The problem with calling Thelemites "Satanists" is that most people using the word "Satanists" mean it as a very vague term for scary criminals or weirdos who are crazy enough to believe in the Christian godform called "Satan."

Most people have zero concept of the varieties of actual Satanism or the philosophies underlying them.

There's nothing "wrong" with actual Satanism, but applying the label to Thelemites is seriously misleading and potentially dangerous.

Also, "Thelies"? Is this a reference to something specific, or is it a new slang term for Thelemites? If it's the latter, I'm not sure I like it.

Los

If we're going to communicate at all, we need to be using words in identical (or at least very, very similar) ways.

The word "Satanist" is generally taken to mean "one who worships Satan." There are different varieties of Satanists -- some who see Satan as merely symbolic, etc. -- but they are all considered Satanists because they share the common property of worshipping or at least acknowledging Satan in some form.

If you suddenly start using the word "Satanist" to refer to anything else -- Thelemites, the Archbishop in that radio show, or the followers of one of the "four eyes" (the gods of the world's major slave religions) -- you will simply not be understood.

Unless you deliberately want to confuse people, I would suggest using the word "Satanist" in reference only to actual Satanists.

Los

Hi Excoriator,

Personally, I don't take that passage in Liber 418 as "doctrine" -- it's a symbolic (and ironic) reversal -- and re-interpretation -- of the images of other religions (similar to what Liber 418 does with the Passover legend earlier in the text).

It's not entirely without precedent: see Blake's "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" in which "devils" are really the good guys or his inscription "To the Accuser Who is the God of this World," in which he says that Satan is worshipped under the "Divine Names/ Jesus and Jehovah."

Such reservals of imagery are just symbols, and they are not all that unusual. It's more of a literary convention than anything else.

So I'd be hesitant to say that Satan is part of the "Thelemic pantheon." If he's part of the "pantheon," so is any other god who crops up in Thelemic literature, like Shiva in Aethyr 20.

But it would be wrong and confusing to say that Thelemites are really Hindus or that Shiva is part of our "pantheon."

You write: "And trying to restrict my use of the Thelemic doctrine to what your "actual Satanists" might approve of is something that I would find offensive." Well...not just what actual Satanists would approve of. Anyone who uses the English language wants clarity. It's not a "restriction" to conform to the conventions of language, and it's certainly nothing to be offended about.

I just don't see how it's helpful to apply the term Satanist to people who are not Satanists under any normal, reasonable use of the term.

Los

P.S. Right, bishop. Sorry, I have archbishops on the brain lately.

The normal, reasonable use of the term is that Satan is evil. It’s those who try to present Him as some sort of angel of liberation who do not conform to the conventions of ordinary English. It is not so difficult to understand the view that Satan is a prince of evil. It is pretty much the conventional view, one that is, of course, deeply ingrained both in the West and in Islamic countries. And if one believes that Satanism is a reality, and not just some sort of philosophical affiliation or social pose, it is not difficult, even for the most conformist, to see the possibility that those who are evil will lie to conceal the fact.

Furthermore, to allow only that those who are self-confessed “Satanists” are real “Satanists” is self-evidently ridiculous, not plain language. It is to assert, in effect, that Satan is not evil, that Satan never uses evil deceptions, that evil never pretends to be good, that wolves never hide in sheep’s clothing and that vice is never veiled in virtuous words. Now, accepting that point, one might use the semantic argument, saying that “Satan” is the good guy and that evil has another name. But that merely shifts the disagreement sideways. There is some considerable confusion created by the lamentable tendency to identify Satan with Set, and to conflate A.C.’s view of Set, as being called evil to conceal His holiness, with various “Satanist” ideas, but I won’t go into all that confusion here. I do understand that most people find even the basics of this doctrine challenging enough so I’ll confine myself to addressing them.

As might have been noticed, I read the Shunning injunction literally, and I try not to engage in anything that might be judged Discussion, even though I often consider points made by appeal to the Contents ignorant and ridiculous. I respect that others have different views of what Thelema is all about and try to be tolerant of sincerely-held views. I even respect the view, if it was sincere, given by one of the Sydney Artists Group, in a court of the Australian Capital Territory (i.e. Canberra), that Liber El is just some sort of artistic exercise. But that is not my view. And, as I say, I even respect the right of Bishop Forsyth to express his opinion, even if that opinion is that Thelemites are “Satanists”.

Your objection to me applying the term to Frosty Forsyth is that, so far as we are aware, he believes himself to be a pious, virtuous Christian and so the term is not plain language in that case. That’s a fair criticism but, again, if we are talking about spiritual realities and not a post-modernist, everyone’s-label-is-equally-valid game of religious identity, I am quite at liberty to apply my understanding of “Satan” to him. However, one might well then dismiss me as having some funny, inconsequential ideas, a minority view even in a despised minority; but, while my understanding of “Satan” does depart from the common understanding, it really isn’t that far away.
I take your point regarding whether Satan may be included in the Thelemic “pantheon”. That is a vague term, I admit - but I wouldn’t want to risk offending the Shaivite in this forum by positively excluding Shiva from that pantheon! Also, while one wouldn’t accept much Shaivite doctrine, one can that one can easily recognize elements in it. It is the Eye of Shiva that figures, mostly, in Liber 418, funnily enough, and that might well be something that one can accept as real within Thelemic doctrine. I admit that it probably isn’t a good idea to claim every figure mentioned in Liber 418 as being in our pantheon, but then I’m not about to exclude any either! I think that the rule of thumb is whether a thing may be admitted as real or not; and regarding the Four Demons, if one accepts them as a magical, cultural, religious or even a games-theory reality, one needs names for them. And I, at least, do consider them to be important elements of the theology.
But, also, we have this passage from The Confessions about the skrying of the Aethyrs: “By the time I reached Bou Saâda and came to the twentieth Aethyr, I began to understand that these visions were, so to speak, cosmopolitan. They brought all systems of magical doctrine into harmonious relation. The symbolism of Asiatic cults; the ideas of the Cabbalists, Jewish and Greek; the arcana of the gnostics; the pagan pantheon, from Mithras to Mars; the mysteries of ancient Egypt; the initiations of Eleusis; Scandinavian saga; Celtic and Druidical ritual; Mexican and Polynesian traditions; the mysticism of Molinos no less than that of Islam, fell into their proper places without the slightest tendency to quarrel. The whole of the past Aeon appeared in perspective and each element thereof surrendered its sovereignty to Horus, the Crowned and Conquering Child, the Lord of the Aeon announced in The Book of the Law.” If the Aethyr structure is to be considered our pantheon, it does appear to remarkably comprehensive. And it includes both Angels & Demons.
As you say, it is not an unusual accusation to say that Jehovah is really a devil. There’s the old Gnostic view, of course – and I think it would be quite a stretch to call that merely literary, let alone “ironic” – but, even in the bishop’s own Protestant tradition, Luther himself called the Catholicks servants of Satan. That sentiment was, of course, energetically returned by the Catholicks; and, while sectarian hatreds have softened in recent years, they aren’t forgotten even these days, and it is an element in this schism amongst the Anglicans.

In fact, Forsyth himself met the Pope when the latter visited Sydney last year. Frosty was reported to have given the Pope a bit of a telling off for his nonconformity to the true faith. Whether he called the Pope a tool of Satan to his face was not reported! But it isn’t inconceivable that he might believe such a thing. Especially as, it was also reported, the only reason that Forsyth was delegated to greet the Pope was that all the other Anglican bishops were off at Lambeth and he was the only one left to do it! Apparently, Frosty is such a hardliner that he disdained further talks with the Anglican liberals and so didn’t go off to England with the other Australian bishops.

But even so, do I go too far in saying that those of his ilk “worship” Satan and are therefore “Satanists”? I don’t believe so. Indeed, the Four Demons doctrine elucidates why it is appropriate quite neatly. If, broadly speaking, one believes in the universality of love, to arbitrarily divide the world up, on the basis of false doctrine, into god’s chosen and the foreign devils is plainly a demonic view that it is opposed to love. It should be remembered that in the Thelemic symbolism, Babalon is, as 39 x 4, the Victory over the Four. One may therefore say that one who positively affirms that division “worships” that spirit of evil. Forsyth, as a Christian sectarian, fits the bill. Being a morally vain to boot, in that he, presumably, believes himself to be a good man, is no reason to let him off lightly. There is also the confusion produced by the further divisions within the quarters but, without going far into that here, I will simply, happily agree that the Catholicks and Protestants are both correct and that many of both lots worship Satan.

Also, talking of Luther, we also have, in that treasure trove of doctrine that is The Vision And The Voice, this passage (6’th Aethyr) that many Thelemites are also, sadly, ignorant of: “And in the Book of Enoch was first given the wisdom of the New Aeon. And it was hidden for three hundred years, because it was wrested untimely from the Tree of Life by the hand of a desperate magician. For it was the Master of that Magician who overthrew the power of the Christian church; but the pupil rebelled against the master, for he foresaw that the New (i.e., the Protestant) would be worse than the Old. But he understood not the purpose of his Master, and that was, to prepare the way for the overthrowing of the Aeon.” The master is identified in the footnotes as Luther and the pupil as Edward Kelly. Both sides of that schism are implied as being bad, in comparison with the New Aeon, and Luther is said to have understood that that would be the case. Can we take it from that that Luther consciously understood what he was doing? Or is this more Crowleyite irony? It would be a difficult case to make that Luther consciously understood that he was engaged in a colossal fraud for the greater good - but I wouldn’t necessarily rule that out. But whether done consciously or by the magician within him, we have at least this point in common with many Protestants: we regard Luther as a great man – just for a somewhat different reason!

Mine is a somewhat more sophisticated view of Satan than is common, I admit, but it fits fairly naturally with the broad tradition of the figure. I reject that “Satan”, seen as informing those who pretend to be good servants of god, is merely a symbol or literary tradition. There is a reality that the symbols accurately describe and those who oppose evil need symbols and a language to do their work.

However, Satan and His squabbling fellow demons don’t sit still and let themselves be named, described and exposed easily. As it is written of the Dark Brothers: “Thus they make war upon the Holy One, sending forth their delusion upon men, and upon everything that liveth. So that their false compassion is called compassion, and their false understanding is called understanding, for this is their most potent spell.” Yes, this passage is from that 12’th Aethyr exegesis of the tradition of the Supper of the Passover. I see it as a plain explanation of the spiritual reality, not as “symbolic”, “ironic” “literary convention”.

While I don’t deny that literary devices are used in the Class A texts and in Liber 418, and I certainly agree that many, if not most of the texts (excepting Liber El, the Contents of which I do not Discuss) involve symbolism, there isn’t anything “just” symbolic about symbols. Indeed, that doctrine of the Lamb is of particular relevance here in that it is given (in the 2o’th Aethyr) as the chief of the Lying Spirits, the one that veils dark evil in soft, woolly white lies. To try to except these passages as to be not taken seriously is to ignore just how closely integrated they are in doctrine given both in other passages in Liber 418 and in other texts. Or is all of it to be dismissed as a fantastically-complicated, ironic fabulation? Some people do that, and still find some literary and even propagandistic value in them. I am not one of those.

However, I see on the Demonology thread that you don’t believe in the reality of spirits beyond the human brain and so I presume that you have some such view. Perhaps you’d like to say whether you acknowledge any sort of knowledge in the texts as being from beyond A.C’s own brain. With such a view, I don’t see how you can maintain that any of the texts describe anything that is not subjective and how any of the texts can be more than literary.

As a Thelemite who does take that Liber 418 passage on the Great Demons seriously as doctrine, I do admit that my usage of the word shall inevitably cause problems of understanding. One could call it specialist jargon if you like, but there is no getting around the fact that those who accept the doctrine and the given names, shall have some difficulties being understood by those unfamiliar with the doctrine. Is that any reason to abandon it? I don’t believe so. In the competition of ideas, Thelemic doctrine must be championed by those who believe that it is valuable. The understanding of the ideas goes hand in hand with the understanding of the words. Those Dark Brothers send forth their delusion upon men and it is our job to spread the light.

Only a week or so ago the Queensland Anglicans consecrated, less than a mile from where I live, what is very likely to be the last ever Gothic Cathedral ever built. It was founded in the last aeon.

Only a week or so before that, the Bishop of South Sydney had to make a humble admission on the ABC radio regarding the loss of about half of the NSW diocese's endowment, due to the GFC:

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2009/s2718852.htm

The NSW diocese hadn't been building any cathedrals but they had been building apartments. Viz this also:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/illfated-building-adds-to-churc...

The Bishop was asked in the ABC interview about God's will in this reversal of fortune, for what had previously been Australia's wealthiest diocese:

DAVID MARK: Archbishop Peter Jensen yesterday told the synod that God may be chastising us for our sins. Do you believe that God played a role in your loss?

ROBERT FORSYTH: No, he was toying with a number of the ideas he had worried about during the year. What...is there a message in this? And he concluded by saying he wasn't able to know if there was a message in this except that obeying God's clear will which is to obey him, not to panic and not to be petrified and to get on with it. In other words, he toyed with a whole range of possible explanations. He didn't come down and say what he thought it actually was.

In fact, it is very hard to know the meaning of this except it is a humbling experience. It makes us remember what Jesus called the uncertainty of riches and it shows that churches can just be as vulnerable as these shocks and mistakes as any other organisation and just as much have to rely upon things other than money.

So we believe that although God had make things happen directly in every single way, that God still overrules what happens and we understand therefore that we have got to trust him in this crisis.

[End Quote]

Aah, humility... Now there's something that one doesn't see in property developers every day. Perhaps if he'd trusted to Satan like the average financial type, they'd have kept their stash. So I suppose it's a good sign, really. Or perhaps it was Satan who wasn't happy with them? As Forsyth observes, it is very hard to know.

But perhaps if they gave all of it away and became as poor as the average Thelemite, God might be as pleased with them as He obviously is with us. Then again, perhaps not.

Colin S. McLeod

P.S. And yes Mr. Karlin of Tarotica, it is me. I suggest that you take note of just what can happen to mockers. Or did your online, tarot-reading business get you through the GFC okay?