"History of Ciphers" (part 4a) - The Thelemic Ciphers (I)

    Dear Reader,

 

 

   In this fourth part of "History of Ciphers" we're going to explore the Thelemic ciphers, particularly the three ciphers that are known as "Kabbalah" ciphers by all those who use the "Gematrinator" calculator – which means the "ALW", "KFW" and "LCH" ciphers. The cipher that will be most explored in this presentation will be the English Qaballa ("ALW"), since that is the Thelemic cipher that, in my opinion, most deserves a deeper study.

 

    Some of those other ciphers which will also be explained and briefly explored, are E. Joel Love's Cipher X ("KFW"), R. Leo Gillis' Trigrammaton Qabalah ("LCH", originally devised by Crowley), as well as David Cherubim's Thelemic English Qabalah (which is nowadays misnamed "Sumerian" Gematria). 

 

The exploration of these ciphers will be divided into several topics:

    – What are these ciphers, and how/why did they come to exist;

    – What are the real names of these ciphers;

    – Who created (or discovered) these ciphers;

    – How most of these ciphers were used in the study of the Holy Books of Thelema, particularly the Book of the Law ("Liber AL vel Legis");

    – And also some other ciphers used within the specific context of Thelema;

    Important Note:

    It is my duty to apologize to my Readers for having taken so long to finish this text. The reason for this is that there have been some changes in my personal life, and my time (and disposition) to write haven't been the same as they were before. Anyway, as this "mission" to talk about the origins and history of the ciphers is very important for me, I couldn't simply stop there. In fact, I already have some ideas for some future posts... or something more.

 

    I have also taken the decision of dividing this 4th part of "History of Ciphers" into two parts: the first entirely dedicated to the ALW cipher (English Qaballa), and the second being dedicated to other systems of Thelemic Gematria. As such, and with no time to loose, let us then begin with this new presentation about the History of the Thelemic Ciphers.

History of Ciphers

by Luís Gonçalves

Part 4: The Thelemic Ciphers (I)

 

    The Thelemic ciphers are a whole world apart from this Gematria practice of "decoding Reality" – and they're a whole bunch of ciphers too, because since Aleister Crowley's receiving of the Book of the Law in 1904 virtually everyone who has been involved with Thelema has, one time or another, wondered what would be the true meaning behind certain riddles in Liber AL, particularly the famous passage in AL II:76.

    I sense, however, that some previous explanations are necessary about what all of this means, particularly to all those who don't know what the Book of the Law is, what "Thelema" is, or even who Aleister Crowley was. As I presume that some of my noble Readers may not know this (which is perfectly natural), that will be precisely the starting point of this presentation.

 

    While in this presentation of the Thelemic ciphers a thorough study of the philosophical bases and principles of Thelema is not, for the time being, strictly necessary, I'm adding links to some key terms so that my Readers can use more materials to complete their own research and studies on this field.

The Great Wild Beast – Aleister Crowley

    It's curious that in the previous part of this series, I mentioned several times the number 666 and some of the "mysteries" surrounding it, and now I'm talking about Aleister Crowley, who styled himself as "The Beast 666". I actually didn't plan this nor did I do that on purpose – I guess it's this natural sequence of texts about the History of Ciphers that sometimes shows interesting numerical and symbolical connections between the texts themselves. If you've read all my previous texts, you may have noticed that some things are mentioned in more than one text: albeit in different ways, or highlighting different aspects of the same things.

    Aleister Crowley was truly a defiantly unconventional man – in all possible ways of interpreting these words. I could never explain if I loved him or hated him, and that same feeling remains until this day.

 

One of the most famous (and funny?) photographs of Aleister Crowley. The gesture he's doing with the arms is the sign of "Vir", one of the "N.O.X." signs in Crowley's Order of the A∴A∴. His closed hands with the thumbs curved up resemble two horns, while his arms and fancy hat resemble the two columns of the Temple.

 

    Born on October 12, 1875 as Edward Alexander Crowley, "Master Therion" was a poet, magician, artist, writer, painter, libertine, social critic, mountaineer, spy, chess player, and self-proclaimed prophet. Having rejected his parents' fundamentalist Christian faith, he followed his interests in Western Esotericism. Crowley was a man of extremes – there was no middle ground for him, and in fact, it seems that Crowley only knew how to live life at its maximum, going from one obscene extreme to another obscene extreme. When he created the religious movement / occult philosophy of Thelema, he called himself "The Great Wild Beast 666", among other names and titles, and by the time of the scandal at the Abbey of Thelema there was even a newspaper that referred to Crowley as "the wickedest man in the world". In my opinion, however, Crowley was not an entirely "evil" man as some people continue to believe and preach. I mean, he was not a saint either, even though he wrote his own autohagiography. 😁 According to Martin Booth in his book A Magick Life: A Biography of Aleister Crowley, Crowley was "self-confident, brash, eccentric, egotistic, highly intelligent, arrogant, witty, wealthy, and, when it suited him, cruel". I will also add that he was a brilliant and extremely intelligent man, but  a lot of times  sometimes his Ego was bigger than himself. In fact, it seems to me that very frequently Crowley was more of an illuminated trickster, having no problem whatsoever (in fact, indulging himself) in shocking the Christian society of his time, while at the same time he was a profound thinker who left a precious legacy through his writings. Crowley has been hailed as one of the greatest occultists and magicians of the 20th century, and after having read some of his texts and noted his maturity and responsibility in this area, I cannot but fully agree with that affirmation. It is undeniable that he had an outstanding influence in the fields of Religion, Esotericism and Magic, particularly after his death, to this very day.

    In the year 1904, in one of his visits to Cairo, during his honeymoon with Rose Edith Kelly, Crowley "received" a book that would be the foundational stone of his new doctrine of Thelema.

 

 

Thelema and the Book of the Law

    In the days 8, 9 and 10 of April in the year 1904, precisely between midday and 1 P.M., a voice from a non-corporeal intelligence called Aiwass dictated the The Book of the Law to Aleister Crowley. This was the result of a series of involuntary trances into which Rose Edith Kelly, Crowley's wife, had entered, that urged her husband to prepare for supernatural communications.

    This Book heralded the coming Aeon ("Age") of Horus through the proclaiming of the Law of Thelema: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law", and also: "Love is the law, love under will". The Thelemic doctrine of the Aeons states that the history of Mankind can be divided into three Eras or Aeons, each one corresponding to a type of magical formula and/or religious expression. The Aeon of Horus, inaugurated in 1904 with Crowley as its Prophet, was to supersede the Aeon of Osiris, the Dying God, and to have as its central message and ultimate purpose the finding of one's True Will. 

 

    While the two Thelemic mottos I've shown above have been severely misunderstood on many occasions as supposedly meaning the same as "do whatever you want to do" / "all is lawful", the following explanation is given in the Book of the Law:

    This Book lays down a simple of Code of Conduct.

        "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."

        "Love is the law, love under will."

        "There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt."

    This means that each of us stars is to move on our true orbit, as marked out by the nature of our position, the law of our growth, the impulse of our past experiences. All events are equally lawful – and every one necessary, in the long run – for all of us, in theory; but in practice, only one act is lawful for each one of us at any given moment. Therefore Duty consists in determining to experience the right event from one moment of consciousness to another.

    Each action or motion is an act of love, the uniting with one or another part of "Nuit"; each such act must be "under will"; chosen so as to fulfil and not to thwart the true nature of the being concerned.

    The technical methods of achieving this are to be studied in Magick, or acquired by personal instruction from the Master Therion and his appointed assistants.

 

    [The Book of the Law - Liber AL vel Legis, centennial edition, Red Wheel/Weiser, 2004]

 

    A further reading that will no doubt be of great value to anyone who wishes to know what it means to find one's own "True Will" in practical terms, is Liber II – The Message of the Master Therion.

 

    At this point, the Reader surely has noticed the importance given in Thelema to the discovery of our own "True Will". In fact, "will" is precisely the meaning of the Greek word Θέλημα (Thelema), and as shown in the mottos above, "Love" is also a fundamental part of the Thelemic formula. Also, if you have studied Thelema before, you may have noticed that most Thelemites (the name given to the followers of Thelema, according to AL I:40) tend to use "93" at the beginning of a letter or message, and "93, 93/93" at the end. In fact, this has to do with the numerical values of the words "Thelema" [Θέλημα, "Will"] and "Agape" [Αγάπη, "Love"], which both add to 93 in Greek Isopsephy:

    The meaning behind the "93" and "93, 93/93" thus becomes clear:

    – "93" stands for "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law";

    – "93, 93/93" stands for "Love is the law, love under will".

 

    Other numbers are of special relevance in Thelema, like 418 (the value of Abrahadabra, the Word of the Aeon), 11 (the number of letters in "Abrahadabra", and the number of words in the phrase "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law") and, of course, 666. Other numbers are also relevant in a Thelemic Gematria context, like 156, 333, 419, and 718, but for the time being it won't be necessary to delve too deeply into these mysteries.

The Numerical Structure of Liber AL

 

    For anyone using Gematria, the Book of the Law ("Liber AL") is an absolute treasure trove. It contains many riddles, wordplays, in-jokes, and enigmatic passages that, no doubt, suggest the use of some cipher(s) and secret correspondences. I highly recommend the study of this book, as well as of Crowley's works, since I believe that the study of the Book can never be completed without the study of the Man behind it.

      

    First of all, some words on its structure:

 

   – The Book of the Law (full text with preliminary notes here) is composed of three chapters, each one having as "speaker" a specific deity of the Thelemic "pantheon". Those are, in order, Nuit (represented by an infinitely vast circle), Hadit (represented by the "core of every star" and the point in the center of the circle), and Ra-Hoor-Khuit (a Solar/War God, the Lord of the Aeon).

    – Each chapter has a different number of verses: the first chapter has 66 verses, the second has 79, and the third has 75, making a total of 66+79+75 = 220 verses. This is the reason why another name for this book is "Liber CCXX" or "Book 220".

 

    – Due to certain clues in the text of Liber AL, particularly AL III:47, the printed editions of this book usually come with a copy of the original manuscript of the Book of the Law. The original manuscript has 65 pages plus the title page, and this too seems to be important from a numerological point of view. The number 65 is the value of "Adonai" in Hebrew Gematria, which is another name given to the "Holy Guardian Angel" or "Higher Self", even though the definitions of H.G.A. differ widely in the occult world. The number 65 is also important since it is one of the key numbers of the Magical Square of Mars, and Mars (as well as the Sun) seems to be a valid planetary correspondence for Horus as Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the Lord of the Aeon. Adding the title page to the 65 pages of the manuscript gives the result 66, which is the 11th triangular number (i.e. 1+2+3+4+...+11 = 66), and the number 11 is of great importance in the context of Thelema. The "Word of the Aeon", Abrahadabra, has 11 letters, just like "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" has 11 words.

 

    Besides its numerical structure, the Book of the Law also contains many riddles that deserve to be addressed – at least part of them, as the whole set would need a whole book to properly explain it. That will be precisely the subject of this next section.

The Riddles and Prophecies of Liber AL

    The Book of the Law is truly an enigmatic scripture. It contains many riddles, qaballistic puzzles and word-plays, that have been addressed (in part) by Crowley himself in his old and new Comments to Liber AL. As the Book of the Law was "received", not authored, by Crowley, it's curious to note that Crowley himself wasn't able to solve all these riddles during his lifetime. In fact, the Book of the Law seems to contain some predictions about a "Child" of the Beast who would come to unravel the mysteries of the Book of the Law:

    I:54. "Change not as much as the style of a letter; for behold! thou, o prophet, shalt not behold all these mysteries hidden therein."

    I:55. "The child of thy bowels, he shall behold them."

    I:56. "Expect him not from the East, nor from the West; for from no expected house cometh that child. Aum! All words are sacred and all prophets true; save only that they understand a little; solve the first half of the equation, leave the second unattacked. But thou hast all in the clear light, and some, though not all, in the dark."

* * *

 

    The next one is perhaps the most famous riddle of Liber AL, having originated all types of conjectures and wild guesses – and also, the reason why most systems of Thelemic Gematria have been created. So I will talk about it more than once. 😉

 

    II:75. "Aye! listen to the numbers & the words:"

    II:76. "4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L. What meaneth this, o prophet? Thou knowest not; nor shalt thou know ever. There cometh one to follow thee: he shall expound it. But remember, o chosen one, to be me; to follow the love of Nu in the star-lit heaven; to look forth upon men, to tell them this glad word."

 

* * *

 

    And this next verse is the only text from Liber AL that in one version of the manuscript is superimposed on a grid. There seems to be some sort of "disagreement" about the importance of this grid and if it was in the original manuscript or not (source here), but as it is important in this presentation, I will leave it here for my Readers. This is one of those "unforgettable" verses in the Book of the Law.

 

    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."

    These verses alone already give us a lot of food for thought. There are many more riddles in the Book of the Law, though. But as you can see, Liber AL seemed to prophesy that not all riddles of Liber AL would be divined by "the Beast" (Crowley), while at the same time stating that "one cometh after him", who would also be the "child of thy bowels" (i.e. Crowley's 'child'), and that it would be him "who shall discover the Key of it all".

    Indeed there was such a Child, "& that strangely", who would indeed find the "Key of it all"... or at least a fundamental part of it. And that Child was Charles Stansfeld Jones, who would later become known as Frater Achad. Quite a curious, excentric fellow.

The Child of the Beast – Frater Achad

    Born on April 2, 1886, Charles Stansfeld Jones, a.k.a. Frater Achad, has remained one of the most controversial personalities in the history of Thelema. While Crowley himself genuinely believed that Achad was the "Child" that was promised in Liber AL, for the reasons that I'll explain in this section, it is also true that eventually Crowley and Achad parted their ways, with Achad actually proving by his life that he wasn't prepared to assume the role that he was supposed to assume – that of the Magickal Heir of the Beast.

 

    In my view, Frater Achad was a perfect "vehicle" for the Child prophesied in the Book of the Law, but his powerful Initiation without all necessary preparations eventually made him a slave to his own Ego and delusions of grandeur.

A well-known photo of Charles Stansfeld Jones, who also used the mottos "Frater Achad", "Parzival", "V.I.O.O.I.V.", "O.I.V.V.I.O.", etc., as a member of Crowley's A∴A∴ and of the O.T.O.

    On June 21, 1916, shortly after Frater Achad became a Neophyte (the basic degree corresponding to "Malkuth" or 1=10° in the Qabalistic Tree of Life) in Crowley's "Order of the Silver Star" or A∴A∴, Achad took the Oath of the Abyss, that is, that of a Master of the Temple, literally skipping all preparatory levels from 2=9° to 7=4°, instantly reaching level 8=3° (Magister Templi).

    According to Kenneth Grant in "The Magical Revival" (more info here):

    «CROWLEY's Magical Son, Frater Achad - Charles Stansfeld Jones - was the living proof that The Book of the Law issued from a praeterhuman Intelligence that used Crowley as a focus for its influence. On the other hand, Achad seems also to have been a classic example of the type of insanity that overtakes an individual who binds himself by a Magical Oath beyond his Grade. (...)

    Frater Achad took the Oath of a Master of the Temple (8º=3# A.'.A.'.) that is to say, vowed to interpret everything that occurred to him as a particular dealing of God with his soul, in Vancouver B.C., on June 21, 1916.

    When a person takes such an Oath, the psychological effect - as may be imagined - has profound consequences. The world appears in a light totally different to that in which it is seen by the ordinary individual. Every incident becomes charged with a particular significance; every and any chance event is vividly felt as bearing a direct and personal relationship to the person who experiences it; a vast and cosmic pattern begins to formulate itself in the mind so that the most trivial event appears charged with portentous meaning.»

    When Achad informed Crowley that he was to attain the degree of Master of the Temple, Crowley was taken by surprise. The reason for this was that exactly 9 months before Charles Stansfeld Jones was unexpectedly "born" as "Babe of the Abyss", Crowley had conducted a series of sex-magical operations with Soror Hilarion (Jeanne Robert Foster) in order to beget a child. The woman, however, never became pregnant, and apparently the sex-magical operations never had any visible result – at least in order to conceive a physical child. It also became all the more meaningful because the motto chosen by Jones as a Neophyte of the A∴A∴ was "Achad" (אחד), which means "one" in Hebrew and sums 13 in Hebrew Gematria – thus Crowley realized that Achad could very well be the "one to follow thee", and his Magical Child that would unravel the mysteries of the Book of the Law. In fact, in the original manuscript of the Book of the Law, in verse I:55 which mentions the "child of thy bowels" who would "behold the mysteries" in Liber AL, the word "he" is underlined, meaning that somehow this word was important. Using the Ordinal cipher for the English Alphabet, we thus find that "he" sums 13, which is precisely the value of Achad ("one") in Hebrew:

    At this time, Frater Achad sent Crowley a copy of his essay Liber 31 (link to PDF here), in which Achad explained an important key to the Book of the Law through the [Hebrew] words AL ("God") and LA ("Not"), both of which total 31 in Hebrew Gematria (one third of 93, the value of "Thelema"), as well as all the numerical/qabalistic hints that seemed to indicate that Frater Achad was indeed the promised Child. To these discoveries by Frater Achad, Crowley replied with a now famous message, written in a postcard:

    \ = 418. "Thou knowest not." Your key opens Palace. CCXX has unfolded like a flower. All solved, even II.76 & III.47. Did you know π = 3.141593? And oh! lots more!" (sgd.) AL'AIN the Priest....666

 

 

    In fact, the "Key" found by Frater Achad is the reason why the Book of the Law, which was previously called "Liber L vel Legis", was later renamed by Crowley as "Liber AL vel Legis".

    Above we can see the Lamen of Frater Achad with all his main initiatic mottos and their respective numerical values (which Achad also explains in his Liber 31):

    – V.I.O.O.I.V. or O.I.V.V.I.O., standing for Unus in Omnius, Omnia in Uno (or reversed). When transliterated to the Hebrew alphabet, these words sum 777 in Hebrew Gematria. It's curious, then, to note that Crowley's number as the "Beast" was 666, and the number of his "Child" Frater Achad was 777. In Thelemic Qabalah, 777 is the total sum of the Paths in the Tree of Life from Kether (the Crown) to Malkuth (the Kingdom); this is called the "Path of the Flaming Sword":

 

    – Parzival, the "Fool" from Arthurian legends, with its value 418, matching the value of the "Word of the Aeon", Abrahadabra. "Parzival" also matches in a very interesting way with one specific verse from Liber AL, as it has 8 letters, begins with the Hebrew letter Peh which sums 80, and the total value of the word is 418 (AL I:46. "Nothing is a secret key of this law. Sixty-one the Jews call it; I call it eight, eighty, four hundred & eighteen"):

    – And Achad, the name by which Charles Stansfeld Jones used more extensively during most of his life, sums 13, the value of AHBH ("Love") in Hebrew, and is the reverse of 31, the value of AL / LA, the "Key" to Liber AL. The number 31 is also one third of 93, which as we have seen earlier, is the value of both Thelema ("Will") and Agape ("Love") in Greek Isopsephy:

    Achad's Liber 31 is very interesting. Even though all the details contained therein would need a longer text in order to explain all its mysteries, and all the qabalistic correspondences that it contains, I strongly recommend my Readers to study Qabalah through the works of Aleister Crowley, because somehow they truly contain many pearls of wisdom. Also, I don't want to stray too much from the main subject of the Thelemic ciphers, so that's why I'm not elaborating much on all those details.

 

    The reason why Achad's Liber 31 was important, however, has to do precisely with the Key that Frater Achad found (the word "AL") that, in part, unraveled some riddles in the Book of the Law. In one note to Liber 31, dated October 31, 1918, Achad writes the following:

    "Then I noticed another very important thing. I was wondering why A and L should be chosen, or rather why L, the 12th letter of the Hebrew alphabet should follow A, the first."

 

    He also noted that "LAW" (from "The Book of the LAW") could represent the union of Nuit and Hadit (the 'speakers' in the first two chapters of Liber AL) in Horus in his double aspect as Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Hoor-paar-kraat, represented by a double Hebrew letter Vau (=W), which in Crowley's Thoth Tarot corresponds to the Hierophant, the "Lord initiating" (AL I:49).

 

    By writing this, Achad was very close to finding the true "Key" to Liber AL. However, his discoveries towards a Key to decipher the Book of the Law were actually never complete, and it would be necessary to wait some decades until 1976, when James Lees unexpectedly found a "Key" to Liber AL – the English Qaballa.

The English Qaballa ("ALW")

 

 

     I must be honest with my Readers at this point. I was never able to get any informations about James Lees, or Jim Lees as he was affectionately called by his friends and colleagues. Years ago, as I began studying English Qaballa, I got some pieces of information here and there, but nothing too elaborate or profound. Most of the detailed information I got about Lees and the discovery of the English Qaballa was from my friend Cath Thompson's excellent book called "All This And A Book" published in 2018 by Hadean Press. It's a wonderful story and I highly recommend this book to my Readers if you're willing to study this further.

    Long story short, in 1974 Jim Lees (Brother Leo) created a magickal group known as the O∴A∴A∴ (Order of the Silver Star) with three friends who were interested in the occult. In February of 1976, Lees began a nine-month magickal retirement, and by the end of November he and his colleagues decided to work on the riddle of AL II:76. This is the well-known sequence of letters and numbers that I have referred to earlier:

    4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L

    As Jim Lees was well-versed in Hebrew Gematria, he and his friends tried to solve this riddle by experimenting with numbers and letters, and somehow, all separate calculations resulted in a wrong value for the sequence: 286. Jim Lees would notice that this was "the wrong result, but the right answer as far as AL was concerned". Lees noted that 286 was the result of 22x13, which reflected the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet as well as the importance of the Moon in Judaism. However, there was more to it, because 286 was also the result of 26x11, which in turn reflected the 26 letters of the English Alphabet as well as an association with the number 11, "which is mentioned more than once in the Book of the Law".

    Jim Lees thought that if 13 showed a key to the Hebrew Alphabet, then 11 could indicate a Key to the English Alphabet. Thus, Lees counted every 11th letter of the alphabet, starting with A=1, and then found the following sequence:

 

    According to Cath Thompson (which I have confirmed through other sources) this cipher was discovered precisely on November 26, 1976. Please note the date: it will become especially revelatory in some moments.

 

     Now you can understand why I said that Frater Achad was very near to finding a new English Qaballa, because, like he said, just like in "AL", "L" (Lamed) is the 12th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and follows "A" (Aleph), the 1st Hebrew letter, so is the English "L" the 12th letter of the English alphabet which follows "A", the 1st English letter. And if you continue the sequence, from A to L, counting every 11th letter, the next letter in the sequence will be "W" – thus forming ALW, which not only is an anagram of LAW, but it is also very clearly alluded to in the Book of the Law!

 

"O Azure-Lidded Woman, bend upon them!" (AL I:19)

    The are many interesting factors about this specific cipher, though, and all of them deserve to be duly explored in this presentation:

 

    → The time of discovery of the English Qaballa was extremely interesting. It was on November 26th that the EQ was discovered, and if you write the date as 11/26, you get a very clear reference to the 26 letters of the English Alphabet, as well as the cycle of 11 that is inherent to the cipher;

    → And it was November 1976. Writing the date as 11:76 [II:76] gives us exactly the verse of the Book of the Law where the riddle can be found.

 

    Another of the curiosities about this sequence is that it can also be derived from the "grid" in the manuscript of Liber AL vel Legis that I have mentioned and shown before, and all the clues in the text are in fact fulfilled by this cipher. Quoting Cath Thompson from All This And a Book:

    «More significant later on was the discovery that it had been encoded in the manuscript all along, on Sheet 16 of the third day’s dictated handwriting in Crowley’s notebook; the inexplicable grid on that page gives the Key when one fills in the common alphabet in columns from “A” in the top left corner. The Qaballistic Order and Value then appear on the diagonal as indicated in the text, "...then this line drawn is a key... and Abrahadabra." (AL III:47). Abrahadabra is a word of 11 letters, another pointer towards the Key.

    Furthermore, the diagram itself is a map of the location of the discovery of the Key. The line drawn is in actuality a public road; the circle squared represents an area which had been named Rosy Cross by some unknown property dealer who bought the land after a successful bet on a race horse of that name, and Lees’ home where the Key was discovered is in the position of the word “whence” upon the grid.»

        There's still another very curious detail in this, as the text from the Book of the Law says "... then this circle squared in its failure is a key also", and in the manuscript, the "circle squared" falls in the square corresponding to the letter "K", whose value is 9 according to the English Qaballa. The "square" of 9 is 81... and that is precisely the value of "Rosy Cross"! According to Cath Thompson, the grid was actually a map of where the Key would be discovered, and "Rosy Cross" was the name of the area corresponding to the place where the squared circle was drawn, in the manuscript of Liber AL.

    If you continue the sequence of letters in the grid, from top to bottom and from left to right, you'll notice that the circle squared in its failure also intrudes into the adjacent square which is allotted to U=17. Adding the values of both letters that correspond to the squares containing the circle, K=9 and U=17, gives 26 which is the number of letters in the English Alphabet.

 

    The English Qaballa also answers the riddle in Liber AL II:76, since the string of letters and numbers has a total value of 351 – which is equal to the sum of the values of all letters of the English Alphabet:

    Some years later, Jake Stratton-Kent wrote in an article called "Cipher of AL" (which can now be found in the book Thus Spake Magnus Dictus by Hadean Press), where he showed another interesting pattern in the Book of the Law, which seems to support the English Qaballa. He noticed that in the manuscript page containing the "strange" string of letters & numbers, that string is divided into two lines, the first line having 17 letters & numbers, and the second having 11. The second line begins with an "X", suggesting multiplication, and multiplying 17 x 11 gives 187, which is the value of "ENGLISH ALPHABET" in English Qaballa. Not only that, but the words "in its failure" (referring to the squared circle) in the grid of the manuscript, also share the exact same value:

 

4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y = 17 numbers & letters

X 24 89 R P S T O V A L = 11 numbers & letters

 

    Jake Stratton-Kent also noticed another thing which is very, very interesting. In AL II:55 there is a clear instruction to obtain the "order & value" of the English Alphabet. Quoting JSK from The Serpent Tongue: Liber 187:

    «(...) Which brings me to Chapter II verse 55, another key verse of Liber AL in which that phrase occurs:
    'Thou shalt  obtain the  Order & Value  of  the English  Alphabet; thou  shalt  find  new  symbols to attribute them unto.'
    This is  a strange verse containing ambiguity and apparent faults in grammar. What is meant by 'them'? 'English Alphabet' is a single whole; the text does not say 'the letters of the English Alphabet' (or does it?). So 'them' must refer to the 'Order & Value'.
    This is interesting as a Qaballistic 'in-joke', because the phrase ORDER & VALUE = 117 = LETTERS; so in fact the sentence can be read: 'Thou shalt obtain the <letters> of the English Alphabet; thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto'.»

    The English Qaballa also answers many other riddles in the Book of the Law. In the first chapter, verses 22–24, we can read the following:

    I:22. Now, therefore, I am known to ye by my name Nuit, and to him by a secret name which I will give him when at last he knoweth me. Since I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye also thus. Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt.

    I:23. "But whoso availeth in this, let him be the chief of all!"

    I:24. "I am Nuit, and my word is six and fifty."

    I:25. "Divide, add, multiply, and understand."

    

    Notice how Nuit says that she has a "secret name", and how the capitals in the same verse form the name "Isis" (the wife of Osiris in Egyptian Mythology). Notice too how the value of "Isis" is 56, and if we divide and multiply the value of "Nuit", we have 56 too (7 x 8 = 56).

    In the first part of this text I talked about the significance of the number 93 and its connection with Thelema ("Will") and Agape ("Love"), which both add to 93 in Greek Isopsephy. I also explained how the sentence "Love is the law, love under will" is usually abbreviated to "93, 93/93", standing for the words "Love", "love" and "will". The English Qaballa also throws a different light into this equivalence, since its total value is 279, or 3 x 93:

    Applying the English Qaballa to the Book of the Law will also show many other interesting patterns and curious correspondences, and in fact the continuous work and research of some people with this specific cipher has led to the development of a whole new esoteric structured system, with its own rules and principles. The books of the previously mentioned authors Cath Thompson and Jake Stratton-Kent are the proof that there seems to be something more to this system than mere "coincidence".

    In this next section, we will now turn to some of the techniques used with English Qaballa, which – remember – are always used in the context of Thelema, specifically of the study of the Holy Books of Thelema.

 

 

The Techniques of English Qaballa

    My main source for this section is a short text titled "The English Qaballa" by Frater Alav from QBLH, and it can be read online here.

    1. Gematria:

    This is the method that we all know. It basically consists in comparing words or phrases sharing the same value. For example, "Love" sums 44 in English Qaballa,and this is the same value of "Aum Ha", the last words of Liber AL. 44 is also the value of "Solar Hawk" and "Hawk Lord", a very direct reference to Horus as Lord of the New Aeon. And finally, 44 is also the value of "EQ", obviously standing for "English Qaballa":

 

    2. Notarikon:

    This technique derives acronyms from phrases, and it can be further expanded by noting (a) the first letters in the sentence, or (b) the last letters in the sentence, which would represent its form of manifestation. The example that Frater Alav gives in his text is the sentence "Love is the law, love under will":

 

– "LITLLUW" = 73 = "Power"; From where? "ESEWERL" = 97 = "Warrior Lord"

 

    Another example of the Notarikon technique can be seen in the above mentioned verse of Liber AL, where Nuit is equated with the "Infinite Space & Infinite Stars", thus giving us the word I.S.I.S. (Isis), whose value is 56 ("I am Nuit and my word is six and fifty").

 

 

    3. Mystic Numbers:

 

    This is related to what we usually know as the "Triangular Numbers". For example, the Mystic Number of Seven, which in the qabalistic Tree of Life represents Venus (Netzach), is 1+2+3+4+5+6+7 = 28. In English Qaballa that is the value of "Holy" and "Ankh" – an Egyptian hieroglyph that resembles the astrological symbol of Venus. ♀

    4. Anagrams:

    The name says it all. In the Holy Books of Thelema we can find many words that are anagrams of others; for example "hours" = 45 = "Horus", or "arms" = 39 = "Mars".

 

 

    5. Counting Well:

    As far as I know, this is a completely original technique originated with English Qaballa. It's based on verse III:19 of Liber AL ("count well its name, & it shall be to you as 718").

    This technique is used to "count well" the value of two words. The way to proceed in this technique is first to multiply the value of one word by the number of letters of a second word; then do the same with the second word (i.e. its value multiplied by the number of letters of the first word); and finally add both results. The conventional notation for this technique is the sign "%". Here's a pratical example:

– LOVE (2+7+10+25) = 44

– LAW (2+1+3) = 6

Value of "LOVE" (44) x Letters of "LAW" (3) = 132

Value of "LAW" (6) x Letters of "LOVE" (4) = 24

Adding both values, 132+24 = 156, the value of BABALON in Hebrew Gematria.

Which means: LOVE % LAW = 156

 

     Other examples:

– AZURE % LIDDED = 718

 

– AUM % HA = 93

    

– SUN % MIDNIGHT = 666

 

– ABRA % HADABRA = 418 (precisely the value of "Abrahadabra" in Hebrew Gematria)

 

 

     6. Reward (Number Reversal):

 

     This technique is based on the first verse of the third chapter of the Book of the Law:

    AL III:1. "Abrahadabra; the reward of Ra Hoor Khut"

 

    Calculating the values of both "Abrahadabra" and "Ra Hoor Khut", we reach the conclusion that one is the reversal of the other, so in English Qaballa the "Reward" of a number is the same number reversed.

 

 

     Now I want to show you how these techniques work in practice, by giving you a very concrete example.

 

    In the examples given for the Anagrams, the number 45 (=Horus) is of special interest in light of a verse in the Book of the Law:

    AL II:23. "I am alone; there is no god where I am."

    Also note that this verse is in the second chapter, whose 'speaker' is Hadit, the infinitesimal point in the center of the circle which is Nuit. Note too that the verse begins with the words "I am alone" (note AL-ONE):

    Now, the "Reward" of 94 is 49, which is the value of:

    

English Qaballa? ALW Cipher? NAEQ?

 

 

    In this part of the History of Ciphers, I have chosen to refrain from using others names that are usually given to this cipher. Among those, the most prominent ones are "ALW Cipher" and "NAEQ" (standing for New Aeon English Qabalah) – and recently, since it was added to the "Gematrinator" calculator, it has also been called, though rather strangely, "ALW Kabbalah" (?!?!).

    None of these names is the original name of English Qaballa. I don't know much about the uses of the others names, but as far as I can tell, the name "NAEQ" was coined by Gerald Del Campo, and "ALW Cipher" was coined by Allen H. Greenfield, who used this cipher in his "study" of UFOlogy and other "strange" stuff – while leaving behind the pure Thelemic context where this cipher was found and first used.

    I like using the name "English Qaballa" for at least two reasons:

    1– It was the original name of this system;

    2– It contains Frater Achad's dual key AL-LA in the word "QabALLA", thus functioning as a kind of homage to Achad's work that later led to the discovery of English Qaballa.

    My Reader should also know that while "NAEQ"/"ALW" is usually seen as simply a system of Gematria, the "niche within a niche" that uses English Qaballa views it as a complete Qaballistic system, that is, a complete Qaballa. If my Reader happens to read any of the books by Cath Thompson and/or Jake Stratton-Kent on the EQ, you will understand what I want to convey through this (see for example JSK's "Tree of Hadit" and "Tree of Manifestation", in The Serpent Tongue: Liber 187).

 

 

Some Final Remarks on the English Qaballa

    There are many other techniques used in English Qaballa, and not all of them are only related to Gematria, anagrams, "counting well", or finding the "reward" of any given number. In fact, English Qaballa has evolved into a valid Initiation method which is totally consistent with the doctrine of Thelema – even though I must say that, generally speaking, English Qaballa (or any other system of English Gematria) isn't taken too seriously in Thelemic circles. It seems, as a friend once told me, to be "a niche within a niche".

    The reason for this is easy to grasp once you understand that since Crowley received the Book of the Law in 1904, many people that became interested in studying the riddles in Liber AL also tried to find their own solutions to it, particularly to the strange string of numbers & letters in AL II:76, as well as to the meaning of the "grid" of AL III:47.

    Since computers appeared, there have been many experimental systems of English Gematria showing up from every side of the globe, all of those supposed to be the "Key of it All" and to (finally) answer all the mysteries of the Book of the Law.

 

    At this time of writing, I can count at least twelve or thirteen ciphers that were created specifically to answer the riddles in Liber AL, while some other ciphers used with the same purpose are also known by other more familiar names, like for example:

    – Aleisterion's "AQBL" or AngloQabalistic Key [PDF] (actually English Ordinal);

    – David Cherubim's Thelemic English Qabalah [archived] (actually the so-called "English Sumerian" cipher, or English Ordinal x6);

    – AREXZ 1496's English Qabalah (actually English Extended).

    With such an enormous (and ever-expanding) amount of ciphers used to decipher the Book of the Law and the Holy Books of Thelema, it is comprehensible that some people won't take any of these systems seriously. In fact, there are forums about Thelema where you can be BANNED if you mention ANY type of English Gematria. The usual reaction will be "Another one?!?!"

    It is my opinion, however, that the English Qaballa is a pretty strong candidate for a promised "Key of it All" (in Thelemic terms), given that it answers quite ellegantly to many mysteries and riddles in the Book of the Law, particularly AL II:76 and AL III:47. Also, the fascinating history behind it and the astounding "coincidences" that were present in its discovery are, for me, more than noteworthy.

In the Next Part of "Thelemic Ciphers"...

    I will be talking about some lesser known systems of English Gematria that are specifically used in the context of Thelema, which will possibly include:

    – E. Joel Love's almost unknown or ill-understood Cipher X ("KFW"); what it is and how Joel Love devised it, and also some of my own findings while studying it;

    – The Trigrammaton Qabalah ("LCH"), who created it, who made it more widely known, and some of its uses;

    – David Cherubim's Thelemic English Qabalah, and how it creates four extra paths in the Tree of Life, in order to accommodate the 26 letters of the English Alphabet;

    – Gerald Suster's Key C=7, as well as George T. Mortimer's Key D=7, and the resulting Key C+D;

    – The Anglossic Qabbala and some of its peculiarities;

    – Some lesser known systems of Thelemic Gematria (brief mention);

 

    – Shameless self-promotion:  My own "adventure" in using the Illuminati Novice cipher to decode the Book of the Law.

    I ask my Readers to remember that I don't know as much about these other systems as I know about English Qaballa (ALW), so in fact that was one of the reasons why I decided to divide this part of "History of Ciphers" into two segments – one entirely dedicated to EQ (in my view the most important), which is already BIG, and the other dedicated to all the other systems.

    Dear Reader, if you liked what you've read so far and want to read more, I can only thank you for having joined me in this adventure in knowing the History of the Ciphers, and to keep reading my articles until this point. This Blog – and my Work – wouldn't make any sense if there wasn't any "you" there reading them. In fact, it is because of YOU that I am writing this. So... Thank YOU once again. 😊

    My best regards to You,

    Luís Gonçalves