Do you know the meaning of that verse ?
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It's from Liber Legis, in the first chapter :
- Invoke me under my stars! Love is the law, love under will. Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well! He, my prophet, hath chosen, knowing the law of the fortress, and the great mystery of the House of God. All these old letters of my Book are aright; but [Tzaddi] is not the Star. This also is secret: my prophet shall reveal it to the wise.
More precisely, what do the dove and the serpent symbolize ? In my opinion of beginner in thelemic philosophy, the dove could be judeochristian path whereas the serpent would symbolize gnosis.
That's only my interpretation, but I would be glad if you could explain it to me
Maybe my point of view is wrong, I'm only there to learn. -
There are different opinions. There is no strict doctrinal interpretation, and it may be that the words speak through diverse symbolism.
One interpretation, for example, is that the dove, being the bird of Venus, coincides with that planet, in contrast to the serpent which is martial. There are various conclusions that could be drawn from that, including two or three that come to mind if I assign Venus and Mars to strict genders. ("There are girls, and there boys. Make a good choice! The prophet already chose...")
Another point of view, which I learned from Soror Meral, and which tends to be my preferred, is that the dove, being the traditional "holy ghost" type symbol of the descent of divinity through ecstasy (essentially, that which descends along the Path of Gimel) is divine ecstasy descending and finding expression through orgasm. In contrast, the serpent is the upraising of Hadit's head in the unfurling of kundalini, directing all to Nuit.
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Just a thought (undoubtedly wrong) to add to the confusion:
I'd always puzzled over the way the verse suggests you are supposed to choose one kind of love over the other. However you interpret them, dove and serpent look like a yin-yang complementarity and presumably you'd need both in equal degree. (For example, "Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour" employs both bird and snake equally.) Then it occurred to me that I was trying to look too deeply and that the meaning might be more superficial. If a real dove and a real serpent encountered, I'd bet on the serpent to at least frighten the dove away. Maybe the dove-love is the sort of weak, soft, namby-pamby mercy and pity the book is always condemning, and the serpent love is a stronger, scarier, "Love one another with burning hearts" variety. -
My take on the "law of the fortress" is that...
Well, I see the "love of the serpent" as a Hadit kind of love - self-pleasing but ultimately other-alienating by itself alone. I see the "love of the dove" as a Nuit kind of love - other-pleasing but ultimately self-effacing to the point where nothing of the self remains.
So, my take on the "law of the fortress" is that it requires enough of the "love of the serpent" to sustain and fortify one's selfhood, creating a space (a "fortress" if you will) from which to... to operate in the "love of the dove" without completely losing yourself to it in the process - a "love under will" kind of thing.
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Interesting. It hadn't even occurred to me to comment on that part.
One of those [not necessarily definitively correct but] so obvious as to be taken automatically, I've always taken the "fortress" to refer to Atu XVI, The Tower. I've had different views on what this meant over time, though eventually settled into the fairly simple view that it means the Beast has an inherent understanding of the Mars-force (which is operating here in its two modes), so he's able to make choices.
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@Legis said
"Hadn't thought about it that way.
Do you take "the great mystery of the House of God" to be a Beth reference?"
No. "House of God" is a traditional title of The Tower.
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Perhaps I should mention that Soror Meral took the first word in, "He, my prophet, hath chosen" to be the letter name Hé, and therefore read it (to change syntax for clarity), "My prophet has chosen Hé," as the explanation of the mystery at the end of the verse.
I was never fond of that simply because, at the time that passage was written, he had not chosen it, and would not do so for many years. Nonetheless, it's a view worth entering into the conversation.
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This is a great thread. Thanks all for your contributions!
It got me thinking and then I wanted to share a few things...
@Book of Thoth, Atu XVI said
"Bathed in the effulgence of this Eye (which now assumes even a third sense, that indicated in Atu XV) are the Dove bearing an olive branch and the Serpent: as in the above quotation. The Serpent is portrayed as the Lion-Serpent Xnoubis or Abraxas. These represent the two forms of desire; what Schopenhauer would have called the Will to Live and the Will to Die. They represent the feminine and masculine impulses; the nobility of the latter is possibly based upon recognition of the futility of the former. This is perhaps why the renunciation of love in all the ordinary senses of the word has been so constantly announced as the first step towards initiation. This is an unnecessarily rigid view. This Trump is not the only card in the Pack, nor are the "will to live" and the "will to die" incompatible. This becomes clear as soon as life and death are understood (See Atu XIII) as phases of a single manifestation of energy."
@Book of Thoth Atu XIII said
"The serpent is sacred, Lord of Life and Death, and its method of progression suggests the rhythmical undulation of those twin phases of life which we Call respectively life and death."
He goes on to talk about how the Serpent energy is Martial (Geburah) and how Lust and the Hanged Man are both Paths that are connected to it. Also, note the balance of these two in Adjustment (the other Path connected to Geburah, the one that leads to Tiphareth)...the balanced force leading into the Sun (the enjoyment of Life).
You can even look further to see the reflection in Venus (Netzach) and Atu XIII, which also has the "result" of where this Martial force leads (Atu XIII being ruled by Mars, yet is also a Water sign). It really goes a long way into seeing how Venus and Mars are related in the Ruach.
In the end, it is this life-force that gives birth to the passion in living Life, in all its circumstances: the build up (active - Love), the act of giving up to the beloved (passive - Love), The Lust ends in Death (the completion of that Event), then a rebirth etc.
The Tower in a nutshell. We're all here on planet earth building/tearing down individual Towers into one BIG TOWER...ever show that one, Parfaxitas?
Also compare the Formula of IAO - Which is Chapter V (Book 4, Part III) for a reason. The life and death as every phenomena and how we unite, separate from that phenomena, and what we take away from that Union - "initiation has made him master of the Event by giving him the understanding that whatever happens to him is the execution of this true will"...that Chapter shows the whole formula of Initiation in a nutshell...
For practicality, I like to relate these principles to this lovely chapter (18) from Liber 333, which I think is a positive spin as we go through life dealing with "The Will to Live/Die":
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Each act of man is the twist and double of an hare.
Love and Death are the greyhounds that course him.
God bred the hounds and taketh His pleasure in the sport.
This is the Comedy of Pan, that man should think he hunteth, while those hounds hunt him.
This is the Tragedy of Man when facing Love and Death he turns to bay. He is no more hare, but boar.
There are no other comedies or tragedies.
Cease then to be the mockery of God; in savagery of love and death live thou and die!
Thus shall His laughter be thrilled through with Ecstasy. "