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character has not. But what does Crowley mean when he talks about our “overzealous friend?” Why is this the worst enemy of all? In the information age, access to ideas becomes a two-way street. The curious person capable of critical thinking is able to expand their mind and their intelligence, while the bigot and xenophobe can find a thousand other people who share his ignorance and are willing to confirm his previously held beliefs on all manner of subjects. This is what makes our enemy so dangerous. We live in a world where we can either embrace the totality of existing perspectives on any subject, or limit our engagement with it to what we want to hear. We can choose to judge Christianity by the outrageous actions of the Westborough Baptist Church, or the charity of the Quakers. We can judge Islam by the spiritual insights of Sufi mystics, or the violence and oppression of the Taliban. We can judge feminism by the social criticism and insight of Camille Paglia, or the ravings of an aggressively ignorant grad student passed off as academia. We can judge western civilization by it’s attempts to create a free society through the rule of law, with rights maintained through diligent political activism, or by it’s attempts to do the same through economic strangulation and military action. Equally, we expect to be judged by others. Others can judge Thelema by the writings of Aleister Crowley, or by the insipid, watered-down, “For Dummies” beginner books that have flooded our bookshelves, written by people who seem unaware that Thelema was never meant “For Dummies.” Thelema is, in this sense, the odd man out. Our “overzealous friend,” is most certainly overzealous, but not really about Thelema. This friend is overzealous about the romantic notion that if he throws pearls before swine, the pigs will crown him with gold, or at least he’ll get his guineas. Thelemites are encouraged to live as kings, but a king is only as good as his subjects. “We have nothing to do with the outcast and unfit! Let them die in their misery,” Aiwass tells us. But the temptation to be seen as an authority by people who barely understand Thelema, to present oneself as a mediator between the student and the writings of Crowley, proves too much for some people. These people do the Thelemic community what Jerry Falwell does for the Christians. They dumb down lofty intellectual concepts and complex 28 magical practices to the level of mindless memes parroting half-understood slogans and robotic rituals whose meaning and purpose is never fully realized by those who perform them with empty words and futile gestures. If we are truly committed to the Promulgation of the Law as Crowley understood it, the enemy from within is our greatest threat. velit et que ad eosanNum Why do I make the analque dam ipsam the above venet ogy, throughsimolore que quotation, toistionse autendi gnihit quatati the Great War that set in motionNectem videlesti vohicientem. a chain of events that still defines military conflict lores the world to this day? all overeum volor sit officientur, corepel was the defeat and After all, it lumqui berum qui alifinal collapse of the Ottoman bus, volorest, suntempe sequas Empire which allowed the midsuntint. dle-east to be carved up into little chunks to be ruled by the French and English, Chunks that would later find themselves at war with each other when one Gendi in por renis quae nonse nation was divided into many, averum endandi gendant est,almove that was paralleled sum most exactly by the break-up of acil ipsus aceperum ne pore aliGreater India following World ae II, with the same result. In the Warmaxim quidebiscit latempo rerovit quid mos doluptatet just political sphere of the west, maio. like everydel ipiet quas quatemos Volupti other example I have givenet intia ea sus. del above, the “overzealous friend” shares one characteristic: he is ignorant of history, and as such has raeribus of tracing Pudantium no way nim velique the sequence of cause faccat volupta dolupid ma dolut and effect that created the present fugitin enis which displease state of affairsque suntiis esera- good titles him so. As Thelemites we have a duty to study and learn from our own history, not just during Crowley’s time, but to also examine carefully what has transpired during our own lifetimes as well. If we do not study what has been tried and learn what mistakes have been made, we will continue to reinvent the wheel without ever manufacturing a Dundant, santur, For real tessit, si tem.car. the past progress to happen, must be coreperchil molupta nes eiusambuilt learned, understood, and upon. ut experchit ut odiea sa ipienisEvery great genius has tati stood on the shoulders of the ute pa quia seque volenim giants that came before, and aionsed evendipides. insight has no revolutionary ever been possible in a vacuum. We have three great weapons against this enemy from within. Weapons that we all, as individuals, must hone to a razor point by our own methods. The first weapon is curiosity. With curiosity we will be motivated to dig more deeply into the available material. We will have cause to wonder, develop questions, and explore beyond our assigned tasks and reading lists, seeking out information for it’s own sa