On my sister blog: Gnostic Prints, I am currently posting an art project where I am illustrating an initiatic picture-book inspired by my experiences of The Book of the Law, Liber Al vel Legis.

It occurred to me, that while a good majority of the readers of my blog would already know what the Book of the Law was, as my reader base grows this wont always be the case, so I thought it a good idea to post some of my own thoughts and experiences of the book and to offer up some links where people can, if they wish, learn a little more.

For starters, The Book of the Law was penned by Aleister Crowley, long held to be “the Wickedest Man in the World.” It was written in April of 1904 in Cairo and is in three volumes. According to Crowley, he is not the actual author of the book, but rather a scribe. Crowley you see was a ceremonial magician, an initiate of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and was an avid student of the Western Esoteric Tradition. As such, he was aware of the myriad forces and powers at play within the world and was no stranger to the idea of “extra-terrestrial” communication. -Now, this isn’t to say that Crowley believed in aliens, though he well may have, but rather, he believed, like the fathers of the great Esoteric Schools before before him, in the existence of supra-terrestial intelligences existing throughout all creation, beings existing beyond the realm of Earth, but not necessarily of a material nature.

The story goes that on holiday, with his new bride in Egypt, they received a “communication” from the Egyptian deity Horus. Crowley took his new bride Rose into the Kings’ chamber of the Great Pyramid and did a ritual there intended to introduce her to some of these supra-terrestrial powers, called by the name “Sylphs,” instead of this however, she fell into a deep trance and began channeling a message from the gods to the effect of: “They’re looking for you! It’s all about the child! Horus! Horus!” -The Full account of this can be read HERE:

But after much doubting on Crowley’s part, and after many rigorous tests to assure himself that his bride wasn’t just experiencing her time of the month, he was obliged to suspend his doubts and to attempt to find out just what these Gods intended for him to do. So he performed an elaborate ceremony designed to Invoke or call up the God Horus, the aforementioned Child. This proved fruitful for Crowley, who received instructions to seclude himself in a room over the course of 3 successive days and to take actual verbal dictation of what would be a new Law for all mankind, and of which he, Crowley, had been chosen to be the prophet.

Sure enough, according to Crowleys’ records, on 3 successive days, April 8th, 9th and 10th, 1904, for exactly one hour between the hours of noon and 1pm Crowley sat down in his secluded space with paper and pen and furiously dictated the speech that was being delivered to him. The result of this work is the complete volume of Liber AL vel Legis or, The Book of the Law.

The voice that Crowley heard in his chamber wasn’t apparently that of the gods themselves, but that of their minister who is identified in the text by the name Aiwass, specifically the “Minister of Hoor-Pa-Kraat, a particular instance of the Egyptian deity Horus. Aiwass dictated 3 distinct book, the first belonging to the mysteries of the Goddess Nuit, a very new take on an Ancient egyptian sky God, the night sky to be specific. The second book belonged to the mysteries of Hadit, a solar deity, often depicted as a winged disk and often found in images conjoined with Nut, the sky God. The final book, and to Crowley’s and many other people’s minds the most controversial of the three belonged to the “Crowned and Conquering Child” Horus, identified in the text specifically with Horus’ aspect as Ra-Hoor-Khu.

The full text of Liber Al can be found HERE:

And as the text itself indicates, it should really be studied and interpreted for oneself, to make any conclusions of what the substance of the work is, and of what the Gods might be desiring to tell us through it.

Personally, after many years since my initial reading, I still lean more to the side of the coin where Crowley himself, and not a supra-human intelligence is the author. That through his magical work, Crowley was able to pen something far beyond what he would’ve otherwise been capable of doing at that time. Through my years of study with the book itself I have come to the conclusion that the text is indeed sacred, in the same way that I’ve experienced the Torah, The New Testament, The Quran and the miniscule portions of the Veda’s that I’ve read; I believe that it represents a major paradigm shift and has helped to trigger a change in consciousness that has enjoyed a substantial reach across generations. I truly believe that the influence of the book has been intensely underestimated and unexplored with regards to the sway it’s held over popular culture for the past 100+ years.

The text, and Crowley’s life and work represent a critical mass with the suppression of free expression and sexuality that was so violently supressed in the late 19th/early 20th century. Love is at the very heart of the text, physical as well as philosophic, as is the power of Will and the inherent power at the heart of every man, and every woman 0n Earth. These themes are not in any way new as they are delivered in Liber Al, rather, they are a new way of positing a very common theme amongst educated individuals for Thousands of years; that man(kind,) with his Reason and his Eternal Soul, is of the same essential “Stuff” as the gods and has the same powers as they over dictating his own Fate.

This notion, of the divinity residing in all of mankind, and of mankind’s proper place in the cosmos as co-equal with God can be found in at least one ancient text that I’m familiar with; rather, a collection of texts: the Corpus Hermeticum. Penned in Hellenistic times, the Corpus is supposedly from an Egyptian hand, but written in Greek, detailing communications from the Egyptian God Thoth, to his ‘sons’ Tat, Ammoun and Aesclepius. The Hermeticum are a collection of roughly 16 surviving texts and fragments, of a primarily philosophic nature but full of intimations of secret, initiatic work being done by it’s adherents. These fragments, penned sometime between 100BC to 200AD teem in many places with the equating of Man with the God, and the ability of all men to become as God through the light of reason.

These texts were also highly influential, they were key driving forces behind many of the formative movements of the Italian Renaissance; they were key in the medicinal and mathematical revolution that the Arabic world received throughout the Western Middle-Ages, and they and their supposed author Thoth-Hermes were intensely influential to Crowley, and the fathers of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn of which Crowley was an enthusiastic, albeit controversial initiate.

For me then, the reception of the Book of the Law plays out like the next link in a chain that stretches back at least 2000 years. It is a culmination of the efforts of countless brave souls who’ve attempted to liberate mankind from the powers of superstition and tyranny and it represents one of the greatest attempts to do so in centuries. It is written in the style of a religious text, and is steeped with the myths that surrounds such things, but at heart it is as ANTI-religion as you can get. It offers it’s readers a direct experience of the godhead, without the intermediary of a religious leader or institution. For all of these reasons, the book has become intensely important to me. It’s helped me to analyze so many of the sides of myself still trapped in the guilt and fear of organized religions and helped me to become more accepting of others beliefs as well, because even though Liber Al is written under the guise of a particular pantheon, that of NUIT/HADIT and RA-HOOR-KHUIT, they are understood more as “Universal Principles” or archetypes, than they are anthropomorphic beings, and thus the texts becomes applicable to nearly any other religion or philosophy that you approach it with.

For any who were unfamiliar with Liber Al, I hope that this can work to help gain an understanding of what the text is, and specifically, what the text represents to me, as so much of the work that I do, writing, classes, and my artwork are all directly linked to the my experience of this book.

Love is the law, love under Will,

-AyinYHVH