The Separationist Heresy: A Defense of the Prophet Against Those Who Would Unmake Thelema
by relaxos_palaiologos
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Introduction: The Problem Before Us
There has arisen in our time a peculiar species of error—one that claims the name of Thelema whilst systematically dismantling its foundations. This error, which we shall term the Separationist Heresy, manifests in the attempt to divorce the Law of Thelema from its Prophet—Saint Sir Aleister Crowley—the Beast 666. Its proponents imagine they can retain the phrase ‘Do what thou wilt’ whilst discarding the Master who received it, the cosmology that frames it, and the tradition that transmits it.
The Separationist does not merely disagree with this or that interpretation of the Master’s writings. Rather, he seeks to reduce Thelema to a bare ethical slogan—a kind of spiritual bumper sticker—stripped of its prophetic authority, its praeterhuman origin, and its initiatic structure. One contemporary writer states Separationist's position with admirable clarity:
"that one might strip away ‘Aleister Crowley as Prophet, praeterhuman intelligences, the Holy Books, initiation, magical Orders, dramatic ritual, magick, the procession of the Aeons, the Holy Guardian Angel, the Abyss, Nuit, Hadit, Ra Hoor Khuit, BABALON, CHAOS,’ and all the rest, leaving only 'this small matter of the Law: Do what thou wilt."¹
This is not a minor interpretive disagreement. It is the wholesale rejection of Thelema as a revealed religion in favor of a vague ethical principle—one that, however noble in the hands of a Nietzsche or a Stirner, becomes mere libertinism when severed from the cosmological and initiatic framework that gives it meaning.
This essay shall examine the Separationist Heresy and its principal sub-heresies, presenting each position fairly before demonstrating its incompatibility with orthodox Thelemic doctrine. Our purpose is not polemic but apologetic: the defence of the Prophet and His Law against those who would unmake both.
A Cautionary Parallel: The Self-Immolation of the Roman Church
Before examining the Separationist Heresy in detail, we would do well to consider a cautionary parallel from the institution that the Master Himself identified as the ‘step-mother Church’ of the O.T.O.—the Roman Catholic Church.
The German Synodal Path (Der Synodaler Weg), initiated in December 2019, provides a contemporary case study in ecclesiastical self-destruction. This initiative gathered 230 participants to address themes that read as a catalog of progressive demands: the separation of powers within the Church, recognition of contemporary sexual morality, priestly celibacy, and the role of women in ecclesial life.² The ultimate goal was the formation of a permanent body with decision-making powers on matters including female ordination, optional celibacy, admission of divorced and remarried persons to sacramental life, and recognition of LGBT Catholics.³
From the outset, Rome warned against this path. In 2019, Bishop Filippo Iannone wrote to Cardinal Reinhard Marx warning that such themes 'could not be decided by a particular church because they concern the universal Church.'⁴ The German bishops ignored this warning—they knew, as one commentator notes, that 'they had the wallet in their pocket.'⁵ Over seventy bishops from around the world wrote to the German bishops warning that the Synodal Path would lead to schism.⁶
The fruits of this accommodation are damning. Despite—or rather, because of—the Synodal Way’s progressive agenda, the German Church has haemorrhaged members: 402,694 Catholics formally left in 2023; 321,659 departed in 2024; 307,117 in 2025.⁷ Priestly ordinations in 2025 numbered only twenty-five.⁸ The German Church received a record €6.848 billion in church tax in 2022—yet this financial security has not translated into spiritual vitality.⁹
The pattern extends beyond Germany. A 2025 academic study examining Catholic engagement with secular culture concluded that 'the accommodationist model has proven ineffective since the beginning of an experimental phase in the 1960s.'¹⁰ A statistical study using event-study design found that 'rates of religious-service attendance in predominantly Catholic countries started to decrease relative to those of all other countries and to those of other Christian countries precisely in the aftermath of Vatican II.'¹¹
The mainline Protestant denominations provide a devastating parallel case. These bodies—‘predominantly liberal in theology’—experienced membership declines of over forty percent from 1965 to 2020, far outpacing evangelical groups.¹² The Episcopal Church, after appointing its first openly gay bishop in 2003, saw 'scores of congregations leave the denomination.'¹³ Two-thirds of current members are over sixty, with few young adults joining.¹⁴
Pope St. Pius X identified the root of this crisis over a century ago in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907). He defined Modernism thusly:
‘the synthesis of all heresies,’ noting that its practitioners work from within the Church itself: 'The partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open… they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within.'¹⁵
The Modernists, Pius X observed, 'lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers.'¹⁶ Their characteristic error is the claim that doctrine must ‘evolve’ with the times. Once this principle is admitted, there is no logical stopping point. If the Church’s teaching on sexuality can be revised to accommodate contemporary mores, why not the Resurrection? Why not the existence of God?
The lesson is clear: religious traditions that compromise their distinctive doctrines in pursuit of contemporary acceptability do not thereby gain adherents—they lose them. Those who might have been attracted by the tradition’s unique claims find nothing worth joining; those already within find nothing worth staying for. The via media leads not to broader appeal but to institutional suicide.
The Separationist Heresy threatens to inflict upon Thelema the same fate that progressive accommodation has inflicted upon the Roman Church. Those who would strip Thelema of its Prophet, its cosmology, its aristocratic philosophy, and its initiatic structure in order to make it acceptable to democratic sensibilities are not saving Thelema—they are killing it. They offer a Thelema indistinguishable from secular humanism with occult window-dressing, and they imagine this will attract adherents. The Roman Church’s experience suggests otherwise.
Verily, let us celebrate the death of the step-mother Church. However, let us learn from Her error—lest we repeat it.
I. The Root Error: Separating the Law from the Lawgiver
The Heterodox Position
The Separationist argues that the Master was merely a ‘messenger’—a conduit through whom the Law passed, but whose personal views, interpretations, and instructions are irrelevant or even embarrassing. On this view, one may accept Liber AL vel Legis whilst rejecting the Master’s commentaries, His other writings, and His authority as Prophet. Some go further, suggesting that the Master’s alleged ‘racist undertones’ or ‘fascist’ tendencies must be excised from Thelema if the religion is to be palatable to modern sensibilities.¹⁷ Others argue that ‘scientific illuminism’ was merely a ‘psychological and rhetorical strategy’ rather than genuine doctrine—implying that the Master was being disingenuous in His public presentation of Thelema.¹⁸
A more sophisticated variant of this error attempts to distinguish between Aleister Crowley the man and Ankh-af-na-khonsu the Prophet. On this view, the actual prophet is the ancient Egyptian priest who merely speaks through Crowley when the need arises. Therefore, the opinions of Aleister Crowley can be safely ignored—one need only attend to those moments when Ankh-af-na-khonsu deigns to speak. This argument presents a theological impasse that its proponents imagine to be clever but which is, in fact, incoherent. How does one know when it is the words of Aleister Crowley or Ankh-af-na-khonsu that one is reading? Is it possible for the views of Aleister Crowley to ‘leak’ into the words of Ankh-af-na-khonsu? Why would Ankh-af-na-khonsu choose such an allegedly ‘flawed’ vessel with which to promulgate His words?
The Orthodox Refutation
This position is refuted by Liber AL vel Legis per se. The Book does not present itself as an anonymous transmission to be freely interpreted by anyone who happens upon it. It names its Prophet explicitly and repeatedly:
'The chosen priest & apostle of infinite space is the prince-priest the Beast; and in his woman called the Scarlet Woman is all power given. They shall gather my children into their fold: they shall bring the glory of the stars into the hearts of men.'¹⁹
The command is unambiguous: 'Obey my prophet!'²⁰ This is not a suggestion. It is not an invitation to consider the Prophet’s views alongside other perspectives. It is a divine imperative.
Furthermore, the Book explicitly mandates that the Prophet provide commentary:
'My scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu, the priest of the princes, shall not in one letter change this book; but lest there be folly, he shall comment thereupon by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khu-it.'²¹
The Master’s commentaries are not optional addenda; they are commanded by the Book itself as a safeguard against ‘folly.’
The attempt to separate Aleister Crowley from Ankh-af-na-khonsu is refuted by the Master’s own commentary on this very verse. He writes:
'The Beast is here definitely identified with the priest of the 26th Dynasty whose Stele forms the Pantacle (so to speak) of the new Magick. He is moreover identified with the scribe.'²²
The identification is complete and explicit: the Beast, Ankh-af-na-khonsu, and the scribe are one and the same person—the man Aleister Crowley.
The Master elaborates further in His commentary on AL I:15:
'It is necessary to say here that The Beast appears to be a definite individual; to wit, the man Aleister Crowley.'²³
There is no ambiguity here, no room for the Separationist’s clever distinction between the ‘vessel’ and the ‘prophet.’ The Beast is Aleister Crowley. Ankh-af-na-khonsu is Aleister Crowley. The Prophet is Aleister Crowley.
The Master further explains why obedience to the Prophet is necessary:
'It is proper to obey The Beast, because His Law is pure Freedom, and He will give no command which is other than a Right Interpretation of this Freedom. But it is necessary for the development of Freedom itself to have an organization; and every organization must have a highly-centralized control.'²⁴
And again:
'It is also necessary to give weight to the authority of The Beast, lest ignorance, folly, or cunning misinterpret the text.'²⁵
Even James Eshelman, in his commentary on AL I:32, acknowledges that
‘the phrase “Obey my [i.e. Nuit’s] prophet!” means to obey the HGA who is, to each, the sole prophet of Nu’ only as ‘a specific meaning only of value to the Adept.’ For the uninitiated—which is to say, for the vast majority of those who would call themselves Thelemites—'the instruction is… to follow the instructions provided by 666.'²⁶
There is no escape from the authority of the Prophet for those who have not yet attained to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Yet the Separationist position thus requires one to accept Liber AL as authoritative whilst simultaneously rejecting the authority it explicitly confers upon its Prophet. This is not interpretation; it is contradiction.
Moreover, the claim that one can extract ‘Do what thou wilt’ from its Thelemic context and treat it as a freestanding ethical principle ignores the fact that the phrase has a specific technical meaning within the system. ‘True Will’ is not mere desire or preference; it is the expression of one’s essential nature as a Star, discovered through the practices and ordeals the Master prescribed. Without the cosmology of Nuit, Hadit, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit; without the doctrine of the Holy Guardian Angel; without the secrets hidden within grades of the A∴A∴ and the initiatic structure of the O.T.O.—the phrase ‘Do what thou wilt’ becomes meaningless, or worse, a license for mere caprice.
Interlude: The Incompatibility of Modern Sensibilities with the Law
Before proceeding to examine the specific heresies that flow from Separationism, we must address a prior question: why do the Separationists wish to remove the Master from Thelema? The answer lies in the fundamental incompatibility between the Law as the Master received it and the reigning pieties of the present age.
Contemporary Thelemic discourse has, in many quarters, degenerated into what one writer aptly terms ‘tepid liberalism dressed in magical vocabulary.’ The Law is invoked to defend individual lifestyle choices and comfortable positions rather than to demand the revolutionary transformation demanded from within the pages. Thelema has been rendered ‘politically inert’—a spiritual accessory to bourgeois existence rather than a sword against the dying Aeon.
This domestication of Thelema requires the removal of the Master, for His teachings are irreconcilable with the democratic sentimentalism that pervades modern discourse. Consider the plain words of Liber AL vel Legis:
'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.'²⁷
And,
'Ye are against the people, O my chosen!'²⁸
These are not verses that can be reconciled with egalitarian politics. They cannot be softened into affirmations of universal human dignity or democratic participation. They assert, in terms that admit of no equivocation, that the Chosen are fundamentally, necessarily set against the people as presently constituted.
The Master’s commentary on these verses is equally unambiguous: ‘the cant of democracy’ rests upon the false premise ‘that men are equal,’ when in reality ‘facts are against’ such a notion. The masses, conditioned by the dying order, are ‘not reliable guides to their own liberation.’
Their preferences are those of the dominated—they seek better terms within existing structures rather than the destruction of those structures and the establishment of the Law.
This is why the Separationist must remove the Master. So long as His commentaries stand, so long as His explicit teachings on aristocracy, hierarchy, and the spiritual unfitness of the masses remain part of the Thelemic canon—the Law cannot be conscripted into the service of progressive politics. The Master is an obstacle to the domestication of Thelema, and so He must be dismissed as a mere ‘messenger’ whose personal views are irrelevant.
However, the Master was not merely a messenger. He was the Prophet—‘the chosen priest & apostle of infinite space.’ His views are not incidental to Thelema; they are Thelema, insofar as Thelema exists as a coherent system rather than a slogan. To reject the Master’s aristocratic philosophy is to reject the Law itself, for the Law was given through Him and to Him, and His interpretation of it is commanded by the Book itself.
The Separationist imagines he can retain ‘Do what thou wilt’ whilst discarding everything the Master taught about what True Will means and how it is discovered. This is not interpretation; it is evisceration.
II. The Democratic Heresy: Remaking Thelema in the Image of the Age
The Heterodox Position
A second species of error attempts to reinterpret Thelema through the lens of contemporary progressive politics. This manifests in several forms:
A. The Political Manifesto. One writer presents a ‘Thelemic Political Manifesto’ that advocates for various progressive causes—including identity-based rights, environmental activism, and drug reform—as inherently Thelemic positions, declaring solidarity with ‘people of color and cultural and ethnic minorities’ and affirming ‘science and scientific literacy’ regarding climate change.²⁹
B. The Leftist Crowley. Another author attempts to demonstrate that the Master was essentially a ‘leftist’ whose views align with contemporary progressive politics, citing quote-mined statements on minimum wage, medical assistance, and tolerance.³⁰
C. Political Conformity as Thelemic Virtue. Perhaps most egregiously, one writer argues that supporters of a particularly controversial political figure ‘need to make a hard choice’ between their political allegiance and their membership in the O.T.O.³¹ The implication is that political conformity—to a particular set of political views—is a prerequisite for authentic Thelemic practice.
The Orthodox Refutation
The attempt to conscript Thelema into contemporary political movements—whether of the Left or the Right—fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the Law. Thelema is not a political programme; it is a spiritual dispensation. The Master Himself specifically warned against this very fallacy.
The Master’s political views, insofar as He expressed them, were aristocratic, not democratic. He wrote explicitly of His contempt for democracy on more than one occasion: 'Democracy dodders.'³² He described the average voter as ‘a moron’ who ‘believes what he reads in newspapers’ and 'has no power of independent thought.'³³ In a letter to Grady McMurtry dated August 18, 1943, He declared unequivocally:
'The system of the Book of the Law is aristocratic; I am an aristocrat. A better word for democracy is ochlocracy—the rule of the mob.'³⁴
These are not the views of a ‘leftist.’ They are the views of a spiritual aristocrat who understood that the masses are not capable of self-governance and that true leadership must come from those who have attained to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
The demand for political conformity among Thelemites is particularly pernicious—not because political views are irrelevant to Thelema, but because the direction of conformity demanded by the heterodox is precisely backwards. Liber AL declares: 'Every man and every woman is a star.'³⁵ Each Star has its own orbit, its own True Will. The Master wrote in Liber OZ: 'Man has the right to think what he will.'³⁶ This right is absolute within the bounds of the Law.
The question is not whether certain political views are incompatible with Thelema—they manifestly are, as we shall see in our discussion of Marxism below. The question is which views are incompatible. The heterodox would exclude those whose politics offend contemporary progressive sensibilities. The orthodox position, grounded in the Master’s explicit teachings, recognizes that it is collectivist ideologies—those that subordinate the individual Star to the mass, the class, or the state—that are irreconcilable with the Law.
III. The Fascism Accusation: Slander Against the Prophet
The Heterodox Position
One of the most serious accusations levelled against the Master is that He ‘planted the seeds of fascism’ in Thelema. One writer applies Umberto Eco’s fourteen characteristics of fascism to Thelemic doctrine and concludes that the Master 'said a lot of stuff that resembles fascist talking points.'³⁷ The author opines that the Master’s emphasis on tradition, His critique of rationalism, His praise of action, His aristocratic philosophy, and His martial imagery all constitute evidence of proto-fascist tendencies.
The Orthodox Refutation
This accusation is both historically ignorant and intellectually dishonest.
First, the historical context: The Master wrote Liber OZ in 1941 as an explicit response to the rise of fascism and Nazism. The document is a declaration of individual rights against totalitarian collectivism. To accuse the author of Liber OZ of fascist sympathies is to ignore the very purpose for which He wrote it.
Second, the methodological error: Eco’s fourteen characteristics are so broad that they could be applied to virtually any traditional religious or philosophical system. Is Buddhism ‘fascist’ because it emphasizes tradition and the inadequacy of reason? Is Islam ‘fascist’ because it speaks of spiritual warfare and the coming Kingdom? The application of such criteria to Thelema reveals more about the political anxieties of the accuser than about the nature of Thelema itself.
Third, the substantive refutation: The Master explicitly rejected both fascism and communism as ‘abortive births of the Child.’ He wrote:
'Democracy dodders. Ferocious Fascism, cackling Communism, equally frauds, cavort crazily all over the globe. They are hemming us in. They are abortive births of the Child, the New Aeon of Horus.'³⁸
He wrote in Magick Without Tears:
'Hitler’s “Herrenvolk” is a not too dissimilar idea; but there is no volk about it.'³⁹
The Master’s aristocracy is not racial or national; it is spiritual. The ‘lords of the earth’ are those who are doing their True Will—regardless of race, nation, or social class. The accusation of fascism is, in the end, a rhetorical weapon deployed by those who wish to discredit the Master without engaging with His actual teachings. It is slander, and should be recognized as such.
IV. The Institutional Heresy: Attacking the Orders
The Heterodox Position
The Separationist frequently extends his critique from the Master to the Orders He established. One article lists several reasons why the O.T.O. is allegedly ‘doomed,’ including accusations that ‘dissent is not tolerated,’ that the leadership consists of ‘the same old white dudes from 30 years ago,’ that the Order has ‘no vision,’ and—most revealingly—that ‘the whole weird sex magick thing at the center’ is a barrier to growth.⁴⁰
The Orthodox Refutation
The O.T.O. and the A∴A∴ are not social clubs to be reformed according to contemporary sensibilities. They are initiatic Orders established by the Master under the explicit direction of the Secret Chiefs. The Orders’ structure, rituals, and central mysteries are not subject to democratic revision.
The complaint that the leadership consists of ‘old white dudes’ reveals the essentially political—rather than spiritual—nature of the critique. The qualifications for leadership in an initiatic Order are not demographic but attainment-based. One does not become a leader in the O.T.O. by representing a particular identity group; one advances through the grades by demonstrating mastery of the Work.
The dismissal of ‘the whole weird sex magick thing’ as a barrier to growth is particularly telling. The sexual mysteries are not an embarrassing appendage to be hidden from potential recruits; they are the central secret of the Order, the key to the IX° and the supreme practical method of Magick. To suggest that the Order should downplay or abandon these mysteries in order to attract more members is to suggest that the Order should cease to be what it is.
The Master Himself addressed this matter directly:
'The O.T.O. is in possession of one supreme secret. The whole of its system at the time when I became an initiate of the Sanctuary of the Gnosis was directed towards communicating to its members, by progressively plain hints, this all-important instruction.'⁴¹
To abandon the central mystery is to abandon the Order itself, and thus, the secrets contained therein.
V. The Gender Heresy: Rejecting Polarity
The Heterodox Position
Some contemporary writers attack what they term ‘gender essentialism’ in Thelemic doctrine. One argues that ‘the major shortcoming of Western Occultism is its reinforcement of binary norms’ and that Thelemic cosmology is ‘fundamentally incorrect’ in its treatment of polarity.⁴² Another criticizes the Gnostic Mass for its binary structure and demands accommodation for ‘non-binary’ individuals.⁴³
The Orthodox Refutation
The polarity of masculine and feminine is not a social construct to be deconstructed; it is a cosmic principle enshrined in the very structure of Thelemic theology. Nuit is the Infinite Space; Hadit is the Infinitely Contracted Point. The Priest and Priestess of the Gnostic Mass embody this polarity in ritual form. The entire system of sex magick depends upon the interaction of complementary forces.
To reject polarity is to reject the cosmology of Liber AL itself. The Book speaks of ‘every man and every woman’—not ‘every person’ or 'every individual.'⁴⁴ It speaks of the Beast and the Scarlet Woman, of the Priest and the Priestess. These are not arbitrary categories to be revised according to contemporary gender theory; they are the fundamental polarities through which the divine manifests in the material world.
This does not mean that individuals who do not conform to conventional gender expressions are excluded from Thelema. The Master Himself wrote of ‘every intermediately-sexed individual’ and affirmed their right to 'interpret and communicate Self by means of any sexual practices soever.'⁴⁵ However, the recognition of individual variation does not require the abolition of the cosmic principles that structure the system.
The Gnostic Mass, as the Master composed it, requires a Priest and a Priestess—not because of arbitrary social convention, but because the ritual enacts the cosmic union of opposites. To demand that this structure be altered to accommodate contemporary gender ideology is to demand that the ritual cease to function as the Master designed it.
The Adept’s Transcendence Is Not the Abolition of Polarity
A more sophisticated objection may be raised: did not the Master Himself, particularly in His later years, claim to embody both masculine and feminine principles? Did He not adopt the name Baphomet—the divine androgyne—as His motto in the O.T.O.? Does this not suggest that the Master Himself rejected the gender binary?
This objection confuses two distinct matters: the cosmic polarity that structures Thelemic theology and ritual, and the personal attainment of the Adept who has transcended duality by encompassing both poles within themselves.
The Master did indeed describe Himself as possessing ‘a sort of hermaphroditism in his physical structure,’ with ‘well-marked feminine characteristics’ added to ‘a perfectly normal masculine type.’ He wrote that this dual nature enabled Him ‘to understand the psychology of women, to look at any theory with comprehensive and impartial eyes, and to endow him with maternal instincts on spiritual planes.’ Most significantly, He declared that by ‘being both at once,’ He had been 'able to formulate a view of existence which combines the positive and the negative, the active and the passive, in a single identical equation.'⁴⁶
This is the attainment of the Magister Templi—the Master of the Temple who has crossed the Abyss and transcended the dualities that bind ordinary consciousness. The instruction is explicit:
'Be neither man nor woman, but both in one. Be silent, Babe in the Egg of Blue, that thou mayest grow to bear the Lance and Graal!'⁴⁷
Yet, note carefully: this transcendence is achieved through polarity, not by its denial. The Adept becomes ‘both in one’ precisely because there are two poles to unite. The Lance and the Graal—the masculine and feminine instruments—remain distinct even as the Adept grows to bear both. The Baphomet is the ‘divine androgyne’ representing ‘mystical perfection through a union of opposites’—but there can be no union where there are no opposites to unite.
The Master’s personal transcendence of gender duality does not abolish the cosmic polarity that structures Thelemic ritual and theology. The Gnostic Mass still requires a Priest and a Priestess because the ritual enacts the cosmic drama of Nuit and Hadit, of the Lance and the Cup, of the active and passive principles whose congress generates the universe. The Adept who has internally transcended this duality may, through that very attainment, comprehend and embody both roles—but this is a matter of internal realization, not external abolition of the ritual structure.
To demand that the Gnostic Mass accommodate ‘non-binary’ celebrants by abolishing the distinction between Priest and Priestess is to confuse the Adept’s internal attainment with the external structure of the rite. It is as though one demanded that the Eucharist abolish the distinction between bread and wine because the communicant experiences them as one in the act of reception. The distinction is essential to the operation; its transcendence occurs within the communicant, not by altering the rite.
VI. The Marxist Heresy: Yoking Thelema to Collectivism
The Heterodox Position
Perhaps the most extreme position encountered in this survey is the explicit advocacy of Marxism-Leninism as a vehicle for Thelemic politics. One writer declares an intention to ‘use the engine of Marxism-Leninism’ to achieve political goals, with ‘the Law of Thelema’ guiding progress.⁴⁸
The Orthodox Refutation
This position is so manifestly contrary to Thelemic doctrine that it scarcely requires refutation. The Master explicitly condemned both socialism and fascism as collectivist errors. In His introduction to The Book of the Law, He wrote:
'Democracy dodders. Ferocious Fascism, cackling Communism, equally frauds, cavort crazily all over the globe. They are hemming us in. They are abortive births of the Child, the New Aeon of Horus. Liberty stirs once more in the womb of Time. Evolution makes its changes by anti-Socialistic ways.'⁴⁹
Note well: ‘Evolution makes its changes by anti-Socialistic ways.’ The Master could not have been clearer. Socialism—and its more virulent form, Marxism-Leninism—is antithetical to the evolutionary principle that underlies Thelemic philosophy.
Marxism-Leninism is a collectivist ideology that subordinates the individual to the class, the party, and the state. It is the antithesis of the Thelemic principle that 'every man and every woman is a star.'⁵⁰ The attempt to synthesize Thelema with Marxism is not a creative reinterpretation; it is a fundamental contradiction.
Liber AL declares:
'We are not for the poor and sad: the lords of the earth are our kinsfolk.'⁵¹
The Master’s commentary on this verse is instructive:
'The “lords of the earth” are those who are doing their Will. It does not necessarily mean people with coronets and automobiles; there are plenty of such people who are the most sorrowful slaves in the world. The sole test of one’s lordship is to know what one’s true Will is, and to do it.'⁵²
This is not a statement compatible with Marxist class analysis. The ‘lords of the earth’ are not the bourgeoisie to be overthrown; they are the spiritual aristocracy who have discovered their True Will.
VII. The Anarchist Heresy: Misreading Aristocracy
The Heterodox Position
A more sophisticated error attempts to interpret Thelema through the lens of anarchism. One writer argues that ‘Anarchism and Thelema appear not only to be compatible, but complementary,’ and that the Master’s aristocratic language should be understood ‘metaphorically’ as referring to spiritual attainment rather than actual social hierarchy.⁵³
The Orthodox Refutation
While this position is more nuanced than crude Marxism, it still grossly misreads the Master’s intent. The Master did not use ‘aristocracy’ as a mere metaphor. He genuinely believed that the masses were incapable of self-governance and that society required the leadership of initiated adepts. He wrote in Magick Without Tears:
'While there exists… any man who falls far short of MYSELF—I am against Anarchy, and for Feudalism.'⁵⁴
The Master’s vision was not of a society without hierarchy, but of a society with proper hierarchy—one based on spiritual attainment rather than birth or wealth. The ‘lords of the earth’ are those who have discovered and are performing their True Will. They are fit to rule precisely because they have transcended the petty desires and fears that govern the masses.
Anarchism, even in its most sophisticated forms, rejects hierarchy as such. Thelema does not. The A∴A∴ is explicitly hierarchical, with grades from Probationer to Ipsissimus. The O.T.O. is hierarchical, with degrees from Minerval to X°. These structures are not unfortunate historical accidents to be reformed away; they are essential to the transmission of the current.
As the Master wrote:
'The Law of Thelema is not anarchy; it is the Law of the Strong.'⁵⁵
VIII. The Question That Must Be Asked
Having surveyed the various heresies that flow from Separationism, we must pause to ask a question that the Separationists themselves seem unwilling to confront: Why do they cling to Thelema at all?
If the Master’s aristocratic philosophy is so objectionable, if His views on democracy, hierarchy, and the masses are so repugnant to modern sensibilities, if His commentaries must be dismissed and His authority rejected—why not simply leave? There exist innumerable spiritual traditions that would provide far less friction to progressive political views. Unitarian Universalism welcomes all comers with no doctrinal demands. Secular humanism offers ethical principles without a supernatural belief system. Various forms of ‘spiritual but not religious’ practice allow one to construct a bespoke spirituality from whatever elements one finds agreeable.
Why, then, do the Separationists insist on remaining within Thelema whilst systematically dismantling everything that makes Thelema distinctive?
The answer, we suspect, lies in a combination of factors. Some are drawn to the aesthetic trappings of Thelema—the robes, the rituals, the exotic terminology—whilst rejecting the substance beneath. Others have invested years in Thelemic practice and cannot bring themselves to admit that they have been pursuing a path fundamentally incompatible with their values. Still others, perhaps, recognize at some level that Thelema offers something that secular progressivism cannot—a genuine encounter with the numinous; a path of transformation; a connection to something greater than the individual ego—and they wish to retain these benefits whilst excising the elements that challenge their comfortable assumptions.
However, Thelema cannot be broken up piecemeal. One cannot take the mystical experiences whilst leaving the aristocratic philosophy. One cannot accept the Holy Guardian Angel whilst rejecting the Prophet who taught us how to attain to His Knowledge and Conversation. One cannot embrace ‘Do what thou wilt’ whilst denying the cosmology that gives the phrase its meaning.
The Separationist must eventually make a choice: accept Thelema as the Master transmitted it, or honestly acknowledge that Thelema is not for them and seek a path more congenial to their temperament. What they cannot do—what intellectual honesty forbids—is to remake Thelema in their own image and still call what remains by the same name.
Conclusion: The Necessity of Orthodoxy
The various heresies examined in this essay share a common root: the desire to make Thelema acceptable to contemporary sensibilities by stripping it of everything that contemporary sensibilities find objectionable. The Separationist wishes to keep ‘Do what thou wilt’ whilst discarding the Prophet who received it. The Progressive wishes to keep the language of liberty whilst imposing political conformity. The Anarchist wishes to keep the rhetoric of individual sovereignty whilst rejecting the hierarchies that make initiation possible.
Yet, Thelema is not a buffet from which one may select agreeable items whilst leaving the rest. It is a revealed religion with a Prophet, a Book, a cosmology, and a tradition. One may accept it or reject it, but one cannot remake it in one’s own image and still call the result Thelema.
The Master warned us:
'The fool readeth this Book of the Law, and its comment; & he understandeth it not.'⁵⁶
The Master’s commentary on this verse distinguishes between two senses of ‘the fool.’ In the higher, mystical sense, the Fool is ‘the Great Fool, Bacchus Diphues, Harpocrates, the Dwarf-Self, the Holy Guardian Angel’—the innocent Babe in the Egg of Blue, awaiting initiation.⁵⁷
However, in the plain English sense, the fool is ‘the vain, soft, frivolous, idle, mutable sot’ who 'will make nothing either of this Book, or of my comment thereon.'⁵⁸ He is ‘an epicene creature, soft and sottish, with an imbecile laugh,’ who ‘lacks virility’ and whose 'value is Zero.'⁵⁹ He is 'the average man… he has no will of his own, is all things to all men, is void, a repeater of words of whose sense he knows nought.'⁶⁰
The Separationist, who would strip Thelema of its Prophet and its doctrine to make it palatable to the masses, is precisely this fool. He repeats the words ‘Do what thou wilt’ without understanding their sense. He is ‘all things to all men’—accommodating every contemporary prejudice; offending no one; standing for nothing. He is void.
Understanding comes through the ordeals—through the actual practice of the system as the Master transmitted it. Those who would revise the system before they have mastered it are not reformers; they are fools in the least flattering sense.
Let us therefore hold fast to the Prophet and His Law. Let us study His commentaries with the reverence they deserve. Let us work the grades of the A∴A∴ and the degrees of the O.T.O. as He established them; and let us resist—with all the force at our disposal—those who would dismantle Thelema merely to render it acceptable to the profane.
The Law is for all, indeed—but it is the Law as the Prophet received and transmitted it—not as the Separationist would revise it.
Love is the law, love under will.
Footnotes
Anonymous, ‘The Cringe Question in Thelema’, ThelemicUnion.com (2024).
‘German Bishops and the Specter of Schism: How Did It Come to This?’, The European Conservative (2026).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
‘Over 70 bishops warn German bishops that “Synodal Path” will lead to schism’, LifeSiteNews (2021).
‘Germany’s Catholic exodus continues under Synodal Way leadership’, The Catholic Herald (2026); ‘Result of the German Synodal Way? Half a million Catholics leave the Church’, Zenit (2025).
‘Catholic Church in Germany lost more than 500k members, had only 25 priestly ordinations in 2025’, LifeSiteNews (2026).
Luke Coppen, ‘The German Church’s taxing problem’, The Pillar (2023).
‘Accommodation, Fortification, or Conversion? Approaches to Catholic Engagement with Secular Culture’, Religions 16:2 (2025).
‘New Statistical Study Shows Vatican II Triggered Worldwide Decline in Mass Attendance’, Complicit Clergy (2025).
‘Liberal Christianity’, Grokipedia (2025).
‘US Episcopal Church Loses Nearly 35,000 Members in 1 Year’, The Christian Post (2019).
‘Episcopal Church Faces Stark Demographic Reality As Membership Declines’, Religion Unplugged (2026).
Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), §2.
Ibid., §3.
Anonymous, ‘Is Thelema Fascist?’, ThelemicUnion.com (2020).
Anonymous, ‘Revelation and Grace are the Core of Thelema, Not Scientific Illuminism’, ThelemicUnion.com (2021).
Aleister Crowley, Liber AL vel Legis (Cairo, 1904), I:15.
Crowley, Liber AL, I:32.
Crowley, Liber AL, I:36.
Aleister Crowley, The New Comment on Liber AL vel Legis, Commentary on I:36.
Crowley, New Comment, Commentary on I:15.
Crowley, New Comment, Commentary on I:32.
Crowley, New Comment, Commentary on I:36.
James Eshelman, Commentary on AL I:32, in The Commentaries of AL (College of Thelema).
Crowley, Liber AL, II:21.
Crowley, Liber AL, II:25.
Anonymous, ‘A Thelemic Political Manifesto’, ThelemicUnion.com (2017).
Anonymous, ‘Aleister Crowley’s Leftist Politics’, ThelemicUnion.com (2020).
Anonymous, ‘The Case Against Trump Supporters in the O.T.O.’, ThelemicUnion.com (2020).
Aleister Crowley, ‘Introduction’ to The Book of the Law (London, 1938).
Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears (Hampton, 1954), Chapter XLVIII.
Aleister Crowley, Letter to Grady McMurtry, 18 August 1943, in The Grady McMurtry Project.
Crowley, Liber AL, I:3.
Aleister Crowley, Liber OZ sub figurâ LXXVII (London, 1941).
Anonymous, ‘Is Thelema Fascist?’, ThelemicUnion.com (2020).
Crowley, ‘Introduction’ to The Book of the Law.
Crowley, Magick Without Tears, Chapter XLVIII.
Anonymous, ‘7 Reasons the O.T.O. is Doomed’, ThelemicUnion.com (2019).
Aleister Crowley, Confessions of Aleister Crowley (London, 1969), p. 709.
Anonymous, ‘Now I Know Why They Say To Keep Silent’, ThelemicUnion.com (2023).
Anonymous, ‘7 Reasons the O.T.O. is Doomed’, ThelemicUnion.com (2019).
Crowley, Liber AL, I:3.
Aleister Crowley, The Law is for All, ed. Louis Wilkinson and Hymenaeus Beta (Tempe, 1996), Commentary on I:51.
Aleister Crowley, Confessions of Aleister Crowley (London, 1969), Chapter 1.
Aleister Crowley, Liber LXV, I:16.
Anonymous, ‘Our Humanitarian Syphilis of the Mind’, ThelemicUnion.com (2020).
Crowley, ‘Introduction’ to The Book of the Law.
Crowley, Liber AL, I:3.
Crowley, Liber AL, II:18.
Crowley, New Comment, Commentary on II:18.
Anonymous, ‘Thelemic Anarchism’, ThelemicUnion.com (2017).
Crowley, Magick Without Tears, Chapter XLVIII.
Aleister Crowley, Liber II: The Message of the Master Therion (London, 1919).
Crowley, Liber AL, III:63.
Crowley, New Comment, Commentary on III:63.
Ibid.
Crowley, New Comment, Commentary on III:57.
Ibid.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Crowley, Aleister, Liber AL vel Legis sub figurâ CCXX (Cairo, 1904)
Crowley, Aleister, Liber OZ sub figurâ LXXVII (London, 1941)
Crowley, Aleister, Liber II: The Message of the Master Therion (London, 1919)
Crowley, Aleister, Liber LXV vel Cordis Cincti Serpente (London, 1907)
Crowley, Aleister, The Book of Thoth (London, 1944)
Crowley, Aleister, Magick Without Tears, ed. Karl Germer (Hampton, 1954)
Crowley, Aleister, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ed. John Symonds and Kenneth Grant (London, 1969)
Crowley, Aleister, The Law is for All: The Authorized Popular Commentary on Liber AL vel Legis, ed. Louis Wilkinson and Hymenaeus Beta (Tempe, 1996)
Crowley, Aleister, The New Comment on Liber AL vel Legis, available at hermetic.com
Crowley, Aleister, Letter to Grady McMurtry, 18 August 1943, The Grady McMurtry Project, blazingstar-oto.org
Eshelman, James, The Commentaries of AL (College of Thelema)
Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis (Vatican, 1907)
Secondary Sources (Heterodox — Cited for Refutation)
Anonymous, ‘A Thelemic Political Manifesto’, ThelemicUnion.com (2017)
Anonymous, ‘Thelemic Anarchism’, ThelemicUnion.com (2017)
Anonymous, ‘7 Reasons the O.T.O. is Doomed’, ThelemicUnion.com (2019)
Anonymous, ‘Aleister Crowley’s Leftist Politics’, ThelemicUnion.com (2020)
Anonymous, ‘Is Thelema Fascist?’, ThelemicUnion.com (2020)
Anonymous, ‘Our Humanitarian Syphilis of the Mind’, ThelemicUnion.com (2020)
Anonymous, ‘The Case Against Trump Supporters in the O.T.O.’, ThelemicUnion.com (2020)
Anonymous, ‘Revelation and Grace are the Core of Thelema, Not Scientific Illuminism’, ThelemicUnion.com (2021)
Anonymous, ‘Now I Know Why They Say To Keep Silent’, ThelemicUnion.com (2023)
Anonymous, ‘The Cringe Question in Thelema’, ThelemicUnion.com (2024)
Secondary Sources (Roman Catholic Parallel)
‘Accommodation, Fortification, or Conversion? Approaches to Catholic Engagement with Secular Culture’, Religions 16:2 (2025)
Coppen, Luke, ‘The German Church’s taxing problem’, The Pillar (2023)
‘Episcopal Church Faces Stark Demographic Reality As Membership Declines’, Religion Unplugged (2026)
‘German Bishops and the Specter of Schism: How Did It Come to This?’, The European Conservative (2026)
‘Germany’s Catholic exodus continues under Synodal Way leadership’, The Catholic Herald (2026)
‘New Statistical Study Shows Vatican II Triggered Worldwide Decline in Mass Attendance’, Complicit Clergy (2025)
‘Over 70 bishops warn German bishops that “Synodal Path” will lead to schism’, LifeSiteNews (2021)