About Thelema
The Stele of Ankh af na Khonsu - 'The Stele of Revealing' is now located in the new Grand Egyptian Museum. Photo by my friend and associate, Adept Expeditions tour director Anyextee January 2025.
About Thelema
By R. Shane Clayton
In my 45-page paper “Thelema - The Egyptian Dispensation,” I explore in fascinating detail the backstory of the compelling spiritual philosophy and religious movement founded by Aleister Crowley in 1906, focusing especially on its Egyptian source. I can only ask that you suspend any preconceived notions about the channeling of spirits for the moment, and just let the story unfold for itself.
Here’s a brief overview:
- Origins and Principles: The foundational text of Thelema is the Threefold Book of Law, which Crowley claimed was dictated to him by a non-corporeal entity named Aiwass, channeled over three days through his wife Rose while on their honeymoon in Cairo Egypt, on April 8, 9, 10 of 1904. The writing emphasizes personal freedom and love, with the central axiom “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will.” Thelema centers around actively and intentionally discovering and following one’s “True Will,” which, being a “spark” of the divine, includes and at the same time transcends ordinary desires. Crowley taught that each person has a unique purpose in this incarnation and should seek to discover and express it. In so doing, each individual encourages others to follow by example.
- Cosmology and Deities: The primary connection established just days before the writing of the Book of Law was Rose leading Aleister to the “Stele of Ankh af na Khonsu” (pictured above) on the second floor of the old Egyptian museum. He had challenged her to point Horus out to him, and watched gleefully as she passed by several other obvious images of Horus, that is until he saw the stele. On this funerary plaque are three Egyptian god-forms and a priest:
Nut, the arching goddess of the infinite circle of space and Milky Way galaxy, the “Queen of Heaven” representing our source and our afterlife abode, and the ultimate source of all possibilities.
B’Hedet, the “Great God” Horus the Elder as the winged globe, and the center everywhere found in the body of Nuit, an infinitely small point symbolizing self-awareness, intent, manifestation, and motion.
Ra Horakhty (Ra Horus of the Two Horizons), the hawk-headed solar deity and gatekeeper of the afterlife, represents the Sun and the active energies birth, life, death, and the rebirth of transformation.
Ankh af na Khonsu is the offering priest and deceased owner of the stele.
The gods are written in English in the Book of Law as Nuit, Hadit, and Ra Hoor Khuit; with Aiwass the revealer in Chapter One being later identified by Crowley as his Holy Guardian Angel, the reincarnation of the “akh” or effective spirit of the deceased priest.
- The Egyptian Dispensation: Liber Legis reveals a new dispensation of the natural religion of the old gods or Neteru of ancient Egypt and directs us to its Sacred Science for understanding. This “atavistic resurgence” of religious knowledge, practices, and technologies - fine-tuned over thousands of years by the learned Egyptian priests, scribes, physicians, and philosophers - can serve as a solid foundation in the turbulent times ahead, as prophesied in the book.
- Magick and Self-Realization: The performance of ritual, ceremony, and magick play a central role for many in Thelema. These aim to align with the divine confluence of forces to uncover one’s ”pure Will” and then enact change of alignment with it, a lifelong process called The Great Work. The paths to self-realization can be many. Such work can be likened to the path of a warrior, doing battle with one’s personal weaknesses and self-limiting behavior.
- The Word of the Law: “The word of the Law is Thelema. Who calls us Thelemites will do no wrong, if he look but close into the word.” ~ Liber Legis I:39, 40. Thelema (pronounced “the-LEE-mah”) is a Greek word meaning divine or emotional will, and “to desire, love, and seek joy and pleasure.”
To summarise, Thelema emphasizes love and self-realization, encouraging freedom of personal exploration and expression and the pursuit of one’s unique “pure will.” Imagine a collective society based upon Thelema, where human potential and overall spiritual evolution are maximized in every individual. Such is in contradistinction with the raging fascism gaining power today.
If you want to delve deeper, I invite you to read “Thelema and the Threefold Book of Law - The Egyptian Dispensation for the full story, presented as briefly as possible. Available in .pdf format upon request.
Or, if you are brave and wish to dive right in and read the book, go here for a brief Introduction and Links to the Three Chapters and the Short Comment:
Liber 'L' vel Legis - The Threefold Book of Law
In Maa’t,
Sekhau!
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