In the wisdom literature of ancient Egypt, as in modern culture, the heart is a physical organ but also a metaphor for one’s moral centre. Aleister Crowley is the founder of a small but significant magical cult that claims to be a revival of Egyptian magical religion. Some Thelemites do not admit moral distinctions or judgments; and are in this sense amoral. Moral issues are raised in a core passage in Crowley’s inspired text, Liber AL (II 18-21) which presents the essence of its “Nietzchean standpoint.” Crowley rarely departed from this “Law of the jungle.” Crowley acknowledged and validated a magical “son”, Charles Stansfield Jones (Frater Achad) as “the one” who would unlock the true meanings of Liber AL. Jones promulgated a revisionist interpretation, more liberal and in tune with the philosophy of Ma’at, the ancient Egyptian personification of justice. Jones wrote that: “by trying to help Humanity as a Whole, without distinction, as far as in me lay, I could learn to do the Will of God, or the True Will.” Rejected by Crowley and other important opinion formers, Jones’ ideas continued an ex cathedra existence, gathering followers anxious to make Thelema more relevant. Recently published correspondence between Crowley and Jones will apparently show that toward the end of his life, Crowley acknowledged Jones interpretation as valid and equal to his own. In the years since Crowley’s death there has been an interesting revival of Ma’atian philosophy in the mainstream and independent of Neo-Paganism. Pan African Political groups have found in it material for an ethical system that avoids the tradition of Abrahamic faiths and also Mediterranean ethno-centrism. There has been new research, especially on the socalled “Negative Confession.” The philosophy of Ma’at emphasises our social being. Its first principle is “I have not impoverished the people.” Thelemites are shown to have views relevant to controversy between individualism, free will and social justice.

This article investigates the story of Aleister Crowley’s reception of The Book of the Law in Cairo, Egypt, in 1904, focusing on the question of why it occurred in Egypt. The article contends that Crowley created this foundation narrative, which involved specifically incorporating an Egyptian antiquity from a museum, the “Stèle of Revealing,’” in Egypt because he was working within a conceptual structure that privileged Egypt as a source of Hermetic authority. The article explores Crowley’s synthesis of the romantic and scholarly constructions of Egypt, inherited from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as well as the uses that two prominent members of the Order made of Egyptological collections within museums. The article concludes that these provided Crowley with both a conceptual structure within which to legitimise his reformation of Golden Dawn ritual and cosmology, and a model of how to do so.

In 1920, the Swiss-American music teacher and occultist Leah Hirsig (1883-1975) was appointed 'Scarlet Woman' by the British occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), founder of the religion Thelema. In this role, Hirsig was Crowley's right-hand woman during a formative period in the Thelemic movement, but her position shifted when Crowley found a new Scarlet Woman in 1924. Hirsig's importance in Thelema gradually declined, and she distanced herself from the movement in the late 1920s. The article analyses Hirsig's changing status in Thelema 1919-1930, proposing the term proximal authority as an auxiliary category to Max Weber's tripartite typology. Proximal authority is defined as authority ascribed to or enacted by a person based on their real or perceived relational closeness to a leader. The article briefly draws on two parallel cases so as to demonstrate the broader applicability of the term in highlighting how relational closeness to a leadership figure can entail considerable yet precarious power. Keywords Aleister Crowley-Leah Hirsig-Max Weber-proximal authority-Thelema

Aleister Crowley was considerably influenced by the doctrines of Theravāda Buddhism, which he studied in his youth, both theoretically and practically. He correlated its principles to the principles of scientific agnosticism and considered that its objectives could also be achieved through the practice of ceremonial magic. His eventual acceptance of Thelema’s religious philosophy led to his ultimate renunciation of Buddhism as a worldview. This essay examines Crowley’s early writings on the subject of Buddhism and suggests that the presence of Buddhist theories remains quite significant in his formulation of the doctrine of Thelema.