Thelema & the OTO

On 8, 9 and 10 April 1904, in Cairo, Aleister Crowley claimed to receive a text dictated by a discarnate intelligence called Aiwass — described as a messenger of Hoor-Paar-Kraat (the child Horus). The resulting text, Liber AL vel Legis — The Book of the Law — is 220 verses divided into three chapters, each spoken by a different Egyptian deity: Nuit (infinite space), Hadit (the point of consciousness within space) and Ra-Hoor-Khuit (the Lord of the Aeon).

The Book of the Law announced the end of the Aeon of Osiris — the age of sacrifice, suffering and dying gods that had dominated Western spirituality for two millennia — and the beginning of the Aeon of Horus, the crowned and conquering child. Its central law: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will.

Crowley spent the rest of his life interpreting, elaborating and attempting to live by the text. He came to believe that his role was that of the Beast 666 — the prophet of the new Aeon — and that the Book's reception represented the most significant spiritual event of the modern era. Whether one shares this assessment or not, the text is genuinely striking: cryptic, poetic, internally consistent and productive of an extraordinary body of subsequent work.

Thelema (from the Greek θέλημα — will) is the philosophical and spiritual system Crowley developed from the Book of the Law. Its central concept is the True Will — the soul's deepest purpose and direction, distinct from the ego's surface desires. The Great Work of Thelema is the discovery and enactment of the True Will: becoming fully and authentically what one is, in alignment with one's deepest nature.

Thelema draws on Hermetic Kabbalah, yoga, Buddhist meditation, Taoist philosophy, Egyptian religion and the entire Western magical tradition — synthesised through Crowley's extraordinary (and deeply flawed) personality into a system of remarkable depth and productivity. The Holy Books of Thelema — Liber AL, Liber Librae, Liber Legis, and dozens of others composed by Crowley — form the canonical scriptural foundation of the tradition.

Crowley operated through two distinct magical organisations with different structures and purposes.

Thelema is a genuinely living tradition, practiced by tens of thousands of people worldwide through the OTO (which has lodges in dozens of countries), multiple A∴A∴ lineages, and independent Thelemic practice. The complete works of Crowley — once difficult to obtain — are now freely available online, making the tradition more accessible than at any point since its founding.

The tradition is not without serious problems: Crowley's personal behaviour was often genuinely harmful to those around him, his racism (a product of his era but not excused by it) is present in some of his writings, and the adulation he sometimes receives obscures the genuine criticism his life and work deserve. The most mature contemporary Thelemic practice engages seriously with both the depth of the system and the real limitations of its founder.