Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Do what thou wilt...


There is the big chunk of Crowley's Book of the Law which reads to me as superior poetry; then, there is the dictum which in many circles has become a commonplace: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Crowley remarks, in his introduction, that Do what thou wilt constitutes a simple code of conduct; which implies that what is being signified is a simple Do what you want. Thus, the bastardization of Crowley into Satanic, adolescent cults and orders, mostly undeserved, is due partly to Crowley's own negligence; because there is another, richer way of reading Do what thou wilt. The way I have always chosen to read the dictum, Will (Thelema, in the text) is something, an individual essence, which must be divined for through processes of arduous spiritual labor and eventual catharsis. To "do one's will," one first has to know one's will thoroughly. The process of learning one's own will involves not only introspection but awareness of all levels and gradations of positive and negative Otherness; how the individual must stand in relation to the rest of the (complex, contradictory) human race. Not simple stuff. Just as Love is the law, love under will can only be the manifestation of internalizing complex realities and assimilating them over long periods of time. For the love to be there, under one's will, it must be directed concretely; you must be loving something or someone; and it is impossible to love everyone and everything.

P.S. This piece, on Crowley's novels Moonchild and Diary of a Drug Fiend, appeared on UK blog Eyewear in 2013.

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