Central to my interpretation of Thelema is the idea of dynamical systems.
The individual human being at any moment has to be understood as the result of the interaction between two equal and opposite principles: Hadit and Nuit.
Hadit is the divine within which strives for contact with Nuit, the divine without. The purpose of the body is to affect that contact, utilizing the artifices of space, time, and causation. Each moment offers us the opportunity to enhance that contact or to frustrate it.
The ideal of the maximum of contact is Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the personification of love under will or magick.
Basically Thelema is Darwinism applied to the individual rather than the species.
It’s a simple approach—and well-supported by Crowley’s own interpretation and implementation of Thelema—and it’s a non-reductionistic approach. It addresses the development of the entire being of the individual—their body, their mind, their emotions, their soul—and it is capable of explaining the necessity of Thelemic ethics, magick, and meditation. Compare with Consensus Thelema, where none of the spiritual practices are necessary. Or compare with IAO131’s interpretation which tends to prioritize the attainment of non-dual awareness to the point of rendering astral travel, spirit communication, and other aspects of occultism inessential to liberation at best, distractions and obstacles at worst.
If you want to know more about this particular framing, I cover it in detail in the first chapter of my book.
I was reminded of the importance of this concept of dynamical development recently while reading chapter 21 of Magick in Theory and Practice on the subject of the four powers of the sphinx and the mastery of the body of light.
But there is one general principle which seems worthy of special emphasis in this place. These four powers are thus complex because they are the powers of this Sphinx; that is, they are functions of a single organism.
Now those who understand the growth of organisms are aware that evolution depends on adaptation to environment. If an animal which cannot swim is occasionally thrown into water, it may escape by some piece of good fortune, but if it is thrown into water continuously it will drown sooner or later unless it learns to swim.
Organisms being to a certain extent elastic, they soon adapt themselves to a new environment, provided that the change is not so sudden as to destroy that elasticity.
MITAP, ch xxi
Notice the emphasis here on the priority of the organism as a whole. Compare this with section A.3 of Duty: “Develop in due harmony and proportion every faculty which you possess.” Also compare with the task of a Probationer: “to obtain a scientific knowledge of the nature and powers of my own being.”
The elements of the cosmos (per the Introduction to the BOTL) may be Nuit and Hadit, but the smallest unit is the individual star or soul itself. That soul must necessarily incarnate to know itself and its universe (NC on AL I.3). This makes working with the complexities and the contingencies of the body-mind system to incarnate the divine as fully as possible the centerpiece of Thelemic spiritual praxis.
After describing how this principle can be applied to physical and mental development, Crowley goes on to apply it to esoteric spiritual practices. Speaking of meditation he says:
There may come a time when samadhi itself is no part of the business of the Mystic. But the character developed by the original training remains an asset. In other words, the person who has made himself a first-class brain capable of elasticity is competent to attack any problem soever, when he who has merely specialized has got into a groove, and can no longer adapt and adjust himself to new conditions […] This technique of yoga is the most important detail of all our work. The Master Therion has been himself somewhat to blame in representing this technique as of value simply because it leads to the great rewards, such as samadhi. He would have been wiser to base his teaching solely on the ground of evolution.
Ibid
The attainment of samadhi is essential to the Thelemic spiritual path, but not because it is a good in itself. Its goodness derives from its usefulness in the development (the evolution, as Crowley says) of the whole being.
Darwinism was the most advanced dynamical systems theory available at the time. It’s interesting to imagine what Crowley would have thought of later developments in dynamical systems theory such as emergentism.
Crowley then goes on to apply the same principle to magick, the essential technique of which is the development of the body of light:
The object is to possess a body which is capable of doing easily any particular task that may lie before it. There must be no selection of a special experience which appeals to one’s immediate desire. One must go steadily through all the possible pylons.
Ibid.
Then in the footnote he says:
The aspirant should remember that he is a microcosm. “Universus sum et Nihil universi a me alienum puto” [Lat., “I am the universe and I think nothing in the universe foreign to me”] should be his motto.
Ibid
And this is why the aspirant should travel in the body of light to all the paths and sephiroth of the Tree of Life. This way of uniting oneself with one’s universe piecemeal is piecemeal complement to the way in which one unites with their universe ideally all at once in the experience of samadhi.
The holistic development of the physical organism is carried over into the holistic development of the spiritual organism. The goal of this development is union of the body with the soul—the spiritual Sun—through the application of the four powers of the sphinx.
And the Eagle is that Might of Love which is the Key of Magick, uplifting the Body and its Appurtenance unto high Ecstacy upon his Wings. It is by Virtue thereof that the Sphinx beholdeth the Sun unwinking, and confronteth the Pyramid without Shame.
Liber Aleph, sec 157
Now then his Sphinx, being perfect in true Balance, yet taketh the Aspect of the Feminine Principle that so She may be partner of the Pyramid, that is the Phallus, pure Image of Our Father the Sun, the Unity Creative. The Signification of this Mystery is that the Adept must be Whole, Himself, containing all Things in true Proportion, before he maketh himself Bride of the One Universal Transcendental, in its most Secret Virtue.
Ibid, sec 152
Again we see the importance of the development of the powers of the individual in proportion so as to express him or herself as a whole. This organic whole of the body-mind is complemented by the transcendent wholeness of the pyramid. The pyramid is the instrument of resurrection unto the Light—that through which we come to know ourselves as immortal.
Summarizing the discussion in MITAP he says:
There is no object whatever worthy of attainment but the regular development of the being of the Aspirant by steady scientific work; he should not attempt to run before he can walk; he should not wish to go somewhere until he knows for certain whither he wills to go.
MITAP, ch xxi
The axis around which spiritual practice turns is the being of the aspirant, understood from the perspective of its development—its change across time or even across many incarnations. The will of the aspirant is the intelligible aspect of that being. It’s the part of ourselves we can come to know and to work in conformity with—or live in ignorance of and work against to our own demise. This is as true in daily life as it is in the realm of esoteric spiritual practice.