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777 And Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley: Including Gematria & Sepher Sephiroth ReviewLet me start this review off with a disclaimer: I'm not a huge fan of Aleister Crowley. Crowley was a colossal egotist who brought disharmony and conflict everywhere that he went, who was despised by nearly everybody who knew him well, and whose reputation was only later rehabilitated by associates who were reaping a financial profit from Crowley's collected writings; Crowley was a drug addict, with all of the chaos and upheavals that this lifestyle brings into a person's life, and despite Crowley's pontification about the will he ultimately surrendered his own will to the dread god Opium; Crowley took serious and irrevocable oaths to several Occult orders, seldom staying long enough to be fully initiated into their higher mysteries, and repeatedly violating these solemn oaths by publishing whatever secrets happened to be entrusted to him; Crowley was a charlatan and a fraud, the kind of person who would fake a mountaineering expedition in Mexico in order to bilk his backers out of their sponorship money, as he was once caught red-handed doing by a Mexican newspaper... it just makes you doubt the veracity of Crowley's prophecies, particularly prophecies in which Crowley was to be the sole voice of authority, and especially considering that this status provided Crowley with a meager trickle of income for the remaining days of his miserable life. Crowley simply was not credible as a prophet or as a supposedly "enlightened" human being. This is not a man that I would emulate spiritually, certainly not somebody that I would turn to for advice or guidance, and probably not somebody that I would even want to know or be associated with. The bottom line is that you wouldn't take an estimate from this guy to fix your plumbing or paint your house, yet thousands of people around the world revere Crowley as some sort of demigod! It's sad, and it speaks to how desperate the West is for "spiritual truth," but in my opinion Crowley would have been entirely forgotten by now if he hadn't generated so much controversy and notoriety during his own lifetime.That said, I'll be the first to admit that '777' is clearly one of the best works of its kind, and rightly merits a place of honor on every occultist's bookshelf. '777' is really a compilation of three of Crowley's published works on Qabalism, and each deserves some discussion on its own merits:
The first chapter or book in '777' is an early essay on Gematria, the Qabalistic art or science of rendering words into numbers and deriving meaning from the result. To give Crowley his due, the man clearly knew his way around Hebrew and Greek Gematria, and this essay contains several examples of Crowley's best Qabalistic work, marred perhaps by Crowley's tendency to obfuscate his meaning when he wanted to sound mysterious. Unfortunately, this defect is characteristic of Crowley's writing, and '777' is replete with this intriguing mumbo-jumbo. There are also several editorial errors which have apparently passed through several successive editions of '777' without notice (one blatant example is the lengthy quotation from Mathers, which lists a first example and a third example, but oddly omits the second example from Mathers' original). Still, this essay on Gematria is one of only a handful of clear, concise introductions to the subject, and Crowley covers the topic with his usual wit and keen insight.
The next chapter in '777' is really the heart and soul of the entire volume. Originally published by itself as 'Liber 777,' this chapter contains page after page of Qabalistic associations and attributions. Although this sort of stuff filled the hand-scribbled grimoires of magicians and Qabalists in the Middle Ages, there haven't been many reliable works of this sort published anywhere in modern times, making 'Liber 777' a real gem. Most of the attributions given in 'Liber 777' probably came directly from Allan Bennett, Crowley's mentor in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, who was known to have compiled his own list of Qabalistic attributions before leaving England for health reasons. Dion Fortune, in "The Mystical Qabalah," confirmed that many of the attributions listed in 'Liber 777' had previously circulated among initiates of the Golden Dawn, and for this reason it can be assumed that much of this material was presented to Crowley when he joined the Order. Crowley clearly enlarged and expanded upon Bennett's work, but some of his attributions are suspect-- and as Fortune went on to point out in her book, many of Crowley's additions to this material are completely at odds with other attributions under the Golden Dawn system. It's almost as if Crowley, in an effort to expand on whatever material had been entrusted to him, compulsively meddled with that material without ever bothering to clearly identify or source any of his contributions. Still, Crowley's list of Qabalistic attributions is the only surviving version to have survived the Golden Dawn's demise, and occultists are indebted to him for preserving this material for posterity. For this reason 'LIBER 777' is an invaluable resource, and one that no occultist should be without!
The final chapter of '777,' SEPHER SEPHIROTH, is a Qabalistic encyclopedia started by Allan Bennett and expanded by Crowley and others throughtout the course of Crowley's life. Crowley's high esteem for Bennett is obvious in that he gave him full credit for authoring the document, instead of following his usual modus operani and claiming sole authorship for himself! Unlike most encylopedias, which list entries in alphabetical order, SEPHER SEPHIROTH arranges its entries in numerological order-- making this book a really handy reference for anybody interested in Gematria. It's a simple matter to render the Gematria value of any Hebrew or Greek word, and then consult SEPHER SEPHIROTH for other words and phrases with the same value. A word of caution, though-- because it was a group project spanning many years, SEPHER SEPHIROTH lacks any sense of focus or editorial consistency. Different dialects of Hebrew are mixed haphazardly throughout the work, the spelling is inconsistent, and several entries appear to be contradictory upon closer examination. (Indeed, Crowley's editors even apologize for their inability to define some entries, stating that the origin and exact meanings of some 'words' had been lost due to carelessness on Crowley's part!). SEPHER SEPHIROTH is a great reference, and a definite time-saver, but I wouldn't rely upon its authority too heavily! I refer to this part of '777' fairly often, but I always cross-reference Crowley's work with STRONG'S CONCORDANCE or another reliable reference before taking it to heart.
I know that, in some occult circles, it's almost an act of heresy to criticize Aleister Crowley. I think that Crowley, ever the iconoclastic rabble-rouser, would have been amused with the sort of hallowed iconic reverence that some people hold him in today. In any case, Crowley reached a sort of zenith with '777,' a lovely reference work that makes a useful addition to any occult library. Taken for what it is, '777' is sort of like having a set of Cliff notes on Qabalistic attributions-- useful, perhaps, for gaining a surface understanding of the subject matter, and valuable as a quick reference, but hardly authoritative on its own. I refer to my own copy several times a week, and I'd strongly recommend '777' to any practicing Qabalist.777 And Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley: Including Gematria & Sepher Sephiroth Overview
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