REVIEW: EVEN AS I, INTERVIEW WITH THE ANGEL
A good, yet flawed, survey of one of the crucial initiations of Thelema
Oh gosh — I hear you say — another book review?
Right after I said, in my previous one, that writing reviews is like engaging in a minefield nowadays?
In this case, I feel like we can make an exception for two reasons.
The first is the topic. Once again, we discuss the theme of the Holy Guardian Angel, and this time the focus is strictly on the Thelemic understanding of this experience.
Secondly, the author of this book contacted me directly, telling me he appreciated the discussions I was having online on this rather complex topic and asking me if I read his own study on it.
Well, more or less. Who contacted me is an old acquaintance of mine from my early days in Ordo Templi Orients back in Rome. I won’t name him, as he always kept a very low profile, but suffice it to say that he was always considered one of those who practised the magick of Thelema with consistency and attitude. He’s also a scientist to booth, with academic credentials and a rather fancy job in a super fancy astrophysics agency. Scientific Illuminism at its best. Crowley would’ve approved.
He insisted that the author is a Frater Dedo INVICTUS, an anonymous author. Occultists and their penchant for secrecy, I guess.
Straight from the title — Even As I: Interview With The Angel — I was interested. Nowadays, to even hope to sell books on Thelema, you must cram the name of Aleister Crowley in the title somewhere. Yep, that’s precisely what my publisher told me to do with mine, too. My original title was Thelema After Tears, but no one would’ve read it — they said.
Coupled with a hauntingly beautiful painting by Kasia Derwinska (Primeval And Other Times), I was sold. I devoured the slim booklet (122 pages) in just over an hour.
The first part of the book is the most valuable. It lays out the scientific parameters for the experiment: to interview a diverse group of Thelemites about their understanding of the Holy Guardian Angel experience. To do so, the author takes all the time needed to inform the reader about what his experience actually means from a Thelemic standpoint, where Crowley got his inspiration from, and, maybe the most important of it all, why it’s likely next to impossible to ever agree on the culmination of a magical operation that aims to transcend itself into a mystical experience.
The Work is done in Silence.
A statement often heard in occulture circles and almost always misunderstood and misconstrued.
To do so, the author uses the right amount of quotes to sustain his thesis, drawing not just from Crowley but also from other Thelemic authors. He manages the almost impossible task of extracting rare gems even from the otherwise ridiculous works of J. Daniel Gunther, the failed “World Teacher” of the A∴A∴ lineage/cult presented as the sole valid one by Ordo Templi Orientis. Still, a broken clock is right twice a day, right?
I can’t stress how great these chapters are in tackling the topic, a clear statement of the author’s command of the subject and, likely, of the experience itself.
This is also where the book’s value ends, however. The interviews themselves, which comprise the second part of the text, only show how much the cultic mentality has taken root in Ordo Templi Orientis. The reason for me to say this is that, out of the seven people interviewed, only one affirms to have been able to achieve Knowledge & Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel.
While I often went on record stating that there is a lot of work that needs to be done to reach this milestone of initiation, the interviewees (minus one) all repeat the Gunther party line that it’s a challenging experience to achieve, that only a few ever will do so, and that in reality not everyone even has a Holy Guardian Angel. The latter claim has been recorded multiple times during live workshops by the “World Teacher”, often with sinister undertones.
But even leaving those behind, it becomes clear like the experience of the Angel, and thus the recognition of the state of Adepthood, is used by the Gunther A∴A∴ cult as a carrot-on-a-stick the same way the invitational degrees of Ordo Templi Orientis has been used before. Only those faithful to the leader will make it; the rest might never have a chance at doing so.
In conclusion, Even As I is a book I suggest anyone genuinely invested in Thelema should read. It remains one of the best summaries of the experience of the Holy Guardian Angel, as well as a stark reminder of the groupthink of Ordo Templi Orientis Inc. and the damages it continues to create.
