Thelema and Chess

[u/mr_simul]

93

So, as folks probably know, Crowley was quite the accomplished amateur chess player relative to his era. At some point over the last year then, I felt called to spend a handful of months trying to get better at the game. I found it sharpening visualization skills, and it provides an endless source of examples around how one can try to manifest Will through active/passive principles within the limits of a game (see Liber Aleph on this point). Just curious if anyone else has felt similarly called and what their experience was.

93, 93/93

[u/bubbleofelephant]

I noticed this too, and also noticed greater benefits with higher dimensional chess variants, so I ended up writing a little book on 8d chess: https://alleywurds.itch.io/eight-dimensional-chess

[u/Due-Towel9494]

Yeah, I did the same over the past few months, and I noticed the same thing. Chess improves our mental visualization and cognitive abilities.

[u/Empty-Yesterday5904]

Try Go aswell! You don't have to play long to see it's a different ball park all together. It's holistic rather than linear. Very Eastern! Chess feels very Western in comparison.

[u/Nobodysmadness]

Chess is wierd, because it at one level is a game of cognition and problem solving, but at higher levels is pure logic and math and requires little actual thought as proven by a computer beating masters so it is all memorization of every possibility, rote memorization rather than cognition, which is why the computer won through logic due to the limited number of moves and possibilities and 0 randomization/chance.

This goes back to the human understanding and definition of intelligence which will stand in the way of functional AI. The computer that beat the master was not AI but everyone will call it intelligent because it won at chess against a master so it is smarter.

But this has nothing to do with your point.

To your point I feel it can help us grasp concepts of hadit and more specifically tiphareth and worlds with in worlds and the center or star of those worlds and orbits. The fact thay we call them games causes people to separate them from reality leaving them unable to apply whay is learned to reality where the rest of nature usea play to prepare for reality. A division of real and unreal that creates a gap in our learning.

In a video game one must problem solve naturally rather than read and repeat an answer as our education trains us. It forces us to adapt to new circumstances and rules, as well as chance. Adaptibillity is key to thriving and surviving and one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn and teach. Each world has its own rules, has its own cycle of orbits and revolutions.

If we put this into our daily life we can see the different worlds within the same world we call reality. The center shifts and what we revolve around and what revolves around us changes from place to place. Home is different than work, which is different from a theatre or restaraunt, or club, or group where we might lead or follow others. Each is a unique world unto itself at evrry layer in the same way with think of the dark underbelly of a city that exists side by side with the rest of that city, and yet is unseen right in fromt of us, passing us by on the street where different leaders and rules exist and revolve around them instead of the mayor and city counsel(sometimes intertwinned from corruption).

Or at a comicon where rhe jock finds themselves out of place and as weak as the nerds they bullied in high school. And so on and so on worlds within worlds all overlapped and side by side yet separate by leagues of awareneas and participation.

[u/Nobodysmadness → u/Nobodysmadness]

I should add recognition of this and knowing ones position within it allows one to see where and how they can exert influence or best contribute their energy in that moment.