The 91 Parts of the Earth By Benjamin Rowe 1 The 91 Parts of the Earth Benjamin Rowe Introduction The price of initiation is to be ceaselessly surprised; to live in a world where the only certainty is that what you believe to be Truth, believe to be real, even what you believe to be yourself will be changed in ways that you cannot anticipate. No matter how great our knowledge and experience, it is always surrounded by the infinite darkness of the unknown; and out of that darkness things can come at any moment to transform our world. One must advance towards the darkness without fear. Not because there is nothing to fear; rather because fear forces the unknown into its own ugly shape, a shape that we all know too well. Nothing truly new can come into our consciousness while fear dominates. Deny fear its power, deny it any right to control you, and the magickal universe becomes a place of endlessly unfolding wonders. Embrace the unknown and it will reward you by opening up its unspeakable, astonishing variety. More than most people, I hunger after that variety; hunger for it as intensely as an adolescent boy hungers for sex. That which is routine, that which is known, that which is familiar hold no attraction for me; I find them oppressive. The settled territories of the magickal world, I leave to others; only in pushing into the unknown am I fulfilled. The Enochian magick provides a perfect tool for one such as I. Its depth appears to be infinite; understand one level of its reality, and a new one with different properties opens immediately. A lifetime of work cannot exhaust its potential. But penetrating its depths can be difficult, for an unusual reason. That is that the Enochian entities are too cooperative. They strive always to conform their actions to the will of the magician. This means that if the magician enters into their realm with specific expectations, they will seek to fulfill those expectations, even if it means overlaying a true picture of the realm with a false one. Aleister Crowley's visions of the Thirty Aethyrs provide a case in point. Before he ever invoked one, he had decided that the Aethyrs represented a particular structure, with each triad of Aethyrs being associated with one of the Sephiroth in sequence. Further, at the time he did the visions, he added an additional expectation by interpreting the letters of the Aethyr's name according to the Golden Dawn's attributes. The results he obtained in these visions precisely reflected the forms and levels that he expected to see. 2 Ten years ago I discovered the magnitude of this problem by accident. On a whim, I decided to do visions of the "Kerubic" angels of the Earth Tablet. I had no particular goal in mind, so I told the angels that they had complete freedom in their presentations; they could show me whatever they wanted to of their nature and that of their realms. Up to that time, I had been using the standard Golden Dawn attributes for the Tablets; the results I now obtained were entirely at odds with everything I had gotten before. This so intrigued me that I decided to continue the practice with other parts of the Enochian hierarchy, taking particular care to avoid placing any limits on the actions of the angels, being completely open to whatever they wanted to say. The results were nothing less than astounding; I received more new and useful information in the next six months than I had in the previous seven years of work. These visions of the 91 "Parts of the Earth" were begun in a similar spirit. I started them on a whim; traffic was slow in the NuitNet "Enochian" echo, and I wanted something to post to show people it was still an active echo. I had no particular expectations with respect to the results; simply that they be something that might interest others. As I write this (with 29 of the 91 Parts explored) I have no idea where the series will end. Every time I start to suspect some logic behind it, it veers off in an unexpected direction. I am deliberately refusing to look for any overall pattern until after the series is completed in a few years. The "Parts of the Earth" derive from John Dee's Liber Scientiae . The book is a tabulation of these Parts, along with their groupings under the Aethyrs and certain other information. The purpose of the books, as told to Dee, was to provide him with a means of magickally influencing the governments of various countries. (This stated purpose may have been a consequence of Dee's own expectations; he was greatly intent on having such a tool.) Each Part is a region of the Earth as defined by God; each corresponds to a particular geographic/political locale in the world as it was known in 16th-Century England. (As the reader will see, in these visions some of the Parts are attributed to regions then unknown.) Additionally, the Parts have a "vertical" or hierarchic component to their natures, because they are connected in groups of three with the Aethyrs, which are said to surround the Earth in onion-like layers. It should be emphasized that these Parts are not "governors of the Aethyrs", as has been mistakenly said by some writers. The name of the Part does not invoke a specific being, but only a certain locale of the Enochian universe, with its particular qualities. Nor does the Part in any way "rule" the Aethyr of which it is a portion. One might view the relationship between Parts and Aethyrs as being similar to the relationship between the decanates of the zodiac and the signs of which they are a section. The Voice of the Part is not the Part itself, but one of the unnamed ministers who dwells therein. 3 Every part is governed by one of twelve "Zodiacal Kings", who is associated with one of the Tribes of Israel. The angels did not give Dee an explicit listing of their zodiacal attributes; he was told to derive it from the related tribe. Apparently he never did so. In these visions, the following system of attributes was used, which differs from both Agrippa system with which Dee was familiar, and the G.D. system. Zodiac sign Zodiacal King Tribe of Israel Aries Alpudus Isacarah Taurus Hononol Iehudah Gemini Zarzilg Nephthalim Cancer Gebabal Asseir Leo Olpaged Dan Virgo Cadaamp Benjamin Libra Zarnaah Manasse Scorpio Arfaolg Ephraim Sagittarius Lavavot Gad Capricorn Zurchol Simeon Aquarius Ziracah Ruben Pisces Zinggen Zabulon The logic of this system is based on the disposition of the Tribes depicted in Numbers 2, combined with Dee's diagram of that disposition. There are several possible systems that could be derived from these sources; the one actually used was chosen by divination after the major possibilities were assessed. In any case, it is apparent from the visions obtained so far that the angels feel free to ignore these attributes whenever necessary. Some of the visions are consistent with their attribute; others show it only as a minor factor, and others yet are entirely at odds with it. The method of invocation was changed during the course of the visions. In the early Parts, I deliberately kept things as simple as possible. I would vibrate the Call of the Aethyr two or three times, then vibrate the name of the Zodiacal King, the Part, and the Aethyr while drawing the Part's sigil in the air before me. I would then enter the astral world and see whatever there was to see. Later I decided that it would be better to have a definite "anchor" for the vision on the astral plane, in order to focus the energies. For each vision I prepared a magickal circle on the astral, in a form resembling a talisman for the Part. In the border of the circle, on the south side, the name of the Zodiacal King was written. On the north side, the name of the 4 Aethyr. In the middle, the name of the Part, its sigil, and the number of its resident ministers was written. All these were oriented so that they would be upright to a person facing south. I would vibrate the Call of the Aethyr, then go into the astral circle to vibrate the various names. Typically, the response to the invocation would begin with the center of the circle becoming transparent, to reveal an aerial view of some region of the Earth. Following my usual practice, the visions were recorded while they were occurring. The blank slate-blue wall behind my computer monitor served as my "scrying crystal"; I would watch events unfold in the astral space until they stopped changing for a moment, then write down what I saw. Where the Voice of the Part was speaking, I simply typed as it spoke. The record that follows is exactly what was recorded at the time; it has not been edited or changed in any way, except to correct minor typing errors. The "seer's comments" that follow every record were written immediately after the end of the vision. Readers will note that the visions consistently use a non-standard version of the Tree of Life, the "restored" Tree devised by Frater Achad. This Tree is used simply because it is the one on which I founded my cabalistic work; its placement of the paths makes more sense to my astrologically-oriented mind than does the more generally-accepted version. It should not be construed as evidence that Achad's is the "true" Tree, or that the standard version is false. Any magician exploring these Parts will no doubt find the presentations made in terms of his own symbol-system; it is one aspect of the angels' cooperative nature. 5 The First Part for the 91 Parts of the Earth Occodon, Part 1 of 91, 1st of LIL. Zodiacal king: Zarzilg Mundane association: Egypt. I recited the Call of the Aethyrs for LIL, and invoked the part named OCCODON, and its 7209 resident ministers, by the power of the zodiacal king Zarzilg. At first the response was very faint, barely perceptible. I repeated the invocation of the various names, and it increased slightly but still did not seem inclined to generate any sort of image. Thinking of images that might ground and manifest this power, a picture of the pyramids of Giza suddenly came into my vision with power and certainty. It was a view from the west, with Cairo hidden in the valley behind them, and the sphinx invisible somewhere beyond the left edge of the view. The green of the Nile cannot be seen; there is nothing but sand. A voice spoke: "In ancient times it was said that the world began out of the division of the Waters; and so it was. The primal waters divided out of themselves a portion of themselves, a reflection; these became the 'waters below' as the primal waters, taking on a role in relation to them, became the 'waters above'. "Thus was born the essential division of finite existence; and within that first division did divisions multiply. Each 'above' had its 'below'; each 'left' had its 'right'; each 'behind' had its 'before'. And each division generated more divisions, until the world was shattered into a myriad of parts, each unique, each without comparison to the others, yet meaningless except when in relation to them. "Thus also, these parts of the Earth which you explore begin not with unity, but with division; there is nothing but division within them, division and perpetual change. For that which is below and that which is above are confounded in the curse of god; intermixed, intertwined until none can know which is the greater and which the true lesser." A flashing image here of the universe as a multitude of independent particles, with energies flashing between them. Some of these "particles" appeared as great as planets or 6 stars, others more minute than the smallest quark, and with every range in between. The energies moved in every direction, from small to large, large to small, and back and forth among the middle sizes. It seemed that a tiny particle was just as capable of influencing one of the "greater" particles as those larger were of influencing it; there was no clear hierarchy among them. Now the pyramid image returns, and my viewpoint moves back away from it. A single pyramid remains visible, and it becomes apparent that the landscape in which it sits is a small chunk out of the Earth's surface, floating free in space. Magritte could have easily painted this scene. Above the chunk of Earth a starry night-sky is visible, color-tinged white pinpoints on a deep blue background. But below the Earth there is nothing but a blackness, entirely without perceptible features. A blackness which is utterly negative, which does not absorb the finite into itself (as does the great sea of the Supernals, and the greater sea of which it is the reflection) but which cancels it, makes it not to be by saying "no" to all its characteristics. For a moment a tremendous stress builds between the sky and the lower blackness. An electric current builds between them, and suddenly becomes visible as twin lightning bolts vibrating in place between the sky and the darkness. After a moment the chunk of Earth vanishes from the middle of the scene, and for a moment the planes of sky and darkness and the twin bolts become the glyph of Gemini. Then the glyph transforms itself into a view of Egypt seen from orbit. The top bar of the glyph becomes the shore of Lake Victoria; the lower bar becomes the shore of the Mediterranean Sea; and the twin pillars or bolts become the sandy wastes that border the Nile Valley on either side. "Thus is the world the center of division; finite life and existence can have their day only within the bounds of these great divisions of power, in the central area where all the opposites mix in varied proportions. Move too far towards the upper waters, and one returns to them, sacrificing finite existence for the greater; move too far towards the lower waters and one dissolves in their negation, becomes not . Move too far towards any horizontal extreme between them and one perishes in the dry death of false singularity. "And thus also is this division reflected in the Call of the Aethyrs, which has been called the Curse of God; for there is no center within the world, no point where one may become balanced and still without end. No point can remain balanced, for the balance is ever changing, ever moving; and the various parts pass in turn over the hypothetical point of balance, seeming for a moment to be the center but then passing out again into an unbalanced state. 7 "So as well is the mind of Man. The 'self', the seeming 'I' that inhabits the being is truly not the center. For the mind of Man is a thing of many parts, interacting, fighting and cooperating by turn in various combinations. It never rests from change. The 'I' has no constant nature, but only the nature it takes on from those parts of the being that are dominant at a given moment. For all practical purposes, it is those parts and their interaction, and nothing more. The seeming continuity of its existence comes not from itself, but from the River of Memory, carrying the sensations of past moments in itself, taking them downwards in the being to be deposited like silt in the delta at the edge of the Dark Sea. "Now 'I' [said humorously] could continue this metaphor into many other areas. But needs not; we have seen sufficient of it for the moment. But consider, as a final example of the metaphor, the political customs of ancient Egypt. Therein the seeming balance and centrality of the Pharaohs (representatives of the Sun of "Self") was never more than a superficial image hiding the perpetual infighting of the priests of different cities and gods. Each constantly striving to make themselves dominant, each taking in turn the central position and losing it again. And consider that the Sun-self of Egypt itself shattered eventually into a myriad of divisions, and died, and was carried by the Nile to vanish in the Dark Sea. I asked the unseen speaker whether he might show something of the ministers of this part of the Earth, and of its nature in other aspects of being. It said "Not at this time." I asked if there was anything else to be seen at the moment, and receive only silence as an answer. So I spoke my thanks and departed the vision. --------------------- Seer's comments: The content of this vision is fairly clear, and doesn't need a great deal of comment. Since we are working here with a "downward" current, it begins with a fall from unity into disunity, chaos, and discord. Appropriately, Occodon is ruled by the zodiacal king of Gemini, the most dualistic of the signs. The characteristics presented are typical of Gemini, but raised to an archetypal level. Egypt, the mundane region governed by Occodon, is used as a metaphor for the Earth, the human being, and human society, as they are affected by the power in the Call of the Aethyrs. The four-sided pyramids might represent the seemingly-ordered worlds of human experience, resting on a foundation of chaos -- the ever-shifting particles of the desert sands. 8 Pascomb, Part 2 of 91, 2nd of LIL. Zodiacal King: Zinggen. Ministers: 2360. Mundane association: Syria 7/15/1994 2:40 p.m. I invoked PASCOMB by the power of Zinggen and the Aethyr LIL, calling upon the 2360 ministers who dwell there to come and present its nature. At first there was only a sense of a very strange energy. A sort of quintessence of sundering, without any object. As if an act of ripping something apart had been separated from the things being ripped and made into a spiritual ideal. A voice said: "A mighty tearing suffuses the universe, rending each thing from its opposite. That which is above and that which is below are sundered from one another; that which is to the right is sundered from that which is to the left; that which is before is sundered from that which is behind. "And all things are brought to one level; each thing above is brought down, each thing below is raised up; that which is before and behind, to the left and to the right, are brought to the center and inextricably mixed. "And out of that mixture are new dualities formed. None higher or lower than the others; there is no ranking here. Observe:" There came before me the image of the sign of Gemini seen in the last vision, with its straight side pillars and the curved top and bottom bars. It underwent a transformation: the portions of the bars between the two pillars broke away from the parts outside; those outer parts blended into the pillars. Gradually the two center parts of the bars moved towards the center of the figure; as they did so, the parts of the pillars they passed ceased to be straight and became smoothly curved towards the outside. The bars met and merged together into one longer bar, and the sign of Gemini was transformed into the sign of Pisces. 9 "Thus it is with these parts of the Aethyrs, which God has made into parts of the Earth. For she is not a place of hierarchies, but a [spherical] surface; and upon that surface are the powers arrayed in their might. That which is shown as various spheres in Dee's diagram is not truly so. The parts are dispersed about her surface like the colors about the surface of a soap bubble; and like those colors, they are constantly shifting, changing their places. At one moment one might cover a great territory, only to be practically overthrown in the next by its neighbors." (As the above was said, it was impressed on me in an instant that all the variations of the Earth's surface were minute and indistinguishable with respect to the world's size. The highest mountains and deepest ocean trenches vary less than one part in sixteen hundred of the world's diameter. In relation to its size, the variations in the Earth's surface are no more significant than the variations in thickness that cause the color shifts of the soap bubble. Why this should be emphasized, I don't know; perhaps I missed something.) Now I saw an image of the world with the Aethyrs arrayed about it in concentric spheres. Again there came the sundering force that opened the vision, and all these spheres were broken into pieces. The pieces tumbled down towards the Earth, and as they hit the surface they slid over and around each other until none of them was above any other. Gradually they expanded and shifted until they covered the entire surface. Each of these pieces seemed to be both a sort of energy and a living liquid at the same time. I could distinguish them by their differing shades and hues, each unique. Now they seemed to be at war with each other; the effect was of a bunch of brightly colored slime molds fighting for territory. Each pushed against its neighbors, seeking to gain more ground for itself. One might lose ground for a time, but was never completely extinguished; if all its territory in one place was taken by its neighbors, it simply sprang up again in another place where the pressure was low. And it seemed to me that each of these living "parts" was in fact the cause of some idea that lives in the minds of men, or rather of those shared perceptions and ideals that make up the identity of a nation or a group. Because each part is unique in its essence, it follows that all groups must be in conflict with each other at one time or another. Harmony is the result of likeness or complementarity of nature; where likeness does not exist, there must be friction and conflict. Thus the idea of complete unity among nations is doomed to fail, as is the unity or harmony between groups within nations. If a certain type of belief or government is overthrown in a certain part of the Earth's population, it will simply appear again in another part, or as a minority belief within a particular culture. The voice said: "Thou hast grasped it. Thus it was said to Dee that these parts governed the governments of the Earth, and that one could manipulate those governments through the use of the power of the corresponding part. It extends through all levels of 10 organization within the world; since all individuals are unique, they must at sometimes be in conflict with their neighbors. And thus it was said in the Thelemic book that Horus, god of War, is the ruler of this world. "We would emphasize again that the parts of the Earth, and the Aethyrs from which they spring, are not expressions of the unity of existence, but of the aspect of discord. In this they are the complement, the necessary balance to the divine and angelic Names derived from the Great Table by orderly means. Those names and hierarchies show the unity aspect, the merging of the discord of events into the singleness of spirit. Here we deal with the shattering of that unity, with its expression in the unspeakable variety of unique events taking place in the world at any moment. "Now, in order to continue, we would have you wait for an hour or so, and relax. For there is more to see, but the time is not quite right. Return again today. 7/16/1994 8:04 p.m. (I did not return to the vision until now because the timing felt wrong.) I again recited the Call for LIL and invoked PASCOMB. After a few minutes the force of the Part came strongly. The Voice continued. "Now, you have grasped the connection between the power of these Parts and the actions of government. Truly, the world is in a constant state of war, from the standpoint of the Aethyrs. And the most active, violent of those wars at present take place not upon the physical plane, but upon the planes of emotion and reason, For each Idea has power within these worlds, and any Idea which is supported at its core by the creative power of God (as most are) cannot be eradicated wholly from the world. "Even should it be wholly washed away from the minds of all living beings, it would arise again spontaneously. For it requires not the power of men to maintain its existence; its has an energy separate from their recognition and support. Should it be washed away, then at some future moment, some man or woman would (through natural affinity) touch its power with their mind, and it would instantly become real within the world again. "This war is perpetual, and the only thing that changes its character are the slow changes in the consciousness of God, as its creative plan evolves over time. At any given point in time, some ideas are emphasized by these changes and others de-emphasized. Thus in the previous age did social ideas take an extreme hierarchical form with those on the bottom serving those on top, while in this present age are social ideas more oriented towards the masses of men and their needs. 11 "But the dominance of one sort of ideal does not eliminate the others; they remain always, and insinuate themselves into the functioning of society and of life in the details of activity where they cannot gain dominance in the overall rulership. And if that dominance of an ideal should fail, then others -- temporarily suppressed -- regain their prior place. Thus the rapidity with which the Soviet Union devolved into its cultural predecessors; the local cultures had not been absorbed by the ideal, but only overlaid, partially smothered by it. "And the war is reflected even in the functioning of the living things of the world. For each type of animal and each type of plant is at war with those upon which it feeds, even as it is dependent upon them. And each unique being fights against its neighbors for its share of the available resources. Trees wage slow, years-long battles against each other; lesser plants feed upon the detritus of that war, and wage their smaller wars beneath. And so on. "Never shall this conflict be done, no, not even should the Kingdom of Heaven come. For it is the nature of the third of the three Great Aspects of God's creation (of which the body, emotions, and mind are a part) that every particle and composite being within the world shall respond uniquely to the power of God's creative will. Where the proper goal of each is unique [i.e., it's "true will" under the power of the divine] then conflict inevitably arises. (On an unspoken level, it was also mentioned that unity lies only in the Second and First divine aspects, those of Love and Will (or Being), both of which are entirely spiritual in nature, and come into the manifest world only through the action of initiated sapients.) "There is no unity within the manifest world, nor shall there ever be. Those who seek to impose such a unity, through law or morals or "correct behavior" are doomed to failure. God wishes it so; were the manifest world one in all ways then it would no longer be a fit material for His creative activity, and for the creations of those lesser beings who dwell within it. Creation is change, and change always brings conflict. "Now we have said enough and would end here, if you will." I said I had no questions that had not already been answered in the nonverbal subtext of the presentation. I thanked those who spoke, and ended the vision. Valgars, Part 3 of 91, 3rd of LIL. Zodiacal King: Alpudus. Ministers: 5362. Mundane association: Mesopotamia. 12 7/19/1994 1:10 p.m. Recited the Call for LIL and invoked VALGARS by the power of the zodiacal king Alpudus. The vision opened with an image of the glyph of Pisces as in the previous vision. The glyph was colored a deep ocean blue. Immediately the crossbar of the glyph broke in two places, close to the curves. The remaining part of the bar contracted to a dot between the two curves, the parts of the bar still connected to the curves were absorbed into them. The two curves rotated about their centers so that their lower ends came together. For a moment a half-moon seemed to grow off of the top of the right-hand curve, so that the whole figure seemed like an Enochian letter "B". The dot between the curves became a diamond. But the half-moon quickly disappeared and the figure turned blood-red, becoming the glyph of Aries. The glyph tilted away from me and moved away at the same time. From below an image of the Earth came into view, and the glyph descended, coming to rest with its two arms conjunct with the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The dot between the arms marked the location of Baghdad -- actually slightly north and west of there; perhaps ancient Babylon. The point where the arms met did not quite touch the Persian Gulf; it ended in the marshes where the two rivers meet. The view descended towards the Earth, and I saw that it was indeed Babylon that was depicted. The region surrounding the city was green with growing crops and grassland; not the dry waste of current-day Iraq. Across the river to the west I could see forested hills. The city was enclosed in a long wall, save for a short stretch of the river bank near the center of one wall. This gap did not seem to be deliberate, but rather the result of erosion undermining the wall. Within there seemed to be a smaller area with high walls as well; perhaps the area of the palace and main temples. Now the viewpoint rotated around the city to the eastern gate. A long thoroughfare extended west to an unfinished ziggurat. I saw people moving down the avenue towards me; they passed through the gate and dispersed to the four directions. The Voice spoke: "The tower you see is of course the so-called Tower of Babel. And the people are dispersing as was said in the biblical myth. But it was not the hand of God which produced this effect, except indirectly, through the power of the Part governing this 13 region. The symbolism of the Tower is of course the symbolism of Mars, ruler of Aries. And it is the characteristics of the sign and its ruler that are here represented in one aspect. "You know of course that Aries represents the initial outpouring of force that begins any project, any work of creativity. It is the force that overcomes the inertia of matter and moves it into a different state. But this force is short of duration; it gives out quickly, burns itself up. If the work of creation were to continue, it would need to be imbued with the longer-lasting force of Habit or Custom, which maintain the new state. But that is to be seen elsewhere, not here. "What is shown here is the illusory unity provided by the imposition of force upon disparate, chaotic elements each having their own unique nature. Such unity never lasts; as soon as the force is exhausted, or directed towards a different goal, then it dissolves into its initial elements again. This is as we said in the previous Part, here manifested in its actuality. "The various cities of the lands between the two rivers at times tried to impose their rule on their surroundings by force. Their rulers sensed in their minds the nature of the power of this Part, and attempted to manifest it. But such rulership was not natural to the area, was imposed upon a pre-existing "culture" in which smaller specialized settlements coexisted in a complex network of trade. "In this earlier culture, the specializations of each town depended upon the resources available in their area. One being close to clay deposits would engage in the manufacture of pots and bowls. Another having flint would make cutting and digging tools. Yet another might have timber, or medicinal plants, fertile grain-growing lands, or grasslands for cattle. Each of these would make the most of its local resources and trade along the network for the other items they needed. "This is not unlike the current-day state of the world economy, though in miniature. And the failure of the imposed rulerships of the great cities gives a lesson that might be learned today. "The early centralized rulerships were initially accepted for the same reason that every government since has been accepted. It seemed advantageous to the people of the towns to give over a portion of their production in exchange for protection from the larger losses to criminals and raiders along the trade routes. But once the principle of centralized rule was accepted, things rapidly went downhill. "The rulers must draw more and more on the productivity of the towns in order to widen their rule. The wider the borders of the kingdom, the larger the portion of production that must be spent on defense and internal regulation. This is simple geometry. Eventually the 14 point of diminishing returns is passed; the rulers can no longer take enough resources out of the economy to maintain their rule. The hardship for those from whom it is taken increases until they are no longer willing to support the "national" government, and the system collapses. "In the Babel incident, it is this failure of resources that is the true cause of the disruption. The craftsmen who were building the tower were drawn from many peoples in the area, each of them with their own customs and variation on the regional speech. When the rulers could no longer pay for their services, they perceived this as a sign of divine disfavor; their confidence in the communal project was lost, ethnic tensions increased, and finally they left to return to their home towns. "This is the failure of every government that seeks to rule by force, from ancient Uruk and Ur to the present day. In those earlier cases, the process was sometimes advanced by deterioration of the climate, or -- more commonly -- by the failure of crops upon which the city-dwellers were dependent. "The region of the Earth governed by Valgars shows this tendency with particular emphasis. One after another came conquering rulers; many of them inspired by the imaginary "glory" of the memory of their predecessors. The early cities, the Babylonians, Assyrians, the Baghdad of ancient times and the present, all have sought to rule and each has fallen back into chaos when their power was no longer sufficient to the task. Over and over the same story is replayed. Even now, the ruler of Iraq perceives himself as the incarnation of an ancient Assyrian ruler, dazzled by the vision of restoring ancient glories even as his nation is rent asunder around him. "Like the flow of the two great rivers, the power of this Part seems mighty in its beginning and continuation, but in the end it collapses into chaos; as the two rivers become lost in the great marshes of their combined delta. When their waters finally reach the sea, they get there through a myriad of tortuous channels, not in the great unified flow that their beginnings promised. And so it ends, always. "Now we would like for you to continue with these visions; it seems to us that you would be doing a service thereby. But be not concerned if there be interruptions, hiatuses in the work. For this is necessarily a long-term project, and it is certain that other tasks and opportunities will come between at times. Do what thou will, when thou will, and we will be accessible to you. We are done, for today." I thanked the Voice for its presentation, and ended the vision. Seer's comments: 15 This completes the Parts attributed to LIL. It is too early to speculate on the complete course to be presented, but some obvious connections can be made between these three parts. First, all three deal in some way with the chaos or disorder that precedes the initiation of a creative act -- and which may well be stimulated by the first inflow of creative force. There is an increasing constraint upon the unorganized materia as the visions progress: Occodon defines outer boundaries, Pascomb organizes the content of those boundaries into conflicting elements, Valgars shows the first attempts to bring the materia into conformance with a creative will. Second, each vision deals with a region that is (loosely speaking) bounded by water on two sides. Egypt by Lake Victoria and the Mediterranean Sea, Syria (mundane equivalent of Pascomb) by the Euphrates and Jordan, and Mesopotamia by the Euphrates and Tigris. The repetitive occurrence of opposed curves in the astrological glyphs is probably connected with this. I get the sense that the "failure of government" theme of the three visions is a reflection of the fall from unity embodied in the Call of the Aethyrs. Were we taking the Parts in the reverse sequence, (as Crowley did with the Aethyrs themselves) it may be that these parts would show the final return to unity in the divine. The presence of Babylon in the third vision is odd, since Babylon has its own Part later on in the series (number 80, Mathula). The region named Mesopotamia in Liber Scientia is called Upper Mesopotamia today. I suspect that whatever beings were the Voice of this vision were simply using it as a convenient substitute for the city of Sargon the Great, who created the first empire with a true centralized government in upper Mesopotamia circa 2500 BC, and whose empire ended 160 years later in much the way described. The latter name was apparently buried too deep in the silt of my unconscious mind to be dredged up on short notice; it popped into awareness about fifteen minutes after the vision ended. Dongnis or Doagnis, part of ARN. Zodiacal King: Zarnaah Servitors: 3636 Equivalent to Cappadocia in Liber Scientia. August 24, 1994 circa 2:00 p.m. Everything is dark, dark. And in the center is a deeper darkness, that feels like a circular sinkhole in the fabric of the space, a cylinder of emptiness in the midst of things. 16 Now it seems as if this cylinder is becoming lit from some source inside it. Lines of light trace a rectilinear grid over its inner surface, and it becomes filled with a light like daylight. It begins to rotate on its long axis. Simultaneously, my viewpoint rotates about it in a horizontal plane so that I am seeing its length from an outside point perpendicular to the axis and equidistant from its ends. Its rotation is such that the upper side is rolling away from my viewpoint. I can still see the grid inside it, vaguely through its surface. The grid becomes clearer, and begins to shine from the outside as well. The shining potions become raised in relief against the surface, and the whole takes on a sense of solidity. Suddenly the cylinder begins to move away from me rapidly. It leaves behind an imprint of its shining lines, like the cylindrical seals used by ancients governors. It seems to be creating the surface it is imprinting as it rolls along. The cylinder recedes into the distance and vanishes. The long, paper-thin surface it left behind now begins to curl upwards at the sides. The long sides come together, but in such a way that the grid-lines at right angles to its length are offset by one line at their meeting point. The new cylinder thus formed has straight lines along its length; the cross-lines, which were rectilinear in the original cylinder, now form several helices around it, due to the offset. Those parts of the "surface" that were not imprinted now dissolve, leaving a cylindrical net of glowing lines. This process propagates itself along the length of the surface until any still-unconnected parts are lost in the distance. Nothing else happens for a few minutes. While all this was happening, I got a vague impression that the helical net is a representation of the universe -- no, specifically of the solar system. Each of the helices represents a planet's course through space, while the straight lines represent the course of the system as a whole. And by correspondence, it also represents the psyche and experience of man, wherein events are cyclic but progress forward in time. Now a voice said, "How else shall chaos be taméd? How else shall the disorder of creations' energies be brought into order? How else shall balance be attained? Is it not said, 'Her course let it run with the heavens, and as a handmaid let her serve them'? "Change cannot be stopped or frozen; that way lies the grave, and the end of things. Yet it can be diverted, and set to run along a limited set of paths; paths which lead, in the end, to the achievement of the creator's purpose. "Here in this region, the powers previously shown, the powers of creative energy unleashed within the Earth, are for the first time brought into ordering, so that the 17 dynamic changes that take place in the world, by the will of god, shall all be (in the long run) of benefit to his purpose. "Yet is this ordering hidden from th