December 22, 1988 e.v. key entry and proof reading with re-format 10/31/90 e.v. done by Bill Heidrick, T.G. of O.T.O. (further proof reading desirable)
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Notes on the nature of the "Astral Plane"<<On consideration these notes have been left as they were originally written. In An XVII, Sol in Virgo, Soror Rhodon, a probationer of A.'. A.'., at that time in enjoyment of the privilege of sojourning in a certain secret Abbey of Thelema, asked Him to add to this book an outline of the uranography of the Astral Planes, in less technical language than that of Liber 777. These notes were accordingly jotted down by Him. To elaborate them further would have been to make them disproportionate to the rest of this treatise.>>.
1) What are "Astral" and "Spiritual Beings?
Man is one: it is a case of any consciousness assuming a sensible form.
Microcosms and elementals. Maybe an elemental (e.g. a dog) has a cosmic conception in which he is a microcosm and man incomplete. No means of deciding same, as in case of kinds of space.<<See Poincare, passages quoted infra.>>
Similarly, our gross matter may appear unreal to Beings clad in fine matter. Thus, science thinks vulgar perceptions "error". We cannot perceive at all except within our gamut; as, concentrated perfumes, which seem malodorous, and time-hidden facts, such as the vanes of a revolving fan, which flies can distinguish.
"Hence:" no "a priori" reason to deny the existence of conscious intelligences with insensible bodies. Indeed we know of other "orders" of mind (flies, etc., possibly vegetables) thinking by means of non-human brain-structures.
But the fundamental problem of Religion is this: Is there any praeter-human Intelligence, of the same order as our own, {245} which is not dependent on cerebral structures consisting of matter in the vulgar sense of the word?
2) "Matter" includes all that is movable. Thus, electric waves are "matter". There is no reason to deny the existence of Beings who perceive by other means those subtle forces which we only perceive by our instruments.
3) We can influence other Beings, conscious or no, as lion-tamers, gardeners, etc., and are influenced by them, as by storms, bacilli, etc.
4) There is an apparent gap between our senses and their correspondences in consciousness. Theory needs a medium to join matter and spirit, just as physics once needed an "ether" to transmit and transmute vibrations.
5) We may consider all beings as parts of ourselves, but it is more convenient to regard them as independent. Maximum Convenience is our cannon of "Truth".<<The passages referred to are as follows:
"Les axiomes geometriques ne sont donc ni des jugements synthetiques a priori ni des faits experimentaux. Ce sont des conventions ...
Des lors, que doit-on penser de cette question: La geometrie Euclidienne est-elle vraie?
Elle n'a aucun sens. Autant demander si le systeme metrique est vrai et les anciennes mesures fausses; si les coordonnees cartesiennes sont vraies et les coordonnees polaires fausses. Une geometrie ne peut pas etre plus vraie qu'une autre; elle peut seulement etre "plus commode."
On veut dire que par selection naturelle notre esprit s'est adapte aux conditions du monde exterieur, qu'il a adopte la geometrie la plus avantageuse a l'espece; ou en d'autres termes la plus commode. Cela est conforme tout a fait a nos conclusions; la geometrie n'est pas vraie: elle est avantageuse." Poincare, "La Science et l'Hypothese."
"Nous choisirons donc ces regles non parce qu'elles sont vraies, mais parce qu'elles sont les plus commodes, et nous pourrions les resumer ainsi en disant:
"La simultaneite de dex evenements, ou l'ordre de leur succession, l'egalite de deux durees, doivent etre definies de telle sorte que l'enonce des lois naturelles soit aussi simple que possible. En d'autres termes, toutes ces regles, toutes ces definitions ne sont pas que le fruit d'un opportunisme inconscient." Poincare "La Valeur de la Science."
The Student may consult H. H. Joachim's "The Nature of Truth", in rebuttal. But most of these subtleties miss the point. Truth must be defined. It is a name, being a noun (nomen); and all names are human symbols of things. Now Truth is the power to arouse a certain reaction ("assent") in a man, under certain conditions: ("greenness", weight, all other qualities, are also powers). It exists in the object, whether latent or manifest; so experiencing both does and does not alter the facts. This is Solipsism, because we can only be conscious of our own consciousness; yet it is not Solipsism, because our consciousness tells us that its changes are due to the impact of an external force. Newton's First Law makes this a matter of definition.
"What is truth?", beyond this, inquires into the nature of this power. It is inherent in all things, since all possible propositions, or their contradictories, can be affirmed as true. Its condition is identity of form (or structure) of the Monads involved.
It requires a quality of mind beyond the "normal" to appreciate 0 Degree = X, etc., directly, just as H. H. Joachim's reasoning demands a point-of-view beyond that of the Bushman.>> We may thus refer {246} psychical phenomena to the intention of "Astral" Beings, without committing ourselves to any theory. Coherence is the sole quality demanded of us.
6) Magick enables us to receive sensible impressions of worlds other than the "physical" universe (as generally understood by profane science). These worlds have their own laws; their inhabitants are often of quasi-human intelligence; there is a definite set of relations between certain "ideas" of ours, and their expressions, and certain types of phenomena. (Thus symbols, the Qabalah, etc. enable us to communicate with whom we choose.)
7) "Astral" Beings possess knowledge and power of a different kind from our own; their "universe" is presumably of a different kind from ours, in some respects. (Our idea "bone" is not the same as a dog's; a short-sighted man sees things differently to one of normal vision.) It is more convenient to assume the objective existence of an "Angel" who gives us new knowledge than to allege that our invocation has awakened a supernormal power in ourselves. Such incidents as "Calderazzo"<<See the story, infra, about the origin of Book 4.>> and "Jacob"<<See the story, infra, about Amalantra.>> make this more cogent. {247}
8) The Qabalah maps ourselves by means of a convention. Every aspect of every object may thus be referred to the Tree of Life, and evoked by using the proper keys.
9) Time and Space are forms by which we obtain (distorted) images of Ideas. Our measures of Time and Space<<See Poincare's essay on the Nature of Space, as an idea invented by ourselves to measure the result of, and explain, our muscular movements.>> are crude conventions, and differ widely for different Beings. (Hashish shows how the same mind may vary.)
10) We may admit that any aspect of any object or idea may be presented to us in a symbolic form, whose relation to its Being is irrational. (Thus, there is no rational link between seeing a bell struck and hearing its chime. Our notion of "bell" is no more than a personification of its impressions on our senses. And our wit and power to make a bell "to order" imply a series of correspondences between various orders of nature precisely analogous to Magick, when we obtain a Vision of Beauty by the use of certain colours, forms, sounds, etc.)
11) "Astral" Beings may thus be defined in the same way as "material objects"; they are the Unknown Causes of various observed effects. They may be of any order of existence. We give a physical form and name to a bell but not to its tone, though in each case we know nothing but our own impressions. But we record musical sounds by a special convention. We may therefore call a certain set of qualities "Ratziel", or describe an impression as "Saturnian" without pretending to know what anything is in itself. All we need is to know how to cast a bell that will please our ears, or how to evoke a "spirit" that will tell us things that are hidden from our intellectual faculties.
12) (a) Every object soever may be considered as possessed of an "Astral shape", sensible to our subtle perceptions. This "astral shape" is to its material basis as our human character is to our physical appearance. We may imagine this astral shape: e.g. we may "see" a jar of opium as a soft seductive woman with a cruel smile, just as we see in the face of a cunning and dishonest man the features of some animal, such as a fox. {248}
(b) We may select any particular property of any object, and give it an astral shape. Thus, we may take the tricky perils of a mountain, and personify them as "trolls", or the destructive energies of the simoom, as "Jinn".
(c) We may analyse any of these symbols, obtaining a finer form; thus the "spirit" contains an "angel", the angel an "archangel", etc.
(d) We may synthesize any set of symbols, obtaining a more general form. Thus we may group various types of earth-spirit as gnomes.
(e) All these may be attributed to the Tree of Life, and dealt with accordingly.
(f) The Magician may prepare a sensible body for any of these symbols, and evoke them by the proper rites.
13) The "reality" or "objectivity" of these symbols is not pertinent to the discussion. The ideas of X to the 4 power and Sq.Rt.of subscript -1 have proved useful to the progress of mathematical advance toward Truth; it is no odds whether a Fourth Dimension "exists", or whether Sq.Rt.of subscript -1 has "meaning" in the sense that Sq.Rt.of subscript 4 has, the number of units in the side of a square of 4 units.
The Astral Plane --- real or imaginary --- is a danger to anybody who takes it without the grain of salt contained in the Wisdom of the above point of view; who violates its laws either wilfully, carelessly, ignorantly, or by presuming that their psychological character differentiates them from physical laws in the narrower sense; or who abdicates his autonomy, on the ground that the subtler nature of astral phenomena guarantees their authority and integrity.
(14) The variety of the general character of the "planes" of being is indefinitely large. But there are several main types of symbolism corresponding to the forms of plastic presentation established by the minds of Mankind. Each such "plane" has its special appearances, inhabitants, and laws --- special cases of the general proposition. Notable among these are the "Egyptian" plane, which conforms with the ideas and methods of magick once in vogue in the Nile valley; the "Celtic" plane, close akin to {249} "Fairyland", with a Pagan Pantheism as its keynote, sometimes concealed by Christian nomenclature: the "Alchemical" plane, where the Great Work is often presented under the form of symbolically constructed landscapes occupied by quasi-heraldic animals and human types hieroglyphically distinguished, who carry on the mysterious operations of the Hermetic Art.
There are also "planes" of Parable, of Fable, and of Folk-lore; in short, every country, creed, and literature has given its characteristic mode of presentation to some "plane" or other.
But there are "planes" proper to every clairvoyant who explores the Astral Light without prejudice; in such case, things assume the form of his own mind, and his perception will be clear in proportion to his personal purity.
On the higher planes, the diversity of form, due to grossness, tends to disappear. Thus, the Astral Vision of "Isis" is utterly unlike that of "Kali". The one is of Motherhood and Wisdom, ineffably candid, clear, and loving; the other of Murder and madness, blood-intoxicated, lust-befogged, and cruel. The sole link is the Woman-symbol. But whoso makes Samadhi on Kali obtains the self-same Illumination as if it had been Isis; for in both cases he attains identity with the Quintessence of the Woman-Idea, untrammelled by the qualities with which the dwellers by the Nile and the Ganges respectively disguised it.
Thus, in low grades of initiation, dogmatic quarrels are inflamed by astral experience; as when Saint John distinguishes between the Whore BABALON and the Woman clothed with the Sun, between the Lamb that was slain and the Beast 666 whose deadly wound was healed; nor understands that Satan, the Old Serpent, in the Abyss, the Lake of Fire and Sulphur, is the Sun-Father, the vibration of Life, Lord of Infinite Space that flames with His Consuming Energy, and is also that throned Light whose Spirit is suffused throughout the City of Jewels.
Each "plane" is a veil of the one above it; the original individual Ideas become diversified as they express their elements. Two men with almost identical ideas on a subject would write two totally different treatises upon it.
15) The general control of the Astral Plane, the ability to find {250} one's way about it, to penetrate such sanctuaries as are guarded from the profane, to make such relations with its inhabitants as may avail to acquire knowledge and power, or to command service; all this is a question of the general Magical attainment of the student.
He must be absolutely at ease in his Body of Light, and have made it invulnerable. He must be adept in assuming all God-forms, in using all weapons, sigils, gestures, words, and signs. He must be familiar with the names and numbers pertinent to the work in hand. He must be alert, sensitive, and ready to exert his authority; yet courteous, gracious, patient, and sympathetic.
16) There are two opposite methods of exploring the Astral Plane.
(a). One may take some actual object in Nature, and analyse it by evoking its astral form, thus bringing it into knowledge and under control by applying the keys of the Qabalah and of Magick.
(b). One may proceed by invoking the required idea, and giving body to the same by attracting to it the corresponding elements in Nature.
17) Every Magician possesses an Astral Universe peculiar to himself, just as no man's experience of the world is coterminous with that of another. There will be a general agreement on the main points, of course; and so the Master Therion is able to describe the principal properties of these "planes", and their laws, just as he might write a geography giving an account of the Five Continents, the Oceans and Seas, the most notable mountains and rivers; he could not pretend to put forth the whole knowledge that any one peasant possesses in respect of his district. But, to the peasant, these petty details are precisely the most important items in his daily life. Likewise, the Magician will be grateful to the Master Therion for the Compass that guides him at night, the Map that extends his comprehension of his country, and shows him how best he may travel afield, the advice as to Sandals and Staff that make surer his feet, and the Book that tells him how, splitting open his rocks with an Hammer, he may be master of their Virgin Gold. But he will understand that his own {251} career on earth is his kingdom, that even the Master Therion is no more than a fellow man in another valley, and that he must explore and exploit his own inheritance with his own eyes and hands.
The Magician must not accept the Master Therion's account of the Astral Plane, His Qabalistic discoveries, His instructions in Magick. They may be correct in the main for most men; yet they cannot be wholly true for any save Him, even as no two artists can make identical pictures of the same subject.
More, even in fundamentals, though these things be Truth for all Mankind, as we carelessly say, any one particular Magician may be the one man for whom they are false. May not the flag that seems red to ten thousand seem green to some one other? Then, every man and every woman being a Star, that which is green to him is verily green; if he consent to the crowd and call it red, hath he not broken the Staff of Truth that he leaneth upon?
Each and every man therefore that will be a Magician must explore the Universe for himself. This is pre-eminently the case in the matter of the Astral Plane, because the symbols are so sensitive. Nothing is easier than to suggest visions, or to fashion phantasms to suit one's ideas. It is obviously impossible to communicate with an independent intelligence --- the one real object of astral research --- if one allows one's imagination to surround one with courtiers of one's own creation. If one expects one's visions to resemble those of the Master Therion, they are only too likely to do so; and if one's respect for Him induces one to accept such visions as authentic, one is being false to one's soul; the visions themselves will avenge it. The true Guide being gone, the seer will stray into a wilderness of terror where he is tricked and tortured; he will invoke his idol the Master Therion, and fashion in His image a frightful phantasm who will mock him in his misery, until his mind stagger and fall; and, Madness swooping upon his carrion, blast his eyes with the horror of seeing his Master dissolve into that appalling hallucination, the "Vision of THE DEMON CROWLEY!"
Remember, then, always, but especially when dealing with the Astral Plane, that man's breath stirs the Feather of Truth. What {252} one sees and hears is "real" in its way, whether it be itself, or distorted by one's desires, or created by one's personality. There is no touchstone of truth: the authentic Nakhiel is indistinguishable from the image of the Magician's private idea of Nakhiel, so far as he is concerned. The stronger one is to create, the more readily the Astral Light responds, and coagulates creatures of this kind. Not that such creation is necessarily an error; but it is another branch of one's Work. One cannot obtain outside help from inside sources. One must use precautions similar to those recommended in the chapter of Divination.
The Magician may go on for a long time being fooled and flattered by the Astrals that he has himself modified or manufactured. Their natural subservience to himself will please him, poor ape!
They will pretend to show him marvellous mysteries, pageants of beauty and wonder unspeakably splendid; he will incline to accept them as true, for the very reason that they are images of himself idealized by the imagination.
But his real progress will stop dead. These phantasms will prevent him from coming into contact with independent intelligences, from whom alone he can learn anything new.
He will become increasingly interested in himself, imagine himself to be attaining one initiation after another. His Ego will expand unchecked, till he seem to himself to have heaven at his feet. Yet all this will be nothing but his fool's face of Narcissus smirking up from the pool that will drown him.
Error of this kind on the Astral Plane --- in quite ordinary visions with no apparent moral import --- may lead to the most serious mischief. Firstly, mistakes mislead; to pollute one's view of Jupiter by permitting the influence of Venus to distort it may end in finding oneself at odds with Jupiter, later on, in some crisis of one's work.
Secondly, the habit of making mistakes and leaving them uncorrected grows upon one. He who begins by "spelling Jeheshua with a 'Resh'" may end by writing the name of the Dweller on the Threshold by mistake for that of his Angel. {253}
Lastly, Magick is a Pyramid, built layer by layer. The work of the Body of Light --- with the technique of Yoga --- is the foundation of the whole. One's apprehension of the Astral Plane must be accurate, for Angels, Archangels, and Gods are derived therefrom by analysis. One must have pure materials if one wishes to brew pure beer.
If one have an incomplete and incorrect view of the universe, how can one find out its laws?
Thus, original omission or error tends to extend to the higher planes. Suppose a Magician, invoking Sol, were persuaded by a plausible spirit of Saturn that he was the Solar Intelligence required, and bade him eschew human love if he would attain to the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel; and suppose that his will, and that Angel's nature, were such that the Crux of their Formula was Lyrical Exaltation!
Apart from the regular tests --- made at the time --- of the integrity of any spirit, the Magician must make a careful record of every vision, omitting no detail; he must then make sure that it tallies in every point with the correspondences in Book 777 and in Liber D. Should he find (for instance) that, having invoked Mercury, his vision contains names whose numbers are Martial, or elements proper to Pisces, let him set himself most earnestly to discover the source of error, to correct it, and to prevent its recurrence.
But these tests, as implied above, will not serve to detect personation by self-suggested phantasms. Unless one's aura be a welter of muddled symbols beyond recognition, the more autohypnotic the vision is, the more smoothly it satisfies the seer's standards. There is nothing to puzzle him or oppose him; so he spins out his story with careless contempt of criticism. He can always prove himself right; the Qabalah can always be stretched; and Red being so nearly Orange, which is really a shade of Yellow, and Yellow a component of Green which merges into Blue, what harm if a Fiend in Vermilion appears instead of an Angel in Azure?
The true, the final test, of the Truth of one's visions is their Value. The most glorious experience on the Astral plane, let it dazzle and thrill as it may, is not necessarily in accordance with {254} the True Will of the seer; if not, though it be never so true objectively, it is not true for him, because not useful for him. (Said we not a while ago that Truth was no more than the Most Convenient Manner of Statement?)
It may intoxicate and exalt the Seer, it may inspire and fortify him in every way, it may throw light upon most holy mysteries, yet withal be no more than an interpretation of the individual to himself, the formula not of Abraham but of Onan.
These plastic "Portraits of the Artist as a Young Man" are well enough for those who have heard "Know Thyself". They are necessary, even, to assist that analysis of one's nature which the Probationer of A.'. A.'. is sworn to accomplish. But "Love is the law, love under will." And Our Lady Nuit is "... divided for love's sake, for the chance of union." These mirror-mirages are therefore not Works of Magick, according to the Law of Thelema: the true Magick of Horus requires the passionate union of opposites.
Now the proof that one is in contact with an independent entity depends on a sensation which ought to be unmistakeable if one is in good health. One ought not to be liable to mistake one's own sensible impressions for somebody else's! It is only Man's incurable vanity that makes the Astral "Strayed Reveller" or the mystic confuse his own drunken babble with the voice of the Most High.
The essence of the right sensation consists in recognition of the reality of the other Being. There will be as a rule some element of hostility, even when the reaction is sympathetic. One's "soul-mate" (even) is not thought of as oneself, at first contact.
One must therefore insist that any real appearance of the Astral Plane gives the sensation of meeting a stranger. One must accept it as independent, be it Archangel or Elf, and measure one's own reaction to it. One must learn from it, though one despise it; and love it, however one loathe it.
One must realize, on writing up the record, that the meeting has effected a definite change in oneself. One must have known and felt something alien, and not merely tried on a new dress. {255}
There must always be some slight pang of pain in a true Astral Vision; it hurts the Self to have to admit the existence of a not-Self; and it taxes the brain to register a new thought. This is true at the first touch, even when exaltation and stimulation result from the joy of making an agreeable contact.
There is a deeper effect of right reaction to a strange Self: the impact invariable tends to break up some complex in the Seer. The class of ideas concerned has always been tied up, labelled, and put away. It is now necessary to unpack it, and rearrange its contents. At least, the annoyance is like that of a man who has locked and strapped his bag for a journey, and then finds that he has forgotten his pyjamas. At most, it may revolutionise his ideas of the business, like an old bachelor with settled plans of life who meets a girl once too often.
Any really first-class Astral Vision, even on low planes, should therefore both instruct the Seer, and prepare him for Initiation. Those failing to pass this test are to be classed as "practice".
One last observation seems fit. We must not assert the "reality" or "objectivity" of an Astral Being on no better evidence than the subjective sensation of its independent existence. We must insist on proof patient to all qualified observers if we are to establish the major premiss of Religion: that there exists a Conscious Intelligence independent of brain and nerve as we know them. If it have also Power, so much the better. But we already know of inorganic forces; we have no evidence of inorganic conscious Mind.
How can the Astral Plane help us here? It is not enough to prove, as we easily do, the correspondences between Invocation and Apparition<<The Master Therion's regular test is to write the name of a Force on a card, and conceal it; invoke that Force secretly, send His pupil on the Astral Plane, and make him attribute his vision to some Force. The pupil then looks at the card; the Force he has named is that written upon it.>>. We must exclude concidence<<The most famous novel of Fielding is called "Tom Jones". It happened that FRATER PERDURABO was staying in an hotel in London. He telephoned a friend named Fielding at the latter's house, and was answered by Mr. Fielding's secretary, who said that his employer had left the house a few minutes previously, and could only be reached by telephoning a certain office in the City at between 11 o'clock and a quarter past. FRATER PERDURABO had an appointment at 11 o'clock with a music-hall star, the place being the entrance to a theatre. In order to remind himself, he made a mental note that as soon as he saw the lady, he would raise his hand and say, before greeting her: "Remind me that I must telephone at once to Fielding", when he met her. He did this, and she advanced toward Him with the same gesture, and said in the same breath, "Remind me that I have to telephone to Tom Jones" --- the name of a music-hall agent employed by her.
It will be seen that there is here no question of any connection between the elements of the coincidence. If a similar occurrence had taken place in the course of communication with an alleged spirit, it would have been regarded as furnishing a very high degree of proof of the existence of an independent intelligence.
To make this clear, let me substitute the terms of the equation. Suppose two independent mediums, A and B, were to receive respectively at the same moment two messages, the first; "Ask B who wrote Hamlet", the second: "Ask A the name of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy." The coincidence is here much simpler and less striking than the one recorded above, for there is no question of arriving at the identity by way of accidental synonyms concealing their rational connection. Yet most students of Occult phenomena would admit that there was a strong presumption that a single intelligence had deliberately devised the two messages as a means of proving his existence.>>, telepathy<<In "The International" of November, 1918, was published the conconclusion of an article called "The Revival of Magick" by the Master Therion. The last sentence reads: "Herein is Wisdom; let him that hath understanding count the number of the Beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred and three score and six. GR:Tau-Omicron GR:Mu-Epsilon-Gamma-Alpha GR:Theta-Eta-Rho-Iota-Omicron-Nu the Great Wild Beast, has the value, according to the Greek system, of 666. It is, of course, the title of the Master Therion.
The Master Therion was, about this time, in communication with an intelligence who gave the name of Amalantrah. On Sunday, February 24, 1918, at 9.30 p. m., The Master Therion asked Amalantrah if he could use the word GR:Theta-Eta-Rho-Iota-Omicron-Nu as if it were Hebrew, with the idea of getting further information as to the mystic meaning of the Word. The answer was "Yes". He then asked: "Am I to take the word
GR:Theta-Eta-Rho-Iota-Omicron-Nu alone, or the three words GR:Tau-Omicron GR:Mu-Epsilon-Gamma-Alpha GR:Theta-Eta-Rho-Iota-Omicron-Nu?" The answer was to take the word GR:Theta-Eta-Rho-Iota-Omicron-Nu alone. The Master Therion then asked what Hebrew letters should be used to transliterate the Greek. The answer was: "Tau, Yod, Resh, Yod, Ayin, Nun", which adds to 740 or 1390, according as Nun is given its ordinary value of 50, or its value as the final letter of a word, 700. Neither of these numbers possessed any special significance to The Master Therion. He became very annoyed at Amalantrah's failure to be of use; so much so that the communications became confused, and the work had to be abandoned for that evening. He tried various other Hebrew spellings for the word GR:Theta-Eta-Rho-Iota-Omicron-Nu, but was unable to obtain anything of interest. This is rather remarkable, as it is nearly always possible to get more or less good results by trying various possibilities. For example, the O might be equally well Ayin, Vau or Aleph.
On Monday morning, The Master Therion went to the office of "The International," of which he was editor. At this period there was a coal famine in New York, and it was forbidden to heat office buildings on Mondays. He merely took away his mail and went home. On Tuesday morning He found on his desk a letter which had arrived on Monday for the general editor, who had sent it across to Him for reply, as it concerned The Master Therion rather than himself. This letter had been written and posted on Sunday evening, at about the same time as the communication from Amalantrah. The letter ends as follows: "Please inform your readers that I, Samuel bar Aiwaz bie Yackou de Sherabad, have counted the number of the Beast, and it is the number of a man.
HB:Nunfinal HB:Vau HB:Yod HB:Resh HB:Taw
N O I R Th
(Read from right to left) 50 6 10 200 400
-----------------------
666
Here, then, we see the most striking solution possible of the problem presented to Amalantrah. Observe that Amalantrah had refused to give the correct solution directly; as it would seem, in order to emphasize the remarkable character of the intervention of this Assyrian correspondent. Observe, too, that the latter was totally ignorant of the ordinary Qabalah, it being quite generally known that GR:Tau-Omicron GR:Mu-Epsilon-Gamma-Alpha-Theta-Eta-Rho-Iota-Omicron-Nu adds up to 666 in Greek. Observe, moreover, that nearly four months had passed since the problem was propounded in "The International?" The Assyrian lived some distance outside New York, and was an entire stranger to any of the staff of "The International." The evidence appears overwhelming for the existence of Amalantrah, that he was more expert in the Qabalah than The Master Therion himself, and that he was (further) possessed with the power to recall this four-months-old problem to the mind of an entirely unconnected stranger, causing him to communicate the correct answer at the same moment as the question was being asked many miles away.
Coincidence, so completely adequate to explain the Fielding-Tom Jones incident, is utterly incompetent as an alternative theory. The directly purposeful character of the circumstances is undeniable; but if we are resolutely determined to deny the possibility of the existence of Amalantrah, which explains the whole affair so simply, we have still one resource. It involves difficulties which The Master Therion cannot conceive as less than those which encumber the other, but it is, at least, not entirely beyond possibility. This theory is telepathy. One may postulate that the solution of his problem existed in the subconscious mind of the Master Therion or in that of His seer, and that this solution was telepathically impressed upon the consciousness of the Assyrian so forcibly as to impel him to communicate it to the Master Therion's colleague on "The International." Apart from the general improbability of this hypothesis, it is strange that if "Amalantrah" were really the subconscious mind of the seer, he should have given a wrong orthography. His doing so (if he knew the correct spelling) is only explicable by his wish not to take the edge off his plan for making the Assyrian's letter a fulminating revelation of his existence, as would have happened if the secret had been prematurely disclosed.
The case is here cited in order to illustrate the extreme care which ought to be taken in excluding all alternative hypotheses before admitting the existence of disembodied intelligences. It may be mentioned, however, that in this particular case there are numerous other incidents which make the telepathic theory untenable.>>, and subconscious knowledge.<<There is a well-known story quoted in several treatises of psychology in which the heroine is an ignorant English servant girl of quite inferior intelligence, and unacquainted with any language, even her own. In the course of a fever, she became delirious, and proceeded to reel off long passages of scholarly Hebrew. Investigations showed that in her first youth she had been for a time in the service of a Jewish Rabbi who had been accustomed to declaim his sermons in the hearing of the girl. Although attaching no meaning to the words, she had stored them mechanically in her subconscious memory, to be reproduced when the action of the fever excited the group of cells where they were recorded.>> Our praeter-human Intelligence {256} must convey a Truth not known to any human mind, past or present. Yet this Truth must be verifiable.
There is but one document in the world which presents evidence that fully satisfies these conditions. This is
LIBER AL vel LEGIS
the Book of the Law.
of this New Aeon of Horus, the Crowned and Conquering Child, the Aeon whose Logos is THE BEAST 666, whose name in the Outer Order was FRATER PERDURABO.
The nature of the proof of the separate existence of praeterhuman Intelligence, independent of bodily form, is extremely complicated. Its main divisions may be briefly enumerated. {257}
AIWAZ, the name of the Intelligence in question, proves:
(a) His power to pre-arrange events unconnected with His scribe so that they should fit in with that scribe's private calculations.
E.g. The Stele which reveals the Theogony of the Book was officially numbered 666, in the Boulak Museum. The scribe had adopted 666 as His magical number, many years previously. Again, the scribe's magical House, bought years earlier, had a name whose value was 418. The scribe had calculated 418 as the {258} number of the Great Work, in 1901 e.v. He only discovered that 418 was the number of his house in consequence of AIWAZ mentioning the fact.
(b) His power to conceal a coherent system of numbers and letters in the text of a rapidly-written document, containing riddles and ciphers opening to a Master-Key unknown to the scribe, yet linked with his own system; this Key and its subordinates being moreover a comment on the text. {259}
E.g. "The word of the Law is GR:Theta-Epsilon-Lambda-Eta-Mu-Alpha." (Will); this word has the value of 93.
"Love is the law, love under will." Love, GR:Alpha-gamma-alpha-pi-eta, like
GR:Theta-epsilon-lambda-eta-mu-alpha, adds to 93.
AIWAZ itself adds to 93.<<This numeration was discovered years later. The question then arose out of consideration of this discovery through S. Jacobs: "Why is Aiwaz spelt Aiwass, not Aiwaz, in the Book of the Law?" In Greek GR:Alpha-iota-digamma-alpha-sigma-sigma = 418. The author of the Book had concealed in His own name not one only but two numbers, those of supreme importance in the Book.>>
This was all strange to the scribe; yet years later he discovered the "Lost Word" of one of his own Orders: it was 93 also.<<[WEH Note: This refers to the word of the IIIrd Degree of O.T.O., readers who may wish to acquire it may apply for initiation and work their way up through the Degrees. Ordo Templi Orientis, JAF Box 7666, New York, NY 10116, USA.]>>
The Word of His most holy Order proved equally to count up {260} to 93.<<This list by no means exhausts the series. In particular, Frater Perdurabo discovered in 1923 that the Hebrew word for "to will" is also of the value of 93: and its special technical meanings throw yet further light on the meaning of GR:Theta-epsilon-lambda-eta-mu-alpha as used by Aiwaz.
{WEH NOTE: In this instance, Crowley refers not to the word of III Degree O.T.O., but to the Neophyte word of A.'. A.'..>> Now 93 is thrice 31; 31 is LA, "Not" and AL, "The" or "God"; these words run throughout the Book, giving a double meaning to many passages. A third 31 is the compound letter ShT, the two hieroglyphs of Sh and T (many centuries old) being pictures of the "Dramatis Personae" of the Book; and ShT being a haphazard line scrawled on the MS. touch letters which added to 418, valuing "this circle squared in its failure" as GR:pi correct to six places of decimals, etc.
Again: "thou shalt know not"<<[WEH Note: It is remarkable that Crowley succeeds in blowing every quotation of "Liber AL" on this page. This despite the injunction of the Book itself: AL I,54: "Change not as much as the style of a letter; for behold! thou, o prophet, shalt not behold all these mysteries hidden therein." Crowley strongly resisted the idea that he could not understand all of the Book. In later life, he came to grudgingly accept this limitation. Also, Achad did not work out as his successor. Several of these mis-quotes relate to that belief. This particular mis-quote could come from as many as six points in the text, but here is no part of the text in which this quote appears exactly.]>>, meaning "thou shalt know LA"; and "he shall discover the Key of it all"<<[WEH Note: This misquote could be from AL III,47: "... Let him not seek to try: but one cometh after him, whence I say not, who shall discover the Key of it all....".]>>, "id est," the Key AL.
(c) His power to combine subsequent events beyond the control of the scribe or his associates, so that they confirmed statements in the Book. Or, per contra, to predict such events.
E.g. The first Scarlet Woman proved unworthy, and suffered the exact penalties predicted.
Again, "one cometh after thee; he shall discover the key."<<[WEH Note: misquoted from AL II,76: "...There cometh one to follow thee: he shall expound it. ..."]>> This one was to be the "child" of the scribe, "and that strangely"<<[WEH Note: This time the misquote is in the style of the letters: AL III,47: "This book shall be translated into all tongues: but always with the original in the writing of the Beast; for in the chance shape of the letters and their position to one another: in these are mysteries that no Beast shall divine. Let him not seek to try: but one cometh after him, whence I say not, who shall discover the Key of it all. Then this line drawn is a key: then this circle squared in its failure is a key also. And Abrahadabra. It shall be his child & that strangely. Let him not seek after this; for thereby alone can he fall from it." --- interesting that these misquotes seem to hit verses that either appear to warn Crowley against misquoting or of his limits.]>>.
Nine months after THE BEAST 666 had gotten a Magical "child" upon His concubine Jane Foster, a "Babe of the Abyss" was born, Frater Achad asserting his right to that grade, and thus "coming after" THE BEAST 666, who had been the last Adept to do so. And this "child" was definitely "one", since "one" is the meaning of his motto Achad. Finally, he did in fact "discover the key of it all"<<[WEH Note: see the citation in an earlier note of mine. This time Crowley missed the "style of the letter" again.]>> after THE BEAST Himself had failed to do so in 14 years of study.
(d) His power to conceive and express in concise terms true solutions of the main problems of the Universe.
E.g. The formula of Nuith and Hadith explain Existence in the terms of Mathematical-Logical Philosophy, so as to satisfy the difficulties of reconciling Dualism, Monism and Nihilism; all {261} antinomies in all spheres; and the Original Perfection with the Manifest Imperfection of Things.
Again "Do that thou wilt...", the most sublimely austere ethical precept ever uttered, despite its apparent licence, is seen on analysis to be indeed "...the whole of the Law.", the sole and sufficient warrant for human action, the self-evident Code of Righteousness, the identification of Fate with Freewill, and the end of the Civil War in Man's nature by appointing the Canon of Truth, the conformity of things with themselves, to determine his every act. "Do what thou wilt..." is to bid Stars to shine, Vines to bear grapes, Water to seek its level; man is the only being in Nature that has striven to set himself at odds with himself.
(e) His power to interpret the Spirit of the New Aeon, the relapse into ruthless savagery of the most civilized races, at a time when war was discredited by most responsible men.
(f) His power to comprehend and control these various orders of ideas and events, demonstrating thereby a mind and a means of action intelligible to, yet immensely above, all human capacity; to bind the whole into a compact cryptograph displaying mastery of English, of mathematical and philosophical conceptions, of poetic splendour and intense passion, while concealing in the letters and words a complex cipher involving the knowledge of facts never till than existing in any human mind, and depending on the control of the arm of the scribe, though He thought He was writing consciously from dictation; and to weave into a single pattern so many threads of proof of different orders that every type of mind, so it be but open and just, may be sure of the existence of AIWAZ as a being independent of body, conscious and individual, with a mind mightier than man's, and a power beyond man's set in motion by will.
In a word, the Book of the Law proves the prime postulate of Religion.
The Magician may therefore be confident that Spiritual Beings exist, and seek the Knowledge and conversation of His own Holy Guardian Angel with the same ardour as that of FRATER PERDURABO when He abandoned all: love, wealth, rank, fame, to seek Him. Nay, this he must do or condemn himself to be {262} torn asunder by the Maenads of his insensate impulses; he hath no safety save he himself be Bacchus! Bacchus, divine and human! Bacchus, begotten on Semele of Zeus, the adulterous Lord of Thunder ravishing, brutally, his virginal victim! Bacchus, babe hidden from hate in the most holy of holies, the secret of thy sire, in the Channel of the Star-Spate, Whereof one Serpent is thy soul! Bacchus, twy-formed, man-woman, Bacchus, whose innocence tames the Tiger, while yet thy horns drip blood upon thy mouth, and sharpen the merriment of wine to the madness of murder! Bacchus, Thy thyrsus oozes sap; thine ivy clings to it; thy Lion-skin slips from thy sleek shoulders, slips from thy lissome loins; drunk on delight of the godly grape, thou knowest no more the burden of the body and the vexation of the spirit.
Come, Bacchus, come thou hither, come out of the East; come out of the East, astride the Ass of Priapus! Come with thy revel of dancers and singers! Who followeth thee, forbearing to laugh and to leap? Come, in thy name Dionysus, that maidens be mated to God-head! Come, in thy name Iacchus, with thy mystical fan to winnow the air, each gust of thy Spirit inspiring our Soul, that we bear to thee Sons in Thine Image!
Verily and Amen! Let not the Magician forget for a single second what is his one sole business. His uninitiated "self" (as he absurdly thinks it) is a mob of wild women, hysterical from uncomprehended and unstated animal instinct; they will tear Pentheus, the merely human king who presumes to repress them, into mere shreds of flesh; his own mother, Nature, the first to claw at his windpipe! None but Bacchus, the Holy Guardian Angel, hath grace to be God to this riot of maniacs; he alone can transform the disorderly rabble into a pageant of harmonious movements, tune their hyaena howls to the symphony of a paean, and their reasonless rage to self-controlled rapture. It is this Angel whose nature is doubly double, that He may partake of every sacrament. He is at once a God who is drunken with the wine of earth, and the mammal who quaffs the Blood of God to purge him of mortality. He is a woman as he accepts all impulses, are they not His? He is a man to stamp Himself upon whatever would hallow itself to Him. He wields the Wand, {263} with cone of pine and ivy tendrils; the Angel creates continually, wreathing His Will in clinging beauty, imperishably green.
The Tiger, the symbol of the brutal passions of man, gambols about its master's heels; and He bestrides the Ass of Priapus; he makes his sexual force carry him whither He wills to go.
Let the Magician therefore adventure himself upon the Astral Plane with the declared design to penetrate to a sanctuary of discarnate Beings such as are able to instruct and fortify him, also to prove their identity by testimony beyond rebuttal. All explanations other than these are of value only as extending and equilibrating Knowledge, or possibly as supplying Energy to such Magicians as may have found their way to the Sources of Strength. In all cases, naught is worth an obol save as it serve to help the One Great Work.
He who would reach Intelligences of the type under discussion may expect extreme difficulty. The paths are guarded; there is a lion in the way. Technical expertness will not serve here; it is necessary to satisfy the Warders of one's right to enter the presence of the Master. Particular pledges may be demanded, ordeals imposed, and initiations conferred. These are most serious matters; the Body of Light must be fully adult, irrevocably fixed, or it will be disintegrated at the outset. But, being fit to pass through such experiences, it is bound utterly to its words and acts. It cannot even appear to break an oath, as its fleshly fellow may do.
Such, then is a general description of the Astral Plane, and of the proper conduct of the Magician in his dealings therewith.
-----------
{264}
APPENDIX IV
LIBER SAMEKH
Theurgia Goetia Summa
(CONGRESSUS CUM DAEMONE)
sub figura DCCC
being the Ritual employed by the Beast 666 for the Attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel during the Semester of His performance of the Operation of the Sacred Magick of ABRAMELIN THE MAGE. (Prepared An XVII Sun in Virgo at the Abbey of Thelema in Cephalaedium by the Beast 666 in service to FRATER PROGRADIOR.)
OFFICIAL PUBLICATION of A.'. A.'. Class D for the Grade of Adeptus Minor.
{265}
POINT
I
EVANGELII TEXTUS REDACTUS
"The Invocation."
Magically restored, with the significance of the
BARBAROUS NAMES
Etymologically or Qabalistically determined and paraphrased in English.
Section A. The Oath.
1. Thee I invoke, the Bornless One.
2. Thee, that didst create the Earth and the Heavens.
3. Thee, that didst create the Night and the Day.
4. Thee, that didst create the darkness and the Light.
5. Thou art ASAR UN-NEFER ("Myself made Perfect"):
Whom no man hath seen at any time.
6. Thou art IA-BESZ ("the Truth in Matter").
7. Thou art IA-APOPHRASZ ("the Truth in Motion").
8. Thou hast distinguished between the Just and the Unjust.
9. Thou didst make the Female and the Male.
10. Thou didst produce the Seeds and the Fruit.
11. Thou didst form Men to love one another, and to hate one
another.
Section Aa.
1. I am ANKH - F - N - KHONSU thy Prophet, unto Whom
Thou didst commit Thy Mysteries, the Ceremonies of
KHEM.
2. Thou didst produce the moist and the dry, and that which
nourisheth all created Life.
3. Hear Thou Me, for I am the Angel of PTAH - APO -
PHRASZ - RA (vide the Rubric): this is Thy True Name,
handed down to the Prophets of KHEM. {266}
Section B. Air.
Hear Me: ---
AR "O breathing, flowing Sun!" ThIAF<<The letter F is used to represent the Hebrew Vau and the Greek Digamma; its sound lies between those of the English long o and long oo, as in Rope and Tooth.>>
"O Sun IAF! O Lion-Serpent Sun, The
Beast that whirlest forth, a thunder-
bolt, begetter of Life!"
RhEIBET "Thou that flowest! Thou that goest!"
A-ThELE-BER-SET "Thou Satan-Sun Hadith that goest
without Will!"
A "Thou Air! Breath! Spirit! Thou
without bound or bond!"
BELAThA "Thou Essence, Air Swift-streaming,
Elasticity!"
ABEU "Thou Wanderer, Father of All!"
EBEU "Thou Wanderer, Spirit of All!"
PhI-ThETA-SOE "Thou Shining Force of Breath! Thou
Lion-Serpent Sun! Thou Saviour,
save!"
IB "Thou Ibis, secret solitary Bird, inviolate
Wisdom, whose Word in Truth,
creating the World by its Magick!"
ThIAF "O Sun IAF! O Lion-Serpent Sun, The
Beas that whirlest forth, a thunder-
bolt, begetter of Life!"
(The conception is of Air, glowing, inhabited by a Solar-Phallic Bird, "the Holy Ghost", of a Mercurial Nature.)
Hear me, and make all Spirits subject unto Me; so that every Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth, on dry land and in the water; of Whirling Air, and of rushing Fire, and every Spell and Scourge of God may be obedient unto Me. {267}
Section C. Fire.
I invoke Thee, the Terrible and Invisible God: Who dwellest in the Void Place of the Spirit: ---
(The conception is of Fire, glowing, inhabited by a Solar-Phallic Lion of a Uranian nature.)
Hear Me, and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land and in the Water: of Whirling Air, and of rushing Fire, and every Spell and Scourge of God may be obedient unto Me.
Section D. Water.
Hear Me: ---
RU-ABRA-IAF<<See, for the formula of IAF, or rather FIAOF, Book 4 Part III, Chapter V. The form FIAOF will be found preferable in practice.>>
"Thou the Wheel, thou the Womb,
that containeth the Father IAF!"
MRIODOM "Thou the Sea, the Abode!"
BABALON-BAL-BIN-ABAFT "Babalon! Thou Woman of Whoredom" {268}
"Thou, Gate of the Great God ON!
Thou Lady of the Understanding of
the Ways!"
ASAL-ON-AI "Hail Thou, the unstirred! Hail,
sister and bride of ON, of the God
that is all and is none, by the Power
of Eleven!"
APhEN-IAF "Thou Treasure of IAO!"
I "Thou Virgin twin-sexed! Thou Secret
Seed! Thou inviolate Wisdom!"
PhOTETh "Abode of the Light .................
ABRASAX "......of the Father, the Sun, of
Hadith, of the spell of the Aeon
of Horus!"
AEOOU "Our Lady of the Western Gate of
Heaven!"
ISChURE "Mighty art Thou!"
Mighty and Bornless One! (Vide Supra)
(The conception is of Water, glowing, inhabited by a Solar-Phallic Dragon-Serpent, of a Neptunian nature.)
Hear Me: and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land and in the Water: of Whirling Air, and of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God may be obedient unto Me.
Section E. Earth.
I invoke Thee: ---
MA "O Mother! O Truth!"
BARRAIO "Thou Mass!"<<"Mass", in the sense of the word which is used by physicists. The impossibility of defining it will not deter the intrepid initiate (in view of the fact that the fundamental conception is beyond the normal categories of reason.)>>
IOEL "Hail, Thou that art!"
KOThA "Thou hollow one!" {269}
AThOR-e-BAL-O "Thou Goddess of Beauty and Love,
whom Satan, beholding, desireth!"
ABRAFT "The Fathers, male-female, desire
Thee!"
(The conception is of Earth, glowing, inhabited by a Solar-Phallic Hippopotamus<<Sacred to AHAThOOR. The idea is that of the Female conceived as invulnerable, reposeful, of enormous swallowing capacity etc.>> of a Venereal nature.)
Hear Me: and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every Spirit of the Firmament, and of the Ether: upon The Earth and under the Earth: on dry land and in the Water: of Whirling Air, and of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God may be obedient unto Me.
Section F. Spirit.
Hear Me:
AFT "Male-Female Spirits!"
ABAFT "Male-Female Sires!"
BAS-AUMGN "Ye that are Gods, going forth, uttering
AUMGN. (The Word that goeth
from
(A) Free Breath.
(U) through Willed Breath.
(M) and stopped Breath.
(GN) to Continuous Breath.
thus symbolizing the whole course of
spiritual life. A is the formless Hero;
U is the six-fold solar sound of physical
life, the triangle of Soul being
entwined with that of Body; M is the
silence of "death"; GN is the nasal
sound of generation & knowledge.
ISAK "Identical Point!"
SA-BA-FT "Nuith! Hadith! Ra-Hoor-Khuit!"
"Hail, Great Wild Beast!"
"Hail, IAO!" {270}
Section Ff.
1. This is the Lord of the Gods:
2. This is the Lord of the Universe:
3. This is He whom the Winds fear.
4. This is He, Who having made Voice by His commandment is Lord of all Things; King, Ruler and Helper. Hear Me, and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land and in the Water: of Whirling Air, and of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God may be obedient unto Me.
Section G. Spirit.
Hear Me:
IEOU "Indwelling Sun of Myself"
PUR "Thou Fire! Thou Sixfold Star initiator
compassed about with Force and Fire!"
IOU "Indwelling Soul of Myself"
PUR (Vide Supra)
IAFTh "Sun-lion Serpent, hail! All Hail, thou
Great Wild Beast, thou I A O!"
IAEO "Breaths of my soul, breaths of mine
Angel."
IOOU "Lust of my soul, lust of mine Angel!"
ABRASAX (Vide Supra).
SABRIAM "Ho for the Sangraal! Ho for the Cup
of Babalon! Ho for mine Angel
pouring Himself forth within my
Soul!"
OO "The Eye! Satan, my Lord! The Lust
of the goat!"
FF "Mine Angel! Mine initiator! Thou
one with me --- the Sixfold Star!" {271}
AD-ON-A-I<<In Hebrew, ADNI, 65. The Gnostic Initiates transliterated it to imply their own secret formulae; we follow so excellent an example. ON is an Arcanum of Arcana; its significance is taught, gradually, in the O.T.O. Also AD is the paternal formula, Hadit; ON is its complement NUIT; the final Yod signifies "mine" etymologically and essentially the Mercurial (transmitted) hermaphroditic virginal seed --- The Hermit of the Taro --- The use of the name is therefore to invoke one's own inmost secrecy, considered as the result of the conjunction of Nuit and Hadit. If the second A is included, its import is to affirm the operation of the Holy Ghost and the formulation of the Babe in the Egg, which precedes the appearance of the Hermit.>>
"My Lord! My secret self beyond self,
Hadith, All Father! Hail, ON, thou
Sun, thou Life of Man, thou Fivefold
Sword of Flame! Thou Goat exalted
upon Earth in Lust, thou Snake
extended upon Earth in Life! Spirit
most holy! Seed most Wise! Innocent
Babe. Inviolate Maid! Begetter
of Being! Soul of all Souls! Word
of all Words, Come forth, most
hidden Light!"
EDE "Devour thou me!"
EDU "Thou dost devour Me!"
ANGELOS TON ThEON "Thou Angel of the Gods!"
ANLALA "Arise thou in Me, free flowing, Thou
who art Naught, who art Naught, and
utter thy Word!"
LAI "I also am Naught! I Will Thee! I
behold Thee! My nothingness!"
GAIA "Leap up, thou Earth!"
(This is also an agonising appeal to the
Earth, the Mother; for at this point
of the ceremony the Adept should be
torn from his mortal attachments, and {272}
die to himself in the orgasm of his
operation.<<A thorough comprehension of Psycho-analysis will contribute notably to the proper appreciation of this Ritual.>>)
AEPE "Thou Exalted One! It (i.e. the spritual
'semen', the Adept's secret ideas,
drawn irresistibly from their "Hell"<<It is said
among men that the word Hell deriveth from the word "helan", to hele or conceal, in the tongue of the Anglo-Saxons. That is, it is the concealed place, which since all things are in thine own self, is the unconscious. Liber CXI (Aleph) cap GR:Delta-sigma>>
by the love of his Angel) leaps up; it
leaps forth!<<But compare the use of the same word in section C.>>
DIATHARNA THORON "Lo! the out-splashing of the seeds of
Immortality"
Section Gg. The Attainment.
1. I am He! the Bornless Spirit! having sight in the feet:
Strong, and the Immortal Fire!
2. I am He! the Truth!
3. I am He! Who hate that evil should be wrought in the World!
4. I am He, that lighteneth and thundereth!
5. I am He, from whom is the Shower of the Life of Earth!
6. I am He, whose mouth ever flameth!
7. I am He, the Begetter and Manifester unto the Light!
8. I am He, The Grace of the Worlds!
9. "The Heart Girt with a Serpent" is my name!
Section H. The "Charge to the Spirit".
Come thou forth, and follow me: and make all Spirits subject unto Me so that every Spirit of the Firmament, and of the Ether, upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land, or in the Water: of Whirling Air or of rushing Fire, and every Spell and scourge of God, may be obedient unto me!
Section J. The Proclamation of the Beast 666.
IAF: SABAF<<See explanation in Point II.>>
Such are the Words! {273}
POINT
II
ARS CONGRESSUS CUM DAEMONE.
SECTION A Let the Adeptus Minor be standing in this circle on the
square of Tiphereth, armed with his Wand and Cup; but let him
perform the Ritual throughout in his Body of Light. He may
burn the Cakes of Light, or the Incense of Abramelin; he may
be prepared by Liber CLXXV, the reading of Liber LXV, and by
the practices of Yoga. He may invoke Hadit by "... wine and
strange drugs" if he so will.<<Any such formula should be used only when the adept has full knowledge based on experience of the management of such matters.>> He prepares
the circle by the usual formulae of Banishing and
Consecration, etc.
He recites Section A as a rehearsal before His Holy
Guardian Angel of the attributes of that Angel. Each phrase
must be realized with full concentration of force, so as to
make Samadhi as perfectly as possible upon the truth
proclaimed.
"Line 1" He identifies his Angel with the Ain Soph, and the Kether
thereof; one formulation of Hadit in the boundless Body of
Nuith.
"Line 2,3,4" He asserts that His Angel has created (for the purpose of
self-realization through projection in conditioned Form) three
pairs of opposites: (a) The Fixed and the Volatile; (b) The
Unmanifested and the Manifest; and (c) the Unmoved and the
Moved. Otherwise, the Negative and the Positive in respect of
Matter, Mind and Motion.
"Line 5" He acclaims his Angel as "Himself Made Perfect"; adding
that this Individuality is inscrutable in inviolable. In the
Neophyte Ritual of {274} G.'. D.'. (As it is printed in Equinox
I, II, for the old aeon) the Hierophant is the perfected
Osiris, who brings the candidate, the natural Osiris, to
identity with himself. But in the new Aeon the Hierophant is
Horus (Liber CCXX, I, 49) therefore the Candidate will be
Horus too. What then is the formula of the initiation of
Horus? It will no longer be that of the Man, through Death.
It will be the natural growth of the Child. His experiences
will no more be regarded as catastrophic. Their hieroglyph is
the Fool: the innocent and impotent Harpocrates Babe becomes
the Horus Adult by obtaining the Wand. "Der reine Thor"
seizes the Sacred Lance. Bacchus becomes Pan. The Holy
Guardian Angel is the Unconscious Creature Self --- the
Spiritual Phallus. His knowledge and conversation contributes
occult puberty. It is therefore advisable to replace the name
Asar Un-nefer by that of Ra-Hoor-Khuit at the outset, and by
that of one's own Holy Guardian Angel when it has been
communicated.
"Line 6" He hails Him as BESZ, the Matter that destroys and devours
Godhead, for the purpose of the Incarnation of any God.
"Line 7" He hails Him as APOPHRASZ, the Motion that destroys and
devours Godhead, for the purpose of the Incarnation of any
God. The combined action of these two DEVILS is to allow the
God upon whom they prey to enter into enjoyment of existence
through the Sacrament of dividual "Life" (Bread --- the flesh
of BESZ) and "Love" (Wine --- the blood or venom of AOPHRASZ).
"Line 8" He acclaims His Angel as having "eaten of the Fruit of the
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil"; otherwise, having become
wise (in the {275} Dyad, Chokmah) to apprehend the formula of
Equilibrium which is now His own, being able to apply Himself
accurately to His self-appointed environment.
"Line 9" He acclaims His Angel as having laid down the Law of Love
as the Magical formula of the Universe, that He may resolve
the phenomenal again into its noumenal phase by uniting any
two opposites in ecstasic passion.
"Line 10" He acclaims His Angel as having appointed that this formula
of Love should effect not only the dissolution of the
separateness of the Lovers into His own impersonal Godhead,
but their co-ordination in a "Child" quintessentialized from
its parents to constitute a higher order of Being than theirs,
so that each generation is an alchemical progress towards
perfection in the direction of successive complexities. As
Line 9 asserts Involution, Line 10 asserts Evolution.
"Line 11" He acclaims His Angel as having devised this method of
self-realization; the object of Incarnation is to obtain its
reactions to its relations with other incarnated Beings and to
observe theirs with each other.
----------
Section Aa.
"Line 1" The Adept asserts his right to enter into conscious
communication with His Angel, on the ground that that Angel
has Himself taught him the Secret Magick by which he may make
the proper link. "Mosheh" is M H, the formation in Jechidah,
Chiah, Neshamah, Ruach, --- The Sephiroth from Kether to Yesod
--- since 45 is GR:Sigma{=summation} 1-9 while Sh, 300, is
GR:Sigma{=summation} 1-24, which superadds to these Nine an extra
Fifteen numbers. (See in Liber D {276} the meanings an
correspondences of 9, 15, 24, 45, 300, 345.)
45 is moreover A D M, man. "Mosheh" is thus the name of
man as a God-concealing form. But in the Ritual let the Adept
replace this "Mosheh" by his own motto as Adeptus Minor. For
"Ishrael" let him prefer his own Magical Race, according to
the obligations of his Oaths to Our Holy Order! (The Beast
666 Himself used "Ankh-f-n-Khonsu" and "Khem" in this
section.)
"Line 2" The Adept reminds his Angel that He has created That One
Substance of which Hermes hath written in the Table of
Emerald, whose virtue is to unite in itself all opposite modes
of Being, thereby to serve as a Talisman charged with the
Spiritual Energy of Existence, an Elixir or Stone composed of
the physical basis of Life. This Commemoration is placed
between the two personal appeals to the Angel, as if to claim
privilege to partake of this Eucharist which createth,
sustaineth and redeemeth all things.
"Line 3" He now asserts that he is himself the "Angel" or messenger
of his Angel; that is, that he is a mind and body whose office
is to receive and transmit the Word of his Angel. He hails
his Angel not only as "un-nefer" the Perfection of "Asar"
himself as a man, but as Ptah-Apophrasz-Ra, the identity
(Hadit) wrapped in the Dragon (Nuit) and thereby manifested as
a Sun (Ra-Hoor-Khuit). The "Egg" (or Heart) "girt with a
Serpent" is a cognate symbol; the idea is thus expressed later
in the ritual. (See Liber LXV. which expands this to the
uttermost.)
Section B The Adept passes from contemplation to action in the
sections now following B to Gg. He is to travel astrally
around the circle, making the appropriate pentagrams, sigils,
and signs. His direction {277} is widdershins. He thus makes
three curves, each covering three-fourths of the circle. He
should give the sign of the Enterer on passing the Kiblah, or
Direction of Boleskine. This picks up the force naturally
radiating from that point<<This is an assumption based on Liber Legis II, 78 and III, 34.>> and projects it in the direction of
the path of the Magician. The sigils are those given
in the Equinox Vol. I, No. 7, Plate X outside the
square; the signs those shewn in Vol. I, No. 2, Plate "The
Signs of the Grades". In these invocations he should expand
his girth and his stature to the utmost<<Having experience of
success in the practices of Liber 536, GR:beta-alpha-tau-rho-alpha-chi-omicron-phi-rho-epsilon-nu-omicron-beta-omicron-omicron-kappa-omicron-sigma-mu-omicron-mu-alpha-chi-iota-alpha.>>, assuming the form and the consciousness of the Elemental
God of the quarter. After this, he begins to vibrate the
"Barbarous Names" of the Ritual.
Now let him not only fill his whole being to the uttermost
with the force of the Names; but let him formulate his Will,
understood thoroughly as the dynamic aspect of his Creative
Self, in an appearance symbolically apt, I say not in the form
of a Ray of Light, of a Fiery Sword, or of aught save that
bodily Vehicle of the Holy Ghost which is sacred to BAPHOMET,
by its virtue that concealeth the Lion and the Serpent that
His Image may appear adorably upon the Earth for ever.
Let then the Adept extend his Will beyond the Circle in
this imagined Shape and let it radiate with the Light proper
to the element invoked, and let each Word issue along the
Shaft with passionate impulse, as if its voice gave command
thereto that it should thrust itself leapingly forward. Let
also each Word accumulate authority, so that the Head of the
Shaft may plunge twice as far for the Second Word as for the
First, and Four Times for {278} the Third as the Second, and
thus to the end. Moreover, let the Adept fling forth his
whole consciousness thither. Then at the final Word, let him
bring rushing back his Will within himself, steadily
streaming, and let him offer himself to its point, as Artemis
to PAN, that this perfectly pure concentration of the Element
purge him thoroughly, and possess him with its passion.
In this Sacrament being wholly at one with that Element,
let the Adept utter the Charge "Hear me, and make", etc. with
strong sense that this unity with that quarter of the Universe
confers upon him the fullest freedom and privilege appurtenant
thereto.
Let the Adept take note of the wording of the Charge. The
"Firmament" is the Ruach, the "mental plane"; it is the realm
of Shu, or Zeus, where revolves the Wheel of the Gunas, the
Three forms<<They correspond to the Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt of Alchemy; to Sattvas, Rajas, and Tamas in the Hindu system; and are rather modes of action than actual qualities even when conceived as latent. They are the apparatus of communication between the planes; as such, they are conventions. There is no absolute validity in any means of mental apprehension; but unless we make these spirits of the Firmament subject unto us by establishing right relation (within the possible limits) with the Universe, we shall fall into error when we develop our new instrument of direct understanding. It is vital that the Adept should train his intellectual faculties to tell him the truth, in the measure of their capacity. To despise the mind on account of its limitations is the most disastrous blunder; it is the common cause of the calamities which strew so many shores with the wreckage of the Mystic Armada. Bigotry, Arrogance, Bewilderment, all forms of mental and moral disorder, so often observed in people of great spiritual attainment, have brought the Path itself into discredit; almost all such catastrophes are due to trying to build the Temple of the Spirit without proper attention to the mental laws of structure and the physical necessities of foundation. The mind must be brought to its utmost pitch of perfection, but according to its own internal properties; one cannot feed a microscope on mutton chops. It must be regarded as a mechanical instrument of knowledge, independent of the personality of its possessor. One must treat it exactly as one treats one's electroscope or one's eyes; one influence of one's wishes. A physician calls in a colleague to attend to his own family, knowing that personal anxiety may derange his judgment. A microscopist who trusts his eyes when his pet theory is at stake may falsify the facts, and find too late that he has made a fool of himself.
In the case of initiations itself, history is scarred with the wounds inflicted by this Dagger. It reminds us constantly of the danger of relying upon the intellectual faculties. A judge must know the law in every point, and be detached from personal prejudices, and incorruptible, or iniquity will triumph. Dogma, with persecution, delusion, paralysis of progress, and many another evil, as its satraps, has always established a tyranny when Genius has proclaimed it. Islam making a bonfire of written Wisdom, and Haeckel forging biological evidence; physicists ignorant of radioactivity disputing the conclusions of geology, and theologians impatient of truth struggling against the tide of thought; all such must perish at the hands of their own error in making their minds, internally defective or externally deflected, the measure of the Universe.>> of Being. The Aethyr is the {279}
"akasha", the "Spirit", the Aethyr or physics, which is the
framework on which all forms are founded; it receives, records
and transmits all impulses without itself suffering mutation
thereby. The "Earth" is the sphere wherein the operation of
these "fundamental" and aethyric forces appears to perception.
"Under the Earth" is the world of those phenomena which inform
those perceived projections, and determine their particular
character. "Dry land" is the place of dead "material things",
dry (i.e. unknowable) because unable to act on our minds.
"Water" is the vehicle whereby we feel such things; "air"
their menstruum wherein these feelings are mentally
apprehended. It is called "whirling" because of the
instability of thought, and the fatuity of reason, on which we
are yet dependent for what we call "life". "Rushing Fire" is
the world in which wandering thought burns up to swift-darting
Will. These four stages explain how the non-Ego is transmuted
into the {280} Ego. A "Spell" of God is any form of
consciousness, and a "Scourge" any form of action.
The Charge, as a whole, demands for the Adept the control
of every detail of the Universe which His Angel has created as
a means of manifesting Himself to Himself. It covers command
of the primary projection of the Possible in individuality, in
the antithetical artifice which is the device of Mind, and in
a balanced triplicity of modes or states of being whose
combinations constitute the characteristics of Cosmos. It
includes also a standard of structure, a rigidity to make
reference possible. Upon these foundations of condition which
are not things in themselves, but the canon to which things
conform, is builded the Temple of Being, whose materials are
themselves perfectly mysterious, inscrutable as the Soul, and
like the Soul imagining themselves by symbols which we may
feel, perceive, and adapt to our use without ever knowing the
whole Truth about them. The Adept sums up all these items by
claiming authority over every form of expression possible to
Existence, whether it be a "spell" (idea) or a "scourge" (act)
of "God", that is, of himself. The Adept must accept every
"spirit", every "spell", every "scourge", as part of his
environment, and make them all "subject to" himself; that is,
consider them as contributory causes of himself. They have
made him what he is. They correspond exactly to his own
faculties. They are all --- ultimately --- of equal
importance. The fact that he is what he is proves that each
item is equilibrated. The impact of each new impression
affects the entire system in due measure. He must therefore
realize that every event is subject to him. It occurs because
he had need of it. Iron rusts because the molecules demand
oxygen for the satisfaction of {281} their tendencies. They
do not crave hydrogen; therefore combination with that gas is
an event which does not happen. All experiences contribute to
make us complete in ourselves. We feel ourselves subject to
them so long as we fail to recognise this; when we do, we
perceive that they are subject to us. And whenever we strive
to evade an experience, whatever it may be, we thereby do
wrong to ourselves. We thwart our own tendencies. To live is
to change; and to oppose change is to revolt against the law
which we have enacted to govern our lives. To resent destiny
is thus to abdicate our sovereignty, and to invoke death.
Indeed, we have decreed the doom of death for every breach of
the law of Life. And every failure to incorporate any
impression starves the particular faculty which stood in need
of it.
This Section B invokes Air in the East, with a shaft of
golden glory.
--------
Section C. The adept now invokes Fire in the South; flame red are the
rays that burst from his Verendum.
--------
Section D. He invokes Water in the West, his Wand billowing forth blue
radiance.
--------
Section E. He goes to the North to invoke Earth; flowers of green
flame flash from his weapon. As practice makes the Adept
perfect in this Work, it becomes automatic to attach all these
complicated ideas and intentions to their correlated words and
acts. When this is attained he may go deeper into the formula
by amplifying its correspondences. Thus, he may invoke water
in the manner of water, extending {282} his will with majestic
and irresistible motion, mindful of its impulse gravitation,
yet with a suave and tranquil appearance of weakness. Again,
he may apply the formula of water to its peculiar purpose as
it surges back into his sphere, using it with conscious skill
for the cleansing and calming of the receptive and emotional
elements in his character, and for the solution or sweeping
away of those tangled weeds of prejudice which hamper him from
freedom to act as he will. Similar applications of the
remaining invocations will occur to the Adept who is ready to
use them.
--------
Section F. The Adept now returns to the Tiphereth square of his Tau,
and invokes spirit, facing toward Boleskine, by the active
Pentagrams, the sigil called the Mark of the Beast, and the
Signs of L.V.X. (See plate as before). He then vibrates the
Names extending his will in the same way as before, but
vertically upward. At the same time he expands the Source of
that Will --- the secret symbol of Self --- both about him and
below, as if to affirm that Self, duplex as is its form,
reluctant to acquiesce in its failure to coincide with the
Sphere of Nuith. Let him now imagine, at the last Word, that
the Head of his will, where his consciousness is fixed, opens
its fissure (the Brahmarandra-Cakkra, at the junction of the
cranial sutures) and exudes a drop of clear crystalline dew,
and that this pearl is his Soul, a virgin offering to his
Angel, pressed forth from his being by the intensity of his
Aspiration.
--------
Section Ff. With these words the Adept does not withdraw his will
within him as in the previous Sections. He thinks of them as
a reflection of Truth on the {283} surface of the dew, where
his Soul hides trembling. He takes them to be the first
formulation in his consciousness of the nature of His Holy
Guardian Angel.
"Line 1." The "Gods" include all the conscious elements of his
nature.
"Line 2." The "Universe" includes all possible phenomena of which he
can be aware.
"Line 3." The "Winds" are his thoughts, which have prevented him from
attaining to his Angel.
"Line 4." His Angel has made "Voice", the magical weapon which
produces "Words", and these words have been the wisdom by
which He hath created all things. The "Voice" is necessary as
the link between the Adept and his Angel. The Angel is
"King", the One who "can", the "source of authority and the
fount of honour"; also the King (or King's Son) who delivers
the Enchanted Princess, and makes her his Queen. He is
"Ruler", the "unconscious Will"; to be thwarted no more by the
ignorant and capricious false will of the conscious man. And
He is "Helper", the author of the infallible impulse that
sends the Soul sweeping along the skies on its proper path
with such impetus that the attraction of alien orbs is no
longer sufficient to swerve it. The "Hear me" clause is now
uttered by the normal human consciousness, withdrawn to the
physical body; the Adept must deliberately abandon his
attainment, because it is not yet his whole being which burns
up before the Beloved.
--------
Section G. The Adept, though withdrawn, shall have maintained the
Extension of his Symbol. He now repeats the signs as before,
save that he makes the Passive Invoking Pentagram of Spirit.
He concentrates {284} his consciousness within his Twin-Symbol
of Self, and endeavours to send it to sleep. But if the
operation be performed properly, his Angel shall have accepted
the offering of Dew, and seized with fervour upon the extended
symbol of Will towards Himself. This then shall He shake
vehemently with vibrations of love reverberating with the
Words of the Section. Even in the physical ears of the adept
there shall resound an echo thereof, yet he shall not be able
to describe it. It shall seem both louder than thunder, and
softer than the whisper of the night-wind. It shall at once
be inarticulate, and mean more than he hath ever heard.
Now let him strive with all the strength of his Soul to
withstand the Will of his Angel, concealing himself in the
closest cell of the citadel of consciousness. Let him
consecrate himself to resist the assault of the Voice and the
Vibration until his consciousness faint away into Nothing.
For if there abide unabsorbed even one single atom of the
false Ego, that atom should stain the virginity of the True
Self and profane the Oath; then that atom should be so
inflamed by the approach of the Angel that it should overwhelm
the rest of the mind, tyrannize over it, and become an insane
despot to the total ruin of the realm.
But, all being dead to sense, who then is able to strive
against the Angel? He shall intensify the stress of His
Spirit so that His loyal legions of Lion-Serpents leap from
the ambush, awakening the adept to witness their Will and
sweep him with them in their enthusiasm, so that he
consciously partakes their purpose, and sees in its simplicity
the solution of all his perplexities. Thus then shall the
Adept be aware that he is being swept away through the column
of his Will Symbol, {285} and that His Angel is indeed
himself, with intimacy so intense as to become identity, and
that not in a single Ego, but in every unconscious element
that shares in that manifold uprush.
This rapture is accompanied by a tempest of brilliant
light, almost always, and also in many cases by an outburst of
sound, stupendous and sublime in all cases, though its
character may vary within wide limits.<<These phenomena are not wholly subjective; they may be perceived, though often under other forms, by even the ordinary man.>>
The spate of stars shoots from the head of the Will-Symbol,
and is scattered over the sky in glittering galaxies. This
dispersion destroys the concentration of the adept, whose mind
cannot master such multiplicity of majesty; as a rule, he
simply sinks stunned into normality, to recall nothing of his
experience but a vague though vivid impression of complete
release and ineffable rapture. Repetition fortifies him to
realise the nature of his attainment; and his Angel, the link
once made, frequents him, and trains him subtly to be
sensitive to his Holy presence, and persuasion. But it may
occur, especially after repeated success, that the Adept is
not flung back into his mortality by the explosion of the
Star-spate, but identified with one particular "Lion-Serpent",
continuing conscious thereof until it finds its proper place
in Space, when its secret self flowers forth as a truth, which
the Adept may then take back to earth with him.
This is but a side issue. The main purpose of the Ritual
is to establish the relation of the subconscious self with the
Angel in such a way that the Adept is aware that his Angel is
the Unity which expresses the sum of the Elements of that
Self, that his normal consciousness contains alien enemies
286} introduced by the accidents of environment, and that his
Knowledge and Conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel destroys
all doubts and delusions, confers all blessings, teaches all
truth, and contains all delights. But it is important that
the Adept should not rest in mere inexpressible realization of
his rapture, but rouse himself to make the relation submit to
analysis, to render it in rational terms, and thereby
enlighten his mind and heart in a sense as superior to
fanatical enthusiasm as Beethoven's music is to West African
war-drums.
--------
Section Gg. The adept should have realised that his Act of Union with
the angel implies (1) the death of his old mind save in so far
as his unconscious elements preserve its memory when they
absorb it, and (2) the death of his unconscious elements
themselves. But their death is rather a going forth to renew
their life through love. He then, by conscious comprehension
of them separately and together, becomes the "Angel" of his
Angel, as Hermes is the Word of Zeus, whose own voice is
Thunder. Thus in this section the adept utters articulately
so far as words may, what his Angel is to Himself. He says
this, with his Scin-Laeca wholly withdrawn into his physical
body, constraining His Angel to indwell his heart.
"Line 1." "I am He" asserts the destruction of the sense of
separateness between self and Self. It affirms existence, but
of the third person only. "The Bornless Spirit" is free of
all space, "having sight in the feet", that they may choose
their own path. "Strong" is G B R, The Magician escorted by
the Sun and the Moon (See Liber D and Liber 777). The
"Immortal Fire" is the creative Self; impersonal energy cannot
perish, no matter what forms it assumes. Combustion is Love.
287
"Line 2." "Truth" is the necessary relation of any two things;
therefore, although it implies duality, it enables us to
conceive of two things as being one thing such that it demands
to be defined by complementals. Thus, an hyperbola is a
simple idea, but its construction exacts two curves.
"Line 3." The Angel, as the adept knows him, is a being Tiphereth,
which obscures Kether. The Adept is not officially aware of
the higher Sephiroth. He cannot perceive, like the
Ipsissimus, that all things soever are equally illusion and
equally Absolute. He is in Tiphereth, whose office is
Redemption, and he deplores the events which have caused the
apparent Sorrow from which he has just escaped. He is also
aware, even in the height of his ecstasy, of the limits and
defects of his Attainment.
"Line 4." This refers to the phenomena which accompany his
Attainment.
"Line 5." This means the recognition of the Angel as the True Self of
his subconscious self, the hidden Life of his physical life.
"Line 6." The Adept realises every breath, every word of his Angel as
charged with creative fire. Tiphereth is the Sun, and the
Angel is the spiritual Sun of the Soul of the Adept.
"Line 7." Here is summed the entire process of bringing the
conditioned Universe to knowledge of itself through the
formula of generation<<That is, Yod He, realizing Themselves, Will and Understanding in the twins Vau He, Mind and body.>>;
a soul implants itself in sense-hoodwinked body and reason-
fettered mind, makes them aware of their Inmate, and thus to
partake of its own consciousness of the Light.
"Line 8." "Grace" has here its proper sense of "Pleasantness". {288}
The existence of the Angel is the justification of the device
of creation.<<But see also the general solution of the Riddle of Existence in the Book of the Law and its Comment --- Part IV of Book 4.>>
"Line 9." This line must be studied in the light of Liber LXV
(Equinox XI. p. 65).
Section H. This recapitulation demands the going forth together of the
Adept and his Angel "to do their pleasure on the Earth among
the living."
Section J. The Beast 666 having devised the present method of using
this Ritual, having proved it by his own practice to be of
infallible puissance when properly performed, and now having
written it down for the world, it shall be an ornament for the
Adept who adopts it to cry Hail to His name at the end of his
work. This shall moreover encourage him in Magick, to recall
that indeed there was One who attained by its use to the
Knowledge and Conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel, the
which forsook him no more, but made Him a Magus, the Word of
the Aeon of Horus!
For know this, that the Name IAF in its most secret and
mighty sense declareth the Formula of the Magick of the BEAST
whereby he wrought many wonders. And because he doth will
that the whole world shall attain to this Art, He now hideth
it herein so that the worthy may win to His Wisdom.
Let I and F face all;<<If we adopt the new orthography VIAOV (Book 4 Part III Chap. V.) we must read "The Sun-6-the Son" etc. for "all"; and elaborate this interpretation here given in other ways, accordingly. Thus O (or F) will not be "The Fifteen by function" instead of "Five" etc., and "in act free, firm, aspiring, ecstatic", rather than "gentle" etc. as in the present text.>> yet ward their A from attack. The
Hermit to himself, the Fool to foes, {289} The Hierophant to
friends, Nine by nature, Naught by attainment, Five by
function. In speech swift, subtle and secret; in thought
creative, unbiassed, unbounded; in act gentle, patient and
persistent. Hermes to hear, Dionysus to touch, Pan to behold.
A Virgin, A Babe, and a Beast!
A Liar, an Idiot, and a Master of Men!
A kiss, a guffaw, and a bellow; he that hath ears to hear,
let him hear!
Take ten that be one, and one that is one in three, to
conceal them in six!
Thy wand to all Cups, and thy Disk to all Swords, but
betray not thine Egg!
Moreover also is IAF verily 666 by virtue of Number; and
this is a Mystery of Mysteries; Who knoweth it, he is adept of
adepts, and Mighty among Magicians!
Now this word SABAF, being by number Three score and Ten,<<There is an alternative spelling TzBA-F Where the Root, "an Host", has the value of 93. The Practicus should revive this Ritual throughout in the Light of his personal researches in the Qabalah, and thus make it his own peculiar property. The spelling here suggested implies that he who utters the Word affirms his allegiance to the symbols 93 and 6; that he is a warrior in the army of Will and of the Sun. 93 is also the number of AIWAZ and 6 of The Beast.>> is a name of Ayin, the
Eye, and the Devil our Lord, and the Goat of Mendes. He is
the Lord of the Sabbath of the Adepts, and is Satan, therefore
also the Sun, whose number of Magick is 666, the seal of His
servant the BEAST.
But again SA is 61, AIN, the Naught of Nuith; BA means go,
for Hadit; and F is their Son the Sun who is Ra-Hoor-Khuit.
So then let the Adept set his sigil upon all the words he
hath writ in the Book of the Works of his Will. {290}
And let him then end all, saying, Such are the Words!<<The consonants of LOGOS, "Word", add (Hebrew values) to 93. and GR:Epsilon-Pi-Eta, "Words", (whence "Epic") has also that value: GR:Epsilon-Iota-Delta-Epsilon GR:Tau-Alpha GR:Epsilon-Pi-Eta might be the phrase here intended: its number is 418. This would then assert the accomplishment of the Great Work; this is the natural conclusion of the Ritual. Cf. CCXX. III. 75.>> For by this he maketh proclamation
before all them that be about his Circle that these
Words are true and puissant, binding what he
would bind, and loosing what he would loose.
Let the Adept perform this Ritual aright, perfect in every
part thereof, once daily for one moon, then twice, at dawn and
dusk, for two moons, next, thrice, noon added, for three
moons, afterwards, midnight making up his course, for four
moons four times every day. Then let the Eleventh Moon be
consecrated wholly to this Work; let him be instant in
continual ardour, dismissing all but his sheer needs to eat
and sleep.<<These needs are modified during the process of Initiation both as to quantity and quality. One should not become anxious about one's physical or mental health on a priori grounds, but pay attention only to indubitable symptoms of distress should such arise.>> For know that the true
Formula<<See Note page following.>> whose virtue sufficed the
Beast in this Attainment, was thus:
INVOKE OFTEN<<See Equinox I, VIII, 22.>>
So may all men come at last to the Knowledge and
Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel: thus sayeth the
Beast, and prayeth His own Angel that this book be as a
burning Lamp, and as a living Spring, for Light and Life to
them that read therein.
666
{291}
(Note to page 291)
The Oracles of Zoroaster utter this:
"And when, by often invoking, all the phantasms are vanished, thou shalt see that Holy and Formless Fire, that Fire which darts and flashes through all the Depths of the Universe; hear thou the Voice of the Fire!
"A similar Fire flashingly extending through the rushings of Air, or a Fire formless whence cometh the Image of a voice, or even a flashing Light abounding, revolving, whirling forth, crying aloud. Also there is the vision of the fire-flashing Courser of Light, or also a Child, borne aloft on the shoulders of the Celestial Steed, fiery, or clothed with gold, or naked, or shooting with the bow shafts or light, and standing on the shoulders of the horse, then if thy meditation prolongeth itself, thou shalt unite all these symbols into the form of a Lion."
This passage --- combined with several others --- is paraphased in poetry by Aleister Crowley in his "Tannhauser".
"And when, "invoking often," thou shalt see
That formless Fire; when all the earth is shaken,
The stars abide not, and the moon is gone,
All Time crushed back into Eternity,
The Universe by earthquake overtaken;
Light is not, and the thunders roll,
The World is done:
When in the darkness Chaos rolls again
In the excited brain:
Then, O then call not to thy view that visible
Image of Nature; fatal is her name!
It fitteth not thy Body to behold
That living light of Hell,
The unluminous, dead flame,
Until that body from the crucible
Hath passed, pure gold!
For, from the confines of material space,
The twilight-moving place,
The gates of matter, and the dark threshold,
Before the faces of the Things that dwell
In the Abodes of Night,
Spring into sight
Demons, dog-faced, that show no mortal sign
Of Truth, but desecrate the Light Divine,
Seducing from the sacred mysteries.
But, after all these Folk of Fear are driven
Before the avenging levin
That rives the opening skies,
Behold that formless and that Holy Flame {292}
That hath no name;
The Fire that darts and flashes, writhes and creeps
Snake-wise in royal robe
Wound round that vanished glory of the globe,
Unto that sky beyond the starry deeps,
Beyond the Toils of Time, --- then formulate
In thine own mind, luminous, concentrate,
The Lion of the Light, a child that stands
On the vast shoulders of the Steed of God:
Or winged, or shooting flying shafts, or shod
With the flame-sandals.
Then, lift up thine hands!
Centre thee in thine heart one scarlet thought
Limpid with brilliance of the Light above!
Drawn into naught
All life, death, hatred, love:
All self concentred in the sole desire ---
Hear thou the Voice of Fire!"
-----------
{293}
POINT
III
SCHOLION ON SECTIONS G & Gg.
The Adept who has mastered this Ritual, successfully realising the full import of this controlled rapture, ought not to allow his mind to loosen its grip on the astral imagery of the Star-spate, Will-Symbol, or Soul-symbol, or even to forget its duty to the body and the sensible surroundings. Nor should he omit to keep his Body of Light in close touch with the phenomena of its own plane, so that its privy consciousness may fulfil its proper functions of protecting his scattered ideals from obsession.
But he should have acquired, by previous practice, the faculty of detaching these elements of his consciousness from their articulate centre, so that they become (temporarily) independent responsible units, capable of receiving communications from headquarters at will, but perfectly able (1) to take care of themselves without troubling their chief, and (2) to report to him at the proper time. In a figure, they must be like subordinate officers, expected to display self-reliance, initiative, and integrity in the execution of the Orders of the Day.
The Adept should therefore be able to rely on these individual minds of his to control their own conditions without interference from himself for the time required, and to recall them in due course, receiving an accurate report of their adventures.
This being so, the Adept will be free to concentrate his deepest self, that part of him which unconsciously orders his true Will, upon the realization of his Holy Guardian Angel. The absence of his bodily, mental and astral consciousness is indeed cardinal to success, for it is their usurpation of his attention which has made him deaf to his Soul, and his preoccupation with their affairs that has prevented him from perceiving that Soul. {294}
The effect of the Ritual has been
(a) to keep them so busy with their own work that they cease to distract him;
(b) to separate them so completely that his soul is stripped of its sheaths;
(c) to arouse in him an enthusiasm so intense as to intoxicate and anaesthetize him, that he may not feel and resent the agony of this spiritual vivisection, just as bashful lovers get drunk on the wedding night, in order to brazen out the intensity of shame which so mysteriously coexists with their desire;
(d) to concentrate the necessary spiritual forces from every element, and fling them simultaneously into the aspiration towards the Holy Guardian Angel; and
(e) to attract the Angel by the vibration of the magical voice which invokes Him.
The method of the Ritual is thus manifold.
There is firstly an analysis of the Adept, which enables him to calculate his course of action. He can decide what must be banished, what purified, what concentrated. He can then concentrate his will upon its one essential element, over-coming its resistance --- which is automatic, like a physiological reflex --- by destroying inhibitions through his ego-overwhelming enthusiasm.<<A high degree of initiation is required. This means that the process of analysis must have been carried out very thoroughly. The Adept must have become aware of his deepest impulses, and understood their true significance. The "resistance" here mentioned is automatic; it increases indefinitely against direct pressure. It is useless to try to force oneself in these matters; the uninitiated Aspirant, however eager he may be, is sure to fail. One must know how to deal with each internal idea as it arises. It is impossible to overcome one's inhibitions by conscious effort; their existence justifies them. God is on their side, as on that of the victim in Browning's "Instans Tyrannus." A man cannot compel himself to love, however much he may want to, on various rational grounds. But on the other hand, when the true impulse comes, it overwhelms all its critics; they are powerless either to make or break a genius; it can only testify to the fact that it has met its master.>> The other half of the work needs no such complex effort; for his Angel is simple and unperplexed, ready at all times to respond to rightly ordered approach. {295}
But the results of the Ritual are too various to permit of rigid description. One may say that, presuming the union to be perfect, the Adept need not retain any memory soever of what has occurred. He may be merely aware of a gap in his conscious life, and judge of its contents by observing that his nature has been subtly transfigured. Such an experience might indeed be the proof of perfection.
If the Adept is to be any wise conscious of his Angel it must be that some part of his mind is prepared to realise the rapture, and to express it to itself in one way or another. This involves the perfection of that part, its freedom from prejudice and the limitations of rationality so-called. For instance: one could not receive the illumination as to the nature of life which the doctrine of evolution should shed, if one is passionately persuaded that humanity is essentially not animal, or convinced that causality is repugnant to reason. The Adept must be ready for the utter destruction of his point of view on any subject, and even that of his innate conception of the forms and laws of thought.<<Of course, even false tenets and modes of the mind are in one sense true. It is only their appearance which alters. Copernicus did not destroy the facts of nature, or change the instruments of observation. He merely effected a radical simplification of science. Error is really a "fool's knot". Moreover, the very tendency responsible for the entanglement is one of the necessary elements of the situation. Nothing is "wrong" in the end; and one cannot reach the "right" point of view without the aid of one's particular "wrong" point. If we reject or alter the negative of a photograph we shall not get a perfect positive.>> Thus he may find that his Angel consider his "business" or his "love" to be absurd trifles; also that human ideas of "time" are invalid, and human "laws" of logic applicable only to the relations between illusions.
Now the Angel will make contact with the Adept at any point that is sensitive to His influence. Such a point will naturally be one that is salient in the Adept's character, and also one that is, in the proper sense of the word, pure<<This means, free from ideas, however excellent in themselves, which are foreign to it. For instance, literary interest has no proper place in a picture.>>.
Thus an artist, attuned to appreciate plastic beauty is likely to {296} receive a visual impression of his Angel in a physical form which is sublimely quintessential of his ideal. A musician may be rapt away by majestic melodies such as he never hoped to hear. A philosopher may attain apprehension of tremendous truths, the solution of problems that had baffled him all his life.
Conformably with this doctrine, we read of illuminations experienced by simple-minded men, such as a workman who "saw God" and likened Him to "a quantity of little pears". Again, we know that ecstasy, impinging upon unbalanced minds, inflames the idolised idea, and produces fanatical faith fierce even to frenzy, with intolerance and insanely disordered energy which is yet so powerful as to effect the destinies of empires.
But the phenomena of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel are a side issue; the essence of the Union is the intimacy. Their intimacy (or rather identity) is independent of all partial forms of expression; at its best it is therefore as inarticulate as Love.
The intensity of the consummation will more probably compel a sob or a cry, some natural physical gesture of animal sympathy with the spiritual spasm. This is to be criticised as incomplete self-control. Silence is nobler.
In any case the Adept must be in communion with his Angel, so that his Soul is suffused with sublimity, whether intelligible or not in terms of intellect. It is evident that the stress of such spiritual possession must tend to overwhelm the soul, especially at first. It actually suffers from the excess of its ecstasy, just as extreme love produces vertigo. The soul sinks and swoons. Such weakness is fatal alike to its enjoyment and its apprehension. "Be strong! then canst thou bear more rapture!" sayeth the Book of the Law.<<Liber Al vel Legis, II, 61-68, where the details of the proper technique are discussed. {WEH Note extension: The passage in quotations in this sentence nowhere appears in "The Book of the Law". Crowley is evidently recapitulating several passages in a paraphrase. AL II, 22 starts this, and the verses cited in this note conclude it.}>>
The Adept must therefore play the man, arousing himself to harden his soul.
To this end, I, the Beast, have made trial and proof of divers devices. Of these the most potent is to set the body to strive with {297} the soul. Let the muscles take grip on themselves as if one were wrestling. Let the jaw and mouth, in particular, be tightened to the utmost. Breathe deeply, slowly, yet strongly. Keep mastery over the mind by muttering forcibly and audibly. But lest such muttering tend to disturb communion with the Angel, speak only His Name. Until the Adept have heard that Name, therefore, he may not abide in the perfect possession of his Beloved. His most important task is thus to open his ears to the voice of his Angel, that he may know him, how he is called. For hearken! this Name, understood rightly and fully, declareth the nature of the Angel in every point, wherefore also that Name is the formula of the perfection to which the Adept must aspire, and also of the power of Magick by virtue whereof he must work.
He then that is as yet ignorant of that Name, let him repeat a word worthy of this particular Ritual. Such are Abrahadabra, the Word of the Aeon, which signifieth "The Great Work accomplished"; and Aumgn interpreted in Part III of Book 4<<The essence of this matter is that the word AUM, which expresses the course of Breath (spiritual life) from free utterance through controlled concentration to Silence, is transmuted by the creation of the compound letter GR:Mu-Gamma-Nu to replace M: that is, Silence is realized as passing into continuous ecstatic vibration, of the nature of "Love" under "Will" as shewn by GR:Mu-Gamma-Nu = 40 + 3 + 50 = 93 GR:Alpha-Gamma-Alpha-Pi-Eta, GR:Theta-Epsilon-Lambda-Eta-Mu-Alpha etc., and the whole word has the value of 100, Perfection Perfected, the Unity in completion, and equivalent to GR:Kappa-Rho the conjunction of the essential male and female principles.>>; and the name of THE BEAST, for that His number showeth forth this Union with the Angel, and His Work is no other than to make all men partakers of this Mystery of the Mysteries of Magick.
So then saying this word or that, let the Adept wrestle with his Angel and withstand Him, that he may constrain Him to consent to continue in communion until the consciousness becomes capable of clear comprehension, and of accurate transmission<<The "normal" intellect is incapable of these functions; a superior faculty must have been developed. As Zoroaster says: "Extend the void mind of thy soul to that Intelligible that thou mayst learn the Intelligible, because it subsisteth beyond Mind. Thou wilt not understand It as when understanding some common thing.">> of the {298} transcendent Truth of the Beloved to the heart that holds him.
The firm repetition of one of these Words ought to enable the Adept to maintain the state of Union for several minutes, even at first.
In any case he must rekindle his ardour, esteeming his success rather as an encouragement to more ardent aspiration than as a triumph. He should increase his efforts.
Let him beware of the "lust of result", of expecting too much, of losing courage if his first success is followed by a series of failures.
For success makes success seem so incredible that one is apt to create an inhibition fatal to subsequent attempts. One fears to fail; the fear intrudes upon the concentration and so fulfils its own prophecy. We know how too much pleasure in a love affair makes one afraid to disgrace oneself on the next few occasions; indeed, until familiarity has accustomed one to the idea that one's lover has never supposed one to be more than human. Confidence returns gradually. Inarticulate ecstasy is replaced by a more sober enjoyment of the elements of the fascination.
Just so one's first dazzled delight in a new landscape turns, as one continues to gaze, to the appreciation of exquisite details of the view. At first they were blurred by the blinding rush of general beauty; they emerge one by one as the shock subsides, and passionate rapture yields to intelligent interest.
In the same way the Adept almost always begins by torrential lyrics painting out mystical extravagances about "ineffable love", "unimaginable bliss", "inexpressible infinities of illimitable utterness".<<This corresponds to the emotional and metaphysical fog which is characteristic of the emergence of thought from homogeneity. The clear and concise differentiation of ideas marks the adult mind.>> He usually loses his sense of proportion, of humour, of reality, and of sound judgment. His ego is often inflated to the bursting point, till he would be abjectly ridiculous if he were not so pitifully dangerous to himself and others. He also tends to take his new-found "truths of illumination" for the entire body of truth, and insists that they must be as valid an vital for all men as they happen to be for himself. {299}
It is wise to keep silence about those things "unlawful to utter" which one may have heard "in the seventh heaven". This may not apply to the sixth.
The Adept must keep himself in hand, however tempted to make a new heaven and a new earth in the next few days by trumpeting his triumphs. He must give time a chance to redress his balance, sore shaken by the impact of the Infinite.
As he becomes adjusted to intercourse with his Angel, he will find his passionate ecstasy develop a quality of peace and intelligibility which adds power, while it informs and fortifies his mental and moral qualities instead of obscuring and upsetting them. He will by now have become able to converse with his Angel, impossible as it once seemed; for he now knows that the storm of sound which he supposed to be the Voice was only the clamour of his own confusions. The "infinity" nonsense was born of his own inability to think clearly beyond his limits, just as a Bushman, confronted by numbers above five, can only call them "many".
The truth told by the Angel, immensely as it extends the horizon of the Adept, is perfectly definite and precise. It does not deal in ambiguities and abstractions. It possesses form, and confesses law, in exactly the same way and degree as any other body of truth. It is to the truth of the material and intellectual spheres of man very much what the Mathematics of Philosophy with its "infinite series" and "Cantorian continuity" is to schoolboy arithmetic. Each implies the other, though by that one may explore the essential nature of existence, and by this a pawnbroker's profits.
This then is the true aim of the Adept in this whole operation, to assimilate himself to his Angel by continual conscious communion. For his Angel is an intelligible image of his own true Will, to do which is the whole of the law of his Being.
Also the Angel appeareth in Tiphereth, which is the heart of the Ruach, and thus the Centre of Gravity of the Mind. It is also directly inspired from Kether, the ultimate Self, through the Path of the High Priestess, or initiated intuition. Hence the Angel is in truth the Logos or articulate expression of the whole Being of the Adept, so that as he increases in the perfect understanding of {300} His name, he approaches the solution of the ultimate problem, Who he himself truly is.
Unto this final statement the Adept may trust his Angel to lead him; for the Tiphereth-consciousness alone is connected by paths with the various parts of his mind.<<See the maps "Minutum Mundum" in the Equinox 1, 2, & 3 and the general relations detailed in Liber 777, of which the most important columns are reprinted in Appendix V.>> None therefore save He hath the knowledge requisite for calculating the combinations of conduct which will organise and equilibrate the forces of the Adept, against the moment when it becomes necessary to confront the Abyss. The Adept must control a compact and coherent mass if he is to make sure of hurling it from him with a clean-cut gesture.
I, The Beast 666, lift up my voice and swear that I myself have been brought hither by mine Angel. After that I had attained unto the Knowledge and Conversation of Him by virtue of mine ardour towards Him, and of this Ritual that I bestow upon men my fellows, and most of His great Love that He beareth to me, yea, verily, He led me to the Abyss; He bade me fling away all that I had and all that I was; and He forsook me in that Hour. But when I came beyond the Abyss, to be reborn within the womb of BABALON, then came he unto me abiding in my virgin heart, its Lord and Lover!
Also He made me a Magus, speaking through His Law, the Word of the new Aeon, the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering Child.<<For the account of these matters see The Equinox, Vol. I, "The Temple of Solomon the King", Liber 418, Liber Aleph, John St. John, The Urn, and Book 4, Part IV.>> Thus he fulfilled my will to bring full freedom to the race of Men.
Yea, he wrought also in me a Work of wonder beyond this, but in this matter I am sworn to hold my peace.
Arcanum Arcanorum Quod Continet Nondum Revelandum ipsis Regibus supremis O.T.O. Grimorium Quod Baphomet X Degree M... suo fecit.
De Templo.
1. Oriente ............... Altare
2. Occidente ............. Tabula dei invocandi
3. Septentrione .......... Sacerdos
4. Meridione ............. Ignis cum thuribulo, GR:chi. GR:tau. GR:lambda.
5. Centro ................ Lapis quadratus cum
Imagine Dei
Maximi Igentis Nefandi Ineffabilis Sanctissimi
et cum ferro, tintinnabulo, oleo.
Virgo. Stet imago juxta librum GR:Theta-Epsilon-Lambda-Eta-Mu-Alpha.
De ceremonio Principii.
Fiat ut in Libro DCLXXI dicitur, sed antea virgo lavata sit cum verbis "Asperge me..." GR:chi. GR:tau. GR:lambda., et habilimenta ponat cum verbis "Per sanctum Mysterium," GR:chi. GR:tau. GR:lambda.
Ita Pyramis fiat. Tunc virgo lavabit sacerdotem et vestimenta ponat ut supra ordinatur.
(Hic dicat virgo orationes dei operis).
De ceremonio Thuribuli.
Manibus accedat et ignem et sacerdotem virgo, dicens: {325}
"Accendat in nobis Dominus ignem sui amoris et flamman aeternae caritatis.
De ceremonio Dedicationis.
Invocet virgo Imaginem Dei. M.I.N.I.S. his verbis. --- Tu qui es prater omnia... GR:chi. GR:tau. GR:lambda."
Nec relinquet alteram Imaginem.
De Sacrificio Summo.
Deinde silentium frangat sacerdos cum verbis versiculi sancti dei particularitur invocandi.
Ineat ad Sanctum Sanctorum.
Caveat; caveat, caveat.
Duo qui fiunt UNUS sine intermissione verba versiculi sancti alta voce cantent.
De Benedictione Benedicti.
Missa rore, dicat mulier haec verba "Quia patris et filii s.s." GR:chi. GR:tau. GR:lambda.
De Ceremonio Finis
Fiat ut in Libro DCLXXI dicitur. GR:Alpha-Upsilon-Mu-Gamma-Nu.
{326}
LIBER XXV
THE STAR RUBY.
Facing East, in the centre, draw deep deep deep thy breath closing thy mouth with thy right forefinger prest against thy lower lip. Then dashing down the hand with a great sweep back and out, expelling forcibly thy breath, cry GR:Alpha-Pi-Omicron GR:Pi-Alpha-Nu-Tau-Omicron-Sigma GR:Kappa-Alpha-Kappa-Omicron-Delta-Alpha-Iota-Mu-Omicron-Nu-Omicron-Sigma.
With the same forefinger touch thy forehead, and say GR:Sigma-Omicron-Iota, thy member, and say GR:Omega GR:Phi-Alpha-Lambda-Lambda-Epsilon<<The secret sense of these words is to be sought in the numeration thereof.>>, thy right shoulder, and say GR:Iota-Sigma-Chi-Upsilon-Rho-Omicron-Sigma, thy left shoulder, and say GR:Epsilon-Upsilon-Chi-Alpha-Rho-Iota-Sigma-Tau-Omicron-Sigma; then clasp thine hands, locking the fingers, and cry GR:Iota-Alpha-Omega. Advance to the East. Imagine strongly a Pentagram, aright, in thy forehead. Drawing the hands to the eyes, fling it forth, making the sign of Horus and roar
GR:Theta-Eta-Rho-Iota-Omicron-Nu. Retire thine hand in the sign of Hoor-paar-Kraat.
Go round to the North and repeat; but say NUIT.
Go round to the West and repeat; but whisper BABALON.
Go round to the South and repeat; but bellow HADIT.
Completing the circle widdershins, retire to the centre and raise thy voice in the Paian, with these words GR:Iota-Omega GR:Pi-Alpha-Nu, with the signs of N.O.X.
Extend the arms in the form of a Tau and say low but clear:
Repeat the Cross Qabalistic, as above, and end as thou didst begin.
{327}
LIBER XXXVI
THE STAR SAPPHIRE.
Let the Adept be armed with his Magick Rood [and provided with his mystic Rose].
In the centre, let him give the L.V.X. signs; or if he know them, if he will and dare do them, and can keep silent about them, the signs of N.O.X. being the signs of Puer, Vir, Puella, Mulier. Omit the sign. I.R.
Then let him advance to the East and make the Holy Hexagram, saying: "Pater et Mater unus deus Ararita."
Let him go round to the South, make the Holy Hexagram and say: "Mater et Filius unus deus Ararita."
Let him go round to the North, make the Holy Hexagram and then say: "Filia et Pater unus deus Ararita."
Let him then return to the Centre, and so to The Centre of All (making the "Rosy Cross" as he may know how) saying "Ararita Ararita Ararita". (In this the Signs shall be those of Set Triumphant and of Baphomet. Also shall Set appear in the Circle. Let him drink of the Sacrament and let him communicate the same.) Then let him say: "Omnia in Duos: Duo in Unum: Unus in Nihil: Haec nec Quatuor nec Omnia nec Duo nec Unus nec Nihil Sunt.
Gloria Patri et Matri et Filio et Filiae et Spiritui Sancto externo et Spiritui Sancto interno ut erat est erit in saecula Saeculorum sex in uno per nomen Septem in uno Ararita."
Let him then repeat the signs of L.V.X. but not the signs of N.O.X.: for it is not he that shall arise in the Sign of Isis Rejoicing.
{328}
LIBER XLIV
THE MASS OF THE PHOENIX
"The Magician, his breast bare, stands before an altar on which are his Burin, Bell, Thurible, and two of the Cakes of Light. In the Sign of the Enterer he reaches West across the Altar, and cries:"
Hail Ra, that goest in thy bark
Into the caverns of the Dark! "He gives the sign of Silence, and takes the Bell, and Fire, in his hands."
East of the Altar see me stand
With light and musick in my hand! "He strikes Eleven times upon the Bell" 333 - 55555 - 333 "and places the Fire in the Thurible."
I strike the Bell: I light the Flame;
I utter the mysterious Name.
ABRAHADABRA "He strikes eleven times upon the Bell."
Now I begin to pray: Thou Child,
Holy Thy name and undefiled!
Thy reign is come; Thy will is done.
Here is the Bread; here is the Blood.
Bring me through midnight to the Sun!
Save me from Evil and from Good!
That Thy one crown of all the Ten
Even now and here be mine. AMEN. "He puts the first Cake on the Fire of the Thurible."
I burn the Incense-cake, proclaim
These adorations of Thy name. "He makes them as in Liber Legis, and strikes again Eleven times upon the Bell. With the Burin he then makes upon his breast the proper sign." {329}
Behold this bleeding breast of mine
Gashed with the sacramental sign!
"He puts the second Cake to the wound."
I stanch the Blood; the wafer soaks
It up, and the high priest invokes!
"He eats the second Cake."
This Bread I eat. This Oath I swear
As I enflame myself with prayer:
"There is no grace: there is no guilt:
This is the Law: DO WHAT THOU WILT!"
"He strikes Eleven times upon the Bell, and cries"
ABRAHADABRA.
I entered in with woe; with mirth
I now go forth, and with thanksgiving,
To do my pleasure on the earth
Among the legions of the living.
"He goeth forth."
{330}
LIBER V
vel
REGULI.
A.'. A.'. publication in Class D. Being the Ritual of the Mark of the Beast: an incantation proper to invoke the Energies of the Aeon of Horus, adapted for the daily use of the Magician of whatever grade.
THE FIRST GESTURE.
The Oath of the Enchantment, which is called The Elevenfold Seal.
"The Animadversion towards the Aeon."
1. Let the Magician, robed and armed as he may deem to be
fit, turn his face towards Boleskine,<<Boleskine House is on Loch Ness, 17 miles from Inverness, Latitude 57.14 N. Longitude 4.28 W.>> that is the House of
The Beast 666.
2. Let him strike the battery 1-3-3-3-1.
3. Let him put the Thumb of his right hand between its index
and medius, and make the gestures hereafter following.
"The Vertical Component of the Enchantment."
1. Let him describe a circle about his head, crying NUIT!
2. Let him draw the Thumb vertically downward and touch
the Muladhara Cakkra, crying, HADIT!
3. Let him, retracing the line, touch the centre of his breast
an cry RA-HOOR-KHUIT!
"The Horizontal Components of the Enchantment."
1. Let him touch the Centre of his Forehead, his mouth, and
his larynx, crying AIWAZ!
2. Let him draw his thumb from right to left across his face
at the level of the nostrils.
3. Let him touch the centre of his breast, and his solar plexus,
crying, THERION!
4. Let him draw his thumb from left to right across his breast,
at the level of the sternum. {331}
5. Let him touch the Svadistthana, and the Muladhara Chakkra,
crying, BABALON!
6. Let him draw his thumb from right to left across his
abdomen, at the level of the hips. (Thus shall he formulate the Sigil of the Grand Hierophant, but dependent from the Circle.)
"The Asseveration of the Spells."
1. Let the Magician clasp his hands upon his Wand, his fingers
(Thus shall be declared the Words of Power whereby the
Energies of the Aeon of Horus work his will in the World.)
"The Proclamation of the Accomplishment."
1. Let the Magician strike the Battery: 3-5-3, crying
ABRAHADABRA.
The SECOND GESTURE.
"The Enchantment."
1. Let the Magician, still facing Boleskine, advance to the
circumference of his circle.
2. Let him turn himself towards the left, and pace with the
stealth and swiftness of a tiger the precincts of his circle,
until he complete one revolution thereof.
3. Let him give the Sign of Horus (or The Enterer) as he
passeth, so to project the force that radiateth from Boleskine
before him.
4. Let him pace his path until he comes to the North; there
let him halt, and turn his face to the North.
5. Let him trace with his wand the Averse Pentagram proper
to invoke Air (Aquarius).
6. Let him bring the wand to the centre of the Pentagram and
call upon NUIT!
7. Let him make the sign called Puella, standing with his
feet together, head bowed, his left hand shielding the {332}
Muladhara Cakkra, and his right hand shielding his
breast (attitude of the Venus de Medici).
8. Let him turn again to the left, and pursue his Path as
before, projecting the force from Boleskine as he passeth;
let him halt when he next cometh to the South and face
outward.
9. Let him trace the Averse Pentagram that invoketh Fire
(Leo).
10. Let him point his wand to the centre of the Pentagram,
and cry, HADIT!
11. Let him give the sign Puer, standing with feet together,
and head erect. Let his right hand (the thumb extended
at right angles to the fingers) be raised, the forearm
vertical at a right angle with the upper arm, which is
horizontally extended in the line joining the shoulders.
Let his left hand, the thumb extended forwards and the
fingers clenched, rest at the junction of the thighs (Attitude
of the gods Mentu, Khem, etc.).
12. Let him proceed as before; then in the East, let him make
the Averse Pentagram that invoketh Earth (Taurus).
13. Let him point his wand to the centre of the pentagram,
and cry, THERION!
14. Let him give the sign called Vir, the feet being together.
The hands, with clenched finger and thumbs thrust out
forwards, are held to the temples; the head is then bowed
and pushed out, as if to symbolize the butting of an horned
beast (attitude of Pan, Bacchus, etc.). (Frontispiece,
Equinox I, III).
15. Proceeding as before, let him make in the West the
Averse Pentagram whereby Water is invoked.
16. Pointing the wand to the centre of the Pentagram, let him
call upon BABALON!!
17. Let him give the sign Mulier. The feet are widely
separated, and the arms raised so as to suggest a crescent.
The head is thrown back (attitude of Baphomet, Isis in
Welcome, the Microcosm of Vitruvius). (See Book 4,
Part II). {333}
18. Let him break into the dance, tracing a centripetal spiral
widdershins, enriched by revolutions upon his axis as he
passeth each quarter, until he come to the centre of the
circle. There let him halt, facing Boleskine.
19. Let him raise the wand, trace the Mark of the Beast, and
cry AIWAZ!
20. Let him trace the invoking Hexagram of The Beast.
21. Let him lower the wand, striking the Earth therewith.
22. Let him give the sign of Mater Triumphans (The feet are
together; the left arm is curved as if it supported a child;
the thumb and index finger of the right hand pinch the
nipple of the left breast, as if offering it to that child).
Let him utter the word GR:Theta-Epsilon-Lambda-Eta-Mu-Alpha!
23. Perform the spiral dance, moving deosil and whirling
widdershins.
Each time on passing the West extend the wand to the
Quarter in question, and bow:
a. "Before me the powers of LA!" (to West.)
b. "Behind me the powers of AL!" (to East.)
c. "On my right hand the powers of LA!" (to North.)
d. "On my left hand the powers of AL!" (to South.)
e. "Above me the powers of ShT!" (leaping in the air.)
f. "Beneath me the powers of ShT!" (striking the ground.)
g. "Within me the Powers!" (in the attitude of Phthah erect, the
feet together, the hands clasped upon the vertical wand.)
h. "About me flames my Father's face, the Star of Force and
Fire."
i. "And in the Column stands His six-rayed Splendour!"
(This dance may be omitted, and the whole utterance chanted in the attitude of Phthah.)
The FINAL GESTURE.
This is identical with the First Gesture.
(Here followeth an impression of the ideas implied in this Paean.) {334}
I also am a Star in Space, unique and self-existent, an individual essence incorruptible; I also am one Soul; I am identical with All and None. I am in All and all in Me; I am, apart from all and lord of all, and one with all.
I am a God, I very God of very God; I go upon my way to work my will; I have made matter and motion for my mirror; I have decreed for my delight that Nothingness should figure itself as twain, that I might dream a dance of names and natures, and enjoy the substance of simplicity by watching the wanderings of my shadows. I am not that which is not; I know not that which knows not; I love not that which loves not. For I am Love, whereby division dies in delight; I am Knowledge, whereby all parts, plunged in the whole, perish and pass into perfection; and I am that I am, the being wherein Being is lost in Nothing, nor deigns to be but by its Will to unfold its nature, its need to express its perfection in all possibilities, each phase a partial phantasm, and yet inevitable and absolute.
I am Omniscient, for naught exists for me unless I know it. I am Omnipotent, for naught occurs save by Necessity my soul's expression through my will to be, to do, to suffer the symbols of itself. I am Omnipresent, for naught exists where I am not, who fashioned space as a condition of my consciousness of myself, who am the centre of all, and my circumference the frame of mine own fancy.
I am the All, for all that exists for me is a necessary expression in thought of some tendency of my nature, and all my thoughts are only the letters of my Name.
I am the One, for all that I am is not the absolute all, and all my all is mine and not another's; mine, who conceive of others like myself in essence and truth, yet unlike in expression and illusion.
I am the None, for all that I am is the imperfect image of the perfect; each partial phantom must perish in the clasp of its counterpart; each form fulfil itself by finding its equated opposite, and satisfying its need to be the Absolute by the attainment of annihilation.
The word, LAShTAL includes all this.
"LA" --- Naught. {335}
"AL" --- Two.
"L" is "Justice", the Kteis fulfilled by the Phallus, "Naught and Two" because the plus and the minus have united in "love under will."
"A" is "the Fool", Naught in Thought (Parzival), Word (Harpocrates), and Action (Bacchus). He is the boundless air, the wandering Ghost, but with "possibilities". He is the Naught that the Two have made by "love under will".
"LA" thus represents the Ecstasy of Nuit and Hadit conjoined, lost in love, and making themselves Naught thereby. Their child is begotten and conceived, but is in the phase of Naught also, as yet. "LA" is thus the Universe in that phase, with its potentialities of manifestation.
"AL" on the contarary, though it is essentially identical with "LA", shows the Fool manifested through the Equilibrium of Contraries. The weight is still nothing, but it is expressed as if it were two equal weights in opposite scales. The indicator still points to zero.
"ShT" is equally 31 with "LA" and "AL", but it expresses the secret nature which operates the Magick or the transmutations.
"ShT" is the formula of this particular aeon; another aeon might have another way of saying 31.
"Sh" is Fire as T is Force; conjoined they express Ra-Hoor-Khuit.
"The Angel" represents the Stele 666, showing the Gods of the Aeon, while "Strength" is a picture of Babalon and The Beast, the earthly emissaries of those Gods.
"ShT" is the dynamic equivalent of "LA" and "AL". "Sh" shows the Word of the Law, being triple, as 93 is thrice 31. "T" shows the formula of Magick declared in that Word; the Lion, the Serpent, the Sun, Courage and Sexual Love are all indicated by the card.
In "LA" note that Saturn or Satan is exalted in the House of Venus or Astarte, and it is an airy sign. Thus "L" is Father-Mother, Two and Naught, and the Spirit (Holy Ghost) of their Love is also Naught. Love is AHBH, 13, which is AChD, Unity, I, Aleph, who is The Fool who is Naught, but none the less an Individual One, who (as such) is not another, yet unconscious of himself until his Oneness expresses itself as a duality.
Any impression or idea is unknowable in itself. It can mean {336} nothing until brought into relation with other things. The first step is to distinguish one thought from another; this is the condition of recognizing it. To define it, we must perceive its orientation to all our other ideas. The extent of our knowledge of any one thing varies therefore with the number of ideas with which we can compare it. Every new fact not only adds itself to our universe, but increases the value of what we already possess.
In "AL" this "The" or "God" arranges for "Contenance to behold contenance", by establishing itself as an equilibrium, "A" the One-Naught conceived as "L" the Two-Naught. This "L" is the Son-Daughter Horus-Harpocrates just as the other "L" was the Father-Mother Set-Isis. Here then is Tetragrammaton once more, but expressed in identical equations in which every term is perfect in itself as a mode of Naught.
"ShT" supplies the last element; making the Word of either five or six letters, according as we regard "ShT" as one letter or two. Thus the Word affirms the Great Work accomplished: 5 Degree = 6Square.
"ShT", is moreover a necessary resolution of the apparent opposition of "LA" and "AL"; for one could hardly pass to the other without the catalytic action of a third identical expression whose function should be to transmute them. Such a term must be in itself a mode of Naught, and its nature cannot encroach on the perfections of Not-Being, "LA" or of Being, "AL". It must be purely Nothing-Matter, so as to create a Matter-in-Motion which is a function of "Something".
Thus "ShT" is Motion in its double phase, an inertia composed of two opposite currents, and each current is also thus polarized. "Sh" is Heaven and Earth, "T" Male and Female; "ShT" is Spirit and Matter; one is the word of Liberty and Love flashing its Light to restore Life to Earth; the other is the act by which Life claims that Love is Light and Liberty. And these are Two-in-One, the divine letter of Silence-in-Speech whose symbol is the Sun in the arms of the Moon.
But "Sh" and "T" are alike formulae of force in action as opposed to entities; they are not states of existence, but modes of motion. They are verbs, not nouns.
"Sh" is the Holy Spirit as a "tongue of fire" manifest in triplicity, {337} and is the child of Set-Isis as their Logos or Word uttered by their "Angel". The card is XX, and 20 is the value of Yod (the Angel or Herald) expressed in full as IVD. "Sh" is the Spiritual congress of Heaven and Earth.
But "T" is the Holy Spirit in action as a "roaring lion" or as the "old Serpent" instead of as an "Angel of Light". The twins of Set-Isis, harlot and beast, are busy with that sodomitic and incestuous lust which is the traditional formula for producing demi-gods, as in the cases of Mary and the Dove; Leda and the Swan, etc. The card is XI, the number of Magick AVD: Aleph the Fool impregnating the woman according to the word of Yod, the Angel of the Lord! His sister has seduced her brother Beast, shaming the Sun with her sin; she has mastered the Lion and enchanted the Serpent. Nature is outraged by Magick; man is bestialized and woman defiled. The conjunction produces a monster; it affirms regression of types. Instead of a man-God conceived of the Spirit of God by a virgin in innocence, we are asked to adore the bastard of a whore and a brute, begotten in shamefullest sin and born in most blasphemous bliss.
This is in fact the formula of our Magick; we insist that all acts must be equal; that existence asserts the right to exist; that unless evil is a mere term expressing some relation of haphazard hostility between forces equally self-justified, the universe is as inexplicable and impossible as uncompensated action: that the orgies of Bacchus and Pan are no less sacremental than the Masses of Jesus; that the scars of syphilis are sacred and worthy of honour as such.
It should be unnecessary to insist that the above ideas apply only to the Absolute. Toothache is still painful, and deceit degrading, to a man, relatively to his situation in the world of illusion; he does his Will by avoiding them. But the existence of "Evil" is fatal to philosophy so long as it is supposed to be independent of conditions; and to accustom the mind "to make no difference" between any two ideas as such is to emancipate it from the thralldom of terror.
We affirm on our altars our faith in ourselves and our wills, our love of all aspects of the Absolute All. {338}
And we make the Spirit Shin combine with the Flesh Teth into a single letter, whose value is 31 even as those of "LA" the Naught, and "AL" the All, to complete their Not-Being and Being with its Becoming, to mediate between identical extremes as their mean --- the secret that sunders and seals them.
It declares that all somethings are equally shadows of Nothing, and justifies Nothing in its futile folly of pretending that something is stable, by making us aware of a method of Magick through the practice of which we may partake in the pleasure of the process.
The Magician should devise for himself a definite technique for destroying "evil". The essence of such a practice will consist in training the mind and the body to confront things which cause fear, pain, disgust,<<The People of England have made two revolutions to free themselves from Popish fraud and tyranny. They are at their tricks again; and if we have to make a Third Revolution, let us destroy the germ itself!>> shame and the like. He must learn to endure them, then to become indifferent to them, then to analyse them until they give pleasure and instruction, and finally to appreciate them for their own sake, as aspects of Truth. When this has been done, he should abandon them if they are really harmful in relation to health or comfort. Also, our selection of "evils" is limited to those that cannot damage us irreparably. E.g., one ought to practise smellying assafoetida until one likes it; but not arsine or hydrocyanic acid. Again, one might have a liaison with an ugly old woman until one beheld and loved the star which she is; it would be too dangerous to overcome the distaste for dishonesty by forcing oneself to pick pockets. Acts which are essentially dishonourable must not be done; they should be justified only by calm contemplation of their correctness in abstract cases.
Love is a virtue; it grows stronger and purer and less selfish by applying it to what it loathes; but theft is a vice involving the slave-idea that one's neighbour is superior to oneself. It is admirable only for its power to develop certain moral and mental qualities in primitive types, to prevent the atrophy of such faculties as our own vigilance, and for the interest which it adds to the "tragedy, Man." {339}
Crime, folly, sickness and all such phenomena must be contemplated with complete freedom from fear, aversion, or shame. Otherwise we shall fail to see accurately, and interpret intelligently; in which case we shall be unable to outwit and outfight them. Anatomists and physiologists, grappling in the dark with death, have won hygiene, surgery, prophylaxis and the rest for mankind. Anthropologists, archaeologists, physicists and other men of science, risking thumbscrew, stake, infamy and ostracism, have torn the spider-snare of superstition to shreds and broken in pieces the monstrous idol of Morality, the murderous Moloch which has made mankind its meat throughout history. Each fragment of that coprolite is manifest as an image of some brute lust, some torpid dullness, some ignorant instinct, or some furtive fear shapen in his own savage mind.
Man is indeed not wholly freed, even now. He is still trampled under the hoofs of the stampeding mules that nightmare bore to his wild ass, his creative forces that he had not mastered, the sterile ghosts that he called gods. Their mystery cows men still; they fear, they flinch, they dare not face the phantoms. Still, too, the fallen fetich seems awful; it is frightful to them that there is no longer an idol to adore with anthems, and to appease with the flesh of their firstborn. Each scrambles in the bloody mire of the floor to snatch some scrap for a relic, that he may bow down to it and serve it.
So, even to-day, a mass of maggots swarm heaving over the carrion earth, a brotherhood bound by blind greed for rottenness. Science still hesitates to raze the temple of Rimmon, though every year finds more of her sons impatient of Naaman's prudence. The Privy Council of the Kingdom of Mansoul sits in permanent secret session; it dares not declare what must follow its deed in shattering the monarch morality into scraps of crumbling conglomerate of climatic, tribal, and personal prejudices, corrupted yet more by the action of crafty ambition, insane impulse, ignorant arrogance, superstitious hysteria, fear fashioning falsehoods on the stone that it sets on the grave of Truth whom it has murdered and buried in the black earth Oblivion. Moral philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, mental pathology, physiology, and many another of {340} the children of wisdom, of whom she is justified, well know that the laws of Ethics are a chaos of confused conventions, based at best on customs convenient in certain conditions, more often on the craft or caprice of the biggest, the most savage, heartless, cunning and blood-thirsty brutes of the pack, to secure their power or pander to their pleasure in cruelty. There is no principle, even a false one, to give coherence to the clamour of ethical propositions. Yet the very men that have smashed Moloch, and strewn the earth with shapeless rubble, grow pale when they so much as whisper among themselves, "While Moloch ruled all men were bound by the one law, and by the oracles of them that, knowing the fraud, feared not, but were his priests and wardens of his mystery. What now? How can any of us, though wise and strong as never was known, prevail on men to act in concert, now that each prays to his own chip of God, and yet knows every other chip to be a worthless ort, dream-dust, ape-dung, tradition-bone, or --- what not else?"
So science begins to see that the Initiates were maybe not merely silly and selfish in making their rule of silence, and in protecting philosophy from the profane. Yet still she hopes that the mischief may not prove mortal, and begs that things may go on much as usual until that secret session decide on some plan of action.
It has always been fatal when somebody finds out too much too suddenly. If John Huss had cackled more like a hen, he might have survived Michaelmas, and been esteemed for his eggs. The last fifty years have laid the axe of analysis to the root of every axiom; they are triflers who content themselves with lopping the blossoming twigs of our beliefs, or the boughs of our intellectual instruments. We can no longer assert any single proposition, unless we guard ourselves by enumerating countless conditions which must be assumed.
This digression has outstayed its welcome; it was only invited by Wisdom that it might warn Rashness of the dangers that encompass even Sincerity, Energy and Intelligence when they happen not to contribute to Fitness-in-their-environment.
The Magician must be wary in his use of his powers; he must make every act not only accord with his Will, but with the proprieties of his position at the time. It might be my will to reach {341} the foot of a cliff; but the easiest way --- also the speediest, most direct, least obstructed, the way of minimum effort --- would be simply to jump. I should have destroyed my will in the act of fulfilling it, or what I mistook for it; for the true will has no goal; its nature being to Go. Similarly a parabola is bound by one law which fixes its relations with two straight lines at every point; yet it has no end short of infinity, and it continually changes its direction. The initiate who is aware Who he is can always check his conduct by reference to the determinants of his curve, and calculate his past, his future, his bearings and his proper course at any assigned moment; he can even comprehend himself as a simple idea. He may attain to measure fellow-parabolas, ellipses that cross his path, hyperbolas that span all space with their twin wings. Perhaps he may come at long last, leaping beyond the limits of his own law, to conceive that sublimely stupendous outrage to Reason, the Cone! Utterly inscrutable to him, he is yet well aware that he exists in the nature thereof, that he is necessary thereto, that he is ordered thereby, and that therefrom he is sprung, from the loins of so fearful a Father! His own infinity becomes zero in relation to that of the least fragment of the solid. He hardly exists at all. Trillions multiplied by trillions of trillions of such as he could not cross the frontier even of breadth, the idea which he came to guess at only because he felt himself bound by some mysterious power. Yet breadth is equally a nothing in the presence of the Cone. His first conception must evidently be a frantic spasm, formless, insane, not to be classed as articulate thought. Yet, if he develops the faculties of his mind, the more he knows of it the more he sees that its nature is identical with his own whenever comparison is possible.
The True Will is thus both determined by its equations, and free because those equations are simply its own name, spelt out fully. His sense of being under bondage comes from his inability to read it; his sense that evil exists to thwart him arises when he begins to learn to read, reads wrong, and is obstinate that his error is an improvement.
We know one thing only. Absolute existence, absolute motion, absolute direction, absolute simultaneity, absolute truth, all such {342} ideas; they have not, and never can have, any real meaning. If a man in delirium tremens fell into the Hudson River, he might remember the proverb and clutch at an imaginary straw. Words such as "truth" are like that straw. Confusion of thought is concealed, and its impotence denied, by the invention. This paragraph opened with, "We know"; yet, questioned, "we" make haste to deny the possibility of possessing, or even of defining, knowledge. What could be more certain to a parabola-philolsopher than that he could be approached in two ways, and two only? It would be indeed little less than the whole body of his knowledge, implied in the theory of his definition of himself, and confirmed by every single experience. He could receive impressions only by meeting A, or being caught up by B. Yet he would be wrong in an infinite number of ways. There are therefore Aleph-Zero possibilities that at any moment a man may find himself totally transformed. And it may be that our present dazzled bewilderment is due to our recognition of the existence of a new dimension of thought, which seems so "inscrutably infinite" and "absurd" and "immoral", etc. --- because we have not studied it long enough to appreciate that its laws are identical with our own, though extended to new conceptions. The discovery of radioactivity created a momentary chaos in chemistry and physics; but it soon led to a fuller interpretation of the old ideas. It dispersed many difficulties, harmonized many discords, and --- yea, more! It shewed the substance of the Universe as a simplicity of Light and Life, possessed of limitless liberty to enjoy Love by combining its units in various manners to compose atoms, themselves capable of deeper self-realization through fresh complexities and organizations, each with its own peculiar powers and pleasures, each pursuing its path through the world where all things are possible. It revealed the omnipresence of Hadit identical with Himself, yet fulfilling Himself by dividing his interplay with Nuit into episodes, each form of his energy isolated with each aspect of Her receptivity, delight developing delight continuous from complex to complex. It was the voice of Nature awakening at the dawn of the Aeon, as Aiwaz uttered the Word of the Law of Thelema. {343}
So also shall he who invoketh often behold the Formless Fire, with trembling and bewilderment; but if he prolong his meditation, he shall resolve it into coherent and intelligible symbols, and he shall hear the articulate utterance of that Fire, interpret the thunder thereof as a still small voice in his heart. And the Fire shall reveal to his eyes his own image in its own true glory; and it shall speak in his ears the Mystery that is his own right Name.
This then is the virtue of the Magick of The Beast 666, and the canon of its proper usage: to destroy the tendency to discriminate between any two things in theory, and in practice to pierce the veils of every sanctuary, pressing forward to embrace every image; for there is none that is not very Isis. The Inmost is one with the Inmost; yet the form of the One is not the form of the other; intimacy exacts fitness. He therefore who liveth by air, let him not be bold to breathe water. But mastery cometh by measure: to him who with labour, courage, and caution giveth his life to understand all that doth encompass him, and to prevail against it, shall be increase. "The word of Sin is Restriction"; seek therefore Righteousness, enquiring into Iniquity, and fortify thyself to overcome it.
