MAZ denies understanding before a star, guardian, and suspended urn gather around the sixth Aethyr. Crowley’s much later narrator is finally turned away.
- Aethyr number
- 6 of 30
- Earthly-part positions
- 16–18
- Crowley’s 1911 chapter
- Printed pp. 123–127
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.
The sixth name and the earlier record
The Equinox I:8 lists MAZ after LIT and before DEO. Whitby describes Dee’s first twenty-nine Aethyrs as holding three of ninety-one earthly parts each, so the sixth is assigned ordinal part positions 16–18. These are positions in that historical arrangement; they do not identify present-day territories, a ritual effect, or the imagery of an urn.
The British Library catalogues Dee’s Liber Scientiae in Sloane MS 3191, assembled in 1585. It is an earlier witness to the Aethyr framework. The symbolic account below comes instead from Crowley’s 1911 Vision and the Voice, printed across pages 123–127. Keeping those documents separate matters because the twentieth-century narrator interprets the name through tarot, Qabalah, and his own religious vocabulary.
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. 123–127 ↗
MAZ governor names: ordinals 16–18
The Equinox I:7 (1912) groups three names under MAZ on printed page 240. These are the spellings in that later table; the comparison labels below identify only forms that differ in a modern Great Table reconstruction.
- 16 SAXTOMPSame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
- 17 VAVAAMPSame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
- 18 ZIRZIRDSame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
An eight-rayed star and a guardian of images
Crowley first reports an angel named Ave amid competing emblems. The images change so quickly that he calls them difficult to understand; the harder he tries to pierce the veil, the further away success seems. A voice counsels openness to wisdom. The sky then shows an eight-rayed star, which he associates with the seventeenth tarot key and Mercury. A radiant god stands on the moon at its centre.
A turning swastika throws off stars and forgotten gods before shutting the narrator out again. In this 1911 context it is one of several rotating symbols in Crowley’s scene, not a sixteenth-century diagram supplied by the name MAZ. A later speech locates a guardian at the centre of a spiderlike web. The speaker’s paradox is that speech divides what it tries to tell and that the guardian’s office is to make illusions. The chapter therefore questions its own ability to disclose a single transparent meaning.
Sources: The Equinox I:5 supplement (1911), printed pp. 123–127 ↗
The suspended urn and the narrator’s expulsion
The chapter’s final arrangement is a well with eight pillars and an urn hanging unsupported above it. Crowley says the vessel contains ashes of the book Tarot. He uses the burned book to contrast an older age with a newer one, then connects his interpretation to the Book of Enoch. Those statements are part of his religious argument; they are not a claim about an extant urn or an object catalogued with Sloane MS 3191.
The voice from the urn refuses him access, and Thoth drives the seer away through the night. The chapter ends at Benishrur, Algeria, on December 10, 1909. The refusal is significant: despite the crowded correspondences, the narrative does not finish with possession of its mystery. For readers comparing sources, MAZ is a stable name and position in the printed list, while its star, web, and urn belong to Crowley’s separately published vision.
Sources: The Equinox I:5 supplement (1911), printed pp. 123–127 ↗ · 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. 123–127 ↗
The 1911 link opens a scan of the original supplement at PDF page 125, corresponding to printed page 123. 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
- 7. DEO A Venus-shaped keyhole opens onto changing figures, yet the chapter closes without the promised voice.
- 5. LIT Many avenues converge at a guarded shrine, then the chapter returns for a second encounter centred on a child and an arrow.
- 8. ZID A small spark becomes a pyramid of light; a long spoken instruction interrupts the visible scene.
- 4. PAZ A bright sixfold star leads into Crowley’s violent imagery and a claim that apparent opposites meet in one experience.
- 9. ZIP A path above the Abyss leads past an army to a palace that the narrator describes as a living presence.
- 3. ZOM The third name is ZOM in the printed list and ZON in Crowley’s earlier vision heading. Both witnesses stay visible here.