The recent expulsion of American far-right activist Augustus Sol Invictus (Austin Gillespie), who has also claimed to be an Ipsissimus of the A∴A∴, from the Caliphate pseudo-O.T.O. and his run for United States Senate gives rise to an important question: Is Thelema alt-right? This question is exacerbated by several references to extreme violence in the Book of the Law, including anti-altruism, repression, total war, anti-populism, anti-democracy, classism, genocide, cannibalism, human sacrifice, and torture. Apparently violently antisocial passages like these have attracted some adherents of the Alt-right, like Augustus Sol, to Thelema, but do these passages actually advocate the things that they describe, or do they merely describe the way things would go in the 20th and 21st centuries (in which case the Book of the Law is clearly a prophetic document of the first water), and is the Law of Thelema actually compatible with Alt-right ideology?
The Alt-right is a heterogeneous but influential group. One can abstract the following fundamental tenets of the movement from the Wikipedia article on the Alt-right. Based on this article, the Alt-right advocates:
- White supremacy, white nationalism, and nativism;
- Ethnic cleansing;
- White genocide conspiracy theory;
- Holocaust denial while advocating Jewish extermination;
- Isolationism and protectionism;
- Anti-semitism and Islamophobia;
- Antifeminism and misogyny;
- Homophobia;
- Populism;
- Limited government and lower taxes while also advocating authoritarian government and militarism, despite framing their beliefs in terms of political freedom;
- Strict law and order;
- Anti-multiculturalism and anti-immigration;
- Opposition to miscegenation; and
- Collectivism and tribalism.
The question that Mr. Invictus and other Thelemites (or purported Thelemites) who embrace these theories and others like them raise is: Is the Alt-right consistent with the Law of Thelema? Let us look at each point in turn, beginning with Crowley’s documented attitude to Nazism. The term Alt-right has been regarded as a cover term for Nazism, and virtually all of the beliefs cited were shared by the Nazis. Crowley was 63 when World War II broke out, and although Crowley recognized some similarities between Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric and the Book of the Law (based on Hitler Speaks, which was subsequently exposed as a forgery), Crowley specifically and in print repudiated both fascism and Nazism as “abortions” of the New Aeon, much as Heidegger and Mircea Eliade did when they described Nazism as an early but flawed response to the rise of modernism, thus decisively separating the Law of Thelema from fascism and Nazism.
Crowley specifically repudiated anti-semitism, declaring the Jews to be the only civilized group in Germany. Far from recognizing Thelema as a kindred movement, the National Socialist Party repressed Thelema in Germany and Crowley’s personal representative, Karl Germer, barely escaped to America with his life. Crowley himself was expelled from his Abbey of Thelema in Sicily by Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who Crowley subsequently mocked in a poem. Crowley himself had relations with members of all races, including Jews and Blacks, and was also bixsexual, openly and actively promoting gay rights at a time when homosexuality was illegal. Far from advocating nativist xenophobia and nationalism, Crowley was militantly universalist and created a spiritual system that incorporated the spiritual beliefs and practices of many different races, including Jewish Cabala and Islamic Sufism.
As far as the sexes go, the Book of the Law is clear: “Every man and every woman is a star.” The sexes are equal, and in fact all of Crowley’s advanced initiations were mediated by women, who Crowley valued for their oracular capabilities. Far from from being populist, the Book of the Law opposes nativism, populism, collectivism, and tribalism: “Ye are against the people, O my chosen!” It is significant that virtually all of the people who advocate Alt-right ideology are self-defined populists. Crowley saw very clearly that democracy would result in a race to the bottom. Far from celebrating it, he condemned it and despised all forms of populism and popular culture. Far from being against government, the Book of the Law advocates a responsible non-democratic government of the elite: “Let my servants be few & secret: they shall rule the many & the known. These are fools that men adore; both their Gods & their men are fools.” In his political writings Crowley makes it crystal clear that in order for the body politic to be free, it must be highly organized. Lack of organization does not result in freedom, but in disorder, which destroys freedom. (See “The Politics of Thelema,” n. 8.)
However, far from supporting strict authoritarianism, Crowley implies that people should be required to actively defend their rights, including property rights, in a system of competitive individualism. In this way the fitness of the body politic is enhanced. However, when we analyze the beliefs of the Alt-right in detail, we find that its defence of “freedom of speech” is really a sham, and that their true ideology is essentially totalitarian. Against these beliefs we can posit their Thelemic equivalents. The Law of Thelema advocates:
- The total freedom and perfect equality of all races and sexual orientations and both sexes, including multiculturalism and miscegenation;
- Universalism, internationalism, and free trade, including the free movement of all peoples around the earth, which logically implies a global mixed race civilization (see Liber OZ);
- Freedom of conscience;
- Gender equality;
- The equal rights of all sexual minorities, including homosexuals;
- Anti-populism, anti-collectivism, anti-tribalism, anti-nativism;
- A strong, organized state committed to establishing the universal conditions of individual liberty through progressive education and rational jurisprudence; and
- A laissez faire attitude to policing and law and order.
It is also worth noting that Liber Oz does not include any right to property! These principles were enshrined in Liber OZ in 1941. at the peak of the war hysteria:
Crowley also favoured the decriminalization and indeed the use of all drugs, opposed by most rightists. The end of the Aeon of Osiris even implies the end of six thousand years of patriarchy! It should be clear from the foregoing that Thelema is utterly incompatible with the Alt-right. Therefore, no Thelemite can embrace both without contradiction and cannot, therefore, be doing their True Will, the terms and conditions of which are described in the Book of the Law. As Crowley pointed out, there is nothing völkisch about it. “Refuse none, but thou shalt know & destroy the traitors.” “Man has the right to kill those who would thwart these rights.” Crowley even goes so far as to embrace socialism in the constitution of the O.T.O. (see “Liber CLVI,” in The Equinox, Vol. III, No. 1, esp. pp. 232-38).
Note: Since the publication of this post Augustus Sol Invictus has converted to the Roman Church and is no longer a Thelemite.
Further Reading
The Book of the Law as a Prophetic Text
The Book of the Law as an Anarcho-Fascist Manifesto of a New World Order
Is Thelema Alt-Right?
The Politics of Thelema
Thelema and Climate Change
Towards a Progressive Interpretation of the Book of the Law
The Secret Door 