Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Now we celebrate 121^st anniversary of reception of the Book of the Law, central scripture of Thelema. I was thinking about what could be added to that story to generate any value to the reader. As always, I need to follow inspiration 😊 This will be short reflection on revelation, Thelema and its place.

Thelema as a religion

There seem to be a lot of conflicts and inconsistencies in the Thelemic community regarding the nature of Thelema, Prophet, Aleister Crowley and other elements that could build specific Thelemic identity for the user of that ideologic system.

As you see, I used term user, while I should just name it “believer”, “follower” or “practitioner” just like in any other religions. But for some reason many people calling themselves Thelemites would consider it being an insult. Why does it happen?

Many Thelemites seem to have objections on calling Thelema religion. Why? Probably because it is badly associated with other religions they run away from. In most, if not 100% cases, Thelema is religion that is chosen at some point in life, not something we are born in.

Aleister Crowley in Magick Without Tears does not help the reader. When asked “Would you describe your system as a new religion?”, he starts his babbling about definition of the religion taken from etymological reasoning and then starts to opposing it to “science” and “magic” after Frazer. Concluding:

To sum up, our system is a religion just so far as a religion means an enthusiastic putting-together of a series of doctrines, no one of which must in any way clash with Science or Magick.

Call it a new religion, then, if it so please your Gracious Majesty; but I confess that I fail to see what you will have gained by so doing, and I feel bound to add that you might easily cause a great deal of misunderstanding, and work a rather stupid kind of mischief.
The word does not occur in The Book of the Law.

Like not being present in The Book of the Law was an argument, 99% of dictionary words don’t occur there. I know that the state of the “knowledge” or better word – “discourse” was different back then, but there is no good reason to repeat it now, apart from some kind of strange fetishism.

What is lo… religion?

My short adventure in studies of religion shown that still there is a problem of definition of religion. “Specialists” cannot agree on single one. More practical researchers accept partial definitions or those based on family likeness. Let’s skip the absurd of discussing the name of the whole field of the studies in the first place…

Back to family likeness definition. Are there any counter intuitive agents in Thelema? A lot! Aiwass, Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, bunch of Secret Chiefs and astral wizards. Are there rituals? Checked! Are there holy scriptures. Checked! Are there priests, prophets, messiah figures? Sure they are. So why believers have still problem with that? As you may see, Thelema and historical figures related to it are research objects in works of the field of religion studies.

Opposition of religion vs science vs magic is practically non-existent right now. Religion opposed to magic was just conflict of “developed religion” (that is Christianity at some point in time) and “primitive religion” as a tool of supremacy and colonialism. Same, religion vs. science conflict suggested that science is supreme system, while religion is something of old times, not adequate and will vanish.

In practice those fields are completely separate. Ideological projects of destroying or hiding religion have failed. Religion is just getting more invisible. While large institutions are experiencing decline, there is a lot of individual spirituality going on and apart from commercialization of the spirituality, there are a lot of new religious movements, like Thelema.

Was Thelema invented?

Probably you might think that Thelema is something invented, but it seems there is no reason consider it invented religion. Aleister Crowley had his problems, but as far as I know, there is no entry in his diary or any part of this works, where he stated that he is doing it for money, chicks and fame. He used traditional methods of legitimization. Although, he tried to force followers to fund the Great Work, that is, his expenses.

His position towards revelation was not simple and changed in time. He was sceptical, probably also overthinking. Yet, for some reason he put much weight on events taking part in Cairo at 8^th, 9^th and 10^th April 1904 ev. I really cannot imagine lying for decades and trying to build something on lie. Even if events didn’t take place exactly as he remembered it. If someone is sure about memories of events taking place years ago, including usage of magic and probably sex and drugs, let him throw the stone first!

There are entries in the diary before and after, but not during that time, strange coincidence, but if you have an experience in writing a diary, you might notice that in time of intense work there is usually no time for that, like there is some kind of self-censorship going on, where break in the diary is silent witness of the events. Three decades have passed before account of the reception of Liber Legis.

Chain of events

On the other hand it would be naïve to think that Cairo working was not planned or is not an effect of self-fulfilling prophecy in some degree, as it seemed to be consequence of whole Prophet’s lifetime to that point. Any brick missing would alter the results. Below chronology of Crowley’s magical career reproduced in preface written by Grady Louis McMurtry to “θέλημα. The Holy Books of Thelema” for the reference:

As we can see Crowley followed the grading system of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, even after leadership crisis and collapse of the order. Egypt Revelation was an element of forging the link to the Secret Chiefs and gaining legitimization to create new order. That happened three years later, when Aleister Crowley and George Cecil Jones formulated outer college of the A∴A∴ after another series of revelations constituting Thelemic scriptures.

As margin note the “Book of Results” from OS 27 (Yorke Collection Papers) might suggest, that started before the Book of the Law revelation:

7°=4^□ is a grade of Adeptus Exemptus, which forges the links to the Secret Chiefs.

When looking at diaries from that time you may notice that many keywords appearing in the Book of the Law are already there, before revelation happened. Like “all rituals are being abrogated”. Or:

Although received text switches hands 😊

Around that time, there is further communication with Aiwass which resulted in writing drafts of the initiation rituals that in changed form appeared in outer order of A∴A∴. Also instruction to publish GD papers.

Everything comes from the void after all

It is obvious that various passages from the Book of the Law are synthesis of Prophet’s past experiences. Whole thing seems to have Tarot related structure, which can noticed when looking at certain keywords and manuscript paging. There are whole concepts from the books, like Thelemites and their motto from “Gargantua and Pantagruel” by Rabelais. Crowley’s earlier revelations about ABRAHADABRA word. Even modified Buddhist koan about dog and Buddha nature.

It does not however mean that revelation was not authentic experience. “Aleister Crowley in India” by Tobias Churton, on the page 202, mentions even the possible mechanism of hearing voice. Crowley himself mentions that in Ceylon he got the lesion on the tongue that somehow affected his  brain’s sensory apparatus. That thought appeared twenty years later in his diary.

As a side note, I wish aspiring authorities and leaders would take to heart the reflection of the monk from “Gargantua and Pantagruel”, which was impulse in creating his anti-monastic abbey:

 How can I govern others when I cannot govern myself?

Just do it

Does it all even should matter for practitioners of Thelema?

As for me, it shouldn’t. The revelation of the books already happened and they were made the holy scriptures of the religion. It is rather hard to engage in living religion and in the same time look at it like on interesting bug through magnifying glass.

As James Watts notices in “The Three Dimensions of Scriptures”, scriptures need to be analysed by their functions in religion and society. Apart from semantics and text, holy books are also iconic and have performative dimension. Actually all of the dimensions can be noticed during Gnostic Mass.

Preoccupation with origins and comparing one scripture to the other, obscures the image. Moreover, it might lead to unneeded discourse about “why my religion is better and more true than yours”. It might especially dangerous in case of new religions like Thelema, where significant number of converts are building their religious identity on hate towards religions they were born into. Almost same as Crowley did many times in his writings, where it is visible that he is struggling with his upbringing and family relations. Building something on hate is not healthy.

That’s why we should leave past behind, enjoy present and build our future. Let’s celebrate this anniversary properly!

Love is the law, love under will.

Piotr

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