The following is an article which appeared in Vol. III, Issue 2 of "The Rune", an eclectic pagan journal published quarterly in Kansas City, Missouri. Each issue of "The Rune" is devoted to a specific topic of interest to the pagan community. Vol. III, Issue 2 is entitled "Pagans and Christians." Subscriptions to "The Rune" are $12.00 per year (4 issues). Subscriptions or correspondence may be directed to: Rune Publishing Co.; 4550 Main St., Suite 223; Kansas City, MO 64111. The editors of "The Rune" can be reached via Compuserve at 71650,1512. Copyright {SYMBOL 211 \f "Symbol"} "The Rune" 1992. ------------------------------------------------------------ The Dilemma of Christianity: A Thelemic View by Frater Kalixtus, ESSG "Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection." -- Jim Morrison Mystical Christianity, that last refuge for desperate apologists and moral cowards, provides amusing spasms and capers in justifying its love to the informed magician. The tedious Alice Bailey industries touts the not terribly profound view of the Christ as "Solar Logos" -- Ho hum. That Teutonic wild man, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, viewed poor Jesus as giving up his physical body to be possessed by the Christ (sort of an Alien-bug slumming in Malkuth) as the "... final incarnation of the Sun Oracle." It's something like the Mystical Oracle of the Ouija, but not as interesting. And finally we have "Bishop" C.W. Leadbeater, the Judas Iscariot of Theosophy and Annie Besant's evil Svengali. Also, leader and ordainer of pederasts to the mystical body of Christ. This fellow Magi is a concise capsulation of 20th century esoteric Christianity. And I assure you, no one would be more horrified and repulsed by these developments than the Gnostic Christ itself. Considering the readership of this journal, I need not beat the already dead horse of "orthodox" Christianity in a calling on song to view the well dressed corpse. Yet there remain in the occult, pagan and magickal community those who still seek a truce of sorts in making peace with this exoteric system which has controlled our calendars, schools and media for nearly two millennia. And if you control the above mentioned -- you control civilization as we know it. As any freedom loving, rational soul knows, the Christian monopoly is a complete failure in all spheres of human endeavor. The benevolent progress and spirit of inquiry we know in the western world owes all of this not to the epistemology of St. Augustine, nor to the Thomism of Aquinas; rather, to the revival of classical paganism which we know as the Renaissance. The Islamic scholar, Abu Bahr Siraj Ad-Din, writes "... The European Renaissance was nothing other if we examine it carefully, than a renewal of the paganism of ancient Greece and Rome." And do not think the Church was not aware of this very fact when the burning times were inaugurated. Enlightened magicians need not trouble themselves with undue trafficking with this 1st century Judeo-Roman zealot of excessive publicity. Simply acquaint yourself with the symbolism of Tiphareth in the Kabbalah and be done with it. Plus, the bonus of a nice cross-cultural education of all those dying and re-birthing gods galore. E.E. Rhemus writes in The Magician's Dictionary, "The symbolical/metaphysical Christos state of consciousness of the original Gnostics has been totally corrupted and replaced by the false "historification" of Jesus, who is a mythical composite of John the Baptist, Paul and a messianic archetype." A religion rooted in spiritual exclusivity and moral imperialism ceases to be a chalice of numinous energy for the social organism. After nearly 2000 years we are witnessing the ethical vacuity and death rattle of a spiritually bankrupt religion in Christianity. Literal fundamentalism is the final developmental phase in a belief system prior to dissolution. The rise of militant Islam in the world is incorrectly labeled fundamentalism by the western Christian media. In reality, the Islamic revival is more akin to the western medieval age of faith. In the equation of now -- any dynamic in Christianity is a sham and a shadow play by desperate actors not willing to assume personal responsibility for their actions and moreover unable to relinquish empty faith for Gnostic experience. The law of the current Aeon embodied in Thelema requires no emotional converts or apologists. It simply reflects existence at it is, sans a belief system of imperatives. Whether in popular culture of our time, or the breakdown of the now transmuting into the undreamed. The Age of Horus proceeds inextricably towards its historical denouement. Transforming being to superior non-being is the aim of creation and the secret of evolution. The duration of Hinduism and Buddhism is their adamant refusal to view themselves as exclusive in the relative search for what is true. Thelema, along with Buddhism and Hinduism are inclusive philosophies of life (with life). No matter what magickal tradition we adhere to and affirm, all magick is "the method of Science, the aim of Religion." And behold the Gods rise!