Love and do what that wilt

[mwmroe]

St. Augustine had a saying ‘Love and do what that wilt’. I guess what he meant that if you love God you are free to act according to you’re will. That sounds okay. This idea inspired Francois Rabelais who adopted the idea ‘do what that wilt’, which was the motto of the Abbey of Theleme. It is my understanding that that he left the monastery and his books were condemned by many, including the Church. This idea was also adopted by Francis Dashwood as the motto for The Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe after he had acquired a copy of the book Gargantua and Pantagruel. What Dashwood meant by this was that “Man has a natural right to be free” and explained that “by Freedom is not nor can be meant that every individual should act as he lists, and according to his own Passions, Vices or Infirmities: but freedom is a right every man has to do what he will with his own”. Apparently, it was the influence of Francis Dashwood and his ‘Hell-Fire Club’ which inspired Aleister Crowley to expond his Law of Thelema, though he claimed it was dictated to him by a disembodied entity named Aiwass, ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’, ‘Love is the law, love under will’. According to Crowley this meant that individuals should act according to their ‘True Will’, as opposed to simply following a casual whim. Apparently, deducing an individuals ‘True Will’ was a complicated process and not something any individual could be trusted to do on their own, and according to Crowley required the appointment of “experts to work out, when need arises, the details of the True Will of every individual, and even that of every corporate body whether social or commercial, while a judiciary will arise to determine the equity in the case of apparently conflicting claims.” I guess the motto ‘Do what thou wilt’ has been the rallying call for libertarians and libertines all over the world and it is a rewording expounded by St. Augustine. It seems to me that this idea expounded by St. Augustine is not only a rewording, but the meaning of it has changed in the way that it was used by Aleister Crowley. It appears that he has taken God out of the equation and replaced it with his own notion of life. It’s no secret that he hated Christianity and apparently he was and atheist and a Satanist. Surly Crowley wasn’t implying this saying in the same sense as St. Augustine. Possible he was inspired by the liberty of the idea and introduced his own Satanist views. Crowley removed God from his life and replaced it with the occult. It appears that the original idea of the motto ‘do what that wilt’ lost it original meaning for him, he had nothing by which to gauge his own thought’s and behavior, no God, no Commandments. He was a sexually immoral drug addict. We as Christians have God’s Commandments by which to guide us to do His will. Doesn’t this idea of the True Will as taught in Thelema seem implausible, since our human nature has been damaged by original sin, our conscience isn’t always reliable and may not always inform the will in the way it should? But Aleister Crowley didn’t see it that way, he didn’t hold those beliefs. I just don’t think Aleister Crowley notion of love was the same a St. Augustine’s.

Blessings,
Mark