Hello Garienos,

Good question! Plenty have worked with the Qlipoth, but what of the Atus of poor Thoth? I have scoured the field as well trying to locate more on this, but alas it would seem there is scare information available. There is a chance that much has been communicated regarding this in Waratah Number Two: Oceanic Currents [this publication was mentioned in an earlier article on this site] recently published by House 418 in Australia:

http://house418.otoaustralia.org.au/

I have yet to see this - though I have ordered a copy- and will be happy to let you know if I discover anything of significance in this regard.
Ofcourse one could always submit to personal research to unveil the keys of the text - as in scrying or pathworkings.

Best,

Frarter Almarii

I recall that one of the earlier issues of The Magical Link included a reproduction of AC's original hand-drawn sigils from Liber CCXXXI, together with instructions as to how they should be printed... Does anyone have a scan of that issue that they could share with us?

Fra Almarii and Lashtal

Thanks for your efforts. In both cases I will be very interested to see what emerges.

A few more questions may perhaps conjure a few more responses.

Why is the book true "up to the grade of Adeptus Exemptus?" Perhaps an Adeptus Major, (or just somebody who knows), might care to comment. I think I know the answer to this one but it would be useful to see it confirmed.

The book does not refer to the Qliphoth directly but to the "genii" of their houses or cells respectively. Crowley with his Classical education will have known what a Roman "genius" ( singular of genii) was-a mans guardian spirit which enabled him to engender children, commonly worshipped as the guardian spirit of a house: a Lar. But did he mean this or did he mean something nearer to an Arab Djinn, the geni in the bottle of the Arabian nights?

Is the book, as I supect, about the reception of the Atus of the Tarot. If so is this Crowley's invention, or can it be found in Egyptian Mythology?

Incidentally Crowley translates domus- Latin for house- not as PeRah its true translation but as ATu a room. Was this deliberate on his part?

The section of Liber 231 headed "compare" has a section where one Hebrew Letter is made to equal (=) another. Is this the mapping of the Tree of Death onto the Tree of Life, or does it have another function?

All this might seem like scholarly nit picking were it not for the great significance LIber 231 and its interpretations have had for the development of Thelema in the second half or the twentieth century.

Hoping for more enlightenment.

93
Garienos

Just to throw some more material into the mix...

The following appeared in The Magical Link (volume 8, number 3 - 1994):

In his manuscript instructions to JFC Fuller (who redrew them [the sigils] for publication) AC notes: "General Design: Maybe a wheel with 22 compartments on the rim. The wheel has 8 spokes. At the 4 corners are the 4 Kerubim [sketch with Aquarius, Scorpio, Taurus, Leo clockwise from top left]. But the Pillar Scheme is equally good... These sigils are dangerously automatic, and should not be exposed or left lying about..." Crowley adds "This is perhaps because these are the Atus which are beheld in Ammenta — they are therefore the governors & inspectors of the disordered fabrications."

Can somebody translate the title for me please?

LIBER ARCANORVM τωυ
ATV τοϋ TAHUTI QVAS VIDIT
ASAR IN AMENTI
SVB FIGVRA CCXXXI
LIBER CARCERORVM τωυ
QLIPHOTH CVM SUIS GENIIS
ADDENTVR SIGILLA
ET NOMINA EORVM

I would really appreciate it as I don't understand the titles at all, thanks 🙂

This is my very imperfect attempt at translating the title with the help of an online Latin Dictionary. I really don't know if it's right.

"The Arcane Book
of the Atu's of Tahuti (Thoth)
Seen As Winged Sandals
Under the Number of 231
The Book of Traps (Barriers) of Speech (Expression)
Qliphoth as One's Own Djinn
Added Sigils And Their Names"

Upon further research, Asar in Amenti shouldn't be translasted as Latin but rather as Egyptian. Thus the updated translation is:

"The Arcane Book
of the Atu's of Tahuti (Thoth) Seen As
Osiris in the Underworld
Under the Number of 231
The Book of Traps (Barriers) of Speech (Expression)
Qliphoth as One's Own Djinn
Added Sigils And Their Names"

Hi All

I thought I would pitch in with a translation and some Thelemite comment.

The Secret Book
Of the Atus of Tahuti

i.e. the "Book of Thoth" known and written about in the ancient world but which has not come down to us. Atus refers to the tradition of the Tarot as the surviving Book of Thoth, which was quite widely believed at the time of the book's reception. 231 was received before Crowley wrote his own "Book of Thoth", in which he comments " The Atu of Tahuti, who is the Lord of Wisdom, are also called Keys. They are guides to conduct. They give you a map of the Kingdom of Heaven and also the best way to take it by force". His use of the word keys links the atus to the Clavicle or "Greater Key of Solomon" and to the Enochian Keys of the "Vision and the Voice".

which Asar ( Osiris) saw in Amenti (The Egyptian Underworld), which is numbered 231.

The Book of the Prisons of the Qliphoth with their genii (or djinn) to which is added their sigils and their names.

There is in arab magic a long tradition of imprisoning Djinn's in sealed receptacles such as bottles and Crowley almost certainly knew of this. It is important to note that Crowley did not list in 231 the qliphoth themselves. He does this in an orthodox way in Liber 777 and comments upon them in page 58 of that book.

Having said the above I am still puzzled by 231 just as I was some months ago. Carcer is a prison in Latin. Each Qliphoth has a prison. Does that mean that the atu were places, at least on a spiritual map? I think that what Crowley says above shows that he would have been open to that meaning.

Best regards
Garienos

Good Afternoon,

Thank-you for the enlightening comment and translation. It makes sense to me that the Atus are spiritual places - perhaps stations in the Land of the Dead. Or to interject a Tibetan word, Bardo Stations. However, I don't know how that conclusion is reached from the material found in 231. Also, don't know the relationship between the prisons of the Qliphoth and the Atus. Why are they in the same book? Perhaps the Atus are keys to open these prisons??

-zardoz

From my own experience of working wth Liber 231 and the Tunnels of Set, I'd say that the two sets of sigils represent positive and negative polarities of the same energies. Thus, Crowley defined the Qlipoths as living in prisons or cells, because prisons are the 'negative' of houses (Atus). A house is where we live by our own choice, a prison cell is where we live without that choice. Yet, my own experience of the Qlipoth is that, far from being imprisoned, they are almost TOO free, in the sense that they are formless, too much energy, an excess, undifferentiated, while the Mercurial spirits of the Tarot are the same energy compressed and restrained into a particular form. Practically the opposite concept, in fact. One wonders if Crowley was having a joke, or whether he was simply constrained by the attitudes of his era; a 'vice' or crime in one era is not necessarily viewed the same way in another. Homosexuality was considered both, and an imprisonable offence, during Crowley's lifetime, for example (It only ceased to be a criminal offence in 1966!)

Thanks for the help with the translation garienos and zardoz (love that movie by the way), that's very helpful. If I find time later I might annoy you all with a new topic asking for translations of all the Holy Book titles. It would be useful, to me at least, to have a ready translation available in one easily found topic 🙂

All,

I just wanted to say how grateful I am for the thoughtful contributions to the discussion regarding this most enigmatic of the Holy Books.

I've found your contributions useful and informative...

Given the name of the Holy Book, the following quote is instructive: "To thee do We entrust the Arcanum Arcanorum, the Hidden Treasure of the Wise. Without it all is cold, inertia, death; within it Fire, Energy, Genius, Creation. This is the Key to every door in the Kingdom of Heaven; this is the Sceptre of the Realms that Are!"

Paul
@lashtal.com">webmaster@lashtal.com

Does anybody know whether Liber 231 was ever translated into German? The German edition of the "Holy Books" does not contain it.

Cheers
Markus

It is translated in Aleister Crowley's Magische Rituale, Berlin 1980.

thanks Markus, does it mention who did the translation?

I think the translator was Friedrich Meyer, however the book isn't very clear about this.

Friedrich Meyer? Haven't heard the name before.  When might the translation have been made?

Here is a link to a couple of the Berlin 1980 edition that have that name associated with them http://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/aleister-crowley%27s-magische-rituale/ - but I am not a German reader or speaker unfortunately.

oh thanks for that empiricus.  the last in that list

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=13281630941&searchurl=tn%3Daleister+crowley%27s+magische+rituale

has a description from Weiser suggesting that Eugen Grosche did the translations, of which I am suspect as he had previously used translations from Frau Küntzel. Though perhaps in the intervening years his English had improved.

If you download from LASHTAL the paper Re: Al Alcanorum, you can find much of the history of 231 studies, both sides of the diagram, etc.

William, Gregorius did not speak English, except for a couple of standard phrases (very well, goodbye, how do you do, etc.). Schikowski put his name on the book to increase sales - that's all.

Markus

thanks for that confirmation Markus. So the assumption would be that either Herr Meyer made these new translations or the Frau Küntzel's translations were used. Are you familiar with Herr Meyer's background?

I recall that one of the earlier issues of The Magical Link included a reproduction of AC’s original hand-drawn sigils from Liber CCXXXI, together with instructions as to how they should be printed… Does anyone have a scan of that issue that they could share with us?

"*Transcriber's note.*

"In the list of names, [character] (Coptic *ksi*), is possibly an error for [character] (*sou*) the Coptic letter rendered 'st' by the Golden Dawn, attributed to Kether and accordingly used to terminate Divine Names. In accordance with this text's 'Class A' status I have not corrected this. Likewise, the asymmetry in the second row of the sigils, with those for the 'domarum Mercurii' of *vau* and *heh* apparently counterchanged, has been retained.

"Crowley's original drawings of the 22 *Domarum Mercurii* sigils survive in MS. and were printed in the O.T.O. magazine *The Magical Link* in 1994, where it was stated that for the *Equinox* publication they were redrawn by J.F.C. Fuller under Crowley's supervision, and that they are the only 'Class A' material besides *Liber Legis* itself to be known to be extant in MS.

"For this e-text the two sets of sigils have been turned into vector art (specifically, a TrueType font) based on scans from a facsimile of the *Equinox* printing.

"From Crowley's diary, December 1907:
"'Tuesday 3. {...} About now wrote Arcana in Atus of Tahuti, Sigils of genii, etc.
"'{...}
"Saturday 14. Liber Trigrammaton, and copied Sigilla 22.
"'{...}
"'Monday {...} Curious vague depression most of the day. I think the Sigilla 22 have a very unpleasant influence.'

"Much of the corpus of 'Class A' texts was written around this time.:
"'Liber DCCCXIII (probably: the diary entry has "the 7 fold word"{^1}) 29-30.10
"'Liber LXV 30.10-03.11
"'Liber LXVI 25.11
"'Liber X 11-12.12
"'Liber CD 13.12
"'Liber XXVII 14.12'

"(Source: electronic transcript of AC diary 1907).

"In 'John St. John' (1908) AC wrote that *Ararita* (Liber DCCCXIII) was 'delivered unto me in the winter of last year.' *B vel Magi, Tzaddi, Cheth* and *A'ash* appear to have been later. In the *Confessions* Crowley erroneously states that 231 was written in the summer of 1911.

"---------

"[NOTE ^1] The citation could also refer to Liber VII, and such is the interpretation in the editor's introduction to *The Holy Books of Thelema*; the relative lengths of the two works and the comparatively short time-frame (literally a few hours) indicated by the diary entry make 813 a more likely candidate. -- T.S."

Does anybody know whether Liber 231 was ever translated into German? The German edition of the “Holy Books” does not contain it.

Cheers
Markus

Google translate may help

231 is the total of the 22 == "0+1+2+3+4 etc"
which is made up of
132 the total of what I call the zodiac energy 12 ATU's (each energy is contraindicated/opposing/opposite/mirroring it twin pairing ie: M+F or pos+neg fire/water earth/air)
99 total of the tree of life 10 ATU's