
                              DUTY

                               by

                        ALEISTER CROWLEY


(a note on the chief rules of practical conduct to  be  observed
by those who accept the Law of Thelema.)

          "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
          "There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt."
          "...thou hast  no  right  but to do thy will.  Do that
          and no other shall say nay.  For pure will, unassuaged
          of purpose, delivered from  the  lust  of  result,  is
          every way perfect."
          "Love is the law, love under will."
          "Every man and every woman is a star."


A. YOUR DUTY TO YOURSELF

  1. Find yourself to be the centre of your own Universe

          "I  am the flame that burns in every heart of man, and
          in the core of every star."

  2. Explore the Nature and Powers of your own Being.

          This includes everything which is, or can be for  you:
          and  you  must  accept  everything exactly as it is in
          itself, as one of the factors which go to make up your
          True Self.  This True Self  thus  ultimately  includes
          all  things  soever:  its discovery is Initiation (the
          travelling inwards) and  as  its  Nature  is  to  move
          continually,  it must be understood not as static, but
          as dynamic, not as a Noun but as a Verb.

  3. Develop in due harmony and proportion every faculty which
     you possess.

          "Wisdom says: be strong!"
          "But exceed! exceed!"
          "Be strong, o man, lust, enjoy all things of sense and
          rapture: fear not that any God  shall  deny  thee  for
          this"

  4. Contemplate your own Nature.

          Consider  every element thereof both separately and in
          relation to all the rest as to  judge  accurately  the
          true purpose of the totality of your Being.

  5. Find the formula of this purpose, or "True Will", in an
     expression as simple as possible.

         Leave to understand clearly how best to manipulate the
          energies  which you control to obtain the results most
          favourable to it from its relations with the  part  of
          the Universe which you do not yet control.

   6. Extend the dominion of your consciousness, and its control
     of all forces alien to it, to the utmost.

          Do   this  by  the  ever  stronger  and  more  skilful
          application of your faculties to the  finer,  clearer,
          fuller,  and  more  accurate  perception,  the  better
          understanding, and the more wisely ordered government,
          of that external Universe.

  7. Never permit the thought or will of any other Being to
     interfere with your own.

          Be constantly vigilant to resent, and on the alert  to
          resist,  with  unvanquishable  ardour and vehemence of
          passion unquenchable, every attempt of any other Being
          to influence you otherwise than  by  contributing  new
          facts  to  your  experience  of  the  Universe,  or by
          assisting you to reach a higher synthesis of Truth  by
          the mode of passionate fusion.

  8. Do not repress or restrict any true instinct of your
     Nature; but devote all in perfection to the sole service of
     your one True Will.

          "Be goodly therefore"
          "The Word  of  Sin  is Restriction.  O man! refuse not
          thy wife if she will.  O lover, if thou wilt,  depart.
          There  is no bond that can unite the divided but love:
          all else is a curse.  Accursed!  Accursed!  be  it  to
          the aeons.  Hell.  So with thy all: thou hast no right
          but to  do  thy  will.  Do that and no other shall say
          nay.  For pure will, unassuaged of purpose,  delivered
          from the lust of result, is every way perfect."
          "Ye  shall gather goods and store of women and Spices;
          ye shall exceed the nations of the earth is  Splendour
          & pride; but always in the love of me, and so shall ye
          come to my joy."

  9. Rejoice!

          "Remember  all ye that existence is pure joy; that all
          the sorrows are but shadows; they pass & are done; but
          there is that which remains."
          "But ye, o my people, rise up  and  awake!    Let  the
          rituals  be rightly performed with joy and beauty! ...
          A feast for fire and a feast for water;  a  feast  for
          life and a greater feast for death!  A feast every day
          in your  hearts  in  the  joy  of my rapture.  A feast
          every night unto Nuit, and the pleasure  of  uttermost
          delight.   Aye!  feast!  rejoice!  there  is  no dread
          hereafter.   There  is  no  dissolution  and   eternal
          ecstacy in the kisses of Nu."
          "Now  rejoice!  now come in our splendour and rapture!
          Come in our passionate peace, & write sweet words  for
          the Kings!"
          "Thrill with  the  joy of life & death!  Ah! thy death
          shall be lovely: whose seeth it shall be  glad.    Thy
          death  shall be the seal of the promise of our agelong
          love.  Come! lift up thy heart & rejoice!"
          "Is God to live in a dog?  No! but the highest are  of
          us.   They shall rejoice: who sorroweth is not of use.
          Beauty and strength, leaping  laughter  and  delicious
          langour, force and fire, are of us."

B. YOUR DUTY TO OTHER INDIVIDUAL MEN AND WOMEN

  1. "Love is the law, love under will."

          Unite  yourself  passionately with every other form of
          consciousness,   thus   destroying   the   sense    of
          seperateness  from  the  Whole,  and  creating  a  new
          base-line in the Universe from which to measure it.

  2. "As brothers fight ye."

          "If he be a king thou canst not hurt him."
          To bring out saliently  the  differences  between  two
          points-of-view  is  useful  to  both  in measuring the
          position of each in the whole.  Combat stimulates  the
          virile or creative energy; and, like love, of which it
          is  one  form,  excites  the  mind  to an orgasm which
          enables it to transcend its rational dullness.

  3. Abstain from all interferences with other wills.

          "Beware lest any force another, King against King!"
          (The love and war in the previous injunctions  are  of
          the  nature  of  sport, where one respects, and learns
          from the opponent,  but  never  interferes  with  him,
          outside  the  actual  game.)  To  seek  to dominate or
          influence another is to seek to deform or destroy him;
          and he is a necessary part of one's own Universe, that
          is, of one's self.

  4. Seek, if you so will, to enlighten another when need
     arises.

          This may be done, always with the strict  respect  for
          the  attitude  of  the  good  sportsman, when he is in
          distress  through  failure   to   understand   himself
          clearly, especially when he specifically demands help;
          for  his  darkness  may hinder one's perception of his
          perfection. (Yet also his  darkness  may  serve  as  a
          warning,  or excite one's interest.) It is also lawful
          when his ignorance has  lead  him  to  interfere  with
          one's will.      All   interference  is  in  any  case
          dangerous, and demands the exercise of  extreme  skill
          and good  judgement,  fortified  by  experience.    To
          influence another is to leave one's citadel unguarded;
          and the attempt commonly  ends  in  losing  one's  own
          self-supremacy.

  5. Worship all!

          "Every man and every woman is a star."
          "Mercy let be off: damn those who pity."
          "We  have  nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let
          them  die  in  their  misery:  For  they   feel   not.
          Compassion  is  the  vice  of  kings:  stamp  down the
          wretched and the weak: this is the law of the  strong:
          this is  our law and the joy of the world.  Think not,
          o king, upon that lie: That Thou Must Die: verily thou
          shalt not die, but live!  Now let it be understood  if
          the body of the King dissolve, he shall remain in pure
          ecstacy for ever.  Nuit Hadit Ra-Hoor-Khuit.  The Sun,
          Strength  and  Sight, Light these are for the servants
          of the Star & the Snake."

          Each being is, exactly as you are, the sole centre  of
          a   Universe  in  no  wise  identical  with,  or  even
          assimilable to, your own.  The impersonal Universe  of
          "Nature"  is  only an abstraction, approximately tru ,
          of the factors which it is  convenient  to  regard  as
          common to  all.   The Universe of another is therefore
          necessarily unknown to, and unknowable by, you; but it
          induces currents of energy in yours by determining  in
          part your  reactions.    Use men and women, therefore,
          with the absolute respect due to inviolable  standards
          of   measurement;  verify  your  own  observations  by
          comparison with similar judgements made by them;  and,
          studying  the methods which determine their failure or
          success,  acquire  for  yourself  the  wit  and  skill
          required to cope with your own problems.

C. YOUR DUTY TO MANKIND

  1. Establish the Law of Thelema as the sole basis of conduct.

          The  general  welfare  of  the race being necessary in
          many respects to your own, that well-being, like  your
          own,  principally  a  function  of the intellegent and
          wise observance of the Law of Thelema, it  is  of  the
          very  first  importance  to  you that every individual
          should accept frankly that Law,  and  strictly  govern
          himself in full accordance therewith.

          You may regard the establishment of the Law of Thelema
          as  an  essential  element  of  your True Will, since,
          whatever the ultimate nature of that Will, the evident
          condition of putting it into execution is freedom from
          external interference.

          Governments  often   exhibit   the   most   deplorable
          stupidity,  however  enlightened  may  be  the men who
          compose and  constitute  them,  or  the  people  whose
          destinies they  direct.   It is therefore incumbent on
          every man and woman to take the proper steps to  cause
          the revisions of all existing statutes on the basis of
          the Law  of Thelema.  This Law being a Law of Liberty,
          the aim of the  legislation  must  be  to  secure  the
          amplest  freedom  for  each  individual  in the state,
          eschewing the presumptious assumption that  any  given
          positive ideal is worthy to be obtained.

          "The Word of Sin is Restriction."

          The  essence of crime is that it restricts the freedom
          of the individual outraged.  (Thus,  murder  restricts
          his  right  to  live;  robbery, his right to enjoy the
          fruits of  his  labour;  coining,  his  right  to  the
          guarantee  of  the  State  that  he  shall  barter  in
          security; etc.) It is then the common duty to  prevent
          crime  by  segregating the criminal, and by the threat
          of reprisals; also, to teach  the  criminal  that  his
          acts,  being  analyzed,  are  contrary to his own True
          Will. (This may often be accomplished by  taking  from
          him  the  right  which  he has denied to others; as by
          outlawing the thief, so that he feels constant anxiety
          for the safety of his own  possessions,  removed  from
          the ward  of the State.) The rule is quite simple.  He
          who violated any right declares magically that it does
          not exist; therefore it no longer does so, for him.

          Crime being a direct spiritual violation of the Law of
          Thelema, it should not be tolerated in the  community.
          Those who possess the instinct should be segregated in
          a  settlement  to build up a state of their own, so to
          learn  the  necessity  of  themselves   imposing   and
          maintaining rules of justice.

          All artificial  crimes  should  be  abolished.    When
          fantastic restrictions disappear, the greater  freedom
          of  the individual will itself teach him to avoid acts
          which really restrict natural rights.  Thus real crime
          will diminish dramatically.

          The administration of the Law should be simplified  by
          training  men of uprightness and discretion whose will
          is to fulfill this function in the community to decide
          all complaints by the abstract principle of the Law of
          Thelema, and to award judgement on the  basis  of  the
          actual restriction caused by the offense.

          The ultimate aim is thus to reintegrate conscience, on
          true  scientific principles, as the warden of conduct,
          the monitor of the people, and the  guarantee  of  the
          governors.

D. YOUR DUTY TO ALL OTHER BEINGS AND THINGS

  1. Apply the Law of Thelema to all problems of fitness, use,
     and development.

          It  is  a violation of the Law of Thelema to abuse the
          natural qualities of any animal or object by diverting
          it  from  its  proper  function,  as   determined   by
          consideration of  its history and structure.  Thus, to
          train children to perform  mental  operations,  or  to
          practice  tasks,  for  which  they  are unfitted, is a
          crime against nature.  Similarly, to build  houses  of
          rotten   material,  to  adulterate  food,  to  destroy
          forests, etc., etc., is to offend.

          The Law of Thelema is to be applied  unflinchingly  to
          decide every   question  of  conduct.    The  inherent
          fitness of any thing for any proposed  use  should  be
          the sole criterion.

          Apparent,  and  sometimes  even real, conflict between
          interests will frequently arise.  Such cases are to be
          decided by the general value of the contending parties
          in the scale of Nature.  Thus, a tree has a  right  to
          its life; but a man being more than a tree, he may cut
          it down  for  fuel  or shelter when need arises.  Even
          so, let him remember  that  the  Law  never  fails  to
          avenge  infractions:  as when wanton deforestation has
          ruined a climate or a soil, or as when the importation
          of rabbits for a cheap supply of food  has  created  a
          plague.

          Observe  that  the  violation  of  the  Law of Thelema
          produces cumulative  ills.      The   drain   of   the
          agricultural  population to big cities, due chiefly to
          persuading them to abandon their natural  ideals,  has
          not  only  made  the  country  less  tolerable  to the
          peasant, but debauched the town.  And the error  tends
          to increase in geometrical progression, until a remedy
          has   become   almost   inconceivable  and  the  whole
          structure of society is threatened with ruin.

          The  wise  application  based   on   observation   and
          experience  of  the  Law  of  Thelema  is  to  work in
          conscious harmony  with  Evolution.    Experiments  in
          creation, involving variation from existing types, are
          lawful and  necessary.  Their value is to be judged by
          their fertility as bearing witness  to  their  harmony
          with the course of nature towards perfection.

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