Magick Without Tears

76 The Gods How and Why They Overlap Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Your last letter. I am glad: it shows you have been putting in some genuine original work. Result! You make a very shrewd observation; you have noticed the curious fashion in which Gods seem to overlap. It is not the same (you point out) with Angels. In no other system do we find a parallel for the Living Creatures. Wheels, Wings, Fiery Serpents, with such quasi-human cohorts as the Beni Elohim who beget children on women , to whom the Qabalah has introduced us. The Beni Elohim is actually an exception; there is the Incubus and some of the Fairy Folk, as well as certain Gods and demi-Gods, who act thus paternally. But you are right in the main. The Arabs, for example, have "seven heavens" and seven Orders of Angels, also linn? but the classes are by no means identical. This, even though certain Archangels, notably Gabriel , appear in both systems. But then Gabriel is a definite individual , a person-and this fact is the key to your puzzle. For, as I have explained in a previous letter, Gods are people: macrocosms, not mere collocations of the elements , planets and signs as are most of the angels, intelligences and spirits. It is interesting to note that Gabriel in particular seems to be more than one of these ; he enjoys the divine privilege of being himself. Between you and me and the pylon, I suspect that the Gabriel who gave the Q'uran to 464