Liber L., Cap. 1, vv. 40-49
NUIT
40 41 42 43 44 45 46-48 49
1-9 10-19 20-30 31-39 50-59 60-66
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.
[PRELIMINARY NOTE: I will likely be replacing the following at some point when I have time to dig back through old diaries. I no longer think "the word" is "Thelema." I think it is "Thelemite," which opens itself to a much more direct and fruitful analysis. Here follows the original 1994 meditation, though.]
Here "the word" is likely "Thelema." AC gave an example of "look[ing]... close into the word;" but it is far from definitive. Its three syllables form one way, certainly, of seeking to see the Three Grades.
The three vowels — especially sacred to the Greeks — are Epsilon (Aquarius), Eta (Cancer), Alpha (Air). In a sense, all are letters of pure breath, which is in any case the nature of a vowel. They total 14.
The consonants give form to the Word. They are Theta (Leo), Lambda (Libra), Meym (Water). Together, they total 79.
The three syllables, ThE-LE-MA, enumerate to 14-38-41; and this is the basis of AC's commentary and analysis. They can be drawn as 11 between [an upright and an averse pentagram, respectively].
ThE = 14 = Yod-Daleth [Yod, meaning "hand"], a homonym of YVD [Yod, the letter] — but I think not close enough! ThE does not equal Leo and Aries as AC first believed, but rather Leo and Aquarius, the Beast and Babalon, the Lion and the Eagle, Courage and Knowledge, Light and Liberty. XI + XVII = XXVIII (Power) --> X, Fortune, Jupiter, but also Kether.
LH = Libra + Cancer, VIII + VII = XV, The Devil, who is also the Sun.
MA = Water + Air (which, by themselves, are Heh + Vav = 11), seen also as XII + 0 = XII, The Hanged Man.
X + XV + XII = XXXVII, the number of letters in "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law!"
But I do not take much of the foregoing very seriously either.
What is entirely clear is that the Order has but three Grades, and they are called Hermit, Lover, and Man of Eearth. AC equated these to Master, Adept, and Zelator; that is, to the Orders commencing at Binah, Tiphereth, and Malkuth, respectively. Also, the key declaration of the Law is given. "Do what thou wilt" (Four words: Earth, Air, Water, Fire: The Four Worlds) is the whole of the Law. Four words, 14 letters. (For the third time, 14 appears!)
Liber 418 adds that, "The man of earth is the adherent. The lover giveth his life unto the work among men. The hermit goeth solitary, and giveth only of his light unto men."
I think there is an oft-missed point to this verse, often over-shadowed by its technicalities. Superficially, outsiders, hearing of our Word "Thelema," might call us "Thelemites." Their superficial and uninformed reasons would be wrong, would misrepresent us; but in truth, there is a way of looking at the word so that it does us great justice and declares the truth of our principles and nature. Let not the superficial idea of "will" label us; let us look more closely and see the deeper level, looking not only as Men of Earth, but also as Lovers and Hermits; not only with the Nephesh, but with the Ruach and Neshamah. Let us Understand the Word, and wear it proudly.
[An upright Pentagram precedes:]
ThE = 14 = Yod-Daleth, The Hermit & The Empress, Love & Will. The highest attributions of this New Law.LH = 38 = Lamed-Cheth, Adjustment & The Chariot, Equilibrium & Abrahadabra, fundamental attributions, accomplishments, and attainments of the Adept.
[An averse Pentagram precedes:]
MA = 41 = Meym-Aleph, The Hanged Man & The Fool, "the condition of those who are not adepts."[Several lines of tedious gematria follow and are excluded here.]
NOTE: I:40 is decisively a Malkuth verse. (4/3/95 EV)
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. Accursed! Accursed! be it to the aeons. Hell.
As AC often wrote, this verse is the counterpoint of what has gone before. "Restriction" is the antithesis of "Thelema."
"Sin," by etymology, has nothing to do with "badness." It is error — French erreur — and specifically (from archery) that type of error which comes from falling short of the mark. As AC wrote in Aha (I quote from memory only), "This is sin — to hold thy holy nature in." It is to constrain oneself, due to doubts, fears, and conflicting thoughts or emotions, from giving all of oneself to one's will. This, by itself, bespeaks Restriction — self-restriction primarily, but secondarily an interference with the Will of others as well.
It is in this spirit that the next two verses appear. I agree with the general view that "man" and "lover" refer to the grades from v. 40.
The man of Earth is admonished, "refuse not thy wife, if she will." This is often taken in a sexual way; I think that interpretation is far too narrow. The sexual interpretation is one important interpretation, but not the whole thing. Given social conventions of that date, inherited from thousands of years of Osirian perspective, it most broadly shows the honoring of a wife's will as equally as that of the husband. "Wife," by etymology, just means "woman" (hence the archaic phrase "man and wife" just meant "man and woman"). We can certainly shift to a symbolic language like, "O Ruach, refuse not the will of the Nephesh," and these may be useful and meaningful — but they are clearly secondary.
But what I now see, for the first time, is a very intriguing contrast between the instructions to the Adept and the non-Adept. The Adept — the Lover — is instructed to take witness of his or her own Will, and the Non-Adept — the Man of Earth — to take witness of the Will of others. This is obviously too simple, but is nonetheless the basis of some serious instruction. The Man of Earth's lessons are of the Nephesh, of fire; and (s)he cannot adequately yet know the True Will; but the Adept's lessons are of Mind, of the Ruach, and (s)he is equipped with lucid knowledge of the inner Truth. This can surely be developed better than I have done so briefly here.
And furthermore, the Lover, if so led by Will, is to depart. But depart from what? Only the particular Adept can know that. It is unique to each. But a renunciation is (by history and experience) always warranted.
And this is because of the next line. Only love unites, for love is unity, ahebah is achad. Any contrary effort is foredoomed — and is also pure hell! The use of "curse" here also bears the marks of the ecclesiastical use of a declaration of anathema or censure — here the words of Nuit, whose nature is love, who represents all existence as this unity. Anything but love is a withdrawal from Nuit — it is not done unto Her!
AC reinforces (O.C.) that the interference with another's will is an affirmation of duality. (I knew that interfering with another's will simply should not be done; but this is the technical reason why, from the point of view of an aspirant.) We must transform 2 to 0 (0=2); and this transformation is primarily one of perspective, of how to view (Heh = window).
N.B. In the N.C., AC wrote some of his best stuff on sexual freedom and its spiritual necessity, some of which is given here below:
There shall be no property in human flesh. The sex-instinct is one of the most deeply-seated expressions of the will; and it must not be restricted, either negatively by preventing its free function, or positively by insisting on its false function.
What is more brutal than to stunt natural growth or to deform it?
What is more absurd than to seek to interpret this holy instinct as a gross animal act, to separate it from the spiritual enthusiasm without which it is so stupid as not even to be satisfactory to the persons concerned?
The sexual act is a sacrament of Will. To profane it is the great offence. All true expression of it is lawful; all suppression or distortion is contrary to the Law of Liberty. To use legal or financial constraint to compel either abstention or submission, is entirely horrible, unnatural and absurd. Physical constraint, up to a certain point, is not so seriously wrong; for it has its roots in the original sex-conflict which we see in ani mals, and has often the effect of exciting Love in his highest and noblest shape. Some of the most passionate and permanent attachments have begun with rape. Rome was actually founded thereon. Similarly, murder of a faithless partner is ethically excusable, in a certain sense; for there may be some stars whose Nature is extreme violence. The collision of galaxies is a magnificent spectacle, after all. But there is nothing inspiring in a visit to one's lawyer. Of course this is merely my personal view; a star who happened to be a lawyer might see things otherwise! Yet Nature's unspeakable variety, though it admits cruelty and selfishness, offers us not example of the puritan and the prig!
However, to the mind of Law there is an Order of Going; and a machine is more beautiful, save to the Small Boy, when it works than when it smashes. Now the Machine of Matter-Motion is an explosive machine, with pyrotechnic effects; but these are only incidentals.
Laws against adultery are based upon the idea that woman is a chattel, so that to make love to a married woman is to deprive the husband of her services. It is the frankest and most crass statement of a slave-situation. To us, every woman is a star. She has therefore an absolute right to travel in her own orbit. There is no reason why she should not be the ideal hausfrau, if that chance to be her will. But society has no right to insist upon that standard. It was, for practical reasons, almost necessary to set up such taboos in small communities, savage tribes, where the wife was nothing but a general servant, where the safety of the people depended upon a high birth-rate. But to-day woman is economically independent, becomes more so every year. The result is that she instantly asserts her right to have as many or as few men or babies as she wants or can get; and she defies the world to interfere with her. More power to her — elbow!
The War has seen this emancipation flower in four years. Primitive people, the Australian troops for example, are saying that they will not marry English girls, because English girls like a dozen men a week. Well, who wants them to marry? Russia has already formally abrogated marriage. Germany and France have tried to "save their faces" in a thoroughly Chinese manner, by "marrying" pregnant spinsters to dead soldiers!
England has been too deeply hypocritical, of course, to do more than "hush things up;" and is pretending "business as usual," though every pulpit is aquake with the clamour of bat-eyed bishops, squeaking of the awful immorality of everybody but themselves and their choristers. Englishwomen over 30 have the vote; when the young'uns get it, good-bye to the old marriage system.
America has made marriage a farce by the multiplication and confusion of the Divorce Laws. A friend of mine who had divorced her husband was actually, three years later, sued by him for divorce!!!
But America never waits for laws; her people go ahead. The emancipated, self-supporting American woman already acts exactly like the "bachelor-boy." Sometimes she loses her head, and stumbles into marriage, and stubs her toe. She will soon get tired of the folly. She will perceive how imbecile it is to hamstring herself in order to please her parents, or to legitimatize her children, or to silence her neighbours.
She will take the men she wants as simply as she buys a newspaper; and if she doesn't like the Editorials, or the Comic Supplement, it's only two cents gone, and she can get another.
Blind asses! who pretend that women are naturally chaste! The Easterns know better; all the restrictions of the harem, of public opinion, and so on, are based upon the recognition of the fact that woman is only chaste when there is nobody around. She will snatch the babe from its cradle, or drag the dog from its kennel, to prove the old saying: Natura abhorret a vacuo. For she is the Image of the Soul of Nature, the Great Mother, the Great Whore.
It is to be well noted that the Great Women of History have exercised unbounded freedom in Love. Sappho, Semiramis, Messalina, Cleopatra, Ta Chhi, Pasiphae, Clytaemnaestra, Helen of Troy, and in more recent times Joan of Arc (by Shakespeare's account), Catherine II of Russia, Queen Elizabeth of England, George Sand. Against these we can put only Emily Bronté, whose sex-suppression was due to her environment, and so burst out in the incredible violence of her art, and the regular religious mystics, Saint Catherine, Saint Teresa, and so on, the facts of whose sex-life have been carefully camouflaged in the interests of the slave-gods. But, even on that showing, the sex-life was intense, for the writings of such women are overloaded with sexual expression passionate and perverted, even to morbidity and to actual hallucination.
Sex is the main expression of the Nature of a person; great Natures are sexually strong; and the health of any person will depend upon the freedom of that function. [Emphasis added.]
(4/3/95 EV)
42. Let it be that state of manyhood bound and loathing. So with thy all thou hast no right but to do thy will
(A Chokmah verse, continuing the thread on Will.)
The clearest portion is the conclusion. Not only are we to do our will — we are to do nothing else! And we are to do it "with our all." It must be the whole of our life.
The first sentence, then, seems to refer to the "accurséd" state that is not unto Nuit. I do not know exactly what a "state of manyhood" is, but it is obviously not an experience of Unity. It is the state of complex duality ("manyhood") that is the cause of sorrow, of suffering. It is "bound" because it is a "bond" without real love. It is thus loathing.
A relationship without love is a good example of this. It is hell. It is filled with loathing. It is imprisoning. Such an experience is surely, in itself, to motivate us to the alternative, which is, with our all, to do naught but our will.
As AC wrote, "The idea of self-sacrifice is a moral cancer..." His commentary here is a nice discussion of conditions when one finds oneself in conflict. (2/18/01 EV)
43. Do that and no other shall say nay.
Continues the ongoing thread. Self-evident. The universe will impede one who acts contrary to his or her will; but, we are told, there is no resistance when one does only one's will, and does it with one's all.
(It is a Binah verse, addressing the issue of resistence to one's actions by the Universe.) (2/18/01 EV)
44. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect
"Pure will." I am reminded that Yesod is the Purifying Consciousness. The will that is here discussed is (from the verse content) obviously clear, undistorted, &c.; and by this word "pure" we are likely told that it is especially undistorted by the instincts, emotions, and reactions. Quite the contrary; the adaptive aspect of the psyche, and the inherent force of the will in subconsciousness, likely ensure its pure manifestation. (The word "pure" is THVR = 220, the number of verses in the Book.)
This will is to be "unassuaged of purpose." AC had difficulty with this language. "Unassuaged" can perhaps best be rendered as "undiminished." The inherent passion or drive of the will is not to be diminished. Thirdly, it must be without "lust of result," for all of the usual reasons. Pure. Undiminished in its purposefulness. Yet without lust of result. Such will is perfect will. (AC renders "without lust of result" as "nonattachment," which is good.)
AC defines "pure will" as "the true expression of the Nature, the proper or inherent motion of the matter, concerned. It is unnatural to aim at any goal."
(PRELIMINARY NOTE. The expected Chesed attribution of this verse is broadly present — especially in comparison to the verse preceding — by the sure forth flowing of the "perfect" will. On first impression, I suspect the four parts of this verse correspond to the Sephiroth 1-4: "pure will" = Kether, "unassuaged of purpose" = Chokmah, "delivered from the lust of result" = Binah, climaxing in "is every way perfect" = Chesed. It's pretty good. But I want to spend more time delving into it.) (2/18/01 EV)
45. The Perfect and the Perfect are one Perfect and not two; nay, are none!
I have long intuitively understood this verse; but something in me, some resistance, is very loath to give voice to its meaning. I do not yet understand this resistance. Part of it is that I am afraid of giving a partial and incomplete perspective. Yes, that is much of it. The part of me which understands this is perceptive of "the Perfect," and feels it would be lying, or somehow hurtful, to give too precise a voice to this verse.
But I must try.
It is very much like saying that any number of Zeroes added together persist in totaling Zero; and this is a positive consequence of their Zero-ness, their Perfection, their having resolved their interior (seeming) inconsistencies. Even "one Perfect" is 1 x 0, or 0.
It has always had the sense, to me, of a wedding — two perfections added, as though two exalted lovers mating. In such a scenario, this verse provides a clear meaning. Vertically, it also signifies the wedding of the perfection of "pure will" &c. (as in the previous verse) with Nuit. Their identity is a Unity which dissolves into Silence, which is the real characteristic of each Perfection in the first place. (I am still dissatisfied with this explanation.)
How does AC treat this verse? He begins by admitting it difficult, then fails to go any further. It is a bridge into a subsequent discussion of "Nothing." He seems to suspect a Qabalistic veiled mystery. I, on the other hand, think it is plain as day, but cannot bring myself to drag it down the planes and put it in language; which should lead one to question my understanding after all.
To go off into a totally different direction: to Hod is attributed the "Perfect Consciousness." The Hebrew for "perfect" is here ShLM, Shalem — essentially the same word as Shalom. "The Perfect" is thus a state of peace. It is the balanced wedding of opposites, as of Fire and Water (ShLM = Fire-Libra-Water). It is wholeness, a literal meaning of the same word. All of these ideas fit our present verse very well. The Perfect Consciousness is "the Plan of the Primordial" (tekunath ha-qadmuht). Its essence emanates from "the hidden chambers of Gedulah."
GEMATRIA: ShLM = 370. This may tell us something about "the Perfect" which we here study. First, it is OSh; and the whole of Liber A'ash is a kind of commentary on the proper state. Also, 370 is the Greek OLOS, meaning "perfect." The Greek and Hebrew words for "perfect" have exactly the same numerical value! The secret is in this ShLM, and in OSh.
At the risk of "pushing it," we already have a literal rendering of the verse as, "Shalem and holos are one Number [370] and not two." How does this literally, then, also confirm, "nay, are none"? 370 is 37 x 10, the Perfection, Unity, and Silence of Yechidah expressed through the ten Sephiroth, the Plan of Wholeness or Perfection; even as ALPh = 111, or 3 x 37. (Related? Not so far...)
GEMATRIA: Pure Will = THVR RTzVN? = 566. 566 is SVD spelled in full, hiding the Great Secret; but it goes no further.
In the last analysis, there is not "this Perfection" and "that Perfection" but, rather, Perfection wherein all do their will purely, freely, without attachment, and with undiminished purpose. (4/3/95 EV)
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 not they the Ox and none by the Book.[?]NOTE to MYSELF: Punctuation has been conformed to the original — does this change the meaning?
These three verses compose one of the great Qabalistic puzzles of the Book. Such puzzles are subject to more than one solution; and the present one has at least one significant solution besides that on the surface.
But, before getting into that, we should endeavor to read the plain language meaning.
"Nothing is a secret key of this law." The idea of Naught, or Zero, is an important Qabalistic concept to this Book. Due to the introduction of 0=2, the idea of "Unity" no longer means One as it has been previously understood. Indeed, One, as usually understood, does not exist. There is, in fact, Nothing like that. Two dissolves into Zero. One is an egocentric limitation. To understand "Do what thou wilt" and the word Thelema, we must understand Zero.
The Nothing is known in Qabalah as AYN = 61. By permutation of the letters we get ANY, "I, myself." This confirms that this Nothing is the real sense of self, of the ego. Nuit introduces other numerical clues which will be explored.
Verse 47 poses the puzzle which we shall explore. The word "they" is obscure, and its right understanding is the key to the solution. It does not refer to "the Jews."
Crowley is then said to be "a fool with his one, one, one," etc. The Qabalistic meanings of this verse seem so clear that they utterly blind us to the real meaning. On the surface, we note that, in the Tarot, Aleph is The Fool; its value in full is 111 (ALPh); it means "Ox;" and its value in Tarot (i.e., by the "Book of Thoth") is 0 ("none"). Just the kind of thing to spill off of a Qabalist's mind, and certainly it serves to give us The Fool as an enigma whose "solution" is only in the Way of Going. But, first of all, it is not the deepest solution to this numerical puzzle; and, secondly, it obscures the "plain English" meaning.
Thus, AC is told that he is "a fool with his one, one, one." The English construction is the same as if we had said, "All you ever do is eat, eat, eat!" He was obsessed with One, with Unity; and he is being told that the Answer is not to be found there. The Answer is in Naught. (Read AC's Essay on Number in Eqx. I:5, written some years earlier; therein he is initially looking for a path to Unity as a solution to Duality. It comes up over and over.) The simple meaning is, then, "Nothing is a secret key of this law... You're an idiot to be obsessed with the idea of One."
We now turn to a Qabalistic numerical solution. Although the final solution is very simple, let us take some time to review the individual components a little more thoroughly.
61 has already been explained. There is, of course, much more to be gotten there. In particular, ANY, "I," also means "a fleet of ships." In meditation, that produces a remarkable understanding of the phenomenon, or rather the loosely associated phenomena, which we each call "I."
8, 80, & 418 are numerically linked, since 80 reduces to 8, and 8, Cheth, is 418 in plenitude.
Since this text was verbally dictated to AC — and thus are we given liberty with the "stops" and "space marks" — this could be "880 & 418." 880 = Harpocrates ([Greek] ARPOKRATHS). 418 = Ra-Hoor ([Hebrew] RA-HVVR). This, though intriguing, is however a digression from the main meaning.
8 is the "Dominical Number," a number classically related to Christ-Hermes as Redeemer. Dozens — maybe hundreds! — of pages, could be written about this one Solar-Serpentine-Redeemer number, the foundation of the entire Ogdoadic (i.e. Hermetic) tradition. By itself it reflects "Nothing" in the form of Infinity; for 8, or [infinity symbol], is an early form of Omega. In fact, in our Arabic numerals, only two are truly infinite, meaning they can be traced infinitely without skip or reversal. These are 8 and 0. I shall explore this more deeply in Cap. II. For now I note only that 8, 80, & 418 (which is another way of writing 8) are all composed exclusively of these numerals.
80 is primarily Peh and YSVD, Yesod. Interestingly, in Greek it is DFO, "two," even as in Latin it is geminus, "twin." There is extensive doctrine interrelating Cheth and Peh.
418 is a fundamental key of this entire Book. There is no need to repeat my very large notebook page here. The word Abrahadabra ultimately means "superconsciousness" or "completion of the Work," especially through the 5=6 formula. (It is the 5=6 formula.)
Let us now return to the verses 46-48.
8 + 80 + 418 = 506, the value of ShVR, the actual Hebrew word for "ox," and the name of the constellation Taurus. This is the deeper meaning, being both more literal and more blinded. The significance of the number 506 (especially as 50 & 6 or NV) should not pass without witness.
8 + 80 + 418 + 61 = 567. By itself, 567 has no special relevance to our puzzle, for it is not a complete truth. The "they" in vv. 47-48 refers to the 61, 8, 80, & 418 of v. 46. The numbers themselves are the only reasonable antecedents.
If 567 is the half, then the other half is also 567. The whole is thus 567 x 2 = 1,134, which is:
AYN SVPh AVR
(Ayin Soph Or)the Limitless Light, the Qabalistic Zero, wherein "all disappear."
(Ain Soph Or by its primary enumeration is 414 = Azoth, and part of that Mystery of "one in eight" which will be encountered in Cap. II.)
Having the solution, we proceed to v. 48 and are told, as above discussed, that the prophet is "a fool" in his obsession with Unity; for "they" (the numbers added previously) are 506, ShVR, "the Ox," and 61, "none" — all "by the Book"!
There are, of course, multiple variant meanings; but I believe this is the main one. Even in the word ShVR is the true Hierophant found in the midst of the Fire and the Sun; and the word itself, being literally Taurus, is Vav and The Hierophant.
Verse 48 also veils an important theoretical and practical secret to which every T.'.O.'.T.'. initiate is introduced, but probably none below 5° is ready to appreciate; and the final key is not given until the 7°.
Furthermore, 111 can be studied by itself, and should be. It is a number of the Sun, of Creative Light; and this Light exists both in thick darkness and in blinding splendor, both by night and by day. Here is that "Lord of the Light and of the Darkness."
The Book of the Law has, therefore, steered us toward the idea of Nothing, and away from "one." It has given us a puzzle to solve, and left a few keys along the way. It has hinted at an entirely new Qabalah. (4/3/95 EV)
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.
[Note 7/5/95 E.V. I have changed "sufferer" to "Sufferer," in accordance with the original ms. There are other punctuation changes that I have today made, for similar conformation. This verse should be meditated upon anew to see if this seems to change anything.]
This verse is the critical one defining and authorizing the new Order. (I am intrigued that it is verse 49 per se, and also that it is one of the Yesod verses.) Here the highest spiritual authority AC had ever contacted made some formal declarations of the greatest practical import.
First, the details of the old Order are swept away. Its rituals and ordeals, its words and signs were abrogated. (Incidentally, this includes also the Word of the prior Equinox of the Gods, the essential formula of the Osiris Aeon per se.) This does not mean they can no longer be used, only that they would need to be promulgated anew if they were to be used. It is a banishing. We begin with a clean slate.
Next, the new Hierophant is appointed and declared. Osiris' term of office is expired. Horus, the Hiereus of the last Aeon, who governed the outer on Osiris' behalf, is now advanced to the throne of the East as a symbol of light and strength, of wisdom and of peace. In the same fashion that the Dying God archetype was the "revealer of the mysteries" for the few thousand years past, this Hawk-headed Lord shall now serve in the new time. Osiris, the Cross (=4), has been succeeded by Horus, the Pentagram (=5); and especially that Solar-Martial form known as Ra-Hoor, who combines within Himself the formulæ of the 5 and the 6, truly representing the perfection of the Great Work in Tiphereth. Horus is the new "Christ" — i.e., we are told in Cap. III that He is the "visible object of worship," the image toward which all (and especially the profane) may most effectively turn. He is the inner guru, the interior teacher, the generic "stand-in" for one's own Holy Guardian Angel. (Horus — Khoor — is that same "C.R." as Christ, and, in fact, a more primal form.)
"Asar" is Osiris. "Isa" is Jesus (not Isis, as I wrongly believed for years). With Horus now as Hierophant, we are told to lump Osiris and Jesus together, for they "also are one." We are also told that they "are not of me," i.e., not of Nuit (MH, "me," means "not" or Nuit; its numeration is 48, as is that of the Hebrew KVKB, "star."). I am certain this is to be taken in some limited sense, since they (especially as solar deities) are stars in the body of Our Lady of the Stars — are they not? The simple interpretation of "they are not of me" is that they have nothing to do with the new dispensation — as officers they are "off the floor," so to speak. (I resist the reversal of meaning that arises if "not" and "me" are interpreted differently.)
Osiris is "the adorant," which likely means an adorant of the goddess as Isis &c. Jesus is "the sufferer," which is self-evident. Hoor is "the Lord initiating."
This is the second time Ra-Hoor-Khuit (with slightly different orthography) has been mentioned in this Book. The prior time was in v. 36. Based on a comparison of that verse to this one, we can further confirm that AC's commentary on Liber L. was to be written by the Wisdom of the Revealer of the Mysteries, of the Lord initiating — again, his HGA is clearly intended.
I note that AC, in the O.C., identified Asar-Isa as now being the Candidate, not the Hierophant. This we discovered ourselves, and I find it to be true. I am happy to add the authority of his opinion on this.
About three weeks before the dictation of this Book, AC had performed the Invocation of Horus which apparently "kicked off" the Equinox of the Gods. He mentioned therein a "secret name" of Horus which is surely connected to this reference shortly thereafter. The name was Hoori.
GEMATRIA: I suspect HVVRY = 227. This number is related to the sexual energies: 227 = ZKR, “male member,” the sacred [Phi]. It is also [Greek] astron, “star.”
(7/5/95 EV)