By David Beth
The year 1904 marks the beginning of a new era for many people involved in alternative spirituality. In April of that year the English magus Aleister Crowley received a prophetic text from a discarnate entity which announced a new spiritual Aeon for mankind superseding the Aeon of the Abrahamic religions. The messenger identified himself as ‘Aiwass’, a higher being in service of Ra Hoor Khuit [1], the ruling Lord of the incoming spiritual current of ‘Thelema’. The text which Crowley received is known as The Book of the Law or Liber Al (vel Legis) [2], its three chapters constituting the main philosophical and religious basis for all Thelemites. [3]
The following essay does neither intend to be an exegesis of Thelemic sacred writings nor an attempt to introduce the basic concepts of Aleister Crowley’s mystical and magical system. Such information can easily be obtained elsewhere. We are concerned here with a Gnostic analysis of the impact and importance of key aspects of Thelemic and Crowleyan transmissions and how they relate to a personal system of Gnosis and sorcery.
Zarathustra’s Child
For many years I have kept alive in my Gnostic sanctuaries a cultus which utilizes the magical and spiritual transmissions of what we could call the Thelemic and Aiwass current. This group, which I shall refer to as The Fiends of Aiwass [4], acknowledges the esoteric importance and magical validity of the Gnosis that was first revealed to Aleister Crowley. Through a unique approach and magical interpretation ofThelemic teachings and ‘transferements’, initiated shamanic sorcerers extract powerful magical energy to feed the operations of their Gnostic witchcraft.
The esotericism of this cultus places Crowley firmly at the side of great German philosopher and visionary Friedrich Nietzsche. While not concerned per se with the religious aspects of Crowley’s teachings or his claims to be the prophet of a new age, the Fiends of Aiwass understand the importance and potency of his unique magical transmissions and revelations. Similar to masters like Ludwig Klages, Crowley became a vehicle of powers making possible in the flesh the actual manifestation of the Nietzschean Uebermensch, the fabled overman, as the perfected cosmic ideal. Crowley is seen here as initiator and transmitter of a unique body of magico-mystical teachings which may aid the Gnostic in his individual alchemycal transmutation towards God-Man. The English magus was very aware of his close philosophical relation to the German thinker as is evidenced not only in his essay “The Vindication of Nietzsche” [5]. In this critique of a degenerating Western society ruled by Christian morals, Crowley acknowledges his doctrine of Thelema to be that of Nietzsche in a more simplified and universal form. Quoting passages from Liber Al, he attempts to show their common endeavors, only choosing his own writing in “…preference toNietzsche(…) because it is simpler than Nietzsche, because there is no possibility of misinterpreting the doctrine because it is (…) universal…” [6] Setting himself up as an equal and even superior to Nietzsche he claims to have formulated and developed his religious concepts without any prior knowledge of the former’s ideas.This however must be considered as highly unlikely, especially so as Crowley had not only studied literature, poetry and philosophy privately and academically [7] but also admits that “…Nietzsche has penetrated from Prussia to Pimlico, and is quoted in Streatham as in Stuttgart….” [8] Crowley, a well read and educated man, would have surely come across Nietzsche’s writings [9] and would have undoubtedly been highly attracted to them by their heretic and revolutionary set of ideas. Consequently the Fiends of Aiwass have always seen Crowley in logical succession of and in large parts developing out of the Genius of Nietzsche,bmaking hima true child of ‘Zarathustra’. This in no way reduces Crowley’s importance and undeniable genius, on the contrary: it helps to slice through the veil of pomposity, ego-centricity and religiousness that often obscures the amazing and truly empowering essence of Crowley’s spiritual teachings and occult achievements.
The Death of God and the Dawn of Aiwass
Indeed, at hearing the news that ‘the old god is dead’ we philosophers and ‘free spirits’ feel illuminated by a new dawn; our heart overflows with gratitude, amazement, forebodings, expectation – finally the horizon seems free again, (…) finally our ships may set out again, set out to face any danger; every daring of the lover of knowledge is allowed again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; maybe there has never been such an ‘open sea.’ [10]
Crowley was just such a philosopher and free spirit; if anything he was one to dare! The enormous implications of Nietzsche’s death blow to the Old God(s) suddenly allowed for a rushing in of powerful energies which were no longer held back by the taming talismans of the Abrahamic religions. Armed to the teeth with occult knowledge derived from his membership in the mystical Order of the Golden Dawn, Crowley began to navigate these newly open seas of spiritual opportunities. Refining his magical modi operandi during extensive travelling between the years 1900 and 1904, the magus tapped into a most powerful current of esoteric energy culminating in his reception of the Book of the Law. The radical message of Eros and Will constituting the Dawn of Aiwass was echoed in essence by a unique spiritual awakening in Germany, revolving around the Gnostic philosopher Ludwig Klages and the sage Alfred Schuler. [11] Nietzsche’s Wotanic storm-wind had helped sweep aside the spirit-ually induced barriers which had blocked the passageways between the meonic depth of the unconscious mind, the post Freudian Id/Transcendental Id and the Ego consciousness. The most adventurous, daring magicians and esoteric philosophers could now make contact with the primordial Gods and denizens of the inner cosmos, establishing a link with the supreme source of pleromicTruth. They were also able to again resume contact with daemonic beings in the outer cosmic All, thus re-erecting the supreme double pillars of all true magical and Gnostic attainment. Crowley himself was aware of the possibilities and importance of such contact, writing in 1944: “My observation of the Universe convinces me that there are beings of intelligence and power of a far higher quality than anything we can conceive of as human; that they are not necessarily based on the cerebral and nervous structures that we know, and that the only chance for mankind to advance as a whole is for individual to make contact with such Beings.” [12]
Whether Aiwass’ voice arose from the dark regions of the interior world, the mundus imaginalis, where the great adepts meet the supreme messengers of the spaces divine or whether he sought contact from the depths of the outer cosmos, his revelations manifest a sacred Gnosis with most important implications. In accord with the mystical importance of three or trinity, the Thelemic gospel of Liber Al is divided into three parts and features three different speakers. The first chapter is assigned to the Egyptian goddess Nuit, the second to the God Hadit [13] and the third to Ra-Hoor-Khuit, a form of Horus. Our hermetic circle teaches that each chapter contains the magical and philosophical keys to manifest the spiritual powers behind each of the divine powers representing it. The three chapters also represent the three main stages of the spiritual alchemical transformation of the luciferian (thelemic) adept:
- The manifestation of and initiation into the mysteries of the true, ‘lost’ Cosmos and the Eros Cosmogonos.
- The True Will and the alchemical mysteries of the refined Ego.
- The God-Man manifest.
Nuit: Divine World-All and Cosmogonic Eros
Invoke me under my stars! Love is the law, love under will.
Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love.
There is the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well!
(Nuit)
The Egyptian sky goddess Nuit is the first of the Thelemic trinity to reveal her Gnosis in The Book of the Law. The ophidian shamans of the Fiends of Aiwass understand the utterings of Nuit as containing important secrets allowing deep initiation into the true reality of the daemonic cosmos. Her message is one of passion, eroticism, rapture and ecstatic life; a lover calling out to her beloved. Nuit is the World and its Soul and her exclamations are a powerful demand for humans to recognize their true inert nature, to realize and become aware again of the terrific and unique faculties of the soul. The regaining of the magical senses as unleashed by the soul as supreme instrumentum magicum becomes crucial to the initiate of the Aiwass mysteries within our cult. Nuit as cosmos and the world soul is the gateway to the revelations of Liber Al just as the path of the soul is the supreme gateway to the process of the ultimate spiritual transformation, the resurrection of the God Man on the cross of the elements.
German Romanticism, Nietzsche and especially the initiates of the Kosmiker-Kreis invoked the return to a pagan approach to the true nature of the world in which the experience of the cosmos through the supra sensory faculties of the soul becomes the vehicle for a new spiritual awakening. Our occult and initiatic body teaches that only the activated soul enables the adept to experience the mystery of the Rausch, the ecstatic erotic rush and trance. This extasis of the soul and the subsequent freedom from the tyranny of the rational, mechanical and analyzing spirit are the pathways which lead to the daemonic, esoteric reality of Nuit. “Everything that exists in the kosmos is beseelt, has a soul, and together forms the soul of the world. The spiritually prepared soul of a magical practitioner can connect with every living, daemonic aspect of the universe, become empowered by it and receive its secrets.” [14]
“I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy” [15] says Nuit. The sacred ecstasy she describes is the Eros Cosmogonos. When through magical training the adept has become able to break through the bastion of the conditioning powers of the spirit which rule the profane Ego, he will once again experience the elemental crisis of possession and empowerment through the daemonic rays and energies of the pagan cosmos. When these energies impact on the initiate, they are perceived as essentially erotic in character. When the soul of the World in its infinite living fragments connect in a magical Hieros Gamos with the soul of the practitioner, the chthonic gods of the Transcendental Id erupt once again into Ego consciousness, flooding it with their awesome powers, divinizing it.
The message of Eros and Love proclaimed by the Star Goddess of Liber Al is in no way a reference to profane sentimental love and sexuality, although these may be included in its wider context. Rather she speaks about the secrets of Eros Cosmogonos as the occult fuel of the cosmos and the mysteries of esoteric Love as the supreme tools of the esoteric initiate. [16] “Sex is the sacred song of the soul; sex is the sanctuary of Self (…) Sex is the supreme sacrament, wherein the body and blood are offered up to the soul. The elements thereof must be worthy, their consecration absolute.” [17] Crowley, in a true succession to the supreme initiates of the soul and esoteric love, the Minnesaenger and Fedeli d’Amore, expounds on this Gnosis in a particularly enlightening passage of his commentary to the first chapter of Liber Al:
But we of Thelema, like the artist, the true lover of Love, shameless and fearless, seeing God face to face alike in our own souls within and in all Nature without, though we use, as the bourgeois does, the word Love, we hold not the word “too often profaned for us to profane it,” it burns inviolate in its sanctuary, being reborn immaculate with every breath of life. But by ‘Love’ we mean a thing which the eye of the bourgeois hath not seen, nor his ear heard; neither hath his heart conceived it. We have accepted Love as the meaning of Change, Change being the Life of all Matter soever in the Universe. And we have accepted Love as the mode of Motion of the Will to Change. To us every act, as implying Change, is an act of Love. Life is a dance of delight, its rhythm an infinite rapture that never can weary or stale. Our personal pleasure in it is derived not only from our own part in it, but from our conscious apprehension of its total perfections. We study its structure, we expand ourselves as we lose ourselves in understanding it, and so becoming onewith it.(…)Thereforewe hold Love holy, our heart’s religion, our mind’s science. [18]
A main key to the experience and manifestation of these supreme secrets of the soul and the Cosmogonic Eros is the realization of the body as the complementary pole of the soul; Soul and body are the undividable polarities of true life. It is the Ego ruling spirit [19], especially as empowered by Abrahamic religious escapism and physical denial, in its rationalizing, mechanical and deterministic form who attempts to de-soul the body and to de-body the soul. What results is an enslaved being in an unconscious body, devoid of individuality and totally alienated from its pleromic environment. The acknowledgement of the body and its faculty as intimately connected to the soul and its mysteries is crucial to our spiritual transformation.Only then we will be able to use the body properly as amagical instrument [20] to manifest the glory of the soul and to turn our bodies into the true abodes of the Gods. Although Crowley was not fully aware of these implications he nonetheless intuitively pointed into the right direction. In a further commentary to the Nuit chapter he explains:
Also: to us of Thelema, thus having trained our hearts and minds to be expert engineers of the sky-cleaver Love, the ship to soar to the Sun, to us the act of Love is the consecration of the body to Love. We burn the body on the altar of Love, that even the brute may serve the Will of the Soul. We must then study the art of Bodily Love. (…) We do not mean what the bourgeois means when we say ‘the act of love’. (…) We have an art of expression; we are trained to interpret the soul and the spirit in terms of the body. We do not deny the existence of the body, or despise it; (…) But the language of the body is never exhausted; one may talk for an hour by means of an eye-lash. There art intimate, delicate things, shadows of the leaves of the Tree of the Soul that dance in the breeze of Love, so subtle that neither Keats nor Heine in words, neither Brahms nor Debussy in music, could give them body. It is the agony of every artist, the greater he the more fierce his despair, that he cannot compass expression. And what they cannot do, not once in a life of ardour, is done in all fullness by the body that, loving, hath learnt the lesson of how to love. [21]
The hermetic teachings of status and function of the soul and her inseparable polarity with the body are crucial to bring about the fullest manifestation of the mysteries of Nuit. In Nuit as the World Soul and patroness of souls of man originates the Eros Cosmogonos, the world-shattering Eros. This eroticism is the cradle of all the raw, primordial and atavistic sexuality deep within our subconscious. Especially in its primal form “the sexual nature of a man is his most intense expression of himself; his subconsciousness endeavours thereby to inform his consciousness of his Will.” [22] In our shamanistic Gnosis we understand these primordial whirlpools of sex, lust and Eros to be populated and administrated by terrifying spirits and entities. To make contact with these realms and denizens which we have located cabalistically on the qliphotic backside of the Tree of Life, becomes a main focus of the operational sorcerer. The mystery of Nuit as taught in our sanctuary forms the gateway to the most intense and powerful centers of the outer and inner universe. In the outer cosmos we are enabled to make contact with the plutonian and trans-plutonian regions of space which contain pools of intense magical energy. In the inner cosmoswe are again being admitted to the deepest and darkest hidden centers of our raw, primordial, sexual Self. Through the re-awakened faculties and powers of the soul, we can map out the infernal gateways and feed the energies from the shadow side of Nuit, the (Transcendental) Id, into the consciousness of the Ego.
Hadit: Refined Ego and True Will
If Power asks why, then is Power weakness.
(Hadit)
The mysteries of the Spirit and the Ego within the Thelemic current as interpreted by our cultus are being guarded by Hadit, the principal deity of the second chapter of Liber Al. The manifestation of the Hadit Gnosis is the second important step on the initiatic journey; it follows the crucial empowerment of the Soul and the unleashing of all her related powers through the grace of Nuit.
“I, Hadit, am the complement of Nu, my bride.” [23] Hadit, the winged sun disk, identifies himself as the consort ofNuit. He is the Solar God par excellence, the Lord of the sky, illuminating the day, bringing all things to life and visibility. Esoterically he is the Spirit, the ruler of the Ego and awareness. All that we know consciously comes under the dominion of Hadit. This makes him a very dangerous concept and two edged sword that either cuts your throat or leads you to the ultimate victory – the resurrection in the divine state.
In the uninitiated, the profane Ego is the ultimate ruler of his Being. The power of the Spirit has separated the ordinary human fromthe vitalismof true life, severed the sacred link between soul and body. He now rules a confused and alienated creature from his throne in the Ego. This is so, not because Hadit as Spirit is in itself negative or ‘bad’ but because he is so powerful and overwhelming and few can withstand his brutal assault. The main vehicle of Hadit’s conquest within the individual is his ‘will to power’. In the profane this will to power leads to disastrous consequences as can be witnessed in the world around us. The mechanical man, only identifying with his persona in the underdeveloped Ego, alienated from the daemonic powers of the cosmos and his symbiotic relationship to it, experiences a God complex. Enslaved through isolation from the primordial pulsing of the soul, he stumbles blindly through a world he readily destroys in the futile pursuit of egocentric spoils.
To the true adept however, the man that has fully understood his calling and need for spiritual transformation, Hadit can become the ultimate empowerment. When properly prepared, the raw powers of Hadit can be shaped into the deifying agent that allows us not only to realize our divine nature, but also to create change in accord with our divine will. Crowley consequently elaborated that:
Hadit is the Ego or Atman in everything, but of course a loftier and more secret thing than anything understood by the Hindus. And of course the distinction between Ego and Ego is illusion. Hence Hadit, who is the life of all that is, if known, becomes the death of that individuality (…) He is the Impersonal Identity within the Individuality of ‘every man and every woman.’ [24]
For the uninitiated man, Hadit becomes the cruel dictator and escapist enslaverwho possesses him in the profane Ego and uses him mercilessly to satisfy the supreme craving of his will to power. As this will to power in the uninitiated is focused through the profane Ego, Hadit in such a case becomes a parasitic occupant, fallen from his potential divine glory.
The only way to contain the power of Hadit and channel it into a constructive and truly vitalistic existence is to follow the Royal Path. The Royal Path is the Path of the Soul as revealed by Nuit. Only when we empower again our soul and become aware of the primordial blessings bestowed upon us by the Dark Goddess of Space, shall we be able to contain the powers of Hadit. As a child of Nuit we need to manifest her glory in order to understand properly and alchemically refine the Hadit-energies. When the soul becomes operative as a magical instrument, the phantom of the unrefined Hadit can be banished from his stronghold that kept us imprisoned. Only then can the truly majestic sun disk rise above our horizons and illuminate the true reality of ourmagical universe. The false Ego then shatters and spiritual death ensues being followed by a rebirth in the Absolute Ego: “I am Life, and the giver of Life, yet therefore is the knowledge of me the knowledge of death.” [25] In this moment, Hadit becomes deifier, the destroyer of the false existence and giver of true life in his occult capacity as Death, the consort of Nuit-Mahakali. Death here must be understood as the empowerment of life, the true state of being; profane death and the fear thereof having now been forever exiled from our experience. Crowley was well aware of these connections, commenting on the Hadit chapter of Liber Al that
The death of the individual is his awakening to the impersonal immortality of Hadit. This applies less to physical death than to the Crossing of the Abyss (…) One may attain to be aware that one is but a particular ‘child’ of the Play of Hadit and Nuit; one’s personality is then perceived as being a disguise. It is not only not a living thing, as one had thought; but a mere symbol without substance, incapable of life. It is the conventional form of a certain cluster of thoughts, themselves the partial and hieroglyphic symbols of an ‘ego.’ (…) when one becomes “the knower,” it involves the ‘death’ of all sense of the Ego.” [26]
It is in this state of supreme existence that the TRUE will to power can take root. Such a will to power has no interest in exploitative and profane egoistical pursuits but is a tool to assume power over ourmagical universe and divine existence. It is the eternal fire, the sacred fury of Hyperborean initiation [27] which allows us to go ever forward, against all possible odds, and to achieve and make flesh our dreams. Hadit manifested allows us to do our will in accord with the supreme love ofNuit. Hadit as deifying spirit becomes not only an ally of life through the pathway of Nuit but becomes her innermost active core. The Sun that had only illuminated the day and the blinding day-consciousness of phantoms, has now truly turned into the supreme Sun of spiritual attainment. The Golden Sun of Apollonian transformation has fused with the Black Sun of Wotanic night-consciousness.
Ra-Hoor-Khuit: The God-Man manifest
Fear not at all; fear neither men nor Fates, nor gods, nor anything
(Ra-Hoor-Khuit)
The Hieros Gamos of Nuit and Hadit, their magical fusion and copulation, allow the manifestation of the God-Man! Through the union of Nuit and Hadit, by the powers of Love under Will, rises Ra-Hoor-Khuit in our divine consciousness.
After the mysteries of Nuit and Hadit have successively been actualized by the operative Gnostic, the adept resurrects in the supreme state which is represented in the third chapter of Liber Al by Ra-Hoor-Khuit. The path of Thelemic initiation as taught by the Fiends of Aiwass does not lead to Samadhi. Rather we aspire to a form of what certain Tantrics have termed Kaivalya. [28] The experience of fusion with or participation in the Divine as in the state of Samadhi, where the Kundalini merges with the Sahasrara sphere is not sufficient for us. We want to take the ultimate leap and achieve total freedomby becoming the ultimate sovereign in the luciferian awakening of Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Only in this state of emancipation, by retaining a sense of individuality, it is possible to relish the nectar of supreme bliss. Against the majority of Thelemites we do not understand the fusion of Nuit and Hadit to ultimately produce Samadhi but Kaivalya. If this was not the case, the essence of Ra-Hoor-Khuit as reflected in The Book of the Law would be far less virile, active and individualistic. In the state of Samadhi there would exist no desire to execute aTrue Will which is so central to Crowley’s Gnosis. Rather one would have dissolved in the Divine and left fully without desire and intent.
“There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt” [29] we are being told by Ra-Hoor-Khuit. The full implications of this mystery can only become truly known by an initiate who has undergone the alchemical transmutations of Nuit, Hadit and has now manifested the luciferian essence of Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Only when our will is no longer guided by the profane Ego but has been deified by the sacred fire of Hadit are we able to truly do our will; a will that arises out of our divine consciousness, a will of a God-Man in true symbiotic relationship with Life and Nuit herself.
The initiate who has manifested the glory of Ra-Hoor-Khuit within himself becomes a ‘conqueror’. In him are united the powers of the Mother, the Father and the Child supplying the adept with a supreme arsenal of weapons. The conquests of such a person are part of the ultimate jihad: the establishment of total control and rule over the personal magical and spiritual universe which is built upon the twin pillars of esoteric Love and Will. In times when most humans are fully enslaved by their profane existence and exploitative lives which necessarily are opposed to true individuality, conflict becomes unavoidable. It is the duty of the God-Man orUebermensch to exercise his right to map out and shape his own universe which by nature is not in opposition to the Life of the cosmos and everything which exists within it in harmony. Modern humans are in their majority enemies of the cosmos due to their nihilistic and religiously motivated escapist tendencies; thus they will also in many cases oppose the Kosmic Gnostic as he violates and betrays the laws of their unconscious, destructive collective and their demiurgic ruler. The manifestation of the final stage of attainment brings about full freedom from all doctrines and religious concepts. While religious frameworks may be helpful in order to guide the initiate along the path, they become redundant at the moment of divine realization and emancipation. Ra-Hoor-Khuit exclaims thus:
I am in a secret fourfold word, the blasphemy against all gods of men. Curse them! Curse them! Curse them! With my Hawk’s head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs upon the cross. I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed & blind him. With my claws I tear out the flesh of the Indian and the Buddhist, Mongol and Din. [30]
In the manifestation of Ra-Hoor-Khuit within the initiate the concept of the Nietzschean Uebermensch becomes a reality. The daring, virility and sacred fury characterizing the message of the third chapter of The Book of the Law express perfectly the terrifying nature of the overman. [31] Intoxicated by the essence of true life, fearless, reveling in his luciferian glory, the Uebermensch becomes a divine guide and messenger for the few and the chosen. To the masses he represents the Diabolus Incarnatus:
Verily, you who are good and just, there is much about you that is laughable, and especially your fear of that which has hitherto been called devil. What is great is so alien to your souls that the overman would be awesome to you in his kindness. And you who arewise and knowing, you would flee from the burning sun of that wisdom in which the overman joyously bathes his nakedness. You highest men whom my eyes have seen, this is my doubt concerning you and my secret laughter: I guess that you would call my overman – devil. [32]
The Dawn of Aiwass: Obeah andWanga
Also the mantras and spells; the obeah and the wanga; the work of the wand and the work of the sword;
these he shall learn and teach.
(Nuit)
The initiates belonging to the Fiends of Aiwass all have one most important thing in common:They have embedded the Gnosis and Magick of Aleister Crowley in a shamanistic framework. Initiates are mainly drawn from polytheist and animist spiritual environments. The Fiends of Aiwass can be thought of as a specialized magical research laboratory in which the Thelemic and Crowleyan transmissions and teachings are being investigated and operated in an occult shamano-gnosis. These Gnostics, while considering Crowley a master magician and unique spiritual teacher are also very aware of his many flaws and unbalances which undoubtedly have influenced his intense transmissions fromthe pleromic realms. Every teaching, and especially every spiritual transmission, always comes filtered through the ‘personality’ of its transmitter. Consequently, it is an important task for a Gnostic group to single out the truly timeless and Gnostic aspects of such teachings and even correct errors when they have been identified. This is in fact a ruthless alchemical procedure and to say it with the words of Crowley: “We work on gold, and goldmust be cleansed with acid.” [33] While not dismissing any existing form of Thelema, our researchers within the Aiwass current have no interest in outside validation or acceptance. As Gnostics they dwell within their own palace and their validation comes from the blessings bestowed upon them by the grace of Aiwass and his legions. [34] The current of Aiwass as revealed by Aleister Crowley is to us a living stream of magical and spiritual energy feeding a post-Nietzschean esoteric Universe that allows for a powerful re-awakening of long lost Gnostic possibilities.
The key that opens our unique gateways to the cosmos of Thelema and Aiwass is the work of the Obeah and the Wanga [35] as it is referred to in The Book of the Law. Shamanic systems of African or Afro-Latin origin may be the most powerful ways to enter the living inner worlds of Thelema. As is evident from Crowley’s comments on the nature of the Obeah and the Wanga, he had little idea of the nature of such concepts. [36] This is not surprising as reliable information about such cults in Crowley’s time were rather scarce. That they were included in the revelation of Liber Al however is a clear indication that the Thelemic Gnosis can be approached from such esoteric bases. Kongo (Angolan), West African and Haitian Voudon transmissions feed the afro-shamanistic temple of the Fiends of Aiwass and have led to the establishing of a living and continuous link to the spirit worlds of the Aiwass current. The Book of the Law to us is also a Book of the Lwa! [37] Aiwass has revealed himself to us as containing Lwa-energy and thus responds to operations involving an appropriate modus operandi. Aiwass, the transmitter and messenger of plutonian and trans-plutonian powers beyond our ability to directly access, can be thought of as a very powerful Lwa who seeks contact with priests and initiates who possess the magical technology to receive him. Aiwass is the head of a hierarchy of spirits who have been drawn down into the lairs of our Gnostic sorcerers. His current is a living one and his message and direct exchange with humankind has not ended with the Death of Master Crowley. On the contrary, as a Lwa, Aiwass constantly evolves and transmits powerful messages to his priests. [38]
Rather than working in sterile lodge settings, the sorcerers of Aiwass operate solitary empowered by their initiations and unique qualifications in penetrating the spirit mysteries. The shamanistic school of Aiwass/Thelema has developed Thelema as an integral part of a larger Gnostic system of personal transformation far beyond any border of orthodoxy.
As described in the previous chapters, a unique reading and analysis of Liber Al may lead to the ultimate resurrection of the God-Man. Aiwass and his legions are the living beings within the Thelemic cosmology and bodies of Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the supreme Thelemic trinity. With their help the unfolding and manifestation of the totality of Thelemic powers as a gradual possession by the ‘Thelemic Lwa’ becomes a reality. When the adept through his Gnostic spiritistic sorcery manifests the powers of Nuit [39], as revealed in Chapter One of Liber Al, he allows the spirits to possess him and so absorbs the corresponding Lwa energies into himself via a sexual magical Hieros Gamos. This makes him powerful enough to correctly and appropriately engage, mate with and release within himself the powers of Hadit [40] who represents the second chapter of Liber Al. When this process has been completed, the ultimate resurrection in the divine body may take place. The adept now may take the final step of fusing the powers of Nuit and Hadit which he has organized in his body as Lwa energies. [41] When this alchemical transformation is complete, the initiate resurrects in the supreme Body of Ra-Hoor-Khuit, who is the Child but also the Mother and the Father.[42] The initiate of the Aiwass Gnosis has now become the physical incarnation of the God-Man. He is a Daemon-God while he is yet a Man. He may now go forth and claim the Universe.
[This essay is based on research notes dated 1999-2001 from the Fiends of Aiwass archives. In collaboration with Theion Publishing, David Beth is preparing a forthcoming book on the work of the Fiends of Aiwass to be released in 2016/17.]
Notes
[1] A form of the Egyptian God Horus.
[2] The complete title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI.
[3] The people accepting the revelations of Liber Al are called Thelemites.
[4] The Fiends of Aiwass in their current formhave been operational since 1998 and are under the spiritual leadership and patronage of Hierophant David Beth.
[5] Aleister Crowley, ‘The Vindication of Nietzsche’, written on the 28th of August 1914, see O.T.O. Thelema Lodge Calendar April and May 1996.
[6] See Vindication.
[7] At Trinity College, Oxford.
[8] See Vindication.
[9] The first translation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra into English was published in 1896 and Nietzsche’s great impact on the English speaking intellectual and artistic circles can be seen for example by the incorporation of much Nietzschean thought in Irish poet George Bernard Shaw’s work (with which Crowley was very familiar), most notably in his playMan and Superman, written in 1903.
[10] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Cambridge University Press 2001, p.199.
[11] Alfred Schuler and Ludwig Klages were the core of the so called Kosmiker-Kreis (Cosmic Circle) teaching a unique form of esoteric philosophy centering around Eros, Soul and Spirit as instruments for a return to primordial experience and true life. See my other writings such as Voudon Gnosis, Fulgur 2010 for more details on the ‘Kosmic Gnosis’.
[12] Aleister Crowley,MagickWithout Tears, Falcon Press 1986, Chapter XXX.
[13] From Bahadit, the winged sun disk, see Aleister Crowley, L I B E R A L vel L E G I S sub Tgura CCXX as delivered by (LXXVIII) XCIII unto DCLXVI with a commentary by T H E B E A S T TO MEGA THERION 666, http://hermetic.com/legis/new-comment/
[14] David Beth, ‘Northern Gnosis and the Pathway of the Soul’, Introduction to Vincent Ongkowidjojo, Secrets of Asgard, Mandrake of Oxford, 2011.
[15] Liber Al vel Legis, Chapter I, verse 13.
[16] For an elaborate treatise on Esoteric Love in the present context see David Beth, Voudon Gnosis, Fulgur Ltd. 2010, especially appendix I: “A-Mor – an initiated analysis of Love”
[17] Aleister Crowley,“On Sexual Freedom”, published in: The Revival of Magick, edited by Hymenaeus Beta & Richard Kaczynski, Thelema Media 1998.
[18] See Aleister Crowley, L I B E R A L vel L E G I S sub figura CCXX as delivered by (LXXVIII) XCIII unto DCLXVI. with a commentary by T H E B E A S T TOMEGATHERION 666, http://hermetic.com/legis/new-comment/.
[19] Here Spirit as defined by Ludwig Klages who identiTed the Spirit as the adversary of the Soul.
[20] For the operations of sexual Magic for example.
[21] Aleister Crowley, L I B E R A L vel L E G I S sub figura CCXX as delivered by (LXXVIII) XCIII unto DCLXVI with a commentary by T H E B E A S T TOMEGATHERION 666, http://hermetic.com/legis/new-comment/.
[22] Aleister Crowley,“On Sexual Freedom”, published in: The Revival of Magick, edited by Hymenaeus Beta & Richard Kaczynski, Thelema Media 1998.
[23] Liber Al Vel Legis, Chapter II, Verse 2.
[24] Aleister Crowley, L I B E R A L vel L E G I S sub figura CCXX as delivered by (LXXVIII) XCIII unto DCLXVI with a commentary by T H E B E A S T TOMEGATHERION 666, http://hermetic.com/legis/new-comment/.
[25] Liber Al vel Legis, Chapter II, Verse 6.
[26] Aleister Crowley, L I B E R A L vel L E G I S sub figura CCXX as delivered by (LXXVIII) XCIII unto DCLXVI with a commentary by T H E B E A S T TOMEGATHERION 666, http://hermetic.com/legis/new-comment/
[27] For more on the concept of the sacred fury, see David Beth, Voudon Gnosis, Fulgur 2010.
[28] For a thorough elaboration of Kaivalya within our pan-daemonic Kosmic Gnosis see: David Beth, “Supreme Katabasis: Kaivalya and the Kosmic Gnosis”, in: Craig Williams, Cave of the Numinous. Tantric Physics Vol. I., Theion Publishing 2014.
[29] Liber Al vel Legis, Chapter III, Verse 60.
[30] Liber Al vel Legis, Chapter III, Verses 49-53.
[31] One only needs to compare the language of the third chapter of Liber Al with the description of the coming Age and the overman in Nietzsche’s ‘The Gay Science’.
[32] Taken from Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, as quoted at http://www.nietzschespirit.com
[33] Compare, Aleister Crowley,Magick without Tears, Chapter LXXI ´OnMorality’, Falcon Press 1986.
[34] The Fiends of Aiwass retain various lines of ‘Thelemic’ transmissions going back to Aleister Crowley feeding their work. However, the supreme transmission comes from direct contact with Aiwass himself.
[35] See Liber Al, Chapter I, Verse 37.
[36] See Aleister Crowley, L I B E R A L vel L E G I S sub figura CCXX as delivered by (LXXVIII) XCIII unto DCLXVI with a commentary by T H E B E A S T TOMEGATHERION 666, http://hermetic.com/legis/new-comment/
[37] Lwa or Loa as used in the Voudon Science.
[38] In our records we have many important transmissions from Aiwass, some of which have resulted in the information given in this essay. Another such Lwa of importance within a Thelemic Gnosis is Lam, whi can be understood as an aspect of Aiwass.
[39] Who in the system of Esoteric Voudon corresponds to the Dark Goddess of Space. See David Beth, Voudon Gnosis, Fulgur 2010 and Michael Bertiaux, The Voudon GnosticWorkbook,Weiser 2007.
[40] Hadit in Esoteric Voudon would correspond with Mystère Royale, the spouse of Mahakali, Dark Goddess of Space. See ibid.
[41] These Lwa energies are most appropriately organized as Hot Points.
[42] Ra-Hoor-Khuit in this approach would correspond in Esoteric Voudon with Legbha-Ghuedhe who is the totality of all Lwa. See David Beth, Voudon Gnosis, Fulgur 2010 and Michael Bertiaux, The Voudon GnosticWorkbook,Weiser 2007.