The essence of independence has been to think and act according to standards from within, not without.
Interpretation
Independence is about following your own inner standards rather than external influences.
This quote emphasizes the importance of personal autonomy and self-governance in one's thoughts and actions. Aleister Crowley advocates that true independence comes from aligning oneself with internally derived principles and values, rather than conforming to societal norms or external pressures. It encourages individuals to cultivate their own belief systems and to make decisions based on personal reflection rather than outside expectations.
In practice
This quote can be used to inspire students during a graduation speech about forging their own paths.
People think that talking is a sign of thinking. It isn't, for the most part' on the contrary, it's a mechanical dodge of the body to relieve oneself of the strain of thinking, just as exercising the muscles helps the body to become temporarily unconscious of its weight, its pain, its weariness, and the foreknowledge of its doom.
There is a single main definition of the object of all magical Ritual. It is the uniting of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. The Supreme and Complete Ritual is therefore the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; or, in the language of Mysticism, Union with God.
I was not content to believe in a personal devil and serve him, in the ordinary sense of the word. I wanted to get hold of him personally and become his chief of staff.
Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one's conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.
I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle.
It will be seen that the formula - 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law' has nothing to do with 'Do as you please.' It is much more difficult to comply with the Law of Thelema than to follow out slavishly a set of dead regulations.
We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.
Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.
The price paid for intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.
Every physicist knows that things connect with each other. To isolate things is not the way the universe works - winning best actor is arbitrary.
He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.
It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.
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