The Star Ruby is brief enough to look stable when quoted on its own. It is not. The first printing belongs to chapter 25 of The Book of Lies in 1913, while a later form appears among the ritual appendices of Magick in Theory and Practice. The two settings connect it to both Crowley’s numbered prose experiments and his formal magical curriculum.
- First setting
- The Book of Lies (1913), chapter 25; later in Magick
- Document
- Chapter 25 / Liber XXV
Chapter 25 in The Book of Lies
The Book of Lies was issued by Wieland & Co. in London in 1913. Its numbered chapters run from 0 through 91, and several chapter numbers carry Qabalistic or organizational significance. The Star Ruby occupies chapter 25 on printed pages 34–35. The book’s own “Pro and Con Tents” names it among the chapters, providing a compact internal map of its position.
That placement differs sharply from a freestanding ritual pamphlet. Surrounding chapters have riddling titles, compressed prose, jokes, paradoxes, and occult allusions. The Star Ruby is more explicitly procedural than many neighbors, but its first readers still encountered it inside this peculiar literary sequence. Calling it Liber XXV preserves the chapter number while also allowing it to circulate as a separate A∴A∴ document.
A pentagram form with Thelemic language
The ritual shares a recognizable spatial skeleton with lesser pentagram work: a central cross-like action, movement through quarters, imagined pentagrams, divine or cosmic names, and a return to the center. Its language and dramatis personae are substantially changed. Greek phrases and Thelemic figures replace much of the Hebrew and elemental vocabulary familiar from Golden Dawn-derived forms.
This is why describing the Star Ruby as merely a renamed lesser banishing ritual is incomplete. It is a deliberate act of revision. The inherited geometry remains legible, but the cosmology around it is recast. Comparing the 1913 pages with Liber O’s 1909 pentagram section reveals Crowley moving from an adapted instructional inheritance toward a more distinct Thelemic ceremonial voice.
Worked comparison: the four quarter names are rewritten
The 1913 chapter gives the quarter circuit as Chaos in the east, Babalon in the north, Eros in the west, and Psyche in the south. The delivery also varies: Chaos is roared, Babalon screamed, Eros spoken, and Psyche bellowed. Read as a sequence, this is a complete four-name arrangement rather than a set of optional glosses. Babalon occupies the northern station, while the adjacent western and southern stations carry the paired Greek names Eros and Psyche.
The form printed in Magick in Theory and Practice replaces that circuit with Therion in the east, Nuit in the north, Babalon in the west, and Hadit in the south. Babalon therefore moves from north to west and changes from a scream to a whisper; Chaos, Eros, and Psyche disappear, while Therion, Nuit, and Hadit enter. The geometry and widdershins return remain recognizable, but the names attached to every quarter have changed. The later text reorganizes the rite’s symbolic perimeter, so combining the 1913 directions with the later names produces a third arrangement found in neither printing.
| Quarter | The Book of Lies (1913) | Magick in Theory and Practice (1929) | Change in structure |
|---|---|---|---|
| East | Roar Chaos | Roar Therion | The opening station receives a different name while retaining the forceful delivery. |
| North | Scream Babalon | Say Nuit | Babalon leaves the northern station; both the name and vocal instruction change. |
| West | Say Eros | Whisper Babalon | Babalon is relocated here, and the western delivery becomes a whisper. |
| South | Bellow Psyche | Bellow Hadit | The delivery remains, but Hadit replaces Psyche and completes a different four-name set. |
Greek terms, quarter figures, and interpretation
Much commentary on the Star Ruby focuses on translating its Greek or assigning elements to its quarter figures. The first-edition page should remain the control for any such interpretation because typography, breathing marks, and later transliteration can shift what a reader sees. Even the quarter names differ between the 1913 and later forms, so one symbolic diagram cannot silently stand for both.
The text also juxtaposes stars of five and six with a central pillar, creating a compact image of boundary and centered identity. That imagery can be discussed as part of Thelemic symbolism without asserting that the rite produces a measurable occult effect. Its importance is historical and literary as well as religious: it shows Crowley transforming inherited ceremonial components through sound, Greek vocabulary, and his own pantheon.
How the Star Ruby fits this ritual group
Within this cluster, the Star Ruby sits between Liber O and later ritual compilations. Liber O documents the public A∴A∴ lesson of 1909. The Book of Lies supplies the first Star Ruby in 1913. Magick in Theory and Practice later gathers a revised form with other practical documents, including the Mass of the Phoenix. The publication sequence makes change visible instead of smoothing it away.
It also separates the Star Ruby from Liber Stellae Rubeae, or the Book of the Ruby Star, which is Liber LXVI and a different text despite the similar title. Number, Latin title, and publication location are the safest identifiers. Readers can follow the related Liber O and Mass of the Phoenix pages here, then use the works directory for The Book of Lies’ broader place in Crowley’s publishing career.
Source scans and records
Continue through the ritual history
This article describes publication history, symbolism, and reception. It does not promise ceremonial effects or reproduce a ritual script.