Liber LXI vel Causae

Liber LXI vel Causae presents a preliminary account of initiation followed by a narrative of the origins and authority of the A∴A∴ teaching. It asks how one person can assist another in a work whose decisive knowledge cannot simply be transferred. Its two parts, the Preliminary Lection and History Lection, connect a theory of spiritual guidance with an account of the failings of an earlier order and the preparation of a new one.¹⁾

The work is particularly valuable as a primary source for the Order’s presentation of its own purpose. Its historical and supernatural claims belong to that presentation, rather than constituting independent confirmation of every event described. Its publication class also varies between editions: the early Thelema printing identifies it as Class A, while the 1919 Equinox printing identifies it as Class D.

The Preliminary Lection, paragraphs 1–6, locates initiation beyond ordinary body and mind while making their equilibrium its foundation. The goal is described through an unknown Crown and the Great Work. The account therefore combines preparation of the person with an attainment that exceeds the knowledge already available to them.²⁾

The distinction between personal work and guidance is stated sharply:

Every man must overcome his own obstacles, expose his own illusions.

— Aleister Crowley, Liber LXI, the Preliminary Lection.³⁾

The paragraph immediately adds that others may assist with both tasks and help the seeker avoid fruitless paths. Its use of “own” assigns responsibility without making isolation a requirement. The teacher’s role is consequently neither to confer someone else’s experience by declaration nor to withdraw all help. Guidance includes exposing errors and arranging tests through which an aspirant’s claim can be examined.

Testing has a definite purpose in this argument. A person may believe themselves a master without having begun the required work. Membership, impressive language or confidence cannot alone establish attainment. The text’s later criticisms of its predecessor depend on this principle: an order fails if its examinations no longer distinguish actual preparation from assumption.

After paragraph 6, a solemn warning presents the continuation as an irrevocable opportunity whose reading is recorded. This belongs to the lection’s ceremonial address to a prospective candidate. Reading a modern reproduction on a website should not be confused with documentary evidence that a person has thereby joined an organisation or received a grade.

The History Lection begins with cipher manuscripts said to have been discovered and deciphered by students. Their claimed Rosicrucian provenance leads to correspondence with a German authority designated S.D.A. and the establishment of an order. The account is generally read in relation to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.⁴⁾

An important qualification appears immediately: the worth of the manuscripts is to be assessed from their contents, rather than guaranteed by their alleged source. This does not establish their provenance. It explains how the narrative attempts to distinguish the value of teaching from the authority claimed on its behalf.

After S.D.A.’s reported death, the text describes a refusal of further assistance and a later claim by S.R.M.D. to have established a link with adepts. S.R.M.D. is identified with Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. The ensuing account sharply criticises the order’s rituals, selection of candidates and ineffective ordeals. It acknowledges that the complex events could not be fully elucidated, even while issuing severe judgements about their meaning.

The figure P. represents Crowley under the motto Perdurabo; D.D.S. is George Cecil Jones. These identifications make the narrative legible, but do not turn its claims into an impartial biography.⁵⁾

The text attributes a decisive test of the earlier order to P. in 1900. It then claims that he destroyed the order and its chief. This is a polemical assertion of spiritual judgement and authority, not a sufficient literal history of the survival or disappearance of Golden Dawn organisations.⁶⁾

P.’s subsequent six years in the wilderness are described as a period of wide study, followed by attainment and recognition from D.D.S. The two decide to prepare a new order that would avoid the former one’s failures. Preparation alone is not treated as enough: they await a higher authority whose arrival would legitimate the work.

The sequence makes both competence and authorisation necessary within the narrative. It also distinguishes arranging a system of instruction from possessing the attainment that the system is intended to assist.

Paragraphs 22–24 describe an attempt to select symbols common to different systems while excluding words that would impose a particular theology or metaphysics. The attempt proves impossible in an absolute sense, because language has a history. Even apparently general terms such as spirit, order or brotherhood bring inherited associations with them.⁷⁾

The chosen response is deliberate indeterminacy. The candidate is warned against assuming that a divine name must carry every meaning familiar from an existing religion. A phrase resembling Egyptian, Buddhist, Christian or another religious language may reflect the available vocabulary rather than a complete doctrinal commitment.

The warning finally turns from the teacher’s choice of words to the student’s habit of inference:

Especially let him guard against the finding of definite sectarian symbols in the teaching of his master, and the reasoning from the known to the unknown which assuredly will tempt him.

— Aleister Crowley, Liber LXI, the History Lection.⁸⁾

Recognising a familiar name can encourage a reader to import a whole inherited doctrine before examining its function in the new passage. The lection treats that movement from recognition to assumption as a danger. This makes its deliberate vagueness an interpretive precaution as well as a literary feature, though it does not remove the need to examine what the text actually says.

The final movement describes admission to an eternal, invisible order and the appearance of V.V.V.V.V., identified within the narrative as a Master of the Temple. His utterance is connected with sacred writings, including the Book of the Law, Liber LXV and Liber VII. Authority is then conferred upon a triad and delegated further through the body of initiates.⁹⁾

The closing statement places perfection in the ordered harmony of the whole rather than in its highest or lowest point alone. The narrative thus ends with interrelation, not simply the prestige of the greatest grade. Its account of invisible sources and transmission records a religious claim of legitimacy; historians must distinguish that claim from externally corroborated organisational events.

The surviving printed classification leaves provide direct evidence for an important bibliographical distinction. The early Thelema edition marks the Preliminary Lection Class A. The 1919 edition of The Equinox marks Liber LXI Class D.¹⁰⁾

The difference should be reported with its edition rather than resolved by silently assigning one label to every appearance of the text. In Crowley’s publication system, Class A and Class D indicate different kinds of authority and function. Publication beside the Holy Books does not, by itself, establish an identical and unchanging classification.

David Shoemaker discusses the Golden Dawn tradition in modern Thelema in programme 46 of Living Thelema. It offers wider context for Liber LXI's account of an earlier order and the emergence of A∴A∴. The later teaching perspective can be compared with the History Lection's particular narrative and claims of authority, while keeping institutional self-presentation distinct from independently documented events.

The Golden Dawn Tradition in Modern Thelema — Living Thelema; 25:00. Watch on YouTube.

Liber Porta Lucis treats the communication of illumination in a more overtly inspired voice. Liber Tzaddi develops the invitation to initiation through symbolic ordeal and equilibrium. One Star in Sight and Liber Collegii Sancti provide more direct accounts of grades and assigned work.

• Early Thelema scan of Liber LXI, including the Class A designation.
• Original 1919 Equinox scan of Liber LXI, pp. 55–61, with the Class D designation.
• Hadnu edition and explanatory notes, consulted for the identities behind the abbreviated names.