Reviews

This review is special and important to me. The topic is one of the most controversial elements in Thelemic literature, and one I’ve been railing on for the better part of three decades to what I always felt were unhearing ears and unseeing eyes. To me, this issue of the Holy Guardian Angel [HGA] was so clear the first time I read Magick: Liber ABA and Magick Without Tears. Everything else after that, published and unpublished by Crowley, merely confirmed my views. Marco does an excellent job of collating divergent information and spinning it into a narrative that finally makes sense to the average layperson. I truly hope his book (and his charismatic reputation) will help put a lot of the residual nonsense to rest.

I don’t often praise Thelemic books, but Marco’s Aleister Crowley’s Mysticism: A Practical Guide is at once fresh and dense. It is a welcome addition not only to his previous book, The Aleister Crowley Manual: Thelemic Magick for Modern Times, but also to the modern library of Thelemic literature.

Filled with insightful guidance on the mystical underpinnings and the A∴A∴ practices inspired by Thelema, Marco provides a timely corrective to the decades of O.T.O.-fueled superstitions plaguing Thelema since Crowley’s death. If I didn’t know any better—and I won’t say if I do or don’t—I’d think Marco was giving away practices and teachings of the A∴A∴ that haven’t been found outside direct communication from teacher-to-student in the past.

Crowley wrote that “Mystery is the enemy of Truth,” and, with a little nudging, I think he would agree that, in context, he meant “Secrets are the enemy of Truth.”

What’s the difference, you ask?

In Marco’s reading suggestions at the end of the book is the fantastic tome, anonymously published (though generally known to be Valentin Tomberg), Meditations on the Tarot, which includes this passage:

That which [the Major Arcana of the Tarot] reveal are not secrets, i.e. things hidden by human will, but are arcana, which is something quite different. An arcanum is that which it is necessary to “know” in order to be fruitful in a given domain of spiritual life. It is that which must be actively present in our consciousness—or even in our subconscious—in order to render us capable of making discoveries, engendering new ideas, conceiving of new artistic subjects. In a word, it makes us fertile in our creative pursuits, in whatever domain of spiritual life.

An arcanum is a “ferment” or an “enzyme” whose presence stimulates the spiritual and the psychic life of man. And it is symbols which are the bearers of these “ferments” or “enzymes” and which communicate them […].

Just as the arcanum is superior to the secret, so is the mystery superior to the arcanum. The mystery is more than a stimulating “ferment”. It is a spiritual event comparable to physical birth or death. It is a change of the entire spiritual and psychic motivation, or a complete change of the plane of consciousness.¹

I believe Marco pulls back the veil on much of the mystery (event) of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, but then he shatters the walls that have stupidly boxed in secrets (artificially controlled ideas) that have been hidden right out in plain sight, misunderstood by O.T.O. revivalists, and then taught so poorly that speculation and superstition rather than enlightenment have been the result. Frankly, I was trepidatious that Marco’s approach would be just more O.T.O.-derived bullshit. I’m happy to say: it’s not!

One thing I rarely say in public is that I agree with Marco’s disdain for religion if only because of one aspect that is pounded out in social critiques over and over again: that is, religion is about control. Certainly, I would add layers of qualifications to justify that Thelema is a religion that doesn’t seek control, but that would be a lie as well. The modern O.T.O. has taken that religious control to all-new (or pathetically old?) heights. That includes turning this HGA process into a superstitious act reserved for “elite magicians” of the world.

This isn’t to say that I agree with every word Marco wrote. He knows better too. But he didn’t write this book for me. He wrote it for thousands of people who have been either curious but avoidant of the process, or misled by the obfuscation of talking heads blowing smoke up their asses.

If I’m honest, I think this book could have been twice the length and far more in-depth. But I also think it would have confused people who aren’t ready for the level of intensity—and simplicity—of this path Crowley left for us. There is a whole other layer to all of this that Marco skips entirely. And that’s just fine. We’re only 150 years into the present aeon, and we have time to play catch-up with the forces of this step-up in consciousness as we approach and eventually surpass the critical mass for such a process as the “Knowledge and Conversation” to be commonplace without all the handwaving, handwringing, and exceptionally verbose blather that goes on today.