LIBER CCXXVIII



                             OF THE NATURE OF
                                 THE GODS
                               -----------
     
     
                            DE NATURA DEORUM
     
        Baphomet X' O.T.O. Rex Summus Sancitissimus, from the 
        Throne of Ireland Iona and all the Britains that are in the 
        Sanctuary of the Gnosis to all Members of the Supreme Grand
        Council of Very Illustrious Sovereign Grand Inspectors General 
        VII' Greeting and Peace.
     
               Under the seal of the Obligation of the VII'.
     
     
                                   I
     
From the Beginning of Years the Initiates of all peoples have held 
one central secret as sure Bond of Brotherhood, as a unity whose 
truth is able to harmonize all men upon the Earth.
     
   No fabrications is the Earth but a chilled spark of the Sun, a dropt
petal of the Rose of Heaven, but the source of all Light and Life 
upon the planet is that same Sun.  Not only is he creator, but 
sustainer, and it is He also that destroyeth in due season, and 
redeemeth when the time is come.
     
   Therefore in the Macrocosm is one sole God, the Sun.
     
   Now in the Microcosm, which is Man, the viceregent of the
Sun, sole giver of life, is the Phallus.  He is also sole giver of 
Light in a certain secret sense not fully declared in the VII'. This 
much may We hint: the Phallus is the physiological basis of the 
Oversoul (see also Liber 333, The Book of Lies, Caps. A, H, IA,
IE, IF, IH, Lambda B) And also of His own nature is He Liberty and 
Love.
     
   Now of old our brethren hid this doctrine in tradition, and in
fable, and in great buildings, and in the Rituals of Freemasonry. 
With this Key all these Rituals become intelligible, luminous, 
radiant; without it they are dark, the just scorn of the ignorant.
     
Search and see.
     
     
                                   II
     
In this book we have no need to speak of local and tribal Gods, of 
animistic personifications of partial phenomena, and the like.
     
   But of the universal Gods, as these:
     
   The Fire;            an image of Sol, and a fable of the Phallus.
   The Moon;            an image of Kteis, only worshipped with Sol in his
                        aspect as an extension of the Phallus.
   The Mountain;        reverenced as the home of the Gods, the visible
                        place of the rising of Sol, and as by shape 
                        symbolical of the Phallus.  Some mountains are 
                        female, from shape or tradition.
   The Ancestor;        revered as an incarnation of the Phallus. 
   The Yoni or Kteis;   revered as the House of the Phallus, and
                        his complement.
   The Snake;           revered as giver of Death, and as a symbol of the
                        Spermatozoon.  He has often the head of
   The Lion;            to indicate the mighty power of the Spermatozoon. 
   The Egg;             revered as Solar, and in itself as the vehicle of 
                        Phallic energy.
   The Eagle;           and many other winged creatures; also wings
                        attached to the symbols.  This represents the flight 
                        of Life from one resting-place to another, and is 
                        therefore a proper attribute of the Phallus.
   The Tree;            is but the flowering Phallus.
   The Stars;           these being the concourse of the Brethren of the Sun
                        are venerable for the Wise even as He.  And the 
                        star-universe is as it were His Mother, whence Nuit 
                        is the highest and holiest of all that may be.  And 
                        her mate is Hadit, the secret and essential energy 
                        of Life whose raiment is the Phallus, wherefore is 
                        Hadit equal with Her, the highest and holiest of all 
                        that may be.  And Their Child Ra-Hoor-Khuit is the 
                        visible Sol-Phallus upon earth.  But this is a 
                        mystery of the Adepts of Thelema and the vulgar may 
                        not attain to it.
     
   All other Gods should be referred to this synthesis in the 
Microcosmic Sun.
     
   Thus Corn-goddesses conceal Mysteries of Germination, Wine-
gods are Phallic and Solar in the Ectasy of overflowing Life of 
which the proper use of wine makes even the common people 
conscious.
     
   There are also gods invented to represent things useful to man;
but these are by nature subservient to the prime God whose use 
and beauty are fundamental.
     
     
                                 III
     
In that Sanctuary of the Gnosis to which, Very Illustrious Sir 
Knights your valor and chastity may one day obtain your 
admission, there is a certain deeper interpretation.  Nor are ye 
wholly ignorant of how in the Figure called Baphomet and
Babalon is a Measure of Heaven and Earth.
     
   Again, those, Initiates indeed, who have penetrated in truth
into the Sanctuaries of their own Being, and found That God 
Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent who is Light, Light, 
Love, and Liberty, beyond Time and Space, without quantity
or quality, One Eternal, the very essence of the Sun and of the 
Phallus alike, will possess in their own consciousness, illuminated 
by That, a certain apprehension of the Truth which is not in any way 
to be shared by those who have not attained to this Treasure.
     
   These, if they are wise, will make no attempt to disclose this
inner Truth to the profane, but will be content that they rest in 
the shadow of that external Truth which We have declared
unto you, that God is One, and that His name is in the Macro- 
cosm the Sun, and in the Microcosm the Phallus.
     
   For all attempts to initiate even the worthy before they initiate
themselves are folly and fatality.  The Secrets of the Wise, 
although know of them, are not to be expressed in the language of 
common men.  Look you, Sir Knights, this Doctrine itself that
We reveal to you in this Supreme Grand Council to which ye
have attained so hardly, how will it sound, think you, even in a 
Consistory of Princes of the Royal Secret, prepared as they are 
for some such revelation?  How then to mere Knights Kadosch, to 
Sovereign Princes of Rose Croix?  And how to Master Masons?
It is for this reason that our Council is thus Sentinelled within and 
without, and that our whole Ritual from Minerval upward is
but a constant series of hints of this One Truth.
     
   What is the tent of Saladin but the Phallus?  And the First Word 
as the last is ON, the Sun.
     
   But were the Minerval to suspect this truth, would he not turn
to flee in terror from the Camp and be cut down by the Black 
Guard that wardeth even the outmost marches of the Kingdom 
of the Most Holy and Most High Lord God Almighty?
     
   Therefore, reflect, act wisely and with prudence, Sir Knights,
not declaring openly the Arcanum to such as understand not 
already of their own ripe wit.  And in what time seemeth Him 
good shall the O.H.O., gathering his forces, declare this Truth 
privily unto the Kings and Princes of the Earth, that they may 
take counsel together and rule all men in peace and love by 
virtue of this Secret under the Shadow of the Wings of the One 
ineffable Lord.
     
   For this secret is not only a convenient manner of doing this, a
Pillar of Flame to disperse the Shadows of Earth, but it also a 
convenient veil - and the only veil worthy - of that further 
Light which We are not able to reveal even to this Supreme 
Grand Council of the O.T.O.
     
     
                                  IV
     
Of all our enemies those are most to be feared, who make false 
gods of their imaginations.
     
   For the heathen are turned easily from gods of clay; for truth
strikes home sharply on their dark minds.  It is easy to prove that 
the Sun is indeed the source of Life and Light, that the Phallus
is indeed PANGENETOR.  But to those who have stultified 
themselves, who have darkened their own eyes, who have 
betrayed their own reason in seeking out phantastic gods, foul 
and tangled cobwebs of metaphysics spun by emasculate spider-
professors in sunless cloisters, bubbles blown by idiots and mad- 
men, myths misinterpreted, fables taken for history, lies pushed 
forward by every forgery, fraud, treachery and murder, to such 
the Truth seems false, and the Light darkness.
     
   Such Gods as Parabrahman merely bewilder the people, and
render them the prey of priestcraft, while the Christs of the Latin, 
Lutheran and Anglican Churches alike are but the machine-gods
of all fraud and oppression, being stolen and prostituted from 
that Christ in whom our Fathers in the Gnosis strove to syn- 
thesize the warring gods of Syria, Greece, Chaldea, Rome and 
Egypt at the time when the growth of the Roman Empire first
made travel and the intercommunication of the priests of Mithras, 
Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Dionysius, Isis, Astarte, Venus and many 
scores of others possible.
     
   Traces of this recension are still visible in the Mass and in the
Calendar of the Saints, all gods and goddesses of universal import 
receiving the same honor by the same rites as before, while the 
local gods were replaced by saints, virgins, martyrs, or angels, 
often of the same name, always of the same character.
     
   Thus on the altar the Solar-phallic Crucifix is surrounded by
six lights for the planets, to use one example only of a hundred 
at Our disposal; and Christmas is at the winter Solstice, the 
birth of Christ put for the birth of the Sun.  All these points may 
be studied in:
     
   La Messea et ses Mysteres
   Rome, Pagan and Papal
   The Two Babylons
   Rivers of Life
   Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus
     
and many other books which may be studied in the library of 
the O.T.O. and elsewhere.
     
   But in pure Free Masonry and especially in the O.T.O. this
synthesis has been made with greater accuracy and skill, and with 
higher concentration, with more lucidity, with dramatic and
poetic genius, so it is easier for ourselves to distinguish the Jewel 
from its setting, and possibly in the event of the Rite and its 
Tradition being lost in some universal Cataclysm for worthy 
successors inspired by Our Lord 'to retrieve our loss, and recover 
the Word'.
     
   Now then let Us once again recall to you, Very Illustrious Sir,
Knights of the Order of the Temple of the East, the history of our 
Religious and Military Monks and Knights, how, issuing from
the West as crusaders, they met with initiates in the armies of 
Salah 'ud Din, and from them obtained the secret called Bapho- met, 
being the Mystery of the Measure of Heaven and Earth that lieth 
behind this secret of the VII' concerning the Unity of God. And ye 
have verily reason from the crowns of you heads to the soles of 
your feet to remember how this is the origin of all our tragedy.  
Thus therefore, Sir Knights valorous and noble, war constantly on 
all tyranny and superstition, and mostly against bigotries such as 
'orthodox' Christianity as interpreted in its material sense, old 
wives' tales and foolish fables, the immoral doctrines of original 
sin and vicarious atonement, and the most hideous eschatology in 
the history of false religion.  Nor can much less be averred 
against all other orthodoxies, with their fables equally absurd, 
their postulates equally immoral.
     
   But also let there be war upon those who seek to refine upon
these bigotries in any other way than that of eclectic and syn- 
cretistic harmonizations; beware moreover of those who seek to 
'spiritualize' their false gods, for their heads are even as vain 
pigs' bladders of poisonous miasma.
     
   But in your warfare honor brave antagonists; spare them
and bring them to initiation; while the hag and the eunuch - and
     
such are well nigh all who support orthodoxies - must be shown 
the only mercy possible, that of swift destruction.
     
   For those calling themselves orthodox who are yet men, and
women, have in truth no faith in these follies, but only profess 
them as convenient means of dominating the vulgar.  Such are 
already of us, although they know it not; such, albeit uncon- 
sciously, understand and live according to our Law THELEMA
- DO WHAT THOU WILT.  They are ripe for conversion;
they are of the Blood, and with little pains may be brought to 
fights in our ranks.  So mote it be.
     
     
                                  V
     
Here declare We a certain secret method of worship of the One 
True God if haply ye may find Him.
     
   Let every Knight appoint a privy Chapel in his castle, and so
far as may be let it resemble this order and disposition of Our 
Supreme Grand Council, having an ever-burning lamp as
an image of the Sun to give light to a Phallus carved or molded in 
gold, silver, platinum or bronze by the fine art of the sculptor, 
And let the Knight keep oft times vigil before it, devotedly with 
his whole heart uttering hymns and invocations, as may be fitting, 
and exalting himself in due commemoration of this Lord of Life,
in such wise that the Image becomes consecrated by his will Thus 
shall it be a storehouse of strength, and a focus or magnet, drawing 
to itself all subtle forces, and radiating benediction.
     
   Let then the Knight keep secret this devotion, and enjoy its
fruits in quiet.
     
     
                                 VI
     
Here also is a deeper worship and an inner, that lieth nigher to the 
heart of God.
     
  Let the good Knight devout appoint a secret shrine in his own 
body, in the brain, or in the throat, or in the heart, or in the 
solar plexus, or in that place called groin, or in some other center 
of force, and there let him establish firmly a mental image of the 
Phallus or of the Sun; and, closing all avenues of sense, as it were 
tyling the lodge, let him worship and cherish that image with 
unwearying care.  Let him rehearse before the Lord thus exalted
his own deep of knightly devoir unto that Lord, so that Memory 
and Imagination dance about him as maids about the Maypole. 
And to these let him add Will, consecrating himself with oaths
to the service of the Lord, and vowing to make himself a worthy 
priest unto Him.  Thus, then, the whole thought being closely 
knit together and ranged about the Image, as soldiers that rally 
to a Standard, let him turn devoutly and intensely his mind to
the sole contemplation of that Image, figuring to himself that all 
other thoughts are but as cowans and eavesdroppers.  Now then,
for a season shall it be difficult rightly to tyle that Lodge, and the 
mind shall turn ever from the Image.  So therefore let the good
Knight with fortitude redouble zeal, until it be that on a sudden 
all that turmoil cease, and the thought flow evenly up to the 
image.  Then shall the God appear in all His glory, assuming the 
worshippers into His Heaven.
     
     
                                 VII
     
Be it known unto you, Very Illustrious Sir Knights Councillors, 
that there lieth beyond all this a supreme mode by which God 
not only manifesteth Himself to man, but is with him united in
most sweet nuptials.  But this mystery is not to be know of them 
that are not yet initiates of the Sanctuary of the Gnosis IX'.  But 
be ye also assured that by these practices preliminary ye shall be 
led to Godliness, and to the Reward and Favor of the All-One
and ye do fit yourselves for that further advancement, ye make 
yourselves worthy candidates for the Secret Areopagus of the 
Illuminati, wherein is much made light that is yet dark to you.
     
     
                                 VIII
     
   And may the Blessings of our Lord and Father the Sun, and the
Favor and Fervor of the Lord {Iota, Theta, Phi, Alpha, Lambda, Lambda, 
Omicron, Sigma} be upon you, and prepare you in brain and heart and 
body (wisdom, and beauty, and might of creation being within you) for 
the Glory of which this Council is but a figured veil.
     
   Hail, Sir Knights Councillors, and farewell.  In the Name of
BABALON and THE BEAST conjoined, of the Secret Savior and of IAO.