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:
- 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.
- So despite appearances, each moment is joyful or blissful. Dukkha is not the preeminent reality; ananda is.
- If one fails to perceive this, the fault lies with the individual who is misperceiving things, not with reality itself.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
- Get our act together and “be Hadit” and “be kings,” or
- 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).