What is Thelema?

Thelema is a religion founded in 1904 by the English poet and mystic, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), who is regarded as its prophet. Those who follow the path of Thelema are called Thelemites.1

Thelema (Θελημα) is a Greek word for will, and the essential teaching of Thelema is “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” Of this teaching Crowley said,

“Do what thou wilt…” is to bid Stars to shine, Vines to bear grapes, Water to seek its level; man is the only being in Nature that has striven to set himself at odds with himself.2

From this we may infer that the essential teaching of Thelema is that each person ought to live in accordance with nature as expressed through their individual being. In this respect, Thelema is similar to Stoicism, Buddhism, or other religions which teach us to live according to the laws set by nature rather than God or human beings. Yet the Thelemic view of the universe according to Crowley differs in fundamental respects from what is taught in other religions and philosophies.

“Had! The manifestation of Nuit. The unveiling of the company of heaven.” (AL I.1-2)3

The foundation of Thelema is Liber AL vel Legis, which is Latin for Book AL or the Book of the Law.4

The Book of the Law was dictated to Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in 1904 by a spiritual being that called itself Aiwass. This book declared a new age for humanity, the Aeon of the Child, and proclaimed a new law for the conduct of all human beings: Do what thou wilt.

The universe described by the Book of the Law consists in two irreducible entities or concepts: the totality of possibilities of all kind, and any point of view on those possibilities. The first is symbolized by the Egyptian sky goddess, Nuit, and the second is represented by the Egyptian sun god, Hadit.5

“Every man and every woman is a star.” (AL I.3)

Experience arises when Hadit (the self of each individual) unites with some possibility inherent in Nuit (the spatiotemporal universe). Each person is “an aggregate of such experiences, constantly changing with each fresh event” or a star.6

Crowley describes each individual star or consciousness as an absolute monad: simple, utterly indestructible, as well as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. These are characteristics usually attributed to God, and indeed, Crowley taught that each star was the center and origin of its own universe.7

“For I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union.” (AL I.29)

Throughout our lives, and even throughout the course of a day, many events occur that imply oppositions or dualities. We experience pleasant versus unpleasant sensations, sorrowful versus happy occurrences, success versus failure in our endeavors, cruelty versus kindness in our actions, self versus world, self versus others, and many more. But the universe appears to us this way, because it is only by means of opposition that our Hadit or god-self can have experience and learn about itself. While each of us encounters constant opposition from the world and others, this opposition is both necessary and willed.8 From this, the supreme teaching of Thelema follows:9

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” (AL I.40)

Crowley speaks of the will in two basic senses. On the one hand, each person has to discover for themselves what their purpose in life is. This could involve discovering which particular career or form of service suits your personality best and dedicating yourself wholeheartedly to it.10 It also means being free to express one’s individuality artistically and sexually, to work and to play as suits one’s own nature, and even to move across the face of the earth without interference from others.11 Crowley calls this the finite will or your will in the context of this life.12

Then there is your will in eternity or your infinite will, which is the will of Hadit—your true self—to explore every possibility available to itself, even across many incarnations. Crowley calls this the Great Work or the union of Hadit with Nuit.13

These need not be seen as two separate wills but rather two perspectives on the same will: the will seen from the perspective of this incarnation, where each moment presents us with the choice between doing our will versus not doing it, and the perspective of eternity, wherein every occurrence accords with our will, because every moment is necessary and perfect in and of itself.14

“Love is the law, love under will.” (AL I.57)

Every event whatsoever is an act of love, as each consists in the uniting of Hadit or the divine self of each individual with a possibility inherent in Nuit.15 While it is technically impossible not to do your will (seen from the infinite perspective), it is possible (from the finite perspective) to desire not to do your will, and from this arises suffering.16 It is therefore up to each of us to discover for ourselves what our true will is and to accept and desire to fulfill it rather than thwart it. Crowley calls the methods for achieving this magick.17

“Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains.” (AL II.9)

Since all events are acts of love under will, it follows that, at its very foundation, existence is joyful. Sorrow arises when we think of any two things as opposed to one another. Some one event pleases us so we call it “good,” and another is unpleasant so we call it “bad”. But they are all fundamentally “good,” because they are all the effect of Hadit loving Nuit, which itself is the natural result of each of us doing our will.18 This love of Hadit for Nuit eventually culminates in the union between the two which occurs at death, and therefore “death is the crown of all.”19

While there is more to Thelema than what is presented here, the rest are largely implications or practices intended to achieve these ideals. For further information, the reader is encouraged to explore the resources footnoted in this section.

1 https://oto-usa.org/thelema/
2 “Notes for an Astral Atlas,” in Magick in Theory and Practice (MITAP), Appendix III.
3 Chapters and verses of the Book of the Law are notated AL Chapter.Verse
4 AL is a Hebrew name for God.
5 Introduction to The Book of the Law (Intro).
6 Intro.
7 Intro and New Comment (NC) on AL I.3.
8 NC to AL I.29.
9 NC on AL I.3
10 MITAP (Introduction) and Liber CL (Section I).
11 Liber LXXVII.
12 Liber CL (Section I).
13 Ibid.
14 Intro.
15 Ibid.
16 NC on AL 1.51 and Liber CL.
17 Intro.
18 Djeridensis Comment on AL II.9.
19 NC on AL II.72.

References

Four of wands from the Thoth deck

Four Thelemic Noble Truths

Four of wands from the Thoth deck

  1. Now, this is joy. It is a preeminent reality. Coming into being is joyful. Enduring is joyful. Passing out of being is joyful.
  2. This is the origination of joy. It is a preeminent reality. It is this love of Nuit that leads to further being, accompanied by passion and delight, seeking pleasure here and there. It is, namely, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for being, and craving for non-being. Every day is the seventh day of creation.
  3. This is the invigoration of joy. It is a preeminent reality. It is the complete dissolution and cessation of precisely that desire that things be other than as they are, for each moment is, in truth, joy.
  4. This is the way leading to the cessation of desire that things are other than as they are. It is a preeminent reality. It is the preeminent course, namely, the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel and the crossing of the abyss.
Image of a homeless person seeking kindness.

The argument against compassion

Image of a homeless person seeking kindness.

Please Note: It is up to each individual to decide this question (and all questions regarding Liber AL vel Legis) for themselves by appeal to Crowley’s writings (or however they see fit).

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Crowley’s condemnation of compassion. This condemnation is in the Book of the Law itself (AL II.18-21), and Crowley himself elaborates on it in many places. Here are just two examples:

Compassion, the noblest virtue of the Buddhist, is damned outright by Aiwass. To “suffer with” some other being is clearly to cease to be oneself, to wander from one’s Way. It always implies error, no Point-of-View being the same as any other: and in Kings—leaders and rulers of men—such error is a vice. For it leads straight to the most foolish Rule ever laid down, “Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.” (Djenerensis Comment to AL II.21)

And:

Of what use is it to perpetuate the misery of Tuberculosis, and such diseases, as we now do? Nature’s way is to weed out the weak … We must therefore go back to Spartan ideas of education; and the worst enemies of humanity are those who wish, under the pretext of compassion, to continue its ills through the generations … Let weak and wry productions go back into the melting-pot, as is done with flawed steel castings. Death will purge, reincarnation make whole, these errors and abortions. Nature herself may be trusted to do this, if only we will leave her alone. (New Comment on AL II.21)

But the condemnation of compassion does not necessarily entail indifference toward the distress of others:

Pity, sympathy and like emotions are fundamentally insults to the Godhead of the person exciting them, and therefore also to your own. The distress of another may be relieved; but always with the positive and noble idea of making manifest the perfection of the Universe. Pity is the source of every mean, ignoble, cowardly vice; and the essential blasphemy against Truth. (“Duty”)

In other words, acts of kindness are permissible if they are carried out for reasons other than pity. It’s not the effect that is condemned but the passion that could motivate it.

Of course one can cavil endlessly over what words mean, but these statements do not strike me as any more ambiguous than statements Crowley makes on subjects such as individual liberty and sexual freedom that many Thelemites take for granted.

The condemnation of compassion is not a standalone claim, something merely tacked on as an afterthought to Thelema. Crowley presented an argument against compassion that proceeds from premises accepted by many Thelemites, viz., love under will and the joyous nature of existence:

(1) “All Events are Acts of Love Under Will.” (DC on AL II.9)

(2) “[Therefore] Hadit now sayeth to all that they should be mindful of the Nature of that which exists; it is pure joy” (Ibid)

(3) “The highest are those who have mastered and transcended accidental environment. They rejoice, because they do their Will; and if any man sorrow, it is clear evidence of something wrong with him.” (NC on AL II.19)

(4) “[Those who suffer] had better “die in their misery”; that is, cease once and for all to react so feebly and wrongly as they do: for such a Point-of-View as they shew forth is not to be endured. It is not truly Hadit at all; not any one Point, but a shifting fulcrum: let it be no more counted among True Things.” (DC on AL II.21)

The argument is a little obscure between (2) and (3). A generous reconstruction might be:

  1. Any change from one thing into another is willed on the part of Hadit. But this is the same thing as Hadit once again loving Nuit, thereby dissolving the previous moment into ecstacy.
  2. So despite appearances, each moment is joyful or blissful. Dukkha is not the preeminent reality; ananda is.
  3. If one fails to perceive this, the fault lies with the individual who is misperceiving things, not with reality itself.
  4. Therefore, don’t feel sorry for the person who is miserable. They’re doing it to themselves.

Leaving aside whether the argument is sound, it is simple and clear enough to understand. That being the case, these seem to be the possible responses to it:

(1) There’s something wrong in AC’s argument here, either the premise or the inferences connecting the premise to the conclusion.

  1. Since the premise is love under will—in other words, a part of Thelema many Thelemites agree is its essence—then if the problem is with the premise, Thelema (at least as many Thelemites seem to understand it) is nonsense. One should probably not be a Thelemite.
  2. If it’s the inferences, then the condemnation of compassion in Liber AL is not what AC thought it was. This challenges the notion, oft repeated by AC himself, that he was in a unique, privileged position to interpret the BotL. (Crowley also denied he was able to exhaust the meaning of the book by means of his own analysis.) It also challenges at least the literal interpretation of The Comment, a Class A text, which O.T.O. policy and the behavior of a lot of Thelemites is based on.
  3. The premise (also) does not mean what AC thought it meant. This leads to the consequences of 1(b) and the additional consequence that there is no reason to agree on what the essence of Thelema even is. Some would undoubtedly celebrate this result.

(2) Both the premises and the inferences are correct. The problem is with those of us who still “suffer with others”. We’re not living in accordance with nature. We can either:

  1. Get our act together and “be Hadit” and “be kings,” or
  2. Choose not to. We’re always free to do that. Aiwass’ word for such people is “slaves”.

(3) Both the premises and the conclusion are correct, but one will just not be consistent on this point. Most followers of most religions aren’t consistent, and cognitive dissonance isn’t exactly rare, so this wouldn’t be anything new. Depending on how they interpret AL II.32, one might choose to fall back on Aiwass’ condemnation of reason.

While I present (2b) and (3) as separate, I think they’re effectively the same. In other words, I think being inconsistent on this particular point is just what AC (and for that matter Aiwass) meant by being a slave.

Another possibility is that there is no good reason to condemn compassion, but you had better do it anyway, because Aiwass commands it.

You disagree with Aiwass—so do all of us.  The trouble is that He can say: “But I’m not arguing; I’m telling you.” (Magick Without Tears, XLVIII)

But I am assuming for the sake of discussion that there is an argument in favor of the position. Crowley seems to agree, otherwise he wouldn’t have presented the argument in the first place.

While I consider it of service to others to show what Crowley said about this issue, why he said what he said, what I perceive to be possible responses to this issue, and what I perceive to be the likely consequences of those responses, I have made an effort not to tell anyone what the best response is. If it appears as though I have attempted to tell anyone what they should do, then that is the result of accident rather than design. It is ultimately up to each individual to decide this question (and all questions regarding Liber AL vel Legis) for themselves by appeal to Crowley’s writings (or however they see fit).

2 of disks from the Thoth deck

Change and Stability

2 of disks from the Thoth deckHadit’s raison d’être is to explore itself through the artifice of duality. According to the commentaries, this is why the nature of existence is pure joy, and why the character of all change is love. The cardinal sin is to take the presentation of duality as a restriction of my will rather than a vehicle for the exploration of it. For example, we prefer this change and call it good, we dislike that change and call it bad, or we find that change too slow so we call it boring. Yet to understand the universe perfectly and to resist its pressures constitute the virtues of a Master of the Temple. This is analogous to the arahant overcoming greed, hatred, and delusion. But the motivation here is not the cessation of all change (as of parinibbāna) but rather the enjoyment of all change for its own sake, action directed solely unto Nuit, each moment without lust of result. One might think of it on analogy with inertial change of position—which is experimentally indistinguishable from rest.

Orange reflecting glass

On the relation between the finite will and the infinite will

Orange reflecting glassIt’s in the nature of the human mind to always be in the process of bringing about some new state of affairs. There is a general, indeterminate desire to live, to be, to become, that exists outside of conscious choice. You can call it “conatus” as Spinoza did, “fabrication” as the Buddha did, or “true will” as Crowley did, but I think they’re pointing at the same basic phenomenon. This is why, even though so many people have noticed that life is miserable and full of suffering, suicide is (relatively) rare. Even a person who kills themselves out of despair is operating under the illusion that doing so will bring about a state of affairs better than the one they currently occupy.

But the will does not operate in a vacuum. It operates in a body, through a nervous system, in a context established by genetics and environment. So when we look upon ourselves, we never find ourselves just doing nothing at all. It’s always under some description. We’re usually desiring something at the moment.

(The exceptions—like ennui or angst—are interesting. I don’t know if anyone has ever tried giving a Thelemic interpretation of those experiences.)

“This will (as such) is not conscious. We can only become aware of it, and thus enjoy and learn from the Event, by making an Image of it. Reason is the machine whose function it is to do this.” (Djeridensis Comment on AL II.28-31)

Will informs the Ruach in two senses. Will is the content given to the Ruach, and then the latter must make sense of the former, turning it into concrete programs of action. And then in a deeper sense, the Ruach itself is willed, i.e., it is an expression of true will (as any occurrence of life is). This means that the discovery of one’s true will—or more accurately, the understanding of the operation of true will in one’s own life—requires self-reflection and self-consciousness.

Now when the Ruach reflects itself and attempts to form a concept of this true will, from a certain perspective, it has to fail. For one thing, the very act of reflecting is itself willed and not adequately captured in the reflection. For another, if you’re looking for a representation of the true will, you’ll never produce it, because the true will is infinite. But you can form an idea of it, and that idea consists in what one ideally wants.

There are two senses of this concept. In one sense, you’re thinking about who you would like to be. This is the aspirational concept of will, what Crowley bashes as the “higher self” concept. But there’s another way to use the concept, and that’s in a descriptive capacity. You look at what you actually do and generalize a statement or a word from it. This is hard to accomplish, because we’re not set up to be objective about ourselves. But if you work with another person, you might be able to distill this operation of will in the context of your life—your reason for existing, so to speak—into a statement. And then you can use that statement to help filter your choices in life.

For the individual formulating it, such a statement must, to use Plato’s words, be a moving image of eternity. It has to give a sense or a feeling in the here and now of the basic urge of Hadit toward Nuit, which is beyond all concepts. But it also has to get at that dimension of finite action that strives for the indeterminate. In order to serve this function, it must be (a) actionable but (b) not aimed toward any particular thing like a set of steak knives or a Cadillac El Dorado. It’s a gift you are naturally bringing which has the power to transform the world.

So for example, my own statement along these lines is, “To guard against what is arbitrary so that the true light may shine forth.” At a deep level, I want and have always wanted to live in a world where things and people are free to show themselves exactly as they are, where they are released to themselves to be themselves. But there are many ways to bring this about. The characteristic way I do this is by clearing away what is arbitrary and keeping it at bay. Sometimes this comes out as listening carefully and not judging; other times it comes out as irreverence toward the sedimented layers of custom. But I do it naturally, basically without thinking, thus fulfilling the Thelemic idea of the relationship between the will and reason:

When reason usurps the higher functions of the mind, when it presumes to dictate to the Will what its desires ought to be, it wrecks the entire structure of the star. The Self should set the Will in motion, that is, the Will should only take its orders from within and above. It should not be conscious at all.  (Ibid.)

So my claim is that, in the context of this nervous system, in the context of what we conventionally call “Frater Entelecheia,” this is how infinite will operates. This is how the impersonal pulse of life manifests as a particular person. It takes a different form in other bodies, for other lives, on other planets, etc.

Technically speaking, the world could change such that things and people were always showing themselves for what they are. But it’s not feasible. So in effect, the statement describes an infinite task, a never-ending project which is nevertheless enjoyable, and so it functions as a moving image of eternity, which again, gives an adequate feeling (at least) of the interaction of Hadit and Nuit.

So in a nutshell, that’s how I imagine the philosophical or mystical dimension of Thelema linking up with the practical dimension. If you have no interest in things like Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, but you wanted to know how the concept of true will could help inform your life, this is sort of the stereo manual version of that.

Though it’s worth pointing out, in conclusion, that the two things are not disconnected, either:

“Far better, let him assume this Law to be the Universal Key to every problem of Life, and then apply it to one particular case after another. As he comes by degrees to understand it, he will be astounded at the simplification of the most obscure questions which it furnishes. Thus he will assimilate the Law, and make it the norm of his conscious being; this by itself will suffice to initiate him, to dissolve his complexes, to unveil himself to himself; and so shall he attain the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel.” (New Comment on AL III.60)

For more on the process of formulating a statement of your finite true will, see my article on Thelemic Union about individual why discovery.