Lion of Light: Impotence on this Backwards Planet

Detail from the Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu

Lion of Light: “The Lord of Force and Fire: A Review of The Law is For All” (pg 215-228)

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 

Published in 1976, this is a “peak” Robert Anton Wilson piece of writing if you consider the Wilson of Cosmic Trigger to be the archetypical “Wilson” persona. It begins with a discussion of Saul Paul Sirag and Dr. Andrija Pujarich’s separate but similar experiences with Uri Geller and his alleged contact, SPECTRA. I don’t think the Sirag who wrote in to Tom’s Rawillumination a few years ago would have much time for the Sirag who experimented with Geller (but that is my perhaps-incorrect impression based on a memory of a comment from years ago) and from what Eric Wagner has relayed here and my own impressions, I’m not sure that the Wilson of the 21st century would have held the same unbridled admiration of Liber AL and Crowley that is related in this introduction. But it is delightful to run across another piece from Wilson so close to the time of Cosmic Trigger’s publication that it read almost identically to that storied volume. 

This piece was a review of the Regardie publication of Crowley commentaries on Liber AL vel Legis that he meant to have published during his lifetime. It was, as the title quote from the book would imply, written to explain the profundities of The Book of the Law. Whether Crowley’s book succeeded in this task is left up to the reader; Wilson gives a sample of these efforts at explication in this introduction with a good natured “[i]s that quite clear class?” as a follow up statement. Your mileage will vary. There are many interesting verses in The Book of the Law; many which Wilson found particularly interesting or illuminated have been repeated across the various pieces collected in The Lion of Light. In this piece, I found Wilson’s confidence in the importance of the Eighties interesting, in light of a fragment of verse in Chapter III: “I am the warrior Lord of the Forties: the Eighties cower before me, & are abased.” It has generally been agreed upon in discussions with others that the “warrior Lord of the Forties” portion is a good whack at prophecy by Crowley or Aiwass, but the importance of the Eighties remains somewhat mysterious. 

Did the Eighties live up to the abasement prophesied in Liber AL? From an American-centric worldview, it could be seen as a time of abasement as economic policies made economic inequality more egregious and certain. It was a time of rising materialism and, if we wish to look at this from an environmental perspective, was a time when the world decided that the findings of the seventies could be ignored in favor of the status quo and global economy. I haven’t read many “official” Thelemic commentaries post-Eighties on this and am curious if anyone knows the “orthodox” interpretation of that decade. (I know that Wilson plays up the individualistic morality of Thelema, but those in or under the auspices of the O.T.O. tend to be (un)surprisingly uniform, at times.)  I wonder what Wilson made of the prophecy, which he seems to very much anticipate coming true in 1976, by the turn of the century. Wilson was obviously displeased with the course of the world during the Eighties, having left the United States to seek refuge in Ireland for part of the decade. Another mystery. 

As a Thelemite, I do agree with Wilson’s enthusiastic endorsement of Thelemic, and more importantly, by association, my morality. I always knew I was a good person. I also agree with Wilson’s assessment that if the true principle of “do what thou wilt” were applied, there would be a great deal more care applied to intra- and interpersonal conduct. Furthermore, I agree with Wilson’s perhaps interminably-human assessment that the progress of human relations has been in decline in the modern era. While we have made vast improvements in terms of race relations and gender equality, there is still a lot to be desired and the ubiquity of the Internet has given us a whole new, occasionally amoral, plane upon which to demonstrate the possibilities of human depredations. But this brave, if sunny, vision, is predicated upon a morality that is well-understood and applied, and humans aren’t very good at that. Far too many would-be Thelemites have already misinterpreted "do what thou wilt" as "do what I want." It is nice to consider the possibilities, though. I do admire, if I occasionally have to mitigate, the somewhat dangerous honesty of Thelemic morality, best exemplified by Crowley’s own insistence on displaying his flaws. That honesty is very, very admirable to me. And I also admire that Thelema demands growth from its adherents and doesn’t allow much time for (blind) self-indulgence. (On the other hand, this moral view is simultaneously profoundly uncomfortable. Your mileage may vary.) 

It will probably come as no surprise that I object to the laissez-faire assessment that a true anthropological view of human morals will render all of them equally absurd and/or meritorious. I must insist that I see some belief systems as entirely unworkable with my idea of civilization, which, after all, is the one I am generally concerned with. The rise of Christian nationalism and authoritarian values in the West serve as an ever-present reminder that some reality-tunnels are much harder to deal with than others. I have no time for equivocation during these years. We must tend to our garden and it is best to mind our own business, yes, but there really isn’t any call for the absurdism of being above-it-all. One must care about the soil that hopefully nourishes one’s garden. It depressed me to read Wilson’s confidence in the following line: “He opposed Christianity in general and Christian sexual morality in particular; and Christianity, especially its sexual morality, is everywhere in contemptible decline.” While this statement still holds statistically true, we can see that the rabid old dog still has teeth. Fundamentalism is incompatible with Thelemic morality and the Thelemic vision of a free world. 

As a final word on the Wilson of 1976’s confidence in Crowley’s importance, his litany of examples of how Crowley might have changed society is admirable and thought-provoking. Crowley’s influence on the occult is difficult to over-emphasize, and we must wonder how much of New Age thought would exist without him. His influence on art seems to be an easily-overlooked, occult, if you will; this seems to be a certainty, when one looks closely into the weave of the tapestry of culture. In Stranger Than We Can Imagine, at the end of the chapter on Individualism, Higgs wryly points out that there were more Jedi in Britain than Thelemites on the last census in the United Kingdom and suggests that Crowley’s ambitions to change the world were in vain. I think that Wilson might have disagreed. 

Happy Holidays, everyone! I imagine this will be “Happy New Year” as well. Oz and I will be on hiatus until the new year when we’ll come back together to discuss the final pieces  in Lion of Light. Until then…

Love is the law, love under will.