Service Celebrating the Feast of
the Annihilation of the Prophet
Composed by T Polyphilus Ep. Gn. 2006 e.v.
First performed 2007 e.v. at Aum Ha Oasis
Revised 2009 e.v.
The following ceremony is intended for the purpose of commemorating the Annihilation of the Prophet that took place in the working of the 14th Aethyr at Bou-Saada, Algeria, on December 3, 1909 e.v. It should be held on the anniversary of that date, ideally during the magical hour of MATHON (ca. 10:00 to 11:00 p.m.). This occasion was the one on which Aleister Crowley was genuinely admitted to the grade of Master of the Temple, which he later described in “One Star in Sight” in these terms: “The essential Attainment is the perfect annihilation of that personality which limits and oppresses his true self.”The ritual is not a cardinal sacrament of the Church, and thus no clergy status is required in order to preside at it. Its officers are designated as the MINISTER, SEER and SCRIBE—representing the Angel of the Aethyr, Aleister Crowley, and Victor Neuburg, respectively. The officers should wear simple white robes. The MINISTER adds a black cincture, and he has a foil star on his forehead, and the Sigil of N.O.X. inscribed on his right hand. The SEER adds a red cincture, and wears a cross around his neck. (The ideal cross would be a Calvary cross of six squares, made of wood, painted vermillion, with a large topaz set in its center.) The SCRIBE’s cincture is green.
This ceremony is held in a space that differs from the basic design of a Gnostic Mass temple as follows: The High Altar should be draped in black, and the superaltar should have fourteen lights (three on either side of the Stele, and three on either side of the Book, which starts within shrine, plus the two great candles). There must be a simple altar, centrally placed (a double-cube is ideal). On the central altar is a burning censer, a lit candle, and a bell. There is neither font nor tomb. There are two thrones in the west, if possible upon a low dais.
The shrine should be closed at first.
I. OPENING
The SEER and SCRIBE are seated in the thrones, SEER to the south, SCRIBE to the north.MINISTER: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. I proclaim the Law of Light, Life, Love, and Liberty, in the name of GEBABAL and of ALPVDUS and of ARFAOLG.The MINISTER admits the congregation to the temple and stands in the East.
PEOPLE: Love is the law, love under will.
The MINISTER goes to the west of the altar, faces East, and gives the step and sign of a Man and a Brother. All imitate him.ALL: I believe in one secret and ineffable LORD; and in one Star in the Company of Stars of whose fire we are created, and to which we shall return; and in one Father of Life, Mystery of Mystery, in His name CHAOS the sole viceregent of the Sun upon the Earth; and in one Air the nourisher of all that breathes.
The People sit.MINISTER: We are met to commemorate the Feast for the Annihilation of the Prophet, by which a New Star was born in the firmament of the Eternal and Invisible Order.
SCRIBE: The Prophet left London for Paris on November 10th of 1909, attended only by a single Chela. He arrived at Algiers on the 17th, and on the next day took the tram to Arba, from which point they started to walk to Bou-Saada. At Aumale he took up again the work of obtaining the Cries of the 30 Aethyrs, to which he had not paid attention since August 1900.
In the 19th Aethyr, the Angel of Initiation appears, and in the 18th, Shivardarshana, in its new and higher form—“Shiva” being replaced by “Horus”—takes place. In the 17th the Initiation continues. The Angel took him into the Pylon of the threshold in the 19th. In the 17th he is balanced. In the 16th is the first dim dawn of the Great Ones of Liber Legis as Lords of the Initiation, and something of the nature of the ceremony is foreshadowed. In the 15th the Adept is examined, and permission is given to pass him fully to the grade of Magister Templi, but admission to any further grade is refused.
In the 14th Aethyr we get the initiation itself. The Prophet and his Chela (indicates with gestures the SEER and self), who was acting as his scribe, were upon Da’leh Addin, a mountain in the desert a few miles from Bou-Saada.
II. THRESHOLD
The MINISTER sounds fourteen upon the bell: 1-22-88888888-22-1.SEER: O YE Heavens which dwell in the fourteenth Aire, ye are mighty in the parts of the Earth, and execute the Judgment of the Highest! Unto you it is said: Behold the Face of your God, the beginning of Comfort, whose eyes are the brightness of the Heavens, which provided you for the Government of the Earth, and her unspeakable variety, furnishing you with a power of understanding to dispose all things according to the Providence of Him that sitteth on the Holy Throne, and rose up in the Beginning, saying: The Earth, let her be governed by her parts, and let there be Division in her, that the glory of her may be always drunken, and vexed in itself.SEER stands.
SCRIBE: He hath eaten the black bean.
MINISTER: Not otherwise could he plant the Rose.
SCRIBE: He hath drunk the waters of death.
MINISTER: Not otherwise could he water the Rose.
SCRIBE: He hath burnt himself at the Fires of life.
MINISTER: Not otherwise could he sun the Rose.
SCRIBE: The winds have gathered themselves together, and borne him up, as he were a little heap of dust in a sheet that hath four corners.
MINISTER: Not otherwise could he pluck the Rose.
SCRIBE: (Stands) I will aid him in his work.
MINISTER: (Makes sign of Apophis and Typhon) Thou must invoke me only in the darkness. Therein will I appear, and reveal unto you a mystery both great and terrible.
MINISTER retreats into the closed shrine.SEER and SCRIBE advance to the central altar and face each other across it, the SEER in the east and SCRIBE in the west.
III. INVOCATION OF PAN
SEER strikes the bell: 1-333-666666-333-1, and makes the sign puella.SEER: I Am She that should come, the Virgin of all men.
SCRIBE makes the sign puer.SEER: (Turns to face east.) I am a boy before thee, O Thou satyr God.
SCRIBE: (Continuing or repeating the sign puer.) Whom I love I chastise with many rods.
SEER: (Making the sign mulier.) O Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan Pan! Pan,
I am a man:
Do as thou wilt, as a great god can,
O Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! I am awake
In the grip of the snake.
The eagle slashes with beak and claw;
The gods withdraw:
The great beasts come, Io Pan! I am borne
To death on the horn
Of the Unicorn.
I am Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan!
I am thy mate, I am thy man,
Goat of thy flock, I am gold, I am god,
Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod.
With hoofs of steel I race on the rocks
Through solstice stubborn to equinox.
And I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend
Everlasting, world without end,
Mannikin, maiden, Maenad, man,
In the might of Pan.
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan! Io Pan!
SCRIBE: (Making the sign vir.) It is accomplished.
SCRIBE puts incense into censer, extinguishes candle, and strikes the bell: 22-333-4444-333-22.
IV. THE VISION
SEER and SCRIBE advance to the east together.SEER: O ye Heavens, arise! The lower heavens beneath you, let them serve you! Govern those that govern! Cast down such as fall. Bring forth with those that increase, and destroy the rotten. No place let it remain in one number. Add and diminish until the stars be numbered. Arise! Move! and appear before the Covenant of His mouth, which He hath sworn unto us in His Justice. Open the Mysteries of your Creation, and make us partakers of THE UNDEFILED KNOWLEDGE!
SEER and SCRIBE open the shrine, one on each side of the veil, to reveal MINISTER in the sign of Apophis and Typhon.MINISTER: O thou that art master of the fifty gates of Understanding, is not my mother a black woman? O thou that art master of the Pentagram, is not the egg of spirit a black egg? Here abideth terror, and the blind ache of the Soul, and lo! even I, who am the sole light, a spark shut up, stand in the sign of Apophis and Typhon.
I am the snake that devoureth the spirit of man with the lust of light. I am the sightless storm in the night that wrappeth the world about with desolation. Chaos is my name, and thick darkness. Know thou that the darkness of the earth is ruddy, and the darkness of the air is grey, but the darkness of the soul is utter blackness.
O thou, who hast cast down the light into the earth, so must thou do for ever. And the light of the sun shall not shine upon thee, and the moon shall not lend thee of her lustre, and the stars shall be hidden, because thou art passed beyond these things, beyond the need of these things, beyond the desire of these things.
MINISTER conducts SEER into the shrine, assists SEER to mount the altar, and veils him with a great black veil.MINISTER: Behold where thine Angel hath led thee! Thou didst ask fame, power and pleasure, health and wealth and love, and strength, and length of days. Thou didst hold life with eight tentacles, like an octopus. Thou didst seek the four powers and the seven delights and the twelve emancipations and the two and twenty Privileges and the nine and forty Manifestations, and lo! thou art become as one of These. Bowed are their backs, whereon resteth the universe. Veiled are their faces, that have beheld the glory Ineffable. Herein no forms appear, and the vision of God face to face, that is transmuted in the Athanor called dissolution, or hammered into one forge of meditation, is in this place but a blasphemy and a mockery.
And the Beatific Vision is no more, and the glory of the Most High is no more. There is no more knowledge. There is no more bliss. There is no more power. There is no more beauty. For this is the Palace of Understanding: for thou art one with the Primeval things.
MINISTER and SCRIBE close SEER into the shrine, and return to thrones in the west.
V. NIKE BABALON
All rise.ALL: Victory to the Mother.
The MINISTER advances to the central altar. General lights may be raised.
VI. CLOSING
MINISTER: And the bright light of comfort, and the piercing sword of truth, and all the power and beauty that the Masters have made of themselves, is cast from them, as it is written, “I saw Satan like lightning fall from Heaven.” And as a flaming sword is it dropt through the abyss, where the four beasts keep watch and ward. And it appeareth in the heaven of Jupiter as a morning star, or as an evening star. And the light thereof shineth even unto the earth, and bringeth hope and help to them that dwell in the darkness of thought, and drink of the poison of life. Fifty are the gates of understanding, and one hundred and six are the seasons thereof. And the name of every season is Death.
SCRIBE: There shall be a sigil as of a vast black brooding ocean of death and the central blaze of darkness, radiating its night upon all.
MINISTER and SCRIBE: CONSUMMATUM EST.
MINISTER strikes the bell: 22-333-4444-333-22.SCRIBE: Go forth forth with mirth and thanksgiving.
MINISTER: There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
SOURCES