Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Clear Channel?


If by 40 you do not believe in other worlds, above and beyond the world/context of the human race on earth, you can look forward to a pretty paltry existence. Aleister Crowley clearly believed in the existence of other worlds; in Book of the Law, he seems to be channeling one of them. What I find interesting in the book, as the manifestation of a channeling exercise, is the way/manner in which Crowley wrestles with his voices. The first voice is a female voice, and a caressing one (Nuit). With Nuit, Crowley seems simpatico. The second and third voices, Hadit and Horus, are male, imposing, phallic presences. With Hadit and Horus, Crowley not only wrestles with their phallic impositions, it is difficult to tell in the text if Crowley is "clear channeling," or deliberately mangling what may have been being transmitted through the airwaves on those two April afternoons. Why was Crowley quarreling with his voices? The answer seems to be clear: Hadit and Horus espouse a form of spiritual elitism and classicism, against the intercession of plebeians/the plebeian, which Crowley,  not wanting to alienate a potential audience, finds distasteful. It is a theory I have that, literary/occult acumen aside, Crowley as an individual may have been less remarkable than has been commonly supposed. His aims in the world were conventional ones, and he craved conventional success. Maybe. It is just that, when you read Books II and III, when you are hearing Hadit and Horus and when you are hearing Crowley disputing with or rebuking them is a point of some interest, Neo-Romantic interest/transcendentalism intended.

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