Liber 231

I have a question.

What exactly is Liber 231 and how can I use it?

I know that it is not a part of Book 4 but someone mentioned it on a Youtube video.

Professor X said:

I have a question.

What exactly is Liber 231 and how can I use it?

I know that it is not a part of Book 4 but someone mentioned it on a Youtube video.

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I thought it was in Book 4? maybe another of my books ... ermmm, Gems or Holy Books of Thelema?

What is it? Have a good look (count the amount of squares on each and note the title of the Liber).

How can you use it? Here is an anecdote; Grady mcMurtry was visiting Crowley, Grady took something off the bookshelf and started looking at it, AC came back in the room and yelled at him to put it down and not to look at it.



A 'Thelemic' group in NZ years ago used it to make fabric prints and put out a line of clothing using it and other Themeic / Crowley iconography.

(They used it for a fashion design ! )

Here's an online copy for anyone whose not seen it. http://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/liber231.pdf As I understand it a list of 44 spirits written by Crowley, and a method to evoke them. I'm not familiar with where, why or how he developed the list or the sigils.

The 44 seals in Liber 231 are meant to represent the Mercurial or Qliphotic spirits of the Tarot. Just like with any other catalogue of spirits you can use the seals in evocations and stuff like that. You can even try skrying them.

Whether that's desirable depends on where you are on the path. Off the top of my head I think Liber 231 is an official instruction for the Practicus in A.'.A.'. That assumes a fair amount of technical competance has been achieved in banishing, invocation, and astral work. And most importantly intial contact with the Angel (Vision of Adonai) has been made. If you want to stir up your own internal cess pit by playing with the Qliphotic seals, know what you are doing and where you are going first.

I see that Liber 231 is something I need to study carefully first.

I do have a lot of experience dealing with astral energies. But my work has been in a primarily defense mode of which I am very good at. I do indeed need to work more with invoking spirits as well.

Liber 231 may not be the best place to start with that however. I likely need to work with some simple evoking/banishings first.

The plane of Mars is best one for me to work with. I am Virgo but I am not a mercurial Virgo but a martian one. Mars is my ruling planet,I have major aspects from the Sun and Moon with Mars. It is the most prominient planet in my birth chart. I did a tarot reading on which planets should I work with and Mars recieved the Fortune card.

I am already suited to that energy because it is already well within me. I have been looking at 777 to get more ideas on how to function more on that plane. Perhaps Liber 231 has some ideas as well.

I think it is interesting to look at each 'glyph' (?) in respect of each Atu, and the same with the written passage that follows. It gives a type of story to the progression of the trumps.

ravenest said:

It gives a type of story to the progression of the trumps.

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But a story that was written before Crowley decided to swap the Emperor and Star.

Aeon418 said:

But a story that was written before Crowley decided to swap the Emperor and Star.

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I was surprised how little these were discussed in relation to the tarot in Duquette's book for his tarot. He included the seals on the Major Arcana, but give only really a paragraph to define what the seals are and duplicates Crowley's Liber on them as an appendix which is similarly sparse.

Paul Hughes-Barlow goes into his ideas on working with them and the tarot in a little more detail in his book, though I think the ideas are his own and not those of other authors.

I get the impression that no-one has any much of an idea as to what these fellas or about, or what their practical application (if any) may be. Duquette seems to subscribe to the ideal that the are malignant forces, and are included to balance the positive forces usually shown on a card. Hughes-Barlow seems to find them quite positive forces, a sort of jailer holding the key to our imprisonment in the material realm, but consequently also the key to our escape (gnosis) from it.

Grigori said:

I get the impression that no-one has any much of an idea as to what these fellas or about, or what their practical application (if any) may be.

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They are the spirits of the 22 paths, form Aleph to Tav. In that respect they are like any other catalogue of spirits and their seals.

The guide to their practical application, or in other words what they can do, is the Tarot itself.

It took me a while to get it, but for me, after meditation on them and their correspondences I was able to get hints of possible internal 'positive and negative states' in the psyche.

One way of looking at a model of the psyche is to group its forces into 22 (or 10 or 7 or 12) looking at the positive and negative aspects of both sides. This can be seen as sephiroth or qlippoth. Ever felt that a force or energy in your psyche is 'subverting' you in a particular area? One could map it all out give them names and bring order to ones kingdom ... if one can weild the crown and sword