Help me, o warrior lord of Thebes, in my unveiling before the Children of men!
Help me, o warrior lord of Thebes, in my unveiling before the Children of men!
Liber AL vel Legis I,5
The Old Comment by Aleister Crowley
5. Nu, to unveil herself, needs a mortal intermediary, in the first instance. It is to be supposed that ankh-f-n-khonsu, the warrior lord of Thebes, priest of Men Tu, is in some subtle manner identical with either Aiwass or the Beast.
The New Comment by Aleister Crowley
Here Nuit appeals, simply and directly, recognizing the separate function of each Star of her Body. Though all is One, each part of that One has its own special work, each Star its particular Orbit.
In addressing me as warrior lord of Thebes, it appears as if She perceived a certain continuity or identity of myself with Ankh-f-n-khonsu, whose Stele is the Link with Antiquity of this Revelation. See Equinox I, VII, pp. 363-400a, for the account of this event.
The unveiling is the Proclamation of the Truth previously explained, that the Body of Nuith occupies Infinite Space, so that every Star thereof is Whole in itself, an independent and absolute Unit. They differ as Carbon and Calcium differ, but each is a simple "immortal" Substance, or at least a form of some simpler Substance. Each soul is thus absolute, and 'good' or 'evil' are merely terms descriptive of relations between destructible combinations. Thus Quinine is 'good' for a malarial patient, but 'evil' for the germ of the disease. Heat is 'bad' for ice-cream and 'good' for coffee. The indivisible essence of things, their 'souls', are indifferent to all conditions soever, for none can in any way affect them.
Comments by Marcelo Motta
Although this last sentence is grammatically wrong, we left it as written as proof of how hard it is to discuss certain Truths on the plane of the intellect. Aleister Crowley was a Master of the English Language;yet, in trying to express something that transcends Reason, he committed an error of syntax that any modern secretary would avoid! The problem was that he was caught in the quandary that the "indivisible essence" is simultaneously One and Many! Hence the 'error'
Lay readers should understand that when A.C. writes "here Nuit appeals "what he actually means is "Here Aiwass, speaking as Nuit, appeals," etc. Aiwass, being an lpsissimus, can of course speak in name of Infinite Space.
The fact that Children is with C capital indicates a hidden technical meaning in the verse. Those Children are rather big Children! They are Giants, Titans, Gargantuas or Pantagruels of legend-in short, they are Babes of the Abyss. This is the "Grade", or rather, the "Going" in which the Veil is Rent and the mind receives the first impact of the Infinite. In this sense, therefore, Nuit is appealing to 666 to become the Hierophant of the Greater Mysteries-that is to say, the Magus of the Aeon, the Initiator of the Masters of the Temple. Obviously, He must be in Chokhmah.