Crowley - The Equinox of The Gods

THE
EQUINOX
VOF THE
GODS
Fir st published Lon don: O.T.O., 1936 .
Corrected reprint included in Magick:
Book 4 Pa rts I - IV, Yor k Be ach ,
Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1994.
This electronic edition
issued by Celephaïs
Press, Leeds, An.
C. ! in a
(M a r c h
2 0 0 4
e. v.)
Last revised 13th October 2019; minor corrections

and stylistic changes.
A PARAPHRASE OF THE INSCRIPTIONS UPON
THE OBVERSE OF THE STÉLÉ OF REVEALING
Above, the gemmèd azure is
The naked splendour of Nuit;
She bends in ecstasy to kiss
The secret ardours of Hadit.
The wingèd globe, the starry blue
Are mine, o Ankh-f-n-Khonsu.
I am the Lord of Thebes, and I
The inspired forth-speaker of Mentu;
For me unveils the veilèd sky,
The self-slain Ankh-f-n-Khonsu
Whose words are truth. I invoke, I greet
Thy presence, o Ra-Hoor-Khuit!
Unity uttermost showed!
I adore the might of Thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death
To tremble before Thee:—
I, I adore thee!
Appear on the throne of Ra!
Open the ways of the Khu!
Lighten the ways of the Ka!
The ways of the Khabs run through
To stir me or still me!
Aum! let it kill me!
The Light is mine; its rays consume
Me: I have made a secret door
Into the House of Ra and Tum,
Of Khephra, and of Ahathoor.
I am thy Theban, o Mentu,
The prophet Ankh-f-n-Khonsu!
By Bes-na-Maut my breast I beat;
By wise Ta-Nech I weave my spell.
Show thy star-splendour, O Nuith!
Bid me within thine House to dwell,
O wingèd snake of light, Hadith!
Abide with me, Ra-Hoor-Khuit!
A PARAPHRASE OF THE HIEROGLYPHS OF THE
11 LINES UPON THE REVERSE OF THE STÉLE
Saith of Mentu the truth-telling brother

Who was master of Thebes from his birth:
O heart of me, heart of my mother!
O heart which I had upon earth!
Stand not thou up against a witness!
Oppose me not, judge, in my quest!
Accuse me not now of unfitness
Before the Great God, the dread Lord of the West!
For I fastened the one to the other
With a spell for their mystical girth,
The earth and the wonderful West,
When I flourished, o earth, on thy breast!
The dead man Ankh-f-n-Khonsu

Saith with his voice of truth and calm:
O thou that hast a single arm!
O thou that glitterest in the moon!
I weave thee in the spinning charm;
I lure thee with billowy tune.

Hath parted from the darkling crowds,
Hath joined the dwellers of the light,
Opening Duant, the star-abodes,
Their keys receiving.
Hath made his passage into night,
His pleasure on the earth to do
Among the living.
THE EQUINOX
OF THE GODS
The Official Organ of the AA
{
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Love is the law, love under will
The word of the Law is
θελημα
The Official Organ of the O.T.O.
Deus
|
Vol III.
Est
Homo.
No. III.
An I x ! in g
SEPTEMBER MCMXXXVI E. V.
Issued by the O.T.O.
BM/JPKH, London, W.C.1
AA Publication in Class E
}
V }
93 10° = 18 V.N. Præmonstrator
Pro. Coll. Pro Coll.
666 9° = 28 P. Imperator
Summ. Ext.
777 8° = 38 Achad. Cancellatius
}
I.W.E. 7° = 48
O.M. 7° = 48 Pro
O.S.V. 6° = 58 Coll. Int
Parsival 5° = 68
|
^ £
CONTENTS
THE SUMMONS 1
A SUMMARY 3
LIBER AL VEL LEGIS SUB FIGURÂ CCXX 13
GENESIS LIBRI AL 39
I. The Boyhood of Aleister Crowley 41
II. Adolescence—Beginnings of Magick—The Birth of
FRATER PERDURABO. 48
III. Beginnings of Mysticism—The birth of FRATER OU MH 51
IV. The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage—The Birth of
FRATER ——— 55
V. The Results of Recession 59
VI. The Great Revelation—The Arising of THE BEAST 666 61
VII. Remarks on the Method of Receiving Liber Legis 94
VIII. Summary of the Case 134
AL (LIBER LEGIS), THE BOOK OF THE LAW SUB FIGURÂ XXXI 139
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE STELE OF REVEALING Frontispiece
FOUR HOROSCOPES Facing Summons
FIRST SKETCH OF A QABALISTIC KEY TO LIBER AL 138
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THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS THE ANNIHILATION OF FRATER P.

[Cairo, Egypt 30° N.: 20.03.1904 E.V.] [Bou-Saada, Algeria: 11:15 p.m, 03.12.1909 E.V.]
THE SUMMONS
On APRIL 8, 9 AND 10, 1904 E.V., this book was dictated to 666
(Aleister Crowley) by Aiwass, a Being whose nature he does not fully
understand, but who described himself as “the Minister of Hoor-
Paar-Kraat” (the Lord of Silence).
The contents of the book prove to strict scientific
demonstration that He possesses knowledge and power quite
beyond anything that has been hitherto associated with human
faculties.
The circumstances of the dictation are described in The Equinox I
(7):1 but a fuller account, with an outline of the proof of the character
of the book is now here to be issued.
The book announced a New Law for mankind.
It replaces the moral and religious sanctions of the past,
which have everywhere broken down, by a principle valid for
each man and woman in the world, and self-evidently
indefeasible.
The spiritual Revolution announced by the book has already taken
place: hardly a country where it is not openly manifest.
Ignorance of the true meaning of this new Law has led to gross
anarchy. Its conscious adoption in its proper sense is the sole cure for
the political, social and racial unrest which have brought about the
1
[Reproduced below, “Genesis Libri AL” cap. VI]
1
2 THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS
World War, the catastrophe of Europe and America, and the
threatening attitude of China, India and Islam.
Its solution of the fundamental problems of mathematics and
philosophy will establish a new epoch in history.
But it must not be supposed that so potent an instrument of
energy can be used without danger.
I summon, therefore, by the power and authority entrusted in me,
every great spirit and mind now on this planet incarnate to take
effective hold of this transcendent force, and apply it to the
advancement of the welfare of the human race.
For as the experience of the past two and thirty years has shown
too terribly, the book cannot be ignored. It has leavened Mankind
unaware: and Man must make thereof the Bread of Life. Its ferment
has begun to work on the grape of thought: Man must obtain
therefrom the Wine of Ecstasy.
Come then, all ye, in the Name of the Lord of the Æon, the
Crowned and Concquering Child, Hera-Ra-Ha: I call ye to partake
this sacrament.
Know—will—dare—and be silent!
The Priest of the Princes,
ANKH - AF - NA - KHONSU
A SUMMARY
MARSYAS. I bear a message. Heaven hath sent
(As for The The knowledge of a new sweet way
Beast 666)
Into the Secret Element.
OLYMPAS. Master, while yet the glory clings

(Any Aspirant) Declare this mystery magical!
MARSYAS. I am yet borne on those blue wings

Into the Essence of the All.
Now, now I stand on earth again,
Though, blazing through each nerve and vein,
The light yet holds its choral course,
Filling my frame with fiery force
Like God’s. Now hear the Apocalypse
New-fledged on these reluctant lips!
OLYMPAS. I tremble like an aspen, quiver

Like light upon a rainy river!
MARSYAS. Do what thou wilt! is the sole word

Of law that my attainment heard.
Arise, and lay thine hand on God!
Arise, and set a period
Unto Restriction! That is sin:
3
To hold thine holy spirit in!
O thou that chafest at thy bars,
Invoke Nuit beneath her stars
With a pure heart (Her incense burned
Of gums and woods, in gold inurned),
And let the serpent flame therein
A little, and thy soul shall win
To lie within her bosom. Lo!
Thou wouldst give all—and she cries: No!
Take all, and take me! Gather spice
And virgins and great pearls of price!
Worship me in a single robe,
Crowned richly! Girdle of the globe,
I love thee! Pale and purple, veiled,
Voluptuous, swan silver-sailed,
I love thee. I am drunkness
Of the inmost sense; my soul’s caress
Is toward thee! Let my priestess stand
Bare and rejoicing, softly fanned
By smooth-lipped acolytes, upon
Mine iridescent altar-stone,
And in her love-chaunt swooningly
Say evermore: To me! To me!
I am the azure-lidded daughter
Of sunset; the all-girdling water;
The naked brilliance of the sky
In the voluptuous night am I!
With song, with jewel, with perfume,
Wake all my rose's blush and bloom!
Drink to me! Love me! I love thee,
My love, my lord—to me! to me!
A SUMMARY 5
OLYMPAS. There is no harshness in the breath

Of this—is life surpassed, and death?
MARSYAS. There is the Snake that gives delight

And Knowledge, stirs the heart aright
With drunkenness. Strange drugs are thine,
Hadit, and draughts of wizard wine!
These do no hurt. Thine hermits dwell
Not in the cold secretive cell,
But under purple canopies
With mighty-breasted mistresses
Magnificent as lionesses—
Tender and terrible caresses!
Fire lives, and light, in eager eyes;
And massed huge hair about them lies.
They lead their hosts to victory:
In every joy they are kings; then see
That secret serpent coiled to spring
And win the world! O priest and king,
Let there be feasting, foining, fighting,
A revel of lusting, singing, smiting!
Work; be the bed of work! Hold! Hold!
The stars’ kiss is as molten gold.
Harden! Hold thyself up! now die—
Ah! Ah! Exceed! Exceed!
OLYMPAS. And I?
MARSYAS. My stature shall surpass the stars:

He hath said it! Men shall worship me
In hidden woods, on barren scaurs,
Henceforth to all eternity.
OLYMPAS. Hail! I adore thee! Let us feast.
MARSYAS. I am the consecrated Beast.

I build the Abominable House.
The Scarlet Woman is my Spouse—
OLYMPAS. What is this word?
MARSYAS. Thou canst not know

Till thou hast passed the Fourth Ordeal.
OLYMPAS. I worship thee. The moon-rays flow

Masterfully rich and real
From thy red mouth, and burst, young suns
Chanting before the Holy Ones
Thine Eight Mysterious Orisons!
MARSYAS. The last spell! The availing word!

The two completed by the third!
The Lord of War, of Vengeance
That slayeth with a single glance!
This light is in me of my Lord.
His Name is this far-whirling sword.
I push His order. Keen and swift
My Hawk’s eye flames; these arms uplift
The Banner of Silence and of Strength—
Hail! Hail! thou art here, my Lord, at length!
Lo, the Hawk-Headed Lord am I:
My nemyss shrouds the night-blue sky.
Hail! ye twin warriors that guard
A SUMMARY 7
The pillars of the world! Your time

Is nigh at hand. The snake that marred
Heaven with his inexhaustible slime
Is slain; I bear the Wand of Power,
The Wand that waxes and that wanes;
I crush the Universe this hour
In my left hand; and naught remains!
Ho! for the splendour in my name
Hidden and glorious, a flame
Secretly shooting from the sun.
Aum! Ha!—my destiny is done.
The Word is spoken and concealed.
OLYMPAS. I am stunned. What wonder was revealed?
MARSYAS. The rite is secret.
OLYMPAS. Profits it?
MARSYAS. Only to wisdom and to wit.
OLYMPAS. The other did no less.
MARSYAS. Then prove

Both by the master-key of Love.
The lock turns stiffly? Shalt thou shirk
To use the sacred oil of work?
Not from the valley shalt thou test
The eggs that line the eagle’s nest!
Climb, with thy life at stake, the ice,
The sheer wall of the precipice!
Master the cornice, gain the breach,
And learn what next the ridge can teach!
Yet—not the ridge itself may speak
The secret of the final peak.
OLYMPAS. All ridges join at last.
MARSYAS. Admitted,
O thou astute and subtle-witted!
Yet one—loose, jaggéd, clad in mist!
Another—firm, smooth, loved and kissed
By the soft sun! Our order hath
This secret of the solar path,
Even as our Lord the Beast hath won
The mystic Number of the Sun.
OLYMPAS. These secrets are too high for me.
MARSYAS. Nay, little brother! Come and see!

Neither by faith nor fear nor awe
Approach the doctrine of the Law!
Truth, Courage, Love, shall win the bout,
And those three others be cast out.
OLYMPAS. Lead me, Master, by the hand

Gently to this gracious land!
Let me drink the doctrine in,
An all-healing medicine!
Let me rise, correct and firm,
A SUMMARY 9
Steady striding to the term,

Master of my fate, to rise
To imperial destinies;
With the sun’s ensanguine dart
Spear-bright in my blazing heart,
And my being’s basil-plant
Bright and hard as adamant!
MARSYAS. Yonder, faintly luminous,

The yellow desert waits for us.
Lithe and eager, hand in hand,
We travel to the lonely land.
There, beneath the stars, the smoke
Of our incense shall invoke
The Queen of Space; and subtly
She Shall bend from Her infinity
Like a lambent flame of blue,
Touching us, and piercing through
All the sense-webs that we are
As the aethyr penetrates a star!
Her hands caressing the black earth,
Her sweet lithe body arched for love,
Her feet a Zephyr to the flowers,
She calls my name—she gives the sign
That she is mine, supremely mine,
And clinging to the infinite girth
My soul gets perfect joy thereof
Beyond the abysses and the hours;
So that—I kiss her lovely brows;
She bathes my body in perfume
Of sweat . . . . O thou my secret spouse,
Continuous One of Heaven! illume
My soul with this arcane delight,
Voluptuous Daughter of the Night!
Eat me up wholly with the glance
Of thy luxurious brilliance!
OLYMPAS. The desert calls.
MARSYAS. Then let us go!

Or seek the sacramental snow,
Where like a high-priest I may stand
With acolytes on every hand,
The lesser peaks—my will withdrawn
To invoke the dayspring from the dawn,
Changing that rosy smoke of light
To a pure crystalline white;
Though the mist of mind, as draws
A dancer round her limbs the gauze,
Clothe Light, and show the virgin Sun
A lemon-pale medallion!
Thence leap we leashless to the goal,
Stainless star-rapture of the soul.
So the altar-fires fade
As the Godhead is displayed.
Nay, we stir not. Everywhere
Is our temple right appointed.
All the earth is faery fair
For us. Am I not anointed?
The Sigil burns upon the brow
At the adjuration—here and now.
A SUMMARY 11
OLYMPAS. The air is laden with perfumes.
MARSYAS. Behold! It beams—it burns—it blooms.
* * * *
OLYMPAS. Master, how subtly hast thou drawn

The daylight from the Golden Dawn,
Bidden the Cavernous Mount unfold
Its Ruby Rose, its Cross of Gold;
Until I saw, flashed from afar,
The Hawk’s eye in the Silver Star!
MARSYAS. Peace to all beings. Peace to thee,

Co-heir of mine eternity!
Peace to the greatest and the least,
To nebula and nenuphar!
Light in abundance be increased
On them that dream that shadows are!
OLYMPAS. Blessing and worship to The Beast,

The prophet of the lovely Star!
:
LIBER
AL V E L
LEGIS
SVB FIGVRÂ
CCXX
AS DELIVERED BY
XCIII = 418
UNTO
DCLXVI
V AA
Publication in Class A
1. Had! The manifestation of Nuit.
2. The unveiling of the company of heaven.
3. Every man and every woman is a star.
4. Every number is infinite; there is no difference.
5. Help me, o warrior lord of Thebes, in my unveiling before the
Children of men!
6. Be thou Hadit, my secret centre, my heart & my tongue!
7. Behold! it is revealed by Aiwass the minister of Hoor-paar-
kraat.
8. The Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs.
9. Worship then the Khabs, and behold my light shed over you!
10. Let my servants be few & secret: they shall rule the many & the
known.
11. These are fools that men adore; both their Gods & their men
are fools.
12. Come forth, o children, under the stars, & take your fill of
love.
13. I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is
to see your joy.
14. Above, the gemmèd azure is
The naked splendour of Nuit;
She bends in ecstasy to kiss
The secret ardours of Hadit.
The wingèd globe, the starry blue,
Are mine, O Ankh-af-na-khonsu!
15. Now ye shall know that the chosen priest & apostle of infinite
space is the prince-priest the Beast; and in his woman called the
Scarlet Woman is all power given. They shall gather my children
into their fold: they shall bring the glory of the stars into the hearts of
men.
16. For he is ever a sun, and she a moon. But to him is the winged
secret flame, and to her the stooping starlight.
17. But ye are not so chosen.
18. Burn upon their brows, o splendrous serpent!
19. O azure-lidded woman, bend upon them!
20. The key of the rituals is in the secret word which I have given
unto him.
21. With the God & the Adorer I am nothing: they do not see me.
They are as upon the earth; I am Heaven, and there is no other God
than me, and my lord Hadit.
22. Now, therefore, I am known to ye by my name Nuit, and to
him by a secret name which I will give him when at last he knoweth
me. Since I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye
also thus. Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among
you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there
cometh hurt.
23. But whoso availeth in this, let him be the chief of all!
24. I am Nuit, and my word is six and fifty.
25. Divide, add, multiply, and understand.
26. Then saith the prophet and slave of the beauteous one: Who
am I, and what shall be the sign? So she answered him, bending
down, a lambent flame of blue, all-touching, all penetrant, her lovely
hands upon the black earth, & her lithe body arched for love, and her
soft feet not hurting the little flowers: Thou knowest! And the sign
shall be my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity of existence,
the omnipresence of my body.
27. Then the priest answered & said unto the Queen of Space,
kissing her lovely brows, and the dew of her light bathing his whole
body in a sweet-smelling perfume of sweat: 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!
28. None, breathed the light, faint & faery, of the stars, and two.
29. For I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union.
30. This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as
nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.
31. For these fools of men and their woes care not thou at all!
They feel little; what is, is balanced by weak joys; but ye are my
chosen ones.
32. 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.
33. Then the priest fell into a deep trance or swoon, & said unto
the Queen of Heaven; Write unto us the ordeals; write unto us the
rituals; write unto us the law!
34. But she said: the ordeals I write not: the rituals shall be half
known and half concealed: the Law is for all.
35. This that thou writest is the threefold book of Law.
36. My scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu, the priest of the princes, shall
not in one letter change this book; but lest there be folly, he shall
comment thereupon by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khu-it.
37. Also the mantras and spells; the obeah and the wanga; the
work of the wand and the work of the sword; these he shall learn and
teach.
38. He must teach; but he may make severe the ordeals.
39. The word of the Law is qelhma.
40. Who calls us Thelemites will do no wrong, if he look but close
into the word. For there are therein Three Grades, the Hermit, and
the Lover, and the man of Earth. Do what thou wilt shall be the
whole of the Law.
41. The word of Sin is Restriction. O man! refuse not thy wife, if
she will! O lover, if thou wilt, depart! There is no bond that can
unite the divided but love: all else is a curse. Accurséd! Accurséd be it
to the æons! Hell.
42. Let it be that state of manyhood bound and loathing. So with
thy all; thou hast no right but to do thy will.
43. Do that, and no other shall say nay.
44. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust
of result, is every way perfect.
45. The Perfect and the Perfect are one Perfect and not two; nay,
are none!
46. Nothing is a secret key of this law. Sixty-one the Jews call it; I
call it eight, eighty, four hundred & eighteen.
47. But they have the half: unite by thine art so that all disappear.
48. My prophet is a fool with his one, one, one; are they not the
Ox, and none by the Book?
49. Abrogate are all rituals, all ordeals, all words and signs. Ra-
Hoor-Khuit hath taken his seat in the East at the Equinox of the
Gods; and let Asar be with Isa, who also are one. But they are not of
me. Let Asar be the adorant, Isa the sufferer; Hoor in his secret name
and splendour is the Lord initiating.
50. There is a word to say about the Hierophantic task. Behold!
there are three ordeals in one, and it may be given in three ways.
The gross must pass through fire; let the fine be tried in intellect, and
the lofty chosen ones in the highest. Thus ye have star & star, system
& system; let not one know well the other!
51. There are four gates to one palace; the floor of that palace
is of silver and gold; lapis lazuli & jasper are there; and all rare
scents; jasmine & rose, and the emblems of death. Let him enter
in turn or at once the four gates; let him stand on the floor of
the palace. Will he not sink? Amn. Ho! warrior, if thy servant sink?
But there are means and means. Be goodly therefore: dress ye
all in fine apparel; eat rich foods and drink sweet wines and
wines that foam! Also, take your fill and will of love as ye will,
when, where and with whom ye will! But always unto me.
52. If this be not aright; if ye confound the space-marks,
saying: They are one; or saying, They are many; if the ritual be
not ever unto me: then expect the direful judgements of Ra Hoor
Khuit!
53. This shall regenerate the world, the little world my sister, my
heart & my tongue, unto whom I send this kiss. Also, o scribe and
prophet, though thou be of the princes, it shall not assuage thee nor
absolve thee. But ecstasy be thine and joy of earth: ever To me! To
me!
54. Change not as much as the style of a letter; for behold!
thou, o prophet, shalt not behold all these mysteries hidden
therein.
55. The child of thy bowels, he shall behold them.
56. Expect him not from the East, nor from the West; for from
no expected house cometh that child. Aum! All words are sacred
and all prophets true; save only that they understand a little;
solve the first half of the equation, leave the second unattacked.
But thou hast all in the clear light, and some, though not all, in the
dark.
57. Invoke me under my stars! Love is the law, love under will.
Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is
the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well! He, my prophet,
hath chosen, knowing the law of the fortress, and the great mystery
of the House of God.
All these old letters of my Book are aright; but x is not the Star.
This also is secret: my prophet shall reveal it to the wise.
58. I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith, while in
life, upon death; peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy; nor do I demand
aught in sacrifice.
59. My incense is of resinous woods & gums; and there is no
blood therein: because of my hair the trees of Eternity.
60. My number is 11, as all their numbers who are of us. The Five
Pointed Star, with a Circle in the Middle, & the circle is Red. My
colour is black to the blind, but the blue & gold are seen of the
seeing. Also I have a secret glory for them that love me.
61. But to love me is better than all things: if under the night-stars
in the desert thou presently burnest mine incense before me,
invoking me with a pure heart, and the Serpent flame therein, thou
shalt come a little to lie in my bosom. For one kiss wilt thou then be
willing to give all; but whoso gives one particle of dust shall lose all
in that hour. Ye shall gather goods and store of women and spices; ye
shall wear rich jewels; ye shall exceed the nations of the earth in
splendour & pride; but always in the love of me, and so shall ye come
to my joy. I charge you earnestly to come before me in a single robe,
and covered with a rich headdress. I love you! I yearn to you! Pale or
purple, veiled or voluptuous, I who am all pleasure and purple, and
drunkenness of the innermost sense, desire you. Put on the wings,
and arouse the coiled splendour within you: come unto me!
62. At all my meetings with you shall the priestess say—and her
eyes shall burn with desire as she stands bare and rejoicing in my
secret temple—To me! To me! calling forth the flame of the hearts of
all in her love-chant.
63. Sing the rapturous love-song unto me! Burn to me perfumes!
Wear to me jewels! Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!
64. I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset; I am the naked
brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky.
65. To me! To me!
66. The Manifestation of Nuit is at an end.
1. Nu! the hiding of Hadit.
2. Come! all ye, and learn the secret that hath not yet been
revealed. I, Hadit, am the complement of Nu, my bride. I am not
extended, and Khabs is the name of my House.
3. In the sphere I am everywhere the centre, as she, the
circumference, is nowhere found.
4. Yet she shall be known & I never.
5. Behold! the rituals of the old time are black. Let the evil ones
be cast away; let the good ones be purged by the prophet! Then shall
this Knowledge go aright.
6. I am the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the
core of every star. I am Life, and the giver of Life, yet therefore is the
knowledge of me the knowledge of death.
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.
8. Who worshipped Heru-pa-kraath have worshipped me; ill, for
I am the worshipper.
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.
14. Now let there be a veiling of this shrine: now let the light
devour men and eat them up with blindness!
15. For I am perfect, being Not; and my number is nine by the

fools; but with the just I am eight, and one in eight: which is vital,
for I am none indeed. The Empress and the King are not of me; for
there is a further secret.
16. I am The Empress & the Hierophant. Thus eleven, as my bride

is eleven.
17. Hear me, ye people of sighing!

The sorrows of pain and regret
Are left to the dead and the dying,
The folk that not know me as yet.
18. These are dead, these fellows; they feel not. We are not for the
poor and sad: the lords of the earth are our kinsfolk.
19. Is God to live in a dog? No! but the highest are of us.
They shall rejoice, our chosen; who sorroweth is not of us.
20. Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor,

force and fire, are of us.
21. We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them
die in their misery. For they feel not. Compassion is the
vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak: this is the
law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world.
Think not, o king, upon that lie: That Thou Must Die: verily,
thou shalt not die, but live. Now let it be understood: If
the body of the King dissolve, he shall remain in pure ecstasy
for ever. Nuit! Hadit! Ra-Hoor-Khuit! The Sun, Strength
& Sight, Light; these are for the servants of the Star & the
Snake.
22. I am the Snake that giveth Knowledge & Delight and bright
glory, and stir the hearts of men with drunkenness. To worship me
take wine and strange drugs whereof I will tell my prophet, & be
drunk thereof! They shall not harm ye at all. It is a lie, this folly
against self. The exposure of innocence is a lie. Be strong, o man!
lust, enjoy all things of sense and rapture: fear not that any God shall
deny thee for this.
23. I am alone: there is no God where I am.
24. Behold! these be grave mysteries; for there are also of my
friends who be hermits. Now, think not to find them in the forest or
on the mountain; but in beds of purple, caressed by magnificent
beasts of women with large limbs, and fire and light in their eyes,
and masses of flaming hair about them; there shall ye find them. Ye
shall see them at rule, at victorious armies, at all the joy; and there
shall be in them a joy a million times greater than this. Beware, lest
any force another, King against King! Love one another with
burning hearts; on the low men trample in the fierce lust of your
pride, in the day of your wrath.
25. Ye are against the people, O my chosen!
26. I am the secret Serpent coiled about to spring: in my coiling
there is joy. If I lift up my head, I and my Nuit are one. If I droop
down mine head, and shoot forth venom, then is rapture of the earth,
and I and the earth are one.
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.
28. Now a curse upon Because and his kin!
29. May Because be accursèd for ever!
30. If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops
& does nought.
31. If Power asks why, then is Power weakness.
32. Also reason is a lie; for there is a factor infinite & unknown; &
all their words are skew-wise.
33. Enough of Because! Be he damned for a dog!
34. But ye, o my people, rise up & awake!
35. Let the rituals be rightly performed with joy & beauty!
36. There are rituals of the elements and feasts of the times.
37. A feast for the first night of the Prophet and his Bride!
38. A feast for the three days of the writing of the Book of the
Law.
39. A feast for Tahuti and the child of the Prophet—secret, O
Prophet!
40. A feast for the Supreme Ritual, and a feast for the Equinox of
the Gods.
41. A feast for fire and a feast for water; a feast for life and a greater
feast for death!
42. A feast every day in your hearts in the joy of my rapture!
43. A feast every night unto Nu, and the pleasure of uttermost
delight!
44. Aye! feast! rejoice! there is no dread hereafter. There is the
dissolution, and eternal ecstasy in the kisses of Nu.
45. There is death for the dogs.
46. Dost thou fail? Art thou sorry? Is fear in thine heart?
47. Where I am these are not.
48. Pity not the fallen! I never knew them. I am not for them. I
console not: I hate the consoled & the consoler.
49. I am unique & conqueror. I am not of the slaves that perish. Be

they damned and dead! Amen. (This is of the 4: there is a fifth who is
invisible, & therein am I as a babe in an egg.)
50. Blue am I and gold in the light of my bride: but the red gleam
is in my eyes; & my spangles are purple & green.
51. Purple beyond purple: it is the light higher than eyesight.
52. There is a veil: that veil is black. It is the veil of the modest
woman; it is the veil of sorrow, & the pall of death: this is none of
me. Tear down that lying spectre of the centuries: veil not your
vices in virtuous words: these vices are my service; ye do well, & I
will reward you here and hereafter.
53. Fear not, o prophet, when these words are said, thou shalt not
be sorry. Thou art emphatically my chosen; and blessed are the eyes
that thou shalt look upon with gladness. But I will hide thee in a
mask of sorrow: they that see thee shall fear thou art fallen: but I lift
thee up.
54. Nor shall they who cry aloud their folly that thou meanest
nought avail; thou shalt reveal it: thou availest: they are the slaves of
because: They are not of me. The stops as thou wilt; the letters?
change them not in style or value!
55. Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet;
thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto.
56. Begone! ye mockers; even though ye laugh in my honour ye

shall laugh not long: then when ye are sad know that I have forsaken
you.
57. He that is righteous shall be righteous still; he that is filthy shall
be filthy still.
58. Yea! deem not of change: ye shall be as ye are, & not other.
Therefore the kings of the earth shall be Kings for ever: the slaves
shall serve. There is none that shall be cast down or lifted up: all is
ever as it was. Yet there are masked ones my servants: it may be that
yonder beggar is a King. A King may choose his garment as he will:
there is no certain test: but a beggar cannot hide his poverty.
59. Beware therefore! Love all, lest perchance is a King concealed!
Say you so? Fool! If he be a King, thou canst not hurt him.
60. Therefore strike hard & low, and to hell with them, master!
61. There is a light before thine eyes, o prophet, a light undesired,
most desirable.
62. I am uplifted in thine heart; and the kisses of the stars rain hard
upon thy body.
63. Thou art exhaust in the voluptuous fullness of the inspiration;
the expiration is sweeter than death, more rapid and laughterful than
a caress of Hell's own worm.
64. Oh! thou art overcome: we are upon thee; our delight is all
over thee: hail! hail: prophet of Nu! prophet of Had! prophet of Ra-
Hoor-Khu! Now rejoice! now come in our splendour & rapture!
Come in our passionate peace, & write sweet words for the Kings!
65. I am the Master: thou art the Holy Chosen One.
66. Write, & find ecstasy in writing! Work, & be our bed in
working! Thrill with the joy of life & death! Ah! thy death shall be
lovely: whoso seeth it shall be glad. Thy death shall be the seal of the
promise of our agelong love. Come! lift up thine heart & rejoice!
We are one; we are none.
67. Hold! Hold! Bear up in thy rapture; fall not in swoon of the
excellent kisses!
68. Harder! Hold up thyself! Lift thine head! breathe not so deep
—die!
69. Ah! Ah! What do I feel? Is the word exhausted?
70. There is help & hope in other spells. Wisdom says: be
strong! Then canst thou bear more joy. Be not animal; refine thy
rapture! If thou drink, drink by the eight and ninety rules of art:
if thou love, exceed by delicacy; and if thou do aught joyous, let
there be subtlety therein!
71. But exceed! exceed!
72. Strive ever to more! and if thou art truly mine—and doubt it
not, an if thou art ever joyous!—death is the crown of all.
73. Ah! Ah! Death! Death! thou shalt long for death. Death
is forbidden, o man, unto thee.
74. The length of thy longing shall be the strength of its glory.
He that lives long & desires death much is ever the King among
the Kings.
75. Aye! listen to the numbers & the words:
76. 4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L.
What meaneth this, o prophet? Thou knowest not; nor shalt
thou know ever. There cometh one to follow thee: he shall expound
it. But remember, o chosen one, to be me; to follow the love of Nu

in the star-lit heaven; to look forth upon men, to tell them this glad
word.
77. O be thou proud and mighty among men!
78. Lift up thyself! for there is none like unto thee among men or
among Gods! Lift up thyself, o my prophet, thy stature shall surpass
the stars. They shall worship thy name, foursquare, mystic,
wonderful, the number of the man; and the name of thy house 418.
79. The end of the hiding of Hadit; and blessing & worship to the
prophet of the lovely Star!
1. Abrahadabra; the reward of Ra Hoor Khut.
2. There is division hither homeward; there is a word not known.
Spelling is defunct; all is not aught. Beware! Hold! Raise the spell of
Ra-Hoor-Khuit!
3. Now let it be first understood that I am a god of War and of
Vengeance. I shall deal hardly with them.
4. Choose ye an island!
5. Fortify it!
6. Dung it about with enginery of war!
7. I will give you a war-engine.
8. With it ye shall smite the peoples; and none shall stand before
you.
9. Lurk! Withdraw! Upon them! this is the Law of the Battle of
Conquest: thus shall my worship be about my secret house.
10. Get the stélé of revealing itself; set it in thy secret temple—and
that temple is already aright disposed—& it shall be your Kiblah for
ever. It shall not fade, but miraculous colour shall come back to it
day after day. Close it in locked glass for a proof to the world.
11. This shall be your only proof. I forbid argument. Conquer!
That is enough. I will make easy to you the abstruction from the ill-
ordered house in the Victorious City. Thou shalt thyself convey it
with worship, o prophet, though thou likest it not. Thou shalt have
danger & trouble. Ra-Hoor-Khu is with thee. Worship me with fire
& blood; worship me with swords & with spears. Let the woman be
girt with a sword before me: let blood flow to my name. Trample
down the Heathen; be upon them, o warrior, I will give you of their
flesh to eat!
12. Sacrifice cattle, little and big: after a child.
13. But not now.
14. Ye shall see that hour, o blessèd Beast, and thou the Scarlet
Concubine of his desire!
15. Ye shall be sad thereof.
16. Deem not too eagerly to catch the promises; fear not to
undergo the curses. Ye, even ye, know not this meaning all.
17. Fear not at all; fear neither men nor Fates, nor gods, nor
anything. Money fear not, nor laughter of the folk folly, nor any
other power in heaven or upon the earth or under the earth. Nu is
your refuge as Hadit your light; and I am the strength, force, vigour,
of your arms.
18. Mercy let be off: damn them who pity! Kill and torture; spare
not; be upon them!
19. That stélé they shall call the Abomination of Desolation; count
well its name, & it shall be to you as 718.
20. Why? Because of the fall of Because, that he is not there again.
21. Set up my image in the East: thou shalt buy thee an image
which I will show thee, especial, not unlike the one thou knowest.
And it shall be suddenly easy for thee to do this.
22. The other images group around me to support me: let all be
worshipped, for they shall cluster to exalt me. I am the visible object
of worship; the others are secret; for the Beast & his Bride are they:
and for the winners of the Ordeal x. What is this? Thou shalt know.
23. For perfume mix meal & honey & thick leavings of red wine:
then oil of Abramelin and olive oil, and afterward soften & smooth
down with rich fresh blood.
24. The best blood is of the moon, monthly: then the fresh blood
of a child, or dropping from the host of heaven: then of enemies;
then of the priest or of the worshippers: last of some beast, no matter
what.
25. This burn: of this make cakes & eat unto me. This hath also
another use; let it be laid before me, and kept thick with perfumes of
your orison: it shall become full of beetles as it were and creeping
things sacred unto me.
26. These slay, naming your enemies; & they shall fall before you.
27. Also these shall breed lust & power of lust in you at the eating
thereof.
28. Also ye shall be strong in war.
29. Moreover, be they long kept, it is better; for they swell with
my force. All before me.
30. My altar is of open brass work: burn thereon in silver or gold!
31. There cometh a rich man from the West who shall pour his
gold upon thee.
32. From gold forge steel!
33. Be ready to fly or to smite!
34. But your holy place shall be untouched throughout the
centuries: though with fire and sword it be burnt down &
shattered, yet an invisible house there standeth, and shall stand
until the fall of the Great Equinox; when Hrumachis shall arise
and the double-wanded one assume my throne and place.

Another prophet shall arise, and bring fresh fever from the skies;
another woman shall awake the lust & worship of the Snake; another
soul of God and beast shall mingle in the globèd priest; another
sacrifice shall stain the tomb; another king shall reign; and blessing
no longer be poured To the Hawk-headed mystical Lord!
35. The half of the word of Heru-ra-ha, called Hoor-pa-kraat and
Ra-Hoor-Khut.
36. Then said the prophet unto the God:
37. I adore thee in the song—
I am the Lord of Thebes, and I
The inspired forth-speaker of Mentu;
For me unveils the veilèd sky,
The self-slain Ankh-af-na-khonsu
Whose words are truth. I invoke, I greet
Thy presence, O Ra-Hoor-Khuit!
Unity uttermost showed!
I adore the might of Thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death
To tremble before Thee :—
I, I adore thee!
Appear on the throne of Ra!
Open the ways of the Khu!
Lighten the ways of the Ka!
The ways of the Khabs run through
To stir me or still me!
Aum! let it fill me!
38. So that thy light is in me; & its red flame is as a sword in my
hand to push thy order. There is a secret door that I shall make to
establish thy way in all the quarters, (these are the adorations, as thou
hast written), as it is said:
The light is mine; its rays consume

Me: I have made a secret door
Into the House of Ra and Tum,
Of Kephra and of Ahathoor.
I am thy Theban, O Mentu,
The prophet Ankh-af-na-khonsu!
By Bes-na-Maut my breast I beat;

By wise Ta-Nech I weave my spell.
Show thy star-splendour, O Nuit!
Bid me within thine House to dwell,
O wingèd snake of light, Hadit!
Abide with me, Ra-Hoor-Khuit!
39. All this and a book to say how thou didst come hither
and a reproduction of this ink and paper for ever—for in it is
the word secret & not only in the English—and thy comment
upon this the Book of the Law shall be printed beautifully
in red ink and black upon beautiful paper made by hand; and
to each man and woman that thou meetest, were it but to dine
or to drink at them, it is the Law to give. Then they shall
chance to abide in this bliss or no; it is no odds. Do this quickly!
40. But the work of the comment? That is easy; and Hadit
burning in thy heart shall make swift and secure thy pen.
41. Establish at thy Kaaba a clerk-house: all must be done well and
with business way.
42. The ordeals thou shalt oversee thyself, save only the blind ones.
Refuse none, but thou shalt know & destroy the traitors. I am Ra-
Hoor-Khuit; and I am powerful to protect my servant. Success is thy
proof: argue not; convert not; talk not overmuch! Them that seek to
entrap thee, to overthrow thee, them attack without pity or quarter;
& destroy them utterly. Swift as a trodden serpent turn and strike!
Be thou yet deadlier than he! Drag down their souls to awful
torment: laugh at their fear: spit upon them!
43. Let the Scarlet Woman beware! If pity and compassion and
tenderness visit her heart; if she leave my work to toy with old
sweetnesses; then shall my vengeance be known. I will slay me her
child: I will alienate her heart: I will cast her out from men: as a
shrinking and despised harlot shall she crawl through dusk wet
streets, and die cold and an-hungered.
44. But let her raise herself in pride! Let her follow me in my way!
Let her work the work of wickedness! Let her kill her heart! Let her
be loud and adulterous! Let her be covered with jewels, and rich
garments, and let her be shameless before all men!
45. Then will I lift her to pinnacles of power: then will I breed
from her a child mightier than all the kings of the earth. I will fill her
with joy: with my force shall she see & strike at the worship of Nu:
she shall achieve Hadit.
46. I am the warrior Lord of the Forties: the Eighties cower before
me, & are abased. I will bring you to victory & joy: I will be at your
arms in battle & ye shall delight to slay. Success is your proof;
courage is your armour; go on, go on, in my strength; & ye shall
turn not back for any!
47. This book shall be translated into all tongues: but always with
the original in the writing of the Beast; for in the chance shape of the
letters and their position to one another: in these are mysteries that
no Beast shall divine. Let him not seek to try: but one cometh after
him, whence I say not, who shall discover the Key of it all. Then this
line drawn is a key: then this circle squared in its failure is a key also.
And Abrahadabra. It shall be his child & that strangely. Let him not
seek after this; for thereby alone can he fall from it.
48. Now this mystery of the letters is done, and I want to go on to
the holier place.
49. I am in a secret fourfold word, the blasphemy against all gods
of men.
50. Curse them! Curse them! Curse them!
51. With my Hawk's head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs
upon the cross.
52. I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed & blind him.
53. With my claws I tear out the flesh of the Indian and the
Buddhist, Mongol and Din.
54. Bahlasti! Ompehda! I spit on your crapulous creeds.
55. Let Mary inviolate be torn upon wheels: for her sake let all
chaste women be utterly despised among you!
56. Also for beauty’s sake and love’s!
57. Despise also all cowards; professional soldiers who dare not
fight, but play; all fools despise!
58. But the keen and the proud, the royal and the lofty; ye are
brothers!
59. As brothers fight ye!
60. There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
61. There is an end of the word of the God enthroned in Ra’s seat,
lightening the girders of the soul.
62. To Me do ye reverence! to me come ye through tribulation of
ordeal, which is bliss.
63. The fool readeth this Book of the Law, and its comment; & he
understandeth it not.
64. Let him come through the first ordeal, & it will be to him as silver.
65. Through the second, gold.
66. Through the third, stones of precious water.
67. Through the fourth, ultimate sparks of the intimate fire.
68. Yet to all it shall seem beautiful. Its enemies who say not so,
are mere liars.
69. There is success.
70. I am the Hawk-Headed Lord of Silence & of Strength; my
nemyss shrouds the night-blue sky.
71. Hail! ye twin warriors about the pillars of the world! for your
time is nigh at hand.
72. I am the Lord of the Double Wand of Power; the wand of the
Force of Coph Nia—but my left hand is empty, for I have crushed an
Universe; & nought remains.
73. Paste the sheets from right to left and from top to bottom: then
behold!
74. There is a splendour in my name hidden and glorious, as the
sun of midnight is ever the son.
75. The ending of the words is the Word Abrahadabra.
The Book of the Law is Written
and Concealed.
Aum. Ha.
THE COMMENT
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
The study of this Book is forbidden. It is wise to destroy
this copy after the first reading.
Whosoever disregards this does so at his own risk and peril.
These are most dire.
Those who discuss the contents of this Book are to be
shunned by all, as centres of pestilence
All questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal
to my writings, each for himself.
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
Love is the law, love under will.
The priest of the princes,
:
GENESIS
L I B R I
AL
V AA
Publication in Class B
CHAPTER I 1
The Boyhood of Aleister Crowley

AT 36 CLARENDON SQUARE, Leamington, Warwickshire, England,
at 10.50 p.m. on the twelfth day of October, in the Eighteen Hundred
and Seventy-Fifth Year of the vulgar era, was born the person whose
history is to be recounted.
His father was named Edward Crowley; his mother, Emily Bertha,
her maiden name being Bishop. Edward Crowley was an Exclusive
Plymouth Brother, the most considered leader in that sect. This
branch of the family of Crowley has been settled in England since
Tudor times, but is Celtic in origin, Crowley being a clan in Kerry
and other counties in the South-West of Ireland, of the same stock as
the Breton “de Querouaille” or “de Kerval” which gave a Duchess of
Portsmouth to England. It is supposed that the English branch—the
direct ancestry of Edward Alexander Crowley—came to England
with the Duke of Richmond, and took root at Bosworth.
1
In The Book of the Law we find in the 3rd chapter and the 39th to the 41st verse
an instruction to issue a book to say how this Revelation was obtained, with certain
details with regard to the style in which it is to be done.
It has hitherto been impossible to comply with this injunction, although an
attempt was made in “The Temple of Solomon the King.” We now proceed to do
so; the subject divides itself into Eight Chapters.—(Ed.)
In 1881 he went to live at The Grange, Redhill, Surrey. In

1884 the boy, who had till then been educated by governesses
and tutors, was sent to a school at St. Leonards, kept by some
extreme Evangelicals named Habershon. A year later he was
transferred to a school at Cambridge kept by a Plymouth Brother of
the name of Champney. [The dates in this paragraph are possibly
inaccurate. Documentary evidence is at the present moment
unavailable. Ed.]
On March 5, 1887, Edward Crowley died. Two years later the boy
was removed from the school. Those two years were years of
unheard-of torture. He has written details in the Preface to The
World's Tragedy. This torture seriously undermined his health. For
two years he travelled, mostly in Wales and Scotland, with tutors. In
1890 he went for a short time to a school at Streatham, kept by a man
named Yarrow, his mother having moved there in order to be near
her brother, an extremely narrow Evangelical named Tom Bond
Bishop. This prepared him for Malvern, which he entered at the
summer term of 1891. He only remained there a year, as his health
was still very delicate. In the autumn he entered for a term at
Tonbridge, but fell seriously ill, and had to be removed. The year
1893 was spent with tutors, principally in Wales, the north of
Scotland, and Eastbourne. In 1895 he completed his studies in
chemistry at King's College, London, and in October of that year
entered Trinity College, Cambridge.
With this ends the first period of his life. It is only necessary
to state briefly that his brain developed early. At four years old
he could read the Bible aloud, showing a marked predilection
for the lists of long names, the only part of the Bible which has not
GENESIS LIBRI AL 43
been tampered with by theologians. 1 He could also play

chess well enough to beat the average amateur, and though
constantly playing never lost a game till 1895.2 He was taught by a
tailor who had been summoned to make clothes for his father,
and was treated as a guest on account of his being a fellow
“Plymouth Brother.” He beat his teacher uniformly after
the first game. He must have been six or seven years old at this
time.
He began to write poetry in 1886, if not earlier. Vide Oracles.
After the death of his father, who was a man of strong common
sense, and never allowed his religion to interfere with natural
affection, he was in the hands of people of an entirely contrary
disposition. His mental attitude was soon concentrated in hatred of
the religion which they taught, and his will concentrated in revolt
against its oppressions. His main method of relief was
mountaineering, which left him alone with nature, away from the
tyrants.
The years from March, 1887, until entering Trinity College,
Cambridge, in October, 1895, represented a continual struggle
towards freedom. At Cambridge he felt himself to be his own
master, refused to attend Chapel, Lectures or Hall, and was wisely left
alone to work out his own salvation by his tutor, the late Dr. A. W.
Verrall.
1
This curious trait may perhaps be evidence of his poetical feeling, his passion for
the bizarre and mysterious, or even of his aptitude for the Hebrew Qabalah. It may
also be interpreted as a clue to his magical ancestry.
2
The first man to beat him was H. E. Atkins, British Chess Champion (Amateur)
for many years.
It must be stated that he possessed natural intellectual ability to an
altogether extraordinary degree. He had the faculty of memory,
especially verbal memory, in astonishing perfection.
As a boy he could find almost any verse in the Bible after a
few minutes search. In 1900 he was tested in the works of
Shakespeare, Shelley, Swinburne (1st series of Poems and Ballads),
Browning and The Moonstone. He was able to place exactly any
phrase from any of these books, and in nearly every case to continue
with the passage.
He showed remarkable facility in acquiring the elements of Latin,
Greek, French, Mathematics and Science. He learnt “little Roscoe”
almost by heart, on his own initiative. When in the Lower Fifth at
Malvern, he came out sixth in the school in the annual Shakespeare
examination, though he had given only two days to preparing for it.
Once, when the Mathematical Master, wishing to devote the hour to
cramming advanced pupils, told the class to work out a set of
examples of Quadratic Equations, he retorted by asking at the end of
forty minutes what he should do next, and handed up the whole
series of 63 equations, correct.
He passed all his examinations both at school and university with
honours, though refusing uniformly to work for them.
On the other hand, he could not be persuaded or constrained to
apply himself to any subject which did not appeal to him. He
showed intense repugnance to history, geography, and botany, among
others. He could never learn to write Greek and Latin verses, this
probably because the rules of scansion seemed arbitrary and formal.
Again, it was impossible to him to take interest in anything from
the moment that he had grasped the principles of “how it was, or
GENESIS LIBRI AL 45
might be done.” This trait prevented him from putting the finishing
touches to anything he attempted.
For instance, he refused to present himself for the second part of
his final examination for his B.A. degree, simply because he knew
himself thoroughly master of the subject!1
This characteristic extended to his physical pleasures. He was
abjectly incompetent at easy practice climbing on boulders, because
he knew he could do them. It seemed incredible to the other men
that this lazy duffer should be the most daring and dexterous
cragsman of his generation, as he proved himself whenever he
tackled a precipice which had baffled every other climber in the
world.2 Similarly, once he had worked out theoretically a method of
climbing a mountain, he was quite content to tell the secret to others,
and let them appropriate the glory. (The first ascent of the Dent du
Geant from the Montanvers is a case in point.) It mattered
everything to him that something should be done, nothing that he
should be the one to do it.
This almost inhuman unselfishness was not incompatible with
consuming and insatiable personal ambition. The key to the puzzle is
probably this; he wanted to be something that nobody else had ever
been, or could be. He lost interest in chess as soon as he had proved
to himself (at the age of 22) that he was a master of the game, having
beaten some of the strongest amateurs in England, and even one or
two professional “masters.” He turned from poetry to painting,
1
Swinburne similarly refused to be examined in Classics at Oxford on the ground
that he knew more than the examiners.
2
In Chess also he has beaten many International Masters, and ranks on the
Continent as a Minor Master himself. But he cannot be relied upon to win against a
second-rate player in a Club Match.
more or less, when he had made it quite certain that he was the
greatest poet of his time. Even in Magick, having become The
Word of the Æon, and thus taken his place with the other
Seven Magi known to history, out of reach of all possible
competition, he began to neglect the subject. He is only able to
devote himself to it as he does because he has eliminated all
personal ideas from his Work; it has become as automatic as
respiration.
We must also put on record his extraordinary powers in
certain unusual spheres. He can remember the minutest details
of a rock-climb, after years of absence. He can retrace his steps
over any path once traversed, in the wildest weather or the
blackest night. He can divine the one possible passage through
the most complex and dangerous ice-fall. (E.g. the Vuibez séracs
in 1897, the Mer de Glace, right centre, in 1899.)
He possesses a “sense of direction” independent of any
known physical methods of taking one’s bearings; and this is as
effective in strange cities as on mountains or deserts. He
can smell the presence of water, of snow, and other
supposedly scentless substances. His endurance is exceptional.
He has been known to write for 67 consecutive hours : his
Tannhäuser was thus written in 1900. He has walked over 100
miles in 2½ days, in the desert: as in the winter of 1910.
He has frequently made expeditions lasting over 36 hours,
on mountains, in the most adverse connditions. He holds the
World’s record for the greatest number of days spent on a
glacier—65 days on the Baltoro in 1902; also that for the greatest
pace uphill over 16,000 feet—4,000 feet in 1 hour 23 minutes
GENESIS LIBRI AL 47
on Iztaccihuatl in 1900; that for the highest peak (first

ascent by a solitary climber)--the Nevado de Toluca in 1901; and
numerous others.1
Yet he is utterly fagged-out by the mere idea of a walk of
a few hundred yards, if it does not interest him, and excite
his imagination, to take it; and it is only with the greatest effort
that he can summon the energy to write a few lines if,
instead of his wanting to do them, he merely knows that they
must be done.
This account has been deemed necessary to explain how it is
that a man of such unimaginable commanding qualities as
to have made him world-famous in so many diverse spheres of
action, should have been so grotesquely unable to make use
of his faculties, or even of his achievements, in any of the
ordinary channels of human activity; to consolidate his personal
pre-eminence, or even to secure his position from a social
or economic standpoint.
1
Written in 1920 e.v.: these records may no longer stand.
CHAPTER II
Adolescence: Beginnings of Magick

The Birth of FRATER PERDURABO, 0°=08 to 4°=78
HAVING WON FREEDOM, he had the sense not to waste any time in
enjoying it. He had been deprived of all English literature but the
Bible during the whole of his youth, and he spent his three years
at Cambridge in repairing the defect. He was also working for
the Diplomatic Service, the late Lord Salisbury and the late Lord
Ritchie having taken an interest in his career, and given him
nominations. In October, 1897, he was suddenly recalled to his
understanding of the evils of the alleged “existing religion,” and
experienced a trance, in which he perceived the utter folly of all
human ambition. The fame of an ambassador rarely outlives a
century. That of a poet is almost as ephemeral. The earth must one
day perish. He must build in some material more lasting. This
conception drove him to the study of Alchemy and Magick. He
wrote to the author of The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts, a pompous
American named Arthur Waite, notorious for the affectations and
obscurities of his style, and the mealy-mouthed muddle of his
mysticism. This nebulous impresario, presenting an asthmatic Isis in
GENESIS LIBRI AL 49
the Opera “Bull-Frogs,” had hinted in his preface that he knew

certain occult sanctuaries wherein Truth and Wisdom were jealously
guarded by a body of Initiates, to be despensed to the postulant
who proved himself worthy to partake of their privileges. Mr.
Waite recommended him to read a book called The Cloud on the
Sanctuary.
His taste for mountaineering had become a powerful passion,
and he was climbing in Cumberland when he met Oscar
Eckenstein, perhaps the greatest of all the mountaineers of his
period, with whom he was destined to climb thenceforward until
1902.
In the summer a party was formed to camp on the Schönbuhl
Glacier at the foot of the Dent Blanche, with a view to an
expedition ot the Himalayas later on. During his weeks on the
Glacier, where the bad weather was continous, he studied assiduously
the translation by S. L. Mathers of three books which form part of
von Rosenroth’s Kabbalah Unveiled. On one of his descents to
Zermatt, he met a distinguished chemist, Julian L. Bater, who
had studied Alchemy. He hunted this clue through the valley, and
made Baker promise to meet him in London at the end of the
season, and introduce him to others who were interested in Occult
science. This happened in September; through Baker, he met
another chemist named George Cecil Jones, who introduced him to
the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He made rapid progress
in this Order, and in the spring of 1900 was its chief in England.
The details of this period must be studied in “The Temple
of Solomon the King,” where a full account of the Order is given.
In the Order he met one Allan Bennett, Frater Iehi Aour. Jones
and Bennett were both Adepts of high standing. The latter came to
live with him in his flat, and together they carried out many
operations of ceremonial magick. Allan Bennett was constant ill
health, and went to Ceylon at the end of 1899. It was on his entry
into this Order that the subject of this history took the motto of
“Perdurabo”—“I will endure to the end.”
In July, 1900, he went to Mexico, and devoted his whole time
to the continued practice of Magick, in which he obtained
extraordinary success. (See Equinox Vol. I, No. III 1 for a
condensed account of some of these. It may be here stated
summarily that he invoked certain Gods, Goddesses, and Spirits
to visible appearance, learnt how to heal physical and moral
diseases, how to make himself invisible, how to obtain
communications from spiritual sources, how to control other
minds, etc., etc.) And then . . . .
1
[“The Temple of Solomon the King,” principally the chapter “The Sorcerer.”]
CHAPTER III
Beginnings of Mysticism
The Birth of OU MH, 7°=48
OSCAR ECKENSTEIN, on his arrival in Mexico, where he was to

climb mountains with the subject of our essay, found him in a
rather despondent mood. He had attained the most satisfactory
results. He was able to communicate with thed divine forces, and
operations such as those of invisibility and evocation had been
mastered. Yet with all this there was a certain dissatisfaction. Success
had not given him all that he had hoped for. He placed
the situration before his companion, rather to clear his own mind
than hoping for any help, for he supposed him to be entirely
ignorant of all these subjects, which he habitually treated with dislike
and contempt. Judge of his surprise, then, when he found in
this unpromising quarter a messenger form the Great White
Brotherhood! His companion told him to abandon all magick.
“The Task,” said Eckenstein, “involves the control of the mind.
Yours is a wandering mind.” The proposition was indignantly
denied.
“Test it,” said the Master.
A short experiment was conclusive. It was impossible for the boy
to keep his mind fixed upon a single object for even a few seconds at
a time. The mind, thougfh perfectly stable in motion, was unable to
rest, just as a gyroscope falls when the flywheel slows down. An
entirely new course of experiments was consequently undertaken.
Half-an-hour every morning and half-an-hour every evening were
devoted to attempts to control the mind, by the simple process of
imagining a familiar object, and endeavouring to keep concentrated
upon it.1
He soon became sufficiently expert in this initial practice to
proceed to concentration on regularly moving objects such as a
pendulum, and, ultimately, on living objects. A further series of
experiments dealt with the other senses. He tried to imagine and
retain the taste of chocolate or of quinine, the smell of various
familiar perfumes, the sound of bells, waterfalls, and so on, or the
feeling excited by such objects as velvet, silk, fur, sand and steel.
In the spring of 1901, he left Mexico, went to San Francisco,
Honolulu, Japan, China and Ceylon, always continuing these
experiments. His Master had not told him to what they would
ultimately lead. In Ceylon he found Frater I.A. (Allan Bennett), with
whom he went to Kandy, where they took a bungalow named
Marlborough, overlooking the lake.
I.A. had himself been developing on similar lines under P.
Ramanathan, the Solicitor-General of Ceylon, known to occultists
under the name of Shri Parananda.2 I.A. told him that in order
to concentrate he must first see that no interruptions reached him
1
See Part I of Book 4 for a description of this, and an explanation of the difficulty
of the task, even in the case of one whose powers of concentrated attention, in the
ordinary sense of the phrase, are highly developed.
2
(He is the author of commentaries on the Gospels of Matthew and John, which
he explains as containing many of the aphorisms of Yoga.)
GENESIS LIBRI AL 53
from the body, and counselled the adoption of Asana, a settled

position in which all bodily movement was to be suppressed. Further,
he was to practice Pranayama, or control of the breathing, which has
a similar effect in reducing to the lowest possible point the internal
movements of the body.1
During the months of this stay at Kandy, he practised these,
obtained success in Asana, the intense pain of the practices being
overcome, and changed into an indescribable sense of physical well-
being and comfort.
While in Pranayama he passed through the first stage, which is
marked by profuse perspiration of a peculiar kind; the second, which
is accompanied by rigidity of the body ; and the third, in which the
body unconsciously hops about the floor, without in any way
disturbing the Asana.
During the latter part of August and the whole of September,
his practices became continous by day and night, in order to
create a rhythm in the mind similar to that which Pranayama
produces in the body. He adopted a Mantra, or sacred sentence,
by the constant repetition of which it became automatic in his
brain, so that it would continue through sleep, and he would wake
up actually repeating the words. Sleep itself, too, was broken up
into short periods of very light sleep of a peculiar kind, in which
consciousness is hardly lost, although the body obtains perdect
rest. These practices continued into October, at the beginning of
which he reached the state of Dhyana, a tremendous spiritual
experience, in which the subject and object of meditation unite with
1
(See Part I of Book 4 for full descriptions, and Equinox I (4) [“Temple of
Solomon the King”] for some of FRATER PERDURABO'S records of these practices.)
excessive violence in blinding brilliance and music of a kind to which

earthly harmony affords no parallel.1
The result of this however was to cause so intense a satisfaction
with his progress, that he gave up work. He then visited
Anuradhapura and others of the buried cities of Ceylon. In
November he went to India, and in January visited I.A. at Akyab
in Burma,where that Adept was living in a monastery, with the
intention of preparing himself to take the Yellow Robe of the
Buddhist Sangha. The whole of the summer of 1902 was spent in
an expedition to Chogo Ri (K2) in the Himalayas.2 During the
whole of this period he did very little occult work.
November, 1902, him in Paris, where he stayed off and on till the
spring of 1903, when he returned to his house in Scotland.
We must now go backwards in time, to take up a thread which
had run through his whole work, so umportant as to demand a
chapter to itself:—
1
See Part I of Book 4, and Equinox Vol. I, No. IV.
2
An account of this journey is given by Dr. Jacot-Guillarmod: Six mois dans
l'Himalaya. His own story is in The Spirit of Solitude (The Confessions of Aleister
Crowley) Vol. II.
CHAPTER IV
The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage

The Birth of Frater ————,1 5°=68 AA
IN THE AUTUMN of 1898 George Cecil Jones had directed the
attention of Frater Perdurabo to a book entitled The Book of the Sacred
Magic of Abramelin the Mage. The essence of this book is as follows :
The aspirant must have a house secure from observation and inter-
ference. In this house there must be an oratory with a window to the
East, and a door to the North opening upon a terrace, at the end of
which must be a lodge. He must have a Robe, Crown, Wand, Altar,
Incense, Anointing Oil, and a Silver Lamen. The terrace and lodge
must be strewn with fine sand. He withdraws himself gradually from
human intercourse to devote himself more and more to prayer for the
space of four months. He must then occupy two months in almost
continuous prayer, speaking as little as possible to anybody. At the end
of this period he invokes a being described as the Holy Guardian Angel,
who appears to him (or to a child employed by him), and who will write
in dew upon the Lamen, which is placed upon the Altar. The
Oratory is filled with Divine Perfume not of the aspirant's kindling.
1
The Mystic Name of an Adept of this degree is not to be diivulged without
special reasons for so doing.
After a period of communion with the Angel, he summons the

Four Great Princes of the Daemonic World, and forces them to
swear obedience.
On the following day he calls forward and subdues the Eight Sub-
Princes; and the day after that, the many Spirits serving these. These
inferior Dæmons, of whom four act as familiar spirits, then operate a
collection of talismans for various purposes. Such is a brief account
of the Operation described in the book.
This Operation strongly appealed to our student. He immediately
set about to procure a suitable house, and to prepare everything that
might be necessary for the operation. All was ready for the
beginning in Easter of 1900, and it must be said that the preliminary
work alone is so tremendous that a long story might be written of
the events of these 18 months of preparation. The Operation itself
was however never begun. A fortnight or so before the time
appointed, he received an urgent appeal from his Master to save him
and the Order from destruction. He gave up his own prospects of
personal advancement without hesitation, and hastened to Paris.1
That the Master proved to be no Master, and the Order no Order,
but the incarnation of Disorder, had no effect upon the good Karma
created by this renunciation of a project on which he had set his
heart for so long.
In Mexico, he kept vigil during several nights in the Temple
of the Order of the Lamp of the Invisible Light, an Order whose
High Priest is pledged to maintain a Secret and Eternal Lamp. In this
shrine he received some shadowing forth of the Vision of the
1
See the Equinox [I (3)] “The Temple of Solomon the King” for a fairly full
account of these various matters. The “Master” was the late S.L. Mathers.
GENESIS LIBRI AL 57
Holy Guardian Angel, and that of the Four Great Princes: here also
he renewed the Oath of the Operation.
(The whole of his magical career is best interpreted as the
performance of this Operation. One must not suppose that Initiation
is a formality, observing the “unities,” like being made a Mason. All
life pertains to the process, and it pervades the whole personality; the
official recognition of attainment is merely a token of what had taken
place.)
On his return to Scotland in 1903, he found ample evidence of the
presence of the forces of the Operation, but by now, having
conceived that Work in a subtler manner and having prepared to
carry it out in the Temple of his own body, having seen Magick, in
short, more of less in the manner in which it is seen in Parts II and III
of the Book 4, he was able to dispense with the exterior physical
appurtenances of this Operation.
We must now pass over a few years, and deal with the completion
of this Operation, although it is in a sense irrelevant to the purpose of
this book.
During the winter of 1905-6, he was traveling across China. He
had come to the point of conquering his mind. That mind had
broken up. He saw that the human mind is by its very nature
evanescent, because of the fact that nature is not unity but duality.
Truth is relative. All things end in mystery. In such sentences have
the philosophers of the past formulated this proposition, as
announcing the intellectual bankruptcy which he, with greater
frankness, describes as insanity.
Passing from this, he became as a little child, and on reaching the
Unity behind the mind, found the purpose of his life formulated in
these words, The Obtaining of the Knowledge and Conversation of the

Holy Guardian Angel.
He then found himself, having destroyed all other Karma,
perfectly free to pursue this one work. He then accomplished the
six months of Invocation, as prescribed in the Book of the Sacred
Magic, and was rewarded in October, 1906, by complete success.1
He then proceeded to the evocation and conquest of the Four
Great Princes and their Inferiors, a work whose results must be
studied in the light of his subsequent career.
We have now finished all that is necessary to say concerning
him, for the account of some of his further Attainment is given fully
in Liber CDXVIII, “The Vision and the Voice,” also in Equinox
Vol. I No. X “The Temple of Solomon the King,” where the
unexpected result of the Communion of the Holy Guardian Angel is
shown in a symbolism which can hardly be understood without
reference to the events of 1904, which are now wholly pertinent to
this Essay.
1
An account of these matters, in part, is to be found in the Equinox, Vol. I, No.
VIII, and in his own poem “Aha !”
CHAPTER V
The Results of Recession

The wisest of the Popes, on being shown some miracles, refused to
be impressed, remarking that he did not believe in them, he had seen
too many. The result of the Meditation practices and their results,
following those of Magick, was to give our student a conception of
the Universe which was purely mental. Everything was a phenomen-
on in mind. He did not as yet see that this conception is self-destruc-
tive; but it made him skeptical, and indifferent to whatever happened.
You cannot really be impressed by anything which you know to be
nothing more than one of your own thoughts. Any occurrence can be
interpreted as a thought, or as a relation between two thoughts. In
practice this leads to profound indifferentism, miracles having become
commonplace. But what would be the amazement of the priest who,
placing the Host upon his tongue, found his mouth full of bleeding
flesh! At the period of writing, it is evident for what purpose our student
was led into this state. It was not to the Magician, not to the mystic, it
was to a militant member of the Rationalist Press Association that the
great Revelation was to be made. It was necessary to prove to him that
there was in actual truth a Sanctuary, that there was in sober earnest a
body of Adepts. It matters nothing whether these Adepts are incarnated
or discarnated, human or divine. The only point at issue is that there

should be conscious Beings in possession of the deepest secrets of
Nature, pledged to the uplifting of humanity, filled with Truth,
Wisdom and Understanding. It is practical to prove the existence of
individuals whose knowledge and power, although not complete—
for the nature of Knowledge and Power is such that they can never
be complete, since the ideas themselves contain imperfections—are
yet enormously greater than aught known to the rest of humanity.
It was of such a body that our student had heard in the Cloud upon
the Sanctuary; admission to its adyta had been the guiding hope of his
life. His early attainments had tended rather to shake his belief in the
existence of such an organization. He had not yet reckoned up the
events of his life; he had not yet divined the direction and the set
purpose informing their apparently vagrant course. It might have
been by chance that whenever he had been confronted with any
difficulty the right person had instantly come forward to solve it,
whether in the valleys of Switzerland, the mountains of Mexico, or
the jungles of the East.
At this period of his life he would have scouted the idea as fantastic.
He had yet to learn that the story of Balaam and his prophetic ass
might be literally true. For the great Message that came to him
came, not through the mouth of any person with any pretensions to
any knowledge of this or any other sort, but through an empty-
headed woman of society. The plain facts of this revelation must be
succinctly stated in a new chapter.
CHAPTER VI
The Great Revelation

The Arising of THE BEAST 666, 9°=28
It has been judged best to reprint as it stands the account of these
matters originally compiled for “The Temple of Solomon the King.”
(Equinox Vol. I, No. VII, pp 357-386.)1
THE PRIEST
IN opening this the most important section of Frater P.’s career, we

may be met by the unthinking with the criticism that since it deals
with his relation to others than with his personal attainment, it has no
place in this volume.
Such criticism is indeed shallow. True, the incidents which we
are about to record took place on planes material or contiguous
thereto; true, so obscure is the light by which we walk that much
must be left in doubt; true, we have not as yet the supreme mystical
attainment to record; but on the other hand it is our view that the
Seal set upon Attainment may be itself fittingly recorded in the story
1
(The notes for this article were worked out in collaboration with Captain (now
Major-General) J.F.C. Fuller. Every means of cross-examination was pressed to the
utmost.)
of that Attainment, and that no step in progress is more important

than that when it is said to the aspirant: “Now that you are able
to walk alone, let it be your first care to use that strength to
help others!” And so this great event which we are about to describe,
an event which will lead, as time will show, to the establishment
of a New Heaven and a New Earth for all men, wore the simplest
and humblest guise. So often the gods come clad as peasants
or as childen; nay, I have listened to their voices in stones and
trees.
However, we must not forget that there are persons so sensitive
and so credulous that they are convinced by any-thing. I suppose
that there are nearly as many beds in the world as there are men;
yet for the Evangelical every bed conceals its Jesuit. We get
“Milton composing baby rhymes,” and “Locke reasoning in
gibberish,” divine revelations which would shock the intelligence of
a sheep or a Saxon; and we find these upheld and defended with skill
and courage.
Therefore since we are to announce the divine revelation made
to Fra. P., it is of the last importance that we should study his mind as
it was at the time of the Unveiling. If we find it to be the mind of a
neurotic, of a mystic, of a person predisposed, we shall slight the
revelation; if it be that of a sane man of the world, we shall attach
more importance to it.
If some dingy Alchemist emerges from his laboratory, and
proclaims to all Tooting that he has made gold, men doubt; but the
conversion to spiritualism of Professor Lombroso made a great deal
of impression on those who did not understand that his criminology
was but the heaped delusion of a diseased brain.
GENESIS LIBRI AL 63
So we shall find that the A A subtly prepared Fra. P. by

over two years’ training in rationalism and indifferentism for
Their message. And we shall find that so well did They do Their
work that he refused the message for five years more, in spite of
many strange proofs of its truth. We shall find even that Fra. P. had
to be stripped naked of himself before he could effectively deliver the
message.
The battle was between all that mighty will of his and
the Voice of a Brother who spoke once, and entered again into His
silence; and it was not Fra. P. who had the victory.
We left Fra. P. in the autumn of 1901, having made considerable
progress in Yoga. We noted that in 1902 he did little or nothing
either in Magic or Mysticism. The in-terpretation of the occult
phenomena which he had observed occupied him exclusively, and his
mind was more and more attracted to materialism.
What are phenomena! he asked. Of noumena I know and can
know nothing. All I know is, as far as I know, a mere modification
of the mind, a phase of consciousness. And thought is a secretion of
the brain. Consciousness is a function of the brain.
If this thought was contradicted by the obvious, “And
what is the brain? A phenomenon in mind!” it weighed less with him.
It seemed to his mind as yet unbalanced (as all minds are unbalanced
until they have crossed the Abyss), that it was more important to
insist on matter than on mind. Idealism wrought such misery, was
the father of all illusion, never led to research. And yet what odds?
Every act or thought is determined by an infinity of causes, is the
resultant of an infinity of forces. He analysed free will, found it
illusion. He analysed God, saw that every man had made God in his
own image, saw the savage and cannibal Jews devoted to a savage
and cannibal God, who commanded the rape of virgins and
the murder of little children. He saw the timid inhabitants of India,
races continually the prey of every robber tribe, inventing the
effeminate Vishnu, while under the same name their conquerors
worshipped a warrior, the conqueror of demon Swans. He saw the
flower of the earth throughout all time, the gracious Greeks,
what gracious gods they had invented. He saw Rome, in its
strength devoted to Jupiter and Hercules, in its decay turning to
emasculate Attis, slain Adonis, murdered Osiris, crucified Christ. He
could even trace in his own life every aspiration, every devotion,
as a reflection of his physical and intellectual needs. He saw,
too, the folly of all this supernaturalism. He heard the Boers and
the British pray to the same Protestant God, and it occurred to
him that the early successes of the former might be due rather to
superior valour than to superior praying power, and their eventual
defeat to the circumstance that they could only bring 60,000 men
against a quarter of a million. He saw, too, the face of humanity
mired in its own blood that dripped from the leeches of religion
fastened to its temples.
In all this he saw man as the only thing worth holding to; the one
thing that needed to be “saved,” but also the one thing that could
save it.
All that he had attained, then, he abandoned. The intui-tions of
the Qabalah were cast behind him with a smile at his youthful folly;
magic, if true, led nowhere; Yoga had become psychology. For the
solution of his original problems of the universe he looked to
metaphysics; he devoted his intellect to the cult of absolute reason.
GENESIS LIBRI AL 65
He took up once more with Kant, Hume, Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall,

Maudsley, Mansel, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and many another; while
as for his life, was he not a man? He had a wife; he knew
his duty to the race, and to his own ancient graft thereof. He
was a traveller and a sportsman; very well, then, live it! So we find
that from November 1901 he did no practices of any kind until the
Spring Equinox of 1904, with the exception of a casual week in the
summer of 1903, and an exhibition game of magic in the King's
Chamber of the Great Pyramid in November 1903, when by his
invocations he filled that chamber with a brightness as of full
moonlight (this was no subjective illusion. The light was sufficient
for him to read the ritual by), only to conclude, “There, you see it?
What’s the good of it?”
We find him climbing mountains, skating, fishing, hunting big
game, fulfilling the duties of a husband; we find him with the
antipathy to all forms of spiritual thought and work which marks
disappointment.
If one goes up the wrong mountain by mistake, as may happen,
no beauties of that mountain can compensate for the disillusionment
when the error is laid bare. Leah may have been a very nice girl
indeed, but Jacob never cared for her after that terrible awakening to
find her face on the pillow when, after seven years toil, he wanted
the expected Rachel.
So Fra. P., after five years barking up the wrong tree, had lost
interest in trees altogether as far as climbing them was concerned.
He might indulge in a little human pride: “See, Jack, that's the
branch I cut my name on when I was a boy”; but even had he seen in
the forest the Tree of Life itself with the golden fruit of Eternity in its
branches, he would have done no more than lift his gun and shoot
the pigeon that flitted through its foliage.
Of this “withdrawal from the vision” the proof is not merely
deducible from the absence of all occult documents in his dossier, and
from the full occupation of his life in external and mundane duties
and pleasures, but is made irrefragible and emphatic by the positive
evidence of his writings. Of these we have several examples. Two
are dramatisations of Greek mythology, a subject offering
every opportunity to the occultist. Both are markedly free from any
such allusions. We have also a slim booklet, Rosa Mundi, in which
the joys of pure human love are pictured without the faintest tinge of
mystic emotion. Further, we have a play, The God-Eater, in which the
Origin of Religion, as conceived by Spencer or Frazer, is dramatically
shown forth; and lastly we have a satire, Why Jesus Wept, hard, cynical,
and brutal in its estimate of society, but careless of any remedy for its
ills.
It is as if the whole past of the man with all its aspiration and
attainment was blotted out. He saw life (for the first time, perhaps)
with commonplace human eyes. Cynicism he could understand,
romance he could understand; all beyond was dark. Happiness was
the bedfellow of contempt.1
We learn that, late in 1903, he was proposing to visit China on a
sporting expedition when a certain very commonplace com-
munication made to him by his wife caused him to postpone it.
“Let’s go and kill something for a month or two,” said he, “and if
you're right, we’ll get back to nurses and doctors.”
1
[One paragraph from “Temple of Solomon the King” here omitted; the gist of it
is contained in the previous chapter. — T.S.]
GENESIS LIBRI AL 67
So we find them in Hambantota, the south-eastern province of

Ceylon, occupied solely with buffalo, elephant, leopard, sambhur,
and the hundred other objects of the chase.
We here insert extracts from the diary, indeed a meagre
production—after what we have seen of his previous record in
Ceylon.
Whole weeks pass without a word; the great man was playing
bridge, poker, or golf!
The entry of February 19th reads as if it were going to be
interesting, but it is followed by that of February 20th. It is, however,
certain that about the 14th of March he took possession of a flat in
Cairo—in the Season!
Can bathos go further?
So that the entry of March 16th is dated from Chiro.
[Our notes given in round brackets.]
FRATER P.’S DIARY

(This diary is extremely incomplete and fragmentary. Many entries,
too, are evidently irrelevant or “blinds.” We omit much of the latter two
types.)
“This eventful year 1903 finds me at a nameless camp in the jungle of
Southern Province of Ceylon; my thoughts, otherwise divided between
Yoga and sport, are diverted by the fact of a wife . . .”
(This reference to Yoga is the subconscious Magical Will of the Vowed
Initiate. He was not doing anything; but, on questioning himself, as was
his custom at certain seasons, he felt obliged to affirm his Aspiration.)
Jan. 1 . . . . (Much blotted out) . . . missed deer and hare. So
annoyed. Yet the omen is that the year is well for works of
Love and Union; ill for those of Hate. Be mine of Love!
(Note that he does not add “and Union”).1
Jan. 28. Embark for Suez.
Feb. 7. Suez.
Feb. 8. Landed at Port Said.
Feb. 9. To Cairo.
Feb. 11. Saw b. f. g.
b. f. b.
(This entry is quite unintelligible to us.)
Feb. 19. To Helwan as Oriental Despot.
(Apparently P. had assumed some disguise, probably with
the intention of trying to study Islam from within as he had
done with Hinduism.)
Feb. 20. Began golf.
March 16. Began INV. (invocation). ΙΑΩ.2
March 17. Θωουθ appeared.3
March 18. Told to INV. (invoke) q wwri 4 as¬!5 by new way.
March 19. Did this badly at noon 30.
March 20. At 10 p.m. did well—Equinox of Gods—oÜ m» Nev (? new)
C.R.C. (Christian Rosy Cross, we conjecture.) Hoori now
Hpnt (obviously “Hierophant”).
March 21. ! in a. I.A.M. (? one o'clock.)
March 22. X.P.B. ‫اﺣﻲﻴﺤﺎ‬
1
As a devotee of Yoga, “Union” would have done.
2
Given in “Liber Samekh.”: see Magick.
3
Thoth, the Egyptian God of Wisdom and Magick.
4
Horus.
5
The Sun.
GENESIS LIBRI AL 69
(May this and the entry March 24 refer to the Brother of the
A A who found him?)
E.P.D. in 84 m.
(Unintelligible to us: possibly a blind.)
March 23. Y.K. done (? His work in the Yi King.)1
March 24. Met ‫ اﺣﻲﻴﺤﺎ‬again.
March 25. 8 2 3 Thus
461 ,, ,, = p f l y 2 b z
218
(Blot) wch trouble with ds.
(Blot) P.B. (All unintelligible; possibly a blind.)
April 6. Go off again to H, taking A’s p.
(This is probably a blind.)
Before we go further into the history of this period we must
premise as follows.
Fra. P. never made a thorough record of this period. He seems to
have wavered between absolute scepticism in the bad sense, a dislike
of the revelation, on the one hand, and real enthusiasm on the other.
And the first of these moods would induce him to do things to spoil
the effect of the latter. Hence the blinds and stupid meaningless
cyphers which deface the diary.
And, as if the Gods themselves wished to darken the Pylon, we
find that later, when P.’s proud will had been broken, and he wished
to make straight the way of the historian, his memory (one of the
finest memories in the world) was utterly incompetent to make
everything certain.
However, nothing of which he was not certain will be entered in
this place.
1
More probably a blind.
We have one quite unspoiled and authoritative document “The

Book of Results,” written in one of the small Japanese vellum note-
books which he used to carry. Unfortunately, it seems to have been
abandoned after five days. What happened between March 23rd and
April 8th?
THE BOOK OF RESULTS
March 16th. Die #,1 I invoke ΙΑΩ.

(Fra. P. tells us that this was done by the ritual of the
“Bornless One,”2 merely to amuse his wife by showing her the
sylphs. She refused or was unable to see any sylphs, but be-
came “inspired,” and kept on saying: “They’re waiting for
you!”)
(Note. The maiden name of his wife was Rose Edith Kelly.
He called her Ouarda, the Arabic for “Rose.” She is here-
after signified by “Ouarda the Seer” or “W.” for short. Ed.)
W. says “they” are “waiting for me.”
3
17. &. It is “all about the child.” Also “all Osiris.”
(Note the cynic and sceptic tone of this entry. How
different it appears in the light of Liber 418!)
Thoth, invoked with great success, indwells us.
(Yes; but what happened? Fra. P. has no sort of idea.)
4
18. $. Revealed that the waiter was Horus, whom I had offended
and ought to invoke. The ritual revealed in skeleton. Promise

of success '5 or !6 and of Samadhi.
(Is this “waiter” another seer? We are uncertain.)
1
I.e., Wednesday.
2
See Magick, Appendix, Liber CXX [sic, read DCCC (Appendix IV). — T.S.]
3
Thursday.
4
Friday.
5
Saturday.
6
Sunday.
GENESIS LIBRI AL 71
The revealing of the ritual (by W. the seer) consisted chiefly in a

prohibition of all formulae hitherto used, as will be seen from the text
printed below.
It was probably on this day that P. cross-examined W. about
Horus. Only the striking character of her identification of the God,
surely, would have made him trouble to obey her. He remembers
that he only agreed to obey her in order to show her how silly she
was, and he taunted her that “nothing could happen if you broke
all the rules.”
Here therefore we insert a short note of Fra. P.
HOW W. KNEW R.H.K. (Ra Hoor Khuit).

1. Force and Fire (I asked her to describe his moral qualities).
2. Deep blue light. (I asked her to describe the condition caused by
him. This light is quite unmistakable and unique; but of course
her words, though a fair description of it, might equally apply to
some other.)
3. Horus. (I asked her to pick out his name from a list of ten
dashed off at haphazard.)
4. Recognised his figure when shown. (This refers to the striking
scene at the Boulak Museum, which will be dealt with in detail.)
5. Knew my past relations with the God. (This means, I think, that
she knew I had taken his place in temple, etc., and that I had
never once invoked him.)
6. Knew his enemy. (I asked, “Who is his enemy?” Reply, “Forces
of the waters—of the Nile.” W. knew no Egyptology—or
anything else.)
7. Knew his lineal figure and its colour. (A 84 chance.)
1
8. Knew his place in temple. (A ¼ chance, at the least.)
9. Knew his weapon (from a list of 6).
10. Knew his planetary nature (from a list of 7 planets.)
11. Knew his number (from a list of the 10 units).
12. Picked him out of (a) Five .
(b) Three. } indifferent, i.e. arbitrary symbols.
(This means that I settled in my own mind that say D of A, B, C,

D, and E should represent him, and that she then said D.)
We cannot too strongly insist on the extraordinary character of

this identification.
W. had made no pretension of clairvoyance, nor had P. ever tried
to train her.
P. had great experience of clairvoyants, and it was always a point
of honour with him to bowl them out. And here was the novice, a
woman who should never have been allowed outside a ballroom,
speaking with the authority of God, and proving it by unhesitating
correctness.
One slip, and Fra. P. would have sent her to the devil. And that
slip was not made. Calculate the odds! We cannot find a
mathematical expression for tests 1, 2, 4, 5, or 6. But the other 7 tests
give us
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
      
10 84 4 6 7 10 15 21,168,000
Twenty-one millions to one against her getting through half the
ordeal!
Even if we suppose what is absurd, that she knew the
correspondences of the Qabalah as well as Fra. P., and had
GENESIS LIBRI AL 73
knowledge of his own secret relations with the Unseen, we must

strain telepathy to explain test 12. 1
But we know that she was perfectly ignorant of the subtle
correspondences, which were only existing at that time in Fr. P.'s
own brain.
And even it it were so, how are we to explain what followed—the
discovery of the Stélé of Revealing?
To apply test 4, Fra. P. took her to the museum at Boulak, which
they had not previously visited. She passed by (as P. noted with
silent glee) several images of Horus. They went upstairs. A glass
case stood in the distance, too far off for its contents to be
recognized. But W. recognised it! “There,” she cried, “There he is!”
Fra. P. advanced to the case. There was the image of Horus in the
form of Ra Hoor Khuit painted upon a wooden stélé of the 26th
dynasty—and the exhibit bore the number 666!2
(And after that it was five years before Fra. P. was forced to
obedience.)
This incident must have occurred before the 23rd of March, as the
entry on that date refers to Ankh-f-n-khonsu.
Here is P.'s description of the stélé.
“In the museum at Cairo, No. 666 is the stele of the Priest Ankh-f-n-
khonsu.
Horus has a red Disk and green Uraeus.
1
We may add, too, that Fra. P. thinks, but is not quite certain, that he also tested
her with the Hebrew Alphabet and the Tarot trumps, in which case the long odds
must be still further multiplied by 484, bringing them over the billion mark!
2
666 had been taken by Fra. P. as the number of His own Name (The Beast)
long years before, in His childhood. There could be no physical causal connection
here; and coincidence, sufficient to explain this one isolated fact, becomes inadequate
in view of the other evidence.
His face is green, his skin indigo.
His necklace, anklets, and bracelets are gold.
His nemyss nearly black from blue.
His tunic is the Leopard’s skin, and his apron green and gold.
Green is the wand of double Power; his r.h. is empty.
His throne is indigo the gnomon, red the square.
The light is gamboge.
Above his are the Winged Globe and the bent figure of the heavenly
Isis, her hands and feet touching earth.
[We print the most recent translation of the Stélé, by Messrs Alan
Gardiner, Litt.D., and Battiscombe Gunn. It differs slightly from
that used by Fra P., which was due to the assistant-curator of the
Museum at Bulak.]
STÉLÉ OF ANKH-F-NA-KHONSU.
OBVERSE.
Topmost Register (under Winged Disk).
Behdet (? Hadit ?), the Great God, the Lord of Heaven.
Middle Register.
Two vertical lines to left:—
Ra-Harakhti, Master of the Gods.
Five vertical lines to right:—
Osiris, the Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes, Opener of the doors
of Nut in Karnak, Ankh-f-na-Khonsu, the Justified.
Below Altar:—
Oxen, Geese, Wine, (?) Bread.
Behind the god is the hieroglyph of Amenti.
Lowest Register.
(1) Saith Osiris, the Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes, the Opener
of the Doors of Nut in Karnak, Ankh-f-na-Khonsu, (2) the
GENESIS LIBRI AL 75
Justified: “Hail, Thou whose praise is high (the highly praised),

thou great-willed, O Soul (ba) very awful (lit. mighty of awe)
that giveth the terror of him (3) among the Gods, shining in
glory upon his great throne, making ways for the Soul (ba),
for the Spirit (yekh) and for the Shadow (khabt). I am prepared,
and I shine forth as one that is prepared. (4) I have made
way to the place in which are Ra, Tôm, Khepri and Hathor.”
Osiris, the Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes, (5) Ankh-f-na-
Khonsu, the Justified; son of MNBSNMT;1 born of the Sistrum-
bearer of Amon, the Lady Atne-sher.
REVERSE.
Eleven lines of writing.

(1) Saith Osiris, the Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes, Ankh-f-
(2)na-Khonsu, the Justified:—“My heart from my mother, my
heart from my mother, my heart2 of my existence (3) upon earth,
stand not forth against me as a witness, drive me not back
(4) among the Sovereign Judges,3 neither incline against me
in the presence of the Great God, the Lord of the West.4
(5) Now that I am united with Earth in the Great West, and
endure no longer upon Earth. (6) Saith Osiris, he who is in
Thebes, Ankh-f-na-Khonsu, the Justified:—“O Only-(7)One,
shining like (or in) the Moon; Osiris Ankh-f-(8)na-Khonsu
has come forth upon high among these thy multitudes.
(9) He that gathereth together those that are in the Light,
the Underworld (duat) is [also] (10) opened to him; lo, Osiris
1
The father’s name. The method of spelling shows he was a foreigner. There is
no clue to the vocalisation.
2
Different word, apparently synonymous, but probably not so at all.
3
Quite an arbitary and conventional translation of the original word.
4
Osiris, of course.
Ankh-f-na-Khonsu, cometh forth by (11) day to do all that he
wisheth upon earth among the living.”
* * * * *
There is one other object to complete the secret of Wisdom—

or,1 it is in the hieroglyphs.
(This last paragraph is, we suppose, dictated by W.)
We now return to the “Book of Results.”

19. '. The ritual written out and the invocation done—little
success.
2
20. !. Revealed that the Equinox of the Gods is come. Horus
taking the Throne of the East and all rituals, etc., being
abrogated.
(To explain this 3 we append 4 the G.D. ritual of the
Equinox, which was celebrated in the spring and autumn
within 48 hours of the actual dates of Sol entering Aries and
Libra.)
20. (contd.)—Great success in midnight invocation.
(The other diary says 10 P.M. “Midnight” is perhaps a loose
phrase, or perhaps marks the climax of the ritual.)
I am to formulate a new link of an order with the solar force.
(It is not clear what happened in this invocation; but it
is evident from another note of certainly later date, that “great
1
P. notes “perhaps a Thoth.”
2
We cannot make out if this revelation comes from W. or is a result of the ritual.
But almost certainly the former, as it precedes the “Great Success” entry.
3
The analogy is between the “new formula” given by the “Word” every six
months in the Order, and that given every couple of thousand years (more or less)
by the Word of a Magus to the whole or part of Mankind.
4
[i.e., at the end of this chapter. In Equinox I (7) the ritual was interpolated here;
in the Blue Brick it was shunted into an appendix. — T.S.]
GENESIS LIBRI AL 77
success” does not mean “Samadhi.” For P. writes: “I make it

an absolute condition that I should attain Samadhi, in the
god’s own interest.” His memory concurs in this. It was the
Samadhi attained in October 1906 that set him again in the
path of obedience to this revelation.
But that “great success” means something very important is
clear enough. The sneering sceptic of the 17th of March must
have had a shock before he wrote those words.)
1
21. =. ! enters a.
2
22. %. The day of rest, on which nothing whatever of magic is to
be done at all. # is to be the great day of invocation.
(This note is due to W.'s prompting, or to his own
rationalising imagination.)
3
23. #. The Secret of Wisdom.
(We omit the record of a long and futile Tarot divination.)4
At this point we may insert the Ritual which was so successful on

the 20th.
INVOCATION OF HORUS
ACCORDING TO THE DIVINE VISION OF W. THE SEER
To be performed before a window open to the E. or N. without

incense. The room to be filled with jewels, but only diamonds to
be worn. A sword, unconsecrated. 44 pearl beads to be told.
Stand. Bright daylight at 12.30 noon. Lock doors. White robes.
Bare feet. Be very loud. Saturday. Use the Sign of Apophis and
Typhon.
1
“Monday. The Sun enters Aries,” i.e. Spring begins.
2
Tuesday.
3
Wednesday.
4
[The record as found in one of Crowley’s MS. notebooks, was published in the
Blue Brick. It is here omitted. — T.S.]
The above is W.’s answer to various questions posed by P.
* * * * *
Preliminary. Banish. L.B.R. Pentagram. L.B.R. Hexagram.
Flaming Sword. Abrahadabra. Invoke. As before.
[These are P.’s ideas for the ritual. W. replied, “Omit.”]
[The MS. of this Ritual bears many internal marks of having
been written at white heat and left unrevised, save perhaps
for one glance. There are mistakes in grammar and spelling
unique in all MSS. of Fra. P.; the use of capitals is irregular,
and the punctuation almost wanting.]
CONFESSION
Unprepared and uninvoking Thee, I, oÜ m», Fra. R. R. et A. C.,

am here in Thy Presence—for Thou art Everywhere, O Lord
Horus!—to confess humbly before Thee my neglect and scorn of
Thee.
How shall I humble myself enough before Thee? Thou art the
mighty and unconquered Lord of the Universe: I am a spark of
Thine unutterable Radiance.
How should I approach Thee?—but Thou art Everywhere.
But Thou hast graciously deigned to call me unto Thee, to this
Exorcism of Art, that I may be Thy Servant, Thine Adept, O Bright
One, O Sun of Glory! Thou hast called me—should I not then
hasten to Thy Presence?
With unwashen hands therefore I come unto Thee, and I lament
my wandering from Thee—but Thou knowest!
Yea, I have done evil!
GENESIS LIBRI AL 79
If one1 blasphemed Thee, why should I therefore forsake Thee?

But thou art the Avenger; all is with Thee.
I bow my neck before Thee; and as once Thy sword was upon
it,2 so am I in Thy hands. Strike if Thou wilt: spare if Thou wilt:
but accept me as I am.
My trust is in Thee: shall I be confounded? This Ritual of Art;
this Forty and Fourfold Invocation; this Sacrifice of Blood3—these I
do not comprehend.
It is enough if I obey Thy decree; did thy fiat go forth for my
eternal misery, were it not my joy to execute Thy Sentence on
myself?
For why? For that All is in Thee and of Thee; it is enough if I
burn up in the intolerable glory of Thy presence.
Enough! I turn toward Thy Promise.
Doubtful are the Words: Dark are the Ways: but in Thy Words
and Ways is Light. Thus then now as ever, I enter the Path of
Darkness, if haply so I may attain the Light.
Hail!
aIa
Strike, strike the master chord!

Draw, draw the Flaming Sword!
Crowned Child and Conquering Lord,
Horus, avenger!
1
Doubtless a reference to S.R.M.D., who was much obsessed by Mars. P. saw
Horus at first as Gerurah; later as an aspect of Tiphereth, including Chesed and
Geburah (the red Triangle inverted), an aspect opposite to Osiris.
2
See G D Ceremony of Neophyte, the Obligation.
3
Merely, we suppose, that 44 = DM, blood. Possibly a bowl of blood was used. P.
thinks it was in some of the workings at this time, but is not sure if it was this one.
1. O Thou of the Head of the Hawk! Thee, Thee, I invoke! [At
every “Thee I invoke,” throughout whole ritual, give the Sign of
Apophis.]
A. Thou only-begotten-child of Osiris Thy Father, and Isis Thy
Mother. He that was slain; She that bore Thee in Her womb, flying
from the Terror of the Water.
Thee, Thee, I invoke!
2. O Thou whose Apron is of flashing white, whiter than the
Forehead of the Morning!
B. O Thou who hast formulated Thy Father and made fertile
Thy Mother!
3. O Thou whose garment is of Golden glory, with the azure
bars of sky!
C. Thou who didst avenge the Horror of Death; Thou the slayer
of Typhon! Thou who didst lift Thine arms, and the Dragons of
Death were as dust; Thou who didst raise Thine Head, and the
Crocodile of Nile was abased before Thee!
4. O Thou whose Nemyss hideth the Universe with night, the
impermeable Blue!
D. Thou who travellest in the Boat of Ra, abiding at the Helm of
the Aftet boat and of the Sektet boat!
5. Thou who bearest the Wand of Double Power!
E. Thou about whose presence is shed the darkness of Blue
Light, the unfathomable glory of the outmost1 Ether, the untravelled,
1
[The MS. has “utmost.”]
GENESIS LIBRI AL 81
the unthinkable immensity of Space. Thou who concentrest all the

Thirty Ethers in one darkling sphere of Fire!
6. O Thou who bearest the Rose and Cross of Life and Light!
The Voice of the Five.

The Voice of the Six.
Eleven are the Voices.
Abrahadabra!
b II b

Horus, avenger!
1. By thy name of Ra I invoke Thee, Hawk of the Sun, the

glorious one!
2. By thy name Harmachis, youth of the Brilliant Morning, I
invoke Thee!
3. By thy name Mau, I invoke Thee, Lion of the Midday Sun.
4. By thy name Tum, Hawk of the Even, crimson splendour of
the Sunset, I invoke Thee!
5. By thy name Khep-Ra I invoke Thee, O Beetle of the hidden
Mastery of Midnight!
A. By thy name Heru-pa-Kraat, Lord of Silence, Beautiful Child
that standest on the Dragons of the Deep, I invoke Thee!
B. By thy name of Apollo, I invoke Thee, O man of strength
and splendour, O poet, O father!
C. By thy name of Phoebus, that drivest thy chariot through the
Heaven of Zeus, I invoke Thee!
D. By thy name of Odin I invoke Thee, O warrior of the North,
O Renown of the Sagas!
E. By thy name of Jeheshua, O child of the Flaming Star, I
invoke Thee!
F. By Thine own, Thy secret name Hoori, Thee I invoke!
The Names are Five.

The Names are Six.
Eleven are the Names!
Abrahadabra!
Behold! I stand in the midst. Mine is the symbol of Osiris; to

Thee are mine eyes ever turned. Unto the splendour of
Geburah, the Magnificence of Chesed, the mystery of Daath,
thither I lift up mine eyes. This have I sought, and I have
sought the Unity: hear Thou me!
g III g
1. Mine is the Head of the Man, and my insight is keen as the

Hawk’s.
By my Head I invoke Thee!
A. I am the only-begotten child of my Father and Mother.
By my Body I invoke Thee!
2. About me shine the Diamonds of Radiance white and pure.
By their brightness I invoke Thee!
B. Mine is the Red Triangle Reversed, the Sign1 given of none,
save it be of Thee, O Lord!
By the Lamen I invoke Thee!
1
This sign had been previously communicated by W. It was entirely new to P.
GENESIS LIBRI AL 83
3. Mine is the garment of white sewn with gold, the flashing
abbai that I wear.
By my robe I invoke Thee!
C. Mine is the sign of Apophis and Typhon!
By the sign I invoke Thee!
4. Mine is the turban of white and gold, and mine the blue
vigour of the intimate air!
By my crown I invoke Thee!
D. My fingers travel on the Beads of Pearl: so run I after Thee in
thy car of glory.
By my fingers I invoke Thee!
[On the Saturday the string of pearls broke: so I changed the
invocation to “My mystic sigils travel in the Bark of the Akasa, etc.
By the spells I invoke Thee!—P.]
5. I bear the Word of Double Power in the Voice of the Master—
Abrahadabra!
By the Word I invoke Thee!
E. Mine are the dark-blue waves of music in the song that I made
of old to invoke thee—
Horus, avenger!
By the Song I invoke Thee!
6. In my hand is thy Sword of Revenge; let it strike at Thy Bidding!
By the Sword I invoke Thee!
The Voice of the Five.

The Voice of the Six.
Eleven are the Voices.
Abrahadabra!
d IV d
[This section merely repeats a I a in the first person. Thus it
begins:
1. “Mine is the Head of the Hawk! Abrahadabra!”, and ends:
6. “I bear the Rose and Cross of Life and Light! Abrahadabra!”
giving the Sign at each Abrahadabra. Remaining in the Sign, the
invocation concludes:]
Therefore I say unto Thee: Come Thou forth and dwell in me; so
that every my Spirit, whether of the Firmament, or of the Ether, of
the Earth or under the Earth; on dry land or in the Water, or
Whirling Air or of rushing fire; and every spell and scourge of God
the Vast One may be THOU. Abrahadabra!
The Adoration—impromptu.
Close by banishing. [I think this was omitted at W.'s order.—P.]
* * * * *
During the period March 23rd—April 8th, whatever else may have
happened, it is at least certain that work was continued to some
extent, that the inscriptions of the stélé were translated for Fra. P.,
and that he paraphrased the latter in verse. For we find him using, or
prepared to use, the same in the text of Liber Legis.
Perhaps then, perhaps later, he made out the “name-
coincidences of the Qabalah” to which we must now direct the
reader’s attention.
The MS. is a mere fragmentary sketch.1
j = 8 = tyj= 418 = Abrahadabra = RA-HVVR (Ra-Hoor).

1
[A few entries from the MS. were omitted in the published version, probably
representing abandoned or erroneous lines of working. Crowley’s “editorial”
comments have been put in square brackets to disinguish them from parenthetical
remarks in the MS. — T.S.]
GENESIS LIBRI AL 85
Also 8 is the great symbol I adore.

[This may be because of its likeness to  or because of its (old
G D) attribution to Daath, P. being then a rationalist; or for
some other reason.]
So is 0.
0 = A in the Book of Thoth [The Tarot].
A = 111 with all its great meanings, ! = 6.
Now 666 = My name.
= the number of the stele.
= the number of the Beast. (See Apocalypse.)
= the number of the !.
The Beast ahyja = 666 in full. (The usual spelling is ChIVA.)
[a = 111 j = 418 y = 20 h = 6 a = 111.]
HRV-RA-HA.
211 + 201 + 6 = 418.
[This name occurs only in L. Legis, and is a test of that book rather
than of the stélé.]
ANKH-P-N-KHONShV-T, f-wcnuhk-n-p-hkna 1= 666.
[We trust the addition of the termination T will be found justified.]
Bes-n-maut tvam an cyb = 888
Ta-Nich jyj af } =ja
Nuteru wrytwn 2= 666.
Montu wfnwm = 111.
Aiwass sawya = 78, the influence or messenger, or the Book T.
Ta-Nich jyn-af = 78. Alternatively, c for j gives 370, cu , Creation.
So much we extract from volumes filled with minute calculations,

of which the bulk is no longer intelligible even to Fra. P.
1
[The MS has f - wsnuhk - n - p - hkna , 426. — T.S.]
2
[sic, s.b. wrytn ; the spelling given adds to 672. —T.S.]
His memory, however, assures us that the coincidences were much

more numerous and striking than those we have been able to
reproduce here; but his attitude is, we understand, that after all “It’s
all in Liber Legis. ‘Success is thy proof: argue not; convert not; talk
not overmuch!’ ” And indeed in the Commentary to that Book will
be found sufficient for the most wary of inquirers.
Now who, it may be asked, was Aiwass? It is the name given by
W. to P. as that of her informant. Also it is the name given as that of
the revealer of Liber Legis. But whether Aiwass is a spiritual being,
or a man known to Fra. P., is a matter of the merest conjecture. His
number is 78,1 that of Mezla, the Channel through which Macro-
prosopus reveals Himself to, or showers His influence upon, Micro-
prosopus.2 So we find Fra. P. speaking of him at one time as of
another, but more advanced, man; at another time as if it were the
name of his own superior in the Spiritual Hierarchy. And to all
questions Fra. P. finds a reply, either pointing out “the subtle
metaphysical distinction between curiosity and hard work,” or
indicating that among the Brethren “names are only lies,” or in some
other way defeating the very plain purpose of the historian.
The same remark applies to all queries with regard to V.V.V.V.V.; 3
with this addition, that in this case he condescends to argue and to
instruct. “If I tell you,” he once said to the present writer,4 “that
V.V.V.V.V. is a Mr Smith and lives at Clapham, you will at once go
1
But see the miraculous events connected with “The Revival of Magick”
described in Magick pp. 257-260, where he is shewn as 93.
2
I.e. the messenger of God to Man.
3
The motto of Fra. P. as a Magister Templi 8° = 38; He used it in His office of
giving out the “Official Books of AA” to the world in the Equinox.
4
J.F.C. Fuller. [sic, “Temple of Solomon the King” part VII was written by
Crowley, see the Index to Equinox vol. I. — T.S.]
GENESIS LIBRI AL 87
round and tell everybody that V.V.V.V.V. is a Mr Smith of Clapham,

which is not true. V.V.V.V.V. is the Light of the World itself, the
sole Mediator between God and Man; and in your present frame of
mind (that of a poopstick) you cannot see that the two statements
may be identical for the Brothers of the A A! Did not your
great-grandfather argue that no good thing could come out of
Nazareth? “Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called
Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?
And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man
all these things? And they were offended in him.”
Similarly, with regard to the writing of Liber Legis, Fra. P. will
only say that it is in no way “automatic writing,” that he heard
clearly and distinctly the human articulate accents of a man. Once,
on page 6, he is told to edit a sentence; and once, on page 19, W.
supplies a sentence which he had failed to hear.
To this writing we now turn.
It must have been on the 7th of April that W. commanded P. (now
somewhat cowed) to enter the “temple” exactly at 12 o’clock noon on
three successive days, and to write down what he should hear, rising
exactly at 1 o’clock.
This he did. Immediately on his taking his seat the Voice began
its Utterance, and ended exactly at the expiration of the hour.
These are the three chapters of Liber Legis, and we have nothing
to add.1
1
[The rest of this paragraph and another short paragraph from “Temple of
Solomon the King, omitted in Equinox of the Gods; they refer to the publication of
the “Old Comment” and the ridiculously scaled down reproduction of the MS. that
accompanied that edition. — T.S.]
The full title of the book is

LIBER L vel LEGIS
svb figvrâ CCXX
as delivered by LXXVIII to DCLXVI
and it is the First and Greatest of those Class A publications of
AA of which is not to be altered so much as the style of a letter.
This was the original title devised by 666 to appear in the 1909
publication.1 The “Key of it all” and the true spelling of Aiwass had
not then been discovered.
1
[A private publication in the first edition of Θελημα. — T.S.]
GENESIS LIBRI AL 89
FESTIVAL OF THE EQUINOX

(Temple arranged as for 0° = 08)
Ht. (knocks). Fratres and Sorores of all grades of the Golden Dawn in
the Outer, let us celebrate the Festival of the { Vernal
Autumnal }
Equinox.
All rise.
Ht. Frater Kerux, proclaim the fact, and announce the abrogation of
the present Pass Word.
K. (going to Ht.’s right, saluting, and facing West). In the Name of the
Lord of the Universe, and by command of the V.H.Ht., I
proclaim the { Vernal
Autumnal } Equinox, and declare that the Pass
Word —— is abrogated.
Ht. Let us, according to ancient custom, consecrate the return of the
{ Vernal
Autumnal } Equinox.
Light.
Hs. Darkness.
Ht. East.
Hs. West.
Ht. Air.
Hs. Water.
Hg. (knocks). I am the Reconciler between them.
All give signs.
D. Heat.
S. Cold.
D. South.
S. North.
D. Fire.
S. Earth.
Hg. (knocks). I am the Reconciler between them.
All give signs.
Ht. (knocks). One Creator.
D. One Preserver.
Hs. (knocks). One Destroyer.
S. One Redeemer.
Hg. (knocks). One Reconciler between them.
All give signs.
Each retiring Officer in turn, beginning with Ht., quits his post by the left hand
and goes to foot of Throne. He there disrobes, placing robe and lamen at foot of
Throne or Dais. He then proceeds with the Sun's course to the Altar, and lays
thereon his special insignia, viz.:—Ht., Sceptre: Hs., Sword: Hg., Sceptre: K.,
Lamp and Wand: S., Cup: D., Censer: repeating out-going Password as he does so.
Ht., taking from the Altar the Rose, returns with the Sun to his post:
Hs. takes Cup of Wine:
Hg. waits for the Kerux and takes his Red Lamp from him:
K. takes nothing:
S. takes platter of Salt:
D. takes emblem of Elemental Fire:
Returning each to his place.
All Officers except K. now keep their places.
The remaining members form a column in the North and, led by Kerux,
proceed to the East; when all are in column along East side each turns to left
and faces Hierophant.
Ht. Let us adore the Lord of the Universe.
Holy art Thou, Lord of the Air, who hast created the Firmament.
(Making with the Rose the Sign of the Cross in the Air towards the East.)
All give signs. Procession moves on to the South, halts, and all face South.
D. (facing South). Let us adore the Lord of the Universe.
Holy art Thou, Lord of the Fire, wherein Thou hast shown forth
the Throne of Thy Glory.
GENESIS LIBRI AL 91
(Making with the Fire the sign of the Cross toward the South.)
All give signs. Procession moves on to the West, halts, and faces West.
Hs. (facing West). Let us adore the Lord of the Universe.
Holy art Thou, Lord of the Waters, whereon Thy Spirit moved
at the Beginning.
(Making with the Cup the sign of the Cross in the Air before him.)
All give signs. Procession passes on to the North. All halt and face North.
S. (facing North). Let us adore the Lord of the Universe.
Holy art Thou, Lord of the Earth, which Thou hast made Thy
footstool.
(Making with the platter of Salt the sign of the Cross toward the North.)
All give signs.
All resume their places and face the usual way.
Hg. Let us adore the Lord of the Universe.
Holy art Thou, Who art in all things, in Whom are all things;
If I climb up into Heaven, Thou art there;
If I go down into Hell, Thou art there also;
If I take the Wings of the Morning and remain in the uttermost
parts of the Sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right
hand shall hold me;
If I say “Peradventure the Darkness shall cover me,” even the
Night shall be Light unto Thee;
Thine is the Air with its Movement,
Thine is the Fire with its flashing Flame,
Thine is the Water with its Flux and Reflux,
Thine is the Earth with its Eternal Stability.
(Makes the sign of the Cross with Red Lamp.)
All give signs.
Ht. goes to Altar and deposits the rose.
Imperator meanwhile assumes the Throne.
Ht. returns to a seat on immediate left as Past Hierophant.
Each old Officer now proceeds in turn to the Altar and places upon it the ensign
he had taken therefrom, returning to places of their grade, not their Thrones, with
nothing in their hands: they sit as common members, leaving all offices vacant.
Imperator. By the Power and Authority in me vested, I confer upon
you the new Password. It is ——.
The Officers of this Temple for the ensuing half-year are as follows:—
(Reads list of new Officers.)
New Officers come up in turn and are robed by the Imperator.
Each new Officer in turn passes to the Altar and takes his insignia therefrom,
repeating aloud:—
By the Password —— I claim my ——.
S., after claiming his Cup, purifies the Hall and the Members by Water,
without a word spoken by the Ht. unless he fails in this duty.
D., after claiming his Censer, consecrates the Hall and the Members by Fire,
without unnecessary word from the Ht.
THE MYSTIC CIRCUMAMBULATION

This should take place in Silence, but if the Members be unprovided with
Rituals, the Ht. may order it as follows:—
All form in North, K., Hg., Members, Hs., S., D.
Each member as he passes the Throne repeats the Password aloud.
Ht. Let us invoke the Lord of the Universe.
Lord of the Universe, Blessed by Thy Name unto the Eternal
Ages.
Look with favour upon this Order, and grant that its members
may at length attain to the true Summum Bonum, the Stone of
the Wise, the Perfect Wisdom and the Eternal Light,
To the Glory of Thine Ineffable Name, AMEN.
All salute.
GENESIS LIBRI AL 93
Ht. Frater Kerux, in the Name of the Lord of the Universe, I
{
command you to declare that the Autumnal
Vernal
} Equinox has
returned, and that —— is the Password for the next six months.
K. In the Name of the Lord of the Universe and by command of
{
the V.H.Ht. I declare that the Sun has entered
Aries
Libra } , the Sign
of the{ Vernal
}
Autumnal Equinox, and that the Password for the
ensuing half-year will be ——.
Ht. Khabs. Pax. In.
Hs. Am. Konx. Extension.
Hg. Pekht. Om. Light.
CHAPTER VII
Remarks on the Method of Receiving Liber Legis, on the Conditions
prevailing at the Time of the Writing, and on certain Technical
Difficulties connected with the Literary Form of the Book1
I
CERTAIN VERY SERIOUS QUESTIONS have arisen with regard to the
method by which this Book was obtained. I do not refer to those
doubts—real or pretended—which hostility engenders, for all such are
dispelled by study of the text; no forger could have prepared so
complex a set of numerical and literal puzzles as to leave himself (a)
devoted to the solution for years after, (b) baffled by a simplicity which
when disclosed leaves one gasping at its profundity, (c) enlightened
only by progressive initiation, or by “accidental” events apparently
disconnected with the Book, which occurred long after its
publication, (d) hostile, bewildered, and careless even in the face of
independent testimony as to the power and clarity of the Book, and
of the fact that by Its light other men have attained the loftiest
summits of initiation in a tithe of the time which history and
experience would lead one to expect, and (e) angrily unwilling to
1
This paper was written, independently of any idea of its present place in this
Book, by THE BEAST 666 Himself, in the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu, Sicily. No
further apology is offered for any repetitious of statements made in previous chapters.
GENESIS LIBRI AL 95
proceed with that part of the Work appointed for him which is
detailed in Chapter III, even when the course of events on the planet,
war, revolution, and the collapse of the social and religious systems of
civilization, proved plainly to him that whether he liked it or no, Ra
Hoor Khuit was indeed Lord of the Aeon, the Crowned and
Conquering Child whose innocence meant no more than inhuman
cruelty and wantonly senseless destructiveness as he avenged Isis our
mother the Earth and the Heaven for the murder and mutilation of
Osiris, Man, her son. The War of 1914-18 and its sequels have proved
even to the dullest statesmen, beyond wit of even the most subtly
sophistical theologians to gloze, that death is not an unmixed benefit
either to the individual or the community : that force and fire of
leaping manhood are more useful to a nation than cringing
respectability and emasculate servility; that genius goes with courage,
and the sense of shame and guilt with “Defeatism.”
For these reasons and many more I am certain, I the Beast,
whose number is Six Hundred and Sixty Six, that this Third
Chapter of the Book of the Law is nothing less than the authentic
Word, the Word of the Aeon, the Truth about Nature at this time
and on this planet. I wrote it, hating it and sneering at it, secretly
glad that I could use it to revolt against this Task most terrible
that the Gods have thrust remorselessly upon my shoulders,
their Cross of burning steel that I must carry even to my Calvary,
the place of a skull, there to be eased of its weight only that
I be crucified thereon. But, being lifted up, I will draw the
whole world unto me; and men shall worship me the Beast, Six
Hundred and Three-score and Six, celebrating to Me their Midnight
Mass every time soever when they do that they will, and on Mine
altar slaying to Me that victim I most relish, their Selves; when Love
designs and Will executes the Rite whereby (an they know it or not)
their God in man is offered to me The Beast, their God, the Rite
whose virtue, making their God of their throned Beast, leaves
nothing, howso bestial, undivine.
On such lines my own “conversion” to my own “religion” may
take place, though as I write these words all but twelve weeks of
Sixteen years are well nigh past.1
II
This long digression is but to explain that I, myself, who
issue Liber Legis, am no fanatic partisan. I will obey my orders
(III, 42) “Argue not, convert not;” even though I shirk some others.
I shall not deign to answer sceptical enquiries as to the origin
of the Book. “Success is your proof.” I, of all men on this Earth
reputed mightiest in Magick, by mine enemies more than by my
friends, have striven to lose this Book, to forget it, defy it, criticise
it, escape it, these nigh sixteen years; and It holds me to the
course It sets, even as the Mountain of Lodestone holds the ship,
or Helios by invisible bonds controls his planets; yea, or as
BABALON grips between her thighs the Great Wild Beast she
straddles!
So much for the sceptics; put your heads in the Lion’s mouth; so
may you come to certainty, whether I be stuffed with straw!
But, in the text of the Book itself, are thorns for the flesh of the
most ardent swain as he buries his face in the roses; some of the ivy
1
Written in 1920, E.V.
GENESIS LIBRI AL 97
that clings about the Thyrse of this Dionysus is Poison Ivy. The
question arises, especially on examining the original manuscript in
My handwriting: “Who wrote these words?”
Of course I wrote them, ink on paper, in the material sense; but
they are not My words, unless Aiwaz be taken to be no more than
my subconscious self, or some part of it: in that case, my conscious
self being ignorant of the Truth in the Book and hostile to most of
the ethics and philosophy of the Book, Aiwaz is a severely suppressed
part of me.1 If so, the theorist must suggest a reason for this explosive
yet ceremonially controlled manifestation, and furnish and
explanation of the dovetailing of Events in subsequent years with His
word written and published. In any case, whatever “Aiwaz” is,
“Aiwaz” is an Intelligence possessed of power and knowledge
absolutely beyond human experience; and therefore Aiwaz is a Being
worthy, as the current use of the word allows, of the title of a God,
yea verily and amen, of a God. Man has no such fact recorded, by
proof established in surety beyond cavil of critic, as this Book, to
witness the existence of and Intelligence præterhuman and articulate,
purposefully interfering in the philosophy, religion, ethics,
economics and politics of the Planet.
The proof of His praeterhuman Nature—call Him a Devil or a
God or even an Elemental as you will—is partly external, depending
on events and persons without the sphere of Its influence, partly
internal, depending on the concealment of (a) certain Truths, some
1
Such a theory would further imply that I am, unknown to myself, possessed of
all sorts of præternatural knowledge and power. The law of Parsimony of Thought
(Sir W. Hamilton) appears in rebuttal. Aiwaz calls Himself “the minister of Hoor-
paar- Kraat,” the twin of Heru-Ra-Ha. This is the dual form of Horus, child of Isis
and Osiris.
previously known, some not known, but for the most part beyond
the scope of my mind at the time of writing, (b) of an harmony of
letters and numbers subtle, delicate and exact, and (c) of Keys to all
life’s mysteries, both pertinent to occult science and otherwise,
and to all the Locks of Thought; the concealment of these three
galaxies of glory, I say, in a cipher simple and luminous, but
yet illegible for over Fourteen years, and translated even then
not by me, but by my mysterious Child according to the Fore-
knowledge written in the Book itself, in terms so complex that the
exact fulfilment of the conditions of His birth, which occurred
with incredible precision, seemed beyond all possibility, a cipher
involving higher mathematics, and a knowledge of the Hebrew,
Greek and Arabic Qabalahs as well as the True Lost Word
of the Freemason, is yet veiled within the casual silk-stuff of
ordinary English words, nay, even in the apparently accidental
circumstance of the characters of the haste-harried scrawl of My
pen.
Many such cases of double entendre, paranomasia in one language
or another, sometimes two at once, numerical-literal puzzles, and
even (on one occasion) an illuminating connexion of letters in
various lines by a slashing scratch, will be found in the Qabalistic
section of the Commentary.1
III
As an example of the first method above mentioned, we have, Cap.
III, “The fool readeth this Book—and he understandeth it not.” This
has a secret reverse-sense, meaning: The fool (Parzival = Fra.
1
In preparation. [Mostly now lost — T.S.]
GENESIS LIBRI AL 99
O.I.V.V.I.O.) understandeth it (being a Magister Templi, the Grade

attributed to Understanding) not (i.e. to be ‘not’).
This Parzival, adding to 418, is (in the legend of the Graal) the
son of Kamuret, adding to 666, being the son of me The Beast
by the Scarlet Woman Hilarion. This was a Name chosen by
her when half drunk, as a theft from Theosophical legend, but
containing many of our letter-number Keys to the Mysteries; the
number of the petals in the most sacred lotus. It adds to 1001, which
also is Seven times Eleven times Thirteen, a series of factors which
may be read as The Scarlet Woman's Love by Magick producing
Unity, in Hebrew Achad. For 7 is the number of Venus, and the
secret seven-lettered Name of my concubine BABALON is written
with Seven Sevens, thus:
77
77   77 = 156, the number of BABALON.
7
418 is the number of the Word of the Magical Formula of this

Aeon. (666 is I, The Beast.)
Parzival had also the name Achad as a Neophyte of
AA, and it was Achad whom Hilarion bare to Me. And
Achad means Unity, and the letter of Unity is Aleph, the letter
of The Fool in the Tarot. Now this Fool invoked the Magical
Formula of the Aeon by taking as his Magick, or True, Name one
which added also to 418.
He took it for his Name on Entering the Gnosis where
is Understanding, and he understood it—this Book—not. That is,
he understood that this Book was, so to speak, a vesture or veil upon
the idea of “not.” In Hebrew “not” is LA, 31, and AL is God,
31, while there is a third 31 still deeplier hidden in the double letter
ST, which is a graphic glyph of the sun and moon conjoined to look
like a foreshortened Phallus [X], thus [CΘ] when written in Greek
capitals. This S [C] or Sigma is like a phallus, thus, [σ], when writ
small ; and like a serpent or spermatozoon when writ final, thus, [ς].
This T [Θ] or Theta is the point in the circle, or phallus in the kteis,
and also the Sun just as C is the Moon, male and female.
But Sigma in Hebrew is Shin, 300, the letter of Fire and of the
“Spirit of the Gods” which broods upon the Formless Void in the
Beginning, being by shape a triple tongue of flame, and by meaning
a tooth, which is the only part of the secret and solid foundation of
Man that is manifested normally. Teeth serve him to fight, to crush,
to cut, to rend, to bite and grip his prey; they witness that he is a
fierce, dangerous, and carnivorous animal. But they are also the best
witness to the mastery of Spirit over Matter, the extreme hardness of
their substance being chiselled and polished and covered with a
glistening film by Life no less easily and beautifully than is does with
more naturally plastic types of substance.
Teeth are displayed when our Secret Self—our Subconscious Ego,
whose Magical Image is our individuality expressed in mental and
bodily form—our Holy Guardian Angel—comes forth and declares
our True Will to our fellows, whether to snarl or to sneer, to smile or
to laugh.
Teeth serve us to pronounce the dental letters which in their
deepest nature express decision, fortitude, endurance, just as gutturals
suggest the breath of Life itself free-flowing, and labials the duplex
vibrations of action and reaction. Pronounce T, D, S or N, and you
will find them all continuously forcible exhalations whose difference
GENESIS LIBRI AL 101
is determined solely by the position of the tongue, the teeth being

bared as when a wild beast turns to bay. The sibilant sound of S or Sh
is our English word, and also the Hebrew word, Hush, a strongly
aspirated S, and suggests the hiss of a snake. Now this hiss is the
common sign of recognition between men when one wants to call
another’s attention without disturbing the silence more than
necessary. (Also we have Hist, our Double letter.) This hiss means:
“Attention! A man!” For in all Semitic and some Aryan languages, ISh
or a closely similar word means “a man.” Say it: you must bare your
clenched teeth as in defiance, and breathe harshly out as in excitement.
Hiss! Sh! means “Keep silent! there’s danger if you are heard.
Attention! There's a man somewhere, deadly as a snake. Breathe
hard; there's a fight coming.”
This Sh is then the forcible subtle creative Spirit of Life, fiery and
triplex, continous, Silence of pure Breath modified into sound by
two and thirty obstacles, as the Zero of Empty Space, though it
contain all Life, only takes form according (as the Qabalists say) to
the two and thirty “Paths” of Number and Letter which obstruct it.
Now the other letter, Theta or Teth, has the value of Nine, which
is that of AVB, the Secret Magick of Obeah, and of the Sephira Yesod,
which is the seat in man of the sexual function by whose Magick he
overcomes even Death, and that in more ways than one, ways that are
known to none but the loftiest and most upright Initiates, baptised
by the Baptism of Wisdom, and communicants at that Eucharist
where the Fragment of the Host in the Chalice becomes whole.1
1
(The Chalice is not presented to laymen. Those who understand the reason for
this and other details of the Mass, will wonder at the perfection with which the
Roman Communion has preserved the form, and lost the substance, of the Supreme
Magical Ritual of the True Gnosis.)
This T is the letter of Leo, the Lion, the house of heaven sacred to
the Sun. (Thus also we find in it the number 6, whence 666). And
Teth means a Serpent, the symbol of the magical Life of the Soul,
lord of “the double wand” of life and death. The serpent is royal,
hooded, wise, silent save for an hiss when need is to disclose his Will;
he devours his tail—the glyph of Eternity, of Nothingness and of
Space; he moves wavelike, one immaterial essence travelling through
crest and trough, as a man's soul through lives and deaths. He
straightens out; he is the Rod that strikes, the Light-radiance of the
Sun or the Life radiance of the Phallus.
The sound of T is tenuous and sharply final; it suggests a
spontaneous act sudden and irrevocable, like the snake's bite, the
loin’s snap, the Sun's stroke, and the Lingam’s.
Now in the Tarot the Trump illustrating this letter Sh is and
old form of the Stele of Revealing, Nuith with Shu and Seb, the
pantacle or magical picture of the old Aeon, as Nuit with Hadit
and Ra Hoor Khuit is of the new. The number of this Trump is XX.
It is called the Angel, the messenger from Heaven of the new
Word. The Trump giving the picture of T is called Strength.
It shows the Scarlet Woman, BABALON, riding (or conjoined
with) me The Beast; and this card is my special card, for I am
Baphomet, “the Lion and the Serpent,” and 666, the “full number” of
the Sun. 1
So then, as Sh, XX, shows the Gods of the Book of the Law and
T, XI, shows the human beings in that Book, me and my concubine,
the two cards illustrate the whole Book in pictorial form.
1
The “magical numbers” of the Sun are, according to tradition, 6, (6  6) = 36,
(666  6) = 111, and Σ (1-36) = 666.
Now XX + XI = XXXI, 31, which we needed to put with LA, 31

and AL, 31, that we might have 31  3 = 93, the Word of the Law,
QELHMA, Will, and AGAPH, Love which under Will, is the Law. It is
also the number of Aiwaz, the Author of the Book, of the Lost Word
whose formula does in sober truth “raise Hiram,”1 and of many
another close-woven Word of Truth.
Now then this Two-in-One letter X, is the third Key to this Law;
and on the discovery of that fact, after years of constant seeking,
what sudden splendours of Truth, sacred as secret, blazed in the
midnight of my mind! Observe now: “this circle squared in its
failure is a key also.” Now I knew that in the value of the letters of
ALHIM, “the Gods,” the Jews had concealed a not quite correct value
of π, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, to 4 places
of decimals: 3.1415; nearer would be 3.1416. If I prefix our Key, 31,
putting X, Set or Satan, before the old Gods, I get 3.141593, π correct
to Six places, Six being my own number and that of Horus the Sun.
And the whole number of this new Name is 395,2 which on analysis
yields and astounding cluster of numerical “mysteries.”
IV
Now for an example of the ‘paronomasia’ or pun. Chapter III, 17—
“Ye, even ye, know not this meaning all.” (Note how the peculiar
grammar suggests a hidden meaning.) Now YE is in Hebrew Yod
1
[The reference is probably to Crowley’s “restoration” of the Masonic III° word
(traditionally Mahabone, Macbena, or something along those general lines) so that it
adds to 93. As a ‘secret’ communicated in O.T.O. it is not given here. — T.S.]
2
Shin 300 Teth 9 Aleph 1 Lamed 30 He 5 Yod 10 Mem 40. Note that 395 is to be reversed,
593 being the correction required! Note also the 31 and the 93 in this value of π.
He, the man and the woman; The Beast and BABALON, whom the
God was addressing in his verse. Know suggests ‘no’ which gives LA,
31; ‘not’ is LA, 31, again, by actual meaning; and ‘all’ refers to AL, 31,
again. (Again, ALL is 61, AIN, “nothing.”)
V
Then we have numerical problems like this. “. . . six and fifty.
Divide, add, multiply and understand.” 6  50 gives 0.12, a perfect
glyph-statement of the metaphysics of the Book.
The external evidence for the Book is accumulating yearly:
the incidents connected with the discovery of the true spelling
of Aiwaz are alone sufficient to place it beyond all quaver of
doubt that I am really in touch with a Being of intelligence and
power immensely subtler and greater than aught we can call
human.
This has been the One Fundamental Question of Religion. We
know of invisible powers, and to spare! But is there any Intelligence
or Individuality (of the same general type as ours) independent of our
human brain-structure? For the first time in history, yes! Aiwaz has
given us proof: the most important gate toward Knowledge suings
wide.
I, Aleister Crowley, declare upon my honour as a gentleman that I
hold this revelation a million times more important than the
discovery of the Wheel, or even of the Laws of Physics or
Mathematics. Fire and Tools made Man master of his planet: Writing
developed his mind; but his Soul was a guess until the Book of the
Law proved this.
I, a master of English, was made to take down in three hours, from

dictation, sixty-five 8”  10” pages of words not only strange, but
often displeasing to me in themselves; concealing in cipher
propositions unknown to me, majestic and profound; foretelling
events public and private beyond my control, or that of any man.
This Book proves: there is a Person thinking and acting in a
praeterhuman manner, either without a body of flesh, or with the
power of communicating telepathically with men and inscrutably
directing their actions.
VI
I write this therefore with a sense of responsibility so acute that for
the first time in my life I regret my sense of humour and the literary
practical jokes which it has caused me to perpetrate. I am glad,
though, that care was taken of the MS. itself and of diaries and letters
of the period, so that the physical facts are as plain as can be desired.
My sincerity and seriousness are proved by my life. I have fought
this Book and fled it; I have defiled it and I have suffered for its sake.
Present or absent to my mind, it has been my Invisible Ruler. It has
overcome me; year after year extends its invasion of my being. I am
the captive of the Crowned and Conquering Child.
The point then arises: How did the Book of the Law come to be
written? The description in The Equinox, I, VII,1 might well be more
detailed; and I might also elucidate the problem of the apparent
changes of speaker, and the occasional lapses from straightforward
scribecraft in the MS.
1
[Reproduced above as Chapter VI.]
I may observe that I should not have left such obvious grounds
for indictment as these had I prepared the MS. to look pretty
to a critical eye; nor should I have left such curious deformities
of grammar and syntax, defects of rhythm, and awkwardness of
phrase. I should not have printed passages, some rambling
and unintelligible, some repugnant to reason by their absurdity,
others again by their barbaric ferocity abhorrent to heart. I should
not have allowed such jumbles of matter, such abrupt jerks from
subject to subject, disorder ravaging reason with disconnected
sluttishness. I should not have tolerated the discords, jarred
and jagged, of manner, as when a sublime panegyric of Death
is followed first by a cipher and then by a prophecy, before,
without taking breath, the author leaps to the utmost magnificence
of thought both mystical and practical, in language so concise,
simple, and lyrical as to bemuse our very amazement. I should
not have spelt “Ay” “Aye,” or acquiesced in the horror
“abstruction.”
Compare with this Book my “jokes,” where I pretend to edit the
MS. of another: Alice, Amphora, Clouds without Water. Observe in
each case the technical perfection of the “discovered” or “translated”
MS., smooth skilled elaborte art and craft of a Past Master Workman;
observe the carefully detailed tone and style of the prefaces, and the
sedulous creation of the personalities of the imaginary author and the
imaginary editor.
Note, moreover, with what greedy vanity I claim authorship even
of all the other AA Books in Class A, though I wrote them
inspired beyond all I know to be I. Yet in these Books did Aleister
Crowley, the master of English both in prose and in verse, partake
insofar as he was That. Compare those Books with the Book of

the Law! Their style is simple and sublime; the imagery is gorgeous
and faultless; the rhythm is subtle and intoxicating; the theme
is interpreted in faultless symphony. There are no errors of
grammar, no infelicities of phrase. Each Book is perfect in its
kind.
I, daring to snatch credit for these, in that brutal Index to The
Equinox Volume One, dared nowise to lay claim to have touched the
Book of the Law, not with my littlest finger-tip.
I, boasting of my many Books; I, swearing each a masterpiece; I
attack the Book of the Law at a dozen points of literature. Even so,
with the same breath, I testify, as a Master of English, that I am
utterly incapable, even when most inspired, of such English as I find
in that Book again and again.
Terse, yet sublime, are these verses of this Book; subtle
yet simple; matchless for rhythm, direct as a ray of light. Its
imagery is gorgeous without decadence. It deals with primary ideas.
It announces revolutions in philosophy, religion, ethics, yea, in
the whole nature of Man. For this it needs no more than to roll
sea-billows solemnly forth, eight words, as “Every man and
every woman is a star,” or it bursts in a mountain torrent
of monosyllables as “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the
Law.”
Nuit cries: “I love you,” like a lover; when even John reached
only to the cold impersonal proposition “God is love.” She woos
like a msitress; whispers “To me !” in every ear; Jesus, with
needless verb, appeals vehemently to them “that labour and
are heavy laden.” Yet he can promise no more than “I will give
you rest,” in the future; while Nuit, in the present, says: “I

give unimaginable joys on earth,” making life worth while;
“certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death,” the electric light
Knowledge for the churchyard corpse-candle Faith, making life fear-
free, and death itself worth while: “peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy,”
making mind and body at ease that soul may be free to transcend
them when It will.
I have never written such English; nor could I ever, that well I
know. Shakespeare could not have written it: still less could Keats,
Shelley, Swift, Sterne or even Wordsworth. Only in the Books of
Job and Ecclesiastes, in the work of Blake, or possibly in that of Poe,
is there any approach to such succinct depth of thought in such
musical simplicity of form, unless it be in Greek and Latin poets.
Nor Poe nor Blake could have sustained their effort as does this our
Book of the Law; and the Hebrews used tricks of verse, mechanical
props to support them.
How then—back once more to the Path!—how then did it come to
be written ?
VII
I shall make what I may call an inventory of the furniture of the
Temple, the circumstances of the case. I shall describe the conditions
of the phenomenon as if it were any other unexplained event in
Nature.
1. The time.
Chapter I was written between Noon and 1 p.m. on April 8,
1904.
Chapter II between Noon and 1 p.m. on April 9, 1904.

Chapter III between Noon and 1 p.m. on April 10, 1904.
The writing began exactly on the stroke of the hour, and ended
exactly an hour later ; it was hurried throughour, with no
pauses of any kind.
2. The place.
The city was Cairo.
The street, or rather streets, I do not remember. There is
a “Place” where four or five streets intersect; it is near
the Boulak Museum, but a fairly long way from Shepherd's.
The quarter is fashionable European. The house occupied
a corner. I do not remember its orientation; but, as
appears from the instructions for invoking Horus, one
window of the temple opened to the East or North. The
apatment was of several rooms on the ground floor,
well furnished in the Anglo-Egyptian style. It was let by a
firm named Congdon & Co.
The room was a drawing-room cleared of fragile obstacles,
but not otherwise prepared to serve as a temple. It had
double doors, opening on to the corridor to the North and
a door to the East leading to another room, the dining-room,
I think. It had two windows opening on the Place, to
the South, and a writing table against the wall between
them.
3. The people.
A. Myself, age 28½. In good health, fond of out-door sports,
especially mountaineering and big-game shooting. An
Adept Major of the AA but weary of mysticism and
dissatisfied with Magick. A rationalist, Buddhist, agnostic,
anti-clerical, anti-moral, Tory and Jacobite. A chess-player,
first-class amateur, able to play three games simultaneously
blindfold. A reading and writing addict. Education: private
governess and tutors, preliminary school Habershon's at St.
Leonards, Sussex, private tutors, private school 51 Bateman
St., Cambridge, private tutors, Yarrow's School, Streatham,
near London. Malvern College, Tonbridge School, private
tutors, Eastbourne College, King's College, London, Trinity
College, Cambridge.
Morality—Sexually powerful and passionate. Strongly male to
women; free from any similar impulse toward my own sex. 1
My passion for women very unselfish; the main motive to
give them pleasure. Hence, intense ambition to understand
the feminine nature; for this purpose, to identify myself with
their feelings, and to use all means appropriate. Imaginative,
subtle, insatiable; the whole business a mere clumsy attempt
to quench the thirst of the soul. This thirst has indeed been
my one paramout Lord, directing all my acts without
allowing any other considerations soever to affect it in the
least.
Strictly temperate as to drink, had never once been even near
intoxication. Light wine my only form of alcohol.
Sense of justice and equity so sensitive, well-balanced and
compelling as to be almost an obsession.
Generous, unless suspicious that I was being fleeced: “penny
wise and pound foolish.” Spendthrift, careless, not a gambler
because I valued winning at games of skill, which flattered
my vanity.
1
[Yes, Alice. — T.S.]
Kind, gentle, affectionate, selfish, conceited, reckless and

cautious by turns.
Incapable of bearing a grudge, even for the gravest insults and
injuries; yet enjoying to inflict pain for its own sake. Can
attack an unsuspecting stranger, and torture him cruelly for
years, without feeling the slightest animosity toward him.
Fond of animals and children, who return my love, almost
always. Consider abortion the most shameful form of
murder, and loathe the social codes which encourage it.
Hated and despised my mother and her family; loved and
respected my father and his.
Critical events in my life.

First travelled outside England, 1883.
Father died March 5, 1887.
Albuminuria stopped my schooling, 1890-92.
First sexual act, probably 1889.
Ditto with a woman March, 1891 (Torquay—a theatre girl).
First serious mountain-climbing, in Skye, 1892. (The
“Pinnacle Ridge” of Sgurr-nan-Gillean.
First Alpine climb, 1894.
Admitted to the Military Order of the Temple midnight,
December 31, 1896.
Admitted to permanent office in the Temple midnight,
December 31, 1897.
Bought Boleskine, 1899.
First Mexican climb, 1900.
First Big game, 1901.
First Himalayan climb, 1902. (Chogo Ri, or “K2” expedition.)
Married at Dingwall, Scotland, August 12, 1903.
Honeymoon at Boleskine, thence to London, Paris, Naples,
Egypt, Ceylon, and back to Egypt, Helwan and then
Cairo early in 1904.
My “occult” career.
Parents Plymouth Brethren, exclusive.
Father a real P.B. and therefore tolerant to his son.
Mother only became P.B. to please him, perhaps to catch
him, and so pedantically fanatical.
After his death I was tortured with insensate persistency, till I
said: Evil, be thou my good! I practised wickedness
furtively as a magical formula, even when it was
distasteful; e.g. I would sneak into a church,1 a place my
mother would not enter at the funeral service of her best-
loved sister.
Revolted openly when puberty gave me a moral sense.
Hunted new “Sins” till October, ’97, when one of them
turned to bay, and helped me to experience the “Trance of
Sorrow.” (Perception of the Impermanence of even the
greatest human endeavour.) I invoked assistance, Easter, ’98.
Initiated in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,
November 18, ’98.
Began to perform the Abramelin Operation, 1899.
Initiated in the Order R.R. et A.C., January, 1900.
Made a 33° Freemason, 1900.
Began Yoga practices, 1900.
Obtained first Dhyana, October 1, 1901.
Abandoned all serious occult work of every sort, October 3,
1901, and continued in this course of action till July, 1903,
1
Church of England. I confidently supposed that Anglicansim was a peculiarly
violent form of Devil-Worship, and was in despair at being unable to discover
where the Abomination came in.
when I tried vainly to force myself to become a Buddhist

Hermit Highland Laird.
Marriage was an uninterrupted sexual debauch up to the time
of the writing of the Book of the Law.
B. Rose Edith Kelly.

Born 1874 (July 23). About ’95 married one Major Skerrett,
R.A.M.C., and lived with him some two years in South
Africa. He died in '97.
She indulged in a few feeble-executed intrigues till
August 12, 1903, when she became my wife, becoming
pregnant with a girl born July 28, 1904. Health, admirable
robust at all points; she was both active and enduring,
as our travels in Ceylon and across China prove. Figure
perfect, neither big nor little, face pretty without being
petty; she only missed Beauty by lacking Goethe’s “touch
of the bizarre.” Personality intensely powerful and magnetic,
intellect absent but mind adaptable to that of any
companion, so that she could always say the right nothing.
Charm, grace, vitality, vivacity, tact, manners, all inex-
pressible fascinating.
From her mother she inherited dipsomania, as bad a
case for stealth, cunning, falsehood, treachery, and hypocrisy
as the specialist I consulted had ever known. This was,
however, latent during the satisfaction of sexuality,1 which
ousted all else in her life, as it did in mine.
Education strictly social and domestic ; she did not
even know schoolgirl French. She had read nothing,
not so much as novels. She was a miracle of perfection
1
It broke out during my absence (1906), and made it impossible to resume the
previous relations.
as Poetic Ideal, Mistress, Wife, Mother, House-president,
Nurse Pal and Comrade.
C. Our head servant, Hassan or Hamid, I forget which. A tall,
dignified, hansome athlete of about 30. Spoke good
English and ran the household well; always there and
never in the way.
I suppose I hardly ever saw the servants under his
authority: I do not even know how many there were.
D. Lieut.-Col. Somebody, beginning, I think, with a B, married,
middle-aged, with manners like the Rules of a Prison. I
cannot remember that I ever saw him; but the apartment
was sublet to me by him.
E. Brugsch Bey of the Boulak Museum dined with us once to
discuss the Stele in his charge, and to arrage for its
“abstruction.” His French assistant curator, who translated
the hieroglyphs on the Stele for us.
A Mr. Bach, owner of the “Egyptian News,” an hotel, a hunk of

railway, &c., &c., dined once.
Otherwise we knew nobody in Cairo except natives, occasionally
hobnobbed with a General Dickson, who had accepted Islam, carpet
merchant, pimps, jewellers, and such small deer. Contradictory hints
in one of my diaries were inserted deliberately to mislead, for some
silly no-reason unconnected with Magick. 1
4. The events leading up to the Writing of the Book.

I summarize them from Eqx. I, VII.
1
See previous chapter.
March 16. Tried to shew the Sylphs to Rose.1 She was in a dazed
state, stupid, possibly drunk; possibly hysterical from pregnancy. She
could see nothing, but could hear. She was fiercely excited at the
messages, and passionately insistent that I should take them
seriously.
I was annoyed at her irrelevance, and her infliction of nonsense
upon me.
She had never been in any state even remotely resembling this,
though I had made the same invocation (in full) in the King's
chamber of the Great Pyramid during the night which we spent
there in the previous autumn.
March 17. More apparently nonsensical messages, this time
spontaneous. I invoke Thoth, probably as in Liber LXIV, and
presumably to clear up the muddle.
March 18. Thoth evidently got clear through to her; for she
discovers that Horus is addressing me through her, and indentifies
Him by a method utterly excluding chance or coincidence, and
involving knowledge which only I possessed, some of it arbitrary, so
that she or her informant must have been able to read my mind as
well as if I had spoken it.
Then she, challenged to point out His image, passes by many such
to fix on the one in the Stele. The cross-examination must have
taken place between March 20 and 23.
March 20. Success in my invocation of Horus, by “breaking all the
rules” at her command. This success convinced me magically, and
encouraged me to test her as above mentioned. I should certainly
have referred to the Stele in my ritual had I seen it before this date. I
should fix Monday, March 21, for the Visit to Boulak.
1
I invoked them by the Air section of Liber Samekh, and the appropriate God-
names, Pentagrams, & c.
Between March 23 and April 8 the Hieroglyphs on the Stele were
evidently translated by the assistant-curator at Boulak, into either
French or English—I am almost sure it was French—and versified (as
now printed) by me.
Between these dates, too, my wife must have told me that her
informant was not Horus, or Ra Hoor Khuit, but a messenger from
Him, named Aiwass.
I thought that she might have faked this name from constantly
hearing “Aiwa,” the word for “Yes” in Arabic. She could not have
invented a name of this kind, though; her next best was to find a
phrase like “balmy puppy” for a friend, or corrupt a name like
Neuberg into an obscene insult.
The silence of my diaries seems to prove that she gave me nothing
more of importance. I was working out the Magical problem
presented to me by the events of March 16-21. Any questions that I
asked her were either unanswered, or answered by a Being whose
mind was so different from mine that we failed to converse. All my
wife obtained from Him was to command me to do things magically
absurd. He would not play my game: I must play His.
April 7. Not later than this date was I ordered to enter the
“temple” exactly at noon on the three days following, and write
down what I heard during one hour, nor more nor less. I imagine
that some preparations were made, possibly some bull’s blood
burned for incense, or order taken about details of dress or diet;
I remember nothing at all, one way or the other. Bull’s blood
was burnt some time in this sojourn in Cairo; but I forget why or
when. I think it was used at the “Invocation of the Sylphs.”
5. The actual writing.

The three days were precisely similar, save that on the last day I
became nervous lest I should fail to hear the Voice of Aiwass. They
may then be described together.
I went into the “temple” a minute early, so as to shut the door and
sit down on the stroke of Noon.
On my table were my pen—a Swan Fountain—and supplies of
Quarto typewriting paper, 8”  10.”
I never looked round in the room at any time.
The Voice of Aiwass came apparently from over my left shoulder,
from the furthest corner of the room. It seemed to echo itself in my
physical heart in a very strange manner, hard to describe. I have
noticed a similar phenomenon when I have been waiting for a
message fraught with great hope or dread. The voice was
passionately poured, as if Aiwass were alert about the time-limit. I
wrote 65 pages of this present essay (at about my usual rate of
composition) in about 10½ hours as against the 3 hours of the 65
pages of the Book of the Law. I was pushed hard to keep the pace; the
MS. shows it clearly enough.
The voice was of deep timbre, musical and expressive, its
tones solemn, voluptuous, tender, fierce or aught else as suited
the moods of the message. Not bass—perhaps a rich tenor or
baritone.
The English was free of either native or foreign accent, perfectly
pure of local or caste mannerisms, thus startling and even uncanny at
first hearing.1
1
The effect was thus as if the language were “English-in-itself,” without any
back-ground, such as exists when one hears any one human speak it, and enables one
to assign all sorts of attributes to the speaker.
I had a strong impression1 that the speaker was actually in the

corner where he seemed to be, in a body of “fine matter,” transparent
as a veil of gauze, or a cloud of incense-smoke. He seemed to be a
tall, dark man in his thirties, well-knit, active and strong, with the
face of a savage king, and eyes veiled lest their gaze should destroy
what they saw. The dress was not Arab; it suggested Assyria or
Persia, but very vaguely. I took little note of it, for to me at that time
Aiwass was an “angel” such as I had often seen in visions, a being
purely astral.
I now incline to believe that Aiwass is not only the God or
Demon or Devil once held holy in Sumer, and mine own Guardian
Angel, but also a man as I am, insofar as He uses a human body to
make His magical link with Mankind, whom He loves, and that He
is thus an Ipsissimus, the Head of the AA Even I can do, in a
much feebler way, this Work of being a God and a Beast, &c., &c.,
all at the same time, with equal fullness of life.2
6. The Editing of the Book.

“Change not so much as the style of a letter” in the text saved me
from Crowley-fying the whole Book, and spoiling everything.
The MS. shows what has been done, and why, as follows:
1
This impression seems to have been a sort of visualization in the imagination. It
is not uncommon for me to receive intimations in this manner.
2
I do not necessarily mean that he is a member of human society in quite the
normal way. He might rather be able to form for Himself a human body as
circumstances indicate, from the appropriate Elements, and dissolve it when the
occasion for its use is past. I say this because I have been permitted to see Him in
recent years in a variety of physical appearances, all equally “material” in the sense in
which my own body is so.
A. On page 6 Aiwaz instructs me to “write this (what he had just

said) in whiter words,” for my mind rebelled at His phrase. He
added at once “But go forth on,” i.e., with His utterance,
leaving the emendation until later.
B. On page 19 I failed to hear a sentence, and (later on) the
Scarlet Woman, invoking Aiwass, wrote in the missing
words. (How? She was not in the room at the time, and heard
nothing.)
C. Page 20 of Cap. III, I got a phrase indistinctly, and she put it in,
as for “B.”
D. The versified paraphrase of the hieroglyphs on the Stele
being ready, Aiwaz allowed me to insert these later, so as to
save time.
These four apart, the MS. is exactly as it was written on those
three days. The Critical Recension will explain these points as they
occur.
VIII
The problem of the literary form of this Book is astonishingly
complex; but the internal evidence of the sense is usually sufficient of
make it clear, on inspection, as to who is speaking and who is being
addressed.
There was, however, no actual voice audible save that of Aiwaz.
Even my own remarks made silently were incorporated by him
audibly, wherever such occur.
Chapter I
Verse 1. Nuit is the speaker. She invokes her lover and then
begins to give a title to her speech in the end of verse 1—20.
In verses 3 and 4, she begins her discourse. So far her remarks have
been addressed to no one in particular.
Verse 4 startled my intelligence into revolt.
In verse 5 she explains that she is speaking, and appeals to me
personally to help her to unveil by taking down her message.
In verse 6 she claims me for her chosen, and I think that I then
became afraid lest I should be expected to do too much. She answers
this fear in verse 7 by introducing Aiwaz as the actual speaker in
articulate human accents on her behalf.
In verse 8 the oration continues, and we now see that it is
addressed to mankind in general. This continues till verse 13.
Verse 14 is from the Stele. It seems to have been written in by me
as a kind of appreciation of what she had just said.
Verse 15 emphasizes that it is mankind in general that is addressed;
for the Beast is spoken of in the third person, though his was the only
human ear to hear the words.
Verses 18-19 seem to be almost in the nature of a quotation from
some hymn. It is not quite natural for her to address herself as she
appears to do in verse 19.
Verse 26. The question “Who am I and what shall be the sign?”
is my own conscious thought. In the previous verses I have
been called to an exalted mission, and I naturally feel nervous.
This thought is then entered in the record by Aiwaz as if it
were a story that he was telling; and he develops this story after
her answer, in order to bring back the thread of the chapter to the
numerical mysteries of Nuith begun in verses 24-25, and now
continued in verse 28.
Another doubt must have arisen in my mind at verse 30; and this
doubt is interpreted and explained ot me personally in verse 31.
The address to mankind is resumed in verse 32, and Nuith
emphasizes the point of verse 30 which has caused me to doubt. She
confirms this with an oath, and I was convinced. I thought to
myself, “in this case let us hace written instructions as to the
technique,” and Aiwaz again makes a story out of my request as in
verse 26.
In verse 35 it seems that she is addressing me personally, but in
verse 36 she speaks of me in the third person.
Verse 40. The word “us” is very puzzling. It apparently means “All
those who have accepted the Law whose word is Thelema.” Among
these she includes herself.
There is now no difficulty for a long while. It is a general address
dealing with varoious subjects, to the end of verse 52.
From verses 53-56 we have a strictly personal address to me.
In verse 57 Nuit resumes her general exhortation. And I am
spoken of once more in the third person.
Verse 61. The word “Thou” is not a personal address. It means
any single person, as opposed to a company. The “Ye” in the third
sentence indicates the proper conduct for worshippers as a body.
The “you,” in sentence 4, of course applies to a single person; but the
plural form suggests that it is a matter of public worship as opposed
to the invocation in the desert of the first sentence of this verse.
There is no further difficulty in this chapter.
Verse 66 is the statement of Aiwaz that the words of verse 65,

which were spoken diminuendo down to pianissimo, indicated the
withdrawl of the goddess.
Chapter II
Hadit himself is evidently the speaker from the start. The remarks
are general. In verse 5 I am spoken of in the third person.
After verse 9 he notices my vehement objections to writing
statements to which my conscious self was obstinately opposed.
Verse 10, addressed to me notes that fact; and in verse 11 he
declares that he is my master, and that the reason for this is that he is
my secret self, as explained in verses 12-13.
The interruption seems to have added excitement to the discourse,
for verse 14 is violent.
Verses 15 & 16 offer a riddle, while verse 17 is a sort of parody of
poetry.
Verse 18 continues his attack on my conscious mind. In verses 15-
18 the style is complicated, brutal, sneering and jeering. I feel the
whole passage as a contemptuous beating down of the resistance of
my mind.
In verse 19 he returns to the exalted style with which he began
until I interfered.
The passage seems addressed to what he calls his chosen or his
people, though it is not explained exactly what he means by the
words.
This passage from verse 19 to verse 52 is of sustained and matchless
eloquence.
I must have objected to something in verse 52, for verse 53 is

directed to encourage me personally as to having transmitted this
message.
Verse 54 deals with another point as to the intelligibility of the
message.
Verse 55 instructed me to obtain the English Qabalah; it made me
incredulous, as the task seemed an impossible one, and probably his
perception of this criticism inspired verse 56, though “ye mockers”
applies evidently to my enemies, referred to in verse 54.
Verse 57 brings us back to the subject begun in verse 21. It is a
quotation from the Apocalypse verbatim, and is probably suggested
by the matter of verse 56.
There is no real change in the essence of anything, however its
combinations vary.
Verses 58-60 conclude the passage.
Verse 61. The address is now strictly personal. During all this
time Hadit had been breaking down my resistance with his violently
expresses and varied phrases. As a result of this, I attained to the
trance described in these verses from 61-68.
Verse 69 is the return to consciousness of myself. It was a sort of
gasping question as a man coming out of Ether might ask “Where
am I?” I think that this is the one passage in the whole book which
was not spoken by Aiwaz; and I ought to say that these verses 63-68
were written without conscious hearing at all.
Verse 70 does not deign to reply to my questions, but points out
the way to manage life. This continues until verse 74, and seems to
be addressed not to me personally but to any man, despite the use of
the word “Thou.”
Verse 75 abruptly changes the subject, interpolating the riddle of

verse 76 with its prophecy. This verse is addressed to me personally,
and continues to the end of verse 78 to mingle lyrical eloquence with
literal and numerical puzzles.
Verse 79 is the statement of Aiwaz that the end of the chapter has
come. To this he adds his personal compliment to myself.
Chapter III
Verse 1 appears to complete the triangle begun by the first verses

of the two previous chapters. It is a simple statement involving no
particular speaker or hearer. The omission of the “i” in the name of
God appears to have alarmed me, and in verse 2 Aiwaz offers a
hurried explanation in a somewhat excited manner, and invokes Ra-
Hoor-Khuit.
Verse 3 is spoken by Ra-Hoor-Khuit. “Them” evidently refers to
some undescribed enemies, and “ye” to those who accept his formula.
This passage ends with verse 9. Verse 10 and verse 11
are addressed to me personally and the Scarlet Woman, as shown in
the continuation of his passage which seems to end with verse 33,
though it is left rather vague at times as to whether the Beast, or the
Beast and his concubine, or the adherents of Horus, generally, are
exhorted.
Verse 34 is a kind of poetical peroration, and is not addressed in
particular to anybody. It is a statement of events to come.
Verse 35 states simply that section one of this chapter is
completed.
I seem to have become enthusiastic, for there is a kind of interlude
reported by Aiwaz of my song of adoration translated from the Stele;

the incident parallels that of chapter I, verse 26, &c.
It is to be noted that the translations from the Stele in verses
37-38 were no more than instantaneous thoughts to be inserted
afterwards.
Verse 38 begins with my address to the God in the first sentence,
while in the second is his reply to me. He then refers to the
hieroglyphs of the Stele, and bids me quote my paraphrases. This
order was given by a species of wordless gesture, not visible or
audible, but sensible in some occult manner.
Verses 39-42 are instructions for me personally.
Verses 43-45 indicate the proper course of conduct for the Scarlet
Woman.
Verse 46 is again more general—a sort of address to soldiers before
battle.
Verse 47 is again mostly personal instruction, mixed up with
prophecies, proof of the præterhuman origin of the Book, and other
matters.
I observe that this instruction, taken with those not to change “so
much as a style of a letter,” etc., imply that my pen was under the
physical control of Aiwaz; for this dictation did not include
directions as to the use of capitals, and the occasional mis-spellings
are most assuredly not mine!
Verse 48 impatiently dismisses such practical matters as a nuisance.
Verses 49-59 contain a series of declarations of war; and there is no
further difficulty as to the speaker or hearer to the end of the chapter,
although the subject changes repeatedly in an incomprehensible
manner. Only verse 75 do we find a peroration on the whole book,
presumably by Aiwaz, ending by his formula of withdrawal.

* * * * *
I conclude by laying down the principles of Exegesis on which I
have based my comment.1
1. It is “my scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu” (CCXX, I, 36) who “shall
comment” on “this book” “by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khuit”; that
is, Aleister Crowley shall write the Comment from the point of view
of the manifested positive Lord of the Æon, in plain terms of the
finite, and not those of the infinite.
2. “Hadit burning in thy heart shall make swift and secure thy pen”
(CCXX, III, 40). My own inspiration, not any alien advice or
intellectual consideration, is to be the energizing force of this work.
3. Where the text is simple straightforward English, I shall not
seek, or allow, and interpretation at variance with it.
I may admit a Qabalistic or cryptographic secondary meaning
when such confirms, amplifies, deepens, intensifies, or clarifes the
obvious common-sense significance; but only if it be part of the
general plan of the “latent light,” and self-proven by abundatnt
witness.
For example: “To me!” (I, 65) is to be taken primarily in its obvious
sense as the Call of Nuith to us Her stars.
The transliteration “TO MH” may be admitted as the “signature” of
Nuith, identifying Her as the speaker; because these Greek Words
1
The following passage, to the end of the chapter, refers to the Commentary;
whereas the Comment itself is printed, above, with the text. This Comment is the
really inspired message, cutting as it does all the difficulties with a single keen
stroke. We have decided, however, to retain the passage for its essential interest and
as a preliminary to the publication of the Commentary.—Ed.
mean “The Not,” which is Her Name.

This Gematria of TO MH may be admitted as further confirmation,
because their number 418 is elsewhere manifested as that of the Æon.
But TO MH is not to be taken as negating the previous verses, or
418 as indicating the formula of approach to Her, although in point of
fact it is so, being the Rubrick of the Great Work. I refuse to consider
mere appropriateness as conferring title to authority, and to read my
own personal theories into the Book. I insist that all interpretation
shall be incontestably authentic, neither less, more, nor other than
was meant is the Mind of Aiwaz.
4. I lay claim to be the sole authority competent to decide disputed
points with regard to the Book of the Law, seeing that its Author,
Aiwaz, is none other than mine own Holy Guardian Angel, to Whose
Knowledge and Conversation I hace attained, so that I have exclusive
access to Him. I have duly referred every difficulty to Him directly, and
received His answer; my award is therefore absolute without appeal.
5. The verse, II, 47, “one cometh after him, whence I say not, who
shall discover the key of it all,” has been fulfilled by “one” Achad
discovering the number 31 as the key in question. But the work of
Achad is not said to extend beyond this single exploit; Achad is
nowhere indicated as appointed or even authorized to relieve The
Beast of His task of the Comment. Achad has proved himself, 1 and
proved the Book, by his one achievement; and this shall suffice.
1
I note that AChD is “his child” without reference to The Scarlet Woman;
whereas the Child who is to be “mightier than all the kings of the earth” is to be bred
from Her, without reference to the Beast. There is no indication that these two
children are not identical ; but there is none that they are. Hans “Carter” (or Hirsig)
might perfectly well be the latter of these children.
6. Wherever
a. The words of the Text are obscure in themselves; where
b. The expression is strained; where
c. The Syntax,
d. Grammar,
e. Spelling, or
f. The use of capital letters present peculiarities; where
g. Non-English words occur; where the style suggests
h. Paronomasia,
i. Ambiguity, or
j. Obliquity; or where
k. A problem is explicitly declared to exist; in all such
cases I shall seek for a meaning hidden by means
of Qabalistic correspondences, cryptography, or
literary subtleties. I shall admit no solution which is
not at once simple, striking, consonant with the
general plan of the Book ; and not only adequate but
necessary.
Examples:
i. I, 4. Here the obvious sense of the text is nonsense; it
therefore needs intimate analysis.
ii. II, 17, line 4. The natural order of the words is distorted
by placing “not” before “know me”; it is proper to
ask what object is attained by this peculiarity of phrasing.
iii. I, 13. The text as it stands is unintelligible; it calls attention

to itself; a meaning must be found which will not only
justify the apparent error, but prove the necessity of
employing that and no other expression.
iv. II, 76. “to be me” for “to be I.” The unusual grammar
invites enquiry; it suggests that “me” is a concealed name,
perhaps MH, “Not,” Nuit, since to be Nuit is the
satisfaction of the formula of the Speaker, Hadit.
v. III, 1. The omission of the “i” in “Khuit” is indicative that
some concealed doctrine is based upon the variant.
vi. II, 27. The spelling of “Because” with a capital B suggests
that it may be a proper name, and possibly that its Greek
or Hebrew equivalent may identify the idea Qabalistically
with some enemy of our Hierarchy; also that such word
may demand a capital value for its initial.
vii. III, 11. “Abstruction” suggests that an idea otherwise
inexpressible is conveyed in this manner. Paraphrase is
here inadmissible as a sufficient interpretation; there must
be a correspondence in the actual structure of the word
with its etymologically-deduced meaning.
viii. III, 74. The words “sun” and “son” are evidently chosen
for the identity of their sound-value; the inelegance of
the phrase therefroe insists on some such adequate
justification as the existence of a hidden treasure of
meaning.
ix. III, 73. The ambiguity of the instruction warrants the

supposition that the words must somehow contain a
cryptographic formula for so arranging the sheets of the
MS. that an Arcanum becomes manifest.
x. I, 26. The apparent evasion of a direct reply in “Thou
knowest!” suggests that the words conceal a precise answer
more convincing in cipher than their openly-expressed
equvialent could be.
xi. II, I5. The text explicity invites Qabalistic analysis.
7. The Comment must be consistent with itself at all points; it

must exhibit the Book of the Law as of absolute authority on all
possible questions proper to Mankind, as offering the perfect solution
of all problems philosophical and practical without exception.
8. The Comment must prove beyond possibility of error that the

Book of the Law,
a. Bears witness in itself to the authorship of Aiwaz, an
Intelligence independent of incarnation ; and
b. Is warranted worthy of its claim to credence by the evidence of
external events.
For example, the first proposition is proved by the cryptography
connected with 31, 93, 418, 666, π, etc.; and the second by the
concurrence of circumstance with various statements in the text such
that the categories of time and causality forbid all explanations which
exclude its own postulates, while the law of probabilities makes
coincidence inconceivable as an evasion of the issue.
9. The Comment must be expressed in terms intelligible to the

minds of men of average education, and independent of abstruse
technicalities.
10. The Comment must be pertinent to the problems of our own

tiems, and present the principles of the Law in a manner susceptible
of present practical application. It must satisfy all types of
intelligence, neither revolting to rational, scientific, mathematical,
and philosophical thinkers, nor repugnant to religious and romantic
temperaments.
11. The Comment must appeal on behalf of the Law to the

authority of Experience. It must make Success the proof of the Truth
of the Book of the Law at every point of contact with Reality.
The Word of Aiwaz must put forth a perfect presentation of the

Universe as Necessary, Intelligible, Self-subsistent, as Integral,
Absolute, and Immanent. It must satisfy all intuitions, explain all
enigmas, and compse all conflicts. It must reveal Reality, reconcile
Reason with Relativity; and, resolving not only all antinomies in the
Absolute, but all antipathies in the appreciation of Aptness, assure the
acquiescence of every faculty of manking in the perfection of its
plenary propriety.
Releasing us from every restriction upon Right, the Word of
Aiwaz must extend its empire by enlisting the allegiance of every
man and every woman that puts its truth to the test.
On these principles, to the pitch of my power, will I the Beast 666,
who received the Book of the Law from the Mouth of mine Angel
Aiwaz, make my comment thereon; being armed with the word: “But
the work of the comment? That is easy; and Hadit in thy heart shall
make swift and secure thy pen.”
Editorial Note to this Chapter

The reader is now in full possession of the account of “how thou
didst come hither.” The student who wishes to act intelligently will
be at pains to make himself thoroughly acquainted at the outset with
the whole of the external circumstances connected with the Writing
of the Book, whether they are of biographical or other importance.
He should thus be able to approach the Book with his mind prepared
to apprehend the unique character of their contents in repect of its
true Authorship, the peculiarities of Its methods of communicating
Thought, and the nature of Its claim to be the Canon of Truth, the
Key of Progress, and the Arbiter of Conduct. He will be able to
form his own judgment upon It, only insofar as he is fixed in the
proper Point-of-View; the sole question for him is to decide whether
It is or is not that which It claims to be, the New Law in the same
sense as the Vedas, the Pentateuch, the Tao Teh King, and Qu’ran
are Laws, but with the added Authority of Verbal, Literal, and
Graphic inspiration established and counter-checked by internal
evidence with the impeccable precision of a mathematical
demonstration. If It be that, It is an unique document, valid
absolutely within the terms of its self-contained thesis, incomparabley
more valuable than any other Transcript of Thought which we
possess.
If It be not wholly that, it is a worthless curiosity of literature;
worse, it is an appalling proof that no kind or degree of evidence
soever is sufficient to establish any possible proposition, since the

closest concatenation of circumstances may be no more than the
jetsam of chance, and the most comprehensive plans of purpose a
puerile pantomime. To reject this Book is to make Reason itself
ridiculous and the Law of Probabilities a caprice. In Its fall it shatters
the structure of Science, and buries the whole hope of man's heart in
the rubble, throwing upon its heaps the sceptic, blinded, crippled,
and gone melancholy mad.
The reader must face the problem squarely; half-measures will not
avail. If there be aught he recognize as transcendental Truth, he
cannot admit the possibility that the Speaker, taking such pains to
prove Himself and His Word, should yet incorporate Falsehood in
the same elaborate engines. If the Book be but a monument of a
mortal’s madness, he must tremble that such power and cunning may
be the accomplices of insane and criminal archanarchs.
But if he know the Book to be justified of Itself, It shall be
justified also of Its children; and he will glow with gladness in his
heart as he reads the sixty-third to the sixty-seventh verses of Its
chapter, and gain his first glimpse of Who he himself is in truth, and
to what fulfilment of Himself It is of virtue to bring Him.
CHAPTER VIII
Summary of the Case
IN THIS REVELATION is the basis of the future Æon. Within the
memory of man we have had the Pagan period, the worship of
Nature, of Isis, of the Mother, of the Past; the Christian period, the
worship of Man, of Osiris, of the Present. The first period is simple,
quiet, easy, and pleasant; the material ignores the spiritual; the second
is of suffering and death: the spiritual strives to ignore the material.
Christianity and all cognate religions worship death, glorify suffer-
ing, deify corpses. The new Aeon is the worship of the spiritual
made one with the material, of Horus, of the Child, of the Future.
Isis was Liberty; Osiris, bondage; but the new Liberty is that of
Horus. Osiris conquered her because she did not understand him.
Horus avenges both his Father and his Mother. This child Horus is a
twin, two in one. Horus and Harpocrates are one, and they are also
one with Set or Apophis, the destroyer of Osiris. It is by the
destruction of the principle of death that they are born. The
establishment of this new Æon, this new fundamental principle, is
the great work now to be accomplished in the world.
FRATER PERDURABO, to whom this revelation was made with so
many signs and wonders, was himself unconvinced. He struggled
against it for years. Not until the completion of His own initiation
at the end of 1909 did he understand how perfectly he was bound
to carry out this work.1 Again and again He turned away from it,
took it up for a few days or hours, then laid it aside. He even
attempted to destroy its value, to nullify the result. Again and
again the unsleeping might of the Watchers drove Him back to
the work; and it was at the very moment when He thought
Himself to have escaped that He found Himself fixed for ever
with no possibility of again turning aside for the fraction of second
from the Path.
The history of this must one day be told by a more vivid
voice. Properly considered, it is a history of continuous miracle.
Enough if it is now said that in this Law lies the whole future:
it is the Law of Liberty, and those who refuse it proclaim themselves
slaves, and as slaves shall they be chained and flogged. It is the
Law of Love, and those who refuse it declare themselves to
be the children of hate, and their hate shall return upon them
and consume them with its unending tortures. It is the Law of
Life, and those who refuse it shall be subject to death; and death shall
catch them unawares. Even their life shall be a living death. It is the
Law of Light, and those who refuse it thereby make themselves dark
for ever.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law! Refuse this, and
fall under the curse of destiny. Divide will against itself, the result is
impotence and strife, strife-in-vain. The Law condemns no man.
Accept the Law, and everything is lawful. Refuse the Law, you put
1
Indeed, it was not until his Word became conterminous with Himself and His
Universe that all alien ideas lost their meaning for Him.
yourself beyond its pale. It is the Law that Jesus Christ, or rather the
Gnostic tradition of which the Christ-legend is a degradation, attemp-
ted to teach; but nearly every word he1 said was misinterpreted and
garbled by his enemies, particularly by those who called themselves
his disciples. In any case the Æon was not ready for a Law of Freedom.
Of all his followers only St. Augustine appears to have got even a
glimmer of what he meant.
A further attempt to teach this law was made through Sir
Edward Kelly at the end of the sixteenth century. The bondage of
orthodoxy prevented his words from being heard, or understood.
In many other ways has the spirit of truth striven with man, and
partial shadows of this truth have been the greatest allies of science
and philosophy. Only now has success been attained. A perfect
vehicle was found, and the message enshrined in a jewelled casket;
that is to say, in a book with the injunction “Change not as much as
the style of a letter.” This book is reproduced in facsimile, in order
that there shall be no possibility of corrupting it. Here, then, we
have an absolutely fixed and definite standpoint for the foundation of
an universal religion.
We have the Key to the resolution of all human problems, both
philosophical and practical. If we have seemed to labour at proof, our
1
Consult Equinox III (2) “Jesus,” a study of the New Testment by THE BEAST 666,
where it is proven that “Jesus” is a composite figure of several incompatible elements.
There is therefore no “he” in the case. The Gospels are a crude compilation of
Gnosticism, Judaism, Essenism, Hinduism, Buddhism, with the watch-words of
various sacerdotal-political cults, thrown at random into a hotch-potch of the
distorted legends of the persons of the Pagan Pantheon, all glued with a semblance
of unity in the interests of sustaining the shaken fabric of local faiths against the
assaults of the consolidation of civilization, and of applying the co-operative principle
to businesses whose throats were being cut by competition. [Equinox III (2) was not
issued as intended. “Jesus,” a.k.a. Liber 888, a.k.a. “The Gospel According to Saint
Bernard Shaw” was published in 1953 in a limited edition as a duplicated typescript,
and again in 1974 under the title Crowley on Christ. — T.S.]
love must be the excuse for our infirmity; for we know well that
which is written in the Book:
“Success is your proof.”
We ask no more than one witness; and we call upon Time to
take the Oath, and testify to the Truth of our plea.
AL
(LIBER LEGIS)
THE BOOK OF THE LAW

sub figurâ xxxi
as delivered by
9 3 — A I W A S S — 418
to
Ankh - f - n - khonsu
The Priest of the Princes

who is
666
V AA
Publication in Class A.
THE COMMENT
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the

Law.
The study of this Book is forbidden. It is wise to
destroy this copy after the first reading.
Whosoever disregards this does so at his own
risk and peril. These are most dire.
Those who discuss the contents of this Book are
to be shunned by all, as centres of pestilence
All questions of the Law are to be decided only
by appeal to my writings, each for himself.
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
The priest of the princes,

F INAL R EMARKS .
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
This electronic text of The Equinox of the Gods is the product of various people’s work.
Key-entry of “The Summons,” “Liber CCXX,” title pages, contents, etc., by Frater T.S.
Initial key-entry of “A Summary” (an extract from Crowley’s “AHA!”) by W.E. Heidrick,
Treasurer General O.T.O.; text taken from a copy of Equinox I (3) in Internet circulation.
The text of “Genesis Libri AL” (except for chapter 6) derives from a plaintext initially key-
entered in 1985 e.v. by Soror Alice for O.T.O., and edited by Frater A.U.D.C.A.L. Much further
proof-reading and formatting of this copy done by Soror Luna 11. Chapter 6 was adapted and
formatted by Frater T.S. from a key-entry of “The Temple of Solomon the King” in an online copy
of Equinox I (7), key-entered by W.E. Heidrick. In general, the edition of The Equinox of the Gods
which appears in the “Blue Brick” edition of Magick: Book 4 parts I-IV (Weiser, 1994, 2nd edition
1997) was used for proofing “Genesis Libri AL.” The stylistic conventions of that edition were not
followed; rather, pagination has been conformed approximately to the first print edition (in line with
the page markouts included in the “Blue Brick.” I will not here enter into the controversies
regarding the silent ‘correction’ in the New Falcon and “Blue Brick” editions of EotG of the
statement in the first edition concerning the dates of writing of Liber AL, or that f—king poem in
AL III., 37. Footnotes signed “Ed” are believed to be by Crowley acting as editor of materials he had
written some time previously. Those in square brackets and signed “T.S.” are by the editor of the
present e-text.
The reproduction of the MS. of Liber AL is taken from a set of 300 d.p.i. black and white page
images found online (probably deriving from a printing from blocks which were originally made for
The Equinox of the Gods; the grid on p. 16 of chapter III was not in the earliest reproductions of the
manuscript). These have been used in preference to the greyscale photographs in the “Blue Brick” in
order to make this document a more manageable file size.
The plates of the Stèle of Revealing, as per the original edition, are reproduced from the pictures
of Crowley’s replica which appeared in Equinox I (7); the “Blue Brick” gave instead photographs of
the original. The horoscopes facing “The Summons” redrawn by Frater T.S. from those published in
Equinox I (10) where they were first printed. Times and places have been repeated in the captions for
the sake of readability. No further checking has been done, although I will note that the time and
place on Crowley’s birth-chart give Cancer rather than Leo rising suggesting the figure has been
fudged. The “Blue Brick” contains, besides reproductions of the four charts as printed in the
Equinox, versions in modern notation, in which Crowley’s birth-chart was obligingly ‘corrected’ to
22:57 to make Leo the ascendent.
The handwritten list of gematria on p. 138 had apparently already been retouched in whatever
printing I scanned it from to incorporate corrections noted in the errata slip to the original printing.
Final assembly, tidying and formatting of the whole by Frater Tripudians Stella for Celephaïs
Press, March 2004 e.v. Further corrections, stylistic changes &c., October 2019.
T.S.
Leeds, England.
Celephaïs Press
Ulthar - Sarkomand - Inquanok – Leeds
celephaispress.blogspot.com

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THE

Last revised 13th October 2019; minor corrections

Saith of Mentu the truth-telling brother

The dead man Ankh-f-n-Khonsu

The dead man Ankh-f-n-Khonsu

6°f 4°g 14°h 4°e 25°e 26°f

THE NATIVITY OF FRATER P. THE FIRST INITIATION OF FRATER P.

11°f 9°e 6°d 7°d 3°c 0°b

6°j 9°k 11°l 0°h 3°i 7°j

THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS THE ANNIHILATION OF FRATER P.

The Priest of the Princes,

OLYMPAS. Master, while yet the glory clings

MARSYAS. I am yet borne on those blue wings

OLYMPAS. I tremble like an aspen, quiver

MARSYAS. Do what thou wilt! is the sole word

OLYMPAS. There is no harshness in the breath

MARSYAS. There is the Snake that gives delight

MARSYAS. My stature shall surpass the stars:

MARSYAS. I am the consecrated Beast.

OLYMPAS. What is this word?

MARSYAS. Thou canst not know

OLYMPAS. I worship thee. The moon-rays flow

MARSYAS. The last spell! The availing word!

The pillars of the world! Your time

OLYMPAS. I am stunned. What wonder was revealed?

MARSYAS. The rite is secret.

OLYMPAS. Profits it?

MARSYAS. Only to wisdom and to wit.

OLYMPAS. The other did no less.

MARSYAS. Then prove

OLYMPAS. All ridges join at last.

OLYMPAS. These secrets are too high for me.

MARSYAS. Nay, little brother! Come and see!

OLYMPAS. Lead me, Master, by the hand

Steady striding to the term,

MARSYAS. Yonder, faintly luminous,

OLYMPAS. The desert calls.

MARSYAS. Then let us go!

OLYMPAS. The air is laden with perfumes.

MARSYAS. Behold! It beams—it burns—it blooms.

OLYMPAS. Master, how subtly hast thou drawn

MARSYAS. Peace to all beings. Peace to thee,

OLYMPAS. Blessing and worship to The Beast,

15. For I am perfect, being Not; and my number is nine by the

16. I am The Empress & the Hierophant. Thus eleven, as my bride

17. Hear me, ye people of sighing!

20. Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor,

49. I am unique & conqueror. I am not of the slaves that perish. Be

51. Purple beyond purple: it is the light higher than eyesight.

56. Begone! ye mockers; even though ye laugh in my honour ye

it. But remember, o chosen one, to be me; to follow the love of Nu

and the double-wanded one assume my throne and place.

The light is mine; its rays consume

By Bes-na-Maut my breast I beat;

The Boyhood of Aleister Crowley

In 1881 he went to live at The Grange, Redhill, Surrey. In

been tampered with by theologians. 1 He could also play

on Iztaccihuatl in 1900; that for the highest peak (first

Adolescence: Beginnings of Magick