tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56857895533790300942008-05-15T10:33:00.358-07:00jk's Concise Guide to AC's "The Book of Thoth"jkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07415144798224976827noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685789553379030094.post-16051149295067166352008-04-23T12:33:00.001-07:002008-04-25T14:48:37.056-07:00The Strange Egyptomaniacal Origin of HaditThe Stele of Revealing showing Nuit, Horus (Winged Disk) and "Hadit" hieroglyphs Earlier this month Thelemites celebrated the birthday of Hadit, which is kind of weird if you think about it because Hadit is supposed to be an Egyptian god, a version of Horus, whose birthday isn't really known. Of course, what Thelemites mean by celebrating Hadit's birthday on a particular day, April 9, is that onjkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07415144798224976827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685789553379030094.post-57782513345974917272008-04-09T10:35:00.001-07:002008-04-09T10:37:01.089-07:00Crowley's Holy Qabalah, part I Without Form and Void And the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Powers of Nature said: ‘Let there be light! and there was light.—1st Degree Initiation, Ordo Templi Orientis (The quoted text was largely cribbed by AC from the KJV Bible of course) There is no-one who thinks in the lucid way you do, my little paltry cards are lost unless you jkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07415144798224976827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685789553379030094.post-52443623989293413162008-04-08T05:48:00.001-07:002008-04-08T05:48:46.578-07:00Update to a Postmodern Thoth NarrativeMary Greer Admits To Arrien "Nonsense" (jk)jkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07415144798224976827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685789553379030094.post-91864145581820579872008-04-04T11:02:00.001-07:002008-04-04T11:15:34.098-07:00Back to the BookWhen I began this project, a little over a year ago, I had in mind to finish it by a certain deadline, the 60th anniversary of the death of Aleister Crowley. That seemed rather celebratory, and also it focused the work. On the other hand, when this deadline was established, I had done no research into the book, by which I mean the deeper research necessary to truly delve into the mysteries of jkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07415144798224976827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685789553379030094.post-88246229315129548032007-03-30T13:34:00.000-07:002008-03-19T14:14:21.218-07:00“SUMMARY OF THE QUESTIONS HITHERTO DISCUSSED” [AND BEGGED]On page ten of BOT, Crowley sums up the points he alleges to have made so far in the book. It is not quite a masterpiece, but it is certainly an exercise in begging the question(s): 1. The origin of the Tarot is quite irrelevant, even if it were certain, It must stand or fall as a system on its own merits. Repeatedly, Crowley begs the question of Tarot’s origin (and more particularly the jkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07415144798224976827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685789553379030094.post-42800474483888144432007-03-06T13:44:00.000-08:002007-03-06T18:48:04.620-08:00"The Most Convincing Evidence Possible"I will preface this entry with a question about the value of truth. If you can save 1000 lives by lying, is a greater truth served than if you tell the truth and those 1000 lives are lost? And if by lying, you save these 1000 lives, but 10,000 more are made by this to think lying is always a life-saving virtue, and this results in the deaths of many thousands more eventually, have you done the jkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07415144798224976827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685789553379030094.post-9112159386434429262007-03-05T14:56:00.000-08:002007-03-05T16:57:36.947-08:00Origin and Evidence, Part IIIn the last post, I talked a lot about how Crowley was carefully crafting a certain kind of argument in the early pages of BOT, with a certain kind of occult aim. I said that when he employs mentions of science, he is certainly not doing so to demonstrate any legitimate interest in science or its methods, but he is using a popular understanding of science as a kind of meme to communicate what he jkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07415144798224976827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685789553379030094.post-75136264633184161692007-02-04T07:30:00.000-08:002007-02-05T08:55:49.768-08:00Origin and Evidence, part IAfter discussing the contents of the Tarot, and what he thinks that means, Crowley briefly turns to a discussion of the origin of the cards. One should realize, as is the case with allegedly historical accounts of the cards made by any occultist, that historical accuracy, or being bound to the mundane world of facts and their likely implications, is not the object of the exercise. Instead, an jkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07415144798224976827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685789553379030094.post-31324857021572019422007-02-03T06:32:00.000-08:002008-03-19T14:21:07.389-07:00A Fully-Packed Few WordsWhen Aleister Crowley began writing BOT (I will use this abbreviation for The Book of Thoth), he was pushing seventy years of age, and was pushing the thin envelop of the time alloted to him in his life. Thus, with his energy dissipating, and his mind full of personal symbolic resonances for all the occult ideas he had absorbed and developed, he was bound rather like one of the Devil's imps, to jkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07415144798224976827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5685789553379030094.post-80621037495191939272007-02-02T15:29:00.000-08:002007-02-05T10:19:17.409-08:00Blogging To A Thoth BookTomorrow I will begin an exploration of Aleister Crowley's Tarot book The Book of Thoth. When this exploration is over, on December 1, 2007, I will publish a book, title yet to be determined, which will be just what the title of this blog says: a concise reader's guide to one of AC's most important books. Why am I blogging about it? For one thing, since the guide is intended to be concise, I jkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07415144798224976827noreply@blogger.com