Book of Law Study Group 1.14

Lon Milo DuQuette said:

All magick is sexual.

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When I first started reading Crowley this became very apparent to me. My cards began to scream sex and my thoughts became very Freudian. I started to feel a bit disenchanted with the whole thing.

Lon Milo DuQuette said:

Indeed, all life is sexual.

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Then there was a discussion on The Devil Trump which helped me to understand yes indeed. Underneath all the clothes of refinement we wear lies our origin, which began with a spark of lust and manifested by a sexual act. It became rather silly to me that I would ignore or disdain this. Or feel pious and farthest away from this in a religious ceremony that enacted our creation. Church would have indeed been very more interesting to me if I had realized this in adolescence.
It was my understanding of The Devil that day, something about that Tree Of Life thrusting up into the heavens that not only helped me appreciate the primal joy of life, but freed me to see how we are propelled by this instinct, to higher levels.
My deck became very well balanced again. Funny how that works.

AW

Always Wondering said:

It became rather silly to me that I would ignore or disdain this. Or feel pious and farthest away from this in a religious ceremony that enacted our creation. Church would have indeed been very more interesting to me if I had realized this in adolescence.

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As above, so below.

I think a large part of Crowley's motivation for writing the Gnostic Mass was to re-forge the connection between spirituality and sexuality. Conventional religion has done it's best to drive a wedge between the two. The worship of the spirit and the renunciation of the physical is one of the defining characteristics of the Osirian formula.

The formula of Horus, as the child of Isis and Osiris, must include both the spirituality of Osiris and the the sensual sexuality of Isis. It's another case of spirit and matter being two sides of the same coin.

We refuse to regard love as shameful and degrading, as a peril to body and soul. We refuse to accept it as the surrender of the divine to the animal; to us it is the means by which the animal may be made the Winged Sphinx which shall bear man aloft to the House of the Gods.

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The Gnostic Mass is Liber XV. 15 is the sum of Yod Heh. The masculine and the feminine. It's also Atu 15, The Devil.

LiberXV said:

Thou who art I, beyond all I am,
Who hast no nature and no name,
Who art, when all but Thou are gone,
Thou, centre and secret of the Sun,
Thou, hidden spring of all things known
And unknown, Thou aloof, alone,
Thou, the true fire within the reed
Brooding and breeding, source and seed
Of life, love, liberty, and light,
Thou beyond speech and beyond sight,
Thee I invoke, my faint fresh fire
Kindling as mine intents aspire.
Thee I invoke, abiding one,
Thee, centre and secret of the Sun,
And that most holy mystery
Of which the vehicle am I.
Appear, most awful and most mild,
As it is lawful, in thy child!

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Beautiful. I am always wondering what it must be like to attend such ceremonies. I have a feeling I would be doing a lot of clapping and stomping.


AW

This last poem that AW posted, has been rendered in music, (it is in one of the first podcasts of The Speech ane the Silence website, that has a lot of interesting talks about Thelema), and I love it: it always soothes me and makes me feel lighter..
As for the line, its poetry indeed helps to have a look at Nuit from yet another angle.
The reference to sexuality is clear, but as Aeon wes pointing out, sexuality in Liber Al is often a mataphora of spiritual attainment.
And sex is indeed the most wonderful act of creation that us humans are able to perform.
I do love fine arts, theatre, and appreciate the comfort of technology and science, (as other forms of human creativity I mean) but giving life is still the most magical creation that a human being can manifest.
And we shouldn't let hipocrital habits take the awe away from us. Sexuality is a beautiful and deep experience that should be cherished and enjoyed, seeing it with eyes of innocence and wander at the life that it brings forth (when it does), as well as the feeling of unity and intimacy and fullfillment (this it should bring every time).
I think sex is sin=restriction when we made it so (rape, all the hues of sexual abuse, toxic relationships..).
In itself (or as other living beings deal with it) it is a wonderous mistery.