Question about numbering Libers

Shunyata

My copy of Liber ararita has a cover page that reads:
LIBER
DCCCXIII
VEL
ARARITA
SUB FIGVRÂ
DLXX

So is this Liber 813 or Liber 570, and if it's Liber 813 then what does "Sub Figura" refer to?

Jim Eshelman

@Almighty Creator said

"My copy of Liber ararita has a cover page that reads:
LIBER
DCCCXIII
VEL
ARARITA
SUB FIGVRÂ
DLXX

So is this Liber 813 or Liber 570, and if it's Liber 813 then what does "Sub Figura" refer to?"

Sub figura means "under the number" - in other words, the book was "written down under the number 570). It's standard in the titles of many A.'.A.'. documents.

Yes, you've found one of this interesting details - that (at least at first) this book appears to have two different numbers. It's usually called Liber 831. But, then, there's that other little detail in the title.

The first level of answer is: Crowley just wrote down what he received. The title is a Qabalistic clue to a mystery.

None of the standard Hebrew entries for 570 speak eloquently concerning this particular document. At best we have KSPYTh, kaspiyth, the Hebrew word for quicksilver (mercury), alluding to how ideas of mind flow together into fusion. But, while a beautiful symbol, it's pretty indirect.

I find my own best answer in the Latin Simplex Qabalah. Crowley didn't know about it at all during his life, as far as I can tell, but its fruits saturated his more inspired works. In Crowley's original training, A.R.A.R.I.T.A. was presented paired with another seven-letter acronym, V.I.T.R.I.O.L. - and, in the Latin Simplex, 570 is the value of the phrase, Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem.

Heru

ShOR Gate; the Door.

A possible reference to Daleth - Venus - Love?

Jim Eshelman

@Her said

"ShOR Gate; the Door.

A possible reference to Daleth - Venus - Love?"

I think (notice this is only an opinion) that this is more likely a Malkuth reference. I might have gone with thinking this an alchemical reference, therefore, if we didn't also have SKL THVR, the particular "consciousness" attributed to Yesod, and MLK, a title of Tiphereth.