I've often tried to look in the Book of the Law for internal clues to the dating. Any specific word or allusion to events, like a headline phrase, that might provide a terminus post quem. While I have not yet found a precise indication, it occurred to me that some current war might have been on Crowley's mind, rather than a general “war all the time” mood, but I have never followed up on it. Perdurabo ST's work (mentioned and linked on the thread "Crowley and his discrepancies" - https://www.lashtal.com/forums/thelema/crowley-and-his-discrepancies/paged/9/#post-116144 )
reminded me of this suspicion, and gave me a lead to follow.
Perdurabo ST uses the Russo-Japanese war, which Japan initiated on the night of 8 February 1904 (hence hitting the papers the next moring), with Russia in turn declaring war on 16 February, to understand some of Crowley's movements in Egypt. In particular, the discovery that the Crowleys had left Cairo and were back in Port Said, on 16 February, for some reason:
“Amongst the latest arrivals at the Eastern Exchange Hotel, Port Said, are […] Lord Boleskine, Mrs Boleskine.”
Perdurabo ST speculates that Mr and Mrs Boleskine, along with other Brits, may have been worried about how the sudden escalation of the new war might affect the conditions of their return to Europe, so they were essentially going to catch the next ship out. We know that the Boleskines changed their minds (p. 69).
This was the only war going on at the time. Moreover, it had started just as the Crowleys arrived in Egypt, and immediately affected shipping, particularly in the Red Sea, but also at the other end of the Suez Canal, in the Mediterranean.
The Russo-Japanese war got me thinking, as a context for seeing the “twin warriors about the pillars of the world” passage, as well as the war passages in general.
Thus Russia could be thought of as “about” at least one “pillar” of the world – North Pole. Japan doesn't spring to mind as a “pillar” power, but one can think of it as the guardian of the Pacific.
But this war was not hot in Egypt and the Mediterranean, except for the tendency of Russian warships to harrass British steamers.
But why did they do this? It turns out that Britain and Japan were formally allied, announced 12 February 1902. The reason for the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was oppostion to Russian expansion. In response, Russia sought assurances from France and Germany, to which only France agreed. This alliance was signed on 16 March, 1902.
So the Russo-Japanese war had the potential to bring Britain and France into conflict.
Now THESE two powers were really “twin warriors about the pillars of the world,” the two biggest imperial powers of the age, spanning the globe. This Russian and Japanese conflict had the potential to involve Great Britain and France, the two greatest powers of the age.
But the Anglo-Japanese alliance had a neutrality clause – neither party would join the fight if either got into a war with only one other state. So as long as only Japan and Russia were at war, Britain could remain neutral.
Similarly, France knew that if she assisted Russia, this would mean that Japan was fighting TWO powers, and thus bring Britain and France into conflict. This would have been world war.
Realizing the urgency, Britain and France created one of the most famous treaties of the 20th century – the “Entente Cordiale.” This effectively settled all their colonial disputes and established a permanent peace between them.
Finalized on 8 April 1904, it was published for the world the next day, on 9 April, 1904. I've found notices of it in contemporary French papers, e.g. “L'Accord Franco-Anglais” in “Le Matin” no. 7349, Samedi 9 avril 1904, p. 1, “Le Temps” 9 avril 1904, p. 4, etc. I have not seen the British or Egyptian papers for this day.
So war was definitely in the air, the only war going on at the moment, and one that had practical implications for Egypt; this war had the potential to drag into conflict the two greatest world powers, Britain and France, allies of the two belligerents; the Entente Cordiale hit the papers on Saturday 9 April, which, while not addressing the opposing alliances of Britain and France in the current conflict, since mutual neutrality was understood by the terms of the alliances of 1902, at least put an end to the interminable colonial skirmishes that might have erupted into wider conflict.
(Ra-Hoor-Khuit taunts them - “as brothers fight ye!... soldiers who dare not fight, but play.” Crowley, of course, wanted war - at least by the time he was back in Scotland).
In the spring of 1904, the talk among the expats and holidaymakers in Cairo, both English and French, must have often revolved around the possibility of France and the UK being dragged into the Russo-Japanese war, and all that would imply.
This topic was modified 3 years ago 3 times by belmurru
Thanks for bringing up this topic. I have often speculated about the connection between TBOTL and the biggest historical event of April 8, 1904, which was the Entente Cordiale. One of the ramifications of that treaty was the later strengthening of their military alliance, and then the tangle of commitments that led to World War I.
It's interesting that France promised not to interfere with the UK in Egypt on the same day that Liber L was supposedly transmitted. In turn, the UK allowed France to have free rein in Morocco. That meant that they faced each other across the Strait of Gibraltar, which might then qualify them as "twin warriors about the pillars of the world", as the Strait is also called the Pillars of Hercules.
It's interesting that France promised not to interfere with the UK in Egypt on the same day that Liber L was supposedly transmitted. In turn, the UK allowed France to have free rein in Morocco. That meant that they faced each other across the Strait of Gibraltar, which might then qualify them as "twin warriors about the pillars of the world", as the Strait is also called the Pillars of Hercules.
Litlluw
RLG
Thanks for pointing out the symbolic significance of that, which I hadn't thought of. I knew France was given Morocco by the Entente Cordiale, but I didn't connect it to Gibraltar on the other side of the strait, the "Pillars of Hercules."
Really interesting stuff, that i hope those better informed than me will continue posting about.
This terminus post quem stuff is of course blasphemy to the Thelemic fundies, as it implies that AL was the product of a human author, perhaps Aleister Crowley, as of course Aiwass would have had foreknowledge of future events that would make establishing a date of composition by such methods impossible.
Just trying to draw out any lurking feverish Spring Birds.
Really interesting stuff, that i hope those better informed than me will continue posting about.
This terminus post quem stuff is of course blasphemy to the Thelemic fundies, as it implies that AL was the product of a human author, perhaps Aleister Crowley,.
So the Russo-Japanese war had the potential to bring Britain and France into conflict.
Now THESE two powers were really “twin warriors about the pillars of the world,” the two biggest imperial powers of the age, spanning the globe. This Russian and Japanese conflict had the potential to involve Great Britain and France, the two greatest powers of the age.
This conflict and the defeat of Russia established Japan as a major player in world affairs with devastating consequences in the 30s and 40s.
...Likewise and similarly, as a humiliating defeat for Tsarist Russia it was an impetus for the domestic revolutionary movement which is highly significant in how the Aeon of the Child would pan out.
Really interesting stuff, that i hope those better informed than me will continue posting about.
This terminus post quem stuff is of course blasphemy to the Thelemic fundies, as it implies that AL was the product of a human author, perhaps Aleister Crowley, as of course Aiwass would have had foreknowledge of future events that would make establishing a date of composition by such methods impossible.
Just trying to draw out any lurking feverish Spring Birds.
I take AC's version of events as accurate, even to the hearing of the voice over his left shoulder, while at the same time echoing "in his heart." It was a trance state, what they might have called "nervous excitement," and all the feverish magical work of the previous two weeks or more came pouring out of him. Especially his obsession with the Stele and its versification, and more subconscious preoccupations.
Crowley wasn't unique in trying to establish contact with the Secret Chiefs and get messages by automatic writing. This was how Mathers and Moina (Vestigia) did it, and how Yeats, Felkin, and others who tried to take the reins of the Order after 1900 did it. Seances, mediums, automatic writing. It needn't be so political; Dion Fortune received The Cosmic Doctrine in a very similar way in 1924 (it's worth reading if you haven't), and some of Carl Jung's writings. Of course we all know others since, including Thelemites, and I have done a few things in a similar state, although never literally hearing a voice.
So, Crowley and Rose were in this magical state, a magical feedback-loop that kept them in a bubble of sign-seeking, and he was "cowed" by the proof of her authority, and completely under this spell when he went in to the room, primed to just let this inner voice speak. What emerged was the contact he sought, the proof of the destruction of the old GD authority, and his charter as the one with authority to reform the Order. He told Mathers as much, but I'm sure Mathers had already seen a few other such claims.
It quickly wore off as they steamed away from Egypt, and he still hadn't "found himself," which would take another two years.
For those who like isopsephy, the ancient Greek name for The Pillars of Hercules
- αἱ Ἡράκλειοι στῆλαι = 320 if stigma is used, or 814 with sigma and tau separate.
320 = IRIS = the rainbow, the messenger Goddess
814 = DYSIS = West, sunset
The latter seems quite appropriate as the Pillars would have been seen as the westernmost limit of the world at that time.
Litlluw
RLG
The Pillars of Hercules are also close to the Prime Meridian (0° on the longitude scale, the basis of Universal Time, and Greenwich Mean Time) and France and Britain both straddle it.
Thinking of the "pillars of the world" as navigation lines, latitude and longitude, I could see "the warrior lord of the Forties" as France, almost entirely occupying the 40s of latitude, while "the Eighties" is the extreme north of Russia. But as longitude, the 80s could be the Atlantic side of the US. Not sure that makes any sense for interpretation, however.
Another way to look at it might be as doubling, since the context is war, the inspired poetic mind used the shorthand of 40s=one warrior, 80s=two warriors, or two and two, the possibility of Russia-Japan becoming Russia-France and Japan-Britain.
AC often looked for coincidences of the publications of the Book and other events with wars and actions leading to wars. It's surprising to me that he didn't make the connection with the war that started the very day he arrived in Egypt, and the Entente Cordiale that was proclaimed the very weekend the Book was written.
But there was a lot of fog for Crowley between 1904 and 1909, when he began taking the Book seriously again, and wrote the first commentary, so it was easy to forget the Russo-Japanese war.
1909, when he began taking the Book seriously again, and wrote the first commentary, so it was easy to forget the Russo-Japanese war.
I agree. Though it should not be forgotten that already in early 1906 there was also a phase of interest in Liber L. He worked with it with Elaine Simpson (famously evoking Aiwass who told him to go back to Egypt with Rose), he even worked on a first commentary. And of course he already thought about publishing it writing in May 1906 on RMS Empress of India stationary to Fuller that "I should insert the "Great Invocation" printed at the end of Liber Legis in the Ballantyne Hansom Proofs."
1909, when he began taking the Book seriously again, and wrote the first commentary, so it was easy to forget the Russo-Japanese war.
I agree. Though it should not be forgotten that already in early 1906 there was also a phase of interest in Liber L. He worked with it with Elaine Simpson (famously evoking Aiwass who told him to go back to Egypt with Rose), he even worked on a first commentary. And of course he already thought about publishing it writing in May 1906 on RMS Empress of India stationary to Fuller that "I should insert the "Great Invocation" printed at the end of Liber Legis in the Ballantyne Hansom Proofs."
Love=Law
Lutz
Oh yes, it was always on his mind, and I suppose he kept the typescript close. This must be the one he had on him in 1905-6, when he visited Elaine Simpson. I think it was G.C. Jones' reticence to recognize this document as an authoritative contact with the Secret Chiefs that kept Crowley from insisting on it too much for those years. Apparently he let Fuller read it, who pronounced it the words of a Master or something like that, but it doesn't show up in The Star in the West.
I think it was Libers VII and LXV that convinced Jones that AC finally had the spiritual maturity they needed to found a new order. Together with a third, Fuller, who Crowley somehow managed to persuade Jones was an adept.
Fun fact: Crowley never crossed the equator (speaking of longitude and latitude). He was never in the southern hemisphere.
The closest he ever came appears to be when the ship he was on in 1902 on his way to India rounded the south tip of Malaysia, the port of Singapore.
Dwtw
It's rather amazing that someone so widely traveled as AC never made it to South America, or anywhere else past the Equator.
Speaking of latitude, a note of interest about the Straits of Gibraltar is "one of the principal parallels of latitude, by which Eratosthenes and other ancient geographers divided the earth into klimata, was drawn through the Pillars {of Hercules}, passing also through the Straits of Messina, Athens, Rhodes, and the Taurus, to Thinae."
The Rock of Gibraltar 5.35"W is fairly close to the longitude of Boleskine 4.47"W, although that matters little now because that power center has been depleted.
We can expand our reach a little and use a phrase from the Book of Samuel 2:8, where the words MTzuQI AReTz are translated as "pillars of the Earth". The gematria of this is 240 + 291 = 531, so do what you like with that number.
Speaking of latitude, a note of interest about the Straits of Gibraltar is "one of the principal parallels of latitude, by which Eratosthenes and other ancient geographers divided the earth into klimata, was drawn through the Pillars {of Hercules}, passing also through the Straits of Messina, Athens, Rhodes, and the Taurus, to Thinae."
The Rock of Gibraltar 5.35"W is fairly close to the longitude of Boleskine 4.47"W, although that matters little now because that power center has been depleted.
Thanks for reminding me of Eratosthenes map. Here is a good rendition of it with the "Strait of the Columns"/Pillars of Hercules as the central latitude line
(the link doesn't show, but the box is clickable)
Why do you think Boleskine has been "depleted"? "though it be burnt down & shattered, yet an invisible house there standeth," etc.
We can expand our reach a little and use a phrase from the Book of Samuel 2:8, where the words MTzuQI AReTz are translated as "pillars of the Earth". The gematria of this is 240 + 291 = 531, so do what you like with that number.
I've written it in my Sepher Sephiroth now. Can only note the root prime 59, so times 9=531. The other factor is 177x3=531.
Crowley kept trying to associate it with a war, but he always forgot the one that was going on when he received the Book.
A final pronouncement of His attributes. I do not know the exact meaning of v.71 (later, Autumn 1911. Yes: I do.)
This is a clear statement as to the War which was to come, and did come, in 1914 E.V.
I now (An XIX Sol in Libra) no longer agree with the above paragraph. I think "the pillars of the world" mean "the Pillars of Hercules" -- about the Straits of Gibraltar. And I think the really big war will start "there".
P.S. An (Sept. 8, '37, E.V.) Can "twin warriors" imply a "civil" war? The Spanish troubles started in S. Spain and Morocco.
Vulgate here uses the term "cardines terrae", while the Septuagint uses a different term (the passage is different, Samuel has a complicated history of transmission), ἄκρα γῆς, "end/extremity/farthest reach of the earth."
The creation of this thread is certainly warranted relative to the present situation on the planet and that of 1904 e.v., so thanks for the attention to PerdurabuST's work relative to the proper insights relative to what really was the beginning of world conflagration of wars and more wars from the Entente Cordial of April 8, 1904 that led to World War I.
The issue of the Russo-Japanese and the Entente Cordial is significant particularly as what is happening now in 2021 e.v. is the same old game, except the Russian Roulette being played by Boris and G.I Joe involves mother Russia again, this time ready to use thermonuclear weapons as the puppet government of the Ukraine, the dupes and Nazi's there, have Declared War against Russia on March 11, 2021 e.v. with Decree No. 117/2021 e.v. of which the figure 1904 if one subtracts the number of the decree from the year it was made!
It was Edward VII, King of England and Grand Master of the Grand United Lodge of England that brought together the Entente Cordial, where the bait was the trade off of Egypt for Morocco, to which the treaty with Japan did thus involve two pillars out of the ocean. as empiric islands, at the horizons, allied in the Great Game which eventually lead to the slaughter of World War ! and now on the verge the next chapter of World War...
Upon such a terrestrial backdrop that may go boom at any time with flashes of light and the end of civilization as is being warned by Russia with Germany caught in the middle relative to the Nord Stream and the collapse of the petro dollar at stake...
But money fear not....Chapter III v. 71 has an esoteric significance in as Kenneth Grant has pointed out is the number of LAM, connected with the Voice of the Silence, the Way, and of Zain, which is the sword by which the brothers, the twin warriors, implies naught!
Well as Timothy Leary used to say, "everybody thinks the world is going to end, so they make their fears come true, but we need to tell them that they are just having a bad acid trip, calm down and it will turn our alright."
Wars and rumors of war, PerdurabuST's work is significant upon reflecting upon what was happening at the time to which does have significant relationship to Liber L. bel Legis to which esoteric and exoteric have intersected...
"Crowley kept trying to associate it with a war, but he always forgot the one that was going on when he received the Book."
A prospectus for AC's BOTL, is mentioned in a description of his self promotion of the publishing of an edition of this book. This prospectus is described as stating that AC's BOTL has been published three times before, that first publication was nine months before outbreak of the Balkan war, second, nine months before outbreak of the First world war, third, nine months before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, and that this is no coincidence, as "... the might of this Magick burst out and caused a catastrophe to civilisation."
"... the might of this Magick burst out and caused a catastrophe to civilisation.", claim, used by AC in his self promoting hype for his published editions of his BOTL, pertains to causing "... a catastrophe to civilisation". It does not pertain to a war (the Russo-Japanese War, 8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) that was already going on when he authored his BOTL.
belmurru (@belmurru): "... Liber VII and Liber LXV are notably un-AL-like."
Me:
"... A rational explanation involving no "praeterhuman intelligence" an no supernatural aspects, for the evidently odd style of grammer in this book, compared with other texts written by AC:
Having worked on developing the teachings and concepts for his own Order since at least 1900 ( – as already described in detail by me earlier in this thread – ) AC's encounter with a particular ancient Egyptian artifac leads to him experiencing a breakthrough of insigh, and to work fast at incorporating said artifact within his already developed teachings and concepts.
Crowley writing his The Book of the Law fast under inpiration based on his from around 1900 already developed teachings and concepts, while simultaneously trying to superimpose those upon names and terms recently translated for him from said particular ancient Egyptian artifact, is one obvious rational explanation for the unique odd style of grammer used in this book. And as far as I know, this is the only book written by AC where he simultaneously tries to put his own spin on so many names and terms recently translated for him from this artifact.
As already mentioned above in this posting, the Xian traditional Easter celebration of Jesus' resurrection on the third day, is a plausible inspiration for AC's story about receiving his The Book of the Law over three days, writing one hour each day. And an approach that he can have used to achieve the appearance of the one hour of writing each day having occured, is to have used a timing device to keep track of the time spent during each session of writing. Maybe with assistance from his then wife Rose, to help him with keeping track of the time.
AC's claimed dates in the month of April, for the three days of the writing of his The Book of the Law, does of course also have some correspondence with the Xian Easter festival and holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead [on the third day], which is also claimed to have occured in the month of April."
first publication was nine months before outbreak of the Balkan war, second, nine months before outbreak of the First world war, third, nine months before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, and that this is no coincidence
Yes, there is always this series of coincidental meaningfulness, with the 4th publication just before ww2, "which will destroy civilization."
This is an interesting demonstration of the so-called Shamballa Current, a first ray energy, whose first effects are always destructive.
Although it's pretty hard to cause=effect correlate all the other publications of AL, performed by individuals and groups all over the world, each one could conceivably be linked to some rebellion, protest, riot, or catastrophe ... in any number of hot spots on the globe.
This is an interesting demonstration of the so-called Shamballa Current, a first ray energy, whose first effects are always destructive.
Hello old friend 🙂
Are you referencing Blavatsky here?
"If you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time, but if you are here because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us work together." Lilla Watson
“ Beginning in the late 19th century, the seven rays appeared in a modified and elaborated form in the teachings of Theosophy, first presented by Helena Blavatsky.[8] The Theosophical concept of the seven rays was further developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the writings of Theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater, and by other authors such as Alice Bailey, Manly P. Hall, and others — notably including the teachings of Benjamin Creme and his group Share International “ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_rays
No. She didn't really get much into the Rays. Actually, I don't remember her getting into them at all (she might have, but then I missed it).
Where does the term specifically for the first ray, the "shambhala" wave you mentioned, originate? As "Shambhala" is, was, and always has been a tantra practice (at least as far reaching as I can tell so far).
I've been following this trail, called the Silk Road historically, regarding the evolution, refinement, and what appears to be likely the source distribution for perhaps most if not all "occult" movements for at least the past two thousand years.
The "release" of Shambhala, according to the actual source tantras, is a prediction for the future event when the Shambhala warriors were released into the world as warriors are likely do to. The "weapons" of these warriors are pure illuminative bodhicitta, similar to a hyper magical version of Aikido, attacking the enemies of dharma with the fears of their own egos around death and enlightening them with harmony as a form of warfare.
Historically, I see "two" possible events which may match this description.
First one is the domination of the Khans of Mongolia, Ghengis and such, I believe that date range is around 1150 - 1350 or so. It is counter intuitive but it does appear with Ghengis, the western world may have stayed rather dark and dismal. The Khans were already practioners of Bon and Bo, the shambhala myths were already prominent, and they converted to Tibetan Buddhism.
That's kinda neat in the sense that the western war "Gods" of The Roman Catholic Church, Islam, were all "defeated" gods by the nature spirits and the religion magical shaman culture of Mongolia where Shambhala is central and Vajrayana is master. That is pretty meaningful because it means these Western Religions were already defeated, spiritually that is, long before Crowley or the Western esoteric movement.
The second possible historical event for such a "wave" I see as the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, and the release, both physically through the brutal slaughter of hundreds of thousands of monks but also the spiritual liberation of their culture, which literally centers around the Shambhala myth, and is, in its own way, a culture dedicated to turning itself into "shambhala" for perhaps 1000 years.
That event in 1959 did literally release the once secret and now perfect for a millennia true source materials and practices of the highest alchemies and magics. I believe that since 1959, all occult societies are rather muted, broken, incomplete in comparison to the full and complete systems released to the world around this time.
I am utterly ignorant on Blavatsky, Lighthouse, Seventh ray, leadbetter etc etc crowd and work, but it may be my next research dip.
Are we close to talking about the same thing? Can you share with a brother some sources you like to study? Or perhaps you've written about this yourself?
This is where I see Crowley coming in, I see him, at this time at least, more as a messenger or receiver of these 'waves' coming from the Himalaya. I do not see Crowley as a source himself of anything
"If you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time, but if you are here because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us work together." Lilla Watson
This might have some relevance to this thread and your enquiries...
From Victor & Victoria Trimondi work, The Shadow of the Dalai Lama, to which I have linked to Part II, Politics as Ritual, section 11, The Shambhala Myth and the West, which has some interesting things concerning Blavatsky....and perhaps a greater placement of the reception of Liber Legis in 1904 in the context of planetary war!
The Trimondi's work is rather controversial for some, but also quite in-depth in scope and understanding with much commentary and critique of tantric distortions of sex magic, per perhaps the 'war-engine'...
This might have some relevance to this thread and your enquiries...
From Victor & Victoria Trimondi work, The Shadow of the Dalai Lama, to which I have linked to Part II, Politics as Ritual, section 11, The Shambhala Myth and the West, which has some interesting things concerning Blavatsky....and perhaps a greater placement of the reception of Liber Legis in 1904 in the context of planetary war!
The Trimondi's work is rather controversial for some, but also quite in-depth in scope and understanding with much commentary and critique of tantric distortions of sex magic, per perhaps the 'war-engine'...
Thank you for thinking of this and bringing this into the convo. I am familiar with this cast of characters!
Wonderfully complicating all of this too is the history of the YeruBon specifically.
"If you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time, but if you are here because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us work together." Lilla Watson
The Trimondi's work is rather controversial for some, but also quite in-depth in scope and understanding with much commentary and critique of tantric distortions of sex magic, per perhaps the 'war-engine'...
I believe it is fair for me to comment, Trimondi's is a good collection of some interesting and often perplexing facts, however I too am deeply suspicious about this work in terms of the intention to paint the current Dalai Lama with a bunch of FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) which, to me, does bare many hallmarks of an influence operation and this campaign against the Dalai Lama by the CCP has been an ongoing affair for quite some time.
It should be noted that, if it is apart of the broader influence operation against the Dalai Lama or not, all of it has failed utterly. The Dalai Lama is one of the few global celebrities that are still cherished after the recent decade long influence operation to discredit Western celebrity.
One could compare the global success of Crowley's "viral marketing" (Magick) which also declared a distribution channel of the "secrets of Magick" giving access to the world's elites, as Crowley put it without apologizing for his clearly British bias–and to that of the Dalai Lama's Dharma tantra (Magick). Which one appears to be closer to the mark historically, and with more integrity in terms of the lineage tantras revealed to the world, according to prophecy?
Success is your proof, but also failure is another kind of proof. Ultimately Crowley "failed" although he was essential to the 20th Century.
The Dalai Lama, on the other hand, is always winning, and Shambhala is the civilization of the fully awakened third Aeon of Crowley's historical dialectic.
There, I said it. Come at me bro 🙂
(last statement not intended for you specifically @hadgigegenraum)
"If you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time, but if you are here because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us work together." Lilla Watson
Where does the term specifically for the first ray, the "shambhala" wave you mentioned, originate?
When it's spelled with two l's (Shamballa), it;s usually Alice Bailey. Other folks, lots and lots of them and publishers too, spell it differently, and there are many differentlies.
The "release" of Shambhala, according to the actual source tantras, is a prediction for the future event
According to Bailey, it's been "released" twice: The destruction of Atlantis and the end of ww2. It seems we're still getting the effects from the ww2 version now. Things are still being destroyed, but not so radically, and the effect on consciousness is becoming more obvious.
I am utterly ignorant on Blavatsky, Lighthouse, Seventh ray, leadbetter etc etc crowd and work, but it may be my next research dip.
I didn't first learn about Rays from some dead author. I learned from Jack Schwarz, who could see them, and he held classes where he described them, read the Rays of the participants, and taught how to see them. Here's the problem: The Ray is a descending cone of white light (for everybody), but when it hits the causal aura (about 5 feet radius from the body), one's "karma" or coloring is "subtracted" from the white light - what remains (to be seen) is one or two of seven color schemes, which may be described as what one has to do to get clear. In this case, "clear" means a causal/soul body that is clear (no colors) like a crystal ball.
Jack recommended Geoffrey Hodson's (a Theosophist) The Seven Human Temperaments. Then he wrote his own book, Human Energy Systems, where he wrote about them, among other things. Then I published Megatron 7x7 as a website, and as a book, The Crystal Chip Directory.
So there's plenty of material available, which has nothing to do with the Russo-Japanese conflict, except the first ray is alwats destructive (military) at first, then it gives way to re-organizing (politics). This idea can be applied to external civilization or to the interior aspirant. The problem comes in with the fact that nobody can see the ray unless they can see the causal aura, and to do that, one needs to be in causal consciousness (Tiphareth, minimum).
This is where I see Crowley coming in, I see him, at this time at least, more as a messenger or receiver
In his overall capacity, AC demonstrated first ray energy. He "destroyed" (the secrets) of the Golden Dawn, and then moved toward reorganization (with the philosophy of Thelema).
But we will not find any teachings from AC on the Rays - he didn't see them or discuss them.
Thanks for your longer note....I added the Trimondi's work regarding the Kalachakra-Tantra as they pose the question, "A Ritual of Peace or Totalitarian Projection", which I include as perhaps a lens relative to Crowley and say the OTO...
There is a reason I added their 'Postscript' which speaks to say a more "Martian" approach to the alchemy...rather than what might be just getting sucked into a negative agenda that they might be harboring and projecting... say relative to the Dali Lama...
It was the introduction of PerduraboST's work bringing to the for the geopolitical 'Great Game' reality of the Russo-Japanese War that actually might well be the one of the greatest oversights in the whole issue of the reception of Liber Legis etc...and the issue of hidden masters, Besant's agenda, etc...relative to the Great Game being played out on the world stage this very moment!
relative to the Great Game being played out on the world stage this very moment!
Indeed! At times, and in my own boyhood wonder, it feels like I am just this close...!
this should really be its own thread, this "great historical game" which intersects with Crowley no doubt, unless it is polite to hijack this one? since this thread is about historical references in Liber AL, which also predicts a future history at the time of writing.
"If you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time, but if you are here because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us work together." Lilla Watson
Another area I have failed to tread. Okay interesting to see the linkage there as well between the theosophists.
Question, did you find a direct co-relation between Leary's 8 Circuit model and that work?
In terms of the "great game", which I do not yet know what it is exactly, as it spreads through history, we do see Leary, declaring himself as continuing the work of Crowley (who was continuing the work of the Himalayan masters, Shambhala, etc) but instead pulling it straight into western materialism (sci fi, LSD (divine ambrosia), space travel via mini earths (shambhala), longevity and a handbook of how to hack the nervous system to communicate directly with the masters (coiled up in each individual genetic code, waiting for the right "signals" to unlock in each individual). Leary was already on the radar of the Himalayan adepts with Leary's big mouth and LSD interpreted "Tibetan Book of the Dead", whose original author was Padmasambhava, or, the "eight circuit", HGA, etc
"If you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time, but if you are here because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us work together." Lilla Watson
All's fair in Agape and War. However, proceed at your own risk, because Life itself is not fair. It is always safe to start a new thread, as long as AC is involved.
I added the Trimondi's work regarding the Kalachakra-Tantra as they pose the question, "A Ritual of Peace or Totalitarian Projection",
hehe, yeah it is great fun for me to read that! That evil, evil war driven golden age, comprised of complete and utter world peace, is just around the corner and those evil Shambhala warriors with their intentions of loving kindness for everyone, hehe, watch out!
He sort of disqualifies his own writing extensively, as an Kalachakra initiate would actually know the true meaning behind the entire tantra, his expose reads more like one would expect a paranoid non initiated viewpoint would look like. Reminds me of Colin Wilson's rantings about Crowley, actually.
"If you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time, but if you are here because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us work together." Lilla Watson
Well I will quote you as it is certainly quotable...as is fair!
"All's fair in Agape and War. However, proceed at your own risk, because Life itself is not fair."
Also thanks about the reference to Jack Schwartz, whom I think you have mentioned before, and to whom from descriptions represented a unique adept from no expected house one might say as he came fresh through his own path and discoveries if I am correct?
"In terms of the "great game", which I do not yet know what it is exactly, as it spreads through history, we do see Leary,..."
The 'Great Game' is a term concerning geopolitics and control of the world to which whoever controls Asia, controls the planet!...but your segue into mentioning Timothy Leary is relevant in that he recognized the role of consciousness, etc as being an important component to something involving evolution of the species beyond various territorial adjuncts of socio-psychological domination circuits at play amongst various powers...some of whom wish to enslave, others and themselves through various activities that may or may not involve war, as war comes upon a number of different levels of comprehension, but certainly one fact has been the control of the drug trade, dopes to turn off consciousness and moral intuitions such that the higher will relative to one's 'talents' bight be subverted to societal wants projected upon various caves as Plato well understood the games long ago...
The "Great Game" refers to social/military/political conflict over control of Central Asia, and specifically Afghanistan and Iran, actually, and not at all to the Pacific rim nations such as China/Japan/Korea that many might think of as important parts of "Asia" nowadays:
Only because controlling say Afghanistan one can control trade corridors east west north and south...to which interrupting the creation of such corridors then bypasses maritime trade routes to which furthermore the creation of land linked trade routes then provides the impetus for development along such routes....This is the idea of the New Silk Road and One Belt One Road initiatives of Russia and China....The great game is about preventing nations from mutual development along such avenues, rather divide and conquer...the strategy was the same on in Europe, to which the aim was to make sure one power did not become hegemonic, be it France, Germany or Russia...
PerduraboST's two pillar identification would be of the alliance of imperial sea powers England and Japan, isles like pillars from the sea, teamed against Russia...Of course various imperial powers of the continent competed against one another Germany v. Russia, etc, etc...
It is known that the Nazi's had their fascination with Tibet, and apparently the Bolsheviks did too as this book, which is quite fascinating, shows...who knows...
he came fresh through his own path and discoveries if I am correct?
Yeah. At age 8 he was seeing colored clouds around people and he was healing rabbits, cats, and grandmothers that the local folk brought to him. If they had cancer, it went away. "Otherwise," he told me, "they stayed as far away from me as possible." He demonstrated the results ... but he had to read books to find the causes ... because nobody else could help him find out why he was different.
PerduraboST's two pillar identification would be of the alliance of imperial sea powers England and Japan, isles like pillars from the sea, teamed against Russia...Of course various imperial powers of the continent competed against one another Germany v. Russia, etc, etc...
The "two-pillar identification" was my conribution, not PerduraboST's. I believe so, at least. I've checked in the chapter where he brings up the Russo-Japanese war, and I can't find any place where he interprets this passage of Liber Legis with the war in mind.
Also, PerduraboST does not mention Britain's alliance with Japan, nor France's with Russia. This too was my own contribution.
However, I have not searched through all of his chapters, so it could be that he does both of these above things somewhere. If this is the case, I'm happy to be corrected. Great minds think alike!
I know that "ideas are not copyrightable," but it is intellectually scrupulous, and plain good manners, to correctly attribute the sources of ideas.
These minor points aside, PerduraboST deserves much greater credit for emphasizing the importance of the Russo-Japanese war in the first place, and wondering why Crowley didn't mention it.
I noted it long ago, as did Leo and many others, I suspect, but because it seemed so minor and distant, and because Crowley himself made nothing of it, I never considered it further. It was only because of PerduraboST that I took a second look, and discovered the delicate international situation, which I was not aware of before.
Past the elevated plateau of LEng Ring Tagzig Olmo, is a non-dual spiritual realm, plane and dimension that can be understood as a timeless perfected realm; an axis mundi extended into the lower worlds through the fabric of being construed as an Omphalos Syndrome by bodymindstreams still full of obscurations, obstructing the bearing the mind of the heart.
Deep chthonic wave forms sunken in the sub-earthly infra-earthly underworldly netherworld regions carry the current; submerged beneath the space that serves the affected known and settled order which one can tap into to expand into boundaries of the foreign alien and unfamiliar, and find pathways into divine dwellings.
Tír fo Thuinn Cantre'r Gwaelod Ville d'Ys Kumari Kandam
The Tantra of telestial forge of Har-pa-khered The seven veils, the seven planets, the seven chakras, the seven rays spiraling ” the milk of the stars from both her paps in the abyss between sea and land hidden by clouds which whirl in growing hair the brushland of eternity” A.C. inscribed
Regarding AL III:71 "Hail! Ye twin warriors about the pillars of the world," there is a parallel in Crowley's poetry, which is apparently derived from a passage in the Book of the Dead.
It first appears in Orpheus, book IV, page 187 of the first edition of 1905, page 209 right column of Collected Works, volume III. Crowley finished book IV in late 1904.
Hail! ye twin hawks high pinnacled
That watch upon the universe!
It appears slightly altered in the Great Invocation, found in the 1907 proofs that were to have been printed in the Collected Works. At page 245 -
Hail! ye twin Hawks upon your pinnacles, that keep watch upon the Universe!
Finally, the verse also appears in Liber CXX -
Hail! ye twin Hawks upon your pinnacles, ye that guard the gate of the abyss
I haven't found the Book of the Dead passage this is based on. I also seem to recall that the phrase was used in a Golden Dawn ritual, but I haven't found that yet either.
The source is Chapter 64 of the Book of the Dead, selections of which were published by Florence Farr, Egyptian Magic, 1896, p. 13.
Ye Two Divine Hawks upon your stations; Watchers of the Material World.
She does not attribute the translations. Chapter is not in the Papyrus of Ani, and Budge's version of the Theban recension, which includes this chapter, would not appear until 1898.
This was used the same year by Allan Bennett when he composed “The Ritual For The Evocation Unto Visible Appearance Of The Great Spirit Taphthartharath,” performed with Florence Farr as chief magician, on Wednesday, May 13, 1896. Published in The Equinox, vol. I, no. 3, pp. 170-190. See page 177 for the quotation -
O ye two divine hawks upon your pinnacles, who are keeping Watch over the Universe!
Crowley adapted this Liber LXIV vel Israfel
O ye two Divine Hawks upon your Pinnacles! Who keep watch over the Universe!
My conjecture would be that Crowley versified Farr's parts of Chapter 64 well before he inserted them into Orpheus, to which he added some new lines from his versification of Stele 666. I think we can draw a direct line between "Hail! ye twin hawks high pinnacled, that watch upon the universe" to "Hail! ye twin warriors about the pillars of the world."
For a brief, recent account of Crowley's and Farr's use of Chapter 64, there is Foy Scalf, editor, Book of the Dead: Becoming God in Ancient Egypt (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2017), see Steve Vinson's chapter, “Necrobibliomania: (Mis)appropriations of the Book of the Dead,” pp. 161-170.
Begins with Crowley and Rose at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Discusses Florence Farr's work on pp. 165-167.
For images of Chapter 64, which both occultists and Egyptologists thought might be the oldest and central chapter of the Book of Coming Forth by Day, see:
Liber Israfel, sub figûra LXIV, is numbered 64, according to Crowley, because it is "a number of Mercury." 8 squared, and also Din and Doni, "twin mercurial intelligences in Gemini."
But several commentators I've come across today have noted that it is also the number of the chapter in the Book of the Dead that it is based on.
Hail! ye twin Hawks upon your pinnacles, that keep watch upon the Universe!
This is similar-to/same-as a line from The Invocation of Thoth (Israfel), which was Bennett's work (based on The Book of the Dead). Everyone is borrowing twin birds from each other. Even me.
Hail! ye twin Hawks upon your pinnacles, that keep watch upon the Universe!
This is similar-to/same-as a line from The Invocation of Thoth (Israfel), which was Bennett's work (based on The Book of the Dead). Everyone is borrowing twin birds from each other. Even me.
O ye two Divine Hawks upon your Pinnacles! Who keep watch over the Universe!
Yeah. That one.
That's very nice artwork, thanks for sharing it.
I went looking for the vignettes for Chapter 64 of the Book of the Dead to see if they show twin hawks on pillars. They don't. In the two examples shown in Scalf cited above, pages 214 and 263, they show a man coming forth by day to greet the sun.
So your picture is the best rendition of the concept that I know of.
Excellent link, what a find, along with this delving into Florence Farr's contributions to the mix!... Time for me to pull down from the shelf Mary Greer's Woman of The Golden Dawn once again!
Per our parallel running thread of poetics, virile or otherwise, it is important to note that poetry very much has a cross pollinating reality, as themes are sort of perennial realities, to which as relates to say magick, that so employs verse as part of the vehicles employed to pierce the veils, or it be a sermon or the summons of a jingle, or a folk song that might become further transcendent when appreciated by say a Beethoven...
Thus it would seem the then just unearthed Egyptian Book of the Dead would be the open vehicle to inspiration, where inspirations might feed off of one another...
From far to other hallows of howling echoes resonating such invisible pillars alive!
The 'Great Game' is a term concerning geopolitics and control of the world to which whoever controls Asia, controls the planet!
ah-ha!
I was not viewing through geo-political terms, but esoteric...as in "which paradigm controls Asia", which form of "magick"?
I'm not sure if this is useful or already noted, but Liber Al vel Legis was received by Crowley the same year Britain invaded Tibet.
edit: I found a day-by-day summary of the entirety of the Russo-Japanese War in two minutes on YouTube, so you can geographically see which areas were highlighted during the actual writing.
"If you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time, but if you are here because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us work together." Lilla Watson
