"History of Ciphers" (part 4b) - The Thelemic Ciphers (II)

    Dear Reader,

    In my previous text about the Thelemic Ciphers I tried to give a succint account on how the English Qaballa (EQ for short) came to be found, the clues leading to its discovery, the astounding "coincidences" or synchronicities that were present in its discovery, as well as a whole array of techniques that can be used with EQ. I've chosen to divide these texts about the Thelemic ciphers into two parts, because I was much more familiar with EQ than with any other Thelemic Cipher, so the text about EQ (including all the historical details related to it) would be much longer than the rest.

    Anyway, a discussion about "Thelemic Ciphers" would never be complete if we didn't explore other systems of Thelemic Gematria that can be equally interesting, at least from a historical and symbolical point of view. Even though, in my opinion, the EQ is the most interesting and noteworthy system of Thelemic Gematria (besides Greek Isopsephia and Hebrew Gematria) and it includes a complete Qaballa, it is but one of the many Gematria systems that were either conceived or discovered with a specific intent to unravel the mysteries of the Book of the Law.

    In order to explore this rich Universe within the study of the Holy Books of Thelema, let us then begin the second part of this study.

History of Ciphers

by Luís Gonçalves

Part 4: The Thelemic Ciphers (II)

    In this second part of the History of the Thelemic Ciphers, I will start by talking about Liber Trigrammaton (PDF - 627 KB), one of the Holy Books of Thelema which is a fundamental key to understand at least two of the ciphers that I'm going to explain next – while it is important in the context of English Qaballa itself. It is also the original source for one of Crowley's first attempts at achieving the "Order & Value of the English Alphabet" – so a presentation of this type would never be complete without duly explaining what this book is about.

 

(click to enlarge)

 

    Liber Trigrammaton, or "The Book of the Trigrams of the Mutations of the Tao with the Yin and the Yang" was written by Crowley in December 1907. It is composed by 27 figures, called the Trigrams, each one being accompanied by a short text or sentence. Each Trigram has three lines, which can be of three types: Tao (a dot ●), Yang (a line —), or Yin (a broken line – –). You can thus notice how this is remarkably similar to the Chinese oracle of the I Ching, which is also called the "Book of Mutations" and also has Trigrams – which in this case are only eight, since they don't include the 'neutral'/zero element (Tao), only Yin and Yang. This was an outstanding innovation by Crowley and I personally find it extremely curious.

 

    Here's the first four Trigrams from a PDF I got from Scans from Aleister Crowley's The Equinox. This is a very good source on Thelemic materials, and if my Readers like it and are interested in it, I suggest a donation to the project, here.

(click to enlarge)

    Before elaborating further on this book, there are some intriguing factors regarding it that must be addressed in due time:

    → Contrary to the I Ching with its binary-like polarity of Yin (passive) and Yang (active) lines, Crowley's Trigrammaton adds a third, neutral element – the Tao (●). By doing this, the number of Trigrams is increased from 8 (2×2×2) to 27 (3×3×3). As the English Alphabet has 26 letters, just one less than the number of Trigrams in Trigrammaton, it is possible to establish correspondences between the Trigrams and the letters of the alphabet. We'll talk about this in some moments;

 

    → Why the specific order of the Trigrams in Liber Trigrammaton? The Trigrams don't seem to follow a linear or logical order in this book, even though there seems to exist some kind of symbolical connection between the shapes of the Trigrams and their corresponding texts. The book is very intriguing and truly deserves a thorough study. I would also invite my Readers to give a thorough look through Liber CLVII, the Tao Teh King as translated by "Ko Yuen" (Aleister Crowley) as is elaborates further on the teachings concerning the Tao, which is an underlying principle in Crowley's innovation of Liber Trigrammaton, when comparing it with the Trigrams of the I Ching.

    → Being based on 3 symbols or types of lines (Tao, Yang & Yin), Liber Trigrammaton suggests a kind of base-3 numeration. Just like in our base-10 numeration we use the ten digits from 0 to 9, so does base-3 use the three digits 0, 1 and 2. Associating Tao (●) with Zero, Yang (—) with 1, and Yin (– –) with 2, it is thus possible to convert all 27 Trigrams to decimal numbers from 0 to 26. This is actually the basis for the "rediscovery" of one of the systems of Thelemic Gematria that I will explain next.

 

    Crowley would call Liber Trigrammaton "the ultimate foundation of the highest theoretical qabalah" (source). Based partially on the shape of the letters and their resemblance to some of the Trigrams, as well as the sounds of the letters and their pictorial symbology, Crowley managed to create a correspondence between the English Alphabet and the Trigrams of Liber Trigrammaton. This he did in order to fulfill an injunction given in the Book of the Law:

    "Thou shalt obtain the Order & Value of the English Alphabet; thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto." (AL II:55)

    In this case, the "symbols" would be the Trigrams of Liber Trigrammaton. However, in his New Comment to the Book of the Law, Crowley would later come to the conclusion that:

 

    "The attribution in Liber Trigrammaton is good theoretically; but no Qabalah of merit has arisen therefrom. I am inclined to look further into the question of Sanskrit Roots, and into the Enochian Records, in order to put this matter in more polished shape."

 

    In fact, Crowley never actually devised a system  of Gematria based on Liber Trigrammaton, having simply attributed the letters of the English Alphabet to the Trigrams – not following any particular alphabetical logic or sequence, and without actually giving any specific value to the letters based on that correspondence.

 

    It would be long after Crowley had passed away that a man worked further on Crowley's draft of an English Gematria, and a new system of Thelemic Gematria emerged. The man's name is R. Leo Gillis, and the system is called the Trigrammaton Qabalah. For all those who use the "Gematrinator", this is the cipher which is usually – though wrongly – called "LCH Kabbalah".

The Trigrammaton Qabalah ("LCH")

    In the first place I should clarify something in terms of terminology. According to R. Leo Gillis in his exceedingly interesting The Book of Mutations:

    "Within the study of number mysticism, there is a large component devoted to the “literal qabalah”. This aspect of the qabalah scrutinizes sacred texts in terms of their numerical value. Traditionally, this is done with the use of three tools: temurah, notariqon, and gematria.

    Temurah is simply the rearrangement or replacement of letters in a word, based on some formula. Notariqon is the use of letters in a word as anagrams. Neither of these plays a significant role in the TQ [Trigrammaton Qabalah].

    The last category is gematria, which is the replacement of letters with numbers so that words might be given a numerical value. Generally this is done by adding together the assigned value of all of the letters in a word. This art plays a very large role in the TQ, under the heading of the Trigrammaton English Gematria, or TEG."

    Thus, Gematria is just a part of the Trigrammaton Qabalah, the whole qabalistic system that also includes "Astrology and magic squares, the tarot and runes, divination and arithmology, the Tree of Life and sacred geometry, Taoism and the I Ching".

 

    So, while technically speaking we will actually be talking about the Trigrammaton English Gematria, for the sake of simplification I will sometimes also use the term Trigrammaton Qabalah (TQ) whenever I refer to this specific system of Gematria. However, it is important to know the difference between the terms and what they refer to, so this explanation from Gillis is more than timely.

    One of the innovations in R. Leo Gillis' work is that he used the Crowleyan correspondences between the letters of the alphabet and the Trigrams, and then devised their numerical equivalents by treating the Trigrams as numbers written in base-3. By doing that, he found the following table of values for the English Alphabet:

 

 

    I must confess that I never duly explored Trigrammaton Qabalah in my studies of the Holy Books of Thelema. The reason for this is twofold, but none of it has to do with R. Leo Gillis' excellent work:

    1. The original correspondences between the Trigrams and the letters of the English Alphabet, as devised by Crowley, didn't follow any alphabetical or logical sequence, contrary to what we've seen in my previous text about the English Qaballa and its 11-letter cycle. Most of the times the correspondences were based on the similarity between the shapes of the letters and the shapes of the Trigrams, while other times there was simply no linking factor except arbitrary/subjective conjectures.

 

     2. Those correspondences were not definitive. In the Windram copy of Thelema (PDF - 5,47 MB) which includes Liber Trigrammaton, it can be seen that Crowley's work on these correspondences was still speculative, with some letters having been crossed out and replaced by others.

    Notwithstanding these arbitrary factors that I don't like in the origins of the Trigrammaton Qabalah, R. Leo Gillis' work in "The Book of Mutations" is worthy of being thoroughly studied, and he surely shows some quite curious patterns in his discoveries. Even if I not always agree with his methods, just the work that he had in studying all the mathematical patterns using the Trigrams and base-3 notation, how those interlace with his own discoveries using the Gematria of TQ, and all of his analysis of the Holy Books of Thelema, all of that deserves my deepest respect and admiration. Just remember that Gillis' book contains an astounding total of more than one THOUSAND pages of original research and experimentation, bridging a LOT of stuff. And I mean a LOT.

 

    One interesting concept that R. Leo Gillis uses and I find very interesting is the concept of Antigrams. Antigrams are pairs of Hexagrams (combinations of two Trigrams) where the "Yang" lines in an Hexagram correspond to "Yin" lines in the other, and vice-versa. The "Tao" or "dot" lines don't have any opposite. By associating each Hexagram with a number written in Base-3, it is thus possible to find curious connections between numbers based on the analysis of their corresponding Hexagrams – and respective Antigrams. One such example is shown on pages 16-17 of R. Leo Gillis' "The Book of Mutations", and it is based on a sentence contained in one verse of the Book of the Law:

"For he is ever sun, and she a moon." (AL I:16)

    In the Trigrammaton English Gematria, this sentence can be divided into two parts:

    Using this converter, the decimal number 198 is written as 021100 in base-3, while the number 153 is written as 012200 in the same base. These base-3 numbers are then converted to the following Hexagrams:

Image © R. Leo Gillis, The Book of Mutations, page 17.

    And these are perfect Antigrams! According to Gillis, "No more perfect explanation of the antigram concept can be found than this textual evidence", and I agree.

    In his work with Trigrammaton Qabalah, R. Leo Gillis also made an interesting discovery regarding the total numerical value of the Book of the Law and its connection with the Trigrams from Liber Trigrammaton. As he explains this a lot better than I would, it will be better if I simply quote his words verbatim from "The Book of Mutations", pages 10-11:

    "Using Trigrammaton English Gematria, the entire contents of Liber CCXX – including all the English letters, numerals, verse-numbers and foreign letters – is 267,696. This number has some very interesting properties, and can be found hidden in the sequence of trigrams in Liber XXVII.

    The 27 trigrams of Liber XXVII, in the order in which they appear, have the following decimal equivalents:

    0, 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 18, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 19, 20, 12, 15, 21, 24, 13, 14, 16, 22, 17, 23, 25, 26.

    The first three of these numbers are the trigrams of 0, 1, 2, or Tao, Yang, Yin. These are the three fundamental digits of the Base 3 system, and form the first set. This initial set will not be used in the calculation that follows.

    The second set are the four trigrams that follow, each with only one Yang or Yin line; these are the four elements of Fire (3), Water (6), Air (9), and Earth (18).

    The third set are the next nineteen trigrams, representing the 12 Zodiac signs, the Sun and six of his planets.

    The last set is the final trigram, the one that has no English letter, the number 26.

    Summing up the members of these sets, we have:

    3, 6, 9, 18 = 36

    4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 19, 20, 12, 15, 21, 24, 13, 14, 16, 22, 17, 23, 25 = 286

    26 = 26

    We can then multiply these numbers and get an amazing result:

    36 × 286 × 26 = 267,696

    This product, (derived solely from the sequence of the trigrams in Liber XXVII) is exactly the same number as the gematria total of the contents of Liber CCXX, (derived by the TEG). The fact that these two numbers are precisely the same is either a result of deliberate design, or a staggering coincidence."

     In sum, Gillis' work is absolutely worth being studied and given a thorough look.

 

    I sense, however, that as I didn't explore TQ / TEG enough, particularly all the numerical patterns that emerge when using both Gematria and the Trigrams of Liber Trigrammaton, what I can do best right now is to point some of the discoveries that I myself have been doing while using the Trigrammaton English Gematria only. I warn my Reader, however, that I haven't made much research in this area, while at the same time I honestly do invite my Readers to look further into Gillis' works, as well as into his online blog – especially the posts identified with the tag #trigrammaton-qabalah.

    One of the most interesting connections I found while using TQ is related to the motto Perdurabo ("I will endure"), chosen by Crowley on the occasion of his Neophyte initiation in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, on November 18, 1898 (remember, this was 6 years before the receiving of the Book of the Law, in Cairo):

    It's curious that Crowley's motto, "Perdurabo", would match the value of "Aeon of the Child", which is the Aeon that Crowley would innaugurate in 1904 with the receiving of the Book of the Law. The "Child" ruling the Aeon is Harpocrates, Horus as Infant, which is called Hoor-paar-kraat in the Book of the Law.

 

    The association with the Circumpunct ⊙ (quite literally, a Point within a Circle!) is also worthy of note, since the infinite circle and the infinitesimal dot are respectively the symbols of Nuit and Hadit, the 'speakers' in the first and second chapters of the Book of the Law. The union of their symbols in the Circumpunct thus represents the 'speaker' in the third chapter, Horus, the "Lord of the Double Wand of Power" (AL III:72). In fact, this was the reason why some 10 years ago I endeavored to apply the Illuminati Novice cipher in 'decoding' the Book of the Law, for some reasons that will become apparent by then. I will share some of my results in this series of texts dedicated to the History of Ciphers.

 

    Applying Gillis' technique and converting the number 128 to base-3, we arrive at Hexagram 011202. Its corresponding Antigram is Hexagram 022101, which corresponds to the decimal number 226:

 

 

    How curious it is, then, to notice that 226 is the value of "Number of the Beast", the number (666) that was a fundamental part of Crowley's life since his childhood.

    Also worthy of being referred to in this context is the fact that the (in)famous "Number of the Beast", 666, is in the Qabalistic Tradition considered a Solar number, corresponding to the sixth sephirah of the Tree of Life, Tiphareth (the Sun). And the traditional symbol of the Sun is... the Circumpunct!

 

    Now let's take a look at the two verses indicated in the table previously given:

    AL II:64. "Oh! thou art overcome: we are upon thee; our delight is all over thee: hail! hail: prophet of Nu! prophet of Had! prophet of Ra-Hoor-Khu! Now rejoice! now come in our splendour & rapture! Come in our passionate peace, & write sweet words for the Kings!"

    AL II:65. "I am the Master: thou art the Holy Chosen One."

    Note how "I am the Master" are the words of Hadit, the 'speaker' of the second chapter of Liber AL, while the title "Holy Chosen One" is applied to the Great Wild Beast (Crowley), the "Prophet of Nu":

    The "Great Equinox" refers to the Equinox of the Gods in 1904, and "babe in an egg" is a symbolical imagery that is related to the Lord of the Aeon, Horus as Infant (Harpocrates) – see The Vision and the Voice – The Cry of the 1st Aethyr.

    This cipher also delivers an interesting result when applied to the string of numbers & letters in Liber AL II:76, since the total sum is 351, the result of 0+1+2+3+...+26 – and thus of all the 27 Trigrams in Liber Trigrammaton and their respective values:

     

    To conclude this section about the Trigrammaton Qabalah, I'll use the name of this cipher itself in order to show you something quite curious:

 

 

* * *

 

    Trigrammaton Qabalah isn't, however, the only system of Gematria in which Liber Trigrammaton plays an important part.

 

    In my previous post about the English Qaballa, I've talked about a book by Cath Thompson, titled "All This and a Book", where she wrote about the origins of English Qaballa. In one of her other books, "Finding New Symbols" which was also published by Hadean Press, Cath explains how the letters of the English Alphabet can be associated with the Trigrams of Liber Trigrammaton, by associating each Trigram with a number written in base-3. Then, taking the numerical correspondences for the letters of the alphabet according to English Qaballa, each letter is thus attributed to one specific Trigram.

    There is, however, a fundamental difference from Trigrammaton Qabalah. While in TQ the counting begins with the letter I=0, in EQ the numerical sequence begins with A=1, so this leaves the zeroth Trigram 0-0-0 without any alphabetical correspondence (while in TQ the Trigram without a letter is Trigram 2-2-2, corresponding to the decimal number 26). In English Qaballa, the Tao Trigram represents the zeroth/27th "letter" of the English Alphabet – Silence, the Tao, or the Way.

 

Table by Luís Gonçalves – click to enlarge.

    This table of correspondences between the letters of the English Alphabet (based on EQ) later led to the discovery of an alternative system of Gematria. This is one of the least known systems of Thelemic Gematria, and one that I found to be extremely interesting once I understood the "logic" behind it. It's quite surprising that so many people in the "Gematria" community (particularly those who use the "Gematrinator") use this cipher indiscriminately and out of its natural context, without even knowing its real name, who created it, and how it was supposed to be used.

    I'm talking about Cipher X, which is also called in the 'Gematrinator' the "KFW Kabbalah" (???). The man behind Cipher X was a man of genius whose legacy, as far as I can tell, has mostly remained in obscurity even within Thelemic circles. His name was Edgar Joel Love.

E. Joel Love's Cipher X ("KFW")

    I only found Cipher X about one year or two ago, through the posts of Tom Chaudoin, Joel Love's heir in terms of magickal legacy, in a discussion group about English Qaballa. Tom Chaudoin is one of the men behind the N∴O∴T∴, the New Order of Thelema, whose origins are intimately connected to Frater Achad's writing of "Q.B.L. or the Bride's Reception", a document in which Achad proposed to revise the traditional qabalistic Tree of Life in order to fit the cosmological model of the emerging Age of Aquarius.

    While I don't know much about the history of the N∴O∴T∴, I invite my Readers to read about some of the history of the Order, as well as a short biography of E. Joel Love, here. There aren't many available materials about Joel Love's legacy, even though – in my opinion – there are strong reasons to talk about this specific method of English Gematria.

    After reading the Blog of the New Order of Thelema, it became apparent to me that Joel Love's work never received enough attention because, due to a series of complicated circumstances, his notebooks were never passed on to his magical heirs, Fabio S. Cruz and Tom Chaudoin. I can only guess how frustrating it can be, to see our Magical Teacher pass away, and then being completely unable to go on with his work and legacy. However, I've seen some of Tom Chaudoin's work in a deck he's working on, based on Joel Love's teachings, as well as on English Qaballa, Love's Cipher X and Liber Trigrammaton, and I can assure that it is extremely interesting. I will definitely be one of its buyers, whenever it becomes available to purchase.

    So this is why I'm talking about Cipher X and Joel Love. And even though I'm pretty sure that this cipher is nothing but a very small part of Joel Love's legacy, I think that by talking about this I will be able to bring more people's attention to this cipher, and by that to Joel Love's work as well.

    I must admit to my Readers that I am less than qualified to talk about Joel Love. I never met him or talked with him, and I only read a little of his work many years after he passed away. However, what I can talk more easily about is how Joel Love devised/found Cipher X, based on some of his investigations and findings, so that my Readers can, at least, understand the reasoning behind it.

    One of the ciphers that was studied by Joel Love was R. Leo Gillis' Trigrammaton Qabalah, along with all of Willis' work with the Trigrams, Base-3 numeration, Geometry, as well as everything that goes along with it (remember, Gillis' work with Trigrammaton is massive, and my presentation of his cipher only explains a tiny part of his work).

 

    In my introduction to Joel Love's Cipher X I already talked about how, similarly to Trigrammaton Qabalah, English Qaballa associates each letter of the English Alphabet to a Trigram and its corresponding number (in base-3 and decimal). I'm not really sure of who first built that association (for EQ), but I know that Love worked on it. I invite my Readers to thoroughly read and explore Joel Love's original commentary on Liber Trigrammaton. He treated each Trigram as a set of coordinates (x, y, z) in a "cube of space", and by doing that he alloted each letter of the alphabet to a specific position in that cube, according to its equivalences in English Qaballa:

Image by Edgar Joel Love.

    In this image, the EQ order of the letters starts at the lower left corner (with Zero=000) and then goes upwards, from the front to the back and from left to right (A=001=1, L=002=2, then W=010=3, H=011=4, etc). The red lines correspond to the order of the Trigrams as they appear in Liber Trigrammaton.

   In the website of the New Order of Thelema, there's a nice explanation of how Joel Love came to discover Cipher X. It also contains some important informations on Joel Love and his works (which I would love to explore and study), so I'll reproduce it here for my Readers:

    Joel Love's innovations with various ciphers would fill a huge volume unto itself, and the body of research that he amassed in his lifetime is so vast that it is even still it is being examined and cataloged. But what stood forth early on was his immense work with Liber 27 and the deep mathematical and cosmological analysis of it to which he would commit two decades of his life. It became apparent early on to Joel that the trigrams in Liber 27 represented Base Three numbers. However, when calculating the straightforward series, the cipher solution does not arrive at ALW, but an alternate cipher. Joel had a fondness for puns and limericks and was adept at reading metaphor, so he looked at the last line of Liber 27:

    "Therefore was the end of it sorrow; yet in that sorrow a sixfold star of glory whereby they might see to return unto the stainless Abode; yea, unto the Stainless Abode."

    To Joel 'seeing to return' meant 'going backwards' through the trigram sequence, which, mathematically, suggested a process of inversion. Base operations can be easily inverted, so Joel merely took the ALW cipher, converted it to Base Three, and then inverted it. The result is Cipher X:

Table from GEMATRO - Gematria Calculator.

 

    The close connection between English Qaballa and Cipher X (which is thus a base-3 inversion of EQ) can be best understood by the same table I already gave you – but now with some extra information:

Table by Luís Gonçalves. Click to enlarge.

    And now my Readers can understand why in the first image some letters were colored red, as those are the letters that share the same value in both EQ and Cipher X. Notice how their Trigrams (and their equivalent numbers written in base-3) are symmetrical.

    This process of inversion also seems to be aluded to in the text of Liber Trigrammaton itself, as the tenth line of text is attributed to two symmetrical Trigrams:

    And then, by finding this new sequence encoded in Liber Trigrammaton, Joel Love made another startling discovery. If he made a graphic containing the values of the letters of the alphabet according to the two ciphers simultaneously, the end result would be a cube, exactly like the other one shown some paragraphs above:

 

Image by Edgar Joel Love.

     Notice how the letters sharing the same value in EQ and Cipher X draw a perfect line across the graphic:

Image by Edgar Joel Love.

    Another discovery by E. Joel Love which is quite astonishing is the strange connection between English Qaballa, Roman numeration, and the number 666.

    In his short but brilliant text "666 and English Qabalah" (link), Love found that by calculating the EQ value of a number written with Roman numerals, and then calculating again the EQ value of the result, successively repeating the process, all numbers – without exception – would fall into one of three closed loops:

69 = LXIX = 69
58 = LVIII = 81 = LXXXI = 91 = XCI = 58
68 = LXVIII = 103 = CIII = 82 = LXXXII = 114 = CXIV = 68

    Then, if you calculate the sum of the Roman numerals composing each of these loops, you'll notice that their sum is equal to the sum of their respective EQ values (!!!):

LXIX = 69

LVIII + LXXXI + XCI = 230

LXVIII + CIII + LXXXII + CXIV = 367

    And finally, if you add the eight Roman numerals composing the three closed loops, their total sum (in Roman numeration) will again coincide with their total value in English Qaballa. And what a better total value could there be?

 

LXIX + LVIII + LXXXI + XCI + LXVIII + CIII + LXXXII + CXIV = 666

 

     After reading this, I thought about looking for Thelemic phrases, sentences or names, adding to any of these key values. While my work in that area has not been exhaustive in the slightest, I have managed to find some pretty interesting correspondences, both for English Qaballa and Cipher X. The number 367 (total value of the third closed loop), for example, is the value of:

    While only the number 367 is highlighted in this table, notice the other values too. Number 343 is 7×7×7 (the value in Cipher X of the very first verse of Liber AL), while the EQ value of "Love is the law, love under will" is 279, which is 3 x 93. We have seen in my first text dedicated to the Thelemic ciphers, that 93 is the value of both "Love" (Agape) and "Will" (Thelema) in Greek Isopsephia, so these synchronicities are surely more than noteworthy.

    Anyway, there's something more that I would like to say about this strange connection between English Qaballa and Roman numeration. You see, after making all necessary calculations, I found out that if you use the same process for the Roman numerals, but using Cipher X instead of EQ, there will be no closed loops – instead, every single number will always (always) lead to 69, regardless of the number of times that the same operation must be made. The only two "special" cases are numbers 3 and 69, both leading (simultaneously in EQ and Cipher X) to 69 itself:

 

3 = III = 69 [EQ & Cipher X]

69 = LXIX = 69 [EQ & Cipher X]

* * *

    My Readers may have noticed that, although I'm writing the name of EQ as "English Qaballa", Joel Love used a different orthography and wrote "English Qabalah". And while the EQ 'purists' could argue that "English Qaballa" was the original name of that cipher (an opinion which I absolutely subscribe), the fact is that in Joel Love's Cipher X, the value of "English Qabalah" is quite... curious!

    In fact, this is the number of verses in Liber AL – which is precisely the book that inspired the creation of the majority of the Thelemic Ciphers. And what about the name of Love's cipher, "Cipher X", according to its own value?

    It matches perfectly with the value of "Liber AL"!

    Now, another interesting "clue" that I found during this week. I was searching the internet for the name "Joel Love" in order to get more informations about this man and his work. And I managed to find an archived page, owned by Joel Love, called The English Qabalah of Joel Love. It doesn't have much information, but it does contain some qabalistic clues within a short introductory text:

As a life-long student of Crowley and several of his students, I find myself a few heretical turns from the Caliphoxy of Nethelema. My personal discoveries are often helpful to others working through the "Three Ordeals" of the magical tradition. This path is laid out in Liber AL and the other Holy Books of Thelema. Frater Achad said "The way is prepared". With this information and some direction by others having already walked this path, the ordeals needed for full initiation are getting easier to attain as time progresses.

Reading and rereading the works of Frater Achad, Crowley's Magical Heir, (in particular Liber XXXI) led me to believe that swearing "The Oath of the Abyss" was my next logical step. It was one of the most profound and odd experiences of my life. I attest that by my actions, I now claim the title of Magister Templi, Nemo and knowing myself to be the perfect Fool, take my place as a Master of Understanding.

As to the title of Magus, look at my personal qabalistic work, read the Holy Books and I think that you will see the veracity of my claim, and if it be so, then let my word be "Choose".

Agape,

joel

    First, note the name of the webpage: "The English Qabalah of Joel Love":

    I couldn't grasp why this specific value was chosen by Joel Love (I'm pretty sure he chose it, even though I can't prove it), but as it is an "exact" value – as well as the result of 20×20 – I thought that I should leave it here. Anyway, one thing that I can say about this number is that in Hebrew Qabalah, 400 is the value of the letter Tav, which corresponds to the 21st Major Arcanum of the Tarot, "The Universe". Coincidently, the original shape of the letter Tav was a Cross – like an "X", as in "Cipher X".

    Secondly, note the strange expression, "Caliphoxy of Nethelema". I haven't delved much into the history of Thelemic organizations, but as I far as I can understand, this refers – in a depreciative sense – to the Caliphate O.T.O. of Grady Louis McMurtry. The choosing of this "strange" name by Joel Love is quite appropriate, since its value (in both English Qaballa and Cipher X) is 279, or 3×93, the value of both "Thelema" (Will) and "Agape" (Love) in Greek Isopsephia:

    Joel Love also refers to the "Three Ordeals", which are likewise referred to in the Book of the Law:

    AL I:50. "There is a word to say about the Hierophantic task. Behold! there are three ordeals in one, and it may be given in three ways. The gross must pass through fire; let the fine be tried in intellect, and the lofty chosen ones in the highest. Thus ye have star & star, system & system; let not one know well the other!"

    This strongly suggests the famous alchemical formula for the creation of the "Stone of the Wise" or the "Philosopher's Stone". Note how in the text of Liber AL, the Three Ordeals are called the "Hierophantic task":

    "Woman of Whoredom" shouldn't be a surprising equivalence, as it is a powerful symbol / goddess in the context of Thelema, being BABALON, the female counterpart of the Great Wild Beast. And according to Joel Love's Liber Porta Arcana, the Scarlet Woman (which is another name for Babalon) is also connected to the "Mark of the Beast" – because if you write it in Hebrew as ShNI AShE (שני אשה), its value will be 666.

 

     Next, note that Joel Love mentions Frater Achad, who was, as we have seen in my first text about the Thelemic ciphers, the Magical Heir of the Beast (Crowley). The value of this name couldn't be more revealing:

 

     I included English Qaballa here for a very specific reason. You see... the number 93 is, as we have seen a number of times, a very important (or "the" most important) number in Thelema. And the number 117 is extremely curious too, because if you look again at Joel Love's Cube that I included in this section about Cipher X, you will notice something very, very interesting – the letters of the alphabet that share the same value in both English Qaballa and Cipher X, have a total value of 117!!!

    My Readers may have noticed that earlier I said that these letters draw a straight line across Joel Love's graphic of the Cube with the letters and their values in EQ and Cipher X. Even though this is a different line that is being referred to, I couldn't avoid thinking about the text in Liber AL:

    AL 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 (...)"  [bolds and underlines by me]

 

 

    In English Qaballa, 117 is the value of both "Order & Value" and "Letters" (remember the text of AL II:55 - "Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet; thou shalt obtain new symbols to attribute them unto."), as well as of "Aleister" and "Aeon of Horus". In Cipher X, 117 is value of "Circle+Dot" (a graphical representation of the union of Nuit and Hadit in Horus, the Solar/Martial Conquering Child, and the Lord of the Aeon) as well as of "The Great Work" and, as it happens in EQ, "Aleister". Some quite astonishing 'coincidences'.

    To conclude this short analysis of the text in Joel Love's webpage, I ask my Readers to take special notice of the Word chosen by the Magus Love:

    As to the title of Magus, look at my personal qabalistic work, read the Holy Books and I think that you will see the veracity of my claim, and if it be so, then let my word be "Choose".

    Could there be a more appropriate Word for a Master of the Temple?

    And now, to conclude this presentation of Joel Love's Cipher X, I would like to show my Readers something that I'm sure they will find very, very interesting. It's about the famous riddle in the Book of the Law, in verses 75-76 of the second chapter:

 

 

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

    AL 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." 

    Calculating the sum of the values of verse II:75 and the riddle in II:76, we come to a curious number:

(click to enlarge)

    777 was, of course, the number chosen by Frater Achad, the Magical Heir of the Beast (Crowley), as it equals the total of his initiatic mottos V.I.O.O.I.V. / O.I.V.V.I.O.

    He was the "one" [in Hebrew: "achad"] "to follow thee" [Crowley, the Beast 666], and he did in fact expose a major Key to the Book of the Law, through the findings that he wrote down in his Liber 31.

    The number 777 will become especially relevant when we turn our attention to other known Thelemic ciphers. But for now, let us turn our attention to David Cherubim's Thelemic English Qabalah, which has also become known as "English Sumerian".

* * *

David Cherubim's Thelemic English Qabalah

(a.k.a. "English Sumerian")

    First of all I should tell my Readers that the original name of David Cherubim's cipher was not "Thelemic English Qabalah", but simply "English Qabalah", as can be seen on the archived website of the Order of the Thelemic Golden Dawn, founded in 1990 by the late David Cherubim (1967–2017).

    The reason why I'm not using "English Qabalah" as the name of this cipher is because it would be extremely confusing (particularly to all those who are not entirely familiar with this type of ciphers) to differentiate Jim Lees' English Qaballa (the "ALW" cipher) from David Cherubim's Thelemic cipher. Besides – and this may be surprising for some of my Readers – these two ciphers are not the only ones that were called "English Qabalah" by their creators/discoverers. There's also Linda Falorio's English Qabalah, as well as Samuel K. Vincent's English Qabalah – and all these ciphers are completely different from one another.

    So in order to avoid any confusion between the cipher of David Cherubim and Jim Lees' English Qaballa (note the specific orthography with a "Q", one "B", and two "L"s), I chose to use the name of "Thelemic English Qabalah" (or "Thelemic EQ") whenever I refer to Cherubim's cipher. Yet, even this is a very poor misnomer, since technically speaking, all Thelemic ciphers function as a type of "English Qabalah", so in a sense, all of them can be called Thelemic English Qabalah. As I have worked with Jim Lees' ALW cipher a lot more than with any other Thelemic cipher, I have (kind of) "solved" this issue by using either "EQ" or "English Qaballa" whenever I refer to the ALW cipher alone, and more elaborate/detailed names whenever I refer to other similarly named Thelemic ciphers.

    The second information that my Readers must know is that, technically, the Thelemic English Qabalah looks exactly like the cipher widely (though inaccurately) named "English Sumerian". Both ciphers are the same as English Ordinal multiplied by 6, so that A=1×6=6, B=2×6=12, C=3×6=18, etc.

 

 

    I first knew "English Sumerian" some years ago, in a Christian(?) website, in which the author(s) tried to prove that this was some kind of ultimate Christian Gematria which would unveil many of the mysteries behind Religion, as well as a whole set of conspiracy theories regarding the future "Mark of the Beast".

    The reasoning behind "English Sumerian" is faulty at its best. According to another website, the "Sumerian Code" is based on the ancient Sumerian numeration system which, unlike our modern decimal (base-10) numeration, was based on the number 60. This part is historically accurate – that the Sumerians used a base-60 numeration system – but the connection between "English Sumerian" and a base-60 numeration system is not, and never was, satisfactorily explained. The justification seems to lie in identifying 60 with 6, since supposedly "zero is a redundant non-number". Anyway, mathematically speaking, base-60 is not the same as base-6, and the Sumerians did not use a base-6 numeration system, but in fact a base-60 numeration system. So no, Zero is not redundant, and the justification thus seems to be completely invalid and nonsensical. It would be the same as stating that Base-2 (binary) is the same as Base-20 (vigesimal), which of course is completely untrue.

    David Cherubim's reasoning for his own Thelemic English Qabalah is, however, completely different, and it is in fact very interesting from a Thelemic perspective.

    According to David Cherubim in his essay English Qabalah: The Key of it All:

    "In Liber AL, II, 55, it is written in the Voice of our Lord Hadit: "Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet; thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto."  The English Alphabet has 26 letters, whereas our traditional Magical Alphabet, the Hebrew Alphabet, has only twenty-two letters.  The twenty-two letters of the Hebrew Alphabet are linked with the twenty-two Paths of the Qabalistic Tree of Life and with the twenty-two Atu of Thoth (Major Arcana of Tarot).  The 26 letters of the English Alphabet also pertain to the twenty-two Paths, which connect the ten Sephiroth on the Qabalistic Tree of Life, and also to the four secret Paths of the Ageless Tree, which also connect certain Sephiroth on the Tree.  The order of the English Alphabet, as indicated in verse 55 of Chapter II of the Book of the Law, pertains to the proper arrangement of the 26 letters of the English Alphabet on the Qabalistic Tree of Life.  Their value, as indicated in this same verse, denotes a new system of Numerology.  The new symbols of this same verse denote the four secret Paths of the Tree of Life, which, till this day, have remained hidden in the Sanctuary of Occult Wisdom.  But the Tree of Life is incomplete without the addition of the four secret Paths, and therefore we must now expound upon these four Mysteries to make whole that which was partial.

    The making visible of the four secret Paths on the Tree of Life gives birth to a new Tree to accord with the English Alphabet, which is our Magical Alphabet for the New Aeon of Horus.  This new Tree of Life, which incorporates the English Alphabet of 26 letters rather than the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, gives us 36 Paths of Wisdom in all (10 Sephiroth and 26 Paths).  The sum of the numbers of 36 is 666, the Great Number of the Sun.  Also, 36 is the Mystic Number of the Sephira Hod or the sum of 8, which is the number of Thoth-Hermes-Mercury, the Logos or Word of the Gods, and the Lord of Magick, Occult Science and Tarot."

Image by David Cherubim. Reproduced here for informational purposes only.

    Cherubim noted also that by multiplying by 6 the ordinal numbering of the letters of the alphabet, the English Alphabet thus becomes the magical alphabet of the Sun and Moon:

    The order and value of the English Alphabet is simple yet profound in nature. The order pertains to the Paths of the new Tree of Life, which are linked with the 26 letters of our Thelemic Alphabet. The value of each letter is a multiplication of Six, the sacred number of the Beast (The Sun). 26 multiplied by 6 produces the number 156, which is the sacred number of Babalon (The Moon). The English Alphabet is the Magical Alphabet of the Sun and Moon.  The value of the English Alphabet begins with the number of the Beast (The Sun) and ends with the number of Babalon (The Moon).

    At this point I won't delve into much detail about this specific cipher. However, I would like to point a nice qabalistic clue that David Cherubim left in the title of his short – but exceedingly interesting – presentation of his own Thelemic English Qabalah.

    Notice the title of the paper, "English Qabalah: The Key of it All":

    AL I:39-40. "The word of the Law is Θελημα. / Who calls us Thelemites will do no wrong, if he look but close into the word. (...)"

    David Cherubim also added to his article his own database of Thelemic names, sentences, words and phrases, so as to show all the interesting synchronicities that happen with the use of this specific cipher. I honestly invite my Readers to duly explore it, here.

 

    Now, a word or two about...

* * *

Aleisterion's AngloQabalistic Key

(a.k.a. English Ordinal)

    I already knew this cipher by other names, like English Ordinal, Simple English Gematria, and Serial English. However, I only knew about this specific Thelemic use of this cipher when I first read R. Leo Gillis' excellent 55-page text called "Secrets of the Cipher Naughts – A Survey of Solutions to Liber AL verse II:76". Unfortunately I have no way of giving my Readers a direct link to this work, since it is rightfully protected by Copyright laws and cannot be freely distributed or reproduced without authorization from the Author. So I'll just leave the reference here for my Readers, since it is a very complete work, and a timely reference in this study of Thelemic ciphers.

    I admit that I don't know much about Aleisterion – not even his real name. However, I do know the website containing The Writings of Frater Aleisterion 777 and I've read some of his texts, namely "The AngloQabalistic Key" (PDF - 446 KB). In this text, Aleisterion explains how the simple Serial English cipher explains many of the mysteries of Liber AL. This cipher was called by him the AngloQabalistic Key, or AQBL Key for short – which exactly corresponds to the cipher more widely known as English Ordinal:

    Applying this cipher to the riddle in AL II:76 delivers an interesting result, if we also include the previous sentence in AL II:75. As we have seen previously, the exact same value can be achieved by using Edgar Joel Love's Cipher X:

(click to enlarge)

    This became quite revealing, at least for Aleisterion, since at least 10 years before he made this discovery, he had already chosen the name "Aleisterion" – which sums 777 in Hebrew Gematria:

    Frater Aleisterion, similarly to Frater Achad whose initiatic motto also added to 777 (thus being "the one to follow" the Beast 666), also claimed to be the Child of the Prophet, and that he was the one whose coming was prophesied in the Book of the Law. Personally, even though I do like some of Aleisterion's work, I consider this to be a type of "Achad syndrome", where one looks for fulfilment through the Gematric study of one's own initiatic mottos in order to "justify" some claim – whatever the claim it is. This, unfortunately, has happened a lot – and continues to happen from time to time – so my Readers can surely understand why in most "puritan" Thelemic circles the search for a promised "Key of it All" has become a taboo.

    To fulfill our own ego through the analysis of the Gematria values of our own names, titles or mottos, can be a dangerous trap – and indeed, at a certain point the Book of the Law seems to warn against this. Please note the last sentence in this verse:

 

 

    AL 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."

    And also:

    AL I:44. "For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect."

* * *

Concluding Remarks for the History of

Thelemic ciphers, part II

    In this second part of the Thelemic ciphers, it was my purpose to give my Readers some studying material mostly about the ciphers inaccurately known as "KFW Kabbalah" (actually Cipher X) and "LCH Kabbalah" (actually Trigrammaton Qabalah), since those two ciphers have been used indiscriminately and outside of their natural context (Thelema), particularly by all those who use the "Gematrinator" calculator. As it was my intention to dispell some myths and disinformation about these ciphers, it seemed to me that talking about their history and how they came to existence would be a favor that I would be doing to my Readers, by giving them a missing information, and it would be also a humble homage that I should do to the people whose brilliant works should be acknowledged whenever we talk about these ciphers.

    I'm pretty conscious that in this part of my presentation I dedicate most of my time to Edgar Joel Love's Cipher X. That is not to say that I didn't find any value in the other ciphers, which is manifestly wrong. However, as Cipher X is a base-3 inversion of English Qaballa (ALW), and as I've worked a lot with EQ, it was inevitable for me to explore Cipher X more thoroughly than the others.

    This second part of the History of Thelemic ciphers is not the last part of this series dedicated to these specific ciphers. In fact, in the next text I'll be talking about some other ciphers that are used specifically in the context of Thelema – and even though I'm not going to explore as many ciphers as I previously planned, I will give my Readers (whenever I see fit) links with all necessary informations in order to let my Readers better understand those Thelemic ciphers.

    The next part of the Thelemic ciphers will be mostly dedicated to two ciphers:

    – The Illuminati Novice cipher, already explored in my very first post about the History of Ciphers, and how I used it to unveil some "mysteries" in the Book of the Law;

    – The Anglossic Qabbala, also known as Alphanumeric Gematria. This cipher will probably be the most "polemical" cipher that I'll talk about, and my own (still young, though absolutely feverish) experience with it has been full of strange synchronicities and "coincidences". I also knew it in a very, very strange, and rather creepy, context which I don't like – but the intriguing results that it presents in a Thelemic context are too curious to be left unnoticed and unmentioned.

    Dear Reader, at this time I can do nothing but genuinely thank you for joining me in this study of the History of Thelemic ciphers. There are some upcoming surprises, and I honestly hope that this Blog of mine can be a powerful tool in your (and everyone's) hands, in order to boost our own work with Gematria.

    If at any time one of my Readers wishes to get in touch with me, please feel free to use any of the contact forms that are available in this Blog – either by using the "Contact Form" at the right side of this Blog, or by making a comment on any of my posts. Just remember that all comments are public – and moderated.

    My warmest regards to all my Readers,

    Luís Gonçalves