Chapter III not very Solar?
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Of the three chapters of Liber Legis, Crowley reportedly had the greatest trouble "assimilating" the third. One possible reason, which has come to the fore in my own reading of this chapter, is that there seems to be a dichotomy between two things:
(1) Ra-Hoor-Khuit is clearly supposed to be a solar deity. The connections between RHK and "solar worship," Tiphareth, and the Holy Guardian Angel have been discussed a lot by Crowley and in these forums. I don't know how important these aspects of Thelema are to the majority of readers out there, but they're certainly important to me.
However,
(2) Chapter III seems to hardly mention the sun or solar attributes of RHK. The chapter contains the word "sun" only once (near the very end, verse 74, and only then as the "sun of midnight"). The word "solar" never appears. If one never knew what RHK's attributes were supposed to be prior to reading Chapter III, one might make a good case for assigning him to blood-red Gevurah rather than to topazy Tiphareth!
(Hmm, the above colors are of course from the Queen Scale. I wonder if the more reddish hues for Tiphareth in the OTHER Scales might be related to this...? These scales were created pre-Thelema, though!)
It's true that the versification from the Stele in III, 38 has lots of solar symbology - indeed it holds the seed of Liber Resh - but that was officially not part of Aiwass' communication on the third day of the writing.
Has this "internal conflict" arisen in anyone else's reading of Chapter III? Is it really a conflict?
Steve
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Good observations, Steve.
I've always thought of him as solar-martial - the coexistence of the two.
RHK is only half of the chapter, of course. He is coexistent with HPK.
I'd count the versicals because they were directed by Aiwass to be included, even if not recited between noon and 1:00 PM on April 10, 1904.
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Abrahadabra - both in it's 5=6 structure and its underlying meaning - is quite Tipheric and fairly solar.
A late chapter transmutation is called for "for beauty’s sake and love’s."
The Tipheric aspect is especially easy to see from v. 61 onward.
But there's no doubting that the body of the chapter is martial.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"I've always thought of him as solar-martial - the coexistence of the two."
Horus "the avenger" often gets the Mars label, yes. I've had trouble "feeling the rightness" of this because the Egyptian Horus never seemed that warlike to me, other than the avenging of the death of Osiris. But one look at an ancient Egyptian zodiac confirms it: Mars is depicted as a hawk-headed Horus, traveling in a bark no less!
So, since we've been talking about astrology earlier, do you know what the Sun and Mars were doing, aspect-wise, between March 20 and April 10, 1904?
By the way Jim, according to my screen, your reply above was your 1000th post! Nice milestone!
Steve
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@Steven Cranmer said
"So, since we've been talking about astrology earlier, do you know what the Sun and Mars were doing, aspect-wise, between March 20 and April 10, 1904?"
Mars was in the constellation Aries, a couple of degrees from conjunct Mercury at the time Liber L. was completed. Probably the most important factor was its conjunction with Crowley's own Neptune, part of the overall impact of probably the most astrologically important hours of his life.
The Liber Legis dictation began 49 hours earlier with Mercury and Mars only 0°03' from exact conjunction in Aries. Mars' conjunction with Crowley's Neptune occurred about halfway between the dictation of the second and third chapters.
And on the day of the completion of the Book, the Sun was exactly opposite Crowley's Sun, the exact opposition being about 12 hours earlier.
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93,
"Mars was in the constellation Aries, a couple of degrees from conjunct Mercury at the time Liber L. was completed. Probably the most important factor was its conjunction with Crowley's own Neptune, part of the overall impact of probably the most astrologically important hours of his life.
The Liber Legis dictation began 49 hours earlier with Mercury and Mars only 0°03' from exact conjunction in Aries. Mars' conjunction with Crowley's Neptune occurred about halfway between the dictation of the second and third chapters. "
At the risk of airing my astrological ignorance, could I ask for a clarification here? I would assume Mars is the motivator, the energizer, as Mercury is the communicator. Neptune here represents ... mysticism? I can't quite grasp why it would be Neptune, as opposed to the Sun (Selfhood) or Uranus (explosive, True-Will-and-then-some type of stuff).
93 93/93,
Edward
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Mars transits to natal Neptune tend to accompany times when one is exposed to extreme negative-dramatic-pleasure fantasy content, such as e.g. watchng horror movies - or being confronted with stuff that terrorizes and sensationalizes the psyche.
Kinda like having Chapters 2 and 3 dictated to one
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JAE 93,
Thanks for the clarification.
The outer three planets (I'm still rooting for Pluto as one) seem to have a very definite, dramatic impact. You were answering a question about Plutonian upheavals the other day, and now Neptune.
In comparison, the inner planets seem to be constantly affecting us, and less dramatically. Is this a misperception? If not, is it so because the inner planets are more to do with personality ( a constant pressure or presence) while the outermost three (and possibly Saturn, and maybe even Jupiter) only come to bear more rarely, but with a correspondingly more massive preponderance of force?
93 93/93,
Edward
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@Edward Mason said
"The outer three planets (I'm still rooting for Pluto as one) seem to have a very definite, dramatic impact... In comparison, the inner planets seem to be constantly affecting us, and less dramatically."
I think that, generally, the impact varies directly with the length of the orbital cycle of the planet. That is, slower planets have impact covering zones of life commensurate with the time between successive aspects of the planet.
For example, Pluto moves from (say) conjunction of a Natal Planet X to square of Natal Planet X over several decades - depending on its (highly variable) speed at the moment, it would be a period of about 35 years to a period of about 70 years IIRC. On the other hand, Mars moves from (say) conjunction with a Natal Planet X to square of Natal Planet X in (on average) less than six months. Therefore the particular aspect dominates a smaller "zone" in the life before it merges into the next cycle.
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JAE, 93,
Makes sense.
I guess what I was trying to pin down was an idea on the lines of: If the outermost planets represent the deeper aspects of consciousness, when they align with the inner planets, then there can be a powerful impingement on deep truths about ourselves within the personality.
Which I think you've more or less stated here.
93 93/93,
Edward