"The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling." -Albert Einstein, Mein Weltbild (1931)
After the proclamations of Nuit and Hadit, there comes one of the most important statements to Thelema in the third line of Liber AL:
“Every man and
Every Woman is a star.”
By this is meant that “we are all free, all independent, all shining gloriously, each one a radiant world” and further that “the Individual is the Autarch.” In the same sense that the sun, as a star, is center of the solar system in the physical macrocosm, every man and every woman is understood to be a sort of microcosmic star and center of his or her own system. “A star is an individual identity; it radiates energy, it goes, it is a point of view. Its object is to become the whole by establishing relations
With Other stars. Each such relation is an Event: it is an act of Love under Will” - Each individual is “an aggregate of such experiences, constantly changing with each fresh event, which affects him or her either consciously or subconsciously.” Certainly, from a psychological standpoint, it can be easily understood that we are all centers of our own universe and also ‘aggregates of experience’ as our own memories show. Further, stars are self-luminous implying that we derive power and strength from within ourselves and not an outside source (explained in depth later), and also stars are constantly in motion interacting with the infinite gravitational pulls of the infinite other stars and systems.
Thelema posits that Hadit is “the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star.” Crowley writes “He is then your own inmost divine self; it is you, and not another, who are lost in the constant rapture of the embraces of Infinite Beauty.” In fact, Nuit tells us “Be thou Hadit, my secret centre, my heart & my tongue!” showing that we are intimately interconnected with divinity, mirroring the general Eastern sentiment of the soul’s link to God and the sentiment seen in the West in mystics like Meister Eckhart and Miguel de Molinos:
"Thou art to know, that thy Soul is the Center, Habitation, and the Kingdom of God.”
In a word, by saying “every man and every woman is a star,” we assert both the individual’s sovereignty and their divinity. Just as physical stars each have their unique course in the span of space, each individual is understood to have their own unique Will. In fact, “Thelema” itself means “Will” and this is the foundation of the entire
philosophy of Thelema. It is said:
“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”
“There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.”
These two statements clearly establish that everything in Thelema revolves around the dictum of “do what thou wilt.” As Crowley often noted, this does not mean, “do what you like” but is a command to perform one’s “true” or “pure will” and nothing else. Liber AL proclaims, “Thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that, and no other shall say nay.” Now we can see the general point-of-view of existence formulated in Thelema: each individual is considered as a “star” whose sole right or duty is to perform their Will. In the core of this star is Hadit and about the star are the infinite space & possibilities of Nuit. We have established that each individual is at the center of his or her own universe, a “secret centre, heart, & tongue”[14] of the divine, each performing their unique Will amidst Nuit, Infinite Space.
Books in PDF format to read:
Aleister Crowley - Every Man And Every Woman Is A StarStephen Mcnallen - What Is AsatruAsatru Free Assembly - The Lessons Of AsgardAnnie Keary - The Heroes Of AsgardAnonymous - Healing Gemstones And Crystals
