Crowley’s 1911 ARN account opens with neither image nor voice; the silence precedes the white rose and later figures in the second Aethyr.
- Aethyr number
- 2 of 30
- Earthly-part positions
- 4–6
- Crowley’s 1911 chapter
- Printed pp. 148–166
Dee’s Liber Scientiae supplies the earlier manuscript setting. The Equinox I:8 (1912) supplies the spelling and number used here. Crowley’s Vision and the Voice, printed in 1911, supplies the later narrative described below.
The second name before the later vision
The 1912 printed list places ARN after LIL. On Whitby’s grouping, its three ordinal earthly-part positions are 4–6. The much earlier Liber Scientiae belongs to Sloane MS 3191. These records establish the historical place of the name; they do not assign the elaborate biblical and tarot claims that appear in Crowley’s narrative.
The order of the two bodies of material is easy to invert accidentally. Crowley published his journey from TEX toward LIL, so ARN appears near the end of his book even though it is number two in the Aethyr table.
Sources: The Equinox I:8 (1912), p. 125 ↗ · Whitby, John Dee’s Actions with Spirits, vol. 1, pp. 141–142 ↗ · British Library, Sloane MS 3191 catalogue ↗ · The Equinox I:5 supplement (1911), printed pp. 148–166 ↗
ARN governor names: ordinals 4–6
The Equinox I:7 (1912) groups three names under ARN on printed page 239. These are the spellings in that later table; the comparison labels below identify only forms that differ in a modern Great Table reconstruction.
- 4 DOAGNISSame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
- 5 PACASNASame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
- 6 DIALIVASame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
A chapter that records its own interruption
The chapter opens with remarks about a woman on a bull, Cain and Abel, and the tarot card commonly called the Lovers. It then explicitly says that no image has yet appeared in the stone and no voice has been heard. Later a white rose appears; the seer pauses, prepares again, and returns to the subject. A simple summary of ARN as one continuous received vision misses this structure.
Crowley’s claims about the origin of biblical stories in this passage are his own speculative reinterpretations. The 1911 printing offers no documentary basis for treating them as established history of Genesis or Revelation. They are best read as evidence of his Thelemic symbolic method.
Sources: The Equinox I:5 supplement (1911), printed pp. 148–166 ↗
The rose, song, and figures of the later pages
The later pages bring a black rose, a vesica piscis, references to Babalon and Nuit, and a song attributed to the Sphinx. Near the close an angel is described in blue clothing and a starry outer garment, before an eagle crosses a field of fire. These images occur in Crowley’s chapter, not in the bare 1912 roster.
The printed chapter provides both the textual complexity and a caution for “ARN meaning” searches: a single word such as love, initiation, or the rose cannot substitute for the printed transitions, interruptions, and named source layer.
Sources: The Equinox I:5 supplement (1911), printed pp. 148–166 ↗
Source editions and locators
- The Equinox I:8 (1912), p. 125 ↗
- Whitby, John Dee’s Actions with Spirits, vol. 1, pp. 141–142 ↗
- British Library, Sloane MS 3191 catalogue ↗
- The Equinox I:5 supplement (1911), printed pp. 148–166 ↗
The 1911 link opens a scan of the original supplement. Its PDF viewer page is two higher than the printed page number. The 1912 issue link is a modern reconstruction.