Scion
Aiwass said:2. The unveiling of the company of heaven.
Actually this line puts me in mind of Agrippa who divides the world, and his Three Books into three layers: The Material/mundane world. a Transcendant/Eternal realm of the Divine, and an intermediary Celestial world... something close to what the Greeks (and others) might call the Daemonic world. (from Greek Daimon: "spirit," a morally neutral designation before Xianity ) The mortal and immortal worlds have no way of communicating, so in most cultures there are intermediary spirits that sort of act as magickal go-betweens. As fate would have it, I'm teaching a Daemonology class this year so I'm thinking about this topic and the "company of heaven" quite a lot. (AND I just wrote about this in a script!)
In Christianity these intermediary spirits would be the saints, angels, demons, the Blessed Virgin, and in many sects the mortal Jesus. In the grimoires they would be the Angels and Demons and Elementals that answer to the authority of "that Name which hath set the sea her bounds, beyond which the sky cannot pass." For Vodoun it would be the Lwa. For Egyptians, the Neteru. For Muslim it would be the Djinn. For most premoderns around thee world, it would be the Fey or the Sidhe or Peri etc. Ditto, the ghosts of the honored dead. For Crowley, on 16 March 1904, Aiwass unexpectedly presented himself as a member of that "company" while Crowley was trying to summon sprites, who also would have counted as part of the Celestial realm. unlike the Divine, the celestial realm shares with humans a certain amount of personality and foibles and individuality.
In 90% of the worlds cultures these Daemons are distinguished by being hidden. In fact the words "Djinn" and "Hell" both literally translate into English as "unseen." Likewise, "Fey" and "Pukka" as "outlawed" (because they are uncovenanted powers). So the "unveiling of the company of heaven" would speak to the moment when we realize that we are surrounded by spirits, that the world is alive with magickal possibility, that the "hidden powers" exist, that Gnosis is immanent.
So there's a larger issue here. Nuit and Hadit are unknowable, unfathomable. Mortals must deal with the company of heaven. We can only aspire to the immortal realm, but we can never reach it: a magical asymptote. The Celestial realm acts as both an aid and a buffer, a proving ground for the brave and a cage for the unworthy. But by striving towards the divine, we gain knowledge and conversation of the celestial realm and thereby perfect ourselves.
"The company of heaven" would literally be the Daemons. Further, by using the word "heaven" in this line, Aiwass/Crowley neatly sidesteps any literalist satanic accusations that might see danger in the idea of multiple spirits. The spirits that fill heaven (i.e. the celestial realm) are unveiled by Hadit, who is the "manifestation of Nuit."
Being able to see (i.e. unveiling) that celestial company would be the first thing that would make the rest of the work possible.
Scion