"... each of these words can act as a switch, and we can move from one to another by means of many passages; hence the idea of a book which does not simply narrate one story, but a whole ocean of stories."
– Michel Butor, Introduction aux fragments de "Finnegans Wake."
The mathematical logic, puns, nonsense, word and sound play of Lewis Carroll has profoundly inspired the Hermetic arts. Reading an annotated version of the Alice stories provides much insight into the construction of James Joyce's masterpiece, Finnegans Wake. Many of Carroll's characters populate Joyce's Book of the Night. Humpty Dumpty, master of language, gets referenced on both the first and last page of the Wake. Anna Livia Plurabelle, Joyce's feminine archetype, has the same initials as Alice Pleasance Liddell, the Alice of Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Carroll would take Alice and her sisters rowing on a section of the Thames known locally around Oxford as the River Isis and tell them stories he made up off the top of his head. On one significant occasion Alice urged the professor to write the story down, and the rest is Herstory. Both Alice tales and FW get framed as dreams.
Aleister Crowley put Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and The Hunting of the Snark by Carroll on the A∴ A∴ reading list with a note beside each one: "Valuable to those who understand the Qabalah." He also titled a chapter in The Book of Lies after a couple of words from the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky" which appears in the first chapter of Through the Looking Glass. In Masks of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson, the protagonist, Sir John Babcock receives the Complete Works of Lewis Carroll from his magick teacher with the explanation: "'Here,' he said gravely, 'is the condensed essence of Holy Cabala.'"
John Tenniel, The White Rabbit in the Queen's Court
Gilles Deleuze based his best (and most difficult) book of philosophy, The Logic of Sense primarily on a combination of Lewis Carroll's writings and the ancient Greek Stoics. Episodes from the Alice stories combine with lesser known Carroll writings, but he really champions Carroll's last major work, Sylvie and Bruno, calling it a masterpiece. Anyone reasonably familiar with esoteric literature will have heard the anecdote about the Zen monk who had a dream about being a butterfly, but when he awoke he didn't know if he was a monk dreaming of being a butterfly, or if he really was a butterfly now dreaming of being a monk. That duality defines the premise of Sylvie and Bruno: which is the dream and which is the waking reality? The reader must pay careful attention to which is which as the narrative frequently and seamlessly switches back and forth between the two realities, one seeming more dream-like than the other. Later, the two different worlds appear to comprise one of everyday, normal (as normal as can be in a Carroll story) reality and the world of fairies and magick. RAW shows his familiarity with Sylvie and Bruno by quoting from the infamous Gardner's song that runs throughout the story in the same Masks sequence.
Some time ago E.J. Gold recommended I reread Lewis Carroll every 5 years. Recently, he suggested that Wonderland may have similarities to bardo spaces. This appears borne out in Carroll's Preface to Sylvie and Bruno when he shifts gears to begin a discourse on death and the possibility of it occurring at any moment:
"Let me pause for a moment to say that I believe this thought, of the possibility of death – if calmly realised and steadily faced – would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we shall not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.
But once we realise what the true object is in life – that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds' – but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, or purer standard, the building-up of the perfect (Wo)Man – and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow but a light; not an end, but a beginning!"
Like Wilson, Crowley and implied by Joyce*, Carroll clearly advocates for personal, voluntary evolution (i.e. building character).
*For one example: "... and during mighty odd years this man of hod, cement and edifices in Toper's Thorp piled buildung supra buildung pon the banks for the livers by the Soangso." (FW, p. 4 emphasis added.) Experienced Wake readers will recognize the protagonist's initials, HCE, hence the personal nature; "buildung" suggests alchemy; also "bildung" = German for "education"; "supra" = Latin for "above" or "beyond."
The idea of some form of personal consciousness surviving the death of the physical body illustrates a theme both for the Thelemic philosophy of Aleister Crowley and for Finnegans Wake. A Book of the Dead intends to provides instructions along with a methodology for conquering death. Both the Wake and Magick appear heavily reliant on the Egyptian Book of the Dead (and they aren't the only ones; see The Western Lands by William Burroughs or listen to the musical translation on the album Seven Souls by Bill Laswell's Material.) John Bishop writes about the bardo Wake connection in a chapter in Joyce's Book of the Dark: "Joyce actively sought to have somebody write an essay exploring the Wake's affinities with this text" (the Egyptian Book of the Dead).
Going down the rabbit hole a little further with this, Crowley puts the practitioner's consciousness into the bardo by having them identify with Ankh-af-na-khonsu, a deceased Egyptian priest circa 700 B.C. A crucial message in the Egyptian Book of the Dead instructs the departing soul to unite themself with Osiris. Qabalistically, Osiris lives in Tiphareth. Crowley instructs his beginning students to direct all their magical efforts to realizing the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, an operation which begins in Tiphareth.
I have been working with this kind of material for years via Crowley, Joyce and E.J. Gold's American Book of the Dead, a translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead that John Lilly asked him to do in the early 1970s to help people who journeyed too far out on psychedelics. At that point, their ego and personality seems dead for all intents and purposes. Their consciousness directly confronts the bardo and they need help.
A premise I heard Gold give about 30 years ago, more recently repeated by Alan Chapman, holds that we live in the bardo now; that we have it backwards: what we call life actually appears more like death whereas when the body and ego die, true life begins if we have sufficient character developed (presence and attention) to tolerate it. I know this sounds implausible, maybe so. Unorthodox Sufis metaphorically put it in terms of sleep and waking. The ordinary life of identifying our "self" with a particular ego and personality along with the human conditioning and behavior we've been socially and culturally programed with, our so-called tunnel realities, represents immersion in sleep. Waking up from that sleep involves temporarily getting outside the limitations of our tunnel reality. Put in the context of Tim Leary's neurological model: when one or more of the terrestrial circuits dominates and we identify completely with that territory, it seems safe to say that sleep rules.
Like any model or metaphor, the boundaries appear fuzzy. We can view the extremes of total vertical sleep and a complete waking state as two polarities on a spectrum. Sometimes we seem more awake, more present, less in our heads than at other times. I like to look at the eight circuits as if they comprise faders on a small mixing board. Usually, the first four faders have some position on the board, with faders five to eight very low or off. When getting into a gentle waking state through meditation or yoga, etc., faders two and four, the ego and personality will tend to go down or get completely turned off in the mix. Fader one, the bio-survival circuit will necessarily have to hold some position. The autonomic nervous system aspect of that fader will always run until biological death.
Another premise, along with experiencing the bardo all the time, holds that we wake up several times a day. Usually the habits of sleep appear so entrenched that unfortunately these brief moments of higher consciousness slide right by unnoticed. The ideas of self-observation and self-remembering given in Gurdjieff's Fourth Way school intends to make one more aware of these glimpses of the waking state.
Confronting death won't appeal to most people. We can content ourselves simply with the task of building character and ignore death. Trying to understand a difficult book like Finnegans Wake builds character. Engaging with the maze encountered in books of this nature develops a skill set that helps with navigating the maze of life. Lewis Carroll appears to advocate for love as a character builder. Being an Anglican Deacon, he was religious. He wanted to design a Children's Bible containing "carefully selected passages, suitable for a child's reading, and pictures. One principle of selection which I would adopt, would be that Religion should be put before a child as a revelation of love – no need to pain and puzzle the young mind with the history of crime and punishment."
Reading Sylvie and Bruno builds character. Speaking of Life in the "Crossing the Line" chapter:
"'And the secret of enjoying it,' he continued, resuming his cheerful tone,
is intensity!'
'But not in the modern aesthetic sense, I presume? Like the young lady in
Punch, who begins a conversation with "Are you intense?'
By no means! replied the Earl. What I mean is intensity of thought – a
concentrated attention. We lose half the pleasure we might have in Life by not
really attending.
The last chapter from the second book, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, is titled "Life Out Of Death." It ends with Carroll's version of love is the law.
* * * * * *
Aleister Crowley and James Joyce both promoted Female intelligence as a way to raise consciousness in general. They seem to have taken their cue from Francois Rabelais. I wrote about this a few years ago. The question as to whether Joyce knew Crowley and included him in Finnegans Wake inspired a couple of other previous essays, one here and another there. Recently, my friend Bob Campbell shared another section from the Wake that could support, as he put it, "the emerging bridge between Crowley and Joyce." The full section runs from p. 167.18 - 168.14. This occurs toward the end of Chapter 6, the chapter that takes the form of a quiz. The section under consideration occurs as the conclusion of the eleventh answer (it has twelve questions in all) and, of course, eleven gives the number of magick or energy tending to change.
Coincidences and synchronicities haunt the serious researcher of the Wake. Bob speaks of "the emerging bridge;" the first question of this "nightly quisquiquock" asks "What secondtonone myther rector and maximost bridges-maker was the first to rise taller through his beanstale . . ." (emphasis added; FW p.126).
Going over over the most salient points: Bob starts with: "The trigger here is 'Mister Abby,' since potentially Joyce has already combined Crowley and Rabelais, as Oz pointed out, back on page 105, 'From Abbeygate to Crowalley.'"
"No! From Topsman to your Tarpeia! This thing, Mister Abby is nefand . . ."
The section begins with death. "Topsman" is older English slang for a Hangman. Tarpeia comes from Roman mythology, more specifically the historians Livey and Plutarch. She served as a vestal virgin (priestess) who betrayed Rome by letting their enemies, the Sabines, into the city. The Sabines were pissed at the Romans for abducting their woman. Tarpeia brokered a deal for her betrayal, but was herself tricked. After letting the enemy in, they crushed her to death.
Bob writes: "Nefand is an obsolete adjective meaning unspeakable, unmentionable, or morally abhorrent. Works for the wickedest man in the world, no?"
"Mister Abby" possibly exemplifies Joyce's blending of male and female energies given that Abby usually indicates a women's name. Another way to see it: tempering male energy with a feminine influence. Of course, looking at the mythic history "Topsman to your Tarpeia" suggests male energy crushing feminine influence. Using a Hermetic lens gives a different story: Topsman = Hangman = The Hanged Man (tarot) = male energy reversed. The Hanged Man corresponds with mem (Hebrew) = the element Water (a feminine element). Joyce writes "your Tarpeia" suggesting not the mythological character, but rather Mister Abby's (Crowley's?) Tarpeia who opens the doors to rescue the women.
Crowley started appearing all over the tabloids in the early 1920s after Raoul Loveday died while staying at the Abbey of Thelema in Sicily. Those tabloids made it to Paris and Joyce read newspapers. The tabloids put Crowley in a very negative light hence "This thing, Mister Abby, is nefand."
The thundering legion has stormed Olymp that it end. Twelve tabular times till now have I edicted it. Merus Genius to Careous Caseous! Moriture, te salutat! My phemous themis race is run, so let Demoncracy take the highmost!
Around 1923 Crowley wrote a short glowing review of Joyce calling him a genius. New Pearsons magazine, edited by Frank Harris, published it. Harris was a mutual friend of both Crowley and Joyce. Apparently some of his theories about Shakespeare made their way into Ulysses. Joyce paid attention to reviews. New Pearson's, an American magazine, could be found in Paris. If Joyce didn't see the article directly it seems that Harris would have brought his attention to it. Crowley spent a fair amount of time in Paris in the 1920s especially after getting kicked out of Italy. He socialized in bohemian and artistic circles. Joyce lived in Paris during that time and also socialized. It seems possible their paths may have crossed though no evidence for this, apart from the circumstance of proximity, has turned up.
As mentioned, Crowley called Joyce a genius. In the passage we see: "Merus Genius to Careous Caseous!" Translated from Latin it means roughly: "pure genius to decaying cheese." Breaking down "Merus" gives Mer + us. La mer = French for the sea. The ocean or sea is a feminine symbol. Caseous appears throughout this chapter and appears as a play on Caesar. Joyce profoundly influenced Thomas Pynchon. Pynchon connects Crowley with cheese in his most recent novel Shadow Ticket which you can read about here.
Moriture, te salutat = Latin for "He who is about to die salutes you." Historically it represents a phrase Roman gladiators shouted out to the Emperor before commencing their fight to death. Esoterically, it indicates the metaphorical death a male undergoes to get into the inner chamber vis-รก-vis The Hanged Man.
"... so let Demoncracy take the highmost!" For most of human civilization in the West the common person was told that the only way to reach their God or Gods was through an intermediary, usually from the priestly caste. Crowley helped to democratize spiritual attainment. "Every man and every woman is a star." The Holy Guardian Angel registers as a daemon in the ancient Greek, Socratic sense.
My unchanging Word is sacred. -> "Change not as much as the style of a letter." – from Bob; the second half comes from The Book of the Law I:54
The word is my Wife, to exponse and expound, to vend and to
velnerate, and may the curlews crown our nuptias! Till Breath
us depart! Wamen. Beware would you change with my years. Be
as young as your grandmother! – the valorization of women. Curlews are birds symbolically connected with the new moon due to the shape of their beak.
velnerate, and may the curlews crown our nuptias! Till Breath
us depart! Wamen. Beware would you change with my years. Be
as young as your grandmother! – the valorization of women. Curlews are birds symbolically connected with the new moon due to the shape of their beak.
The entire second half of this section reads:
Adversus hostem semper sac! Latin for "Always be brave against the enemy!" Detractors of either Crowley and/or Joyce?
She that will not feel my ful-
moon let her peel to thee as the hoyden and the impudent! That
mon that hoth no moses in his sole (not bound by traditional Judaism?) nor is not awed by conquists of word's law, who never with humself was fed and leaves
his soil to lave his head, (lave = Latin for "wash") when his hope's in his highlows from
whisking his woe, if he came to my preach, a proud pursebroken (both JJ and AC struggled financially)
ranger, when the heavens were welling the spite of their spout,
to beg for a bite in our bark Noisdanger, would meself and Mac
Jeffet, four-in-hand, foot him out? — ay! — were he my own
breastbrother, (In this chapter the questions are asked by Shem and answered by Shaun who are brothers; however, "breastbrother" appears close to "beastbrother;" obviously, AC = beast. It also seems another feminization of the male since breast usually suggests the female anatomy as in The Book of the Breast by RAW.)
moon let her peel to thee as the hoyden and the impudent! That
mon that hoth no moses in his sole (not bound by traditional Judaism?) nor is not awed by conquists of word's law, who never with humself was fed and leaves
his soil to lave his head, (lave = Latin for "wash") when his hope's in his highlows from
whisking his woe, if he came to my preach, a proud pursebroken (both JJ and AC struggled financially)
ranger, when the heavens were welling the spite of their spout,
to beg for a bite in our bark Noisdanger, would meself and Mac
Jeffet, four-in-hand, foot him out? — ay! — were he my own
breastbrother, (In this chapter the questions are asked by Shem and answered by Shaun who are brothers; however, "breastbrother" appears close to "beastbrother;" obviously, AC = beast. It also seems another feminization of the male since breast usually suggests the female anatomy as in The Book of the Breast by RAW.)
my doubled withd love and my singlebiassed hate, – the first part rewards contemplation of it; singlebiassed hate might mean hate for seeing something from only one point of view or perspective.
were we bread by the same fire and signed with the same salt, (both bread and salt have the same Hebrew letters that add to 78 by Gematria; worth looking up in Sepher Sephiroth; or my Pynchon review linked to above.)
had we tapped from the same master and robbed the same till, ( I suspect this refers to Rabelais; see link above)
were we tucked in the one bed and bit by the one flea, homo-
gallant and hemycapnoise, bum and dingo, jack by churl, though
it broke my heart to pray it, still I'd fear I'd hate to say!
That concludes the answer to the eleventh question. The brief twelfth question and answer ends chapter 6.
12. Sacer esto? (Latin for "Be sacred?")
Answer: Semus sumus!
Bob concludes his contribution with:
"Also, at the end "Semus sumus!" - we are the same, or, we are Shem!
Both have penned attempts at new holy books. The Book of the Law and Finnegans Wake. Maybe!"
There's possibly more Crowley/Hermetic related material in this section. There's a play on salt and saltpeter – "soldpewter" and "forceglass" all strongly suggest Alchemy; pewter is a very strong alloy; glass symbolizes crystallization from volatility to something solid. One may also find more similarity with Chapter 1 of The Book of the Law.
As you will see, the parallels in the maps and models that Crowley and Joyce stake out makes it seem like they're exploring the same, vast unknown territory (the bardo or the subconscious mind?) from different, but overlapping approaches. Each one helps to understand the other.
* * * * * *
Another area Joyce and Crowley have in common – the Night of Pan. It seems Crowley made up this term/magical formula. I first saw it in The Book of Lies (1913); that's where it may have first seen the light of day. I've never heard Joyce use that phrase, nor seen a reference to it in FW yet, but the Wake seems undeniably a Night of Pan – a night with everything in it. This Night reminds me of the Bardo or Crossing the Abyss, but it also represents the feminization, or female application, of male energy as Crowley makes clear in Chapter 29, "The Southern Cross" in the BoL. In this book, Laylah serves as Crowley's Scarlet Woman/Babalon/ female archetype and he notes that "Laylah is the Arabic for 'Night'." Also, Nuit is the French word for night.
I know of at least two instances where Robert Anton Wilson directly compares The Book of Lies with Finnegans Wake. The first occurred in the Crowley 101 online course and appears in my Foreword to Lion of Light. The second comes from a radio interview, a transcription of which will appear in a new excellent RAW book coming out relatively soon called Maybe Magick. In that book Wilson is asked something like which Crowley book influenced him the most and it seems a toss up between The Book of the Law and The Book of Lies though he does indicate a preference and says why he likes each one.
Most, if not all, of The Book of Lies seemingly concerns the Night of Pan in one way or another. The first line in Chapter 1 "The Sabbath of the Goat" reads:
"O! the heart of N.O.X, the Night of Pan."
Crowley gives the formula of N.O.X. in chapter 1 and its commentary.
N. = Death by its tarot attribution.
O. = the Phallus, the redeemer, by its tarot attribution The Devil, the strongest male energy in the deck.
X. = the Cross; it relates to Pan by the 4 cardinal points of the cross extending infinitely.
The N. and O. look identical to Crowley's ON formula which has been explained ad infinitum by Jerry Cornelius and others. But real briefly:
O = Aiyn, the path that connects Hod with Tiphareth on The Tree of Life. Considered masculine, it compares to Yang from the Chinese system.
N = Nun, the path that connects Netzach with Tiphareth. Considered feminine, it compares to Yin from the Chinese system.
X = the Cross, or more completely the Rosy Cross = Tiphareth
In N.O.X. the N and O reverses ON which corresponds with the reversal of male and female energies.
Schrรถdinger's Cat by Robert Anton Wilson, one of his more profound occult transmissions, begins with a quote acknowledging the importance of this reversal:
"Not until the male becomes female and the female becomes male shall ye enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
– Jesus, in The Gospel of Thomas
In the N.O.X. formula, the feminine N signals the Death (or reversal) of ordinary yang energy, (O) i.e. unbalanced male energy; the kind of toxic masculinity that recently ended the political campaigns of Graham Plattner and Eric Swalwell in the U.S.A. But it's not always sexual; it appears the same dominant force that starts wars and drops bombs on people, places and things. These give extreme examples. Every heterosexual male has to deal with this kind of male energy.
The N.O.X. formula doesn't simply represent an intellectual model. It describes a function; something you do – a kind of work. This work also = the work of the Rosy Cross. It requires a male aspect and a female aspect. Although most literally done as a sexual working with two individuals, one adopting an active function, the other passive, it can be done anywhere, anytime by an active individual lifting up a passive individual astrally.
The O. part of the formula, the phallus, remains male, but takes on a feminized approach through the death of unconstrained male sexuality. The N. and O. combine then go on the cross, i.e. X. E.J. Gold calls this the "Man on the Cross." In Freudian terms, the Rose symbolizes the female with the Cross symbolizing the phallic male. Reversed in the N.O.X. formula, the phallic male = the Rose. A phallic generation and radiation of energy, also called L.V.X. or blood. The female now represents the Cross – all manifested Creation.
I can only scratch the surface here, but Crowley also combines the male and female in BoL chapter 77 where he merges his Scarlet Woman, Laylah with a He-Goat. Goat may freak out orthodox Christians as it suggests the Devil, and Crowley does play with this. It helps to know and apply Qabalah, some programs die hard. Goat = 83 = "love in its highest form." Crowley also identified with the androgynous goat-headed figure of Baphomet which figures into all of this. I'll leave this thread open to explore. BoL chapter 33 is titled Baphomet.
Feminizing the phallus – dying to or reversing standard male energy (as in The Hanged Man) seems extremely difficult for the average heterosexual male. The Book of the Law III:22 mentions "Ordeal x" which may reference this difficulty (shout-out to L.V.X. 15 for bringing my attention to it). Dressing in drag frequently occurred in traditional shamanism to help the male shaman adopt a feminine posture. Bisexual or gay men appear to naturally have an easier time becoming-woman (as Gilles Deleuze puts it). Some cultural examples may help. Mick Jagger has often been cited as energetically expressing androgyny. "Sympathy for the Devil" seems a very Crowley-type song if you catch the reversals. Groucho Marx, whom I don't believe had a bisexual history, nicely exemplifies a feminized phallic energy in many of his films. The comedian/actor Eddie Izzard appears another great example particularly in his comedy special, Dressed to Kill.
The N.O.X. formula and the material in the BoL appear very relevant to the crisis known as Crossing the Abyss. I won't go too far into that here. The initiate going through this is instructed to (metaphorically) put every drop of their blood into the cup of Babalon. This seems another way of expressing the death of base male energy. Going on the Cross, the Man on the Cross, as given by N.O.X. provides a pun for Crossing the Abyss. That's usually thought of as occurring only one major time climbing up the Tree of Life, but I suspect it happens frequently in smaller ways. Also, it seems to me that physical death marks a crossing of some kind of abyss by the individual consciousness, maybe.
My current favorite example of a phallic femininity is Queen's lead vocalist Freddie Mercury. An excellent performance illustrating this comes from their 1986 Live at Wembley concert available on disc or on You Tube, one of Queen's last shows before Freddie got too sick to perform. Another stellar performance by Queen occurred at their much shorter Live Aid set also viewable on You Tube. Their piece, "Bohemian Rhapsody," a Mercury composition, is the best song I've heard about Crossing the Abyss. But you have to hear the studio version to catch that as they would drop the introduction – "Is this the real life, or is this just fantasy" – for the live shows. One also has to be able to hear the pun in "nothing really matters."
Another semiotic for the N.O.X./Rosy Cross function: the SC = 68 combination. 6 = Tiphareth; 8 = Mercury = communication; communicate beauty. One verse in The Book of the Law instructs the reader to come up with new symbols. In Magick in Theory and Practice Crowley explains his rationale for having the English F correspond with the Hebrew Vau whereas traditionally it corresponds with Pe. Traditionally a hard sounding C corresponds with Kaph = 20 while a soft C corresponds with Cheth = 8. I suggest that the C in the SC combo corresponds with Cheth whether hard or soft. If one pays attention, one can find this semiotic throughout Wilson's fiction and in much of Thomas Pynchon's work, particularly in Gravity's Rainbow. 68 appears on the first page of Illuminatus! One can find it in some of James Joyce's books and it briefly appears in Deleuze's The Logic of Sense. Though it dates back to Rabelais, Crowley found the sense of it in The Paris Working, one of his most important operations. It shows up a few times in The Book of the Law as for example I:6: "Be thou Hadit, my secret centre, my heart & my tongue!"
The BoL doesn't make an exception. Chapter 1 has the line: "Cast the Seed into the Field of Night." The caps appear in the original; F+N = Nuit. This looks commensurate with giving every drop of blood into the cup of Babalon. Chapter 29 "The Southern Cross" and its commentary holds importance to this discussion as mentioned above. We find both the SC and the cross. It can also be seen as an instruction for going on the cross astrally, or in one's imagination. The fact that it's southern indicates to imagine the cross behind you. The active initiate, working to become a rose, visualizes a specific woman they know and love to go on the cross. Much easier said than done. The commentary says: "Chapter 29 continues Chapter 28" so that also helps provide the picture. Coincidentally, I lived in a hotel called The Southern Cross for about three weeks when working in Sydney, Australia on two different occasions.
"Here's another clue for you all, the Walrus was Paul" as John Lennon sings in Glass Onion. Another clue for going On the Cross (pun intended with on): N.O.X. = 210. RAW explains this number somewhere; the Rose and the Cross become one then, when perfectly balanced, cancel each other out to become none. Related to this, BoL Chapter 57, "The Duck-Billed Platypus" looks at the Rosy Cross.
* * * * * *
I don't have a lot of examples of a feminine phallus from Finnegans Wake and don't have much time to look as I want this up in time for Maybe Day 2026, but here's one that also recalls Crowley:
"I am told by our interpreter, Hanner Esellus, that there are fully six hundred and six ragwords in your malherbal Magis lande-guage in which wald wand rimes alpman . . ." – FW, p. 478
Alpman indicates the female phallus as Alp gives the initials of Anna Livia Plurabelle. Hanner Esellus has the initials of the male pronoun with the female name Ann inside Hanner; "which wald wand" shows the initials 666. The rest I'll leave up to the interested reader who loves to decipher things. Looking up 606 proves interesting.
Regarding N.O.X. or the Man on the Cross: And let every crisscouple be so crosscomplimentary, little eggons, youlk and meelk, in a farbiger pancosmos. – FW p. 613.
Killing, controlling, or reversing brutal male sexual expression is not new. In the Bible, Isaiah 66:24 reads: "And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh" (emphasis added).
Nuit speaking in the Book of the Law: "But to love me is better than all things: if under the night stars in the desert thou presently burnest mine incense before me, invoking me with a pure heart, and the Serpent flame therein, thou shalt come a little to lie in my bosom. For one kiss wilt thou then be willing to give all; but whoso gives one particle of dust shall lose all in that hour." – I:61
In the Bible dust symbolizes flesh, the physical body.
This theme repeats itself from Hadit's point of view in the second chapter: "I am uplifted in thine heart; and the kisses of the stars rain hard upon thy body.
Thou art exhaust in the voluptuous fullness of the inspiration; the expiration is sweeter than death, more rapid and laughterful than a caress of Hell's own worm." II:62 & 63
Lewis Carroll gives his version with a poem in the first chapter of Through the Looking Glass:
Jabberwocky
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe
Regarding the line: "Long time the manxome foe he sought" Martin Gardner notes in The Annotated Alice that "Manx was the Celtic name for the Isle of Man." In another note, he mentions "a striking similarity between (original illustrator John) Tenniel's Jabberwock and the dragon being slain by Saint George in a painting by Paolo Uecello, in London's National Gallery."
Jabberwock by John Tenniel
Crowley appropriates two of the nonsense words, Mome Raths for the title of Chapter 48 in The Book of Lies. Humpty Dumpty interprets mome as being short for "from home" and rath as "a sort of green pig (Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6). Pig adds to 93; green corresponds with Daleth = door = Venus = love. Daleth represents the path that connects Binah (archetypal mom) with Chokmah (archetypal dad) on the Tree of Life. In Crowley's note for the chapter, he interprets them differently: mome = young girl;
rathe = early. Chapter 48 opens with:
The early bird catches the worm; and the twelve-year-old prostitute attracts the ambassador.
Neglect not the dawn-meditation!
Dragons are sometimes known as worms; we see two instances above of worm symbolizing base male energy. The second half of the first line gives a look at the disgusting side with the pedophile ambassador when the worm isn't caught.
This huge subject doesn't really end, but I'll wrap things up with a quote from Finnegans Wake which will make everything perfectly clear:
"Sole shadow shows. Tis jest jibberweek's joke. It must have stole. O,
keve silence, both! Putshameyu! I have heard her voice some-
where else's before me in these ears still that now are for mine.
Let op. Slew musies. Thunner in the eire.
You were dreamend, dear." – FW, p. 565
