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"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" is a moral utterance
found in the Thelemic foundation scripture, which is called the Book of the
Law. "Do what thou wilt" is known as the Law of Thelema. It is derived
from the rule of the fictional Abbey of Thélème in the classic
satire Gargantua by the French priest and occult student François
Rabelais. Crowley recommends study of Rabelais when discussing the Law. In
Rabelais this rule was "fay çe que vouldras", French for "do
what you will." From his work the maxim became a well-known part of Western
literary life, and was adopted by the satirical English gentleman's society
called the Hell-Fire Club or the Friars of Medmenham.
In Crowley's writing, the Law of Thelema is explained in terms of True Will,
the ultimate spiritual core or quintessence of each person, which has a divinely
self-ordained path through the world of experience. "Do what thou wilt" refers
not to the outer emotional and intellectual self but to this sacred inner core
of personal divinity. Often will is contrasted with whim, and the knowing and
doing of the True Will is painted not in terms of license and ease but of responsibility
and hard work.
Since this new law replaces outdated moral codes based around sins and forbidden
acts, a person knowing and doing the will might appear to be sinful from a
traditional viewpoint. In Crowley's view the Thelemite is following a demanding
code requiring great personal integrity even while, for instance, making love
in ways that would be illegal in oppressive societies. Sometimes it is natural
to express this ironic inversion of traditional mores in satiric form, and
Crowley, Rabelais and the Hell Fire Club all made heavy use of the satirical
style in their writing and work.
Crowley also held that "do what you will" was an ethical code bearing
on how one should deal with others. However, he expressed a number of contradictory
views of this ethical aspect of the Law. To him the Law of Thelema was almost
completely explicable in terms of self-improvement and he sometimes even denied
the existence of others. One view which one often finds in his writings, and
is accepted by most of his followers, is that one must respect not only one's
own will but the wills of others. All the wills are magically arranged so that
there is no conflict between them, just as (so it was believed in Crowley's
day) the stars are arranged so that they never collide. The personal will and
the will of all are mystically joined as a whole which is also the basis of
individuality in a paradoxical way. Collision between wills would indicate
that one or the other person was not doing their True Will.
At other times Crowley said that the only error was to believe that others
existed at all and that they had wills that could be violated. This was a solipsistic
position inspired by his sympathy for the philosopher Berkeley and modified
through Crowley's conception of God as a force within oneself rather than outside.
At yet other times Crowley said that there was no possibility of error and
that all beings live according to the will-paths predestined by themselves
before their births, from which any deviation would be impossible. In this
view the appearance of deviation from the will is akin to the Buddhist doctrine
that all beings are enlightened already, and the appearance of non-enlightenment
is illusion. Crowley added that incarnation is voluntarily chosen as a play
of shadow and light, in contrast with the traditional Eastern curse of rebirth.
The idea that sorrow is illusory in a reincarnatory world was popular in Western
occult circles during Crowley's formative period, both from Buddhism and from
Spiritualism.
These apparent contradictions may have been reconciled for Crowley by the
idea of levels of initiatory truth. He believed in a model of development by
which people progress through various initiations from a relatively unenlightened
state to a state of pure selfhood, which is also paradoxically selfless. The
realization of one's true nature comes at the same time that one realizes one's
unity with all beings. At different levels of initiation there are different
criteria of truth; the truth of one level is falsehood or nonsense to another.
So for the ordinary person, "do what thou wilt" is a useful rule
of thumb for interacting with others. At a higher level one realizes that there
are no others, or that the distinction between self and non-self is an illusion,
and so the Law of Thelema takes on a different, non-dual meaning.
There is a relationship between the Law of Thelema and the Wiccan Rede, "an
it harm none do as ye will", the moral rule of late 20th century Witchcraft
in English-speaking countries. The exact relationships between the three different
forms of the maxim remain controversial. The co-founders of the modern Witchcraft
movement, Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente, were aware of and sympathetic
to Crowley's version. They also referred to a separate literary version in
the work of French erotic novelist Pierre Louys, probably derived independently
from Rabelais.
The Literalist might say this, with the formal opening: Do what thou
wilt shall be the whole of the Law. As revealed in the Book of the Law, human
history is divided into Æons which correspond to the precession of the
Astrological Signs of the Zodiac. The new Æon of Horus, which began
in 1904, brings with it a rotation in the roster of deities governing the planet
as well as a revolution in moral codes. Gone are the old codes based on sin,
sacrifice and other veils of shame and sorrow. The Law of Thelema is the code
of absolute Freedom and absolute Responsibility, and the most perfect moral
Law ever formulated. It will last for two thousand years until the rise of
the next Æon.
The Chaotic might say this: True magical power resides in the unconscious
mind, which is aware of many things beyond the scope of the ordinary consciousness.
Descend far enough into the alien geometries of the unconscious and you might
find out who and what you really are. This will free you from shame and guilt
and other limitations that society has imposed on you. You can use magic to
go inside, or music, or entheogens, or all sorts of new techniques waiting
to be discovered.
The Skeptic might say this: There is a long history of respect for
the individual in Western culture, starting with ancient Greek philosophy,
waning during the authoritarian middle period of Christian dominance, and returning
in force in the seventeenth century with the rise of social philosophers and
democratic political institutions recognizing human rights. Existentialist
philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries developed a new set of ideas about
the individual that is still relevant today. Crowley's work is part of this
stream of thought, but his contributions are not major compared to those of
great thinkers such as Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky on one hand and John Stuart
Mill on the other.
The Mystic might say this: The True Will, the innermost spark of divine
flame known in the Qabala as Yechidah, is unapproachable except by undertaking
the work of the Path. By stilling the noise of the lower mind and focusing
on the archetypal symbols hidden behind the veil of the universe, and persisting
through the great spiritual ordeals that turn away the dilettante and the coward,
one may ultimately arrive at that eternal Self and place it into its rightful
relation with the rest of the personality, setting intellect and emotion in
their proper places as Will's servants rather than its oppressors.
Read More About Aleister Crowley In This Section
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