Book of Law Study Group 1.28

cardlady22

Is this meaning that the "faint & faery light" is being breathed in or out or is it both, ie. the cycle of breath?
 

Grigori

Another puzzler

I've got a few thoughts about this line, though nothing that makes sense in combination. But here we go anyway :D

I wonder if the "None" could be another name for Nuit, at the beginning, like this line refers to some kind of thelemic creation myth.
Paraphrased:
Lady None (Nuit, nothing), breathed the light (have we gone from limitless nothing, to limitless light, the veils of the tree of life?), faint and faery (this sounds like the lambent blue of a previous line, pinocchio's blue fairy again perhaps :thumbsup:) of the stars (every man and every woman), and two (Nuit and Hadit, or Chokmah and Binah, Yin and Yang, Expansion and Retraction. Nothing divided for love's sake perhaps, 0=2).

If reading "the stars" as humanity and the "and two" as the two primary deities/principles, I could see this line as inferring that humanity is quite special, even the purpose of creation. Similar to religious ideas of humans having souls and the rest of creation being dumb beasts. The light of the Stars and the Two was breathed by the None, the creator. Limitless light being the first "thing" in the development of the Tree of Life. Before that is only nothing and more nothing. So the first step of creation, was for the benefit of the stars and two.

Or perhaps "every man and every woman is a star" only because the BoL was dictated to a man. Maybe its also true that "every kitten and every puppy is a star" :D I sound like I'm being silly here, but actually this just struck me as a serious idea, especially given our previous discussion about government in Thelema as a mirror to the process of natural selection. How/does Thelema see humanity on the scale of spirtual evolution, compared to other creatures in the material world of creation I wonder?
 

Always Wondering

Similia said:
I wonder if the "None" could be another name for Nuit, at the beginning, like this line refers to some kind of thelemic creation myth.

cardlady22 said:
Is this meaning that the "faint & faery light" is being breathed in or out or is it both, ie. the cycle of breath?

I very much get the feeling of creation here. I think we are Her breath of light.
I have been practicing Regardie's Holy Guardian Angel meditation. Every exhaled breath is a longing for HGA. Every inhaled breath in an acknowledgment of HGA's (Nuit's) descending into body. The cycle of breath(light), the cycle of life, the cycle of fate. 0=2.
So perhaps this is why I am seeing this so.

Faerie:
Etymology: Middle English fairie fairyland, enchantment, from Anglo-French faerie, from fee fairy, from Latin Fata, goddess of fate, from fatum fate.

Why can't kittens and puppies be part of Nuit? I don't think that is at all silly. With life/breath, we become consciousness or intelligent. Animals have intelligence, plant life shows intelligence. Science suggests that even mineral life shows rational.
This is only my stance and I am prejudice by a great love for animals and plants. :laugh:
I haven't read of Thelema take stances like this.

I think all creation stories are simplified for the aid of understanding. Having gone through childbirth, I will not take any creation story literal. I just cannot fully comprehend my own experience, it was too primal. And childbirth is just one little part or extention of creation. I agree it is special. So special I can't get my head around it. :laugh:

AW
 

ravenest

This is one of those passages in BoL that seems to have obscure grammer, a problem on which AC has commented.

Yet, as Aeon pointed out in a previous thread about a previous line;

" The actual manuscript is very interesting at this point. Crossed out is "the non-atomic unfragmentary fact of my universality". "

If such a line can be re-written in such a way, it seems hard to imagine that it was a 'mishearing'. Yet in the case of the line in this thread it is left as it stands. That is, in one case it seems 'cleaned up' and in another, not.

I have thought the line meant that first there were stars with faint and fairy light but there were none to breathe that light, but now there are two. - Whatever THAT means.

However obscure grammer lends itself to a variety of interpretations, and I have to wonder why Aiwass would mix Egyptian metaphors with words like 'fairy' and 'non-atomic unfragmentary fact', unless the dictation was not a direct voice but came via and was modified by AC's psyche, beliefs and conditionings.

Unless the aim WAS TO lead to a variety of interpretations?
 

Aeon418

ravenest said:
If such a line can be re-written in such a way, it seems hard to imagine that it was a 'mishearing'.
A.C. never said he misheard that line.
ravenest said:
However obscure grammer lends itself to a variety of interpretations, and I have to wonder why Aiwass would mix Egyptian metaphors with words like 'fairy' and 'non-atomic unfragmentary fact', unless the dictation was not a direct voice but came via and was modified by AC's psyche, beliefs and conditionings.
I don't see a contradiction between the "perceived" external nature of a HGA communication and the contents of a persons mind.

Isn't the full maturation of the A.'.A.'. 1=10 - Malkuth grade (roughly equal to G.D. 5=6) characterised by the Vision of Adonai? (See 777, table XLV.)
The V of A can manifest in any number of ways, using any of the senses. Visual, auditory, tactile, etc. Which may, or may not, be weaved into the events of everyday life. But it is predominantly perceived as an external event that reveals the HGA to the self as a seemingly distinct and external being.

Of course this is a long way from full K&C, which it is often mistaken for. This mistake has been repeated by many modern day Golden Dawn authors who don't realise the huge difference between the old Golden Dawn structure and Crowley's A.'.A.'.
ravenest said:
Unless the aim WAS TO lead to a variety of interpretations?
Of course. The language of Yetzirah is completely inadequate when it comes to expressing Briah level concepts, which may be contradictory when understood from a rational standpoint. Is it any wonder that the phrasing or symbolism often becomes difficult at certain points, requiring a more intuitive and engaged relationship with the text?

There's no point in reading Liber AL like a cheap novel and expecting it to make complete sense. You've got to work with it and even, metaphorically speaking, wrestle with it at times. Just like Jacob and the Angel. ;) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Jacob-angel.jpg
 

Aeon418

0=2

I see that Similia and AW have already mentioned creation and birth. I think they are good observations considering that this verse forms part of the latter half of the Gimel decanate of verses. Almost as if this verse is representative of that part of the Priestess/Gimel that manifests as it crosses the path of the Empress on the Tree of Life.

Also the verse number, 28, is suggestive to me of the path between Chokmah(2) and Hod(8) - The Star & The Devil. 17 + 15 = 32 - the total number of paths on the tree of life. An unfolding of infinite potential into actual manifestation.

I wonder if the out-flowing breath is related to speech. The creative words are the dualistic symbols of manifestation?

The & in the middle looks like a kind of centre point to me. There are 5 words on the left of it, and 6 on the right. 5=6?

None, breathed the light, faint & faery, of the stars, and two.

There's so much in this one short verse that it is difficult to know where to begin. Maybe that's the intention behind a verse that encapsulates 0=2? :laugh:

At either end of the verse there is None and Two. 0=2. Everything else takes place (oscillates?) within these two extremes of unitary infinite nothing, and manifest finite duality.

breathed the light. I keep thinking about the breath of God here. It is the Pranna, the universal life force that the western mysteries symbolises as light, LVX.

The whole verse starts at a Zero point and increases in density until actual manifestation in Two is reached. There's a breath of light, faint & faery, out of nothing. This is then identified at a latter point with Stars. But which stars? The metaphysical stars we have mentioned so frequently in these posts? Or the physical thermo-nuclear fireballs that radiate light and energy. I suspect that both are implied, but on different levels.

I keep thinking back to early science lessons and the initial child-like wonder of learning that every atom in the universe was made inside stars.
On another level we are outer shell of our star, made to express it's light and energy outwards into the physical world, and realise the some of the infinite possibilities of Nuit.
 

Aeon418

similia said:
How/does Thelema see humanity on the scale of spirtual evolution, compared to other creatures in the material world of creation I wonder?
I don't think there's an offical Thelemic stance on this one. But here's mine.

Humans are animals that have evolved sufficiently enough to consciously and creatively express the divine will.

Potentially.... ;)
 

Grigori

Aeon418 said:
Humans are animals that have evolved sufficiently enough to consciously and creatively express the divine will.

Thanks Aeon. This interests me, its almost the opposite of what we've been discussing before. Our consciousness is what allows us to express divinity, but our ego consciousness is one of the hurdles along the way. The difference between human and animal consciousness is a big debate with no clear winning argument, but I think its a useful way to pin down ideas about what (if anything) makes us "stars".