Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of Law)

[cyberdemon]

So, I just went through Crowley's Liber AL vel Legis and here are my views on it.

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

Sigh. That's beyond silly.

[Eremita]

Agreed. 100% horse shit.

The fact that he willingly wrote so much nonsense like that is what turns a lot of people off Crowley. It's a terrible shame, because at his best his words are extremely insightful i.e. when he was actually writing instead of dramatising or making jokes that only he would find amusing. I think he actually came to regret doing this towards the end of his life, but that's another story.

[cyberdemon]

Agreed. 100% horse shit.

The fact that he willingly wrote so much nonsense like that is what turns a lot of people off Crowley. It's a terrible shame, because at his best his words are extremely insightful i.e. when he was actually writing instead of dramatising or making jokes that only he would find amusing. I think he actually came to regret doing this towards the end of his life, but that's another story.

Meh. He basically invoked three (four if you count the middle-man) different demons, two who each basically outlined two completely different things (cool stuff on their own) and then somehow the third attempts to put them both together.. I had high expectations before reading AL vel Legis and then it turns out it's nothing that special.

[Candy Ray]

I must admit to not having read the book version of Liber Al Vel Legis, however I did listen fairly recently to an online reading of it. What struck me was that it isn't a manual telling you how to live your life and how to practise magick. It also isn't a treatise by a guardian angel. It is a message from an ancient Egyptian dark god saying that he would like to be worshipped again in the present day, and giving instructions for how to carry out the worship. So it's a channeled message from a moody entity, just like the ones I can do and the ones that many other people can do as well. Does anyone agree with me that this is what it is?

[cyberdemon]

I must admit to not having read the book version of Liber Al Vel Legis, however I did listen fairly recently to an online reading of it. What struck me was that it isn't a manual telling you how to live your life and how to practise magick. It also isn't a treatise by a guardian angel. It is a message from an ancient Egyptian dark god saying that he would like to be worshipped again in the present day, and giving instructions for how to carry out the worship. So it's a channeled message from a moody entity, just like the ones I can do and the ones that many other people can do as well. Does anyone agree with me that this is what it is?

Three of them, in fact. Nuit sounded rather desperate, Hadit seemed angry and resentful and Ra-Hoor-Khuit was just quite meh about it. Aiwass the middle-man didn't even say anything.

At least, we have two Moderator Class demons identified - Nuit with her job of maintaining space and Hadit with his job of preserving a point of reference to begin denoting dimensions from. I could perhaps try to find out if there are other demons with the same jobs, parallel/alternates perhaps, in the Goetia or the Abrahamic trilogy's list of demons, but either way I think this is the only good that's come out of Crowley's invocation of the four demons.

(and before anyone gets silly, by demon I refer to most higher-beings below the Admin)

[Candy Ray]

I'm sure you're right and there are three of them, and I didn't get it clear in my mind how many of them there were.

I've always thought that in Christian countries we are brought up to think ancient Egyptian religion was evil- as in this Beast 666 image that Crowley was fostering- Bible stories about Moses and so on. It''s easy to take an over-simple view of it (I certainly did when I was a schoolchild) whereas in reality there were a vast number of different types of religion in Egypt during different historical periods. Isis for example was often worshipped as a benevolent mother goddess, although she had darker aspects as well and different sects would have emphasized different aspects of her. With some of the modern groups that are descended from Crowley I think the Egyptian gods are happy to have an opportunity to express themselves and be heard by us, whether they are lighter or darker aspects. For example there is that lovely text Liber Pennae Praenumbra, book of Maat .

[cyberdemon]

Fair point. In that case it's even more of an overreaction by Crowley into calling it a "book of law"..

[Maya The Generator]

I love Crowley works but I can't look at them as on any other author. He is just not sure of his feelings, in constant fight within him. In his last years he "began" to stabilize if you can even say that about Alistar.

But, who know. That is just my feeling.

Praise Teh Sun \[T]/

[Hadit]

The comment may be ignored as Crowley likewise ignored the orders of the speakers by perverting the text. He added, changed things, etc. Once Frater Achad wanted to reorder the system, thus qurstioning Crowley's attainment, Crowley added the comment. It has nothing to do with the book or Thelema, it's just a nothing egotistical Crowley melt down. The dude should be as important to Thelemites as radio is, he's not the point.

[Hadit]

Agreed. 100% horse shit.

The fact that he willingly wrote so much nonsense like that is what turns a lot of people off Crowley. It's a terrible shame, because at his best his words are extremely insightful i.e. when he was actually writing instead of dramatising or making jokes that only he would find amusing. I think he actually came to regret doing this towards the end of his life, but that's another story.

Meh. He basically invoked three (four if you count the middle-man) different demons, two who each basically outlined two completely different things (cool stuff on their own) and then somehow the third attempts to put them both together.. I had high expectations before reading AL vel Legis and then it turns out it's nothing that special.

The first two books are parts of a whole with the third as added symbolism. How do you get this?

[Hadit]

I must admit to not having read the book version of Liber Al Vel Legis, however I did listen fairly recently to an online reading of it. What struck me was that it isn't a manual telling you how to live your life and how to practise magick. It also isn't a treatise by a guardian angel. It is a message from an ancient Egyptian dark god saying that he would like to be worshipped again in the present day, and giving instructions for how to carry out the worship. So it's a channeled message from a moody entity, just like the ones I can do and the ones that many other people can do as well. Does anyone agree with me that this is what it is?

Crowley actually seems to have contacted an extremely ancient group of forces. For one, they aren't demons but better described as literary devices for the speaker Aiwass/Set. It's the entire "outside" current, as in those chaotic forces beyond even our gods, who existed before the cosmos. Hell, Crowley filled the role of a priest of Khonsu, child of the Hidden God.

[Hadit]

I must admit to not having read the book version of Liber Al Vel Legis, however I did listen fairly recently to an online reading of it. What struck me was that it isn't a manual telling you how to live your life and how to practise magick. It also isn't a treatise by a guardian angel. It is a message from an ancient Egyptian dark god saying that he would like to be worshipped again in the present day, and giving instructions for how to carry out the worship. So it's a channeled message from a moody entity, just like the ones I can do and the ones that many other people can do as well. Does anyone agree with me that this is what it is?

Three of them, in fact. Nuit sounded rather desperate, Hadit seemed angry and resentful and Ra-Hoor-Khuit was just quite meh about it. Aiwass the middle-man didn't even say anything.

At least, we have two Moderator Class demons identified - Nuit with her job of maintaining space and Hadit with his job of preserving a point of reference to begin denoting dimensions from. I could perhaps try to find out if there are other demons with the same jobs, parallel/alternates perhaps, in the Goetia or the Abrahamic trilogy's list of demons, but either way I think this is the only good that's come out of Crowley's invocation of the four demons.

(and before anyone gets silly, by demon I refer to most higher-beings below the Admin)

I'm curious as to how you got THAT interpretation, hahaha. Of course there are matching deities to Nuit, though not this version of Hadit/Horus.

[Hadit]

I love Crowley works but I can't look at them as on any other author. He is just not sure of his feelings, in constant fight within him. In his last years he "began" to stabilize if you can even say that about Alistar.

But, who know. That is just my feeling.

Praise Teh Sun \[T]/

Hm? Oh ho! Forgive me, I was absorbed in thought.

This is definitely the case. He was always a strange one, mixed with his failure at ego death after AL, and fueled by drugs.

[cyberdemon]

I knew you'd be showing up sooner or later..

The first two books are parts of a whole with the third as added symbolism. How do you get this?

If that's so, it's all symbolism making the three invocations even more unrelated or perhaps even stuff made up by Crowley. That's no good.

Crowley actually seems to have contacted an extremely ancient group of forces. For one, they aren't demons but better described as literary devices for the speaker Aiwass/Set. It's the entire "outside" current, as in those chaotic forces beyond even our gods, who existed before the cosmos. Hell, Crowley filled the role of a priest of Khonsu, child of the Hidden God.

Programmers who lent the Admin code to write the Universe with?

I'm curious as to how you got THAT interpretation, hahaha. Of course there are matching deities to Nuit, though not this version of Hadit/Horus.

Which one? The one about demons having jobs like maintaining the universe's forces? It's easy.
It's silly. If at first they're different images of Set, then there are other matching dieties, but not this version.. What are you getting at? Of course they're all different images of the Singularity, that's how it works. Now, what makes you say Had-it is Horus? May be an image, but is it the same?

Hm? Oh ho! Forgive me, I was absorbed in thought.

This is definitely the case. He was always a strange one, mixed with his failure at ego death after AL, and fueled by drugs.

I need to read about Crowley's life. He seems to have led a very unsuccessful one despite all his work..

[Hadit]

I knew you'd be showing up sooner or later..

What's that supposed to mean?

The first two books are parts of a whole with the third as added symbolism. How do you get this?

If that's so, it's all symbolism making the three invocations even more unrelated or perhaps even stuff made up by Crowley. That's no good.

That's not even close to what I said.

Crowley actually seems to have contacted an extremely ancient group of forces. For one, they aren't demons but better described as literary devices for the speaker Aiwass/Set. It's the entire "outside" current, as in those chaotic forces beyond even our gods, who existed before the cosmos. Hell, Crowley filled the role of a priest of Khonsu, child of the Hidden God.

Programmers who lent the Admin code to write the Universe with?

Admins who tried to explain the code to the best person they could get their hands on. Sure Crowley is massively flawed but who better to receive the work? Anti-christian, non-monotheist, no concerns with paganism, already initiated into a magical order....

I'm curious as to how you got THAT interpretation, hahaha. Of course there are matching deities to Nuit, though not this version of Hadit/Horus.

Which one? The one about demons having jobs like maintaining the universe's forces? It's easy.
It's silly. If at first they're different images of Set, then there are other matching dieties, but not this version.. What are you getting at? Of course they're all different images of the Singularity, that's how it works. Now, what makes you say Had-it is Horus? May be an image, but is it the same?

Nuit is simply the all, which appears in some form in most religions and all mysticism. Horus, on the other hand, can't have any equivalent for two reasons. First off, he is all possible points of all possible sizes in Nuit, the flame shining in the center of all. He is a compliment of Nuit and further explains the nature of the All. We know Hadit is Horus because the image on the Steele of Revealing is of Horus of Behdet and was simply mistranslated as "Hadit" at the time.

Hm? Oh ho! Forgive me, I was absorbed in thought.

This is definitely the case. He was always a strange one, mixed with his failure at ego death after AL, and fueled by drugs.

I need to read about Crowley's life. He seems to have led a very unsuccessful one despite all his work..

Why? Crowley isn't very important.

[cyberdemon]

What's that supposed to mean?

Your username!

That's not even close to what I said.

What did you mean then?

Programmers who lent the Admin code to write the Universe with?

Admins who tried to explain the code to the best person they could get their hands on. Sure Crowley is massively flawed but who better to receive the work? Anti-christian, non-monotheist, no concerns with paganism, already initiated into a magical order....

Why? Crowley isn't very important.

Uh, well. You're kind of contradicting yourself. He was obviously important enough to have received the knowledge he did, at least.

Nuit is simply the all, which appears in some form in most religions and all mysticism. Horus, on the other hand, can't have any equivalent for two reasons. First off, he is all possible points of all possible sizes in Nuit, the flame shining in the center of all. He is a compliment of Nuit and further explains the nature of the All. We know Hadit is Horus because the image on the Steele of Revealing is of Horus of Behdet and was simply mistranslated as "Hadit" at the time.

Ah I see, that makes more sense.

[Hadit]

That's not even close to what I said.

What did you mean then?

You said "If that's so, it's all symbolism making the three invocations even more unrelated or perhaps even stuff made up by Crowley. That's no good.". I don't understand why. All I said was that the first two books are halves of a whole and not contradictions, and the third book is about the symbolism of Thelema. The third speaker even calls himself the "visible object of worship" in AL III:22.

Programmers who lent the Admin code to write the Universe with?

Admins who tried to explain the code to the best person they could get their hands on. Sure Crowley is massively flawed but who better to receive the work? Anti-christian, non-monotheist, no concerns with paganism, already initiated into a magical order....

Why? Crowley isn't very important.

Uh, well. You're kind of contradicting yourself. He was obviously important enough to have received the knowledge he did, at least.[/quote]

Importance has nothing to do with Crowley receiving the message, it is simply that Crowley was a usable tool. For one, Khonsu is a deity coming out of Ancient Egyptian religion - in other words it is paganism. Egypt was (and is) an Islamic state in 1904 and for a long while, where deities of the ancient world would be seen as demons at best. Yet Crowley was not a native to the land. Further, Crowley had vigorously rejected the religions of the world, especially Christianity, meaning that he would see no heresy or evil in such a message as AL. Even further, Crowley had already had intense magical training through the Golden Dawn, making him even more capable of receiving the message.

[ne1]

Does anyone know if anyone has done a linguistic comparison of the language of the Book of the Law and that of Crowley's other writings? If "Aiwass" was Crowley's own HGA as he seemed to think himself, then it would make sense that it would have his own flair and has some of the same poetic tones as his poetry. But often in translations and adaptations of texts, the language or sentence structures of the original are reflected in the translation. I'd wondered if the same could be true here (?). Since it is not supposed to be talked about ( ), have such sorts of things have been studied before about it?

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

Finding and downloading Motta's 1975 commentary was helpful because it confirmed (non-authoritatively of course) my suspicions on the whole thing being a stretch of what we'd presently consider Qabalisms.

I think if there's one thing in it that I don't quite gel with though it's 'The khabs is in the khu, not the khu in the khabs'. Unless I'm not thinking this all the way through superposition and wave-function collapse seem to suggest against that, ie. space-time as a criterion or limiting variable, perfect analogy for Nuit and also perfect analogy for her as Binah and form-giver but it still seems strongly suggestive that the khu is in the khabs is in the khu - Nuit works as a condenser, not necessarily the raw beginning of things.

[ne1]

Thank you for the recommendation. I'll look that one up.

I think if there's one thing in it that I don't quite gel with though it's 'The khabs is in the khu, not the khu in the khabs'. Unless I'm not thinking this all the way through superposition and wave-function collapse seem to suggest against that, ie. space-time as a criterion or limiting variable, perfect analogy for Nuit and also perfect analogy for her as Binah and form-giver but it still seems strongly suggestive that the khu is in the khabs is in the khu - Nuit works as a condenser, not necessarily the raw beginning of things.

I agree with your interpretation of Khu and Khabs. Binah is not Kether. I've also thought about space-time and movement. Nuit could be an aspect or manifestation of the force. Being a singular being (not the overall creative force itself or the plural of "elohim") has the disadvantage of not being the full force of source, but has the advantage of being in space time, below kether, and thus that force is not static but in motion, or at least about to be. So Kether is the force, Binah is the will moving force. Unless I'm reading too much into this....

One thing I have noticed about BoL is that it is like double entendre. There seems to be whole interpretations possible (and perhaps even called for by the symbolism of the text) that correlate but can be thought of a completely different philosophies which can contradict. Considering Crowley's love of jokes and allowing "fools" to be misled if they wanted to be, it seems like something he would appreciate about the book. I've been reading a couple of biographies of him (I haven't finished them yet) and BoL seems to have effected him deeply. And haunted him even when he tried to deny it. Interesting...

[Hadit]

Finding and downloading Motta's 1975 commentary was helpful because it confirmed (non-authoritatively of course) my suspicions on the whole thing being a stretch of what we'd presently consider Qabalisms.

I think if there's one thing in it that I don't quite gel with though it's 'The khabs is in the khu, not the khu in the khabs'. Unless I'm not thinking this all the way through superposition and wave-function collapse seem to suggest against that, ie. space-time as a criterion or limiting variable, perfect analogy for Nuit and also perfect analogy for her as Binah and form-giver but it still seems strongly suggestive that the khu is in the khabs is in the khu - Nuit works as a condenser, not necessarily the raw beginning of things.

Khu is like the divine spark of man that returns to the heavens (stars) after death, whereas Khabs essentially means "star". The stars in the heavens, of course, were the gods. So, the gods are in all of us, all things have divinity.

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

I guess I might have been reading too much big cosmology into it.

This was the Class B note I saw associated with Liber Al Vel Legis 1:8

Khabs, 'star', or 'Inmost Light', is the original individual, eternal essence in us. The Khu is the magical garment
which it weaves for itself, a 'form' for this Being Beyond Form, by use of which it can gain experience through selfconsciousness, as explained in the note to verses 2 and 3. The Khu is the first veil, far subtler than mind or body, and truer; for its symbolic shape depends on the nature of its Star.

Why are we told that the Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs? Did we then suppose the converse? I think we are warned against the idea of a Pleroma, a flame of which we are Sparks, and to which we return when we 'attain'. That would indeed make the whole curse of separate existence ridiculous, a senseless and inexcusable folly. It would throw us back on the dilemma of Manicheism. The idea of incarnations "perfecting" a thing originally perfect by definition is imbecile. The only sane solution is as given previously, to suppose that the Perfect enjoys experience of (apparent) Imperfection. (There are deeper resolutions of this problem appropriate to the highest grades of initiation; but the above should suffice the
average intelligence.)

I'll admit, the longer I study Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, Martinism, Thelema, the more I'm starting to feel like the lines between pantheistic/panentheistic monism and Manichaean/Christian Gnostic/Zoroastrian duailsm start getting quite blurry in the center. On one hand there's electromagnetic schools of thought that seem to shake out into a superior/inferior or primary/derivative orientation of one class to the other - all of that starts showing a Manichean finger print really quick. On the other, just the suggestion of the need for a Great Work seems like light-gray monism that flirts with that center-line and just needs a few more tenets to cross it.

It sounds like he's saying at a minimum that mystic reintegration can't be the goal of why we're here, Rev. Ann Davies used to broach the answer that we've always been there, never left, create our troubles with perfect expertise, and are just bringing our focus back up the tree if we're attaining to adepthood. This seems to be where even talking about this stuff and trying to hold it in a stable or logical framework starts feeling like brain surgery or rocket science (maybe I should start reading some of Jack Parson's works afterall on that note...). I know that in A.'.A.'. it's generally the same path and ideas as the GD, perhaps with even firmer emphasis on the KnC w HGA, and it makes me wonder just what his thoughts were - ie. whether we were wholly unitary forever or whether we expand back out to the full size of God but keep a certain type of our own resonant and unique identity within It. He seemed to be arguing against the idea that we 'melt back' in the fundamental sense.

What I was saying about Nuit and Hadit, I'd make a correction to what I said earlier - I THINK at least that I can see that if Nuit is Binah and Hadit is Chokmah that her splitting 'for love's sake' would be the splitting of Kether into its masculine and feminine aspects but 0 = 2 seems to almost suggest against the existence of Kether or at least positing it as a part of Ain Soph, and if Hadit were a manifestation of Tiphareth, thus Nuit the supreme Goddess with no equal male counterpart, it would capstone the Tree of Life with Binah. One thing that threw me with Hadit as Chokmah was that he was seen nested in Binah which, from the inside of Binah, one would see the filed-down limited forms of Chokmah like pin-holes in a shoebox, just that as far as I always read it - or at least read it at my earlierst learnings on Kabbalah/Qabalah - each sephira N+1 is smaller than and circumscribed within its parent sephira N so that if Hadit's manifestations could be nested in Nuit if Hadit was Chokmah but at the same time this would mean that ultimately the fullness of Hadit would circumscribe Nuit.

I know a lot of things are left open, ambiguous, and associative in the Book of the Law for the benefit each person doing their own contemplation and exploration of it, just that for me - as I mentioned above - it lead to some pretty heavy paradoxes which may not at all be unclearable but I'm not sure what I'd do with them at this point.

[Hadit]

AL I makes it clear that Nuit represents the mystical concept of "the all". This means that Nuit encompasses everything on the tree of life, everything in existence and all possibilities. Hadit is one-pointed experience, which would best be described on the ToL as Malkuth.

Give me a bit, I'll get on my laptop and try to explain it with references.

[Hadit]

So according to the Book of the Law, Nuit represents the mystical concept of "The All" and Hadit represents any point of any size within Nuit. In Crowleyan/Orthodox Thelema, Babalon is the entity associated with Binah. For me, I use Ma'at for Binah and Thoth for Chockmah. The understanding an feminine aspect of Binah works really well with the idea of Maat as an underlying order to the universe. It's how things are. Wisdom is how to use that understanding, and Thoth works well for it as the creator of the Order that is Maat.

Anyways, let's take a look at what AL says about Hadit and Nuit. AL I:11 says "These are fools that men adore; both their Gods & their men are fools." Essentially each sphere on the Tree of Life is an emanation, an aspect of God. Nuit clearly separates herself from Gods, in the case of the tree of life differentiating herself from all of the Sephirot. AL I:13 says "I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy." All the Sephirot essentially are above us and in us, they are aspects of god that make us and the world around us. Nuit has this attribute shared by all Sephirot, suggesting she is not any specific one. AL I:21 says "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." Not only do we see Nuit separated from the Gods that are the sephirot, but Hadit as well.

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

Got it now and thank you for the elaboration.

On a side note with Babalon I wrote a thread on her recently; it's interesting that in one sense she seems like the perfect fit for a western rendition of the Eastern Saturnine and kundalini goddess Kali and at the same time she seems to be something like a Maat-Hathor fusion (somewhat like Ishtar and Astarte are Mars-Venus fusions but my experience of running into what I thought was her archetype seemed to be like the wielder of the sword of exacting truth and reason with Hathor's sense of liberality and wit driving its application). It makes me wonder just what kinds of linkages there are between Binah and the Geburah/Netzach axis, whether or not I was actually encountering Her current proper it seems like there's something of a reinforcing 3-5-7 relationship.