Rudolph Steiner's Interpretation of the True Will:
“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”
In order to understand this essay it's important to first understand what the True Will is. The True Will is a term used in Thelemic parlance, which simply refers to the unconscious driving force or inertia of someone who has brought every faculty of his being under the control of his Higher Genius and is capable of influence or insights that seem magical or miraculous to ordinary people. I liken it to a canvas upon which an Adept renders his or her Great Work. I will here discuss the ideas of Rudolph Steiner and show the similarities between what he has to say about reincarnation and destiny as being remarkably similar to the True Will of Thelema. I am also tired of great men and women whose work, have been corrupted by Christian idealists that have infiltrated the ranks of their organizations. I am referring in particular to the Christians who have eschewed the teachings of Rudolph Steiner's Anthroposophical Society and HP. Blavatsky's Theosophical Society and would like to undermine their authority, if I may? This corruption couldn't have been that difficult as we live in a world where most people are educated to only read memes and road signs. Be this as it may, I will be giving my two cents and will here interpret Rudolph Steiner's work for myself and anyone else with ears to hear and eyes to see.
“With firm step the student advances i n life. No matter what it may bring him, he goes forward erect. In the past he knew not why he worked and suffered, but now he knows.” “What would otherwise be mere uncertain groping is transformed by such direction that is certain of the goal.” ”Those who by means of meditation, rise to that which unites man with spirit are bringing to life within them the eternal element which is not limited by birth or death.” “In the occult schools themselves a definite course of instruction is followed, and in addition to this there are certain practices which enable the souls of men to attain a conscious intercourse with the spiritual world.” Rudolph Steiner, The Way of Initiation.
Now, let's take a look at what Aleister Crowley has to say about initiation in “Magick in Theory and Practice” in his chapter “The Formula of the Neophyte”.
“It will be seen that the effect of this whole ceremony is to endow a thing inert and impotent with balanced motion in a given direction.” “It should be employed in consecrating the actual weapons used by the magician, and may also be used as the first formula of initiation.”
This is in no way dissimilar to what is described by Steiner in the above quote. Being more aware of the soul and its development we are given direction and that direction is towards Tiphareth, where the magician realizes his True Will. In order for the new soul to be born we have to die, this is represented in the Formula of IAO, the soul has been corrupted through our experiences prior to initiation and to be reborn in the spirit we have to be purged of all impurities. We are consciously shining a light into the darkness of the unconscious and establishing an inner dialogue between the two. Thus we become more aware of the motivations behind our unconscious impulses, this in turn endows a thing inert and impotent with balanced motion in a given direction.
“We all know that little children refer to themselves, by saying things like “Charlie is a good boy” or “Mary wants that” and we find it appropriate that they should speak about themselves as they would someone else, since they are not aware of their own independent existence. Consciousness of self has not yet been born in them. Through the consciousness of self, an individual achieves self-definition as an independent being separate from everything else, as “I”. By “I” a person means the total experience of self as body and soul. Body and soul are vehicles of the “I”; it works in them. Just as the physical body has its center in the brain, the soul has its center in the “I”.
It seems appropriate that the first initiation is then called the Neophyte Initiation as it is through this that the individual is born into a greater awareness of self and the “I” is realized on a grander scale than those unfortunates blindly going through life unaware of the effect they are having upon their constitutions, by following their impulsive natures. Through an act of Magick we have consciously become vessels of the spirit, we now have a definite course and our experiences are viewed as either benefiting or hindering the whole. We have gained direction.
“When the soul is seen as a unity, its transitory and eternal aspects are indistinguishably bound up with each other, but unless we are aware of the differentiations within it, we cannot understand its relationship to the world as a whole.”
These differential aspects of our beings become apparent to us only through initiation as mentioned above, it is the triple constitution of man that is now recognized, so that we are able to develop ourselves accordingly. Our souls are affected by both the physical sensual world as well as the spiritual world, we take information from both and for anyone serious about developing their souls it becomes immediately obvious that this is the only logical way forward. The stimuli from these worlds have the potential to either act as poison or sustenance, being more aware of the soul and its development aids us in distinguishing between the two. However, Steiner goes even further than this and says that our souls are made up of the sentient soul, the soul body, the mind soul and the spirit filled consciousness soul. The sentient soul is connected to the physical world, the soul body and the mind soul is what makes up the soul that we are discussing and the spirit filled consciousness soul takes in information from the spirit.
“Within the human soul, the “I” flashes up, receives the impact of the spirit and thus becomes the vehicle of the spirit body.”
What he is referring to here is what we call in Thelema Hadit. Hadit wakes up in the soul of the Adept and becomes a source of inspiration and divine ecstasy. This awakening can however only take place once the soul has been sufficiently built up to support the influx of spirit which leads to divine ecstasy. It is from this awakening that Crowley became inspired to write the 'Book of the Law' and the “Holy Books of Thelema” , it is also what inspired HP Blavatsky to write “The Secret Doctrine” and “Isis Unveiled”. These are two examples of the Great Work having been accomplished, in both instances it was the awakening of Hadit that informed the creativity of these two people to write these books. They have been immortalized in the work which they presented to the world and this is the nature of immortality.
The question then is who are suited to this task? If it was only a question of Magick, then certainly every initiate in the world would at one time or another in his life, achieve the same greatness. This is obviously not the case and in his book “Theosophy” Rudolph Steiner gives us a very good theory as to why only some people in the world are capable of achieving this.
“Whatever I may recognize through the spirit is grounded in an element of the soul's life that connects the soul to a universal content, a content that reveals within the soul but is independent of its transitory bodily basis. Whether this content is imperishable in every respect does not matter, what matters is that it be revealed in such a way that the soul's independent imperishable aspect rather than its perishable bodily basis is involved.”
Here Steiner is likening the information received from the spirit to the collective unconscious. Crowley called it Man-Soul. It can also be considered the zeitgeist, however included in it must not only be the perception but mankind's complete ontology is filtered into this dealing with the spirit, the spirit is eternal, the zeitgeist is not, or the one is imperishable and the other is perishable, Hadit is the imperishable part of our souls he is without beginning or end. It is only within the context of the soul within this world of contending forces that Hadit is called to aid in the magician's Great Work, other-wise he is pure consciousness and is linked to the Pure Will and not the True Will, his only purpose then is to achieve union with Nuit. The information gathered in this way is what informs the Great Work in the same way that an artist is inspired by a landscape to paint it. The Adept is inspired by the spirit to perform the Great Work.
“In our ordinary consciousness, we do not usually form a concept of “becoming lasting through action” in the same way that we form a concept of memory, of becoming lasting as a result of observation or perception. But is the “I” not just as strongly linked to a change in the world that results from its own action as it is from a memory that results from an impression?
“The truth is eternal; even if I were continually losing sight of the past and each impression were new to me, the truth could still always reveal itself to me again in things. But the spirit in me is not restricted to the impressions of the moment; my soul widens the spirits field of vision to include the past. And the more my soul can add to my spirit from the past, the richer the spirit becomes. The soul passes on to the spirit what it has received from the body. Thus, at every moment of its life, the human spirit caries two very different elements---first, the eternal laws of the true and good; second the recollection of past experiences. Whatever it does is accomplished under the influence of these two factors.”
Although our souls are not immortal, our spirits are. However the ethereal make up of our beings are of a specific nature, the substance that a soul is formulated from has to be sympathetic, this sympathy comes from the fact that everything has a memory and that we always seek to experience greater more informative realities so that we can evolve. Therefore the ethereal body is comprised from particles that are sympathetic to one another and at the same level of the evolutionary process in order to learn more in this life and expand its knowledge base so that it keeps evolving through experience. Hadit then is given abilities proportionate to every soul he incarnates into.
“The human spirit grows as these experiences are worked over and assimilated. Thus although we do not find our past experience preserved in the spirit as if in a treasure vault, we do find their effects in the abilities we have acquired.” .
This is where talents are derived from and as we are talking about the True Will it is a concept of particular interest in context of genius.
“Take the case of a genius, for instance. As a boy Mozart could write down from memory a long piece of music he had heard only once. He was able to do so because he could survey the whole thing all at once, as a totality. In the course of our lifetime, we can all---at least within certain limits---broaden our capacity to gain an overview of things and to understand the relationships between them.”
In my opinion this does not mean that the exact same particles that make up our ethereal bodies need to reincarnate together, it only means that in previous lives they were involved in lives that had similar experiences and are on the same level of evolution. This lends credence to the idea of Anatta, but these particles evolve to keep evolving, it is the nature of existence and our existence in particular. Therefore I say it is our duty as human beings to follow the “Book of the Law” where it says .” But exceed! exceed! Strive ever to more! And if thou art truly mine—and doubt it not, and if thou art ever joyous!—death is the crown of all.” If the above assertion is correct then the work is never in vain, every experience enriches the whole and is necessary whether the end is attained in this life or a hundred lives from now, this is also the nature of evolution.
So, as Steiner suggests, the capacity to realize genius is gained through experience accumulated over lifetimes, genius is only the start of the journey though. We can say that genius is guided by the True Will something to which only these fortunate souls are subject, but after this has been attained they must still be immortalized through accomplishing the Great Work.
“Goethe's saying, “From my father, I get my build and the tendency to take life seriously; from my mother, my happy disposition and delight in storytelling,” is based on this fact. But his genius, of course, did not come from either of his parents.”
All quotes in this essay unless otherwise specified were taken from Rudolph Steiner's Theosophy.
“Love is the law, love under will.”
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