Crowley's Egg: Secret Chiefs & Scarlet Women Parts I, II & III

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Like so much else about this tangled subject, synchronicity brought this singularly important piece of the puzzle to my attention. On an e-group usually devoted to the mysteries of Rennes-le-Chateau and other western tradition themes, a post about mysterious eggs and meeting the Dalai Lama caught my attention. It seems that the list owner, a fine RLC researcher and esoteric scholar who goes by the name of Stella Maris, had a vision about an egg on a mountain top, purchased a glass egg in Hong Kong and then met the Dalai Lama in the airport.

She published the story in Duat, a CD journal, and the e-group was discussing it. The very first post on the subject grabbed my attention, and I anxiously watched the thread unfold, even chiming in on the Tibetan aspects. And then another group member posted quotes on the mystic significance of eggs from The Chymical Wedding and Crowley's 1918 Amalantrah workings. Suddenly, an almost forgotten piece of the puzzle surfaced, and as it snapped into place a new and somewhat surprising image emerged.

To see it, we must back up and start with the most controversial part of the Crowley section of Omen for Armageddon, my speculation on the possible reality of a group of Islamic initiates in touch with Crowley in the days prior to The Book of the Law.

Here's how I put it in An Omen for Armageddon - Part VI:

The events of the weeks, from the 21st of March to April 7th, leading up to the three-day marathon dictation of the Book of the Law are shrouded in confusion and intentional obscurity. In all of Crowley's voluminous writings, only these few weeks are skimmed over, as Crowley, the man who could describe a mountain ascendant in graphic detail 40 years after it happened, claimed memory failure and intentionally misleading entries in his diaries. This is so curious as to require an explanation, but Crowley passed it off as a result of his distaste at the content of The Book of the Law, a feeble excuse at best.

So what did happen? Pieced together from all of Crowley's evasive comments over the years, we can put together a somewhat suppositional chronology. On the afternoon of the 22nd, probably on the terrace at Shepherd's, Crowley met an Anglo-Egyptian initiate, probably of some Egyptian Sufi order, possibly the sheik with whom Crowley had been studying the Arabic Qabala. He discussed the situation with him and possibly received some advice. Do nothing further tonight, but do a divination on the 23rd and we'll meet again on the 24th. Crowley apparently followed this advice and did a long complicated Tarot and I Ching reading. Although Crowley recorded this divination, he nowhere published or described its contents.

On the 24th, he again met his Sufi initiate. Crowley's personal magickal record called him "Idris" or Enoch in Arabic. Beyond this point, silence falls. Sometime in this period, Crowley and Rose visited the Boulak Museum and Rose identified her Horus communicant with the Stele of Anhk-f-n Knonshu, exhibit number 666 in the catalogue. This impressed Crowley even further and, perhaps through his initiate's contacts, he had a copy and a translation made. By April 7th all was in readiness, awaiting only Rose's signal to begin.

Crowley's personal diary gives us some clues to what happened in the interval between the 24th and the 7th, but Crowley claimed that he couldn't remember what they stood for, the entries were in code, or that they were faked as blinds to his real, now forgotten activities. Apparently, although the dates are blotted out, Crowley made at least one more contact with his Sufi friend. Also, on April 6th, we find the curious note: "Go off again to H, taking A's p." H could be Helwan or Heliopolis, and given the role "Aiwass" was about to play, the "A" could possibly be him. Crowley was always very cagey about the subject, although he did claim that he was or had been, a living person.

Could The Book of the Law, in however oblique a fashion, have come from Crowley's encounter with a real illuminated tradition within Islam? Could he have been provided with the insight and techniques required to make contact with the voice of the Aeon? The truth will likely never be known, and Crowley himself seems to have observed in this case a vow of silence more significant than any other in his life.

But he did return to the theme of hidden masters. First there's Aiwass, who communicated the text of Liber AL vel Legis to Crowley in the 1904 Cairo Working. And there's Abuldiz, who bid Crowley write Magick in Theory and Practice with Virakam in 1911. Then there's the Wizard, Amalantrah, who presented the mystery of the Egg, which Crowley was supposed to go look for in Egypt and never did. The Arabic connections are obvious on all counts.

The three women who made these connections, sometimes almost unwittingly, can be said to be the true Scarlet Women in Crowley's life. Rose Kelley, Ouarda, was the first and most important; from her flowed The Book of the Law. The second was Mary D'Este Sturgis, Virakam, with whom Crowley could have accomplished great things. Unfortunately, they were not able to meet the challenge, Crowley most of all, and the mission was never completed. The third was "Roddie" Minor, known as The Camel in the Confessions. Here's how Crowley described the moment when all these threads came together:

"I was sitting at my desk, working. To my surprised annoyance, the Camel suddenly began to have visions. I shut off my hearing in the way I have learnt to do; but after some five minutes babbling she pierced my defences by some remark concerning an egg under a palm tree. This aroused me instantly, for the last instruction given to myself and Soror Virakam was to go to the desert and look for just that thing."

All of these are mystical events are related by the metaphor of the egg.

First, The Book of the Law connection:

"I am unique & conqueror. I am not of the slaves that perish. Be they damned & dead! Amen. (This is of the 4: there is a fifth who is invisible, & therein am I as a babe in an egg. ) II: 48 AL. BotL (Note that this is the Egg of Spirit, the fifth element of aether.)"

"Hoor-Paar-Kraat is the Babe in the Egg of Blue, or the Crowned Child upon the Lotus, and He is a universal symbol of the Holy Guardian Angel. He is the Virginal God within who represents true innocence?" In other words a western version of Manjusri...

And then, here's some of the Camel's visions:

Q: Is it expedient to start to find the egg and when should we start?

A: The egg is a work which must be done - the great work. By doing the work we get to the key.

Q: Is it the same vision as in the Virakam vision?

A: The work must go on and there must be an altar, created in Egypt - starting in Egypt. I see the Arab, the one that was at the well some time ago. He will be at one of the corners of the altar.

Q: Does Egypt mean the (geographical country or the mystic expression?) (Asked without words.)

A: Utter darkness appears. A man with a beast's head, something like a dog with a bird's beak for a nose. It is a hawk's head. I see a snake or scorpion. A nebula. Now there are many tiny chains at the feet of 729, coming from this nebula. Now an open door in a hut. A white cloth hangs on it. By this a tall palm, but its top is like a fir tree.

Q: Geburah applied to what?

A: The egg. The egg is resting on the point of mountain tops, very sharp. Water around, lotus flowers on it.

Q: Egg is symbol of some new knowledge, isn't it?

A: Gimel. Lamed. ( = spring, fountain.)

Q: What does that mean?

A: I don't know; followed symbol of mountain and lotus flower.

Q: How are we to break open the egg?

A: In plain language it means Thou art to go this Way.

"I see the egg on the pylon. I ask who the egg belongs to. The wizard shows me a hen laying an egg and says 'Whose egg is this?' I ask him what his opinion is of us. He respects T., but pays little attention to me. This part about little attention to me is false in me. I have to readjust myself back to a true attitude towards the wizard. He now shows me a mirror. I have on a travelling hat. T. in a robe in a hotel room. This means something about a home. We are to go to Egypt for the key. The key might be in center of egg when it is broken. It is a small golden key."

"The wizard (Amalantrah) was standing and still held one or two sticks in his hand. He smiled and said, ``Child.'' I then saw a most beautiful naked boy 5 or 6 years old dancing and playing in the woods in front of us. T. (Crowley) asked how he would look dressed and when I saw him in conventional clothes he looked very uncomfortable and repressed. He looked as if he should be dressed in skins such as tigers'. To one side near the place where I made the fire was a large turtle standing up as a penguin stands."

"The wizard was very happy and satisfied looking. He sat down and reached out his hand to me and had me sit down beside him. As we watched the boy he put his left arm around me tenderly and placed my head on the left side of his chest near the shoulder. He said, 'It's all in the egg.' The End."

The mention of "the Way" in the above quote relates to another mysterious event related to this series of disincarnate encounters, the appearance of the ultra or extra terrestrial Lam. Crowley's portrait of Lam, a curious drawing which he included in his Dead Souls exhibition held in Greenwich Village, New York, in 1919, the same year it was published as a frontispiece to Crowley's Commentary to Blavatsky's The Voice of the Silence. That there is a connection between the portrait and the Commentary, sub-titled Liber LXXI, (LAM in Hebrew add up to 71) may be inferred from the inscription accompanying the frontispiece, which was entitled The Way:

"LAM is the Tibetan word for Way or Path, and LAMA is He who Goeth, the specific title of the Gods of Egypt, the Treader of the Path, in Buddhistic phraseology. Its numerical value is 71, the number of this book."

Crowley left no record as to the origin of this portrait, although he remarked many years later that it was drawn from life. It is certain, however, that the drawing arose from the aftermath of the Amalantrah Working, a series of magical visions and communications received in 1918 through the mediumship of The Camel, Roddie Minor. This was in many ways a continuation of the Abuldiz Working of several years previous. In both of these Workings, the symbolism of the egg featured prominently. One of the earlier visions of the Amalantrah Working ended with the sentence, "It's all in the egg." During the final surviving vision of this Working, in reference to a question about the egg, Crowley was told that, "Thou art to go this Way."

Some groups within the OTO have developed the following method for using this ET contact in a meditative manner:

The mode of Entering the Egg may proceed as follows. Each votary is encouraged to experiment and to evolve his own method from this basic procedure:

1. Sit in silence before the portrait.
2. Invoke mentally by silent repetition of the Name.
3. If response is felt to be positive, but not before, enter the Egg and merge with That which is within and look out through the entity's eyes on what appears now to the votary an alien world. (Adumbrations of identity with Lam may be experienced as a strong sense of the unreality, or unfamiliarity, of the 'objective' universe.)
4. Seal the Egg, i.e. close the eyes of Lam and await developments.
5. At the first sign of stress or fatigue, return to mundane consciousness by opening the eyes and by oozing out of the Egg in a form determined by the experiences within.
6. Perform, astrally, the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram of Earth, at the Eight Spaces, and record all experiences in detail, paying particular attention to lunar phases (celestial and, where applicable, terrestrial), and any physiological phenomena accompanying the experience.

The injunctions to go look for the Egg in Egypt however leads us back to The Book of the Law. In the third part, MS page 16 has a grid pattern on it, with a slash and a small circle and cross. The verse on that page is III: 47:

"47. This book shall be translated into all tongues: but always with the original in the writing of the Beast; for in the chance shape of the letters and their position to one another: in these are mysteries that no Beast shall divine. Let him not seek to try: but one cometh after him, whence I say not, who shall discover the Key of it all. Then this line drawn is a key: then this circle squared in its failure is a key also. And Abrahadabra. It shall be his child & that strangely. Let him not seek after this; for thereby alone can he fall from it."

This is the third riddle. The first in I:22, the secret name of Nuit, is actually that of Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess of magick and catastrophes. The second in II: 76, the "secret teachings" verse, and the third is found in III: 47: "Then this line drawn is a key: then this circle squared in its failure is a key also."

Here's an interpretation of part of the "secret teachings" in II: 76, which contains comments on the Egg metaphor:

The next three letters, OVA, should be looked at together as well as separately. The letters themselves spell ova, a good Latin word for egg. This shows that these "selves" are the embryonic form of a human being. All of us have the internal struggle between the high and the lower, with the conscious self often a confused bystander. Indeed, this is the human condition. The egg of the self awaits emergence into the adult being of the soul. Gurdjieff calls human beings "three-brained" and modern studies in brain physiology agree with him. We have right and left hemispheres, with a control function that unites them.

I think that the best representation ever done of the OVA theme is a painting by Bosch called the Garden of Earthly Delights. It is a triptych. When closed, it shows the Egg of the World. It opens into three panels. The left panel, the heaven panel corresponds to the higher self and shows three composed figures: Adam, Eve, and the Christ. In the background are strange and wondrous, as well as ordinary, animals. There is also a bizarre fountain showing the orderly, or heavenly functioning of the psychic centers in Man.

The panel to the right corresponds to the lower self, obsessed by objects, vices and perversions. It is hell indeed. We witness all manner of violence, lust, greed and sadism. We are reminded of the six o'clock news on a hot news day.

The central panel fully catches our attention. This is the middle self of integrated awareness, filled with joy and delight and fascinating strangeness. People and nature are the focus of this panel and the wild elven frolicks have a sensual elegance to them. We are drawn to groups that are performing things that are beyond our comprehension, such as the two dancers back-to-back in the thorny flower with the raspberries and the owl perched on top. For all the unusual quality of the image, we know this place. It is somewhere we have been some times, between time, some forgotten time when we, too, have danced among this throng ourselves.

This is not the place to fully interpret the images in this great masterpiece. But a mere glimpse will reveal its connection with the ideas of the Devil, the Hierophant and The Fool. OVA conceals and reveals nothing less than the entire science of psychology.

It has been speculated that the grid page, and its X marks the spot riddle, should be overlaid on a map of Egypt. Jonathan Sellers on his Crowley's Egg website proposes that the X is located near Nag Hammidi on little evidence beyond wishful thinking.

However, if we take a map of the Delta, Lower Egypt, region of the same proportions as the page of the Book of the Law and superimpose them, then some interesting things pop out immediately. The line on the page starts at Alexandria and travels at roughly a 26-degree angle to the old site of Memphis on the banks of the Nile. The circle and cross then falls on the ancient necropolis of Sakkara...

Perhaps that's where Abul Diz wanted Crowley and Virakam to look...

Curiouser and curiouser...

"III: 47. This book shall be translated into all tongues: but always with the original in the writing of the Beast; for in the chance shape of the letters and their position to one another: in these are mysteries that no Beast shall divine. Let him not seek to try: but one cometh after him, whence I say not, who shall discover the Key of it all. Then this line drawn is a key: then this circle squared in its failure is a key also. And Abrahadabra. It shall be his child & that strangely. Let him not seek after this; for thereby alone can he fall from it."

The third section of The Book of the Law begins and ends with the pronouncement of the magickal word Abrahadabra, Crowley's version of that old conjuring chestnut "abracadabra." This new version had the added value, to Crowley, of adding up to 418 by means of gematria. Other important words that add up to 418 are Ra Hoor, Parzival, TO MH (To Me in Greek) and Pallas Athena in Greek. From this complex of meanings, we might think of it as a symbol of the hero's quest. In that sense, Abrahadabra is both the journey and the road travelled.

However, Abrahadabra is the magickal word revealed by Ra-Hoor-Khuit, and thereby hangs a problem...

In the very first line of the third section, "Ra Hoor Khuit" mispronounces and misspells his name. And gets upset when Crowley notices the mistake. This is more than enough to raise suspicions that the speaker is not who he claims to be. And indeed, in the third verse, the speaker announces that he is a god of war and vengeance and later in verse 11 preaches the essence of Setianism: "Worship me with fire and blood? let blood flow to my name."

Note how far this is from the Star Goddess, who pronounces: "My incense is of resinous woods & gums; and there is no blood therein?" Even the sternness of Hadit/Horus the Elder in the second part pales in comparison to the bloodthirsty ruthlessness of "Ra Hoor Khuit." According to the mythic patterns, we should expect that the third section would be pronounced by the "child" or union of the Star Goddess of Space and the Hawk of Time, and this "crowned and conquering child" would be the one to voice the "word" of the new age. Instead, we find an impostor who spouts the worst kind of old aeon patriarchal violence, bloodshed and dominion over others.

And this is the problem with the entire Book of the Law. If the point of the exercise, as the Star Goddess informed us, is to "Choose wisely," then the third section of The Book of the Law is an attempt to confuse that choice as much as possible. This "Ra Hoor Khuit" is not the rising sun god of the new aeon, the apotheosis of Abrahadabra, but a holdover from the dark age of Setian willpower, the 93 years of which the speaker in this section brags: "I am the warrior Lord of the Forties: the Eighties cower before me & are abased." However, let us note that he makes good on his brag, and these are far-sighted predictions marking the end of WWII and the Cold War, events totally unforeseen in 1904.

Crowley himself, as the verse suggests, was never able to resolve this contradiction. He died without having solved more than half the riddle, leaving the solution to one who comes after. As "Ra Hoor Khuit" taunts him, only by not seeking can the quest fail. Crowley sought, and while he didn't find his Grail, he at least didn't fail in the quest.

But the problem remains. The usurper, the Demiurge in its most raw and direct form, pronounced the word of the aeon. How does this affect the message of The Book of the Law? Crowley never came to terms with this third section, which is to his credit, but his followers, some of them at least, seem to have found this section most inspiring, thereby reinforcing and keeping alive the myth of Crowley the Satanist and evilest man in the world created by the tabloid press of the 1920s.

However, after several decades of chewing on this question, I think I have finally arrived at a conclusion. The usurping Demiurge can lie, obstruct, obfuscate, cheat, conceal and mislead, but it cannot create. It cannot issue a "false" word; the frequency of the aeon is a fixed quantity and therefore its magickal expression must reflect that. There are natural laws in the universe, which the Demiurge may subvert to his own ends, but can never abrogate. Therefore, the message, the word of the aeon, is correct; it is the messenger that is suspect.

So while confusing the issue as much as possible, the Demiurge must play by the rules and deliver the message. If we let the presentation and appearance of the messenger influence our understanding of the message, then we are in effect searching through the static while discarding the clearly audible dots and dashes.

So how do we decode this message, this word of the Aeon?

The older form, Abracadabra, has been traced back to a curious Greek ambigram, a word that reads the same in any direction, from the name of the Gnostic god of illumination, Abraxas. The Medieval Latin of the grimoires distorted the Greek into "abracadabra," and from there it passed into usage as a term of prestidigitation, or stage magic. In the Book of the Law, the word is restored to something closer to its original usage as well as implying an ambigamic and talismanic form that conveys a level of information at least as deep as that of the original.

First we have eleven letters, ABRAHADABRA. Note that there are five As, and also five letters used overall, BR and the As repeat, leaving ABRHD. This divides the word into 5, single letters and As, and 6, double letters and repeats. Their interplay here suggests that of microcosm, 5, and the macrocosm, 6, as well as the relationship of the Tree of Life, 10, to the Zodiac, 12. The eleven letters also give us a Tree of Life, including Daat, with the five As representing the sephiroth of the middle pillar with the 6 double letters forming the side pillars.

Crowley, in 777's Sepher Sepheroth, describes ABRAHADABRA as the Key to the Pentagram, then proceeds to derive a series of pentagrams and hexagrams from the letters. Crowley never directly connects the letters to the sephiroth on the Tree, and makes no attempt to form the ambigramic talisman at the core of the mystery. His applications, while good as far as they go, are hampered by a lack, apparently, of a structural understanding. Crowley never glimpsed the ambigramic possibilities of the Word of the Aeon.

Here's a simple version of the ABRAHADABRA ambigram in English. Note that two extra letters, H and D, are used to fill in the space. Reading through the ambigram from the top left A, we have ABRAHADABRAHADABRAHADABRAHAD for a total of 28 letters. In this series, there are 12 As and 16 doubles, 8 HD and 8 BR. We also have 5 As, the four corners used twice, the center four times, and the 8 doubled letter places. From this, curious patterns of numerical relationships begin to emerge.

We have one word, 1, with 2 categories of letters, single and double, which are in 3 classes, single - As, non-mutable - BR (always reads the same way) and mutable - D/H (reads either way). In the ambigram, this gives us 5 A locations and 8 double letter locations for a total of 13 locations which contain a total of 21 letters. The pattern that emerges is that of a Fibonacci series, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21?

This embedded spiral, represented by the twisting of the word across the ambigram, acts a hidden support for the more complex patterns that evolve as we dig deeper. Each side of the ambigram's square is ABRA, or 204 in Hebrew gematria. The center section, the revolving HAD, adds up to 10. The total of the ambigram is 856, which reduces - 8 + 5 + 6 = 19 - to 19. The gematria of ABRAHADABRA is 418, which is 19 times 22, the total number of letters in the ambigram (counting the ambigram itself as a letter) and the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Also, 856 is just 20 more than twice 418, 418 x 2 = 836 + 20 = 856. The Hebrew letter Koph has a value of 20 and is attributed to the Tarot Trump the Wheel of Fortune.

If we think of the central HAD in the ambigram as more of a cross -

And this, as we will see, is the true message of the word of the Aeon.

We can perhaps understand the message within the Word better if we think of ABRA as a version of INRI, and the HAD cross as a version of IAO/LVX. The alchemical acrostic INRI has a value of 270, a key precessional number, and we can see its use here as a metaphor for the junction, or overlapping, of two precessional ages, the 270 years of one and the first 270 years of the next. The intersection, the overlap, is symbolized by the IAO/LVX. This is clearly the Cross or throne of Light implied by the central HAD of the original ambigram. IAO has a value in gematria of 81, throne, and LVX in Roman numerals is 65, Adonai and light in Hebrew.

Add these transformation together and you get 686, which reduces, 6 + 8 + 6, to 20, the double HAD of the central cross, the doubled window, and the Wheel of Time spun by Jupiter, the Deus Magnus. And if we add the values of the IAO/LVX, 81 + 65, we get 146, Hebrew for the First Gate, or the beginning/end of a mystical cycle, and the idea of limits or boundaries, the transition point in other words. Note also that 146 reduces to 11, which is the number of letters in ABRAHADABRA, and the relationship between inner and outer, micro and macro, the pent and the hex; and 8 + 1 + 6 + 5 = 20, the Wheel of Time.

Therefore, the Analysis of the Key Word in the Golden Dawn contains the secret of time, and has the same structural expression as ABRAHADABRA. In fact, the Rose Cross Lamen contains an ambigramic version of the analysis of the key word in its corner lightning flashes. This point has never, to my knowledge, been commented upon in any of the various version of the Golden Dawn, past or present. That it was nonetheless present in Crowley's unconsciousness is powerful evidence for the reality of the current itself.

To make this point connect back to Crowley's Egg, we need to look at the major numbers generated by the structural elements common to both ambigrams. When we do this we find, 11 and 21, as noted above, as well as 19 and 20; 19 derived from the reduction of the total value, 856 (note also the same 5/6 and combination as in IAO/LVX) of the 21 letters in the total ambigram, and 20 from the transformative, INRI/IAO/LVX/INRI pattern. This gives us the letters in the Word and its ambigram, 11 and 21, and the sum of the reduction of the transformative total, 686, 6 + 8 + 6 = 20, and the ambigramic total, 856, which reduces to 8 + 5 + 6 =19. (Note since 20 is also a very important component in the inner organization of the original ambigram, we can be safe in assuming its major importance here, although it is derived from the transformed version.)

When we add these together, 11 + 21 + 19 + 20, we get 71, the value of the Way, LAM, which Amalantrah the wizard instructed Crowley: "Thou art to go this Way." And, as Crowley himself reminds us: "LAM is the Tibetan word for Way or Path, and LAMA is He who Goeth, the specific title of the Gods of Egypt, the Treader of the Path, in Buddhistic phraseology. Its numerical value is 71, the number of this book."

As Crowley notes, when one becomes a LAMA, the Way, 71, he becomes "he who follows the way," the number 72. This is not only a key precessional number, 72 x 360 = 25,920 the years in a Great Year, but it is also a key number in the pentagonal or phi ratio quality of time, 72 x 5 = 360. And it is also the point where the micro, 5, projects outward onto space/time, 72, [5 x 72 = 360/6 = 60 (5 x 12)] and the point where the macro, 6, folds back into time/space [72/6 = 12 x 30 (6 x 5) = 360 (5 x 72) x 72 (6 x 12) = 25,920].

In Arabic, the letter L is spelled in full as laam, which also adds to 72. This laam is the great El in the sky of the constellation Draco, one of the key components in determining the dragon axes of the universes, and the basis of the word Allah, which is simply another way to designate God. And 72 in its pentagonal aspects is also "the measure of a man," according to Vitruvius, as well as the measure of the Great Year of precession, 72 years of a man's age is one degree of precessional motion and, at least in the Mayan world view, there are five interlocking ages that define the length of a precessional year by means of whole units of other cosmological constants, such as the orbital periods of the various planets.

To become a LAMA, one who follows the Way, means to embody the secret of time itself. This can only be expressed as an individual essence, a number in other words. In the case of this Word, the numerical essence is 418. Without indulging in all the gematrial gymnastics Crowley tried, we can instantly verify that this is indeed the Word that expresses the Way. If 72 represents the personae, the One who Goeth, then that personae must be expressed in all four worlds, or levels of abstraction. When we multiply 4 times 72, we get 288, which reduces to 18. If we divide 72 by 18, we get 4. Therefore 418 is also 4 times 18 (the sum of 6 + 6 + 6) or 72. Also, 288 (4 x 72) equals 18 (6 + 6 + 6) times 4 squared, or 16.

We can therefore be somewhat assured that 418 is indeed the correct expression of the Way and of one who follows that Way. The number itself is introduced in Part II of the Book of the Law, before ABRAHADABRA was pronounced at the beginning of Part III. Also, as 418 correctly expresses the nature of both the realization and that which is realized, we might expect the magickal names or titles that have a value of 418 to be particularly resonant. And so they are...

As we noted above, some of the names that add up to 418 are Ra Hoor, Parzival, and Pallas Athena in Greek, a complex of mythic meanings that symbolize the hero's quest. In that sense, Abrahadabra is the journey, the road travelled and the one who goes that "Way" all at once. Nowhere is this better symbolized than in the complex of Egyptian titles that add up to 418.

Crowley notes that both Hoor-Ra and Heru-Ra-ha add up to 418, without going all the way and noting that Hru-aur, Horus the Elder, also adds up to 418. This is especially curious considering that all of these forms are just different spellings for the same transliteration. Horus the Elder is the quintessence of the cosmological neters, the fifth element in the mix. In fact, Horus the Elder, as Hadit in Part II of the Book of the Law, used just that quality to identify himself: "This is of the 4: there is a fifth who is invisible, & therein am I as a babe in an egg..." And the egg here is the Egg of Time, the ABRAHADABRA of the Way.

The attribution of PARZIVAL to 418 takes the next step in the symbolic progression. Parzival is the Grail Knight in Wolfram von Eschenbach's poem on the Grail. In this most alchemical of Grail romances, Parzival comes face to face with the Egg of Time, the "lapsit exillis," or the Grail Stone. The quest of the Grail Knight is the universal path of transformation and initiation; the process of becoming the Grail King is also the transformation into the "neter," that which moves, known as Horus the Elder, the Lord of Light. This neter, this godform, is the very essence of the initiatory current.

We can also take this one step further and connect another archetype, one Crowley missed. Perseus, spelled in Greek, also adds to 418. Perseus is almost the prototype of the questing hero, and his connection to Parzival and the Grail legends are well known, making the 418 gematria even more meaningful. But, when we turn to the oldest of these archetypes, Horus the Elder, we can begin to piece the metaphor together.

Hru, which in Egyptian is simply "face," was the very ancient Egyptian sky god, whose "face" is the heavens, with the sun and moon as his eyes. His consort was the goddess Hathor, or Het Hru, the House of Horus. Their union was the special moment from which time was reckoned, and it was re-enacted yearly in every temple in Egypt. This Union of the Sun Disk became the very essence of what made one a "King" and the tradition continued well into the Roman era.

The legends surrounding Horus the Elder come from the Ptolemaic "time capsule" Temple at Edfu, and therefore must be seen as a very syncretic preservation of what is actually an ancient mythic cycle. Here we find Horus staking the cosmic Dragon, establishing the dragon axes of the Cube of Space, and building a temple in the image of the universe on the original Mound at Edfu. This occurred in the Zep Tepi, the first time of the union of Horus and Hathor. Horus is the culture bringer in this version, and the avenging warrior who defends the workings of Maat, or cosmic harmony.

In this, we can see the prototype of both Perseus and Parzival. Horus the Elder is the Hero who penetrates the secrets of time, slays the monsters of chaos and establishes the new harmonic order here on earth. Hru-aur, Horus of Light, became the model by which the Heliopolitan creator god Atum was transformed into Ra, the Sun God. In doing so however, some of the qualities associated with the ancient sky god fragmented into their individual expressions. One of these fragments was the god of eternity, Sokkar-ah, the falcon headed Lord of the Dead whose city, the necropolis of Sakkara, spread across the west bank cliffs above Memphis.

Keep in mind that if we take a map of the Delta of the same proportions as the page of the Book of the Law where the third puzzle appears and superimpose them, the line on the page starts at Alexandria and travels at roughly a 26-degree angle to the old site of Memphis on the Banks of the Nile. The circle and cross falls on the ancient necropolis of Sakkara. Indeed, if Hru-aur is preserved here as the Lord of Eternity, then what better place to hide the secret. All we need is the 418 connection...

When we look at the Egyptian word itself, and transliterate that into its best English equivalent we get ZAChAR-RA. Then, if we simply treat this as Hebrew letters, we have 7 + 1 + 8 + 1 + 200 + 200 + 1 = 418. From this, we can't help but feel that the solution is obvious. The manuscript key given in Part III of the Book of the Law points, both directly and by the implication of the inter-related gematria, to the secret - the Egg of Time, the egg under the World Tree that Crowley and Virikam were instructed to seek in Egypt - being somehow located at Sakkara.

One of the Camel's visions included this exchange:

Q: ``Is it expedient to start to find the egg and when should we start?''

A: "The egg is a work which must be done - the great work. By doing the work we get to the key."

Q: ``Is it the same vision as in the Virakam vision?''

A: ``The work must go on and there must be an altar, created in Egypt - starting in Egypt. I see the Arab, the one that was at the well some time ago. He will be at one of the corners of the altar."

When I read this for the first time in the post on the e-group, I instantly flashed on a real event. An Arab, a member of a Sufi order that guarded several sacred wells, including the one at Edfu, had indeed stood at the corner of an ancient altar in Egypt while we raised, for the first time in several thousand years, a Djed pillar from the ancient holy spot at Sakkara.

Could it be, I wondered, that we had already found Crowley's Egg, and with it his connection to the Islamic initiatory current behind the Book of the Law? The answer was buried in the tangled tale of my quest from Tibet to Egypt, and of course its culmination on the holy high altar at Sakkara.

Next: Part Four - In Search of the Secret in Egypt

©Copyright 2003 by Vincent Bridges. Printed by permission.