777 And Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley [Paperback]

That said, '777' is clearly one of the best works of its kind, and rightly merits a place of honor on every occultist's bookshelf. '777' is really a compilation of three of Crowley's published works, and each deserves some discussion on its own merits.

The first chapter or book in '777' is an early essay on Gematria, the art or science of rendering words into numbers and deriving meaning from the result. To give Crowley his due, the man was clearly an expert on Hebrew and Greek Gematria-- as this essay proves beyond doubt. This is a brilliant work, marred perhaps only by Crowley's tendency to obfuscate his meaning when he wanted to sound mysterious.

The next chapter in '777' is the heart and soul of this volume. Originally published by itself as 'Liber 777,' this chapter contains page after page of Qabalistic associations and attributions. Although this sort of stuff filled the hand-scribbled grimoires of magicians and Qabalists in the Middle Ages, there haven't been many reliable works of this sort published anywhere in modern times, making 'Liber 777' a real gem. Most of the attributions given in 'Liber 777' probably came directly from Allan Bennett, Crowley's mentor in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, who was something of a scholar and who was also known to have given a work of this nature to Crowley before he left England for health reasons. Dion Fortune, in "The Mystical Qabalah," confirmed that many of the atributions listed in 'Liber 777' had previously been circulated among initiates of the Golden Dawn, and for this reason it can be assumed that much of this material was presented to Crowley when he joined the Order. Crowley clearly enlarged and expanded upon Bennett's work, but some of his attributions are suspect-- for instance, Crowley assigns various pagan gods and goddesses to the Paths of the Tree of Life, as well as to the individual Sephirah, even though the Paths are states of consciousness which are experienced subjectively, and they simply don't represent the same kind of natural forces that the Sephiroth do. Crowley also contradicts himself at times, attributing something to one Sephira in one column and then attributing the same force to another Sephira elsewhere. It's almost as if Crowley, in his efforts to expand upon materials that were entrusted to him as a member of the Golden Dawn, has muddied the waters with obscure and unneccessary attributions without bothering to source any of his additions. Still, this is probably the best collection of Qabalistic correspondences to be found in printer's ink anywhere, and even with its glaring imperfections it makes no sense to throw the baby out with the bath water!

The final chapter of '777' is a Qabalistic commentary by Allen Bennett which Crowley edited before its original publication. In my opinion, this insightful little tract never really received the attention which should have been its due, probably because of Crowley's involvement at a time when he was so despised by his contemporaries, but by the same token Crowley is probably to be credited for keeping Bennett's work in publication for all of these years.

I know that, in some occult circles, it's almost an act of heresy to criticize Aleister Crowley. I think that Crowley, ever the iconoclastic trouble-maker, would have been amused with the sort of hallowed reverence that some people hold him in today. In any case, Crowley reached a sort of zenith with '777,' a lovely reference work that makes a useful addition to any occult library.