A moonlit woman on a bull brackets LEA, while Crowley’s sixteenth Aethyr gives its center to a king destroying his regalia. Dee supplied no fixed dictionary meaning.
- Aethyr number
- 16 of 30
- Earthly-part positions
- 46–48
- Crowley’s 1911 chapter
- Printed pp. 60–65
Dee’s Liber Scientiae is the earlier manuscript setting. The Equinox I:8 (1912) supplies the spelling and number used here. Crowley’s Vision and the Voice (1911) supplies the much later vision described below.
LEA in the numbered Aethyrs
The Equinox I:8 prints LEA at number sixteen. Whitby’s account of Dee’s Liber Scientiae describes twenty-nine groups of three earthly parts and a final group of four. On that account, LEA occupies ordinal part positions 46–48. These numbers are derived from the grouping; they do not identify today’s countries or describe the woman and king in the later chapter.
The British Library catalogues Liber Scientiae at Sloane MS 3191, folios 14r–31r and 52r–80v. That earlier manuscript setting, the 1912 printed list, and Crowley’s 1911 supplement are three distinct witnesses. The first two establish the documentary placement used here; the third supplies the reported scene.
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 ↗
LEA governor names: ordinals 46–48
The Equinox I:7 (1912) groups three names under LEA on printed page 241. These are the spellings in that later table; the comparison labels below identify only forms that differ in a modern Great Table reconstruction.
- 46 CUCARPTSame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
- 47 LAVACON2010 comparison form: LAUACON
- 48 SOCHIALSame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
Moonrise, bull, and sevenfold table
The 1911 LEA chapter opens with transient misty images. Its general impression is moonrise at midnight and a crowned virgin riding a bull. She sings briefly about labour and a child associated with a labyrinth of seventy-two paths, then disappears. The seer next reports angels of the Holy Sevenfold Table walking in the stone as if awaiting the Aethyr’s angel.
This opening is deliberately provisional: the chapter calls the images faint and flickering. The woman does not simply personify all of LEA, and the sevenfold angels are part of Crowley’s symbolic scene. The numbered name list on page 125 of the following year’s Equinox contains none of this imagery.
Sources: The Equinox I:5 supplement (1911), printed pp. 60–65 ↗
A king abandons his emblems
A crowned king in purple and gold appears, throws down orb and sceptre, tears off his crown, and speaks at length of an old order displaced by a new Aeon. His speech mixes ten palaces, a broken tower, a star, a serpent, and the Beast. At its end his throne is shattered and he lies on the ground. The chapter thus stages a change of authority through an intensely Thelemic monologue.
A silent, immense figure follows, bearing circles, a flaming wand, and a book. Then the woman on the bull returns with the sevenfold angels, smiles, and dances away. The closing black cross of Themis bears a short Latin motto. Crowley dates the chapter Bou Saâda, December 2, 1909. These motifs belong to his twentieth-century publication, not to a known sixteenth-century LEA gloss.
Sources: The Equinox I:5 supplement (1911), printed pp. 60–65 ↗ · The Equinox I:8 (1912), p. 125 ↗
Source editions and page 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. 60–65 ↗
The 1911 link opens a scan of the original supplement at PDF page 62, corresponding to printed page 60. The 1912 issue link is a modern reconstruction. This page paraphrases the original printing and does not treat the visionary report as independently verified.
Continue reading the Aethyrs
- 17. TAN A reported encounter with Madimi introduces weighing and justice, while its specific symbols remain Crowley’s later account.
- 18. ZEN A later vision moves from a disturbing opening image to a crystal mountain and a chamber whose centre cannot be seen.
- 19. POP An arch of dagger-shaped letters gives way to an abandoned threshold, a battlefield, and a dazzling book.
- 20. KHR A peacock dissolves into angels and a complex wheel; the seer then questions what can be remembered from his own vision.
- 21. ASP The older name and earthly-part position beside a later report of wind, a throne, and speech that the seer cannot reliably hear.
- 10. ZAX How the famous Choronzon episode entered the later literature of the tenth Aethyr.