I like the idea of Thelema but my problem with it is it became a religion. Don't get me wrong, I am not against religions. I feel any religion is good as long as it betters a person. (Islam for instance is great for some. Teaching them to take care of the poor, etc, but then others under the same name kill innocent people. So any religion can be good it just depends on what you decide to do with it.) My problem with Thelema is you must believe in the Egyptian God Nut and others and that Crowely was their prophet. If it were not for that I might consider it but I do not believe any god revealed himself. I do agree with the basic idea of Thelema though.
That's fair enough, although I get the impression that you could be a Thelemite with a mostly atheist viewpoint, understanding the names of the Gods as used in Thelema as metaphorical or symbolic. But I'm out of my depth here. My understanding is that Thelemites use the names of the Egyptian Gods but don't necessarily understand them very much the way that the ancient Egyptians, or modern Kemetics, would.
In his book on the Thoth Tarot, Lon Milo DuQuette makes a good point about the idea of Crowley as a prophet. Being a prophet doesn't necessarily mean that you are better than the average person, or even a decent human being. He makes reference to the Old Testament story of Elisha and the bears (conveniently being discussed in
this thread). Being a prophet only means that you are tuned in to some sort of connection with the Divine. I don't know whether Crowley was or wasn't, or if he was, what the spirit that revealed itself to him was, but that passage helped me think about it.
He is much like an earlier manifestation of the same mishappens that more recently brought us the likes of "Bhagwan" (later "Osho") Rajneesh. A self-styled sage that is ultimately nothing more than a not-completely-unskilled, dangerous con man that existed in a society that did not quite know how to protect itself from his pernicious influence by making his poisonous message unnecessary.
I've actually thought about this exact comparison before, and I think it's an interesting one. I am more forgiving of Crowley than of Osho and more willing to listen sympathetically to his message. I wonder sometimes whether that's just because Osho happened in my lifetime, but I think there is more to it than that. Crowley encouraged his followers to think for themselves, and didn't gather a group that were as brainwashed (I use that word hesitantly, but that is how I would describe it) as Osho's were toward the end of the commune in Oregon.
More than that, though, I look at Osho's teachings and I don't see much that isn't recycled stuff that I've seen before, nothing that seems novel to me, much less worth throwing away your worldly possessions and trying to poison people. Crowley's - well, there is something original there, at least. I don't know if it's valuable, and it's not worth the things the people did for Osho's sake either - but I think there is more there. That's just a subjective impression, though, and not something I can really back up.
I don't think either of them was a good man, but I think there might be something more redeeming in Crowley's message than Osho's.
