Thelema
Thelema is a Western esoteric religion and magical philosophy founded by Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) in 1904, when he claimed to have received The Book of the Law (Liber AL vel Legis) from a supernatural entity named Aiwass—identified as the messenger of Horus and later as Crowley's Holy Guardian Angel—during three consecutive hours at noon on April 8, 9, and 10 in Cairo, Egypt. The text proclaimed the dawn of the Aeon of Horus, superseding the matriarchal Aeon of Isis and the patriarchal Aeon of Osiris, and established Thelema's core ethical formula: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" and "Love is the law, love under will." True Will is not mere personal desire but one's deepest cosmic purpose, to be discovered and enacted through disciplined magical practice. In 1907, Crowley co-founded the A.·.A.·. (Argenteum Astrum, or Silver Star) with George Cecil Jones as a spiritual successor to the Golden Dawn, structured in graded degrees representing stages of initiatic attainment. The single most important goal in the system is Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, achieved through the ritual Liber Samekh. Crowley also reshaped the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) around Thelemic principles and composed the Gnostic Mass (Liber XV) as its central public rite. Thelemic practice encompasses ceremonial magic (pentagram and hexagram rituals), yoga, Liber Resh (four daily solar adorations), eucharistic rituals, sex magick, Enochian workings, and Kabbalistic pathworking. Post-Crowley, figures including Jack Parsons, Kenneth Grant, and Gerald Gardner (Wicca's founder, who drew heavily on Crowley's writings) extended Thelema's influence throughout modern occultism. Thelema remains actively practiced worldwide through the O.T.O., various A.·.A.·. lineages, and independent Thelemic groups.