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wolven7Let me start this off by saying that Peaches Geldof, daughter of legendary Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof, is all about the Aleister Crowley, even going so far as to break up with her boyfriend, to date someone more into the "Dark Whateverthefuck."
This is something I would like to talk about, quite a lot, but it's really hard to find the words to say it. The basic point is this: You will find something that you love, and you will want everyone in the world to love it, too, and then Paris Hilton will love it, and that will ruin it.
I don't know if that properly expresses what I'm trying to say, here... Often we hope that people will see in a thing the worth that we see, in it. Be that thing a particular song, a style of dress, a religion, a philosophical schema, whatever. And, often, they do. Lots of people might even see it, and love it, and want to show it to lots of other people. But, eventually, this will turn bad. When something enters the zeitgeist, on that scale, someone, somewhere will take it, and try to strip it down to its most marketable essence. The Style of the thing that makes it seem so awesome, to so many people. And they will sell that style, until someone finds a new style over which they can fawn.
Now, yes, some people will go further than the style. Some will read or discuss or otherwise engage this thing, whatever it is, on more than a superficial level, and they will find rich meaning and something that they want to share with the whole World.
And some will buy the Madonna-Endorsed Kabbalah, and call it a day.
But this is how it works. You cannot easily have the one without the other. They feed on each other, the Style and the Substance, such that as the style grows and becomes more visible, the higher the likelihood that a vast amount people will find and use the substance, underneath.
But it is still often terrible to watch Trampy Pop-Tarts™ and Boy Band "singers" who were "chosen for their ability to dance," as Giles would say, rabbit on about how they really love French Existenstialist Philosophers or, in this case, the Thelemic system of magic.
Terrible, and really freaking annoying.
This is something I would like to talk about, quite a lot, but it's really hard to find the words to say it. The basic point is this: You will find something that you love, and you will want everyone in the world to love it, too, and then Paris Hilton will love it, and that will ruin it.
I don't know if that properly expresses what I'm trying to say, here... Often we hope that people will see in a thing the worth that we see, in it. Be that thing a particular song, a style of dress, a religion, a philosophical schema, whatever. And, often, they do. Lots of people might even see it, and love it, and want to show it to lots of other people. But, eventually, this will turn bad. When something enters the zeitgeist, on that scale, someone, somewhere will take it, and try to strip it down to its most marketable essence. The Style of the thing that makes it seem so awesome, to so many people. And they will sell that style, until someone finds a new style over which they can fawn.
Now, yes, some people will go further than the style. Some will read or discuss or otherwise engage this thing, whatever it is, on more than a superficial level, and they will find rich meaning and something that they want to share with the whole World.
And some will buy the Madonna-Endorsed Kabbalah, and call it a day.
But this is how it works. You cannot easily have the one without the other. They feed on each other, the Style and the Substance, such that as the style grows and becomes more visible, the higher the likelihood that a vast amount people will find and use the substance, underneath.
But it is still often terrible to watch Trampy Pop-Tarts™ and Boy Band "singers" who were "chosen for their ability to dance," as Giles would say, rabbit on about how they really love French Existenstialist Philosophers or, in this case, the Thelemic system of magic.
Terrible, and really freaking annoying.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-15 06:59 pm (UTC)People will be attracted to the Shiny, or the Dark in it. They will court the mystique and look at the connections. And they will either lose interest and move on to the next thing that catches their mind's eye, because real learning in these things is as difficult as any discipline, or they will better themselves. Either way, things work out.
I know you know this, too, but:
Date: 2008-11-15 07:21 pm (UTC)I've listened to (and participated, enthusiastically) in a magus' pontifications on the perfect sense of an altar featuring Marilyn Monroe and King Kong as deities. Sometimes, at a certain level, all that glitters really IS gold.
Re: I know you know this, too, but:
Date: 2008-11-15 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-15 10:07 pm (UTC)Anyway as I say, I hate Good Charlotte, but I'd rather see people alking around with mohawks than in abercrombie and fitch, so al things considered it could be a lot worse.