iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I'm genuinely curious how you think this works. It's one of the wildest tenets of New Thelema. Up to now, I honestly thought it was just so Jed or Rob or whoever could claim to be a Master despite sounding profoundly ordinary in every way.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The Bhagavat was leading beings out of samsara. Crowley explicitly denies suffering, its source, its relief, and the path, while cursing the Bhagavat.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

That's pretty much his whole shtick. He is sincere and well-meaning, but his magic is a joke. If you haven't given up trying to explain magic in wonder and in terror, it hasn't really worked for you. This is why I find C's wanking in MTP unconvincing and unhelpful.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Magic should be mind-blowing.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

How does a teacher recognize enlightenment, or is that impossible?

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Crowley understood Buddhism through the lens of Alan Bennett, who knew Buddhism principally through Arnold in 1900. In '44, C appeared to still have a child's understanding. He misunderstood yoga at a fundamental level, as the intro to Eight Lectures demonstrates.

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Reposted by Michael McKinney

James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Somehow not everyone is aware of fact alluded to below. So one more time: John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett were all on GWBush 2000 'Florida Recount' team. (Which made GWB first prez in 112 yrs to 'win' after losing popular vote. Now they 'impartially' rule on our future.)

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

As for assumptions about you, I'm probing for consistency not assuming as such. My only firm assumption is that I have a better grasp of Crowley and Crowleyanity in all its modalities. It's nothing personal. I'm older and much closer to the 93 current. I could be wrong, and I apologize if so.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I can read, my dude. I agree it's miraculous in effect, but I assure you it's quite ordinary. I actually read Crowley, and the big stuff many times. I read the curriculum. I studied him and it in context. This gave me insight into his thoughts. I'm shocked this is new to you.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I should LOVE to see a complete argument. Instead you presented false claims and pretended I'd never read Crowley.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I'd love to see you substantiate any of that.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I'm not trying to debate you. I'm trying to get you to seriously question your assumptions about Crowley. The null hypothesis is *not* that he understood the path to enlightenment and liberation. SOMEBODY has to prove it.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

You seem to assume you have a deeper understanding of Crowley and have from the beginning. I don't think that's remotely fair. I've tried to treat you and your lineage with respect, but you seem unwilling to reciprocate.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

You imagine Crowley had some understanding of dharmic practices. I've shown that he obviously did not. You assume he understood yoga. I've shown he did not.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I honestly feel you are well-meaning, but have a shallow understanding of Thelema, Crowley, and Buddhism. I think you are corrupting the Dharma by imagining Thelema and Buddhism are compatible.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Recasting magic as some sort of psychological journey is just a way of making magic safe and non-threatening to the rational mind. It enables people to play at magic without fear it will have real-world consequences.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Crowley redefined magic in order to create a permission structure enabling 'rational', late-victorian adults to talk and think about magic in a sane-sounding way. It doesn't add anything to the understanding of magic, and if anything robs it of its usefulness.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Aside from the fact Crowley told you to, why should anyone want to redefine magic? Why not let science be science and magic be magic? Why must we make magic safe and comfy when experience shows effective magic most certainly is not?

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The fact all conscious experience is a product of mind doesn't alter the observation that some magical operations produce effects apparently external to multiple simultaneous observers. I feel we can all agree that this is magic and not anything related to psychoanalysis.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I take it you don't believe magic affects the real world?

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The observed effects of magic on my environment cannot be explained in terms of physics or ordinary cause and effect. Instantaneous, disproportionate change is impossible in the 'real' world, but not in dream.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I think I've practiced way too much magic to agree with any of that. Magic isn't psychology or neurology, or anything like that in my experience.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

My degree is in mechanical engineering. I was very familiar with the "black box" concept in the applied sciences before coming to practical magic. We don't necessarily have to know what is in the box to predict its behavior.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

If I *were* to reach for some sort of scientific explanation for the data I have, I'd say reality is a sort of dream, and magic plays with the limits of the conceptually possible.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This idea looks great on paper in MTP, but substitute "Enochian magic" for "magick" and I have no idea how it works. Decades of often intense and sustained practice have only refined my understanding of how to pull the levers on the black box and predict the likely outcome.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Magic is engineering, not science.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Man, this has the creepy feel of a weird science experiment breaking containment. Like RAW, it seemed so harmless at the time.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I honestly see nothing but samsaric existence expressed in Hadit because the subject-object relationship is its root. The fact Hadit exists as the result of a translation error and is introduced in a text denying the four truths of the Noble Ones is difficult to wave away.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

No offense, but this is never done well. I have yet to find a Thelemite with sufficient knowledge of Crowley and Buddhism to even understand the problem. That reddit thread is just the latest example, people who talk about buddha nature, but don't know what skandhas are, or why they should.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I know. Vivekananda is re-interpreting yoga in terms of the kundalini cult. Again, we owe this stream of thought to Theosophy, so far as I know. It caused Crowley and at least my lineage to misunderstand samadhi.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Just so. Crowley could never shake the delusion of a perduring self. It distorted his entire world view in ways gross and subtle. Consequently, folks coming from Thelema into non-dualistic practice tend to inherit his misconceptions, often unconsciously.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I think it's important to remember vivekananda and Crowley are not independent witnesses. They're both heavily influenced by Theosophy, and are interpreting yoga through that lens.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

You do know that you can't separate shamatha and vippashyana in practice, right? The third turning of the wheel represents the ultimate view and the most complete model of the mind/reality we have with a proven methodology. The existence of other paths says nothing about its value.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

But that's not what Buddhism says. The cause of unsatisfactoriness is craving, glossed as the desire to not be separated from pleasure, the desire to be parted from pain, and the desire that neutral feelings not diminish. That's not what Crowley meant by desire at all.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Crowley goes on to say Buddhism claims existence is sorrow and the cause of sorrow is desire. He counters that desire is the natural order, like oxygen's for hydrogen, and it's only bad when partial. Uniting the perfected individual with the 'Absolute' is the sole, satisfactory union and goal.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

It can't be overstated that Crowley's understanding of yoga is load-bearing. As the introduction to Eight Lectures makes clear, the reasoning behind his rejection of actual Buddhism is the idea that the union of subject and object in its widest sense is the universal goal of spirituality.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I am assuming Crowley is talking about raja yoga, which the yoga sutras define as quieting the mind as a means to recognition. Whether there are other definitions of meditation or yoga isn't relevant since the sutras agree with me and Crowley is clearly, demonstrably wrong.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

That's not exaggeration. The A∴A∴ is literally the product of a couple of Englishmen stripping from eastern enlightenment traditions what they valued and discarding, even disparaging, what they did not. The combination of arrogance, ignorance, and exploitation is classic colonialism.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I've realized a bit late that my real problem with Crowley and Crowleyanity is that I feel such a fool when I see there's nothing to it. Gaining subject-matter expertise exposes Ol' Bullet Head for the colonialist dilettante he was.

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Reposted by Michael McKinney

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

“We have spent the last 18 years describing the financial crisis as .. a black swan .. .. It was none of those things.” It was “the scheduled mathematical consequence of loans that assumed perpetual appreciation. .. The AI boom has rebuilt this exact structure.” www.groundbrkr.com/p/the-teaser...

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

You understand that these differences are fundamental, right? Crowley is saying not only can you keep your self, you can actually develop and strengthen it as part of the path. Whereas in Buddhism, we know how close one is to enlightenment just by tossing their ego on the scales.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I understand what you're saying, but there are subtle differences between those terms that get lost when we make them equivalent. For example, tathāta and shunyata both point to an ultimate reality, but the former is a positive statement.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

This process completes in fractions of a moment, and focus leaps from object to object in rapid succession producing the illusion of a perduring self. This self is, by definition, deluded about what it experiences 'outside', and confused about it feels 'inside'. 2/2

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Once the subject-object relationship is initiated, yes, there is a forgetting. We forget this apparent separation is only temporary. Unless interrupted, this moment of sense consciousness develops into full samsaric consciousness—of the object *and* the self that is conscious of it. 1/x

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I first experienced the Abyss in 1990. I'm actually confident I do understand it.

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Michael McKinney @mashan.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I am not guessing when I say Crowley misunderstood yoga and meditation at a fundamental level. He makes this quite clear in his introduction. Throughout most of the Buddhist world, meditation means shamatha, or begins there. 2/2

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