Robert Anton Wilson’s 2005 ‘Crowley 101’ course
During the spring of 2005, Robert Anton Wilson taught his “Crowley 101” course at the Maybe Logic Academy. I, along with a group of dedicated MLA regulars, took the class. If I recall correctly, Wilson wrote somewhere at the beginning of the course that he did not want to do a deep dive into Crowley’s Magick techniques and rituals because he’d seen a few people bug out over the years from such work and also since this class was online and not in person it was better not to dive too deep in the course.
Now that being said, the course was still pretty dense. Instead of offering a step-by-step guide into initiating oneself into Thelema, which would essentially have been RAW presenting the curriculum Crowley lays out in his own work. Wilson however did present all such material in his “long lost book” about Crowley called Do What Thou Wilt. I have posted a reading from that book, which I received from a special collections’ library at Harvard University a few months ago-in which RAW presents Crowley’s “curriculum.” Crowley’s whole mission was to get initiates to make contact with their “Holy Guardian Angel” and his curriculum was geared towards that. RAW made it clear at the outset of the course that he was not offering that.
What he did offer was a very RAW examination of some fundamental Crowley concepts. The assigned texts for the course were Crowley’s Book of Lies and also Book of Thoth. Wilson also had recommended texts like The Widow’s Son and various articles, etc.
I have seven weeks of class assignments. At the moment, I do not quite remember if Crowley 101 was a seven week or eight-week course. Perhaps one of my fellow participants in the course remembers and has a week eight. As of this moment, I have seven weeks’ worth of assignments.
Instead of posting each week’s assignment in individual posts, like I’ve done with previous RAW/MLA courses, I am posting all seven in this post. I feel like it’s time to go hyper-drive with RAW related material. It’s time to cut through all the superfluous bullshit and get RAW.
Week 1: Introduction: RAW presented an introduction to the mad British magus. He opened the course with the following question, “Do you think it is most useful to consider Magickal critters as angels, bodhisattvas, Egyptian gods, demons, Secret Chiefs of the Illuminati, pookahs, archetypes of the unconscious, extraterrestrials, all of the above, none of the above? Why? Cuss and discuss.”
As Wilson knew too well and as he adroitly documented in Cosmic Trigger vol. 1, when one engages with Ritual Magick, depth psychology, frequent psychedelic use, and UFO research you are going to encounter some weird shit. One of Wilson’s great lessons for those engaging in such activities is his stress not to get hung up on pinpoint an exact IDENTITY to this “things.” Wilson explored the possibility that his uncanny “encounters” detailed in Cosmic Trigger vol.1 that “they” could all these things. A deeper jewel here is that Wilson is guiding readers to dive into the unknown themselves and to make their own decisions, utilizing their critical thinking skills and an open and compassionate heart. When you let other people dictate to you what something “IS” then you’ve handed over part of your agency. On the other side, if you are so convinced that you already know what something “IS” and won’t let any other argument persuade you otherwise you are just as much of a schmuck as the other guy. So, examine the possibilities and listen to others, but just cause you listen to someone without following the compulsion to tell them how wrong they are, you can always listen and just Walk Away. (most times)
Week 2: “Hunchback and Soldiers” Wilson, in week 2, relayed the meaning of Crowley’s essay, “Liber CLVIII: The Soldier and the Hunchback.” He asked participants this week to “ponder deeply the first two chapters of the Book of Lies.” In these chapters Crowley writes about Hunchbacks and Soldiers. Hunchbacks were Question marks (?) and they signified Doubt, uncertainty, and search. The soldier, represented by an Exclamation point (!), signifies Insight, Illumination, and Discovery. After presenting this, Wilson next asks “Do you think Crowley’s work leads to more ! or ?” I love this because in order to really answer that question, one must read Crowley’s work and not just parrot something somebody else wrote or said about Crowley.
Wilson gave another assignment that week “for those wanting more work.” He asks, “Why does Crowley’s Confessions contain 96 chapters, 3 in the third person, and 93 in the first?”
Week 3: Agnostic Gnosticism
For the third week in a row, we see that Wilson opens every lesson with the Crowley phrase, “Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be the Whole of the Law.” Is there a reason he does this?
Next, he asks “Can we learn to live with both the Solider and the Hunchback or must we try to banish one of them?” This question is even more profound in 2023 that when he asked it in 2005. The reading assignment for the week was Chapters 1–23 in Book of Lies. Then he asks, “Why does chapter 23 reveal more about the Tarot than the first 22 chapters keyed to the Tarot Trumps?”
Also, “Why does 23 play such a key role?” As well as “What does Hexagram 23 in I Ching mean?”
Next Wilson asked participants to read “Innerview and Kennedy Bloodline.” It has been many years, so I do not remember what RAW was referring to when he wrote “Innerview” (But it is interesting that there is a recent, 2023, interview of Antero Alli titled “Innerview.”)
When it comes to the “Kennedy Bloodline” I believe Wilson was asking participants to read about The Kennedy’s from the Fritz Springmeier’s book Bloodline of the Illuminati. Springmeier’s was writing from a kooky Christian angle and so the Illuminati are also evil Satanists. He was close with another American conspiracy kook named John Todd; a fella most known perhaps to rapping constantly about how the Satanic Illuminati runs the music business from behind the scenes. Todd seemed unaware that the Discordians made his claim during their Operation Mindfuck in the summer of 1969. Only the Discordians alleged that the Illuminati was messing with music since the days of Beethoven! In your face Todd! (John Todd was later convicted of rape and after that sex crimes involving the molestation of two children who attended a karate school where he worked. Springmeier also ran into trouble with the law when he was convicted of attempted bank robbery in 2003.)
Springmeier presents in his book the notion that there were 13 families that were situated at the top of the Illuminati pyramid. They were: one. The Astor’s; 2. The Bundy’s; 3. The Collin’s; 4. The DuPont’s; 5. The Freemans; 6. The Kennedy’s; 7. The Li’s; 8. The Onassis’; 9. The Rockefeller’s; 10. The Rothschild’s; 11. The Russell’s; 12. The Van Duyn’s; and 13, The Merovingian’s.
Perhaps RAW first tuned into Springmeier’s book because Springmeier cites his book Widow’s Son as a source when it comes to the Kennedy Clan. Springmeier stresses to his readers that RAW “was not Christian.” The next line is also a fairly apt description, “Wilson acts like a buffoon one minute and a serious conspiracy researcher the next, and he will act both ways all in one article or even on a single page of his books.”
Springmeier’s book is, in my opinion, delivered in the classic conspiracy theory style of garbled logic and fusion of fact and fiction smashed into something that resembles a paragraph. But RAW thought it held enough value to at least examine in the context of Crowley. Or also, maybe RAW just liked it when other writers quoted his work.
Week 4: Do What Thou Wilt. RAW opens with a thought about how Crowley basically told people to think for themselves and in return he was decried as a monster and or Satanist while other religious teachers tell people to think like them and they get remembered as saints. RAW asks, “Do you see something remarkable in this?”
Then he gives the assignment. Read chapters 24–44 of Book of Lies. He then asks, “What did Wilhelm Reich consider the origin of Fascism?” Followed by, “List at least 10 parallels between Russian Tsarism, German Fascism, and Bush’s ‘neo-conservativism.’”
Then he asked participants to read from Widow’s Son and try to keep track of the Soldiers and the Hunchbacks.
Week 5: Shall Be This week begins with RAW telling the class about a San Fran publisher who incorrectly printed the Crowley phrase incorrectly and Grady McMurtry sued them for misrepresenting it.
Then he assigns the reading. Read chapter 51 from Book of Lies, also Crowley’s Liber 77, and also a website link that led to RAW’s discussion about TSOG: the Thing that Ate the Constitution. He then asks participants to read from The Book of Thoth. He asks participants to discuss the first 22 Tarot Trumps in the Thoth deck and then to contextualize them through the Book of Lies. Next, he asked, “Why did Washington and Adams consider the 2nd Amendment vital?”
Next, he reveals that he often referred to Crowley as an Anarcho-Fascist. “Which side do you think dominates his work?” he asks. Wilson also asks participants to eliminate the use of “is” (as in regard to the “is of identity”) while participating in class discussions.
Week 6: How Long, O Lord how long? In this week’s class Wilson asks, “How much longer to wait before the Age of Horus?” Then he asks participants to read from Book of Thoth and also chapters 69 and 70 from Book of Lies. The final reading was a link that led to David Pearce’s website and daring manifesto, The Molecular Biology of Paradise.
RAW ends the assignment with the question to what “eye” does Crowley refer to in BOL chapter 70 paragraph 6?
Week 7: Black Magic and Curses In this weeks assignment it Wilson talks about Crowley and his student Dion Fortune who both provided definitions of Magick. Crowley said Magick was the ability to bend realty around Will. However, Fortune forwarded the thinking when she said that Magick caused change in the world through an act of will.
Wilson next asks if the participants is able to synthesize these two views.
He finally asks the most significant Magickal question of all “Name the Great magician who makes the sky blue?” Followed by, “Name the teacher more trustworthy than Crowley and RAW?” Then he asks participants to read “The Living One” section of Widow’s Son.
