In the course of recent reading I came across the following interesting footnote:
This Law [of Thelema] may be summarized: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. The theory underlying this injunction is that “Every man and every woman is a star.” Each star is equally inviolable, eternal, individual. It has its own proper course through space. This physical fact has its moral parallel in, “There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt”; that is to say, every individual has his own necessary and proper direction, which is called his “True Will.” Similarly, just as there are certain groups of stars, there are groups of human beings which, while preserving the individual integrity of each unity, have a certain common direction. It is thus legitimate to calculate the destiny of a race, as the astronomer calculates the course of a galaxy. It is the first business of every individual to discover what his True Will is, and then to occupy himself to doing that and nothing else. But he must also reckon with the drift of his race and humanity as a whole. As soon as this Law is properly understood, its truth becomes self-evident. To fail to do one’s true will is to stultify oneself, to create a conflict in oneself, to become morally insane. The school of Freud and Jung has rediscovered a part of this thesis by showing that self-suppression leads to neurosis. The task of every man is to express himself fully, but he must take into consideration his relationship with the community, since it is a part of his True Will to be a member thereof; and any act of his which conflicts with the True Will of the community, conflicts to that extent with his own True Will. This Law of Thelema is therefore the complete solution of all ethical problems. What is required is a technical apparatus for calculating its practical application in any particular case. Many persons are already at work to perfect this psychological instrument.
(By A.C. - “An Open Letter to Rabbi Joel Blau” (written c.1922), from The Oriflamme [new series] Vol. II, [New Falcon Publications; 1998]; pp. 152-3).[/align:1d6ga60r]
What I am requesting, and would be grateful to discover any further concrete information relating to, is whether anyone would happen to know how far "real" work on this technical apparatus actively managed to progress; the identity of any of the alleged “many persons already at work” engaged upon it (unless A.C.'s reference happens to be completely rhetorical); and also anything specific with regard to what this undoubtedly pioneering proto-psychological work, work which also appears to address the whole complicated subject of community ethics, consisted? (From what I can determine, there does not seem to be any other records addressing this particular aspect of the Work in any detail.)
Yours thankfully & hopefully in anticipation,
Norma N Joy Conquest
Interesting. I don't recall any more AC remarks on this subject, but his diaries for the period might conceivably mention it.
It sounds like he is referring to an E-meter (Electropsychometer), the first of which was invented in the late 19th century. Jung edited a collection of essays in 1906 which appeared in English translation in 1919, and reproduces a paper by Ludwig Binswanger describing the clinical use ot such a machine -
https://archive.org/stream/studiesinwordass00jung#page/446/mode/2up
Crowley might have read this book, or heard of such an electrodermal activity (EDA) measuring device through other channels.
The most widespread practical use of measuring EDA is of course the polygraph or lie-detector; perhaps the most controversial is that of the Church of Scientology.
Wikipedia's article on the E-meter gives a good overview of the history and bibliography, which is where I found Jung's book linked above.
Thank you for answering with your usual resourcefulness, belmurru.
Crowley might have read this book, or heard of such an electrodermal activity (EDA) measuring device through other channels.
This is a very good consideration, assuming A.C. during this era (mainly spent in Cefalù) was on the ball and kept up with the latest international advances (such as the 1919 translation of Jung’s paper relating to EDAs) by the time he wrote to Rabbi Blau previous to the summer of 1922, and which would thus leave a reasonably generous two to three year window of opportunity. It is hard to think of what other family of inventions A.C. may have had in mind with his remarks here, or what else (as currently recognized, or at least recognized in the 1920s) could be used to physically monitor people in quite the same way.
Is A.C. envisaging a future time (a faraway aeon of Truth and Justice perhaps!?) when all questions of civil and criminal law will be settled by the imposition of some superior lie-detector/EDA gizmo? The trouble is, they can be faked and it is hard to envision they will ever be completely free from error even if combined with say, the administration of a ‘truth’ serum which makes it hard for folk to lie. At present showing I would not feel comfortable in a society where the ultimate test would rely on such a device. It would also result in decisions about whether somebody was being true to their True Will being displaced at one remove to another agency or person, which appears to go against its sovereign integrity of who really knows what the true will of another is? And after reading the following assertion in A.C.’s “Duty” (which incidentally also appears to accommodate the Superego under another guise):
C.1.: “Establish the Law of Thelema as the sole basis of conduct”:
[…] The administration of Law should be simplified by training men of uprightness and discretion whose will is to fulfil this function in the community to decide all complaints by the abstract principle of the law of Thelema, and to award judgement on the basis of the actual restriction caused by the offence.
The ultimate aim is thus to reintegrate Conscience, on true scientific principles, as the warden of conduct, the monitor of the people, and the guarantee of their governors.
one is rather tempted to enquire, who watches the watchmen?
I have been thinking quite a bit more about the rather astonishing ramifications of this particular footnote/ statement by A.C., if it is on the level. It may even make the subject of a small article on the matter if ever I can overcome the usual inertia ::). The first two-thirds are a fairly standard recapitulation of the essence of the magickal and philosophical system of Thelema, as perpetrated by A.C. several times elsewhere in his various other writings in broadly similar terms. However, the last 5 sentences – from “The school of Freud and Jung” onwards – are something else quite new and penetrate far more unfamiliar territory. A.C.’s references to psycho-analysis and its early pioneers Freud, Jung, Reich and Adler throughout his own work are relatively few, although comparisons when made are more often than not done fairly favourably, rather than dismissively, contrasted with his own findings and conclusions. He mentions Jung’s “school” in a December 1916 article for Vanity Fair (incidentally if you haven’t read any of his essays for Vanity Fair they are now available as an exclusive Amazon e-book anthology which I recommend for their being surprisingly very well written for their market) which should maybe be borne in mind with the following quotation:
[…] However, we should all study Jung. His final sketches are in the main correct, even if his rough working is a bit sketchy; and we’ve got to study him, whether we like it or not, for he will soon be recognized as the undoubted Autocrat of the 1917 dinner-table.
Consequently I feel it would be no idle hyperbole to state that the ramifications of these final 5 sentences, if taken literally and with the full implications of the vocabulary used, are utterly devastating. Nothing less in fact than the empirical ability with each individual’s case to scientifically be able to measure the extent of how far they may diverge or deviate from the path of their true will. This would simultaneously demonstrate the degree of one-pointedness with which their personal will may also coincide with that of the true will, over time.
In the fifth sentence from the end,
The school of Freud and Jung has rediscovered a part of this thesis by showing that self-suppression leads to neurosis.
when A.C. says “rediscovered” it’s apparent that he means the school learned again something which would have been known to the Ancients, and indicates that they received the benefits of the Ancients’ wisdom by token of this later incorporation.
Leaving the next sentence intact,
The task of every man is to express himself fully, but he must take into consideration his relationship with the community, since it is a part of his True Will to be a member thereof; and any act of his which conflicts with the True Will of the community, conflicts to that extent with his own True Will.
let me hopefully try to paraphrase the final 3 sentences:
This Law of Thelema is therefore the complete solution of all ethical problems. What is required is a technical apparatus for calculating its practical application in any particular case. Many persons are already at work to perfect this psychological instrument.
from a slightly different angle which may help bring these implications out more fully: “What is required for the complete solution of all society’s ethical problems is a piece of scientific equipment, machinery even, for calculating and practically applying that determinant to each individual’s necessary and proper direction in life. Many scientists are engaged upon the technical work necessary to then bring about the manufacture of the completed instrument’s capability of measuring the extent of any individual’s psychological neuroses i.e. deviations.”
One would have expected A.C.’s final sentence to have read something like: “This is of course a fantastic scenario, an optimistic view at best, which despite honourable intentions bears no likelihood of being achievable at least at the present time (i.e., the 1920s).” However A.C. clearly states instead:
Many persons are already at work to perfect this psychological instrument.
If A.C. is being dishonest here, he has certainly not pulled the good Rabbi’s leg elsewhere in his missive (so far as can be detected, anyhow) and this in itself would therefore strike a discordant or insincere note in the communication. Similarly there doesn’t seem to be any real purpose or tangible benefit to be achieved by his directly lying to the Rabbi either, and the most one could presume from the available evidence would be that A.C. might have been prematurely & hopefully boasting, maybe.
What is interesting and surprising, I find, is that A.C. regarded even just the outline of the finished result of the invention as something which might actually be contemplated as almost in sight. This is because at a stroke, with it the True Will would cease to be some metaphysical or super-natural force or construct, but instead become something else analysable, quantifiable, capable of direct and accurate assessment, above all measurable, in the same way that an optician can test one’s eyesight for myopia or colour-blindness, or indeed any of the other senses can be gauged and determined. The Will becomes real in a very exact, physically immediate sense: and the degree to which the accuracy of doing one’s True Will could be assessed as being anywhere on a scale from O[sup:99tc8bj3]o[/sup:99tc8bj3] (sheer congruence) to 180[sup:99tc8bj3]o[/sup:99tc8bj3] (complete opposition). The vector of disturbance attributable to some other external agency, perhaps another star, could therefore also be worked out and calibrated by similar means.
Let’s maybe take one thing at a time before going mad and getting worked up about the ethical considerations. To begin with, is the actual invention of any such machine a feasible probability – and if not, why should A.C. have then been so mistaken about it?
N Joy
"EDIT": Please excuse the possibly slightly confusing mis-quotation made in the previous post: instead of
[…] However, we should all study Jung. His final sketches are in the main correct, even if his rough working is a bit sketchy; and we’ve got to study him, whether we like it or not, for he will soon be recognized as the undoubted Autocrat of the 1917 dinner-table.
This should have read:
"However, we should all study Jung. His final conclusions are in the main correct, even if his rough working is a bit sketchy; and we’ve got to study him, whether we like it or not, for he will soon be recognized as the undoubted Autocrat of the 1917 dinner-table." [My emphasis there]
A thousand apologies effendis,
N Joy
A month has now flown by, and there doesn’t seem to have been any further information on this in the short-term yet. Perhaps in the mid-term (roughly any time after the first 120 days by my reckoning) by the wonder of serendipity, somebody who knows something will find this thread and post that information. (In the long-term, of course we are all dead.)
I would be most interested to know though, if I am barking up the wrong tree – maybe there is something quite obvious staring me in the face that I’ve managed to overlook which negates my whole line of questioning. But as I stated, if there did happen to be something in it, the ramifications and repercussions would be quite extraordinary: namely, that A.C. was indicating there actually is a scientific machine or gadget of some sort which in 1922 was in the early stages of construction, which in the process of its operation would be able to detect the degree to which a person was deviating from the course of their true will.
I presume my conjecture from the available evidence has been sound enough – but would any Lashtalian disagree with my conclusions or any of my remarks? Please advise, if so. I could maybe investigate further or write an article about the matter in the future, but would hate to think I was wasting my time on it.
N joy