kaos

today called el-Bahr, “the Sea”, by Arabs). The fourteenth century bc Ras Shamra tablets
were discovered in 1928 on the site of the ancient north Syrian city of Ugarit (Ras
Shamra), excavated from a temple dedicated to Baal, and on one of these tablets is an
inscription describing a battle scene in which one deity addresses another:
“When thou shalt smite Lotan, the fleeing serpent,
(And) shall put an end to the tortuous serpent,
Shalyat of the seven heads. . . . .”
[Ibid, p 107]
“Shalyat” is an epithet of Lotan. Leviathan in Job 41 becomes completely demythologised
and now only has one head—the riddle-like description there is generally understood
to be of a crocodile. (Note that there is no real evidence that the so-called “chaos dragon”
Tiamat of the Enuma Elish was actually a dragon, or that she is related to the Hebrew
word tehom, rendered as “the deep” in Genesis 1:2.)
Turning to the 8 th Enochian Key, I have become fascinated by the reference to the
“Stooping Dragon”:
The midday, the first, is as the third heaven made of Hyacinth Pillars—26—in whome
The Elders are become strong, which I have prepared for my own righteousness sayeth
the Lord whose long contynuance shall be as bucklers to the stooping Dragon and like
unto the harvest of a wyddow. How many are there which remain in the glorie of the
earth which are and shall not see death until this howse fall and the Dragon sink? Come
away, for the Thunders have spoken. Come away, for the Crownes of the Temple, and
the coat of him that is, was, and shall be crowned, are divided. Come Appeare to the
terror of the earth and to our cumfort and of such as are prepared.
A “buckler” is “a small shield used for parrying” and, in this context, “stoop” means “to
swoop down, as a bird of prey”. Presumably then, given the Apocalyptic tone of the
Enochian Keys, the Stooping Dragon is the Great Red Dragon of Revelation.
Both Crowley and Kenneth Grant refer to the Stooping Dragon a number of times.
Crowley, for instance, regards the Stooping Dragon as apparently being the equivalent
of Apophis in “The Temple of Solomon the King”, The Equinox Vol. I, No. II, where in
addition Austin Osman Spare’s diagram of The Fall is reproduced showing an eightheaded
dragon/serpent (also plate 1 in Kenneth Grant’s Nightside of Eden). See in
addition the reference in the 30 th Æthyr of The Vision and the Voice: “Come thou, who
art joined with me to bruise the Dragon’s head.” A footnote explains that this is a
reference to the Stooping Dragon. In Crowley’s 7 th Æthyr the Stooping Dragon “raised
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