@zeph Yes, I may have caught myself in answering my own question, yet failing to leave it at that. Because it was nagging at me for some reason, I wanted to see first if it was something of import to others. I'm no stranger to kismet, so the nag needed to be answered. Appreciate your input.

@jjones 93 Well said. I was unsure how to address the word conspiracy and you did a grand job of it. Here's to more joy and love ... love under will. 93 93/93

@fiatyod 93 This one has a delicious Crowley-paradox baked in. Ra-Hoor-Khuit is anti-“Buddhist religion” in Liber AL rhetoric, but not anti-Buddhist technique or realization. Crowley attacks Buddhism as an old-aeon creed, while still using Buddhist method, vocabulary, and attainment-models as some of his best technical comparators. Wrapping a description of Ra-Hoor-Khuit with an analysis of how Buddhism overlaps with Thelema may help. Any failure to that end is entirely mine and not a reflection of Thelema or Uncle Al. Ra-Hoor-Khuit is the active, outward, conquering form of Horus in the New Aeon. Crowley treats him not merely as an Egyptian god-name, but as a magical formula: the visible, operative result of the union of Nuit and Hadit. In Magick in Theory and Practice, Crowley gives the cleanest metaphysical definition: Nuit is infinite space, Hadit is the infinitely small omnipresent point, and the conjunction of these infinities is called Ra-Hoor-Khuit, “a unity which includes and heads all things.” In plain language: Ra-Hoor-Khuit is the universe becoming active as Will — the infinite field and the point of experience suddenly expressed as force, direction, and event. [1] Crowley also identifies him as part of the double god Heru-Ra-Ha. In Book of Thoth, he says Heru-Ra-Ha has two forms: Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the extroverted or active form, and Hoor-pa-kraat, the passive or introverted form. The same passage says he is solar in character, coming forth in golden light. [2] So, simplified: Hoor-pa-kraat is the silent seed; Ra-Hoor-Khuit is that seed bursting forth as action. Crowley says almost exactly that in the New Comment to Liber AL: Hoor-pa-kraat is the “Babe in the Egg of Blue,” the unmanifest Higher Self or Holy Guardian Angel; when he appears, he takes the active twin-form of Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Crowley’s phrase is that the “Concealed Child becomes the Conquering Child,” and he equates this with the hidden Silent Self springing forth as the Word of one’s True Will. [3] That gives us the psychological definition: Ra-Hoor-Khuit is the awakened Will, no longer latent, silent, or gestating. He is the “child” because he belongs to the new Aeon; he is “crowned and conquering” because this Will does not ask permission from old moralities, old gods, or old formulas. Crowley’s aeonic definition is just as important. In his early commentary material, he says the Isis period was pastoral and natural, the Osiris period was characterized by sorrow, death, and sacrifice, and the Horus period brings the “young child” who rises strong and conquering with his twin Harpocrates. He explicitly places Buddha and Christ in the Osirian period, not the Horus period. [4] So Ra-Hoor-Khuit is Crowley’s name for the ruling god-form of the post-Osirian Aeon: no longer salvation by suffering, but realization by force, fire, joy, ordeal, and Will. Crowley’s qabalistic gloss adds another layer. In the Old/New Comment to Liber AL III:1, he says Abrahadabra is the reward/formula of Ra-Hoor-Khuit; he connects the god with the Great Work, the balancing of 5 and 6, the Rose and Cross. He glosses Ra as solar, Hoor as warrior/Mars, and Khu as the magical ego of a star, with the inserted i/yod transmuting the name into godhead. [5] That is very Crowley: half Egyptian, half qabalistic engine-room. In Liber V vel Reguli, he compresses Ra-Hoor-Khuit into the formula ShT: Shin as fire, Teth as force, conjoined to express Ra-Hoor-Khuit. He then links this formula with the Aeon, magic, the Sun, the Lion, the Serpent, courage, and sexual love. [6] So practically, Ra-Hoor-Khuit is not merely “war” in the crude military sense; he is force-fire applied through the magical formula of the Aeon. And yes, the war imagery is real. Liber AL III has Ra-Hoor-Khuit speak as a god of war and vengeance, and Crowley’s New Comment interprets this not only literally but mystically: the “god of War and Vengeance” is one who causes people to do their Wills by “Going as Gods do,” instead of checking the course of Nature. [6] That is the key softener: Crowley’s “war” is often cosmological and initiatory before it is political. It is the violence of manifestation itself, the strike of Will through inertia. Not exactly cozy. Very much not chamomile tea. Thus, Ra-Hoor-Khuit is Crowley’s active Horus: the solar-martial, crowned-and-conquering Child of the Aeon, born from the union of Nuit and Hadit, representing the awakened True Will as force, fire, joy, ordeals, and victorious magical action. Some have wondered if Ra-Hoor-Khuit overlaps with Buddhism. Directly, as a named Buddhist figure? No. Crowley does not identify Ra-Hoor-Khuit with Buddha, a Bodhisattva, a Dharmapāla, Heruka, Mahākāla, or any Buddhist deity in the sources I've read. In fact, Liber AL III explicitly includes “the Buddhist” among the old religious forms attacked by the Hawk-headed Lord, and Crowley’s New Comment says roughly that the same criticisms he makes of religion in India apply to Buddhism as practiced. [7] Functionally and technically, yes, there are overlaps — mostly at the levels of meditation, ego-destruction, wrathful enlightened energy, and the transition from silence to action. First, Crowley deeply respected Buddhist method. In Book 4, he says Buddha is the only great religious founder who explains his system thoroughly and is “not dogmatic,” and he calls the Buddhist system the best document for studying mystical attainment. He then reduces prayer and meditation to the same essential act: restraining the mind to a single act, state, or thought. [8] That matters because Ra-Hoor-Khuit’s twin, Hoor-pa-kraat, is the silent interior form; the RHK formula only becomes meaningful after the silent center has been found. Second, Crowley explicitly treats Buddha’s conquest of Mara as a model of magical vow and concentration. In Book 4, he describes Buddha under the Bo-tree taking the oath not to rise until attainment, even when Mara and the temptresses appear; then Crowley says Buddha attacked the ego first. [9] That has a real structural overlap with Ra-Hoor-Khuit: both are “conquering” images, but the real enemy is not merely external. It is inertia, ego, fear, false selfhood, and the old spell of “Because.” Third, Crowley connects his own Egyptian-Thelemic cosmology to Samadhi. In Eight Lectures on Yoga, he says Nuit as Space and Hadit as point-of-view unite and produce Heru-Ra-Ha, combining Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Hoor-pa-kraat, and then says this system corresponds closely to a great state of mind reflecting the experience of Samadhi. [10] That is probably the strongest Crowley-internal bridge to Buddhist and yogic traditions: Ra-Hoor-Khuit is not a Buddhist deity, but the Heru-Ra-Ha formula maps onto states of consciousness that Crowley discusses in the same technical neighborhood as Samadhi. Fourth, there is an overlap with the Bodhisattva / compassionate activity problem, though Crowley handles it in his own acid-soaked way. In his commentary on The Voice of the Silence, Crowley says the Master of the Temple has learned that “Everything is sorrow” and that there is no separate existence; therefore his task is not complete while any fragment of consciousness remains unemancipated from illusion. That is very close to a Mahayana-style logic of non-separate liberation. But Crowley immediately strips it of sentimentalism. For him, the Master acts not because he is “nice,” but because it is his nature/function to do so. [11] That is a very Ra-Hoor-Khuit spin on compassion: not pity, but necessity under Will. Fifth, there is a partial analogy to wrathful Buddhist forms, especially in Tibetan/Vajrayana material — but this is my comparison, not Crowley’s explicit identification. Sacred-texts material on Tibetan Buddhism describes wrathful deities as changed aspects of peaceful deities, and other sacred-texts material describes fierce meditational deity imagery with weapons, blood, skulls, and demon-conquest. [12] That resembles Ra-Hoor-Khuit only in function: terrible form as awakened energy, not evil. But Crowley himself does not say “Ra-Hoor-Khuit is a Buddhist wrathful deity,” so I would treat this as a comparative resonance, not a doctrinal equation. The biggest difference is Nibbana/Nirvana versus Thelemic manifestation. Crowley’s Science and Buddhism treats Buddhist Nibbana/Nirvana as a serious technical problem of cessation, not as a disguised heaven. [13] But in Magick Without Tears, he says Thelemites cannot practically accept a plan that treats perfection as mere absence or cessation; Thelemic Nothing wants to enjoy itself by realizing all possibilities in manifestation. [14] This is the philosophical fork in the road. Buddhist attainment, as Crowley understood it, moves strongly toward cessation, ego-extinction, non-attachment, and release from illusion. Ra-Hoor-Khuit accepts the “Nothing” behind things, but insists that Nothing express itself as force, joy, creation, ordeal, love, and Will. That is why Ra-Hoor-Khuit can sound anti-Buddhist while still using Buddhist machinery. He is not the Buddha; he is more like Crowley’s answer to what comes after the Buddha’s silence: the awakened point rises from the egg and acts. Crowley’s Ra-Hoor-Khuit only makes sense when paired with Hoor-pa-kraat, the silent form. Crowley says the dual character of the god is vital: the Sign of the Enterer must be followed by the Sign of Silence. [15] That is almost a ritual theorem: every projection of force must be rooted in silence; every magical strike must return to stillness. That is where the Buddhist correlation is strongest. Crowley admired Buddhist discipline because it knows how to still the mind, attack ego, and reach the threshold where reason fails. But Ra-Hoor-Khuit is what happens when Crowley refuses to stop at stillness. He wants the silence to become a Word, a child, a sword, a solar act. Ra-Hoor-Khuit is the active face of awakened consciousness in Thelema: the silent Self of Hoor-pa-kraat released into manifestation as solar-martial Will. He overlaps with Buddhist traditions not as a named deity, but as a technical cousin to Buddhist conquest of ego, meditative attainment, and wrathful enlightened activity. The difference is that Buddhism, especially as Crowley frames it, tends toward cessation or release, while Ra-Hoor-Khuit is the ecstatic eruption of Nothing into all possible acts. 93 93/93

@infernalwitch 93 Crowley’s “Holy Ring” is the Adept’s secret magical ring understood as the symbol of Nuit: the closed circumference of infinite possibility, continuity, and initiatory authority. In the 10th Aethyr, it becomes the instrument by which the Adept writes BABALON into the Abyss, sealing dispersion with the formula of totality. That sounds a little grand, but Crowley gives enough internal evidence for it. In The Vision and the Voice, the “Holy Ring” appears at the climax of the Choronzon episode. After the scribe has defended the circle and Choronzon’s manifesting form collapses, Crowley writes: “Then the Seer took the Holy Ring, and wrote the name BABALON, that is victory over Choronzon.” The important thing is that the ring does not merely protect him; it inscribes the victorious name. The ring is the implement that turns the Abyssal crisis into the formula BABALON over Choronzon. [1] Crowley’s clearest technical definition of the Ring is actually in Book 4. He says the Ring had not been described in the earlier magical-weapon section, then defines it directly: “It is the symbol of Nuit, the totality of the possible ways in which he may represent himself and fulfill himself.” That is probably the single most important Crowley passage for understanding the “Holy Ring.” It is not primarily a talisman of one planet, one angel, or one Solomonic authority; it is the circular sign of Nuit as total possibility. [2] That fits Crowley’s metaphysics of Nuit and Hadit. In Liber AL, Hadit says, “In the sphere I am everywhere the centre, as she, the circumference, is nowhere found.” In Liber NU, Crowley glosses this as Nuit = circumference / zero, and Hadit = center / point. So the ring is a miniature, wearable circumference: a small magical image of infinite space, continuity, and the field in which every possible act of Will can appear. [3] This also explains why the Ring is paired with the Wand in Book 4. Crowley says that if the magician holds the Wand in the right hand, the Ring should be on the left, as part of the general magical law of equilibrium. The Wand is the instrument of Will; the Ring is the counterbalancing symbol of Nuit, the total field of possible fulfillment. In plainer terms: Wand = directed Will; Ring = infinite space in which Will is fulfilled. [4] Crowley’s autobiographical retelling in Confessions confirms that the “Holy Ring” in the 10th Aethyr was a concrete magical implement, not merely a visionary metaphor. Describing the same episode, he says he wrote the holy name of BABALON in the sand “with my magical ring.” So “Holy Ring” and “magical ring” appear to refer to the same object in that operation. [5] There is another layer in John St. John. Crowley distinguishes the Ring of an Exempt Adept from a Secret Ring entrusted to him by the Masters. Later, when he symbolically renounces robes, weapons, dignities, and grades, he says he keeps only that Secret Ring, because “from that he cannot part,” and calls it his “Password into the Ritual itself.” This makes the ring not just jewelry and not just a weapon, but an initiatory credential: a sign of continuity with the Masters and with the Great Work itself. [6] So in the 10th Aethyr, the Holy Ring has a very specific job. Choronzon is the demon of the Abyss, and Crowley’s own note defines him as the metaphysical contrary of the whole process of Magick. In the same vision, Choronzon is explicitly associated with dispersion. The ring, as Nuit, represents the opposite principle: not fragmentation, but the all-containing circumference in which fragments are held as possibilities within one continuity. [7] That is why the ring writes BABALON. In Crowley’s later Book of Thoth treatment of BABALON, she receives the blood of the saints into her cup; every thought is destroyed and transformed into pure understanding; she yields herself to everything and thereby becomes mistress of all. That is almost the exact antidote to Choronzon. Choronzon scatters identity into dust; BABALON receives all selfhood, all blood, all thought, and integrates it into Understanding. [11] There is also a strong symbolic resonance in Book of Thoth where Crowley speaks of BABALON’s seven-lettered name as “the Seal upon the Ring.” I would not identify that ring simplistically with the physical Holy Ring of the 10th Aethyr, but it reinforces the same symbolic complex: BABALON, seal, ring, death, tomb, and the mystery of the name written or impressed as magical authority. [12] The Holy Ring is the Adept’s secret ring of Nuit: a portable magical circumference, the sign of infinite continuity and initiatory authority. In the Choronzon working, it functions as the seal by which the Adept inscribes BABALON — the formula of total surrender, Understanding, and integration — against the Abyssal force of dispersion. What it is not, at least from Crowley’s own available writings, is also important. Crowley does not appear to give a clear material recipe for it: no metal, stone, engraving, or construction details comparable to his instructions for the Wand, Cup, Dagger, Pantacle, or Lamp. In fact, Book 4 explicitly notes that the Ring had not been described in that weapon section. That omission feels deliberate: its meaning is not elementary or instrumental in the ordinary sense; it belongs to the higher formula of Nuit and the Adept’s relation to the Masters. [13] [14] Put more poetically but still Crowley-faithfully: the Holy Ring is the circle carried on the body — the Abyss-crossing Adept’s sign that no dispersion can finally escape the body of Nuit. 93 93/93

Hi Bob! Welcome to the journey. To answer your first question: Yes, the Waite-Colman deck is the exact same as the Rider-Waite deck (often called Rider-Waite-Smith or RWS to rightly credit the artist, Pamela Colman Smith). Since your primary interest is Kabbalah, both decks are highly relevant, but Aleister Crowley's Thoth deck is explicitly and deeply coded with Hermetic Qabalah, Hebrew letters, and the Tree of Life pathways. The RWS has these elements too, but they are more hidden behind pictorial scenes. As for buying new vs. used, it's a personal preference. If you buy a used or mass-produced deck, you can make it 'yours' simply by cleansing it (passing it through sage smoke, leaving it under moonlight, or just sleeping with it under your pillow to bond with its energy). It's wonderful that you are using Tarot for structural life-mapping rather than just fortune-telling. Many people do the exact same thing when trying to map out their paths or find your love through personal destiny matrix chart studies, which also bridges the 22 Major Arcana with personal birth grids to understand life lessons and spiritual blueprints.

We do not have a footprint in Europe. There are definitely some Serbians doing Thelema. I know that Serbia is a different place, but a lot closer than LA.

It's impossible to say what any psychopath's True Will might be. I feel the True Will is individual. For example, it's not uncommon for people to think they want or need something, and then work at achieving, obtaining, or manifesting it. But in reality, this desire or need, or the drive to achieve, obtain, or manifest it, came from another person connected to them. Then, this was not the person's True Will. Other than the obvious divergent wiring, I don't see how a psychopath is any different from any other, regarding their True Will. Unless I've misunderstood.

Find our copy here: https://thelema.org/aa/bookofthelaw

That is great. Will you be announcing it's availability on your Facebook page when they are available (which I follow) That way I will purchase it right away.

@aramant I should have some good news for you soon on this topic.

I see, need to keep on searching then. Thank you for the reply in any case!

https://thelema.org/aa/bookofthelaw

I think about this frequently. Jung was highly fascinated by the Nag Hammadi Codex after it was discovered. If you haven't checked it out yet, I highly recommend it. In the Gospel of Thomas (perhaps one of the most popular writings in the Codex), the figure of Christ describes Thelemic ideology well before Crowley's time. So much so that more than a few in my life have argued Thelema is just an updated form of Christianity. The Gospel of Thomas includes descriptions by Christ that we are to discover our own unique connection to divinity, live in relationship to that divinity, and ignore those who claim to know better. Christ calls for a very personal relationship with the divine that does not require one to practice Biblical exegesis, or that strange spell "in Jesus's Name..." that the Church so adamantly grasps to. It is no wonder the Codex was hidden at the onset of Christian imperialism.

As someone who adores Carl Jung, I thought I'd add my own thoughts for the sake of records keeping. In response to the first point, Jung was describing the New Aeon as an age of relativity. In other words, To enter the New Aeon, Jung's writings imply that without any external institutions, traditions, and/or powers for the common folk to fall back on, we are left with empiricism. Crowley seemed to think similarly. If this idea is an interesting one, I highly recommend a book called Quantum Psychology by Robert Anton Wilson. It offers a highly concise and entertaining guide to train the mind to experience as a scientist. It does so by targeting the thing we all use to think, language. In practice, empiricism looks a lot like the Chaos Magick maxim, "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." (My Qabalistic thinking cap says, "Naturally, Nothing IS true, because Nuit describes herself as Nothing!") In regards to the second point, yes, Abraxas, though a solar deity, is a description of the Supernals in my understanding of Jung's work. Abraxas was described by Jung as the ultimate unification of opposites. Abraxas appears to Jung as the Lord of the Light and the Darkness. Abraxas is fundamentally beyond human comprehension because Abraxas transcends reality. If I remember correctly, in Jung's Sermons, he talks about how the average person is incapable of handling the reality that if "God" is all powerful, that means "God" causes all of the problems of the world just as much as all of the goodness in the world. His descriptions of Abraxas are similar to ancient Greek descriptions of Hekate, who both creates and destroys in her wake (many ancient Greeks believed Hekate to be similar to our descriptions of Binah). Jung was highly aware that the transcendent denies all descriptions, because to describe a limitless being would inherently limit it. In that regard, Abraxas is similar to Nuit in that we can't really "talk" about Abraxas. However, even Nuit limits her expressions in the Book of the Law to Joy, and so Abraxas seems to describe the interplay between human rationalism (which was traditionally seen as the Great Father) and chaos (which was traditionally seen as the Great Mother). To further complicate the discussion, Crowley argues that there has been a polarity shift in the New Aeon, to where the Father principle is now Chaos (Therion, the Great Beast), and the Mother principle is structure (Babalon, the Scarlet Woman).

It is Open Source, and none of it is particularly specific to me.

From my POV, Thelema is Pantheistic, which is a form of Monotheism. Considering Thelema with the lens of Spinoza's ethics makes a lot of sense.

@Heg said "Thank you Uni_Verse. I'll try not to build a high expectation but my curiosity is already at the peak of Himalayan Mountains. 93. " Ah ~ ha ! I stands, a bulwark against my exuberance with a command : "NO SPOILERS!" (psst… between Me & You, enjoy ! )

A moment for the spinning globe to slow may be an expression of our collective Will. In modern society people are constantly bombarded with information, rarely, if ever, granted the opportunity or taking it to process. You are only restricted if you resist. In the binding, Straight jacket and gag; I found freedom Closing my eyes To listen