by Brother Sol-Om-On
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
For, in True Things, all are but images one of another; man is but a map of the universe, and Society is but the same on a larger scale.
Aleister Crowley, Liber CXCIV
The world is in turmoil. Political upheaval continually rends our communities apart, globally and locally. Our closely held norms seem left behind, smashed outright by the blatant injustices in the world or simply found to be out of place, not fit to adapt to the fast-paced chaos that is our modern daily world.
As the global community in microcosm, our own Thelemic community has long been under the pernicious sway of neoliberal assumptions. The influence has grown exponentially since approximately when Aleister Crowley died, the end of the second world war and the formation of the current liberal world over. These assumptions have gone unchecked, grown and multiplied, so that many do not even notice they are there, in the background, shaping their paradigm. The typical Thelemite’s views are so well-shaped by these assumptions that to question them sounds blasphemous, as strange as the concept might be in a Thelemic context. But our Thelemic ethics have been corrupted, our interpretation of texts has been twisted, and our politics have been confused as a result of these unquestioned assumptions.
Fortunately or unfortunately, it seems the traditional unquestioned liberal world order is being challenged. Many cracks have appeared in these moral and political assumptions, for better and for worse. And, like Tum in his Setting, the red rays of sunset herald the end of liberal Thelema.
The End of Liberal Social Values as the Pinnacle of Thelemic Ethics
The first pillar in the temple of Holy Thelemic Sanctity is that Thelemic ethics is seen as basically progressive, liberal social values. Accepting LGBTQ people is generally used as the prime example. Or, for example, the head of OTO in USA once proclaimed “Opposing racial and sexual prejudice is a Thelemic value”. It sounds nice but is it true?
Thelemites need to realize that none of this is really relevant to Thelema and its ethic. There are some hard truths that people have to swallow if they want to understand values in terms of Thelema, rather than retroactively interpreting Thelema in terms of their pre-existing liberal values. If we refer to Liber OZ, we see two important things:
“Man has the right to think what he will:
to speak what he will”
Liber OZ
The Thelemic ethic is Do what thou wilt, which means that each person has the right to think or say whatever they will. The hard truth is that this could very well include what people consider “racial prejudice” or “sexual prejudice”. It could include whatever someone wills, really, and that’s the whole idea. There is no law in Thelema that says “you can Do what thou wilt, but you can’t say mean things to gay people.” It might make you seem like an asshole, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t doing your True Will or you’re not a Thelemite.
The hard truth is that people can say or think what they will, and that might include things you don’t like. It might include things that are objectively offensive. The Book of the Law does not to my knowledge contain any exceptions to the rule that says “Strike hard & low… but be mindful to not offend others”. That doesn’t mean being a rude or mean person should be part of everyone’s true will, but it could very well be part of someone else’s Will. Yes, the Book of the Law says “Love is the law” but it also says:
If he be a King, thou canst not hurt him. Therefore strike hard & low, and to hell with them, master! […]
Them that seek to entrap thee, to overthrow thee, them attack without pity or quarter; & destroy them utterly. Swift as a trodden serpent turn and strike! Be thou yet deadlier than he! Drag down their souls to awful torment: laugh at their fear: spit upon them! […]
Mercy let be off: damn them who pity! Kill and torture; spare not; be upon them!
Liber AL vel Legis, The Book of the Law
Now, I want to be clear that it is of course right for people to fight for social justice as they see fit. But it does not mean that anyone must agree with you. Consider this: A Thelemite who believes there are only two genders may very well be doing his True Will. A Thelemite who believes that immigrants should not be accepted into their homeland could be doing their True Will. A Thelemite who believes that heterosexuality is normal and all other orientations are aberrations, and they could in theory still be doing their True Will. Even if you believe these things are wrong (morally or factually), is it impossible for someone to do their True Will if they believe anything that is at all false? Doesn’t the Master Therion teach that all thought is on some level false?
It’s time we stop measuring our beliefs and conduct against the golden calf of liberal social values. However much you disagree with a person, each person has the right to say and think what they will. They are not bound to what culture currently deems socially acceptable. Isn’t being free of that socially imposed constraint the whole point of “Do what thou wilt” in the first place?
The End of Post-Modern Indecisiveness as the Thelemic Hermeneutic
Along with the rise of the liberal paradigm encompassing the background of everyone’s minds, there has come an increase in the post-modern interpretation of texts. The Death of the Author, as they say. Everyone’s truth is equal, in this view.
Obviously each person has their own truth, their own True Will. But on the intellectual plane, when we are speaking about the tradition of Thelema as established by Aleister Crowley — and especially if we are speaking about the tradition of a specific organization such as Ordo Templi Orientis — then we must know that there was a specific intent laid for us. Each of us has our own path, but we must agree on the basics. We must agree that “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” and we must agree on essentially a common enough definition that we know what we are talking about. If it means anything you want it to mean, it becomes meaningless. There is no possibility of communication, let alone of establishing Tradition.
In the OTO, it is common for people to go through these very traditional initiations of the M∴M∴M∴ and then be told by their initiator that, basically, it’s up to them in the end to interpret the Mysteries. The fear of stepping on anyone’s toes, of anyone saying anything too “authoritative”, has taken the place of bold minds establishing a vibrant Tradition. A real, live tradition would have the establishment of First Principles, their senior members would then write and debate and infuse the current with new and living fire. But instead we often have the halting mediocrity of stilted and haphazard oral collection of pseudo-traditions. People are largely told to go read some books in a list that have questionable relevance to the Mystery of the degree, as if to imitate the worst aspects of dying Masonry without the meat of Tradition.
We have to assert: These rituals mean something. These texts mean something. They don’t mean whatever you want them to mean. Not just OTO’s but all Thelemic texts and ritauls as handed down to us by the Beast. They were not simply Rorschach’s to project your insecurities and the same tired analysis onto. They were given to impart specific lessons, in specific ways, at specific times. Thelemic rituals are encoded messages, ritualized alchemy, and not a series of meaningless smokey images cast before your eyes so you can see the clouds of your own pre-existing views. It is time we do our research and establish First Principles, and pave a way for a true Thelemic Tradition to begin to be established. Otherwise, we will lose Thelema to something more resembling a formless and toothless secular humanism with some rituals thrown in to spice things up. Thelema is its own tradition — a distinct, identifiable, unique tradition — and it is up to us as the heirs of the Beast to identify and communicate this tradition from generation unto generation.
The End of Democracy as the Pinnacle of Thelemic Politics
Everyone is equal, cries the cant of democracy. If Crowley’s own varied admonitions against democracy were not enough, we could certainly see the rotten fruit of its adoption in modern Thelemic organizations.
People are all different, and therefore are not equal. They have different circumstances, different abilities, different desires, different weaknesses, and different potential. Everyone has a different point-of-view in the body of Nuit, and while we are “equal” in being points-of-view, everything else about us is different from one another. Our Wills are unique. This is reflected in the hierarchical structure of Thelemic organizations. They are hierarchies, not democracies. The Man of Earth of OTO is not meant to set policy for the Order. The Hermits are meant to do that. The Hermits theoretically have more knowledge and initiatory experience to guide the Order in a direction in accordance with Its Will. The Order is top-down and meant to be that way. No matter how much people want this not to be true, it doesn’t matter because it will always be true, at least for OTO. No matter how loud the outcry of the Men of Earth, or the public, it should not matter, because they simply are not in a place to be dictating the direction of the organization.
This is the problem of democracy: it is enslavement to the horde, to the masses. Any demagogue, whether “right wing” or “left wing”, can whip people up into a frenzy of outrage. Any outspoken person or group of people can use their resources and propaganda to sway others to their point of view. Thelema is not about convincing everyone of your point of view. Nor is Thelema about listening to “the majority”. The majority of people are stupid. The average voter is an idiot, as Crowley said. As Saint George Carlin said “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” We have to admit that Thelema has absolutely nothing to do with this. Thelema is about finding your own individual Will. Is it not said:
Ye are against the people, O my chosen!
Liber AL vel Legis, The Book of the Law
Thelema is a law of the strong. Though the Law may apply to all people, it is not equally understood or put into practice by all. Some will succeed and will attain. Others will fail, or fail to even try. Thelema is the smart slap to the face of reality and its consequences. Each will rise and fall by their own measure, as shown by their fruits. Thelema never encourages us to give participation trophies, or pretend that everyone is equally good at everything, or that everyone will agree or get along. The truth of Thelema is the truth of nature:
Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world.
Liber AL vel Legis, The Book of the Law
When we come to realize these once unassailable edifices are crumbling, we will come to terms with our New Reality. We can return to the truth of Thelema, and interpret the world in terms of its Law, rather than interpreting Thelema in terms of our pre-conceived liberal values. Though the crumbling brings chaos, we can let this formless abyss be the source of a new star within us. We can see the new dawn of the rising of the Aeon of the Child, still beaming his force and fire upon us, preparing us for the Way of Justice ahead.
Remember: There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
Love is the law, love under will.
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Best essay ever on here!
Oh look, fascist “Steven Ryan” is out of the closet!
Ad hominem attacks say more about you then anyone else..This childish commentator should be banned for disrespecting everyone he disagrees with meaningless stawmen.
Ad hominem attacks say more about you than anyone else. This and the subsequent meaningless strawman arguments should get you banned from participating when the adults are talking.
This might be controversial, but I could never square how Thelemite Kenneth Anger, [whose works (Scorpio Rising) is forever cited are groundbreaking in terms of progressive ‘queer avant-garde’] also holds many Nazi ideas as completely normal. This isn’t opinion. I first met him in 1998 in a home where he lived with an enormous Nazi flag in the living room, and his correspondence with me was also totally anti-semitic (after I wouldn’t bend over for him). I mean the Nazis persecuted queers, so it seemed like a fundamental contradiction to be openly gay and still embrace Nazism (I think of the swastika flag in ‘Invocation Of My Demon Brother’). He once mentioned to me how Hitler was ‘insane’; so is it that he just didn’t approve of mass extermination – but that the general ethos of the party (against Jews/Blacks/Gypsies) was legitimate? Maybe. No journalist to my knowledge has ever pressed him on this – and his obituary will be like a big flowery money-shot. We know Crowley tried hard to get Liber AL into the Führer’s hands, through Sylvester Viereck (the letters are now public domain), so perhaps it is consistent with that ideation. You can think ‘what you will’, but taking the next step toward mass murder would violate other people’s Will to do as they Will. It’s not illegal to hold prejudicial ideas in America, for any reason or no reason – and all stereotypes are based on half-truths. It just comes down to etiquette, and respect for people, in my opinion. The author admits such behavior, as saying ‘mean things to gay people’ may make you seem like an ‘asshole’ – it also may keep you from getting employment – which may greatly limit your ability to live as you Will. It’s called inter-personal politics. Crowley was never much good at it, not like Hubbard.
This article showed some fundamental truths:
1. Thelemic Union really does give a platform to anyone able to present a coherent article.
2. Fascism is Thelema is, and always was, part of the equation: now people are simply being emboldened by the current socio-political tides to say that aloud.
3. And last, but not least, these very same people really still want to believe the faery-tales that nobodies like Bill Breeze and his court of sycophants have some “secret powers” thanks to having bought their way into a powerless Sovereigh Sanctuary.
That said, I genuinely welcome this article, and the ongoing transformation of the cOTO into a neofascist organisation: it’s easier for everyone when you actually know exactly where your dues money go to.
I appreciate the article, and considering how highly entrenched Crowley was in political writing during his American years (working for Vierick) discussions of this nature are valid. Nevertheless, you need only to re-read Aleister’s article negatively critiquing Edith Cavell (and the popular reaction to it) to understand how the political philosophy of Thelema, was permanently damaged – in my opinion.
Nothing in this article is fascist. To be tolerant of different opinions does not make anyone a fascist, if anything it’s exactly the opposite. This article is expressing liberalism in it’s extreme where as fascism is anti-liberal.
Crowley promoted liberalism in it’s original sense. Freedom that means some one who has cultivated virtue and self control earns less need for external restraint. That we should tolerate all different views. But he was also a traditional monarchist and believed that ever race and culture had it’s proper place, that we should mind our own business and allow nations to persist in their traditions, not mix them and blend them out of existence into one giant global melting pot.
It does not make some one a cannibal if they don’t demand to put a stop to head hunters in New Guinea, You are a Liberal or Thelemite if you believe in tolerance for new guinea tribes to keep eating one another while still asserting that a proper gentleman of London does not behave in such a manner.
Who you are is a major component of your Will and that has much to do with where you are born and raised, who your parents were, and what the written and unwritten history of your race passes down to you in stories, traditions and genes.
No man (save maybe one) just appeared on earth without any inertia of Karma, and even he was predestined to the cross.
Conflating Thelema with the worst of Evolian Traditionalism: I do wonder, at times, what kind of brain cancer riddles the brain of people like you.
Liberal occultism is alive and well despite this bloviating drivel.
You are a bunch of clowns, and you are going in the same route as Christians. Wondeful master, but terrible students.
Agree with everything in this article. This is the Thelema I joined 20+ years ago. This is by far the best writings on the subject in the past 10 years.
It’s good for fascists like you to finally get out of the closet, so you can be counted.
Yeahhh… Your time will come. You forget the divine masculine. Whoever cast their pearls before you made a mistake. The pendulum swing is strong this time around.
Kudos to Thelemic Union for accepting this travesty of logic, and blatantly evident failure to grasp the fundamental principles of the Law of Thelema.
Now, the mouths of perpetual complaint that “their side” never gets to spout off there will finally be closed?
Vive la liberAL!
Just imagine how “liberal-minded” people that have contributed to Thelema through many years is gonna feel watching their idolized “philosophy” going officially full right-wing blown. It´s gonna be hilarious.
This is logic most simple. Don’t you understand?:
a) Wasserman spreading hate towards LGBT – freedom of speech.
You slapping wasserman’s face – violation of his freedom.
b) Grand Tribunal ignoring one of the representatives being pants on head retarded prick and a fucktard – giving a next chance and a good deed of spreading love.
You speaking about the organisation not doing its’ job, having no coherence in its actions, telling the world truth what happens inside here – toxic attitude, proof of a bad will.
c) Few or more high degree members being backwards, refusing to learn and spreading their bullshit – they are doing their will as they deem fit.
You telling them to go bad to school – hey, stop being childish. no thought is entirely true, right? why don’t we then assume we are always right, it could as well be so, right?
Perhaps one of you will one day manage to change just anything in here, but hey! in order to get to decide about anything you need to first of all get invited to the O.T.O. proper and they don’t tend to respect attitudes they don’t understand or to like people who differ from them too much.
Yeh. It’s a perfect built new aeonic organisation, get over it.
I solemnly swear: i love Thelema but i want it to die and get forgotten just anytime soon – i couldn’t stand it following christianitys’ footstep too far.
A key point is to stop conflating Thelema with O.T.O., and going even further and realise O.T.O. died with Crowley, and what we had since the 80s is shoddy reconstruction that was since day one helmed by restrictionists.
I have been the first to waste time on it, so I hope others will be smarter and avoid making the same mistake.
As for O.T.O. as it exists nowadays, there is no hope of any kind for it. Abandon ship, it’s been sinking for years.
The right-wing vegetarian doesn’t want to eat meat.
The left-wing vegetarian doesn’t want YOU to eat meat.
The left-vs-right conflict in a nutshell.
Exquisite article and a breath of fresh, free air.
I didn’t realize right wing vs left wing was even an issue, so let’s take a real life right vs left battle.
The right wing doesn’t want women to have control of their own bodies.
Left wing demands that women should have control of their own bodies.
THAT is REAL L-v-R conflict in a nutshell, Jr.
UGH….first line is SUPPOSED TO read:
I didn’t realize right wing vs left wing vegetarianism was even an issue, so let’s take a real life right vs left battle.
“The right wing doesn’t want women to have control of their bodies”
But the left wing supports unlimited immigration from third world countries where rape is normal, but everyone has 6 or 7 babies that they can’t care for.
Looks like we’re the lesser evil.
Articles like this are the inevitable outcome of taking Crowley too seriously. Whatever Crowley believed his true will to be, it was addiction (to drugs, power, sex, ego etc.) that defined him.
He had an interesting & unique perspective and while an enjoyable read, was a worse writer than A.E.Waite.
There is much to learn from him, as in how not to behave.
To some extent I suppose this is a matter of whether or not you consider Thelema to be one of the great western religions, an outgrowth of the long line of social and religious thought that stretches from earliest Zoastrian thought through Aristotle and Aquinas, to the present day, or whether you see it as a sort of strange crank thing unto itself.
It depends on whether you think the Book of the Law is significant in the way it interconnects with, and reflects Wicca and classical revival such as PGM working, or is simply a “one off,” a sort of Voynich Manuscript with words, a last gasp of antique religion, or an expression of a new direction in modern spirituality.
Basically, “do we interpret Thelema, as we do all other philsophies and religions, in context.”
I’ve said elsewhere that I do not believe most prophets or thinkers put forward manifestos for a new world order with the idea of creating a bleak dystopia.
Crowley wrote, at the very inception:
“This is to be taken as meaning that while Will is the Law, the nature of that Will is Love. But this love is as it were a by-product of that Will; it does not contradict or supersede that Will: and if apparent contradiction should arise in any crisis, it is the Will that will guide us aright. Love is easily counterfeited. Lo, while in the Book of the Law is much of Love, there is no word of Sentimentality. Hate itself is almost like Love! Fighting most certainly is Love! “As brothers fight ye!” All the manly races of the world understand this. The Love of Liber Legis is always bold, virile, ecstatic, even orgiastic. There is delicacy, but it is the delicacy of strength. Mighty and terrible and glorious as it is, however, it is but the pennon upon the sacred lance of Will, the damascened inscription upon the swords of the Knight-monks of Thelima (sic).”
So…there are two ways to look at this:
1) Will is all that matters. Love doesn’t even need to get mentioned because since Will trumps love in every case, there is no need to consider love. If so it seems strange to me that Crowley wrote the word so prominently.
2) Will is our guide, but love is the underpinning and the goal.
Agape, but whatever standards, is seen as a selfless love. Again, if one insists on seeing it only in regards to apprehension of the divine, then Thelema becomes a stagnant, navel-gazing religion, identical to contemplative Christianity, not a moving force in the world. The idea of seeking divine love is hardly the radical idea of a new aeon.
So…Will is our guide but it is informed by love.
Not sentimentality, but the approriate manifestations of love. Respect for each person who is a star. The desire to support them in their work. The desire to support their access to the rights of man.
As to which vision Crowley had for Thelema, I think we are satisfactorily guided by the statement “We are infinitely tolerant, save of intolerance.”
So let’s analyze “Opposing racial and sexual prejudice is a Thelemic value”
1) Is prejudice an expression of intolerance – yes, by definition
2) Does that prejudice deny individuals exercise of the rights of man – yes by definition
3) Does love inform us that we should desire for all other stars that which we desire for ourselves…freedom, honor and respect? In any version of Agape which is not simply a rehash of Christianity, the answer would be yes.
That doesn’t seem very hard to me.
So…I reject the idea that Thelema was designed to lead us to a bleak libertarian dystopia, and I see no meaningful support for the idea other than a bland, doctrinaire suggestion that “Do what thou wilt,” means “do whatever you want.”
That doesn’t mean every liberal idea is Thelemic. There are plenty of liberal intolerances or ideas that restrict. Some liberals favor censorship. But it does offer a yardstick against which to compare progressive ideas, and to the extent that progressive thought is, essentially, an extension of the basic idea of the rights of man which extends backwards to the rise of Humanism in the Dutch Republic, and the Glorious Revolution, it is part and parcel of the same great movement of thought.
There’s no such thing as a “bleak libertarian dystopia.” That’s like saying “hot as ice.”
The concept of a dystopia has always been associated with and, if left unchecked, the natural result of totalitarianism – the very opposite of libertarianism.
Clearly you’ve never read a cyberpunk novel.
Well put. I would suggest, though, that the only evil in prejudices is strictly in its connotative meaning. It gets a bad name. Prejudices do not imply intolerance and the certainly do not have the power to deprive man of his innate freedom (freedom of action, specifically). Liberty is intrinsic. It is not so much that one shouldn’t or does not have the right to interfere with another’s will; it’s that one can’t – it’s simply not possible to do so. Prejudices are thus, at worst, sometimes grossly inaccurate and harmful; at best, useful and expedient classifiers. It is between the subscriber to these prejudices and their karma to work-out. If a homosexual can’t help who they love, then a bigot, similarly, can’t help who they hate. This works both ways, and I think “We are infinitely tolerant, save of intolerance.” is too profoundly an ouroboros-like statement to treat statically.
You think bigotry—a set of beliefs which can change and be changed through learning and experience—is somehow equivalent to sexual preference, which is inborn and unchangeable by its very nature? That’s some pretty warped reasoning.
And yes, people can interfere with others will. Crowley specifically uses the example of the murderer transgressing another persons will-to-live. You’re thinking of Calvinism…this Thelema.
I was rather under the impression that an individual’s True Will was a sphere of activity perfectly suited and fulfilling to them, such as painting, ceremonial magick, or football. I would have thought that matters such as sexuality and politics would impinge on such pursuits so rarely as to be totally irrelevant to Thelema. Personally I would be insulted to be identified as left, liberal, right, alt-right, or any of that; and I couldn’t care less about anyone else’s sexuality, as I cannot imagine how it could affect my pursuit of my True Will. Hammering a nail into a bit of wood with the handle of a revovolver makes you a carpenter, not a soldier. Fighting to defend the borders of your country with a hammer makes you a soldier, not a carpenter. And measuring Thelema by the standards of profane society and using it according to the methods of profane society just makes you a fucking consumer playing dress-up games like any other consumer. In other words, this is all a complete crock of shit. Invoke often or just piss off. You lot like quoting Liber Al? Here’s a line for you: “Also the mantras and spells; the obeah and the wanga; the work of the wand and the work of the sword; these he shall learn and teach.” Because that shit will set you free. All these groups and sides and labels and self-identification crap just excites the ego and strengthens the chains with which it jerks you around; it’s walking away from freedom, not towards it. Just do the yoga, do the magick, and blow your mind. Ego-masturbation is simply a waste of head-fucking time.
I have identified as having 95% liberal alignment most of my life. The reason for this is that liberals kept me safe at my younger and more vulnerable age, when they could. They picked up the pieces when people who believe me to be a subject worthy of ridicule have attacked me physically or psychologically. They gave me other worthy fights and ideologies to stand by that gave me cause to reaffirm in myself that I am a good person, and not as pathetic, weak and doomed as others tell me I am. That I am real and as valid as the human next to me. That my love is real and my partnerships respectable. At the stage in my life, I am ready to confess that I don’t need what I previously thought I did. I am trying to fix the door that was broken down in the back of my mind that lets these ‘triggers’ in and admit that yes. People do have the right to believe what they want about me. They are a complex being as I am. They have a duty to themselves to confront their prejudices of self and prejudices of others as I do. From whatever side of the spectrum they come from. I first read this post a number of weeks ago and it made me question if I have a place in The Law of Thelema as I have questioned over and over again in most aspects of the social world. This nature of questioning myself is what restricts my will. I’m happy that I am trying very hard to understand what some of this discourse contains and allow myself to agree with the points that my heart tells me are correct without seeing them as something that can hurt me, even if they would have before. It is myself that allows myself to be hurt. It is for me to ensure that it will not and does not happen. I do this by strengthening my psychological defences. By accepting self. Accepting others as stars regardless of their nature. Loving the gift my life is and the happiness that was gifted to me in my partner. And being prepared and able to stand my ground if I ever need to. But until the day I need to throw a defensive fist or two. I respect your opinion. Do what though wilt.
Proof that idiots can write articulately. The article is purely political and often cites a low class paper called oz. The shear lack of logical understanding is too great to enumerate. Suffice it to say this is a person looking to rationalize a political view with the words and sayings of Thelema. So besides lacking logic they are also a real life intellectual coward. Unable to advance there dilapidated understanding without props from someone elses worldview.
The below is the main underpinning from the article above. This is pure poppycock. To wit it is false. There is the common will which is small and divisive and there is the true will which is expansive and inclusive in that when it works it is never opposed. What this fool writes is highschool blather—–>>>>>>>”The Thelemic ethic is Do what thou wilt, which means that each person has the right to think or say whatever they will. The hard truth is that this could very well include what people consider “racial prejudice” or “sexual prejudice”. It could include whatever someone wills, really, and that’s the whole idea. ” <<<<<true will is most definitly not whatever someone wills. This is why i say liber oz is a dangerous trope.
The socialistic idea that every man is as good as every other man is comic. A great deal of rubbish has been written lately about “secret diplomacy.” How can the ordinary man expect to give a sound opinion on the affairs of foreign countries, when the very best men, specially trained for all their lives, are constantly making the most stupid mistakes? “Popular control!” is out of the question, even in the smallest business house. How then can we apply it with any common sense to the affairs of a great nation? If the people were free to vote, what would they vote for? Free lodging, free movies, and free beer. I myself would vote for free beer. Could you expect the lower East Side to vote money for the encouragement of art or even of science? Of any of the higher branches of human activity? Yet the whole structure of society depends upon the cultivation of these higher branches. Go and ask the ordinary working man whether he would rather apply the national income to the reduction of rent or to the study of histology! We should never have a cent for anything pertaining to the most fundamental and necessary activities, if the choice were left to the people.
What then is the ideal form of government? The greatest of all the political lessons of history is that society is founded on the family, and the family on the land. A strong agrarian class is the best defense against invasion, physical or moral. “A bold peasantry, its country’s pride, when once destroyed, can never be supplied.” There is something in the contact with earth and air and water and sun which makes men vigorous. All strong and stable states have had Cincinnatus for a unit. The power of England has always lain in the landed nobility and gentry. Each great estate has been the nucleus of a peasantry with “soul” — with a peculiar pride in itself. The lords of the land, great or little, were also the fathers of the people. Each took a particular and individual interest in each of his tenants.
When this system began to break up, owing to the growth of industrialism and of the power of money, the virility of England broke with it. Fifty years ago the smallest squire had more social consideration than the most wealthy merchant; rightly so, for he was actually a part of the land itself. A rich man could not become a squire by buying land; he became a joke.
But your plutocrat has no anchor in the soil; he calculates coldly that it is cheaper to work a man to death than to look after him. He does not know or care what becomes of those dependent upon him. The idea of solidity of structure is gone from the social system. America dwells in tents like the Arabs, and may as silently fade away. Who in this colony feels in his bones an attachment to ancestral Topeka? We go where the economic tide drifts us; and we do not go back because there is no “back” to go to. Socialism (as most people seem to conceive it) would make matters a thousand times worse — if there’s that amount of room for further bedevilment — for Socialism ignores all but the economic factor. Economics appeal only to the shell of men, never to his soul. And it is the soul which determines the action of a true man. A nation swayed wholly by economic considerations is a nation lost alike to God and to man. “Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, When wealth accumulates and men decay.”
Groans from the Padded Cell
(The Minority Report of the Editorial Rooms)
by Aleister Crowley
Belief in something is not following your True Will.
“Belief is the enemy of knowledge.”
― Aleister Crowley, Moonchild
Especially when that “belief” is restricting another person’s True Will of being themselves.
“To seek to dominate or influence another is to seek to deform or to destroy him; and he is a necessary part of one’s own Universe, that is, of one’s self.”
– Aleister Crowley, Duty
This piece is as un-Thelemic as it gets. Shame on the author. Shame on those agreeing with it. Shame on Thelemic Union for allowing it to be posted.
93. I think this text is excellent, and I’d really like to have permission from the author to translate it into French. Does anybody know where I can reach Fr. Sol-Om-On ?
93, 93/93
Hiding under fake names in the Thelemic Confederacy “secret” Facebook Group. I think you could start by looking for a Ryan Thomas.
Dude, you fucking suck. I’m amazed by it.
Excellent post! There is no reason this should be as hard to comprehend as it seems to be with some of these people. Listen, if someone finds what two grown adults do behind closed doors creepy, immoral, disgusting, or whatever, that’s their right to think that. You can’t legislate opinions. No matter how distasteful they may be, one is always entitled to them. The very notion that one can and should attempt to censor or regulate sentiments – even if in the name of compassion and tolerance – is as “fascist” as it gets. And yes, hate speech is free speech. How two grown adults choose to address one another is between those two grown adults be it with love, compassion, indifference, or vitriol.
The fact of the matter, and one which most well-adjusted people have already digested prior to entering kindergarten, is that some people just plain won’t tolerate, much less like you; for any number of arbitrary reasons, and even for no reason whatsoever. That is their right. It is for the individual to navigate this reality to the best of their ability. If shouting “fascist” and “nazi” on the internet constitutes the best of one’s ability, it really does not bode well at all for said person’s ability – they would be far better off joining the noxious insipidity that is TST.
So?
If Thelema means “do whatever the hell you want to do” then who isn’t doing that already? Why practice “Thelema” at all? Just as a moral excuse to do whatever?
What kind of weak character do you have if you need a title and philosophy to back up what you and everyone else is already doing?
What did you think your purpose for writing this was? What, did you think I need to accept your views? Do you think I’m going to accept racism and sexism and other assholery just because someone claims it’s their true will?
It’s a meaningless sword you’re wielding that cuts both ways. This is the kind of such useless discourse that crowley was so against.
Please think things through next time and stop treating Thelema as a social discourse. He was a magician and a prophet. Not a politician.
What a waste of time..
This reads like Jordan Peterson got ahold of a copy of Liber Oz, complete with ranting about postmodernism without understanding what it is and thinking that bigotry is freedom while having social consequences for bigotry is oppression.
You’re just another bigot trying to infiltrate a community with your garbage. Thankfully, it looks like the majority of community can see you and your ilk for what they are.
I’m surprised you can even rep Thelema as the book of the law was completed unto pestilence and releasing the beast in Los Angeles. I witnessed it and used my will to save as many lives as I could. You people irresponsibly and stupidly gave in to evil that wish mass murder and or death of creator and creation. Your gas attacks researched out of San Diego called Helix gas. Kicks off with a phosphorene grenade then “O yeah they are seeing shit!” You people are demonic psychopaths! I pray every day for deliverance from your wicked rebellion! I saw you John Paul Montgomery (bael) ( Beelzebub) (Baal) you are the lord of the flies for sure now! Lord of Pestilence! Is your Cuthulu Harley? He was hooded… I’m not sure. You sent me to be dealt with by Satan himself. I live. I will live. I will continue to live! I have stared into your void and rescribed your voided ground in my Holy blood. How are Satanists like you people allowed to congregate still? You are not the majority of man kind! We all live under THE LAW OF COEXISTENCE! You defy unto seeking nothingness and it is your fascination because you are failures and creation wants you gone and so do the good! What do you aid but your own desires?? Your own anger because you do not have or are not this or that…? What lame ass excuse do you have for being a bully today? Babble some more negative bullshit at me please! You can’t even speak straight! You tell me everything I need to know except when you gurus of nothing are joining the word and place and voiding yourselves so we can get back to doing it right!? You make our lives as hermits suck and persuade people you are the answer. You are murderers! Genocidal psychos! Your language is lies just like your leaders Satan and Baal. We know you. We see you o Fallen so far that light no longer makes sense to you! Not long now….