Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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Simon E.
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

Post by Simon E. »

MiphamFan wrote:I remember reading somewhere that Paul Anderson's community shifted towards Buddhism and invited ChNN because they felt their Gurdjieff practice was stagnant. I forgot where, might have been an old (1990s to early 2000s) issue of The Mirror.

Gurdjieff and Crowley once met each other and both were quite happy with the encounter.

Crowley has been irking self-proclaimed defenders of convention, middle class morality etc (e.g. Chesterton) since he was alive. Whether he is interesting or not is just a matter of taste, but I think the fact that he rubs againsy middle class manners so much is much of the reason why people dislike him as well as misunderstanding what magic is about.
I have no knowledge of, or interest in, Crowley. I actually think that Chesterton is a far more interesting person..but, on the subject of Gurdjieff, the Sufi teacher Idries Shah had some interesting takes on Gurdjieff, basically, he said that G. had lifted various Sufi practices from their context and the result was a group of his former students who were at an impasse. The practices had activated the subtle centres ( 'Latifa', analogous to the 'chakras') but that G. did not have the
necessary knowledge to move them to the next stage of the process, so they were stuck.
He said that he and a number of other Sufi teachers were asked by Sufi sheiks in Central Asia to try to make contact with those former Gurdjieff students and offer to move them on in their practice.
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

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dzogchungpa
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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MiphamFan wrote:
dzogchungpa wrote:
MiphamFan wrote:Gurdjieff and Crowley once met each other and both were quite happy with the encounter.
That's not what I heard. :smile:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NGd ... ey&f=false

Cf Nott and Yorke's account

Gerald Yorke incidentally later supported the 13th Dalai Lama in exile.
I will check that out, as well as marshall my own resources, later. :cheers:
Simon E. wrote:... on the subject of Gurdjieff, the Sufi teacher Idries Shah had some interesting takes on Gurdjieff, basically, he said that G. had lifted various Sufi practices from their context and the result was a group of his former students who were at an impasse. The practices had activated the subtle centres ( 'Latifa', analogous to the 'chakras') but that G. did not have the
necessary knowledge to move them to the next stage of the process, so they were stuck.
He said that he and a number of other Sufi teachers were asked by Sufi sheiks in Central Asia to try to make contact with those former Gurdjieff students and offer to move them on in their practice.
My understanding is that Idries Shah was a charlatan. :smile:
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
Simon E.
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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That's what he said about Gurdjieff.
Personally, I think they were all a bunch of crashing bores who at best help to prepare the way for Buddhadharma, but who need dropping like hot shit if you want to understand Buddhadharma.
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

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Simon E.
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

Post by Simon E. »

During a stay I made at Samye-Ling when CTR was still the Abbot, a venerable lady came for a month's retreat. After about three days she packed her things and phoned for a cab to take her to Langholm rail station.When asked why she said that in her first one to one interview with CTR "he had been very disrespectful about Mr. Gurdjieff".
Oh how we callous youths snickered.
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MiphamFan
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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Simon E. wrote:That's what he said about Gurdjieff.
Personally, I think they were all a bunch of crashing bores who at best help to prepare the way for Buddhadharma, but who need dropping like hot shit if you want to understand Buddhadharma.
Definitely. But these early Western attempts to engage in Eastern Dharma should be saluted IMO, meanwhile Chesterton absolutely opposed them:
To the side of a mind concerned with idle merriment [sic!] there is certainly something a little funny in Mr. Crowley’s passionate devotion to deities who bear such names as Mout, and Nuit, and Ra, and Shu, and Hormakhou. They do not seem to the English mind to lend themselves to pious exhilaration. Mr. Crowley says in the same poem:

The burden is too hard to bear;
I took too adamant a cross ;
This sackcloth rends my soul to wear,
My self-denial is as dross.
O, Shu, that holdest up the sky,
Hold up thy servant, lest he die !

We have all possible respect for Mr. Crowley’s religious symbols and we do not object to his calling upon Shu at any hour of the night. Only it would be unreasonable of him to complain if his religious exercises were generally mistaken for an effort to drive away cats.
Moreover, the poets of Mr. Crowley’s school have, among all their merits, some genuine intellectual dangers from this tendency to import religious, this free-trade in Gods. That all creeds are significant and all Gods divine we willingly agree. But this is rather a reason for being content with our own than for attempting to steal other people’s. The affectation in many modern mystics of adopting an Oriental civilization and mode of thought must cause much harmless merriment among actual Orientals. The notion that a turban and a few vows will make an Englishman a Hindu is quite on a par with the idea that a black hat and an Oxford degree will make a Hindu an Englishman. We wonder whether our Buddhistic philosophers have ever read a florid letter in Baboo English. We suspect that the said type of document, is in reality exceedingly like the philosophic essays written by Englishmen about the splendours of Eastern thought. Sometimes European mystics deserve something worse than mere laughter at the hands of Orientals. If ever was a person whom honest Hindus would have been justified in tearing to pieces it was Madame Blavatsky.
That our world-worn men of art should believe for a moment that moral salvation is possible and supremely important is an unmixed benefit. If Mr. Crowley and the new mystics think for one moment that an Egyptian desert is more mystic than an English meadow, that a palm tree is more poetic than a Sussex beech, that a broken temple of Osiris is more supernatural than a Baptist Chapel in Brixton, then they are sectarians. . . . But Mr. Crowley is a strong and genuine poet, and we have little doubt that he will work up from his appreciation of the Temple of Osiris to that loftier and wider work of the human imagination, the appreciation of the Brixton Chapel.
He thought everything profound in Eastern thought was only read into it by Westerners, and displays a very parochial attitude in general to non-Christian ideas.

Incidentally Crowley was directly responsible for one of the first British monks to take his vows, Allan Bennett. He helped him find passage to Sri Lanka to ordain and study.
Simon E.
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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I suspect that Chesterton's opposition had more integrity than Crowley's 'support'. But I don't feel strongly enough about the issue to break into a sweat.. :smile:

It's not as though there is not enough reading material of a solid Dharmic nature for them as wants to read about stuff.
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

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dzogchungpa
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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Simon E. wrote:That's what he said about Gurdjieff.
Personally, I think they were all a bunch of crashing bores who at best help to prepare the way for Buddhadharma, but who need dropping like hot shit if you want to understand Buddhadharma.
Well, I like to read about stuff and if you were actually familiar with the fairly large number of memoirs available concerning Gurdjieff and his students, I doubt you would consider them to have been crashing bores. Furthermore, you are just about the last person from whom I would take advice about how to understand "Buddhadharma", but that's just me. :smile:

As an aside, I got interested in Gurdjieff mainly because of Robert Fripp and this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Fripp-Cri ... 0571129129
which I found quite fascinating.
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
Simon E.
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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I was probably reading a fair selection of memoirs of Gurdjieff's followers before you were born. And the memoirs of Ouspensky and Maurice Nicholls. As well as meeting some of them.
The venerable lady I mentioned that I met at Samye-Ling was in fact one of Gurdjieff's senior followers who was then about 70. Hence her reaction to CTR's critique of her late teacher.
As to not taking advice from me on how to understand Buddhadharma, I think in your case that is wise. The alternative would require a reorientation so radical that none of your current understanding would survive intact. And you have far too much invested in your understanding for that to be feasible as things stand.
It's possible that poor impulse control has prevented you from seeing something very basic here. To whit the fact that I never, ever, initiate discussion with you.
Any debate that we have is always the result of your interjecting into a discussion that I am having with a third party a quip, or a link, or one of your range of stock responses.
So, here's a challenge, If you do not respond to any of the posts I make to others posts, you and I will have no interaction at all. Guaranteed 100%.
Try it for a month.I bet you can't do it.
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to me.
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dzogchungpa
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

Post by dzogchungpa »

Simon E. wrote:I was probably reading a fair selection of memoirs of Gurdjieff's followers before you were born. And the memoirs of Ouspensky and Maurice Nicholls. As well as meeting some of them.
The venerable lady I mentioned that I met at Samye-Ling was in fact one of Gurdjieff's senior followers who was then about 70. Hence her reaction to CTR's critique of her late teacher.
Well, I guess that settles it: Gurdjieff and all of his students were crashing bores.
Simon E. wrote:As to not taking advice from me on how to understand Buddhadharma, I think in your case that is wise. The alternative would require a reorientation so radical that none of your current understanding would survive intact. And you have far too much invested in your understanding for that to be feasible as things stand.
Maybe some day. :smile:
Simon E. wrote:It's possible that poor impulse control has prevented you from seeing something very basic here. To whit the fact that I never, ever, initiate discussion with you.
Any debate that we have is always the result of your interjecting into a discussion that I am having with a third party a quip, or a link, or one of your range of stock responses.
So, here's a challenge, If you do not respond to any of the posts I make to others posts, you and I will have no interaction at all. Guaranteed 100%.
Try it for a month.I bet you can't do it.
But I like interacting with you so very much, I'm sorry you don't feel the same. :(

Much metta. :namaste:

:focus:
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
Simon E.
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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So I am the last person to whom you would take Dharma advice, but you enjoy not talking it.
It doesn't take a psychotherapist to see the gameplay here.

You simply cannot stop doing it. You have no choice. Just like Gurdjieff's description of those running on automatic, sleep walking. It overrides your conscious control and your dignity.

:popcorn:
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

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Malcolm
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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dzogchungpa wrote: I'm not really sure why you say that.
Yes, and I am afraid that you never will.
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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dzogchungpa wrote: Well, I like to read about stuff and if you were actually familiar with the fairly large number of memoirs available concerning Gurdjieff and his students, I doubt you would consider them to have been crashing bores. .
Virtually everyone is a crashing bore when you get right down to it.
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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Malcolm wrote:
dzogchungpa wrote: Well, I like to read about stuff and if you were actually familiar with the fairly large number of memoirs available concerning Gurdjieff and his students, I doubt you would consider them to have been crashing bores. .
Virtually everyone is a crashing bore when you get right down to it.
:good:
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Remember nothing and everything
Think nothing and everything
Do nothing and everything
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dzogchungpa
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

Post by dzogchungpa »

Malcolm wrote:
dzogchungpa wrote: I'm not really sure why you say that.
Yes, and I am afraid that you never will.
Jeez, what is this, Hate On Dzogchungpa Day?

Malcolm wrote:
dzogchungpa wrote: Well, I like to read about stuff and if you were actually familiar with the fairly large number of memoirs available concerning Gurdjieff and his students, I doubt you would consider them to have been crashing bores. .
Virtually everyone is a crashing bore when you get right down to it.
Surely not the "awesome" Crowley. :smile:
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Grigoris
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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Malcolm wrote:
dzogchungpa wrote: Well, I like to read about stuff and if you were actually familiar with the fairly large number of memoirs available concerning Gurdjieff and his students, I doubt you would consider them to have been crashing bores. .
Virtually everyone is a crashing bore when you get right down to it.
Or spend enough time with them.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
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MiphamFan
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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Poor dzogchungpa
:crying:

karma for being snarky though.

:tongue:
Malcolm
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

Post by Malcolm »

dzogchungpa wrote:
Malcolm wrote:
dzogchungpa wrote: I'm not really sure why you say that.
Yes, and I am afraid that you never will.
Jeez, what is this, Hate On Dzogchungpa Day?

Malcolm wrote:
dzogchungpa wrote: Well, I like to read about stuff and if you were actually familiar with the fairly large number of memoirs available concerning Gurdjieff and his students, I doubt you would consider them to have been crashing bores. .
Virtually everyone is a crashing bore when you get right down to it.


Surely not the "awesome" Crowley. :smile:

Oh, uncle Al had his moments, but if you have never read his autobiography, you really ought to -- he dictated it to his mistress while usimg extraordinary amounts of cocaine. It is really hilarious, ego-inflated, outrageous and generally entertaining.
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dzogchungpa
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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Malcolm wrote:Oh, uncle Al had his moments, but if you have never read his autobiography, you really ought to -- he dictated it to his mistress while usimg extraordinary amounts of cocaine. It is really hilarious, ego-inflated, outrageous and generally entertaining.
You mean, his autohagiography? Yes, it sounds like my kind of book, I've been meaning to read it for a while now. :smile:
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Re: Perdurabo - biography of Aleister Crowley

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