notes of a skeptical thelemite
In response to several interesting questions from mendaxveritas, I set down in epistolary and Socratic form some of my thoughts on interpreting Crowley's work in a skeptical but praxis-oriented light. I've copied some of the dialog here for my own future reference. These notes are not an essay, but may someday form the basis of one.

1. What does Thelema mean to you?

    7. A history of events and a collection of artistic and academic works. (Thanks to ecosystem.)

2. What does True Will mean to you?

    7. An unworkable metaphysical concept created by Crowley and not appearing in BotL.

4. What does Initiation mean to you?

    6. An experiential means of "charging" or empowering symbols for use in meditation and ritual.
    7. A social bonding process involving the creation of a new world-order and placement within it.
    8. A means of indoctrination by placing candidates in a receptive state and tying their social status to acceptance.

5. Is self-initiation possible?

    7. Not in the social or indoctrination sense, but in the experiential or "charging" sense, sure.
    8. Yes in every sense, if it's a self-initiation assigned by a group (see Pyramidos).

6. If someone is not yet an Adept, what do they really know?

    6. There's no such thing as an Adept. Crowley's system of degrees is a false system of psychology.
    7. Whatever they know. Adepthood means completely different things to different people.

7. What is the difference between "Aleister Crowley" and "The Master Therion"?

    6. That's a tough one. The difference between Crowley and V.V.V.V.V. is much easier to grasp.

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1. I realized after posting that the first question was phrased incorrectly. It really ought to have been "What does it mean to be a Thelemite?"

Ah. That's very different. My definition of Thelemite is derived closely from Rabelais, omitting the term "well-bred."

7. If you find it easier to describe the relationship of "AC" to "VVVVV" than that of "AC" to "Therion", then by all means do so. Perhaps that is a better question.

V.V.V.V.V. was a voice in Crowley's head which was not identified with his conscious self. That much is clear from his unpublished journals. I am less clear on what Crowley meant by "The Master Therion" as a pseudonym. The Therion pieces unlike the V.V.V.V.V. pieces appear to be written by the conscious self rather than some right-brain poetry center. One approach to the question would be that the Therion voice was felt to be a combination of the conscious and unconscious voices.

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I'm sure Rabelais doesn't mention Liber AL (for obvious reasons), so should I infer that you don't consider acceptance of Liber AL to be essential to the definition of a Thelemite?

Certainly not essential, and it can even be inimical. A Thelemite per Rabelais is someone whose sources of virtue are within themselves; he deliberately inverted the Christian idea that wisdom came from external sources in the Bible and the Church. If someone is a BotL-thumper then they may be relying excessively on an external source of received wisdom rather than on their own internal sources. If so, then the Rabelaisian definition would not apply.

I agree that AC did not identify VVVVV with his human personality, which I think is what you mean by "conscious self". I think AC would have said that as a Master of the Temple, VVVVV resided above the Abyss, and so by definition was not part of his ego.

That's a little more abstract that what I was trying to say. Crowley was conscious when V.V.V.V.V. was speaking. According to his journal from the time when he received that rapid-fire burst of Class A texts over a few months, he simply heard the voice and it gave him dictation. There were no trance phenomena; he was in his ordinary state of consciousness. One model of this curious process would be that V.V.V.V.V. was the voice of Wernicke's area, the right-hemisphere analogue of the ordinary left-hemisphere speech center, a la Julian Jaynes.

The same was true of Therion, but it is the Curse of the Magus that he must speak, knowing that he will be misunderstood; so he wrote as simply as possible, almost as a parent speaks to a toddler.

Perhaps. I don't know of any clear biographical data on the subject.

You... restrict your concept of initiation to "charging symbols", "social bonding", and brainwashing (I think that is a fair reduction of your third definition).

Indoctrination. Brainwashing is a different, albeit related, process.

[P]erhaps a better question is, what is it that you are looking for in Thelema if not initiation as AC defined it, according to the curriculum that he devised for individual attainment (i.e. the AA system)?

I'm not looking for anything in Thelema. As a Thelemite I am not dependent on others' received wisdom.

If you reject the model of the HGA as the True Self, do you also reject the model of the conscious ego as a false self, and of the crossing of the Abyss as the way to finally free oneself of that illusion?

Crowley didn't take Aiwass as his MT motto, so how would the HGA be the True Self?

All concepts of selfhood are illusory, as per Hume. The illusion of self is a product of neurological narrative, in which a massively parallel system creates a story about a unitary character that does not exist.

This is becoming an interesting discussion; you seem to reject so much of the core of what AC believed and taught that I wonder what it is about him and/or Thelema that attracts you.

Crowley was a talented creator with an unusual connection to aspects of his own unconscious mind. His work is to me a subjectively useful source of symbolic associations that I can weave into my own personal symbolic tapestry, and his rituals and meditations are enjoyable and fulfilling to perform, helping me tap into my own unconscious sources of wisdom. I'm by no means a follower of his system, though. It's obvious to me from the biographical data that his view of spiritual degrees consisted of force-fitting his personal experience into a traditional framework, and that he was willing to lie in order to make the fit to tradition look convincing to others. It's also clear that his methods were not effective for others, and that the methods he proposed for others were not what he practiced himself.