Liber L & self defeating imagery question
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Crowley was very explicitly told to change nothing at all - not even the style of any of the letters - and was only given latitude on the "space marks-marks.""
Minor quibble -- you mean he was given latitude on the punctuation marks ("the stops").
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Yes, you're right. (Cerebral flatulence, there.)
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I am acutely aware that Discussion is the sub-cultural norm in sites such as this one but being a practising, Comment literalist — still the only one, so far as I'm aware — I won't address such material in this thread. And I don't wish to get onto that topic, here, either. I just wish to note why I'm not addressing points relating to the contents and also I must mention it in the context of this topic as I don't count the title as part of the "contents" and so I am free to discuss it. Indeed, I've never seen it claimed, previously, that it was of the contents; but I do hold that every reader has to define the contents, plural, for themselves.
A.C.'s account of the reception of the law has it that he heard the book called "liber l" (phonetically), not "Liber L vel Legis". He just assumed that it meant "Liber L" and so used that version early on; apparently adding the "vel Legis" himself. And there is no evidence, so far as I am aware, that he wrote the title page at the time. It could have been added, along with the doodles, months or years later. His later acceptance of the "AL" interpretation was predicated upon, amongst other considerations, the fact that he had heard it pronounced "el" and the word in Latin — and English — is pronounced "el", just as he had originally heard.
The original word was a widespread Semetic one meaning might/power/god, and it was used as a name of god, or in titles of god, in the OT. See El. It was therefore taken up into Biblical Latin. For instance, though, in the Vulgate, "El" is mostly translated as "Deus", it is used in proper names such as "Bethel"; for instance in Gen 31:13. "Liber El" is therefore a proper (Biblical) Latin phrase but A.C. chose, El knows why, to confuse the issue by using the title of "Liber [Aleph] [Lamed]" and the English transliteration "Liber AL", thus inviting generations of the ignorant to pronounce it "liber eh-el". I have long used simply "Liber El", which disallows that reading. But, of course, that is an interpretation — and there are lots of other l/el words out there, in Latin and elsewhere. One might even use "Liber Deus". But, if one accepts A.C.'s interpretation of the word, the "Liber El" orthography solves all the difficulties, I believe.
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Yes, I understand all of that. Where we seem to differ is that I hold that, once it was written down (let's say, at the end of Rose adding her comments right after), then it is not to be changed, even in "the style of a letter."
There are so many other scholarly (seeming) errors in the Book (let's just start with the rendering of the name Hadit) that, if we were to start looking at "what it should have said" or "how it should have been written," then things get very complicated and troubled.
And this is exactly the sort of change the Book prohibited.
I totally accept Aleph-Lamed, "El," as an esoteric (Qabalistic) interpretation of the title - and perhaps the Qabalistic interpretation of greatest importance. I just don't accept it as the actual title. That requires a change in more than the style of a letter - it requires a change in the actual letters.
PS - One of the ongoing points of debate is (to state it one way) when the "cut off" point was for changes (ignoring punctuation). The best guideline seems to be the vague "OK if it was done in the immediate aftermath, to shore up the original dictation." The obvious example of this wold be Rose's additions. And there is another change, potentially of very great importance, that I begrudgingly accept because it appears to be in the same ink and pen and, though clearly written after the line following it, appears to have been an "immediate aftermath" correction. I speak of III:39, where the words "and thy comment upon this the Book of the Law" are very obviously squeezed in between lines after the ones above and below it were written. It would solve so many nuisance problems if we could justify dropping out those 10 words; but I really can't justify it.
In contrast, "correcting" how the title was written occurred years later.
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@Pattana Gita said
"In some area's he is 'the son of El'."
I thought that was Clark Kent.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
I totally accept Aleph-Lamed, "El," as an esoteric (Qabalistic) interpretation of the title - and perhaps the Qabalistic interpretation of greatest importance. I just don't accept it as the actual title. That requires a change in more than the style of a letter - it requires a change in the actual letters."
Just for the record, I shall note that that official, so to speak, title, "Liber L vel Legis", has been so highly regarded that its translation has virtually never been used. Those who have glossed over the translation — most readers, I suspect — might be interested in the possible permutations.Google Translate's Latin-to-English function gives this:
"Liber L vel Legis" = "Book 50 or Law".
A Google search finds no usage of that.A better translation, one might well say, is that where one takes "Liber L" and "Liber Legis" separately and then recombines the English translations.
"Liber L" = "Book 50" and "Liber Legis" = "Book of the Law".
"Liber L vel Legis" would then be "Book 50 or the Book of the Law".
A Google search finds no usage of that.Or, if one rejects the standard, Latin translation of "L", one gets:
"Book L or the Book of the Law".
A Google search finds 11 instances of that, almost all from early Syllabus papers. That is, it is A.C.'s own literal translation, as in "CCXX Liber L vel Legis (Book L., or The Book of the Law)". Curiously, he, apparently, added a full stop to the "L" in the translation. Perhaps someone with access to first editions might confirm that. I have never seen any attempt to explain what is apparently a suggestion of an abbreviation, in the only literal translation by A.C. of his original, full title that I am aware of.Or, if one interprets the "L" as "El" one would get:
"Book El or the Book of the Law".
A Google search finds no usage of that.Or, if one interprets the "L" as "El" as "Deus" one would get:
"The Book of God or the Book of the Law".
A Google search finds no usage of that.Or, if one uses "AL" one gets:
"Book AL or the Book of the Law".
A Google search finds 3 usages of that.At the very least, no translation of the supposedly-official title has found much, popular favour. The clear, popular winner is the untranslated "Liber AL vel Legis"; with about 129,000 results, Google reports. It is followed by "Liber L vel Legis" with about 22,100 results. Closing fast is "Liber El vel Legis" with 10 results.
So is it the untranslated, Latin title the one which is to be used? Or may one reject — on stylistic grounds if nothing else — a title that gives alternatives within the one, immutable title and use a single title as appropriate?
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It is common, in the Rosicrucian tradition from which the Book arises, to refer to a book by it's initial in Latin. For example, the Fama makes reference to Book T, Book M, and *Book H.,/i] all believed to be initials. (For example, Book M. is thought, from context, to be Liber Mundi.)
So, I always the L. was just for legis. "Liber L." as a primary title (in the Rosicrucian tradition), or (vel) Liber Legis (if spelled out).
So I just call it "Liber L.," "Liber Legis," or "The Book of the Law."
(Of course, if the L is Enochian, then, in the system Crowley used, it is analogous to Cancer and another way of writing the letter Cheth = 418 = the key to all the main mysteries in the Book.)
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@Jim Eshelman said
"So I just call it "Liber L.," "Liber Legis," or "The Book of the Law.""
That is quite a plausible suggestion. It would make the use of the "vel" less awkward. But it begs the question of why the stop was not in the Latin. Was it not a convention used in Latin?And that suggests a further possibility to me. A substantial use of the vel/or, rather than proferring two titles of indeterminate primacy, might be that it is adressing a real alternative. With the "L" as El/God, one might read it as "The Book of God or the Law". That is, it might be read as meaning that it is the book about how god and the law are alternatives. I just mention this as another plausible possibilty, it not having been suggested, so far as I'm aware. I need hardly add that Google finds no relevant uses of that.
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@accipiter astralis said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"So I just call it "Liber L.," "Liber Legis," or "The Book of the Law.""
That is quite a plausible suggestion. It would make the use of the "vel" less awkward. But it begs the question of why the stop was not in the Latin. Was it not a convention used in Latin?"I'd have to go back and look at a good source text on the Fama to see whether it was a convention in that kind of document nomenclature. I'm thinking it wasn't.
But, more to the point, I think it WAS used in the original manuscript. I'm pretty sure the cover of the original manuscript says:
“Liber L. vel Legis.
given from the mouth of Aiwass to the ear of The Beast
on April 8, 9, & 10, 1904 O.S.” -
@Jim Eshelman said
"But, more to the point, I think it WAS used in the original manuscript. I'm pretty sure the cover of the original manuscript says: “Liber L. vel Legis. ...”"
From a copy I see, that appears to be correct. For what it's worth...