Couple of questions regarding Liber Aleph
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I've read that the Son addressed to in the book can be any aspirant, but I'm sure there's a more complex, deeper 'magical' side to the thing, especially since he referred to him as 777 in particular, so can any one enlighten me on this? Is he the next Beast who will bring 'fresh fever from the skies'? Also, who is Hilarion? I think it would be interesting to look at it through an archetypal lens.
Thanks in advance.
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Be it wisdom or folly, look at it through whatever lenses you have the skill to look at it through and take it for yourself as is. Yes, any aspirant is the "son" addressed in the letters. But also it was originally intended as meant for Frater Achad (Charles Stanford Jones) who Crowley believed was his magical "son" (or heir, or the one begotten not from his loins as prophecied in Liber AL). Hilarion was Crowley's then current "Scarlet Woman" (wife).
My recommendation: Read ALL of Crowley's published writings. You should even be able to locate currently out-of-print material through the various esoteric websites that put text versions of public domain materials. Then, after reading everything, read them again but in the order of the dates you can discover that Crowley wrote them in - so that you will know who all the names refer to in his lifetime and you can watch the evolution of his thinking over time (what he says in his essay attached to Mathers' "Lesser Key" is somewhat less advanced than what he says in Liber Aleph, so be sure not to take anything as "gospel" except for that moment you read it).
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The thing I'm interested in is WHAT was the mechanism or hypothesis that drove at least the Master to believe that this Son was Frater Achad? I read that a correspondence existed when both Master Therion and Soror Hilarion did a ritual (don't have any detailed information about it, most likely a moonchild rite) at the time Frater Achad made the Oath of the Abyss. So I'm just wondering if there are any texts or passages that tries to explain this? Maybe the novel do shed some light but I haven't completed it yet.
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Jones taking the Oath of the Abyss was the necessary push Crowley needed to claim the grade of Magus.
I'll quote One Star In Sight..."No attainment soever is officially recognised by the A∴A∴ unless the immediate inferior of the person in question has been fitted by him to take his place."
By claiming 8=3 at this particular time, Crowley determined that Jones was his magickal son, seeing the Oath as an answer to his unspoken need for an inferior that would succeed him in that grade.
As many of us know, Crowley would later reconsider this designation, in light of certain documents produced by Achad and his apparent mental deterioration, showing a lack of emotional stability in situations such as joining the Catholic Church, or getting naked in a fountain square and invoking while the area was crowded with excessive foot traffic.