by nagasiva yronwode

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) towers over modern Western occultism like a stormcloud — prolific, controversial, and endlessly misread. "Thelema," the philosophical and spiritual current he associated himself with, is often reduced to Crowleyan cultism: scripture memorization, initiatic hierarchy, and the gematric mystery of the number 93. But Thelema as a living current — the principle of individual will operating freely within a cosmos of love — is larger and older than Crowley, and its teachings do not stand or fall with his personal conduct.

In January 2004, a sixteen-year-old student posted to alt.pagan.magick with sincere questions about the Scarlet Woman, Babalon, the 93 Current, and what Crowley actually meant by all of it. nagasiva yronwode — one of the most careful Thelemic thinkers on Usenet — answered at length. His response is a primer on discernment: how to approach Crowley without being swallowed by Crowleyan cultism, how to read synchronicity without losing probability sense, how to think about initiation, and how to understand Thelema's core principle of sovereign will. It is patient, clear, and entirely free of the condescension that such questions often attracted.

On Beginning Young

For one your age, a year of study is a very long time, and there is so much information associated with these key words that even a year is not that long, especially if you're studying them via books, the internet, or some other indirect source. Even if you were to study with a scholar of the topics, it might take a few years to get to levels of competence as an adult, and as a sixteen-year-old in school it would take longer.

You're biting off quite a bit to start so young, but I'm sure there are others who did likewise. When I first ran into Crowley I was at 17 years old and I was not anywhere near ready to understand his writings or his position in the history of occultism — that came after perhaps a decade more.

On Liber Al and Crowley's Scripture

I suggest that Liber Al is not essential to occultism, or even to Thelema. It is Crowley's scripture and has no essential import to the less cultish members of the Thelemic community. I may be amongst a minority within the Thelemic community with this view.

This is important: Crowley is not the be-all and end-all of Thelemic teachings. There is a kind of spectrum of instruction, some of it named 'Thelemic', some of it not, which has nothing to do with Crowley even if it might be reflected from him or in contrast. Beware of the 'good-because-it-is-called-Thelemic' stamp. Instead, try to identify subsets or schools within the Thelemic community and watch for their differences — the "Typhonian" stream surrounding Kenneth Grant, for example, the "OTO" affiliated with that initiatic order, etc. These aren't all the same and sometimes they clash very strongly. Secondarily, but no less importantly, there are schools and teachings completely overlooked by those affiliated with Crowleyan cults that are old and describe systems of volition and science but aren't labelled 'Thelemic'. You can sometimes see references to these in the works of writers identified as Thelemic — Crowley mentions Schopenhauer and Fichte, for example.

On the Number 93

In brief, Crowley appears to have discovered a numerolinguistic resonance within Greek gematria between the words "Thelema" (will) and "Agape" (love), and he thereafter made much of them in his writings and works. What significance they have beyond this in Thelemic teachings seems to depend in part on how closely they are related to Aleister Crowley.

On the Scarlet Woman and Babalon

The phrase "Scarlet Woman" was used by Crowley in a variety of ways. He often called his lover with whom he had some magical interests in common and with whom he did what he called 'sex magic' his 'Scarlet Woman'. It seems like it was a kind of shifting office — 'his Scarlet Woman during this time period' — and Crowley's peculiar (and wrong) notions about the development of life (he believed in what is called the 'humunculus theory', in which semen is thought to be the 'seed of life', ignoring the real contribution of the ovum) and about women (his relationship with his mother was not the best, and he had Victorian, sometimes backwards, sexist values that influenced his relationships) all colored his use of the figure.

Crowley's theology included a spin-off on a figure found in Christian scripture — the Mother of Abominations, Babylon. Crowley chose to change the spelling of the name to 'Babalon', probably for numerological reasons, and he described her in ways more complimentary and helpful than is the Babylon Whore of the Book of Revelations.

My impression is that he treated the Scarlet Woman as an initiatrix, a gate through which he would find initiation — some kind of passionate Virgin-inversion whose lascivious and insatiable hedonism might be used to his ends. Check out the Harris-Crowley trump: Lust. On it are the figures of Babalon and the Beast, a spin-off of the more malevolent and evil characters who were described by John of Patmos as metaphors for the times in which he wrote, which have now, because of their imagery and poetic ambiguity, been turned to all manner of supposed meaning.

On Synchronicity and Omens

Where synchronous developments are concerned, usually more than one of them of a comparable resonance are given more weight than single instances unless they are called for or specifically keyed to a symbol-set. Typically and traditionally, this is specified as 3 times, but the type and timing of such significant incidents gives greater and lesser emphasis to their meaning.

In the case of a single phone number resonance I would not place too much significance on its arising, though it may be an indicator of energetic character with respect to society at large.

In interpreting signs, omens, and coincidence, knowledge of probability theory (in particular as regards science and games) is extremely helpful, as is attentive skepticism brought to the gathered data — how it was gathered, by whom, when — in part because these kinds of things are often used by the shrewd to manipulate or influence to desired ends. A supplementary study of confidence games is also helpful as preparation because the occult world is sadly smattered with charlatans and manipulators who try to exploit and abuse the gullible and innocent.

On Initiation

Initiation is a variable which few will either understand well enough or be broad-minded enough to explain to you clearly. I suggest that you ask often of those whom you encounter what they think initiation is or does, and those who dissuade you from asking or give you simplistic answers should be avoided thereafter as dangerous or fools.

In the Thelemic community, as often as not, it is used as a kind of assisted hamstringing or weight-hefting device, an ordeal serving to challenge the initiate and provide them with greater hurdles so as to develop unusual muscle groups, metaphorically. Engaging initiation too early could be detrimental to a person's overall growth. I'd suggest that it is unnecessary at all in any formal or social sense, though there is definitely a different quality to it than self-initiation or initiation by some unusual intelligence — gods, spirits, etc.

On the 93 Current — A Working Definition

Shifting from hierarchies to anarchic, cooperative systems, less reliance on dogma and doctrine and more on fortitude and fidelity, condemning not the alien, supporting fully-informed choices by the competent.

My impression is that the current is living, present, and always active, emanating within our overall treatment of those whom we meet, and the responsibilities we take in our interactions — not parental, respectful, allowing the individual to take a role they need or desire where it fits.

I don't see Thelema's core claim — that all individuals are of equal worth and attainment — consistently supported within the Thelemic community. Within Crowley's writings, for example, there is an apparent elitism: effectively it appears that those who want to be independent and sovereign, and who prepare themselves accordingly, are to be the elite without Thelema-bosses. Most of the elitist Crowleyans quote his scripture to this effect: "The Slaves shall serve!" The less cultish Thelemites might resist this framing.

The whole quality of 'musts' and 'thou shalts' and 'thou shalt nots' is outdated except for children (for guidance) and slaves (for service). YMMV — which is, in a sense, a Thelemic slogan.

Colophon

Posted to alt.magick.tyagi, alt.magick, alt.thelema, alt.pagan.magick, alt.magick.tantra, and talk.religion.misc by nagasiva yronwode (writing as "333") on January 4, 2004. nagasiva was one of the most careful and prolific Thelemic commentators on Usenet through the 1990s and 2000s. This post, written in response to a sixteen-year-old student's sincere questions, functions as a thorough primer on Thelema: how to approach Crowley without being subsumed by Crowleyan cultism, how to understand the Scarlet Woman and Babalon, how to read synchronicity, and how to think about initiation. It exemplifies nagasiva's characteristic approach — patient, scholarly, free of condescension, and consistently more interested in liberating the student than in defending any doctrine.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].

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