Crowley speculated quite a lot, but coming from the rigorous curriculum of ritual and meditation of the Golden Dawn, and exposure to Buddhist monasticism and Hindu yoga, he was more concerned with setting up a program of spiritual exercises and degrees. Will be the guiding force in life. Initiation is a major theme in Crowley's system of Thelema, as in its two direct ancestors, the Golden Dawn and Theosophy. Initiation is a complex subject and has been the subject of extensive study by anthropologists. Freemasonry is an initiatic tradition in Western society that follows the model of initiation accepted by anthropologists, and esoteric Freemasonry has been a major contributor to the Golden Dawn, Theosophy, and Thelema as well as other magical groups, including modern Witchcraft.
Initiations mark stages in personal development.
Occult theories differ on whether initiations induce progress by working magic on the initiate, or whether they mark progress already made in personal work, or both. This curriculum is a combination of Golden Dawn magic, Yogic and Buddhist meditation practices, and original practices developed by Crowley. The work required to achieve even the middle ranges of the system is very difficult and few people have accomplished this. The curriculum requires the daily practice of rituals and meditations, as well as magical retirements, a kind of one-person spiritual retreat in which weeks or months at a time may be spent in meditative solitude. While his methods fall short of a truly scientific standard, one feature his system shares with anthropology is the requirement that one keep a detailed journal of practices and observations.