An Introduction to Liber Resh vel Helios

by

Frater AShR

Originally appeared in"The Waratah Volume 1. Number 1."
Oceania Lodge, Ordo Templi Orientis,Australia. 1996

"Neglect never the fourfold Adorations of the Sun in his four Stations, for thereby thou dost affirm thy place in nature and her Harmonies" Liber CXI vel Aleph

But what are the "fourfold Adorations of the Sun" and what are their use to the magician? Crowley gives us three answers to this in his confessions:

"The object of this practice is firstly to remind the aspirant at regular intervals of the Great Work; secondly, to bring him into conscious personal relations with the centre of our system; and thirdly, for advanced students, to make actual magical contact with the spiritual energy of the Sun and thus to draw actual force from him."(1)

From this it would seem that Liber Resh vel Helios is much more powerful and advanced than may initially be assumed. The three 'objects' of the ritual show a spiritual advancement that leads, in the third objective, to "contact with the spiritual energy of the sun" (Sun = ThPARTh = Holy Guardian Angel), and may be seen as a lead up excercise to Liber Samekh(2). But this, as Crowley states, is for the advanced student, and the earlier objectives are eqully important and ultimately necessary to reach this final stage when working within the Thelemic Magical system.

For this reason the success of Liber Resh depends upon the aspirant approaching it in steps or stages.

The first stage has the same aims as performng "Will"(3) regularly before meals and more strenuous exercises such as those in "Liber Jugorum"(4). Discipline is here the key, discipline of the mind to the obedience of the Will, or to "create a sentinel to stand watch at the threshold of the mind"(5). It is, initially, not easy to perform the ritual everyday at the appointed times. Most modern lifestyles need some adjusting for the correct observance of the ritual, especially if in a working environment where lunchbreaks are taken when and if you can, and sleep takes its toll long before the stroke of midnight. But this is aided by Liber Resh's simplicity. It is very short and can be performed anywhere; walking down a street, looking out a window, or standing beneath the Sun's glory in a park. Overall, discipline is here the key.

The second objective is the same as that of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram(6) and variations such as the Star Ruby. It is to create for one's self a circle of working by extending the Will to the four quarters and invoking the Godforms associated with them.

The four god-forms of Resh are of Egyptian origin, not Judaic as in the Lesser Banishing Ritual, and derived in a large part from the symbolism of the Golden Dawn system of magick. They are Ra in the East, Ahathoor in the South, Tum in the West, and Kephra in the South. All four Godforms are representative of different aspects of Ra, the princple Sun God of the Egyptians.

In the ritual the magician is placed symbolically on the Tree of Life at the intersection of the paths of Samekh and Peh. This is confirmed by the grade signs to be used in the ritual "Where the aspirant has no grade, let him give the signs given in Vol.1 [Liber O in The Equinox Vol.1 No.2]: the LVX signs at dawn, 4º=7 at noon, 2º=9 at sunset, 3º=8 at midnight"(7), which are the Golden Dawn grade signs attributed to Tiphareth, Netzach, Yesod and Hod respectively. But how the attributed Godforms fit into this arrangement is not so clear.

Ra in the East fits perfectly. Ra is the Sun, Tiphareth, as in the "Egyptian Book of the Dead"(8) he rises in the morning "in the eastern horizon of the sky"(9). The attitude to be taken while facing east should be something similar to that expressed in Chapter 15 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead; "I have come unto you and I am with you in order to see yourdisk everyday; I will not be restrained or repulsed, but my flesh will be renewed at seeing your beauty..."(10) thereby taking full effect of the sun's regenerative process. This first adoration of the day is especially effective if the magician has performed "Liber XLIV The Mass of the Phoenix"(11) the sunset prior where the "essence of the Sun is safely sheltered until dawn"(12) in the body of the magician.

From dawn the sun travels south (in the northern hemisphere) and reaches its most southern point at noon. In the southern hemisphere these physical directions are reversed, but does this mean the northern and southern points of the ritual are reversed? I think that this depends on whether you wish to work the ritual qabalistically or merely as an adoration of the sun in its quarters. I personally feel that only by working the ritual Qabalistically, whilst still realising the geographical significance of the directions(13) can any real advancement be seen. Nevertheless, Ahathoor, the godform attributed to the South can fit neatly into both of these categories.

The name Ahathoor means literally "Mansions of Horus"(14) and symbolises the womb in which Horus (another form of the Sun God Ra) was protected. She was also in some legends the daughter of Ra. In 777 she is described as "The Egyptian Venus"(15) and is attributed to Netzach on the Tree of Life. To Netzach is attributed the Golden Dawn grade sign of 4º=7 which is the goddess Thoum-aesh-neith and Fire. In her main form as a cow goddess Ahathoor principally displays the Venusian aspects of fertility and fecundity but she also shows a more fiery side; "As for the Celestial Cow, She is the Sacred Eye of Re".(16) In one story Ra, fearing that mankind is plotting against him, sends Ahathoor to avenge himself. Ahathoor succumbs to bloodlust and becomes Sakhmet 'the Powerful', destroying all men before her and Ra must step in before the world is destroyed. He does this by tricking her into thinking red wine (or sometime beer) is blood and she drinks herself into a drunken stupor. Of this double aspect of Ahathoor George Hart says;

"The turmoil of ecstasy which can result from physical desire is reflected in the conflicting forces of Ahathoor's personality as "Eye of Re" or a goddess of heavenly charm."(17)

It is in this vengeful aspect that Ahathoor is most fittingly the Sun in the South (or the Sun in the North for the the Southern Hemisphere) of which Crowley says in Book Four; "The ancient initiates, dwelling as they did in lands whose blood was the water of the Nile or the Euphrates, connected the South with life withering heat, and cursing that quarter where the solar darts were deadliest."(18) Crowley also attributes the Sun in the South to the letter (Ayin) which is also "The Devil" of the Tarot trumps and "He is the Open Eye of the exalted Sun, before whome all shadows flee away: also that Secret Eye which makes an image of it's God, the light, and gives it power to utter oracles, enlightening the mind". (19)

Sakhmet, Ahathoor transmuted as the "Eye of Re", is also considered as a separate goddess and is another Daughter of Ra in the form of a cat. This conforms to one of Crowley's manuscript notes to "Magick in Theory and Practice" where he replaces "Ahathoor in Thy triumphing" with "Mau the Lion very lordly", and in the Invocation of Horus(20) where "Mau, I invoke Thee, Lion of the Midday Sun!" is given. Cat's have a strong link with Ra with Bastet and Sakhmet both being his Daughters and both being Cat goddesses symbolic of different degrees of the sun's heat.

And from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, "As for that Cat, he is Re himself, who was called 'Cat' when Sia spoke about him; he was cat-like in what he did, and that is how his name of 'Cat' came into being" (21)

Ahathoor's domain is said to stretch to the Mountains of Manu (the Western Mountains) where she meets Tum.

Tum, or Atum, is most often depicted as an elderly and stately official leaning on his staff of office, sometimes wearing the combined crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt and always wearing a beard. As the other major sun-god of Heliopolis, wlong with Ra, these two god names were often linked as Ra-Atum. Most often they are mentioned as Ra-Horakhty(22) and Atum-Horakhty (23). Horakhty translated as "Horus of the Two Horizons", 'akhety' being the plural form of 'akhet' or horizon. Thus we have the coalescence of two gods depicting the beginning and end of the Sun's journey before it sinks into the darkness of the underworld. Further links can be seen here with the grade sign given in relation to this quarter of the sun. Shu is both the a god of sunlight and air and is seen as variously an alternate form of Tum or, more commonly, as his first son originating from the mucus which Atum sneezed from his nostrils. Shu is said to be responsible for setting in motion the events which bring Ra back into being everyday. Shu, dwelling directly on the horizon as he does, is also linked to the underworld as the leader of a band of torturers and executioners. All this symbolism of the elderly and stately figure descending into an underworld or darkness and death is also very indicative of the darker sides of Yesod.

With the sun's descent behind the Mountains of Manu(24), the Egyptians turned to nature for an explanation of what happened to their life-giver. Noting that the Sun survived its journey through the darkness of the underworld, rising each morning with seemingly renewed energy, they saw a correlation with the native scarab beetle (scarabaeus sacer) or dung beetle. The scarab starts its life-cycle when a fertilised egg hatches inside a ball of dung. The lava eats the available dung until it grows into a pupa before emerging from the ball as an adult beetle. This image of life through death and putrification is essential to a correct understanding of the forces being invoked when assuming the godform of Kephra.

Most Egyptian imagery show Kephra as rolling the disk of the sun through the underworld until Ra's emergence on the eastern horizon with the coming of every dawn. The sight of dung beetles rolling balls of dung across the ground would have been a common site to the ancient egyptians. The priests of Heliopolis assserted that Kephra arose on the primeval mound of the Benu Bird, which later became the Phoenix in the writings of the greek historian Herodotus. Thus, the sun-god Ra was reborn every day unto the splendour of the world, arising from the ball of dung (symbolic of death and putrification) which Kephra had so carefully and successfully navigated through the underworld.

Keeping all this in mind Liber Resh can be seen as much more than a simple adoration of the Sun. Although this is only a superficial study of the godforms relevant to Liber Resh I hope that can serve to illustrate a point about the depths to which even the simplest rituals can, and should, be taken to obtain the utmost benefit.

NOTES

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