Bi/Pan Sexuality And The New Aeon By: William Hunter (Frater BOZO II) "One of Crowley's most frequently expressed ideas was that as the years progress into this new age, more and more people will come into incarnation with bisexual characteristics. They will be epicene. I never expected to see this statement corroborated as early as it has been." Israel Regardie 1970 The New York Area Bisexual Network (NYABN) is today in the same position that the Gay Rights movement and Sexual Revolution itself was twenty years ago. Bisexuality as a cultural norm is in fact the natural next step for our society to take. It is, I believe, the evolutionary trend of the entire human species as we prepare ourselves for the next step off the planetary surface and into space. This statement is corroborated by a number of trends in the overculture. The specific trend I have the most first hand experience with is the emergence and spread of a philosophy known as Thelema. (The word Thelema is the greek word for Will.) The purposes of this essay are first, to present the Aeon Model of human evolution as an option for viewing the ever increasing technological and social changes that surround all of us. Second- ly, I will to present the philosophy of Thelema, a game plan for living, as a powerful and effective option for bi/pan sexual people to make positive changes in their lives. The Thelemic movement, like the bisexual movement, is a valuable social entity because it is a new unformed social structure towards which power and resources can flow. This helps diversification. "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." This sentence is one of the two precepts that are the quintessence of Thelema. This does not mean do whatever you want. No. It means do whatever you will, whatever your Will is to do, and nothing else. Will in this context is something similar to what the Lord's Prayer the good Cathloic nuns were so anxious to teach me means by "Thy Kingdom come, thy Will be done." Every man and woman of us has a Will. It is what could be also called a destiny, what you were meant to do. Except that by Will we mean a course that you yourself must first go through the hard work to find and then live. The moment by moment course of your life. There are no gods upon whose backs we can piggy on to salvation; there is only the divinity inherent in every man and woman, and there is the resolve to take responsibility for that divinity, and to train your self to gain conscious access to it. On a more pragmatic level, Will is what you are best at, your own genius: if it be dance or (for me) writing, or fixing car engines, and the life we each live to make the best use of our talents. Finally, Will is that mysterious energy, the life force that fuels every cell in your body. There is no grace. There is no guilt. There is no law, save "Do what thou wilt." Wants are a different matter. You can want to make love to somebody and want to remain faithful to your lover. You want to stay home from work but you also want money. You can want to be a artist, but lack the discipline to show up for a dinner date on time. Wants often conflict. Your Will is the one course of action you have an absolute right to follow every time Practically speaking your Will can be only one choice of action at a time among all the myriads of choices open to you. "Do what thou wilt and none shall say nay." Your Will is similar to your physical muscles, train it and it grows stronger. You grow stronger through the self-discipline needed to find your Will, and the momentum you gain from living it out. There is uncompromising freedom in choosing your will, and unrelenting responsibility for having done so. This is one of the essential differences between Magick, which was the name Aleister Crowley (or uncle Al as he is known to Thelemites with senses of humor) gave to his system of self training, and Religion. Al- though Magick (not stage illusions--rabbits out of hats) answers the same kind of needs that religion does, it is not the same. Magick is the concious creation of all kinds of change in accor- dance to your Will. (This includes fixing the plumbing, or writing a book, as well as weird rituals!) There is no need to take anything on the authority of some God or Devil, or even Priest or Rabbi or Minister, unless it is the Will of the in- dividual to do so. Magickians have always been hated by priests and religionists. This is simply because, first, magickians don't believe you gotta pay some priest to do what you can do best for yourself and, second, because magickians are the kind of people who don't even believe that you have to do homage to some deity when, as the line from the Gnostic Mass states "There is no part of me that is not of the Gods." Psychologists call this as having an internal vector of control. Self control. A magickian is a pragmatist, and a religionist is a dogmatist. "Love is the Law, Love under Will" This is the second sentence that along with the first above forms the quintessence of Thelema. The only word that has the universality to adequately describe the course of any person who is in touch with and doing their Will is love. Love is any and every process which causes change to more complex levels of organization. Love is that which liberates, which promotes diversity and freedom. It is any act made free of the strictures of fear. It is DNA. The will to love is found in any combination or union that creates, be it between a hydrogen and two oxygen atoms to make water, or between two people to create ecstasy (or a baby). The will to love permeates every corner of the multiverse. It is what compelled hydrogen atoms aeons ago to begin spiralling out of some mystery still beyond the understanding of the wisest into flesh and bone human beings. Love is evolutionary. We are, literally, and figurative- ly, each and every one of us, a star, self-contained, self- propelling, and yet we take delight in each other. We exchange words and touches and emotions together, and together we can free ourselves from the only sin possible to the human being who has the courage to take responsibility for their own evolution: restricting our own wills or the wills of others. Restricting the chance of union and love. There are three common traits among people who are dogmatic. First is a lack of sense of humor about what they believe. Second is a surrender of responsibility for what to believe (and there- fore for what to do) to some Authority, invariably some very human representative of some deity(s). Third is a terror of and willingness to take any measure to stamp out anybody who believes differently. These people have all mistaken their map of reality (i.e. religion/politics/philosophy) for the reality itself. They have restricted their very perceptions to a set of ideas that because of their rigid and all-pervading correctness, cannot change. Cannot change. If sin is to be measured by a standard that promotes the survival and happiness of an individual rather than some power elite, it will have to be measured by the in- dividual. The current societal standards concerning sex are as restri- cting and outmoded as the institutions that support them and are supported by them. All of you reading this have, whatever your other (like me, many) failings are have at least shown the courage to step beyond these standards. But having rejected something we have had the sense to see as being poisonous to our selves, we are often left with nothing to affirm. Bi/Pansexual People in the Aeon of the Child Now after all the diatribe against deities, the first thing naturally to do to clear things up is to tell you about the deity who has supplanted all the deities along with background inform- ation on how this occurs. An aeon is a description (model) of a stage in the evolution in the human race as a whole similar to the stages of the life of a person. The first Aeon that we know about to any extent is the Aeon of the Mother. This is a description of the infancy of the human race. Matriarchal societies were the standard. At this point, people did not even know that men were necessary for reproduc- tion! Women were seen as the source of life. Families are matri- lineal. The universe was viewed as process of nourishment from the Great Mother Goddess(es), and generally the greatest sexual taboo is incest. There was little, if any, writing. The goddess who symbolized the formula of success at magick (life) during this aeon was the goddess Isis. The consciousness that characterized the human race during the Aeon of Isis can also be symbolized as a lunar consciousness. Still another way of putting it is a right brain consciousness. Lunar,or right brain consciousness tends to be non linear, intuitive (inductive), and spatial. This consciousness is suc- cessful in hunter/gatherer societies. The next Aeon was the Aeon of the Father. This was a de- scription of the toddlerhood of the human race. Patriarchal society/governments were the standard. Families were patrilineal. People knew from observing and breeding farm animals that males were necessary for reproduction. The female was viewed as a lesser partner in the process of reproduction, and men were seen as the source of life. The universe was viewed as a cycle of love, sacrifice and death. Homosexuality (chiefly male homosex- uality, but also female homosexuality unless controlled by a male) was the greatest sexual taboo. Writing, chiefly for recor- ding inventories of agricultural goods, was invented. The god who symbolized the formula of success at magick (life) during this aeon was the god Osiris. The consciousness that charac- terized the human race during the Aeon of Osiris can also be symbolized as solar consciousness. Still another way of putting it is a left brain consciousness. Solar, or left brain conscious- ness, tends to be linear, logical (deductive), and verbal. This consciousness is a successful in agricultural societies. Just as Jesus Christ or Dionysus can be viewed as the herald, or prophet of the last Aeon, so is Aleister Crowley seen as the prophet of this Aeon, the Aeon of Horus, who follows his father Osiris (Egyptian god of death and resurrection analogous to Jesus) who was the god of the Aeon of the Father, and Isis (Egyptian goddess of Magick and nature) who was the goddess of the Aeon of the Mother. And even herein is a subtle redefinition of the role of a great prophet or buddha or holy person. Crowley in his own writings states that people who were born before the New Aeon officially began cannot really understand it. (By the way, the dates for that are April 8th, 9th, and 10th 1904; the days that Crowley received the Book of the Law from a praetor human intel- ligence, a minor Sumerian Spirit named Aiwass. [But that is still yet another story.]) Uh oh. Uncle Al was himself born in 1875. Hmm. Looks like even though he did get the ball rolling, its up to us to decide everything else for ourselves. The New Aeon is a description of the current phase of human evolution. Please do not mistake the New Aeon people with the New Age people. The New Age is essentially a popular, commercial phenomenon. The New Age is an aspect of the New Aeon which preceded the New Age by approximately 70 years. The New Aeon is essentially an esoteric, noncommercial movement. Nobody knows anybody who even knows rumors of anyone making money off the New Aeon or Thelema! After consideration this author feels that this lack of commercial success of the New Aeon will probably continue because to date it attracts the kind people who would not pay anyone else large amounts for spiritual services. The New Aeon is a stage in human cultural, biological, and sexual evolution in which we have become developed enough to accept our own natures as being both male and female. As Jung called the Animus/Anima. Or the taoists call Yin/Yang, or even what engineers and electricians call electro/magnetic or posi- tive/negative. The father is overwhelmingly male. The mother is overwhelm- ingly female, but the child is epicene. Bisexual if you will. The formula for success at life (magick) is seen as being a combin- ation of both the Isis and Osiris formulas. The universe is seen as being both a place of nurturing and birth, as well as sacri- fice and death. This introduces the capacity for relativity because the individual now has to decide when and where to apply which formula! The God/ess that symbolizes the formula for success at magick (life) during this Aeon is the God/ess Horus. The consciousness that characterizes the human race during this Aeon is stellar consciousness. Still another way of charac- terizing this is as a balance of the left and right brain modes of consciousness. This consciousness is successful in a culture leaving mother earth. Consider the three symbols -- lunar, solar and stellar. Both the lunar and solar modes of consciousness are non relative. There is only one moon, one sun -- one Goddess or God who has the whole truth, and around which we all revolve. Just as there is only one planetary surface with gravity for us to conceptualize our lives on. In contrast, there are many stars. All are similar points of light. None revolve around each other. Each has its individual path through the heavens. This symbolism is one of a relative mode of consciousness. The trends in the overculture that support my assertions as to the characteristics of the New Aeon are well documented. First is the explosion of technology of all kinds. Particularly inter- esting are the ever more mystical conclusions that Physics is moving towards. Biotechnology will allow us to radically change the very physical basis of consciousness within our lifespans. Computers are allowing ever more fast and efficient use combin- ation and recombination of information of all kinds. The examin- ation of the vast aspect of the technological revolution is beyond the scope of this essay. Second is the blending of the lunar consciousness/culture of the Orient with the solar con- sciousness/culture of the West. More and more our cultural environment is becoming the mechanism of our evolution rather than our physical environment. Every man and every woman is a star! The Book of the Law 1:3 We children of the New Aeon, whether we call ourselves Thelemites or whatever, are all people who are willing to be comfortable with the notion that our personalities do not confirm to some artificial role prepackaged for us and chosen because of the shape of our sex organs. We are instead left with a series of individual decisions each one of which is relative to the condi- tions of a given place and time. We have a wide latitude within which to judge ourselves, and a narrow latitude within which to judge other people. Also, take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where, and with whom ye will! The Book of the Law 1:51 "As ye will." It should be abundantly clear from the foregoing remarks that each individual has an absolute and indefeasible right to use his sexual vehicle in accordance with its own proper character, and that he is responsible only to himself. But he should not injure himself and his right aforesaid; acts invasive of another individual's equal rights are implicitly self-aggressions. A thief can hardly complain on theor- etical grounds if he is himself robbed. Such acts as rape, and the assault or seduction of infants, may therefore be justly regarded as offenses against the law of liberty, and repressed in the interests of that law. Aleister Crowley The Law Is For All pg 110 Every one should discover, by experience of every kind, the extent and intention of his sexual universe. He must be taught that all roads are equally royal, and that the only question for him is "Which is mine?" Aleister Crowley The Law Is For All pg 111 In closing, I would like to say that we are making history sitting and sharing ourselves in our drab meeting room. We are manifesting the New Aeon in a singularly effective way. It does- n't matter if we call ourselves Thelemites or not, we are working towards the Thelemic ideal better than many people who do call themselves Thelemites. My purpose in plugging Thelema is to actively help spread a philosophy which actually promotes self expression, self reliance and maximum options for every individ- ual. The key word here is options. Freedom is relative to the number of options you actually have. Of course there are people out there dogmatizing Thelema as it grows. That is inevitable. The best we can hope for is a set of assumptions and interpreta- tions of the "real world" that minimizes the ability of people to dogmatize them, and does not encourage dogmatism as a part of their ground rules. The only thing a non-dogmatic Thelemite is allowed by the game rules to be certain of is their own individual interpreta- tion of the Law of Thelema. This individual interpretation could be cheerfully changed as often as is useful. An assumption of the Thelemic game plan is that each individual has to create their own interpretation of the Law of Thelema as is outlined in the Book of the Law. Further, they are not to prostheletyze, but they have to let other people make their own interpretations. Now, of course, imposing individual interpretations on various scriptures is what people have done for thousands of years with the Bible, Koran, etc. They have read these books and put their own meanings into what they have read. But they never admit it! Always they are seeing the "Truth", the "Word Of God", as it is outlined in the "Inspired Words." This need for a "One Truth" is deadly. One need only read historical records of the countless millions slaughtered in the names of Gods to see this. I will encourage people to read the Book of the Law. This is fine. I will never push my own interpretation of it as being any more than one relative viewpoint among many. This makes me a bad Thelemite and there are strong social sanctions against this in the Thelemic community. If you want to play this game you gotta make up yer own mind! As if all this wasn't enough, the Book of the Law is a really short read! Thirty pages in a volume measuring 4 5/8" X 6 3/4". (With wide margins yet!) This allows me to spend less time on reading some holy book, and more time coming up with my inter- pretations! Yay! There are strong parallels between the bisexual movement and the Thelemic movement. Both are in their infancy. Both face a hostile world of people who don't like folks who are so willing to be uncertain about everything but uncertainty. Both are parts of the cutting edge of evolution in their respective spheres. Both are small, committed groups where it is relatively easy to get emotional support. And most importantly, both are new social entities towards which power and resources can gravitate, thus spreading the power around from the older more established en- tities such as the Catholic Church, etc. This helps with my goal of a diffuse balance of power where competing social entities balance each other out. The reason this paper is entitled "Bi/Pan Sexuals And The New Aeon" rather than "Bi/Pan Sexuals And Thelema" is because it is my conviction that the idea of New Aeon is much broader than the school of thought of Thelema. I reject the assumption of many Thelemites that the New Aeon and Thelema are inseparable. The New Aeon did not grow out of Thelema. Instead Thelema grew out of the New Aeon. It is in the interest of all of us who do not live in the narrowly defined cultural norms to support systems of thought that promote more diverse cultural norms that we find more hospi- table. Whatever the shortcomings of Thelema, it is a superb set of game rules (or reality map) for sexual/social diversity. The New Aeon is a more general setting for Thelema and, ideally, a host of other reality maps to compete in. I like the New Aeon particularly because the assumption built into it that the human race will evolve through other aeons. Wonderful! This means that the one of the game rules is that the rules of the game will in fact change. Social evolution is certainly made easier here than if you try to play a game where one of your rules is that the rules of the game do not change. An example of this is the Chris- tian game plan. There the rules do not change at all until the Apocalypse, and then the world ends. Sheesh. Its Jesus straight through until the end. Much better, in my opinion, is to have a series of Aeons where different formulas for success will apply. The next Aeon is supposed to be the Aeon of Maat. She's the ancient Egyptian Goddess of perfect balance. The reason I have chosen to promote Thelema as well as the New Aeon as reality maps is because I feel it necessary to have a social structure or school of thought to do the practical work of supporting the attitudes and assumptions that I value. By practi- cal work I mean printing books, distributing art forms, legal protection, etc. to communicate these ideas so that more people can be changed by them. This means more options. More options means more freedom. And if bisexuality is anything, it is a view of the self that creates more options! Note: I am available for conferencing on Baphonet, and look forward to feedback with keen anticipation. Joy be you to in attaining your will, William S. Hunter