Common steps and sub-activities
Aleister Crowley’s forced change of views
Aleister Crowley – Book of Lies
The road winds uphill; all law, all nature must be overcome.
Do this by virtue of THAT in thyself before which law and nature are but shadows.
This is one method by which one can achieve the activity of Questioning and doubting all existing beliefs.
Aleister Crowley was something of a genius when it came to understanding what was needed to obtain a spiritual experience. The very name of the Book from which the quote above was taken should tell all. But his other books also explain the same principles. How does one encapsulate the ideas of scores of books into one section like this? It is not possible, but as you now know the principle under which this works, it should be clear what needs to be done. Some examples of the suggestions Crowley made for achieving this breakdown in beliefs include getting students to:
- change political views - so constantly change key belief systems.
- change religious views - so again constantly change key belief systems.
- change behaviour – try to be something they weren’t, so here he was challenging the belief that a person had about who they were as an extension of this he also asked people to deny their own existence – their belief in their own existence – tricky one this and achieved by using language.
- denying ‘I’ - Crowley got people to choose a commonly used word, letter, pronoun or adjective of the first person (such as the word "I"), and avoid using it for a week or more. Should they say the word he instructed them to punish themselves in some way to serve as warning or reminder.
Aleister Crowley – Book of Lies
A red rose absorbs all colours but red, red is therefore the one colour that it is not.
All that we know of man, nature, god is just that which they are not; it is that which they throw off as repugnant…..
All things are illusions……
The more necessary anything appears to my mind, the more certain it is that I only assert a limitation…….
The Chinese cannot help thinking that the octave has 5 notes
Aleister Crowley – Book of Lies
TERRIER WORK
Doubt.
Doubt thyself.
Doubt even if thou doubtest thyself.
Doubt all.
Doubt even if thou doubtest all.
It seems sometimes as if beneath all conscious doubt there lay some deepest certainty. O kill it! Slay the snake!
The horn of the Doubt-Goat be exalted!
Dive deeper, ever deeper, into the Abyss of Mind, until thou unearth the fox THAT. On, hounds!
Yoicks! Tally-ho! Bring THAT to bay!
Then, wind the Mort!
Aleister Crowley – Book of Lies
The number 51 means failure and pain, and its subject is appropriately doubt.
The title of the chapter is borrowed from the health-giving and, fascinating sport of fox-hunting, which Frater Perdurabo followed, in his youth.
This chapter should be read in connection with ‘The Soldier and the Hunchback" of which it is in some sort an epitome.
Its meaning is sufficiently clear, but in paragraphs 6 and 7 it will be noticed that the identification of the Soldier with the Hunchback has reached such a pitch that the symbols are interchanged, enthusiasm being represented as the sinuous snake, scepticism as the Goat of the Sabbath. In other words, a state is reached in which destruction is as much joy as creation (Compare Chapter 46.)
Beyond this is a still deeper state of mind which is THAT.
THAT is the higher spirit and it comes from the Hindu, Tat tvam asi. Thou art that.
