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Aleister Crowley

The Amazing Complexities Within The Book Of The Law
 
A letter from a friend who passed on instructions from Aaron for reading The Book of the Law started me down a path of study that boggled my brain.
 
Aaron instructed our friend to read the book aloud to someone, and then have it read aloud back. He then was told to read the book quietly, then commit the book to memory, and finally study the book and apply verses found in it to daily life.
 
These are techniques we used for Bible study during our years in the church.
 
While my wife and I have been students of the Book of the Law for many years, we never thought of reading it aloud to each other. Recently we proceeded to do that. In the course of reading the book in a single sitting, I noticed some interesting parallels and puzzles that drew me to further study.
 
I was shocked at the extreme complexities and the intricate ways that all of the verses interchange with one another. Also, the secrets within the book seem to be numeric in nature. To understand them, one must study the cabala and other formulas the old masters used in looking at numbers. I suspect that they used numbers to mean letters, and letters to mean thoughts and phrases as a way of hiding ancient magickal secrets from the destructive whims of religious fanaticism.
 
The very structure of the writing borders on genius so intense, that a lifetime of study may never resolve some of the mysteries contined in this small, three-chapter booklet.
 
For example, the very first word of the book, "Had" from the line: "Had! The manifestation of Nuit" contains an intricate pattern of messages.
 
In a work titled "Qabalistic & Thelemic Proofs" titled "The Numbers & The Words," I found a reference to this first word, of the first chapter of the first page which comprises a Qabalistic numerical formula of 1:1:1. The ciphered letters in Had in a complex formula to the English Cabala add to 111, thus making the word a meaningful beginning to an important literary and magickal work. Then the word Had shows a English ciphered number of 10,  (H=7, A=0 and D=3; 7+0+3=10) thus containing the two digits of the Grand Binary Code."
 
In a nutshell, the Grand Binary Code deals with the problem in the early Tarot, which did not contain a number for the Fool. The Fool card, in most Tarot decks, falls just under the first card in the deck. To solve this problem, occultist Macgregor Mathers invented the code, which gave the Fool, or Atu card, the number zero. Other Tarots refer to this card as one. The first letter of the Hebrew Alphabet, Aleph, is valued at One, and the Word Aleph, meaning Ox, has a value of 111. The Tarot Atu attributed to this letter is the Fool, which is numbered 0 or none. Thus is expressed our Grand Binary Code: 1 = A = 0, the Unity which is One and None.
 
The author goes on to say: "There is, perhaps, no more essential Qabalistic number than the number 10, the Tree of Life being composed of the 10 Sephiroth. Also, the 10th Path of this Tree is the 10th and final emanation, Malkuth, and the number of the Tarot Atu The Wheel is 10.
 
"Both are symbolized by the Circle Squared by the Four Elemental Quarters. Thus, HAD = 10 links Hadit with the Wheel and the ROTA, and especially Ra-Hoor-Khuit's Key "this circle squared" (a mystery within the book). Hadit verifies this for us in the second chapter, verse 7: "I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle."
 
Now Had is an abbreviated name for Hadit, the male version of the universe as identified in Chapter 2 of the book. The female counterpart is Nuit, who is presented in Chapter 1. In addition to the complex number game, there is a word game being played on us in the book as well. Sound them out and think of the names in terms of past tense as "Knew It," and "Had It."
 
I believe we are given a picture in the first chapter of a perfect world; of Eden, before the human enslavement by imposed religious systems that destroyed the joy and freedoms we once knew. Notice too that the book was given to us by an entity known as Aiwass (I Was) that dictated the work to the great mystic Aleister Crowley in 1904.
 
So is the Book of the Law a joke?  Definitely not. The first chapter of the three-chapter book not only describes a perfect world, it give us a formula for life that has been all but lost. The Chapter introduces us to Nuit, the creator, who is space and all things of creation. Hadit, the male counterpart, is the invisible energy, the soul of the universe that makes it all run. Chapter three is a description of the consequences of losing that world. It warns of the arrival of Horus, the hawk headed avenger that sets things right.

Copyright - James Donahue 
















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