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Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness.
-- Aleister Crowley
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Los |
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Post subject: Finnegans Wake
 Posted: Dec 05, 2008 - 05:31 AM
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Moderator's Note: This thread starts with two fascinating posts extracted from a different thread:
http://tinyurl.com/5s6tf4
93, Oliver,
OliverP wrote: › Did James Joyce ever read Crowley? Or were they both drawing on the same deep wells? This is an interesting question. It's been suggested that the word "Crowhore" on page 229 of Finnegans Wake is a reference to Crowley -- though it's more commonly read as a reference to Michael Banim (which it certainly is, at least primarily).
In context, the word seems to describe Shem the Penman, who is the scribe of the letter (i.e. Finnegans Wake itself) dictated by the Mother-Goddess ALP. He is the "prophetic" figure of the text, as it were, the one shunned by the world ("Shun the Punman!"). He's the Wake's Wickedest Man in the World, essentially.
As striking as those coincidences might seem at first, I would say that similarities between Crowley and Joyce are more of a matter of their tapping into the same well of archetypes, Qabalah, and Western tradition.
Is there any record of the two of them ever meeting or being influenced by each other? I know Crowley references Joyce's style in the Confessions. And Crowley did know Yeats.... |
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zardoz |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 05, 2008 - 07:08 PM
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OliverP wrote: ›
“Ha” is also one of the commonest forms of the definite article in Hebrew – the Hebrew equivalent of the Arabic "Al", a new beginning arising out of the silence (La) after the end; Giambattista de Vico’s ricorso; after the collapse of the three phases of the old era – theocratic, heroic, democratic - there is a pause and the cycle begins anew.
But that’s my individual extension; the reference to the Turiya, on the other hand, is obvious and there’s any amount of material available on the theme.
With reference to the Hebrew meaning of “Ha”; as another sage and author of a far longer obscure work finishes his book “The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the” And the definite article there is clearly meant to join on to the part sentence that begins the first chapter: “riverrun, past Eve’s and Adam’s…”
I find this correspondance bewteen the ending of Finnegans Wake and The Book of the Law very interesting.
OliverP wrote: ›
Finnegans Wake is also structured in three (big) sections, reflecting Father, Mother and Children, plus the short epilogue.
Did James Joyce ever read Crowley? Or were they both drawing on the same deep wells? (Joyce's debt to Vico is clear from the first sentence of the book = "...a commodius vicus of recirculation...")
It appears to me that Joyce was very familiar and knowledgeable on many areas of the occult including Crowley. I plan to write an essay on it at some point... but here's one quick reference:
From Abbeygate to Crowalley Through a Lift in the Lude, Smocks for Their Graces and Me Aunt for Them Clodshoppers, How to Pull a Good
Horuscoup even when Oldsire is Dead to the World, ...
Finnegans Wake, p.105
In this brief example we see Crowley, the Abbey and Horus. Also the aforementioned last line contains no less than 5 instances of word combinations beginning with AL which, of course, is the key to Liber Legis.
Joyce also alludes to Austin Osman Spare in FW. |
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lashtal |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 05, 2008 - 07:23 PM
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Thanks, Zardoz. As a long term student of Joyce in general and FW in particular, I found your post fascinating. The extract you provide has been linked in some excellent essays online to Egyptological matters, of course, but I've not seen it linked to Crowley before.
Crowley wrote a very positive review of Ulysses, as I'm sure you're aware. |
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BlueKephra |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 05, 2008 - 07:27 PM
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zardoz wrote: › Joyce also alludes to Austin Osman Spare in FW.
Please elaborate, I've never read it, though I've got it somewhere, in a box..... |
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zardoz |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 05, 2008 - 07:43 PM
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lashtal wrote: ›
Crowley wrote a very positive review of Ulysses, as I'm sure you're aware.
I actually was not aware of this, only knew that AC namechecked Joyce in the Confessions. Thank-you, Paul, found it through google but I'm not sure if they included the entire review? It ends:
Quote: › The Portrait when it appeared was hailed as a masterpiece, but it has been boycotted by libraries and booksellers for no discernible reason other than the fact that the profound descriptions tell the truth from a new, and therefore to the majority a disturbing, point of view. . . .
[A two-paragraph summary follows.] |
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zardoz |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 05, 2008 - 07:54 PM
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BlueKephra wrote: › zardoz wrote: › Joyce also alludes to Austin Osman Spare in FW.
Please elaborate, I've never read it, though I've got it somewhere, in a box.....
Real quickly, this quote:
(Eleutheriodendron! Spare, woodmann, spare!)
- FW, p. 42
could be said to allude to AOS using Joycean dream logic ie 'woodmann references The Wizard of Oz which corresponds to AUStin OSman Spare. An analysis of the first word, "Eleutheriodendron! "could prove interesting.
Use of the Finnegans Wake concordance found at:
http://mv.lycaeum.org/Finnegan/finnegan.cgi?mode=new&simple=boolean&kwor
can be very helpful with research of this kind. |
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BlueKephra |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 05, 2008 - 08:10 PM
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Thanks.
I had to chuckle at the term "Joycean dream logic". It'll be pretty hard to discredit those scholars who interpret Liber AL through the medium of Alphabeti-Spaghetti after that ! |
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lashtal |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 05, 2008 - 08:10 PM
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zardoz wrote: › Thank-you, Paul, found it through google but I'm not sure if they included the entire review?
It was reprinted in "The Magical Link" (if memory serves) and was introduced by Hymenaeus Beta. A substantial review. Unfortunately, I can't find it again in the chaos that I call my archives, perhaps someone else here can assist? |
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OKontrair |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 05, 2008 - 09:08 PM
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I would etymologise Eleutheriodendron! as being from the Greek Eleutheria meaning freedom both personified and as a call to liberty, and the suffix -dendron meaning tree (as in rhododendron).
That rather goes against the 'Spare' being Austin Osman and just being a call to show mercy to the tree and being capitalised just because it starts a sentence.
Maybe Joyce had heard the comic song Woodman, spare that tree.
Here's a bigger chunk of Crowley's review which was quoted in a 1997 book - I've left the page now and this will vanish if I go back:
Extract from ‘The Genius of Mr. James Joyce’, New Pearson’s Magazine, xlix (July 1923), 52-3.
In a discussion of a new form of literature, the ‘novel of the mind’, the critic notes that this kind of fiction may ‘depart from artistic creation’.
. . . This form of writing has been saved, by the genius of Mr. James Joyce, from its worst fate, that of becoming a mere amateur contribution to medical text-books.
Every new discovery produces a genius. Its enemies might say that psycho-analysis—the latest and deepest theory to account for the vagaries of human behaviour—has found the genius it deserves. Although Mr. Joyce is known only to a limited circle in England and America, his work has been ranked with that of Swift, Sterne, and Rabelais by such critics as M. Valery, Mr. Ezra Pound and Mr. T. S. Eliot.
There is caution to be exercised in appraising the work of a contemporary. . . . I am convinced personally that Mr. Joyce is a genius all the world will have to recognize. I rest my proof upon his most important book Ulysses, and upon his first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and on such portions of Ulysses as have appeared. Before these he wrote two books, Chamber Music, a collection of most delicate songs, and Dubliners, sketches of Dublin life distinguished by its savage bitterness, and the subsequent hostility it excited. The Portrait when it appeared was hailed as a masterpiece, but it has been boycotted by libraries and booksellers for no discernible reason other than the fact that the profound descriptions tell the truth from a new, and therefore to the majority a disturbing, point of view. . . .
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OKontrair |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 05, 2008 - 09:17 PM
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Jerry Cornelius's Desk Reference has the source in the Magical link as:
The Magical Link, New series No.3, pg.3, Spring 2001
but I don't have it.
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zardoz |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 05, 2008 - 10:15 PM
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OKontrair wrote: › I would etymologise Eleutheriodendron! as being from the Greek Eleutheria meaning freedom both personified and as a call to liberty, and the suffix -dendron meaning tree (as in rhododendron).
That rather goes against the 'Spare' being Austin Osman and just being a call to show mercy to the tree and being capitalised just because it starts a sentence.
Maybe Joyce had heard the comic song Woodman, spare that tree.
OK
Thanks OK!
Joyce liked to get in as many meanings as possible - he could also have been referring to the Tree of Life which would connect with AOS. Finnegans Wake is informed by Qabalah. Joyce was a master of it. |
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amadan-De |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 05, 2008 - 10:22 PM
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My first thought was of "Woodman, woodman spare that tree!" and not the tin-man of Oz. Perhaps Oz and L. Frank Baum might have been a bit of a culturally specific reference at the time - more US than Eire. Oddly, or not, both Finnegans Wake the book (complete) and The Wizard of Oz the movie where launched on the world in 1939...
It might be worth noting that Eleutheriodendron does have -therio- embedded in it which could relate to 'beast'. Perhaps a Greek speaker can cast light on potential plurality of meanings?
magispiegel?  |
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Los |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 06, 2008 - 02:48 AM
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93 everyone,
Awesome to see a thread about Finnegans Wake here.
Zardoz, nice catch with "Crowalley" on p. 105. It seems likely that this is a reference to Uncle Al.
There are several references to Horus throughout the novel -- the resurrected Finnegan is often figured as the rising sun that vanquishes the dream. My favorite Horus reference is the one on p. 328: HCE is
James Joyce wrote: › the oversear of the seize who cometh from the mighty deep and on the night of making Horuse to crihumph over his enemy [I would gloss this amusing passage: seize = seas (HCE is a Viking/Norwegian Captain), taking hold of ALP (the marriage, the rape of the daughters of the natives, the incident in the park); Horuse = "whore use"; crihumph = triumph, the cry of the hawk, the cry made while humping, a dry hump (in the Park). Also, HCE's first name, Hump(hrey).]
I think, however, most of the Egyptian references are primarily derived from the Book of the Dead (Finnegans Wake compares itself to a book of coming forth by night). I don't see signs of a directly Crowleyan influence, and I imagine Joyce would have scoffed at the Book of the Law and Crowley's more out-there claims (I could be wrong...and I'm quite willing to be proven wrong on this score). Hell, *I* scoff at many of Crowley's claims!
This is not to say that we, as Thelemites, can't appropriate Finnegans Wake. In fact, a good reader of the Wake has to become a co-writer with Joyce and make the text his own. Might we say that each of us has to interpret it individually, each for himself? Perhaps it's rather that each of us has to create the Wake, each for himself.
Incidentally, I think the "Spare, woodmann, spare!" might be (secondarily) an oblique reference to Spare. Certainly, Spare had become a "wood man" of sorts, practicing the VIII degree to the exclusion of all else. Just like HCE in the Park, in fact!
93, 93/93 |
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BlueKephra |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 06, 2008 - 03:27 AM
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| I've probably mentioned this before, but I couldn't help but be somewhat disappointed when, years ago, I bought a book which was a compendium of pieces which had been published by the Black Sun Press, edited by the eccentric and extreme Harry Crosby. The Joyce extracts in it showed that he had in fact written FW in an ordinary prose style and gone back and editied into the extremely obtuse form we know today. I was only disappointed because I imagined it springing in it's fully formed, difficult state from Joyce's mind in one go. I wonder, did AOS do the same thing???? |
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BlueKephra |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 06, 2008 - 02:10 PM
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OliverP |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 06, 2008 - 03:26 PM
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There is, of course, a considerable amount of Egyptiana in the Wake, including almost verbatim quotes from the Book of the Dead - the Wallis Budge translation naturally - most of which would be non-Crowleyan. As early as Page 2, we have:
“(O my shining stars and body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of soft advertisement!”
Budge, BTW, spells the Goddess's name "Nut" in his translation of the Book of the Dead (which I have in large-format papyrusback), but all occurrences of that word in FW appear vegetable and/or testicular.
Of "Nuit" (despite the appealing French pun) there is no trace.
The overlapping of the two men's lifespans, incidentally, is striking. Naturally there is a date and duration calculator on the Web to make this easy..
Crowley:
From and including: Tuesday, 12 October 1875
To, but not including : Monday, 1 December 1947
72 years, 1 month, 19 days excluding the end date.
Joyce:
From and including: Thursday, 2 February 1882
To, but not including : Monday, 13 January 1941
Or 58 years, 11 months, 11 days excluding the end date
2305 days from AC’s birth to JJ’s birth.
2513 days from JJ’s death to AC’s death.
So as my wife pointed out, as well-travelled and literate men of almost the same era, they would have been exposed to very similar influences, which means all parallels should be treated with caution.
OP |
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OliverP |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 06, 2008 - 04:01 PM
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And by sheer sortilege we have tantalsing but probably irrelevant passages like:
"He hear her voi of day gon by. He hears! Zay, zay, zay! But, by the beer of his profit, he cannot answer. Upterputty till rise and shine! Nor needs none shaft ne stele from Phenicia or Little Asia to obelise on the spout." |
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amadan-De |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 06, 2008 - 05:27 PM
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Quote: ›
as well-travelled and literate men of almost the same era, they would have been exposed to very similar influences
and, as my discipline (prehistoric archaeology) teaches, context* is all important if you are going to attempt interpretation.
Objects, people, actions taking place/found within the same context will be subjected to the same processes and influences and these have to be ruled out before declaring any other intrinsic links. Excellent call by your wife!
*'Context' refers to the layer or strata any find or trace of action is found within. Technically, everything we find is 'taken out of context' for examination. Sometimes the context tells you more than the object. |
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OliverP |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 06, 2008 - 05:42 PM
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Quote: › Budge, BTW, spells the Goddess's name "Nut" ...but all occurrences of that word in FW appear vegetable and/or testicular.
Except for:
"May song it flourish (in the underwood), in chorush, long make it flourish (in the Nut, in the Nutsky) till thorush! Secret Hookup." (P360).
Some probably intentional Horus references there too; but still not convincingly Crowleyan.
Then there's the well known "by the waters of Babalong" [P103]. Does the onomatapoeia of "babble" really justify the second A? Probably coincidental.
OP |
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lashtal |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 06, 2008 - 05:51 PM
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What a wonderful thread.
I am rewarded and nourished by every post: and there are few threads about which I could say the same...
Thank you.
And I have to add: if mop-haired pop singers qualify as potential Gnosic Saints, then Joyce certainly does. |
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Los |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 06, 2008 - 09:13 PM
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Quote: › Then there's the well known "by the waters of Babalong" [P103]. Does the onomatapoeia of "babble" really justify the second A? Probably coincidental. Yeah, coincidental.
I always thought the second A was also there to suggest "baba" -- both baby's bottle and the Russian for "grandmother."
A mother offering a "baba long" would be a phallic woman (HCE + ALP). A babylong (baby long) would be something quite different! |
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zardoz |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 07, 2008 - 12:00 AM
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I don't know, I find the last 3 sentences of the book starting with:
The keys to. Given!
followed by Joyce writing the key to Liber Legis no less than 5 times a pretty convincing argument. OP already pointed out the isomorphism between the last words of the Wake and the BOTL.
Using a negative to debate the point - attributing to coincidence similarities between the two because of the lack of known evidence connecting them I find a much less convincing argument. So lets pile up the "coincidences" and see what we get.
It seems likely that Joyce would have been aware of Crowley from Crowley's review of Ulysses. After all, Crowley called him a genius. It's not too far a stretch to think that Joyce might have looked into the works of someone who gave such a platitude if he wasn't already familiar with them.
Joyce had a strong interest in Qabalah. Crowley was the master and put the dictionary together, ie 777. If one has indepth knowledege and understanding of how Crowley used Qabalah one would see that same knowledge and understanding used by Joyce in the Wake. Obviously the last statement has to be backed up with examples to make it a valid argument which presents a wee bit of a paradox as qabalah works most effectively as an unspoken language. But I'll try to give some qabalistic examples over time, for what it's worth. For now I'll cobble together more obvious similarities. I don't have time at present to do the necessary research to give a clear proof but maybe it can slowly emerge nonetheless.
So today's example:
Joyce likes to play around with the phrase: "the whole of the Law"
...whaling away the whole of the while...
p. 78
this also references Moby Dick which makes a nice conflation with Thelema.
If he was not alluding to the whole in the wall? That was not when he was eluding from the whole of the woman. Briefly, how such beginall finally struck him now.
p. 90
I recall seeing at least 3 or 4 similar instances later on but i didn't notate them at the time.
I hadn't picked up on this before:
"by the waters of Babalong"
Don't know how far into alphabetti spaghetti the game rules in this debate will allow, but to a qabalist the phrase could read:
by the waters of Babalon + g
which describes a particular formula of practical work that Crowley taught. And to a babe of the abyss, it does seem like one fuck of a long time... I'm guessing.
From my point of view, this gives a strong argument that not only did Joyce know of Crowley but that he was adept in his system of magick. |
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Los |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 07, 2008 - 01:46 AM
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zardoz wrote: › I don't know, I find the last 3 sentences of the book starting with:
The keys to. Given!
followed by Joyce writing the key to Liber Legis no less than 5 times a pretty convincing argument.
I would be very hesitant to say that the last three sentences are intended by Joyce to be a reference to Liber Legis.
My sense is that Joyce's references to specific individuals and their work are usually very obvious. If Joyce had an intimate working knowledge of Crowley's system, I think we would see more obvious instances of influence in the novel. Certainly, if Joyce were "adept in [Crowley's] system of magick," I think there would be a lot more references -- and more obvious ones.
I'd be interested in seeing other possible plays on "whole of the Law." Maybe searching for plays on "Beast" in the text would be fruitful? |
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OKontrair |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 07, 2008 - 12:03 PM
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I have never had any contact with this interesting book until now, and still haven't read it.
But when someone further up the page revealed that Joyce wrote it in plain text first then overlaid it with all the scramblings and malapropisms later I thought 'Why are we guessing when we could just look there?'
This is possible, at least to some extent, at:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... amp;page=1
You can step through page by page. The print facility is eccentric.
There does not seem to me to be any Crowley influence, except that as usual in our bereavement we see our dead friend everywhere.
OK |
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Aleisterion |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 07, 2008 - 12:50 PM
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| I thought that I had read somewhere that Crowley wrote that Joyce was an example of one who had achieved a high rank in the GWB without consciously lifting a finger in ritual, but I've been unable to locate the exact quote...anyway I do think that this is possible, given what I've read not just of Joyce but some other great minds as well. There are many roads that lead to the palace! |
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amadan-De |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 07, 2008 - 01:14 PM
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Excellent discovery and suggestion.
OKontraire wrote: › as usual in our bereavement we see our dead friend everywhere
I was going to cite the '23 Enigma' - when you have something uppermost in your mind it appears everywhere (cf. the preponderance of "phallic symbols" in prehistoric archaeology  ) but this is far, far more elegant.
Aleisterion wrote: › There are many roads that lead to the palace!
Fart, oo true. |
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zardoz |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 07, 2008 - 07:59 PM
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Los wrote: ›
I would be very hesitant to say that the last three sentences are intended by Joyce to be a reference to Liber Legis.
A way to refute this contention would be to find a better explanation of why Joyce ended the book the way he did. I don't know of one.
Los wrote: ›
Certainly, if Joyce were "adept in [Crowley's] system of magick," I think there would be a lot more references -- and more obvious ones.
There are more references. I only have time to post one a day. How obvious they are might depend on how maze bright one is with qabalah. I can think of many reasons why Joyce wouldn't want it known to the general public that he was an informal student of AC. |
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Los |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 07, 2008 - 08:30 PM
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zardoz wrote: › Los wrote: ›
I would be very hesitant to say that the last three sentences are intended by Joyce to be a reference to Liber Legis.
A way to refute this contention would be to find a better explanation of why Joyce ended the book the way he did. I don't know of one
Naturally, Joyce wanted each of these indefinite articles to form a pun with the subsequent word (such that "a way" is both the noun "way" and the word "away").
I'm inclined to say it's just a coincidence that the other words of one syllable with which the "a" is combined begin with "l."
Interestingly, if you read the last sentence as wrapping around to the first, "A way" is the subject of the first sentence of the book -- it is "a way" that brings us back to Howthe Castle and environs. The way of the Tao, perhaps? Here comes everybody! Or, rather, Hoc Corpus Est.
Aleisterion wrote: › I thought that I had read somewhere that Crowley wrote that Joyce was an example of one who had achieved a high rank in the GWB without consciously lifting a finger in ritual Now *that* would be something I'd like to read. I have no problem with thinking that Joyce had "attained" in some fashion without ritual magick.
Joseph Campbell had noted that really reading and understanding Finnegans Wake could be consciousness transforming. After all, nearly every sentence of the book contains its opposite. Might we say that the book gives us a glimpse into the logic of the supernal triad (which, for me, is the Unconscious)? It is quite profitable to train one's mind to think with such logic.
OKontrair wrote: › I have never had any contact with this interesting book until now, and still haven't read it. You don't really read it -- you decode it.
Actually, I think what would be really valuable is a group reading and discussion of the text from a Thelemic perspective. We could cover a chapter a week -- those of us who've decoded it could give some guidance to those who are still baffled by the language...and we could each bring a few examples of interesting wordplay that might have some esoteric significance (if only to us, and not Joyce). |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 07, 2008 - 08:33 PM
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Joined: Jul 16, 2004
Posts: 457
Location: Grass Valley, CA USA
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OKontrair wrote: ›
But when someone further up the page revealed that Joyce wrote it in plain text first then overlaid it with all the scramblings and malapropisms later I thought 'Why are we guessing when we could just look there?'
This is possible, at least to some extent, at:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... amp;page=1
You can step through page by page. The print facility is eccentric.
There does not seem to me to be any Crowley influence, except that as usual in our bereavement we see our dead friend everywhere.
OK
Thanks again for this link. This draft represents a very small percentage of the final work. For one thing, it only has 285 pages, the final version has over 600.
I don't bereave Crowley nor do I see him everywhere. FW is the only major literary work where he shows up, to my knowledge. I don't see a Crowley influence in Ulysses, Joyce's earlier masterpiece, despite it being laden with qabalah. I do note the coincidence that all of the events in Ulysses take place on one day ( the 16th, I believe) in June, 1904 about 2 months after the reception of Liber Legis.
This reference form p. 360 alludes to the Hierophant, Do what thou wilt shall..., the High Priestess and Crowley's name:
"-- Bulbul, bulbulone ! I will shally. Thou shalt willy. You wouldnt
should as youd remesmer. I hypnot. 'Tis golden sickle's hour.
Holy moon priestess, we'd love our grappes of mistellose ! Moths
the matter? Pschtt ! Tabarins comes. To fell our fairest. O gui, O
gui! Salam, salms, salaum! Carolus! O indeed and we ware! And
hoody crow was ere. I soared from the peach and Missmolly
showed her pear too, onto three and away. Whet the bee as to
deflowret greendy grassies yellowhorse ..."
He uses the pun on "peach" the same as AC does in BOL ch. 4 right after the "crow" reference. Also the last line recalls observations Kenneth Grant made later about tantra, flowers and flowing. |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 07, 2008 - 08:41 PM
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Joined: Jul 16, 2004
Posts: 457
Location: Grass Valley, CA USA
Status: Offline
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Los wrote: ›
Actually, I think what would be really valuable is a group reading and discussion of the text from a Thelemic perspective. We could cover a chapter a week -- those of us who've decoded it could give some guidance to those who are still baffled by the language...and we could each bring a few examples of interesting wordplay that might have some esoteric significance (if only to us, and not Joyce).
Excellent idea, I would be up for that as time permits. |
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in 22° 
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