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From: Dan Clore 
Subject: ::: Aleister Crowley on Politics :::
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 02:42:04 -0800

Aleister Crowley on Politics

by ?

Introduction

It is unfortunate that Aleister Crowley never wrote a 
single systematic treatise on the theory of politics, 
for Crowley's visionary genius shone far beyond the 
occult realms for which he is noted, into the heart of 
the State and the social problems of the Twentieth 
Century: problems which, far from having been resolved 
by the fall of Communism, it is only now beginning to 
be recognized and understood by the leading intellectuals 
of the time are leading towards the greatest catastrophe
in history, comparable to the prehistoric Neolithic 
Revolution, from which history itself emerged. The work 
which follows is a "synthetic" essay. It was compiled 
from more than a dozen of Crowley's political writings, 
by a process of "scissors and paste." First, all of 
Crowley's major political insights were collected and 
compared, out of which emerged a set of definite themes 
(see the Bibliography at the end of the essay). These were 
then reorganized, in order of length. Finally, the 
individual quotations were "sewn together." The result is
a logical and coherent exposition of Crowley's ideas, such 
as Crowley himself might have written had he been inspired 
to do so. This work meets a very real need. There is very 
little understanding, even amongst Thelemites, as to the
political implications of the Law of Thelema. "Liber Oz" is 
often cited, but it is only a skeleton or outline of a 
possible future constitution, devoid of context. Many 
Thelemites seem to be attracted to an anarchist, 
anarcho-capitalist, or even anarcho-fascist interpretation 
of the Law of Thelema, little aware that the Prophet himself 
rejected both pure anarchism and capitalism, considered Hitler
to be an instrument of the Black Brothers, and Mussolini a 
fool. Crowley was far ahead of his time, as the following 
paper clearly shows. Not only did Crowley understand that 
monetarism is servitude, and that urban industrialist 
capitalism/consumerism/corporatism is really no different in
the long term from socialism, and the mother of imperialism 
and warfare (about which, surprisingly, he was not enthusiastic),
but he understood that the increasing importance of technology 
would lead inevitably to a "technocracy," a new dictatorship 
of "experts," and a philosophy of mechanism, in which the 
individual would be reduced to a cog in the social machine, 
and that the increasing complexification of industry would 
inevitably end in authoritarianism and collapse, such as is 
foreseen by many contemporary radical intellectuals. While 
many modern savants look to grassroots democracy as a remedy 
for our social ills, Crowley rejected democracy also as just
another form of dictatorship by the weak, the mediocre, and 
the vicious. And in his call for the rejection of materialism 
in favour of a new spirituality, decentralization, return to 
the land base, the radical simplification of society and its 
legal system, and in his recognition of the need for an ideal
State situated above and beyond the "bottom line" of the 
dictatorship of the rich, Aleister Crowley is in the very 
forefront of the radical ecotopian vision of the future. 
Clearly, Aleister Crowley is a prophet to be reckoned with,
whose vision of the New Aeon, ridiculed during his lifetime,
now seems, in the late Twentieth Century, to be looming, all 
too uncomfortably close!

A note on the text: All of the words which follow were written 
by Aleister Crowley, with one exception, indicated by the use 
of square brackets. I have made the use of capitals consistent, 
and I have normalized some spellings, but otherwise the only 
other editorial discretion which I have utilized is that of 
selecting and ordering the selections in order to make a 
coherent exposition. I have paid a great deal of attention to 
Crowley's meaning in context, including many passages not
included herein; I believe that the following accurately 
represents the tenor, substance, sophistication, and complexity 
of Aleister Crowley's mature political thought.

Aleister Crowley on Politics

Of old, the generality of men desired only things of which 
there were enough for all, such as wives, children, food, 
flowers, music, and various pleasures. Today, the press has 
insanely tried to make all men desire things which demand the 
slavery of other men for their enjoyment, and so are in their 
very nature inaccessible to all. The press has done this in 
order to make men work harder to get money, of course in vain, 
since money becomes valueless as soon as it is more or less 
evenly divided. For this phantom men have given up their true 
wealth, which was attainable by wholesome and moderate labour, 
health, happiness, and the incalculable spiritual treasures which
Burns at his plough, and Boehme at his last, could only share 
with the Westminsters and the Rothschilds, but create for the 
endowment of mankind at no material cost whatsoever.

The technical developments of almost every form of wealth are 
the forebears of Big Business; and Big Business, directly or 
indirectly, is the immediate cause of War.

Society has had bad masters, who, wishing to increase their 
material wealth and luxury, tried every means to force men to 
slave for them, instead of being independent units. Also, 
profoundly conscious of the contempt in which they and their 
riches were held by poets and artists, mystics, scholars, and 
even by the merely well-born, they used the power of their 
money to destroy the esteem in which men held wit, art, breeding, 
and so forth. They did this even at the cost of diminishing their
own true happiness, for of old the rich gained much from the 
service of genius. They have only endured one type of "superior 
man," for their envy has made them wish to destroy poets and 
scholars and so forth altogether; that man is the man of applied 
science. Him they still tolerate, even encourage, as his work 
aids them directly to pile up still more money. They have cut
their own throats in more ways than one. Firstly, they, and 
especially their families, have become bored with life. They 
want new worlds to conquer, yet they have cut themselves off 
from the worlds infinite in scope, where conquest is an endless 
and increasing joy. Extravagance itself cannot tell them how to 
spend their money to their own advantage or that of others, for 
they have exiled just those brains that could have helped them.

Again, by making the goal of ambition a thing so obvious and 
vulgar that the basest can apprehend and pursue it, they have 
created a competition against themselves of just those people who,
incapable of higher pursuits, will rush blindly upon them, armed 
with their own grossness, avarice, and envy, and outnumbering them
by thousands to one. This danger they have recognized too late;
to meet it, they have made oppressive laws, multiplied taxes, 
created a Praetorian Guard of police, and at last plunged the 
world into war. It was a logical but a fatal folly. This made men 
soldiers to bring them under laws yet more rigorous than before, 
and to kill as many competitors in the race for wealth as possible.
But some survived, and these men, trained to arms, aware of the 
power of discipline and organization and become contemptuous of 
death, demanded their share of the spoils. There was less labour 
to go round; its price increased. Yet there was less wealth produced
and its price rose in sympathy. Depreciation of the purchasing 
power of money was universal; everybody was poorer in everything 
but the bits of paper which the various governments had issued, as 
the Chinese hoped to propitiate evil spirits by casting worthless 
shreds of tissue in the air!

No, the poets in their time were no poorer; and the rich men may 
still gnash their teeth and howl with envy when they see us; for 
our treasure is infinite, and, free to all who can enjoy it, is
accessible to none who cannot.

Mass production for profit fails when its markets are exhausted; 
so every effort is made to impose it not only on the native but 
the foreigner, and should guile fail, then force! But the process
ineluctably goes on; when the whole world buys the nasty stuff, 
and will accept no other, the exploiter is still faced by diminishing 
returns. No possibility of expansion; sooner or later dividends

dwindle, and the business is bust. To even the most stupid it becomes
plain at this stage that war is wholly ruinous; organization breaks 
down altogether; one meaningless revolution follows another;
famine and pestilence complete the job. Last time--when Osiris 
replaced Isis--the wreck was limited in scope--note that it was 
the civilized, the organized part that broke down. This time there
is no civilization which can escape being involved in the totality 
of the catastrophe.

The obscure autocrats of Diplomacy and Big Business are infinitely 
stupid and short-sighted; they cannot see an inch beyond their too 
often stigmatically shapen probosces, except where the profit
of the next financial year is concerned. They live in perpetual 
panic, and shy at their own shadows. They accordingly attack even
the most innocuous windmills in suicidal charges.

But what will the rich do next? The survivors of their armies have 
for the most part gone onto the game. Social revolutions have 
occurred over a great part of the earth, and elsewhere have only
been postponed because the dearth of labour has, by raising its price,
temporarily obscured, for the less acute minds, the hard fact that 
there is less wealth than ever to go round. But the rich themselves,
hard hit by the depreciation of securities and the lack of luxuries,
are intensely apprehensive of the awakening of the stupid avarice of
the mob. Men who would once have thought themselves princes if they
could have a cottage and a vineyard of their own at fifty, have
been dazzled by newspaper accounts of men become millionaires at 
twenty-five. The sane, natural, worthy ambition has been replaced 
by insane greed and envy. Even those who could still be content with
reasonable comfort see it farther away than ever, and observe also 
that their immemorable liberties and pleasures are under ban. They 
want the rich man's place, arbitrarily and at once, and, aware of 
his unscrupulous methods, see no reason why they should not oppose
force to fraud. Strikes, revolutions, expropriations are in order. 
The rich may try another war; the poor may refuse to become 
cannon-fodder. Also, another war could only make bad worse; I
think that even the rich see that.

The truth is that the prosperity of industrialism depended wholly 
upon accident. After Waterloo, the Nineteenth Century was on the 
whole a period of peace. The means of producing wealth was
simplified faster than the growing complexity of civilization 
demanded. The economic blood showed a rising opsonic index. That 
has stopped. We can no longer devise means to overcome temporarily 
our crises as we have done hitherto. We have no reserves of capital,
either in brain or bone to draw on. Adjustments ask too much. Observe
my knife; 'tis dull? A stone mends that. But my typewriter? I must 
take it at great cost and trouble to Palermo; and then they probably
make a mess of the job. A little more annoyance, and I shall scrap it
and go back to a quill from the first goose I meet! I think that this
is a good analogy of what will happen to civilization. The machinery
will break down beyond repair, and only the simple will survive. What
exact means the stupidity of the rich will devise to precipitate this
event does not seem to matter much. The only alternative is a new 
religion or a new cult of art; and that isn't likely; the people have
been too hopelessly debauched by Christianity and newspapers. There 
must be an optimum relation between industry and agriculture, between 
town and country. When the proper balance is not struck, the community
must depend on outside help, importing what it lacks, exporting its 
surplus. This is an unnatural state of affairs; it results in business,
and therefore ultimately in war. Whenever the proportion of townsfolk 
to countryfolk grows too large, the nation is smashed. We can only 
postpone the crash by our "scientific" schemes of organization. So 
nobody must be allowed to think at all. Down with the public schools!
Children must be drilled mentally by quarter-educated herdsmen, whose 
wages would stop at the first sign of disagreement with the bosses. 
For the rest, deafen the whole world with senseless clamour. Mechanize
everything! Give nobody a chance to think. Standardize "amusement." The
louder and more cacophonous, the better! Brief intervals between one 
din and the next can be filled with appeals, repeated 'till hypnotic 
power gives them the force of orders, to buy this or that product of 
the "business men" who are the real power in the State. Industrialism,
the mother and nurse of socialism, [is] destroying the soul of the 
people.

An Utopia to end Utopias? Very good, so I will. Education, to begin 
with; well, you've had all that in another letter. The main thing to 
remember is that I want every individual taught as such, according to 
his own special qualities. Then, teach them both sides of every
question:
history, for example, as the play of economic forces, also, as due to
the
intervention of Divine Providence, or of "sports" or genius: and so for 
the rest. Train them to doubt--and to dare!

Then, somehow, as large a number of the most promising rebels should be
selected to lead a life of luxury and leisure. Let every country, by 
dint of honouring its old traditions, be as different as possible from
every other. Restore the "Grand Tour," or rather, the roving Englishman
of the Nineteenth Century. Entrust them with the secrets of discipline,
or authority, or power. Hardship and danger in full measure; and 
responsibility.

A great deal of such material will be as disgustingly wasted as it had
been in the past; and there will be much abuse of privilege. But this 
must be allowed and allowed for; no very great harm will result, as the
weak and vicious will weed themselves out.

I have no sympathy with those who cry out against property, as if that
all men desire were of necessity evil; the natural instinct is to own,
and while man remains in this mood, attempts to destroy property must no
only be nugatory, but deleterious to the community. There is no outcry
against the rights of property where wisdom and kindness administer it.

It is necessary for the development of freedom itself to have an 
organization; and every organization must have a highly centralized 
control. In order to obtain freedom to do your will, it is necessary to
submit voluntarily to discipline and organization. Evolution implies
structuralization. The power of man is greater than the power of the 
amoeba, because he has specialized the function of our protoplasm of
which he is composed. In order to do the one thing which you will
truly you must therefore renounce all those other things which may 
tempt you to swerve from the one purpose of your sojourn amongst us.

In the body every cell is subordinated to the general physiological 
control, and we who will that control do not ask whether each individual
unit of that structure be consciously happy. Be we do care that each 
shall fulfil its function, and the failure of even a few cells, or their
revolt, may involve the death of the whole organism. Yet even here the
complaint of a few, which we call pain, is a warning of general danger.
Many cells fulfil their destiny by swift death, and this being their
function, they in no wise resent it. Should haemoglobin resist the 
attack of oxygen, the body would perish, and the haemoglobin would not
thereby save itself. For every individual in the State must be perfect
in his own function, with contentment, respecting his own task as 
necessary and holy, not envious of another's. For so only mayst thou
built up a free State, whose directing will shall be singly directed to
the welfare of all. Say not that in this argument I have set limits to
individual freedom. For each man in this State which I propose is 
fulfilling his own True Will by his eager acquiescence in the order
necessary to the welfare of all, and therefore of himself also. The
problem of government is therefore to find a scientific formula with
an ethical implication. This formula must be rigidly applicable to all
sane men soever without reference to the individual qualities of any one
of them. The formula is given by the Law of Thelema. "Do what thou wilt
shall be the whole of the Law." It is intended ultimately that the 
temporal power of the State be brought into the Law, and led into 
freedom and prosperity by the application of its principles. This
injunction, in one sense infinitely elastic, since it does not specify
any particular goal of will as desirable, is yet infinitely rigid, in
that it binds every man to follow out exactly the purpose for
which he is fitted by heredity, environment, experience, and 
self-development. The formula is thus also biologically indefeasible,
as well as adequate, ethically to every individual, and politically to
the State. It combines monarchy with democracy; it includes aristocracy,
and conceals even the seeds of revolution, by which alone progress can
be effected. The absolute rule of the State shall be a function of the
absolute liberty of each individual will.

The principle of popular election is a fatal folly; its results are
visible in every so-called democracy. The elected man is always the
mediocrity; he is the safe man, the sound man, the man who displeases
the majority less than any other; and therefore never the genius, the
man of progress and illumination. The submergence of the individual in
his class means the end of all true human relations between men. Every 
class, as a class, is almost sure to have more defects than qualities.
As soon as you put men together, they somehow sink, corporatively, 
below the level of the worst of the individuals composing it. Socialism
means war. When the class moves as a class, there can be no exceptions.
It is this fundamental fact which ensures that every democracy shall
end with an upstart autocrat.

It has always been admitted that the ideal form of government is that
of a "benevolent despot," and despotisms have only fallen because it is
impossible in practice to assure the good-will of those in power. The
rules of chivalry, and those of Bushido in the East, gave the best
chance to develop rulers of the desired type. If any person of position
insists upon living a life of hardship and inconvenience when he could 
do otherwise, then men will trust him, and he will be able to execute
his projects for the general good of the commonwealth. But he must 
naturally be careful not to relax his austerities as his power 
increases. Make power and splendour incompatible, and the social problem 
is solved. Where honour is the only possible good to be gained by the 
exercise of power, the man in power will strive only for honour. This
is,
then, the first lesson in our great principle, the attainment of honour 
through renunciation. The patriarchal system is better for all classes 
than any other; the objections to it come from the abuses of it. It is 
generally understood by all men of education that the general welfare 
is necessary to the highest development of the particular. The great 
nobles of all time have usually been able to create a happy family of 
their dependents, and unflinching loyalty and devotion have been their 
reward. The secret has been principally this, that they considered 
themselves noble as well in nature as in name, and thought it foul 
shame to themselves if any retainer met unnecessary misfortune. You 
should treat everybody as king of the same order as yourself. Experts 
will immediately be appointed to work out, when need arises, the details
of the True Will of every individual, and even that of every corporate 
body whether social or commercial, while a judiciary will arise to 
determine the equity in the case of apparently conflicting claims. 
(Such cases will become progressively more rare as adjustment is
attained.) All appeal to precedent and authority, the deadwood of the 
Tree of Life, will be abolished, and strictly scientific standards will 
be the sole measure by which the executive power shall order the people.

The minimum of organization is desirable; all artificial doctrinaire
multiplication of works which produce no wealth is waste; and for many
reasons (some absurd, like "social position") tend to create fresh
unnecessary necessities. 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. A
convention is laudable when it is convenient. When laws are unjust, 
monstrous, ridiculous, that same average man, will he-nil he, becomes 
a criminal; and the law requires a Tcheka or Gestapo with dictatorial 
powers and no safeguards to maintain the farce. Also, corruption becomes
normal in official circles; and is excused. The basis of our criminal 
law is simple, by virtue of Thelema: to violate the right of another 
is to forfeit one's own claim to protection in the matter involved. 
Every man has a right to fulfil his own will without being afraid that 
it may interfere with that of others; for if he is in his proper path, 
it is the fault of others if they interfere with him. Acts invasive of
another individual's equal rights are implicitly self-aggressions. Men 
of "criminal nature" are simply at issue with their True Wills. Only one
symptom warns that you have mistaken your True Will, and that is, if you
should imagine that in pursuing your way you interfere with that of 
another star. Collision is the only crime in the cosmos.

What is money? A medium of exchange devised to facilitate the
transaction
of business. Oil in the engine. Very good, then; if instead of letting
it
flow as freely and smoothly as possible, you balk its very nature; you
prevent it from doing its True Will. So every "restriction" on the 
exchange of wealth is a direct violation of the Law of Thelema. Money 
must circulate, or it loses its value. Progress demands anarchy tempered
by common sense. All laws, all systems, all customs, all ideals and 
standards which tend to produce uniformity, being in strict opposition
to Nature's will to change and to develop through variety, are accursed.

Political Writings of Aleister Crowley

* "An Account of A.'.A.'." In Gems from the Equinox (St. Paul, MI: 
Llewellyn, 1974), pp. 31-41. (All subsequent references to this work 
shall appear as Gems.) *

"An Appeal to the American Republic." In The Works of Aleister Crowley
(Des Plaines, IL: Yogi, n.d.), pp. 136-40. 

Atlantis: The Lost Continent. Malton, ON, Canada: Dove, n.d. 

The Book of the Law. York Beach, ME: Weiser, 1976. 

* "Concerning the Law of Thelema." In The Equinox, Vol. III, No. 1
(New York: Weiser, 1974), pp. 225-38. 

The Confessions. London: Arkana--Penguin, 1989. 

The Heart of the Master. Montreal, PQ: 93 Pub., 1973. 

* "An Intimation with Reference to the Constitution of the Order." In 
The Equinox, Vol. III, No. 1, pp. 239-46. 

* "Khabs Am Pekht." In Gems, pp. 99-110. 

The Law Is for All. Phoenix, AZ: Falcon, 1983. 

* "The Law of Liberty." In The Equinox, Vol. III, No. 1, pp. 45-52. 

Liber Aleph: The Book of Wisdom or Folly. York Beach, ME: Weiser, 1991. 

* Liber Oz. Published as a single card in 1942. 

"Liber Porta Lucis." In Gems, pp. 651-55. 

"Liber Trigrammaton." In The Law Is for All, pp. 339-44. 

"Liber Tzaddi vel Hamus Hermeticus." In Gems, pp. 657-62. 

The Magical Record of the Beast 666. Montreal, PQ: 93 Pub., 1972. 

Magick in Theory and Practice. Secaucus, NJ: Castle, 1991. 

Magick without Tears. Tempe, AZ: Falcon, 1973. 

* "The Message of the Master Therion." In The Equinox, Vol. III, 
No. 1, pp. 39-43. 

* "An Open Letter to Those Who May Wish to Join the Order." In The
Equinox, Vol. III, No. 1, pp. 207-24. 

* The Scientific Solution of the Problem of Government. N.p.: Ordo
Templi Orientis, [1936]. 

The Secret Rituals of the O.T.O. Publication information not available. 

* "Thien Tao." In Konx Om Pax (Des Plaines, IL: Yogi, n.d.), pp. 53-67. 

-- 
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Dan Clore

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