kaos

that cannot now be admitted to be second rate without an immense loss of face by
those who have accorded it canonical authority, it is evidence of Crowley contaminating
his Algerian visions with his own stuff.
And it’s strange that Liber AL is universally accepted by Thelemites as some megascripture
whereas the vastly superior Liber 418 is almost regarded as supplementary
material, a mere book, rather than his actual magnum opus of magical attainment (a gay
Thelemite friend sees this as a heterosexual/homosexual issue: Rose Kelly acceptable,
Victor Neuburg unacceptable, in the eyes of the conservative straight-laced oto Scatter-
Monkeys left to run the show when their Alpha Male fell out the tree and bit the dust).
What’s worse is that Thelemites who themselves don’t understand Liber AL—save as a
schizophrenic can read meaning into words and numbers on a bus ticket—have a
tendency to superciliously regard anyone who dares to criticise it as simply uninitiated,
tapping their noses knowingly as if they themselves have penetrated its concealed
mysteries, yet how many of them have published their own treatise on the nature of the
Universe or other mystical subject, a basic requirement as I understand it in the A∴A∴
as proof of worth and magical advancement.
I have decided my favourite line from The Book of the Law: “it shall become full of
beetles…” (III, 25). A much-ignored line I feel.
JOEL
Joel—On the “beetles” thing, Crowley comments:
These beetles, which appeared with amazing suddenness in countless numbers at
Boleskine during the summer of 1904 ev, were distinguished by a long single horn, the
species was new to the naturalists in London to whom specimens were sent for
classification. [Israel Regardie, ed. The Law Is For All. Phoenix, Arizona: Falcon, 1986,
p 285]
And in the Autohagiography:
As to this perfume of The Book of the Law, “let it be laid before me, and kept thick with
perfumes of your orison: it shall become full of beetles as it were and creeping things
sacred unto me.” One day, to my amazement, having gone into the bathroom to bathe, I
discovered a beetle. As I have said, I take no interest in natural history and know nothing
of it.
But this beetle attracted my attention at once. I had never seen anything like it before.
It was about an inch and a half long and had a single horn nearly as long as itself. The
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