THE GOD-LETTERS 
413 
sketchy account: always, when one touches the subject, one 
"goes all woolly." One lacks not only completeness, but 
precision. Then there is the "over-lapping" nuisance, and the 
fact that the natures and the names of the Gods change 
slowly as time goes by. The confusion! The contradictions! I 
could wish to be the proverbial bargee. Oh! I could go on 
making excuses for another hour! It can't be helped; and I 
feel that I shall have rendered you quite a bit of service by 
calling your attention to the existence of the subject, by 
stimulating you to research, by suggesting certain potential 
lines on which to attack the same, and perhaps even by giving 
you a few tips which you may find useful in practical Magick. 
The subject is closely bound up with Mantra-Yoga, and 
with Invocation. You will doubtless have noticed (for 
instance) that many chapters of the Q'uran have the letter L 
for a leit-motif. Islam attaches immense importance to this 
liquid L, as it appears in Allah (compare the Hebrew L-Gods, 
AL, Aloah, Elohim, A'alion, etc., and look up the L-idea in 
your Book of Thoth, and in Magick, pp. 331 sqq.) and other 
peculiarly sacred names and words. 
Before cursing my way to dinner-oh! how I hate the need 
of food unless I am practising the "Ninth Art" and disguise 
myself as a gourmet-I must mention the letter M. This is the 
only letter that can be pronounced with the lips firmly 
closed; it is the beginning of speech, and so the Mother of the 
Alphabet. (Distinguish from N, the letter of the Female.) 
Look up Magick again; chapter VII (pp. 45-49) gives a good 
account of M in discussing AUM. Note, too, the root MU "to 
be silent," from which we have the words Mystic, Mystery 
and others. As the letter of the Mother it appears to this day 
in nature everywhere, the first call of the child to "Mamma." 
In nearly every language, moreover, the word for Mother is 
based on M. Madar, Mere, Mutter, Umm, AMA or AlMA and 
[
the rest. 
The vibrant R suggests light-rays; Ra, the Sun; the labials