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Book Review: Initiation in the Aeon of the Child
Initiation in the Aeon of the Child Introduction and Background For some years now, J. Daniel Gunther has been a mystery man of the Thelemic community. A student of the late Marcelo Ramos Motta in the 1970s, he met the usual fate of those unwise enough to accept Motta as a teacher; that is to say, he was accused of high crimes and summarily expelled. In Motta’s Equinox V:4 (1982), we find:
The intended victim of the alleged murder plot is not identified clearly (was the “hierarchic superior” Motta, or another student?); but given Motta’s rampant paranoia, in all probability there never was a plot in the first place. Marcelo Motta was a curious character. A native of Brazil, he became involved with Thelema in the 1950s and became an A∴A∴ student under Karl Germer. Martin P. Starr, in his biography of O.T.O. lodge master Wilfred Talbot Smith, The Unknown God (Teitan Press, 2003), gives us a capsule portrait of the young Motta at this time:
According to Motta himself, he had only recently reached the A∴A∴Grade of Zelator by the time of Germer’s death in 1962:
In his later writings, Motta claimed to have continued working through the A∴A∴ system on his own, without an instructor, becoming a Babe of the Abyss by 1969. To my knowledge, no evidence of his work prior to 1969 has been published; but in his Equinox V:2 (Thelema Publishing Co., 1978), Motta published the record of a series of astral journeys under the title “Liber CCXXXI: A Personal Research.” These astral experiences date from July 1969 to March 1975, and are remarkably unimpressive. Motta himself notes in his introduction to this document that “The total lack of competence of the Researcher [Motta himself] in such simple matters will also become painfully obvious at first glance: he plods where another might fly.” With this, I can hardly argue. The visions are trivial and disorganized; they demonstrate poor concentration and generally seem more like idle daydreams than real astral work. The contrast between this “research” and Crowley’s The Vision and the Voice could not be greater. Another statement from Motta’s introduction to his visions deserves our attention:
Indeed, this may “seem strange to the average person.” It struck me as odd when I first read it some 28 years ago. Back then I had no experience of astral work, ceremonial magick, or A∴A∴ training. Now that I have experience in these areas, Motta’s attempt to justify himself seems even stranger to me. If Motta’s unspecified, unpublished “previous astral experiences” were good enough for him to be advanced to Zelator, his Liber CCXXXI visions wouldn’t have been so messy. It seems that in the absence of an instructor, Motta judged his own work as he went along. Lacking the experience and perspective to judge it competently and objectively, he simply advanced himself to the next Grade whenever he felt like it. This is a typical problem with self-initiation. What makes all this relevant here is that Motta, as we have already noted, was J. Daniel Gunther’s instructor. If Motta himself was incompetent, and if as a young man he was already as psychologically disturbed as Starr describes, then the claim that he was ever a valid A∴A∴ instructor capable of leading anyone to real initiation cannot be taken seriously. What, then, are we to think of Gunther? By 1975, when Motta published The Commentaries of AL, he had a number of young A∴A∴ students, including Gunther, James Wasserman, and William Breeze. All of them, in a pattern typical of Motta’s relationships with his students, fell from the master’s favor within a few years and were “expelled” or “cut contact with” for a variety of alleged (and probably imaginary) crimes. Wasserman and Breeze both became members of Grady McMurtry’s O.T.O.: Wasserman is now a IX° member, and Breeze, following the death of McMurtry (Hymenæus Alpha) in 1985, was elected the Order’s Acting Outer Head and Frater Superior under the name Hymenæus Beta. Gunther, on the other hand, seems to have spent several years in retreat. A few years after Motta’s death in 1987, three initially-mysterious people known only as Fratres V., V. V., and S. U. A. began to be heard of. They claimed not only to be adepts, but also to constitute the current governing triad of the A∴A∴. Before long, it became generally known that these three were none other than J. Daniel Gunther, William Breeze, and occult historian Martin P. Starr (another former Motta student). Gunther was their chief, claiming the Grade of Adeptus Exemptus. Perhaps it should not be surprising, but their story seems oddly reminiscent of Motta’s own. Motta’s teacher died while he was only a Zelator; he appeared in public some years later, claiming not only to have independently worked his way up to Master of the Temple, but also to be the head of the A∴A∴. Gunther’s teacher did not die immediately, but they did have an irreparable falling out, and Gunther remained silent until after Motta’s death; like Motta, he eventually emerged (with Breeze and Starr), claiming an advanced Grade and attempting to establish himself as the head of the A∴A∴. As the saying goes: The fruit never falls far from the tree. Gunther, Breeze, and Starr did not claim merely to be legitimate representatives of A∴A∴ (which would have made them merely one group among many); instead, they claimed sole authority over the A∴A∴. During the 1990s, they even attempted (unsuccessfully) to require all other A∴A∴ claimants to submit to their authority. Since then, there continue to be occasional noises about there being only one true A∴A∴ with one governing triad (themselves, of course). All other lineages are belittled as somehow invalid or unauthorized, and the very concept of “lineages” is disparaged in spite of the blindingly obvious fact that independent lineages are implicit in Crowley’s stated intention that each A∴A∴ member should know only his own instructor and his own students. It is impossible to have a central authority if no one knows who it is, as would inevitably become the case in the course of time. Meanwhile, the other schools claiming to represent the A∴A∴, including James A. Eshelman’s College of Thelema, have continued to operate according to their own lights. From what I know of them, most have to some degree modified Crowley’s system: Jerry Cornelius has replaced Crowley’s ten Grades with three, and the College of Thelema seems to de-emphasize the actual performance of ceremonial magick (which I am told Phyllis Seckler considered dangerous) to focus instead on an interpretation of magick based in Jungian psychology. Personally, I find this notion rather tedious and clueless. It is said that Gunther’s school insists on working the A∴A∴ system “by the book,” with the students actually keeping detailed daily records and doing all the practices that Crowley specified for their Grade. If this is true, it sounds to me like a considerable improvement on magick-as-psychology foolishness. At the same time, even doing things “by the book” wouldn’t be sufficient unless the leaders were genuine initiates who had really achieved what people at the Grades they claimed are supposed to have achieved. Otherwise, it would just be the blind leading the blind using instructions they didn’t really understand, and without the experience to judge their students’ progress. In recent years, there has been some criticism of Gunther’s A∴A∴ school for the lack of original magical work published by their leaders. Breeze and Starr have both published books, but Breeze has limited himself to editing and reprinting Crowley’s works, while Starr’s writings have been historical and biographical rather than treatises of occult theory or records of practice. Gunther, meanwhile, published nothing at all. His silence was a double-edged sword: on the one hand, as long as he remained an unknown quantity, he could not be criticized other than for being an unknown quantity; on the other hand, it was obvious that he needed to prove himself, given the extravagant claims made on his behalf. Additionally, if he ever wanted to promote himself to Master of the Temple (just like his old instructor, Motta), then Crowley’s system required him to publish a major philosophical statement— especially if he wanted to do things “by the book.”
The Book This brings us to the present work, Initiation in the Aeon of the Child. Published early this year by Ibis Books, it is physically a handsome hardcover printed on acid-free paper (if I am correctly interpreting the notation “alk.paper” on the copyright page). It feels pleasantly solid in one’s hand, and has a black dust jacket with a Rosy Cross on the front. On the jacket’s back, we find endorsements by two men whose names we have already encountered in this review: Hymenæus Beta (William Breeze) and James Wasserman, two of Gunther’s old friends and fellow former Motta students. Hymenæus Beta tells us (in part):
This, it must be admitted, is an enthusiastic endorsement; one might be forgiven for thinking that this book must be nearly the equal of Crowley classics such as Magick in Theory and Practice or Magick Without Tears. I think we can safely say that Breeze puts his own reputation on the line here; if this book is anything short of brilliant, he makes himself look like an idiot. It is interesting that Breeze describes the book as “oral instructions of the modern A∴A∴.” It suggests that this material has actually been taught to their students, and therefore constitutes official doctrine, not just Gunther’s personal theories. (Note again Breeze’s use of the phrase “transmitted doctrinal insight.”) Wasserman’s back-cover quote is excerpted from his introduction to the book: “a beautifully crafted description of the modern path of initiation... not a rehash... the most important original work to be published since the death of Aleister Crowley.” Again we see great enthusiasm and high praise expressed in no uncertain terms; in fact, the rest of the introduction contains additional praise of an equally high standard, of which I will quote here only one sentence: “The profundity of his [Gunther’s] insight and understanding, and the extent of his erudition are, frankly, daunting.” Wasserman, too, is putting his reputation on the line here. In both endorsements, we see an emphasis on the book’s brilliance, originality, and importance. It is to be seen as an authoritative statement and an important contribution to modern occultism. All this trumpeting, in such extreme terms, must surely have a purpose beyond simply helping a friend to sell books. It seems to me that there is a real effort here to present this book as a grand statement; to imply, without actually saying it (perhaps to preserve deniability in case something goes wrong), that this is indeed Gunther’s Adeptus Exemptus thesis, the book that proves once and for all that he is the greatest adept of the age, and therefore that his group really is the One True A∴A∴, as they have claimed. Well, it had better be a good book, then. A lot is riding on it. Before we actually get to the main text, there is just one more detail I would like to note in Wasserman’s introduction. There is a story that I’ve heard from Gunther’s supporters at times over the last several years. It has to do with the apparent logical contradiction involved in Gunther, Breeze, and Starr claiming A∴A∴ lineal descent through Motta, who is on record that all three of them had either been expelled or allowed to resign from A∴A∴. In other words, they base their legitimacy on a man who stated in print that they were not legitimate. This is a tough nut to crack, but they seem to think they have found a way to pull it off. The story that I have heard, but not seen written down in so many words, is that Motta was a legitimate A∴A∴ member under Karl Germer and remained so up through the time that he initiated Gunther, Breeze, Wasserman, and others; but then he made the fatal mistake of publishing a commentary on The Book of the Law in 1975, and went mad in consequence. This story, you see, explains away the difficulty; Motta legitimately initiated Gunther and his friends, but then conveniently lost his own legitimacy before falling out with them. It’s a creative argument, even if the central difficulty, the notion that publishing a commentary could cause someone to go mad, obviously cannot be taken seriously by any sane adult. It’s the sort of thing that belongs in the pages of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow. Wasserman, writing of the period after Motta had “cut contact with” him and Gunther, more or less implies this argument without actually stating it outright:
Here, in almost story-book prose, we see the germ of the idea: Motta wasn’t mad when they first knew him, but went mad later. This despite the fact that one of their own, Martin P. Starr, has stated in print that “Motta was a deeply troubled young man” with “paranoid delusions” even when he first met Karl Germer in 1956— and that Germer’s own opinion was that Motta only “switched temporarily back into sanity.” This is interesting because of the questions of legitimacy it raises, and the rather evident intention of replacing the truth (whatever it may be) with a fiction designed to present the past in the most convenient light possible— convenient, that is, for former Motta students who want to have their cake and eat it too. The Text Given what I wrote above concerning the reported emphasis that Gunther’s group puts on working the A∴A∴ system “by the book,” my expectation on beginning to read this volume was that it would eschew the Jungian magick-as-psychology nonsense so popular in some quarters today, and instead discuss practical aspects of initiatic work as well as presenting an overall theory of the nature of initiation in the New Aeon. Imagine my surprise, then, to find instead... Jungian magick-as-psychology rubbish! The first sign of trouble is the Permissions page, which, in addition to Crowley and a book on Egyptian art, cites two Jung texts and Anatomy of the Psyche by Jungian analyst Edward F. Edinger. In the course of the book, we will also encounter references to another Jungian writer, Erich Neumann. Gunther seems to think that the Jungians have all the answers, for he cites no psychologists of other schools. Alfred Adler? No. Rollo May? No. Wilhelm Reich? No. Edinger is a somewhat controversial figure: popular with some Jungians, but also heavily criticized by those who believe that he misunderstood the religious and alchemical texts he used to support his ideas. His principal thesis is almost an inversion of Crowley’s view of selfhood. In Anatomy of the Self, Edinger argued that the personal ego is the generator of the Self and that this ego can achieve a god-like condition by integrating the psyche’s opposites. This contradicts Jung’s view that the ego-attitude is something to be abandoned when it has served its purpose. Compare these notions to Crowley’s insistence that the ego is destroyed when the aspirant crosses the Abyss. Jung is clearly closer to the truth. Edinger also frequently misunderstands alchemical symbols; for instance, he inteprets the skeleton as a symbol of mortificatio, whereas it is quite well known that the skeleton is associated with albedo. In attempting to discuss the Aeon of Isis, Gunther draws on Neumann’s writings about the “Great Mother,” which resemble nothing so much as a Jungianized version of 1980s “women’s spirituality” writings about a hypothetical and badly over-idealized primitive matriarchy that allegedly preceded the development of patriarchal society. At one point Gunther tells us that “fragmentary artifacts unearthed by archeologists bear witness to the supremacy of the matriarch during this epoch” (page 166), which is simply ridiculous. It is true, of course, that small sculptures of female figures have been dated to distant pre-history, but what they meant to the people who made them is an unresolvable mystery. Any interpretation of them as religious symbols is purely speculative, but Gunther thinks that they are indicative of the primitive matriarchy he wants to believe in. He does, at least, take care to note that the kind of matriarchy he has in mind has to do with the dominance of a particular archetype rather than a political domination of men by women. As we begin the first chapter of Initiation in the Aeon of the Child, we may notice something odd. The phrase “Aeon of Horus” appears in the first sentence, followed closely by mentions of The Book of the Law, Thelema, and “the supersession of IAO as the central formula of Initiation.” This is all from the first paragraph. None of these ideas have been introduced; they are simply thrown out as if the reader can be expected to already know a fair amount about them, though a footnote assures us that “These terms are explained in more detail later in this book.” Here we are on the first page, and Breeze’s claim that the book is “accessible to new students” is already in trouble. A competent expository writer does not begin a book by throwing a bunch of potentially-unfamiliar terminology at the reader without first establishing a framework and outlining the fundamental concepts. The only sensible conclusion to draw, even just from this first paragraph, is that this is not a beginner-friendly book. In a way, this is just as well; there are too many beginner books on the occult already, and I’d really rather read something aimed at the more advanced aspirant. Still, Breeze’s claims for the book are beginning to look a bit dubious. As we progress further into the book, though, we will find that trying to view it as an advanced treatise is problematic too, because too many trivial, obvious, elementary things are explained in too much detail, both in footnotes and in the main body of the text. Often these explanations fail for beginners and advanced readers alike: the beginner will be confused because not enough is explained and not enough context is given; the more advanced reader will be annoyed because the explanation tells him nothing he didn’t already know (or, worse, tells him something obviously incorrect). For example, a footnote on page 41 tells us that Neschamah is “Intuition,” and that it, “together with Chiah (Will) and Yechidah (the Spark of Godhead), forms the trinity that represents the highest aspects of human nature. These three are above the Abyss, hence they are unconscious components of the human psyche.” Now, one could take issue with the statement that Neschamah is just intuition, or that the Supernals are merely a part of the unconscious, but simply on the level of exposition, this fails because the Qabalah, the Tree of Life, and the Qabalistic model of the soul have not been properly introduced. There is a diagram of the Tree two pages later, but no introduction or capsule definition of it is offered. Clearly this will confuse the beginner, who as yet knows nothing of these things. Yet the more advanced reader, who has already read at least a beginner book on the Qabalah, hardly needs to have Neschamah defined at all. So why is this footnote here? And this is not an isolated issue; it crops up repeatedly throughout the book. It seems to me quite reasonable to ask whether Gunther had any clear sense of who he was writing for. Or perhaps the problem is that he just isn’t a competent expository writer, and desperately needs to collaborate with someone who knows how to write a book. A related problem is that Gunther will go on and on about the most trivial things, offering citations and definitions and supporting evidence; but when it comes to his most idiosyncratic ideas, he often simply pontificates without offering any support whatsoever. The impression I get from this is of a writer who wants to conceal his inability to support his most crucial claims by overdoing the “scholarly” stuff in other places where it isn’t needed but is easy to do. He’ll define simple terms like “dichotomy” for us (page 52, note 11), spend a few pages supporting the thoroughly uncontroversial claim that fish symbolism was important in early Christianity (pages 99-105), or helpfully inform us that the “kiss” of the Holy Guardian Angel is not “a literal ‘kiss’” (page 136), but when he makes improbable assertions such as, “The central initiatic experience of the Aeon of the Child is non-catastrophic” (page 47) or “The New Aeon in actuality makes its appearance gently” (page 169), it’s just a bald statement, offered without argument, as if it would be impertinent for anyone to doubt his word. Another aspect of his unwillingness to support his claims is his frequent reliance on hand-waving such as, “is absolutely clear” (page 27), “There is no doubt” (page 164), and “It should be obvious to even the most cursory reader” (page 160). These are cheap rhetorical devices that attempt to intimidate the reader in order to weasel out of presenting support for the claims being made. The implication of this language is that Gunther realizes on some level, even if only subconsciously, that his position is weak, and rather than admit the fact or try to find more support, he tries to cheat. This dishonest rhetoric occasionally takes another form, in which Gunther makes a claim that sounds “scientific” if the reader doesn’t know enough about science to realize that Gunther is saying something not merely wrong, but completely nonsensical. My favorite examples of this involve his grotesque abuse of the word “empirical,” including the following:
One is left with the distinct impression that Gunther does not understand what it means to empirically test anything, and furthermore that he does not understand the difference between proofs in mathematics, experimental validations in the physical sciences, the educated guesswork of pre-historical studies, and the utterly non-scientific philosophical speculations of Jungian psychology. He seems not to understand science or logic at all, and consequently can hardly be said to understand much of anything. The “profundity” and “erudition” claimed for Gunther by James Wasserman are nothing but a sham. Even when he does try to explain something, even something simple, he often fails in one way or another. On page 190 he tells us that “To rebuild it [the temple] anew, seekers must effect an animadversion toward the New Aeon.” He does not refer the reader to Liber V vel Reguli, which he is paraphrasing. Furthermore, in modern English, the word “animadversion” usually means “hostile criticism,” which will tend to mislead the reader. Gunther provides a Latin etymology (animadvertere, “to turn toward”), but that still does not explain its usage in English or his reason for using the word. He ought to have referenced Reguli and explained that Crowley was using the word in a sense now obsolete (and old-fashioned in his own time), to mean “the turning or directing of the attention to a subject” (Oxford English Dictionary). Many modern English dictionaries do not include this outdated definition, so the explanation would have been helpful for readers. Gunther’s common sense and grasp of logic seem quite weak, for he sometimes makes claims that contradict other statements elsewhere in the book— sometimes on the same page or the very next page. For example, on pages 37-39, he examines the term “black god.” He begins by referencing Crowley’s statement in The Book of Thoth that in ancient Egypt, it was revealed to initiates that “Osiris is a black god.” He traces this idea back to Eliphas Lévi (Crowley’s most likely source), but no further. With this “ancient Egyptian revelation” dated back only to the middle of the 19th century, to an occult writer with a notable penchant for inventing instructive allegories and passing them off as factual history, you would think Gunther would have the sense to be skeptical that initiates in ancient Egypt were ever told any such thing. But no, on page 39 he speculates (disguising his guesswork with brash certainty) that in ancient Egypt, initiates associated this revelation of Osiris’ “blackness” with the land of Egypt itself, since in their language Egypt was called Khem (or Kemet), the “Black Land.” It seems to me a more reasonable question to ask what “Osiris is a black god” meant to Eliphas Lévi, since he, as far as anyone can tell, probably invented it from whole cloth. This is but one example of the more general problem that Gunther is unable to think critically or even maintain internal consistency. Sometimes he treats Christianity with a sneering, secularistic contempt almost worthy of Christopher Hitchens, writing that “Jehovah’s demand for bloody sacrifices, whether real or imaginary, are [sic] abhorrent to any rational mind” (page 30), “Christianity is ultimately based upon an archetypal fear of the dark” (page 32), and “The Christian writers who penned the Apocalypse... like most believers, were trapped in a one-sided doctrine...” (pages 171-2); but then elsewhere he respectfully uses passages from the Bible to make points about divinity, even calling attention to obvious relationships between Old and New Testament passages in a blatant attempt to make himself seem like the Biblical scholar he clearly is not. A contradiction between religion and secularism runs through the book (and, it might be noted, through Jungian psychology in general) without ever being resolved or even acknowledged. Gunther approvingly quotes Jung to the effect that the Revelation of St. John the Divine is merely an upwelling of the collective unconscious, although it surely “seemed” to its author “like a divine revelation” (page 171), while in the glossary, he defines Aiwass as a “præter-human intelligence” (page 195). But if Revelation is merely the document of a psychological event, what reason is there to think that The Book of the Law is any different? Or is a “præter-human intelligence,” to Gunther, just an aspect of human psychology? Gunther never resolves this conflict; in fact, he never seems to notice it. His abhorrence for divinely-ordered blood sacrifice “whether real or imaginary” is particularly weird considering that The Book of the Law contains such gems as, “...let blood flow to my name. Trample down the Heathen; be upon them, o warrior, I will give you of their flesh to eat!” (III:11). Gunther never mentions passages such as this one, and there are indications throughout his book that violence and conflict frighten him. He assures the reader that in the New Aeon “we may foresee the complete rejection of prejudice in all its forms” as if mistaking Ra Hoor Khuit, the self-described “god of War and Vengeance,” for Martin Luther King, Jr. Crowley, who also was troubled by many passages in the Holy Books, was under no such illusion; unlike Gunther, in his writings, he did not hide from the more challenging and disturbing aspects of the Thelemic dispensation. Gunther, despite his occasional show of contempt for Christianity, ultimately seems to want nothing more than a liberal Christian’s idea of heaven on earth. This impression is only strengthened by statements such as the blithe egalitarianism of, “it is unquestionable that there is inherent worth in every seeker after the Mysteries” (page 137) and “since the advent of the Aeon of Horus... we have seen the advance of the Women’s Movement, the Civil Rights movement, and the movements for sexual liberty... we see these hopeful advances as mere shadows of a forthcoming era of freedom” (page 168). The latter is a particularly superficial interpretation, since the rapid invention of and corresponding demand for recognition of various “rights” in modern times actually contributes to the expansion of laws that limit freedom of speech and freedom of association. While these rights movements have been beneficial in some ways, as time goes by and demands continue to grow and to be expressed with greater shrillness and less respect for opposing views, they begin to seem more like expressions of an as-yet unsocialized Child, a toddler making demands, trying to discover how much it can get away with before its parents say, “Enough!” In keeping with his fears and insecurities, of course Gunther finds it necessary to downplay any connection between Thelema and Satanism, writing that “Thelemites do not ‘worship Satan’ or subscribe to any such nonsense” (page 172). Again he attempts to intimidate the reader with rhetoric, implying that only “the literally-inclined and simple-minded” would dare to disagree with him. However, the “simple-minded” (not to mention spiritually cowardly) person in this case is Gunther himself, for he is so unable to see beyond his fear of being associated in the public mind with criminal psychopaths that he disowns one of Crowley’s most powerful symbols. Gunther claims that Crowley’s references to Satan merely represent a “personal identification of Satan with Aiwass,” but this is, if not a conscious lie, at least an inexcusable error for someone who claims to be such an authority on Thelema. Crowley identifies Satan not only with Aiwass, but also with Hadit and the Sun; and he elucidates these relationships in terms that reach beyond a “personal identification.”
The late Anton LaVey, for all his faults, was a much more insightful and courageous occultist than Gunther; he correctly saw Satan as the ideal image of opposition to the reigning order, and declared his worship without reserve. Crowley’s reference to “dogmatic quarrels” being inflamed in “low grades of initiation” offers a plausible explanation for some of Gunther’s more ridiculous assertions, since if he can be called an initiate at all, he is obviously not the adept he imagines himself to be. A good example can be found in his silly discussion of determinism and free will beginning on page 160. Thelemites, he informs us, “are not advocates of Determinism... The philosophy of determinism disallows the interaction of the Human Will. This is completely antithetical to the Law of Thelema.” He then launches into a discussion of the Hegelian model of synthesis resulting from thesis and antithesis. One might have hoped that he would bring this back to the topic of determinism and free will, that he would be able to find some synthesis emerging from these opposites, but he never does. He actually seems to have completely forgotten the whole question by the time he finishes explaining (rather nonsensically) that progress in this model is not “linear” but instead “stair-stepped” (failing to realize, apparently, that this “stair-stepping” is merely a consequence of his diagrammatic representation of the process, not something inherent in the process itself). He gives no sign of having read (much less having understood) Crowley’s own comments on free will and determinism, in which he makes it clear that these, like any other pair of opposites, are simply illusions to be transcended.
To say that determinism is “antithetical” to the Law of Thelema is basically to equate Thelema with free will, since determinism quite obviously is antithetical to free will. Gunther cannot see that True Will is the synthesis that resolves and transcends the thesis of free will and the antithesis of determinism. If he cannot understand this, he can hardly be said to understand True Will, and therefore Thelema, at all. Perhaps the strangest thing about this sad book is that for a treatise allegedly about initiation, written by someone who claims to be the head of the A∴A∴, it says very little about the tasks of the A∴A∴ Grades. To be sure, there are occasional passing references, but no more than that. There is no discussion of ceremonial magick, no discussions of the rituals that aspirants to A∴A∴ are supposed to perform (e.g., Liber Resh vel Helios or the Mass of the Phœnix), very little mention even of yoga. At the book’s conclusion, he sums up the work of the A∴A∴’s Outer College as, “quieting the body, the mind, and the emotions”— in other words, the early results of Raja Yoga, before the practitioner even reaches Dhyana. The reader unfamiliar with Crowley’s works could be forgiven for assuming that the A∴A∴ had nothing to do with ceremonial magick at all. This curious void is only made greater by the complete lack of any reference to Gunther’s own progress in initiation. There are no personal anecdotes from his practices, no quotes from his Magical Record, no indication that he has ever done any real magical or yogic work at all. The closest we get to anything like this is his attempt to describe, or avoid describing, the “kiss” of the Holy Guardian Angel. After telling us that it is not “a literal ‘kiss’” (page 136), he rather vaguely explains that it is “a brief encounter” with no indication of the nature of that encounter. Now, it may be true that it is not the same for everyone, but even so, an example or two drawn from the personal experiences of himself or others of his acquaintance would have been more helpful than “a brief encounter.” One is left with the suspicion that he cannot describe it because he has never experienced it. This, ultimately, is the problem. The book gives no indication whatever that its author is anything more than an armchair theorist speculating about matters utterly alien to his experience based on the study of books he is ill-prepared to understand. He takes refuge in vagueness to avoid admitting how little he really knows. Even his “About the Author” text is vague: it does not tell us what he does for a living, what university degrees he holds (if any), or even whether he has a family. If we pick up the book knowing little about him, by the time we finish reading it, we know very little more. Beyond all the foregoing, there is another minor but irritating problem with the book. Too many of its illustrations are unreferenced or inadequately explained in the text, and some of them seem to serve little purpose beyond making the book seem longer than it really is. A particularly glaring example of this is the presence of a full-page reproduction of an A∴A∴ Oath of a Probationer form signed by Crowley’s student Frank Bennett. The only justification for including this is a brief mention on the preceding page that the letters “L. P. D.” appear in its four corners, which really doesn’t require illustration. There is no explanation anywhere in the book of who Frank Bennett was or why his form, in particular, was used. Conclusion There are many, many other examples of inanity, misunderstanding, and poor exposition that could be described, but surely I have shown quite enough to make the point that this book is anything but the brilliant work of insightful scholarship that Hymenæus Beta and James Wasserman claim it to be. To continue in this mode would simply be repetitious to no purpose. To sum up, the main thing I learned from this book is that J. Daniel Gunther appears to be no more than an armchair mystic of mediocre intelligence and education, incapable of analyzing ideas critically (least of all his own) or drawing sensible conclusions from them. There is no sign in this book that he has any experience of yogic trances, magick, or even the astral plane. When he is right, he is usually saying things that he could paraphrase from other, better books by much better writers; when he is wrong (which he frequently is), it is often in the most inanely comical way possible. There is also a pathetic undercurrent of fear in the book, most clearly shown in his insistence on de-emphasizing or denying the most challenging and potentially frightening aspects of initiation and the New Aeon. Initiation in the Aeon of the Child is a dismal, contemptible little book of no merit whatsoever. But let us remember the incredible praise heaped upon it by the likes of Hymenæus Beta and James Wasserman. What does it say about them that they so lavishly endorse such a stupid, worthless book? I don’t think for a moment that they weren’t serious. That they praised it so highly indicates that they are sincerely impressed, which speaks very poorly of their level of understanding and their ability to critically evaluate what they read. Wasserman’s praise of Gunther’s “profundity” is just moronic. As for Hymenæus Beta, let us remember that he acknowledges Gunther as his superior in their A∴A∴ group. Consequently, this book discredits Hymenæus Beta just as much as it discredits Gunther; and more than that, it discredits their A∴A∴, because as I wrote early on in this review, if the leaders of the group are not genuine initiates and have not achieved what people of the Grades they claim are supposed to have achieved, then the whole school is just the blind leading the blind. In other words, it’s a fraud. 4 May 2009 e.v. |
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Copyright © 2004–2009 Fr. Aletheuo |
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