Book of Law Study Group 1.1

Abrac

Thank you for that account Aeon. In Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot, page 23, DuQuette wrote, "The three "deities" of The Book of the Law are the main figures that appear on the Stele of Revealing." Was this also Crowley's position (i.e. the concepts known as Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khuit are based on the three figures from the Stele) or has this just become the generally accepted viewpoint, and did Crowley interpret the BoL based on his understanding of these figures?

ravenest

Aeon418 said:
Personally I think the Egyptian-ness of Thelema and the Book of the Law is just window dressing. Harmonious aspects of the Egyptian pantheon were used as a kind of symbolic matrix through which the abstract principles of Thelema were expressed.

Had Crowley been somewhere else in the world in 1904 I think it is highly likely that the BoL would have used a different pantheon of symbolic gods to convey the same message.

Not to mention the invocation he did with Rose(?) INSIDE THE KINGS CHAMBER OF THE GREAT PYRAMID !!!

It is quiet possible that if he did the magical invokations at Uluru he would have been talking about Wallenganda and Ungud - who basically represent the same idea. Using these two cultural templates, Aust. Aboriginal and Ancient Egyptian and comparing their SUBSTANCE as opposed to their metaphors many similarities are seen. This is not as unusual as it first seems as both are talking about what they believe to be a spiritual reality being described in human words.

Aeon418 said:
I've found that this concept is very difficult to explain to literal minded neo-pagans, who seem to think that Nuit actually is a goddess that lives in space. If ever there was a case of mistaking the menu for the meal.....

Ermmm ... Nuit IS actually a goddess that lives in space!

Check out the Milky Way. ... If all of existence is the body of 'God' then different 'parts' or aspects of existence represent different gods or different aspects of god. But there is also an aspect of Nuit that represents a type of conciousness, a magico-philosophic outlook, a quantum mechanical concept, a ..., a ...., a ... and so on.

Aeon418

Abrac said:
Thank you for that account Aeon. In Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot, page 23, DuQuette wrote, "The three "deities" of The Book of the Law are the main figures that appear on the Stele of Revealing." Was this also Crowley's view or has this just become the generally accepted viewpoint, and did Crowley interpret the BoL based on his understanding of these figures?

I'm not 100% sure what you are asking here, Abrac. So I'm going to toss a few things out and see if I hit the target.

Crowley was very familiar with Victorian era Egyptology. He would have instantly recognised the figures on the stele and their significance. Remember that the Golden Dawn, which Crowley passed through years before, is stuffed full of Egyptian god forms. During that time he would have studied them and their associated myths.

The god names that the Boulaq museum supplied to Crowley as part of the French translation were Nout, Houdit, and Ra-Hor-khut. In Crowley's versified English translation, written before the dictation of Liber Legis, he changed/substituted those names with Nuith, Hadith, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit. He changed the spelling of the first two names slightly when he incorporated part of the verse into the text of Liber Legis. Probably to make it conform with the rest of the text.

Some, but not all, of the ideas given voice through the symbolic forms of the egyptian deities in the Book of the Law, were already floating about, in various forms, in Crowley's work several years prior to 1904. But they were generally couched in Buddhism and the Buddhist point of view. In fact, at the time of the reception on Liber Legis, Crowley was still in his Buddhist phase, having tired of magick. It was one of the reasons why he initially tried to brush off Liber Legis and the events surrounding it's reception as a bizarre aberration that was best forgotten. The second chapter is practically a direct attack on one of the central tennents of Buddhism, Anicca. He didn't like that at all.

9. Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains.

10. O prophet! thou hast ill will to learn this writing.

11. I see thee hate the hand & the pen; but I am stronger.

12. Because of me in Thee which thou knewest not.

13. for why? Because thou wast the knower, and me.

Aeon418

ravenest said:
Ermmm ... Nuit IS actually a goddess that lives in space!

I meant it in an even more literal way than that. :laugh:

It's a bit like the difference between the concept of YHVH and some bloke called Jehovah who has tantrums, gets jealous a lot, and kills people for fun.

ravenest

Yygdrasilian said:
If mixing of metaphors is a Crowley m.o., then perhaps that is how one is to make sense of his Laws and his Lies.

Ummmm I meant the mixed metaphor about candelabras surrounding a winged disc and symbolising the word of the aeon.

Yygdrasilian said:
Whenever I read Crowley I am reminded of the SubGenii precept of ‘bulldada’ whereby any divine revelation is irrevocably distorted the moment it passes through the sensory medium of a fruit-picking monkey. “Bob” compensates for this by distorting his revelations into Satire so that only the “truly enlightened” can get the punch line.

But Bob's hat and pipe will never match Crowley's outlandish hats and pipes :laugh:

http://www.comunidaddelapipa.com/imagenes/personajes/images/aleister_crowley_pipa__jpg.jpg

Yygdrasilian said:
I suspect a similar method is at work in Crowley’s distinct brand of showmanship.
To make sense of some of his puzzles you have to think like a mick punning on a jag.
Finnegan’s Wake is good practice.

Oh def! Showmanship and puzzles are part of the Beast's maze

Yygdrasilian said:
Do what thou willteth shall be the loop-hole in the Law

He beat you on that one too; he 'revitalized' the OTO (ie. he re-wrote the initiation rituals), which has been sumerized by some (and they were IN the OTO :laugh:

) as ; "Do what thou wilt. Now, repeat after me...."

Aeon418

ravenest said:
But Bob's hat and pipe will never match Crowley's outlandish hats and pipes

That's true. :laugh:

http://home14.inet.tele.dk/osiris/crowley/Smoking2.jpg

ravenest

Abrac said:
It might be beneficial to clarify what connection there is between the Stele, The Book of the Law and Thelema, if any. I don't know as much about this as I would like to, but from what I have read it was the Stele that initially inspired Crowley and supposedly the figures on it correspond to Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khuit. What did Crowley say about it? If there is no connection then it's a dead issue really.

Crowley made it a big connection, believing it gave validity (even undoubtible proof) to his revelation (Rose picked it out in the museum and Crowley gloated that she picked out the wrong form of Horus, until further examination) The OTO refer to it as 'the orders link with antiquity', or something like that.

The pics and text on the stela are another big debatible subject as to how wrong or right AC got the technicalities and its resultant interpretation of what one actually is invoking when working with the stele (eg, the invocations in Liber Resh.) It depends on where one is coming from ... the power of personal belief is best for some, others need to get that along with technical correctness.

However that debate here will cloud things ..... its coming up in the text later anyway where AC entered his transLITERation of the Stele into the text of BoL.

ravenest

Aeon418 said:
In brief.....
The day after Rose tells Crowley that the "waiter" is Horus.

And the next day she said that the Chamber maid was Nuit, and the reception clerk Ra-hoor- Kuit?

Aeon418

Hey! It's in the Equinox of the Gods. Blame Crowley for the bad pun. :laugh:

ravenest

Didn't the (transmission) voice come from behind the curtains of the room?