ART by OLI ROGERS

 

 

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will."

 

Aleister Crowley, The Law of Thelema

 

 

 

Here we see a Thelemite, an adherent of the principles of Thelema outlined in Aleister Crowley’s Liber AL vel Legis, ‘The Book of The Law’. Like Crowley, she is a worker of magick, "the Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with Will.”

 

She represents the advent of the Aeon of Horus, the era in which shall be followed the ethical code borne here upon the banner: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will." It should be made plain that “Do what thou wilt” refers not to the pursuit of hedonistic or egoistic desires, but to the exercise of the True Will, which is the higher calling of the individual and which may be discovered through the magickal practices of the various esoteric knowledge traditions. Neither was Crowley a Satanist, as is so often claimed; indeed, he did not subscribe to Christian theology. However, the True Will exists in harmony with the Cosmic Will, and as such operates without the intercession of religion.

 

Upon the brow of the magick-worker we see the image of a serpent – an analogue of the Uraeus, the cobra that the Seeker will no doubt have observed arching sinuously from the brow of the pharaonic headdresses of ancient Khemet. This is the serpent of superconsciousness, the kundalini of the Hindu yogic tradition which, once awakened from its slumber at the base of the spine, unfurls along the spinal column to the brain, wherefrom it emanates from the third eye: the pineal gland. It is also thus an effigy of the True Will. The feathers worn in her hair, representative of the divine ability of flight are again a symbol of transcendent consciousness.