College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

Jim mentions a possible Theosophical source for the scorpion-snake-eagle triad.

I included circle-triangle-square in my table thinking of a Theosophical document I discovered when exploring meanings of those three symbols in an entirely different context. Unfortunately, I can't find it again! As I remember it had stick figures with circle as head, triangle (point down) as upper body and square as abdomen; the point being that those three aspects of our nature - thinking, emotional and "animal" instinctual - should be brought into an appropriate balance.

If anyone can find that document it may cast light on scorpion-snake-eagle.

OP

Scorpion/Serpent/Eagle is linked, surely, to Platonic and Neo-Platonic archetypes about the levels of the human being. I've been building what was originally a nice-looking table - but this forum software doesn't seem to be very table-friendly (or even tab-friendly)

Mind - Heart - Loins
Eagle - Serpent/Lion - Scorpion
Salt - Mercury - Sulphur
Hermit - Lover - Man of Earth
The - le - ma
Circle - Triangle - Square

The Lion seems to belong in the middle layer because of the Platonic "noble emotions" (courage, etc) and its Thelemic pairing with the Serpent [??]

It's tempting to try putting Nuit, Hadit Ra-Hoor-Khuit in there, but I'm not sure which belongs in which row of the table.

Also (motivated by the outcome of certain BOTA-related meditations) I've been wondering about the possible esoteric symbolism of the Wizard of Oz's Scarecrow/Tin Man/Lion (brain/heart/'nerve')

OP

Yes, I am following the BOTA courses at the moment - one reason why I haven't been here for such a long time; didn't want to muddle the philosophies; but my email let me know this old thread had been revivified.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Alrah said
"*Is this tripartate nature of Scorpio due only to AC, or was it around before he commented on it? *

The tripartate nature of Scorpio (as described to me by a native) was as Scorpian, Eagle and Dove when I first heard it. There was a complicated story attached as to how the Scorpian transforms into the Eagle and then the Dove. It was all to do with the spiritual evolution of the sexual nature. I'll see if I can recall it today for you..."

Geburah has three aspects - Din, Geburah, and Pachad - but if there was anything like this before AC then it would have been in some Theosophical document not known to me. It has never been part of the astrological teachings per se."

For what it's worth, the scorpion, snake, eagle triad is mentioned by Paul Foster Case in his "Tarot Fundamentals" material on Atu XIII. BOTA, I'm sure, wouldn't like to think he got anything from AC

But maybe Crowely influenced Case more than he admits. As I pointed out above (a good while ago!) the Scorpio-Eagle parallel was entrenched in GD symbology.

I'm never sure who got what from whom in occult circles. Though they would disavow any direct debt to Crowley, BOTAns (or my local ones anyway) have a good deal of time for Dion Fortune, who in turn acknowledges her debt to AC.

Maybe it would be worth trying to find a scorpion, snake, eagle reference in Fortune.

OP

@JNV33 said

"

Interesting point. A good book along similar lines is "Magic, Power, Language, Symbol: A Magician's Exploration of Linguistics" by Patrick Dunn."

Thanks for that reference; I will certainly try to find the book.

"Still, there is a difference between the existence of a concept and the existence of a physical object."

The Truth is Out There, eh? (No, Reality is [possibly] out there. The Truth is entirely In Here *).

How do you propose securely tying the existence of a mental and linguistic concept to a "physical object"?

Something like "I know this object exists because you and a number of other people say it exists and when you do, you use language that gives rise to a concept in my mind that is similar to the concept that is in my mind when I actually look at the object I presume to exist. Therefore I assume that when you look at the object an exactly similar concept is in your mind...."

There are so many holes in that that the concept in my mind at the moment is a slice of gruyere cheese (which does not, BTW, exist; I have a piece of gruyere cheese in my fridge and right now I imagine I am slicing it; but the slice does not really exist; though in the next two minutes I can make it exist....)

I'll see what Patrick Dunn has to say.

BTW. when you say "the existence of a concept" and "the existence of a physical object", are you even using the word "existence" in the same sense?

As a famous man once said; it depends on what your definition of 'is' is.

OP

@JNV33 said

"
@Aum418 said
"Not only do black holes exist but they are good metaphors.
"

All kinds of religious superstition can be good metaphor while not literally existing. "

So can many (pehaps all) kinds of science. Does anyone know what "literally [think about that word] exists"? Or are the letters, words and symbols of metaphorical language all we have?

It's just occurred to me that in the immediately post-Liber-Legis era the most commonly understood significance of "purple and green" would have been as the signature colours of the "Suffragette" movement (Women's Social and Political Union, founded October 1903). "Every man and every woman is a star"?

OP

@PatchworkSerpen said

"This thread has been done to death, but:

After discovering a minor proof yesterday evening (MeLeKh = 90 = Tzaddi), I re-read the section of The Book of Thoth on the Emperor trump and found this:

"...It is finally to be observed that the white light which descends upon him [the Emperor] indicates the position of this card in the Tree of Life. His authority is derived from Chokmah, the creative Wisdom, the Word, and is exerted upon Tiphareth, the organized man."

Despite his earlier assertion in this paragraph that Tzaddi refers to the signs of Aries in the zodiac, Crowley now blatantly suggests that it (Tzaddi) leads from Chokmah to Tiphareth, and not from Netzach to Yesod.

and I thought I'd brought this mystery to a close..."

See my post on Page 2 of this thread (or search for it under "HRS") where I - half seriously - made exactly that suggestion, and did a piece of gematria around it that seemed to refer to April 10, the last day of the writing of Liber Legis.

As George Harrison said, "it's been done"; every possible combination of Tarot turmp, Herbrew letter, Tree-of-Life path and Zodiacal sign has been explored and this thread really is dead

But while I'm about it, the apparent fault in the "symmetry" which irks me a little is that with the Justice-Strength [Adjustment-Lust] switch, we have the neatness of yodh and kaph (closed and open hand; still-point [axle?] and wheel) between the "switched" symbols; while between Star and Emperor is a whole crowd of symbols all referring to different things: Moon-Pisces; Sun; Judgement[Aeon]-Fire; World-Saturn; Fool-Air; Magician-Mercury;High Priestess-Moon; Empress-Venus.

There may be only three Zodiacal signs on each loop, but all those planets and elements make it hard to see any overall symmetry.

OP

@PatchworkSerpen said

"How can one do their True Will any more or less effectively if the equation must always be exactly fulfilled?"

Greetings from "across the ditch". Lovely city Melbourne; I don't get there often enough.

Expressions from quantum physics such as “borrowed energy” (in connection with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle) and “virtual particle” occur to me. I’ve no doubt an individual “Star” can divert from his/her True Will for a limited time, but the inertia of the Universe will force (or perhaps rather “gently persuade”) that Star back into the “path of least resistance” (isn’t it called karma?)

OTOH, perhaps the True Will of the Universe is built by the True Wills of each individual considered together; rather as “inertia” can be seen as the net effect of the gravitational fields of every body and particle in the Universe. The fact that inertia is (as far as we know) a universally similar phenomenon does not invalidate the fact that everything exerts its own gravitational pull.

Through the sheer randomness of human nature, the divergence of one Star from its True Will is balanced out by another that is diverging in the “opposite” direction. Rather like driving round a bend on the wrong side of the road and discovering some other idiot coming the opposite way, doing exactly the same thing. Free will, life and the Order of the Universe is preserved.

There are philosophical “world-pictures” that claim Free Will [there’s the adjective no-one’s mentioned yet*] and predestination are not necessarily incompatible. Maybe someone who’s been more deeply into that subject can give a few citations. Broadly, I think the idea is we’re free to choose, but when seen from outside Time the course we do/did/will choose is as it is and cannot be otherwise.

As someone ruefully contemplating a collapsed wall said in my hearing recently: “this has always been going to happen.” I was left wondering whether that statement was profound, utilitarian or totally meaningless**.

Maybe we’ve each got a “soulmate” or a group of them who is/are “quantum entangled” with us, so when we’re “up” they’re “down” and vice-versa. Our "mission" is not just to achieve our own True Will but by doing so to get the other(s) closer to it.

Just a few thoughts.

*As a result of the “Pure Will v True Will” thread a while ago I still have somewhere on my desk a Venn diagram whose circles are labelled P, T and F – but I keep changing it

** I think what he actually meant was: “I have always known this was going to happen”, but in the form it was said it’s still worth pondering.

“The (divine) Fool has said in his heart ‘there is 0 (God)’.” [Psalm 53:1, adapted]

I’ve always liked the cartoon (I saw it on an office wall and have no idea of its provenance) that showed a large group of figures bowing and kneeling to altars featuring images of the figure 0 and the letter N. Someone whose very different costume proclaims him to be a foreigner is tapping one of the crowd on the shoulder and asking “Is nothing sacred?”

Good question.

OP

@Law said

"Since, I dont know how long, maybe 2 months or so, i have repeatedley been haunted by the number 333, multiple times on various clocks and watches that I have come across."

My wife's answer to this: "stop waking up so ___ early!" (and get yourself a 24-hour clock/watch, so 3:33 pm doesn't bother you).

I get these odd sightings of numbers too, particularly 333 (and 418; I paid a bill for $418 only the other day; OTOH, I saw that exits on the motorway the next day were counting down 421, 420..I kept a watch to see where exit 418 went...and I missed it!)

There's another whole little obsession in there; what numbers do I never see, and why are they avoiding me?

I have even seen the likeness of a demonic face in 3:33 sideways (as I'm lying down at that time of the morning). It's a crown, a pair of eyes (with the dots) and a set of teeth. Authority; observation/ surveillance and the ability to punish (as when we say "this law should have teeth").

Well, what do you expect at 3:33 am. when people with a care for their health should be asleep (creatively and lucidly dreaming)?

We have a local pizza company that calls itself Hell. Black livery and a phone number with 666 in it (and 111, which makes me wonder if their founders really do have Qabalistic leanings). On their menu, 333 is a half-size pizza ("for the little Beasts in your family") Oh the trivialisation of a great and powerful number.

I think I agree with Mrs Robert Anton Wilson, who told RAW "you're just noticing the 23s and ignoring all the other numbers!"

Anent which, I was watching the DVD supplements to the movie "The Number 23" and their "expert numerologist" displayed a version of the Tree of Life that not only lacked the Qoph and Shin paths and inserted paths from Binah-Chesed and Chokmah-Geburah like the Lurianic Tree, but also appeared to be lacking some of the horizontal paths. Is that yet another variant - or just someone's mis-transcription that no-one bothered to correct?

In any case, a new reading of John Dee's diaries by an expert in Elizabethan handwriting suggests it's always been "Choronzom" (323). Back to the drawing board? Or worth about as much as the "revelation" that Hadit wasn't a 'real" Egyptian name?

OP

@Tony said

"It seems to me that there were periods of time when Kelly was deceiving Dee and that there were times when it appears that a valid communication is taking place.

I don't know if the wife swap communication was one or the other but I bet Kelly had a great deal more interest in swapping wives than Dee or the Angels did "

Perhaps it was God like telling Abraham to sacrifice his son; it was a genuine communication, but Dee was being "tested" and was supposed to resist the temptation

In his position and from accounts of Kelley's character, I would have been very wary of anything that didn't have unimpeachable evidence of "praeterhuman" origins. At least I hope I would have.

From the account in in Benjamin Woolley's biogreaphy, Dee seems to have been rather credulous at times.

OP

Who drew it? (I assume Crowley did; no-one seems to suggest differently)

When did he draw it? The original edition of The Equinox where it was first published c1912 apparently did not have the grid on the page (though the Weiser reprint of that edition does).

What was the basis of the decision to draw a grid of 10 rows and eight columns (lettered a-h) rather than any other number?

I ask this because some of the "analysis" of the riddles and ciphers in AL seems to be predicated on the form of the grid, the squares that the "line drawn" crosses, etc.

Does this really signify? Is the grid considered to form part of "the original in the writing of the Beast" (AL 3:47) and partake in its "Class A-ness"? If so, why?

Why should we not try an alternative grid of, say 11 x 11 or some more significant number? Or try to figure out the "keys" independently of the grid?

OP

@PatchworkSerpen said

" Thanks for the heads up - one more thing:
With his 'double loop' diagram (page 11, The Book of Thoth), Crowley asserts that the original Lust-Adjustment swap is balanced by the new Emperor-Star swap. It seems though that the former 'disrupts' the sequence of astrological signs and hebrew letters only as far as the order of the Tarot is concerned (retaining the internal consistancy of the hebrew letter/astrological attribution), whereas the latter swap does not change the order of the Tarot but does in fact 'disrupt' the hebrew letter/astrological attribution.
How can these be considered to balance each other when the nature of the swap itself is different in each case?
All of the other arguments as to why they ought to be swapped make perfect sense to me, but this minor point prevents me from accepting the notion wholeheartedly.
93, 93/93 "

The diagram on BoT P11 represents what I call the "Old Crowley" ordering, where he put the Emperor with Tzaddi and the Star with Heh, but balked at exchanging the Zodiac signs.

Even this has a kind of symmetry, albeit, that as you say "the nature of the swap is different" at the two ends.

http://www.lashtal.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14483/normal_Crowley_Tarot_1.jpg

When he made up his mind that the Emperor had to be Aquarius and the Star Aries, he produced a "New Crowley" pattern that looks more symmetrical.

http://www.lashtal.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14483/normal_Crowley_Tarot_2.jpg

The diagrams were made by me some time in the 1980s, when trying to sort all this out for myself.

Hope the "full-colour" presentation is useful.

OP

@Nudor said

"If one has already embraced Thelema, read and studied beyond the required student syllabus books, and is working with the Thoth tarot yet is too far from a TOT and the only resort to training and serious practice is the BOTA outer order, do you recommend taking this path knowing certain things like attributions of certain Tarot cards are wrong."

This kind of “speaks to my condition”, as the Quakers say. Although I have not “embraced Thelema” nor studied it as deeply as you, I want to continue exploring its ideas and enjoy the discussion here. At the same time, I am hungry for “live” contact with people of a seriously esoteric turn of mind.

Reading the discussion of BOTA here, I explored pertinent websites and was pleased to discover a BOTA temple within an hour of where I live. I gather a New Zealander back in the 1960s, having been involved with the GD, made contact with PFC’s heir, Ann Davies. She visited New Zealand about 1965 and approved the setting up of a local chapter.

They naturally asked me how I’d discovered BOTA and I said I knew the name and a bit of basic information from long ago, but had most recently seen it discussed in “an online forum”. This week one of them put me on the spot and asked “which forum?” I said “you’ll probably tell me to wash my mouth out, but they’re Thelemites.” I got a distinctly frosty reaction and was advised that it would be better not to talk about it with BOTAns [?] present

Nevertheless there’s a lot of “common ground” between me and them and it’s refreshing to attend their services. I haven’t made it to one of their Tuesday Ann Davies lecture series yet; other things keep interfering. Maybe there is a higher influence trying to keep me away (or testing my resolve)

The sermon at the first service I attended happened to be on the subject of Abel [Havel] and was illustrated, naturally, by the Tarot “keys” Heh (V, Emperor), Beth (I, Magician) and Lamedh (XI, Justice). The differences couldn’t have been accented more immediately if they’d deliberately planned it!

I’m also a little disoriented by their invoking the Archangels of the four quarters on a Northern Hemisphere pattern; as I said in a discussion here on Liber Resh, I feel more comfortable with Fire and Michael in the North.

For the present, I can, for the sake of the congenial and mind-stretching discussion, indulge in a little “doublethink”; at least I think I can. Maybe I am just a dabbler I’d better settle to one Path soon, or it may be too late for my present incarnation.

"Also, I've seen mentioned BOTA and the "Age of Aquarius" so I understand they have not accepted the Age of Horus… "

Did Horus supplant Aquarius? I see the successions Osiris -> Horus and Pisces -> Aquarius as two different things.

One odd seeming link between Thelema and BOTA nags at me:
In AL II,7:Hadit says: "I am the Axle of the Wheel and the Cube in the Circle"

http://www.2000biz.com/pfc/images/botacube.gif

The way the circle is drawn here, it’s very reminiscent of the Waite/PFC Wheel [Atu X]; “BOTA” is not far from “ROTA” [2/200], Sulphur, Salt and Mercury are in both figures, and there is the Cube as I have always imagined it from the Hadit verse, with its longest diagonal as the “axle”.

It’s unlikely that PFC (or whoever devised that badge) was citing AL, and the reverse is chronologically impossible. Were they both drawing on some older cube-in-circle/wheel tradition?

OP

@Oliver P said

"
@Frater MDC said
"Your opening post reminds me of a point I was pondering some time back. What prompted it was this observation:

The Pyramids in Egypt are arrayed according to the constellation of Orion, so is there a relationship between the pyramid as a geomtric shape and the concept of a "Star?""

I've been thinking of exactly that relationship.

Considering the evident allusion of my dream to Grant's two pentagrams, I tried to "map" the pyramid onto the pentagram. My first instinct was simply to "push down" the top horizontal (Air-Water) edge of the pentagram to become the "back" edge of the pyramid's square base. That means the Earth-Water and Fire-Air edges become two diagonals on the base, which are not edges of the pyramid.

Alternatively, you could "switch" the back vertices
All the pentagram edges become pyramid edges..."

On reflection, I think the first version, using the diagonals is better; the other is too gross a distorition of the pentagram.

So the pyramid gives you four pentagrams (as in a banishing ritual). Each slope edge of the pyramid is used twice (eg the North-Western edge is part of the North and the West pentagram). The Western base edge is part of the East pentagram, etc and the two base diagonals are part of all four pentagrams.

4 slope edges used twice = 8
4 base edges used once = 4
2 base diagonals used four times = 8. Total 20 edges for four pentagrams.

The act of tracing the pentagrams ritually would be an interestingly athletic or choreographic exercise, but you can do it unicursally

As I say, above, maybe useful; maybe just a mathematical game.

OP

@Frater MDC said

"Your opening post reminds me of a point I was pondering some time back. What prompted it was this observation:

The Pyramids in Egypt are arrayed according to the constellation of Orion, so is there a relationship between the pyramid as a geomtric shape and the concept of a "Star?""

I've been thinking of exactly that relationship.

Considering the evident allusion of my dream to Grant's two pentagrams, I tried to "map" the pyramid onto the pentagram. My first instinct was simply to "push down" the top horizontal (Air-Water) edge of the pentagram to become the "back" edge of the pyramid's square base. That means the Earth-Water and Fire-Air edges become two diagonals on the base, which are not edges of the pyramid.

Alternatively, you could "switch" the back vertices so you have

back-left-water
back-right-air
front-left-earth
front-right-fire
and, of course - top vertex of pyramid - spirit

All the pentagram edges become pyramid edges, and the two are, as mathematicians would say, "topologically equivalent". but you lose the idea of the edges crossing one another, which seems crucial to the pentagram.

I'm not sure if this is a useful idea or not.

"*Edit: Baring in mind that two pyramids with their bases joined has 8 planes, vertices aside and that the Star is often depicted with 8 points. Bit of a dicotomy but there you have it."

I've been intrigued by the fact that the "Star of Bethlehem" is often shown as eight-pointed and have thought it may be an allusion to the Mercurial (Hermetic?) nature of Jesus, which seems to lurk behind the more obvious solar attributions.*

However, it may be that to today's artists a "solar" star looks too much like the Star of David. And the five-pointed star is altogether too "witchy" So perhaps modern artists representing stars just plumped for eight points as something that didn't have existing associations.

Of course many Christmas-card designers like to use eight points so they can elongate four of them and allude to the shadow of the Cross.

I did some drawings towards a painting that has never been executed on a loosely Thelemic theme, featuring dove, serpent and star, and I unhesitatingly drew the star with eight points because of the relationship with Hadit, whose symbolism is full of that number.

Now I will go away and try to map the unicursal eight-pointed star onto the regular octahedron (your "two pyramids with their bases joined") or, better, onto the cube (eight vertices) which is the octahedron's "dual" (it has vertices at the centre of the octahedron's faces and vice-versa). A mathematical rather than a magic[k]al exercise, I suspect; but you never know.

OP

*There's a local (New Zealand) artist called Julia Morison, some of whose work plays on the theme of Hermes as "messenger of the gods" and thereby related to the idea of the divine/human avatar, eg Jesus. Coincidentally (perhaps!) as part of that theme she also plays with the inversion God/dog (cf AL 2:19) The most direct allusion is in a painting called "dog deifier/ reified God" executed in gold leaf and powdered dog excrement (no, it doesn't smell). Unfortunately, I can't find a web reproduction of it.
<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz/Collection/Infosheets/98_61.pdf">www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz/Colle ... /98_61.pdf</a><!-- w --> is a start, if you're interested.

@phoinix93 said

"What was his take on Jung?

I think I remember reading somewhere that he was opposed to the idea of the Pleroma but I'm not 100% on that."

Crowley and Jung both, apparently, had reservations about the concept. Jung wrote in Answer to Job (1952) that the pleroma is "nothing and everything. It is quite fruitless to think about pleroma. Therein both thinking and being cease, since the eternal and infinite possess no qualities."

And Crowley, in his comment to AL 1:8, said: "Why are we told that the Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs? Did we then suppose the converse? I think that we are warned against the idea of a Pleroma, a flame of which we are Sparks, and to which we return when we 'attain'. That would indeed be to make the whole curse of separate existence ridiculous, a senseless and inexcusable folly."

OP

@Metzareph said

"Jim, can you expound on the Lurianic Tree? I'm not familiar with it."

We discussed it before, at:

www.heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?t=2802

At the time I gave two pointers to illustrations of it on the web.

Basically it adds two diagonal paths Binah-Chesed and Chokmah-Geburah (through Da'ath) and omits the paths from Netsach and Hod to Malkuth. The lettering of the paths is re-sorted so the three "mother" letters, 'aleph, mem and shin, correspond to the three horizontal paths; the seven double letters to the seven vertical paths (in the three pillars) and the twelve simple letters to the diagonal paths.

Jim expressed his view at the time and for what it's worth, I agree; the fit (at least at a superficial level) is too neat to be anything but artificial

This seems to be the version of the Tree promoted by The Kabbalah Center (<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.kabbalah.com">www.kabbalah.com</a><!-- w -->) which, with its most famous adherent, Madonna, has been responsible for a popular/populist resurgence of interest in Kabbalah-with-a-K (which some like to distinguish from Qabalah-with-a-Qoph)*.

OP

• rather off-topic but I was playing with <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.googlefight.com">www.googlefight.com</a><!-- w --> the other day, and one of my "contests" was to rate Kabbalah against Qabalah and Cabbala. K won hands down.

@sethur said

"OK, I think that the terms can be best defined by their opposites. False Will and Diluted Will."

Better, perhaps, False Will and POLluted or "adulterated" Will.

We see frequently people doing the strangest things which (as far as we can pronounce on the question) do not seem to be part of their True Will, at least we can say the acts are "not in their long-term interest", but they're doing it from a sense of "pure will" - "because I wanted to", "just for the Hell of it", "it was the right thing to do", "it seemed like a good idea at the time". There may, indeed, be external conditioning coming into play (what I learned in Sunday School, the amount of alcohol I'd drunk) but the Will is still in a sense "pure will" in that it does not "cry why, invoking because"; it is not consciously weighing up the influences on it; in many cases, it doe not have a particular "lust of result". In those senses, it is "pure" but it is not necessarily in the direction of the True Will.

I'm doubtful about that argument, I must admit; it's difficult for me to see such acts being validly described as "perfect".

More clearly, you can do your True Will from "impure" or "adulterated" motives. Cultivating fitness of my body may be part of my True Will; but I may run this race with "lust of result" - I want to beat a rival, I want to impress someone on the sidelines.

GuruGeorge in his exhaustive list of definitions, mentions a pure (as opposed to "discordant") musical tone. I'm sure most of us have experienced the phenomenon of resonance; the chord (or discord) you sound may be complex, containing a range of pitches (frequencies), but an object in the room "rings" with a pure tone in symnpathy with one particular note of that chord - a note which most human ears might not even identify.

We can compare that resonant frequency to the True Will. It can be furthered by one element among an impure mess of motives.

So "True Will" may not be "Pure"; and "pure will", in the sense of having no consciously conceived motive, may not be True.

As I see it, "True" is a description of a long-term direction or aim; "Pure" describes what you do from moment to moment; the individual decision you make in the next minute.

When thinking of Pure Will, I call to mind Julius Caesar (according to Shakespeare). Asked for some "cause" for refusing to come to the Forum on the Ides of March, he says "the cause is in my will; I will not come" and earlier "cannot is false and that I dare not falser". But the Senators heavy him with "becauses", finally holding out a bribe of a crown to be offered him, and he capitulates.

We can see what his "pure will" was; but which was his True Will - to go to the Forum and be assassinated, or not to go? Not a simple question; Pure Will and True Will are not completely coincident, often not even roughly so.

That's my take on it, anyway. I'm open, of course, to criticism and other views.

OP

@Aspirant93 said

"...One of my other tattoos I just think is fantastic and has spiritual significance to me is this:
www.flickr.com/photos/34398959@N06/3198314242

It's color original can be found by image searching "eye of horus" on google and it has several different versions of the piece.

Good to have Horus watching your back hehe."

This is the best I've seen, from Tutankhamen's tomb:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/2912402034_ee2b6617d7.jpg

I saw it in the Cairo Museum many years ago, and had a distinctly Crowley moment when I noticed the exhibit bore the number 222 [from memory this was the numbering of a specific section of artefacts from Tutankhamun's tomb, not the general permanent numbering system of all the museum's exhibits].

At the time I was attracted to a young woman back home in the UK, whom I was trying to interest in things magic[k]al and whose name I had counted (in Hebrew transliteration) as that number*.

When I later saw a reproduction I almost bought it to give to her; but I thought there was a good chance she wouldn't be as impressed as I was, so I let the opportunity go -especially as it was quite expensive and the shopkeeper would not be bargained with

I still sometimes wish I'd bought it for myself; it was a rare good piece; most Egyptian "souvenirs" of the time were a bit rough; maybe something to do with most of the present inhabitants of Egypt not being genetically or culturally "connected" with the Ancient Egyptians.

When I Go-ogled [went ogling?] for a picture of this piece I saw a lot of shoddy and insensitive modern jewellery on the "Eye of Horus" theme; it's a shame.

To bring things back on topic, what works of art (other than those specifically designed for the purpose by Thelemites) have inspired you in a Thelemic way?

I used to lie on the thoughtfully provided couches under the British Museum reproduction of the Nu(i)]t ceiling in the Temple of Denderah and slip easily into a meditative state - and this was before I'd read Liber Legis at all seriously.

Is "Stele 666" still in one of the Cairo museums, and does it still bear that number?

BTW, a technical "spolier" point. It's up to Aspirant93 to decide who's watching his back; after all, it's his tattoo; but I think on the original pendants that's Nekhebet, the vulture goddess of Upper Egypt (counterpart to Wadjet, the cobra goddess of Lower Egypt, at the front).

Aspirant93's tattoo does make the figure look rather more Horus-like; it doesn't have the distinctive scrawny vulture neck.

OP

*Her life seemed full of 2s and when I did a Tarot reading for her, and considered an appropriate personal significator, Waite's Two of Swords impressed itself on me as the right choice; I think it's the only time I ever didn't use a Court card to represent the querent.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Modes said
"But why is the septagram point down? What does it mean i.e. point down? I didn't find an answer in GD polygons paper."

No, you don't.

One such geometrics, a convention arose at some point in time whereby a single point upright gives a masculine characteristic to the figure, and two points upright gives a feminine turn. (Yes, it's "his one thing sticking up" vs. "her legs in the air.")

This didn't start with Crowley - notice the chief symbol of the Order of the Eastern Star which is what most would call an "averse pentagram," but which this Bible-based women's auxiliary surely doesn't regard as a demonic symbol. It's just one way to express the female version."

I've often been vaguely worried by the use of the "averse pentagram" by a number of police forces. Thanks for the reassurance, Jim. I'm not sure cops I know would take kindly to the idea that it's a "feminine" symbol.

"Police! Legs in the air!"

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/3653/victorianpolicewf7.jpg

"It's not the ears; the goat is obviously wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat. It suits him" - friend of my daughter (I wish I still had her drawing of it).

http://z.about.com/d/altreligion/1/0/Y/J/1/wirthsigil.jpg

OP

@Jim Eshelman said

"I know nothing to suggest this was added later. - That's the pure speculation part!"

What "suggests" it to me is simply the margin setting and the heavier penmanship. The left-hand margin of the rest of the first page of the manuscript aligns with "The..."

Do you (or others) have a more likely explanation for this curious alignment?

OP