The Temple of Set II
Page 16
Revealing, and these interpretations have been published as The Law is for All (Ed. Regardie), Magical and
Philosophical Commentaries on the Book of the Law (Ed. Symonds
& Grant), and The Commentaries of AL (Ed. Motta). Crowley’s account of the Cairo Working - the
transcription of the Book of the Law - is contained in The Equinox, The Confessions, and The Equinox of the
Gods.
The concepts introduced in the Book of Coming Forth by Night make possible an entirely new analysis of the
Book of the Law. This should be understood neither as an æsthetic criticism of Crowley’s comments nor as an
attempted distortion of them. It is rather the result of the perceptual vantage-point of the Æon of Set as opposed to
that of the Æon of Horus. The original Comment to the Book of the Law forbade all discussion or criticism of that
text, not unjustifiably on the presumption that initiates below the grade of Magus could not evaluate it with
Æonic perspective. As an Ipsissimus I assert a trans-æonic perspective, hence the right - even responsibility - to
comment accordingly on the Book of the Law.
A Note About Æons ...
As far as most occultists are aware, references to æons began with Aleister Crowley’s much-advertised Æon of
Horus, which he proclaimed to have followed first the Æon of Isis (roughly pre- Christian paganism) and then
that of Osiris (roughly 2,000 years of Christianity). Since Crowley’s understanding of Egyptian mythology was
essentially that of the Osiris/Isis/Horus trinity, this tied Western civilization up into a nice, neat package.
Not only was Crowley responsible for bringing about the Æon of Horus, we are told, but that of Osiris as well
- in a previous incarnation as the High Priest of Osiris [and Priestess of Isis] Ankh- f-n-khonsu. The detailed story
of this is told in his memoir of that incarnation, “Across the Gulf”, in Equinox #I-7:
But Thoth the mighty god, the wise one, with his ibis- head and his nemyss of indigo, with his Ateph crown
and his phœnix wand and with his ankh of emerald, with his magic apron in the three colors; yea, Thoth,
the god of wisdom, whose skin is of tawny orange as though it burned in a furnace, appeared visibly to all
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of us. And the old Magus of the Well, whom no man had seen outside his well for night threescore years,
was found in the midst; and he cried with a loud voice, saying, “The Equinox of the Gods!”
And he went about to explain how it was that Nature should no longer be the center of man’s worship,
but man himself, man in his suffering and death, man in his purification and perfection. And he recited the
Formula of the Osiris as follows, even as it hath been transmitted unto us by the Brethren of the Cross and
Rose unto this day ...
In his own writings Crowley does not indicate where he came by this concept of “æons” or exactly what is
meant by it. A little detective work, however, takes us back to the days of the Golden Dawn and the writing of a
book entitled Egyptian Magic by Florence Farr, Scribe of the G.'.D.'., in 1896. This book, part of a 10-volume series
Collectanea Hermetica edited by W.W. Westcott, contained a very interesting chapter called “The Gnostic Magic of
Egypt”:
Let us first consider the essential principles of Gnosticism, which are briefly as follows:
First - A denial of the dogma of a personal supreme God, and the assertion of a supreme divine
essence consisting of the purest light and pervading that boundless space of perfected matter which the
Greeks called the Pleroma. This light called into existence the great father and the great mother whose
children were the æons or god-spirits. That is to say from the supreme issues the nous or divine mind
and thence successive emanations, each less sublime than the preceding. The divine life in each becoming
less intense until the boundary of the Pleroma, or the fullness of God, is reached. From thence there
comes into being a taint of imperfection, an abortive and defective evolution, the source of materiality and
the origin of a created universe, illuminated by the divine but far removed from its infinitude and perfection.
Now the Gnostics considered that the actual ruler and fashioner of this created universe and its beings
good and evil was the Demiurgos, a power issuant from sophia or wisdom. By some it was said that the
desire of souls for progression caused the origin of a universe in which they might evolve and rise to the
divine.
The Gnostics definitely believed in the theory of cycles of ascent and return to the evolutionary
progress of worlds, ages, and man; the ascents & descents of the soul; the pre-existence of all human souls
now in worldly life; and the surety that all souls that desire the highest must descend to matter and be born
of it. They were the philosophical Christians.
The rule of the Christian church, however, fell into the hands of those who encouraged an emotional
religion, destitute of philosophy, whose members should be bound together by personal ties of human
sympathy with an exalted sufferer and preacher rather than by an intellectual acceptance of high truth.
The Gnostics dissented from the creed then being taught, on the ground of the inferiority of the
hero- worship of Christ to the spiritual knowledge of the supernal mind, which they considered he taught.
The Gnostics were almost universally deeply imbued with the doctrines of Socrates and Plato; and a
religion of emotion and reverence, combined with moral platitudes, did not seem to them of a sublimity
sufficiently intense to be worthy to replace the religious mysteries of Egypt, India, and Persia, the
theocracy of the Jews, or the sublime truths hidden in the myths of Greece.
In Religion in Ancient History S.G.F. Brandon comments:
In his “First Epistle to the Corinthians” Paul had occasion to contrast his teaching with that of other
systems known to his readers. In so doing he was led to give this significant account of his own: “Howbeit
we speak wisdom among the perfect: yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world,
which are coming to naught: but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been
hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory: which none of the rulers of this world
knoweth: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (ii. 6-8).
In our official English translations the proper meaning of this passage is obscured at two crucial
points. The Greek word translated as “world” here, severally in its singular or plural forms, is aion, which
does not mean this physical world or Earth, but “time” or “age”.]
Paul’s use of aion here accordingly shows that he was thinking in terms of an esoteric system of
“world- ages” that probably derived ultimately from Iranian and Babylonian sources, and that in various
forms was much in vogue in current Græco-Roman thought. Next the words translated as “rulers of
this world” ( archontes tou aionos toutou) do not refer, as is popularly supposed, to the Roman and Jewish
authorities who were responsible for condemning Jesus to death. They denote dæmonic beings who were
associated with the planets and believed to govern the lives of men on Earth.
As Farr and Brandon both go on to observe, Gnostic Christianity was regarded as a very serious threat to
the Christian church and was intensely persecuted. Had it become prevalent, the 2,000 years might have evolved
instead of the intolerant, ferocious, and ignorant horror of dogmatic Christianity.
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Now we are beginning to see this term æon in a new light, if I may be excused the expression. The Æon of
Horus is not just a period of time when ideas symbolized by Horus are dominant. Rather it is a Ding an
sich, a noumenon: something of purely rational apprehension, not perception by the senses.
Thus in what one might term the Lesser Black Magical sense, an æon is simply an attitude which one chooses
or is conditioned to adopt. This is what is meant by saying that different people “exist in different æons”: that a
Jew, Christian or Moslem exists in the Æon of Osiris, a Wiccan in that of Isis, and a Thelemite in that of Horus.
Accordingly, while æons are “pyramidal” in sophistication, after the fashion of Plato’s “pyramid of thought”,
there is no reason to consider them time-sequential, with each new one superseding and obliterating the one before it.
In an LBM sense, therefore, the population of the world continues overwhelmingly in the grip of the Æon of
Osiris, the best intentions of Aiwass notwithstanding. The Æon of Isis is the next influential, followed by that of
Horus. The Æon of Set, highest on the pyramid and most difficult to comprehend and indwell, is the most rarified
and elusive of all.
As with an initiatory degree/grade system, it would be very difficult if not impossible to spend all of one’s
time in a “higher æon”. When we go about our affairs in the profane world, we are usually Osirians, peering with
curiosity and vague alarm at ecological activists (Isis) or avant-garde artists (Horus). Yet we experience periods of
Isis and Horus too - and, when we wish to, that very rarefied Æon of Set.
Crowley, who suggested that æons were periods of time in “catastrophic succession” - I presume in order to
more forcefully advance the cause of the Æon of Horus - predicted in the Equinox #I-10 that following the ÆH
“will arise the Equinox of Ma, the goddess of justice. It may be a hundred or ten thousand years from now (1913),
for the computation of time is not here as there.” In 1921, in his “new comment” to Liber Legis, Crowley
speculated that the next æon would be that of Thmaist, third officer in the G.'.D.'. Neophyte ritual. Yet, he
continued, “It may be presumptuous to predict any details concerning the next æon after this.”
That is essentially my attitude as well. As Magus of the Æon of Set, I am an Eye in that particular Triangle [or
Shining Trapezohedron], as it were. The only one who knows for certain what the next-conceived æon will be, if
indeed there should be one, would be the Magus or Maga who Utters its word.
Above I made reference to æons “in an LBM sense”. There is a “Greater Black Magical sense” as well:
Seen through the lens of GBM, an æon is in fact a living entity, in which its initiates are “cells”. This is the secret
which the Gnostics brought from antiquity, and which so frightened the Christian dogmatists. The “god” of an æon
is thus a creature of the total magical and philosophical energy of material beings who are initiates of that æon, i.e.
who are aware that they are “components of the god”. [Are you now beginning to see the ancient origins of
Hegel’s concept of an “overmind”?]
Understood in this sense, a GBM working is a way of the “part’s” reaching out to contact, experience,
and/or express the “whole”. This is why true GBM is not even remotely like “prayer” as the profane practice it.
Nor is it mere meditation, in which the mind of the meditator merely extends to its own limits. It is the greatest
secret, and the greatest fulfillment, of unique existence.
Once an æon is apprehended in this way, a great many veils fall away, a great many mysteries of what magic is/
why it works are revealed, and indeed the entire “why” of human consciousness is explained. All you need is the
nœsis to perceive it. Don’t be concerned if you don’t attain such nœsis immediately. It is there; and when you are
ready for it, It will be ready for you.
... And About Initiatory States of Being
The concept of magical æons is further involved - one might say entangled - with the three highest
designations of Western initiation: Magister Templi, Magus, and Ipsissimus.
These and their preliminaries are usually attributed to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (G.'.D.'.) in
turn-of-the-20th-century London. 104
The G.'.D.'. never conferred the three senior grades (as they were called), reserving them to the mysterious/
supernatural “Secret Chiefs”; they were thus held to be “astral” grades beyond incarnated human attainment.
When Aleister Crowley founded his G.'.D.'.-superseding A.'.A.'. in 1907, he made it possible for incarnates to
attain the astral by a process of consciousness-transformation he referred to as “crossing the Abyss”. Now the
grade of Magister Templi (8)=[3] came into focus as characterizing one capable of completely comprehending
(“Understanding”) an æon. A Magus (9)=[2] identifies one who creates (“Utters the Word of”) a completely new
æon, or who significantly expands or enhances apprehension of an existing one.
So far so good, but Crowley left Ipsissimus (10)=[1] floundering in vagueness: “It is beyond all this and
beyond all comprehension of those of lower degrees.” 105
104 Nevertheless they go back considerably farther. G.'.D.'. founder Dr Wynn Westcott adapted them from the elder Societas
Rosicruciana in Anglia (founded by Robert Little in 1866), which in turn had adapted them from the Gold und Rosenkreuz, a
Prussian occult society (founded 1757?). Cf. Christopher McIntosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason: Eighteenth-
Century Rosicrucianism in Central Europe and Its Relationship to the Enlightenment (Brill Academic Publishers, 1997).
105 Crowley, Aleister, “One Star In Sight” , Magick (New York: Weiser, 1994).
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What the Temple of Set later attributed to it is both simple and self-evident: the attainment of a perspective
above and beyond all existing æons, enabling the Ipsissimus to harmoniously and beneficially integrate them. 106
Where the Book of the Law is concerned, what this means is that, as the inauguration and Utterance of the
Word of the Æon of Horus, it should [in 1904] have instantly redefined Crowley as a Magus. Nevertheless he did
not claim even Magister Templi until 1909, nor Magus until 1914. He never explained this awkward - and glaring -
discrepancy. Moreover he did not initiatorily formalize the Æon until the founding of the A.'.A.'. in 1907, nor publish
the Book of the Law itself until The Equinox #I-7 in 1912.
And so with the Book of the Law we do not have a nice, neat package of human/divine interaction, but a collage
of attention and reflection which gradually emerged only over several decades.
106 Until the Temple of Set evolved these grades into its degree structure in 1975, they had never been even theoretically
achievable by females. Setians Recognize them correspondingly as Magistra Templi, Maga, and Ipsissima.
The First Chapter
1.
Had! The Manifestation of Nuit.
This chapter is a verbalization of the Nuit-neter as perceived by Crowley. [Throughout this commentary
the term “neter” (hieroglyphic ntr) is used in the Pythagorean/Platonic sense as a first and/or comprehen
sive
Universal principle.] As the Egyptian sky-neter, Nuit was portrayed as the mother of Set, Horus the Elder,
Ra, and Xepera.
2.
The unveiling of the company of heaven.
The Book of the Law constitutes an explanation of concepts derived from these five neteru. HarWer is
completely manifest, as is necessary for the Equinox of the Æon of Horus. The Xeper-neter is partially
revealed through passages in the text dealing with transformation and evolution. The neter of Set would
remain unrecognized and enigmatic, its presence but not identity sensed, until the announcement of the Æon
of Set on the North Solstice of X/1975.
3.
Every man and every woman is a star.
A star is a completely-contained environment of matter, energy, and the process of conversion between
the two. Once formed, a star is an island of existence unique unto itself amidst the Universe, interacting
comparatively remotely with other celestial bodies and phenomena through radiation and gravitation. The
constitution of each uniquely self-conscious human being ( homo sapiens) is similar; one’s interactions with
other beings and with one’s environment have the capacity to be dwarfed by the self-contained
consciousness of the non- natural intellect. Ultimately the self-created perceptual universe (Subjective
Universe/SU) of the magician can surpass the stimuli and consequences of the natural, material one
(Objective Universe/OU).
4.
Every number is infinite; there is no difference.
This principle was later revealed as an important key to #II-76 by the Book of Coming Forth by Night.
Crowley’s extensive essay on the subject in both 777 and his 1920 Comment is excellent and deserves a
thoughtful reading.
According to Pythagoras and his Egyptian initiatory sources, numbers are the “building-blocks” of
existence: They are not Forms per se, but are rather the “alphabet” through which many Forms are made
comprehensible. 107
If Nuit is considered to represent the expanse of the natural, material universe (OU), then the