An old and interesting article on LAShTAL prompted me to make a map that uses Aleister’s grid references for Cairo, when he received Liber Al vel Legis, The Holograph Manuscript of Liber AL vel Legis,sub figurâ XXXI A∴A∴ Publication in Class A, Page 60
Then looking at this map of Cairo, from 1933. Yes, I understand it is later than it should be and based on a map of Cairo in 1904. Yet unfortunately, this is the only map of decent quality and at a large scale, could find. So using the actual grid references that AC provided. It looked like this.
Now I know the line is not exactly as per Aleister’s own but the start and the end points are referenced on the grid he drew, along with the “X” marks the spot. So to the best of my ability I have indicated this. He was roughly using the Shari Fouad el Auwal straight road, in order to give the reader a reference landmark, this was I assume to aid with more accurately placing the “X” on the map. Was this the location of the Reception of Liber L vel Legis?
Based on AC’s scribble I initially thought, due to the proximately, that the location was the Midan roundabout. Surely not! So using the co-ords given,
I worked it out to be either the Windsor hotel or the Shepheard Hotel. The map above due to being 25 years or more after the date, would possibly not be the best one to use. The landscape changed a hell of a lot over that sort of time period.
Luckily enough I did manage after a lot of searching to find a German map from 1904.
Shepheard Hotel looks to be the most likely location, though there are another couple that may have been used, in that immediate area. It was not uncommon for a hotel to have apartments for rent after all. Shepheard’s was one of the largest and well know. It had burnt down and been rebuilt in 1890’s and then again in 1952. So the actual room that Aiwass spoke in the ear of the Beast, must likely is no longer in existence. Unless it was another location.
So after Boleskine having being burned down, the Abbey crumbling away and discovering that the old Shepheard Hotel had burned down in 1952 and the 1890’s, anything to do with AC does not seem to hang around for long!
For more on the historical hotel scene in and around 1902-1904, please refer to Cairo of To-Day: A Practical Guide to Cairo and the Nile
Hat de Londres Club Chedivial (The Turf Club or the London Club) and Hotel Royal may be further candidates, in the vicinity.
Maybe another inquisitive soul with more sources could investigate these?
It is my belief that the grid was a map. It’s the most logical explanation available.
EDIT Additional Information of Shepheards Hotels History
First Class Hotels SIWHEARD’S nmL 8 Sharia Kamil, hhvccn Sharia Alfi Bey and Sharia Dubre. 350 rooms, apartment suites available, prices hm 160 P.T. per room per night. Some suites 1 £I3 to 2 fE per night. Open 1 November to 15 May, closed during the summer. The hotel’s spacious terrace is the site of nightly concerts; a ball is held every night in the high season. A garden in back provides a1 fresco dining and also has a large raised dance floor in the center. There is a restaurant and grill room, a bar, and post and telegraph offices open 24 hours a day. All major theaters, most night clubs, and the Cairo Opera are within easy walking distance. Shepheard’s hotel is the place to stay in Cairo. The starting point for every expedition, safari or tour of note, its corridors bustle with the pith-helmeted rich and idle of all nations. It has been said that “Alexandria is merely a signal stop on the tourist road to Shepheard’s.” While the 8~~0mmodations and food are no better than many other hotels in Cairo, it is the place to meet people of influence. Five minutes from the railway station, and the center of social life for Cairo’s well-to-do, the serious traveler cannot afford not to stay at Shepheard’s. This reputation is well earned, but fails to hide the fact that the hotel backs on to a block where the desperately poor live crammed together, their livestock tethered on their rooftops, and that the prostitutes’ quarter begins just across the road to the west. A bulletin board in the foyer holds public and private notices of interest to the European community of Cairo. The board lists houseboats to let, flats available, notices of meetings at clubs, and when and where forthcoming social functions are to be held. Doors at the hotel are never locked, although keys are always provided. All staff are scrupulously honest, as far as the belongings of guests are concerned. The only thefts occurring during the 1920’s are conducted by a small gang of French jewel thieves. A Chubb safe, located in an office behind the hotel desk, is at the disposal of all guests and staff. Advertised as being the most burglar-proof safe in Cairo, it was never robbed during its existence. At four stories high, with round cupola towers at each corner and a colonnaded entry foyer and portico, Shepheard’s is an impressive building. From the upper floors the whole vista of Cairo can be enjoyed, the flatroofed houses gleaming in the midday sun or moonlight. From west-facing rooms, the pyramids lurk on the southwestern horizon, beckoning to the tourist with promises of ancient mysteries and marvels waiting to be uncovered. The smell of hot dust rises into the air as the varade of human, motor and beast traf6,c passes in the strekt below, and at regular intervals the constant munnw of life is punctuated by the ululations of ‘the muezzins in their minarets calling the faithful to prayer. Stables and garages at the side of the hotel house the cars and donkeys of exmtions preparing to set out into the unhown deserts, and huge caravans of people and goods assemble in front of the hotel when the adventurous prepare to leave. Special function rooms at Shepheard’s include the his Room and the Moorish Hall. These are often booked for private functions, dances, or club meetings, and are lavishly furnished in typical Egyptian decor. The hotel is redecorated each year during the summer, and reopens each winter newly polished and finer than the year before. The original Shepheard’s Hotel was built in 1849- 1852 on the site of the Palace of Mi Bey (1750’s). There were a smaller palace and a temple on this site (dating from 900 A.D.), which were leveled before the newer palace was built. Bey’s palace was Napoleon’s htadquarters during the French occupation (1798-1799), and later became Muhammed Ali’s School of Languages (1815- 1847). When the fist hotel was built, the palace was leveled; the current building sits over the previous ruins. The cellars excavated for the hotel cut through and across the ancient temple and palace cellars, as well as tunnels excavated by Bey, Napoleon, and Ali The original hotel, only two stories high, was replaced in the late 1800’s by the current building. Note: Shepheard’s Hotel burns to the ground in 1952 during the revolution that forces the British out of Egypt. The modem Shepheard’s Hotel stands on an entirely different site.
Taken from this 1920’s Guide to Egypt/Cairo. Page 23 onwards. The text did not copy well from the paste. So best to use the PDF to read.
EDIT: 06-16-16
Granted, as a few have pointed out to me also that the grid co-ords, do not reference and known mapping system, so therefore surely could not be a map ref.
Why it was reversed did boggle me and maybe it is not actually the correct map.
A further point to note would be that the grid was not on the orginial manuscript and added at a much later date.
I have since stumbled across another individual who deems it to also be map references. Albeit in an entirely different region of Egpyt. The Temple of Dendera.
Then the circle squared in its failure… points to two different areas… Nag Hammadi or is it actually an Island in the top left???
Introduction & Commentary by Marcus Katz
The entire transcript of Crowley’s original 1904 notebook from Cairo and Boleskine House charting the magic throughout the reception of The Book of the Law.
Contains unpublished Tarot material, 40 years prior to the Book of Thoth, rare archive photographs, and an Aleister Crowley Timeline.
The below is only 9 pages from a book of 66 pages. This section relates to the before and after the torn out section.
Hope that this may be of assistance to those on currently discussing on LAShTAL on this thread and beyond.
Note that there is a view high res option on each photo.
Contents:
Introduction
GJY Notes
Invocation of Hoor
Confession
A Brief Interlude on Ancient Egyptian
Ritual B2
To Obtain LVX
Beelzebub Working
Tarot Notes
The Book of Results
A Note on Stele
Appendix 1: An Aleister Crowley Timeline
Appendix 2: The Names of the Beast
Appendix 3: Months of March & April, 1904
Appendix 4: The Names of the Servitors of Beelzebub
Reading List
Reference THE YORKE COLLECTION MICROFILM EDITION
Yorke Film 9 page 50 of 72
https://www.100thmonkeypress.com/biblio/acrowley/references/Yorke%20Microfilm%20Index.pdf
We insist from the beginning on the individual character of the work, and upon the necessity of maintaining the objective and skeptical standpoint. You are explicitly warned against reliance upon “authority,” even that of the Order itself. Consider my own assets, personal, social, educational, experiential and the rest: don’t you see that all I had to do was to put out some brightly-coloured and mellifluous lie, and avoid treading on too many toes, to have had hundreds of thousands of idiots worshiping me?
—Magick Without Tears, ch. 71
Freedom is a two-edged sword of which one edge is liberty and the other, responsibility.
Both edges are exceedingly sharp and the weapon is not suited to casual, cowardly or
treacherous hands.
Since all tyrannies are based on dogma and since all dogmas are based on lies, it
behooves us to look beyond them for truth and freedom will both be far away. And yet
the Truth is that we know nothing…
Jack Parsons
A amazing and inspiring video. Watch
Today is the anniversary of a man who I think was a scientific genius, as he co-founded the Jet propulsion Lab in the US and also a philosophical/political visionary thru his short pieces of literature left after he died prematurely in an explosion. He even had a crater on the moon named after him.
Parsons co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, commonly referred to as JPL. According to von Kármán, Parsons’ work in solid fuel research “… made possible such outstanding rockets as the Polaris and the Minuteman. Hence he enabled man to go to the moon thru his work on fuels and rockets.John Whiteside Parsons (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons on October 2, 1914 – died June 17, 1952), better known asJack Parsons died on this day 59 years ago. What a loss not only to the rocket/space age but also to the esoteric world.
His books “Freedom is a two-edged Sword” & the recently released “Three Essays on Freedom” are shining examples of how he envisioned the liberation of the individual in a totalitarian society. Big brother was not even a term back then but he had the foresight to realize that the peoples liberties where being eroded away and sought to rectify it. This was done via a few means, identifying Peoples rights, indicating ways to discover themselves and act upon it.
This lead him to Thelema and the idea that the rights of the individual is paramount and supersedes the state, not vice versa.
I suggest that you maybe try and obtain “Freedom is a two-edged Sword” and read it. Even tho it was written in the 1950’s it still reads as if it was written for our time now.
A great book to buy if you would like to know more about his life would be
Strange Angel by George Pendle on Amazon
An awesome comic can be found at the web link below.
Words by Richard Carbonneau, Art by Robin Simon
Here is a .pdf version…. >>>>> Jack Parsons – Freedom is a Two Edged Sword.pdf
Also a Collected Writings of Jack here…. >>>>> THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF JACK PARSONS.doc
Here is some footage of Jack >>>>>> Jack Parsons actual film footage
Jack Parsons: Jet Propelled Antichrist Below is a YouTube link to a documentary DVD produced by Enigma TV.