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Religion 
Is Thelema a "New Religion"? 
Cara Soror, 
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 
"Would you describe your system as a new religion?" A 
pertinent question, you doubtless suppose; whether it may 
happen to mean anything is-is-is-well, is what we must try 
to make clear. 
True, 
it's a slogan of A:. A:.: 
"The method of 
science-the aim of religion." Here the word 'aim' and the 
context help the definition; it must mean the attainment of 
Knowledge and Power in spiritual matters-or words to that 
effect: as soon as one selects a phrase, one starts to kick holes 
in it! Yet we both know perfectly well all the time what we 
do mean. 
But this is certainly not the sense of the word in your 
question. It may clear our minds, as has so often happened, if 
we examine it through the lens of dear old Skeat. 
Religion, he says, Latin: religio, piety. Collecting or paying 
attention to: religens as opposed to negligens, neglecting; the 
attitude of Gallio. But it also implies a binding together, i.e., 
of ideas; in fact, a "body of doctrine." Not a bad expression. 
A religion then, is a more or less coherent and consistent set 
of beliefs, 
with precepts and prohibitions 
therefrom 
deducible. But then there is the sense in which Frazer (and I) 
often use the word: as in opposition to "science" or "Magic." 
Here the point is that religious people attribute phenomena 
to the will of some postulated Being or Beings, placable and 
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