![[tmbchr]™](/journal/popocculture-blog-logo.jpg){kind=logo}
Thelemites Not Gnostics?
Homoplasmate (an excellent new gnostic blog) has a post about whether or not Crowley and Thelema were truly a part of gnosticism. Without getting into the intricacies of the ensuing argument, the conversation revolves around a quote from ecclesiastical gnostic Bishop Stephen Hoeller, who essentially thinks that Thelemites should call themselves something different besides gnostics (um… like Thelemites, maybe?). Hoeller writes:
Ecclesia Gnostica and its associated bodies cannot in good conscience recognize the O.T.O. groups and their alleged Gnostic Church as being in any way compatible to or related to our own effort or movement.
[…] We would even respectfully suggest that they might call themselves some other names which would more truthfully describe their orientation, such as Kabbalists, Magicians and so forth and leave the name Gnostic to those whose teaching and practise resembles the original model more closely.
Now I like Stephen Hoeller’s work in general, but I tend to think this is kind of goofy. I openly admit to knowing very little about Thelema, or about how it fits into what I would call gnosticism. But from what I’ve read, I don’t see why it’s necessary to restrict them from using the word. People are going to describe themselves any way that works for them. You pretty much can’t stop them. The real problem here, which I touched on before, is branding.
It definitely seems to me that Thelema and Crowley have a much stronger “brand recognition” and “consumer appeal” than ecclesiastical gnosticism. First of all, the average person doesn’t even know what gnosticism means, never mind the word “ecclesiastical”. Second, I just don’t see Thelema as being the front-runner in the varieties of modern gnosticism race - in terms of popular opinion. In the minds of regular people, I’d say Crowley is much much more closely allied with magic(k), etc. To me, the main contender (at least in the US) is what I called yesterday Episco-Pagelian Gnosticism.
While that strain of thinking doesn’t totally match my own, I don’t see why they can’t use the word. And even though some people veer really far off course from my own definition of gnosticism, that doesn’t mean they should be somehow prohibited from using the word. Let them use it all they want, I’ll just make up words to add to it, like “Bullshitian” Gnosticism. Problem solved. In the case of Thelemites, there’s already a descriptor which you can attach to distinguish their brand of gnosticism: Hermetic Gnosticism. To me, the real key to describing types of gnosticism is by looking at their underlying “story-system”. For me, its of a Phildickian/anarchist bent. For Hoeller, it goes to the Christian mythos. For the Thelemites, it draws on the Western Hermetic tradition. For the Episco-Pagelians, they pull in things like the Da Vinci Code and Margaret Starbird. It seems like a pretty open-and-shut argument to me.
Gnosticism, to me, is more about a process and a style of spiritual inquiry, rather than the stories, signs and symbols that are used to get there. Thereotically, you could use any kind of story-system to achieve gnosis (even Rastafarianism). It’s not an exclusive thing narrowly confined to one tradition. Rather, it’s something that wells up from inside people, and that they can explore and bring out using stories and symbols.
June 17th, 2005 at 5:05 pm
yeah even tho’ he’s ‘my’ bishop, i don’t really agree with +hoeller 100% on this one. (there are more than a few things i disagree w/+hoeller on, but that’s not really a big deal in the e.g.)
i think another thing that gets overlooked is that the thelemites began using the term ‘gnostic’ long before the nag hammadi texts were published, and it made a lot more sense to call their work ‘gnostic’ before the more nuanced movement developed post n.h. it’s not like they’re gonna collectively say, ‘oh, stephan hoeller thinks we should drop the word, so let’s do that.’
i really have no problem with thelemic adherents calling themselves gnostic. one of the biggest parts of thelema is getting in touch w/your ‘holy guardian angel,’ your spiritual double, which is a really gnostic idea (as me & jordan have mentioned before). they have a number of distinctly ‘gnostic’ (as opposed to “Gnostic”) characteristics, whereas cults like $cientology and the cassiopaeans don’t. s’why i don’t mind the one but gtet annoyed with t’other . . . .
June 17th, 2005 at 5:27 pm
yeah, in my mind, the best argument against somebody NOT being gnostic is saying that you need to spend $$$ or only use their one particular source or pathway. i think that rastafarian quote he used later on was great about how one half of the bible is written on the hearts of men, and even the illiterate can read it. i never knew i was so rasta
June 17th, 2005 at 6:32 pm
Rasta is terribly misunderstood here…even beyond so many people believing it’s a fake religion for pot smokers. They have a very afro-centric pov, and many I have met are quite racist, but among the core they are quite intensely gnostic. Their dogma is an afro-centric Old Testament-based religion, but their rituals are very gnostic..one seeks communion with the “I in I” and babylon is understood to be both a state of mind and the control system. Their central ritual involves a communion (ganja, not bread, but that’s not too off base considering what we know now about the Hebrew priesthood) They believe that jesus (and they themselves) are Nazarites and therefore do not cut their hair. (and of course, that Ras Tafari was the second incarnation of Christ)
June 17th, 2005 at 6:44 pm
It makes me angry not because they oppose thelema (god knows I’m no follower-type), but because they oppose it on false grounds. Of course Crowley used magick, but the assumption is “spells.” Well, no. Crowley believed in magick the same way the renaissance magicians and earlier kabbalists did, and in the same way as the Coptic magicians who claimed lineage from Christ- as a method of spiritual liberation. that makes it gnostic, whether or not one approves of Crowley’s behavior, or would rather their church retained a more “churchy feel.” We don’t need a Gnostic Vatican deciding a canon for us. Hoeller’s mass is as magical a ritual as any-or it would be as ‘gnostic’ as the crystal cathedral show!
I’ve seen Hoeller’s Gnostic Mass and I can’t see how replacing ‘Jesus’ with ‘Horus’ (which isn’t exactly a new idea given that a relation between the two is spelled out in neon in the NT!), or that a Priestess takes the spot between Tiphareth and kether another not so new notion) pews does not a Gnostic church make. (but a Mithraeum, on the other hand…lol)
June 18th, 2005 at 12:56 am
the ism isnt nessecary..
Rastafari.
no ism skism! we nuh deal with dem ting deh!
Rasta has alot to do with the new testament as well, Haille Selassie I was the head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, a church older than that of Rome, as well as the last and longest reigning Emperor of Ethiopia, a bloodline descendant of King David, through Solomon, and then Menelik I. check the Kebra Negast for more about that.
there is no strict Dogma. its most defininitly, he who feels it knows it.
Ras in Amharic means “head”, it is a government position somwhat like “governor”.
just some bits of info you may find usefull.
i strongly recommend research in this area.
one
human?
June 18th, 2005 at 2:32 pm
sir richard gardiner has done extensive research into the bloodline of david.he was the geneologist to the british royal family.his work is the basis for the davinci code works.
i like the “no ism skism” thingy.whenever ists and isms emerge things tend to collapse to dogma.you can study music and get a degree without playing an instument too.and any other aart for that matter.learning to play our instrument is the key.
June 18th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
Tim writes:
Agree 100%!
Now is Thelema gnostic? DO they seek to know themeselves? Then I say yes, whether they do it within a rigidly Christain story-system (as tim puts it) matters not a whit to me.
On a side-note, Crowley’s Thoth deck always give me great results in a way that no other deck eve his, So if nothng else, props to him for that.
Picking up where I left off, a lot of religions can be seen as gnostic if you just broaden the definition to look at process rather that metaphor and symbol sets. Tantra, Voodoo, etc… these all are vehicles. The vehicle doesn’t matter so much as long as it gets you where you’re trying to go.
I also don’t see what the big prejudice is against magic or spells, I mean who gives a shit? It like fundamentalist Christains who won’t do karate because they think there is something “occult” about it that will taint them and so they have to rebrand it “Christain karate” or “Christain Jiujitsu” and pray first instead of bowing to a photograph of the founder of the style.
I take the hoodoo attitude - WHATEVER WORKS. You will find this in african folk magic. These system use ingredients and prayers and psalms and rituals - keep what works, discard what doesn’t.
I’m also really into Krav Maga, the Israeli military fighting system. Same deal its an OPEN SYSTEM, they constantly import techniques that are more effective and drop ones that aren’t.
I see gnosticism in the same way, as an open system, a metaphor that works for one person might not work for another, so keep importing, keep syncretizing, make up your own myths like they did in the olden days…
things that do not stay open, stop growing and die.
June 18th, 2005 at 3:52 pm
the baptists believe the hypnotherapy is the work of demons.it gives me heart pains to hear how my baptist friend tells me that i don`t know but eventually i`ll find out.he had some admittedly bad experiences with EST some years ago and so lumps all scientology,hypnosis,wicca,etc into new age,work-of-the-devil stuff.he let me treat his daughter for fear of the dentist and pain control though and satan never appeared.he must have been mildly disappointed.i like to point out that “new age” stuff has foundation in things that are easily 10 times older than christianity.he things it was all made up on a typewriter 50 years ago.
we deal here with the history and metaphysics of religion and spirituality but i find it instructive to hear what the average church-goer has to say about this.how people quickly fall into the us vs. them game.
tragic,actually.
June 19th, 2005 at 9:41 pm
Both people who object to Thelema mention proper ordination, which puzzles me. That doesn’t fit my mental image of Gnostics at all.
June 21st, 2005 at 5:25 pm
UH, in Pike’s “Morals and Dogma” - the “gnostics have disfigured the rituals” of freemasonry - which I take to be a thinly veiled “poke” at the OTO because supposedly AC was a 33 deg. Mason. And from what I understand, AC and the hardcore crew did believe in the Pleura, Plenoma and all that shit, but you really have to read the Reuss work or at least go to Koenig’s homepage.
Because if you look in, let’s say, the “Gnostic Gospels” (I’m not home now, don’t have the author(s)… This shit goes back to I guess the Manichaens, Archonieons, I forget, now… but they were all about eating cum and ass fucking and whatnot… and somebody apparently wrote about it from like the 1st century AD etc…. I don’t know… You really are getting at some heavy subconscious shit at this point… I am just a (relatively) simple person I believe at heart caught in a vortex of all this bullshit and FUCKING LIKEWISE you are going to have to fend for yourselves. But a thelemite, has been exposed to, and would be realistically expected to accept the “gnostic” philosophy, especially as an amplification of AC’s public comments regarding the “mysterious energies of sex”, or the sexual charging in goetic evocation etc.
EGC is the public arm of the OTO, charged with doing the Gnostic Mass, and there is nothing to be said that PR Koenig doesn’t. According to my information there is a separate (but not really) but equal membership policy and mentality between EGC and OTO,ie you’re in OTO or both EGC and OTO.
“Whateva”
Have a nice day.
-tc
June 21st, 2005 at 6:32 pm
i’m not really sure i follow your argument here thomas…