College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

@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...

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@accipiter astralis said
"The problem with the assertion of Self as an ethical foundation is the pesky, little fact that, ultimately, it doesn't exist."
It doesn't exist as a thing. It does exist as a relationship."

Meaning that you disagree with this:

@Pattana Gita said

"Even when deluded, asleep, tricked, manipulated, oppressed, etc. all these individuals at the end of the day are their own master. Their life and their bodies and mind belong only to themselves and no-one else. Just because a person cannot see it, or realise it, does not change that quintessential fact."

Women, to follow that view, do not own their own bodies as individuals and to resist being defined by their relations is to pursue a fantasy of selfhood and to indulge a delusion of self-mastery. Along with men, of course.

@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.

@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?

@Pattana Gita said

"Even when deluded, asleep, tricked, manipulated, oppressed, etc. all these individuals at the end of the day are their own master. Their life and their bodies and mind belong only to themselves and no-one else. Just because a person cannot see it, or realise it, does not change that quintessential fact."

The problem with the assertion of Self as an ethical foundation is the pesky, little fact that, ultimately, it doesn't exist. This doctrine, and the essentially-Choronzonic nature of the assertion, is explained much better in L. 418 than I could here.

@Pattana Gita said

"6. Man has the right to learn as he will and make mistakes in the process."

Why Man would bother when He is already a Master, I can't imagine. But those on the path of the falsely-crowned and unconquering child might have some ideas. Of course, they might be mistaken...

@accipiter astralis said

"And what greater and more subtle disciplines must one master before one is ready to distinguish the Quick and the Dead?

@Pattana Gita said

"Could you explain what you mean by that please?"
"

The phrase is Biblical and is explained here: The Quick and the Dead.
There is also this from L. 370, 15: "Nor do thou deceive thyself. It is easy to tell the live force from the dead matter. It is no easier to tell the live snake from the dead snake."
They appear to be different doctrines but I suspect that the Christians merely misunderstood, or deliberately misrepresented, the original doctrine. Their doctrine is that their Jesus is ready to judge both the living and the dead, and so there is no escaping their loathsome judgementalism. However, I think it more plausible that the original doctrine was the same, Ophidian one stated in 370, 15. One has to judge (in the sense of distinguish between) what is life-affirming and what isn't. It is very difficult to tell, in whatever work, the essential character of things, and what path leads to life and what leads to death. Those lying spirits get in the way. But it is curious that the idiomatic use of the phrase has come to be closer to the L. 370 sense than the Biblical phrase it is derived from.

"I disagree. Each man and woman are their own master - forever. And I do expect them to act when the time is right - Kairos! And they will know it. And when the time is not right then enjoy what is there to enjoy in the love of consciousness we are all blessed with and find the time is right for a great many adventures in this world. "

One is reluctant to write that which might give offence to a sincere contributer, but, really, this is one of the sillier things that I've read regarding Thelema.

Is the eight-year-old who loses his temper playing Monopoly, who has little control of his emotions, who is ruled by his own pride, who cannot concede defeat with grace, a Master?

Is a teenage anorexic, who falls into the complex mind-body spiral of that unfortunate condition, a Master? Are such girls not helped by being taught the techniques, that they now are taught, to acheive a greater mastery of her body, emotions and mind?

Are the millions being ensnared by the engineered foods sold by Big Food, and reduced to a state of complacent and compliant obesity, masters of themselves?

And what greater and more subtle disciplines must one master before one is ready to distinguish the Quick and the Dead?

I see several fallacies in your assumptions. One is the "Love all" fallacy, a very common one, it having been the official policy of many slave states, not just Christian ones, up to their present devolvement into secular, welfare states, continuing what is necessary for their survival: the production of nations of fools.

In classical times, the general view of virtue, as I understand it, was that while to be too cruel was a vice, so too was to be too kind. Either was an imbalance that would lead to destruction. Then along came the Christians, peddling to the slaves of a cruel empire a fantasy of Universal Love. Thou Shalt Love All, was the advice, and thou shalt get a nice Christmas present. Or something. Of course, this didn't convince those who ran the states as it cannot work on the problems of state, but it is attractive for slaves who have nothing else; and the rulers then had to manage the situation. It wasn't until Augustine, or the Augustinian texts, whoever wrote or rewrote them, that a sort of working compromise was made between theory and practice. Love all, and do what thou will, except you may wage war only on the enemies of the state and you must do so when we tell you to because it is the will of the Compassionate Lamb of God. It was the responsibility of the prince to issue the licence for war and the bishops of the creed of compassion to give it the stamp of Holy War. And the theologians made a pretty penny pretending to explain it.

Class, therefore, was fundamental to the arrangement. At the bottom could be built false communities based on state necessity, not on genuine love; and the conflicts that genuine love inevitably produces could be suppressed. On the top, the ruling classes had only to pretend to believe, and to help cultivate the fantasy. And, there being a sort of balance in it, it all worked about as well as could be expected.

But it was a lie. If one truly practices universal love, if one inflames oneself in prayer, one finds that to love all is to love nothing. One might cavil and say "nothing in particular" but in practice there is little difference. Love is no longer a guide to action. One must seek a different compass. Similarly, charity is a lie if one takes it to the logical extreme. If all is one, then one is all there is, one is all there ever has been and one is all there ever will be. How can it ever change? And what is the point of trying? So why go on? Oh woe is the lot of man!

The problem is addressed in the prophet's skrying of the fourth aethyr:
“O Night, that givest suck from thy paps to sorcery, and theft, and rape, and gluttony, and murder, and tyranny, and to the nameless Horror, cover us, cover us, cover us from the Rod of Destiny; for Cosmos must come, and the balance be set up where there was no need of balance, because there was no injustice, but only truth. But when the balances are equal, scale matched with scale, then will Chaos return.”
As a mortal creature of a finite space and time, one does not love all in any meaningful sense. As it is also written: She is lone & far. Most people don't know or care what goes on beyond their own, little lives but still find it sufficiently meaningful to go on. And what do we know even of neighbouring solar systems, let alone the vastness of the body of space? One's own world, whatever that is, however big that is, is not the infinite. And living in a limited world, one has what one might call "natural" tendencies. Do you really care for those kittens that the mad cat-lady irresponsibly bred up? And what is the difference between having them killed at the local pound and a five-year-old smashing the neighbour's cat's head in with a hammer because he didn't like it? These are judgements for which there is no certain rule but which experience teaches us how to deal with. And, as the doctrine has it, it is only when the balance in one's finite world is achieved does "Chaos" return.

Meanwhile, imbalance towards the side of compassion inevitably leads to instability. Peace is the mother of war and continually pushing the populace towards false compassion leads to an exhaustion of love and there is inevitably a flip to the opposite. Christian, and other compassion-exploiting societies, therefore lurch from one extreme to the other, from stultifying stagnation to war, as a natural result of their flawed, business model.

Another fallacy in your assumptions is the related "Restricted love" fallacy. You see painful situations in the world and you want them gone. If it was a burr in your shoe there would be no problem. It is small, your arm has the strength to remove it, no-one else is involved and you do it. The pain is gone and the matter is resolved. There is no significant division of will or limitation to your act of responsibility towards the maintainance of your own body. You have removed the misplaced article in your sphere of agency and there is none to say nay.

Similarly, there is a garbage tip on the edge of town with thousands of tons of toxic rubbish that has been irresponsibly dumped by selfish, short-sighted people. Their solution is to tell you that because you love your fellow man, because you have a high sense of responsibility, you should go down there and deal with it. You think that if only the virtuous could join together, like Dumas' Three Musketeers (a sort of solidarity that A.C. admired), the problem could be dealt with. But, of course, one soon finds that most people aren't virtuous fighters, willing to fight together to destroy evil in the land; and, indeed, that very few people are. One has to learn to live with that which one cannot change. As it is written: the Lord hardened pharaoh's heart. One can learn to live with at least some toxin dumps. The world doesn't have to be all woolly and white.

There is an economy of love in the world and to give one's love less than whole-heartedly is to mis-place it. Many are the Lying Spirits who will demand your love, telling you that it is right and proper that they be the beneficiary of your compassion — but if your love for them is limited, it is wrong! And you will pay for it! And those who truly deserve it will miss out! Many are the ways to waste your love but strait is the path towards true balance. And, as it is written, the chief of the Lying Spirits is the mild and compassionate Lamb. It will lead you off the path. It will ruthlessly maul you with its guilt-inducing, toxic, soft, little teeth. Its servants will look at you with their mild, lying eyes and proceed to chew you up in the name of love and kindness and compassion and responsibility. They will spit you out and have the next victim haul your carcass off to the garbage dump. Beware the Lamb, who deceives even the very elect!

It might be apparent by now that I don't believe that A. A. stands for Agony Aunt. Your problems are your own and you must work them out for yourself. However, I will point out, regarding ordeals, that you are not a Master and are not expected to act as one. There are mysteries, such as that of the fourth aethyr, that you cannot understand and one of the mercies of a graded system is that you are not expected to do so. And there are many other responsibilities that it would be only hubris to believe are yours. But, today at least, I believe that it has been my responsibility to point this out to you.

If it makes you feel any better, since the discovery of the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions it has become more likely that the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet originated in Egypt. Still, whether the system was a sort of pidgin Egyptian, or commercial script, or something more from the outset, it might have been invented by either Egyptians or immigrants.

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.

"By the way - you're obviously better at gematria and the hebrew language than I - so I'm just checking - what is the value of hinei (as mentioned in Daniel)? I noticed HNA = 56 and HNI = 65 but I don't know how the word is written."

That seems to be merely a translation of the first word, VARV, "And behold"/"And there was before me", "henei" meaning "behold"/"here is". It doesn't actually occur in the verse, it's apparently just a word presumed to be familiar to the readership of the Orthodox Jewish Bible.

"Are you saying that Crowley didn't publish it in Sepher Sephiroth because the beast/cherubim and their different spinx like qualities as depicted in the Thoth deck each represent a part of magical alchemy that when combined constitutes the lost word?"

No, I wasn't. But that is an interesting line of investigation. The four zodiac signs form a cross with the lion plus human (Leo plus Aquarius) adding to 99 and the bull plus eagle (Taurus plus Scorpio) adding to 56.

@Jim Eshelman said

"You're confusing chayyath (a singular word, spelled ChYTh, just like Cheyth0) with chayoth (a plural word - the plural of chaiah) spelled ChYVTh = 424)."

I'm glad that someone understands it.

ChYVTh in the Englishman's Concordance has five occurrences, four plural and one singular.

ChYTh in the Englishman's Concordance has 33 occurrences, 17 of which are used in a singular sense, "beast"/"living"/etcetera, 14 of which are plural, all "beasts", and 2 of which are collective singular terms: "the company" and "the congregation".

A.C. must have been well aware of this word.

For those unfamiliar with the Biblical background, there is here part of an excellent account of the various beast/creature/animal words used in the OT:

Theological dictionary of the Old Testament

The two main groups are those of the behemah group (from whence comes "behemoth") and those based upon "ChI", "life", which includes "chayyah" and this "chayyath" (as it is spelt in that volume). It is the word used in the Genesis phrase "beast of the field" (Gen 2:19).

(On a technical point, that someone here might be more expert on, the translation there is singular though the word is plural, and is translated as plural elsewhere in Genesis; as in sephira/sephiroth and qlippah/qlippoth. I suspect that it is there used as a collective singular; as in "the fish of the sea", in English.)

That phrase, which A.C. would undoubtedly have already been familiar with, was used in the 2'nd Aethyr of Liber 418:

"His building, let it be a cave for the Beast of the Field. (“His building” means the Vault of the Adepts, and the “Cave” is the Cave of the Mountain of Abiegnus, and the “Beast” is he upon whom BABALON rideth, and the “Field” is the supernal Eden.)"

If that is not obvious enough, there is also this (also much-neglected) passage in the 25'th Aethyr in which is this: "Who is the Beast? Am not I one more than he?". The apparent import is that the number of the Beast is the 418 of Cheth (and Teth, 419, is one greater). If he didn't believe that before that working, he would certainly have taken note afterwards; but he proceeded to keep quiet about it. He did not publish it in Sepher Sepheroth over a year later, in 1912. And, so far as I'm aware, he kept quiet about it for the remainder of his life.

I don't believe that that was because of any psychological resistance to it. On the contrary, I suspect that he believed that it was, for some reason, so important to the work, at that time, that it should remain secret. And I suspect that part of the doctrine that he kept back is that to do with another Biblical use of the word, in "Chayyoth ha Qodesh", what is usually translated as "the Four Holy Living Creatures". It may just as well be translated as "the Four Holy Beasts". They are supposed to be the same as the Cherubim and, of course, A.C. included depictions of them in the Book of Thoth.

They are also mentioned in Sefer Yetziyrah, as may be seen here:

Sefer Yetziyrah - a translation

Also of interest is the name of the mercurial genius given by Liber 231:
"Chiva-abrahadabra-cadaxviii". That, apparently, pairs the chiva/chayyah/beast word with abrahadabra, in a curious fashion.

Regarding the silences A.C. kept regarding 418, I am curious as to why he left chayyoth/chayyath out of the Sepher Sephiroth. That it was one of the first "beast" words used in Genesis and that it adds to 418 and that it is spelt identically to Cheth, as ChITh, would, one would think, have won it a spot. He has ChIVA, the singular form that adds to 25, but left it out. Why?
Also, why is this so little commented upon? Godwin has it listed but who has commented upon this very curious ommission?