Some time ago, I realised that there are two takes on Crowley, and thus two primary schools in Thelema. One sees him as a prophet of individualism and social and sexual liberation, as well as a guy who came up with some really cool rituals. The other school, to which I subscribe, sees him as a mystical philosopher whose teaching can only be truly grasped and appreciated through direct magical experience and various forms of yogic discipline that focus the mind beyond the conditions of its conventional state(s) of awareness. The ‘big’ aim in the latter, though not the ultimate one, is to attain the fundamentally consciousness-changing samadhi known technically as the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, or K&C for short.
The societal change school strikes me as increasingly irrelevant. Laws in western countries today allow me to have sex with whom I choose, whenever we both (or more of us) choose. Further insistence on private freedom tends not to focus on effective activism, but to spill over into self-destructive over-indulgence and/or mere exhibitionism: if two bad tattoos plus five piercings don’t make it plain how passionately you insist on your absolute right to liberty, get four more of each. My bookstore owner, by the way, has to keep his Thelemic books behind the cash desk because they are among the most stolen things he carries. No fear, then, of would-be Thelemo-libertarians respecting his right to express his True Will through commerce.
Now, I’m not suggesting Moore steals books. After all, he’s an author, and authors tend to entertain hopes of actually living off their poetry and prose, so they rarely subvert other scribes that way. But this book contains some bizarre statements that, even in the context of allowing Crowley to speak to us individually according to our own needs, are a bit out there.
Let’s take pages 30-31:
“His whole notion of mystical progress is highly questionable. Crowley’s crossing of the Abyss was indeed a personal psychological development, but it is stretching the point to imply this makes him the Superhero or vastly superior being that is suggested. If you move in the right circles, it is not unusual to meet people who have crossed the Abyss, hardened drug fiends who claim to have destroyed the personality.”
To which I found myself uttering the great monosyllable, “Huh?” Does Moore have any idea what crossing the Abyss, with its utterly transforming abandonment of the structures of the personality, truly entails? What it took for Crowley to reach that point after years of arduous practice? Obviously not, if he mistakes acid-casualties for bodhisattvas.
There are three references in the index to yoga, all indicating very brief references in the text. But what of, say, kundalini, or pranayama, or samadhi, or dharana? How about Qabalah? Well, on page 88 Moore tells us, “Kabbalah involves mystical commentary on dogmas.” And perhaps much of it does to a pious Jew who, as our author notes, would be outraged by Crowley’s views on it. But the book’s aim is to present Crowley’s “religious outlook and experience,” and Crowley wasn’t a Jew, pious or otherwise. That he pushed understanding of Qabalah (the initial Q is used in Thelemic circles, the K in Jewish ones) to new degrees of profundity is obvious throughout his later writings, such as The Book of Thoth or Eight Lectures on Yoga.
Okay then, I thought, what does Moore have to say on the greatest preoccupation of Crowley’s career as a teacher – his students attaining the K&C? The answer: there’s nary a mention in 200 pages. That was when I considered taking the book back, or at least giving it to someone I don’t like.
Despite this, there are some fascinating things in the book, and his analysis of an English perspective on Protestantism versus Catholicism is subtle and insightful. He places Crowley’s personal life and thought in this context adroitly, and has some interesting things to say about its effect on the general history of magick and esotericism as well. You’ll need some knowledge of the history of both Christianity and England to follow it, but Moore is onto something here.
Had he simply announced he was placing Crowley’s public persona in the context of European philosophy, he would have produced a book that could find a legitimate place amid Thelemic scholarship. As it is, it’s a well intentioned but quirky failure. And his aim to depict Crowley as a modern master, along with thinkers such as Wittgenstein (a hero for Moore), just isn’t met.
One day, perhaps.