REVIEW: The Law is for All

Ostara, 2001

Review

Llewellyn Publications

St. Paul, Minnesota 55165, U.S.A.

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“MAGICK = THE ART OF LIVING”

(Aleister Crowley)

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THE LAW IS FOR ALL: An Extended Commentary on The Book of the Law contains, as the title suggests, Crowley’s Liber Al vel Legis—as well as two sets of reflective Commentaries written at a later date by the author.

The original is a small book of three chapters supposedly “channeled” to Crowley in 1904 when he and his new wife were on an extended honeymoon in Cairo. One of many factoids of “The Book’s” creation (propagated by Aleister Crowley himself) insists that “the empty-headed society woman” (his bride!) was in some sort of psychic rapport with the “Forces” attempting to “get through” to dictate the great work. (Crowley’s history with “his women” tends to be a consistently negative and abusive one.

At one time he was involved with a certain Mary D’Esty—one of the primary supporters of the revolutionary artist Isadora Duncan. Crowley attempted a meeting with the famous dancer, but was apparently rebuffed. Mary D’Esty’s son, Preston Sturgess—an influential dramatist—considered Crowley to be something of a fraud and personally repulsive. Going by Crowley’s accounts, the antagonism was mutual. Although the highly impressionable and suggestible D’Esty “channeled” with “The Beast,” she apparently did not become one of his “Scarlet Women.” In other words, she did not have sex with him.

The daemonic personality dictating the book is identified as “Aiwaz.”

The initial Commentary was penned by Crowley in 1920 at his Abbey of Thelema located in Cefalu, Sicily.

Together Liber Al and the Commentaries represent an extraordinary revelation that repels as much—or even more—than it attracts.

It also poses a challenge to all contemporary adherents of “The Law” (Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of The Law…Love is The Law, Love under Will). How far are they willing to go support the misogamist, anti-humanitarian, personality cult aspects of the book—and to reconcile them with the unfolding Collective Aeon of the Crowned & Conquering Child (Horus)?

Introduction

Much of the Introduction penned by Israel Regardie amounts to an apology for the proto-Fascism disguised as metaphysics that unfortunately permeates The Book of the Law. The rest is a sort of idealistic effort on Regardie’s part to demonstrate the relevance of Crowley’s work in relationship to the social Consciousness-Expansion (including the use of hash and psychedelics) of the 1960’s (already rapidly deteriorating into gangsterism and lifestylism) during the 70’s when the Introduction was written.

Regarding Crowley’s advocating the use of certain drugs we find,

The college generation uses drugs as tools for furthering self-analysis designed to eradicate

the self-defeating engrams (sic) that have been left by mass society.

[P. 4]

Unfortunately taking drugs did not create a new, liberated social structure, but actually destroyed the fragile counterculture during its birth pains—and non-aligned to a centered, Historical Materialist foundation, ingesting LSD, for example, just became another mass-market fad with little or no lasting liberating social significance.

Regardie goes on to make the astounding statement,

If marijuana and lysergic acid, with its attendant disasters, are the means of opening a whole new generation to the “cult of the occult,” as Rollo May once termed it, then that really is a

very small price to pay. I take the viewpoint of Crowley here. If some are overcome and

die or are killed, then they are merely through with this incarnation and free to resume the

struggle for freedom in the next life…

[P.12]

It is just this sort of high-flying libertarianism and dismissal of the Collective Political Reality that is, in our opinion, so repugnant in much the book’s Commentary section. Psychedelics are potential Sacraments and were never designed for “the masses” to begin with. This callous disregard for their (the “masses”) benefit is rather appalling, but so very typical of the “orthodox” approach to Crowley’s philosophy (and has resulted in not just “non-victim” drug O.D.’s—but almost certainly has resulted in the victimization of humans and animals by deranged degenerates supposedly acting on their own rabid, admittedly undereducated, interpretation of The Law.

There’s a reason Aleister Crowley failed to reach the level of historic recognition of, for example, Karl Marx: Whereas Marx’s genius extended beyond the plane of ego personality, Aleister Crowley’s seldom did (except towards the end when he corroborated on a new Tarot deck and wrote his final, mature work—and true Gnostic masterpiece—The Book of Thoth.

Nonetheless, although a flawed publication, Liber AL does contain insights that we also accept in our Tradition.

For example, also in the Introduction, Regardie makes the observation,

To be alienated means to be dissatisfied with the kind of personality and life experience

that our culture recognizes and accepts. The number of…alienated young people

far exceeds the estimates behind which adult society hides the truth.

[P. 15]

Also, on the same page,

One of Crowley’s most frequently expressed ideas was that as the years progress into

this new age, more and more people will come into incarnation with bisexual

characteristics. They will be epicene. I never expected to see this statement

corroborated as early as its has been.

Of course Women’s Suffrage, 20^th Century mass communication, and birth control have had their roles to play in Sexual Liberation. Crowley’s point is that during The New Aeon people will come into contact with both the Shakti and Shiva elements of their Inner Self (that Crowley generally terms “NUIT” and “HADIT”), aroused in Tantra and Kundalini.

Regarding Aleister Crowley’s personal or trans-personal relationship to Liber Al vel Legis we find,

This document of three short chapters purports to have been dictated by a preterhuman (sic) intelligence named Aiwass. For many long years, Crowley claimed unequivocally that Aiwass was one of The Secret Chiefs of the Third Order…an intelligence so far beyond Crowley’s…he asserted that Aiwass was none other than his Holy Guardian Angel (i.e. his “Daemon”—Ed.), his Higher Self. As a result, he pronounced, “I lay claim to be the sole authority competent to decide disputed points with regard to The Book of the Law, seeing that it’s author, Aiwaz, was

none other than mine own Holy Guardian Angel, to Whose Knowledge and Conversation

I have attained, so that I have exclusive access to Him…my award is definitely

Without appeal.”

[P. 27]

And on Page 30, Regardie rather disingenuously explains,

That Aiwass might, in truth, be a dissociated or hitherto unrecognized facet of his psychic structure could be confirmed by the fact that, even to his death in 1947, Crowley is said to have found come parts of the book quite foreign, even repugnant, to himself. But this is not far from common experience. A person might awaken to mull over a long dream he has had to find it foreign, strange, disagreeable and quite unacceptable.

This may well be true, but then how do Regardie’s “traditional” supporters of Crowley/Aiwaz reconcile such a psychological explanation based on “common experience” with the statement from The Book and Regardie’s explanation found on Page16,

“Ye are against the people, O my chosen.”

The common man is the advocate of commonness.

So what’s the reality?

Did Crowley write “The Book,” or not?

And just how “true” are its contents?

Clearly Crowley himself takes full credit—and responsibility—for Liber AL, and went at great lengths to mystify and mythologize it in his own image. As an “orthodox” Advocate of Thelema, Israel Regardie is forced to jump through dialectical hoops in order to remain firmly in the Cult of Crowley camp, while at the same time attempting to somehow “democratize” Crowley’s often convoluted—and dangerous—teachings. During the reactionary 70’s milieu when the Introduction was written, proving that Thelema was NOT a quasi-organized Personality Cult (as judged by “The Master’s” own words) must have required considerable denial on Regardie’s part.

Were these words products of Crowley’s own unconscious, or even a form of message from the Collective Unconsciousness? How are we to know since AC was apparently uncertain himself? What we DO know is that Crowley did possess real genius (or was obsessed by it.) Certainly, like Nietzsche, he was a of Prophet of Existentialism—but not, according to The Gnostic Pagan view—the FOUNDER of THE NEW AEON—as that future EPOCH WILL NOT ORIGINATE FROM ANY ONE INDIVIDUAL—no matter how intellectually gifted he or she may be.

Aleister Crowley was definitely in contact with his individual daemon (see also REVIEW: DAIMONIC REALITY), but he

failed to embody The Aeon in that he failed to transcend the negative content of his Old Aeon mortal ego—hence the twisted, chauvinistic ramblings that conceal the kernels of spiritual insight and truth in Liber AL.

It is ironic that Israel Regardie accuses some of “The Master’s” students of “revisionism” in a footnote on Pgs. 38-39.

It is worth noting that Crowley who, at the very least, knew how to use the English language, deliberately employed the phrase “preterhuman (sic) intelligence.” He did not use the word “extraterrestrial,” as some of the modern revisionist commentators propose. Had he meant “extraterrestrial” or implied any theory relative to UFO’s, it is quite certain he would have employed pertinent terms. Kenneth Grant and some other would-be successors have already commenced the insidious process of interpolating their own theories, and modifying Crowley’s by emphasizing how wrong he was, to prove that the mantle of successorship (sic) has fallen on their shoulders. The inflation of the ego is a devastating process.

No kidding!

Apparently Regardie regards Crowley as some sort of Pope/Anti-Pope whose diktats are Infallible.

That type of Authoritarian, Inflated EGO The New Aeon DOES NOT NEED.

If Kenneth Grant is a “revisionist,” maybe that’s just because he is, at the very least, exercising his own free will.

We won’t condemn him for that. (Incidentally, from what we have reviewed of Grant’s work, he can hardly be described as a Thelemite Heretic—unlike our Tradition—but has rather extended certain aspects of Crowley’s Sexual Philosophy).

We would suggest that Gnosis is the Evolution of Knowledge, and Intelligence is not measured by Submission, but rather the higher standard is the ability of Human Intelligence to Adapt and Expand with physical reality.

Israel Regardie concludes this rather unfortunate—if necessary from a cultic point of view—Introduction by equating Crowley/Thelema with Christianity, claiming that the results of Crowley’s work even supercedes the early “success” of Christianity (!),

It took centuries of violence and bloodshed to convert the masses to Christianity…Crowley has been dead less than three decades…Thelema may have to wait awhile before it can show, better than Christianity, it’s capability for transforming our society…Crowley has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams…The young generation presently active is his enthusiastic audience and his congregation.

[P. 40]

Thus speaks a True Believer, blithely ignoring historic realities.

In a final summation and evaluation Israel Regardie pleads,

Thus his failures and excesses and stupidities are simply the hallmark of his humanity. Was he not, by his own admission, the Beast, whose number is 666, which is the number of Man?

[P. 41]

Was he?

Is it really?

[See also, "666" & Historical Materialism.]

Review: The Book of The Law

PART ONE of Liber Legis is roughly attributed to the Goddess Nuit (Shakti.)

15. Now ye shall know that the chosen priest & apostle of infinite space is the prince-priest, the Beast; and in his woman called the Scarlet Woman is all power given. They shall gather my children into their fold: they shall bring the glory of the stars into the hearts of men.

[P. 46]

It is a curious fact of daemonic reality that its message is often transmitted through a mortal—and hence imperfect—vehicle.

In this instance the Message utilizes the corrupt Biblical imagery of The Beast and the Scarlet Woman as conceived through Crowley’s own personality and mythology.

The following verses are perhaps the most notable and relevant sections of PART ONE.

22. Now, therefore, I am known to ye by my name Nuit, and to him by a secret name which I will give him when at last he knoweth me. Since I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye also thus. Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby cometh hurt.

23. But whoso availeth in this, let him be the chief of all!

[P. 46]

And this,

29. For I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union.

[P. 47]

These passages convey the essential ONENESS of ALL and NOTHING.

They convey an ultimate truism that SHIVA and SHAKTI appeared in material manifestation as an expression of Their Love.

Or put another way, LIFE IS A CRAFT BASED ON THE EVOLUTION OF GNOSIS (KNOWLEDGE, THE PART) REVEALED THROUGH SOPHIA (UNDERSTANDING, THE WHOLE).

We are not in the present to take the easy, non-discriminatory way out.

Question EVERYTHING before accepting ANYTHING.

Then ALL is WHOLE, ALL is HOLY.

46. Nothing is a secret key of this law.

[P. 48]

This is a central theme of Crowley and defines him as being inherently a 20^th Century Existentialist.

The idea of equating The Whole and Full Unknowing to Nothingness can also be found in the more abstract expressions of Vedaic and advanced Kaballah Philosophy.

59. My incense is of resinous woods & gums; and there is no blood therein: because of my hair the trees of Eternity.

[P. 50]

Clearly this is not only a New Aeon proscription against all ritual animal sacrifice (including eating it), but is also a rejection of the use of sexual blood and other body fluids in ritual. Kenneth Grant and most other (if not all) Thelemites would consider this to be the ultimate heresy of revisionism.

Human blood may have some limited and narrowly defined ritual relevance to Gnostic Pagan Initiates, but it serves no purpose to discuss it here.

If this means standing alone outside the orthodox Crowley Circle, so be it.

[NOTE 08/05: In fact, at this time the breech can be considered complete.]

PART TWO of the text can be attributed to Shiva (Hadit), the masculine current of Horus, The Crowned & Conquering Child of The New Aeon.

[For those unfamiliar with this God, Horus is the Son conceived by Isis while breathing life (The Holy Spirit) into the corpse of her husband Osiris after he had been slain by his brother Set—thus setting the daemonic or allegorical tone of all subsequent Divine Sun and Savior mythology. As an authentic Spiritual Current, Horus reincarnates again and again to embody various themes throughout The Aeons—Krishna, Herakles, Dionysos, The Christ, etc.

66. Write, & find ecstasy in writing! Work, & be our bed in working! Thrill with the joy of life & death! Ah! Thy death shall be lovely: whoso seeth it shall be glad. Thy death shall be the seal of the promise of our agelong love. Come! lift up thine heart & rejoice! We are one; we are none.

[P. 56]

Not only was this an admonition and encouragement to Crowley (who had become depressed by the Vision of Sorrow he had learned from extensive Buddhist study)—it is also a reflection of the traditional Gnostic involvement in learning, including original authorship and copying the beauty and spiritual truths in other texts. The Gnostic Pagan School continues this line and extends its relevance to contemporary times by embracing the works of Existentialists, Marxists and others whose creations (books, plays, paintings, music,etc.) clearly express the liberating aspects of The New Aeon.

The “bed” mentioned in the quoted verse is, of course, The Sacred Marriage.

[See, Review: GNOSIS The Nature & History of Gnosticism.]

The “death” referred to is the end of mortal ego domination and exploitation (Satan). It is ironic that Crowley “channeled” this most central goal of The New Aeon while remaining so much a slave to ego-personality and delusions of “The Beast.” This illustrates that, although a Prophet of The Aeon, AC was unable to become it. Should this lower our opinion or gratitude for his legacy?

THE THIRD & CONCLUDING section of The Law is for the most part rather embarrassing hyperbole and Jehovahian raving. As though it took all of Crowley’s psychic stamina to prevent his ego from contaminating the contents of Parts One & Two, it falls apart here. Only a fanatic could fail to see anything else other than sheer early Crowley style—with all its attendant refrains of over-compensation and bourgeois Protestantism—loudly echoing in every line.

PART ONE: THE COMMENTARY

The very first “Comment” by Crowley is worth noting in its entirety because it demonstrates the depth of his vision and UNIFIED AWARENESS (Gnosis, or Magick).

In the first edition this book is called L. L is the sacred letter in the Holy Twelve-fold Table which forms the triangle that stabilizes the universe. See Liber 418. L is the letter of Libra, Balance, and “Justice” in the Tarot. This title should probably be Al, “El,” as the “L” was heard of the voice of Aiwaz, not seen. Al is the true name of the Book, for these letters and their number, 31, form the Master Key to its Mysteries.

In order that the ethical and philosophical comment should be “understanded of the common people,” without interruption, I have decided to transfer to an appendix all considerations drawn from the numerical system of cipher which is interspersed with the more straight forward manner of this book. In that appendix will be found an account of the character of this cipher, called “Qabalah,” and the mysteries thus indicated; because of the impracticability of communicating them in verbal form, and of the necessity of proving to the student that the author of the book is possessed by knowledge beyond any yet acquired by man.

[P. 70]

Ever the Master of Hyperbole, Crowley could also make rather good sense of the irrational.

In a supremely-almost-schizophrenic prose, Crowley continues,

1. Compare II, 1, the complement of this verse.

In Nu is Had concealed; by Had is Nu manifested.

Nu being 56 and Had 9, their conjunction results in 65,

Adonai, the Holy Guardian Angel.

See the Sepher Sephiroth and “the Wake-World” in

“Konx Om Pax” for further details on 65.

Note, however, the sixty-five pages of the MS. Of Liber

Legis.

Or counting NV HAD 10, we get 66…

Had is further the center of the key word Abrahadabra.

Crowley’s “New Comment” on the first verse is very interesting.

The theogony (sic) of our Law is entirely scientific. Nuit is matter, Hadit is motion, in their full physical sense (the proton and the electron, in a metaphysical sense, suggest close analogies). They are the Tao and Teh of Chinese philosophy; or, to put it simply, the noun and the verb in grammar. Our central truth—beyond other philosophies—is that these two infinities cannot exist apart. This extensive subject must be studied in our other writings…

[P. 70]

Commenting on 2. The unveiling of the company of heaven,

OLD COMMENT

2. This book is a new revelation, or unveiling of the holy ones.

NEW COMMENT

This explains the general theme of this revelation: gives the dramatis personae, so to speak.

It is cosmographically (sic), the conception of the two ultimate ideas: space and that which occupies space.

It will, however, appear later that these two ideas may be resolved into one, that of matter; with space, its “condition” or “form,” included therein. This leaves the idea of “motion” for Hadit, whose interplay with Nuit makes the universe.

Time should perhaps be considered as a particular kind or dimension of space.

Further, this verse is to be taken with the next. The “company of heaven” is mankind, and its “unveiling” is the assertion of the independent godhead of every man and every woman!

[P. 72]

This theory is the only one which explains why the Absolute limited itself and why It does not recognize Itself during its cycle of incarnation. It disposes of “evil” and the origin of evil; without denying reality to “evil,” or insulting our daily observation and our common sense.

[P. 73]

All elements must at one time have been separate—that would be the case with great heat. Now when atoms get to the sun, we get that immense, extreme heat, and all the elements are themselves again. Imagine that each atom of each element possesses the memory of all his adventures in combination. By the way, that atom, fortified with that memory, would not be the same atom; yet it is, because it has gained nothing from anywhere except this memory. Therefore, by the lapse of time and by virtue of memory, a thing (although originally an infinite perfection) could become something more than itself; and thus a real development is possible. One can than see a reason for any element deciding to go through this series of incarnations (God, that was a magnificent conception!) because so, and only so, can he go; and he suffers the lapse of memory of his own reality of perfection which he has during these incarnations, because he knows he will come through unchanged.

[P. 74]

To the above all we can add is, this is truly a “Master” (of language, at the very least) writing in top form.

Pertaining to 4. Every number is infinite; there is no difference, we find:

OLD COMMENT

4. The limited is a mere mask; the illimitable is the only truth.

NEW COMMENT

This is a great and holy mystery. Although each star has its own number, each number is equal and supreme. Every man and every woman is not only a part of God, but the Ultimate God. “The centre is every where and the circumference is nowhere.” The old definition of God takes new meaning for us. Each one of us is the One God. This can only be understood by the initiate; one must acquire certain states of high consciousness to appreciate it.

[P. 75]

Regarding dualistic Gnostic Manicheeism (see also, Review: GNOSIS The Nature & History of Gnosticism),

The idea of incarnations “perfecting” a thing originally perfect is imbecile. The only sane solution is given previously: to suppose that the Perfect enjoys experience of (apparent) imperfection. (There are deeper resolutions of this problem appropriate to the highest grades of initiation; but the above should suffice the average intelligence.)

[P.82]

Well…. OK, but us “average” types will attempt to address this anyway—and without being “granted” (no doubt costly) “highest grades of initiation.”

First of all, most of what AC says here is valid—all according to the interpretation and the function it is serving, of course.

This relates back to verse 22. …Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing…

The Comment is clearly a refutation of traditional Gnosticism—that Judaeo-Christian branch of Gnosticism which insisted that the material/natural world as conceived by the Demiurge (Jehovah) was inherently evil.

Crowley was quite correct in negating this false impression—although he reserves conclusions for the chosen few, somewhat in the manner of Trotskyites who deny that other Marxists are true Socialists.

Obviously “Perfection” cannot be “Perfected.”

But perhaps it can be perfected upon?

What’s the point of being an artist without creating?

Or the lover without loving?

Aleister Crowley provides an appropriate response.

Note that the light of space is what men call darkness…We are not…to fall in love with our magical image. To do this—we have done it—is to forget our truth. If we adore form, it becomes opaque to being and may soon prove false to itself.

[P. 83]

In the Wonderful World of Maya Everything and Nothing Is As It Appears To Be…

[See also, HYMN OF ALL PATHS.]

Inspired by his own bisexuality, Aleister Crowley prefigures the 60’s Sexual Revolution (and its possible rejuvenation in the 21^st Century)—and then some—in the Commentary.

It is better for a person of heterosexual nature to suffer every possible calamity as the indirect environment-evoked result of his doing his True Will in that respect than to enjoy health, wealth and happiness by means either of suppressing sex altogether, or debauching it…Equally it is better for the androgyne (i.e. homosexual—Ed.)…to endure blackmailers, private and public, the terrors of police persecution, the disgust, contempt and loathing of the vulgar, and the self-torture of suspecting the peculiarity to be a symptom of a degenerate nature, than to wrong the soul by damning it to the hell of abstinence, or by defiling it with the abhorred embraces of antipathetic arms.

[Pgs. 113-114]

Not bad!

On a roll, Crowley continues,

The Beast 666 ordains by His authority that every man, every woman, and every intermediately sexed individual, shall be absolutely free to interpret and communicate self by means of any sexual practices whatsoever, whether direct or indirect, rational or symbolic, physiologically, legally, ethically, or religiously approved or no, provided only that all parties to any act are fully aware of all the implications and responsibilities thereof, and heartily agree thereto.

[P.114]

The Gnostic Pagan School concurs with this statement and does not pass value judgments on any form of effective consensual sexual activity.

Some people are capable of effective consent at 15, while others are not capable of it no matter what their age.

The United States continues to exhibit legal repression in regards to sex, unable to appropriately deal with adolescent sexuality on almost any level. The corrupt materialistic culture in the U.S. is constantly ramming sex down people’s throats (pun intended) on one hand, while simultaneously telling youth how nasty sex is.

The New Aeon of the Conquering Child will embody a revolutionary modification of society through an International Social Revolution that will overturn the false values and hypocrisy of bourgeois moralism.

Unfortunately Crowley’s grandiose verbosity goes way beyond Collective Reality (and decency),

Moreover, the Beast 666 adviseth that all children shall be accustomed from infancy to witness every type of sexual act, as also the process of birth, lest falsehood fog, and mystery stupefy, their minds, whose error else might thwart and misdirect the growth of their subconscious system of soul-symbolism.

[P. 114]

This is “the Beast” at his most destructive, idiotic and unprofessional.

Allowing certain mature children to witness childbirth is one thing, encouraging them to “witness every type of sexual act,” QUITE ANOTHER!

Our present society is so incredibly sexually misdirected that Crowley’s remarks here can only serve the interests of child pornography…which brings us to…WHAT WAS HE THINKING when he—NOT “Aiwaz”—made this incredibly STUPID statement?

It might be best not to speculate.

Deliberately making outlandish statements for shock effect is rather juvenile at best, and serves no liberating purpose whatsoever.

HOWEVER—AC somewhat redeems himself when stating,

It is also a fact that the tendency of any individual to sexual irregularity is emphasized by the preoccupation with the subject which follows its factitious importance in modern society.

[P. 115]

This is a valid observation that can be applied to contemporary society in many ways.

For example, the stereotyping of women and homosexuals as “overly emotional,” “hysterical,” and “immature” (less-than-adult) tends to create a socially self-fulfilling prophecy. Society expects a certain behavior from targeted individuals and, as a result this social deformation, individuals tend to act out society’s own negative expectations. The Movie Industry continues to promote the Myth of the Barbie Doll, Child-Woman and the Out-of-Control-Psychotic-Gay/Lesbian.

Applied to the spiritual or religious level, the author poetically remarks,

The vileness and falseness of religion itself have been the monsters aborted from the dark womb of infernal mystery.

[P .124]

As for specific individual traits, Crowley mystically reflects,

Physiology leaves us in no doubt leaves us in no doubt as to the power of our inherited talisman. And modern discoveries in psychology have made it clear enough that the sexual peculiarities of people are hieroglyphs, obscure yet not unintelligible, revealing their histories in the first place, in the second, their relations with environment in the present, and in the third, their possibilities with regard to the modification of the future.

[P. 124]

The creative historical & mystical aspects of sexuality are further elucidated,

The supreme and absolute injunction, the crux of your knightly oath [referring to magickal sexual commitment—Ed.], is that you lay your lance in rest to the glory of your Lady, the Queen of the Stars, Nuit. Your knighthood depends upon your refusal to fight in any lesser cause…You give your life on Her altar. You make yourself worthy of Her by your readiness to fight, in any place, with any weapon, and at any odds. For Her, from Whom you come, of Whom you are, to Whom you go, your life is no more and no less than one continuous sacrament…The wafer is the disk of the Sun, the Star in Her Body. Your blood is split from your heart, with every beat of your pulse into her cup. It is the wine of Her life crushed from he grape of your sun-ripened wine. On this wine you are drunk. It washes your corpse that is as a fragment of the Host, broken by you, the Priest, into her golden chalice…

This act of love, though its form it be with a horse like Caligula, with a mob like Messalina, with a giant Heliogabulus, with a pollard like Nero, with a monster like Baudelaire, though with de Sade it gloat on blood, with Sacher-Masoch crave for whips and furs, with Yvette Guilbert crave the glove…whether one love oneself disdaining any other like Narcissus, offer oneself loveless like Catherine, or find the body so vain as to enclose one’s lust in the soul and make [compensate for physical love through lifelong imaginative creation—Ed.] like Aubrey Beardsley…Bach takes one way, Keats one, Goya one. The end is everything: that by the act, whatever it is, one worships, loves, and becomes Nuit.

[Pgs. 126-127]

Nearing the conclusion the conclusion of the Part One Commentaries, Aleister Crowley defines the essentially Existentialist nature of New Aeon Deism/Pantheism,

With the Egyptian initiate we exclaim, “There is no part of us that is not of the Gods,” and add the antistrophe, “There is no part of the Gods that is not also of us.”

[P. 136]

And regarding “Practical Magick,”

Addendum: More generally, any act whatsoever may be used to attain any end whatsoever by the magician who knows how to make the necessary links.

[P. 138]

True.

From the original text of Liber AL:

58. I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death: peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy; nor do I demand aught in sacrifice.

OLD COMMENT

58. The Grace of our Lady of the Stars.

NEW COMMENT

These joys are principally (1) the Beatific Vision, in which Beauty is constantly present to the recipient of Her grace, together with a calm and unutterable joy; (2) the Vision of Wonder, in which the whole mystery of the universe is constantly and admired for its ingenium (sic) and wisdom. (1) is referred to Tiphareth, the grade of Adept; (2) to Binah, the grade of Master of the Temple.

The certainty concerning death is conferred by the magical memory, and various experiences without which life is unintelligible. “Peace unutterable” is given by the trance in which matter is destroyed; “rest” by that which finally equilibrates motion. “Ecstasy” refers to a trance which combines these.

“Nor do I demand ought in sacrifice”: the ritual of worship is Samadhi…

[P. 142-143]

To this we only add that Verse 58 is a further injunction against ritual animal sacrifice.

Crowley claims that denying human spirituality (the experience of ecstasy) is as politically dangerous as economic oppression,

Stop that, and it is revolution. As long as a man can get rid of his surplus energy in enjoyment, he finds life easy, and submits. Deprive him of pleasure, of ecstasy, and his mind begins to worry about the way in which he is exploited and oppressed. Very soon he begins furtively to throw bombs; and, gathering strength, to send his tyrants to the gallows.

[P. 152]

And in concluding the PART ONE COMMENTARY,

64. I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky.

65. To me! To me!

66. The Manifestation of Nuit is at an end.

COMMENT

64. The supreme affirmation.

65. The supreme adjuration.

66. The end.

[P. 152]

PART TWO COMMENTARY

5. Behold! the rituals of the old time are black. Let the evil ones be cast away; let good ones be purged by the prophet! Then shall this Knowledge go aright.

COMMENT

The “old time” is the Aeon of the Dying God. Some of his (i.e. Osiris/Jesus Christ/Patriarchal religious systems—Ed.) rituals are founded on an utterly false metaphysics and cosmogony; but others are based on Truth. We end these, and end those. This “Knowledge” is the initiated wisdom of this Aeon of Horus.

[P. 159]

The Gnostic Pagan School is also dedicated to this purpose.

Crowley further elaborates,

Now, “the rituals of the old time,” are no longer valid vehicles. Knowledge cannot “go aright” until they are adapted to the Formula of the New Aeon. Their defects are due principally to two radical errors. (1) The universe was conceived as possessing a fixed center…an absolute standard too which all things might be referred; a Unity, or God…

(2) The absolute antithesis between the pairs of opposites…postulating an absolute “God” defined Him unconsciously in terms of Freudian phantasms created by his own wish-fulfillment…Thus “God” and “evil” were really expressions of personal prejudice.

[P. 161]

“…the word of sin is restriction.”

[P. 162]

There is an obvious apparent contradiction between Aleister Crowley the Existentialist/Atheist and Crowley the Deist/”Prophet” of the New Aeon.

Both Aleister Crowley and Friedrich Nietzsche advocated the creation of a new Paganism/Pantheism based on Human Spiritual Liberation. Unfortunately, Crowley’s Scientific Illuminism degenerated into quasi-Satanism, pseudo-occultism, and the contemporary Capitalist corruption called “Scientology”—just as the anti-Semitic National Socialist barbarians degraded the Human Liberationist philosophy of Nietzsche into a trite bourgeois ideology.

On page 162, Crowley quotes from the original text, “the word of sin is restriction.”

This agrees with the idea that “sin” (exploitation) is its own punishment (elaborated in the Gnosis Review mentioned above).

By the word “sin” is meant in this connotation those actions that result in a narrowing or demeaning of one’s true Being or Will (karma).

Also on the same page the author chastises the religious formulas of the Old Aeon.

The Osirian rituals inculcating self-sacrifice to an abstract ideal, mutilation to appease ex cathedra morality, fidelity to a priori formulae, etc., teach false and futile methods of acquiring false knowledge; they must be “cast away” or “purged.” The schools of initiation must be reformed.

This applies not only to the traditional Old Aeon/Jehovah religions, but is just as applicable to the myriad “New Age” personality cults and fads—as well as to egoist interpretation of Crowley himself.

[See also, REVIEW: INITIATION.]

We reprint below an excerpt from The Commentary that may be special interest to Readers involved in mathematics and physics.

“It is I that go.” Liber Aleph (another Crowley publication—Ed.) must be considered for a full demonstration of this truth. We may here say briefly that Hadit is motion, that is, change or “love.” The symbol of Godhead in Egypt was the Ankh, which is a sandal strap, implying the power to go; and it suggests the Rosy Cross, the fulfillment of love, by its shape.

The wheel and the circle are evidently symbols of Nuit; this sentence insists upon the conception of lingam-yoni (male-female—Ed.) But beyond the obvious relation, we observe two geometrical definitions. The axle is a cylinder set perpendicularly to the plane of the wheel; thus Hadit supplies the third dimension to Nuit. It suggests that matter is to be conceived as two-dimensional; that is, perhaps, as possessed of two qualities, extension and potentiality. To these Hadit brings motion and position. The wheel moves; manifestation now is possible. Its perception implies three-dimensional space, and time. But note that the Mover is Himself not moved.

[P. 164]

[See also, Review: The Kybalion]

We quote The Commentary a selection on Page 166 that supports The Gnostic Pagan Tradition contention that in order for The Law Do What Thou Wilt to be valid, the Initiate MUST FIRST TRANSCEND THE MORTAL EGO—and, additionally, involve oneself FULLY IN A COMPLETE STUDY OF LIFE.

It is bad magick (i.e., UNIFIED AWARENESS and its practice—Ed.) to admit that one is other than one’s inmost self. One should plunge passionately into every possible experience; by doing so one is purged of those personal experiences which we took so stupidly for ourselves, though they prevented us from realizing our True Wills and from knowing our names and natures (or, as Historical Materialists would phrase it, “Our History Is No Mystery”—Ed.) The aspirant must well understand that it is no paradox to say that the annihilation of the ego in the Abyss is the condition of emancipating the true self, and exalting it to unimaginable heights. So long as one remains “one’s self,” one is overwhelmed by the universe; destroy the sense of self, and every event is equally an expression of one’s will, since its occurrence is the result of the concourse of the forces which one recognizes as one’s own.

[P. 166]

We quote extensively from the original text below due its pertinent and contradictory—and obnoxious—nature.

17. Hear me, ye people of sighing!

The sorrows of pain and regret

Are left to the dead and the dying,

The folk that not know me as yet.

18. These are dead, these fellows; they feel not. We

are not for the poor and sad: the lords of the earth are our

kinsfolk.

19. Is a God to live in a dog? No! but the highest are of

us. They shall rejoice, our chosen: who sorroweth is not of

us.

20. Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious

languor, force and fire, are of us.

21. We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let

them die in their misery. For they feel not. Compassion is the

vice of kings: stamp down the wretched and the weak: this is

the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the

world…

[Pgs. 174-175]

Crowley continues to “explain” and justify this basically proto-Fascistic, pseudo-Nietzschean diatribe in metaphysical terms.

OLD COMMENT

17-21. This passage was again very painful to the prophet, who took it in its literal sense. But “the poor and the outcast” are the petty thoughts and the Qliphothic thoughts and the sad thoughts. These must be rooted out, or the ecstasy of Hadit is not in us. They are the weeds in the garden starve the flower

NEW COMMENT

17. The dead and the dying, who know not Hadit, are in the illusion of sorrow. Not being in Hadit, they are shadows, puppets, and what happens to them does not matter. If you insist upon identifying yourself with Hecuba, your tears are natural enough…

18. …Those who sorrow are not real people at all, not “stars”—for the time being. The fact of them being “poor and sad” proves them to be “shadows.” Who “pass and are done.” The “lords of the earth” are those who are doing their will. It does not necessarily mean people with coronets and automobiles (considered a “luxury item” when this was penned—Ed.); there are plenty of such people who are the most sorrowful slaves in the world. The sole test of one’s lordship is to know what one’s True Will is, and to do it.

[Pgs. 175-176]

And this,

21. …Of what use is it to perpetuate the misery of tuberculosis, and such diseases, as we now do? Nature’s way is to weed out the weak…At the present all the strong are being damaged, and their progress hindered by the dead weight of the weak limbs and the missing limbs, the diseased limbs and the atrophied…

Let weak and wry productions go back into the melting pot…Death will purge, reincarnation will make whole, these errors and abortions.

[Pgs. 176-177]

There is much of truth here, and also so much falseness and horror. Again we ask, how can any sane person uncritically accept Crowley’s Fascistic philosophy and interpretation of The Law and The New Aeon as stated above in his own words?

In the OLD COMMENT Crowley quite rightly identifies “the poor and the outcast” with the negative thought processes that The Thinker/Mortal-Ego of The Old Aeon falsely identifies with sin, sickness and death. This is actually very closely aligned with the concepts of Christian Science (minus the syrupy sweetness and denial of Mary Baker Eddy.)

[NOTE: Many creative people of Aleister Crowley’s generation held reactionary beliefs. Many of these harmful thought forms (i.e., Racism and Sexism) were typical to their times. This is not to offer accuses for the, at least partially, reactionary world-view of pre-21^st Century thinkers and artists. Nonetheless, they are The Ancestors, and we honor their true Gnosis while rejecting the untruth of their socially indoctrinated personalities.]

Crowley’s indefensible (and unscientific) assertion that diseased and infirm persons are somehow degrading The Collective Race is merely a very dangerous rehash of late 19^th Century Fascist philosophy including Eugenics. We will not degrade the names of the untold numbers of “disabled” persons who have contributed to The Collective Experience by mentioning them here. They have nothing to apologize for, and Crowley and his uncritical admirers should be ASHAMED FOR THEMSELVES.

If one were to accept Crowley’s COMMENTARY above, then one would have to retreat to the Dark Ages and even before. The Gnostic Pagan School hails the achievements Medical Science has made in the arena of health, alleviating human (as well as other animal) suffering.

Thus far we have reviewed approximately half of THE LAW IS FOR ALL. Not wishing to test Reader interest, we will conclude the review here. Suffice it to say that the remaining pages contain an equal amount of “occult” insight and outrage as stated in the first half. The ending APPENDIX: LIBER TRIGRAMMATON, The Book of the Trigrams of the of the Mutations of the Tao with The Yin and Yang will be of special interest to students of I Ching.

[See also, MAGICK, NUMBERS & MOTION]

And in conclusion,

We’ve come long way from Crowley, baby!

Israel Regardie is a well-respected occultist and Aleister Crowley is, for good and-not-so-good, the most prominent name among metaphysical circles. That our review of The Law is fundamentally a critical one is not meant to distract from their respective lives and life’s work as each was dedicated to the New Aeon concept of Scientific Illuminism and The Great Work.

Regardie was sincere in the attempt to “democratize” a fundamentally un-democratic philosophical perspective.

Aleister Crowley’s perceptions went beyond his historical milieu, but he was still bound to it.

We do not challenge the authors—but we do challenge contemporary Disciples of the Thelema belief-system.

Intelligence is manifest in adaptation, rather than submission; and the true Magick of Life is the creative process higher than the materialistic dictate of survival—the True Magick of Life is to thrive in survival and to elevate the experience for all “material” creation.

The New Aeon embraces Collective Power and Compassion, and further asserts that COMPASSION IS THE MEASURE OF TRUE SPIRITUAL STRENGTH.

[NOTE: 04/02] Since completing this Review, the writer has read a copy of DO WHAT THOU WILT/A Life of Aleister Crowley by Lawrence Sutin (St. Martin’s Griffin, New York, © 2000). Arguably the most concise and definitive biography of Crowley to date, the book deserves a special review of its own—and Readers are encouraged to obtain a copy. There are two sections of DO WHAT THOU WILT that have a particular relevance to the current Review, and we want to discuss them here.

Firstly, on Pages 7 to 8, Lawrence Sutin conveys a brilliant assessment of Crowley’s use and understanding of the term “Magick”:

Magick, for Crowley, is a way of life

that takes in every facet of life. The keys to attainment

within the magical tradition lie in the proper training of the human

psyche itself—more specifically, in the development of the powers of

will and imagination. The training of the will…is the focusing of one’s…

essential being. The imagination provides…the target for this focus…and

hence bring into magical being—possibilities and states beyond those of consensual reality.

If one considers will and imagination alone,

the precepts of magick and everyday common sense

seem in accord. The gulf arises with the question of how magic

impacts upon the universe beyond the psyche of the adept. Magic

claims that such impact is accomplished through dimensions variously

termed as “etheric” or “astral” realms or “divine light.” The unifying idea

behind these terms is that these are media through which the magus may project

his willed imagination. Such a view, anathema to common sense, is corroborated by

the most revered mystics of every creed. The difference between magic and more ascetic

lines of mysticism is that the mystic does not tarry in these realms, which are deemed dangerous

as they distract from the ultimate goal of merging with the One. The magus, by contrast, explores

each such realm and attains to a knowledge that shows the multifarious Self to be none

other than the One. In this way, the mystic and the magus come at last

(if they are worthy) to the same end.

This is interesting, but towards the conclusion of the biography, in Chapter 10, there is some revealing information that is downright fascinating.

In a short section in Chapter 10 of his biography of Aleister Crowley, author Lawrence Sutin (who, makes it clear that, although not a “follower” of Crowley’s Thelema; he obviously admires facets of “The Master’s” talent and drive), documents AC’s propensity for political prostitution.

The section focuses on various disappointments Crowley was experiencing in the period of 1930-1936, and his efforts to get The Book of the Law accepted by at least one—indeed, ANY—major world power (thereby salvaging his own flagging fortune, and proving the power and validity of The Book itself as The New Bible of the new Aeon.)

The section begins by describing the founding of the O.T.O. (Ordo Templi Orientis) Agapé (“Love”) Lodge in Los Angeles (facilitated via long distance correspondence with Crowley), one of Crowley’s few successes during this time (which Sutin speculates was probably successful only because it was long distance versus actual personal contact with “The Master” who could be too overbearing for joint work face to face.)

These setbacks in his personal and financial affairs

failed to diminish Crowley’s zeal on behalf of Thelema. The

evidence is clear that he attempted to capture the attention of His Majesty’s

Government and of the Führer’s Reich. Crowley’s fascination with the latter had to do,

in part, with epistolary urgings by his German-based supporter Martha Küntzel. In the late

1920’s, Küntzel tried to place a copy of the German translation of the Book in the hands of Adolf

Hitler, then a mere aspirant to power. Crowley later asserted (in annotations, made during the war years

1942-44, to his copy of the book Hitler Speaks, a compendium of the Führer’s table talk of the 1930’s by

Hermann Rausching) that Küntzel had succeeded in so doing: “She had been told by the Master Therion [Crowley]

that the nation which first accepted the Book of the Law, officially, would thereby become the leading nation in the world. She accordingly supplied Hitler with a copy of her translation…”

[P.375]

Crowley thus viewed Küntzel as having conveyed the truth of Thelma

to Hitler, whom both Crowley and [Karl Johannes] Germer regarded as her

[Küntzel’s] “magical son.” But Küntzel had, in an earlier letter to Crowley…

denied such a link to Hitler, and…rejected any direct connection between

Hitler and the Book, aside from the natural similarities of similar minds:

[P. 375]

Here Sutin quotes directly from this amazingly revealing letter from Disciple Küntzel to Master Crowley.

You are perfectly right when you say I can’t think politically.

I never cared for politics except during the [First World] War and

then since the time of Hitler’s rising…And then it began to dawn on me

how much of Hitler’s thoughts were as if they had been taken from the Law

of Thelema. I became his fervent admirer and am so now…the close identity

of Hitler’s ideas with what the Book teaches endowed me

with the strength necessary for my work…

[Pgs.375-376]

Now there speaks a true (Fascist) Believer!

Sutin continues to document Crowley’s admiration for Hitler and for the program and policies advocated in the Führer’s rabid racist diatribe, Mein Kampf. The only serious objection Crowley seems to raise is that the doctrine of Racial Selection should take precedence over Crowley’s own doctrines expressed in the Book of the Law!

Only the Law of Thelema—implemented by a nation—could ensure proper selection.

[P.377]

And it gets better (or worse, depending on your point of view):

In his marginal notes, Crowley made a further surprising assertion—

that Hitler had “almost certainly gotten the idea to use the swastika as theNazi symbol from us.

I personally had suggested it to [Hitler supporter, General Erich] Ludendorff…when he started talking

about reviving Nordic Theology—pointing out that the Swastika is the only universal magical symbol which

had an ancient title peculiar to that system:--the ‘Hammer of Thor.’

[Below is the original, spiritual image later perverted by the German Racists]:

Biographer Sutin suggests that this was fantasy on Crowley’s part, and that the sinisterly reversed Swastika was, in fact, used by other Nationalist German parties before Hitler (which was certainly true). However, Sutin may be incorrect in this last conclusion as recent (2002) discoveries of Hitler’s various notebooks reveal that the future Führer had spent considerable time experimenting with various symbols before ultimately selecting the ancient Swastika. But no matter what the case may be,

In any event, Crowley was plainly eager to link Thelema with a political force

he felt would be significant in shaping the Aeon to come. His rejection of

Nazi racial doctrines was of little importance to him.

In May [1936] Crowley had a luncheon talk with an

unnamed companion about “93 [Thelema] as base for the Nazi New Order.”

[P. 377]

And quoting from another of Crowley’s letters:

I expect that you will be in close touch with the Chancellor [Hitler]

and his immediate officers, and I should be very grateful if you would put the

matter…before them…Hitler himself says emphatically in Mein Kampf that the

world needs a new religion, that he himself is not a religious teacher, but that

when the proper man appears he will be welcome.

[P. 378]

Adolph Hitler was not about to share the World Stage with Aleister Crowley (especially Aleister Crowley) or anybody else.

Lawrence Sutin concludes this sorry Tale of Thelema:

Crowley thus carefully tailored his respective overtures to Germany and England.

For the Führer, Thelema was the new Religion that would justify the master class; for

England, it was the unifying Science that would transcend democratic squabblings. Crowley

worked, in both cases, from two intertwined premises: That Thelema was the ideal framework

for the exercise of power, and that this truth could be established by an earthly ruler of might. It hardly

mattered which ruler that would be. (He had, some years earlier, attempted to contact Stalin as well.)

Crowley the Prophet would go anywhere Thelema could flourish…Crowley was perfectly able

of playing two political hands at once.

[P. 380]

Frankly, we find these revelations absolutely despicable. They were unknown to us last year when this Review first appeared; but they certainly provide proof positive that our initial, intuitive grasp of the situation was the correct one. Israel Regardie’s attempts to “democratize” the Book of the Law in the Introduction were deliberately fraudulent. After reading DO WHAT THOU WILT, (penned by someone with a conscience and who also admires Crowley), there can be no question about the glaring historical errors upon which the application of “Orthodox” Thelema is based.

It represents a history of disgrace.

The O.T.O. and various offshoots should either fess up to the O.T.O.'s fascist past or be denounced. Members unaware of the organization's less than noble roots should definitely reconsider their commitment to such an unprincipled association.

If The New Aeon of The Conquering Child is to represent anything fine and glorious and splendid and LIBERATING at all, then its advocates must confront THE BOOK OF THE LAW’S shoddy past, and reshape The Book’s more positive aspects for a more enlightened future.

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