[from ftp://nic.funet.fi/pub/doc/religion/occult/thelema/crowley/MagickWOTears/ ] [balance (chapters 11-15, 34-43, 47-69) obtained via http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/mwt_contents.html ] [consolidation on 2/19/03 by Haramulla II'; also (c) OTO 2003] (mwt-a.zip begins) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- November 13, 1988 e.v. key entry and first proof by Bill Heidrick T.G. O.T.O. (c) O.T.O. disk 1/4 This is a XYWrite file. Additional proofing and supplimental material required to produce complete and unabridged version. Germer omits still a problem. ************************************************************************* Key entry by Bill Heidrick, (415) 454-5176 P.O.Box 430 Fairfax, CA 94930 A l e i s t e r C r o w e y MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS Complete and Unabridged, edited with a Foreword by Karl J. Germer (c) 1954 Karl J. Germer for Ordo Templi Orientis Renewed 1982 (c) BLURB Ordo Templi Orientis JAF Box 7666 New York, NY 10116 USA FOREWORD In 1943 Aleister Crowley met a lady who, having heard of his wide knowledge and experience, asked his advice on occult, spiritual, and practical matters. This chance connection resulted in a stimulating exchange of letters. Crowley then asked others to put similar questions to him. The result was this collection of over eighty letters which are now being issued over the title that he chose, "MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS". Crowley did not keep copies of his early letters to the above-mentioned lady, so was unable to include them in the collection that he planned to publish. Fortunately they have been preserved and are now included in the introduction to this book. Their original form has been retained with the opening and closing formulae which Crowley used in all his letters. Crowley at first intended to call the book "ALEISTER EXPLAINS EVERYTHING", and sent the following circular to his friends and disciples asking them to suggest subjects for inclusion. ALEISTER EXPLAINS EVERYTHING. __________ "Much gratified was the author of THE BOOK OF THOTH to have so many letters of appreciation, mostly from women, thanking him for not 'putting it in unintelligible language', for 'making it all so clear that even I with my limited intelligence can understand it, or think I do.' "Nevertheless and notwithstanding! For many years the Master Therion has felt acutely the need of some groundwork-teaching suited to those who have only just begun the study of Magick and its subsidiary sciences, or are merely curious about it, or interested in it with intent to study. Always he has done his utmost to make his meaning clear to the average intelligent edu- cated person, but even those who understand him perfectly and are most sympathetic to his work, agree that in this respect he has often failed. "So much for the diagnosis --- now for the remedy! "One genius, inspired of the gods, suggested recently that the riddle might be solved somewhat on the old and well-tried lines of 'Dr. Brewer's Guide to Science'; i.e., by having aspirants write to the Master asking questions, the kind of problem that naturally comes into the mind of any sensible enquirer, and getting his answer in the form of a letter. 'What is it?' 'Why should I bother my head about it?' 'What are it's principles?' 'What use is it?' 'How do I begin?', and the like. "This plan has been put into action; the idea has been to cover the subjects from every possible angle. The style has been collo- quiel and fluent; technical terms have either been carefully avoided or most carefully explained; and the letter has not been admitted to the series until the querent has expressed satisfaction. Some seventy letters, up to the present have been written, but still there seem to be certain gaps in the demonstration, like those white patches on the map of the World, which looked so tempting fifty years ago. "This memorandum is to ask for your collaboration and support. A list, indicating briefly the subject of each letter already written, is appended. Should you think that any of those will help you in your own problems, a typed copy will be sent to you at once ... Should you want to know anything outside the scope, send in your question (stated as fully and clearly as possible) ... The answer should reach you, bar accidents, in less than a month ... It is proposed ultimately to issue the series in book form." _______ This has now been done. Karl J. Germer Frater Saturnus X Frater Superior, O.T.O. January, 1954 e.v. Hampton, N.J. I N T R O D U C T I O N LETTERS WRITTEN BY MASTER THERION TO A STUDENT Letter No. A March 19, 1943 Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law I was very glad to gather from your conversation yesterday afternoon that you have a serious intention of taking up the Great Work in the proper spirit. Your criticisms of previous experience in the course of your ad- ventures appeared to be singularly sane and just. As I promised I am writing this letter to cover a few practical points which we had not time to discuss and which in any case I think it better to arrange by correspon- dence. 1) It is of the first importance that you should understand my personal position. It is not actually wrong to regard me as a teacher, but it is certainly liable to mislead; fellow-student, or, if you like, fellow- sufferer, seems a more appropriate definition. The climax of my life was what is known as the Cairo Working, described in the minutest detail in the Equinox of the Gods. At that time most of The Book of the Law was completely unintelligible to me, and a good deal of it - especially the third chapter - extremely antipathetic. I fought against this book for years; but it proved irresistible. I do not think I am boasting unfairly when I say that my personal researches have been of the greatest value and importance to the study of the subject of Magick and Mysticism in general, especially my integration of the vari- ous thought-systems of the world, notably the identification of the system of the Yi King with that of the Qabalah. But I do assure you that the whole of my life's work, were it multiplied a thousand fold, would not be worth one tithe of the value of a single verse of The Book of the Law. I think you should have a copy of the Equinox of the Gods and make The Book of the Law your constant study. Such value as my own work may possess for you should amount to no more than an aid to the interpretation of this book. 2) It may be that later on you will want a copy of Eight Lectures on Yoga so I am putting a copy aside for you in case you should want it. 3) With regard to the O.T.O., I believe I can find you a typescript of all the official documents. If so, I will let you have them to read, and you can make up your mind as to whether you wish to affiliate to the Third Degree of the Order. I should consequently, in the case of your de- ciding to affiliate, go with you though the script of the Rituals and ex- plain the meaning of the whole thing; communicating, in addition, the real secret and significant knowledge of which ordinary Masonry is not possessed. 4) The horoscope; I do not like doing these at all, but it is part of the agreement with the Grand Treasurer of the O.T.O. that I should under- take them in worthy cases, if pressed. But I prefer to keep the figure to myself for future reference, in case any significant event makes consulta- tion desirable. Now there is one really important matter. The only thing besides The Book of the Law which is in the forefront of the battle. As I told you yester- day, the first essential is the dedication of all that one is and all that one has to the Great Work, without reservation of any sort. This must be kept constantly in mind; the way to do this is to practice Liber Resh vel Helios, sub figura CC, pp. 425-426 - Magick. There is another version of these Adorations, slightly fuller; but those in the text are quite al- right. The important thing is not to forget. I shall have to teach you the signs and gestures which go with the words. It is also desirable before beginning a formal meal to go through the fol- lowing dialogue: Knock 3-5-3: say, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." The person at the other end of the table replies: "What is thy Will?" You: "It is my Will to eat and drink." He: "To what end?" You: "That my body may be fortified thereby." He: "To what end?" You: "That I may accomplish the Great Work." He: "Love is the law, love under will." You, with a single knock: "Fall to." When alone make a monologue of it: thus, Knock 3-5-3. Do what, etc. It is my Will to, etc., that my body, etc., that I may, etc., Love is, etc. Knock: and begin to eat. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of performing these small ceremonies regularly, and being as nearly accurate as possible with regard to the times. You must not mind stopping in the middle of a crowded thor- oughfare --- lorries or no lorries --- and saying the Adorations; and you must not mind snubbing your guest --- or your host --- if he or she should prove ig- norant of his or her share of the dialogue. It is perhaps because these matters are so petty and trivial in appearance that they afford so excellent a training. They teach you concentration, mindfulness, moral and social courage, and a host of other virtues. Like a perfect lady, I have kept the tit bit to the last. It is absolutely essential to begin a magical diary, and keep it up daily. You begin by an account of your life, going back even before your birth to your ancestry. In conformity with the practice which you may perhaps choose to adopt later, given in Liber Thisarb, sub figura CMXIII, paragraphs 27-28, Magick, pp. 420-422, you must find an answer to the question: "How did I come to be in this place at this time, engaged in this particular work?" As you will see from the book, this will start you on the discovery of who you really are, and eventually lead you to your recovering the memory of pre- vious incarnations. As it is difficult for you to come to Town except at rare and irregular intervals, may I suggest a plan which has previously proved very useful, and that is a weekly letter. Eliphas Lvi did this with the Baron Spedalieri, and the correspondence is one of the most interesting of his works. you ask such questions as you wish to have answered, and I answer them to the best of my ability. I, of course, add spontaneous remarks which may be elicited by my observations on your progress and the perusal of your magi- cal diary. This, of course, should be written on one side of the paper only, so that the opposite page is free for comments, and an arrangement should be made for it to be inspected at regular intervals. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 Letter No. B April 20, 1943 Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law I was very glad to have your letter, and am very sorry to hear that you have been in affliction. About the delay, however, I think I ought to tell you that the original Rule of the Order of A.'. A.'. was that the introducer read over a short lection to the applicant, then left him alone for a quar- ter of an hour, and on coming back received a "yes" or "no." If there was any hesitation about it the applicant was barred for life. The reason for the relaxation of the rule was that it was thought better to help people along in the early stages of the work, even if there was no hope of their turning out first-class. But I should like you to realize that sooner or later, whether in this incarnation or another, it is put up to you to show perfect courage in face of the completely unknown, and the power of rapid and irrevocable decision without without counting the cost. I think that it is altogether wrong to allow yourself to be worried by "psychological, moral, and artistic problems." It is no good your starting anything of any kind unless you can see clearly into the simplicity of truth. All this humming and hawing about things is moral poison. What is the use of being a woman if you have not got an intuition, an instinct en- abling you to distinguish between the genuine and the sham? Your state of mind suggests to me that you must have been, in the past, under the influence of people who were always talking about things, and never doing any real work. They kept on arguing all sorts of obscure phil- osophical points; that is all very well, but when you have succeeded in analyzing your reactions you will understand that all this talk is just an excuse for not doing any serious work. I am confirmed in this judgment by your saying: "I don't know if I want to enter into a great conflict. I need peace." Fortunately you save yourself by adding: "Real peace, that is living and not stagnant." All life is con- flict. Every breath that you draw represents a victory in the struggle of the whole Universe. You can't have peace without perfect mastery of circum- stance; and I take it that this is what you mean by "living, not stagnant." But it is of the first consequence for you to summon up the resolution to stamp on this sea of swirling thoughts by an act of will; you must say: "Peace be still." The moment you have understood these thoughts for what they are, tools of the enemy, invented by him with the idea of preventing you from undertaking the Great Work --- the moment you dismiss all such con- siderations firmly and decisively, and say: "What must I do?" and having discovered that, set to work to do it, allowing of no interruption, you will find that living peace which (as you seem to see) is a dynamic and not a static condition. (There is quite a lot about this point in Little Essays Toward Truth, and also in The Vision and the Voice.) Your postscript made me smile. It is not a very good advertisement for the kind of people with whom you have been associated in the past. My own posi- tion is a very simple one. I obeyed the injunction to "buy a perfectly black hen, without haggling." I have spent over 100,000 pounds of my in- herited money on this work: and if I had a thousand times that amount to- day it would all go in the same direction. It is only when one is built in this way, to stand entirely aloof from all considerations of twopence halfpenny more or fourpence halfpenny less, that one obtains perfect free- dom on this Plane of Discs. All the serious Orders of the world, or nearly all, begin by insisting that the aspirant should take a vow of poverty; a Buddhist Bhikku, for example, can own only nine objects - his three robes, begging bowl, a fan, tooth- brush, and so on. The Hindu and Mohammedan Orders have similar regulations; and so do all the important Orders of monkhood in Christianity. Our own Order is the only exception of importance; and the reason for this is that it is much more difficult to retain one's purity if one is living in the world than if one simply cuts oneself off from it. It is far easier to achieve technical attainments if one is unhampered by any such considera- tions. These regulations operate as restrictions to one's usefulness in helping the world. There are terrible dangers, the worst dangers of all, associated with complete retirement. In my own personal judgment, moreover, I think that our own ideal of a natural life is much more wholesome. When you have found out a little about your past incarnations, you should be able to understand this very clearly and simply. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 Letter No. C April 30, 1943 Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law Thank you for your long letter of no date, but received two days ago. I am very sorry you are still feeling exhausted. I am not too good myself, for I find this weather very trying. I will answer your various points as best I can. I am arranging to send you the official papers connected with the O.T.O., but the idea that you should meet other members first is quite impossible. Even after affiliation, you would not meet anyone unless it were necessary for you to work in cooperation with them. I am afraid you have still got the idea that the Great Work is a tea-party. Contact with other students only means that you criticize their hats, and then their morals; and I am not going to encourage this. Your work is not anybody else's; and undirected chatter is the worst poisonous element in human society. When you talk of the "actual record" of the "Being called Jesus Christ," I don't know what you mean. I am not aware of the existence of any such re- cord. I know a great many legends, mostly borrowed from previous legends of a similar character. It would be better for you to get a copy of the Equinox of the Gods and study it. The Great Work is the uniting of opposites. It may mean the uniting of the soul with God, of the microcosm with the macrocosm, of the female with the male, of the ego with the non-ego --- or what not. By "love under will" one refers to the fact that the method in every case is love, by which is meant the uniting of opposites as above stated, such as hydrogen and chlorine, sodium and oxygen, and so on. Any reaction what- ever, any phenomenon, is a phenomenon of "love", as you will understand when I come to explain to you the meaning of the word "point-event". But love has to be "under will," if it is to be properly directed. You must find your True Will, and make all your actions subservient to the one great purpose. Rahoor is the Sun God; Tahuti is the Egyptian Mercury; Kephra is the Sun at midnight. About your problems; what I have to do is to try to teach you to think clearly. You will be immensely stimulated by having all the useless trim- mings stripped from your thinking apparatus. For instance, I don't think you know the first principles of logic. You apparently take up a more or less Christian attitude, but at the same time you like very much the idea of Karma. You cannot have both. The question about money does not arise. This old and very good rule (which I have always kept) was really pertinent to the time when there were actual secrets. But I have published openly all the secrets. All I can do is to train you in a perfectly exoteric way. My suggestion about the weekly letter was intended to exclude this question, as you would be getting full commercial value for anything paid. Your questions about the Spirit of the Sun, and so on, are to be answered by experience. Intellectual satisfaction is worthless. I have to bring you to a state of mind completely superior to the mechanism of the normal mind. A good deal of your letter is rather difficult to answer. You always seem to want to put the cart before the horse. Don't you see that, if I were trying to get you to do something or other, I should simply return you to the kind of answer which I thought would satisfy you, and make you happy? And this would be very easy to do because you have got no clear ideas a- bout anything. For one thing, you keep on using terms about whose signifi- cance we are not yet in agreement. When you talk about the "Christian path," do you believe in vicarious atonement and eternal damnation --- or don't you? A great deal of the confusion that arises in all these ques- tions, and grows constantly worse as fellow-students talk them over --- the blind leading the blind --- is because they have no idea of the necessity of defining their terms. Then again, you ask me questions like "What is purity?" that can be an- swered in a dozen different ways; and you must understand what is meant by a "universe of discourse." If you asked me --- "Is this sample of clo- ride of gold a pure sample?" I can answer you. You must understand the value of precision in speech. I could go on rambling about purity and selflessness for years, and no one would be a penny the better. P.S. --- or rather, I did not want to dictate this bit. --- Your ideas about the O.T.O. remind me of some women's idea of shopping. You want to maul about the stock and then walk out with a proud glad smile: NO. Do you really think that I should muster all the most distinguished people alive for your inspection and approval? The affiliation clause in our Constitution is a privilege: a courtesy to a sympathetic body. Were you not a Mason, or Co-Mason, you would have to be proposed and seconded, and then examined by savage Inquisitors; and then --- probably --- thrown out on to the garbage heap. Well, no, it's not as bad as that; but we certainly don't want anybody who chooses to apply. Would you do it yourself, if you were on the Committee of a Club? The O.T.O. is a serious body, engaged on a work of Cosmic scope. You should question yourself: what can I contribute? Secrets. There is one exception to what I have said about publishing everything: that is, the ultimate secret of the O.T.O. This is really too dangerous to disclose; but the safeguard is that you could not use it if you knew it, unless you were an advanced Adept; and you would not be allowed to go so far unless we were satisfied that you were sincerely devoted to the Great Work. (See One Star in Sight). True, the Black Brothers could use it; but they would only destroy themselves. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 Letter No. D June 8, 1943 Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Thanks for your letter. I couldn't find the O.T.O. typescript --- and then it struck me that it would be useful to await your reactions. If I were expecting some presumably important papers by post, I should get anxious after 24 hours delay (at most) and start enquiries. Anyhow, I can't find them for the moment; but Mr. Bryant said he would lend you his Blue Equinox: pages 195-270 give what you require. But the real point of your affiliating is that it saves me from constantly being on my guard lest I should mention something which I am sworn not to reveal. As in every serious society, members are pledged not to disclose what they may have learnt, whom they have met; it is so, even in Co-Mason- ry: isn't it: But one may mention the names of members who have died. (See Liber LII, par. 2.) Be happy then; the late X... Y... was one of us. I hope that he and Rudolph Steiner will (between them) satisfy your doubts. The A.'.A.'. is totally different. One Star in Sight tells you every- thing that you need to know. (Perhaps some of these regulations are hard to grasp: personally, I can never understand all this By-Law stuff. So you must ask me what, and why, and so on.) There is really only one point for your judgment. "By their fruits ye shall know them." You have read Liber LXV and Liber VII; That shows you what states you can attain by this cirriculum. Now read "A Master of the Temple" (Blue Equinox, pp. 127-170) for an account of the early stages of training, and their results. (Of course, your path might not coincide with, or even resemble, his path.) But do get it into you head that "If the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch." If you had seen 1% of the mischief that I have seen, you would freeze to the marrow of your bones at the mere idea of seeing another member through the telescope! Well, I employ the figure of hyperbole, that I admit; but it really won't do to have a dozen cooks at the broth! If you're working with me, you'll have no time to waste on other people. I fear your "Christianity" is like that of most other folk. You pick out one or two of the figures from which the Alexandrines concocted "Jesus" (too many cooks, again, with a vengeance!) and neglect the others. The Zionist Christ of Matthew can have no value for you; nor can the Asiatic "Dying-God" --- compiled from Melcarth, Mithras, Adonis, Bacchus, Osiris, Attis, Krishna, and others --- who supplied the miraculous and ritualistic elements of the fable. Rightly you ask: "What can I contribute?" Answer: One Book. That is the idea of the weekly letter: 52 of yours and 52 of mine, competently edited, would make a most useful volume. This would be your property: so that you get full material value, perhaps much more, for your outlay. I thought of the plan because one such arrangement has recently come to an end, with amazingly happy results: they should lie open to your admiring gaze in a few months from now. Incidentally, I personally get nothing out of it; secretarial work costs money these days. But there is another great advan- tage; it keeps both of us up to the mark. Also, in such letters a great deal of odds and ends of knowledge turn up automatically; valuable stuff, frequent enough; yes, but one doesn't want to lose the thread, once one starts. Possibly ten days might be best. But please understand that this suggestion arose solely from your own statement of what you thought would help in your present circumstances. Anyway, as you say, decide! If it is yes, I should like to see you before June 15 when I expect to go away for a few days; better to give you some groundwork to keep you busy in my absence. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 Letter No. E Aug. 18, 1943 Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Much thought has gone into the construction of your Motto. "I will become" can be turned neatly enough as "Let there be;" by avoiding the First Pro- noun one gets the idea of "the absorption of the Self in the Beloved," which is exactly what you want. "The creative Force of the Universe" is quite ready-made. Pyramis1, a pyramid, is that Force in its geometrical form; in its biological form it is Phallus2, the Yang or Lingam. Both words have the same numerical value, 831. These two words can therefore serve you as the secret object of your Work. How than can you construct the number 831? The Letter Kaph3, Jupiter (Jehovah), the Wheel of Fortune in the Tarot --- the Atu X is a picture of the Universe built up and revolving by virtue of those Three Principles: Sulphur, Mercury, Salt; or Gunas: Sattvas, Rajas, Tamas --- has the value 20. So also has the letter Yod4 spelt in full. One Gnostic secret way of spelling and pronouncing Jehovah is IAO5 and this has the value 811. So has "Let there be," Fiat, transliterating into Greek. Resuming all these ideas, it seems that you can express your aspiration very neatly, very fully, by choosing for your motto the words FIAT YOD. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 P.S. Please study this letter, and these explanatory figures (the author, BAPHOMET X O.T.O., in the original spells each word, giving the numerical equivalent of each letter in puramis, etc. This is here not copied.) and meditate upon them until you have fully assimilate not only the matter under immediate consideration, but the general method of Qabal- istic research and construction. Note how new cognate ideas arise to enrich the formula. 666 Letter No. F Aug. 20, 1943 Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Let me begin by referring to my letter about the motto and make clear to you the working of this letter. In this motto you have really got several ideas combined, and yet they are really, of course, one idea. Fiat, being 811, is identical with IAO, and therefore FIAT YOD might be read not only as "let there be" (or "Let me become"), the secret source of all creative energy, but as "the secret source of the energy of Jehovah." The two words together, having the value [NOTES] 1* In the original in Greek 2* In the original in Greek. 3* In the original in Hebrew. 4* In the original in Hebrew. 5* In the original in Greek. of 831, they contain the secret meanings Pyramis and Phallos, which is the same idea in different forms; thus you have three ways of expressing the creative form, in its geometrical aspect, its human aspect, and its divine aspect. I am making a point of this, because the working out of this motto should give you a very clear idea of the sort of way in which Qabalah should be used. I think it is rather useful to remember what the essence of the Qabalah is in principle; thus, in your correspondence for Malkuth, Yesod, and Hod you are simply writing down some of the ideas which pertain to the numbers 10, 9, and 8 respectively. Naturally, there is a great deal of re- dundancy and overloading as soon as you get to ideas important enough to be comprehensive; as is mentioned in the article on the Qabalah in Equi- nox Vol. I, No. 5, it is quite easy to prove 1 = 2 = 3 = 4, etc. On the other hand, you must be careful to avoid taking the correspondences given in the books of reference without thinking out why they are so given. Thus, you find a camel in the number which refers to the Moon, but the Tarot card "the Moon" refers not to the letter Gimel which means camel, but to the letter Qoph, and the sign Pisces which means fish, while the letter itself refers to the back of the head; and you also find fish has the meaning of the letter Nun. You must not go on from this, and say that the back of your head is like a camel - the connection between them is simply that they all refer to the same thing. In studying the Qabalah you mention six months; I think after that time you should be able to realize that, after six incarnations of uninterrupted study, you may realize that you can never know it; as Confucius said about the Yi King. "If a few more years were added to my life, I would devote a hundred of them to the study of the Yi." If, however, you work at the Qabalah in the same way as I did myself, in season and out of season, you ought to get a very fair grasp of it in six months. I will now tell you what this method is: as I walked about, I made a point of attributing everything I saw to its appropriate idea. I would walk out of the door of my house and reflect that door is Daleth, and house Beth; now the word "dob" is Hebrew for bear, and has the number 6, which refers to the Sun. Then you come to the fence of your property and that is Cheth - number 8, number of Tarot Trump 7, which is the Chariot: so you begin to look about for your car. Then you come to the street and the first house you see is number 86, and that is Elohim, and it is built of red brick which reminds you of Mars and the Blasted Tower, and so on. As soon as this sort of work, which can be done in a quite lighthearted spirit, becomes habitual, you will find your mind running naturally in this direction, and will be surprised at your progress. Never let your mind wander from the fact that your Qabalah is not my Qabalah; a good many of the things which I have noted may be useful to you, but you must construct your own system so that it is a living weapon in your hand. I think I am fair if I say that the first step on the Qabalah which may be called success, is when you make an actual discovery which throws light on some problem which has been troubling you. A quarter of a century ago I was in New Orleans, and was very puzzled about my immediate course of action; in fact I may say I was very much distressed. There seemed literally no- thing that I could do, so I bethought myself that I had better invoke Mercury. As soon as I got into the appropriate frame of mind, it naturally occurred to me, with a sort of joy, "But I am Mercury." I put it into Latin --- Mercurius sum, and suddenly something struck me, a sort of nameless reaction which said: "That's not quite right." Like a flash it came to me to put it into Greek, which gave me "Hermes Eimi", {Keynote: may wish to convert to true Greek} and adding that up rapidly, I got the number 418, with all the marvellous correspondences which had been so abundantly useful to me in the past (See Equ. of the Gods, p. 138). My troubles disappeared like a flash of lightning. Now to answer your questions seriatum; it is quite all right to put ques- tions to me about The Book of the Law; a very extended commentary has been written, but it is not yet published. I shall probably be able to answer any of your questions from the manuscript, but you cannot go on after that when it would become a discussion; as they say in the law- courts, "You must take the witness' answer." II. The Qabalah, both Greek and Hebrew, also very likely Arabic, was used by the author of The Book of the Law. I have explained above the proper use of the Qabalah. I cannot tell you how the early Rosicrucians used it, but I think one may assume that their methods were not dissimilar to our own. Incidentally, it is not very safe to talk about Rosicrucians, because their name has become a signal for letting loose the most devastating floods of nonsense. What is really known about the original Rosicrucians is prac- tically confined to the three documents which they issued. The eighteenth century Rosicrucians may, or may not, have been legitimate successors of the original brotherhood - I don't know. But from them the O.T.O. derived its authority; The late O.H.O. Theodor Reuss possessed a certain number of documents which demonstrated the validity of his claim according to him; but I only saw two or three of them, and they were not of very great impor- tance. Unfortunately he died shortly after the last War, and he had got out of touch with some of the other Grand Masters. The documents did not come to me as they should have done; they were seized by his wife who had an idea that she could sell them for a fantastic price; and we did not feel inclined to meet her views. I don't think the matter is of very great importance, the work being done by members of the Order all over the place is to me quite sufficient. III. The Ruach contains both the moral and intellectual worlds, which is really all that we mean by the conscious mind; perhaps it even includes certain portions of the subconscious. IV. In initiation from the grade of Neophyte to that of Zelator, one passes by this way. The main work is to obtain admission to, and control of, the astral plane. Your expressions about "purifying the feelings" and so on are rather vague to enter into a scientific system like ours. The result which you doubt- less refer to is attained automatically in the course of your experiments. Your very soon discover the sort of state of mind which is favourable or unfavourable to the work, and you also discover what is helpful and harm- ful to these states in your way of life. For instance, the practice like the non-receiving of gifts is all right for a Hindu whose mind is branded for ten thousand incarnations by the shock of accepting a cigarette or a cup of tea. Incidentally, most of the Eastern cults fall down when they come West, simply because they make no allowance for our different tempera- ments. Also they set tasks which are completely unsuitable to Europeans - an immense amount of disappointment has been caused by failure to recognize these facts. Your sub-questions a, b, and c are really answered by the above. All the terms you use are very indefinite. I hope it will not take too long to get you out of the way of thinking in these terms. For instance, the word "initiation" includes the whole process, and how to distinguish between it and enlightenment I cannot tell you. "Probation," moreover, if it means "proving," continues throughout the entire process. Nothing is worse for the student than to indulge in these mild speculations about ambiguous terms. V. You can, if you like, try to work out a progress of Osiris through Amennti on the Tree of Life, but I doubt whether you will get any satis- factory result. It seems to me that you should confine yourself very closely to the actual work in front of you. At the present moment, of course, this includes a good deal of general study; but my point is that the terms employed in that study should always be capable of precise definition. I am not sure whether you have my Little Essays Toward Truth. The first essay in the book entitled "Man" gives a full account of the five principles which go to make up Man according to the Qabalistic system. I have tried to define these terms as accurately as possible, and I think you will find them,, in any case, clearer than those to which you have become accustomed with the Eastern systems. In India, by the way, no attempt is ever made to use these vague terms. They always have a very clear idea of what is meant by words like "Buddhi," "Manas" and the like. Attempts at translation are very unsatisfactory. I find that even with such a simple matter as the "Eight limbs of Yoga," as you will see when you come to read my Eight Lectures. I am very pleased with your illustrations; that is excellent practice for you. Presently you have to make talismans, and a Lamen for yourself, and even to devise a seal to serve as what you might call a magical coat-of- arms, and all this sort of thing is very helpful. It occurs to me that so far we have done nothing about the astral plane and this path of Tau of which you speak. Have you had any experience of travelling in the astral? If not, do you think that you can begin by your- self on the lines laid down in Liber O, sections 5 and 6? (See Magick, pp. 387-9). If not you had better let me take you through the first gates. The question of noise instantly arises; I think we should have to do it not earlier than nine o'clock at night, and I don't know whether you can manage this. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 Letter No. G September 4. Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. "shall be" (instead of "Do what thou wilt is ... ") not "is". See Liber AL, I, 36, 54, and II, 54. Not "Master Perdurabo": see Magick p. XXIX. "Care Frater" is enough. 777 is practically unpurchaseable: copies fetch 10 or so. Nearly all im- portant correspondences are in Magick Table I. The other 2 books are being sent at once. "Working out games with numbers." I am sorry you should see no more than this. When you are better equipped, you will see that the Qabalah is the best (and almost the only) means by which an in- telligence can identify himself. And Gematria methods serve to discover spiritual truths. Numbers are the network of the structure of the Universe, and their relations the form of expression of our Understanding of it. (He gives the numerical value of the letters of the Greek alphabet - not copied here. - ed.) In Greek and Hebrew there is no other way of writing numbers; our 1, 2, 3 etc. comes from the Phoenicians through the Arabs. You need no more of Greek and Hebrew than these values, some sacred words --- know- ledge grows by use --- and books of reference. One cannot set a pupil definite tasks beyond the groundwork I am giving you, and we should find this correspondence taking clear shape of its own accord. You have really more than you can do already. And I can only tell you what the right tasks --- out of hundreds --- are by your own reactions to your own study and practice. "Osiris in Amennti" - see the Book of the Dead. I meant you might try to trace a parallelism between his journeyings and the Path of Initiation. Astral travel - development of the Astral Body is essential to research; and, above all, to the attainment of "the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel." You ought to demonstrate your performance of the Pentagram Ritual to me; you are probably making any number of mistakes. I will, of course, take you carefully through the O.T.O. rituals to III as soon as you are fairly familiar with them. The plan of the grades is this: --- 0 Attraction to the Solar System I Birth II Life III Death IV "Exaltation" P.I, "Annihilation" V-IX Progressive comment on II with very special reference to the central secret of practical Magick. There is thus no connection with the A.'.A.'. system and the Tree of Life. Of course, there are certain analogies. Your suggested method of study: you have got my idea quite well. But no- body can "take you through" the Grades of A.'.A.'.. The Grades confirm your attainments as you make them; then, the new tasks appear. See One Star in Sight. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 Letter No. H November 10 - 11. 11 p.m. - 2 a.m. Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Your's of yestere'en came to gladden me just when the whole evening lay blank before me: the one job such a big job that I simply can't get down to it until I get help: How annoying! Still, yours the gain! 1. That verse (AL. I, 44) condenses the whole magical technique. It makes clear --- when you have understood it --- the secret of success in the Great Work. Of course at first it appears a paradox. You must have an aim, and one aim only: yet on no account must you want to achieve it!!! Those chapters of the Book of Lies quoted in my last letter6 do throw some light onto this Abyss of self-contradiction; and there is meaning much deeper than the contrast between the Will with a capital W, and desire, want, or velleity. The main point seems to be that in aspiring to Power one is limited by the True Will. If you use force, violating your own nature either from lack of understanding or from petulant whim, one is merely wasting energy; things go back to normal as soon as the stress is removed. This is one small case of the big Equation "Free Will = Necessity" (Fate, Destiny, or Karma: it's all much the same idea). One is most rigid- ly bound by the causal chain that has dragged one to where one is; but it is one's own self that has forged the links. Please refrain from the obvious retort: "Then, in the long run, you can't possibly go wrong: so it doesn't matter what you do." Perfectly true, of course! (There is no single grain of dust that shall not attain to Buddha- hood:" with some such words did the debauched old reprobate seek to console himself when Time began to take its revenge.) But the answer is simple enough: you happen to be the kind of being that thinks it does matter what course you steer; or, still more haughtily, you enjoy the pleasure of sailing. No, there is this factor in all success: self-confidence. If we analyze this, we find that it means that one is aware that all one's mental and physical faculties are working harmoniously. The deadliest and subtlest enemy of that feeling is anxiety about the result; the finest gauze of doubt is enough to dim one's vision, to throw the entire field out of focus. Hence, even to be aware that there is a result in prospect must militate against that serenity of spirit which is the essence of self-confidence. As you will know, all our automatic physiological functions are deranged if one is aware of them. This then, is the difficulty, to enjoy conscious- ly while not disturbing the process involved. The obvious physical case is the sexual act: perhaps its chief importance is just that it is a type of this exceptional spiritual-mental condition. I hope, however, that you will remember what I have said on the subject in paragraphs 15 - 17 of my 3rd Lecture on Yoga for Yellowbellies (pp. 71-72); there is a way of obtaining ecstacy from the most insignificant physiological function. Ob- serve that in transferring the whole consciousness to (say) one's little finger or big toe is not trying to interfere with the normal exercise of sits activities, but only to realize what is going on in the organism, the 6* A letter dated Oct. 12, '43 constituted No. 48 in Magick Without Tears and the following chapters from the Book of Lies: - "Peaches", "Pilgrim-Talk", "Buttons and Rosettes", "The Gun-Barrel and the Mountaineer". exquisite pleasure of a function in its normal activity. With a little imagination one can conceive the analogical case of the Universe itself; and, still less fettered by even the mildest limitation which material symbols necessarily (however little) suggest, "Remember all ye that exis- tence is pure joy; ..." (AL, II, 9). Is it too bold to suggest that the gradual merging of all these Ways into an interwoven unity may be taken as one mode of presentation of the Accom- plishment of the Great Work itself? At least, I feel fairly satisfied the meditation of them severally and jointly may help you to an answer to your first question. 2. Most people in my experience either cook up a hell-broth of self-induced obstacles to success in Astral traveling, or else shoot forth on the wings of romantic imagination and fool themselves for the rest of their lives in the manner of the Village Idiot. Yours, luckily, is the former trouble. But --- is it plain obstinacy? --- you do not exercise the sublime Art of Guru- bullying. You should have made one frenzied leap to my dying bed, thrust aside the cohorts of Mourning Archimandrites, and wrung my nose until I made you do it. And you repeatedly insist that it is difficult. It isn't. Is there, how- ever, some deep-seated inhibition - a (Freudian) fear of success? Is there some connection with that sense of guilt which is born in all but the very few? But you don't give it a fair chance. There is, I admit, some trick, or knack, about getting properly across; a faculty which one acquires (as a rule) quite suddenly and unexpectedly. Rather like mastering some shots at billiards. Practice has taught me how to communicate this to students; only in rare cases does one fail. (It's incredible: one man simply could not be persuaded that intense physical exertion was the wrong way to to it. There he sat, with the veins on his forehead almost on the point of burst- ing, and the arms of my favourite chair visibly trembling beneath his power- ful grip!) In your case, I notice that you have got this practice mixed up with Dharana: you write of "Emptying my mind of everything except the one idea, etc." Then you go on: "The invoking of a supersensible Being is im- possible to me as yet." The impudence! The arrogance! How do you know, pray madam? (Dial numbers at random: the results are often surprisingly delightful!) Besides, I didn't ask you to invoke a supersensible (what a word! Meaning?) Being right away, or at any time: that supersensible is getting on my nerves: do you mean "not in normal circumstances to be ap- prehended by the senses?" I suppose so. In a word: do fix a convenient season for going on the Astral Plane under my eye: half an hour (with a bit of luck) on not more than four evenings would put you in a very different frame of mind. You will soon "feel your feet" and then "get your sea-legs" and then, much sooner than you think "Afloat in the aethyr, O my God! my God!". . . . . "White swan, bear thou ever me up between thy wings!" 3. Now then to your old Pons Asinorum about the names of the Gods! Stand in the corner for half an hour with your face to the wall! Stay in after school and write Malka be-Tharshishim v-Ruachoth b-Schebralim 999 times! My dear, dear, dear sister, a name is a formula of power. How can you talk of "anachronism" when the Being is eternal? For the type of energy is eter- nal. Every name is a number: and "Every number is infinite; there is no differ- ence." (AL I, 4). But one Name, or system of Names, may be more convenient either (a) to you personally or (b) to the work you are at. E.g. I have very little sympathy with Jewish Theology or ritual; but the Qabalah is so handy and congenial that I use it more than almost any --- or all the others together --- for daily use and work. The Egyptian Theogony is the noblest, the most truly magical, the most bound to me (or rather I to it) by some inmost instinct, and by the memory of my incarnation as Ankh-f-n-Khonsu, that I use it (with its Graeco-Phoenician child) for all work of supreme import. Why stamp my vitals, madam! The Abramelin Operation itself turned into this form before I could so much as set to work on it! like the Duchess' baby (excuse this enthusiasm; but you have aroused the British Lion-Serpent.) Note, please, that the equivalents given in 777 are not always exact. Tahuti is not quite Thoth, still less Hermes; Mercury is a very much more comprehensive idea, but not nearly so exalted: Hanuman hardly at all. Nor is Tetragrammaton IAO, though even etymology asserts the identity. In these matters you must be catholic, eclectic, even syncretic. And you must consider the nature of your work. If I wanted to evoke Taphthartharath, there would be little help indeed from any but the Qabalistic system; for that spirit's precise forms and numbers are not to be found in any other. The converse, however, is not so true. The Qabalah, properly understood, properly treated, is so universal that one can vamp up a ritual to suit almost "any name and form." But in such a case one may expect to have to reinforce it by a certain amount of historical, literary, or philosophic study --- and research. 4. Quite right, dear lady, about your incarnation memories acting as a "Guide to the Way Back." Of course, if you "missed an Egyptian Incarnation," you would not be so likely to be a little Martha, worried "about much serv- ing." Don't get surfeited with knowledge, above all things; it is so very fascinating, so dreadfully easy; and the danger of becoming a pedant --- "Deuce take all your pedants! say I." Don't "dry-rot at ease 'till the Judgment Day." No, I will NOT recommend a book. It should not hurt you too much to browse on condensed hay (or thistles) such as articles in Encyclopedias. Take Roget's Thesaurus or Smith's Smaller Classical Dictionary (and the like) to read yourself to sleep on. But don't stultify yourself by taking up such study too seriously. You only make yourself ridiculous by trying to do at 50 what you ought to have done at 15. As you didn't --- tant pis! You can't possibly get the spirit; if you could, it would mean merely mental indi- gestion. We have all read how Cato started to learn Greek at 90: but the story stops there. We have never been told what good it did to himself or anyone else. 5. God-forms. See Magick pp. 378-9. Quite clear: quite adequate: no use at all without continual practice. No one can join with you --- off you go again! No, no, a thousand times no: this is the practice par excellence where you have to do it all yourself. The Vibration of God-names: that perhaps, I can at least test you in. But don't you dare come up for a test until you've been at it --- and hard --- for at least 100 exercises. I think this is your trouble about being "left in the air." When I "present many new things" to you, the sting is in the tail --- the practice that vi- talizes it. Doctrinal stuff is fine "Lazily, lazily, drowsily, drowsily, in the noo-on-dye shaun!" An ounce of your practice is worth a ton of my teaching. GET THAT. It's all your hatred of hard work: "Go to the ant thou sluggard! Consider her ways and be -----." I am sure that Solomon was too good a poet, and too experienced a Guru, to tail off with the anticlimax "wise." 6. Minerval. What is the matter? All you have to do is understand it: just a dramatization of the process of incarnation. Better run through it with me: I'll make it clear, and you can make notes of your troubles and their solution for the use of future members. 7. The Book of Thoth. Surely all terms not in a good dictionary are explained in the text. I don't see what I can do about it, in any case; the same criticism would apply to (say) Bertrand Russell's Introduction to Mathematical Physics, wouldn't it? Is x an R-ancestor of y if y has every R-hereditary that x has, provided x is a term which has the relation R to something or to which something has the relation R? (Enthusiastic cries of "Yes, it is!") He says "A number is anything which has the number of some class." Feel better now? Still, it would be kind of you to go through a page or so with me, and tell me where the shoe pinches. Of course I have realized the difficulty long ago; but I don't know the solution --- or if there is a solution. I did think of calling Magick "Magick Without Tears"; and I did try having my work cross-examined as I went on by minds of very inferior education or capacity. In fact, Parts I and II of Book 4 were thus tested. What about applying the Dedekindian cut to this letter? I am sure you would not wish it to develop into a Goclenian Sorites, especially as I fear that I may already have deviated from the diapantos7 Hapaxlegomenon. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 Letter No. I January 27, 1944 Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 7* Greek letters in the original It is very good hearing that these letters do good, but rather sad to re- flect that it is going to make you so unpopular. Your friends will notice at once that glib vacuities fail to impress, and hate you, and tell lies about you. It's worth it. Yes, your brain is quite all right; what is wanted is to acquire the habit of pinning things down instantly. (He says 're-incarnation' --- now what exactly does he mean by that? He says "it is natural to suppose . . . ": what is "natural", and what is implied by supposition?) Practice this style of criticism; write down what happens. Within a week or two you will be astounded to discover that you have got what is apparently little less than a new brain! You must make this a habit, not letting anything get by the sentries. Indeed, I want you to go even further; make sure of what is meant by even the simplest words. Trace the history of the word with the help of Skeat's Etymological Dictionary. E.g. "pretty" means tricky, deceitful; on the other hand, "hussy" is only "housewife". It's amusing, too, this "tabby" refers to Prince Attab, the grandson of Ommeya --- the silk quarter of Baghdad where utabi, a rich watered silk was sold. This will soon give you the power of discerning instantly when words are being used to hide meaning or lack of it. About A.'.A.'., etc.: your resolution is noble, but there is a letter ready for you which deals with what is really a legitimate enquiry; necessary, too, with so many hordes of "Hidden Masters" and "Mahatmas" and so on scurrying all over the floor in the hope of distracting attention from the inanities of their trusted henchmen. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 P.S. I must write at length about the Higher Self or "God within us," too easy to get muddled about it, and the subject requires careful pre- paration. ======================================================================== CHAPTER I. WHAT IS MAGICK? Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. What is Magick? Why should anyone study and practice it? Very natural; the obvious preliminary questions of any subject soever. We must cer- tainly get all this crystal clear; fear not that I shall fail to set forth the whole business as concisely as possible yet as fully, as cogent- ly yet as lucidly, as may prove within my power to do. At least I need not waste any time on telling you what Magick is not; or to go into the story of how the word came to be misapplied to conjuring tricks, and to sham miracles such as are to this day foisted by charlatan swindlers, either within or without the Roman Communion, upon a gaping crew of pious imbeciles. First let me go all Euclidean, and rub your nose in the Definition, Postu- late and Theorems given in my comprehensive (but, alas! too advanced and too technical) Treatise on the subject. Here we are! I. DEFINITION: Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will. (Illustration: It is my Will to inform the World of certain facts within my knowledge. I therefore take "magical weapons," pen, ink, and paper; I write "incantations" --- these sentences --- in the "magi- cal language" i.e. that which is understood by people I wish to instruct. I call forth "spirits" such as printers, publishers, booksellers, and so forth, and constrain them to convey my message to those people. The composition and distribution is thus an act of --- MAGICK --- by which I cause Changes to take place in conformity with my Will.8) II. POSTULATE: ANY required Change may be effected by application of the proper kind and degree of Force in the proper manner through the proper medium to the proper object. (Illustration: I wish to prepare an ounce of Chloride of Gold. I must take the right kind of acid, nitro-hydrochloric and no other, in sufficient quantity and of adequate strength, and place it, in a vessel which will not break, leak or corrode, in such a manner as will not produce undesirable results, with the necessary quantity of Gold, and so forth. Every Change has its own conditions. In the present state of our knowledge and power some changes are not possible in practice; we cannot cause eclipses, for instance, or transform lead into tin, or create men from mushrooms. But it is theoretically possible to cause in any object any change of which that object is capable by nature; and the conditions are covered by the above postulate.) III. THEOREMS: 1. Every intentional act is a Magical Act.9 (Ilustration: See "Definition" above.) 2. Every successful act has conformed to the postulate. 3. Every failure proves that one or more requirements of the postu- late have not been fulfilled (Illustrations: There may be failure to understand the case; as when a doctor makes a wrong diagnosis, and his treatment injures his patient. There may be failure to apply the right kind of force, 8* By "intentional" I mean "willed". But even unintentional acts so seem- ing are not truly so. Thus, breathing is an act of the Will-to-live. 9* In one sense Magick may be defined as the name given to Science by the vulgar. as when a rustic tries to blow out an electric light. There may be failure to apply the right degree of force, as when a wrestler has his hold broken. There may be failure to apply the force in the right manner, as when one presents a cheque at the wrong window of the Bank. There may be failure to employ the correct medium, as when Leonardo da Vinci found his masterpiece fade away. The force may be applied to an unsuitable object, as when one tries to crack a stone, thinking it a nut.) 4. The first requisite for causing any change is thorough qualita- tive and quantitative understanding of the condition. (Illustration: The most common cause of failure in life is ignorance of one's own True Will, or of the means by which to fulfill that Will. A man may fancy himself a painter, and waste his life trying to become one; or he may be really a painter, and yet fail to understand and to measure the difficulties peculiar to that career.) 5. The second requisite of causing any change is the practical ability to set in right motion the necessary forces. (Illustration: A banker may have a perfect grasp of a given situa- tion, yet lack the quality of decision, or the assets, necessary to take advantage of it.) 6. "Every man and every woman is a star." That is to say, every human being is intrinsically an independent individual with his own proper character and proper motion. 7. Every man and every woman has a course, depending partly on the self, and partly on the environment which is natural and necessary for each. Anyone who is forced from his own course, either through not understanding himself, or through external opposition, comes in- to conflict with the order of the Universe, and suffers accordingly. (Illustration: A man may think it his duty to act in a certain way, through having made a fancy picture of himself, instead of investi- gating his actual nature. For example, a woman may make herself miserable for life by thinking that she prefers love to social con- sideration, or vice versa. One woman may stay with an unsympathetic husband when she would really be happy in an attic with a lover, while another may fool herself into a romantic elopement when her only true pleasures are those of presiding at fashionable functions. Again, a boy's instinct may tell him to go to sea, while his parents insist on his becoming a doctor. In such a case, he will be both unsuccessful and unhappy in medicine. 8. A man whose conscious will is at odds with his True Will is wasting his strength. He cannot hope to influence his environment efficiently. (Illustration: When Civil War rages in a nation, it is in no condi- tion to undertake the invasion of other countries. A man with cancer employs his nourishment alike to his own use and to that of the enemy which is part of himself. He soon fails to resist the pressure of his environment. In practical life, a man who is doing what his conscience tells him to be wrong will do it very clumsily. At first!) 9. A man who is doing his True Will has the inertia of the Universe to assist him. (Illustration: The first principle of success in evolution is that the individual should be true to his own nature, and at the same time adapt himself to his environment.) 10. Nature is a continuous phenomenon, thought we do not know in all cases how things are connected. (Illustration: Human consciousness depends on the properties of protoplasm, the existence of which depends on innumerable physical conditions peculiar to this planet; and this planet is determined by the mechanical balance of the whole universe of matter. We may then say that our consciousness is causally connected with the re- motest galaxies; yet we do not know even how it arises from --- or with --- the molecular changes in the brain.) 11. Science enables us to take advantage of the continuity of Nature by the empirical application of certain principles whose interplay involves different orders of idea, connected with each other in a way beyond our present comprehension. (Illustration: We are able to light cities by rule-of-thumb methods. We do not know what consciousness is, or how it is connected with muscular action; what electricity is or how it is connected with the machines that generate it; and our methods depend on calcula- tions involving mathematical ideas which have no correspondence in the Universe as we know it.10) 12. Man is ignorant of the nature of his own being and powers. Even his idea of his limitations is based on experience of the past. and every step in his progress extends his empire. There is, there- fore, no reason to assign theoretical limits11 to what he may be, or to what he may do. (Illustration: Two generations ago it was supposed theoretically impossible that man should ever know the chemical composition of the fixed stars. It is known that our senses are adapted to receive only an infinitesimal fraction of the possible rates of vibration. Modern instruments have enabled us to detect some of these supra- sensibles by indirect methods, and even to use their peculiar quali- ties in the service of man, as in the case of the rays of Hertz and Roentgen. As Tyndall said, man might at any moment learn to per- ceive and utilize vibrations of all conceivable and inconceivable kinds. The question of Magick is a question of discovering and em- ploying hitherto unknown forces in nature. We know that they exist, and we cannot doubt the possibility of mental or physical instru- ments capable of bringing us in relation with them.) 13. Every man is more or less aware that his individuality comprises several orders of existence, even when he maintains that his subtler principles are merely symptomatic of the changes in his gross vehicle. A similar order may be assumed to extend throughout nature. 10* For instance, "irrational," "unreal," and "infinite" expressions. 11* i.e. except --- possibly --- in the case of logically absurd questions, such as the schoolmen discussed in connection with "God." (Illustration: One does not confuse the pain of toothache with the decay which causes it. Inanimate objects are sensitive to certain physical forces, such as electrical and thermal conductivity; but neither in us nor in them --- so far as we know --- is there any direct conscious perception of these forces. Imperceptible influences are therefore associated with all material phenomena; and there is no reason why we should not work upon matter through those subtle ener- gies as we do through their material bases. In fact, we use magnetic force to move iron, and solar radiation to reproduce images.) 14. Man is capable of being, and using, anything which he perceives; for everything that he perceives is in a certain sense a part of his being. He may thus subjugate the whole Universe of which he is con- scious to his individual Will. (Illustration: Man has used the idea of God to dictate his personal conduct, to obtain power over his fellows, to excuse his crimes, and for innumerable other purposes, including that of realizing himself as God. He has used the irrational and unreal conceptions of mathe- matics to help him in the construction of mechanical devices. He has used his moral force to influence the actions even of wild ani- mals. He has employed poetic genius for political purposes.) 15. Every force in the Universe is capable of being transformed into any other kind of force by using suitable means. There is thus an inexhaustible supply of any particular kind of force that we may need. (Illustration: Heat may be transformed into light and power by using it to drive dynamos. The vibrations of the air may be used to kill men by so ordering them in speech as to inflame war-like passions. The hallucinations connected with the mysterious energies of sex result in the perpetuation of the species.) 16. The application of any given force affects all the orders of being which exist in the object to which it is applied, whichever of those orders is directly affected. (Illustration: If I strike a man with a dagger, his consciousness, not his body only, is affected by my act; although the dagger, as such, has no direct relation therewith. Similarly, the power of my thought may so work on the mind of another person as to produce far- reaching physical changes in him, or in others through him.) 17. A man may learn to use any force so as to serve any purpose, by taking advantage of the above theorems. (Illustration: A man may use a razor to make himself vigilant over his speech, by using it to cut himself whenever he unguardedly utters a chosen word. He may serve the same purpose by resolving that every incident of his life shall remind him of a particular thing, Making every impression the starting point of a connected series of thoughts ending in that thing. He might also devote his whole energies to some particular object, by resolving to do nothing at variance therewith, and to make every act turn to the advantage of that object.) 18. He may attract to himself any force of the Universe by making himself a fit receptacle for it, establishing a connection with it, and arranging conditions so that its nature compels it to flow to- ward him. (Illustration: If I want pure water to drink, I dig a well in a place where there is underground water; I prevent it from leaking away; and I arrange to take advantage of water's accordance with the laws of Hydrostatics to fill it.) 19. Man's sense of himself as separate from, and opposed to, the Universe is a bar to his conducting its currents. It insulates him. (Illustration: A popular leader is most successful when he forgets himself, and remembers only "The Cause." Self-seeking engenders jealousies and schism. When the organs of the body assert their presence otherwise than by silent satisfaction, it is a sign that they are diseased. The single exception is the organ of reproduc- tion. Yet even in this case self-assertion bears witness to its. dissatisfaction with itself, since in cannot fulfill its function until completed by its counterpart in another organism.) 20. Man can only attract and employ the forces for which he is really fitted. (Illustration: You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. A true man of science learns from every phenomenon. But Nature is dumb to the hypocrite; for in her there is nothing false12.) 21. There is no limit to the extent of the relations of any man with the Universe in essence; for as soon as man makes himself one with any idea, the means of measurement cease to exist. But his power to utilize that force is limited by his mental power and capacity, and by the circumstances of his human environment. (Illustration: When a man falls in love, the whole world becomes, to him, nothing but love boundless and immanent; but his mystical state is not contagious; his fellow-men are either amused or an- noyed. He can only extend to others the effect which his love has had upon himself by means of his mental and physical qualities. Thus, Catullus, Dante, and Swinburne made their love a mighty mover of mankind by virtue of their power to put their thoughts on the subject in musical and eloquent language. Again, Cleopatra and other people in authority moulded the fortunes of many other people by allowing love to influence their political actions. The Magician, however well he succeeds in making contact with the secret sources of energy in nature, can only use them to the extent permitted by his intellectual and moral qualities. Mohammed's intercourse with Gabriel was only effective because of his statesmanship, soldier- ship, and the sublimity of his command of Arabic. Hertz'; discovery of the rays which we now use for wireless telegraphy was sterile until reflected through the minds and wills of the people who could take his truth, and transmit it to the world of action by means of mechanical and economic instruments.) 12* It is no objection that the hypocrite is himself part of Nature. He is an "endothermic" product, divided against himself, with a tendency to break up. He will see his own qualities everywhere, and thus obtain a radical misconception of phenomena. Most religions of the past have failed by expecting Nature to conform with their ideals of proper conduct. 22. Every individual is essentially sufficient to himself. But he is unsatisfactory to himself until he has established himself in his right relation with the Universe. (Illustration: A microscope, however perfect, is useless in the hands of savages. A poet, however sublime, must impose himself upon his generation if he is to enjoy (and even to understand) himself, as theoretically should be the case.) 23. Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one's condi- tions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action. (Illustration: A golf club is intended to move a special ball in a special way in special circumstances. A Niblick should rarely be used on the tee, or a Brassie under the bank of a bunker. But, also, the use of any club demands skill and experience.). 24. Every man has an indefeasible right to be what he is. (Illustration: To insist that anyone else shall comply with one's own standards is to outrage, not only him, but oneself, since both parties are equally born of necessity.) 25. Every man must do Magick each time that he acts or even thinks, since a thought is an internal act whose influence ultimately affects action, thought it may not do so at the time. (Illustration: The least gesture causes a change in a man's own body and in the air around him: it disturbs the balance of the entire universe and its effects continue eternally throughout all space. Every thought, however swiftly suppressed, has its effect on the mind. It stands as one of the causes of every subsequent thought, and tends to influence every subsequent action. A golfer may lose a few yards on his drive, a few more with his second and third, he may lie on the green six bare inches too far from the hole; but the net result of these trifling mishaps is the difference of a whole stroke, and so probably between having and losing the hole.) 26. Every man has a right, the right of self-preservation, to ful- fill himself to the utmost.13. (Illustration: A function imperfectly performed injures, not only itself, but everything associated with it. If the heart is afraid to beat for fear of disturbing the liver, the liver is starved for blood, and avenges itself on the heart by upsetting digestion, which disorders respiration, on which cardiac welfare depends.) 27. Every man should make Magick the keynote of his life. He should learn its laws and live by them. (Illustration: The Banker should discover the real meaning of his existence, the real motive which led him to choose that profession. He should understand banking as a necessary factor in the economic existence of mankind, instead of as merely a business whose objects 13* Men of "criminal nature" are simply at issue with their true Wills. The murderer has the Will-to-live; and his will to murder is a false will at variance with his true Will, since he risks death at the hands of Society by obeying his criminal impulse. are independent of the general welfare. He should learn to distin- guish false values from real, and to act not on accidental fluctua- tions but on considerations of essential importance. Such a banker will prove himself superior to others; because he will not be an individual limited by transitory things, but a force of Nature, as impersonal, impartial and eternal as gravitation, as patient and irresistible as the tides. His system will not be subject to panic, any more than the law of Inverse Squares is disturbed by Elections. He will not be anxious about his affairs because they will not be his; and for that reason he will be able to direct them with the calm, clear-headed confidence of an onlooker, with intelligence un- clouded by self-interest and power unimpaired by passion.) 28. Every man has a right to fulfill his own will without being afraid that it may interfere with that of others; for if he is in his proper path, it is the fault of others if they interfere with him. (Illustration: If a man like Napoleon were actually appointed by destiny to control Europe, he should not be blamed for exercising his rights. To oppose him would be an error. Anyone so doing would have made a mistake as to his own destiny, except in so far as it might be necessary for him to learn the lessons of defeat. The sun moves in space without interference. The order of Nature provides a orbit for each star. A clash proves that one or the other has strayed from its course. But as to each man that keeps his true course, the more firmly he acts, the less likely are others to get in his way. His example will help them to find their own paths and pursue them. Every man that becomes a Magician helps others to do likewise. The more firmly and surely men move, and the more such action is accepted as the standard of morality, the less will conflict and confusion hamper humanity.) Well, here endeth the First Lesson. That seems to me to cover the ground fairly well; at least, that is what I have to say when serious analysis is on the agenda. But there is a restricted and conventional sense in which the word may be used without straying too far from the above philosophical position. One might say: - "Magick is the study and use of those forms of energy which are (a) subtler than the ordinary physical-mechanical types, (b) accessible only to those who are (in one sense or another) 'Initiates'." I fear that this may sound rather obscurum per obscurius; but this is one of these cases --- we are likely to encounter many such in the course of our researches --- in which we understand, quite well enough for all practical purposes, what we mean, but which elude us more and more successfully the more accurately we struggle to define their import. We might fare even worse if we tried to clear things up by making lists of events in history, tradition, or experience and classifying this as being, and that as not being, true Magick. The borderland cases would confuse and mislead us. But --- since I have mentioned history --- I think it might help, if I went straight on to the latter part of your question, and gave you a brief sketch of Magick past, present and future as it is seen from the inside. What are the principles of the "Masters"? What are They trying to do? What have They done in the past? What means do They employ? As it happens, I have by me a sketch written by M. Gerard Aumont of Tunis some twenty years ago, which covers this subject with reasonable adequacy. I have been at the pains of translating it from his French, I hope not too much reminiscent of the old traduttore, traditore. I will revise it, divide it (like Gaul) into Three Parts and send it along. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER II THE NECESSITY OF MAGICK FOR ALL Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Right glad am I to hear that you have been so thoroughly satisfied with my explanation of what Magick is, and on what its theories rest. It is good, too, hearing how much you were interested in the glimpse that you have had of some of its work in the world; more, that you grasped the fact that this apparently recondite and irrelevant information has an immediate bearing on your personal life of today. Still, I was not sur- prised that you should add: "But why should I make a special study of, and devote my time and energy to acquiring proficiency in, the Science and Art of Magick? Ah, well then, perhaps you have not understood my remarks at one of our earliest interviews as perfectly as you suppose! For the crucial point of my exposition was that Magick is not a matter extraneous to the main current of your life, as music, gardening, or collection jade might be. No, every act of your life is a magical act; whenever from ignorance, carelessness, clumsiness or what not, you come short of perfect artistic success, you inevitably register failure, discomfort, frustration. Luck- ily for all of us, most of the acts essential to continued life are in- voluntary; the "unconscious" has become so used to doing its "True Will" that there is no need of interference; when such need arises, we call it disease, and seek to restore the machine to free spontaneous fulfillment of its function. But this is only part of the story. As things are, we have all adventured into an Universe of immeasurable, of incalculable, possibilities, of situ- ations never contemplated by the trend of Evolution. Man is a marine monster; when he decided that it would be better for him somehow to live on land, he had to grow lungs instead of gills. When we want to travel over soft snow, we have to invent ski; when we wish to exchange thoughts, we must arrange a conventional code of sounds, of knots in string, of carved or written characters --- in a word --- embark upon the boundless ocean of hieroglyphics or symbols of one sort or another. (Presently I shall have to explain the supreme importance of such systems; in fact, the Universe itself is not, and cannot be, anything but an arrangement of symbolic characters!) Here we are, then, caught in a net of circumstances; if we are to do anything at all beyond automatic vegetative living, we must consciously apply ourselves to Magick, "the Science and Art" (let me remind you!) "of causing change to occur in conformity with the Will." Observe that the least slackness or error means that things happen which do not thus con- form; when this is so despite our efforts, we are (temporarily) baffled; when it is our own ignorance of what we ought to will, or lack of skill in adapting our means to the right end, then we set up a conflict in our own Nature: our act is suicidal. Such interior struggle is at the base of nearly all neuroses, as Freud recently "discovered" --- as if this had not been taught, and taught without his massed errors, by the great teachers of the past! The Taoist doctrine, in particular, is most pre- cise and most emphatic on this point; indeed, it may seem to some of us to overshoot the mark; for nothing is permissible in that scheme but frictionless adjustment and adaptation to circumstance. "Benevolence and righteousness" are actually deprecated! That any such ideas should ever have existed (says Lao-tse) is merely evidence of the universal disorder. Taoist sectaries appear to assume that Perfection consists in the absence of any disturbance of the Stream of Nescience; and this is very much like the Buddhist idea of Nibbana. We who accept the Law of Thelema, even should we concur in this doctrine theoretically, cannot admit that in practice the plan would work out; our aim is that our Nothing, ideally perfect as it is in itself, should enjoy itself through realizing itself in the fulfillment of all possibilities. All such phenomena or "point-events" are equally "illusion"; Nothing is always Nothing; but the projection of Nothing on this screen of the phen- omenal does not only explain, but constitutes, the Universe. It is the only system which reconciles all the contradictions inherent in Thought, and in Experience; for in it "Reality" is "Illusion", "Free-will" is "Destiny", the "Self" is the "Not-Self"; and so for every puzzle of Philosophy. Not too bad an analogy is an endless piece of string. Like a driving band, you cannot tie a knot in it; all the complexities you can contrive are "Tom Fool" knots, and unravel at the proper touch. Always either Naught or Two! But every new re-arrangement throws further light on the possible tangles, that is, on the Nature of the String itself. It is always "Nothing" when you pull it out; but becomes "Everything" as you play about with it,14 since there is no limit to the combinations that you can form from it, save only in your imagination (where the whole thing belongs!) and that grows mightily with Experience. It is accordingly well worth while to fulfill oneself in every conceivable manner. It is then (you will say) impossible to "do wrong", since all phenomena are equally "Illusion" and the answer is always "Nothing". In theory one can hardly deny this proposition; but in practice --- how shall I put it? "The state of Illusion which for convenience I call my present conscious- ness is such that the course of action A is more natural to me that the course of action B?" Or: A is a shorter cut to Nothing; A is less likely to create internal conflict. 14* N N = Two or Naught; one is the Magical, the other the mystical, process. You will hear a lot about this one day! Will that serve? Offer a dog a juicy bone, and a bundle of hay; he will naturally take the bone, whereas a horse would choose the hay. So, while you happen to imagine yourself to be a Fair Lady seeking the Hidden Wisdom, you come to me; if you thought you were a Nigger15 Minstrel, you would play the banjo, and sing songs calculated to attract current coin of the Realm from a discerning Public! The two actions are ultimately identical - see AL I, 22 - and your perception of that fact would make you an Initiate of very high standing; but in the work-a-day world, you are "really" the Fair Lady, and leave the minstrel to grow infirm and old and hire an orphan boy to carry his banjo! Now then, what bothers me it this: Have I or have I not explained this matter of "Magick" - "Why should I (who have only just heard of it, at ;east as a serious subject of study) acquire a knowledge of its principles, and of the powers conferred by its mastery?" Must I bribe you with pro- mises of health, wealth, power over others, knowledge, thaumaturgical skill, success in every worldly ambition - as I could quite honestly do? I hope there is no such need - and yet, shall I confess it? - it was only because all the "good things of life" were suddenly seen of me to be worth- less, that I took the first steps towards the attainment of that Wisdom which, while enjoying to the full the "Feast of Life," guarantees me against surfeit, poison or interruption by the knowledge that it is all a Dream, and gives me the Power to turn that dream at will into any form that hap- pens to appeal to my Inclination. Let me sum up, very succinctly; as usual, my enthusiasm has lured me into embroidering my sage discourse with Poets' Imagery! Why should you study and practice Magick? Because you can't help doing it, and you had better do it well than badly. You are on the links, whether you like it or not; why go on topping your drive, and slicing your brassie, and fluffing your niblick, and pulling your iron, and socket- ing your mashie and not being up with your putt - that's 6, and you are not allowed to pick up. It's a far cry to the Nineteenth, and the sky threatens storm before the imminent night. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER III HIEROGLYPHICS: LIFE AND LANGUAGE NECESSARILY SYMBOLIC Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Very natural, the irritation in your last! You write: --- "But why? Why all this elaborate symbolism? Why not say straight out 15^ WEH NOTE: Expound here a bit to clarify Crowley's attitude toward race. refer to Chapter LXXIII. what you mean? Surely the subject is difficult enough in any case --- must you put on a mask to make it clear? I know you well enough by now to be sure that you will not fob me off with any Holy-Willie nonsense about the ineffable, about human language being inadequate to reveal such Mysteries, about the necessity of constructing a new language to explain a new system of thought; of course I know that this had to be done in the case of chemistry, of higher mathematics, indeed of almost all technical sub- jects; but I feel that you have some other, deeper explanation in reserve. After all, most of what I am seeking to learn from you has been familiar to many of the great minds of humanity for many centuries. Indeed, the Qabalah is a special language, and that is old enough; there is not much new material to fit into that structure. But why did they, in the first place, resort to this symbolic jargon?" You put it very well; and when I think it over, I feel far from sure that the explanation which I am about to inflict upon you will satisfy you, or even whether it will hold water! In the last resort, I shall have to maintain that we are justified by experience, by the empirical success in communicating thought which has attended, and continues to attend, our endeavors. But to give a complete answer, I shall have to go back to the beginning, and restate the original problem; and I beg that you will not suppose that I am evading the question, or adopting the Irish method of answer- ing it by another, though I know it may sound as if I were. Let me set out by restating our original problem; what we want is Truth; we want an even closer approach to Reality; and we want to discover and discuss the proper means of achieving this object. Very good; let us start by the simplest of all possible enquiries --- and the most difficult --- "What is anything?" "What do we know?" and other questions that spring naturally from these. I see a tree.. I hear it --- rustling or creaking in the wind. I touch it --- hard. I smell it --- acrid. I taste it --- bitter. Now all the information given by these five senses has to be put together, although no two agree in any sort of way. The logic by which we build up our complex idea of a tree has more holes than a sponge. But this is to jump far ahead: we must first analyze the single, simple impression. "I see a tree." This phenomenon is what is called a "point- event." It is the coming together of the two, the seer and the seen. It is single and simple; yet we cannot conceive of either of them as any- thing but complex. And the Point-Event tells us nothing whatever about either; both, as Herbert Spencer and God knows how many others have shown, unknowable; it stands by itself, alone and aloof. It has happened; it is undeniably Reality. Yet we cannot confirm it; for it can never happen again precisely the same. What is even more bewildering is that since it takes time for the eye to convey an impression to the conscious- ness (it may alter in 1,000 ways in the process!) all that really exists is a memory of the Point-Event. not the Point-Event itself. what then is this Reality of which we are so sure? Obviously, it has not got a name, all we must invent a name, and this name (like all names) cannot possibly be anything more than a symbol. Even so, as so often pointed out, all we do is to "record the behaviour of our instruments." Nor are we much better off when we've done it; for our symbol, referring as it does to a phenomenon unique in itself, and not to be apprehended by another, can mean nothing to one's neighbors. What happens, of course, is that similar, though not identical, Point- Events happen to many of us, and so we are able to construct a symbolic language. My memory of the mysterious Reality resembles yours suffi- ciently to induce us to agree that both belong to the same class. But let me furthermore ask you to reflect on the formation of language itself. Except in the case of onomato-poetic words and a few others, there is no logical connection between a thing and the sound of our name for it. "Bow-wow" is a more rational name than "dog", which is a mere convention agreed on by the English, while other nations prefer chien, hund, cane, kalb, kutta and so on. All symbols, you see, my dear child, and it's no good your kicking! But it doesn't stop there. When we try to convey thought by writing, we are bound to sit down solidly, and construct a holy Qabalah out of nothing. Why would a curve open to the right, sound like the ocean, open at the top, like you? And all these arbitrary symbolic letters are combined by just as symbolic and arbitrary devices to take on conventional meanings, these words again combined into phrases by no less high-handed a proce- dure. And then folk wonder how it is that there should be error and misunder- standing in the transmission of thought from one person to another! Rather regard it as a miraculous intervention of Providence when even one of even the simplest ideas "gets across." Now then, this being so, it is evidently good sense to construct one's own alphabet, with one's own very precise definitions, in order to handle an abstruse and techni- cal subject like Magick. The "ordinary" words such as God, self, soul, spirit and the rest have been used so many thousand times in so many thousand ways, usually by writers who knew not, or cared not for the necessity of definition that to use them to-day in any scientific essay is almost ludicrous. That is all, just now, sister; no more of your cavilling, please; sit down quietly with your 777, and get it by heart! Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER IV THE QABALAH, THE BEST TRAINING FOR MEMORY Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Now you must learn Qabalah. Learn this Alphabet of Magick. You must take it on trust, as a child does his own alphabet. No one has ever found out why the order of the letters is what it is. Probably there isn't any answer. If you only knew what I am grappling with in the Yi King! the order of the sixty-four hexagrams. I am convinced that it is extremely signifi- cant, that it implies a sublime system of philosophy. I've got far enough to be absolutely sure that there is a necessary rhythm; and it's killing me by millimetres, finding out why each pair succeeds the last. Forgive these tears! But our Magical Alphabet is primarily not letters, but figures, not sounds but mathematical ideas. Sir Humphrey Davy16, coming out of his famous illumination (with some help from Nitrous Oxide he got in) exclaimed: The Universe is composed solely of ideas. We, analyzing this a little, say: The Universe is a mathematical expression. Sir James Jeans might have said this, only his banker advised him to cash in on God. The simplest form of this expression is 0 = 2, elsewhere expounded at great length. This 2 might itself be expressed in an indefin- itely great number of ways. Every prime number, including some not in the series of "natural numbers", is an individual. The other numbers with perhaps a few exceptions (e.g. 41817) are composed of their primes. Each of these ideas may be explained, investigated, understood, by means very various. Firstly, the Hebrew, Greek and Arabic numbers are also letters. Then, each of these letters is further described by one of the (arbitrarily composed) "elements of Nature;" the Four (or Five) Elements, the Seven (or Ten) Planets, and the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac. All these are arranged in a geometrical design composed of ten "Sephiroth" (numbers) and twenty-two "paths" joining them; this is called the Tree of Life. Every idea soever can be, and should be, attributed to one or more of these primary symbols; thus green, in different shades, is a quality or function of Venus, the Earth, the Sea, Libra, and others. So also abstract ideas; dishonesty means "an afflicted Mercury," generosity a good, though not always strong, Jupiter; and so on. The Tree of Life has got to be learnt by heart; you must know it back- wards, forwards, sideways, and upside down; it must become the automatic background of all your thinking. You must keep on hanging everything that comes your way upon its proper bough. At first, of course, all this is dreadfully confusing; but persist, and a time will come when all the odd bits fit into the jig-saw, and you behold --- with what adoring wonder! --- the marvellous beauty and symmetry of the Qabalistic system. And then --- what a weapon you will have forged! 16^ WEH NOTE: Option to add a comment of Humphrey Davy and the invention of modern anesthesia to clarify the reference. On the occasion of a Nitrous Oxide party, such as he catered, he chanced to note that one of the participants had taken injury but felt no pain. This led to the practice of administrating anesthetics to patients in operations, and gave the time in surgery to perfect modern procedural medicine. 17^ WEH NOTE: 418 = give the prime factors. What power to analyze, to order, to manipulate your thinking! And please remember when people compliment you on your memory or the clarity of your thought, to give credit to the Qabalah! That's fine, I seem to hear you purr; that looks a lovely machine. The Design is just elegant; that scarf-pin of yours is perfectly sweet. There's only one point: how to make the damn thing work? Ah yes, like the one in the Apocalypse, the sting is in your tail. Honest, you needn't worry; it works on ball-bearings, and there's always those "Thirteen Fountains of Magnificent Oil flowing down the Beard of Macroprosopus" in case it creaks a little at first. But seriously, all the mathematics you need is simple Addition and Multiplication. "Yeah!" you rudely reply. "That's what you think; but you haven't got very far in the Qabalah!" Too true, sister. The Book of the Law itself insists upon the fact that it contains a Qabalah which was beyond me at the time of its dictation, is beyond me now, and always will be beyond me in this incarnation. Let me direct your spiritual attention to AL I, 54; I, 56; II, 54-55; II, 76; III, 47. Now there was enough comprehensible at the time to assure me that the Author of the Book knew at least as much Qabalah as I did: I discovered subsequently more than enough to make it certain without error that he knew a very great deal more, and that of an altogether higher order, than I knew; finally, such glimmerings of light as time and desperate study have thrown on many other obscure passages, to leave no doubt whatever in my mind that he is indeed the supreme Qabalist of all time . . . . "I asked you how to work it." Don't be so peevish, querulous, and impatient; your zeal is laudable, but it's wasting your own time to hurry me. Well, when you've got this Alphabet of Numbers (in its proper shape) absolutely by heart, with as many sets of attributions as you can commit to memory without getting confused, you may try a few easy exercises, beginning with the past. ("How many sets of attributions?" - Well, certainly, the Hebrew and Greek Alphabets with the names and numbers of each letter, and its mean- ing: a couple of lists of God-names, with a clear idea of the character, qualities, functions, and importance of each; the "King-scale" of colour, all the Tarot attributions, of course; then animals, plants, drugs, per- fumes, a list or two of archangels, angels, intelligences and spirits --- that ought to be enough for a start.) Now you are armed! Ask yourself: why is the influence of Tiphareth transmitted to Yesod by the Path of Samekh, a fence, 60, Sagittarius, the Archer, Art, blue - and so on; but to Hod by the Path of Ayin, an eye, 70, Capricornus, the Goat, the Devil, Indigo, K.T. Thirteen is the number of Achad {Hebrew option}, Unity, and Ahebah {Hebrew option}, Love; then what word should arise when you expand it by the Creative Dyad, and get 26; what when you multiply it by 4, and get 52? Then, suppose the Pentagram gets busy, 13 x 5 = 65, what then? Now don't you dare to come round crawling to me for the answers; work it out yourself what sort of words they ought to be, and then check your result by looking up those numbers in the Sepher Sephiroth: Equinox Vol. I, No. 8, Supplement. When you are a real adept at all these well-known calculations "prepare to enter the Immeasurable Region" and dig out the Unknown. You must construct your own Qabalah! Nobody can do it for you. What is your own true Number? You must find it and prove it to be correct. In the course of a few years, you should have built yourself a Palace of Ineffable Glory, a Garden of Indescrib- able Delight. Nor Time nor Fate can tame those tranquil towers, those Minarets of Music, or fade one blossom in those avenues of Perfume! Humph! Nasty of me: but it has just stuck me that it might be just as well if you made a Sepher Sephiroth of your own! What a positively beastly thing to suggest! However, I do suggest it. After all, it's simple enough. Every word you come across, add it up, stick it down against that number in a book kept for the purpose. That may seem tedious and silly; why should you do all over again the work that I have already done for you? Reason: simple. Doing it will teach you Qabalah as nothing else could. Besides, you won't be all cluttered up with words that mean nothing to you; and if it should happen that you want a word to explain some particular number, you can look it up in my Sepher Sephiroth. By this method, too, you may strike a rich vein of words of your own that I have altogether missed. No doubt, a Really Great Teacher would have said: "Beware! Use my Dictionary, and mine alone! All others are spurious!" But then I'm not a R.G.T. of that kind. For a start, of course, you should put down the words that are bound to come in your way in any case: numbers like 11, 13, 31, 37, and their multiples; the names of God and the principal angels; the planetary and geomantic names; and your own private and particular name with its branches. After that, let your work on the Astral Plane guide you. When investigating the name and other words communicated to you by such beings as you meet there, or invoke, many more will come up in their proper connections. Very soon you will have quite a nice little Sepher Sephiroth of your very own. Remember to aim, above all things, at coherence. It is excellent practice, but the way, to do some mental arithmetic on your walks; acquire the habit of adding up any names that you have come across in your morning's reading. Nietzsche has well observed that the best thoughts come by walking; and it has happened to me, more than once or twice, that really important correspondences have come, as by a flashlight, when I was padding the old hoof. You will have noticed that in this curt exposition I have confined myself to Gematria, the direct relation of number and work, omitting any refer- ence to Notariqon, the accursed art of making words out of initials, like (in profane life) Wren and Gestapo and their horrid brood, or to Temurah, the art of altering the position of the letters in a word, a sort of cipher; for these are almost always frivolous. To base any serious calculations on them would be absurd. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 P.S. You should study the Equinox Vol. I, No. 5, "The Temple of Solomon the King" for a more elaborate exposition of the Qabalah. ======================================================================== CHAPTER V THE UNIVERSE. THE 0 = 2 EQUATION Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Yes, I admit everything! It is all my fault. Looking over my past writ- ings, I do see that my only one-opointed attempt to set forth a sound ontology was my early fumbling letter brochure Berashith18. Since then, I seem to have kept assuming that everybody knew all about it; referring to it, quoting it, but never sitting down seriously to demonstrate the thesis, or even to state it in set terms. Chapter 0 of Magick in Theory and Practice skates gently over it; the "Naples Arrangement" in The Book of Thoth dodges it with really diabolical ingenuity. I ask myself why. It is exceedingly strange, because every time I think of the Equa- tion, I am thrilled with a keen glow of satisfaction that this sempiternal Riddle of the Sphinx should have been answered at last. So then let me now give myself the delight, and you the comfort, of stat- ing the problem from its beginning, and proving the soundness of the solution --- of showing that the contradiction of this Equation is unthink- able. --- --- Are you ready? Forward! Paddle! A. We are aware. B. We cannot doubt the existence (whether "real" or "illusory" makes no difference) of something, because doubt itself is a form of awareness. C. We lump together all that of which we are aware under the convenient name of "Existence", or "The Universe". Cosmos is not so good for this purpose; that word implies "order", which in the present stage of our argument, is a mere assumption. D. We also tend to think of the Universe as containing things of which we are not aware; but this is altogether unjustifiable, although it is difficult to think at all without making some such assumption. For 18* See Crowley, Collected Works. instance, one may come upon a new branch of knowledge --- say, histology or Hammurabi or the language of the Iroquois or the poems of the Herma- phrodite of Panormita. It seems to be there all ready waiting for us; we simply cannot believe that we are making it all up as we go along. For all that, it is sheer sophistry; we may merely be unfolding the contents of our own minds. Then again, does a thing cease to exist if we forget it? The answer is that one cannot be sure. Personally, I feel convinced of the existence of an Universe outside my own immediate awareness; but it is true, even so, that it does not exist for me unless and until it takes its place as part of my consciousness. E. All this paragrpah D is in the nature of a digression, for what you may think of it does not at all touch the argument of this letter. But it had to be put in, just to prevent your mind from raising irrelevant objections. Let me continue, then, from C. F. Something is19. This something appears incalculably vast and complex. How did it come to be? This, briefly, is the "Riddle of the Universe," which has been always the first preoccupation of all serious philosophers since men began to think at all. G. The orthodox idiot answer, usually wrapped up in obscure terms in the hope of concealing from the enquirer the fact that it is not an answer at all, but an evasion, is: God created it. Then, obviously, who created God? Sometimes we have a Demiurge, a creative God behind whom is an eternal formless Greatness --- anything to confuse the issue! Sometimes the Universe is supported by an elephant; he, in turn, stands on a tortoise . . . by that time it is hoped that the enquirer is too tired and muddled to ask what holds up the tortoise. Sometimes, a great Father and Mother crystallize out of some huge cloudy confusion of "Elements" - and so on. But nobody answers the question; at least, none of these God-inventing mules, with their incurably common- place minds. H. Serious philosophy has always begun by discarding all these pueril- ities. It has of necessity been divided into these schools: the Nihilist, the Monist, and the Dualist. I. The last of these is, on the surface, the most plausible; for almost the first thing that we notice on inspecting the Universe is what the Hindu schools call "the Pairs of Opposites." This too, is very convenient, because it lends itself so readily to ortho- dox theology; so we have Ormuzd and Ahriman, the Devas and the Asuras, Osiris and Set, et cetera and da capo, personifications of "Good" and "Evil." The foes may be fairly matched; but more often the tale tells of a revolt in heaven. In this case, "Evil" is temporary; soon, espe- cially with the financial help of the devout, the "devil" will be "cast into the Bottomless Pit" and "the Saints will reign with Christ in glory 19* You must read The Soldier an The Hunchback: ! and ? in the Equinox I, 1. for ever and ever, Amen!" Often a "redeemer," a "dying God," is needed to secure victory to Omnipotence; and this is usually what little vulgar boys might call a "touching story!" J. The Monist (or Advaitist) school, is at once subtler and more refined; it seems to approach the ultimate reality (as opposed to the superficial examination of the Dualists) more closely. It seems to me that this doctrine is based upon a sorites of doubtful validity. To tell you the hideously shameful truth, I hate this doc- trine so rabidly that I can hardly trust myself to present it fairly! But I will try. Meanwhile, you can study it in the Upanishads, in the Bhagavad-Gita, in Ernst Haeckel's The Riddle of the Universe, and dozens of other classics. The dogma appears to excite its dupes to dithyrambs. I have to admit the "poetry" of the idea; but there is something in me which vehemently rejects it with excruciating and vin- dictive violence. Possibly, this is because part of our own system runs parallel with the first equations of theirs. K. The Monists perceive quite clearly and correctly that it is absurd to answer the question "How came these Many things (of which we are aware) to be?" by saying that they came from Many; and "Many" in this connec- tion includes Two. The Universe must therefore be a single phenomenon: make it eternal and all the rest of it --- i.e. remove all limit of any kind --- and the Universe explains itself. How then can Opposites exist, as we observe them to do? Is it not the very essence of our original Sorites that the Many must be reducible to the One? They see how awk- ward this is; so the "devil" of the Dualist is emulsified and evaporated into "illusion;" what they call "Maya" or some equivalent term. "Reality" for them consists solely of Brahman, the supreme Being "without quantity or quality." They are compelled to deny him all attributes, even that of Existence; for to do so would instantly limit them, and so hurl them headlong back in to Dualism. All that of which we are aware must obviously possess limits, or it could have no intelligible meaning for us; if we want "pork," we must specify its qualities and quantities; at the very least, we must be able to distinguish it from "that-which- is-not-pork." But - one moment, please! L. There is in Advaitism a most fascinating danger; that is that, up to a certain point, "Religious Experience" tends to support this theory. A word on this. Vulgar minds, such as are happy with a personal God, Vishnu, Jesus, Melcarth, Mithras, or another, often excite themselves - call it "Energized Enthusiasm" if you want to be sarcastic! --- to the point of experiencing actual Visions of the objects of their devotion. But these people have not so much as asked themselves the original question of "How come?" which is our present subject. Sweep them into the discard! M. Beyond Vishvarupadarshana, the vision of the Form of Vishnu, beyond that yet loftier vision which corresponds in Hindu classification to our "Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel", is that called Atmadarshana, the vision (or apprehension, a much better word) of the Universe as a single phenomenon, outside all limitations, whether of time, space, causality, or what not. Very good, then! Here we are with direct realization of the Advaitist theory of the Universe. Everything fits perfectly. Also, when I say "realization," I want you to understand that I mean what I say in a sense so intense and so absolute that it is impossible to convey my meaning to anyone who has not undergone that experience20. How do we judge the "reality" of an ordinary impression upon conscious- ness? Chiefly by its intensity, but its persistence, by the fact that nobody can argue us out of our belief in it. As people said of Berkeley's 'Idealism' - "his arguments are irrefutable but they fail to carry con- viction." No sceptical, no idealist queries can persuade us that a kick in the pants is not 'real' in any reasonable sense of the word. More- over memory reassures us. However vivid a dream may be at the time, however it may persist throughout the years (though it is rare for any dream, unless frequently repeated, or linked to waking impressions by some happy conjunction of circumstances, to remain long in the mind with any clear-cut vision) it is hardly ever mistaken for an event of actual life. Good: then, as waking life is to dream, so --- yes, more so! --- is Religious Experience as above described to that life common to all of us. It is not merely easy, it is natural, not merely natural, but inevi- table, for anyone who has experienced "Samadhi" (this word conveniently groups the higher types of vision21) to regard normal life as "illusion" by comparison with this state in which all problems are resolved, all doubts driven out, all limitations abolished. But even beyond Atmadarshana comes the experience called Sivadarshana22, in which this Atman (or Brahman), this limit-destroying Universe, is itself abolished and annihilated. (And, with its occurrence, smash goes the whole of the Advaitist theory!) It is a commonplace to say that no words can describe this final destruc- tion. Such is the fact; and there is nothing one can do about it but put it down boldly as I have done above. It does not matter to our present purpose; all that we need to know is that the strongest prop of the Monist structure has broken off short. Moreover, is it really adequate to postulate an origin of the Universe, as they inevitably do? Merely to deny that there ever was a beginning by saying that this "one" is eternal fails to satisfy me. What is very much worse, I cannot see that to call Evil "illusion" helps us at all. When the Christian Scientist hears that his wife has been savagely mauled by her Peke, he has to smile, and say that "there is a claim of error." Not good enough. N. It has taken a long while to clear the ground. That I did not expect; the above propositions are so familiar to me, they run so cleanly through my mind, that, until I came to set them down in order, I had no idea what a long and difficult business it all was. Still, it's a long lane, etc. We have seen that "Two" (or "Many") are 20* I have discussed this and the following points very fully in Book 4 Part I, pp. 63-89 21* "Vision" is a dreadfully bad word for it; "trance" is better, but idiots always mix it up with hypnotism. 22** Possibly almost identical with the Buddhist Neroda-Samapatti. unsatisfactory as origin, if only because they can always be reduced to "One"; and "One" itself is no better, because, among other things, it finds itself forced to deny the very premises on which it was founded. Shall we be any better off if we assume that "Ex nihilo nihil fit" is a falsehood, that the origin of All Things is Nothing? Let us see! O. Shall we first glance at the mathematical aspect of Nothing? (Including its identical equation in Logic.) This I worked out so long ago as 1902 e.g. in Berashith, which you will find reprinted in The Sword of Song, and in my Collected Works, Vol. I. The argument may be summarized as follows. When, in the ordinary way of business, we write 0, we should really write 0n23. For 0 implies that the subject is not extended in any dimen- sion under discussion. Thus a line may be two feet in length, but in breadth and depth the coefficient is Zero. We could describe it as 2f + 0b + 0d, or n2f + 0b + 0d. What I proposed in considering "What do we mean by Nothing?" was to consider every possible quality of any object as a dimension. For instance, one might describe this page as being nf + n'b + n"d + 0 redness + ) 0 amiability + 0 velocity + 0 potential and so on, until you had noted and measured all the qualities it possesses, and excluded all that it does not. For convenience, we may write this expression as Xf+b+d+r+a+v+p --- using the initials of the qualities which we call dimensions. Just one further explanation in pure mathematics. To interpret X1, X1+1 or X2, and so on, we assume the reference to be to spatial dimen- sions. Thus suppose X1 to be a line a foot long, X2 will be a plane a foot square, and X3 a cube measuring a foot in each dimension. But what about X4? There are no more spatial dimensions. Modern mathemat- ics has (unfortunately, I think) agreed to consider this fourth dimen- sion as time. Well, and X5? To interpret this expression, we may begin to consider other qualities, such as electric capacity, colour, moral attributes, and so on. But this remark, although necessary, leads us rather away from our main thesis instead of toward it. P. What happens when we put a minus sign before the index (that small letter up on the right) instead of a plus? Quite simple. 23^ WEH NOTE: Add comments to distinguish indices (Abstract Algebra) from powers of numbers. {Keynote: I shouldn't, but as a physicist, I have to say} {that Crowley is giving an erroneous layman's opinion } {and his usage of math notation cannot be considered } {correct. These expressions are ok as text, but not as } {math without redefinition through Abstract Algebra, a } {field Crowley appears not to know by name. The ideas } {are valid, but the expressions are misleading. It might} {be wise to add a footnote about the notation being non-} {traditional. Notably, this line defies Pythagoras! } {Crowley's notation with superscripts is the problem. } {It looks like powers of numbers instead of indices. } {He probably intended indices, but didn't know how to } {represent them or flag them in typography. } x2 = X1+1 = X1 + X1. With a minus, we divide instead of multiplying. Thus, X3-2 = X3 X2 = X1, just as if you had merely subtracted the 2 from the 3 in the index. Now, at last, we come to the point of real importance to our thesis: how shall we interpret X0? We may write it, obviously, as X1-1 or Xn-n. Good, divide. Then X1 X1 = 1. This is the same, clearly enough, whatever X may be. Q. Ah, but what we started to do was discover the meaning of Nothing. It is not correct to write it simply as 0; for that 0 implies an index 01, or 02, or 0n. And if our Nothing is to be absolute Nothing, then there is not only no figure, but no index either. So we must write it as 00. What is the value of this expression? We proceed as before; divide. 0n 1 0 = 0n-n = 0n 0n = -- x --. Of course 0n 1 remains 0; 1 0n but 1 0n = {Keynote: this last is an elongated infinity symbol}. That is, we have a clash of the "infinitely great" with the "infinitely small;" that knocks out the "infinity" (and Advaitism with it!) and leaves us with an indeterminate but finite number of utter variety. That is: 00 can only be interpreted as "The Universe that we know." R. So much for one demonstration. Some people have found fault with the algebra; but the logical Equivalent is precisely parallel. Suppose I wish to describe my study in one respect: I can say "No dogs are in my study," or "Dogs are not in my study." I can make a little diagram: D is the world of dogs; S is my study. Here it is: The squares are quite separate. The whole world outside the square D is the world of no dogs: outside the square S, the world of no-study.24 But suppose now that I want to make the Zero abso- lute, like our 00, I must say "No dogs are not in my study." Or, "There is no absence-of-dog in my study." That is the same as saying: "Some doge are in my study;" diagram again: 25 In Diagram 1, 26 "the world where no dogs are" included the whole of my study; in Diagram 2 that absence-of-dog is no longer there; so one or more of them must have got in somehow. That's that; I know it may be a little difficult at first; fortunately there is a different way --- the Chinese way --- of stating the theorem in very much simpler terms. S. The Chinese, like ourselves, begin with the idea of "Absolute Nothing." They "make an effort, and call it the Tao;" but that is exactly what 24^ } Ŀ Ŀ lute>} D S 25^{Keynote: Same two labeled squares, but this time the} {square with S overlaps lower right of D square at an angle} {--gratuitious comment: Crowley's language is invalid but diagrams ok} 26^{Keynote: need to label these two figures} the Tao comes to mean, when we examine it. They see quite well, as we have done above, that merely to assert Nothing is not to explain the Universe; and they proceed to do so by means of a mathematical equation even simpler than ours, involving as it does no operations beyond simple addition and subtraction. They say "Nothing obviously means Nothing; it has no qualities nor quantities." (The Advaitists27 said the same, and then stultified themselves completely by calling it One!) "But," con- tinue the sages of the Middle Kingdom, "it is always possible to reduce any expression to Nothing by taking any two equal and opposite terms." (Thus n = (-n) = 0.) "We ought therefore to be able to get any expres- sion that we want from Nothing; we merely have to be careful that the terms shall be precisely opposite and equal." (0 = n + (-n). This then they did, and began to diagrammatize the Universe as the {S.B. cap "I"} - a pair of opposites, the Yang or active male, and the Yin or passive Female, principles. They represented the Yang by an unbroken ( ------- ), the Yin by a broken ( --- --- ), line. (The first manifestation in Nature of these two is Thi Yang, the Sun, and the Thi Yin, the Moon.) This being a little large and loose, they doubled these lines, and obtained the four Hsiang. They then took them three at a time, and got the eight Kwa. These represent the development from the original {S.B. cap "I"} to the Natural Order of the Elements. I shall call the male principle M, the Female F. M.1. ------ Khien "Heaven-Father" F.1. -- -- Khwn "Earth-Mother" ------ -- -- ------ -- -- M.2. ------ L The Sun F.2. -- -- Khn The Moon -- -- ------ ------ -- -- M.3. -- -- Kn Fire F.3. -- -- Tui Water -- -- ------ ------ ------ M.4. ------ Sun Air F.4. ------ Kn Earth ------ -- -- -- -- -- -- Note how admirably they have preserved the idea of balance. M.1. and F.1. are perfection. M.2. and F.2. still keep balance in their lines. The four "elements" show imperfection; yet they are all balanced as against each other. Note, too, how apt are the ideograms. M.3. shows the flames flickering on the hearth, F.3., the wave on the solid bottom of the sea; M.4., the mutable air, with impenetrable space above, and finally F.4., the thin crust of the earth masking the interior energies of the planet. They go in to double these Kw, thus reaching the sixty- four Hexagrams of the Y King, which is not only a Map, but a History of the Order of Nature. It is pure enthusiastic delight in the Harmony and Beauty of the System that has led me thus far afield; my one essential purpose is to show how the Universe was derived by these Wise Men from Nothing. 27^ WEH NOTE: Do an Arthur Avalon plug here, highlighting his "Garland of Letters" When you have assimilated these two sets of Equations, when you have understood how 0 = 2 is the unique, the simple, and the necessary solu- tion of the Riddle of the Universe, there will be, in a sense, little more for you to learn about the Theory of Magick. You should, however, remember most constantly that the equation of the Universe, however complex it may seem, inevitably reels out to Zero; for to accomplish this is the formula of your Work as a Mystic. To remind you, and to amplify certain points of the above, let me quote from Magick pp. 152-3 footnote 2. "All elements must at one time have been separate --- that would be the case with great heat. Now when atoms get to the sun, we get that immense extreme heat, and all the elements are themselves again. Imagine that each atom of each element possesses the memory of all his adventures in combination. By the way, that atom (fortified with that memory) would not be the same atom; yet it is, because it has gained nothing from anywhere except this memory. Therefore, by the lapse of time, and by virtue of memory, a thing could become something more than itself; thus a real development is possible. One can then see a reason for any ele- ment deciding to go through this series of incarnations, because so, and only so, can he go; and he suffers the lapse of memory which he has during these incarnations, because he knows he will come through un- changed. "Therefore you can have an infinite number of gods, individual and equal though diverse, each one supreme and utterly indestructible. This is also the only explanation of how a "Perfect Being" could create a world in which war, evil, etc., exist. God is only an appearance, because (like "good") it cannot affect the substance itself, but only multiply its combinations. This is something the same as mystic monotheism; but all parts of himself, so that their interplay is false. If we presuppose many elements, their interplay is natural. "It is no objection to this theory to ask who made the elements --- the elements are at least there, and God, when you look for him, is not there. Theism is obscurum per obscurius. A male star is built up from the centre outwards; a female from the circumference inwards. This is what is meant when we say that woman has no soul. It explains fully the difference between the sexes." Every "act of love under will" has the dual result (1) the creation of a child combining the qualities of its parents, (2) the withdrawal by ecstasy into Nothingness. Please consult what I have elsewhere written on "The Formula of Tetagrammaton;" the importance of this at the moment is to show how 0 and 2 appear constantly in Nature as the common Order of Events. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER VI THE THREE SCHOOLS OF MAGICK (I) Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Here is the first section of M. Gerard Aumont's promised essay28; it was originally called "The Three Schools of Magick". (Don't be cross, please, because it is not in the form of a personal letter!) There is today much misunderstanding of the meaning of the term "Magick". Many attempts have been made to define it, but perhaps the best for our present purpose of historical-ideological exposition will be this -- Magick is the Science of the Incommensurables. This is one of the many restricted uses of the word; one suited to the present purpose. It is particularly to be noted that Magick, so often mixed up in the popular idea of a religion, has nothing to do with it. It is, in fact, the exact opposite of religion; it is, even more than Physical Science, its irreconcilable enemy. let us define this difference clearly. Magick investigates the laws of Nature with the idea of making use of them. It only differs from "profane" science by always keeping ahead of it. As Fraser29 has shown, Magick is science in the tentative stage; but it may be, and often is, more than this. It is science which, for one reason or another, cannot be declared to the profane. Religion, on the contrary, seeks to ignore the laws of Nature, or to escape them by appeal to a postulated power which is assumed to have laid them down. The religious man is, as such, incapable of understand- ing what the laws of Nature really are. (They are generalizations from the order of observed fact.) The History of Magick has never been seriously attempted. For one reason, only initiates pledged to secrecy know much about it; for another, every historian has been talking about some more or less con- ventional idea of Magick, not of the thing itself. But Magick has led the world from before the beginning of history, if only for the reason that Magick has always been the mother of Science. It is, therefore, of extreme importance that some effort should be made to understand something of the subject; and there is, therefore, no apology necessary for essaying this brief outline of its historical aspects. There have always been, at least in nucleus, three main Schools of Philosophical practice. (We use the word "philosophical" in the old good broad sense, as in the phrase "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for the Advancement of Knowledge.") It is customary to describe these three Schools as Yellow, Black, and White. The first thing necessary is to warn the reader that they must by no means be confounded with racial distinctions of colour; and they correspond still less with conventional symbols such as yellow caps, yellow robes, black magick, white witchcraft, and the like. The danger 28* A few amendments - very few - have been necessitated by the lapse of time. 29^ WEH NOTE: Mention Fraser source, locate it in G.B. is only the greater that these analogies are often as alluring as the prove on examination to be misleading. These Schools represent three perfectly distinct and contrary theories of the Universe, and, therefore, practices of spiritual science. The magical formula of each is as precise as a theorem of trigonometry. Each assumes as fundamental a certain law of Nature, and the subject is complicated by the fact that each School, in a certain sense, admits the formulae of the other two. It merely regards them as in some way incom- plete, secondary, or illusory. Now, as will be seen later, the Yellow School stand aloof from the other two by the nature of its postulates. But the Black School and the White are always more or less in active conflict; and it is because just at this moment that conflict is approaching a climax that it is necessary to write this essay. The adepts of the White School consider the present danger to mankind so great that they are prepared to abandon their traditional policy of silence, in order to enlist in their ranks the profane of every nation. We are in possession of a certain mystical document30 which we may describe briefly, for convenience sake, as an Apocalypse of which we hold the keys, thanks to the intervention of the Master who has appeared at this grave conjuncture of Fate. This document consists of a series of visions, in which we hear the various Intelligences whose nature it would be hard to define, but who are at the very least endowed with knowledge and power far beyond anything that we are accustomed to regard as proper to the human race. We must quote a passage from one of the most important of these documents. The doctrine is conveyed, as is customary among Initiates, in the form of a parable. Those who have attained even a mediocre degree of enlight- enment are aware that the crude belief of the faithful, and the crude infidelity of the scoffer, with regard to matters of fact, are merely childish. Every incident in Nature, true or false, possesses a spiritual significance. It is this significance, and only this significance, that possesses any philosophical value to the Initiate. The orthodox need not be shocked, and the enlightened need not be contemp- tuous, to learn that the passage which we are about to quote, is a parable based on the least decorous of the Biblical legends which refer to Noah. It simply captures for its own purposes the convenience of Scripture. (Here follows the excerpt from the Vision.) "And a voice cries: Cursed be he that shall uncover the nakedness of the Most High, for he is drunken upon the wine that is the blood of the adepts. And BABALON hath lulled him to sleep upon her breast, and she hath fled away, and left him naked, and she hath called her children together saying: Come up with me, and let us make a mock of the naked- ness of the Most High. "And the first of the adepts covered His shame with a cloth, walking backwards, and was white. And the second of the adepts covered his shame with a cloth, walking sideways, and was yellow, And the third of the adepts made a mock of His nakedness, walking forwards, and was black. And these are the three great schools of the Magi, who are also the three Magi that journeyed unto Bethlehem; and because thou hast not 30* Liber CDXVIII, The Vision and the Voice, edition with Introduction and Commentary by 666. Thelema Publishing Co., Barstow, California. wisdom, thou shalt not know which school prevaileth, or if the three schools be not one." We are now ready to study the philosophical bases of these three Schools. We must, however, enter a caveat against too literal an interpretation, even of the parable. It may be suspected, for reasons which should be apparent after further investigation of the doctrines of the Three Schools, that this parable was invented by an Intelligence of the Black School, who was aware of his iniquity, and thought to transform it into righteousness by the alchemy of making a boast of it. The intelligent reader will note the insidious attempt to identify the doctrine of the Black School with the kind of black magic {sic} that is commonly called Diabolism. In other words, this parable is itself an example of an exceedingly subtle black magical operation, and the contemplation of such devices carried far enough beings us to an understanding of the astoundingly ophidian processes of Magicians. Let not the profane reader dismiss such subtleties from his mind as negligible nonsense. It is cunning of this kind that determines the price of potatoes. The above digression is perhaps not so inexcusable as it may seem on a first reading. Careful study of it should reveal the nature of the thought-processes which are habitually used by the secret Masters of the human race to determine its destiny. When everyone has done laughing, I will ask you to compare the real effects produced on the course of human affairs by Caesar, Attila, and Napoleon, on the one hand; of Plato, the Encyclopaedists, and Karl Marx31 on the other. The Yellow School of Magick considers, with complete scientific and philosophical detachment, the fact of the Universe as a fact. Being itself apart of that Universe, it realizes its impotence to alter the totality in the smallest degree. To put it vulgarly, it does not try to raise itself from the ground by pulling at its socks. It therefore opposes to the current of phenomena no reaction either of hatred or of sympathy. So far as it attempts to influence the course of events at all, it does so in the only intelligent way conceivable. It seeks to diminish internal friction. It remains, therefore, in a contemplative attitude. To use the terms of Western philosophy, there is in its attitude something of the stoicism of Zeno; or of the Pickwickianism, if I may use the term, of Epicurus. The ideal reaction to phenomena is that of perfect elasticity. It possesses something of the cold-bloodedness of mathematics; and for this reason it seems fair to say, for the purposes of elementary study, that Pythagoras is its most adequate exponent in European philosophy. Since the discovery of Asiatic thought, however, we have no need to take our ideas at second-hand. The Yellow School of Magick possesses one perfect classic. The Tao Teh King32. 31* It is interesting to note that the three greatest influences in the world today are those of Teutonic Hebrews: Marx, Hertz, and Freud. 32* Unfortunately there is no translation at present published which is the work of an Initiate. All existing translations have been garbled by people who simply failed to understand the text. An approximately per- fect rendering is indeed available, but so far it exists only in manu- script. One object of this letter is to create sufficient public interest to make this work, and others of equal value available to the public. It is impossible to find any religion which adequately represents the thought of this masterpiece. Not only is religion as such repugnant to science and philosophy, but from the very nature of the tenets of the Yellow School, its adherents are not going to put themselves to any inconvenience for the enlightenment of a lot of people whom they consider to be hopeless fools. At the same time, the theory of religion, as such, being a tissue of falsehood, the only real strength of any religion is derived from its pilferings of Magical doctrine; and, religious persons being by defini- tion entirely unscrupulous, it follows that any given religion is likely to contain scraps of Magical doctrine, filched more or less haphazard from one school or the other as occasion serves. Let the reader, therefore, beware most seriously of trying to get a grasp of this subject by means of siren analogies. Taoism has as little to do with the Tao Teh King as the Catholic Church with the Gospel. The Tao Teh King inculcates conscious inaction, or rather unconscious inaction, with the object of minimizing the disorder of the world. A few quotations from the text should make the essence of the doctrine clear. X 3 "Here is the Mystery of Virtue. It createth all and nourisheth all; yet it doth not adhere to them. It operateth all; but knoweth not of it, nor proclaimeth it; it directeth all, but without conscious control." XXII 2 "Therefore the sage concentrateth upon one Will, and it is as a light to the whole world. Hiding himself, he shineth; withdrawing himself, he attracteth notice; humbling himself, he gaineth force to achieve his Will. Because he striveth not, no man may contend against him." XLIII 1 "The softest substance hunteth down the hardest. The Unsub- stantial penetrateth where there is no opening. Here is the Virtue of Inertia." 2 "Few are they who attain: whose speech is Silence, whose Work is Inertia." XLVIII 3 "He who attracteth to himself all that is under Heaven doth so without effort. He who maketh effort is not able to attract it." LVIII 3 "The wise man is foursquare and avoideth aggression; his corners do not injure others. He moveth in a straight line, and turneth not aside therefrom; he is brilliant, but doth not blind with his brightness." LXIII 2 "Do great things while they are yet small, hard things while they are yet easy; for all things, how great or hard soever, have a beginning when they are little and easy. So thus the wise man accomplisheth the greatest tasks without undertaking anything important." {Keynote: This footnote is obsolete. The "Tao Teh King" was published as "Equinox" III - 8, 1975 e.v. by H.P.S.} LXXVI 2 "So then rigidity and hardness are the stigmata of death; elasticity and adaptability of life." 3 "He then who putteth forth strength is not victorious; even as a strong tree filleth the embrace." 4 "Thus the hard and rigid have the inferior place, the soft and elastic the superior." Enough, I think, for this part of the essay. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER VII THE THREE SCHOOLS OF MAGICK (2) Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Hoping that you are now recovered from the devastating revelations in the matter of the Yellow School, I must ask you to brace yourself for disclosures even more formidable about the Black. Do not confuse with the Black Lodge, or the Black Brothers. The terminology is unfortunate, but it wasn't I that did it. Now then, to work! The Black School of Magick, which must by no means be confused with the School of Black Magick or Sorcery, which latter is a perversion of the White tradition, is distinguished fundamentally from the Yellow School in that it considers the Universe not as neutral, but as definitely a curse. Its primary theorem is the "First Noble Truth" of the Buddha --- "Everything is Sorrow." In the primitive classics of this School the idea of sorrow is confused with that of sin. (This idea of universal lamentation is presumably responsible for the choice of black as its symbolic colour. And yet? Is not white the Chinese hue of mourning?) The analysis of the philosophers of this School refers every phenomenon to the category of sorrow. It is quite useless to point out to them that certain events are accompanied with joy: they continue their ruth- less calculations, and prove to your satisfaction, or rather dissatis- faction, that the more apparently pleasant an event is, the more malignantly deceptive is its fascination. There is only one way of escape even conceivable, and this way is quite simple, annihilation. (Shallow critics of Buddhism have wasted a great deal of stupid ingenuity on trying to make out that Nirvana or Nibbana means something different from what etymology, tradition and the evidence of the Classics combine to define it. The word means, quite simply, cessation: and it stands to reason that, if everything is sorrow, the only thing which is not sorrow is nothing, and that therefore to escape from sorrow is the attain- ment of nothingness.) Western philosophy has on occasion approached this doctrine. It has at least asserted that no known form of existence is exempt from sorrow. Huxley says, in his Evolution and Ethics, "Suffering is the badge of all the tribe of sentient things." The philosophers of this School, seeking, naturally enough, to amend the evil at the root, inquire into the cause of this existence which is sorrow, and arrive immediately at the 'Second Noble Truth' of the Buddha: "The Cause of Sorrow is Desire". They follow up with the endless conca- tenation of causes, of which the final root is Ignorance. (I am not concerned to defend the logic of this School: I merely state their doctrine.) The practical issue of all this is that every kind of action is both unavoidable and a crime. I must digress to explain that the confusion of thought in this doctrine is constantly recurrent. That is part of the blackness of the Ignorance which they confess to be the foundation of their Universe. (And after all, everyone has surely the right to have his own Universe the way he wants it.) This School being debased by nature, is not so far removed from conven- tional religion as either the White or the Yellow. Most primitive fetishistic religions may, in fact, be considered fairly faithful representatives of this philosophy. Where animism holds sway, the "medicine-man" personifies this universal evil, and seeks to propitiate it by human sacrifice. The early forms of Judaism, and that type of Christianity which we associate with the Salvation Army, Billy Sunday and the Fundamentalists of the back-blocks of America, are sufficiently simple cases of religion whose essence is the propitiation of a malig- nant demon. When the light of intelligence begins to dawn dimly through many fogs upon these savages, we reach a second stage. Bold spirits master cour- age to assert that the evil which is so obvious, is, in some mysterious way, an illusion. They thus throw back the whole complexity of sorrow to a single cause; that is, the arising of the illusion aforesaid. The problem then assumes a final form: How is that illusion to be destroyed. A fairly pure example of the first stage of this type of thought is to be found in the Vedas, of the second stage, in the Upanishads. But the answer to the question, "How is the illusion of evil to be destroyed?", depends on another point of theory. We may postulate a Parabrahm infi- nitely good, etc. etc. etc., in which case we consider the destruction of the illusion of evil as the reuniting of the consciousness with Parabrahm. the unfortunate part of this scheme of things is that on seeking to define Parabrahm for the purpose of returning to Its purity, it is discovered sooner or later, that It possesses no qualities at all! In other words, as the farmer said, on being shown the elephant: There ain't no sich animile. It was Gautama Buddha who perceived the inutility of dragging in this imaginary pachyderm. Since our Parabrahm, he said to the Hindu philosophers, is actually nothing, why not stick to or original perception that everything is sorrow, and admit that the only way to escape from sorrow is to arrive at nothingness? We may complete the whole tradition of the Indian peninsula very simply. To the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Tripitaka of the Buddhists, we have only to add the Tantras of what are called the Vamacharya Schools. Paradoxical as it may sound the Tantrics are in reality the most advanced of the Hindus. Their theory is, in its philosophical ultimatum, a primi- tive stage of the White tradition, for the essence of the Tantric cults is that by the performance of certain rites of Magick, one does not only escape disaster, but obtains positive benediction. The Tantric is not obsessed by the will-to-die. It is a difficult business, no doubt, to get any fun out of existence; but at least it is not impossible. In other words, he implicitly denies the fundamental proposition that existence is sorrow, and he formulates the essential postulate of the White School of Magick, that means exist by which the universal sorrow (apparent indeed to all ordinary observation) may be unmasked, even as at the initiatory rite of Isis in the ancient days of Kehm. There, a Neophyte presenting his mouth, under compulsion, to the pouting buttocks of the Goat of Mendez, found himself caressed by the chaste lips of a virginal priestess of that Goddess at the base of whose shrine is written that No man has lifted her veil. The basis of the Black philosophy is not impossibly mere climate, with its resulting etiolation of the native, its languid, bilious, anaemic, fever-prostrated, emasculation of the soul of man. We accordingly find few true equivalents of this School in Europe. In Greek philosophy there is no trace of any such doctrine. The poison in its foulest and most virulent form only entered with Christianity33. But even so, few men of any real eminence were found to take the axioms of pessimism seriously. Huxley, for all of his harping on the minor key, was an eupeptic Tory. The culmination of the Black philosophy is only found in Schopenhauer, and we may regard him as having been obsessed, on the one hand, by the despair born of that false scepticism which he learnt from the bankruptcy of Hume and Kant; on the other, by the direct obsession of the Buddhist docu- ments to which he was one of the earliest Europeans to obtain access. He was, so to speak, driven to suicide by his own vanity, a curious parallel to Kiriloff in The Possessed of Dostoiewsky. We have, however, examples plentiful enough of religions deriving almost exclusively from the Black tradition in the different stages. We have already mentioned the Evangelical cults with their ferocious devil-god who creates mankind for the pleasure of damning it and forcing it to crawl before him, while he yells with druken glee over the agony of his only son34. But in the same class, we must place Christian Science, so grotesquely afraid of pain, suffering and evil of every sort, that its dupes can think of nothing better than to bleat denials of its actuality, in the hope of hypnotizing themselves into anaesthesia. Practically no Westerns have reached the third stage of the Black tradi- tion, the Buddhist stage. It is only isolated mystics, and those men who rank themselves with a contemptuous compliance under the standard of the nearest religion, the one which will bother them least in their quest of nothingness, who carry the sorites so far. The documents of the Black School of Magick have already been indicated. They are, for the most part, tedious to the last degree and repulsive to every wholesome-minded man; yet it can hardly be denied that such books as The Dhammapada and Ecclesiastes are masterpieces of literature. They represent the agony of human despair at its utmost degree of intensity, and the melancholy contemplation which is induced by their perusal is not favourable to the inception of that mood which should lead every truly courageous intelligence to the determination to escape from the 33* Anti-semite writers in Europe --- e.g. Weininger --- call the Black theory and practice Judaism, while by a curious confusion, the same ideas are called Christian among Anglo-Saxons. In 1936 e.v. the "Nazi" School began to observe this fact. 34* N.B. Christianity was in its first stage a Jewish Communism, hardly distinguishable from Marxism. ferule of the Black Schoolmaster to the outstretched arms of the White Mistress of Life. Let us leave the sinister figure of Schopenhauer for the mysteriously radiant shape of Spinoza! This latter philosopher, in respect at least of his Pantheism, represents fairly enough the fundamental thesis of the White tradition. Almost the first observation that we have to make is that this White tradition is hardly discoverable outside Europe. It appears first of all in the legend of Dionysus. (In this connection read carefully Browning's Apollo and the Fates.) The Egyptian tradition of Osiris is not dissimilar. The central idea of the White School is that, admitted that "everything is sorrow" for the profane, the Initiate has the means of transforming it to "Every- thing is joy". There is no question of any ostrich-ignoring of fact, as in Christian Science. There is not even any more or less sophisti- cated argument about the point of view altering the situation as in Vedantism. We have, on the contrary, and attitude which was perhaps first of all, historically speaking, defined by Zoroaster, "nature teaches us, and the Oracles also affirm, that even the evil germs of Matter may alike become useful and good." "Stay not on the precipice with the dross of Matter; for there is a place for thine Image in a realm ever splendid." "If thou extend the Fiery Mind to the work of piety, thou wilt preserve the fluxible body."35 It appears that the Levant, from Byzantium and Athens to Damascus, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Cairo, was preoccupied with the formulation of this School in a popular religion, beginning in the days of Augustus Caesar. For there are elements of this central idea in the works of the Gnostics, in certain rituals of what Frazer conveniently calls the Asiatic God, as in the remnants of the Ancient Egyptian cult. The doc- trine became abominably corrupted in committee, so to speak and the result was Christianity, which may be regarded as a White ritual over- laid by a mountainous mass of Black doctrine, like the baby of the mother that King Solomon non-suited. We may define the doctrine of the White School in its purity in very simple terms. Existence is pure joy. Sorrow is caused by failure to perceive this fact; but this is not a misfortune. We have invented sorrow, which does not matter so much after all, in order to have the exuberant satis- faction of getting rid of it. Existence is thus a sacrament. Adepts of the White School regard their brethren of the Black very much as the aristocratic English Sahib (of the days when England was a nation) regarded the benighted Hindu. Nietzsche expresses the philosophy of this School to that extent with considerable accuracy and vigour. The man who denounces life merely defines himself as the man who is unequal to it. The brave man rejoices in giving and taking hard knocks, and the brave man is joyous. The Scandinavian idea of Valhalla may be primitive, but it is manly. A heaven of popular concert, like the Christian; of unconscious repose, like the Buddhist; or even of sensual enjoyment, like the Moslem, excites his nausea and contempt. He understands that the only joy worth while is the joy of continual victory, and victory itself would become as tame as croquet if it were not spiced by equally contin- 35* This passage appears to be a direct hint at the Formula of the IX O.T.O., and the preparation of the Elixir of Life. ual defeat. The purest documents of the White School are found in the Sacred Books of Thelema. The doctrine is given in excellent perfection both in the book of the Heart Girt with the Serpent and the book of Lapis Lazuli. A single passage is adequate to explain the formula. 7. Moreover I beheld a vision of a river. There was a little boat thereon; and in it under purple sails was a golden woman, an image of Asi wrought in finest gold. Also the river was of blood, and the boat of shining steel. Then I loved her; and, loosing my girdle, cast myself into the stream. 8. I gathered myself into the little boat, and for many days and nights did I love her, burning beautiful incense before her. 9. Yea! I gave her of the flower of my youth. 10. But she stirred not; only by my kisses I defiled her so that she turned to blackness before me. 11. Yet I worshipped her, and gave her of the flower of my youth. 12. Also it came to pass, that thereby she sickened, and corrupted before me. Almost I cast myself into the stream. 13. Then at the end appointed her body was whiter than the milk of the stars, and her lips red and warm as the sunset, and her life of a white heat like the heat of the midmost sun. 14. Then rose she up from abyss of Ages of Sleep, and her body embraced me. Altogether I melted in her beauty and was glad. 15. The river also became the river of Amrit, and the little boat was the chariot of the flesh, and the sails thereof the blood of the heart that beareth me, that beareth me. Liber LXV, Cap. II. We find even in profane literature this doctrine of the White School of Magick: - O Buddha! couldst thou nowhere rest A pivot for the universe? Must all things be alike confessed Mere changes rung upon a curse? I swear by all the bliss of blue My Phryne with her powder on Is just as false - and just as true - As your disgusting skeleton. Each to his taste: if you prefer This loathly brooding on Decay; I call it Growth, and lovelier Than all the glamours of the day. You would not dally with Doreen Because her fairness was to fade, Because you know the things unclean That go to make a mortal maid. I, if her rotten corpse were mine, Would take it as my natural food, Denying all but the Divine Alike in evil and in good. Aspasia may skin me close, And Lais load me with disease. Poor pleasures, bitter bargains, these? I shall despise Diogenes. Follow your fancy far enough! At last you surely come to God. There is thus in this School no attempt to deny that Nature is, as Zoroaster said, "a fatal and evil force"; but Nature is, so to speak, "the First Matter of the Work", which is to be transmuted into gold. The joy is a function of our own part in this alchemy. For this reason we find the boldest and most skillful adepts deliberately seeking out the most repugnant elements of Nature that their triumph may be the greater. The formula is evidently one of dauntless courage. It expresses the idea of vitality and manhood in its most dynamic sense. The only religion which corresponds to this School at all is that of ancient Egypt; possibly also that of Chaldea. This is because those religions are Magical religions in the strict technical sense; the religious component of them is negligible. So far as it exists, it exists only for the uninitiate. There are, however, traces of the beginning of the influence of the School in Judaism and in Paganism. There are, too, certain documents of the pure Greek spirit which bear traces of this. It is what they called Theurgy. The Christian religion in its simplest essence, by that idea of over- coming evil through a Magical ceremony, the Crucifixion, seems at first sight a fair example of the White tradition; but the idea of sin and of propitiation tainted it abominably with Blackness. There have been, however, certain Christian thinkers who have taken the bold logical step of regarding evil as a device of God for exercising the joys of combat and victory. This is, of course, a perfectly White doctrine; but it is regarded as the most dangerous of heresies. (Romans VI. 1,2, et al.) For all that, the idea is there. The Mass itself is essentially a typical White ritual. Its purpose is to transform crude matter directly into Godhead. It is thus a cardinal operation of Talismanic Magick. But the influence of the Black School has corroded the idea with theological accretions, metaphysical on the one hand, and superstitious on the other, so completely as to mask the Truth altogether. At the Reformation, we find a nugatory attempt to remove the Black ele- ment. The Protestant thinkers did their best to get rid of the idea of sin, but it was soon seen that the effort could only lead to antinomian- ism; and they recognized that this would infallibly destroy the religious idea as such. Mysticism, both Catholic and Protestant, made a further attempt to free Christianity from the dark cloud of iniquity. They joined hands with the Sufis and the Vedantists. But this again led to the mere denial of the reality of evil. Thus drawing away, little by little, from clear appreciation of the facts of Nature, their doctrine became purely theoretical, and faded away, while the thundercloud of sin settled down more heavily than ever. The most important of all the efforts of the White School, from an exo- teric point of view, is Islam. In its doctrine there is some slight taint, but much less than in Christianity. It is a virile religion. It looks facts in the face, and admits their horror; but it proposes to overcome them by sheer dint of manhood. Unfortunately, the meta- physical conceptions of its quasi-profane Schools are grossly material- istic. It is only the Pantheism of the Sufis which eliminates the conception of propitiation; and, in practice, the Sufis are too closely allied to the Vedantists to retain hold of reality. That will be all for the present. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER VIII THE THREE SCHOOLS OF MAGICK (3) Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. It has been a long --- I hope not too tedious --- voyage; but at last the harbour is in sight. Our Essay approaches its goal; the theory of Life to which initiation tends. Let us continue! There is in history only one movement whose object has been to organize the isolated adepts of the White School of Magick, and this movement was totally unconnected with religion, except in so far as it lent its influence to the reformers of the Christian church. Its appeal was not at all to the people. It merely offered to open up relations with, and communicate certain practical secrets of wisdom to, isolated men of science through Europe. This movement is generally known by the name of Rosicrucianism. The word arouses all sorts of regrettable correspondences; but the adepts of the Society have never worried themselves in the least about the abuse of their name for the purposes of charlatanism, or about the attacks directed against them by envious critics. Indeed, so wisely have they concealed their activities that some modern scholars of the shallower type have declared that no such movement ever existed, that it was a kind of practical joke played upon the curiosity of the credu- lous Middle Ages. It is at least certain that, since the original proclamations, no official publications have been put forward. The essential secrets have been maintained inviolate. If, during the last few years, a considerable number of documents have been published by them, though not in their name, it is on account of the impending crisis to civilization, of which mention will later be made. There is no good purpose, even were there license, to discuss the nature of the basis of scientific attainment which is the core of the doctrines of the Society. It is only necessary to point out that its correspondence with alchemy is the one genuine fact on the subject which has been allowed to transpire; for the Rosicrucian, as indicated by his central symbol, the barren cross on which he has made a rose to flower, occupies him- self primarily with spiritual and physiological alchemy. Taking for "The First Matter of the Work" a neutral or inert substance (it is con- stantly described as the commonest and least valued thing on earth, and may actually connote any substance whatever) he deliberately poisons it, so to speak, bringing it to a stage of transmutation generally called the Black Dragon, and he proceeds to work upon this virulent poison until he obtains the perfection theoretically possible. Incidentally, we have an almost precise parallel with this operation in modern bacteriology. The apparently harmless bacilli of a disease are cultivated until they become a thousand times more virulent than at first, and it is from this culture that is prepared the vaccine which is an efficacious remedy for all the possible ravages of that kind of micro-organism. . . . . . . . . We have been obliged to expose, perhaps at too considerable a length, the main doctrines of the three Schools. The task, however tedious, has been necessary in order to explain with reasonable lucidity their connection with the world which their ideas direct; that is to say, the nature of their political activities. The Yellow School, in accordance with its doctrine of perfectly elastic reaction and non-interference, holds itself, generally speaking, entirely apart from all such questions. We can hardly imagine it sufficiently interested in any events soever to react aggressively. It feels strong enough to deal satisfactorily with anything that may turn up: and generally speaking, it feels that any conceivable action on its part would be likely to increase rather than to diminish the mischief. It remains somewhat contemptuously aloof from the eternal conflict of the Black School with the White. At the same time, there is a certain feeling among the Yellow adepts that should either of these Schools become annihilated, the result might well be that the victor would sooner or later turn his released energy against themselves. In accordance, therefore, with their general plan of non-action, as expressed in the Tao Teh King, of dealing with mischief before it has become too strong to be dangerous, they interfere gently from time to time to redress the balance. During the last two generations the Masters of the Yellow School have been compelled to take notice of the progressive ruin of the White adepts. Christianity, which possessed at least the semblance of a White formula, is in the agonies of decomposition, even before it is actually dead. Materialistic science has overwhelmed the faith and hope of the Christians (they never possessed any charity to overwhelm) with a demonstration of the sorrow, transitoriness and cruel futility of the Universe. A vast wave of pessimism has engulfed the fortress of Mansoul. It was indeed a deadly blow to the adepts of the White School when Science, their own familiar friend in whom they trusted, lifted up his heel against them. It was in this conjuncture that the Yellow adepts sent forth into the Western world a messenger, Helena Petrowna Blavatsky, with the distinct mission to destroy, on the one hand, the crude schools of Christianity, and, on the other, to eradicate the materialism from Physical Science. She made the necessary connection with Edward Maitland and Anna Kingsford, who were trying rather helplessly to put the exoteric formulae of the White School into th hands of students, and with the secret representatives of the Rosicru- cian Brotherhood. It is not for us in this place to estimate the degree of success with which she carried out her embassy; but at least we see today that Physical Science is at last penetrating to the spiritual basis of material phenomena. The work of Henry Poincar, Einstein, Whitehead, and Bertrand Russell is sufficient evidence of this fact. Christianity, too, has fallen into a lower degree of contempt than ever. Realizing that it was moribund, it made a supreme and suicidal effort, and plunged into the death-spasm of the first world-war. It was too far corrupt to react to the injections of the White formula which might have saved it. We see today that Christianity is more bigoted, further divorced from reality, than ever. In some countries it has again become a persecuting church. With horrid glee the adepts of the Black School looked on at these atrocious paroxysms. But it did more. It marshalled its forces quietly, and prepared to clean up the debris of the battlefields. It is at present (1924 e.v.) pledged to a supreme attempt to chase the manly races from their spiritual halidom. (The spasm still [1945 e.v.] continues; note well the pro-German screams of Anglican Bishops, and the intrigues of the Vatican.) The Black School has always worked insidiously, by treachery. We need then not be surprised by finding that its most notable representative was the renegade follower of Blavatsky, Annie Besant, and that she was charged by her Black masters with the mission of persuading the world to accept for its Teacher a negroid36 Messiah. To make the humiliation more complete, a wretched creature was chosen who, to the most loath- some moral qualities, added the most fatuous imbecility. And then blew up! . . . . . . This, then, is the present state of the war of the Three Schools. We cannot suppose that humanity is so entirely base as to accept Krishna- murti; yet that such a scheme could ever have been conceived is a symptom of the almost hopeless decadence of the White School37. The 36^ WEH NOTE: Inject something about Krishnamurti here, and soften the racial remark made above. 37* Note. This passage was written in 1924 e.v. The Master Therion arose and smote him. What seemed a menace is now hardly even a memory. Black adepts boast openly that they have triumphed all along the line. Their formula has attained the destruction of all positive qualities. It is only one step to the stage when the annihilation of all life and thought will appear as a fatal necessity. The materialism and vital scepticism of the present time, its frenzied rush for pleasure in total disregard of any idea of building for the future, testifies to a condi- tion of complete moral disorder, of abject spiritual anarchy. The White School has thus been paralysed. We are reminded of the spider described by Fabre, who injects her victims with a poison which paralyzes them without killing them, so that her own young may find fresh meat. And this is what is going to happen in Europe and America unless some- thing is done about it, and done in very short order. The Yellow School could not remain impassive spectators of the abomina- tions. Madame Blavatsky was a mere forerunner. They, in conjunction with the Secret Chiefs of the White School in Europe, Chiefs who had been compelled to suspend all attempts at exoteric enlightenment by the general moral debility which had overtaken the races from which they drew their adepts, have prepared a guide for mankind. This man, of an extreme moral force and elevation, combined with a profound sense of worldly realities, has stood forth in an attempt to save the White School, to rehabilitate its formula, and to fling back from the bastions of moral freedom the howling savages of pessimism. Unless his appeal is heard, unless there comes a truly virile reaction against the creeping atrophy which is poisoning them, unless they enlist to the last man under his standard, a great decisive battle will have been lost. This prophet of the White School, chosen by its Masters and his brethren, to save the Theory and Practice, is armed with a sword far mightier than Excalibur. He has been entrusted with a new Magical formula, one which can be accepted by the whole human race. Its adoption will strengthen the Yellow School by giving a more positive value to their Theory; while leaving the postulates of the Black School intact, it will transcend them and raise their Theory and Practice almost to the level of the Yellow. As to the White School, it will remove from them all taint of poison of the Black, and restore vigour to their central formula of spiritual al- chemy by giving each man an independent ideal. It will put an end to the moral castration involved in the assumption that each man, whatever his nature, should deny himself to follow out a fantastic and impracti- cable ideal of goodness. Incidentally, this formula will save Physical Science itself by making negligible the despair of futility, the vital scepticism which has emasculated it in the past. It shows that the joy of existence is not in a goal, for that indeed is clearly unattainable, but in the going itself. This law is called the Law of Thelema. It is summarized in the four words, "Do what thou wilt." It should not be necessary to explain that a full appreciation of this message is not to be obtained by a hasty examination. It is essential to study it from every point of view, to analyse it with the keenest philosophical acumen, and finally to apply it as a key for every problem, internal and external, that exists. This key, applied with skill, will open every lock. From the deepest point of view, the greatest value of this formula is that it affords, for the first time in history, a basis of reconciliation between the three great Schools of Magick. It will tend to appease the eternal conflict by understanding that each type of thought shall go on its own way, develop its own proper qualities without seeking to inter- fere with other formulae, however (superficially) opposed to its own. What is true for every School is equally true for every individual. Success in life, on the basis of the Law of Thelema, implies severe self-discipline. Each being must progress, as biology teaches, by strict adaptation to the conditions of the organism. If, as the Black School continually asserts, the cause of sorrow is desire, we can still escape the conclusion by the Law of Thelema. What is necessary is not to seek after some fantastic ideal, utterly unsuited to our real needs, but to discover the true nature of those needs, to fulfill them, and rejoice therein. This process is what is really meant by initiation; that is to say, the going into oneself, and making one's peace, so to speak, with all the forces that one finds there. It is forbidden here to discuss the nature of The Book of the Law, the Sacred Scripture of Thelema. Even after forty years of close expert examination, it remains to a great extent mysterious; but the little we know of it is enough to show that it is a sublime synthesis of all Science and all ethics. It is by virtue of this Book that man may attain a degree of freedom hitherto never suspected to be possible, a spiritual development altogether beyond anything hitherto known; and, what is really more to the point, a control of external nature which will make the boasted achievements of the last century appear no more than childish preliminaries to an incomparably mighty manhood. It has been said by some that the Law of Thelema appeals only to the lite of humanity. No doubt here is this much in that assertion, that only the highest can take full advantage of the extraordinary opportuni- ties which it offers. At the same time, "the Law is for all." Each in his degree, every man may learn to realise the nature of his own being, and to develop it in freedom. It is by this means that the White School of Magick can justify its past, redeem its present, and assure its future, by guaranteeing to every human being a life of Liberty and of Love. Such, then, are the words of Grard Aumont. I should not like to endorse every phrase; but the whole exposition is so masterly in its terse, tense vigour, and so unrivalled by any other document at my disposal, that I thought it best to let you have it in its own original form, with only those few alterations which lapse of time has made necessary. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 P.S. Our own School unites the ruby red of Blood with the gold of the Sun. It combines the best characteristics of the Yellow and the White Schools. In the light of M. Aumont's exposition, it is easy to under- stand. To us, every phenomenon is an Act of Love, Every experience is necessary, is a Sacrament, is a means of Growth. Hence, "...existence is pure joy;..." (AL II, 9) "A feast every day in your hearts in the joy of my rapture! A feast every night unto Nu, and the pleasure of uttermost delight!" (AL II, 42-43). Let this soak in! ======================================================================== CHAPTER IX THE SECRET CHIEFS Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Very glad I am, since at one time I was obliged to be starkly stern about impertinent curiosity, to note that your wish to be informed about the Secret Chiefs of the A.'.A.'. is justified; it is most certainly of the first importance that you and I should be quite clear in our minds about Those under whose jurisdiction and tutelage we both work. The question is beset with thickets of tough thorn; what is worse, the path is so slippery that nothing is easier than to tumble head first into the spikiest bush of them all. You justly remind me that one of my earliest slogans was "Mystery is the enemy of Truth;" how then is it what I acquiesce in the policy of con- cealment in a matter so cardinal? Perhaps the best plan is for me to set down the facts of the case, so far as is possible, from them it may appear that no alternative policy is feasible. The first condition of membership of the A.'.A.'. is that one is sworn to identify one's own Great Work with that of raising mankind to higher levels, spiritually, and in every other way. Accordingly, it stands to reason that those charged with the conduct of the Order should be at least Masters of the Temple, or their judgment would be worthless, and at least Magi (though not that particular kind of Magus who brings the Word of a New Formula to the world every 2,000 years of so) or they would be unable to influence events on any scale commensurate with the scope of the Work. Of what nature is this Power, this Authority, this Understanding, this Wisdom --- Will? (I go up from Geburah to Chokmah.) Of the passive side it is comparatively easy to form some idea; for the qualities essential are mainly extensions of those that all of us possess in some degree. And whether Understanding - Wisdom is "right" or "wrong" must be largely a matter of opinion; often Time only can decide such points. But for the active side it is necessary to postulate the existence of a form of Energy at their disposal which is able "to cause change to occur in conformity with the Will" --- one definition of "Magick". Now this, as you know, is an exceedingly complex subject; its theory is tortuous, and its practice encompassed with every kind of difficulty. Is there no simple method? Yes: the thaumaturgic engine disposes of a type of energy more adaptable than Electricity itself, and both stronger and subtler than this, its analogy in the world of profane science. One might say, that it is elec- trical, or at least one of the elements in the "Ring-formula" of modern Mathematical Physics. In the R.R. et A.C., this is indicated to the Adept Minor by the title conferred upon him on his initiation to that grade: Hodos Camelionis: --- the Path of the Chameleon. (This emphasizes the omnivalence of the force.) In the higher degrees of O.T.O. --- the A.'.A.'. is not fond of terms like this, which verge on the picturesque --- it is usually called "the Ophidian Vibrations", thus laying special stress upon its serpentine strength, subtlety, its control of life and death, and its power to insin- uate itself into any desired set of circumstances. It is of this universally powerful weapon that the Secret Chiefs must be supposed to possess complete control. They can induce a girl to embroider a tapestry, or initiate a political movement to culminate in a world-war; all in pursuit of some plan wholly beyond the purview or the comprehension of the deepest and subtlest thinkers. (It should go without saying that the adroit use of these vibrations enables one to perform all the classical "miracles.") These powers are stupendous: they seem almost beyond imagination to conceive. "Hic ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono; Imperium sine fine dedi." as Vergil, that mighty seer and magician of Rome at her perihelion says in his First Book of the Aenead. (Vergil whose every line is also an Oracle, the leaves of his book more sacred, more significant, more sure than those of the Cumaean Sibyl!) These powers move in dimensions of time and space quite other than those with which we are familiar. Their values are incomprehensible to us. To a Secret Chief, wielding this weapon, "The nice conduct of a clouded cane" might be infinitely more important than a war, famine and pesti- lence such as might exterminate a third part of the race, to promote whose welfare is the crux of His oath, and the sole reason of His existence! But who are They? Since They are "invisible" and "inaccessible," may They not merely be figments invented by a self-styled "Master," not quite sure of himself, to prop his tottering Authority? Well, the "invisible" and "inaccessible" criticism may equally be leveled at Captain A. and Admiral B. of the Naval Intelligence Department. These "Secret Chiefs" keep in the dark for precisely the same reasons; and these qualities disappear instantaneously the moment They want to get hold of you. It is written, moreover, "Let my servants be few & secret: they shall rule the many & the known." (AL I, 10) But are They then men, in the usual sense of the word? They may be incarnate or discarnate: it is a matter of Their convenience. Have They attained Their position by passing through all the grades of the A.'.A.'.? Yes and no: the system which was given to me to put forward is only one of many. "Above the Abyss" all these technical wrinkles are ironed out. One man whom I suspect of being a Secret Chief has hardly any acquaintance with the technique of our system at all. That he accepts The Book of the Law is almost his only link with my work. That, and his use of the Ophidian Vibrations: I don't know which of us is better at it, but I am sure that he must be a very long way ahead of me if he is one of Them. You have already in these pages and elsewhere in my writings examples numerous and varied of the way in which They work. The list is far from complete. The matters of Ab-ul-Diz and of Amalantrah show one method of communication; then there is the way of direct "inspiration," as in the case of "Hermes Eimi" in New Orleans38. Again, They may send an ordinary living man, whether one of Themselves or no I cannot feel sure, to instruct me in some task, or to set me right when I have erred. Then there have been messages conveyed by natural objects, animate or inanimate39. Needless to say, the outstand- ing example in my life is the whole Plan of Campaign concerning The Book of the Law. But is Aiwaz a man (presumably a Persian or Assyrian) and a "Secret Chief," or is He an "angel" in the sense that Gabriel is an angel? Is Ab-ul-Diz an Adept who can project himself into the aura of some woman with whom I happen to be living, although she has no pre- vious experience of the kind, or any interest in such matters at all? Or is He a being whose existence is altogether beyond this plane, only adopting human appearance and faculties in order to make Himself sensible and intelligible to that woman? I have never attempted to pursue any such enquiry. It was not forbidden; and yet I felt that it was! I always insisted, of course, on the strict- est proof that He actually possessed the authority claimed by Him! But I felt is improper to assume any other initiative. Just a point of good manners, perhaps? You ask whether, contact once made, I am able to renew it should I so wish. Again, yes and no. But the real answer is that no such gesture on my part can ever be necessary. For one thing, the "Chief" is so far 38* I will remember to give you details of these incidents when the occasion arises. 39* One thing I regard from my own experience as certain: when you call, They come. The circumstances usually show that the call had been fore- seen, and preparations made to answer it, long before it was made. But I suppose in some way the call has to justify the making. above me that I can rely on Him to take the necessary steps, whenever contact would be useful; for another, there is one path always open which is perfectly sufficient for all possible contingencies. Elsewhere I will explain why they picked out so woebegone a ragamuffin as myself to proclaim the Word of the Aeon, and do all the chores appur- tenant to that particular Work. The Burden is heavier as the years go by; but --- Perdurabo. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 P.S. Reading this typescript over for "literals," it struck me that you would ask, very reasonably: "But if the Secret Masters have these bound- less powers, why do They allow you to be plagued by printers, held up for lack of secretaries, worried by all sorts of practical problems? . . . Why, in a word, does anything ever go wrong?" There are several lines of reply; coalescing, they suffice: 1. What is "wrong?" Since four wars is Their idea of "right," you may well ask by what standard you may judge events. 2. Their Work is creative; They operate on the dull mass of unrealized possibilities. Thus they meet, firstly, the opposition of Inertia; secondly, the recoil, the reaction, the rebound. 3. Things theoretically feasible are practically impossible when (a) desirable though their accomplishment may be, it is not the one feat essential to the particular Work in hand and the moment; (b) the sum total of available energy being used up by that special task, there is none available for side-issues; (c) the opposition, passive or active, is too strong, temporarily, to overcome. More largely, one cannot judge how a plan is progressing when one has no precise idea what it is. A soldier is told to "attack;" he may be intended to win through, to cover a general retreat, or to gain time by deliberate sacrifice. Only the Commander in Chief knows what the order means, or why he issues it; and even he does not know the issue, or whether it will display and justify his military skill and judgment. Our business is solely to obey orders: our responsibility ends when we have satisfied ourselves that they emanate from a source which has the right to command. P.P.S. A visitor's story has just reminded me of the possibility that I am a Secret Chief myself without knowing it: for I have sometimes been recognized by other people as having acted as such, though I was not aware of the fact at the time. ======================================================================== CHAPTER X THE SCOLEX SCHOOL Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. You actually want to know how to distinguish gold from copper pyrites40 --- "fool's gold" they called it in '49 California --- no! I wasn't there --- or "absolute" alcohol and --- Liqueur Whisky from "alki" (commercial alcohol --- see Jack London's The Princess, a magnificent story --- don't miss it!) and Wartime Scotch as sold in most British pubs in 1944, era vulgari. One pretty good plan is to take a masterpiece, pick out a page at random, translate it into French or German or whatever language you like best, walk around your chair three times (so as to forget the English) and then translate it back again. You will gather a useful impression of the value of the masterpiece by noticing the kind of difficulty that arises in the work of translation; more, by observing the effect produced on you by reading over the result; and finally, by estimating the re-translation; has the effect of the original been enhanced by the work done on it? Has it become more lucid? Has it actually given you the information which it purported to do? (I am giving you credit for very unusual ability; this test is not easy to make; and, obviously, you may have spoilt the whole composition, especially where its value depends on its form rather than on its sub- stance. But we are not considering poetry, or poetic prose; all we want is intelligible meaning.) It does not follow that a passage is nonsensical because you fail to understand it; it may simply be too hard for you. When Bertrand Russell writes "We say that a function R is 'ultimately Q-convergent ' if there is a member y of the converse domain of R and the field of Q such that the value of the function for the argument y and for any argument to which y has the relation Q is a member of ." Do we? But you do not doubt that if you were to learn the meaning of all these unfamiliar terms, you would be able to follow his thought. Now take a paragraph from an "occult teacher." What's more, I'll give you wheat, not tares; it seems terrifyingly easy for sound instruction to degenerate in to a "pi-jaw." Here goes! "To don Nirmanakaya's humble robe is to forego eternal bliss for self, to help on man's salvation. To reach Nirvana's bliss but to renounce it, is the supreme, the final step --- the highest on Renun- ciation's Path." Follows a common-sense comment by Frater O.M. "All this about Gautama Buddha having renounced Nirvana is apparently all a pure invention of Mme. Blavatsky, and has no authority in the Buddhist canon. The Buddha is referred to, again and again, as having 'passed away by that kind of passing away which leaves nothing what- 40^ WEH NOTE: If Homer can nod, so can Crowley. The mineral called fool's gold is actually iron pyrites, not copper. It has a brassy look, and that might account for this error. ever behind.' The account of his doing this is given in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta; and it was the contention of the Toshophists that this 'great, sublime Nibbana story' was something peculiar to Gautama Buddha. They began to talk about Parinibbana, super-Nibbana, as if there were some way of subtracting one from one which would leave a higher, superior kind of a nothing, or as if there were some way of blowing out a candle which would leave Moses in a much more Egyptian darkness than we ever supposed when we were children. "This is not science. This is not business. This is American Sun- day journalism. The Hindu and the American are very much alike in this innocence, this 'naivet' which demands fairy stories with ever bigger giants. They cannot bear the idea of anything being complete and done with. So, they are always talking in superlatives, and are hard put to it when the facts catch up with them, and they have to invent new superlatives. Instead of saying that there are bricks of various sizes, and specifying those sizes, they have a brick and a super-brick, and 'one' brick, and 'some' brick; and when they have got to the end they chase through the dictionary for some other epithet to brick, which shall excite the sense of wonder at the magnificent progress and super-progress --- I present the American public with this word --- which is supposed to have been made. Probably the whole thing is a bluff without a single fact behind it. Almost the whole of the Hindu psychology is an example of this kind of journalism. They are not content with the supreme God. The other man wishes to show off by having a supremer God than that, and when a third man comes along and finds them disputing, it is up to him to invent a supremest super-God. "It is simply ridiculous to try to add to the definition of Nibbana by this invention of Parinibbana, and only talkers busy themselves with these fantastic speculations. The serious student minds his own business, which is the business in hand. The President of a Corporation does not pay his bookkeeper to make a statement of the countless billions of profit to be made in some future year. It requires no great ability to string a row of zeros after a signifi- cant figure until the ink runs out. What is wanted is the actual balance of the week. "The reader is most strongly urged not to permit himself to indulge in fantastic flights of thought, which are the poison of the mind, because they represent an attempt to run away from reality, a dis- persion of energy and a corruption of moral strength. His business is, firstly, to know himself; secondly, to order and control him- self; thirdly, to develop himself on sound organic lines little by little. The rest is only leather and prunella. "There is, however, a sense in which the service of humanity is necessary to the completeness of the Adept. He is not to fly away too far. "Some remarks on this course are given in the note to the next verse. "The student is also advised to take note of the conditions of member- ship of the A.'.A.'.". (Equinox III, Supplement pp. 57 - 59). So much for the green tree; now for the dry! We come down to the average popular "teacher," the mere humbug. Read this: --- "One day quite soon an entirely different kind of electricity will be discovered which will bring as many profound changes into human living as the first type did. This new electricity ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (mwt-a.zip ends) (http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/mwt_10.txt for balance of X begins) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- will move in a finer ether than does our familiar kind, and thus will be nearer in vibration to the fifth dimension, to the innermost source of things, that realm of 'withinness' wherein all is held poised by a colossal force, that same force which is packed within the atom. Electricity number two will be unthinkably more powerful than our present electricity number one." (V.S. Alder, The Fifth Dimension, p. 132) Exhausted; I must restring my bow. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== Chapter XI: Woolly Pomposities of the Pious "Teacher" I do not think that it was any new kind of electricity. I think it was the passage itself that has given me neuralgia. It disgusts me beyond words. To put the matter in a nutshell, tersely, concisely, succinctly, the world is being corrupted by all this --- Asthmatic Thinking Torpid Thinking Nauseous Thinking Bovine T Uncertain T. Old-maidish T. Chawbacon T. Venomous T. Purgative T. Diffuse T. Whelp T. Querulous T. Excretory T Yahoo T. Rat-riddled T. Fog-bound T. Zig-zag T. Superficial T. Gossiping T. Ambivalent T. Tinsel T. Higgledy-piggledy T. Broken T. Unbalanced T. Ill-mannered T. Corked T. Viscous T. Jibbing T. Disjointed T. Windy T. Kneeling T. Eight-anna T. Yapping T. Leaden T. Flibberty-gibbet T. Zymotic T. Moulting T. Glum T. Addled T. Neurotic T. High-falutin' T. Blear-eyed T. Orphan T. Invertebrate T. Capsized T. Peccable T. Jazzy T. Down-at-heel T. Queasy T. Knavish T. Evasive T. Rococo T. Leucorrhoeic T. Formless T. Slavish T. Motheaten T. Guilty T. Hypocritical T. Unsystematic T. Lachrymose T. Ignorant T. Void T. Maudlin T. Jerry-built T. Waggly T. Neighing T. Knock-kneed T. Atrophied T. Odious T. Lazy T. Bloated T. Pedestrian T. Messy T. Cancerous T. Quavering T. Nasty T. Dull T. Ragbag T. Oleaginous T. Eurasian T. Sappy T. Purulent T. Futile T. Tuberculous T. Slattern T. Immature T. Veneered T. Unkempt T. Beige T. Woolly T. Over-civilized T. Emaciated T. Flat T. Gluey T. Dislocated T. Emetic T. Crippled T. Slushy T. Insanitary T. Foggy T. Teaparty T. Gloomy T. Wordy T. Negroid T. Jaundiced T. Opportunish T. Babbling T. Pedantic T. Muddy T. Onanistic T. Flatulent T. Unclean T. Hybrid T. Sluttish T. Flabby T. Nebulous T. Stale T. Unsorted T. Hurried T. Mangy T. Prim T. Empty T. Portentous T. Theatrical T. Vain T. Loose T. Vaporous T. Loose T. Wooden T. Myopic T. Bloodless T. Soapy T. Flimsy T. Ersatz T. Gabbling T. Unfinished T. Pontifical T. Wishful T. Mongrel T. Unripe T. Frock-coated T. Irrelevant T. Glossy T. Fashionable T. Hidebound T. Officious T. Unmanly T. Snobbish T. Misleading T. Slippery T. 41* as we find in Brunton, Besant, Clymer, Max Heindl, Ouspensky and in the catchpenny frauds of the secret-peddlers, the U.B., the O.H.M., the A.M.O.R.C., and all the other gangs of self-styled Rosicrucians; they should be hissed off the stage. We want it dinkum! Advance Australia! Stick to your flag! March to your National Anthem:-- "Get a bloody move on! Get some bloody sense Learn the bloody art of Self-de-bloody-fence!" So much for Buckingham! 41* {Note by editor [T.S.?]: In the original Manuscript the list of adjectives contains about 1,000 words; a small selection only has been used.} Now that we are agreed upon the conditions to be satisfied if we are to allow that a given proposition contains a Thought at all, it is proper to turn our attention to the relative value of different kinds of thought. This question is of the very first importance: the whole theory of Education depends upon a correct standard. There are facts and facts: one would not necessarily be much the wiser if one got the Encyclopaedia Britannica by heart, or the Tables of Logarithms. The one aim of Mathematics, in fact--Whitehead points this out in his little Shilling Arithmetic--is to make one fact do the work of thousands. What we are looking for is a working Hierarchy of Facts. That takes us back at once to our original "addition and subtraction" remark in my letter on Mind. Classification, the first step, proceeds by putting similar things together, and dissimilar things apart. One asset in the Audit of a fact is the amount of knowledge which it covers. (2 + 5)2 = 49; (3 + 4)2 = 49; (6 + 2)2 =64; (7 + 1)2 = 64; (9 + 4)2 = 169 are isolated facts, no more; worse, the coincidences of 49 and 64 might start the wildest phantasies in your head--"something mysterious about this." But if you write "The sum of the squares of any two numbers is the sum of the square of each plus twice their multiple"--(a + b)2 = a^2 + b{2} + 2ab--you have got a fact which covers every possible case, and exhibits one aspect of the nature of numbers them- selves. The importance of a word increases as its rank, from the particular and concrete to the general and abstract. (It is curious that the highest values of all, the "Laws of Nature," are never exactly "true" for any two persons, for one person can never observe the identical phenomena sensible to another, since two people cannot be in exactly the same place at exactly the same time: yet it is just these facts that are equally true for all men.) Observe, I pray, the paramount importance of memory. From one point of view (bless your heart!) you are nothing at all but a bundle of memories. When you say "this is happening now," you are a falsifier of God's sacred truth! When I say "I see a horse", the truth is that "I record in those terms my private hieroglyphic interpretation of the unknown and unknowable phenomenon (or 'point-event') which has more or less recently taken place at the other end of my system of receiving impressions." (Is this clear? I do hope so; if not, make me go on at it until it is.) Well, then! You realize, of course, how many millions or billions of memories there must be to compose any average well-trained mind. Those strings of adjectives all sprang spontaneously; I did not look them up in books of reference; so imagine the extent of my full vocabulary! And words are but the half-baked bricks with which one constructs. Millions, yes: billions probably: but there is a limit. See to it, then, that you accept no worthless material; that you select, and select again, always in proper order and proportion; organize, structuralize your thought, always with the one aim in view of accomplishing the Great Work. Well, now, before going further into this, I must behave like an utter cad, and disgrace my family tree, and blot my 'scutcheon and my copybook by confusing you about "realism." Excuse: not my muddle; it was made centuries ago by a gang of cursd monks, headed by one Duns Scotus--so-called because he was Irish--or if not by somebody else equally objectionable. They held to the Platonic dogma of archetypes. They maintained that there was an original (divine) idea such as "greenness" or a "pig," and that a green pig, as observed in nature, was just one example of these two ideal essences. They were opposed by the "nominalists," who said, to the contrary, that "greenness" or "a pig" were nothing in themselves; they were mere names (nominalism from Lat. nomen, a name) invented for convenience of grouping. This doctrine is plain commonsense, and I shall waste no time in demolishing the realists. All priori thinking, the worst kind of thinking, goes with "realism" in this sense. And now you look shocked and surprised! And no wonder! What (you exclaim) is the whole Qabalistic doctrine but the very apotheosis of this "realism"? (It was also called "idealism", apparently to cheer and comfort the student on his rough and rugged road!) Is not Atziluth the "archetypal world?" is not-- Oh, all right, all right! Keep your blouse on! I didn't go for to do it. You're quite right: the Tree of Life is like that, in appearance. But that is the wrong way to look at it. We get our number two, for example, as "that which is common to a bird's legs, a man's ears, twins, the cube root of eight, the greater luminaries, the spikes of a pitchfork," etc. but, having got it, we must not go on to argue that the number two being possessed of this and that property, therefore there must be two of something or other which for one reason or another we cannot count on our fingers. The trouble is that sometimes we can do so; we are very often obliged to do so, and it comes out correct. But we must not trust any such theorem; it is little more than a hint to help us in our guesses. Example: an angel appears and tells us that his name is MALIEL (MLIAL) which adds to 111, the third of the numbers of the Sun. Do we conclude that his nature is solar? In this case, yes, perhaps, because, (on the theory) he took that name for the very reason that it chimed with his nature. But a man may reside at 81 Silver Street without being a lunatic, or be born at five o'clock on the 5th of May, 1905, and make a very poor soldier. "No, no, my dear sister, how tempted soever, To nominalism be faithful forever!" (If you want to be very learned indeed, read up Bertrand Russell on "Classes.") Enough, more than enough, of this: let us return to the relative value of various types of thought. I think you already understand the main point: you must structuralise your thinking. You must learn how to differentiate and how to integrate your thoughts. Nothing exists in isolation; it is always conditioned by its relations with other things; indeed, in one sense, a thing is no more than the sum of these relations. (For the only "reality," in the long run, is, as we have seen, a Point of View.) Now, this task of organizing the mind, of erecting a coherent and intelligible structure, is enormously facilitated by the Qabalah. When, in one of those curious fits of indisposition of which you periodically complain, and of which the cause appears to you so obscure, you see pink leopards on the staircase, mmmmm "Ah! the colour of the King Scale of Tiphareth--Oh! the form of Leo, probably in the Queen Scale" and thereby increase your vocabulary by these two items. Then, perhaps, someone suggests that indiscretion in the worship of Dionysus is respon- sible for the observed phenomena--well, there's Tiphareth again at once; the Priest, moreover, wears a leopard-skin, and the spots suggest the Sun. Also, Sol is Lord of Leo: so there you are! pink leopards are exactly what you have a right to expect! Until you have practiced this method, all day and every day, for quite a long while, you cannot tell how amazingly your mnemonic power increases by virtue thereof. But be careful always to range the new ideas as they come along in their right order of importance. It is not unlike the system of keys used in big establishments, such as hotels. First, a set of keys, each of which opens one door, and one door only. Then, a set which opens all the doors on one floor only. And so on, until the one responsible person who has one unique key which opens every lock in the building. There is another point about this while System of the Qabalah. It does more than merely increase the mnemonic faculty by 10,000% or so; the habit of throwing your thoughts about, manipulating them, giving them a wash and brush-up, packing them away into their proper places in you "Crystal Cabinet," gives you immensely increased power over them. In particular, it helps you to rid them of the emotional dirt which normally clogs them;42* you become perfectly indifferent to any implication but their value in respect of the whole system; and this is of incalculable help in the acquisition of new ides. It is the difference between a man trying to pick a smut out of his wife's eye with clumsy, greasy fingers coarsened by digging drains, and an oculist furnished with a speculum and all the instruments exactly suited to the task. Yet another point. Besides getting rid of the emotions and sensations which cloud the thought, the fact that you are constantly asking your- self "Now, in which drawer of which cabinet does this thought go?" automatically induces you to regard the system as the important factor in the operation, if only because it is common to every one of them. So not only have you freed Sanna (perception) from the taint of Vedana (sensation) but raised it (or demolished it, if your prefer to look at it in that light!) to be merely a member of the Sankhra (tendency) class, thus boosting you vigorously to the fourth stage, the last before the last! of the practice of Mahasatipathana. Just one more word about the element of Vedana. The Intellect is a purely mechanical contrivance, as accurate and as careless of what it turns out as a Cash Register. It receives impressions, calculates, states the result: that is A double L, ALL! Try never to qualify a thought in any way, to see it as it is in itself in relation to those other elements which are necessary to make it what it is. Above all, do not "mix the planes." A dagger may be sharp or blunt, straight or crooked; it is not "wicked-looking," or even "trusty," except in so far as the quality of its steel makes it so. A cliff is not "frowning" or "menacing." A snow-covered glacier is not "treacherous:" to say so means only that Alpine Clubmen and other persons ignorant of mountain craft are unable to detect the position of covered crevasses. All such points you must decide for yourself; the important thing is that you should challenge any such ideas. Above all, do not avoid, or slur, unwelcome trains of thought or distressing problems. Don't say "he passed on" when you mean "he died," and don't call a spade a bloody shovel! Thresh out such matters with Osiris' flail; on the winnowing-fan of Iacchus! Truth in itself is beautiful, and the best bower-anchor of your ship; every truth fits all the rest of truth; and the most alluring lies will never do that. "The toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in its head." and the result of letting "Two ghastly scullions concoct mess With brimstone, pitch, vitriol, and devil's dung." in the end repay investigation. The vision and the Voice again, please! That frightful Curse--how every phrase turns out to be a Blessing!6 I shall break off this brief note at this point, so that you may have time to tell me if what I have so far said covers the whole ground of your enquiry. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 42* I hope there is no need to repeat that whether any given thought is pleasant, or undersirable, or otherwise soiled by Vedana, is totally irrelevant. ======================================================================== Chapter XII: The Left-Hand Path--"The Black Brothers" Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. It is the introduction of the word "self" that has raised such prickly questions. It really is a little bewildering; the signpost "Right-hand Path", "Left-hand Path", seems rather indecipherable; and then, for such a long way, they look exactly alike. At what point do they diverge? Actually, the answers are fairly simple. As far as the achievement or attainment is concerned, the two Paths are in fact identical. In fact, one almost feels obliged to postulate some inmost falsity, completely impossible to detect, inherent at the very earliest stages. For the decision which determines the catastrophe confronts only the Adeptus Exemptus 7 = 4. Until that grade is reached, and that very fully indeed, with all the buttons properly sewed on, one is not capable of understanding what is meant by the Abyss. Unless "all you have and all you are" is identical with the Universe, its annihilation would leave a surplus. Mark well this first distinction: the "Black Magician" or Sorcerer is hardly even a distant cousin of the "Black Brother." The difference between a sneak-thief and a Hitler is not too bad an analogy. The Sorcerer may be--indeed he usually is--a thwarted disappointed man whose aims are perfectly natural. Often enough, his real trouble is ignorance; and by the time he has become fairly hot stuff as a Black Magician, he has learnt that he is getting nowhere, and finds himself, despite himself, on the True Path of the Wise. "Invoking Zeus to swell the power of Pan, The prayer discomfits the demented man; Lust lies as still as Love." Thereupon he casts away his warlock apparatus like a good little boy, finds the A.'.A.'., and lives happily ever after. The Left-hand Path is a totally different matter. Let us start at the beginning. You remember my saying that only two operations were possible in Nature: addition and subtraction. Let us apply this to magical progress. What happens when the Aspirant invokes Diana, or calls up Lilith? He increases the sum of his experiences in these particular ways. Sometimes he has a "liaison-experience," which links two main lines of thought, and so is worth dozens of isolated gains. Now, if there is any difference at all between the White and the Black Adept in similar case, it is that the one, working by "love under will" achieves a marriage with the new idea, while the other, merely grabbing, adds a concubine to his harem of slaves. The about-to-be-Black Brother constantly restricts himself; he is satisfied with a very limited ideal; he is afraid of losing his individuality--reminds one of the "Nordic" twaddle about "race-pollution." Have you seen the sand-roses of the Sahara? Such is the violence of the Khamsin that it whips grains of sand together, presses them, finally builds them into great blocks, big enough and solid enough to be used for walls in the oasis. And beautiful! Whew! For all that, they are not real rocks. Leave hem in peace, with no possible interference--what happens? (I brought some home, and put them "in safety" as curiosities, and as useful psychometrical tests.) Alas! Time is enough. Go to the drawer which held them; nothing remains but little piles of dust. "Now Master!" (What reproach in the tone of your voice!) All right, all right! Keep your hair on!--I know that is the precise term used in The Vision and the Voice, to describe the Great White Brother or the Babe of the Abyss; but to him it means victory; to the Left-Hander it would mean defeat, ruin devastating, irremediable, final. It is exactly that which he most dreads; and it is that to which he must in the end come, because there is no compensating element in his idea of structure. Nations themselves never grow permanently by smash-and-grab methods; one merely acquires a sore spot, as in the case of Lorraine, perhaps even Eire. (Though Eire is using just that formula of Restriction, shutting herself up in her misery and poverty and idiot pride, when a real marriage with and dissolution in, a real live country would give her new life. The "melting-pot" idea is the great strength of America.) Consider the Faubourg St. Germain aristocracy--now hardly even a sentimental memory. The guillotine did not kill them; it was their own refusal to adapt themselves to the new biological conditions of political life. It was indeed their restriction that rotted them in the first instance; had Lafayette or Mirabeau been trusted with full power, and supplied with adequate material, a younger generation of virtue, the monarchy might still be ruling France. But then (you ask) how can a man go so far wrong after he has, as an Adeptus Minor, attained the "Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel"? Recall the passage in the 14th Aethyr "See where thine Angel hath led Thee", and so on. Perhaps the Black Brother deserts his Angel when he realises the Programme. Perhaps his error was so deeply rooted, from the very beginning, that it was his Evil Genius that he evoked. In such cases the man's policy is of course to break off all relations with the Supernal Triad, and to replace it by inventing a false crown, Dath. To them Knowledge will be everything, and what is Knowledge but the very soul of Illusion? Refusing thus the true nourishment of all his faculties, they lose their structural unity, and must be fortified by continuous doses of dope in anguished self-preservation. Thus all its chemical equations become endothermic. I do hope I am making myself clear; it is a dreadfully subtle line of thought. But I think you ought to be able to pick up the essential theorem; your own meditations, aided by the relevant passages in Liber 418 and elsewhere, should do the rest. To describe the alternative attitude should clarify, by dint of contrast; at least the contemplation should be a pleasant change. Every accretion must modify me. I want it to do so. I want to assimilate it absolutely. I want to make it a permanent feature of my Temple. I am not afraid of losing myself to it, if only because it also is modified by myself in the act of union. I am not afraid of its being the "wrong" thing, because every experience is a "play of Nuit," and the worst that can happen is a temporary loss of balance, which is instantly adjusted, as soon as it is noticed, by recalling and putting into action the formula of contradiction. Remember the Fama Fraternitatis: when they opened the Vault which held the Pastos of our Father Christian Rosencreuz, "all these colours were brilliant and flashing." That is, if one panel measured 10" x 40", the symbol (say, yellow) would occupy 200 square inches, and the background (in that case, violet) the other 200 square inches. Hence they dazzled; the limitation, restriction, demarcation, disappeared; and the result was an equable idea of form and colour which is beyond physical understanding. (At one time Picasso tried to work out this idea on canvas.) Destroy that equilibrium by one tenmillionth of an inch, and the effect is lost. The unbalanced item stands out like a civilian in the middle of a regiment. True, this faculty, this feeling for equilibrium must be acquired; but once you have done so, it is an unerring guide. Instant discomfort warns one; the impulse to scratch it (the analogy is too apt to reject!) is irresistible. And oh! how imperative this is! Unless your Universe is perfect--and perfection includes the idea of balance--how can you come even to Atmadarshana? Hindus may maintain that Atmadarshana, or at any rate Shivadarshana, is the equivalent of crossing the Abyss. Beware of any such conclusions! The Trances are simply isolated experiences, sharply cut off from normal thought-life. To cross the Abyss is a permanent and fundamental revolution in the whole of one's being. Much more, upon the brink of the Abyss. If there be missing or redundant even one atom, the entire monstrous, the portentous mass must tend to move with irresistible impact, in such direction as to restore the equilibrium. To deflect it--well, think of a gyroscope! How then can you destroy it in one sole stupendous gesture? Ah! Listen to The Vision and the Voice. Perhaps the best and simplest plan is for me to pick out the most impor- tant of the relevant passages and put them together as an appendix to this letter. Also, by contrast, those allusions to the "Black Brothers" and the "Left-hand Path." This ought to give you a clear idea of what each is, and does; of what distinguishes their respective methods in some ways so confusingly alike. I hope indeed most sincerely that you will whet your Magical Dagger on the Stone of the Wise, and wield most deftly and determinedly both the White-handled and the Black-handled Burin. In trying to express these opinions, I am constantly haunted by the dread that I may be missing some crucial point, or even allowing a mere quibble to pass for argument. It makes it only all the worse when one has become so habituated by Neschamic ideas, to knowing, even before one says it, that what one is going to say is of necessity untrue, as untrue as it is contradictory. So what can it possibly matter what one says? Such doubts are dampers! "Enough of Because! Be he damned for a dog!" Here follow the quotations from The Vision and the Voice. The Angel re-appears The blackness gathers about, so thick, so clinging, so penetrating, so oppressive, that all the other darkness that I have ever conceived would be like bright light beside it. His voice comes in a whisper: O thou that art master of the fifty gates of Understanding, is not my mother a black woman? O thou that art master of the Pentagram, is not the egg of spirit a black egg? Here abideth terror, and the blind ache of the Soul, and lo! even I, who am the sole light, a spark shut up, stand in the sign of Apophis and Typhon. I am the snake that devoureth the spirit of man with the lust of light. I am the sightless storm in the night that wrappeth the world about with desolation. Chaos is my name, and thick darkness. Know thou that the darkness of the earth is ruddy, and the darkness of the air is grey, but the darkness of the soul is utter blackness. The egg of the spirit is a basilisk egg, and the gates of the understanding are fifty, that is the sign of the Scorpion. The pillars about the Neophyte are crowned with flame, and the vault of the Adepts is lighted by the Rose. And in the abyss is the eye of the hawk. But upon the great sea shall the Master of the Temple find neither star nor moon. And I was about to answer him: "The light is within me." But before I could frame the words, he answered me with the great word that is the Key of the Abyss. And he said: Thou hast entered the night; dost thou yet lust for day? Sorrow is my name and affliction. I am girt about with tribulation. Here still hangs the Crucified One, and here the Mother weeps over the children that she hath not borne. Sterility is my name and desolation. Intolerable is thine ache, and incurable thy wound. I said, 'Let the darkness cover me;' and behold, I am compassed about with the blackness that hath no name. O thou, who hast cast down the light into the earth, so must thou do for ever. And the light of the sun shall not shine upon thee and the moon shall not lend thee of her luster, and the stars shall be hidden because thou art passed beyond these things, beyond the need of these things, beyond the desire of these things. What I thought were shapes of rocks, rather felt than seen, now appear to be veiled Masters, sitting absolutely still and silent. Nor can any one be distinguished from the others. And the Angel sayeth: Behold where thine Angel hath led thee! Thou didst ask fame, power and pleasure, health and wealth and love, and strength and length of days. Thou didst hold life with eight tentacles, like an octopus. Thou didst seek the four powers and the seven delights and the twelve emancipations, and the two and twenty Privileges and the nine and forty Manifestations, and lo! thou art become as one of These. Bowed are their backs, whereon resteth the Universe. Veiled are their faces, that have beheld the glory Ineffable. These adepts seem like Pyramids--their hoods and robes are like Pyramids. And the Angel sayeth: Verily is the Pyramid a Temple of Initiation. Verily also is it a tomb. Thinkest thou that there is life within the Masters of the Temple that sit hooded, encamped upon the Sea? Verily, there is no life in them. Their sandals were the pure light, and they have taken them from their feet and cast them down through the abyss; for this Aethyr is holy ground. Herein no forms appear, and the vision of God face to face, that is transmuted in the Athanor called dissolution, or hammered into one in the forge of meditation, is in this place but a blasphemy and a mockery. And the Beatific Vision is no more, and the glory of the Most High is no more. There is no more knowledge. There is no more bliss. There is no more power. There is no more beauty. For this is the Palace of Understanding; for thou art one with the Primeval things. Drink in the myrrh of my speech, that is bruised with the gall of the roc, and dissolved in the ink of the cuttle-fish, and perfumed with the deadly nightshade. This is thy wine, who wast drunk upon the wine of Iacchus. And for bread shalt thou eat salt, O thou on the corn of Ceres that didst wax fat! For as pure being is pure nothing, so is pure wisdom pure ----44, and so is pure understanding silence, and stillness, and darkness. The eye is called seventy, and the triple Aleph whereby thou perceivest it, divideth into the number of the terrible word that is the Key of the Abyss. I am Hermes, that am sent from the Father to expound all things discreetly in these the last words that thou shalt hear before thou take thy seat among these, whose eyes are sealed up and whose ears are stopped, and whose mouths are clenched, who are folded in upon themselves, the liquor of whose bodies is dried up, so that nothing remains but a little pyramid of dust. And that bright light of comfort, and that piercing sword of truth, and all the power and beauty that they have made of themselves, is cast from them, as it is written, "I saw Satan like lightning fall from heaven." And as a flaming sword is it dropt though the Abyss, where the four beasts keep watch and ward. And it appeareth in the heaven of Jupiter as a morning star, or as an evening star. And the light thereof shineth even unto the earth, and bringeth hope and help to them that dwell in the darkness of thought, and drink of the poison of life. Fifty are the gates of Understanding, and one hundred and six are the seasons thereof. And the name of every season is Death. (The Vision and the Voice. 14th thyr.) And for his Work thereafter? So we enter the earth, and there is a veiled figure, in absolute darkness. Yet it is perfectly possible to see in it, so that the minutest details do not escape us. And upon the root of one flower he pours acid so that the root writhes as if in torture. And another he cuts, and the shriek is like the shriek of a Mandrake, torn up by the roots. And another he sears with fire, and yet another he anoints with oil. And I said: Heavy is the labour, but great indeed is the reward. And the young man answered me: He shall not see the reward; he tendeth the garden. And I said: What shall come unto him? And he said: This thou canst not know, nor is it revealed by the letters that are the totems of the stars, but only by the stars. And he says to me, quite disconnectedly: The man of earth is the adherent. The lover giveth his life unto the work among men. The hermit goeth solitary, and giveth only of his light unto men. And I ask him: Why does he tell me that? And he says: I tell thee not. Thou tellest thyself, for thou hast pondered thereupon for many days, and hast not found light. And now that thou art called NEMO, the answer to every riddle that thou hast not found shall spring up in thy mind, unsought. Who can tell upon what day a flower shall bloom? And thou shalt give thy wisdom unto the world, and that shall be thy garden. And concerning time and death, thou hast naught to do with these things. For though a precious stone be hidden in the sand of the desert, it shall not heed for the wind of the desert, although it be but sand. For the worker of works hath worked thereupon; and because it is clear, it is invisible; and because it is hard, it moveth not. All these words are heard by everyone that is called NEMO. And with that doth he apply himself to understanding. And he must understand the virtue of the waters of death, and he must understand the virtue of the sun and of the wind, and of the worm that turneth the earth, and of the stars that roof in the garden. And he must understand the separate nature and property of every flower, or how shall he tend his garden? (Ibid. 13th thyr.) Thus for the Masters of the Temple; for the Black Brothers, how? For Choronzon is as it were the shell or excrement of these three paths, and therefore is his head raised unto Dath, and therefore have the Black Brotherhood declared him to be the child of Wisdom and Understanding, who is but the bastard of the Svastika. And this is that which is written in the Holy Qabalah, concerning the Whirlpool and Leviathan, and the Great Stone. (Ibid. 3rd thyr) Moreover, there is Mary, a blasphemy against BABALON, for she hath shut herself up; and therefore is she the Queen of all those wicked devils that walk upon the earth, those that thou sawest even as little black specks that stained the Heaven of Urania. And all these are the excrement of Choronzon. And for this is BABALON under the power of the Magician, that she hath submitted herself unto the work; and she guardeth the Abyss. And in her is a perfect purity of that which is above, yet she is sent as the Redeemer to them that are below. For there is no other way into the Supernal mystery but through her and the Beast on which she rideth; and the Magician is set beyond her to deceive the brothers of blackness, lest they should make unto themselves a crown; for it there were two crowns, then should Ygdrasil, that ancient tree, be cast out into the Abyss, uprooted and cast down into the Outermost Abyss, and the Arcanum which is in the Adytum should be profaned; and the Ark should be touched, and the Lodge spied upon by them that are not masters, and the bread of the Sacrament should be the dung of Choronzon; and the wine of the Sacrament should be the water of Choronzon; and the incense should be dispersion; and the fire upon the Altar should be hate. But lift up thyself; stand, play the man, for behold! there shall be revealed unto thee the Great Terror, the thing of awe that hath no name. (Ibid. 3rd thyr) And now She cometh forth again, riding upon a dolphin. Now again I see those wandering souls, that have sought restricted love, and have not understood that the "word of sin is restriction." It is very curious; they seem to be looking for one another, or for something, all the time, constantly hurrying about. But they knock up against one another and yet will not see one another, or cannot see one another, because they are so shut up in their cloaks. And a voice sounds: It is most terrible for the one that hath shut himself up and made himself fast against the universe. For they that sit encamped upon the sea in the city of the Pyramids are indeed shut up. But they have given their blood, even to the last drop, to fill the cup of BABALON. These that thou seest are indeed the Black Brothers, for it is written: He shall laugh at their calamity and mock when their fear cometh. And therefore hath he exalted them unto the plane of love. And yet again it is written: He desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness. Now, if one of these were to cast off his cloak he should behold the brilliance of the lady of the Aethyr; but they will not. And again:-- Oh, I see vast plains beneath her feet, enormous deserts studded with great rocks; and I see little lonely souls, running helplessly about, minute black creatures like men. And they keep up a very curious howling, that I can compare to nothing that I have ever heard; yet it is strangely human. And the voice says: These are they that grasped love and clung thereto, praying ever at the knees of the great goddess. These are they that have shut themselves up in fortresses of Love. (Ibid. 7th thyr.) Moreover, this also: And this is the meaning of the Supper of the Passover, the spilling of the blood of the Lamb being a ritual of the Dark Brothers, for they have sealed up the Pylon with blood, lest the Angel of Death should enter therein. Thus do they shut themselves off from the company of the saints. Thus do they keep themselves from compassion and from understanding. Accursed are they, for they shut up their blood in their heart. They keep themselves from the kisses of my Mother Babylon, and in their lonely fortresses they pray to the false moon. And they bind themselves together with an oath, and with a great curse. And of their malice they conspire together, and they have power, and mastery, and in their cauldrons do they brew the harsh wine of delusion, mingled with the poison of their selfishness. Thus they make war upon the Holy one, sending forth their delusion upon men, and upon everything that liveth. So that their false compassion is called compassion, and their false understanding is called understanding, for this is their most potent spell. Yet of their own poison do they perish, and in their lonely fortresses shall they be eaten up by Time that hath cheated them to serve him, and by the mighty devil Choronzon, their master, whose name is the second Death, for the blood that they have sprinkled on their Pylon, that is a bar against the Angel Death, is the key by which he entereth in.45 (Ibid. 12th thyr.) Finally: Yet must he that understandeth go forth unto the outermost Abyss, and there must he speak with him that is set above the four-fold terror, the Prince of Evil, even with Choronzon, the mighty devil that inhabiteth the outermost Abyss. And none may speak with him, or understand him, but the servants of Babylon, that understand, and they that are without understanding, his servants. Behold! it entereth not into the heart, nor into the mind of man to conceive this matter; for the sickness of the body is death, and the sickness of the heart is despair, and the sickness of the mind is madness. But in the outermost Abyss is sickness of the aspiration, and sickness of the will, and sickness of the essence of all, and there is neither word nor thought wherein the image of its image is reflected. And whoso passeth into the outermost Abyss, except he be of them that understand, holdeth out his hands, and boweth his neck, unto the Chains of Choronzon. And as a devil he walketh about the earth, immortal, and be blasteth the flowers of the earth, and he corrupteth the fresh air, and he maketh poisonous the water; and the fire that is the friend of man, and the pledge of his aspiration, seeing that it mounteth ever up- ward as a Pyramid, and seeing that man stole it in a hollow tube from Heaven, even that fire he turneth into ruin, and madness, and fever, and destruction. And thou, that art an heap of dry dust in the city of the Pyramids, must understand these things. Beware, therefore, O thou who art appointed to understand the secret of the Outermost Abyss, for in every Abyss thou must assume the mask and form of the Angel thereof. Hadst thou a name, thou wert irrevocably lost. Search, therefore, if there be yet one drop of blood that is not gathered into the cup of Babylon the Beautiful: for in that little pile of dust, if there could be one drop of blood, it should be utterly corrupt; it should breed scorpions, and vipers, and the cat of slime. And I said unto the Angel: "Is there not one appointed as a warden?" And he said: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani. Such an ecstasy of anguish racks me that I cannot give it voice, yet I know it is but as the anguish of Gethsemane. (Ibid. 7th thyr.) Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 44^ I suppose that only a Magus could have heard this word. 45^ (I think the trouble with these people was, that they wanted to substitute the blood of someone else for their own blood, because they wanted to keep their personalities.) ======================================================================== Chapter XIII: System of the O.T.O. Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. You inform me that the Earnest Inquirer of your ambit has been asking you to explain the difference between the A.'.A.'. and the O.T.O.; and that although your own mind is perfectly clear about it, you find it impossible to induce a similar lucidity in his. You add that he is not (as one might at first suppose) a moron. And will I please do what I can about it? Well, here's the essential difference ab ovo usque ad mala; the A.'.A.'. concerns the individual, his development, his initiation, his passage from "Student" to "Ipsissimus"; he has no contact of any kind with any other person except the Neophyte who introduces him, and any Student or Students whom he may, after becoming a Neophyte, introduce. The details of this Pilgrim's Progress are very fully set forth in One Star in Sight; and I should indeed be stupid and presumptuous to try to do better than that. But it is true that with regard to the O.T.O. there is no similar manual of instruction. In the Manifesto, and other Official Pronunciamenti, there are, it is true, what ought to be adequate data; but I quite understand that they are not as ordered and classified as one would wish; there is certainly room for a simple elementary account of the origins of the Order, of its principles, of its methods, of its design, of the Virtue of its successive Grades. This I will now try to supply, at least in a brief outline. Let us begin at the beginning. What is a Dramatic Ritual? It is a celebration of the Adventures of the God whom it is intended to invoke. (The Bacchae of Euripides is a perfect example of this.) Now, in the O.T.O., the object of the ceremonies being the Initiation of the Candi- date, it is he whose Path in Eternity is displayed in dramatic form. What is the Path? 1. The Ego is attracted to the Solar System. 2. The Child experiences Birth. 3. The Man experiences Life. 4. He experiences Death. 5. He experiences the World beyond Death. 6. This entire cycle of Point-Events is withdrawn into Annihilation. In the O.T.O. these successive stages are represented as follows:-- 1 0 (Minerval) 2 I (Initiation) 3 II (Consecration) 4 III (Devotion) 5 IV (Perfection, or Exaltation) 6 P.I. (Perfect Initiate) Of these Events of Stations upon the Path all but 3 (II) are single critical experiences. We, however, are concerned mostly with the very varied experiences of Life. All subsequent Degrees of the O.T.O. are accordingly elaborations of the II, since in a single ceremony it is hardly possible to sketch, even in the briefest outline, the Teaching of Initiates with regard to Life. The Rituals V-IX are then instructions to the Candidate how he should conduct himself; and they confer upon him, gradually, the Magical Secrets which make him Master of Life. It is improper to disclose the nature of these ceremonies; firstly, because their Initiates are bound by the strictest vows not to do so; secondly, because surprise is an element in their efficacy; and thirdly, because the Magical Formulae explicitly or implicitly contained therein are, from a practical point of view, both powerful and dangerous. Automatic safeguards there are, it is true; but a Black Magician of first- class ability might find a way to overcome these obstacles, and work great mischief upon others before the inevitable recoil of his artillery destroys him. Such cases I have known. Let me recount briefly one rather conspicuous disaster. The young man was a genius--and it was his bane. He got hold of a talisman of enormous power which happened to be exactly what he wanted to fulfill his heart's dearest wish. He knew also the correct way of getting it to work; but this way seemed to him far too long and difficult. So he cast about for a short cut. By using actual violence to the talisman, he saw how he could force it to carry out his design; he used a formula entirely alien to the spirit of the whole operation; it was rather like extracting information from a prisoner by torture, when patient courtesy would have been the proper method. So he crashed the gate and got what he wanted. But the nectar turned to poison even as he drained the cup, and his previous anguish developed into absolute despair. Then came the return of the current, and they brought it in "while of unsound mind." A most accurate diagnosis! I do beg you to mark well, dear sister, that a true Magical Operation is never "against Nature." It must go smoothly and serenely according to Her laws. One can bring in alien energies and compel an endothermic reaction; but--"Pike's Peak or bust?" The answer will always be BUST! To return for a moment to that question of Secrecy: there is no rule to prohibit you from quoting against me such of my brighter remarks as "Mystery is the enemy of Truth;" but, for one thing, I am, and always have been, the leader of the Extreme Left in the Council-Chamber of the City of the Pyramids, so that if I acquiesce at all in the system of the O.T.O. so far as the "secret of secrets" of the IX is concerned, it is really on a point of personal honour. My pledge given to the late Frater Superior and O.H.O., Dr. Theodor Reuss. For all that, in this particular instance it is beyond question a point of common prudence, both because the abuse of the Secret is, at least on the surface, so easy and so tempting, and because, if it became a matter of general knowledge the Order itself might be in danger of calumny and persecution; for the secret is even easier to misinterpret that to profane. Lege! Judica! Tace!46 Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 46^ Lat., "Read! Judge! Be silent!" ======================================================================== Chapter XIV: Noise Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. You ask me what is, at the present time, the greatest obstacle to human progress. I answer in one word: NOISE. You will recall that in Yoga the concise compendium of Initiated Instruction is: Sit still Stop thinking Shut up, and Get out. The second of these postulates the third; for one can neither think nor stop thinking with all that row going on. Then again, the Fourth Power of the Sphinx is Silence; on this subject I must refer you to Little Essays Toward Truth (No. 14, p. 75). We are really trying to discuss something totally different; something practical in daily life. Very well, then; you remark that Goetia actually means "howling", that we use officially the Bell, the Tom-Tom, the Incantations, the Mantras and so on. All quite true, about Magick; but none of it applies to Yoga, for even with the Mantra the practice is to go faster and more quietly as one proceeds, until it becomes "Mental Muttering." M is the letter that is pronounced with the lips firmly closed; and Silence is the meaning of the MU root of Mystery. However, we must admit the value of rhythmical, one-pointed sound; that is very different from Noise. Old French has noise, nose, a debate, quarrel, noise; Provenal noisa, nausa, nueiza. But Diez claims the derivation from nausea--and by the Living Jingo, I consider Diez a hundred per cent white man! Now, most modern talking is little better than a series of conventional grunts; most people seem to aim deliberately at not saying anything with meaning, at least in normal conversation. (James Branch Cabell is exceedingly funny in his displays of this intolerable habit.) I once had a most wholesome lesson: how diffuse and therefore unnecessary is much of even our most would-be-compressed speech. I had been charged by my Superior with the reconstruction of a certain ritual. This was in 1912; already the tempo of the world had speeded up mercilessly; to get people to learn even short passages by heart would be no easy job. So, warned by the prolix, pious, priggish and platitudinous horrors of Freemasonry (especially the advanced degrees of the Scottish and Egyptian Rites), I resolved to cut the cackle and come to the 'osses in the most drastic manner of which I was capable. It was a great success. But then we had a candidate who was stone deaf. (Not "a little hard of hearing;" his tympana were burst.) Obviously, one could show him slips of paper, as one did in talking to him. But there in much of the ceremony the candidate must be hoodwinked! Nothing for it but to communicate by the deaf and dumb alphabet on his fingers. This I did--and found that I could cut out on the spur of the moment at least forty per cent of the "Irreducible minimum" without doing any damage at all to the effect of the ritual. "That larned 'im!" Of course, there is such a thing as the Art of Conversation; I have been lucky enough to know three, perhaps four, of the world's best talkers; but that is not to the point. As well object to impasto because it wastes paint. What I am out to complain of is what I seriously believe to be an organized conspiracy of the Black Lodges to prevent people from thinking. Naked and unashamed! In some countries there has already been compulsory listening-in to Government programmes; and who knows how long it will be before we are all subjected by law to the bleatings, bellowings, belchings of the boring balderdash of the B.B.C.-issies? They boast of the freedom of religious thought; yet only the narrowest sectarian propaganda is allowed to approach the microphone. I quite expect censorship of books--that of the newspapers, however vehemently denied, is actually effective--and even of private letters. This will mean an enormous increase in parasitic functionaries who can be trusted to vote for the rascals that invented their sinecures. That was, in fact, the poison ivy that strangled the French poplar! But these soul-suffocationg scoundrels know well their danger. There are still a few people about who have learnt to think; and they are palsied with terror lest, as might happen at any moment these people realized the peril, organized, and made a clean sweep of the whole brood of scolex! So nobody must be allowed to think at all. Down with the public schools! Children must be drilled mentally by quarter-educated herdsmen, whose wages would stop at the first sign of disagreement with the bosses. For the rest, deafen the whole world with senseless clamour. Mechanize everything! Give nobody a chance to think. Standardize "amusement." The louder and more cacophonous, the better! Brief intervals between one din and the next can be filled with appeals, repeated 'till hypnotic power gives them the force of orders, to buy this or that product of the "Business men" who are the real power in the State. Men who betray their country as obvious routine. The history of the past thirty years is eloquent enough, one would think. What these sodden imbeciles never realize is that a living organism must adapt itself intelligently to its environment, or go under at the first serious change of circumstance. Where would England be today if there had not been one man,47 deliberately kept "in the wilderness" for decades as "unsound," "eccentric," "dangerous," "not to be trusted," "impossible to work with," to take over the country from the bewildered "safe" men? And what could he have done unless the people had responded? Nothing. So then there is still a remnant whose independence, sense of reality, and manhood begin to count when the dear, good, woolly flock scatter in terror at the wolf's first howl. Yes, they are there, and they can get us back our freedom--if only we can make them see that the enemy in Whitehall is more insidiously fatal than the foe in Brownshirt House. On this note of hope I will back to my silence. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 47^ WEH NOTE: Winston Churchill. ======================================================================== Chapter XV: Sex Morality Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Thank you! I am to cover the whole question of sex in a few well-chosen words? Am I to suppose that you want to borrow money? Such fulsome flattery suggests the indirect approach. As a matter of fact, your proposal is not so outrageous as it sounds at first; for as far as the English language goes, there is really hardly anything worth reading. 98.138 per cent of it is what Frances Ridley Ravergal used to call "fiddlesticks, blah, boloney, Bull-shit, and the bunk." However, quite recently I issued an Encyclical to the Faithful with the attractive title of Artemis Iota, and I propose that we read this into the record, to save trouble, and because it gives a list of practically all the classics that you ought to read. Also, it condenses information and advice to "beginners," with due reference to the positive injunctions given in The Book of the Law. Still, for the purpose of these letters, I should like to put the whole matter in a nutshell. The Tree of Life, as usual, affords a convenient means of classification. 1. To the physical side of it psychological laws apply. "Don't monkey with the buzz-saw!" as John Wesley might have put it, though I doubt whether he did. 2. The "moral" side. As in the case of the voltage of a cissoid, there isn't one. Mind your own business! is the sole sufficient rule. To drag in social, economic, religious, and such aspects is irrelevance and impurity. 3. The Magical side. Sex is, directly or indirectly, the most powerful weapon in the armoury of the Magician; and precisely because there is no moral guide, it is indescribably dangerous. I have given a great many hints, especially in Magick, and The Book of Thoth--some of the cards are almost blatantly revealing; so I have been rapped rather severely over the knuckles for giving children matches for playthings. My excuse has been that they have already got the matches, that my explanations have been directed to add conscious precautions to the existing automatic safeguards. The above remarks refer mainly to the technique of the business; and it is going a very long way to tell you that you ought to be able to work out the principles thereof from your general knowledge of Magick, but especially the Formula of Tetragrammaton, clearly stated and explained in Magick, Chap. III. Combine this with the heart of Chap. XII and you've got it! But there is another point at issue. This incidentally, is where the "automatic safeguards" come in. "...thou hast no right but to do thy will." (AL I, 42) means that to "go anwhoring after strange" purposes can only be disastrous. It is possible, in chemistry, to provoke an endothermic reaction; but that is only asking for trouble. The product bears within its own heart the seed of dissolution. Accordingly, the most important preliminary to any Magical operation is to make sure that its object is not only harmonious with, but necessary to, your Great Work. Note also that the use of this supreme method involves the manipulation of energies ineffably secret and most delicately sensitive; it compares with the operations of ordinary Magick as the last word in artillery does with the blunderbuss! I ought to have mentioned the sexual instinct or impulse in itself, careless of magical or any other considerations soever: the thing that picks you up by the scruff of the neck, slits your weasand with a cavalry sabre, and chucks the remains over the nearest precipice. What is the damn thing, anyway? That's just the trouble; for it is the first of the masks upon the face of the True Will; and that mask is the Poker-Face! As all true Art is spontaneous, is genius, is utterly beyond all conscious knowledge or control, so also is sex. Indeed, one might class it as deeper still than Art; for Art does at least endeavour to find an intelligible means of expression. That is much nearer to sanity than the blind lust of the sex-impulse. The maddest genius does look from Chokmah not only to Binah, but to the fruit of that union in Da'ath and the Ruach; the sex-impulse has no use for Binah to understand, to interpret, to transmit. It wants no more than an instrument which will destroy it. "Here, I say, Master, have a heart!" Nonsense! (I continue) What I say is the plain fact, and well you know it! More, damned up, hemmed in, twisted and tortured as it has been by religion and morality and all the rest of it, it has learnt to disguise itself, to appear in a myriad forms of psychosis, neurosis, actual insanity of the most dangerous types. You don't have to look beyond Hitler! Its power and its peril derive directly from the fatal fact that in itself it is the True Will in its purest form. What then is the magical remedy? Obvious enough to the Qabalist. "Love is the law, love under will." It must be fitted at its earliest manifestations with its proper Binah, so as to flow freely along the Path of Daleth, and restore the lost Balance. Attempts to suppress it are fatal, to sublime it are false and futile. But guided wisely from the start, by the time it becomes strong it has learnt how to use its virtues to the best advantage. And what of the parallel instinct in a woman? Except in (rather rare) cases of congenital disease or deformity, the problem is never so acute. For Binah, even while she winks a Chokmah, has the other eye wide-open, swivelled on Tiphareth. Her True Will is thus divided by Nature from the start, and her tragedy is if she fails to unite these two objects. Oh, dear me, yes, I know all about "spret injuria form" and "furens quid femina possit"; but that is only because when she misses her bite she feels doubly baffled, robbed not only of the ecstatic Present, but of the glamorous Future. If she eat independently of the Fruit of the Tree of Life when unripe, she has not only the bad taste in the mouth, but indigestion to follow. Then, living as she does so much in the world of imagination, constantly living shadow-pictures of her Desire, she is not nearly so liable to the violent insanities of sheer blind lust, as is the male. The essential difference is indicated by that of their respective orgasms, the female undulatory, the male catastrophic. The above, taken all in all, may not be fully comprehensive, not wholly satisfying to the soul, but one thing with another, enough for a cow to chew the cud on. Good night! Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/mwt_15.txt ends) (mwt-b.zip begins) ======================================================================== CHAPTER XVI ON CONCENTRATION Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. You wisely ask me for a special letter on Concentration; you point out that I have implied it constantly, but never given plain instruction. It hope I have not been so vague as to allow you to suppose that Concen- tration Camps are evidence that benevolent and enlightened governments are at last seriously concerned to educate the world to Yoga; but I do agree that it cannot do great harm if I take a dose of my own medicine, and gather into one golden sheaf all the ripe corn of my wisdom on this subject. For concentration does indeed unlock all doors; it lies at the heart of every practice as it is of the essence of all theory; and almost all the various rules and regulations are aimed at securing adeptship in this matter. All the subsidiary work --- awareness, one-pointedness, mind- fullness and the rest --- is intended to train you to this. All the greetings, salutations, "Saying Will," periodical adorations, even saying "apo pantos kakodaimonos" with a downward and outward sweep of the arm, the eyes averted, when one sees a person dressed in a religious (Christian) uniform: all these come under "Don't stroke the cat the wrong way!" or, in the modern pseudo-scientific journalese jargon "streamlining life." Let us see if Frater Perdurabo has anything to the point! Of course, Part I of Book 4 is devoted to it; but there is too much, and not enough, to be useful to us just now. What your really need is the official Instruction in The Equinox, and the very fullest and deepest understanding of Eight Lectures on Yoga; but these lectures are so infernally interesting that when I look into the book for something to quote, it carries me away with it. I can't put it down, I forget all about this letter. Rather a back-handed advertisement for Concentration! The best way is the hardest; to forget all this and start from the begin- ning as if there had never been anything on the subject written before. I must keep always in mind that you are assumed to know nothing whatever about Yoga and Magick, or anything else beyond what the average educated person may be assumed to have been taught. What is the problem? There are two. Beta: To train the mind to move with the maximum speed and energy, with the utmost possible accuracy in the chosen direction, and with the minimum of disturbance or friction. That is Magick. Alpha: To stop the mind altogether. That is Yoga. The rules, strangely enough, are identical in both cases; at least, until your "Magick" is perfect; Yoga merely goes on a step further. In Beta you have reduced all movements from many to One; in Alpha you reduce that One to Zero. Now then, with a sigh of relief, know you this: that every possible inci- dent in the Beta training is mutatis mutandis, perfectly familiar to the engineer. The material must be chosen and prepared in the kind and in the manner, best suited to the design of the intended machine; the various parts must be put together with the utmost precision; every obstacle to the function must be removed, and every source of error eliminated. Now cheer up, child! In the case of a machine that he has devised and constructed himself with every condition in his favour, he thinks he is doing not too badly if he gets some fifteen or twenty per cent of the calculated effi- ciency out of the instrument; and even Nature, with millions of years to adjust and improve, very often cannot boast of having done much better. So you have no reason to be discouraged if success does not smile upon you in the first week or so of your Work, starting as you do with material of whose properties you are miserably ignorant, with means pitifully limited, with Laws of Nature which you do not understand; in fact, with almost everything against you but indomitable Will and unconquerable courage. (I know I'm a poor contemptible Lowbrow; but I refuse to be ashamed for finding Kipling's If and Henley's Don't remember-the title; they may not be poetry --- but they are honest food and damned good beer for the plebeian wayfarer. It was such manhood, not the left-wing high-brow Bloomsbury sissies, that kept London through the blitz. Pray forgive the digression!) There is only one method to adopt in such circumstances as those of the Aspirant to Magick and Yoga: the method of Science. Trial and error. You must observe. That implies, first of all, that you must learn to ob- serve. And you must record your observations. No circumstance of life is, or can be irrelevant. "He that is not with me is against me." In all these letters you will find only two things: either I tell you what is bad for you, or what is good for you. But I am not you; I don't know every detail of your life, every trick of your thought. You must do ninety percent of the work for yourself. Whether it is love, or your daily avo- cation, or diet, or friends, or amusement, or anything else, you must find out what helps you to your True Will and what hinders; cherish the one and eschew the other. I want to insist most earnestly that concentration is not, as we nearly all of us think, a matter of getting things right in the practices; you must make every breath you draw subservient to the True Will, to fertilize the soil for the practices. When you sit down in your Asana to quiet your mind, it is much easier for you if your whole life has tended to relative quietude; when you knock with your Wand to announce the opening of an Invocation, it is better if the purpose of that ceremony has been simmer- ing in the background of your thought since childhood! Yes indeed: background! Deep down, on the very brink of the subconscious, are all those facts which have determined you to choose this your Great Work. Then, the ambition, conscious, which arranges the general order and dispo- sition of your life. Lastly, the practices themselves. And my belief is that the immense majority of failures have their neglect to brush up their drill to thank for it. For technical advice on all these subjects, I shall refer you to those official works mentioned in the early part of this letter; I shall be happy if you will take to heart what I am now so violently thrusting at you, this Middle Work of Concentration. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER XVII ASTRAL JOURNEY, EXAMPLE. HOW TO DO IT: HOW TO VERIFY YOUR EXPERIENCES Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. There is no better way of training the memory than the practice of the Holy Qabalah. The whole mechanism of memory depends on joining up independent data. You must go on adding a little to little, always joining the simple impres- sions by referring them to others which are more general; and so on until the whole of your universe is arranged like the brain and the nervous system. This system in fact, becomes the Universe. When you have got everything properly correlated, your central consciousness understands and controls every tiniest detail. But you must begin at the beginning --- you go out for a walk, and the first thing you see is a car; that represents the Atu VII, the Chariot, referred to Cancer. Then you come to a fishmonger, and notice certain crustacea, very mala chostomous. This comes under the same sign of Cancer. The next thing you notice is an amber-coloured dress in Swan and Edgar's; amber also is the colour of Cancer in the King's Scale. Now then you have a set of three impressions which is joined together by the fact that they all belong to the Cancer class; experience will soon teach that you can remember all three very much more clearly and accurately than you could any one of the three singly. You have not increased the burden on your memory, but diminished it. What you say about tension and eagerness and haste is very true. See The Book of the Law, Chapter I, 44. "For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect." This, from a practical point of view, is one of the most important verses in the book. The unusual word "unassuaged" is very interesting. People generally suppose that "will" is the slave of purpose, that you cannot will a thing properly unless you are aiming at a definite goal. But this is not the case. Thinking of the goal actually serves to distract the mind. In these few words is included the whole method without all the bombastic piety of the servile doctrine of mysticism about the surrender of the Will. Nor is this idea of surrender actually correct; the will must be identified with the Divine Will, so-called. One wants to become like a mighty flowing river, which is not consciously aiming at the sea, and is certainly not yielding to any external influence. It is acting in conformity with the law of its own nature, with the Tao. One can describe it, if necessary, as "passive love"; but it is love (in effect) raised to its highest potential. We come back to the same thing: when passion is purged of any "lust of result" it is irresistible; it has become "Law." I can never understand why it is that mystics fail to see that their smarmy doctrine of surrender actually insists upon the duality which they have set out to abolish! I certainly have no intention of "holding you down" to "a narrow path of work" or any path. All I can do is to help you to understand clearly the laws of your own nature, so that you may go ahead without extraneous influence. It does not follow that a plan that I have found successful in my own case will be any use to you. That is another cardinal mistake of most teachers. One must have become a Master of the Temple to annihi- late one's ego. Most teachers, consciously or unconsciously, try to get others to follow in their steps. I might as well dress you up in my cast- off clothing! (In the steps of the Master. At the feet of the Master. Steward!) Please observe that the further you get on, the higher your potential, the greater is the tendency to leak, or even to break the containing vessel. I can help you by warning you against setting up obstacles, real or imaginary, in your own path; which is what most people do. It is almost laughable to think that the Great Work consists merely in "letting her rip;" but Karma bumps you from one side of the toboggan slide to the other, until you "come into the straight." (There's a chapter or two in the Book of Lies about this, but I haven't got a copy. I must find one, and put them in here. Yes: p. 22) O thou that settest out upon the Path, false is the Phantom that thou seekest. When thou hast it thou shalt know all bitterness, thy teeth fixed in the Sodom-Apple. Thus hast thou been lured along that Path, whose terror else had driven thee far away. O thou that stridest upon the middle of the Path, no phantoms mock thee. For the stride's sake thou stridest. Thus art thou lured along that Path, whose fascination else had driven thee far away. O thou that drawest toward the End of The Path, effort is no more. Faster and faster dost thou fall; thy weariness is changed into Ineffable Rest. For there is no Thou upon that Path: thou hast become The Way. As in the Yi King, the 3rd hexagram has departed from the original perfec- tion, and it takes all the rest of the hexagrams to put things right again. The result, it is true, is superior; the perfection of the original has been enhanced and enriched by its experience. There is another way of defining the Great Work. That explains to us the whole object of manifestation, of departing from the perfection of "Nothing" towards the perfection of "everything", and one may consider this advan- tage, that it is quite impossible to go wrong. Every experience, whatever may be its nature, is just another necessary bump. Naturally one cannot realize this until one becomes a Master of the Temple; consequently one is perpetually plunged in sorrow and despair. There is, you see, a good deal more to it than merely learning one's mistakes. One can never be sure what is right and what is wrong, until one appreciates that "wrong" is equally "right." Now then one gets rid of the idea of "effort" which is associated with "lust of result." All that one does is to exercise pleasantly and healthfully one's energies. It will not do to regard "man" as the "final cause" of manifestation. Please do not quote myself against me. "Man is so infinitely small, In all these stars, determinate. Maker and master of them all, Man is so infinitely great." The human apparatus is the best instrument of which we are, at present, aware in our normal consciousness; but when you come to experience the Conversation of the higher intelligences, you will understand how imper- fect are your faculties. It is true that you can project these intelli- gences as parts of yourself, or you can suppose that certain human vehicles may be temporally employed by them for various purposes; but these specu- lations tend to be idle. The important thing is to make contact with beings, whatever their nature, who are superior to yourself, not merely in degree but it kind. That is to say, not merely different as a Great Dane differs from a Chihuahua, but as a buffalo differs from either. Of course you are perfectly right about the senses, though I would not agree to confine the meaning to the five which are common to most people. There must, one might suspect, be ways of apprehending directly such phenomena as magnetism, electrical resistance, chemical affinity and the like. Let me direct you once more to The Book of the Law, Chapter II, vs. 70 - 72. "There is help & hope in other spells. Wisdom says: be strong! Then canst thou bear more joy. Be not animal; refine thy rapture! If thou drink, drink by the eight and ninety rules of art: if thou love, exceed by delicacy; and if thou do aught joyous, let there be subtlety therein! "But exceed! exceed! "Strive ever to more! and if thou art truly mine --- and doubt it not, an if thou art ever joyous! --- death is the crown of all." The mystic's idea of deliberately stupefying and stultifying himself is an "abomination unto the Lord." This, by the way, does not conflict with the rules of Yoga. That kind of suppression is comparable to the restric- tions in athletic training, or diet in sickness. Now we get back to the Qabalah --- how to make use of it. Let us suppose that you have been making an invocation, or shall we call it an investigation, and suppose you want to interpret a passage of Bach. To play this is the principal weapon of your ceremony. In the course of your operation, you assume your astral body and rise far above the terres- trial atmosphere, while the music continues softly in the background. You open your eyes, and find that it is night. Dark clouds are on the horizon; but in the zenith is a crown of constellations. This light helps you, especially as your eyes become accustomed to the gloom, to take in your surroundings. It is a bleak and barren landscape. Terrific mountains rim the world. In the midst looms a cluster of blue-black crags. Now there appears from their recesses a gigantic being. His strength, especially in his hands and in his loins, it terrifying. he suggests a combination of lion, mountain goat and serpent; and you instantly jump to the idea that this is one of the rare beings which the Greeks called Chimaera. So formidable is his appearance that you consider it prudent to assume an appropriate god-form. But who is the appropriate god? You may perhaps consider it best, in view of your complete ignorance as to who he is and where you are, to assume the god-form of Harpocrates, as being good defence in any case; but of course this will not take you very far. If you are sufficiently curious and bold, you will make up your mind rapidly on this point. This is where your daily practice of the Qabalah will come in useful. You run through in your mind the seven sacred planets. The very first of them seems quite consonant with what you have so far seen. Everything suits Saturn well enough. To be on the safe side, you go through the others; but this is a very obvious case --- Saturn is the only planet that agrees with everything. The only other possibility will be the Moon; but there is no trace noticeable of any of her more amiable characteristics. You will therefore make up your mind that it is a Saturnian god-form that you need. Fortunate indeed for you that you have practiced daily the assumption of such forms! Very firmly, very steadily, very slowly, very quietly, you transform your normal astral appearance into that of Sebek. The Chimaera, recognizing your divine authority, becomes less formidable and menacing in appearance. He may, in some way, indicate his willingness to serve you. Very good, so far; but it is of course the first essential to make sure of his integrity. Accordingly you begin by asking his name. This is vital; because if he tells you the truth, it gives you power over him. But if, on the other hand, he tells you a lie, he abandons for good and all his fortress. He becomes rather like a submarine whose base has been destroyed. He may do you a lot of mischief in the meantime, of course, so look out! Well then, he tells you that his name is Ottillia. Shall we try to spell it in Greek or in Hebrew. By the sound of the name and perhaps to some extent by his appearance one might plump for the former; but after all the Greek Qabalah is so unsatisfactory. We give Hebrew the first chance --- we start with Ayin Teth Yod Lamed Yod Aleph Hay {render in Hebrew}. Let us try this lettering for a start. It adds up to 135. I daresay that you don't remember what the Sepher Sephiroth tells you about the number; but as luck will have it, there is no need to inquire; for 135 = 3 x 45. Three is the number, is the first number of Saturn, and 45 the last. (The sum of the numbers in the magic {sic} square of Saturn is 45.) That corresponds beautifully with everything you have got so far; but then of course you must know if he is "one of the beliv- ing Jinn." Briefly, is he a friend or an enemy? You accordingly say to him "The word of the Law is Thelema {spell it in Greek}" It turns out that he doesn't under- stand Greek at all, so you were certainly right in choosing Hebrew. You put it to him, "What is the word of the Law?" and he replies darkly. "The word of the Law is Thora." That means nothing to you; any one might know as much as that, Thora being the ordinary word for the Sacred Law of Israel, and you accordingly ask him to spell it to make sure you have heard aright; and he gives you the letters, perhaps by speaking them, perhaps by showing them: Teth, Resh, Ayin. You add these up and get 279. This again is divisible by the Saturnian 3, and the result is 93; in other words, he has been precisely right. On the plane of Saturn one may multiply by three and therefore he has given you the correct word "Thelema" in a form unfamiliar to you. You man now consider yourself satisfied of his good faith, and may proceed to inspect him more closely. The stars above his head suggest the influence of Binah, whose number also is three, while the most striking thing about him is the core of his being: the letter Yod. (One does not count the termination "AH": being a divine suffix it represents the inmost light and the outermost light.) This Yod, this spark of intense brilliance, is of the pale greenish gold which one sees (in this world) in the fine gold leaf of Tibet. It glows with ever greater intensity as you concentrate upon observing him, which you could not do while you were preoccupied with investigating his credentials. Confidence being thus established, you inquire why he as appeared to you at this time and at this place; and the answer to this question is of course your original idea, that is to say, he is presenting to you in other terms that "mountainous Fugue" which invoked him. You listen to him with attention, make such enquiries as seem good to you, and record the proceedings. The above example is, of course, pure imagination, and represents a very favourable case. You are only too likely, and that not only at the begin- ning, to meet all sorts of difficulties and dangers. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER XVIII THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR CONVENTIONAL GREETINGS, ETC. Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. From time to time I have exhorted you with mine accustomed matchless eloquence never to neglect the prescribed Greetings: but I think it just as well to collect the various considerations connected with their use --- and in "Greetings" I include "saying Will" before set meals, the four daily adorations of the Sun (Liber CC, vel Resh) and the salutation of Our Lady the Moon. I propose to deal with the general object of the combined rituals, not with the special virtues of each separately. The practice of Liber III vel Jugorum1 is the complement of these grouped customs. By sharp physical self-chastisement when you think, say, or do whatever it is that you have set yourself to avoid doing, you set a sentry at the gate of your mind ready to challenge all comers, and so you acquire the habit of being on the alert. Keep this in mind, and you will have no difficulty in following the argument of this letter. When you are practicing Dharana2 concentration, you allow yourself so many minutes. It is a steady, sustained effort. The mind constantly struggles to escape control. (I hope you remember the sequence of "breaks." In case you don't, I summarize them. (1) Immediate physical interruptions: Asana should stop these. (2) Things that are "on you mind." (3) Reverie, and "Wouldn't it help if I were to --- ?" (4) Atmospherics --- e.g. voices apparently from some alien source. (5) Aberrations of the control itself; and the result itself. (Remember the practice of some Hindu schools: "Not that, not that!" to whatever it is the presents itself as Tat Sat --- reality, truth). Need I remind you how urgent the wish to escape will assuredly become, how fantastic are the mind's devices and excuses, amounting often to deliberate revolt? In Kandy I broke away in a fury, and dashed down to Colombo with the intention of painting the very air as red as the betel- spittle on the pavements! But after three days of futile search for satisfying debauchery I came back to my horses, and, sure enough, it was merely that I had gone stale; the relaxation soothed and steadied me; I resumed the discipline with redoubled energy, and Dhyana dawned before a week had elapsed. I mention this because it is the normal habit of the mind to organize these counter-attacks that makes their task so easy. What you need is a mind that will help rather than hinder your Work by its normal function. This is where these Greetings, and Will-sayings, and Adorations come in. It is not a concentration-practice proper; I haven't a good word for it. "Background-concentration" or "long-distance-concentration" are clumsy, and not too accurate. It is really rather like a public school education. One is not constantly "doing a better thing that one has ever done;" one is not dropping one's eye-glass every two minutes, or being a little gentleman in the act of brushing one's hair. The point is that one trains oneself to react properly at any moment of surprise. It must become "second nature" for "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." to spring to the forefront of the mind when one is introduced to a stranger, or comes down to breakfast, or hears the telephone bell, or observes the hour of the adoration, (these are to be the superficial reactions, like instinctively rising when a lady enters the room), or, at the other end, in moments of immediate peril, or of sudden apprehension, or when in one's meditation, one approaches the deepest strata. 1* See Magick in Theory and Practice, pp. 427 - 429. 2** Book 4, Part I. One need not be dogmatic about the use of these special words. One might choose a formula to represent one's own particular True Will. It is a little like Cato, (or Scipio, was it?) who concluded every speech, whether about the Regulations of the Roman Bath or the proposal to reclaim a marsh of the Maremma, with the words: "And moreover, in my opinion, Carthage ought to be destroyed." Got it? You teach the mind to push your thought automatically to the very thing from which it was trying to wander. "Yes, I get you Stephen! . . . But, Uncle Dudley, come clean, do you always do all this yourself? Don't you sometimes feel embarrassed, or fear that you may destroy the effect of your letter, or "create a scene" in the public street when you suddenly stop and perform these incomprehensible antics, or simply forget about the whole thing?" Yes, I do. Peccavi. Mea culpa, mea macima culpa. I am not your old and valued friend, Adam Qadmon, the Perfect Man. I am a pretty poor specimen. I am nothing to cable about to Lung Peng Choung, or Himi, or Monsalvat. I do forget now and again; though, I am glad to say, not nearly as often as I used to do. (As the habit is acquired, it tends to strengthen itself). But often I deliberately omit to do my duty. I do funk it. I do resent it. I do feel that it's too much bother. As I said above, Adam Qadman is not my middle name. Well now, have I any shadow of an excuse? Yes, I have, after a fashion; I don't think it good manners to force my idiosyncrasies down people's throats, and I don't want to appear more of an eccentric than I need. It might detract from my personal influence, and so actually harm the Work that I am trying to perform. . . "Yes, that's all very well, Alibi Ike; you are exceedingly well know as a Scripture-quoting Satan, as a Past-Master in self-justification. Trained from infancy by the Plymouth Brethern, who for casuistry leave the Jesuits at the post!" "Yes, yes, but --- --- ---." "You needn't but me no buts, you old he-goat! Wasn't there once a Jonas Hanway, the first man to sport an umbrella? Wouldn't your practice be natural, and right, and the cream of the cream of good manners as soon as a few hundred people of position took to doing it? And wouldn't Thomas, Richard, and Henry, three months later, make a point of doing the same as their betters?" (That was Conscience speaking.) All right, you win. Love is the law, love under will. Yours Fraternally, [666] ======================================================================== CHAPTER XIX THE ACT OF TRUTH Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. It seems that last Wednesday I so far forgot myself as to refer to the "Act of Truth" in conversation, and never mentioned what it is when it's at home, or why anyone should perform it, or what happens when one does perform it! All right, I will remedy that; luckily, it is a very simple matter; very important, perfectly paradoxical and devastatingly effective. Analysed, it is to make the assumption that something which seems very wrong is actually all right, that an eager wish is an accomplished fact. a reasonable anxiety, entirely unfounded --- and to act accordingly. For instance, I'm in some desolate place, dependent for my food supply on a weekly messenger. If he is a day late, it is awkward; if two, it means hardship; if three, serious risk. One is naturally anxious as the day approaches; perhaps the weather, or some similar snag, makes it likely that he will be late. From one cause or another, I have rather exceeded my ration. There is nothing I can do about it, materially. The sensible course of action is to draw in my horns, live on the mini- mun, necessary to life, which involves cutting the day's work down to almost noting, and hope for the best, expecting the worst. But there is a Magical mode of procedure. You say to yourself: I am here to do this Work in accordance with my true Will. The Gods have got to see to it that I'm not baulked by any blinking messenger. (But take care They don't overhear you; They might mistake it for Hybris, or pre- sumption. Do it all in the Sign of Silence, under the aegis of Harpocrates, the "Lord of Defence and Protection"; be careful to assume his God-form, as standing on two crocodiles. Then you increase your consumption, and at the same time put in a whole lot of extra Work. If you perform this "Act of Truth" properly, with genuine conviction that nothing can go wrong, your messenger will arrive a day early, and bring an extra large supply. This, let me say at once, is very difficult, especially at first, until one has gained confidence in the efficacy of the Formula; and it is very nastily easy to "fake." Going through the motions (as they say) is more futile here than in most cases, and the results of messing it up are commonly disastrous.3 You must invent your act to suit your case, every time; suppose you expect a cable next Friday week, transferring cash to your account. You need $500 to make up an important payment, and you don't know whether they will send even $200. What are you going to do about it? Skimp, and save your expenses, and make yourself miserable and incapable of 3* Do not be misled by any apparent superficial resemblance to "Christian Science" and "Coueism" and their cackling kin. They miss every essential feature of the formula. vigorous thought or action? You may succeed in saving enough to swing the deal; but you won't get a penny beyond the amount actually needed --- and look at the cost in moral grandeur! No, go and stand yourself a champagne luncheon, and stroll up Bond Street with an 8 1/2 "Hoyo de Monterey," and squander $30 on some utterly useless bauble. Then the $500 will swell to $1000, and arrive two days early at that! There are one or two points to consider very carefully indeed before you start: --- 1. The proposed Act must be absurd; it won't do at all if by some fluke, however unlikely, it might accomplish your aim. For instance, it's no use backing an outsider. there must be no causal link. 2. The Act must be one which makes the situation definitely worse. E.g.: suppose you are counting on a new dress to make a hit at a Reception, and doubt whether it is so much better than your present best, or whether it will be finished in time. Then, wear that present best to-night (wet, of course), knowing you are sure to soil it. 3. Obviously, all the usual conditions of a Magical Operation apply in this as in all cases; your aim must conform with your True Will, and all that; but there is one curious point about an Act of Truth: this, that one should resort to it only when there is no other method possible. In the explorer's case, above, it won't do if he has any means of hurrying up the messenger. It seems to me that the above brief sketch should suffice an intelligent and imaginative student like yourself; but if any point remains darkling, let me know, and I will follow up with a postscript. Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 P.S. --- I thought it might help you if I were to make a few experiments. I have done so. Result: this is much more difficult and delicate an affair than I had thought when I wrote this letter. For instance, one single thought of a "second string" --- e.g. "if it fails, I had better do so and so" --- is enough to kill the while operation stone dead. Of course, I am totally out of practice; but, even so . . . . . . ======================================================================== CHAPTER XX TALISMANS: THE LAMEN: THE PANTACLE Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Really you comfort me when you turn from those abstruse and exalted themes with which you have belaboured me so often of late to dear cuddlesome little questions like this in our letter received this morning: "Do please, dear Master, give me some hints about how to make Talismans (that's the same as Telesmata, isn't it? Yes, 666) and the Pantacle. The official instructions are quite clear, of course; but somehow I find them just a little frightening." Well, I think I know pretty well what you mean; so I will try to imitate the style of Aunt Tabitha in "The Flapper's Fireside." For one thing, you forgot to mention the Lamen. Now what are these things when they are at home? That's easy enough. The Lamen is a sort of Coat of Arms. It expresses the character and powers of the wearer. A talisman is a storehouse of some particular kind of energy, the kind that is needed to accomplish the task for which you have constructed it. The Pantacle is often confused with both the others; accurately, it is a "Minutum Mundum", "the Universe in Little"; it is a map of all that exists, arranged in the Order of Nature. There is a chapter in Book 4, Part II, devoted to it (pp. 117 - 129); I cannot make up my mind whether I like it. At the best it is very far from being practical instruction. (The chapter on the Lamen, pp. 159 - 161, is even worse.) An analogy, not too silly, for these three; the Chess-player, the Open- ings, and the Game itself. But --- you will object --- why be silly at all? Why not say simply that the Lamen, stating as it does the Character and Powers of he wearer, is a dynamic portrait of the individual, while the Pantacle, his Universe, is a static portrait of him? And that, you pursue flattering, is why you preferred to call the Weapon of Earth (in the Tarot) the Disk, emphasizing its continual whirling movement rather than the Pantacle of Coin, as is more usual. Once again, exquisite child of our Father the Archer of Light and of seaborn Aphrodite, your well-known acumen has "nicked the ninety and nine and one over" as Browning says when he (he too!) alludes to the Tarot. As you will have gathered from the above, a Talisman is a much more restricted idea; it is no more than one of the objects in his Pantacle, one of the arrows in the quiver of his Lamen. As, then, you would expect, it is very little trouble to design. All that you need is to "make consi- derations' about your proposed operation, decide which planet, sign, element or sub-element or what not you need to accomplish your miracle. As you know, a very great many desirable objects can be attained by the use of the talismans in the Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon the King; also in Pietro di Abano and the dubious Fourth Book of Cornelius Agrippa. You must on no account attempt to use the squares given in the Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage until you have succeeded in the Opera- tion. More, unless you mean to perform it, and are prepared to go to any length to do so, you are a fool to have the book in your possession at all. Those squares are liable to get loose and do things on their own initiative; and you won't like it. The late Philip Haseltine, a young composer of genius, used one of these squares to get his wife to return to him. He engraved it neatly on his arm. I don't know how he proceeded to set to work; but his wife came back all right, and a very short time afterwards he killed himself. Then there are the Elemental Tablets of Sir Edward Kelly and Dr. John Dee. From these you can extract a square to perform almost any conceivable operation, if you understand the virtue of the various symbols which they manifest. They are actually an expansion of the Tarot. (Obviously, the Tarot itself as a whole is a universal Pantacle --- forgive the pleonasm! Each card, especially is this true of the Trumps, is a talisman; and the whole may also be considered as the Lamen of Mercury. It is evidently an Idea far too vast for any human mind to comprehend in its entirety. For it is "the Wisdom whereby He created the worlds.") The decisive advantage of this system is not that its variety makes it so adaptable to our needs, but that we already posses the Invocations necessary to call forth the Energies required. What is perhaps still more to the point, they work without putting the Magician to such severe toil and exertion as is needed when he has to write them out from his own ingenium. Yes! This is weakness on my part, and I am very naughty to encourage you to shirk the hardest path. I used often to make the background of my Talismans of four concentric circles, painting then, the first (inmost) in the King (or Knight) scale, the second in the Queen, the third in the Prince, and the outermost in the Princess scale, of the Sign, Planet, or Element to which I was devoting it. On this, preferably in the "flashing" colours, I would paint the appropriate Names and Figures. Lastly, the Talisman may be surrounded with a band inscribed with a suit- able "versicle" chosen from some Holy book, or devised by the Magician to suit the case. In the British Museum (and I suppose elsewhere) you may see the medal struck to commemorate the victory over the Armada. This is a reproduction, perhaps modified, of the Talisman used by Dee to raise the storm which scattered the enemy fleet. You must lay most closely to your heart the theory of the Magical Link (see Magick pp . 107 - 122) and see well to it that it rings true; for without this your talisman is worse than useless. It is dangerous; for all that Energy is bound to expend itself somehow; it will make its own links with anything handy that takes its fancy; and you can get into any sort of the most serious kind of trouble. There is a great deal of useful stuff in Magick; pp. 92 - 100, and pp. 179 - 189. I could go on all night doing nothing but indicating sources of information. Then comes the question of how to "charge" the Talisman, of how to evoke or to invoke the Beings concerned, and of --- oh! of so much that you need a lifetime merely to master the theory. Remember, too, please, what I have pointed out elsewhere, that the greatest Masters have quite often not been Magicians at all, technically; they have used such devices as Secret Societies, Slogans and Books. If you are so frivolous as to try to exclude these from our discourse, it is merely evidence that you have not understood a single word of what I have been trying to tell you these last few hundred years! May I close with a stray example or so? Equinox III, 1, has the Neophyte's Pantacle of Frater O.I.V.V.I.O. The Fontispiece of the original (4 vol- ume) edition of Magick, the colors vilely reproduced, is a Lamen of my own Magick, or a Pantacle of the Science, I'm sure I'm not sure which! Most of my Talismans, like my Invocations, have been poems. This letter must be like the Iliad in at least one respect: it does not end; it stops. Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXI MY THEORY OF ASTROLOGY Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. A few well-chosen words about Astrology? Madam, I am only too happy to oblige: our aim is to serve. The customer is usually wrong; but statis- tics indicate that it doesn't pay to tell him so. It seems a long while since I set up your Nativity, and read it, but it is very clear in my mind that you were astonished, as so many others have been, by the simplicity and correctness of my reading. It began, you remember, by your giving me the usual data when we dropped in for tea at the Anglers' Rest,. I calculated the Ascendant on the spot, and remarked "Rubbish!" I looked at you again very carefully; and, after many grunts, observed, "More likely half-past ten --- within an hour one way or the other." You insisted; I insisted. Unwilling to make a Fracas in the Inn, we decided to put you to the trouble of writing to your mother to settle the dispute. Back came the answer: "within a few minutes of eleven. I remember because your father had hung on as long as he could --- he had to take the morning service." This occurrence is very common in my experience; I have contradicted what sounded like ascertained fact and proved on enquiry to have been right; so, considering that the statistics I made many years ago showed me to have been right 109 times out of 120, I think two things are fairly near probation; firstly, I am not guessing --- that doesn't matter much; but, secondly, which is of supreme importance, there is a definite con- nection between the personal appearance and manner of the native, and the Sign of the Zodiac which was rising when he first drew air into his lungs. Let me add, to strengthen the argument, that on the few occasions where I have erred there has been a good astrological reason for it. E.g. I might plump for Pisces rising when it was actually Capricornus; but in that case Saturn would have been afflicted by being in Cancer, with bad aspects from Venus and the Moon, thus taking away all his rugged, male, laborious qualities, and in the Ascendant might have been Jupiter, suggesting many of the qualities of Pisces: and so forth. Now let me start! You want me to explain the system --- or no-system! --- which I use. I do not "move in a mysterious way My wonders to perform;" for nothing could be simpler. For its origin I have to thank Abramelin the Mage, who empties the vials of his scorn upon the astrologers of his time with their meticulous calculations of "the hours of the planets" and so on. I think he goes too far when he says that a planet can have no influence at all, or very little, unless it is above the horizon; but he meant well, bless him! And, though he does not say so, I believe that I do my stuff in very much the same way as he did. Modern astrologers multiply their charts until their desks remind me of a Bargain Basement in the rush hour! They compare and contrast until they are in bat-eyed bewilderment bemused; and when the answer turns out absolutely false, exclaim, what a shout: "By Ptolemy, I forgot to look at the last Luniation for Buda-Pesth!" But then they can always find something or other which will explain how they came to go wrong: naturally, when you have several hundred factors, helplessly bound and gagged, it would be just too bad if you couldn't pick out one to serve your turn --- after the event! No, dear girl, it should be obvious to an unweaned brat: (a) they can't see the wood for the trees, (b) they are using Ruach on a proposition which demands Neschamah. Intellect is quite inadequate; the problem requires mother-wit, intuition, understanding. Here is my system in a Number 000 Ampoule. Put up the figure at birth: study it, make notes of the aspects and dignities, concentrate --- and turn on the Magical Tap! Occasionally, when I began, I set up the "progressed figure" to see how the patient was doing this week, but it never seemed to help enough to compensate for the distraction caused by the complication. What I do observe to examine the situation of to-day is Transits. These I have found very reliable; but even with these I usually ignore aspects of minor importance. Truth to tell, conjunctions mean very much more than the rest put together. Talking of aspects, I think it ridiculous to allow vast "orbs" like 15 for Luna, and 12 for Sol. Astrologers go to extreme lengths to calculate the "solar revolution" figure not to a degree, not to a minute, but to a second: and that when they don't know the exact time of birth within half an hour or more! Talk about straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel! Then what does an hour or so matter anyhow, if you are going to allow an aspect, whether it is 2 or 10 off? This even with delicate aspects like the quintile or semi-sextile. What would you think of a doctor who had a special thermometer made to register -1/100 of a degree, and never took notice of the fact that the patient had just swallowed a cupful of scalding hot tea? In my own work, I disallow a deviation of 5 or 6 from the exact aspect, unless there is some alien reason for thinking that it is actually opera- tive. With the minor aspects, I dislike reckoning with them if they are even 3 away. Nor do I see any sense in marking the odd minutes in the Ascendant, when one is not sure even of the decan. That seems to be about all that is necessary for my "morning hate;" suppose we go on to the question of interpretation. Thousands of books have been written on Astrology; nobody could possible read them all thoroughly, and he would be a great fool to try. But he may do little harm by going into them far enough to observe that hardly any half-dozen are agreed even on the foundations of their system, hardly any two upon the meaning of any given aspect, dignity, or posi- tion; there is not always agreement even upon what questions pertain to which houses. There are a few completely quack systems, such as those which mix up the science with Toshosophical4 hypotheses; naturally you discard these. But even of generally acceptable forms of Astrology, such as Mundane and Horary, I tend to be distrustful. I ask, for instance, why, if Taurus rules Poland and Ireland, as is no doubt the case, the crash and massacres of 1939 e.v. and later in the one did not take place in the other. All the seaports of the world naturally come under one of the three watery signs; but we do not find that an affliction of Pisces, which hits Tunis, should do harm to all the other harbours similarly ruled. This brings us to the first Big Jump in the steeplechase of the whole science. We hear of thousands of people being killed at the same time (within an hour or two, perhaps a minute or two) by earthquake, ship- wreck, explosion, battle or other form of violence. Was the horoscope of every one of the victims marked with the probability of some such end? I have known very strange cases of coincidence, but not to that extent! The answer, I believe, is manifold. It might be, for example, that Poland and Ireland are ruled by different degrees of Taurus; that there are major and minor figures, the former overruling the latter, so that the figure of the launching of the "Titanic" swallowed up the nativities of the victims of her wreck. Something of this sort is really an obvious truth. Flood in China, famine in India, pestilence anywhere, evidently depend on maps of a scale far more enormous than the personal. Then --- on this point I feel reasonably sure --- there may be one or more factors of which we know nothing at all, by which the basic possibilities of a figure are set to work. (Just as a car with engine running will not start until the clutch is put in.) I will conclude by announcing a rather remarkable position. 1. I see no objection at all to postulating that certain "rays,' or other means of transmitting some peculiar form or forms of energy, may reach us from the other parts of the solar system; for we can in fact point to perfectly analogous phenomena in the discoveries of the last hundred years or so. But that is no more than a postulate. 4^ WEH NOTE: By now this term has appeared several times, and it will be going by more than a few times ahead. Crowley disdained to apply "Theosophical" to the movement of Anne Besant, preferring to reserve the word for older systems. He coined the word "TOSHosophical" to replace "Theosophical" in these references. 2. The objections to Astrology as such, indicated by what I have already pointed out, and several others, would suffice to place me among the most arrogant disbelievers in the whole study, were it not for what follows. 3. The facts with regard to the Ascendant are so patent, so undeni- able, and so inexplicable without the postulate in (1), that I am utterly convinced of the fundamental truth of the basic principles of the science. I said, "I will conclude"; and I meant it. For now that (or so I hope) you respect sufficiently my conviction that Astrology is a genuine science and not a messy mass of Old Wives' Tales, you will obviously demand instruction as to how to learn it, that you may verify my opinion in the light of your own experiments. This will look much better if I put it in a separate letter. 'Till then --- Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, [666] ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXII HOW TO LEARN THE PRACTICE OF ASTROLOGY Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. "Up guards, and at 'em!" First, you must know your correspondences by heart backwards and upside down (air connu.) They are practically all in The Book of Thoth; but "if anyone anything lacks," look for it in 777. Then, get a book on Astrology, the older the better. Raphael's Shilling Handbook is probably enough for the present purpose. Get well into your head what the menu says about the natures of the planets, the influence of the aspects, what is meant by dignities, the scope of the houses, and so on. Dovetail all this with your classical knowledge; the character and qualities, the powers and the exploits, of the several deities concerned. Next, learn how to set up a figure of the heavens. This need not take an average intelligent person more than an hour at the most. You can learn it from a book. Lastly, get Barley's 1001 Notable nativities and More Nativites. Also any other collections available. Practice setting up the horoscopes. Use the Chaldean square system; it shows at the first glance what is happening in the angular houses, which are the keys of the whole figure. Compare and contrast what you know of the natives, from history, with what is said of the aspects (and the rest) in the books you have read. Put together similar horoscopes; e.g. a dozen which have Sagittarius rising, another lot with Jupiter in the hid-heaven, and so on; see if you can find a similarity in their lives with what the books will have led you to expect. Don't be afraid to criticise; on the contrary, do some research work on your own, and find cases which seem to contradict tradition. Instance: Saturn in the M.C. is said to cause a spectacular rise in a man's career, ending in an equally notable crash. Examples: Napoleon I and III, Oscar Wilde, Woodrow Wilson, Lord Northcliffe, Hitler. Look for figures with Saturn thus placed, whose natives have jogged along equably and died in the odour of sanctity. Find out why what worked in some cases failed in the others. By the time you have studied (say) 500 nativities you will be already a fairly competent judge. Work your bloody guns! as Kipling says; get a friend --- just this once I allow you human intercourse --- to set up for you figures of historical importance, or with some outstanding characteristic (e.g. murderers, champions of sport, statesmen, monsters, philanthropists, heresiarchs) without telling you to whom it refers. Build up the character, profession, story from the nativity. It sounds incredible; but more than a score of times I have been actually able to name him! By the time you have got good at this game --- and a most amusing game it is --- you may call yourself a very competent astrologer. Sometimes, even now, you may assign the figure of the Archbishop of York to Jabez Balfour or Catherine de Medici; or mix up Moody and Sankey with Brown and Kennedy; don't be discouraged; perhaps there may be something to be said for you after all! I believe, as I hope, that you will be surprised at the speed with which you acquire proficiency. All this time, moreover, you have not been wholly idle. You will have been running about like a demented rabbit, and trying to spot the rising sign of everybody you know. Look at them full-face, then profile; and note salient characteristics, pendulous lips, receding chins, bulbous noses, narrow foreheads, stuck-out ears, pimples, squints, warts, shape of face (three main types; thin, jutting, for cardinal signs; square, steadfast for cherubic; weak, nondescript, for the rest); then the stature, whether lithe, well-knit, sturdy, muscular, fat or what not; in short every bodily feature in turn; make up your mind what sign was rising at birth, and stick to it! Now to verify your suspicions. The conversation may run thus: You: "Can you answer a question without answering another which you were not asked?" It, surprised: "Why, yes, of course I can." You: "Good. Then, do you know the date of the Battle of Waterloo?" It: "1815." You probably have to explain! In any case you begin all over again, when he has contented himself with "Yes" or "No" you say "Do you know the hour of your birth?" If he says "No," you ask if he can find out, and so on. It he says "Yes;" "Then tell me either the hour or the day and month; but not both." If he gives you the hour, you calculate a bit, and say: "Then you were born on the nth of Xember, within a fortnight either way." If he tells you his birthday, work it out as before and then: "You were born at P in the morning within an hour either way." (This makes it about 11 to 1 against your being right, in either case, on pure chance.) Again, you can practise this in cafs, when you visit civilized countries, and it is often possible to scrape acquaintance with people who look specially interesting, and do not, as in England, instantly suspect you of dishonourable advances, and get them to play up. This is sometimes easier when you are already with that friend which I was so lax as to allow you; and it is, I own, very helpful to discuss strange faces if only to make it quite clear to your own mind why you decide on one as Virgo, another as Taurus. A strange thing happened once; I had explained all this to the girl that I happened to be living with: that is, I taught her the names of the signs; she knew no Astrology, net even the simple correspondences. After about a month, she was better at it than I was! ("Why strange?" you mutter rudely. "Quite right, my dear! I have always been a wretched reader of character. Bless my soul! there was a time when I had hopes of you," I savagely retort.) She had picked up the knack, the trick of it; she could select, eliminate, re-compose, compare with past experience, and form a judgment, without knowing the names of its materials. When you have got your sea-legs at both these parts of your astrological education, you may (I think) put out to sea with some confidence. Perhaps a fair test of your fitness would be when you got three people right out of four, in a total of a score or so. Well, allow for my being in a "mood" to-night; call it two out of three. If it were guesswork, after all, that means you are bringing it off at seven to one. Obviously, when you do go wrong, set up the figure, study it more carefully than ever, and find out what misled you. Remember constantly that the Statistical Method is your one and only safeguard against self-deception. Within the limits of a letter I could hardly hope to go into matters much more fully or deeply than I have done; but 'pon my soul! I think that what I have said should be enough for an intelligent and assiduous student. Let me insist that all that is worth while comes by experience. Learning one thing will give you the clue to another. Well do I know to my sorrow how hard it is, as a rule, to learn how to do a thing solely from written instruction; so perhaps you had better arrange to see me one day about the actual setting-up of a figure. Probably, too, there will be a few points that you would like to discuss. I will end by betting you six clothing coupons to a pound of sugar that in two years' concentrated work on these lines you will become a better astrologer than ever I was. (This is very cunning of me; in two years we shall all be getting clothes without coupons.) Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, [666] ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXIII IMPROVISING A TEMPLE Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. (This letter has been provoked by points discussed in your recent visit.) As some of your daily practices are ceremonial, it should not come amiss to vouchsafe a few hints of practical service. For in ritual Magick, it will of course be the first care to get everything balanced and tidy. If you propose to erect a regular Temple, the most precise instructions in every detail are given in Book 4, Part II. (But I haven't so much as seen a copy for years!) There is a good deal scattered about in Part III (Magick, which you have) especially about the four elemental weapons. But if circumstances deny you for the moment the means of carrying out this Aedification as the Ideal would have it, you can certainly do your best to create a fairly satisfactory --- above all, workable --- substitute. (By the way, note the moral aspect of a house, as displayed in our language. "Edification" -- "house-making": from Latin Aedes, "house". "Economy" --- "house-ruling": from the Greek "OIKOC", "House" and "NOMOC", "law".) I was often reduced to such expedients when wandering in strange lands, camping on glaciers, and so on. I fixed it workably well. In Mexico, D.F. for instance, I took my bedroom itself for the Circle, my night- table for the Altar, my candle for the Lamp; and I made the Weapons compact. I had a Wand eight inches long, all precious stones and enamel, to represent the Tree of Life; within, an iron tube containing quick- silver --- very correct, lordly, and damsilly. What a club! Also, bought, a silver-gilt Cup; for Air and Earth I made one sachet of rose-petals in yellow silk, and another in green silk packed with salt. In the wilds it was easy, agreeable and most efficacious to make a Circle, and build an altar, of stones; my Alpine Lantern served admirably for the Lamp. It did double duty when required: e.g. in partaking of the Sacrament of the Four Elements, it served for Fire. But your conditions are not so restricted as this. Let us consider what one can do with an ordinary house, such as you are happy enough to possess. First of all, it is of immense advantage to have a room specially conse- crated to the Work, never used for any other purpose, and never entered by any other person than yourself, unless it were another Initiate, either for inspection or in case you were working together. The aura accumulates with the regularity and frequency of Use. The first point is the Banishing: Everything is to be removed from the room which is not absolutely necessary to the Work. in this country, one must attend to the heating. An electric stove in the East or the South, is best: it must not need attention. One can usually buy stoves with excellent appropriate symbolism. (Last time I did this --- 13 e.v. --- I got a perfect Ferranti at Harrods. The circular copper bowl, with the central Disk as the source of heat, is unsurpas- sable.) The walls should be "self-coloured," a neutral tint --- green, grey or blue-grey? and entirely bare, unless you put up, in the proper quarters, the proper designs, such as the "Watch Towers" --- see The Equinox I, 7. Remember that your "East," your Kiblah, is Boleskine House, which is as near as possible due North from Plymouth. Find North by the shadow of a vertical rod and noon, or by the Pole-Star. Work out the angle as usual. The Stl of Revealing may be just on the N. Wall to make your "East." Next, your Circle. The floor ought to be "Earth" green; but white will serve, or black. (A Masonic carpet is not at all bad.) The Circle it- self should be as shown in Book 4, Part II; but as this volume is probably unavailable, ask me to show you the large painted diagram in my portfolio when next you visit me, and we can arrange for it to be copied. This should then be painted in the correct colours on the floor: the Kether Square to the North, your "East." The Altar must fit exactly the square of Tiphareth; it is best made as a cupboard; of oak or acacia, by preference. It can then be used to hold reserves of incense and other requisites. Note that the height of the Altar has to suit your convenience. It is consequently in direct relation with your own stature; in proportion, it is a double cube. This then determines the size of your circle; in fact the entire apparatus and furniture is a geometrical function of yourself. Consider it all as a projection of yourself in terms of these conventional formulae. (A convention does really mean "that which is convenient." How abject, then to obey a self-styled convention which is actually as inconvenient as possible!) Next, the Lamp. This may be of silver, or silver-gilt, (to represent the Path of Gimel) and is to be hung from the ceiling exactly above the centre of the altar. There are plenty of old church lamps which serve very well. The light is to be from a wick in a floating cork in a glass of olive oil. (I hope you can get it!) It is really desirable to make this as near the "Ever-burning Lamp of the Rosicrucians" as possible; it is not a drawback that this implies frequent attention. Now for the Weapons! The Wand. Let this be simple, straight and slim! Have you an Almond or Witch Hazel in your garden --- or do I call it park? If so, cut (with the magick knife --- I would lend you mine) a bough, as nearly straight as possible, about two feet long. Peel it, rub it constantly with Oil of Abramelin (this, and his incense, from Wallis and Co., 26 New Cavendish Street, W.1) and keep wrapped in scarlet silk, constantly, I wrote, and meant it; rub it, when saying your mantra, to the rhythm of that same. (Remember, "A ka dua" is the best; ask me to intone it to you when you next visit me.) The Cup. There are plenty of chalices to be bought. It should be of silver. If ornamented, the best form is that of the apple. I have seen suitable cups in many shops. The Sword. The ideal form is shown in the Ace of Swords in the Tarot. At all events, let the blade be straight, and the hilt a simple cross. (The 32 Masonic Sword is not too bad; Kenning or Spencer in Great Queen Street, W.C.2 stock them --- or used to do.) The Disk. This ought to be of pure gold, with your own Pantacle, designed by yourself after prolonged study, graved thereupon. While getting ready for this any plain circle of gold will have to serve your turn. Quite flat, of course. If you want a good simple design to go on interim, try the Rosy Cross or the Unicursal Hexagram. So much for the Weapons! Now, as to your personal accoutrements, Robe, Lamen, Sandals and the like, The Book of the Law has most thoughtfully simplified matters for us. "I charge you earnestly to come before me in a single robe, and covered with a rich headdress." (AL I, 61) The Robe may well be in the form of the Tau Cross; i.e. expanding from axilla to ankle, and from shoulder to --- whatever you call the place where your hands come out. (Shape well shown in the illustration Magick face p. 360). You being a Probationer, plain black is correct; and the Unicursal Hexa- gram might be embroidered, or "applique" (is it? I mean "stuck on"), upon the breast. The best head-dress is the Nemyss: I cannot trust myself to describe how to make one, but there are any number of models in the British Museum, on in any Illustrated Hieroglyphic text. The Sphinx wears one, and there is a photograph, showing the shape and structure very clearly, in the Equinox I, 1, frontispiece to Supplement. You can easily make one yourself out of silk; broad black-and-white stripes is a pleasing design. Avoid "artistic" complexities. Well, that ought to be enough to keep you out of mischief for a little while; but I feel moved to add a line of caution and encouragement. Listen! Faites attention! Achtung! Khabardar karo! Just as soon as you start seriously to prepare a place for magical Work, the world goes more cockeyed than it is already. Don't be surprised if you find that six weeks' intense shopping all over London fails to provide you with some simple requisite that normally you could buy in ten minutes. Perhaps your fires simply refuse to burn, even when liberally dosed with petrol and phosphorus, with a handful of Chlorate of Potash thrown in just to show there is no ill feeling! When you have almost decided that you had better make up your mind to do without something that seems really quite unobtainable --- say, a sixty-carat diamond which would look so well on the head-dress --- a perfect stranger comes along and makes you a present of one. Or, a long series of quite unreasonable obstacles or silly acci- dents interfere with your plans: or, the worst difficulty in your way is incomprehensibly removed by some extraordinary "freak of chance." Or, . . . In a word, you seem to have strolled into a world where --- well, it might be going too far to say that the Law of Cause and Effect is suspended; but at least the Law of Probability seems to be playing practical jokes on you. This means that your manoeuvres have somehow attracted the notice of the Astral Plane: your new neighbours (May I call them?) are taking an interest in the latest Tenderfoot, some to welcome, to do all they can to help you to settle down, others indignant or apprehensive at this disturbance of routine. This is where your Banishings and Invocations come to the rescue. Of course, I am not here referring to the approach to Sanctuaries which of necessity are closely guarded, but merely to the recognition of a new-comer to that part of the world in general. Of course all these miracles are very naughty of you; they mean that your magical power has sprung a few small leaks; at least, the water is oozing between some planks not sealed as Hermetically as they should be. But oh and this is naughtier still --- it is a blessed, blessed comfort that they happen, that chance, coincidence and all the rest will simply not explain it all away, that your new vision of life is not a dream, but part and parcel of Experience for evermore, a real as any other manifestation of Reality through sense such as is common to all men. And this brings us --- it has been a long way round --- from the suggestion of your visit to the question (hitherto unanswered) in your letter. You raise so vast and razor-edged a question when you write of the supposed antinomy of "soul" and "sense" that it seemed better to withhold comment until this later letter; much meditation was most needful to compress the answer within reasonable limits; even to give it form at all is no easy matter. For this is probably the symptom of the earliest stirring of the mind of the cave-man to reflection, thereunto moved by other symptoms --- those of the morning after following upon the night before. It is --- have we not already dealt with that matter after a fashion? --- evidence of disease when an organ become aware of its own modes of motion. Certainly the mere fact of questioning Life bears witness to some interruption of its flow, just as a ripple on an even stream tells of a rock submerged. The fiercer the torrent and the bigger the obstacle, the greater the disturbance to the surface --- have I not seen them in the Bralduh eight feet high? Lethargic folk with no wild impulse of Will may get through Life in bovine apathy; we may well note that (in a sense) the rage of the water seems to our perturbed imagining actually to increase and multiply the obstructions; there is a critical point beyond which the ripples fight each other! That, in short, is a picture of you! You have mistaken the flurry of passing over some actual snag for a snag in itself! You put the blame on to your own quite rational attempts to overcome difficulties. The secret of the trick of getting past the rocks is elasticity; yet it is that very quality with which you reproach your- self! We even, at the worst, reach the state for which Buddhism, in the East presents most ably the case: as in the West, does James Thomson (B.V.) in The City of Dreadful Night; we come to wish for --- or, more truly to think that we wish for "blest Nirvana's sinless stainless Peace" (or some such twaddle --- thank God I can't recall Arnold's mawkish and unmanly phrase!) and B.V.'s "Dateless oblivion and divine repose." I insist on the "think that you wish," because, if the real You did really wish the real That, you could never have come to exist at all! ("But I don't exist." --- "I know --- let's get on!") Note, please, how sophistically unconvincing are the Buddhist theories of how we ever got into this mess. First cause: Ignorance. Way out, then, knowledge. O.K., that implies a knower, a thing known --- and so on and so forth, thought all the Three Waste Paper Baskets of the Law; analysed, it turns out to be nonsense all dolled up to look like thinking. And there is no genuine explanation of the origin of the Will to be. How different, how simple, how self-evident, is the doctrine of The Book of the Law! There are any number of passages dealing with this matter in my writings: let's forget them, and keep to the Text! Cap. I, v. 26 ". . my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the omnipresence of my body." V. 30 "This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all." (There is a Qabalistic inner meaning in this text; "the pain," for instance, {Greek caps: OmicronAlphaLambdaGammaOmicronSigma}, may be read XVII x 22 "the expression of Star-love," and so on: all too complicated for this time and place!) V. 32. "Then the joys of my love" (i.e. the fulfillment of all possible experiences) "will redeem ye from all pain." V. 58. "I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death; peace5 unutterable, rest, ecstasy; . . ." Cap. II, v. 9 "Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains." (The continuation is amusing! vv. 10 and 11 read: "O prophet! thou hast ill will to learn this writing. I see thee hate the hand & the pen; but I am stronger." At that time I was a hard-shell Buddhist, sent out a New Year's Card "wishing you a speedy termination of existence!" And this as a young man, with the world at my feet. It only goes to show . . . . .) Vv. 19, 20. "Is a God to live in a dog? No! but the highest are of us. . . . Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire, are of us." This chapter returns over and over again to this theme in one form or 5* "Peace": the glow of satisfaction at achievement. It is not "eternal," rather, it whets the appetite for another adventure. (Peace, {GK: H. EIPHNH} = 189 = 7 x 9 x 13 ' the Venusian plus Lunar form of Unity.) another. What is really more significant is the hidden, the unexpressed, soul of the Book; the way in which it leaps into wild spate of rhapsody on any excuse or no excuse. This is surely more convincing than some dreary thesis plodding along doggedly with the "proof" (!) that "God is good," every sentence creaking with your chalk-stones and squeaking with the twinges of your toe! Yet just because I proclaim a doctrine of joy in the language of joy, people -- dull camels --- say I am not "serious." Yet I have found pleasure in harnessing the winged horses of the Sun to the ploughshare of Reason, in showing the validity of this doctrine in detail. It satisfies my sense of rhythm and of symmetry to explain that every experience, no matter what, must of necessity be a gain of grandeur, of grip, of comprehension and enjoyment ever growing as complexity and simplicity succeed each other in sublime systole and diastole, in strophe and antistrope chanting against each other to the stars of the Night and of the Morning! Of course it is easy as pie to knock all this to pieces by "lunatic logic," saying: "Then toothache is really as pleasant as strawberry shortcake:" You are hereby referred to Eight Lectures of Yoga. None of the terms I am using have been, or can be defined. All my propositions amount to no more than tautology: A. is A. You may even quote The Book of the Law itself: "Now a curse upon Because and his kin! . . . . Enough of Because! Be he damned for a dog!" (AL II, 28-33). These things stink of Ignoratio Elenchi, or something painfully like it: as sort of slipping up a cog, of "confusing the planes" of willfully misunderstanding the gist of an argument. (All magicians, by the way, ought to be grounded solidly in Formal Logic.) Never forget, at the least, how simple it is to make a maniac's hell-broth of any proposition, however plain to common sense. All the above, now: --- Buddhism refuted. Yet it is a possibility and therefore one facet of Truth. "Rest" is an idea: so immobility is one of the moving states. A certain state of mind is (almost by definition) "eternal," yet it most assuredly begins and ends. And so on for ever --- I fear it would be nugatory, pleonastic (and oh! several other lovely long adjectives!) to try to guard you from these hydra-headed and protean booby-traps; you must tackle them yourself as they arise, and deal with them as best you can: always remembering that often enough you cannot tell which is you and which is the Monkey Puzzle, or who has won. ("Everybody's won; so everybody must have a prize" applies beautifully). And none of it all matters a row of haricots verts sauts; for the conclusion must always be Doubt (see that beastly Book of Lies again --- there's a gorgeous chapter about it) and the practical moral is this: these contradictions don't occur (or don't matter) in Neschamah. Also, it might help you quite a lot (by encouraging you when depressed, or amusing you when you want to relax) to read Sir Palamede the Saracen; Supplement to The Equinox, Vol. I, No. 4. I expect quite a few of his tragi-comic misadventures will be already familiar to you in one disguise or another. And if the above remarks should embolden you to exclaim: "Perhaps a little drink would do me no great harm" I shall feel that I have deserved well of my country! For --- see Liber Aleph, after Rabelais --- the Word of the Last Oracle is TRINC. . . . . . . . . This plaint of yours tails off --- and perks up in so doing --- with confession of Ambition, and considerations of what you must leave over to your next life. Very right! but all that is covered by your general programme. It is proper to assimilate these ideas with the fundamental structure of your mind: "Perhaps I had better leave 'The Life and opinion of Battling Bill, the Ballarat Bruiser' till, shall we say, six incarnations ahead" --- But perhaps you have acquired that already. No, better still, concentrate on the Next Step! After all, it is the only one you can take, isn't it! Without lust of result, please! And I shall leave anything else to the next letter. Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 P.S. "Next letter," yes, they are running into one another more than some- what; it is better so, for life is like that. And we have the bold bad editor to sort them out. ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXIV NECROMANCY AND SPIRITISM Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Really, you make me ashamed of You! To write to ignorant me to wise you up about necromancy, when you have at your elbow the one supreme classic --- Lvi's Chapter XIII in the Dogme et Rituel!6" What sublimity of approach! What ingenuity of "considerations!" With what fatally sure steps marches his preparation! With what superb tech- nique does he carry out his energized enthusiasm! And, finally, with what exact judicial righteousness does he sum the results of his great Evocation of Apollonius of Tyana! Contrast with this elaborate care, rightness of every detail, earnestness and intentness upon the goal --- contrast, I say, the modern Spiritist in the dingy squalor of her foul back street in her suburban slum, the room musty, smelling of stale food, the hideous prints, the cheap and rickety furniture, calling up any one required from Jesus Christ to Queen Victoria, 6* Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Lvi. all at a bob-a-nob! Faugh! Let us return to clean air, and analyse Lvi's experiment; I believe that by the application of the principles set forth in my other letters on Death and Reincarnation, it will be simple to explain his par- tial failure to evoke Apollonius. You had better read them over again, to have the matter clear and fresh in your mind. Now then, let me call you attention to the extreme care which Lvi took to construct a proper Magical Link between himself and the Ancient Master. Alas! It was rather a case of building with bricks made without straw; he had not at his command any fresh and vital object pertaining intimately to Apollonius. A "relic" would have been immensely helpful, especially if it had been consecrated and re-consecrated through the centuries by devout veneration. This, incidentally, is the great advantage that one may often obtain when invoking Gods; their images, constantly revered, nourished by continual sacrifice, serve as a receptacle for the Prana driven into them by thousands or millions of worshippers. In fact, such idols are often already consecrated talismans; and their possession and daily use is at least two-thirds of the battle. Apollonius was indeed as refractory a subject as Lvi could possibly have chosen. All the cards were against him. Why? Let me remind you of the sublimity of the man's genius, and the extent of his attainment. Apollonius must certainly have made the closest links between his Ruach and his Supernal Triad, and this would have gone seeking a new incarnation elsewhere. All the available Ruach left float- ing around in the Akasha must have been comparatively worthless odds and ends, true Qlippoth or "Shells of the Dead" --- just those parts of him, in a word, which Apollonius would have deliberately discarded at his death. So what use would they be to Lvi? Even if there were among them a few such elements as would serve his purpose, they would have been devitalized and frittered away by the mere lapse of the centuries, since they had lost connection with the reality of the Sage. Alternatively, they might have been caught up and adopted by some wandering Entity, quite probably some malignant demon. Qlipoth --- Shells of the Dead --- Obsessing Spirits! Here we are back in the pestilent purlieus of Walham Green, and the frowsty atmosphere of the frowsy "medium" and the squalid sance. "Look! but do not speak to them!" as Virgil warned Dante. So let us look. No! Let us first congratulate ourselves that this subject of Necromancy is so admirably documented. As to the real Art, we have not only Eliphas Lvi, but the sublimely simple account in the Old Testament of the Witch of Endor, her conjuring up of the apparition of Samuel to King Saul. A third classic must not be neglected: I have heard or read the story else- where --- for the moment I cannot place it. But it is so brilliantly told in I Write as I Please by Walter Duranty that nothing could be happier than to quote him verbatim. "It was the story of a Bolshevik who conversed with a corpse. He told it to me himself, and undoubtedly believed it, although he was an average tough Bolshevik who naturally disbelieved in Heaven and Hell and a Life beyond the Grave. This man was doing 'underground' revolutionary work in St. Petersburg when the War broke out; but he was caught by the police and exiled to the far north of Siberia. In the second winter of the War he escaped from his prison camp and reached an Eskimo village where they gave him shelter until the spring. They lived, he said, in beastly condi- tions, and the only one whom he could talk to was the Shaman, or medicine man, who knew a little Russian. The Shaman once boasted that he could foretell the future, which my Bolshevik friend ridiculed. The next day the Shaman took him to a cave in the side of a hill in which there was a big transparent block of ice enclosing the naked body of a man --- a white man, not a native --- apparently about thirty years of age with no sign of a wound anywhere. The man's head, which was clean-shaven, was outside the block of ice; the eyes were closed and the features were European. The shaman then lit a fire and burnt some leaves, threw powder on them muttering incantations, and there was a heavy aromatic smoke. He said in Russian to the bolshevik, 'Ask what you want to know.' The Bolshevik spoke in German; he was sure that the Shaman knew no German, but he was equally sure he saw the lips move and heard it answer, clearly, in German. He asked what would happen to Russia, and what would happen to him. From the moving lips of the corpse came the reply that Russia would be defeated in war and that there would be a revolution; the Tzar would be captured by his enemies and killed on the eve of rescue; he, the Bolshevik, would fight in the Revolution but would suffer no harm; later, he would be wounded fighting a foreign enemy, but would recover and live long." "The Bolshevik did not really believe what he had seen although he was certain that he had seen it. I mean that he explained it by hypnotism or auto-suggestion or something of the kind; but it was true, he said, that he passed unscathed through the Revolution and the Civil War and was wounded in the Polish War when the Red Army recovered Kiev." So also we are most fortunate in possessing the account almost beyond Heart's desire of Spiritism, in Robert Browning's Mr. Sludge the Medium. You see that I write "Spiritism" not "Spiritualism." To use the latter word in this connection is vulgar ignorance; it denotes a system of philosophy which flourished (more or less) is the Middle Ages --- read your Erdmann if you want the gruesome details. But why should you? The model for Mr. Sludge was David Dunbar (? Douglas) Home, who was really quite a distinguished person in his way, and succeeded in pulling some remarkably instructed and blue-blooded legs. Personally, I believe him to have been genuine, getting real results through pacts with elementals, demons or what not; for when he was in Paris, arrangements were made for him to meet Eliphas Lvi; forthwith "he abandoned the unequal contest, and fled in terror from the accursed spot." What annoyed Browning was that he had added to his collection of "Femora I have pulled", those appendages of Elizabeth Barrett; and where R.B. was there was no room for anyone else --- as in the case of Allah! R.B. was accordingly as spiteful as he could be, and that was not a little. It is not fair to tar all mediums with the Sludge brush; there are many who could advance quite sincerely some of the apologia of Sludge. Why should a medium be immune to self-deception spurred by the Wish-Fiend? While there are people walking about outside the Bug-house who can find Mrs. Simpson and Generals de Gaulle, Franco, Allenby, Montgomery and who else in the "Centuries" of Nostradamus, we should be stupid to assign everything to conscious fraud. In that case what about poor Tiny Aleister? Do please allow me the happy young Eagles of the Old Testament; what clearer prophecy of psychoanalysis, it's only the English for Freud and Jung and Adler! No, by no means always fraud. Yet at any sance the "investigators" take no magical precautions soever --- against, say, the impersonation of Iophiel by Hismael, or the Doves of Venus by the A'arab Zareq. All they attempt especially at "demonstrations" and "materializations," is to guard with great elaboration and (as a rule) complete futility against the deceptions of the common conjuror. They are not expecting any genuine manifestation of the "Spirit World;" and this fact makes clear their true subconscious attitude. As for those mediums who possess magical ability, they almost always come from the most ignorant classes --- Celts are an exception to this rule --- and have no knowledge whatever of the technique of the business. Worse, they are usually of the type that delights in the secret dirty affinities, and so naturally and gladly attract entities of the Qliphothic world to their magical circle. Hence tricksters, of the lowest elemental orders, at the best, come and vitalize odds and ends of the Ruach of people recently deceased, and perform astonishing impersonations. The hollow shells glow with infernal fire. Also, of course, they soak up vitality from the sitters, and from the medium herself. Altogether, a most poisonous performance. And what do they get out of it? Even when the "Spirits" are really spirits, they only stuff the party up with a lot of trashy lies. To this summary the Laws of Probability insist that there shall be occa- sional exceptions. Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXV FASCINATIONS, INVISIBILITY, LEVITATION, TRANSMUTATIONS, KINKS IN TIME Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Dear me! dear me! The world's indeed gone topsy-turvy if you have to ask me for the secrets of Fascination! Altogether tohu-bohu and the Temurah Thash raq! So much for a display of Old-World Courtly Manners; actually rubbish, for you might very well be fascinating without knowing how you worked the trick. In fact, I think that is the case ninety-nine times in a hundred. Besides, I read your letter carelessly; I overlooked the phrase in which you mention that you use the word as Lvi did; i.e. to cover all those types of "miracle" which depend on distracting the attention of, or other- wise composing, the miraclee --- I invent a rather useful word, yes? So let us see what sort of miracles those are. To start with, I doubt if we can. Many of such thaumaturgic phenomena contain elements of illusion in greater or less degree; if the maraclee's mind is 100% responsible, I think the business becomes a mere conjuring trick. My dictionary defines the verb: "to charm, to enchant; to act on by some irresistible influence; to captivate; to excite and allure irresistibly or powerfully." For the noun it gets even deeper into technical Magic {sic}: "the act or power of fascinating or spell binding, often to one's harm; a mysterious, irre- sistible, alluring influence." (Personally, I have always used, or heard, it much less seriously: "attractive" hardly more). Skeat, sur- prisingly, is almost dumb: p. part. of "to enchant" and "from L. fascinum, a spell." Yes, surprisingly; for the word is one of the many that means the Phallus. The implication is that there is some sexual element in the exciting and alluring quality, which lifts it altogether above mere "pleasing." To my mind the implication is that there is some quality inherent which is cognate to that too totally irrational quasimagnetic force which has been responsible not only for innumerable personal tragedies --- and comedies --- but for the fall of dynasties and even the wreck of Empires. "Christ" is reported as having said: "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me." Interpret this in the light of the Cross as a Phallic emblem, and --- how lurid a flash! Compare AL II, 26. "I am the secret Serpent coiled about to spring: in my coiling there is joy. If I lift up my head, I and my Nuit are one. If I droop down mine head, and shoot forth venom, then is rapture of the earth, and I and the earth are one." This versicle is deep, devilish deep; and it is chock-a-block with the mysteries of Fascination. Dig into this, dear sister! dig with your Qabalistic trowel; don't blame me if you don't get a Mandrake with the very first thrust! But most certainly I shall say nothing here. Yes, indeed, nothing was ever more sternly forbidden than prattle on subjects like this! Look! It goes right on: "There is great danger in me; for who doth not understand these runes shall make a great miss. He shall fall down into the pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of Reason." (v. 27) The pit is of course the Abyss: see The Vision and the Voice, Xth Aethyr. A very sticky --- or rather, unstuck! finish; so 'ware Hawk! To business! Fascination No! Invisibility, is obviously penny plain S.A. This is notably an affair of the subconscious; it often masters open dislike and distaste; it never yields to reason. It destroys all sense of values. Its origin is usually obscure. The least irrational base of it is the sense of smell. It was, if I remember rightly, the Comte de St. Germain who advised Loise de la Vallire to fix her exquisitely broidered kerchief in such wise that it protected her from contact with her saddle, and then, after a morning's hard gallop, to find an excuse for using it to wipe the brows of the perspiring king. It took him years to recover! The story is well known, and the plan widely adopted with remarkably unvarying success. But be careful not to overdo it; for if the source of the perfume is recognized the consciousness takes charge, and the result is antipathy. Many years ago I composed a scent based on similar principles, which I intended to market under the title "Potted Sex Appeal." We tried it out with the assistance of a certain noble Marquess, whose consequent mis- adventures --- won't he laugh when he reads this! But there are other senses: "l'amour de l'oreille" may refer not only to Othello's way of snaring Desdemona, but subtleties of timbre in the voice... Yes, yes, you say impatiently, but there isn't any miracle about all this in the ordinary sense of the word. True, but why the devil do you want me, so long as you're getting what you need? Just being childlike, I suppose! No? Merely that you can explain such matters to yourself well enough. All right; on to No. 2. Shall we look at levitation for a change? This power --- if it be one --- is very curious indeed. It connects more directly with magnetism than almost any other. The first thing we think of when someone says "magnet" is picking up iron filings as a child. Age before honesty! Let Father Poulain S.J. speak first! He is obliged to admit the phenomenon, because the Church has done so. But precisely similar accounts of the levitation of pagans and heretics must be accord- ing to him, lies, or Works of the Devil. As for the method, "God employs the angels to raise the saint, so as to avoid the necessity of intervening Himself." Lazy old parishioner! Now for a douche of common sense. Hatha-Yoga is quite clear and simple, even logical, about it. The method is plain Pranayama. Didn't I tell you onetime of the Four Stages of Success? 1. Perspiration --- of a very special kind. 2. Sukshma-Khumbakam: automatic rigidity. One stiffens like a dog in a bell-jar when you pump in Carbon Dioxide (is it?) 3. The Bhuchari-Siddhi, "jumping about like a frog." One is wafted, without one's Asana being disturbed, about the floor, rather as fragments of paper, or dry leaves, might be in a slight draught under the door. 4. If one is quite perfectly balanced one cannot be moved sideways; so one rises. And there you are! Personally, I reached the Bhuchari-Siddhi quite a number of times; but I never observed No. 4. On several occasions other people have seen me levi- tated, though never to a height of more than a foot or so. Here is the best account of such an incident, of those at my immediate disposal. "Nearly midnight. At this moment we stopped dictating, and began to con- verse. Then Fra. P. said: "Oh, if I could only dictate a book like the Tao Teh King!" Then he close his eyes as if meditating. Just before I had noticed a change in his face, most extraordinary, as if he were no longer the same person; in fact, in the ten minutes we were talking he seemed to be any number of different people. I especially noticed the pupils of his eyes were so enlarged that the entire eye seemed black. (I tremble so and have such a quaking feeling inside, simply in thinking of last night, that I can't form letters). Then quite slowly the entire room filled with a thick yellow light (deep golden, but not brilliant. I mean not dazzling, but soft.) Fra. P. Looked like a person I had never seen but seemed to know quite well --- his face, clothes and all were of the same yellow. I was so disturbed that I looked up to the ceiling to see what caused the light, but could only see the candles. Then the chair on which he sat seemed to rise; it was like a throne, and he seemed to rise; it was like a throne, and he seemed to be either dead or sleeping; but it was certainly no longer Fra. P. This frightened me, and I tried to understand by looking round the room; when I looked back the chair was raised, and he was still the same. I realized I was alone; and thinking he was dead or gone --- or some other terrible thing --- I lost consciousness." This discourse has been thus left unfinished: but it is only necessary to add that the capacity to extract such spiritual honey from these un- promising flowers is the mark of an adept who has perfected his Magick Cup. This method of Qabalistic exegesis is one of he best ways of exalting the reason to the higher consciousness. Evidently it started Fra. P. so that in a moment he become completely concentrated and entranced. Note that this has nothing at all to do with any Pranayama. It seems a matter of ecstatic concentration, which chose this mode of expression instead of bringing on Samadhi --- though that, too, occurred in some of the cases. By the way, there is a fairly full account of the whole business; I have just remembered --- it is in my Autohagiography. "Pranayama produced, firstly, a peculiar kind of perspiration; secondly, an automatic rigidity of the muscles; and thirdly, the very curious phenomenon of causing the body, while still absolutely rigid, to take little hops in various directions. It seems as if one were somehow raised, possibly an inch from the ground, and deposited very gently a short dis- tance away. I saw a very striking case of this at Kandy. When Allan was meditating, it was my duty to bring his food very quietly (from time to time) into the room adjoining that where he was working. One day he missed two successive meals, and I thought I ought to look into his room to see if all was well. I must explain that I have known only two European women and three European men who could sit in the attitude called Padmasana, which is that usually seen in seated images of the Buddha. Of these men, Allan was one. He could knot his legs so well that, putting his hands on the ground, he could swing his body to and fro in the air between them. When I looked into his room I found him not seated on his meditation mat, which was in the centre of the room at the end farthest from the window, but in a distant corner ten or twelve feet off, still in his knotted position, resting on his head and right shoulder, exactly like an image overturned. I set him right way up, and he came out of his trance. He was quite unconscious that anything unusual had happened. But he had evidently been thrown there by the mysterious forces generated by Pranayama. "There is no doubt whatever about this phenomenon; it is quite common. But the Yogis claim that the lateral motion is due to lack of balance, and that if one were in perfect spiritual equilibrium one would rise directly in the air. I have never seen any case of levitation, and hesitate to say that it has happened to me, thought I have actually been seen by others, on several occasions, apparently poised in the air. For the first three phenomena I have found no difficulty in devising quite simple physiologi- cal explanations. But I can form no theory as to how the practice could counteract the force of gravitation, and I am unregenerate enough to allow this to make me sceptical about the occurrence of levitation. Yet, after all, the stars are suspended in space. There is no priori reason why the forces which prevent them rushing together should not come into operation in respect of the earth and the body." The Allan part of this is the best evidence at my disposal. He couldn't have got where he did by hopping, and he couldn't have got into that position intentionally; he must have been levitated, lost balance, and dropped upside down. In any case, there is no trace of fascination about it, as there may have been in Soror Virakam's observation. About invisibility, now? Of this I have so much experience that the merest outline could take us far beyond the limits of a letter. In Mexico D.F., I worked at acquiring the power by means of ritual. I worked desper- ately hard. I got to the point where my image in a pier-glass flickered, rather like the very earliest films did. Possibly more work, after more skill had come to me, might have done the whole trick. But I did not persist when I found out how to do it by fascination. (Here we are at last!) Roughly, this is how to do it. If one is concentrated to the point when what you are thinking of is the only reality in the Universe, when you lose all awareness of who and where you are and what you are doing, it seems as though that unconsciousness were in some way contagious. The people around you just can't see anybody. At one time, in Sicily, this happened nearly every day. Our party, strolling down to our bathing bay --- the loveliest spot of its kind that I have ever seen --- over a hillside where there wasn't cover for a rabbit, would lose sight of me, look, and fail to find me, though I was walking in their midst. At first, astonishment, bewilderment; at last, so normal had it become: "He's invisible again." One incident I remember very vividly indeed; an old friend and I were sitting opposite each other in armchairs in front of a large fire, smoking our pipes. Suddenly he lost sight of me, and actually cried out in alarm. I said: "What's wrong?" That broke the spell; there I was, all present and correct. Did I hear you mutter "Transmutations? Werwolves? Golden Hawks?" Likely enough; it's time we touched on that. In certain types of animal there appears, if tradition have any weight, to be a curious quality of --- sympathy? I doubt if that be the word, but can think of none better --- which enables them to assume at times the human form. No. 1 --- and the rest are also rans --- is the seal. There is a whole body of literature about this. Then come wolves, hyaenas, large dogs of the hunting type; occasionally leopards. Tales of cats and serpents are usually the other way round; it is the human (nearly always female) that assumes these shapes by witchcraft. But in ancient Egypt they literally doted on this sort of thing. The papyri are full of formulas for operating such transmutations. But I think that this was mostly to afford some relaxa- tion for the spirit of the dead man; he nipped out of his sarcophagus, and painted the town all the colours of the rainbow in one animal shape or another. The only experience I have of anything of this sort was when I was in Pacific waters, mostly at Honolulu or in Nippon. I was practising Astral projection. A sister of the Order who lived in Hong Kong helped me. I was to visit her, and the token of perfect success was to be that I should knock a vase off the mantel-piece. We appointed certain days and hours --- with some awkward- ness, as my time-distance from her was constantly growing shorter --- for me to pay my visit. We got some remarkable results; our records of the inter- view used to tally with surprising accuracy; but the vase remained intact! This is not one of my notorious digressions; and this is how transmu- tation comes into it. I found that by first taking the shape of a golden hawk, and resuming my own form after landing in her "temple" --- a room she had fitted ad hoc --- the whole operation became incomparably easier. I shall not indulge in hypotheses of why this should have been the case. A little over four years later --- in the meantime we had met and worked at Magick together --- we resumed these experiments in a somewhat different form. The success was much greater; but though I could move her, and even any objects which she was touching, I could make no impression on inanimate objects at a distance from her. The behaviour of her dogs, and of her cat, was very curious and interesting. Strangest of all, there appeared those "kinks in Time" which profane science is just beginning to discuss. Example: on one occasion our records of an "interview" agreed with quite extraordinary precision; but, on comparing notes, it was found that owing to some stupid miscalculation of mine, it was all over in Hong Kong some hours before I had started from Honolulu! Again, don't ask me why, or how, or anything! Talking of kinks in Time, I shall now maintain my aforesaid evil notor- iety --- the story is totally asynartete from fascinations of whatever variety --- by recounting what is by far the most inexplicable set of facts that ever came my way. In the summer of 1910 e.v. I was living at 125 Victoria Street, in a studio converted into a Temple by means of a Circle, an Altar and the rest. West of the Altar was a big fireplace with a fender settee; the East wall was covered with bookshelves. Enter the late Theodor Reuss, O.H.O. and Frater Superior of the O.T.O. He wanted me to join that Order. I recommended him, in politer language to repeat the Novocastrian Experi- ment. Undeterred, he insisted: "But you must." (Now we go back, or forward, I know not which, to a night when I found myself stranded in London. I asked hospitality of a stranger; it was readily afforded. Some hours later my hostess fell asleep; I could not do so; something was nagging me. I suddenly took my notebook, and wrote a certain passage in a certain book, since published.) "Must, my foot!" He persisted: "You have published the secret of the nth degree of O.T.O., and you must take the corresponding oaths." "I have done nothing of the sort. I don't know the secret. I don't want to know it. I don't . . . " He interrupted me; he strode across the room; he plucked a book from the shelves; he opened it; he thrust it under my nose; he pointed out a passage with a minatory index. I began to stammer. "Yes, I wrote that. I don't know what it means; I don't like it; I only put it in because it was written in rather curious cir- cumstances, and I was too lazy --- or perhaps a little afraid --- to reject it and write what I wanted." He fastened on one point: "You don't know what it means?" I repeated that I did not, even now that he had claimed it as important. He explained it to me, as to a child. I was merely surprised; it didn't sound possible. (Sister, all this while I've been lying to you like an Archbishop; it is connected wit fascinations; indeed, it has very little to do with anything else!) Finally, he won me over, I went down to his G.H.Q., took the Oaths, was installed in the Throne of the X of O.T.O. as National Sovereign Grand Master General, and began to establish the Order as a going concern. Well, you say, that is a very simple story, nothing specially hard to believe in it. True, but consider the dates. That scene in Victoria Street, is as clear and vivid in my mind, in every detail, as if it were yesterday. That secret is published only in that passage of that book. And --- the book was not published until three years later, and from an address of which in 1910 I had not so much as thought of. The date of my adhesion to the O.T.O. (which, by the way, upset every principle and plan that I had ever held) is equally certain by virtue of subsequent published writings. Now go away and explain that! Well I've given you a fair account of some of the principal fascinations; as to the rest, bewitchments, sorceries, inhibitions and all that lot, it is enough if I say that they follow the regular Laws of Magick; in some, fascination proper plays a prominent part; in others, it is barely more than walking on to say "My lord, the carriage waits!" But --- even that can be done well or ill, and a small mistake may work a mighty mischief. Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXVI MENTAL PROCESSES --- TWO ONLY ARE POSSIBLE Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. "Occult" science is the most difficult of them all. For one thing, its subject-matter includes the whole of philosophy, from ontology and metaphysics down to natural history. More, the most rarefied and recon- dite of these has a direct bearing upon the conduct of life in its most material details, and the simplest study of such apparently earthbound matters as botany and mineralogy leads to the most abstruse calculations of the imponderables. With what weapons, then, are we to attack so formidable a fortress? The first essential is clear thinking. In a previous letter I have dealt to some extent with this subject; but it is so important that you must forgive me if I return to it, and that at length, from the outset, and in detail. Let us begin but having our own minds clear of all ambiguities, ignoring for the purpose of this argument all metaphysical subtleties.7 I want to confine it to the outlook of the "plain man." What do we do when we "think?" There are two operations, and only two, possible to thought. However complex a statement may appear, it can always be reduced to a series of one or other of these. If not, it is a sham statement; nonsense mas- querading as sense in the cloak of verbiage and verbosity. Analysis, and Synthesis; or, Subtraction, and Addition. 1. You can examine A, and find that it is composed of B and C. A = B + C. 2. You can find out what happens to B when you add C to it. B + C = A. As you notice, the two are identical, after all; but the process is different. Example: Raise Copper Oxide to a very high temperature; you obtain metallic copper and oxygen gas. Heat copper in a stream of oxygen; you obtain copper oxide. You can complicate such experiments indefinitely, as when one analyzes coal-tar, or synthesizes complex products like quinine from its elements; but one can always describe what happens as a series of simple operations, either of the analytical or the synthetic type. (I wonder if you remember a delightful passage in Anatole France where he interprets an "exalted" mystical statement, first by giving the words their meaning as concrete images, when he gets a magnificent hymn, like a passage from the Rig-Veda; secondly, by digging down to the original meaning, with an effect comical and even a little ribald. I fear I have no idea where to find it; in one of the "odds and ends" compilations most likely. So please, look somebody; you won't have wasted your time!) This has been put in a sort of text, because the first stumbling-block to study is the one never has any certainty as to what the author means, or thinks he means, or is trying to persuade one that he means. Try something simple: "The soul is part of God." Now then, when he writes "soul" does he mean Atma, or Buddhi, or the Higher Manas, or Purusha, or Yechidah,or Neschamah, or Nepheshch, or Nous, or Psyche, or Phren, or Ba, or Khu, or Ka, or Animus, or Anima, or Seele, or what? As everybody will he nill he, creates "God" in his own image, it is perfectly useless to inquire what he may happen to mean by that. But even this very plain word "part". Does he mean to imply a quantita- tive assertion, as when one says sixpence is part of a pound, or a factor 7* I mean criticisms such as "Definition is impossible;" "All arguments are circular;" "All propositions are tautological." These are true, but one is obliged to ignore them in all practical discussions. indispensable, as when one says "A wheel is part of a motor-car", or . . . (Part actually means "a share, that which is provided," according to Skeat; and I am closer to the place where Moses was when the candle went out than I was before!) The fact is that very few of us know what words mean; fewer still take the trouble to enquire. We calmly, we carelessly assume that our minds are identical with that of the writer, at least on that point; and then we wonder that there should be misunderstandings! The fact is (again!) that usually we don't really want to know; it is so very much easier to drift down the river of discourse, "lazily, lazily, drowsily, drowsily, In the noonday sun". Why is this so satisfactory? Because although we may not know what a word means, most words have a pleasant or unpleasant connotation, each for himself, either because of the ideas or images thus begotten, of hopes or memories stirred up, or merely for the sound of the word itself. (I have gone a month's journey out of my way to visit a town, just because I liked the sound of the name!) Then there are devices: style --- rhythm, cadence, rime, ornamentation of a thousand kinds. I think one may take it that the good writer makes use of such artifice to make his meaning clear; the bad writer to obscure it, or to conceal the fact that he has none. One of the best items of the education system at the Abbey in Cefal was the weekly Essay. Everyone, including children of five or six, had to write on "The Housing Problem," "Why Athens Decayed," "The Marriage System," "Buddhist Ethics" and the like; the subject didn't matter much; the point was that one had to discover, arrange and condense one's ideas about it, so as to present it in a given number of words, 93 or 156, or 418 as like as not, that number, neither more nor less. A superb disci- pline for any writer. I had a marvellous lesson myself some years earlier. I had cut down a certain ritual of initiation to what I thought were the very barest bones, chiefly to make it easy to commit to memory. Then came a candidate who was deaf --- not merely "a little hard of hearing;" his tympana were rup- tured --- and the question was How? All right for most of it; one could show him the words typed on slips. But during part of the ceremony he was hoodwinked; one was reduced to the deaf-and-dumb alphabet devised for such occasions. I am as clumsy and stupid at that as I am at most things, and lazy, infernally lazy, on top of that. Well, when it came to the point, the communication of the words became abominably, intolerably tedious. And then! Then I found that about two-thirds of my "absolutely essential" ritual was not neces- asary at all! That larned 'im. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXVII STRUCTURE OF MIND BASED ON THAT OF BODY (HAECKEL AND BERTRAND RUSSELL) Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Was the sudden cloudburst at the end of my last letter somewhat of a surprise, and more that somewhat of a shock? Cheer up! The worst is yet to come. This is where clean thinking --- a subject whose fringes I seem to remember having touched --- wins the Gold Medal of the Royal Humane Society. It is surely the wise course to accept the plain facts; to try to explain them away, or to excuse them, is certain to involve one in a maelstrom of sophistry; and when, despite these laudable efforts, the facts jump up and land a short jab to the point, one is even worse off than before. This has to be said, because Sammasati is assuredly one of the most useful, as well as one of the most trustworthy and most manageable, weapons in the armoury of the Aspirant. You stop me, obviously with a demand for a personal explanation. "How is it," you write, "that you reject with such immitigable scorn the very foundation-stones of Buddhism, and yet refer disciples enthusiasti- cally to the technique of some of its subtlest super-structures?" I laff. It is the old, old story. When the Buddha was making experiments and recording the results, he was on safe ground: when he started to theorize, committing (incidentally) innumerable logical crimes in the process, he is no better a guesser than the Arahat next door, or for the matter of that, the Arahat's Lady Char. So, if you don't mind, we will look a little into this matter of Samma- sati: what is it when it's at home? It may be no more than a personal fancy, but I think Allan Bennett's translation of the term, "Recollection," is as near as one can get in English. One can strain the meaning slightly to include Re-collection, to imply the ranging of one's facts, and the fitting of them into an organized structure. The term "sati" suggests an identification of Being with Knowledge --- see The Soldier and the Hunchback ! -- ! and ? (Equinox I, 1). So far as it applies to the Magical Memory, it lays stress on some such expedient, very much as is explained in Liber Thisarb (Magick, pp. 415 - 422). But is it not a little strange that "The Abomination of Desolation should be set up in the Holy Place," as it were? Why should the whole- bearted search for Truth and Beauty disclose such hateful and such hideous elements as necessary components of the Absolute Perfection? Never mind the why, for a moment; first let us be sure that it is so. Have we any grounds for expecting this to be the case? We certainly have. This is a case where "clean thinking" is most absolutely helpful. The truth is of exquisite texture; it blazons the escutcheon of the Unity of Nature in such delicate yet forceful colours that the Postulant may well come thereby to the Opening of the Trance of Wonder; yet religious theories and personal pernicketiness have erected against its impact the very stoutest of their hedgehogs of prejudice. Who shall help us here? Not the sonorous Vedas, not the Upanishads, Not Apollonius, Plotinus, Ruysbroeck, Molinos; not any gleaner in the field of priori; no, a mere devotee of natural history and biology: Ernst Haeckel. Enormous, elephantine, his work's bulk is almost incredible; for us his one revolutionary discovery is pertinent to this matter of Samma- sati and the revelations of one's inmost subtle structure. He discovered, and he demonstrated, that the history of any animal throughout the course of its evolution is repeated in the stages of the individual. To put it crudely, the growth of a child from the fertilized ovum to the adult repeats the adventures of its species. This doctrine is tremendously important, and I feel that I do not know how to emphasize it as it deserves. I want to be exceptionally accurate; yet the use of his meticulous scientific terms, with an armoury of quotations, would almost certainly result in your missing the point, "unable to see the wood for the trees." Let me put it that the body is formed by the super-position of layers, each representing a stage in the history of the evolution of the species. The foetus displays essential characteristics of insect, reptile, mammal (or whatever they are) in the order in which these classes of animal appeared in the world's history. Now I want to put forward a thesis --- and as far as I know it is personal to myself, based on my work at Cefal --- to the effect that the mind is constructed on precisely the same lines. You will remember from my note on "Breaks" in meditation how one's gradual improvement in the practice results in the barring-out of certain classes of idea, by classes. The ready-to-hand, recent fugi- tive thoughts come first and first they go. Then the events of the previous day or so, and the preoccupations of the mind for that period. Next, one comes to the layer of reveries and other forms of wish-phanstasm; then cryptomnesia gets busy with incidents of childhood and the like; finally, there intrudes the class of "atmospherics," where one cannot trace the source of the interruption. All these are matters of the conscious rational mind; and when I explored and classified these facts, in the very first months of my serious prac- tice of Yoga, I had no suspicion that they were no more than the foam on a glass of champagne: nay, rather of "black wine in jars of jade Cooled all these months in hoarded snow, Black wine with purple starlight in its bosom, Oily and sweet as the soul of a brown maid Brought from the forenoon's archipelago, Her brows bound bright with many a scarlet blossom Like the blood of the slain that flowered free When we met the black men knee to knee." How apt the verses are! How close are wine and snow to lust and slaughter! I have been digressing, for all that; let us return to our goats! The structure of the mind reveals its history as does the structure of the body. (Capitals, please, or bang on something; that has got to sink in.) Just as your body was at one stage the body of an ape, a fish, a frog (and all the rest of it) so did that animal at that stage possess a mind correlative. Now then! In the course of that kind of initiation conferred by Samma- sati, the layers are stripped off very much as happens in elementary meditation (Dharana) to the conscious mind. (There is a way of acquiring a great deal of strange and unsuspected knowledge of these matters by the use of Sulphuric Ether, [C2H5]2O, according to a special technique. I wrote a paper on it once, 16 pp. 4to, and fearing that it might be lost had many copies made and distributed. Where is it? I must write you a letter one day.) Accordingly, one finds oneself experiencing the thoughts, the feelings, the desires of a gorilla, a crocodile, a rat, a devil-fish, or what have you! One is no longer capable of human thoughts in the ordinary sense of the word; such would be wholly unintelligible. I leave the rest to your imagination; doesn't it sound to you a little like some of the accounts of "The Dweller on the Threshold?" Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXVIII NEED TO DEFINE "GOD", "SELF", ETC. Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Artless remark!8 Oh you! Well, I suppose it's a gift --- to stir Hell to its most abysmal horror with one small remark slipped in at the end. Scorpion! 8* Refers to a pious phrase at the end of her letter. "Higher self" --- "God within us." Dear Lady, you could never have picked five words from Iroquois, or Banti, or Basuto or the Jargon of Master Franois Villon, or Pictish, which severally and together convey less to my mind. No, no, not Less: I mean More, so much more that it amounts to nothing at all. Spencer Montmorency Bourbon Hohenstaufen sounds very exclusive and aristocratic, and even posh or Ritzy; but if you bestow these names upon every male child, the effect tends to diminish. The "Southern Gentleman" Lee Davis9 recently hanged for rape and murder, was not a near relation either of the General or the President: he was a Nigger. Gimme the old spade, I've got to go digging again. 1. Higher. Here we fall straight into the arms of Freud. Why "higher?" Because in a scrap it is easier to strangle him if you are on top. When very young children watch their parents in actu coitus, a circumstance exceedingly usual almost anywhere outside England, and even here where houseroom is restricted, the infant supposes that his mother, upon whom he depends entirely for nourishment, is being attacked by the intrusive stranger whom they want him to address as "Dad." From this seed springs an "over-under complex," giving rise later on, in certain cases to whole legions of neuroses. Now then make it a little clearer, please, just what you mean by "higher." Skeat seems to connect it with hills, swellings, boils, the maternal breast; is that reason enough for us to connect it with the idea of advantage, or --- "superiority" merely translates it into Latin! --- worth, or --- no, it's really too difficult. Of course, sometimes it has a "bad" meaning, as of temperature in fever; but nearly always it implies a condition preferable to "low." Applied to the "self," it becomes a sort of trade name; nobody tells me if he means Khu, or Ba, or Khabs, or Ut of the Upanishads or Augoeides of the Neo-Platonists, or Adonai of the Bulwer-Lytton, or --- --- here we are with all those thrice-accurs't alternatives. There is not, cannot be, any specific meaning unless we start with a sound skeleton of ontogenic theory, a well-mapped hierarchy of the Cosmos, and define the term anew. Then why use it? To do so can only cause confusion, unless the context helps us to clarify the image. And that is surely rather a defeatist attitude, isn't it? When I first set myself to put a name to my "mission" --- the contempla- 9^ WEH NOTE: Crowley sometimes carries his despite for euphemism to a point that obscures his purpose. The use of the term "nigger" here gives such offense to the modern reader that the point can be missed! This was not so in Crowley's youth, when this term was used without regard for its effect. For the record, "nigger" does not derive from "negro" = "black" but from "niggard" = "lazy". Crowley uses it here for the stereotype; but he also uses it deliberately to shock, as a lazy way to make such an effect. That makes Crowley a "nigger" at this point, as the word is properly defined! {Research Lee Davis --- } tion carried me half-way across South-West China --- I considered these alternatives. I thought to cut the Gordian Knot, and call it by Abramelin's title the "Holy Guardian Angel" because (I mused) that will be as intelligible to the villagers of Pu Peng as to the most learned Pundits; moreover, the implied theory was so crude that no one need be bound by it. All this is rubbish, as you will see when we reach the discussion on "self:" To explain now would lead to too unwieldy a digression. 2. "Within." If you don't mind, we'll tackle this now, while "higher" is fresh in our minds; for it is also a preposition. First you want to go up; then you want to go in. Why? As "higher" gave the idea of aggression, of conquest, "within" usually implies safety. Always we get back to that stage of history when the social unit, based on the family, was little less than condition No. 1 of survival. The house, the castle, the fortified camp, the city wall; the "gens," the clan, the tribe, the "patrie," to be outside means dan- ger from cold, hunger and thirst, raiding parties, highway robbers, bears, wolves, and tigers. To go out was to take a risk; and, your labour and courage being assets to your kinsmen, you were also a bad man; in fact, a "bounder" or "outsider." "Debauch" is simply "to go out of doors!" St. John says: "without are dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and adulterers and idolaters and. ." --- so on. We of Thelema challenge all this briskly. "The word of Sin is Restriction." (AL I, 41). Our formula, roughly speaking, is to go out and grab what we want. We do this so thoroughly that we grow thereby, extending our conception of "I" by including each new accretion instead of remaining a closely delineated self, proud of possessing other things, as do the Black Brothers. We are whole-hearted extroverts; the penalty of restricting oneself is anything from neurosis to down right lunacy; in particular, melancholia. You ask whether these remarks do not conflict with my repeated definition of Initiation as the Way In. Not at all; the Inmost is identical with the All. As you travel inward, you become able to perceive all the layers which surround the "Self" from within, thus enlarging the scope of your vision of the Universe. It is like moving from a skirmishing patrol to G.H.Q.; and the object of so doing is obviously to exercise constantly increasing control over the whole Army. Every step in rank enables you both to see more and to do more; but one's attention is inevitably directed outward. When the entire system of the Universe is conterminous with your compre- hension, "inward" and "outward" become identical. But it won't do at all to seek anything within but a point of view, for the simple reason that there is nothing else there! It is just like all those symbols in The Book of Thoth; as soon as you get to the "end" of anything, you suddenly find it is the "beginning." To formulate the idea of "self" at all, you must posit limitations; any- thing that is distinguishable is a mere temporary (and arbitrary) selection of the finite from the infinite; whatever you chose to think of, it changes, it grows, it disappears. You have got to train your mind to canter through those leafy avenues of thought upon the good green turf of Indifference; when you can do it without conscious effort, so that up-down, in-out, far-near, black-white (and so on for everything) appears quite automatically, you are already as near an Initiate as makes no matter. 3. "Self." For a full discussion of this see Letter XLII. 4. "God." This is really to bad of you! Of all the hopelessly mangled words in the language, you settle with unerring Sadism on the most brutally butchered. Crippen10 was an amateur. Skeat hardly helps us at all, except by warning us that "good" has nothing whatever to do with it.11 Dieu comes from Deus, with all its Sol-Jupiter references, and Deos, which Plato thought meant a runner; hence, Sun, Moon, Planets. The best I can do for you, honest Injun! is the Russian word for god Bog; connected probably, though the Lithuanian, with the Welsh Bwq a spectre or hobgoblin. Bugge, too. Not very inspiring, is it, to replace the Old Hundredth by "Hush! Hush! Hush! here come the Bogey Man." Or is it. Enough of this fooling! Out, trusty rapier, and home to the stone heart of the audacious woman that wrote "God within us." I know you thought you knew more or less what you meant when you wrote it; but surely that was a mere slip. An instant's thought would have warned you that the word wouldn't stand even the most superficial analysis You meant "Something which seems to me the most perfect symbol of all that I love, worship, admire" --- all that class of verb. But nobody else will have the same set of qualities in his private museum; you have, as every one has always done, made another God in your own image. Then the Vedantists define God as "having neither quality nor quantity;" and some Yogis have a practice of setting up images to knock them down at once with "Not that! Not that!" And the Buddhists won't admit any God at all in anything at all like the sense in which you use the word12. What's worse, whatever you may mean by "God" conveys no idea to me: I 10* Crippen was a famous English poisoner who was caught and hung. 11^ WEH NOTE: Shipley's Dictionary of Word Origins sneaks the following in under the word "goodbye": "God, Goth. guth, may be traced to Aryan ghut, god, from ghuto, to implore: God is the one to whom we pray." "God" might also be a contraction of "Odin", as "'Od" --- have the English speaking Christians been praying to the Aesir all this time? 12* One of the most amusing passages of irony is to be found in The Questions of King Milinda where the Arhat Nagasena demolishes Maha Brahma. can only guess by the light of my exceedingly small knowledge of you and your general habits of thought and action. Then what sense was there in chucking it at my head? Half a brick would have served you better. You think you can explain to me viva voce, perhaps? Don't you dare try! Whatever you said, I should prove to be nonsense, philosophically and in a dozen other ways. And the County Council Ambulance would bundle you off in your battered and bewildered dbris to the Bug-house, as is so etymologically indicated. Do see it simply; the word must in any event connote ideas of Neschamah, not of Ruach. "But you use the word all the time." Yes, I do, and rely on the context to crystallize this most fluid --- or gaseous --- of expressions. 5. "Us". Why "Us"? Is this a reference to the Old School Tie, or that Finishing School in Brussels, and the ticket to the Royal enclosure at Ascot? I do not suppose for a moment that you meant it that way: but it's there. And so --- Anecdote of Lao-Tze. The Old One was surrounded as usual by a galaxy of adoring disciples, and they were trying to get him to show them where the Tao was to be found. It was in the Sun and Moon, he admitted; it was in the Son of Heaven and in the Superior Man. (Not George Nathaniel Curzon, however). It was in the Blossoms of Springtide, and in the chilling winds that swept over from Siberia, and in the Wild Geese that it bore Southward when their instinct bade them. In short, the catalogue began to look is if it were going to extend indefinitely; and an impatient disciple, pointing to certain traces left by a mule in its recent passage, asked: "And is the Tao also in that?" The Master nodded, and echoed: "Also in that." . . . . . . . . Then what becomes of this privileged "us"? We are obliged to extend it to include everything. Then, as we have just seen, "God" also is un- fettered by definitions. Net result: "God within us" means precisely nothing at all. And so it does, By Bradman! "Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt. But whoso availeth in this, let him be the chief of all!" (AL I, 22 - 23) I implore you not to point out that, this being the case, words like "hurt" and "chief" cannot possibly mean anything. The fact is that if we are to get on peaceably in the Club, we have to know when to take any given expression in a Pickwickian sense. In the Ruach all the laws of logic apply: they don't in Neschamah. The real meaning of the passage is simple enough, if you understand that it refers to a specific result of Initiation. You have to be able to reckon up the Universe, as a whole and in every part; and to get rid of all its false or partial realities by discarding everything but the One Reality which is the sole truth in, and of Illusion. There is one set of equations which express the relation of the Perceiver and the Perceived, adjusted in accordance with the particular limitations on both sides; another cancels out all the finite terms, and leaves us with an ultimate x = o = O. See? I know I'm a disheartening kind of bloke, and it does seem so unfriendly to jump down a fellow's throat every minute or so when she tries to put it ever so nicely, and it is so easy --- isn't it? --- to play the game of Sanctimonious Grandiloquence, and surely what was said was perfectly harmless, and . . . . No, N.O., no: not harmless at all. My whole object is it train you to silence every kind of hypothetical speculation, and formulae both reso- nant and satisfying. I want you to --- abhor them abominate them despise them detest them escew them hate them loathe them and da capo. and to get on with your practice. Then when you get the results, you can try, albeit uselessly, to fit your own words to the facts, if you should wish to communicate, for any good reason, your experiences to other people. Then, despairing of your impotence, how glad you will be that you have been trained not to let anyone fob you of with phrases. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally yours, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXIX WHAT IS CERTAINTY Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Well, I suppose I ought to have expected you to cock that wise left eyebrow at me! Right you are to wonder precisely what I mean by "certainty", in the light of: "On Soul's curtain Is written this one certainty, that naught is certain." Then there is that chapter in The Book of Lies (again!) "The Chinese cannot help thinking that the Octave has five notes." "The more necessary anything appears to my mind, the more certain it is that I only assert a limitation." "I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on awaking." "I drank and danced all night with Doubt, and found her a virgin in the morning." I wouldn't start to argue with the Chinese, if I were you; they might remind you that you exude the stench peculiar to corpses. Again, that other "Hymn to St. Thomas", as I ought perhaps to have called it: "Doubt. Doubt Thyself Doubt even if thou doubtest thyself. Doubt all Doubt even if thou doubtest all." "It seems sometimes as if beneath all conscious doubt there lay some deepest certainty. O kill it! slay the snake!" "The horn of the Doubt-Goat be exalted!" "Dive deeper, ever deeper, into the Abyss of Mind, until thou unearth that fox THAT. On, hounds! Yoicks! Tally-ho! Bring THAT to bay!" "Then, wind the Mort!" Once more --- what a book that is: I never realized it until now! it says --- see that double page at the onset, one with "?" and the other with "!" alone upon the blank. Moreover you should read the long essay "The Soldier and the Hunchback: ! and?" in the first volume and number of The Equinox. But every one of those --- rather significant, nich wahr? --- slides into a rhapsody of exaltation, a dithyramb, a Paean13. No good here. For 13* It seems natural to me --- apodeictic after a fashion --- to treat Doubt as positive, even aggressive. There is none of the wavering, wobbling, woebegone wail of the weary and bewildered wage-slave; it is a trium- phant challenge, disagreement for its own sake. Irish! Browing painted a quite perfect picture of my Doubt. "Up jumped Tokay on our table, Like a pigmy castle-warder, Dwarfish to see but stout and able, Arms and accoutrement all in order; what you want is a penny plain pedestrian prose Probability-Percentage. You want to know what the Odds are when I say "certain". A case for casuistry? At least, for classification. It depends rather on one's tone of voice? Yes, of course, and as to the classification, off we jog to the Divine Pymander, who saw, and stated, the quiddity of our query with his accustomed lucidity. He discerns three degrees of Truth; and he distinguishes accordingly: --- 1. True 2. Certain without error 3. Of all truth. Clear enough, the difference between 1 and 2: ask me the time, I say half-past two; and that's true enough. But the Astronomer Royal is by no manner of means satisfied with any approximation of that kind. He wants it accurate. He must know the longitude to a second; he must have decided what method of measuring time is to be used; he must make corrections for this and for that; and he must have attached an (arbitrary) interpretation to the system; the whole question of Relativity pops up. And, even so, he will enter a caveat about every single ganglion in the gossamer of his calculations. Well then, all this intricate differentiation and integration and verifi- cation and Lord knows what leads at last to a statement which may be called "Certain without Error". Excuse me just a moment! When I was staying at the Consulate of Tengyueh, just inside the S.W. frontier of China, our one link with England, Home, and Beauty was the Telegraph Service from Pekin. One week it was silent, and we were anxious for news, our last bit of information having been that there was rioting in Shanghai, seventeen Sikh policemen killed. For all we knew the whole country might rise en masse at any moment to expel the "Foreign Devils". At last the welcome messenger trotted across from the city in the twilight with a whole sheaf of telegrams. Alas, save for the date of dispatch, the wording in each one was identical: each told us that it was noon in Pekin! They had to be relayed at Yung Chang, and both the operators had taken ten days off to smoke opium, sensible fellows! And fierce he looked North, then wheeling South Blew with his bugle a challenge to Drouth, Cocked his flap-hat with the tosspot feather, Twisted his thumb in his red moustache, Jingled his huge brass spurs together, Tightened his waist with its Buda Sash, And then, with an impudence nought could abash Shrugged his hump-shoulder, to tell the beholder, For twenty such knaves he should laugh but the bolder; And so, with his sword-hilt gallantly jutting, And dexter hand on his haunch abutting, Went the little man, Sir Ausbruch, strutting!" It's not the least bit like Tokay; rather the Bull's Blood its neighbor, or any rough strong red wine like Rioja. Curious, though, his making him a hunchbacked dwarf; there must be something in this deep down. I wonder what! (Ask Jung!) But Hermes Trismegistus is not content with any such fugues as the Astronomer, however cunning and colossal his Organ; his Third Degree demands much more than this. The Astronomer's estimate has puttied every tiniest crack, he concedes it, but then waves it brusquely away: all the time the door is standing wide open! The Astronomer's exquisitely tailored figure stands in abashed isolation, like a gawky young man at his first Ball; he feels that he doesn't belong, For this D.S.T., or Greenwich, or what not, however exact in itself, is so only in reference to some other set of measurements which themselves turn out to be arbitrary; it is not of any ultimate import; nobody can dispute it, but it simply doesn't matter to anybody, apart from the particular case. It is not "Of all Truth." What Hermes means by this it will be well to enquire. May we call it "a truth of Religion?" (Don't be shocked! The original word implies a binding-together-again, as in a "Body of Doctrine:" com- pare the word "Ligature". It was only later by corruption, that the word came to imply "piety;" re-ligens, attentive (to the gods) as opposed to neg-ligens, neglectful.) I think that Hermes was contemplating a Ruach closely knitted together and anchored by incessant Aspiration to the Supernal Triad; just such an one, in short, as appears in those remarks on the Magical Memory, a God-man ready to discard his well-worn Instrument for a new one, bought up to date with all the latest improvements (the movement of the Zeit- geist during his past incarnation, in particular) well wrought and ready for his use. This being so, a truth which is "of all Truth" should mean any proposi- tion which forms an essential part of this Khu --- this "Magical Identity" of a man. How how curious it must appear at the first glance to note that the truths of this order should prove to be what we call Axioms --- or even Platitudes --- . . . . . . What's that noise? . . . . . . I think I hear Sir Ausbruch! And in full eruption too! And hasn't he the right? For all this time we've bluffed our way breezily ahead over the sparkling seas, oblivious of that very Chinese Chinese-puzzle that we started with, the paradox (is it?) of the Chinese Gamut. (We shan't get into doldrums; there's always the way out from "?" to "!" as with any and every intellectual problem whatsoever: it's the only way. Otherwise, of course, we get to A is A, A is not-A, not-A is not-A, not-A is A, as is inevitable). "The more certain I am of anything, the more certain it is that I am only asserting a limitation of my own mind." Very good, but what am I to do about it? Some at least of such certain- ties must surely be "of all Truth". The test of admission to this class ought to be that, of one were to accept the contradictory of the proposi- tion, the entire structure of the Mind would be knocked to pieces, as is not at all the case with the Astronomer's determination, which may turn out to be wrong for a dozen different reasons without anybody getting seriously wounded in his tenderest feelings. The Statesman knows instinctively, or at worst, by his training and experience, what sort of assertion, harmless enough on the surface, may be "dangerous thinking", a death-blow to his own idea of what is "of all Truth", and strikes out wildly in a panic entirely justifiable from his own point of view. Exhibit No. 1: Galileo and that lot. What could it possibly matter to the Gospel story that people should think that the Earth moves round the Sun? (Riemann, and oh! such a lot of things, have shewn that it didn't and doesn't! This sort of "Truth" is only a set of conventions.) "Oh, don't gas away like this! I want to know what to do about it. Am I to accept this cauerwauling Gamut, and enlarge my Mind, and call it an Initiation? Or am I to nail my own of-all-Truth Tonic Solfa to the Mast, and go down into the Maelstrom of Insanity with colours flying? Do you really need Massed Bands to lull Baby to sleep? The Master of the Temple deals very simply and efficiently with problems of this kind. "The Mind" (says he) of this Party of the First Part, hereinafter referred to as Frater N (or whatever his 8 = 3 motto may be) is so constructed that the interval from C to C is most harmoniously divided into n notes; that of the Party of the Second Part hereinafter referred to as --- not a Heretic, an Atheist, a Bolshie, ad Die-hard, a Schismatic, and Anarchist, a Black Magician, a Friend of Aleister Crowley, or whatever may be the current term of abuse --- Mr. A, Lord B, the Duke of C, Mrs. X, or whatever he or she may chance to be called --- into five. The Structure called of-all-Truth in neither of us is affected in the least, any more than in the reading of a Thermometer with Fahrenheit on one side and Centigrade on the other. You naturally object that this answer is little better than an evasion, that it automatically pushes the Gamut question outside the Charmed of- all-Truth Circle. No, it doesn't really; for if you were able to put up a Projection of those two minds, there would be, firstly, some sort of compensation elsewhere than in the musical section; and secondly, some Truth of a yet higher order which is common to both. Not unaware am I that these conceptions are at first exceedingly diffi- cult to formulate clearly. I wouldn't go so far as to say that one would have to be a Master of the Temple to understand them; but it is really very necessary to have grasped firmly the doctrine that "a thing is only true insofar as it contains its contradiction in itself." (A good way to realize this is by keeping up a merry dance of paradoxes, such as infest Logic and Mathematics. The repeated butting of the head against a brick wall is bound in the long run to shake up the little grey cells [as Poirot might say], teach you to distrust any train of argument, however apparently impeccable the syllogisms, and to seek ever more eagerly the dawn of that Neschamic consciousness where all these things are clearly understood, although impossible to express in rational language.) The prime function of intellect is differentiation; it deals with marks, with limits, with the relations of what is not identical; in Neschamah all this work has been carried out so perfectly that the "rough working" has passed clean out of mind; just so, you say "I" as if it were an indivisible Unity, unconscious of the inconceivably intricate machinery of anatomical, physiological, psychological construction which issues in this idea of "I". We may then with some confidence reaffirm that our certainties do assert our limitations; but this kind of limitation is not necessarily harmful, provided that we view the situation in its proper perspective, that we understand that membership of the of-all-Truth class does not (as one is apt to think at first sight) deepen the gulfs which separate mind from mind, but on the contrary put us in a position to ignore them. Our acts of "love under will," which express our devotion to Nuit, which multiply the fulfillments of our possibilities, become continually more efficacious, and more closely bound up with our Formula of Initiation; and we progres- sively become aware of deeper and vaster Images of the of-all-Truth class, which reconcile, by including within themselves, all apparent antinomies. It is certain without error that I ought to go to bed. Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXX DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD? Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. You are quite right, as usual. True, we have gone over a great deal of the ground in various learned disquisitions of Gods, Angels, Elves, et hoc genus omne. But God with a capital "G" in the singular is a totally different pair of Blchers --- nicht wahr? Let me go back just for a moment to the meaning of "belief". We agreed that the word was senseless except as it implies an opinion, instinct, conviction --- what you please! --- so firmly entrenched in our natures that we act automatically as if it were "true" and "certain without error," perhaps even "of the essence of truth." (Browning discusses this in Mr. Sludge the Medium.) Good: the field is clear for an enquiry into this word "God". We find ourselves in trouble from the start. We must define; and to define is to limit; and to limit is to reduce "God" to "a God" or at best "the God". He must be omniscient ({symbol of alchemical mercury}) omnipotent, ({Al. Sulfur}) and omnipresent ({Al. Salt}); yet to such a Being no purpose would be possible; so that all the apol- ogies for the existence of "evil" crash. If there be opposites of any kind, there can be no consistency. He cannot be Two; He must be One; yet, as is obvious, he isn't. How do the Hindu philosophers try to get out of this quag? "Evil" is "illusion;" has no "real" existence. Then what is the point of it? They say "Not that, not that!" denying to him all attributes; He is "that which is without quantity or quality." They contradict themselves at every turn; seeking to remove limit, they remove definition. Their only refuge is in "superconsciousness." Splendid! but now "belief" has disappeared altogether; for the word has no sense unless it is subject to the laws of normal thought...Tut! you must be feeling it yourself; the further one goes, the darker the path. All I have written is some- how muddled and obscure, maugre my frenzied struggle for lucidity, simplicity . . . . Is this the fault of my own sophistication? I asked myself. Tell you what! I'll trot round to my masseuse, and put it up to her. She is a simple country soul, by no means over-educated, but intelligent; capable of a firm grasp of the principles of her job; a steady church-goer on what she considers worthwhile occasions; dislikes the rector, but praises his policy of keeping his discourse within bounds. She has done quite a lot of thinking for herself; distrusts and despises the Press and the Radio, has no use for ready-made opinions. She shares with the flock their normal prejudices and phobias, but is not bigoted about them, and follows readily enough a line of simply-expressed destructive criticism when it is put to her. This is, however, only a temporary reaction; a day later she would repeat the previous inanities as if they had never been demolished. In the late fifties, at a guess. I sprang your question on her out of the blue, la "doodle-bug;" premising merely that I had been asked the question, and was puzzled as to how to answer it. Her reply was curious and surprising: without a moment's hesitation and with great enthusiasm, "Quickly, yes!" The spontaneous reservation struck me as extremely interesting. I said: of course, but suppose you think it over --- and out --- a bit, what am I to understand? She began glibly "He's a great big --- " and broke off, looking foolish. Then, although omnipotent, He needed our help --- we were all just as powerful as He, for we were little bits of each other --- but exactly how, or to what end, she did not make clear. An exclama- tion: "Then there is the Devil!" She went on without a word from me for a long while, tying herself up into fresh knots with every phase. She became irreverent, then down- right blasphemous; stopped short and began to laugh at herself. And so forth --- but, what struck me as curious and significant, in the main her argument followed quite closely the lines which came naturally to me, at the beginning of this letter! In the end, "curiouser and curiouser," she arrived at a practically identical conclusion: she believed, but what she believed in was Nothing! As to our old criterion of what we imply in practice when we say that we believe, she began by saying that If we "helped" God in His mysterious plan, He would in some fashion or other look after us. But about this she was even more vague than in the matter of intellectual conviction; "helping God" meant behaving decently according to one's own instinctive ideas of what "decently" means. It is very encouraging that she should have seen, without any prompting on my part, to what a muddle the question necessarily led; and very nice for me, because it lets me out, cara soror! Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 P.S. I thought it a good plan to put my fundamental position all by itself in a postscript; to frame it. My observation of the Universe convinces me that there are beings of intelligence and power of a far higher quality than anything we can conceive of as human; that they are not necessarily based on the cerebral and nervous structures that we know; and that the one and only chance for mankind to advance as a whole is for individuals to make contact with such Beings. ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXXI RELIGION --- IS THELEMA A "NEW RELIGION?" Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. "Would you describe your system as a new religion?" A pertinent question, you doubtless suppose; whether it may happen to mean anything is --- is --- is --- well, is what we must try to make clear. True, it's a slogan of A.'. A.'. "The method of science --- the aim of religion." Here the word "aim" and the context help the definition; it must mean the attainment of Knowledge and Power in spiritual matters --- or words to that effect: as soon as one selects a phrase, one starts to kick holes in it! Yet we both know perfectly well all the time what we do mean. But this is certainly not the sense of the word in your question. It may clear our minds, as has so often happened, if we examine it through the lens of dear old Skeat. Religion, he says, Latin: religio, piety. Collection or paying atten- tion to: religens as opposed to negligens, neglecting; the attitude of Gallio. But it also implies a binding together i.e. of ideas; in fact, a "body of doctrine." Not a bad expression. A religion then, is a more or less coherent and consistent set of beliefs, with precepts and prohibitions therefrom deducible. But then there is the sense in which Frazer (and I) often use the word: as in opposition to "Science" or "Magic". Here the point is that religious people attribute phenomena to the will of some postulated Being or Beings, placable and moveable by virtue of sacrifice, devotion, or appeal. Against such, the scienti- fic or magical mind believes in the Laws of Nature, asserts "If A, then B" --- if you do so-and-so, the result will be so-and-so, aloof from arbitrary interference. Joshua, it is alleged, made the sun stand still by supplication, and Hezekiah in the same way cause it to "go back upon the dial of Ahaz;" Willett did it by putting the clock back, and getting an Act of Parliament to confirm his lunacy. Petruchio, too "It shall be what o'clock I say it is!" The two last came close to the magical method; at least, to that branch of it which consists of "fooling all the people all the time." But such an operation, if true Magick were employed, would be beyond the power of any magician of my acquaintance; for it would mess up the solar system completely. (You remember how this happened, and what came of it, in a rather clever short story by H.G. Wells.14) For true Magick means "to employ one set of natural forces at a mechanical advantage as against another set" --- I quote, as closely as memory serves, Thomas Henry Huxley, when he explains that when he lifts his water-jug --- or his elbow --- he does not "defy the Law of Gravitation." On the contrary, he uses that Law; its equations form part of the system by which he lifts the jug without spilling the water. To sum up, our system is a religion just so far as a religion means an enthusiastic putting-together of a series of doctrines, no one of which must in any way clash with Science or Magick. Call it a new religion, then, if it so please your Gracious Majesty; but I confess that I fail to see what you will have gained by so doing, and I feel bound to add that you might easily cause a great deal of misunderstanding, and work a rather stupid kind of mischief. The word does not occur in The Book of the Law. Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXXII HOW CAN A YOGI EVER BE WORRIED? Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. That question I have been expecting for a very long time! And what you expect is to see my middle stump break the wicket-keeper's nose, with the balls smartly fielded by Third Man and Short Leg! I admit that it looks like a strong case. Here (you put it in your more elegant prose) we have a Yogi, nay more, a Paramahamsa, a Bodhisattva of the best: yea, further, we have a Master of the Temple --- and is not his Motto "Vi veri vniversom vivus vici?" and yet we find him fussing like an old hen over the most trivial of troubles; we find him wrapped in the lacustrine vapours of Avernus, fretting himself into a fever about imagi- nary misfortunes at which no normal person would do more than cast a contemptuous glance, and get on with the job. Yes, although you can scarcely evade indictment for unnecessarily employ- ing the language of hyperbole, I see what you mean. Yet the answer is adequate; the very terms of his Bargain with Destiny not only allow for, but imply, some such reaction on the part of the Master to the Bludgeon- ings of Fate. (W. E. Henley15) There are two ways of looking at the problem. One is what I may call the mathematical. If I have ten and sixpence in the world and but a 14^ WEH NOTE: {Research it --- may be "The Man Who Could Work Miracles" -- also the British film made of the story about the time Crowley was writing.} 15* An English poet. half-guinea cigar, I have no money left to buy a box of matches. To "snap out of it" and recover my normal serenity requires only a minute effort, and the whole of my magical energy is earmarked for the Great Work. I have none left to make that effort. Of course, if the worry is enough to interfere with that Work, I must detail a corporal's file to abate the nuisance. The other way may be called the Taoist aspect. First, however, let me explain the point of view of the Master of the Temple, as it is so similar. You should remember from your reading what happens in this Grade. The new Master is "cast out" into the sphere appropriate to the nature of his own particular Great Work. And it is proper for him to act in true accordance with the nature of the man as he was when he passed through that Sphere (or Grade) on his upward journey. Thus, if he be cast out into 3 = 8, it is no part of his work to aim at the virtues of a 4 = 7; all that has been done long before. It is no business of his to be bothering his head about anything at all but his Work; so he must react to events as they occur in the way natural to him without trying to "improve himself." (This, of course, applies not only to worry, but to all his funny little ways.) The Taoist position differs little, but it is independent of all consi- derations of the man's attainment; it is an universal rule based on a particular theory of things in general. Thus, "benevolence and right- eousness" are not "virtues;" they are only symptoms of the world-disease, in that they should be needed. The same applies to all conditions, and to all modes of seeking to modify them. There is only one proper reaction to event; that is, to adjust oneself with perfect elasticity to whatever happens. That tiger across the paddy-field looks hungry. There are several ways of dealing with the situation. One can run away, or climb a tree, or shoot him, or (in your case) cow him by the Power of the Human Eye; but the way of the Tao is to take no particular notice. (This, incidentally, is not such bad Magick; the diversion of your attention might very well result in your becoming invisible, as I have explained in a previous letter.) The theory appears to be that, although your effort to save yourself is successful, it is bound to create a disturbance of equili- brium elsewhere, with results equally disastrous. Even more so; it might be that to be eaten by a tiger is just what you needed in your career through the incarnations; at that moment there might well be a vacancy somewhere exactly where it will do most good to your Great Work. When you press on one spot, you make a corresponding bulge in another, as we often see a beautiful lady, unhappy about her waist-line, adopt drastic measures, and transform herself into the semblance of a Pouter Puffin! In theory, I am particularly pleased about this Method, because it goes for everybody, requires no knowledge, no technical training, "no nuffin." All the same, it won't do for me, except in a much modified form, and in very special cases; because no course of action (or inaction) is conceivable that would do great violence to my nature. So let me worry along, please, with the accent on the "along;" I will grin and bear it, or, if it gets so bad that I can't do my Work, I will make the necessary effort to abate the nuisance, always most careful to do as little damage as possible to the main current of my total Energy. Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== CHAPTER XXXIII THE GOLDEN MEAN Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. You would think that one who like myself has the Sun, the Lord of His Horoscope, in Libra, with Venus who rules that sign in close conjunction with him, with Saturn trine, Uranus sextile, Mars square and Luna quincunx to him, would wear the Golden Mean as a breastplate, flaunt it on my banneret, quarter it on my escutcheon, and grave it on the two-edged blade of my thrice trusty falchion! Just so, objects that instinct itself! "Had you been born a few hours earlier, with Aries rising, its lord Mars aggravated by the square of Sol and Venus, you would indeed have bee a Wild Man of the Woods, arro- gant, bigoted, domineering, incapable of seeing a second side to any question, headstrong, haughty, a seething hell-broth of hate; and this fact disables your judgment." All perfectly true. My equable nature is congenitally hostile to extreme measures, except in imagination. I cannot bear sudden violent movements. Climbing rocks, people used to say that I didn't climb them, that I oozed over them! This explains, I think, my deep-seated dislike of many passages in The Boot of the Law. "O prophet! thou hast ill will to learn this writing. I see thee hate the hand & the pen; but I am stronger." (AL II, 10-11) Well, what is the upshot of all this? It answers your question about the value to be attached to this Golden Mean. There is no rule about it; your own attitude is proper for yourself, and has no value for anybody else. But you must make sure exactly what that attitude actually is, deep down. Let us go back for a moment to the passage above quoted. The text goes on to give the reason for the facts. "Because of me in Thee which thou knewest not. for why? Because thou wast the knower, and me." (AL II, 12 -13) The unexpected use or disuse of capitals, the queer syntax, the unintelligibility of the whole passage: these certainly indicate some profound Qabalistic import in these texts. So we had better mark that Strictly Private, and forget it. One point, however, we have forgotten: although my Libra inclinations do bias me personally, they also make me fair-minded, "a judge, and a good judge too" in the memorable phrase of the late William Schwenk Gilbert. So I will sum up what is to be said for and against this Golden Mean. As usual, nobody has taken the trouble to define the term. We know that it was extolled by both the Greek and the Chinese philosophers; but I cannot see that they meant much more than to counsel the avoidance of extremes, whether of measures or of opinions; and to advocate modera- tion in all things. James Hilton has a most amusing Chinese in his Lost Horizon. When the American 100% he-man, mixer, joiner, and go-getter, agrees with him about broadmindedness in religious beliefs, and ends "and I'm dead sure you're right!" his host mildly rebukes him, saying: "But we are only moderately sure." Such thought ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (mwt-b.zip interrupts here) (http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/mwt_33.txt continues here) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- plumbs the Abysses of Wisdom; at least, it may quite possibly do so. Forgive me if I emulate the teacher! But this is not as simple as it sounds. There is great danger in this Golden Mean, one of whose main objects is to steer clear of shipwreck, Scylla being as fatal as Charybdis. No, this lofty and equable attitude is worse than wrong unless it derives from striking the balance between two very distant opposites. One of the worst perils of the present time is that, in the reaction against ignorant bigotry, people no longer dare to make up their minds about anything. The very practice, which the A.'. A.'. so strongly and persistently advocates, tends to make people feel that any positive attitude or gesture is certainly wrong, whatever may be right. They forget that the opposite may, within the limit of the universe of discourse, amount to nothing. They fall into flabbiness. I avoid this--see the example at the very outset of this letter--by saying: "Yes, I hate so-and-so like hell; I want to exterminate the very memory of the bastard from the earth, after I have personally superintended having him 'Seven years a-killing' winding up by hanging, disembowelling, and quartering him. But of course I'm not necessarily right about this in any sense; it is merely that I happened to be born the kind of man that feels like that!" Of course, in no case does the Golden Mean advise hesitating, trimming, hedging, compromising; the very object of ensuring an exact balance in your weapon is that its blow may be clean and certain. You know how all our faults love to disguise themselves as virtues; very often, as what our neighbours call virtues, not what we ourselves think them. We are all ashamed to be ourselves; and this is sheer, stark stultification. For we are ourselves; we cannot get away from it; all our hypocrisies and shams are just as much part of ourselves as what we like to think is the real man. All that we do when we make these pretenses is to set up internal strain and conflict; there is nothing objective in it. Instead of adding to our experience, which is the Great Work, we shut ourselves up in this citadel of civil turmoil; it is the Formula of the Black Brothers. The Golden Mean is more valuable as the extremes which it summarizes are distant from each other; that is the plain mechanics of the lever. So don't pay too much attention to these remarks; they are no more than the quiet fireside reflections of a man who has spent all his life breaking records. The Golden Mean at its best can only keep you from extravagant blunders; it will never get you anywhere. The Book of the Law constantly implies a very different policy; listen to its climax-exhortation: "But exceed! exceed!" (AL II, 71) Remember that which is written: "Moderate strength rings the bell: great strength returns the penny." It is always the little bit extra that brings home the bacon. It is the last attack that breaks through the enemy position. Water will never boil, however long you keep it at 99 C. You may find that a Pranayama cycle of 10-20-30 brings no result in months; put it up to 10-20-40, and Dhyana comes instantly. When in doubt, push just a little bit harder. You have no means of finding out what are exactly the right conditions for success in any practice; but all practices are alike in one respect; the desired result is in the nature of orgasm. I guess that's about what I think. Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== Chapter XXXIV: The Tao (1) Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. This is the hardest question you have yet put to me: to explain the Tao. The only proper answer would be Silence, trusting to the slow dispersion and absorption of the disturbance created by your asking it. In that sentence there lies, really, the whole explanation; but I see well enough that it won't do for you. You are not yet old or wise enough to understand that the only way to clear muddy water is to leave it alone. Still, you doubtless expect me to tell you just how that comes to pass; I will not disappoint you. First of all, what is the Tao? No proposed equivalent in any other language comes within a billion light-years of giving even an approximation. For one thing, it is itself a paradox; for another, it has several meanings which are apparently quite distinct. For instance, one sinologist calls it "Reason"; another, "The Way"; another "Tat" or "Shiva." These are all true in one sense or another. My own "White Hope" (see The Book of Thoth) is to identify it with the Qabalistic Zero. This last attribution is useful, as I will show presently, for hard practical reasons; it is an assumption which indicates the method of the Old Wise One who approaches the Tao. As you know, the supreme classic of this subject, is the Tao Teh King; and I must suppose that you have read this in at least one of the several translations, else I should have to start by pushing my own version at you. (This has been ready for a quarter of a century, and I seem to be unable to get it printed!) None of these published translations, learned and admirable though they may be as such, can be of use except to familiarize you with the terminology; for not one of these scholars has the most nebulous idea of that Laotze was talking about. I can hardly hope to emphasize sternly enough how deep and wide is the "Great Gulf fixed" between the initiate and the profane, when questions of this kind are on the Magic Carpet. Suppose you were transported (on that Carpet!) to a planet where the highest means of reproduction was germination; try to make the denizens understand Catullus, Shelley, Rossetti, or Emily Bronte! It is, honestly, quite as bad as that. How can anyone grasp the idea of perfect and absolute negation being at the same time the sole motive force of all that exits? "Tao hath no will to work; But by its influence even The Moon and Sun rejoice to run Among the starry Seven." King Kang Khang. The Book of the Law states the doctrine of Tao very succinctly: "...thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that, and no other shall say nay. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect." (AL I, 42-44) "Thus also the Sage, seeking not any goal, attaineth all things; he does not interfere in the affairs of his body, and so that body acteth without friction. It is because he meddleth not with his personal aims that these come to pass with simplicity." Tao Teh King, VII, 2. The ideal analogy seems to be that of a planet in its orbit. It has its "true motion;" it meets the minimum of friction from circumambient space. When it suffers the attraction of another body, it sways slightly to make the proper adjustment without effort or argument; it can, consequently, continue indefinitely in its orbit. This is roughly the plan of the Taoist in his attitude to life. Having ascertained the Path which satisfies the equations of his Nature (as we say, "found his True Will") he continues "without lust of result," acting only when it happens to be necessary to adjust himself to any external stress that affects him, and so proceeds happily "thinking of a way To feed oneself on batter, And so go on from day to day Getting a little fatter." --assuming that his "True Will" is of that variety. Basil King Lamus asserts this in The Diary of A Drug Fiend when he says: "If I were a dog, I should bark; if I were an owl, I should hoot." It is rather like the pattern in the game of dominoes; you put the card that matches. No other consideration comes into it at all. It is the extreme simplicity of this idea which baffles people's minds, and the universal quality of impatience which makes everybody fidget, and so injure the delicacy of the "fine adjustment" which is the essence of the work. When I used to climb rocks, I never jumped, I never grabbed, I never made a sudden or a violent movement; therefore, with thin smooth arms like a young girl's, and legs, tough enough it is true but always slow and steady, I used to find myself at the top of pitches that had beaten all the gymnasts. In every sport worth the name one may observe similar facts. Consider the delicacy required for big breaks at billiards; the problem is always to secure favourable readjustment with a minimum of disturbance. Of course, there are positions which demand drastic treatment; but that is the best evidence that the balls have got into the worst possible mess from your point of view. But it was an exquisitely delicate "safety shot" that got them like that. True, there are games in which brute force is the way to victory; but such games never make progress in themselves. The "tug-of-war" or "tossing the caber" are exactly as they were fifty--or five hundred--years ago. Contrast the advance in "positional" chess! Oh yes, this is all old stuff! Of course it is; but it remains a useful sort of basis for meditation when you are seeking to understand one aspect of the Way of he Tao. Anyhow (you protest) this is getting away from the question as to what Tao actually is. Good; but I want you to abstain from trying to make an intellectual image of it, still less to visualize it. I tried at one time to do something of the sort with the Fourth Dimension: Hinton gives a practice involving complex patterns of cubes; and I was never able to make anything of it. As I said above, it is a matter of Neschamah; but what follows may help you. Why is the Tao translated "Reason"? Because by "Reason" is here meant the structure of the mind itself; a Buddhist who had succeeded with Mahasatipatthana might call it the Consciousnesss of the Tendency to Perceive the Sensation of Anything. For in the last resort, and through the pursuit of one line of analysis, this structure is all that we can call our consciousness. Everything of which we can in any way be aware may be interpreted as being some function of this structure. Note! Function. For now we see why Tao may also be translated "The Way"; for it is the motion of the structure that we observe. There is no Being apart from Going. You are familiar with the Four Powers of the Sphinx, attributed by the Adepts of old time to their Four Elements. Air is to Know, Scire; Fire is to Will, Velle; Water is to Dare, Audere; and Earth is to Keep Silence, Tacere. But now that a fifth Element, spirit, is generally recognized in the Qabalah, I have deemed it proper to add a Fifth Power corresponding: to Go, Ire. (Book of Thoth, p. 275) Then, as Spirit is the Origin, the Essence, and the Sum of the other four, so is to Go in relation to those powers. And to Go is the very meaning of the name God, as elsewhere shewn in these letters; hence the Egyptian Gods were signalized as such by their bearing the Ankh, which is a Sandal-strap, and in its form the Crux Ansata, the Rosy Cross, the means whereby we demonstrate the Godhead of our Nature. See then how sweetly each idea slides into the next! How right this is, that the Quintessence should be dynamic and not static! For if there were some form of Being separate from Going, it would necessarily be subject to decay; and, in any case, a thing impossible to apprehend, since apprehension is itself an Act, not an idea immobile which would be bound to change in the very moment of grasping it. As I have tried to shew in another letter, the "Point-Event" (or whatever it is) of which we are aware is a change, or, less inaccurately, the memory of one; the things that change remain relentlessly unknown. It does seem to me, young woman, that you ought to go over these ideas again and again, familiarizing yourself intimately with this process of passing from one to another, so intimately that it becomes automatic and spontaneous for you to run round the circle in perfectly frictionless ease; for otherwise your mind will be for ever pestering you all your life, and even your conscience reproaching you; they will say "But you have never got a definite answer to any single one of your original questions." We are all--most of us, anyhow--born with this hankering after the definite; it is our weakness that yearns for repose. We do not see that this is death; if any of these answers could be cut off short and neatly trimmed with paper frills like a ham, it would no longer be even an approximation to truth. I am quite sure that this is the Doctrine of the Tao, and of opinion that no other body of teaching puts forward its thought more clearly or more simply. Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== Chapter XXXV: The Tao (2) Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. You are only one of a number of people who are interested in my translation of the Tao Teh King. Naturally, I want to publish it; but so many other things come first. So I am sending you the Introduction, in the hope that it will stimulate that interest to the point of getting some other publisher to give it sea-room. I bound myself to devote my life to Magick at Easter 1898 (era vulgari) and received my first initiation on November 18 of that year. My friend and climbing companion, Oscar Eckenstein, gave me my first instructions in learning the control of the mind early in 1901, in Mexico City. Shri Parananda, Solicitor General of Ceylon, an eminent writer upon, and teacher of, Yoga from the orthodox Shaivite standpoint, and Bhikkhu Ananda Metteya, (Allan Bennett) the great English Adept, who was one of my earliest instructors in Magick, and joined the Sangha in Burma in 1902, gave me my first groundings in mystical theory and practice. I spent some months of 1901 in Kandy, Ceylon with the latter, until success crowned my work. I also studied all varieties of Asiatic philosophy, especially with regard to the practical question of spiritual development, the Sufi doctrines, the Upanishads, the Sankhra, Veda and Vedanta, the Bhagavad-Gita and Purana, the Dammapada, and many other classics, together with numerous writings on the Tantra and Yoga of such men as Patanjali, Vivekananda, etc., etc. Not a few of these teachings are as yet wholly unknown to scholars. I made the scope of my studies as comprehensive as possible, omitting no school of thought however unimportant or repugnant. I made a critical examination of all these teachers in the light of my practical experience. The physiological and psychological uniformity of mankind guaranteed that the diversity of expression concealed a unity of significance. This discovery was confirmed, furthermore, by reference to Jewish, Greek, and Celtic traditions. One quintessential truth was common to all cults, from the Hebrides to the Yellow Sea; and even the main branches proved essentially identical. It was only the foliage that exhibited incompatibility. When I walked across China in 1905-6, I was fully armed and accoutred by the above qualifications to attack the till-then-insoluble problem of the Chinese conception of religious truth. Practical studies of the psychology of such Mongolians as I had met in my travels, had already suggested to me that their acentric conception of the universe might represent the correspondence in consciousness of their actual psychological characteristics. I was therefore prepared to examine the doctrines of their religious and philosophic Masters without prejudice such as had always rendered nugatory the efforts of missionary sinologists; indeed, all oriental scholars with the single exception of Rhys Davids. Until his time, translators had invariable assumed, with absurd naivt, or (more often) arrogant bigotry, that a Chinese writer must be putting forth either a more or less distorted and degraded variation of some Christian conception, or utterly puerile absurdities. Even so great a man as Max Mller, in his introduction to the Upanishads, seems only half inclined to admit that the apparent triviality and folly of many passages in these so-called sacred writings might owe their appearance to our ignorance of the historical and religious circumstances, a knowledge of which would render them intelligible. During my solitary wanderings among the mountainous wastes of Yun Nan, the spiritual atmosphere of China penetrated my consciousness, thanks to the absence of any intellectual impertinences from the organ of knowledge. The Tao Teh King revealed its simplicity and sublimity to my soul, little by little, as the conditions of my physical, no less than of my spiritual life, penetrated the sanctuaries of my spirit. The philosophy of Lao Tze communicated itself to me, in despite of the persistent efforts of my mind to compel it to conform with my preconceived notions of what the text must mean. This process, having thus taken root in my innermost intuition during those tremendous months of wandering Yun Nan, grew continually throughout succeeding years. Whenever I found myself able once more to withdraw myself from the dissipations and distractions which contact with civilization forces upon a man, no matter how vigorously he may struggle against their insolence, to the sacred solitude of he desert, whether among the sierras of Spain or the sands of the Sahara, I found that the philosophy of Lao Tze resumed its sway upon my soul, subtler and stronger on each successive occasion. But neither Europe nor Africa can show any such desolation as America. The proudest, stubbornest, bitterest peasant of deserted Spain, the most primitive and superstitious Arab of the remotest oases, are a little more than kin and never less than kind at their worst; whereas in the United States one is almost always conscious of an instinctive lack of sympathy and understanding with even the most charming and cultured people. It was therefore during my exile in America that the doctrines of Lao Tze developed most rapidly in my soul, ever forcing their way outwards until I felt it imperious, nay inevitable, to express them in terms of conscious thought. No sooner had this resolve taken possession of me than I realized that the task approximated to impossibility. His very simplest ideas, the primitive elements of his thought, had no true correspondences in any European terminology. The very first word "Tao" presented a completely insoluble problem. It had been translated "Reason", "The Way", "To On." None of these convey any true conception of the Tao. The Tao is reason in this sense, that the substance of things may be in part apprehended as being that necessary relation between the elements of thought which determines the laws of reason. In other words, the only reality is that which compels us to connect the various forms of illusion as we do. It is thus evidently unknowable, and expressible neither by speech nor by silence. All that we can know about it is that there is inherent in it a power (which however is not itself) by virtue whereof all beings appear in forms congruous with the nature of necessity. The Tao is also "the Way"--in the following sense. Nothing exists except as a relation with other similarly postulated ideas. Nothing can be known in itself, but only as one of the participants in a series of events. Reality is therefore in the motion, not in the thing moved. We cannot apprehend anything except as one postulated element of an observed impression of change. We may express this in other terms as follows. Our knowledge of anything is in reality the sum of our observations of its successive movements, that is to say, of its path from event to event. In this sense the Tao may be translated as "the Way." It is not a thing in itself in the sense of being an object susceptible of apprehension by sense or mind. It is not the cause of any thing; it is rather the category underlying all existence or event, and therefore true and real as they are illusory, being merely landmarks invented for convenience in describing our exper- iences. The Tao possesses no power to cause anything to exist or to take place. Yet our experience when analyzed tells us that the only reality of which we may be sure is this path or Way which resumes the whole of our knowledge. As for To On,16 which superficially might seem the best translation of Tao as described in the text, it is the most misleading of the three. For To On possesses an extensive connotation implying a whole system of Platonic concepts, than which nothing can be more alien to the essential quality of the Tao. Tao is neither "being" nor "not being" in any sense which Europe could understand. It is neither existence, nor a condition or form of existence. Equally, TO MH ON gives no idea of Tao. Tao is altogether alien to all that class of thought. From its connection with "that principle which necessarily underlies the fact that events occur" one might suppose that the "Becoming" of Heraclitus might assist us to describe the Tao. But the Tao is not a principle at all of that kind. To understand it requires an altogether different state of mind to any with which European thinkers in general are familiar. It is necessary to pursue unflinchingly the path of spiritual development on the lines indicated by the Sufis, the Hindus and the Buddhists; and, having reached the trance called Nerodha-Sammapati, in which are destroyed all forms soever of consciousness, there appears in that abyss of annihilation the germ of an entirely new type of idea, whose principal characteristic is this: that the entire concatenation of One's previous experiences and conceptions could not have happened at all, save by virtue of this indescribable necessity. I am only too painfully aware that the above exposition is faulty in every respect. In particular, it presupposes in the reader considerable familiarity with the subject, thus practically begging the question. It must also prove almost wholly unintelligible to the average reader, him in fact whom I especially aim to interest. For his sake I will try to elucidate the matter by an analogy. Consider electricity. It would be absurd to say that electricity is any of the phenomena by which we know it. We take refuge in the petitio principii of saying that electricity is that form of energy which is the principal cause of such and such phenomena. Suppose now that we eliminate this idea as evidently illogical. What remains? We must not hastily answer "Nothing remains." There is some thing inherent in the nature of consciousness, reason, perception, sensation, and of the universe of which they inform us, which is responsible for the fact that we observe these phenomena and not others; that we reflect upon them as we do, and not otherwise. But, even deeper than this, part of the reality of the inscrutable energy which determines the form of our experience, consists in determining that experience should take place at all. It should be clear that this has nothing to do with any of the Platonic conceptions of the nature of things. The least abject asset in the intellectual bankruptcy of European thought is the Hebrew Qabalah. Properly understood, it is a system of symbolism indefinitely elastic, assuming no axioms, postulating no principles, asserting no theorems, and therefore adaptable, if managed adroitly, to describe any conceivable doctrine. It has been my continual study since 1898, and I have found it of infinite value in the study of the "Tao Teh King." By its aid I was able to attribute the ideas of Lao Tze to an order with which I was exceedingly familiar, and whose practical worth I had repeatedly proved by using it as the basis of the analysis and classification of all Aryan and Semitic religions and philosophies. Despite the essential difficulty of correlating the ideas of Lao Tze with any others, the persistent application of the Qabalistic keys eventually unlocked his treasure-house. I was able to explain to myself his teachings in terms of familiar systems. This achievement broke the back of my Sphinx. Having once reduced Lao Tze to Qabalistic form, it was easy to translate the result into the language of philosophy. I had already done much to create a new language based on English with the assistance of a few technical terms borrowed from Asia, and above all by the use of a novel conception of the idea of Number and of algebraic and arithmetical procedure to convey the results of spiritual experience to intelligent students. It is therefore not altogether without confidence that I present this translation of the Tao Teh King to the public. I hope and believe that careful study of the text, as elucidated by my commentary, will enable serious aspirants to the hidden Wisdom to understand (with fair accuracy) what Lao Tze taught. It must however be laid to heart that the essence of his system will inevitably elude intellectual apprehension, unless it be illuminated from above by actual living experience of the truth. Such experience is only to be attained by unswerving application to the prac- tices which he advocates. Nor must the aspirant content himself with the mere attainment of spiritual enlightenment, however sublime. All such achievements are barren unless they be regarded as the means rather than the end of spiritual progress; allowed to infiltrate every detail of the life, not only of the spirit, but of the senses. The Tao can never be known until it interprets the most trivial actions of every day routine. It is a fatal mistake to discriminate between the spiritual importance of meditation and playing golf. To do so is to create an internal conflict. "Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt." He who knows the Tao knows it to be the source of all things soever; the most exalted spiritual ecstasy and the most trivial internal impression are from our point of view equally illusions, worthless masks, which hide, with grotesque painted pasteboard false and lifeless, the living face of truth. Yet, from another point of view, they are equally expressions of the ecstatic genius of truth--natural images of the reaction between the essence of one's self and one's particular environment at the moment of their occurrence. They are equally tokens of the Tao by whom, in whom, and of whom, they are. To value them for themselves is to deny the Tao and to be lost in delusion. To despise them is to deny the omnipresence of the Tao, and to suffer the illusion of sorrow. To discriminate between them is to set up the accursed dyad, to surrender to the insanity of intellect, to overwhelm the intuition of truth, and to create civil war in the consciousness. From 1905 to 1918 the Tao Teh King was my continual study. I constantly recommended it to my friends as the supreme masterpiece of initiated wisdom, and I was as constantly disappointed when they declared that it did not impress them, especially as my preliminary descriptions of the book had aroused their keenest interest. I thus came to see that the fault lay with Legge's translation, and I felt myself impelled to undertake the task of presenting Lao Tze in language informed by the sympathetic understanding which initiation and spiritual experience had conferred on me. During my Great Magical Retirement on Aesopus Island in the Hudson River during the summer of 1918, I set myself to this work, but I discovered immediately that I was totally incompetent. I therefore appealed to an Adept named Amalantrah, which whom I was at that time in almost daily communication. He came readily to my aid, and exhibited to me a codex of the original, which conveyed to me with absolute certitude the exact significance of the text. I was able to divine without hesitation or doubt the precise manner in which Legge had been deceived. He had translated the Chinese with singular fidelity, yet in almost every verse the interpretation was altogether misleading. There was no need to refer to the text from the point of view of scholarship. I had merely to paraphrase his translation in the light of actual knowledge of the true significance of the terms employed. Any one who cares to take the trouble to compare the two versions will be astounded to see how slight a remodeling of a paragraph is sufficient to disperse the obstinate obscurity of prejudice, and let loose a fountain and a flood of living light; to kindle the gnarled prose of stolid scholarship into the burgeoning blossom of lyrical flame. I completed my translation within three days, but during the last twenty years I have constantly reconsidered every sentence. The manuscript has been lent to a number of friends, scholars who have commended my work, and aspirants who have appreciated its adequacy to present the spirit of the Master's teaching. Those who had been disappointed with Legge's version were enthusiastic about mine. This circumstance is in itself sufficient to assure me that Love's labour has not been lost, and to fill me with enthusiastic confidence that the present publication will abundantly contribute to the fulfillment of my True Will for which I came to earth. Let us wring from labour and sorrow the utmost of which humanity is capable. Fulfill my Will to open the portals of spiritual attainment to my fellowmen, to bring them to the enjoyment of that realization of Truth, beneath all veils of temporal falsehood, which has enlightened mine eyes and filled my mouth with song. So there you are. Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 16* Grk., "Being" or "the Existent." ======================================================================== Chapter XXXVI: Quo Stet Olympus: Where the Gods, Angels, etc. Live Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. We settled what Gods, angels, demons, elementals were some little while ago; we also wrote of how they live, so now, insatiable Seeker, you ask where. But surely, even as a child--did you not sing that immemorial Gregorian plain-chant "There's a Friend for little children Above the bright blue sky." Simple enough. A nice flat earth: sun, moon, stars, planets, satellites hung up to dry, with occasional meteorites and comets jazzing about to vary the monotony; above all that, this bright blue floor based upon Reckitts' and advertisements for the Riviera. Just like that. And above that again, the Jew Jeweller's hashish dream of heaven: see the Apocalypse. A vulgarization of Baudelaire's still, shining, mirror world! How right Rome was when she put her foot down on great Galileo and his upstart kind! But she did not do the job properly. She should have brewed a bogus bogey-tale to frighten people off astronomy for ever. But perhaps it was already too late! The mischief had struck roots too deep for her. What had these wizards wrought? Those lovely mediaeval Charts Celestial that still enchant us by sheer beauty and sublimity had been made mockery by those sinister adepts of sorcery! No more flat earth on four pillars--on?-- In India the earth was supported by an elephant who stood on a tortoise--who . . . ? No floor above. Nothing but empty space with swarming galaxies; no room for "heaven." Simpler to call Olympus or Meru the home of the Gods--believe it or not! don't ask questions! Yet all the time the difficulty is of our own silly making. The most elementary consideration of the nature of Gods, angels, demons, and the rest, as shown by their peculiar faculties, stamps them all instantly as Beings pertaining to more than three dimensions! Just as no number of lines is enough to produce the smallest plain, as a cube is capable of containing an infinite number of squares, so, far from there being no room for heaven, there is absolutely nothing but room! Yet of course the nature of that space is for ever incomprehensible, nay inconceivable, by any being of a lower dimension. Only when we have succeeded in uniting our Conscious (three-dimensional) with our Unconscious (four-dimensional) Self can we expect even a symbolic conception of how things go on "in them furrin parts." Speculation on such points is unpardonably profitless; I have only devoted these few paragraphs to the subject because it is useful to rebut the somewhat soapbox type of critic who thinks to rebut the whole thesis "Sunt Daemones" by the snook-cocking query "Quo Stet Olympus." Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== Chapter XXXVII: Death--Fear--"Magical Memory" Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. You ask me, very naturally, for details of the promise of Nuit (AL I, 58) "...certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death; ..." In the first place, I think that it means what it says. There may be, probably is, some Qabalistic inner meaning: Those four nouns most assuredly look as if there were; but I don't feel at all sure what the Greek (or Hebrew, or Arabic) words would be; in any case, I have not yet made any attempt in this direction. To the straightforward promise, then! Certainly no word more reassuring could be given. But avoid anxiety, of course; remember "without lust of result," and AL III, 16: "Deem not too eagerly to catch the promises; ..." Now, full speed ahead! Like most promises of this type, it is, one must suppose, conditional. Such a power is clearly of the Siddhi; and my instinct tells me that it is a result of devotion to Our Lady of the Stars. Somehow I can't think of it as a sort of Birthday Present to a Favourite Nephew. "Why not?" You're right, as usual: anything may be a "Play of Nuit." Still, I feel that this would be a rare case. "But doesn't everything have to happen to everybody?" Yes, of course, in a sense; but don't keep on interrupting! I was coming to something interesting. I insist of putting forth the immediately useful point of view: "devotion to Nuit" must mean the eager pursuit of the fulfillment of all possibilities, however unpleasant. Good: now see how logical this is." For how else could one have reasonable "certainty," as contrary with "faith" (=interior conviction), otherwise than by the acquisition of the "Magical Memory"--the memory of former lives. And this must evidently include that of former deaths. Indeed "Freudian forgetfulness" is very pertinacious on such themes; the shock of death makes it a matter of displaying the most formidable courage to go over in one's mind the incidents of previous deaths. You recall the Buddhist "Ten Impurities;"--The Drowned Corpse, the Gnawed-by-wild-beasts-Corpse, and the rest. Magick (though I says it as shouldn't) gives a very full and elaborate account of this Memory, and Liber CMXIII (Thisarb) a sound Official Instruction on the two main methods of acquiring this faculty. (None of my writings, by the way, deal with the First Method; this is because I could never make any headway with it; none at all. F.'. Iehi Aour, on the other hand, was a wizard at it; he thought that some people could use that way, and others not: born so. If it should happen that you have that faculty, and no gift at all for the other, it's just too bad; you'd better buzz off, and get another Holy Guru less one-legged.) There are, however, as I find on reading over what I have written else- where, quite a few lacunae in the exposition; and I may as well now do my best to stop one or two obvious gaps. The period of my life which was the climax of my work on this subject is those weeks of Thaumaturgy on the Hudson River--I fear the Magical Diary The Hermit of Aesopus Island is irretrievably lost--when I was shown the Codex of the Tao Teh King from which my (still unpublished) translation is taken, and when the veil was no more than a shimmering, scintillating gossamer, translucent to the ineffable glory that glows behind it. For in those weeks I was able to remember and record a really considerable number of past lives. (I half believe, and hope, that the relevant passages were copied into one of my Cefalu diaries; but who will struggle through those still extant on the chance?) "But what about the intervals?" you ask, Shabash! Rem acu tetigisti.17 It strikes me with immense and poignant power a right shrewd blow--what of the other side? What of the periods between successive incarnations? Let us look back for a moment to Little Essays Toward Truth and see what it says about the Fabric of a man. (No, I'm not dodging your query: I'll get there in my own good time. Let a fellow breathe!) Nothing to our purpose, as your smiling shake of the head advises me. And yet--The theory is that the Supernal Triad constitutes (or, rather, is an image of) the "eternal" Essence of a man; that is, it is the positive expression of that ultimate "Point of View" which is and is not and neither is nor is not etc. Quite indestructible. Now when a man spends his life (a) building up and developing the six Sephiroth of the Ruach so that they cohere closely in proper balance and relation, (b) in forging, developing and maintaining a link of steel between this solid Ruach and that Triad, Death merely means the dropping off of the Nephesch (Malkuth) so that the man takes over his instrument of Mind (Ruach) with him to his next suitably chosen vehicle. The tendency of the Ruach is of course to disintegrate more or less rapidly under the impact of its new experiences of after-death conditions. (Hence the supposed Messages from the Mighty Dead, usually Wish-phantasms or outbreaks of the during-life-suppressed Subconscious, often very nasty. The "Medium" gets into communication with the "Shells of the Dead"--Qliphoth, the Qabalah calls them. A month or so, perhaps a year or so in the case of minds very solidly constructed or very passionately attached, and the Shells' "Messages" begin to be less and less coherent, more and more fragmentary, more murderously modified by the experiences it has met in its aimless wanderings. Soon it is altogether broken up, and no more is heard of it.) It is therefore of the very first importance to train the mind in every possible way, and to bind it to the Higher Principles by steady, by con- stant, by flaming Aspiration, fortified by the sternest discipline, and by continuously reformulated Oaths. Such a man will be fully occupied after his death with the unremitting search for his new instrument; he will brush aside--as he has made a habit of doing during life--the innumerable lures of "Reward" and the like. (I am not going to ask you to waste any time on the fantastic fairy tales of Devachan, Kama Loka and the rest; this must come up if you want to know about Paccheka-Buddhas, Skooshoks, the Brahma-lokas and so on--but not now, please!) There is one Oath more important than all the rest put together, from the point of view of the A.'. A.'. You swear to refuse all the "rewards," to acquire your new vehicle without a moment's delay, so that you may carry on your work of helping Mankind with the minimum of interruption. Like all true Magical Oaths, it is certain of success. So then we have a man not only very well prepared to reincarnate at once--this means about six months after his death, for his vehicle will be a foetus about three months old, but to extirpate more deliberately all impressions that may assail its integrity. Alternatively, there may be something in the nature of such impressions that is unsuitable for carrying over into the conscious mind of the new man. Or there may be a rule--e.g. the draught of the waters of the River Lethe--and it might be possible for some Adept (whose initiation is of a higher degree than, or of a different type to, mine) to make his way through that particular barrier. Enough of may, might, perhaps, and all that harpy brood! The plain fact is that I remember nothing at all of any Post Mortem experiences, and I have never known anyone else who does. There is one exception. I do remember the _first_, almost momentary, reaction. I am in my Astral Form, in my best Sunday-go-to-meeting Ceremonial Vestments, and with my Wand I seem to hold this raised, attaching great importance to the act--looking down upon the corpse, exactly as one does at the outset of an "Astral Journey" in one's days of learning how to do it. I recall no impression at all made by this sight; neither regret nor relief nor even surprise. But there is one intensely strong reaction--I fancy I have mentioned this already--when one first remembers one of one's deaths: "By Jove! that was a narrow squeak!" What was it that one feared? I haven't the foggiest. And that is what I had to tell you about the Magical Memory. . . . . . . . . No: just one point to go to sleep on: suppose two or more people claim simultaneously to have been Julius Caesar, or Shakespeare, or--oh! always one very great gun! Well, fifty or sixty years ago or more there was a regular vogue for this sort of thing, especially among women. It was usually Cleopatra or Mary Queen of Scots or Marie Antoinette: something regal and tragic preferred, but unsurpassable beauty the prime essential as one would expect. Of the Mary Queen of Scots persuasion was old Lady Caithness, who seems moreover to have had a sense of humour into the bargain, for she gave a dinner-party in Paris to twelve other ladies, each of whom had also been the luckless victim of Henry VIII's failure to produce of his own loins a durable male succession. (His marriages were so many desperate efforts to save England from a second innings of the devastation of the Wars of the Roses, from which his father, who was not a miser, but a sound financier and economist, had rescued the country. You must understand this if English History is to be at all intelligible to you. The tragedy began with the early death of the Black Prince; the second blow, that of Henry V coupled with the futility of his son and the murder of Prince Edward at Tewkesbury.) Well, that was a big laugh, of course; it tended to discredit the whole theory of Reincarnation. Quite unnecessarily, if one looks a little deeper. What do I mean when I say that I think I was Eliphaz Lvi? No more than that I possess some of his most essential characteristics, and that some of the incidents in his life are remembered by me as my own. There doesn't seem any impossibility about these bundles of Sankhara being shared by two or more persons. We certainly do not know enough of what actually takes place to speak positively on any such point. Don't lose any sleep over it. Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 17* Lat., "You've hit the nail on the head" (lit. "touched the matter with a pin.") ======================================================================== Chapter XXXVIII: Woman--Her Magical Formula Issa. Wine rots the liver; fever swells the spleen; Meat clogs the belly; dust inflames the eye; Stone irks the bladder: gout--plague--leprosy! Man born of woman is most full of trouble; God, a gorged fool that belches him, a bubble! But of all plagues wherewith a man is cursed, Take my word for it, woman is the worst! The World's Tragedy Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. "Pibrock of Dhonuil Dhu, Kneel for the onset!" for this letter is to put Woman once and for ever in her place. But (as usual!) let us first of all make clear what we are to mean by Woman. Not that amorphous (or rather, as the poet says, "oniscoid with udders") dull and clamorous lump, bovine, imbecile, giggling, truthless, nymphomaniac yet sexless, malignant, interminable, of whom Schopenhauer rhapsodized in his most famous panegyric: apparently his sentimental softness understood only the best side of her. No! let us observe, shudder, and lay down the pen. That makes me feel better; my duty to conscience is done. . . . . . . . . The eternal antagonism between the sexes is mere illusion. As well suppose the male the enemy of the female screw. Understand the spiritual reality of each, grasp their magical formulae; the sublime necessity of the apparent opposition will be apparent. The ultimate of Woman is Nuit; that of Man, Hadit. The Book of the Law speaks very fully and clearly in both cases. I quote the principal passages. A. Nuit. Had! The manifestation of Nuit. [1] Come forth, o children, under the stars, & take your fill of love! I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy. Above, the gemmed azure is The naked splendour of Nuit; She bends in ecstasy to kiss The secret ardours of Hadit. The winged globe,the starry blue, Are mine, O Ankh-af-na-khonsu! [12-14] ...Since I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye also thus. ... [22] ...And the sign shall be my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the omnipresence of my body.* [26] ...O Nuit, continuous one of Heaven, let it be ever thus; that men speak not of Thee as One but as None; and let them speak not of thee at all, since thou art continuous! None, breathed the light, faint & faery, of the stars, and two. For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union. This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all. [27-30] Obey my prophet! follow out the ordeals of my knowledge! seek me only! Then the joys of my love will redeem ye from all pain. This is so: I swear it by the vault of my body; by my sacred heart and tongue; by all I can give, by all I desire of ye all. [32] ...the Law is for all. [34] I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death; peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy: nor do I demand aught in sacrifice. My incense is of resinous woods & gums; and there is no blood therein: because of my hair the trees of Eternity. My number is 11, as all their numbers who are of us. The Five Pointed Star, with a Circle in the Middle, & the circle is Red. My colour is black to the blind, but the blue & gold are seen of the seeing. Also I have a secret glory for them that love me. But to love me is better than all things: if under the night-stars in the desert thou presently burnest mine incense before me, invoking me with a pure heart, and the Serpent flame therein, thou shalt come a little to lie in my bosom. ... ...I love you! I yearn to you! Pale or purple, veiled or voluptuous, I who am all pleasure and purple, and drunkenness of the innermost sense, desire you. Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour within you: come unto me! [58-61] * Dictated: "the unfragmentary non-atomic fact of my universality . . . (Write this in whiter words, But go forth on)." Ouarda wrote into the MS, later, the five words as in text. B. Hadit. Nu! the hiding of Hadit. Come! all ye, and learn the secret that hath not yet been revealed. I, Hadit, am the complement of Nu, my bride. I am not extended, and Khabs is the name of my House. In the sphere I am everywhere the centre, as she, the circumference, is nowhere found. Yet she shall be known & I never. [1-4] I am the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star. I am Life, and the giver of Life, yet therefore is the knowledge of me the knowledge of death. I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. 'Come unto me' is a foolish word: for it is I that go. Who worshipped Heru-pa-kraath have worshipped me; ill, for I am the worshipper. [6-8] For I am perfect, being Not; and my number is nine by the fools; but with the just I am eight, and one in eight: Which is vital, for I am none indeed. The Empress and the King are not of me; for there is a further secret. I am the Empress & the Hierophant. Thus eleven, as my bride is eleven. [15-16] I am the Snake that giveth Knowledge & Delight and bright glory, and stir the hearts of men with drunkenness. ... [22] I am alone: there is no God where I am. [23] I am the secret Serpent coiled about to spring: in my coiling there is joy. If I lift up my head, I and my Nuit are one. If I droop down mine head, and shoot forth venom, then is rapture of the earth, and I and the earth are one. There is great danger in me; for who doth not understand these runes shall make a great miss. He shall fall down into the pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of Reason. [26-27] Dost thou fail? Art thou sorry? Is fear in thine heart? Where I am these are not. Pity not the fallen! I never knew them. I am not for them. I console not: I hate the consoled & the consoler. I am unique & conqueror. I am not of the slaves that perish. ... [46-49] Blue am I and gold in the light of my bride: but the red gleam is in my eyes; & my spangles are purple & green. Purple beyond purple: it is the light higher than eyesight. [50-51] Lest it should all prove too difficult, I have not quoted several passages which are completely beyond my comprehension; even in those here set down, there is quite a little that I should not care to boast that I had altogether clear in my own mind. Leaving out nearly everything, the only way to simplify it is to call Hadit the "Point-of-view," and "Anywhere" to be the radix of all possible "Point-Events," or "experiences," or "phenomena;" Nuit is the complement, the total possibilities of any such radix. You can only get this properly into that part of your mind which is "above the Abyss," i.e. Neschamah: even so, Neschamah must be very thoroughly fertilized by Chiah, and illuminated by Jechidah, to make any sort of a job of it. But to come down from the contemplation of Abstract Reality (which, being static and "infinite," is ultimately immeasurable) to these Ideas in their interaction (and thus directly observable), it is easy enough to understand the Magical Formula of their interaction. Of course, whatever I say can be no more than a rough approximation, even a suggestion rather than a statement; but I cannot help the nature of the case. Nuit is the centripetal energy, infinitely elastic because it must fit over the hard thrust directed against it; Hadit, the centrifugal, ever seeking to penetrate the unknown. Nuit is not to dissimilar from the Teh described in Lao-Tze. Nor would it be proper to ignore the Book of Lies: PEACHES Soft and hollow, how thou dost overcome the hard and full! It dies, it gives itself; to Thee is the fruit! Be thou the Bride; thou shalt be the Mother hereafter. To all impressions thus. Let them not overcome thee; yet let them breed within thee. The least of the impressions, come to its perfection, is Pan. Receive a thousand lovers; thou shalt bear but One Child. This child shall be the heir of Fate the Father. (p. 12)18 I want you to realize that this collaboration of the equal opposites is the first condition of existence in any form. The trouble (I think) has always been that nobody ever looked at things from outside; they were always at one end or the other. This is because one haphazard collection of Point-Events chooses to think of itself as a Male; another, as a Female. It is totally absurd to think of Winnie as a woman, and Martin as a man. The quintessence of each is identical: "Every man and every woman is a star." It is only a superficial accident that has made one set determine to function in one particular incarnation as the one or the other. I say function; for there is no difference in the Quintessence. Yet, since it is with a Being in its present function that one has to deal, it needs must that one acts in practice as if "does" were the same as "was." You might be described as one instance of the 0 = 2 equation, and I as another; and any 0 = 2 is indistinguishable from any other. Yet you and I are not identical, because all that I can know of you, or you of me, is a presentation of a part of that 0 = 2 "Universe;" if we were both equally conscious of that Whole, there would be no means of becoming aware, as we are in fact aware, of that distinction. Somewhat of this is perhaps intended in The Book of the Law: ... Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt. But whoso availeth in this, let him be the chief of all! (AL I, 22-23) Whoso availeth (i.e. can put to practical service) is of "presidential timber," so to speak, because he is able to understand the Being behind the Function, and is accordingly not liable to be deceived by the facet that happens to be presented to him in his Function corresponding. The case is not wholly unlike that of a man on a mountain who should see two other peaks jutting up from a paten of cloud. Those tips give little indication of the great mass that supports each; both are equally of the one same planet; they are in fact identical save for the minute spire visible. Yet he, reconnoitering with intent to climb them observes closely only that function of each crag and icefall which is relevant to his plan to reach their summits. He also is of that One Quintessence; but he must fit himself adroitly to each successive incident of the respective Functions of these mountains if he is to make the contacts which will finally enable him to realize the Point-Events which he will summarize as "I climbed Mount Collon and the Aiguille de la Za." I don't believe I can put it much better than that, and I'm too lazy to try; but I do want to emphasize that Weininger (in Sex and Character) merely scratched the surface. All of us, whether we are "full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard" or "in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please" do in every most minuscule sort of act exercise both the male and female functions almost equally; the determination is rarely more than a matter of a casting vote. It is so even in the embryo. It is much less than 1/10 of 1% that decides whether the foetus will turn out an Alexander or an Alice. Nature delights in delicate touches of this sort; it is one part of Sulphuric Acid in I don't remember how many million parts of water that is enough to turn blue litmus red; and even with our own gross apparatus we can arrange for a ten-thousandth part of a grain to send a scale down with a bang. Think of a roulette ball hovering on the edge at the end of a long spin! Think of Buridan's ass! So, once for all, shut up, you screaming parrot! Gabble, gabble, gabble, it's enough to break one's tympana, and drive a man stark staring mad. Shut up! Shut up!! Shut UP!!! These women! Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 P.S. One ought, perhaps, to give an outline of how these facts work out in the social system of Thelema. It may be useful to classify women in three groups, (I exclude the fourth, which while anatomically woman, does not function in that capacity: the "spinster.") corresponding to Isis, Osiris and Horus. The Isis-Class consists of the mother-type. To them the man is no more than the necessary creator and sustainer of her children. The Osiris-Class comprises those women who are devoted to their man qua man, and to his career. Her children, if any, she values as reproductions of the Beloved; they carry him on into futurity by virtue of her deathless love. The Horus-Class is composed of those women who remain children, the playgirls, who love only for pleasure. To them a child is dull at the best, at the worst a nuisance. Each of these classes has its qualities and its defects; each should be held in equal, although dissimilar, honour. And what, you ask, has the man got to say about all this? Nothing simpler; all women are subordinate to his True Will. Only the Osiris-Class, provided he can find one of them, are of more than transient use to him; and even in this case, he must be careful to avoid being ensnared. But the really important issue is the recognition of each type of True Will in woman. 18* Cap. D (4); p. 18 of the second edition. ======================================================================== Chapter XXXIX: Prophecy Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Now, now, now! I really had hoped that this at least you might have spared me. Still, I have to admit that your reason for asking me to go all pontifical about Prophecy is a good one; you want a chucker-out for the loafers that come cadging into your Taverne de la Belle Sibylle, and waste your time with piffle about Pyramids. What a game! So naturally you need a Book of the Rules, and a list of the classes of offensive people, whether prostitutes, policemen, or verminous persons. (I quote from the Regulations for secular Pubs!) who think the easiest of all possible refuges from their Fear (see other letters!) is reliance upon the mouldy mumblings of moth-eater mountebanks. Perhaps it will be best to begin by setting down the necessary conditions for a genuine prophecy. We shall find that most of the famous predictions are excluded without need of more specific examination. But--priority, please, as usual, for the etymology. Prophesy means "forth-speaking," more or less equal to "inspired." It has nothing to do with foretelling the future, though it may do so, as it may do anything, being only the ravings of a poet, drunkard, or madman. (You remember how Saul came upon a company of youths all prophesying away together to beat the hand, and joined the merry throng. So people said, "Is Saul also among the Prophets?" meaning a man capable of the "divine" intoxication of love, song, eloquence, or whatever else enthusiastic might possess him. Men seized by the afflatus were found to be capable of extraordinary exploits; hence the condition was admired and envied by the average clod. Also, imitated by the average crook!) For all that, I am going for once to yield to popular clamour, and use words in their popular sense. That seems to me, roughly this: Prediction is a forecast based on reason, prophecy one which claims the warrant of "magical" powers. You agree? Then we can get on. 1. The prophecy must announce itself as such. We cannot have people picking up odds and ends which may be perfectly irrelevant, and insisting that they conceal forecasts. This excludes Great Pyramid lunatics; it would be quite simple to do the same sham calculations with the Empire State Building; when the architects protested, it is simple to reply: why, but of course! God was most careful not to let them know what they were really doing, or they would have died of fright! This argument was actually put forward by the Spiritists when Zancig confessed that his music-hall exploits* were accomplished by means of a code. It is quite useless to get any sense whatever into the heads of these bigoted imbeciles. Here, A.C! don't forget your best-beloved Browning! In Mr. Sludge the Medium, the detected cheat--it was D.D. Home in real life--offers this silly subterfuge: Why, when I cheat Mean to cheat, do cheat, and am caught in the act, Are you, or rather, am I sure o' the fact? (There's verse again, but I'm inspired somehow) Well then I'm not sure! I may be perhaps, Free as a babe from cheating; how it began, My gift,--no matter; what 'tis got to be In the end now, that's the question; answer that! Had I seen, perhaps, what hand was holding mine, Leading me whither, I had died of fright So, I was made believe I led myself. 2. The date of the prophecy must antecede that of its fulfilment. The very greatest care must be taken to insure this. When both dates are remote, as in the case of "fulfilled" Biblical prophecies, this is often impossible. 3. The prophecy must be precise. This rules out cases where alternative verifications are possible. 4. The prophecy must be more than a reasonable calculation of probability. This rules out stuff like "The Burden of Nineveh"19 and the like. Incidentally, "The Burden of Damascus" does not seem to have had much luck so far! By latest accounts, the old burg wasn't feeling too badly. We may also refer to the Second Advent: "Behold! I come quickly."20 There have been quite a few false alarms to date. (It began with Jesus himself, snapping off the disciple's head: "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" Well, somebody was disappointed.) * Mrs. Zancig sat on the stage, blindfolded. Her husband wandered about the audience, taking one object or another from one or another of them, and asking her "Ready?" "What is this?" "And this?" "This now?" "Right, what's this?" and so on. They had worked out a list of some hundreds of questions to cover any probable article, or to spell its name, or give a number, as when asked the number of a watch or 'bus ticket--and so on. One evening at Cambridge, I was explaining this to a group of undergraduates; being doubted, I offered to do the same trick with the help of one of them--a complete stranger. I only stipulated to ten minutes alone with him "to hypnotize him." Of course I won easily. They cut out one possible way of communication after another; but I always managed to exchange a few words with my "medium" or slip him a note, so as to have a new code not excluded by the latest precaution. 5. The verification must be simple, natural, unique and unmistakable. Forced and far-fetched explanations, distortions of Qabalistic or other mathematical reasoning, are barred. 6. The prophecy itself must possess the complement of this precision. It must be so perfectly unintelligible at the time that the elucidation of the answer makes it certain that the prophet knew precisely the whole riddle. I feel that this condition is itself expressed in a somewhat oracular form; I will try to clarify by citing what I consider a perfect example. Perfect, I say, because the "must" is a little too strong; there are degrees of excellence. "That stele they shall call the Abomination of Desolation; count well its name, & it shall be to you as 718." (AL III, 19) (The Stl is that whose discovery culminated in the writing of The Book of the Law.) Here the first part is still quite unintelligible to me: I have tried analysis of the original phrase in "Scripture,"21 and nearly everything else: entirely in vain: One can see dimly how people, recognizing that Stl as the Talisman responsible for reducing half the cities of Europe to rubble, might very well make reference to those original prophecies. But, at the best, that's nothing to cable to Otaheite about! Now the second part. This was even more baffling than the other. "Count well its name"? how can I? it never had a name! So I tried all sorts of experiments with 718. Shin, 300, the letter of Spirit, with our key-number 418, looks promising. Only one more pie-crust! I kept attacking, off and on, for many a long year, got out all sorts of fantastic solutions, complex and confused; they simply shouted their derision at me. It was one glorious night in Cefal, too utterly superb to waste in sleep; I got up; I adored the Stars and the Moon; I revelled in the Universe. Yet there was something pulling at me. It pulled eftsoons my body into my chair, and I found myself at this old riddle of 718. Half-a dozen comic failures. But I felt that there was something on the way. Idly, I put down Stl in the Greek, 52,23 and said, "Perhaps we can make a 'name' out of the difference between that and 718." I jumped. 718 - 52 = 666 My own name! Why, of course, quoth he, in glee; it is in fact the Stl of 666; for it is the Stl of Ankh-f-n-khonsu, my name in those past days. Oh, no! said Something, that's not good enough! "Count well its name"--the Stl of Ankh-f-n-khonsu: a name is something to which it answers, quite different from a title. That solution is clever, but it just won't do, because that Stl never had a name! You lie! I shouted, as the full light broke through the mists of my mind: In these three Thousand years it has once, if only once, had a name, by invoking which you could bring it up before you; its name is "Stl 666" in the Catalogue of the Museum at Boulak! A single simple hammerstroke, and the nail is driven home to the head! Compare this with the chaotic devices of the "bilateral-cipher" maniacs, by the application of which it is easy to prove that Bernard Shaw wrote Rudyard Kipling. Or anything else! you pay your money, and you take your choice. 7. Another strong point is that the prophecy should on the surface mean something vague and plausible, and, interpreted, possess this same quality of unique accuracy. For instance (although it is not prediction) consider "Love is the law, love under will." Yes, that sounds very well; I dare say that is an excellent point of philosophy.--But! well, anyone might say that. Oh, no! For when we use the Greek of the technical terms, we find AGAPY, Love, and THELYMA, Will, both of the value of 93--and these only two blossoms of the Tree whose root is 31, and the entire numerical-verbal system based thereupon organized with incredibly simple intricacy; well, that is an Eohippus of an entirely different tint! It is no more the chance (if happy) statement of any smooth-tongued philosopher, but the evidence of, and the key to, an incalculably vast design. As well attribute the Riemann-Christoffel Tensor to the "happy thought" of some post-prandial mathematician. Here is another case. Now then this two-in-One letter Moon symbol = old style capital Sigma Sun symbol = capital Theta , is the third Key to this Law; and on the discovery of that fact, after years of constant seeking, what sudden splendours of Truth, sacred as secret, blazed in the midnight of my mind! Observe now; "...this circle squared in its failure is a key also."23 Now I knew that in the value of the letters ALHIM, 'the Gods', the Jews had concealed a not quite correct value of p, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, to 4 places of decimals: 3.1415; nearer would be 3.1416. If I prefix our Key, 31 putting [039_fig01.gif] [039_fig02.gif] Sun and Moon conjoined , Set or Satan, before the old Gods, I get 3.141593, p correct to six places, Six being my own number and that of Horus the Sun. And one more, this time an actual prediction. Here again is what might at first seem almost an evasion! "...one commeth after him,..." indeed! I suppose so. It fits anybody who discovers it or claims to have done so. Not one little bit! For when the time came, and the Key was found, the finder's name in the Order was--and had been from the moment of his admission as a probationer--Achad, the Hebrew word for "One." And he came "after him" in the precise technical sense, that he was in fact the next person to undertake the Adventure of the Abyss. I hope you are not getting the idea that my Prophetic ambit is limited to these high-falutin' metaphysical masterpieces of Runic Lore. In case you do, I now propose to break your "seven green withs that were never dried" altogether, Delilah; for I shall keep my hair on. I shall go forth to war! From 1920 to 1923 my abode for a season was the house called the Horsel of the Abbey of Thelema that lieth upon Santa Barbara, overlooking the town of Telepylus--see Homer and Samuel Butler II, but called later by the Romans Cephaloedium, and now Cefal. There did I toil to expand my little Part III of Book 4 to the portentous volume now more generally known as Magick in Theory and Practice. After numerous misadventures, it was published in 1928. I refer you to that book, page 96. One last word on this subject. There is a Magical Operation of maximum importance: the Initiation of a New Aeon. When it becomes necessary to utter a Word, the whole Planet must be bathed in blood. Before man is ready to accept the Law of Thelema, the Great War must be fought. This Bloody Sacrifice is the critical point of the World-Ceremony of the Proclamation of Horus, the Crowned and Conquering Child, as Lord of the Aeon.* The whole matter is prophesied in The Book of the Law itself; let the student take note, and enter the ranks of the Host of the Sun. 19* Note [?]: This paragraph was written in the summer 1911, e.v., just three years before its fulfilment. Second innings '38 e.v., sqq.9 (It is a pity that I cannot prove my footnote, but this Chapter XII was part of the original MS, advertised as to be published in 1912. You may take my word for it, for once. And in any case we have the prophecy of Bartzabel, the Spirit of Mars, in the early summer of 1910 that wars involving the disaster of (a) Turkey and (b) Germany would be fought within 5 years. 10 See the New York World, December, 1914.) We now proceed to Magick, page 112. But now observe how the question of the Magical Link arises! No matter how mighty the truth of Thelema, it cannot prevail unless it is applied to and by mankind. As long as The Book of the Law was in Manuscript, it could only affect the small group amongst whom it was circulated. It had to be put into action by the Magical Operation of publishing it. When this was done, it was done without proper perfection. Its commands as to how the work ought to be done were not wholly obeyed. There were doubt and repugnance in FRATER PERDURABO's mind, and they hampered His work. He was half-hearted. Yet, even so, the intrinsic power of the truth of the Law and the impact of the publication were sufficient to shake the world so that a critical war broke out, and the minds of men were moved in a mysterious manner. The second blow was struck by the re-publication of the Book in September 1913, and this time the might of this Magick burst out and caused a catastrophe to civilization. At this hour, the MASTER THERION is concealed, collecting his forces for a final blow. When The Book of the Law and its Comment is published with the forces of His whole Will in perfect obedience to the instructions which have up to now been misunderstood or neglected, the result will be incalculably effective. The event will establish the kingdom of the Crowned and Conquering Child over the whole earth, and all men shall bow to the Law, which is "love under will." This should be plain enough, and satisfactory. However, I thought it was time to draw public attention to these matters more emphatically. In fulfillment of my pledge given above, and of the instructions originally given to me by the Masters, I got out The Equinox of the Gods at 6:22 a.m., Dec. 22. 1937, e.v.; and, to fulfill my condition No. 1 (above) of a Prophecy, as well as to establish the date, I got a reporter on the spot, with the result following: These Names Make News. Mixed Bag of Early Birds. An Englishman, a Jew, an Indian, a Negro, a Malayan--no, it's not one of those saloon-bar jokes--assembled on the Embankment, by Cleopatra's Needle, soon after 6 a.m. yesterday. They were there to assist at the publication of a book by 62 year- old magician, ALEISTER CROWLEY. Publication occurred at 6:22 sharp, when the Sun entered Capricornus. Crowley make a short speech; as "the Priest of the Princes" proclaimed the Law of Thelema; handed copies of book to white, red, brown, black, yellow representatives. Representative of the "black" race was a dancing-girl. Indian was a non-English speaking Bengali Muslim, who seemed rather puzzled by the whole business. Book contains message dictated to Crowley at Cairo in 1904 "by Aiwass, a Being whose nature he does not fully understand but who described Himself as 'The Minister of Hoor-Paar-Kraat' (the Lord of Silence)." Prospectus of book says it's been published three times before; adds, sinisterly, that first publication was nine months before outbreak of Balkan war, second, nine months before outbreak of world war, third, nine months before outbreak of Sino-Japanese war. No coincidence, it says: "the might of this Magick burst out and caused a catastrophe to civilisation." Well, we'll see next September . . . . "It's a bit hard of you to wish another war on us," I said to Crowley. "Oh, but if everyone will only do as I tell them to," he replied, "the catastrophe can be averted." "Somehow I fear they won't." . . . . . . . . "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." Then I issued a prospectus for the book, giving the facts as to previous publications and their results, and leaving blank a space after "The Fourth Publication" to wait the event. THE FIRST PUBLICATION nine months before the outbreak of the Balkan War, which broke up the Near East. When this was done it was done without proper perfection. Its commands as to how the work ought to be done were not wholly obeyed . . . Yet, even so, the intrinsic power of the truth of the Law and the impact of publication were sufficient to shake the world, so that a critical war broke out, and the minds of men were moved in a mysterious manner." THE SECOND PUBLICATION nine months before the outbreak of the World War, which broke up the West. "The second blow was struck by the re-publication of the Book in September, 1913, and this time . . . caused a catastrophe to civilisation. At this hour, the Master Therion is concealed, collecting his forces for a final blow. When The Book of the Law and its Comment is published . . . in perfect obedience to the instruction . . . the result will be incalculably effective. The event will establish the Kingdom of the Crowned and Conquering Child over the whole earth, and all men shall bow to the Law, which is love under will." THE THIRD PUBLICATION nine months before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, which is breaking up the Far East. THE FOURTH PUBLICATION 6:22 a.m., December 22, 1937, e.v. This series of actions complies perfectly with the condition of Prophecy. Nine months elapsed, and I was able to overprint, also to reprint, enlarged to four pages my remaining prospectuses in red ink. As follows: nine months before the Betrayal, which stripped Britain of the last rags of honour, prestige and security, and will break up civilisation. I have always maintained that Munich marked the true outbreak of the war, because Hitler's rape of Czecho-Slovakia, however justifiable, was irreconcilably incompatible with our Foreign Policy; and Munich is Nine Months to a day after my Gesture. This then I consider a completely documented case of Prophecy. And I shall be a completely documented case of Brain-Fag unless I shut up NOW. Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 19* Nahum I.1 20* Apocalypse, XXII, 20. 21* AL III. 47. 22* Spelt in Hebrew letters in the original. 23* WEH NOTE: This Sun & Moon symbolism flows from Crowley's work with Greek, Tarot and Hebrew. "Set" as Sigma-Theta or as Shin-Teth. Taking the numbers for the corresponding Tarot Trumps from the Thoth Deck, we get XX + XI = 31. See O.T.O. Newsletter, No. 7-8, p. 9 ff, "Liber MCCLXIV The Greek Qabalah" and No. 9, p. 31. 24* The postscript was apparently hand-written by Crowley into one of his copies of Magick in Theory and Practice. ======================================================================== Chapter XL: Coincidence Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. When I was writing that letter about prophecy, I was hot and bothered all the time by my faithful sentinel, the well-greaved Hoplite that stands at the postern of my consciousness, ready to challenge every thought--and woe to the intruder who cannot give the countersign! This time the dear old ruffian thought the matter serious enough to report Higher Up. "It is put plainly enough, emphatically enough, incontrovertibly enough" was the gist of his communication "that the first and most irretrievable trick of the enemy is to dupe you into passing Captain Coincidence as 'Friend,' whereas he is naturally the most formidable of all your foes when it comes to a question of proof." Quite right, Sergeant-Major! But it is not only about prophecy, but about all sorts of things, in particular, of course, the identification of angels and similar problems. Well, we have captured quite a few lads of the company of Captain Coincidence; let us have them up for examination and learn what we can about their weapons and other warlike matters! I take our first prisoner from Magick. The most famous novel of Fielding is called Tom Jones. It happened that FRATER PERDURABO was staying in a hotel in London. He telephoned a friend named Fielding at the latter's house, and was answered by Mr. Fielding's secretary, who said that his employer had left the house a few minutes previously, and could only be reached by telephoning a certain office in the City at between 11 o'clock and a quarter past. FRATER PERDURABO had an appointment at 11 o'clock with a music-hall star, the place being the entrance to a theatre. In order to remind himself, he made a mental note that, as soon as he saw the lady, he would raise his hand and say, before greeting her: 'Remind me that I must telephone at once to Fielding,' when he met her. He did this, and she advance toward Him with the same gesture, and said in the same breath, 'Remind me that I have to telephone to Tom Jones'-- the name of a music-hall agent employed by her. Here comes another, this time completely crazy! Nothing "Literary" about it; no sense anywhere; a pure freak. A friend of mine, A, rang up a friend of hers, B, at her flat in Holland Park, some 3 or 4 miles west, and a p'int to the Nor'rard, of Piccadilly Circus. After the usual series of "they don't answer", "line's engaged", "unobtainable", "line's out of order", "line's temporarily disconnected at the subscriber's request", an appeal to "Supervisor" got her connected instantly. Yet another girl friend, C, appears in, and vanishes from, the story; she said "Oh, what a pity, you've just missed her; she went out five minutes ago. I think she'll be back in an hour's time, try then." A waited impatiently, and rang up once more. Again the series of nonsense-difficulties about getting the connection. At last the answer came. This time yet one more girl friend D. "Oh, what a pity! You've just missed her; she left the box not five minutes ago." "Box," screamed A, "what box? Have I got mixed up in a Trunk Murder?" "Why, this box," replied D, calmly. "What -- -- box?" shouted A. "Isn't that her flat?" "Her flat! are you crazy? This is a call-box in Shaftesbury Avenue." Collapse of A's confidence in the sanity of Nature. One may note that there was no similarity in the names of the exchanges, or in the numbers. It is the most grotesquely impossible case of "wrong number" that ever came my way. Now for one or two oddities. Recently, needing to relax, I borrowed three "thrillers" from different sources. In every case, the plot turned on two men being so alike that no one could tell them apart. (Rupert of Hentzau, John Chilcote, M.P., Melander's Millions.) I traveled from Louisville to Detroit by a railroad whose nickname was the "Big Four", my object being some business connected with my Book 4. The name of my express was the "Big Four"--it left from No. 4 platform at 4 p.m. My sleeping berth was No. 4 in Car No. 4; and my ticket was No. 44,444. I ought to have been April 4, I suppose; but it wasn't. Last week a letter from me appeared in the Sunday Dispatch with regard to the Everest Mystery of 1921. I expressed my view that the two lost climbers, last seen on an easy snow-slope near the summit, had simply been blown into the air by one of the sudden gusts of incredible fierce winds which are common at those heights, and dashed to earth perhaps a mile away. After reading this, I went to a friend's room to borrow a book, picked up her Shakespeare's Histories, and, opening it at random, came upon: They that stand high have many blasts to shake them, And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces. Richard III, Act I, Sc. 3. Now here's a story that's too good to lose; not the mistiest phantasm of an ideogram how to class it; for one thing, it's chock-a-block with moral lessons and economic theories and political summats; but there's coincidence in it somewhere, and under coincidence down it shall go. Even if only by coincidence. From 1895 e.v. onwards I dealt with Colin Lunn. "Of all the tobacconists under the sun, There is none, there is none, like the great Colin Lunn--" of Sidney Street, Cambridge. When I started round the world, alas for fidelity! I began to forget him. By 1906 e.v. the operation was practically complete. In '42 e.v. I spent a few days with friends in Cambridge. Sauntering along K.P. (King's Parade to you, madam!) on my way back to the station with half an hour or so to kill, I thought I would pop in to Lunn's new shop there, and pass the time of day. He might have something to take my fancy. So I did. Needless to say, I didn't know the shopman from Adam, as he did not offer me a view of his identification mark. I asked after old friends; we gossiped of old times and new; presently he observed, putting a hand under the counter: "I think this is yours sir." "How do you know who I am? I've never seen you before." "Oh, yes sir, I was the odd-job boy at the old Sidney Street shop; I remember you quite well." By this time there lay on the counter a strange familiar-unfamiliar object--a pipe that I had left for some minor repair before hurrying off to the East 37 years before! I am smoking it now. And you can draw your own beastly conclusion! Here is a last, a passing strange account of a coincidence--or should it come under "Answers to Prayer." A young enthusiastic "Heaven Born" (=I.C.S.)* parlous pious, was engaged to an exquisite chaste damosel in Lutterworth. Praised and promoted by his appreciative chiefs in Bombay, he felt his future sure enough to go home on leave, marry her, and bring her out to India. At their parting, she had given him a ring; naturally, he set great store by it." But the climate had thinned him; it was loose; playing with it as he talked with a friend on the ship, it slipped from his finger, and fell into the harbour." He suppressed an expression of annoyance. "Well that's past praying for," laughed the friend--unhappily an infidel, not a true friend at all. The young man stiffened. "It is?" he answered solemnly and emphatically; "We shall see." And he retired to his cabin to lay his grief before the Lord. The ship arrived at Aden without incident. While she was coaling, it was the idle habit of some sailors to bait a hook with a large piece of pork, and fish for sharks. An hour later they caught a fine specimen, and hauled it aboard. They cut it open. No ring. I hope you don't think I'm letting my pen run away with me: "Pens! Good Lord, Who knows if you drive them or they drive you?" * Indian Civil Servant. No, I have not forgotten that I am here to instruct as well as to amuse: also, to make certain observations which will, I flatter myself, be rather new to you. I plunge headlong. Everything that happens, no matter what, is an inconceivably improbable coincidence. You remember how you had to begin when you first came to me for help. I said to you, "Here are you, and no other person, come to see me, and no other person, in this room, and no other room, at this time, and not other time. Hod did that come about?" The answer to that question is the first entry in your Magical Diary: and, with a slightly different object in view, the first step in the practice of Liber Thisharb and the acquisition of Magical Memory. Why, hang it all; the events of the last hour, even, might have gone just an infinitesimally little bit different, and the interview would not have taken place as it did. Consider then, that factors stretching back into Eternity--all the factors there are!--have each one contributed in its degree to bringing this interview about. What a fantastic improbability! Yet here we are. Chance blindly rules the Universe. But what is Chance? And where does purpose intervene? To what extent? I shall now conduct you, no less firmly than Mr. E. Phillips Oppenheim, to Monte Carlo. (Excuse me! I was just called to the telephone. Somebody of whose existence I was not aware has fallen ill in Ireland--and bang went my plans for tomorrow.) You walk quietly into the Casino; it seems to you that the excitement is even more noticeable than usual. You see a friend at the table "Here in the nick of time!" he gasps. "Black has just turned up for the 24th time running." You press forward to plank the maximum on Red. The wheel spins; Black again! "Forty thousand she-devils in the belfry of St. Nicholas Rocambole-de-Ronchonot!" "But --- but" (you stammer when spirits of hartshorn have revived you) "in the whole history of the tables a colour has never turned up more than 24 times running!" My poor friend, what has that got to do with it? True, from the start it is countless millions to 1 that there will not be a run of 24 on the red or the black; but the probability on any single spin (ignoring zero) is always one to one. The black compartments do not contract because the ball has fallen into any one of them. Anyone who gambles at all is either a dilettante, a crook, or a B.F. If you could get the B.F.'s to understand the very elementary mathematics set forth above, good-night to gambling! And a good riddance, at that! Well, there is one advantage in the system; it does help the intelligent man to steal a march on his neighbours! In all this the important point for my present purpose is to show you how entirely this question of probability and coincidence is dependent on your attention. The sequence B B B B B B B at roulette is most unlikely to occur; but so, in exactly the same degree, is the sequence B R B R R B R or any other sequence. The one passes unnoticed, the other causes surprise, only because you have in your mind the idea of "a run on black." Extend this line of thought a little, and link it up with what I was saying about the Magical Diary; you realize that every phenomenon soever is equally improbably, and "infinitely" so. The Universe is therefore nothing but Coincidence! How then can any event be more improbable than any other? Why, very simply. Go back to Monte; proclaim that at Table No. 3 Black will turn up 7 times running, after this next spin. (Or, of course, any other series of 7.) Now you see how Coincidence links up with Prophecy! A fortiori, Coincidence is destroyed by Purpose, if, wishing to enlighten you on the subject, I write this letter and post it to your address, your receipt of it is no longer Coincidence. So then coincidence must be entirely both unforeseen and unintentional; in other words, absolutely senseless. But we have just proved that the Universe is nothing but Coincidence; it therefore is senseless. So, having established the asymptote of our hyperbolic hyperbola, and shewn it to be asynartete, why should we not acquiesce, and say olive oil? Love is the law, love under will. Yours fraternally, 666 ======================================================================== Chapter XLI: "Are we Reincarnations of the Ancient Egyptians?" Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. That accursed conscience of mine has been pricking me ever since I dashed off that rather curt and off-hand letter card in answer to yours of the 18th. I had intended as a matter of fact to let you have the present coruscation as soon as I could get my secretary in the offing, but I thought I would snap your head off in the strength of your question as salutary chastisement. I do wish you would understand that all these speculations are not only idle and senseless because you cannot possibly verify their accuracy, but a deadly You ask if we, meaning, I suppose, the English, are now reincarnating the Egyptians. When I was a boy it was the Romans, while the French undertook the same thankless office for the Greeks. I say "deadly poison;" because when you analyse you see at once that this is a device for flattering yourself. You have a great reverence for the people who produced Luxor and the Pyramids; and it makes you feel nice and comfortable inside if you think that you were running around in those days as Rameses II or a high priest in Thebes or something equally congenial. You may say that I am myself the chief of sinners in this respect because of Ankh-f-n-Khonsu, but this was not my doing. It was imposed upon me by The Book of the Law, and I do not feel particularly flattered or comforted by this identification. The only interest to me is the remarkable manner in which this is interwoven with the existence of the "Cairo working." Your second and third questions are still worse. I should be ashamed of myself if I were to do so much as to refer to them. That must serve for that. But your fourth question I did answer after a fashion. It has however struck me that I might have given you a more detailed instruction with advantage. When I was up the Mindoun Chong in Burma, I started an investigation of my dreams; and the only way to catch them was to write down as much as I could remember on waking, instantly. The result of doing this is rather surprising. To begin with, I discovered, especially as the practice progressed, that I was having many more dreams than I had previously supposed. This might have come about in either of two ways. (1) The practice might have actually increased my tendency to dream, and (2) the habit of observation may have brought dreams to the surface which would otherwise have gone unremarked. In either case the figures were quite definite. I found almost at once, that is to say after about a month, that practically every dream that I could remember, could be quite clearly ascribed to one of two causes: (a) the events of the previous day or days, or the subjects which had interested and excited me during that period, and (b) the physical conditions of the moment. For instance, a good deal of the time of the experiment I was sleeping in what might have been euphemistically called a houseboat. It was liable to leak; and on such occasions as I woke to find water trickling down my nose, I found that the dream from which I had wakened was an adventure of some sort in connection with water. (It is quite notorious, I believe, that many asthmatic subjects are pestered by dreams of having been guillotined in a previous incarnation. Alan Bennett, I may mention, was one such.) As the practice proceeds, you should find not only that your dreams increase in number per night, but also became very much fuller, clearer and more coherent. I assume that the reason is that the fact of your paying attention to them brings them to the surface. I am not quite sure whether this is a complete and adequate answer to your question 4, "How can I best bring my sleeping memory into my waking hours?" I have studied, and my secretary has studied, and we can make no head or tail of your remark about brain exercises with sketch. Well, I must hope for the best, and leave you with my blessing. Love is the law, love