Earlier this year I wrote a brief article where I was critical of comparing Thelema with other traditions, particularly depth psychology and Tantra. A comment I recently saw somewhere made me want to circle back on this.
I don’t actually know a whole helluva lot about Tantra. (I know enough to know that I don’t know, which is more than can be said for so many people in the Thelemic subculture, but that’s an article for another time.)
However, the impression I get from what I’ve read and practitioners I’ve spoken with is that, as compared with Thelema, it’s a better constructed, more fully articulated set of traditions. The approach to self and world seems more comprehensive, and the training seems more rigorous than what one typically finds in Thelema.
My impression is that, like much of Buddhism (and I’ve studied Theravada and Mahayana more than Vajrayana), Hindu Tantra and Buddhist Tantra are addressing a clearer set of perennial spiritual problems than Thelema. There’s a better sense of what Tantra is for.
Ask a bunch of Thelemites what the point is of being a practicing Thelemite, and you’re not actually going to get a ton of different answers. And even if you did, you’re probably not going to hear things like, “This is about breaking the grip of addiction” or “It’s addressing my sense of alienation and anxiety” or “I find myself and my peers becoming wise by following this path.” Or even something as basic as, “I find myself becoming a lot less reactive in my day-to-day life by doing these practices”—not unless they’re also learning heavily into something like mindfulness practice.
You’re going to hear much vaguer stuff about self-actualization, self-exploration, stuff in a more aesthetic register, perhaps expressions of gratitude for the community. It’s just not as clear that Thelema is taking aim at our core perennial problems.
I think this is why so many Thelemites feel drawn to these other traditions. They just seem to have their shit together in a way that Thelema doesn’t.
I’ve described numerous times in detail why I don’t like the “connect-the-dots” approach to Thelema. I’ve also explained why I think Thelemites ought to spend more time getting clearer about their own tradition before trying to compare themselves favorably with other, better organized, better articulated traditions. But I’ll add another point to this.
More importantly than getting clear about any spiritual tradition, it’s worth getting clear about what exactly a spiritual path is supposed to accomplish for a person.
In other words, you should get clearer about the perennial spiritual problems I was just mentioning.
Those don’t belong to a particular tradition. Those belong to human nature.
That kind of external yard stick is incredibly useful, because it allows you to determine whether you’re just bullshitting yourself.
Contemporary spirituality in particular can be a real clown car fiasco. People talk about being a Tantric Thelemic Shamanic Jew (or whatever) like it’s this sophisticated thing. And I’m not saying you should confront people like that or call them frauds or whatever. I don’t. But it is worth taking a step back from the Amazon dot com-like hodge-podge of spiritualities and just asking some basic questions about what the purpose of this is, what problem it’s supposed to be addressing, and what the proof is that it’s working.
For instance, if I encounter someone who is about my age or older, and they claim to be a spiritual practitioner, but they have a hard time minding their own business, they’re constantly interrupting or butting in to other conversations online to share their unsolicited “wisdom,” they seem to be getting upset to an unseemly degree by words on the screen they don’t like—in sort, they lack anything resembling emotional self-control—then to me that says their path is probably bullshit.
Sit down and think about what you want out of life and the sort of person you want to be. And then look at the people who are peddling these weird amalgamated philosophies. Do you want to be like that person? Because there’s a good chance you’ll end up that way.
It’s easy to talk up how liberated and free you are. If that’s all that was required to actually be free, we’d all be there by now.
So instead of being enchanted by the clever ways in which people connect this concept from this tradition with that concept from that tradition, and this chakra over here to this gesture over there, and this symbol here to that spiritual practice there—take a step back.
And I’m not saying that the only valid way is to submit exclusively to some particular tradition. I’m not a Buddhist for a reason.
And I’m not saying we can’t take things out of traditions and apply them in new contexts. In fact I think we have to, because the metaphysics of those traditions are often just supernatural nonsense that no one even can believe anymore.
But try to be principled—by which I mean, take a step back, think about what kind of person it is worth growing into, and think about the actual problems that are in the way of that.
You have one life. No one is going to be on their death bed thinking, “I really wish I had figured out why Crowley mentioned Shiva in that one context.” Don’t waste your time trying to be clever. Think critically about what would have to be in place for your life to feel full of depth of meaning, so that you die knowing that at least you fully lived.