Kenneth Grant’s ideas about gender are bound up with the very nature of the Typhonian Tradition: Grant’s figure of Typhon or Ta-Urt, the “Dragon of the Deep,” follows certain ancient traditions in attributing the chaos at the beginning of creation to a divine figure.
Crowley’s understanding of liberation evolves from “Berashith,” to the point where his final position resembles something he rejected in that essay, while what he recommended actually resembles the villainous path in his later spiritual system.
“Berashith” is a foundational essay of Aleister Crowley’s, and often taken to present an ontology that is consistent throughout Crowley’s life. In fact, this early essay has a number of limitations compared to the Book of the Law and to some of Crowley’s later writings, and is ultimately a reductionistic view of the relationship between nothingness and manifestation.
Last month I went on Talk Gnosis’ podcast to give a brief introduction to Charles Stansfeld Jones aka Frater Achad, including his history as Crowley’s “magical son,” his involvement with the Universal Brotherhood, his conversion to Roman Catholicism, and his declaration of the Aeon of Maat — among other things! Watch or listen here.
Ever since my first encounter with Thelema in my teenage years, it has served for me as the ur-text of occultism, the standard by which I compare and contrast all other occult and esoteric systems.
We write as initiates of the Horus Maat Lodge and as members of the magical community in solidarity with the protests unfolding across the country in response to the racist police murder of George Floyd, and the recent murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others.