15/12/2019 Star and Snake: Thelema: Romance of the Magical Orders

Thelema: Romance of the Magical Orders

“What is a valid magical Order?” “What is Thelema?” These are frequently asked
questions. We will attempt to examine what Thelema really is, as opposed to what is
commonly believed about it. This will include a discussion of the Rosicrucian ideal,
the magical philosophy and cosmology of Thelema, and the Magisterium or secret
rites of Initiation.

Thelema is frequently described as a ‘magical system’ but it

is no such thing in reality. Neither is it any kind of religion,
though it has some affinities with Gnosticism. The magick
of Thelema is a transmission. The function of a Thelemic
magical Order is to transmit a particular stream of
consciousness—which we term as the 93 Current—by
which men and women can obtain Gnosis, direct
revelation. The purpose of such revelation is to become
free from imprisonment in the artificial construct that is
commonly thought to be reality. Such an aim cannot, ipso
facto, be fulfilled through any social or political agenda. As
declared in the (Egyptian) Book of the Law, Liber AL vel Legis, I: 11,

These are fools that men adore; both their Gods and their men are
fools.

The Book of the Law was dictated to Aleister Crowley through the cosmic mediation
of Rose Edith Kelly (Rose Crowley). This required the agency of a praeterhuman
intelligence, named Aiwass in the book.[1] It is the aim of magick to obtain direct
contact with the inner planes. The diagram called the Tree of Life best explains the
term, ‘inner planes’. The material or objective world of things and objects is called
Malkuth the Kingdom, and is placed as the tenth emanation at the foot of the Tree.
The greater part of the universe is therefore invisible to the ordinary human senses
and reason.

The ideal of the Rosicrucian legacy is that initiation only becomes valid when the
person is absolutely dedicated to service. That is, they will sacrifice everything to
help others on the path. If they are not in contact with the Intelligences we have
spoken of, and if they are not dedicated wholly to service, then they run the risk of
becoming either a Black Brother or (actually) insane. A ‘Black Brother’, in the
peculiar language of the Western Mystery Tradition, is one that believes, or that
wishes others to believe, that the material universe is the sole reality and that it may
be understood wholly through rational process. A Black Brother may be a scientist,
but may equally be a theologian, religious leader or philosopher in the modern
sense of the word—the masks are endless in their variety. According to Kenneth
Grant, Introduction to Part Two, Nightside of Eden:

The atavisms of the Black Brothers are the sterile stars born of the
speechless or lisping Aeon, for the Word may be vibrated without
distortion only via the menstruum of the female.

https://oliverstjohn-thelema.blogspot.com/2016/06/thelema-romance-of-magical-orders.html 1/5
15/12/2019 Star and Snake: Thelema: Romance of the Magical Orders

Thelema is a lunar and feminine mystery. This should come as no surprise, since
the first chapter of Liber AL is an oracle from the ancient Egyptian goddess Nuit,
comparable to the more recent Laylah or Lilith, the name given to ‘Night’ in the
Bible. The Rosicrucian fraternities always differed from religious orthodoxy in two
vital points. Firstly, the aim of such a fraternity is to obtain Gnosis or direct
knowledge, as distinct from salvation through belief. Secondly, the feminine role as
Initiatrix was reinstated, though it was frequently veiled in symbolism such as the
rose or the glyph of Venus. Rosicrucian source texts make it quite clear that the
fraternity alluded to is first and foremost active and alive on the inner planes,
although one could be excused for thinking otherwise when studying the works of
‘authorities’ that produce tome after tome filled with the evidence of facts, dates
and lists of the names of the famous.

A magical Order formed in the Rosicrucian tradition typified by the triune Order of
the Golden Dawn, Rosy Cross and Silver Star must offer highly specialised training
and work structured around grades of initiation based on the Hermetic Tree of Life.
Any person that founds an Order of the Golden Dawn—that is, the first five grades
from Probationer to Philosophus—must be in contact with the three higher degrees
of the Order of the Rosy Cross. Anyone that founds an Order of the Rosy Cross must
be in contact with the supernal Order of the Silver Star. The Tree of Life begins with
Kether—it is not possible to start a Rosicrucian magical Order from a position
somewhere halfway down the Tree and pretend there is nothing above. However,
the titles afforded these magical Orders are poetic metaphors for a consciousness
current. They are not brand names for historical clubs or archaic fraternities that
depend on apostolic succession after the manner of Christian bishops. Nuit has
declared an ending of such words and bloodlines in Liber AL, I: 59:

My incense is of resinous woods and gums; and there is no blood

therein: because of my hair the trees of Eternity.

The Flaming Sword flashes down the planes from Kether the Crown to Malkuth the
Kingdom, the world of shells—where things appear and disappear, where creatures
are born and die. When the 93 Current reaches Malkuth, it streaks back up the Tree
to Kether. The way of initiation through the grades is the way of ascent, which
is involution. To evolve is to descend the Tree from Kether to Malkuth.

One Star in Sight

There are various factions of the esoteric Order known generically as the A∴A∴ It
has become quite common for Orders with this title to claim exclusive ‘lineage’ and
rights to the name. It is probably for this reason that some groups prefer to be
mysterious—or even mysteriously ignorant!—as to what the abbreviated title
actually stands for. It is no secret. Kenneth Grant, who studied the manuscripts and
diaries of Crowley at first hand, revealed that Aster Argos or ‘Silver Star’ is the
poetic title of the Rosicrucian-based magical Order. In Latin, it is Argenteum
Astrum.

The name is derived from the esoteric title of the Tarot image of the 13th path of
Gimel, the Priestess. The 13th path or Priestess of the Silver Star extends from
Kether the Crown of the Tree of Life to Tiphereth, the centre of the Ruach Elohim.
The path is also called The Uniting Intelligence, or Intelligence of the Unities in the
https://oliverstjohn-thelema.blogspot.com/2016/06/thelema-romance-of-magical-orders.html 2/5
15/12/2019 Star and Snake: Thelema: Romance of the Magical Orders

Sepher Yetzirah. Note that ‘Unities’ is plural, not singular. As revealed by Aiwass in
Liber AL, I: 1–4:

Had! The manifestation of Nuit.

The unveiling of the company of heaven.
Every man and every woman is a star.
Every number is infinite; there is no difference.

The Company of Heaven also describes the ancient Egyptian Theban initiatic cult of
Ankh-af-na-khonsu, revealed to the modern world by the prince priest Aiwass.
Khonsu embodies the Logos, Thoth, and Horus the phoenix bird of resurrection or
Holy Guardian Angel.

Anyone can purchase a set of the volumes of The Equinox, take the requisite Oaths,
form a body of men and women and call it the A∴A∴ if they so wish. If they do not
become drunk with power and lose their minds as a consequence, then they might
open the ways for others. However, Crowley’s formulation of the Oaths and Tasks of
the supernal grades of the Silver Star was flawed.

The Word of the Law

The Greek word Thelema (Θελημα) is the ‘word of the Law’ as stated in Liber AL, I:
39. It is not a law of scriptures, decrees or any exoteric doctrine or body of religious
teachings. According to Liber AL, III: 49,

I am in a secret fourfold word, the blasphemy against all gods of men.

The fourfold word is Do what thou wilt. The Law of Thelema is wholly a spiritual
and natural one, not a human one. Some but not all human beings have this secret
nature within them, and of those, some are destined to discover it. There is nothing
new about Thelema; it is not limited by time. The word Thelema means, ‘will’—not
the personal will that imagines it has deterministic power but the impersonal will-
force that is personified as Hadit. A comparative and perhaps better-known deity is
Shiva in the Tantrik tradition, the supreme creator and destroyer of the universe.

Thelema, ‘will’, and Agape, ‘love’, both add to 93 by Greek Qabalah, expressive of
the 93 Current. As the word Thelema is Qabalistically identical to Agape—spiritual
love, not romantic or erotic love—the 93 Current well expresses the spiritual
intelligence of the universe going forth. Consciousness exists everywhere in the
universe, though it is not of the universe that we perceive, and can never be known
for it is the Knower, otherwise termed Hadit. As declared by the Serpent of
Knowledge, Hadit, in Liber AL, II: 3–4,

In the sphere I [Hadit] am everywhere the centre, as she [Nuit], the

circumference, is nowhere found. Yet she shall be known and I never.

As consciousness is everywhere, it is not limited to the earth and the human species
that has infected the planet with an artificial construct it likes to think of as
‘intelligence’. Wild birds and creatures are sentient, in contradiction to the
prevailing scientism that has formed its doctrines around the need to preserve and
continue the artificial hell in which Adam and Eve are imprisoned until they come
to know the true state of affairs.
https://oliverstjohn-thelema.blogspot.com/2016/06/thelema-romance-of-magical-orders.html 3/5
15/12/2019 Star and Snake: Thelema: Romance of the Magical Orders

Cosmology
All cosmologies are misleading. The best sense of the word ‘cosmology’ is the literal
one, from the Greek: ‘a conversation about the universe’. However, that is not the
meaning of the term as it is commonly understood. Metaphysics is also misleading,
because the academic understanding of that word is only ‘about the matter’, the
physics, which paved the way for scientism. The ancients had an entirely different
way of thinking that cannot be grasped by dogmatic reasoning, whether that is
slanted towards scientism, religion or religious theology. As it is succinctly put in
Liber AL, II: 32,

Also reason is a lie; for there is a factor infinite and unknown; and all
their words are skew-wise.

Ancient metaphysics, aeons before the term was coined, was based on detailed
observation of nature, no different from the Thelemic love under will. Originally,
there was only one Tree of Life that was also a Tree of Knowledge. To assist the
restoration of the Tree of Life, we can happily forget the old word of Moses and
instead invoke AShRH, the ‘woman’, as deity name in Kether. From the fragrance or
Shakti emanations of Nuit-Babalon comes forth the tree from which the gods are
sprung. As a cognate study, Ishtar is the happy goddess of the three worlds, heaven,
earth and the underworld. The same three worlds are depicted on the obverse of
the Stele of Revealing.

The gods of Liber AL vel Legis are interchangeable, as are all Egyptian gods
or neters (‘principles’). They can be different things on different planes—as is the
Holy Guardian Angel, another metaphor. There is a Thelemic Trinity implied in the
structure of Liber AL, and also in the Stele of Revealing, the only fragment we have
of the original Theban Thelemic cult of Ankh-af-na-khonsu. There is also a trinity of
sorts in the title of the book’s manuscript, ‘L’, as 30. The primal trinity is the
Qabalistic Binah, the root of all form, the cosmic Matrix or womb. The Sethian
Gnosis, among the books ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, asserts a trinity of spirit
or fragrance, light and dark. The light and dark had no moral implications of good
or evil, for the Gnosis precedes, by vast ages of time, all dualistic theologies. The
fragrance, or spirit-intelligence, permeates the light and dark equally; it knows
them; thus the cosmic womb or Matrix is formed.

Magisterium
The original meaning of the word Magisterium is ‘pertaining to a mystery or secret
rite’. If we consider the legacy of the patriarchs of Constantinople, then we might
conclude the rites of Mithras would have been better kept in the subterranean
vaults. No one can exclusively own or possess the Magisterium. Anyone can
proclaim that they do, but sooner or later people will find them out.

All magical Orders, their visible custodians and adepts, their teachings, their
Magisterium, belong in a certain sense to the Order of Qliphoth, the Qabalistic
World of Shells. What we see is what we are. Hence, the utter impossibility of
teaching anything to anyone about magick let alone anything really spiritual. One of
the snares in the system of grades as presented by Crowley is that he repeats the

https://oliverstjohn-thelema.blogspot.com/2016/06/thelema-romance-of-magical-orders.html 4/5
15/12/2019 Star and Snake: Thelema: Romance of the Magical Orders

word ‘attainment’ hundreds of times, as though there were something to attain and
someone to attain it; this can have a hypnotic effect on the serious student. The
emphasis on attainment places initiation under the restriction of deterministic
thinking. By setting forth to show that magick is no different than material science,
and can be explained in the same terms, Crowley unwittingly prepared the way for
reductionism and psychologisation. Future generations, born of a Wordless Aeon,
would have great difficulty discerning a difference.

We are in a realm where language will always limit us unless we think differently.
[2] The different mode of thinking can be described as a backwards flowing
stream, and yet it cannot be taught; magick is not what we do, or attain or can get,
but what we are.

Notes
1. The Egyptian name ‘Aiwass’ means, ‘He who was ordained in Thebes’.
2. By ‘thinking differently’, we refer to the mode of analogous thought. See ‘Lapis
Philosophorum’, Babalon Unveiled! Thelemic Monographs.

© Oliver St. John 2016, 2018

https://oliverstjohn-thelema.blogspot.com/2016/06/thelema-romance-of-magical-orders.html 5/5