Liber 418 study group - 25th Aethyr: VTI

Aeon418

Aleister Crowley said:
25. VTI - The Path of Teth (Atu XI. The Fire-Kerub in the Initiation). The Vision of the Fruit of the Great Work of the Beast - 666. The Lion. - Appearance of the Lion God of Horus, the child of Leo that incarnates him. The first Angel is Isis its mother.
The Cry of the 25th Aethyr,
Which is Called VTI.


1. There is nothing in the stone but the pale gold of the Rosy Cross.

2. Now there comes an Angel with bright wings, that is the Angel of the 25th Aire. And all the aire is a dark olive about him, like an alexandrite stone. He bears a pitcher or amphora And now there comes another Angel upon a white horse, and yet again another Angel upon a black bull. And now there comes a lion and swallows the two latter angels up. The first angel goes to the lion and closes his mouth. And behind them are arrayed a great company of Angels with silver spears, like a forest. And the Angel says: Blow, all ye trumpets, for I will loose my hands from the mouth of the lion, and his roaring shall enkindle the worlds.

3. Then the trumpets blow, and the wind rises and whistles terribly. It is a blue wind with silver specks; and it blows through the whole Aethyr. But through it one perceives the lion, which has become as a raging flame.

4. And he roareth in an unknown tongue. But this is the interpretation thereof: Let the stars be burnt up in the fire of my nostrils! Let all the gods and the archangels and the angels and the spirits that are on the earth, and above the earth, and below the earth, that are in all the heavens and in all the hells, let them be as motes dancing in the beam of mine eye!

5. I am he that swalloweth up death and victory. I have slain the crowned goat, and drunk up the great sea. Like the ash of dried leaves the worlds are blown before me. Thou hast passed by me, and thou hast not known me. Woe unto thee, that I have not devoured thee altogether!

6. On my head is the crown, 419 rays far-darting. And my body is the body of the Snake, and my soul is the soul of the Crowned Child. Though an Angel in white robes leadeth me, - who shall ride upon me but the Woman of Abominations? Who is the Beast? Am not I one more than he? In his hand is a sword that is a book. In his hand is a spear that is a cup of fornication. Upon his mouth is set the great and terrible seal. And he hath the secret of V. His ten horns spring from five points, and his eight heads are as the charioteer of the West. Thus doth the fire of the sun temper the spear of Mars, and thus shall he be worshipped, as the warrior lord of the sun. Yet in him is the woman that devoureth with her water all the fire of God.

7. Alas! my lord, thou art joined with him that knoweth not these things.

8. When shall the day come that men shall flock to this my gate, and fall into my furious throat, a whirlpool of fire? This is hell unquenchable, and all they shall be utterly consumed therein. Therefore is that asbestos unconsumable made pure.

9. Each of my teeth is a letter of the reverberating name. My tongue is a pillar of fire, and from the glands of my mouth arise four pillars of water. TAOTZEM is the name by which I am blasphemed. My name thou shalt not know, lest thou pronounce it and pass by.

10. And now the Angel comes forward again and closes his mouth.

11. All this time heavy blows have been raining upon me from invisible angels, so that I am weighed down as with a burden greater than the world. I am altogether crushed. Great millstones are hurled out of heaven upon me. I am trying to crawl to the lion, and the ground is covered with sharp knives. I cut myself at every inch.

12. And the voice comes: Why art thou there who art here? Hast thou not the sign of the number, and the seal of the name, and the ring of the eye? Thou wilt not.

13. And I answered and said: I am a creature of earth, and ye would have me swim.

14. And the voice said: Thy fear is known; thine ignorance is known; thy weakness is known; but thou art nothing in this matter. Shall the grain which is cast into the earth by the hand of the sower debate within itself, saying, am I oats or barley? Bondslave of the curse, we give nothing, we take all. Be thou content. That which thou art, thou art. Be content.

15. And now the lion passeth over through the Aethyr with the crowned beast upon his back, and the tail of the lion goes on instead of stopping, and on each hair of the tail is something or other --- sometimes a little house, sometimes a planet, at other times a town. Then there is a great plain with soldiers fighting upon it, and an enormously high mountain carved into a thousand temples, and more houses and fields and trees, and great cities with wonderful buildings in them, statues and columns and public buildings generally. This goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on all on the hairs of this lion's tail.

16. And then there is the tuft of his tail, which is like a comet, but the head is a new universe, and each hair streaming away from it is a Milky Way.

17. And then there is a pale stern figure, enormous, enormous, bigger than all that universe is, in silver armour, with a sword and a pair of balances. That is only vague. All has gone into stone-gray, blank.
There is nothing.

Ain el Hajel. November 25, 1909. 8:40-9:40 p.m.

(There were two voices in all this Cry, one behind the other --- or, one was the speech, and the other the meaning. And the voice that was the speech was simply a roaring, one tremendous noise, like a mixture of thunder and water-falls and wild beasts and bands and artillery. And yet it was articulate, though I cannot tell you what a single word was. But the meaning of the voice --- the second voice --- was quite silent, and put the ideas directly into the brain of the Seer, as if by touch. It is not certain whether the millstones and the sword-strokes that rained upon him were not these very sounds and ideas.)
Plain text versions of Liber 418 with Crowley's footnotes:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/418/418.htm
http://hermetic.com/crowley/the-vision-and-the-voice/

Liber 418 in PDF format with images:

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/cr...s/Liber418.pdf
 

Always Wondering

Wow. There seems to me a lot of symbolism in VTI. I did envision it all at once as suggested, but think I am going to have to break it down now throughout the week to get a better feel for it.

It was so BIG. I don't know if I ever imagined anything so big before, in spite of the "we are all grains of sand" perception.

14. And the voice said: Thy fear is known; thine ignorance is known; thy weakness is known; but thou art nothing in this matter. Shall the grain which is cast into the earth by the hand of the sower debate within itself, saying, am I oats or barley? Bondslave of the curse, we give nothing, we take all. Be thou content. That which thou art, thou art. Be content.

This may quiet my brain down a little. :laugh:
 

Aeon418

General Observations

VTI. Pronounced ‘Vah-tee’ in the Golden Dawn Enochian dialect.

Geburah in Yetzirah.

V = Capricorn, Ayin, Atu XV – The Devil.
T = Caput Draconis, Gimel, Atu II – The Priestess.
I = Sagittarius, Samekh, Atu XIV – Art.

Ayin(70) + Gimel(3) + Samekh(60) = 133.
133 = IM HMLCh = The Salt Sea. A reference to Binah and possibly a nod to Revelation 13:1.
Rev. 13:1 said:
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

Comment:

1. This line appears to be just a description of Crowley’s scrying stone. To obtain these visions he used a large topaz set on a cross. It’s sitting next to his right elbow in this famous photo - http://www.crystalinks.com/crowleypyrhat.jpg


2. The first angel bears a pitcher or amphora. This provides a link to the Star card and may be the reason why Crowley saw this first angel as an avatar of Babalon.
Next the angels riding a white horse and a black bull are identified as the “Sorrow of Death” and the “Pain of Toil”. Both of these are devoured by the Lion, symbol of the Beast 666. This act may point to a level of consciousness wherein sorrow and pain are absorbed and transcended in an entirely different point of view.
The first angel, the avatar of Babalon, closes the Lion’s mouth. This is the traditional image of the card called Strength. The ‘mouth’ is related to the letter Peh and Mars. In apocalyptic style the angel threatens to loosen her grip on the Lion and unleash the Mars force, the Serpent power, Kundalini. This is important to and explains why in the Thelemic Tarot the Woman rides the Beast instead of restraining him. Strength becomes Lust, the Joy of Strength exercised!

3. The ‘atom bomb’ of Kundalini is unleashed. The blue wind with silver specks is curious. These are colours of the Path of Gimel which crosses the Path of Teth. The Woman who rides the Beast is an expression of Gimel and Atu II, The Priestess. The letter Gimel provides the key by which the energizing Fire of Geburah may be approached safely.

Gimel – spelt GML.

Gimel – the Path to the Crown and the connecting link to the hightest. Atu II.
Mem – the Surrender of the egoic self to the HGA. Atu XII.
Lamed – the Equilibration of the Passions. Atu VIII.

This is the meaning behind the warning spoken by Peter:
Peter 5:8 said:
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour
But times have changed and the New Aeon brings us the image of Babalon and the Beast as the way forward for humanity and it’s evolution. In the mean time society grapples with sexual excess on the one hand, and on the other a desperate retreat into prudery and Puritanism.

4. The Lion roars in an unkown tongue, yet Crowley still understands what is being said. This may symbolically indicate communication beyond rational thought.
The Stars, individual men and women, are to be burnt up (enflamed, fired up) in the fire of the Lion’s nostrils. The nostrils correspond to Mars and Venus – Energy and Love.
All the hierarchies of existence are declared to be one thing when viewed by the Eye of Hoor. This may also be linked back to the consumption of ‘white’ and ‘black’ at the beginning of the vision. The pairs of opposites transcended in Unity.

5. Death and Victory is Nun and Netzach. The Crowned Goat and the great sea are Ayin and Hod. The Solar-Tipheric Lion-Serpent has consumed these opposites in the Unity of his being. Woe unto them that have not, as yet, been eaten up by this Unity.

In, The Angel and the Abyss (p.182-183), J. Daniel Gunther compares this line to Isiah 25:6-8.
Isiah 25:6-8 said:
And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.
The phrase, “this mountain” refers to Zion. In the context of Thelema Zion is identified with Babalon. (TzYVN = 156 = BABALON) The covering veil is related to “black veil” spoken of in Liber AL II:52

6. Crown of 419 rays = Teth, the Snake. He embodies the Soul of Horus.
The Woman of Abominations is of course Babalon – the Scarlet Woman.

“Who is the Beast?” TO MEGA QHRION = 666.
“Am not I one more than he?” H KOKKINH GUNH = 667. (The Scarlet Woman.)

The Sword that is a Book is Liber AL vel Legis. The seal on the mouth is the Seal of Babalon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babalon#mediaviewer/File:Babalon_seal.png

The secret of V with ten horns springing from five points is V.V.V.V.V. Crowley used these initials as his 8=3 motto. But these five V’s also relate to the five Paths that cross the Abyss, uniting the Supernal Triad to the rest of the Tree in similar fashion to Babalon riding the Beast.

8 heads – Charioteer of the West? 8 = ChITh (Cheth) = 418, Atu VII The Chariot. In Genesis 1:25 the word “beast” is spelt ChITh. This links the Beast with Abrahadabra.

The sun tempering the spear of mars is the link between Tiphareth(Ra) and Geburah(Hoor) via the Path of Lamed – Adjustment and the Woman Satisfied.

7. The human ego is closed off from this greater perception.

8. The Lion is Teth. His Gate is Daleth. The throat (Mouth) is Peh. These are the three reciprocal Paths on the Tree of Life and total 93.
When will the crap be burnt away leaving only “that which remains”? The True Self.

9. I don’t know how many teeth lions have, but I think the reference is to the Great Name, AHIHVH = 32, which is a fusion of Ehieh(AHIH) and IHVH. The numeration of this name links it to the 32 Paths on the Tree of Life and links the macrocosom and the microcosm.
Tongue – pillar of fire? Shin/Spirit?
Pillars of Water? The rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddikel, and Prath?

The name TAOTZEM is curious. Crowley rendered is in Hebrew as ThOTzM=600 and claimed it represented mistaking the material sun for the spiritual sun. Hmm… maybe.

10. The angel turns of the Mars tap.

11. This section seems to indicate a transition of some kind. Maybe between a low energy state to a higher one. But sometimes these obstacles are self created blockages. This makes for a bumpy ride.

12. “Why art thou there who art here?” Separation and division? You are that which you seek. So why the question? “Thou wilt not.” Resistance and self obstruction!

13. Excuses generated by the intellect.

14. Fear is Pachad. This is the lowest manifestation of the Sephira Geburah. Spelt in Hebrew, PhChD, we see Atu’s XVI, VII, and III.
Atu XVII, The Tower, shows the upheaval caused by the destruction of something transitory that clings too long to it’s idea of individual existence. This is a picture of the resistant ego undergoing spiritual transformation the hard way.
Atu VII, The Chariot, is a picture of the surrender of the individual will to the HGA. But everyone thinks they can drive their own car, despite the fact they don’t know where they are going.
Atu III, The Empress. And at the root of it all is a fear of Love which is fear of Change.
But there’s a process of ‘letting go’ to be worked through. If it’s difficult, that’s they way it is.

15 – 16. These passages seem to transition from the Beast as Solar/Tiphareth symbol to the creative Will of Chokmah.

17. The vision closes with a Libran image. This indicate the Aeon Maat that follows the Aeon of Horus. It is also the final aspect of Geburah – Pachad(Fear), Geburah(Strength), and Din(Justice).