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Thelema is the English transliteration of the Koine Greek noun θέλημα: "will", from the verb θέλω: to will, wish, purpose. Early Christian writings use the word to refer to the will of God,^[1] the human will,^[2] and even the will of God's opponent, the Devil.^[3]

Thelema is also an initially fictional philosophy of life first described by François Rabelais (16th century) in his famous books, Gargantua and Pantagruel.^[4] The essence of this philosophy was summarized in the phrase "fay çe que vouldras" ("Fais ce que tu veux," or, "Do what thou wilt"), and this philosophy was later put into practice in the mid 18th century by Sir Francis Dashwood at Medmenham.^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]

This Thelemic Law of Rabelais was revived by Aleister Crowley^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11] in 1904 when Crowley wrote The Book of the Law, which contains both the word Thelema in Greek as well as the phrase "Do what thou wilt." From this, Crowley took Thelema as the name of the philosophical, mystical and religious system which he subsequently developed, which includes ideas from occultism, Yoga, and both Eastern and Western mysticism (especially the Qabalah).^[12] Thus Shri Gurudev Mahendranath, in speaking of svecchachara, the Sanskrit equivalent of the phrase "Do what thou wilt",^[13]^[14]^[15] wrote that "Rabelais, Dashwood, and Crowley must share the honor of perpetuating what has been such a high ideal in most of Asia."^[8]

Antecedents of Thelema

Although the modern Thelemic movements trace their origins to the works of François Rabelais and Aleister Crowley, the latter pointed to important antecedents to his use of the term, and other instances are apparent from research. The word is of some consequence in the original Greek Christian scriptures, referring to divine and human will. One well-known example is from “The Lord’s Prayer” in Matthew 6:10, “Your kingdom come. Your will (Θελημα) be done, On earth as it is in heaven.” Some other quotes from the Bible are:

“He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, "My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.” —Matthew 26:42

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” —John 1:12-13

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” —Romans 12:2

"…and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.” —2 Timothy 2:26

"Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created." —Revelation 4:11

Crowley acknowledged Saint Augustine's "Love, and do what thou wilt" as a premonition of the Law of Thelema. In the Renaissance, a character named "Thelemia" represents will or desire in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of the Dominican monk Francesco Colonna. Colonna's work was, in turn, a great influence on the Franciscan monk Francois Rabelais, whose Gargantua and Pantagruel includes an "Abbey of Theleme" which Crowley embraced as a direct precursor to his modern Thelema.

Rabelaisian Thelema

The word "Thelema" was used by François Rabelais, a Franciscan and later a Benedictine monk of the 16th century.^[16] Eventually he left the monastery to study medicine, and so moved to Lyon in 1532. It was there that he wrote Gargantua and Pantagruel, a connected series of books. They tell the story of two giants—a father (Gargantua) and his son (Pantagruel) and their adventures—written in an amusing, extravagant, and satirical vein.

It is in the first book (ch. 52-57) where Rabelais writes of the Abbey of Theleme, built by the giant Gargantua. It pokes fun at the monastic institutions, since his abbey has a swimming pool, maid service, and no clocks in sight.

One of the verses of the inscription on the gate to the Abbey of Theleme says:

Grace, honour, praise, delight,

Here sojourn day and night.

Sound bodies lined

With a good mind,

Do here pursue with might

Grace, honour, praise, delight.

But below the humour was a very real concept of utopia and the ideal society. Rabelais gives us a description of how the Thelemites of the Abbey lived and the rules they lived by:

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.

In 1904, the same phrase would appear in the Book of the Law.

Sir Francis Dashwood adopted some of the ideas of Thelema from Rabelais and quoted this same phrase in French when he founded a group called the Monks of Medmenham (better known as The Hellfire Club).^[6]^[7]^[8] An abbey was established at Medmenham, described in the 1911 Britannica as follows:

At Medmenham, on the Thames above Marlow, there are fragments, incorporated into a residence, of a Cistercian abbey founded in 1201; which became notorious in the middle of the 18th century as the meeting-place of a convivial club called the Franciscans after its founder, Sir Francis Dashwood, afterwards Lord le Despencer (1708-1781), and also known as the Hell-Fire Club, of which John Wilkes, Bubb Dodington and other political notorieties were members. The motto of the club, fay Ce que voudras (do what you will), inscribed on a doorway at the abbey, was borrowed from Rabelais description of the abbey of Thelema in Gargantua.^[17]

We have little direct evidence of what Dashwood's Hellfire Club did or believed.^[18]^[19] The one direct testimonial comes from John Wilkes, a member who never got into the chapter-room of the inner circle^[20]^[19] and later fell out with the club.^[18] He describes their origin as follows:

A set of worthy, jolly fellows, happy disciples of Venus and Bacchus, got occasionally together to celebrate woman in wine and to give more zest to the festive meeting, they plucked every luxurious idea from the ancients and enriched their own modern pleasures with the tradition of classic luxury.

Their meeting place did contain statues of various gods, including the Egyptian Harpocrates pictured as a god of silence.^[18] The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Crowley would also describe Harpocrates in this way. The group derived more from Rabelais than simply the inscription over the door, in the opinion of Lt.-Col. Towers, who wrote "My interpretation of the caves remains as stated, that they were used as a Dionysian oracular temple, based upon Dashwood’s reading of the relevant chapters of Rabelais."^[21]

Gossip of the time and the later Historical Memoires of Sir Nathaniel Wraxall (1815) accused the Monks of performing Satanic rituals.^[19]^[22] But few modern sources outside the Church of Satan^[23] describe the Monks' activities this way. Gerald Gardner and others such as Mike Howard^[24] say the Monks worshipped "the Goddess." Daniel Willens argued that the group likely practiced Freemasonry, but also suggests Dashwood may have held secret Roman Catholic sacraments. He asks if Wilkes would have recognized a genuine Catholic Mass, even if he saw it himself and even if the underground version followed its public model precisely.^[25] Most sources say that Dashwood held strong anti-Catholic views, citing reports of actions as well as words.^[18] The Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon also minimizes the connection with Freemasonry.^[19]

Later, Sir Walter Besant and James Rice referred to Rabelais' Abbey of Thelema in their novel The Monks of Thelema (1878), as did C.R. Ashbee in his utopian romance The Building of Thelema (1910).

Shri Gurudev Mahendranath and others have written that Dashwood and Crowley revived the Thelemic Law from Rabelais.^[8]^[6]^[7]^[9]^[10] Aleister Crowley acknowledged in The Antecedents of Thelema (1926) that Rabelais "set forth in essence the Law of Thelema, very much as it is understood by the Master Therion himself," and wrote further that "the masterpiece of Rabelais contains in singular perfection a clear forecast of the Book which was to be revealed by Aiwass to Ankh-f-n-khonsu 370 years later."^[26] But Crowley biographer Lawrence Sutin writes that in his opinion, which clearly differs with Crowley's,

Questions of prophecy aside, Rabelais was no precursor of Thelema. Joyous and unsystematic, Rabelais blended in his heterodox creed elements of Stoic self-mastery and spontaneous Christian faith and kindness.^[27]

Some other scholars argue that Martin Luther influenced Rabelais, and that the French author wrote from a specifically Christian perspective. In particular, Alexander Pocetto of the Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales draws many parallels between him and the saint.^[1] Erich Auerbach (1946) disagrees,^[28] as does the old Catholic Encyclopedia entry on the Renaissance.^[29]

Crowleyan Thelema

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) was an English occultist, writer, and social provocateur. Rabelais was one of Crowley's heroes^[30] and his books Gargantua and Pantagruel provided Crowley with part of the philosophic basis for the Law of Thelema,^[31]^[32] namely the phrase "Do what thou wilt".^[33] In his The Antecedents of Thelema, Crowley even referred to Rabelais as "Our Master".^[34]

In 1904, Crowley claimed to have received Liber AL vel Legis, the Book of the Law through a form of spirit communication from an entity named Aiwass, which was to serve as the foundation of the religious and philosophical system he called Thelema.^[35]^[36]^[37] Crowley summed up his Law of Thelema^[38] in these phrases from the Book:

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"^[39]
"Love is the law, love under will"^[40]
"There is no Law beyond Do what thou wilt"^[41]

Crowley wrote that the Law is not a license to indulge in casual whim or to mindlessly accept cultural mores, but is rather a mandate to discover and manifest one's True Will, which he described as one's inner divine nature, spiritual destiny, or proper course in life.

The Book of the Law

Crowley's system of Thelema begins with The Book of the Law, which bears the official name Liber AL vel Legis. It was written in Cairo, Egypt while on his honeymoon with his new wife Rose Crowley (née Kelly). This small book contains three chapters, each of which was written down in one hour, beginning at noon, on April 8, April 9, and April 10, 1904. Crowley claims that the author was an entity named Aiwass, whom he later identified as his own Holy Guardian Angel. Several years later, Crowley added a short section at the end called "The Comment", which warns against the study of the Book and discussing its contents, and states that all "questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my writings" and is signed Ankh-f-n-khonsu. ^[42]

True Will

According to Crowley, the discovery and manifestation of one's unique True Will is the central task of every Thelemite. True Will is an idea that could be described in its dynamic aspect as the singular path of possible action that encounters no resistance in going because it is supported by the inertia of the whole Universe; theoretically, no two True Wills can contradict each other because each one has its own absolutely unique career in its passage through Infinite Space. Hence, to follow one's True Will means to respect all True Wills, described as "Love is the law, love under will". The apparent pacifism of this doctrine is complicated, however, by the possibility that the majority of beings do not know their True Will.

Crowley referred to the process of discovering the Will as the Great Work, the basis of which is Love or Union with the All (similar in vein to the mystical aspects of Buddhism and Hinduism). The term Magick is applied to the general set of techniques used to accomplish the Great Work, which usually includes practices based on Yoga, the Qabalah, Hermeticism, and ceremonial ritual. According to Crowley, the two great milestones in this process are attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of one's Holy Guardian Angel (which Crowley described as a person's "Secret Self") and then crossing the Abyss, a mystical process where the individual ego is "annihilated" (symbolized by the spilling of the blood into the Graal of Babalon) and the adept achieves union with the All by entering the City of the Pyramids. After this, the "Master of the Temple" may either remain there, move on to higher states, or return to every-day life to fulfill some earthly destiny.

Cosmology

File:Stele of revealing.jpg

The Stele of Revealing, depicting Nuit, Hadit as the winged globe, Ra-Hoor-Khuit seated on his throne, and the creator of the Stélé, the scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu

The Book of the Law establishes a triadic cosmology – derived from ancient Egyptian mythology – each entity "speaking" in one of its three chapters. The first is Nuit, the infinitely-expanded Goddess of the Night Sky, the Queen of Space; Hadit, the infinitely-condensed Point, the hidden Flame in the being of all that lives; and Ra-Hoor-Khuit, a manifestation of Horus, the Hawk-Headed sun god, the Crowned and Conquering Child. Other divinities that exist within Thelema are:

Babylon—the Scarlet Woman, the Mother of Abominations, the Holy Whore
Chaos—the universal generative drive
Baphomet—the Serpent and the Lion, creative energy materialized
Aiwass—the being that, according to Crowley, dictated Liber AL vel Legis, and whom Crowley claimed to be his own Holy Guardian Angel
Ankh-f-n-khonsu—an actual Priest who lived in Thebes during the late XXVIth Dynasty of ancient Egypt, around 725 BCE.

Magick

Crowley saw magick as the essential method for a person to reach true understanding of the self and to act according to one's True Will. In the broadest sense, magick is any act designed to cause intentional change. It is not capable of producing "miracles" or violating the physical laws of the universe (i.e. it cannot cause a solar eclipse), although "it is theoretically possible to cause in any object any change of which that object is capable by nature" (Book 4). Crowley describes the general process:

"One must find out for oneself, and make sure beyond doubt, 'who' one is, 'what' one is, 'why' one is...Being thus conscious of the proper course to pursue, the next thing is to understand the conditions necessary to following it out. After that, one must eliminate from oneself every element alien or hostile to success, and develop those parts of oneself which are specially needed to control the aforesaid conditions."^[43]

For Crowley, the practice of magick—although it equally applies to mundane things, like balancing the checkbook—is essentially to be used for attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of one's Holy Guardian Angel. Since achieving this state with one's "Silent Self" can be extremely arduous, magick can be used not only to reach that particular goal, but to clear the way for it as well. For example, if one needed a particular dwelling to perform the operation, one could use magick to obtain a suitable home. Crowley stated that magick that did not have one of these goals as its aim was black magic and should be avoided.

Practices and observances

Although there are communal ceremonies informed by Thelema and organizations to support them (see Thelemic organizations), Thelemic practice is largely an individual affair. Generally, practices are designed to assist the Thelemite in finding and manifesting True Will, although some include celebratory aspects as well. ^[44]

Crowley wrote many rituals and discussed numerous spiritual practices that he considered central to the Thelemic experience. These include (but are certainly not limited to):

Liber Resh—consisting of four daily adorations to the sun
The purification, consecration and exaltation of one's Body of Light by the use of rituals of invocation (e.g. the Ritual of the Pentagram)
Eucharistic celebrations, such as The Gnostic Mass or the Mass of the Phoenix
Development in Yoga
Keeping a magical record (a sort of diary for recording ritual and mystical experiences)
"Saying Will" before the main meal of the day (a simple set of statements—sometimes presented as a dialog with others—declaring that it is the individual's will to eat and drink, in order to fortify his body, in order to accomplish the Great Work.)

Ethics

Thelema stresses individual liberty balanced by responsibility and discipline, the inherent divinity of every person, regardless of gender,^[45] and the battle against superstition and tyranny. Ultimately, the interpretation of Thelema and The Book of the Law is left to the individual; for this reason, aggressive attempts at conversion are strongly frowned upon, although using personal example to promulgate the Law is encouraged.^[46]

Crowley wrote two documents to codify his concept of Thelemic ethics: Liber Oz and Duty.

Liber Oz

Liber Oz establishes the rights of the individual. For each person, these include the right to: live by one's own law; live in the way that one wills to do; work, play, and rest as one will; die when and how one will; eat and drink what one will; live where one will; move about as one will; think, speak, write, dress, love, paint, carve (etc.) as one will; and kill those who would thwart these rights. The rights established in Liber Oz are often considered to be complemented by the obligations given in Duty.

Duty

Duty is described as "A note on the chief rules of practical conduct to be observed by those who accept the Law of Thelema." There are four sections:

Duty to Self: essentially describes the self as the center of the universe, with a call to learn about one's inner nature. Further, every Thelemite is to develop every faculty in a balanced way, establish one's autonomy, and to learn and do one's True Will.
Duty to Others: A Thelemite is called to eliminate the illusion of separateness between oneself and all others, to fight when necessary, to avoid interfering with the Wills of others, to enlighten others when needed, and to recognize the divine nature of all other beings. Further, it is noble to relieve the suffering of others, but pity (seen as condescending) should be avoided.
Duty to Mankind: Thelemites should try to establish the Law of Thelema as the sole basis of conduct. Further, the laws of the land should have the aim of securing the greatest liberty for all individuals. Crime is viewed from the point of view of violating one's True Will ("Thus, murder restricts his right to live; robbery, his right to enjoy the fruits of his labour; coining, his right to the guarantee of the state that he shall barter in security; etc.").
Duty to All Other Beings and Things: Quite simply: "It is a violation of the Law of Thelema to abuse the natural qualities of any animal or object by diverting it from its proper function" and "The Law of Thelema is to be applied unflinchingly to decide every question of conduct."

Contemporary Thelema

Diversity of Thelemic thought

The core of Thelemic thought is "Do what thou wilt." However, beyond this, there exists a very wide range of interpretation of Thelema. For example, some organizations and persons who consider themselves Thelemites regard Crowley's system to be only one possible manifestation of Thelema, choosing to borrow from Rabelais^[47] or other original systems,^[48]^[49] such as that of Amado Crowley.^[50] Others accept The Book of the Law in some way, but not the rest of Crowley's "inspired" writings or teachings. Yet others take only specific aspects of his overall system—such as his magical techniques, ethics, mysticism, or religious ideas—while ignoring the rest. Considering the strong emphasis on the unique nature of Will inherent in each individual, it is perhaps inevitable that many Thelemites would tend to avoid strongly dogmatic or "fundamentalist" thinking. Crowley himself (at times) supported this view:

I admit that my visions can never mean to other men as much as they do to me. I do not regret this. All I ask is that my results should convince seekers after truth that there is beyond doubt something worth while seeking, attainable by methods more or less like mine. I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics, or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle.^[51]

Many adherents of Thelema are syncretic and recognize correlations between Thelemic and other systems of spiritual thought; most borrow freely from other traditions. For example, Nu and Had are thought to correspond with the Tao and Teh of Taoism, Shakti and Shiva of the Hindu Tantras, Shunyata and Bodhicitta of Buddhism, Ain Soph and Kether in the Qabalah.^[52]^[53]^[54] Adherents of Thelema, none moreso than Crowley, make free use of the methods and practices derived from other traditions, including alchemy, astrology, qabalah, tantra, tarot, and yoga, regarding them all as being subsumed within Thelema.

Some organizations purport to stay true to Crowley's system, such as the A∴A∴ and Ordo Templi Orientis, though the current National Grand Master General of the U.S. O.T.O. Grand Lodge dismisses Rabelais as "some meaningless diversion",^[55] an opinion which was quickly rebutted.^[56] Several organizations build upon Crowley's teachings, expanding upon and extending them. For example, the Fraternitas Saturni (Brotherhood of Saturn), founded in 1928 in Germany, accepts the Law of Thelema, but extends it with the phrase "Mitleidlose Liebe!" ("Compassionless love!"). The Thelema Society, also located in Germany, accepts Liber Legis and much of Crowley's work on magick, while incorporating the ideas of other thinkers, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles S. Peirce, Martin Heidegger, and Niklas Luhmann. In America, the writings of Maggie Ingalls (Nema) have inspired a movement called Maat Magick, along with an organization called the Horus-Maat Lodge, founded in 1979. This movement combines Crowley's essential elements of Thelema with Nema's system based on the Egyptian goddess Ma'at, as established in her received work, "Liber Pennae Praenumbra." HML aims to combine the current Aeon of Horus with the future Aeon of Ma'at, where the combined mind of humanity will awaken and mankind will achieve balance.

Contemporary Thelemic literature

By far, the bulk of Thelemic writing remains that of Aleister Crowley. He was highly prolific and wrote on the subject of Thelema for over 35 years, and many of his books remain in print. During his time, there were a few who wrote on the subject, including Charles Stansfeld Jones and J.F.C. Fuller. Since his death in 1947 only a few Thelemic voices have appeared in published books. Perhaps the four most published voices have been:

Israel Regardie, who not only edited many of Crowley's works, but wrote a biography of him—The Eye in the Triangle—and penned many books on ritual and Qabalah, such as Garden of Pomegranates, Golden Dawn, Middle Pillar, and Tree of Life.
Kenneth Grant, who has written many books on Thelema and the occult, such as The Magical Revival, Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God, Outside the Circles of Time, and Hecate's Fountain.
Lon Milo DuQuette, a popular author whose books are mostly dedicated to analyzing and exploring Crowley's system, including such books as Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot, The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford, The Magick of Aleister Crowley, and The Key to Solomon's Key.
Nema, whose Liber Pennae Praenumbra announces and explains the Ma'atian current has influenced Thelemites for over 25 years. She now has several books on Ma'atian Thelema including her book, Maat Magick.

Other notable contemporary writers who address Thelema include Jerry Edward Cornelius and Christopher Hyatt.

There are also numerous publications that print original Thelemic writing, such as the journals Light In Extension, Lion & Serpent, The Scarlet Letter, and Cornelia. (See External links).

Thelemic organizations

Several modern organizations of various sizes claim to follow the tenets of Thelema. The two most prominent are both organizations that Crowley headed during his lifetime, the A∴A∴—a teaching order designed to guide initiates through Crowley's mystical system of Thelema—and Ordo Templi Orientis—a fraternal order that initially developed from the Rite of Memphis and Mizraim of Freemasonry (which is considered irregular by most Masonic Grand Lodges and Grand Orients) and includes Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (which celebrates the Gnostic Mass).

Since Crowley's death in 1947, other organizations have formed to carry on his initial work—for example, Phyllis Seckler's College of Thelema, the Ordo Templi Orientis of Kenneth Grant, Society O.T.O. of Marcelo Ramos Motta, OTO Foundation, Thelemic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Holy Order Of Ra-Hoor-Khuit, The Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn, and The Order of Thelemic Knights. Other groups of widely varying character exist which have drawn inspiration or methods from Thelema, such as the Illuminates of Thanateros and the Temple of Set. Groups such as Fraternitas Saturni, Horus-Maat Lodge, The Hawk and Jackal Covens, and The Thelema Society accept the Law of Thelema, but omit certain aspects of Crowley's system while incorporating the works of other mystics, philosophers, and religious systems.

Thelema in comparative religion

Thelema has been attracting more attention in recent years from scholars of religion, especially those interested in new religious movements, contemporary Gnosticisms and Hermeticisms. References at the end of this article supply a few such sources. Perhaps the most unusual attempt was made by bishop Federico Tolli, in his German book Thelema — Im Spannungsfeld zwischen Christentum, Logentradition und New Aeon ^[57] For Tolli, Thelema is to be regarded as the dialectical consequence of Christianity. Christianity for Tolli exists as a community in Christ, whereas Tolli sees Thelema as a necessarily individualistic response to the world.

Taken from a 1938 theological dictionary (to the New Testament), the concept of 'salvation history' (Heilsgeschichte) has a great effect on Tolli's thought, and it is in this context that he discusses Crowleyan Thelema. Tolli regards Crowley's Heilsgeschichte as one in which the whole Universe (ergo the Will of God) is to combine (analogous to the Alchemical formula 'coagula'). "Love", in the form of combinatory attraction ("Love is the law, love under will"), is a universal principle — therefore akin to the concept of Natural religion. The main difference (for Tolli) is that in Christianity salvation of the entire Universe ("Ganzheit") cannot be made by 'solipsistic' man. The bishop sees Crowley as a failed – however talented – artist or "Mystagogie", but not as a "Satanist". The merit and contribution of bishop Tolli to Thelemic studies lies in the fact that it was he who first expresses that the genuine meaning and idea of Thelema does not necessarily contradict the teachings of Jesus, as Crowley himself affirms.

Notes

^ ^a ^b Rabelais, Francis de Sales and the Abbaye de Thélème by Alexander T. Pocetto, O.S. F.S., Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales, citing other writers. Online version here, retrieved from July 20, 2006.
^ e.g. John 1:12-13
^ e.g. 2 Timothy 2:26
^ Chappell, Vere. What is Thelema?. Retrieved July 7, 2006.
^ "One of the first serious attempts to realise Rabelais' Thelemic Utopia was made in England in 1751 by Sir Francis Dashwood during the decade before his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer." Frater Choronzon, THE HELLFIRE CLUB AND OTHER SWINGERS
^ ^a ^b ^c "Francis Dashwood, who revived the Rablelais 'Abbey of Thelema'..." Adams, Ron. Ecumenical Thelema in Ashé Journal, Vol. 3, No. 4, Spring Equinox 2004, pp. 71-78
^ ^a ^b ^c IAO131. Thelema & Buddhism in Journal of Thelemic Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, Autumn 2007, pp. 18-32
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Many years later, Sir Francis Dashwood revived the Abbey and its delightful law in the grounds of his country residence not far from London.", "In more recent history Saint Aleister Crowley, who did much to reform and revive the Western Occult Tradition, in reverence to the Rabelaisian masterpiece also revived the Thelemic Law; and even, for a short period, established an Abbey on an Italian island.", "It may be new to those who read this manuscript, but the identical rule or law has been held in the highest respect in India and neighboring countries for thousands of years. It has been the amoral philosophy of the Nathas, Tantriks, and Siddha saints and sadhus. It made possible the Parivrajaka or homeless wanderer saints, and eventually led to the highest grade of Indian spiritual attainment known as Avadhoota or emancipated one. Thus Rabelais, Dashwood, and Crowley must share the honor of perpetuating what has been such a high ideal in most of Asia." Mahendranath (1990).
^ ^a ^b "Therefore, we can say, by this [Rabelais'] definition, a Thelemite is a person who is free, well-born, well-bred and capable of interacting in honest company. A Thelemite has an inherent sense of honour and a sense of proportion and discretion. ... Much of Crowley's work is an interpretation and extension of this simple summary." Alamantra, Frater. Looking Into the Word: Some Observations in Ashé Journal, Vol. 3, No. 4, Spring Equinox 2004, pp. 39-59
^ ^a ^b "Crowley is misunderstood if he is seen primarily as the teacher of a new path to liberation, his sexual yoga and the abbey as a means of imparting this, with the theory behind it boiled down to the crude schematism of paths to enlightenment. He was part of a greater, far more intelligible tradition. Thelema itself is a rationally intelligible ideal that goes back to Rabelais, via Sir Francis Dashwood. Crowley gave this distinguished western tradition a new degree of development. The doctrine serves the man, not the man the doctrine. Not every practitioner of sex magic is a true disciple of Aleister Crowley." Moore, John S. Aleister Crowley as Guru in Chaos International, Issue No. 17.
^ "It's widely known that Rabelais said "Do what thou wilt", used Thelema and employed an Abbey of Thelema in his Gargantua and Pantagruel four centuries before Liber AL. The old Hell Fire Clubs continued that tradition through variation into the late 18th century. For some, this becomes a question of Crowley faking it. For others, it is more a matter of observing a gradual development of Thelema through the half millennium preceding the Aeon of Horus." Heidrick, Bill in Thelema Lodge Calendar for January 1995 e.v.
^ Liber XIII vel Graduum Montis Abiegni: A Syllabus of the Steps Upon the Path by Aleister Crowley. Online version here, retrieved July 7, 2006. For confirmation that the order in question took the Book of the Law as an official document of the order that "may be changed not so much as the style of a letter," A syllabus of the official instructions of the A∴A∴ by Aleister Crowley. "This book is the foundation of the New Aeon, and thus of the whole of our Work." First section, list of Class "A" Publications. Online version here, retrieved July 7, 2006. And finally, for the part calling Thelema the word of the Law, Liber AL I:39-40
^ John, Jeffrey. Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, p. 430. University of Chicago Press, 2007. ISBN 0226453693
^ Singh, Kapur; Singh, Piar; Kaur, Madanjit. Pārāśarapraśna: an enquiry into the genesis and unique character of the order of the Khalsa with an exposition of the Sikh tenets, p. 16. Amritasar: Dept. of Guru Nanak Studies, Guru Nanak Dev University, 1989.
^ Walker, Barbara G. The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, p. 41. Harper Collins, 1983. ISBN 006250925X
^ Rabelais, François, Gargantua and Pantagruel
^ Encyclopedia Britannica (1911). Buckingham.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Knowles, George. Sir Francis Dashwood. Online version here, retrieved July 22, 2006
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d The Hell-fire Clubs, Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon. Online version here, retrieved July 22, 2006
^ Coppens (2006)
^ Towers (1987) quoted in Coppens (2006)
^ see Howard and other sources on Black Mass rumors
^ Satanic Bible, quoted here, retrieved July 23, 2006.
^ Howard, The Hellfire Club, Online version here, retrieved July 22, 2006
^ "The Hell-fire Club: Sex, Politics, and Religion in Eighteenth-Century England" in Gnosis, Summer 1992. Online versions here, retrieved July 22, 2006
^ Crowley, Aleister. The Antecedents of Thelema. October 1926. Retrieved from [1] on July 4, 2006
^ Sutin, Lawrence. Do What Thou Wilt. New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin. 2000. p. 126
^ Mimesis, 1946, quoted here, retrieved July 20, 2006.
^ Online version here, retrieved July 20, 2006.
^ Skinner, Stephen (ed). The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley: Tunisia 1923, p. 79, n. 8. Weiser, 1996. ISBN 0877288569
^ Skinner, Stephen (ed). The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley: Tunisia 1923, p. 79, n. 8. Weiser, 1996. ISBN 0877288569
^ Meretrix, Magdalene. The Thelema Tradition in Witchvox, July 14, 2001
^ Skinner, p.149, n. 12
^ Crowley, Aleister. The Antecedents of Thelema, Thelema Lodge Calendar for November 1993 e.v.
^ "The origin of 'Do what though wilt' is Rabelais' Abbey of Thelema in Gargantua and Pantagruel. The Hell Fire Club was deliberately copying Rabelais. Crowley, of course, had read Rabelais and undoubtedly knew about the Hell Fire Club (which is more correctly called the Abbey of Saint Francis, by the way), but he claimed to have received the Law of Thelema ... from a Higher Intelligence which contacted him in Cairo in 1904." Wilson, Robert Anton. The Illuminati Papers. Ronin Publishing, 1997. ISBN 1579510027
^ "De Lege Libellum", in The Equinox III(1) (Detroit: Universal, 1919).
^ "Appendix: Notes on the nature of the 'Astral Plane'", in Magick in Theory and Practice, Book 4, purports to tell the reader what Thelema says about distinguishing independent entities on the Astral Plane from phantasms: "These mirror-mirages are therefore not Works of Magick, according to the Law of Thelema: the true Magick of Horus requires the passionate union of opposites... One must therefore insist that any real appearance of the Astral Plane gives the sensation of meeting a stranger." Online copy here, retrieved July 19, 2006
^ "Liber II The Message of The Master Therion", in The Equinox III(1) (Detroit: Universal, 1919). Online copy here, retrieved July 6, 2006
^ Liber AL I:40
^ Liber AL I:57
^ Liber AL III:60
^ Crowley, A., The Book of the Law
^ Crowley, Book 4
^ DuQuette, Lon Milo. The Magick of Thelema
^ "Every man and every woman is a star" AL I:3
^ "Success is thy proof: argue not; convert not; talk not over much!" AL III:42
^ "It is primarily for these reasons that I have sometimes said that I am a Rabelaisian Thelemite, but not a Crowleyan Thelemite." Maroney, Tim. Rabalais and Themela (sic), c. 1996
^ "This is no way implies that there are no thelemites among the thelemists. There are people who revere the Book of the Law in this way and also have the qualities of character that qualify them as thelemites in the Rabelaisian sense. There are also thelemists who are not thelemites, as well as thelemites who have never heard of Crowley, Rabelais, or the term "thelemite". The sets intersect, but one is not a subset of the other." Maroney, Tim. Thelemist vs. Thelemite?, February 4, 1996
^ e.g. Bowie, John Ash. The Book of Ash
^ Evans, Dave. The History of British Magick After Crowley, pp. 229-284. Hidden Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9555237-0-0
^ Crowley 1979, ch.66
^ De Lupos
^ Voxfire (2004)
^ Webster
^ National Grand Master General Sabazius X°. Address delivered by National Grand Master General Sabazius X° to the Sixth National Conference of the U.S. O.T.O. Grand Lodge, August 10, 2007
^ Miller, Jason. Rabelaisian Rebuttal in Silver Star: A Journal of New Magick, Issue 8, Fall Equinox, 2007, p. 32
^ Leipzig, 2004.

References

Coppens, Philip (2006). Hell, no damnation. Retrieved July 21, 2006.
Crowley, Aleister. (1997). Magick: Book 4. 2nd ed. York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser.
Template:Harvard reference
De Lupos, Rey. The Golden Topaz of Radiant Light in Silver Star, No. 1. Retrieved April 5 2005.
Del Campo, Gerald. Rabelais: The First Thelemite. The Order of Thelemic Knights.
DuQuette, Lon Milo. (1993). The Magick of Thelema. York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser.
Free Encyclopedia of Thelema (2005). Thelema. Retrieved March 12 2005.
Kaczynski, Richard (2002). Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley. Tempe, AZ: New Falcon Publications.
Mahendranath, Shri Gurudev (1991). The Scrolls of Mahendranath. Seattle: International Nath Order. LCCN 97-0
Melton, J. Gordon (1983). "Thelemic Magick in America." Alternatives to American Mainline Churches, ed. Joseph H. Fichter. Barrytown, NY: Unification Theological Seminary.
Skinner, Stephen (ed). The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley: Tunisia 1923. Weiser, 1996. ISBN 0877288569
Starr, Martin P. (2003). The Unknown God: W.T. Smith and the Thelemites. Bolingbrook, IL: Teitan Press.
Sutin, Lawrence (2000). Do What Thou Wilt. New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin.
Thelemapedia. (2004). Thelema. Retrieved April 15, 2006.
Towers, Eric (1987). Dashwood: The Man and the Myth. Crucible. ISBN 0-85030-427-X
van Egmond, Daniel (1998). "Western Esoteric Schools in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries." in van den Broek, Roelof and Hanegraaff, Wouter J. Gnosis and Hermeticism From Antiquity To Modern Times. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Voxfire, Thomas (2004). "Something from Nothing: the Essence of Creation" in Essays for the New Aeon. Retrieved April 5 2005.
Webster, Sam. Entering the Buddhadharma. Retrieved April 5 2005.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

Thelema at the Internet Sacred Texts Archive — a collection of texts on the topic of Thelema
The Law of Thelema — by Alexander Duncan
Ashé Journal — Special Thelema Centennial Edition
Rabelais: The First Thelemite
Thelema at Curlie

Thelemic journals

Podcasts

Thelema Coast to Coast

[de_sales-1] Rabelais, Francis de Sales and the Abbaye de Thélème by Alexander T. Pocetto, O.S. F.S., Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales, citing other writers. Online version here, retrieved from July 20, 2006.

[2] .g. John 1:12-13

[3] .g. 2 Timothy 2:26

[4] Chappell, Vere. What is Thelema?. Retrieved July 7, 2006.

[Choronzon-5] "One of the first serious attempts to realise Rabelais' Thelemic Utopia was made in England in 1751 by Sir Francis Dashwood during the decade before his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer." Frater Choronzon, THE HELLFIRE CLUB AND OTHER SWINGERS

[Adams-6] "Francis Dashwood, who revived the Rablelais 'Abbey of Thelema'..." Adams, Ron. Ecumenical Thelema in Ashé Journal, Vol. 3, No. 4, Spring Equinox 2004, pp. 71-78

[IAO131-7] IAO131. Thelema & Buddhism in Journal of Thelemic Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, Autumn 2007, pp. 18-32

[scrolls-8] "Many years later, Sir Francis Dashwood revived the Abbey and its delightful law in the grounds of his country residence not far from London.", "In more recent history Saint Aleister Crowley, who did much to reform and revive the Western Occult Tradition, in reverence to the Rabelaisian masterpiece also revived the Thelemic Law; and even, for a short period, established an Abbey on an Italian island.", "It may be new to those who read this manuscript, but the identical rule or law has been held in the highest respect in India and neighboring countries for thousands of years. It has been the amoral philosophy of the Nathas, Tantriks, and Siddha saints and sadhus. It made possible the Parivrajaka or homeless wanderer saints, and eventually led to the highest grade of Indian spiritual attainment known as Avadhoota or emancipated one. Thus Rabelais, Dashwood, and Crowley must share the honor of perpetuating what has been such a high ideal in most of Asia." Mahendranath (1990).

[Alamantra-9] "Therefore, we can say, by this [Rabelais'] definition, a Thelemite is a person who is free, well-born, well-bred and capable of interacting in honest company. A Thelemite has an inherent sense of honour and a sense of proportion and discretion. ... Much of Crowley's work is an interpretation and extension of this simple summary." Alamantra, Frater. Looking Into the Word: Some Observations in Ashé Journal, Vol. 3, No. 4, Spring Equinox 2004, pp. 39-59

[Moore-10] "Crowley is misunderstood if he is seen primarily as the teacher of a new path to liberation, his sexual yoga and the abbey as a means of imparting this, with the theory behind it boiled down to the crude schematism of paths to enlightenment. He was part of a greater, far more intelligible tradition. Thelema itself is a rationally intelligible ideal that goes back to Rabelais, via Sir Francis Dashwood. Crowley gave this distinguished western tradition a new degree of development. The doctrine serves the man, not the man the doctrine. Not every practitioner of sex magic is a true disciple of Aleister Crowley." Moore, John S. Aleister Crowley as Guru in Chaos International, Issue No. 17.

[Heidrick-11] "It's widely known that Rabelais said "Do what thou wilt", used Thelema and employed an Abbey of Thelema in his Gargantua and Pantagruel four centuries before Liber AL. The old Hell Fire Clubs continued that tradition through variation into the late 18th century. For some, this becomes a question of Crowley faking it. For others, it is more a matter of observing a gradual development of Thelema through the half millennium preceding the Aeon of Horus." Heidrick, Bill in Thelema Lodge Calendar for January 1995 e.v.

[12] Liber XIII vel Graduum Montis Abiegni: A Syllabus of the Steps Upon the Path by Aleister Crowley. Online version here, retrieved July 7, 2006. For confirmation that the order in question took the Book of the Law as an official document of the order that "may be changed not so much as the style of a letter," A syllabus of the official instructions of the A∴A∴ by Aleister Crowley. "This book is the foundation of the New Aeon, and thus of the whole of our Work." First section, list of Class "A" Publications. Online version here, retrieved July 7, 2006. And finally, for the part calling Thelema the word of the Law, Liber AL I:39-40

[13] John, Jeffrey. Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, p. 430. University of Chicago Press, 2007. ISBN 0226453693

[14] Singh, Kapur; Singh, Piar; Kaur, Madanjit. Pārāśarapraśna: an enquiry into the genesis and unique character of the order of the Khalsa with an exposition of the Sikh tenets, p. 16. Amritasar: Dept. of Guru Nanak Studies, Guru Nanak Dev University, 1989.

[15] Walker, Barbara G. The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, p. 41. Harper Collins, 1983. ISBN 006250925X

[16] Rabelais, François, Gargantua and Pantagruel

[17] Encyclopedia Britannica (1911). Buckingham.

[knowles-18] Knowles, George. Sir Francis Dashwood. Online version here, retrieved July 22, 2006

[bcy-19] The Hell-fire Clubs, Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon. Online version here, retrieved July 22, 2006

[20] Coppens (2006)

[21] Towers (1987) quoted in Coppens (2006)

[22] see Howard and other sources on Black Mass rumors

[23] Satanic Bible, quoted here, retrieved July 23, 2006.

[24] Howard, The Hellfire Club, Online version here, retrieved July 22, 2006

[25] "The Hell-fire Club: Sex, Politics, and Religion in Eighteenth-Century England" in Gnosis, Summer 1992. Online versions here, retrieved July 22, 2006

[26] Crowley, Aleister. The Antecedents of Thelema. October 1926. Retrieved from [1] on July 4, 2006

[27] Sutin, Lawrence. Do What Thou Wilt. New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin. 2000. p. 126

[28] Mimesis, 1946, quoted here, retrieved July 20, 2006.

[29] Online version here, retrieved July 20, 2006.

[30] Skinner, Stephen (ed). The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley: Tunisia 1923, p. 79, n. 8. Weiser, 1996. ISBN 0877288569

[31] Skinner, Stephen (ed). The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley: Tunisia 1923, p. 79, n. 8. Weiser, 1996. ISBN 0877288569

[32] Meretrix, Magdalene. The Thelema Tradition in Witchvox, July 14, 2001

[33] Skinner, p.149, n. 12

[34] Crowley, Aleister. The Antecedents of Thelema, Thelema Lodge Calendar for November 1993 e.v.

[Wilson-35] "The origin of 'Do what though wilt' is Rabelais' Abbey of Thelema in Gargantua and Pantagruel. The Hell Fire Club was deliberately copying Rabelais. Crowley, of course, had read Rabelais and undoubtedly knew about the Hell Fire Club (which is more correctly called the Abbey of Saint Francis, by the way), but he claimed to have received the Law of Thelema ... from a Higher Intelligence which contacted him in Cairo in 1904." Wilson, Robert Anton. The Illuminati Papers. Ronin Publishing, 1997. ISBN 1579510027

[36] "De Lege Libellum", in The Equinox III(1) (Detroit: Universal, 1919).

[37] "Appendix: Notes on the nature of the 'Astral Plane'", in Magick in Theory and Practice, Book 4, purports to tell the reader what Thelema says about distinguishing independent entities on the Astral Plane from phantasms: "These mirror-mirages are therefore not Works of Magick, according to the Law of Thelema: the true Magick of Horus requires the passionate union of opposites... One must therefore insist that any real appearance of the Astral Plane gives the sensation of meeting a stranger." Online copy here, retrieved July 19, 2006

[38] "Liber II The Message of The Master Therion", in The Equinox III(1) (Detroit: Universal, 1919). Online copy here, retrieved July 6, 2006

[39] Liber AL I:40

[40] Liber AL I:57

[41] Liber AL III:60

[42] Crowley, A., The Book of the Law

[43] Crowley, Book 4

[44] DuQuette, Lon Milo. The Magick of Thelema

[45] "Every man and every woman is a star" AL I:3

[46] "Success is thy proof: argue not; convert not; talk not over much!" AL III:42

[47] "It is primarily for these reasons that I have sometimes said that I am a Rabelaisian Thelemite, but not a Crowleyan Thelemite." Maroney, Tim. Rabalais and Themela (sic), c. 1996

[48] "This is no way implies that there are no thelemites among the thelemists. There are people who revere the Book of the Law in this way and also have the qualities of character that qualify them as thelemites in the Rabelaisian sense. There are also thelemists who are not thelemites, as well as thelemites who have never heard of Crowley, Rabelais, or the term "thelemite". The sets intersect, but one is not a subset of the other." Maroney, Tim. Thelemist vs. Thelemite?, February 4, 1996

[49] .g. Bowie, John Ash. The Book of Ash

[50] Evans, Dave. The History of British Magick After Crowley, pp. 229-284. Hidden Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9555237-0-0

[51] Crowley 1979, ch.66

[52] De Lupos

[53] Voxfire (2004)

[54] Webster

[55] National Grand Master General Sabazius X°. Address delivered by National Grand Master General Sabazius X° to the Sixth National Conference of the U.S. O.T.O. Grand Lodge, August 10, 2007

[56] Miller, Jason. Rabelaisian Rebuttal in Silver Star: A Journal of New Magick, Issue 8, Fall Equinox, 2007, p. 32

[57] Leipzig, 2004.

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v t e Thelema
Organizations	A∴A∴ Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica Fraternitas Saturni O∴A∴A∴ Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn Ordo Templi Orientis Society Ordo Templi Orientis Thelemic Order of the Golden Dawn Typhonian Order
Personalities	List of Thelemites Ankh-af-na-khonsu Aleister Crowley Kenneth Anger Allan Bennett William Breeze Mary Butts Marjorie Cameron Lon Milo DuQuette Jeanne Robert Foster J. F. C. Fuller Karl Germer Kenneth Grant Lady Frieda Harris Leah Hirsig Christopher Hyatt Charles Stansfeld Jones George Cecil Jones Richard Kaczynski Rose Edith Kelly James Lees Grady Louis McMurtry Mogg Morgan Marcelo Ramos Motta Nema Andahadna Victor Neuburg Sara Northrup Jack Parsons Helen Parsons Smith Theodor Reuss C. F. Russell Phyllis Seckler Wilfred Talbot Smith Leila Waddell James Wasserman Sam Webster Jane Wolfe
Thelemic texts	Aleister Crowley bibliography The Book of the Law (Liber AL vel Legis) The Equinox Liber 777 Magick (Book 4) Confessions The Book of Lies "Liber OZ (Liber 77)" The Equinox of the Gods The Law is for All Konx Om Pax The Book of Thoth The Vision and the Voice Little Essays Toward Truth Eight Lectures on Yoga Magick Without Tears The Blue Equinox Liber Aleph Moonchild The Diary of a Drug Fiend White Stains Clouds without Water Collected Works of Aleister Crowley The Stratagem and other Stories The Holy Books of Thelema Thoth Tarot
Concepts and ideas	93 Abyss Aeon Agape Astral projection Body of light English Qaballa Great Work Hermetic Qabalah Holy Guardian Angel Magical formula Night of Pan Stele of Revealing Stellar wisdom True Will
Magick	Abrahadabra Ceremonial magic Enochian magic Eroto-comatose lucidity Goetia Obeah and wanga Sex magic
Ceremony and ritual	Lesser ritual of the pentagram Bornless Ritual Gnostic Mass Mass of the Phoenix Rites of Eleusis
Godforms	Nuit Hadit Heru-ra-ha Aiwass Therion Babalon Chaos Ma'at Harpocrates
Symbolism	Number of the beast Pentagram Rose Cross Tree of Life Unicursal hexagram
Related topics	Abbey of Thelema Abramelin oil Agape Lodge Boleskine House Cake of Light Choronzon Dianism Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn IPSOS Magical organization Solar Lodge The Beast Whore of Babylon