Introducing Mystical Thelema

I’ve been quietly working on something that has really taken me by surprise, and sent me into a direction that I honestly didn’t expect. To be honest, I had no intention of ever really doing anything on the internet, or on a public level, ever again. I was seeking my own practice, tailored just to me and my interests. The isolation of the past two years or so had changed me, and I was ready to just do my own thing. I had been fighting tooth and nail with depression, anhedonia and a sense of hopelessness.

The biggest thing that I had begun to explore was David Chaim Smith‘s work on Mystical Kabbalah. It spoke to me, so I began to work it. I had the opportunity to talk with him, and with the help of my previous work and his excellent teaching, It started to really work. I felt like I had put a puzzle piece into place. It just wove the exact things I had sought out in my deep dives into the Kabbalah & Alchemy. It’s like he was talking directly to me. The particular text that spoke clearest to me is the Bath of Bright Silence, but I would highly recommend any of his texts.

So then, I was happy to just work that for however long it would take me. I was never really interested in being the guy.  I wanted to take an indefinite retrat. In other words, I was playing the Hermit. Content to leave the world behind in pursuit of my own gnosis.

In some ways, I’m not really sure that won’t be where I end up, in a kind of mystical retirement. Regardless, I can only speak to the path that Im currently on.  So here I am, writing into the void of the internet, to the unkown reader. If you’re reading this, Thank you for doing so. I hope it helps in some way.

So there I was (I still do, but I used to, too), working my Kabbalah, but there was all this stuff that kept coming  up. Things related to The Book of the Law, Liber L Vel Legis. It was like that text, which I kind of had pretty much left to the wayside, alongside the rest of my Hermetic stuff, was meaning some completely different things, yet remained the same as it ever was.

I kept getting little pieces of the Book. Statements here and there that had new, profound meaning beyond anything that I had thought of before which would, in turn, propel my Kabbalistic practice. The two were becoming intertwined in a weird, wild way.

Those that know me know that I began with a series of experiences that involved what I now understand to be Heru-Ra-Ha, Nuit & Hadit. I now view those experiences in a very different light than I did then. The Bardon Hermetcis came later, and while I treasure those lessons and experiences, it was really the close frienship that I developed with a few individuals, including Justin B The Magician, Where the gods of Thelema made occasional appearances, that was the highlight of the whole period.

That time ended for me with the reception of a short text, forever lost to time, that boils down to what I would do over the following years, I would study and practice many different things, then break them down to their very foundations and leave them behind, moving on to the next, and then so on… The text then told me I would build something new from those destroyed houses. A temple. I don’t pretend to think that this is a temple for many. I’m not sure what it’ll do, or what form it will ultimately take. If it only serves me, and me alone, so mote it be.

Here’s where I went. I studied Rubaphilos Salfluere’s Alchemical system, but have pretty much left it behind, except for the basic symbolism of the process of alchemy, the idea that initiation is esentially an alchemical procedure applied to the human mind, and the quabalistic focus on the Parts of the Soul.

That then led me to study the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. This one took a long time, but I eventually broke that down and left it behind too. The A A and Crowley’s writings came and went. I became a Mason, which turned out to be a rather profound thing for me. The light of Masonry will forever burn in my heart, for I know it to be the mystic light that burns everywhere. But that reached a point that left me unsatisfied. Everyone seemed to get to the edge of the great mystery, but no one could get me over that edge. I knew the direction of it, the flavor of it, so to speak, but something remained lacking.

Enter David Chaim Smith’s work and suddenly a tapestry began to weave itself. I began to make progress, bathing again and again in the the bright silence, when grace allowed. And yet, it was the damned Book of the Law that kept coming back into my mind. It was the poetry of Nuit that seemed to speak to the unspeakble non-experiences that I was having. The early days experiences, which had had such a profound effect, were now seeming more and more like the foreshadowing of what would come a decade and a half later. they would mean so much to me, because I had had a taste, and it would lead my way home. The sense of otherness to those moments were unlike any experience before or after until now, and the word experience itself fails to convey the utter magnitude of it.

Back to Thelema

So I took a look back into the Liber L, and… it opened like a treasure chest, full of wonder and beauty. The riches were not what I had expected. It wove it all together, and I knew, knew this would be it. The Book of the Law is my Holy Book. The rule and guide to my faith and practice. I could see into it in a way that I will never be able to grasp, because it is beyond grasp, yet immanently within reach.

I would recieve teaching upon teaching that was entirely consistent with the Kabbalah that I had discovered, but also had crucial elements from nearly every step of my journey. Had I not done any of these particular practices, studied each tradtion in great detail, the teachings would have been out of reach. I believe this to be my own personal practice, so some of the particulars may be in my own, particular opinion. Yet, I have also noticed things that point to the creation of a working group, a communal practice. You can’t do that stuff all alone, so why does it seem to be a thing that keeps getting more and more fleshed out? Because it’s what the Book says, whether I do it or not. And from what I can see, Thelema needs a community now more than ever. So I’ll give what I have freely, and if there’s interest, maybe we can build something new.

But there would be a challenge to this. It required that I reject nearly all of the nearly universal notions of what Thelema is. I had to be, as has recently been described to me, like Martin Luther, who hung his 99 greivances on the door to the vatican. In my case, it might be more accurate to descirbe it as 93 greivances, haha.

Maybe I’ll write them all out eventually, but for now, I’m still in the early days of this practice, and can only say so much. Many things will be worked out as I go, but there is a solid bedrock. A solid foundation upon which this thing rests. That foundation is the The Book of the Law.

So we come to the present moment, where I try to start unraveling this tangled knot of the non-linear, fundamentally paradoxical thing together. There is a major project in the works that will really expand on this whole thing, but I hope to be able to share this light, bit, by bit, as I go. I have some promises to make first as we end this introduction.

I promise not to hold back on the heart of the mysteries in so far as I can.

I promise not to talk endlessly around the core of it, but never reveal anything without a mandatory donation. The Law, as is said, is for All. Edit: I mean here that I won’t charge to get to real deal, and anything that might cost money is just because stuff costs money to do. Nothing critical will be behind a pay wall here.

I promise not to bog us down with excessive talk about history, philosophy and other peripherial ideas.  (I recognize the irony of this after the long explanation above. I am really doing my best, and trying to include the most important context.)

I endeavor to be as open and clear as possible. The gulf is only in my limited abilities to express the ideas, and the gulf that lies between knowledge and Realization.

Mystical Thelema Overview

Thelema is a religion that has Mysticism at its heart, and utililzes Magick as one of its methods in helping us realize that wisdom. the nature of that wisdom is entirely consistent with the Mystical Kabbalah and many other traditions.

Nuit is identical with the En Sof, and the realization of her essentially empty, or open, infinintely luminous nature, both within and without, is the entire point of the religion of Thelema.

Thelema, or Will, has nothing to do with individualism of any sort, in fact, the entire goal of practice is to undo the fiction that is the self & the world it lives in to realize the Hadit, or luminous awareness, and then understand that nature to be identical with the endless expanse of openness that is Nuit.

True Will is a completly unhelpful concept that should be discarded entirely. Individual iberty is not the focus, but is a kind of downstream effect of the Mystic realization. Social Darwinism and Rugged individuality are fundamentally opposed the nature of the Mystic Path, and come from a surface level reading of the text.

The Book of the Law is fundamentally opposed to the concept of the HGA. Heru-Ra-Ha, Nuit, & Hadit can be appreciated directly, and there is no need for any kind of intermediary. Likewise, there is no need to ascend a heirarchical Tree of Life ladder, as the gods are present, right here and now. Any magical and mystical development are only to train that which was always the case.

The nature of awareness, or will itself is love, and the direct reception of and giving of this love is the treasure beyond treasures upon which the entire religion revolves.

Aleister Crowley was not the Beast, and no woman is Babalon. The Beast and Babalon are deities unto themselves that play a critical role in transforming our views of ourselves, the universe, and reality itself. They are both intimately related to each and every one of us. One cannot be one of these any more than a single human person can be Nuit unto themselves.

The Gods are not archetypes, nor are they individual, personal beings. Their nature is fundamentally ungraspable by the ego of any human whatsoever. That said, the mystic realization exposes their nature utterly and comprises a major part of practice.

The concept of the Aeon of Horus is a fiction. A story to describe the evolving nature of the Esoteric tradition and should not be taken literally. The word Aeon appears only once, and has no bearing on this concept whatsoever. It is more accurate to say that the Book of the Law is the establishment of a new mystical religion called Thelema.

That is all for now. Thanks for reading thus far.

  Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the Law, Love under Will.