The Magical Altar

The magical altar in Book 4, Part II, is the stable centre around which the instruments and activities of the temple are organised. Crowley interprets it through will, natural law, geometry and the Tree of Life. Chapter III presents its construction as an opportunity to make those relationships intelligible in a material object.

The chapter opens with a compact statement:

The Altar represents the solid basis of the work, the fixed Will of the Magician; and the law under which he works.

— “The Altar”, p. 21; the footnote marker after “Will” is omitted.¹⁾

“Fixed” here indicates a dependable basis for action. Crowley connects the objects kept within the altar with their subjection to law, while expressly excepting the lamp. That exception becomes clearer in chapter X, where the lamp belongs to a level of attainment beyond changing forms. The contrast organises the temple: work proceeds through determinate conditions, while its final aim exceeds them.

The altar is described as a double cube: two equal cubes stacked vertically. Its outside surface can be counted as ten equal squares—one at the top, one at the bottom and eight around the four sides. Crowley identifies the top with Kether and the bottom with Malkuth. This is a useful geometrical connection with the ten Sephiroth.

The double-cube altar illustrated in Book 4, Part II. Its side designs refer readers to the Dee material published in The Equinox I:7. Original chapter and plate. Public domain: original illustration published in 1913.

The chapter also evokes the ancient problem of doubling the cube. That mathematical problem concerns constructing a cube of twice a given volume; stacking two cubes produces a rectangular solid. Keeping the two senses clear allows the reader to follow Crowley's symbolic reference without confusing it with a geometrical construction solving the ancient problem.

The altar's height is related to the magician's navel. Chapter II uses this bodily measurement to determine the scale of the wider circle. The arrangement links a universal symbolic scheme with the proportions of the person working in it.

Crowley reports oak and acacia as alternative materials, associating the former with rigidity and the latter with resurrection. The presence of alternatives matters: the explanation is concerned with what a choice expresses. A material's place in the scheme comes through the meaning assigned to it within the work.

He encourages the student to devise geometrical relationships expressing an understanding of nature. His examples include cosmic measurements and the inverse-square law. This is an educational proposal: the maker has to understand the relationship being represented and how the design communicates it. Merely adding scientific numbers or attractive figures would leave that task unfinished.

For the golden top, the chapter suggests such designs as the Holy Oblation, the New Jerusalem or the Microcosm of Vitruvius. It reproduces illustrations to support the discussion. For the sides it mentions elemental tablets and the sigils of elemental kings, referring to material in The Equinox I:7. Crowley calls these more specialised symbols within a book chiefly concerned with general principles.

The Gnostic Mass has its own high altar, super-altar and smaller altar, with dimensions and furnishings specified in Liber XV. Reading those directions beside Book 4 reveals how a general symbolic object becomes part of a particular liturgical setting.

The magical instruments: overview · Book 4 · Liber A vel Armorum · The magical record.