220A1-1.ASC 1. The theogony of our Law is entirely scientific, Nuit is Matter, Hadit is Mo
220A1-1.ASC
1. The theogony of our Law is entirely scientific, Nuit is
Matter, Hadit is Motion, in their full physical sense.* 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 extensive subject must be studied in
our other writings, notably Berashith, my own Magical
Diaries, especially those of 1919, 1920 and 1921, and The
Book of Wisdom or Folly. See also `The Soldier and the
Hunchback'. Further information concerning Nuit and Hadit is
given in the course of this Book; but I must here mention
that the Brother mentioned in connexion with the `Wizard
Amalantrah' etc. (Samuel bar Aiwaz) identifies them with ANU
and ADAD the supreme Mother and Father deities of the
Sumerians. Taken in connexion with the AIWAZ identification,
this is very striking indeed. It is also to be considered
that Nu is connected with North, while Had is Sad, Set,
Satan, Sat (equals `Being' in Sanskrit), South. He is then
the Sun, one point concentring Space, as also is any other
star. The word ABRAHADABRA is from Abrasax, Father Sun, which
adds to 365. For the North-South antithesis see Fabre
d'Olivet's Hermeneutic Interpretation of the Origin of the
Social State in Man. Note `Sax' also as a Rock, or Stone,
whence the symbol of the Cubical Stone, the Mountain
Abiegnus, and so forth. Nu is also reflected in Naus, Ship,
etc., and that whole symbolism of Hollow Space which is
familiar to all. There is also a question of identifying Nu
with On, Noah, Oannes, Jonah, John, Dianus, Diana, and so on.
But these identifications are all partial only, different
facets of the Diamond Truth. We may neglect all these
questions, and remain in the simplicity of this Her own Book.
2. 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. It will however appear
later that these two ideas may be resolved into one, that of
Matter; with Space, its `Condition' or `form', included
therein. This leaves the idea of `Motion' for Hadit, whose
interplay with Nuit makes the Universe. Time should perhaps
be considered as a particular kind or dimension of Space.*
Further, this verse is to be taken with the next. The
`company of heaven' is the assertion of the independent
godhead of every man and every woman! Further, as Khabs (see
verse 8) is `Star', there is a further meaning; this Book is
to reveal the Secret Self of a man, i.e. to initiate him.
3. This thesis is fully treated in The Book of Wisdom or
Folly. Its main statement is that each human being is an
Element of the Cosmos, self-determined and supreme, co-equal
with all other Gods. From this the Law `Do what thou wilt'
follows logically. One star influences another by attraction,
of course; but these are incidents of self-predestined
orbits. There is however a mystery of the planets, revolving
about a star of whom they are parts; but I shall not discuss
it fully in this place. Man is the Middle Kingdom The Great
Kingdom is Heaven, with each star as an unit; the Little
Kingdom is the Molecule, with each Electron as an unit. (The
Ratio of these three is regularly geometrical, each being
10^2 times greater in size than its neighbour.) See `The Book
of the Great Auk' for the demonstration that each `star' is
the Centre of the Universe to itself, and that a `star'
simple, original, absolute, can add to its omnipotence,
omniscience and omnipresence without ceasing to be itself;
that its one way to do this is to gain experience, and that
therefore it enters into combinations in which its true
Nature is for awhile disguised, even from itself.
Analogously, an atom of carbon may pass through myriad
Proteus-phases, appearing in Chalk, Chloroform, Sugar, Sap,
Brain and Blood, not recognizable as `itself' the black
amorphous solid, but recoverable as such, unchanged by its
adventures. This theory is the only one which explains why
the Absolute limited itself, and why It does not recognize
Itself during its cycle of incarnations. It disposes of
`Evil' and the Origin of Evil; without denying Reality to
`Evil', or insulting our daily observation and our common
sense. I here quote (with one or two elucidatory insertions)
the original note originally made by Me on this subject.
May 14, 1919, 6.30 p.m. All elements must at one time have
been separate -- that would be the case with great heat. Now
when atoms get to the sun, when we get to the sun, we get
that immense, extreme heat, and all the elements are
themselves again. Imagine that each atom of each element
possesses the memory of all his adventures in combination. By
the way, that atom, fortified with that memory, would not be
the same atom; yet it is, because it has gained nothing from
anywhere except this memory. Therefore, by the lapse of time
and by virtue of memory, a thing (although originally an
Infinite Perfection) could become something more than itself;
and thus a real development is possible. One can then see a
reason for any element deciding to go through this series of
incarnations (God, that was a magnificent conception!)
because so, and only so, can he go; and he suffers the lapse
of memory of His own Reality of Perfection which he has
during these incarnations, because he knows he will come
through unchanged. Therefore you have an infinite number of
gods, individual and equal though diverse, each one supreme
and utterly indestructible. This is also the only explanation
of how a being could create a world in which war, evil, etc.
exist. Evil is only an appearance because, like `good', it
cannot affect the substance itself, but only multiply its
combinations. This is something the same as mystic monism,
but the objection to that theory is that God has to create
things which are all parts of himself, so that their
interplay is false. If we presuppose many elements, their
interplay is natural. It is no objection to this theory to
ask who made the elements -- the elements are at least there;
and God, when you look for him, is not there. Theism is
obscurum per obscurus. A male star is built from the
circumference inwards. This is what is meant when we say that
woman has no soul. It explains fully the difference between
the sexes.
4. This is a great and holy mystery. Although each star
has its own number, each number is equal and supreme. Every
man and every woman is not only a part of God, but the
Ultimate God. `The Centre is everywhere and the circumference
nowhere'. The old definition of God takes new meaning for us.
Each one of us is the One God. This can only be understood by
the initiate; one must acquire certain high states of
consciousness to appreciate it. I have tried to put it
simply in the note to the last verse. I may add that in the
Trance called by me the `Star-Sponge' -- see note to v. 59 --
this apprehension of the Universe is seen as an astral
Vision. It began as `Nothingness with Sparkles' in 1916 E.V.
by Lake Pasquaney in New Hampshire, U.S.A. and developed into
fullness on various subsequent occasions. Each `Star' is
connected directly with every other star, and the Space being
Without Limit (Ain Soph) the Body of Nuith, and one star is
as much the Centre as any other. Each man instinctively feels
that he is the Centre of the Cosmos, and philosophers have
jeered at his presumption. But it was he that was precisely
right. The yokel is no more `petty' than the King, nor the
earth than the Sun. Each simple elemental Self is supreme,
Very God of Very God. Ay, in this Book is Truth almost
insufferably splendid, for Man has veiled himself too long
from his own glory: he fears the abyss, the ageless Absolute.
But Truth shall make him free!
5. Here Nuit appeals, simply and directly, recognizing the
separate function of each Star of her Body. Though all is
One, each part of that One has its own special work, each
Star its particular Orbit. In addressing me as warrior lork
of Thebes, it appears as if She perceived a certain
continuity or identity of myself with Ankh-f-n-khonsu, Stele
is the Link with Antiquity of this Revelation. See the
equinox I(7), pp. 363-400a, for the account of this event.
The unveiling is the Proclamation of the Truth previously
explained, that the Body of Nuith occupies Infinite Space, so
that every Star thereof is Whole in itself, an independent
and absolute Unit. They differ as Carbon and Calcium differ,
but each is a simple `immortal' Substance, or at least a form
of some simpler Substance. Each soul is thus absolute, and
`good' or `evil' are merely terms descriptive of relations
between destructible combinations. Thus Quinine is `good' for
a malarial patient, but `evil' for the germ of the disease.
Heat is `bad' for ice-cream and `good' for coffee. The
indivisible essence of things, their `souls', are indifferent
to all conditions soever, for none can in any way affect
them.
7. Aiwass is the name given by Ouarda the Seer as that of
the Intelligence Communicating. See note to Title.
Hoor-paar-Kraat or Harpocrates, the `Babe in the Egg of
Blue', is not merely the God of Silence in a conventional
sense. He represents the Higher Self, the Holy Guardian
Angel. The connexion is with the symbolism of the Dwarf in
Mythology. He contains everything in Himself, but is
unmanifested. See II:8. He is the First Letter of the
Alphabet, Aleph, whose number is One, and his card in the
Tarot is The Fool, numbered Zero. Aleph is attributed to the
`Element' (in the old classification of things) of Air. Now
as `One or Aleph he represents the Male Principle, the First
Cause, and the free breath of Life, the sound of the vowel A
being made with the open throat and mouth. As Zero he
represents the femal Principle, the fertile Mother. (An old
name for the card is Mat, from the Italian `Matto', fool, but
earlier also from Maut, the Egyptian Vulture-
Mother-Goddess). Fertile, for the `Egg of Blue' is the
Uterus, and in the Macrocosm the Body of Nuith, and it
contains the Unborn Babe, helpless yet protected and
nourished against the crocodiles and tigers shown on the
card, just as the womb is sealed during gestation. He sits on
a lotus, the yoni, which floats on the `Nile', the amniotic
fluid. In his absolute innocence and ignorance he is `The
Fool'; he is the `Saviour', being the Son who shall trample
on the crocodiles and tigers, and avenge his father Osiris.
Thus we see him as the `Great Fool' of Celtic legend, the
`Pure Fool' of Act I of Parsifal, and, generally speaking,
the insane person whose words have always been taken for
oracles. But to be `Saviour' he must be born and grow to
manhood; thus Parsifal acquires the Sacred Lance, emblem of
virility. He usually wears the `Coat of many colours' like
Joseph the `dreamer'; so he is also now the Green Man of
spring festivals. But his `folly' is now not innocence but
inspiration of wine; he drinks from the Graal, offered to him
by the Priestess. So we see him fully armed as Bacchus
Diphues, male and female in one, bearing the Thyrsus-rod, and
a cluster of grapes or a wineskin, while a tiger leaps up by
his side. This form is suggested in the Taro card, where `The
fool' is shown with a long wand and carrying a sack; his coat
is motley. Tigers and Crocodiles follow him, thus linking
this image with that of Harpocrates. Almost identical
symbols are those of the secret God of the Templars, the
bi-sexual Baphomet, and of Zeus Arrhenothelus, equally
bi-sexual, the Father-Mother of All in One Person. (He is
shown in this full form in the Tarot Trump XV, `the Devil'.)
Now Zeus being lord of Air, we are reminded that Aleph is the
letter of Air. As Air we find the `Wandering Fool' pure
wanton Breath, yet creative. Wind was supposed of old to
impregnate the Vulture, which therefore was chosen to
symbolize the Mother-Goddess. He is the Wandering Knight or
Prince of Fairy Tales who marries the King's Daughter. This
legend is derived from certain customs among exogamic tribes,
for which see The Golden Bough. Thus one Europa, Semele and
others claimed that Zeus -- Air* -- had enjoyed them in the
form of a beast, bird, or what not; while later Mary
attributed her condition to the agency of a Spirit --
Spiritus, breath, or air -- in the shape of a dove. But the
`Small Person' of Hindu mysticism, the Dwarf insane yet
crafty of many legends in many lands, is also this same `Holy
Ghost', or Silent Self of a man, or his Holy Guardian Angel.
He is almost the `Unconscious' of Freud, unknown,
unaccountable, the silent Spirit, blowing `whither it
listeth, but thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither
it goeth'. It commands with absolute authority when it
appears at all, despite conscious reason and judgment.
Aiwass is then, as this verse 7 states, the `minister' of
this Hoor-paar-Kraat, that is of the Saviour of the World in
the larger sense, and of mine own `Silent Self' in the
lesser. A `minister' is one who performs a service, in this
case evidently that of revealing; He was the intelligible
medium between the Babe God -- the New Aeon about to be born
-- and myself. This Book of the Law is the Voice of his
Mother, His Father, and Himself. But on His appearing, He
assumes the active form twin to Harpocrates, that of
Ra-Hoor-Khuit. The Concealed Child becomes the Conquering
Child, the armed Horus avenging his father Osiris. So also
our own Silent Self, helpless and witless, hidden within us,
will spring forth, if we have craft to loose him to the
Light, spring lustily forward with his cry of Battle, the
Word of our True Wills. This is the Task of the Adept, to
have the Knowledge and Conversation of His Holy Guardian
Angel, to become aware of his nature and his purpose,
fulfilling them. Why is Aiwass thus spelt, when Aiwaz is the
natural transliteration of [...]? Perhaps because he was not
content with identifying Himself with Thelema, Agape, etc. by
the number 93, but wished to express his nature by six
letters (Six being the number of the Sun, the God-Man, etc.)
whose value in Greek should be A=1, I=10, F=6, A=1, S=200,
S=200: total 418, the number of Abrahadabra, the Magical
Formula of the new Aeon! Note that I and V are the letters of
the Father and the Son, also of the Virgin and the Bull, (See
Liber 418) protected on either side by the letter of AIR, and
followed by the letter of Fire twice over.
8. We are not to regard ourselves as base beings, without
whose sphere is Light or `God'. Our minds and bodies are
veils of the Light within. The uninitiate is a `Dark Star',
and the Great Work for him is to make his veils transparent
by `purifying' them. This `purification' is really
`simplification'; it is not that the veil is dirty, but that
the complexity of its folds makes it opaque. The Great Work
therefore consists principally in the solution of complexes.
Everything in itself is perfect, but when things are muddled,
they become `evil'. (This will be understood better in the
Light of `The Hermit of Esopus Island', q.v.) The Doctrine is
evidently of supreme importance, from its position as the
first `revelation' of Aiwass. This `star' or `Inmost Light'
is the original, individual, eternal essence. The Khu is the
magical garment which it weaves for itself, a `form' for its
Being Beyond Form, by use of which it can gain experience
through self-consciousness, as explained in the note to
verses 2 and 3. This Khu is the first veil, far subtler than
mind or body, and truer; for its symbolic shape depends on
the nature of its Star. Why are we told that the Khabs is in
the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs? Did we then suppose the
converse? I think that we are warned against the idea of a
Pleroma, a flame of which we are Sparks, and to which we
return when we `attain'. That would indeed be to make the
whole curse of separate existence ridiculous, a senseless and
inexcusable folly. It would throw us back on the dilemma of
Manichaeism. The idea of incarnations `perfecting' a thing
originally perfect by definition is imbecile. The only sane
solution is as given previously, to suppose that the Perfect
enjoys experience of (apparent) Imperfection. (There are
deeper resolutions of this problem appropriate to the highest
grades of initiation; but the above should suffice the
average intelligence.)
9. We are to pay attention to this Inmost Light; then
comes the answering Light of Infinite Space. Note that the
Light of Space is what men call Darkness; its nature is
utterly incomprehensible to our uninitiated minds. It is the
`veils' mentioned previously in this comment that obstruct
the relation between Nuit and Hadit. We are not to worship
the Khu, to fall in love with our Magical Image. To do this
-- we have all done it -- is to forget our Truth. If we adore
Form, it becomes opaque to Being, and may soon prove false to
itself. The Khu in each of us includes the Cosmos as he knows
it. To me, even another Khabs is only part of my Khu. Our own
Khabs is our one sole Truth.
10. The nature of magical power is quite incomprehensible
to the vulgar. The prophet Ezekiel besieging a tile in order
to destroy Jerusalem, and the adventure of Hosea with Gomer,
seem as absurd to the `practical' man as do the researches of
any other scientific man until the Sunday Newspapers have
furnished him with a plausible explanation which explains
nothing. (Book 4, Part III, must be read in this connexion.)
`My servants'; not those of the Lord of the Aeon. `The Law is
for all'; there can be no secrecy about that. The verse
refers to specially chosen `servants'; perhaps those who,
worshipping the Khabs, have beheld Her light shed over them.
Such persons indeed consummate the marriage of Nuit and Hadit
in themselves; in that case they are aware of certain Ways to
Power. There is also a mystical sense in this verse. We are
to organize our minds thoroughly, appointing few and secret
chiefs, serving Nuit, to discipline the varied departments of
the conscious thought.
E-Mail Fredric L. Rice / The Skeptic Tank