Death Of An Eon
"I am the warrior Lord of the Forties: the Eighties cower before me, & are
abased. I will bring you to victory & joy: I will be at your arms in battle & ye shall delight to slay. Success is
your proof; courage is your armour; go on, go on, in my strength; & ye shall turn not back for any!" Liber Al vel Legis
3:46
In his comments, Crowley wrote that he did not understand this paragraph. For people living at the
end of the Twentieth Century, however, the terms Forties and Eighties are familiar slang terms referring to eras, or trends
in clothes, music, films, cars and major events. But would the author of the verse be using contemporary slang to make a statement?
For Horus to declare Himself warrior Lord of the Forties makes sense. The world was locked in the
horrors of World War II from 1939 to 1945. The period of the 1980s was a time of extreme change following the assassinations
of the Kennedys. The changes included the break down of the Communist regime in Russia and end of the Cold War, the conclusion
of the terrible Vietnam conflict and the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. It also was a time when the world failed
to recognize its final chance to do something about the problem of overpopulation and the destruction of the planet's dying
ecology. Thus such an era would, indeed, cower before such a God as Horus, and fall from esteem. The human race has nothing
to boast about from that era.
These events were obviously instrumental in ushering in the New Aeon of Horus and pushing out the
old.
Crowley went to the numbers in his attempt, in his time, to find interpretation. They indeed help
in understanding the sentence. He wrote that "Forty is Mem, Water, the Hanged Man; and Eighty is Pe, Mars, the Blasted Tower
(in Tarot). These Trumps refer respectively to the 'Destruction of the World by Water' and 'by fire.'"
The two Tarot cards are keys.
The Hanged Man card also signifies The Dying God. The posture of the drowned, or hanged man on the
Crowley Tarot card is important. The legs are crossed so that the right leg forms a right angle with the left. The arms are
stretched at an angle of sixty degrees, forming an equilateral triangle. This shows the symbol of the triangle surmounted
by a cross, thus representing the descent of the light into darkness in order to find redemption. But the concept of sacrifice
for salvation is a lie. The element of water, to which the card is attributed, points to illusion.
The Tower Tarot shows destruction of the old established aeon by lightning, flames and engines of
war. At the top of the card, however, appears the Eye of Shiva. According to the cult of Shiva, the card represents perfection
by annihilation of the prison that has bound mankind.
The verse continues with a promise: "I will bring you to victory & joy:
I will be at your arms in battle & ye shall delight to slay." Even at this moment, as we rush toward the brink
of battle and I am surrounded by blindness and mass human insolence, I find it difficult to believe that there will be any
delight taken in watching mass destruction. Perhaps this will change, especially if we see crazed folks coming down
the street with pitchforks in hand and blood in their eyes.
Success will be the proof. Courage the armor. The warrior of the New Aeon will not back down.
Copyright - James Donahue
