IPSOS, meaning "themselves", is the magical formula

Magical formula

A magical formula or spell is generally a word whose meaning illustrates principles and degrees of understanding that are often difficult to relay using other forms of speech or writing. It is a concise means to communicate very abstract information through the medium of a word or phrase...

 of the Aeon of Ma'at as transmitted by Nema in her inspired magical work, Liber Pennae Praenumbra. It is used by the Horus-Maat Lodge and Kenneth Grant's Ordo Templi Orientis

Ordo Templi Orientis (Typhonian)

The Typhonian Order, previously known as the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis is a degree-based self-initiatory magical order based in the United Kingdom that focuses on magickal and typhonian concepts...

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Aeons

Within the system of Thelema

Thelema

Thelema is a religious philosophy that was established, defined and developed by the early 20th century British writer and ceremonial magician, Aleister Crowley. He believed himself to be the prophet of a new age, the Æon of Horus, based upon a religious experience that he had in Egypt in 1904...

, history is broken down into a series of Aeons, each with its own dominant concept of divinity and its own magical formula

Magical formula

A magical formula or spell is generally a word whose meaning illustrates principles and degrees of understanding that are often difficult to relay using other forms of speech or writing. It is a concise means to communicate very abstract information through the medium of a word or phrase...

 of redemption and advancement. According to Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...

, the last three Aeons have been (1) the Aeon of Isis

Isis

Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...

, (2) the Aeon of Osiris

Osiris

Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...

, and (3) the current Aeon of Horus

Horus

Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...

 which began in 1904 with the writing of The Book of the Law

The Book of the Law

Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.Liber AL vel Legis contains three...

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The future Aeon, which is seen to eventually replace the present one, is the Aeon of Ma'at. According to some, such as Charles Stansfeld Jones

Charles Stansfeld Jones

Charles Stansfeld Jones , aka Frater Achad, was an occultist and ceremonial magician. An early aspirant to A∴A∴ who "claimed" the grade of Magister Templi as a Neophyte. He also became an O.T.O. initiate, serving as the principal organizer for that order in British Columbia, Canada...

 (Frater Achad), the Aeon of Maat has already arrived.

Meanings

According to Grant, the word IPSOS was received by initiates who were in communication with extraterrestrial intelligences

Extraterrestrial life

Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...

. He equates the word with part of a cryptic cipher

Cipher

In cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. In non-technical usage, a “cipher” is the same thing as a “code”; however, the concepts...

 in Liber AL

The Book of the Law

Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.Liber AL vel Legis contains three...

(II, 76), RPSTOVAL, by virtue of the fact that in the qabalistic

Kabbalah

Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...

 art of gematria

Gematria

Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase, in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other, or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to a person's age, the calendar year, or the like...

, both evaluate to either 696 or 456, depending on whether an 'S' in each is taken as the Hebrew letter shin

Shin (letter)

Shin literally means "Sharp" ; It is the twenty-first letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Aramaic/Hebrew , and Arabic ....

or samekh

Samekh

Samekh or Simketh is the fifteenth letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic, representing . The Arabic alphabet, however, uses a letter based on Phoenician šin to represent ; however, that glyph takes Samekh's place in the traditional Abjadi order of the Arabic...

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