The Bornless Ritual & The Holy Guardian Angel

[nipha333]

At least one use of this word cognates to water with an unknown source. Another refers to castration. Another refers to one who rejects authority.

Can you give me a source on the meaning of one who rejects authority? Im not much of a linguist, but i would like to follow up on that as it might be interesting in the Set context.

[raum215]

It is in every Greek dictionary I own, the Septuagint, and historical texts and myths.

http://www.definitions.net/definition/cephalus

Cephalus is a name, used both for the hero-figure in Greek mythology and carried as a theophoric name by historical persons. The word kephalos is Greek for "head", perhaps used here because Cephalus was the founding "head" of a great family that includes Odysseus. It could be that Cephalus means the head of the sun who kills Procris with his unerring ray or 'javelin'. Cephalus was one of the lovers of the dawn goddess Eos. Sumptuous sacrifices for Cephalus and for Procris are required in the inscribed sacred calendar of Thorikos in southern Attica, dating perhaps to the 430s BCE and published from the stone in 1983.

Kephalos means "Head" (Proper Noun, Epithet)
Kephalon means "Head" (singular adjective verb form)

This is accepted use and is mirrored in other Ancient, Classic, and Koigne Greek instances.

A- as a Greek prefix, means "Not, Against, Opposing, Contrary to."


A-Kephelon is, in addition to other meanings, can mean one opposes the head. In this case, it means essentially "rebellious."

[nipha333]

It is in every Greek dictionary I own, the Septuagint, and historical texts and myths.

http://www.definitions.net/definition/cephalus

Cephalus is a name, used both for the hero-figure in Greek mythology and carried as a theophoric name by historical persons. The word kephalos is Greek for "head", perhaps used here because Cephalus was the founding "head" of a great family that includes Odysseus. It could be that Cephalus means the head of the sun who kills Procris with his unerring ray or 'javelin'. Cephalus was one of the lovers of the dawn goddess Eos. Sumptuous sacrifices for Cephalus and for Procris are required in the inscribed sacred calendar of Thorikos in southern Attica, dating perhaps to the 430s BCE and published from the stone in 1983.

Kephalos means "Head" (Proper Noun, Epithet)
Kephalon means "Head" (singular adjective verb form)

This is accepted use and is mirrored in other Ancient, Classic, and Koigne Greek instances.

A- as a Greek prefix, means "Not, Against, Opposing, Contrary to."


A-Kephelon is, in addition to other meanings, can mean one opposes the head. In this case, it means essentially "rebellious."

Interesting, thank you. I have heard the other definitions a million times, never that one though. Seems the preferable one to me.

[Magister C]

Crowley may have been unsure of who or what his HGA was at first, his uncertainty did change though. His views on the HGA as well as the external nature of spirits, is observed in many pages of his last work 'Magick without Tears'. I'm pretty sure Pedurabo was more than conversant with this whole deal regarding the Satan/Lucifer/Hadit.

The below quotes show he had no illusions as to the nature of his work. Having said that, I am sure Crowley would be rather unimpressed with Thelemites these days.

“THE BEAST 666 has preferred to let names stand as they are, and to proclaim simply that AIWAZ — the solar-phallic-hermetic “Lucifer” is His own Holy Guardian Angel, and “The Devil” SATAN or HADIT of our particular unit of the Starry Universe. This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade “Know Thyself!” and taught Initiation. He is “the Devil” of the Book of Thoth, and His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection. The number of His Atu is XV, which is Yod He, the Monogram of the Eternal, the Father one with the Mother, the Virgin Seed one with all-containing Space. He is therefore Life, and Love. But moreover his letter is Ayin, the Eye; he is Light, and his Zodiacal image is Capricornus, that leaping goat whose attribute is Liberty."

"This “Devil” is called Satan or Shaitan, and regarded with horror by people who are ignorant of his formula, and, imagining themselves to be evil, accuse Nature herself of their own phantasmal crime. Satan is Saturn, Set, Abrasax, Adad, Adonis, Attis, Adam, Adonai, etc. The most serious charge against him is that he is the Sun in the South."


The last quote below from the Vision and the Voice is one of my favorites, as it reveals the antinomean nature of Crowley's Thelemic ethos, sadly its something rarely seen in Thelemites these days, indeed, the ones I know do nothing much at all.

I cling unto the burning Aethyr like Lucifer that fell through the Abyss, and by the fury of his flight kindled the air. And I am Belial, for having seen the Rose upon thy breast, I have denied God. And I am Satan! I am Satan! I am cast out upon a burning crag! And the sea boils about the desolation thereof. And already the vultures gather, and feast upon my flesh. Yea! Before thee all the most holy is profane, O thou desolator of shrines! O thou falsifier of the oracles of truth! Ever as I went, hath it been thus. The truth of the profane was the falsehood of the Neophyte, and the truth of the Neophyte was the falsehood of the Zelator! Again and again the the fortress must be battered down! pylon must be over thrown! Again and again must the gods be desecrated!

[nipha333]

Crowley may have been unsure of who or what his HGA was at first, his uncertainty did change though. His views on the HGA as well as the external nature of spirits, is observed in many pages of his last work 'Magick without Tears'. I'm pretty sure Pedurabo was more than conversant with this whole deal regarding the Satan/Lucifer/Hadit.

The below quotes show he had no illusions as to the nature of his work. Having said that, I am sure Crowley would be rather unimpressed with Thelemites these days.

“THE BEAST 666 has preferred to let names stand as they are, and to proclaim simply that AIWAZ — the solar-phallic-hermetic “Lucifer” is His own Holy Guardian Angel, and “The Devil” SATAN or HADIT of our particular unit of the Starry Universe. This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade “Know Thyself!” and taught Initiation. He is “the Devil” of the Book of Thoth, and His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection. The number of His Atu is XV, which is Yod He, the Monogram of the Eternal, the Father one with the Mother, the Virgin Seed one with all-containing Space. He is therefore Life, and Love. But moreover his letter is Ayin, the Eye; he is Light, and his Zodiacal image is Capricornus, that leaping goat whose attribute is Liberty."

"This “Devil” is called Satan or Shaitan, and regarded with horror by people who are ignorant of his formula, and, imagining themselves to be evil, accuse Nature herself of their own phantasmal crime. Satan is Saturn, Set, Abrasax, Adad, Adonis, Attis, Adam, Adonai, etc. The most serious charge against him is that he is the Sun in the South."


The last quote below from the Vision and the Voice is one of my favorites, as it reveals the antinomean nature of Crowley's Thelemic ethos, sadly its something rarely seen in Thelemites these days, indeed, the ones I know do nothing much at all.

I cling unto the burning Aethyr like Lucifer that fell through the Abyss, and by the fury of his flight kindled the air. And I am Belial, for having seen the Rose upon thy breast, I have denied God. And I am Satan! I am Satan! I am cast out upon a burning crag! And the sea boils about the desolation thereof. And already the vultures gather, and feast upon my flesh. Yea! Before thee all the most holy is profane, O thou desolator of shrines! O thou falsifier of the oracles of truth! Ever as I went, hath it been thus. The truth of the profane was the falsehood of the Neophyte, and the truth of the Neophyte was the falsehood of the Zelator! Again and again the the fortress must be battered down! pylon must be over thrown! Again and again must the gods be desecrated!

I tentatively agree with your point, that he may have come to some sketchy understanding of the nature of the philosophy and threw the word set in there with fifty other deities he barely understood, he also does a lot of floundering back and forth and trying to mimic Mathers with backwards ideas on left hand path and right hand path and silly crap about "brothers of the black lodge" etc.
But none of what you quoted is very concrete or clear. Lucifer does not = Set. Like I said above, crowley took fairly simple egyptian ideas and muddied them in the dirt pile that is smashing everything into kabbalah and superficial correspondences.
I totally agree though that most self styled thelemites are ten times more confused than crowley ever was. Half the crowd is summoning shit from H.P. Lovecraft novels and the other half just wants to play priest and the great game crowley invented i call "connect four" or "jam useless data into tables 'cause numbers"
At the end of the day though I am glad he made some slight scrapes at the reality behind the confusion such as the commentary on Reguli as well as the quote you mentioned, its what ultimately sparked the fire in my head that burned down all the meaningless structures he threw into the mix. It gave me the seed of doubt that helped me move past his body of work to a clearer understanding.

[nipha333]

Crowley may have been unsure of who or what his HGA was at first, his uncertainty did change though. His views on the HGA as well as the external nature of spirits, is observed in many pages of his last work 'Magick without Tears'. I'm pretty sure Pedurabo was more than conversant with this whole deal regarding the Satan/Lucifer/Hadit.

The below quotes show he had no illusions as to the nature of his work. Having said that, I am sure Crowley would be rather unimpressed with Thelemites these days.

“THE BEAST 666 has preferred to let names stand as they are, and to proclaim simply that AIWAZ — the solar-phallic-hermetic “Lucifer” is His own Holy Guardian Angel, and “The Devil” SATAN or HADIT of our particular unit of the Starry Universe. This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade “Know Thyself!” and taught Initiation. He is “the Devil” of the Book of Thoth, and His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection. The number of His Atu is XV, which is Yod He, the Monogram of the Eternal, the Father one with the Mother, the Virgin Seed one with all-containing Space. He is therefore Life, and Love. But moreover his letter is Ayin, the Eye; he is Light, and his Zodiacal image is Capricornus, that leaping goat whose attribute is Liberty."


"This “Devil” is called Satan or Shaitan, and regarded with horror by people who are ignorant of his formula, and, imagining themselves to be evil, accuse Nature herself of their own phantasmal crime. Satan is Saturn, Set, Abrasax, Adad, Adonis, Attis, Adam, Adonai, etc. The most serious charge against him is that he is the Sun in the South."


The last quote below from the Vision and the Voice is one of my favorites, as it reveals the antinomean nature of Crowley's Thelemic ethos, sadly its something rarely seen in Thelemites these days, indeed, the ones I know do nothing much at all.

I cling unto the burning Aethyr like Lucifer that fell through the Abyss, and by the fury of his flight kindled the air. And I am Belial, for having seen the Rose upon thy breast, I have denied God. And I am Satan! I am Satan! I am cast out upon a burning crag! And the sea boils about the desolation thereof. And already the vultures gather, and feast upon my flesh. Yea! Before thee all the most holy is profane, O thou desolator of shrines! O thou falsifier of the oracles of truth! Ever as I went, hath it been thus. The truth of the profane was the falsehood of the Neophyte, and the truth of the Neophyte was the falsehood of the Zelator! Again and again the the fortress must be battered down! pylon must be over thrown! Again and again must the gods be desecrated!

I used your qoute in a similar debate on reddit today and I think my response there was better so I am going to post it here as well:

I am all for syncretism. Maybe you misunderstood my stance. What i do not like nor am I interested in putting into my own practice is the forcing of everything into a tree oflife that only accounts for one view of the world. There is no such thing as cultural purity, we also agree on that. For example, the gnostic books of jeu, and the akephalos rite attributed to him are quite genius, yet the books are quite christian in their literal reading. The grimoires are not abrahamic, they have an abrahamic imposition in their most modern redactions. That is not one in the same, and thats one of the largest points of Geosophia. Also, I use a strictly non abrahamic approach and ritual for my goetic work, which was in place before, but was largely complimented by jakes work. So i want to make clear that I am not saying that the abrahamic faiths didnt intermingle at all, how can anyone read the PGM and think that?? but at the same time, I find it unnecessary and i feel that it is contradictory to the nature of the task at hand. For example, the stele of jeu is a setian ritual with some gnostic aspects that is specifically designed to help the user slowly unfold their own law (i.e. subjective synthesis), and the books of jeu speak of similar things, but THE PHILOSOPHY CONTAINED WITHIN IS INHERENTLY OPPOSED to the abrahamic religious system, regardless of how many abrahamic names are thrown into the mix. so do i think this is inherently bad? no of course not. but this is not the same as imposing jewish structures to evaluate and explain something like egyptian philosophy. There is a major difference in an egyptian idea being cloaked in christian or jewih names, and using the structures of jewish belief to interpret something inherently egyptian.
Having spent over a decade with crowleys material, I view the jewish element and the kabbalah format to be contrary to the book of the law itself, and I find the setian outlook to be much clearer, and more in line with the experience of my study, both of magick and mysticism in general, but also of the thelemic material. I see the problem as being crowleys statements that the only possible way to understand anything is by obsession with thehebrew alphabet and slavish attachment to kabbalah. He sets people up to indoctrinate themself into one way of structuring their knowledge and therefore closes minds instead of opens them to the true fruits of thelema. I feel like if crowley were to be here now he would be telling the wannabe rabbi club like lon milo duquette that they are a bunch of fools missing the point of the setian philosophy inherent in the book of the law.
Also as far as syncretism goes, while I am for it i believe it should be selective. If things clearly do not match, then leave it alone. Abrahamic faith and thelema do not match. Nor does santeria and wicca. Sure Set and Typhon have a good argument for being seen as a composite entity, but you cant use the same logic and say that nymphs and pomba giras are also the same. For me personally their is also a moralistic and political aspect. I dont want to associate myself with jewish mythology because I have seen nothing but bad from the jewish community, and I want nothing to do with christian mythology in my work because they will always represent to me the destruction the splashed across the cultures in europe where my ancestors were, or their inherent hatred of intelligence and progress.

lets look at a quote. “THE BEAST 666 has preferred to let names stand as they are, and to proclaim simply that AIWAZ — the solar-phallic-hermetic “Lucifer” is His own Holy Guardian Angel, and “The Devil” SATAN or HADIT of our particular unit of the Starry Universe. This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade “Know Thyself!” and taught Initiation. He is “the Devil” of the Book of Thoth, and His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection. The number of His Atu is XV, which is Yod He, the Monogram of the Eternal, the Father one with the Mother, the Virgin Seed one with all-containing Space. He is therefore Life, and Love. But moreover his letter is Ayin, the Eye; he is Light, and his Zodiacal image is Capricornus, that leaping goat whose attribute is Liberty."
"This “Devil” is called Satan or Shaitan, and regarded with horror by people who are ignorant of his formula, and, imagining themselves to be evil, accuse Nature herself of their own phantasmal crime. Satan is Saturn, Set, Abrasax, Adad, Adonis, Attis, Adam, Adonai, etc. The most serious charge against him is that he is the Sun in the South."

In all that, the key elements of the statement revolve around satan/set as saturn, i.e. the inner sun that makes (/gives the seed to become) humans gods. This is all relevant to the setian mythos. I.e. the Tale of Two Brothers, set as the Bata serpent and humans BECOMING divine stars. And Knowing the Spiral Force of RA and the Felling of Apep, self creation, and the slaying of delusion in the operators subjective world. Quite simply stated, yet crowley expresses it riddled with hebrew alphabet puzzles and false syncretism of 10 different gods for what? The only logical answers is he was fucking with everyone or had major blind spots. And for the record i have a lot of respect for crowley. Its not his fault the GD gave him the kabbalah addiction, and its also not his fault that most of the papyri that enlighten these philosophies were not available in languages he read, or at all at the times of his writing. But they are blind spots none the less. He said himself several times "my personal religion is egyptian" ... so why use the satan serpent example with eden etc (of a faith he himself claimed to hate) when Set as the Bata serpent is what is actually relevant to the thelemic teachings(egyptian)? Blindspots.

[Listener]

I too have wondered about the Bornless/Headless ritual. What is its specific utility? Is it primarily to "juice" the magician up for a large operation?

And what of the negative effects that many people have mentioned? I cannot recall where, but I specifically remember some reports of intense headaches after this ritual. I remember hearing that a few have claimed to have felt as though an unseen force attempted to remove or strike at their head during the rite.

I fail to see how this particular ritual is benefic to the magician. However, I have been interested in performing it to catalog any effects that I might notice from it.

Could it be that this ritual was intended to be performed alongside other (now lost) rites with the goal of bringing about an effect in the magician?

If that is the case, wouldn't the use of this ritual in conjunction with more modern magical systems be like a magician in two thousand years attempting a heavily modified version of the Middle Pillar without having any knowledge of the kabbalah or the rituals intended effects?

[Astar_Mundi]

I too have wondered about the Bornless/Headless ritual. What is its specific utility? Is it primarily to "juice" the magician up for a large operation?

And what of the negative effects that many people have mentioned? I cannot recall where, but I specifically remember some reports of intense headaches after this ritual. I remember hearing that a few have claimed to have felt as though an unseen force attempted to remove or strike at their head during the rite.

I fail to see how this particular ritual is benefic to the magician. However, I have been interested in performing it to catalog any effects that I might notice from it.

Could it be that this ritual was intended to be performed alongside other (now lost) rites with the goal of bringing about an effect in the magician?

If that is the case, wouldn't the use of this ritual in conjunction with more modern magical systems be like a magician in two thousand years attempting a heavily modified version of the Middle Pillar without having any knowledge of the kabbalah or the rituals intended effects?

This is a good point, what we are left with today is fragmentary and lacking in explanation. I would not trust Crowley's interpretations on it to be historically valid, either.

Perhaps a closer study of the original texts it is associated with would help your query, but I personally wouldn't go by any one else's word.

[Astar_Mundi]

It seems to be used to "Juice" up the Magical Act by modern magicians.

Sort of like the Wizarding equivalent of the workout shake that weightlifters take before training.

[Listener]

It seems to be used to "Juice" up the Magical Act by modern magicians.

Sort of like the Wizarding equivalent of the workout shake that weightlifters take before training.

Which is an amusing analogy as I wouldn't hesitate to call many gym rats "headless" ones.

Have you performed this ritual, AM?