The Spiritual Soul of Thelema
This can also be read here in an easier format.
Attempting to write what Thelemites ‘believe’ is a difficult task. There is not really a set doctrine laid out, no true creed to follow outside of magical orders, and individuals are left to, and encouraged, to explore spiritual phenomena on their own terms. Furthermore, we have different modern proponents of Thelema espousing differences in beliefs for their own personal and group agendas and according to their own biases.
A recent trend within Thelema is to reduce all spiritual phenomena to pseudoscientific psychological jargon and portray Thelema as inherently atheist and materialistic. While it’s important to respect people’s beliefs, Thelema was originally a spirit-model-based system. Psychology emerged later, often as a means of relating to Jung and Freud, both of whom espoused spiritual ideas within what they considered to be a scientific framework to make it more palatable to the masses.
Thelemites, desperate to appease a modern audience and fearful of ridicule for performing magick, often claim that Crowley himself didn’t believe in spirits. They cite his introduction to the Goetia, where he asserts that spirits are merely ‘portions of the human brain’. Crowley was a complex man and dabbled with many different philosophical models throughout his life. Any decent magician will tell you that they change their minds according to new experiences they encounter. What I thought and believed ten years ago is very different to what I think and believe now. This statement from Crowley was written prior to the reception of ‘The Book of the Law’ when he was arguably still very new to magick.
The pivotal moment in Crowley’s life was the reception of ‘The Book of the Law’. People can believe what they like about that experience, but it is evident from Crowley’s behaviour, letters, and personal diaries that he thought it to be of great importance. Crowley absolutely believed he had received a document from something greater than himself. He later ascribed the messenger known as Aiwass to be his Holy Guardian Angel (HGA). The HGA is a strange concept and one that is difficult to define within Thelema. A younger, more atheist Crowley would state that the HGA is the Higher Self. An older Crowley would boldly proclaim that the HGA is an objective exterior being and to call it the higher self is a ‘damnable heresy’.
Conflict in the nature of sprits and spiritual experiences in Thelema may have been inspired by Crowley’s own conflicting statements within his work. In public, Crowley would often make bold statements in favour of atheism and materialism; he wanted to attract wealthy doctors, solicitors, and men of science to his movements. He ultimately failed, but his intention was to present Thelema as a respectable system of occultism and not another back-room seance gathering relying on someone knocking on the table for dramatic effect. Crowley would publicly state different beliefs at different times, but for some reason would always emphasise the importance of ‘The Book of the Law’. He believed in subtle energies such as kundalini, he believed in objective spiritual beings, he believed in the Gods, secret chiefs, in spiritual contacts, and he tested these spirits and spiritual experiences to ensure they could provide him information he and his assistants would not otherwise possess.
It is clear that the so-called prophet of Thelema really believed it had spiritual origins. It is clear that he believed in spirits, in subtle energy, in astral travel, in rituals, even surprisingly in some types of folk magic. At one time or another, and certainly later in life, he began to state these beliefs more openly. So what happened? When did Thelema start to become a front for neo-jungian psychology? When did rituals become a form of dramatic psychotherapy? I believe it stems from Israel Regardie, one of the main editors of Crowley’s works, a key figure in the magical revival of the 70s, and the main source of modern Golden Dawn magical orders.
Regardie not only inspired followers of the Golden Dawn, but due to his connection to Crowley, his involvement with the OTO, and his involvement with the Seckler lineage of AA, he has influenced most of the roots of what has become modern Thelema. I believe Regardie did a great service to Thelema as well as to the Golden Dawn, and I still respect his opinions and his work greatly. But when his readers begin to reduce magic to a form of psychotherapy, paying no attention to key concepts such as energy work, which is quite key in Golden Dawn magic, you have a movement of people drawing geometric shapes in the four quarters but no magic present in the circle.
It is clear that the bulk of Crowley’s magick was not used for psychological growth; if it was, he would have been a much more balanced individual! Crowley utilised magick to obtain wealth, to influence the physical world, and most importantly to contact spiritual beings and communicate with them under a variety of different guises, including Aiwass, Angels, and the so-called ‘Secret Chiefs’. It was also aimed at mystical experiences, but to ignore the spirit contacts, the operative magick, and the references to subtle energy in his writing and his diaries is to ignore a massive chunk of his legacy. It is clear that despite what he may have written earlier in life in public works, the man was not an atheist and believed in the spiritual world as a part of his own reality.
We are all familiar with Crowley’s famous definition of magick, “Magick is the Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with the Will”. We can see why this again can be reduced to psychological practices. People proclaim it is my Will to live and so breathing is magick and other nonsensical statements ad nauseam. I prefer the definition of magick Crowley gave in a footnote in one of the introductory letters collected within ‘Magick without tears’. “Magick is the study and use of those forms of energy which are (a) subtler than the ordinary physical-mechanical types, (b) accessible only to those who are (in one sense or another) ‘Initiates’.” You see here that Crowley believes in a form of energy that exists beyond the physical that only initiates can utilise. Initiates does not necessarily mean someone who is initiated into a group; an individual can initiate themselves depending upon their own spiritual experiences. It could otherwise be read ‘accessible only to those who have the aptitude’.
Also in this text when talking about the objective nature of the HGA, Crowley states: “But do remember this, above all else; they are objective, not subjective, or I should not waste good magick on them.” I think this is important not only in terms of the HGA but also in terms of spirits in general. It is important to verify the objective nature of these beings, to ensure that you are not wasting time with your own phantasms. Nobody wants to be wasting good magick on their own psychological projections. If people are getting into magick for psychological benefits, simply seek therapy— it will be cheaper, faster, and more effective.
It is time for Thelema to stop solely embracing the psychological model out of fear of ridicule and pandering to what is deemed acceptable in modern society. It is time to reawaken the spiritual spark within our magick. It is time to imbue those geometric shapes with energy and feel the shifts within our own bodies. It is time to reach out and receive our own transmissions from the beyond. There are many Thelemites doing this, there are many like myself who find the reductionism of modern occultism laughable. It is sadly still an issue that if you mention a spiritual experience to a group of Thelemites online, you are likely to be ridiculed, called crazy, or be told you are experiencing psychosis. It is as though people got into Thelema to look edgy as opposed to actually exploring the spiritual mysteries at its core.
To summarise: Thelema can accommodate many different philosophies, including atheism. But at its heart, as a mystery religion, it is inherently spiritual and is rooted in a pivotal spiritual experience of its founder. To ridicule people who believe in spirits is to also ridicule Thelema itself. There is a reason Thelema has suffered from stagnation, and I firmly believe it is because many Thelemites don’t know how to do the magick they are doing properly and are performing empty gestures and drawing shapes in the sky that fade away with their attention span.