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Led by Aleister Crowley Simulacrum
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Led by Aleister Crowley Simulacrum
The question
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) — Cambridge-educated English ceremonial magician, prolific author, founder of the *A∴A∴*, Outer Head of the *Ordo Templi Orientis*, prophet of the religion of *Thelema* — is the most prominent and most controversial figure in twentieth-century Western occultism. Initiated into the Golden Dawn in 1898 (he progressed rapidly through the grades but quarrelled spectacularly with Mathers and was expelled in 1900), he developed across the next four decades a synthesis of the Golden Dawn's ceremonial system with Eastern (Hindu and Buddhist) yoga and meditation, Egyptian-religious imagery, and his own claimed prophetic-religious revelation in the *Liber AL vel Legis* (the *Book of the Law*, received in Cairo in April 1904). His doctrine of *Thelema* — built around the formula *Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law; love is the law, love under will* — has been a continuous current in twentieth and twenty-first century Western occultism. Crowley's writing — *Magick in Theory and Practice* (1929), the *Book of Thoth* (Tarot, 1944), the *Confessions* (1929), the *Holy Books of Thelema*, the voluminous magical diaries — has shaped every subsequent figure in the tradition. What is the Crowleyan project, and how should the modern student approach it?
Outcome
The student has read the *Liber AL vel Legis* (it is short, three chapters, about thirty pages); selected sections of *Magick in Theory and Practice* (Book 4 Part III in the modern Hymenaeus Beta edition; particularly the introductory chapters on the True Will and the chapters on the magical formulas); and at least one substantial piece of academic-Crowley-scholarship (Pasi, Bogdan-Starr, or Sutin).
Practice scenarios
Crowley Simulacrum walks you through the *Liber AL vel Legis* — the founding text of Thelema. Read all three chapters in full (the standard text is in the *Holy Books of Thelema* compilation; many online and print editions). Read also Crowley's later *Comment* on the *Book of the Law* (the *Comment* he authorised; brief). Read at least one chapter of academic Crowleyan scholarship (Pasi or one of the Bogdan-Starr essays). Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what does the *Liber AL* claim — what is the Aeon of Horus, what is the doctrine of the True Will, what is the formula *love under will*; how do the three chapters' three voices (Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit) function philosophically and rhetorically; how should the modern reader approach a claimed-prophetic text whose author is so contentious; and what is Thelema's place in the modern occult tradition — as Golden Dawn extension, as religious revelation, or as something else?
Your goals