Thelema is Horror
But there will be times when you will know that it is infinite and that there is nothing more terrible than infinity… - F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science
-- Introduction
Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be the Whole of the Law.
We begin our descent into the horror that is Thelema from the rather tidy ontology Crowley provides us in Berashith. There we learn that as a means to avoid the usual monist/dualist traps which leave many religious foundations logically shaky, we should instead understand reality as being an extension in categories from the 00 construct, which Crowley explains as
Remember that it is not true to say that our 00 existed; nor that it did not exist. The idea of existence was just as much unformulated as that of toasted cheese. - Berashith
While I am being cheeky, this concept is tidy by virtue of the elegance it inherits from its noble relative, which is the central Buddhist concept of dependent origination, summed up as
The point is that if all things are dependently originated, between all permutations of existence and non-existence, then the manner in which all things occur - including selves in the same way as musical notes, toenails, thoughts, laughter, aromas, cats, trees, chairs, and stones - is generically the same, not that they are non-existent.
- Sue Hamilton, Indian Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction
Given Crowley’s situation of Buddhist thought as central within Thelema; see The Sword of Song, One Star in Sight, and Liber I for just a few examples, that Buddhism prescribes the cessation of dukkha, or suffering and in Thelema “The Law of Sorrow” (One Star in Sight), as the correct comprehension of dependent origination then makes such well known passages such as
This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all. - Liber AL, I:30
sing with greater depth and resonance. While dependent origination does not necessarily involve the attendant Thelemic notion of balances of polarities, encapsulated in the LAShTAL or 0=2 formula, nevertheless a strong parallel exists here insofar as that neither Buddhism nor Thelema are nihilism despite being founded on an ontology in the former, such as it is, of the fundamental inseparability of all things and in the latter of the extension of all things in one communal source of true nothingness, i.e. the qabbalistic trinity of primal nothingness which is Ain/Ain Soph/Ain Soph Aur or the Buddhist state of Nerodha-Samapatti (Liber 1).
So if we see as the greatest goal within Thelema the attainment of that state of being which experiences the 00, dependently-originated primal state preceding all readily understood definitions of consciousness, we might then naturally ask as to how one goes about arriving at such an exalted state. This of course is addressed by the curriculum of the A.’. A.’. However, in this essay, we instead expand upon the less traveled path which addresses the why. Why try to achieve this state? Why try to dissolve all perceived dualites, and why undertake the arduous path necessary to achieve this goal? The immediate Buddhist rejoinder is of course to cease the experience of dukkha, and I think Thelema responds similarly. However, where does dukkha come from in Thelema? Here we take Thelema to be as much a response to the modern condition as it is a kind of genealogy of religious thought and practice, and it is with this in mind that I now explore the centrality of horror within Thelema as the foundation of Thelemic dukkha.
A brief note on the author. The author makes no claim as to having achieved the exalted spiritual states described in this essay. This writing simply reflects the author’s attempt to summarize their reading and put forward ideas they find interesting and maybe not said in plain terms, even if they are implied elsewhere. All errors are clearly my own.
-- The Two Poles of Horror
Within Thelema, there are two void or negative spaces, Crowley also describes them as “crises” in One Star in Sight, which the magician is obliged to confront, both of which are represented by an Abyss. The first Abyss is between Tiphareth and the path connecting Hod to Netzach, and the second is between Microposopus and Macroposopus, or the lower portion of the Tree and the Supernals. In either case though, each Abyss is formed between the polarities of two central horrors which in their interplay form a dialectical current within Thelemic thought and literature.
I believe the first horror stems from the declaration that
Every number is infinite; there is no difference. Liber CCXX, I:4
Within Thelemic practice, I argue that this statement is less a description and more a prescription. It is the beginning of much of Thelemic method. It is the impetus to the radical decentering process by which any given star is forced to, on a cognitive and spiritual level, acknowledge that every human is nothing more or less than another category in extension, themselves most certainly included. To wit, from Crowley’s commentary on Liber CCXX, I:4 we have
Each 'Star' is connected directly with every other star, and the Space being Without Limit (Ain Soph) the Body of Nuith, any one star is as much the Centre as any other. - New Commentary on Liber CCXX
Of course, we might see the above statement as a call to understand dependent origination and thereby accomplish the Buddhist task of silencing appetitive cravings and their concomitant dukkhas. And in part, this is I think a correct interpretation. But Thelema is not Buddhism, nor any other existent religion for that matter. So while similar, it is in the differences that we must find the raison d’etre of our distinct faith.
I posit then that within the historical and cultural context of Thelema that we have arrived at our first pole of horror. Why horror? Because taken in isolation from any other competing concept, with but a couple of cognitive skips the pursuit of such radical Ego-death leaves one at the yawning doorway of Nihilism, bereft of comfort or meaning. At our most ambitious then, being denied any distinguished point of origin, the contemporary Western mind can imagine that
Perhaps, we can discover a realm where originality is again possible as parodists of history and buffoons of God. - F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
Otherwise, we might as well just lay about, gently humming “I’m waiting for my man.” Either way, we are now nothing but “One Star in the company of Stars” with Chaos as our master. In their quest for spiritual attainment, the magician is twice obliged to step into a void which removes any clear meaning or value to their life, as both a lived experience and as a physical entity. Taken on the face of it then, Ego-death does not sound like an especially sunny proposition for which most members of the modern world would be quick to embrace.
In trying to escape this terror, we arrive at the second horrific pole which competes with and thus balances the first. This second theme can be seen as an extreme drive towards individuation. This is most provocatively, and infamously, stated as
Yea! deem not of change: ye shall be as ye are, & not other. Therefore the kings of the earth shall be Kings for ever: the slaves shall serve. There is none that shall be cast down or lifted up: all is ever as it was. Yet there are masked ones my servants: it may be that yonder beggar is a King. A King may choose his garment as he will: there is no certain test: but a beggar cannot hide his poverty. - Liber CCXX II:58
What to make of this then? If “Every man and every woman is a star.”(Liber CCXX I:3), then who precisely are the slaves? Or can slaves be stars as well? In his New Comments on Liber CCXX, Crowley roughly answers this question in the affirmative and explains this passage as a call for the formation of a Platonically inspired Thelemic caste kingdom, albeit a relatively benevolent one as noted in his references to passages from Liber CXI. Thus, while all stars are of equivalent quality, Crowley seems to be supposing that there is a dharmic foundation which provides the static, ostensibly value neutral ordering in which some stars are King Stars and some are slave stars.
But if we cannot readily discern who might be a King, then we find ourselves at an epistemological, and then practical dead end. Moreover, it also appears that relative to Hadit, everyone is one of his “servants”, so does that in fact reduce all stars to slave stars? Was Crowley so subconsciously wed to his Protestant upbringing that he could not help but devolve in the end to Calvinism with magickal window-dressing?
This comment of Hadit though I think offers us a clue to solving this puzzle. If we treat Hadit in his highest representation as being a masculine/positive aspect within the supernals, then the achievement of the MT grade, and its necessary traversal of the second Abyss, is the requisite first step towards identification with Hadit. At the end of this profound process, we see a natural conclusion is that the serving slaves must be the remaining false selves affiliated with Ego, Personality, and Id, i.e. those selves in Ruach and Nephesch. That this is a valid interpretation is given weight in Liber I wherein the Magus says
In the beginning doth the Magus speak Truth, and send forth Illusion and Falsehood to enslave the soul. Yet therein is the Mystery of Redemption. - Liber I
However, while it might be clear that these lower slave selves always must serve, there remains a basic question. Whom do they serve? And it is here that we find our second Thelemic horror, which is that of alienation of the self, encapsulated in modern critical theory by Adorno’s “ontology of false conditions.” (The Jargon of Authenticity) This is to say that our lower selves at present, unless by some stroke of profound spiritual luck, serve the Other, which can be seen as societal moral dictates, the drive to find utility within, usually, the capitalist modalities of modern society, and the acceptance of social hegemonies and the inclusion/exclusion dichotomies they force on the mind and the body. This leaves our lower selves as either the direct object and victim of hegemonic violence or its perpetrator.
We now find ourselves, the magicians, in between these two poles of terror, our little tiny toes delicately resting at the yawning Abyss that opens between them. On the one hand, with our growing spiritual insights, we find that all categories and origins are but arbitrary marks left in the dust in a vain attempt to declare that here, here is the point of it all. On the other hand, as we rush back to meaning, we find that the selves to which we have grown so accustomed live in bondage, beholden to a world order which crushes the vital juice from us into a bland wine of uniformity poured into the master’s goblet so that
If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops & does nought. If Power asks why, then is Power weakness. - Liber CCXX II:30-31
Surely our escape is to simply recognize that the chains which hold us have never been there at all, and that real worth exists on a transcendental interior plane waiting at the burning center of all stars. And yet again, we find ourselves running, beatific smiles on our idiot faces, full speed to the dark nihilistic grin whose soothing song is the despair of the Nihilist.
-- Technical Notes: An Apology and Favor to Ask
At this point, I, the author, ask of you, the reader, a bit of a favor. As it turns out, my Hebrew is non-existent beyond quoting the usual qabbalistic terms that we all know and love. And, being a mathematician, I cannot think clearly without variable names as placeholders for intricate, and in our case, transcendental concepts. I am therefore going to use the German word Nichts as a placeholder for the kind of “nothingness” of which Ain Soph is the most foundational representation, though I am not being so bold as to equate the terms. Oh, and why German? Because most of us reading this are not fluent in the language, and so we are then generally devoid of immediate associations with a particular term. However German still allows for me to slap terms together at my liking, which is really handy in this kind of work. And I want you to think that I have read more Heidegger than I actually have. Also China Mieville did something similar in Embassytown, and I thought it was just too cool.
However, with my contrivances in place and “explained”, I am going to be even more insufferable. Treating the central task of Thelema as the achievement of the transcendental self-identification with our Sein (True Being), following the 0=2 formalism, this must then be seen as the understanding of the quintessence of nothingness, herein defined as WissenNichts. We take this to be possible only through the annihilation of the Ego that is the psychologically fictitious representation of Sein, i.e. the Demiurge of Ruach located in Chesed. Once accomplished, we will continue with Thelemic conventions and label said individual who has attained this state a Magister Templi (MT). I am also distinguishing WissenNichts from the exalted yet lower state of attainment described as Knowledge and Conversation (K&C), which I decided should be labeled as LiebeNichts. The corresponding magician which attains this state we describe as an Adeptus Minor (AM).
-- The Knight in the Court of the Crimson King and Wormfood
Hamlet: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
Claudius: What dost you mean by this?
Hamlet: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. - W. Shakespeare, Hamlet.
The first Thelemic remedy to resolve the, dare we call it, Angst of the burgeoning magician is to attain LiebeNicts, thereby joining with their Holy Guardian Angel (HGA). This is a part of the Great Work, and a great deal of Thelemic ritual and writing is devoted to helping individuals reach attainment. However, while we know for example that Liber Samekh gives us a magickal formula whereby we can accomplish the Great Work, it does not speak to the lived experience of trying to achieve LiebeNichts, i.e. K&C.
We see this addressed in the poems Tannhauser and The High History of Good Sir Palamedes the Saracen Knight and of his Following of the Questing Beast, or just Sir Palamedes henceforth in the remainder of the text, and then more abstractly and elegantly in the mystical verse of Liber LXV. In Tannhauser, the titular romantic knight escapes from the corrosive clutches of Venus/Lillith and her corrupting substitution of Eros for Agape, to the naked hypocrisy of court life and its similar perversion of Love. While he finds continued purpose in the transcendental purity of the maiden Elizabeth and the prodding of the minstrel Geschift, all worldly obligation leaves his higher self trapped, with even papal intervention being inadequate to release him from his alienating enslavement. His only peace is finally found in death as the O of the IAO formula. Incidentally, we might argue this makes the poem pre-Thelemic, or more an explanation of the Golden Dawn system. But, nevertheless, it was written by the Great Beast, and it serves as a record of his overall feelings as to the process of achieving K&C. Within the confinements of the upper-class Victorian mores of his era, the openly queer hedonism of Crowley faced an immediate crisis which alienates him at first from himself and then ultimately from the social milieau into which he was born. The crossing of the first abyss and his “death” and the requisite embrace of LiebeNichts are the only means by which he can face this terror and find freedom.
If Tannhauser is about the alleviation of the Angst brought on from the alienation of the Sein in lived experience, then Sir Palamedes represents an exploration of the other horrific polarity within Thelema, that of the radical decentering of self. In this poem, the Saracen knight Sir Palamedes is, after a distinguished military career followed by an ascetic retreat, tasked by the Court of Camelot to seek the “Questing Beast”. Upon picking up a stubborn dwarf and thereby both being chosen and accepting the quest, Palamedes proceeds to carve a path of arbitrary carnage through every social situation he encounters, all while expressing a constant state of dismay at not being able to catch up with and slay the Beast. This finally brings Palamedes to realize the Beast is within and consequently, he finds himself in direct confrontation with a mirror version of himself which he subsequently proceeds to slay. This is the result of severing all social ties and obligations, and Palamedes is confronted with the inescapable outcome that one ultimately is obliged to destroy the very concept of a distinguished origin of the self in order to bring the Beast, here easily seen again as inner Angst, brought on by the impotence which comes from the disconnection from Will, to heel. Clearly herein we find the other horrific polarity, and in both poems we see the corresponding Abyss they open which both Tannhauser and Palamedes must cross to attain liberation through connection with the Will.
In the end though, with these two horrors faced and embraced through Love, we arrive at the mystical experience of LieberNichts. Explored in Liber LXV, and ritualized in Liber Samekh, we see how K&C is aptly understood as LiebeNichts insofar as it is an experience of the ecstatic union of opposites, truly “the joy of dissolution”. While not devoid of trial and tribulation, the joining of the lower microcosmic princess with the higher prince brings the AM to realize that:
For I have found Thee alike in the Me and the Thee; there is no difference, O my beautiful, my desirable One! In the One and the Many have I found Thee; yea, I have found Thee. Liber LXV, III:65
Therefore the process of attaining LiebeNichts is largely one of internal decentering contrasted against external Others, i.e. social obligations, religious institutions and conventions, and so forth. Thus we see that LiebeNichts is only a precursor to the deeper attainment of WissenNichts, in which the horrific polarities become completely internalized. And it is in the pursuit of this higher state that the proverbial wheels on the Thelemic train come flying off leaving a psychic trail of blood and dismemberment, the account of which is Liber CDXVIII, or The Vision and the Voice.
-- In the Mouth of Madness
Here abideth terror, and the blind ache of the Soul, and lo! even I, who am the sole light, a spark shut up, stand in the sign of Apophis and Typhon. - Liber CDXVIII, 14th Aethyr
In contrast to the dialectic of LiebeNichts, in which the internal decentering is done largely as a means of escaping the bondage brought about by external Others and, vice versa, in which one seeks meaning in external interactions as an escape from nihilistic dissolution, in WissenNichts we see the dialectic shift to an entirely internal dilemma. Here the crisis of crossing the Abyss oscillates between the total dissolution of self brought on by recognizing the identity of opposites and the sublimation of self in the embrace and coherence of the harlot mother Babalon. Here Babalon serves not as Other but as the heretofore alienated Sein, which facilitates the simultaneous existence of coherence and the identity of opposites.
This Sein is contrasted to the arch-villain of Thelema, the demon of dispersion and incoherence, and thus the ultimate Other, Choronzon; see the 10th Aethyr. If not successfully defeated, Choronzon keeps the magician from achieving union with Babalon. Moreover, failure manifests as complete subjugation to a limited love which embodies the maxim “Sin is Restriction” (Liber CCXX I:41). This damns the magician to the Abyss, forevermore to be a “Black Brother”, which is a state of ever increasing alienation away from one’s Will. The horrific polarities now become, despite the abstraction of the attained state of MT, more concrete in their potentially deleterious outcomes for the magician, and in turn the stakes of confronting the horrors of this Abyss have been elevated to the level of an existential fatality.
Taking Liber CDXVIII then as the Thelemic exposition on WissenNichts, we see it as a journey into and confrontation with madness and horror akin in many respects to Dante’s descent in The Inferno. Along the magician’s path, a sequence of confrontations and initiations are proceeded through, each rising in the severity of impact upon the magician. After oscillating between the ever more horrific polarities, the magician on the cusp of the battle with Choronzon self-identifies with the figure of NEMO; see the 13th Aethyr. Here we have the “Nobody” gardener, who tends to their plants for their own sake as objects of value in so far as they are of the first manifestations of Tetragrammaton.
Thus the perfect Will of NEMO is the tending of the garden. That this is done for no Why in response to no uttered Because makes the watering of the garden become the ultimate expression of the Power manifested by Will. It is for this reason that NEMO, and as noted in Aethyr 13 only NEMO, was able to properly manifest the necessary Will in the 5th Aethyr where, in an allusion to The Odyssey when Ulysses both blinds the cyclops and later strings and fires an arrow from his bow,
And there came a voice: It must needs be.
And I said: No man can do this thing.
And the voice answered, as it were an echo: Nemo hoc facere potest. - Liber CDXVIII
And of course The Vision and the Voice is at the very least an odyssey. As noted above, the identification of the magician with NEMO, and the corresponding attainment of WissenNichts, does bring redemption through the identification/union with Babalon which is “described” in the 9th, 7th, 4th, and 2nd Aethyrs. Likewise, the magician develops a more complete relationship with their HGA representing the augmentation of WissenNichts over the LiebeNichts of K&C. This leads to the cessation of the second horror of alienation accomplished through the alignment of the slave selves with the Will of the Sein, so that
14. Even to the abyss, annihilation.
15. An end to loneliness, as to all. - Prologue, Liber VII
Yet we find here the decentering of the self so complete and overwhelming, that even in this soaring state of attainment, the magician cries
52. Sleep, take me! Death, take me! This life is too full; it pains, it slays, it suffices.
53. Let me go back into the world; yea, back into the world. - II, Liber VII
Moreover, it becomes the obligation of the MT to return to the external world to teach the true Love which results from the complete embrace of everything, which is the consequence of recognizing the identity of all opposites; see the 4th Aethyr’s “Oh Night…” passage or the appearance of Lilltih in the 3rd Aethyr for this idea taken to its perhaps most disturbing extremes. Towards the end of Liber VII after achieving unity with Pan, the MT cries out to the “people”, the external Other,
37. Fear me not with my spearmen! They shall slay the demons with their petty prongs. Ye shall be free.
38. Ah, slaves! ye will not— ye know not how to will.
39. Yet the music of my spears shall be a song of freedom. - VII, Liber VII
Therefore, the achievement of the MT, which almost appears to be the complete removal of the magician from the horrific polarities of Thelema is, fully equipped in the Power of their Will, obliged to confront the Other and thereby liberate the enslaved selves of the masses. This idea is expanded on at yet greater length in Crowley’s writings on the Grade of Magus and his receiving the word Thelema as the Word/Logos of the new Aeon of Horus.
-- Fin
Yet again, though from a distinctly different vantage point, the magician is thrust back into the horrific polarities of Thelema. While empowered, the MT, or Magus as the case may be, is inescapably locked in direct confrontation with the Other. Moreover, whereas before the magician may have comfortably rested in suffering ignorance, now the elevated magician has no choice but to continually confront the horror that surrounds them. The final grade of Ipsissimus provides some relief, but in this grade is a state of attainment so isolated and indescribable, to the uninitiated, it might naturally appear as a pyrrhic victory at best.
That the concomitant Thelemic dukkha brought on by the horrific polarities explored in this essay are specifically Thelemic seems clear to the author by way of the parallels we see through much of modern philosophy and literature. As mentioned, we have in effect provided in this essay a Thelemic definition of the “ontology of false conditions” which ties the traditional Buddhist concept of impermanence in the material world, the source of dukkha, with the particular crisis brought about by the modern condition. In keeping with the 0=2 formula, we have shown how this manifested ontology, i.e. the 2, is formed from the interaction of the horrific polarities, i.e. 0=1+(-1), of self-alienation and enslavement by the Other and of nihilistic self-annihilation brought about by the pursuit of Ego-death. The modern condition makes living in the first horror impossible, but the same condition makes complete escape from it infeasible and just as horrific. Thelema in this regard offers, much like Buddhism and Chrisitianity did relative to Hinduism and Judaism in their particular contemporary historical moments, a new path forward through the Aeon of Horus.
As a final thought, emphasizing the modern condition epistemically localizes Thelema, which is why one may draw as much on Nietzsche or Foucault as one pulls from canonical religions. The author would argue this focus on the contemporary moment is a central feature of the faith, with its syncretism making it a genealogy of religion or a history of the religious present. These ideas though deserve another essay, best saved for a later date.
Love is the Law, Love Under Will.
Frater Logos