"Is Thelema Pro-Life?"

From OTO Unmoderated:

Is Thelema Pro-Life?

"Abortion is to be punished as selfish and cowardly, a slave's vice;" - Aleister Crowley Consideration of an Open Letter to Labour

Please ... consider ... the formula, HRILIU.

Our Duty to the unborn, as OTO initiates, is made clear in the Blue Equinox:

"All pregnant women are especially sacred to members of the Order, and no effort should be spared to bring them to acceptance of the Law of Freedom, so that the unborn may benefit by that impression. They should be induced to become members of the Order, so that the child may be born under its aegis."

Is Abortion, truly, as Martin Starr cited Crowley in The Unknown God: "the black magical operation at the heart of the intrigue of the 'Black Brothers'"?

93,

Oh for the love of all that is unholy not this again. This argument went from livejournal, to facebook, to blogs, to message boards, to private emails, ad nauseum.

Though the posts made by aish_mlchmh on the subject and other related stuff in his livejournal are pretty hysterical. The guys like a republican Thelemite, or right wing Thelemite, or functionally retarded Thelemite, or something. He's sooo angry and upset about abortion you really have to wonder if his mother didn't stab him in the heart with a coat hanger while he was still in the womb (to steal a line from the South Park movie). If someone wants to make Thelemites and the OTO look fucking nuts, he'd be the one to interview. The guy really puts the CULT in Occult.

93 93/93,

-David-

The funny thing about Crowely is that he could easily have written virtually anything about abortion without it meaning anything one way or another in terms of "real doctrine". The guy had a wicked sense of humor, first and foremost, and I think he also really enjoyed saying provocative things which have a certain kind of relative truth from one point of view. Even if it was written in big bold letters in Volume I of The Equinox, "ABORTION OF AN UNBORN CHILD IS THE SINGLE WORST SIN IMAGINABLE" or some similar thing, that might be a comical endorsement coming from him. From what I can tell, the guy really wasn't into that kind of dogma and would probably find pro-life and pro-choice advocates equally amusing, hoping to inflame the automatic reactions of both groups equally.

worlock93 wrote:This argument went from livejournal, to facebook, to blogs, to message boards, to private emails, ad nauseum.

I'm glad I missed out on that.

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neutralrobotboy wrote:From what I can tell, the guy really wasn't into that kind of dogma and would probably find pro-life and pro-choice advocates equally amusing, hoping to inflame the automatic reactions of both groups equally.

No, Crowley wasn't much for dogma, and I suspect you may be more or less correct.

Hello neutralrobotboy,

Well in Confessions Crowley states:

I consider criminal abortion in any circumstances soever as one of the foulest kinds of murder. Apart from anything else, it nearly always ruins the health of the woman, when it fails to kill her.

Now personally, I consider confessions interesting reading, especially for Thelemites, but that doesn't change the fact that it is simply Crowley's autobiography and full of personal opinions and observations, etc. It's not a Holy Book, and yet, that's what a lot of people seem to argue. After all, he does say I consider.... I'm sure Crowley was against abortion, yet I haven't seen one shred of evidence that to be a Thelemite you have to be against abortion. Any more than I think taking it up the ass, while simultaneously hating Homosexuals is required to be a Thelemite. (Crowley did that to).

There's just too many Crowleyites out there who seem to have nothing better to do with their time than emulate him and parrot off everything he said. Jack, my dog (yes named after Parsons) is a better Thelemite and he's never even read Crowley's works!

Well in Confessions Crowley states:
I consider criminal abortion in any circumstances soever as one of the foulest kinds of murder. Apart from anything else, it nearly always ruins the health of the woman, when it fails to kill her.

But this was in a time when back-alley abortions were the norm, and the woman in question was lucky if she was merely rendered sterile after the procedure. So today, with safe and sterile procedures performed by an MD in surgically sterile enviornments, the safety of the health of the woman is no long the issue it was in Uncle Al's day.

Personally, I'm rather militant about this issue. If you don't approve of Abortion, then don't have one. But don't presume to tell a woman what she can or can't do with her body. In the 1950's & 60's, tens of thousands of women died in America every year from botched back-alley abortions. I would rather save the lives of our sisters and daughters than concern myself about the hypothetical lives that may or may not be in question in the vast majority of 1st trimester D & C's. It is true that most women that I know that have had them regret them, but I wonder how much they'd have regretted the child if they'd have had it? There are already too many unwanted children in the world.

I suspect that you'd actually be fairly hard-pressed to even *find* a Thelemite who is pro-Life.

i love thelemite drama! so silly bickering about something as petty as politics, the appear to be nothing but magic book collectors, worshiping the tower instead of the sky...

Sascrunch wrote:I suspect that you'd actually be fairly hard-pressed to even *find* a Thelemite who is pro-Life.

Nice to meetcha! Though isn't the real hurdle to overcome here that there are as many Thelemas as Thelemites? This guy's Thelema is apparently the enforced orthodoxy of the written word, a definition I believe my fellow pro-life Thelemite Crowley would have shied away from.

Of course, Thelema means 'Will' in the Gnostic sense of 'knowing' Gods (your Gods/HGA's) Will through deep contemplation, discipline & purification, etc. Striving to define and validate some pro or anti-life stance as 'Thelemic' by posting Crowley's personal quips is frankly disturbing.

Crowley's personal opinions on freedom of choice are no more operational Thelema or Thelemic than posting the garbage mans opinions. In most cases we'd do better not to care what his personal feeling are. Even AC in an honest moment, if he really cared, might council that each person for him/herself must come to a personal understanding based singularly on the connection with the HGA. Invoke often! he would say.

If a person isn't attaining to the Gnosis & Logos, they have no concept of Will or Thelema as Crowley did, and as thousands of working aspirants do. If they turn to AC for the answer - they're not even practicing (imagine the "FAIL:YOU'RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT!" as a person pours through books, neglecting actual 1-on-1 gnosis).

AxisMundi wrote:Crowley's personal opinions on freedom of choice are no more operational Thelema or Thelemic than posting the garbage mans opinions. In most cases we'd do better not to care what his personal feeling are. Even AC in an honest moment, if he really cared, might council that each person for him/herself must come to a personal understanding based singularly on the connection with the HGA. Invoke often! he would say.

If a person isn't attaining to the Gnosis & Logos, they have no concept of Will or Thelema as Crowley did, and as thousands of working aspirants do. If they turn to AC for the answer - they're not even practicing (imagine the "FAIL:YOU'RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT!" as a person pours through books, neglecting actual 1-on-1 gnosis).

Agreed, and well-said, IMO.