Do What Thou Wilt: Split from Book of Law Study Group 1.5

Abrac

I guess the whole purpose of Thelema and the BoL is to make a person their own god. The way I see it, what's the point of being a god if you have to give someone or something else the credit? })
 

Aeon418

Always Wondering said:
I have to admit your use of the word religion pushed a button and stirred me up a bit. I have been doing some goggling, "Is Thelema a religion?," and got, yes, no, maybe, if you want it to be, as in Do what thou wilt.
I don't regard Thelema as a religion in the conventional sense. In a way Thelema is anti-religion. There's just too much emphasis on the unique perspective and sanctity of the individual. Religions are group movements that the individual has to merge with, in order to be one with the group.

If Thelema were a tailored suit, then organised religion would be one-size-fits-all jogging pants. :laugh:

I agree with Crowley on this one. From letter 31, Magick Without Tears.
To sum up, our system is a religion just so far as a religion means an enthusiastic putting-together of a series of doctrines, no one of which must in any way clash with Science or Magick.

Call it a new religion, then, if it so please your Gracious Majesty; but I confess that I fail to see what you will have gained by so doing, and I feel bound to add that you might easily cause a great deal of misunderstanding, and work a rather stupid kind of mischief.

The word does not occur in The Book of the Law.
 

Aeon418

Abrac said:
"The kingdom of God is within you." -Jesus, Luke 17:21
In that sense, Thelema can be regarded as a continuation, and evolution, of Christianity. It's a re-telling of a timeless mystery. A mystery that has been lost within Christianity.

Christianity is a poisoned well. The vile doctrine of original sin ruined Christianity before it even got going, and we've been living with the consequences ever since.
Abrac said:
Do what thou 'wilt' sounds different on the surface, but when you start to investigate what it's really saying it's no different from any other self-sacrificial dogma that teaches one to sacrifice their will to another supposedly more enlightened will.
But, as has already been pointed out, traditional ideas of self-sacrifice are directed at someone else's conception of God.

But it doesn't stop there. Christianity promotes the ideal of self-sacrifice as a general formula for life. It's an aspirational ideal that we should all worship and adore. To this day it is still deeply rooted in our culture. How many movies are still being made where the hero or heroine has to sacrifce themselves for the greater good. Why are we constantly being put on a guilt trip because someone is making a sacrifice by being involved in a war. Because we still idolise self-sacrifice. (Of course we don't like it's latest manifestation. Martyrdom. ;))

Thelema proclaims, "Do what thou wilt". But there's no hidden caveat tacked onto the end that says, "But feel free to throw your Will away in the name of self-sacrifice." General ideals for all, like self-sacrifice, are anathema to Thelema. "Thou hast no right but to do thy will".
This card is beautiful is a strange, immemorial, moribund manner. It is the card of the Dying God; it's importance in the present pack is merely that of the Cenotaph. It says: "If ever things get bad like that again, in the new Dark Ages which appear to threaten, this is the way to put things right." But if things have to be put right, it shows that they are very wrong. It should be the chiefest aim of the wise to rid mankind of the insolence of self-sacrifice, of the calamity of chastity; faith must be slain by certainty, and chastity by ecstacy."

The Book of Thoth p.97
To sum up, Christian ideals of self-sacrifice are a throw back, in much the same way that our notions of a dying sun are a throw back. They are now little more than emergency back up plans if the s**t hits the fan. But that should be a big red flashing warning sign with bells and claxons, that something is seriously wrong, because it represents a huge step backwards in our spiritual evolution.

Thelema is symbolised by the ever-living sun. Like most modern day people, I don't believe that the sun dies at sunset. It's an illusion. So why should I constrain my spiritual understanding to a primitive misconception of nature. Thelema represents self-actualization, not self-sacrifice.
 

Aeon418

Abrac said:
I guess the whole purpose of Thelema and the BoL is to make a person their own god.
How can you make yourself your own god? You are either are, or you aren't. The only question is of realization of that fact.

The slaves shall serve.
 

Aeon418

Abrac said:
Do what thou 'wilt' sounds different on the surface, but when you start to investigate what it's really saying it's no different from any other self-sacrificial dogma that teaches one to sacrifice their will to another supposedly more enlightened will.
You make it sound very passive. On the contrary, Do what thou wilt is intensely active. It's nothing like turning your life over to Jesus and hoping that he will sort everything out for you. You have to play your part too. Unlike conventional religion, you aren't provided with a convenient list of rules to follow or role models to imitate. It's spirituality for grown ups. If you mess up along the way, tough, the buck stops with you. Sort it out. Work with your problems. No more blaming your own stupidity and laziness on the Devil either.
From The Magick of Aleister Crowley by Lon Milo DuQuette. (Used to be called the Magick of Thelema)
Out of fear, frustration, or what might be called spiritual fatigue, many of us turn to religions whose champions are more than happy to tell us, in no uncertain terms, exactly where our place in the universe is.

The religions that Westerners most frequently are attracted to (Christianity, with it's many sects, Judaism, and Islam) postulate a Supreme Being who personifies and manifests the order of the universe. The mechanism of this order is often termed the "Will of God." By surrendering the individual will to Will of God, the religious devotee can theoretically harmonize his or her life with that of the Deity's. Not my will, but Thine be done.

In order for us to know God's Will, these religions offer, for our great comfort (and often from ancient and "infallible" sources), rules, commandments, and assorted scriptural injunctions to guide the thoughts and behavior of the faithful. As an added safeguard that these scriptures be "correctly" interpreted, a priestcraft of some form or another invariably evolves and assumes the role of a visible mediator between the worshiper and the Deity. For those who duitifully comply with the dictated formulae and surrender their wills to the prescribed Will of God, a great burden is lifted from their shoulders. They no longer feel the need for direct spiritual experience, and faith in the infallibility of the dogmatists makes even intellectual investigation unnecessary. The reward for such spiritual collaborators is the smug comfort of knowing that those who haven't submitted to the formula will suffer after death, and that they who have, will not.

Magick also postulates a universal order - call it God, Nature, the Supreme Being, the Grand Architect of the Universe, the Tao, or just the-way-things-are. But the Magician knows that the pure Will of every man and every woman is already in perfect harmony with the divine Will; in fact they are one and the same. It is the Magician's Great Work to endeavor to remove the obstacles that hinder his or her perfect realization of that Will and then proceed to execute it.

We perceive in the world around us a vast cosmic orderliness (or at least a glorious systematized chaos). Galaxies, stars, planets, atoms, electrons, and other sub-atomic particles all seem to have found their niche in the grand scheme of things and behave themselves accordingly. By realizing our True Wills we find our place ... our orbit. By doing our True Will, we have the inertia of the entire universe to assist us.

The Magician does not neccessarily want the burden of existence lifted from his shoulders; he wants to understand why he is carrying it and where.
 

Always Wondering

Aeon418 said:
Christianity is a poisoned well. The vile doctrine of original sin ruined Christianity before it even got going, and we've been living with the consequences ever since.

Oh yuk. Bad memories from my youth.

I didn't sleep very well last night in one-size-fits-all jogging pants. :laugh:

But this is all stuff I needed to see about myself, so I am glad you used that word Similia. :laugh:

AW
 

Abrac

Do what thou wilt as long as it conforms with the requirements of your spirit guide. :laugh:
 

Myrrha

Abrac said:
Do what thou 'wilt' sounds different on the surface, but when you start to investigate what it's really saying it's no different from any other self-sacrificial dogma that teaches one to sacrifice their will to another supposedly more enlightened will.

I can see your point, Abrac. what makes it different to me from what I've read about Thelema so far (although I may be misunderstanding it) is that that supposedly more enlightened will is supposed to be yourself. And it sounds like it is supposed to be yourself in a way that is different from the teachings of other religions where non-dualism makes "god" in some way also "yourself". It sounds like in Thelema the god that is yourself could look (and behave) quite different from the god that is also someone else's self.

I suppose it could still seem like self-sacrificial dogma to sacrifice your own less-enlightened will to your own more-enlightened will.
 

Yygdrasilian

For my book: all you'll find is laughter...

Stele of Revealing said:
"indeed the Osiris, Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu, shall go forth by day to DO THAT WHICH HE WILLS upon the earth and among the living."
http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.p...le_of_Revealing

Scroll of Dawn said:
“Behold, the Osiris Ani shall come forth by day to PERFORM EVERYTHING WHICH HE WISHETH upon the earth among those who are living”
from "The Book of the Dead" trans.by E.A.Wallis Budge

Gargantua said:
All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they thought good; they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a mind to it and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one clause to be observed,

DO WHAT THOU WILT

because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden and to desire what is denied us.

"...That's all the glory my heart is after,
Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you.
I'd rather write about laughing than crying,
For laughter makes men human, and courageous.

BE HAPPY!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabelais
 

Abrac

Myrrha said:
what makes it different to me from what I've read about Thelema so far (although I may be misunderstanding it) is that that supposedly more enlightened will is supposed to be yourself.
This really gets at the heart of it as far as I'm concerned. The Holy Guardian Angel is either yourself or it's not. You can't play both sides of the fence.