Babalon and Therion
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
After much meditation and further reading, Babalon and Therion seem to be Nuit and Hadit anthtropomorphized in a certain sense. Whether this human semblance is intended to make its impact on the astral, physical, or somewhere else, I leave to the right ingenium of our dear readers.
Simply put, Babalon and Therion come off as specifically "more human" versions Hadit and Nuit, as if they are the active representatives of Nuit and Hadit in dealing with human affairs, carrying out their Will upon the earth.
Come to think of it, Babalon and the Beast seem to take on much more earthly descriptors than their more Cosmic Counterparts in most instances I am aware of. Generally speaking, what do you take from this?
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@Zalthos said
"Simply put, Babalon and Therion come off as specifically "more human" versions Hadit and Nuit, as if they are the active representatives of Nuit and Hadit in dealing with human affairs, carrying out their Will upon the earth."
I would agree with this in a certain context. Especially when considered from a more "cosmological" perspective.
Although, I can also think of how this reduction contains contradictions, too.
In more "practical" dealings, they all relate to the elements -- which are all "earthly" in a manner of speaking. Meaning, they relate to our "elements" as material beings...and Hadit can definitely be considered from a more material POV...
Looking at these correlations in the beginning of Liber V -- there is the juxtaposition of Therion/RHK and Hadit/Babalon (doesn't that seem weird at first?). This may indicate that although it may be tempting to reduce it down to the "ideal/material" analogy, there is more than one POV when considering all of them and their relations. The same goes for the Powers of the Sphinx -- Crowley gives two attributions...
These relations also relate to the planetary energies in the same ritual -- as the ritual is symbolic of the Great Work. The five and the six are combined, as your avatar shows us.
Anyway, I definitely see what you're saying and I've meditated on that same point MANY times -- and I agree that it is that way from one POV.
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@Zalthos said
"After much meditation and further reading, Babalon and Therion seem to be Nuit and Hadit anthtropomorphized in a certain sense."
This is mostly what I mean when I regularly speak about them being "lower octave expressions" of Nuit and Hadit.
In a Tree of Life sense, for example, Nuit may be the Ultimate Mama and Hadit the Ultimate Papa, but they aren't the root mother-father archetypes of Binah and Chokmah. Babalon and Therion do serve that function, though. (Just f'rinstance.)
"Come to think of it, Babalon and the Beast seem to take on much more earthly descriptors than their more Cosmic Counterparts in most instances I am aware of. Generally speaking, what do you take from this?"
I think this is quite insightful.
Below (in another post) I'll add an excerpt from something I'm currently writing about the subject.
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[An excerpt from an introductory chapter of a book currently in progress.]
…Nuit is a mother-goddess and Hadit a father-god. However, they are more abstract than the personal, familial ideas expressed by most parent-gods.
In Thelema, the more accessible parent archetypes are expressed by stepped-down versions of Nuit and Hadit associated with Qabalistic ideas called Binah (the Great Mother) and Chokmah (the Great Father). These “lower octave” expressions are, respectively, Babalon, a synthesis of all mythic ideas of the Divine Feminine (especially as Moon and yoni), and either Chaos (a celestial and phallic idea) or The Beast (a solar and phallic idea).
These deities differ from most people’s relationships to most mother- and father-gods especially in the sense that they are all intensely sexual. Sexuality is usually a prerequisite for parent¬hood; yet, in our culture, there continues to be much resistance to thinking of one’s parents as highly sexual. Babalon, Chaos, and The Beast contribute to dismantling that prejudice. At the very least, Babalon needs to be considered a MILF-goddess.]
Babalon is not mentioned as such in The Book of the Law. She is a Thelemic goddess resembling the Hindu Shakti, incorporating many themes of the planet Venus, and attributed to the sephirah Binah (as an expression of the Divine Feminine in general and the Great Mother in particular). She first appears under this name in Crowley’s visions of the Enochian æthyrs published as The Vision & the Voice. My own book Visions & Voices: Aleister Crowley’s Enochian Visions with Astrological & Qabalistic Commentary, explores her nature extensively. Her name is the Enochian word for “wicked,” resembling the Enochian word babalond meaning “harlot.”
Babalon appears in The Book of the Law only under her title or cognomen, The Scarlet Woman. This associates her unmistakably with The Beast, these being two figures from the Christian Apocalypse of St. John (The Book of Revelations), appearing in The Book of the Law presumably to stun rigid Christian sensibilities.
Crowley associated himself with The Beast, meaning specifically “the beast 666” from Revelations. In Greek, “the great beast” is to mega therion, which enumerates to 666. In number symbolism used in Qabalah, and in other ancient bridgings of math and mysticism, 666 is one of the great numbers attributed to the Sun. The idea of to mega therion, the Great Beast, is therefore inherently solar. Sometimes this is viewed as especially related to the solar sphere on the Tree of Life, called Tiphereth, “Beauty.” As the complement of Babalon, he is attributable on the Tree of Life to Chokmah, “Wisdom,” the Supernal Father or Logos, a more deeply rooted solar idea. (It was in the grade corresponding to Chokmah that Crowley actually took the aspiration name To Mega Therion.)
The Scarlet Woman (a reference to the “woman arrayed in purple and scarlet” from Revelations 17:4) is the feminine complement to The Beast. In fact, “the Scarlet Woman” in Greek is hê kokkinê gynê, which enumerates to 667. She is a lunar-yonic archetype as he is solar-phallic. She is not an individual, but an archetypal consciousness which, like The Beast, serves as an “officer” of the present æon for this planet. Chapter 23 of the present book discusses her further.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"[FOOTNOTE: At the very least, Babalon needs to be considered a MILF-goddess.]"
AGREED This is especially beautiful when we look at their daughter -- The Virgin Universe (excerpt from the 9th Aethyr):
*And the ring of the horizon above her is a company of glorious Archangels with joined hands, that stand and sing: This is the daughter of BABALON the Beautiful, that she hath borne unto the Father of All. And unto all hath she borne her.
This is the Daughter of the King. This is the Virgin of Eternity. This is she that the Holy One hath wrested from the Giant Time, and the prize of them that have overcome Space. This is she that is set upon the Throne of Understanding. Holy, Holy, Holy is her name, not to be spoken among men. For Kore they have called her, and Malkuth, and Betulah, and Persephone.
And the poets have feigned songs about her, and the prophets have spoken vain things, and the young men have dreamed vain dreams; but this is she, that immaculate, the name of whose name may not be spoken. Thought cannot pierce the glory that defendeth her, for thought is smitten dead before her presence. Memory is blank, and in the most ancient books of Magick are neither words to conjure her, nor adorations to praise her. Will bends like a reed in the temptests that sweep the borders of her kingdom, and imagination cannot figure so much as one petal of the lilies whereon she standeth in the lake of crystal, in the sea of glass.
This is she that hath bedecked her hair with seven stars, the seven breaths of God that move and thrill its excellence. And she hath tired her hair with seven combs, whereupon are written the seven secret names of God that are not known even of the Angels, or of the Archangels, or of the Leader of the armies of the Lord.
Holy, Holy, Holy art thou, and blessed be Thy name for ever, unto whom the Aeons are but the pulsings of thy blood.*
Jim, do you have a title of the new book yet? What is the focal point?
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@Frater 639 said
"Jim, do you have a title of the new book yet? What is the focal point?"
I don't remember if I've given out the title, so I won't do it here, k?
It's a collection of 40 chapters or essays spread across 7 topics: Beginners, Magick, Qabalah, Thelema, Sexual Mysteries, Holy Guardian Angel, The Path. Introductory chapters include a general introduction to Thelema per se and to its gods - about 40 pages on that.
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Thanks, Jim! It looks like we're all waiting for it...
Is there an expected date of release?
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Thanks guys. Nothing that "for sure" - we kinda depleted our reserve funds reprinting The Mystical & Magical System of the A.'.A.'. a while back, so I have to do some fund raising or wait for the coffers to regenerate over time. I'd like to have it out some time this summer, though. (I've been keeping people posted on developments on my Facebook fan page.)
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Thanks guys. Nothing that "for sure" - we kinda depleted our reserve funds reprinting The Mystical & Magical System of the A.'.A.'. a while back, so I have to do some fund raising or wait for the coffers to regenerate over time. I'd like to have it out some time this summer, though. (I've been keeping people posted on developments on my Facebook fan page.)"
So you didn't make it all back selling copies of that book then? Then again, what should I expect from Thelema, too many thelemites take after Crowley's financial habits of wasting money.
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@Shadow Self said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Thanks guys. Nothing that "for sure" - we kinda depleted our reserve funds reprinting The Mystical & Magical System of the A.'.A.'. a while back, so I have to do some fund raising or wait for the coffers to regenerate over time. I'd like to have it out some time this summer, though. (I've been keeping people posted on developments on my Facebook fan page.)"So you didn't make it all back selling copies of that book then? Then again, what should I expect from Thelema, too many thelemites take after Crowley's financial habits of wasting money."
Our margin isn't large. A printing of M&MAA will run out in two or three years, and we'll eventually recover that; but it won't be in the next six months. - V&V brought in enough to replenish so M&MAA could be reprinted, etc. We keep rolling over from one to the next, and we've published quite a lot the last few years so the pace caught up with us.
And to give you an idea of where this falls in the marketplace: For an occult book to be in the top 100,000 best selling books on Amazon.com is doing really well. When a book first comes out, we tend to hover in the 40,000-75,000 range for three or four months, and that start weaving between about 100,000 and 1,000,000 rhythmically as things sell. For example, today (right this minute):
Visions & Voices ranks 1,140,997 (I don't think a copy has sold all week)
776 1/2 ranks 247,360 (it had a good week)
The Mystical & Magical System of the A.'.A.'. ranks 513,287 (it had a mediocre week)For comparison, Gunther's book ranks 241,666 (he had a decent week) - his sales and those of M&MAA and 776.5 tend to happen at about the same time (people of similar interests buying a bunch of books at the same time). Book 4, despite its size and cost,remains a good seller and is about 54,000 at the moment. In the publishing community, all of these numbers suck; but within the occult publishing community, they're pretty routine.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
@Jim Eshelman said
"[An excerpt from an introductory chapter of a book currently in progress.]"
Very much looking forward to this. Will it contain much content from your recent talks on such things like the Star principle, and living Thelema as a form Karma Yoga? I would greatly enjoy reading more on those topics.
@Jim Eshelman said
"In Thelema, the more accessible parent archetypes are expressed by stepped-down versions of Nuit and Hadit associated with Qabalistic ideas called Binah (the Great Mother) and Chokmah (the Great Father)."
This is an important point I may be overlooking. So Binah and Chokmah are too far down to be represented by Nuit and Hadit? I recall from one of the Essays on Qabalah that Kether in Ain Soph is one formation of Hadit in the body of Nuit, but I wonder if we need to use the Emanations at all for the most accurate representation.
I think the symbolism works itself out in the veils quite nicely if we take Ain as "Nothing; Nothing is," and Ain Soph as "Negative Existence; Nothing is not." Ain would be Hadit and Ain Soph again would be Nuit. This also leads me to further considerations of Ra-Hoor-Khuit as Tipheret, Hoor-paar-kraat (Harpocrates) as Keter, and Heru-ra-ha as Ain Soph Aur. I am curious if there's any significance to these considerations in light of how the A.'. A.'. Qabalistically understands these things.
Thanks again for sharing so much of your new work with us, Jim!
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@Zalthos said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"[An excerpt from an introductory chapter of a book currently in progress.]"Very much looking forward to this. Will it contain much content from your recent talks on such things like the Star principle, and living Thelema as a form Karma Yoga? I would greatly enjoy reading more on those topics."
There's more than a little of that, yes. I actually took the notes of the NYC talk as the starting outline for working up large parts of the introductory chapters.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"In Thelema, the more accessible parent archetypes are expressed by stepped-down versions of Nuit and Hadit associated with Qabalistic ideas called Binah (the Great Mother) and Chokmah (the Great Father)."This is an important point I may be overlooking. So Binah and Chokmah are too far down to be represented by Nuit and Hadit?"
I would certainly say so. Nuit is 0. Hadit is 1 (a specific 1 out of the infinite possibilities.) 2 and 3 are "lower" ideas than either of these. (Much what you said in the sentences following.)
"I think the symbolism works itself out in the veils quite nicely if we take Ain as "Nothing; Nothing is," and Ain Soph as "Negative Existence; Nothing is not." Ain would be Hadit and Ain Soph again would be Nuit."
That totally loses the core essence of Hadit as a single, nondimensional, unextended, uncharacdterized point. (Which BTW is also the basic idea of Kether.)
Ayin and Ayin Sof are the same thing - just seen with different eyes. Ayin is "nothing" - as if (to drag it down to a physical example) an interior with nothing in it. Ayin Sof is "limitless," i.e., "infinite" - exactly the same space viewed as being composed of an infinite number of nondimensional points. One of these we call "None," and the other we call "All" - and they're the same thing. Neither of them is a single unextended point.
"Thanks again for sharing so much of your new work with us, Jim!"
You're welcome
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
@Jim Eshelman said
"I would certainly say so. Nuit is 0. Hadit is 1 (a specific 1 out of the infinite possibilities.) 2 and 3 are "lower" ideas than either of these. (Much what you said in the sentences following.)
[...]
Ayin and Ayin Sof are the same thing - just seen with different eyes. Ayin is "nothing" - as if (to drag it down to a physical example) an interior with nothing in it. Ayin Sof is "limitless," i.e., "infinite" - exactly the same space viewed as being composed of an infinite number of nondimensional points. One of these we call "None," and the other we call "All" - and they're the same thing. Neither of them is a single unextended point."
This is very helpful. I see what you mean by Ayin and Ayin Sof being two perspectives of the the same thing (that hadn't occurred to me) being represented by Nuit, and how Keter is clearly represented by Hadit. Since I haven't read much (or anything I can recollect off-hand) concerning what is represented Qabalistically by Heru-ra-ha, Hoor-paar-kraat, and Ra-hoor-khuit, I drew my own conclusions. It is obviously beneficial to have a complete picture rather than working with fragments, and, indeed, much of my study feels like grasping in the dark to connect a few dots.
@Jim Eshelman said
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"I think the symbolism works itself out in the veils quite nicely if we take Ain as "Nothing; Nothing is," and Ain Soph as "Negative Existence; Nothing is not." Ain would be Hadit and Ain Soph again would be Nuit."That totally loses the core essence of Hadit as a single, nondimensional, unextended, uncharacdterized point. (Which BTW is also the basic idea of Kether.)"
What can I say: I wouldn't know half of what I do if I was ever afraid of being wrong. I hate to fill up your boards with drivel and terrible ideas, but I like to think I've brought up a few good points from time to time that make for worthwhile reading.
It will be good to have your new work to lay in more basics I might be missing out on. Looking forward to it.
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@Zalthos said
"I wouldn't know half of what I do if I was ever afraid of being wrong."
Here lieth great wisdom
Verily it is written: Thou must open thy mouth a let bad ideas flow out freely. Thus do they stop blocking the fucking hallways for the good ideas that follow. Amen.