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THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS
Copyright 1985
by
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O. Box 2303
Berkeley, California
94702
PRIVATELY PUBLISHED
for
ORDO TEMPLI ORIENTIS
by
Fr. A.U.D.C.A.L.
SAN FRANCISCO
(typed by Soror Alice)
ANNUM Lxxx
SOL IN AQUARIUS
LUNA IN VIRGO
A PARAPHRASE OF THE INSCRIPTIONS UPON
THE OBVERSE OF THE STELE OF REVELLING
Above, the gemmed azure is
The naked splendour of Nuit;
She bends in ecstasy to kiss
The secret ardours of Hadit.
The winged globe, the starry blue
Are mine, o Ankh-f-n-Khonsu.
I am the Lord of Thebes, and I
The inspired forth-speaker of Mentu;
For me unveils the veiled sky,
The self-slain Ankh-f-n-Khonsu
Whose words are truth. I invoke, I greet
Thy presence, o Ra-Hoor-Khuit!
Unity uttermost showed!
I adore the might of Thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death
To tremble before Thee:--
I,I adore thee!
Appear on the throne of Ra!
Open the ways of the Khu!
Lighten the ways of the Ka!
The ways of the Khabs run through
To stir me or still me!
Aum! let it kill me!
The Light is mine; its rays consume
Me: I have made a secret door
Into the House of Ra and Tum,
Of Khephra, and of Ahathoor.
I am thy Theban, o Mentu,
The prophet Ankh-f-n-Khonsu!
By Bes-na-Maut my breast I beat;
By wise Ta-Nech I weave my spell.
Show thy star-splendour, O Nuith!
Bid me within thine House to dwell,
O winged snake of light, Hadith!
Abide with me, Ra-Hoor-Khuit!
(next two pages are front and back of Stele)
A PARAPHRASE OF THE HIEROGLYPHS OF THE
II LINES UPON THE REVERSE OF THE STELE
Saith of Mentu the truth-telling brother
Who was master of Thebes from his birth:
O heart of me, heart of my mother!
O heart which I had upon earth!
Stand not thou up against me a witness!
Oppose me not, judge, in my quest!
Accuse me not now of unfitness
Before the Great God, the dread Lord of the West!
For I fastened the one to the other
With a spell for their mystical girth,
The earth and the wonderful West,
When I flourished, o earth, on the breast!
The dead man Ankh-f-n-Khonsu
Saith with his voice of truth and calm:
O thou that hast a single arm!
O thou that glitterest in the moon!
I weave thee in the spinning charm;
I lure thee with the billowy tune.
The dead man Ankh-f-n-Khonsu
Hath parted from the darkling crowds,
Hath joined the dwellers of the light,
Opening Duant, the star-abodes,
Their keys receiving.
The dead man Ankh-f-n-Khonsu
Hath made his passage into night,
His pleasure on the earth to do
Among the living.
THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS.
The Official Organ of the A A
(pic of eye in triangle)
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Love is the law, love under will.
The word of the law is
THELEMA (in Greek)
The Official Organ of the O.T.O.
Deus est Homo (lamen in middle)
Vol. III No. III
An I x Sol in Libra
SEPTEMBER MCMXXXVI E.V.
Issued by the O.T.O.
A.'. A.'. Publication in Class E.
(A.'. A.'. SIGIL)
(O.T.O. LAMEN)
(BAPHOMET'S SIGNATURE)
(FOLLOWING ARE PICTURES OF ASTROLOGICAL CHARTS)
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THE NATIVITY OF FRA. P. |THE FIRST INITIATION OF FRA. P.
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OF THE GODS | THE ANNIHILATION OF FRA. P.
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CONTENTS
Page
The Summons .............................................. I
A Summary .............................................. 3
LIBER AL vel LEGIS
Sub Figura CCXX as Delivered by XCIII==
4I8 to DCLXVI ............................................I3
GENESIS LIBRI AL ............................................39
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Stele of Revealing ........................... Frontispiece
Four Horoscopes ................................ Facing Summons
First sketch of a Qabalistic Key to Liber AL ................I38
POCKET
THE COMMENT
Facsimile of the MS. of Liber AL
THE SUMMONS.
On April 8, 9 and I0, I904, e.v. this book was dictated to
666 (Aleister Crowley) by Aiwass, a Being whose nature he does
not fully understand, but who described Himself as "the Minister
of Hoor-Paar-Kraat" (the Lord of Silence).
The contents of the book prove to strict scientific demon-
stration that He possesses knowledge and power quite beyond
anything that has been hitherto associated with human faculties.
The circumstances of the dictation are described in the
Equinox, Vol. I, No. vii: but a fuller account, with an outline
of the proof of the character of the book is now here to be
issued.
The book announces a New Law for mankind.
It replaces the moral and religious sanctions of the past,
which have everywhere broken down, by a principle valid for each
man and woman in the world, and self-evidently indefeasible.
The spiritual Revolution announced by the book has already
taken place: hardly a country where it is not openly manifest.
Ignorance of the true meaning of this new Law has led to
gross anarchy. Its conscious adoption in its proper sense is the
sole cure for the political, social and racial unrest which
have brought about the World War, the catastrophe of Europe and
America, and the threatening attitude of China, India and Islam.
Its solution of the fundamental problems of mathematics and
philosophy will establish a new epoch in history.
But it must not be supposed that so potent an instrument of
energy can be used without danger.
I summon, therefore, by the power and authority entrusted to
me, every great spirit and mind now on this planed incarnate to
take effective hold of this transcendent force, and apply it to
the advancement of the welfare of the human race.
For as the experience of these two and thirty years has
shown too terribly, the book cannot be ignored. It has leavened
Mankind unaware: and Man must make thereof the Bread of Life.
Its ferment has begun to work on the grape of thought: Man must
obtain therefrom the Wine of Ecstasy.
Come then, all ye, in the Name of the Lord of the Aeon, the
Crowned and Conquering Child, Heru-Ra-Ha: I call ye to partake
this sacrament.
Know-will-dare-and be silent!
The Priest of the Princes,
ANKH-AF-NA-KHONSU.
A SUMMARY
MARSYAS. I bear a message. Heaven hath sent
(As for The The knowledge of a new sweet way
Beast 666). Into the Secret Element.
OLYMPAS. Master, while yet the glory clings
(Any Aspirant) Declare this mystery magical!
MARSYAS. I am yet borne on these blue wings
Into the Essence of the All.
Now, now I stand on earth again,
Though, blazing through each nerve and vein,
The light yet holds its choral course,
Filling my frame with fiery force
Like God's. Now hear the Apocalypse!
New-fledged on these reluctant lips!
OLYMPAS. I tremble like an aspen, quiver
Like light upon a rainy river !
MARSYAS. Do what thou wilt ! is the sole word
Of law that my attainment heard.
Arise, and lay thine hand on God !
Arise, and set a period
Unto Restriction ! That is sin :
To hold thine holy spirit in !
O thou that chafest at thy bars,
Invoke Nuit beneath her stars
With a pure heart (Her incense burned
Of gums and woods, in gold inurned)
And let the serpent flame therein
A little, and thy soul shall win
To lie within her bosom. Lo !
Thou wouldst give all------and she cries : No !
Take all, and take me ! Gather spice
And virgins and great pearls of price !
Worship me in a single robe,
Crowned Richly ! Girdle of the globe,
I love thee. I am drunkenness
Of the inmost sense, my soul's caress
Is toward thee ! Let my priestess stand
Bare and rejoicing, softly fanned
By smooth-lipped acolytes, upon
Mine iridescent altar-stone,
And in her love-chaunt swooningly
Say evermore : To me ! To me !
I am the azure-lidded daughter
Of sunset; the all-girdling water;
The naked brilliance of the sky
In the voluptuous night am I !
With song, with jewel, with perfume,
Wake all my rose's blush and bloom !
Drink to me ! Love me ! I love thee,
My love, my lord--to me ! to me !
OLYMPAS. There is no harshness in the breath
Of this--is life surpassed, and death ?
MARSYAS. There is the Snake that gives delight
And Knowledge, stirs the heart aright
With drunkenness. Strange drugs are thine,
Hadit, and draughts of wizard wine !
These do no hurt. Thine hermits dwell
Not in the cold secretive cell,
But under purple canopies
With mighty-breasted mistresses
Magnificent as lionesses--
Tender and terrible caresses !
Fire lives, and light, in eager eyes;
And massed huge hair about them lies.
They lead their hosts to victory :
In every joy they are kings ; then see
That secret serpent coiled to spring
And win the world ! O priest and king,
Let there be feasting, foining, fighting,
A revel of lusting, singing, smiting !
Work ; be the bed of work ! Hold ! Hold !
The stars' kiss is as molten gold.
Harden ! Hold thyself up ! now die--
Ah ! Ah ! Exceed ! Exceed !
OLYMPAS. And I ?
MARSYAS. My stature shall surpass the stars :
He hath said it ! Men shall worship me
In hidden woods, on barren scaurs,
Henceforth to all eternity.
OLYMPAS. Hail ! I adore thee ! Let us feast.
MARSYAS. I am the consecrated Beast.
I build the Abominable House.
The Scarlet Woman is my Spouse---
OLYMPAS. What is this word ?
MARSYAS. Thou canst not know
Till thou hast passed the Fourth Ordeal.
OLYMPAS. I worship thee. The moon-rays flow
Masterfully rich and real
From thy red mouth, and burst, young suns
Chanting before the Holy Ones
Thine Eight Mysterious Orisons !
MARSYAS. The last spell ! The availing word !
The two completed by the third !
The Lord of War, of Vengeance
That slayeth with a single glance !
This light is in me of my Lord.
His Name is this far-whirling sword.
I push His order. Keen and swift
My Hawk's eye flames ; these arms uplift
The Banner of Silence and of Strength---
Hail ! Hail ! thou are here, my Lord, at length !
Lo, the Hawk-Headed Lord am I :
My nemyss shrouds the night-blue sky.
Hail ! ye twin warriors that guard
The pillars of the world ! Your time
Is nigh at hand. The snake that marred
Heaven with his inexhaustible slime
Is slain ; I bear the Wand of power,
The Wand that waxes and that wanes ;
I crush the Universe this hour
In my left hand ; and naught remains !
Ho ! for the splendour in my name
Hidden and glorious, a flame
Secretly shooting from the sun.
Aum ! Ha !--my destiny is done.
The Word is spoken and concealed.
OLYMPAS. I am stunned. What wonder was revealed ?
MARSYAS. The rite is secret.
OLYMPAS. Profits it ?
MARSYAS. Only to wisdom and to wit.
OLYMPAS. The other did no less.
MARSYAS. Then prove
Both by the master-key of Love.
The lock turns stiffly ? Shalt thou shirk
To use the sacred oil of work ?
Not from the valley shalt thou wrest
The eggs that line the eagle's nest !
Climb, with thy life at stake, the ice,
The sheer wall of the precipice !
Master the cornice, gain the breach,
And learn what next the ridge can teach !
Yet--not the ridge itself may speak
The secret of the final peak.
OLYMPAS. All ridges join at last.
MARSYAS. Admitted,
O thou astute and subtle-witted !
Yet one--loose, jagged, clad in mist !
Another--firm, smooth, loved and kissed
By the soft sun ! Our order hath
This secret of the solar path,
Even as our Lord the Beast hath won
The mystic Number of the Sun.
OLYMPAS. These secrets are too high for me.
MARSYAS. Nay, little brother ! Come and see !
Neither by faith nor fear not awe
Approach the doctrine of the Law !
Truth, Courage, Love, shall win the bout,
And those three others be cast out.
OLYMPAS. Lead me, Master, by the hand d
Gently to this gracious land !
Let me drink the doctrine in,
An all-healing medicine !
Let me rise, correct and firm,
Steady striding to the term,
Master of my fate, to rise
To imperial destinies ;
With the sun's ensanguine dart
Spear-bright in my blazing heart,
And my being's basil-plant
Bright and hard as adamant !
MARSYAS. Yonder, faintly luminous,
The yellow desert waits for us.
Lithe and eager, hand in hand,
We travel to the lonely land.
There, beneath the stars, the smoke
Of our incense shall invoke
The Queen of Space ; and subtly She
Shall bend from Her Infinity
Like a lambent flame of blue,
Touching us, and piercing through
All the sense-webs that we are
As the aethyr penetrates a star !
Her hands caressing the black earth,
Her sweet lithe body arched for love,
Her feet a Zephyr to the flowers,
She calls my name--she gives the sign
That she is mine, supremely mine,
And clinging to the infinite girth
My soul gets perfect joy thereof
Beyond the abysses and the hours ;
So that--I kiss her lovely brows ;
She bathes my body in perfume
Of sweat....O thou my secret spouse,
Continuous One of Heaven ! illume
My soul with this arcane delight,
Voluptuous Daughter of the Night !
Eat me up wholly with the glance
Of thy luxurious brilliance !
OLYMPAS. The desert calls.
MARSYAS. Then let us go !
Or seek the sacramental snow,
Where like an high-priest I may stand
With acolytes on every hand,
The lesser peaks--my will withdrawn
To invoke the dayspring from the dawn,
Changing that rosy smoke of light
To a pure crystalline white ;
Though the mist of mind, as draws
A dancer round her limbs the gauze,
Clothe Light, and show the virgin Sun
A lemon-pale medallion !
Thence leap we leashless to the goal,
Stainless star-rapture of the soul.
So the altar-fires fade
As the Godhead is displayed.
Nay, we stir not. Everywhere
Is our temple right appointed.
All the earth is faery fair
For us. Am I not anointed ?
The Sigil burns upon the brow
At the adjuration--here and now.
OLYMPAS. The air is laden with perfumes.
MARSYAS. Behold ! it beams--it burns--it blooms.
. . . . .
OLYMPAS. Master, how subtly hast thou drawn
The daylight from the Golden Dawn,
Bidden the Cavernous Mount unfold
Its Ruby Rose, its Cross of Gold ;
Until I saw, flashed from afar,
The Hawk's Eye in the Silver Star !
MARSYAS. Peace to all beings. Peace to thee,
Co-heir of mine eternity !
Peace to the greatest and the least,
To nebula and nenuphar !
Light in abundance be increased
On them that dream that shadows are !
OLYMPAS. Blessing and worship to The Beast,
The prophet of the lovely Star !
LIBER
AL VEL
LEGIS
SUB FIGURA
C C X X
AS DELIVERED BY
XCIII == 418
TO
DCLXVI
A' A' sigil
Liber 220: THE BOOK OF THE LAW
1. Had! The manifestation of Nuit.
2. The unveiling of the company of heaven.
3. Every man and every woman is a star.
4. Every number is infinite; there is no
difference.
5. Help me, o warrior lord of Thebes, in my
unveiling before the Children of men!
6. Be thou Hadit, my secret centre, my
heart & my tongue!
7. Behold! it is revealed by Aiwass the min-
ister of Hoor-paar-kraat.
8. The Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in
the Khabs.
9. Worship then the Khabs, and behold my
light shed over you!
10. Let my servants be few & secret: they
shall rule the many & the known.
11. These are fools that men adore; both
their Gods & their men are fools.
12. Come forth, o children, under the stars,
& take your fill of love!
13. I am above you and in you. My ecstasy
is in yours. My joy is to see your joy.
14. Above, the gemmed azure is
The naked splendour of Nuit;
She bends in ecstasy to kiss
The secret ardours of Hadit.
The winged globe, the starry blue,
Are mine, O Ankh-af-na-khonsu!
15. Now ye shall know that the chosen priest
& apostle of infinite space is the prince-priest
the Beast; and in his woman called the Scarlet
Woman is all power given. They shall gather
my children into their fold: they shall bring
the glory of the stars into the hearts of men.
16. For he is ever a sun, and she a moon.
But to him is the winged secret flame, and to her
the stooping starlight.
17. But ye are not so chosen.
18. Burn upon their brows, o splendrous
serpent!
19. O azure-lidded woman, bend upon them!
20. The key of the rituals is in the secret
word which I have given unto him.
21. With the God & the Adorer I am nothing:
they do not see me. They are as upon the
earth; I am Heaven, and there is no other God
than me, and my lord Hadit.
22. Now, therefore, I am known to ye by
my name Nuit, and to him by a secret name
which I will give him when at last he knoweth
me. Since I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite
Stars thereof, do ye also thus. Bind nothing!
Let there be no difference made among you
between any one thing & any other thing; for
thereby there cometh hurt.
23. But whoso availeth in this, let him be
the chief of all!
24. I am Nuit, and my word is six and fifty.
25. Divide, add, multiply, and understand.
26. Then saith the prophet and slave of the
beauteous one: Who am I, and what shall
be the sign? So she answered him, bending
down, a lambent flame of blue, all-touching, all
penetrant, her lovely hands upon the black
earth, & her lithe body arched for love, and her
soft feet not hurting the little flowers: Thou
knowest! And the sign shall be my ecstasy,
the consciousness of the continuity of exist-
ence, the omnipresence of my body.
27. Then the priest answered & said unto
the Queen of Space, kissing her lovely brows,
and the dew of her light bathing his whole
body in a sweet-smelling perfume of sweat: O
Nuit, continuous one of Heaven, let it be ever
thus; that men speak not of Thee as One but
as None; and let them speak not of thee at
all, since thou art continuous!
28. None, breathed the light, faint & faery,
of the stars, and two.
29. For I am divided for love's sake, for the
chance of union.
30. This is the creation of the world, that
the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy
of dissolution all.
31. For these fools of men and their woes
care not thou at all! They feel little; what
is, is balanced by weak joys; but ye are my
chosen ones.
32. Obey my prophet! follow out the ordeals
of my knowledge! seek me only! Then the
joys of my love will redeem ye from all pain.
This is so: I swear it by the vault of my body;
by my sacred heart and tongue; by all I can
give, by all I desire of ye all.
33. Then the priest fell into a deep trance
or swoon, & said unto the Queen of Heaven;
Write unto us the ordeals; write unto us the
rituals; write unto us the law!
34. But she said: the ordeals I write not:
the rituals shall be half known and half con-
cealed: the Law is for all.
35. This that thou writest is the threefold
book of Law.
36. My scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu, the priest
of the princes, shall not in one letter change
this book; but lest there be folly, he shall com-
ment thereupon by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-
Khu-it.
37. Also the mantras and spells; the obeah
and the wanga; the work of the wand and the
work of the sword; these he shall learn and
teach.
38. He must teach; but he may make severe
the ordeals.
39. The word of the Law is >THELEMA.<
40. Who calls us Thelemites will do no
wrong, if he look but close into the word. For
there are therein Three Grades, the Hermit,
and the Lover, and the man of Earth. Do
what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
41. The word of Sin is Restriction. O man!
refuse not thy wife, if she will! O lover, if
thou wilt, depart! There is no bond that can
unite the divided but love: all else is a curse.
Accursed! Accursed be it to the aeons! Hell.
42. Let it be that state of manyhood bound
and loathing. So with thy all; thou hast no
right but to do thy will.
43. Do that, and no other shall say nay.
44. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose,
delivered from the lust of result, is every way
perfect.
45. The Perfect and the Perfect are one Per-
fect and not two; nay, are none!
46. Nothing is a secret key of this law. Sixty-
one the Jews call it; I call it eight, eighty, four
hundred & eighteen.
47. But they have the half: unite by thine
art so that all disappear.
48. My prophet is a fool with his one, one,
one; are not they the Ox, and none by the
Book?
49. Abrogate are all rituals, all ordeals, all
words and signs. Ra-Hoor-Khuit hath taken
his seat in the East at the Equinox of the Gods;
and let Asar be with Isa, who also are one.
But they are not of me. Let Asar be the
adorant, Isa the sufferer; Hoor in his secret
name and splendour is the Lord initiating.
50. There is a word to say about the Hiero-
phantic task. Behold! there are three ordeals
in one, and it may be given in three ways. The
gross must pass through fire; let the fine be
tried in intellect, and the lofty chosen ones
in the highest. Thus ye have star & star, sys-
tem & system; let not one know well the other!
51. There are four gates to one palace; the
floor of that palace is of silver and gold; lapis
lazuli & jasper are there; and all rare scents;
jasmine & rose, and the emblems of death.
Let him enter in turn or at once the four gates;
let him stand on the floor of the palace. Will
he not sink? Amn. Ho! warrior, if thy ser-
vant sink? But there are means and means.
Be goodly therefore: dress ye all in fine ap-
parel; eat rich foods and drink sweet wines
and wines that foam! Also, take your fill and
will of love as ye will, when, where and with
whom ye will! But always unto me.
52. If this be not aright; if ye confound the
space-marks, saying: They are one; or saying,
They are many; if the ritual be not ever unto
me: then expect the direful judgments of Ra
Hoor Khuit!
53. This shall regenerate the world, the little
world my sister, my heart & my tongue, unto
whom I send this kiss. Also, o scribe and
prophet, though thou be of the princes, it shall
not assuage thee nor absolve thee. But ecstasy
be thine and joy of earth: ever To me! To me!
54. Change not as much as the style of a
letter; for behold! thou, o prophet, shalt not
behold all these mysteries hidden therein.
55. The child of thy bowels, he shall behold
them.
56. Expect him not from the East, nor from
the West; for from no expected house cometh
that child. Aum! All words are sacred and
all prophets true; save only that they under-
stand a little; solve the first half of the equa-
tion, leave the second unattacked. But thou
hast all in the clear light, and some, though
not all, in the dark.
57. Invoke me under my stars! Love is the
law, love under will. Nor let the fools mistake
love; for there are love and love. There is
the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye
well! He, my prophet, hath chosen, knowing
the law of the fortress, and the great mystery
of the House of God.
All these old letters of my Book are aright;
but TS is not the Star. This also is secret: my
prophet shall reveal it to the wise.
58. I give unimaginable joys on earth: cer-
tainty, not faith, while in life, upon death;
peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy; nor do I de-
mand aught in sacrifice.
59. My incense is of resinous woods & gums;
and there is no blood therein: because of my
hair the trees of Eternity.
60. My number is 11, as all their numbers
who are of us. The Five Pointed Star, with a
Circle in the Middle, & the circle is Red. My
colour is black to the blind, but the blue &
gold are seen of the seeing. Also I have a
secret glory for them that love me.
61. But to love me is better than all things:
if under the night-stars in the desert thou pres-
ently burnest mine incense before me, invoking
me with a pure heart, and the Serpent flame
therein, thou shalt come a little to lie in my
bosom. For one kiss wilt thou then be willing
to give all; but whoso gives one particle of dust
shall lose all in that hour. Ye shall gather
goods and store of women and spices; ye shall
wear rich jewels; ye shall exceed the nations
of the earth in spendour & pride; but always
in the love of me, and so shall ye come to my
joy. I charge you earnestly to come before
me in a single robe, and covered with a rich
headdress. I love you! I yearn to you! Pale
or purple, veiled or voluptuous, I who am all
pleasure and purple, and drunkenness of the
innermost sense, desire you. Put on the wings,
and arouse the coiled splendour within you:
come unto me!
62. At all my meetings with you shall
the priestess say -- and her eyes shall burn with
desire as she stands bare and rejoicing in my
secret temple -- To me! To me! calling forth
the flame of the hearts of all in her love-chant.
63. Sing the rapturous love-song unto me!
Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels!
Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!
64. I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset;
I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous
night-sky.
65. To me! To me!
66. The Manifestation of Nuit is at an end.
***
1. Nu! the hiding of Hadit.
2. Come! all ye, and learn the secret that
hath not yet been revealed. I, Hadit, am the
complement of Nu, my bride. I am not ex-
tended, and Khabs is the name of my House.
3. In the sphere I am everywhere the cen-
tre, as she, the circumference, is nowhere
found.
4. Yet she shall be known & I never.
5. Behold! the rituals of the old time are
black. Let the evil ones be cast away; let the
good ones be purged by the prophet! Then
shall this Knowledge go aright.
6. I am the flame that burns in every heart
of man, and in the core of every star. I am
Life, and the giver of Life, yet therefore is the
knowledge of me the knowledge of death.
7. I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I
am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the
circle. "Come unto me" is a foolish word: for
it is I that go.
8. Who worshipped Heru-pa-kraath have
worshipped me; ill, for I am the worshipper.
9. Remember all ye that existence is pure
joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows;
they pass & are done; but there is that which
remains.
10. O prophet! thou hast ill will to learn
this writing.
11. I see thee hate the hand & the pen; but
I am stronger.
12. Because of me in Thee which thou knew-
est not.
13. for why? Because thou wast the know-
er, and me.
14. Now let there be a veiling of this shrine:
now let the light devour men and eat them up
with blindness!
15. For I am perfect, being Not; and my
number is nine by the fools; but with the just
I am eight, and one in eight: Which is vital,
for I am none indeed. The Empress and the
King are not of me; for there is a further secret.
16. I am The Empress & the Hierophant.
Thus eleven, as my bride is eleven.
17. Hear me, ye people of sighing!
The sorrows of pain and regret
Are left to the dead and the dying,
The folk that not know me as yet.
18. These are dead, these fellows; they feel
not. We are not for the poor and sad: the lords
of the earth are our kinsfolk.
19. Is a God to live in a dog? No! but the
highest are of us. They shall rejoice, our chos-
en: who sorroweth is not of us.
20. Beauty and strength, leaping laughter
and delicious languor, force and fire, are of us.
21. We have nothing with the outcast and
the unfit: let them die in their misery. For
they feel not. Compassion is the vice of kings:
stamp down the wretched & the weak: this
is the law of the strong: this is our law and
the joy of the world. Think not, o king, upon
that lie: That Thou Must Die: verily thou shalt
not die, but live. Now let it be understood: If
the body of the King dissolve, he shall remain
in pure ecstasy for ever. Nuit! Hadit! Ra-
Hoor-Khuit! The Sun, Strength & Sight, Light;
these are for the servants of the Star & the
Snake.
22. I am the Snake that giveth Knowledge
& Delight and bright glory, and stir the hearts
of men with drunkenness. To worship me take
wine and strange drugs whereof I will tell my
prophet, & be drunk thereof! They shall not
harm ye at all. It is a lie, this folly against
self. The exposure of innocence is a lie. Be
strong, o man! lust, enjoy all things of sense
and rapture: fear not that any God shall deny
thee for this.
23. I am alone: there is no God where I am.
24. Behold! these be grave mysteries; for
there are also of my friends who be hermits.
Now think not to find them in the forest or on
the mountain; but in beds of purple, caressed
by magnificent beasts of women with large
limbs, and fire and light in their eyes, and
masses of flaming hair about them; there shall
ye find them. Ye shall see them at rule, at
victorious armies, at all the joy; and there shall
be in them a joy a million times greater than
this. Beware lest any force another, King
against King! Love one another with burning
hearts; on the low men trample in the fierce
lust of your pride, in the day of your wrath.
25. Ye are against the people, O my chosen!
26. I am the secret Serpent coiled about to
spring: in my coiling there is joy. If I lift up
my head, I and my Nuit are one. If I droop
down mine head, and shoot forth venom, then
is rapture of the earth, and I and the earth
are one.
27. There is great danger in me; for who
doth not understand these runes shall make a
great miss. He shall fall down into the pit
called Because, and there he shall perish with
the dogs of Reason.
28. Now a curse upon Because and his kin!
29. May Because be accursed for ever!
30. If Will stops and cries Why, invoking
Because, then Will stops & does nought.
31. If Power asks why, then is Power weak-
ness.
32. Also reason is a lie; for there is a factor
infinite & unknown; & all their words are
skew-wise.
33. Enough of Because! Be he damned
for a dog!
34. But ye, o my people, rise up & awake!
35. Let the rituals be rightly performed with
joy & beauty!
36. There are rituals of the elements and
feasts of the times.
37. A feast for the first night of the Prophet
and his Bride!
38. A feasy for the three days of the writing
of the Book of the Law.
39. A feast for Tahuti and the child of the
Prophet--secret, O Prophet!
40. A feast for the Supreme Ritual, and a
feast for the Equinox of the Gods.
41. A feast for fire and a feast for water;
a feast for life and a greater feast for death!
42. A feast every day in your hearts in the
joy of my rapture!
43. A feast every night unto Nu, and the
pleasure of uttermost delight!
44. Aye! feast! rejoice! there is no dread
hereafter. There is the dissolution, and eter-
nal ecstasy in the kisses of Nu.
45. There is death for the dogs.
46. Dost thou fail? Art thou sorry? Is fear
in thine heart?
47. Where I am these are not.
48. Pity not the fallen! I never knew them.
I am not for them. I console not: I hate the
consoled & the consoler.
49. I am unique & conqueror. I am not of
the slaves that perish. Be they damned &
dead! Amen. (This is of the 4: there is a fifth
who is invisible, & therein am I as a babe
in an egg.)
50. Blue am I and gold in the light of my
bride: but the red gleam is in my eyes; & my
spangles are purple & green.
51. Purple beyond purple: it is the light
higher than eyesight.
52. There is a veil: that veil is black. It is
the veil of the modest woman; it is the veil of
sorrow, & the pall of death: this is none of me.
Tear down that lying spectre of the centuries:
veil not your vices in virtuous words: these
vices are my service; ye do well, & I will re-
ward you here and hereafter.
53. Fear not, o prophet, when these words
are said, thou shalt not be sorry. Thou art
emphatically my chosen; and blessed are the
eyes that thoushalt look upon with gladness.
But I will hide thee in a mask of sorrow: they
that see thee shall fear thou art fallen: but I
lift thee up.
54. Nor shall they who cry aloud their folly
that thou meanest nought avail; thou shall re-
veal it: thou availest: they are the slaves of
because: They are not of me. The stops as
thou wilt; the letters? change them not in style
or value!
55. Thou shalt obtain the order & value of
the English Alphabet; thou shalt find new sym-
bols to attribute them unto.
56. Begone! ye mockers; even though ye
laugh in my honour ye shall laugh not long:
then when ye are sad know that I have for-
saken you.
57. He that is righteous shall be righteous
still; he that is filthy shall be filthy still.
58. Yea! deem not of change: ye shall be as ye are, & not
other. Therefore the kings of the earth shall be Kings for
ever: the slaves shall serve. There is none that shall be
cast down or lifted up: all is ever as it was. Yet there
are masked ones my servants: it may be that yonder beggar
is a King. A King may choose his garment as he will: there
is no certain test: but a beggar cannot hide his poverty.
59. Beware therefore! Love all, lest perchance is a King
concealed! Say you so? Fool! If he be a King, thou canst
not hurt him.
60. Therefore strike hard & low, and to hell with them, master!
61. There is a light before thine eyes, o prophet, a light
undesired, most desirable.
62. I am uplifted in thine heart; and the kisses of the stars
rain hard upon thy body.
63. Thou art exhaust in the voluptuous fullness of the
inspiration; the expiration is sweeter than death, more
rapid and laughterful than a caress of Hell's own worm.
64. Oh! thou art overcome: we are upon thee; our delight is all
over thee: hail! hail: prophet of Nu! prophet of Had!
prophet of Ra-Hoor-Khu! Now rejoice! now come in our
splendour & rapture! Come in our passionate peace, & write
sweet words for the Kings.
65. I am the Master: thou art the Holy Chosen One.
66. Write, & find ecstasy in writing! Work, & be our bed in
working! Thrill with the joy of life & death! Ah! thy
death shall be lovely: whososeeth it shall be glad. Thy
death shall be the seal of the promise of our age long
love. Come! lift up thine heart & rejoice! We are one; we
are none.
67. Hold! Hold! Bear up in thy rapture; fall not in swoon of
the excellent kisses!
68. Harder! Hold up thyself! Lift thine head! breathe not so
deep-- die!
69. Ah! Ah! What do I feel? Is the word exhausted?
70. There is help & hope in other spells. Wisdom says: be
strong! Then canst thou bear more joy. Be not animal;
refine thy rapture! If thou drink, drink by the eight and
ninety rules of art: if thou love exceed by delicacy; and
if thou do aught joyous, let there be subtlety therein!
71. But exceed! exceed!
72. Strive ever to more! and if thou art truly mine -- and
doubt it not, an if thou art ever joyous! -- death is the
crown of all.
73. Ah! Ah! Death! Death! thou shalt long for death. Death is
forbidden, o man, unto thee.
74. The length of thy longing shall be the strength of its
glory. He that lives long & desires death much is ever the
King among the Kings.
75. Aye! listen to the numbers & the words:
76. 4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L.
What meaneth this, o prophet? Thou knowest not; nor shalt
thou know ever. There cometh one to follow thee: he shall
expound it. But remember, o chose none, to be me; to follow
the love of Nu in the star-lit heaven; to look forth upon
men, to tell them this glad word.
77. O be thou proud and mighty among men!
78. Lift up thyself! for there is none like unto thee among men
or among Gods! Lift up thyself, o my prophet, thy stature
shall surpass the stars. They shall worship thy name,
foursquare, mystic, wonderful, the number of the man; and
the name of thy house 418.
79. The end of the hiding of Hadit; and blessing & worship to
the prophet of the lovely Star!
***
1. Abrahadabra; the reward of Ra Hoor Khut.
2. There is division hither homeward; there is a word not
known. Spelling is defunct; all is not aught. Beware! Hold!
Raise the spell of Ra-Hoor-Khuit!
3. Now let it be first understood that I am a god of War and of
Vengeance. I shall deal hardly with them.
4. Choose ye an island!
5. Fortify it!
6. Dung it about with enginery of war!
7. I will give you a war-engine.
8. With it ye shall smite the peoples; and none shall stand
before you.
9. Lurk! Withdraw! Upon them! this is the Law of the Battle of
Conquest: thus shall my worship be about my secret house.
10. Get the stele of revealing itself; set it in thy secret
temple -- and that temple is already aright disposed -- & it
shall be your Kiblah for ever. It shall not fade, but
miraculous colour shall come back to it day after day. Close
it in locked glass for a proof to the world.
11. This shall be your only proof. I forbid argument. Conquer!
That is enough. I will make easy to you the abstruction from
the ill-ordered house in the Victorious City. Thou shalt
thyself convey it with worship, o prophet, though thou
likest it not. Thou shalt have danger & trouble. Ra-Hoor-
Khu is with thee. Worship me with fire & blood; worship me
with swords & with spears. Let the woman be girt with a
sword before me: let blood flow to my name. Trample down the
Heathen; be upon them, o warrior, I will give you of their
flesh to eat!
12. Sacrifice cattle, little and big: after a child.
13. But not now.
14. Ye shall see that hour, o blessed Beast, and thou the
Scarlet Concubine of his desire!
15. Ye shall be sad thereof.
16. Deem not too eagerly to catch the promises; fear not to
undergo the curses. Ye, even ye, know not this meaning all.
17. Fear not at all; fear neither men nor Fates, nor gods, nor
anything. Money fear not, nor laughter of the folk folly,
nor any other power in heaven or upon the earth or under the
earth. Nu is your refuge as Hadit your light; and I am the
strength, force, vigour, of your arms.
18. Mercy let be off; damn them who pity! Kill and torture;
spare not; be upon them!
19. That stele they shall call the Abomination of Desolation;
count well its name, & it shall be to you as 718.
20. Why? Because of the fall of Because, that he is not there
again.
21. Set up my image in the East: thou shalt buy thee an image
which I will show thee, especial, not unlike the one thou
knowest. And it shall be suddenly easy for thee to do this.
22. The other images group around me to support me: let all be
worshipped, for they shall cluster to exalt me. I am the
visible object of worship; the others are secret; for the
Beast & his Bride are they: and for the winners of the
Ordeal x. What is this? Thou shalt know.
23. For perfume mix meal & honey & thick leavings of red wine:
then oil of Abramelin and olive oil, and afterward soften &
smooth down with rich fresh blood.
24. The best blood is of the moon, monthly: then the fresh blood
of a child, or dropping from the host of heaven: then of
enemies; then of the priest or of the worshippers: last of
some beast, no matter what.
25. This burn: of this make cakes & eat unto me. This hath also
another use; let it be laid before me, and kept thick with
perfumes of your orison: it shall become full of beetles as
it were and creeping things sacred unto me.
26. These slay, naming your enemies; & they shall fall before
you.
27. Also these shall breed lust & power of lust in you at the
eating thereof.
28. Also ye shall be strong in war.
29. Moreover, be they long kept, it is better; for they swell
with my force. All before me.
30. My altar is of open brass work: burn thereon in silver or
gold!
31. There cometh a rich man from the West who shall pour his
gold upon thee.
32. From gold forge steel!
33. Be ready to fly or to smite!
34. But your holy place shall be untouched throughout the
centuries: though with fire and sword it be burnt down &
shattered, yet an invisible house there standeth, and shall
stand until the fall of the Great Equinox; when Hrumachis
shall arise and the double-wanded one assume my throne and
place. Another prophet shall arise, and bring fresh fever
from the skies; another woman shall awakethe lust & worship
of the Snake; another soul of God and beast shall mingle in
the globed priest; another sacrifice shall stain the tomb;
another king shall reign; and blessing no longer be poured
To the Hawk-headed mystical Lord!
35. The half of the word of Heru-ra-ha, called Hoor-pa-kraat and
Ra-Hoor-Khut.
36. Then said the prophet unto the God:
37. I adore thee in the song --
I am the Lord of Thebes, and I
The inspired forth-speaker of Mentu;
For me unveils the veiled sky,
The self-slain Ankh-af-na-khonsu
Whose words are truth. I invoke, I greet
Thy presence, O Ra-Hoor-Khuit!
Unity uttermost showed!
I adore the might of Thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death
To tremble before Thee: --
I, I adore thee!
Appear on the throne of Ra!
Open the ways of the Khu!
Lighten the ways of the Ka!
The ways of the Khabs run through
To stir me or still me!
Aum! let it fill me!
38. So that thy light is in me; & its red flame is as a sword in
my hand to push thy order. There is a secret door that I
shall make to establish thy way in all the quarters, (these
are the adorations, as thou hast written), as it is said:
The light is mine; its rays consume
Me: I have made a secret door
Into the House of Ra and Tum,
Of Khephra and of Ahathoor.
I am thy Theban, O Mentu,
The prophet Ankh-af-na-khonsu!
By Bes-na-Maut my breast I beat;
By wise Ta-Nech I weave my spell.
Show thy star-splendour, O Nuit!
Bid me within thine House to dwell,
O winged snake of light, Hadit!
Abide with me, Ra-Hoor-Khuit!
39. All this and a book to say how thou didst come hither and a
reproduction of this ink and paper for ever -- for in it is
the word secret & not only in the English -- and thy comment
upon this the Book of the Law shall be printed beautifully
in red ink and black upon beautiful paper made by hand; and
to each man and woman that thou meetest, were it but to dine
or to drink at them, it is the Law to give. Then they shall
chance to abide in this bliss or no; it is no odds. Do this
quickly!
40. But the work of the comment? That is easy; and Hadit burning
in thy heart shall make swift and secure thy pen.
41. Establish at thy Kaaba a clerk-house: all must be done well
and with business way.
42. The ordeals thou shalt oversee thyself, save only the blind
ones. Refuse none, but thou shalt know & destroy the
traitors. I am Ra-Hoor-Khuit; and I am powerful to protect
my servant. Success is thy proof: argue not; convert not;
talk not over much! Them that seek to entrap thee, to
overthrow thee, them attack without pity or quarter; &
destroy them utterly. Swift as a trodden serpent turn and
strike! Be thou yet deadlier than he! Drag down their souls
to awful torment: laugh at their fear: spit upon them!
43. Let the Scarlet Woman beware! If pity and compassion and
tenderness visit her heart; if she leave my work to toy with
old sweetnesses; then shall my vengeance be known. I will
slay me her child: I will alienate her heart: I will cast
her out from men: as a shrinking and despised harlot shall
she crawl through dusk wet streets, and die cold and an-
hungered.
44. But let her raise herself in pride! Let her follow me in my
way! Let her work the work of wickedness! Let her kill her
heart! Let her be loud and adulterous! Let her be covered
with jewels, and rich garments, and let her be shameless
before all men!
45. Then will I lift her to pinnacles of power: then will I
breed from her a child mightier than all the kings of the
earth. I will fill her with joy: with my force shall she see
& strike at the worship of Nu: she shall achieve Hadit.
46. I am the warrior Lord of the Forties: the Eighties cower
before me, & are abased. I will bring you to victory & joy:
I will be at your arms in battle & ye shall delight to slay.
Success is your proof; courage is your armour; go on, go on,
in my strength; & ye shall turn not back for any!
47. This book shall be translated into all tongues: but always
with the original in the writing of the Beast; for in the
chance shape of the letters and their position to one
another: in these are mysteries that no Beast shall divine.
Let him not seek to try: but one cometh after him, whence I
say not, who shall discover the Key of it all. Then this
line drawn is a key: then this circle squared in its failure
is a key also. And Abrahadabra. It shall be his child & that
strangely. Let him not seek after this; for thereby alone
can he fall from it.
48. Now this mystery of the letters is done, and I want to go on
to the holier place.
49. I am in a secret fourfold word, the blasphemy against all
gods of men.
50. Curse them! Curse them! Curse them!
51. With my Hawk's head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs
upon the cross.
52. I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed & blind him.
53. With my claws I tear out the flesh of the Indian and the
Buddhist, Mongol and Din.
54. Bahlasti! Ompehda! I spit on your crapulous creeds.
55. Let Mary inviolate be torn upon wheels: for her sake let all
chaste women be utterly despised among you!
56. Also for beauty's sake and love's!
57. Despise also all cowards; professional soldiers who dare not
fight, but play; all fools despise!
58. But the keen and the proud, the royal and the lofty; ye are
brothers!
59. As brothers fight ye!
60. There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
61. There is an end of the word of the God enthroned in Ra's
seat, lightening the girders of the soul.
62. To Me do ye reverence! to me come ye through tribulation of
ordeal, which is bliss.
63. The fool readeth this Book of the Law, and its comment; & he
understandeth it not.
64. Let him come through the first ordeal, & it will be to him
as silver.
65. Through the second, gold.
66. Through the third, stones of precious water.
67. Through the fourth, ultimate sparks of the intimate fire.
68. Yet to all it shall seem beautiful. Its enemies who say not
so, are mere liars.
69. There is success.
70. I am the Hawk-Headed Lord of Silence & of Strength; my
nemyss shrouds the night-blue sky.
71. Hail! ye twin warriors about the pillars of the world! for
your time is nigh at hand.
72. I am the Lord of the Double Wand of Power; the wand of the
Force of Coph Nia-- but my left hand is empty, for I have
crushed an Universe; & nought remains.
73. Paste the sheets from right to left and from top to bottom:
then behold!
74. There is a splendour in my name hidden and glorious, as the
sun of midnight is ever the son.
75. The ending of the words is the Word Abrahadabra.
The Book of the Law is Written
and Concealed.
Aum. Ha.
THE COMMENT.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
The study of this Book is forbidden. It is wise to destroy this
copy after the first reading.
Whosoever disregards this does so at his own risk and peril.
These are most dire.
Those who discuss the contents of this Book are to be shunned by
all, as centres of pestilence.
All questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my
writings, each for himself.
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
Love is the law, love under will.
The priest of the princes,
ANKH-F-N-KHONSU
GENESIS LIBRI AL
CHAPTER I.*1*
The Boyhood of Aleister Crowley.
At 36 Clarendon Square, Leamington, Warwickshire, England, at
I0.50 p.m. on the twelfth day of October, in the Eighteen Hundred
and Seventy-Fifth Year of the vulgar era, was born the person
whose history is to be recounted.
His father was named Edward Crowley; his mother, Emily Bertha,
her maiden name being Bishop. Edward Crowley was an Exclusive
Plymouth Brother, the most considered leader in that sect. This
branch of the family of Crowley has been settled in England since
Tudor times, but is Celtic in origin, Crowley being a clan in
Kerry and other counties in the South-West of Ireland, of the
same stock as the Breton `de Querouaille' or `de Kerval' which
gave a Duchess of Portsmouth to England. It is supposed that the
English branch---the direct ancestry of Edward Alexander
Crowley---came to England with the Duke of Richmond, and took
root at Bosworth.
In I88Ihe went to live at The Grange, Redhill, Surrey. In I884
the boy, who had till then been educated by governesses and
tutors, was sent to a school at St. Leonards, kept by some
extreme Evangelicals named Habershon. A year later he was
transferred to a school at Cambridge kept by a Plymouth Brother
of the name of Champney. (The dates in this paragraph are
possibly inaccurate. Documentary evidence is at the present
moment unavailable. Ed.)
On March 5, I887, Edward Crowley died. Two years later the boy
was removed from the school. Those two years were years of
unheard-of torture. He has written details in the Preface to
"The World's Tragedy." This torture seriously undermined his
health. For two years he travelled, mostly in Wales and
Scotland, with tutors. In I890 he went for a short time to a
school at Streatham, kept by a man named Yarrow, his mother
having moved there in order to be near her brother, an extremely
narrow Evangelical named Tom Bond Bishop. This prepared him for
Malvern, which he entered at the summer term of I89I. He only
remained there a year, as his health was still very delicate. In
the autumn he entered for a term at Tonbridge, but fell seriously
ill, and had to be removed. The year I893 was spent with tutors,
principally in Wales, the north of Scotland, and Eastbourne. In
I895 he completed his studies in chemistry at King's College,
London, and in October of that year entered Trinity College,
Cambridge.
With this ends the first period of his life. It is only
necessary to state briefly that his brain developed early. At
four years old he could read the Bible aloud, showing a marked
predilection for the lists of long names, the only part of the
Bible which has not been tampered with by theologians.*1* He
could also play chess well enough to beat the average amateur,
and though constantly playing never lost a game till I895.*2* He
was taught by a tailor who had been summoned to make clothes for
his father, and was treated as a guest on account of his being a
fellow "Plymouth Brother". He beat his teacher uniformly after
the first game. He must have been six or seven years old at this
time.
He began to write poetry in I886, if not earlier. Vide
"Oracles".
After the death of his father, who was a man of strong common
sense, and never allowed his religion to interfere with natural
affection, he was in the hands of people of an entirely contrary
disposition. His mental attitude was soon concentrated in hatred
of the religion which they taught, and his will concentrated in
revolt against its oppressions. His main method of relief was
mountaineering, which left him alone with nature, away from the
tyrants.
The years from March, I887, until entering Trinity College,
Cambridge, in October, I895, represented a continual struggle
towards freedom. At Cambridge he felt himself to be his own
master, refused to attend Chapel, Lectures or Hall, and was
wisely left alone to work out his won salvation by his tutor, the
late Dr. A. W. Verrall.
It must be stated that he possessed natural intellectual ability
to an altogether extraordinary degree. He had the faculty of
memory, especially verbal memory, in astonishing perfection.
As a boy he could find almost any verse in the Bible after a few
minutes search. In I900 he was tested in the works of
Shakespeare, Shelley, Swinburne (Ist series of Poems and
Ballads), Browning and The Moonstone. He was able to place
exactly any phrase from any of these books, and in nearly every
case to continue with the passage.
He showed remarkable facility in acquiring the elements of Latin,
Greek, French, Mathematics and Science. He learnt "little
Roscoe" almost by heart, on his won initiative. When in the
Lower Fifth at Malvern, he came out sixth in the school in the
annual Shakespeare examination, though he had given only two days
to preparing for it. Once, when the Mathematical Master, wishing
to devote the hour to cramming advanced pupils, told th class to
work out a set of examples of Quadratic Equations, he retorted by
asking at the end of forty minutes what he should do next, and
handed up the whole series of 63 equations, correct.
He passed all his examinations both at school and university
with honours, though refusing uniformly to work for them.
On the other hand, he could not be persuaded or constrained to
apply himself to any subject which did not appeal to him. He
showed intense repugnance to history, geography, and botany,
among others. He could never learn to write Greek and Latin
verses, this probably because the rules of scansion seemed
arbitrary and formal.
Again, it was impossible to him to take interest in anything from
the moment that he had grasped the principles of "how it was, or
might be done." This trait prevented him from putting the
finishing touches to anything he attempted.
For instance, he refused to present himself for the second part
of his final examination for his B.A. degree, simply because
he knew himself thoroughly master of the subject!*1*
This characteristic extended to his physical pleasures. He was
abjectly incompetent at easy practice climbing on boulders,
because he knew he could do them. It seemed incredible to the
other men that this lazy duffer should be the most daring and
dexterous cragsman of his generation, as he proved himself
whenever he tackled a precipice which had baffled every other
climber in the world.*2* Similarly, once he had worked out theo-
retically a method of climbing a mountain, he was quite content
to tell the secret to others, and let them appropriate the glory.
(The first ascent of the Dent du Geant from the Montanvers is a
case in point.) It mattered everything to him that something
should be done, nothing that he should be the one to do it.
This almost inhuman unselfishness was not incompatible with
consuming and insatiable personal ambition. The key to the
puzzle is probably this ; he wanted to be something that nobody
else had ever been, or could be. He lost interest in chess as
soon as he had proved to himself (at the age of 22) that he was a
master of the game, having beaten some of the strongest amateurs
in England, and even one or two professional "masters." He
turned from poetry to painting, more or less, when he had made it
quite certain that he was the greatest poet of his time. Even in
Magick, having become The Word of the Aeon, and thus taken his
place with the other Seven Magi known to history, out of reach of
all possible competition, he began to neglect the subject. He is
only able to devote himself to it as he does because he has
eliminated all personal ideas from his Work ; it has become as
automatic as respiration.
We must also put on record his extraordinary powers in certain
unusual spheres. He can remember the minutest details of a rock-
climb, after years of absence. He can retrace his steps over any
path once traversed, in the wildest weathee or the blackest
night. He can divine the one possible passagr through the most
complex and dangerous ice-fall. (E.g. the Vuibez seraes in I897,
the Mer de Glace, right centre, in I899.)
He possesses a "sense of direction" independent of any known
physical methods of taking one's bearings ; and this is as effec-
tive in strange cities as on mountains or deserts. He can smell
the presence of water, of snow, and other supposedly scentless
substances. His endurance is exceptional. He has been known to
write for 67 consecutive hours : his "Tannhauser" was thus
written in I900. He has walked over I00 miles in 2 I/2 days, in
the desert : as in the winter of I9I0. He has frequently made
expeditions lasting over 36 hours, on mountains, in the most
adverse connditions. He holds the World's record for the great-
est number of days spent on a glacier--65 days on the Baltoro in
I902; also that for the greatest pace uphill over I6,000
feet--4,000 feet in I hour 23 minutes on Iztaccihuatl in I900;
that for the highest peak (first ascent by a solitary
climber)--the Nevado de Toluca in I90I; and numerous others.*1*
Yet he is utterly fagged-out by the mere idea of a walk of a few
hundred yards, if it does not interest him, and excite his
imagination, to take it ; and it is only with the greatest effort
that he can summon the energy to write a few lines if, instead of
his wanting to do them, he merely knows that they must be done.
This account has been deemed necessary to explain how it is that
a man of such unimaginable commanding qualities as to have made
him world-famous in so many diverse spheres of action, should
have been so grotesquely unable to make use of his faculties, or
even of his achievements, in any of the ordinary channels of
human activity; to consolidate his personal pre-eminence, or even
to secure his position from a social or economic standpoint.
CHAPTER II.
Adolescence : Beginnings of Magick.
The Birth of
FRATER PERDURABO.
0 =0 to 4 =7
Having won freedom, he had the sense not to waste any time in
enjoying it. He had been deprived of all English literature but
the Bible during the whole of his youth, and he spent his three
years at Cambridge in repairing the defect. He was also working
for the Diplomatic Service, the late Lord Salisbury and the late
Lord Ritchie having taken an interest in his career, and given
him nominations. In October, I897, he was suddenly recalled to
his understanding of the evils of the alleged 'existing
religion,' and experienced a trance, in which he perceived the
utter folly of all human ambition. The fame of an ambassador
rarely outlives a century. That of a poet is almost as
ephemeral. The earth must one day perish. He must build in some
material more lasting. This conception drove him to the study of
Alchemy and Magick. He wrote to the author of "The Book of Black
Magic and of Pacts," a pompous American named Arthur Waite,
notorious for the affectations and obscurities of his style, and
the mealy-mouthed muddle of his mysticism. This nebulous
impresario, presentin an asthmatic Isis in the Opera "Bull-
Frogs," had hinted in his preface that he knew certain occult
sanctuaries wherein Truth and Wisdom were jealously guarded by a
body of Initiates, to be despensed to the postulant who proved
himself worthy to partake of their privileges. Mr. Waite
recommended him to read a book called "The Cloud on the
Sanctuary."
His taste for mountaineering had become a powerful passion, and
he was climbing in Cumberland when he met Oscar Eckenstein,
perhaps the greatest of all the mountaineers of his period, with
whom he was destined to climb thenceforward until I902.
In the summer a party was fromed to camp on the Schonbuhl Glacier
at the foot of the Dent Blanche, with a view to an expedition ot
the Himalayas later on. During his weeks on the Glacier, where
the bad weather was continous, he studied assiduously the
translation by S. L. Mathers of three books which form part of
von Rosenroth's "Kabbalah Unveiled." On one of his decents to
Zermatt, he met a distinguished chemist, Julian L. Bater, who had
studied Alchemy. He hunted this clue through the valley, and
made Baker promise to meet him in London at the end of the sea-
son, and introduce him to others who were interested in Occult
science. This happened in September ; through Baker, he met
another chemist named George Cecil Jones, who introduced him to
the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He made rapid progress in
this Order, and in the spring of I900 was its chief in England.
The details of this period must be studied in "The Temple of
Solomon the King," where a full account of the Order is given.
In the Order he met one, Allan Bennett, Frater Iehi Aour. Jones
and Bennett were both Adepts of high standing. The latter came
to live with him in his flat, and together they carried out many
operations of ceremonial magick. Allan Bennett was constant
illhealth, and went to Ceylon at the end of I899. It was on his
entry into this Order that the subject of this history took the
motto of "Perdurabo"--'I will endure to the end.'
In July, I900, he went to Mexico, and devoted his whole time to
the continued practice of Magick, in which he obtained
extraordinary success. (See Equinox Vol. I, No. III for a
condensed account of some of these. It may be here stated
summarily that he invoked certain Gods, Goddesses, and Spirits to
visible appearance, learnt how to heal physical and moral
diseases, how to make himself invisible, how to obtain
communications from spiritual sources, how to control other
minds, etc., etc.) And then....
CHAPTER III.
Beginnings of Mysticism.
The Birth of
FRATER OU MH.
7=4
Oscar Eckenstein, on his arrival in Mexico, where he was to climb
mountains with the subject of our essay, found him in a rather
despondent mood. He had attained the most satisfactory results.
He was able to communicate with thed divine forces, and
operations such as those of invisibility and evocation had been
mastered. Yet with all this there was a certain dissatisfaction.
Success had not given him all that he had hoped for. He placed
the situration before his companion, rather to clear his own mind
than hoping for any help, for he supposed him to be entirely
ignorant of all these subjects, which he habitually treated with
dislike and contempt. Judge of his surprise, then, when he found
in this unpromising quarter a messenger form the Great White
Brotherhood ! His companion told him to abandon all magick.
"The Task," said Eckenstein, "involves the control of the mind.
Yours is a wandering mind." The proposition was indignantly
denied.
"Test it," said the Master. A short experiment was conclusive.
It was impossible for the boy to keep his mind fixed upon a
single object for even a few seconds at a time. The mind,
thougfh perfectly stable in motion, was unable to rest, just as a
gyroscope falls when the flywheel slows down. An entirely new
course of experiments was consequently undertaken. Half-an-hour
every morning and half-an-hour every evening were devoted to
attempts to control the mind, by the simple process of imagining
a familiar object, and endeavouring to keep concentrated upon
it.*1*
He soon became sufficiently expert in this initial practice to
proceed to concentration on regularly moving objects such as a
pendulum, and, ultimately, on living objects. A further series
of experiments dealt with the other senses. He tried to imagine
and retain the taste of chocolate or of quinine, the smell of
various familiar perfumes, the sound of bells, waterfalls, and so
on, or the feeling excited by such objects as velvet, silk, fur,
sand and steel.
In the spring of I90I, he left Mexico, went to San Francisco,
Honolulu, Japan, China and Ceylon, always continuing these
experiments. His Master had not told him to what they would
ultimately lead. In Ceylon he found Frater I.A. (Allan Bennett),
with whom he went to Kandy, where they took a bungalow named
Marlboroigh, overlooking the lake.
I.A. had himself been developing on similar lines under P.
Ramanathan, the Solicitor-General of Ceylon, known to occultists
under the name of Shri Parananda.*2* I.A. told him that in order
to concentrate he must first see that no interruptions reached
him from the body, and counselled the adoption of Asana, a
settled position in which all bodily movement was to be
suppressed. Further, he was to practice Pranayama, or control of
the breathing, which has a similar effect in reducing to the
lowest possible point the internal movements of the body.*1*
During the months of this stay at Kandy, he practised these,
obtained success in Asana, the intense pain of the practices
being overcome, and changed into an indescribable sense of
physical well-being and comfort.
While in Pranayama he passed through the first stage, which is
marked by profuse perspiration of a peculiar kind ; the second,
which is accompanied by rigidity of the body ; and the third, in
which the body unconsciously hops about the floor, without in any
way disturbing the Asana.
During the latter part of August and the whole of September, his
practices became continous by day and night, in order to create a
rhythm in the mind similar to that which Pranayama produces in
the body. He adopted a Mantra, or sacred sentence, by the
constant repetition of which it became automatic in his brain, so
that it would continue through sleep, and he would wake up
actually repeating the words. Sleep itself, too, was broken up
into short periods of very light sleep of a peculiar kind, in
which consciousness is hardly lost, althougfh the body obtains
perdect rest. These practices continued into October, at the
beginning of which he reached the state of Dhyana, a tremendous
spiritual experience, in which the subject and object of
meditation unite with excessive violence in blinding brilliance
and music of a kind to which earthly harmony affords no
parallel.*1*
The result of this however was to cause so intense a satisfaction
with his progress, that he gave up work. He then visited
Anuradhapura and others of the buried cities of Ceylon. In
November he went to India, and in January visited I.A. at Akyab
in Burma,where that Adept was living in a monastery, with the
intention of preparing himself to take the Yellow Robe of the
Buddhist Sangha. The whole of the summer of I902 was spent in an
expedition to Chogo Ri (K2) in the Himalayas.*2* During the
whole of this period he did very little occult work.
November, I902, him in Paris, where he stayed off and on till the
spring of I903, when he returned to his house in Scotland.
We must now go backwards in time, to take up a thread which had
run through his whole work, so umportant as to demand a chapter
to itself:--
CHAPTER IV.
The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.
The Birth of
FRATER----------*1* 5=6 A. A.
In the autumn of I898 George Cecil Jones had directed the
attention of Frater Perdurabo to a book entitled "The Book of the
Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage." The essence of this book is
as follows :
The aspirant must have a house secure from observation and
interference. In this house there must be an oratory with a
window to the East, and a door to the North opening upon a
terrace, at the end of which must be a lodge. He must have a
Robe, Crown, Wand, Altar, Incense, Anointing Oil, and a Silver
Lamen. The terrace and lodge must be strewn with fine sand. He
withdraws himself gradually from human intercourse to devote
himself more and more to prayer for the space of four months. He
must then occupy two months in almost continuous prayer, speaking
as little as possible to anybody. At the end of this period he
invokes a being described as the Holy Guardian Angle, who appears
to him (or to a child employed by him), and who will write in dew
upon the Lamen, which is placed upon the Altar. The Oratory is
filled d with Divine Perfume not of the aspirant's kindling.
After a period of communion with the Angel, he summons the Four
Great Princes of the Daemonic World, and forces them to swear
obedience.
On the following day he calls forward and subdues the Eight Sub-
Princes ; and the day after that, the many Spirits serving these.
These inferior Daemons, of whom four act as familiar spirits,
then operate a collection of talismans for various purposes.
Such is a brief account of the Operation described in the book.
This Operation strongly appealed to our student. He immediately
set about to procure a suitable house, and to prepare everything
that might be necessary for the operation. All was ready for the
beginning in Easter of I900, and it must be said that the
preliminary work alone is so tremendous that a long story might
be written of the events of these I8 months of preparation. The
Operation itself was however never begun. A fortnight or so
before the time appointed, he received an urgent appeal from his
Master to save him and the Order from destruction. He gave up
his own prospects of personal advancement without hesitation, and
hastened to Paris.*1*
That the Master proved to be no Master, and the Order no Order,
but the incarnation of Disorder, had no effect upon the good
Karma created by this renunciation of a project on which he had
set his heart for so long.
In Mexico, he kept vigil during several nights in the Temple of
the Order of the Lamp of the Invisible Light, an Order whose High
Priest is pledged to maintain a Secret and Eternal Lamp. In this
shrine he received some shadowing forth of the Vision of the Holy
Guardian Angel, and that of the Four Great Princes : here also
he renewed the Oath of the Operation.
(The whole of his magical career is best interpreted as the
performance of this Operation. One must not suppose that
Initiation is a formality, observing the "unities," like being
made a Mason. All life pertains to the process, and it pervades
the whole personality ; the official recognition of attainment is
merely a token of what had taken place.)
On his return to Scotland in I903, he found ample evidence of the
presence of the forces of the Operation, but by now, having
conceived that Work in a subtler manner and having prepared to
carry it out in the Temple of his own body, having seen Magick,
in short, more of less in the manner in which it is seen in Parts
II and III of the Book 4, he was able to dispense with the
exterior physical appurtenances of this Operation.
We must now pass over a few years, and deal with the completion
of this Operation, although it is in a sense irrelevant to the
purpose of this book.
During the winter of I905-6, he was traveling across China. He
had come to the point of conquering his mind. That mind had
broken up. He saw that the human mind is by its very nature
evanescent, because of the fact that nature is not unity but
duality. Truth is relative. All things end in mystery. In such
sentences have the philosophers of the past formulated this
proposition, as announcing the intellectual bankruptcy which he,
with greater frankness, describes as insanity.
Passing from this, he became as a little child, and on reaching
the Unity behind the mind, found the purpose of his life
formulated in these words, The Obtaining of the Knowledge and
Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
He then found himself, having destroyed all other Karma,
perfectly free to pursue this one work. He then accomplished the
six months of Invocation, as prescribed in the Book of the Sacred
Magic, and was rewarded in October, I906, by complete success.*1*
He then proceeded to the evocation and conquest of the Four Great
Princes and their Inferiors, a work whose results must be studied
in the light of his subsequent career.
We have now finished all that is necessary to say concerning him,
for the account of some of his further Attainment is given fully
in Liber CDXVIII, "The Vision and the Voice," also in Equinox
Vol. I No. X "The Temple of Solomon the King," where the
unexpected result of the Communion of the Holy Guardian Angel is
shown in a symbolism which can hardly be understood without
reference to the events of I904, which are now wholly pertinent
to this Essay.
CHAPTER V.
The Results of Recession.
The wisest of the Popes, on being shown some miracles, refused to
be impressed, remarking that he did not believe in them, he had
seen too many. The result of the Meditation practices and their
results, following those of Magick, was to give our student a
conception of the Universe which was purely mental. Everything
was a phenomenon in mind. He did not as yet see that this
conception is self-destructive ; but it made him skeptical, and
indifferent to whatever happened. You cannot really be impressed
by anything which you know to be nothing more than one of your
own thoughts. Any occurrence can be interpreted as a thought, or
as a relation between two thoughts. In practice this leads to
profound indifferentism, miracles having become commonplace. But
what would be the amazement of the priest who, placing the Host
upon his tongue, found his mouth full of bleeding flesh ! At the
period of writing, it is evident for what purpose our student was
led into this state. I t was not to the Magician, not to the
mystic, it was to a militant member of the Rationalist Press
Association that the great Revelation was to be made. It was
necessary to prove to him that there was in actual truth a
Sanctuary, that there was in sober earnest a body of Adepts. It
matters nothing whether these Adepts are incarnated or
discarnated, human or divine. The only point at issue is that
there should be conscious Beings in possession of the deepest
secrets of Nature, pledged to the uplifting of humanity, filled
with Truth, Wisdom and Understanding. It is practical to prove
the existence of individuals whose knowledge and power, although
not complete--for the nature of Knowledge and Power is such that
they can never be complete, since the ideas themselves contain
imperfections--are yet enormously greater than aught known to the
rest of humanity.
It was of such a body that our student had heard in the "Cloud
upon the Sanctuary" ; admission to its adyta had been the guiding
hope of his life. His early attainments had tended rather to
shake his belief in the existence of such an organization. He
had not yet reckoned up the events of his life ; he had not yet
divined the direction and the set purpose informing their
apparently vagrant course. It might have been by chance that
whenever he had been confronted with any difficulty the right
person had instantly come forward to solve it, whether in the
valleys of Switzerland, the mountains of Mexico, or the jungles
of the East.
At this period of his life he would have scouted the idea as
fantastic. He had yet to learn that the story of Balaam and his
prophetic ass might be literally true. For the great Message
that came to him came, not through the mouth of any person with
any pretensions to any knowledge of this or any other sort, but
through an empty-headed woman of society. The plain facts of
this revelation must be succinctly stated in a new chapter.
CHAPTER VI.
The Great Revelation.
The Arising of
THE BEAST 666.
9=2
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.)*1*
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.*2*
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 I90I having made considerable
progress in Yoga. We noted that in I902 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, I9OI he did no
practices of any kind until the Spring Equinox of I904, with the
exception of a casual week in the summer of I903, and an
exhibition game of magick in the King's Chamber of the Great
Pyramid in November, I903, 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 I903, 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 I9th 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 I4th 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 I903 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. I ...(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.")*1*
Jan. 28 Embark for Suez.
Feb. 7 Suez.
Feb. 8 Landed at Port Said.
Feb. 9 To Cairo.
Feb. II Saw b.f.g.
b.f.b.
(This entry is quite unintelligible to us.)
Feb. I9 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 I6 Began INV. (invocation) IAO*2*
March I7 THOTH [in Greek] appeared.*3*
March I8 Told to INV. (invoke) HORUS*4* [in Greek] as the
sun*5* [drawn] by new way.
March I9 Did this badly at noon 30.
March 20 At I0 p.m. did well--Equinox of Gods--Nov--(? new)
C.R.C. (Christian Rosy Cross, we conjecture.)
Hoori now Hpnt (obviously "Hierophant").
March 2I in . I.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
46I =p f l y 2 b z
2I8 " "
(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 I6th Die [mercury]*1* I invoke IAO.
(Fra. P. tells us that this was done by the ritual of the
"Bornless One," identical with the "Preliminary In-
vocation"*2* 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."
I7. [Jupiter]*3* 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 4I8 !) Thoth, invoked with great
success, indwells us. (Yes ; but what happened ? Fra. P. has no
sort of idea.)
I8.[Venus]*4* Revealed that the waiter was Horus, whom I had
offended and ought to invoke. The ritual revealed in skeleton.
Promise of success [Saturn]*5* or [Sun]*6* 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)
I. Force and Fire (I asked her to describe his moral
qualities.)
2. 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.)
3. Horus. (I asked her to pick out his name from a list of
ten dashed off at haphazard.)
4. Recognized his figure when shown. (This refers to the
striking scene in the Boulak Museum, which will be dealt with in
detail.)
5. Knew my past relations with the God. (This means, I think,
that she knew I had taken his place in temple,*1* etc., and that
I had never once invoked him.)
6. Knew his enemy. (I asked, "Who is his enemy ?" Reply,
"Forces of the waters--of the Nile." W. knew no Egyptology--or
anything else.)
7. Knew his lineal figure and its colour. (A I/84 chance.)
8. Knew his place in temple. (A I/4 chance, at the least.)
9. Knew his weapon (from a list of 6.)
I0. Knew his planetary nature (from a list of 7 planets.)
II. Knew his number (from a list of I0 units.)
I2. 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 I,2,3,4,5, or 6, but the other
7 tests give us
I/I0 x I/84 x I/4 x I/6 x I/7 x I/I0 x I/I5 = I/21,I68,000
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 I2.
(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 !*1*
(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*1* ; 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."
I9 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*1* we append to this chapter the G.D.
ritual of the Equinox, which was celebrated in the
spring and autumn within 48 hours of the actual
dates of Sol entering Aries and Libra.)
20 (contd.) Great success in midnight invocation.
(The other diary says I0 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, I906, 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 I7th of March must have had
a shock before he wrote those words.)
2I. [moon]. [sun] enters [aries].*1*
22. [mars]*2* The day of rest, on which nothing whatever of
magic is to be done at all. [mercury]*3* 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 I2.30 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 [beth]
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]
I. 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 : I. "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 "namecoincidences of
the Qabalah," to which we must now direct the reader's attention.
The MS. is a mere fragmentary sketch.
Ch=8=ChlTh=4I8 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=III 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=III, Ch=4I8, I=20, H=6, A=III.)
HRV-RA-HA. 2II + 201 + 6=4I8.
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=III.
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 calcula-
tions, 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*1*, that of Mezla, the
Channel through which Macroprosopus reveals Himself to, or
showers His influence upon, Microposopus.*2* 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.;*3* 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 L 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.
FESTIVAL OF
(Temple arranged as for 0degree = 0 [?].)
Ht. (knocks) Fratres and Sorores of all grades of the Golden
Dawn in the Outer, let us celebrate the Festival of the
(Vernal) Autumnal Equinox !
All rise.
Ht. Frater Kerux, proclaim the fact, and announce the abro-
gation of the present Pass Word.
K. (Going to Ht.'s right, saluting, and facing West).
In the Name of the Lord of the Universe, and by
{ Vernal }
command of the V.H.Ht., I proclaim the { Autumnal }
Equinox, and declare that the Pass Word. . . . . . .
is abrogated.
Ht. Let us, according to ancient custom, consecrate the
return of the {Vernal/Autumnal} Equinox.
Light.
Hs. Darkness.
Ht. East.
Hs. West.
Ht. Air.
Hs. Water.
Hg. (knocks) I am the Reconciler between them.
All give signs.
D. Heat.
S. Cold.
D. South.
S. North.
D. Fire.
S. Earth.
Hg. (knocks) I am the Reconciler between them.
All give signs.
Ht. (knocks) One Creator.
D. One Preserver.
Hs. (knocks) One Destroyer.
S. One Redeemer.
Hg. (knocks) One Reconciler between them.
All give signs.
Each retiring officer in turn, beginning with Ht. quits his post
by the left hand and goes to the foot of Throne. He there
disrobes, placing robe and lamen at foot of Throne or Dais. He
then proceeds with the Sun's course to the Altar, and lays
thereon his special insignia, viz : Ht., Sceptre : Hs., Sword :
Hg., Sceptre : K., Lamp and Wand : S., Cup : D., Censer :
repeating out-going Password as he does so.
Ht. taking from the Altar the Rose, returns with the Sun
to his post :
Hs. takes Cup of Wine :
Hf. waits for the Kerux and takes his Red Lamp from him.
K. takes nothing.
S. takes platter of salt.
D. takes emblem of Elemental Fire.
Returning each to his place.
The remaining members form a column in the North and, led by
Kerux, proceed to the East ; when all are in column along East
side each turns to the left and faces Hierophant.
Ht. Let us adore the Lord of the Universe.
Holy art Thou, Lord of the Air, who has created the
Firmament. (Making with the Rose the sign of the
Cross in the Air towards the East.)
All give signs. Procession moves on to the South, halts,
and all face South.
D. (facing South) Let us adore the Lord of the Universe.
Holy art Thou, Lord of the Fire, wherein Thou hast
shown forth the Throne of Thy Glory. (Making with the
Fire the sign of the Cross towards the South.)
All give signs. Procession moves on to the West, halts, and
faces West.
Hs. (facing West) Let us adore the Lord of the Universe.
Holy art Thou, Lord of the Waters, whereon Thy Spirit
moved at the beginning. (Making with the Cup the sign
of the Cross in the Air before him.)
All give sign. Procession passes on to the North. All halt
and face North.
S. (facing North)Let us adore the Lord of the Universe.
Holy art Thou, Lord of the Earth, which Thou hast made
Thy footstool. (Making with the platter of Salt the
sign of the Cross toward the North.)
All give signs. All resume their places and face the usual
way.
Hg. Let us adore the Lord of the Universe.
Holy art Thou, Who art in all things, in Whom are all
things ;
If I climb up into Heaven, Thou art there ;
If I go down into Hell, Thou art there also ;
If I take the Wings of the Morning and remain in the
uttermost parts of the Sea, even there shall Thy hand
lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say "Peradventure the Darkness shall cover me,"
even the Night shall be Light unto Thee.
Thine is the Air with its Movement.
Thine is the Fire with its flashing Flame.
Thine is the Water with its Flux and Reflux.
Thine is the Earth with its Eternal Stability.
(Makes the sign of the Cross with Red Lamp.)
All give signs. Ht. goes to Altar and deposits Rose.
Imperator meanwhile assumes the Throne.
Ht. returns to a seat on the immediate left as Past Hiero-
phant. Each old Officer now proceeds in turn to Altar and places
upon it the ensign he had taken therefrom, returning to places of
their grade, not their Thrones, with nothing in their hands :
they sit as common members, leaving all offices vacant.
Imperator. By the Power and Authority in me vested, I
confer upon you the new Pass Word. It is..........
The Officers of this Temple for the ensuing half-year
are as follows :--
(Reads list of New Officers.)
New Officers come up in turn and are robed by the Imperator.
Each new Officer in turn passes to the Altar and takes his
insignia therefrom, repeating aloud :
By the Pass Word.......I claim my....................
S., after claiming his Cup, purifies the Hall and the
Members by Water, without a word spoken by the Ht. unless he
fails in this duty.
D., after claiming his Censer, consecrates the Hall and the
Members by Fire, without unnecessary word from Ht.
THE MYSTIC CIRCUMAMBULATION.
This should take place in Silence, but if the Members be
unprovided with Rituals, the Ht. may order it as follows: All
form in North, K., Hg., Members, Hs., S., D.
Each Member as he passes the Throne repeats the Pass Word
aloud.
Ht. Let us invoke the Lord of the Universe.
Lord of the Universe, Blessed be Thy Name unto the
Eternal Ages.
Look with favour upon this Order, and grant that its
members may at length attain to the true Summum Bonum,
the Stone of the Wise, the Perfect Wisdom and the
Eternal Light.
To the Glory of Thine Ineffable Name. AMEN.
All salute.
Ht. Frater Kerux, in the Name of the Lord of the Universe,
I command you to declare that the {Vernal/Autumnal}
Equinox has returned, and that...............is the
Pass Word for the next six months.
K. In the Name of the Lord of the Universe and by com-
mand of the V.H.Ht. I declare that the Sun has enter-
ed {Aries/Libra}, the Sign of the {Vernal/Autumnal}
Equinox, and that the Pass Word for the ensuing half-
year will be............
Ht. Khabs. Pax. In.
Hs. Am. Konx. Extension.
Hg. Pekht. Om. Light.
CHAPTER VII.
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.*1*
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.*1*
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.*1* 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.*1*
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 + 77 = 156, the number of BABALON.
7
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,[ Greec] , when writ small ; and like a serpent or
spermatozoon when writ final, thus, [Greec]. 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.*1*
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.*1*
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 hhelp, 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,*1* which on analysis yields and astounding cluster of
numerical "mysteries."
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 [divided by] 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 guven 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 elaborte 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 ! They 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, fo 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 forht, 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."
Nuith cries : "I love you," like a lover ; when even John reached
only to the cold impersonal proposition "God is love." She woos
like a msitress ; 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: "peach
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 ?
VIII
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.
I. The time.
Chapter 1 was written between Noon and 1 p.m. on
April 8, 1904.
Chapter II between Noon and I p.m. on April 9,
I904.
Chapter III between Noon and I p.m. on April I0,
I904.
The writing began exactly on the stroke of the hour, and ended
exactly an hour later ; it was hurried throughour, 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 Norht. The apatment 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,
poening 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.
A. 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
paramout 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, I883.
Father died March 5, I887.
Albuminuria stopped my schooling, I890-92.
First sexual act, probably I889.
Ditto with a woman March, I89I (Torquay--a theatre girl).
First serious mountain-climbing, in Skye, I892. (The
"Pinnacle Ridge" of Sgurr-nan-Gillean.)
First Alpine climb, I894.
Admitted to the Military Order of the Temple midnight,
December 3I, I896.
Admitted to permanent office in the Temple midnight,
December 3I, I897.
Bought Boleskine, I899.
First Mexican climb, I900.
First Big game, I90I.
First Himalayan climb, I902. (Chogo Ri, or "K2"
expedition.)
Married at Dingwall, Scotland, August I2, I903.
Honeymoon at Boleskine, thence to London, Paris, Naples,
Egypt, Ceylon, and back to Egypt, Helwan and then Cairo early in
I904.
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 fo even the greatest human
endeavour.) I invoked assistance, Easter, '98.
Initiated in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, November
I8, '98.
Began to perform the Abramelin Operation, I899.
Initiated in the Order R.R. et A.C., January, I909.
Made a 33<degree> Freemason, I900.
Began Yoga practices, I900.
Obtained first Dhyana, October I, I90I.
Abandoned all serious occult work of every sort, October 3,
I90I, and continued in this course of action till July, I903,
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.
B. Rose Edith Kelly.
Born I874 (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 I2,
I903, when she became my wife, becoming pregnant with a girl born
July 28, I904. 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 satisfacion of sexuality,*1* 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.
C. 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.
D. 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.
E. Brugsch Bey of the Boulak Museum dined with us once to
discuss the Stele in his charge, and to arrage 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 sill no-reason unconnected with Magick.*1*
4. The events leading up to the Writing of the Book. I
summarize them from Eqx. I, VII.
March I6. Tried to shew the Sylphs to Rose.*1* She was in a
dazed state, stupid, possible 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 ahd 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 I7. More apparently nonsensical messages, this time
spontaneous. I invoke Thoth, probably as in Liber LXIV, and
presumably to clear up the muddle.
March I8. Thoth evidently got clear through to her ; for she
discovers that Horus is addressing me through her, and
indentifies 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 hace
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 Stlel in my ritual had I seen it
before this date. I should fix Monday, March 2I, for the Visit
ot 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" ofr 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 I6-2I. 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
"tmeple" 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, possilby some bull's blood
burned for incense, or order taken about details of dress ro 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 I0 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 tneor 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.*1*
I had a strong impression*1* 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.*2*
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:
A. 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.
B. On page I9 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.)
C. Page 20 of Cap. III, I got a phrase indistinctly, and
she put it in, as for "B."
D. 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 I. 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 I3.
Verse I4 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 I5 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 I8--I9 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 I9.
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 bvack 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 ot me personally in verse
3I.
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
ot myself, " in this case let us hace 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 nwo no difficulty for a long while. It is a
general address dealing with varoious subjects, to the end of
verse 52.
From verses 53-56 we have a strictly personal address to me.
In verse 57 Nuith resumes her general exhortation. And I am
spoken of once more in the third person.
Verse 6I. The word "Thou" is not a personal address. It
means any single person, as pooosed to a company. The "Ye" in
the third sentence indeicates 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
Hadith himself is evidently the speaker from the srart. 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 I0, addressed to me notes that fact ; and in verse II
he declares that he is my master, and that the reason for this is
that he is my secret self, as explained in verses I2-I3.
The interruption seems to have added excitement to the
discousre, for verse I4 is violent.
Verses I5 & I6 offer a riddle, while verse I7 is a sort of
parody of poetry.
Verse I8 continues his attack on my conscious mind. In
verses I5-I8 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 I9 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 I9 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 suject begun in verse 2I. 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 6I. The address is now strictly personal. During all
this time Hadith 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 6I-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 writeen 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 persoanllly 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 instantanious 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
praraphrases. 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 declerations 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.*1*
I. 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.
2. "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.
3. 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 4I8 is elsewhere manifested as
that of the Aeon.
But TO MH is not to be taken as negating the previous
verses, or 4I8 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.
4. 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 hace 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.
5. 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 indeicated 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.
6. Wherever
a. The words of the Text are obscure in themselves;
where
b. The expression is strained ; where
c. The Syntax,
d. Grammar,
e. Spelling, or
f. The use of capital letters present peculiarities ;
where
g. Non-English words occur ; where the style suggests
h. Paronomasia,
i. Ambiguity, or
j. Obliquity ; or where
k. 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 I, 4. Here teh obvious sense of the text is non-
sense ; it therefore needs intimate analysis.
ii 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.
iii 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.
iv 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," Nuith, since
to be Nuith is the satisfaction of the formula of
the Speaker, Hadith.
v III, I. The omission of the "i" in "Khuit" is in-
dicative that some concealed doctrine is based upon
the variant.
vi 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 Hier-
archy ; also that such word may demand a capital
value for its initial.
vii III, II. "Abstruction" suggests that an idea other-
wise inexpressible is conveyed in this manner.
Paraphrase is here inadmissible as a sufficient in-
terpretation; there must be a correspondence in the
actual structure of the word with its etymologically
-deduced meaning.
viii 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.
ix III, 73. The ambiguity of the instruction warrants
the supposition that the wrods must somehow contain
a cryptographic formula for so arranging the sheets
of the MS. that an Arcanum becomes manifest.
x 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 equvialent could be.
xi II, I5. The text explicity invites Qabalistic ana-
lysis.
7. The Comment must be consistent with itself at all
points; it must exhibit ther 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.
8. The Comment must prove beyond possibility of error that
the Book of the Law,
a. Bears witness in itself to the quthorship of Aiwaz,
an Intelligence independent of incarnation ; and
b. Is warranted wrothy of its claim to credence by the
evidence of external events.
For example, the first proposition is proved by the
cryptography connected with 3I, 93, 4I8, 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 exclued its own postulates, while the law
of probabilities makes coincidence inconceivavle as an evasion of
the issue.
9. The Comment must be expressed in terms intelligible to
the minds of men of average education, and independent of
abstruse technicalities.
I0. The Comment must be pertinent to the problems of our own
tiems, 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.
II. 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 fo 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 compse 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 manking in the perfection of its
plenary propriety.
Releasing us from every restrition 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 teh 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 repect 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, incomparabley 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 and 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 qught 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.
------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII
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. Horuse 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.*1* 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 asede 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*1* said was mininterpreted 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 ohter 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.
FOOTNOTES
PAGE 41
1) In the Book of the Law we find in the 3rd chapter and the
39th to the 41st verse an instruction to issue a book to say how
this Revelation was obtained, with certain details with regard to
the style in which it is to done.
It has hitherto been impossible to comply with this injunc-
tion, although an attempt was made in "The Temple of Solomon the
King". We now proceed to do so; the subject divides itself into
Eight Chapters.----[Ed.]
PAGE 43
1) This curious trait may perhaps be evidence of his poetical
feeling, his passion for the bizarre and mysterious, or even of
his aptitude for the Hebrew Qabalah. It may also be interpreted
as a clue to his magical ancestry.
2) The first man to beat him was H. E. Atkins, British Chess
Champion (Amateur) for many years.
PAGE 45
1) Swinburne similarly refused to be examined in Classics at
Oxford on the ground that he knew more than the examiners.
2) In Chess also he has beaten many International Masters, and
ranks on the Continent as a Minor Master himself. But he cannot
be relied upon to win against a second-rate player in a Club
Match.
PAGE 47
1) Written in I920 e.v.: these records may no longer stand.
PAGE 52
1) See Part I of Book 4 for a description of this, and an expla-
nation of the difficulty of the task, even in the case of one
whose powers of concentrated attention, in the ordinary sense of
the phrase, are highly developed.
2) He is the author of commentaries on the Gospels of Matthew
and John, which he explains as containing many of the aphorisms
of Yoga.
PAGE 53
1) See Part I of Book 4 for full descriptions, and Equinox for
some of FRATER PERDURABO'S records of these practices.
PAGE 54
1) See Part I of Book 4, and Equinox Vol. I, No. IV.
2) An account of this journey is given by Dr. Jacot-Guillarmod:
"Six mois dans l'Himalaya." His own story is in "The Spirit of
Solitude" (The Confessions of Aleister Crowley) Vol. II.
PAGE 55
1) The Mystic Name of an Adept of this degree is not to be
divulged without special reasons for so doing.
PAGE 56
1) See the Equinox "The Temple of Solomon the King" for a fairly
full account of these various matters. The "Master" was the late
S.L. Mathers.
PAGE 58
1) An account of these matters, in part, is to be found in the
Equinox, Vol. I, No. VIII, and in his own poem "Aha !"
PAGE 6I
1) 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.
2) Projected by Fuller as no more than a record of the personal
attainment of Aleister Crowley.
PAGE 68
1) As a devotee of Yoga, "Union," would have done.
2) Given in Liber Samekh: see "Magick."
3) Thoth, the Egytian God of Wisdom and Magick.
4) Horus.
5) The Sun.
PAGE 69
1) More probably a blind.
PAGE 70
1) I.e. Wednesday.
2) See "Magick" Appendix Liber CXX.
3) Thursday.
4) Friday.
5) Saturday.
6) Sunday.
PAGE 7I
1) See Equinox Vol. I, No. II, the Neophyte Ritual of the G.D.
PAGE 73
1) 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.
PAGE 75
1) (The father's name. The method of spelling shows that he was
a foreigner. There is no clue to the vocalisation).
PAGE 76
1) 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.
PAGE 77
1) "Monday. The Sun enters Aries." i.e. Springs begins.
2) Tuesday.
3) Wednesday.
PAGE 86
1) But see the miraculous events connected with "The Revival of
Magick" described in Magick pp. 257-260, where he is shewn as 93.
2) I.e. the messenger of God to Man.
3) The motto of Fra. P. as a Magister Templi 8[degree] = 3[?];
He used it in His office of giving out the "Official Books of
A.A." to the word in the Equinox.
4) J.F.C. Fuller.
PAGE 94
1) 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 of-
fered for any repetitious of statements made in previous chap-
ters.
PAGE 96
1) Written in I920, e.v.
PAGE 97
1) 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.
PAGE 98
1) In preparation.
PAGE I0I
1) 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.
PAGE I02
1) The "magical numbers" of the Sun are, according to tradition,
6, (6 x 6) 36, (666 [divided by] III, and [epsilon] (I-36) 666.
PAGE I03
1) Shin 300 Teht 9 Aleph I Lamed 30 He 5 Yod I0 Mem 40. Note
that 395 being the corrections required ! Note also the 3I and
the 93 in this value of [pi].
PAGE I07
1) See Liber LXV, I, Equinox III, and Liber VII Equinox III, II,
especially.
PAGE II2
1) Church of England. I confidently supposed that Anglicansim
was a peculiarly violent form of Devil-Worship, and was in de-
spair at being unable to discover where the Abomination came in.
PAGE II3
1) It broke out during my absence (I906), and made it impossible
to resume the previous relations.
PAGE II4
1) See previous chapter.
PAGE II5
1) I invoked them by the Air section of Liber Samekh, and the
appropriate God-names, Pentagrams, & c.
PAGE II7
1) The effect was thus as if the language were "English-in-
itself," without any background, such as exists when one hears
any one human speak it, and enables one to assign all sorts of
attributes to the speaker.
PAGE II8
1) This impression seems to have been a sort of visualization in
the imagination. It is not uncommon for me to receive intima-
tions in this manner.
2) I do not necessarily mean that he is a member of human socie-
ty in quite the normal way. He might rather be able to form for
Himself a human body as circumstances indicate, from the appro-
priate Elements, and dissolve it when the occasion for its use is
past. I say this because I have been permitted to see Him in
recent years in a variety of physical appearances, all equally
"material" in the sense in which my own body is so.
PAGE I26
1) The following passage, to the end of the chapter, refers to
the Commentary ; whereas the Comment itself is printed, above,
with the text. This Comment is the really inspired message,
cutting as it does all the difficulties with a single keen
stroke. We have deciede, however, to retain the passage for its
essential interest and as a preliminary to the publication of the
Commentary---Ed.
PAGE I27
1) I note that A Ch D is "his child" without reference to The
Scarlet Woman ; whereas the Child who is to be "mightier than all
the kings of the earth" is to be bred from Her, without reference
to the Beast. There is no indication that these two children are
not identical ; but there is none that they are. Hans "Carter" (
or Hirsig) might perfectly well be the latter of these children.
PAGE I35
1) Indeed, it was not until his Word became conterminous with
Himself and His Universe that all alien ideas lost their meaning
for Him.
PAGE I36
1) Consult Equinox III 2 "Jesus," a study of the New Testment by
The Beast 666, where it is proven that "Jesus" is a composite
figure of several incompatible elements. There is therefore no
"he" in the case. The Gospels are a crude compilation of Gnosti-
cism, Judaism, Essenism, Hinduism, Buddhism, with the watch-words
of various sacerdotal-political cults, thrown at random into a
hotch-potch of the distroted legends of the persons of the Pagan
Pantheon, all glued with a semblance of unity in the interests of
sustaining the shaken fabric of lacal faiths against the assults
of the consolidation of civilization, and of applying the cooper-
ative principle to businesses whose throats were being cut by
competition.