I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net

crucifixion of a toad symbolizing Jesus. Identifying himself with the godhead
of the apocalyptic monster foretold in Revelations, he took the name To
Mega Merlon 666 (Great Beast 666), and set for himself no lesser aim than
"to set in motion occult forces which would result in the illumination of all
by 2000 A.D." Crowley's law for human conduct, uttered by his followers
with alarming frequency, is "Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law." In
practice, the Law of Thelema compels those who accept it to seek the one
thing that they were meant to do in this incarnation, and to fulfill one's Will
regardless of any external opposition – to be what you most truly are. A full
exploration, acceptance, and mastery of one's sexual desires is an important
part of this quest. Just as we have noted that one of Crowley's other wellknown
dictums "Love is the Law, Love Under Will" bears a suspicious
resemblance to his sex magical predecessor P. B. Randolph's "Will reigns
Omnipotent; Love Iieth at the Foundation", so is Crowley's Thelema and its
law of Do What Thou Wilt clearly appropriated from a much earlier source.
In the bawdy French novel Gargantua, by Francois Rabelais, written
in 1542, we find an Abbey of Theleme, whose randy Thelemite libertines live
under the motto Fay Ce Que Vouldra – Do What Thou Wilt. Sir Francis
Dashwood's eighteenth-century society for aristocratic rakes and orgiasts, the
Hellfire Club, emblazoned this same motto from Rabelais over the entrance
to their own mock Abbey at Medmenham. (Crowley founded his own lowbudget
Abbey of Thelema in a Sicilian farmhouse during the 1920s.) At the
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very least, then, Crowley's religion of Thelema and its Do What Thou Wilt
philosophy must be considered repackaged goods. To those who pointed out
the earlier appearances of these key Thelemic concepts to him, Crowley
brazenly insisted that Rabelais was in fact a secret Adept who anticipated the
coming of Crowleyanity. In deference to this prophetic vision, Crowley
canonized Rabelais as a Thelemic saint. Crowley, like most founders of
religions, twisted the sometimes awkward facts of history to meet the needs
of his budding faith.
The Thelemic injunction of "do what thou wilt" can be compared to
the Tantric left-hand path level of initiation known as Svecchacaya. The
Svecchacari adept is said to literally follow the way of "do as you will."
Such initiates have transcended all pashu dualities. The Svecchacari is free
to act according to will, having passed beyond the strictures binding the
uninitiated. Crowleyan Will, like Tantric Svecchacaya is not a license for
anarchy, rape, and murder as has commonly been assumed. At least in
theory, the Thelemite and the Vama Marga initiate are permitted to act
according to self-volition, rather than obey the laws dictated by society and
religion, because they operate from a divine state of consciousness. Whether
Crowley can be said to have mastered himself sufficiently to exercise his
Will with such impunity is open to question. Nevertheless, it's apparent that
he himself entertained no doubts on the matter.
Shortly after declaring himself an Ipsissimus, a grade of initiation
in the Western magical tradition roughly equivalent to the Eastern left-hand
path Divya, Crowley composed a revealing initiatory self-portrait. The
mixture of brutally honest self-examination leavened with flashes of
megalomania typifies the Crowleyan approach to his favorite subject:
"I am myself a physical coward, but I have exposed myself to every form of
disease, accident and violence; I am dainty and delicate, but I have driven
myself to delight in dirt and disgusting debauches, and to devour human
excrements and human flesh. I am at this moment defying the power of
drugs to disturb my destiny and divert my body from its duty. I am also a
mental and moral weakling, whose boyhood training was so horrible that its
result was that my will wholly summed up in hatred of all restraint, whose
early manhood, untrained, left my mind and animal soul like an elephant in
rut broken out of the stockade. Yet I have mastered every mode of my mind,