The Book of The Law - Skeptical Views

Skeptical Views

Israel Regardie argued in his biography of Crowley, The Eye in the Triangle, that Aiwass was an unconscious expression of Crowley's personality. Regardie stated that although Crowley initially regarded Aiwass as one of the secret chiefs, years later he came to believe that Aiwass was his own Holy Guardian Angel. Regardie argued: “If Aiwass was his own Higher Self, then the inference is none other than that Aleister Crowley was the author of the Book, and that he was the external mask for a variety of different hierarchical personalities… The man Crowley was the lowest rung of the hierarchical ladder, the outer shell of a God, even as we all are, the persona of a Star… He is the author of The Book of the Law even as he is the author of The Book of the Heart Girt with a Serpent and Liber Lapidis Lazuli, and so forth. …these latter books reveal a dialogue between the component parts of Crowley. It seems to me that basically this Liber Legis is no different.” Regardie also noted resemblances between the Book of the Law and these latter holy books, such as the inclusion of “rambling, unintelligible” passages, “some repugnant to reason by their absurdity, and their jarring goatish quality”. In 1906 Crowley wrote: "It has struck me - in connection with reading Blake that Aiwass, etc. "Force and Fire" is the very thing I lack. My "conscience" is really an obstacle and a delusion, being a survival of heredity and education." Regardie considered this an “illuminating admission” and argued that due to Crowley’s early religious training he developed an overly rigid superego or conscience. When he rebelled against Christianity, “he must have yearned for qualities and characteristics diametrically opposed to his own. In The Book of the Law the wish is fulfilled.” The Book of the Law was therefore a “colossal wish-fulfilment.” Regardie noted that the Book’s rejection of Judaeo-Christian mores was completely in accord with Crowley’s own moral and religious values and that in this sense “it is his Book”. Furthermore, although Crowley claimed to have initially objected to the Book's contents, Regardie expressed the view that he could not see what a person like Crowley would possibly object to. Regardie referred to Crowley's 1909 statement: “I want blasphemy, murder, rape, revolution, anything, bad or good, but strong,” and pointed out that the Book of the Law delivered all these things.

He also argued that Rose's ability to answer Crowley's questions about Horus and the Qabala was not as remarkable as Crowley claimed. Rose had been married to Crowley for two years at this point and Regardie stated that Crowley may well have used Rose as a 'sounding board' for many of his own ideas. Therefore she may not have been as ignorant of magick and mysticism as Crowley let on.

Charles R. Cammell, author of Aleister Crowley: The Man, the Mage, the Poet also believed the Book was an expression of Crowley's personality:

The mind behind the maxims is cold, cruel and relentless. Mercy there is none, nor consolation; nor hope save in the service of this dread messenger of the gods of Egypt. Such is Liber Legis in letter and spirit; and as such, and in consideration of its manner of reception, it is a document of curious interest. That it is in part (but in part only) an emanation from Crowley's unconscious mind I can believe; for it bears a likeness to his own Daemonic personality.

Journalist Sarah Veale has also argued that Aiwass was an externalised part of Crowley's psyche and in support of this view quotes Crowley himself as saying:

"Ah, you realize that magick is something we do to ourselves. But it is more convenient to assume the objective existence of an angel who gives us new knowledge than to allege that our invocation has awakened a supernormal power in ourselves." (Kaczynski, 542).

Veale also pointed out the similarity in rhythmic style between The Book of the Law and some of Crowley's own non-channelled writings. In Magick in theory and practice, Crowley claimed that invoking the "barbarous names" in iambic tetrameter was very useful. Many of his own poems are written in iambic tetrameter, such as this excerpt from “The Riddle,” a poem to his former lover, Jerome Pollitt:

Habib hath heard; let all Iran
who spell aright from A to Z
Exalt thy fame and understand
with whom I made a marriage-bed

Iambic tetrameter is also used in Chapter II, 17 of Liber Al:

Hear me, ye people of sighing!
The sorrows of pain and regret
Are left to the dead and the dying,
The folk that not know me as yet.

Veale states that there are other similarities in writing styles besides the use of the same poetic meter. The fact that a supposedly discarnate intelligence just happened to have the same writing style as Crowley, suggests that Aiwass may have just been part of Crowley's unconscious mind after all.

Scholar Joshua Gunn also argued that the stylistic similarities between the Book and Crowley's poetic writings were too great for it to be anything other than Crowley's work:

Although Crowley sincerely believed that The Book of the Law was inspired by superhuman intelligences, its clichéd imagery, overwrought style, and overdone ecophonetic displays are too similar to Crowley's other poetic writings to be the product of something supernatural.