Liber Thisharb (Liber CMXIII)

Liber Thisharb, numbered CMXIII (913) and also headed Viae Memoriae, is Crowley's instruction on memory, causation and the discovery of an individual's work. Its two methods examine the past in different ways: one develops retrospective memory, while the other traces the conditions that have produced the present person. The text connects this investigation with preparation for the Abyss, and Liber II recommends it in the search for True Will.¹⁾

The work appeared in The Equinox I:7 (1912) and was reprinted in Magick in Theory and Practice, pp. 415–422. The earlier printing identifies it as Class B, the category of scholarly and instructional writing distinguished from the fixed inspired wording of Class A.

The syllabus explains the title through the reversal of Berashith, associated with the beginning. This reversal anticipates the first method's attempt to retrace experience. The same catalogue describes the work as giving both magical memory and insight into the aspirant's function in the present life. Its concern therefore extends beyond the recovery of an interesting personal past.²⁾

The opening explicitly says that the book is not intended to produce the supreme attainment. Its immediate purpose is to define the Exempt Adept's distinct being and relationship to the universe. Within Crowley's model, that understanding is preparation for relinquishing a separate identity, not an alternative to the later transformation.

The prefatory “Maybe” and the note about scepticism also qualify the presentation. Crowley acknowledges that the work cannot be constructed entirely from sceptical premises, while claiming that its practice leads towards scepticism and perhaps through it. These remarks are part of the instruction, not a later editor's attempt to distance readers from it.³⁾

The language of the Abyss, Binah, karma and the Exempt Adept belongs to the author's initiatory framework. Thisharb explains readiness in terms of the direction and accumulated momentum of a life. It even directs the dissatisfied adept to postpone the Oath and continue developing a more suitable course. Its argument is about preparation rather than haste.

The second method uses the first as preparation, but the two should not be collapsed into a single exercise. Remembering an event and explaining the conditions that made it possible are different intellectual tasks. The book's structure makes that distinction explicit.⁴⁾

The first method trains the mind to reverse the unfolding of an action. Crowley distinguishes this from merely listing completed events in reverse chronological order. His examples compare changing the order of groups with reversing the sequence within them: the detail of an event matters, not simply its place on a timeline.

He repeatedly warns that apparent facility may conceal a mental shortcut. A person can become comfortable with a reversed word or image while still interpreting it in the habitual forward manner. The instruction consequently gives priority to a short interval understood in detail over a long and impressive-looking reconstruction.⁵⁾

Crowley credits Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya, Allan Bennett, and his “Training of the Mind” in The Equinox I:5. That acknowledgement is useful evidence of the Buddhist context of the method. It does not make Thisharb identical to Bennett's whole teaching: Crowley integrates the exercise into his own account of the Abyss and magical attainment.

When the first method reaches the possibility of a previous existence, the wording distinguishes persuasion from confirmation:

It may be then that the memory will persuade the adept of some previous existence. Where this is possible, let it be checked by an appeal to facts, as follows.

— Aleister Crowley, Liber Thisharb.⁶⁾

The memory is said to “persuade” the adept, identifying an effect on the person who experiences it. The following sentence introduces a further appeal to facts. These are two stages in the argument, not two descriptions of the same evidence. Crowley’s subsequent example of an apparently familiar city also admits confusion and failures of memory as possible explanations.

His example asks the adept to record specific features of a supposedly remembered city and compare them with independent information. He also recommends checking childhood recollections against records and other people's memories, while acknowledging that these checks are fallible. Most explicitly, he rejects treating the memory's conclusions as facts and acting on them without adequate confirmation.⁷⁾

That distinction between an experience and its interpretation is central to a careful account of the book. A remembered or imagined narrative may be material for reflection; its historical truth requires another kind of support. Thisharb's proposed tests do not establish reincarnation, but they show that its author did not simply instruct readers to accept every impression uncritically.

The second method begins with an ordinary event and asks what sustains it. The example of a seated body includes external conditions, internal bodily processes and the person's motives. Each explanation leads to further causes. The purpose is to make interdependence a thoroughly considered understanding rather than a phrase repeated in the abstract.

The inquiry then becomes more selective when applied to a personal history. Crowley distinguishes forces acting generally on everything from the particular causes most effective in a given situation. His example of a person meditating in Spain asks about climate, distance, family background and the wish to meditate itself. The method joins circumstances and choices without assuming that either alone explains the whole life.⁸⁾

The text rejects sentimental or fantastic speculation in this analysis. It also distinguishes interdependence from the idea that the universe was arranged for human convenience. These qualifications restrain an easy reading in which every event is merely a flattering message addressed to the practitioner.

The second method culminates in a question about fitness:

To what purpose am I fitted?

— Aleister Crowley, Liber Thisharb.⁹⁾

The next sentence asks about service to the Brothers of the A∴A∴, locating the question within the work’s initiatory purpose. Crowley then compares the inquiry to reconstructing an animal from a bone and inferring a carriage’s use from its construction. Wheels, shafts, seating and suspension constrain what that carriage is suited to do. The analogy directs attention to actual capacities and their relationships; an attractive description of one’s destiny is insufficient unless the particular equipment supports it.

In the corresponding examination of a life, knowledge, skills and circumstances matter because they contribute to a possible work. Even supposed past-life memories are asked to justify their relevance. The book does not treat their unusual character as sufficient reason to prize them.¹⁰⁾

Liber II's recommendation connects this reasoning to True Will. The fit between the person and the work is more demanding than a momentary preference, yet the text is not a modern career test and does not promise a quick answer. Its aims remain religious and initiatory.

The magical record and Thisharb complement each other. A contemporary record preserves observations before later retelling reshapes them; a retrospective inquiry asks how experiences connect. Comparing the two makes it possible to distinguish what was written at the time from what is now inferred. This is a useful way of reading the work alongside Crowley's broader emphasis on recording practice.

For the grade setting, consult One Star in Sight. For the broader method of questioning and balancing conclusions, compare The Soldier and the Hunchback. Neither comparison removes the need to distinguish Thisharb's metaphysical claims from its directly stated procedures of analysis.

Soror Mackay discusses the essay Memory from Little Essays Toward Truth in this Sekhet-Maat class, recorded on 14 June 2020. It supplies a related treatment of why memory matters to magical training. The discussion concerns that later essay, while Liber Thisharb sets out the two particular methods of retrospective memory and causal inquiry examined above.

Aleister Crowley's Little Essays Toward Truth - Memory — Sekhet Maat; 1:22:40. Watch on YouTube.

• Liber Thisharb, The Equinox I:7 (1912).
• Liber Thisharb, Magick in Theory and Practice, pp. 415–422.
• A∴A∴ Syllabus, pp. 48, 56.
• The Message of the Master Therion, The Equinox III:1, especially p. 42.