English Qaballa

English Qaballa (EQ), or New Aeon English Qabala (NAEQ), is a system of Hermetic Qabalah which was discovered by Jim Lees on November 26, 1976. [Lees, Jim. [http://www.the11thcontinuum.com/discovering_the_english_qaballa.htm Discovering the English Qaballa] ] It was first revealed to the occult community by Lees, Jake Stratton-Kent and Carol Smith of Kaaba Publications. It is more than an alternative system of gematria, although this may not be apparent in some diluted forms where primary sources are often not examined.

This system has been subsequently reviewed and described by several authors, including Allen H. Greenfield ("Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts", 1984), Gerald Del Campo ("New Aeon English Qabalah Revealed", 2003), and John L. Crow ("The New Aeon English Qabalah Dictionary", 2004).

Order & value

In 1980, Carol Smith wrote:

A key has been left by Crowley, under the direction of Aiwass in order that 'Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet (AL:II,55). The instruction is in AL: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.'Smith (1980) quoted in Frater D.T. (1996) and Greenfield (1994), p. 28]

The "order & value" of the letters in EQ are derived from the grid superimposed on one of the pages of manuscript of Liber AL on which this verse appears (sheet 16 of Chapter III). Also appearing on this page are a diagonal line and a circled cross. Smith continues with her explanation:

There are letters along the top of the page, and it would seem to be obvious to continue with the alphabet in the manner indicated, but the clue is in the numbers down the side. A is written instead of 1 which suggests that B is 2, C 3 and so on. Fill in all the squares on the grid in this manner, repeating the alphabet when one gets to Z. To proceed to the next step the instruction is written on the page, for those who have eyes to see. 'Then this line drawn is a key.' The line drawn is a diagonal line across the page. If one reads any diagonal across the square one gets the order of the English alphabet to be used in the English Qabala. Whichever diagonal is read the order of the letters is obtained. There is only one order which can be obtained and all 26 letters appear in this order.

As there are ten squares per column, this method is equivalent to taking every eleventh letter of the alphabet as the "order" and then assigning them sequential "values":

A=1 L=2 W=3 H=4 S=5 D=6 O=7 Z=8 K=9 V=10 G=11 R=12 C=13N=14 Y=15 J=16 U=17 F=18 Q=19 B=20 M=21 X=22 I=23 T=24 E=25 P=26

Nature and discovery

According to Jake Stratton-Kent, "the English Qabala is a qabalah and not a system of numerology. A qabalah is specifically related to three factors: one, a language; two, a 'holy' text or texts; three, mathematical laws at work in these two." [Stratton-Kent (March 1988), p. 17] He also discovered what many consider to be the first proof of this system based on AL:II,76:

"4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L. What meaneth this, o prophet? Thou knowest not; nor shalt thou know ever. There cometh one to follow thee: he shall expound it. But remember, o chosen one, to be me; to follow the love of Nu in the star-lit heaven; to look forth upon men, to tell them this glad word." [Crowley, Aleister. "The Book of the Law", II,76]

Stratton-Kent describes his discovery as follows:

When I first had my attention drawn to the existence of a purported English Qabala, my first reaction as a qabalist was to use it on this meaningless string of digits and characters. I converted all the letters into their numerical equivalents in the E.Q., and added them to the numbers in the series."Stratton-Kent (March 1988), p. 18]

In the original handwritten text, the string of letters and numbers is divided into two lines, the first ending with "Y" and the second beginning with "X". Stratton-Kent says,

There are seventeen numbers and letters in the first line and eleven in the second ... but in the manuscript the 'X' at the beginning of line two looks like a multiplication symbol, so I made this calculation; 17x11=187, the numerical value of the phrase ENGLISH ALPHABET.

It has also been noted [Greenfield (1994), p. 32] that if one adds the number and letter values in the "meaningless string", the result is 351, which is also the sum of the values of all the letters of the English Alphabet in this system (i.e. the summation of the numbers 1 through 26). This dual reference to the English Alphabet by the same string of numbers and letters is considered by some to confirm EQ as the order & value of the English Alphabet predicted in Liber AL (AL:II,55).

ee also

*Kabbalah
*Isopsephy
*Thelemic gematria

Footnotes

References

*Crow, John L. (2004). "The New Aeon English Qabalah Dictionary". Luxor Press. ISBN 1-891948-07-5
*Crowley, Aleister. "The Book of the Law". York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser.
*Frater D.T. (1996). [http://web.archive.org/web/20060223073000/http://www.thelema.net/naeq/naeq.html The New Aeon English Qabala] . Web archive dated February 23, 2006.
*Del Campo, Gerald (2003). "New Aeon English Qabalah Revealed". Luxor Press. ISBN 1-891948-06-7
* [http://www.egnu.org/thelema/ Free Encyclopedia of Thelema] . " [http://www.egnu.org/thelema/index.php/New_Aeon_English_Qabala New Aeon English Qabala] ". Retrieved June 5, 2006.
*Greenfield, Allen H. (1994). "Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts". ISBN 141166759X
*Smith, Carol. "The Key to the English Qaballa" in "The New Equinox / British Journal of Magick", Vol. 5
*Stratton-Kent, Jake (March 1988). "The English Qaballa" in "The Equinox: British Journal of Thelema", Vol. VII, No. 1, pp. 17-25.
*Stratton-Kent, Jake (May 1988). "What is a Qabalah?" in "The Equinox: British Journal of Thelema", Vol. VII, No. 2, pp. 59-61.

External links

* [http://www.the11thcontinuum.com/ The 11TH Continuum: English Qaballa Site]