Book of Law Study Group 1.1

Yygdrasilian

What's in a Name

At sunset, Nut, Goddess of the Skies, opens her Mouth for the Sun, receiving him once more into her womb.
At dawn, her child is resurrected, emerging anew from the gateway of her Pillars to shine another day.

Horus has many names, but Hadit was not one of them until Crowley reputedly took it from a mistranslation of the Stele of Revealing.
Much is made of this blunder and subsequent attempts by the OTO to gloss over such a blatant misnomer.

It is perhaps noteworthy that an error may sometimes be left unchecked to serve a specific function.
Might the exclusion of Ba- from his Ren, the name, be for a reason?
One’s Ba is released during the opening of the Mouth ceremony with prayers it will join with the deceased’s Ka and become Akh, immortal.

The Book of the Law reads as a series of bombastic declarations, like holy revelations that should inspire awe with every syllable.
Seems like bad medicine to make your first Law an invocation that, symbolically, cleaves your patron deity’s immortal essence in half.
 

chriske

What's in a name?

Yygdrasilian said:
Horus has many names, but Hadit was not one of them until Crowley reputedly took it from a mistranslation of the Stele of Revealing.
Much is made of this blunder and subsequent attempts by the OTO to gloss over such a blatant misnomer.

If you think it really matters. I am not speaking for the OTO but I can understand mistakes with hieroglyphs being made. Whether it's Hadit or Behdet, I think we all get the point. I mean no-one thinks that Jesus was born on December 25? Or that he was crucified at Easter. Religions have these structures and conventions to help the congregation. I think it's more important to grasp the Hadit / Behdet principle than argue about the name. Maybe I am being too generous.

One thing that is obvious to me is that Crowley's detractors love to find sticks to hit his advocates over their collective heads. Any potential howler will do.
 

chriske

For those about to take the plunge .....

If you want to read The Book Of The Law but you don't have a hard copy, please let me recommend the small red hardback version that was published by the OTO in 2004. I have a 2006 re-print, and it's presented very beautifully. It also contains photocopies of the original handwritten notes.

I also highly recommend "The Law Is For All" again published by the OTO (my version is 1998) as a commentary on The Book Of The Law. IMHO it's really essential because Liber AL is not easy going.

Both books include pictures and comments on the stéle of revealing. You can also have fun re-interpreting the hieroglyphs if you really want to study that deep. The original interpretation of the name "Hadit" is controversial but don't let that worry you. All this stuff is highly controversial anyway and requires an element of faith on the part of the reader. Either you dig AC or you don't.

Both books are available from Amazon online. I hope that the two books enlighten your life.
 

Scion

Yygdrasilian said:
Seems like bad medicine to make your first Law an invocation that, symbolically, cleaves your patron deity’s immortal essence in half.

Unless 2=0. ;)
 

Aeon418

Yygdrasilian said:
Horus has many names, but Hadit was not one of them until Crowley reputedly took it from a mistranslation of the Stele of Revealing.
Much is made of this blunder and subsequent attempts by the OTO to gloss over such a blatant misnomer.
If the symbolic deities in the Book of Law really were Egyptian, then the apparent mistranslation would be a blunder. But they are not Egyptian. They are Thelemic deities clothed in borrowed symbolic forms. Abstract principles finding expression through one particular historical pantheon.
This book explains the Universe.
The elements are Nuit - Space - that is, the total of possibilities of every kind - and Hadit, any point which has experience of these possibilities. (This idea is for literary convinience symbolized by the Egyptian Goddess Nuit, a woman bending over like the Arch of the Night Sky. Hadit is symbolized as a Winged Globe at the heart of Nuit.)
 

Scion

93!!

Aeon, it's so good to "see" you! Many people have been lamenting your absence publicly and privately.

93/93

Scion
 

Aeon418

ravenest said:
But if Had is the manifestion of Nu, then Had must be Nu ?
Yes.

(The following is not addressed to you, ravenest.)

Very crude metaphor alert!!! Don't take it literally. Please! :laugh:

Imagine a cluster of balls, all clumped together. Name it Nuit.

Focus in one particular ball in the cluster. Name it Hadit. Take that balls perspective. See how the Body of Nuit now surrounds you. Choose a different ball in the cluster. Take it's perspective. Once again, the Body of Nuit surrounds you. But your position is different to before. Your perspective on the whole is now different.

Of course there is a logical flaw in this crude analogy. To actually see the cluster of balls (Nuit) in the first place you need to take the perspective of Hadit.

It may be useful to some to take this crude analogy a step further. Think of the entire Universe surrounding your own individual point of consciousness. Wow! You are the center of the Universe. You are God. But don't get carried away. The same thing applies to every other point of consciousness.

From my perspective, I am Hadit and you are all part of Nuit. From your perspective (whoever you are?), you are Hadit and I and everyone else is a part of Nuit.

Confused yet? :laugh:
 

Aeon418

Scion said:
Aeon, it's so good to "see" you! Many people have been lamenting your absence publicly and privately.
93 Scion. :D

Awww..... I'm touched.

How many is "many"?

2 or 3? :laugh:
 

Always Wondering

Aeon418 said:
Yes.

Confused yet? :laugh:

Not anymore. Not yet.:laugh:
Thanks Aeon418.
Wonderful to hear from you.

AW
 

Grigori

Nice to see you Aeon

Aeon418 said:
Focus in one particular ball in the cluster. Name it Hadit. Take that balls perspective. See how the Body of Nuit now surrounds you. Choose a different ball in the cluster. Take it's perspective. Once again, the Body of Nuit surrounds you. But your position is different to before. Your perspective on the whole is now different.

This reminds me of a new-agey tale someone was telling me recently. I wonder if Hadit may be equated with the Ego?

The person was making the observation, that the only part of each of us that is not divine, is our Ego, the false part of us that we create based on life experiences. Hadit, or the point if you will.

BUT, that when that Ego looks out on the world, everything it sees is divine, including the Ego's of everyone else present. So when looking at all the Stars in the firmament, you look at Nuit, but when looking from/at the perspective of one Star, then you are Hadit. Several flaws I can spot in that argument, but also fits in a way it seems.