It's been awhile since I wrote here, and so many things have happened that I'm hard pressed to write about all of it. My husband has experienced some serious health issues this summer that has tested us in every way. Our stress level is through the roof. It has fundamentally changed our relationship; sometimes I feel more like a nurse than a wife or a woman. We've lost so much, but we strive to hang onto some shred of who we want to be.
I've taken solace in study when I have the time, and have come to some revelations about myself as a pagan. I'm not even sure I'm technically a real pagan anymore. I guess it all started when I started hanging around the aecletic tarot website. In the discussion of various tarot decks I started to realize that Crowley's Thoth tarot had some appeal. I was fascinated by the tie-ins to the Kabbalah, the I Ching, geomancy, confucianism, and other arcane beliefs about which I knew very little. It seemed to me to be an all-encompassing tarot, finding the commonalities among all these varied systems. So I got a deck, and also a copy of Crowley's Book of Thoth, which details the cards. That set me into reading more of Crowley's work. As I began to use the Thoth tarot, it was apparent at once that the readings were right on the mark, more so than with any other tarot I've used. I came to see Crowley as a genius, who knew so much about so many different religions and mystic ideas. Somewhere along the line I read about Thelema, a religion based on his Book of the Law, the only guiding principle of which is "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be the Whole of the Law. Love is the Law, Love Under Will." I managed to run across a basic book on Thelema at, of all places, the Boise Public Library book sale room. It not only spoke to me, it was me. At this point in my life, it is who I am.
I don't want to use this space to educate the reader about Thelema. Go look it up yourself, and learn something. What I like about it is the pure simplicity of it, foremost. Do what thou wilt. Period. Of course that it a loaded statement; doing what one "wilts" is fraught with land mines and responsibility. You have to consider what you do and its consequences. I might "will" to wish someone dead, but I know of course that I can't be the instrument of that action because society's punishment will thwart my true will in the bigger picture. In other words, you can't go off half-cocked about one aspect of your "will" and sacrifice freedom and the true will's essence. As much as I dislike playing by society's rules (and I DO detest them with every fiber of my being), I have no choice if I wish to live as a free person (free as in not incarcerated or in serious debt). I play by the rules only to the extent that is absolutely necessary. I will never let my mind and my thoughts be ordered by some government or religion.
Even in Thelema, as much as it appeals to me, I've found aspects that I can't abide. The formality of the rituals, for one. I fully understand their importance and WHY they are performed with such anal attention to detail. I also understand that much of it derives from the Golden Dawn and its rituals, because Crowley was part of that for some time. The rituals of Thelema are not unique to Thelema. I am big on doing what feels right to me, not following a ritual written by someone else, or doing a ritual in the same format every time. I feel a real antipathy toward any rules in my spiritual belief and practice. I guess that's why I never made a very good Christian. I was insulted by the Ten Commandments; the very term "commandment" pisses me off. No one "commands" me to do anything. I am not a child. I make my own decisions and choices, and I live with the consequences. THAT is the entire problem with rules in religion. Rules exist so that people don't have to think about the ethics of their belief. The rules are there to keep you from thinking.
In Thelema and the way I practice(d) paganism, ethics are individual and subjective. I determine what is right, not some book, some preacher, priest, etc. I don't need a clergyperson to be an intermediary between me and my gods. That's a form of babysitting, and a way of telling the lay person that they are not sophisticated enough to commune with god(s). All that complicated theology crap is just bullshit. It does not have to be complicated.
Anyway, I do embrace Thelemic ideas, and I will call myself a Thelemite just for labeling purposes. However, it's led me to reconsider the term "witch." My husband will still use the term witch for himself, but mainly thinks of himself as a magician. I'm leaning more toward this descriptive for myself as well. Magician to me conjures up (heh-heh) the idea of moving, bending, directing energy. Witch has way too many other connotations and can be too easily misleading. Hell, I'm not even sure I can call myself a Pagan anymore, either. Thelemites, while they work with and invoke gods, are really more atheistic than anything else. It's western mysticism with an atheistic twinge. I'm not even sure "atheist" is the right word, either. In Thelema, we consider ourselves our own 'god.' "Every man and every woman is a star." I don't think atheists consider themselves 'gods' because they don't believe in god.
