THE BOOK OF LIES, first published in London in 1913, Aleister Crowley’s little master work, has long been out of print.

I ran across an ebook (attached to this post) detailing a weird amalgam of Egyptian deities, Greek Gods, some Jedi sayings (written well before there were Jedi around) like “The Many is as adorable to the One as the One is to the Many.” and a nice obsession with sex and phallic representations. It reminded me a little of Clive Barker’s work (Cabal) and a few other horror stories but with none of the scare factor and more of the “incantations” aspect. If you’ve seen Hereditary, you know which scene I am talking about.

We have so much material by Crowley himself about this book that we can do no better that quote some passages which we find scattered about in the un-published volumes of his “CONFESSIONS.” He writes:
“…None the less, I could point to some solid achievement on the large scale, although it is composed of more or less disconnected elements. I refer to THE BOOK OF LIES. In this there are 93 chapters: we count as a chapter the two pages filled respectively with a note of interrogation and a mark of exclamation. The other chapters contain sometimes a single word, more frequently from a half-dozen to twenty paragraphs. The subject of each chapter is determined more or less definitely by the Qabalistic import of its number. Thus Chapter 25 gives a revised ritual of the Pentagram; 72 is a rondel with the refrain ~Shemhamphorash’, the Divine name of 72 letters; 77 Laylah, whose name adds to that number; and 80, the number of the letter Pe, referred to Mars, a panegyric upon War. Sometimes the text is serious and straightforward, sometimes its obscure oracles demand deep knowledge of the Qabalah for interpretation, others contain obscure allusions, play
upon words, secrets expressed in cryptogram, double or triple meanings which must be combined in order to appreciate the full flavour; others again are subtly ironical or cynical. At first sight the book is a jumble of nonsense intended to insult the reader. It requires infinite study, sympathy, intuition and initiation. Given these I do not hesitate to claim that in none other of my writings have I given so profound and comprehensive an exposition of my philosophy on every plane….”

My favourite chapter is the grammatical references one called “The Branks” (for it is the Scottish, and only known, apparatus for closing the mouth of a woman)

Being is the Noun; Form is the adjective.
Matter is the Noun; Motion is the Verb.
Wherefore hath Being clothed itself with Form?
Wherefore hath Matter manifested itself in Motion?
Answer not, O silent one! For THERE is no “where-
fore”, no “because”.
The name of THAT is not known; the Pronoun
interprets, that is , misinterprets, It.
Time and Space are Adverbs.
Duality begat the Conjunction.
The Conditioned is Father of the Preposition.
The Article also marketh Division; but the Interjection is the sound that endeth in the Silence.
Destroy therefore the Eight Parts of Speech; the
Ninth is nigh unto Truth.
This also must be destroyed before thou enterest
into The Silence.
Aum.

I might have chuckled a little. Crowley really thought himself as a really important man 🙂

PS: Any fans of Supernatural out there?

Who Is Aleister Crowley?

Aleister Crowley, also known as Edward Alexander Crowley, was a British occultist, author, and mountaineer who practiced “magick” (or, as he spelled it, “magic”) and referred to himself as the Beast 666.

He was born on October 12, 1875, in Royal Leamington Spa, England, and passed away on December 1, 1947, in Hastings. He had few disciples and was criticized for leading a debauched lifestyle in his own time, but after his death, he gained cult status.

https://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib333