Transcriber’s notes

[The work as presented here is currently incomplete: owing to my complete ignorance of Arabic, one column (the Princes of the Jinn) and some endnote material (the 99 names of God) in that language have not been entered.]

This electronic edition of 777 was prepared from the version of 777 Revised printed in 777 and other Qabalistic Writings (originally published as The Qabalah of Aleister Crowley). As far as I can tell this was a facsimile from the 1955 first edition of 777 Revised; while Crowley’s original Preface was re-set in the 1955 edition, the Tables of Correspondence, Crowley’s notes thereon, and the appendix giving the trigrams and hexagrams of the I Ching were with minor exceptions straight facsimiles from the original 1909 edition of 777.

In preparing the present edition I have included, besides the Preface, tables, notes and appendix from the original edition, the following additional material from 777 Revised:

* The 11 additional columns (CLXXXIV – CXCIV). These were originally appended at the end of Table VI. Six were explanatory of or supplementary to existing columns: (e.g. numerations of Greek and Arabic letters, transliterations or translations; the “magical formulæ” column was specifically referred to the column of magical weapons); these have been placed immediately after the appropriate column. The others have been appended to the end of the appropriate table. While they are hence “out of sequence” I feel this is unlikely to cause confusion as these additional columns are rarely if ever directly referenced by number in other works.

* Additional correspondences as mentioned in Crowley’s remarks on the various columns. They are inserted into the appropriate columns in double square brackets [[like this]].

Also added are:

* Numeration of Coptic.
* Transliterations of most Hebrew names.

In order to keep the present work at a manageable size, I have not included:

* Yorke’s editorial preface.
* The essay on the Magical Alphabet
* The Meaning of the Primes from 11 to 97.
* The “Various Arrangements” (mostly from The Book of Thoth)
* The “Explanations of the Attributions” – a series of remarks, some developing almost into essays, on columns I-III, V-VIII, X, XI, XIII-XXII, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVIII-XLIII, XLV, LVI-LXVIII, LXXVIILXXXVI, and XCVII.
* “What is Qabalah?”
* “What is a ‘Number’ or a ‘Symbol’?” (an extract from the New Comment on AL I.4)

Some of this additional material may later be made available in HTML format.

I have not attempted to preserve the original pagination of the tables of correspondence. For ease of reading, columns are arranged from left to right across a single page. Obvious typos have been corrected; other questionable readings are noted below.

T.S.

---

Endnotes

Notes to Crowley’s Preface

• 1 S.L. “MacGregor” Mathers.
   

• 2 The reference is probably to the Heptameron seu elementa magica, a 16th-century Grimoire of planetary magick (published with the Fourth Book of pseudo-Agrippa) deriving in part from the Solomonic cycle and in part from the Liber Juratus or Sworn Book of Honorius, a medieval work on magick (not to be confused with the early modern Grimoire of Honorius falsely attributed to the third Pope of that name). Its attribution to Pietro d’Abano (1253-1316) is generally recognised as spurious. The uncontested works of d’Abano do deal in part with astrological images and the medical / talismanic use of the same (vide Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic and Yates, Giordano Bruno), and he is occasionally cited as an authority by Renaissance writers such as Ficino and Agrippa; the material specifically attributed to d’Abano in 777 is from the Heptameron, although the images of the decans may be from his genuine works.
   

• 3 Probably a reference to the Golden Dawn. After swearing a long and tortuously phrased Oath of Secrecy, the Neophyte was issued a “Knowledge Lecture” which consisted of the names and symbols of the Elements, Planets and Signs along with the Hebrew Alphabet and the names of the Sephiroth in Hebrew.
   

• 4 The Lemegeton is a 17th-century compilation, probably English, of magical texts attributed to Solomon. The first book, Goetia, describes 72 “Evil Spirits” and gives instructions for evoking them (it derives variously from the Key of Solomon, the Heptameron, the Fourth Book of pseudo-Agrippa and the Pseudomonarchia Dæmonum of Wier). In 777 cols. CLV – CLXVI the spirits are referred to the Decans by day and night.

  The second book, Theurgia Goetia, describes 27 principal spirits and a very large number of subordinates of whom relatively few are named; of the 27, 16 are referred to the points of the compass and the other 11 are said to wander and have no fixed place. They are said to be partly evil and party good, hence the apparently oxymoronic title. It is possible that the Theurgia-Goetia was based on the Steganographia of Trithemius by someone who did not realise that the latter was primarily a work of cryptography.

  The third book, Ars Paulina, contains a catalogue of Angels for the 12 hours of the day and night, and for the 12 signs and 360 degrees of the Zodiac; they are also attributed to the seven classical Planets.
  The fourth book, Ars Almadel, is probably of medieval origin: it divides up the powers it summons into four “Altitudes”, seemingly referred to the cardinal points of the Zodiac.
  
  The “fifth book of the Lemegeton”, Ars Nova, is rather a kind of appendix which appears in one MS where it occupies one and a half sides of a single folio leaf: it contains an extended prayer associated with the names on the circle and triangle of the Goetia, possibly intended to be spoken while drawing these, along with a short and garbled conjuration containing some highly corrupt Hebrew names, probably also connected with the Goetia as it mentions the brazen vessel; and finally, a lengthy curse targetted at anyone who steals the book.

  The Ars Nova is sometimes confused with the Ars Notoria (Notary Art) attributed to Solomon, which latter rather appears to be a medieval magical derivative of classical art of memory, based around the contemplation of images or notæ while repeating prayers. The Ars Notoria was condemned by Aquinas (cited in Yates, Art of Memory) and various Renaissance writers such as Erasmus and Agrippa (in De vanitate &c.); Robert Turner produced an English translation which was made less than useful by the omission of the figures: this translation has been incorporated into some later MSS and printed editions of the Lemegeton.
   

• 5 In The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage (tom. II cap. XIX) are tabulated the names of various Evil Spirits: chief among these are the “Four Princes and Superior Spirits”, to wit Lucifer, Leviathan, Satan and Belial who may perhaps be referred to the Elements (I would suggest Fire, Water, Air, Earth respectively); immediately below these are eight “Sub-Princes”, namely Oriens, Paimon, Ariton, Amaimon (vide 777 col. LXVIII), Astarot, Magot, Asmodee and Belzebud (sic); a total of 316 named spirits are listed below the eight Sub-Princes, some subject to one of them, some shared between two or more.
   

• 6 The Book of the Concourse of the Forces is the title of a collection of Golden Dawn papers loosely based on the “Enochian” material which emerged from the ceremonial skrying of John Dee and Edward Kelly. Crowley later published a terse and incomplete abstract of this material as “A brief abstract of the symbolic representation of the Universe” in Equinox I (7-8). See also Regardie (ed.) The Golden Dawn, vol. IV.
   

• 7 This would not be a view generally shared by most serious practitioners and students of Dee and Kelly’s magick. Unless Crowley is talking about the G.D. version of “Enochian Magic” in which case he has a point.
   

• 8 - 4 Planes: the first consists solely of Kether; the second of Chokmah and Binah; the third of Chesed through to Yesod; the fourth of Malkuth only. These are identified by some with the Four Worlds. Pillars / 7 Planes: see col. XII. 7 palaces: see col. LXXXVII et seq.

Notes to Tables of Correspondences

Table I (the whole scale)

Col. VIII. The numbers after the Qliphoth of the Sephiroth represent which of the seven “palaces” they are referred to: see the arrangements in Col. LXXXVIII et. seq. Transliterations are as given in Crowley’s remarks on this column in 777 Revised, although a few have been altered where they are not consistent with the Hebrew spelling.

Col. XIV. These represent G.D. attributions, before Crowley changed the titles of a number of the Trumps in The Book of Thoth and exchanged the attributions of the Star and Emperor based on AL
I.57.

Col. XIX. Transliterations of Egyptian names have been left as in the first edition. These differ from both modern transliterations and those employed by early 20th-century writers such as Budge.

• Line 1: Asar is better known by the Hellenized form Osiris; Asar-un-Nefer (“Osiris the beautiful”) was a particular epiphet or title of this god. Hadith in this line (also Hadit in line 0) is not a historical Egyptian deity but refers to the entity described in cap. II of The Book of the Law; the name is a garbled or corrupt form of Heru-Behutet (Horus of Behutet), a solar-martial form of Horus symbolized by the winged disk. Heru-Ra-Ha is not a historical Egyptian deity but is mentioned in cap. III of The Book of the Law and is said to combine Hoor-par-Kraat (Horus the Child) and Ra-Hoor-Khuit (Ra-Horus of the Two Horizons).

• Line 6: “On” was not an Egyptian deity but a transliteration into Hebrew (}a or }wa) of the name of the Egyptian solar cult-centre called Heliopolis by the Greeks. The confusion arose through a misreading by Freemasons of Genesis XLI, 45 and 50 where Joseph married “Asenath daughter of Poti-phera priest of On.” ON spelt }u as a formula is another matter entirely; see Col. CLXXXVII. Hrumachis is probably a variant spelling of Harmachis (Hor-Maku), said by Budge (Gods of the Egyptians vol. I p. 470) to be the Greek name for Heru-Khuti, Horus of the two horizons, who represented the sun from sunrise to sunset.

• Line 13: Chomse also spelt Khons or Khensu. In one legend (cited by Budge, op. cit. I, 448) he is said to be the son of the cat goddess Bast who was also associated with the moon (to complicate matters Bast has solar aspects in some accounts).
  Lines 16, 32-bis: Ahapshi is the Apis Bull (GD Coptic spelling). Ameshet is Amset (or Mestha), one of the Children of Horus.

• Line 17: The Rekti goddesses and Merti goddesses both appear to have been specific titles or epiphets of Isis and Nephthys.

• Line 19: Pasht (according to Budge, op. cit. I, 517) is Pekh or Pekhit, a minor lioness goddess. Mau is onomatopoeic Egyptian for ‘cat’ and appears to have been an epiphet of Ra.

• Line 22: Ma is more usually spelt Maat or Ma’at.

• Lines 23, 31: Auramoth and Thoum-aesh-neith were never Egyptian deities but were names constructed on Qabalistic principles by the Golden Dawn to refer to water and fire; similarly the name Tarpesheth (Tharpesht) is unknown prior to G.D. material, although she appears to be a hybrid of Bast and Sekhet.

• Line 24: Typhon was a monster in Greek myth, probably a personification of destructive forces of nature, who was identified with Set in late classical times. Add Selket, whose symbol was the scorpion. I have no idea what Khephra is doing here.

• Line 25: Add Neith (Net) who is traditionally depicted with a bow and arrows.

• Line 26: Khem is identified by Budge (op. cit., I, 97) with the phallic god Min or Amsu, and is said to have been the god of Apu (Panopolis).

• Line 28: Ahephi is Hapi, one of the Children of Horus.

• Line 29: Add Hequet (Hekt).

• Line 31: Kabeshunt is probably Qebhsennuf, one of the Children of Horus.

• Line 32: I have no idea who ‘Mako’ is.

In the Golden Dawn Z1 paper the Children of Horus or Canopic Gods had ‘invisible stations’ in the corners of the Temple. The most immediate source for the elemental attributions, though, is the Golden Dawn paper on “Enochian Chess” where the four pawns of each side are referred to these God-forms. It is not clear why Crowley omitted Tuamutef for Water: (a G.D. Coptic form of this name is cited in connection with the “Eagle Kerub” in a ritual in Equinox I (3)).

In a myth recounted by Budge (op. cit. vol. I p. 158) these gods are said to have grasped the four pillars of heaven as sceptres: Amset the South, Hapi the North, Tuamutef the East, and Qebhsennuf the West. They were also said to guard the Canopic Jars in which the internal organs of the deceased were preserved, and their G.D. attributions to the cross-quarters probably derive from a single find of an Egyptian tomb which had the four jars with the images of the gods disposed thus.

Col. XX.

• Line 23: Possibly a G.D. Coptic spelling of Ashtoreth who according to Budge (op. cit.) was worshipped in Egypt in the later dynastic period (in Regardie, Complete G.D., “Sati-Ashtoreth” is referred to the Fire Queen in “Enochian Chess”, the name is spelt I#haourey in Crowley’s notes).

• Line 25: A G.D. Coptic spelling of Aroueris.
  Col. XXI. All this is derived from the famous speech in cap. 42 of the Book of the Dead. Some minor errors have been corrected (e.g. Line 12 read “Aupu—the Hips”). The Planets are referred according to the attributions in Agrippa (tom. II cap. x); hence the duplication of left and right eye, ear and nostril.

• Line 15. Budge has “hands.”

• Line 32 bis. The Hebrew is Alim Chayyim, “the living Gods.”
  Col. XXIII. “Nothing and Neither P nor p'”) and “Beaten and Scattered Corpse” each denote two different meditations.
  Col. XXXV. Agrippa (De occ. phil. tom II cap xiv) in his “Orphic Scale of the Number Twelve” refers the twelve principle Gods of Rome to the Zodiac:

  • a Pallas (Minerva)
    b Venus
    c Phoebus
    d Mercury
    e Jupiter
    f Ceres
    g Vulcan
    h Mars
    i Diana
    j Vesta
    k Juno
    l Neptune.

Crowley included most of these, omitting only Jupiter and Phoebus.

Col. XXXVI. The Evangelists follow their traditional attribution to the Kerubim. Godwin gives the Apostles thus (he does not state his source):

a Matthias
b Thaddeus
c Simon
d John
e Peter
f Andew
g Bartholemew
h Phillip
i James son of Zebedee
j Thomas
k Matthew
l James son of Alpheus.

Col. XXXVIII.

• Line 7: Iynx: Grk., Iugx (pl. Iuggej), the wryneck: a bird of the woodpecker family which had the misfortune to be used in early Greek love magick (hence the attribution); but in the Chaldæan Oracles the Iunges appear to have been a group of ministering powers who stood between the theurgist and the Supreme God (source: Lewy, Chaldæan Oracles and Theurgy), whence they are cited in the ritual of the Star Ruby. Not ‘lynx’ as it is sometimes misread; nor does it rhyme with “sphinx.” As noted in the remarks on this column in 777 Revised, AC’s source here was Levi.

• Line 8: Monoceros de Astris means “Unicorn from the Stars” and is a title of the grade of 3°=88 Practicus (referred to Hod) in the Golden Dawn.
  Col. XXXIX.

• Line 8: Anhalonium Lewinii is now known by the botanical name Lophophora williamsi.

Col. CLXXXVII. See Magick in Theory and Practice for a discussion of some of these formulæ. Another set of attributions of magical formulæ to the Tree of Life survives in one of Crowley’s magical notebooks and may be studied in Magick:

Book 4 Parts I-IV (editor’s notes to Appendix V col. 34).

• Line 0: LASTAL is not necessarily an error for LAShTAL (for which see Liber V vel Reguli) but may be a variant form, the ST representing the Coptic sou, identified with the Greek stau and attributed to Kether (see Col LI and Magick, loc. cit.). M . . . . M probably refers to MUAUM, said (in a letter from C.S. Jones to Frank Bennet) to be the Word of a Neophyte of A\A\, representing the whole course of the breath. Spelt \wawm in Hebrew, it adds to 93 (it may also contain a concealed yod, not pronounced or counted in the enumeration, which would explain the fourth dot in M . . . . M and the extra coloured band used to glyph the word in Pyramidos).

• Lines 1-9: In The Heart of the Master, section Aves (‘Birds’), nine magical formula are given as the voices of various symbolic birds, apparently referred to the Sephiroth 1-9, thus:
  1 (the Swan): AUMGN (one version has AUM) 2 (the Phoenix): AL 3 (the Raven): AMEN 4 (the Eagle): SU 5 (the Hawk): AGLA 6 (the Pelican): IAO 7 (the Dove): HRILIU 8 (the Ibis): ABRAHADABRA 9 (the Vulture): MU

• Line 24: Possibly ON (ayin nun) should also be referred here.
  
  
  Col. XLVI. Crowley’s later attributions of the trigrams of the I Ching, etc., to the Sephiroth are given in The Book of Thoth, thusly:

0: Tao.
1: Tao Teh.
2:Yang.
3: Yin.
.Daath: Khien.
.
4: Tui.
5: Kbn.
6: Li.
7: Kbn.
8: Sun.
9: Khân.
10: Khwbn.

Col. XLVIII. Most of these refer to symbols appearing in Golden Dawn rituals.

Line 26: Possibly should read “Calvary Cross of 6, Solid” as the faces of such will total 26 squares.

Col LI. This arrangement differs slightly from the G.D. attributions given in Regardie (ed.), Complete G.D. (buried in the Ring and Disk paper), in that t and y have been interchanged. In the printed edition of 777, G was given in line 1 as well as line 13, and $ in line 10 (C did not appear on the table). These have been corrected as compositor’s errors; $ has been placed in line 1 and C in line 10 in accordance with G.D. attributions. For each letter, ‘upper case’ and ‘lower case’ forms are shown; the degree of difference between these two forms varies between letters.

The two un-numbered columns are extracted in this instance from Appendix V to the ‘Blue Brick’ edition of Magick, in turn deriving from Crowley’s magical notebooks. Numbers seem in most cases to be those of the equivalent Greek letter; the ‘English equivalents’ do not necessarily represent the original phonetic value of the letters but rather refer to the transliterations employed in the Golden Dawn, where Coptic spellings of the names of various Egyptian Gods were constructed according to the Qabalistic attributions of the letters. The letter sou ($, #) did not historically have a phonetic value as such but was rather used to fill out the numbering scheme by standing for 6; whence it was identified with the obsolete Greek letter stau which was also used for number 6, and given the value ‘st.’

Col LII. The letters are shown in their ‘isolated’ forms; since Arabic is written cursively, letter forms vary slightly depending on whether the letter appears on its own, or in the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a word. The repetition of one letter in lines 9 and 10 appears to be deliberate.


Table II (the Elements)

Col. LXVI. The numerical value of each of these spellings gives the number in Col. LXV, which, rendered in Hebrew letters, gives the “secret name” in Col. LXIV.

• Line 31. Originally given hyh wyw hyh dwy, which adds to 82 rather than 72. The reading here is from Mathers’ introduction to Kaballah Unveiled.
   

Table III (the Planets)

Col. LXXVIII.

• Line 13. Various spellings of this horrendous name have appeared in the literature, and as mentioned in Crowley’s notes on this column, the spelling given here can only be made to add to 3321 by counting the final \ as 700 rather than the more usual 600. Liber D had \yrhc hwrb duw \ycycrtb aklm, Malkah be-Tarshishim ve-A’ad be-Ruah Sheharim, which gives the required value without any such dubious fudges. The oldest known form of this name is \yqjc jwrb du \ytycrtb aklm, Malkah be-Tarshithim A’ad be-Ruach Shechaqim (Agrippa, op. cit., lib. II, cap. xxii).
   

Table IV (the Sephiroth)

Col. LXXXVIII. These originally given in Latin; I have translated them into English.

Col. XCII. The original had this in Latin; it was a slight garbling of the Vulgate of Isaiah VI, 2-3. I have translated it into English as it appeared.

Col. XCIV. Despite being headed “English of Palaces” this column was originally in Latin. The translations of the Seven Heavens are mostly from Godwin’s Cabalistic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Heaven.”

Col. CIII. This column originally printed in Latin.

Col. CVIII. For what it’s worth (see Crowley’s note on this column), here are the transliterations of the Hebrew names:

• Line 2. Samael (“poison of God” or “blind god”). lams= 131 = Pan.

• Line 3. Isheth Zanunim (Woman of Whoredom), said to be the wife of Samael. \ynwnz tca = 864 = \ycdq cwdq, Qadosh Qadeshim, Holy of Holies. Doubtless there is an Arcanum concealed here, possibly along the lines of “you can prove anything with Gematria if you try hard enough.”

• Line 5. Ashteroth. Historically a Middle Eastern goddess (a.k.a. Ishtar, Astarté, etc.), denounced by Old Testament writers and given an inexplicable sex change by medieval demonologists.

• Line 6. Chiva, the Beast; said to be the offspring of Samael and Isheth Zanunim (see Mathers’ introduction to Kaballah Unveiled, para 61). Only a hideous fudge (to wit (a) mis-spelling the name as ahija, (b) writing each letter out in full and (c) counting hé in full as ah rather than the more usual hh) can get this name to add to 666.

• Line 7. Asmodai. Appears in the apocryphal Book of Tobit. Sometimes also known by the Latinised form Asmodeus. The name is possibly a modification of Aeshma Deva, an evil spirit from Persian mythology.

• Line 8. Belial. Said to be the chief of the evil spirits in some late Jewish apocalyptic literature
  (e.g. the Testament of the 12 Patriarchs), but in the Old Testament the name was a mere term of abuse meaning “masterless” or “worthless.”

• Line 9. Lilith. She gets everywhere.

• Line 10. Naamah. The sister of Tubal-Cain (see Masonic symbolism); but in the Zohar she gets turned into another version of Lilith.

Col. CIX. Rather than use planetary symbols to distinguish the Kings and Dukes as in the printed edition, I have split this column. For Daath add King Bela son of Beor (rwub }b ulb) and Dukes Timnah (uamt), Alvah (hwlu) and Jetheth (tty).

Col. CX.
Line 1. Ruach Elohim Chayyim, the Spirit of the Living Gods. The first edition of 777 had as a subtitle \yyj \yhla hwr tja, Achath Ruach Elohim Chayyim (“one [is] the Spirit of the Living Elohim”), a line from the Sepher Yetzirah which adds to 777.

Cols. CXII – CXIII. These sets of attributions were extracted by the Golden Dawn from the first volume of Kabbala Denudata. The symbols in 7 and 8 apparently represent “hermaphroditic Brass.”

Col. CXIV. The numbers are an addition; each password adds to the “mystic number” of the Sephirah corresponding. Vide Col. X.

Col. CXV. The entries in this column were originally given as initials only.

Col. CXXI. These are Golden Dawn titles. The A\A\ titles in the 1st order differ slightly; 0°=08 is Probationer, 1°=108 is Neophyte, 2°=98 Zelator and the “waiting” grade between Philosophus and Adeptus Minor is called Dominus Liminis.

Cols. CXXIX – CXXXII. These are the Angels of the Shem ha-Mephorash or Divided Name of God, a full explanation of which would be beyond the scope of this footnote. On each row, the name on the left rules the card in question by day, the one on the right by night.

Cols. CXXXIII – CXXXVI. Words in square brackets are the Book of Thoth keywords for these cards where these differ from the titles.

Table V (the Zodiac)

Col. CXXXIX. The outer planets – Uranus ((), Nepture ()) and Pluto (*) and the Nodes of the Moon were not given in this table in 777, but appeared in these positions in the table “The Essential Dignities of the Planets” in The Book of Thoth. In Magick Crowley added an additional column, the “Superior Planetary Governers” of the signs; initially this referred the Cardinal signs to the “Primum Mobile”, the Kerubic signs to Uranus and the Mutable signs to Neptune; in The Book of Thoth the Cardinal signs were referred to Pluto (discovered in the 1930s).

Cols. CXLIX – CLI. Agrippa (tom. II cap. xxxvii) gives a somewhat different set of images for the decans, along with the significance of each. It is believed Agrippa derived from Latin translations of the Picatrix, a medieval Arabic work on magic. The images given here are close to those printed by Regardie in Complete Golden Dawn, and thus probably represent those circulating in the G.D., though Regardie also gave the signification of each image (similar but not always identical to those in Agrippa).

Cols. CLV – CLXVI. I have added transliterations of the names of the spirits and numbers according to the order in which they appear in the Goetia. Planetary symbols indicate the rank of the spirit and the material from which its seal is to be made (some spirits have two ranks), thus:

Rank Planet Metal
Prince Jupiter Tin
Earl Mars Iron
King Sol Gold
Duke Venus Copper
President Mercury Mercury (hmm…)
Marquis Luna Silver

Note that in rendering the names of the demons into Hebrew, some suffixes like –ion, –ius, etc. have been dropped.
An alternative set of attributions and Hebrew spellings can be found in The Sword and the Serpent by Denning and Phillips, and Godwin’s Cabalistic Encyclopedia.

Cols. CLXVII – CLXXI. A completely different set of names for the dekans and the gods referred to them may be found in Budge’s Gods of the Egyptians, vol. ii pp 304-310. I am unaware of Crowley’s source for these attributions: generally the names seem at the very least somewhat Hellenized.

Notes to Crowley’s notes

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