Aleister Crowley's Lost Word.
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@Miss Dara 217 said
"
"And, more generally, dismissing it as having "outlived its usefulness" doesn't alter the issue of honor and Will for those who took the pledge to protect this."Unexamined at the very roots of the issue, that can amount to simple blind obedience, and there's nothing honourable about that. It can even be obstructive."
Obedience is one of the virtues the Masonic system (including O.T.O.) seeks to teach. Blind obedience, of course, isn't enough: examined, mindful obedience would be the goal.
It's not even an issue of obedience per se, though. It's a matter of honor and integrity.
And it's not as if anything of value is being withheld from the rest of the world. Knowing the word, I know its literal meaning and the metaphor it's intended to convey within O.T.O. That information wouldn't be worth more than a passing thought to anyone not dedicating their lives to that particular Mystery system. I know its spelling, and that is only going to be of value to someone who is into literal Qabalistic analysis as a mode of meditation. Withholding these things doesn't deprive the world in general (outside of that fellowship) of anything of substance.
I also how the Word is first communicated, and that (except, perhaps, to future anthropologists) of only significant to the people who received it in that particular way and who have pledged themselves to the safe-keeping of the Word itself and to what it comes to mean.
It may very well be that the greatest magical power it possesses is the deep bonds and connection it forges among those who share it.
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@Miss Dara 217 said
"Why not try studying outside of your own little system, Jim - and try and see the wider importance here is beyond a few self-indulgent hippies in California?"
Your insults on this topic are starting to get tedious.
Off-the-mark insults I can tolerate, but tedium is unforgivable.
PS - The Word of which I write - the 3rd Degree Masonic word to which Crowley was referring in the passages you initially quoted - would only be "something with the potential power to unite the Semites of the near east" if they first entered into (and pledged themselves to) the specific rites that lead up to that Word's revelation. It's one of those "synthetic mysteries" that (like the classic Portal ritiual) is only meaningful and effective for those who have all the parts leading up to it.
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I have no reason whatsoever to believe that the Word of which Crowley wrote is a Mystery Word tracing from ancient times.
But it's the word about which you began this thread in your quoting of Crowley concerning it.
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@kasper81 said
"Dara
shouldn't you be keeping all these ideas to yourself , patenting them,making an ebook and marketing it?"You should offer your Work unto the Uni Verse
Accepting what it gifts in return
Without a Lust of Result@Miss Dara 217 said
"You would have to discover why the word has only 216 letters and not 217 but perhaps there must always be a letter that is silent and unknown? Just speculation on my part, but perhaps further study would shed light on that? "
AUM!
Which is OM! (Thelemic HA)
That is O!
(Silence) -
93 Miss Dara 217,
Jim appears to be telling you that its power derives from the dedication & commitment to the rites that lead up to the Words revelation, i.e. it doesnt have inherent power beyond this.
You appear to be asserting that it has some kind of hidden, innate power whose use is being obstructed by secrecy.
If I have gotten these viewpoints accurately, I agree completely with Jim on this issue and personally find your use of insults and personal attacks to be petty and pointless. You started a thread asking about something and started attacking people who gave answers that didn't cohere with what you wanted to hear. That is not and cannot be a characteristic of an honest seeker of truth.
93 93/93
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@IAO131 said
"You appear to be asserting that it has some kind of hidden, innate power whose use is being obstructed by secrecy.
"I thought to bring attention to this as I feel it is an important point
One I have attempted to get across in various ways
Of the Power in keeping a thing close to the Heart
And not the lips
Maintaining it as a secret for a reason besides keeping it hidden from othersA parallel would be the name of a persons HGA
Calling it out in a public square accomplishes nothing
Should the name be spoken at all?
It may be best to leave it etched upon the Heart,
With Silence upon the lips -
@Miss Dara 217 said
"Why not try studying outside of your own little system, Jim - and try and see the wider importance here is beyond a few self-indulgent hippies in California?"
Personally, I'll admit to self-indulgence...but hippie? That's an out-moded stereotype. We Californians deserve a little more credit. Maybe one day we'll take all our rockstars and bad movies and just lock ourselves away in a closet full of reefer smoke, forcing the world to develop a coherant culture. You'll be forced to depend on Paris and New York, and eventually you'll come to miss our easygoing wit and pretence-free intelligence.
Perhaps you are simply jealous of our climate, well-being, and extant trees.
England nice this time of year?
Alright, enough of that. Carry on.
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@Mephis said
"Perhaps you are simply jealous of our climate, well-being, and extant trees.
"Psh, crappy weather helps build CHARACTER
A Word that needs to be added to the list of lost
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Regarding the silences A.C. kept regarding 418, I am curious as to why he left chayyoth/chayyath out of the Sepher Sephiroth. That it was one of the first "beast" words used in Genesis and that it adds to 418 and that it is spelt identically to Cheth, as ChITh, would, one would think, have won it a spot. He has ChIVA, the singular form that adds to 25, but left it out. Why?
Also, why is this so little commented upon? Godwin has it listed but who has commented upon this very curious ommission? -
I suppose it has gotten so little comment because some of us don't think it's all that big a deal. There are hundreds of other words that could have been added with value.
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A.C. must have been well aware of this word.
For those unfamiliar with the Biblical background, there is here part of an excellent account of the various beast/creature/animal words used in the OT:
Theological dictionary of the Old Testament
The two main groups are those of the behemah group (from whence comes "behemoth") and those based upon "ChI", "life", which includes "chayyah" and this "chayyath" (as it is spelt in that volume). It is the word used in the Genesis phrase "beast of the field" (Gen 2:19).
(On a technical point, that someone here might be more expert on, the translation there is singular though the word is plural, and is translated as plural elsewhere in Genesis; as in sephira/sephiroth and qlippah/qlippoth. I suspect that it is there used as a collective singular; as in "the fish of the sea", in English.)
That phrase, which A.C. would undoubtedly have already been familiar with, was used in the 2'nd Aethyr of Liber 418:
"His building, let it be a cave for the Beast of the Field. (“His building” means the Vault of the Adepts, and the “Cave” is the Cave of the Mountain of Abiegnus, and the “Beast” is he upon whom BABALON rideth, and the “Field” is the supernal Eden.)"
If that is not obvious enough, there is also this (also much-neglected) passage in the 25'th Aethyr in which is this: "Who is the Beast? Am not I one more than he?". The apparent import is that the number of the Beast is the 418 of Cheth (and Teth, 419, is one greater). If he didn't believe that before that working, he would certainly have taken note afterwards; but he proceeded to keep quiet about it. He did not publish it in Sepher Sepheroth over a year later, in 1912. And, so far as I'm aware, he kept quiet about it for the remainder of his life.
I don't believe that that was because of any psychological resistance to it. On the contrary, I suspect that he believed that it was, for some reason, so important to the work, at that time, that it should remain secret. And I suspect that part of the doctrine that he kept back is that to do with another Biblical use of the word, in "Chayyoth ha Qodesh", what is usually translated as "the Four Holy Living Creatures". It may just as well be translated as "the Four Holy Beasts". They are supposed to be the same as the Cherubim and, of course, A.C. included depictions of them in the Book of Thoth.
They are also mentioned in Sefer Yetziyrah, as may be seen here:
Sefer Yetziyrah - a translation
Also of interest is the name of the mercurial genius given by Liber 231:
"Chiva-abrahadabra-cadaxviii". That, apparently, pairs the chiva/chayyah/beast word with abrahadabra, in a curious fashion. -
You're confusing chayyath (a singular word, spelled ChYTh, just like Cheyth0) with chayoth (a plural word - the plural of chaiah) spelled ChYVTh = 424).
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@Jim Eshelman said
"You're confusing chayyath (a singular word, spelled ChYTh, just like Cheyth0) with chayoth (a plural word - the plural of chaiah) spelled ChYVTh = 424)."
I'm glad that someone understands it.
ChYVTh in the Englishman's Concordance has five occurrences, four plural and one singular.
ChYTh in the Englishman's Concordance has 33 occurrences, 17 of which are used in a singular sense, "beast"/"living"/etcetera, 14 of which are plural, all "beasts", and 2 of which are collective singular terms: "the company" and "the congregation".
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"Are you saying that Crowley didn't publish it in Sepher Sephiroth because the beast/cherubim and their different spinx like qualities as depicted in the Thoth deck each represent a part of magical alchemy that when combined constitutes the lost word?"
No, I wasn't. But that is an interesting line of investigation. The four zodiac signs form a cross with the lion plus human (Leo plus Aquarius) adding to 99 and the bull plus eagle (Taurus plus Scorpio) adding to 56.
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"By the way - you're obviously better at gematria and the hebrew language than I - so I'm just checking - what is the value of hinei (as mentioned in Daniel)? I noticed HNA = 56 and HNI = 65 but I don't know how the word is written."
That seems to be merely a translation of the first word, VARV, "And behold"/"And there was before me", "henei" meaning "behold"/"here is". It doesn't actually occur in the verse, it's apparently just a word presumed to be familiar to the readership of the Orthodox Jewish Bible.
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@astralis accipiter said
"No, I wasn't. But that is an interesting line of investigation. The four zodiac signs form a cross with the lion plus human (Leo plus Aquarius) adding to 99 and the bull plus eagle (Taurus plus Scorpio) adding to 56."
Aquarius is Heh, 5. Leo + Heh = 14, Scorpio + Taurus = 56. Altogether, 70 (which, of course, is the secret!).
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@Pattana Gita said
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@astralis accipiter said
"No, I wasn't. But that is an interesting line of investigation. The four zodiac signs form a cross with the lion plus human (Leo plus Aquarius) adding to 99 and the bull plus eagle (Taurus plus Scorpio) adding to 56."Aquarius is Heh, 5. Leo + Heh = 14, Scorpio + Taurus = 56. Altogether, 70 (which, of course, is the secret!)."
Would the ancient Israelites have done that with the Mazzaroth?"
Probably not. Although that might depend on how far back one goes. There is evidence in the Zohar that an older tradition knew the correct attribution and masked it. (The story of the origin of the alphabet sequence quite explicitly says that Tzaddi has a deeper mystery that has to be kept secret. The letter Tzaddi on petitioning for First Letter status is basically told, "Shut up, kid, you're gonna spoil the surprise. Next...!")
Not sure it's important, though, what the ancients would have done if the question is one of what secret Crowley might (or might not) have been keeping.