93 -- and keep your powder dry
The Book of the Law, Chapter 3, verses 51-55: The voice reviles 7 Gods or representatives of Gods: Jesus, Mohammed, Hindu, Buddhist, Mongol, Din (possibly a nonsense word standing for Jew), and Mary, Mother of Jesus. 7 is a number of completion, hinting that not just seven divinities or prophets are mentioned here, but all the Gods of humanity, perhaps of life itself. There are 7 days in the Western week, ruled, Sunday through Saturday, respectively by the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn; which, through Qaballah, can be associated with all humanity's Gods. Hence not just one or a few Gods, but all the Gods of humanity, including those of Life itself, are reviled by that voice in those verses of Chapter 3 of The Book of the Law. Does that voice belong to Horus, as possibly implied by verse 51, which begins: "With my hawk's head . . ."? Maybe not. Because otherwise that voice would also be raining anathema on its owner and origin, because Horus himself is one of the Gods of humankind. So, is this another hawk-headed God, one not worshipped by or even known to any human groups? If so, it would still be attacking itself, which seems absurd. So we must assume that if it is a God, it is a God not known to terrestrials, human or otherwise, but is instead unknown and alien.
What is the nature of this alien God that may be trying to pass itself off as Horus? If it is like Horus, it is associated with Aquarius, the Constellation under which the new Aeon was born on March 20, 1904, around 12 a.m., in Cairo, Egypt, as a result of Aleister Crowley's Cairo Working in the Great Pyramid at that time, date, and place. Aquarius is, among other things, associated with humanism, socialism, communism, and populism. Does this other "hawk-headed lord" represent any of these and, with them, atheism? Whatever it is, it seems to hate humanity and, perhaps, all terrestrial life, as well, for it hates the essence of what we love, represented by our Gods, regardless of the identities of those Gods or the cultures from which They spring.
I don't have answers for those questions. I do wonder why others haven't asked those questions, or tried to answer them, one way or another, in a systematic, educated manner. I have a feeling that the answers to them, whatever those might be, may have a critical bearing on whether our species, and indeed the living world we're part of, will survive the 21st century. Something out there hates us, hates the very marrow of our souls, and wants to shred those souls into atoms, regardless of which Gods we worship and love and which cultures we live in. Because many of those Gods are associated with Life itself, that means that it hates all terrestrial life, not just us -- and maybe life elsewhere, as well. Our religions represent our deepest yearnings, our greatest hopes, our capacity for love and community -- and it hates them, and hates us for having such yearnings, hopes, and ability to love. Why? What is it that hates us so, and why does it hate us in that way?
The Book of the Law was written through a mortal man from a particular culture, hence in the symbolistic idiom of his time and place. What metaphors lurk in it? What internal dichotomies that have yet to be explored and identified? What does the "hawk-headed lord" really represent, and why does it or he hate all our various and sundry Gods, which also represent our deepest natures, the way we school our spirits in the service of our True Wills?
All those questions seem rather academic until you look at something like the overwhelming redundancy of the natural and accidental numerology of what happened in New York City on September 11, 2001 e.v., the sheer courage of the gallant souls aboard United Flight 93, who forced the hijackers down in a field in rural Pennsylvania rather than letting it go on to its apparent goal, the fiery destruction of the White House, or Congress, in Washington, DC. Look at the repeated instances of the number 11. None of this was planned, none of this staged -- and, just maybe, it was all foreshadowed in The Book of the Law. That same enemy, Jihadistan, went on to use children as self-destructing bombs against not only Christians and Jews, but (in India) Hindus and even Muslims and their holy city of Mecca. Not Christian, nor Jew, nor Hindu, nor even Muslim, that enemy, for all the world, echoes the words of the voice in verses 51-55 of Chapter 3 of The Book of the Law. What is it? Why does it hate all humanity -- as it so clearly does? Why, especially, does it hate and detest women, echoing especially verse 55 of that chapter -- and thereby seem to praise the sort of behavior among women that is a preferred route for the vectoring of microbes of all kinds, including those as dangerous as, say, syphilis, or AIDS?
I am not a Christian. I am not a fundamentalist of any kind. I imagine that just about every devout monotheist in the world would say that I am bound straight for Hell when I die. So this isn't a defense of Christianity or any form of fundamentalism, Christian or otherwise. You could say I'm a sort of systems scientist, and a field biologist/exologist whose favorite subject is human epidemiology, and a Magickian. I writre hard science-fiction and splatterpunk horror, so you know where I am not coming from. This isn't an apologia for any particular human religion -- but rather a defense of human religion in the general sense, as part and parcel of our biology, of what we are, as applied to the creation and support of cultures and communities that serve as absolutely necessary aspects of the systems necessary to our survival and well-being, and that of our children. Call me an anthropologist, who happens to be neither an atheist, nor an agnostic, nor a Christian, nor a fundamentalist, but who does care about the viability of our species and our living world. There's something out there that hates us, folks, hates humanity of any kind and, just maybe, all forms of terrestrial lfie, human and otherwise.
And think of this: who was it that came here last year and shamed our Congress and Senate into doing the right thing, funding the Iraq War? Tony Blair, the English Prime Minister. Crowley was, after all, an Englishman. Does his ghost walk in the person of Tony Blair and our other current allies? Remember that Crowley despised the Nazis, not only because they were making war on his country, and their leaders had embraced a travesty of Thelema, Crowley's brain-child, but also because they stood for the destruction of everything he loved: England, humanity, and, perhaps, terrestrial life itself. Nazis were socialists. Is that the idenity of "the hawk-headed lord" who isn't Horus -- national socialism? all forms of socialism? Communism?
Again, I don't know what the answers to these questions are. But I have this nagging feeling that we'd better start trying to find them, because upon those answers could hinge the future and maybe even the survival of our species and our world. And we may not have that much more time to find out what they are, and act appropriately on them.
93, children. Lock and load -- and keep your powder dry.
What is the nature of this alien God that may be trying to pass itself off as Horus? If it is like Horus, it is associated with Aquarius, the Constellation under which the new Aeon was born on March 20, 1904, around 12 a.m., in Cairo, Egypt, as a result of Aleister Crowley's Cairo Working in the Great Pyramid at that time, date, and place. Aquarius is, among other things, associated with humanism, socialism, communism, and populism. Does this other "hawk-headed lord" represent any of these and, with them, atheism? Whatever it is, it seems to hate humanity and, perhaps, all terrestrial life, as well, for it hates the essence of what we love, represented by our Gods, regardless of the identities of those Gods or the cultures from which They spring.
I don't have answers for those questions. I do wonder why others haven't asked those questions, or tried to answer them, one way or another, in a systematic, educated manner. I have a feeling that the answers to them, whatever those might be, may have a critical bearing on whether our species, and indeed the living world we're part of, will survive the 21st century. Something out there hates us, hates the very marrow of our souls, and wants to shred those souls into atoms, regardless of which Gods we worship and love and which cultures we live in. Because many of those Gods are associated with Life itself, that means that it hates all terrestrial life, not just us -- and maybe life elsewhere, as well. Our religions represent our deepest yearnings, our greatest hopes, our capacity for love and community -- and it hates them, and hates us for having such yearnings, hopes, and ability to love. Why? What is it that hates us so, and why does it hate us in that way?
The Book of the Law was written through a mortal man from a particular culture, hence in the symbolistic idiom of his time and place. What metaphors lurk in it? What internal dichotomies that have yet to be explored and identified? What does the "hawk-headed lord" really represent, and why does it or he hate all our various and sundry Gods, which also represent our deepest natures, the way we school our spirits in the service of our True Wills?
All those questions seem rather academic until you look at something like the overwhelming redundancy of the natural and accidental numerology of what happened in New York City on September 11, 2001 e.v., the sheer courage of the gallant souls aboard United Flight 93, who forced the hijackers down in a field in rural Pennsylvania rather than letting it go on to its apparent goal, the fiery destruction of the White House, or Congress, in Washington, DC. Look at the repeated instances of the number 11. None of this was planned, none of this staged -- and, just maybe, it was all foreshadowed in The Book of the Law. That same enemy, Jihadistan, went on to use children as self-destructing bombs against not only Christians and Jews, but (in India) Hindus and even Muslims and their holy city of Mecca. Not Christian, nor Jew, nor Hindu, nor even Muslim, that enemy, for all the world, echoes the words of the voice in verses 51-55 of Chapter 3 of The Book of the Law. What is it? Why does it hate all humanity -- as it so clearly does? Why, especially, does it hate and detest women, echoing especially verse 55 of that chapter -- and thereby seem to praise the sort of behavior among women that is a preferred route for the vectoring of microbes of all kinds, including those as dangerous as, say, syphilis, or AIDS?
I am not a Christian. I am not a fundamentalist of any kind. I imagine that just about every devout monotheist in the world would say that I am bound straight for Hell when I die. So this isn't a defense of Christianity or any form of fundamentalism, Christian or otherwise. You could say I'm a sort of systems scientist, and a field biologist/exologist whose favorite subject is human epidemiology, and a Magickian. I writre hard science-fiction and splatterpunk horror, so you know where I am not coming from. This isn't an apologia for any particular human religion -- but rather a defense of human religion in the general sense, as part and parcel of our biology, of what we are, as applied to the creation and support of cultures and communities that serve as absolutely necessary aspects of the systems necessary to our survival and well-being, and that of our children. Call me an anthropologist, who happens to be neither an atheist, nor an agnostic, nor a Christian, nor a fundamentalist, but who does care about the viability of our species and our living world. There's something out there that hates us, folks, hates humanity of any kind and, just maybe, all forms of terrestrial lfie, human and otherwise.
And think of this: who was it that came here last year and shamed our Congress and Senate into doing the right thing, funding the Iraq War? Tony Blair, the English Prime Minister. Crowley was, after all, an Englishman. Does his ghost walk in the person of Tony Blair and our other current allies? Remember that Crowley despised the Nazis, not only because they were making war on his country, and their leaders had embraced a travesty of Thelema, Crowley's brain-child, but also because they stood for the destruction of everything he loved: England, humanity, and, perhaps, terrestrial life itself. Nazis were socialists. Is that the idenity of "the hawk-headed lord" who isn't Horus -- national socialism? all forms of socialism? Communism?
Again, I don't know what the answers to these questions are. But I have this nagging feeling that we'd better start trying to find them, because upon those answers could hinge the future and maybe even the survival of our species and our world. And we may not have that much more time to find out what they are, and act appropriately on them.
93, children. Lock and load -- and keep your powder dry.