Does The Book of Lies have any value for you? If so , is it that you are aesthetically pleased by the imagery and metaphor of the poetry as you would be by work by any other of your favourite poets? Yes? Could you give me examples of any of your favourite poems not written by Crowley?
If not then perhaps it's the controversial hidden meanings such as edgy drug-experience references or it's sexual double entendres? On the other hand maybe it's the secrets of initiation found in each chapter for those who know. Any other reason why you like to read The Book of Lies?
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
Any other reason why you like to read The Book of Lies?
Because it's one of AC's funniest works by far?
Here are some of my favorite poems not written by AC: Philip Larkin "This be the verse"; T.S. Eliot "The Waste Land"; Chuck Berry "Promised Land"; Iggy Pop "No Fun".
Liber 333 is superior to Liber AL, in my opinion of course. Other readers may consider screeching or ranting. I could say much more, but I'm rather busy.
Because it's one of AC's funniest works by far?
Here are some of my favorite poems not written by AC: Philip Larkin "This be the verse"; T.S. Eliot "The Waste Land"; Chuck Berry "Promised Land"; Iggy Pop "No Fun".
So T.S.Eliot lamented the old ways of Pagan folk festivals as the modern world tightened it's grip around human consciousness? He was also a banker (for a good while) which fits nicely with Crowley's advice to balance conflicting aspects.
I think Iggy Pop's "Search and Destroy" is a better example of poetry as "No fun" is more basic and direct, similarly with "The Passenger" which is based on a Jim Morrison poem about modern man's existence being akin to a car journey. Morrison wanted to be taken seriously as a genuine poet, his song-poem "Not to touch the Earth" is a reference to a particular book, without googling do you know which book?
I think Lou Reed's "Black Angel's Death Song" is a great example of poetry in pop music and Lou was an English graduate as I'm sure you know. I prefer Nick Cave for his use of similes, metaphors, imagery and (dark) humour. I never got the big deal about Morrisey's lyrics. I don't get Shelley, Byron or Wordsworth I prefer Keates e.g. To Autumn. I love a lot of Crowley's poems. I rate Ian Curtis and Rollins highly also.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
[T.S. Eliot] was also a banker (for a good while) which fits nicely with Crowley's advice to balance conflicting aspects.
This is one of the funniest things you have ever said here, and i hope the humor is intentional. Occult accountancy anyone?
All Stooges lyrics were based on the advice of US kids TV host Soupy Sales, who told kids writing him fan-mail to "Use 25 words or less".
If only someone had given the young AC the same advice- not a fan of most of AC's poetry. Other than the book allegedly under discussion here.
Soupy's kids Hunt and Tony were later in Iggy's backing band (they're both on "The Passenger" BTW, drums and bass respectively)
Occult accountancy anyone?
Balancing the Ledger of cause & effect. Karmic balancing.
But I don't think this method uses digits or books, or financial software, even.
Does The Book of Lies have any value for you?
I cut my qabalistic teeth on the book of lies, little anecdotes of AC's predilections and love life aside I regard it as a master key to understanding the rest of Crowley's writing. Given the choice between Liber Al and Liber 333 I'd take the latter without hesitation.
All Stooges lyrics were based on the advice of US kids TV host Soupy Sales, who told kids writing him fan-mail to "Use 25 words or less".
You believe that? He wrote a letter to my friend telling her that he wrote the lyrics under a tree with a guitar. Larkin, Jesus that's err interesting but I prefer poems with references to Greek myths etc. Yeah the thread is about The Book of Lies. Anyway Not to touch the Earth is a section from Frazer's Golden Bough.
AC's predilections and love life aside I regard it as a master key to understanding the rest of Crowley's writing. Given the choice between Liber Al and Liber 333 I'd take the latter without hesitation.
In Chapter 14 the onion Peelings refers to Ibsen's Peer Gynt when peeling an onion he compares his many selves to the layers saying There's a most surprising lot of layers! Are we never coming to the kernel? There isn't one! To the innermost bit. It's nothing but layers, smaller and smaller. This reminds me of the Gnostic or Cabbalistic layers/ stations or emanations of Creation. I think P.J.Carroll may've got the idea of Laughter as a neutralizing all-encompassing banishing force from this chapter.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
Chapter 14 the onion Peelings
I believe that Onion Peelings was the first Crowley I ever read. This would have been in the liner notes for Killing Joke's Brighter Than A Thousand Suns. I procured more Crowley right away.
And more Killing Joke.
I believe that Onion Peelings was the first Crowley I ever read. This would have been in the liner notes for Killing Joke's Brighter Than A Thousand Suns. I procured more Crowley right away.
And more Killing Joke.
They're possibly the only band other than Zeppelin who pull off the Thelema connection. The others suck and sucked so much. I used to think that KJ were all amoral psychopaths.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
“ It is not necessary to understand; it is enough to adore.
The god may be of clay: adore him; he becomes GOD.
We ignore what created us; we adore what we create. Let us create nothing but GOD!
That which causes us to create is our true father and mother; we create in our own image, which is theirs.
Let us create therefore without fear; for we can create nothing that is not GOD. “
THE BLIND WEBSTER
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/crowley/lies/24.htm
I think the Book of Lies (hmmm book of the law/book of lies. if you get rid of the particle both are BOL) , like the book of the Law, renders more information and energy the more one reads is. It is one of those books, which seems super simple on the outside, but when you keep digging in you find 'occult' information.
I need to read it for the 3rd or so time soon.
I bought my copy at a stripmall little book shop years ago, after I had heard a presentation there, from supposed UFO abductee Stan Romanek.
I recall one 'poem' about the ants in the Book of Lies that I quite liked.
THE BATTLE OF THE ANTS
That is not which is.
The only Word is Silence.
The only Meaning of that Word is not.
Thoughts are false.
Fatherhood is unity disguised as duality.
Peace implies war.
Power implies war.
Harmony implies war.
Victory implies war.
Glory implies war.
Foundation implies war.
Alas! for the Kingdom wherein all these are at war.
Alas! for the Kingdom wherein all these are at war.
Yea-yes. A profound concept. All this "stuff" we argue about, or agree upon, is mostly abstract. But the abstract implications are that it all comes home to roost on the physical plane. Illusion and fact alike. Here - sort this out, will you?
Mal Cooth
When we dream we go to Yes Sod?
When we meditate 'truly' we go to Tiff Phareth?
Lets not be specific here.
I think Kafka wrote something about ants too. But I don't like him much. Too much neuroses and verbiage in my opinion.
I recall one 'poem' about the ants in the Book of Lies that I quite liked.
THE BATTLE OF THE ANTS
That is not which is.
The only Word is Silence.
The only Meaning of that Word is not.
Thoughts are false.
Fatherhood is unity disguised as duality.
Peace implies war.
Power implies war.
Harmony implies war.
Victory implies war.
Glory implies war.
Foundation implies war.
Alas! for the Kingdom wherein all these are at war.
Every chapter appears to be incredible. With this one why ants associated with war? I guess ants get organized into an very efficient and very big army. However I wouldn't be surprised if AC here is attributing ants to our thoughts.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
Haha this just came to me... We would have PT (physical training) at one of my posts in a field with fire ants. Reveille or some bugle call would come on and we would be at attention saluting meanwhile ants would be nonchalantly biting our legs and groins and we couldn't move.
ants would be nonchalantly biting our legs and groins and we couldn't move.
This sounds like the usual Army tactical torture. FTA.
Harmony implies war.
I've seen some of Crowley's writings teasing on the union of "love and war", specifically "war is love" but I don' think he actually resolved that contradiction before his death either.
"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
I think that poem relates to the works of the pre socratic philosophers. In particular Heraclitus. War or chaos is at the centre of all. The formulas of Lashtal, Abrahadabra and IAO all embrace this concept.
Harmony implies war.
I've seen some of Crowley's writings teasing on the union of "love and war", specifically "war is love" but I don' think he actually resolved that contradiction before his death either.
In Thelema 'love' is assimilation of aversions so yoga is a form of war. Face Endure Assimilate Reintegrate.
If love is war then war is love i.e. facing some unpleasantness head on to say the least. We are presently in the thick of a war situation i.e. a pandemic. People who attend gyms and work out are at war...with their own glucose and fat build up. It's work, war, destruction, force, fire and energy.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
In Thelema 'love' is assimilation of aversions so yoga is a form of war. Face Endure Assimilate Reintegrate.
If love is war then war is love i.e. facing some unpleasantness head on to say the least. We are presently in the thick of a war situation i.e. a pandemic. People who attend gyms and work out are at war...with their own glucose and fat build up. It's work, war, destruction, force, fire and energy.
Hi. Thx for reply. I'm not sure if that is an actual and legitimate union of "war and love" as a resolving of contradiction. Like "squaring the circle", war and love remain unresolved in the psyche until an initiate understands how they are or how they can be unified, and its not a language thing either, like a metaphor or something similar.
The union of war and love gives us something closer to the weaponization of harmony or the weaponization of unity, a "violent resolution".
I only know of one great adept who accomplished this, and it is not Crowley, although he was a contemporary.
"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
Hi. Thx for reply. I'm not sure if that is an actual and legitimate union of "war and love" as a resolving of contradiction.
They're only a contradiction if you're still thinking in terms of war being territorial disputes (or oil grabbing) between this nation or that nation but they are trivialities in terms of the definition of Thelema and it's 93 quality-quantity.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
If love is war then war is love
This sounds like it might have come out of Nineteen Eighty Four ! (Or, "Love is a Battlefield" [Pat Benatar]?)
They're only a contradiction if you're still thinking in terms of war being territorial disputes (or oil grabbing) between this nation or that nation but they are trivialities in terms of the definition of Thelema and it's 93 quality-quantity.
Could you possibly explain a bit more specifically about the "93 quality-quantity" definition of Thelema in this ("trivialities") context - I'm not sure I grasp where you are going with this/ what it means?
Thanks!
Norma N Joy Conquest
I'm not sure I grasp where you are going with this/ what it means?
Likewise.
Could you possibly explain a bit more specifically about the "93 quality-quantity" definition of Thelema in this ("trivialities") context - I'm not sure I grasp where you are going with this/ what it means?
Thanks!
Norma N Joy Conquest
The word thelema is the English transliteration of the Koine Greek noun θέλημα (pronounced [θélɛ:ma]), "will", from the verb θέλω (thélō): "to will, wish, want or purpose". It equals 93 in Gematria as does 'Love'. It is the word of the Aeon of Horus who is the God of War and Vengeance. With said then θέλημα is the Word of the Aeon of War which involves worshipping the Khabs as oppose to some external vast gaseous invertebrate.
Was it in the correspondences with Achad where AC describes how a Doctor must love cholera in order to fight and defeat it? Maybe it was Book 4. Anyway similarly your immune defence - system (i..e war system) has to love it's enemies the antigens. The enzymes literally engulf them, link up with them, embrace them in order to destroy them. That is a search and destroy policy. The spiritual path in this aeon is war as follows from Liber O
4. Instead of stopping, let him continue to rise until fatigue almost overcomes him. If he should find that he has stopped without willing to do so, and that figures appear, let him at all costs rise above them.
Yea, though his very life tremble on his lips, let him force his way upward and onward! 5. Let him continue in this so long as the breath of life is in him. Whatever threatens, whatever allures, though it were Typhon and all his hosts loosed from the pit and leagued against him, though it were from the very Throne of God Himself that a Voice issues bidding him stay and be content, let him struggle on, ever on.
or
5. There is little danger that any student, however idle or stupid, will fail to get some result; but there is great danger that he will be led astray, obsessed and overwhelmed by his results, even though it be by those which it is necessary that he should attain. Too often, moreover, he mistaketh the first resting-place for the goal, and taketh off his armour as if he were a victor ere the fight is well begun.
Furthermore under Tiphareth there are paths associated with Geburah-Mars.
So I reckon this could be the war that AC had in mind when he said that love is war i.e. the individual's path to return should take precedence over external events such as your girlfriend wanting to argue or foreign tanks rolling through your streets.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
... So I reckon this could be the war that AC had in mind when he said that love is war i.e. the individual's path to return should take precedence over external events such as your girlfriend wanting to argue or foreign tanks rolling through your streets.
So if I understand you right, in effect you're saying war is (all) opposition or distractions to progress on the individual's path? That's a pretty big catch-all. And if Horus is a "god of War" (III:3), then he would be a god of all these oppositions and distractions instead (rather like Choronzon).
N Joy
... So I reckon this could be the war that AC had in mind when he said that love is war i.e. the individual's path to return should take precedence over external events such as your girlfriend wanting to argue or foreign tanks rolling through your streets.
So if I understand you right, in effect you're saying war is (all) opposition or distractions to progress on the individual's path? That's a pretty big catch-all. And if Horus is a "god of War" (III:3), then he would be a god of all these oppositions and distractions instead (rather like Choronzon).
N Joy
I don't know I'd have to know the actual reference-quote and in what context it was said.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
I don't know I'd have to know the actual reference-quote and in what context it was said.
i think it is just possible that JB, in saying
if Horus is a "god of War" (III:3)
might conceivably be referring to AL III:3, which says in its entirety:
Now let it be first understood that I am a god of War and of Vengeance. I shall deal hardly with them. [emphasis added]
Not that i want to put words in his mouth or anything, but it does seem at least possible that this is what JB meant. Hope this is helpful in understanding his post.
War is conflict by definition. love is harmony or unity by at least the definition that I am choosing to use.
I do not believe it is not so easy a task to just "reckon" where war is love and love is war. If I remember correctly this alchemical challenge pre-dates Crowley, its a puzzle.
Could you imagine being in either a life or death scenario or a member of a family or community and being confused about this set of opposites in the mind? Where one would assume a pillow fight the deluded assume a pistol fight and vice-versa. Ouch!
Transmuting war into love is alchemical and should appear counter-intuitive at first and contradictory at first.
"War is Love!" is to me more like a Zen Koan, lots to unpack, lots of runes to misread, lots of pits to fall in.
"War is Love" is likely not there to just give us some sort of "cool insight" but rather bring something practical into the world that perhaps solves critical problems causing heaps of suffering in the world through violent war.
The war is between the contradictions and the love is in their resolution.
Chapter 3 promises us a war-engine to "smite the peoples" for "beauty's sake, and love!"
Violent Love, explosive resolution, unrelenting harmony.
"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
Not that i want to put words in his mouth or anything, but it does seem at least possible that this is what JB meant. Hope this is helpful in understanding his post.
Yes, you're quite correct there ignant. I noticed just afterwards that I had omitted to put "AL" in front of III:3, but when I went to correct it I was just outside the "edit" timeline by some 2 to 3 minutes. However I felt it would have been so blindingly obvious it was not worth creating a whole new post to clarify the matter. Obviously in error, since at least three more posts (including dom's initial enquery, on present reckoning) now appear to have become necessary. So it goes.
Away till the morrow,
N Joy.
i think it is just possible that JB, in saying
if Horus is a "god of War" (III:3)
might conceivably be referring to AL III:3, which says in its entirety:
Now let it be first understood that I am a god of War and of Vengeance. I shall deal hardly with them. [emphasis added]
Not that i want to put words in his mouth or anything, but it does seem at least possible that this is what JB meant. Hope this is helpful in understanding his post.
I mean when and where did Crowley say that "love is war"? Where is the original quote taken from and what was the wider context in which he said that?
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
when and where did Crowley say that "love is war"?
Not aware that he ever did say this.
You have been the main one discussing this phrase, so i guess we all assumed that you knew what you meant.
when and where did Crowley say that "love is war"?
Not aware that he ever did say this.
You have been the main one discussing this phrase, so i guess we all assumed that you knew what you meant.
No I got it from @sangewanchuck56 but it's reared it's head before.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
I mean when and where did Crowley say that "love is war"? Where is the original quote taken from and what was the wider context in which he said that?
Love and War are two obvious and central themes in Liber Al, but I don't remember where he writes about it it has been 20 years since I've read the materials :/
I mean, I think its all over the place lol
https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2019/05/love-is-war-in-strange-angel-season-2-trailer/
"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
Not aware that he ever did say this.
Ditto.
But I just did a search ... <"love is war" Crowley>
Strange Angel showed up, but nothing else. Strange Angel, of course, is not Crowley's writings.
But then AC has sayings about almost everything, writ once, in one place, but not repeated or emphasized anywhere else. Example: Aiwass was a demon-god in Sumeria.
@shiva Not sure if it has to be a direct quote, war and love are alchemical opposites to be resolved and Thelema and Liber AL filled with it, so even if it was never overtly said its something that is gonna come up anyway.
And I am sure it is WAR IS LOVE as opposed to LOVE is War.
"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
@shiva Not sure if it has to be a direct quote, war and love are alchemical opposites to be resolved and Thelema and Liber AL filled with it, so even if it was never overtly said its something that is gonna come up anyway.
And I am sure it is WAR IS LOVE as opposed to LOVE is War.
Yeah i think someone said this on a forum years ago. Anyway, note to self; always make sure that a quote has a definite reference, it's good practice lol.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
love are alchemical opposites to be resolved
Oh, okay, I'll buy (believe) that part.
Liber Legis, Liber 333 and Liber 418 are the holy trinity.
The Book of Lies though, is truly the magical key book as someone else remarked. It is the most concise commentary and summary of not only Thelema itself with it's own mysteries, but all of the western magical tradition (Judeo-Christo-Islamio-Hermetic) and eastern mystical tradition (Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist), plus aspects of the ancient pagan mysteries (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman etc).
"There is none that shall be cast down or lifted up: all is ever as it was." - Liber Legis 2:58
"To Me do ye reverence! to me come ye through tribulation of ordeal, which is bliss." - Liber Legis 3:62
Eaves-Droppings page 54. Why the title?
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
Maybe if you, like your heroes AC, RAW, and Dr Tim, partook of some cannabis, or other strange drugs, folks wouldn't have to explain these things to you?
The title of Ch. 54 (on p. 118 in my copy) is explained by AC as follows "The title of this chapter refers to the duty of the Tyler in a blue lodge of Freemasons."
Masons build things; some of the things they build have eaves. Eaves keep the rain off. The eaves in my last apartment in Brooklyn sheltered a colony of pigeons, who were profligate shitters. The Tyler is he who keeps out the Cowans. See Liber D for the value of 54.
Maybe if you, like your heroes AC, RAW, and Dr Tim, partook of some cannabis, or other strange drugs, folks wouldn't have to explain these things to you?
The title of Ch. 54 (on p. 118 in my copy) is explained by AC as follows "The title of this chapter refers to the duty of the Tyler in a blue lodge of Freemasons."
Masons build things; some of the things they build have eaves. Eaves keep the rain off. The eaves in my last apartment in Brooklyn sheltered a colony of pigeons, who were profligate shitters. The Tyler is he who keeps out the Cowans. See Liber D for the value of 54.
Eaves grow on buildings. The origins of the term 'to eaves-drop' is found on wiki but anyway thanks for the info about the Tyler.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
Eaves grow on buildings.
Eaves do not "grow"- they have to be built onto buildings, by masons or perhaps carpenters.
Eavesdropping is such a common word i assumed it did not need defining. I was pointing out the pun on droppings, and the kinds of things that often drop from eaves, but yes, in a literal sense, a Tyler prevents Cowans eavesdropping on Lodge business.
If you are trying to read TBOL without the commentaries (the first sentence of the commentary, that i quoted, explains the title), or any reference to the QBL of the numbers of the chapters, you are making your work a lot harder than it needs to be, even as a person who is already making his work a lot harder than it needs to be by trying to understand a very stoned person's paradoxes without the appropriate medication.
The Book of Lies though, is truly the magical key book as someone else remarked. It is the most concise commentary and summary of not only Thelema itself with it's own mysteries,
Interestingly though, that it was written several years before AC's wholehearted dedication to, and endorsement & promulgation of Thelema and The Book of the Law. For a start, had it been written a decade later when Achad's Key to The Book was revealed and accepted as 31, it is fairly safe to assume there would probably have been at least 93 (=31x3, as opposed to 92) Chapters in it (Also, Laylah/Leila Waddell would no longer have been the dominant Scarlet Woman and would never have received such adulation throughout, no doubt being replaced by Alostrael/Leah Hirsig). The Book of the Law made its first (miniscule) appearance in The Equinox Vol 1 No. 7 without relatively great fanfare, which was published at about the same time as The Book of Lies was (so far as can be determined, kinks in time taken into consideration...).
Synchronistically again, Thelema etc did not really feature as AC's lifelong mission and obsession until about the same time he became a 9=2. So I suppose the question arising is, would the "value" of The Book of Lies have been that much greater had it been written later?
N Joy
it was written several years before AC's wholehearted dedication to, and endorsement & promulgation of Thelema and The Book of the Law.
But nonetheless TBOL is very definitely a product of the Thelemite AC, not the Scientific Illuminist AC. For example the chapter (54) that david inquires about above concludes "THE WORD OF THE LAW IS ΘΕΛΗΜΑ."
But despite this, Shiva and i, and perhaps others, will continue to say that 333 > 220. Oh sorry, i meant to say that TBOL is better/more useful than AL; obviously three hundred thirty three is indisputably greater than two hundred twenty.
But nonetheless TBOL is very definitely a product of the Thelemite AC,
Yes I agree, but it was right at the beginning of the "Thelemite AC" - before he "got going".
The answer to the question I raised before I think is that all those who would find increased "value" in a revised edition of Lies from say 1922-3 incorporating Achad's key & much more else inspired from AL, would be directly proportional to the amount these same people would find AL "better/ more useful" than Lies in itself.
In other words, fundamentalist Thelemites - i.e. those who accept & 'believe' in "The Book of the Law".
Shiva and i, and perhaps others, will continue to say that 333 > 220.
Count me in, too! (I don't want to seem narrow minded...)
Truthfully/Non-lyingfully yours,
N Joy
it was written several years before AC's wholehearted dedication to, and endorsement & promulgation of Thelema and The Book of the Law.
This is why it's so important. It was Thelema in its primordial state (before it got gooped up with/by the demon Crowley.
For a start, had it been written a decade later
But it wasn't. "Had it" is a theoretical, alternative timeline or universe. "What ifs" are speculative.
Count me in, too!
Your number has been added to The Book of Life, The Golden Book, and Saint Peter's list of those who may pass the Gates without a customs check.
Harmony implies war.
I've seen some of Crowley's writings teasing on the union of "love and war", specifically "war is love" but I don' think he actually resolved that contradiction before his death either.
not sure when and where Crowley mentioned any union between Love & War but in the Mirror Mirror thread from 2019 I did share my poem entitled "Make Love & Make War"
A copy of a longer version of the poem is published in the Lashtal galleries. It was originally published in the DOME meditation journal White Sun in 1991.
The idea for the poem came from having randomly chosen the Tower card as my card and role in the qabalah as a member of DOME center.
After reading more about the Tower I became interested in it as an aspect of Will as a force and action of Love as opposed to the violence the Tower is often associated with. This idea eventually became a reworking of the 60s slogan "Make Love Not War"
The idea was that the force of the Tower can be used to find and then express the Love within and that peace can only be found through the union of Love & War.
Lines like "the Love is heart the War is will" came out of these ideas. Also, "war of love, war of heart, love & war must never part."
As a songwriter and fan of the band Love & Rockets at the time I pitched it to them via mail after having run into the band at a Los Angeles diner. Nothing ever came of that.
For the record, this was long before I expressed any interest or knowledge of Crowley's writings, BOTL, or Thelema.
Personally, I think Thelema could be described as a union of Love & War in the same way the Sun is a force of life and light yet at the same time eventually devours and kills all that it touches. The Sun is both heaven and hell. Thelema at its greatest is quite effortless but the process of achieving these heights often requires violent introspection and actions which disrupt.
The poem has gone through a few versions, the longer published version being a bit corny...but I think the heart of the poem and idea is best described in the following lines:
You won't have to venture far
Or suffer pain of blood or mar
This war begins at home you see
So look inside to find the key
And when you find it gold and true
Unlock the door to being you
And let the demons have their day
So fear and anguish pass away
Power, Glory
The Love in you is mighty
Beauty, wisdom
The sword of Aphrodite
Make Love and Make War!
Eaves grow on buildings.
Eaves do not "grow"- they have to be built onto buildings, by masons or perhaps carpenters.
Eavesdropping is such a common word i assumed it did not need defining. I was pointing out the pun on droppings, and the kinds of things that often drop from eaves, but yes, in a literal sense, a Tyler prevents Cowans eavesdropping on Lodge business.
If you are trying to read TBOL without the commentaries (the first sentence of the commentary, that i quoted, explains the title), or any reference to the QBL of the numbers of the chapters, you are making your work a lot harder than it needs to be, even as a person who is already making his work a lot harder than it needs to be by trying to understand a very stoned person's paradoxes without the appropriate medication.
Here are some eves;
The primary function of the eaves is to keep rain water off the walls and to prevent the ingress of water at the junction where the roof meets the wall i.e. they are protective like The Tyler or the Pentagrams mentioned in this chapter. Essentially this chapter is about Masons who are initially indolent and then clueless about how to work for they don't know Liber AL. In other words the Thelemite is the true Mason in this Aeon.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline