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To: alt.magick.tyagi
From: jake 
Subject: Re: The Secret Keys Of The Book Of The Law
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:41:12 +0100

In article <7q2ide$2ft$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Proximus Lux  writes
>
>Crowley said the puzzle was a "qabalistic test on the regular pattern".

Apropos of which the following quoted material seems germane:

AL.II.76. '4 6 3 8 ABK 2 4 ALGMOR 3 Y X (24) (89) RPSTOVAL. What meaneth
this, o prophet? Thou knowest not; nor shalt thou know ever. There
cometh one to follow thee: he shall expound it. But remember, o chosen
one, to be me; to follow the love of Nu in the star-lit heaven; to look
forth upon men, to tell them this glad word.'

The solution of the cipher of II.76 has been a perennial problem of
Thelemic Qabalism ever since AL was dictated to Aleister Crowley by
Aiwass in 1904. To put this in perspective, let us quote from some of
Crowley's various commentaries on this enigmatic verse: 

'A final revelation. The revealer to come is perhaps the one mentioned
in I.55. and III.47. The verse goes on to urge the prophet to identify
himself with Hadit, to practice the union with Nu, and to proclaim this
joyful revelation unto men.'

'Verse 76 appears to be a Qabalistic test (on the regular pattern) of
any person who may claim to be the magical heir of the Beast. Be ye well
assured all, that the solution, when it is found will be unquestionable.
It will be marked by the most sublime simplicity, and carry immediate
conviction'.

Of first importance are the qualifiers: 'perhaps' and 'appears to be'.
Certainly AL mentions a 'child of thy bowels', 'his child and that
strangely' and 'one to follow thee', and other cryptic references of
like sort. In what sense this individual could be said to be Crowley's
successor is rather a moot point. Indeed, are we justified in
assuming these varied references all relate to only one individual?

There is then the question of 'a Qabalistic test (on the regular
pattern)'. What is the regular pattern? Or rather what, if anything, did
Crowley suppose it to be? There is no such pattern blazingly apparent in
the G(D( tradition, for example, which has to be considered Crowley's
main 'influence' in such matters. The only outstanding example of a
cipher in the G(D( tradition is the rather crude 'Cipher MS' from
which their rites and Anna Sprengel's address were allegedly translated.
This cipher is of such a transparently simplistic nature as to exclude
serious comparison with II.76. The analogy drawn between II.76 and the
rim of the Sigillum Aemeth elsewhere in this book might be apt, but the
methods employed in relation to the Seal are not 'marked by the most
sublime simplicity'. The 'Bacon cipher' style manipulations involved in
extrapolating the Names of the Great Elemental Kings, or the Sigils of
the Vast and Mighty Overseer Angels, from the Enochian Watchtowers and
the Seal of Truth can hardly be said to 'carry immediate conviction' to
most sane persons.

The only such 'regular patterns' which are truly comparable are to be
found in Graves' White Goddess. In this work Graves portrays the complex
and jumbled clues to the nature of various ritual alphabets of
antiquity. (That some of his work is pseudo-historical is not germane
here.) The riddling alphabetical mysteries he describes do not resemble
II.76 much either. However, the legendary characters who have solved
such riddles have achieved religious status of one sort or another,
and the nature of their solutions might very well be taken as indicative
of II.76's significance. Whatever Crowley may have meant by a
'Qabalistic test (on the regular pattern)', it seems to me the only
useful attitude to take is that the test is not of a person, but of a
potential 'English Qaballa'. If there can be found to be a close
relationship between the structure of the qaballistic alphabet and
II.76, then the test's primary conditions will have been met. Here the
comparison with The Song of Amergin riddle, described by Graves, becomes
more appropriate, since in that story whoever unjumbles the verses and
explains the ambiguities discovers the order of the alphabet.

It seems obvious to me that no solution whatsoever will be self-evident
to all. Imagine two Thelemites agreeing on any matter of even half the
apparent significance of this verse! Add to this difficulty the fact
that the person whose solution is deemed to be correct is 'entitled' to
the 'dignity' of being recognised as Crowley's successor and the scope
for contention is magnified not twice but a thousandfold. Crowley
believed at least for a time that the 'child' was Frater Achad,
who discovered not the English Qaballa, but a significant key word which
produced some intriguing results when applied to some of AL's puzzles.

This word was AL, from which The Book of the Law (formerly, and in many
ways more appropriately, called 'L') takes its present technical name.
It is my belief that this keyword is even more significant than Achad or
Crowley realised, being in fact 'the key of it all' or rather 'the key
of it: AL'. The problem was that the key was not placed in the lock, the
lock being the ordinary order of the English Alphabet. However Achad
came within a whisker of discovering English Qaballa himself as
we can see from this interesting entry in his record of the time:

" 'LAW' is LA (Nuit-Hadit) completed by W = [Hebrew Vau spelt in full],
the Son RHK in His dual aspect as Horus-Harpocrates. Also Vau is the
Hierophant 'Hoor in His secret name and splendour is the Lord
Initiatory.' "

Had Achad been a little more proficient with ciphers he might have noted
ALW forming the beginning of the 11-fold order of the English Alphabet.
This is the more intriguing when we consider the importance of Aleph
(ALP in Hebrew) in both Achad and Crowley's work on The Book of the Law.
If we consider both LA-W and AL-P: LAW gives us the keywords AL and LA,
and also the Order and Value hinted at in 'Azure Lidded Woman', while
ALP gives the keyword AL and LA but also the last letter of the English
Qaballistic series. Writing the Order and Value in a circle we would
find the letters of LAW and of ALP placed together. 

JSK.

The Gnostic Alchemical Church  of Typhon-Christ
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