Our society is generally escapist. Drugs, alcohol, pop culture, science fiction, etc are all geared towards providing an escape from reality. Even our Reality shows are anything but. This tendency within our culture must be present within its component members. I admit that I love Sci-Fi. I also read Epic Fantasy when I want to unwind with brain candy. I have even played a RPG or two. However, the fun of these escapist pursuits lies (for me) more in the contrast with reality and what I feel to be the originating impulse of myth-making.
“where does imagination end and reality begin? what is this twilight? this half world of the mind that you profess to know so much about? how do we differentiate between the powers of darkness and the powers of light?”
The challenge in the modern age is not to be creative or to dream, but to recognize what is real. The challenge is to see reality and to take things seriously. Modern man is afraid to take things seriously. He recognizes that he is caught in a world of fantasy and is thus cannot afford to take anything seriously. He is afraid to let things matter to him on an visceral level lest they be exposed as delusions. Real social change, rather than the shuffling of blocks which passes for change in today’s world, depends upon taking something seriously.
Most radicals are in there 20’s (or younger). As you get older, one mellows out -- not out of a specific yearning for stability, but because one has had so many things that one cared about exposed as frauds, that is they are counter to the underlying reality. A common coping mechanism is the existentialist quagmire of refusing to acknowledge anything as real, and the lesser form of nihilism which prevents one from taking anything too seriously lest it turn out to be a mirage.
Thelema deals with metaphysical concepts. The nature of reality, the soul, spirits, boojums & magick. Given our societies escapist tendencies, we are typically quite familiar with these things through their escapist counterparts. This makes it difficult (if not impossible for some) to take Thelema seriously. When doing the LBRP we remember how Katherine Kurtz rendered it in her Deryni Chronicles. Fans of David Eddings may find themselves adding “& word” every time they hear the word “will.” I am also sure that the butchery of Latin, while a problem before, has been exacerbated by the Harry Potter series. “where does imagination end and reality begin?” indeed.
This all brings me to the inspiration for today’s entry. I admit to enjoying Role Playing Games (both Pen & Paper, and the other), and I am glad that they picked up Twilight 2000 (now Twilight 2013), but I winced when I saw another of their games, The Swing.
The Swing, is based on the Thelemic principles of WILL and Love. One of the central groups is in fact the OTO. The Magick system is based off of Aleister Crowley’s vision of Magick (Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will). The Swing deals with Thelemic principles, as well as, other pagan cultures and as such the Magick system incorporates ideas and principles from other “real world” Magickal systems (such as Wicca, Voodoo, Alchemy and more).
So, how does one escape from a flight of fantasy?
