This piece however is not going to be about Crowley's life or an
explanation of Thelema, there are many more intelligent people than
myself who have written extensively on these subjects and I will
provide links to their work for anyone who would like more
background.
Crowley is someone who divided opinion during his lifetime and indeed
still does until this day and before we go any further I will
mention that I am not defending Crowley's deeds or lifestyle choices
because I feel that to get bogged down in that will miss the point of
what I am trying to convey. Crowley has been a controversial figure
for over a hundred years now and some writers would rather talk about
things he did in his life rather than the philosophical ideas he
espoused. I would also like to take this opportunity to say that I am
not a Crowley expert and many will read this and feel that I am
misinterpreting him in some ways or that I am missing the point of a
certain quote. So let me clear this up right at the beginning: my aim
here is to show how my own interpretation of Crowley's work has
shaped my thinking and to show that if the controversy that still
surrounds him to this day (chiefly among Christians and certain
conspiracy theorists) is put to one side and we look deeper there is
a lot that can be learned from the work of this fascinating man.
Who
Is This Crowley Fellow?
As I have said this is not a biography, there have been many good and
bad ones written about him (I will link some of the good ones below).
Thelemapedia.org describes Crowley as:
Aleister Crowley (Oct.
12, 1875-Dec. 1, 1947)
— however one judges him — was a fascinating man who lived an
amazing life. He is best known as being an infamous occultist
and the scribe of The
Book of the Law, which introduced
Thelema
to the world. Crowley was an influential member in several occult
organizations, including the Golden
Dawn, the A.'.A.'.,
and Ordo
Templi Orientis. He was a prolific
writer and poet, a world traveller, mountaineer, chess master,
artist, yogi, social provocateur, drug addict and sexual libertine.
The press loved to demonize him and dubbed Crowley “The wickedest
man in the world.”
So
already you can see that from that short description how many books
could (and have) been written about his life and ideas. I will note
here that not only did Crowley's face appear on the front cover of
the Beatles “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” but he was
also voted the 73rd
in the “100 Greatest Britons of All Time” program which was
broadcast by the BBC in 2002. One of the problems with describing
Crowley's life is trying to separate the man from the myth – a task
which can be very difficult. I have no doubt however that Crowley did
indeed treat many people badly (in my opinion) and did many things
that I would never condone. But that is where I will leave that, I am
fed up of reading pieces about Crowley that focus on the
controversies of his life instead of focusing on the philosophical
ideas he came to understand and espouse.
Also, in case you've just looked Crowley up or you have read certain
things about him and instantly think “how could such a wicked man
be called 'spiritual'! Why should we listen to someone like him.” I
will say this, it is a fallacy to dismiss someone's work and ideas
just because you disagree with how they lived their life. To use a
very extreme example it's like if someone found a cure for cancer but
also murdered several people, you wouldn't discard their work because
of their terrible actions. I touched upon this in my piece “Black
Metal and European Identity” where I focused on the musical
achievements and philosophical underpinnings of the Norwegian black
metal scene of the early nineties instead of dwelling on the murders
and church burnings that took place at the time as so many have done.
That being said, enough of the man, what can his work teach us about
clear thinking?
Mind
Chatter, Being Present and Mainstream Media
There is a truth that has been espoused in Christianity, Buddhism,
Taoism, Hinduism and many schools of thought even up to the modern
'new age' material with figures like Eckhart Tolle. This truth is
that there is no such thing as a past or a future, those terms are
simply mental abstractions and all there really is is the present
moment. If you think about it nothing ever happened to you in the
past, let's use an example to illustrate this point. Say you tell me
that you visited Iceland in the past. Fair enough, when you were in
Iceland however that was the present moment (the 'now' if you will)
and it's the same with the future, if you say I will meet my friend
at a restaurant in the future when it happens it will be the present
moment. No-one is ever in a state of past or future, all that really
exists is an eternal present moment. Sure, we can speak about things
having happened in the past or what may happen in the future but the
point is that when they did or will happen it will be in the present
moment. As I have said this is an old idea and one that Crowley
understood and when you internalize this ancient truth then life
seems a whole lot different.
You see, before you can appreciate the eternal present you have to
deal with the chattering in your head. Most of us spend all day
mentally talking to ourselves, dwelling on things that have happened
or worrying about things that may happen in the future and all the
while we completely miss the only real thing we have – the present
moment. Also, if we want to think or study something clearly then we
have to be able to turn off the constant noise that is running like a
computer program in the background of our minds, otherwise
concentration becomes incredibly difficult. Try reading someone like
Nietzsche or whoever while your egoic mind brings up some stupid
thing you said to someone last week, or what mood your partner may be
in when they get home. Without a clear mind thinking becomes harder
than it needs to be.
But we're talking Crowley here, right? Indeed we are, the two
thinkers of the twentieth century who helped me to really understand
this truth were Aleister Crowley and Alan Watts. But this is about
Crowley.
Crowley
was a great practitioner of yoga and one only has to read “Eight
Lectures on Yoga” to see this. In these lectures Crowley states:
“Sit
still. Stop thinking. Shut up. Get out! The
first two of these instructions comprise the whole of the technique
of Yoga. The last two are of a sublimity which it would be improper
to expound in this present elementary stage.”
Now,
in many cases when westerners hear the word 'yoga' they imagine a
bunch of people in sports gear in a gym or community centre
stretching. You can call that yoga but in fact real yoga is a complex
spiritual discipline (which we wont pursue in too much depth here
because we will risk missing the point). In fact there are many types
of yoga, for example karma yoga is the practice of achieving
perfection in action and Bhakti yoga is a more devotional practice.
Now that is wildly over simplified but I only mention it to
illustrate that yoga isn't all just stretching. If we take something
like Raja yoga, which is basically what many in the west would just
call meditation (there is obviously more to it), this is an extremely
important practice because by sitting quietly (with your back
straight) and allowing whatever thoughts come into your mind to be
and let them pass (almost like your thoughts are a river and you are
sitting on the bank just watching things float by) you can understand
what is going on in your subconscious mind that you may not be aware
of day to day. You may not think it but these thoughts that run in
the background can have a profound effect on your mood throughout the
day and identifying, say negative thoughts and acknowledging them
before they snowball in your mind and ruin your (and maybe someone
else's) day, or life. It is my belief that in order to live in the
present the majority of people need a practice like yoga or
meditation because it is in that quiet space where you can begin to
understand yourself. As Crowley remarked in 'Diary of a Drug Fiend':
“Having to talk
destroys the symphony of silence.”
So what's so great about focusing on
the present moment anyway? Well when you are not talking to yourself
all day as Crowley remarked:
If we simply go about our day in
a kind of daze, then you can fall prey to one of two problems. The
first is always using the present moment as something to get through,
just a stage to pass until 'life happens' (like when you are
somewhere but spend the whole time either dreaming about being
somewhere else or some future time when things will 'be better') then
we miss the actual life that is happening all around us (John Lennon
even got this when he said
“Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans”).
The other problem is one which we all have experienced at one point
or another where we spend our day mentally bullying ourselves over
something that we feel that we shouldn't have done or said or even
something that we feel that we should do and it is this attitude that
can have you sleepwalking through your life and missing the beauty of
reality because you can't stop thinking.
Now, I just used the word
'thinking' but idle brain chatter without purpose (and by 'purpose' I
mean if you are thinking deeply about a project or a problem that
needs to be solved or something that will enrich your life) then -
especially in this age of mass information bombarding the brain at
every turn - you are more likely to internalize what you read, hear
or see automatically. Crowley puts the problem like this:
“To read
a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worth while.
The natural laziness of the mind tempts one to eschew authors who
demand a continuous effort of intelligence. The
first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely
to feed the mind with canned chatter.
People tell me that they must read the papers so as to know what is going on. In the first place, they could hardly find a worse guide. Most of what is printed turns out to be false, sooner or later. Even when there is no deliberate deception, the account must, from the nature of the case, be presented without adequate reflection and must seem to possess an importance which time shows to be absurdly exaggerated; or vice versa. No event can be fairly judged without background and perspective.”²
People tell me that they must read the papers so as to know what is going on. In the first place, they could hardly find a worse guide. Most of what is printed turns out to be false, sooner or later. Even when there is no deliberate deception, the account must, from the nature of the case, be presented without adequate reflection and must seem to possess an importance which time shows to be absurdly exaggerated; or vice versa. No event can be fairly judged without background and perspective.”²
You
can easily see how we could apply the newspaper mentions to the
internet in our own times. Why pick up a book by say a Murray
Rothbard or a Ludwig Von Mises on economics when you can look at
talking heads going round in circles on TV with the same old schemes
that never seem to work in practice. I confess that this was once me,
I found economics hard to understand and as a result I bought into
whatever the mainstream media told me about the subject, it wasn't
until I learned how to focus my mind on a challenging text that I
began to understand the world in a whole different way and, even
though the quote above is old is it not completely true that many
headlines in newspapers, on TV and on websites are either untrue or
coming at you from a certain angle? True, everyone is coming at you
from an angle (even me) but I am still surprised when I meet many
adults who do not see through the varied agenda's of the mainstream
(and some of the alternative) media. Without understanding the spin
an author or broadcaster is putting on a subject you cannot analyse
it for yourself and you become stuck in this mode of adopting
opinions that you have heard from other people and not thought
through.
Political and Personal Mind
Chatter
Crowley also recognised how the
constant talking to ourselves and others with little quiet time for
real thinking can have a damaging effect. Take the quote:
“People think that talking
is a sign of thinking. It isn't, for the most part' on the contrary,
it's a mechanical dodge of the body to relieve oneself of the strain
of thinking, just as exercising the muscles helps the body to become
temporarily unconscious of its weight, its pain, its weariness, and
the foreknowledge of its doom.”³
How many times have you seen a
politician asked a straight forward 'yes' or 'no' question and
instead of one of those words they break off into a ramble that
normally starts off like “Well,
we have said as a party...”
and five minutes later we still don't know whether the answer is
'yes' or 'no'. It's the same with political speeches, the unthinking
masses can watch a skilled politician stand on a stage with lots of
nice lighting and basically say nothing for an hour. Almost every
leaders' speech at party conferences is like that. Buzz phrases that
sound good but mean fuck all in reality are the norm. All a
politician really has to do is throw around phrases like “social
justice”, “green agenda”, “growth”, “equality” or
“fairness” (I'm sure you can think of many others for yourself
also). I have watched whole speeches and realised that absolutely
nothing of any substance is being said but when your mind is
chattering and some politician mentions “social justice” it's
easy to think of, say a loved one who is not very well off and what a
government of thier involvement and their mates could do for that
person (with other people's money, but that's a whole other essay)
and before you know it, the speech has moved on but you are left with
the idea that this politician really cares about people with low
incomes. It is a magic
trick and it works.
Since I'm enjoying quoting
Crowley, I would love to be face to face with one of our dear leaders
and quote Crowley in Moonchild:
“Don't talk for five minutes, there's a good chap! I've a strange feeling come over me--almost as if I were going to think!”
What is interesting here is that
we can expand this outward also. Let's leave those political leeches
alone and think about our interactions with others. How many times
have you been in a conversation with someone and instead of really
listening to what they have to say you spend the time that they are
talking chatting internally to yourself about what you will say next?
You might think that this is a good example of thinking but not
really in my opinion. Here's why; instead of really taking in what is
being said to you in the present moment (all there actually is) you
are mentally in the future planning a response to something that
hasn't even been verbalised yet. Don't get me wrong, I fall into this
trap all the time but it's not falling into it that's bad, it's
falling into it and not realising it.
Conclusion
For me this is really about
conscious living, or put more simply just paying attention to life. I
suppose what I am trying to get at here is the notion that many of us
spend most of our time talking to ourselves and each other so
incessantly that there is very little time for real thought to take
place. I am a believer in the notion that without philosophical
thinking or the 'examined life' as it has been called, then life is
not being well lived. It's easy to imagine a future when you will be
'happy' when certain hypothetical conditions are met in your mind,
however they only exist in your mind. The fact is that if you can't
be happy right now then when can you? Money, fame or whatever it is
will not fix your mind and in my opinion neither will an external
force however you imagine it. I am not any kind of enlightened master
but I do know that the only person that can focus my life and my
thinking is me. As I see it, the real joy in life is attempting to
understand yourself and the world you find yourself in and what
Crowley taught me is that with practice (I am still way off where I
would like to be) of clearing the mind and embracing the present
moment then it becomes easier to see the code of the matrix if you
will and look through the social programming. Let us conclude with
what Crowley said in Magick:
Liber ABA: Book 4:
“The sin which is
unpardonable is knowingly and wilfully to reject truth, to fear
knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices.”
Greening Out - Libertarian Podcasts, Writings and News
Notes
²
Ch. 23. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley 1929
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