Do As Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law

Thelema In Simpler Terms.

Thelema is Greek for "Free Will". The "religion" of Thelema is one in which the followers, rather than priests and teachers like in other religions, decide what is right and wrong for themself.

Prior to Crowley, Francis Rebbalais founded an "Abbey Of Thelema" where the rules were very clear: "Do As Thou Wilt Is The Whole Of The Law".

Some consider Thelema a spiritual basis for Anarchism, Crowley himself tried to distance himself from the anarchists of his time because Anarchism was, and still is, a political hot button.

But Crowley's core ideas were expressed before Crowley was born in the political terminology of Anarchism by Mikael Bakunin, his analysis of organized religion, titled "God And The State", reveals views almost identical. Bakunin wouldn't have wanted Anarchism to be considered a form of spirituality any more than Crowley or Rebbalais would want Thelema to be viewed as a political system. But the fact is, spirituality and politics are really the same thing, and a world in which "Do as thou wilt is the whole of the law" is the ultimate goal of both Rebbelaian/Crowleyan Thelema and Bakuninist Anarchism.

Prior to any of them was Anacharsis Cloontz, a key figure in the French Revolution and self described "Personal enemy of Jesus Christ and any other who would oppress my liberty.". He was murdered by the other revolutionary leaders because, once the old elitist/authoritarian order was overthrown, he resisted the new, equally elitist authoritarian order because, even though he would have been in a position of power himself, he still recognized that it was morally wrong. He recognized, unlike Crowley and Bakunin, that politics and religion were the same thing. "As above so below", if we believe that the universe is a dictatorship, dictatorship will be seen as acceptable.

Unlike other religions, which teach that an all powerful god made up pages and pages of rules for how we are to live, Thememites, as followers of Thelema are called, believe that there is no god except ourselves, because we are in ultimate control over ourselves.

The main scripture of Thelema was written by Aleister Crowley around the year 1904, a very long time ago. This work is unlike other scriptures because it is only one page long. It is called "Liber Oz". Liber means "book" and Oz refers to the greek letter "Omega", the last letter of the alphabet that is also used to mean "the last". You may not understand the words, but you will get the general idea. I will explain it point by point right after.

Do As Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law

Crowley was raised in a heavily religious family, so he had a particular idea of how a religious pronouncement would sound. It seems he was trying to use the Shakespearean style of the most well known contemporary editions of Christian scriptures, trying to make simple ideas sound spiritually profound because he thought people wouldn't recognize them for what they were if they were in normal english. But the ideas are simple enough:

Thou has no right but to do thy will.
Do that, and no other shall say nay.

This can be summed up in the words "I think people should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they're not hurting anyone...", which is a very very common sentiment, especially among the "poor" and "uneducated". If this principle were adopted as a constitutional basis for criminal law, state oppression would end overnight. The people who say otherwise are usually those who work or want to work in parasite "law enforcement" professions that benefit from government attempts to micromanage everyone else's lives.

Every man and every woman is a star.

Each to their own orbit, we have a path but each path is unique. Each has the right to follow that path without disruption so long as they are not trying to disrupt another's.

There is no god but man.

Contrary to popular belief, the universe is not a dictatorship. The idiotic arbitrary laws that power obsessed human rulers invent are temporary. Obeying or failing to obey the orders of ruling human authorities will not effect what happens to you when you die, regardless of what names they stamp on their obsessions. The central thesis of the barbaric monotheistic cults is that the universe is a dictatorship, that an all powerful Adolf Jehovah stands with an army of goose stepping angels to enforce an ever changing mess of thou shalts and thou shalt nots. This is why monotheistic religious institutions,, though always preaching freedom, peace and love, have yielded nothing but war and oppression whenever given state control.

If one accepts the idea of a Godless/non-authoritarian reincarnative cycle of birth and death, an "afterlife justice" is very possible and much simpler to accept. We currently live in purgatory, a world where an impoverished majority subsidize the lifestyles of a wealthy minority. You will be treated as you treat others.

You will be reborn into the world that you've made.

If a majority don't work to make a better world you won't be born into a better world.

If corporate rule isn't stopped, we will be reborn in Hell.

But we could also have heaven, if we work together for the entire planets mutual benefit. Unlike the heavens of other religions, it could be real.

It is the heaven that Jesus described, but he couldn't let go of the authoritarian god myth so his message was tainted and fascism was made stronger.

Man has the right to live by his own law.

Same idea repeated.

to live in the way that he wills to do:
to work as he will:
to play as he will:
to rest as he will:
to die when and how he will.

Capitalism, the new authoritarian sub-religion posing as an economic system, has made it so that monetary considerations outweigh every other in our political system, in the cultural "industries" that are bleeding dry the spiritual value of our world's many diverse cultures in order to homogenize them into a single, corporate controlled non-culture that can be sold back to their originating people's in a safe, sterilized format. Corporate sponsered politicians from within the economic elite prattle about finding a "balance" between economic and social needs, but the corporations win automatically because a debate is occuring that makes their demands sound almost legitimate. Clean air and water for our descendants or manufacturing profits now? Is that a real question? During the cold war people were warned that the communists wanted to break up families and raise the children in state run institutions while parents male and female were put to work in the factories. But the only freedom they protected were those of the capitalists, because now they are doing the same thing, driving up prices of essential services while keeping wages at a standstill, lobbying governments under the guise of "feminism" to cut single mothers off of welfare so the children go into daycare at earlier and earlier ages, "liberating" families from each other. Right wing family values went away with the cold war because they were just a cheap front the whole time. Don't let the economy be the central focus of your life, don't waste your precious time slaving for someone else in the hopes of achieving something for yourself. Try to find some genuine economic self sufficiency and work towards reversing the current trend against personal economic self sufficiency.

Man has the right to eat what he will:
to drink what he will:
to dwell where he will:
to move as he will on the face of the earth.

Pretty self explanatory.

Man has the right to think what he will.
to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will.
do dress as he will.

Censorship is always wrong. Period.

Man has the right to love as he will.

Self explanatory.

Man has the right to destroy that which would thwart these rights.

Your rights are only valid if you respect and defend those rights in regards to others.

Love Is The Law, Love Under Will.

Essentially, LaVey reasoned that showing hate for people who harm the innocent is part of what it means to love the innocent. To love everyone would really mean to love no one.

Crowley said a lot of other things, and explained what he meant very clearly: The Criminal Law according to Thelema.

"All offenses are reduced to one; to deprive another of his right. (E.g. to live, to own goods, to sleep-as by making undue noise-and so on.) Therefore, the 'offender' denies his own right to similar protection; and he is treated accordingly. He can be reinstated on his purging the offense."
-Diary Entry

from page 820 of Confessions: "My predecessors have invariably said, 'My belief is right and yours is wrong; my customs are worthy, yours are ignoble; my dress is decent, yours is not; think as I think, talk as I talk, do as I do, or you will be wretched, poor, sick, disgraced and dammed; besides which, I shall cut your head off, burn you alive, starve you, imprison you, ostracize you and otherwise make you sorry you did not agree to be a good boy.' The essence of every missionary message has been to assimilate the taught to the teacher; and it has always been accompanied by bribes and threats. My message is exactly opposed to any of this. I say to each man and woman, 'You are unique and sovereign, the centre of an universe. However right I may be in thinking as I do, you may be equally right in thinking otherwise. You can only accomplish your object in life by complete disregard of the opinions of other people. You must not even take the outward signs of success as indications that the course of action which has produced them would serve your turn. For one thing, my coronet might not suit your complexion but give you a headache; for another, the measures which I took to obtain that coronet might not succeed in your case.'

My mission is, in short, to bring everyone to the realization and enjoyment of his own kingship, and my apparent interference with him amounts to no more than advice to him not to suffer interference." "Above us today hangs a danger never yet paralleled in history. We suppress the individual in more and more ways. We think in terms of the herd. War no longer kills soldiers; it kills all indiscriminately. Every new measure of the most democratic and autocratic governments is Communistic in essence. It is always restriction." "We are all treated as imbecile children.
Dora, the Shops Act, the Motoring Laws, Sunday Suffocation, the Censorship-they won't trust us to cross the streets at will."
-Aleister Crowley, Book Of The Law, 1904
(It still rings true a hundred years later, only we're hemmed in even more.)

Other people have said similar things before and after Crowley said them. He didn't invent Thelema, it is as old as the human species. There have always been people that have believed this, and in many places in the world during many periods of history people who believe these things have been murdered by people working for governments and churches of all kinds. Aleister Crowley just put it down as a single idea, named it and defended it.

Some other people have said:

"A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge. "
-Carl Sagan, scientist

"I consider the positions of kings and of rulers as that of dust motes...I look upong judegements of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons."
-Buddha

"It consists precisely in the progressive negation of the primitive animality of man by the development of his humanity. Man, a wild beast, cousin of the gorilla, has emerged from the profound darkness of animal instinct into the light of the mind, which explains in a wholly natural way all his past mistakes and partially consoles us for his present errors.
He has gone out from animal slavery, and passing through divine slavery, a temporary condition between his animality and his humanity, he is now marching on to the conquest and realisation of human liberty."
"It is the characteristic of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the mind and heart of men. The privileged man, whether politically or economically, is a man depraved in mind and heart. That is a social law which admits of no exception, and is as applicable to entire nations as to classes, corporations, and individuals. It is the law of equality, the supreme condition of liberty and humanity. The principal object of this treatise is precisely to demonstrate this truth in all the manifestations of human life."
"A scientific body to which had been confided the government of society would soon end by devoting itself no longer to science at all, but to quite another affair; and that affair, as in the case of all established powers, would be its own eternal perpetuation by rendering the society confided to its care ever more stupid and consequently more in need of its government and direction."
-Mikael Bakunin, God And The State

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-- God damn it, you've got to be kind."
-Kurt Vonnegut, baptismal scene from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

"Beware of the man whose god is in the skies." -George Bernard Shaw.

Hope this was helpful. Daniel Johnson.