The Theology of the Mask and Gun Militarized Enforcement, Contested Narratives, and the Spiritual Shape of Authority
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. There are moments when a government stops speaking to people and starts speaking over them. Not in the dramatic, tinfoil conspiracy-theory-generating way, but in the banal, clerical way: policy as weather, force as...
Integral Thelema
Integral Thelema is a regularly released newsletter promoting the growth, education, and application of integral Thelemic philosophy and theology with a focus on application to real-world concerns in pursuit of wholeness in all four primary experiential domains, and to the complex issues in the world, through a framework of applied Thelema in 360°of life.
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Nostrum Futurum In Stellis Politics of the Stars
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. No matter where you sit on the political spectrum, the apocryphal Chinese curse is upon us, and we are certainly living in “interesting times.” I live in the United States, so I cannot help but see politics tainted from...
Tree Meet Forest Tending a Garden of Thelemites
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. It is nifty to say that every man and every woman is a star—self-ruling, radiant, burning in their course. But all stars belong to a universe larger than themselves. Our light is not diminished by this context. It is...
Feast Every Day Examining the Sabbath in the New Aeon
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Last year, I re-read The Ancient Practice Series and finished with Dan Allender’s contribution to the series, Sabbath. In the foreword, series editor Phyllis Tickle writes, “Interestingly enough, the discipline of...
Puer Aeternus Tenebrarum The Dark Side of Peter Pan
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. For an account that hides itself safely behind a nom-de-plume, I often lack a filter when it comes to self-disclosure on many levels. So here’s another piece of personal information for you: I was born deaf. Aside from...
Storming the Seven Mountains Our Sole Business in a World of Chaos, Part 1
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Our sole business should be to use the Law to reconstruct the world from the chaos into which it is already half tumbled. The world is...
Reconsidering the Sphinx A Different View of the Four Verbs of the Mage
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Several years ago, I wrote a series of letters to a Brother on the rays of the Law—light,...
Seven Qualities of Culture He remains an Englishman
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Once upon a time, I had a course in which we were asked to define culture in a way that was both academically accurate and yet uniquely personal. After much study of the resources, I decided mine would read as such:...
A New Aeon Ecclesiastic Rebuilding Trust in Leadership
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. I want to make a couple of sweeping statements. They aren’t precisely correct, but they are correct enough to get us headed in the right direction. However, I want to lay down a foundation for what the continuity and...
The Virtues of the Stars Building a Monastic Code
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. There was a time when I began examining several fairly intense principles in search of an ascetic approach to Thelema. That ultimately softened and turned toward a more cenobitic-inclined study in the pursuit of a ‘what...
Ethics
Broken Swords & Fallow Fields Will Thelemites Ever Tire of Being Terrible?
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. For as long as I can remember, Thelemites have had one of the worst reputations in all of occulture even before occulture was coined in the 1990s as a term that is still as vague today as it was back then. There was an...
Raise herself in pride! Thoughts on the Scarlet Woman
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. The subject of the Scarlet Woman comes up enough to warrant its own discussion to get at the heart of the matter from a theological perspective. Much rubbish has...
Politics
Dreaming of an Impossible Future Idealized Thelemic Community Planning
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. This post came up in my personal Facebook memories from 19 March 2022. Yeah. Three years ago! I had been working overnight in a residential youth shelter and was mulling over some ideas of what I thought would make a...
Choose ye an island! Rethinking the Future of Thelema in an Unstable World
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. I may have fallen off a cliff. Again. I’m not sure yet if I’ve jumped into dangerous waters or...
Pit Called Because An Introduction to Wicked Problems
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Let’s get something out of the way first: I have no idea what I’m talking about here. Well, that’s only partially true. I have some idea. But this isn’t my area of expertise. However, I have enough understanding (as a...
Eyes Wide Shut Personal Lesson in Ideological Bubbles
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. I grew up in a sheltered childhood. I was raised within a Southern Baptist evangelical environment, but it was a paradoxical mix of standard 1970s end-of-the-world messaging and 1980s Satanic Panic paranoia with a load...
Of Dog Catchers, School Boards, and Presidents Voting Thelema into Office
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Grab a seat. Trust me. I fully admit my ADHD may have hit a ceiling with this one. I am really all over the place. And, for once, I’m not going to apologize for the semi-brain-dump feel of this offering. We’re just...
Will of the Commons Thelema and the Tragedy of the Commons
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. In 1968, the xenophobic, eugenics proponent Garrett Hardin wrote his now-famous article in Science...
Psychology
A Way of Spiritual Formation Maturity in the Aeon of the Child
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. If there is one thing that continues to plague my thinking about modern Thelema, it is something a mentor of mine once said—and I’m paraphrasing here—that just because Crowley was a magician doesn’t mean that everyone...
Alethiology, Part 1 Toward a Thelemic Therapeutic Orientation
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Personal Introduction If I said that psychology is a hobby of mine, that’s probably a bit dishonest. To provide a little context, as a research psychologist my focus started out in the study of the empirical divide...
Thelemic Cartography A New Approach to Personal Discovery
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. For decades, the assumption in Thelemic communities has been that everything can be mapped to the Tree of Life. And that may be true. Frankly, Miss. Scarlet W., I don’t give a damn. I think the Tree of Life is the most...
5 Habits for the New Year New Year’s Clickbait. Duh!
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. It’s the new year! Welcome to 2025! I feel like it’s going to be a wild year no matter how it all shakes out. A lot of change happening around here. A lot is staying the same too. We’re two months in on the new puppy,...
True Will Some Ill-Advised Thoughts on the Matter
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. The concept of the so-called True Will can be a tricky little beast. It’s thrown around by...
Theology
Thelema and Authority A Tripartite Approach of Equilibrium
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Let’s talk about a-a-a-authority. I know. I know. It’s a dirty word in Thelemaville. The moment you drag out the word authority people start to think you’re about to slap on the chains and drag them off to the salt...
Mere Thelema Street Theology—A Plain and Simple Thelema
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. I’ve offered three weeks of technical theology—doctrine, hermeneutics, and exegesis—which are, granted, a bit simplified for general consumption. But now I want to turn it around and go in the other direction. I want to...
Thelemic Exegesis A Critical Evaluation of the Study of Thelemic Scripture, Part II
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Exegesis in Thelema is not a passive act of textual analysis or mere number crunching but a transformative engagement with its sacred writings. Interpretation, in this sense, is not about imposing external authority...
Thelemic Hermeneutics A Critical Evaluation of the Study of Thelemic Scripture, Part I
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Hermeneutics broadly refers to the study of interpretation, especially of texts, language, and meaning. It is relevant in multiple domains—including philosophy, law, and literary criticism—but is most notably linked to...
Thelema: A Religion? Who’s Still Afraid of Crowley's Big Bad Wolf?
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Religion, as such, has become one of the largest boogiemen of Thelema since Crowley proclaimed calling Thelema a religion “a rather stupid kind of mischief.”Crowley, Aleister. 1994. “Religion–Is Thelema a ‘New...
Doctrinal Triage The Importance of Doctrine in a Time of Spiritual Infancy
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Frankly, if I’m going to start out blunt here, I’m going to say it bluntly: Thelemites have...
Special Dispatch
Choose ye an island! Rethinking the Future of Thelema in an Unstable World
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. I may have fallen off a cliff. Again. I’m not sure yet if I’ve jumped into dangerous waters or...
Reading Plans for 2025 Diving Deeper into the Spiritual Mind
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. After mentioning my choice to start reading through the Orthodox Daily Office again this year, and having a private query over it, it hadn’t really dawned on me that it might be of interest to others to find various...
Learning and Unlearning A Personal Introspective Manifesto
Originally written in 2001. Updated in 2007. Minor textual corrections and footnote commentary in 2024.Now seemed like a good time to bring this back out. Maybe I needed a reminder.Thelema is more than just empowerment. It’s embodiment. It is the embodiment of...
Pedagogical Perspectives On Thelemic Teachers
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. I commented recently that I grew up in a highly conservative Baptist church that was a bit different than most. Unlike in the majority of typical Southern Baptist-affiliated churches of the times, our preacher was...
Eyes Wide Shut Personal Lesson in Ideological Bubbles
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. I grew up in a sheltered childhood. I was raised within a Southern Baptist evangelical environment, but it was a paradoxical mix of standard 1970s end-of-the-world messaging and 1980s Satanic Panic paranoia with a load...