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 
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