Defining Thelema

Many years ago, while corresponding with my good friend Hagios Xao, I came up with the idea of composing a little treatise on the relationship between magick and Thelema. I never got around to pinning down the subject matter, but I had a notion that the headline would play on the title of Magick Without Tears.

There were a few ways I could go with that: “Thelema Without Magick” for instance, or perhaps something like “Thelema Without Crowley.” A clever literary device, if somewhat obvious. But inasmuch as my aim would be to prompt a re-examination of the assumptions that underlie our thinking on these topics, some such provocative title would fit the bill nicely. Or at least that was the plan…

But the universe had its own ideas about how I ought to be spending my time, and the concept never got much further than the lightbulb-over-my-head stage.

Now I find myself helping to create a website where such an article could be published, and we need content to get things going. So it’s no longer an intellectual exercise: I must put fingers to keyboard and write something. Many years having passed since my initial idea — years in which I have paid little attention to current trends in Thelemic social circles — it occurred to me to take a moment and check what everyone is up to these days. So I went online and quickly discovered that the discussion I’d thought of provoking is well underway.

A Necessary Conversation

There are even people out there who are questioning whether one must practice magick, or be an admirer of Aleister Crowley, to call oneself a Thelemite. So it would seem I was onto something when I first thought about writing this essay. And if one may reasonably draw any conclusions from the amount of acrimony that these topics have apparently engendered in some cases, it’s a conversation that needs to be had.

Of course there’s nothing new about Thelemites squabbling over what it means to be a Thelemite: if we were a country, that could be our national pastime. What feels different now — beyond the fact that the squabbling is taking place on websites I could never have envisioned back when I first encountered the 93 current — is that it comes as part of what seems a wholesale rethinking of the nature of Thelemic community.

This development seems to echo things we see happening in society at large. Changing times, new technologies, and new problems present us with a choice: Do we adjust our thinking to match the emerging paradigm? Or do we remain entrenched in habit and tradition, adapting new methods merely to reinforce the supposed security and comfort of the old way of doing things?

If that looks like a loaded question, you’re right: one would think a Thelemite, if no one else, should be willing to at least consider the former option. For this choice is one of the chief ramifications of the Aeon of Horus. We are each called to take responsibility for our own thoughts and actions. To rely unquestioningly on the authority of our forebears — for whatever reason — is to remain stuck in the Osirian mindset.

Why, then, should one not seek to redefine what it means to be a Thelemite? To make an exception for that one word would seem the sheerest hypocrisy. This is why I see the present conversation as a positive development: because to assume responsibility for the definition of the label “Thelemite” may well be one of the most essentially Thelemic things a person can do … and a necessary first step toward the formation of whatever new consensus may be in the offing.

The Cause of Contention

That doesn’t explain the acrimony, however. It would be facile to suggest that those who take exception to the definitions proposed by others are bad Thelemites; what is worse, it would make us hypocrites, for we would in effect be taking exception to their definition of the term. So we must seek another explanation…

One of the biggest causes of discord and confusion, I think, is our tendency to think that words have only one correct meaning for any given context. We pull out a dictionary, find the definition that best matches the context in question, and presto! that is the meaning of the word. And this is reasonable insofar as we are using words as a means to communicate with others — this is what we may call the consensus definition.

But we also define words in ways that have slightly less to do with interpersonal communication and more to do with how we symbolize our understanding of the world. Our personal definition of a word includes connections to experiences, thoughts, and feelings that we don’t necessarily hold in common with other people.

For example: we all know the meaning of the word “cat” in the sense that we can use it to express the idea that yonder quadrupedal mammal is indeed a feline and not, let us say, a dog. On hearing the same word, however, you may well envision a fluffy ball of joy that you’d like to take home and feed a nice saucer of milk; whereas to me that word may call up only images of a standoffish smelly hawker of hairballs who wants to make me a slave to its every wish … and give me an allergic reaction to boot!

Such personal definitions don’t greatly affect our use of words in everyday conversation because the complete litany of mental connections — assuming we’re even aware of them all — would take forever to recount, and because they generally have little to do with the subject at hand. That may be why it’s difficult to imagine any cat-related communication becoming very heated — though I’m sure such things do happen on occasion.

“For the Beautiful One”

The definition of “Thelemite” is quite another matter because, on a personal level, the word is closely connected to cherished ideas about how we choose to live, think, and identify ourselves. Any changes to the definition are likely to have a much greater impact than passing exposure to another person’s pet preferences.

And we have yet to take into account the influence that the consensus definition exerts upon own our personal definitions — for Thelemites are, like all other members of species homo sapiens, social animals to some degree. The pressure to conform is strong enough that, even though we may resist having the opinions of others thrust upon us, the impulse to reshape the consensus to better match our personal definition can be hard to ignore.

Toss in the fact that the community appears to be undergoing some changes, and the chance to help redefine this word is bound to drop like a golden apple into a wedding reception. Every Thelemite within earshot, unless he or she is very careful, risks being transformed simultaneously into both a Paris being asked to choose the fairest goddess, and a goddess hoping to be chosen.

Legend relates the outcome of such an episode, and a beauty pageant was the very least of it. A pair of angry goddesses, an abduction, ten years of warfare and the razing of a city … the butcher’s bill goes on and on. In hindsight, Paris would have been wiser to remind everyone that his opinion was not all that important in the grand scheme of things. And the goddesses should certainly have known better than to put their self-worth in the hands of a mere mortal…

The analogy is not perfect. I would not wish to suggest anyone ought, like Paris, to refrain from expressing their opinion about what it means to be a Thelemite … in part because I intend to do exactly that in Part Two of this series, but mainly because, as the Book of the Law says: “The word of Sin is Restriction.”

As for the goddesses: I do think that as Thelemites (and especially as magicians) we would do well to attend to the interface between our personal definitions and any external influences. The responsibility for all movement of ideas across that boundary is ours, if we only dare assert it. Why should our mood — much less our personal practice of Thelema — be swayed by the opinions of others, unless we will it so?

If we keep these considerations in mind, then perhaps we will discover we are able to exchange ideas and grow in wisdom … all without the bother of eventually having to build any wooden horses.