Aleister Crowley Section
The Book Of The Law (Liber AL vel Legis)
In 1904, on April 8, 9, and 10, an adept of the Hermetic
Order of the Golden Dawn wrote a text of 220 verses. The
text was inspired by a series of magickal interactions between
the adept and his wife [1]
and then taken as dictation from a discarnate entity.[2]
His name was Aleister Crowley and the text has been come
to be called Liber AL vel Legis, i.e., the Book of the Law,
or Liber AL for short. Its three chapters express a world-view,
a life style and a spiritual mode of attainment. The text,
its author or scribe, and the magickal order out of which
he emerged have all been both lauded or repudiated and reviled
at one time or another and yet each of them has had a deep
and formative impact on the contemporary (Neo-) Pagan resurgence.
Due to a comment made by the scribe forbidding discussion
there exist very few commentaries on this work. The scribe
wrote several as did two of his students. However, none of
them possessed theological training, nor did any of them
possess the benefit of the many years hence of observing
the benefits and debilities of working with this text. Furthermore
their commentaries were written for the closed community
of the occultists and in their distinctive jargon, rendering
the commentaries opaque. This opacity would not be so great
a problem if the text were more accessible to the common
interested reader. However, the text itself is written in
the jargon of a particular school of occultists, that of
the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. It is also speaking
in a diction unique to itself and it is only through careful
examination of the text that its true meaning begins to emerge.
Having studied and lived with Liber AL and certain other
allied texts for the last ten years and having engaged in
discussion of the text with many who receive from it a radically
different character than I do, at this point in time it is
necessary for me to analyze and comment upon this text. My
goal is to place it in the genre of sacred writings, to understand
what it has to say and its implications for our world, and
how it may be applied in religious praxis. While I do not
hope to be exhaustive in my efforts I seek to map out the
major elements presented by the text therein.
Besides sheer enthusiasm, I am particularly qualified for
the project. I too am an adept of the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn as well as a practitioner of the forms presented
in our text. I have studied and practiced Yoga, Sorcery,
Tantra, Alchemy, Buddhism and Witchcraft, as well as a variety
of other spiritual practices and disciplines which all come
into play in the study of this text. Further, this analysis
is taking place [1993] in the context of my theological education
which public framework I am applying to the text to render
it accessible to those who may be interested in understanding
this little explored segment of the Pagan community.
Several approaches will be employed to make sense out of
the text. The first is to let the text speak for itself.
It defines terms and employs them in ways that create apparent
contradictions. If we use structuralist mode of criticism
and take the text at its word then certain problematic elements
become more explicable. Also some of the jargon simply needs
to be unpacked and explained. This includes explaining the
Egyptian symbolism the text employs extensively. Some of
this requires an understanding of the historical context
in which the text emerged because much, thought not all,
of the Egyptology used in the text is peculiar to the Golden
Dawn. Our text also presents certain philosophic and theological
propositions upon which I, and the community of people who
value this text, have pondered for the almost ninety years
of its existence and these interpretations will also be examined
and their implications explored in the light of practical
theology.
However, to break
through the ring of occult thinking that has surrounded
and isolated this text from proper criticism and hence
valuation by the educated public, I plan to analyze Liber
AL by interpreting it as a symbolic embodiment of the principles
of Alfred North Whitehead’s Philosophy of
Organism. This philosophy and its implicit theology resonate
deeply with Liber AL and may provide a way for the public
to penetrate AL’s esoteric silence. I will root this
analysis on the proposition that Whitehead and Crowley both
were intuiting a similar character in experience, and each
expressed it in the language they were most familiar, thus
there should be a correlation possible between them.
This correlation
also has the potential to be bilateral. Liber AL may provide
an affect-filled expression of the notions of process thought
rendering them more accessible to those who do not wish
to labor through Whitehead’s prose.
Thus one text may illuminate the other. The potential for
formulating religious praxis, especially ritual, meditation
and contemplative techniques using the affect-laden symbols
of one source grounded with the meaning-rich metaphysics
of the other engenders much hope in me for the success of
each respective tradition.
My further researches
has indicated that yet another strand needs to be woven
into this exploration to interpret Liber AL: Tibetan Buddhism.
As Liber AL comes out of a magickal tradition, so does
the Tibetan Buddhist and some of its values and choices
of symbols are dictated by the empirical ways of magick.
My studies of Tibetan Buddhism seem to indicate to me that
Liber AL may be best interpreted as being of the genre
called ‘tantra’. Due to the circumstances
surrounding its generation Liber AL exhibits certain similarities
to the Tibetan phenomenon called a ‘terma’ or ‘treasure’.
These are usually texts or sometimes objects that preserve
and transmit practices and insights that are hidden until
the time in which they are needed and when they are discovered.
Sometimes these texts are ‘discovered’ when a
discarnate entity, such as a Buddha or Dakini, dictates them
to some human who then shares the text with others. This
may be what we are seeing in Liber AL. To treat our text
in this manner may present a normative context within which
it may be interpreted along side similar texts, complete
with appropriate cautions and safe-guards absent in the western
tradition where this kind of text is a novelty.
One important
frame necessary to approach Liber AL vel Legis is the set
of normative beliefs about the text and its message. With
this text there is a problem with interpreting it simply
and without critical analysis. As Hadit says in chapter II,
v. 27, "There is great danger in me; for who doth not understand
these runes shall make a great miss. He shall fall down into
the pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the
dogs of Reason."
The most immediate
problematic element is the misinterpretation of the principle
of Thelema, ‘Do what thou Wilt’.
All too often this is simply seen as ‘Do your whim’.
Fortunately, on the basis of the other discussions incorporated
in this analysis this interpretation is demonstrated to be
either a false or trivial finding, devaluing the text. However,
there are many other elements that also need further clarification.
In some cases these are not assailable in terms of simple
logic, but rather my interpretations depend on certain assumptions.
First, given
that this is the "Book of the Law", and that "the
Law is for all" [AL I, 34], any or at least most of the references
apparently focused on a particular historical person, e.g.
Crowley, have to have also a more general interpretation.
If this were not the case then the text would have no claim
to universality and thus be of little value to the rest of
us.
Another problematic
element is that the text seems to contradict itself by
saying both that "Love is the law" in AL I, 57,
and "Beware lest any force another, King against
King!" in AL II, 24, and then saying to "stamp down the wretched & the
weak:" [AL II, 21] and "Trample down the Heathen; be upon
them, o warrior, I will give you of their flesh to eat!" [AL
III, 11]. Either we are seeing a simple contradiction, in
which case the text is massively confused, perhaps beyond
the possibility of interpretation, or these several statements
are spoken on different levels, and thus are to be each interpreted
differently. As many such statements occur in the third chapter,
although not exclusively, one favored interpretation is that
these are references to the iconography of Ra-Hoor-Khuit.
If so, then these statements are no different in quality
than similar ones in the Tibetan "Bordo Thodrol" or ‘Book
of the Dead’ and should be interpreted accordingly.
This will be discussed in more detail in the section on the
Cult of Ra-Hoor-Khuit. This may provide a way of interpreting
some of the more ruthless statements that run through out
the text.
All of these
interpretations assume that there is an intelligible message
in this text, that wishes itself to be disclosed. If not,
it is simply a closed cypher and not worth our attention.
Further, if it has anything worthwhile to say to us it needs
to be proadaptive, and not leading us into maintaining the
violence and abuse that dominates our culture and would lead
to our downfall. Some have interpreted Liber AL as misanthropic
and conducive to a dominator society. Adolf Hitler and L.
Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, are two examples of
these known historically. If this is the best Thelema can
do there would be little point in this discussion. However,
if these are digressions from the simple core message of
the text that we must work with each other, respecting our
mutual sovereignty, there may be in Liber AL a new approach
to life that may indeed, as Nuit says, "regenerate the world,
the little world my sister, my heart & my tongue, unto
whom I send this kiss."[AL I, 53]
Upon first examination
of Liber AL vel Legis, the reader will note that it has
three chapters, each spoken in a different ‘voice’.
Each chapter is, for the most part, ‘spoken’ by
a persona referring to itself in the first person singular.
The first chapter is principally the voice of Nuit, the second,
Hadit, and the third, Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Each chapter serves
to express the nature of the persona and its relationships
with the other personas. The names are derived from Egyptian
deities and most of the symbolism of the text refers to concepts
from the Egyptian cosmos, among several others. Together
they embody the expressed and implied cosmology of Liber
AL, what the structuralists would call the surface and deep
theological structures, respectively.
Nuit and Hadit
are complementary co-existents and as Ra-Hoor-Khuit is
somewhat outside this symmetry, we will return to ‘him’ later.
In terms of the philosophy of organism, Hadit is a personification
of (an) Actual Entity while Nuit is the World of that Entity
including ‘God’ in Whitehead’s
sense. One verse that explicitly states their relationship
says "I, Hadit, am the complement of Nu [Nuit ], my bride… In
the sphere I am everywhere the centre, as she, the circumference,
is nowhere found."[AL II, 2-3] Their relationship is as Lovers
and thus all their interactions are the creative act, which "is
the universe incarnating itself as one". [PR 245] This is
first seen in the opening line of the work, "Had! The manifestation
of Nuit."[AL I, 1] The ‘center & circumference’ quote,
according to Frances Yates, originates in the Gnostic Hermetic
Corpus, appropriately, as this is the tradition in which
Liber AL emerges.
Nuit functions
in two ways like Whitehead’s God and
the world. First she declares herself as the world by stating
that She is "Infinite Space and the Infinite
Stars thereof"[AL I, 22], thus she is the system taken as
a whole. Everything in the system is represented symbolically
in this diction as a star in the body of Nuit; "Every man
and every woman is a star."[AL I, 3] Nuit is a variation
on the Egyptian Nut, the Heaven goddess, who’s image
is the night sky (‘nuit’ = ‘night’ in
French). Here we are seeing the whole of existence expressed
in terms of the experienced vastness of deep space. Later,
when we see the phrase, "and the kisses of the stars rain
hard upon thy body,"[AL II, 62] we are seeing the ingression
of the datum of other entities into the concrescent process
of a particular human entity as modeled in the text’s
scribe.
Nuit is also
the locus, in this expression, of the potentiality of the
universe. Her gift is the "consciousness of the continuity
of existence" [AL I, 26] and her presencing is through the "non-atomic
fact of [her] universality" [AL I, 26 (manuscript)]. She
is thus the extensive continuum in which all entities arise
as a complex "united by the various allied relationships
of whole to part,… of overlapping,… and contact,… [&c.]"[PR
66] This continuum has no boundary due to its non-entitative
nature, her ‘non-atomic’ness, and is thus the "circumference… nowhere
found"[AL II, 3].
Nuit is also
the ‘Not’, the nonexistent, in
her continuity, "the omnipresence of [her] body". "O Nuit,
continuous one of Heaven, let it be ever thus; that men speak
not of Thee as One but as None; and let them speak not of
thee at all, since thou art continuous!" In this sense Nuit
is both the Receptacle, the formless form in which all arises,
and thus ‘inappropriate’ to speak about since
no qualification about it can be made, as well as the abode
of objective immortality. "I give… upon death; peace
unutterable, rest, ecstasy" [AL I, 58] As Whitehead puts
it, the "not-being of occasions is their objective immortality"[AI
237] In perishing the immediate occasion enters into immortality
in the body of Nuit becoming one with the company of the
stars. The stars here are the determinant influences upon
all future becoming. Interestingly, this is a reframing of
the classical (Stoic) notions of astrology in which the stars
rule the fates of all living things.
In the sense
that "I am above you and in you. My ecstasy
is in yours. My joy is to see your joy"[AL I,13], Nuit is
also Whitehead’s ‘God the co-sufferer’.
Similarly all acts of love are ‘to her’ since
it is her lure that guides the concrescent process along.
[cf. AL I, 53, 62, 63, 65 & III, 62]
Hadit on the
other hand, as the center that is everywhere, reflects
Whitehead’s scheme in which the "real potentialities
relative to all standpoints are coordinated as diverse determinations
of one extensive continuum"[PR 66]. The relationship between
Had and Nu is that of the contrary potentialities in mere
continuum: "in the actual world there are definite atomic
actualities determining one coherent system of real divisions
throughout the region of actuality. Every actuality in its
relationship to other actual entities is in this sense somewhere
in the continuum, and arise out of the data provided by this
standpoint. But in an other sense it is everywhere throughout
the continuum; for its constitution includes the objectifications
of the actual world and thereby includes the continuum; also
the potential objectification of itself contribute to the
real potentialities whose solidarity the continuum expresses.
Thus the continuum is present in each actual entity, and
each actual entity pervades the continuum."[PR 67] "In the
sphere [i.e. the extensive contiuum] I [Hadit] am everywhere
the centre as she [Nuit], the circumference, is nowhere found." [AL
II, 3]
Hadit is the
individual concrescence produces and the process. This
is clearly present in AL II, 7: "I am the Magician and
the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in
the circle. ‘Come unto me’ is a
foolish word: for it is I that go." The Magickian calls into
immediate presence and the Exorcist banishes into irrelevancy
all influences upon the entity. This is clearly a description
of the supplementary phases of concrescence. [PR p. 213-4]
The images of the wheel and circle support this poetically
and have some technical magickal application. They are speaking
to the ‘core’ quality that Hadit presents in
every entity reprising AL II, 6: "I am the flame that burns
in every heart of man, and in the core of every star." We
are also told that to invoke Hadit is of little effect, "a
foolish word" since Hadit is the going process. In AL II
8 this expanded to indicate that even worship is thus impossible
since Hadit is the worshiper: "Who worshipped Heru-pa-kraath[3]
have worshipped me; ill, for I am the worshipper."
To know Hadit
is a impossibility according to this text. Hadit says, "Yet she shall be known & I never." [AL II,4]
This is pointing to the sense in which the actual entity
does not know itself since that would require it to be objectified
in itself which would mean that it would have already have
had to perished, closed up and become an object capable of
being objectified. We will see this again later in that the
satisfaction of an entity can not be conscious to the entity
during its process.[PR 85] But an actual entity is the living
process of its becoming and its resultant. We can only know
it by the genetic analysis of its becoming and its effect
upon us, which is how we objectify it in our own constitution.
Since Hadit presents the process and its resultant it justifiably
claims to be "I am Life, and the giver of Life…" but
since to know Hadit requires that the entity in question
has perished the knowledge of that being is the knowledge
of a dead thing, "…therefore is the knowledge of me
the knowledge of death."[AL II, 6] There is also another
way in which Hadit can not be known. Since during the process
of concrescence that becoming entity is out of touch with
all contemporary entities "during" its concrescence it is
also at that time unknown. This is one explanation of Hadit’s
self-identification as being Not or none in Chapter II, verses
15 and 66.
Yet in verses
II, 12-13 we see an interesting differentiation between
Hadit and "the knower". This has shades of a doctrine
of a true nature of the self and a supposed self, here ‘the
knower’, verses Hadit. If we recall that Hadit is present
throughout the extensive continuum that is the sphere (read
Nuit), and then compare that with our usual awareness of
not being everywhere at once we can then make an practical
distinction between these two natures of the self. In sum,
we ignore so much of our world that we hardly realize how
much there is to attend to. The aspect that does so in all
of us is here presented as Hadit and the aspect that ignores
such data is here presented as the scribe, ‘the knower’ {cf. "Thou
knowest!" AL I, 26 as a reference to the scribe}.[4]
In summary what
we have in the Nuit and Hadit chapters are expressions
about the nature of the whole of things from the point
of view of a world in which there are embedded individuals
and from the point of view of the individual embedded in
a world. Since these ‘two’ dwell
in deep relationality we must also explain how they relate.
Nuit gives us the principle mode both through her law and
through direct command: Love is her law [AL I 57]. It is
to the fulfillment of that law that she invites us all to "Come
forth, o children under the stars, & take your fill of
love!" [AL I 12]. She again uses the phrase ‘fill of
love’ in verse 51 saying, "…take your fill and
will of love as ye will, when, where, and with whom ye will!
But always unto me." Leaving aside the awesome issue of the
sexual more expressed here, we see by the concluding sentence
that these activities have a particular focus, upon Nuit.
What benefit would having dedicated acts of love to Nuit
give the individual? Chapter I, verse 32 charges us to "Obey
my prophet! follow out the ordeals of my knowledge! seek
me only! Then the joys of my love will redeem ye from all
pain. This is so: I swear it by the vault of my body; by
my sacred heart and tongue; by all I can give, by all I desire
of ye all." Should we seek Nuit only we will be redeemed
from all pain, she promises, by the circumference, the vault
of her body, and by the center, her heart and tongue and
by her relationship with us which is one of desire, and later
we will see, love. Here Whitehead’s notion of God the
co-sufferer comes out clearly except here it is taken even
more emphatically and positively. Nuit not only suffers with
us, and in so doing redeems us from pain, but also co-enjoys
with us.[cf. AL I, 13] It is in this relationship that the
soteriology of Thelema comes forth. For its is in division
and difference that pain and hurt emerge: "Let there be no
difference made among you between any one thing & any
other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt." [AL I, 22] And
again, "This is the creation of the world, that the pain
of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all."[AL
I, 30]
In response Nuit
claims that, "There is no bond that can
unite the divided but love: all else is a curse."[AL I, 41]
This makes her claim that the Law is love more clear. It
is through love that the pain and hurt are remedied and the
Law made whole. But beyond this more general claim she also
adds that "But to love me is better than all things:"[AL
I, 61] From this verse to the end of the chapter we see a
focus on what can be best termed the Cult of Nuit. We are
asked again, as we were in verse 51, to make all actions "Unto
Her". To understand this first off we need to see that we
are being told that the process ‘to love her’ is
better than any substance; ‘all things’. This
accords with the nature of cultic activities since they need
to be doings to engage us. We know further from her promise
that to enjoy the love of her redeems us from all pain. Who
then is Nuit that this generic dedication of love would apply
and could work in this way? She, being everything but the
individual percipient entity, is the Other, that which we
are not yet, but in coming into contact with it we are about
to become, that is, we are about to include in our constitution.
She is thus the region of all potential. She is also referred
to in the first verse of the second chapter as Nu, the hiding
of Hadit. Nu is the phonetic representation of the Egyptian ‘nu’-pot,
a small round vessel which, inverted, is likened to the bowl
of the sky, Nut or Nuit. This invokes our previous discussion
of Nuit as the Platonic Receptacle. However, Nu also puns
simply to ‘new’, all that we are not, yet. ‘Nuit’,
the region of all potential, the ‘Nu’, the receptacle
out of which all forms emerge, and the ‘New’ together
function as what Whitehead describes as the ‘lure to
novelty’. By calling us to her, Nuit is inviting us
to expand our natures into the openness of possibility escaping
beyond the limitations of division through entering into
a love-relationship with all we are not. We are invited to
make our world and everything in it our lover, dissolving
all pain into the joy of union [cf. AL I, 30] To this end
Nuit’s original epiphany in AL I, 26 is with "her lithe
body arched for love." She wishes to be our lover in all
that we do.
As Thelema, or ‘Will’, is a central motif of
our work it remains a principle in need of deep elucidation.
We find it for the first time in our text in the phrase, "The
word of the Law is Qelhma" [AL I, 39]. This phrase brings
together several key notions from the ancient and classical
worlds; ‘word’, ‘law’ and ‘will’.
We have a very useful and powerful resource provided by Christian
scholars for understanding these words in the Theological
Dictionary of the New Testament. By drawing upon this resource
we can recreate the context in which these words are embedded
and thus be able to better understand their meaning in our
text. One key element here is the question of whether Crowley
is a participant in the tradition in which these terms emerge.
Besides the fact that he was raised in a family belong to
the proto-fundamentalist sect called the Plymouth Brethren
and educated in the classical manner at Trinity College,
Cambridge, a brief scan of the bibliography he provides for
training in his system of thought and the texts referred
to in his writings show that he is seated firmly in this
tradition. Our subsequent exploration will bring this out
even further.
As we saw before
in our word analysis of ‘Law’,[5]
logos can mean simply a way of letting a thing lie before
one. For the Greeks this notion of logos was ‘almost
symbolic of the Greek understanding of the world and existence.’ [TD
v. ?[6]
p. 77] Their understanding of this notion transformed from
simple accounting to mathematical proportion to reason and
eventually to the greater notion of mind. It was through
the agency of logos that the Stoics saw human’s ability
to recognize the intelligible law imbedded in all things
and thus the cosmic order.[TD v. ? p.81] They saw that in
the individual dwelt a particular logos that was part of
the great general logos that when lived out combined into
a great cosmos.[TD v. ? p.85] To attain to awareness of this
logos and to live by it was the ethical task of the Greek.
The Mysteries and Classical Hermetic traditions carried this
further with emphasis on the revelation of the logos to be
followed.
Whereas in the
Greek tradition ‘logos’ is the
connected rational element in speech, its data, in the Old
Testament the logos is principally the uttered command of
Yahweh, both in the sense of creation and cultic demand.
Its similarity to the Greek is to be noted in that this uttered
word still provides the determinant order that creates the
world but it does not possess the rational constraint of
the Greek notion by its being a revelation. In Johanine Christianity,
where the notion of logos takes on its most forceful appearance,
it emerges in the life, words, acts and simple facticity
of the Christ. Christ is the Word and his actions are embodiments
of the Word. But it is in Christ’s uniqueness as the
only Word that contrast emerges with the general Greek conception.
Here Christ remains as a model and manifestation to which
all may aspire but none may attain. Let us stop here and
go back to explore ‘Law’ because
we will find that they both end in the same place, with the
uniqueness of Christ.
Nomos, Law, goes
through several distinct stages in Greek usage. It begins
as the norms of society which are seen as manifestations
of cosmic order. When the Greek world contacts other cultures
it begins to have its laws and mores challenged by the
plurality of law that they contact. Nonetheless for Socrates
law was the commonly available objective knowledge of right
and wrong and, not being able to separate his conscience
from the degenerate political morality, he felt compelled
to drink the hemlock. Plato responded to this misuse of law
by demanding more intelligence for it. Since law could not
change to meet new circumstances fast enough, he wanted a
king who’s word was law and who was able through the
possession of ‘true knowledge’ able to guide
the state. In this sense this individual would then be outside
of the law and a law unto themselves, yet through being so
thoroughly righteous was the ideal ruler. This lawful life
without laws became the aspiration of Greek culture and an
source for individual piety. Through contemplating the law
of the cosmos the philosopher becomes a manifestation of
the law in his [sic] actions. This law becomes a strong interiorized
drive in the lives of its individual adherents and was further
developed in Neo-Platonism and Orphic Platonism. The law
here becomes that principle "wherein a being, or something
of intrinsic validity, is discovered and apprehended… It
is the ancient, valid and effective order which does not
merely issue orders but creates order, which does not merely
command, require or prohibit but rules, which evokes as it
were its own fulfillment, and which upholds itself, or is
upheld, in the face of non-fulfillment."[TD v. ? p. 1035]
The Judeo-Christian
pattern is very similar. For the Jew the Law of the Covenant
was the constitutional proclamation of the order of the
People of Yahweh. It determined membership and behavior.
As such it was the cultural norm and, as the word of Yahweh
is seen as creative, it constitutes in some manner Cosmic
order itself. Yet this followed a pattern of interiorization
similar to the Greek’s in the person
of Jesus. Jesus, in his instance that the attitude with which
an action is performed matters more than the form turns the
law inside out. But there is an even more fundamental change
in Jesus’s innovation, the law is removed from its
place as mediator between Yahweh and his people and Jesus
takes its place. This is essentially the same as the replacing
of the nomos of the Greeks with the divine King. This gives
the law a more interactive quality only possible when it
is intelligent. However, the principle difference is that
here, again this embodiment of law is only available in the
person of Christ Jesus. We have again arrived in the same
place and so let us stop here and examine ‘Thelema’ or
Will in terms of this tradition.
In Hellenistic
times ‘thelema’ referred to the
purpose of persons and some times simply to the impulse of
desire. In the Synagogues it became a term referring to the
Divine Will. For the Hermetics it was equated with God especially
in the sense of perfect, unlimited creative and regenerative
power. However, by the New Testament, thelema is "the ultimate
basis, the supreme norm, the only source of the whole work
of salvation. It is its final, pre-temporal foundation."[TD
v. ? p.57] The task of the adherent is to be ready for a
renewal of their nuos for "[o]nly the renewed nuos knows
the will of god in order thereby to set up its goal and to
fashion its service. The request to be filled with the knowledge
of His will… is also concerned with a gnosis relating
to the practical goal of life… The doing
of the will [is] the basic condition of an essential goal."[TD
v. ? p. 58] Yet this notion of will, exemplified by Jesus
is characterized by the submission of the will of the individual
to the divine will implying that these are inherently alienated.
This contrast is further emphasized in that the Cosmos is
said to not do the will of God and so a Christian must.[TD
v. ? p. 58] Here is where our three words come together at
this same end point.
The Thelemic
paradigm can be seen as an answer to the dead end presented
by Jesus Christ’s role as sole Word and
Law, and who’s example in the way of will is through
submission. The problem is that if Jesus is the only Word
and Law, neither of these are accessible to the rest of us
and we are dependent on a preserved text and revelation.
Worse still, this revelation is 2000 years old and massively
out of date. For example, I live with nuclear bombs, not
sheep. Further, in an age of wide spread oppression, submission
to any power is suspect. Who can know the needs of an individual
better than that individual? These are the challenges Thelema
addresses. But before we can truly interpret Liber AL’s
message we need to examine the phrase we began with: "The
word of the Law is Qelhma."
On the basis
of the Greek tradition out of which this term emerges we
can now transform this phrase into the response it is to
the Christian tradition. ‘Word’ is the
process where by order is intelligible and recognizable. ‘Law’ is
the normative principle inherent in the world as its order,
superior to and more fundamental than any given expression
of that order, thus it is not able to be reduced to formula.
From this reasoning we derive: "The Intelligence of Ordering
is Will."
Having situated ‘Thelema’ in the tradition out
of which it emerges we need to probe into its ontological
function. To do this we may turn to our normative metaphysics,
the philosophy of organism. What I hope to show is, in accord
with my basic thesis, that the thelemic notion of ‘will’ is
able to be interpreted by Whitehead’s philosophy and
in Whitehead’s terms would called the ‘subjective
aim’.
One of the key
characteristics of an individual will is that it is coordinated
with all other individual wills. This has to do with the
reflexivity of the system as a whole expressed in Liber
AL as the complementarity of Nu and Had. [AL II, 2]. Very
little is said about this although it is essential in most
interpretations of Thelema (cf. Crowley’s
commentaries, the prologues to the various editions of Liber
AL, &c.). This is often seen as manifestation of the
divine will, i.e. Hadit’s will,[7]
in each individual person or ‘star’. The philosophy
of organism provides an excellent way of accounting for this.
This individual subjective aim is derived from the divine
subjective aim. This is in part due to the continual effect
the primordial nature of God has upon all subsequent concrescences
by providing the ground of order upon which all functioning
depends [PR 108, 283]. But also, in a more particular manner,
the divine aim is relevant to the particular world in which
that entity becomes [PR 224-225], and presents the best aim
for that particular impasse [PR 244]. Thus the incursion
of divine aim is not simply a generic providence but a specific
one related to the needs and reality of the particular concrescent
entity. By being the lure or guide towards the best that
could be achieved in each moment there is implied in the
divine aim impressed upon the initial phases of an entity’s
concrescence a coordination with all other wills in that
they are similarly derived from the one universal will. This
might well be called the whole-ing of the law which nature
is love and which is actualized through doing one’s
will (cf. word analysis of ‘law’).
Another factor
in the nature of will as presented in the philosophy of
organism is the importance of subjective aim in the genetic
constitution of an entity. This raises the subjective aim
to the same high level of ontological importance as will
is presented in Thelema. The subjective aim determines
the ordering, integration and relationships between all
of the ingressing eternal objects, the subjective forms
and the prehensions. As these constitute an actual entity
the importance of subjective aim or will is thus obvious.
In Liber AL we see this raised to the status of ultimate
law. When we read that "There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt" [AL
III, 60], we are being told that the subjective aim of the
individual entity, which is derived of God, is the ultimate
arbiter of purpose and being. Obviously, Whitehead would
agree.
Having looked
at the system’s relationship to the
individual and the individual’s genetic relationship
with the system we can see there is a clear correspondence
between ‘subjective aim’ as presented in the
philosophy of organism and ‘will’ in Liber AL.
What Liber AL also purports to do is give advice about how ‘will’ works
and on the right relationship between the individual and
their will. We will find that this advice corresponds nicely
with Whitehead’s assessment of the nature of the subjective
aim and concrescence.
The strongest
advice given in Liber AL is given in the first chapter
in verses 42-45. : "So with thy all; thou hast no
right but to do thy will. / Do that, and no other shall say
nay. / For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from
the lust of result, is every way perfect. / The Perfect and
the Perfect are one Perfect and not two; nay, are none!" This
is one of the very few verses that use the word ‘will’ (other
than in the sense of ‘shall’) that we have not
discussed already. It constitutes the single most useful
piece of advice about how to function in the world that our
text presents. Thus, its analysis in terms of the philosophy
of organism is important.
"So with thy all;" Since all that we ‘have’ are
the ingressing eternal objects, the subjective forms and
the prehensions included in our concrescences, it is with
them that we are being directed by this phrase to concern
ourselves. "… thou hast no right but to do thy will," tells
us that there is no other way of dealing with these concerns
except through the organizing principle of our subjective
aim or will. "Do that, and no other shall say nay," speaks
to the conditioned autonomy of that subjective aim in the
process of its integrations. Once an entity has begun its
concrescence it is out of touch with all other entities until
it completes its process and during that process it freely
determines the nature of its process and thus itself in accord
with its subjective aim.
The wherefore
of this process comes in the next sentence: "For
pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust
of result, is every way perfect." To be ‘unassuaged
of purpose’ is to be without any distractions from
the goal. Whitehead handles this with his notion of ‘balance’ which
means that "no realized eternal object shall eliminate potential
contrasts between other realized eternal objects." This would "attenuate
the intensities of feeling derivable from the ingressions
of the various elements" in the constitution of the concrescent
entity. [PR 278] This is sub-optimal since the generic aim
is towards the intensity of experience.
To be ‘delivered from the lust of result’ is
to be acting without attachment to the result of one’s
actions (cf. the Bhagavad Gita). The down fall in this is
that, as Whitehead puts it "[n]o actual entity can be conscious
of its own satisfaction; for such knowledge would be a component
in the process, and would thereby alter the satisfaction." [PR
85] In other words, if one knew where one was going one would
never get there. What Thelema adds to this understanding
is how to handle the fact that there is always some vision
of the goal, a lure towards an aim. This, whether a simple
contrast or complex proposition must not be lusted after,
just simply worked for without distraction, even the distraction
of the goal. The deliverance from distraction is the advice
Thelema presents so as to attain to the ‘perfect’ satisfaction
in every concrescence, in ‘every way’.
As for "The Perfect and the Perfect are one Perfect and
not two; nay, are none!" see PR p. 85 for satisfaction as
the means through which an entity becomes an "immortal part-creator
of the transcendent world". The transcendent world is the
determinant influence of all entities that have become and
perished, passing into objective immortality, their not-being.[AI
237] Being real but not longer actual, in terms of the symbol
set found in Liber AL this transcendent world is termed the ‘not’ or
here ‘none’. It is also ‘one
world’ or ‘one Perfect’ in that it is through
a wholeness or unity that the past comes to bear on the concrescent
present, and no part or duality. The perfectness of this
entire description comes with the complete accommodation
that the divine makes for the actual entity as it passes
into objective immortality, completing the creative cycle,
fulfilling the divine aim.
Having come to the end of the immediate time and energy
to be put in to the project of analyzing and exegeting Liber
AL vel Legis, it is clear that there are vast regions of
research opened by this initial exploration waiting and available
for study. These will have to addressed in the future. What
this study has shown is that the classical exegetical method
does apply to our text, bringing out deeper insights as to
its meaning and its relevance to and place in mainstream
theological discourse. It also shows that the philosophy
of organism can be a workable world view through which Liber
AL may be interpreted. This preliminary study speaks strongly
to the need to break the silence surrounding discussion and
interpretation of Liber AL vel Legis so that its value may
become more available to all.
This said, it is worth while to briefly list some of the
further problems facing the exegete and some of the at present
visible avenues of research to be done.
Word-study: The
following words need to be studied in light of their place
in our text and in the western tradition: ‘not
at all’, king (and allied notions of sovereignty),
slave, service, star, warrior, children, heart and tongue,
because, fool(s), light and night, ordeal and initiation,
dog, &c.
Issues: the place
of women (partly dealt with by the writing conventions
of the era and "Every man and every woman is
a star" [AL I, 3] which proclaims their fundamental equality
with men, but must be contrasted with AL I, 61, and other
places where they appear as property). Are the more wrathful
expressions of Ra-Hoor-Khuit (and others) simply iconography
able to be interpreted in a similar manner to the Tibetan
Wrathful Buddhas? Ra-Hoor-Khuit needs to be explicated in
general. Who are the Beast, and his Bride, the Scarlet Woman.
What of the titles Scribe,Prophet, Priest, and Prince? How
exactly does Thelema and Liber AL present the Egyptian tradition.
What relationships are there between Liber AL vel Legis and
the other Thelemic Holy Books that Crowley wrote, and beyond
that to the continually emerging other Holy Books scribed
by people other than Crowley? What relationship is there
between Thelema and Buddhism, specifically Mahayana and Vajrayana,
and further to Dzogchen? Is Liber AL a western tantra or
a ‘terma’, a mind treasure? What of the topography
of the Cult of Thelema can be mapped out? How much of Liber
AL can and should be interpreted in the light of the Hermetic
Order of the Golden Dawn ("Abrogate are all rituals, all
ordeals, all words and signs. Ra-Hoor-Khuit hath taken his
seat in that East at the Equinox of the Gods;" [AL I, 49]
is a paraphrase of the Golden Dawn Equinox ceremony. Is this
relevant and if so, how?). What is the place of Qabalah in
Thelema? How trustable are Crowley’s commentaries?
What is the place of Yoga in Thelema? How is reason to be
used (cf. "Also reason is a lie; for there is a factor infinite & unknown; & all
of their words are skew-wise." [AL II, 32])? What relationship
does Liber AL have with the Chaldean Oracles? What is Thelema’s
political program? How much more connection is there between
Thelema and Whitehead’s philosophy of organism. What
of Thelema can be used to explicate the philosophy of organism. &c.
This list is just a preliminary set of questions with which
to spark much further research. It is by no means exhaustive.
What we have here is the beginning of the task.
[BE] Beyer, Stephan. The Buddhist Experience: Sources
and Interpretations, Encino, CA: Dickenson Publishing
Co. Inc., 1974.
[MP] Crowley, Aleister. Magical and Philosophical Commentaries
on The Book of the Law, John Symonds and Kenneth Grant,
eds., Quebec: 93 Publishing, 1974.
[CA] Crowley, Aleister. The Commentaries of AL,
New York: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1975.
[BX] Hayes, John H. & Carl R. Holladay, Biblical
Exegesis, A Beginner’s Handbook, rev. ed., Atlanta:
John Knox Press, 1987.
[HT] The Holy Books of Thelema, York Beach: Samuel
Weiser, 1983.
[KW] Sherburne, Donald W. ed., A Key to Whitehead’s ‘Process
and Reality’, Chicago: Chicago University Press,
1966.
[BT] Wayman, Alex. The Buddhist Tantras: Light on Indo-Tibetan
Esotericism, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers
Pvt. Ltd., 1973.
[RM] Whitehead, Alfred N. Religion in the Making, New
York: Macmillan, 1926.
[AI] Whitehead, Alfred N. Adventures of Ideas, New
York: Free Press, 1967.
[PR] Whitehead, Alfred N. Process and Reality, ed.
D.R.Griffin & D.W.Sherburne, corr. ed., New York: Free
Press, 1987.
- Rose Kelly Crowley, who was completely unschooled in
the Craft
- According to the reported account in Crowley's The Equinox
of the Gods, New Falcon Pub.s, Scottsdale AZ, 1991, originally
published 1936.
- The child god of the Egyptians, some times called the
Lord of Silence. He is also the inner form of Ra-Hoor-Khuit,
thus a processual symbol, not the entity or the process
itself.
- The concept of knowledge here may compare favorably with
the Dzogchen notion of same. (A direction for further research.)
- Please see appended text "Word
Analysis of the use of the word "law" in
Liber AL vel Legis".
- volume numbers were to be added later, sorry.
- "Because of me in Thee which thou knewest not." [AL
II, 12]
| Authors
Details: Sam Webster Email: webster@concrescent.net |
Aleister
Crowley Section
The
Book Of The Law (Liber AL vel Legis)
|
