Hadit

Hadit /ˈhædit/ (sometimes Had) refers to a Thelemic deity. Hadit is the principal speaker of the second chapter of The Book of the Law (written or received by Aleister Crowley in 1904).

Descriptions

Hadit identifies himself as the point in the center of the circle, the axle of the wheel, the cube in the circle, "the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star", and the worshipper's own inner self. When juxtaposed with Nuit in The Book of the Law, Hadit represents each unique point-experience. These point-experiences in aggregate comprise the sum of all possible experience, Nuith.[1]

Hadit, "the Great God, the lord of the sky", is depicted on the Stele of Revealing in the form of the winged disk of the Sun, Horus of Behdet (also known as the Behdeti). However, while the ancient Egyptians treated the Sun and the other stars as separate, Thelema connects the sun-god Hadit with every individual star. Furthermore, The Book of the Law says: "Every man and every woman is a star."[2]

Hadit is the Secret Seed. In The Book of the Law he says; "I am alone: there is no God where I am."[3] He is "the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star."[4] He is identified with kundalini;[5] in The Book of the Law he says, "I am the secret Serpent coiled about to spring: in my coiling there is joy. If I lift up my head, I and my Nuit are one. If I droop down mine head, and shoot forth venom, then is rapture of the earth, and I and the earth are one. There is great danger in me..."[6]

History

The earlier, Egyptian version, went by the name of Heru-Behdeti or Horus of Behdet (Edfu), Haidith in Greek.[7] Thoth let him take the form of the solar disk to help a younger version of Horus—Re-Horakhty, or Ra-Hoor-Khuit—in a battle with Set and his army. Both versions of Horus appear in the Egyptian image that Thelemites call Stele 666, a Dynasty 25 or 26 offering stele formerly in the Boulaq Museum, but now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, also known as the Stele of Revealing.[8]

See also

  • Heru-ra-ha – Deity in Thelema
  • Naunet – Ancient Egyptian personification of the primordial watery abyss

References

  1. ^ Grant (1972).
  2. ^ Crowley (1976), ch. I, v. 3; Hedenborg-White (2013).
  3. ^ Crowley (1976), ch. II, v. 23.
  4. ^ Crowley (1976), ch. II, v. 6.
  5. ^ Crowley (1974), Old Comment, ch. II, v. 22.
  6. ^ Crowley (1976), ch. II, vv. 26-27; Grant (1973).
  7. ^ "Horus/Heru". Philae.nu. Archived from the original on 2008-12-22.
  8. ^ Hedenborg-White (2013).

Works cited

Other sources

  • "Hadit". Free Encyclopedia of Thelema. Ecclesia Gnostica Universalis. Archived from the original on 2007-11-17. Retrieved September 4, 2005.
  • "Hadit". Thelemapedia. Ordo Templi Orientis. 2005-10-10. Retrieved 2010-01-08.

Further reading

  • Churton, Tobias (2012). Aleister Crowley: The Biography. London: Watkins Publishing.
  • Hutton, Ronald (1999). The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Kaczynski, Richard (2012). Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.