Pedagogical Perspectives On Thelemic Teachers

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

I commented recently that I grew up in a highly conservative Baptist church that was a bit different than most. Unlike in the majority of typical Southern Baptist-affiliated churches of the times, our preacher was convinced that teaching theology from the pulpit was far more conducive to a solid spiritual life than fighting culture wars. I tend to think this shaped and buffered my experiences later in life, as I was surrounded by occulture when it began to shift from analog to digital, from visual to virtual, from learning to consuming.

As pop occulture arose (from pop psychology and pop religion) to offer a quick and easy escape from the ills of American Evangelicalism of the 1980s, fused with the rising grunge scene of the 1990s, everything from Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth or Zendik Farm to the radicalization of individualism of the newly empowered O.T.O. to Steve Jackson’s gamified Discordianism to thirteen flavors of Witchcraft was a temptation for every religion- and Republican-fatigued kid in America listening to fuck me like an animal in the middle of it all. No one cared if it made sense—or if it didn’t.

All I saw was a lot of people running around without their heads screwed on tight, fucking anything that moved, getting suckered by any dude calling himself a “teacher” with a couple of photocopied sheets of paper that claimed to have the secrets of the universe (or at least a secret “IX° cure” for life-threatening conditions), and everyone was calling it “enlightenment.”

And not a single person in the hot tub could parse Greek, Hebrew, or Latin properly. But they sure as fuck could tell you the qabalistic breakdown of a license plate on the car in front of us when stuck in traffic (as if that made any difference in the world other than to pass the time).

Pedagogical Approaches

In a different life, I teach—like legitimately teach higher education for a paycheck.¹Pedagogical theory is just one of my expertise topic areas. And before anyone assumes that there are only two pedagogical theories in the Western world, there aren’t. In fact, I’m partial to various ideas of both Montessori and Steiner despite problematic elements in each of their published programs. I explain to my students on the first day of class every semester that I don’t give exams because any moron can memorize a list of facts, figures, and faces to regurgitate out onto a piece of paper or computer screen of multiple choice buttons. It’s worthless for assessment purposes. Typically, I use what is known as Socratic circles.²A term that should really be associated with Aristotle but is assumed to have started with Socrates based on sketchy accounts by Plato and Aristotle The idea is to get students to engage in the weekly material in a round-robin dialogue format during each class period. On the whole, it works vastly better than rote assessment.³Or it used to until COVID, but that’s a topic not relevant to this Substack’s subject matter.

When I look at the occult landscape, I tend to see two basic approaches to teaching, one more heavily used than the other. Exceptions and hybrids exist, of course, but generally, these two are the primary avenues of teaching (though I admit that one could hardly be called teaching these days). They follow two long-standing pedagogical forms that have been around for centuries.

The Greek Academy

The Akadēmía was a place of great renown. What little we know of its original construction shows some evidence of lectures and dialectic exchanges. The standard, however, appears to remain that of the “expert” over the student. The expert provides lessons to the student with the goal of shaping the direction of student views. This has been handed down through the centuries and continues in the hallowed halls of academia today.

Education was about being shaped for the future of the polis rather than for their own edification.

The Jewish Yeshiva

Conversely, for the same amount of time, yeshivot⁴I am not going to critique the construction of the yeshivas and their strict gender separations here. My goal is to present the pedagogical value, not any religious or cultural value, to these views. have been the center of Jewish cultural, religious, legal, and educational life. Education was always caught up in the life of the community. Unlike the separation of wealth and privilege in the Greek system, the Jewish community believed all individuals should be educated.⁵Of course, men and women were segregated, and the structure for women was different historically until the modern age. But it is in the system itself that the yeshiva shines. The academic process encourages (but does not require⁶This is really important for our purposes, and especially for those who remain superstitious over the Tunis Comment. Independent study is allowed and not discouraged, and those who are disinclined to study with others are allowed to do so unhindered.) students to study in pairs (chavrusa, lit., fellowship) or groups (chavura) in which the goal is to debate, analyze each other’s opinions, and collaborate on ideas while retaining individual views. The role of a teacher or sho’el u’mashiv (lit, ask and answer) is to provide guidance and clarification rather than act in authority over any question.

Education was about the application to spiritual life, both individual and communal.

Occulture Today

The Grifting Generation

Looking at teachers today, YouTube, Patreon, and the like, you can always tell what kind of teacher you have. Listen to their opening line:

• “I’m going to teach you …”

• “I’m going to show you how to …”

• “I’m going to give you …”

Much like the Greek Academy, the focus is on the teacher and what they can offer the student. The student is to listen and then emulate, be grateful, and offer thanks. The teacher sets themselves up as the center of information and authority. When they use “we” or “we’re,” you can tell they are talking about themselves. This is especially insidious in Thelemic circles where the mockery of authority comes in the form of setting themselves up as an “authority” while disclaiming any role as an authority. There is a heavy emphasis on “do it yourself,” “individual effort,” and “rely on what I give you” education approaches. Lists, homework, readings, isolation, pedigree (titles, degrees, etc), and institutions are all important to this mode of teaching.

An A∴A∴ Education

Crowley’s original idea for the A∴A∴ was to have a strict element of teacher-student collaboration. Based on my own experience, though also based on my research, I believe (and I stress that it is my belief, not a certain proof) that Crowley probably didn’t have the first clue about the yeshiva approach to education but intended the A∴A∴ to function in a similar fashion nonetheless. Despite there being a whole lot of table memorization and “flying rolls” lectures that carry over from the Golden Dawn methods of teaching (we can’t get around any level of memorization of facts and figures, of course), Crowley’s approach seems quite progressive in comparison to many of the so-called mystery schools of the time that were group work or mail-order do-it-yourself.⁷Though, ultimately, the friction is not about groups or not-groups. It’s about abuse of authority. And this is what rubs people the wrong way. Rightfully so.

The often misunderstood restriction on students working together comes typically from a lack of reading comprehension. Crowley nowhere states that students cannot work together but that he inhibited students of the same grade from associating for studies stating, “The real object of the rule was to prevent Members of the same Grade working together and so blurring each other’s individuality.”⁸Crowley, Aleister, Mary Desti, and Leila Waddell. 1997. Magick: Liber ABA. Edited by Hymenaeus Beta. Weiser Books, 495 (emphasis mine). In fact, having members of different grades working together would allow for views from different levels of insight and initiation thereby providing crosstalk from both more advanced and less advanced students and adepts working together. This also ties into Crowley’s ideas of allowing children into meetings perchance they blurt out something that stimulates an idea not previously considered by adults.⁹I wish I could remember where I read that, but the source escapes me as I write this, and all attempts to recover that thought have drawn a blank. If anyone ever runs across this quote, I’d be much obliged if you’d toss it my way with a properly sourced reference.

The Outliers

As a larger community, Thelema continues to have too many who prooftext the Book of the Law in response to simple thoughts on social media, throwing around random, isolated verses to justify dismissing ideas as if they hold authority in such a manner. It’s creepy. It’s weird. And, quite frankly, they should be called out as such. These aren’t serious people. They aren’t adults. They need crayons to keep from hurting themselves and others. They are precisely why the Tunis Comment exists in the first place.¹⁰This is something I discuss further in “Challenges of a Trans-Tunisian Foundation: The Tunis Comment Reexamined”.

Thelemic Teaching

Understanding the Book of the Law is complex. Let’s not fool anyone otherwise. It is far more complex than some backwater number-crunching with a bastardized qabalah obscuring more than it reveals and setting up YouTube egos to grift off those who think dragging their knuckles through Nietzsche is the mark of a King rather than understanding the wisdom of a beggar behind a mask. But it’s not insurmountable. For most people who are willing to put in the effort, basic hermeneutics is barely undergraduate-level work. Only those who have something to sell will try to prevent you from understanding it with the basic exegetic tools at your disposal.

And sometimes, your best tool is a buddy and a coffee shop.

I fully admit that I have a bias against (most) online modes of teaching—and not merely in occulture, but even in academia. I am just now, in the upcoming Spring semester, moving to online programming for the first time with my students as a supplement to my in-class discussion model. However, I have recently begun to reevaluate my stance concerning online and will admit that I think there is a place for it.

That said, and I’ve said this often over the last three decades, there are not enough voices in Thelema. We see this today with the drought of solid websites, essays, discussions, and commentaries over Thelema itself. Lots of magick, handwaving, backwater number crunching, pseudo-psychology masquerading as Thelema, the rise of a whole magical ‘rate my altar’ cottagecore industry, Thelema+, and a metric ton of spiritual bypassing. But very little Thelema quaThelema.

As I was writing this, I saw a social media post by Marco Visconti asking if “in-person ‘scenes’ exist anymore.” I didn’t answer because I didn’t have an answer. I don’t know. But what I can say is that we need to develop a scene, if there isn’t one, a scene that promotes a community of adults being adults rather than a scene of grifters, charlatans, and childish prooftexters. We need our own form of the yeshiva system that encourages thought and exploration.

It’s said that if you ask two rabbis one question, you’ll end up with ten opinions, but only after six hours of heated discussion and debate, and they’ll both end up at the bar toasting to each other’s health when it’s over. That’s the scene I want for Thelema. That’s the scene I want to be in.

Love is the law, love under will.