"Thelema".
Related Topics:Thelema is the English transliteration of the Ancient Greek noun : "will", from the verb : to will, wish, purpose. It appears prominently in early Christian writings. Francois Rabelais (16th century), quoting one of these, gave variations on the word a major role in his famous books, Gargantua and Pantagruel. In the mid 18th century, Sir Francis Dashwood wrote the motto of the Abbey of Theleme from these books on the door of his abbey at Medmenham. Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) took Thelema as the name of his philosophical, mystical, and religious system, which includes ideas from occultism, Yoga, and both Eastern and Western mysticism (especially the Qabalah).Liber XIII vel Graduum Montis Abiegni: A Syllabus of the Steps Upon the Path by Aleister Crowley. Online version here, retrieved July 7, 2006. For confirmation that the order in question took the Book of the Law as an official document of the order that "may be changed not so much as the style of a letter," A syllabus of the official instructions of the A.'.A.'. by Aleister Crowley. "This book is the foundation of the New Aeon, and thus of the whole of our Work." First section, list of Class "A" Publications. Online version here, retrieved July 7, 2006. And finally, for the part calling Thelema the word of the Law, Liber AL I:39-40 Thus Shri Gurudev Mahendranath, in speaking of svecchachara, a Sanskrit term which he considered the eastern equivalent of the term Thelema, wrote that "Rabelais, Dashwood, and Crowley must share the honor of perpetuating what has been such a high ideal in most of Asia."Mahendranath (1990).
Crowley acknowledged Saint Augustine's "Love, and do what thou wilt" as a premonition of the Law of Thelema. In the Renaissance, a character named "Thelemia" represents will or desire in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of the Dominican monk Francesco Colonna. Colonna's work was, in turn, a great influence on the Franciscan monk Francois Rabelais, whose Gargantua and Pantagruel includes an "Abbey of Theleme" which Crowley embraced as a direct precursor to his modern Thelema.
It is in the first book (ch. 52-57) where Rabelais writes of the Abbey of Theleme, built by the giant Gargantua. It pokes fun at the monastic institutions, since his abbey has a swimming pool, maid service, and no clocks in sight.
One of the verses of the inscription on the gate to the Abbey of Theleme says:
But below the humour was a very real concept of utopia and the ideal society. Rabelais gives us a description of how the Thelemites of the Abbey lived and the rules they lived by:
Aleister Crowley said in The Antecedents of Thelema (1926) that Rabelais "set forth in essence the Law of Thelema, very much as it is understood by the Master Therion himself," and that "the masterpiece of Rabelais contains in singular perfection a clear forecast of the Book which was to be revealed by Aiwass to Ankh-f-n-khonsu 370 years later."Crowley, Aleister. The Antecedents of Thelema. October 1926. Retrieved from * on July 4, 2006 But Crowley biographer Lawrence Sutin writes,
Sir Francis Dashwood adopted the idea of Thelema from Rabelais and founded a group called the Monks of Medmenham (better known as The Hellfire Club). An abbey was established at Medmenham, described in the 1911 Britannica as follows:
Later, Sir Walter Besant and James Rice wrote about Thelema in their novel The Monks of Thelema (1878), as did C.R. Ashbee in his utopian romance The Building of Thelema (1910).
Crowley wrote that the Law is not a license to indulge in casual whim or to mindlessly accept cultural mores, but is rather a mandate to discover and manifest one's True Will, which he described as one's inner divine nature, spiritual destiny, or proper course in life.
Crowley's system of Thelema begins with The Book of the Law, which bears the official name Liber AL vel Legis. It was written in Cairo, Egypt while on his honeymoon with his new wife Rose Crowley. This small book contains three chapters, each of which was written down in one hour, beginning at noon, on April 8, April 9, and April 10. Crowley claims that the author was an entity named Aiwass, whom he later identified as his own Holy Guardian Angel. Several years later, Crowley added a short section at the end called "The Comment", which warns against the "study" of the Book and "discussing" its contents, and states that all "questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal" to Crowley's writings. Crowley, A., The Book of the Law
According to Crowley, the discovery and manifestation of one's unique True Will is the central task of every Thelemite. True Will is an 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; theoretically, no two True Wills can 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 possibility that the majority of beings do not know their True Will.
Crowley referred to the process of discovering the Will as the Great Work, the basis of which is Love or Union with the All (similar in vein to the mystical aspects of Buddhism and Hinduism). The term Magick is applied to the general set of techniques used to accomplish the Great Work, which usually includes practices based on Yoga, the Qabalah, Hermeticism, and ceremonial ritual. According to Crowley, the two great milestones in this process are attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of one's Holy Guardian Angel (which Crowley described as a person's "Secret Self") and then crossing the Abyss, a mystical process where the individual ego is "annihilated" (symbolized by the spilling of the blood into the Graal of Babalon) and the adept achieves union with the All by entering the City of the Pyramids. After this, the "Master of the Temple" may either remain there, move on to higher states, or return to every-day life to fulfill some earthly destiny. (See also: Thelemic mysticism)
The Book of the Law establishes a triadic cosmology – derived from ancient Egypt – each appearing in one of its three chapters. The first is Nuit, the infinitely-expanded Goddess of the Night Sky, the Queen of Space; Hadit, the infinitely-condensed Point, the hidden Flame in the being of all that lives; and Ra-Hoor-Khuit or Horus, the Hawk-Headed sun god, the Crowned and Conquering Child. Other divinities that exist within Thelema are:
Crowley saw magick as the essential method for a person to reach true understanding of the self and to act according to one's True Will. In the broadest sense, magick is any act designed to cause intentional change. It is not capable of producing "miracles" or violating the physical laws of the universe (i.e. it cannot cause a solar eclipse), although "it is theoretically possible to cause in any object any change of which that object is capable by nature" (Book 4). Crowley describes the general process:
For Crowley, the practice of magick—although it equally applies to mundane things, like balancing the checkbook—is essentially to be used for attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of one's Holy Guardian Angel. Since achieving this state with one's 'Silent Self' can be extremely arduous, magick can be used not only to reach that particular goal, but to clear the way for it as well. For example, if one needed a particular dwelling to perform the operation, one could use magick to obtain a suitable home. Crowley stated that magick that did not have one of these goals as its aim was black magic and should be avoided.
Although there are communal ceremonies informed by Thelema and organizations to support them (see Thelemic organizations), Thelemic practice is largely an individual affair. Generally, practices are designed to assist the Thelemite in finding and manifesting True Will, although some include celebratory aspects as well. DuQuette, Lon Milo. The Magick of Thelema
Crowley wrote many rituals and discussed numerous spiritual practices that he considered central to the Thelemic experience. These include (but are certainly not limited to):
Crowley wrote two documents to codify his concept of Thelemic ethics: Oz and Duty.
Liber Oz establishes the rights of the individual. For each person, these include the right to: live by one's own law; live in the way that one wills to do; work, play, and rest as one will; die when and how one will; eat and drink what one will; live where one will; move about as one will; think, speak, write, dress, love, paint, carve (etc.) as one will; and kill those who would thwart these rights. The rights established in Oz are often considered to be complimented by the obligations given in Duty.
Duty is described as "A note on the chief rules of practical conduct to be observed by those who accept the Law of Thelema." There are four sections:
The core of Thelemic thought is "Do what thou wilt." However, beyond this, there exists a very wide range of interpretation of Thelema. For example, some organizations and persons regard Crowley's system to be only one possible manifestation of Thelema, choosing to borrow instead from Rabelais or other original system. Others accept The Book of the Law in some way, but not the rest of Crowley's "inspired" writings or teachings. Yet others take only specific aspects of his overall system—such as his magical techniques, ethics, mysticism, or religious ideas—while ignoring the rest. Considering the strong emphasis on the unique nature of Will inherent in each individual, it is perhaps inevitable that many Thelemites would tend to avoid strongly dogmatic or "fundamentalist" thinking. Crowley himself (at times) supported this view:
Many adherents of Thelema are syncretic and recognize 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. Adherents of Thelema, none so more than Crowley, 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 within Thelema.
While some organizations attempt to stay true to Crowley's system (such as O.T.O. and the A.'.A.'.), several organizations deviate from his core teachings, in some cases substantially. For example, the Fraternitas Saturni (Brotherhood of Saturn), founded in 1928 in Germany, accepts the Law of Thelema, but extends it with the phrase "Mitleidlose Liebe!" ("Compassionless love!"). The Thelema Society, also located in Germany, accepts Liber Legis and much of Crowley's work on magick, while incorporating the ideas of other thinkers, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles S. Pierce, and Niklas Luhmann. In America, the writings of Maggie Ingalls (Nema) have inspired a movement called Maat Magick, along with an organization called the Horus-Maat Lodge, founded in 1979. This movement combines Crowley's essential elements of Thelema with Nema's system based on the Egyptian goddesses Ma'at, as established in her received work, "Liber Pennae Praenumbra." HML aims to combine the current Aeon of Horus with the future Aeon of Ma'at, where the combined mind of humanity will awaken and mankind will achieve balance.
By far, the bulk of Thelemic writing remains that of Aleister Crowley. He was highly prolific and wrote on the subject of Thelema for over 35 years, and many of his books remain in print. During his time, there were a few who wrote on the subject, including Charles Stansfeld Jones and J.F.C. Fuller. Since his death in 1947, however, only a few Thelemic voices have appeared in published books. Perhaps the three most published voices have been:
Other contemporary writers who address Thelema include:
There are also numerous publications that print original Thelemic writing, such as the journals Light In Extension, Lion & Serpent, and The Scarlet Letter. (See External links).
Since Crowley's death in 1947, other organizations have formed that try to carry on his initial work—for example, Phyllis Seckler's College of Thelema, the Typhonian O.T.O. of Kenneth Grant, Society O.T.O. of Marcelo Ramos Motta, Thelemic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Holy Order Of Ra-Hoor-Khuit, and The Order of Thelemic Knights. Other groups of widely varying character exist which have drawn inspiration or methods from Thelema, such as the Illuminates of Thanateros and the Temple of Set. Groups such as Fraternitas Saturni, Horus-Maat Lodge, and The Thelema Society accept the Law of Thelema, but omit certain aspects of Crowley's system while incorporating the works of other mystics, philosophers, and religious systems.
Thelema has been attracting more attention in recent years from scholars of religion, especially those interested in New Religious Movements, contemporary Gnosticisms and Hermeticisms. References at the end of this article supply a few such sources. Perhaps the most 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.
Taken from a 1938 theological dictionary (to the New Testament), the concept of 'salvation history' (Heilsgeschichte) has a great effect on Tolli's thought, and it is in this context that he discusses Crowleyan Thelema. Tolli regards Crowley's Heilsgeschichte as one in which 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.
Thelema | Magick | New religious movements | 1911 Britannica
ثيليما | Thelema | Thelema | Thelema | Thelema | Thelema | Thelema | Thelema | Thelema
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