April, 2021 - Light in Extension

The Divine Individual

Part 4 of the Dualism, Monism & Thelema series

Having established the relationship between Nuit, Hadit, and the Qabalistic Zero, let’s now look at the relationship between Nuit and Hadit, in combination, and the Star.

The Definition of a Star

After introducing Nuit and Hadit as the “elements” of the Thelemic Universe, Crowley then introduces the concept of the Star, defining it as the combination of Nuit and Hadit.

Every event is a uniting of some one monad with one of the experiences possible to it.
“Every man and every woman is a star,” that is, an aggregate of such experiences, constantly changing with each fresh event, which affects him or her either consciously or subconsciously.
Crowley, “Introduction” to the Book of the Law

Animation showing Nuit and Hadit combining to form an experience

On the one hand, we have the monad, which Crowley previously identifies with Hadit or the subjective point of view. It is “that to which all Events occur.” (DC on AL II.2) It unites with Nuit, the “total of possibilities of every kind,” thereby eliciting one of the possible experiences latent within Her.

Animation showing Hadit moving through several instances of Nuit, each one a discrete event.

The change from one experience to another is defined as an event. The Star is defined as the aggregate of such experiences that occur to any one particular monad.

Animation showing how the totality of discrete events constitutes the Star.

As the Star is defined as the occurrence to Hadit of some set of possibilities latent within Nuit, the Star is unintelligible without Nuit and Hadit.

Hadit seems to be the principle of Motion which is everywhere, yet is not extended in any dimension except as it chances to combine with the “Matter” which is Nuit. There can evidently be no manifestation apart from this conjunction. A Khabs or Star is apparently any nucleus where this conjunction has taken place.
New Comment on AL II.2 (emphasis mine)

This aggregate of experiences occurring to Hadit is further defined as the essence of each individual.

Every man and every woman is a star.
AL I.3

This ‘star’ or ‘Inmost Light’ is the original, individual, eternal essence.
New Comment on AL I.8

It is also linked with the figure of Ra-Hoor-Khuit.

We have seen that Ra-Hoor-Khuit is in one sense the Silent Self in a man, a Name of his Khabs, not so impersonal as Hadit, but the first and least untrue formulation of the Ego.
New Comment on AL III.62

This passage suggests there are other senses in which Ra-Hoor-Khuit does not mean the Silent Self or Khabs of an individual. It is possible Crowley is referring to his prior commentary on AL III.22:

Ra-Hoor-Khuit, like all true Gods, is therefore a Solar-Phallic deity. But we regard Him as He is in truth, eternal […] Ra-Hoor-Khuit is the Crowned and Conquering Child. This is also a reference to the ‘Crowned’ and Conquering ‘Child’ in ourselves, our own personal God
New Comment on AL III.22 (emphasis mine)

In this passage Crowley appears to distinguish between Ra-Hoor-Khuit as a general deity or archetype versus His manifestation as a particular Star. As we will see in a moment, he makes a similar distinction between Nuit and Nuith and Hadit and Hadith.

From this further information we may conclude that Star, Khabs, Silent Self, Ra-Hoor-Khuit (at least “in one sense,” as the personal God of each individual), and the essence of each individual are equivalent, interchangeable terms. They are only rationally distinct from one another. And the condition of intelligibility of any of them is the conjunction of Nuit and Hadit.

The Distinction between the Star and Nuit and Hadit

Diagram showing how Nuit and Hadit separate from the Zero and combine to form the Star. Star is a mode of Nuit and Hadit, and Nuit and Hadit are modes of the Zero.

While the Star is unintelligible in the absence of Nuit and Hadit, the reverse is not true. Nuit and Hadit are each intelligible in the absence of the concept of the Star. This follows from Nuit and Hadit being modally distinct in the type-b sense.

To review, any two things, x and y, which are modally distinct in the type-b sense are intelligible independently of one another (in other words they are prima facie separate substances), but they share a common third condition, z.

Since we have already discovered that the common condition of Nuit and Hadit is the Qabalistic Zero, it cannot be the case that the Star (or anything else) could be their common condition. Ergo, Nuit and Hadit are each intelligible absent the Star.

It might be averred that Nuit and Hadit are in some sense compelled by their natures to combine and form Stars, and therefore Stars necessarily follow from Nuit and Hadit existing. As Crowley says

[Nuit and Hadit] can only realize Themselves by creating an infinite variety of forms of Themselves, each one real as it is Their image, illusory as it is a partial and divided aspect of Them.
New Comment on AL I.29 (emphasis mine)

But the question is not how Nuit and Hadit realize themselves. Again, our concept of substance leaves aside questions of existence and only deals with questions of intelligibility. The question is whether we can even conceive of them separately from Stars (and therefore, by definition, separately from one another), and that’s exactly what we did in the previous section when we realized they were distinct modes of the Qabalistic Zero.

Since Stars are only intelligible with reference to Nuit and Hadit but not vice versa, it follows that any Star is modally distinct from Nuit and Hadit.

Monism and the Star

Diagram showing that Nuit and Hadit ground the Star, and the Star depends upon Nuit and Hadit.

Since Stars depend for their intelligibility on Nuit and Hadit (and not vice versa), it follows we are dealing with another case of dependence monism. We cannot speak about Stars entirely separately from Nuit and Hadit, since each Star is dependent upon Nuit and Hadit for its own intelligibility. But we can speak intelligibly about Stars as distinct from Nuit and Hadit, as Crowley does in the following passage.

Each such Star is intelligible to Them [Nuith and Hadith], as a poem is to its author as a part of this soul mirrored by his mind. But it is not intelligible to itself, because it has no relation with any other ideas; it only knows itself as the babe of its mother Nuith, to whom it yearns, being stirred by its father Hadith to express that instinctive attachment by inarticulate cries.
Ibid.

The names Nuith and Hadith do not appear in the Book of the Law, but Crowley tends to use them in the commentaries when speaking of Nuit and Hadit from the most abstract point of view. I will follow his usage.

This passage demonstrates that Crowley speaks of Nuit(h) and Hadit(h) in terms that indicate both their separation and connection to Stars in a way which we are defining as modal or a relationship of dependence monism. Yet this passage further determines the type of monism holding between Nuith, Hadith, and Stars.

Stars are intelligible to Nuith and Hadith. This is exactly what we would expect from a relationship of dependence monism where Nuith and Hadith are ground, and the Star is their consequent. The relationship of author (Nuith/Hadith) to poem (Star) implies that the nature of each Star is transparent to Nuith and Hadith. Crowley further determines this relationship of intelligibility by comparing Nuith and Hadith to the idea of a triangle and the Star to an actual triangle.

For no triangle can express the idea of a triangle. Any triangle must be either equilateral, isosceles or scalene, either acute, right-angled, or obtuse; and no one triangle can be all these at once; while the idea of a triangle includes all these, and infinite other, possibilities.
Ibid.

The way Crowley describes the relationship between the idea of a triangle and (actual) triangles is what we have been calling a modal distinction. As everything that can be proved about any particular triangle has its ground in the idea of a triangle, so do all things that follow from a particular Star have their ground in Nuith and Hadith. From this we may gather that Nuith and Hadith serve as a kind of paradigm or Platonic Idea of Stars in general.

In the language we have developed up to this point, we would call this an instance of derivation monism. Not only do all Stars depend upon Nuith and Hadith for their intelligibility. The meaning of each Star ultimately reduces to some meaning latent within Nuith and Hadith themselves. In other words, a complete understanding of Nuith and Hadith would, by analysis, reveal each and every Star, its particular position in space, its relations to all other Stars, and the experiences each and every Star would ever go through.

Diagram showing the Star and its position in space reducing to Nuith and Hadith.

From the level of Nuith and Hadith, the entire Thelemic Universe is, at least in principle, computable. Theoretically there exists an algorithm which exhaustively explains each and every Star, its relationships to all other Stars, and all of its experiences.

However, in the very same passage where Crowley tells us that each Star is intelligible to Nuith and Hadith, we also find out that it is not the case that each Star is similarly transparent to itself.

But it is not intelligible to itself, because it has no relation with any other ideas; it only knows itself as the babe of its mother Nuith, to whom it yearns, being stirred by its father Hadith to express that instinctive attachment by inarticulate cries.
Ibid. (emphasis mine)

By definition the Star is a combination of one particular monad (one instance of Hadit) with one set of possibilities latent within Nuit. It can be affected by Nuit, but it is by definition limited to its own point of view and can in principle have no knowledge of Nuit from other points of view.

It knows that it is in a relationship of dependence with Nuith and Hadith (considered now as abstract principles). It knows Nuith to be its “mother” and Hadith to be its “father”. However, it is not transparent to itself. It is not able to carry out the same reductive analysis of itself that Nuith and Hadith would theoretically be able to carry out on it.

So the relationship between Nuith, Hadith, and the Star is a monistic relationship, but it’s a different kind of monistic relationship depending on the perspective.

From the perspective of Nuith and Hadith, it is a relationship of derivation monism. But from the perspective of the Star itself, it cannot carry out the derivation, even if it knows that the derivation is at least theoretically possible from a more universal perspective. Let’s call this a relationship of derivability monism to indicate the in-principle possibility of a derivation without it being practically possible by the Star itself.

Diagram showing the impossibility of the Star reducing itself to Nuith and Hadith

Derivability monism implies that the Star is aware that its “true nature [is a form] of the Infinite” (Ibid). As any particular triangle possesses all the principle attributes of a triangle, so does any Star possess all the principle attributes of its divine parents. This is just what it means that each Star is a mode of Nuith and Hadith, which themselves are modes of the Qabalistic Zero. We’re still dealing here with one divinity, just under three different forms: Zero, Nuith and Hadith, and the Star.

However, when we get to the level of the Star, there’s a fundamental difference. While the Star is technically part of a larger context (Nuith and Hadith) of which it is a mode, and while this fact is available to the Star, from the Star’s perspective, its own individuality as a Star is irreducible to that larger context.

We will return to this point and examine it in depth when we consider why it is the Star must incarnate.

Crowley’s Critique of Gnosticism

Animation depicting separation of souls from the pleroma

We are confronting an important point of difference between Thelema and any spiritual system according to which the “soul” is a “broken off” aspect of a higher, impersonal divine reality to which it “returns” either at death or spiritual attainment. Crowley targets Gnosticism in particular with committing this error when, commenting on AL I.8, he says:

Why are we told that the Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs? Did we then suppose the converse? I think that we are warned against the idea of a Pleroma, a flame of which we are Sparks, and to which we return when we ‘attain’. That would indeed be to make the whole curse of separate existence ridiculous, a senseless and inexcusable folly.
New Comment on AL I.8

Pleroma is a Greek word (πλήρωμα) which literally means fullness. It is a technical term in the texts of Gnostic Christianity where it refers to the totality of divine powers. Crowley tended to think of it as an “impersonal unity” analogous to Brahma or Ain Soph. (See Crowley’s essay “Berashith,” passim.)

According to Gnostic cosmogony, the world we find ourselves in is outside of the pleroma. However, each individual carries a bit of the pleroma within themselves. If you find this pleroma within yourself, you can save yourself from a state of “deficiency” characteristic of the material world and restore yourself to an otherwise inaccessible sense of divine “fullness”.

Thus fullness [pleroma], which has no deficiency but fills up deficiency, is provided to fill a person’s need, so that the person may receive grace. While deficient, the person had no grace, and because of this a diminishing took place where there was no grace. When the diminished part was restored, the person in need was revealed as fullness.
The Gospel of Truth

Different Gnostic sects had different accounts of pleroma, different cosmogonies, and therefore different accounts of salvation, and it’s difficult to tell precisely which account Crowley had in mind when he made the pleroma remark. However, the contours of the general theory he’s critiquing are evident from the context.

He’s rejecting the idea that there is some original, undifferentiated, divine whole—”a flame”—of which each individual soul is a broken off part or “spark,” and he is rejecting the notion that salvation consists in abandoning one’s sense of separateness and reuniting with this whole.

Animation depicting the fulfilled soul's return to the pleroma

A full understanding of this critique will have to wait until we have analyzed the distinction between the Khabs and the Khu and thereby have a fuller understanding of incarnation, but even at this juncture it is possible to identify deep, fundamental differences between Gnosticism (and any analogous spirituality) and Thelema on the basis of Thelema’s metaphysics of the individual soul.

Gnosticism and Thelema share the idea that there is a modal distinction between the individual soul and the ultimate divine reality. Gnosticism describes the inner pleroma as a piece of the larger pleroma, and the Star within each individual is “a partial and divided aspect of” Nuith and Hadith. (New Comment on AL I.29)

The difference is that the Star which is the essence of each individual is irreducible. To discover divinity within oneself does not mean the reduction of one’s individuality into an impersonal divine “flame,” because the very nature of the Star in principle prevents that reduction. Again, its derivation from a higher reality is only in principle possible but is never in fact possible for the Star.

It’s important to point out that this irreducibility of the Star to a more fundamental context has nothing whatsoever to do with our mode of sensibility (Nephesh) or the limitations of the discursive intellect (Ruach). If that were the case, then all of these distinctions would simply be rational distinctions. Rather, it follows from the primary attributes of the Star itself as reflected in Jechidah-Chiah-Neschamah.

We can see a similar point of contrast with what Crowley has called “mystic monism” or what we are calling identity monism. If Thelema were a form of identity monism, there would only hold a rational distinction between the Star and Nuith and Hadith. It would technically be an illusory distinction. Hence some explanation is required of the following passage in which Crowley himself describes this distinction as “illusory.”

[Nuith and Hadith] can only realize Themselves by creating an infinite variety of forms of Themselves, each one real as it is Their image, illusory as it is a partial and divided aspect of Them.
New Comment on AL I.29 (emphasis mine)

We have to be careful with our terms here. From the perspective of Nuith and Hadith, it makes sense to say that the separation between them and any Star is “illusory,” but only in the sense that the Star does not constitute a separate substance from them. As we have seen, each Star is a mode of Nuith and Hadith.

Furthermore, from the perspective of Nuith and Hadith, there is no “mystery” in how the Star relates to them or other Stars. They could theoretically supply a reductive explanation of why each Star finds itself in the part of space it does, related to other Stars the way it is, etc.

From the Star’s perspective, the Star is also a mode of Nuith and Hadith; however, there is a mystery of exactly how it relates to the universe. But in neither case is Crowley merely making a rational distinction between Nuith, Hadith, and Stars.

The irreducibility of the Star is not an illusion it can unravel, nor is it an illusion it desires to unravel. It is already a “real image” of its parents and has all the primary divine attributes within itself. Even if the Star could somehow “dissolve” itself back into an undifferentiated, impersonal state, it would not gain anything from it.

The result is that, in Thelema, the individual as individual is the ultimate divine reality.

Deus est Homo

Animation in which the Star turns into a pair of Vs concealing a Yod and turns back into a Star again.

This is a fundamental characteristic of Thelema which differentiates it from other forms of spirituality.

Spiritual attainment entails the breakdown of illusory division and ends the sense of being cut off from divine reality, but the divine reality you’re being reunited with is none other than yourself. It’s your true will.

We don’t have the vantage point at this moment to fully articulate all the implications of this. Again, that will require an analysis of the distinction between the Khabs and the Khu. But we can already see that the derivability monism of the Star means that, from the perspective of the Star, the only reality that can ever mean anything for it is Itself.

The Star constitutes the pre-eminent reality of Thelemic spirituality. One’s individuality is as inescapable as it is irreducible. In principle, there can never be any higher reality for an individual than the individual him-or-herself. This is not a limitation on the Star but rather a condition of the expression of its divinity.

The Path in Eternity Series

A series of articles analyzing the Path in Eternity in light of an animated movie I created.

The Cosmic Egg: Nuit, Hadit, and the Zero

Part 3 of the Dualism, Monism & Thelema Series

Nuit and Hadit as Foundations

The Book of the Law presents Nuit and Hadit as the two exclusive deities of the Thelemic universe.

I am Heaven, and there is no other God than me, and my lord Hadit.
AL I.21

Furthermore Crowley took Nuit and Hadit to constitute the elements of 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 convenience 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.)
“Introduction” to the Book of the Law

If Nuit and Hadit are both exclusive and elementary, then in our established terminology, they appear to be really distinct substances.

Forming a clear, distinct idea of space as distinct from the subjective point of view presents no difficulty. In fact they seem close in meaning to Descartes’s bodily substance and mental substance respectively.

This would appear to commit Crowley to mind-body dualism and make the Thelemic cosmology dualistic.

The Qabalistic Zero as Common Condition

Nuit and Hadit separating from the Cosmic Egg

However, in Crowley’s early essay, “Berashith,” he lays a framework for deriving Nuit and Hadit from an ontologically prior “nothingness”.

I assert the absoluteness of the Qabalistic Zero […] Our Cosmic Egg, then, from which the present universe arose, was Nothingness, extended in no categories
Crowley, “Berashith”

He then goes on to describe the creation of the universe in terms that anticipate the Thelemic cosmology of Magick in Theory and Practice chapter 0, where the infinitely great (Nuit) and the infinitely small (Hadit) combine to create Ra-Hoor-Khuit. (Magick, p. xxvii and p. 137. All references to Magick will be to the Weiser Second Edition, ed. by Hymenaeus Beta.)

So while there appears to be a real distinction between Nuit and Hadit, they share a common necessary condition in the Qabalistic Zero, which makes them modally distinct.

This implies that, while Thelemic cosmology initially appears dualistic, it is in fact monistic. All things are One (or “None,” as Crowley says) in the Qabalistic Zero.

But we need to make a distinction between two kinds of monism.

Identity Monism versus Dependence Monism

Identity monism entails a rational distinction

If two things are rationally distinct, then the difference is only in the concept we are applying to them. They are in fact one and the same thing. Let’s call this identity monism.

Crowley is not saying that the distinction between Hadit and Nuit is merely a rational distinction. Therefore we are not dealing here with a case of identity monism.

Dependence monism entails a type-b modal distinction

Instead, Crowley is implying that Hadit and Nuit are modally distinct: one is intelligible without the other, but they share a common third condition—the Qabalistic Zero—upon which they are mutually dependent.

So instead of calling this identity monism, I will follow Paul Franks and call this an instance of dependence monism. (Paul Frank, All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism, Harvard University Press, 2005.)

The implication is that, while Hadit and Nuit share a common condition in the Qabalistic Zero and hence are not really distinct substances, they are distinct modes of a single substance, and therefore the interaction between them is not illusory.

This is relevant to Crowley’s critique of “mystic monism” and its denial of the “interplay” of parts.

This is something the same as mystic monism, but the objection to that theory is that God has to create things which are all parts of himself, so that their interplay is false.
New Comment on AL I.3

In the context of this quote, Crowley is referring specifically to the interplay of Stars, but the point applies equally to the interplay of Nuit and Hadit.

Further, we can clarify his meaning of “mystic monism” in this passage. He is referring to what we are defining as identity monism, not necessarily all kinds of monism.

This is important, because it is only by committing himself to certain types of monism that other aspects of Thelema remain intelligible. This is especially true of its soteriology, which we saw previously requires the individual to transcend duality.

Is the Qabalistic Zero a Substance?

One might object to my line of reasoning thus far in the following way:

A modal distinction between x and y assumes x and y are modes of a substance, z.
A substance is a being.
The Qabalistic Zero is defined as “Nothingness, extended in no categories,” i.e., the opposite of a being.
Therefore, Nuit and Hadit cannot be considered modes of the Qabalistic Zero.

But for the purposes of our argument, we are defining substance as intelligible on its own terms. It’s defined without reference to existence.

The Qabalistic Zero is intelligible. This is evidenced in “Berashith” and later in Chapter 5 of Magick Without Tears, where Crowley provides a mathematical proof of the common origin of Nuit and Hadit in the Qabalistic Zero.

Not only that. He infers certain of their characteristics (like that Nuit is infinitely great and Hadit infinitely small). It’s impossible to make inferences from something if it’s unintelligible.

The particulars of the argument—which constitute the 0=2 theorem—need not preoccupy us. All we need understand is that Crowley treated the Qabalistic Zero as the intelligible, common ground of Nuit and Hadit.

Derivation Monism versus Dependence Monism

Since by Crowley’s lights the respective existences and qualities of Nuit and Hadit can be derived using logic and mathematics from their common condition, in addition to describing this as a form of dependence monism, I will again follow Franks and describe this as an example of derivation monism.

Not all examples of dependence monism are also examples of derivation monism. We might know that x is the necessary condition of y, and hence there exists a modal distinction between x and y, but it does not necessarily follow that we can know the particular qualities of y through examining x (or vice versa).

In other words we might identify x as the condition of the intelligibility of y without being able to explain or reduce all of the qualities of y to x.

For example, a triangle is a modification of shape, but it does not follow that we can deduce the sum of the interior angles of a triangle solely by means of an examination of the meaning of shape.

This distinction will be essential to make sense of Crowley’s thoughts about the Star.

To summarize:

Hadit and Nuit are the dual foundations of Thelemic cosmology.
Hadit and Nuit share a common condition in the Qabalistic Zero.
So the distinction between Hadit and Nuit is modal, not rational. They are intelligible independently of one another but mutually depend upon the Qabalistic Zero. This is an example of dependence monism, not identity monism.
Certain qualities of Nuit and Hadit can be derived from the Qabalistic Zero. This is an example of derivation monism.
Not all instances of dependence monism are also instances of derivation monism.

Next we’ll look at how Nuit and Hadit are distinct from the Star.

Logical Framework

Part 2 of the Dualism, Monism & Thelema Series

For there to exist a dualism between two terms, there must be a distinction to be made between them. Likewise, to speak of the same two things from a monistic perspective means in some sense to deny the distinction between them.

The philosophical tradition has acknowledged at least three kinds of distinctions since the time of Descartes in the 17th century: real distinctions, modal distinctions, and rational distinctions.

In order to understand the three kinds of distinctions, it’s necessary to understand the terminology Descartes used to talk about substances and properties.

Substances and their Properties

Substances

A substance is anything that does not depend on anything else for its existence.

Strictly speaking, from Descartes’s perspective, God is the only substance, since all things come from God and depend upon His continual support. More loosely speaking, though, anything that depends only on God for its existence could be thought of as a substance.

Under this looser criteria, Descartes recognizes the existence of three substances: God, body, and mind.

Principle Attributes of Substances

Substances can have many properties, but any property which makes the substance the kind of substance it is is called a principle attribute.

We have no idea what the principle attribute of God is, but the principle attribute of body is extension, and the principle attribute of mind is thought.

Principle attribute is just another way of saying essence.

Modes of Substances

A mode is a way of being of a principle attribute of a substance.

For example, shape is a principle attribute of a bodily substance, but being square is a mode.

Thought is a principle attribute of a mental substance, but being preoccupied is a mode.

Having established substances, principle attributes, and modes, let’s see what sorts of distinctions hold between them.

Distinctions between Substances, Principle Attributes, and Modes

Descartes tended to talk about distinctions in terms of the conditions of the existence of substances. I’m going to follow Leibniz instead and talk about the intelligibility of substances.

The Leibnizian school preferred talking about substances in terms of their respective intelligibilities rather than their existences, because otherwise it led to the conclusions of Spinozism, according to which there are no finite, dependent substances.

As it turns out, Crowley is much more of a Leibnizian than a Cartesian or Spinozist. As we’ll see, in order to conceive of multiple Stars, each being “God of Very God,” we will need the concept of a finite, dependent substance.

Real Distinctions

Two things are really distinct if and only if each is intelligible independently of the other. They must be either distinct substances or modes of distinct substances.

For example, I can conceive of (i.e., understand) the properties of a triangle without understanding anything about joy. I don’t ever have to have experienced joy or even heard of it in order to be able to deduce that the interior angles of a triangle add up to 180°. On the other hand, I don’t have to know the first thing about the geometry of triangles in order to know joy.

This is because triangularity and emotion are modes of independent substances (bodily substances and mental substances, respectively).

If we’re not being too strict, we could also say I don’t need to understand how to play chess in order to know how to drive (and vice versa). They are really distinct disciplines.

One of the implications of two things being really distinct is that negating one has no impact on the other.

Another implication is that, if x and y are really distinct, and if the ground of x is x’ and the ground of y is y’, then negating x’ has no impact on y, and negating y’ has no impact on x.

For example, the knowledge of trigometry (x) is based in the knowledge of geometry (x’). The knowledge of joy (y) is based in the knowledge of happiness (y’). Having never known happiness has no necessary impact on my understanding of trigometry, and having never known geometry has no necessary impact on my knowledge of joy.

Modal Distinctions

Two things are modally distinct if and only if (a) one is intelligible independently of the other but not vice versa, or, (b) either can exist without the other, but they have a necessary condition of their intelligibility in common.

Modal distinctions hold between (a) the essential property of a substance and a mode of the same substance, or, (b) between modes of the same substance.

An example of a modal distinction of the (a)-type is the distinction between being square (y) and having a shape (x). Shape is the essential property of a bodily substance. Being square is a mode or modification of shape. I can conceive of shape without knowing anything about squares in particular, but the reverse does not hold.

This is called a relationship of ground (x) and consequent (y). The negation of x necessarily entails the negation of y, but not vice versa.

The (b)-type modal distinction is between modes of the same substance.

For example, I was surprised when I got to college and realized I could do calculus without having to do algebra. (The teacher didn’t care if we reduced our answers.)

It’s not that algebra and calculus are really distinct, though. They’re modally distinct. Both are modifications of our understanding of number.

Another example of the (b)-type modal distinction is any distinction made between two very different emotions, e.g., love and hate. If I had never experienced the emotion of hate, it would have no impact on my ability to understand love and vice versa.

On the other hand, if I had no understanding at all what an emotion was, I would not be able to understand either.

If we want to speak more loosely, another example is that I don’t need to understand how to play jazz guitar in order to drum (or vice versa), but I need to understand how to keep time to do either.

One of the implications of the (b)-type modal distinction is that if x and y are modally distinct in this sense, then neither is the ground nor consequent of the other. Rather, they are both consequents of the same ground, z. The negation of x will not necessarily entail the negation of y (or vice versa), but the negation of z entails the negation of both x and y.

Another implication of the (b)-type modal distinction is that two things can appear to be really distinct when they are in fact modally distinct in the (b)-type sense.

Rational Distinctions

Two things are rationally distinct if and only if the distinction is being made between the object and itself, considered under two concepts.

In other words, we’re attempting to make a distinction between the substance and its principle attribute.

An example of a rational distinction would be between any bodily substance and its extension, since without extension, a bodily substance is inconceivable.

Modern philosophers talk about the difference between connotation and denotation. The same object (x) can be denoted (basically, referred to) under two connotations (basically, meanings).

The classical example of this is the distinction between Morning Star and Evening Star. These are two different connotations for the same object, the planet Venus.

The kinds of rational distinctions we’re going to look at will look very much like distinctions between different connotations of the same thing.

One of the implications of two things being rationally distinct is that the affirmation or negation of one will necessarily entail the affirmation or negation of the other. This is because they are both referring to (denote) the same thing.

Now that we have some tools, let’s use them to look at exactly what sorts of distinctions hold between:

Nuit and Hadit.
Nuit and Hadit and the Star.
The Star and its Khu.
One Star and any other Star.

Dualism, Monism, and Thelema

Part One: Introduction

Thelema includes both monistic and dualistic doctrines, and Crowley makes monistic and dualistic pronouncements throughout his writings.

For our purposes, monism will mean any theory or doctrine that in some sense denies the existence of a distinction or duality in some sphere, either in fact or in thought.

An example of one of Crowley’s monistic pronouncements can be found in Liber DXXXVI.

The Universe is one, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. Its substance is homogeneous, and the substance cannot be said to possess the qualities of Being, Consciousness and Bliss, for these are rather the shadows of it, which are apprehended by the highly illuminated mind when it comes near thereto. Time and space themselves are but illusions which condition under veils.
Liber DXXXVI, Ch V, Sec 1

In general Crowley describes the Thelemic path of spiritual liberation in monistic terms, as a transcending of duality.

[…]Love is the enkindling in ecstacy of Two that will to become One. It is thus an Universal formula of High Magick. For see now how all things, being in sorrow caused by dividuality, must of necessity will Oneness as their medicine.
Liber CL, Section II: Of Love

Dualism on the other hand shall mean any division of something—either in thought or in fact—into two opposed or contrasted aspects.

A prominent example of dualism in Thelema can be found in its foundational text, Liber AL vel Legis (AL).

I am Heaven, and there is no other God than me, and my lord Hadit.
AL I.21

This statement assumes there are two fundamental divine principles, not just one.

There are also numerous pluralistic statements throughout Crowley’s writings. For our purposes pluralism will mean any condition or system in which two or more states, groups, principles, sources of authority, etc., coexist. Any statement in support of pluralism, therefore, is by definition a statement in support of dualism.

Any of Crowley’s numerous statements in support of a multiplicity of unique, irreducible individuals is pluralistic (and hence dualistic) in the sense just described.

[E]ach ‘star’ is the Centre of the Universe to itself […] Therefore you have an infinite number of gods, individual and equal though diverse, each one supreme and utterly indestructible […] If we presuppose many elements, their interplay is natural. It is no objection to this theory to ask who made the elements—the elements are at least there; and God, when you look for him, is not there.
New Comment on AL I.3

On the one hand, Thelema is unabashedly individualistic. Crowley defined the Thelemic Age—the New Æon of Horus—as one in which “the individual [is] the unit of society.” The individual requires no social, political, or religious contextualization but is instead absolutely self-justifying. “There is no god but man.”

On the other hand, the Thelemic understanding of the universe unambiguously denies duality, and the Thelemic path of liberation necessarily includes transcending the illusion of duality.

The purpose of this essay—which will be published in multiple parts—is to resolve these apparent contradictions by showing how Crowley incorporated dualistic and non-dualistic or monistic truths into a coherent account of the universe and the individual’s relationship to it.

I will begin by providing a conceptual framework for more precisely discussing monism and dualism. I will then apply that framework to four distinctions:

The distinction between Nuit and Hadit.
The distinction between Nuit, Hadit, and the Star.
The distinction between the Khabs and the Khu of any Star.
The distinction between Stars.

In each instance we will analyze the precise manner in which parts or individuals are related or separated, and which relationships might be considered monistic and in what way(s). This will help make sense of Crowley’s seemingly contradictory statements about monism and dualism by incorporating those statements into a coherent account.

tree of life with sephiroth presented as concentric circles

Why a circular Tree of Life?

Reflections on the Path in Eternity (Part 4)

I came to magick via an unsual path: through my interest in the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

Hegel was not a magician. He was a late-18th/early-19th century philosopher in the idealist tradition (a branch of thought taking influence from Descartes, Berkeley, and Hume, but which is usually seen as having its origin with the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant).

But it was after I had been interested in Hegel for over a decade that I read Glenn Magee’s book, Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition. (You can read the introduction of the book here for free. It actually provides a pretty good orientation for how Hermetism differs from Gnostism and traditional Christianity.)

Magee persuaded me that Hegel’s philosophy of Absolute Idealism owed at least as much to Renaissance Hermetism (or Hermeticism as it’s sometimes called) as it did to rational thinkers such as Hume or Kant.

Magee understands Hermetism as a broad spiritual current which has a theological basis in the Corpus Hermeticum but which also includes currents such as Qabalah, alchemy, and magic.

Pretty much everything we consider to be the western magical tradition has its origins in Renaissance Hermetism, in particular the synthesis given to it by Cornelius Agrippa. (Really the only component missing from Agrippa’s synthesis is the tarot.)

For more on this I highly recommend Frances Yates’s Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. Certain aspects of her work are considered controversial now. I recommend reading Copenhaver, Hanegraaff, and Kingsley alongside her.

One of the main impacts Magee’s book had on me when I read it is that—oddly enough—it legitimized occultism for me.

Hegel was a philosopher I had spent over a decade studying both in and outside of academia. I considered a lot of my philosophical intuitions to be “Hegelian”. The experience was a little bit like having lived in a house for several years and then one day discovering a secret sub-basement that wasn’t on any of the building plans.

I was becoming familiar with the Qabalah right around the time I read Magee’s book (largely due to the work of my friend Daniel Ingram who also legitimized magick for me), so I recognized the Tree of Life in its usual top-to-bottom arrangement. But I was surprised to find out that there had been alternative arrangements of the sephiroth over time, including one in which they were presented as concentric circles.

For instance, Johann Jakob Brucker gave them a circular arrangement in volume 2 of his influential Historia Critica Philosophiae (1742).

Brucker's tree of life with sephiroth presented as concentric circles with Ain Sof on outside.

This diagram was Brucker’s attempt to illustrate a concept from the Lurianic tradition of Kabbalah, according to which each new act of creation or manifestation in the world is the result of a simultaneous contraction and expansion.

Isaac Luria and his followers envisioned the Ain Sof—the limitless infinity we previously identified with Nuit—as an infinite sphere in which a smaller sphere of empty space came into being through the tsimtsum, a primordial contraction or withdrawal of God.

It is into this empty space that God injects a ray of light which differentiates itself into the classical ten sephiroth. These were thought of as concentric circles of light filling the space within God created by the primordial contraction.

The first definite being that appears in the wake of the tsimtsum is Adam Kadmon (macroprosopus in the previous post). Adam Kadmon exists above the four worlds and mediates the light of Ain Sof into them.

Adam of the Bible—Adam Ha-Rishon—is an imperfect earthly embodiment of Adam Kadmon. While Adam Kadmon is spirit outside of space and time, Adam Ha-Rishon is spirit developing in nature, from the fall in the Garden of Eden and the loss of the immediate relationship to God, eventually to the recovery of that relationship in religion and mysticism (namely, Kabbalah).

(Ra-Hoor-Khuit is to Chaos as Adam Kadmon is to Adam Ha-Rishon.)

The implication of this concentric arrangement is that the material universe, individuals, and human history are not outside of the divine. Everything is in a certain sense “in” God. It’s just there in a corrupted or fallen state which has to be rectified over time.

This sense of us being in God, of directly participating in the divine all the time whether we know it or not, can be occulted by the traditional top-down arrangement of the sephiroth, where it looks as though Kether, Ain Sof, and Ain are somehow way above us mere earthlings.

IAO131's circular concentric arrangement of the sephiroth with kether on the outside and malkuth in the middle.

“A View from Kether” by IAO131

A few years later when I got into Thelema, I was pleased to see someone else had taken an interest in a similar arrangement. IAO131 created a diagram similar to Brucker’s in which Kether surrounds and contains the other sephiroth. My own version was inspired by his insofar as the sephiroth on the lateral pillars are depicted as semicircles rather than complete spheres.

What these concentric representations of the Tree of Life share in common is the implication that the reality we find ourselves in is one formed from an overarching, primordial, divine unity which divides itself.

There is some evidence in Crowley’s writings to support this view of our reality being the result of a self-division of God.

To know itself, each such Star, or Soul, must eat of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, by accepting labour and pain as its portion, and death as its doom. That is, it must reveal its nature to itself by formulating that nature as duality. It must express itself by a series of symbolic gestures ostensibly external to it, just as a painter reveals one facet of his Delight-Diamond by covering a canvas with colours in such a way that the picture seems at first sight to represent something outside himself. It must, in fact, repeat for itself the original Magick of Nuith and Hadith which created it.
New Comment on AL I.29 (emphasis mine)

AL I.29—of which this passage is a commentary—reads, “For I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union.”

We find in this passage echoes of the Lurianic idea of the fall as a temporary but necessary tragedy resulting from the diremption of an original, absolute whole (in this case the “Star, or Soul” of the individual).

The way to overcome this division is to repeat for ourselves the “original Magick of Nuith and Hadith” which created the star.

In this passage, Crowley presents the path toward liberation in artistic terms. The task is to see the world and the events in it, not as alien to our desires, but rather as vehicles for the manifestation of them. We are to view matter as (akin to) artistic medium.

The world loses its alien, painful character when it is understood and willed. When we can see the world as our own artistic creation, we have achieved liberation.

This is an interpretation of the Thelemic path of liberation I explored in my talk on the Magical Power of Art.

It was with something like this in mind that I formulated my own version of the concentric Tree of Life. However, unlike Brucker or IAO131, I reversed the order of the sephiroth. Rather than having Kether on the outside and Malkuth in the center, Malkuth is on the outside and Kether is in the center.

As it turns out, my reasons for doing this are numerous and complex. But before explaining any of them in detail, it’s worth mentioning that old adage that “the map is not the territory.”

I don’t believe sephiroth literally exist, let alone whether they are really, in any kind of metaphysical sense, related to one another externally or internally, or whether Malkuth can really be said to be at the center or not. That’s not really the point of a diagram.

In this context, the purpose of the diagram is to serve as a heuristic. It’s an attempt to convey some complex ideas in a simplified format that makes them easier to comprehend.

There could well be certain aspects of Thelema that are better captured by having Kether on the outside and Malkuth in the center, just as there are aspects that are better captured by the usual hierarchical (top-down) arrangement.

All of that being said, there are a lot of spiritual, metaphysical, theological, and soteriological assumptions packed into this simple decision to put Kether at the center and Malkuth on the outside.

Some of them require a lot of explanation and carry with them a lot of implications, so rather than go into any of them in depth right now, I’ll just list them succinctly.

Repeat = Defeat. Let’s present something familiar in an unfamiliar format to discover new things about it.
The journey is inward, out outward. Crowley described the work of A∴A∴ (in contrast with the work of O.T.O.) as a process of going inward toward the three supernal sephiroth. Without taking it too literally, that implies a certain spatial relationship. And since all the sephiroth are to be found “in” Malkuth, this links Thelema with what might be termed a chthonic counter-current in Western mysticism.
The Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs. Again, this implies a particular spatial relationship. This also implies that divine reality is not some original whole we were cut off from and have to get back to. This core spiritual idea sharply differentiates Thelema from Hegelian Idealism, Gnosticism, or even from Kabbalah. In Thelema the individual really is primary and irreducible in a way that you just don’t find in those other traditions.
Thelema is about 2, not about 1. It’s all about the relationship between Hadit and Nuit. In order for there to be a love relationship between Hadit and Nuit, Nuit must be other than Hadit. That doesn’t work if Hadit and Nuit are merely parts of a primordial, original whole.
It’s all about the going. Experience matters. Change is real. It is powerful, it is divine, and it is meaningful. The O.T.O. teaching on the Path in Eternity is as central to Thelema as are the teachings of A∴A∴ on the Holy Guardian Angel and the Abyss.
It’s magick, not just mysticism. Going implies change, change implies magick, magick implies the Will. Willing implies traditionally masculine qualities such as mastery, overcoming, and expansiveness in addition to the feminine characteristics of dissolution and surrender that are particular to mysticism. Both sides are necessary for a complete understanding of Thelema.

I don’t know yet if I’m going to write posts about all of these. If there are particular ones you definitely want to hear about, though, let me know in a comment.

Two concentric circles, the interior labeled "Khabs," the exterior "Khu"

The Khu

Reflections on the Path in Eternity (Part 3)

In the last post we saw that the star or soul of each individual is composed of two parts: the Khabs and the Khu. The Khabs is the manifestation of a distinct individual within the context of Nuit. The Khabs is the “house” of Hadit—your individual point of view—and as such it is the spiritual essence of who you are as an individual. We also saw that the Khabs is identical with the supernal triad on the Tree of Life, and as such it takes a triadic, reflective structure.

The Khu, on the other hand, is the “magical garment” of the star.

Khabs is the secret Light or L.V.X.; the Khu is the magical entity of a man […] This ‘star’ or ‘Inmost Light’ is the original, individual, eternal essence. The Khu is the magical garment which it weaves for itself, a ‘form’ for its Being Beyond Form, by use of which it can gain experience through self-consciousness
Old and New Comments on AL I.8

Each of us is Hadit, the core of our Khabs, our Star, one of the Company of Heaven; but this Khabs needs a Khu or Magical Image, in order to play its part in the Great Drama. This Khu, again, needs the proper costume, a suitable ‘body of flesh’, and this costume must be worthy of the Play.
New Comment on AL II.70

The Khabs represents the essence of who each of us is. It is possessed of the attributes of light, originality, individuality, and immortality. The Khu on the other hand is the mode by which the Khabs interacts with Nuit. If the Khabs is monistic (completely self-sufficient), the Khu is relational. It doesn’t exist without the interaction between the Khabs and Nuit.

And for that matter, the relationship between Khabs (or Hadit) and Nuit does not exist without the Khu. In other words, experience or embodiment of some kind is the necessary condition of the love “play” between Nuit and Hadit.

One answer to the question “Why do we incarnate?” is that incarnation (whether on this plane or some other) is a necessary precondition for Hadit’s going. In a subsequent post we can look at what some of the consequences of that are.

Unlike the Khabs of an individual which cannot be seen (arguably not even by the individual whose Khabs it is), since the Khu is relational, it is also manifest and can be seen either by the individual whose Khu it is or by others.

Animation of the khu growing and shrinking

Also, since the Khu is a function of the interaction between the Khabs and Nuit, it is experiential and elastic. It grows and shrinks and changes in complexity in accordance with how much and what kind of experiences of Nuit one chooses to have.

“Every man and every woman is a star,” that is, an aggregate of such experiences, constantly changing with each fresh event, which affects him or her either consciously or subconsciously.
“Introduction” to the Book of the Law

the more complex the Khu of the Star, the greater the man, and the keener his sense of his need to achieve it.
New Comment on AL II.74

animation showing that the supernal triad is the khabs and the lower sephiroth are the khu

If the Khabs is the supernal triad on the Tree of Life, the Khu is composed of the subsequent seven sephiroth.

With each incarnation, the sephiroth below Binah are recreated anew, following the path of the Flaming Sword. At death, the lower sephiroth are jettisoned, and the essence of the Khabs is completely withdrawn back into the supernal triad.

animation depicting the flaming sword creating the sephiroth

The exception to this is the individual who, through mystical and magical discipline, has opened and strengthened the pathways to their own Khabs.

[T]he Supernal Triad constitutes (or, rather, is an image of) the “eternal” Essence of a man [i.e., his Khabs]; that is, it is the positive expression of that ultimate “Point of View” which is and is not and neither is nor is not etc. Quite indestructible. Now when a man spends his life (a) building up and developing the six Sephiroth of the Ruach so that they cohere closely in proper balance and relation, (b) in forging, developing and maintaining a link of steel between this solid Ruach and that Triad, Death merely means the dropping off of the Nephesch (Malkuth) so that the man takes over his instrument of Mind (Ruach) with him to his next suitably chosen vehicle.
Magick without Tears, chapter 38

Appear on the throne of Ra!
Open the ways of the Khu!
Lighten the ways of the Ka!
AL III.37

This is how the magical memory of a star can be built up over a series of incarnations.

This doctrine seems to imply that wisdom is not just passed down through the historical record but can also accumulate in certain stars on the Akashic plane.

Every star is already irreducibly individual and therefore unequal with any other star. But additionally it is also possible certain stars are “great beings” who, for reasons of having built up a magical memory over time, are possessed of extraordinary wisdom.

[C]ertain vast “stars” (or aggregates of experience) may be described as Gods. One of these is in charge of the destinies of this planet for periods of 2,000 years.
“Introduction” to the Book of the Law

It’s possible Crowley understood this as the mechanism by which “Secret Chiefs” are created.

It would explain why he used names such as “Aiwass” and “V.V.V.V.V.” both as aspects of himself and as names of separate individuals. “Aleister Crowley” was merely the latest expression or mode (Khu) of an essence (Khabs) of which Aiwass and V.V.V.V.V. were others.

Crowley elaborates on metempsychosis in Liber Aleph, “De Adeptis R. C. Escatologia,” which should be studied closely by initiates of the III° of Mysteria Mystica Maxima.

But it is this continual extension and withdrawal of the Khu—and hence the relations of the Khabs with Nuit—which is visually depicted again and again in the movie.

Star (with Khabs and Khu) next to a circular Tree of Life, next to a standard tree of life

Reflections on the Path in Eternity (Part 2)

Another relationship I establish at the beginning of the video is between the soul (which in Thelema is called the star) and the Tree of Life of Qabalah. (I use Kabbalah when talking about the Jewish mystical tradition itself and Qabalah when talking about the interpretation of it by the Golden Dawn and Crowley.)

Tree of Life/Qabalah Basics

The relationship between the four worlds and the five parts of the soul on the Tree of Life

That such a relationship exists shouldn’t be a surprise. The Tree of Life diagram is meant to show the relationship between the soul (the microcosm) and the four worlds (the macrocosm).

The bottom circle or sephira, Malkuth (“kingdom”), is Assiah (“the world of action”). It is often identified with the material world, although for reasons we’ll get into later, that is not necessarily the case in Thelema.

The microcosmic correlate of Malkuth/Assiah—the part of the soul that resides there—is the Nephesh. This is sometimes translated as “animal soul”. It is the part of the individual that is sentient, i.e., which experiences sensations and feelings.

Going upward from Malkuth, the next six sephiroth are Yesod (“foundation”), Hod (“splendor”), Netzach (“victory”), Tiphareth (“beauty”), Geburah (“severity”), and Chesed (“mercy”). Together they comprise the macrocosmic realm of Yetzirah (“the formed world”). Yetzirah is also known as Zeir Anpin or Microprosopus, the Lesser Countenance (in contrast with Arich Anpin/Macroprosopus).

The part of the soul that resides in Yetzirah is called the Ruach (“spirit”). It is typically identified with the moral soul or the discriminating capacity.

Above that we have Binah (“understanding”) and Chokmah (“wisdom”). Together they comprise Briah (“the world of creation”). This is analogous to the world soul of Neoplatonic philosophy.

The part of the soul that resides in Binah is called the Neschamah, the intelligence or divine intuition. The part of the soul that resides in Chokmah is the Chiah, which in Thelema it is identified with the creative will or impulse of Jechidah.

Jechidah is the “quintessential principle of the soul,” and it is identical with Kether, the uppermost sephira on the diagram, which is analogous to the One of Neoplatonic philosophy.

All three of the “supernal” sephiroth—Binah, Chokmah, and Kether—transcend time, but Kether also transcends being and non-being. It transcends opposition all-together.

The three negative veils beyond Kether: Ain, Ain Sof, and Ain Sof Aur.

“Beyond” Kether there are the purely transcendent, incomprehensible aspects of divinity, which in Kabbalah are called Ain (Nothingness) and Ain Sof (without limit/infinity). The Hermetic Qabalah of Knorr von Rosenroth and the Golden Dawn includes Ain Sof Aur (limitless light) as a third “negative veil”.

In Kabbalah Ain and Ain Sof (being and nothingness, essentially) are considered to be identical with one another, and Ain Sof is for all intents and purposes identical with Kether.

Qabalah and Thelema

Kether (Heru-Ra-Ha) as the Manifestation of the Interaction between Nuit (infinity) and Hadit (the inverse of infinity) (more…)

Thelema is not traditional Jewish mysticism, although Crowley used the terminology and the framework of Qabalah in order to express his own ideas and intentions.

So you find the same idea of a macrocosm divided up into four worlds, and there are parts of the soul which correspond to or “live” in those four worlds, so that the individual’s life or experience is divided across different realms which are ultimately (mystically) one realm.

In Thelema the macrocosm is composed of the interplay or interaction between two principles, Nuit and Hadit.

Nuit represents the sum total of all possibility. She is infinite space. Hadit represents any particular point of view on those possibilities. He is the infinitely small point.

Nuit is analogous to Ain Sof (infinity) in classical Kabbalah, and Hadit is analogous to Ain (nothingness or the inverse of infinity). Their interaction gives rise to Ra-Hoor-Khuit (sometimes also called Heru-Ra-Ha to include Hoor-paar-kraat), the Crowned and Conquering Child, who is also Ain Sof Aur or Kether.

Since Kether is “pregnant” with Tetragrammaton, you get the familiar breakdown into the remaining nine other sephiroth and the four worlds.

The Khabs and the Tree of Life

The star's anatomy: khabs (center) and khu (surrounding)

In Thelema the immortal soul of the individual is called the star. This comes from AL I.3 (The Book of the Law, chapter 1, verse 3):

Every man and every woman is a star.

Crowley subdivides the soul or star according to the usual schema of Jechidah, Chiah, Neschamah, Ruach, and Nephesh, but he introduces another subdivision based upon AL I.8-9:

The Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs. Worship then the Khabs, and behold my light shed over you!

Khabs and Khu are Egyptian terms. In the context of Thelema, Khabs is the “House” of Hadit. Hadit as we saw is the individual point of view on Nuit. Khabs then is the manifestation of that unique interaction. You can think of it almost as the light given off by the energetic interaction between Hadit and Nuit. And in fact in the Golden Dawn—where Crowley would have first encountered this term—Khabs was used as synonymous with light as in the phrase Khabs am Pekht, which means “light in extension” (cf. Ain Sof Aur above).

Animation showing relationship of khabs to supernal triad.

In Thelema the whole of the supernal triad—Kether, Chokmah, and Binah—is considered to be the Khabs. Kether is the essence of the Khabs, taken in and of itself, which is also called Jechidah. Chokmah represents Chiah, the creative impulse or will of the Jechidah. In other words, Chokmah/Chiah represents the mode of going or expression which is characteristic of this particular Khabs or soul. And finally Binah represents the Neschamah of the Khabs. It is the intelligence or intuition of what the Khabs wishes to discover about itself.

It might help to translate these terms into those of ordinary self-conscious.

I have a self which seems stable over time. This is like the Jechidah or Kether. That self or subject is capable of generating thoughts and other mental states. The analog in the supernal triad would be Chiah or Chokmah. Finally, when I hear thoughts in my head, I am able (if I am not insane!) to recognize them as mine. This capacity of self-recognition is analogous to Neschamah or Binah.

Both ordinary self-consciousness and the supernal triad have this triadic or circular structure.

That’s plenty for today. Here are the main takeaways:

In Thelema the soul of the individual is called the star.
The star is divided up into the Khabs and the Khu.
The Khabs is the House of Hadit (the individual point of view on Nuit).
The Khabs is identified by Crowley with the supernal triad of the Tree of Life: Kether, Chokmah, and Binah.

Next time we’ll consider the Khu and its relationship to the Khabs and the Tree of Life.

"The Path in Eternity" against a starry background in which is situation a black number 8.

Reflections on the Path in Eternity (Part 1)

I was recently inspired to create an animated movie based upon my understanding of the Path in Eternity and its relation to certain magical formulae.

The phrase Path in Eternity comes from a passage in Magick Without Tears where Aleister Crowley is describing the initiation rituals of the Man of Earth degree of Ordo Templi Orientis.

Let us begin at the beginning. What is a Dramatic Ritual? It is a celebration of the Adventures of the God whom it is intended to invoke. (The Bacchae of Euripides is a perfect example of this.) Now, in the O.T.O., the object of the ceremonies being the Initiation of the Candidate, it is he whose Path in Eternity is displayed in dramatic form.
Magick Without Tears, Chapter 13, The System of the O.T.O.

He then describes this Path in Eternity in relation to the six sub-degrees of the Man of Earth in the following way:

O° – Minerval – The Ego is attracted to the Solar System.
I° – Initiation – The Child experiences Birth.
II° – Consecration – The Man experiences Life.
III° – Devotion – He experiences Death.
IV° – Perfection, or Exaltation – He experiences the World beyond Death.
P.I. – Perfect Initiate – This entire cycle of Point-Events is withdrawn into Annihilation.

There are three important conclusions to draw here.

First, as in the mystery schools of the ancient world, the purpose of O.T.O. initiation—in particular, this series of six sub-degrees that comprises the Man of Earth—is to introduce a single individual or candidate to a single god. The main difference between the O.T.O. initiations and those predecessor schools is that in O.T.O., the god the candidate is being introduced to is none other than themselves. In Thelema, the term for this god—the divine part of each individual—is the Secret Self or Hadit.

Second, the purpose of the Man of Earth initiations is to dramatize the “path” taken by this god: a complete cycle in which the soul is drawn into incarnation, dies, and is withdrawn back into nothingness. The initiations are conducted in service to and with reverence toward that way of going which is characteristic of the Hadit which all of us truly is. The Path in Eternity is that toward which the entire series of rituals is oriented. The rituals derive their meanings from that Path.

Third, that path has a characteristic shape. It’s cyclical. It’s a passage from silence to speech and back to silence again. This is the exact same path as that taken by the Holy Guardian Angel which Crowley describes in Liber DCLXXI vel Pyramidos and which I quote at the beginning of the video:

For from the Silence of the Wand
Unto the Speaking of the Sword,
And back again to the Beyond,
This is the toil & the Reward.
This is the Path of HVA—Ho!
This is the Path of IAO.

So one of the first points I’m making in the video is that the Man of Earth series of initiations connects at a deep level with one of the core concepts of Thelema, namely, the idea of the Secret Self aka Hadit aka the Holy Guardian Angel.

The particular way in which it connects with that core concept is to show the characteristic going of that god, and to show how that way of going makes contact with an individual human life. In other words the conditions we find ourselves subject to—birth, aging, and death—are not incidental or exterior to our divinity. In fact they are necessary components of the way our divinity expresses itself.

This helps us begin to make sense of another one of the claims Crowley makes about these rituals:

The main objects of the instruction were two. It was first necessary to explain the universe and the relations of human life therewith. Second, to instruct every man how best to adapt his life to the cosmos and to develop his faculties to the utmost advantage. I accordingly constructed a series of rituals, Minerval, Man, Magician, Master-Magician, Perfect Magician and Perfect Initiate, which should illustrate the course of human life in its largest philosophical aspect. I begin by showing the object of the pure soul, “One, individual and eternal”, in determining to formulate itself consciously, or, as I may say, to understand itself.
Aleister Crowley, Confessions

This larger, universal context in which Crowley wishes to situate or orient the individual human life is the aforementioned Path in Eternity, which in turn is the characteristic way of going of Hadit.