Thelema invites intellectual understanding. Aleister Crowley was a prolific writer and left us a lot to chew on.
Much of my own work has been dedicated toward bringing conceptual clarity to Crowley’s writings. Part of that work involves critiquing many of the ideas about Thelema that are currently dominant: that it is primarily a form of meta-occultism based on freedom of choice, pursuing one’s passions, or a purely subjective sense of one’s mission in life. I’ve attempted to bring forward marginalized ideas in Crowley’s thought and to put them in opposition to this “consensus” view, either to contextualize it or to refute it.
The new ways of approaching Thelema that come out of this work offer ways of engaging more deeply, not just with Thelema itself but with oneself, the world, and with other people. That’s the purpose of a spiritual or religious way of life. It’s not about the connections we draw between ideas (profound as they are) but rather the reality those symbols lead us to have contact with. It’s the ability of an interpretation to lead us to a felt sense of connection or contact that constitutes its erotic dimension and makes it feel deep and meaningful.
But more important than the conclusions themselves (which are always to some degree conditioned and provisional) is the method: skeptical doubt.
Doubting the consensus view is what allows something new to come into view in the first place. As long as Thelema is “just X” to someone—whatever the value of X, be it “doing your will,” “being your own person,” “non-duality,” “substituting one’s magical motto for Jehovah,” even “thinking for yourself” or “accomplishing the Great Work”—there’s hardly any opportunity to see beyond one’s frame and to be profoundly transformed.
Perhaps I’m not the best judge of the significance of my own work, but if there is anything original or valuable in it, my willingness to doubt is probably the 20% of work that leads to 80% of the yield. I’ve been doing this for about 10 years now. I still do not assume I know what Thelema is, who Crowley was, or what the significance of any of this is. For that reason, the thought of Aleister Crowley is still very much alive for me. The symbols of Thelema continue to afford participation with the awe, wonder, or joy that constitutes what is most real from a Thelemic perspective.
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
This chapter begins by the letter O, followed by a mark of exclamation; its reference to the theogony of “Liber Legis” is explained in the note, but it also refers to KTEIS PHALLOS and SPERMA, and is the exclamation of wonder or ecstasy, which is the ultimate nature of things.
The Book of Lies, The Chapter that is Not a Chapter
One’s beliefs about Thelema and Crowley often serve as the greatest obstacle to experiencing this sense of awe. If you figured all this out 5, 10, 20, or 30 years ago, there’s very little to wonder about.
Nor is anti-intellectualism a safeguard against this tendency. Believing Thelema is just doing your will, just doing magick, or just doing X is no less a belief than anything else. Acting as though belief does not matter is not in and of itself a guarantee that one is not falling prey to dogma. When “well it works for me” is used to deflect criticism and forestall reflection, it is no longer genuine pragmatism but a thought-terminating cliché used to protect one’s ego.
To experience awe or wonder, one must remain open. One must create a clearing in consciousness for reality to rise to the surface. Truth isn’t something that we get at or come to possess. Rather, it is something that unfolds of its own accord once we learn to stop meddling in it. The function of consciousness is not to grasp mystery but rather to create the space in which mystery may unfurl itself.
But this does not mean that consciousness is doing nothing. It actually requires a high level of self-discipline to allow the truth to unfold without interfering in it. Training oneself to refrain from imposing one’s preconceived notions or canned responses is one dimension of this self-discipline. It is aided by developing curiosity and humility.
I would like to think that the ideas I bring forward by virtue of this method are both better-supported and more compelling than their alternatives. (If they’re not, that should be fairly easy to demonstrate, as I tend to show my work almost to a fault.) But these ideas are not the end goal, either. The truth isn’t to be found in what my words refer to. The real secrets, after all, are incommunicable. You’re not going to fill your cup with them in the same way you fill your head with canned responses or even with erudite scholarship.
The point isn’t to fill your cup with something new but rather to remain empty, to remain open, to remain humble. (In OTO, we would say “to remain a Minerval,” Minerva being the goddess of wisdom.) This requires continual self-vigilance and self-purification. “Cleanliness is next to godliness and had better come first,” as Crowley says.
Eventually one realizes that the open space within oneself which is generated through this self-discipline is not what allows the truth to unfold. It is that truth itself. It is the divine nothingness—the unity that unifies nothing—within the center of one’s own being. This is what Crowley means when he says in Liber II “if thy will be God’s will, Thou art That.”
Illumination only occurs in this darkness of ignorance; it is in fact one with it. It is only in the naivety of child-like wonder that wisdom grows. But this does not mean one’s intellect should be child-like. The development of wisdom requires that one be a perpetual beginner, but to be a committed beginner requires the mental self-discipline, self-awareness, and humility of an adult.