Thelemic Cartography
A New Approach to Personal Discovery
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
For decades, the assumption in Thelemic communities has been that everything can be mapped to the Tree of Life. And that may be true. Frankly, Miss. Scarlet W., I don’t give a damn. I think the Tree of Life is the most overrated model in all of occulture and taxonomically useless in the 21st century for any practical purpose beyond showboating in the occult community. I have watched people shoehorn everything from angels to dog breeds to car parts to personality profiles into the Tree of Life. Just crazy!
And now my bias is laid out in the open. We can continue from here.
Starting Over from the Beginning
I remember the first time I opened Magick in 1987—it was that black-covered Dover edition, and I was still in my “it’s okay to dogear, underline, take notes in, and highlight whole pages” phase. By the early 1990s, I must have gone through three copies of that book. One thing always stuck out to me that I have never—then or since—heard anyone discuss, and I have never read about in any book. Crowley writes this unassuming phrase in the first chapter, “Let him, before beginning his Work, endeavour to map out his own being[.]”1 This may be one of the most important—and overlooked—pieces of advice for starting any spiritual endeavor.
There was also that little hint people seem to overlook in the Book of Thoth where Crowley was quite clear that every aeon demanded new models (or “systems of classification”2). To my knowledge, no one has attempted an actual new model with the Aeon of Horus. C. S. Jones turned the Tree of Life upside down, but that’s not really a new model, at least not in my book.
An Ontological Detour
We need to take a brief ontological detour to reach our destination. I’m not going to go into the intricate details here, but I’ll offer the broad strokes because they set the foundation for the rest of the essay. This model will have its own dedicated essay later.
Thelemic Cosmological Model
While the Tree of Life is the predominant form of structure for most Thelemites, even Crowley knew that it was inadequate to represent the perspective of the new aeon. However, he left nothing behind except a slavish adherence to a bastardized qabala and its iconography. We can do better. In fact, we have to do better. Continuing to use the iconography of the old aeon—including its metaphysical implications of “upper/above,” “lower/below,” and all that comes with it (abyss, imaginary paths, masters/slaves, priests/supplicants, etc.)—is spiritually and doctrinally impoverished.
To this end, the model presented here does not involve a fall from grace or the need to crawl back up the Tree. Instead, it offers the whole yet differentiated Star, on a journey of experience, with an annotated expansion of the Khu. This simple yet complete model removes all sterile emanationism from our cosmology in harmony with the explicit and revealed doctrines of the Book of the Law.3
Ontological Taxonomy
Nuit as Ground of Being
First, Nuit is indicated as a selection that runs throughout and around the entire circular model. This is to show that Nuit represents the ground of being or that which holds all being and non-being. It cannot be a “thing,” or it would have a causation that comes before it. Nuit is all of existence in posse (in potential) and in esse (in actuality), but she is neither essence nor existence; instead, she undergirds both, i.e., being-itself (ipsum esse).
Hadit as Ground of Becoming
Second, Hadit (indicated by the ‘H’) is the core of the Star and is each Star’s essential yet impersonal aspect. Hadit is motion-itself, differentiating itself from any other. It is this motion of differentiation that creates the existence of a Star, i.e., the ground of becoming, and that creates the illusion of duality, which allows the journey of experience for each Star. [Put another way, this is the ontological being-ness (ipsa existentia) as opposed to non-being. As Crowley states, “There is no Being apart from Going.”4 Our identity (is/this-ness) is not formed through substance but through relationship (or, movement-in-relation).]
Khabs as Destiny-in-Motion
Third, the Khabs is the direction of the Star, the expression of the True Will, and rightfully considered the individual's Authentic Self.5 The arrow from the center is the symbol of this direction. Each Star will inherently move in a general direction even if the True Will is not explicitly known, thereby causing change through the interaction of the Khu (vide infra) with any possible-to-it experiences. By coming into harmony with this Will, one can utilize “the inertia of the Universe to assist him”6 through life.
As I mentioned in the essay on True Will:
Hadit is displacement.
True Will is direction.
Khu as the Veils of Manifestation
Fourth, the Khu is the (a) personality, (b) profile, and (c) presentation of the individual, the veils of manifestation or experience. The Khu is the aspect we explore through the Great Work. It is that through which we dig into our personal archeology of authenticity.
Thelemic Cartography
Introduction
It’s difficult to discuss the concept of Thelemic Cartography without addressing the idea of the Great Work as well, but I’m going to try to avoid it for the moment to provide merely a broad overview of the Cartography model itself. Suffice here to say that the Great Work, via Crowley’s insistence that it “consists principally in the solution of complexes,”7 has yet to find any publicly available Thelemic methodology that is useful and capable of being used by anyone at all without obscure occult references, needless qabalistic terminology, and untethered from the baggage of New Thought, New Age, and self-help gurus.
Crowley wrote, “the supreme emancipation is the same in essence for all”—read that again, slowly—as he continued, “and for the first time in history it has been possible to present this free from confusion.”8 If only this latter part of the sentence had been true. Crowley’s decision to rely on metaphor and the absurd (his word, not mine) to convey the truth of what he claimed was the “next step of humanity” has hindered our ability to reach the rest of the world. Crowley left us plenty of outright instruction. As much of a penchant as he had for metaphors and absurdities, he still laid it all out clearly throughout his corpus. The problem is that his version of “clear” is to wrap it all up in pompous Victorian occultism along with metaphor and absurdity. Fantastic! Not.
Granted, by his own admission, he was “for all practical purposes, totally ignorant [of] the dynamics of the formula of Horus.”9 He wrote, “The Book of the Law gives manifold instructions, mostly difficult, some seemingly almost impossible, but that is only in the eyes of one born and bred in the Old Aeon.” It really seems so many are entranced by Crowley’s pride and prejudices “born and bred in the Old Aeon” that they can’t work through the “manifold instructions” of the Book of the Law or even those instructions of Crowley that he left in plain sight.10
Even if we credit Crowley with his own “mastery of the English language”—and I don’t—he felt the need to try again with Magick Without Tears. Still, he didn’t do much better, leading a whole generation to venerate his “clear words” as gospel over the “manifold instructions” he left behind prior. But we’re hindered by three things in a modern era: short attention spans, impoverished education systems, and a shit-ton of self-important YouTube gurus.
But the key, in my opinion, is that the Aeon of Horus is dynamic rather than static. It requires a model that allows for a dynamic examination of the individual but also shows a dynamic individual as portrayed by the Book of the Law.
We are each a star that “whirls flaming through the sky[,] each one a Soul of Light and Mirth, horsed on Eternity.”11 I just think we should have a psychological model of the individual representing that glorious image, not as a tree planted, stagnant, and waiting to rot.
Alethiological (Cartography) Model
The alethiological model is informed by three major themes (aside from Thelema, of course): integral theory (via Ken Wilber for its overall structure and Andre Marquis for psychological theory) and both Roberto Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis and Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems for its core principles.12 I wouldn’t call this a finished model at the moment (no model is ever really “finished”), though I haven’t changed it much over the last decade except in some smaller, more insignificant details.
I’ll share the model with you first and then go through it with you. This is not intended to be a comprehensive review of the model. In fact, using the model in more depth (the “why” and “how to” part) is the basis of Map Making: The Journey of Discovery later this year. This model also forms the foundation of the outline for a new Thelemic psychological theoretical orientation and therapeutic approach.
Inside Out: Not the Movie
The alethiological model is predicated on the assumption that Thelema is truthful in its perspective of the universe. It uses the Star metaphor from the Book of the Law to illustrate the biological/behavioral, psychological, cultural, and social domains of individuals.
Thelemic Cartography takes the four validity domains—objective, subjective, intersubjective, and interobjective—builds on top of the model of Thelemic cosmology, and then expands them further into our personal and collective experiential space while maintaining the features of an ontological taxonomy that satisfies the doctrinal constitution of a Star.
Metaphorically:
Each of us is an individual star.
Each of us may be perceived as part of a constellation of stars.
Each of us may be part of a star system with planets.
Each of us is birthed into a galaxy.
Each of us exists within an entire universe.
However you wish to view all those in whole or in part, we exist individually and collectively and have both interior and exterior aspects of our lived experience. Each of these areas has to be (a) pulled apart, (b) examined, (c) confronted, and (d) resolved in some manner for us to uncomplicate these aspects of ourselves (the “solution of complexes”). Crowley writes, “the Great Work for him is to make his veils transparent by ‘purifying’ them. This ‘purification’ is really ‘simplification’; it is not that the veil is dirty, but that the complexity of its folds makes it opaque.”13 But how can we do all this if we don’t know what those folds contain? Gnōthi sauton!
Folds of the Veils
The First Veil—Self-Awareness
This portion of the alethiological model is an expansion of Crowley’s statement in his Commentaries, where he wrote:
The Khu is the magical garment which [the Star] weaves for itself, a ‘form’ for its Being Beyond Form, by use of which it can gain experience through self-consciousness[.]14
We have made significant progress in understanding consciousness since Crowley’s time (his description of the Khu in the above quote sounds like early, undeveloped Jung material of which Crowley had next to no understanding in the first place). For the purposes of the model, the Khu has been expanded to include two additional veils, which encompass the four experiential domains; however, this should not be interpreted to mean they are fundamentally separate.
A more comprehensive explanation of self-awareness and a model of Self (Khabs) will need to be provided another time, as it is too lengthy for this essay.
Complexes of the Psyche
What the Book of the Law calls the Khu, as an expansion of self-awareness, we can readily understand as the veils of manifestation or, in a more psychological explanation, the complexes of the psyche. In simple terms, this is how we interact with and process the universe around us. And everyone uses the same tools (though not always in the same way—that’s the key we’ll return to in Map Making: The Journey of Discovery).
However, rather than settling with the ideas of Freud and Jung as complexes being mere subconscious hangups, the alethiological model expands on similar concepts throughout all four experiential domains in relation to the Star itself via a modified structure of Wilber's AQAL modal.15 Granted, each of these could take up a whole essay or chapter of a book to delve into the intricacies of each quadrant.
Let’s take a look at them.
Behavioral Constructs—Individual Exterior
This is the Upper-Right quadrant on the diagram. In this case, the outside is all about physical behavior, actions, pain/pleasure, etc. These are physical, biological, and behavioral aspects that we can experience and measure. The keyword here is: measure. We can argue over how to measure, but the key is that we can measure.
On the inside, we would mostly label this as cognitive or neural behavior. For example, this is the realm of what we can see when we take brain scans. We are still looking at what we can measure and quantify: the activity of memories (not memories themselves), the measurable chemical reactions of feelings and thoughts, anything related to the limbic system, etc.
Interior Values—Individual Interior
This is the Upper-Left quadrant of consciousness in the sense of awareness (“awake-ness”), which is different from the mechanism of self-awareness. We also find our personal values, spirituality, the subjective side of emotions, sensations, impulses, and perceptions of the world. One might call this our psychological profile, but that comes across as sounding a bit MMPI-ish. Memories themselves, as subjective experiences, fall into this area as well.
On the inside, we examine our personal unconsciousness, inner awareness, or altered states of consciousness (sleep, dreaming, meditation, hallucinations, substance use, etc.). Transpersonal states fall into this area as well.
Social Systems—Collective Exterior
This includes our social connections, networks, and frameworks, as well as the social economics of what I call “family, friends, fraternities, and factions.” This Lower-Right quadrant is the structural (systemic) makeup of our lives and interactions, shaping them whether or not we understand and acknowledge them.
The inside aspect of this quadrant is what we might call social genetics—which can be a touchy subject for some—and underlies an evolutionary understanding of why we choose specific structures of association, and how we inherit those proclivities and predispose those tendencies in our offspring.
Cultural Influences—Collective Interior
All of our cultural influences are here, from our inherited worldview to our search for meaning, our understanding of morality, and even our political views.16
The inside aspect of this Lower-Left quadrant is our collective unconscious. Yes, this is where you Jungians get to shine!
Important Note
The collective in this model does not have the political meaning of “collectivism.” It is the difference between what is exclusive to ourselves (my touchdown, Upper-Right behavior) and what is nonexclusive to ourselves (our football team, Lower-Right structure). We all exist within both individual and collective domains.
Further on the Interior Construction of the Star
This diagram has two more important aspects. On the lower left side, a smaller version is labeled with three additional elements.
The core of the Star [Hadit] and Khabs is identified as existential authenticity and the Khu is labeled with both the individual and collective mauvaise foi.
Existential Authenticity—True Will17
This central core—and more specifically, the Khabs—is that piece of ourselves that is our Silent/True Self. It is known by several different terms, but authentic is what I think best expresses it. When we talk about True Will in terms defined by Crowley, we find that he's always talking about the direction our lives manifest when we have an intimate knowledge and understanding of our deepest nature. It is a sense of existential authenticity.
We are always pushed by it, as I commented in the essay on True Will about walking True North. Still, it is not until we fully grasp that authenticity that we can truly be at peace with our interior drive (destiny) and wholly enraptured by it to press forward in full knowledge and conversation of the Will.
Space won't allow me to pursue an aspect of this existential authenticity at the moment, but I’ll discuss it later in Hall of Mirrors: The Multiverse of the Self. It’s a fascinating study that I think really shakes things up for us, especially as Thelemites.
Mauvaise Foi (Individual & Collective)
Mauvaise foi (Fr., bad faith) is a borrowed existentialist term that I have taken a bit out of context,18 but I think it fits here smoothly. It is generally defined in the dictionary as “failure to exercise integrity and autonomy in one’s basic life choices.”
Existentialist philosophers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre used the concept of mauvaise foi to describe the phenomenon in which individuals, under pressure from social forces, adopt false values and disown their innate freedom, hence acting inauthentically. Mauvaise foi in each of these experiential domains—intentionally or out of ignorance—adds to the complexes keeping us from a full sense of, and experience with, authenticity.
The Great Work explicitly involves simplifying the Khu, that is, resolving the complexes that cause mauvaise foi in both individual and collective experiential domains.
Inside Out: Still Not the Movie
This is a brief introduction to Thelemic Cartography, a model for personal exploration of lived experience with a quick diversion into an alternate construction of Thelemic cosmology. It has the benefit of (a) adhering to the aesthetic metaphor of the Star found in the Book of the Law and keeping us in the mindset of “a star,” (b) the overt doctrines of Thelema via the Book of the Law and the Great Work according to Crowley, and (c) a current psychological understanding of personal development.
Theories and models are only useful if you can use them and if they allow the model to grow through adaptation and new information. Thelema is dynamic. By definition, we must be able to adapt as we better understand ourselves. Continuing to use outmoded tools and models does nothing to help our advancement into the future.
Thelemic Cartography takes the “spooky” out of the process. It’s not easy work, for sure, but it’s not complicated work either. You can almost use the diagram intuitively with relative simplicity. It’s designed that way: adhering to that dictate “to map out [one’s] own being,” pursuing the Great Work through the “solution of complexes” and coming to an understanding of one’s conditions, environment, and influences, therefore freeing one’s self “from the constraints, accidents, and deceptions of material existence.”19
Love is the law, love under will.
See also:
Crowley, Aleister, Mary Desti, and Leila Waddell. 1997. Magick: Liber ABA. Edited by Hymenaeus Beta. Weiser Books, 145 (emphasis mine).
Crowley, Aleister, and Frieda Harris. 2017. The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians, Being the Equinox, Volume III, No. 5. Weiser Books, 95.
While Thelema could be argued as a religion that involves gnosis and, therefore, a “gnostic religion,” it is not a ‘Gnostic Religion’™ by any stretch of argument.
Crowley, Aleister. 1994. “The Tao (1).” In Magick Without Tears. New Falcon Publications, 229.
To be fair, this part of the model is murky because of Crowley’s waffling on the subject. He wasn’t the most adept philosopher despite his personality cult’s insistence on ignoring his contradictions.
Crowley distinctly felt Ra-Hoor-Khuit represented the Silent/True Self, which would translate into the Holy Guardian Angel. However, Crowley is also quite explicit that Hadit is the HGA [see Crowley, The Law Is for All, 134]. All in all, the former explanation is more logical when Hadit is viewed as Motion and RHK/Khabs/True Will/HGA (what he called the “not so impersonal as Hadit, but the first and least untrue formulation of the Ego”) is viewed as Direction. These are two ontologically separate but congruent aspects of the same concept that are existentially inseparable as we understand Hadit to be the core of every Star [or Khabs] via AL 2.6. This aspect of the model is currently being revised and, as such, is subject to change dramatically in the subsequent essay covering ontology.
However, I can tell you that the so-called “Ra-Hoor-Khuit Consciousness” that is being pushed in some circles is nothing more than repackaged New Age/New Thought sludge.
Crowley, Magick, 128.
Crowley, Aleister. 1996. The Law Is for All: The Authorized Popular Commentary to Liber AL vel Legis sub figura CCXX, the Book of the Law. Edited by Louis Wilkinson and Hymenaeus Beta. New Falcon Publications, 32.
Crowley, Aleister. 1989. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography. Edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant. Arkana, 240.
Aleister Crowley, personal communication to W. B. Crow, July 03, 1944.
I’ve said this in the past, but I can give you Crowley’s entire methodological path of attainment through a single chapter in Magick: Liber ABA. It takes up about eight numbered pages in the Big Blue Brick, and that’s it.
Crowley, The Law Is for All, 123.
As to my credentials—not that I think it matters to anyone—in my “other life,” I am a research psychologist with published work and a licensed mental health professional. Yes, I am a university professor too. But, honestly, I’m just some guy sharing some thoughts and ideas here among friends. But if you wondered why I had the audacity to create such a model at least you know I’m not “channeling it from the Great Beyond” or pulling it out of my ass.
Thelemic Cartography was conceived in 1996 and first discussed in public in 2001. This is the first time it’s been seen in an unrestricted public venue. This is the sixth iteration of the model. Thelemic Cartography and associated materials fall under additional copyright protections and may not be republished beyond “restacks” without further written permission.
Crowley, The Law Is for All, 32.
Crowley, The Law Is for All, 32 (emphasis mine).
Wilber, Ken. 2000. Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy. Shambhala Publications.
Politics would be a systemic element of the Lower-Right when referring to parties and structures.
If it’s not clear yet, I see True Will and the HGA as functionally identical and only separated ontologically. This is where the doctrine of perichoresis comes into play for Thelemites on a personal level.
Because it’s outside a specific existentialist framework, but not too far to mutilate the concept itself, I hope.
Crowley, Magick, 125 (emphasis mine).
"All the words of my old book are aright, but Tzaddi is not the star" - a clear approval of the Golden Dawn Qabalistic system (with one exception).