It has been a couple of years now since I formally bid farewell to Thelema. Since that time I haven't thought much about it, my attention being largely given to my academic studies and my new-found interest in Religious Naturalism (not to mention my family). A few days ago, however, I did find myself pondering Thelema and noticed that my thinking was different now that I'm emotionally detached from it. Like breaking up with a lover, once the painful fire of separation cools, it is possible to look back and get a clearer picture of who that person really was and what the relationship was really like.

First I want to say that I don't begrudge anyone being a Thelemite. Thelema provided an important developmental stepping stone in my own life and I am not qualified to judge another's experiences or needs. This does not mean that I don't have honest critiques of Thelema, I simply hope that they aren't mistaken for scoldings of individual adherents or any claim that my views represent a single objective truth generalizable to everyone. These are simply my impressions as they currently stand, and people are welcome to consider or dismiss them as they will.

First, keep in mind that at one point I was a True Believer. It isn't that I accepted anything that Aleister Crowley wrote without question, but I was happy to believe in the general outlines and the myths that Crowley wove. I bought all his books and practiced his rituals. I joined and was highly active for thirteen years in his quasi-masonic fraternal organization, Ordo Templi Orientis, rising in rank to Fifth Degree and taking orders as an ordained priest in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. I was really, really into it.

So what happened? In about a two-year time span I went from being a zealot to an apostate. This essay is not going to retell that tale, however, since my primary interest is in offering a critique rather than a biography. I will say that it primarily involved a project that required examining many of Crowley's core documents with an analytical eye. Although I initially went into that project fully expecting the examination to support my Thelemic faith, it was eventually to dissolve it. I fought it tooth and nail until the very end, performing all kinds of theoretical contortions to justify holding on to Thelema, but it just wasn't enough. I came out of that tunnel a non-believer.

The Problem with Will

I begin with the core doctrine of Thelema—the concept of Will. In terms of Thelemic doctrine, Will is not a well-defined structure. In fact, many theological debates within Thelema involve the proper definition of Will, what it means, how it works, and what it implies. At the bottom of Will, however, is the notion that every person has within them a central drive to action that is either externally derived—most often from a being called the Holy Guardian Angel—or internally provided by an unconscious "silent self". However, humans are generally blinded to this Will, in part due to egoism (a too-strong sense of "I") and in part due to cultural contamination. The main duty of a Thelemite, therefore, is to work through the veils of blindness so to achieve a clear understanding of their own unique Will. Moreover, he or she must develop certain skills (i.e. "magick") and personal traits that will allow that Will to be manifested via action.

I reject this general concept of Will on several grounds. First, its definition is vague enough to be without any real utility; if we were talking about something real, a nominal definition would be more clear. In ontological terms, I cannot accept the idea that a single way of being or acting is ideal in every given situation or that we all have a potential destiny for us to fulfill. Ethically, I detest the notion that manifesting one's Will is of higher priority than any social obligation or that it requires overriding one's inherent sense of compassion, fairness, or emotional attachment (I address ethics more fully below). Psychologically, I see no evidence to believe that there are thoughts or behaviors originating from any process other than normal neural activity, based on innate mechanisms and data perceived from the physical world using the five sensory inputs. Further, the notion of a discrete "ego" and "unconscious" has been long abandoned scientifically—meaning that, objectively speaking, there is no hidden authentic mind privy to occult truths that could be accessed consciously if only the ersatz "I-mind" could be quieted or eliminated. This simplistic idea does a great disservice to the complex functions of the brain and the way humans maintain a sense of self and experience the world.
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It has been a couple of years now since I formally bid farewell to Thelema. Since that time I haven't thought much about it, my attention being largely given to my academic studies and my new-found interest in Religious Naturalism (not to mention my family). A few days ago, however, I did find myself pondering Thelema and noticed that my thinking was different now that I'm emotionally detached from it. Like breaking up with a lover, once the painful fire of separation cools, it is possible to look back and get a clearer picture of who that person really was and what the relationship was really like.

First I want to say that I don't begrudge anyone being a Thelemite. Thelema provided an important developmental stepping stone in my own life and I am not qualified to judge another's experiences or needs. This does not mean that I don't have honest critiques of Thelema, I simply hope that they aren't mistaken for scoldings of individual adherents or any claim that my views represent a single objective truth generalizable to everyone. These are simply my impressions as they currently stand, and people are welcome to consider or dismiss them as they will.

First, keep in mind that at one point I was a True Believer. It isn't that I accepted anything that Aleister Crowley wrote without question, but I was happy to believe in the general outlines and the myths that Crowley wove. I bought all his books and practiced his rituals. I joined and was highly active for thirteen years in his quasi-masonic fraternal organization, Ordo Templi Orientis, rising in rank to Fifth Degree and taking orders as an ordained priest in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. I was really, really into it.

So what happened? In about a two-year time span I went from being a zealot to an apostate. This essay is not going to retell that tale, however, since my primary interest is in offering a critique rather than a biography. I will say that it primarily involved a project that required examining many of Crowley's core documents with an analytical eye. Although I initially went into that project fully expecting the examination to support my Thelemic faith, it was eventually to dissolve it. I fought it tooth and nail until the very end, performing all kinds of theoretical contortions to justify holding on to Thelema, but it just wasn't enough. I came out of that tunnel a non-believer.

The Problem with Will

I begin with the core doctrine of Thelema—the concept of Will. In terms of Thelemic doctrine, Will is not a well-defined structure. In fact, many theological debates within Thelema involve the proper definition of Will, what it means, how it works, and what it implies. At the bottom of Will, however, is the notion that every person has within them a central drive to action that is either externally derived—most often from a being called the Holy Guardian Angel—or internally provided by an unconscious "silent self". However, humans are generally blinded to this Will, in part due to egoism (a too-strong sense of "I") and in part due to cultural contamination. The main duty of a Thelemite, therefore, is to work through the veils of blindness so to achieve a clear understanding of their own unique Will. Moreover, he or she must develop certain skills (i.e. "magick") and personal traits that will allow that Will to be manifested via action.

I reject this general concept of Will on several grounds. First, its definition is vague enough to be without any real utility; if we were talking about something real, a nominal definition would be more clear. In ontological terms, I cannot accept the idea that a single way of being or acting is ideal in every given situation or that we all have a potential destiny for us to fulfill. Ethically, I detest the notion that manifesting one's Will is of higher priority than any social obligation or that it requires overriding one's inherent sense of compassion, fairness, or emotional attachment (I address ethics more fully below). Psychologically, I see no evidence to believe that there are thoughts or behaviors originating from any process other than normal neural activity, based on innate mechanisms and data perceived from the physical world using the five sensory inputs. Further, the notion of a discrete "ego" and "unconscious" has been long abandoned scientifically—meaning that, objectively speaking, there is no hidden authentic mind privy to occult truths that could be accessed consciously if only the ersatz "I-mind" could be quieted or eliminated. This simplistic idea does a great disservice to the complex functions of the brain and the way humans maintain a sense of self and experience the world.


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