''Liber Trigrammaton'', also known as ''Liber XXVII'', is one of the Holy Books of Thelema, authored by

Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley ( ; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, novelist, mountaineer, and painter. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pr ...

. It is a short, cryptic text that consists of 27 three-line stanzas. Each stanza is associated with a unique trigram, making a total of 27 trigrams. This work is considered an important part of Thelemic literature and is believed to contain deep esoteric meanings and mystical insights.

Background

In 1904,

wrote out the text of the foundational document of his world-view, known as ''Liber AL vel Legis'', ''

The Book of the Law ''Liber AL vel Legis'' (), commonly known as ''The Book of the Law'', is the central sacred text of Thelema. The book is often referred to simply as ''Liber AL'', ''Liber Legis'' or just ''AL'', though technically the latter two refer only to ...

''. In this text was the injunction found at verse II:55; "Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet, thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto" which was understood by Crowley as referring to an English Qabalah yet to be developed or revealed. In one of the '' Holy Books of Thelema'' written by Aleister Crowley in 1907, called ''Liber Trigrammaton, sub figura XXVII -- Being the Book of the Mutations of the Tao with the Yin and the Yang'', are 27 three-line diagrams known as 'trigrams', which are composed of a solid line for the Yang, a broken line for the Yin, and a point for the Tao. By attributing 26 Roman script letters to the trigrams of this work, Crowley felt that he had fulfilled the injunction to "obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet", as noted in his 'Old Comment' to ''

''. However, he also wrote that "The attribution in ''Liber Trigrammaton'' is good theoretically; but no Qabalah of merit has risen therefrom."Crowley quoted in .

Contents and structure

The text of ''Liber Trigrammaton'' is composed of 27 trigrams, which are said to be related to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and other esoteric systems. Each trigram is presented in a symbolic and enigmatic manner, leaving much to interpretation. Crowley wrote that this book contains the essence of the spiritual journey and the mysteries of existence.

Significance

''Liber Trigrammaton'' is considered a foundational text within the Thelemic tradition. Crowley maintained that it was dictated to him by a higher intelligence, and it is often studied alongside other Holy Books of Thelema to gain a fuller understanding of Thelemic philosophy and practice.

Interpretation

Due to its cryptic nature, ''Liber Trigrammaton'' has been the subject of various interpretations by Thelemic scholars and practitioners. It is often analyzed in conjunction with other works by Crowley and the broader context of Thelemic teachings. Its trigrams are sometimes correlated with the I Ching and other systems of divination and symbolism.

R. Leo Gillis

The most developed interpretation, known as ''Trigrammaton Qabalah'' (TQ), was first published by R. Leo Gillis in 1996, and subsequently released as ''The Book of Mutations'' in 2002. This system is based on one of the '' Holy Books of Thelema'' written by Aleister Crowley in 1907, called ''Liber Trigrammaton, sub figura XXVII -- Being the Book of the Mutations of the Tao with the Yin and the Yang''. ''Liber Trigrammaton'' (aka ''Liber XXVII'') was called by Crowley "the ultimate foundation of the highest theoretical qabalah". Correspondences are created with some of the major forms of divination such as the ''

I Ching The ''I Ching'' or ''Yijing'' ( ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. The ''I Ching'' was originally a divination manual in ...

'',

Tarot Tarot (, first known as ''trionfi (cards), trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a set of playing cards used in tarot games and in fortune-telling or divination. From at least the mid-15th century, the tarot was used to play t ...

and

runes Runes are the Letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see ''#Futharks, futhark'' vs ''#Runic alphabets, runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were ...

, as well as

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

and

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...

s, the

Tree of Life The tree of life is a fundamental archetype in many of the world's mythology, mythological, religion, religious, and philosophy, philosophical traditions. It is closely related to the concept of the sacred tree.Giovino, Mariana (2007). ''The ...

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

and Vedic astrology,

magic square In mathematics, especially History of mathematics, historical and recreational mathematics, a square array of numbers, usually positive integers, is called a magic square if the sums of the numbers in each row, each column, and both main diago ...

s, and the

Platonic solid In geometry, a Platonic solid is a Convex polytope, convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional space, three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the face (geometry), faces are congruence (geometry), congruent (id ...

s. A primary feature of this qabalah is a new understanding of the Cube of Space and its 26 components of edges, faces, and vertices, which equal the number of letters in the English alphabet.

References

Citations

Works cited

* * * * * * * * {{Thelema series Trigrammaton Works by Aleister Crowley