The Foundations of Thelema
Aleister Crowley’s system, from the Book of the Law to The Equinox.
Thelema is the religious and magical philosophy founded by Aleister Crowley after the reception of Liber AL vel Legis, the Book of the Law, in Cairo in 1904. Its watchword, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” is often misread as licence; Crowley meant the discovery and fulfilment of one’s true will.
This guide explains the system’s sources and offers a reading order through a large and uneven body of work.
What It Is
Thelema combines Crowley’s training in the Golden Dawn with yoga, Kabbalah and his own received texts. Its practical side, “Magick”, aims at the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel and the crossing of the Abyss.
Crowley published his teaching in The Equinox, a periodical issued from 1909, in the numbered “Libri”, and in longer works such as Magick in Theory and Practice and The Book of Thoth.
Why It Matters
Crowley is the most influential occultist of the twentieth century. Whatever one thinks of him, modern magic, chaos magick, much of Wicca and a good deal of popular culture cannot be understood without Thelema.
Core Texts
The foundational Thelemic texts and Crowley’s principal expositions.
A Beginner’s Sequence
The Golden Dawn background
Crowley’s vocabulary comes from the Golden Dawn. A short introduction to that system saves much confusion.
The Book of the Law
Three short chapters. Read them once without commentary, as Crowley instructed, then return later.
The practical system
Crowley’s most systematic statement of theory and practice.
The Equinox
The periodical where the instructions of the A∴A∴ first appeared. Browse by issue.
