Aiwass Intro Part 1: Truth

When I first read the Book of the Law, it struck me as the most truthful text I had ever seen. I understood very little of its symbolism at the time, yet it spoke to a deeply internal level of my consciousness that I was exploring with LSD.

Drowning in a sea of despair after I had been beaten, lied to, and betrayed by those whose job it was to enculturate me, the Book of the Law was the lifebuoy that gave me hope.

Fifty-four years later, it is my dearest wish that the Book of the Law, its comment, the Book of Codes, and its sequel, the Book of Oz, persist into the future.

My moto is Veritas, a Latin word signifying Truth.

At first glance the difference between truth and falsehood seems to be fairly straightforward. Two plus two equals four is true and two plus two equals seventeen is false. If we limit the context to arithmetic, we can be confident in the distinction between truth and falsehood.

However, in the real-world the difference between truth and falsehood is not nearly as clear cut.

For example, scientific truth is based on experiment and observation. Truth is proportional to repeatability. The scientific method is an intellectual effort to reduce bias in the description of reality.

Religious truth can be absolute because it is based on doctrine, and faith in belief. Its context is myth, fable, and dictum. Religion is an intellectual effort to choose which biases and prejudices conform most closely to the current interpretation of founding texts.

Aiwass plays a neat trick on the reader. His Thelelmic Vedas appear differently to each person who reads them, and differently to each adept as they traverse the initiation-ordeal cycles of their individual Journeys Inwards. It can have no doctrine because there can be no single agreed-upon experience of the world or of the text. Everyone experiences their own reality, thus their own Liber 440.

The second chapter of the Book of the Law is voiced from the star-god Hadit who says, “I am the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star.”

Like any god, Hadit is a symbol in the form of a person. The secret god Hadit symbolises a point of view which is achieved by the practitioner who completes the Ordeal X. A winner of the Ordeal X is a Zelator in Aleister Crowley’s A∴A∴ initiatory system.

In verses 27 to 33, Hadit disparages ‘why’ and ‘because’, culminating with the statement: “Also reason is a lie; for there is a factor infinite & unknown; & all their words are skew-wise.”

Why comes from an Old English word meaning “by what cause.” Because comes from the Middle English phrase, “by cause.” Reason parses cause and effect.

How can a human being thrive in society without knowing the effects of their actions? Reasoning is a normal part of everyday life around the world, but Hadit’s perspective is not that of everyday life.

Aiwass comments on Hadit’s harsh dictum in the second chapter of Liber 77, the Book of Oz,

77,2:7. Book of Oz,
chapter 2: verse 7
This is the test of true writing, that it be truth that reason may interpret. Yet reason ruleth not, and the Law of the opposites — called by moralists the Law of Karma — does not have Power. Reason hath no reason to exist.

Reason obscures the truth of experience.

There is a difference between truth and meaning. Meaning is a product of reason, while truth is a product of experience and cognition.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt, commenting on Immanuel Kant’s metaphysics, wrote,

To…put it in a nutshell: The need of reason is not inspired by the quest for truth but by the quest for meaning. And truth and meaning are not the same. The basic fallacy, taking precedence over all specific metaphysical fallacies, is to interpret meaning on the model of truth.
– Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind (1975): Introduction

Truth is in the experience, not in the meaning.

My Thelema is technology, not religion. It does not matter what you believe. It matters what you do.

Consciousness is a product of metabolism, but consciousness can be altered by what we perceive and how we think about it. There is no supernatural in reality, but nature is very deep.

I think the unconscious mind, what Carl Jung called the “collective unconscious,” is a sense organ. Seen from one angle, it collates intuited information. Seen from another angle, it connects with the very being of nature and reality.

I do not believe in any form of the supernatural, but my waking awareness has been influenced by a deeply internal and ineffable level of my consciousness that Aleister Crowley labelled “Holy Guardian Angel” and Aldous Huxley labelled “Eternal Self,” for going on 58 years now. Indeed the A∴A∴ system of initiation, found in Liber 440 and espoused by Aleister Crowley, is concerned with connecting waking awareness to this “Angel” via the subconscious (Order of the Golden Dawn) and unconscious (Order of the Rosy Cross).

The challenge is to distinguish signal from noise. Exploration and recognition of the subconscious — Jung’s “personal unconscious” — and the unconscious mind is the essence of the path of Thelemic initiation. One must take up ARMS — Asana, Ritual, Magick, and Science — to assert order within the apparent chaos perceived by the uninitiated.

And there is an even deeper realm to be explored, a realm of being, beyond what thought can access. This realm is experienced by adepts of the Order of the Silver Star, Astrum Argenteum, the A∴A∴.

I accessed the Supernal Triad many times on LSD. I was always thrown out again, but at least I knew where it was. Only after years of focused practice could I access it at will. I inherited the potential for consciousness from the previous incarnation of my Eternal Self, though only the ordeals could make it kinetic in my experience.

Liber 440 is a magic mirror. It reflects the level of adeptship achieved by the reader. Its language, metaphors, and puzzles inflame the ego. At the time of this writing, very few have pierced Liber 440’s ego abrading shell, while mockers put on a show of Thelemic belief in an effort to collect money and social status for their godly godlessness. Some think the Aeon of Horus is over, when in reality it has barely begun.

Thelemites are not followers!

What I write is only true from my perspective. It is not true for you unless it echoes your own experience. Even if there were well established truly Thelemic institutions existing in the world, you would still have to explore the depths of your own consciousness for yourself.

Many are gathered around the grand portico of the Palace of Four Gates evinced by Aleister Crowley’s florid writing. Trying to peek inside. Sure of their innate worthiness to gain admittance. However, the only access is via the servant’s entrance, the door marked X.

Introduction to Aiwass.com

Part 1: Truth