chapter viii
The Mysticism of Light

"God is the light of the heavens and the earth. His light may be compared to a niche that enshrines a lamp, the lamp within a crystal of star-like brilliance. It is lit from a blessed olive tree neither eastern nor western. Its very oil would almost shine forth, though no fire touched it. Light upon light; God guides to His light whom he will.

"God speaks in metaphors to men. God has knowledge of all things." [Quran 24:35]

"Every man and every woman is a star." [Liber AL I: 3]

Association of the divine with light and with the Sun is one of the most deeply archetypal of human conceptions. Solar mysticism and the mysticism of light, therefore, are prevalent in many traditions. It is also a central theme in the Thelemic religion.

Concerning this Crowley wrote the following:

"Our religion therefore, for the People, is the Cult of the Sun, who is our particular star of the Body of Nuit, from whom, in the strictest scientific sense, come this earth, a chilled spark of Him, and all our Light and Life. His vice-regent and representative in the animal kingdom is His cognate symbol the Phallus, representing Love and Liberty. Ra-Hoor-Khuit, like all true Gods, is therefore a Solar-Phallic deity. But we regard Him as He is in truth, eternal; the Solar-Phallic deities of the old Aeon, such as Osiris, 'Christ', Hiram, Adonis, Hercules, etc., were supposed, through our ignorance of the Cosmos, to 'die' and 'rise again'. Thus we celebrated rites of 'crucifixion' and so on, which have now become meaningless. Ra-Hoor-Khuit is the Crowned and Conquering Child. This is also a reference to the 'Crowned' and Conquering 'Child' in ourselves, our own personal God. Except ye become as little children, said 'Christ', ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of Malkuth, the Virgin Bride, and the Child is the Dwarf-Self, the Phallic consciousness, which is the true life of Man, beyond his 'veils' of incarnation. We have to thank Freud — and especially Jung — for stating this part of the Magical Doctrine so plainly, as also for their development of the connection of the Will of this 'child' with the True or Unconscious Will, and so for clarifying our doctrine of the 'Silent Self' or Holy Guardian Angel."

Crowley's thesis here is that, insofar as psychoanalysis posits that the essential dynamic of the total psyche is the Libido. Magically, this means:

Libido = True Self = True Will = Sun = Light = Holy Guardian Angel.

Or as Crowley most directly states:

"When you have proved that God is merely a name for the sex instinct, it appears to me not far to the perception that the sex instinct is God."

Here Crowley is turning Freud on his head (as in Marx's famous claim to have turned Hegel on his head). While accepting the basic discoveries of the Freudian psychoanalysis of the time, he refuses to see them as reductionistic and instead asks the next logical question: what does this mean in a larger, integral, spiritual context? His answer is one of the central mysteries of Thelema, as well as specifically a central theme of the mysteries of OTO.

Crowley articulates this mystery from within a Hermetic framework of sacred correspondence. Ontologically higher levels of reality emanate, represent or mirror themselves through symbols and myths in Imaginal and physical space. As the emerald tablet of Hermes Trismegistus states: "As above, so below."

One possible descriptive model of how spiritual light manifests itself in sacred correspondence through each of the four worlds is as follows:

Assiah: Physical light with all of its strange properties. Taken in its broadest sense in physics this is energy in its many forms. Everything is composed of energy. It completely fills the universe and in an entirely literal sense is the universe. Science explores the facts of this light as a quantifable, measurable phenomenon. Its qualitative meaning is ultimately a religious, not a scientific question. Physical light from the Sun is also the immediate physical source of life, as it provides the source of energy for the ecosystem.

Yetzirah: Insight, clarity and enlightenment, also consciousness and awareness in general. Yetziratic light also manifests itself as the aura and subtle energies of the body, which at times can be seen as visual phenomenon of light and color. Yetzirah corresponds to aspects of the planetary realm, as opposed to the lower elemental realm. This is ruled by the Sun at the center of the solar system, which in Hermeticism traditionally represents the primary emanation of the Unity of God. The Chaldean Oracles of Zoroaster state:

CXX. The Father congregated the Seven Firmaments of the Cosmos, circumscribing the Heavens with convex form.

CXXI. He constituted a Septenary of wandering Existences (the Planetary globes).

CXXII. Suspending their disorder in Well-disposed Zones.

CXXIII. He made them six in number, and for the Seventh He cast into the midst thereof the Fiery Sun.

CXXIV. The Center from which all (lines) which way soever are equal.

CXXV. And that the Swift Sun does pass as ever around a Center.

CXXVI. Eagerly urging itself towards that Center of resounding Light.

Or in slightly different words from the collects of Crowley's Gnostic Catholic Mass:

"Lord visible and sensible of whom this earth is but a frozen spark turning about thee with annual and diurnal motion, source of light, source of life, let thy perpetual radiance hearten us to continual labour and enjoyment; so that as we are constant partakers of thy bounty we may in our particular orbit give out light and life, sustenance and joy to them that revolve about us without diminution of substance or effulgence for ever."

Note the identification of the magical self with the Sun in this passage. This is an important key to understanding solar mysticism in Thelema.

Briah: Being, Consciousness, Bliss and Enlightenment themselves in their universal aspects. 'The Sun behind the Sun'. God or the Holy Guardian Angel as the absolute Gnostic light of the True Will. Gnosis itself. This is the light symbolized by the LVX formula, which will be discussed more fully in Chapter 12.

Atziluth: The absolute Unity as such. This can be represented by the mysticism of light. However, in its inclusive unity Atziluth transcends any attempt at representation, and is therefore beyond the limitations of 'light' or any other metaphor or conditional form.

The phenomenon of experiences related to at least the first three of these four classes of light are relatively clear. What is more difficult to understand is how these different 'tiers of light' interact and relate to each other. Are they all one type of substance, or distinct but parallel phenomena that can affect each other, due to their interaction through the integral totality of Atziluth? Some of the correspondences are archetypal metaphors, but other classes of phenomena are much more literal. A more sophisticated model is lacking.

The experience of light, and particularly of color is never merely a physical phenomenon. Understanding frequencies, retinas, nerve impulses and so forth leaves out something essential. This something is the actual experience in consciousness of color and light. The classic work on color from this perspective is by Wolfgang von Goethe in his infuential book the Fahrbenlehre. For Goethe, Newton's theory of color, while not incorrect, is an incomplete description of the essence of the phenomenon of color and light, which is its conscious experience. Consciousness, for Goethe, is always in an integral relationship with its world, and light and color are fundamentally as much an archetypal phenomenon of consciousness experiencing the world as they are a physical, measurable phenomenon. Light and color are also physical phenomenon, but in our experience of them they are never only a physical phenomenon, nor is their archetypal nature built up out of the physically quantifable characteristics of light and color. They are not reducible to such. Goethe writes:

"From among the lesser ancillary organs of the animals, light has called forth one organ to become its like, and thus the eye is formed by the light and for the light so that the inner light may emerge to meet the outer light.

"Here we are reminded of the ancient Ionian school which always placed a strong emphasis on the principle that only things of like nature may recognize one another. We also recall the words of a mystic in antiquity, translated as follows:

Were the eye not of the sun,
How could we behold the light?
If God's might and ours were not as one,
How could His work enchant our sight?"

This book would be remiss without a necessary digression on the subject of the appropriation of solar mysticism by patriarchal ideologies. By this I mean to refer to mythological or religious systems where Gnostic light and solar symbolism are presented as predominantly or exclusively masculine in character. This tendency is very old. In the West the most obvious example is certain Gnostic schools of late antiquity, where the divine nous, Spirit or Gnostic light was seen as masculine while the material world, hyle or matter was feminine. The former male component was valued as good, the latter female aspect bad.

Nor is this theme merely western. The analogous hierarchy appears in the Indian traditions as well. In Patanjali, for example, the divine true Self or Purusha is male and the illusory, distracting principle of matter or Prakriti is female. The goal of practice for Patanjali and classical Indian yoga is to disengage Purusha from Prakriti. The idea is clear: get rid of the feminine and all will be well. There's more to classical yoga than that, of course, but there's also much use of this kind of formulation.

In Buddhism, a common and recurrent theme is that it is necessary to be male to obtain enlightenment. The best that a woman can do is to accumulate merit so as to be reborn as a man. This concept is frequently subverted in Buddhist texts, yet it often remains part of the normative exoteric discourse of Buddhist practice, particularly outside the West. In some texts women are said to be able to obtain enlightenment by generating a subtle or astral body that is male, thereby allowing them to use that body to achieve nirvana.

In some Hindu traditions the male god Shiva represents the true Self or Witness Consciousness and the feminine force of Shakti is his power or manifestation. This formula is a step forward in the sense that Shakti is a spiritual divine force, not merely the unconscious shadow of materiality that Prakriti is often presented as. Also, the two principles must be unified and conjoined, as represented by the sexual union of the two deities, for the mind of enlightenment to arise. Nevertheless, Shiva is still privileged as part of an implied hierarchy. The feminine is acknowledged as a spiritual force, but it is still subordinate to the masculine.

Often in these systems of hierarchical correspondences one gets the impression that a ranking has been made of good things and bad things — and then the feminine is associated with the bad things, whatever those happen to be. Internal inconsistencies in these traditional schemas are generally ignored.

Interestingly, in Buddhist Tantra there is an inversion of sorts of the Shiva/Shakti formula. In the Buddhist system prajna or mind of enlightenment is feminine, while the activity of that enlightened mind to act to enlighten others or manifest itself is upaya, which is symbolized as masculine. Nevertheless, typically male deities are represented in the dominant position, facing the viewer and holding the implements of enlightenment in pictures with their tantric consorts. These consorts are drawn physically smaller and facing away from the viewer. One will often see male bodhisattva figures shown by themselves and female bodhisattva figures shown by themselves, as well as consorts with the male dominant as described above. One will generally not see consorts with the female dominant. It should also be noted that there is no traditional iconography to my knowledge of same gender consorts, though that's a different (but related) issue, which is only brought up here in passing.

There are a number of inversions and subversions within these systems, almost as if the divine feminine principle (or rather ultimately the ONE principle manifesting itself as feminine) were breaking itself free of the matrix of patriarchal interpretation obscuring it. Perhaps the most striking is the Hindu myth of Mahadevi, literally "Great Goddess", as told in the Puranas. In this myth the demons (called "Asuras" in Sanskrit) are making war against the gods, led by a particularly powerful demon represented iconically as a giant Buffalo. None of the gods can defeat the demons, so they come to the chief trinity of Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma to ask them for help. They respond by going into meditation and springing out of the air above them comes Mahadevi, the true deity behind and superior to even the highest trinity of gods, appearing now as herself due to the seriousness of the situation. She goes into battle and cuts the chief demon and his army into little pieces.

There are other similar myths where roles which we are used to thinking of as masculine or feminine rotate and invert. There are few more predominant mythical themes in the west of the past two millennia than that of the dying and rising god. However, the earliest extant version of this myth is from Sumeria and involves not a god but a goddess — Ishtar who descends to the underworld, dies and is reborn.

One conclusion I draw from all of this is that the gender assignments of all of these fundamental spiritual principles are arbitrary, or rather context dependent, the principles themselves being transcendent in themselves of any absolute fixed gender association. As spiritual powers they are able, indeed necessarily must, manifest under contingent, particular guise — while never being limited by that guise.

One further implication is that these transcendental archetypes can and do also manifest themselves through particular formulae. One of the reasons the Gnostic light and principle of consciousness can be represented as masculine, and the world of that masculine principle as feminine is because these principles can be experienced as such. The formula works. That there are other possible formulae doesn't negate this. It is also not necessarily problematic to not personally experience these other possibilities. The problem is to conclude that one's own experiences from one's own perspective are the only valid ones. That is the fundamental error.

One's perspective, cultural as well as personal, will provide the stock of possibilities of symbolic forms for the manifestation of the Briatic archetypes. The formless spiritual essence of the archetypes descends from above, while the form of the presence of the spiritual is gathered from and ascends from below. Nor is this dualism ultimate, for it is the formless itself that ultimately gives rise to even these possibilities of form.

We must now ask the next question, which is whether or not Thelema, as a spiritual tradition infuenced by those that have come before it, includes some of this patriarchal overlay we have been discussing. The answer, unfortunately, is definitely yes. Therefore, it is important for us to be mindful in addressing this in our practice, and in our understanding of our practice. It is in our own enactment and understanding of the Thelemic tradition that patriarchal background issues will either be dealt with or become a problem. This is everyone's personal responsibility, and while critiquing Crowley's contribution is certainly an appropriate start to addressing the issue it is not in and of itself a resolution to the problem in our own practice. Even less effective is ignoring this problem in the futile belief that it will go away or that it does not really exist. Thelema is not a take it or leave it package deal system. In approaching any system, there should always be a critical engagement.

Therefore, keeping all that has been said in mind …

The most explicitly solar ritual in Thelema is Liber Resh vel Helios sub figura CC, or The Book of Resh or the Sun Under the Number 200. The Hebrew letter Resh is assigned to the tarot card the Sun, the Hebrew word Resh itself meaning Sun. The number 200 is the value of this letter, and so this is also the number of the book. Usually, Thelemites refer to this ritual simply as 'Resh' for convenience, and the following discussion will follow this convention. The ritual itself reads in full:

Liber Resh vel Helios sub figura CC

0. These are the adorations to be performed by aspirants to the A∴A∴

1. Let him greet the Sun at dawn, facing East, giving the sign of his grade. And let him say in a loud voice: Hail unto Thee who art Ra in Thy rising, even unto Thee who art Ra in Thy strength, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Uprising of the Sun. Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm. Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Night!

2. Also at Noon, let him greet the Sun, facing South, giving the sign of his grade. And let his say in a loud voice: Hail unto Thee who art Ahathoor in Thy triumphing, even unto Thee who art Ahathoor in Thy beauty, who travellest over the heavens in thy bark at the Mid-course of the Sun. Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm. Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Morning!

3. Also, at Sunset, let him greet the Sun, facing West, giving the sign of his grade. And let him say in a loud voice: Hail unto Thee who art Tum in Thy setting, even unto Thee who art Tum in Thy joy, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Down-going of the Sun. Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm. Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Day!

4. Lastly, at Midnight, let him greet the Sun, facing North, giving the sign of his grade, and let him say in a loud voice: Hail unto thee who art Khephra in Thy hiding, even unto Thee who art Khephra in Thy silence, who travellest over the heavens in Thy bark at the Midnight Hour of the Sun. Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm. Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Evening.

5. And after each of these invocations thou shalt give the sign of silence, and afterwards thou shalt perform the adoration that is taught thee by thy Superior. And then do thou compose Thyself to holy meditation.

6. Also it is better if in these adorations thou assume the God- form of Whom thou adorest, as if thou didst unite with Him in the adoration of That which is beyond Him.

7. Thus shalt thou ever be mindful of the Great Work which thou hast undertaken to perform, and thus shalt thou be strengthened to pursue it unto the attainment of the Stone of the Wise, the Summum Bonum, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness.

The Egyptian style of the ritual is immediately obvious. There is actually a real Egyptian precedent for this type of prayer. Located on the Giza plateau are the remains of a series of Sun Temples. Built during the 5th dynasty of the Old Kingdom, these square shaped complexes featured an open central courtyard within which was a 36-meter tall obelisk. Before this obelisk, which was an eidolon of the Sun and its light (with obvious phallic associations) was an altar for offerings. These seem to have been made in conjunction with the worship of the Sun under three aspects. At dawn the Sun was worshipped as Khephra, at noon as Ra, and at sunset as Atum. This is very similar to the form of Resh. Also, like this Egyptian practice Resh is intended to tap into the awareness of the Sun's spiritual essence and power as manifested both physically and Imaginally in its daily phases of appearance.

The other major infuence on the structure of the ritual is the Islamic daily prayer or Salat. This is obligatory for all Muslims as one of the five pillars of faith, and involves facing towards the Ka'aba at Mecca and engaging in various devotional prostrations and recitations of the Quran. Crowley had been taught how to perform this prayer in his travels and must have seen its powerful effects in unifying a community through a common ritual of divine aspiration and devotion. Resh is the Thelemic equivalent of Salat and is intended to make an individual increasingly mindful of their aspiration to the Great Work through a ritual 'break' in the pattern of daily activity to reaffirm their spiritual unity and alignment with the source of light and life in our world. Or, as Crowley puts it succinctly in the text of the ritual itself:

"Thus shalt thou ever be mindful of the Great Work which thou hast undertaken to perform, and thus shalt thou be strengthened to pursue it unto the attainment of the Stone of the Wise, the Summum Bonum, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness."

The ritual text begins by stating: "These are the adorations to be performed by aspirants to the A∴A∴." The A∴A∴ referred to here is by no means only the organized structure created by Crowley and George Cecil Jones in 1909. The key words are 'aspirants to the A∴A∴' which is intended to apply equally to those already initiated or linked to a formal A∴A∴ lineage, as well as those who are not. The A∴A∴ referred to here is none other than the '3rd Order' in and of itself — the state of being of realization of identity with the divine reality, i.e. enlightenment. Therefore, this is intended to be a ritual for all Thelemites to perform, if it be their will to do so, and not just formal A∴A∴ initiates.

The ritual is said to be an adoration. This means that it is intended to be as much an exercise in devotion and intuitive understanding as intellectual comprehension of the correspondences and symbols involved.

Four different directions are faced during the ritual, in a system that derives originally from Freemasonry. At dawn one should face East because this is where the Sun rises. In other words one should face and look at the Sun. The same basic rule applies for the other directions. West is faced at sunset because this is where the Sun sets. In the Northern Hemisphere noon and midnight are the times when the Sun is at, respectively, the most southern and northernmost points of its movement through the celestial sphere, so the ritual is directed accordingly. Additionally, the South is also the direction of the element of Fire and the direction of the source of the Nile River. North is also described in the Neophyte initiation of the Golden Dawn as "the place of the greatest symbolical darkness". The method of dividing space into four directions in Resh also carries with it the various connotations discussed in previous chapters.

The ritual calls for one to give the sign of one's grade. In its most direct interpretation this means to give the sign of one's A∴A∴ grade, if one has one. If one does not have one, or if one is performing the ritual publicly and one does not wish to disclose this private information there are several oral traditions of how to address this.

One tradition is to give the most general A∴A∴ signs of Horus and Harpocrates. One would make the sign of the enterer (or Horus) towards the Sun while hailing it, signifying one's exchange of spiritual, Imaginal, and physical energy with it. This sign is then naturally followed by the sign of silence as described in section five of the ritual text, signifying the acknowledgement of the sealing of the current of force.

There is a second tradition, which calls for the aspirant to give the sign of Set fighting. This sign gives a sense of hailing the Sun, as described in the vocalized portion of the text. Also it is the sign of the Malkuth grade of Neophyte in A∴A∴, the first 'full' grade in that Order, and therefore usable as a kind of general A∴A∴ sign.

There is a third tradition, which bases itself upon a notation by Crowley in his personal copy of the Equinox. This reads:

"Where the aspirant has no grade, let him give … the L.V.X. signs at dawn, 4°=7 at noon, 2°=9 at sunset, 3°=8 at midnight."

This alignment places the magician at the intersection of Samekh and Peh, a key point of equilibrium on the tree for the outer college of A∴A∴, and the same position used in the Pentagram rituals. These signs are described in the chapter on the Pentagram rituals except for the full LVX signs, which will be discussed in the chapter on the rituals of the Hexagram (Chapter 12). There is a tradition originating from Los Angeles that at dawn Resh one can alternatively give the full 'analysis of the keyword' or simply the sign of Osiris Slain. To make this sign the arms are held out straight to the sides and the feet are placed together, making the body into a cross shape. This sign is intended to be a stand-in for the whole sequence, as well as to be like a hawk with its wings outstretched thereby identifying oneself further with Ra as Ra-Horus or Ra-Hoor-Khuit.

In a letter to Hymenaeus Alpha 777 (Grady McMurtry), Crowley also indicated that OTO degree signs could be used at this point in Resh:

"Use at start signs of grades, 0°-III° OTO, and Sign of Enterer, followed by Sign of Silence, at the 'Hail'."

Obviously, these signs should not be used in public, one of the previous options being substituted in this circumstance.

There are four God-forms used in this ritual, Representing four aspects of the Sun in its journey. The four gods are Ra, Tum (or Atum), Ahathoor (or Hathor) and Khephra. Two of these deities are male, one is definitely female and Khephra is ambiguous with regard to its gender. Khephra is male in the original Egyptian material, but it should be noted that the actual scarab beetle that rolls its ball of dung within which to plant its eggs is female.

Ra is one of the most important, ancient and supreme gods of Egypt. He represents the Sun as well as the rulership of the divine reality over the entire Universe. So pervasive is this identification by the Egyptians of the Supreme Spirit with the Sun that the other deities of the Egyptian pantheon were often understood as being aspects of Ra. This was shown by combining their names with that of Ra. For example: Amoun-Ra. Ra was understood Imaginally as traveling over the heavens in a great barge or boat. Crowley calls it a 'bark' in Liber Resh. This is the boat called 'Millions of Years' i.e. Eternity. In it are the whole company of gods, of which Tahuti and Ra-Hoor (that is, Ra himself) are singled out for mention in the ritual. Every day this boat passes over the heavens during the day and then through the underworld at night, only to be reborn again at dawn. This is symbolic of the continual veiling and unveiling of the divine reality by itself through the process of the phenomenon of reality. Through the practice of Resh we bring ourselves to an awareness of this continual process. The most common representation of Ra in Egyptian art is as combined with Horus. This is Ra-Harakte, or Ra-Horus of the two horizons. In The Book of the Law this is the deity Ra-Hoor-Khuit.

At noon the solar reality is revealed in its aspect as Hathor, cow headed goddess of fertility and fecundity. In her harsh aspect Hathor becomes Sekhmet, the lion headed goddess representing the burning fire of the Sun's rays. Hathor means 'House of Horus', and she is seen as mother of the god-king the Pharaoh. Many statues exist of Hathor in her cow form with the Pharaoh suckling her for milk. Hathor, ultimately, is the Goddess as such, manifesting as the Sun in its highest elevation and power.

At sunset the Sun is addressed in its aspect as Atum, a creator god, shown iconically as a bearded man. Spontaneously emerging of his own creation from the primordial waters of chaos, Atum then generated the other gods and the world of men and women from his blood and/or semen by either cutting his phallus or masturbating. The 'joy' of Atum referred to in the ritual is probably a reference to this act of self-sacrifice whereby the Universe came into being. This act is a kind of death, for in creating particular existence the universal existence is occulted and hidden. Therefore this is a moment of the setting of the Sun of the source of light and life. There remains, however, the potential of the particular existence to recognize the source of its creation, to reawaken to the eternal presence of that which has always already been the case. It is this Golden Dawn of remembrance which is the goal of Magick. For there to be an unveiling there must first also be a veiling, however, and in this there is also therefore joy. This is acknowledged in the practice of Resh. The sun at midnight is Imaginally symbolized by the scarab beetle Khephra. This is the dung beetle, who rolls a ball of dung, often several times its own size across the ground and plants its eggs within it. From this ball then emerges a new beetle, seemingly spontaneously generated of its own power. This humble insect is shown in Egyptian art as carrying the Sun through the underworld at night, the seed of a new dawn. Likewise in our own night of ordeal and ignorance we carry hidden the seed of our own enlightenment to which we gather substance through our work upon ourselves and our practice. Eventually, from this egg of potential bursts a new awareness. The name Khephra comes from the Egyptian verb Khepher, which means 'to become'.

The proper means of magically interacting with these deities is described in point 6 of the ritual, which reads:

6. "Also it is better if in these adorations thou assume the God-form of Whom thou adorest, as if thou didst unite with Him in the adoration of That which is beyond Him."

This means to visualize oneself as the deity in question, and to identify one's own magical reality with the reality of that God. This makes explicit that the course of the Sun's path and its experiences are none other than one's own. Also, there is a reference here to the 'Sun behind the Sun' — i.e. "That which is beyond Him" (the Sun itself or God-form). This means an acknowledgement that 'behind' the physical Sun and the particular Yetziratic image used for the God-form and its myths lies the true universal reality of Briah and Atziluth, whose light is the goal of this ritual.

5. "And after each of these invocations thou shalt give the sign of silence, and afterwards thou shalt perform the adoration that is taught thee by thy Superior. And then do thou compose Thyself to holy meditation."

"Thy Superior" is intended to be one's A∴A∴ initiator, if one has one. Ultimately, however, one's true Superior is the Holy Guardian Angel. Therefore, if one does not have an A∴A∴ initiator, through either circumstance or choice, then this passage can be understood to mean that one should perform whatever additional adorations or actions seem appropriate based upon one's magical experience. There are several oral traditions that can guide one in this choice.

From the Soror Estai or Jane Wolfe lineage of A∴A∴ comes the instructions that Crowley gave to Jane Wolfe at Cefelu's Abbey of Thelema. These involve an implied interpretation of Liber AL III: 38, which can be read as identifying 'the adorations' text as the portions of Crowley's poetic paraphrase of the lines of on the Stele of Revealing which appear in The Book of the Law itself. The adorations are given in the attitude of the LVX sign of Osiris Risen while the following is said:

Unity uttermost showed!
I adore the might of Thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death
To tremble before Thee: -
I, I adore thee!

Appear on the throne of Ra!
Open the ways of the Khu!
Lighten the ways of the Ka!
The ways of the Khabs run through
To stir me or still me!
Aum! Let it fill me!

The Light is mine; its rays consume
Me: I have made a secret door
Into the House of Ra and Tum,
Of Khephra, and of Ahathoor.
I am thy Theban, o Mentu,
The prophet Ankh-f-n-Khonsu!

By Bes-na-Maut my breast I beat;
By wise Ta-Nech I weave my spell.
Show thy star-splendour, O Nuith!
Bid me within thine House to dwell,
O winged snake of light, Hadith!
Abide with me, Ra-Hoor-Khuit!

There is a variant of this, which comes out of the '70s Berkeley OTO. This involves reciting the entirety of Liber AL III: 37-38, inclusive of the non-versed text at the end of verse 37.

These adorations are free poetical paraphrases, written by Crowley in 1904, of the hieroglyphic passages upon the Stele of Revealing. Crowley was instructed to include these passages in The Book of the Law during its dictation through intuitive indication.

The Stele itself contains partial versions of several spells from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Crowley's poetical interpretation takes significant artistic license with the Stele text, and while it follows the general gist of the hieroglyphs it is perhaps best approached as its own text. The portion used most commonly in Resh begins:

Unity uttermost showed!
I adore the might of Thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death
To tremble before Thee: -
I, I adore thee!

This is a general acknowledgement of the Supreme reality of Atziluth. The spirit of its presence or 'breath' is said to be "Supreme and terrible" and to make death itself tremble before it, because the absolute Unity can never be destroyed or cease to be. Death is itself part of this Unity, a necessary phase in its unfolding of itself. This is the reality described in the Adoration to the Lord of the Universe in the rites of the Golden Dawn.

"Holy art Thou, Lord of the Universe!
Holy art Thou, whom nature hath not formed!
Holy art Thou, the vast and the mighty one!
Lord of the light and of the darkness!
Amen."

Appear on the throne of Ra!
Open the ways of the Khu!
Lighten the ways of the Ka!
The ways of the Khabs run through
To stir me or still me!
Aum! Let it fill me!

The second stanza is an invocation, inviting the Supreme reality to "appear on the throne of Ra"; for the Briatic spirit of the absolute to indwell and manifest itself through the Yetziratic God-forms as well as through the physical Sun and its light. This acts to empower the various sheaths of the subtle body, filling them with Gnostic light and energy.

The Light is mine; its rays consume
Me: I have made a secret door
Into the House of Ra and Tum,
Of Khephra, and of Ahathoor.
I am thy Theban, o Mentu,
The prophet Ankh-f-n-Khonsu!

This stanza takes the previous invocation further. One now identifies oneself with the spiritual light. It is "mine" and "consumes me". The light is not an outside object being experienced as separate, but is none other than one's real self. This Gnosis consumes and absorbs the limited self or ego, freeing it of its limitation of false perspective towards itself.

One's magical connection with the four phases of the Sun is affirmed. The practice of Resh itself can be seen as the making of these secret doors. They give access to the "house" of the gods involved — i.e. to the mode of illuminated consciousness they each embody.

The final two lines of the stanza require some explanation. Ankh-f-n-Khonsu is the Theban priest whose funerary monument is the Stele of Revealing itself. Mentu is a falcon headed god very similar to Horus. Crowley felt a strong magical identification with this priest, sometimes using his name as one of his magical mottos.

There is an oral tradition of post-Crowley origin of substituting one's own magical motto in the adorations in place of Ankh-f-n-Khonsu's name. This works very well and I recommend trying it. There are other changes which could be made. One could, for example, change the line to read: "I am thy initiate, O Mentu, the prophet [own motto]." It is also certainly fine to use Ankh-f-n-Khonsu's name in the adorations instead of one's own motto as he serves as a kind of stand-in for any aspirant. It is also customary for groups of Thelemites when saying Resh together to use the original form of this stanza, so that everyone is saying the same thing.

By Bes-na-Maut my breast I beat;
By wise Ta-Nech I weave my spell.
Show thy star-splendour, O Nuith!
Bid me within thine House to dwell,
O winged snake of light, Hadith!
Abide with me, Ra-Hoor-Khuit!

Bes-na-Maut and Ta-Nech are Egyptian proper names, and seem to refer in the Stele text to Ankh-f-n-Khonsu's parents. It is customary, in the aforementioned oral tradition, to substitute the names of one's spiritual preceptors and teachers in place of these names, as one's magical parents. This can be a very personal matter and it may be appropriate to use these names only in private performance of Resh. In public performance the original names of Bes-na-Maut and Ta-Nech would be used. But do what thou wilt.

The adorations end with a direct invocation of the Thelemic trinity of Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khuit.

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