True Will

[in progress]

The Great Work

Crowley insists, in multiple different ways in various places throughout his corpus, that the Great Work is the manner by which we come into the Knowledge and Conversation of our True Will, of that distillation of our Will into a single Word, a personal logos, or self-referential meaning-itself. (It is this aspect of the Great Work that asks Who am I? and Why am I here?) How? Crowley again states "The Great Work therefore consists principally in the solution of complexes" (NC to AL 1.8). This is quite specific. It doesn’t happen with a single ritual attempt or over a weekend or two but demystifying this whole concept is important.

The Great Work could be presented as one approach toward our own soteriological alignment. What I mean is the solution of complexes has to be the archeology of authenticity, it has to be about smoothing out the veils of the Khu (personality, complexes, experiences, &c) in the direction of grasping the nature of our own Khabs (soul, Holy Guardian Angel, direction of motion, True Will, &c). It is not our salvation from sin or damnation, but the alignment (or right relationship) of our Khabs inward toward Hadit and ultimately toward Nuit.

Within this inward journey, this first crisis of the individual, it is about the interior influencing the exterior; that is, once we come to understand our True Will, this authentic self, then we begin to ensure that everything exterior about ourselves is overshadowed by our understanding of that True Will. One might use the metaphor of "the Angel whispering" to us in directing our path through life. This is different from the outward journey, the second crisis—not shown here—in which the exterior conforms to the interior and produces "a permanent and fundamental revolution in the whole of one's being."[1] This latter could be alluded to as "the Angel taking over" the whole being of the individual.

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Our first journey—that which is typically exemplified by the poetic language of both the Great Work and Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel—is an inward journey through the solution of complexes, beyond the illusion of duality, to align with that True or Authentic Self (with the direction of motion) that constitutes our True Will which then shapes outwardly our movement in alignment with destiny-itself. Crowley felt this was the "next step of humanity" and that it is was as simple for the individual as to "assimilate the Law of Thelema, and make it the norm of his conscious being; this by itself will suffice to initiate him, to dissolve his complexes, to unveil himself to himself; and so shall he attain the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel" (NC to AL 3.60).

There is a distinct difference between this model and that of the Tree of Life. While it can be stressed that the "climb up the Tree" is really a path inward, there is still the visual and experiential aspect of "moving upward" or "ascending to God" (or self or divinity or whatever). The utilization of the alethiological (cartography) model allows for the visual and experiential expression of the Great Work to be seen definitively as an inward journey that is not fraught with "spheres" of attainment, but of a journey of self-discovery, an epistemological distinction of note that relies on a different metaphysical assumption than that of the Tree of Life. We are not reaching back or up toward a Godhead of which we are a mere spark. That heresy is one Crowley has already put aside for us as "a senseless and inexcusable folly" (NC to AL 1.8). However, the alethiological (cartography) model provides a look at how we are already Very God of Very God, Nuit-in-motion. The journey of discovery is not about finding that which is missing but exposing that which is already existent.

More Thoughts on the Great Work

The Great Work is, before all things, the creation of man by himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future; it is especially the perfect emancipation of his will.[2]

"… the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future; it is especially the perfect emancipation of his will."

You asked if this "perfect emancipation" could be the solution of complexes. Yes and no. It is part of it. But it’s the whole sentence that is the key here. Everything you said was, in my estimation, dead center, right on. Mastery is individualized yet there is a certain amount of overlap because we all share the same meatspace, regardless of our individual perspectives on that meatspace. It’s certainly not a popular approach in conversation, even if it’s a common one in action, because of the right-extremist position that every man and every woman is an island rather than a star.

And, again, you comment that "the pursuit of the True Will is the same as the Great Work with the nuance of subjectivity." Exactly so. Part of the paradox of Thelema is that there is one path that every individual takes but the perspective of that path, the manner in which that path is taken or experienced, is different for each individual. Even if two individuals approached that path in the same manner, their separate and individual experiences will make that path a very different experiential process. The idea that the Great Work is different for each individual is both inaccurate and accurate. It is inaccurate insofar as the Great Work is objectively the same path for every individual. It is inaccurate insofar as the path itself is subjectively different for each individual.

It’s not difficult to grasp, and it’s sure to cause the most consternated opposition, but it is a paradox for a reason.

Here’s where I think it gets tricky and tends to make people nervous in conversations like this. It is for exactly the reasons you mention about the changing of the universe, the evolution of technology (which correlates with the evolution of consciousness, society, development, spirituality, etc), and the ever-changing stage on which we exist; that is to say, the reliance on archaic notions and symbols of the universe as well as the assumptions of static attainments (say, under Crowley’s A∴A∴) belies the fact that we are never really done with the Great Work. Even the misunderstanding of the Crossing of the Abyss and the so-called "destruction of the ego" is all based on a faulty understanding of consciousness. Mastery is merely .. wait for it .. an altitude of understanding.

Each of us will have various peak experiences along the way—states, not structures—that will all fall along the same path. But with each structure that is added to our consciousness, to our altitude of understanding, we will start all over again in working through those states. Quite frankly, by his own admission (but in my own phrasing here), Crowley was only able to reach a particular structure of consciousness because of his inhibitions of being from within the 'old aeon' (i.e., previous structure of consciousness).

To put it in a way that may be more understandable, our experiences of states of consciousness are interpreted through the particular structure of consciousness in which we individually reside and then amplified by the structure of the mean of consciousness in a collective sense. Crowley could only interpret his peak experiences—the revelation, for instance—through his own structure of consciousness; that is, through his own altitude of understanding, tempered through the lens of the Aeon of Osiris.

What does that mean for us, individually. When Nietzsche talks about the path of the eternal return, that experience of life that is always the same, over and over again, he’s close. It is a path that is an endless series of doing the same thing over and over again. However, it is not a circle, but a spiral. It is the endless return but a return through the same peak experiences from a different structure of consciousness or, the phrase I continue to beat into the ground here, altitude of understanding. This happens on both on a collective level and an individual level.

Going back to the quoted portion above, "… the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future; it is especially the perfect emancipation of his will."

It’s a four-step process that I’ve mentioned before, though not original to me, divided into two stages.

The first stage is:

  1. Thorough knowledge of one's personality.
  2. Control of its various elements.

This is "the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future." Here would be the A∴A∴ equivalent of the Probationer to Dominus Liminis grade work. All these practices—or their psychological equivalent—deal with the mastery that comes with dominion over one’s personality and its various attributes and elements. Look closely at all these practices and their purpose, and one can argue over minutiae here, but that is precisely what’s going on in those grades.

But, to be clear, this includes an understanding, a knowledge, a mastery, of the elements in which one exists: that is to say, the world-at-large around us. This is where that sense of constant meatspace occurs that was mentioned above.

The second stage is:

  1. Realisation of one's true Self—the discovery or creation of a unifying center.
  2. The formation or reconstruction of the personality around a new center.

This is the "the perfect emancipation of his will." This relates to the Adeptus Minor to Adeptus Exemptus (and possibly/most likely, Magister Templi) grade work of the A∴A∴. This gets into that whole HGA area as well as (potentially) the reconstellation process of the Magister Templi. Again, this has a psychological equivalent that is perfectly useable and reachable by anyone, not merely some loners in a Victorian cosplay club. But, then, that’s why Crowley calls all this the "next step" of humanity and not The Great Mystery of the Stupid Hats Club™.

The Book of the Law provides an actual roadmap that follows this exact path as well (with Tree of Life correspondences for those who need such attributions):

The roadmap from the Book of the Law, like most things with Thelema, is a "shortcut" (or a better word might be "streamlining") through the folds of the Khu (or complexes of the psyche). The Law of Thelema moves us past all the nonsense and complicated pursuits of the past. Each covenantal stage (aeon) simplifies our altitude of understanding in one or more areas of development.

What we generally see around us, even in today’s teachers, is not the direct examination of the path ahead of us but a complication of the roadmap itself, the addition of nuances both modern and archaic, and the mythology (superstition?) of how difficult all this really is for individuals. For many, the altitude of understanding, that aeonic movement, the cognitive and spiritual development of themselves, has remained firmly in the grips of the Aeon of Isis (Covenant of Works) and it’s all work, work, work to bridge that gap between Man and what is metaphorically called "the Divine." (Though we could also attribute such work to the Aeon of Osiris/Covenant of Grace in which one has to crawl back up "the Tree" toward their savior, HGA, Tiphareth, the Golden Creamy Filling in the Center of the Chocolate Egg, etc. Either way, the point remains the same.)

Again, here’s the rest of the paradox mentioned above that makes people uncomfortable (usually because Thelemites, specifically, but pagans in general, have this desire to be special little cupcakes). There has always been only one path between Man and "God." The Aeon of Osiris, specifically, offered multiple large-field approaches to that path (Eastern, Western, however you wish to break them down), each thinking they had "the key" to that path and pointing fingers at all the others being imposters. The Law of Thelema did not come about and suddenly bust it all up into a billion (or nine billion) little paths. It’s still just one path.

The difference, however, between the Law of Thelema and that approach of the past is that we have an .. altitude of understanding .. a field adjustment of the mean of consciousness, that has come about (or is coming about now) and recognises the subjective perspective of the individual in conjunction with the path itself. That one path will look very different to you than it does to me. I will notice different details along the way than you will—maybe not entirely different, but still different enough (or maybe so if one is fucking blind as a bat). But that does not mean it is an objectively different path that we’re walking here. It merely means, as you mentioned previously, that there is a subjective element to that path for each of us.

That all said, though, there is no one praxis that is "The Way" to traverse that path—though there are plenty that are not the way at all. Thelema does not point fingers and say, "no, no, not in that manner." It does, however, seem to have a natural immunity or defense mechanism toward such approaches that continue to overtly complicate the complexes, that enslave and bind the individual in such a manner as to stifle growth on any level of development, and that alienate the individual from the collective.

We need to be leery of those who claim there are multiple paths, as merely misguided, and of those who claim there is only one way in which to walk that path, as actively pathological in their attempt to control the individual into a particular mode of thinking.

However, lest anyone get tripped up on the specifics in the wording here—to use a familiar, old aeon metaphor—the Great Work is the mountain, it is one mountain, but there are many different paths up that mountain, and how one views the top of the mountain and all that one can see from that height is interpreted through their own individual structure of consciousness, or altitude of understanding. A child will have a vastly different experience of understanding at the top of that mountain than her adult guardian and likewise a vastly different experience of understanding at the top of that mountain, again, when she reaches its summit as an adult herself. It’s a terribly imperfect metaphor, as one might imagine from the multiple inaccuracies that can arise from it; but some appear to be drawn to such allusions.

(draft, unfiinished)

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Canons of Thelemic Philosophy & Religion © 1996-2024 by Qui Vident.

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  1. Crowley, A. (1997). The heart of the master & other papers. Tempe, AZ: New Falcon Publications. ↩︎

  2. Lévi, Éliphas (1968). Transcendental Magic: its Doctrine and Ritual. Arthur Edward Waite (trans.) ([Rev. ed.] ed.). London: Rider. ↩︎