by Frater Adonis

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

What direction will spirituality will be taking into the next century ? Certainly this is something worth thinking about. We live in an apocalyptic era filled with the seeming fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, Hopi prophecy, and the end of the Aztec calendar (amongst other omens). One might be inclined to look up and see the sky falling down. There are even those amongst us who are spreading just such a forecast, most particularly in the Christian tradition. Some groups in comparatively recent history, have climbed mountain tops to stand and wait for the end of the world. This after selling or giving away all their possessions and quitting their jobs, homes and families. And of course . . . nothing happened.

All these literal interpreters of scripture may have missed their marks because the apocalypse is an internal one that was meant to transform consciousness and our relationship to the external world. Perhaps the old world is falling apart even as we are building the new one. This is most definitely an end or death for the old formulas for spiritual attainment and an end to the old world view. I submit that the ancient forecasters were correct . . . so to speak. Yet, their sky and what it meant to them is dying quickly at this point.

We are in the process of redefining just what the planets and stars represent in this Aquarian age. But more importantly, we are presented with an unique opportunity. For those of us who have lost any corresponding value with the Piscean ideal and the prophets of that dying age, we are gaining the ability to recognize new prophets and new priests/priestesses and to create new formulas for the exploration of consciousness and spiritual attainment. One particular viewpoint recognizes Aliester Crowley as just such a prophet. But he shouldn't be the only one. There are new prophets arising, writing new books and chanting new formulas at the stars in the night sky.

Hopefully, we will enkindle a living religio/spiritual tradition where new prophets can speak and be recognized. I see it coming from a variety of places. In the arts, we heard, not so long ago, Patti Smith call for new alchemies and prophets (and I believe she proved herself a prophetess with extraordinary insight). And what about Jim Morrison? Or the Romantic Revolution? Medicine has a radical contingent looking for new ways to connect us to the world around us. Our technology, while seeming to do just the opposite, has driven some of us to search deep inside of ourselves in ways that our culture has forgotten for centuries. Arguments can certainly be made for Jung and Einstein amongst others to add to this collective testament of works. But what about the criteria for proving prophetic inspiration?

The ancient Hebrew culture had an observable set of personality traits, works, and synchronicities that an individual must be able to exhibit and prove before one could be publicly recognized as a prophet. Up until this century, the prophets were said to have appeared in ancient times and that they belong in history -- not in the present. Perhaps we need to establish some new formulas as qualifications for those pretenders who would be prophet. This might seem to precipitate a new orthodoxy. And certainly that would be an inevitable result in at least a few hundred years hence.

But now is the time for creation. These are days when we will take a stab in the dark and begin to create that which as yet has no recognizable form. Thelemites and the followers of Gurjeif, Wiccans, New Agers, modern Psychological Theorists and Physicists, Carismatics and Spiritualists, Artists and Gnostics, et al; all these are pouring ideas into a brew that will be used to pour the foundation for a new temple and a new archetype. This is the work that we are doing now -- whether or not we are aware of it.

Love is the law, love under will.