Occasionally I receive comments or DMs asking me about the relationships between Thelema and other traditions, especially eastern traditions such as Daoism, Esoteric Buddhism, or Advaita Vedanta. While I myself have pointed out such parallels and find them interesting to explore, I also tend to hold them at arm’s length, both because of their negative impact on individuals attempting to understand Thelema and because of the negative effects I see these comparisons sometimes have on our communities.
Why We Compare in the First Place
There are often interesting parallels to be found between Thelema and these other traditions. Some of it is by design. Crowley was interested in eastern mysticism and himself drew parallels between Thelema and Daoism. He also apparently believed his own system of spiritual attainment included and surpassed the attainments of Theravada Buddhism. And while any direct influence from esoteric Buddhism (“Tantra”) is questionable, there are no doubt many interesting parallels between the metaphysics and soteriology of Thelema and Tantra.
If someone is approaching Thelema, their prior familiarity with these other traditions can offer them a toehold for the exploration of Thelema. In my own case, my background in Theravada Buddhism and western philosophy gave me that leg up. But if you want to develop a deep understanding of Thelema, its theory, and its methods, at some point you need to stop attempting to reason about it by analogy with other traditions and surrender to what is unique in it. If there is anything of interest in my own writings, it is because I have done my best to understand Crowley on his own terms and then have reasoned linearly—not by analogy—from those first principles, outward into new territory.
Inspiration for finding these parallels is to be found in Crowley himself. Crowley came at the tail-end of the western occult tradition, which for 400 years sought to rediscover or found a universal religion or Ur-tradition that would be normative for all men and women of reason. Since many if not most of these traditions outwardly teach doctrines and practices that are opposed to one another, the “Truth” uniting them must be highly abstract. Thus, Crowley described the ultimate Truth as subject-object transcendence, which he equated both with the samadhi of eastern tradition and the union with God of the west.
Contemporary spiritual-but-not-religious (SBNR) perspective is the legacy of this occult tradition. Yet it tends to locate this “Truth” in something that completely transcends description or language and which is better accessed through intuition or feeling. It has thus dropped the program of founding an outer religious tradition in favor of purely inward experience.
Cross-cultural comparisons between traditions are not entirely without merit. For example, Gregory Shaw recently wrote a book comparing Neoplatonic theurgy and Tantra. I haven’t read the book, although I did read an earlier article of his on the same subject, and I thought it was very interesting. But Shaw has studied the Neoplatonic philosophers for probably the last 40 years. He lives and breathes that perspective. He’s able to think so fluidly within that paradigm that he can probably draw out inferences that Plotinus and Iamblichus themselves never wrote down or perhaps never even thought.
But one can only ever develop those kinds of insights by surrendering to another perspective. If Gregory Shaw had spent the last 40 years thinking about Iamblichus only by analogy with the teachings of Abhinavagupta, he would have no mastery of either Neoplatonic theurgy or Shaivite Tantra. He would be a dilettante. His books and articles would be taken seriously by occultists but never by academics. And if he had taken that approach, we wouldn’t know anything at all about the autochthonous spiritual tradition behind Neoplatonic philosophy.
How Consensus Thelema Keeps Us Weak and Vulnerable
When we engage with Crowley constantly with an eye on other traditions, we end up with the same kind of shallow understanding of Thelema. Except in the case of Thelema, it’s even worse, because the most popular understanding of Thelema is that it is at essence nothing more than dilettantism. This is what I have criticized as Consensus Thelema. It stems from Consensus Thelema’s idea of true will, which is a purely subjective, mystical “mission” or “purpose”. Thus even if one does not know what one’s true will is, they can be sure it cannot be what some priest, guru, or “expert” thinks it is. (Contrast with Crowley’s own understanding of true will as explained in The Scientific Solution of the Problem of Government.) This is where we get the phenomenon of mixing and matching between incompatible traditions, where (for example) people think they are a Thelemic Buddhist or a Thelemite and an observant Jew.
If one were to submit wholeheartedly to any one of these traditions, they would find them to be highly demanding. For instance, to submit to the Noble Eightfold Path would immediately require one to change how they do a great many things, to say nothing of the demands required to achieve its higher spiritual attainments. If one’s desire is to master rather than dabble, the time and energy demands are too high to involve oneself with more than one tradition. The attempt would also inevitably lead one into contradiction, since even when there are parallels in worldview, there are also often subtle differences which have large, significant implications.
This point can be endlessly obscured. It can be hidden behind a farrago of jargon about “doing one’s will” and “following one’s intuition”. But at the end of the day, it can only ever produce the lower pleasures of dilettantism and distraction and never the joys of mastery.
This tendency to reason by analogy and mix and match in lifestyle and practice has prevented Thelema becoming a tradition in its own right. Traditions produce knowledge (both theoretical and practical) within a community capable of evaluating its legitimacy. Through a complex process of development and rupture, traditions over time form sects.
A spiritual milieu predicated on everyone believing and doing whatever they feel like isn’t a tradition. It’s a lifestyle ornament. This seemingly never-ending impulse people have to “relate” Thelema to more developed eastern schools is a symptom of the rootlessness of Thelema. It’s like a person seeking their sense of self in a romantic partner. It only serves to reinforce one’s delusion and incapacity.
In other words, cross-cultural dialogue is only possible when you have a culture in the first place, which Thelema does not.
Constantly trying to understand Thelema by reference to non-Thelemic spiritual traditions prevents individual mastery, but as a cultural phenomenon, it also keeps our communities weak and susceptible to being preyed upon by ill-intentioned actors.
It’s not uncommon for individuals to arrive in Thelemic communities, showing off their knowledge of other traditions (usually eastern traditions), claiming this gives them special insights and even spiritual attainments in the system developed by Aleister Crowley. In fact if these individuals had the mastery they claim, they would be recognized in those traditions and would have no use for Thelema or its community. Instead they’re entering these communities precisely because of their rootlessness and murky identity—in exactly the same way a predatory narcissist picks a partner with a weak sense of self to exploit.
Why This Approach is “Evil”
If there is one thing all spiritual traditions have in common, it’s that they require their adherents to actually walk their paths. Simply reading the Quran doesn’t make you a Muslim. And if you want to experience the kinds of transformations of consciousness described in esoteric spiritual texts, you have to submit yourself—exclusively—to a worldview and a discipline of intensive practice. This is no less true of Thelema than any other spiritual tradition.
This idea of submission often rubs spiritual-but-not-religious people the wrong way, especially when they hold individual choice and self-expression as their highest ideals. They regard the expectation of obedience to the Prophet and his teachings as an afront to their individual freedom. They regard the Book of the Law’s denunciation of other religions as suggestive or optional, or for the pseudo-sophisticated, a mere metaphor for some unspecified esoteric “truth”. They prefer instead to see Thelema as a Mr. Potato Head of religion where we all believe and do what suits our ineffable, mysterious “true selves”.
But this is not true freedom. It is sham freedom. It is slavery in the disguise of freedom, and dispersion in the guise of unity. It is worship of Da’ath as the Crown and Choronzon as the Holy One. From Crowley’s perspective it is evil. It also undermines Thelemic community, leaving it weak and vulnerable to bad actors.
Conclusion
For these reasons, I believe Thelemites should hold these cross-cultural comparisons carefully. Even when Crowley himself suggests them, we should still treat them with care, recognizing Crowley’s own sense of self and spiritual self-discipline was probably firmer than most Thelemites’ today. Instead, we should focus our effort and attention on coming to terms with Crowley’s original insights, developing as coherent a view as possible, and only then, from that secure base, entering into dialogue with other traditions.