5. Help me, o warrior lord of Thebes, in my unveiling before the Children of men!
This unveiling is, quite literally, the apocalypse.
6. Be thou Hadit, my secret centre, my heart & my tongue!
Nu is calling upon The Great Beast to become her, to embrace infinite existence, boundless physical love, and the silent language of the stars. Only in this way is he able to bear witness to Nu.
A conversation with an old friend reminded me that I have neglected this journal. This may help to remedy that.
Every number is infinite; there is no difference.
The old grimoires refer to the soul of man as a number without quantity.
In The New Comment we have Crowley offering up AL I:1-4 as both a confirmation of science and a crittique of science’s suppremacy. There seems to be a contradiction here. I will offer up that there isn’t a contradiction, and that the comments themselves point to an interesting bit of not-quite-meta-physics.
(NB: I’m couching this in terms of that which I’m most familiar. That is not philosophy; rather, it is physics, mathematics, and computer science.)
Quoting the new comment:
The theogony of our Law is entirely scientific, Nuit is Matter, Hadit is Motion, in their full physical sense. (Footnote: The Proton and the Electron, in a metaphysical sense, suggest close analogies.) They are the Tao and Teh of Chinese Philosophy; or, to put it very simply, the Noun and Verb in grammar. Our central Truth — beyond other philosophies — is that these two infinities cannot exist apart.
…
This explains the general theme of this revelation: gives the Dramatis Personae, so to speak.
It is cosmographically, the conception of the two Ultimate Ideas; Space, and That which occupies Space.
Quoting from the D comment:
Nuit is all that may be, and is shewn by means of any one that is.
Mathematical robotics basically comes down to three pieces:
Nu can, very simplistically, be thought of as a space that incorporates all possible things that can be measured or experienced, whether by instruments, humans, or other beings. Had is that which occupies this space and perceives its immediate surroundings. Were it not for the existence of a particular Had, we could not be aware of Nut (in other words, Nut could not be made manifest). A better analogy would be to describe Nu as the infinite space of all number and idea, and Had as Dasein.
For a concrete example, imagine an entire tribe of people that can’t hear (perhaps because they have a mutated gene). Perhaps they might develop poetry after a fashion, but would it have rhyme or meter?
Our own senses are very limited in their perception of the cosmos; they evolved to enable us to perceive just enough of the cosmos to survive the jungle. The typical human perceives, precisely speaking: light, air pressure, temperature, damage, the presence of different chemicals, electric charge, gravity, the position of our limbs relative to the rest of our body. In a few cases one might also detect magnetic fields. From these we may be able to infer other conditions, many of which are socially constructed rather than innate, some of which are psychological, etc.
The Book of the Law suggests that Nu is infinitely more vast, and our selves infinitely smaller in comparison, than we are even capable of imagining. Thus the human condition exists in a very tiny hypercube on a very tiny subspace of Nu, and the modern world with all its technology and achievements dances on the head of a pin.
The New Comment continues:
Mathematical ideas involve what is called a continuum, which is, superficially at least, of a different character to the physical continuum. For instance, in the physical continuum, the eye can distinguish between the lengths of one-inch stick and a two-inch stick, but not between these which measure respectively one thousand miles and one thousand miles and on inch, though the difference in each case is equally an inch. The inch difference is either perceptible or not perceptible, according to the conditions. Similarly, the eye can distinguish either the one-inch or the two-inch stick from one of an inch and a half. But we cannot continue this process indefinitely — we can always reach a point where the extremes are distinguishable from each other but their mean from neither of the extremes. Thus, in the physical continuum, if we have three terms, A, B, and C, A appears equal to B, and B to C, yet C appears greater than A. Our reason tells us that this conclusion is an absurdity, that we have been deceived by the grossness of our perceptions. It is useless for us to invent instruments which increase the accuracy of our observations, for though they enable us to distinguish between the three terms of our series, and to restore the theoretical Hierarchy, we can always continue the process of division until we arrive at another series: A’, B’, C’, where A’ and C’ are distinguishable from each other, but where neither is distinguishable from B’.
On the above grounds, modern thinkers have endeavoured to create a distinction between the mathematical and the physical continuum, yet it should surely be obvious that the defect in our organs of sense, which is responsible for the difficulty, shows that our method of observation debars us from appreciating the true nature of things by this method of observation. (– The New Comment)
From a purely technological point of view, Crowley’s point should not bar us from creating better instruments to better detect these differences. Despite this fundamental limitation, such instruments are still quite useful to us. Microscopes and telescopes have, for centuries, aided our senses in distinguishing differences between thing that are very tiny or very far away, too much so to be distinguished clearly with the naked eye. We are at the point where we can perceive all light, not just visible light, using all different manner of technology.
This does not add new dimensions to our range of experience. Instead, it merely expands upon the ones we already have. Even if our instruments were to grow ever more powerful, the perception of science would still exist on the same very tiny subspace of Nut as before.
The subspace is captured, in its entirety, in the physical and gross. To escape this subspace — to add new dimensions to our experience — requires perception of that which is orthogonal to the subspace. Such things are not natural; they are praeternatural.
The atheist is going to object to this statement on the grounds that it’s untestable. We might think that this objection can be dismissed away by producing an experiment that causes the praeternatural to intersect with the gross, if only for an instant. For example, we have many examples of this by way of evokations, invokations, initiations, and other rites. The successful practice of evokation, in particular, provides us with evidence. Repeated success with this practice may then provide us with acceptible proof.
The atheist will then object that the proof given is not objective, but subjective, and not concrete at all. This objection is harder to counteract. Most people don’t evoke, and most of those who do evoke don’t do so in such a way that produces unmistakeable results. Even when this is done, the evidence obtained can be dismissed as anecdotal. It might be possible to produce enough evidence to build a concensus, but then what instruments would we use to assure ourselves that we’re not just engaging in mass hallucinations?
This goes again to one of the limitations of scientific enquiry. The choice to believe or to not believe one’s own experiences is, fundamentally, axiomatic. Perhaps this is why Evola argues that the praeternatural (which he calls the traditional) is not perceived, but remembered.
Scientific enquiry, however, has an even more powerful limitation: that it cannot escape the dictates of its own hypotheses. Heidegger does a better job than I could of addressing this in his essay The Question Concerning Technology. This, more than anything else, is the cave (or, if you like, the Matrix) in which we live.
I want to skip ahead for a minute to AL III:48-53, which has been on my mind since reading Sabazius’s keynote address to the 6th NOTOCON.
Now this mystery of the letters is done, and I want to go on to the holier place.
I am in a secret fourfold word, the blasphemy against all gods of men.
Curse them! Curse them! Curse them!
With my Hawk’s head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs upon the cross.
I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed & blind him.
With my claws I tear out the flesh of the Indian and the Buddhist, Mongol and Din.
Crowley points out, in the New Comment, that these attacks upon the eyes are meant to attack the point of view of that prophet; the attacks on the flesh are attacks on the manifested practices of various creeds.
In this day and age, it’s pretty easy to attack the most obscene perversions of Christianity and Islam — the Dominionism and Christian Nationalism of the Religious Right, and the Islamic Nationalism, complete with suicide bombings and genocide, of radical Islam. That’s easy, because these things are offensive to the true spirit of Christianity and Islam.
The thing is, that’s emphatically not what Horus is attacking here. Horus is attacking Christianity itself, with its notions of self-sacrifice and redemption through acceptance of Christ; and of Islam, particularly Iman and Ihsan. It is these basic ideas that make Christianity and Islam slave religions. For the worshiper who worships Horus, true worship — true redemption — is only through battle and conquest. Or, put another way, action and results. We do not believe in God because the prophets told us so, or because we are mandated to do so. If we believe in God, we do so because our direct experiences lead us to believe in God. We do not need faith; we have proof.
Crowley’s exegesis of III:53 indicates that the flesh being torn is that of the Hindu (Indian), Buddhist, and Confuscian (Mongol). Mongol could also mean the Taoist. Crowley also claims that Din represents the Jews. This explanation doesn’t hold water, and so the word Din requires closer examination.
The word Din in Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian all mean essentially the same thing: “way,” or “path,” that is, one’s external spiritual life, and the social, political and economic trappings that come with it. In Christianity, this is the so-called “Christian Lifestyle.” In Judaism, this is the day-to-day law that guides one’s life. In Islam, this is the complete laws of Allah, including the laws of worship. There are similar practices in any religion, including, of course, Thelema.
I think that Horus is using “Din” as a catch-all term to refer to all the people who adhere to these trappings — regardless of the system around which they are wrapped. If so, we are being instructed, on no uncertain terms, to do away with them in our work. The law is, after all, “Do what thou Wilt.” This certainly strikes me as a more elegant explanation than the one Crowley gave.
AL I:3: “Every man and every woman is a star.”
That is to say, we are all absolute elements of the cosmos, emanating the light as we can, but still able to know and influence one another. This is a statement as much of some fundamental inequalities as it is of some fundamental equalities. Each star shines with its own brilliance and color. For any being to come to its full potential, it must first come to terms with itself. Evil in the Thelemic cosmology is a matter of self-alienation; a better term might be the Greek word κακοσ
The new comment contains this phrase: “A male star is built from the centre outwards, a female star from the circumference inwards. This is what is meant when we say a woman has no soul.” From our 21st Century Western perspective this comment is utterly infuriating and piggish. Nonetheless it expresses perfectly and without need for eludication the principles of Chokmah and Binah. In the Old Aeon they emanate from God; in the new they unite in the Crowned and Conquering Child. In the gross world, this dynamic reflects itself in a greater overlap between the social institutions of masculinity and femininity, in every aspect of society from family to sport to politics to war.
Every man and every woman, whether heterosexual or homosexual, must at least be open to both principles as they progress into magicians. A woman (or a certain kind of homosexual man) who cannot become phallic cannot evoke, and a man (or a certain kind of homosexual woman) who cannot accept the phallus cannot invoke.
From time to time I will post my personal take on these passages from The Book of the Law. If you want the genuine article by AC, refer to Hermetic.com, which has a list of comments from AC and others, and The Djeridensis Working Comment (Or “The Comment called D,” which I may refer to as “D”), which is, as of this writing, oddly not included on Hermetic.com despite probably being a Crowley work.
AL I:2: “The unveiling of the company of heaven.”
This passage identifies AL as that which was foretold in the Apocalypse of St. John. D states: The Book of the Law shows forth all things as God. This is not to say that we are all as yet perfected, that we are equal, or that we are complete. As shall be made clear in later passages, it is separation that makes us unequal, and requires that all things be considered purely in their own right.
The new comment associates matter and space with Nut, and motion with Had. One might object that motion is itself a measurable set of dimensions. This is only superficially true, since motion is ultimately a matter of perception. What is not a matter of perception is the application of force.
There are cases where perception is itself identical with force. Quantum phenomena constitute one class of such situations; to exploit this properly, however, is the subject of billions of dollars and many Ph. D. dissertations (and beyond) worth of research. The Black Egg Rule suggests that similar preparation is required of the magician in order to achieve similar results with other suitable cases.
AL I,1: “Had! The manifestation of Nuit.”
Note that the Comment Called D states: “Nuit is all that may be, and is shewn by means of any one that is.” Nut (Nuit) is the hunchback “?†of all potentialities and all possibilities. Every single possible axis of measurement, whether quantitative or qualitative, physical or not, actual or reified, is a part of her body. Each of us, and everything else that is, is in this space called Nut. Had is that which perceives (our position in this space).
What we perceive and act upon is a tiny subspace of Nuit-space; what we act in is a tiny subset of that subspace. While we can expand the subset, technology will not allow us to expand the subspace beyond the physical. There are some things which simply cannot be measured by the gross matter that is the prison in which all technology inexorably exists, because those things are simply orthogonal to matter. We must expand our consciousness further by other means.
Do not let the use of mathematical terminology fool you: the above two paragraphs are intended as an analogy only.
In the New Comment, Crowley refers to this as the basis of a “scientific” theogony. It is emphatically not so. It does, however, present a theologian with better axioms than usual, and allows for a more rigorous discussion than most theogonies.
As Nuit identifies with the North and with On, John, Noah, Dianaetc., (as per the New Comment on this verse), so her counterpart Had identifies with Hecate as well. Again, this is only a partial identification; Hecate’s proper place is in the crossroads between the gates of death and the valley of death, Lilith and the Mire of Muck. She crushes the oppressor beneath her heel – as is her nature, for all must pass through her when they die.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Any endeavor that is worth anything begins with a mission statement. The mission of this blog is to record my thoughts and ideas on magick and related subjects. This is not a blog for discussion of politics per se, although it may come to that occasionally.
Love is the law, love under will.