777 REVISED 777 first published London and Felling-on-Tyne, The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd., 1909. Reprinted with much additional matter, London: The Neptune Press, 1955 This electronic text issued by Celephaïs Press from somewhere beyond the Tanarian Hills, and manifested in the waking world in Leeds, Yorkshire, England 2003 E.V. Last revised and corrected 05.08.2004 (c) Ordo Templi Orientis JAF Box 7666 New York NY 10116 U.S.A. 777 REVISED VEL PROLEGOMENA SYMBOLICA AD SYSTEMAM SCEPTICO-MYSTICÆ VIÆ EXPLICANDÆ, FVNDAMENTVM HIEROGLYPHICVM SANCTISSI- MORVM SCIENTIÆ SVMMÆ \yyj \yhla jwr tja A REPRINT OF 777 WITH MUCH ADDITIONAL MATTER BY THE LATE ALEISTER CROWLEY Celephaïs Press Ulthar - Sarkomand - Inquanok – Leeds 2004 LIBER DCCLXXVII. A COMPLETE DICTIONARY OF THE CORRESPONDENCES OF ALL MAGICAL ELEMENTS, re- printed with extensive additions, making it the only standard comprehensive book of reference ever published. It is to the language of Occultism what Webster or Murray is to the English language. “Præmonstrance of A∴A∴,” Equinox III (1). CONTENTS * EDITORIAL PREFACE (to 777 Revised) . vi INTRODUCTION (from the first edition) . xi THE TREE OF LIFE . xviii TABLES OF CORRESPONDENCE . 1 TABLE I: The whole scale . 2 TABLE II: The Elements . 18 TABLE III: The Planets . 20 TABLE IV: The Sephiroth . 21 TABLE V: The Zodiac . 26 TABLE VI: The Paths . 33 * VARIOUS ARRANGEMENTS . 36 NOTES TO TABLES OF CORRESPONDENCE . 42 APPENDIX: THE YI KING . 49 * EXPLANATIONS OF THE ATTRIBUTIONS. 59 * THE NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MAGICAL ALPHABET 124 * BRIEF MEANINGS OF THE PRIMES. 132 * WHAT IS QABALAH? . 133 * WHAT IS A “NUMBER” OR “SYMBOL”? . 134 EDITORIAL PREFACE* 777 is a qabalistic dictionary of ceremonial magic, oriental mysticism, comparative religion, and symbology. It is also a handbook for ceremonial invocation and for checking the validity of dreams and visions. It is indispendisble to those who wish to correlate these apparently diverse studies. It was published privately by Aleister Crowley in 1909, has long been out of print and is now practically unprocurable. Crowley, who had a phenomenal memory, wrote it at Bournemouth in a week without reference books—or so he claimed in an unpublished section of his “Confessions.”† It is not, however, entirely original. Ninety per cent of the Hebrew, the four colour scales, and the order and attribution of the Tarot trumps are as taught in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn with its inner circle of the Rose of Ruby and the Cross of Gold (R.R. et A.C.) This Order is still in existence, though it has changed its name and is dormant, for it no longer accepts probationers.‡ It was the * [This preface appeared in the 1955 first edition of 777 Revised and is believed to be by Gerald Yorke (Frater V.I.) who edited the revised edition. — T.S.] † [Published in a slightly abridged form as The Confessions of Aleister Crowley edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant, London, Jonathan Cape, 1969; reprinted Harmandsworth, Penguin Arkana, 1989. The passage in question appears at the end of chapter 59 of this edition (p. 533). — T.S.] ‡ [Yorke may have been alluding to the Alpha et Omega, which was the name adopted by that part of the G.D. which remained loyal to Mathers shortly after the split. It went into dormancy after the G.D. rituals and Knowledge Lectures were published in 1937-40 by F.I. Regardie, an expelled former member of the Stella Matutina (the other main group to emerge from the split). At the time of writing a number of groups claiming to be or claiming derivation from the Golden Dawn are in existence, some recruiting more or less openly (one has vi EDITORIAL PREFACE vii fountain head from which Crowley and W.B. Yeats drank in their twenties. In this school they learned the traditional Western symbolism which coloured so much of their poetry and their thought. In it they were taught ceremonial magic, how to skry, and the technique for exploring the subtler realms of the mind on the so-called “astral plane.” Crowley, however, was not content with the traditional qabalistic teaching of this Western Heremetic Order with its stress on magic and demonology. He travelled eastwards, becoming a fair Arabic scholar and studying the Mahommedan secret tradition under a qualified teacher in Cairo. Going on to India he learned the elements of Shaivite Yoga at the feet of Sri Parananda, who was Solicitor-General of Ceylon before he became a sadhu. In Southern India he studied Vedanta and Raja Yoga with “the Mahatma Jnana Guru Yogi Sabhapaty Swami.” He was thus qualified to equate the Hindu and Qabalistic systems. Allan Bennett, his friend and teacher in the Golden Dawn, had become the Burmese Buddhist bhikkhu Ananda Metteya. Crowley studied under him both in Ceylon and Burmah, and so was able to add the Hinayana* Buddhist columns to 777. Although he walked eastwards into China he never found a qualified teacher of Taoism or the Yi King. His attributions of the trigrams to the Tree of Life and his explanation of the hexagrams in Appendix I to 777 were based on Legge’s translation. Crowley was 32 when he wrote 777. Later as his knowledge and experience widened he became increasingly dissatisfied with it. He planned an enlarged edition which would correct a few errors, incorporate much new material, and bring the whole into line with The Book of the Law. He worked on this in the nineteen even gone to the lengths of trademarking the name and emblems of the order). I will not here comment on such claims. — T.S.] * [More normally known as Therevada. Hinayana (“lesser path”) is an abusive epiphet used by followers of the “Mahayana” school for those who do not accept their elaborations and admixtures. — T.S.] viii 777 REVISED twenties, but never completed it. What he did finish is published here—most of it for the first time. The task of editing has been restricted for the most part to the omission of incomplete notes. The new material, which is marked with an asterisk in the Table of Contents, consists of an essay on the magical alphabet, a short note on Qabalah and a new theory on number. Then the more important columns in Table I are explained. These explanations include a few corrections and a number of important additions to the original Table. Those who wish to work with these Tables should extract the additions from the text, and add them to the appropriate lines of the column concerned.* Finally some new columns and “arrangements” have been included, partly from The Book of Thoth, and partly from holograph notes in Crowley's own 777. The editor has assumed that Crowley intended to incorporate these in the new edition. For the few interested in Gematria the numerical values of the Greek and Arabic alphabets have been added.† Crowley never completed 777 Revised, but he left enough material to justify its posthumous publication. N∴ * [This has already been done in the re-set version of the Tables which follow. These additions are distinguished by being in double square brackets [[like this]]. Further, the additional columns from 777 Revised have been integrated into the main table. See my notes at the end for a more detailed discussion of this treatment. — T.S.] † [In the re-set Tables following, numeration of Coptic has also been added.] LIBER 777 VEL P ROLEGOMENA S YMBOLICA AD S YSTEMAM SCEPTICO-MYSTICÆ VIÆ EXPLICANDÆ F UNDAMENTUM HIEROGLYPHICUM SANCTISSIMORUM SCIENTÆ SUMMÆ A∴A∴ publication in Class B IMPRIMATUR V.V.V.V.V. 8°=38 Pro Collegio Summo. D.D.S. 7°=48 Pro Collegio Interno. O.M. 7°=48 } V.N. 5°=68 P.A. 5°=68 Pro Collegio Externo. P. 4°=78 } 777 THE FOLLOWING is an attempt to systematise alike the data of mysticism and the results of comparative religion. The sceptic will applaud our labours, for that the very catholicity of the symbols denies them any objective validity, since, in so many contradictions, something must be false; while the mystic will rejoice equally that the self-same catholicity all- embracing proves that very validity, since after all something must be true. Fortunately we have learnt to combine these ideas, not in the mutual toleration of sub-contraries, but in the affirmation of contraries, that transcending of the laws of intellect which is madness in the ordinary man, genius in the Overman who hath arrived to strike off more fetters from our understanding. The savage who cannot conceive of the number six, the orthodox mathematician who cannot conceive of the fourth dimension, the philosopher who cannot conceive of the Absolute—all these are one; all must be impregnated with the Divine Essence of the Phallic Yod of Macroprosopus, and give birth to their idea. True (we may agree with Balzac), the Absolute recedes; we never grasp it; but in the travelling there is joy. Am I no better than a staphylococcus because my ideas still crowd in chains? But we digress. The last attempts to tabulate knowledge are the Kabbala Denudata of Knorr von Rosenroth (a work incomplete and, in some of its parts, prostituted to the service of dogmatic inter- pretation), the lost symbolism of the Vault in which Christian xi xii 777 REVISED Rosenkreutz is said to have been buried, some of the work of Dr. Dee and Sir Edward Kelly, some very imperfect tables in Cornelius Agrippa, the “Art” of Raymond Lully, some of the very artificial effusions of the esoteric Theosophists, and of late years the knowledge of the Order Rosæ Rubeæ et Aureæ Crucis and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.