Stèle of Revealing
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The Stèle of Revealing refers to an ancient Egyptian funerary artifact of Ankh-af-na-khonsu or Ankh-ef-en-Khons[1] which played a role in the creation of the religion known as Thelema, adapted from the philosophy of François Rabelais by Aleister Crowley in 1904 with the writing of The Book of the Law.[2][3]
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[edit] Origins
The stèle comes from Thebes, around the time of Dynasty XXVI.[1] At this rough place and time, Egyptians believed their Akhu could merge with the sun god, instead of becoming stars, even if they did not come from the royal family.[4]
[edit] In Thelema
According to Aleister Crowley, his wife Rose had already reported a revelation from the god Horus, through his messenger Aiwass[5]. The couple went to the Boulaq Museum in Cairo, Egypt to see if she could recognize Horus on Monday, March 21, 1904. Rose did recognize an image of the god, on a painted stèle bearing the catalogue number 666.
This image shows the three main deities of Thelema: Nuit, Hadit (or Horus as the solar disk), and Ra-Hoor-Khuit (or Horus merged with Ra).
[edit] Inscriptions
The inscriptions on the front side of the object refer to the ancient Egyptian version of these deities, who egyptologist Zayed calls Nut, Behdty and Ra-Horakhty. Some of the text comes from chapter 91 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The back of the stela contains eleven lines of text from chapters 30 and 2, the latter of which "was to allow the astral form of the deceased to revisit the earth at will."[1]
[edit] Translations
Crowley states that he dined with Brugsch Bey of the Boulak Museum to discuss the Stèle in his charge, to arrange for a facsimile to be made, and his French assistant curator is said to have translated the hieroglyphs on the Stèle.[6]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Abd el Hamid Zayed, "Painted Wooden Stelae in the Cairo Museum," Revue d'égytologie 20 (1968), pp. 149-152, and plate 7.
- ^ Skinner, Stephen (ed). The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley: Tunisia 1923, p. 79, n. 8. Weiser, 1996. ISBN 0877288569
- ^ IAO131. Thelema & Buddhism in Journal of Thelemic Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, Autumn 2007, pp. 24
- ^ Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, online description of another wooden stèle, retrieved January 20, 2008.
- ^ Equinox 7:4-the events leading up to writing of the book
- ^ Equinox of the Gods section 7:4-The people
[edit] External links
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