Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - selfish?
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@Tamara_Tornad said
""However, no matter how you lay it out, Crowley's "Do what you will shall be the whole of the law," is fundamentally flawed. He clipped the Wiccan Rede, "If it harm none, do what you will.""
LOL. No, Crowley didn't "clip that Wiccan Rede." Rather, that 'rede' was written by a Crowley student, Gerald Gardiner, in the 1940s. It isn't ancient, but quite modern.
Gardiner's is an interesting tweak. Compare it to Crowley's definition of magick as, "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will," and Dion Fortune's amendment of changing "change" to "changes in consciousness." In actuality, there are no changes other than changes in consciousness; but the novice isn't likely to understand this. She did nothing to modify Crowley's original definition's actual meaning, but did make it more user friendly.
In exactly the same way, Gardiner's tweak of the most famous quote from The Book of the Law added nothing to the actual meaning, because we deeply understand that "if it harms none" is inherent in the original phrase. But the novice isn't likely to understand that.
True Will has nothing at all to do with the ego or personality level of choice unless the personality has aligned itself with True Will. We also understand True Will as inherently being the fruit of the totality - the particular function of a single unit in the context of the Whole. It is the antithesis of selfishness (as usually understood).
"He put concern for the self at the center, ignoring harm to others. This is what makes life "nasty, brutish, and short.""
This comes from an ignorance of what we mean by "Will." I think the core idea to get across is that the word "will" in this context has nothing whatsoever to do with personality-level choice.
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I can understand why Gardiner felt it necessary to add "if it harms none". Certainly many people misinterpret the phrase.
Do you think that Crowley's "bad boy" streak reveled in the ignorant's misunderstanding of the phrase? I am under the impression that Crowley enjoyed shocking people.
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@Tamara_Tornad said
"Do you think that Crowley's "bad boy" streak reveled in the ignorant's misunderstanding of the phrase? I am under the impression that Crowley enjoyed shocking people."
Yes, he often did enjoy that - shaking them out of their gray fog.
And yes, I think his personality certainly struggled with his Will in this matter and many others.
On the other hand, he was writing for the millennia, not for the short-run. And Liber L. was certainly conceived for the long-run, not the short. I can see how encumbering the core statement with what amounts to "clarifying commentary" might not have been the best approach.
As for Crowley's bad boy streak: On this particular issue, I can't think offhand of a single instance of his every interpreting "Do what thou wilt" to mean, "Do whatever the fuck you like." So on this one, I think he was consistent and solid about what he meant and was trying to get across.
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Thank you so much!
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93,
Well theres always the argument whether any action is truly selfless...
Aside from that, some call it 'enlightened self-interest.' Anyone who understands the world in any way should recognize their own well being depends on the well being of interconnected forces especially other humans... your own interests are intermingled with others' interests inevitably.
IAO131
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Doing our True Will is the most Selfish thing we can do
And the only Way we can be of unique Service to the Universe.
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I always find it a hoot when people say Crowley was "corrupting" Wicca or sniping this or that etc. when in fact it was the opposite. I have a girl at work who still refuses to believe that Wicca was created in the 40s and believes that the Inquisition was killing Wiccans and swears "Never again, the Burning Times". I keep trying to explain things to her & show her stuff but her logic is that "Crowley stole it".
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@frateruranus said
"I have a girl at work who still refuses to believe that Wicca was created in the 40s and believes that the Inquisition was killing Wiccans and swears "Never again, the Burning Times". I keep trying to explain things to her & show her stuff but her logic is that "Crowley stole it"."
Actually, she's mostly right. It was specifically Gardnerian Wicca (which, admittedly, is what most late 20th Century people knew) that was created in the 1940s. But there were witches of various, and deep folk customs and cultures and religions, going back centuries. They just have almost nothing to go with contemporary 'Wicca.'
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Wicca has almost nothing in common with the folk beliefs it claims to reconstruct, but has very much in common with ceremonial magic as practiced by the Golden Dawn and other Rosicrucian based groups.
Wicca is to folk shamanism as Crowley's rites of Eleusis are to the original Eleusinian mysteries.
Both are merely attempts to capitalize on the mythic association with popular anthropological discoveries, where fantasy and creative application of dramatic ritual fill in the gaps in known history records.
Not really much different than trying to reconstruct the religion and culture of ancient Atlantis, or Evola's pre-Aryan hyperbolean race.
Or my project, the caste structure of Gor. At least us trekkies and Gor fans, admit our sources are fiction and that we are working to manifest Kether (Idealism) into Malkuth (Practical reality), we do not delude ourselves that we have some sort of magical or racial ties to true historical mysteries than were lost, and some how we restored them. But I guess if lying about historical ties get's your Will accomplished, then if it works by all means proceed,
An a similar note Crowley entire career can be summed to paraphrase his own words, when he read 1001 Arabian Nights he was so captivated that he sought to experience these things for himself, when he latter learned it was a book of fiction, rather than becoming disillusioned, he dedicated his life to MAKING the Stories came true, to living them out himself, and creating for himself the world that captivated him in his youth. And is That not in essence the TRUE WILL of every Magician and the very substance of Magic, to destroy the universe as Magister and Author a new WORLD in its place, as Magus.
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As others have alluded to, following your True Will (a phrase not in Liber Legis) need not be all selfish; a person may be generous if they choose to do so of their own free will. AC went to great lengths to try and explain what "True Will" is, but in Liber Legis I believe the meaning of Do What Thou Wilt is fairly simple; it means that in the New Aeon, no deity would be calling the shots.
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It is a safe assumption than Crowley got the idea of true Will from Liber Legis.
Their is no deity or other such deified principle, which one must submit to or else feel guilty by falling short of.
However, that does not mean anything goes, because if you don't focus yourself on a goal and take measures to achieve that goal you set upon, you will never achieve anything, you will feel like a failure, that you are incompetent etc.
"choose ye an island" could this not mean pick a paradigm or ideology than supports your intentions, and act as if it were an absolute truth or deified principle. "dung it about with the enginery of war" could this not mean learn all the defenses of your choses belief and be prepared it fight it the name of your chosen flag. "I will give you a war engine" = I will give you a powerful argument or principle that can be used to defend any ideal of point of view. (Magick)
This it is equally thelemic to be a nazi, a communist, a Christian faith healer, etc. So long as you use the belief and its practice to as a tool to achieve your personal goal. In any case a thelemite is first an egoist, a Machiavellian "The price-Priest the Beast". Their is no principle under the sun, beneath the earth, on dry land or in the water, of rushing air or thrusting fire, which is not a tool obedient to the WILL. That includes every "spell and scourge of God" which in to say every thought-belief and every physical action of the body.
The when a thought or act is aligned to the ones own WILL then it is TRUE to the WILL like an arrow true to its target. The WILL is TRUE when it guides the thought and action to the intended goal. When the WILL wavers due to various forces, distractions and seductions away from the intent, then it is not TRUE WILL, but deviant WILL.
If one allows any King or God, or principle of law, to deviate one from the dead set target goal that is natural to the individual, then that God or King may create a deviation in the WILL.
Likewise take a fish out of water and it can not do its WILL, part of a fishes WILL includes its food and the predators it lives with. So to do ones TRUE WILL, one needs to be in ones natural physical and social environment, such as natural leaders that encourage those underneath to keep to their proper orbits and achieve their natural ends.
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@Secret Asian Man said
"As others have alluded to, following your True Will (a phrase not in Liber Legis) need not be all selfish; a person may be generous if they choose to do so of their own free will. AC went to great lengths to try and explain what "True Will" is, but in Liber Legis I believe the meaning of Do What Thou Wilt is fairly simple; it means that in the New Aeon, no deity would be calling the shots."
Personally, I believe it means something that has always been so...
That is, that each "center of expression" has a unique function to fulfill.
That is, what we typically refer to as "I" , is a creation of something much greater than what we typically know to be ourselves and this creation was/is for a specific function or purpose.
To fulfill this function "is the whole of the Law", i.e. what makes each of us whole and complete; there is nothing other than this that we should be concerned with.
To fulfill what you have been created to do is the highest Service of which you are capable; doing anything else is a distraction.
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93, Um, perhaps I'll just refer you to Liber II. In more than one of Crowley's works, the will of the ego was differentiated from that True Will of the Higher Self(the HGA). In many works,too, this Will's aims differ by far from that of the ego will, which the majority of man follow. I suppose it would be easy to confuse the two if you are one who hasn't looked past the vulgar will. The old fool and wise man addage revisited. 939393, Fra. OIO
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as far as this "harm none" nonsense, what does that even actually mean. In order to harm something one must know what it's purpose is, and to know that one must know the whole scheme of the entire universe (God's plan) which is impossible, save perhaps in anecdote of the magus or Ipssissimus. what I mean here is that we know that a racood does not want to say die of intestinal worm infections, however the worms want to reproduce in the racoon's stomach. Thus on a simple level we can say that the worms are doing harm to the racoon yet to flush out the worms by giving the racoon medicine we are doing harm to the worms, it seems no matter how we act here, it restricts the WILL of one or the other elements of the Equation. However if we look at nature as a whole the equation is balanced, because both the racoon and the worms are part of the natural order, and to just let them war it out and some times the worms win and kill the racoon some times the racoons immunity wins and kills the worms, but over all it is part of being a racoon to risk death by parasites that are proper to racoons. If we interfere on behalf of the worms or the racoon, we are doing harm to the natural order of things.
This same principle goes with predators and prey, and symbiotic lichen, as well as such things that are part of the natural order as males fighting for dominance over a territory of female, and even the case of animals which at times eat their won young, or chimps which brutally murder and babies where the suspected father is of a defeated tribe. Though many of these relationships seem mean spirited, cruel, and heartless, they are never the less part of (GOD's great plan) that is carefully balanced part of the natural order of things. So it may seem like you are doing a kind ethical act to save a defenseless baby chimp form being bashed to death on a rock by it's step father, but this can create imbalanced in the natural order which are far more harmful. (and in fact it may be argued that it is the TRUE WILL or natural purpose of the baby chimp to die a horrific death)
Now should not the same hold true for us humans, that our TRUE WILL not being our conscious aspirations, nor our rationalized interest, and certainly is not swayed by the base emotions, but is rather our true purpose of rather niche in the divine order of nature. That it may very Will be one's TRUE WILL to be a Homicidal brute as much as it may be ones true will to be a victim of homicide.
Their is no ethical consideration to the law of thelema, other than "DO WHAT THOU WILT". Of course it may be ones WILL to be victim of murder, but if one is to gain anything from incarnation as a murder victim, must also have a survival instinct, and it is the tension and the fight for life that is the expression of one's incarnation, not a mere moping off peacefully to one's doom.
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@Froclown said
" That it may very Will be one's TRUE WILL to be a Homicidal brute
Their is no ethical consideration to the law of thelema, other than "DO WHAT THOU WILT"."How inconvenient that I may fall under this category.
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@Froclown said
"In order to harm something one must know what it's purpose is, and to know that one must know the whole scheme of the entire universe (God's plan) which is impossible
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However if we look at nature as a whole the equation is balanced
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This same principle goes with predators and prey, and symbiotic lichen, as well as such things that are part of the natural order as males fighting for dominance over a territory of female"
- to know the whole scheme is impossible
- then you look at the whole equation
- and then you apply that vision to all of nature
I don't mean to pick Froclown, but without "God's plan", how do you know the equation balances? How do you know the same principle applies...?
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Frater Fro,
It's always strange to me how you equate the animal instincts to True Will. In my mind, True Will is what separates us from the animals.
Animals don't Individuate. They don't rise above the delusions of the "mass mind" to find their True Will and pursue it. They don't consciously restrain and direct their energies toward an existentially meaningful and satisfying goal that fits their unique set of capabilities. In my mind, at least, True Will is a conception limited to self-aware beings who have the ability to ponder their grander purpose.
I don't deny the fundamental realization that you had during your RAW experience. I just don't name it "True Will." I would perhaps name it karma - the law of action and reaction - the equilibrating principle in the universe. Everything does fulfill this law perfectly as you suggest - even those things that are terrifyingly brutal. Such is the law of action and reaction. Such balance and perfection in the universe occurs automatically - without individual consciousness. You could even say the universe's tendency to seek balance produced individual consciousness, whose job is to establish equilibrium within the realm of experience (whether by creating stability or instability) more efficiently and effectively than brute math and vast expanses of time.
But to equate animal will, or the deluded, over-passionate acts of a homicidal maniac to True Will is to lose the very distinctions of quality of life, freedom from delusion, self-conscious direction, existential meaningfulness, and efficiency of power that the term was created to suggest. True Will is a purposeful organization of otherwise unorganized, competing, and potentially self-defeating drives.
I do agree with you that our individual True Wills are the result of a larger, cosmic, karmic law and drive, but to fully equate the two levels of Willpower only serves to confuse the whole purpose of having a path of instruction involving both mental and physical discipline.
I understand that sense of perfection and "how could it be otherwise" that one is able to experience. But that experience lies in ...what do you want to call it? ...a quality of Mind that is outside the illusion of personal will. Indeed, how could anyone ever have willed otherwise? But, the conversation about knowing and finding one's True Will can only really take place in the "realm" of action. One might attempt to dwell continually in the bliss of that greater awareness, but one would crash one's car (and probably not mind in the least - until the pain set in). The pain brings us back down into the world of action, where personal will, even if ultimately illusory, must be dealt with. And it is here in this more common realm, that the term True Will finds its usefulness.
my two.
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I have never said it to my self, though I have told many people.
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lol...
Our self is the only one we ever attempt to convince.
