As a non-Discusser, I'll leave it to the querant what might or might not be in Liber El but I thought that this passage that I wrote on a Yahoo group a few years ago might be of some interest, as a somewhat different view of the historical meaning, as opposed to the currently-conventional views.

From http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nox-online/message/2957

There is this passage in (inevitably) Liber 418, the 2'nd aethyr:

"All I get is that the Apocalypse was the recension of a dozen or so totally disconnected allegories, that were pieced together, and ruthlessly planed down to make them into a connected account; and that recension was re-written and edited in the interests of Christianity, because people were complaining that Christianity could show no true spiritual knowledge, or any food for the best minds: nothing but miracles, which only deceived the most ignorant, and Theology, which only suited pedants.

So a man got hold of this recension, and turned it Christian, and imitated the style of John. And this explains why the end of the world does not happen every few years, as advertised."

A.C. added a footnote there, too: "There is no question in my mind that this explanation is correct from the viewpoint of profane scholarship."

Taking that view seriously, the two figures being in Revelation is of no particular significance except insomuch as it does demonstrate that such figures did exist in the mythology of the era. What would be interesting would be the original texts from which Revelation was, supposedly, produced. Them not being extant, or hidden in the bowels of the Vatican, the association of the Beast and the Scarlet Woman with "Satan", or indeed any other figure, good or evil, cannot be relied upon. The post-Revelation tradition can be dismissed as rubbish and Revelation itself as an example of propaganda against a pre-existent tradition. While the sources are limited regarding that tradition, one might nevertheless draw some informed conclusions from general reading of the ancient texts.

For instance, there is the question of why the Scarlet Woman is said to be scarlet. Though such authorities as the Catholic Encyclopedia carefully ignore the topic, there is a line of colour symbolism in the Bible, well known to Biblical scholars. It is based on the fact that the source of scarlet dye in the ancient world was an insect, called a "worm", Kermes vermilio, which lived on the sap of the oak and laid its eggs under its body in the bark of the oak, after attaching itself thereon to protect them, thereby giving its life for its offspring. An oft-quoted reference on the web is this one from "The Biblical Basis for Modern Science" by Henry Morris:

"When the female of the scarlet worm species is ready to give birth to her young, she attaches her body to the trunk of a tree, fixing herself so firmly and permanently that she never leaves again. The eggs deposited beneath her body are thus protected until the larvae are hatched and able to enter their own life cycle. When the mother dies, the crimson fluid stains her body and the surrounding wood.
From the dead bodies of such dead scarlet worms the commercial scarlet dyes of antiquity were extracted. What a picture this gives of Christ, dying on the tree, shedding his precious blood that he might "bring many sons to glory" (Heb. 2:10)! He died for us that we might live through him."

Curiously, that word that means "scarlet", in Hebrew, is the same word that means "worm": tola' (and variants). Psalms 22:6 has "But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people." That could just as well be translated there as "a scarlet worm". Job 25 has:
"5 If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes, 6 how much less man, who is but a maggot-a son of man, who is only a worm!"
The OT symbolism was drawn upon in the NT, and the Christ character has this passage in Mark 9:
"47 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.' 49 Everyone will be salted with fire." Scarlet is also the colour of fire in some traditions.

There are many hints in the Biblical texts of a symbolic tradition which is not fully acknowledged by the Biblical writers, but it is fairly clear that Christ was considered to be identified with that worm. There is also a strand of he symbolism where scarlet is the colour of sin, contrasted with the whiteness of wool (re: Isaiah 1:18), but Christ, in taking on the sin of the world can be thought of as becoming scarlet, which is how the scarlet robe placed on Jesus before his crucifixion has been read (Mt.27:28, though violet is also given by John). However, this is all rooted in what was, apparently, the much-older symbol of feminine, maternal self-sacrifice considered as a virtue. It is quite entertaining reading how some Biblical writers perform theological contortions to separate the scarlet of Christ and the scarlet of the Scarlet Woman. Most, wisely, just avoid the problem.

I imagine that this symbolism was also drawn upon by the writers of the source texts behind Revelation. It is, then, quite intriguing that the phrase Scarlet Woman can be written in Hebrew as AShH ShNI.
That is 306 + 360 = 666. That could put quite a different light on the infamous Revelation verse (13:18): "This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666." The text being a cobbled-togethor confabulation of lies, but possibly written by someone who was aware of the basic feminine symbolism and the problem of justifying the usurpation of that by a male figure, the author might well have felt the need to say explicitly that it is the number of a man - because he knew it is the number of a woman.

While that is just speculation, at least it illustrates my basic point. The Book of Revelation is a text which some might respect but Liber 418 has it, and A.C. agreed, that it is an unreliable hotch-potch of stolen goods and one would be quite unwise to rely upon it for understanding of the Beast and the Scarlet Woman. The myth of Beauty and the Beast is a better guide, in my view - and I don't recall Satan getting a look-in there. A.C. did, at different times in his life, have some interesting views regarding the definition of "Satan" and "hell" which I have yet to see a comprehensive exposition of, and I won't attempt it here, but I do admit that it does give aid and comfort to dickhead Satanists. But I also gather that there was more to it than is usually admitted, along the lines of the doctrine of the balanced uniting with angel and demon put in Liber XC. But even admitting "Satan" as an aspect of the demon, Abramelin's Mastery of it would be the goal; and to be allied with "Satan", rather than mastering all four, would indicate imbalance, imprisonment and the very servitor status that Abramelin warned against.

CSM

End of nox-online extract.

Further reading on the Scarlet Worm:

http://philologos.org/bpr/files/w010.htm

http://bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Def.show/RTD/ISBE/ID/9237

I'll futher point out that we do have, in Liber XC, the
"Blind Creature of the Slime", make of that what you will.
But A.C. was, evidently aware of this doctrine as he quoted this, from Swinburne's "Ilicet", in the Rite of Saturn:

A little sorrow, a little pleasure,
Fate metes as from the dusty measure
That holds the date of all of us;
We are born with travail and strong crying,
And from the birthday to the dying
The likeness of our life is thus.

One girds himself to serve another,
Whose father was the dust, whose mother
The little dead red worm therein;
They find no fruit of things they cherish;
The goodness of a man shall perish,
It shall be one thing with his sin.

And, by the by, this scarlet-clad Venus by Sir Edward Burne-Jones was inspired by similar currents in the mid-19'th century:

http://www.artmagick.com/pictures/picture.aspx?id=6022&name=laus-veneris

And A.C. also wrote a "Tannhauser", of course.

Colin S. McLeod

As the querent is still being shy, and as I don't know his level of knowledge or understanding, or whether my remarks have been useful, perhaps I should address the basics. It still surprises me how people are naughtily fixated on Discussion of the contents of Liber 220 to the exclusion of discussion of the contents of Liber 418 -despite how much interesting material there is in the latter. It just goes to prove the attraction of the forbidden fruit to the enslaved mind, I suppose. But, then, Liber 418 gives the bad news that the Beast is not to be easily understood, and that such understanding is a matter of initiation; so perhaps, therefore, the twitterers, if they ever read it in the first place, prefer to go elsewhere. From the 12'th Aethyr:

"Now, through the ruddy glow of the cup, I may perceive far above, and infinitely great, the vision of Babylon. And the Beast whereon she rideth is the Lord of the City of the Pyramids, that I beheld in the fourteenth Æthyr. Now that is gone in the glow of the cup, and the Angel saith: Not as yet mayest thou understand the mystery of the Beast, for it pertaineth not unto the mystery of this Aire, and few that are new-born unto Understanding are capable thereof."

The Beast is thus "the Lord of the City of the Pyramids", that city being elsewhere described as the community of the little piles of dust that are the Magisters Templi. And if even new-born M.T.s are incapable of understanding the mystery of the Beast, the doctrine is that those of the first and second orders are quite incapable of it. Yet as Horus says to the prophet in the First Aethyr:

"Blessed, blessed, blessed; yea, blessed; thrice and four times blessed is he that hath attained to look upon thy face. For I will hurl thee forth from my presence as a whirling thunderbolt to guard the ways, and whom thou smitest shall be smitten indeed. And whom thou lovest shall be loved indeed. And whether by smiting or by love thou workest, each one shall see my face, a glimmer through a thousand veils."

If one reads that as addressed to the prophet in his capacity as the Beast, then the inference is that one may see something of Horus the Child in a man who incarnates the Beast, albeit just a glimmer. One may think of all women as incarnating Isis and one quite commonly comes across individuals who are examples of more particular god types, such as highly lunar or Venusian persons, and one may come to understand those gods or goddesses through them. But with a god such as the Beast, the individuals are, presumably, so rare that one wouldn't often meet a representative; but those that one might be privileged to meet would, presumably, strike the more insightful observer as a singular sort of character, as indeed A.C. did often strike his contemporaries.

Another passage that is virtually ignored in on-line discussion is the description of the Beast in the 14'th Aethyr, the one that is referred to by the seer in the passage from the 12'th, above:

"And dimly dawning in this unutterable gloom, far, far above, is the face that is the face of a man and of a woman, and upon the brow is a circle, and upon the breast is a circle, and in the palm of the right hand is a circle. Gigantic is his stature, and he hath the Uraeus crown, and the leopard's skin, and the flaming orange
apron of a god. And invisibly about him is Nuit, and in his heart is Hadit, and between his feet is the great god Ra Hoor Khuit. And in his right hand is a flaming wand, and in his left a book."

One should first note that the figure, apparently the Beast, is presented as a god. And it is one with some attributes, such as the Uraeus crown, that are familiar in Egyptian iconography; albeit in an image unknown to archaeologists. Ra Hoor Khuit is presented as lower than the Beast and in a position between the feet that is common in Egyptian statuary. Usually the small figure reaches up to the knees or so of the main figure as in this one of Amoun:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amon_karnak_2.jpg

And in the First Aethyr is this explanation of the flaming orange apron :

"And they shall rise up from love’s sleep or death’s, and gird themselves with a girdle of snake-skin for wisdom, and they shall wear the white tunic of purity, and the apron of flaming orange for will, and over their shoulders shall they cast the panther’s skin of courage."

The apron is said to symbolize will; but in this case it is worn by the pilgrim rather than by a god. And the "circle" on the brow, breast and palm is, presumably, the mark of the Beast that is described in the First Aethyr as being on Horus the Crowned and Conquering Child.

"And on his forehead, and on his heart, and in his hand, is the secret sigil of the Beast."

Does that therefore mean that the Beast is Horus the Child? Such an identification would be simplistic, and incorrect, I believe, but there does appear to be some close association implied. There is much more in the 14'th Aethyr about the Beast that the serious student should familiarize him or herself with. For instance the Throne of Spirit passage, even if read symbolically, still describes the throne of the Beast's spirit in an intriguing way. Naturally, it is also largely ignored by the purse-proud penniless ones:

"And the throne of his spirit is a mighty throne of madness and desolation, so that they that look upon it shall cry: Behold the abomination!"

There is also, in the 21'st Aethyr, the vision of the invisible god on the desolate throne. He is said, in A Comment Upon The Natures Of The Æthyrs, to be the Hierophant in the Ceremony of Magister Templi.

And regarding the number of the Beast being 418, there is this surprising passage in the 25'th Aethyr, in which the lion speaks of the Beast:

"On my head is the crown, 419 rays far-darting. And my body is the body of the Snake, and my soul is the soul of the Crowned Child. Though an Angel in white robes leadeth me, who shall ride upon me but the Woman of Abominations? Who is the Beast? Am not I one more than he? In his hand is a sword that is a book. In his hand is a spear that is a cup of fornication. Upon his mouth is set the great and terrible seal. And he hath the secret of V. His ten horns spring from five points, and his eight heads are as the charioteer of the West. Thus doth the fire of the sun temper the spear of Mars, and thus shall he be worshipped, as the warrior lord of the sun. Yet in him is the woman that devoureth with her water all the fire of God."

Teth, which corresponds to Leo in the system that A.C. subscribed to, adds to 419 (TITh; 9 + 10 + 400). When the lion says of the Beast "Am not I one more than he?", He is apparently indicating that the number of the Beast is 418. This reading is supported by the identification of the Beast with the charioteer, the Chariot being Cheth, 418. So if that was given in this Class A B text that was received in 1909, why did not A.C. draw more attention to the possibility that the number of the Beast is 418? At the very least it makes the omission of ChITh as "Beast", in Sepher Sephiroth, a few years later even more highly suspicious.

There is also this in the 2'nd Aethyr passage in which the Curse of the Aethyrs is interpreted:

"His building, let it be a cave for the Beast of the Field. (“His building” means the Vault of the Adepts, and the “Cave” is the Cave of the Mountain of Abiegnus, and the “Beast” is he upon whom BABALON rideth, and the “Field” is the supernal Eden.)"

In the Bible the phrase "beast of the field" occurs as ChITh EShDE (Gen 2:20) and adds as 418 + 314 = 732 = 12 x 61.

I do hope that these further pointers are of some assistance.

CSM