|
Este artigo encontra-se parcialmente em língua estrangeira. Ajude e colabore com a tradução. |
TRECHOS EM VERMELHO PRECISAM SER VERIFICADOS
Abadia de Thelema se refere a uma pequena casa usado como um templo ou local de práticas envolvendo a Lei de Thelema.
A Abadia de Cefalù
Aleister Crowley, junto com Leah Hirsig, fundou uma Abadia de Thelema em Cefalù, uma comuna italiana da região da Sicília, província de Palermo; em 1920 e.v. O nome foi emprestado da sátira de Rabelais chamada Gargantua and Pantagruel, onde a "Abadia de Thelema" é descrita como uma espécie de anti-monastério onde as vidas dos habitantes são "gastas não em leis, estátuas, ou regras, mas sim de acordo com suas próprias vontades e prazeres livres." Essa utopia idealística foi o modelo da comunidade de Crowley, sendo também um tipo de escola mágica, dando-lhe a designação de "Collegium ad Spiritum Sanctum", O Colégio do Espírito Santo. O programa geral estava de acordo com o curso do treinamento da A.'.A.'., e incluindo ainda adorações diárias ao sol (Liber Resh), um estudo dos escritos de Aleister Crowley, práticas e rituais Yoga regulares (que precisavam ser registrados), como também trabalho doméstico em geral. O objetivo, naturalmente, era que os estudantes devotassem seu tempo para a Grande Obra do descobrimento e manifestação de suas Verdadeiras Vontades.
Crowley pretendia transformar a pequena casa em um centro global de dedicação mágica e quem sabe ganhar mensalidades pagas por acólitos procurando treinamento nas Artes Mágicas; estas taxas o ajudariam mais adiante em seues esforços de promulgar Thelema e publicar seus manuscritos.
O que a Abadia e seu mestre na verdade se tornaram foram alvos de muito rumores e boatos, em parte fofocas de habitantes locais mas na maioria eram produtos de John Bull, um jornalista sensacionalista britânico com uma atitude particularmente vingativa contra Crowley. E falava-se em orgias sexuais, sacrifícios de crianças e animais, uso de drogas, e bestialidade. Crowley nunca admitiu isso, mas também nunca negou, percebendo que não havia nada como a má publicidade.
Fim da Abadia
Por volta de 1923, um estudante não-graduado de Oxford chamado Raoul Loveday (ou Frederick Charles Loveday) morreu na Abadia. Sua esposa, Betty May, originalmente acusou que isso teria sido fruto de uma participação dele em um dos rituais de Crowley. Mais tarde, porém, ela aceitou o diagnóstico do doutor de grave febre tifóide contraída pela ingestão de água de uma nascente da montanha. (Crowley havia advertido os residentes da Abadia contra a ingestão de água não-fervida.) Quando Betty May retornou a Londres, ela concedeu uma entrevista a um jornal. O Sunday Express incluiu sua história em seus avançados ataques à Crowley.
Com estes e outros rumores sobre as atividades "estranhas" na Abadia, o governo de Mussolini exigiu que Crowley deixasse o país em 1923. Após a partida de Crowley, a Abadia de Thelema foi eventualmente abandonada e seus residentes locais pintaram de branco os murais do local.
Matéria sobre Jane Wolfe e a Abadia
Matéria extraída do "The Charleston Gazette", Domingo, 3 de Junho de 1928 e.v.
Film Mother Stoned in House of Mystics Tells of Attack
By CARL DE VIDAL HUNT
PARIS, França, 2 de Junho. – Jane Wolfe, who played film mothers in early Mary Pickford pictures, retornou para Hollywood, Cal., procurando recuperar-se completamente dos ferimentos recebidos pelas mãos de camponeses Sicilianos. Eles tentaram apedrejá-la até a morte.
Mas antes de partir de Paris ela relatou sua experiência na "misteriosa casa de Cefalù", na Sicília, onde ela viajou para seguir os ensinamentos de Sir Aleister Crowley, alto sacerdote de Thelema (filosofia oriental) e promotor das estranhas performances pelo qual a "casa misteriosa" foi invadida pela polícia siciliana.
Conhecido como "a Besta"
Sir Aleister, known among his disciples as the "Beast", is a Britisher, who spent his patrimony in search of the stoic philosophies of the East. He had lived with the Yogis in the silent wastes of India and had published books on the subject. Now he is a wanderer, barred even from his own country – but his friends declare him a genius.
Miss Wolfe arrived at the "mystery house" on the banks of the Mediterranean and was appointed typing secretary of Sir Aleister. Then followed the initial practices of self-control that were designed to relieve her restlessness. For hours she was required to sit on one spot without moving as much as an eyelid.
Practiced Self-Control
„Then I had to practice the ‚Dharana,’“ Miss Wolfe relates. „That is fixing a yellow square on a wall and shutting my eyes and visualizing the square for half an hour. This was followed by breathing exercises. In the morning and evening we performed the required rituals in a large room with a tiled flooring, the center of which was inlaid with queer geographical figures. The master changed his gowns and make-up according to the planets he invoked – while we men and women wore Greek robes of various colors. „Under the teachings of Thelema I made rapid progress, both mentally and physically, until the great moment for my supreme test was announced to me by the ‚Beast.’ „He had consulted the Chinese book Wy King and the Six Sticks of Divination, with the result that the time for my protracted magical retirement seemed most propitious.
Started Silent Period
„According to rules I went down to the beach and, with the help of other pupils, put up a tent in which I was to live in silence for 33 days. During that period of conecentration and meditation I was to practice Asana until I could sit motionless for 11 hours at a stretch. „This is what brought on the trouble. Some of the people of Cefalu, who seemed to regard the abbey and its inmates with suspicion, came snooping around my tent. They peeped in and saw me sitting on my haunches and staring fixedly at a yellow square painted on the canvas of my tent. Some even talked to me, but I had to remain absolutely rigid and motionless. Once a man and his wife rushed in and toppled me over, but even then I retained my stiffness of body and lay there like an overthroen statue until my daily Asana was completed.
Stoned by Natives
„Soon the natives began to attack me with stones. They believed I was a person possessed by evil spirits. The men never touched me, but the women were fierce. One morning about 20 of them surrounded my tent. I was in the fourth hour of my Asana, sitting stiff as a carved idol. I knew they meant to do me great harm, but my mind refused to consider any physical pain that might come to me. Soon they began to throw rocks and finally my tent went down. I did not move, of course. But the women shrieked and danced around me like a flock of buzzards. Then they stoned me until I fell bleeding and unconscious to the ground. „I don’t know how long I lay there, but when I came to my senses, the women were still round me. Slowly I got back into my Asana position and sat there without moving a muscle. Seeing this the women gasped. They could not understand it. Slowly they backed away from me, crossing themselves and mumbling strange words. They never came back.
Flesh Disciplined
„At the end of my 33 days the terrible pains of my body, caused by sitting almost continually in one spot, were entirely gone. I had eaten little of the food that was brought down to me from the abbey, and my mind was so clear that I thought I could look through walls. A sense of perfect serenity pervaded my whole being. My hot blood had cooled and was coursing quietly through my veins. The flesh had been disciplined.
„Shortly after my departure the ‚mystery house’ of Cefalu was raided by the Sicilian police and all its inmates put out. For several months I lived in England and then went to Paris preparatory to sailing to America. My hair is white now, but I am cured.“
Referências
- Wikipedia - 23/04/2007 e.v.
- 1928 June 3 Charleston Gazette