Month: January 2011

The Philosophy of Thelema, pt.3: Ethics

Philosophy of Thelema

The proclamation “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” from Liber AL vel Legis (I:40) has especially profound implications in the sphere of morality. There is an immense amount of material on this topic throughout all of Crowley’s works.

Since “There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt” (Liber AL vel Legis III:60), the only “right” action is that which fulfills that Will and the only “wrong” action is that which thwarts that Will. As Liber AL vel Legis says (I:41), “The Word of Sin is Restriction.” Crowley explains that, “[This] is a general statement or definition of Sin or Error. Anything soever that binds the will, hinders it, or diverts it, is Sin” (The Law is For All). Essentially, any form of morality that works in absolutes, saying any quality is a priori “right” or “wrong” (or “evil”) is anathema to Thelema. “To us, then, ‘evil’ is a relative term; it is ‘that which hinders one from fulfilling his true Will'” (The Law is For All).

The attitudes toward oneself and others are necessary outgrowths of “Do what thou wilt.” Since “Thou hast no right but to do thy will” (Liber AL vel Legis I:42), the value of self-discipline helps one do one’s Will with one-pointedness. As Crowley explains, “What is true for every School is equally true for every individual. Success in life, on the basis of the Law of Thelema, implies severe self-discipline” (Magick Without Tears, ch.8). Further, since “Every man and every woman is a star” (Liber AL vel Legis I:3) and each star has its own unique path, each “star” is must pursue their own Will and avoid interference in the affairs of others. In short, mind your own business. “It is necessary that we stop, once for all, this ignorant meddling with other people’s business. Each individual must be left free to follow his own path” (The Law is For All). This consequently means there is total moral freedom, including sexual freedom. “Also, take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where and with whom ye will!” (Liber AL vel Legis I:51). This is not “individualism run wild” – that is, it does not mean there is no possibility of government. The understanding in Thelema is that each star has its own particular function in the scheme of things and must perform that function with one-pointedness, and this can include one’s function in state affairs. “For every Individual in the State must be perfect in his own Function, with Contentment, respecting his own Task as necessary and holy, not envious of another’s. For so only mayst thou build up a free state, whose directing Will shall be singly directed to the Welfare of all” (Liber Aleph).

Aside from moving the locus of morality to the individual, making the Will the measure of what is “right” and “wrong,” Thelema does emphasize certain moral traits over others and views certain experiences as “good.”

One course of action that Thelema encourages is towards the attainment of Knowledge & Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, Union with God, the dissolution of the ego or any other metaphor used in mysticism. Crowley explains, “A man must think of himself as a LOGOS, as going, not as a fixed idea. ‘Do what thou wilt’ is thus necessarily his formula. He only becomes Himself when he attains the loss of Egoity, of the sense of separateness. He becomes All, PAN, when he becomes Zero [see the “Ontology” section of this essay]” (“The Antecedents of Thelema”). Crowley puts it plainly when he writes, “There are many ethical injunctions of a revolutionary character in the Book, but they are all particular cases of the general precept to realize one’s own absolute God-head and to act with the nobility which springs from that knowledge” (Confessions, ch.49). These attainments are understood to be available to anyone and to help one understand the world, oneself, and one’s will more completely.

A common moral theme in Thelema is strength over weakness. “Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire, are of us” (Liber AL vel Legis II:20). “My disciples are proud and beautiful; they are strong and swift; they rule their way like mighty conquerors. The weak, the timid, the imperfect, the cowardly, the poor, the tearful — these are mine enemies, and I am come to destroy them” (“Liber Tzaddi,” lines 24-25).

Consequently, Thelema has a different view on “compassion:” “This also is compassion: an end to the sickness of earth. A rooting-out of the weeds: a watering of the flowers” (“Liber Tzaddi,” line 26). “We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them die in their misery. For they feel not. Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world” (Liber AL vel Legis II:21). That is, “compassion” is not understood to be the support of the weak but rather the opposite: the “rooting-out of the weeds” or the destruction of the weak and the “watering of the flowers” or the promotion of the strong. This is compassion because it is “an end to the sickness of earth.”

A different view of pity is also held in light of Thelema’s view that “Every man and every woman is a star” (Liber AL vel Legis I:3). Crowley writes, “Pity implies two very grave errors—errors which are utterly incompatible with the views of the universe above briefly indicated. The first error therein is an implicit assumption that something is wrong with the Universe… The second error is still greater since it involves the complex of the Ego. To pity another person implies that you are superior to him, and you fail to recognize his absolute right to exist as he is. You assert yourself superior to him, a concept utterly opposed to the ethics of Thelema—’Every man and every woman is a star’ and each being is a Sovereign Soul. A moment’s thought therefore will suffice to show how completely absurd any such attitude is, in reference to the underlying metaphysical facts” (“The Method of Thelema”). Also, “The Book of the Law regards pity as despicable… to pity another man is to insult him. He also is a star, ‘one, individual and eternal.’ The Book does not condemn fighting — ‘If he be a King, thou canst not hurt him'” (Confessions, ch.49).

This leads to another view which is that Thelema embraces conflict. “Despise also all cowards; professional soldiers who dare not fight, but play; all fools despise! But the keen and the proud, the royal and the lofty; ye are brothers! As brothers fight ye!” (Liber AL vel Legis III:57-59). “Lo, while in The Book of the Law is much of Love, there is no word of Sentimentality. Hate itself is almost like Love! ‘As brothers fight ye!” All the manly races of the world understand this. The Love of Liber Legis is always bold, virile, even orgiastic. There is delicacy, but it is the delicacy of strength” (“Liber II: The Message of the Master Therion”).

Thelema also enjoins the individual to rejoice because of life. A general theme of embracing and seeing the joy in all facets of life permeates Thelema. “Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains… They shall rejoice, our chosen: who sorroweth is not of us… But ye, o my people, rise up & awake! Let the rituals be rightly performed with joy & beauty! …a feast for life and a greater feast for death! A feast every day in your hearts in the joy of my rapture! A feast every night unto Nu, and the pleasure of uttermost delight! Aye! feast! rejoice! there is no dread hereafter… Write, & find ecstasy in writing! Work, & be our bed in working! Thrill with the joy of life & death!” (Liber AL vel Legis II:9, 19, 34-35, 41-44, 66); “There is joy in the setting-out; there is joy in the journey; there is joy in the goal” (“Liber Tzaddi,” line 22). This view of the world arises out of the metaphysical ideas [see the “Cosmology” section of this essay] that Thelema entertains. In short, “[Nuit] is the infinite in whom all we live and move and have our being. [Hadit] is eternal energy, the Infinite Motion of Things, the central core of all being. The manifested Universe comes from the marriage of Nuit and Hadit; without this could no thing be. This eternal, this perpetual marriage-feast is then the nature of things themselves; and therefore everything that is, is a crystallization of divine ecstasy” (“The Law of Liberty”).

Fresh Fever From the Skies: The Collected Writings of IAO131In the end one must remember “There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt” (Liber AL vel Legis III:60). All of these ideas are subservient to the central law of “Do what thou wilt.” This is the beauty of the word Thelema, that it implies such a succinct and sublime answer to the problems of morality while also having complex and intricate implications.

The Philosophy of Thelema, pt.2: Epistemology

Philosophy of Thelema

There are two stances on reason that are expounded in Liber AL vel Legis. The first stance is that reason must be subservient to Will and the second stance is the importance of direct experience over reason. These ideas about reason intertwine and support one another.

First, the Will is ‘supra-rational’ or beyond reason. The section in Liber AL vel Legis that deals with this comes from chapter 2,

“There is great danger in me; for who doth not understand these runes shall make a great miss. He shall fall down into the pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of Reason. Now a curse upon Because and his kin! May Because be accursed for ever! If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops & does nought. If Power asks why, then is Power weakness. Also reason is a lie; for there is a factor infinite & unknown; & all their words are skew-wise. Enough of Because! Be he damned for a dog! But ye, o my people, rise up & awake!” (lines 27-34)

Here we have a curse upon “Because,” “Reason,” and “Why.” There is no “Why” or “Because” to Will: it simply GOES, it simply IS. Because we inhabit a world of Infinite Space and since reason can only work with finite ideas and quantities, then reason cannot express the Infinite purely and accurately. It is a “lie” because of this “factor infinite & unknown.” Crowley writes, “There is no ‘reason’ why a Star should continue in its orbit. Let her rip! …It is ridiculous to ask a dog why it barks. One must fulfil one’s true Nature, one must do one’s Will. To question this is to destroy confidence, and so to create an inhibition.” (The Law is For All, II:30-31) Therefore, reason should attend to its own business (solving problems of rationality) and allow the Will to flow uninhibited; otherwise, “One risks falling form the world of Will (‘freed from the lust of result’) to that of Reason” (Djeridensis Working, Liber AL II:30). Crowley continues, “We must not suppose for an instant that the Book of the Law is opposed to reason. On the contrary, its own claim to authority rests upon reason, and nothing else. It disdains the arts of the orator. It makes reason the autocrat of the mind. But that very fact emphasizes that the mind should attend to its own business. It should not transgress its limits. It should be a perfect machine, an apparatus for representing the universe accurately and impartially to its master. The Self, its Will, and its Apprehension, should be utterly beyond it.” (The Law is For All, II:27). Also, “When reason usurps the higher functions of the mind, when it presumes to dictate to the Will what its desires ought to be, it wrecks the entire structure of the star. The Self should set the Will in motion, that is, the Will should only take its orders from within and above” (“Djeridensis Working,” II:31).

Another claim is made in Liber AL vel Legis I:58, “I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death; peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy; nor do I demand aught in sacrifice.” The Will does not require articles of faith to be accepted but rather asks that the individual rely on their experiences. It is the faith conferred by the direct experience of the”consciousness of the continuity of existence” (Liber AL vel Legis I:26) that is offered. Rational precepts are not proposed, debated over, accepted, and rejected but rather one attains various Trances and learn from one’s experiences. When one attains the “consciousness of the continuity of existence” (Liber AL vel Legis I:26) and becomes “chief of all” (Liber AL vel Legis I:23), the unity of this perception is not explainable by the duality of reason. In relation to this experience we find “there could be no reality in any intellectual concept of any kind, that the only reality must lie in direct experience of such a kind that it is beyond the scope of the critical apparatus of our minds. It cannot be subject to the laws of Reason; it cannot be found in the fetters of elementary mathematics; only transfinite and irrational conceptions in that subject can possibly shadow forth the truth in some such paradox as the identity of contradictories.” (Eight Lectures on Yoga) Crowley also says, “To have any sensible meaning at all, faith must mean experience… Nothing is any use to us unless it be a certainty unshakeable by criticism of any kind, and there is only one thing in the universe which complies with these conditions: the direct experience of spiritual truth. Here, and here only, do we find a position in which the great religious minds of all times and all climes coincide. It is necessarily above dogma, because dogma consists of a collection of intellectual statements, each of which, and also its contradictory, can easily be disputed and overthrown.” (Eight Lectures on Yoga) This perception of the world as continuous and unitary is not offered on faith but can be achieved and recognized as a certainty by those who attain thereto.

One other doctrine relating to reason that appears in Crowley’s writings but not explicitly in Liber AL vel Legis is the idea of the circularity of reason. Reason can only manipulate and work with articles of reason; this relates to what was said above because the problems in the sphere of reason should not usurp the power of or dictate actions to the sphere of Will. We have an example of this doctrine of the circularity of reason in “The Antecedents of Thelema” where Crowley writes, “All proofs turn out on examination to be definitions. All definitions are circular. (For a = bc, b = de … w = xy, and y = za.)” In this sense, reason deals with relations between illusion. This is certainly useful – science is a good example of this – but it doesn’t give us any powerful facts of the way things are. In a deeper sense, reason works within the realms of duality while the Will must remain one-pointed and therefore not mired in the relations of reason. Crowley writes further on this idea in the essay “Knowledge” in Little Essays Toward Truth, “All knowledge may be expressed in the form S=P. But if so, the idea P is really implicit in S; thus we have learnt nothing… S=P (unless identical, and therefore senseless) is an affirmation of duality; or, we may say, intellectual perception is a denial of Samadhic truth. It is therefore essentially false in the depths of its nature.” Reason is understood as simply the relation of words which point to other words, ad infinitum. Further, as mentioned above, because reason works with relations between ideas (the relation between ‘S’ and ‘P’ above), it affirms duality in the world. Two things can only be related in reason if they are distinct and therefore separate.

Again, all of these ideas about reason intertwine to give us a general picture of Thelema’s approach to the place of knowledge and reason. Essentially, the Will of the individual is beyond reason, or supra-rational, so one cannot ask “Why” of it or justify it with “Because.” Fresh Fever From the Skies: The Collected Writings of IAO131The individual must then constantly go forward and experience new and various things, not depending on articles of faith. Reason is a human faculty that allows us to manipulate & find the relations between finite facts and ideas. Because of this it must work within its own sphere (i.e. deal with problems of rationality like mathematics, science, etc.) while leaving the Will to act uninhibited. With this understanding, one can be guarded against reason when it asks “whence camest thou? Whither wilt thou go?” with the response “No whence! No whither! …Is there not joy ineffable in this aimless winging? Is there not weariness and impatience for who would attain to some goal?” (Liber LXV, II:21-22, 24)

The Philosophy of Thelema, pt.1: Metaphysics

Philosophy of Thelema

Introduction

There is an ongoing and perhaps eternal debate about whether Thelema is a religion, philosophy, or way of life (or all of them or none of them). In my view, Thelema certainly has something to offer the areas of both religion and philosophy. This essay will look at how Thelema approaches the classic divisions of philosophy including metaphysics (including ontology, cosmology, eschatology, and teleology), epistemology, and ethics.

Metaphysics is essentially the study of the nature of the world. It is traditionally split into ontology, cosmology, eschatology, and teleology.

Ontology: None & Two

Ontology is the study of being, existence, or reality. Thelema’s ontology is stated simply as “None and Two.” The world is understood as ‘Nothing’ or ‘Naught,’ which is something completely beyond all description and limit. In Liber AL vel Legis I:27, it is written “Then the priest answered & said unto the Queen of Space, kissing her lovely brows, and the dew of her light bathing his whole body in a sweet-smelling perfume of sweat: O Nuit, continuous one of Heaven, let it be ever thus; that men speak not of Thee as One but as None; and let them speak not of thee at all, since thou art continuous!” Many mystics have called it “Unity” but even this, some may argue, implies something as “not-One.” Crowley writes in “De Lege Libellum,” “All Things that are in Truth One Thing only, whose name hath been called No Thing.” From this comes the necessity of explaining the appearance of duality. Instead of a “Fall of Man” or an imprisonment of the soul in matter, Thelema explains the appearance of duality in this fashion: “None… and two. For I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union. This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.” (Liber AL I:28-30). In this way, the many or divided are in such a position so they may become one and unite. This is given further explanation in Book of Lies ch.3 where it is written, “The Many is as adorable to the One as the One is to the Many. This is the Love of These; creation-parturition is the Bliss of the One; coition-dissolution is the Bliss of the Many. / The All, thus interwoven of These, is Bliss.”

…see also “Berashith” by Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears ch.5, Book of Lies ch.3, 12, and 46

 

Cosmology: Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, and Stars

Cosmology deals with what the Universe is essentially. One might argue that there exist several similar but interchangeable cosmologies in Thelema: for example, the Creed of the Gnostic Mass gives a rudimentary cosmology, the “Matter in Motion” idea in the New Comment (to Chapter 1, Verse 1), and the Qabalistic understanding in chapter 0! of Book of Lies. In the end, the most widespread cosmology, and the one rooted in The Book of the Law, is the idea of Nuit, Hadit, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Thelema understands Nuit as Infinite Space which is “Heaven” that is occupied by various Points-of-View, or Hadit. Each star – “every man and every woman” – is in the Body of Infinite Space and has Hadit as its core, who is “the complement of Nu, my bride,” “the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star,” as well as “Life, and the giver of Life.” These together create the Universe as we know it. “In the sphere [Hadit is] everywhere the centre, as [Nuit], the circumference, is nowhere found.” There are many interpretations of Nuit and Hadit – for example, with Nuit as matter and Hadit as motion and their interplay being the universe but the basic idea remains the same.

…see also Liber AL vel Legis ch.1 & 2, Book of Lies ch.0 & 11, the “Creed” of “The Gnostic Mass”

 

Eschatology: The destruction of the self & the dawning of the Aeon of Horus

Eschatology deals with the idea of end-times. There is certainly no Last Judgment in the philosophy of Thelema. In a sense, one can view the attainment of the Crossing of the Abyss, the destruction of the personality or ego, as the end-times of the ‘self’ and the waking to the Self. Another interpretation of eschatology is the “destruction of the world by fire” (which can also be interpreted in the former sense of the destruction of the self), which Crowley gives symbolically in Atu XX: Aeon of the Tarot. In this other interpretation, the world was “destroyed by fire” with the reception of Liber AL vel Legis in 1904. Crowley writes in The Book of Thoth, “The old card was called The Angel: or, The Last Judgment. It represented an Angel or Messenger blowing a trumpet, attached to which was a flag, bearing the symbol of the Aeon of Osiris… The card therefore represented the destruction of the world by Fire. This was accomplished in the year of the vulgar era 1904, when the fiery god Horus took the place of the airy god Osiris in the East as Hierophant.”

…see also The Book of Thoth “XX. The Aeon”

Teleology: Will

Teleology deals with the purpose or the understanding of the design of the universe. In Thelema, the teleology is clearly one of “Will.” One might contrast the teleology of Thelema with that of Schopenhauer’s Will-to-Life and Nietzsche’s Will-to-Power, where Thelema understands it as a Will-to-Love. All experiences and events are occurrences of two things uniting into a third. Fresh Fever From the Skies: The Collected Writings of IAO131The necessary formula of each star is then “love under will” – to find that Will and do it. Just as each star has its particular orbit in the macrocosm of space, every man and every woman has their particular Way on earth. As Crowley writes in the introduction to Liber AL vel Legis, “Each action or motion is an act of love, the uniting with one or another part of “Nuit”; each such act must be ‘under will,’ chosen so as to fulfil and not to thwart the true nature of the being concerned.”

Active Thelema, pt. 2: The Formula of the Child is Continual Growth

Nuit Infinite Space and the Infinite Stars thereof

“[In the Aeon of] Horus, the child… we come to perceive events as a continual growth…” -Aleister Crowley, Introduction to the Book of the Law

This new Aeon of human existence is a new dawn of a shift in our point-of-views. With the reception of Liber AL vel Legis, or the Book of the Law, in 1904 by Aleister Crowley, the paradigm of Thelema was brought to the world. Only a year after, Einstein had his famous “miracle year” which revolutionized physics and brought us, among other things, the special theory of relativity. Less than two decades later, quantum mechanics would spring onto the scene with full force and lead to technological achievements like transistors, computers, and A-bombs. In this century, not only were protons, neutrons, and quarks discovered, but so was the double-helix structure of DNA, genes, and other biological advances like stem-cell and cloning. There was the rise of psychology and neurology. There were incredible leaps in transportation (e.g. personal cars and commercial airliners) and communication (e.g., cell phones and the Internet). With the turn of the 21st century, it is an exciting time as ever to exist with much amazing growth remaining possible ahead of us.

Horus the Crowned and Conquering Child as Harpocrates

Consider how much growth has happened to the human race in the last century, especially in terms of the advances in physics, biology, and technology. Consider one’s own development and how much growth one has gone through physically, emotionally, and intellectually.

 

One may recognize the immense amount of growth that occurred in the period when one was a child. Childhood is a time of great openness and vitality, among other things. Being in this New Aeon of the Crowned & Conquering Child, each person may (much to their benefit) identify with this symbol of a child.

Now let us consider the characteristics of a child:

Openness to Experience

Ever-renewed Vitality & Resilience

and most importantly…

Ever-continuing Growth

As a symbol of this ideal, Thelema has Horus, the Egyptian sky and sun god, especially under the form of “Ra-Hoor-Khuit” (Ra-Horakhty was a synthesis of the gods of Ra and Horus in ancient times). Speaking in terms of the occult mysteries, Aleister Crowley writes in “Liber Samekh,”

“In the Neophyte Ritual of Golden Dawn (As it is printed in Equinox I, II, for the old aeon) the Hierophant is the perfected Osiris, who brings the candidate, the natural Osiris, to identity with himself. But in the new Aeon the Hierophant is Horus (Liber CCXX, I, 49) therefore the Candidate will be Horus too. What then is the formula of the initiation of Horus? It will no longer be that of the Man, through Death. It will be the natural growth of the Child. His experiences will no more be regarded as catastrophic. Their hieroglyph is the Fool: the innocent and impotent Harpocrates Babe becomes the Horus Adult by obtaining the Wand. ‘Der reine Thor’ seizes the Sacred Lance. Bacchus becomes Pan.” (emphasis added)

In the occult mysteries, one formerly identified with a form of the ideal man which was typified by the dying-and-resurrecting form – in this case it is the Egyptian Osiris. Now the ideal is the child with the formula of Ever-continual Growth. Just as dawn is understood to always follow the ordeals of midnight and spring always follows the ordeals of winter, we understand that all psychological ordeals – including the ‘death of the ego’ – are not catastrophic (although they, like the hour of midnight and the season of winter may seem so while living through them), but are in fact part of our Ever-continual Growth. But Thelema doesn’t just deal with the occult mysteries because, as mentioned at the beginning of this essay, Thelema is an all-encompassing paradigm and it is advantageously applicable to all facets of life. Thelemites therefore are open to all experience, however much joy or suffering may arise because all things are accepted as part of “love under will;” all experiences of all degrees add to one’s being. Crowley wrote in “Liber Tzaddi,”

My adepts stand upright; their head above the heavens, their feet below the hells.

This line perfectly captures the Thelemite’s acceptance of all facets of oneself, from the most apparently hellish to the most divine, and also all facets of Nature, spanning all degrees of beauty and terribleness.Consider how, in your life, certain events that seemed to be a time of great trouble (physically, financially, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually) eventually faded away into greater strength, energy, and insight. Consider how the events that seemed wonderful or even divine have transpired and what they have added to one’s experience. Ask oneself: how does integrating these diverse experiences of both joy & sadness into a coherent whole allow me to perform my Will more effectively?

Again, in “Liber Samekh” Crowley writes about how experience is necessary for the individual, “All experiences contribute to make us complete in ourselves. We feel ourselves subject to them so long as we fail to recognise this; when we do, we perceive that they are subject to us… To live is to change; and to oppose change is to revolt against the law… which govern[s] our lives.” Consider the many times one has needed to do something or been forced to do something that one did not want to (e.g. fold your laundry, take an entrance exam, go to the dentist, travel to a foreign country). How many times was your immediate desire (i.e. to leave the dentist’s office) in conflict with longer goals (i.e. to have healthy teeth)? How has pushing oneself to have experiences, however undesirable and uncomfortable, led to increased understanding, knowledge, strength, and adaptability?

Two different news articles have recently been released (late 2007) on the subject of growth and a ‘growth mind-set’ and its various advantages. In one case, the psychologist Carol Dweck has seen that kids who have a ‘growth mind-set’ – meaning they believe that their intelligence is mutable and liable to growth as opposed to static and unchanging – perform better in school. In another instance, Scientific American investigated the fact that, “teaching people to have a ‘growth mind-set,’ which encourages a focus on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, produces high achievers in school and in life.” These two subtly different views – one where seeing intelligence as mutable is beneficial and the other where emphasizing effort over intellect is beneficial – see the advantage of what they both label as a “growth mind-set.”

Continuing with the attributes of this ideal symbol of Horus, “the Crowned and Conquering Child,” Crowley writes in his Confessions, “The child is not merely a symbol of growth, but of complete moral independence and innocence.” This subject of morality in Thelema, related to the symbol of the child, growth, and innocence, has been treated more fully in the essay “Thelemic Values: a new view of morality” (forthcoming). We may then focus on how “innocence” is also characteristic of the Child.

Father Pan and Mother Moon with Horus the Crowned and Conquering ChildThe “innocence” of the formula of the Child in Thelema is certainly not the uninformed, unexperienced innocence of actual children but refers to their point-of-view. Children are much less unimpeded by the imposed values from their family, friends, and society. Not only are their values less imposed but even their very basic way of understanding the world is unclouded by preformed opinions, systems, and maps. Instead, the “innocence” of a Child – which is, again, an ideal that all Thelemites can advantageously identify with – refers to its openness. The child is open to experience, as mentioned previously as one of the characteristics of the Child, and is open to new and different ways of perceiving ideas. Fresh Fever From the Skies: The Collected Writings of IAO131This openness to physical experiences and mental ideas ties directly back into the formula of the Child being Ever-continuing Growth. It is this innocent openness which allows us to submerge our feet in the deepest hells and raise our heads to the highest heavens. Instead of fearing our comfortable balance may be lost, Thelemites push ever onward to new horizons, invigorated by the seemingly infinite possibilities and potential symbolized by the starry night sky of Nuit.