Patrick Everitt

‘Learn first — Oh thou who aspirest unto our ancient Order! — that Equilibrium is the basis of the Work’. These are the opening words of Aleister Crowley’s Liber Librae, one of the first initiatory magical texts published in The Equinox, his journal of occultism. However, Crowley did not author the entire text; in fact, he received a version of it during his time as a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and later adapted it for his own initiatory order, the A∴A∴, according to the principles of Thelema and his system of Scientific Illuminism.

Liber Librae, which Crowley described as an ‘elementary course of morality suitable for the average man’, advocates an approach to both practical magic and practical life that combines self-knowledge, self-discipline, and self-respect. The text employs symbols and structures derived from traditional occultist frameworks, including the Qabalah, the Keys of the Tarot, and the 4 classical elements, to teach wisdom in magical practice. The text closes with an explicit reminder for the initiate to peer through the exoteric diversity of religious symbolism and recognize the esoteric universality of religious experience.

This analysis of Crowley’s Liber Librae will explore the advice given to the initiate to help attain virtue and avoid vice in the practice of magic. It will also highlight the important changes Crowley introduced to the text and the differences from its Golden Dawn ancestor, the lecture ‘On the General Guidance and Purification of the Soul’. This will reveal the values and principles which Crowley wished to continue from the occultist traditions of his esoteric predecessors, as well as the values and principles which he either rejected or updated according to his own systematization of occult practice. It will also offer practical suggestions to the audience of techniques for engaging with this text for themselves, as a means to explore the new religious and magical perspective which Crowley developed in his works.

Patrick Everitt is an independent researcher of western esotericism from Ireland. He completed the Masters in Western Esotericism at the University of Amsterdam, where his thesis investigated Aleister Crowley’s use of peyote for ceremonial magic. His primary research interests are entheogenic esotericism and psychedelic philosophy in the works of Aleister Crowley, Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, and Terence McKenna. He has presented his research on psychedelics and esotericism at a range of international conferences and events, including the Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research, the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) conference, Breaking Convention, the Altered Conference, the Occulture Conference, the Amsterdam Psychedelic Research Association lectures, and the O.Z.O.R.A. Festival.

https://uva.academia.edu/PatrickEveritt