Abrac said:
Thank you for that account Aeon. In Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot, page 23, DuQuette wrote, "The three "deities" of The Book of the Law are the main figures that appear on the Stele of Revealing." Was this also Crowley's view or has this just become the generally accepted viewpoint, and did Crowley interpret the BoL based on his understanding of these figures?
I'm not 100% sure what you are asking here, Abrac. So I'm going to toss a few things out and see if I hit the target.
Crowley was very familiar with Victorian era Egyptology. He would have instantly recognised the figures on the stele and their significance. Remember that the Golden Dawn, which Crowley passed through years before, is stuffed full of Egyptian god forms. During that time he would have studied them and their associated myths.
The god names that the Boulaq museum supplied to Crowley as part of the French translation were Nout, Houdit, and Ra-Hor-khut. In Crowley's versified English translation, written before the dictation of Liber Legis, he changed/substituted those names with Nuith, Hadith, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit. He changed the spelling of the first two names slightly when he incorporated part of the verse into the text of Liber Legis. Probably to make it conform with the rest of the text.
Some, but not all, of the ideas given voice through the symbolic forms of the egyptian deities in the Book of the Law, were already floating about, in various forms, in Crowley's work several years prior to 1904. But they were generally couched in Buddhism and the Buddhist point of view. In fact, at the time of the reception on Liber Legis, Crowley was still in his Buddhist phase, having tired of magick. It was one of the reasons why he initially tried to brush off Liber Legis and the events surrounding it's reception as a bizarre aberration that was best forgotten. The second chapter is practically a direct attack on one of the central tennents of Buddhism, Anicca. He didn't like that at all.
9. Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains.
10. O prophet! thou hast ill will to learn this writing.
11. I see thee hate the hand & the pen; but I am stronger.
12. Because of me in Thee which thou knewest not.
13. for why? Because thou wast the knower, and me.