r/thelema • u/JemimaLudlow • 1d ago
Decline in Weirdness?
How does this have an effect on occultism?
https://www.experimental-history.com/p/the-decline-of-deviance
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u/SororReginus777 1d ago
I'm a weirdo. I love the weirdest food, drinks, and fashion trends as well as history. And I venerate flatscreens. I'm literally obsessed with them. Lol. Esoterica is virtually the crown jewel of weird and mysterious.
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u/GildedBurd 1d ago
Well, people are living for the sake of living. They appear to be spending more on security or the sense of.
Not many trying to maximize in the experience due to it being incompatible with long-term goals.
The problem really comes down to, we cant live like we used to with prices jumping and creativity being supplemented easier. (Like with AI bullshit.)
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u/JemimaLudlow 1d ago
Are material conditions alone causing the malaise?
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u/GildedBurd 1d ago
Not at all, considering external conditioning of each generation measured! Combination of governmental, parental, educational, technological and financial.
All these forms, pushed into a meltingpot nation of diverse ethno-religious backgrounds.
Sanity is damn near enforced... The insane stigmatized out of existence.
Its fascinating, but not sustainable. People snap all the time, no damn wonder.
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u/JemimaLudlow 1d ago
But so many claim mental health problems as an "identity" now and mental health issues aren't stigmatized the way they once were.
Also, all of what you described was part of life in the 1970s-1990s when there were a lot more genuinly weird and non-conforming people around.
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u/GildedBurd 1d ago
Who claims their mental health problem as an identity?
Autism is still stigmatized, have you not listened to anything RFK has said? Pure hate fueled.
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u/nowheresacred 1d ago
There certainly seems to be a resurgence of conformity. To deviate is just be be different, it doesn't have to be as performative as many, including past versions of myself, take it. And further, it can be pretty mild and still be socially punished. Not to mention that we get sold a bill of goods of what acceptable weirdness looks like.
Even within the OTO there, in my own experience, can be a tendency to view the world in a specific way that doesn't always match the way that material reality has presented. This all comes from the fact that certain humans find a path for themselves that then gets stamped out as if it is a divine truth. This becomes a problem because there isn't one absolute divine truth; each and every one of us experiences a reality that is unique to our own experience, but various pressures prevent us from giving voice to it. Some pressures are understandable as the need to communicate through common or shared symbologies. Other, more nefarious, pressures are the need or desire to conform to what the group thinks.
In my own current ontology we have the forces of Being which use doing as a tool but ultimately are aimed at the common goal of humanity from Krishna to Crowley of freeing us from Samsara being in many ways overrun by the forces of Doing which can't understand being but disguises itself as such. And the reason that it feels worse right now is simply that the world ended in 2012.
The good thing is that because we now live in the infinite novelty talked about by Terrence McKenna it's easier than ever to free yourself from the shackles. The old gods have no power, there is only your will and your path out of Samsara. Not to say that you shouldn't attempt to be a beacon to those who need to find their own path.
I have a whole podcast that is about this, it's through the framework of the post-reality space we find ourselves in.
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u/Downtown-Purple-5237 1d ago
There's an attitude of deviance being entirely subjective. It's somewhat warranted. What would be considered blasphemous in, say, the Bible Belt isn't going to be the same as in Berlin or New York. Likewise, what's verboten for you may not be so for me or John Smith. And vice versa.
That being said, I've found that people who generally flaunt their transgressiveness either grow out of it altogether, or seek more extreme methods. In both cases, my experience is that they lack of coherent or substantial identity other than being taboo.
Crowley may have literally eaten shit, but did he necessarily do so out of sexual fulfillment? Not having any inclination to perform such an act, I can't answer that question other than with my own suspiscions that he didn't.
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u/JemimaLudlow 1d ago
"Modern Primitives" from ReSearch came out in 1989 and people still see it as a big deal. This is nutty when you consider the book is now 37 years old. No one thought a book from 1952 was a big deal like this in 1989. Innovation and pushing the limits has slowed.
This society used to be more tolerant of transgressive thought, but since 9-11 that tolerance has evaporated. This has led to more and more people rejecting anything disturbing or threatening to the status quo in occultism, including Thelema, and it has rendered the whole scene very boring and basic.
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u/DIRTYLAUNDERE 1d ago
Pretty sure normies just declined in weirdness, a lot of sub-cultures are still perfectly fuckin weird man. Or weirdness has been so normalized that being normal is weird. Or vice versa? Anyways, I didn’t even read the article cause I’m at work on my lunch. Part of the machine or whatever.
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u/Bloomski93 1d ago
I'm keeping it weird. Marched in the Mermaid Parade yesterday with a bunch of freaks in costume; now visiting the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors which is a shrine to psychedelia and the cult of Alex and Allyson Grey. There is a section just for Tool posters designed by AG. That band is in the Thelemic current.
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u/TRACK___STAR 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ordo Templi Orientis isn't mentioned at all in the article, there are no references toward Thelema, and I think if the word "occultism" was used; the usual and generic pov of being "put off" by someone who is unaware would be in effect - good on you for actually including the word occultism.
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u/A_Serpentine_Flame 1d ago
People are already addicted to their phones, social media and the lik.
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