Speaking of Post-Thelema, not to be that guy, but, who am I kidding, I’m totally that guy: whomever called it Post-Thelema has remarkably bad aim. Like calling a Tesla post-car instead of post-combustion engine. But, sure, *smdh* okay, whatever …
As I was looking to see if there were any interesting quotes about “3000” to post about the Instagram milestone, I ran into this, and Ash had the clarity to focus on “Aleisterianism”:
“To summarize, I do not think Aleisterianism, as a system and movement, is dangerous; I think it is anemic. It is weak because it is constrained by the work of a single man who died 60 years ago who grounded his ideas in control, isolation, and conflict. Those themes simply will not inspire more than a handful of people, most of whom will be folks on the edge of society but with enough resources and interest to buy and study arcane texts. Yes, there are always exceptions, but not enough to make Aleisterianism a robust movement (example: after a full century, the largest and most powerful Aleisterian organization in the world barely maintains 3000 or so members with rapid turnover, owns no real property, has no paid staff, and has virtually zero influence culturally or politically…I do not blame the leadership for this, I blame Aleisterianism)."—
Aleisterian Addendum
As someone kinda invested in people wanting to read everything
Aleister Crowley wrote as an act of academic and religious practice by appeal to
all his writings, each for themselves,
à la my personal expansive interpretation of
Tunis; I, for one, also welcome a kind of "Thelemic Deism” like a therapeutically necessary enema.
Aleister Crowley
is a conundrum (which is totally
an essay I’ve been meaning to write.). Aleister Crowley is the Joss Whedon of Occultism (which is totally
another essay I’ve been meaning to write). There is a corpus of material that people have found to be important and has had broad influence, some of which was produced in the early days by script doctoring, but also some genuine creative output; but, the creator is problematic to keep centered and for a tradition to not grow beyond. The whole exists together, connected, and either one without consideration of the other is incomplete. But, it would also be incomplete not to critically consider both, synchronically and diachronically.
By the by, just a reminder that I’m open to adding essays to
Disorienting Aleister Crowley (or that disorients any other content on the site). So, if you’ve got something I can host, or want to write something, for the
Disorientation Manual. And be sure to check out my
Introduction to the section for some thoughts on how I approach the material on the site, and why I started the section for meta references and resources that do critical analysis of the material on the site.
P.S. As an aside, it occurred to me that it is probably true that more people will visit the Hermetic Library website just today than have ever been members of a Thelemic organization, or, frankly, self-identified as Thelemites, combined. So, let’s put any new or old drama in perspective: for the most part, almost everyone has already been Post-Thelema and Post-Crowley for decades.
But, don’t let that discourage you from checking out all the Crowley material at Hermetic Library either for current, for the few, or historical interest, for the rest! Ha!
