THE VISION AND THE VOICE by Crowley :: ASCII version February 20, 1989 e.v. key entry by Rusty Sporer and Bill Heidrick February 24, 1990 e.v. converted into ASCII by Bill Heidrick Has been proof read but needs further proof reading Disk 1/2 Copyright (c) O.T.O. O.T.O. P.O.Box 430 Fairfax, CA 94930 USA (415) 454-5176 ---- messages only. LIMITED LICENSE Except for notations added to the history of modification, the text on this diskette down to the next row of asterisks must accompany all copies made of this file. In particular, this paragraph and the copyright notice are not to be deleted or changed on any copies or print-outs of this file. With these provisos, anyone may copy this file for personal use or research. Copies may be made for others at reasonable cost of copying and mailing only, no additional charges may be added. ************************************************************************* Note: In various footnotes to the text, Crowley makes correspondences to Enochian letters and Astrological symbols. An ambiguity exists in regard to the letter "T". The Germer/Thelema Publishing Edition of 1952 e.v. makes extensive use of symbols for Astrological concepts, and it is not possible to clearly differentiate the signs for Leo and Caput Draconis in all instances, since the handwritten symbols for these two correspondences are usually indistinguishable in the Germer edition. Enochian corresponds directly to English letters, while the astrological correspondences come from correspondences to Hebrew letters. There are two letters in Hebrew which are loosely rendered "T" in English/Enochian; Tet = Leo and Taw = Caput Draconis/Saturn. Crowley uses both Leo and Caput Draconis for the Enochian "T" in his notes. Where Leo or Caput Draconis is made clear by the context of the note, the rendering has been duplicated here. Where this is ambiguous, T is assumed to be matched to Leo in this text. F.I.Regardie, in his edition, usually renders the Enochian "T" as Caput Draconis, a practice reversed in this present version. A concise edition should therefore be made only after careful examination of the notations for every instance of the use of the Enochian "T", with citation of uncertainty in regard to Leo or Caput Draconis where Crowley's intention is unclear. ---- WEH = Bill Heidrick (William E. Heidrick, TG OTO) ************************************************************************ LIBER XXX AERUM Vel Saecvli Svb Figvra CCCCXVIII Being of the Angels of the 30 Aethyrs THE VISION AND THE VOICE With COMMENTARY by THE MASTER THERION THELEMA PUBLISHING COMPANY October 12 1952 A.'. A.'. Publication in Class A B Imprimatur: D.D.S. 7Degree = 4Square Praemonstrator O.S.V. 6Degree = 5Square Imperatior N.S.F. 5Degree = 6Square Cancellarius I N T R O D U C T I O N "The Vision and the Voice" of the Angels of the thirty Aethyrs, reprinted from the "Equinox," Volume 1, Supplement to No. 5, but here represented for the first time with an elaborate commentary by the MASTER THERION, is unique in that it attempts to describe in a perfectly sane and scientific manner spiritual experiences, and the investigations of the more subtle planes. The first attempts to obtain these visions were made in 1900, in Mexico, where FRATER PERDURABO had journeyed in his efforts to obtain a perfect understanding of the mystic traditions and methods of attainment of every race and clime. The first two Aires were investigated on November 14 and 17, 1900. "The Vision and the Voice" was mysterious and terrific in character. But what he saw was not altogether beyond his previous experiences; what he heard was as unintelligible to him as William Blake to a 7th Day Adventist. He was encouraged by the evident importance of these results, but found that he was absolutely unable to proceed with the 28th Aethyr. It became evident, some 9 years later, that what stopped his further exploration of the Aethyrs in 1900 was simply that his Grade did not entitle him to go further than the 29th. In fact only a Master of the Temple, 8Degree = 3Square, can penetrate beyond a certain point, and further, as sections of the Comment point out, even a Master of the Temple cannot pierce through the veils surrounding the outer of these Aires. The Seer had not thought of continuing this work for nearly 9 years. It is not at all clear how the idea came to him in 1909, during a walk through the Desert with Frater O.V., (Victor Neuburg) a Probationer of the A.'. A.'., but at Aumale a Hand suddenly smote its lightning into his heart, and he knew that now, that very day, he must take up "The Vision and the Voice" from the point where he had laid it down in 1900. Parallel to this, it is also possible that he had in his ruck sack one of his earliest Magical Note Books, where he had copied with infinite patience the 19 Calls or Keys obtained by Sir Edward Kelly from certain Angels and written down by Queen Elizabeth's astrologer, Dr. John Dee. The facts that stamp these Keys or Calls are these. Over 100 squares filled with letters were obtained by these two Magicians, in a manner which no one yet has quite understood. Dee would have one or more of these tables (as a rule 49 by 49) --- some full, others lettered only on alternate squares --- before him on a writing table. Kelly would sit at what they called the Holy Table, and gaze into a "Shewstone" in which he would see an Angel, who would point with a wand to letters on one of these charts in succession. Kelly would report, for example, "He points to column 6, rank 31", and so on, apparently not mentioning the letter, which Dee found and wrote down from the "Table" before him. When the Angel had finished, the message was rewritten backwards. It had been dictated backwards - page 1 - as being too dangerous to communicate forwards --- each word being in its nature so powerful that its direct communication would have evoked forces which were not wanted at that time. These Keys being re-written backwards, there then appeared conjurations in a language which they called "Enochian", or "Angelic". It is not a jargon; it has a grammar and a syntax of its own. It is far more sonorous, stately and impressive than even Greek or Sanskrit and the English translations, though in places difficult to understand, contain passages of a sustained sublimity that Shakespeare, Milton and the Bible do not surpass. "Can the Wings of the Wind understand your voices of Wonder? O Ye! The Second of the First! whom the burning flames have framed in the depths of my Jaws! Whom I have prepared as cups for a wedding, or as flowers in their beauty for the chamber of Righteousness! Stronger are your feet than the barren stone! and mightier are your voices than the manifold winds! For you are become a building such as is not, save in the mind of the All-Powerful." (Second Key) There are nineteen of these Keys: the first two conjuring the element called Spirit; the next sixteen invoke the Four Elements; each sub-divided into four; the nineteenth, by changing two names, may be used to invoke any one of what are called the thirty "Aethyrs" or "Aires". The genuineness of these Keys, altogether apart from any critical observation, is guaranteed by the fact that anyone with the smallest capacity for Magick finds that they work. The Seer had used these Keys a great deal, --- always with excellent effect. It was in Mexico that the idea occurred to him to discover for himself what these Aethyrs really were, by invoking them in turn by means of the nineteenth key, and, by skrying in the Spirit Vision, judge their nature by what he saw and heard. It was then in Aumale, that he prepared to commence once more the investigations of these Aethyrs, and accordingly bought a number of notebooks. After dinner, on the 23rd of November, 1909, he invoked the 28th Aethyr by means of this 19th Key. When it was compared with those of the 29th and 30th Aethyrs, --- lo and behold, there were exhibited the same peculiarities of subject and style. This is true also of the 27th, and so on to the 24th; yet there is a continuous advance towards coherence both in each Aethyr itself, and as regards its neighbour. The subject shows solemnity and sublimity, as well as the tendency to fit in with those conceptions of the Cosmos, those mystic Laws of Nature, and those ideas of transcendental Truth which had already been foreshadowed in "The Book of the Law" (Vernal Equinox, 1904), and the more exalted of the trances which the Seer had experienced prior to this date. The Method of obtaining "The Vision and the Voice" was as follows. - page 2 - The Seer had with him a great golden topaz (set in a Calvary Cross of six squares, made of wood, and painted vermillion) which was engraved with a Greek Cross of five squares charged with the Rose of 49 petals. He held this, as a rule, in his hand. After choosing a spot where he was not likely to be disturbed he would take this stone and recite the Enochian Call, and after satisfying himself that the forces invoked were actually present, made the topaz play a part not unlike that of the looking glass in the case of Alice. (He had long learned not to trouble himself to travel to any particular place in his Body of Light. He realized that Space was not a thing in itself, but merely a convenient category [one of many such] by reference to which we can distinguish objects from each other.) He would then describe what he saw and repeat what he heard, and Frater O.V., the Scribe, would write down his words, and incidentally observe any phenomena which struck him as peculiar. (For instance, He would at times pass into a deep trance so that many minutes might pass between two successive sentences, as the text to the later Aethyrs shows.) They walked steadily through the Desert, invoking the Aethyrs, one by one, at convenient times and places, or when the Spirit moved them. As a rule, one Aethyr was obtained every day. Bou-Saada was reached on November 30th; on December 8th they started again through the desert for Biskra which they reached on December 16th, completing the work on the 19th. By the time Bou-Saada was reached, and they had arrived at the 20th Aethyr, the Seer began to understand that these visions were, so to speak, cosmopolitan. They brought all systems of Magical doctrine into harmonious relation. The symbolism of Asiatic cults; the ideas of the Qabalah, both Jewish and Greek; the Arcana of the Gnostics; the Pagan Pantheon, from Mithras to Mars; the Mysteries of Ancient Khem; the Rites of Eleusis; the Scandinavian Sagas; Celtic and Druidical ritual; Mexican and Polynesian traditions; the Mysticism of Molinos no less than that of Islam, --- all these fell into their proper places without the slightest tendency to quarrel. The whole of the past Aeon, in short, appeared in detailed perspective, and each element therefore surrendered its sovereignty to Horus, the Crowned and Conquering Child, the Lord of the Aeon announced in "The Book of the Law" Love is the law, love under will. Frater E.'. N.'. L.'. - page 3 - The titles of the Thirty AEthyrs whose dominion extendeth in ever widening circles without and beyond the Watch Towers of the Universe (The first is Outermost) 1 LIL 16 LEA 2 ARN 17 TAN 3 ZOM 18 ZEN 4 PAZ 19 POP 5 LIT 20 KHR 6 MAZ 21 ASP 7 DEO 22 LIN 8 ZID 23 TOR 9 ZIP 24 NIA 10 ZAX 25 VTI 11 ICH 26 DES 12 LOE 27 ZAA 13 ZIM 28 BAG 14 UTA 29 RII 15 OXO 30 TEX THE CALL OR KEY OF THE THIRTY AETHYRS MADARIATZA das perifa LIL1 cahisa micaolazoda saanire caosago od fifisa balzodizodarasa Iaida. Nonusa gohulime: Micama adoianu MADA faoda beliorebe, soba ooaona cahisa luciftias peripesol, das aberaasasa nonusafe netaaibe caosaji od tilabe adapehaheta damepelozoda, tooata nonusafe jimicalazodoma larasada tofejilo marebe yareryo IDOIGO2; od torezodulape yaodafe gohola, Caosaga, tabaoreda saanir od caharisateosa yorepoila tiobela busadire, tilabe noalanu paida oresaba, od dodaremeni zodayolana. Elazodape tilaba paremeji peripesatza, od ta qurelesata booapisa. Ianibame oucaho sayomepe, od caharisateosa ajitoltorenu, mireca qo tiobela lela. Tonu paomebeda dizodalamo asa pianu, od caharisateosa aji-la-tore-torenu paracahe a sayomepe. Coredazodizoda dodapala od fifalazoda, lasa manada, od faregita bamesa omaoasa. Conisabera od auauotza tonuji oresa; catabela noasami tabejesa leuitahemonuji. Vanucahi omepetilabe oresa! Bagile? Moooabe OL coredazodizoda. El capimao itzomatzipe, od cacocasabe gosaa. Bajilenu pii tianuta a babalanuda, od faoregita teloca uo uime. Madariiatza, torezodu!!! Oadariatza orocaha aboaperi! Tabaori periazoda aretabasa! Adarepanu coresata dobitza! Yolacame periazodi arecoazodiore, od quasabe qotinuji! Ripire paaotzata sagacore! --------------------- 1. Or other Aire as may be willed. 2. This name may be appropriately varied with the Aire. - page 4 - Umela od peredazodare cacareji Aoiveae coremepeta! Torezodu! Zodacare od Zodameranu, asapeta sibesi butamona das surezodasa Tia balatanu. Odo cicale Qaa, od Ozodazodama pelapeli IADANAMADA! THE CALL OR KEY OF THE THIRTY AETHYRS O Ye Heavens which dwell in the first Aire1, ye are mighty in the parts of the Earth, and execute therein the Judgment of the Highest! Unto you it is said: Behold the Face of your God, the beginning of Comfort, whose eyes ate the brightness of the Heavens, which provided you for the Government of the Earth, and her unspeakable variety, furnishing you with the power of understanding to dispose of all things according to the Foresight of Him that Sitteth on the Holy Throne2, 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 ecstasy and imitation of orgasm. Her course, let it run with the Heavens; and as an handmaid let her serve them. One season, let it confound another, and let there be no creature upon or within her the same. All her members, let them differ in their qualities, and let there be no one Creature equal with another. The reasonable Creatures of the Earth, and Men, let them vex and weed out one another; and their dwelling-places, let them forget their Names. The work of man and his pomp, let them be defaced. His building, let it be a Cave for the Beast of the Field! Confound her understanding with darkness! For why? It repenteth me concerning the Virgin and the Man. One while let her be known, and another while a stranger: because she is the bed of an Harlot, and the dwelling-place of him that is fallen. 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 an 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. --------------------- 1. Or other Aire as may be willed. 2. This name may be appropriately varied with the Aire. - page 5 - - page 6 - A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF THE CONTENTS OF THE CALLS OF THE THIRTY AIRES OR AETHYRS Aethyr 30. "Exordium of the Equinox of the Gods." 29. "The Disruption of the Aeon of Osiris." 28. "The Vision of the Dawn of the Aeon of Horus (Atu XVII)" 27. "The Vision of the Initiation of Hecate (Atu XIV) The Redemption of the Woman of Witchcraft by Love." 26. "The Slave-Gods superseded (The Vision of Atu XX, the Stele) The Vision of the Stele of Revealing, abolishing the Aeon of the Slave-Gods." 25. "The Path of Teth (Atu XI. The Fire-Kerub in the Initiation). The Vision of the Fruit of the Great Work of the Beast - 666. The Lion." 24. "The Rose. (The Woman of Atu XIV. Minister of Babalon; The Water-Kerub in the Initiation.) The First Kiss Of the Lady of Initiation." 23. "The Kerubim of Earth and Air (Minor officers in the Initiation to 8Degree = 3Square.) The Vision of the Interplay And Identity of Earth and Air." 22. "The 49-fold Table (First appearance of the Crowned and Conquering Child to the Exempt Adept as in the Pastos) The Vision of the Rose, the Heart of BABALON and of The Birth of the Universe." 21. "Kether. (TheHierophant prepares the Candidate). The Vision of the Ineluctable Destiny." 20. "The Path of Kaph (Atu X). The Hiereus prepares the Candidate). The Vision of the Wheel of Fortune. The Three Energies of the Universe." 19. "The Path of Gimel (The Hegemone between the Pillars. Preliminary: The Vision of the Unguided Universe.)" 18. "Tiphereth. (The King's Chamber. The Vision of the holy Guardian Angel.) The Instruction concerning the Obtaining of the Vision and the Voice of the Thirty Aethyrs. The Preparation of the Candidate." - page 7 - Aethyr 17. "The Path of Lamed. (The combination Gimel, Lamed, Samech. The Vision of the Justice or Balance of the Universe." 16. "Keter. (Path of Pe.) The Overthrow of the Salve-Gods by The Beast 666." 15. "The Vision of the rose of 49 petals, and of the Holy 12-fold Table. Examination of the Candidate for M.T." 14. "The Vision of the City of the Pyramids. The Reception Of the Master of the Temple." 13. "The Garden of Nemo. The Work of the Magister Templi." 12. "The Path of Cheth. The Bearer of the Sangraal. The Black Brothers." 11. "Yesod. The Frontier of the Abyss." 10. "The Abyss. Choronzon, his Nature." 9. "Malkuth. (The Pure Virgin.) The reward of the Magister Templi." 8. "The Holy Guardian Angel. His instruction." 7. "The Path of Daleth. The Black Brothers." 6. "The Vision of the Urn. The Magus 9Degree = 2Square. The Three Schools of Magick." 5. "The Vision of the Middle Pillar. (Arrow). The Mystery Of Atheism." 4. "The Marriage of Yod and He. (The common Tibetan Symbol.) The Seer identifies himself with it." 3. "The Magus of the Tarot. (Atu 1). Mayan, the Maker of Illusion. The Seer in Illusion (Lilith)." 2. "The Marriage of the Seer with BABALON. (Atu VI)." 1. "The Vision of The Crowned and Conquering Child, the Lord Of the Aeon." - page 8 - THE VISION AND THE VOICE The Cry of the Thirtieth or Inmost Aire or Aethyr, Which is Called TEX1 I AM in a vast crystal cube in the form of the Great God Harpocrates. This cube is surrounded by a sphere2. About me are four archangels in black robes, their wings and armour lined out in white. In the North3 is a book on whose back and front are A.M.B.Z.4 in Enochian characters. (z b m a) Within it is written: I AM, the surrounding of the four. Lift up your heads, O Houses of Eternity: for my Father goeth forth to judge the World. One Light, let it become a thousand, and one sword ten thousand, that no man hide him from my Father's eye in the Day of Judgment of my God. Let the Gods hide themselves: let the Angels be troubled and flee away: for the Eye of My Father is open, and the Book of the Aeons is fallen. Arise! Arise! Arise! Let the Light of the Sight of Time be extinguished: let the Darkness cover all things: for my Father goeth forth to seek a spouse to replace her who is fallen and defiled. Seal the book with the seals of the Stars Concealed: for the Rivers have rushed together and the Name Yod Heh Vau Heh is broken in a thousand pieces (against the Cubic Stone). Tremble ye, O Pillars of the Universe5, for Eternity is in travail of a Terrible Child; she shall bring forth an universe of Darkness, whence shall leap forth a spark that shall put his father to flight. The Obelisks are broken; the stars have rushed together: the Light hath plunged into the Abyss: the Heavens are mixed with Hell. My Father shall not hear their Noise: His ears are closed: His eyes are covered with the clouds of Night. -------------------- 1. LeoVirgoEarth 2. cf. AL, II, 7 3. North: Destruction = the Old Formula is abrogated. 4. TaurusAquariusAriesLeo. The Forthsaying of the New Aeon. 5. cf. AL, III, 71. Also LIL. - page 9 - The End! the End! the End: For the Eye of Shiva He hath opened: the Universe is naked before Him: for the Aeon of Saturn leaneth toward the Bosom of Death1. [Figure: This is an isosceles triangle with height about 7 times the base. It extends with base on a true vertical from the left. A line extends vertically upward from the apex, equal to the length of the base. A trefoliate of three isosceles triangles of base slightly smaller than the first triangle and sides equal to the first triangle is created at the upper tip of the line. The tree component triangles of the terfolate meet the upper tip of the line with their apices --- one vertically and two to right and left.]2 The Angel of the East3 hath a book of red written in letters of Blue A.B.F.M.A.4 in Enochian (a m f b a). The Book grows before my eyes and filleth the Whole Heaven. Within: "It is Written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord Thy God." I see above the Book a multitude of white-robed Ones from whom droppeth a great rain of Blood5; but above them is a Golden Sun, having an eye, whence a great Light6. I turned me to the South7: and read therein: Seal up the Book! Speak not that which thou seest and reveal it unto none: for the ear is not framed that shall hear it: nor the tongue that can speak it! O Lord God, blessed, blessed, blessed be Thou for ever! Thy Shadow is as great Light. Thy Name is as the Breath of Love across all Worlds. [Figure: This is a swastika or fyfot cross. It is widdershins, with each bend going to the right when viewed down one arm from the center. All elements are either vertical or horizontal, none diagonal.]8 -------------------- 1. Saturn = 400 Death = 50 400 + 50 = 450 Nu Upsilon etc. 2. Represents the formula of Drawing all to a point: whence blooms erect a Triple Triad. 3. East. Adepts: cleansed of their Blood, and brought to Light. = There is a way to light through giving up one's Blood. (See 12th Aethyr) 4. TaurusAriesCauda DraconisAquariusTaurus = Opening of New Aeon. 5. Symbolism of the Cup of Babalon. 6. This refers to Kether --- Horus. 7. South. Silence. Marriage in Binah. = This leads to the Rapture of the Ineffable Union. Closing of Old Aeon. 8. The Swastika has 17 squares out of 25, The Pentagram, or Human square. It is also HB:Aleph = Harpocrates, Bacchus Diphues, Parzival, etc., the Pure Fool, the Wanderer, who weds the King's Daughter. - page 10 - (A vast Svastika is shewn unto me behind the Angel with the Book.) Rend your garments, O ye clouds! Uncover yourselves! for the Love of My Son! Who are they that trouble thee? Who are they that slew thee? O Light! Come thou, who art joined with me to bruise the Dragon's head1. We, who are wedded, and the Earth perceiveth it not! O that Our Bed were seen of Men, that they might rejoice in My Fertility: that My Sister might partake of My Great Light. O Light of God, when wilt thou find the heart of man --- write not! I would not that men know the Sorrow of my Heart, Amen! I turned me to the West2, and the Archangel bore a flaming Book, on which was written AN3 in Enochian (na). Within was drawn a fiery scorpion, yet cold withal4. Until the Book of the East be opened! Until the hour sound! Until the Voice vibrate! Until it pierce my Depth; Look not on High! Look not Beneath! For thou wilt find a life which is as Death: or a Death which should be infinite. For Thou art submitted to the Four: Five thou shalt find, but Seven is lone and far5. -------------------- 1. Means the Stooping Dragon (see 4Degree = 7Square ritual): but also the phrase = break the Maidenhead of Draco (Nuit). 2. West. Fate (Refusing Initiation.) = The alternative is despair --- of loneliness. 3. TaurusScorpio AN (Hebrew) means Pain: NA = Failure. These = 51 = 3x17. Note the Three Vibrations as spoiling the ideas of 17 (IAC). The Doom of the Old Aeon. 4. Scorpio = HB:Nun = Fish = Jesus. 5. Tetragrammaton --- the blind forces of the Elements --- bind the Uninitiate. He may attain to the Pentagram --- Jeheshua ---the Man master of those Elements. But he cannot reach Seven --- Babalon. (See Sigil of A.'. A.'. 77 + 7 + 7 + 77 = 156 Babalon) 7 For she is "lone and far", i.e., beyond the Abyss. - page 11 - O Lord God, let Thy Spirit hither unto me! For I am lost in the night of infinite pain: no hope: no God: no resurrection: no end: I fall: I fear. O Saviour of the World, bruise Thou my Head with Thy foot to save the world, that once again I touch Him whom I slew, that in my death I feel the radiance and the heat of the moving of Thy Robes! Let us alone! What have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? Go! Go! If I keep silence --- Or if I speak each word is anguish without hope. And I heard the Aethyr cry aloud "Return! Return! Return! For the work is ended; and the Book is shut; and let the glory be to God the Blessed for ever in the Aeons, Amen." Thus far is the voice of TEX and no more. The Cry of the Twenty and Ninth Aire or Aethyr, Which is Called RII1 The sky appears covered with stars of gold; the background is of green. But the impression is also of darkness. An immense eagle-angel is before me. His wings seem to hide all the Heaven2. He cried aloud saying: The Voice of the Lord upon the Waters: the Terror of God upon Mankind. The voice of the Lord maketh the Skies to tremble: the Stars are troubled: the Aires fall. The First Voice Speaketh and saith: Cursed, cursed be the Earth, for her iniquity is great. Oh Lord! Let Thy Mercy be lost in the great Deep! Open thine eyes of Flame and Light, O God, upon the wicked! Lighten thine Eyes! The Clamour of Thy Voice, let it smite down the Mountains! Let us not see it! Cover we our eyes, lest we see the End of Man. -------------------- 1. PiscesSagittariusSagittarius = HB:Qof HB:Samekh HB:Samekh = 220. 220 is the number of verses of "The Book of the Law": And this book brings about the disruption described in this Aethyr. 2. In the East. He thus represents the immediate future: and this is dark, Bewildering, and terrifying. - page 12 - Close we our ears, lest we hear the cry of Woman. Let none speak of it: let none write it: I, I am troubled, my eyes are moist with dews of terror: surely the Bitterness of Death is past. And I turned me to the South and lo! a great lion1 as wounded and perplexed. He cried: I have conquered! Let the Sons of Earth keep silence; for my Name is become as That of Death! When will men learn the Mysteries of Creation? How much more those of the Dissolution (and the Pang of Fire)? I turned me to the West and there was a great Bull2; White with horns of White and Black and Gold. His mouth was scarlet and his eyes as Sapphire stones. With a great sword he shore the skies asunder, and amid the silver flashes of the steel grew lightnings and deep clouds of Indigo. He spake: It is finished! My mother hath unveiled herself! My sister hath violated herself! The life of things hath disclosed its Mystery. The work of the Moon is done! Motion is ended for ever! Clipped are the eagle's wings: but my Shoulders have not lost their strength. I heard a Great Voice from above crying: Thou liest! For the Volatile hath indeed fixed itself; but it hath arisen above thy sight. The World is desert: but the Abodes of the House of my Father are peopled; and His Throne is crusted over with white Brilliant Stars, a lustre of bright gems. In the North is a Man upon a Great Horse, having a Scourge and Balances3 in his hand (or a long spear glitters at his back or in his hand). He is clothed in black velvet and his face is stern and terrible. -------------------- 1. Leo. This is the Beast 666 as yet unprepared for his Work. But already (1900 e.v.) He was dreaded by his fellow Magicians. South: proper place of Sun in his strength. 2. The Bull is Osiris or Jesus: he complains of the terrible things that are Happening, especially the Freedom (which he thinks shamelessness) or Woman. He does not understand the New Aeon, or that he is about to be destroyed. He is in the West, i.e. going into Oblivion. Cr. West in the 30th Aethyr. 3. The severest aspect of Justice. Libra. - page 13 - He spake saying: I have judged! It is the end: the gate of the beginning. Look in the Beneath and thou shalt see a new world! I looked and saw a great abyss and a dark funnel of whirling waters or fixed airs, wherein were cities and monsters and trees and atoms and mountains and little flames (being souls) and all the material of an universe. And all are sucked down one by one, as necessity hath ordained. For below is a glittering jewelled globe of gold and azure, set in a World of Stars1. And there came a Voice from the Abyss, saying: "Thou seest the Current of Destiny! Canst thou change one atom in its path? I am Destiny. Dost thou think to control me? for who can move my course?" And there falleth a thunderbolt therein: a catastrophe of explosion: and all is shattered. And I saw above me a Vast Arm reach down, dark and terrible, and a voice cried: I AM ETERNITY. And a great mingled cry arose: "No! no! no! All is changed; all is confounded; naught is ordered: the white is stained with blood: the black is kissed of the Christ! Return! Return! It is a new chaos that thou findest here: chaos for thee: for us it is the skeleton of a New Truth!" I said: Tell me this truth: for I have conjured ye by the Mighty Names of God, the which ye cannot but obey. The voice said: Light is consumed as a child in the Womb of its Mother to develop itself anew. But pain and sorrow infinite, and darkness are invoked. For this child riseth up within his Mother and doth crucify himself within her bosom. He extendeth his arms in the arms of his Mother and the Light becometh fivefold2. Lux in Luce, Christus in Cruce; -------------------- 1. Nuit. 2. The LVX Cross hidden in the Svastika is probably the Arcanum here connoted. This Cross on Mars square adds to 65 Adonai, Shone, Gloried, ha-Yekal HS = keep silence. Svastika itself adds to 231 = 0 + 1 + 2 + ... + 21, the 21 Keys. The cubical Svastika regarded as composed of this LVX Cross and the arms has a total of 78 Faces --- Tarot and Mezla. - page 14- Deo Duce Sempiterno1. And be the glory for ever and ever unto the Most High God, Amen! Then I returned within my body, giving glory unto the Lord of Light and of the Darkness. In Saecula Saeculorum. Amen! (On composing myself to sleep, I was shewn an extremely brilliant HB:Dalet 2 in the Character of the Passing of the River, in an egg of white light. And I take this as the best of Omens. The letter was extremely vivid and indeed apparently physical. Almost a Dhyana.) November 17, 1900, Die. A NOTE3 Concerning the thirty Aethyrs: The Visions of the 29th and 30th Aethyrs were given to me in Mexico in August4, 1900, and I am now (23.11.9) trying to get the rest. It is to be remarked that the last three aethyrs have ten angels attributed to them5, and they therefore represent the ten Sephiroth. Yet these ten form but one, a Malkuth-pendant to the next three, and so on, each set being, as it were, absorbed in the higher. The last set consists, therefore, of the first three aethyrs with the remaining twenty-seven as their Malkuth. And the letters of the first three aethyrs are the key-sigils of the most exalted interpretation of the Sephiroth. I is therefore Kether; L, Chokmah and Binah; -------------------- 1. This is but the beginning of a sort of hymn. It was never written down, the Seer being unable to hear it properly. These four lines are in fact probably incorrect, certainly incomplete. There were four more lines which he failed to hear --- from fear of getting hem wrong. 2. Daleth = the Gateway. 3. This note, written before invoking the 28th Aire, represents a crude and imperfect view. It is retained so as to show how very inadequate was the Understanding of the Seer; therefore the immense superiority of the communicating Intelligences and Their separate individual Consciousness. 4. Query: November ? See above. 5. See "Equinox" I, VII, pp. 242-3. - page 15 - A, Chesed; N, Geburah; R, Tiphereth; Z, Netzach; N, Hod; O, Jesod. The geomantic correspondences of the Enochian alphabet form a sublime commentary. Note that the total angels of the aethyrs are 91, the numeration of Amen. The Cry of the 28th Aethyr, Which is Called BAG1 There cometh an Angel into the stone with opalescent2 shining garments like a wheel3 of fire on every side of him, and in his hand is a long flail of scarlet lightning4; his face is black5, and his eyes white without any pupil or iris6. The face is very terrible indeed to look upon. Now in front of him is a wheel7, with many spokes, and many tyres; it is like a fence8 in front of him. And he cries: O man, who art thou that wouldst penetrate the Mystery9? for it is hidden unto the End of Time10. And I answer him: Time11 is not, save in the darkness of Her womb by whom evil came. And now the wheel breaks away, and I see him as he is. His garment is black beneath the opal veils, but it is lined with white, and he has the shining belly of a fish, and enormous wings of black and white feathers, and innumerable little legs and claws like a -------------------- 1. AriesTaurusCancer = HB:Heh + HB:Vau + HB:Chet = 19. Chet-Vau-Heh = Eve = to manifest, to shew forth. 2. Opal = rainbow = Sagittarius 3. XIX = The Wheel of the Sun, symbolic of universally radiating energy; and 19 is the glyph of the circle. 4. 19 = Angel L.T.D. Of Sagittarius 5. 19 = Dalet-Yod-Heh was black. 6. References to Binah. 7. See above, note 3. 8. HB:Chet = Fence. 9. And 10. Binah = Eve. 19 is the Great Glyph of the Feminine. 11. HB:Taw Time = Saturn = Binah. - page 16 - centipede, and a long tail like a scorpion. The breasts are human, but they are all scored with blood; and he cries: O thou who hast broken down the veil, knowest thou not that who cometh where I am must be scarred by many sorrows1? And I answer him: Sorrow2 is not, save in the darkness of the womb of Her by whom came evil. I pierce the Mystery2 of his breast2, and therein is a jewel2. It is a sapphire as great as an ostrich egg2, and thereon is graven this sigil: [Figure: This is in the form of two "U" shapes, very elongated in the risers. The one to the right is lower than the first, and its left riser extends 2/3's of the way up inside the center of the one to the left. The left "U" turns back down to the far left, ending 1/5th the way down in a tiny circle. The right bends abruptly horizontally left across the other and also ends there in a tiny circle.] But there is also much writing on the stone, very minute characters carved. I cannot read them. He points with his flail to the sapphire, which is now outside him and bigger than himself3; and he cries: Hail! warden of the Gates of Eternity who knowest not4 thy right hand from thy left5; for in the aeon of my Father is a god with clasped hands wherein he holdeth the universe, crushing6 it into the dust that ye call stars. Hail unto thee who knowest not thy right eye5 from thy left; for in the aeon of my Father there is but one light. Hail unto thee who knowest not thy right nostril5 from thy left; for in the aeon of my Father there is neither life nor death. Hail unto thee who knowest not thy right ear5 from thy left; for in the aeon of my Father there is neither sound nor silence. Whoso hath power to break open this sapphire stone shall find therein four elephants having tusks of mother-of-pearl, and upon whose backs are castles, those castles which ye call the watch-towers -------------------- 1. i.e. must attain to 8Degree = 3Square 2. All are references to Binah. 3. Binah absorbs all. 4. Binah destroys knowledge. 5. Hands: Mercury: for Hand is Iod, Virgo. Also the two hands are the Twin Serpents. Eyes Sun & Moon The Positive and Negative. Executive currents of the Logos. Nostrils Mars & Venus The mouth attributed to Mercury in the usual system, cannot be used in this phrase; for the Ears Jupiter & Saturn Mouth is One, not Two, being the Logos itself. And the Lodgos is essentially an Unity, although manifested through Vibration. It is therefore not destroyed with the other objects of Knowledge, though its dual modes of expression, the hands, are no longer known apart. 6. See "Liber AL", III, v. 72. - page 17 - of the Universe1. Let me dwell in peace within the breast of the Angel that is warden of the aethyr. Let not the shame of my Mother be unveiled. Let not her be put to shame that lieth among the lilies that are beyond the stars. O man, that must ever be opening, when wilt thou learn to seal up the mysteries of the creation? to fold thyself over thyself as a rose in the embrace of night? But thou must play the wanton to the sun, and the wind must tear thy petals from thee, and the bee must rob thee of thy honey, and thou must fall into the dusk of things. Amen and Amen. Verily the light is hidden, therefore he who hideth himself is like unto the light; but thou openest thyself; thou art like unto the darkness that bindeth the belly of the great goddess2. OLAHO VIRUDEN MAHORELA ZODIREDA! ON PIREDA EXENTASER; ARBA PIRE GAH GAHA GAHAL GAHALANA VO ABRA NA GAHA VELUCORSAPAX3. And the voice of the aeon cried: Return, return, return! the time sickeneth, and the space gapeth, and the voice of him that is, was and shall be crowned rattles in the throat of the mighty dragon of eld4. Thou canst not pass by me, except thou have the mystery of the word of the abyss. Now the angel putteth back the sapphire stone into his breast; and I spake unto him and said, I will fight with thee and overcome thee, except thou expound unto me the word of the abyss. Now he makes as if to fight with me. (It is very horrible, all the tentacles moving and the flail flashing, and the fierce eyeless face, strained and swollen.) And with the Magic sword I pierce through his armour to his breast. He fell back, saying: Each of these my scars was thus made, for I am the warden of the aethyr. And he would have said more; but I cut him short, saying: expound the word of the Abyss. And he said5: Discipline is sorrowful and ploughing is laborious and age is weariness. Thou shalt be vexed by dispersion6. -------------------- 1. The Elements are hidden in Binah. 2. In the light of the cry ofLOE, this passage seems to mean precisely the opposite of its apparent meaning. The whole cry, from "Let me dwell ..." is an Invocation of Binah. It is a foreshadowing of the Mysteries of the Crossing of the Abyss. 3. The translation of this is in my private copy (white and gold binding). Possibly also in the Cefalu set which was copied from that (?) by Estai. (?). 4. Binah or Nuit = Draco, the Dragon. 5. See the 14th and 13th Aethyr. 6. See the 10th Aethyr. These statements are prophetic. - page 18 - But now, if the sun arise1, fold thou thine arms1; then shall God smite thee into a pillar of salt2. Look not so deeply into words and letters; for this Mystery hath been hidden by the Alchemists. Compose the sevenfold into a fourfold regimen3; and when thou hast understood thou mayest make symbols4; but by playing child's games with symbols thou shalt never understand5. Thou hast the signs; thou hast the words; but there are many things that are not in my power, who am but the warden of the 28th Aethyr. Now my name thou shalt obtain in this wise. Of the three angels of the Aethyr, thou shalt write the names from right to left and from left to right and from right to left, and these are the holy letters: The first 1, the fifth 2, the sixth 3, the eleventh 4, the seventh 5, the twelfth 6, the seventeenth 7. Thus hast thou my name6 who am above these three, but the angels of the 30th Aethyr are indeed four, and they have none above them; wherefore dispersion and disorder7. Now cometh from every side at once a voice, terribly great, crying: Close the veil; the great blasphemy hath been uttered; the face of my Mother8 is scarred by the nails of the devil. Shut the book, destroy the breaker of the seal! And I answered: Had he not been destroyed he had not come hither, for I am not save in the darkness in the womb of Her9 by whom came evil into the world. And this darkness swallows everything up10, and the angel is -------------------- 1. Tiphereth; and the sign of Osiris risen in 5Degree = 6Square. 2. Prophetic of the 8Degree = 3Square attainment; the pillar is phallic, and salt is Salt, of Binah, the Great Sea. Cf. "Lib. LXV", Cap. V, vv. 5, 23, 25. 3. The completed system which is made by the 7Degree = 4Square. 4. The 8Degree = 3Square may devise a new Qabalah. 5. One cannot become 8Degree = 3Square by intellectual manipulations. 6. This would appear to be: PXINBAL <---. FCCISNI --->: = LIXIPSP = CancerSagittariusEarthSagittariusLeoGeminiLeo = : Tet-Zain-Tet-Samekh-Taw-Samekh-Chet = 553 = RAPOLXD <---. Taw-Nun-Yod-Heh-Gemel-Dalet-Vau-Lamed = Draco Magnus, the Mighty Dragon. This is the symbol of Nuit or Binah. The whole symbolism of this Angel is therefore exactly confirmed through a Qabalistic equation of which the Seer had no idea at the time. N.B. He is above the dispersion and disorder just as Binah is above the Abyss of Choronzon. 7. The four elements unharmonized break up into Choronzon. 8. Further reference to Binah. 9. Binah. 10. Typical gesture of Binah. - page 19 - gone from the stone1; and there is no light therein, save only the light of the Rose and of the Cross2. Aumale, Algeria. November 23, 1909, between 8 and 9 p.m. The Cry of the 27th Aethyr, Which is Called ZAA3 There is an angel with rainbow wings, and his dress is green4 with silver, a green veil over silver5 armour. Flames of many-coloured fire dart from him in all directions. It is a woman of some thirty years old, and she has the moon for a crest, and the moon is blazoned on her heart, and her sandals are curved silver, like the moon. And she cries: Lonely am I and cold in the wilderness of the stars7. For I am the queen of all them that dwell in Heaven, and the queen of all them that are pure upon earth, and the queen of all the sorcerers of hell8. I am the daughter of Nuit, the lady of the stars. And I am the Bride of them that are vowed unto loneliness9. And I am the mother of the Dog Cerberus10. One person am I, and three gods11. And thou who hast blasphemed me shalt suffer knowing me. For I am cold as thou art cold, and burn with thy fire12. Oh, when shall the war of the Aires and the elements be accomplished13? -------------------- 1. The general attribution of this Aethyr is to Atu XVII. 2. Binah being gone, the seer descends to his normal place in Tiphereth. 3. ZAA = LeoTaurusTaurus = HB:Tet HB:Vau HB:Vau = 21. A mystery of Atu XVIII, "The Moon". Pisces in which Venus is exalted. 4. Possibly the traditional green of the huntress. 5. Colour of Moon. 6. The green of Venus is perhaps the natural veil of Luna, her external show. 7. For Moon is virgin, and the path of HB:Gemel crosses the wilderness of the Abyss. 8. Diana Trivia is thus described. She is the Virgin Goddess of Pure Love; and the Lady of Heaven. She is the Virgin Goddess of Pure Love; and she is Hecate, the waning Moon, presiding over Witchcraft. (See Macbeth, etc.) 9. Virgo = IX = The Hermit (opposite Pisces in the Zodiac). 10. The Jackals of Atu XVIII. 11. Moon = HB:Gemel = 3. Cerberus has three heads. 12. For the Moon is the Sensorium; she reflects man's spiritual state in terms of sensuous experiences. 13. i.e. the coefficients of the Circle and the Square be commensurable. "When" means "Through what mode of resolution?" --- "On what plane?" - page 20 - Radiant are these falchions of my brothers, invisibly about me, but the might of the aethyrs beneath my feet beareth me down. And they avail not to sever the Kamailow1. There is one in green armour, with green eyes, whose sword is of vegetable fire2. They shall avail me. My son is he3, --- and how shall I bear him that have not known man? All this time intolerable rays are shooting forth to beat me back or destroy me; but I am encased in an egg of blue-violet, and my form is the form of a man with the head of a golden hawk4. While I have been observing this, the goddess has kept up a continuous wail, like the baying of a thousand hounds5; and now her voice is deep and guttural and hoarse, and she breathes very rapidly words that I cannot hear. I can hear some of them now. UNTU LA LA ULULA UMUNA TOFA LAMA LE LI NA AHR IMA TAHARA ELULA ETFOMA UNUNA ARPETI ULU ULU ULU MARABAN ULULU MAHATA ULU ULU LAMASTANA6. And then her voice rises to a shriek, and there is a cauldron7 boiling in front of her; and the flames under the cauldron are like unto zinc flames8, and in the cauldron is the Rose, the Rose of 49 petals9, seething in it. Over the cauldron she has arched her rainbow wings; and her face is bent over the cauldron, and she is blowing opalescent silvery rings on to the Rose; and each ring as it touches the water bursts into flame, and the Rose takes new colours10. And now she lifts her head, and raises her hands to heaven, -------------------- 1. Kappa-alpha-mu-eta-lambda-omicron-sigma, a camel, i.e. HB:Gemel Jimmel. Kappa-alpha-mu-alpha-iota-lambda-omicron-sigma, a rope. And Jimmel is likened to a rope, a threefold (HB:Gemel = 3) cord linking Kether and Tiphereth. 2. The Angel of HB:Dalet = Venus who is green, and HB:Dalet "avails" HB:Gemel, crossing it on the Tree by joining Chokmah and Binah. That is, the Love of these Supernals balances the Isolation of the Virgin Moon. 3. Moon in 20Degree Pisces at nativity of 666. 4. i.e. I assume the god-form of Horus, Sol in the Womb of the Night-sky blue of Binah, who is the Mother of all Stars and thus is potent against Hecate. 5. The hounds that follow Hecate. The jackals of Atu XVIII. Quote A.C. "Ode to Hecate". 6. The Lunar language. "Ye hounds! Ho! Ho! Tally-ho! sent the poison of the path --- Here! There! Bark! Sweep around! There goes the quarry down the glade of mossy rock. The foremost has caught him. Tally ho! Tally ho! Tally ho! pull him down! Tally-ho boys! Wind the mort! Tally ho! Tally ho! The hunt is ended." ULU = "Hail" plus "come" = very nearly "Ahoy!" 7. The witches' cauldron. 8. Ultra violet of Pisces. 9. Venus in Pisces. 10. All this paragraph refers to Atu XIV Sagittarius, for she is now in her huntress form. Hence the Alchemical and rainbow symbolism. - page 21 - and cries: O Mother1, wilt thou never have compassion on the children of earth? Was it not enough that the Rose should be red with the blood of thine heart2, and that its petals should be by 7 and by 7? She is weeping, weeping3. And the tears grow and fill the whole stone with moons4. I can see nothing and hear nothing for the tears, though she keeps on praying. "Take of these pearls5, treasure them in thine heart. Is not the Kingdom of the Abyss accurst?" She points downward to the cauldron; and now in it there is the head of a most cruel dragon6, black and corrupted. I watch, and watch; and nothing happens. And now the dragon rises out of the cauldron, very long and slim (like Japanese Dragons, but infinitely more terrible), and he blots out the whole sphere of the stone7. Then suddenly all is gone, and there is nothing in the stone save brilliant white light and flecks like sparks of golden fire; and there is a ringing, as if bells were being used for anvils. And there is a perfume which I cannot describe; it is like nothing that one can describe, but the suggestion is like lignum aloes8. And now all these things are there at once in the same place and time9. Now a veil of olive and silver10 is drawn over the stone, only I hear the voice of the angel11 receding, very sweet and faint and sorrowful, saying: Far off and lonely in the secret stone is the unknown, and interpenetrated is the knowledge with the will and the understanding. I am alone. I am lost, because I am all and in all; and my veil is woven of the green earth and -------------------- 1. She appeals to Binah, the highest form of Luna. 2. This is the use to which BABALON puts the Blood of the Masters of the Temple (see 12th Aethyr) to vivify the rose of Universal Creation, i.e. The Attainment of the Master of the Temple fills the World with Life and Beauty. Hecate does not understand this, or else she regards it as hostile to her own Formula. 3. Water of Pisces. 4. She can produce nothing but images of herself. 5. Pearls, the M.T.'s secreted by Binah round the specks of dust which they have become. 6. A veil or mask of Khephra (in Atu XVIII). 7. All Hecate can see of the Great Work of 8Degree = 3Square is the Black Brotherhood; i.e., the failure of that Work. 8. Sagittarius (Atu XIV) again. The phenomena are the experiences of the attained Master of the Temple. 9. The attainment has destroyed the conditions of physical manifestation. 10. Olive --- Water in Malkuth (Queen Scale) also Water (Emperor Scale). Silver is Luna in Queen Scale. 11. Hecate now aspires to Binah, accepts the Formula of Love (kisses), surrenders her nature ("Fall back" etc.) and so finds the Word. - page 22 - the web of stars. I love; and I am denied, for I have denied myself. Give me those hands, put them against my heart. Is it not cold? Sink, sink, the abyss of time remains. It is not possible that one should come to ZAA. Give me thy face. Let me kiss it with my cold kisses. Ah! Ah! Ah! Fall back from me. The word, the word of the aeon is MAKHASHANAH1. And these words shalt thou say backwards: ARARNAY OBOLO MAHARNA TUTULU NOM LAHARA EN NEDIEZO LO SAD FONUSA SOBANA ARANA BINUF LA LA LA ARPAZNA UOHULU2. when thou wilt call my burden unto appearance, for I who am the Virgin goddess am the pregnant goddess, and I have cast down my burden even unto the borders of the universe3. They that blaspheme me are stoned, and my veil4 is fallen about me even unto the end of time5. Now there arises a great raging of thousands and thousands of mighty warriors flashing through the aethyr so thickly that nothing is to be seen but their swords, which are like blue-gray plumes. And the noise is confused, thousands of battle-cries harmonizing -------------------- 1. Mem-Aleph-Koph-Aleph-Shin-Aleph-Nun-Heh = 418. A word of 8 letters is necessary to perform the Great work on one whose Formula is 3: 8Degree = 3Square. The Seer "knew" that this Word was not the correct Word, which is Abrahadabra = 418. But on writing it down in Hebrew, as above, he saw that it was the correct word after all. Observe that this proves the Angel to have been an Intelligence not of the Seer's conscious mind. Had he given the Word which the Seer knew, it might have been derived from his subconscious Self. Furthermore, this Word contains more than the mere 418 because of its 8 letters suiting the special Formula required by this particular Angel, whereas the other Word is a general Formula, being of 11 letters, all Magick being referred to 11. so far as ABRAHADABRA is specialized, it refers to the Work of 5Degree = 6Square, there being 5 alephs and 6 other letters. In the Latin script also Makhashanah does have 11 letters. Again, the operation of the Cauldron (above) is described by the 5 consonants of this Word. HB:Mem = Water (Water) HB:Koph = Wheel (Rose) HB:Shin = Fire Fire HB:Nun = Scorpio HB:Heh = Binah 2. Translation: "Hither, O Holy one/ whose burden pulls at thy spine/ Ho! Ho! Ho! The two-headed God (Janus) ploughs thy back/ sows habitations upon thy back/ thou many-phallused queen/ of princely loves/ which are all sodomies/ so that the holy ones laugh and shake with laughter/ while the lords of mischief/ spend upon thee/ TUTULU (this word cannot be translated. See "Liber VII"). down bounces from thy back/ the merry mad foetus-faces/ an emission/ Gather ye sun-roses, sun-roses gather ye from the split backside of the Virgin (Earth). 3. The Word of the Master has gone forth into every part of the world. Therefore it is always possible to call Him forth to one's assistance by the proper use of the above Formula. 4. and 5. Symbols of Binah. - page 23 - to a roar, like the roar of a monstrous river in flood. And all the stone is dull, dull gray. The life is gone from it1. There is no more to see. Sidi Aissa, Algeria. November 24, 1909, 8-9 p.m. The Cry of the 26th Aethyr, Which is Called DES2 There is a very bright pentagram: and now the stone is gone, and the whole heaven is black, and the blackness is the blackness of a mighty angel3. And though he is black (his face and his wings and his robe and his armour are all black), yet is he so bright that I cannot look upon him. And he cries: O ye spears and vials of poison and sharp swords and whirling thunderbolts that are about the corners of the earth4, girded with wrath and justice, know ye that His name is Righteousness in Beauty5? Burnt out are your eyes, for that ye have seen me in my majesty. And broken are -------------------- 1. Many of these Visions end in some way unconnected with the substance of the Aethyr. One must not look for coherence in such places. They are merely episodes on the return journey, useful to break the shock. analogy: one might see a cab accident while returning to one's house from the theatre. This spectacle need have no connection with either the play or one's home life. 2. DES = SpiritVirgoGemini Degree HB:Zain HB:Yod HB:Dalet = 31 + 10 + 7 = 48 = Koph-Vau-Koph-Bet = Kokab, the sphere of Mercury. This Aethyr describes the supersession of the Aeon of Jehovah and Jesus. The Stele of Revealing, which led to "The Book of the Law", whose key number is 31. HB:Dalet = D = Spirit = 31. I = HB:Yod = Virgo = Nuit and the Point, Hadit. S = HB:Zain = Gemini = the twins, Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Hoor-Paar-Kraat combined in Heru-Ra-Ha, the Lord of the Aeon. Also Virgo & Gemini are the Houses of Mercury, the Logos. Thus the name of the Aethyr actually means: The Sacred Secret Keyletter of "The Book of the Law" of Thelema, appearing through the Operation of Mercury as well as giving a complete symbolical description of the Stele itself. The Arcanum is of Atu XX = HB:Shin = Spirit + Fire = "The Last Judgment" or "The Angel". The old form of XX shows the Resurrection Formula of the Old Aeon: the new form shews the Stele of Revealing = 718. 3. The Pentagram indicates that the subject of the Vision is to be the Destiny of Man. The blackness, which is bright, is Solar. The context shows that Binah is not here implied. 4. All symbols of division and destruction, also extending only to the Blind Four Elements.5. Righteousness = Jupiter --- Jehovah --- Beauty = Osiris --- Jesus. These are the qualities they claimed; Their failure is that they never even had the idea of the Supernals beyond the Abyss. - page 24 - the drum-heads of your ears1, because my name is as two mountains of fornication, the breasts of a strange woman2; and my Father is not in them. Lo! the pools of fire and torment mingled with sulphur! Many are their colours, and their colour is as molten gold, when all is said. Is not He one, one and alone, in whom the brightness of your countenance is as 1,728 petals of fire3. Also he spake the curse, folding his wings across and crying: Is not the son the enemy of his father? And hath not the daughter stolen the warmth of the bed of her mother4? therefore is the great curse irrevocable. Therefore there is neither wisdom nor understanding nor knowledge in this house, that hangeth upon the edge of hell5. Thou art not 4 but 2, O thou blasphemy spoken against 16. Therefore whoso worshippeth thee is accursed. He shall be brayed in a mortar and the powder thereof cast to the winds, that the birds of the air may eat thereof and die; and he shall be dissolved in strong acid and the elixir poured into the sea, that the fishes of the sea may breathe thereof and die. And he shall be mingled with dung and spread upon the earth, so that the herbs of the earth may feed thereof and die; and he shall be burnt utterly with fire, and the ashes thereof shall calcine the children of flame, that even in hell may be found an overflowing lamentation. And now on the breast of the Angel is a golden egg between the blackness of the wings, and that egg7 grows and grows all over the aethyr. And it breaks, and within there is a golden eagle. And he cries: Woe! woe! woe! Yea, woe unto the world! For there is no sin, and there is no salvation8. My plumes are like waves of gold upon the sea. My eyes are brighter than the sun. My tongue is swifter than the lightning. Yet am I hemmed in by the armies of night, singing, singing -------------------- 1. Hearing pertains to Spirit, as sight to fire. These gods have deprived man of his highest faculties. 2. See the 10th Key. 3. The Zodiac brought down to the material plane. 123 4. The Oedipus complex. Christianity. 5. The Cult of Jehovah cannot even reach to Daath. 6. i.e. Jehovah is not even the true Chesed, but the evil Dyad, (as opposed to the true Dyad of Chokmah, which interprets Keter in terms of Vibration, the Logos.) 7. The promise of breaking the tyranny of Jehovah, who was the evil 4 in the Aeon of the true 4, Isis, by the Solar (golden) Jesus. He appears as an eagle, the bird of Jupiter. so that despite the glittering hope, it was only the old Aeon all over again. 8. He knows this truth, which destroys the whole idea of his formula. Nobody will bother about him, it they are not sinners, and need no saviour. - page 25 - phrases unto Him that is smitten by the thunderbolt of the abyss. Is not the sky clear behind the sun? These clouds that burn thee up, these rays that scorch the brains of men with blindness; these are heralds before my face of the dissolution and the night. Ye are all blinded by my glory; and though ye treasure in your heart the sacred word that is the last lever of the key to the little door beyond the abyss, yet ye gloss and comment thereupon; for the light itself is but illusion. Truth itself is but illusion. Yea, these be the great illusions beyond life and space and time. Let thy lips blister with my words! Are they not meteors in thy brain? Back, back from the face of the accursed one, who am I; back into the night of my father, into the silence; for all that ye deem right is left, forward is backward, upward is downward1. I am the great god adored of the holy ones. Yet am I the accursed one, child of the elements and not their father2. O my mother! wilt thou not have pity upon me? Wilt thou not shield me? For I am naked, I am manifest, I am profane. O my father! wilt not thou withdraw me? I am extended, I am double, I am profane. Woe, woe unto me! These are they that hear not prayer. It is I that have heard all prayer alway, and there is none to answer me. Woe unto me! Woe unto me! Accursed am I unto the aeons! All this time this brilliant eagle-headed god has been attacked, seemingly, by invisible people3, for he is wounded now and again, here and there; little streams of fresh blood come out over the feathers of his breast. And the smoke of the blood is gradually filling the Aethyr with a crimson veil. There is a scroll over the top, saying: Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine4; and there is another scroll below it in a language of which I do not know the sounds. The meaning is, Not as they have understood5. -------------------- 1. Observe the loud words, the confusion of the thought, throughout this excited passage. 2. He knows that he is not an image of the Simple, Sublime, Self, but an ill-concocted mess of Blind Forces. 3. Jesus has been destroyed by myriads of minute facts; the observations of Nature which have broken down the theories on which his existence depended. His blood is spilt, and veils Truth; whereas the Blood of the Master of the Temple is gathered in the Cup of BABALON, and floods the world with Life and Beauty. (See 27th Aire, footnote 3, page 19). 4. The Christian, incapable of the formula of the Master of the Temple, abhors the shedding of blood. He fears to lose his vile life. 5. i.e. The meaning of the Latin is that given above, not the traditional ecclesiastical interpretation. Cf. also, AL 1, vv. 45048. -page 26 - The blood is thicker and darker now, and it is becoming clotted and black, so that everything is blotted out; because it coagulates, coagulates. And then at the top there steals a dawn of pure night-blue1, --- Oh, the stars, the stars in it deeply set! --- and drives the blood down; so that all round the top of the oval gradually dawns the figure of our Lady Nuit, and beneath her is the flaming winged disk, and below the altar of Ra-Hoor-Khuit, even as it is upon the Stele of Revealing2. But below is the supine figure of Seb, into whom is concentrated all that clotted blood3. And there comes a voice: It is the dawn of the aeon. The aeons of cursing are passed away. Force and fire, strength and sight, these are for the servants of the Star and the Snake. And now I seem to be lying in the desert, exhausted4. The Desert, near Sidi Aissa. November 25, 1909. 1:10 - 2 p.m. The Cry of he 25th Aethyr, Which is Called VTI5 There is nothing in the stone but the pale gold of the Rosy Cross. Now there comes an Angel with bright wings, that is the Angel of the 25th Aire. And all the aire is a dark olive about him, like an alexandrite6 stone. He bears a pitcher7 or amphora8. And -------------------- 1. Not only symbolic, but actually visible even to the physical eyes, when Nuit is manifested. Also when Ra-Hoor-Khuit is invoked, or Aiwass. 2. See the various special accounts of the Stele. The New Atu XX - 718. 3. Earth has absorbed all the ruin wrought by Jesus, to rebuild life through putrefaction, by her regular formula --- as opposed to the Higher Magick. 4. This vision, being so close to the physical plane, required no intermediate stations on the way back. The exhaustion was due to the same cause. Communion with high spiritual forces renews the vitality of the Seer. 5. VTI = CapricornLeoSagittarius = Caput Draconis, the head of the Lion- Serpent, the Beast 666. His father is Capricorn Set or Pan; his mother, the woman clothed with the Sun as in Atu XIV. See 27th Aethyr. He is the burden of the Moon, sanctified by 418. Atu XI (a partial form) with Atu XX (XI + XX = XXXI) gives the Key of the New Aeon. 6. The stone of Gemini, the twins, composing Heru-Ra-Ha, his Lord. Also the house of Mercury; that is, his form is Oracular. 7. The angel is an avatar of BABALON. 8. alpha-muphi-omicron-rho-eta = 719. This Angel is a veil for 156, the Woman who closes the mouth of the lion in the old Atu XI, and is the Scarlet Woman who rides upon him in the new form. - page 27 - now there comes another Angel upon a white horse1, and yet again another Angel upon a black bull2. And now there comes a lion3 and swallows the two latter angels up. The first angel goes to the lion and closes his mouth4. And behind them are arrayed a great company of Angels with silver spears, like a forest. And the Angel says: Blow, all ye trumpets, for I will loose my hands from the mouth of the lion, and his roaring shall enkindle the worlds5. Then the trumpets blow, and the wind rises and whistles terribly. It is a blue wind with silver specks; and it blows through the whole Aethyr. But through it one perceives the lion, which has become as a raging flame6. And he roareth in an unknown tongue. But this is the interpretation thereof: Let the stars be burnt up in the fire of my nostrils7! Let all the gods and the archangels and the angels and the spirits that are on the earth, and above the earth, and below the earth, that are in all the heavens and in all the hells, let them be as motes dancing in the beam of mine eye8! I am he that swalloweth up death9 and victory10. I have slain the crowned goat11, and drunk up the great sea12. Like the ash of dried leaves the worlds are blown before me. Thou hast passed by me, and thou hast not known me. Woe unto thee, that I have not devoured thee altogether! On my head is the crown, 419 rays13 far-darting. And my body is the body of the Snake14, and my soul is the soul of the Crowned Child15. Though an Angel in white robes leadeth me16, -------------------- 1. The sorrow of Death. 2. This represents Jehovah and Jesus. The Pain of Toil. (Sin is Restriction). 3. Symbol of the Beast, 666. 4. See Atu XI. Babalon and the Beast conjoined. 5. BABALON prepared 666 (in a certain very secret manner) to utter the word Theta-epsilon-lambda=eta-mu-alpha. 6. i.e. 666 is now inspired. 7. Nostrils = Mars and Venus. Energy and passion, also Breath of the Word. 8. Eye = Creative Light, i.e. of the Word. 9. Scorpio. 10. Netzach. 11. Capricornus. 12. Hod (the mercurial water): in all the Sephiroth below Tiphereth, out of balance, and the paths leading from them/ 13. Leo = Leo = HB:Tet = Tet-Yod-Taw = 419. t = Leo. HB:Tet = snake by meaning. Leo = Horus. 14. The magical image of the 1st Decan of Leo, rising at the birth of 666, is a lion-headed serpent. 15. Horus, the Lord of 666. 16. The Avatar of Binah, in the opening of this Aethyr. - page 28 - who shall ride upon me but the Woman of Abominations1? Who is the Beast2? Am not I one more than he3? In his hand is a sword that is a book4. In his hand is a spear that is a cup of fornication5. Upon his mouth is set the great and terrible seal6. And he hath the secret of V7. His ten horns spring from five points8, and his eight heads9 are as the charioteer of the West10. Thus doth the fire of the sun temper the spear of Mars11, and thus shall he be worshipped, as the warrior lord of the sun12. Yet in him is the woman that devoureth with her water all the fire of God13. Alas! my lord, thou art joined with him that knoweth not these things14. When shall the day come that men shall flock to this my gate, and fall into my furious throat, a whirlpool of fire? This is hell unquenchable, and all they shall be utterly consumed therein. Therefore is that asbestos unconsumable made pure15. Each of my teeth16 is a letter of the reverberating name. My tongue is a pillar of fire17, and from the glands of my mouth arise four pillars of water18. TAOTZEM19 is the name by which -------------------- 1. BABALON. See Atu XI. 2 and 3. 419-418=1. Or 667-666=1. 667 = eta kappa-omicron-kappa-kappa- iota-sigma-eta gamma-upsilon-nu-eta, the Scarlet Woman. (WEH note: This is the correct Greek 667 entry from "Liber MCCLXIV"). 4. "Liber AL", his weapon. 5. This allusion must remain secret. 6. This seal is that of BBABALON. The Seal of the A.'. A.'. See the "Book of Lies", Kappa-epsilon-phi. Mu-theta (Cap. 49). 7. His motto as a Master of the Temple is this V.V.V.V.V. (Vi Veri Vniversum Vivus Vici). 8. V.V.V.V.V. Has 10 horns that spring from 5 points. 9. See the "Book of Lies", Cap. Mu theta , 49. But there is One Eighth Head too Sacredly terrible to mention. 10. Refers to Atu VII. HB:Chet = The Chariot = 8. the Bearer of the Sangraal. 11. The Mystery 5Degree = 6Square and 6Degree = 5Square, Heru-Ra-Ha is the Martial aspect of Sol. 12. See AL, Cap. III, v. 74. 13. Again a secret allusion. (WEH note: Join O.T.O. and attain to the mystery). 14. The Seer was not yet a full initiate, and was hampered by A.C. 15. This paragraph prophesies the purging of the worldly Fire in the Aeon of Horus. "Hell" is the pure Inmost Self of Man, that suffereth not extinction, but consumeth all the experiences of Life, coming thereby to know its own Perfection. 16. 32 teeth; hence the Name is Aleph-Heh-Yod-Heh-Vau-Heh = 32. Macroprosophus interfused with Microprosophus. 17. The tongue is the instrument of the Logos and so a Phallic or creative organ. Chokmah the logos, is the Root of Fire, and the Masculine Energy. 18. These are the "Four Rivers of Eden". It is the fourfold understanding of the Logos. These reflect Him so perfectly that they reproduce His Form. 19. Taw-Ayin-Tzaddi-Mem = 600. A "great number" of Sol, normally 6. 600 = Kosmos. The blasphemy is in taking the material for the Spiritual Sun. - page 29 - I am blasphemed. My name thou shalt not know, lest thou pronounce it and pass by. And now the Angel comes forward again and closes his mouth. All this time heavy blows have been raining upon me from invisible angels, so that I am weighed down as with a burden greater than the world1. I am altogether crushed. Great millstones are hurled out of heaven upon me2. I am trying to crawl to the lion3, and the ground is covered with sharp knives. I cut myself at every inch4. And the voice comes: Why art thou there who art here5? Hast thou not the sign of the number6, and the seal of the name7, and the ring of the eye8? Thou wilt not9. And I answered and said: I am a creature of earth, and ye would have me swim. And the voice said: Thy fear is known; thine ignorance is known; thy weakness is known; but thou art nothing in this matter. Shall the grain which is cast into the earth by the hand of the sower debate within itself, saying, am I oats or barley? Bondslave of the curse, we give nothing, we take all. Be thou content. That which thou art, thou art. Be content10. And now the lion passeth over through the Aethyr with the crowned beast upon his back, and the tail of the lion goes on instead of stopping, and on each hair of the tail is something or other --- sometimes a little house, sometimes a planet, at other times a town. Then there is a great plain with soldiers fighting upon it, and an enormously high mountain carved into a thousand temples, and more houses and fields and trees, and great cities with wonderful buildings in them, statues and columns and public buildings generally. This goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on all on the hairs of this lion's tail11. And then there is the tuft of his tail, which is like a comet, but the head is a new universe, and each hair streaming away from it is a Milky Way. -------------------- 1. "The Sin of the whole world". See the Mediterranean Manifesto. 2-4. Prophetic of the pains, the initiation to 9Degree = 2Square, undergone by 666 in order to become himself. 5. i.e. "Why art Thou not consciously identical with 666?" 6. The Qabalistic Proofs (of the truth of Aiwass) given by the virtues of 93. 7. 666. 8. The ring of V.V.V.V.V., mentioned in LXV, v. 16. 9. My resistance to the Great Work. 10. The Angel promises the Seer that he shall be 666 in all truth, and counsels him to await His Hour in perfect confidence. 11. Prophetic of the results of the Great Work delivered by 666. And then there is a pale stern figure, enormous, enormous, bigger than all that universe is, in silver armour, with a sword and a pair of balances1. That is only vague. All has gone into stone-gray, blank. There is nothing. Ain el Hajel. November 25, 1909. 8:40-9:40 p.m. (There were two voices in all this Cry, one behind the other --- or, one was the speech, and the other the meaning. And the voice that was the speech was simply a roaring, one tremendous noise, like a mixture of thunder and water-falls and wild beasts and bands and artillery. And yet it was articulate, though I cannot tell you what a single word was. But the meaning of the voice --- the second voice --- was quite silent, and put the ideas directly into the brain of the Seer, as if by touch. It is not certain whether the millstones and the sword-strokes that rained upon him were not these very sounds and ideas.) The Cry of the 24th Aethyr, Which is Called NIA2 An angel comes forward into the stone like a warrior clad in chain- armour. Upon his head are plumes of gray3, spread out like the fan of a peacock4. About his feet a great army of scorpions and dogs, lions, elephants, and many other wild beasts. He stretches forth his arms to heaven and cries; In the crackling of the lightning, in the rolling of the thunder, in the clashing of the swords and the hurling of the arrows5: be thy name exalted! Streams of fire come out of the heavens, a pale brilliant -------------------- 1. This refers to the Aeon which is to follow this of Horus. See "Liber AL", Cap. III, v. 34. Its Lord is "the double-wanded one" "Thmaist --- Justice." 2. NIA = ScorpioSagittariusTaurus = 116. She is Atu XIV --- "The Woman clothed with the Sun", see 27th Aire, between Scorpio, Love as the instrument of change by Putrefaction, and Taurus, the heavenly Isis. But cf. also AL III, v. 72 -- Coph Nia. This completes the Mystery of Atu XI by the Vision of 156, also in a partial form. The Beast and the Scarlet Woman at attributed to Leo and Water Scorpio. They are the two-in-one Chief Officers, of the Temple of the New Aeon of Heru-Ra-Ha. (Note: The Eagle Kerub in the 23rd Aire is Aquarius Aquarius. Scorpio is the Woman-Serpent. This is important; for the old attribution is of the Eagle to Scorpio) 3. The Ajna-Chakra --- Chokmah. 4. Sacred to Juno. 5. Arrows of Sagittarius the rainbow which follows this storm. - page 31 - blue1, like plumes. And they gather themselves and settle upon his lips. His lips are redder than roses, and the blue plumes gather themselves into a blue rose2, and from beneath the petals of the rose come brightly coloured humming-birds3, and dew falls from the rose-honey-coloured dew4. I stand in the shower of it. And a voice proceeds from the rose: Come away! Our chariot is drawn by doves5. Of mother-of-pearl and ivory is our chariot6 and the reins thereof are the heart-strings of men. Every moment that we fly shall cover an aeon. And every place on which we rest shall be a young universe rejoicing in its strength; the meadows thereof shall be covered with flowers. There shall we rest but a night, and in the morning we shall flee away, comforted. Now, to myself, I have imagined the chariot of which the voice spake, and I looked to see who was with me in the chariot. It was an Angel of golden hair and golden skin, whose eyes were bluer than the sea, whose mouth was redder than the fire, whose breath was ambrosial air. Finer than a spider's web were her robes. And they were of the seven colours7. All this I saw; and then the hidden voice went on low and sweet: Come away! The price of the journey is little, though its name be death. Thou shalt die to all that thou fearest and hopest and hatest and lovest and thinkest and art. Yea! thou shalt die, even as thou must die. For all that thou hast, thou hast not; all that thou art, thou art not8! NENNI OFEKUFA ANANAEL LAIADA I MAELPEREJI NONUKA AFAFA ADAREPEHETA PEREGI ALADI NIISA NIISA LAPE OL ZODIR IDOIAN9. And I said: ODO KIKALE QAA. Why art thou hidden from me, whom I hear? And the voice answered and said unto me: Hearing is of the -------------------- 1. Blue of Sagittarius (Atu XIV). 2. Woman in Sagittarius. 3. Sacred to Venus. 4. Distilled from Cauldron in Atu XIV. The Elixir. In this Aire is a Mystery of the IXDegree of the O.T.O. 5. Sacred to Venus. This woman combines Jupiter (Juno) and Venus; but she is more than all this, the Quintessence of Scorpio, the Lady of the Cup. 6. Chariot = Atu VII = Cancer cardinal sign of Water. Mother of Pearl is sacred to Water; cups symbolize Pleasure, especially sexual pleasure. Ivory comes from the tusks of the Elephant: teeth pertain to HB:Shin, the fire of the Spirit. Ivory is thus a symbol of the hard gleaming militant delight of sexual energy, which bears Love in her Chariot through Heaven. 7. All typical of Venus. 8. Prophetic of the 8Degree = 3Square Initiation. Love is the motive power which makes the Adeptus Exemptus take the plunge into the Abyss. 9. Enochian. - page 32 - spirit alone1. Thou art a partaker of the five-fold mystery2. Thou must roll up the ten divine ones like a scroll, and fashion therefrom a star3. Yet must thou blot out the star in the heart of Hadit4. For the blood of my heart is like a warm bath of myrrh and ambergris; bathe thyself therein. The blood of my heart is all gathered upon my lips if I kiss thee, burns in my fingertips if I caress thee, burns in my womb when thou art caught up into my bed. Mighty are the stars; mighty is the sun; mighty is the moon; mighty is the voice of the ever-living one, and the echoes of his whisper are the thunders of the dissolution of the worlds. But my silence is mightier than they. Close up the worlds like unto a weary house; close up the book of the recorder, and let the veil swallow up the shrine, for I am arisen, O my fair one, and there is no more need of all these things. If once I put thee apart from me, it was the joy of play. Is not the ebb and flowing of the tide a music of the sea? Come, let us mount unto Nuit our mother and be lost! Let being be emptied in the infinite abyss! For by me only shalt thou mount; thou hast none other wings than mine5. All this while the Rose has been shooting out blue flames, coruscating like snakes through the whole Aire. And the snakes have taken shapes of sentences. One of them is: Sub umbra alarum tuarum Adonai quies et felicitas6. And another: Summum bonum, vera sapientia, magnanima vita, sub noctis nocte sunt7. And another is: Vera medicina est vinum mortis8. And another is: Libertas evangelii per jugum legis ob gloriam dei intactam ad vacuum nequaquam tendit9. And another is: Sub aqua lex terrarum10. And another is: Mens edax rerum, cor umbra rerum; intelligentia via summa11. And another is: Summa via lucis: per Hephaestum -------------------- 1. The traditional attribution. 2. i.e. of the Pentagram. 3. The ten Sephiroth form the Flaming Sword. The idea is to make a perfect Man. (the Pentagram) by folding up his 10 consecutive qualities into a single symmetrical symbol. 4. This star must itself be blotted out in the Point-of View, the Quintessence of Individuality. 5. The totality of experiences has amounted to Perfection. There is then no more need of a manifested Universe. See AL. I, v. 29, for the Object of Division. 6. Refers to 5Degree = 6Square initiation. 7. Refers to the Night of Pan (see later Aires) and so to 8Degree = 3Square which with 5Degree = 6Square make the two initiated steps. 8. Cf. the general doctrine about Death. AL II, vs. 72-74, et al. 9. Combines the four sentences in this order AquariusTaurusLeoScorpio on the circular altar in the vault of Christian Rosencreutz. The meaning is: Liberty, Law, Light fill the Universe. 10. S.A.L.T. 11. M.E.R.C.U.R.I.U.S. Meaning: the mind destroys the external (by abstracting its reality: see any good Yoga treatise). The heart is their shadow (i.e. Reality only appears as impressions). Binah (8Degree = 3Square) is the Highest Way. - page 33 - undas regas1. And another is: Vir introit tumulum regis, invenit oleum lucis2. And all round the whole of these things are the letters TARO; but the light is so dreadful that I cannot read the words. I am going to try again. All these serpents are collected together very thickly at the edges of the wheel, because there are an innumerable number of sentences. One is tres annos regimen oraculi3. And another is terribilis ardet rex Ayin-Lamed-Yod-Vau-Nunfinal4. And another is: Ter amb (amp?) (can't see it) Rosam oleo (?)5. And another is: Tribus annulis regna olisbon6. And the marvel is that with those four letters you can get a complete set of rules for doing everything, both for white magic and black. And now I see the heart of the rose again. I see the face of him that is the heart of the rose, and in the glory of that face I am ended. My eyes are fixed upon his eyes; my being is sucked up through my eyes into those eyes. And I see through those eyes, and lo! the universe, like whirling sparks of gold, blown like a tempest. I seem to swell out again into him. My consciousness fills the whole Aethyr. I hear the cry NIA, ringing again and again from within me. It sounds like infinite music, and behind the sound is the meaning of the Aethyr. Again there are no words. All this time the whirling sparks of gold go on, and they are like blue sky, with a lot of rather thin white clouds in it, outside. And now I see mountains round, far blue mountains, purple mountains. And in the midst is a little green dell of moss, which is all sparkling with dew that drips from the rose. And I am lying on that moss with my face upwards, drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking of the dew. I cannot describe to you the joy and the exhaustion of everything that was, and the energy of everything that is, for it is only a corpse that is lying on the moss. I am the soul of the Aethyr7. -------------------- 1. S.U.L.P.H.U.R. An alchemical injunction; a reference to AL, Cap. 2, v. 57. 2. V.I.T.R.I.O.L. Reference to IXDegree O.T.O. 3. Refers to time required to assimilate the Initiation of 8Degree = 3Square. For three years is 156 weeks; and 156 = BABALON. 4. Elyon: the exalted one, Ayin-Lamed-Vau-Nunfinal (?). 156, a name of BABALON, (see the Urn) with with the Phallic Yod in the midst. 5. Meaning: the Rose must be thrice anointed (?) with oil. (That is, with the oil.) 6. Refers to the Tree of Life; to be ruled by the three reciprocating Paths, HB:Dalet , HB:Tet , HB:Peh ; that is, by the supernal love, by the Formula of Babalon and the Beast conjoined, and by that Formula at which is hinted in Liber AL. 1,2,3,4. all T.A.R.O. 7. This passage describes an Initiation, the first of this series. It is the exhaustion of the lower Self of the Seer in his first union with BABALON. - page 34 - Now it reverberates like the swords of archangels, clashing upon the armour of the damned; and there seem to be the blacksmiths of heaven beating the steel of the worlds upon the anvils of hell, to make a roof to the Aethyr1. For if the great work were accomplished and all the Aethyrs were caught up into one, then would the vision fail; then would the voice be still. Now all is gone from the stone. Ain el Hajel. November 26, 1909. 2-3:25 p.m. The Cry of the 23rd Aethyr, Which is Called TOR2. In the brightness of the stone are three lights, brighter than all, which revolve ceaselessly3. And now there is a spider's web of silver4 covering the whole of the stone. Behind the spider's web is a star of twelve rays5; and behind that again, a black bull, furiously pawing up the ground. The flames from his mouth increase and whirl, and he cries: Behold the mystery of toil, O thou who art taken in the toils of mystery6. For I who trample the earth thereby make whirlpools in the air; be comforted, therefore, for though I be black, in the roof of my mouth is the sign of the Beetle7. Bent are the backs of my brethren, yet shall they gore the lion with their horns. Have I not the wings of the eagle, and the face of the man? And now he is turned into one of those winged Assyrian bull-men. -------------------- 1. This roof seems to be the Path of HB:Peh (Mars, blacksmiths, steel, etc., the first ring that binds the omicron-lambda-iota-omicron-beta- omicron-sigma ). The union with his Mate first occurs In Yesod, of which HB:Peh may be called the roof. Later we shall find the other marriages of HB:Tet and HB:Dalet . 2. TOR = LeoLibraPisces. 3. The Three Gunas, Sattvas, Rajas, Tamas. This is an Introit to the Aethyr. As we proceed, we find more and more obstacles to entering. 4. More introit; veils to the true Vision. 5. Tamas, Kerub of Earth. He and the Eagle of Air make up the 4 Officers of the New Temple. 6. A warning to the Seer not to allow himself to ignore or despise the plain facts of life. Mysteries --- nay, even The Mysteries themselves! are apt to seduce the Aspirant. He becomes exalte (as the cold rational French, observing these errors, call him) instead of exalted. 7. The tradition of the Bull Apis. The Beetle is the Midnight Sun, the hidden hope of Earth. - page 35 - And he sayeth: The spade of the husbandman is the sceptre of the king1. All the heavens beneath me, they serve me. They are my fields and my gardens and my orchards and my pastures. Glory be unto thee, who didst set thy feet in the North2; whose forehead is pierced with the sharp points of the diamonds in thy crown3; whose heart is pierced with the spear of thine own fecundity4. Thou art an egg of blackness, and a worm of poison. But thou hast formulated thy father, and made fertile thy mother. Thou art the basilisk whose gaze turns men to stone, and the cockatrice at the breast of an harlot that giveth death for milk. Thou art the asp that has stolen into the cradle of the babe. Glory unto thee, who art twined about the world as the vine that clingeth to the bare body of a bacchanal5. Also, though I be planted so firmly upon the earth, yet is my blood wine and my breath fire of madness. With these wings, though they be but little, I lift myself above the crown of the yod6, and being without fins I yet swim in the inviolate fountain7. I disport myself in the ruins of Eden, even as Leviathan in the false sea8, being whole as the rose at the crown of the cross. Come ye unto me, my children, and be glad. At the end of labour is the power of labour10. And in my stability is concentrated eternal change11. For the whirlings of the universe are but the course of the blood in my heart. And the unspeakable variety thereof is but my divers hairs, and plumes, and gems in my tall crown. The change which ye lament is the life of my rejoicing, and the sorrow that blackeneth your hearts is the myriad deaths by which I am renewed. -------------------- 1. The King rules by virtue of the labour of his people. Even Taurus Earth is necessary as the support of Heaven. Nuit is upheld by Shu, who stands on Seb. Neglect to understand this causes many "pure Mystics" to fall lamentably. They "go off their base" in the significant slang of common-sense folk. 2. The Bull is stationed in the North. 3. The Bull is sacred to Osiris. This refers to the Crown of Thorns. 4. Again a reference to the Formula of Osiris. The Spear (Sacred Lance, Phallus) pierces the heart of the Dying God. 5. These two paragraphs declare the identity of the Bull with his Zodiacal opposite, Scorpio. 6. The Crown of Yod (as a path on the Tree) is Chesed. It leads thither from Tiphereth. The path of the Bull leads from Chokmah down to Chesed. 7. Refers to the Symbol of the woman and the Bull. See 16th Aire. 8. See Knorr von Rosenroth on theQlipoth. 9. "The Rose of Earth" surmounts the Cross of Fire in the symbol Venus. 10. Toil creates kinetic energy. 11. See 11th Aire. - page 36 - And the instability which maketh ye to fear, is the little waverings of balance by which I am assured1. And now the veil of silver tissue-stuff closes over him, and above that, a purple veil, and above that, a golden veil, so that now the whole stone is like a thick mat of woven gold wires; and there come forth, one from each side of the stone, two women, and grasp each other by both hands, and kiss, and melt into one another; and melt away2. And now the veils open again, the gold parts, and the purple parts, and the silver parts, and there is a crowned eagle, also like the Assyrian eagles. And he cries: All my strength and stability are turned to the use of flight3. For though my wings are of fine gold, yet my heart is the heart of a scorpion4. Glory unto thee, who being born in a stable didst make thee mirth of the filth thereof, who didst suck in iniquity from the breast of thy mother the harlot; who didst flood with iniquity the bodies of thy concubines. Thou didst lie in the filth of the streets with the dogs; thou wast tumbled and shameless and wanton in a place where four roads meet. There wast thou defiled, and there wast thou slain, and there wast thou left to rot. The charred stake was thrust through thy bowels, and thy parts were cut off and thrust into thy mouth for derision5. All my unity is dissolved; I live in the tips of my feathers6. That which I think to be myself is but infinite number7. Glory unto the Rose and the Cross, for the Cross is extended unto the uttermost end beyond space and time and being and knowledge and delight! Glory unto the Rose that is the minute point of its center! Even as we say; glory unto the Rose that is Nuit the circumference of all, and glory unto the Cross that is the heart of the Rose8! -------------------- 1. All this paragraph explains this doctrine of Stability = Change. (Yesod, Support of the Tree, is also Air & Moon). 2. These are intended to show symbolically that the Bull is the same as the Eagle. 3. This transformation into Air shows the identity (in ultimate philosophy) of the two forces of change which constitute the Lesser Mysteries of the Sword and the Disk. 4. Refers to the Scorpion in the Symbol of the Bull of Mithras. 5. These two paragraphs refer to the Formula of the Dying God, its perversion and profanation at the hands of those who abused it. 6. Air has a peripheral consciousness. 7. The True Unity does not exist in any particular number, but in HB:Aleph Degree as a whole. 8. The Rose and Cross are not merely symbols of definite types of energy, female and male. They are extended in the correlative symbols of Infinity: Nuit and Hadit. - page 37 - Therefore do I cry aloud, and my scream is the treble as the bellowing of the bull is the bass1. Peace in the highest and peace in the lowest and peace in the midst thereof! Peace in the eight quarters, peace in the ten points of the Pentagram! Peace in the twelve rays of the seal of Solomon, and peace in the four and thirty whirlings of the hammer of Thor2! Behold! I blaze upon thee. (The eagle is gone; it is only a flaming Rosy Cross of white brilliance.) I catch thee up into rapture. FALUTLI, FALUTLI3! ... O it dies, it dies. Bou Saada. November 28, 1909. 9:30-10:15 A.M. The Cry of the 22nd Aethyr, Which is Called LIN4 There comes first into the stone the mysterious table of forty-nine squares5. It is surrounded by an innumerable company of -------------------- 1. Air and Earth are harmonious vibrations, complementary. 2. The vibrations of Tetragrammaton, Jeheshua, the Hexagram, and the Swastika are Swastika re duplicated, being complete in each of the two Series, Air and Earth, the lower forms of Masculine and Feminine. 3. See "Liber VII", Cap. V, v. 30. It is the cry of the consummated rapture of the Dissolution of any symbol by virtue of Love. FAL is Aleph (AFL, thick darkness; PLA, the Hidden Wonder, a title of Kether.) The whole symbolism of Aleph, 111, must be studied thoroughly. It is especially the equations: One = Zero; and Three = One. Aleph is Iacchus, Lord of Ecstasy; Harpocrates, Lord of Silence: Zeus Arrhenotheleus; Bacchus Diphues, Baphomet, etc. Lord of the Two- in-One Love; Parsifal, The Pure Fool, the Wandering Spirit of God, who impregnates the King's Daughter. UT is the title of the Holy Guardian Angel in the Upanishads. C.q.v. also the poem of "UT" in "The Winged Beetle". LI is the Hebrew for "to me". See AL I, v. 51, 53, 61, 62, 63. (L is Atu VIII = HB:Lamed = the Satisfied Woman; I is HB:Yod , Atu IX, the Hermit). See AL II, v. 24 --- The Hidden Virtue which satisfies Her. Phi-Alpha-Lambda-Upsilon- Tau-Lambda-Iota = 1271 = 2542/2. 2542 = Theta-epsilon-lambda-eta-mu-alpha spelt in full. 4. LIN = CancerSagittariusScorpio Chet-Samekh-Nunfinal is Chassan, ruler of Air; also, Strength. 118 = 2 x 59. 59 = Brethren (referred especially to Lilith and Samael). LIN declares therefore the Twins concealed in Heru-Ra-Ha. 118 is also "to change, pass, renew" and "to ferment"; indicating the Formula of Horus; His first Formula is that of BABALON, for He is as yet within Her womb. But see note on 10th Aire, regarding PARAOAN. 5. See "The Equinox", I, VII, page 231. This table contains the names of the Angels of the Seven Planetary Spheres: Shabathiel, Tzedquiel, Madimiel, Shemashiel, Negahal, Kokabiel, and Levaniel. This seven-fold arrangement is of the Sigil of A.'. A.'. Babalon. See "Book of Lies", Cap. 49. And she is the Mother of Heru-Ra-Ha. - page 38 - angels; these angels are of all kinds, --- some brilliant and flashing as gods, down to elemental creatures. The light comes and goes on the tablet; and now it is steady, and I perceive that each letter of the tablet is composed of forty-nine other letters, in a language which looks like that of Honorius; but when I would read, the letter that I look at becomes indistinct at once. And now there comes an Angel, to hide the tablet with his mighty wing. This Angel has all the colours mingled in his dress; his head is proud and beautiful; his headdress is of silver and red and blue and gold and black, like cascades of water, and in his left hand he has a pan-pipe of the seven holy metals, upon which he plays1. I cannot tell you how wonderful the music is, but it is so wonderful that one only lives in one's ears; one cannot see anything any more. Now he stops playing and moves with his finger in the air. His finger leaves a trail of fire of every colour, so that the whole Aire is become like a web of mingled lights. But through it all drops dew2. (I can't describe these things at all. Dew doesn't represent what I mean in the least. For instance, these drops of dew are enormous globes, shining like the full moon, only perfectly transparent, as well as perfectly luminous.) And now he shows the tablet again, and he says: As there are 49 letters in the tablet, so are there 49 kinds of cosmos in every thought of God. And there are 49 interpretations of every cosmos, and each interpretation is manifested in 49 ways. Thus also are the calls 493, but to each call there are 49 visions. And each vision is composed of 49 elements, except in the 10th Aethyr, that is accursed, and that hath 424. All this while the dewdrops have turned into cascades of gold finer than the eyelashes of a little child5. And though the extent of the Aethyr is so enormous, one perceives each hair separately, as well as the whole thing at once6. And now there is a -------------------- 1. This "Angel" is in fact PAN. See the 9th Aire "unto All hath she born Him." 2. This "dew" is the Supernal Lion-Serpent in his Menstruum of liquid Pearl. 3. 42 is the number of the Demiurge (see Genesis I), of the Assessors of the Dead (see any book on Egyptian religion), of the Sterile Mother Aleph-Mem-Aleph, of Terror and Destruction Bet-Lamed-Heh-Heh, of loss (Bet-Lamed-Yod), of the verb "to cease" (Chet-Dalet-Lamed), and of Dalet-Lamed-Tzaddifinal, the Earth of Malkuth. It is connected with the 10th Aethyr. See "Equnox" I, VII, pages 229-243, for the whole symbolism. 4. See"Equnox" I, VIII, pp. 99-128. 5. The Solar Child develops from the "Dew". 6. These violations of Normal Logic are stigmatic of most of the higher types of Spiritual Experience. There must be no muddle; that is the usual mistake made by most Mystics. Confused thought is the evil and averse image of the One Clear Light. - page 39 - mighty concourse of angels rushing toward me from every side, and they melt upon the surface of the egg in which I am standing in the form of the god Kneph1, so that the surface of the egg is all one dazzling blaze of liquid light. Now I move up against the tablet, --- I cannot tell you with what rapture. And all the names of God, that are not known even to the angels2, clothe me about. All the seven senses are transmuted into one sense, and that sense is dissolved in itself ...3 (Here occurs Samadhi.) ... Let me speak, O God; let me declare it ... all. It is useless; my heart faints, my breath stops. There is no link between me and P . . .4 I withdraw myself. I see the table again. (He was behind the table for a very long time5. O.V.) And all the table burns with intolerable light; there has been no such light in any of the Aethyrs until now. And now the table draws me back into itself; I am no more. My arms were out in the form of a cross, and that Cross was extended, blazing with light into infinity. I myself am the minutest point in it. This is the birth of form6. I am encircled by an immense sphere of many-coloured bands; it seems it is the sphere of the Sephiroth projected in the three dimensions. This is the birth of death7. Now in the centre within me is a glowing sun. That is the birth of hell8. Now all that is swept away, washed away by the table. It is the virtue of the table to sweep everything away. It is the letter -------------------- 1. The winged Egg, the omniform Zero (0Degree) from which all positive manifestation comes. 2. This experience is perfectly clear and definite, to the peculiar type of higher consciousness which is aware of it. 3. These are those of the Table itself, read across or down, instead of diagonally, as is done to obtain the names given in note 5, p. 32. See also LXXXIV (page 231). 4. Perdurabo, the Motto (in the Outer Order) of the Seer. Even below the True Consciousness with the material and intellectual basis of him. 5. i.e. The Seer was in Samadhi; the Table had been a Veil of the Infinite. 6. Form is the conception of the Self in extension. 7. Death is the conception of the Self extended, not into the positive balanced cross, but into the negative circle (or sphere) of Nuit. 8. For Hell, see "Liber Aleph". Hell, is the Secret Centre of the Self. One perceives one's Star as one's True Self. - page 40 - I in this Aethyr that gives this vision, and L is its purity, and N is its energy1. Now everything is confused, for I invoked the Mind, that is disruption2. Every Adept who beholds this vision is corrupted by mind. Yet it is by virtue of mind that he endures it, and passes on, if so be that he pass on. Yet there is nothing higher than this, for it is perfectly balanced in itself. I cannot read a word of the holy Table, for the letters of the Table are all wrong. They are only the shadows of shadows. And whoso beholdeth this Table with this rapture, is light. The true word for light hath seven letters. They are the same as ARARITA, transmuted3. There is a voice in this Aethyr, but it cannot be spoken. The only way one can represent it is as a ceaseless thundering of the word Amen. It is not a repetition of Amen, because there is no time. It is one Amen continuous4. Shall mine eye fade before thy glory? I am the eye. That is why the eye is seventy5. You can never understand why, except in this vision6. And now the table recedes from me. Far, far it goes, streaming with light. And there are two black angels bending over me, covering me with their wings, shutting me up into the darkness; and I am lying in the Pastos of our Father Christian Rosenkreutz, beneath the Table in the Vault of seven sides. And I hear these words: The voice of the Crowned Child, the Speech of the Babe that is hidden in the egg of blue7. (Before me is the flaming Rosy Cross.) I have opened mine eye, and the universe is dissolved -------------------- 1. j = Sagittarius. The Rainbow is connected with the Sevenfold projection. l = Moon decreasing in Cancer. Luna, when active, always purifies. It is the passive Moon that may be "evil"; i.e. when she reflects not the Sun, her Lord, but divers spectres of the Night. n = Mars in Scorpio, the type of energy which informs Vision. Mars in Taurus would cause action. 2. The Seer had begun to analyze the conceptions presented to him by the Vision. Instantly the internal coherence of its Unity was destroyed. The next two phrases show that this is a difficulty peculiar to this Vision. 3. Yod-Aleph-Taw-Vau-Aleph-Yod-Aleph-Resh the essence of the Yod girt by Sun's tending inwardly upon it. Resh-Aleph-Yod-Aleph-Resh (?) = 412 = Bet-Yod-Taw = HB:Bet = Mercury. For ultimately Kether and Sol are not Light. Light is a duplex vibration, energized by Them and is, therefore, of their Messenger, Mercury. (Alostrael's notebook has a different version from Yorke's "...energized by Them and is .'. of their Messenger Mercury." --- Copyist's note.) 4. AUMGN (See explanation in "Book 4", Part III). 5. Ayin-Yod-Nun-final = an Eye = HB:Ayin = 70. 6. The general idea is perhaps this: 70 = Heh-Samekh-Heh Hush! and Lamed-Yod-Lamed, NIght, and Samekh-Vau-Dalet The Secret. The Glory is so great that it cannot be manifested by any positive means. 7. Heru-Ra-Ha. - page 41 - before me, for force is mine upper eye-lid and matter is my lower eye-lid1. I gaze into the seven spaces, and there is naught2. The rest of it comes without words; and then again: I have gone forth to war, and I have slain him that sat upon the sea, crowned with the winds3. I put forth my power and he was broken. I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust. Rejoice with me, O ye Sons of the Morning; stand with me upon the Throne of Lotus4; gather yourselves up unto me, and we shall play together in the fields of light. I have passed into the Kingdom of the West after my Father6. Behold! where are now the darkness and the terror and the lamentation? For ye are born into the new Aeon; ye shall not suffer death7. Bind up your girdles of gold! Wreathe yourselves with garlands of my unfading flowers! In the nights we will dance together, and in the morning we will go forth to war; for, as my Father liveth that was dead, so do I live and shall never die8. And now the table comes rushing back. It covers the whole stone, but this time it pushes me before it, and a terrible voice cries: Begone! Thou hast profaned the mystery; thou hast eaten of the shew-bread; thou hast spilt the consecrated wine9! Begone! For the Voice is accomplished. Begone! For that which was open is -------------------- 1. These ideas are complementary; when they combine they produce positive manifestation, which covers up the Glance of the Eye of Shiva, which annihilates all external existence. 2. The Seven spaces are the "Palaces" which contain the Sephiroth. 3. This is the foe of Horus, the Dweller of Nile. The winds which crown him are not the pure powers of Air of Libra, but the cloudy (mixed) forces of Aquarius, opposite in the Zodiac to Leo, the sign of Horus. 4. The Energy of Horus destroys indeed, but must be withdrawn to complete the work, for His rays, if left in their object, would keep it vitalized. The coherence of the broken matter must be withdrawn. 5. Harpocrates stands or sits upon the Lotus, his fortress against the malice of the Water-demon. 6. Osiris has been chased into Amennti by Horus, who follows him thither, that his reign may be established even in the realms of "Death". In the New Aeon, Death is become Life Triumphant, not through Resurrection, but in its own Essence. 7. See last note. The Thelemite does not "suffer death". He is eternal and perceives Himself the Universe, by virtue of the categories of Life and Death, which are not real but subjective forms of his artistic presentation. 8. Osiris, tricked into the belief in death, had to overcome it by Magick, the Formula IAO. 9. The Seer has erred, it seems, by translating the Doctrine into intelligible symbols. for this is likely to cause a new "Fall" into the barren kingdoms of Ratiocination. - page 42 - shut. And thou shalt not avail to open it, saving by virtue of him whose name is one, whose spirit is one, whose individuum is one, and whose permutation is one1; whose light is one, whose life is one, whose love is one. For though thou art joined to the inmost mystery of the heaven, thou must accomplish the sevenfold task of the earth, even as thou sawest the Angels from the greatest unto the least. And of all this shalt thou take back with thee but a little part, for the sense shall be darkened, and the shrine re-veiled. Yet know this for thy reproof, and for the stirring up of discontent in them whose swords are of lath2, that in every word of this vision is concealed the key of many mysteries, even of being, and of knowledge, and of bliss3; of will, of courage, of wisdom, and of silence4, and of that which, being all these, is greater than all these. Begone! For the night of life is fallen upon thee. And the veil of light hideth that which is. With that, I suddenly see the world as it is, and I am very sorrowful. Bou-Saada. November 28, 1909. 4-6 p.m. (Note. --- You do not come back in any way dazed; it is like going from one room into another. Regained normal consciousness completely and immediately.) -------------------- 1. ARARITA (--- a name of God, which is a Notariqon of the sentence: "One is His beginning; One is his Individuality; His Permutation One.") The use of this Name and Formula is to equate and identify every idea with its opposite; thus being released from the obsession of thinking any one of them as "true" (and therefore binding); one can withdraw oneself from the whole sphere of the Ruach. See "Liber 813, vel Ararita." Contrast each verse of Cap. I with the corresponding verse of Cap. II for the first of these methods. Thus in Cap. III (stil verse by verse correspondence) the Quintessence of the ideas is extracted; and in Cap. IV they are withdrawn each one into the one beyond it. In Cap. V they have disappeared into the Method itself. In Cap. VI they reappear in the Form appointed by the Will of the Adept. Lastly, in Cap. VII they are dissolved, one into the next until all finally disappear in the Fire Qadosh, the Quintessence of Reality. Those whose analytical methods are incapable of destroying Illusion. This insistence on the Virtue of the Vision is intended to encourage them to make greater efforts. 3. Sat-Chit-Ananda. 4. The Sphinx. - page 43 - The Cry of the 21st Aethyr, Which is Called ASP1. A mighty wind rolls through all the Aethyr; there is a sense of absolute emptiness; no colour, no form, no substance. Only now and then there seem as it were, the shadows of great angels, swept along. No sound; there is something very remorseless about the wind, passionless, that is very terrible. In a way, it is nerve-shaking. It seems as if something kept on trying to open behind the wind, and just as it is about to open, the effort is exhausted. The wind is not cold or hot; there is no sense of any kind connected with it. One does not even feel it, for one is standing in front of it. Now, the thing opens behind, just for a second, and I catch a glimpse of an avenue of pillars, and at the end a throne, supported by sphinxes. All this is black marble2. Now I seem to have gone through the wind, and to be standing before the throne; but he that sitteth thereon is invisible. Yet it is from him that all this desolation proceeds3. He is trying to make me understand by putting tastes in my mouth, very rapidly one after the other. Salt, honey, sugar4, -------------------- 1. ASP = TaurusVirgoLeo = HB:Vau HB:Yod HB:Tet = 25 = Yod-Heh-Vau-Daleth = Jehevid, God of Gevurah of Briah = Chet-Yod-Vau-Aleph The Beast. The aire shows the supplanting of that by this. (A's MS. has "Mythus (?)" for "by this".) Taurus is Osiris. Virgo the Virgin (the lonely one). These are the Dying God symbols, which Leo --- the Lion, Atu XI, The Beast --- replaces. This setting symbolizes the Way of Time in the Temple of Inscrutable Destiny. This Deity is Necessity or Fate. This whole Aire is of a metaphysic more difficult to understand than any of the earlier. The student must have finally shut out of his mind not only the crude ideas of Good and Evil, but the most fundamental logical conceptions, such as that of being obliged to think of a state of mind, or an individual, as being true to itself. This God is at the same time an Abomination and a supreme Overlord. One may indeed say that the student ought to be in a state not far from Samadhi before meditating the meaning of the Aire. Salt Water or Earth, probably ............................ M Honey Bees: feminine symbol. Binah. Probably ............. E (This E is not a real vowel. It enables consonants to join with the minimum of disturbance. This is exactly the role of the feminine passive element.) Sugar Venus ............................................... D Assafoetida Saturn --- Capricornus = HB:Ayin ................Taurus Bitumen Fiery --- Water = HB:Nun-final ...................... N Honey ..................................................... E Unknown Possibly Kether .................................... St Garlic Saturnian element of Venus .......................... L (footnote continues on next page) - page 44 - assafoetida, bitumen, honey again, some taste that I don't know at all; garlic, something very bitter like nux vomica, another taste, still more bitter; lemon, cloves, rose-leaves, honey again; the juice of some plant, like a dandelion, I think; honey again, salt, a taste something like phosphorus, honey, laurel, a very unpleasant taste which I don't know, coffee, then a burning taste, then a sour taste that I don't know. All these tastes issue from his eyes; he signals them. I can see his eyes now. They are very round, with perfectly black pupils, perfectly white iris, and the cornea pale blue. The sense of desolation is so acute that I keep on trying to get away from the vision1. I told him that I could not understand his taste-language, so instead he set up a humming very much like a big electric plant with dynamos going. Now the atmosphere is deep night-blue; and by the power of that atmosphere, the pillars kindle to a dull glowing crimson, and the throne is a dull, ruddy gold2. And now, through the humming, come very clear, bell- like notes, and farther still a muttering, like that of a gathering storm. And now I hear the meaning of the muttering: I am he who was -------------------- (footnote # 4 from page 44 continues) Nux vomica Tonic. Geburah. Still more bitter. Lemon Mercury Cloves Venus --- earthy. Taurus ...................... U or V Rose Leaves Venus. Mercury ..................................... I Honey ..................................................... E Dandelion Solar. Tiphereth ................................... O Honey ..................................................... E Salt ..................................................... M Phosphorus Sol. Leo or Geburah ............................... Th Honey ..................................................... E Laurel Apollo .............................................. R Very unpleasant --- ? --- the insipidness of Mercury ................ I Coffee Stimulant --- wakeful. Erectile ............... Taurus Burning Scorpio ............................................. N Sour End of oxidation --- acid --- Sagittarius ........... S Translation: "The Earth is sick of love; with disease and death is she sick ... the natural lust, fierce as it is, is not enough; virgins, boys woman (make men) sick, weak of semen and sick. The earth shall be cured of her sickness by true Art-of-Sun, and thine own pleasures, and thou ..., shall abolish the world's woe, and bring on the Age of Righteousness. Black, white, and pale blue, there is no warmth in Destiny. It is intolerable to see the mere mechanism of life. 2. Now comes the warm Night-Blue of Nuit and of Ra-Hoor-Khuit. The pillars assume the crimson of Binah, and the throne, the gold of Tiphereth. Thus is it as if Ra-Hoor-Khuit were alive in the midst of the Womb of His Mother. - page 45 - before the beginning, and in my desolation I cried aloud, saying, let me behold my countenance in the concave of the abyss1. And I beheld, and lo! in the darkness of the abyss my countenance was black, and empty, and distorted2, that was (once) invisible and pure. Then I closed mine eye, that I might not behold it, and for this was it fixed. Now it is written that one glance of mine eye shall destroy it3. And mine eye I dare not open, because of the foulness of the vision. Therefore do I gaze with these two eyes throughout the aeon4. Is there not one of all my adepts that shall come unto me, and cut off mine eyelids, that I may behold and destroy5? Now I take a dagger, and, searching out his third eye, seek to cut off the eye-lids, but they are of adamant. And the edge of the dagger6 is turned. And tears7 drop from his eyes, and there is a mournful voice: So it hath been ever: so must it ever be! Though thou hast the strength of five bulls, thou shalt not avail in this8. And I said to him: Who shall avail? And he answered me: I know not9. But the dagger of penance10 thou shalt temper seven times, afflicting the seven courses of thy soul. And thou shalt sharpen its edge seven times by the seven ordeals. -------------------- 1. cf. the account of the beginning in the Upanishads. 2. See Eliphaz Levi's drawing of the two Countenances. 3. The Shivaite Dogma. 4. cf. the Qabalah. The Most Holy Ancient One has One Eye: Microprosophus two. Shiva again. For the eyelids, see above, the 22nd Aire, the speech of the Babe Horus. 6. This minor elemental weapon is evidently useless against fundamental ideas like force and matter, of which it is itself but a trivial complex. Binah, mother of Sorrow, the tears from the Great Sea, Her symbol. The first issue of Understanding is the trance of Sorrow. 8. The Bull = Taurus = HB:Vau = V. The Motto of the Seer as in the Grade of Binah 8Degree = 3Square, is V.V.V.V.V., the five Bulls. He had already chosen this motto, through he had refused to accept the Grade when offered to him three years before by the Chiefs. We now approach those Aethyrs in which his full Initiation to that Grade was accomplished. 9. I = Aleph-Nun-Yod = 61. Know = No = Lamed-Aleph = 31. Not = Aleph-Yod-Nun-final = Also I know not --- I know that which is Not. Such are the roots of the Equation of Ambiguity, used often by Higher Intelligences (especially in "The Book of the Law", q.v.) to prove their identity as Individuals separate from the Seer, and superior to him. 10. This rebukes the Seer for having tried to use the elemental Dagger. Perhaps the four sevens in the injunction refer to Netzach, Victory. For Netzach = 7; and 28 = Sigma 1-7 as well as 4x7, 28 is a "perfect" number; its factors add up to itself. - page 46 - (One keeps on looking round to try to find something else because of the terror of it. But nothing changes1 at all. Nothing but the empty throne, and the eyes, and the avenue of pillars!) And I said to him: O thou that art the first countenance before time2; thou of whom it is written that "He, God, is one; He is the eternal one, without equal, son or companion. Nothing shall stand before His face3"; all we have heard of thine infinite glory and holiness, of thy beauty and majesty, and behold! there is nothing but this abomination of desolation. He speaks; I cannot hear a word; something about "The Book of the Law". The answer is written in "The Book of the Law", or something of that sort4. This is a long speech; all that I can hear is: From me pour down the fires of life and increase continually upon the earth. From me flow down the rivers of water and oil and wine. From me cometh forth the wind that beareth the seed of trees and flowers and fruits and all herbs upon its bosom. From me cometh forth the earth in her unspeakable variety. Yea! all cometh from me, naught cometh to me. Therefore am I lonely and horrible upon this unprofitable throne. Only those who accept nothing from me can bring anything to me. (He goes on speaking again: I cannot hear a word. I may have got about a twentieth of what he said.) And I say to him: It was written that his name is Silence, but thou speakest continually. And he answers: Nay, the muttering that thou hearest is not my voice. It is the voice of the ape5. (When I say that he answers, it means that it is the same voice. The being on the throne has not uttered a word.) I say: O thou ape that speakest for Him whose name is Silence, how shall I know that thou speakest truly His thought? And the muttering continues: Nor speaketh He nor thinketh, so that which I say is true, because I lie in speaking His thoughts6. -------------------- 1. That is the extreme horror: for Change is Life, the issue of love. 2. Aleph-Resh-Yod-Kophfinal Aleph-Nun-Peh-Yod-Nunfinal The Great Countenance (which beheld not Countenance). 3. The Chapter of the Unity, in the Qu'ran. 4. This may refer to the Formula 0 = 2. 5. Kether, of course, does not speak. His Nature is made apparent by Thoth, the Logos, the Creative Word. But this Word must evidently be false, since He is Silence. Thoth, however, is himself accompanied by the Cynocephalos, the dog-headedApe, who imitates and caricatures all His actions, and misinterprets His speech. 6. The idea is that Truth may be stated by denying a falsehood. This lands us in the quagmires of "Zigzagginess", the paradox of Epaminoneas, et hoc genus omne. One great point of the Initiated Doctrine is that the Ruach (the Mechanism of Thought) is in its essential nature self-contradictory. From now on, the Angels of the Aethyrs begin to speak in the language of Neshamah; they use the logic which pertains above the Abyss. The student will, accordingly, find statements which must be reversed and reversed again and again; both are true and false at once; neither is true or false --- and so on. - page 47 - He goes on, nothing stops him; and the muttering comes so fast that I cannot hear him at all. Now the muttering has ceased, or is overwhelmed by the bells, and the bells in their turn are overwhelmed by the whirring, and now the whirring is overwhelmed by the silence. And the blue light is gone, and the throne and the pillars are returned to blackness, and the eyes of him that sitteth upon the throne are no more visible. I seek to go up close to the throne, and I am pushed back, because I cannot give the sign. I have given all the signs I know and am entitled to1, and I have tried to give the sign that I know and am not entitled to2, but have not the necessary appurtenance; and even if I had, it would be useless; for there are two more signs necessary3. I find that I was wrong in suggesting4 that a Master of the Temple had a right to enter the temple of a Magus or an Ipsissimus. On the contrary, the rule that holds below, holds also above. The higher you go, the greater is the distance from one grade to another5. I am being slowly pushed backwards down the avenue, out into the wind. And this time I am caught up by the wind and whirled away down it like a dead leaf. And a great Angel sweeps through the wind, and catches hold of me, and bears me up against it; and he sets me down on the hither side of the wind, and he whispers in my ear: Go thou forth into the world, O thrice and four times blessed who hast gazed upon the horror of the loneliness of The First6. No man shall look upon his face and live. And thou hast seen his eyes, and understood his heart, for the voice of the ape is the pulse of his heart and the labouring of his breast. Go, therefore, and rejoice, for thou art the prophet of the Aeon arising, wherein He is not7. -------------------- 1. The sign of the Grades up to 7Degree = 4Square. 2. The sign of 8Degree = 3Square. 3. The signs of 9Degree = 2Square and 10Degree = 1Square; necessary because this Vision pertains to Kether. 4. See the "Wake World" in "Konx Om Pax". 5. See "One Star in Sight". 6. Observe the point-of-view, so totally opposite to any ever previously set forth, about the psychology of Kether. 7. In the Ontology of the New Aeon, whose prime theorem is 0 = 2, Kether exists only as the Child of any Marriage of one particular Hadit with one particular aspect of Nuit. There are thus as many Kethers as there are positive possibilities. More, Kether is not in any case a sole Unity, for each Marriage produces a Twin, HB:Heh + HB:Yod = HB:Heh + HB:Vau . There is a positive "Third Being", a Kether; and there is an Ecstasy, or dissolution into Nothing, by the same Event. One is the Magical, the other the Mystical, Result of an Act of Love under Will. - page 48 - Give thou praise unto thy lady Nuit, and unto her lord Hadit, that are for thee and thy bride, and the winners of the ordeal X1. And with that we are come to the wall of the Aethyr, and there is a little narrow gate, and he pushes me through it, and I am suddenly in the desert. The Desert, near Bou Saada2. November 29, 1909. 1:30 - 2:50 p.m. The Cry of the 20th Aethyr, Which is Called KHR3 The dew that was upon the face of the stone is gone, and it is become like a pool of clear golden water. And now the light is come into the Rosy Cross. Yet all that I see is the night, with the stars therein, as they appear through a telescope4. And there cometh a peacock5 into the stone, filling the whole Aire. It is like the vision called the Universal Peacock, or, rather, like a representation of that vision. And now there are countless clouds of white angels6 filling the Aire as the peacock dissolves. Now behind the angels are archangels with trumpets. These cause all things to appear at once, so that there is a tremendous confusion of images. And now I perceive that all these things are but veils of the wheel, for they all gather themselves7 into a -------------------- 1. See "Liber AL" III, v. 22. 2. this night I took the shew-stone to my breast to sleep, and immediately a Dhyana arose of the sun, seen more clearly afterwards as the Star. Exceeding was its brilliance. 3. KHR = FireAirGemini = HB:Shin HB:Aleph HB:Vau = 308. (N.B. by Temurah, R.H.K. = Ra-Hoor-it). 308 = 28 x 11. 28 = HB:Chet HB:Koph = CancerJupiter (Jupiter is exalted in Cancer) means Power. And 29 is the "mystic number" of Netzach, Victory, the Sephira that hangs from the Sphere of Jupiter, by the path of Jupiter, Atu X, the Wheel of Fortune. This Atu is the main subject of the vision in this Aethyr. In this Aethyr the Solar Body (Ruach --- the human consciousness) of the Seer was prepared for the Great Initiation which follows, as in the 27th Aire his Lunar Body (Nephesch --- automatic consciousness) was purified. These preliminary visions are veils. 5. The bird sacred to Juno, the feminine counterpart of Jupiter, whose Energy is about to appear. 6. The Chasmalim, "The brilliant ones", are the Chior of Angels which pertain to Jupiter. 7. This unification is necessary to all true comprehension. - page 49 - wheel1 that spins with incredible velocity. It hath many colours, but all thrilled with white light, so that they are transparent and luminous. This one wheel is forty-nine wheels, set at different angles, so that they compose a sphere; each wheel has forty-nine spokes, and has forty-nine2 concentric tyres at equal distances from the centre. And wherever the rays from any two wheels meet, there is a blinding flash of glory. It must be understood that though so much detail is visible in the wheel, yet at the same time the impression is of a single, simple object. It seems that this wheel is being spun by a hand3. Though the wheel fills the whole Aire, yet the hand is much bigger than the wheel. And though this vision is so great and splendid, yet there is no seriousness with it, or solemnity. It seems that the hand is spinning the wheel merely for pleasure, it would be better to say amusement. A voice comes: For he is a jocund and a ruddy god, and his laughter is the vibration of all that exists, and the earthquakes of the soul. One is conscious of the whirring of the wheel thrilling one, like an electric discharge passing through one. Now I see the figures on the wheel, which have been interpreted as the sworded Sphinx, Hermanubis and Typhon4. And that is wrong. The rim of the wheel is a vivid emerald snake; in the centre of the wheel is a scarlet heart; and, impossible to explain as it is, the scarlet of the heart and the green of the snake are yet more vivid than the blinding white brilliance of the wheel5. -------------------- 1. The Wheel of Fortune (so called); Atu X is the Wheel of the Samsara whose spokes are the Three Gunas, the three fundamental Modes of Energy, Sattvas, Rajas, and Tamas. See also "Book of Lies", Cap. 78. 2. The symbolism of the Table (see 22nd Aire) still retains its prominence. 7 is the number of the Inferiors, of the Feminine Perfection. 3 x 49 = 147 = Yod-Heh-Vau-Heh + Aleph-Heh-Yod-Heh + Aleph-Gemel-Lamed-Aleph +ph-Dalet-Nun-Yod = the Four Names of god used in the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. Thus there is here the symbolism of the Fourfold Regimen (Tetragrammaton) implied in 3 x 7 x 7. 3. Hand = HB:Yod = Yod-Vau-Dalet = 20 = HB:Koph = 4. But also the first is itself HB:Koph. There is, however, an esoteric doctrine in this phrase. HB:Yod is the spermatozoon, the source of all Spiritual Energy, the Minute Point, Hadit, the foundation of the Alphabet, (Hebrew). But also HB:Koph = Koph-Pehfinal = 100 = 10 x 10 = HB:Yod B:Yod; and HB:Koph and HB:Peh are the initials of Ketis and theta- alpha-lambda-lambda-omicron-sigma whose union releases HB:Yod. Thus the Universe is shown as being set in motion by Love under Will. See "Book of Lies", Cap. 43. 4. See the usual drawing of Atu X by minor initiates. 5. The symbolism here assumes the form of "Liber LXV". It is simpler and therefore more difficult than the sevenfold. The counter charges become more frequent; the Seer is being led up to the state in which opposites are not only equal, but identical. - page 50 - The figures on the wheel are darker than the wheel itself; in fact, they are stains upon the purity of the wheel, and for that reason, and because of the whirling of the wheel, I cannot see them. But at the top seems to be the Lamb and Flag, such as one sees on some Christian medals, and one of the lower things is a wolf, and the other a raven. The Lamb and Flag symbol is much brighter than the other two. It keeps on growing brighter, until now it is brighter than the wheel itself, and occupies more space than it did. It speaks: I am the greatest of the deceivers, for my purity and innocence shall seduce the pure and innocent, who but for me should come to the centre of the wheel1. The wolf betrayeth only the greedy and the treacherous; the raven betrayeth only the melancholy and the dishonest2. But I am he of whom it is written: He shall deceive the very elect. For in the beginning the Father of all called forth lying spirits that they might sift the creatures of the earth in three sieves, according to the three impure souls. And he chose the wolf for the lust of the flesh, and the raven for the lust of the mind; but me did he choose above all to simulate the pure prompting of the soul3. Them that are fallen a prey to the wolf and the raven I have not scathed; but them that have rejected me, I have given over to the wrath of the raven and the wolf4. And the jaws of the one have torn them, and the beak of the other has devoured the corpse. Therefore is my flag white, because I have left nothing upon the earth alive. I have feasted myself on the blood of the saints, but I am not suspected of men to be their enemy, for my fleece is white and warm, and my teeth are not the teeth of one that teareth flesh; and mine eyes are mild, and they know me not the chief of the lying spirits that the Father of all sent forth from before his face in the beginning5. -------------------- 1. All unbalanced symbols are necessarily evil. They distract the attention from the true object of Vision, and so destroy Concentration. 2. Note that no hostile force is hurtful. The enemy is always oneself. 3. The attacks are against Nephesch, Ruach, and Neshama respectively. 4. When the aspiration (Neshama), the natural protection against all lower forces, is sullied, befooled, or weakened, the wretch becomes an easy prey to grosser forms of temptation. We see in fact only too often that a man of the utmost probity and intellectual integrity, who errs in some strictly spiritual matter, lose every trace of rationality, and throw off all moral restraint, becoming the helpless victim of ludicrous and hideous temptations which had never threatened him before in his whole life. His nature is so radically corrupted that his friends believe him to have become insane. But his fall is quite logical, as a tumbling steeple may crush the perfectly sound structures beneath it. 5. It is the superficial appeal of the idea of "Jesus" to the sentimental type of aspiration (the vilest parody of Neschamah is this pollution by the least virile elements of Nephesh) that has made possible the corruption implied in the doctrines of Sin and Vicarious Atonement. From this error have sprung the putrefaction of the reasoning faculties, and the suppression of all clear thinking, and the abominations of greed, persecution and the rest. - page 51 - (His attribution is salt; the wolf mercury, and the raven sulphur1.) Now the lamb grows small again, there is again nothing but the wheel, and the hand that whirleth it. And I said: "By the word of power, double in the voice of the Master; by the word that is seven, and one in seven; and by the great and terrible word 2102, I beseech thee, O my Lord, to grant me the vision of thy glory." And all the rays of the wheel stream out at me, and I am blasted and blinded with the light. I am caught up into the wheel. I am one with the wheel. I am greater than the wheel3. In the midst of a myriad lightnings I stand, and I behold his face. (I am thrown violently back on to the earth every second, so that I cannot quite concentrate.) All one gets is a liquid flame of pale gold. But its radiant force keeps hurling me back. And I say: By the word and the will, by the penance and the prayer, let me behold thy face. (I cannot explain this, there is confusion of personalities.) I who speak to you, see what I tell you; but I, who see him, cannot communicate it to me, who speak to you4. If one could gaze upon the sun at noon, that might be like the substance of him. But the light is without heat. It is the vision of Ut5 in the Upanishads. And from this vision have come all the legends of Bacchus and Krishna and Adonis6. For the impression -------------------- 1. Salt for Neschamah; Mercury for Ruach; Sulphur for Nephesch. 2. N.O.X. = Nun-Ayin-Tzaddi = 210. Earth represents the reduction of the Dyad to Unity by Love under Will, and thence to 0 by dissolution in Nuit. It is here used by the Seer to destroy all positive symbols, for the true Wheel (apart from ornaments) is the circle, Nuit Herself. 3. Note the above-the-Abyss-consciousness. Cf. "I who am all, and made it all, abide its separate Lord." (Bhagavad Gita) 4. This personality-paradox is characteristic of visions of similar exaltation. It constitutes an essential difficulty of expression superadded to that natural to the description of things seen and heard, which are yet not subject to the ordinary Laws of perception. 5. See previous note on Falutli. 6. These are Solar, not Jupiterian deities. The Jupiter of the Wheel is that Invisible Energy, whom one can only divine from his Hand, his means of Expression. He is Amoun, the Concealed One, whose plumes are Truth, and whose Phallus is the Middle Pillar, the Shivalingam. We hind accordingly that these Solar Deities, who spring from the manifested Jupiter (as it at first sight appears) are soon recognized in their deeper nature. - page 52 - is of a youth dancing and making music. But you must understand that he is not doing that, for he is still1. Even the hand that turns the wheel is not his hand, but only a hand energized by him. And now it is the dance of Shiva. I lie beneath his feet, his saint, his victim2. My form is the form of the God Phtah3, in my essence, but the form of the god Seb in my form4. And this is the reason of existence, that in this dance which is delight, there must needs be both the god and the adept. Also the earth herself is a saint; and the sun and the moon dance upon her, torturing her with delight. This vision is not perfect. I am only in the outer court of the vision, because I have undertaken it in the service of the Holy One, and must retain sense and speech5. No recorded vision is perfect, of high visions, for the seer must keep either his physical organs or his memory in working order. And neither is capable. There is no bridge. One can only be conscious of one thing at a time, and as the consciousness moves nearer to the vision, it loses control of the physical and mental. Even so, the body and the mind must be very perfect before anything can be done, or the energy of the vision may send the body into spasms and the mind into insanity. This is why the first visions give Ananda, which is a shock. When the adept is attuned to Samadhi, there is but cloudless peace6. This vision is particularly difficult to get into, because he is I7. And therefore the human ego is being constantly excited, so that one comes back so often. An acentric meditation practice like mahasatipatthana ought to be done before invocations of the Holy Guardian Angel, so that the ego may be very ready to yield itself utterly to the Beloved. And now the breeze is blowing about us, like the sighs of love. -------------------- 1. Change = Stability. 2Degree = 9Square. See the 11th Aethyr. Again this series of paradoxes (implied in the equations 0Degree = 0Square, 1Degree = 10Square, etc.) is of the essence of the Aire. 2. See any true Image of Shiva, who dances upon the Yogi, whom he has destroyed in the Union of Love. 3. Phtah, the still and silent Creative Energy. 4. That is, the form of the Seer is now the Earth itself, the Malkuth at the other end of the scale from, yet identical with, His Kether. 5. See note 5, page 44. Any vision as exalted as this must obviously be indicible. The plastic form of the expression, the definite character of the shapes, colours, and numbers employed, is far better mnemonically than the vaguely beatific outbursts customary in the records usually offered by Mystics. 6. The psychology of the previous note explained at length. 7. In previous visions the Angel of the Aethyr has always been peculiar to his Aire. Even in ZAA, where the Angel is Luna, and the Vision represents the lustration of the Lunar Body (the Automatic Consciousness) of the Seer, He was not so wholly involved. For his normal consciousness was above that which the Aethyr affected. - page 53 - unsatisfied --- or satisfied. His lips move1. I cannot say the words at first. And afterwords: "Shalt thou not bring the children of men to the sight of my glory2? 'Only thy silence and thy speech that worship me avail.' 'For as I am the last, so am I the next, and as the next shalt thou reveal me to the multitude3.' Fear not for aught; turn not aside for aught, eremite of Nuit, apostle of Hadit, warrior of Ra Hoor Khu! The leaven taketh, and the bread shall be sweet; the ferment worketh, and the wine shall be sweet. My sacraments are vigorous food and divine madness. Come unto me, O ye children of men; come unto me, in whom I am, in whom ye are, were ye only alive with the life that abideth in Light." All this time I have been fading away. I sink. The veil of night comes down a dull blue-gray with one pentagram in the midst of it, watery and dull. And I am to abide there for a while before I come back to the earth4. (But shut me the window up, hide me from the sun. Oh, shut the window!)5 Now, the pentagram is faded; black crosses fill the Aethyr gradually growing and interlacing, until there is a network. It is all dark now. I am lying exhausted6, with the sharp edge of the shew-stone cutting into my forehead. Bou-Saada. November 30, 1909. 9:15 - 10:50 a.m. -------------------- 1. It seems that the seer recognized in this Aethyr, the Knowledge and Conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel. 2. In the Crossing of the Abyss by the Seer ("The Temple Of Solomon the King", "Equinox" I, No. Viii, pp. 9-13) during his Burma-China journey, he accomplished the meditation called Sammasati. He became aware of his True Will, of the purpose for which he had undertaken Incarnation. And this was expressed thus: to aid Mankind to take the Next Step. And at the time he understood this as meaning: to lead them to aspire to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. 3. "Liber LXV" describes this attainment in the fullest detail. The first quotation is from "Liber VII", Cap. VI, verse 35. The second is from "Liber LXV", Chapter III, v. 62. (The persons are transposed --- "I" to "Thou", etc.) 4. The splendour of the Vision would have made too rapid a return a shock intolerable to human weakness. 5. It was done. --- O.V. 6. The Seer had not previously experienced so intense a Communion and had contributed his physical energy to maintain it. This was, of course, an error. - page 54 - (Insert page plate) [Rough representation only. See original for proper depiction] .===========.===========.===========.===========.===========. : : : + : : : : : : + | + : : : : The : Alphabet : | | | : of : Daggers : : : : | | : : : : : :A | : : : :-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------: : : + : ------+ : X : | | : : ------+ : | : +------ : / X : | | | : : : | : ------+ : / / X : | | | : : ------+ : | : : / / : + | + : :B :C :D :E / :F + : :-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------: : + : + : + : X : X X : : | + : | : | : / : \ / : : | : | : +-- : | : | : : + : + : | : + : + : :G | :H :I + :J :K : :-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------: : + + + : | : : X + X : + : : | | | : + : +-- | : \ | / : +--|-- : : | | | : /|\ : +-- | : \ / : | : : +----- : X + X : +-- + : / \ : --|--+ : :L :M :N :O X X :P | : :-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------: : : + X : | : + + + : X : : X X : \| / : | : | | | : / / : : X \/ : |\/ : | : | | | : / / X : : \/ : | \ : | : | | | : X / : :Q / :R + X :S + :T :U / : :-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------: : + : + + + : \ / : X X : +----- : : +|+ : ||||||| : X X : / + \ : : : ||| : ||||||| : X X : / | \ : +----- : : ||| : + + + + : / \ : | : : :V | :W :X :Y :Z +----- : .===========.===========.===========.===========.===========. The Cry of the 19th Aethyr, Which is Called POP1 At first there is a black web over the face of the stone. A ray of light pierces it from behind and above. Then cometh a black cross2, reaching across the whole stone; then a golden cross, not so large. And there is a writing in an arch that spans the cross, in an alphabet in which the letters are all formed of little daggers3, cross-hilted, differently arranged. And the writing is: Worship in the body the things of the body; worship in the mind the things of the mind; worship in the spirit the things of the spirit4. (This holy alphabet must be written by sinners, that is, by those who are impure.)5 "Impure" means those whose every thought is followed by another thought, or who confuse the higher with the lower, the substance with the shadow. Every Aethyr is truth, though it be but a shadow, for the shadow of a man is not the shadow of an ape6. (Note. --- All this has come to me without voice, without vision, without thought.) -------------------- 1. POP = LeoLibraLeo = HB:Tet HB:Lamed HB:Tet . This Aire introduces the Hegemone, or leader of Candidate through the Ceremony of Initiation. She is the Holy Guardian Angel, in the form of Isis-Urania, the Instructress. p is Sun in his Northern declination, the form of Horus in his strength of Summer. He appears in his dual form, as it were the pillars between which the Hegemone, who bears a mitreheaded wand, symbolical of the Balances, is seated. (See the Neophyte Ceremony -- -"Equinox", I, II, pp. 244-261.) She is the reconciler between all opposites. (See the Ceremony of the Equinox --- given in Equ. I, VII, pp. 372-5). Her function is to equilibrate all symbols in the sphere of the Candidate; this is the one supremely important formula of Instruction. This Aethyr contains accordingly the knowledge (somewhat fragmentary at first sight) necessary to the Aspirant to the Grade of Magister Templi. 48 is Chet-Yod-Lamed, a woman; also strength, any. HB:Chet the Bearer of the Graal; and the seed of life; HB:Lamed the Balances, i.e. She bears the Seed of Life in the Holy Cup ion balance. 48 is Heh-Memfinal Ham; see the sudden Revelation at the end of the Vision. 2. The Hegemone wears a Black Cross. See also 16th Aire, last paragraph. 3. The idea is that every idea, however apparently atomic, is to be analyzed. 4. Worship all things; for all things are alike necessary to the Being of the All. But keep separate the planes. Failure to do this is the most frequent Cause of error. 5. For purity means full simplification --- and the keeping of each idea in its Own true perfection, separate from all others. 6. Worship each thing in itself for its own sake, not inventing ideas. (The shew-stone is pressed upon my forehead and causes intense pain; as I go on from Aethyr to Aethyr, it seems more difficult to open the Aethyr. The golden cross has become a little narrow door, and an old man like the Hermit1 of the Taro has opened it and come out. I ask him for admission: and he shakes his head kindly, and says: It is not given to flesh and blood to unveil the mysteries of the Aethyr, for therein are the chariots of fire2. and the tumult of the horsemen; whoso entereth here may never look on life again with equal eyes. I insist. The little gate is guarded by a great green dragon. And now the whole wall is suddenly fallen away; there is a blaze of the chariots and the horsemen; a furious battle is raging. One hears nothing but the clash of steel and the neighing of the chargers and the shrieks of the wounded. A thousand fall at every encounter and are trampled under foot. Yet the Aethyr is always full; there are infinite reserves. No; that is all wrong, for this is not a battle between two forces, but a melee in which each warrior fights for himself against all the others. I cannot see one who has even one ally. And the least fortunate, who fall soonest, are those in the chariots. For as soon as they are engaged in fighting, their own charioteers stab them in the back3. And in the midst of the battlefield there is a great tree, like a chinar-tree4. Yet it bears fruits. And now all the warriors are dead, and they are the ripe fruits that are fallen -- the ground is covered with them. There is a laugh in my right ear: "This is the tree of life5." And now there is a mighty god, Sebek6, with the head of a crocodile. His head is gray, like river mud, and his jaws fill the whole Aire. And he crunches up the whole tree and the ground -------------------- 1. See Note 1. This is the Sphere of Kokab (Mercury). Hence the Man of Atu IX. 2. The Chariot (Atu VII) of the Bearer of the Sangraal. (See Note 1). HB:Chet depends from Binah, the sphere of the Hegemone. 3. This seems to be a Vision of the Ideas which the Alphabet of Daggers is to analyze. The confusion suggests the influence of Choronzon. It is a warning of what the Aspirant must expect if he once lose his grip on Binah. 4. One of the noblest trees of Hindustan. 5. The Tree of Life bears fruit of innumerable ideas. They are all self -destroying and valueless unless organized by Understanding. 6. The Saturnian Destroyer --- as opposed to Shiva. Time swallows up all ideas, all experiences, Life itself. That is a statement of the condition which the Exempt Adept aspires to transcend by becoming a Magister Templi. - page 56 - and everything. Now then at last cometh forth the Angel of the Aethyr, who is like the Angel of the fourteenth key of Rota1, with beautiful blue wings, blue robes, the sun in her girdle like a brooch, and the two crescents of the moon shapen into sandals for her feet. Her hair is of flowing gold, each sparkle as a star. In her hands are the torch of Penelope and the cup of Circe2. She comes and kisses me on the mouth3, and says: Blessed art thou who hast beheld Sebek my Lord in his glory. Many are the champions of life, but all are unhorsed by the lance of death. Many are the children of the light, but their eyes shall all be put out by the Mother Darkness. Many are the servants of love, but love (that is not quenched by aught but love) shall be put out, as the child taketh the wick of a taper between his thumb and finger, by the god that sitteth alone4. And on her mouth, like a chrysanthemum of radiant light, is a kiss, and on it is the monogram I.H.S. The letters I.H.S. mean In Homini Salus and Instar Hominis Summus, and Imago Hominis deuS. And there are many, many other meanings, but they all imply this one thing; that nothing is of any importance but man; there is no hope or help but in man5. And she says: Sweet are my kisses, O wayfarer that wanderest from star to star. Sweet are my kisses, O householder that weariest within four walls. Thou art pent within thy brain, and my shaft pierceth it, and thou art free. Thine imagination eateth up the universe as the dragon that eateth up the moon. And in my shaft is it concentrated and bound up. See how all around thee gather my warriors, strong knights in goodly armour ready for war. Look upon my crown; it is above the stars. Behold the glow and the blush thereof! Upon thy cheek is the breeze that stirs those plumes of truth. For though I am the Angel of the fourteenth key, I am also the Angel of the eighth key6. And from the love of these two have I come, who am the warden of Pope and the servant of them that dwell therein. Though all crowns fall, mine shall not fall; for my plumes reach up unto the Knees of Him that sitteth upon the holy throne, and liveth and reigneth for ever and -------------------- 1. She is the Angel of Binah, though in this form. For Atu XIV is Sagittarius, the house of the Huntress. 2. She keeps Love alight by patient Fidelity --- the Holy Guardian Angel awaits eternally the address of Her Charge. And she is also the Arch -harlot, always ready to seduce and to intoxicate him who lusts after Her. 3. Relations with the Seer have been established long ago. 4. The Destruction of the Universe by the Devourer of all Things is the necessary beginning of the Initiation to the Grade of Magister Templi. 5. Man is the Candidate; he partakes of the Truth of all the Gods initiating. 6. See note 2, page 55. - page 57 - ever as the balance of righteousness and truth. I am the Angel of the moon. I am the veiled one that sitteth between the pillars veiled with a shining veil, and on my lap is the open Book of the mysteries of the ineffable light1. I am the aspiration unto the higher; I am the love of the unknown. I am the blind ache within the heart of man. I am the minister of the sacrament of pain. I swing the censer of worship, and I sprinkle the waters of purification. I am the daughter of the house of the invisible. I am the Priestess of the Silver Star2. And she catches me up to her as a mother catches her babe, and holds me up in her left arm, and sets my lips to her breast3. And upon her breast is written: Rosa Mundi est Lilium Coeli4. And I look down upon the open Book of the mysteries, and it is open at the page on which is the Holy Table with the twelve squares in the midst. It radiates a blaze of light, too dazzling to make out the characters, and a voice says: Non haec piscis omnium5. (To interpret that, we must think of 'Iota chi theta upsilon 'sigma , which does not conceal Iesous Christos Theon Uios Soter as traditionally asserted, but is a mystery of the letter Nun and the letter Qoph, as may be seen by adding it up6. 'Iota-chi-theta-upsilon-sigma' is only connected with Christianity because it was a hieroglyph of syphilis, which the Romans supposed to have been brought from Syria; and it seems to have been confounded with leprosy, which also they thought was caused by fish-eating. One important meaning of 'Iota-chi-theta-upsilon-sigma': it is formed of the initials of five Egyptian deities and also of five Greek deities: in -------------------- 1. See note 1, page 55. She is Isis-Urania, in Atu II. As Atu XIV she leads directly upwards to Tiphereth (HB:Vau ), as Atu VII directly upwards to Binah (HB:Heh ), and as Atu II, directly upwards to Kether (the top point of HB:Yod ). 2. The full title of Atu II. Note "Silver Star" as title of the Third Order. Hence she must appear as Hegemone to lead the Candidate to the first grade of that Order --- Magister Templi. 3. The Babe of the Abyss is taken to its Mother's breast. (There is a reference here to the technique of the grade.) 4. i.e.. Malkut is Binah. 5. 'Iota-chi-theta-upsilon-sigma' = 1219 = Yod-Vau-Zain-Resh Bet-Resh -Aleph-Shin-Yod-Taw. The Former (rock-maker) of that which was in the Beginning. It refers to HB:Nun and HB:Qof : to HB:Nun because the Fish is "Life in the Water", i.e. the Primal Water of Thales: to HB:Qof because Atu XVIII shews that Life appearing in the Waters of Midnight, Kephra in the Pool of Great Dark Sea. This is the Glyph of Birth natural to Binah. There is presumably a further mystery --- numerical --- still not found. - page 58 - both cases a magic formula of tremendous power is concealed1. As to the Holy Table itself, I cannot see it for the blaze of light; but I am given to understand that it appears in another Aethyr, of which it forms practically the whole content. And I am bidden to study the Holy Table very intently so as to be able to concentrate on it when it appears. I have grown greater, so that I am as great as the Angel. And we are standing, as if crucified, face to face, our hands and lips and breasts and knees and feet together, and her eyes pierce into my eyes like whirling shafts of steel, so that I fall backwards headlong through the Aethyr2 --- and there is a sudden and tremendous shout, absolutely stunning, cold and brutal: Osiris was a black god3! And the Aethyr claps its hands, greater than the peal of a thousand mighty thunders. I am back. Bou-Saada. November 30, 1909 10-11:45 p.m. -------------------- 1. Egyptian: Greek: Isis --- The Mother -- Binah I. Cneph --- The Winged Egg --- Binah Ch. Thoth --- The Moon God (measurer Themis --- the satisfied woman of time) Aleph-Yod-Mem-Aleph Uramoth --- The Water Goddess Uranus --- Heaven, sphere above (The Great Sea) the Abyss. Sebek --- The Devourer (Time) Selene --- The Moon All these deities represent divers forms and functions of the Idea of Binah. How to combine them in order to obtain Magical Formulae must be studied in the light of "Book 4", Part III. 2. The Seer cannot make Union with his Guide. She is the feminine form of his Holy Guardian Angel; but the impulse to unite is only valid when it comes from above. In the 20th Aire this was the case; and so the Marriage was accomplished. 3. This, to the Seer at that time, was a Revelation of the most appalling terror. The doctrine of the Third Order had not been promulgated. He expected to unite with the Great Mother in a Mode similar to that experienced in attaining to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. But the attainment of the Grade of Magister Templi involves the Annihilation of the aspirant. "Osiris was a black god"; i.e. of the nature of Binah --- BLACK. The love of Binah is that of the Queen Scorpion, who devours her mate. This revelation therefore, was much as if a romantic lover of the Richard Feveral type, were suddenly made fully aware that the Maiden of his Dreams intended to conclude their First Night of Love by a Breakfast, of which he was to form the staple dish! The Doctrine implied is that one must not be the child, but the Mother. - page 59 - The Cry of the 18th Aethyr, Which is Called ZEN1 A Voice comes before any vision: Accursed are they who enter herein if they have nails, for they shall be pierced therewith; or if they have thorns, for they shall be crowned withal; or if they have whips, for with whips they shall be scourged: or if they bear wine, for their wine shall be turned to bitterness; or if they have a spear, for with a spear shall they be pierced unto the heart. And the nails are desires, of which there are three; the desire of light, the desire of life, the desire of love2. (And the thorns are thoughts, and the whips are regrets, and the wine is ease, or perhaps unsteadiness, especially in ecstasy, and the spear is attachment.) And now there dawns the scene of the Crucifixion; but the Crucified One is an enormous bat, and for the two thieves are two little children. It is night, and the night is full of hideous things and howlings3. And an angel cometh forth, and saith: Be wary, for if thou change so much as the style of a letter, the holy word is blasphemed4. But enter into the mountain of the Caverns, for that this (how much more then that Calvary which mocks it, as his ape mocks Thoth?) is but the empty shell of the mystery of ZEN. Verily, I say unto thee, many are the adepts that have looked upon the back parts of my father, and cried, "our eyes fail before the glory of thy countenance5." And with that he gives the sign of the rending of the veil, and tears down the vision. And behold! whirling columns of fiery light, seventy- two6. Upon them is supported a mountain of pure crystal. The mountain is a cone, the angle of the apex being sixty degrees7. And within the crystal is a pyramid of ruby8, like -------------------- 1. ZEN = Leo Virgo Scorpio = HB:Tet HB:Yod HB:Nun = 69. 69 = Aleph-Bet -Vau-Samekh , a manger, stable, enclosure. This Aethyr describes the Place of the Preliminary Ceremony of the Initiation of the Master of the Temple. The Candidate is fortified for the Ordeal of Intimate Communion with his Holy Guardian Angel, who comes upon him unaware, and prepares him interiorly below any normal sphere of consciousness. 2. The Exempt Adept must be freed from all attachment. 3. The aspirant is reminded by this vision of the horror which is always ready to take the place of a True Magical Operation. Coruptio optimi pessima. 4. This warning is given directly. 5. It is repeated in detail. 6. The number of the letters of Shemhamphorash, the "Divided Name", i.e., Tetragrammaton in detail. Also, 72 = Ayin-Bet, the "Secret Nature" of Atziluth, the Archetypal World of Pure Reality. 7. The cone is a figure of Iacchus, Lord of the Highest Ecstasy. It is the Phallus. Its mathematical implications are many and important. In particular, its relations with the Great Pyramid of Cheops yield remarkable correspondences. 8. pi-upsilon-rho-alpha-mu-iota-sigma = 831 - page 60 - unto the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. I am entered in by the little door thereof, and I am come into the chamber of the king, which is fashioned like unto the vault of the adepts, or rather it is fitting to say that the vault of the adepts is a vile imitation of it. For there are four sides to the chamber, which with the roof and the floor and the chamber itself makes seven1. So also is the pastos seven2, for that which is within is like unto that which is without. And there is no furniture, and there are no symbols. Light streams from every side upon the pastos. This light is that blue of Horus which we know, but being refined it is brilliance. For the light of Horus only appears blue because of the imperfection of our eyes3. But though the light pours from the pastos, yet the pastos remains perfectly dark, so that it is invisible. It hath no form: only, at a certain point in the chamber, the light is beaten back4. I lie prostate upon the ground before this mystery. Its splendour is impossible to describe. I can only say that its splendour is so great that my heart stops with the terror and the wonder and the rapture of it5. I am almost mad. A million insane images -------------------- 1. Similarly, the Hexagram is attributed to the Seven Planets; for the Centre contains Sun. 2. Compare this whole geometrical symbolism with that given in the Ritual of Adeptus Minor. 3. Compare, in external nature, the appearance of the blue sky. 4. This very strange phenomenon is perhaps quite inadequately described. It is a general condition of most Spiritual Experience that the familiar laws of Nature do not obtain in their accustomed forms. It is only when Experience enables one to observe them with detachment that they are seen to be as uniform, simple and exact as those of normal physics. 5. Compare with this unlighted, light-radiating Pastos, the Boundless Cube in the Vision of Pure Love: "In the morning I woke early, before 7, in an absolutely renewed physical condition. I had the clean fresh feeling of a healthy boyhood, and was alert and active as a kitten --- post talem mortem! Mentally, I woke into Pure Love. This was symbolized as a cubex of blue-white light like a diamond of the best quality. It was lucid, translucent, self-luminous, and yet not radiating forth. I suppose because there was nothing else in the Cosmos." x. I say "a cube", yet its most salient property was that it was without boundaries. Experience of similar trances is necessary for the understanding of this statement, which is a perfectly proper expression of a a perfectly observed fact, despite its intellectual self-contradiction. This withdrawal from sense of the Pastos, which is the Inmost and most sacred Self of the Aspirant, is the surrender of "all that he has and all that he is" on entering the Abyss. - page 61 - chase each other through my brain...1 A voice comes: (it is my own voice -- I did not know it). "When thou shalt know me, O thou empty God, my little flame shall utterly expire in thy great N.O.X.2" There is no answer3. ... (20 minutes. O.V.) ... And now, after so long a while, the Angel4 lifts me and -------------------- 1. There is a fleeting Image of the Horror of the Abyss, as a mountaineer, leaping a Bergschrund, obtains a momentary glimpse of the Terrors beneath his airy Path. Cf. 10th Aire for these images of madness. 2. This quotation is from "Liber VII" I, v. 40. (This Book describes in detail the whole Attainment of the Grade of Magister Templi. It had been given to the Seer, years previously; but he had not understood it, even with his Neshamah, as a coherent entity. Nor does he even yet (An XXI, Sun in Cancer) understand it with his Rauch. Incidentally the full meaning of this Book 418, as a connected account of his Initiation, is only now becoming clear to him in the process of writing this Commentary upon it. For N.O.X., see Note above, 20th Aire. Observe that although the Exempt Adept, or the Babe of the Abyss, is completely baffled by the circumstances, and in no wise understands the situation, his Chiah, the Magician in him, acts with sublime confidence and correctness. 3. The quotation, accepting annihilation, instantly destroys the myriad of insane images which hastened to occupy the vacuum created by the leap of the Exempt Adept into the Abyss. Had he faltered, he would have become --- against his will --- a "Black Brother". But this being involuntary, he would not have attempted to maintain his coherence, as the Black Brothers do. He would therefore, have been destroyed at once; that is, to outward appearance he would have become a demented babbler. Spiritists present this phenomenon, on a much lower plane, and in a diluted form; though, with them as with the average Theosophist, there is usually a certain degree of obsession by pet phantoms --- a "Chinese Guide," or "Koot Hoomi," or what not --- to lend a species of semi-organized structure to the legions of disconnected ideas that throng their disintegrated gray matter. 4. (No Angel has been mentioned. The Seer was lost to being.) In this preliminary --- and so to say, symbolic --- crossing of the Abyss, His Holy Guardian Angel comes to the rescue of the Aspirant. Contrast the unspeakable Terror of the actual Crossing, when that Angel Himself abandons the Seer (see 11th Aire, the last paragraph.) Exactly how the Angel dealt with the Seer in this 20 minutes of earthly time is impossible to say; for he has no memory soever --- nor had he even at the time --- of what took place. We may, however, deduce from the fact that the Communion took place in a sphere beyond even Neschamah. It may well have been a Quintessence of Union sufficiently intimate to have identified the Seer with his Angel so perfectly as to have given him the right to make the passage fully, in every sense; and to have ensured his safety on the way. For the Angel cometh forth from above the Abyss, and dwelleth of right in the Bosom of the Great Mother. But the Angel deals not with the little pile of dust in the City of the Pyramids, (see 14th Aethyr) but with the Star that is cast forth to give light to the Earth. - 62 - takes me from the room1, and sets me in a little chamber2 where is another Angel like a fair youth in shining garments, who makes me partake of the sacraments; bread, that is labour; and fire, that is wit; and a rose, that is sin; and wine, that is death3. And all about us is a great company of angels in many-coloured robes, rose and spring-green, and sky-blue, and pale gold, and silver, and lilac, solemnly chanting without words. It is music wonderful beyond all that can be thought. And now we go out of the chamber; on the right is a pylon, and the right figure is Isis, and the left figure Nephthys, and they are folding their wings over, and supporting Ra4. -------------------- 1. This pyramid, where is the Pastos, is the Chamber of Annihilation. The Pastos contains the Essence of the Aspirant, and is in a Chamber containing the Essence of the Universe. This is all ready to be burnt up in the Energy of Aspiration to the Creative Annihilation, the Ruby Pyramid of Phallus. Finally, this Pyramid is within a Cone, a figure combining the straight line and the circle (Rose and Cross in their purest form) representing the new Universe into which the Old is to be transmuted. It is established, like all types of Universe, upon the Four Elements (divided into 72) which are the conditions of manifested Existence. (The elements are not only "material"; they include categories like "Time", "Space" and "Causality".) 2. This is the Birth-Chamber, where the Magister Templi awakes from the Oblivion of the Abyss. 3. These sacraments furnish him with the material of his new Life. Bread (Earth) is labour, the nourishment of his being. Fire is the perception of clear understanding (Neschamah). The Rose (Air) is Sin, the restriction which prevents him from being dissolved in pure light (Kether) for his Oath as a Master of the Temple is to deny himself the enjoyment of that privilege, for the sake of the Love that he bears to Mankind; wherefore is that Sin fragrant with the sent of love. Finally, Wine (Water) is Death, the Ecstasy of transmuting all things into Joy by the Sacrament of Creative Love. 4. Isis, Nature, and Nephthys, Perfection, preside over the Arising of the New Star. The Magister Templi is a little pyramid of dust in the City of the Pyramids (see 14th Aire) awaiting the Fire that shall burn him up to a white Ash (see 6th Aire). But the original combination of Sankharas (tendencies --- the elements of the Character of the Man) is void of the Ego. Ahamkara (the ego-making faculty) has been assimilated. The Sankharas are, however, still linked by the Karma of the Adept; for they had to be most strongly knit by him that he might be able to concentrate their whole Energies upon the Great Work of abandoning in a single gesture "all that he has and all that he is". They accordingly hold together: His Will has been accomplished, and he is free from them; but they depend upon the Elements which compose that true Will, which, since he has succeeded, can only be that Sublime Passion for Mankind, to help it to "Conquer Space, and lastly climb the walls of Time, and by the Golden Path the great have trod, Reach up to God." A phenomenon of this nature thus appears "as a morning star, or as an evening star, to give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death". This is then the man himself, save that his separate individuality is no longer present; it is replaced by this single passion to rescue mankind. - 63 - I wanted to go back to the King's Chamber1. The Angel pushed me away, saying: "Thou shalt see these visions from afar off, but thou shalt not partake of them save in the manner prescribed. For if thou change so much as the style of a letter, the holy word is blasphemed.2" And this is the manner prescribed: Let there be a room furnished as for the ritual of passing through Tuat3. And let the aspirant be clad in the robes of, and let him bear the insignia of his grade. And at the least he shall be a neophyte4. Three days and three nights shall he have been in the tomb, vigilant and fasting, for he shall sleep no longer than three hours at any one time, and he shall drink pure water, and eat little sweet cakes consecrated unto the moon, and fruits, and the eggs of the duck, or of the goose, or of the plover. And he shall be shut in, so that no man may break in upon his meditation. But in the last twelve hours he shall neither eat nor sleep. Then shall he break his fast, eating rich food, and drinking sweet wines, and wines that foam5; and he shall banish the elements and the planets and the signs and the sephiroth6; and then -------------------- 1. The Seer's first impulse was to proceed with the Work on which he had been engaged when the Dissolution of his Being took place. 2. As stated in a previous Aire, these higher visions are not to be obtained by the methods applicable to less exalted spheres. 3. See the Book of the Dead, as adopted for modern use by the Authorities of the G.'. D.'. 4. He must be a neophyte to have access to the Ritual of Passing Through the Tuat. 5. See "Liber AL", I. v. 51. The general idea is to create true appetite in a body purified by fasting and a mind clarified by meditation, so as to make certain of being perfectly intoxicated. It should be needless to say that this state of mind, like all others, should be absolutely willed, criticized and controlled. 6. The Aethyrs pertain to an order of nature, sui generis. Though they possess many correspondences with the 32 Paths of Wisdom, all of these must be impartially banished; otherwise the Vacuum would be disturbed by an unequilibrated symbol sympathetic with the Aire to be invoked, which would flood the circle, and prevent the Aethyr arising in its perfect plenitude. -64- shall he take the holy table that he hath made for his altar; and he shall take the call of the Aethyr of which he will partake, which he hath written in the angelic character, or in the character of the holy alphabet that is revealed in Pope, upon a fair sheet of virgin vellum; and therewith shall he conjure the Aethyr, chanting the call. And in the lamp that is hung above the altar shall he burn the call that he hath written1. Then shall he kneel2 before the holy table, and it shall be given him to partake of the mystery of the Aethyr. And concerning the ink with which he shall write; for the first Aethyr let it be gold, for the second scarlet, for the third violet, for the fourth emerald, for the fifth silver, for the sixth sapphire, for the seventh orange, for the eighth indigo, for the ninth gray, for the tenth black, for the eleventh maroon, for the twelfth russet, for the thirteenth green-gray, for the fourteenth amber, for the fifteenth olive, for the sixteenth pale blue, for the seventeenth crimson, for the eighteenth bright yellow, for the nineteenth crimson adorned with silver, for the twentieth mauve, for the twenty-first pale green, for the twenty-second rose-madder, for the twenty-third violet cobalt, for the twenty-fourth beetle-brown, blue-brown colour, for the twenty-fifth a cold dark gray, for the twenty- sixth white flecked with red, blue, and yellow; the edges of the letters shall be green, for the twenty-seventh angry clouds of ruddy brown, for the twenty-eighth indigo, for the twenty-ninth bluish-green, for the thirtieth mixed colours3. -------------------- 1. This injunction has several obvious Magical advantages. The symbolic gesture is to consume the matter of the Operation in the Spirit thereof. 2. This is by no means a gesture of supplication, the vile attitude of the unmanly devotee of the Slave-Gods. It has as specific and positive practical purpose, which should be easy for the Neophyte to divine if his Zelator have well and wisely so instructed him. 3. I. Gold for Horus. II. Scarlet for Babalon. III. Violet for Mercury House of Juggler IV. Emerald for Venus Love of Virgin. V. Silver for Star A.'. A.'. VI. Sapphire for Chokmah. VII. Orange for (?) VIII. Indigo for (?) IX. Grey for Binah, fertilized. X. Black for the Abyss. XI. Maroon, for Yesod the XII. Russet for the Concealed threshold. Blood in the Cup. XIII. Green-gray for Garden of Nemo XIV. Amber for Atu VII, XV. Olive for Salome, Water of Malkuth. XVI. Pale Blue for (?) XVII. Crimson for Pisces. XVIII. Bright yellow for Holy Guardian Angel and Hegemone. XIX. Crimson-silver for XX. Mauve for Atu X. Binah and Moon. XXI. Pale green for (?) XXII. Rose madder for Rose of 49. XXIII. Violet Cobalt for Aquarius Eagle. XXIV. Beetle Brown, for Scorpio Love. XXV. Cold dark gray for Capricorn XXVI. White flecked with red, blue & yellow (edges green) for Osiris. XXVII. Angry Clouds, red brown XXVIII. Indigo for Night brown for smoke of cauldron. sky of Binah. XXIX. Blue green for Scorpio Change. XXX. Miscellaneous colours for original confusion of dying Aeon. - 65 - This shall be the form to be used by him who would partake of the mystery of any Aethyr. And let him not change so much as the style of a letter, lest the holy word be blasphemed. And let him beware, after he hath been permitted to partake of this mystery, that he await the completion of the 91st hour of his retirement, before he open the door of the place of his retirement; lest he contaminate his glory with uncleanness, and lest they that behold him be smitten by his glory unto death1. For this is a holy mystery, and he that did first attain to reveal the alphabet thereof2, perceived not one ten-thousandth part of the fringe that is upon its vesture. Come away! for the clouds are gathered together, and the Aire heaveth like the womb of a woman in travail. Come away! lest he loose the lightnings from his hand, and unleash his hounds of thunder. Come away! For the voice of the Aethyr is accomplished. Come away! For the seal of His loving-kindness is made sure. And let there be praise and blessing unspeakable unto him that sitteth upon the Holy Throne, for he casteth down mercies as a spendthrift that scattereth gold. And he hath shut up judgment and hidden it away as a miser that hoardeth coins of little worth3. All this while the Angel hath been pushing me backwards, and now he is turned into a golden cross with a rose at its heart, and that is the red cross wherein is set the golden shewstone. Bou-Saada. December 1, 1909. 2:30 - 4:10 p.m. -------------------- 1. This injunction is to be taken very seriously. I have known uninitiates made ill by the shock of seeing Adepts of too high "residual charge"; worse, thrown off their moral balance. 2. Presumably Sir Edward Kelly. There is certainly no hint of the sublimity and profundity of such visions as the present series in the working of that adept. 3. This peroration suggests that early working by its style. It has little definite thought contained in it; the sublimity of the language ill conceals its vagueness. Nevertheless, it is a fitting conclusion to the mystery of this Aire. The ritual, and its lyrical outburst, were doubtless necessary to let the seer down gently from the colossal exaltation of the central event of the Aethyr.