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THE BOOK OF THE LAW
The 'old time' is the Aeon of the Dying God. Some of his rituals are founded on an utterly false metaphysic and cosmogony; but others are based on Truth. We mend these, and end those.
This "Knowledge" is the initiated Wisdom of this Aeon of Horus.
See Book 4, Part III, for an account of the new principles of magick.
Note that Knowledge is Daath, Child of Chokmah by Binah, and crown of Microprosopus; yet he is not one of the Sephiroth, and his place is in the Abyss. By this symbolism we draw attention to the fact that Knowledge is by nature impossible; for it implies Duality and is therefore relative. Any proposition of Knowledge may be written "ARB:" "A has the relation R to B." Now if A and B are identical, the proposition conveys no knowledge at all. If A is not identical with B, ARB implies "A is identical with BC;" this assumes that not less than three distinct ideas exist. In every case, we must proceed either to the identity which means ultimately "Nothing," or to divergent diversities which only seem to mean something so long as we refrain from pushing the analysis of any term to its logical elements. For example, "Sugar is sugar" is obviously not knowledge. But no more is this: "Sugar is a sweet white crystalline carbo-hydrate." For each of these four terms describes a sensory impression on ourselves; and we define our impressions only in terms of such things as sugar. Thus "sweet" means "the quality ascribed by our taste to honey, sugar, etc."; "white" is "what champaks, zinc oxide, sugar, etc. report to our eyesight;" and so on. The proposition is ultimately an identity, for all our attempts to evade the issue by creating complications. "Knowledge" is therefore not a "thing-in-itself;" it is rightly denied a place upon the Tree of Life; it pertains to the Abyss.
Besides the above considerations, it may be observed that Knowledge, so far as it exists at all, even as a statement of relation, is no more than a momentary phenomenon of consciousness. It is annihilated in the instant of its creation. For no sooner do we assent to ARB than ARB is absorbed in our conception of A. After the nine-days' wonder of "The earth revolves round the sun," we modify our former idea of Earth. "Earth" is intuitively classed with other solar satellites. The proposition vanishes automatically as it is assimilated. Knowledge, while it exists as such is consequently "sub judice", at the best.
What then may we understand by this verse, with its capital K for "Knowledge?" What is it, and how shall it "go aright?" The key is in the word "go." It cannot "be," as we have seen above; it is the fundamental error of the "Black Brothers" in their policy of resisting all Change, to try to maintain it as fixed and absolute. But (as the Tree of Life indicates) Knowledge is the means by which the conscious mind, Microprosopus, reaches to Understanding and to Wisdom, its mother and father, which reflect respectively Nuith and Hadit from the Ain and Kether. The process is to use each new item of knowledge to correct and increase one's comprehension of the Subject of the Proposition. Thus ARB should tell us: A is (not A, as we supposed) but A. This facilitates the discovery A,R,C leading to A, is A(index2); and so on. In practice, every thing that we learn about (e.g.) "horse" helps us to understand -- to enjoy -- the idea. The difference between the scholar and the schoolboy is that the former glows and exults when he is reminded of some word like "Thalassa." Ourselves:- What a pageant of passion empurples our minds whenever we think of the number 93! Most of all, each new thing that we know about ourselves helps us to realize what we mean by our "Star."
Now, "the rituals of the old time," are no longer valid vehicles; Knowledge cannot 'go aright' until they are adapted to the Formula of the New Aeon. Their defects are due principally to two radical errors. (1.) The Universe was conceived as possessing a fixed centre, or summit; an absolute standard to which all things might be referred; an Unity, or God. (Mystics were angry and bewildered, often enough, when attaining to "union with God" they found him equally in all). This led to making a difference between one thing and another, and so to the ideas of superiority, of sin, etc., ending by absurdities of all kinds, alike in theology, ethics, and science. (2) The absolute antithesis between the pairs of opposites. This is really a corollary of (1). There was an imaginary "absolute evil" which made Manichaeanism necessary -- despite the cloaks of the Causists -- and meant "That which leads one away from God." But each man, while postulating an absolute "God" defined Him unconsciously in terms of a Freudian Phantasm created by his own wish-fulfilment machinery. Thus "God" and "Evil" were really expressions of personal prejudice. A man who "bowed humbly to the Authority of" the Pope, or the Bible, or the Sanhedrim, or the Oracle of Apollo, or the tribal Medicine-Man, none the less expressed truly his own Wish to abdicate responsibility. In the light of this Book, we know that the centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere; that "Every man and every woman is a star," a "Khabs," the name of the house of Hadit; that "The word of Sin is Restriction." To us, then, "evil" is a relative term; it is "that which hinders one from fulfilling his true Will." (E.g., rain is "good" or "bad" for the farmer according to the requirements of his crops).
The Osirian Rituals inculcating self-sacrifice to an abstract ideal, mutilation to appease an "ex cathedra" morality, fidelity to a priori formulae, etc. teach false and futile methods of acquiring false Knowledge; they must be 'cast away' or 'purged'. The Schools of Initiation must be reformed.
This "Knowledge" is the initiated Wisdom of this Aeon of Horus.
See Book 4, Part III, for an account of the new principles of magick.
Note that Knowledge is Daath, Child of Chokmah by Binah, and crown of Microprosopus; yet he is not one of the Sephiroth, and his place is in the Abyss. By this symbolism we draw attention to the fact that Knowledge is by nature impossible; for it implies Duality and is therefore relative. Any proposition of Knowledge may be written "ARB:" "A has the relation R to B." Now if A and B are identical, the proposition conveys no knowledge at all. If A is not identical with B, ARB implies "A is identical with BC;" this assumes that not less than three distinct ideas exist. In every case, we must proceed either to the identity which means ultimately "Nothing," or to divergent diversities which only seem to mean something so long as we refrain from pushing the analysis of any term to its logical elements. For example, "Sugar is sugar" is obviously not knowledge. But no more is this: "Sugar is a sweet white crystalline carbo-hydrate." For each of these four terms describes a sensory impression on ourselves; and we define our impressions only in terms of such things as sugar. Thus "sweet" means "the quality ascribed by our taste to honey, sugar, etc."; "white" is "what champaks, zinc oxide, sugar, etc. report to our eyesight;" and so on. The proposition is ultimately an identity, for all our attempts to evade the issue by creating complications. "Knowledge" is therefore not a "thing-in-itself;" it is rightly denied a place upon the Tree of Life; it pertains to the Abyss.
Besides the above considerations, it may be observed that Knowledge, so far as it exists at all, even as a statement of relation, is no more than a momentary phenomenon of consciousness. It is annihilated in the instant of its creation. For no sooner do we assent to ARB than ARB is absorbed in our conception of A. After the nine-days' wonder of "The earth revolves round the sun," we modify our former idea of Earth. "Earth" is intuitively classed with other solar satellites. The proposition vanishes automatically as it is assimilated. Knowledge, while it exists as such is consequently "sub judice", at the best.
What then may we understand by this verse, with its capital K for "Knowledge?" What is it, and how shall it "go aright?" The key is in the word "go." It cannot "be," as we have seen above; it is the fundamental error of the "Black Brothers" in their policy of resisting all Change, to try to maintain it as fixed and absolute. But (as the Tree of Life indicates) Knowledge is the means by which the conscious mind, Microprosopus, reaches to Understanding and to Wisdom, its mother and father, which reflect respectively Nuith and Hadit from the Ain and Kether. The process is to use each new item of knowledge to correct and increase one's comprehension of the Subject of the Proposition. Thus ARB should tell us: A is (not A, as we supposed) but A. This facilitates the discovery A,R,C leading to A, is A(index2); and so on. In practice, every thing that we learn about (e.g.) "horse" helps us to understand -- to enjoy -- the idea. The difference between the scholar and the schoolboy is that the former glows and exults when he is reminded of some word like "Thalassa." Ourselves:- What a pageant of passion empurples our minds whenever we think of the number 93! Most of all, each new thing that we know about ourselves helps us to realize what we mean by our "Star."
Now, "the rituals of the old time," are no longer valid vehicles; Knowledge cannot 'go aright' until they are adapted to the Formula of the New Aeon. Their defects are due principally to two radical errors. (1.) The Universe was conceived as possessing a fixed centre, or summit; an absolute standard to which all things might be referred; an Unity, or God. (Mystics were angry and bewildered, often enough, when attaining to "union with God" they found him equally in all). This led to making a difference between one thing and another, and so to the ideas of superiority, of sin, etc., ending by absurdities of all kinds, alike in theology, ethics, and science. (2) The absolute antithesis between the pairs of opposites. This is really a corollary of (1). There was an imaginary "absolute evil" which made Manichaeanism necessary -- despite the cloaks of the Causists -- and meant "That which leads one away from God." But each man, while postulating an absolute "God" defined Him unconsciously in terms of a Freudian Phantasm created by his own wish-fulfilment machinery. Thus "God" and "Evil" were really expressions of personal prejudice. A man who "bowed humbly to the Authority of" the Pope, or the Bible, or the Sanhedrim, or the Oracle of Apollo, or the tribal Medicine-Man, none the less expressed truly his own Wish to abdicate responsibility. In the light of this Book, we know that the centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere; that "Every man and every woman is a star," a "Khabs," the name of the house of Hadit; that "The word of Sin is Restriction." To us, then, "evil" is a relative term; it is "that which hinders one from fulfilling his true Will." (E.g., rain is "good" or "bad" for the farmer according to the requirements of his crops).
The Osirian Rituals inculcating self-sacrifice to an abstract ideal, mutilation to appease an "ex cathedra" morality, fidelity to a priori formulae, etc. teach false and futile methods of acquiring false Knowledge; they must be 'cast away' or 'purged'. The Schools of Initiation must be reformed.
The purification of said rituals is in progress at this time, An. V.