Скачать или смотреть Patrick Everitt - Act Passionately, Think Rationally, Be Thyself

How can equilibrium guide both magical practice and everyday life?
In this lecture from Occulture Conference 2025, Patrick Everitt examines Aleister Crowley’s Liber Librae as a guide to balancing tradition, innovation, and self-mastery.

Recorded at Occulture Conference 2025, this lecture explores Liber Librae, one of Aleister Crowley’s earliest initiatory texts, first published in The Equinox. Opening with the declaration that “Equilibrium is the basis of the Work,” the text lays out a practical ethical and magical framework intended for initiates at the beginning of their path.

Patrick Everitt traces the origins of Liber Librae to Crowley’s time in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and examines how Crowley later adapted the text for his own initiatory system, the A∴A∴, in accordance with the principles of Thelema and Scientific Illuminism. The lecture highlights how Crowley both preserved and transformed inherited occult structures in order to articulate a new religious and magical worldview.

The analysis focuses on Liber Librae as an “elementary course of morality,” emphasizing its advocacy of self-knowledge, self-discipline, and self-respect. Drawing on traditional frameworks such as the Qabalah, the Tarot, and the four classical elements, the text teaches practical wisdom while ultimately encouraging initiates to look beyond exoteric religious forms toward the universality of esoteric experience.

The lecture also compares Liber Librae with its Golden Dawn antecedent, On the General Guidance and Purification of the Soul, revealing which values Crowley retained from earlier occult traditions and which he revised or rejected. Practical suggestions are offered for engaging with the text as a living tool for magical and philosophical exploration.

About the speaker:
Patrick Everitt is an independent researcher of Western esotericism from Ireland. He holds a Master’s degree in Western Esotericism from the University of Amsterdam, where his thesis examined Aleister Crowley’s use of peyote in ceremonial magic.

His research interests include entheogenic esotericism and psychedelic philosophy in the works of Aleister Crowley, Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, and Terence McKenna. He has presented internationally at events such as the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE), Breaking Convention, the Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research, O.Z.O.R.A. Festival, and Occulture Conference.

About Occulture Conference:
Occulture Conference brings together artists, researchers, and practitioners to explore the intersections of culture, esotericism, politics, and contemporary thought.

Learn more at:
👉 https://www.occultureconference.com