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The English Cabala - 111

1=A=0

“The ‘Order & Value’ of the English Alphabet”

By R. Shane Clayton

© 2024 Wandering Stars Publishing, All rights reserved.

(A .pdf file of this article is available at Wandering Stars Publications)

This article delves a little deeper into my involvement with Liber Legis — The Threefold Book of Law, as described in Why Egypt? Part 2 — and the discovery I made as a result. For more information on Liber Legis, visit my article About Thelema.

About a year after my initial introduction to The Book of Law in 1993, I encountered the original Llewellyn publication of the first volume of an “encyclopedic guide to the sacred alphabets and magickal systems of the world” by author David Allen Hulse, then entitled “The Key of It All, Book One — The Eastern Mysteries.” This thick book covered what he called six “Angelic” Keys: the alphabets of Cuneiform, Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese, and is a most valuable reference with tables and clearly organized explanations.

In this first volume was also promised a second volume not yet published, “The Key of It All, Book Two — The Western Mysteries” covering seven more alphabet Keys: Greek, Coptic, Runes, Enochian, Tarot, and English — making English a sacred language or “magickal” or “angelic” alphabet, like the others. At the time I remembered thinking to myself “But aren’t the Egyptian hieroglyphs a sacred alphabet too?” only to later discover them in his Book Two, secreted in the Coptic adaptation of the Hieratic alphabet. In Book One he wrote that Book Two would contain: “The serial order code for English; Aleister Crowley’s attempt at an English Qabalah; the symbolism behind the shapes of the English alphabet letters.”

The concept of an English Qabalah had already seized my imagination just several months before reading Hulse’s books, as it has for so many of us after first reading the following command in The Book of Law II:55:

"Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet; thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto."

Understood by Crowley as describing an “English Qabalah” yet to be developed or revealed, this announcement in “The Key of It all — Book One” sparked my curiosity and truly planted the subconscious seed of what was to follow. Just after Book One arrived, I was winding up performing a Qabalistic path–work cycle, and I was finally up to the very last 11th Path attributed to The Fool of the Tarot. In late January of 1995, utilizing certain ceremonial, yoga, and shamanic techniques, I suddenly had a clear vision of the answer to the passage, which came as a culmination of my path–work with The Fool — the “order & value” instantly flashing in my mind's eye as 1 & 0, along with the immediate understanding that 1 denoted the order, that is — first, beginning with the letter A, with 0 being the numerological value of the letter. Thus:

1=A=0

AHA!

I remember laughing out loud. It seemed almost too obvious, leaving the existing Tarot numbering system intact.

The 11th Path on the Qabalistic Tree of Life is attributed to the Hebrew “Mother” letter Aleph, valued at 1, and The Fool card is numbered 0. With the English letter ‘A’ in between its own “order & value,” the Gnostic god name IAO appeared in my mind’s eye, and it suddenly became pregnant with meaning in that “Aha!” moment…

It was then that a soft feminine voice began speaking as in a thought, triggered by that realization. I remember first thinking that it was my internal dialogue — my monkey mind — but it was persistent. And it was familiar. It wasn’t an audible hallucination, it was more like an internal voice that I realized didn’t come from my own mind. Hard to explain better, but I suddenly recognized it from my psychedelic trips back in high school, often thinking of it as the feminine “personality” of LSD that I for some reason identified with the Egyptian goddess Isis.

That voice was often apparent when I was tripping, describing things while listening to music, and right then, crazy as it may sound, an episode I experienced with the Led Zeppelin III album while on acid, way back in 1970, immediately flashed from my memory out of the blue. When I had gone to turn the record over, the light glinted off the space at the end of the record revealing “Do what thou wilt” inscribed into the vinyl, to which the “voice” responded, “shall be the whole of the Law.”

Now, I didn’t know then that this is a famous quote from The Book of Law. I was later told by a guitarist acquaintance that “Do what thou wilt” was from Aleister Crowley, and that Jimmy Page was a follower and had scratched it into the master. I did know about Crowley’s Tarot and “The Book of Thoth,” but I had no inkling of Liber Legis then. When this same acquaintance also told me that Crowley was generally regarded as a Satanist, I found it fascinating, but that pretty much squelched any further serious interest I might have had. Not because of any Christian leanings or fear, of course, but because I thought it was cultish and creepy.

But for that memory to persist, hidden there in my subconscious, and then pop back like that, along with the familiar feminine “voice,” during this particular path–working, was a real jolt. I realized then that the voice didn’t just come from the LSD — I had not taken any entheogens besides cannabis. It was simply that both the LSD and, in this case, the ritual pathworking, had shifted my perception so that I noticed it wasn’t really my thoughts. Just then, I realized it was the same voice of my Daemon, who had appeared to me glittering in the wind on a wild Big Sur beach just a few years before. My heart sank that somehow I hadn’t noticed and forgotten it. That time, of course, mushrooms were involved.

I suddenly realized that it was also the same voice that told me to get up and call 911 when I attempted suicide in 1985 during my depressed SAD syndrome days in Seattle! I was astonished at this realization. How could I have not made the connection before this? It was always there all along, like an internal dialogue, and I realized that my day–to–day awareness had been simply filtering it out as just “thinking to myself.” My psychotropic, near–death, and rarefied ceremonial awareness, however, had not filtered it out at all, but rather rendered it crystal clear. It was then that the identification of the voice with Isis came again; but not as the Greek version of her name, but rather I heard “Auset,” in the original Egyptian language.

While the incredulous are welcome to their opinions on this matter, it was at this moment that the soft yet firm voice suggested that I write down what was about to be "given" to me. Not having a pen and paper handy (a huge error in magickal workings, I might add), and therefore not heeding the command to “write,” I instead went over to the new computer I had been renting to type out what I “heard,” a lamentable choice that leaves me without a holograph manuscript. Even so, I saved the result, a Word file on Windows 95, in the form of a short document which I arbitrarily entitled Liber A vel Follis – The Book of the Holy Fool.

One might appreciate my shock and amazement when, some years after typing out Liber A and sharing it on my website, I was directed in an online forum to an obscure section of the Hebrew Haggadah pertaining to the creation of the Hebrew alphabet, only to find the revelation repeated back to me almost verbatim, albeit couched in Hebrew/Aramaic terms! One of my academic critics claimed outright that I had clearly plagiarized the passage giving it a Liber Legis spin — and all I could do was helplessly try to defend myself, countering that such was not the case, that I had never seen nor heard of the Haggadah until they had referred me to it. I honestly had no idea of its existence.

Now I am quite convinced that both documents come from the same praeter–human source. Take or leave my explanation of the reception of Liber A as you will. While it does support the cipher 1=A=0, and reveals some incredibly arcane information, the cipher speaks for itself and does not depend on the document, and that’s just as well. The intelligence that revealed it to me was apparently repeating the passage anyway, or else is in possession of a wry sense of humor — or both. Either way, I KNOW this entity is very, very real.

“The Order & Value of the English Alphabet”

After applying the process of esoteric Numerology (called Gematria) with this new cipher, extended serially to yield A=0 through Z=25 (with X and Y switched only in order per Hadit’s riddle in Liber Legis, and the chance shape of the letters themselves), I was astonished by the numeric correlations with various Qabalistic numbers and words, especially from The Book of Law. Here is the very first one I tried out:

In Chapter I of Liber Legis, the goddess says, “I am Nuit and my word is six and fifty.” And amazingly enough, the four letters of “w–o–r–d” added up to 56 in the A=0 cipher! That did it for me, right then and there. I pondered the statistical chances. But of course, there was more.

Concerning this number 111, Nuit says, “My prophet is a fool with his one — one — one; are not they the Ox, and none by the Book?” Indeed, the numerological value of the Hebrew word Aleph is 111, it literally means ox, and it is attributed to the Fool card numbered 0. While crunching the “numbers & the words” I was amazed to find that “one — one — one” adds to 93, the number value of the Greek word Thelema! Also, the letters of “Order & Value” sum to 111 — and that clinched the answer to Liber Legis II:55 being keyed to the Fool’s Tarot card number attributes “one and none” as it flashed into my mind that January night. I later discovered that “The English Cabala” adds to 111 by A=0, which is perfect because there are 111 primary symbols in the Western Esoteric Qabalah:

10 — Sephiroth of Tree of Life – The Numbers 1 through 10

22 — Connective Paths of Tree of Life – Tarot Greater Arcana

56 — Permutations of the Four Elements – Tarot Lesser Arcana

12 – Signs of the Zodiac

11 – Discrete bodies, Planets, or “Wandering Stars” in the astrological Solar System including the Earth, Sun, and Moon.

The spelling of Cabala with a C is appropriate for English too, with Cabala being the common English variant found in contemporary mainstream dictionaries, the use of the letters Q or K simply being English transliterations from the phonetic Hebrew anyway — there is no “set in stone” spelling. But our third letter C corresponds symbolically to the crescent waning Moon, and thus is well attributed to the third Tarot card The Priestess, enthroned with the TORA on her lap and wearing the lunar horned crown of the ancient Great Mother goddesses. This makes the letter C symbolically more relevant than Q or K, especially considering that “The English Cabala” cipher A=0 makes it so.

And there are more correspondences like these, so many more in fact, that it becomes clear that something very important is secreted here, and that even the admitted “know–it–all” Crowley never saw many of them; and in my mind, that’s a pretty darned good indication that he wasn’t the one who put them there. Coupled with David Allen Hulse’s discoveries with the English magickal alphabet, these “revealed mysteries” speak of a far broader intelligence than Crowley’s behind the writing of The Book of Law.

Certain that “the order & value of the English alphabet” to be expounded in Hulse’s upcoming “The Key of It All: Book Two” must be one and the same, I found myself waiting anxiously for its publication. As soon as it arrived at the old Beers Books, I purchased my signed pre–ordered copy, went next door to the old Capitol Garage for coffee, and immediately searched for the chapter on the English alphabet. I was quite surprised to find that it contained a serial English value of A=1, the same one already used by contemporary numerologists. Even so, Hulse had cited copious Qabalah and Book of Law correlations which were undeniably pertinent to Thelema and the other Mystery Traditions, the Masons in particular. It was really quite fascinating, leading me to hypothesize that the true value of the English Alphabet might be a kind of binary code, A=1 and 0, and not just an order & value. The similarity between this binary code, and the digital language of computers, 1/0, seemed to me to be far more than coincidental. I needed no convincing about the A = 0 value, but neither did I need any for A = 1 after reading David’s exposition. They both resonate.

And so, on April Fool’s Day of 1995, I decided to document my revelation and growing number/word dictionary right away, and self–published a small booklet somewhat prematurely and ostentatiously (when in Rome…) entitled “Value of the English Alphabet — 222, Liber ABK” (the title adds to 222, before I discovered the later 111 correlation with “order & value” and “The English Cabala”) with ABK, valued at 0, 1 and 10, thus 11, being a Key in what Hulse refers to as “The Grand Puzzle” of Liber Legis). It was produced on that same rented computer I was so enthralled with in January. I had never written much of anything before besides obscure song lyrics, but that was soon to change. The owner of the print shop that produced the booklets was a friend who humored me with an initial “proof” run of 4 copies on April 1st, then six runs of 4 after that for a total of 32 copies (one mine, which I still have) – printed on the “Feast days of the writing of The Book of Law” April 8th, 9th and 10th. Who knows who ended up with them or where they are today. I intended to publish another edition later in May until I discovered that “The English Cabala” sums to 111, irrevocably changing the title of the project. This discovery, and subsequent events, sent me back to the drawing board as far as the 1=A=0 cipher was concerned. The full work “The English Cabala – 111” remains unfinished 30 years later, with it being one chapter and some serious editing short of completion.

It is important to note here that this is not the first time that a numeric value system for the English Alphabet has been posited. Numerologists have been using the serial code (A = 1 through Z = 26) for decades, used particularly in maritime communications, conflating the order with the value (although after all, any good mathematician starts with 0, not 1). As I mentioned earlier, this is the same cipher used by Hulse in his Book 2 encyclopedia and his booklet The Truth About Numerology, both published by Llewellyn. Matthew Goodwin (in his book Numerology: The Complete Guide) is also a proponent of this system, as are a plethora of other writers (as a cursory search on the internet will reveal), all of which work quite well for most intended purposes; but our English Cabala’s purpose is not exoteric, it is very esoteric… giving access to the hidden.

The first reference to an “English Qabalah” found in the literature, and the first system of English gematria, was by the poet John Skelton in 1523 in his poem "The Garland of Laurel". This was followed by Willis F. Whitehead in 1899 in his book, The Mystic Thesaurus, in which he describes a system he called "English Cabala" with a “C.” Crowley was likely aware of these and used the term English Qabalah in his writings.

In one of his “Holy Books of Thelema” called “Liber Trigrammaton, sub figura XXVII — Being the Book of the Mutations of the Tao with the Yin and the Yang,” Crowley presents 27 three-line trigrams composed of a solid line for the Yang, a broken line for the Yin, and a point for the Tao. Crowley later jotted the 26 English letters in the margin of one of his copies of the book while trying to work out his ideas, but abandoned that line of thought and never developed it, only noting that "The attribution in Liber Trigrammaton is good theoretically; but no Qabalah of merit has risen therefrom." Some call this Crowley’s English Qabalah, but he never said so. Either way, these 27 trigrams are a fine addition to the “new symbols” that are attributed to the English letters that follow.

Like Whitehead, since English is written in Roman script I chose the Latin rendition of the word, Cabala, which is a universally accepted spelling found in every English dictionary. My reason for choosing this spelling goes far beyond this, of course — to reiterate: the values of the letters comprising “The English Cabala” add to 111, and again, quite remarkably, there are precisely 111 basic symbols of the Western Esoteric Qabalah – the number 111 being a quite portentous and classic Qabalistic number indeed!

Obviously, I am not original in naming this system “The English Cabala.” Besides Whitehead, the most notable is William Eisen's farsighted two–volume work, The English Cabalah, published by DeVorss in 1980-81 (Eisen’s system, like those mentioned above, is also based upon the A=1 serial cipher). Most notably there is the popular code discovered by Jim Lees in the mid–seventies that was later developed further by Jake Stratton–Kent and Carol Smith, a more elaborate cipher labeled either the “English Qaballa” or “New Aeon English Qabalah” (NAEQ), which has been embraced by several latter–day Thelema groups. Then there is Linda Falorio's fascinating “Liber CXV — The English Qabalah,” self-published in 1979, that presents a system dependent upon Kenneth Grant’s writings. More recently, another non-serial system for English known as “Trigrammaton Qabalah” (TQ) was first published by R. Leo Gillis in 1996 and subsequently re-released as “The Book of Mutations” in 2002, based upon Crowley’s margin notes in his copy of Liber Trigrammaton mentioned earlier. Lastly, we have yet another book, “The English Qabalah” by Vsv, published by Eighth House in 2014. At this point, I have no intention of spending $56 to find out what their “Key” is.

A search of the internet will invariably turn up any number of other different English systems, including this one. While most all of these are, like my cipher, equally based upon the “numbers and words” of Crowley's cryptic Book of Law, and do provide fairly workable results, I believe that none can approach the crystal clarity of the A=0 Liber Legis correlations, or the simple to remember serial “order & value” expressed as 1=A=0. The incredulous are encouraged to compare these various systems with the results of this Sacred Cipher and The English Cabala –111, and judge for themselves.

Meetings with David Allen Hulse:

Inside the back covers of both of the “The Key of It All” books, there was a brief author bio saying that David lived in Sacramento too, so I entertained the notion that perhaps I should write to him at the publisher’s contact address given (quaint, huh?), and send him my booklet to see what his thoughts might be, hoping to meet him. Incredibly, as it turned out, I got my chance to show him the results of my work in person only a few short months after my first discoveries. I had just recently met a new acquaintance, a local artist/musician, and after his first visit to my home, he noted my all–too–apparent interest in the occult and suggested that I should meet a friend of his with a similar calling, David Hulse.

I was astounded by this synchronicity — another veritable “opening–of–the–way” (what I have now come to recognize as the distinctive mark of two Egyptian Neteru, Neith and Anubis). My friend soon arranged a meeting with David at his home (I had no idea beforehand, but we also “coincidentally” lived within walking distance from each other in Sacramento), and so I prepared my notes and a freshly printed copy of my booklet and waited rather anxiously for the appointed time to arrive to meet this erudite author in the Western Mystery Traditions. Needless to say, I was intimidated; but as soon as we met, he put me at ease and we immediately warmed up to each other.

After our first meeting, when I told him about my experience with receiving 1=A=0 and gave him a copy of my little “222” booklet, we met again several times. We were both excited about exchanging our ideas, showing each other our personal Tarot decks and such; and although he was understandably skeptical of my cipher at first, he finally conceded the radical validity of A=0, especially since the two systems were mutually supportive. I remember him citing a meaningful numerological correlation in A=1 while standing in his kitchen pouring us coffee, to which I countered with a reciprocal association in A=0, much to our amusement and amazement, knowing full well how few people there were who could even surmise what we were up to. I recall David likening these two ciphers to the warp and weft of a fisherman's net, which we were using to capture shimmering pearls of knowledge like fish, suggesting that A=0 had effectively tightened the skein of this net to catch more of the “little ones that would have gotten away.”

I likened the A=0 cipher to a wild card, the Joker if you will, who is actually the Tarot card numbered 0, the Fool; the Joker being the only Major Arcana Tarot card that remains in our present 52 card deck. Just as the Joker does in card games, A=0 adds an air of unpredictability in Numerology, since A=0 names and words possess disproportionately smaller numeric values than the A=1 words, depending upon how many times the letter A appears in them.

David also once referred to A=0 as The Shadow to A=1 (though it might be seen esoterically as the other way around), which led one of us (I think it was me) to label these two as the LVX and NOX Ciphers (Latin words meaning Light and Darkness). From that point on I took on the motto Nox Cipher. Telling me that this was likely the most “Thelemic” period in my life (confession: I have always abhorred that “ic” word and refuse to use it), he finally agreed that my work with the NOX Cipher or A=0 code had just begun, and so it was that the responsibility for expounding it fell on my shoulders. I simply could not believe my good fortune in having these conversations with David and his support, and viewed it as a clear movement of Spirit.

I am rather embarrassed to report today that I am still working on my yet unfinished compendium entitled “The English Cabala — 111” 30 years later. Meanwhile, David's occupation with the A=1 cipher had already resulted in “The Truth About Numerology,” published in 1993, and “The Key Of It All: Books One and Two,” published in 1994–95, all based on his original first edition, simply entitled “The Key of It All,” or “Liber ABRAHADABRA,” self–published in 1988 as a dot-matrix printed manuscript in a three–ring binder, a copy of which he gifted to me in a gesture of unrestrained trust. I still have it in my magickal library after all these years. I should note here for those who don’t already know that the term “the Key of it all” is a direct quote from The Book of Law III:47.

“This book shall be translated into all tongues: but always with the original in the writing of the Beast; for in the chance shape of the letters and their position to one another: in these are mysteries that no Beast shall divine. Let him not seek to try: but one cometh after him, whence I say not, who shall discover the Key of it all.”

Thus, the original published title of his books, “The Key of It All,” that originally prefaced and was later tellingly removed from his two–volume set now entitled simply “The Eastern Mysteries” and “The Western Mysteries,” suggests that, at that time, David considered himself to be the “one” who would “cometh after” the Beast — Aleister Crowley – the so–called “Child of AL.” After all these years, I have no reason to doubt that this is so. In my opinion, he would certainly be preferable to the current “heirs.” After all, my revelations and discoveries were wholly inspired by his Great Work in the first place.

I am honestly disinterested in such a role myself. If the system works, it is what it is. Experience has shown that great falls can come from such massaging of the ego and the power trips that are often attendant, as with any such “lust of result.” Crowley himself serves as a prime cautionary tale. And this is not to say that David was any more guilty of it than I. After my initial revelation and documentation, I’ve simply been too busy living my life to write and publish, much less capitalize on it in any way. I know it sounds crazy, but it almost feels like a burden to even feel obligated to write this memoir at all.

Now comes the gritty human-interest part, which on one hand I am loathe to share, and on the other I think is critical to this story, and should be told, with the understanding that it is subjective for the most part, and from my perspective. David and I later became estranged. I think it began when I had mentioned some practices from Castaneda’s books over the phone, and he retorted, perhaps offhandedly, that I would have to give up Castaneda if I were to become his student. Now, that didn’t surprise me that much, since Castaneda’s writings and use of psychedelic entheogens had been, mostly unfairly, discredited by predominant mainstream academia for at least a decade by then (although the publisher Simon and Schuster wisely still refers to his books as nonfiction). But no talk of me becoming David’s “student” had ever transpired, and since Castaneda’s books played such a pivotal role in my spiritual journey up to that point, I bluntly responded that I had no intention whatsoever of “giving up” Castaneda, even if I could. It would be the last conversation we would have for several months. Let me make it clear, I always regarded myself as a “student” of David’s writings nonetheless.

At first, I thought that he had become distant because of my response, or that perhaps he believed I was just another time–waster tyro, or conversely, that 1=A=0 posed some kind of a threat, undermining his work. Or even that I was trying to get in the “Thelema” door on his coattails. Either way, we pretty much stopped meeting after that. This saddened me because I really enjoyed our discussions and truly believed that the two systems dovetailed rather well, forming a powerful two–pronged system, inner and outer, for self–examination through Numerology. Honestly, while his broad knowledge of the Western Esoteric Traditions was like a gold mine to me, my 1=A=0 cipher stood on its own, no props needed. I had my own book to write, and that brought to mind this saying from Nuit: “Thus ye have star & star, system & system: let not one know well the other!” – Liber Legis I:50

In one of our few meetings after that, it seemed that he had become disillusioned with Thelema. I thought maybe something had been going on at the local OTO that set him off, or perhaps due to their favoring another “order & value” that they call the NAEQ or “New Aeon English Qabalah,” rather than his A=1 cipher. I am quite sure that he told me he had presented his “Liber ABRAHADABRA” to them. But I was guessing. I still have a copy machine facsimile he gave me of an English Qabalah produced by Sacramento’s enfant terrible poet and OTO member, Barry Kennedy, while wryly telling me “There are a lot folks out there who think they are Crowley’s heir.” Isn’t that the truth? That in itself is still worthy of contemplation. I had absolutely no idea how many English Qabalahs were or were about to be out there, nor did I know then what triggered his apparent change of heart.

After all, David was immersed in Thelema and Crowley–ana when we first met a year or so prior, showing off his collection of first–edition books in his impressive library. But in this meeting he spoke skeptically of both Crowley and Blavatsky’s writings, knowing full well that I then considered the two my “magickal parents,” suggesting that his Liber Legis and her Dzyan Stanzas from “The Secret Doctrine” had both simply been “made–up.” It sounded just like the unprovable Castaneda contentions. At the time I really couldn’t fathom why he would have made such a statement, but the effect was the same. And so what if it was all “made up,” anyway? What utter geniuses that would make of them! He told me he was working on a book to spell it all out, which he would publish and share with me nearly 10 years later called “The Genesis of AL.” And that, coupled with what follows, would explain everything.

The BOTA, The Cube of Space, and The English Rose:

David invited me to visit him in his home one last time in 1997, when he showed me a proof copy of his upcoming book, “New Dimensions For The Cube Of Space,” and handed me some beautifully printed copies of a folding origami–like cube to be included in it. I was quite surprised when I noticed that the Builders Of The Adytum (BOTA) Tarot card images formed the girders and faces, the supposedly Masonic “Cube of Space” being first popularized by BOTA founder Paul Foster Case. This yet–unpublished book contained the same Tarot card images both on the front cover and inside as well, and I knew their design copyright belonged exclusively to the BOTA. It was an exciting development, and I was honored to have been invited to his home once again and to have him share this with me.

During this meeting, he also showed me an interesting letter from BOTA authorities granting him rights to use their Tarot images in this new book, contingent upon his adherence to certain conditions. Among these was that there should be no mention of Crowley or the Book of Law. Apparently, their leadership had decided early on that Aleister Crowley was the black sheep of the family of the Western Esoteric Traditions, completely disavowing him and his work. In this regard, I should mention here that one of David’s rare first edition books I was privy to viewing was a copy of BOTA founder Paul Foster Case’s first book on the Tarot, “Introduction to the Tarot,” published in 1920. David had pointed it out to me: in it, Case gives as one of his sources “Book 777, London 1909” in a small footnote, never mentioning the name of its infamous author, starkly revealing a rather hypocritical anti–Crowley stance that began at least as early as 1920, if not sooner.

This supports my contention that Case’s issue with Crowley was due to the demise of the Golden Dawn, the blame being unfairly placed upon him by erstwhile GD members to this day. Crowley’s publication of Liber 777 was considered at the time to be a breach of his secrecy oath with the Golden Dawn, even though that order had officially ceased to exist because its founding documents turned out to be forged. Case was an initiate in one of the offshoot groups of the GD formed by previous members that faded into oblivion in the 70s, so this makes complete sense. Still, Case gives “Book 777” as his resource in “Introduction to the Tarot.” A reconstituted Order of the Golden Dawn still vilifies Crowley on their public website today for exactly the same thing, while having no direct lineage themselves to the original Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn as Crowley did. (See my article About Thelema for details.)

Typical of the synchronicities during this period, having just read Kevin Townley’s 1993 publication “The Cube of Space: Container of Creation,” I was also working on the Cube, with its 26 components of edges, faces, and vertices — the number of letters in the English alphabet. David’s exciting “New Dimensions For The Cube Of Space” was a strong indication that our minds were still operating parallel, and I thought, on the same magickal current of Thelema. We had a lengthy discussion about the Cube in this regard, after which I showed him a crude printout of my English Rose Cross, and shared my realization that the center three petals of the Rose revealed the glyph of the Cube of Space and the transcendental mantra AUM in English, in accordance with “Liber A vel Follis.”

It was also at this meeting that David informed me that the title “The Key of It All” would be dropped from all subsequent editions of his two–volume encyclopedia of sacred alphabets. I was honestly flabbergasted, but I thought I understood why. We didn’t contact each other after that and I soon moved away from Sacramento to start a family. I didn’t hear from him again for several years. I didn’t know what to say. I eventually began internalizing it, thinking that it was all because of me and my work, and that didn’t feel very good at all. Now I am pretty sure it wasn’t, but either way, it was profoundly disappointing to me and had me questioning the validity of my path and work.

At the time, I hadn’t processed that David, whom I viewed back then as a Thelemite’s Thelemite as it were, had decided to distance himself from it entirely. I recall thinking at first that he was merely following the guidelines set by the BOTA that he might use their fabulous Pamela Coleman Smith Tarot images in his new book. I honestly had no idea that he was a member of the BOTA, I don’t recall him ever telling me. I only discovered it by chance later on. The reader is reminded that their beautiful deck is also my personal ceremonial Tarot to this day, painstakingly colored by hand, the address in its accompanying booklet leading me to become briefly involved with the order myself in 1992 (as mentioned in Why Egypt? Part 2.)

The way I see it, Western Esoteric groups like the BOTA and the current so–called Golden Dawn groups, who ostracize and demonize Crowley and his followers while still utilizing the fruit of the great man’s work without crediting him, are simply being hypocritical and narrow–minded, if not mean–spirited, despite what they believe to be true — real or imagined. It seems they at least owe him credit for his Qabalistic erudition, from which they all have borrowed wholesale, along with the caveat of their disapproval. I judge the Tree by its Fruit. Nobody’s perfect, one might suppose. I learned early on that Thelema was often frowned upon by other Mystery Traditions; not only because of what they think Crowley’s role was in the dissolution of the Golden Dawn and his supposed spilling the beans on much of their “secret” Qabalistic teachings in his Liber 777, but mostly due to his bad reputation, especially in the sexual realm. Some contentions are real, of course, but most are tabloid fabrications — leading to the ridiculous accusations of human sacrifice from people who don’t know his wry humor and actual Great Work. 

And so, it is all quite understandably too much for most folks to deal with, secular or religious alike, even esoteric groups like the BOTA, GD, AMORC, et al. Quite honestly, I have no problem at all with that — the man had his downsides no doubt. However, I feel that he has been overly and unfairly marginalized by their promotion of the sordid at the expense of the truth, which they all would do well to discover. My personal practice of Thelema was never really about most of Crowley’s Order rituals and initiation ordeals anyway. I never became a member. For me, it was always about the Book of Law, the words of the Egyptian Neteru, and my own Thelema, first and foremost. Everything else follows, including Crowley’s writings — both the sublime and the ridiculous. I still regard him, far more for good than for ill, as a beloved “spiritual father.”

All in all, there is absolutely no denying his genius, his integral role in the reception of The Threefold Book of Law, and his indelible influence on the Western Esoteric Traditions and the so–called counter–culture to this day.

David and I did communicate briefly again – by happenstance in a rather contentious online BOTA chat room in 2003, and then later more amicably via e–mail around 2004 when he kindly offered to sell me a first edition copy of Crowley’s “The Equinox of the Gods,” which I found tempting but respectfully declined as I too was drifting away from the culture of Thelema, being a busy family man raising a young son. David informed me then that Thelema and The Book of Law were simply passing elements in his spiritual journey. He also generously emailed me a .pdf copy of his book “The Genesis of AL” in which he claims Crowley’s account in “The Equinox of the Gods” was a fabrication — the watermarks of the typing paper Crowley wrote Liber Legis on purportedly prove it could not have been written before 1906. He also claims that internal evidence reveals Liber Legis to be demonic and likely channeled by Rose’s unborn child, with whom she was pregnant at the time of the reception. In this book, the history and documentation is impressive, but some of his conclusions are simply beyond the pale in my view. Another 12 years would pass before I would hear from him again.

David and I later reconnected via Facebook, and he appears to be doing well, visiting old Sacramento coffee house haunts with a few local OTO folks. Also, a few years back he posted on Facebook that his “Liber ABRAHADBRA,” with his A=1 cipher, was going to be published after all these years, and we messaged about that briefly. He let me know that he went into some detail about the various English Qabalahs in the book, documenting the most prominent, including mine, which is an honor, no doubt. He said he felt it is only fair so that interested readers can look into them and choose the one that resonates most with them. He later mailed me a signed copy #18 of 93 limited-edition book and a boxed set of his original Tarot cards with its accompanying booklet “SEPHER AIWASS sub figura CDXVIII New Dimensions for The Book of the Law” as a Winter Solstice gift, for which I am humbled and most grateful. It’s quite a talisman for me, or anyone who might call themselves a Thelemite. His A=1 cipher and supportive writings are superb and, in my opinion, unequaled in the English Qabalah genre.

From my understanding, he still distances himself from Crowley, but felt that showing the root inspiration of his Eastern and Western Mysteries volumes needed documenting by publishing the “new” book, the original “The Key of It All” now over 40 years after his first revelations. But really, how distant can he be when the booklet is published under the auspices and seal of the Astreum Argenteum or A∴A∴? All in all, I am so pleased that he and I still have an open line of communication after all these years and look forward to future discussions about the Mysteries. Meanwhile, the “New Aeon English Qabala” NAEQ, originated by Jim Lees and elaborated on by my old online nemesis and later friend and fellow PGM aficionado, the late Jake Stratton–Kent, is apparently now the official English cipher of the OTO, for good or for ill. I’ll continue to peck away at my book, and until it is published, thus far shall I go…

Until then, let me wrap up with the following brief overview of what “The English Cabala — 111” is, and offer some bitmap images I created in 1997. Those who know their Qabalah and the Major Arcana attributions of the Tarot will surely understand

The English Cabala — 111

The following is copied and pasted from the old Wikipedia article about The English Qabalah and its various versions and their proponents, including my 1=A=0. It’s as concise an overview as I have seen — I didn’t write it and its author edited under a pseudonym. I was recently shocked and dismayed to discover that Wikipedia has since removed all listings of the English ciphers including mine from its English Qabalah article, except for the OTO–approved NAEQ. They moved all those with a published book about them to their Numerology article under an English Qabalah subheading (except David’s), and deleted the rest, including mine. So far Wiki has not responded to my queries as to the how and why and allows no edits to the page, likely due to abuse. The following was cut and pasted directly from the Wikipedia page before the “purge.” (Note: “Perseverando” was my first magickal motto in the Ordo Sanctus Gnosis)

“Frater Perseverando's Liber A vel Follis and the English Cabala — 111

On January 23, 1995, Shane Clayton, calling himself Frater Perseverando, wrote Liber A vel Follis: The Book of the Holy Fool, which he describes as having been from Auset.[24][25] On his Aeonic Annunciation website (now defunct), he refers to the system revealed in this short document as either "The English Cabala — 111" or "the 1=A=0 cipher,” shorthand for expressing both the order and the value of the letters of the alphabet; that is, A is number 1, and has the value of 0 — extended serially to number 26 — Z, having a value of 25. The letters X and Y are switched in his order, but not their values, to accommodate a section of the puzzle of AL II:76 as well as reflect their symbolic elemental shapes as the YHVH formula.

In this system, the letters of the phrase "the English cabala" sums to 111, as does "order & value"; and following Liber Legis I:24 ("I am Nuit and my word is six and fifty"), the letters of "word" add to 56. Frater Perseverando points out that in this system, the letters of the name "Hadit" sum to 37, which is also the Hebrew gematria value of Yechidah ('unity'). Also the letters of the phrase "Paste the sheets from right to left" from AL III:73 add to 333. He demonstrates how these two correspondences align with the Hebrew Qabalah of the Nine Chambers or AIQ BKR and its gematria value of 333, with each column or chamber of three "rooms" adding to one of the nine triple numbers that share the root number 37: 111 through 999 (i.e. 1+1+1=3, 3x37=111; 2+2+2=6, 6x37=222; 3+3+3=9, 9x37=333, and so on).

The letters of the English alphabet A through V are then assigned to the Tarot Major Arcana in order as paths 11 through 32, and W, Y, X and Z to the four Tarot Aces and four additional paths, 33 through 36, with all of the associated classic Western Esoteric Qabalah attributes of elements, planets, signs, magical weapons.

Perseverando also added four additional petals to the traditional Rose Cross to accommodate the English alphabet in what he calls "the English rose" with the three central letters being AUM, and posits that in so doing, the "order & value of the English Alphabet" of AL II:55 provides a true working cabala and magical alphabet.[26]”

““Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet; thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto.” - Liber Legis III:55”

1997 bitmap images of The English Cabala Major Arcana Tarot with Western Esoteric symbol attributions: Top left: the letter order and Hebrew letter value over Hebrew letter value exceeding 10. Bottom left: the Hebrew letters including the 5 finals. Top right: the English letter value over the Qabalistic path number. Bottom right: Astrological zodiac and planets, Alchemical Element, and Tattwa symbols of the Four Elements and Spirit of Earth. W = Wands, flames, Fire (Double U), Y = Cups, a chalice, Water, X = Swords, crossed swords, Air, Z = Coins, spinning coin, 23-degree inclination of the Earth. ⊕ = Hadit, Spirit, The Key of It All.

The AIQ BKR - Qabalah of Nine Chambers

The Qabalah of Nine Chambers is called AIQ BKR after the English transliterations of the Hebrew letters of the first two “chambers” comprised of three “rooms,” and like Hebrew writing, it is read from “right to left.” In Hebrew Gematria, the values of these six letters add to 333, that is: 1) AIQ — Aleph/1, Yod/10, Qoph/100 = 111; 2) BKR — Beth/2, Kaph/20, Resh/200 = 222; thus AIQ=111 plus BKR=222 equals 333. In A=0, the letters comprising “Paste the sheets from right to left” also sum to 333!

There are 27 “rooms” in the AIQ BKR, which, when added to the Ten Sephiroth of the Tree of Life, total 37 “Paths.” The third “rooms” of the 5th through 9th “chambers” are the five Hebrew “final” letters. The sum triple numbers are all multiples of the number 37, and both the Hebrew word Yechidah “Unity” in gematria and the name of the god “Hadit” in 1=A=0 have a value of 37. Thus, the number 37 is the mathematical “key of it all,” that is, the key to the nine triple “angelic” numbers 111 through 999, which represent the 9 Sephiroth in the 3 “Qabalistic Worlds” above material Malkuth/Assiah in the Western Esoteric Tradition.

In this way, the 27th "room" Tzaddi final becomes the final 37th Path to “achieve Hadit,” since “Hadit” = 37 in 1=A=0. Based upon this, in place of a letter in the above English Cabala Tarot card image, I assigned it the cross in a circle ⊕, an ancient composite symbol of the four directions and elements representing both the Cube of Space and the Rosicrucian ROTA and Rose Cross — also depicted in the tarotee' on the back of Crowley's Thoth Tarot deck. This is an allusion to the sayings of Hadit in Liber Legis: III:7 “I am the axle of the wheel and the cube in the circle,” III:47 "this circle squared ⊕ in its failure (as the infinite irrational number pi) is a key also."

Sekhau!

In Ma’at, true of voice

Shane

About The English Cabala - 111 and images © 2020-2024 R. Shane Clayton - Wandering Stars Publishing

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Wandering Stars is dedicated to expounding the Sacred Science of Ancient Egypt

In memory and in honor of John Anthony West

Born July 9, 1932 - Wested February 6, 2018

AUM