ZIP leads Crowley’s later vision across a narrow path above the Abyss, through a guarded host, and toward a palace of beauty; the ninth Aethyr still records strain and fatigue.
- Aethyr number
- 9 of 30
- Earthly-part positions
- 25–27
- Crowley’s 1911 chapter
- Printed pp. 103–109
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 ninth name and its earthly-part positions
The Equinox I:8 prints ZIP at number nine, between ZID and ZAX. Applying Whitby’s description of three earthly parts beneath each of the first twenty-nine Aethyrs gives ordinal positions 25–27. They are positions in the ninety-one-part scheme, not a code for the gemmed palace or a map of current states.
Dee’s Liber Scientiae belongs to Sloane MS 3191, according to the British Library catalogue. Crowley’s Vision and the Voice is the separate 1911 source for the passage summarized here, on printed pages 103–109. The fact that both witnesses use ZIP does not mean their contents coincide: one preserves an earlier framework, while the other records Crowley’s visionary interpretation.
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. 103–109 ↗
ZIP governor names: ordinals 25–27
The Equinox I:7 (1912) groups three names under ZIP 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.
- 25 ODDIORGSame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
- 26 CRALPIRSame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
- 27 DOANZINSame spelling in the 2010 comparison appendix
Across the narrow path to the jewel palace
A clap of thunder tears open the shew-stone’s veil. The narrator finds himself on a fine line of light over the Abyss. An army resembling the host in the eleventh Aethyr stands ahead, but one figure comes to greet him. A seven-part song and repeated refrain accompany the passage between their lines. Its imagery belongs to Crowley’s Babalon and Beast vocabulary rather than a literal gloss of ZIP.
Every stone of the palace beyond is a jewel with many moons. Crowley then says the palace is itself a feminine presence. Angels name her through a cluster of figures including Kore and Persephone. The text immediately makes language inadequate to the sight: the seer becomes blind and deaf in his account, and images rise and fall like veils. The abundance of names does not settle her identity into a single equivalent drawn from Dee’s list.
Sources: The Equinox I:5 supplement (1911), printed pp. 103–109 ↗
Nine towers, discipline, and admitted fatigue
The narrator explicitly calls some later images products of physical fatigue rather than astral vision. After another encounter, an angel leads him to a chamber in one of nine towers and points to a map arranging thirty Aethyrs as a flaming sword through ten Sephiroth. The angel urges severe discipline before further unveiling. The rule belongs to this later visionary and Thelemic setting, not to a verified property of the ninth name.
The chapter ends with the seer returning to his body at Bou Saâda after the evening session of December 7, 1909. ZIP thus gives readers both Crowley’s most elaborate palace imagery and a useful caution from within the source about exhaustion and perception. The 1912 list reliably locates ZIP as ninth; the 1911 scan lets us examine exactly what Crowley added to that older Aethyr sequence.
Sources: The Equinox I:5 supplement (1911), printed pp. 103–109 ↗ · 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. 103–109 ↗
The 1911 link opens a scan of the original supplement at PDF page 105, corresponding to printed page 103. 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
- 8. ZID A small spark becomes a pyramid of light; a long spoken instruction interrupts the visible scene.
- 10. ZAX How the famous Choronzon episode entered the later literature of the tenth Aethyr.
- 7. DEO A Venus-shaped keyhole opens onto changing figures, yet the chapter closes without the promised voice.
- 11. ICH An armed but motionless host guards nine towers; the later narrative ends before the Abyss.
- 6. MAZ Crowley’s images move from an eight-rayed star to an urn holding the ashes of an old book of wisdom.
- 12. LOE The intense light of a cup fills the scene until six children cover it and the Aethyr darkens.