Dr Angela Puca for Oxford Thelemic Symposium

[@Vocatus2222]

And the T shirt says it all!! Bravo Dr. Puca, looking forward to September. Also I just ordered your book on Amazon just now!! Hadn't realized it was available, I must live under a rock

[@FraterRC]

awesome!

[@victorblack6995]

Good talk! Wiki says: The Western use of the terms left-hand path and right-hand path originated with Madame Blavatsky, a 19th-century occultist who founded the Theosophical Society. She had traveled across parts of southern Asia and gave accounts of having met with many mystics and magical practitioners in India and Tibet. I believe there are Masonic origins to it however. But perhaps Blavatsky was a Mason or a Rosicrucian, or she could be a pseudonym for another entirely unknown order who are an offshoot of Freemasonry. Either way, it's some fascinating work!

[@EgyptianMagick]

yes, though it seems to be quoting occultists views ... but clearest reference is in Isis Unveiled where discussing hindu theology and thus assume a translation of VamaMarg and DakshinaMarg.

[@EgyptianMagick]

ps: Theosophists often used tantrik sources but also disguised it ... as in the tattvas and I think "Nature's Inner Forces"

[@infinidimensionalinfinitie5021]

if I am in a something-like state; too many swirling waves of states; to find a certainty; being lost is certain; except when God calls Ahn ya; cuz you owe Me;

[@EgyptianMagick]

Inspired to manifest a poem

[@infinidimensionalinfinitie5021]

mor'n one; if i believe; the audience; "is"; interesting;

[@SK-XIIX]

What Crowley actually wrote about Thelema being a religion can be found in Chapter XXXI of Magick Without Tears: "…A religion then, is a more or less coherent and consistent set of beliefs, with precepts and prohibitions therefrom deducible. …To sum up, our system is a religion just so far as a religion means an enthusiastic putting-together of a series of doctrines, no one of which must in any way clash with Science or Magick. Call it a new religion, then, if it so please your Gracious Majesty; but I confess that I fail to see what you will have gained by so doing, and I feel bound to add that you might easily cause a great deal of misunderstanding, and work a rather stupid kind of mischief." Essentially he himself seems to reject the proposition as being in any way useful beyond a simplistic descriptor for those who can't think beyond the need for such categorisations.

[@EgyptianMagick]

Interesting citation ... thank you. Many academics would agree that the categorisation is mainly of use to those, like them, who study religion. Many cultures, such as the Egyptian, got by without such a concept, for a great deal of their history