ON & IAO
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(Feel free to move this if it is in the wrong section, I wasn't really sure where to put this question.)
Greetings and salutations!
Since I don't have much reference material, I'm not sure where to look online, and this concept is fairly new to me, I thought it a good opportunity to ask the fountains of information here on heruraha.net.
I am looking for the meaning behind the two "words" ON and IAO, in the context that if I were to use them in a meditation, what sort of charge should be beneath each? I know they are acronyms from Qabalistic paths, but I feel there has got to be more to it than that.
I prefer to have a grasp on this before I start working with them.
Thank you for your time!
With Love,
neko -
They're both solar.
The first is an Semitic (Egyptian and Hebrew) name for the Sun. In fact, it's the old Egyptian name for the city the Greeks called Heliopolis, or "Sun-City."
IAO is a Greek-gnostic Divine Name of very high frequency and intensity, especially related to exalted ecstasy. I regard it as solar. (In fact, as Yod Aleph Vav, it's the notariqon, or initials, of the Hebrew Divine Name for Tiphereth.) It especially came to have a relationship to the Dying God formula, but isn't exclusively that - for its inherent virtues, as well as the notariqon mentioned above, I regard it as the most practicable Divine Name for the Sun.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
of course, in the present aeon, the formula "VIAOV" or, depending on your spelling prejudices, "FIAOF" has replaced "IAO."
...according to some schools of thought, anyway. heh.
Love is the law, love under will
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Thanks for the quick replies, it's a start, for sure.
Do you have any more in-depth information on each individual sound or letter and the sequence? No need to spoon feed me if you know of another place online that would cover this, you can just redirect me if that's easier...
No pressure, either.. I'll figure it out on my own eventually if I need to!
Best regards,
neko -
no spoon feeding indeed! Either one of those two particular formulae is a llifetime of study. IAO, in particular, takes on many new layers of meanibg as you move up the Tree.
For example, Magick in Theory & Practice has important stuff scattered throughout. See the IAO chapter & read tbe Scholion to Liber Samekh.
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Excellent, thanks for the lead, Jim. Perhaps a friend has a copy of the book available to borrow.
RifRaf, The mention of "Silence" seems to be particularly appropriate in regards to ON in this task. Your simple description of IAO makes sense as well, in the context of this undertaking in particular. Perhaps more will be revealed with practice! Thank you for the reply.
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My understanding is that Wiaow was Crowley trying to make it add up to 93 and then justifying it.
IAO certainly did mean birth-death-rebirth in the Old Aeon but AFAIC this is now without Light, the meaning of the A now being ecstatic rather than traumatic. In one sense IAO describes practically every magical operation, before, during, after.
And I now prefer my own "mnemonic" - Iris, Aphrodite, Orpheus.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"They're both solar.
The first is an Semitic (Egyptian and Hebrew) name for the Sun. In fact, it's the old Egyptian name for the city the Greeks called Heliopolis, or "Sun-City."
IAO is a Greek-gnostic Divine Name of very high frequency and intensity, especially related to exalted ecstasy. I regard it as solar. (In fact, as Yod Aleph Vav, it's the notariqon, or initials, of the Hebrew Divine Name for Tiphereth.) It especially came to have a relationship to the Dying God formula, but isn't exclusively that - for its inherent virtues, as well as the notariqon mentioned above, I regard it as the most practicable Divine Name for the Sun."
Could you go over how both relate to the Gnostic Mass?
What other Gods do you equate/Assoc. each one with?
Crowley said "The second main point is the completion of the A, babe Bacchus, by the O Pan (Parzival wins the Lance, etc.)". How does Pan complete Bacchus? Could we then call Bacchus the "child" of Pan?