Stanaists, a Thelemite would probably dress up like a Quaker and take off into the forest with a small cadre, to recreate a utopian church commune :) Meanwhile, someone like Aquino would be looking to commercialize a point-of-difference so that he could sell a new book for all the people then looking for an alternative version of the dysfunctional hell on earth they were getting bored with rather quickly. Either way, Christianity sets a moral code for itself, whereas Thelema/Satnism decides what it finds enthralling by opposing the norms of the former, to recruit as many satyrs as possible to dress up like freaks and plot against their moral opposite.
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Phobos_Mothership ago
I made a short response video to this video expressing my concerns with using the word 'satanic' too much, as these forms of cults can worship anything from Satan to Moloch to a made-up-brand-new cult diety. We don't want to be overly specific, best keep the focus around chid trafficking rings and child sexual abuse rings
PieInTheEye ago
'Thelemic' is actually a better terminology.
It covers every possible deification or pseudo-deification of 'Scientific Illuminism' (as Crowley called it), right down to the belief that every man/women themselves, is the only 'god' of consequence.
The Spirit Cooking and sexual sacrementalization using 'handkerchiefs', is specifically derived from Thelemic transgressionalism. The best quote that there is about Thelema is the following:
As a Christian my bias would be to call it Satanic, because all of this self-deification is the Biblical definition of Satanic ideology, though you are probably correct that certain occult and elite communities would use pedantic specificity as an argument against generality towards comunal, even ritual, organized transgressive behavior. Abramovic and the Podesta's obviously revel in their association with transgressive 'art', and try to use this as a cover for their true inner beliefs (though Abramovic's Twitter handle included the number 666; revealing at least a Thelemic foundation).
They use the term 'Satan' or 'Satanism' as a canard in little word games to mock their detractors.
As such, we should use specificity against them, and just call their belief systems Thelemic. Nuance can work both ways, and would interest third parties more in the topics being discussed, because the word 'satan' just invokes the usual glazed eye syndrome where people instantly turn off from the discussion, like someone blew a dog whistle in their ear.
CosmicChrist ago
I would ask you to do a little more research on these topics because you seem to not really understand Thelema or Crowely. You admit to your Christian bias, so please read this shot essay by US general Micheal Aquino. http://soa-gild.blogspot.com/2008/08/horns-across-water-satanism-in-britain.html?m=1
Aquino is high priest of the Setian Church. The temple of Set is the evolution of LaVey's church of Satan, and has replaced the old Satanist model. They consider themselves"puritan Satanists", if you will.
You will see in that essay that Satanism and Thelema are certainly not the same thing, they say it outright.
PieInTheEye ago
First of all, I'll be the judge on what I do or don't know about Crowley; you only read a short post of mine on a forum, so you're neither an expert on what I know, or on my ability to lay aside my bias to achieve a stated agenda -- the agenda being to avoid the glazing-over-of-the-eyes of a person being engaged about Pizzagate.
Second, Thelema can be WHATEVER it wants to be to any particular practitioner, but it provides a greater catch-all category for deliberate TRANSGRESSIVE behaviour.
Thirdly, why the hell would the words of Satanists/Thelemites themselves be considered valid? These people also openly declare that the greatest of all transgressive behaviors, that they revel in, is DECEPTION.
These are the kind of people, like Hillary Clinton, who tell lies simply for the sport of doing so; they get-off on it.
The Biblical definition of Satan, is the love of oneself and belief in only the WILL of the individual. This was Crowley's own definition of Thelema: "Do as thou wilt, will be the whole of the law" (or, 93 93/93 ... etc...). Whether you identify this ideology with a horned demon is irrelevant, because the Bible also never describes Satan as a horned demon; to hell with Hollywood stereotypes when I'm talking simply about the effective use of words.
I'm only suggesting people use the term THELEMA rather than SATANISM, for the reason that the former will be more psychologically effective, because the latter has become a cultural dog whistle. Come up with all the nuanced interpretations or apologetics by satanists/thelemites that you want, this was not the point I was making, and you have no idea what I know ... and I won't assume either what you do or don't know about the occult. because I couldn't possibly know you.
Go ahead, downvoat me for telling the truth, I dare you.
CosmicChrist ago
I didn't downvote you nor do I intend to, you seem fairly reasonable. I just feel like by taking one thing and calling it something completely different to get a desired effect out of people who don't know any better you are perpetuating exactly the kind of "deception" you're so worried about. See what I mean? The only thing that can save us all now is pure, untainted truth.
And for the record, what you claim about crowely's idea of Will is one of the things that is different from Satanism. Satanists believe in the will of the individual and that's all. Crowely was about finding the true will that the universe/god has in store for the individual. Crowely is about Unity, Satanism is about individuality.
PieInTheEye ago
Ok, I see you are reasonable too, but, if I could clarify, the task of defining what an occult group does or does not truly believe, is a fools errand (in my opinion). Degree structures shield initiates from possible dogmatic revelations. We all have bias, it is part of being unitary and conscious, sentient beings; we are all limited in our knowledge, thus we all have much more to learn than we could ever know. I have read many biographies of Crowley--all tainted by the bias of the particular author--and have read his diary, also his catalogues of pseudo-literary gibberish posing as ritual and enlightenment, but I am quite sure that only one categorization is definitely true of Thelema:
Transgressive behavior maintained by institutionalized and deliberate hyper subjective dogma, manifesting as willful cognitive dissonance; either self reinforced by the group into some form of egregore, or purely within the individual mind.
All that can be said about Thelema is that it deliberately constructs an us-and-them between the cult grouping and the outside world, and then attempts to deliberately reject and transgress the norms of the outside world (the functional similarity with a pedophile ring is striking). Theologically, however, Crowley deliberately contradicted himself from one work to another. From the man who literally wrote a book of trash called the "Book of Lies", to define Crowley other than his love of transgressive behavior, is to partake in a great folly; and it took me a long time to work this out. His most honest statement was probably when he said "There is no god but man", which is simply pure Satanism in its modern pseudo-academic format (its public face).
It's just pure Atheism outwardly (other than a childish fascination with mortuary fashions and Gothic dress-up), but with a redefinition of deity as being the self ... thus, internally a pseudo-religion, but from a Book of Genesis perspective, a clear cut textbook definition of Satanism; the words of the snake; rebellion against the idea of an omnipotent benevolent creator offering free will, at a price. Buddhism is actually no different; it is anti-Theistic at its core, but of course different schools of Buddhism confuse the initiate as much as Crowley did regarding the nature of the 'enlightened void'.
Crowley sums up Thelema and Satanism best in his own autobiographical work;
Modern academic Satanists, in my opinion, are worse than Crowley, because at least Crowley had the honesty (which is itself ironic) to own up to being a sadomasochist and psychopath at heart. I don't believe people like Aquino when they remonstrate about a modern academic definition of Satanism. I only see a true religion. One where deception is given a high throne as a replacement for a natural moral code.
So, Aquino only believes in his own deification, but wanted to invoke Satan? ... write a new 'scripture' revealed to him by a cognizant non existent deity ... and have his own occult fiefdom where he confused the crap out of the people who joined his franachise, by writing mountains of contradictory trash? Maybe he was simply imitating Crowley because he had a lack of originality? Same goes for LaVey. Personally, the best thing for western civilization that I can say about all forms of Satanism/Thelema, is that they schism so much, being led by hyper-arrogant sectarians not content to be 2IC's beneath other great 'leaders'. The same goes for Theosophy and other transient New Age belief systems.
I'm only interested in the elite super-cults that maintain their membership through fear of reprisal, such as the original Order of the Bavarian Illuminati, or a possible modern continuation/clone; also their ability to tap legacy wealth networks to maintain the power of their structures ... the rest of these schismatic cults are but minor bouts of herpes compared to a HIV/AIDS infestation.
To me, Thelema is at least honest about what Satanism is ... a love for transgressive behavior; thus BDSM and moral relativism towards pedophilia (etc), are technically just forms of Satanism manifesting with different degrees of outward group-organization and/or formal ritual. Such people see no requirement for a moral code, because they see no greater authority that they will ever be answerable to for their depravity other than themselves (an analogical match for a full blown Satanic self-deification). Pedophile rings are just formalized manifestations of Satan dwelling in the hearts of men without the moral code of God, but it would take a Christian to see the truth in this respect, and, as such, my bias is admitted.
Ironically, if the whole world were to become Stanaists, a Thelemite would probably dress up like a Quaker and take off into the forest with a small cadre, to recreate a utopian church commune :) Meanwhile, someone like Aquino would be looking to commercialize a point-of-difference so that he could sell a new book for all the people then looking for an alternative version of the dysfunctional hell on earth they were getting bored with rather quickly. Either way, Christianity sets a moral code for itself, whereas Thelema/Satnism decides what it finds enthralling by opposing the norms of the former, to recruit as many satyrs as possible to dress up like freaks and plot against their moral opposite.