A Petition on please-do-not-change-the-book-of-the-law
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@chris S said
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Actually not a coincidence, an inevitability. "I would say it's a necessary stage in the life cycle of a religion. As a delightfully heretical Pentacostal minister I knew once described the life cycle of his churches: "The First Generation has the vision. The Second Generation is taught the vision with the witness of their father's conviction. The Third generation recieves the vision only as words, and so has decide between accepting it as scriptural authority, or seeking a new vision by which to get the revelation first hand again."
In other words, interpretation of scripture has to arise as time changes the context of the original revelation so that it's no longer clear, and as the organizational pressures of the external structure impose their own demands/Wills on the individual needs within it. (And here, I'm speaking of the energetic Will of the organizational entity itself, or egregore, if you want to call it that - it wants to live and grow as much as anything else.) The decision by the OHO of the OTO marks the point where a religious authority feels justified in adjusting the valves...because you're really not just swapping out a letter in the text here. There's many other things going on, not the least of which is the affirmation of religious authority "in the name of the Founder" vs. by the Founder's direct instructions. This allows the organization or religion to make whatever continued updates are necessary to stay viable.
But this distances the external religion from the central Mystery that connects it to the Interior. The Book of the Law proposes a solution to this problem. If you take the view that the original text should be preserved as commanded "for in the chance shape of the letters and their position to one another: in these are mysteries that no Beast shall divine", then the Mystery is extended indefinitely, and each person can work it out themselves based on whatever they receive through working with it. It's not possible or necessary to know what the Prophet meant to say or intended to transmit, because - like the little fairy chick says: "Prophets don't know everything!" And in the Book of the Law, the Prophet is clearly designated the scribe, not the author. Once squabbling over interpretation (literally "what should be there instead of what's actually there") sets in, the primacy of the Mystery and the individual relationship to it are very quickly lost, as is the ability to peacefully "break bread together." (Bread=Word, of course.) Crowley's Plymouth Brethren upbringing would have very empahtically taught him this - no prophetic ability even needed here.
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I just don't understand why this change has to be made. Why this insistence on textual uniformity, when the tradition says there are two versions of the Paraphrase? One version was consistently used in The Book of the Law and sometimes in outside contexts, and the other consistently used in the Paraphrase as a stand-alone poem, and sometimes in outside contexts.
There is one piece of evidence that Crowley once thought of changing "fill me" to "kill me" in CCXX, but he never implemented it. Crowley didn't make it, in any of the printings of CCXX, so why does HB think he should make it? Crowley's example is clear and the conclusion indisputable, I think - he didn't want it, whatever the Windram "K" means.
The explanation for the two versions of the final line of obverse of the stele is that Crowley revised the poem. He didn't make a "mistake" when quoting it in XXXI or the Cairo typescript, this is what the poem said and it was his preferred version when he wrote it in XXXI and had the typescript made. Later he changed it to "kill me" and this is what was used in the printed version of the poem in 1912, in the Great Invocation, and in Liber CXX (Cadaveris).
Why does one version have to be wrong, and the other right? There is no more justification in "correcting" the Paraphrase to read "fill me" (as HB did), than there is to "correct" Liber Legis to read "kill me" (which he is about to do). It is just a case of two variants, used consistently in different contexts.
Historically, "fill me" has priority, both in manuscript and printed forms, in Libers XXXI and CCXX.
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To implications:
It's been so interesting and difficult here, during the course of morphing from Christian/Osirian mystery to that of the New Aeon, to be brought back again and again to the idea that it's all the same Logos-energy and heart under a different primary metaphor.
It's no longer dying to be raised, it's living and pouring out one's life-blood into Babalon's cup. The change in metaphor is the primary emphasis of the New Aeon. Over and over again, it has been emphasized that the spiritual metaphor has to be changed in order for the instruction to be consistent, for the New Aeon to actually represent a change - something really new that departs from Osiris..
Yet this departs from that consistent presentation and places the metaphor of spiritual death and rebirth right there in RHK's chapter.
It honestly has me dumbfounded. It makes all the other emphasis on living and killing seem so pointlessly illusory.
For what did Christ do in knowingly, willfully going to Jerusalem but pour out his life-blood into Babalon's cup? It was a supreme act of Will.
It has me pondering the point of being all these years out of the fellowship and the vocation of my early training and my native spiritual tongue. For what? To serve a smoke and mirrors version of the same old, old story for the instinct-driven and skeptical? For whose sake? No one I come into conract with, that's for sure.
"Aum let it kill me." Ankh-af-khonsu, thou art Jesus the Christ.
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@Sr_MNA said
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@chris S said
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Actually not a coincidence, an inevitability. "I would say it's a necessary stage in the life cycle of a religion. As a delightfully heretical Pentacostal minister I knew once described the life cycle of his churches: "The First Generation has the vision. The Second Generation is taught the vision with the witness of their father's conviction. The Third generation recieves the vision only as words, and so has decide between accepting it as scriptural authority, or seeking a new vision by which to get the revelation first hand again."
"
I agree it's inevitable and necessary that this will happen. Fortunately this time it is not (much of?) a doctrinal issue, just a textual one. That's all that bothers me - the ambiguity, the tension - playful tension even - of the two versions of that line of the poem is getting conformed to a single meaning. HB is trying to drive out "fill me" with "kill me", as if the former is a mistake of Crowley's in the manuscript of XXXI. Previous to the Windram K, it was "kill me" that was wrong and had to be driven out.
I know people on both sides of this, but I must say that those who side with HB all seem to be bound to him by friendship or oaths of loyalty. It is submission to authority or sentiment, not evidence and independent judgment.
I try to prove my neutrality in every post - I have nothing personal in this. It is, you might say, a professional judgment.
In another field, my only true speciality, the history of the Tarot, I am the big bad scholarly consensus. The Tarot is like a Bible to many people, and the mystique of its origins and meanings has to be preserved at any cost. I am on the same side in this debate, where submission to Secret Chief authority takes the place of a decision based on evidence and reason.
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I'm more in a mood today than anything else...
Ultimately... Sides? Really? Do numbers have sides? See 358.
But in the world of words and their divisions, just... let the freakin' Book of the Law be at least* internally* consistent with* itself*.
Too many deals being made...
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@belmurr said
"Historically, "fill me" has priority, both in manuscript and printed forms, in Libers XXXI and CCXX."
Belmurru
There is absolutely no evidence that "fill me" has priority over "kill me." Threefold31 notes the following about The Great Invocation:
TGI – The Great Invocation – A ritual that includes the third and fourth verses from the obverse Stele Versifications, (including the reading "kill me!"), as well as the whole of the versifications from the reverse of the Stele. Composed probably during the 1904 Cairo period, but after Liber L vel Legis was received, as it includes terms unique to that book. This was never published, but appears in galley proofs in the Appendix to CW III. The original manuscript copy is no longer extant.
The aide-memoire "fill me" was written in the margins of Liber 31 following the reception of Liber Legis, possibly a few days afterwards.
The Great Invocation containing "kill me" was probably written during the Cairo Working, but following the reception of Liber Legis.
The above facts demonstrate ZERO evidence that "fill me" has priority over "kill me."
While I seriously do not care if one chooses "fill" over "kill," I do care about the truth. You have tried to continually minimize the impact of Crowley's correction in the margins of Windram's Thelema and to shape the evidence in favor of "fill." But this Windram correction is not an isolated incident that occurred without context. There is a history behind this correction, namely the "longstanding textual uncertainty" over fill/kill. Moreover, it is absurd to claim this "uncertainty" is a manufactured problem on the part of HB. There is ZERO evidence that Crowley meant to generate two readings of the paraphrase. One is tempted to conclude Crowley wanted "fill me" for *Liber Legis *and "kill me" for initiatory ritualistic purposes, but there is no evidence for such interpretation.
It's important to keep in mind that HB 1) has priviledged access to Crowley material and 2) has been deeply involved in editing his writings for decades. Until HB brought it to our attention a month ago, most of us were not even aware of this uncertainty over fill/kill.
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@Bereshith said
"To implications:
It's been so interesting and difficult here, during the course of morphing from Christian/Osirian mystery to that of the New Aeon, to be brought back again and again to the idea that it's all the same Logos-energy and heart under a different primary metaphor.
It's no longer dying to be raised, it's living and pouring out one's life-blood into Babalon's cup. The change in metaphor is the primary emphasis of the New Aeon. Over and over again, it has been emphasized that the spiritual metaphor has to be changed in order for the instruction to be consistent, for the New Aeon to actually represent a change - something really new that departs from Osiris..
Yet this departs from that consistent presentation and places the metaphor of spiritual death and rebirth right there in RHK's chapter.
It honestly has me dumbfounded. It makes all the other emphasis on living and killing seem so pointlessly illusory.
For what did Christ do in knowingly, willfully going to Jerusalem but pour out his life-blood into Babalon's cup? It was a supreme act of Will.
It has me pondering the point of being all these years out of the fellowship and the vocation of my early training and my native spiritual tongue. For what? To serve a smoke and mirrors version of the same old, old story for the instinct-driven and skeptical? For whose sake? No one I come into conract with, that's for sure.
"Aum let it kill me." Ankh-af-khonsu, thou art Jesus the Christ."
Yeah..
The words were inspired as they reflect knowledge, altering the message in some form of seeking reparation speaks from the ego.. so instead of affirming it, it disclaims knowledge and is thus disspiriting.
As Jesus went voluntarily to his bodily death, the message is that this is the ego's last useless journey.. (it is done) ..and that such repetitions are endless until it is voluntarily given up, until this is done.. we are free to crucify ourselves as often as we choose.
By redacting the message, theyve made the pathetic error of clinging to the old rugged cross. -
Rugby. It's rugby at King's Cross.
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@he atlas itch said
"One is tempted to conclude Crowley wanted "fill me" for *Liber Legis *and "kill me" for initiatory ritualistic purposes, but there is no evidence for such interpretation.
"I think there is some evidence for such an interpretation. The Great Invocation is a ritual of identification with Ra-Hoor-Khuit; in sections A-C, the speaker is identified as the "Priest"; the final act of section C says "Aum! Let it kill me!", and he emerges in section D "as God".
The human part, the invoker, is killed in C, and the God takes his place in D.
(It might be that this invocation was used in the Beelzebub working in Boleskine in the summer of 1904, since he describes the purpose of that ritual as "General idea of ceremony to become R.H.K., also to devote oneself to him by a Grand Method; thence directly to vivify Avenger" (Invocation of Hoor, p. 36). Note also the similarity of "Great" and "Grand", and that Crowley experimented with methods from the book, like III,25, which brought beetles as the book said it would.)
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@he atlas itch said
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@belmurr said
"Historically, "fill me" has priority, both in manuscript and printed forms, in Libers XXXI and CCXX."Belmurru
There is absolutely no evidence that "fill me" has priority over "kill me." Threefold31 notes the following about The Great Invocation:
TGI – The Great Invocation – A ritual that includes the third and fourth verses from the obverse Stele Versifications, (including the reading "kill me!"), as well as the whole of the versifications from the reverse of the Stele. Composed probably during the 1904 Cairo period, but after Liber L vel Legis was received, as it includes terms unique to that book. This was never published, but appears in galley proofs in the Appendix to CW III. The original manuscript copy is no longer extant.
The aide-memoire "fill me" was written in the margins of Liber 31 following the reception of Liber Legis, possibly a few days afterwards.
""Fill me" is in the manuscript of 1904; "kill me" does not appear until 1907. It doesn't matter whether the pencil-note was written minutes, hours or days after chapter III was received, it is simply an incontrovertible fact that is has priority over the version of the poem with "kill me".
A supporting fact is the Cairo typescript whose readings survive in the 1907 and 1909 versions of CCXX, which read "fill me". The simplest explanation is that this is what the poem originally said, and that "kill me" is a later version of this line.
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The Great Invocation containing "kill me" was probably written during the Cairo Working, but following the reception of Liber Legis.
"There is no basis for the assertion that the Great Invocation was even "probably" written during the Cairo Working. "ZERO evidence", to use your categorical characterization of the situation. It is possible that it was composed within days after April 10, 1904, but probably is far too strong a position to take on the textual evidence. Read it carefully and see if you can find anything that places it in Cairo before, say, April 20 (presumably, give or take a couple of days, when they left the city).
The Egyptianizing flavour of the text seems to put it in the same general mood or atmosphere, but this atmosphere extended into the summer at Boleskine (where, for instance, he adds "Sekhet!" to the formula "Balasti! Ompehda!"). In other words, while I am content to give it to 1904, I cannot date it with any more accuracy than "before summer 1904".
In any case, whatever conjectures we have about the date of the composition of the Great Invocation, XXXI's "fill me" his indisputable priority. It is simply acknowledging the truth to say that it does.
Even if the manuscript of the poem as Crowley was working on it in the lost Vellum Book turns up, and "kill me" is shown to have priority, it remains that Crowley wrote "fill me" in the manuscript, and let "fill me" survive in every edition of the printed version. It isn't a typo or a mistake, it is a real word, which Crowley could not have just slipped up and written if he had not had it in his mind.
The default position should be that "fill me" is what he meant in 1904, and it should stay in CCXX. Windram's "K" does not prove otherwise, either that "kill me" has priority, or that Crowley made a mistake in 1904. It only proves that Crowley once thought of changing III,37 to the other version of the line.
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The above facts demonstrate ZERO evidence that "fill me" has priority over "kill me."
"No, "fill me" REALLY does have priority (1904 versus 1907).
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Your dates are misleading.
The date of 1907 for The Great Invocation is when the unpublished galleys were printed, not when it was composed. The exact date for Crowley’s composition of The Great Invocation is unknown.
Let’s agree it was sometime in 1904. Or as you suggest “before summer of 1904.” Threefold31 notes The Great Invocation was probably composed during the "Cairo period." There are Egyptian formulas in The Great Invocation. Most notably, the lines "I am Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" from the Egyptian Pert Em Hru. This would date the "kill me" of The Great Invocation far closer to the Cairo Working than your date of "1907".
Similarly, the exact date for the penciled aide-memoire “fill me” in Liber 31 is unknown. It probably followed the reception of Liber Legis, but before Liber 31 was typed up. However, we do not know for certain.
Therefore to make assertions of “1904 versus 1907” imposes belief on to facts.
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@he atlas itch said
"Your dates are misleading.
"No, they're just the facts as facts. You are presenting a misleading account of my argument. Please read it more closely.
I assume you tacitly agree with my defense of your speculation that "kill me" may be a ritual adaptation of the original poem.
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The date of 1907 for The Great Invocation is when the unpublished galleys were printed, not when it was composed. The exact date for Crowley’s composition of The Great Invocation is unknown.
"This is exactly what I have said. We don't know when the Great Invocation was composed. But we cannot say with the same degree of confidence, anywhere near it in fact, when it might have been composed, in contrast to the "fill me" of the manuscript of Liber L.
For "fill me", the period of uncertainty is a few days at most after April 10; for the Great Invocation, the period of uncertainty in which it might have been composed is, at least, several months, and, at most, three years. The last position is unlikely for a number of reasons, but since the text itself is not known before September 1907, there may be a case to be made that the period of uncertainty lasts a couple of years.
"Fill me" in the manuscript of Liber L has priority, both as fact and as reasonable conjecture (when speculating on the date of the composition of the Great Invocation's version of the line).
I don't know how anyone can see it otherwise. Is there someone who holds that both the pencil "fill me" and the Great Invocation's "kill me" were possibly written on the same day? If so, how thoughtless do we have to imagine the composer of the poem to have been? And, if so, which version is "right"?
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Let’s agree it was sometime in 1904. Or as you suggest “before summer of 1904.”
"You did read my argument, then
" Threefold31 notes The Great Invocation was probably composed during the "Cairo period."
"Here RLG seems to be merely restating HB's own estimation of the date: "a ritual entitled “The Great Invocation” that probably dates from the Cairo Working..." (and in any case, this is a highly technical debate, which requires proofs to be offered for every assertion; arguing from authority is a logical fallacy or rhetorical mistake in this kind of argument).
HB offers no proofs for this dating, as there are none to give, which you can see from reading it. Even if "Cairo Working" is taken to extend to about April 20, 1904, there is nothing in the text that places it in Cairo before that date. It could just as easily be a few weeks or months afterward. The degree of uncertainty over the dating of the Great Invocation, and its "kill me", is far greater, several months at least, than that for "fill me", which must be a few days at most.
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There are Egyptian formulas in The Great Invocation. Most notably, the lines "I am Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" from the Egyptian Pert Em Hru. This would date the "kill me" of The Great Invocation far closer to the Cairo Working than your date of "1907".
"I'm happy to have inspired you to look for Egyptian formulae in the Great Invocation. This is why I am happy to put it "before summer 1904", as you noted before.
However, I don't understand how you then go on to characterize my claim as "1907". It is a fact that "kill me" appears for the first time in 1907, and "fill me" in 1904. The best conjecture of a date for "kill me" might be around summer, 1904 - I am the one who just made that dating!If you agreed with my dating at the beginning of your paragraph, why are mischaracterizing it at the end of the same paragraph? It is, quite simply, not a "fact" that the Great Invocation was composed before 1907. It is the best guess, it is my best guess at least, that it was. But even the best guess cannot bring the actual date into any better focus than a few months, whereas "fill me"'s fuzziness is a few days.
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Similarly, the exact date for the penciled aide-memoire “fill me” in Liber 31 is unknown. It probably followed the reception of Liber Legis, but before Liber 31 was typed up. However, we do not know for certain.
"We know with a great deal more certainty, a much smaller window of uncertainty, when "fill me" was written in the manuscript (a few days at most), than the degree of uncertainty hanging over "kill me" (a few months at least). Not all uncertainty is the same, there are greater and lesser degrees of it. Do you disagree, and, if so, why?
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Therefore to make assertions of “1904 versus 1907” imposes belief on to facts."1904 - "fill me"
1907 - "kill me".That's the just the fact of the matter. No belief at all.
Conjecture - educated guesses, argument, not belief - must resolve the dates of composition. For "fill me", it is before the typescript was made in Cairo, that is, within a week or so of April 10. For "kill me", my best guess can only place it within the context of Egyptianizing vocabularly and concepts that would have been foremost on his mind in 1904. That is, within a few months of April, 1904.
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Bloody crikey on a bun.
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If we had a poem or work of art over 100 years old and found out later that something was MEANT to be different, would we change it? Would the fact of this mistake or oversight warrant us to retouch a masterpiece? What if this changed the masterpiece's message, inherent message or beauty that we found within it? I highly doubt one would change Shakespeare if they found out a word should have been different. These mistakes themselves, over time, develop their own veracity.
For those who believe in the dictation, and Awaiz then, as AC mentions, these "mistakes" have worth of their own. What has ultimately ended up printed, and that we ALL know and have accepted and internalized from the Book is Liber Legis. I say that ALL the details one can argue over is a moot point, that for over a 100 years,* Liber Legis* has been using "fill me", and not "kill me". This is totally different than a correction of a misspelled word, capitalization, or verse number. Changing this Book to include "kill" is changing the meaning of the phrase, and what purpose that paraphrase using "fill me" within the book may serve.
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@Jason R said
"If we had a poem or work of art over 100 years old and found out later that something was MEANT to be different, would we change it? Would the fact of this mistake or oversight warrant us to retouch a masterpiece? "
If this were a poem, it wouldn't be an issue. What most people surprisingly know is that poetry is edited all the time. (Publishers edit poetry on roughly the same criteria that they edit prose.)
Of course, if it were, say, Shakespeare, then we'd at least need an unmolested version somewhere.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Jason R said
"If we had a poem or work of art over 100 years old and found out later that something was MEANT to be different, would we change it? Would the fact of this mistake or oversight warrant us to retouch a masterpiece? "If this were a poem, it wouldn't be an issue. What most people surprisingly know is that poetry is edited all the time. (Publishers edit poetry on roughly the same criteria that they edit prose.)
Of course, if it were, say, Shakespeare, then we'd at least need an unmolested version somewhere."
It's a work of art, it's like a poem, and so what if it isn't? It has endured this way, and came down to us through time as it is. My point wasn't that the author COULDN'T, or SHOULDN'T, edit a poem, but that would we CARE, or CHANGE, a poem already published and passed down to us over time? A work of art that has endured and ended up within the public as it is, is what it is. The fact the author INTENDED to edit it, or made a mistake is a moot point at this stage. How much more pertinent is this fact when dealing with literature that is HIGHLY symbolic, and even described as divinely inspired?
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Personally Jason i dont see it as art unless you want to conclude it was created by man or wanted to discuss its beauty.
Its received knowledge, but hang on.. "it's wrong now.. it has to be changed.. lol.It's not that i dont see your point, imagine if it was concluded the Mona Lisa now needs a moustache.. "we are sure thats what Leonardo intended"
