Part One: Introduction Thelema includes both monistic and dualistic doctrines, and Crowley makes monistic and dualistic pronouncements throughout his writings. For our purposes, monism will mean any theory or doctrine that in some sense denies the existence of a distinction or duality in some sphere, either in fact or in thought. An example of one…
Author: Entelecheia
Why a circular Tree of Life?
Reflections on the Path in Eternity (Part 4) I came to magick via an unsual path: through my interest in the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel was not a magician. He was a late-18th/early-19th century philosopher in the idealist tradition (a branch of thought taking influence from Descartes, Berkeley, and Hume, but which…
The Khu
Reflections on the Path in Eternity (Part 3) In the last post we saw that the star or soul of each individual is composed of two parts: the Khabs and the Khu. The Khabs is the manifestation of a distinct individual within the context of Nuit. The Khabs is the “house” of Hadit—your individual point…
Reflections on the Path in Eternity (Part 2)
Another relationship I establish at the beginning of the video is between the soul (which in Thelema is called the star) and the Tree of Life of Qabalah. (I use Kabbalah when talking about the Jewish mystical tradition itself and Qabalah when talking about the interpretation of it by the Golden Dawn and Crowley.) Tree…
Reflections on the Path in Eternity (Part 1)
I was recently inspired to create an animated movie based upon my understanding of the Path in Eternity and its relation to certain magical formulae. The phrase Path in Eternity comes from a passage in Magick Without Tears where Aleister Crowley is describing the initiation rituals of the Man of Earth degree of Ordo Templi…
Being a conduit for the divine
One of the salient differences between Thelema and the Buddhism of the Pali suttas is that in Buddhism incarnation is seen as something to be overcome and abandoned, in Thelema it serves the purpose of the self-realization of a higher, divine consciousness. Thelema has that Buddhistic idea of seeing through the illusion of a separate…
Blackness in Liber 65
Debate not of the image, saying Beyond! Beyond! One mounteth unto the Crown by the moon and by the Sun, and by the arrow, and by the Foundation, and by the dark home of the stars from the black earth. (I.9) So also the light that is absorbed. One absorbs little and is called white…
Comparing Thelema with other traditions
I don’t think comparing Thelema with Tantra or Jungian psychology is a good way to illuminate or create understanding of Thelema. For example, I don’t necessarily think it adds to our understanding of Liber V vel Reguli to know that the Muladhara chakra is attributed to Ganesh; nor do I think it necessarily adds to…
The Three Feminine Principles in the Mass
Having covered the function of the three Lords in the Mass, I want to now cover the three feminine principles they’re the counterparts of. The three feminine principles are most conspicuous in the Collects. There’s the Moon in the third Collect, the Lady in the fourth, and the Earth in the sixth. Each feminine principle…
What is Lectio Divina?
Lectio Divina—Latin for “divine reading”—is a method of approaching the Thelemic Holy Books (Class A texts).