| 0. | These are the adorations to be performed by all aspirants to the A∴A∴ |
| 1. | Let him greet the Sun at dawn, facing East, giving the sign of his
grade.1 And let him say in a loud voice:
Hail unto Thee who art Ra in Thy rising, even unto Thee who art Ra in Thy strength, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Uprising of the Sun. |
| 2. | Also at Noon, let him greet the Sun, facing South, giving the sign of
his grade. And let him say in a loud voice:
Hail unto Thee who art Ahathoor in Thy triumphing, even unto Thee who art Ahathoor in Thy beauty, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Mid-course of the Sun. |
| 3. | Also, at Sunset, let him greet the Sun, facing West, giving the sign of
his grade. And let him say in a loud voice:
Hail unto Thee who art Tum in Thy setting, even unto Thee who art Tum in Thy joy, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Down-going of the Sun. |
| 4. | Lastly, at Midnight, let him greet the Sun, facing West, giving the sign
of his grade. And let him say in a loud voice:
Hail unto Thee who art Khephra in Thy hiding, even unto Thee who art Khephra in Thy silence, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Midnight Hour of the Sun. |
| 5. | And after each of these invocations thou shalt give the sign of silence, and afterwards thou shalt perform the adoration that is taught thee by thy Superior.2 And then do thou compose thyself to holy meditation. |
| 6. | Also it is better if in these adorations thou assume the god-form of Whom thou adorest, as if thou didst unite with Him in the adoration of That which is beyond Him.3 |
| 7. | Thus shalt thou ever be mindful of the Great Work which thou hast undertaken to perform, and thus shalt thou be strengthened to pursue it unto the attainment of the Stone of the Wise, the Summum Bonum, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness. |
In addition to the four solar adorations of Resh, Crowley also recommended to aspirants the performance of a lunar salutation. There was no single instruction in the manner of Resh on this point; the following is assembled from Crowley's published works:
... every student should make a point of saluting the Sun (in the manner recommended in Liber Resh) four times daily, and he shall salute the Moon on her appearance with the mantra gayatri. The best way is to say the mantra instantly one sees the Moon, to note whether the attention wavers, and to repeate the mantra until it does not waver at all.4
—Eight Lectures on Yoga (Yoga for Yellowbellies I.9)
... in “Greetings” I include “saying Will” before set meals, the four daily adorations of the Sun (Liber CC vel Resh) and the salutation of Our Lady the Moon.
—Magick Without Tears, chapter 18
The Gayatri mantra is given in Book 4 part I as:
Aum! tat sávitúr varényam
Bhárgo dévasyá dhimáhi
Dhiyo yó nah prácodáyat
In a footnote Crowley suggests “Scan this as trochaic tetrameters” and gives the translation:
O! let us strictly meditate on the adorable light of that divine Savitri (the interior Sun, etc.). May she enlighten our minds!
In The Sword of Song appears the following slightly freer verse-rendering:
Aum! let us meditate aright
On that adorable One Light,
Divine Savitri! So may She
Illume our minds! So mote it be!
Notes
Crowley's attribution of Egyptian Gods to the Solar stations varied over time; for example there are some papers where the form of "Mau the Lion" is referred to noon, and Hathor to sunset (see for example Liber HHH); there are Egyptian texts in which Hathor is cited as "Lady of the Evening" but this seems to be figurative rather than an explicit reference to the setting sun which is more usually referred to Tem (Tum or Temu); see for example the hymns to the setting Sun in cap. XV of the Book of the Dead.
1: For those with no A∴A∴ grade, general signs appropriate to the quarters may be substituted. In a manuscript note to his copy of Equinox I (6), Crowley suggests for dawn the L.V.X. signs, for noon the Fire (4°=7°, Thoum-Aesch-Neith) sign, for sunset the Air (2°=9°, Shu) sign and for midnight the Water (3°=8°, Auramoth) sign. These are described in Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae (pictures of all these signs here). The rationale is that you are symbolically standing on the intersection of the Paths of Samekh and Pe with Tiphareth to the East, so you make the sign of the Grade whose Sephirah you are facing on each occasion (see Crowley’s Notes on the Ritual of the Pentagram).
2: For those not in communication with the A∴A∴, the adorations in Liber AL vel Legis, III. 37-38 from “Unity uttermost showed!” to “Abide with me, Ra-Hoor-Khuit!” have been suggested as generally suitable. This is not necessarily the adoration that was taught in the A∴A∴ under Crowley, or in modern groups claiming to represent the A∴A∴.
3: One way of reading this would be to assume the God-form of Ra, Hathor, Tum or Khephra as appropriate. See Liber O for the practice and works such as Gods of the Egyptians by Budge for the traditional images of these deities. But there are other ways of reading the instruction, particularly if one subscribes to Crowley’s “Solar Phallic” doctrine.
4: Frater O.B. informs me that some practitioners prefer to make the salutation at the time of moonrise rather than simply the first time they see the Moon on any evening.
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Key entry, HTML coding and notes by Frater T.S.