Hymenaeus Beta, as the head of the "Caliphate" OTO, has a vested interested in doing all he can to maintain Thelema's watered-down, white-washed modern image. He's the guy who initiated Lon Milo DuQuette into the OTO, and is a firm supporter of Lon's writings and interpretations of Thelema. So if you find Lon's take on Crowley and Thelema at all distasteful, then you'll also find Beta's to be equally palatable.



In Beta's introduction to the current edition of Book 4, he goes on a laughably desperate rant trying his damnedest to reassure the reader that Crowley had nothing to do with the Devil, and that anytime Crowley talked about Satan he just couldn't have meant the Devil. He even goes as far as to say: "Crowley nowhere says that Satan dictated The Book of the Law," which is a bold-faced lie. He knows that Crowley directly identified Aiwaz with "Satan." Going by Beta's logic, it's apparent that Samuel Clemens couldn't have written The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, because everyone knows it lists "Mark Twain" on the title page.



He also, like Lon and others, latches onto Crowley's statement in Magick in Theory and Practice that "The Devil does not exist," citing it as Crowley "stressing" that he doesn't even believe in "the Devil." But of course, this is also insane, because he knows damn well what the footnote to that very line says. All he has to do is glance down to the bottom of the same page that line is from: "’The Devil’ is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes. This has led to so much confusion of thought that THE BEAST 666 has preferred to let names stand as they are, and to proclaim simply that AIWAZ, the solar-phallic-hermetic ‘Lucifer,’ is His own Holy Guardian Angel, and ‘The Devil’ SATAN or HADIT, the Supreme Soul behind RA-HOOR-KHUIT the Sun, the Lord of our particular unit of the Starry Universe. This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race . . ."



The footnote makes it plainly obvious that by saying "the Devil does not exist," Crowley was only asserting that the popular Xian notion of the Devil as a negative figure hostile to man and life "doesn't exist." But of course, Beta doesn't even MENTION the footnote or its contents in his introduction. I suppose it's not "good policy" to remind people that not only did Crowley identify Satan with the name Aiwaz, but also with "Hadit" and as the "Supreme Soul" behind "Ra-Hoor-Khuit." The implications of such identifications are all too clear to anyone not allergic to Diabolism. Also, probably worst of all to people like Beta, Crowley had to frame his identification of his Satan as letting "names stand as they are" in light of the "confusion" caused by the history of the terms. In other words, he was stating that yes, he's using the terms "Satan," "Lucifer," and "Devil" together in their MODERN meaning, letting the words "stand as they ARE," and not giving a shit if it bothers people. This simply won't do for Beta, Lon, or anyone else in a leadership or teacher position in the OTO. It would hurt their book sales too much to affirm such a "blasphemous" idea as Crowley affirming his allegiance to the "Devil."



On the one hand, Beta is desperate they we don't look at the footnote to the "Devil does not exist" line, and urges us to accept what the main text says without reference to the footnote at all. However, he seems equally desperate that we make sure we DO look at the footnote to the infamous "A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim" in the same volume, so as to not make a horrible mistake in what Crowley meant. And of course, it IS vitally important to view that footnote for the evidence that Crowley didn't mean that. But why is it only important to Beta to see the footnote for the latter, while on the contrary the footnote to the former could, and should, be ignored? The answer is obvious: Beta has a vested interest in maintaining that Satan has nothing to do with Thelema.



But, I suppose it could be POSSIBLE that deep down Beta is not as allergic to all that stuff as it seems. MAYBE he doesn't really believe the more or less Buddhism-in-Egyptian-Garb take on Thelema as championed by his current OTO. But, if that's the case, he, unlike Crowley, hasn't left many hints to let us know. He instead goes above and beyond duty when it comes to white-washing Crowley's legacy.