Connections between Thelemic Holy Books

[The Double-wanded One]

This forum is really quiet these days but I'll make a thread for a subject that fascinates me. I've found various connections over the years and never see Thelemites talking much about it.



In reference to Liber Legis 2:76

"And V.V.V.V.V. answered and said: O my lord, my 
dove, my excellent one, how shall this word seem unto the 
children of men? 
And He answered him: Not as thou canst see. 
It is certain that every letter of this cipher hath some
value; but who shall determine the value? For it varieth ever,
according to the subtlety of Him that made it.
And He answered Him: Have I not the key thereof?
I am clothed with the body of flesh; I am one with the
Eternal and Omnipotent God." - Liber Cordis 1:51-53


In reference to Liber Legis 3:31


"Then wilt thou be a shining fish with golden back and silver belly: 
I will be like a violent beautiful man, stronger than two score bulls, 
a man of the West bearing a great sack of precious jewels upon a staff that is greater than the axis of the all. 
And the fish shall be sacrificed to Thee and the strong man crucified for Me,
and Thou and I will kiss, and atone for the wrong of the Beginning; yea, for the wrong of the beginning." - Liber Lapidis Lazuli 4:58-59


On the other hand we have Liber Stellae Rubeae which is very evidently an inspired (aka Hadit, as stated in Legis 3:40) comment upon certain controversial passages of Liber Legis 3.


"A secret ritual of Apep, the Heart of IAO-OAI, delivered unto V.V.V.V.V. for his use in a certain matter of Liber Legis, and written down under the figure LXVI"

"This is the book of the most secret cult of the Ruby Star. It shall be given to none, save to the shameless in deed as in word. No man shall understand this writing --- it is too subtle for the sons of men." (Stella Rubeae, 2-3)

"Thou shalt not disclose the interior world of this rite unto any one: therefore have I written it in symbols that cannot be understood." (Stella Rubeae, 33)

"For I am nothing, and me thou shalt fear, O my virgin, my prophet within whose bowels I rejoice. Thou shalt fear with the fear of love: I will overcome thee." (Stella Rubeae, 59-60)


The last of which also references the "of thy bowels" in Legis 1:55.  



The view held by me and other studied Thelemites is that the non-Legis holy books are the "comment" (again, as stated in Legis 3:40). 
It is not the Tunis comment, nor the two commentaries. 
The Vision & The Voice partially falls into this category but not as directly the subservient Holy Books. 
Liber Legis is the central scripture and talisman of Thelema (being revealed by Aiwass and wholly above both Crowley and everything else), The Vision & The Voice is the wider cosmic expansion of everything going on (not a dictated holy book but also having a doctrinal authority closer to Legis than the non-Legis holy books). But the non-Legis Holy Books serve subtextual roles, mostly on a practical level and partially on a supplicatory/invocatory level. 

[stephen]

Thanks for this most interesting post Double-wanded One. Despite Crowley's early denial or rejection of Liber AL, it is evident that as his initiation progressed it was developing along lines set forth in its Thelemic text, as evidenced by the Holy Books. As you demonstrate, there are many instructive parallels to be found in making comparisons between texts. Some of the shorter books amongst them are clearly revisionings of Golden Dawn material along Thelemic lines, such as the notorious Liber 231, for example.

The repeated useage of that word 'bowels' is oh so very King James Version Biblical!

[stephen]

Something of a synchronicity here, actually. Received the February update from Midian Books, England and it contained a collection of Thelemic titles, including:

Colin D.Campbell: A CONCORDANCE TO THE HOLY BOOKS OF THELEMA

1st 2008 348pp Teitan Press. VG+ in VG+ dustwrapper.

Scarce. This work comprises a survey of every word in the inspired texts received by Aleister Crowley between the years 1904 and 1911, along with a brief quotation to give the context in which each word is used, and the location in which it appears. On the most basic level the book serves as a convenient reference guide or index to the contents of ‘The Holy Books.’ More importantly, it provides a level of access to the basic elements of the structure and composition of the texts that no conventional reading would afford. Key words and their frequencies of use become apparent, broader usage patterns are revealed, and the identification of particular phraseologies and idioms is simplified. The new paths of exploration that it opens for those with knowledge of the Kabbalah and Gematria are too numerous to list.

The Concordance includes an Introduction by the compiler, Colin Campbell, a student and teacher of the Thelemic, Kabbalistic, and Enochian magickal systems, and a Foreword by Crowley biographer and scholar Richard Kaczynski.
 
Price was £125 but it was already out of stock.

This one passed me by, anyone seen or have a copy?

[The Double-wanded One]

stephen never heard of that book but thanks for letting me know. I was considering writing something like that myself.

It'd be great if there was a digital copy somewhere. (but everywhere just has his other book titled "Thelema" which is just an introduction/overview book)


edit;
As for your comment above that, well I categorize the Class A Holy Books into sub categories because they're not all the same kind of thing even if Crowley grouped them together.


The Book of the Law is in a category of it's own, as a direct dictation from Aiwass and as the central text and authority on all matters. 

Then in the non-Legis Holy Books, there is Liber Cordis and Liber Lapidis which are both visionary works which both describe attainment and are themselves forms of attainment experienced in the reading and memorizing of the texts themselves, books which frequently switch POV from V.V.V.V.V. to Adonai, back to V.V.V.V.V.
They have a lot of information in them on a multitude of levels, but they're not dictations, they're ambiguous but contain hints at possible solutions or applications to mysteries within Liber Legis. They contain prophecy (as Legis does) but not on the same level and not on as wide of a scale (compared to Legis).

Then there's ones like Liber Cheth, Liber Stellae Rubeae, Liber Arcanorum which are all ritual-based instructive holy books. Cheth deals with Babalon (whom we know from The Vision & The Voice), and Liber Stellae deals with ritual applications to passages of Legis chapter 3.

Then there is Liber Tzaddi and Liber A'ash which are like the above three but more formal. Hard to take as literal dictation (unlike Liber Legis) but clearly instructive like Liber Stellae.

Then there are these more initiatic holy books like Liber B Vel Magi, Liber Porta Lucis and Liber Tau which all are to do with the A.A. basically.

Then there is the last of them, Liber Ararita, which on the surface is closer to Liber Cordis but is overall more closer to Liber Magi in it's formalism. 

So, that is 6 sub-categories I ascribe to the Holy Books:


1. The Book of the Law 
2. Liber Cordis, Liber Lapidis
3. Liber Cheth, Liber Stellae, Liber Arcanorum
4. Liber Tzaddi, Liber A'ash
5. Liber Magi, Liber Porta Lucis, Liber Tau
6. Liber Ararita

[stephen]

It is always worth remembering what Crowley had to say about the Holy Books in his 'Confessions' at the beginning of Chapter 62:

"Beside all these activities of my own, I came into a new world. My Operation of the Sacred Magick was not sterile. After returning from Morocco, the spirit came upon me and I wrote a number of books in a way which I hardly know how to describe. They were not taken from dictation like The Book of the Law nor were they my own composition. I cannot even call them automatic writing. I can only say that I was not wholly conscious at the time of what I was writing, and I felt that I had no right to “change” so much as the style of a letter. They were written with the utmost rapidity without pausing for thought for a single moment, and I have not presumed to revise them. Perhaps “Plenary inspiration” is the only adequate phrase, and this has become so discredited that people are loath to admit the possibility of such a thing.

"The prose of these books, the chief of which are Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente, The Book of the Heart girt with the Serpent, and Libri vel Lapidis Lazuli, is wholly different from anything that I have written myself. It is characterized by a sustained sublimity of which I am totally incapable and it overrides all the intellectual objections which I should myself have raised. It does not admit the need to explain itself to anyone, even to me. I cannot doubt that these books are the work of an intelligence independent of my own. The former describes the relation of the adept with his Holy Guardian Angel; the latter is “The voluntary emancipation of a certain adept from his adeptship … the birth words of a Master of the Temple.”

Moreover the texts were nearly all written in a short space of time, commencing with Liber VII on 30 October 1907 e.v, which was immediately followed by Liber LXV over the next two nights ,or so (!) and the remainder during November and into mid-December.

[The Double-wanded One]

I'm going off memory but I think Liber Cheth was written in 1911, and one of the other ones were. But aside from Liber Legis, all of the other Class A Holy Books were written within a matter of days in 1907.
It's certainly incredibly miraculous in-and-of-itself.

I've read the Confessions so many times and certainly remember this passage in my own theorizing.
I think that his words "They were not taken from dictation like The Book of the Law nor were they my own composition" are very key.


It's in some sense that the non-Legis Holy Books are Holy Books in their own regard, with a subservience to Liber Legis (but while holding their own unique status), also contain their subtle bulletpoint comments to matters revealed in Liber Legis.


Another thing about these Holy Books is that their content in areas, long precedes Crowley's own personal initition into various grades, which is another factor I find fascinating.
Crowley hadn't done the Algerian Working yet (which is where he obtained Magister Templi) and he attained Magus and Ipsissimus much later as well (the later being at Cefalu), even though all of these things are prefigured in the Holy Books beyond his knowledge.
The status as Magus and Logos of the Aeon were things that took him till the late 1910s to attain and accept (and first probably typified in the Liber Aleph epistles to Frater Achad).

I think this fact of these books not corresponding directly to his initiation is quite a notable fact itself.

[The Double-wanded One]

From the volume of The Temple of Solomon the King in The Equinox Vol 1 No 9:


"We do not know, and it is of no importance that we should know, whether
he is an actual person or a magical projection of Frater P., or
identical with Aiwass, or anything else, for the reasons previously given when discussing the utterance of Liber Legis,
Equinox VII, pp. 384 and 385. It is sufficient to say that all
the Class A publications of the A\ A\ should be regarded
as not only verbally and literally inspired by Him, but that
this accuracy should be taken to extend even to the style of
the letter. If a word is unexpectedly spelt with a capital
letter, it must not be thought that this is a mistake; there is
some serious reason why it should be so. During this year
1907, therefore, we find a number of such books dictated by
him to Frater P. Of the sublimity of these books no words can
give expression. It will be noticed that they are totally
different in style from Liber Legis, just as both of them are 
different from any of the writings of Frater P. We may turn
for a moment to consider the actual conditions under which
he received them. We find the hint of the nature of the
communication in Liber LXV and Liber VII. On one or two
occasions the scribe introduced his thought upon the note, in
particular Liber VII, Chapter I, Verse 30, where Verse 29
suggested Verse 30 to Frater P., who wrote it consciously and
was corrected in Verse 31. Frater P. is, however, less
communicative about this writing than about Liber Legis. It
appears that during the whole period of writing he was
actually in Samadhi, although, strangely enough, he did not
know it himself. It is a question of the transference of the
Ego from the personal to the impersonal. He, the conscious
human man, could not say “I am in Samadhi”; he was merely
conscious that “that which was he” was in Samadhi. This
came to him as a sort of consolation for the disappointment
which he was experiencing, for it was in his attempt to get
into Samadhi that the writing of these books occurred. Yet
the consolation itself was in a sense a disappointment. The
transference of the human conscience to the divine, the
partial to the universal, was no longer an explosion, a spasm,
an orgasm. It was a passing into peace unaccompanied by any
of the dazzling and overwhelming phenomena with which he
was familiar."

[The Double-wanded One]

I've been spending a lot of time with Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente lately and again I am feeling the same sense of importance I prior mentioned here about intertextuality in the holy books, and more specifically that each of the Class A holy books are in some manner or another a 'divinely inspired' comment on elements of Liber AL Vel Legis.
I am going to have to do a systematic analysis of this and share it here.