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93,
Hello all. By way of an introduction thought I'd post a polemic piece that I've been knocking about for a while.
Your thoughts?
I am always interested in feedback and Barbelith seems an unusually erudite community to interact with and participate in.
Hope this sparks some thoughts and discussion.
Will
Love
Peter Grey
Thelema without Crowley?
If you meet the Buddha, kill him – Zen Buddhism
One hundred and one years have passed since the reception of The Book of the Law by Crowley in Cairo.
Taking that arbitrary time as a catalyst for action, I am going to ask what for many Thelemites is an uncomfortable question for others, a bald heresy.
Can there be Thelema without Crowley?
What concerns me is the animating spark of Thelema, not the personalities and period features. It seems that the focus is increasingly on the historical aspects and not on the living tradition.
Thelema is a call to arms for freedom and ecstatic illumination.
Thelema is the realisation and perfection of human potential in the here and NOW.
This is magick.
So can we separate the man from the message? Or is Thelema a fan club for another dead rock star, the radicalism lost in cash-ins, re-releases and empty idol worship?
The flame that burns at the core of every Star
Before we consign dear Uncle Al to the qlippoth of history we must discover what Thelema actually is.
You are of course free to disagree with my position and conclusions.
As we all know, Thelema means Will in Greek.
In my understanding, Thelema is a self-reliant philosophy based on the discovery and active doing of one’s Will.
I like to keep things that simple.
Others may approach Thelema as a religion, taking The Book of the Law as a message to humanity proclaiming the dawning of a New Age, with Crowley as its Prophet.
Though I am inspired by this curious testament I do not take it as my bible. I did not hear the words of Aiwass from over my shoulder, therefore it is not my revelation or proof. In spite of this I count myself as a Thelemite.
Thelema asks all the big questions by starting with one central koan:
What is thy Will?
The beauty and universal applicability of this koan is in that it neither spoon feeds nor force feeds the seeker an answer. The solution to the riddle is entirely your own.
Aleister chose to create a religion around this.
Staged quasi-Masonic initiations, revelations and specific rituals are the tools he chose to help others attain the answer to that one question.
What is it?
What is thy Will?
With Aleister’s Plymouth Brethren upbringing and subsequent experiences in the Golden Dawn an Order was the right way for him to proceed. Crowley deliberately created a religion as an ark for his teaching.
Whilst this religious and structured method can be extremely advantageous for some, it may not be the most useful way to attack the problem. Times and people have changed radically in the last one hundred years.
By making Thelema a process with a canon of scripture and practice it runs the risk of ossifying. If our Wills are all unique, then it would stand to reason that our methods of attainment will also wildly differ. Can you create an organisation that could ever contain or foster such aspirations?
I would personally make a bonfire of all the grade papers and statutes. Not necessary for me. But I will not make the mistake of claiming that they are without use to others.
What I question is seeing Crowley as a final full-stop, rather than an exclamation mark in a vision of an infinite unfurling Thelema.
No more heroes?
We all look to role models, mentors, peers or gurus as we progress on the path of initiation. At his best, Aleister is incredibly lucid and agile minded. He is the perfect silent study partner. In many ways his Works and rituals are an ideal guide for the aspiring magician or broadminded witch.
But he is not a man whom we should worship, and to his credit, he said as much himself. There are more than enough pale carbon copies of The Great Beast out there to demonstrate the inherent danger in confusing Crowley with Thelema itself.
Let us state it clearly: Thelema is not Crowley.
Falling into the cult of personality is a common flaw amongst wannabe Thelemites. There are good reasons for this happening.
To read and understand Crowley, in many ways we must become Crowley. As they said in the Sixties, you have to be on his trip.
To begin a programme of Occult study is a daunting prospect. The serious aspirant is advised to wade through a morass of confusing terms, alternative history, learn a smattering of bastard Latin, Greek and Hebrew. You also have to crucially transform your study from dead words into living gnosis. When mastering these steps even beginners find Crowley’s writing transform from frustratingly incomprehensible into a fresh breath of mountain air.
The problem can be that the Crowley paper chase becomes all-consuming and not all-begetting. In learning from his methods and soaring on his visions the core question and ultimate aim can become lost. ‘Know thyself’ becomes all too easily ‘Know the collected works of Crowley’.
I will say it again.
What is thy Will?
Not Crowley’s Will, yours.
Not Crowley’s rituals and methods, yours.
Not Crowley’s attainment, yours.
If you find yourself shaving your head, taking up rock climbing or holidaying near Loch Ness it may be time for you to check your internal compass.
I am not advocating a biopsy of Crowley as if he were a malignant mole on the smooth body of Thelema. I am suggesting that it is perhaps healthiest to view Aleister Crowley as one Saint and one Prophet out of many. He is the finger pointing at the moon, but not the moon itself.
Perhaps the old Theosophical electrician’s term ‘Current’ best describes this approach to Thelema. It is the Current that travels through the wiring which is important. The prophets are only temporary containers for this force.
I don’t worship blown bulbs.
In our new and strange age we have to make our own way. It is unrealistic to expect all our answers to come from a long dead Englishman, let alone a pale Galilean. We have better tools for the Work at hand than Aleister had. With them I am building a Temple.
Are you? |
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