TOR’s 1911 silver web and black bull give way to veils, paired women, an eagle, and the white Rosy Cross; no single image masters the twenty-third Aethyr.
- Aethyr number
- 23 of 30
- Earthly-part positions
- 67–69
- Crowley’s 1911 chapter
- Printed pp. 29–32
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 twenty-third name and its parts
In The Equinox I:8, TOR follows LIN and precedes NIA. Under the grouping Whitby describes for Liber Scientiae, the three ordinal earthly-part positions attached to the twenty-third order are 67–69. They are ordinal positions derived from the 29 × 3 + 4 structure, not a list of modern countries or an assignment of the black bull to one geographical region.
The relevant earlier Angelical book is catalogued in Sloane MS 3191. The letters TOR and their order can be discussed within that documentary line. The richly changing vision described here belongs to Crowley’s 1911 supplement, whose heading names the twenty-third Aethyr on printed page 29.
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. 29–32 ↗
TOR governor names: ordinals 67–69
The Equinox I:7 (1912) groups three names under TOR on printed page 242. These are the spellings in that later table; the comparison labels below identify only forms that differ in a modern Great Table reconstruction.
- 67 RONOOMB2010 comparison form: RONOAMB
- 68 ONIZIMPSame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
- 69 ZAXANINSame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
From three lights to a winged bull
Three rotating lights appear in the stone, followed by a silver spiderweb, a twelve-rayed star, and a black bull. The bull speaks of labour, earth, and change before turning into a winged figure likened by the text to an Assyrian bull-man. A single search-result phrase such as “TOR means the bull” captures only the opening of this sequence.
The figure’s speech mingles images of farming, kingship, stability, fertility, and metamorphosis. Those themes are Crowley’s literary and symbolic treatment of the vision. The scan does not invite a historical claim that Dee and Kelley wrote that speech, or that the three letters themselves encode the entire series of symbols.
Sources: The Equinox I:5 supplement (1911), printed pp. 29–32 ↗
Veils, an eagle, and the close of TOR
Silver, purple, and gold veils then cover the scene. Two women appear from opposite sides, join, and disappear. The veils reopen on a crowned eagle. Its speech turns strength and stability toward flight, and the last image is a white flaming Rosy Cross after the eagle vanishes.
Crowley’s printed date line places this chapter at Bou Saâda on November 28, 1909. Read as a sequence, TOR moves between grounded and airborne emblems and then dissolves both into a final image. The 1912 list contributes the name and order; it does not make this sequence an objective or timeless property of the twenty-third Aethyr.
Sources: The Equinox I:5 supplement (1911), printed pp. 29–32 ↗ · 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. 29–32 ↗
The 1911 link opens a scan of the original supplement at PDF page 31, corresponding to printed page 29. 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
- 22. LIN A luminous tablet, a musician-angel, and a striking example of why visionary number claims need their own source label.
- 24. NIA A warrior becomes a blue rose; a later visionary speech and a lettered wheel belong to Crowley’s account.
- 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.
- 25. VTI A visionary lion and its strange tail, followed by a printed note about the difference between heard speech and perceived meaning.
- 10. ZAX How the famous Choronzon episode entered the later literature of the tenth Aethyr.
- 2. ARN A long vision with false starts, biblical speculation, a white rose, and a late burst of images.