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1 The Hermetic
Inheritance of
Thelema
By Jon Ashan
develop any kind of political stability was to make use of these features. All
the different social ranks, from slave up to king, became hereditary, with
families marrying within their own class. A complex hierarchy evolved, with
each level swearing binding oaths of loyalty to their superiors with terrible
penalties for transgressors. This was much the same as the way Neophytes
of the Golden Dawn were obliged to swear an oath cursing themselves to
death if they ever betrayed the Order. The Christianization of Western
Europe brought a slightly different variation of the game. It was now God who
made Kings and Emperors, in a Divine hierarchy. As the Pope was God’s
representative on Earth, it gave him a lot of weight, which he didn’t hesitate
to chuck around. As well as having a hand in the government of almost every
European Kingdom, the Roman Church directly held a number of principali-
The Hermetic Inheritance of Thelema %
ties all over Europe throughout the Middle Ages. The Kings and Princes also
had plenty to gain from allying themselves to the Church. The Parish priests
assured the peasants that their station in life was a holy office ordained by
God. The most any man could hope for was to play his role well. The Church
convinced the serfs that the political hierarchy was God’s natural order, and
that anyone trying to change it would reap a terrible reward, both in this life
and the next. It is interesting to note that Mathers used many of the same
threats regarding the moral and spiritual dangers of ignoring his authority
when his leadership of the Order was challenged by the Isis-Urania Temple.
This Medieval political hierarchy, which became known as the Feudal
system, more or less held Europe together until the 16th century. Of course,
it didn’t do much to stop the high-ups from ignoring their oaths of loyalty to
one another and their pledges to protect those over whom they ruled. They
were perpetually fighting wars to increase their own power and wealth, often
funded through extortionate taxes. At the bottom of the pyramid, though, it
was a very effective instrument for keeping the peasants in their place.
Of central importance in maintaining the feudal system was the
cosmological doctrine of the Divine Hierarchy. The kings and noblemen were
far too well educated to believe the crap the Church spouted out, and stuck
Equinox frontispiece
[At this point the author presented an overhead summing up all the above
which was followed by a question and answer session]
So, how did the Hermetic movement change so much between its zenith
in the early 17th century and its revival by the Golden Dawn nearly 300 years
later? The original Rosicrucian and Hermetic movements were poised at one
of the great cusp points in European history. Politics, science, religion and the
arts were all changing beyond recognition. The Hermetic philosophy offered
a unifying theory for these developments. It saw them all in the context of a
re-emerging relationship between humanity and deity. For the preceding
three hundred years, there had been a growing obsession with millinarianism,
the idea of some great cosmic change, an apocalypse, to be followed by a new
The Hermetic Inheritance of Thelema #
Golden Age. This was doubtless a product of the grinding poverty, servitude,
plague and unending war which typified the medieval period. The recent
changes in society were looked at in a religious as well as a historical
perspective. The rediscovery of the ancient world brought with it the
possibility of the long-heralded Golden Age, which in Christian and Jewish
terms meant the establishment of God’s reign on earth. There was a
tremendous hunger for change, and the new religious and political movements
of the day established themselves in the hope of bringing about this New Age.
In Medieval Europe, secret societies were a very popular and powerful
way of spreading alternative political doctrines. In a time when dissent was
punishable by torture and death, caution was advisable. Many of the major
political and religious movements of the day began in secret, with only a few
very committed individuals prepared to come out into the open. The important
thing to remember is that they all thought their time would come, and that it
would come soon. For many it did, but history was not that kind to the
Rosicrucians. No sooner had the Rosicrucians announced their existence
before the 30 years war the Catholic counter-reformation drove them back
into obscurity. Many of the Protestant monarchs and Princes of Europe, while
happy to embrace Hermetic ideas during their conflict with Catholicism, soon
changed their tune when they rose to power. The new breed were, of course,
just as keen to keep the peasants in their place, and the religious persecutions
of the 17th and 18th centuries were common to Catholic and Protestant
countries alike. No surprise, then, that the secret societies chose to remain
secret. Continuing to exist only as an underground, the Hermetic movement
became increasingly divorced from contemporary political and religious
trends. It was a similar story for the arts and sciences. After the time of Da
Vinci, Dee, Paracelsus and Agrippa, science and art began to become
progressively more divided. The theories of Descartes and Newton had no
room for the Hermetic principles of microcosm and macrocosm, or for the
subjectivity of individual mystical experience.
The Hermetic movement, then, was robbed of its relevance to the arts and
sciences and to the politico-religious situation. Along with the Chivalric
Orders of Knighthood and the Freemasons, the Hermetic and Rosicrucian
sects disappeared into the twilight world of secret societies. The association
of these movements, which overlapped continuously from the 17th century,
continued until the Golden Dawn, who borrowed their name from the
Rosicrucians, their grade-structure from the Freemasons and their flashy
$ Thelemic Magick III
gear from the orders of chivalry.
With the advent of ‘science’ came miraculous new inventions. The new
mechanical marvels helped to convince scholars that they had finally
surpassed the ancients, that the Renaissance was over, and the new ‘Age of
Reason’ had arrived. The Rosicrucian movement, on the other hand, stayed
firmly stuck in the Renaissance. Through the 18th and 19th century, it was
their fate to be revived, revived and revived again. No generation of Hermetic
magicians dared to reach the conclusion the early scientists had, namely that
their understanding had surpassed the ancients. That is, until Crowley. It is
in Thelema that the Hermetic movement has finally moved from Renaissance
to Enlightenment, from past to present.
Earlier I used the model of the Renaissance to show how Thelema
represents several crucial developments from the Golden Dawn tradition. I
think that it is of vital importance for us today to realize that these
developments are still in progress. We must realize that Crowley, however
great his achievements, only represents the origin of the Thelemic system, not
its perfection.
Although Crowley challenged many of the authoritarian attitudes of his
forebears, in others he imitated them. The main example of this is the
hierarchical magickal order. Since Crowley’s death the old hierarchical
orders, with their tendencies to produce secretive, competitive behaviour,
have thankfully started to give way to more communal groups and societies.
The future, I believe, has little to do with orders and charters, or even with the
writings of Aleister Crowley. The future lies in our capacity to carry out the
Great Work, to manifest the True Will which lies dormant within each and
every one of us, and to show others how to do the same. We’ve got to sort
out the wheat from the chaff, to realize which parts of Crowley’s Thelema
are redundant and regressive, and replace them. I’m happy to say that I think
there’s a sea change happening within the Thelemic community at the
moment, that even those organizations which have in the past been tradition-
ally conservative have realized there’s still plenty of progress to be made.
The Rosicrucian and Sufi ideas of cooperation are also continuing to
develop. The existence of meetings such as this Symposium are testament to
the fact that we now exist in a pluralistic community, sharing ideas and
swapping techniques, motivated by the idea of progress instead of merely a
better imitation of our predecessors. In so doing we are at last starting to move
beyond Crowley in our conception of Thelema. In answer to the challenge of
The Hermetic Inheritance of Thelema %
the Sufi of Rum, we are beginning to stop worshipping the jug, and starting
to look for the water.
Crowley’s attitude to political authority was rather more exemplary than
his attitude to his disciples. He never seemed to give a toss about the law, but
never seemed to get into any serious trouble. As the twentieth century draws
to a close, it is becoming obvious that the great political movements which had
hoped to deliver ordinary people from oppressive authority have comprehen-
sively failed to come up with the goods. Indeed, it could be said they have
produced some of the nastiest, most oppressive regimes of the last hundred
years. The lesson, for me, is that removing the external means of oppression
only does half the job. The slave mentality, taught in schools and in the
workplace, is deeply encoded in our individual and social psyches, and takes
a lot of shifting. As far as I’m concerned, magic in general and Thelema in
particular has many important lessons for us in this regard. Unfortunately,
these lessons will go unlearned if we are unable to improve our accessibility
to interested parties.
Another area in which Thelema surpassed the Golden Dawn was in its
wholistic attitude. Over the last century, it has historically been a trend that
experts in magick have been experts in little else. At last this is changing. It
is more and more common to hear magicians talking about ideas from other
disciplines, such as anthropology, psychology, the ‘new physics’ and math-
ematics, and the arts. I think this is particularly positive, because the great
truths and fundamental principles of other disciplines often have more of real
value to teach us than the minutiae of obscure magickal systems.
On a final note, it is very interesting to me that Hermetics and Thelema
finally seem to be reaching maturity in an age with remarkable parallels to the
Renaissance. One again we’re in an age where society is changing very
rapidly. Again, economic factors are demanding a more educated workforce,
and telephones, radio, television and computers are fulfilling the place
occupied the printing press in the Renaissance. Cars and aeroplanes have
made the world a smaller place, as the first ocean-going ships did 500 years
ago.
I argued earlier that Hermetic magic began to lose its way when it lost its
relevance to religion and politics, and the arts and sciences. This century
seems to be marking a new convergence. With the New Agers, religion
seems to be moving back towards the esoteric. Even the Christians, it seems,
& Thelemic Magick III
are desperately stealing our clothes, offering meditation classes and green
politics in a last-ditch attempt to outlast the Aeon of Osiris. Artists and
musicians are again looking to magickal and mythical ideas for inspiration.
Science has finally found objectivity to be a dead end, and is once more
beginning to consider the perspective of the observer as of vital importance.
Like our forebears in the 17th century, I believe we are standing at one of the
great cusp points in world history, a time when magickal ideas are once more
coming to the fore. We have been presented with an opportunity that has not
existed since the counter-reformation crushed the hopes of the Rosicrucians
and their kin over 300 years ago. Are we to be the Ushers of a new Golden
Age, or are we merely surfacing briefly before disappearing back into
obscurity. The choice, I think, is ours. Thank you for listening.