Aleister Crowley and the Age of Horus
Definition: [Astrological Ages] Aleister Crowley [1875 - 1947 AD] in his Book of Law [Liber AL vel Legis] [written 1904 AD, later published in a number of different editions] is said to have stated that the 'Age of Horus' had begun and the 'Age of Osiris' had ended.
Some subsequent commentators have stated that by saying this he was saying that the Age of Aquarius had begun. Is this true?
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What did Crowley Actually Write?: Crowley wrote the following passages: Abrogate are all rituals, all ordeals, all words and signs. Ra-Hoor-Khuit hath taken his seat in the East at the Equinox of the Gods; and let Asar be with Isa, who also are one. But they are not of me. Let Asar be the adorant, Isa the sufferer; Hoor in his secret name and splendour is the Lord initiating. [Book I Paragraph 49, Book of Law, written c 1904.] Ra Hoor Khuit was indeed Lord of the Aeon, the Crowned and Conquering Child whose innocence meant no more than inhuman cruelty and wantonly senseless destructiveness as he avenged Isis our mother the Earth and the Heaven for the murder and mutilation of Osiris, Man, her son. [Chapter 7, Genesis Libri Al, written c 1920.] |
The Book of Law [Liber AL vel Legis], written by Aleister Crowley. |
For an Age of Aquarius Interpretation: Crowley is certainly referring to the start of of a new 'Aeon', and this may have something has to do with the heavens in the form of an Equinox of the Gods. However, he does not tell us what an Equinox of the Gods is, in the Book of Law nor in his later commentary on it in Genesis Libri Al. [Plutarch [c 45 - 120 AD] in Moralia [Isis and Osiris], our original account of the legend of Horus, never mentions Horus in connection with an Equinox.]
Against an Age of Aquarius Interpretation: Crowley, aside from using the word Equinox includes no other astrological references at all in the Book of Law. He does not mention an Age of Pisces. He never mentions an Age of Aquarius. In fact he doesn't mention any constellations at all. He does not mention the Precession of the Equinoxes. He also includes no such references at any place in his extensive commentary in Genesis Libri Al. [It should also be noted that the Egyptians did not associate the stars of what we now call Aquarius with Horus; Plutarch tells us that they associated stars in Orion with Horus [Plutarch Moralia [Isis and Osiris] paragraph 21.]]
Whilst Crowley thought a New Age had begun, it's fairly clear that it was not an Astrological Age, as later defined by Jung. What seems to have happened is that later commentators knowing of Jung's Astrological Age and Crowley's Age of Ra Hoor Khuit have confused the two ideas.
The final argument against an Age of Aquarius interpretation is that in 1904 Crowley stated that the Equinox of the Gods had already occurred. This would make the event some seven hundred years too early to mark the start of the Age of Aquarius.
Searching For a New Age in the 20th Century...
© Dr Shepherd Simpson, Astrological Historian
Historical Astrology
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