I believe in all that crap about as much as I believe in the Tooth Fairy. But it seems to me that there is something underlying it all that could yield to science one day.

Take the Wiccan, for example. They go through this process of invoking some goddess or what not to accomplish something. Of course none of that crap really works, but it does do something though. It focuses thought, and thought certainly effects matter in some way, — at least that’s what the quantum physicists say — and that’s all the hocus pocus crew is looking for anyway, some way to effect their material existence.

So if those knuckleheads that embrace magickal theory, and all the others that see some miraculous message from the gods in a pile of dog shit could get past attributing childish attributions to aspects of our existence that could and should be scientifically explored, wouldn’t examination of it all be warranted?

Obviously it would do no good to investigate ideas that are patently stupid. However, in science the process of investigation often yields better understanding not by discovering any definitive answer, but by discovering better questions. It seems all the kiddies would be better served by arriving at better questions (questions better supported by current science) than to find answers to support or reject their petty ideas.

I’m not exactly disagreeing with you. I would not personally try to investigate “vibrations through the astral which are resulting in the death of your neighbor’s pig.” But I wouldn’t discourage those that believe such things to investigate it scientifically because if they are investigating it then they are one step closer to realizing the utter idiocy of their ideas, and that they are investigating is a whole hell of a lot better than than simply believing them without challenge.

That we see the stupidity readily doesn’t counter their stupidity. But maybe our unwillingness to encourage investigation (on their part) keeps them from the very thing that would make them realize just how irrational it is.

I don’t know, maybe you just have a more optimistic view of the human race than I do.

I doubt that. I just find that optimism in small doses from time time keeps me from going door to door and strangling everyone. It’s good to see you posting again.

It’s quite odd, but refreshing, to find such a purely rational interpretation of Crowley as yours

I’m not sure how any “interpretation” can be anything other than “purely rational”, even if that interpretation deals with irrational things.

I guess my only real beef with your position is simply that I think it’s pretty obvious that Crowley went further, and believed in a whole bunch of the kind of occult and mystical stuff that a purely rational approach simply cannot countenance…Yes, the rational purport you give is correct, but Crowley’s got more layers than that.

That’s all well and good, but I’m not explaining Crowley, here; I’m explaining Thelema.

Some people want to draw a bigger boundary around the concept of “Thelema” than I do, and use the term to include Crowley’s entire mystical and occult system. Whichever usage people prefer I’ve explained enough times here that that’s not how I’m using it as to make it an exercise in pointlessness to criticise me on such a basis. As far as I’m concerned, Crowley’s “[belief] in a whole bunch of the kind of occult and mystical stuff” has as little bearing on his presentation of Thelema as his interests in mountaineering and chess do, and even less bearing on mine.

I’m willing to cut such people a bit of slack, mindful of the possibility that they may indeed be experiencing something that I lack the development of the relevant “organ” to see

Well, I’m not so willing. Remember the subject of this entry is “scientifically testing the supernatural”. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that these people really have developed such an “organ”, and put aside the objection that if this developed in the same way as your “evolution of visual perceptual systems from mere light-sensitive patches” then the difficulty of why it seems to occur randomly and is not present in the species as a whole would need to be dealt with, since that’s how evolution works.

Suppose that such an organ gives them the ability to interface with this “other realm” that has definite correspondences with this realm right here, such that they are able to accomplish feats such as dowsing, ESP, or the acquisition of facts about the physical universe through “astral travel”. If they could, then this would be a demonstrable talent. They could consistently deduce facts that are unavailable to folks who do not possess such an organ. Those other folks may be completely unable to experience how these people are deducing these facts, but that they are in possession of those facts would be beyond dispute.

Yet, in thousands of years of occultism and religious belief nobody has been able to do this. Not once. Such “organs” or other processes appear impotent to achieve the kind of feats that their proponents constantly claim themselves to be able to achieve. The fact that some of us may not possess such an organ ourselves most certainly does not preclude us from assessing the claims of those who believe themselves to.

When these people start to be able to demonstrate even the smallest thing beyond the ordinary, then I’ll “cut such people a bit of slack”. Once they come up with something even remotely resembling a workable theory as to how their supposed superpowers are believed to work, then I’ll “cut such people a bit of slack”. Until then, I’m going to interpret thousands of years of continuing abject failure and palpably absurd claims as some pretty compelling evidence that they’re utterly full of shit.

P.S. Are you that guy who used to post on Usenet weird reductios of magickal/numerological/synchronicity type arguments in relation to a famous German model (whose name escapes me)?

Er, no. I’ve only ever posted to Usenet and other forums under my name, so it’s easy to tell what I’ve posted and what I haven’t.

P.P.S. May I ask – what are your antecedents anyway? I get the impression that you’ve done some serious Buddhist meditation, perhaps in the Theravada or Zen traditions?

I think such labels are completely unhelpful. Meditation, for instance, is meditation, and the difference in “traditions” is largely due to which school of explanation is attached to the memory after the event. My main “antecendent”, if you want to put it that way, is Crowley’s system. Beyond that, I pay attention to the inner and outer worlds with as much objectivity and impartiality I can muster without worrying about what “tradition” what I’m doing may fall under. Any spiritual practice is really nothing but a precursor for doing this. Simply figuring that out is a good enough way of busting most of these occult myths.

P.P.P.S. Have you heard of Sam Harris?

Certainly.

he has a soft spot for meditation and the like as experiential practices that do reveal fact – the fact of the virtuality of the self.

For the avoidance of doubt, as I’ve said before, it’s rational analysis after the fact that leads to conclusions such as “the virtuality of the self”, not the actual “experiential practices” themselves. Bare experience is utterly devoid of any explanatory power, since explanation is by its very nature a rational phenomenon. The kind of “ineffable knowledge” that arises from “gnostic practices” is “ineffable” for the very good reason that it’s not knowledge at all, at least not in the descriptive sense.

No, you’re lucidly explaining a [i]subset[/i] of [i]Crowley’s[/i] Thelema

No, I’m describing Thelema. You may disagree with me as to what Thelema is, but that’s just too bad. If you disagree with me on this question, there’s nothing I can do about it other than to continue to disagree with you.

You’ve “taken the plums that please you out of the pie of” Crowley’s Thelema

No, I haven’t. You don’t accuse me of taking “the plums that please [me] out of the pie” because I don’t discuss Crowley’s mountaineering in the context of Thelema, do you? You only do it with occultism because you insist that occultism is a part of Crowley’s Thelema. I insist that it isn’t. You can’t argue with me on the basis of a position which starts out by assuming that your position is correct, because that would be a non-argument. You can have a go trying to justify why you think occultism is a part of Thelema, if you like, but you can’t sensibly just claim it and expect everyone to believe you.

Why not just strike out on your own, say “I’ve come up with a philosophy that’s partly inspired by this system this guy Crowley invented (bracketing the Aiwass business for the moment) which he called Thelema”?

Because, whether you like it or not, I am describing Crowley’s Thelema. I’m expanding on it, sure, but the fundamentals all come from Crowley, in exactly the form he specified. When I talk about Thelema, I’m talking about the philosophy that Crowley invented, not about a philosophy that I invented. When I talk about my own “philosophies”, I don’t call them Thelema, for that very reason.

This still all comes down to your belief that what I’m talking about is not Crowley’s system. You’re mistaken, here.

why are you still connecting your philosophy to a system that is so obviously steeped in occultism, with the added burden of having to constantly explain away the occult side?

Again, it isn’t. Many people mistakenly believe it to be “obviously steeped in occultism” and that’s why I have to continually point out that it isn’t, because those people are simply mistaken. Laughing at occultism and pointing out its inanities in general is a separate and worthy issue in its own right.

IOW, if you’re saying something like “this is the REAL Thelema”, that’s simply false, because “real Thelema” includes the occult stuff.

No, the “real Thelema” does not include the occult stuff at all. Occultism includes the occult stuff. Magick includes the occult stuff. Thelema does not. Thelema includes the will stuff.

No it’s not, a trait may exist in only a few members of a species for generations before it becomes widespread in the species (with bell-curve distribution). That’s what it was like for those organisms that had light sensitive patches – only a few of them had such things at first, and that gave them a very slight statistical reproductive advantage under given circumstances.

Your analogy is flawed because things like eyes don’t simply crop up in individuals as a result of random genetic mutation – they evolve over a long period of time as a cumulative effect of multiple mutations being developed over time. If you want to talk about some kind of alternative organ that can contact the supernatural realm, this simply cannot pop into existence in a few individuals; it would be a complex organ that would need to develop over a long period of time based on intermediate developments which would be shared by the species as a whole. Such complexity doesn’t just pop up out of nowhere in a few individuals. The same complexity – and many occultists claim similar powers – certainly do not pop up out of nowhere in multiple separate individuals at round about the same time. It’s a preposterous idea.

Moreover, the numbers just don’t add up. People have been claiming to be conversing with the supernatural for millenia. Even if suppose even one person had such an organ a few thousand years ago, then a quick look at the exponential growth of any family tree would convince you that through simple inheritance millions and millions of people ought to possess such an organ by now, and if they did we wouldn’t be sitting here wondering about whether or not it exists just because a few teenagers claim to have super-special powers.

So there’s nothing going on that either is evolution, or is “analagous” to it. For a starters, if there were some “organ” similar to the one you suggest, then we’d be able to take a bunch of occultists, cut them up, and find that organ in there somewhere, and frankly it would be no great loss to the world if we did.

This just leaves you with “some weird stuff that we know nothing about, but which we’ll give some credence to because a few teenage crackpots make some wild claims about having supernatural powers”. If that’s good enough for you to take a claim seriously, then don’t let me stop you, but you’re dreaming if you expect me to go along with that kind of silliness.

but it may be that “gnosis” is not discursive knowledge but some kind of self-evident knowledge-by-identity

Well, no, “gnosis” is merely “knowledge of”, such as knowledge of the taste of strawberries, or knowledge of one’s wife in the Biblical sense. It’s a completely different thing to descriptive or explanatory knowledge altogether. Which would be fine, if people didn’t continually insist that their “gnosis” gives them useful information about how the world works and about whether supernatural claims are true.

I think that the notion of the occult being a part of Thelema is what makes many practitioners of Thelema underachievers. There are many different ways to practice the occult, but the individual only has one will. And if one fails to understand the will, which is the essence of Thelema, the attempt to practice the occult is going to fail. Hence the rise of so many “experts” that claim secret communications from some metaphysical world called “Ur Anus.” I don’t fault anyone that feels compelled to venture into the unknown, so long as they don’t try to convince others that the so-called “occult arts” are preferable and/or essential to understanding themselves, which in my view, is entirely what Thelema is about.

Thanks for kindly correcting my formatting Erwin.

No, the “real Thelema” does not include the occult stuff at all. Occultism includes the occult stuff. Magick includes the occult stuff. Thelema does not. Thelema includes the will stuff.

The Book of the Law includes not just “obscure references to obeah and wanga”, it’s full of references to deities and rituals and ordeals. It also purports to be the deliverance of an entity called Aiwass, who Crowley said dictated the book to him, in circumstances that are thoroughly magickal (preceded by rituals with his wife, and in the context of mediumistic messages given by his wife; “Aiwass” himself being some sort of visionary entity). (Incidentally, you could talk about Crowley’s mountaineering in the context of Thelema – it was obviously partly a form of will-training for him, and he recommended that people should take up physical exercises of some sort – it’s a recommendation in the Oath & Task of the Probationer, for example. Of course the A:.A:. isn’t Thelema, but Thelema is plainly described as an Order with Grades, and the A:.A:. is decidedly a system designed for people who have discovered that their True Will is to “help humanity”.)

Now, that isn’t to say that a rational system of thought cannot be extracted from such an “inspired writing” scenario (although, going on your theory that occultism is a crackpot business, it’s difficult to see how that could be the case, other than purely accidentally). But to say Thelema is nothing more than such a rational system, is simply wrong.

Of course, maybe Crowley was having us on, and couched the whole thing in magickal terms on a whim of some sort. There are many possibilities. But any take on Thelema that just totally airbrushes these elements out is not an explication of THAT system, but the deliberate selection of a subset from something larger.

Remember, I’m not disagreeing with you about the content of what you are saying. I think you are on the money wrt the rational side of all this, it’s just your claim that the rational side is all there is to it that I think is wrong, and obviously wrong – to an extent that makes me curious how you could proceed along this course with such insouciance. It seems like you are playing a game with people – but the rationale is obscure.

I could understand something like “Look, all this occultism stuff in Crowley is bullshit, but here’s a core or nugget in what he said that makes intellectual sense, discard the rest”. What I don’t understand is you saying “This is the authentic, real Thelema”. It’s the fact that you’re still proceeding under the banner of Thelema that puzzles me.

As regards your explanation of evolution, I think you misunderstand me, but that’s partly my fault in using the term “organ” too loosely and poetically. I am saying, precisely, that what occultists may have is unlikely to be a fully-developed organ (otherwise we would be in a position where we were fully aware of goblins, as you say) but rather the beginnings of what might become an organ, and something that is possessed to varying degrees by people (some more sensitive than others). (The other option is that we now possess a degenerate form of what was once more widespread – but that line of thought couldn’t rely on evolutionary analogies, that would have to be something else.)

There are mountains and mountains of anecdotal evidence for magickal phenomena, throughout history. Science is, what, about 3 centuries old? It’s only started investigating peripheral occult phenomena in the past century or so. So, while I agree that the window of opportunity is narrowing, nevertheless, until science has investigated high level occult practitioners in the established Eastern traditions that have been ongoing for centuries (just as they are now doing with mystics, with interesting results), the fat lady hasn’t quite sung yet.

Of course, even if the full-blown Magickal Theory doesn’t turn out to be true, there are still coherent phenomena going on of some kind (e.g. astral travel might be something to do with the proprioceptive system when detached from sensory input, or something like that) that Crowley, certainly, found valuable in his life, and many other intelligent people have found valuable too – not to mention a bit of an adventure.

Yes, it’s true that ineffectual people are nowadays attracted to it; but that wasn’t always the case, and it’s not the case in many Eastern traditions.

Finally, I’d say that it’s quite clear that AC thought people should experimentally have a go at magickal rituals and astral travelling and the like. He was very against the kind of apriori philosophising you use to deny the very possibility of it. I myself have tried it, and got nothing at all out of it (I have had “mystical” experiences, of the kind Sam Harris would have no quibble with, but not magickal). But I don’t think my lack of results means that I must think that the whole thing is bunkum.

All knowledge is just “so far”, “up till now”, “so far as we can tell”. None of it can be absolutely certain. I would not presume to legislate for the Universe.

OK, I’m going to reorder some of this for convenience, since there’s a lot here, and it’s starting to stretch the bounds of what these comment boxes were designed for.

But any take on Thelema that just totally airbrushes these elements out is not an explication of THAT system, but the deliberate selection of a subset from something larger…it’s just your claim that the rational side is all there is to it that I think is wrong, and obviously wrong

As I said in my last post, we keep coming back to this unfounded assertion of yours. Leaving aside your characterisation of “the rational side” until later, you keep saying that I am “obviously wrong” to say that Thelema is separate from the occult, and I keep saying that you are “obviously wrong” to say that it is not. This type of argument isn’t going to go anywhere. If you’re going to make this kind of assertion, you need to provide evidence for it. Such as, for instance, even one example of Crowley agreeing with you, of saying that “Thelema” is what you claim it to be. You need to provide at least one example that this interpretation of Thelema is anything other than a pure invention of yours, and that’s going to be pretty difficult for you to do.

Now, that isn’t to say that a rational system of thought cannot be extracted from such an “inspired writing” scenario…it’s just your claim that the rational side is all there is to it that I think is wrong

Let’s deal with this, because you and others seem to use the world “rational” in a very peculiar way. As I’ve repeatedly gone out of my way to explain, for instance, the process of “discovering the will” is not a rational one. The will is what it is, and you have to observe it to find out what it is – you can’t think your way to it, you can’t “figure out” what your will is. Sure, you can talk rationally about the process of doing it, but you can talk rationally about the occult, as well. So what exactly do you think it is about what I’m presenting that makes it a “rational system” that other systems are not? Both the study of Thelema and the study of the occult are “rational systems” that deal, at least in part, with non-rational things, so where exactly do you think this conceptual difference is?

I hope your answer isn’t going to revolve around the acceptance of irrational claims, because that would be extremely foolish.

Let’s have a look at some of your specifics with regards to Thelema.

It also purports to be the deliverance of an entity called Aiwass, who Crowley said dictated the book to him, in circumstances that are thoroughly magickal…extracted from such an “inspired writing” scenario

It should go without saying that the purported source – which, as I’ve made quite clear, I think is a complete bullshit story anyway – is completely irrelevant. One could, for example, “receive” in “circumstances that are thoroughly magickal [sic]” the plans for constructing a toaster, but that wouldn’t make it a magical toaster, would it? One could go into a mystical trance and suddenly become inspired with a new ethical philosophy, and again that wouldn’t make such a philosophy remotely “mystical” or “magical”. One certainly could, via some “inspired writing”, write down the genus of a purely rational system. It is the product which determines whether or not a given system is “magical”, not the process by why it was created. In other words, it is “magical” if is deals with “magical” things, not if it was partly arrived at through a “magical” process. So this is a red herring we can discount immediately.

The Book of the Law includes not just “obscure references to obeah and wanga”, it’s full of references to deities and rituals and ordeals.

I mean, seriously, George? References to “deities”? Throughout the entire Thelemic corpus it is made repeatedly clear that the “deities” of The Book of the Law are not actual gods. “Infinite space is called the goddess NUIT, while the infinitely small and atomic yet omnipresent point is called HADIT”, for instance. The Book of the Law itself says “there is no God where I am.” These “deities” are not “real” and you have to deliberately twist the system beyond recognition to come to the conclusion that they are, so “references to deities” in the book is certainly no assertion of any supernatural truth or reference to the occult.

As for “ordeals”, climbing Mount Everest is an “ordeal”. Surviving ten years in an Iraqi jail is an “ordeal”. Repeatedly explaining these simple concepts is an “ordeal”. References to “ordeals” are not references to the occult, and they are not references to magick, unless you insist that “no, it means occult ordeals!” which would be just you making shit up again and pretending that it’s fact.

As for “rituals”, not only are secular and religious – as opposed to occult – rituals commonplace, but rituals can – and all of Crowley’s rituals, for instance, were – presented as having a purely psychological effect, and so references to them again most certainly do not assert any kind of supernatural truth. There’s nothing about the “rituals” mentioned in The Book of the Law, for instance, that even remotely suggests they are for conjuring spirits, or contacting aliens, or fighting black magick attacks from rival covens.

So no, you’re going to have to try a lot harder with that one.

Incidentally, you could talk about Crowley’s mountaineering in the context of Thelema

You could. You could talk about almost anything “in the context of Thelema”. But mountaineering is not part of the Thelemic system, and neither is the occult, as should be painfully obvious.

Of course the A:.A:. isn’t Thelema, but Thelema is plainly described as an Order with Grades, and the A:.A:. is decidedly a system designed for people who have discovered that their True Will is to “help humanity”.

OK, here’s a good example. Where, precisely, do you think that “Thelema is plainly described as an Order with Grades”? This is an absolutely absurd comment. You say “Of course the A:.A:. isn’t Thelema”, and in the very same sentence you go on to say that it actually is!

Now, The Book of the Law certainly says “For there are therein Three Grades”, but “Grades” does not have to mean some kind of occult order where clowns in funny robes hand out pretty bits of paper. There are different “grades” of difficulty, for instance. There are different “grades” of success. There are different “grades” of incline to a road. There are different “grades” or colour, roughness or quality. You can’t just read the word “Grades” in The Book of the Law and call this a “plain description” that “Thelema is an Order with Grades”. That would be an absolutely stupid thing to do.

So, where does this idea that “Thelema is plainly described as an Order with Grades” come from, other than your fevered imagination? Let’s start with One Star in Sight, for instance, since that’s the primary document that deals with the grade system of the A.A. It talks about “the structure and system of the Great White Brotherhood”, it talks about “an organised body of men and women distinguished among their fellows”, but nowhere does it talk about “Thelema” being an “Order”. In fact, since it says that “The essential characteristic of the Grade [of Magus] is that its possessor utters a Creative Magical Word, which transforms the planet on which he lives”, and that “Thelema” was just such a word, that the system of philosophy of Thelema, if anything, is merely one creative manifestation of the “Order” system as a whole – at least if the “Order” is interpreted very, very loosely – which would mean that Thelema and the Order could not possibly be said to be the same system.

So, once more, where exactly do you believe this “plain description” is? Do enlighten us, by all means.

Of course, maybe Crowley was having us on, and couched the whole thing in magickal terms on a whim of some sort.

Again, you come up with curious comments such as these. Crowley did not “couch the whole thing in magickal terms”. He couched his occult and magical ideas in “magickal [sic] terms”. He did not couch his Thelemic ideas in those terms. You’re just making stuff up when you say that.

I could understand something like “Look, all this occultism stuff in Crowley is bullshit, but here’s a core or nugget in what he said that makes intellectual sense, discard the rest”. What I don’t understand is you saying “This is the authentic, real Thelema”. It’s the fact that you’re still proceeding under the banner of Thelema that puzzles me.

Yet again, your confusion results from the fact that you want to put absolutely everything that Crowley said under the banner of “Thelema”, which makes you think that all the occult stuff has to be removed in order to get to what I am talking about. You’re mistaken. Crowley said lots of things. Yet again, his writings on mountaineering do not form part of the Thelemic system. His writings on Chess do not. And, most importantly, his writings on the occult and magick do not.

You want to equate “Thelema” with “Crowley’s output”, and you are in error to do so. Thelema is that system, with its roots in The Book of the Law and which was subsequently heavily developed by Crowley, which deals with the idea of an individual’s “true will” and with the ethical and philosophical implications which spring from that idea. The occult stuff simply is not part of this system, and never was. As I’ve already told you, the vast majority of it existed long before Thelema did and has nothing to do with either discovering or peforming the will. The exact same occult elements are practiced by a wide variety of groups and individuals who have nothing to do with Thelema whatsoever, and so to insist that they must be “part of the Thelemic system” is just foolishness.

If you simply discard this idiosyncratic idea of yours, then what I’m saying will quickly cease to puzzle you.

As regards your explanation of evolution, I think you misunderstand me, but that’s partly my fault in using the term “organ” too loosely and poetically. I am saying, precisely, that what occultists may have is unlikely to be a fully-developed organ (otherwise we would be in a position where we were fully aware of goblins, as you say) but rather the beginnings of what might become an organ, and something that is possessed to varying degrees by people (some more sensitive than others).

No. “Fully developed”, in this context, is just a philosophical device for you to continue to assert a flawed conclusion, and you’re not going to get me to fall for it. The “light sensitive patch” which you described earlier may be “not a fully developed eye organ”, but it certainly is a “fully developed light sensitive patch organ”. However “under developed” a particular organ might be, you’re talking about something which is capable of sensing, however vaguely, a whole new “dimension of existence”, for want of a better term. This simply cannot spring up out of nowhere, and would have to develop through a long process of cumulative variation which simply could not occur in a very small population of individuals.

There are mountains and mountains of anecdotal evidence for magickal phenomena, throughout history.

As Lee already pointed out, “anecdotal evidence” is only a insignificant distance from “no evidence at all”. Again, if lovesick teenagers claiming to blow fireballs out of their ass is sufficient “evidence” for you to take a claim seriously, then good luck to you, but don’t expect me to go along with it.

Besides which, what “anecdotal evidence” do you think there is? Personal testimony of “success” in demonic evocation, for instance? This may be anecdotal evidence for something, but you’re jumping the gun if you believe it’s anecdotal evidence for the truth of the claims you think it is. I could just as easily turn around and say it’s anecdotal evidence for the extreme gullibility of certain individuals. If you want to claim that this type of phenomenon is anecdotal evidence for the truth of supernatural claims, you have to begin from a position of already giving supernatural claims some credence to begin with. It’s a form of begging the question. There are plenty of other alternatives it could be anecdotal evidence for which you are discounting because of your predisposition to want supernatural claims to be true. This, in fact, is precisely why anecdotal evidence for unlikely claims is tantamount to no evidence at all, since you practically need to accept the claims in the first place to accept that “evidence” as such.

Of course, even if the full-blown Magickal Theory doesn’t turn out to be true

As I said in the original entry, there is no “full-blown Magickal [sic] Theory”. There is no theory to any of this supernatural bullshit. None. If you think otherwise, present what you think that “theory” is.

that Crowley, certainly, found valuable in his life, and many other intelligent people have found valuable too – not to mention a bit of an adventure.

Now this is just intellectual dishonesty. We’re talking about the truth of supernatural claims, here, not whether false beliefs and wild claims may be found “valuable” or “adventurous” to some people. Many people think that their belief in a personal god is “valuable” to them, but it shouldn’t need pointing out to you that this conveys no informational content whatsoever as to the truth of such a belief.

Finally, I’d say that it’s quite clear that AC thought people should experimentally have a go at magickal rituals and astral travelling and the like.

But not to judge the veracity of the truth of supernatural claims. See, I really think the crux of the problem we have here is that you simply aren’t sufficiently familiar with Crowley’s work to be having the type of debate you want to have. When recommending such “experiments”, Crowley went out of his way to warn people against “attributing objective reality or philosophic validity of any of” the results obtained. With regards to the “reality” of magical phenomenon, Crowley continually was at pains to state that the question was one which should not be considered too deeply. For instance, we have the following selection just from Magick in Theory and Practice:

“Thus, when we say that Nakhiel is the ‘Intelligence’ of the Sun, we do not mean that he lives in the Sun…and although we can invoke him, we do not necessarily mean that he exists in the same sense of the word in which our butcher exists…When we ‘conjure Nakhiel to visible appearance’, it may be that our process resembles creation – or, rather imagination – more nearly than it does calling-forth…It is least as convenient to represent the whole as if it were subjective.”

“The mind is the great enemy; so, by invoking enthusiastically a person whom we know not to exist, we are rebuking that mind.”

“Far be it from any apologist for Magick to insist upon the objective validity of these concatenations! It would be childish to cling to the belief that Marius de Aquila actually existed; it matters no more than it matters to the mathematician whether the use of the symbol X^22 involves the ‘reality’ of 22 dimensions of space. The Master Therion does not care a scrap of yesterday’s newspaper whether he was Marius de Aquila, or whether there ever was such a person, or whether the Universe itself is anything more than a nightmare created by his own imprudence in the matter of rum and water….What matters is this: True or false, he has found a symbolic form which has enabled him to govern himself to the best advantage…We may therefore say that any magical recollection is genuine if it gives the explanation of our external and internal conditions.”

“Further, the argument here set forth disposes of the need to explain the modus operandi of Magick [NB: see previous comments about there being no “theory” of magick – EH]. A successful operation does not involve any theory soever, not even that of the existence of causality itself. The whole set of phenomena may be conceived as single…Similarly, when I do Magick, it is vain to inquire why I so act, or why the desired result does or does not follow. Nor can I know how the previous and subsequent conditions are connected. At most I can describe the consciousness which I interpret as a picture of the facts, and make empirical generalizations of the superficial aspects of the case.”

There is the story of the American in the train who saw another American carrying a basket of unusual shape. His curiosity mastered him, and he leant across and said: ‘Say, stranger, what you got in that bag?’ The other, lantern-jawed and taciturn, replied: ‘Mongoose’. The first man was rather baffled, as he had never heard of a mongoose. After a pause he pursued, as the risk of a rebuff: ‘But say, what is a Mongoose?’ ‘Mongoose eats snakes’, replied the other. This was another poser, but he pursued; ‘What in hell do you want a Mongoose for?’ ‘Well, you see’, said the second man (in a confidential whisper) ‘my brother sees snaked’. The first man was more puzzled than ever; but after a long think, he continued rather pathetically: ‘But say, them ain’t real snakes’. ‘Sure’, said the man with the basket, ‘but this Mongoose ain’t real either.’ This is a perfect parable of Magick.”

I could go on and on and on, and probably already have, to some people’s minds. This idea you have that Crowley was recommending people go out and “experiment” with magick in order to determine the validity of supernatural claims “for themselves” is palpably false. That is, in fact, just about the precise opposite of what he was recommending. As I said, I think the real problem here is that you don’t have the familiarity with Crowley’s works that you need to have in order to successfully conduct this type of debate. You’re taking misunderstood snippets and trying to present them to me as “plain descriptions” when they are nothing of the sort. Now, I can go on for months explaining stuff to you, but if you’re going to insist on misreading Crowley like this and sticking to your own erroneous conclusions, I’m never going to get through to you.

All knowledge is just “so far”, “up till now”, “so far as we can tell”. None of it can be absolutely certain. I would not presume to legislate for the Universe.

How much “experimentation” do you think is needed before we can conclude that no supernatural claims are being generated? One hundred years? A thousand years? A million years? How many failed experiments is it going to take before you’ll accept that there really isn’t anything to these ridiculous claims at all? Is that time ever going to come, for you, or are you going to continue to use this “so far” excuse to leave the door open indefinitely?

You’ve now strayed precisely back to the point which inspired my original reply to you. This “so far” idea that you have is completely off-base. Occultists make supernatural claims that, if true, would be demonstrable right now. They have not been demonstrated, ever. Occultists make supernatural claims that, if true, would totally contradict “mountains and mountains” of very hard evidence that would all have to be considered false if these supernatural claims are to be accepted.

You are attached to this idea that unless supernatural claims can be “proven false” in and of themselves, then they “might be true”. This is an astonishingly myopic view you have. There are plenty of supernatural claims for which evidence exists right now to demonstrate them false, without even having to get into the question of testing those individual claims. If I make a claim that “gravity pushes objects away from the centre of the earth” I don’t need to conduct an experiment where I see whether or not objects will behave in that way, because I already have mountains of evidence that they don’t. Such a claim completely contradicts known facts that I don’t need to test it to find out whether or not it’s true.

As I said, your insistence that supernatural claims “might be true” is wishful thinking, pure and simple. It’s a political position, not a rational position, as is your apparent insistence that a lack of “absolute certainty” must mean a complete absence of knowledge. It’s a position held for no purpose other than to humour idiots. You can never be “absolutely certain” in your terms that you will fall to the bottom of a cliff if you jump off the top, and if that lack of absolute certainty is sufficient grounds for you to deny the possibility of knowledge in such matters then go right on ahead and jump off, and see where it gets you. Again, it is quite simply intellectual dishonesty and indicative of cognitive dissonance to continue to assert this inability to possess knowledge but then to go about your daily affairs acting as if that were not true. It’s pandering to the claims of foolish people and I for one am certainly going to take no part in it.