The Emperor, Tarot Card Oil Painting by J. Edward Cornelius. Against a blue-green sky over the far shore of a blue body of water, on the near shore, a red triangle surmounting a red cross (alchemical sulphur) stands in a fire (the letter Shin) above a ram's horns, the left horn of which rests on a yellow square, the right horn of which rests on an adjacent purple square.
"The Emperor", Tarot Card painted in Oil by J. Edward Cornelius (1951-2023)

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. —AL, I:40

“I am still one-pointed, at least in the lower sense that I have no desire or ambition but this of accomplishing the Great Work.”  –Frater O.M.

The highest virtues are one-pointed. That is, they are instantiated by recognizing the numerical unity of that to which the particular virtue refers: Being, Mystical Union, Freedom, Will….

In The Book of the Law, Hadit says, “In the sphere I am everywhere the centre…” (II:3).

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Being

We all partake of unitary Being, the bare I AM in Kether-1 above the Abyss. I AM is a point. There is no “my I AM” or “your I AM”.

“I am alone: there is no God where I am” (AL, II:23).

I AM crystalizes out of the Void.  “For I am perfect, being Not…” (AL, II:15).

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Mystical Union

The mystic attainment may be defined as the Union of the Soul with God…. and the real strength of every religion is consequently in its mystics. … Now the extreme state of Being, Knowledge, and Bliss which characterizes the intermediate stages of mystic experience, is a thousandfold more intense than any other kind of happiness. … It is therefore unnecessary to fret over social problems and the rest of it; the root of the cause is duality, the antithesis of the Ego and the Non-Ego; and the cure is Realization of the Unity. … The whole secret of ‘Yoga’ is given in Matthew VI, 22. ‘The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.’ This is a perfectly simple statement of the virtue of what the Hindus call ‘Ekagrata’, ‘one-pointedness’.” 

– Aleister Crowley, The Gospel According to St. Bernard Shaw

 “Note that Konx om Pax contains the capitalized letters KP, which is Kaph-Peh in Hebrew and Kappa-Epsilon in Greek, which are equal to 100 (cf. the title headings in The Book of Lies, which subtly hints at the Union of Three in the use of these two letters–namely, Male/Him, Female/Her, and It (μιν).)”

– Christopher Reed Johnson, “On Chastity, Part I”

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Freedom

The Law of Thelema embraces Freedom one-pointedly. Its prohibits exactly one thing, Restriction: “The word of Sin is Restriction” (AL, I:41).

Accordingly, the only way to embrace Thelemic Freedom is to make way for it in everyone. Do not succumb to narrow thinking that reasons that the supposed means for securing your freedom require that someone else be restricted.

“If we abrogate another’s freedom to gain our own ends, our own freedom is thereby jeopardized.” –John Whiteside Parsons, “Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword”

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Will

The Will in Chokmah-2 is a Universal Force. It moves through everything and everyone.

Each individual’s True Will points back through the incarnation toward this One Will. Simply put, it is how the One Will is to be done through the incarnation.

“The concept of being a Thelemite is based on the Greek word θέλημα or Thelema. This implies a person who is pursuing their True Will. In other words, this person admits that their Soul had picked its incarnations in order to gain a certain ‘experience’ at which time after puberty it was believed, to use more modern jargon, that the Soul would be given the free choice to ‘Do what thou wilt.’ Still, the Greeks understood that there was no guarantee that our Soul would fulfill its desired incarnation because “Do what thou wilt” is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it implies that we’re given the license to pursue our Earthly experience as we choose. However, the danger in this assumption as finality is that our mercurial Soul, having passed the River of Forgetfulness in order to incarnate, could now easily focus all its attention toward Earthly ‘do what thou wants’ which could unconsciously steer it away from the real reason as to why it incarnated.” –J. Edward Cornelius, “On Thelomites”

Love is the law, love under will. —AL, I:57