Nuit (alternatively Nu, Nut, or Nuith) is a goddess in Thelema, the speaker in the first chapter of The Book of the Law, the sacred text written or received in 1904 by Aleister Crowley. Nuit is based on the Ancient Egyptian sky goddess Nut, who in Egyptian mythology arches over her husband/brother, Geb (Earth god). She is usually depicted as a naked woman who is covered with stars.[1]
In The Book of the Law
Within this system, Nuit is one part of a triadic cosmology, along with Hadit (her masculine counterpart), and Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the Crowned and Conquering Child, which are depicted on the Stele of Revealing. She has several titles, including "Our Lady of the Stars", and "Lady of the Starry Heaven". In The Book of the Law she says of herself: "I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof",[2] and in other verses she is called "Queen of Heaven",[3] and "Queen of Space".[4] Nuit is symbolized by a sphere whose circumference is nowhere and whose center is everywhere.[a] Hadit is the infinitely small point at the center of the sphere of Nuit.[1]
Some quotes from the first two chapters of The Book of the Law (Liber AL vel Legis):[7]
"Every man and every woman is a star." (AL I:3).
"Come forth, o children, under the stars, & take your fill of love!" (AL I:12).
"Since I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye also thus. Bind nothing!" (AL I:22).
"Then the priest answered & said unto the Queen of Space, kissing her lovely brows [...]" (AL I:27).
"For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union." (AL I:29).
"Then the priest fell into a deep trance or swoon, & said unto the Queen of Heaven; Write unto us the ordeals; write unto us the rituals; write unto us the law!" (AL I:33).
"Invoke me under my stars! Love is the law, love under will. [...]" (AL I:57).
"I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death; peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy; nor do I demand aught in sacrifice." (AL I:58).
"I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky." (AL I:64).
"In the sphere I am everywhere the centre, as she, the circumference, is nowhere found." (AL II:3).
The following are quotes from Crowley's commentaries to The Book of the Law.[8]
"Note that Heaven is not a place where Gods Live; Nuit is Heaven, itself."
"Nuit is All that which exists, and the condition of that existence. Hadit is the Principle which causes modifications in this Being. This explains how one may call Nuit Matter, and Hadit Motion."
"It should be evident that Nuit obtains the satisfaction of Her Nature when the parts of Her Body fulfill their own Nature. The sacrament of life is not only so from the point of view of the celebrants, but from that of the divinity invoked."
In Thelemic theology
Manon Hedenborg-White writes that "[...] Nuit and Hadit are constructed as gendered opposites in ritual and literature, and their divine functions and attributes are linked to their sex."[9] She observes that
Claiming that Nuit is female and receptive and Hadit is male and active is thus not a mere description, but a performative utterance that creates these deities as gendered in the minds of those who experience them, and reproduces assumptions about what femininity and masculinity is. By disregarding other physical aspects that might otherwise define the deities and linking their sex to the human sexes of male and female in ritual, gender is established as a crucially important category in relating to the divine.[10]
She goes on to note the practitioners of Thelema may subvert this view through polytheism, incorporating deities such as Kali from Hinduism as well as the Greek god Pan to represent different forms of femininity and masculinity.[10] She also notes that one of her Thelemic informants questions the gendering of Nuit, calling it "merely a convenient metaphor". Another called the model "overly simplistic" and has devised their own more complex gender formulation. Hedenborg-White goes on to note that "studying contemporary Thelema requires sensitivity to the fact that Thelemites are not passively bound to orthodoxy in their religious practice."[11]
