This statement has been workshopped and approved by the majority of the Thelemic order Leadership Advisory Council
In the past several days, members of the Thelemic Community have witnessed unprecedented statements against human and civil rights, particularly by the US President and some US media. Meanwhile, other elected leaders, and even members of the President’s own cabinet, have spoken out against such inflammatory rhetoric.
No Thelemic position can exist based on devaluing the contributions, lives, sanctity, and sovereignty of human beings due to Nationality, sexual orientation, or gender identity. As leaders in the Thelemic community, we have a responsibility to remind ourselves and others of the need to stand against the tyranny and superstition at the root of prejudice. It is our duty to take decisive action against those forces of tyranny and superstition through all means available to us.
While there are many injustices in the United States and around the world, we feel it is important we make it clear that, regardless of our own background, we stand not only with our members but also with all people of African Descent We support those who resist and protest the systemic entrenched racism exemplified by brutal and repressive policing sweeping across America. It is not just our right but our responsibility to honor and support making their voices heard and their struggle to attain basic civil rights which many of us were raised to believe were already guaranteed to all Americans — as they should be to all people.
The civil rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights are not the Rights of Man as framed in Liber Oz, but their resemblance is no coincidence. The Thelemic concept of rights, as well as Crowley’s personal conceptualization, are part of the liberal tradition of Western Freemasonry, the brotherhood of mankind. The architects of the Constitution drew strongly upon that Masonic tradition when they framed out the rights that would be enjoyed by citizens of the new republic. Thus the Bill of Rights and the Rights of Man framed in Liber Oz must be seen as siblings, sharing a common heritage.
The Thelemic Order feels that, as Thelemites, we are compelled to take our place amongst the many religious and social institutions of America in reaffirming our commitment to basic values at this time of deep national pain. We join many others condemning all those authorities who have, by calling for the use of force to impose restrictions, sought to thwart the rights of mankind.
It is divisive to frame our national pain as an “us” versus “them” choice, in which to take the side of those people of African Descent who have been murdered by civil authorities is to stand, inherently, as an enemy of law enforcement. This is an ancient magician’s choice offered by tyrants in which order is framed as antithetical to, and exclusive of the Rights of Man. As Thelemites, we neither accept this illusion nor condone this division. We can honor individuals who are faced with accepting corrupt leadership or losing their livelihood while holding that leadership accountable.
Our fight is not with people who serve to enforce the law, but rather the restrictive interests who put them into conflict, inflicting corrupt leadership to their disadvantage and humiliation. We recall in particular that those who chose to serve with the military gave an oath to preserve the Constitution, and have historically abhorred the idea of service against their fellow citizens.
Crowley stated, “when laws are reasonable in the eyes of the average man, he respects them, keeps them, does his best to maintain them; therefore a minute Police Force, with powers strictly limited, is adequate to deal with the almost negligibly small criminal class.” It is those who make unreasonable laws or implement the laws unevenly for their own profit, who we oppose. The vast rising against their injustices is, from a Thelemic point of view, de facto evidence that “laws are unjust, monstrous, ridiculous,” and we understand that in those communities so affected “that same average man, will he-nill he, becomes a criminal.”
We see corrupt laws or the corrupt implementation of laws as products of “those parasites of society who feed upon the troubles caused by Restriction, officials, lawyers, financiers, and the like. Ill disposed people—that is, those whose failure to understand their own true Will of Freedom leads them to seek to interfere with others,” and “are not to be tolerated.” We most especially hold to account those officials who rather than rectifying injustice seek to perpetuate it by the use of force. We oppose them without regard to any title or rank they may hold, even that of Commander-in-Chief.
We do not excuse individuals who commit corrupt or repressive acts under the guise of “policing,” but we recognize that the problem does not begin or end there. Systemic racism is Restriction in every Thelemic sense of the word. Those who promulgate or benefit from it are responsible. Those among us who tolerate what is “not to be tolerated” are equally culpable.
Crowley says that the outcome of injustice is a state where “the law requires a Tcheka or a Gestapo with dictatorial powers and no safeguards to maintain the farce.” Calls to “deploy the national guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets” and establish “overwhelming law enforcement presence,” along with threats to deploy Federal Troops if states take insufficiently aggressive and militaristic action are calls to do just that, and we must all stand together in resistance to this threat to overturn our Constitution and civil processes.
There is no space in Thelema for leaders of any organization to be silent on this matter. We do not seek to shift the spotlight from those leaders whose voices most need to be heard, particularly those of African Descent, but rather to affirm the importance and gravity of their statements.
We know right from wrong. We have the will to effect change. We dare to speak out and to act. We call upon our allies and friends who share the call to service as organizers and leaders in promulgating the Law to echo us in this statement.
The Thelemic Order feels that, as Thelemites, we are compelled to take our place amongst the many religious and social institutions of America in reaffirming our commitment to basic values at this time of deep national pain. We join many others condemning all those authorities who have, by calling for the use of force to impose restrictions, sought to thwart the rights of mankind.