Liber Resh
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thoughts on Liber Resh vel Helios sub figura CC, a foundational practice in Thelema along with Saying Will and Banishing.
Dear reader, I depend on you to review the ritual text Crowley wrote. I have no space to reproduce it here. The full text is on Thelemapedia.
“The object of this practice [Resh] is firstly to remind the aspirant at regular intervals of the Great Work; secondly, to bring him into conscious personal relation with the centre of our system; and thirdly, for advanced students, to make actual magical contact with the spiritual energy of the sun and thus to draw actual force from him.” (Crowley, Confessions)
We’re taught that performing Resh strengthens the internal solar currents.
The ritual is worth unpacking: it begins with four adorations performed at the stations of the sun. Many of us have lost all relation with the phase and timing of the moon. Are we now equally alienated from the sun’s course through the day? Do the top and bottom of the hour have anything to do with the sun’s rhythms, or only with how television programmed us? To adore the sun at dawn, one must know what time it actually rises — I use Weather Underground for this.
The four adorations are to Ra, Ahathoor (daughter and consort of Ra, the cow bearing the sun disk between her horns), Tum (Ra as the setting sun), and Khephra (scarab pushing the sun underground each night, another face of Ra). I say this to highlight that what we adore here always goes back to one thing: that Lord both visible and sensible in the Universe, secret and most holy.
What enthused Crowley about the Egyptian god-forms was their ability to be assumed ritually: adore, then unify — “Thy Will which is Mine” is the magical engine of the ritual.
Then: “after each of these invocations thou shalt give the sign of silence, and afterward thou shalt perform the adoration that is taught thee by thy Superior. And then do thou compose Thyself to holy meditation.”
Which God, though? And which adoration? When Thelemites gather there’s a version of the follow-on adoration we all use; it comes from a later hand, not from Crowley. Crowley didn’t give us a specific adoration to perform along with the sign of silence. The ritual as it stands is what he gave us.
I find two clues in the text: Ra is adored at all four stations of the sun, and the sign of silence points to Hoor-paar-kraat (Horus and Harpocrates — the Hellenized god of silence).
When you meditate at the end, perhaps dwell on Heru-Ra-Ha, the final deity of the core Thelemic pantheon. This is Horus as Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Hoor-paar-kraat. The Crowned and Conquering Child of the New Aeon; the Sun incarnated as the individual magician. This is a path to the Lord visible and sensible, and to the Lord secret and most holy. Whom do You find there?
May your day be filled with light.
Love is the law, love under will.
— Fr. Ishmael
Upcoming Scarlet Woman Events
In September, the Austin coffee night will be replaced by a Meet and Greet earlier in the day — there will be no Austin coffee night this month. Time and place will be announced by email once finalized.
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Sunday, September 13, 3:00 – 4:30 PM
Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter 18
Genuine Joe’s Coffee annex to Russell’s Bakery
2525 W. Anderson Ln. #275, Austin, TX 78757
HOLD THE DATE — Sunday afternoon, September 20
Meet and Greet – details TBA
Thursday, September 24, 7:00 – 8:30 PM
Thelemic Coffee Night – San Marcos
Wake The Dead Coffee
1432 Old Ranch Road 12, San Marcos, TX 78666
Sunday, September 27
Gnostic Mass, San Antonio, for guests of 718 Encampment
Contact Scarlet Woman Master if you wish to attend.
HOLD THE DATE — Saturday afternoon, November 7
Gnostic Mass in Austin