November 1, 2002

  • goMetric asks if I could comment on Thelema, the ritualistic magickal religion founded by Aleister Crowley, the last century’s most vilified and misunderstood Victorian holdout freakazoid weirdo.

    I have two sets of Crowley’s (illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris) Thoth tarot deck, one small and one large. If you’re interested in tarot and all the gnostic history that goes along with it, this is the deck. And Crowley’s ‘Book Of Lies’ is really, really good.

    Crowley participated in and founded a few mystical schools, most notably the Ordo Templi Orientis, or OTO. The OTO is one of the vehicles of the religion of Thelema, which is a highly structured mystery religion. I’ll spoil it for you: The mystery is that you’re worshipping Jesus the whole time, even they they tell you you’re being a heretic.

    One of Crowley’s central ideas, ‘Our method is science, our aim religion,’ really resonated with me. And that’s really all I took from my excursion into Crowley-ana besides the tarot, because I can’t abide a religion with more than two or three ‘degrees’ of accomplishment. Last I heard there were 33 in Thelema and they were adding more. And seriously, if your method is science, why do you keep secrets from the lower ranks? Doesn’t that fly in the face of scientific inquiry?

    Thelema had too much to apologize for, and while I’m generally OK with people breaking the arbitrary rules of Victorian society and bringing it into the 20th century, Crowley went to great lengths to make an ass of himself. This I don’t want to emulate.

Comments (4)

  • i really find the entire phenomenon interesting, and i call it that because it seems like so much more than just a religion or belief system. it’s just a little too structured for my liking. sounds like you have the same impression. but “our method is science, our aim religion” sounds SO much like what i want to find right now. *sigh* i just can’t stand floundering like this, i want to find something and run with it.

  • I think Beastly old 666 would be proud to be called a “freakazoid weirdo”, once someone translated it into terms he could understand.  His Diary of a Drug Fiend had a significant influence on me in an impressionable time.  “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.  Love is the Law; Love under Will.”  IMFFHO, he would have been less of a fool if he had not been so influenced by Gerald Gardner.

  • i have this deck but haven’t been ready to use it yet…

  • “The cabbage that Wilt shall be the Cole of the Slaw!”

Comments are closed.

Post a Comment