It has been judged best to reprint as it stands the account of these matters originally compiled for "The Temple of Solomon the King." (Equinox Vol. I, No. VII, pp 357-386.)
(The notes for this article were worked out in collaboration with Captain (now Major-General) J.F.C. Fuller. Every means of cross-examination was pressed to the utmost.)
THE PRIEST
In opening this the most important section of Frater P.'s career, we may be met by the unthinking with the criticism that since it deals rather with his relation to others than with his personal attainment, it has no place in this volume.
(Projected by Fuller as no more than a record of the personal attainment of Aleister Crowley.) Such criticism is indeed shallow. True, the incidents which we are about to record took place on planes material or contiguous thereto; true, so obscure is the light by which we walk that much must be left in doubt; true, we have not as yet the supreme mystical attainment to record; but on the other hand it is our view that the Seal set upon Attainment may be itself fittingly recorded in the story of that Attainment, and that no step in progress is more important than that when it is said to the aspirant: "Now that you are able to walk alone, let it be your first care to use that strength to help others!" And so this great event which we are about to describe, an event which will lead, as time will show, to the establishment of a New Heaven and New Earth for all men, wore the simplest and humblest guise. So often the gods come clad as peasants or as children; nay, I have listened to their voices in stones and trees.
However, we must not forget that there are persons so sensitive and so credulous that they are convinced by anything, I suppose that there are nearly as many beds in the world as there are men; yet for the Evangelical every bed conceals its Jesuit.
We get "Milton composing baby rhymes" and "Locke reasoning in gibberish," divine revelations which would shock the intelligence of a sheep or a Saxon ; and we find these upheld and defended with skill and courage.
Therefore, since we are to announce the divine revelation made to Fra. P., it is of the last importance that we should study his mind as is was at the time of the Unveiling. If we find it to be the mind of a neurotic, of a mystic, of a person predisposed, we shall slight the revelation ; if it be that of a sane man of the world, we shall attach more importance to it.
If some dingy Alchemist emerges from his laboratory, and proclaims to all Tooting that he has made gold, men doubt; but the conversion to spiritualism of Professor Lombroso made a great deal of impression on those who did not understand that his criminology was but the heaped delusion of a diseased brain.
So we shall find that the A∴A∴ subtly prepared Fra. P. by over two years' training in rationalism and indifferentism for Their message. And we shall find that so well did They do Their work that he refused the message for five years more, in spite of many strange proofs of its truth. We shall find even that Fra. P. had to be stripped naked of himself before he could effectively deliver the message.
The battle was between all that mighty will of his and the Voice of a Brother who spoke once, and entered again into His silence ; and it was not Fra. P. who had the victory.
We left Fra. P. in the autumn of 1901 having made considerable progress in Yoga. We noted that in 1902 he did little or nothing either in Magic or Mysticism. The interpretation of the occult phenomena which he had observed occupied him exclusively, and his mind was more and more attracted to materialism.
What are phenomena? he asked. Of noumena I know and can know nothing. All I know is, as far as I know, a mere modification of the mind, a phase of consciousness. And thought is a secretion of the brain. Consciousness is a function of the brain.
If this thought was contradicted by the obvious, "And what is the brain? A phenomenon in mind!", it weighed less with him. It seemed to his mind as yet unbalanced (for all men are unbalanced until they have crossed the Abyss), that it was more important to insist on matter than on mind. Idealism wrought such misery, was the father of all illusion, never led to research. And yet, what odds? Every act or thought is determined by an infinity of causes, is the resultant of an infinity of forces. He analysed God, saw that every man had made God in his own image, saw the savage and cannibal Jews devoted to a savage and cannibal God, who commanded the rape of virgins and the murder of little children. He saw the timid inhabitants of India, races continually the prey of every robber tribe, inventing the effeminate Vishnu; while, under the same name, their conquerors worshiped a warrior, the conqueror of Demon Swans. He saw the flower of earth throughout all time, the gracious Greeks, what gracious gods they had invented. He saw Rome, in its strength devoted to Mars, Jupiter and Hercules, in its decay turning to emasculate Attis, slain Adonis, murdered Osiris, crucified Christ. He could even trace in his own life every aspiration, every devotion, as a reflection of his physical and intellectual needs. He saw, too, the folly of all this supernaturalism. He heard the Boers and the British pray to the same Protestant God, and it occurred to him that the early success of the former might be due rather to superior valour than to superior praying power, and their eventual defeat to the circumstance that they could only bring 60,000 men against a quarter of a million. He saw, too, the face of humanity mired in its own blood that dripped from the leeches of religion fastened to its temples.
In all this he saw man as the only thing worth holding to; the one thing that needed to be "saved," but also the one thing that could save it.
All that he had attained, then, he abandoned. The intuitions of the Qabalah were cast behind him with a smile at his youthful folly; magic, if true, led nowhere; Yoga had become psychology. For the solution of his original problems of the universe he looked to metaphysics ; he devoted his intellect to the cult of absolute reason. He took up once more with Kant, Hume, Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, Maudsley, Mansel, Fitche, Schelling, Hegel, and many another ; while as for his life, was he not a man? He had a wife; he knew his duty to the race, and to his own ancient graft thereof. He was a traveller and a sportsman; very well, then, live it! So we find that from November, 19O1 he did no practices of any kind until the Spring Equinox of 1904, with the exception of a casual week in the summer of 1903, and an exhibition game of magick in the King's Chamber of the Great
Pyramid in November, 1903, when by his invocations he filled that chamber with a brightness as of full moonlight. (This was no subjective illusion. The light was sufficient for him to read the ritual by.) Only to conclude, "There, you see it? What's the good of it?"
We find him climbing mountains, skating, fishing, hunting big game, fulfilling the duties of a husband; we find him with the antipathy to all forms of spiritual thought and work which marks disappointment.
If one goes up the wrong mountain by mistake, as may happen, no beauties of that mountain can compensate for the disillusionment when the error is laid bare. Leah may have been a very nice girl indeed, but Jacob never cared for her after that terrible awakening to find her face on the pillow when, after seven years' toil, he wanted the expected Rachel.
So Fra. P., after five years barking up the wrong tree, had lost interest in trees altogether as far as climbing them was concerned. He might indulge in a little human pride: "See, Jack, that's the branch I cut my name on when I was a boy"; but even the golden fruit of Eternity in its branches, he would have done no more than lift his gun and shoot the pigeon that flitted through its foliage.
Of this "withdrawal from the vision" the proof is not merely deducible from the absence of all occult documents in his dossier, and from the full occupation of his life in external and mundane duties and pleasures, but is made irrefragible and emphatic by the positive evidence of his writings. Of these we have several examples. Two are dramatisations of Greek mythology, a subject offering every opportunity to the occultist. Both are markedly free from any such allusions. We have also a slim booklet, `Rosa Mundi,' in which the joys of pure human love are pictured without the faintest tinge of mystic emotion. Further, we have a play, `The God Eater,' in which the Origin of Religion, as conceived by Spencer or Frazer, is dramatically shown forth; and lastly we have a satire, `Why Jesus Wept,' hard, cynical, and brutal in its estimate of society, but careless of any remedy for its ills.
It is as if the whole past of the man with all its aspiration and attainment was blotted out. He saw life (for the first time, perhaps) with commonplace human eyes. Cynicism he could understand, romance he could understand; all beyond was dark. Happiness was the bedfellow of contempt.
We learn that, late in 1903, he was proposing to visit China on a sporting expedition, when a certain very commonplace communication made to him by his wife caused him to postpone it. "Let's go and kill something for a month or two," said he, "and if you're right, we'll get back to nurses and doctors."
So we find them in Hambantota, the south-eastern province of Ceylon, occupied solely with buffalo, elephant, leopard, sambhur, and the hundred other objects of the chase.
We here insert extracts from the diary, indeed a meagre production--after what we have seen of his previous record in Ceylon.
Whole weeks pass without a word; the great man was playing bridge, poker, or golf!
The entry of February 19th reads as if it were going to be interesting, but it is followed by that of February 20th. It is however certain that about the 14th of March he took possession of a flat in Cairo--in the Season!
Can bathos go further ?
So that the entry of March I6th is dated from Cairo.
(Our notes are given in round brackets.)
Frater P.'s Diary
(This diary is extremely incomplete and fragmentary. Many entries, too, are evidently irrelevant or "blinds." We omit much of the latter two types.) "This eventful year 1903 finds me at a nameless camp in the jungle of a Southern Province of Ceylon; my thoughts, otherwise divided between Yoga and sport, are diverted by the fact of a wife..."
(This reference to Yoga is the subconscious Magical Will of the Vowed Initiate. He was not doing anything; but, on questioning himself, as was his custom at certain seasons, he felt obliged to affirm his Aspiration.)
| Jan. 1 | ...(Much blotted out)...missed deer and hare. So annoyed. Yet the omen is that the year is well for works of Love and Union ; ill for those of Hate. Be mine of Love ! (Note that he does not add "and Union." As a devotee of Yoga, "Union," would have done.) |
| Jan. 28 | Embark for Suez. |
| Feb. 7 | Suez. |
| Feb. 8 | Landed at Port Said. |
| Feb. 9 | To Cairo. |
| Feb. 11 | Saw b.f.g.
b.f.b.
(This entry is quite unintelligible to us.) |
| Feb. 19 | To Helwan as Oriental Despot.
(Apparently P. had assumed some disguise, pro- bably with the intention of trying to study Islam from within as he had done with Hinduism.) |
| Feb. 20 | Began golf. |
| March 16 | Began INV. (invocation) IAO (Given in Liber Samekh: see "Magick.") |
| March 17 | THOTH [in Greek] appeared. (Thoth, the Egyptian God of Wisdom and Magick.) |
| March 18 | Told to INV. (invoke) HORUS [in Greek] as the sun [drawn] by new way. |
| March 19 | Did this badly at noon 30. |
| March 20 | At 10 p.m. did well--Equinox of Gods--Nov--(? new) C.R.C. (Christian Rosy Cross, we conjecture.) Hoori now Hpnt (obviously "Hierophant"). |
| March 21 | in . 1.A.M. (? one o'clock) |
| March 22 | X.P.B.
(May this and the entry March 24, refer to the brother of the A.'.A.'. who found him ?)
E.P.D. in 84 m. (Unintelligible to us ; probably a blind.) |
| March 23 | Y.K. done. (?His work on the Yi King.)*1* |
| March 24 | Met [sanskrit] again. |
| March 25 | 823 Thus
461 = p f l y 2 b z
218 " " |
| (Blot) | wch trouble with ds. |
| (Blot) | P.B. (All unintelligible ; possibly a blind.) |
| April 6 | Go off again to H, taking A's p.
(This is probably a blind.) |
Before we go further into the history of this period we must premise as follows. Fra. P. never made a thorough record of this period. He seems to have wavered between absolute scepticism in the bad sense, a dislike of the revelation, on the one hand, and real enthusiasm on the other. And the first of these moods would induce him to do thins to spoil the effect of the latter. Hence the "blinds" and stupid meaningless cyphers which deface the diary.
And, as if the Gods themselves wished to darken the Pylon, we find later, when P.'s proud will had been broken, and he wished to make straight the way of the historian, his memory (one of the finest memories in the world) was utterly incompetent to make everything certain.
However, nothing of which he was not certain will be entered in this place.
We have one quite unspoiled and authoritative document:
"The Book of Results," written in one of the small Japanese vellum note-books which he used to carry. Unfortunately, it seems to have been abandoned after five days. What happened between March 23rd and April 8th?
THE BOOK OF RESULTS
March 16th Die
[mercury] (ie, wednesday) I invoke IAO. (Fra. P. tells us that this was done by the ritual of the "Bornless One," identical with the "Preliminary In- vocation" (See "Magick" Appendix Liber CXX.) in the "Goetia," merely to amuse his wife by showing her the sylphs. She refused or was unable th see any sylphs, but became "inspired," and kept on saying: "They're waiting for you !")
(Note. The maiden name of his wife was Rose Edith Kelly. He called her Ouarda, the Arabic for for "Rose." She is hereafter signified by "Ouarda the Seer" or "W." for short. Ed.)
W. says "they" are "waiting for me." 17.
[Jupiter] (Thursday) It is "all about the child." Also "all Osiris." (Note the cynic and sceptic tone of this entry. How different it appears in the light of Liber 418!) Thoth, invoked with great success, indwells us. (Yes ; but what happened? Fra. P. has no sort of idea.)
18.
[Venus] (Friday) Revealed that the waiter was Horus, whom I had offended and ought to invoke. The ritual revealed in skeleton. Promise of success
[Saturn] (Saturday) or
[Sun] (Sunday) and of Samadhi. (Is this "waiter" another sneer? We are uncertain.)
The revealing of the ritual (by W. the seer) consisted chiefly in a prohibition of all formulae hitherto used, as will be seen from the text printed below.
It was probable on this day that P. cross-examined W. about Horus. Only the striking character of her identification of the God, surely, would have made him trouble to obey her. He remembers that he only agreed to obey her in order to show her how silly she was, and he taunted her that "nothing could happen of you broke all the rules." Here therefore we insert a short note by Fra. P. how W. knew R.H.K. (Ra Hoor Khuit)
- Force and Fire (I asked her to describe his moral qualities.)
- Deep blue light. (I asked her to describe the conditions caused by him. This light is quite unmistakable and unique ; but of course her words, though a fair description of it, might equally apply to some other.)
- Horus. (I asked her to pick out his name from a list of ten dashed off at haphazard.)
- Recognized his figure when shown. (This refers to the striking scene in the Boulak Museum, which will be dealt with in detail.)
- Knew my past relations with the God. (This means, I think, that she knew I had taken his place in temple,(See Equinox Vol. I, No. II, the Neophyte Ritual of the G.D.) etc., and that I had never once invoked him.)
- Knew his enemy. (I asked, "Who is his enemy?" Reply, "Forces of the waters--of the Nile." W. knew no Egyptology--or anything else.)
- Knew his lineal figure and its colour. (A 1/84 chance.)
- Knew his place in temple. (A 1/4 chance, at the least.)
- Knew his weapon (from a list of 6.)
- Knew his planetary nature (from a list of 7 planets.)
- Knew his number (from a list of 10 units.)
- Picked him out of (a)Five, (b)Three} indifferent, i,e, arbitrary symbols. (This means that I settled in my own mind that say D of A,B,C,D, and E should represent him and that she then said D.)
We cannot too strongly insist on the extraordinary character of this identification. We had made no pretension to clairvoyance; nor had P. ever tried to train her.
P. had great experience with clairvoyants, and it was always a point of honour with him to bowl them out. And here was a novice, a woman who should never have been allowed outside a ballroom, speaking with the authority of God, and proving it by unhesitating correctness.
One slip, and Fra. P. would have sent her to the devil. And that slip was not made. Calculate the odds! We cannot find a mathematical expression for tests 1,2,3,4,5, or 6, but the other 7 tests give us
1/10 x 1/84 x 1/4 x 1/6 x 1/7 x 1/I0 x 1/15 = 1/21,168,000
Twenty-one million to one against her getting through half the ordeal! Even if we suppose what is absurd, that she knew the correspondences of the Qabalah as well as Fra. P., and had know- ledge of his own secret relations with the Unseen, we must strain telepathy to explain test 12.
(Note. We may add, too, that Fra. P. thinks, but is not quite certain, that he also tested her with the Hebrew Alphabet and the Tarot trumps, in which case the long odds must be still further multiplied by 484, bringing them over the billion mark!
But we know that she was perfectly ignorant of the subtle correspondences, which were only existing at that time in Fra. P.'s own brain.
And even if it were so, how are we to explain what followed--the discovery of the Stele of Revealing?
To apply test 4, Fra.P. took her to the museum at Boulak, which they had not previously visited. She passed by (as P. noted with silent glee) several images of Horus. They went upstairs. A glass case stood in the distance, too far off for its contents to be recognized. But W. recognized it ! "There," she cried, "There he is !"
Fra. P. advanced to the case. There was the image of Horus in the form of Ra Hoor Khuit painted upon a wooden stele of the 26th dynasty--and the exhibit bore the number 666!
(666 had been taken by Fra. P. as the number of His own Name (The Beast) long years before, in His childhood. There could be no physical causal connection here ; and coincidence, sufficient to explain this one isolated fact, becomes inadequate in view of the other evidence.)
(And after that it was five years before Fra. P. was force to obedience !)
This incident must have occurred before the 23rd of March, as the entry on that date refers to Ankh-f-n-khonsu.
Here is P.'s description of the Stele. "In the museum at Cairo, No. 666 is the stele of the Priest Ankh-f-n-khonsu.
Horus had a red Disk and green Uraeus.
His face is green, his skin indigo.
His necklace, anklets, and bracelets are gold.
His nemyss nearly black from blue.
His tunic is the Leopard's skin, and his apron green and gold.
Green is the wand of double Power; his r.h. is empty.
His throne is indigo the gnomon, red the square.
The light is gamboge.
Above him are the Winged Globe and the bent figure of the heavenly Isis, her hands and feet touching earth.
(We print the most recent translation of the Stele, by Messrs. Alan Gardiner, Litt. D., and Battiscombe Gunn. It differs slightly from that used by Fra. P., which was due to the assistant-curator of the Museum at Boulak.)
STELE OF ANKH-F-NA-KHONSU.
Obverse
Topmost Register (under Winged Disk)
Behdet (? Hadit ?), the Great God, the Lord of Heaven.
Middle Register. Two vertical lines to left :---
Ra-Harakhti, Master of the Gods.
Five vertical lines to right :---
Osiris, the Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes, Opener of the
doors of Nut in Karnak, Ankh-f-n-Khonsu, the Justified.
Below Altar :---
Oxen, Geese, Wine (?), Bread.
Behind the god is the hieroglyph of Amenti.
Lowest Register.
(I) Saith Osiris, the Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes, the opener of the Doors of Nut in Karnak, Ankh-f-n-Khonsu, (2) the Justified :--"Hail, Thou whose praise is high (the highly praised), thou great-willed. O Soul (ba) very awful (lit. mighty, of awe) that giveth the terror of him (3) among the Gods, shining in glory upon his great throne, making ways for the Soul (ba) for the Spirit (yekh) and for the Shadow (khabt) : I am prepared and I shine forth as one that is prepared. (4) I have made way to the place in which are Ra, Tom, Khepri and Hathor." Osiris, the Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes (5) Ankh-f-na-Khonsu, the Justified ; son of MNBSNMT (The father's name. The method of spelling shows that he was a foreigner. There is no clue to the vocalisation).; born of the Sistrum-bearer of Amon, the Lady Atne-sher.
Reverse. Eleven lines of writing.
(I) Saith Osiris, the Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes, Ankh-f- (2)na-Khonsu, the Justified :--"My heart from my mother, my heart (different word, apparently synonymous, but probably not so at all) of my existence (3) upon earth, stand not forth against me as witness, drive me not back (4) among the Sovereign Judges (quite an arbitrary conventional translation of the original word), neither incline against me in the presence of the Great God, the Lord of the West (Osiris of course); (5) Now that I am united with Earth in the Great West, and endure no longer upon Earth. (6). Saith Osiris, he who is in Thebes, Ankh-f-na-Khonsu, the Justified: "O Only (7) One, shining like (or in) the Moon; Osiris Ankh-f-(8)na_Khonsu has come froth upon high among these thy multitudes. (9) He that gathereth together those that are in the Light, the Underworld (duat) is (also) (10) opened to him ; lo Osiris Ankh-f-na-Khonsu, cometh forth (II) by day to do all that he wisheth upon earth among the living."
There is one other object to complete the secret of Wisdom--(P. notes "perhaps a Thoth") or it is in the hieroglyphs. (This last paragraph is, we suppose, dictated by W.)
We now return to the "Book of Results."
| 19 | The ritual written out and the invocation done-- little success. |
| 20 | Revealed (We cannot make out if this revelation comes from W. or is a result of the ritual. But almost certainly the former, as it precedes the "Great Success" entry) that the Equinox of the Gods is come, Horus taking the Throne of the East and all rituals, etc., being abrogated. (To explain this, the analogy is between the "new formula" given by the "Word" every six months in the Order, and that given every couple of thousand years (more or less) by the Word of a Magus to the whole or part of Mankind. The G.D. ritual of the Equinox was celebrated in the spring and autumn within 48 hours of the actual dates of Sol entering Aries and Libra.) Great success in midnight invocation.
(The other diary says 10 P.M. "Midnight" is perhaps a loose phrase, or perhaps marks the climax of the ritual.)
I am to formulate a new link of an Order with the Solar Force. |
(It is not clear what happened in this invocation; but it is evident from another note of certainly later date, that "great success" does not mean "Samadhi." For P. writes: "I make it an absolute condition that I should attain Samadhi in the god's won interest." His memory concurs in this. It was the Samadhi attained in October, 1906, that set him again in the path of obedience to this revelation. But that "great success" means something very important is clear enough. The sneering sceptic of the 17th of March must have had a shock before he wrote those words.)
| 21. | ☾. ☉ enters ♈. ("Monday. The Sun enters Aries." i.e. Springs begins.) |
| 22. | ♂ (Tuesday) The day of rest, on which nothing whatever of magic is to be done at all. ☿ (Wednesday> is to be the great day of invocation. |
<><><>(This note is due to W.'s prompting or to his own rationalizing imagination.)<><><>
| 23. | The Secret of Wisdom. |
(We omit the record of a long and futile Tarot divination.) At this point we may insert the Ritual which was so successful on the 20th.
INVOCATION OF HORUS
ACCORDING TO THE DIVINE VISION OF W., THE SEER.
To be performed before a window open to the E. or N. without incense. The room to be filled with jewels, but only diamonds to be worn. A sword, unconsecrated, 44 pearl beads to be told. Stand. Bright daylight at 12.30 noon. Lock doors. White robes. Bare feet. Be very loud. Saturday. Use the Sign of Apophis and Typhon. The above is W.'s answer to various questions posed by P.
Preliminary. Banish. L.B.R. Pentagram. L.B.R. Hexagram. Flaming sword. Abrahadabra, Invoke. As before. (These are P.'s ideas for the ritual. W. replied, "Omit.")
The MS. of this Ritual bears and left unrevised, save perhaps for one glance. There are mistakes in grammar and spelling unique in all MSS. of Fra. P.; the use of capitals is irregular, and the punctuation almost wanting.)
CONFESSION
Unprepared and uninvoking Thee, I, OY MH, Fra R.R. et A.C., am here in Thy Presence--for Thou art Everywhere, O Lord Horus! --to confess humbly before Thee my neglect and scorn of Thee. How shall I humble myself enough before Thee? Thou art the mighty and unconquered Lord of the Universe: I am a spark of Thine unutterable Radiance.
How should I approach Thee? but Thou art Everywhere.
But Thou hast graciously deigned to call me unto Thee, to this Exorcism of Art, that I may be Thy Servant, Thine Adept, O Bright One, O Sun of Glory! Thou hast called me --should I not then hasten to Thy Presence?
With unwashen hands therefore I come unto Thee, and I lament my wandering from Thee --but Thou knowest!
Yea, I have evil!
If one (doubtless a reference to S.R.M.D. who was much obsessed by Mars, P. saw Horus at first as Geburah; later as an aspect of Tiphereth, including Chesed and Geburah--the red Triangle inverted--an aspect opposite to Osiris.) blasphemed Thee, why should I therefore forsake Thee? But Thou art the Avenger; all is with Thee.
I bow my neck before Thee; and as once Thy sword was upon it (see G.D. Ceremony of Neophyte, the Obligation), so am I in Thy hands. Strike if Thou wilt: spare if Thou wilt: but accept me as I am.
My trust is in Thee: shall I be confounded? This Ritual of Art; this Forty and Fourfold Invocation; this Sacrifice of Blood--(Merely, we suppose, that 44=DM, blood. Possibly a bowl of blood was used. P. thinks it was in some of the workings at this time, but is not sure if it was this one.)--these I do not comprehend.
It is enough if I obey Thy decree; did Thy fiat go forth for my eternal misery, were it not my joy to execute Thy Sentence on myself?
For why? For that All is in Thee and of Thee; it is enough if I burn up in the intolerable glory of Thy presence.
Enough! I turn toward Thy Promise.
Doubtful are the Words: Dark are the Ways: but in Thy Words and Ways is Light. Thus then now as ever, I enter the Path of Darkness, if haply so I may attain the Light.
Hail!
a I [aleph]
Strike, strike the master chord! Draw, draw the Flaming Sword! Crowned Child and Conquering Lord, Horus, avenger!
| I. | O Thou of the Head of the Hawk! Thee, Thee, I invoke! |
| (At every "Thee I invoke," throughout whole ritual, give the sign of Apophis.) |
| A. | Thou only-begotten-child of Osiris Thy Father, and Isis Thy Mother. He that was slain ; She that bore Thee in Her womb flying from the Terror of the Water. Thee, Thee I invoke! |
| 2. | O Thou whose Apron is of flashing white, whiter than the Forehead of the Morning! Thee, Thee, I invoke! |
| B. | O Thou who hast formulated Thy Father and made fertile Thy Mother! Thee, Thee, I invoke! |
| 3. | O Thou whose garment is of golden glory with the azure bars of sky! Thee, Thee, I invoke! |
| C. | Thou, who didst avenge the Horror of Death; Thou the slayer of Typhon! Thou who didst lift Thine arms, and the Dragons of Death were as dust: Thou who didst raise Thine Head, and the Crocodile of Nile was abased before Thee! Thee, Thee, I invoke! |
| 4. | O Thou whose Nemyss hideth the Universe with night, the impermeable Blue! Thee, Thee, I invoke! |
| D. | Thou who travellest in the Boat of Ra, abiding at the Helm of the Aftet boat and of the Sektet boat! Thee, Thee, I invoke! |
| 5. | Thou who bearest the Wand of Double Power ! Thee, Thee, I invoke! |
| E. | Thou about whose presence is shed the darkness of Blue Light, the unfathomable glory of the outmost Ether, the untravelled, the unthinkable immensity of Space. Thou who concentrest all the Thirty Ethers in one darkling sphere of Fire! Thee, Thee, I invoke! |
| 6. | O Thou who bearest the Rose and Cross of Life and Light! Thee, Thee, I invoke! |
The Voice of the Five.
The Voice of the Six.
Eleven are the Voices.
Abrahadabra!
[beta] II
Strike, strike the master chord! Draw, draw the Flaming Sword! Crowned Child and Conquering Lord, Horus, avenger!
| I. | By thy name of Ra, I invoke Thee, Hawk of the Sun, the glorious one! |
| 2. | By thy name Harmachis, youth of the Brilliant Morning, I invoke Thee! |
| 3. | By thy name, Mau, I invoke Thee, Lion of the Midday Sun! |
| 4. | By thy name Tum, Hawk of the Even, crimson splendour of the Sunset, I invoke Thee! |
| 5. | By thy name Khep-Ra I invoke Thee, O Beetle of the hidden Mastery of Midnight! |
| A. | By thy name Heru-pa-Kraat, Lord of Silence, Beautiful Child that standest on the Dragons of the Deep, I invoke Thee! |
| B. | By thy name Apollo, I invoke Thee, O man of Strength and splendour, O poet, O father! |
| C. | By thy name of Phoebus, that drivest thy chariot through the Heaven of Zeus, I invoke Thee! |
| D. | By thy name of Odin I invoke Thee, O warrior of the North, O Renown of the Sagas! |
| E. | By thy name of Jeheshua, O child of the Flaming Star, I invoke Thee ! |
| F. | By Thine own, Thy secret name Hoori, Thee I invoke! |
The Names are Five.
The Names are Six.
Eleven are the Names!
Abrahadabra! Behold! I stand in the midst. Mine is the symbol of Osiris; to Thee are mine eyes ever turned. Unto the splendour of Geburah, the Magnificence of Chesed, the mystery of Daath, thither I lift up mine eyes. This have I sought, and I have sought the Unity: hear Thou me!
[gamma] III[gimel]
| 1. | Mine is the Head of the Man, and my insight is keen as the Hawk's. By my head I invoke Thee! |
| A. | I am the only-begotten child of my Father and Mother. By my body I invoke Thee! |
| 2. | About me shine the Diamonds of Radiance white and pure. By their brightness I invoke Thee! |
| B. | Mine is the Red Triangle Reversed, the Sign given of none, save it be of Thee, O Lord! (This sign had been previously communicated by W. It was entirely new to P.) By the Lamen I invoke Thee! |
| 3. | Mine is the garment of white sewn with gold, the flashing abbai that I wear. By my robe I invoke Thee! |
| C. | Mine is the sign of Apophis and Typhon ! By the sign I invoke Thee! |
| 4. | Mine is the turban of white and gold, and mine the blue vigour of the intimate air ! By my crown I invoke Thee! |
| D. | My fingers travel on the Beads of Pearl ; so run I after Thee in thy car of glory. By my fingers I invoke Thee! (On Saturday the string of pearls broke : so I changed the invocation to "My mystic sigils travel in the Bark of the Akasa, etc. By the spells I invoke Thee !--P.) |
| 5. | I bear the Wand of Double Power in the Voice of the Master--Abrahadabra ! By the word I invoke Thee! |
| E. | Mine are the dark-blue waves of music in the song that I made of old to invoke Thee--- |
Strike, strike the master chord! Draw, draw the Flaming Sword! Crowned Child and Conquering Lord, Horus, avenger!
| By the Song I invoke Thee! |
| 6. | In my hand is thy Sword of Revenge ; let it strike at Thy Bidding! By the Sword I invoke Thee! |
The Voice of the Five.
The Voice of the Six.
Eleven are the Voices.
Abrahadabra!
{help] IV [resh]
(This section merely repeats section I in the first person. Thus it begins: 1. "Mine is the Head of the Hawk! Abrahadabra!" and ends: 6. "I bear the Rose and Cross of Life and Light! Abrahadabra!" giving the Sign at each Abrahadabra. Remaining in the Sign, the invocation concludes:)
Therefore I say unto thee: Come forth and dwell in me; so that every my Spirit, whether of the Firmament, or of the Ether, or of the Earth or under the Earth; on dry land or in the Water, or Whirling Air or of Rushing Fire; and every spell and scourge of God the Vast One may be THOU. Abrahadabra!
The Adoration--impromptu. Close by banishing. (I think this was omitted at W.'s order.---P.)
During the period March 23rd--April 8th, whatever else may have happened, it is at least certain that work was continued to some extent, that the inscriptions of the stele were translated for Fra. P., and that he paraphrased the latter in verse. For we find him using, or prepared to use, the same in the text of Liber Legis.
Perhaps then, perhaps later, he made out the "name coincidences of the Qabalah," to which we must now direct the reader's attention.
The MS. is a mere fragmentary sketch.
Ch=8=ChlTh=418 Abrahadabra=RA-HVVR (Ra-Hoor).
Also 8 is the great symbol I adore.
(This may be because of its likeness to [?] or because of its [old G.D.] attributions to Daath, P. being then a rationalist; or for some other reason.)
So is O.
O=A in the Book of Thoth
(The Tarot).
A=111 with all its great meanings,
[sun]=6
Now 666=My name, the number of the stele, the number of The Beast
(See Apocalypse), the number of the Man.
The Beast AChIHA=666 in full. (The usual spelling is ChIVA.)
(A=111, Ch=418, I=20, H=6, A=111.)
HRV-RA-HA. 211 + 201 + 6=418.
This name occurs only in L. Legis, and is a test of that book rather than of the stele.)
ANKH-P-N-KHONShU-T=666
(We trust the addition of the termination T will be found justifies.)
{Bes-n-maut, B I Sh N A - M A V T }=888
{Ta-Nich, Th A - N I Ch }=Ch x A.
Nuteru NVTh IRV=666
Montu MVNTV=111.
Aiwass AIVAS=78, the influence or messenger, or the Book T.
(P.S. Note this error! Ed.)
Ta-Nich TA-NICh = 78. Alternatively, Sh for Ch gives 370, O Sh, Creation.
So much we extract from volumes filled with minute calculations, of which the bulk is no longer intelligible even to Fra. P.
His memory, however, assures us that the coincidences were much more numerous and striking than those we have been able to reproduce here; but his attitude is, we understand that after all "It's all in Liber Legis. `Success is thy proof: argue not; convert not; talk not overmuch!'" And indeed in the Commentary to that Book will be found sufficient for the most wary of inquirers.
Now who, it may be asked, was Aiwass? It is the name given by W. to P. as that of her informant. Also it is the name given as that of the revealer of Liber Legis. But whether Aiwass is a spiritual being, or a man known to Fra. P., is a matter of the merest conjecture. His number is 78, that of Mezla, the Channel through which Macroprosopus reveals Himself to, or showers His influence upon, Microposopus (I.e. the messenger of God to Man).
(But see the miraculous events connected with "The Revival of Magick" described in Magick pp. 257-260, where he is shewn as 93.) So we find Fra. P. speaking of him at one time as of another, but more advanced man; at another time as if it were the name of his own superior in the Spiritual Hierarchy. And to all questions Fra. P. finds a reply, either pointing out "the subtle metaphysical distinction between curiosity and hard work," or indicating that among the Brethren "names are only lies," or in some other way defeating the very plain purpose of the historian.
The same remark applies to all queries with regard to V.V.V.V.V.
(The motto of Fra. P. as a Magister Templi 8○ = 3□; He used it in His office of giving out the "Official Books of A∴A∴" to the word in the Equinox.); with this addition, that in this case he condescends to argue and to instruct. "If I tell you," he once said to the present writer, "that V.V.V.V.V. is a Mr. Smith and lives at Clapham, you will at once go round and tell everybody that V.V.V.V.V. is a Mr. Smith of Clapham, which is not true. V.V.V.V.V. is the Light of the World itself, the sole Mediator between God and Man; and in your present frame of mind (that of a poopstick) you cannot see that the two statements may be identical for the Brothers of the A∴A∴! Did not your greatgrandfather argue that no good thing could come out of Nazareth? `Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him.'"
Similarly with regard to the writing of Liber Legis, Fr. P. will only say that it is in no way "automatic writing," that he heard clearly and distinctly the human articulate accents of a man. Once, on page 6, he is told to edit a sentence ; and once, on page 19, W. supplies a sentence which he had failed to hear.
To this writing we now turn.
It must have been on the first of April that W. commanded P. (now somewhat cowed) to enter the "temple" exactly at 12 o'clock noon on three successive days, and to write down what he should hear, rising exactly at 1 o'clock.
This he did. Immediately on his taking his seat the Voice began its Utterance, and ended exactly at the expiration of the hour.
These are the three chapters of Liber Legis, and we have nothing to add.
The full title of the book is, as P. first chose to name it,
LIBER AL vel LEGIS
sub figura CCXX
as delivered by LXXVIII to DCLXVI
and it is the First and Greatest of those Class A publications of A∴A∴ of which is not to be altered so much as the style of a letter. This was the original title devised by 666 to appear in the 1909 publication. The "Key of it all" and the true spelling of Aiwass had not then been discovered.
________________________________________________________________
THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS
CHAPTER 7
Remarks on the method of receiving Liber Legis, on the Conditions prevailing at the time of the writing, and on certain technical difficulties connected with the Literary form of the Book.
This paper was written, independently of any idea of its present place in this Book, by The Beast 666 Himself, in the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu, Sicily. No further apology is offered for any repetitious of statements made in previous chapters.
I
Certain very serious questions have arisen with regard to the method by which this Book was obtained. I do not refer to those doubts --real or pretended --which hostility engenders, for all such are dispelled by study of the text; no forger could have prepared so complex a set of numerical and literal puzzles as to leave himself (a) devoted to the solution for years after, (b) baffled by a simplicity which when desclosed leaves one gasping at its profundity, (c) enlightened only by progressive initiation, or by "accidental" events apparently disconnected with the Book, which occurred long after its publication, (d) hostile, bewildered, and careless even in the face of independent testimony as to the power and clarity of the Book, and of the fact that by Its light other men have attained the loftiest summits of initiation in a tithe of the time which history and experience would lead one to expect, and (e) angrily unwilling to proceed with that part of the Work appointed for him which is detailed in Chapter III, even when the course of events on the planet, war, revolution, and the collapse of the social and religious systems of civilization, proved plainly to him that whether he liked it or no, Ra Hoor Khuit was indeed Lord of the Aeon, the Crowned and Conquering Child whose innocence meant no more than inhuman cruelty and wantonly senseless destructiveness as he avenged Isis our mother the Earth and the Heaven for the murder and mutilation of Osiris, Man, her son. The War of 1914-18 and its sequels have proved even to the dullest statesmen, beyond wit of even the most subtly sophistical theologians to gloze, that death is not an unmixed benefit either to the individual or the community : that force and fire of leaping manhood are more useful to a nation than cringing respectability and emasculate servility; that genius goes with courage, and the sense of shame and guilt with "Defeatism."
For these reasons and many more I am certain, I the Beast, whose number is Six Hundred and Sixty Six, that this Third Chapter of the Book of the Law is nothing less than the authentic Word, the Word of the Aeon, the Truth about Nature at this time and on this planet. I wrote it, hating it and sneering at it, secretly glad that I could use it to revolt against this Task most terrible that the Gods have thrust remorselessly upon my shoulders, their Cross of burning steel that I must carry even to my Calvary, the place of a skull, there to be eased of its weight only that I be crucified thereon. But, being lifted up, I will draw the whole world unto me; and men shall worship me the Beast, Six Hundred and Three-score and Six, celebrating to Me their Midnight Mass every time soever when they do that they will, and on Mine altar slaying to Me that victim I most relish, their Selves; when Love designs and Will executes the Rite whereby (an they know it or not) their God in man is offered to me The Beast, their God, the Rite whose virtue, making their God of their throned Beast, leaves nothing, howso bestial, undivine.
On such lines my own "conversion" to my own "religion" may take place, though as I write these words all but twelve weeks of Sixteen years are well nigh past.
(Written in I920, e.v.)
II
This long digression is but to explain that I, myself, who issue Liber Legis, am no fanatic partisan. I will obey my orders (III, 42) "Argue not, convert not;" even though I shirk some others. I shall not deign to answer sceptical enquiries as to the origin of the Book. "Success is your proof." I, of all men on this Earth reputed mightiest in Magick, by mine enemies more than by my friends, have striven to lose this Book, to forget it, defy it, criticise it, escape it, these nigh sixteen years; and It holds me to the course It sets, even as the Mountain of Lodestone holds the ship, or Helios by invisible bonds controls his planets; yea, or as BABALON grips between her thighs the Great Wild Beast she straddles! So much for the sceptics; put your heads in the Lion's mouth; so may you come to certainty, whether I be stuffed with straw!
But, in the text of the Book itself, are thorns for the flesh of the most ardent swain as he buries his face in the roses; some of the ivy that clings about the Thyrse of this Dionysus is Poison Ivy. The question arises, especially on examining the original manuscript in My handwriting: "Who wrote these words?"
Of course I wrote them, ink on paper, in the material sense; but they are not My words, unless Aiwaz be taken to be no more than my subconscious self, or some part of it: in that case, my conscious self being ignorant of the Truth in the Book and hostile to most of the ethics and philosophy of the Book, Aiwaz is a severely suppressed part of me. Such a theory would further imply that I am, unknown to myself, possessed of all sorts of praeternatural knowledge and power. The law of Parsimony of Thought (Sir W. Hamilton) appears in rebuttal. Aiwaz calls Himself "the minister of Hoor-parr- Kraat," the twin of Heru-Ra-Ha. This is the dual form of Horus, child of Isis and Osiris. If so, the theorist must suggest a reason for this explosive yet ceremonially controlled manifestation, and furnish and explanation of the dovetailing of Events in subsequent years with His word written and published. In any case, whatever "Aiwaz" is, "Aiwaz" is an Intelligence possessed of power and knowledge absolutely beyond human experience; and therefore Aiwaz is a Being worthy, as the current use of the word allows, of the title of a God, yea verily and amen, of a God. Man has no such fact recorded, by proof established in surety beyond cavil of critic, as this Book, to witness the existence of and Intelligence praeterhuman and articulate, purposefully interfering in the philosophy, religion, ethics, economics and politics of the Planet.
The proof of His praeterhuman Nature --call Him a Devil or a God or even an Elemental as you will --is partly external, depending on events and persons without the sphere of Its influence, partly internal, depending on the concealment of (a) certain Truths, some previously known, some not known, but for the most part beyond the scope of my mind at the time of writing, (b) of an harmony of letters and numbers subtle, delicate and exact, and (c) of Keys to all life's mysteries, both pertinent to occult science and otherwise, and to all the Locks of Thought; the concealment of these three galaxies of glory, I say, in a cipher simple and luminous, but yet illegible for over Fourteen years, and translated even then not by me, but by my mysterious Child according to the Foreknowledge written in the Book itself, in terms so complex that the exact fulfilment of the conditions of His birth, which occurred with incredible precision, seemed beyond all possibility, a cipher involving higher mathematics, and a knowledge of the Hebrew, Greek and Arabic Qabalahs as well as the True Lost Word of the Freemason, is yet veiled within the casual silk-stuff of ordinary English words, nay, even in the apparently accidental circumstance of the characters of the haste-harried scrawl of My pen.
Many such cases of double entendre, paranomasia in one language or another, sometimes two at once, numerical-literal puzzles, and even (on one occasion) an illuminating connexion of letters in various lines by a slashing scratch, will be found in the Qabalistic section of the Commentary.
(In preparation.)
III
As an example of the first method above mentioned, we have, Cap. III, "The fool readeth this Book--and he understandeth it not." This has a secret reverse-sense, meaning: The fool (Parzival = Fra. O.I.V.V.I.O.) understandeth it (being a Magister Templi, the Grade attributed to Understanding) not (i.e. to be `not').
This Parzival, adding to 418, is (in the legend of the Graal) the son of Kamuret, adding to 666, being the son of me The Beast by the Scarlet Woman Hilarion. This was a Name chosen by her when half drunk, as a theft from Theosophical legend, but containing many of our letter-number Keys to the Mysteries ; the number of the petals in the most sacred lotus. It adds to 1001, which also is Seven times Eleven times Thirteen, a series of factors which may be read as The Scarlet Woman's Love by Magick producing Unity, in Hebrew Achad. For 7 is the number of Venus, and the secret seven-lettered Name of my concubine B A B A L O N is written with Seven Sevens, thus:
77 + ((7+7)/7) + 77 = 156, the number of BABALON.
418 is the number of the Word of the Magical Formula of this Aeon. (666 is I, The Beast.) Parzival had also the name Achad as a Neophyte of A∴A∴, and it was Achad whom Hilarion bare to Me. And Achad means Unity, and the letter of Unity is Aleph, the letter of The Fool in the Tarot. Now this Fool invoked the Magical Formula of the Aeon by taking as his Magick, or True, Name one which added also to 418.
He took it for his Name on Entering the Gnosis where is Understanding, and he understood it--this Book--not. That is, he understood that this Book was, so to speak, a vesture or veil upon the idea of "not." In Hebrew "not" is LA, 31, and AL is God, 31, while there is a third 31 still deeplier hidden in the double letter ST, which is a graphic glyph of the sun and moon conjoined to look like a foreshortened Phallus, thus--when written in Greek capitals. This S or Sigma is like a phallus, thus, [Greek], when writ small ; and like a serpent or spermatozoon when writ final, thus, [Greek]. This T or Theta is the point in the circle, or phallus in the kteis, and also the Sun just as C is the Moon, male and female.
But Sigma in Hebrew is Shin, 300, the letter of Fire and of the "Spirit of the Gods" which broods upon the Formless Void in the Beginning, being by shape a triple tongue of flame, and by meaning a tooth, which is the only part of the secret and solid foundation of Man that is manifested normally. Teeth serve him to fight, to crush, to cut, to rend, to bite and grip his prey; they witness that he is a fierce, dangerous, and carnivorous animal. But they are also the best witness to the mastery of Spirit over Matter, the extreme hardness of their substance being chiselled and polished and covered with a glistening film by Lefe no less easily and beautifully than is does with more naturally plastic types of substance.
Teeth are displayed when our Secret Self --our Subconscious Ego, whose Magical Image is our individuality expressed in mental and bodily form --our Holy Guardian Angel --comes forth and declares our True Will to our fellows, whether to snarl or to sneer, to smile or to laugh.
Teeth serve us to pronounce the dental letters which in their deepest nature express decision, fortitude, endurance, just as gutturals suggest the breath of Life itself free-flowing, and labials the duplex vibrations of action and reaction. Pronounce T,D,S or N, and you will find them all continuously forcible exhalations whose difference is determined solely by the position of the tongue, the teeth being bared as when a wild beast turns to bay. The sibilant sound of S or Sh is our English word, and also the Hebrew word, Hush, a strongly aspirated S, and suggests the hiss of a snake. Now this hiss is the common sign of recognition between men when one wants to call another's attention without disturbing the silence more than necessary. (Also we have Hist, our Double letter.) This hiss means: "Attention! A man!" For in all Semitic and some Aryan languages, ISh or a closely similar word means "a man." Say it: you must bare your clenched teeth as in defiance, and breathe harshly out as in excitement.
Hiss! Sh! means "Keep silent! there's danger if you are heard. Attention! There's a man somewhere, deadly as a snake. Breathe hard; there's a fight coming."
This Sh is then the forcible subtle creative Spirit of Life, fiery and triplex, continous, Silence of pure Breath modified into sound by two and thirty obstacles, as the Zero of Empty Space, though it contain all Life, only takes form according (as the Qabalists say) to the two and thirty "Paths" of Number and Letter which obstruct it.
Now the other letter, Theta or Teth, has the value of Nine, which is that of AVB, the Secret Magick of Obeah, and of the Sephira Yesod, which is the seat in man of the sexual function by whose Magick he overcomes even Death, and that in more ways than one, ways that are known to none but the loftiest and most upright Initiates, baptised by the Baptism of Wisdom, and communicants at that Eucharist where the Fragment of the Host in the Chalice becomes whole.
(The Chalice is not presented to laymen. Those who understand the reason for this and other details of the Mass, will wonder at the perfection with which the Roman Communion has preserved the form, and lost the substance, of the Supreme Magical Ritual of the True Gnosis.)
This T is the letter of Leo, the Lion, the house of heaven sacred to the Sun. (Thus also we find in it the number 6, whence 666). And Teth means a Serpent, the symbol of the magical Life of the Soul, lord of "the double wand" of life and death. The serpent is royal, hooded, wise, silent save for an hiss when need is to disclose his Will; he devours his tail --the glyph of Eternity, of Nothingness and of Space; he moves wavelike, one immaterial essence travelling through crest and trough, as a man's soul through lives and deaths. He straightens out; he is the Rod that strikes, the Light-radiance of the Sun or the Life radiance of the Phallus.
The sound of T is tenuous and sharply final; it suggests a spontaneous act sudden and irrevocable, like the snake's bite, the loin's snap, the Sun's stroke, and the Lingam's.
Now in the Tarot the Trump illustrating this letter Sh is and old form of the Stele of Revealing, Nuith with Shu and Seb, the pantacle or magical picture of the old Aeon, as Nuit with Hadit and Ra Hoor Khuit is of the new. The number of this Trump is XX. It is called the Angel, the messenger from Heaven of the new Word. The Trump giving the picture of T is called Strength. It shows the Scarlet Woman, BABALON, riding (or conjoined with) me The Beast ; and this card is my special card, for I am Baphomet, "the Lion and the Serpent," and 666, the "full number" of the Sun.
(The "magical numbers" of the Sun are, according to tradition, 6, (6 x 6)=36, (666 / 111, and [epsilon] (1-36)=666.)
So then, as Sh, XX, shows the Gods of the Book of the Law and T, XI, shows the human beings in that Book, me and my concubine, the two cards illustrate the whole Book in pictorial form.
Now XX + XI = XXXI, 31, which we needed to put with LA, 31 and AL, 31, that we might have 31 x 3 = 93, the Word of the Law, THELEMA [in greek], Will, and help, Love which under Will, is the Law. It is also the number of Aiwaz, the Author of the Book, of the Lost Word whose formula does in sober truth "raise Hiram," and of many another close-woven Word of Truth.
Now then this Two-in-One letter [sun, moon], is the third Key to this Law; and on the discovery of that fact, after years of constant seeking, what sudden splendours of Truth, sacred as secret, blazed in the midnight of my mind.! Observe now: "this circle squared in its failure is a key also." Now I knew that in the value of the letters of ALHIM, "the Gods," the Jews had concealed a not quite correct value of [pi], the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, to 4 places of decimals: 3.1415; nearer would be 3.1416. If I prefix our Key, 31, putting [sun, moon], Set or Satan, before the old Gods, I get 3.141593, [pi] correct to Six places, Six being my own number and that of Horus the Sun. And the whole number of this new Name is 395, which on analysis yields and astounding cluster of numerical "mysteries."
(Shin 300 Teth 9 Aleph 1 Lamed 30 He 5 Yod 10 Mem 40. Note that 395 being the corrections required! Note also the 31 and the 93 in this value of [pi].)
Now for an example of the `paronomasia' or pun. Chapter III, 17---"Ye, even ye, know not this meaning all." (Note how the peculiar grammar suggests a hidden meaning.) Now YE is in Hebrew Yod He, the man and the woman; The Beast and BABALON, whom the God was addressing in his verse. Know suggests `no' which gives LA, 31; `not' is LA, 31, again, by actual meaning; and `all' refers to AL, 31, again. (Again, ALL is 61, AIN, "nothing.")
V
Then we have numerical problems like this. "Six and fifty. Divide, add, multiply and understand." 6 / 50 gives 0.12, a perfect glyph-statement of the metaphysics of the Book. The external evidence for the Book is accumulating yearly: the incidents connected with the discovery of the true spelling of Aiwaz are alone sufficient to place it beyond all quaver of doubt that I am really in touch with a Being of intelligence and power immensely subtler and greater than aught we can call human.
This has been the One Fundamental Question of Religion. We know of invisible powers, and to spare! But is there any Intelligence or Individuality (of the same general type as ours) independent of our human brain-structure? For the first time in history, yes! Aiwaz has given us proof: the most important gate toward Knowledge suings wide.
I, Aleister Crowley, declare upon my honour as a gentleman that I hold this revelation a million times more important than the discovery of the Wheel, or even of the Laws of Physics or Mathematics. Fire and Tools made Man master of his planet: Writing developed his mind; but his Soul was a guess until the Book of the Law proved this.
I, a master of English, was made to take down in three hours, from dictation, sixty-five 8" x I0" pages of words not only strange, but often displeasing to me in themselves; concealing in cipher propositions unknown to me, majestic and profound; foretelling events public and private beyond my control, or that of any man.
This Book proves: there is a Person thinking and acting in a praeterhuman manner, either without a body of flesh, or with the power of communicating telepathically with men and inscrutably directing their actions.
VI
I write this therefore with a sense of responsibility so acute that for the first time in my life I regret my sense of humour and the literary practical jokes which it has caused me to perpetrate. I am glad, though, that care was taken of the MS. itself and of diaries and letters of the period, so that the physical facts are as plain as can be desired. My sincerity and seriousness are proved by my life. I have fought this Book and fled it; I have defiled it and I have suffered for its sake. Present or absent to my mind, it has been my Invisible Ruler. It has overcome me; year after year extends its invasion of my being. I am the captive of the Crowned and Conquering Child.
The point then arises: How did the Book of the Law come to be written? The description in The Equinox, I, VII, might well be more detailed; and I might also elucidate the problem of the apparent changes of speaker, and the occasional lapses from straightforward scribecraft in the MS.
I may observe that I should not have left such obvious grounds for indictment as these had I prepared the MS. to look pretty to a critical eye; nor should I have left such curious deformities of grammar and syntax, defects of rhythm, and awkwardness of phrase. I should not have printed passages, some rambling and unintelligible, some repugnant to reason by their absurdity, others again by their barbaric ferocity abhorrent to heart. I should not have allowed such jumbles of matter, such abrupt jerks from subject to subject, disorder ravaging reason with disconnected sluttishness. I should not have tolerated the discords, jarred and jagged, of manner, as when a sublime panegyric of Death is followed first by a cipher and then by a prophecy, before, without taking breath, the author leaps to the utmost magnificence of thought both mystical and practical, in language so concise, simple, and lyrical as to bemuse our very amazement. I should not have spelt "Ay" "Aye," or acquiesced in the horror "abstruction."
Compare with this Book my "jokes," where I pretend to edit the MS. of another: "Alice," "Amphora," "Clouds without Water." Observe in each case the technical perfection of the "discovered" or "translated" MS., smooth skilled elaborate art and craft of a Past Master Workman; observe the carefully detailed tone and style of the prefaces, and the sedulous creation of the personalities of the imaginary author and the imaginary editor.
Note, moreover, with what greedy vanity I claim authorship even of all the other A∴A∴ Books in Class A, though I wrote them inspired beyond all I know to be I. Yet in these Books did Aleister Crowley, the master of English both in prose and in verse, partake insofar as he was That. Compare those Books with the Book of the Law! Their style is simple and sublime; the imagery is gorgeous and faultless; the rhythm is subtle and intoxicating; the theme is interpreted in faultless symphony. There are no errors of grammar, no infelicities of phrase. Each Book is perfect in its kind.
I, daring to snatch credit for these, in that brutal Index to The Equinox Volume One, dared nowise to lay claim to have touched the Book of the Law, not with my littlest finger-tip.
I, boasting of my many Books; I, swearing each a masterpiece; I attach the Book of the Law at a dozen points of literature. Even so, with the dame breath, I testify, as a Master of English, that I am utterly incapable, even when most inspired, of such English as I find in that Book again and again.
Terse, yet sublime, are these verses of this Book; subtle yet simple; matchless for rhythm, direct as a ray of light. Its imagery is gorgeous without decadence. It deals with primary ideas. It announces revolutions in philosophy, religion, ethics, yea, in the whole nature of Man. For this it needs no more than to roll sea-billows solemnly forth, eight words, as "Every man and every woman is a star," or it bursts in a mountain torrent of monosyllables as "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
Nuit cries: "I love you," like a lover; when even John reached only to the cold impersonal proposition "God is love." She woos like a mistress; whispers "To me !" in every ear; Jesus, with needless verb, appeals vehemently to them "that labour and are heavy laden." Yet he can promise in the present, says: "I give unimaginable joys on earth," making life worth while; "certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death," the electric light Knowledge for the churchyard corpsecandle Faith, making life fear-free, and death itself worth while: "peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy," making mind and body at ease that soul may be free to transcend them when It will.
I have never written such English; nor could I ever, that well I know. Shakespeare could not have written it: still less could Keats, Shelley, Swift, Sterne or even Wordsworth. Only in the Books of Job and Ecclesiastes, in the work of Blake, or possibly in that of Poe, is there any approach to such succinct depth of thought in such musical simplicity of form, unless it be in Greek and Latin poets. Nor Poe nor Blake could have sustained their effort as does this our Book of the Law; and the Hebrews used tricks of verse, mechanical props to support them.
How then --back once more to the Path! --how then did it come to be written ?
VII
I shall make what I may call an inventory of the furniture of the Temple, the circumstances of the case. I shall describe the conditions of the phenomenon as if it were any other unexplained event in Nature.
1. The time.
Chapter 1 was written between Noon and 1 p.m. on April 8, 1904.
Chapter II between Noon and 1 p.m. on April 9, 1904.
Chapter III between Noon and 1 p.m. on April 10, 1904.
The writing began exactly on the stroke of the hour, and ended exactly an hour later ; it was hurried through, with no pauses of any kind.
2. The place.
The city was Cairo.
The street, or rather streets, I do not remember. There is a `Place' where four or five streets intersect; it is near the Boulak Museum, but a fairly long way from Shepherd's. The quarter is fashionable European. The house occupied a corner. I do not remember its orientation; but, as appears from the instructions for invoking Horus, one window of the temple opened to the East or North. The apartment was of several rooms on the ground floor, well furnished in the Anglo-Egyptian style. It was let by a firm named Congdon & Co. The room was a drawing-room cleared of fragile obstacles, but not otherwise prepared to serve as a temple. It had double doors, opening on to the corridor to the North and a door to the East leading to another room, the dining-room, I think. It had two windows opening on the Place, to the South, and a writing table against the wall between them.
3. The people.
- Myself, age 28 1/2. In good health, fond of out-door sports, especially mountaineering and big-game shooting. An Adept Major of the A.'.A.'. but weary of mysticism and dissatisfied with Magick. A rationalist, Buddhist, agnostic, anti-clerical, anti-moral, Tory and Jacobite. A chess-player, first-class amateur, able to play three games simultaneously blindfold. A reading and writing addict. Education: private governess and tutors, preliminary school Habershon's at St. Leonards, Sussex, private tutors, private school 5I Bateman St., Cambridge, private tutors, Yarrow's School, Streatham, near London. Malvern College, Tonbridge School, private tutors, Eastbourne College, King's College, London, Trinity College, Cambridge. Morality---Sexually powerful and passionate. Strongly male to women; free from any similar impulse toward my own sex. My passion for women very unselfish; the main motive to give them pleasure. Hence, intense ambition to understand the feminine nature; for this purpose, to identify myself with their feelings, and to use all means appropriate. Imaginative, subtle, insatiable; the whole business a mere clumsy attempt to quench the thirst of the soul. This thirst has indeed been my one paramount Lord, directing all my acts without allowing any other considerations soever to affect it in the least.
Strictly temperate as to drink, had never once been even near intoxication. Light wine my only form of alcohol.
Sense of justice and equity so sensitive, well-balanced and compelling as to be almost an obsession.
Generous, unless suspicious that I was being fleeced : "penny wise and pound foolish." Spendthrift, careless, not a gambler because I valued winning at games of skill, which flattered my vanity.
Kind, gentle, affectionate, selfish, conceited, reckless and cautious by turns.
Incapable of bearing a grudge, even for the gravest insults and injuries; yet enjoying to inflict pain for its own sake. Can attack an unsuspecting stranger, and torture him cruelly for years, without feeling the slightest animosity toward him. Fond of animals and children, who return my love, almost always. Consider abortion the most shameful form of murder, and loathe the social codes which encourage it.
Hated and despised my mother and her family; loved and respected my father and his.
Critical events in my life.
First travelled outside England, 1883.
Father died March 5, 1887.
Albuminuria stopped my schooling, 1890-92.
First sexual act, probably 1889.
Ditto with a woman March, 1891 (Torquay--a theatre girl).
First serious mountain-climbing, in Skye, 1892. (The "Pinnacle Ridge" of Sgurr-nan-Gillean.)
First Alpine climb, I894.
Admitted to the Military Order of the Temple midnight, December 31, 1896.
Admitted to permanent office in the Temple midnight, December 31, 1897.
Bought Boleskine, 1899.
First Mexican climb, 1900.
First Big game, 1901.
First Himalayan climb, 1902. (Chogo Ri, or "K2" expedition.)
Married at Dingwall, Scotland, August 12, 1903.
Honeymoon at Boleskine, thence to London, Paris, Naples, Egypt, Ceylon, and back to Egypt, Helwan and then Cairo early in 1904.
My "occult" career.Parents Plymouth Brethren, exclusive.
Father a real P.B. and therefore tolerant to his son.
Mother only became P.B. to please him, perhaps to catch him, and so pedantically fanatical.
After his death I was tortured with insensate persistency, till I said : Evil, be thou my good ! I practised wickedness furtively as a magical formula, even when it was distasteful ; e.g. I would sneak into a church*1*---a place my mother would not enter at the funeral service of her best-loved sister.
Revolted openly when puberty gave me a moral sense.
Hunted new "Sins" till October, '97, when one of them turned to bay, and helped me to experience the "Trance of Sorrow." (Perception of the Impermanence of even the greatest human endeavour.) I invoked assistance, Easter, '98.
Initiated in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, November 18, '98.
Began to perform the Abramelin Operation, I899.
Initiated in the Order R.R. et A.C., January, I909.
Made a 33 Freemason, 1900.
Began Yoga practices, 1900.
Obtained first Dhyana, October 1, 1901.
Abandoned all serious occult work of every sort, October 3, 1901, and continued in this course of action till July, 1903, when I tried vainly to force myself to become a Buddhist Hermit Highland Laird.
Marriage was an uninterrupted sexual debauch up to the time of the writing of the Book of the Law.
- Rose Edith Kelly.
Born 1874 (July 23). About '95 married one Major Skerrett, R.A.M.C., and lived with him some two years in South Africa. He died in '97. She indulged in a few feeble-executed intrigues till August 12, 1903, when she became my wife, becoming pregnant with a girl born July 28, 1904. Health, admirable robust at all points; she was both active and enduring, as our travels in Ceylon and across China prove. Figure perfect, neither big nor little, face pretty without being petty; she only missed Beauty by lacking Goethe's "touch of the bizarre." Personality intensely powerful and magnevit, intellect absent but mind adaptable to that of any companion, so that she could always say the right nothing.
Charm, grace, vitality, vivacity, tact, manners, all inexpressible fascinating.
From her mother she inherited dipsomania, as bad a case for stealth, cunning, falsehood, treachery, and hypocrisy as the specialist I consulted had ever known. This was, however, latent during the satisfaction of sexuality, which ousted all else in her life, as it did in mine.
Education strictly social and domestic ; she did not even know schoolgirl French. She had read nothing, not so much as novels. She was a miracle of perfection as Poetic Ideal, Mistress, Wife, Mother, House-president, Nurse Pal and Comrade.
- Our head servant, Hassan or Hamid, I forget which. A tall, dignified, hansome athlete of about 30. Spoke good English and ran the household well; always there and never in the way. I suppose I hardly ever saw the servants under his authority: I do not even know how many there were.
- Lieut.-Col. Somebody, beginning, I think, with a B, married, middle-aged, with manners like the Rules of a Prison. I cannot remember that I ever saw him; but the apartment was sublet to me by him.
- Brugsch Bey of the Boulak Museum dined with us once to discuss the Stele in his charge, and to arrange for its "abstruction." His French assistant curator, who translated the hieroglyphs on the Stele for us.
- A Mr. Bach, owner of the "Egyptian News," an hotel, a hunk of railway, &c., &c., dined once.
Otherwise we knew nobody in Cairo except natives, occasionally hobnobbed with a General Dickson, who had accepted Islam, carpet merchant, pimps, jewellers, and such small deer. Contradictory hints in one of my diaries were inserted deliberately to mislead, for some silly no-reason unconnected with Magick.
4. The events leading up to the Writing of the Book. I summarize them from Eqx. I, VII.
March 16. Tried to shew the Sylphs to Rose. She was in a dazed state, stupid, possibly drunk; possibly hysterical from pregnancy. She could see nothing, but could hear. She was fiercely excited at the messages, and passionately insistent that I should take them seriously. I was annoyed at her irrelevance, and her infliction of nonsense upon me.
She had never been in any state even remotely resembling this, though I had made the same invocation (in full) in the King's chamber fo the Great Pyramid during the night which we spent there in the previous autumn.
March 17. More apparently nonsensical messages, this time spontaneous. I invoke Thoth, probably as in Liber LXIV, and presumably to clear up the muddle.
March 18. Thoth evidently got clear through to her; for she discovers that Horus is addressing me through her, and identifies Him by a method utterly excluding chance or coincidence, and involving knowledge which only I possessed, some of it arbitrary, so that she or her informant must have been able to read my mind as well as if I had spolen it.
Then she, challenged to point out His image, passes by many such to fix on the one in the Stele. The cross-examination must have taken place between March 20 and 23.
March 20. Success in my invocation of Horus, by "breaking all the rules" at her command. This success convinced me magically, and encouraged me to test her as above mentioned. I should certainly have referred to the Stelle in my ritual had I seen it before this date. I should fix Monday, March 21, for the Visit to Boulak.
Between March 23 and April 8 the Hieroglyphs on the Stele were evidently translated by the assistant-curator at Boulak, into either French or English--I am almost sure it was French--and versified (as now printed) by me.
Between these dates, too, my wife must have told me that her informant was not Horus, or Ra Hoor Khuit, but a messenger from Him, named Aiwass.
I thought that she might have faked this name from constantly hearing "Aiwa," the word for "Yes" in Arabic. She could not have invented a name of this kind, though ; her next best was to find a phrase like "balmy puppy" for a friend, or corrupt a name like Neuberg into an obscene insult.
The silence of my diaries seems to prove that she gave me nothing more of importance. I was working out the Magical problem presented to me by the events of March 16-21. Any questions that I asked her were either unanswered, or answered by a Being whose mind was so different from mine that we failed to converse. All my wife obtained from Him was to command me to do things magically absurd. He would not play my game: I must play His.
April 7. Not later than this date was I ordered to enter the "temple" exactly at noon on the three days following, and write down what I heard during one hour, nor more nor less. I imagine that some preparations were made, possibly some bull's blood burned for incense, or order taken about details of dress or diet ; I remember nothing at all, one way or the other. Bull's blood was burnt some time in this sojourn in Cairo ; but I forget why or when. I think it was used at the "Invocation of the Sylphs."
5. The actual writing.
The three days were precisely similar, save that on the last day I became nervous lest I should fail to hear the Voice of Aiwass. They may then be described together. I went into the "temple" a minute early, so as to shut the door and sit down on the stroke of Noon.
On my table were my pen--a Swan Fountain--and supplies of Quarto typewriting paper, 8" x I0".
I never looked round in the room at any time.
The Voice of Aiwass came apparently from over my left shoulder, from the furthest corner of the room. It seemed to echo itself in my physical heart in a very strange manner, hard to describe. I have noticed a similar phenomenon when I have been waiting for a message fraught with great hope or dread. The voice was passionately poured, as if Aiwass were alert about the time- limit. I wrote 65 pages of this present essay (at about my usual rate of composition) in about 10 1/2 hours as against the 3 hours of the 65 pages of the Book of the Law. I was pushed hard to keep the pace; the MS. shows it clearly enough.
The voice was of deep timbre, musical and expressive, its tones solemn, voluptuous, tender, fierce or aught else as suited the moods of the message. Not bass --perhaps a rich tenor or baritone.
The English was free of either native or foreign accent, perfectly pure of local or caste mannerisma, thus startling and even uncanny at first hearing.
I had a strong impression that the speaker was actually in the corner where he seemed to be, in a body of "fine matter," transparent as a veil of gauze, or a cloud of incense-smoke. He seemed to be a tall, dark man in his thirties, well-knit, active and strong, with the face of a savage king, and eyes veiled lest their gaze should destroy what they saw. The dress was not Arab; it suggested Assyria or Persia, but very vaguely. I took little note of it, for to me at that time Aiwass and an "angel" such as I had often seen in visions, a being purely astral.
I now incline to believe that Aiwass is not only the God or Demon or Devil once held holy in Sumer, and mine own Guradian Angel, but also a man as I am, insofar as He uses a human body to make His magical link with Mankind, whom He loves, and that He is thus and Ipsissimus, the Head of the A∴A∴ Even I can do, in a much feebler way, this Work of being a God and a Beast, &c., &c., all at the same time, with equal fullness of life.
6. The Editing of the Book.
"Change not so much as the style of a letter" in the text saved me from Crowley-fying the wholde Book, and spoiling everything. The MS. shows what has been done, and why, as follows:
- On page 6 Aiwaz instructs me to "write this (what he had just said) in whiter words," for my mind revelled at His phrase. He added at once "But go forth on," i.e., with His utterance, leaving the emendation until later.
- On page 19 I failed to hear a sentence, and (later on) the Scarlet Woman, invoking Aiwass, wrote in the missing words. (How? She was not in the room at the time, and heard nothing.)
- Page 20 of Cap. III, I got a phrase indistinctly, and she put it in, as for "B."
- The versified paraphrase of the hieroglyphs on the Stele being ready, Aiwaz allowed me to insert these later, so as to save time.
These four apart, the MS. is exactly as it was written on those three days. The Critical Recension will explain theses points as they occur. The problem of the literary form of this Book is astonishingly complex; but the internal evidence of the sense is usually sufficient of make it clear, on inspection, as to who is speaking and who is being addressed.
There was, however, no actual voice audible save that of Aiwaz. Even my own remarks made silently were incorporated by him audibly, wherever such occur.
Chapter I
Verse 1. Nuit is the speaker. She invokes her lover and then begins to give a title to her speech in the end of verse I--20. In verses 3 and 4, she begins her discourse. So far her remarks have been addressed to no one in particular.
Verse 4 startled my intelligence into revolt.
In verse 5 she explains that she is speaking, and appeals to me personally to help her to unveil by taking down her message.
In verse 6 she claims me for her chosen, and I think that I then became afraid lest I should be expected to do too much. She answers this fear in verse 7 by introducing Aiwaz as the actual speaker in articulate human accents on her behalf.
In verse 8 the oration continues, and we now see that it is addressed to mankind in general. This continues till verse 13.
Verse 14 is from the Stele. It seems to have been written in by me as a kind of appreciation of what she had just said.
Verse 15 emphasizes that it is mankind in general that is addressed; for the Beast is spoken of in the third person, though his was the only human ear to hear the words.
Verses 18-19 seem to be almost in the nature of a quotation from some hymn. It is not quite natural for her to address herself as she appears to do in verse 19.
Verse 26. The question "Who am I and what shall be the sign?" is my own conscious thought. In the previous verses I have been called to an exalted mission, and I naturally feel nervous. This thought is then entered in the record by Aiwaz as if it were a story that he was telling ; and he develops this story after her answer, in order to bring back the thread of the chapter to the numerical mysteries of Nuith begun in verses 24-
25, and now continued in verse 28.
Another doubt must have arisen in my mind at verse 30; and this doubt is interpreted and explained to me personally in verse 31.
The address to mankind is resumed in verse 32, and Nuith emphasizes the point of verse 30 which has caused me to doubt. She confirms this with an oath, and I was convinced. I thought to myself, "in this case let us have written instructions as to the technique," and Aiwaz again makes a story out of my request as in verse 26.
In verse 35 it seems that she is addressing me personally, but in verse 36 she speaks of me in the third person.
Verse 40. The word "us" is very puzzling. It apparently means "All those who have accepted the Law whose word is Thelema." Among these she includes herself.
There is now no difficulty for a long while. It is a general address dealing with various subjects, to the end of verse 52.
From verses 53-56 we have a strictly personal address to me.
In verse 57 Nuit resumes her general exhortation. And I am spoken of once more in the third person.
Verse 61. The word "Thou" is not a personal address. It means any single person, as posed to a company. The "Ye" in the third sentence indicates the proper conduct for worshippers as a body. The "you," in sentence 4, of course applies to a single person; but the plural form suggests that it is a matter of public worship as opposed to the invocation in the desert of the first sentence of this verse.
There is no further difficulty in this chapter.
Verse 66 is the statement of Aiwaz that the words of verse 65, which were spoken diminuendo down to pianissimo, indicated the withdrawl of the goddess.
CHAPTER II
Hadit himself is evidently the speaker from the start. The remarks are general. In verse 5 I am spoken of in the third person.
After verse 9 he notices my vehement objections to writing statements to which my conscious self was obstinately opposed.
Verse 10, addressed to me notes that fact ; and in verse 11 he declares that he is my master, and that the reason for this is that he is my secret self, as explained in verses 12-13.
The interruption seems to have added excitement to the discourse, for verse 14 is violent.
Verses 15 & 16 offer a riddle, while verse 17 is a sort of parody of poetry.
Verse 18 continues his attack on my conscious mind. In verses 15-18 the style is complicated, brutal, sneering and jeering. I feel the whole passage as a contemptuous beating down of the resistance of my mind.
In verse 19 he returns to the exalted style with which he began until I interfered.
The passage seems addressed to what he calls his chosen or his people, though it is not explained exactly what he means by the words.
This passage from verse 19 to verse 52 is of sustained and matchless eloquence.
I must have objected to something in verse 52, for verse 53 is directed to encourage me personally as to having transmitted this message.
Verse 54 deals with another point as to the intelligibility of the message.
Verse 55 instructed me to obtain the English Qabalah; it made me incredulous, as the task seemed an impossible one, and probably his perception of this criticism inspired verse 56, though "ye mockers" applies evidently to my enemies, referred to in verse 54.
Verse 57 brings us back to the subject begun in verse 21. It is a quotation from the Apocalypse verbatim, and is probably suggested by the matter of verse 56.
There is no real change in the essence of anything, however its combinations vary.
Verses 58-60 conclude the passage.
Verse 61. The address is now strictly personal. During all this time Hadit had been breaking down my resistance with his violently expresses and varied phrases. As a result of this, I attained to the trance described in these verses from 61-68.
Verse 69 is the return to consciousness of myself. It was a sort of gasping question as a man coming out of Ether might ask "Where am I?" I think that this is the one passage in the whole book which was not spoken by Aiwaz; and I ought to say that these verses 63-68 were written without conscious hearing at all.
Verse 70 does not deign to reply to my questions, but points out the way to manage life. This continues until verse 74, and seems to be addressed not to me personally but to any man, despite the use of the word "Thou."
Verse 75 abruptly changes the subject, interpolating the riddle of verse 76 with its prophecy. This verse is addressed to me personally, and continues to the end of verse 78 to mingle lyrical eloquence with literal and numerical puzzles.
Verse 79 is the statement of Aiwaz that the end of the chapter has come. To this he adds his personal compliment to myself.
Chapter III
Verse I appears to complete the triangle begun by the first verses of the two previous chapters. It is a simple statement involving no particular speaker or hearer. The ommission of the "i" in the name of God appears to have alarmed me, and in verse 2 Aiwaz offers a hurried explanation in a somewhat excited manner, and invokes Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Verse 3 is spoken by Ra-Hoor-Khuit. "Them" evidently refers to some undescribed enemies, and "ye" to those who accept his formula. This passage ends with verse 9. Verse 10 and verse 11 are addressed to me personally and the Scarlet Woman, as shown in the continuation of his passage which seems to end with verse 33, though it is left rather vague at times as to whether the Beast, or the Beast and his concubine, or the adherents of Horus, generally, are exhorted.
Verse 34 is a kind of poetical peroration, and is not addressed in particular to anybody. It is a statement of events to come.
Verse 35 states simply that section one of this chapter is completed.
I seem to have become enthusiastic, for there is a kind of interlude reported by Aiwaz of my song of adoration translated form the Stele; the incident parallels that of chapter I, verse 26, &c.
It is to be noted that the translations from the Stele in verses 37-38 were no more than instantaneous thoughts to be inserted afterwards.
Verse 38 begins with my address to the God in the first sentence, while in the second is his reply to me. He then refers to the hieroglyphs of the Stele, and bids me quote my paraphrases. This order was given by a species of wordless gesture, not visible or audible, but sensible in some occult manner.
Verses 39-42 are instructions for me personally.
Verses 43-45 indicate the proper course of conduct for the Scarlet Woman.
Verse 46 is again more general --a sort of address to soldiers before battle.
Verse 47 is again mostly personal instruction, mixed up with prophecies, proof of the praeterhuman origin of the Book, and other matters.
I observe that this instruction, taken with with those not to change "so much as a style of a letter," etc., imply that my pen was under the physical control of Aiwaz; for this dictation did not include directions as to the use of capitals, and the occasional mis-spellings are most assuredly not mine!
Verse 48 impatiently dismisses such practical matters as a nuisance.
Verses 49-59 contain a series of declarations of war; and there is no further difficulty as to the speaker or hearer to the end of the chapter, although the subject changes repeatedly in an incomprehensible manner. Only verse 75 do we find a perroation on the whole book, presumably by Aiwaz, ending by his formula of withdrawal.
I conclude by laying down the principles of Exegesis on which I have based my comment.
- It is "my scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu" (CCXX, I, 36) who "shall comment" on "this book" "by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khuit"; that is, Aleister Crowley shall write the Comment from the point of view of the manifested positive Lord of the Aeon, in plain terms of the finite, and not those of the infinite.
- "Hadit burning in thy heart shall make swift and secure thy pen" (CCXX, III, 40). My own inspiration, not any alien advice or intellectual consideration, is to be the energizing froce of this work.
- Where the text is simple straightforward English, I shall not seek, or allow, and interpretation at variance with it. I may admit a Qabalistic or cryptographic secondary meaning when such confirms, amplifies, deepens, intensifies, or clarifes the obvious common-sense significance ; but only if it be part of the general plan of the "latent light," and self-proven by abundatnt witness.
For example: "To me!" (I, 65) is to be taken primarily in its obvious sense as the Call of Nuith to us Her stars.
The transliteration "TO MH" may be admitted as the "signature" of Nuith, identifying Her as the speaker; because these Greek Words mean "The Not," which is Her Name.
This Gematria of TO MH may be admitted as further confirmation, because their number 418 is elsewhere manifested as that of the Aeon.
But TO MH is not to be taken as negating the previous verses, or 418 as indicating the fromula of approach to Her, although in point of fact it is so, being the Rubrick of the Great Work. I refuse to consider mere appropriateness as conferring title to authority, and to read my own personal theories into the Book. I insist that all interpretation shall be incontestably authentic, neither less, more, nor other than was meant is the Mind of Aiwaz.
- I lay claim to be the sole authority competent to decide disputed points with regard to the Book of the Law, seeing that its Author, Aiwaz, is none other than mine own Holy Guardian Angel, to Whose Knowledge and Conversation I have attained, so that I have exclusive access to Him. I have duly referred every difficulty to Him directly, and received His answer; my award is therefore absolute without appeal.
- The verse, II, 47, "one cometh after him, whence I say not, who shall discover the key of it all," has been fulfilled by "one" Achad is not said to extend beyond this single exploit; Achad is nowhere indicated as appointed or even authorized to relieve The Beast of His task of the Comment. Achad has proved himself,*1* and proved the Book, by his on achievement; and this shall suffice.
- Wherever
- The words of the Text are obscure in themselves; where
- The expression is strained; where
- The Syntax,
- Grammar,
- Spelling, or
- The use of capital letters present peculiarities; where
- Non-English words occur; where the style suggests
- Paronomasia,
- Ambiguity, or
- Obliquity; or where
- A problem is explicitly declared to exist; in all such cases I shall seek for a meaning hidden by means of Qabalistic correspondences, cryptography, or literary subtleties. I shall admit no solution which is not at once simple, striking, consonant with the general plan of the Book ; and not only adequate but necessary.
Examples:- I, 4. Here the obvious sense of the text is nonsense; it therefore needs intimate analysis.
- II, I7, line 4. The natural order of the words is distorted by placing "not" before "know me"; it is proper to ask what object is attained by this peculiarity of phrasing.
- I, I3. The text as it stands is unintelligible; it calls attention to itself; a meaning must be found which will not only justify the apparent error, but prove the necessity of employing that and no other expression.
- II, 76. "to be me" for "to be I." The unusual grammar invites enquiry; it suggests that "me" is a concealed name, perhaps MH, "Not," Nuit, since to be Nuit is the satisfaction of the formula of the Speaker, Hadit.
- III, I. The omission of the "i" in "Khuit" is indicative that some concealed doctrine is based upon the variant.
- II, 27. The spelling of "Because" with a capital B suggests that it may be a proper name, and possibly that its Greek or Hebrew equivalent may identify the idea Qabalistically with some enemy of our Hierarchy; also that such word may demand a capital value for its initial.
- III, II. "Abstruction" suggests that an idea otherwise inexpressible is conveyed in this manner. Paraphrase is here inadmissible as a sufficient interpretation; there must be a correspondence in the actual structure of the word with its etymologically -deduced meaning.
- III, 74. The words "sun" and "son" are evidently chosen for the identity of their sound-value; the inelegance of the phrase therefroe insists on some such adequate justification as the existence of a hidden treasure of meaning.
- III, 73. The ambiguity of the instruction warrants the supposition that the words must somehow contain a cryptographic formula for so arranging the sheets of the MS. that an Arcanum becomes manifest.
- I, 26. The apparent evasion of a direct reply in "Thou knowest !" suggests that the words conceal a precise answer more convincing in cipher than their openly-expressed equivalent could be.
- II, I5. The text explicitly invites Qabalistic analysis.
- The Comment must be consistent with itself at all points; it must exhibit the Book of the Law as of absolute authority on all possible questions proper to Mankind, as offering the perfect solution of all problems philosophical and practical without exception.
- The Comment must prove beyond possibility of error that the Book of the Law,
- Bears witness in itself to the authorship of Aiwaz, an Intelligence independent of incarnation ; and
- Is warranted worthy of its claim to credence by the evidence of external events.
For example, the first proposition is proved by the cryptography connected with 31, 93, 418, 666,[pi], etc.; and the second by the concurrence of circumstance with various statements in the text such that the categories of time and causality forbid all explanations which excluded its own postulates, while the law of probabilities makes coincidence inconceivable as an evasion of the issue.
- The Comment must be expressed in terms intelligible to the minds of men of average education, and independent of abstruse technicalities.
- The Comment must be pertinent to the problems of our own times, and present the principles of the Law in a manner susceptible of present practical application. It must satisfy all types of intelligence, neither revolting to rational, scientific, mathematical, and philosophical thinkers, nor repugnant to religious and romantic temperaments.
- The Comment must appeal on behalf of the Law to the authority of Experience. It must make Success the proof of the Truth of the Book of the Law at every point of contact with Reality. The Word of Aiwaz must put forth a perfect presentation of the Universe as Necessary, Intelligible, Self-subsistent, as Integral, Absolute, and Immanent. It must satisfy all intuitions, explain all enigmas, and compose all conflicts. It must reveal Reality, reconcile Reason with Relativity; and, resolving not only all antinomies in the Absolute, but all antipathies in the appreciation of Aptness, assure the acquiescence of every faculty of making in the perfection of its plenary propriety.
Releasing us from every restriction upon Right, the Word of Aiwaz must extend its empire by enlisting the allegiance of every man and every woman that puts its truth to the test.
On these principles, to the pitch of my power, will I the Beast 666, who received the Book of the Law from the Mouth of mine Angel Aiwaz, make my comment thereon ; being armed with the word: "But the work of the comment? That is easy ; and Hadit in thy heart shall make swift and secure thy pen."
Editorial Note to this Chapter. The reader is now in full possession of the account of "how thou didst come hither". The student who wishes to act intelligently will be at pains to make himself thoroughly acquainted at the outset with the whole of the external circumstances connected with the Writing of the Book, whether they are of biographical or other importance. He should thus be able to approach the Book with his mind prepared to apprehend the unique character of their contents in respect of its true Authorship, the peculiarities of Its methods of communicating Thought, and the nature of Its claim to be the Canon of Truth, the Key of Progress, and the Arbiter of Conduct. He will be able to form his own judgment upon It, only insofar as he is fixed in the proper Point-of-View; the sole question for him is to decide whether It is or is not that which It claims to be, the New Law in the same sense as the Vedas, the Pentateuch, the Tao Teh King, and Qu'ran are Laws, but with the added Authority of Verbal, Literal, and Graphic inspiration established and counter-checked by internal evidence with the impeccable precision of a mathematical demonstration. If It be that, It is an unique document, valid absolutely within the terms of its self-contained thesis, incomparably more valuable than any other Transcript of Thought which we possess.
If It be not wholly that, it is a worthless curiosity of literature; worse, it is an appalling proof that no kind or degree of evidence soever is sufficient to establish any possible proposition, since the closest concatenation of circumstances may be no more than the jetsam of chance, and the most comprehensive plans of purpose a puerile pantomime. To reject this Book is to make Reason itself ridiculous and the Law of Probabilities a caprice. In Its fall it shatters the structure of Science, and buries the whole hope of man's heart in the rubble, throwing upon its heaps the sceptic, blinded, crippled, and gone melancholy mad.
The reader must face the problem squarely; half-measures will not avail. If there be aught he recognize as transcendental Truth, he cannot admit the possibility that the Speaker, taking such pains to prove Himself and His Word, should yet incorporate Falsehood in the same elaborate engines. If the Book be but a monument of a mortal's madness, he must tremble that such power and cunning may be the accomplices of insane and criminal archanarchs.
But if he know the Book to be justified of Itself, It shall be justified also of Its children; and he will glow with gladness in his heart as he reads the sixty-third to the sixty-seventh verses of Its chapter, and gain his first glimpse of Who he himself is in truth, and to what fulfilment of Himself It is of virtue to bring Him.
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THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS
CHAPTER 8
Summary of the Case.
In this revelation is the basis of the future Aeon. Within the memory of man we have had the Pagan period, the worship of Nature, of Isis, of the Mother, of the Past; the Christian period, the worship of Man, of Osiris, of the Present. The first period is simple, quiet, easy, and pleasant; the material ignores the spiritual; the second is of suffering and death: the spiritual strives to ignore the material. Christianity and all cognate religions worship death, glorify suffering, deify corpses. The new Aeon is the worship of the spiritual made one with the material, of Horus, of the Child, of the Future.
Isis was Liberty; Osiris, bondage; but the new Liberty is that of Horus. Osiris conquered her because she did not understand him. Horus avenges both his Father and his Mother. This child Horus is a twin, two in one. Horus and Harpocrates are one, and they are also one with Set or Apophis, the destroyer of Osiris. It is by the destruction of the principle of death that they are born. The establishment of this new Aeon, this new fundamental principle, is the great work now to be accomplished in the world.
FRATER PERDURABO, to whom this revelation was made with so many signs and wonders, was himself unconvinced. He struggled against it for years. Not until the completion of His own initiation at the end of I909 did he understand how perfectly he was bound to carry out this work. Again and again He turned away from it, took it up for a few days or hours, then laid it aside. He even attempted to destroy its value, to nullify the result. Again and again the unsleeping might of the Watchers drove Him back to the work; and it was at the very moment when He thought Himself to have escaped that He found Himself fixed for ever with no possibility of again turning aside for the fraction of second from the Path.
The history of this must one day be told by a more vivid voice. Properly considered, it is a history of continuous miracle. Enough if it is now said that in this Law lies the whole future: it is the Law of Liberty, and those who refuse it proclaim themselves slaves, and as slaves shall they be chained and flogged. It is the Law of Love, and those who refuse it declare themselves to be the children of hate, and their hate shall return upon them and consume them with its unending tortures. It is the Law of Life, and those who refuse it shall be subject to death; and death shall catch them unawares. Even their life shall be a living death. It is the Law of Light, and those who refuse it thereby make themselves dark for ever.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law! Refuse this, and fall under the curse of destiny. Divide will against itself, the result is impotence and strife, strife-in-vain. The Law condemns no man. Accept the Law, and everything is lawful.
Refuse the Law, you put yourself beyond its pale. It is the Law that Jesus Christ, or rather the Gnostic tradition of which the Christ-legend is a degradation, attempted to teach; but nearly every word he said was misinterpreted and garbled by his enemies, particularly by those who called themselves his disciples. In any case the Aeon was not ready for a Law of Freedom. Of all his followers only St. Augustine appears to have got even a glimmer of what he meant.
A further attempt to teach this law was made through Sir Edward Kelly at the end of the sixteenth century. The bondage of orthodoxy prevented his words from being heard, or understood. In many other ways has the spirit of truth striven with man, and partial shadows of this truth have been the greatest allies of science and philosophy. Only now has success been attained. A perfect vehicle was found, and the message enshrined in a jewelled casket; that is to say, in a book with the injunction "Change not as much as the style of a letter." This book is reproduced in facsimile, in order that there shall be no possibility of corrupting it. Here, then, we have an absolutely fixed and definite standpoint for the foundation of an universal religion.
We have the Key to the resolution of all human problems, both philosophical and practical. If we have seemed to labour at proof, our love must be the excuse for our infirmity ; for we know well that which is written in the Book:
"Success is your proof."
We ask no more than one witness; and we call upon Time to take the Oath, and testify to the Truth of our plea. 
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