Editing The Book of the Law (section)

==Creation==
===Summons===
[[File:Stelae of Ankh-af-na-khonsu.jpg|upright|thumb|The [[Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu|Stele of Revealing]] (Bulaq 666): [[Nuit]], [[Hadit]] as the winged solar disk, [[Ra-Hoor-Khuit]] seated on his throne, and the stele's owner, [[Ankh-af-na-khonsu]]]]

According to Crowley,{{sfnp|Crowley|1991|loc=ch. 6}} the story began on 16 March 1904, when he tried to "shew the [[Sylph]]s" by use of the [[Bornless Ritual]] to his wife, [[Rose Edith Kelly]], while spending the night in the King's Chamber of the [[Great Pyramid of Giza]]. Although she could see nothing, she did seem to enter into a light trance and repeatedly said, "They're waiting for you!" Since Rose had no interest in magic or mysticism, she took little interest. However, on the 18th, after he invoked [[Thoth]] (the god of knowledge), she mentioned [[Horus]] by name as the one waiting for him. Crowley, still skeptical, asked her numerous questions about Horus, which she answered accurately supposedly without having any prior study of the subject.{{sfnp|Crowley|1991|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}}

Crowley also gives a different chronology, in which an invocation of Horus preceded the questioning. Lawrence Sutin says this ritual described Horus in detail, and could have given Rose the answers to her husband's questions.{{sfnp|Sutin|2000|p=120}}

As part of his 'test' for Rose, Crowley wrote that they visited the [[Bulaq]] Museum where Crowley asked her to point out an image of Horus. Much to Crowley's initial amusement, she passed by several common images of the god, and went upstairs. From across the room{{sfnp|Crowley|1991|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}} Rose identified Horus on the [[stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu]], then housed under inventory number 666 (since moved to the [[Egyptian Museum]] of Cairo, number A 9422). The stela would subsequently be known to Thelemites (adherents of Thelema) as the "Stele of Revealing".{{sfnp|Sutin|2000}}

On 20 March, Crowley invoked Horus, "with great success". Between 23 March and 8 April, Crowley had the [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|hieroglyphs]] on the stele translated. Also, Rose revealed that her "informant" was not Horus himself, but his messenger, Aiwass.{{sfnp|Kaczynski|2012}}

Finally, on 7 April, Rose gave Crowley his instructions—for three days he was to enter the "temple" and write down what he heard between noon and 1:00&nbsp;P.M.{{sfnp|Booth|2001}}

===Speakers===
Although the messenger of ''Liber AL'' was Aiwass, each chapter is presented as an expression of one of three god-forms: [[Nuit]], [[Hadit]], and [[Ra-Hoor-Khuit]].

The first chapter is spoken by Nuit, the Egyptian goddess of the night sky, called the Queen of Space. Crowley calls her the "Lady of the Starry Heaven, who is also Matter in its deepest metaphysical sense, who is the infinite in whom all we live and move and have our being."{{sfnp|Crowley|1919}}

The second chapter is spoken by Hadit, who refers to himself as the "complement of Nu, my bride."{{sfnp|Crowley|1976|loc=ch. 2, v. 2}} As such, he is the infinitely condensed point, the center of her infinite circumference. Crowley says of him, "He is eternal energy, the Infinite Motion of Things, the central core of all being. The manifested Universe comes from the marriage of Nuit and Hadit; without this could no thing be. This eternal, this perpetual marriage-feast is then the nature of things themselves; and therefore, everything that exists is a "crystallisation of divine ecstasy", and "He sees the expansion and the development of the soul through joy."{{sfnp|Crowley|1919}}

The third chapter is spoken by Ra-Hoor-Khuit, "a god of War and of Vengeance",{{sfnp|Crowley|1976|loc=ch. 3, v. 3}} also identified as [[Hoor-paar-kraat]], the Crowned and Conquering Child.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

Crowley sums up the speakers of the three chapters thus, "we have Nuit, Space, Hadit, the point of view; these experience congress, and so produce [[Heru-Ra-Ha]], who combines the ideas of Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Hoor-paar-kraat."{{sfnp|Crowley|1985|loc=Lecture 2}}

The book also introduces:{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

* [[Therion (Thelema)|The Beast]] (The Great Beast 666, TO MEGA THERION, Aleister Crowley)
* [[Babalon|The Scarlet Woman]], also known as Babalon, the Mother of Abominations
* [[Ankh-af-na-khonsu]] (the historical priest associated with the Stele of Revealing)

===Writing===
Crowley said he wrote ''The Book of the Law'' on 8, 9 and 10 April 1904, between the hours of noon and 1:00 pm, in the flat where he and his new wife were staying for their honeymoon, which he described as being near the Boulak Museum in a fashionable European quarter of Cairo, let by the firm Congdon & Co. The apartment was on the ground floor, and the "temple" was the drawing room.{{sfnp|Crowley|1991|loc=ch. 7}}

Crowley described the encounter in detail in ''[[The Equinox of the Gods (Crowley)|The Equinox of the Gods]]'', saying that as he sat at his desk in Cairo, the voice of Aiwass came from over his left shoulder in the furthest corner of the room. This voice is described as passionate and hurried, and was "of deep timbre, musical and expressive, its tones solemn, voluptuous, tender, fierce or aught else as suited the moods of the message. Not bass—perhaps a rich tenor or baritone."{{sfnp|Crowley|1991|loc=ch. 7}} Further, the voice was devoid of "native or foreign accent".

Crowley also got a "strong impression" of the speaker's general appearance. Aiwass had a body composed of "fine matter", which had a gauze-like transparency. Further, he "seemed to be a tall, dark man in his thirties, well-knit, active and strong, with the face of a savage king, and eyes veiled lest their gaze should destroy what they saw. The dress was not Arab; it suggested Assyria or Persia, but very vaguely.{{sfnp|Crowley|1991|loc=ch. 7}}

Despite initially writing that it was an "excellent example of [[automatic writing]]",<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lib.oto-usa.org/libri/liber0031.html?num=0 |title=The Holograph Manuscript of Liber AL vel Legis |publisher=Lib.oto-usa.org |access-date=8 January 2010}}</ref> Crowley later insisted that it was not just automatic writing (though the writing included aspects of this, since when Crowley tried to stop writing he was compelled to continue. The writing also recorded Crowley's own thoughts). Rather he said that the experience was exactly like an actual voice speaking to him. This resulted in him disclaiming authorship of the work in the usual sense:

<blockquote>
Note, moreover, with what greedy vanity I claim authorship even of all the other [[A∴A∴]] Books in Class A, though I wrote them inspired beyond all I know to be I. Yet in these Books did Aleister Crowley, the master of English both in prose and in verse, partake insofar as he was That. Compare those Books with The Book of the Law! The style [of the former] is simple and sublime; the imagery is gorgeous and faultless; the rhythm is subtle and intoxicating; the theme is interpreted in faultless symphony. There are no errors of grammar, no infelicities of phrase. Each Book is perfect in its kind.

I, daring to snatch credit for these [...] dared nowise to lay claim to have touched The Book of the Law, not with my littlest finger-tip.{{sfnp|Crowley|1991|p=106}}</blockquote>

Crowley himself was initially opposed to the book and its message.{{efn|{{harvp|Crowley|1989|loc=ch. 50}}: The fact of the matter was that I resented ''The Book of the Law'' with my whole soul. For one thing, it knocked my [[Buddhism]] completely on the head. ... I was bitterly opposed to the principles of the Book on almost every point of morality. The third chapter seemed to me gratuitously atrocious.}} Shortly after making a few copies for evaluation by close friends, the manuscript was misplaced and forgotten about. It would be several years before it was found, and the first official publication occurred in 1909.{{sfnp|Crowley|1989|loc=ch. 60}}

===Original manuscript===
A facsimile of the original handwritten manuscript was published in ''[[The Equinox]]'', Volume I, Number VII, in 1912. In 1921, Crowley gave the manuscript its own title, "AL (Liber Legis), The Book of the Law, sub figura XXXI", to distinguish it from the typeset version. It is now sometimes referred to as simply "Liber XXXI".{{sfnp|Crowley|1997|pp=459, 464, 743}}

The original manuscript was sent on Crowley's death to Karl Germer, the executor of his will and head of [[Ordo Templi Orientis]] (O.T.O.). On Germer's death no trace of it could be found in his papers. There matters rested until 1984, when Tom Whitmore, the new owner of a house in Berkeley, California, began searching through the junk left in the basement by the previous owner. Among the used mattresses, lumber, and outdated high school textbooks were two boxes of assorted papers and newspaper clippings dealing with Germer's affairs, the charter of the O.T.O. and an envelope containing the manuscript of ''The Book of the Law''. Whitmore donated the papers to the O.T.O.{{sfnp|Greer|2003|pp=70-71}}

====Changes to the manuscript====
The final version of ''Liber Legis'' includes text that did not appear in the original writing, including many small changes to spelling. In several cases, stanzas from the Stele of Revealing were inserted within the text.{{sfnmp|1a1=Crowley|1y=1983|2a1=Regardie|2y=1982|2pp=473–494}}

===The Comment===
Based on several passages, including: "My scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu, the priest of the princes, shall not in one letter change this book; but lest there be folly, he shall comment thereupon by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khuit" (AL I:36), Crowley felt compelled to interpret ''AL'' in writing. He wrote two large sets of commentaries where he attempted to decipher each line.

In 1912, he prepared ''AL'' and his current comments on it for publication in ''[[The Equinox|The Equinox, I(7)]]''. However, he was not satisfied with this initial attempt. He recalls in his confessions ({{harvnb|Crowley|1989|p=674}}) that he thought the existing commentary was "shamefully meagre and incomplete." He later explains, "I had stupidly supposed this Comment to be a scholarly exposition of the Book, an elucidation of its obscurities and a demonstration of its praeterhuman origin. I understand at last that this idea is nonsense. The Comment must be an interpretation of the Book intelligible to the simplest minds, and as practical as the Ten Commandments."{{sfnp|Crowley|1989|p=849}} Moreover, this Comment should be arrived at "inspirationally", as the Book itself had been.{{sfnp|Crowley|1989|p=840}}

Years later in 1925 while in [[Tunis]], Tunisia, Crowley received his inspiration. He published his second commentary, often called simply "The Comment",{{citation needed|date=February 2022}} in the Tunis edition of ''AL'', of which only 11 copies were printed, and signed it as [[Ankh-af-na-khonsu|Ankh-f-n-khonsu]] (lit. "He Lives in [[Khonsu]]"—a historical priest who lived in [[Thebes, Egypt|Thebes]] in the [[26th dynasty]], associated with the Stele of Revealing). Crowley later tasked his friend and fellow O.T.O. member Louis Wilkinson with preparing an edited version of Crowley's commentaries which was published some time after Crowley's death as ''[[The Law is for All]]''.{{sfnp|Crowley|1983}}