Choose ye an island! Rethinking the Future of Thelema in an Unstable World

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

I may have fallen off a cliff. Again.

I’m not sure yet if I’ve jumped into dangerous waters¹And if I have, I’m sure that those who keep me accountable will jump in to ensure I make it back to shore safely. or if I’m just treading into new territory that might be fascinating for those looking for a life outside the sociopolitical turmoil happening all around us here in the United States.

But, once again, I’m outside my wheelhouse.

Setting the Stage

Several months ago, I found myself fascinated by the work of Christopher Cook, author of the online book-in-progress, The Distributed Nation: A Plan for Human Independence. It started off well enough until I figured out that Cook is a far-right nutcase and libertarian mouthbreather who is inconsistent in his message across the board. He makes Ayn Rand look liberal.

But his actual foundation wasn’t too far off the mark once I figured out the context of his references: most of them are merely Balaji Srinivasan’s The Network State on crack. At least Srinivasan makes sense.

And that’s the part that I think has me spooked at the moment.

I can’t figure out if I’ve fallen for some kind of crypto-libertarian-mumble-crap or if it actually makes sense. I’m struggling to figure out whether I am honestly buying into Srinivasan’s ideas or if it is a matter of political circumstances that create this bias that his ideas make sense in this moment.

Part of my issue is that I reject the idea that Thelema aligns with any of the current political ideologies: left, right, center, Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green, Socialist—any of them at all. And that includes whether they’re viewed as “American style,” “European style,” or any other way. I think Thelema views politics very differently than anything we know so far, even if it may appear to agree with bits and pieces from any (or all) of these different ideologies.

Dystopian Deconstruction

Let’s be honest here.

The world didn’t end after the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.

It didn’t end after the institution of the Patriot Act and damn near the closest thing to a World War, though against a far less cohesive enemy, we’ve had since World War II under Bush, Jr.

It didn’t end with the election of a black man.

COVID-19 didn’t end the world either.

I’m not entirely convinced the world is ending now despite every Doomsdayer on the planet calling in their chips about how they called it accurately enough.

However—and this is the kicker for me—I’m not entirely convinced they are wrong.

The problem I have is that nearly all of them are Far-Right nutcases. But when I find myself agreeing with some take or another from Gordon White, I feel like I should be hating myself or something. Yet here I am. Hating myself, that is. Because I did—do. Agree with him on something, that is. I’m not sharing because I refuse to share his work for ethical reasons—and the fact of the matter is I don’t normally read his work; it was an algorithm thing that I stumbled across and found myself reading without realizing it was him. But that’s not the point. Am I nuts for agreeing with a Right-Wing fruitcake?²I admit this crosses over into the purity discussions I will address in Doctrinal Triage: The Importance of Doctrine in a Time of Spiritual Infancy, which will be published in March. But the layers we apply to doctrine could also be applied to ideology in the pursuit of forming communities of survival.

Where are our Thelemic thinkers who are planning for long-term survival? I know Gerald thinks about this stuff. I am fairly confident we’re about to see some material from him on this soon. At least, I hope so. However, more to my point, where is the resource planning group on this? The Far-Right and Christian Nationalists have been planning, resourcing, networking, unionizing, and building their endgame for decades. Occultists are twiddling their thumbs and cosplaying wizards. (And the Right-Wing Occultists are just all grift even if they’re talking a good game some of the time.)

“Who calls us Thelemites,” isn’t that what the Book of the Law says? It creates an identity there. Us. Not just me. Not just you. Us.

Does the us have a plan?

As I was working on this, I did receive an email from a Substack announcing an upcoming book release on ‘agrarian magic.’ I’m being vague on purpose, not because I don’t want to promote it but because it’s not my point here. (I want to see more of this, actually. Once it releases, I will probably do a Conversations, Coffee, and Communion dispatch over it! I can’t wait!) I wish we had more people like Todd, teaching others how to not merely be in touch magically with the land but to be grounded in survival, how the land itself is part of the magic of living. The only problem I have (not with Todd or his book, just agrarianism generally) is that the fucking Nazis coopted this agrarian idealism (Blood and Soil, etc.) and turned our natural proclivities toward tribalism into a nasty form of ethnocentricism. And they continue to do this even today.

But we—whether it be Thelemites specifically or occultists generally—need to be developing co-ops, communities, and microeconomies of our own if only for our own survival in the long run. If we’re looking at some kind of sociopolitical collapse around us—and I don’t know that we really are, but if we are—then we need to lean into our own mythology of “The Occult™” as those who are hidden, those who are underground. We can create microgroups of like minds, but we also need to cross boundaries of ideologies to take care of the larger occult macrocosm itself.

“But, dude, you’re just being paranoid!”

Maybe. Maybe not. But stick with me here for a moment longer. I think you’ll see that I’m not stretching as much as you might think.

The Island

I admit that I’m intrigued by Srinivasan’s concept of the Network State. I’ll be honest and say upfront that I don’t know how viable it is. I’m still reading through it. However, at the outset, as a starting point—almost like one might use starter dough for bread—I think there are some good ideas. I’m not sure about the cryptocurrency aspect. I’m hesitant to jump on that train with as little knowledge as I have of crypto for now.³I would love for someone to teach me more. I don’t know enough about it, so I can’t know if I should be leaning into it or away from it. That’s as honest as I can be about the subject.

However, as a discussion point, the idea of a network union⁴“A network union is a global, mobile social network with an integrated blockchain and an explicit backlink structure, capable of collective bargaining with giant corporations and states alike. It is a check on the power of both concentrated capital and political capitols. The integrated blockchain gives the network union access to the social technologies listed above: encrypted messaging, crowdfunding, governance, and the like. And the explicit backlink structure gives the network union a social support base with a clear leader, a concrete purpose, and an internal conflict resolution mechanism.” [Srinivasan] seems like a workable one, even if I have some hesitations about certain aspects that need to be addressed in my mind.

It would require a selection of individuals who are interested in choosing an island, fortifying it, and dunging it about with the enginery of war—at least, metaphorically speaking. Or maybe literally, depending on how you interpret all that.

I’m hesitant about occult fraternities for many reasons, but despite O.T.O.’s lack of effectiveness in the world today, I think its design would survive in a time of crisis and protect its membership because it has outlined a micro-society that (in theory and if worked properly) would continue to function despite the collapse of the macro-society around it.⁵This is not a defense of the current organization or its leadership, but merely its organizational design. The current organization lacks any ability to survive a collapse, but the structure on paper seems like it would be a decent model to (re)examine.

Nonetheless, I believe that a federation of groups would ultimately be the most effective solution, enabling each group to select its own structure while adhering to a common framework of governing principles. This is where Srinivasan’s Network State comes into play.

Choosing an Island

Srinivasan writes, “Found a startup society. This is simply an online community with aspirations of something greater. Anyone can found one, just like anyone can found a company or cryptocurrency. And the founder’s legitimacy comes from whether people opt to follow them.”⁶Srinivasan, Balaji. 2022. The Network State: How To Start a New Country.

It’s a start. This is easy enough, quite frankly. Organize on Discord to begin. Move to something more secure later.

The idea is to set the plan in motion first. Set up secure communication and a system of basic governance, and then conceptualize and motivate a plan of action to move forward. Frankly, I am a fanatical “194er” (meaning, I absolutely swear by Liber 194, though I know many find it difficult to parse—and I would take out lifetime appointments, but that’s a conversation for another time). However, in order for it to work properly, it has to be worked properly—and the O.T.O. just pays it lip service. But I also think there are other models to explore. I merely mention this because it’s one outline to consider in the approach to governance and structure that is familiar already to most Thelemites.

In any case, the first step is the easiest step: start an online group of like-minded people. We do that all the time. Then, expand from there. Working out the details of community structure and goverance can evolve over time. Quickly, granted, but still an evolution from a working group within that online community.

Fortifying the Island

Srinivasan goes on to write, “Organize it into a group capable of collective action. Given a sufficiently dedicated online community, the next step is to organize it into a network union. Unlike a social network, a network union has a purpose: it coordinates its members for their mutual benefit. And unlike a traditional union, a network union is not set up solely in opposition to a particular corporation, so it can take a variety of different collective actions. Unionization is a key step because it turns an otherwise ineffective online community into a group of people working together for a common cause.”⁷Balaji, 2022, The Network State. (emphasis mine)

This, in my opinion, is the flaw of modern fraternities. If we look closely enough at the foundational documents of O.T.O., for instance, this is precisely what it was designed to accomplish. It’s failed because it’s obsolete in form but not in function. I mean, O.T.O. itself may be obsolete in function because it’s rendered itself toothless, but the idea and social goals of O.T.O. are not obsolete. They are still as relevant today as they were when they were formulated.

But there isn’t a single occult fraternity today that operates (in form) to these functions for its membership, and the excuse of “well, we don’t have the resources” or “we can’t get people to pay dues” doesn’t cut it for me. There are thousands of churches that do just fine without needing every individual within that church to pour $31/month into the coffers on demand. The pay-to-play system is abusive and predatory.

However, this idea of a network union seems to carry promise. Different individuals with different strengths come together to provide for a common cause: in this case, survival, but ultimately, the growth and prosperity of the community being built.

The Enginery of War

I’ll stop here with one more excerpt from Srinivasan: “Build trust offline and a cryptoeconomy online. Begin holding in-person meetups in the physical world, of increasing scale and duration, while simultaneously building an internal economy using cryptocurrency. Crowdfund physical nodes. Once sufficient trust has been built and funds have been accumulated, start crowdfunding apartments, houses, and even towns to bring digital citizens into the physical world within real co-living communities.”⁸Balaji, 2022, The Network State.

These are two different points in his introduction, and I’m still hesitant—more out of my personal ignorance than anything else—about the cryptocurrency aspect of this idea, but everything else aligns with community building. Eventually, online activity has to move into the real world. There has to be an actual economy built on a symbiotic system where social trust and mutual cooperation coexist with a functional market.

This is where we dig in. This is where we build a community that matters. This is where we plant places, people, and processes. And under this network union idea (and eventually, a Network State), this doesn’t all have to be in the same physical location. That’s the whole point of this idea: a networked state distributed across various locations, yet connected as a functional organism. I think what comes to my mind is something like a federation of monasteries, each with its own flavor yet tied together under an overarching governance.

Final Thoughts

I don’t know what our future holds. This could just be another four years of noise. This could just be four years of disaster. But whatever happens, I do think we need to start thinking both bigger and closer to home. What I mean is that we have to start thinking outside the box of merely localized groups and yet growing localized groups at the same time. The network node, via Srinivasan’s idea of the network union, provides strength in numbers, security of redundancy of information and resources, and safety in unity.

I think it’s an idea worth considering even if the world doesn’t fall apart.

Love is the law, love under will.