"We think today that we have a permissive society.
In fact, what we really have is a state of affairs in which some taboos have been relaxed, because it has been found financially profitable to do so.
What is being permitted is not sexual satisfaction, but sexual exploitation. Very large numbers of people are just as unsatisfied as ever, because their ideas and attitudes have not basically changed.They are uptight, armoured against life, fearful of their own freedom.
There are signs, however, that younger people in particular are rejecting the double standards of morality that are part of the patriarchal Judeo-Christian outlook and this rejection is expressing itself in many ways, as the old Aeon draws to a close..

The words of the Wiccan Rede will invariably be compared with the famous dictum of Aleister Crowley:"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will"


Crowley, a strange genius who regarded himself as the Logos of the Aeon of Horus, or the new age, obtained this saying from his inspired writing Liber Legis, or the Book of the Law which he claimed to have received from a preterhuman intelligence as the result of a magical ceremony in Cairo in 1904.. The full text can be found in The Magical Record of the Beast 666 by Aleister Crowley.


In practice however, Crowley was just as much imbued with the mental attitudes of the old Aeon as anyone else..


As Gerald Gardner commented in The Meaning of Witchcraft, Crowley's pupils and followers soon found out that for them, what Aleister Crowley willed was the whole of the Law!
Anyone showing signs of thinking for themselves, soon found themselves consigned to outer darkness.


(Incidentally, old Gerald's quoted comment shows that he was by no means the unqualified admirer of Crowley that he has been represented to be. He admired Crowley as a poet, but had no illusions about him as a man)

Moreover, Crowley was a male chauvanist pig of the worst kind.


This appears clearly in his book, Liber Aleph: The Book of Wisdom or Folly, a series of letters to his magical son, Frater Achad,....
In this writing, Crowley declares that in the nature of woman there is no truth, nor possibility of truth; and that although a "certain sort" woman could obtain the experiences of vision, trance and so on, yet nevertheless woman has no capacity for advancement in magick. 


The limit of her aspiration, says Crowley, is to obedient to the right man, so that she may have better luck next time in the round of rebirth, and be born in a masculine body.

These views did not, however, prevent Crowley from occasionally dressing himself up as a woman, with wig and make-up, and parading around as Alys Cusack, in which guise he sought to 'seduce' his male pupils.
I have heard of a psychological phenomenon called 'Penis envy'; I am beginning to suspect that the possible origin of male chauvanist piggery is 'Vagina envy'!

To be fair to Crowley, however, by 'Do what thou wilt' he did not mean merely, 'Do what you like', but that people should find out what their true will really is and then do that and nothing else.
He said that if everyone did that, there would be no trouble in the world, because people's true wills were in harmony with each other and with the course of Nature. The will to crime, for instance, is a false will, born of a dis-ease of the spirit. 


Because of centuries of oppression, people have lost the knowledge of their original nature.Their true will is the essential motion of their being, the orbit of that star which the Book of Law declares every man and every woman to be.

This is really a profound teaching. Crowley's remarks upon how the true will may declare itself by the images appearing in dreams and fantasies are reminiscent of the present-day teachings of the Jungian school of psychology.


We should not let the posturing of Crowley as 'the Master Therion' or his prejudice and crudities, blind us to the splendour of his poetry and prose or the stimulation of thought and understanding to be found in his writings.

This teaching of Crowley's, embodied in the dictum quoted above, 'Do what thou wilt' , is by no means new, and was not invented by him.


Long ago, Saint Augustine said, "Love and do what you will"
The initiate of ancient Egypt declared, "There is no part of me that is not of the gods"
The Pagan Greeks originated the saying, "To the pure all things are pure"


The implication is that when one has reached a high stage of spiritual development and evolution, one has passed beyond the relatively petty rules of religion and society at some particular time and place; and may indeed do what one wills, because one's true will is knowable, and must of it's own nature be right.


The Upinishads or sacred scriptures of India tell us that the knower of Brahma is beyond good and evil.
Such a teaching has even acquired for itself a name, antinomianism. ....it is particularly associated in the history of religion with ideas of pantheism, the belief that God is all and all is God.

As such, it is found in both east and west; a number of Christian heretics have taught it to their followers.....Curiously enough, a number of these heretics celebrated an Agape, or love feast, very similar to the witches' sabbat. They may have even had some relation to the Witch cult itself, though they are generally believed to be derived from the Gnostics, meaning 'those who know'; the mystics who were the inheritors of a Pagan philosophy which they cloaked in a Christian guise.


In the east, the Tantrics who follow the ancient scriptures called Tantras, among whom are to be found both Buddhists and Hindus, also have this doctrine in a more or less esoteric form.
The Hindu Tantras regard mankind as being naturally divided into three Bhavas or dispositions,: namely, Pashubhava or animal disposition, corresponding to Tamas guna, the qualities of grossness and darkness; Virabhava, or heroic disposition, corresponding to the Rajas guna, the qualities of activity, force and fierceness; and Divyabhava, or divine disposition, corresponding to Sattva guna, the qualities of balance, equilibrium, harmony and perfection.


The Pashu is not allowed to take part in the sacred rites, which include wine drinking and sexual intercourse, they are reserved for those who are capable of understanding them correctly, from the point of view of the initiate.
By taking part in such rites, the men and women of Virabhava, who have the will to spiritual attainment, may arrive at the highest disposition, Divyabhava.
They are then said to attain to the state of Svechchachara, which, in effect, means, "Do what thou wilt"
They are the achievers of Mukhti, or true liberation.


The Buddhist tantrics are somewhat more puritanical in their outlook than the Hindus; nevertheless there are similar beliefs to be found amongst them also. For instance, among the 'Precepts of the Gurus' given in Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines' we find under the heading of 'The Ten Equal Things' a number of sayings with a general meaning strikingly similar to that of Svechchachara.

They imply that once a person has attained to spiritual enlightenment and become in their true heart a follower of Dharma; the ancient wisdom-religion which was from the beginning of time, and of which all the Buddhas have been exponents, then it matters not whether that person observes conventional modes of conduct or no; and whether or not he or she takes part in worldly activities and pleasures.
Having attained mastery of mind, such a person will act from non-attachment, and therefore will not err.

Such then, it seems to me, is the inner meaning of the teachings of both the Witch cult and Aleister Crowley in this respect.
Is it healthier and wiser than the string of 'Thou-shalt-nots', the morality of fear and repression?
I can only ask people to think about it and judge for themselves."

~ Doreen Valiente, Witchcraft for Tomorrow (1978) ISBN 978 0 70905244

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