The Book of the Law: Liber Al Vel Legis


  • ISBN13: 9781578633081
  • Condition: NEW
  • Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” This oft-misunderstood phrase, which forms the basis for Crowley’s practice of Magick, is found in The Book of the Law. Dictated to Crowley in Cairo between noon and 1 pm on three success days in April 1904, the Book of the Law is the source book and key for Crowley students and for the occult in general…. More >>

The Book of the Law: Liber Al Vel Legis

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  1. #1 by happikau on March 25, 2010 - 7:02 am

    Oh please, this guy is the biggest moron in the world. He is clearly some pathetic little satanist desperately trying to be big and important. If he were here, i would slap his face. Do yourself a favor and read it online before you buy it. This guy is the biggest looser that has ever lived. Oh yes, and if you are christian (i myself am Catholic) your just going to be offended by some of the statments that he makes. But do by all means do the “search inside this book” so that you can see what a stupid weasle this guy is.
    Rating: 1 / 5

  2. #2 by Daniel Connelly Jr. on March 25, 2010 - 7:53 am

    The book told me if I talked about it something bad will happen to me. Oh! No! I just talked about it!
    Rating: 3 / 5

  3. #3 by Joshua Seraphim on March 25, 2010 - 9:46 am

    The Thelemic paradigm is a literary tradition and bohemian will-based philosophies that Mr. Crowley merely popularized. Much of the will-centred philosophies & ideas leaking from Liber AL are by no means new or Crowley’s own invention. Liber AL vel Legis contains no new religious or spiritual revelations to guide the human species out of it’s “dark night of the soul.” The formulas contained therein are of a Gnostic flavour, Crowley & the Thelemic cult is best digested by studying his works as if studying results from lab rats.
    Rating: 1 / 5

  4. #4 by GangstaLawya on March 25, 2010 - 10:23 am

    The heart of Crowley’s thinking boils down to “Do what you will.” This is coterminous with “we are god” and “the truth is in you” and “trust in your heart.” Crowley was a bit of a megalomaniac and indulged in flights of ecstasy about being the originator of this phrase, even claiming to be a better poet than Yeats. Or is it Aiwas that is a better poet than Yeats? After all, Crowley claims that this book was dictated by an angel named Aiwas. In either case, Crowley and Aiwas must be lying since Rabelais is the author of the phrase “Do what you will.” “Do what you will” or “fay çe que vouldras” was the rule of the fictional Abbey of Thélème in the classic satire Gargantua by Rabelais. The many different origins of this book given by Crowley reminds me of the occultist Joseph Smith, who also made different accounts of the origin of the book of mormon. The writing is quite ridiculous. And its obsession over English 101 phrases mixed with nonsense gives credence to Crowley’s caveat which can be rephrased a la Forrest Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does.” Tell Nuit to put some clothes on: no wonder Crowley couldn’t dictate any clear phrases. Alternatively, tell Aiwas to get some lessons on basic sentence structure and grammar. “Love” is supposed to underlie “do what you will,” yet all religious, especially Christians, are condemned in this book. Hmmm, that sounds like Joseph Smith too when he was told “all of their creeds were an abomination in His sight, that those professors were all corrupt” (PEARL OF GREAT PRICE, JS2:17-19). It seems trashing all that went before and making up your own stuff and claiming spirit guides as the source was the trend of 19th century cultists. If “love” is so important, this book contradicts itself. And Crowley contradicts himself since his hatred of ethnics and Christians belies “love.” Quite inconsistent. And why he hates juwes, I have no idea, since the source of all his occultism is the cabala. Compare the biblical inspiration. The Bible is inspired by men over several thousand years that are in complete agreement. The heart of the ten commandments, which “do what thou wilt” is an impoverished rival, is love God with your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. For, if we loved God perfectly, and loved our neighbor perfectly, we wouldn’t lie, cheat, steal, murder, and so on. Jesus reaffirmed this to the juwes who held instead to the Babylonian code of Hammurabi “an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.” Matthew 5:38-42. And the Apostle Paul reaffirmed this when he said that if we have no love, our faith and hope is nothing. 1 Corinthians 13. This is what St. Augustine meant when he said, “love and do as you please.” (Sermon on the Epistle of St.. John, 7:8) However, due to sin, which is lawlessness, which is violating the commandments, which is violation of the love of God and love of man and “desiring to be like gods,” mankind cannot “love and do as he pleases.” We don’t exercise such love and so fall short of the commandments and thus are condemned by the commandments. Instead, we need redemption from Jesus Christ who will transform our hearts to be more and more like him, delivering us from the penalty of sin, which is eternal damnation, delivering us from the affects of sin, as we grow in holiness, and delivering us from the presence of sin, at the final resurrection of the dead. Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins on the cross. That’s why it is called “substitutionary” atonment. The wonderful consistency of the Old to New Testaments was becuase it was a story told twice: the sacrifices and lambs blood and symbols and so on in the Old Testament were a shadow or type of things to come; namely, Christ’s death on the cross. Believe on Jesus Christ and confess to Him your sins, and don’t listen to Crowley. Trust me, where he is now, he probably wishes he could recant.

    Rating: 1 / 5

  5. #5 by Kevin Bold on March 25, 2010 - 12:34 pm

    I’ve yet to encounter a “channelled” work — and had Crowley “received” this book in the 1980’s, that’s what it would have been called — whose author’s “spirit guide” didn’t resemble a child’s imaginary playmate.

    Aleister Crowley had a very troubled childhood. His parents’ super-strict Christian fundamentalism was at the root of it (they were members of the Plymouth Brethen, which also produced John George Haigh, the UK’s notorious “Acid Bath Killer”). It was so bad that becoming a Catholic or an atheist wouldn’t be enough to get even with them — only the occult would do (a tacit admission on Crowley’s part that he was nothing but a “loser”). And so, when he inherited the family fortune, Crowley spent it on a world-wide search for “knowledge” that would empower him. This included “knowledge and conversation” with one’s “Holy Guardian Angel” (that one has this “angel” is a Catholic doctrine, but Crowley’s Golden Dawn buddies thought one could get to know one’s angel).

    Some critics have compared the style of _Liber AL vel Legis_ to that of Algernon Charles (“A.C.”) Swinburne, who just happened to be Crowley’s favorite poet. Much of it is unintelligible unless, like Crowley, one is familiar with the so-called “Hermetic” Qabalah, which bears about as much resemblence to the original Jewish Qabalah as a pack of index cards bears to a healthy set of lungs. The hard-core “Thelemite” often is chagrined to discover that the word _thelema_ (Greek for “will”) appears in the Greek New Testament roughly seventy times, including such verses as “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. . .” and “Not my will, but Thine. . .” (indeed, Crowley’s motto, “Do What Thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” is just a tweaked paraphrase of “Thy will be done”). Crowley also got the notion that he was “The Beast” not from Aiwass (_Liber AL_’s alleged transmitter), but from his own mother.

    I can understand why Crowley would have wanted to get even with his parents, and why he’d reject their extra-nutty Protestantism, but if he’d been “smart” instead of “intelligent,” he would have simply become a Catholic instead of pretending this mishmosh of a book was “the message of the New Aeon.”

    (It’s also no wonder that Thelemites can’t agree on whether or not Thelema is a philosophy or a religion, or that Thelema has great appeal to sociopaths, but that’s another story.)

    Rating: 1 / 5