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To: alt.satanism,alt.magick
From: tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney)
Subject: Re: OTO Bashing (sigh)
Date: 29 Nov 95 04:41:48 GMT

tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney) writes:
> >I'm not familiar with his metaphorical or joking usage of the terms
> >"Satanism" or "Satanist." Crowley's attitude toward the Gods was mutable
> >and ambiguous: he could never decide if they were extrahuman or not,
> >but did generally ascribe to them some sort of extra-literary reality.
> >His interpretation of Satan is subject to the same caveats, but it is
> >beyond question that he personally did adore the figure and direct
> >poetry and prayer its way.
 
heidrick@well.sf.ca.us (Bill Heidrick) wrote:
> By this standard, WWI Pacific Theater American bomber crews worshiped
> Disney characters.

As another poster has pointed out, Crowley's religious veneration of
Satan is easily distinguishable from the attitudes of servicemen to
Disney characters.  I would add that I am aware of no "prayers" of this
type to Donald or Mickey, while there are very plain prayers to Satan
in the Crowley corpus. There _is_ certainly some connection between
the gods of old and modern media figures, but their culti are quite
distinct in form.

> >Here are a few sections from MTP bearing on Satan:
 
> I'll happly rest my case on the MTP quotes you gave in your post.  They
> make quite clear the point that Crowley used Satan &c as metaphor,
> categorical of an idea or a symbol and little else.  That conforms to
> his other usage of deities, demons and various spirits.  The matter is
> to the usage and the state of mind.  Crowley used poetry and dramatic
> ritual along with imagry in the manner described in the theory chapters
> of MTP.  The furtherist you could go with that is to call him a "method
> actor".  Are these things real?  Certainly, if by real you mean something
> capable of function in the mind.  Are these things actual in the sense
> of dwelling in the world as such, apart from human awareness?  Who can
> say, save a blind believer in the myths of the ages -- and Crowley was
> not that on this level.  He played on images of this sort as a musician
> handles themes in music, not as a trembling believer in boogies.  Did
> he consider that independent (from him) intelligences respond to such
> names?  Yes, some of the time and for some personal experiences.  That
> is not the same as taking a thing simply for its name, else the world
> would be overrun with incarnations of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
 
This is a somewhat rambling treatment of the matter. It is clear to me
that Crowley's dominant position on the nature of gods was that they
were actual personalities existing independently of the human mind.
Attempting to dismiss his repeated usages of "Satan" as merely jokes
or metaphors ignores what he himself said about his ideas about the
nature and importance of deities. I will quote from _Magick_Without_Tears_,
which is copyrighted by the O.T.O. and used here for critical purposes:

    Now, on the other hand, there is an entirely different type of
    angel; and here we must be especially careful to remember that we
    include gods and devils, for there are such beings who are not by
    any means dependent on one particular element for their existence.
    They are macrocosms in exactly the same sense as men and women are.
    They are individuals who have picked up the elements of their
    composition as possibility and convenience dictates, exactly as we
    do ourselves.  I want you to understand that a goddess like
    Astarte, Astaroth, Cotytto, Aphrodite, Hathoor, Venus are [sic] not
    not merely aspects of the planet; they are separate individuals who
    have been identified with each other, and attributed to Venus
    merely because the salient feature in their character approximates
    to the ideal.
	-- Letter 43, "The Holy Guardian Angel: An Objective
	Individual"

    I must very strongly insist, at this point, on the difference
    between "gods" and "angels". Gods are macrocosmic, as we
    microcosmic; an incarnated (materialised) God is just as much a
    person, an individual animal, as we are; as such, he appeals to all
    of our senses _exactly_ as if he were "material."
	-- Letter 58, "Do Angels Ever Cut Themselves Shaving?"

    Yet all the time the difficulty is of our own silly making. The
    most elementary consideration of the nature of Gods, angels,
    demons, and the rest, as shown by their peculiar faculties, stamps
    them all instantly as Beings pertaining to more than three
    dimensions!
	-- Letter 36 "Quo Stet Olympus: Where the Gods and Angels Live"

    For as I have explained in a previous letter, Gods are people:
    macrocosms, not mere collections of the elements, planets and signs
    as are most of the angels, intelligences and spirits. It is
    interesting to note that Gabriel in particular seems to be mroe
    than one of these: he enjoys the particular privilege of being
    himself. Between you and me and the pylon, I suspect that the
    Gabriel who gave the Q'uran to Mohammed was in reality a "Master"
    or messenger of some such person, more or less as Aiwass describes
    himself as "the minister of Hoor-Paar-Kraat."
	-- Letter 76, "The Gods: How and Why They Overlap"

> >I don't see anywhere that Crowley states that all these usages are
> >metaphorical or joking, and I don't consider that to be a natural
> >interpretation of the texts themselves.
 
> Tim, in this admission of your interpretative limitations, I am amazed!

If you know of a case in which Crowley states that these usages of
"Satan" are metaphorical or joking -- distinguishing them from other
usages of deity by which, as we have just seen, he meant to refer to
actual personalities -- then it would be better for your case to cite
that case rather than lob brickbats.

Of course one could decide to reinterpret Crowley in this way, given
enough determination to ignore his own explanations; and this might be
entirely admirable in devising one's own personal system. I adopt a
metaphorical, literary, and non-literal view of the nature of deity,
and if you do too, my hat is off! But here we are not arguing what
either of us believes or should believe; we are arguing what Crowley
believed, as a matter of biography; and it's all plain enough to be
called a fact.

> The gods are the personification of the forces of nature.

That's certainly no strange theory to students of Greek or Hindu
philosophy, but it is not Crowley's theory. If you wish to argue
otherwise, I hope you are prepared to cite expositions of that theory
which are as clear as the above expositions of a literalist theory.
-- 
Tim Maroney.  Please CC all public responses to tim@toad.com.