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this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
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TechTakes
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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Have not read it yet, but seems relevant to our collective interests. NSFW due to NASB. Accelerationism, amphetamine philosophy, and the Death Trip. (A long post about Nick Land).
Great article. It's always fun to read about smart people lionizing a terrible person like Aleister Crowley and inevitably going insane (or dead, in Jack Parson's case).
The article never discussed the topic directly, but for others interested in esoterica would probably enjoy reading about the concept of egregores.
Wait, why is Crowley terrible? Wasn't he basically an overly enthusiastic cosplayer that did all the drugs and all the sex? So basically an occult hippy? Am I just unaware of him abusing people or some other dark shit?
he was an abusive gobshite, including physically abusive.
Claim to fame! Aleister Crowley was born a short walk from the house where I grew up, although then he was plain old Edward Crowley. My home town isn't that keen to be associated with him, largely because of the above - at a superficial level he was a harmless crank, a rich kid who decided to start his own religion and dress up in robes, but once you dig down into the history he was a pretty unpleasant, exploitative man - a classic cult leader.
I mean, I really don't think you can have a sex cult without at the very least some abuse. It's also good practice to treat occultism as weirdo fascism.
the coincidence happening over and over is a tad unfortunate
I read his Wikipedia recently and he just seemed like a user who was careless with the people in his life. His philosophy was "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law", which is obviously open to abuse and exploitation.
Ye that's why I'm asking, cause even RationalWiki doesn't have a chapter on abuse or anything.
Here are some bits from Wikipedia:
It's always the same boring old squalid shit with these basic nietzschean bitches. Not many people I have less respect for.
you know, I’d wondered previously about the higher-than-average divinity-and-spirits obsession among TPOT. between some of the history of land/ccru there, the other shit previously observed in the stubsack (iirc?) about rightoids and aliens/fairies (and ofc the nazi history of occultism)… what a fucking faith to make
Truly the weirdest consequence of crank magnetism and conspiracy syncretism is the kinds of bedfellows you find. UFO cults align with Christian dominionists because the aliens are actually demons (or vice versa - which direction isn't important).
It feels like modern fascism is less driven by orthodoxy (right belief) than they are by orthopraxy (right action) to the degree that as long as they aren't actually in power anyone who hates on the right people and rejects the right facts can join the same club regardless of what they actually think. The weirdo occultism of the Nazis was largely tied to the project of reifying their racial hierarchy in all aspects of society by establishing that the Aryan race had the best religion and the best history in addition to the best genes and the best country. The weirdo occultism of modern fascism doesn't have that kind of thread to it that I can see, and I don't know what that means for ongoing development. Does it turn into a source of internal strife as they get closer to having actual influence? Do they settle into a more specific doctrine and cull the ranks of those who don't adopt it? Or is accepting a consensus reality actually the optional part here as long as the group can broadly agree on what to do?
Helena Blavatsky and Rudolph Steiner made up much of what went on to constitute esoteric Hilterism ab nihilo.
Blavatsky, in particular, was a prolific bullshitter in the Frankfurtian sense. She invented the notion of the Aryan master race as a thing that exists in the future, which white europeans should strive to bring into the world.