Thelema is the Greek word for will. It is also the name Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) gave to the religious and magical philosophy he built around a short book he wrote down in Cairo in 1904. Crowley is the most famous — and most argued-over — magician of the twentieth century, and Thelema is the part of his work that still has organised followers today.
Rabelais' abbey
The word did not begin with Crowley. In 1534 the French humanist François Rabelais ended his comic novel Gargantua with the Abbey of Thélème, a utopia built by the giant Gargantua as the opposite of a monastery: no walls, no clocks, men and women together, fine clothes and learning. Its only rule was carved over the gate:
Fay ce que vouldras — do what you will.
Rabelais' point was that free, well-born and well-taught people are naturally honourable. Two centuries later Sir Francis Dashwood borrowed the motto for his "Monks of Medmenham", the club later called the Hellfire Club. Crowley read Rabelais and saw in him a forerunner.
The Law of Thelema
The heart of Thelema is three sentences from the Book of the Law:
- "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
- "Love is the law, love under will."
- "Every man and every woman is a star."
The first is not a licence to do whatever you like. Crowley distinguished the True Will — a person's real calling, the orbit their nature is made for — from the passing wants of the ego. A star moving in its own orbit does not collide with other stars; the trouble comes from people who do not know their will and so get in each other's way. Finding the True Will is the whole work of a Thelemite, and in Crowley's system it is bound up with the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
The second sentence names the means. Crowley said the "love" meant is the Greek agape, and he noticed that thelema (θελημα) and agape (αγαπη) both add up to 93 in Greek letters. So Thelemites open letters with "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law", close them with "Love is the law, love under will", and often shorten both to 93 and 93 93/93.
Magick with a k
Crowley spelled the word magick to set his work apart from stage conjuring, and defined it as "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will". In practice Thelemic magick is the Golden Dawn system he trained in — the Qabalah, the banishing rituals, the planets and the Tarot — joined to yoga, a scientific magical record and the new religious framework of the Book of the Law.
Two bodies
Crowley founded the A∴A∴ with George Cecil Jones in 1907 as a teaching order of individual study, each student working under one superior. After the death of its head Theodor Reuss in 1923 he also took over the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), a fraternal order with initiations and a public liturgy, the Gnostic Mass. Many Thelemites belong to neither and work alone.
Reading Crowley well
Crowley wrote brilliantly and badly, sincerely and as a joke, and the scandal of his life still colours how he is read. Read him as you would any source in this course: in his own words, alongside a good biography, and with your own judgement switched on. Thelema asks you to find your own will, not to borrow his.
Exercise
Write the three sentences of the Law at the top of a page. Under each, write what it would change in one ordinary day if you took it seriously. Then begin the four adorations of Liber Resh for one week and note in your journal whether the day feels different.