Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu - Interpretation By Aleister Crowley and Thelema

Interpretation By Aleister Crowley and Thelema

The designation of this object as the Stele of Revealing was given in April 1904 by the occultist Aleister Crowley, in connection with his Book of the Law.

According to Aleister Crowley, his wife Rose had already reported a revelation from the god Horus, through his messenger Aiwass. The couple went to the Bulaq Museum (no longer in existence), near Cairo, to see if she could recognize Horus on Monday, March 21, 1904. Rose recognized an image of the god on this painted stele, which at the time bore the catalogue number 666, a number holding religious significance in Thelema.

According to Crowley, the stela depicts the three chief deities of Thelema: Nuit (Egyptian Nut), Hadit (Egyptian Behdety), and Ra-Hoor-Khuit (Egyptian Re-Harakhty ).

Crowley states that he dined with the Egyptologist Émile Charles Albert Brugsch bey, Curator of the Bulaq Museum to discuss the stele in his charge and to arrange for a facsimile to be made. According to Crowley, Brugsch's French assistant curator translated the hieroglyphic text on the stele. In 1912 a second translation was later made for Crowley by Alan Gardiner and Battiscombe Gunn.