Advertisement
i was wondering if anybody covered the thelemic symbolism in the book. turns out heinlein was avidly interested in thelema at the time he wrote the book, and it has been suggested the beliefs in the book are concealed thelemic principles.
anybody else come across this in criticism of the book or in their own (re)reading of it?
anybody else come across this in criticism of the book or in their own (re)reading of it?
posted by:
|
Unsubscribed |
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: heinlein and thelema
Mon, July 5, 2004 - 11:32 PMcheck out the thread I started in this tribe, it's bang on.
Yes, stranger is obviously thelemic. Very blatant. When reading the book I felt as though he might as well have been standing there hitting me over the head with a bust of Crowley. -
-
Re: heinlein and thelema
Tue, July 6, 2004 - 12:31 PMOkay, I'll bite...
I've read ALL of RAH's stuff, since the "Boys Life" era, and haven't heard of this aspect before.
Anyone out there care to elaborate? -
-
Unsu...
Re: heinlein and thelema
Tue, July 6, 2004 - 12:48 PMi'm no expert in thelema, but..
thelema is a gnostic religious system that was built up by aleister crowley...'do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law' is a big guiding principle. alot of people interpret this as meaning your life's mission is to divine your one true purpose and then do it with all you've got - good, evil are not necessarily relevant like in christianity. i'm sure i'm distorting this because of my limited reading, but the 1930's los angeles sci-fi writers crowd was really influenced by masonic power mysteries and old aleister c. so heinlein was referencing thelema in alot of the symbols and philosophy of the book..
in a related note, i have a tribe that covers jack parsons, a real life character and founder of the jet propulsion lab in pasadena who heinlein biographers claim was the inspiration for valentine michael smith.
(jackparsons.tribe.net) -
-
Re: heinlein and thelema
Mon, July 12, 2004 - 3:32 AMMy Brothers...
I never cease to be amazed at how much one can learn from and be inspired by becoming a seeker of knowledge.
I am impressed once again by the depth of the responses from this tribe.
"your life's mission is to divine your one true purpose and then do it with all you've got"
Very inspiring information which reminds me that
I am only an egg.
You Grok Correctly!
- PABlo
-
-
-
Re: heinlein and thelema
Fri, October 8, 2004 - 10:47 AMInteresting assertion, especially given the fact that MVS debunks Crowley (as well as others) when he goes on his reading campaign later in the book. Thelema (93) is a magical formula of love that, as far as I can see, is reflected nowhere in SIASL. Hubbard also was in OTO for awhile, but that doesn't make Scientology a Thelemic cult. The fact that both apples and oranges are fruit does make apples the same as oranges. The fact that people fucked freely in SIASL does NOT make Heinlein a Thelemite.
If you want Thelema, I'm afraid you'll have to share water with Aiwass. If you did that and your idea of love in predicated on the adolescent rhetoric in the Book of the Law, I wouldn't--quite frankly--want you anywhere near MY "nest."
I worked with Regardie--who was Regardie's secretary--and I know Crowley fairly well. Much of Crowley's style was plagarized from Nietzsche's Zarathustra, and while he had some interesting epiphanies, I see little in Crowley (and less in Thelema) that would suggest he was anything but a self-declared initiate.
-
-
Re: heinlein and thelema
Tue, July 20, 2004 - 10:03 PMHmmph,
I was raised in a christian mystical sect, and I found the book very mystical christian.
"Take eat, this is my body, given for you."
"Love your neighbor as yourself"
It has been noted that many of the mystical tradition, christian or not, have similar ends if different expressions thereof through rituals.
I'd say he was more christian than anything. I recall a passage in moon is a harsh mistress in which the professor says something to the effect of the only rule you can ever hope people obey is the Golden Rule, so why make other laws. If they aren't gonna do it, no law is gonna stop em, and why put limitations on good people's freedoms. -
-
Re: heinlein and thelema
Tue, October 12, 2004 - 8:24 AMLaws are useless-
good men don't need 'em
and bad men don't heed them... -
-
Re: heinlein and thelema
Tue, October 12, 2004 - 11:35 AMI love that this post, the first in months on this thread, was made on October 12 - Crowley's birthday. :-)
On another note, when I first read SISL I was a recently ex christian, and it read like early christianity. Later, I was interested in buddhism, and it read like the story of the buddah. Et Cetera. It's one of those great bits of art that works very much like a mirror. "When a monkey gazes in this mirror, no wise man looks back".
Having recently devoured Joseph Campbell, I would LOVE to have seen what he would have said about SISL.
Otter -
-
Re: heinlein and thelema
Wed, October 13, 2004 - 6:20 PMDidn't Adam Walks Btween Worlds write extensively on Heinlein and Thelema in Green Egg in the 90's? He wrote plenty about Crowley for sure.
Iona
-
Re: heinlein and thelema
Wed, October 13, 2004 - 6:20 PMDidn't Adam Walks Btween Worlds write extensively on Heinlein and Thelema in Green Egg in the 90's? He wrote plenty about Crowley for sure.
Iona
-
-
-
