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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.pagan.magick
From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nocTifer)
Subject: Christian Sources on Magick: Fortune (Re: Getting started in Magick)
Date: 20 May 1997 15:50:44 -0700

49970520 AA1  Hail Satan! (cc'd to Thelema93-L, Silver Chalice)

nocTifer:
>>>I do not recommend Fortune's books unless they taste good.  I am of a
>>>discernably non-Judeochristian slant and Fortune's books were icky to me.
>>>I should say that I have not yet tried to get past my repulsion and
>>>see if I could stomach the book mentioned above after a few gags.

my Mystress, oispeggy@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (MARGARET MARY-THERESA BROWN) 
 takes me to task for my unrestrained preferences/biases:
>I forgot to ask this earlier, Tagi....  How can you be repulsed
>by writings done by Christians, such as Dion Fortune, when Christianity
>borrows its pantheon from the the one your Order uses (the Egyptian 
>Osiris/Isis/Horus)?

it is not so much the pantheon by which I feel repulsed as by the Orphic
overtones of the cosmology therein.  that is, I actually *LIKE* many
Christian writings when the dualism doesn't become rampant and begin
to stoke the Purification, Judgement Day Rant.

I figure I'll need to explain the above, so here I go: 'Orphism' appears
to be a major contributing factor in the dualism and refinement-orientation
of modern Western religious.  this 'matter/spirit' and 'spirit/body'
dualistic split is something about which I have felt extreme loathing for
a long time, even though I have exposed myself severely to its psychologic
clutches and redirected its energies to alternative understandings (seeing
that it truly reflects the artificial split of consciousness into subject
and object as a sensate being, misunderstood in modern ignorance).

my preference is for monism or nondualism or polar systems of cosmology,
and in part this preference arises from seeing what I think is a very
real consequence of this dualism in the matter-hatred and nature-
destruction perpetrated by supposed 'Christians' and even many Neopagans.

the writers whose works gag me spend some degree of emphasis in their
language about this spirit/body dualism and concurrently emphasize an
'otherworldliness' or 'afterlife' rather than heaven-on-earth and
the perfection of the present.  

instead of making Mom (Gaia, whatever you want to call Her) into a 
Vehicle Through Which I'm Passing, and/or a Kleenex Which Will All 
Destroyed in The Great Conflagration Anyway, the Christian of my 
taste understands Biblical and esoteric teachings as METAPHORS, 
translates these into the PRESENT, and respects Mother Nature as 
a very important Teacher and Charge, whose care and/or desctruction 
we have in some measure assumed or been given as PARASITES.


>This makes no sense to me.  Unless of course you object to your
>Order's pantheon as well?

my Order (Caliphate OTO) doesn't have a pantheon.  any religious 
persuasion can be part of it.  if you are referring to the religion of
Thelema which subsumes a large portion of the Order's membership, then
these are more correctly described as Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khuit.
if you are talking about the Gnostic Catholic Church which my Order
houses and/or has combined itself with, then they might even be given
completely different names: CHAOS and BABALON.


>And please don't go blathering on about the xtians did this and that.
>Every denomination will do this and that when given the opportunity.

you don't know me very well. :>  my bias is not moral, it is strictly
prophylactic.  that is, I don't avoid certain texts because they are
'wrong', I do so because I consider them to be imbalancing to my mind,
dangerous to repeatedly engage, and generally harmful to myself and my
kin.  this is the case with *any* Orphic dualism or related extremity,
though I have found it most often in Christian teachings in my locale.


>An occultist such as Fortune is not a run-of-the-mill example of an
>xtian (and run-of-the mill examples of any denomination will be
>seen as lacking under the microscope).

contrast Fortune with William Gray, whose text (_Ladder of Lights_,
_Inner Traditions of Magic_, others) has blatant Christian undertones
while avoiding some of the idiocy typically trapping Christian mystics
like Fortune, by my recall.  or with Crowley, who was essentially
Christian in spirit while adversarial toward fundamentalism, anti-
sensuality, anti-corporeality, in his best moments.

I agree that her book _Mystical Qabalah_ is valuable to have on one's
reading list if one can stomach her.  if nothing else it has become
a classic through popularity in the ceremonial culture.  however, for
those like myself who consider her text overly transcendental and
dualistic, it is not recommended and most of her material on QBL can 
probably be found in less extreme sources.  I have been meaning to
give her book another look and have been looking for a cheap copy for
the library here, we have many of her books otherwise, yet haven't
found one.
 

>It also makes no sense to me that you admit you never even read
>the book you are trashing and trash it on the basis of it being
>written by an xtian.  I'm frankly surprised to see you of all
>people being so closed-minded.  Shame. Shame. :)

I've perused it in new and used bookstores before.  I was sufficiently
disgusted that I have opposed supporting its promulgation, challenging
those like yourself to defend it on some basis other than that it was
'recommended by people I trust'.  so here I go:

what does Fortune's book offer that one cannot find elsewhere?

is this book a better example of scholarship and written style
than her other works _Esoteric Orders and Their Works_ (eww!, yes
I've tried seriously to read that one and we have several copies
of it here in the library) or others she may have written?

nocTifer
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