{"collection":"Ordo Templi Orientis","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_oto_lib106_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_oto_lib106_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_oto_lib106_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/oto/lib106.htm","summary":"This is a formal Thelemic epistle written by Aleister Crowley in his role as Baphomet X\u00b0, head of the Ordo Templi Orientis, addressed to a female member of that order and intended as a practical liturgical text for comforting the dying. It draws on the cosmology of Crowley's *Book of the Law*, centering on the Egyptian sky-goddess Nuit (infinite space and stars) and Hadit (the point of individual consciousness), framing death as a joyful dissolution of the gross physical body back into universal light and cosmic unity. The work's central argument is that death is an illusion produced by over-identifying with matter: just as a planet casts only a temporary shadow, the body temporarily obscures one's true nature as a \"star\" within the body of Nuit, and dying is simply the shadow passing. A second section reframes death as the triumphant consummation of the individual will, using hunting and erotic imagery drawn from Thelemic doctrine, while a third section \u2014 notably \u2014 allows that a soul may choose to return to earthly existence if that is its will, incorporating a translated passage from the ancient Egyptian Stele of Revealing. Distinctively, the text presents itself not as metaphor or faith but as metaphysical certainty, and it is unusual in occult literature for being explicitly composed as a deathbed comfort script, intended for recitation by nurses or companions to the dying.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Concerning Death","tradition":"Ordo Templi Orientis","translated_text":null,"word_count":926}