Ordo Templi Orientis

LIBER CHETH

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This is a passage from Aleister Crowley's *Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni* (Liber 156), a short instructional text within his Thelemic magical system, written in the register of biblical prophecy with numbered verses. Its subject is the crossing of the Abyss — the supreme initiatory ordeal in Crowley's A∴A∴ system — which requires the complete annihilation of the individual self as a prerequisite for mystical union with the infinite. The text commands the aspirant to pour out every last drop of personal life-force into "the golden cup" of Babalon (the archetypal divine feminine of Thelema), surrendering wealth, health, and all emotional bonds including family, until nothing of the individual remains — the remnant being deposited as inert dust in the "City of the Pyramids." Its distinctive claim is that this total self-dissolution is not merely recommended but inevitable: anyone who steps onto the path will be brought to annihilation either willingly or by force, and any hidden reservation of selfhood results in permanent exile in the Abyss. Paradoxically, the text promises that once the self is wholly obliterated, all worldly abundance and joy return — but experienced by no one, since the practitioner has ceased to exist as a discrete entity. The ultimate end of the path is described as unknown even to the highest divine figures of the Thelemic pantheon, gesturing toward an absolute that exceeds all cosmological categories.

LIBER CHETH

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