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Thelema

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Thelema is the English transliteration of the Ancient Greek noun θέλημα: "will", from the verb ἐθέλω: to will, wish, purpose.

Aleister Crowley's Thelema

Thelema is the name of a philosophical/religious system established in 1904 through Aleister Crowley and his wife, Rose Edith Kelly, with the writing of Liber AL vel Legis, or The Book of the Law. Crowley claimed to have taken this short work of about 5,000 words, comparable in length to the Tao Te Ching, as direct auditory dictation from a praeterhuman intelligence called Aiwass or Aiwaz in Cairo, Egypt on April 8, 9th, and 10th, 1904. Crowley himself did not fully accept the role set forth for him in the Book for many years.

The word "Thelemite" appears in Aleister Crowley's writings, and adherents of Thelema use it self-referentially.

Crowley was a disciple of 16th century French satirist Francois Rabelais. Rabelais referred to a place called The Abbey of "Thélème" in his epic lampoon of religion, mysticism and politics, Gargantua and Pantagruel [1]. In the story, Gargantua built the abbey in Thélème (a fictional "province" located along the Loire River). Rabelais included the Greek word in his work and this inspired Crowley to establish his own "Abbey of Thelema", a postmodern homage to the Rabelaisian fantasy, which he established in Cefalu, Sicily in the 1920s. It should also be noted however that Rabelais also incorporated hermetic allusions into his novel. Therefore, from Crowley's perspective Rabelais was not merely a fantasist, but a profound hermetic philosopher and prophetic herald of Crowley himself.

Doctrines of Thelema

The central doctrine of this system is that knowing and doing one's True Will is the ultimate purpose and destiny of every being. This is summed up in the following phrases from Liber Legis:

  • "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" (AL I:40)
  • "Love is the law, love under will" (AL I:57)
  • "The word of the Law is Thelema" (AL I:39)
  • "There is no Law beyond Do what thou wilt" (AL III:60)

The True Will is a magical idea that could be described in its dynamic aspect as the singular path of possible action that encounters no resistance in going because it is supported by the inertia of the whole Universe; two True Wills can never contradict each other because each one has its own absolutely unique career in its passage through Infinite Space. Hence, to follow one's True Will means to respect all True Wills, described as "Love is the law, love under will". The apparent pacifism of this doctrine is complicated, however, by the fact that the vast majority of beings do not know their True Will. Those who do are the Perfect, who are beyond good and evil, i.e., all conventional moral codes and standards.

Thelema stresses personal liberty (balanced by responsibility and discipline), the inherent perfection of every person, regardless of gender ("Every man and every woman is a star" AL I:3), and the battle against superstition and tyranny.

Living Thelema usually, but not necessarily, is intertwined with the practice of magick, spelled thus to denote the concepts and techniques explored and developed by Crowley.

Antecedents of Thelema

Although the modern idea of Thelema originates in the work of Aleister Crowley, there are important antecedents to his use of the term. The word is of some consequence in the original Greek Christian scriptures.

  • Crowley also acknowledged Saint Augustine's "Love, and do what thou wilt" as a premonition of the Law of Thelema, and Crowley himself stated (somewhat surprisingly, in view of his antipathy to his Christian ancestors) that his work completed that of Jesus himself.
  • In chapter 50 (or 52, depending on the edition) of Francois Rabelais' Gargantua, the titular character builds an "Abbey of Thélème", complete with 'Thelemites' and the motto "Fais ce que voudras" ("Do what thou wilt"), which Crowley directly imitated in his own Abbey of Thelema.
  • William Blake may also have used the phrase "Do what thou wilt", but no reference is apparent.

Critical study and diverse practice

Different organisations and persons (predominantly from Germany) do not see Thelema as originating from Crowley. Rather they see Crowley's Thelema as only one of many forms of Thelema. Different orders who accept the Book of the Law have their own guidelines for putting it into practice. In German Thelemic thought the most widely-known skepticism against Crowley's version is found in the Fraternitas Saturni order. The role of other Thelemic writings, each with their own significance, changes greatly for each of these groups. The Law of Thelema itself eschews orthodoxy, forbids intellectual dogmatism concerning the proper interpretation of the Law, and demands that those who do so be anathematised. As a result, there is little secondary literature on the Law of Thelema of any interest, one notable exception being the controversial works of Kenneth Grant. In the United States, J. Gordon Melton and other scholars of New Religious Movements, as well as some scholars of hermeticism have begun to address Thelema in some capacity. Martin P. Starr has also published valuable scholarly work on the history of contemporary Thelema, primarily as it has manifested in the Ordo Templi Orientis. (See 'References and Sources' below)

As an example of diversity in practice, "The Thelema Society", a Thelemic community founded by Michael Dietmar Eschner, is based entirely on "Liber AL vel Legis" – under the original title "Liber L vel Legis" – and rejects all other teachings and writings of Aleister Crowley.

While Thelema has not yet attracted much attention in the field of comparative religion, a somewhat unusual attempt was made by the Mariavite Catholic bishop Federico Tolli, in his German book Thelema — Im Spannungsfeld zwischen Christentum, Logentradition und New Aeon (Leipzig, 2004.) For Tolli, Thelema is to be regarded as the dialectical consequence of Christianity. Christianity for Tolli exists as a community in Christ, whereas Tolli sees Thelema as a necessarily individualistic response to the world.

In a 1938 theological dictionary to the New Testament the concept of salvation history has a great effect on Tolli's thought. Tolli interprets from this that it is clear for Crowley that the whole Universe (ergo the Will of God) is to combine (analogous to the Alchemical formula 'coagula'). "Love", in the form of combinatory attraction ("Love is the law, love under will"), is a universal principle — therefore akin to the concept of Natural religion. The main difference (for Tolli) is that in Christianity salvation of the entire Universe ("Ganzheit") cannot be made by 'solipsistic' man. The bishop sees Crowley as a failed – however talented – artist or "Mystagogie", but not as a "Satanist". However, the merit and contribution of bishop Tolli to Thelemic studies lies in the fact that it was he who first expresses that the genuine meaning and idea of Thelema does not necessarily contradict the teachings of Jesus, as Crowley himself affirms.

However, this is very much at variance with how most Thelemites regard Christianity, which is generally seen as a manifestation of the superseded Aeon of Osiris, rather than the New Aeon of Horus (to be followed in several or twenty centuries by the future Aeon of Maàt). While only fundamentalist Christians would regard Crowley as a literal "Satanist", many would agree that he directly challenges much of the ethical and religious basis for Christianity, especially in his work "Liber OZ". Crowley himself tended to advocate the progressive study of all major world religious scriptures and mystical traditions, as well as a special focus on the Empiricist movement in Modern British philosophy, even as he strenously argued against the ultimate claims of these institutional religions. Crowley and Thelema show much philosophical influence from not only Rabalais, but also from sources as diverse as Laozi, Joachim of Fiore, and Friedrich Nietzsche. In the ritual structure of the Gnostic Mass (a major group ritual practice) , the influence of Eastern Orthodox Christianity is evident, leading to accusations of the Gnostic Mass as a "Black (Satanic) Mass".

Thelema and other systems of thought

Thelema is a mystical/magical philosophy of life based on Will. The individual Will in Thelema is identified with the Egyptian god Had or Hadit. The Pleroma of infinite potentiality through which Had wends its Way is called Nu or Nuit, the Egyptian goddess of Infinite Space.

Many adherents of Thelema are syncretic and claim correlations between Thelemic and other systems of spiritual thought; most borrow freely from other traditions. For example, Nu and Had are thought to correspond with the Tao and Teh of Taoism, Shakti and Shiva of the Hindu Tantras, Shunyata and Bodhicitta of Buddhism, Ain Soph and Kether in the Qabalah. Followers of the philosophy of Thelema make free use of the methods and practices derived from other traditions, including alchemy, astrology, qabalah, tantra, tarot, and yoga, regarding them all as being subsumed in the Law of Thelema.

Thelemic organisations

Several organisations of various sizes claim to follow the tenets of Thelema, the Ordo Templi Orientis and the Argenteum Astrum, or A∴A∴, currently being the largest. Other groups of widely varying character exist which have drawn inspiration or methods from Thelema but which never fully accepted Crowley's complete teachings, such as the Illuminates of Thanateros and the Temple of Set. The Fraternitas Saturni and related groups are idiosyncratic in that they accept Thelema, but extend it by the phrase "Mitleidlose Liebe!" ("Compassionless Love!"). These groups generally do not accept the writings of Crowley.

See also

References and sources

    • Free Encyclopedia of Thelema (2005). Thelema. Retrieved March 12 2005.
    • De Lupos, Rey. The Golden Topaz of Radiant Light in Silver Star, No. 1. Retrieved April 5 2005.
    • Kazcynski, Richard. Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley. Tempe, AZ: New Falcon Publications. 2002.
    • Melton, J. Gordon. "Thelemic Magick in America." Alternatives to American Mainline Churches, ed. Joseph H. Fichter. (Barrytown, NY: Unification Theological Seminary), 1983.
    • Starr, Martin P. The Unknown God: W.T. Smith and the Thelemites. Bolingbrook, IL: Teitan Press. 2003.
    • van Egmond, Daniel. "Western Esoteric Schools in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries." in van den Broek, Roelof and Hanegraaff, Wouter J. Gnosis and Hermeticism From Antiquity To Modern Times. Albany : State University of New York Press. 1998. Pages 311-346.
    • Voxfire, Thomas (2004). "Something from Nothing: the Essence of Creation" in Essays for the New Aeon. Retrieved April 5 2005.
    • Webster, Sam. Entering the Buddhadharma. Retrieved April 5 2005.
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