danieLion wrote:Many Buddhist teachers have struggled with drugs. Crowley's heroine and cocaine addictions started as a medical treatment for his asthma. They were widely prescribed for such at the time. He was not proud of his addiction and worked hard to get clean, which he did. He spent most of his life not addicted and was a pioneer of addiction recovery.
I'm not referring to his addictions but instead his repeated use of hashish, mescaline, etc. for spiritual and recreational purposes.
He often doubted the efficacy of sex magick as he tought it interfered with meditation. See the appropriate passages in the book Perdurabo. He was not a proponent of any kind of indulgence. Magick is to demanding for that. He was a proponent of exploring the way we internalize taboos to imprison ourselves. You'll have to be more specific about his treatment of women. Did you ever witness, even once, how he behaved around any women?
It don't care if he "often doubted" sex magick, considering he was not only practicing it himself but encouraging it in his followers, especially at the Abbey of Thelema - a place, I might add, that was almost completely devoted to indulgence in the name of discovering the "Higher Will."
Maybe. Diametrically is a strong word though.
Certainly, and it is not.
We all mix Buddhism with our cultural influences and beliefs (I don't know what you mean by "neoshamanistic occultism"). Do you think the way you practice Buddhism as a modern person is pristine?
I think the way I practice holds the Buddha's teachings as more important than and authoritative over the teachings of non-Buddhist occultists.
LonesomeYogurt wrote:How would you know? How much of his life and behavior did you personally witness?
I am referring to actions that are either (proudly) admitted to by Crowley himself or historically undeniable.
Do you absolutely believe Buddhism and theism are incompatible?
Reliance on the power of outside beings for spiritual development is not Buddhism.
That depends on what you mean by "self" and it is odds with his repeated "utter destruction of the ego" language.
Ego is one type of self; the belief in "True Will" or an ultimate self is equally non-Buddhist.
Cosmologically, Buddhism shares much in common with many forms of magic/Magick; soteriologically, see my comments to Nana and manas above.
Not when it comes to the essentially theistic vs. atheistic approach of each.
That's quite the feat. He wrote a lot.
As I've said in other threads, I was very into magick for a while as a younger person. I doubt I have read everything but I am certainly no stranger to his thought.
Okay? Which ones do yout think they are? List them.
His Jataka tale stuff, Essay in Ontology, his commentary on Blavatsky, Science and Buddhism, Aleister Crowley, The Golden Dawn and Buddhism by Yorke, some other stuff hidden in his early work.
A systematic Magician is anything but haphazard, and does not pillage.
Then how would you explain his awkward synthesis of Buddhist philosophy with explicitly anti-Buddhist doctrine, especially considering their inherent contradictions are either ignored or, one suspects, intentionally downplayed?
What do you think "scholarly rigor" is and what evidence do you have that he was even a little dismissive of history or philosophy? If you have read most of his works, you wouldn't be saying such things, especially if you've read all of his works about Buddhism.
The evidence is, again, his incredibly poorly thought-out co-opting of Buddhist concepts and terms for use in his larger, explicitly anti-Buddhist system.
Maybe you should go back and read them again. You've either overlooked some essentials or tainted them with pre-judgments.
Thanks, but I'll stick with the Pali Canon.
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.
Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.
His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta
Stuff I write about things.