First, obviously, it has the practitioner invoke (or at least hail) certain Egyptian gods – Ra, Ahathoor, Tum and Khephra. Not Jesus, not Adonai or YHVH, but Egyptian gods.
Why identify with gods at all? It seems to me that this is a classic method of spiritual development – make the practitioner identify with something considered outside the self, and superior to the self, so he or she can aspire to be something greater than he or she already is. (I'll reserve judgment for now about whether the ritual actually involves contacting these gods.)
Why use Egyptian gods? Well, all things Egyptian seem to have been popular in England in the 19th century, and Egyptian gods were heavily incorporated into the rituals of the Golden Dawn, the magical organization that originally trained Crowley. To people raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the use of Egyptian gods quite possibly adds a bit of alien-ness or otherness to the ritual, reminding the practitioner that he or she is doing something outside the realm of the everyday, and giving it a bit of an extra "charge."
The ritual itself seems to be based on ancient Egyptian prayers reproduced in E.A. Wallis Budge's translation of the Book of the Dead. Here's a selection from "A Hymn of Praise to be Sung to Ra When He Riseth on the Horizon, and When He Setteth In the Land of Life":
"Homage to thee, O Ra, when thou risest as Tem-Heru-Khuti. Thou art to be adored. Thy beauties are before mine eyes, thy radiance is upon my body. Thou goest forth to thy setting in the Sektet Boat with fair winds, and thy heart is glad."
"Homage to thee, O thou who are Ra when thou risest, and who art Tem when thou settest in beauty. Thou risest and thou shinest on the back of thy mother Nut, O thou who art crowned the king of gods! Nut welcometh thee, and payeth homage unto thee, and Maat, the everlasting and never-changing goddess, embraceth thee at noon and at eve."
So why is the ritual done four times a day? It's a standard spiritual practice to say prayers at different times of the day. I'd guess Crowley was influenced by both Islam, which requires adherents to face Mecca and pray five times a day (at dawn, midday, mid-afternoon, sunset, and nightfall), and Catholicism, which once required the devout to say the eight offices (matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, and compline) at various times during the day. Four is a pretty standard magical number, and the day breaks pretty easily into 6-hour quarters. It also allows for a bit of discipline, since (if done to the letter) it requires the aspirant to either stay up late to do the midnight adoration or wake up early to do the dawn adoration.
In the classic form of Liber Resh, you intensely visualize and identify yourself with one of these four gods as you recite the words of the ritual appropriate for that time of day.
Why use the four gods Ra, Hathoor, Atum and Khepra? Ra, Atum and Khepra are all forms of the Egyptian solar god as the sun travels across the sky during the day. Ra is the classic sun god with the head of a falcon, Atum (or Tum) is the ancient creator god, sometimes shown with the head of a ram, and Khephra or Khepri is a god of the morning, usually depicted in the form of a scarab or dung beetle (which pushes a big ball of dung that was associated with the sun moving across the sky). Hathoor is the Egyptian Venus, the wife or daughter of Ra, sometimes depicted as a cow.
Oddly, Crowley's attributions were a bit off. Traditionally, Khephra is associated with the sun in the morning, Ra at noon, and Atum at evening. Hathoor accompanied Ra as he journeyed across the sky in his solar bark during the day, but wasn't associated with a phase of the sun at all.
(Some practitioners have corrected Crowley's attributions – for example, modern Golden Dawn practitioners the Ciceros wrote and use a ritual called "Kheperu Nu Ra" which uses Khepera, Ra, Temu, and Amon (the "hidden" solar god) at the four times of day.)
So what does it say that Crowley wrote Liber Resh based in part on an ancient Egyptian source, and that he tweaked the attributions used for the gods? For one thing, it shows that a practitioner should be able to adopt and change old rituals to develop something personally workable and meaningful. (For example, Crowley may have added Hathoor because he thought a female deity needed to be included for balance.) The LBRP, the Star Ruby, and any given chaos ritual aren't graven in stone. Just like a recipe or the score of a song, the rituals that came before you can be tweaked and customized like a good suit. |
