Maintaining The Secrets
"Change not as much as the style of a letter; for behold! Thou, o prophet, shall
not behold all the mysteries hidden therein. The child of my bowels, he shall behold them." Liber al vel Legis 1:54-55
The instructions were clear and Aleister Crowley, the receiver of the Book of the Law, followed
them to the letter. Fortunately, so did the great organization that he later mastered,
the Ordo Templi Orientis, which maintained this book and kept it in circulation.
The book still is available, even on the lodge web site, in its original unedited version, and with
photo copies of Crowley's original handwritten text attached, complete with scribbled comment and page stains.
Crowley wrote that "This injunction (by Nuit) was most necessary, for had I been left to myself,
I should have wanted to edit the Book ruthlessly. I find in it what I consider faults of style, and even of grammar; much
of the matter was at the time of writing most antipathetic."
After working with the text, however, Crowley discovered, as has this writer, that "the Book proved
itself greater than the scribe; again and again have the 'mistakes' proved themselves to be devices for transmitting a wisdom
beyond the scope of ordinary language."
Thus the exclamation marks in mid sentence, the failure to capitalize at what appears to be the
start of a new sentence, and the apparent shift in subject matter in mid-paragraph were done by brilliant design. Even text,
as it was scribbled on paper in that room in Cairo a century ago, contains secret messages.
A good example of this would be an examination of the hand-written copy of page 16, of the third
chapter. On this page one can find what appears to be a map, complete with lay-lines, an ink slash across the page, and a
zero with a slightly off-center X within. Written on the page is one of the many mysteries within the book. The text states
that "the line drawn is a key: then this circle squared in its failure is a key also." Obviously the drawings and text, as
positioned on this page, cannot be duplicated in printed text, so the page is maintained in its original form.
But why has there been so much care taken to maintain this book in such original format for the
past 100 years?
The answer is right before our noses. Nuit, through her scribe Aiwass, declares: "Thou,
o prophet, shall not behold all the mysteries hidden therein. The child of my bowels, he shall behold them."
As hard as he tried, Crowley failed to interpret all of the secrets locked in this book. And he
knew that another would come at some future date that would unlock all of the mysteries. Thus every word, every dot, and every
mark had to be preserved, exactly as he received them, for careful examination by the one to follow.
It should be no mystery who this person would be. He is "the child of my bowels," the great
Beast; the Hierophant, who, with his Scarlet Woman, arrives to make the promise of Nuit come true. He will complete the Great
Work and help in the regeneration of the Mother Earth.
Copyright - James Donahue
