THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS

CHAPTER 6

The Great Revelation.

The Arising of
THE BEAST 666.
9=2

THE PRIEST

Such criticism is indeed shallow. True, the incidents which we are about to record took place on planes material or contiguous thereto; true, so obscure is the light by which we walk that much must be left in doubt; true, we have not as yet the supreme mystical attainment to record; but on the other hand it is our view that the Seal set upon Attainment may be itself fittingly recorded in the story of that Attainment, and that no step in progress is more important than that when it is said to the aspirant: "Now that you are able to walk alone, let it be your first care to use that strength to help others!" And so this great event which we are about to describe, an event which will lead, as time will show, to the establishment of a New Heaven and New Earth for all men, wore the simplest and humblest guise. So often the gods come clad as peasants or as children; nay, I have listened to their voices in stones and trees.

However, we must not forget that there are persons so sensitive and so credulous that they are convinced by anything, I suppose that there are nearly as many beds in the world as there are men; yet for the Evangelical every bed conceals its Jesuit.

We get "Milton composing baby rhymes" and "Locke reasoning in gibberish," divine revelations which would shock the intelligence of a sheep or a Saxon ; and we find these upheld and defended with skill and courage.

Therefore, since we are to announce the divine revelation made to Fra. P., it is of the last importance that we should study his mind as is was at the time of the Unveiling. If we find it to be the mind of a neurotic, of a mystic, of a person predisposed, we shall slight the revelation ; if it be that of a sane man of the world, we shall attach more importance to it.

If some dingy Alchemist emerges from his laboratory, and proclaims to all Tooting that he has made gold, men doubt; but the conversion to spiritualism of Professor Lombroso made a great deal of impression on those who did not understand that his criminology was but the heaped delusion of a diseased brain.

So we shall find that the A.A. subtly prepared Fra. P. by over two years' training in rationalism and indifferentism for Their message. And we shall find that so well did They do Their work that he refused the message for five years more, in spite of many strange proofs of its truth. We shall find even that Fra. P. had to be stripped naked of himself before he could effectively deliver the message.

The battle was between all that mighty will of his and the Voice of a Brother who spoke once, and entered again into His silence ; and it was not Fra. P. who had the victory.

We left Fra. P. in the autumn of 1901 having made considerable progress in Yoga. We noted that in 1902 he did little or nothing either in Magic or Mysticism. The interpretation of the occult phenomena which he had observed occupied him exclusively, and his mind was more and more attracted to materialism.

What are phenomena? he asked. Of noumena I know and can know nothing. All I know is, as far as I know, a mere modification of the mind, a phase of consciousness. And thought is a secretion of the brain. Consciousness is a function of the brain.

If this thought was contradicted by the obvious, "And what is the brain? A phenomenon in mind!", it weighed less with him. It seemed to his mind as yet unbalanced (for all men are unbalanced until they have crossed the Abyss), that it was more important to insist on matter than on mind. Idealism wrought such misery, was the father of all illusion, never led to research. And yet, what odds? Every act or thought is determined by an infinity of causes, is the resultant of an infinity of forces. He analysed God, saw that every man had made God in his own image, saw the savage and cannibal Jews devoted to a savage and cannibal God, who commanded the rape of virgins and the murder of little children. He saw the timid inhabitants of India, races continually the prey of every robber tribe, inventing the effeminate Vishnu; while, under the same name, their conquerors worshiped a warrior, the conqueror of Demon Swans. He saw the flower of earth throughout all time, the gracious Greeks, what gracious gods they had invented. He saw Rome, in its strength devoted to Mars, Jupiter and Hercules, in its decay turning to emasculate Attis, slain Adonis, murdered Osiris, crucified Christ. He could even trace in his own life every aspiration, every devotion, as a reflection of his physical and intellectual needs. He saw, too, the folly of all this supernaturalism. He heard the Boers and the British pray to the same Protestant God, and it occurred to him that the early success of the former might be due rather to superior valour than to superior praying power, and their eventual defeat to the circumstance that they could only bring 60,000 men against a quarter of a million. He saw, too, the face of humanity mired in its own blood that dripped from the leeches of religion fastened to its temples.

In all this he saw man as the only thing worth holding to; the one thing that needed to be "saved," but also the one thing that could save it.

All that he had attained, then, he abandoned. The intuitions of the Qabalah were cast behind him with a smile at his youthful folly; magic, if true, led nowhere; Yoga had become psychology. For the solution of his original problems of the universe he looked to metaphysics ; he devoted his intellect to the cult of absolute reason. He took up once more with Kant, Hume, Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, Maudsley, Mansel, Fitche, Schelling, Hegel, and many another ; while as for his life, was he not a man? He had a wife; he knew his duty to the race, and to his own ancient graft thereof. He was a traveller and a sportsman; very well, then, live it! So we find that from November, 19O1 he did no practices of any kind until the Spring Equinox of 1904, with the exception of a casual week in the summer of 1903, and an exhibition game of magick in the King's Chamber of the Great

Pyramid in November, 1903, when by his invocations he filled that chamber with a brightness as of full moonlight. (This was no subjective illusion. The light was sufficient for him to read the ritual by.) Only to conclude, "There, you see it? What's the good of it?"

We find him climbing mountains, skating, fishing, hunting big game, fulfilling the duties of a husband; we find him with the antipathy to all forms of spiritual thought and work which marks disappointment.

If one goes up the wrong mountain by mistake, as may happen, no beauties of that mountain can compensate for the disillusionment when the error is laid bare. Leah may have been a very nice girl indeed, but Jacob never cared for her after that terrible awakening to find her face on the pillow when, after seven years' toil, he wanted the expected Rachel.

So Fra. P., after five years barking up the wrong tree, had lost interest in trees altogether as far as climbing them was concerned. He might indulge in a little human pride: "See, Jack, that's the branch I cut my name on when I was a boy"; but even the golden fruit of Eternity in its branches, he would have done no more than lift his gun and shoot the pigeon that flitted through its foliage.

Of this "withdrawal from the vision" the proof is not merely deducible from the absence of all occult documents in his dossier, and from the full occupation of his life in external and mundane duties and pleasures, but is made irrefragible and emphatic by the positive evidence of his writings. Of these we have several examples. Two are dramatisations of Greek mythology, a subject offering every opportunity to the occultist. Both are markedly free from any such allusions. We have also a slim booklet, `Rosa Mundi,' in which the joys of pure human love are pictured without the faintest tinge of mystic emotion. Further, we have a play, `The God Eater,' in which the Origin of Religion, as conceived by Spencer or Frazer, is dramatically shown forth; and lastly we have a satire, `Why Jesus Wept,' hard, cynical, and brutal in its estimate of society, but careless of any remedy for its ills.

It is as if the whole past of the man with all its aspiration and attainment was blotted out. He saw life (for the first time, perhaps) with commonplace human eyes. Cynicism he could understand, romance he could understand; all beyond was dark. Happiness was the bedfellow of contempt.

We learn that, late in 1903, he was proposing to visit China on a sporting expedition, when a certain very commonplace communication made to him by his wife caused him to postpone it. "Let's go and kill something for a month or two," said he, "and if you're right, we'll get back to nurses and doctors."

So we find them in Hambantota, the south-eastern province of Ceylon, occupied solely with buffalo, elephant, leopard, sambhur, and the hundred other objects of the chase.

We here insert extracts from the diary, indeed a meagre production--after what we have seen of his previous record in Ceylon.

Whole weeks pass without a word; the great man was playing bridge, poker, or golf!

The entry of February 19th reads as if it were going to be interesting, but it is followed by that of February 20th. It is however certain that about the 14th of March he took possession of a flat in Cairo--in the Season!

Can bathos go further ?
So that the entry of March I6th is dated from Cairo.
(Our notes are given in round brackets.)

"This eventful year 1903 finds me at a nameless camp in the jungle of a Southern Province of Ceylon; my thoughts, otherwise divided between Yoga and sport, are diverted by the fact of a wife..."

(This reference to Yoga is the subconscious Magical Will of the Vowed Initiate. He was not doing anything; but, on questioning himself, as was his custom at certain seasons, he felt obliged to affirm his Aspiration.)
 

Jan. 1	...(Much blotted out)...missed deer and hare. So annoyed. Yet the omen is that the year is well for works of Love and Union ; ill for those of Hate. Be mine of Love ! (Note that he does not add "and Union." As a devotee of Yoga, "Union," would have done.)
Jan. 28	Embark for Suez.
Feb. 7	Suez.
Feb. 8	Landed at Port Said.
Feb. 9	To Cairo.
Feb. 11	Saw b.f.g. b.f.b. (This entry is quite unintelligible to us.)
Feb. 19	To Helwan as Oriental Despot. (Apparently P. had assumed some disguise, pro- bably with the intention of trying to study Islam from within as he had done with Hinduism.)
Feb. 20	Began golf.
March 16	Began INV. (invocation) IAO (Given in Liber Samekh: see "Magick.")
March 17	THOTH [in Greek] appeared. (Thoth, the Egytian God of Wisdom and Magick.)
March 18	Told to INV. (invoke) HORUS [in Greek] as the sun [drawn] by new way.
March 19	Did this badly at noon 30.
March 20	At 10 p.m. did well--Equinox of Gods--Nov--(? new) C.R.C. (Christian Rosy Cross, we conjecture.) Hoori now Hpnt (obviously "Hierophant").
March 21	in . 1.A.M. (? one o'clock)
March 22	X.P.B. (May this and the entry March 24, refer to the brother of the A.'.A.'. who found him ?) E.P.D. in 84 m. (Unintelligible to us ; probably a blind.)
March 23	Y.K. done. (?His work on the Yi King.)*1*
March 24	Met [sanskrit] again.
March 25	823 Thus 461 = p f l y 2 b z 218 " "
(Blot)	wch trouble with ds.
(Blot)	P.B. (All unintelligible ; possibly a blind.)
April 6	Go off again to H, taking A's p. (This is probably a blind.)

Before we go further into the history of this period we must premise as follows.

Fra. P. never made a thorough record of this period. He seems to have wavered between absolute scepticism in the bad sense, a dislike of the revelation, on the one hand, and real enthusiasm on the other. And the first of these moods would induce him to do thins to spoil the effect of the latter. Hence the "blinds" and stupid meaningless cyphers which deface the diary.

And, as if the Gods themselves wished to darken the Pylon, we find later, when P.'s proud will had been broken, and he wished to make straight the way of the historian, his memory (one of the finest memories in the world) was utterly incompetent to make everything certain.

However, nothing of which he was not certain will be entered in this place.

We have one quite unspoiled and authoritative document:

"The Book of Results," written in one of the small Japanese vellum note-books which he used to carry. Unfortunately, it seems to have been abandoned after five days. What happened between March 23rd and April 8th?

THE BOOK OF RESULTS

March 16th Die [mercury] (ie, wednesday) I invoke IAO. (Fra. P. tells us that this was done by the ritual of the "Bornless One," identical with the "Preliminary In- vocation" (See "Magick" Appendix Liber CXX.) in the "Goetia," merely to amuse his wife by showing her the sylphs. She refused or was unable th see any sylphs, but became "inspired," and kept on saying: "They're waiting for you !")

(Note. The maiden name of his wife was Rose Edith Kelly. He called her Ouarda, the Arabic for for "Rose." She is hereafter signified by "Ouarda the Seer" or "W." for short. Ed.)

17. [Jupiter] (Thursday) It is "all about the child." Also "all Osiris." (Note the cynic and sceptic tone of this entry. How different it appears in the light of Liber 4I8!) Thoth, invoked with great success, indwells us. (Yes ; but what happened? Fra. P. has no sort of idea.)

18.[Venus] (Friday) Revealed that the waiter was Horus, whom I had offended and ought to invoke. The ritual revealed in skeleton. Promise of success [Saturn] (Saturday) or [Sun] (Sunday) and of Samadhi. (Is this "waiter" another sneer? We are uncertain.)

The revealing of the ritual (by W. the seer) consisted chiefly in a prohibition of all formulae hitherto used, as will be seen from the text printed below.

Here therefore we insert a short note by Fra. P. how W. knew R.H.K. (Ra Hoor Khuit)

1. Force and Fire (I asked her to describe his moral qualities.)
2. Deep blue light. (I asked her to describe the conditions caused by him. This light is quite unmistakable and unique ; but of course her words, though a fair description of it, might equally apply to some other.)
3. Horus. (I asked her to pick out his name from a list of ten dashed off at haphazard.)
4. Recognized his figure when shown. (This refers to the striking scene in the Boulak Museum, which will be dealt with in detail.)
5. Knew my past relations with the God. (This means, I think, that she knew I had taken his place in temple,(See Equinox Vol. I, No. II, the Neophyte Ritual of the G.D.) etc., and that I had never once invoked him.)
6. Knew his enemy. (I asked, "Who is his enemy?" Reply, "Forces of the waters--of the Nile." W. knew no Egyptology--or anything else.)
7. Knew his lineal figure and its colour. (A I/84 chance.)
8. Knew his place in temple. (A I/4 chance, at the least.)
9. Knew his weapon (from a list of 6.)
10. Knew his planetary nature (from a list of 7 planets.)
11. Knew his number (from a list of I0 units.)
12. Picked him out of (a)Five, (b)Three} indifferent, i,e, arbitrary symbols. (This means that I settled in my own mind that say D of A,B,C,D, and E should represent him and that she then said D.)

We had made no pretension to clairvoyance; nor had P. ever tried to train her.

P. had great experience with clairvoyants, and it was always a point of honour with him to bowl them out. And here was a novice, a woman who should never have been allowed outside a ballroom, speaking with the authority of God, and proving it by unhesitating correctness.

One slip, and Fra. P. would have sent her to the devil. And that slip was not made. Calculate the odds! We cannot find a mathematical expression for tests 1,2,3,4,5, or 6, but the other 7 tests give us

1/10 x 1/84 x 1/4 x 1/6 x 1/7 x 1/I0 x 1/I5 = 1/21,168,000

Even if we suppose what is absurd, that she knew the correspondences of the Qabalah as well as Fra. P., and had know- ledge of his own secret relations with the Unseen, we must strain telepathy to explain test 12.

(Note. We may add, too, that Fra. P. thinks, but is not quite certain, that he also tested her with the Hebrew Alphabet and the Tarot trumps, in which case the long odds must be still further multiplied by 484, bringing them over the billion mark!

But we know that she was perfectly ignorant of the subtle correspondences, which were only existing at that time in Fra. P.'s own brain.

And even if it were so, how are we to explain what followed--the discovery of the Stele of Revealing?

To apply test 4, Fra.P. took her to the museum at Boulak, which they had not previously visited. She passed by (as P. noted with silent glee) several images of Horus. They went upstairs. A glass case stood in the distance, too far off for its contents to be recognized. But W. recognized it ! "There," she cried, "There he is !"

Fra. P. advanced to the case. There was the image of Horus in the form of Ra Hoor Khuit painted upon a wooden stele of the 26th dynasty--and the exhibit bore the number 666! (666 had been taken by Fra. P. as the number of His own Name (The Beast) long years before, in His childhood. There could be no physical causal connection here ; and coincidence, sufficient to explain this one isolated fact, becomes inadequate in view of the other evidence.)

(And after that it was five years before Fra. P. was force to obedience !)

This incident must have occurred before the 23rd of March, as the entry on that date refers to Ankh-f-n-khonsu.

Here is P.'s description of the Stele. "In the museum at Cairo, No. 666 is the stele of the Priest Ankh-f-n-khonsu.

Horus had a red Disk and green Uraeus.

His face is green, his skin indigo.
His necklace, anklets, and bracelets are gold.
His nemyss nearly black from blue.
His tunic is the Leopard's skin, and his apron green and gold.
Green is the wand of double Power; his r.h. is empty.
His throne is indigo the gnomon, red the square.
The light is gamboge.
Above him are the Winged Globe and the bent figure of the heavenly Isis, her hands and feet touching earth.

(We print the most recent translation of the Stele, by Messrs. Alan Gardiner, Litt. D., and Battiscombe Gunn. It differs slightly from that used by Fra. P., which was due to the assistant-curator of the Museum at Boulak.)

STELE OF ANKH-F-NA-KHONSU.

Obverse

Topmost Register (under Winged Disk)
     Behdet (? Hadit ?), the Great God, the Lord of Heaven.
Middle Register. Two vertical lines to left :---
     Ra-Harakhti, Master of the Gods.
Five vertical lines to right :---
     Osiris, the Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes, Opener of the
     doors of Nut in Karnak, Ankh-f-n-Khonsu, the Justified.
Below Altar :---
     Oxen, Geese, Wine (?), Bread.
Behind the god is the hieroglyph of Amenti.
Lowest Register.

(I) Saith Osiris, the Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes, the opener of the Doors of Nut in Karnak, Ankh-f-n-Khonsu, (2) the Justified :--"Hail, Thou whose praise is high (the highly praised), thou great-willed. O Soul (ba) very awful (lit. mighty, of awe) that giveth the terror of him (3) among the Gods, shining in glory upon his great throne, making ways for the Soul (ba) for the Spirit (yekh) and for the Shadow (khabt) : I am prepared and I shine forth as one that is prepared. (4) I have made way to the place in which are Ra, Tom, Khepri and Hathor."

Osiris, the Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes (5) Ankh-f-na-Khonsu, the Justified ; son of MNBSNMT (The father's name. The method of spelling shows that he was a foreigner. There is no clue to the vocalisation).; born of the Sistrum-bearer of Amon, the Lady Atne-sher.

(I) Saith Osiris, the Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes, Ankh-f- (2)na-Khonsu, the Justified :--"My heart from my mother, my heart (different word, apparently synonymous, but probably not so at all) of my existence (3) upon earth, stand not forth against me as witness, drive me not back (4) among the Sovereign Judges (quite an arbitrary conventional translation of the original word), neither incline against me in the presence of the Great God, the Lord of the West (Osiris of course); (5) Now that I am united with Earth in the Great West, and endure no longer upon Earth.

(6). Saith Osiris, he who is in Thebes, Ankh-f-na-Khonsu, the Justified: "O Only (7) One, shining like (or in) the Moon; Osiris Ankh-f-(8)na_Khonsu has come froth upon high among these thy multitudes. (9) He that gathereth together those that are in the Light, the Underworld (duat) is (also) (10) opened to him ; lo Osiris Ankh-f-na-Khonsu, cometh forth (II) by day to do all that he wisheth upon earth among the living."

There is one other object to complete the secret of Wisdom--(P. notes "perhaps a Thoth") or it is in the hieroglyphs. (This last paragraph is, we suppose, dictated by W.)

But that "great success" means something very important is clear enough. The sneering sceptic of the I7th of March must have had a shock before he wrote those words.)
 
(This note is due to W.'s prompting or to his own rationalizing imagination.)

21.	[moon]. [sun] enters [aries]. ("Monday. The Sun enters Aries." i.e. Springs begins.)
22.	[mars] (Tuesday) The day of rest, on which nothing whatever of magic is to be done at all. [mercury] (Wednesday> is to be the great day of invocation.
23.	The Secret of Wisdom.

(We omit the record of a long and futile Tarot divination.) At this point we may insert the Ritual which was so successful on the 20th.

INVOCATION OF HORUS
ACCORDING TO THE DIVINE VISION OF W., THE SEER.

The above is W.'s answer to various questions posed by P.

Preliminary. Banish. L.B.R. Pentagram. L.B.R. Hexagram. Flaming sword. Abrahadabra, Invoke. As before. (These are P.'s ideas for the ritual. W. replied, "Omit.")

The MS. of this Ritual bears and left unrevised, save perhaps for one glance. There are mistakes in grammar and spelling unique in all MSS. of Fra. P.; the use of capitals is irregular, and the punctuation almost wanting.)

CONFESSION

How shall I humble myself enough before Thee? Thou art the mighty and unconquered Lord of the Universe: I am a spark of Thine unutterable Radiance.

How should I approach Thee? but Thou art Everywhere.

But Thou hast graciously deigned to call me unto Thee, to this Exorcism of Art, that I may be Thy Servant, Thine Adept, O Bright One, O Sun of Glory! Thou hast called me --should I not then hasten to Thy Presence?

With unwashen hands therefore I come unto Thee, and I lament my wandering from Thee --but Thou knowest!

Yea, I have evil!

If one (doubtless a reference to S.R.M.D. who was much obsessed by Mars, P. saw Horus at first as Geburah; later as an aspect of Tiphereth, including Chesed and Geburah--the red Triangle inverted--an aspect opposite to Osiris.) blasphemed Thee, why should I therefore forsake Thee? But Thou art the Avenger; all is with Thee.

I bow my neck before Thee; and as once Thy sword was upon it (see G.D. Ceremony of Neophyte, the Obligation), so am I in Thy hands. Strike if Thou wilt: spare if Thou wilt: but accept me as I am.

My trust is in Thee: shall I be confounded? This Ritual of Art; this Forty and Fourfold Invocation; this Sacrifice of Blood--(Merely, we suppose, that 44=DM, blood. Possibly a bowl of blood was used. P. thinks it was in some of the workings at this time, but is not sure if it was this one.)--these I do not comprehend.

It is enough if I obey Thy decree; did Thy fiat go forth for my eternal misery, were it not my joy to execute Thy Sentence on myself?

For why? For that All is in Thee and of Thee; it is enough if I burn up in the intolerable glory of Thy presence.

Enough! I turn toward Thy Promise.

Doubtful are the Words: Dark are the Ways: but in Thy Words and Ways is Light. Thus then now as ever, I enter the Path of Darkness, if haply so I may attain the Light.

Hail!

a I [aleph]

Strike, strike the master chord! Draw, draw the Flaming Sword! Crowned Child and Conquering Lord, Horus, avenger!
 

[beta] II

Strike, strike the master chord! Draw, draw the Flaming Sword! Crowned Child and Conquering Lord,      Horus, avenger!

Behold! I stand in the midst. Mine is the symbol of Osiris; to Thee are mine eyes ever turned. Unto the splendour of Geburah, the Magnificence of Chesed, the mystery of Daath, thither I lift up mine eyes. This have I sought, and I have sought the Unity: hear Thou me!

[gamma] III[gimel]

Strike, strike the master chord! Draw, draw the Flaming Sword! Crowned Child and Conquering Lord, Horus, avenger!

{help] IV [resh]

Therefore I say unto thee: Come forth and dwell in me; so that every my Spirit, whether of the Firmament, or of the Ether, or of the Earth or under the Earth; on dry land or in the Water, or Whirling Air or of Rushing Fire; and every spell and scourge of God the Vast One may be THOU. Abrahadabra!

Close by banishing. (I think this was omitted at W.'s order.---P.)

During the period March 23rd--April 8th, whatever else may have happened, it is at least certain that work was continued to some extent, that the inscriptions of the stele were translated for Fra. P., and that he paraphrased the latter in verse. For we find him using, or prepared to use, the same in the text of Liber Legis.

Perhaps then, perhaps later, he made out the "name coincidences of the Qabalah," to which we must now direct the reader's attention.

The MS. is a mere fragmentary sketch.
Ch=8=ChlTh=418 Abrahadabra=RA-HVVR (Ra-Hoor).
Also 8 is the great symbol I adore.
(This may be because of its likeness to [?] or because of its [old G.D.] attributions to Daath, P. being then a rationalist; or for some other reason.)
So is O.
O=A in the Book of Thoth (The Tarot).
A=111 with all its great meanings, [sun]=6
Now 666=My name, the number of the stele, the number of The Beast (See Apocalypse), the number of the Man.
The Beast AChIHA=666 in full. (The usual spelling is ChIVA.)
(A=111, Ch=418, I=20, H=6, A=111.)
HRV-RA-HA. 211 + 201 + 6=418.
This name occurs only in L. Legis, and is a test of that book rather than of the stele.)
ANKH-P-N-KHONShU-T=666
(We trust the addition of the termination T will be found justifies.)
{Bes-n-maut, B I Sh N A - M A V T }=888
{Ta-Nich, Th A - N I Ch }=Ch x A.
Nuteru NVTh IRV=666
Montu MVNTV=111.
Aiwass AIVAS=78, the influence or messenger, or the Book T.
(P.S. Note this error! Ed.)
Ta-Nich TA-NICh = 78. Alternatively, Sh for Ch gives 370, O Sh, Creation.

So much we extract from volumes filled with minute calcula- tions, of which the bulk is no longer intelligible even to Fra. P.

His memory, however, assures us that the coincidences were much more numerous and striking than those we have been able to reproduce here; but his attitude is, we understand that after all "It's all in Liber Legis. `Success is thy proof: argue not; convert not; talk not overmuch!'" And indeed in the Commentary to that Book will be found sufficient for the most wary of inquirers.

Now who, it may be asked, was Aiwass? It is the name given by W. to P. as that of her informant. Also it is the name given as that of the revealer of Liber Legis. But whether Aiwass is a spiritual being, or a man known to Fra. P., is a matter of the merest conjecture. His number is 78, that of Mezla, the Channel through which Macroprosopus reveals Himself to, or showers His influence upon, Microposopus (I.e. the messenger of God to Man). (But see the miraculous events connected with "The Revival of Magick" described in Magick pp. 257-260, where he is shewn as 93.) So we find Fra. P. speaking of him at one time as of another, but more advanced man; at another time as if it were the name of his own superior in the Spiritual Hierarchy. And to all questions Fra. P. finds a reply, either pointing out "the subtle metaphysical distinction between curiosity and hard work," or indicating that among the Brethren "names are only lies," or in some other way defeating the very plain purpose of the historian.

The same remark applies to all queries with regard to V.V.V.V.V. (The motto of Fra. P. as a Magister Templi 8[degree] = 3[?]; He used it in His office of giving out the "Official Books of A.A." to the word in the Equinox.); with this addition, that in this case he condescends to argue and to instruct. "If I tell you," he once said to the present writer, "that V.V.V.V.V. is a Mr. Smith and lives at Clapham, you will at once go round and tell everybody that V.V.V.V.V. is a Mr. Smith of Clapham, which is not true. V.V.V.V.V. is the Light of the World itself, the sole Mediator between God and Man; and in your present frame of mind (that of a poopstick) you cannot see that the two statements may be identical for the Brothers of the A.'.A.'.! Did not your greatgrandfather argue that no good thing could come out of Nazareth? `Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him.'"

Similarly with regard to the writing of Liber Legis, Fr. P. will only say that it is in no way "automatic writing," that he heard clearly and distinctly the human articulate accents of a man. Once, on page 6, he is told to edit a sentence ; and once, on page 19, W. supplies a sentence which he had failed to hear.

To this writing we now turn.

It must have been on the first of April that W. commanded P. (now somewhat cowed) to enter the "temple" exactly at 12 o'clock noon on three successive days, and to write down what he should hear, rising exactly at 1 o'clock.

This he did. Immediately on his taking his seat the Voice began its Utterance, and ended exactly at the expiration of the hour.

These are the three chapters of Liber Legis, and we have nothing to add.

The full title of the book is, as P. first chose to name it,

This was the original title devised by 666 to appear in the 1909 publication. The "Key of it all" and the true spelling of Aiwass had not then been discovered.

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