The Two Foundations of Thelema

One of the most prevalant memes within Consensus Thelema is the idea that Crowley changed his mind so many times on so many different issues, it’s pointless to try to isolate any invariant “truth” within his thought. (Therefore it’s up to each individual to define for themselves what Thelema is blah blah blah let’s open another bottle of Apothic Red.)

But Crowley wasn’t that much of a creative genius. He had two insights, one theoretical, one practical.

The theoretical insight comes from the Kabbalah, mainly Samuel Mathers’s “Introduction” to Kabbalah Unveiled, his translation of Kabbalah Denudata. In particular, Crowley takes the idea of Ain, makes it the centerpiece or first principle of his world outlook, and draws implications from it that Mathers himself didn’t seem very interested in but which are reminiscent of how this idea was received in German language philosophy of the previous two centuries. By the time Crowley seriously engages with eastern philosophy, he has this Ain idea firmly fixed in his head, and he has a tendency to conform eastern philosophy (particularly Taoism) to it.

The practical insight—what I have called erotic liberation—probably comes from the fin de siècle decadent movement. It’s already on display in his 1898 poem, “Jezebel”. There you can see the mix of sadomasochism, cannibalism, and destruction (moral and physical) through eroticism that comes to define a lot of Crowley’s own spiritual praxis.

The practical insight probably precedes the theoretical insight, although the spiritual importance of the practical side lies in the fact that it reveals or discloses the first principle which organizes the theoretical side. In other words, Crowley may have insisted upon a mathematical deduction of his first principle in “Berashith” and Magick Without Tears, but neither mathematics nor reason in general are the main means by which one encounters the first principle in its fullness. That only comes about through the ecstastic practices Crowley eventually calls magick.

These ideas were formed whole in Crowley’s mind by the time he was 25 or so. Anything he encountered after that, he tended to wrap around or conform to these ideas.

As an aside, this is why it’s wrong to treat Thelema as a mere appurtenance to ceremonial magick, as though Thelemic magick is basically Golden Dawn ceremonial magic but done with a badboy attitude. While drawing shapes in the air and mispronouncing Hebrew are certainly aspects of the Thelemic magical tradition, that’s not the center of gravity of Thelemic praxis. One would be closer to the mark emphasizing transcendence through the encounter with potent (sexual) disgust—through the Pe in particular.

Monism and the Two Aspects of Reality

One of the implications of Crowley’s commitment to holistic monism is a two aspects view on reality.

Again, holistic monism is the view that (a) empirical items must be such that all their properties are determinable only within the context of a totality composed of other items and their properties (i.e., you can never unequivocally say S is P, since anything is what it is relative to the context it exists in); and (b) the first principle of the totality is immanent within the totality as its principle of unity. For Crowley this principle is the Qabalistic Zero, and there is no real distinction between it and the totality it grounds.

And yet there is the distinction in Crowley’s spirituality between what is below the Abyss and what is above the Abyss. If there is no real distinction to be made between these two realms—if in other words we’re not dealing with two worlds—then what sort of distinction is to be made between them?

There is some evidence Crowley viewed this distinction as a distinction of perception on one and the same reality. There is an empirical, unenlightened, naive realist view, and there is an enlightened, transcendental view. I believe the two aspects or two perspectives interpretation helps make sense of passages like the following from Liber Aleph.

Moreover, say not thou in thy Syllogism that, since every Change soever, be it the Creation of a Symphony, or a Poem, or the Putrefaction of a Carcass, is an Act of Love, and since we are to make no Difference between any Thing and any other Thing, therefore all Changes are equal in Respect of our Praise. For though this be a right Conclusion in the term of thy comprehension as a Master of the Temple, yet it is false in the Eyes of him that hath not attained this Understanding. So therefore any Change (or Phenomenon) appeareth noble or base to the imperfect Mind, according to its Consonance and Harmony with the Will that governeth the Mind. Thus if it be thy will to delight in Rhythm and Economy of words, the advertisement of a Commodity may offend thee; but if thou art in need of that Merchandise, thou wilt rejoice therein. Praise then or blame aught, as seemeth good unto thee; but with this Reflexion, that thy Judgment is relative to thine own Condition, and not absolute. This also is a Point of Tolerance, whereby thy shalt avoid indeed those Things that are hateful or noxious to thee, unless thou canst (in Our Mode) win them by Love, by withdrawing thine Attention from them; but thou shalt not destroy them, for that they are without Doubt the Desire of another.

Liber Aleph, DE MYSTERIO MALI (emphasis mine)

I think what Crowley is getting at in this passage is that it is possible to view one and the same phenomenon from two different perspectives. On the one hand, we can view it from the every day perspective. This is a normal, realist perspective from which objects and their values are mind independent. From this perspective both objects and their moral or aesthetic worth appear as mere givens. The world from this perspective is ultimately illusory, since every being is in fact determined by every other being which it is not.

On the other hand, it is possible to view the same objects from the perspective of their ultimate grounding in the Qabalistic Zero. From this perspective—the perspective of NEMO or the Master of the Temple—objects and their properties (including whatever value or worth they may have) are not mere givens. They are necessary expressions of an underlying, absolute unity. As such, every occurrence is as necessary and as valuable to the self-production of the whole as any other.

The purpose of Thelemic soteriology (path of liberation) is to achieve the transcendental perspective of reality. It’s not to escape this universe into another one on the other side of the Abyss. Such an escape is impossible, since reality is ultimately One. Rather it is to “invert” one’s perspective on the one, shared reality. This “animadversion” does not negate suffering, impermanence, and non-substantiality. Rather, it transforms one’s perspective on those qualities so that they are clearly seen as expressions of (and identical with) bliss, stability, and self.

The Sphinx and the Gnostic Mass

Part VIII of the Gnostic Mass—Of the Mystic Marriage and Consummation of the Elements—could be viewed as the formation of the Sphinx out of the Priest and Priestess (or the elements attributed to them, if you prefer).

The Sphinx represents the elements balanced in the individual. It is a hieroglyph of the individual who has made themselves an image in matter of the divine. The divine is the Phallus, the Pyramid, or the Sun, who the balanced individual is now the “bride” of.

Crowley specifically refers the Lion and the Dragon to the Beast and the Man and the Bull to Babalon. I take this to mean that the Sphinx is the balanced woman (Libra) or the Master of the Temple. This is another reason for Crowley’s cryptic remark at the end of Liber XV that the officers of the Gnostic Mass are all “parts of the Priest.”

Alternatively, man and woman coming together, at least under certain circumstances, could be seen as creating a third, divine entity.

It also offers another way to think about the “sacrifice of life and joy”. What’s being sacrificed is the unbalanced aspects of the elements. They are being united into a coherent whole, directed by the Will of the magician, and offered up to the Bridegroom, the Sun, for erotic destruction.