54
KEFALH ND

EAVES-DROPPINGS

Five and forty apprentice masons out of work!

Fifteen fellow-craftsmen out of work!

Three Master Masons out of work!

All these sat on their haunches waiting The Report of the Sojourners; for THE WORD was lost.

This is the Report of the Sojourners: THE WORD was LOVE;23 and its number is An Hundred and Eleven.

Then said each AMO;24 for its number is An Hundred and Eleven.

Each took the Trowel from his LAP,25 whose number is An Hundred and Eleven.

Each called moreover on the Goddess NINA;26 for Her number is An Hundred and Eleven.

Yet with all this went The Work awry; for THE WORD OF THE LAW IS QELHMA.

COMMENTARY (ND)

     The title of this chapter refers to the duty of the Tyler in a blue lodge of Freemasons.
     The numbers in paragraphs 1 to 3 are significant; each Master-Mason is attended by 5 Fellow-Crafts, and each Fellow-Craft by 3 apprentices, as if the Masters were sitting in pentagrams, and the Fellow-Craftsmen in Triangles. This may refer to the number of manual signs in each of these degrees.
     The moral of the chapter is apparently that the mother-letter aleph is an inadequate solution of the Great Problem. aleph is identified with the Yoni, for all the symbols connected with it in this place are feminine, but aleph is also a number of Samadhi and mysticism, and the doctrine is therefore that Magick, in that highest sense explained in the Book of the Law, is the truer key.

NOTES

     (23) L = 30, O = 70, V = 6, E = 5 = 111.
     (24) A = 1, M = 40, O = 70 = 111.
     (25) The trowel is shaped like a diamond or Yoni. L = 30, A = 1, P = 80 = 111.
     (26) N = 50, I = 10, N = 50, A = 1 = 111.

 

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