Aum418: All this thinking about what Thelema IS might be considered the fall of Because.

Depends what you mean by “thinking about”.

These folks who ask “is such-and-such an act ‘Thelemic’?”, presumably with a view to providing an answer to the question “should I, as a Thelemite, therefore do and/or support such a thing?” are not only missing the boat, they got lost on the way to the ocean. If it was “Do what the Book of the Law says shall be the whole of the Law”, it would say so.

This, I think, is the real meaning behind the comment. To “discuss the contents of this Book”, or to attempt to form a consensus as to what is “right action” according to the Book, to attempt to form a moral code based upon it, is the polar opposite of what the Book actually exhorts, and any who attempt to do this should rightly be “shunned by all, as centres of pestilence”. From Crowley’s commentaries on II:28 (before Regardie’s incompetent hack-job):

“There are no ‘standards of Right.’ Ethics is balderdash. Each Star must go on its orbit. To hell with ‘moral Principle;’ there is no such thing; that is a herd-delusion, and makes men cattle. Do not listen to the rational explanation of How Right It All Is, in the newspapers.”

From the same comment, with regards to a previous discussion on “Karma” in the Book of the Law and to your comment on “because” above:

“We may moreover consider ‘Because’ as involving the idea of causality, and therefore of duality. If cause and effect are really inseparable, as they must be by definition, it is mere clumsiness to regard them as separate; they are two aspects of one single idea, conceived as consecutive for the sake of (apparent) convenience, or for the general purpose previously indicated of understanding and expressing ourselves in finite terms. Shallow indeed is the obvious objection to this passage that the Book of the Law itself is full of phrases which imply causality. Nobody denies that causality is a category of the mind, a form of condition of thought which, if not quite a theoretical necessity, is yet inevitable in practice. The very idea of any relation between any two things appears as causal. Even should we declare it to be causal, our minds would still insist that causality itself was the effect of some cause. Our daily experience hammers home this conviction; and a man’s mental excellence seems to be measurable almost entirely in terms of the strength and depth of his appreciation thereof as the soul of the structure of the Universe.”

Despite popular misconception, there is no hint in the Book that one “should not interfere with others” — only that one should not interfere with others (or anything) if it is not one’s true will to do so. If the world were to accept Thelema tomorrow, it would not end conflict — stars and entire galaxies do indeed clash and collide, the implication being that it is their will to do so. We may, of course, reasonably assume there will be less conflict if one strictly mind’s one’s own business, but it will not eliminate it. To think that Thelema requires some form of noble altruism, or non-aggression, is a mistake. This idea of morality, this idea that we “should” do this because it is “right” or that we “should not” do that because it is “wrong” is meaningless jabber. Moral statements have no truth value, and to base action upon them is to “fall down into the pit called Because”.

This does not, of course, apply to statements along the line of “I should not put my hand into the fire because it will get burned”. It is simply a statement that an action needs no justification other than the fact that there is the will to do it:

“AL II, 30 – If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops & does nought.
“AL II, 31 – If Power asks why, then is Power weakness.”

But, why is “The study of this Book is forbidden” is such a study allows us to come to conclusions such as the above? Why, indeed, was it provided as a message if that message can not be studied? The clue is in the fact that while the first line of the body of the comment is “The study of the Book is forbidden”, the last line is “There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt”. How can it be forbidden (i.e. forbidden by law) if there “is no law beyond Do what thou wilt”?

The simple explanation is this: the real meaning of the “study of this Book” must somehow conflict with that law. The most sensible interpretation we can come to is that the “study of this Book” is a study with a view to using it as a guide to action, to developing a “Thelemic moral code”, or moral “law”. Since this does conflict with “There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt”, that law itself forbids such a study.

Similarly, the phrase “Those who discuss the contents of this Book” is followed immediately by “All questions of the Law are to be decided…each for himself”, suggesting that the form of such an objectionable discussion would indeed be to try to decide questions of the Law for others, which again directly contradicts “There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt”.

The idea of a “Thelemic society” is a contradiction in terms. A society of people who accept the Law could base its moral and legal code upon non-interference to the widest extent possible, but Liber AL does not require such a code (or indeed, any other) and to pretend such a code is “Thelemic” would be a nonsense. Provided that he is acting according to his will, Liber AL provides no injunction against any act, including, for instance, homicide and rape. Such a society may well be acting in accordance with their wills in imprisoning or otherwise punishing such a transgressor, but the transgressor may well also be acting in accordance with his will by breaking their legal or moral code. From the point of view of the Law, both would be beyond reproach. The Law is the Law — it is simply unconcerned with whether someone shot your brother or violated your sister’s honour. It is as far above the idea of moral “laws” as the law of gravity is — to argue that, for instance, murder is against the Law of Thelema is as nonsensical as arguing that flying an airplane is against the law of gravity.

So, to come back to the original point via a long, meandering and tortuous route, I do not think one need be a “centre of pestilence” for discussing the meaning of passages in the Book, or for discussing what the principles of Thelema actually are. One is only to be “shunned” for attempting to use the Book as a guide to action, and in particular to attempt to influence the actions of others, since to try to do so goes completely against the message in the Book itself and shows that the one doing the discussing never understood it in the slightest.