astrology of Liber Legis
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@Michael Staley said
"But given Crowley's vague recall of the circumstances surrounding the reception of Liber AL then perhaps we cannot place absolute reliance on his ascription of them to April 8th, 9th and 10th."
Hm. How disheartening. Can someone save the day and provide good reason for believing that these are the correct dates? Wasn't AC keeping a diary at the time?
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@gmugmble said
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@Michael Staley said
"But given Crowley's vague recall of the circumstances surrounding the reception of Liber AL then perhaps we cannot place absolute reliance on his ascription of them to April 8th, 9th and 10th."Hm. How disheartening. Can someone save the day and provide good reason for believing that these are the correct dates? Wasn't AC keeping a diary at the time?"
One cant place absolute reliance on spurious horoscopes, either, and especially their interpretations... so it seems that its a 'disheartening' endeavor to begin with.
IAO131
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@Aum418 said
"One cant place absolute reliance on spurious horoscopes, either"
I never claimed "absolute reliance" or even tentative reliance -- I said it was an experiment. And in calling my horoscopes "spurious" are you claiming that the calculations are wrong? For each chart I presented I gave the time, place, and method of calculation (i.e., sidereal zodiac, Campanus houses, true nodes); I'm quite confident that my charts are genuine based on these data.
I am amused that you mistakenly wrote cant for can't; you might want to look up the former word in a dictionary. -
In other words, "spurious" was not the best adjective you could have chosen.
chrys333 -
@gmugmble said
"Hm. How disheartening. Can someone save the day and provide good reason for believing that these are the correct dates? Wasn't AC keeping a diary at the time?"
No, he wasn't. He makes clear in The Equinox of the Gods how sparse his notes were for this period, and how vague was his recall.
By the way, the passage I quoted above with the date of "first of April" can only be viewed in the first edition. In the more recent edition, the date in the passage was "corrected" by the editor, without an indication that it had been altered.
Yours in the Belly of the Beast,
Michael.
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@gmugmble said
"Hm. How disheartening. Can someone save the day and provide good reason for believing that these are the correct dates?"
Although I'm not an expert on the various editions of the text in question, I do think there's a lot of evidence that "the 1st of April" deal was a simple typo. According to some folks over at lashtal.com:
(1) The original typescript for the 1936 Equinox of the Gods had "April 7" as that recollection date, not the 1st.
(2) Also, this block of text seems to be adapted from some very similar text in "The Temple of Solomon the King" from the first volume of the Equinox. The corresponding text in TSK apparently also had the April 7 date, too.
Anyway, if the above two facts can be verified, then I think that punches a large hole in the "suppressed April 1" theory.
To find more info on this, go over to lashtal. There are a few unconnected (and meandering) threads over there; it's difficult to point to just one. Google the phrase "first of April" with the keyword site:lashtal.com, and the right ones will pop up.
Steve
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@Steven Cranmer said
"Anyway, if the above two facts can be verified, then I think that punches a large hole in the "suppressed April 1" theory."
There's no "suppressed April 1" theory here - I'm simply drawing attention to an anomaly, and have no difficulty in conceding that elsewhere (even in the same volume) Crowley gives the usual 7th. Given the vagueness of his recall on so many key events in this period, and the construction of his sentences ("it must have been no later than 7th April", etc), it is difficult to be certain about anything.
The date is rendered as "the first of April", making a typo perhaps less likely than if it were "1 April". Neither is there an entry in the errata slips for the 1936 edition and the 1937 reissue.
Yours in perpetual Darkness, inching towards the Light,
Michael.
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@Michael Staley said
"There's no "suppressed April 1" theory here"
Understood, Mick. I'm sorry if I implied you were advocating one. You must have seen, though, that there are folks out there who've taken this into a more conspiracy-laden place. I was trying only to avoid a detour into that territory...
But, back to the main issue, does anyone have access to an original edition of Equinox I number 7? In the online version that I have, Temple of Solomon the King runs from pages 355 to 400. The text in question is on page 386, immediately prior to the pasted sheets. If it's the 7th of April there, that should settle it, I think.
Steve
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@Steven Cranmer said
"But, back to the main issue, does anyone have access to an original edition of Equinox I number 7? In the online version that I have, Temple of Solomon the King runs from pages 355 to 400. The text in question is on page 386, immediately prior to the pasted sheets. If it's the 7th of April there, that should settle it, I think."
I have the first Weiser reprint of The Equinox, and am familiar with 'The Temple of Solomon the King' instalment in volume 7. Although Crowley used it as the basis for his account in The Equinox of the Gods there are some changes, this particular one (the "first of April" instead of "7th of April") amongst them.
Back to the conspiracy debate, there would have been less of this perhaps if there had been a footnote in the more recent edition of The Equinox of the Gods to indicate that a correction had been made. I don't doubt that the correction was made in good faith; it's a matter of editorial judgement after all, and I do sympathise. However, there are always those who will mumble "conspiracy" or "suppression" at the drop of the proverbial hat.
Yours aloft the wings of inspiration,
Michael.
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To expand on my last post, a cursory examination of the account of the reception of The Book of the Law shows that Crowley's recollection of the events of the Cairo Working was unfortunately far from clear. From the account in 'The Temple of Solomon the King' in The Equinox Volume I No. 7, for instance:
Fra. P. never made a thorough record of this period. He seems to have wavered between absolute scepticism in the bad sense, a dislike of the revelation, on the one hand, and real enthusiasm on the other. And the first of these moods would induce him to do things to spoil the effect of the latter. Hence the "blinds" and stupid meaningless cyphers which deface the diary.
And later in the same passage:
And, as if the Gods themselves wished to darken the Pylon, we find that later, when P.'s proud will had been broken, and he wished to make straight the way of the historian, his memory (one of the finest memories in the world) was utterly incompetent to make everything certain.
Again, later in the same passage:
We have one quite unspoiled and authoritative document "The Book of Results," written in one of the small Japanese vellum note-books which he used to carry. Unfortunately, it seems to have been abandoned after five days. What happened between March 23rd and April 8th?
Later in this same account from Equinox 7:
It must have been on the 7th April that W. Commanded P. (now somewhat cowed) to enter the "temple" exactly at 12 o'clock noon on three successive days . . .
This sounds like a "best guess" from Crowley.
The account in The Equinox of the Gods is based on that published in Equinox 7, but the differences are interesting. For instance:
It must have been on the first of April that W. commanded P. (now somewhat cowed) to enter the "temple" exactly at 12 o'clock noon on three successive days, and to write down what he should hear, rising exactly at 1 o'clock.
Further on in this later account, we find:
April 7th. Not later than this date was I ordered to enter the "temple" exactly at noon on the three days following, and write down what I heard during one hour, not more nor less . . .
Note the phrase "not later than this date", and take it in conjunction with the earlier "it must have been". In other words, he wasn't sure. The passage continues with the same impression of haziness of recall:
. . . I imagine that some preparations were made, possibly some precautions against disturbance, possibly some bull's blood burned for incense, or order taken about details of dress or diet; I remember nothing at all, one way or the other. Bull's blood was burnt some time in this sojurn in Cairo; but I forget why or when. I think it was used at the "Invocation of the Sylphs."
To point out this vagueness of Crowley's recall is not to suggest that The Book of the Law is a fabrication or that Crowley was being disingenuous. It is, though, to state the rather obvious, which is that his account is incomplete and full of lacunae.
Best wishes,
Michael.