I've never heard of them before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelema

Thelema is a religion based on a philosophical law of the same name, adopted as a central tenet by some religious organizations. The law of Thelema is "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will." The law of Thelema was developed in the early 1900s by Aleister Crowley, an English writer and ceremonial magician. He believed himself to be the prophet of a new age, the Æon of Horus, based upon a spiritual experience that he and his wife, Rose Edith, had in Egypt in 1904. By his account, a possibly non-corporeal or "praeterhuman" being that called itself Aiwass contacted him and dictated a text known as The Book of the Law or Liber AL vel Legis, which outlined the principles of Thelema. An adherent of Thelema is a Thelemite.

The Thelemic pantheon includes a number of deities, primarily a trio adapted from ancient Egyptian religion, who are the three speakers of The Book of the Law: Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Crowley described these deities as a "literary convenience". The religion is founded upon the idea that the 20th century marked the beginning of the Aeon of Horus, in which a new ethical code would be followed; "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law". This statement indicates that adherents, who are known as Thelemites, should seek out and follow their own true path in life, known as their True Will. The philosophy also emphasizes the ritual practice of Magick.

The word thelema is the English transliteration of the Koine Greek noun θέλημα (pronounced [θélima]) "will", from the verb θέλω "to will, wish, want or purpose." As Crowley developed the religion, he wrote widely on the topic, as well as producing more 'inspired' writing that he collectively termed The Holy Books of Thelema. He also included ideas from occultism, yoga and both Eastern and Western mysticism, especially the Qabalah.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2016 05:45PM by anybody.

Yeah--a weird lot, they are. I'd stay the hell away.

more made up bullshit

and then go on to create a negative anti-religion.

Thank you Mr. Crowley--Ozzie Osborn.

I suggest you read up on its founder, Aleister Crowley (pron. CROW-ly). Noted down some comments, both on the video and by viewers. Some cogent ones:

Biographer: "At this stage in his life [early 20s] three aspects of his psychology had become clear: 1) he had no inhibitions whatsoever, throwing himself into any adventure that touched his fancy, the more horrible, the better. And he was not afraid of madness. 2) Secondly, he needed some strong or horrific experience to be aroused. He would sleep with wrinkled and ugly whores for stimulation to write his poetry. 3) And thirdly, he had no respect for his own or anyone else's body."

He had visions, psychic experiences of people transforming into different shapes, old hags transforming into beautiful young women and then returning, etc. (He took opium and psychedelic drugs.) One insightful psychological comment on a 2-hour video:

"The thing about Crowley is he abused people to get what he wanted. He mistreated 2 wives and abandoned his children. While I can empathise with an individual who lives their life to the full, he had a history of not taking into account or even caring about the consequences of his actions and others paid the price for his actions. He had absolutely no respect for anyone else he came in contact with. So in that respect while Crowley was a trailblazer in many ways he was also a clear example of what NOT to do as well. He showed if you concentrated on just your own desires eventually people would get fed up with your selfishness and you ended up being alone. And leaving a trail of havoc in your wake.
The thing that strikes me is, that for all his life what he seemed to be aiming for was rebellion against his mother. That relationship seemed to dominated his life. On the whole, he was not an emotionally balanced individual. He may also, based on his disregard for others been unable (not necessarily unwilling) to empathise with others. This could have meant he was technically psychopath. (Not all psychopaths are rampaging murderers. They are selfish users unable to love or care for others.) These are throughly unpleasant individuals who go through life using and abusing people. Like Aleister Crowley."

First read of him when I was working in a Theosophical Society occult book shop. Curious at first, then stomach-turning stuff. Addicted to heroin & cocaine, he had many nasal operations over the years to try to fix the damage. The sex-magic aspect had nothing to do with love and very little to do with lust. It was energy experimentation: intercourse (with prostitutes, males or females, animals, etc.) was a way to raise certain forces that could be directed by the will to attract objects, events, or other things that one wants. He had a long series of "scarlet women," ritual sex partner for his magick. According to one site, both of his legal wives went insane and five of his mistresses committed suicide (will try to verify). At one point in the 1920s he founded an "anti-abbey" called Thelema on Sicily where his small community could do whatever they pleased, including daily magic rituals. Some of the women had young children there, and they were given a "magical" education of play and witnessing the sex acts. When Italian authorities under Mussolini learned of its happenings, Crowley was exiled and the monastery's chilling murals were whitewashed over. I once saw a youtube video touring the ruins of this abbey, which seems now like a haunted house. Some of the truly disturbing murals, like images from a nightmare, had been restored.

Because of his embracing of drugs and amoral sex, Crowley has been anachronistically characterized as a "Victorian hippy" (though he outlived the Victorian age by some 50 years). Of the several stories about him I remember, two stand out for their weirdness:

1) Crowley had in his youth written an Anglican hymn and there was a ceremony to honor him for it. He solemnly walked down the church aisle, and at the altar dropped his pants, bent over, and shat on the red carpet. Then just as ceremoniously pulled up his pants and marched out.

2) To look more diabolical, Crowley had his two front teeth filed into sharp triangles (fangs). One time upon being introduced to a young lady, he kissed her hand…and bit her with the sharpened teeth. The woman of course was horrified, but later the bite became infected and required medical treatment. (This was the "kiss of the snake" and Crowley supposedly used it to "initiate" every new female pupil with a bite on the wrist or the neck.)

Interesting tidbits about crowley there. I was under the impression that reprints of crowley's work have him discussing communing with 'angels' when, I believe, first editions have him clearly admitting to being 'educated' by demons, is this correct?

I was aware that he called himself the great beast 666 and "Lord Satan's Regent on Earth" (or something similar), although I believe he met an artist (fellow satanist) who once claimed the same thing.

When you see music celebrities (I do not call them musicians as they compose nothing but bad rhymes) wearing slogans on their clothes such as 'do what thou wilt' and suchlike, they are publicly endorsing Thelema, and yes, it is intentional.


@ Richard Foxe I have been reading lately some lectures given by Rudolph Steiner and also reading about jacob boehme and emmanuel swedenburg (amongst others) and am beginning to believe that Joe Smith may have had a mystical experience or two. Not to derail the thread but what are your views on this subject?

I do think Joseph Smith was psychic, which means he was open to subtle impressions, and that the BoM was a channelled work with Smith as the medium. That doesn't mean the source of the work was illumined: mediums may very well be "inns for disembodied liars"-- entities masquerading as Shakespeare, Jesus, or whoever and delivering pedestrian messages. Plus whatever he received, JS filtered through his own aura, interpretation, and grammar. What he "received" may not be what he ended up hearing.

The reason this possibility is so often dismissed here (in favor of the conscious conman), is the prevailing skepticism of anything metaphysical. It's much easier for people to believe that others' scope of awareness was just like theirs.

I believe John Dee, elizabeth the first's 'astrologer' used to commune with 'angels' too, but his medium was an irishman using a glass ball; another seer stone.

There are claims that an enochian alphabet was transmitted to Dee from these 'angels' who also got cross with him a few times, and his 'irish seer', for not following 'instructions' and threatened their destruction more than once. I don't know if these tales inspired Joe or if he was indeed used by forces, like Dee appeared to be, at least initially before he went full blown megalomaniac.

Thanks for your reply.

When I was told that Enochian was a spoken language and my friends with their ceremonial robes edged in ric-rac would read incantations (or spells or whatever they were) out of a book I asked them how they knew they were pronouncing it correctly. Can a syllable spoken incorrectly tell some entity to clean out their checking account? My friends got very upset and said I wasn't taking them seriously. I believe I took it much more seriously than they did.

> It's much easier for people to believe that
> others' scope of awareness was just like theirs.

I don't think anyone believes that others' scope of awareness is just like theirs. They may not feel obligated to believe unproven claims to special powers.

hugenippley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > It's much easier for people to believe that
> > others' scope of awareness was just like
> theirs.
>
> I don't think anyone believes that others' scope
> of awareness is just like theirs. They may not
> feel obligated to believe unproven claims to
> special powers.


....yet they feel the need to express that these claims are, to them, unproven. That's how little they care.

I've been guilty of not being considerate. But beliefs have consequences and so why shouldn't they need to be up for examination just like any other claim?

And people do it for themselves. They don't need to challenge others who may have already done this and decided what they do believe. "Proof" here is subjective, despite how rational the term sounds.

A subjective experience is not up for debate, but an explanation or belief about a subjective experience is up for debate. An example: In a room full of people, I see a conduit of light upen up above me. I see a person in a white robe bright and glorious and I am filled with love. The person says: "I am God." No one else in the room sees this. My explanation for the experience is that I saw God.

The subjective experience isn't up for debate. I saw and felt what I saw and felt, but my explanation, my belief about the experience is up for debate. No one has to respect my internal proof of my explanation, they might think the source of my subjective experience was my own brain. They might tell me so. Why shouldn't they? If they do it in a demeaning and a belittling way, the demeaning and belittling are unkind, but offering another explanation for your subjective experience is not unkind.

Lots of people have gone out into the world with beliefs about their subjective experiences and done real harm (Lafferty Brothers).

Even a well meaning medium could feel and claim that a dead daughter has forgiven her father and she is at peace and feel that they have done good in making the father feel better. But maybe the Father did genuinely bad things that it would be better for him to face than to feel OK about.

A Mormon man whose wife has looked at pornography, and promised to stop, might feel that the Holy Ghost is telling him when his wife has looked again. He might be right once, and feel confirmed that it really was the Holy Ghost that told him. With that belief he might get angry and storm around the house every time he feels the Spirit warn him that his wife is in danger.

There is a point, where a person can't express their thoughts without getting jumped on, where it does become counter-productive.

And of course we all have executive power over our own pursuit of happiness and meaning.

Sound like general out-there ones. In any case, posters on this board aren't likely to fall into those groups, so calling them out on their beliefs or demanding "proof" on one's own terms sounds like someone is trying to feel he or she is Right by tagging someone else as Wrong.

Putting on my M.Div. cap here for a moment (comparative religion is one of my specialties):

I have known a number of Thelemites and have even attended some of their functions. Given the infamous reputation of Aleister Crowley, I was curious to see what the man had to say for himself. What piqued my interest was the focus on the Guardian Angel, which is an important figure in Russian Christianity. Many of the followers I had met were thoughtful, educated people, who were not "Satan worshipers." Attitudes toward Christianity ranged from favorable to disdain.

Crowley is rightfully "dangerous" in and especially out of occult circles. The reason why he is dangerous is that to understand much of his writing requires a substantial background in world religion and mythology. He writes with "blinds," a device intended to mislead the unwary reader. If one reads certain things without the requisite background, one will be led to the wrong and even opposite meaning. This is where the Satanic stuff comes from - mostly a misreading of Crowley, and unfortunately the dabblers often like to (mis)use him in this fashion.

His writings range from the sublime, to the entertaining, to the downright deluded. The Book of the Law, is a "revealed scripture" and reminds me greatly of the BOM - obvious nonsense! Crowley believed he was the Christ of the New Age of Horus - the Crowned and Conquering Child - and his mission was to reveal the Book of the Law. He saw Horus as a progression from Osiris - from a cult of death (Western Christianity) to a cult of resurrection (Thelema - but if he had searched harder, he would have found that Eastern/Oriental Christianity was already 2,000 years ahead of him).

The "Do What Thou Wilt" is from the Book of the Law. The full quote is "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the Law. Love under will." You will often see Thelemites refer to this as 93/93 as the Greek numerology for the both Will and Love total 93.

This statement does NOT mean do whatever you want, but rather that one must find one's true purpose in life, which is the true will, and to conform one's life to this. A True Will would be in harmony with the Universe and/or God and not subject to personal whim. To learn this will, one is to search out one's Holy Guardian Angel (also known as the Higher Self for non-Theists)as a tutor in life. The Holy Guardian Angel is the link between the individual and God/Universe. One will find both Theists and non-Theists within Thelema.

The best description I could give of Crowley is that of a Narcissistic Metaphysical Scientist. He desired to try out various magical formulae and did not really care for who got hurt in the meantime. He also managed to hurt himself fairly badly.

His earlier writings, prior to the Book of the Law, are rather lofty and inspirational. He is firmly a Trinitarian in the Judeo-Christian Tradition at this stage. It was thought by the Late American Christian Occultist Paul Foster Case, who is very respected in occult circles, that Crowley went "off" when he began to practice Enochian Magic - which is concerned with summoning the "angels" channeled by John Dee and Edward Kelley in the Elizabethan Era. The Vision and the Voice records Crowley's Enochian working. Case belonged briefly to the O.T.O. as well as a Golden Dawn offshoot. He found the Golden Dawn problematic for the same Enochian reason and believed that Mathers (one of the founders of the GD) went "off" once he started Enochian. Crowley, himself, was a member of the Golden Dawn until he broke away to form his own groups. Having read a substantial body of Crowley's writings, and having heard stories from those who have practiced the so-called Enochian Magick, I would concur with Case's assessment. Enochian is the height of delusion and fantasy. Crowley really belongs in a class with Joseph Smith and Muhammad, in my own view. Given Joseph Smith's involvement with the occult, it would be interesting to know whether he used Enochian formulae himself at any time.

The Gnostic Mass of Crowley is a knockoff (by his own admission)of the Russian Orthodox Divine Liturgy, which he witnessed in Moscow. The Christian references are replaced with substitutions and a priestess covers the functions of the deacon, and deacons the functions of the sub-deacon. A thorough reading of the Gnostic mass demonstrates that Crowley didn't understand the Christian Liturgy because he got many parts wrong - i.e. he did not understand what an epiklesis is.


As for the followers of Crowley/Thelema, if they are O.T.O. or Temple of Thelema, it is likely they aren't Satanic, but often can be rather deluded, if they start using the Enochian system. Dabblers, on the other hand tend to value Crowley for the shock value and often fail to understand anything at all. It might be worth pointing out that L. Ron Hubbard of Scientology had studied briefly under Crowley and I do believe Anton LaVey of the Church of Satan also had a Crowley link. Crowley is often used by Satanists, but they are not Thelemites and Thelemites are not Satanists. The "satan" of Thelema is Chroronzon - the guardian of the abyss/chaos, a figure to be defeated.


Thelema makes use of the Baphomet - which is what people often associate with Satan. The Baphomet means different things to different people. One interpretation of this figure is that behind a lie, lies the real truth, so one must learn to look beyond appearances and lies to find the truth. Similarly, truth can be distorted into ugliness and lies. Baphomet represents what people can do with something sublime, say Jesus. Look at what many of his followers have turned him into! The key is to find the sublime part - to discern. For the Thelemites Baphomet represents the dual nature of male energy that can be used for good/creative purposes or for destruction. The goal is to learn to use this energy for good. It is the same energy represented the Tree of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. If one partakes of it without understanding and preparation, the result is destruction. In Christianity, the tree is only usable in conjunction with the Tree of Life - Christ. The tree itself isn't bad, but misused or partaken of unprepared, it leads to bad consequences. Such is Baphomet to the Thelemites.

Crowley often referred to himself as Baphomet.

One important note:
Lucifer is not Satan - that was a much later confounding by some Christian interpreters of the reference to the Morning Star in Isiah. Jesus himself is referred to as Phosphoros in the New Testament (2 Peter 1:19, Rev. 22:16), which is the Greek equivalent to Lucifer. Many hymns in the Catholic and Eastern Churches refer to Christ as the Morning/Day/Orient/East Star/Bringer of Light, i.e. Lucifer.

Hope this is somewhat helpful.

Based some of their practices on Crowley's and Gerald's Gardner's covens and groups. From what I understand, some women were disgusted with their sexism and split off to form their Dianic, women only covens in the 70s. Sure, the leaders always SAY the sex rituals are optional, but you know someone always has to take it too far. :P

I've know a few people into the Crowley tradition, but they're usually the least mentally stable people. IDK if mentally unstable people are simply attracted to the tradition, but I keep a good distance between myself and those who follow it.

There's lots of books out there about Crowley, but you can always pick up The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcaft to get a basic understanding.

You mean the cult of Thelma and Louise?

Sounds like some sort of suicide cult.

Yes. I have enough experience with this to write a (very funny) book which I plan to some day. Thank God I was never cool enough to actually be one of them but I attended many events and parties and crashed in a prominent OTO house while on a bus trip. I have been called out on this but stand by what I witnessed-that the temple video on YouTube is almost identical to the OTO ceremonies I witnessed and I feel strongly that mormonism, scientology and the OTO come from the same source of evil. All of the people I knew involved had horrible train wrecks of lives and most of them are now dead. As a nevermo and a Christian this topic is probably why I keep hanging around RFM.

Siobhan, your story doesn't surprise me. A question, however, is whether these parties were simply OTO folks or was it an actual OTO event?

Those members that dabbled in the Enochian aspects, seemed to meet a lot of train wrecks. Deaths, cancer, fires, etc.. One former member told me of a summoning of Chronzon which opened up all kinds of personal and group disasters. Even from an atheist viewpoint, these things can happen because of the parts of the human subconsciousness that get unlocked in these rituals - which subconsciously lead to actions with poor consequences.

In the OTO itself, the sexual rituals, I believe, do not come into play until the highest degrees, which most people do not make. The reason why Crowley was brought into the OTO in the first place was that he deduced the sexual rituals of the OTO on his own. OTO was originally nominally Christian, until Crowley took it over and replaced the Bible with the Book of the Law and himself as the Logos/Christ of the Aeon. Today the OTO is more or less a joke in serious occult cirles - Mostly it is considered a group of dabblers without serious guidance. The amount of learning necessary for degree advancement is negligible. The A A (Crowley's other group - not really a group that meets, as it is based on individual tutoring) is far more discerning and serious. More serious OTO folks tend to leave for fairer pastures.

Anyone who seems to think that the OTO is part of the New World Order conspiracy doesn't know what they are talking about. I have seen some conspiracy theorists put OTO at the top of the heap. OTO folks could care less about such things and tend to be anti globalist themselves, something I have found to be true of the Golden Dawn as well.

I have had encounters with people/places that seemed to be tangibly evil, but did not experience this with OTO events or people. A friend of mine, however, felt such an evil in one of their temples. Evil can be felt anywhere - even in Christian churches, for that matter if the people are hateful and envious. I only attended stuff for the public and have never attended the Gnostic Mass, as it would go against my own beliefs. I have only seen the Gnostic Mass in videos and have read the texts.

I have attended a gnostic mass and I do have to complement them on their use of champagne as well as the naked woman on the altar. Of course the naked woman was so self absorbed she had insisted earlier that day that everyone in the shower stick his or her fingers up her +w@+ to experience her cervical cap. I swear I couldn't make this crap up.
I also witnessed a ritual, which went horribly wrong, that invoked (not sure if that's the correct choice of words) the 15th Ether. I would still love to know what the 15th Ether is supposed to be. Someone started channeling a demon (yeah, whatever) and after a finger wagging lecture by the person in charge that "You didn't listen to my banishing" the "demon" responded, pretty violently, "Why should I listen to your stupid little banishing?"
Good times!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2016 09:54PM by siobhan.

I'd bet the enochian goes wrong because they are saying it wrong - as siobhan stated, she tried to ascertain if correct pronunciation was in use, but the question caused offense so they obviously do worry that they are doing it wrong.

The OTO has a group that meets a few times a month at the Crones Hollow in Salt Lake city. One of the meetings is the OTO mass which anyone is allowed to attend and participate in.

http://www.horusoto.org/

To answer Siobhan who wrote:

"I also witnessed a ritual, which went horribly wrong, that invoked (not sure if that's the correct choice of words) the 15th Ether. I would still love to know what the 15th Ether is supposed to be"

You witnessed Enochian in action! The Vision and Voice of Aleister Crowley covers the journey through the "ethers." One uses "Enochian calls" to attain/visit them. Enochian seems to always go wrong...