The Book of the Law
Encyclopedia
Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema
Thelema
Thelema is a religious philosophy that was established, defined and developed by the early 20th century British writer and ceremonial magician, Aleister Crowley. He believed himself to be the prophet of a new age, the Æon of Horus, based upon a religious experience that he had in Egypt in 1904...

, written by Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...

 in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.

Liber AL vel Legis contains three chapters, each of which was written down in one hour, beginning at noon, on 8 April, 9 April, and 10 April. Crowley says that the author was an entity named Aiwass
Aiwass
Aiwass is the name of the being who Aleister Crowley claimed dictated The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema, to him on April 8, 9, and 10th in 1904.-The dictation:...

, whom he later referred to as his personal Holy Guardian Angel
Holy Guardian Angel
The term Holy Guardian Angel was possibly coined either by Abraham of Würzburg, a French Cabalist who wrote a book on ceremonial magick during the 15th century or Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, the founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, who later translated this manuscript and...

 (analagous to but not identical with "Higher Self"). Biographer Lawrence Sutin quotes private diaries that fit this story, and writes that "if ever Crowley uttered the truth of his relation to the Book," his public account accurately describes what he remembered on this point.

The original title of the book was Liber L vel Legis. Crowley retitled it Liber AL vel Legis in 1921, when he also gave the handwritten manuscript the title Liber XXXI. The book is often referred to simply as Liber AL, Liber Legis or just AL, though technically the latter two refer only to the manuscript.

The summons

According to Crowley, the story began on 16 March 1904, when he tried to "shew the Sylphs" by means of a ritual to his wife, Rose Kelly. Although she could see nothing, she did seem to enter into a light trance and repeatedly said, "They're waiting for you!" Since Rose had no interest in magic or mysticism, he took little interest. However, on the 18th, after invoking Thoth
Thoth
Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...

 (the god of knowledge), she mentioned Horus
Horus
Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...

 by name as the one waiting for him. Crowley, still skeptical, asked her numerous questions about Horus, which she answered accurately — without having any prior study of the subject. Crowley also gives a different chronology, in which an invocation of Horus preceded the questioning. Lawrence Sutin says this ritual described Horus in detail, and could have given Rose the answers to her husband's questions. The final proof was Rose's identification of Horus in the stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu, then housed in the Bulaq Museum (inventory number 666) but now in the Egyptian Museum
Egyptian Museum
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display, the remainder in storerooms....

 of Cairo (number A 9422). The stela was subsequently known to practitioners of Thelema as the "Stele of Revealing."

On 20 March, Crowley invoked Horus, “with great success.” Between 23 March and 8 April, Crowley had the hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...

 on the stele translated. Also, Rose revealed that her “informant” was not Horus himself, but his messenger, Aiwass
Aiwass
Aiwass is the name of the being who Aleister Crowley claimed dictated The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema, to him on April 8, 9, and 10th in 1904.-The dictation:...

. Finally, on 7 April, Rose gave Crowley his instructions—for three days he was to enter the “temple” and write down what he heard between noon and 1:00 p.m.

The writing

Crowley said he wrote The Book of the Law on 8, 9 and 10 April 1904 (though his diaries and published accounts alternatively list April 1 and April 7, 8 and 9) between the hours of noon and 1:00 pm, in the flat where he and his new wife were staying for their honeymoon, which he described as being near the Boulak Museum in a fashionable European quarter of Cairo, let by the firm Congdon & Co. The apartment was on the ground floor, and the "temple" was the drawing room.

Crowley described the encounter in detail in The Equinox of the Gods
The Equinox of the Gods (Crowley)
The Equinox of the Gods is a book first published in 1936 detailing the events and circumstances leading up to Aleister Crowley's transcription of The Book of the Law, the central text of Thelema....

, saying that as he sat at his desk in Cairo, the voice of Aiwass came from over his left shoulder in the furthest corner of the room. This voice is described as passionate and hurried, and was "of deep timbre, musical and expressive, its tones solemn, voluptuous, tender, fierce or aught else as suited the moods of the message. Not bass—perhaps a rich tenor or baritone." Further, the voice was devoid of "native or foreign accent".

Crowley also got a "strong impression" of the speaker's general appearance. Aiwass had a body composed of "fine matter," which had a gauze-like transparency. Further, 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."

Despite initially writing that it was an "excellent example of automatic writing
Automatic writing
Automatic writing or psychography is writing which the writer states to be produced from a subconscious and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.-History:...

," Crowley later insisted that it was not just automatic writing (though the writing included aspects of this, since when Crowley tried to stop writing he was compelled to continue. The writing also recorded Crowley's own thoughts). Rather he said that the experience was exactly like an actual voice speaking to him. This is evidenced by several errors about which the scribe actually had to inquire. He also admits to the possibility that Aiwass may be identified with his own subconscious, although he thought this was unlikely:

Of course I wrote them, ink on paper, in the material sense; but they are not My words, unless Aiwaz be taken to be no more than my subconscious self, or some part of it: in that case, my conscious self being ignorant of the Truth in the Book and hostile to most of the ethics and philosophy of the Book, Aiwaz is a severely suppressed part of me. Such a theory would further imply that I am, unknown to myself, possessed of all sorts of praeternatural knowledge and power.


In his introduction to his edition of The Law is for All
The Law is for All
The Law is for All is a collection of Aleister Crowley's commentary on The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema. It was edited to be a primer of sorts into Crowley's general interpretations about the sometimes opaque text of Liber Legis...

, Crowley's former secretary Israel Regardie
Israel Regardie
Israel Regardie, born Francis Israel Regudy was an occultist and writer, author of books on the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.-Early life:...

 stated:


It really makes little difference in the long run whether The Book of the Law was dictated to [Crowley] by a preterhuman intelligence named Aiwass or whether it stemmed from the creative deeps of Aleister Crowley. The book was written. And he became the mouthpiece for the Zeitgeist, accurately expressing the intrinsic nature of our time as no one else has done to date.

Changes to the manuscript

The final version of Liber Legis includes text that did not appear in the original writing, including many small changes to spelling. In several cases, stanzas from the Stela of Revealing were inserted within the text. For example, chapter 1, page 2, line 9 was written as "V.1. of Spell called the Joy" and was replaced with:


Above, the gemmed azure is
The naked splendour of Nuit
Nuit
Nuit is the speaker in the first Chapter of The Book of the Law, the sacred text of Thelema written or received in 1904 by Aleister Crowley....

;

She bends in ecstasy to kiss
The secret ardours of Hadit.

The winged globe, the starry blue,
Are mine, O Ankh-af-na-khonsu
Ankh-af-na-khonsu
Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i , also known as Ankh-af-na-khonsu, was a priest of the Egyptian god Mentu who lived in Thebes during the 25th and 26th dynasty . He was the son of Bes-en-Mut I and Ta-neshet...

!



On page 6 of chapter 1, the following is in the original manuscript:

And the sign shall be my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the unfragmentary non-atomic fact of my universality. along with a note: Write this in whiter words But go forth on.


This was later changed to:

And the sign shall be my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the omnipresence of my body. (AL I:26)


Again in chapter 1, on page 19, Crowley writes, (Lost 1 phrase) The shape of my star is—. Later, it was Rose who filled in the lost phrase:

The Five Pointed Star, with a Circle in the Middle, & the circle is Red. (AL I:60)


Chapter 2 has very few changes or corrections. Chapter 3 has a few spelling changes, and includes large chunks inserted from Crowley's paraphrase of The Stele of Revealing.

The phrase “Force of Coph Nia”, which is found in chapter 3, on page 64 (verse 72), was filled in by Rose Kelly
Rose Edith Kelly
Rose Edith Kelly married noted author, magician and occultist Aleister Crowley in 1903. In 1904, she aided him in the Cairo Working that led to the reception of The Book of the Law, on which Crowley based much of his philosophy and religion, Thelema.After their divorce in 1909, she married Dr...

 because that place in the manuscript had been left incomplete as not having been properly heard by Crowley during the supposed dictation. An influential theory proposes that Coph Nia is actually an editor for Ain Soph, the Cabalistic phrase for Infinity, which makes sense in context.

Interpretation of Liber Legis

Thanks in large part to The Comment, interpretation of the often cryptic text is generally considered a matter for the individual reader. Crowley wrote about Liber AL in great detail throughout the remainder of his life, attempting to decipher its mysteries.

The general method that Crowley used to interpret the obscurities of Liber AL was the Qabalah, especially its numerological method of gematria
Gematria
Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase, in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other, or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to a person's age, the calendar year, or the like...

. He writes, "Many such cases of double entendre, paronomasia in one language or another, sometimes two at once, numerical-literal puzzles, and even (on one occasion) an illuminating connexion of letters in various lines by a slashing scratch, will be found in the Qabalistic section of the Commentary." In Magick Without Tears
Magick Without Tears
Magick Without Tears, a series of letters, was the last book written by English occultist Aleister Crowley , although it was not published until after his death. It was written in the mid-1940s and published in 1954 with a foreword by its editor, Karl Germer.-Summary:The book consists of 80 letters...

he wrote:

Now there was enough comprehensible at the time to assure me that the Author of the Book knew at least as much Qabalah as I did: I discovered subsequently more than enough to make it certain without error that he knew a very great deal more, and that of an altogether higher order, than I knew; finally, such glimmerings of light as time and desperate study have thrown on many other obscure passages, to leave no doubt whatever in my mind that he is indeed the supreme Qabalist of all time.

The speakers

Although the "messenger" of AL was Aiwass, Aiwass presents the Book as an expression of three god-forms of the three chapters, Nuit
Nuit
Nuit is the speaker in the first Chapter of The Book of the Law, the sacred text of Thelema written or received in 1904 by Aleister Crowley....

, Hadit
Hadit
Hadit refers to a Thelemic version of the Egyptian god Horus. Hadit is the principal speaker of the second chapter of The Book of the Law .- Descriptions :...

, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit. The first chapter is spoken by Nuit, the Egyptian goddess of the night sky, called the Queen of Space. Crowley calls her the "Lady of the Starry Heaven, who is also Matter in its deepest metaphysical sense, who is the infinite in whom all we live and move and have our being."

This chapter also introduces:
  • Ankh-af-na-khonsu
    Ankh-af-na-khonsu
    Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i , also known as Ankh-af-na-khonsu, was a priest of the Egyptian god Mentu who lived in Thebes during the 25th and 26th dynasty . He was the son of Bes-en-Mut I and Ta-neshet...

     (the historical priest that created the Stele of Revealing
    Stèle of Revealing
    The Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i is a painted, wooden offering stele, discovered in 1858 at the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Dayr al-Bahri by François Auguste Ferdinand Mariette...

    )
  • The Beast
  • The Scarlet Woman
    Babalon
    Babalon—also known as The Scarlet Woman, The Great Mother, or the Mother of Abominations—is a goddess found in the mystical system of Thelema, which was established in 1904 with English author and occultist Aleister Crowley's writing of The Book of the Law...

    , also known as Babalon
    Babalon
    Babalon—also known as The Scarlet Woman, The Great Mother, or the Mother of Abominations—is a goddess found in the mystical system of Thelema, which was established in 1904 with English author and occultist Aleister Crowley's writing of The Book of the Law...

    , the Mother of Abominations


The second chapter is spoken by Hadit, who refers to himself as the "complement of Nu," his bride. As such, he is the infinitely condensed point, the center of her infinite circumference. Crowley says of him, "He is eternal energy, the Infinite Motion of Things, the central core of all being. The manifested Universe comes from the marriage of Nuit and Hadit; without this could no thing be. This eternal, this perpetual marriage-feast is then the nature of things themselves; and therefore, everything that exists is a "crystallization of divine ecstasy", and "He sees the expansion and the development of the soul through joy."

Ra-Hoor-Khuit is the third speaker, identified as the Crowned and Conquering Child, and the god of War and of Vengeance. Crowley sums up the speakers of the three chapters thus, "we have Nuit, Space, Hadit, the point of view; these experience congress, and so produce Heru-Ra-Ha, who combines the ideas of Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Hoor-paar-Kraat."

The Comment

Based on several passages, including: "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 comment thereupon by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khuit" (AL I:36), Crowley felt compelled to interpret AL in writing. He wrote two large sets of commentaries where he attempted to decipher each line.

However, he was not satisfied with these attempts. In 1912, he prepared AL and his current comments on it for publication in The Equinox, I(7)
The Equinox
The Equinox is a series of publications in book form that serves as the official organ of the A.'.A.'., a magical order founded by Aleister Crowley...

. He recalls in his The Confessions of Aleister Crowley
The Confessions of Aleister Crowley
The Confessions of Aleister Crowley : An Autohagiography, by Aleister Crowley , is a book written in six parts, the first two parts published in 1929. It is subtitled "An Autohagiography" which refers to the autobiography of a Saint, a title which Crowley would also have associated with the...

(p. 674) that he thought the existing commentary was "shamefully meagre and incomplete." He later explains, "I had stupidly supposed this Comment to be a scholarly exposition of the Book, an elucidation of its obscurities and a demonstration of its praeterhuman origin. I understand at last that this idea is nonsense. The Comment must be an interpretation of the Book intelligible to the simplest minds, and as practical as the Ten Commandments." Moreover, this Comment should be arrived at "inspirationally," as the Book itself had been.

Years later in 1925 while in Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....

, Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...

, Crowley received his inspiration. He published the Comment in the Tunis edition of AL, of which only 11 copies were printed, and what was to become called simply The Comment (which is also called the Short Comment or Tunis Comment), and signed it as Ankh-f-n-khonsu
Ankh-af-na-khonsu
Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i , also known as Ankh-af-na-khonsu, was a priest of the Egyptian god Mentu who lived in Thebes during the 25th and 26th dynasty . He was the son of Bes-en-Mut I and Ta-neshet...

 (lit. "He Lives in Khonsu"—a historical priest who lived in Thebes
Thebes, Egypt
Thebes is the Greek name for a city in Ancient Egypt located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile within the modern city of Luxor. The Theban Necropolis is situated nearby on the west bank of the Nile.-History:...

 in the 26th dynasty, the creator of the Stele of Revealing
Stèle of Revealing
The Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i is a painted, wooden offering stele, discovered in 1858 at the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Dayr al-Bahri by François Auguste Ferdinand Mariette...

). It advises the reader that the "study" of the Book is forbidden and states that those who "discuss the contents" are to be shunned. The result is the common idea that interpretation of this often cryptic book is a responsibility for the reader alone.

Crowley later tasked his friend and fellow O.T.O. member Louis Wilkinson with preparing an edited version of Crowley's commentaries which was published some time after Crowley's death as The Law is for All
The Law is for All
The Law is for All is a collection of Aleister Crowley's commentary on The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema. It was edited to be a primer of sorts into Crowley's general interpretations about the sometimes opaque text of Liber Legis...

.


Editions

  • 1925 Tunis edition, only 11 copies printed
  • Ordo Templi Orientis
    Ordo Templi Orientis
    Ordo Templi Orientis is an international fraternal and religious organization founded at the beginning of the 20th century...

    , London, 1938, privately issued (U.S. edition 1942, although dated 1938)
  • Weiser Books (Reissue edition; May 1987; ISBN 0-87728-334-6)
  • Weiser Books (100th Anniversary edition; March 2004; ISBN 1-57863-308-7)
  • Mandrake of Oxford
    Mandrake of Oxford
    Mandrake of Oxford is a specialist independent publisher based in Oxford, England primarily known for the publication of "hands-on" books for occult practitioners...

     (April 1992; paperback; ISBN 1-869928-93-8)


Liber AL is also published in many books, including:
  • The Equinox (III:10). (2001). York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser. ISBN 0-87728-719-8
  • The Holy Books of Thelema (Equinox III:9). (1983). York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser. ISBN 0-87728-579-9
  • Magick: Liber ABA, Book Four
    Magick (Book 4)
    Magick, Liber ABA, Book 4 is widely considered to be the magnum opus of 20th century occultist Aleister Crowley, the founder of Thelema...

    , Parts I-IV.
    (1997). York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser. ISBN 0-87728-919-0


And at least one out-of-print audio version common on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...

:
  • The Book of the Law Vondel Park Audio Book 2003

See also

  • English Qabalah
    English Qabalah
    English Qabalah refers to several different systems of mysticism related to Hermetic Qabalah that interpret the letters of the English alphabet via their supposed numerological significance.-Qabalah vs. gematria:...

  • The Holy Books of Thelema
  • Works of Aleister Crowley
    Works of Aleister Crowley
    Aleister Crowley —mystic, occultist, and mountaineer—was a highly prolific writer, not only on the topic of Thelema and magick, but on philosophy, politics, and culture. He was also a published poet and playwright and left behind a large number of personal letters and daily journal entries...

  • Libri of Aleister Crowley
    Libri of Aleister Crowley
    The Libri of Aleister Crowley is a list of texts mostly written or adapted by Aleister Crowley. Some are attributed to other authors. The list was intended for students of Crowley's magical order, the A∴A∴....

  • Text of The Book of the Law

Trivia

  • 8 April, 9 April and 10 April are the Three Days of the Writing of the Book of Law. This holiday is usually celebrated by a reading of each chapter for its respective day.

Further reading


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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