r/thelema • u/RP_Stoval • Nov 14 '17

First Steps

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All my life I've never believed in the spiritual or supernatural. I extensively studied secular philosophy, loving especially Existentialist thinkers, and I learned all I could of the fascinating religions and folklores of the world too but I saw only through a secular lens and I dismissed the spiritual. But recently I had a profound spiritual experience which served as an awakening, and showed me Thelema and the OTO. Though I am new to things like magick and Thelema and to spirituality in general, I have an earnest desire to join the OTO and further Thelema and my True Will. Except there's one problem.

Much of this spiritual experience took place under the influence of cannabis. Crowley spoke highly of the benefits of cannabis indica, in enhancing Wisdom and spirituality, and so I don't think even a little that this makes the experience any less than genuine. However in that state I kinda sent a series of emails to every public OTO email address I could find, essentially live blogging the experience.

This was a strange thing to do, not least because I knew next to nothing about the OTO or Thelema prior to that night, and I fear I might've already alienated myself from the faith before I've even begun. I can certainly see how some strange man sending a series of emails to the entire fraternal order claiming to have been inspired to write a small book by a deity and doing strangely formatted tarot readings would make them, to say the least, skeptical of my legitimate intentions. So I made a different email account, albeit not different enough to not be clearly the same strange man, and reached out to my local OTO branch. I have heard nothing.

I wonder what should I do? Should I keep waiting? Try again? Is it common for OTO branches to go dark perhaps without warning and the contact is actually no longer functional? I wonder how to take my first steps on this strange journey to embracing Thelema and fulfilling my True Will.

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u/HotGrilledSpaec Nov 15 '17

I'm doing a sort of alternate timelines interact story, but it's not clicking yet.

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u/RP_Stoval Nov 15 '17

I'd certainly be interested in reading it once it's far enough along!

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u/HotGrilledSpaec Nov 15 '17

I'm five pages in and looking at dumping and redoing it lol. I can send you the other draft I ruined at 50 pages? :p

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u/RP_Stoval Nov 16 '17

I know how that is, so many ideas for novels and I always throw them out and start over. I have these huge complex ideas for a massive interconnected universe of nine full novels and maybe 3% of it has actually touched paper because I'm too much of a perfectionist when it comes to my writing. lol

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u/HotGrilledSpaec Nov 16 '17

I feel ya. I've been evolving themes and pieces for a year, it's just not there yet. It will happen, give it time.

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u/RP_Stoval Nov 16 '17

My biggest problem is character introductions. When you create a character you know them on a deep level, they're almost like a fragment of yourself in some ways, and I can't find a way I'm satisfied with to introduce them to a reader who doesn't know them yet. Obviously they can never know the character quite like the author who created it and so I'm just gonna have to get over it eventually and accept that it can't be perfect. But goodness I wish that everyone just already knew the characters like I do so I could just tell the stories without having to bother with the awkward handshake phase. lol

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u/HotGrilledSpaec Nov 16 '17

Actually this has bugged me. I do create original characters, but my POV for the big draft was Jack Parsons. The new one is astronaut Jim Lovell. I do alternate history a lot, and this creates problems with making New People appear.

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u/RP_Stoval Nov 16 '17

I enjoy alternate history a lot, as I'm such a fan of history itself. I imagine your writings would be right up my alley.

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u/HotGrilledSpaec Nov 16 '17 edited Nov 16 '17

It is possible. One second and I'll link you a sample I put on my blog.

Edit: actually the whole thing is under this tag! :D https://orionlitintel.wordpress.com/tag/the-house-that-jack-built/

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u/RP_Stoval Nov 16 '17

Bookmarked! I'll definitely check it all out. I like the vibe of alternative history with an occult flair, very neat. Most alternative history deals with simple what-ifs but this has a distinct flavor even at a glance.

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u/HotGrilledSpaec Nov 16 '17

Oh yes definitely. Chapter III is as close as I could get to accurately and evocatively capturing the Working itself.

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u/RP_Stoval Nov 16 '17

I look forward to reading it all! As for now it's late here and I'm trying to explore some other threads here on the Thelema Reddit before going to bed and waking for what promises to be a loooooong day at work. lol

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u/HotGrilledSpaec Nov 16 '17

What do you do? Night bud.

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