November 13, 1988 e.v. key entry by Bill Heidrick T.G. O.T.O.
(c) O.T.O. NOT PROOFED!
for special characters and alphabets. ---- This is an ASCII file
Items in Curly Braces are Descriptions of Single Characters --Tony *************************************************************************
Liber CXI vel {HB:Aleph } Aleph
The Book of Wisdom and Folly.
{Epsilon }{Pi }{Iota }{Sigma }{Tau }{Omicron }{Lambda }{Eta }
{Tau }{Omega }{Upsilon } {Mu }{Epsilon }{Gamma }{Alpha }{Lambda }{Omicron }{Upsilon }
{Theta }{Eta }{Rho }{Iota }{Omicron }{Upsilon }
{Pi }{Rho }{Omicron }{Sigma } {Tau }{Omicron }{Nu }
{Upsilon }{Iota }{Omicron }{Nu }
{Alpha }{Upsilon }{Tau }{Omicron }{Upsilon }{Gamma }{Epsilon }{Sigma }{Rho }{Alpha }{Mu }{Mu }{Alpha }{Tau }
{Omicron }{Nu }
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
--------------
Love is the law, love under will.
666
AN X I V
{Sun} in {Aries}
{Moon} in {Aries}
Liber CXI vel {HB:Aleph } Aleph
The Book of Wisdom and Folly.
{Epsilon }{Pi }{Iota }{Sigma }{Tau }{Omicron }{Lambda }{Eta }
{Tau }{Omega }{Upsilon } {Mu }{Epsilon }{Gamma }{Alpha }{Lambda }{Omicron }{Upsilon }
{Theta }{Eta }{Rho }{Iota }{Omicron }{Upsilon }
{Pi }{Rho }{Omicron }{Sigma } {Tau }{Omicron }{Nu }
{Upsilon }{Iota }{Omicron }{Nu }
{Alpha }{Upsilon }{Tau }{Omicron }{Upsilon }{Gamma }{Epsilon }{Sigma }{Rho }{Alpha }{Mu }{Mu }{Alpha }{Tau }
{Omicron }{Nu }
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
------------
{alpha } A P O L O G I A
I have begotten thee, o my Son, and that strangle, as thou
knowest, upon the Scarlet Woman called Hilarion, as it was
mysteriously foretold unto me in "The Book of the Law." Now
therefore that thou art come to the Age of Understanding, do
thou give ear unto my Wisdom, for that therein lieth a simple
and direct Way for every Man that he may attain to the End.
Firstly, then, I would have thee to know that Spiritual
Experience and Perfection have no necessary connection with
Advancement in our Holy Order. But for each Man is a Path:
there is a Constant, and there is a Variable. Seek ever
therefore in thy Work of the Promulgation of the Law to
discover in each Man his own true Nature, that
-2-
he may in due Season accomplish it not only for himself, but
for all who are bound unto him. There are very many for whom
in their present Incarnations this Great Work may be
impossible; since their appointed Work may be in Satisfaction
of some Magical Debt, or in Adjustment of some Balance, or in
Fulfilment of some Defect. As is written: Suum Cuique.
(Jedem das Seine.)
Now because thou art the Child of my Bowels, I yearn
greatly towards thee, o my Son, and I strive strongly with my
Spirit that by my Wisdom I may make plain thy Way before thee;
and thus in many Chapters will I write for thee those things
that may profit thee.
Sis benedictus.
-3-
{beta } DE ARTE KABBALISTIKA.
Do thou study most constantly, my Son, in the Art of the
Holy Qabalah. Know that herein the Relations between Numbers,
though they be mighty in Power and prodigal of Knowledge, are
but lesser Things. For the Work is to reduce all other
conceptions to these of Number, because thus thou wilt lay
bare the very Structure of thy Mind, whose rule is Necessity
rather than Prejudice. Not until the Universe is thus laid
naked before thee canst thou truly anatomize it. The
Tendencies of thy Mind lie deeper far than any Thought, for
they are the Conditions and the Laws of Thought; and it is
these that thou must bring to Nought.
This Way is most sure; most sacred; and the Enemies thereof
most awful, most sublime. It is for the Great Souls to enter
on this Rigour and Austerity. To them the Gods themselves do
Homage; for it is the Way of Utmost Purity.
-4-
{gamma } DE VITA CORRIGENDA.
Know, son, that the true Principle of Self-Control is
Liberty. For we are born into a World which is in Bondage to
Ideals; to them we are perforce fitted, even as the Enemies to
the Bed of Procrustes. Each of us, as he grows, learns
Repression of himself and his true Will. "It is a lie, this
folly against self.": these Words are written in "The Book of""
""the Law". So therefore these Passions in ourselves which we
understand to be Hindrances are not part of our True Will, but
diseased Appetites, manifest in us through false early
Training. Thus the Tabus of savage Tribes in such matter as
Love constrain that True Love which is born in us; and by this
Constraint come ills of Body and Mind. Either the Force of
Repression carries it, and creates Neuroses and Insanities; or
the Revolt against that Force, breaking forth with Violence,
involves Excesses and Extravagances. All these Things are
Disorders, and against Nature. Now then learn of me the
testimony of History and literature as a great Scroll of
Learning. But the Vellum of the Scroll is of Man's Skin, and
its Ink of his Heart's Blood.
-5-
{delta } LEGRENDA DE AMORE.
The Fault, that is Fatality, in Love, as in every other
Form of Will, is Impurity. It is not the Spontaneity there-of
which worketh Woe, but some Repression in the Environment.
In the Fable of Adam and Eve is this great Lesson taught by
the Masters of the Holy Qabalah. For Love were to them the
eternal Eden, save for the Repression signified by the Tree of
the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Thus their Nature of Love was
perfect; it was their Fall from that Innocence which drove
them from the Garden.
In the Love of Romeo and Juliet was no Flaw; but family
Feud, which imported nothing to that Love, was its Bane; and
the Rashness and Violence of their Revolt against that
Repression, slew them.
In the pure Outrush of Love in Desdemona for Othello was no
Flaw; but his Love was marred by his consciousness of his Age
and his Race, of the Prejudices of his Fellows and of his own
Experience of Woman-Frailty.
-6-
{epsilon } GESTA DE AMORE.
Now as Literature overfloweth with the Murders of Love, so
also doeth History, and the Lesson is ever the same.
Thus the Loves of Abelard and of Heloise were destroyed by
the System of Repression in which they chanced to move.
Thus Beatrice was robbed of Dante by social
Artificialities; and Paolo slain on account of Things external
to his Love of Francesca.
Then, per contra, Martin Luther, being a Giant of Will, and
also the Eighth Henry of England, as a mighty King, bent them
to overturn the whole World that they might have satisfaction
of their Loves.
And who shall follow them? For even now we find great
Churchmen, Statesmen, Princes, Dramamakers, and many lesser
Men, overwhelmed utterly and ruined by the conflict between
their Passions and the Society about them. Wherein which
Party errs is no matter of Moment for our Thought; but the
Existence of the War is Evidence of Wrong done to Nature.
-7-
{digamma } UTIMA THESIS DE AMORE.
Therefore, o my Son, be thou wary, not bowing before the
false Idols and ideals, yet not flaming forth in Fury against
them, unless that be thy will.
But in this Matter be prudent and be silent, discerning
subtly and with acumen the nature of the Will within thee; so
that thou mistake not Fear for Chastity, or Anger for Courage.
And since the fetters are old and heavy, and thy Limbs
withered and distorted by reason of their Compulsion, do thou,
having broken them, walk gently for a little while, until the
ancient Elasticity return, so that thou mayst walk, run, and
leap naturally and with Rejoicing.
Also, since these Fetters are as a Bond almost universal,
be instant to declare the Law of Liberty, and the full
Knowledge of all Truth that appertaineth to this Matter; for
if in this only thou overcome, then shall all Earth be free,
taking its Pleasure in Sunlight without Fear or Phrenzy. Amen.
-8-
{zeta } DE NATURA SUA PERCIPIENDA.
Understand,o my Son, in thy Youth, these Words which some
wise One, now nameless, spake of old; except ye become as
little Children ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of
Heaven. This is to say that thou must first comprehend thine
original Nature in every Point, before thou wast forced to bow
before the Gods of Wood and Stone that Men have made, not
comprehending the Law of Change, and of Evolution Through
Variation, and the independent Value of every living Soul.
Learn this also, that even the Will to the Great Work may
be misunderstood of Men; for this Work must proceed naturally
and without Overstress, as all true Works. Right also is that
Word that the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth Violence, and the
violent take it by Force. But except thou be violent by
Virtue of thy true Nature, how shalt thou take it? Be not as
the Ass in the Lion's Skin; but if thou be born Ass, bear
patiently thy Burdens, and enjoy thy Thistles; for an Ass
also, as in the Fables of Apuleius and Matthaiss, may come to
Glory in the Path of his own Virtue.
-9-
{eta } ALTERA DE VIA MATURAE.
Sayest thou (methinks) that here is a great Riddle, since
by Reason of much Repression thou hast lost the Knowledge of
thine original Nature?
My son, this is not so; for by a peculiar Ordinance of
Heaven, and a Disposition occult within his Mine, is every Man
protected from this Loss of his own Soul, until and unless be
be by Choronzon disintegrated and dispersed beyond power of
Will to repair; as when the Conflict within him, rending and
burning, hath made his Mind utterly desert, and his Soul
Madness.
Give Ear, give Ear attentively; the Will is not lost;
though it be buried beneath a life-old midden of Repressions,
for it persisteth vital within thee (is it not the true Motion
of thine inmost Being?) and for all thy conscious Striving
cometh forth by Night and by Stealth in Dream and Phantasy.
Now is it naked and brilliant, now clothed in rich Robes of
Symbol and Hieroglyph; but always travelleth it with thee upon
thy Path, ready to acquaint thee with thy true Nature, if thou
attend unto its Word, its Gesture, or its Show of Imagery.
-10-
{theta } QUO MODO NATURA SUA EST LEGENDA.
Therefore deem not that thy lightest Fancy is
insignificant. Thy most unconscious Acts are Keys to the
Treasure-Chamber of thine own Palace, which is the House of
the Holy Ghost. Consider well thy conscious Thoughts and
Acts, for they are under the Dominion of thy Will, and moved
in Accord with the Operation of thy Reason; this indeed is a
necessary work, enabling to comprehend in what manner thou
mayst adjust thyself to thine Environment. Yet is this
Adaptation but Defence for the most Part, or at the best
Subterfuge and Stratagem in the Tactics of thy Life, with but
an accidental and subordinate Relation to thy true Will,
whereof by Consciousness and by Reason thou mayst be ignorant,
unless by Fortune great and rare thou be already harmonized in
thyself, the Outer with the Inner, which Grace is not common
among Men, and is the Reward of previous Attainment.
Neglect not simple Introspections, therefore; but give yet
greater Heed unto those Dreams and Phantasies, those Gestures
and Manners unconscious, and of undiscovered Cause, which
betoken thee.
-11
{kappa } DE SOMNISS. {alpha } CAUSA PER
ACCIDENS.
As all diseases have two conjunct causes, one immediate,
external and exciting, the other constitutional, internal, and
predisposing, so it is with Dreams, which are Dis-Eases, or
unbalanced States of Consciousness, Disturbers of Sleep as
Thoughts are of Life.
This exciting Cause is commonly of two kinds: videlicet,
imprimis, the physical Condition of the Sleeper, as a Dream of
Water caused by a shower without, or a Dream of Strangulation
caused by a Dyspnoea, or a Dream of Lust caused by the seminal
Congestions of an unclean Life, or a Dream of falling or
flying caused by some unstable Equilibrium of Body.
Secundo, the psychic condition of the Sleeper, the Dream
being determined by recent Events in his Life, usually those
of the Day previous, and especially such Events as have caused
Excitement of Anxiety, the more so if they be unfinished or
unfulfilled.
But this exciting Cause is of a superficial Nature, as it
were a Cloke or a Mask; and thus it but lendeth Aspect to the
other Cause, which lieth in the Nature of the Sleeper himself.
-12-
{kappa } DE SOMNIIS. {beta } CAUSA PER
NATURAM.
The deep, constitutional, or predisposing Cause of Dreams
lieth within the Jurisdiction of the Will itself. For that
Will, being alway present, albeit (it may be) latent,
discovereth himself when no longer inhibited by that conscious
Control which is determined by Environment, and therefore oft
times contrary to himself. This being so, the Will declareth
himself, as it were in a Pageant, and showeth himself thus
apparelled, unto the Sleeper, for a Warning or Admonition.
Every Dream, or Pageant of Fancy, is therefore a Shew of Will;
and Will being no more prevented by Environment or by
Consciousness, cometh as a Conqueror. Yet even so he must
come for the most Part throned upon the Chariot of the
exciting Cause of the Dream, and therefore is his Appearance
symbolic, like a Writing in Cipher, or like a Fable, or like a
Riddle in Pictures. But alway does he triumph and fulfil
himself therein, for the Dream is a natural Compensation in
the inner World for any Failure of Achievement in the outer.
-13-
{lambda } DE SOMNIIS. {gamma } VESTIMENTA
HORRORIS.
Now then if in a Dream the Will be always triumphant, how
cometh it that a Man may be ridden of the Nightmare? And of
this the true Explanation is that in such a case the Will is
in Danger, having been attacked and wounded or corrupted by
the Violence of some Repression. Thus the Consciousness of
the Will is directed to the sore Spot, as in Pain, and seeketh
comfort in an Externalisation, or shew, of that Antagonism.
And because the Will is sacred, such dreams excite an Ecstacy
or Phrenzy of Horror, Fear or Disgust. Thus the true Will of
Oedipus was toward the bed of Jocasta, but the Tabu, strong
both by Inheritance and by Environment, was so attached to
that Will that his Dream concerning his Destiny was a Dream of
Fear and of Abhorrence, his Fulfilment thereof (even in
Ignorance) a spell to stir up all the subconscious Forces of
all the People about him, and his Realization of the Act a
madness potent to drive him to self-inflicted Blindness and
fury-haunted Exile.
-14-
{mu } DE SOMNIIS. {delta } SEQUENTIS.
Know firmly, o my son, that the true Will cannot err; for
this is thine appointed course in Heaven, in whose order is
Perfection.
A Dream of Horror is therefore the most serious of all
Warnings; for it signifieth that thy Will, which is Thy Self
in respect of its Motion, is in Affliction and Danger. Thus
thou must instantly seek out the Cause of that subconscious
Conflict, and destroy thine Enemy utterly by bringing thy
conscious Vigour as an Ally to that true Will. If then there
be a Traitor in the Consciousness, how much the more is it
necessary for thee to arise and extirpate him before he wholly
infect thee with the divided Purpose which is the first Breach
in that Fortress of the Soul whose Fall should bring it to the
shapeless Ruin whose Name is Choronzon!
-15-
{nu } DE SOMNIIS. {epsilon } CLAVICULA.
The Dream delightful is then a Pageant of the Fulfilment of
the true Will, and the Nightmare a symbolic Battle between it
and its Assailants in thyself. But there can be only one true
Will, even as there can be only one proper Motion in any Body,
no matter of how many Forces that Motion be the Resultant.
Seek therefore this Will, and conjoin with it thy conscious
Self; for this is that which is written; "Thou hast no right
but to do thy Will. Do that, and no other shall say nay."
Thou seest, o my Son, that all conscious Opposition to thy
Will, whether in Ignorance, or by Obstinacy, or through Fear
of others, may in the end endanger even thy true Self, and
bring thy Star into Disaster.
And this is the true Key to Dreams; see that thou be
diligent in its Use, and unlock therewith the secret Chambers
of thine Heart.
-16-
{xi } DE VIA PER EMPYRAEUM.
Concerning they Travellings in thy Body of Light, or
Astral journeys and Visions so-called, do thou lay this Wisdom
to thy Heart, o my Son, that in this Practice, whether Things
Seen and Heard be Truth and Reality, or whether they be
Phantoms in the Mind, abideth this Supreme Magical Value,
namely: Whereas the Direction of such Journeys is consciously
willed, and determined by Reason, and also unconsciously
willed, by the true Self, since without It no Invocation were
possible, we have here a Cooperation of Alliance between the
Inner and the Outer Self, and thus an Accomplishment, at least
partial, of the Great Work.
And therefore is Confusion or Terror in any such Practice
an Error fearful indeed, bringing about Obsession, which is a
temporary or even it may be a permanent Division of the
Personality, or Insanity, and therefore a defeat most fatal
and pernicious, a Surrender of the Soul to Choronzon.
-17-
{omicron } DE CULTU.
Now, o my Son, that thou mayst be well guarded against thy
ghostly Enemies, do thou work constantly by the Means
prescribed in our Holy Books.
Neglect never the fourfold Adorations of the Sun in his
four Stations, for thereby thou doest affirm thy Place in
Nature and her Harmonies.
Neglect not the Performance of the Ritual of the Pentagram,
and of the Assumption of the Form of Hoor-pa Kraat.
Neglect not the daily Miracle of the Mass, either by the
Rite of the Gnostic Catholic Church, or that of the Phoenix.
Neglect not the Performance of the Mass of the Holy Ghost,
as Nature herself prompteth thee.
Travel also much in the Empyrean in the Body of Light,
seeking ever Abodes more fiery and lucid.
Finally, exercise constantly the Eight Limbs of Yoga., And
so shalt thou come to the End.
-18-
{pi } DE CLAVIGULA SOMNIORUM.
And now concerning Meditation let me disclose unto thee
more fully the Mystery of the Key of Dreams and Phantasies.
Learn first that as the Thought of the Mind standeth before
the Soul and hindereth its Manifestation in consciousness, so
also the gross physical Will is the Creator of the Dreams of
common Men, and as in Meditation thou doest destroy every
Thought by mating it with its Opposite, so must thou cleanse
thyself by a full and perfect Satisfaction of that bodily will
in the Way of Chastity and Holiness which has been revealed
unto thee in thy Initiation.
This inner Silence of the Body being attained, it may be
that the true Will may speak in True Dreams; for it is written
that He giveth unto His Beloved in Sleep.
Prepare thyself therefore in this Way, as a good Knight
should do.
-19-
{koppa } DE SOMNO LUCIDO.
Now know this also that at the End of that secret Way lieth
a Garden wherein is a Rest House prepared for thee.
For to him whose physical Needs of whatever Kind are not
truly satisfied cometh a Lunar or physical Sleep appointed to
refresh and recreate by Cleansing and Repose; but on him that
is bodily pure the Lord bestoweth a Solar or Lucid Sleep,
wherein move Images of pure Light fashioned by the True Will.
And this is called by the Qabalists the Sleep of Shiloam, and
of this doeth also Porphyry make mention mention, and Cicero,
with many other Wise Men of Old Time.
Compare, o my Son, with this Doctrine that which was taught
thee in the Sanctuary of the Gnosis concerning the Death of
the Righteous; and learn moreover that these are but
particular Cases of an Universal Formula.
-20-
{rho } DE VENEMIS.
My Son, if thou fast ahwile, there shall come unto thee a
second State of physiological Being, in which is a delight
passive and equable, without Will, a contentment of Weakness,
with a Feeling of Lightness and of Purity. And this is
because the Blood hath absorbed, in its Need of Nutriment, all
foreign Elements. Such also is the Case with the Mind which
hath not fed itself on Thought. Consider the placid and
ruminent Existence of such Persons as read little, are removed
from worldy Struggle by some sufficient Property of small and
unexciting Value, stably invested, and by Age and Environment
are free from Passion. They live, according to their own
Nature, without Desire, and they oppose no Resistance to the
Operations of Time. Such are called Happy, and in their Way
of Vegetable Life it is so; for they are free of any Poison.
-21-
{sigma } DE MOTU VITAE.
Learn then, o my Son, that all Phenomena are the effect of
Conflict, even as the Universe itself is a Nothing expressed
as the Difference of two Equalities, or, an thou wilt, as the
Divorce of Nuith and Hadith. So therefore every Marriage
dissolveth a more material, and createth a less material
Complex; and this is our Way of Live, rising ever from Ekstacy
to Ekstacy. So then all high Violence, that is to say, all
Consciousness, is the spiritual Orgasm of a Passion between
two lower and grosser Opposites. Thus Light and Heat result
from the Marriage of Hydrogen and Oxygen; Love from that of
Man and Woman, Dhyana or Ekstacy from that of the Ego and the
non-Ego.
But be thou well grounded in this Thesis corollary, that
one or two such Marriages do but destroy for a Time the
Exacerbation of any Complex; to deracinate such is a Work of
long Habit and deep Search in Darkness for the Germ thereof.
But this once accomplished, that particular Complex is
destroyed, or sublimated for ever.
-22-
{tau } DE MORBIS SANGUINIS.
Now then understand that all Opposition to the Way of
Nature createth Violence. If thine excretory System do its
Function not at its fullest, there come Poisons in the Blood,
and the Consciousness is modified by the conflicts or
Marriages between the elements heterogeneous. Thus if the
Liver be not efficient, we have Melancholy; if the Kidneys,
Coma; if the Testes or Ovaries, loss of Personality itself.
Also, an we poison the Blood directly with Belladonna, we have
Delirium vehement and furious; with Hashish, Visions
phantastic and enormous; with Anhiolonium, Ekstacy of colour
and what not; with diverse Germs of Disease, Disturbances of
Consciousness varying with the Nature of the Germ. Also with
Ether, we gain the Power of analysing the Consciousness into
its Planes; and so for many others.
But all these are, in our mystical Sense, Poisons; that is,
we take two Things diverse and opposite, binding them together
so that they are compelled to unite; and the Orgasm of each
Marriage is an Ekstacy, the Lower dissolving in the Higher.
-23-
{upsilon } DE CURSU AMORIS.
I continue then, o my son, and reiterate that this Formula
is general to all Nature. And thou wilt note that by repeated
Marriage cometh Toleration, so the Ekstacy appeareth no more.
Thus his half grain of Morphia, which first opened his Gates
of Heaven, is nothing worth to the Self-poisoner after a Year
of dayly Practice. So too the Lover findeth no more Joy in
Union with his Mistress, so soon as the original Attraction
between them is satisfied by repeated Conjunctions. For this
Attraction is an Antagonism; and the greater this Antinomy,
the more fierce the Puissance of the Magnetism, and the
Quality of Energy disengaged by the Coition.
Thus in the Union of Similars, as of Halogens with each
other, is no strong Passion of explosive Force, and the Love
between two Persons of the like Character and Taste is placid
and without Transmutation to higher Planes.
-24-
{phi } DE NUPTIIS MYSTICIS.
O my Son, how wonderful is the Wisdom of this Law of Love!
How vast are the Oceans of uncharted Joy that lie before the
Keel of thy Ship! Yet know this, that every Opposition is in
its Nature named Sorrow, and the Joy lieth in the Destruction
of the Dyad. Therefore, must thou seek ever those Things
which are to thee poisonous, and that in the highest Degree,
and make them thine by Love. That which repels, that which
disgusts, must thou assimilate in this Way of Wholeness. Yet
rest not in the Joy of the Destruction of each complex in thy
Nature, but press on to that ultimate Marriage with the
Universe whose Consummation shall destroy thee utterly,
leaving only that Nothingness which was before the Beginning.
So then the Life of Non-Action is not for thee; the
Withdrawal from Activity is not the Way of the Tao; but rather
the Intensification and making universal every Unit of thine
Energy on every Plane.
-25-
{chi } DE VOLUPTATE POENARUM.
Go forth, o my Son, o Son of the Sun, rejoicing in thy
Strength, as a Warrior, as a Bridegroom, to take thy Pleasure
upon the Earth, and in every Palace of the Mind, moving ever
from the crass to the subtle, from the coarse to the fine.
Conquer every Repulsion in thy self, subdue every Aversion.
Assimilate all Poison, for therein only is there Profit. Seek
constantly therefore to know what is painful and to cleave
thereunto, for by Pain cometh true Pleasure. Those who avoid
Pain physical or mental remain little Men, and there is no
Virtue in them. Yet be thou ware lest thou fall into the
Heresy which maketh Pain, and Self-sacrifice as it were Bribes
to corrupt God, to secure some future Pleasure in an imagined
After-life. Nay, also of the other Part, fear not to destroy
thy Complexes, thinking dreadfully thereby to lose the Power
of creating Joy by their Distinction. Yet in each Marriage be
thou bold to affirm the spiritual Ardour of the Orgasm, fixing
it in some Talisman, whether it be Art, or Magick, or Theurgy.
-26-
{psi } DE VOLUNTATE ULTIMA.
Say not then that this Way is contrary to Nature, and that
in Simplicity of Satisfaction of thy Needs is perfection of
thy Path. For to thee, who hast aspired, it is thy Nature to
perform the Great Work, and this is the final Dissolution of
the Cosmos. For though a Stone seem to lie still on a
Mountain Top, and have no care, yet hath it an hidden Nature,
a Task Ineffable and Stupendous; namely, to force its Way to
the Centre of Gravity of the Universe, and also to burn up its
Elements into the final Homogeneity of Matter. Therefore the
Way of Quiet is but an Illusion of Ignorance. Whoever thou
mayst be now, thy Destiny is that which I have declared unto
thee; and thou art most fixed in the true Way when, accepting
this consciously as thy Will, thou gathereth up thy Powers to
move thy Self mightily within it.
-27-
{omega } DE DIFFERENTIA RERUM.
But, o my Son, although thine ultimate Nature be Universal,
thine immediate Nature is Particular. Thy Way to the Centre
is not oriented as that of any other Being, and thine elements
are no kin, but alien, to his. For Shame! Is it not the most
transcendent of all the Wisdoms of this Cosmos, that no two
Beings are alike? Lo! This is the Secret of all Beauty, and
maketh Love not only possible, but necessary, between every
Thing and every other Thing. So then, lest thou in thine
Ignorance take the false Way, and divigate, must thou learn
thine own particular and peculiar Nature in its Relation to
all others. For though it be Illusion, it is by the true
Analysis of Falsehoods that we are able to destroy them, just
as the Physician must understand the Disease of his Patient if
he is to choose the fitting Remedy. Now therefore will I make
yet more clear unto thee the Value of thy Dreams and
Phantesies and Gestures of thine unconscious Body and Mind, as
Symptoms of thy particular Will, and show thee how thy mayst
come to their Interpretation.
-28-
{Alpha }{alpha } DE VOLUNTATE TACITA.
All Disturbances, o my Son, are Variations from
Equilibrium; and just as thy conscious Thoughts, Words, and
Acts are Effects of the Displacement of the conscious Will, so
is it in the Unconscious. For the most Part, therefore, all
Dreams, Phantasies, and Gestures represent that Will
subliminal; and if the physical Part of that Will be
unsatisfied, its Utterance will predominate in all these
automatic Expressions. Do thou then note what Modifications
thereof follow such Changes in the conscious Foundation of
that Part of thy Will as thou mayst make in thy Experiments
therewith, and thus separate, as sayeth Trismegistus, the fine
from the coarse, Fire from Earth, or, as we may say, assign
each Effect to its true Cause. Seek then to perfect a
conscious Satisfaction of every Part of that Will, so that the
unconscious Disturbances be at last brought to Silence. Then
will the Residuum be as an Elixir clarified and perfected, a
true Symbol of that other hidden Will which is the Vector of
thy Magical Self.
-29-
{Alpha }{beta } DE FORMULA SUMMA.
Learn moreover that thy Self includeth the whole Universe
of thy Knowledge, so that every increase upon every Plane is
an Aggrandisement of that Self. Yet the greater Part of this
Universe is common Knowledge, so that thy Self is interwoven
with other Selves, save for that Part peculiar to thy Self.
And as thou growest, so also this peculiar Part is ever of
less Proportion to the Whole, until when thou becomest
infinite, it is a Quantity infinitesimal and to be neglected.
Lo! When the All is absorbed within the I, it is as if the I
were absorbed within the All; for if two Things become wholly
and indissolubly One Thing, there is no more Reason for Names,
since Names are given to mark off one Thing from another. And
this is that which is written in "The Book of the Law": "...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!"
-30-
{Alpha }{gamma } DE VIA INERTIAE.
Of the Way of the Tao I have already written to thee, o my
Son, but I further instruct thee in this Doctrine of doing
everything by doing nothing. I will first have thee to
understand that the Universe being as above said an Expression
of Zero under the Figure of the Dyad, its Tendency is
continually to release itself from that strain by the Marriage
of Opposites whenever they are brought into Contact. Thus thy
true Nature is a Will to Zero, or an Inertia, or Doing
Nothing; and the Way of Doing Nothing is to oppose no Obstacle
to the free Function of that true Nature. Consider the
Electrical Charge of a Cloud, whose Will is to discharge
itself in Earth, and so release the Strain of its Potential.
Do this by free conduction, there is Silence and Darkness;
oppose it, there is Heat and Light, and the Rending asunder of
that which will not permit free Passage to the Current.
-31-
{Alpha }{delta } DE VIA LIBERTATIS.
Do not think then that by Non-Action thou doest follow the
Way of the Tao, for thy Nature is Action, and by hindering the
Discharge of thy Potential thou doest perpetuate and aggravate
the Stress. If thou ease not Nature, she will being thee to
Dis-Ease. Free thereof every Function of thy Body and of
every other Part of thee according to its true Will. This
also is most necessary, that thou discover that true Will in
every Case, for thou art born into Dis-Ease; where are many
false and perverted Wills, monstrous Growths, Parasites,
Vermin are they, adherent to thee by Vice of Heredity, or of
Environment or of evil Training. And of all these Things the
subtlest and most terrible, Enemies without Pity, destructive
to thy will, and a Menance and Tyranny even to thy elf, are
the Ideals and Standards of the Slave-gods, false Religion,
false Ethics, even false Science.
-32-
{Alpha }{epsilon } DE LEGE MOTUS.
Consider, o my Son, that Word in the Call or Key of the
Thirty Aethyrs: Behold the Face of your God, the Beginning of
comfort, whose Eyes are the Brightness of the heavens, which
provided you for the Government of the Earth, and her
unspeakable Variety! And again: Let there be no Creature upon
her or within her the same. All here Members let them differ
in their Qualities, and let there be no Creature equal with
another. Here also is the Voice of true Science, crying
aloud: Variation is the Key of Evolution. Thereunto Art
cometh the third, perceiving Beauty in the Harmony of the
Diverse. Know then, o my Son, that all Laws, all Systems, all
Customs, all Ideals and Standards which tend to produce
Uniformity, being in direct Opposition to Nature's Will to
change and to develop through Variety, are accursed. Do thou
with all thy Might of Manhood strive against these Forces, for
they resist Change, which is Life: and thus they are of Death.
-33-
{Alpha }{digamma } DE LEGIBUS CONTRA MOTUM.
Say not, in thine Haste, that such Stagnations are Unity
even as the last Victory of thy Will is Unity. For thy Will
moveth through free Function, according to its particular
Nature, to that End of Dissolution of all Complexities, and
the Ideals and Standards are Attempts to halt thee on that
Way. Although for thee some certain Ideal be upon thy Path;
yet for thy Neighbour it may not be so. Set all Men a-
horseback: thou speedest the Foot-soldier on his Way, indeed:
but what hast thou done to the Bird-Man? Thou must have
simple Laws and Customs to express the general Will, and so
prevent the Tyranny of Violence of a few; but multiply them
not! Now then herewith I will declare unto thee the Limits of
the Civil Law upon the rock of the Law of Thelema.
-34-
{Alpha }{zeta } DE NECESSITATE COMMUNI.
Understand first that the Disturbers of the Peace of
Mankind do so by Reason of their Ignorance of their own true
Wills. Therefore as this Wisdom of mine increaseth among
Mankind, the false Will to Crime must become constantly more
rare. Also, the Exercise of our Freedom will cause Men to be
born with less and ever less Affliction from that Dis-Ease of
Spirit, which breedeth these false Wills. But, in the while
of waiting for this Perfection, thou must by Law assure to
every Man a Means of satisfying his bodily and his mental
Needs, leaving him free to develop any Super-Structure in
Accordance with his Will, and protecting him from any that may
seek to deprive him of these vertebral Rights. There shall be
therefore a Standard of Satisfaction, though it must vary in
Detail with Race, Climate, and other such Conditions. And
this Standard shall be based upon a large Interpretation of
Facts biological, physiological, and the like.
-35-
{Alpha }{eta } DE LIBERTATE CORPORIS.
There shall be no Property in Human Flesh. Every Man and
every Woman hath Right Indefeasable to give the Body for the
Enjoyment of any other. The Exercise of this Right shall not
be punished either by Law or by Custom; there shall be no
Penalty either by Loss or Curtailment of Liberty, of Rights,
of Wealth, or of Social Esteem; but this Freedom shall be
respected of all, seeing that it is the Right of the Bodily
Will. For this same Reason thou shalt cause full Restriction
and Punishment of any who may seek to limit that Freedom for
the sake of his own Profit, or Desire, or Ideal. Every Man
and every Woman has full right either to grant or to deny the
Body, as the Will speaketh within. This being made Custom,
the Evils of Love, which are many, extending to the
Disturbance not only of Body but of Mind, and that in obscure
Paths, shall little by little disappear from the Face of His
unspeakable Glory.
-36-
{Alpha }{theta } DE LIBERTATE MENTIS.
There shall be no Property in Human Thought. Let each
think as he will concerning the Universe; but let none seek to
impose that Thought upon another by any Threat of Penalty in
this World or any other World. Look now, though I enkindle
thee to Effort in thy Way, yet it is the Way of thy Will, and
I say not even that thou dost well to hasten therein, for the
whole Matter lieth in thy Will, and to force thyself against
thy Nature would be an Obstacle to thy Passage. But if I urge
thee to run well this Race as an Athlete, it is because I have
perceived in thy Nature that firce Lust and mighty
Concentration in that Will, and I write this Letter unto thee,
knowing well that thou wilt rejoice exceedingly therein, since
it is an Expression of thine own Will, and it may be a
Discovery thereof, which Thing thou vehemently seekest. I
charge thee therefore that thou permit none to tyrannize any
other in Thought, or to threaten, or in any other Wise to
blaspheme the great Liberty of our Father the Sun in the Great
Cosmos, or of His Vice-Regent in the Little.
-37-
{Alpha }{iota } DE LIBERATATE JUVENUM
O thou that art the Child of mine own Bowels, how shall I
write to thee concerning Children? For herein is the Gordian
Knot in our whole Rope of Wisdom, and it may not be severed by
Sword, no, not of a Greater than Alexander the Two-Horned.
And it is a Balance like that of the Egg, and the Violence of
a Columbus will but crack the tender Shell which we must first
of all preserve.
Now Sentinel to this Fortress standeth a certain Paradox of
general Application, and in this large Order I will declare
it, so that its particular Sense may enlighten thee hereafter.
And this is the Paradox, that there are Bonds which lead to
Slavery, and Bonds which lead to Freedom. All we are bound in
many Fetters by Environment, and it is for ourselves in great
Part to determine whether they shall enslave us or emancipate
us. And I will make clear this Thesis to thee by the Way of
Illustration.
-38-
{Alpha }{kappa } DE VI PER DISCIPLINAM COLENDA.
Consider the Bond of a cold Climate, how it maketh Man a
Slave; he must have Shelter and Food with fierce Toil. Yet
hereby he becometh strong against the Elements, and his moral
Force waxeth, so that he is Master of such Men as live in
Lands of Sun where bodily Needs are satisfied without
Struggle.
Consider also him that willeth to exceed in Speed or in
Battle, how he denieth himself the Food he craveth, and all
Pleasures natural to him, putting himself under the harsh
Order of a Trainer. So by this Bondage he hath, at the last,
his Will.
Now then the one by natural, and the other by voluntary,
Restriction have come each to greater Liberty. This is also a
general Law of Biology, for all Development is
Structuralization; that is, a Limitation and Specialization of
an originally indeterminate Protoplasm, which latter may
therefore be called free, in the Definition of a Pedant.
-39-
{Alpha }{lambda } DE ORDINE VERUM.
In the Body every Cell is subordinated to the general
physiological Control, and we who will that Control do not ask
whether each individual Unit of that Structure be consciously
happy. But we do care that each fulfil its Function, and the
Failure of even a few Cells, or their Revolt, may involve the
Death of the whole Organism. Yet even here the Complaint of a
few, which we call Pain, is a Warning of general Danger. Many
Cells fulfil their Destiny by swift Death, and this being
their Function, they in no wise resent it. Should Haemoglobin
resist the Attack of Oxygen, the Body would perish, and the
Haemoglobin would not even save itself. How, o my Son, do
thou then consider deeply of these Things in thine Ordering of
the World under the Law of Thelema. For every Individual in
the State must be perfect in his own Function, with
Contentment, respecting his own Task as necessary and holy,
not envious of another's. For so only mayst thou build up a
Free State, whose directing Will shall be singly directed to
the Welfare of all.
-40-
{Alpha }{mu } DE FUNDAMENTIS CIVITATIS.
Say not, o my Son, that in this Argument I have set Limits
to individual Freedom. For each Man in this State which I
purpose is fulfilling his own true Will by his eager
Acquiescence in the Order necessary to the Welfare of all, and
therefore of himself also. But see thou well to it that thou
set high the Standard of Satisfaction, and that to everyone
there be a surplus of Leisure and of Energy, so that, his Will
of Self-Preservation being fulfilled by the Performance of his
Function in the State, he may devote the remainder of his
Powers to the Satisfaction of the other Parts of his Will.
And because the People are oft times unlearned, not
understanding Pleasure, let them be instructed in the Art of
Life; to prepare Food palatable and wholesome, each to this
own Taste, to make Clothes according to Fancy, with Variety of
Individuality and to prractise the manifold Crafts of Love.
There Things being first secured, thou mayst afterward lead
them into the Heavens of Poesy and Tale, of Music, Painting,
and Sculpture, and into the Lore of the Mind itself, with its
insatiable Joy of all knowledge. Thence let them soar!
-41-
{Alpha }{nu } DE VOLUNTATE JUVENUM.
Long, o my Son, hath been this Digression from the plain
Path of my Word concerning Children; but it was most needful
that thou shouldst understand the Limits of true Liberty. For
that is not the Will of any Man which ultimateth in his own
Ruin and that of all his Fellows; and that is not Liberty
whose Exercise bringeth him to Bondage. Thou mayst therefore
assume that it is always an essential Part of the Will of any
Child to grow to Manhood or to Womanhood in Health, and his
Guardians may therefore prevent him from ignorantly acting in
Opposition thereunto, Care being always taken to remove the
Cause of the Error, namely, Ignorance, as aforesaid. Thou
mayst also assume that it is Part of the Child's Will to train
every Function of the Mind; and the Guardians may therefore
combat the inertia which hinders its Development. Yet here is
much Caution necessary, and it is better to work by exciting
and satisfying any natural Curiosity than by forcing
Application to set Tasks, however obvious this Necessity may
appear.
-42-
{Alpha }{chi } DE MODO DISPUTANDI.
Now in this Training of the Child there is one most dear
Consideration, that I shall impress upon thee as in Conformity
with our Holy ?Experience in the Way of Truth. And it is
this, that since that which can be thought is not true, every
Statement is in some Sense false. Even on the Sea of pure
Reason, we may say that every Statement is in some Sense
disputable, there fore in every Case, even the simplest, the
Child should be taught not only the Thesis, but also its
opposite, leaving the Decision to the Child's own Judgment and
good Sense, fortified by Experience. And this Practice will
develop its Power of Thought, and its Confidence in itself,
and its Interest in all Knowledge. But most of all beware
against any Attempt to bias its Mind on any point that lieth
without the Square of ascertained and undisputed Fact.
Remember also, even when thou art most sure, that so were they
sure who gave instruction to the young Copernicus. Pay
Reverence also to the Unknown unto whom thou presumeth to
impart the Knowledge; for he may be one greater than thou.
-43-
{Alpha }{omicron } DE VOLUNTATE JUVENIS COGNOSCENDA.
It is important that thou shouldst understand as early as
may be what is the true Will of the Child in the Matter of his
Career. Be thou well ware of all Ideals and Day-dreams; for
the Child is himself, and not thy Toy. Recall the comic
Tragedy of Napoleon and the King of Rome; build not an House
for a wild Goat, nor plant a Forest for the Domain of a Shark.
But be thou vigilant for every Sign, conscious or unconscious
of the Will of the Child, giving him then all Opportunity to
pursue the Path which he thus indicates. Learn this, that he,
being young, will weary quickly of all false Ways, however
pleasant they may be to him at the Outset; but of the true Way
he will not weary. This being in this Manner discovered, thou
mayst prepare it for him perfectly; for no Man can keep open
all Roads for ever. And to him making his Choice explain how
one may not travel far on any Road without a general Knowledge
of Things apparently irrelevant. And with that he will
understand, and bend him wisely to his Work.
-44-
{Alpha }{pi } DE AURO RUBEO.
I would have thee to consider, o my son, that Word of
Publius Vergilius Maro, that was the greatest of all the
Magicians of his time: in medio tutissimus ibis. Which Thing
has also been said by many wise Men in other Lands; and the
Holy Qabalah confirmeth the same, placing Tipheret, which is
the Man, and the Beauty and Harmony of Things, and Gold in the
Kingdom of the Metals, and the Sun among the Planets, in the
Midst of the Tree of Life. For the Centre is the Point of
Balance of all Vectors. So then if thy wilt live wisely,
learn that thou must establish this Relation of Balance with
every Thing soever, not omitting one. For there is nothing so
alien from thy Nature that it may not be brought into
harmonious Relation therewith; and thy Stature of Manhood
waxeth great even as thou comest to the Perfection of this
Art. And there is nothing so close Kin to thee it may not be
hurtful to thee if this Balance is not truly adjusted. Thou
hast need of the whole Force of the Universe to work with thy
Will; but this Force must be disposed about the Shaft of that
Will so that there is no Tendency to Hindrance or to
Deflection. And in my Love of thee I will adorn this Thesis
with Example following.
-45-
{Alpha }{koppa } DE SAPIENTIA IN RE SEXUALI.
consider Love. Here is a Force destructive and corrupting
where by many Men have been lost. Yet without Love Man were
not Man. Therefore thine Uncle Richard Wagner made of our
Doctrine a musical Fable, wherein we see Amfortas, who yielded
himself to Seduction, wounded beyond Healing; Klingsor, who
withdraw himself from a like Danger, cast out for ever from
the Mountain of Salvation'; and Parsifal, who yielded not,
able to exercise the true Power of Live, and thereby to
perform the Miracle of Redemption. Of this also have I myself
written in my Poema called Adonis. It is the same with Food
and Drink, with Exercise, with Learning itself, the Problem is
ever to bring the Appetite into right Relation with the Will.
Thus thou mayst fast or feast; there is no Rule than that of
Balance. And this Doctrine is of general Acceptation among
the better Sort of Men; therefore on thee will I rather
impress more carefully the other Part of my Wisdom, namely,
the Necessity of extending constantly thy Nature to new Mates
upon every Plane of Being, so that thou mayst become the
perfect Microcosm, an Image without Flaw of all that is.
-46-
{Alpha }{rho } DE GRADIBUS AEQUIS SCIENTIAE.
I say in sooth, my son, that this Extension of thy Nature
is not in Violation thereof; for it is the Nature of thy
Nature to grow continually. Now there is no Part of Knowledge
which is foreign to thee; yet Knowledge itself is of no avail
unless it be assimilated and co-ordinated into Understanding.
Grow therefore, easily and spontaneously, developing all Parts
equally, lest thou become a Monster. And if one Thing tempt
thee overmuch, correct it by Devotion to its Opposite until
Equilibrium be re-established. But seek not to grow by sudden
Determination toward Things that be far from thee; only, if
such a Thing come into thy Thought, construct a Bridge
thereunto, and take firmly the first Step upon the Bridge. I
shall explain this. Dost thou speculate upon the Motives of
the Stars, and on their Elements, their Size and Weight? Then
thou must first gain Knowledge of Doctrine mathematical, of
Laws physical and chemical. So then first, that thou mayst
understand clearly the Nature of thine whole Work, map out thy
Mind, and extend its Powers from the essential outwards, from
the near to the far, always with Firmness and great
Thoroughness, making every Link in thy Chain equal and
perfect.
-47-
{Alpha }{sigma } DE VIRTUTE AUDENDI.
Yet this I charge thee with my Might: Live Dangerously.
Was not this the Word of thine Uncle Friedrich Nietzsche? Thy
meansest Foe is the Inertia of the Mind. Men do hate most
those things which touch them closely, and they fear Light,
and persecute the Torchbearers. Do thou therefore analyse
most fully all those Ideas which Men avoid; for the Truth
shall dissolve Fear. Rightly indeed Men say that the Unknown
is terrible; but wrongly do they fear lest it become the
Known. Moreover, do thou all Acts of which the common Sort
beware, save where thou hast already full knowledge, that thou
mayest learn Use and Control, not falling into Abuse and
Slavery. For the Coward and the Foolhardy shall not live out
their Days. Every Thing has its right Use; and thou art great
as thou hast Use of Things. This is the Mystery of all Art
Magick, and thine Hold upon the Universe. Yet if thou must
err, being human, err by excess of courage rather than of
Caution, for it is the Foundation of the Honour of Man that he
dareth greatly. What sayth Quintus Horatius Flaccus in the
third Ode of his First Booki? Die thou standing!
-48-
{Alpha }{tau } DE ARTE MENTIS COLLENDI. (1)
MATHEMATICA.
Now concerning the first Foundation of thy Mind I will say
somewhat. Thou shalt study with Diligence in the mathematics,
because thereby shall be revealed unto thee the Laws of thine
own Reason and the Limitations thereof. This Science
manifesteth unto thee thy true Nature in respect of the
Machinery whereby it worketh; and showeth in pure Nakedness,
without Clothing of Personality or Desire, the Anatomy of thy
conscious Self. Furthermore, by this thou mayst understand
the Essence between the Relation of all Things, and the Nature
of Necessity, and come to the Knowledge of Form. For this
Mathematics is as it were the last Veil before the Image of
Truth, so that there is no Way better than our Holy Qabalah,
which analyseth all Things soever, and reduceth them to pure
Number; and thus their Natures being no longer coloured and
confused, they may be regulated and formulated in Simplicity
by the Operation of Pure Reason, to thy great Comfort in the
Work of our Transcendental Art, whereby the Many become One.
-49-
{Alpha }{upsilon } SEQUITUR. (2) CLASSICA.
My son, neglect not in any wise the Study of the Writings
of Antiquity, and that in the original Language. For by this
thou shalt discover the History of the Structure of thy Mind,
that is, its Nature regarded as the last term in a Sequence of
Causes and Effects. For thy Mind hath been built up of these
Elements, so that in these Books thou mayst bring into the
Light thine own subconscious Memories. And thy Memory is as
it were the Mortar in the House of thy Mind, without which is
no Cohesion or Individuality possible, so that the Lack
thereof is called Dementia. And these Books have lived long
and become famous because they are the Fruits of ancient Trees
whereof thou art directly the Heir, wherefrom (say I) they are
more truly german to thine own Nature than Books of Collateral
Offshoots, though such were in themselves better and wiser.
Yes, o my Son, in these Writings thou mayst study to come to
the true Comprehension of thine own Nature, and that of the
whole Universe, in the Dimension of Time, even as the
Mathematic declareth it in that of Space: That is, of
Extension. Moreover, by this Study shall the Child comprehend
the Foundation of Manners: the which, as sayeth one of the
Sons of Wisdom, maketh Man.
-50-
{Alpha }{phi } SEQUITUR. (3) SCIENTIFICA.
Since Time and Space are the Conditions of Mind, these two
Studies are fundamental. Yet there remaineth Causality, which
is the Root of the Actions and Reactions of Nature. This also
shalt thou seek ardently, that thou mayst comprehend the
Variety of the Universe, its Harmony and its Beauty, with the
Knowledge of that which compelleth it. Yet this is not equal
to the former two in Power to reveal thee to thy Self; and its
first Use is to instruct thee in the true Method of
Advancement in Knowledge, which is fundamentally, the
Observation of the Like and the Unlike. Also, it shall arouse
in thee the Ekstacy of Wonder; and it shall bring thee to a
proper Understanding of Art Magick. For our Magick is but one
of the powers that lie within us undeveloped and unanalysed;
and it is by the Method of Science that it must be made clear,
and available to the Use of Man. Is not this a Gift beyond
Price, the Fruit of a Tree not only of knowledge by to Life?
For there is that in Man which is God, and there is that also
which is Dust; and by our Magick we shall make these twain one
Flesh, to the Obtaining of the Empery of the Universe.
-51-
{Alpha }{chi } DE MODO QUO OPERET LEX MAGICA.
Give Ear attentively, o my Son, while I expound unto thee
the true Doctrine of Magick. Every force acteth, in due
Proportion, on all Things with which it is connected. Thus a
burning Forest causes chemical Change by Combustion, and
giveth Heat and Motion to the Air about it by the Operation of
physical Laws, and exciteth thought and Emotion in the Man
whom it reacheth through his Organs of Perception. Consider
(even though it were by Legent) the Fall of the apple of Isaac
Newton, its Effect upon the Spiritual Destinies of Man!
Consider also that no Force cometh ever to the end of its
work! The Air that is moved by my Breath is a Disturbance or
Change of Equilibrium that cannot be fully compensated and
brought to naught, though the Aeons be endless. Who then
shall deny the Possibility of Magick? Well said Frazer, the
most learned Doctor of the College of the Holy Trinity in the
University of Cambridge, that Science was but the Name of any
Magick which failed not of its intended Effect.
-52-
{Alpha }{psi } DE MACHINA MAGICA.
Lo! I put forth my Will, and my Pen moveth upon the Paper,
by Cause that my will mysteriously hath Power upon the Muscle
of my Arm, and these do Work at a mechanical Advantage against
the Inertia of the Pen. I cannot break down the Wall opposite
me by Cause that I cannot come into mechanical Relation with
it; or the Wall at my Side, by Cause that I am not strong
enough to overcome its Inertia. To win that Battle I must
call Time and Pick-axe to mine aid. But how could I retard
the Motion of the Earth in Space? I am myself Party of its
Momentum. Yet every Stroke of my Pen affecteth that Motion by
changing the Equilibrium thereof. The Problem of every Act of
Magick is then this: to exert a Will sufficiently powerful to
cause the required Effect, through a Menstruum or Medium of
Communication. By the common Understanding of the Word
Magick, we however exclude such Media as are generally known
and understood. Now then, o my Son, will I declare unto thee
first the Nature of the Power, and afterward that of the
Medium.
-53-
{Alpha }{omega } DE HARMONIA ANIMAE CUM CORPORE.
All Things are interwoven. The most spiritual Thought in
thy Soul (I speak as a Fool) is also a most material Change in
Blood or Brain. Anger maketh the Blood acid; Hate poisoneth
Mother's milk; even as I showed formerly in reverse, how
Disturbance of physical Function altereth the States of
Consciousness. Now no Man doubteth the Power of the Will of
Man, whether it be his love that begetteth Children or causes
wars wherein many Men be slain, whether it be his Eloquence
that moveth a Mob or his Vanity that destroyeth a People.
Only in all such Cases we understand how Nature worketh,
though known Laws physical or psychical. That is, there is a
State of unstable Equilibrium, so that one Machine setteth
another in Motion as soon as the first Disturbance ariseth.
Therefore, it is not proper to regard all Consequence of a
Will as its Effect. Without the Revolution there could have
been no great Effect of the Will of Napoleon; and moreover his
Will was broken in the End, to the present Misfortune (as it
seems to many beside myself) of Mankind. This Magick
therefore, dependeth greatly on the Art to set many other
Wills in sympathetic Motion; and the greatest Magus may not be
the most successful in a mean conception of a Limit of Time.
He may need to strike many Blows before he breaketh down his
Wall, if that be strong, while a Child may push over one that
is ready to crumble.
-54-
{Beta }{alpha } DE MYSTERIO PRUDENTIAE.
Behold now nature, how prodigal is She of her Forces! The
evident Will of every Acorn is to become an Oak; yet night all
fail of that Will. Therefore one Secret of Magick is Oeconomy
of thy Force; to do no Act unless secure of its Effect. And
if every Act has an Effect on every Plane, how canst thou do
this unless thou be connected with all Planes? For this
Reason must thou know thoroughly not only thy Body and thy
Mind, but thy Body of Light and all its subtler Principles
soever. But I will have thee consider most especially what
powers thou hast within thee which are certainly capable of
great Effects, yet which are constantly wasted. Think then
whether, if these Powers, frustrate of their End upon one
Plane, might not be turned to high Purpose and assured Success
upon another. For an hundred Acorns, rightly set in
Conditions fit for their true Growth, will become an hundred
Oaks, while otherwise they make but one Meal for one Hog, and
their subtle Nature is wholly lost to them. Learn then, o my
Son, this Mystery of Oeconomy, and apply it faithfully and
with Diligence in thy Work.
-55-
{Beta }{beta } DE ARTE ALCHEMICA.
Here then I must write concerning Talismans for thine
Instruction. Know first that there are certain Vehicles
proper for the Incarnation of the Will. I instance Paper,
whereon by thine Art thou writest a symbolic Representation of
thy Will, so that when thou next seest it, thou are reminded
of that Will, or it may be that another, seeing it, will obey
that Will. Here then is a case of Incarnation and Assumption,
which, before it was understood, was rightly considered
Gramarye or Magick. Again, thy Will to live causeth thee to
plant Corn, which in due Season being eaten is again
transmuted into Will. Thus thou mayst in many Ways impress
any particular Will upon the proper Substance, so that by due
Use thou comest at last to its Accomplishment. So general is
this Formula, in Truth, that all conscious Actions may be
included within its scope. There is also the Converse, as
when external Objects create Appetite, whose Satisfaction
again reacteth upon the physical Plane. Praise thou the
wonder of the Mystery of Nature, rising and falling with every
Breath, so that there is no Part which is not mystically
Partaker of the Whole.
-56-
{Beta }{gamma } DE ARCANO SUBTILISSIMO.
O my Son, there is that within thee of marvellous Puissance
which is by its own Nature the Incarnation of thy Will, most
ready to receive the Seal thereof. Therein lie hidden all
Powers, all Memories, more than thou hast teen thousand fold!
Learn then to draw from that great Treasure-House the Jewel of
which thou art in any present Need. For all things that are
possible to thy Nature are already hidden within thee; and
thou hast but to name them, and to bring them back into the
Light of thy Consciousness. Then squander not this Gold of
thine, but put it to most fruitful Usury. Now then of the Art
and Craft of this most Holy Mystery I write not, for a Reason
that thou already knowest. Moreover, in this Matter, thou
shalt best learn by thine own Experience, and thine
Observation in true Science shall guide thee. For this Secret
is still of Magick, and Occult, so that I know not certainly
if thy Will lieth with my Way or no.
-57-
{Beta }{delta } DE MENSTRUO ARTIS.
But concerning the Medium by whose sensitive Nature our
Magick Force is transmitted to the Object of our Working,
doubt not. For already in other Galaxies of Physics have we
been compelled to postulate an Aethyr wholly hypothetical in
order to explain the Phenomena of Light, Electricity, and the
like; nor doeth any Man demand Demonstration of the Existence
of that Aethyr other than its Conformity with general Law.
Thou therefore, Creator and Transmitter of thine own Energy,
needest not to ask whether by this or by some other Means thou
performest thy Work. Yet I know not why this Aethyr of the
Mathematicians and the Physicians should not be one with the
Astral Light, or Plastic Medium or Aub, Aud, Aur (these three
being a Trinity) of which our own Sages have spoken. And this
Meditation may bring forth much Knowledge physical, which is
good, for that which is above is like that which is beneath,
and the Study of any Law leadeth to the Understanding of all
Law. So mayst thou learn in the End that there is no Law
beyond Do what thou wilt.
-58-
{Beta }{epsilon } DE NECESSITATE VOLUNTATIS.
And how then (mayest thou) shall I reconcile this Art
Magick with that Way of the Tao which achieveth all Things by
doing nothing? But this have I already declared to thee in
Part, showing that thou canst do no Magick save it be thy
Nature to do Magick and so the true Nothing for thee. For to
do nothing signifieth to interfere with nothing so that for a
Magician to do no Magick is to commit Violence on himself.
Yet learn also that all Action is in some sense Magick, being
an essential Part of that Great Magical Work which we call
Nature. Then thou hast no free Will? Verily, thou hast said.
Yet nevertheless it is thy necessary Destiny to act with that
free Will. Thou canst do nothing save in accordance with that
true Nature of thine and of all Things, and every Phenomenon
is the Resultant of the Totality of Forces; Amen. Then thou
needest take no Thought and make no Effort? Thou sast sooth;
yet, art thou not compelled to Thought and Effort in the Way
of Nature? Yea, I, thy Father, work for thee solicitously,
and also I laugh at thy Perplexities; for so was it fore-
ordained that I should do, by Me, from the Beginning.
-59-
{Beta }{digamma } DE COMEDIA UNIVERSA, QUAE DICTUR MAN.
So, therefore, o my Son, count thyself happy when thou
understandest all these Things, being one of those Beings (or
By-comings) whom we call Philosophers. All is a never ending
Play of Love wherein our Lady Nuit and her Lord Hadit rejoice;
and every Part of the Play is Play. All pain is but sharp
Sauce to the Dish of Pleasure; for it is the Nature of the
Universe that hath devised this everlasting Banquet of Joy.
And he that knoweth not this is necessary as an Ingredient
even as thou art; wouldst thou change all and spoil the Dish?
Art thou the Master-Cook? Yea, for thy Palate is become fine
with thy great Dalliance with the Food of Experience;
therefore thou art one of them that rejoice. Also it is thy
Nature as it is mine, o my Son, to will that all Men share our
Mirth and Jollity; wherefore have I proclaimed my Law to Man,
and thou continuest in that Work of Joyance.
-60-
{Beta }{zeta } DE CAECITIA HOMINUM.
Learn also of my wisdom that this Vision of the Cosmos
whereof I have written unto thee is not given unto thy Sight
at all Times; for in that Vision is all Will fulfilled. Thou
seest the Universe as None, and as One, and as many, and the
Play thereof; and therewith art thou (who art no longer thou)
content. For in one Phase art thou also None, in another One,
and in the third an organised and necessary Part of that great
Structure, so that there is no more conflict at all in thy
whole By-coming. But now will I make Light for thine Eyes in
this Matter as thou gropest, asking: but of them that see not
this, what sayst thou, o my Father? But in that Vision thou
sayst not thus, my Son! Learn then of me the Secret Mystery
of Illusion, and how it Worketh, and other Holy Law that is
its Nature, and of thine Action therein; for this is an
Arcanum of the Wisdom of the Magi, and proper unto thee that
dwellest in the Land of Understanding.
-61-
{Beta }{eta } ALLEGORIA DE CAISSA.
Consider for an Example the Game and Play of the Chess,
which is a Pastime of Man, and worthy to exercise him in
Thought, yet by no means necessary to his Life, so that he
sweepeth away Board and Pieces at the least Summons of that
which is truly dear to him. Thus unto him this Game is as it
were an Illusion. But insofar as he entereth into the Game he
abideth by the Rules thereof, though they be artificial and in
no wise proper to his Nature; for in this Restriction is all
his Pleasure. Therefore, though he hath All-Oower to move the
Pieces at his own Will, he doth it not, enduring Loss,
Indignity, and Defeat rather than destroy that Artifice of
Illusion. Think then that thou hast thyself created this
Shadow-world the Universe, and that it pleasureth thee to
watch or to actuate its Play according to the Law that thou
hast made, which yet bindeth thee not save only by Virtue of
thine own Will to do thine own Pleasure therein.
-62-
{Beta }{theta } DE VERITATE FALSORUM.
Moreover this Matter touches the Nature of Truth. For
although to thee in thy True Self, absolute and without
Conditions, all this Universe, which is relative and
conditioned is an Illusion; yet to that Part of Thee by which
thou perceivest it, the Law of its Being (or By-coming) is a
Law of Truth. Learn then that all Relations are true upon
their own Plane, and that it would be a Violation of Nature to
adjust them skewwise. Thus, albeit thou hast found thy Self,
and knowest Thy Self immortal and immutable beyond Time and
Space, free of Causality, so thoroughly that even thy Mind
partaketh constantly thereof, thou hast in no wise altered the
Relations of thy Body with its Syndromics in the World whereof
it is a Part. Wouldst thou lengthen the Life of thy Body?
Then accommodate thou the Conditions of thy Body to its
Environment by giving it Light, Air, Food, and Exercise as its
Nature requireth. So also, mutatis mutandis, do thou cherish
the Health of thy Mind.
-63-
{Beta }{iota } DE RELATIONE ILLUSIONUM.
Of this will I speak further with thee, for here behold a
great Rock of Ignorance on the one Hand, and on the other a
Whirlpool of Error; in this Strait are many Wrecks of Magick
Ships. Knowest thou not that Riddle of old, whether it be
lawful to pay Tribute to Caesar or no? Give therefore to the
Body the Things of the Body, and to the Mind the Things of the
Mind. Yet because of the interior Harmony of all Things that
proceedeth from their Original One Nature, there is Action and
Reaction of the one upon the other, as I have already set
forth in this mine Epistle. But Law is universal, and between
these two Kinds of Illusion there is an ordered Proportion,
and it is proper to thy Science to delimit and describe this
Law of Interaction, for to deny it wholly (as to extend it to
Infinity) is Folly, born of Ignorance, Idleness, and
Incapacity to observe Fact.
-64-
{Beta }{kappa } DE PRUDENTIA.
Consider Drunkenness, how by Variation of bodily Conditions
thou mayst alter its Effect upon the Mind, and the Contrary,
remembering the Discipline of Theophrastus Paracelsus, how,
opposing Wine to bodily Exercise, he obtained a certain
Purification and Exaltation/ Yet, were he seven times
greater, he had not done this with Oil of Vitriol. Learn then
that there are certain definite Channels of Action and
Reaction between Body and Mind; sound these, and trim thy
Sails accordingly, not thinking that thou art in the open Sea.
And if so be that thou in thy sounding findest new Channels,
rejoice and map them for the Profit of thy Fellows; But
remember always that to find a new Way up a Precipice removeth
not the Precipice. For where thou, o Angel and yet Man, hast
trod delicately albeit without Fear, Fools will rush in to
their Destruction.
-65-
{Beta }{lambda } DE RATIONE MAGI VITAE.
Study Logic, which is the Code of the Laws of Thought.
Study the Method of Science, which is the Application of Logic
to the Facts of the Universe. Think not that thou canst ever
abrogate these Laws, for though they be Limitations, they are
the rules of thy Game which thou dost play. For in thy
Trances though thou becomest That which is not subject to
those Laws, they are still final in respect of these Things
which thou hast set them to govern. Nay, o my son, I like not
this Word, govern, for a Law is but a Statement of the nature
of the Thing to which it applieth. Nor nothing is compelled
save only by Nature of its own true Will. So therefore human
Law is a Statement of the Will and of the Nature of Man, or
else it is a Falsity contrary thereunto, nad becometh null and
of no Effect.
-66-
{Beta }{mu } DE CORDE CANDIDO.
Think also, o my Son, of this Image, that if two States be
at Peace, a Man goeth between them without Let; but if there
be War, all Gateways are forthwith closed, save only for a
few, and these are watched and guarded, so that the Obstacles
are many. This then is the Case of Magick; for if thou have
brought to Harmony all Principles within thee, thou mayst work
easily to transmute a Force into its semblable upon another
Plane, which is the essential Miracle of our Art; but if thou
be at War within thyself, how canst thou work? For our Master
Hermes Tresmegistus hat written at the Head of His Tablet of
Emerald this Word: That which is above is like that which is
below, and that which is below is like that which is above,
for the Performance of the Miracle of the One Substance. How
then, if these be not alike? If the Substance of Thee be Two,
and not One? And herein is the Need of the Confession of a
pure Heart, as is written in the Book of the Dead.
-67-
{Beta }{nu } DE CONFORMITATE MAGI.
See to it therefore, o my Son, that thou in thy Working
dost no Violence to the whole Will of the All, or to the Will
common to all those Beings (or By-comings) that are of one
general Nature with thee, or to thine own particular Will.
For first of all thou art necessarily moved toward the One End
from thine own Station, but secondly thou art moved toward the
End proper to thine own Race, and Caste, and Family, as by
Virtue of thy Birth. And these are, I may say it, Conditions
or limits, of thine own individual Will. Thou dost laugh?
Err not, my Son! The Magus, even as the Poet is the
Expression of the true Will of his Fellows, and his Success is
his Proof, as it is written in "The Book of the Law". For his
Work is to free Men from the Fetters of a false or a
superannuated Will, revealing unto them, in Measure attuned to
their Needs, their true Natures.
-68-
{Beta }{xi } DE POETIS.
For this Reason is the Poet called an Incarnation of the
Zeitgeist, that is, of the Spirit or Will of his Period. So
every Poet is also a Prophet, because when that which he
sayeth is recognized as the Expression of their own Thought by
Men, they translate this into Act, so that, in the Parlance of
the Folk vulgar and ignorant, "that which he foretold is come
to pass". Now then the Poet is Interpreter of the Hieroglyphs
of the Hidden Will of Man in many a matter, some light, some
deep, as it may be given unto him to do. Moreover, it is not
altogether in the Word of any Poem, but in the quintessential
Flavour of the Poet, that thou mayst seek this Prophecy. And
this is an Art most necessary toe every Statesman. Who but
Shelley foretold the Fall of Christianity, and the
Organisation of Labour, and the Freedom of Woman; who by
Nietzsche declared the Principle at the Root of the World-War?
See thou clearly then that in these Men were the Keys of the
Dark Gates of the Future; Should not the Kings and their
Ministers have taken heed thereto, fulfilling their Word
without Conflict.
-69-
{Beta }{omicron } DE MAGIS ORDINIS A{.'.} A{.'.}
quibus caro fit verbum.
Now, o my Son, the Incarnation of a Poet is particular and
not Universal; he sayeth indeed true Things but not the Things
of All-Truth. And that these may be said it is necessary that
One take human Flesh, and become a Magus in our Holy Order.
He then is called the Logos, or Logos Aiones, that is to say,
the Word of the Aeon or Age, because he is verily that Word.
And thus may be be known, because He hath it given unto Him to
prepare the Quintessence of the Will of God, that is, of Man,
in its Fullness and Wholeness, comprehending all Planes, so
that his Law is simple, and radical, penetrating all Space
from its single Light. For though His Words be many, yet is
His Word One, One and Alone; and by this Word he createth Man
anew, in an essential Form of Life, so that he is changed in
his inmost Knowledge of himself. And this Change worketh
outwards, little by little, unto its visible Effect.
-70-
{Beta }{pi } DE MAGIS TEMPORI ANTIQUI:
IMPRIMIS, DE LAO-TZE.
It may be unto thy Profit, o my Son, if I relate unto thee
the secret History of those who have gone before me in this
Grade of Magus, so far as their Memory hath remained among
Mankind. For what would it avail thee should I recount the
deeds of those whom I indeed may know, but thou not? Thou
knowest well how I keep me from all Taint of Fable, or any
Word unproven and undemonstrable. First then I speak of Lao-
Tze, whose word was the Tao. Hereof have I already written
much unto thee, because His Doctrine has been lost or
misinterpreted, and it is most needful to restore it. For
this Tao is the true Nature of Things, being itself a Way or
Going, that is, a kinetic and not a static Conception. Also
He taught this Way of Harmony in Will, which I myself have
thought to show thee in this little book. So then this Tao is
Truth, and the Way of Truth, and therefore was He Logos of His
Aeon, and His true Name or Word was Tao.
-71-
{Beta }{koppa } DE GAUTAMA.
Whom Men call Gotama, or Siddartha, or the Budha, was a
Magus of our Holy Order. And His Word was Anatta; for the
Root of His whole Doctrine was that there is no Atman, or
Soul, as Men ill translate it, meaning a Substance incapable
of Change. Thus, He, like Lao-Tze, based all upon a Movement,
instead of a fixed Point. And His Way of Truth was Analysis,
made possible by great Intention of the Mind toward itself,
and that well fortified by certain tempered Rigour of Life.
And He most thoroughly explored and Mapped out the Fastnesses
of the Mind, and gave the Keys of its Fortresses into the Hand
of Man. But of all this the Quintessence is in this one Word
Anatta, because this is not only the foundation and the Result
of his whole Doctrine, but the Way of its Work.
-72-
{Beta }{rho } DE SRI KRISHNA ET DE DIONYSO.
Krishna has Names and Forms innumerable, and I know not His
true Human Birth, for His Formula is of the Major Antiquity.
But His Word hath spread into many Lands, and we know it to-
day as INRI with the secret IAO concealed therein. And the
Meaning of this Word is the Working of Nature in Her Changes;
that is, it is the Formula of Magick whereby all Things
reproduce and recreate themselves. Yet this Extension and
Specialisation was rather the Word of Dionysus; for the true
Word of Krishna was AUM, importing rather a Statement of the
Truth of Nature than a practical Instruction in detailed
Operations of Magick. But Dionysus, by the Word INRI, laid
the Foundation of all Science, as We say Science to-day in a
particular Sense, that is, of causing external Nature to
change in Harmony with our Wills.
-73-
{Beta }{sigma } DE TAHUTI.
Tahuti, or Thot, confirmed the Word of Dionysus by
continuing it; for he showed how by the Mind it was possible
to direct the Operations of the Will. By Criticism and by
recorded Memory Man avoideth Error. But the true Word of
Tahuti was A M O U N, whereby He made Men to understand their
secret Nature, that is, their Unity with their true Selves,
or, as they then phrased it, with God. And He discovered unto
them the Way of this Attainment, and its Relation with the
Formula of INRI. Also by His Mystery of Number He made plain
the Path for His Successor to declare the Nature of the whole
Universe in its Form and in its Structure, as it were an
Analysis thereof, doing for Matter what the Buddha was decreed
to do for Mind.
-74-
{Beta }{tau } DE QUODAMM MAGO AEGYPTIORUM.
QUEM APPELUNT JUDAEI MOSHEH.
The Follower of Tahuti was an Egyptian whose Name is lost;
but the Jews called Him Mosheh, or Moses, and their Fabulists
made Him the Leader of their Legendary Exodus. Yet they
preserved His Word, and it is IHVH, which thou must understand
also as that Secret Word which thou hast seen and heard in
Thunders and Lightnings in thine Initiation to the Degree thou
wottest of. But this Word is itself a Plan of the Fabrick of
the Universe, and upon it hath been elaborated the Holy
Qabalah, whereby we have Knowledge of the Nature of all Things
soever upon every Plane of By-coming, and of their Forces and
Tendencies and Operations, with the Keys to their Portals.
Nor did He leave any Part of His Work unfinished, unless it be
that accomplished three hundred Years ago by Sir Edward Kelly,
of whom I also come, as thou knowest.
-75-
{Beta }{upsilon } DE MAGO ARABICO MOHAMMED.
Behold! In these Chapters have I, thy Father, restricted
myself, not speaking of any immediate Echo of a Word in the
World, because, there Men being long since withdrawn into
their Silence, it is their One Word, and that Alone, that
resoundeth undiminished through Time. How Mohammed, who
followeth, is darkened and confused by His Nearness to our own
Time, so that I say not save with Diffidence that His Word
ALLH may mean this or that. But I am bold concerning His
Doctrine of the Unity of God, for God is Man, and he said
therefore: Man is One. And His Will was to unite all Men in
One reasonable Faith: to make possible international Co-
operation in Science. Yet, because He arose in the Time of
the greatest possible Corruption and Darkness, when every
Civilisation and Every Religion had fallen into Ruin, by the
malice of the great Sorcerer of Nazareth, as some say, He is
still hidden in the Dust of the Simoom, and we may not
perceive Him in His true Self of Glory.
Nevertheless, behold, o My Son, this Mystery. His true
Word was La ALLH, that is to say: (there is) No God, and LA AL
is that Mystery of Mysteries which thine own Eye pierced in
thine Initiation. And of that Truth have the Illusion and
Falsehood enslaved the Souls of Men, as is written in the Book
of the Magus.
-76-
{Beta }{phi } DE SE IPSO {Tau }{Omega }{Iota }
{Mu }{Epsilon }{Gamma }{Alpha }{Lambda }{Omega }{Iota }
{Theta }{Eta }{Rho }{Iota }{Omega }{Iota }, {Tau }{Omega }{Iota }
{Lambda }{Omicron }{Gamma }{Omega }{Iota }
{Alpha }{Iota }{Omega }{Nu }{Omicron }{Sigma } CUJUS VERBUM EST
{Theta }{Epsilon }{Lambda }{Eta }{Mu }{Alpha }.
O my son! me seemeth in certain Hours that I am myself
fallen on a Time even more fearful and fatal than did
Mahommed, peace be upon Him! But I read clearly the Word of
the Aeon, that is A B R A H A D A B R A, wherein is the whole
Mystery of the great Work, as thou knowest. And I have "The""
""Book of the Law", that was given unto me by Him thou wottest
of; and it is the Interpretation of the Secret Will of Man on
every Plane of his By-coming; and the Word of the Law is T H E
L E M A. 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
Now because "Love is the law, love under will." do I write
this Epistle for thee, that thou mayst fulfil this inmost Will
of Mankind, making them capable of Light, Live, Love and
Liberty by the Acceptance of this Law. And the Hindrance
thereunto is but as the Shell of its Egg to an Eaglet, ad
Thing foreign to itself, a Protection till the Hour strike,
and then --- no more!
-77-
{Beta }{chi } MANDATUM AD FILIUM SUUM.
Here I reach forth mine Hands against thee in the Sign of
the Enterer, o son of my Bowels, for with all my Magical Might
I will that thou fight manfully and labour with Diligence
(with Sword and Trowel; say I) in this Work. For this is the
first and last of all, that thou bid every Man do What he
will, in accord with his own true Nature. Therefore also
blast thou that Lie that Man is of a fallen and evil Nature.
For the Word of Sin is Restriction, the Doubt of his own
Godhead, the Suppression of, which is the Blasphemy against,
his own Holy Spirit. Saith not "The Book of the Law" that
"...It is a lie, this folly against self. ..."? Therefore to
every Man, in every Circumstance, say thou: Do what thou wilt;
and teach him, if he yet waver, how to discover his true
Nature, earnestly and with Ardour, even as I have striven to
teach thee --- yea, and more also!
-78-
{Beta }{psi } QUARE FILIUM CREAVIT: UT
FIAT LIBERTAS.
Do what thou wilt! be this our Slogan of Battle in every
Act; for every Act is Conflict. There Victory leapeth shining
before us; for who may thwart true Will, which is the Order of
Nature Herself? "...thou hast no right but to do thy will.
Do that, and no other shall say nay." For if that Will be
true, its Fulfilment is of a Surety as Daylight following
Sunrise. It is as certain as the Operation of any other Law
of Nature; it is Destiny. Then, if that Will be obscured, if
thou turn from it to Wills diseased or perverse, how canst
thou hope? Fool! Even thy Turns and Twists are in the Path
to thine appointed End. But thou art not sprung of a Slave's
Loins; thou standest firm and straight; thou dost thy Will;
and thou are Chosen, nay, for this Work wast thou begotten in
a Magick Bed, that thou shouldst make Man free.
-79-
{Beta }{omega } DE SUA DEBILITATE.
Listen attentively, my Son, while I with heavy Heart make
Confession to thee of mine own Frailty. Thou knowest that I
made Renunciation of my Wage, taking this Body immediately
after my Death, the Death of Eliphas Levi Zahed, as Men say,
that I might attain to this great Work. It is now twenty
Years, as Men count years, that I came to my first
Understanding of my true Nature, and aspired to that Work.
Now then at first I made no Error. I abandoned my chosen
Career; I poured out my whole Fortune without one Thought; I
gave my Life utterly to the Work, without keeping back the
least imaginable Thing. So then I made swift Strides along
the Path. But in the Dhyanas that were granted unto me in
kKandy, in the Island of Lanka, I used up my whole Charge of
Magical Energy; and for two Years I fell away from the Work.
-80-
{Gamma }{alpha } DE MANU QUAE MAGUM SUSTINET.
Now it may be well that such Periods of Recuperation are
necessary to such souls as mine; and so no Ill. But I fell
from my Will, and sought other Ends in Life; and so the Hand
came upon me, and tore away that which I desired, as thou
knowest; also it is written in the Temple of Solomon the King.
Yet consider also these two Years as a necessary Preparation
for that greatest of all Events which befell me in El-Kahira,
in the Land of Khem, the Choice of me as the Word of the Aeon.
Now then for a while I worked with my Will, though not wholly;
and again the Hand reached forth and smote me. This, albeit
my Slackness was but as a Boy playing Truant, not a revolt
against my Self. Wherefore, despite all, I made much Progress
in short Time.
-81-
{Gamma }{beta } DE SUO PECCATO.
Now then, well schooled, I strove no more against my
Nature, and worked with all my Will. Thou knowest well how
greatly I was rewarded. Yet in this last Initiation to the
Grade of Magus, wherein three-and-seventy Days, as Men count
Days, is but One Day, the Ordeal grew so fierce and
intolerable that I gave back a Step. I did not utterly
renounce the Work, but I swore not to continue unless mine
Agony were abated. But after fifteen Days, I came to myself
in a certain Ordeal, wherein I knew myself finally, that I
could do no other than take up that fearful Burden that had
broken my Spirit. And for these fifteen Days have I not
suffered infinite Things? Was not the Tree of my Work frozen,
one Branch withered, and on blasted? Look no more, o my son,
upon thy Father's Shame!
-82-
{Gamma }{gamma } DE SUA VICTORIA PER NOMEN B A B A L O N.
And after? This Dawn (for I have toiled through the Night
in my great Love and Care of thee) how is it with me? it is
well. For I have found myself; I have found my Will; the
Obstacles that daunted me are seen to be by the Shadows of
Shadows. Grace be unto Lady B A B A L O N.
Thus it is written in "The Book of the Law": "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."
Learn then that it is in the contemplation of Division that
Sorrow is, for Division is the Formula of Choronzon. It is
therefore discreet for thee to unite each element of Sorrow
with its Opposite; in whose Triumph of Hymen is Ekstacy, until
by Apprehension of the new great Opposite the Idea is again
seen as Sorrow. This then is the Issue from Sorrow; and thou
mayst understand that I now also am confident in the Necessity
of this my Fall to prepare the formula of my Exaltation.
Therefore, my Son, thus Hail Me: Blessing and worship to the
Beast, the Prophet of the Lovely Star.
-83-
{Gamma }{delta } DE ARCANO NEFANDO.
O my Son, learn this concerning Magick, that the Yang
moveth, and thus giveth itself up Eternally; but the Yin
moveth not, seeking ever to enclose or restrict, reproducing
in its own likeness what Impressions soever it made thereon,
yet without Surrender. Now the Tao absorbeth all without
Reproduction; so then let the Yang turn thereto, and not unto
the Yin. And that thou mayst understand this, I say: It is a
Mystery of O.T.O. For the Sun ariseth not and entereth to
strike upon the High Altar of the Minster by the Great Western
Gates, but by the Rose Oriel doth he make Way and Progress in
His Pageant. O my Son, the Doors of Silver are wide open, and
they tempt thee with their Beauty: but by the narrow Portal of
Pure Gold shalt thou come nobly to thy Sanctuary. Behold!
Thou knowest not how perfect is this Magick; it is the
dearest-bought and holiest of our Arcana. What then is like
unto my Love toward Thee, that bestoweth upon thee this
Treasure of my Wisdom? My Son, neglect it not; for it is the
Exorcism of Exorcisms, and the Enchantment of Enchantments.
-84-
{Gamma }{epsilon } DE ARCANO, PER QUOD SPIRITUS
QUIDAM IN CORPORE RECIPIATUR.
Here now is another Formula of Power, good to invoke any
Being to manifest in thyself. First, invoke him by the Power
of all thy Spells and conjurations, with Mind concentrated and
Will vehement, toward him, as I have written in many Books.
But because thou are NEMO, thou mayst safely invoke him, no
matter of what Nature, within thy Circle. Now then do thou
confer on him as a Guerdon of his Obedience the Dignity of a
Soul seeking Incarnation, and so precede to consecrate thine
Act by performing the Mass of the Holy Ghost. Then shall that
Spirit make himself Body from those Elements, and thou
partaking thereof makest thine own Body his Machinery of
Manifestation, and thus mayst thou work with any Spirit
soever; yet this shall serve thee most in common Life. Also
the Qualities are well defined in the Cards of the Tarot, so
that thou hast a clear-cut Means of developing thy Powers
according to the Needs of the Time. But learn also this, to
work constantly under the Guidance of thine Holy Guardian
Angel, so that thy Workings be alway in Harmony and Accord
with thy true Will.
-85-
DE CLAVE KABBALISTICA HUJUS ARTIS.
Now then to thee who art long since Master of High Magick,
it will be easy to shew how the Mass of the Holy Ghost, sung
even in Ignorance, may work many a Wonder by Virtue of the
Force generated being compelled to manifest on other than its
own Plane. Here then is a Theory of the Mystery of the Aeon,
that I, being the Logos appointed thereunto, did create an
Image of my little Universe in the Mind of the Woman of
Scarlet; that is, I manifested my whole Magical Self in her
Mind. Thus then in Her, as in a Mirror, have I been able to
interpret myself to myself. Thou also in thine own Way hast
the Power to create such an Image; but be thou sure and alert,
testing constantly the Persons in that Image by the Holy
Qabalah and by the true Signs of Brotherhood. For each Person
therein shall be a Part of thyself, made individual and
perfect, able to instruct thee in thy Path. Yet often there
shall be others, that are to aid thee in thy Working, or to
oppose it. And in this Matter thou shalt read especially the
Record of thy Father His Workings with Soror Ahita (blessed be
Her Name unto the Ages) and certain others to Boot.
-86-
{Gamma }{zeta } DE MISSA SPIRITUS SANCTI.
Now at last, o my son, may I being thee to understand the
Truth of this Formula that is hidden in the Mass of the Holy
Ghost. For Horus that is Lord of the Aeon is the Child
crowned and conquering. The formula of Osiris was, as thou
knowest, a Word of Death, that is, the Force lay long in
Darkness, and by Putrifaction came to Resurrection. But we
take living Things, and pour in Life and Nature of our own
Will, so that instantly and without Corruption the Child (as
it were the Word of that Will) is generated; and again
immediately taketh up his Habitation among us to manifest in
Force and Fire. This Mass of the Holy Ghost is then the true
Formula of the Magick of the Aeon of Horus, blessed by He in
His Name Ra-Hoor-Khuit! And thou shalt bless also the Name of
our Father Merlin, Frater Superior of the O.T.O., for that by
seven Years of Apprenticeship in His School did I discover
this most excellent Way of Magick. Be thou diligent, o my
son, for in this wondrous Art is no more Toil, Sorrow, and
Disappointment, as it was in the dead Aeon of the Slain Gods.
-87-
{Gamma }{eta } DE FORMULA TOTA.
Here then is the Schedule for all the Operations of Magick.
First, thou shalt discover thy true Will, as I have already
taught thee, and that Bud thereof which is the Purpose of this
Operation.
Next, formulate this Bud-Will as a Person, seeking or
constructing it, and naming it according to thine Holy
Qabalah, and its infallible Rule of Truth. Third, purify and
consecrate this Person, concentrating upon him and against all
else. This Preparation shall continue in all thy daily Life.
Mark well, make ready a new Child immediately after every
Birth. Fourth, make an especial and direct Invocation at thy
Mass, before the Introit, formulating a visible Image of this
Child, and offering the Right of Incarnation. Fifth, perform
the Mass, not omitting the Epiklesis, and let there be a
Golden Wedding Ring at the Marriage of thy Lion with thine
Eagle. Sixth, at the Consumption of the Eucharist accept this
Child, losing thy Consciousness in him, until he be well
assimilated with thee. Now then do this continuously, for by
Repetition cometh forth both Strength and Skill, and the
Effect is cumulative, if thou allow no Time to dissipate
itself.
-88-
{Gamma }{theta } DE HAC FORMULA CONSIDERATIONES KABBALISTICAE.
Behold moreover, my Son, the Oeconomy of this Way, how it
is according to the Tao, fulfilling itself wholly within thine
own Sphere. And it is utterly in Tune with thine own Will on
every Plane, so that every Part of thy Nature rejoiceth with
every other Part, communicating Praise. Now then learn also
how this Formula is that of the Word ABRAHADABRA. First, HAD
is the Triangle erect upon twin Squares. Of Hadit need I not
to write, for He hath hidden Himself in "The Book of the Law".
This Substance is the Father, the Instrument is the Son, and
the Metaphysical Ekstacy is the Holy Ghost, whose Name is
HRILIU. These are then the Sun, Mercury, and Venus, whose
sacred letters are R ({HB:Resh }), B ({HB:Bet }), and D ({HB:Dalet }). But the
last of the Diverse Letters is H ({HB:Heh }), which in the Tarot
is the Star whose Eidolon is D ({HB:Dalet }); and herein is that
Arcanum concerning the Tao of which I have already written.
Of this will I not write more plainly. But mark this, that
our Trinity is our Path inwards in the Solar System, and that
H being of our Lady Nuith starry, is an Anchor to this Magick
which else were apt to deny our wholeness of Relation to the
Outer as to the Inner. My son, ponder these Words, and profit
by them; for I have wrought cunningly to conceal or to reveal,
according to thine Intelligence, o my Son!
-89-
{Gamma }{iota } DE QUIBUSDAM ARTIBUS MAGICIS.
Now of those Operations of Magick by which thou seekest to
display unto some other Person the Righteousness of thy Will I
make haste to instruct thee. First, if thou have a reasonable
Link with him by Word or Letter, it is most natural simply to
create in thyself, as I have taught, a Child or Bud-Will, and
let that radiate from thee through the Channels aforesaid.
But if thou have no Link, the Case is otherwise and is not
easy. Here thou mayst make Communication through others, as
it were by Relays; or thou mayst act directly upon his Aura by
Magical Means, such as the Projection of the Scin-Laeca. But
unless he be sensitive and well-attuned, thou mayst fare but
ill. Yet even in this Case thou mayst attain much Skill by
Practice with Intelligence. In the End it is better
altogether to work wholly within thine own Universe, slowly
and with firm Steps advancing from the Centre, and dealing,
one by one, with those unharmonized Parts of the Not-Self
which lie close to thee. This therefore closeth the Circle of
my Speech, for now I am returned to that which I spake
aforetime concerning the general Method of love, and thy
Development by that Way.
-90-
{Gamma }{kappa } DE MAGNO OPERE.
But now give Ear most eagerly, thou Son of my Loins, for I
will now discourse unto thee of thine Own Attainment, without
which all is but Idleness. Know first that conscious Thought
is but phenomenal, the Noise of thy Machine. Now Chemistry,
or Al-Chem-y meaneth the Egyptian Science, and the true Magick
of Egypt hath this for its Foundation. We have in our House
many Substances which act directly upon the Blood, and many
Practices of Virtue similar, to simulate, compose, purify,
analyse, direct, or concentrate the Thought. Confer "CCXX". 11,
22. But this Action is subtle and of man Modes, and dependeth
heavily on the Conditions of the Experiment, whereof the first
is thine own Will therein. Therefore I say unto thee that
this is thy Work immediate and necessary, to discover openly
thy Will unto thyself, and to fortify and enkindle it by all
One-Pointedness of Thought and Action, so that thou mayst
direct it inwards unto its Core, that is Thyself in thy Name
HADIT. For thereby is thy Will made white with Heat, so that
no Dross may cling to it. But this Work is the Great Work,
and standeth alone.
-91-
{Gamma }{lambda } DE GRADIBUS AD MAGNUM OPUS.
This Great Work is the Attainment of the Knowledge and
Conversation of thine Holy Guardian Angel. In the Eight
Aethyr is the Way thereof revealed. But I say: prepare
thyself most heartily and well for that Battle of Love by all
means of Magick. Make thyself puissant, wise, radiant in
every System, and balance thyself well in thine Universe.
Then with a pure Will tempered in the thousand Furnaces of thy
Trials, burn up thyself within thy Self. In the Preparation
thou shalt have learnt how thou mayst still all Thoughts, and
reach Ekstacy of Trance in many Modes. But in these Marriages
thy conscious Self is Bridegroom, and the not-Self Bride,
while in this Great Work thou givest up that conscious Self as
Bride to thy true Self. This Operation is then radically
alien from all others. And it is hard, because it is a total
Reversal of the Current of the Will, and a Transmutation of
its Formula and Nature. Here, o my son, is the One Secret of
Success in this Great Work: Invoke often.
-92-
{Gamma }{mu } DE FORMULA LUNAE.
Thus then concerning Operations of the Tao with the Yang
and the Yin is there enough; for thine own Art of Beauty shall
divine for thee, and devise new Heavens. But in all these is
the Formula of the Serpent with the Head of the Lion, and all
this Magick is wrought by the Radiance and Creative Force
thereof. And this Force leapeth continually from Plane to
Plane, and breaketh forth from his Bonds, so that Constraint
is Labour. Now then learn that the Yin hath also a Formula of
Force. And the Nature of the Yin is to be still, and to
encircle of limit, and it is as a Mirror, reflecting diverse
Images without Change in its own Kind. So then it seeketh
never to overlap the Barriers of its Plane; for this Reason it
is well to use it in Operations of a very definite and
restricted Type. But although it be inert, yet is it most
subject to Change; for its Number is four Score and one, which
is the Moon; and these are A L O ,, the Gods elemental before
H descending in their midst made them Creative. So then thou
mayst use constantly this Formula to rearrange Things in their
own Planes; and this is a most pragmatic Consideration.
-93-
{Gamma }{nu } DE AQUILAE SUMKNDA.
Take in this Work the Eagle all undefiled and virginal for
thy Sacrament. And thy Technick is the Magick of Water, so
that thine Act is of Nourishment, and not of Generation.
Therefore the Prime Use of this Art is to build up thine own
Nature. But if thou hast Skill to control the Mood of the
Eagle, then mayst thou work many an admirable Effect upon
thine Environment. Thou knowest how great is the Fame of
Witch-Women (old and without Man) to cause Events, although
they create nothing. It is this Straitness of the Channel
which giveth Force to the Stream. Beware, o my Son, lest thou
cling overmuch to this Mode of Magick; for it is lesser than
that Other, and if thou neglect That Other, then is thy Danger
fearful and imminent, for it is the Edge of the Abyss of
Choronzon, where are the lonely Towers of the Black Brothers.
Also the Formulation of the Object in the Eagle is by a
Species of Intoxication, so that His Nature is of Dream or
Delirium, and thus there may be Illusion. For this Cause I
deem it not wholly unwise if thou use this Way of Magick
chiefly as a Cordial; that is for the Fortifying of thine own
Nature.
-94-
{Gamma }{chi } DE MEDICINIS SECUNDUM QUATTUOR ELEMENTA.
Concerning the Use of chemical Agents, and be mindful that
thou abuse them not, learn that the Sacrament itself relateth
to Spirit, and the Four Elements balanced thereunder in its
Perfection. So also thy Lion himself hath a fourfold
Menstruum for his Serpents. Now to Fire belong Cocaine, which
fortifieth the Will, loosing him from bodily Fatigue,
Morphine, which purifieth the Mind, making the Thought safe,
and slow, and single, Heroin which partaketh as it seemeth, of
the Nature of these twain aforesaid albeit in Degree less
notable than either of them, and Alcohol, which is Food, that
is, Fuel, for the whole Man. To Water, attribute Hashish and
Mescal, for they make Images, and they open the hidden Springs
of Pleasure and of Beauty. Morphine, for its Ease, hath also
part in Water. Air ruleth Ethyl Oxide, for it is as a Sword,
dividing asunder ever Part of thee, making easy the Way of
Analysis, so that thou comest to learn thyself of what
Elements thou art compact. Lastly, of the Nature of Earth are
the direct Hypnotics, which operate by Repose, and restore thy
Strength by laying thee as a Child in the Arms of the Great
Mother, I say rather of Her material and physiological
Vicegerent.
-95-
{Gamma }{omicron } DE VIRTUTE EXPERIMENTIAE IN HOC ARTE.
Not Sleep, not Rest, not Contentment are of the Will of the
Hero, but these Things he hateth, and consenteth to enjoy them
only with Same of his weak Nature. But he will analyse
himself without Pity, and he will do all Things soever that
may free and fortify his Mind and Will. Know that the
Technick of the Right Use of this Magick with Poisons is
subtle; and since the Nature of every Man differeth from that
of his Fellow, there entereth Idiosyncrasy, and thine
Experience shall be thy Master in this Art. Heed also this
Word following: The Right Use of these Agents is to gain a
Knowledge preliminary of thine own Powers, and of High States,
so that thou goest not altogether blindly and without Aim in
thy Quest, ignorant of the Ways of thine own inner Being.
Also, thou must work always for a definite End, never for
Pleasure or for Relaxation, except thy wilt, as a good Knight
is sworn to do. And thou being Hero and Magician art in Peril
of abusing the fiery Agents only, not those of Earth, Air or
Water; because these do really work with thee in Purity,
making thee wholly what thou wouldst be, an Engine
indefatigable, a Mind clear, calm, and concentrated, and a
Heart fierce aglow.
-96-
{Gamma }{pi } DE SACRAMENTO VERO.
But in the Sacrament of the Gnosis, which is of the Spirit,
is there naught hurtful, for its Elements are not only Food,
but a true Incarnation and Quintessence of Life, Love, and
Liberty, and at its Manifestation thy Lion is consecrated by
pure Light of Ekstacy. Also, as this is the strongest so also
it is the most sensitive of all Things soever, and both proper
and ready to take Impress of Will, not as a Seal passively but
with true Recreation in a Microcosm thereof. And this is a
God alive and puissant to create, and He is a Word of Magick
wherein thou mayst read Thyself with all thine History and all
thy Possibility. Also as to thine Eagle, is not this chosen
by Nature Herself by Her Way of Attraction, without which
harmony Aesthetic and Magnetic thy Lion is silent, and inert,
even as Achilles before his Rage in his Tent. Now also
therefore I charge thee, o my Son, to partake constantly of
this Sacrament for it is proper to all Virtue, and as thou
dost learn to us it in Perfection, thou wilt surpass all other
Modes of Magick. Yea, in good Sooth, no Herb or Potion is
like unto this, supreme in every Case, for it is the True
Stone of Philosophers, and the Elixir and Medicine of all
Things, the Universal Tincture or Menstruum of thine own Will.
-97-
{Gamma }{koppa } DE DISCIPULIS REGENDIS.
I will have thee to know, moreover, my dear Son, the right
Art of Conduct with them whom I shall give thee for
Initiation. And the Rule thereof is one Rule; Do that thou
wilt shall be the whole of the Law. See thou constantly to it
that this be not broken; especially in the Section thereof (if
I dare say so) which readeth Mind thine own Business. This is
of Application equally to all, and the most dangerous Man (or
Woman, as has occurred, or I err) is the Busy-body. Oh how
ashamed are we, and moved to Indignation, seeing the Sins and
Follies of our Neighbours! Of all the Occasions of this
Grievance the most common is the Desire of Sex unsatisfied;
and thou knowest already, even in thy young Experience, how in
that Delirium the Weal of the Whole Universe appeareth of no
Account. Do thou wean thy Babes from that Simplicity, and
instil the Sense of true Proportion. For verily this is a Way
of Madness, Love, unless it be under Will. And the Cure of
this Madness is not so good as its Prevention, so that thou
shouldst be beforehand with these Children, shewing them the
right Importance of Love, how it should be a sacred Rite,
exalted above Personality, and a Fire to enlighten and serve
Man, not to devour him.
-98-
{Gamma }{rho } DE QUIBUSDAM MORBIS DISCIPULORUM.
And thus, if any Babe of thine be ill at ease, look closely
first whether this Love be not the Root of his Distemper.
Watch also Idleness, for whoso presseth eagerly forward in
Will heedeth little the Affairs of this Fellows. O my Son, if
every Man doth his own Will, there is no more to Say! But the
Busy-body nor mindeth his own Business, nor leaveth others to
mind theirs. Be thou instant therefore with such an one, to
cure him by enlightening his Will, and speeding him therein.
Remember also that if one speak ill of another, the Fault is
first of all in himself, for we know naught but that which is
within us. Did not the great Witch-Finder end by confessing
that he also was a Sorcerer? We become that which obsesseth
us, either through extreme Hate or Extreme Love. Knowest thou
not how the one is a Symbol of the other? For this Reason,
since Love is the Formula of Life, we are under Bond to
assimilate (in the End) that which we fear or hate. So then
we shall be wise to mould all Things within ourselves in
Quietness and Modulation. But above all must we use all to
our own End, adapting with Adroitness even our Weakness to the
Work.
-99-
{Gamma }{sigma } DE CULPIS DOMI PETENDIS.
Therefore, watch heedfully the Fault of another, that thou
mayst correct it in thyself. For if it were not in thee, thou
couldst not perceive it or understand it. Lo, in thine
Ekstacy of Love, thou callest upon the Universe to bear
Witness that to this End alone was it created; it is
unthinkable that thou shouldst love another, and
incomprehensible that any Man should grieve. Yet ere the Moon
change her Quarter, thou art free of thy Lunes, and lovest
another, and it may be grievest in thyself while he that
amazed thee hath joined the Company of the Rejoicing. Watch
then, and heed thyself; and pay no Heed to thy Fellows,
insofar as they impede thee not. And let this be the Rule.
For every Will is pure and every Orbit free; but Error
bringeth Confusion. See therefore that none leave his Path,
lest he foul that of his Brother; and remember also that with
Speed cometh Ease of Control. Let each Man therefore urge
briskly his Chariot in a right Line toward the Centre; for two
Radii cannot cross. And beware most of this Love, because it
lieth so close to Will that Dis-ease thereof easily imparteth
his Error to the Whole Way of the Magician.
-100-
{Gamma }{tau } DE CORPORE UMBRA HOMINIS.
Concerning the Aeon, o my Son, learn that the Sun and His
Vicegerent are in all Aeons, of Necessity, Father, Centre,
Creator, each in His Sphere of Operation. But the Formula of
the past Aeon was of the Dying god, and was based upon
Ignorance. For Men thought that the Sun died and was reborn
alike in the Day and in the Year; and so also was the Mystery
of Man. Now already are we well assured by Science how the
Death of the Sun is in Truth but the Shifting of a Shadow; and
in this Aeon (o my son, I lift up my Voice and I make
Prophecy!) so shall it be proven as to Death. For the Body of
Man is but his Shadow, it cometh and goeth even as the tides
of Ocean; and he only is in Darkness who is hidden by that
Shadow from the Light of his true Self. Now therefore
understand thou the Formula of Horus, the Lion God, the Child
crowned and conquering that cometh forth in Force and Fire!
For thy Changes are not Phases of thee, but of the Phantoms
which thou mistakest for thy Self.
-101-
{Gamma }{upsilon } DE SIRENIS.
concerning the Love of women, o my Son, it is written in
" ""The Book of the Law" that all is Freedon, if it be cone unto
our Lady Nuit. Yet also there is this Consideration,that for
every Parsifal there is a Kundry. Thou mayst eat a thousand
Fruits of the Garden; but there is one Tree whose name for
thee is Poison. In every great Initiation is an Ordeal,
wherein appeareth a Siren or Vampire appointed to destroy the
Candidate. I have myself witnessed the Blasting of not less
that ten of my own Flowers, that I tended when I was Nemo, and
that although I saw the Cankerworm, and knew it, and gave
urgent Warning. How then consider deeply in thyself if I were
rightly governed in this Action, according to the Tao. For we
that are Magicians work without Fear or Haste, being
omnipotent in Eternity, and each Star must go his Way; and who
am I that should save this People? "Wilt thou smite me as
thou smotest the Egyptian yesterday?" Yes, although mine were
the Might to save these Ten, I reached not forth mine Arm
against Iniquity, I spake and I was silent; and that which was
appointed came to pass. As it is written, the Pregnant
Goddess hath let down Her Burden upon the Earth.
-102-
{Gamma }{phi } DE FEMINA QUADAM.
Knowest thou for what Cause I am moved to write this unto
thee, my Son only-begotten, Child of Magick and of Mystery?
It is that I thy Father am also in this Ordeal of Initiation
at this Hour. For the Sun is nigh unto the End of the Sign of
the Fishes in the Thirteenth Year of the Aeon, and the New
Current of High Magick leapeth forth as a Flood from the Womb
of my True Lady B A B A L O N. And a Word hath come to me by
the Mouth of thee Scarlet Woman, whose Name is E V E, or A H I
T H A, concerning the Temple of Jupiter that is builded for
me. And therein is a Woman appointed to a certain Office.
Now this Woman appeared to me in a Vision when I was in the
House of the Juggler by the Lake among the Mountains, the Sun
being in Cancer in the Eleventh Year of the Aeon, even in the
Week after thy Birth. And I think this Woman to be Her whom I
call W E S --- R U N. But even while with a pure Heart I did
invoke Her, there came unto me another like unto Her, so that
I am confused in my Mind and bewildered. And this other Woman
stirreth my true Nature in its Depth, so that I will not call
it Love. For the Voice of Love I know of old; but this other
Woman speaketh in a tongue whereof I have no Understanding.
-103-
{Gamma }{chi } DE SUA VIRTUTE.
What then shall I do therein? For the Scarlet Woman
adjureth me by the great Name of God ITHUPHALLOS that I deal
with the Other Woman as with any Woman, according to my Will.
But this I fear for that she is not as any Woman, and I deem
her to be the Vampire of this Ordeal. Now then? Shall I
fear? Said I not long since, when I was called of Men Eliphaz
Levi Zahed, that the Error of Oedipus was that he should have
tamed the Sphinx, and ridden her into Thebes? Shall I not
take this Vampire, if she be such, and master her and turn her
to the Great End? "Am I such a Man as should flee?" Is not
all Fear the Word of Failure? Shall I distrust my Destiny?
Am I that am the Word of the Aeon of so little avail that even
the whole Powers of Choronzon can disperse me? Nay, o my Son,
there is Courage of Ignorance and Discretion of Knowledge, and
by no less Virtue will I win through unto mine End. As it is
written: with Courage conquering Fear will I approach thee.
-104-
{Lambda }{psi } DE ALIQUIBUS MODIS ORACULI PETENDI.
My Son, in all Judgment and Decision is great Delicacy, but
most in these Matters of the Will. For thou art Advocate as
well as Judge, and unless thou have well organized thy Mind
thou art Bondslave of Prejudice. For this Cause it is
adjuvant to thy Wisdom to call Witnesses that are not of thine
own Nature, and to ask Oracles whose Interpretation is bound
by fixed rule. This is the Use of the Book T A R O T, of the
Divination by Earth, or by the other Elements, or by the Book
" ""Yi-King", and many another Mode of Truth. Thou knoest by thine
Experience that these Arts deceive thee not, save insofar as
thou deceivest thyself. So then to thee that art NEMO is no
Siege Perilous at this Table, but to them that are yet below
the Abyss is very notable Danger of Error. Yet must they
train themselves constantly in these Modes, for Experience
itself shall teach them how their Bias toward their Desires
reacteth in the End against themselves, and hindereth them in
the Execution of their Wills. Nevertheless, as thou well
knowest, the best Mode is the Creation of an Intelligible
Image by Virtue of the Mass of the Holy Ghost, declaring the
true Will unto thee in Terms of thy Qabalah!
-105-
{Gamma }{omega } DE FRATRIBUS NIGRIS? FILIIS INIQUITATIS.
Of the Black Brothers, o my Son, will I write these Things
following. I have told thee already concerning Change, how it
is the Law, because every Change is an Act of Love under will.
So then He that is Adept Exempt, whether in our Holy Order or
another, may not remain in the Pillar of Mercy, because it is
not balanced, but is unstable. Therefore is the Choice given
unto him, whether he will destroy his Temple, and give up his
Life, extending it to Universal Life, or whether he will make
a Fortress about that Temple, and abide therein, in the false
Sphere of Daath, which is in the Abyss. And to the Adepts of
our Holy Order this Choice is terrible; by Cause that they
must abandon even Him whose Knowledge and Conversation they
have attained. Yet, o my Son, they have much Help of our
Order in this Aeon, because the general Formula is Love, so
that their habit itself urges them to the Bed of our Lady
BABALON. Know then the Black Brothers by this true Sign of
their Initiation of iniquity, that that they resist Change,
restrict and deny Love, fear Death. Percutiantur.
-106-
{Delta }{alpha } DE VIRTUTE CHIRURGICA.
Know that the Cult of the Slave-Gods is a Device of those
Black Brothers. All that stagnateth is thereof, and thence
cometh not Stability, but Putrefaction. Endure not thou the
static Standards either in Thought or in Action Resist not
even the Change that is the Rottenness of Choronzon, but
rather speed it, so that the elements may combine by Love
under Will. Since the Black Brothers and their Cults set
themselves against Change, do thou break them asunder. Yea,
though of bad come worse, continue in that Way; for it is as
if thou didst open an Abscess, the first Effect being noisome
exceedingly, but the last Cleanness. Heed not then, whoso
crieth Anarchy, and Immorality, and Heresy against thee, and
feareth to destroy Abuse lest worse Things come of it. For
the Will of the Universe in its Wholeness is to Truth, and
thou dost well to purge it from its Constiveness. For it is
written that there is no bond that can unite the Divided by
Love, so that only those Complexes which are in Truth
Simplicities, being built Cell by Cell unto an Unity by Virtue
of Love under Will, are worthy to endure in their Progression.
-107-
{Delta }{beta } DE OPERIBUS STELLAE MICROCOSMI.
QUORUM SUNT QUATTOUR MINORES.
I have already written unto thee, my Son, of the Paradox of
Liberty, how the Freedom of thy Will dependeth upon the
Bending of all thy forces to that one End. But now also learn
how great is the Oeconomy of our Magick, and this will I
declare unto thee in a Figure of the Holy Qabalah, to wit, the
Formula of the Tetragrammaton. Firstly, the Operation of Yod
and He is not Vau only, but with Vau appeareth also a new He,
as a By-OProduct, and She is mysterious, being at once the
Flower of the three others, and their Poison. Now by the
Operation of Vau upon that He is no new Creation, but the
Daughter is set upon the Throne of Her Mother, and by this is
rekindled the Fire of Yod, which, consuming that Virgin, doth
not add a Fifth Person, but balanceth and perfecteth all. For
this Shin, that is the Holy Spirit, pervadeth these, and is
immanent. Thus in three Operations is the Pentagram
formulated. But in the Figure of that Star these Operations
are not indicated, for the five Lines of Force connect not
according to any of them; but five new Operations are made
possible; and these are the Works proper to the perfected man.
First, the Work which lieth level, the Vau with the He, is of
the Yang and the Yin, and maketh One the Human with the
Divine, as in the Attainment of the Master of the Temple. Yet
this Work hath his Perversion, which is of Death. Thus then
for thee four Works, they pertain all to the Natural Formula
ofthe Cross and Rose.
-108-
{Delta }{gamma } DE OPERIBUS STELLAE MICROCOSMI.
QUORUM SUNT QUATTUOR MAJORES.
O my Son, behold now the Virtue and Mystery of the Silver
Star! For of these four Works not one leadeth to the Crown,
because Tetragrammaton hath his Root only in Chokmah. So
therefore the Formula of the Rosy Cross availeth no more in
the Highest. Now then in the Pentagram are two Lines that
invoke Spirit, though they lead not thereunto, and they are
the Works of He with He, and of Yod with Vau. Of thee twain
the former is a Work Magical of the Nature of Music, and it
draweth down the Fire of the HIGHER by Seduction or
Bewitchment. And the latter is a Work opposite thereunto,
whose Effect forumlateth itself by direct Creation in the
Sphere of its Purpose and Intent. But there remain yet two of
the Eight Works, namely, the straight Aspiration of the Chiah
or Creator in thee to the Crown, and the Surrender of the
Nephesh or Animal soul to the Possession thereof; and these be
the twin principal Formulae of the Final Attainment, being
Archetypes of the Paths of Magick (the one) and Mysticism (the
other) unto the End. From each of these Eight Works is
derived a separate Mode of practical Use, each after his Kind;
and it should be well for thine Instruction if thou study upon
these my Words, and found upon them a System. O my son,
forget not therein the Arcanum of their Balance and
Proportion; fort herein lieth the Mystery of their Holiness.
-109-
{Delta }{delta } DE STELLA MACROCOSMI.
Thus far then concerning the Pentagram, how it is of the
Cross, and its Virtue of the Highest; but the Hexagram is for
the most Part a Detail of the Formula of the Rose and Cross.
Already have I shewed unto thee how the Most Holy Trinity is
the Yang; but the Spirit, and the Water (or Fluid) and the
Blood, that bear Witness in the Inferior, are of the Yin.
Thus the Operation of the Hexagram lieth wholly within the
Order of our Plane, uniting indeed any soul with its Image,
but not transcendentally, for its Effect is Cosmos, the Vau
that springeth from the Union of the Yod and the He. Thus is
it but a Glyph of that first Formula, not of the others. But
of all these Things shalt thou thyself make Study with ardent
Affection; for therein lie many Mysteries of practical Wisdom
in our Magick Art. And this is the Wonder and Beauty of this
Work, that for every Man is his own Palace. Yea, this is
Life, that the Secrets of our Order are not fixed and dead, as
are the Formulae of the Outer. Know that in the many thousand
Times that I have performed the Ritual of the Pentagram or the
Invocation of the Heart girt with a Serpent, or the Mass of
the Phoenix, or of the Holy Ghost, there has not been one Time
wherein I did not win new Light, or Knowledge or Power or
Virtue, save through mine own Weakness or Error.
-110-
{Delta }{epsilon } DE SUA FEMINA OLIM, ET DE ECSTASIA
PRAETER OMNIA.
My Son, I am enflamed with Love. I burn up eagerly in the
Passion that thus mightily consumeth me. Yet in myself I know
not at all That which constraineth me, and enkindleth my Soul
in Ekstacy. There is Silence in my Soul, and the Fear round
about me, as I were Syrinx in the Night of the Forest. This
is a great Mystery that I endure, a Mystery too great for the
mortal Part of me. For but now, when I cried out upon the
Name Olun, which is the secret Name of my Lady that hath come
to me --- most strangely! --- then I was rapt away altogether
subtly yet fiercely into a Trance that hath transformed me
with Attainment, yet without Trace in Mind. O my son! there
is the Transfiguration of Glory, and there is the Jewel in the
Lotus-flower; yea, also is many other whereof I am Partaker.
But this last Passion, that my Lady Olun hath brought unto me
upon this last Day of the Winter of the thirteenth Year of the
Aeon, even as I wrote these Words unto thee, is a Mystery of
Mysteries beyond all these. Oh my son, thou knowest well the
Perils and the Profit of our Path; continue thou therein.
Olun! {Mu }{alpha }{pi }{iota }{epsilon } BABALON! Adsum.
-111-
{Delta }{digamma } DE NOMINE OLUN.
Four Seasons, or it may be night five, ago, I thy Father
was in the City called New-Orleans, and being in Travail of
Spirit I did invoke the God that giveth Wisdom, bearing the
Word of the All-Father by his Caduceus. Then, suddenly, as I
began (as it were a Gust of Fire whirled forth against that
Idea) cam the Wit of mine utter Identity, so that I ceased
crying Mercurius Sum. Also instantly I knew in myself that
there was a Mystery hidden, and translating into the Greek
Tongue, exclaimed '{Epsilon }{Pi }{Mu }{Eta }{Sigma } '{Epsilon }{Iota }{Mu }{Iota },
whose Numeration did I make in my Mind forthwith, and it is
Four Hundred and Eighteen, like unto the Word of the Aeon. So
by this I knew that my Work was well wrought in Truth. Thus
then also was it with this my Lady; for after many Questions I
obtained from the wizard Amalantrah that Name Olun, that is
One Hundred and Fifty and Six even as that of our Lady
BABALON; and then, being inspired, I wrote down Her Earth-name
in Greek, {Mu }{Alpha }{Rho }{Iota }{Epsilon }, which is also that this Name
(as I have learned) is in the Phoenician Tongue, wh^len;
which by Interpretation is That which is Infinite, and Space;
so that all is consonant with NUITH Our Lady of the Stars.
Thus, o my Son, is the Word of Truth echoed throughout all
Worlds; and thus have the Wise mighty Assurance in their Way.
See, o my Son, that thou work not without this Guard
inflexible, lest thou err in thy Perceptions.
-112-
{Delta }{zeta } DE VIRIS MAGNANIMIS, AMORE PRAECLARISSIMIS.
Know that in the Mind of Man is much Wisdom that is hidden,
being the Treasure of his Sire that he inheriteth. Thus,
night all of his moral Nature is unknown to him until his
Puberty; that is, this Nature pertaineth not unto the
Recording and Judging Apparatus of his Brain until it is put
therein by the Stirring of that deeper Nature within him.
Thou wilt mark also that great Men are commonly great Lovers;
and this is in Part also because (consciously or not) they are
ware of that Secret following, that every Act of Love
communicateth somewhat of the Wisdom stored within him to his
percipient Mind. Yet must such Act be done rightly, according
to Art; and unless such Act is of Profit alike to Mind and
Body, it is an Error. This then is true Doctrine; which if it
be understanded aright of thee, shall make diamon-clear thy
Path in Love, which (to them that know not this) is so obscure
and perilous that I believe there is not one Man in Ten
Thousand that cometh not to Misadventure therein.
-113-
{Delta }{eta } DE CASTITATE.
My son, be fervent! Be firm! Be stable! Be quick to make
Impurity, how one Course of Ideas seeketh to infringe upon
another, to quell the Virtue thereof. Gold is pure, but to
drink molten Gold were Impurity to thy Body, and its
Destruction. Law is a Code of the Customs of a People; if it
intrude thereon to alter them, it is an Impurity of
Oppression. So also Diet is to be in Accord with Digestion;
Ethics were an Impurity therein. Love is an Expression of the
Will of the Body, yea, and more also, of That which created
the Body; and its Operation is commonly between One and One,
so that the Interference of a Third Person is Impurity, and
not to be endured. Nay, even the thought of Third Person hath
but ordinary not Part in Love; so that, as thou seest
constantly in thy Life, Love being strong, taketh no heed of
others, and some after Interference bringeth Misfortune. Now
then shell we therefore cast out Love, or accept Impurity
therein? God forbid. And for this Cause see thou well to it
that in thy Kingdom there be no Interference there with, nor
Hindrance from any. For it is perfect in itself.
-114-
{Delta }{theta } DE CEREMONIO EQUINOXI.
My Son, our Father in Heaven hath passed into the Sign of
the Ram. I have performed the Rite of Union with Him
according to the ancient Manner, and I know the Word that
shall rule the Semester. Also it is given unto my Spirit to
write unto thee concerning the Virtue of this Rite, and many
another of Antiquity. And it is this, that our Forefathers
made of these Ceremonies an Epitome Mnemonic, wherein certain
Truths, or true Relations, should be communicated in a magical
Manner. Now therefore by the Practice of these mayst thou
awaken thy Wisdom, that it may manifest in thy conscious Mind.
And this Way is of Use even when the Ceremonies, as those of
the Christians, are corrupt and deformed; but in such a Case
thou shalt seek out the true ancient Significance thereof.
For there is that within thee which remembereth Truth, and is
ready to communicate the same unto thee when thou hast Wit to
evoke it from the Aditum and Sanctuary of thy Being. And this
is to be done by this Repetition of the Formula of that Truth.
Note thou further that this which I tell thee is the Defence
of Formalism; and indeed thou must work upon a certain
Skeleton, but clothe it with live Flesh.
-115
{Delta }{iota } DE LUCE STELLARUM.
It was that most Holy Prophet, thine Uncle, called upon
Earth William O'Neill, or Blake, who wrote for our
Understanding these Eleven Sacred Words! ---
If the Sun and Moon should doubt
They'd immediately go out.
O my Son, our Work is to shine by Fore and Virtue of our own
Natures without Consciousness or consideration. Now,
notwithstanding that our Radiance is constant and undimmed, it
may be that Clouds gathering about us conceal our Glory from
the Vision of other Stars. These Clouds are our Thoughts; not
those true Thoughts which are but conscious Expressions of our
Will, such as manifest in our Poesy, or our Music, or other
Flower-Ray of our Life quintessential. Nay, the Cloud-Thought
is born of Division and of Doubt; for all Thoughts, except
they be creative emanations, are Witnesses to Conflict within
us. Our settled Relations with the Universe do not disturb
our Minds, as, by Example, our automatic Functions, which
speak to us only in the Sign of Distress. Thus all
consideration is Demonstration of Doubt, and Doubt of Duality,
which is the Root of Choronzon.
-116-
{Delta }{kappa } DE CANTU.
So then, o my Son, there is my Wisdom, that the Voice of
the Soul in its true Nature Eternal and Unchangeable,
comprehending all Change, is Silence; and the Voice of the
Soul, dynamic, in the Way of its Will, is song. Nor is there
any Form of utterance that is not, as song is, the Music
proper to that Motion, according to the Law. Thus, as thy
Cousin Arthur Machen hath rejoiced to make plain unto Men in
his Book called "Hieroglyphics", the first Quality of Art is its
Ekstacy. So, night to all Men at one Time or other, cometh
Joy of Creation, with the Belief that their Utterance is holy
and beautiful, glorious with Banners. This would indeed be
the Case, an we could discern their Thought from their Words;
but because they have no technical Skill to express
themselves, the do not enable others to reproduce or recreate
the original Passion which inspired them, or even any Memory
thereof. Understand then what is the Agony of the Great Soul
who hath every Key of Paradise at his Girdle, when he would
open the Gate of Holiness, or of Beauty, or any Virtue soever,
to the Men of his Age!
-117-
{Delta }{lambda } DE STULTITIA HUMANA.
Know that a Mind can only apprehend those Things with which
it is already familiar, at least in Part. Moreover, it will
ever interpret according to the Distortion of its own Lenses.
Thus, in a great War, all Speech soever may be understood as
if it were of Reference thereunto; also, a Guilty Person, or a
Melancholic may see in every Stranger an Officer of Justice,
or one of them that are banded together to persecute him, as
the Case may be. But consider moreover that the Mysterious is
always the Terrible, for Vulgar Minds. How then when a New
Word is spoken? Either it is not heard, or it is
misunderstood; and it evoketh Fear and Hate as a Reaction
against Fear. Then Men take him and set him at naught, and
spit upon him and scourge him, and lead him away to crucify
him; and the third Day he riseth from among the Dead, and
ascendeth into Heaven, and sitteth at the right Hand of God,
and cometh to judge the Quick and the Dead. This, o my son,
is the History of Every Man unto whom is given a Word.
-118-
{Delta }{mu } DE SUO PROELIO.
Now therefore thou seest how Men take the Son of Science,
and burn him for a Sorcerer or a Heretic; the Poet and cast
him out as Reprobate; the Painter, as deforming Nature, the
Musician, as denying Harmony; and so for every New Word. How
much more, then, if the Word be of Universal Import, a Word of
Revolution and of Revelation in the Deep of the Soul? A new
Star; that is for the Astronomers, and maybe setteth them by
the Ears. But a new Sun! That were for all Men; and a Seed
of Tumult and Upheavel in every Land. consider in thyself,
therefore, what is the Might of the Adepts, the Energy of the
Sancturary, that can endow one Man with the Word of an Aeon,
and bring him to the End in Victory, with his Chariot wreathed
in Flowers, and his Head bound round with a Fillet of Blood-
honoured Laurel! My Son, thou are entered into the Battle;
and the Men of our Race and our Clan return not save in Glory.
-119-
{Delta }{nu } DE NECESSITATE VERBI CLAMANDI.
He that striveth against his own Nature is a Fool, and
wotteth not his Will, darkening Counsel in himself, and
denying his own God, and giving Place to Choronzon. So then
his Work becometh Hotchpot, and he is shattered and dispersed
in the Abyss. Nor is it better for him if he do this for the
supposed Good of another, and for that other is it Evil also
in the End of the Matter. For to manifest thine own Division
to another, and to deceive him, is but to confirm him in
blindness, or Illusion, and to hinder or to deflect him in his
Way. Now to do thine own Will is to leave him free to do his
own Will, but to mask thy Will is to falsify one of the
Beacons by which he may steer his Ship. My son, all division
of Soul, that begetteth Neurosis and Insanity, cometh from
wrong Adjustment to Reality, and to Fear thereof. Wilt thou
then hide Truth from thy Brother, lest he suffer? Thou dost
not well, but confirmest him in Iniquity, and in Illusion, and
in Infirmity of Spirit.
-120-
{Delta }{xi } DE MYSTERIO EUCHARISTICO UNIVERSALI.
My son, heed also this Word of thine Uncle William O'Neill;
Everything that lives is holy. Yea, and more also, every Act
is holy, being essential to the Universal Sacrament. Knowing
this, thou mayst conform with that which is written in "The""
""Book of the Law": to make no Distinction between any one Thing
and any other Thing. Learn well to apprehend this Mystery,
for it is the Great Gate of the College of Understanding,
whereby each and all of thy Senses become constant and
perpetual Witnesses of the One Eucharist, whereunto also they
are Ministers. So then to thee every Phenomenon soever is the
Body of Nuith in her Passion; for it is an Event; that is, the
Marriage of some one Point of view with some One Possibility.
And this State of Mind is notably an Appurtenance of thy Grade
of Master of the Temple, and the Unveiling of the Arcanum of
Sorrow, which is thy Work, as it is written in Liber Magi.
Moreover, this State, assimilated in the very Marrow of thy
Mind, is the first Stop toward the comprehension of the
Arcanum of Change, which is the Root of the Work of a Magus of
Our Holy Order. O my Son, bind this within thine Heart, for
its Name is the Beatific Vision.
-121
{Delta }{omicron } DE RECTO IN RECTO.
Now also then I bid thee use all filial Diligence, and
attend to this same Word in the Mouth of thine earliest
Ancestor (except we adventure to invoke the Name F U --- H S
I) in our known Genealogy, the Most Holy, the True Man, Lao-
Tze, that gave His Light unto the Kingdom of Flowers. For
being questioned concerning the abode of the Tao, he gave
Answer that It was in the Dung. Again, the Tathagata, the
Buddha, most blessed, most perfect and most enlightened, added
His Voice, that there is no Grain of Dust which shall not
attain to the Arhan. Keep therefore in just Balance the
Relation of Illusion to Illusion in that Aspect of Illusion,
neither confusing the Planes, nor confounding the Stars, nor
denying the Laws of their Reaction, yet with Eagle's Vision
beholding the One Sun of the True Nature of the Whole. Verily,
this is the Truth, and unto it did also Dionysus and Tahuti
and Sri Krishna set the seal of their Witness. Cleanse
therefore thine Heart, o my son, in the Waters of the Great
Sea, and enkindle it with the Fire of the Holy Ghost. For
this is His peculiar Work of Sanctification.
-122-
{Delta }{pi } DE VIRGINE BEATA.
Understand then well this Mystery of Universal Godliness;
for it is the naked Beauty of the Virgin of the World. Lo!
Since the End is Perfection, as I have already shewn unto
thee, and since also every Event is inexorably and ineluctably
interwoven in the Web of that Fate, as it is certain that
every Phenomenon is (as thou art sworn to understand) "a
particular Dealing of God with thy Soul". Yea, and more also,
it is a necessary Rubric in this Ritual of Perfection. Turn
not therefore away thine Eyes, for that they are too pure to
behold Evil; but look upon Evil with Joy, comprehending it in
the Fervour of this Light that I have enkindled in thy Mind.
Learn also that every Thing soever is Evil, if thou consider
it as apart, static and in Division; and thus in a Degree must
thou apprehend the Mystery of Change, for it is by Virtue of
Change that this Truth of Beauty and Holiness is made
steadfast in the Universe. O my son, there is no Delight
sweeter than the continuous Contemplation of this Marvel and
Pageant that is ever about thee; it is the Beatitude of the
Beatitudes.
-123-
{Delta }{koppa } DE LOCO SUAE MOECHAE.
Resist not Change, therefore, but act constantly according
to thy True Nature, for here only thou standest in Sorrow, if
there be a Division conscious of itself, and hindered from its
Way (whose Name is Love) unto its Dissolution. It is written
in "The Book of the Law" that the Pain of Division is as
nothing, and the Joy of Dissolution all. Now then here is an
Art and Device of Magick that I will declare unto thee, albeit
it is a Peril if thou be not fixed in that Truth and in that
Beatific Vision whereof I have written in the three Chapters
foregoing. And it is this, to create by Artifice a Conflict
in thyself, that thou mayst take thy Pleasure in its
Resolution. Of this Play is thy sweet Stepmother, my
concubine, the Holy and Adulterous Olun, sublimely Mistress;
for she invoketh in her Fancy a thousand Obstacles to Love, so
that she shuddereth at a Touch, swooneth at a Kiss, and
suffereth Death and Hell in the Ekstacy of her Body. And this
is her Art, and it is of Nuit Our Lady, for it is the Drama of
Commemoration of the whole mystery of By-coming.
-124-
{Delta }{rho } DE PERICULO JOCORUM AMORIS.
Yet be thou heedful, o my son, for this Art is set upon a
Razor's Edge. In our Blood is this great Pox of Sin, whose
Word is Restriction, as Inheritance of our Sires that served
the Slave-Gods. Thou must be free in the Law of Thelema,
perfectly one with thy true Self, singly and wholly bound in
thy true Will, before thou durst (in Prudence) invoke the Name
of Choronzon, even for thy good Sport and Phantasy. It is but
to pretend, thou sayst; and that is Sooth; yet thou must make
Pretence so well as to deceive thyself, albeit for a Moment;
else were thy Sport savourless. Then, and thou have one point
of Weakness in thee, that Thought of thine may incarnate, and
destroy thee. Verily, the wise Enchanter is sure beyond Doubt
of his Charm ere he toy with a Fanged Cobra; and thou will
knowest that this Peril of Division in thy Self is the only
one that can touch thee. For all other Evil is but
Elaboration of this Theme of Choronzon. Praise therefore thy
sweet Stepmother my concubine, the Holy and Adulterous Olun;
and thine own Mother Hilarion, for in this Art was she also
pre-eminent.
-125-
{Delta }{sigma } DE LIBIDINE SECRETA.
It is said among Men that the Word Hell deriveth from the
Word helan, to hele or conceal, in the Tongue of the Anglo-
Saxons. That is, it is the concealed Place, which, since all
things are in thine own Self, is the Unconscious. How then?
Because Men were already aware how this Unconscious, or
Libido, is opposed, for the most Part , to the conscious Will.
In the Salve-Ages this is a Truth Universal, or well night to
it; for in such Times are Men compelled to Uniformity by the
Constraint of Necessity herself. Yea, of old it was a
continual Siege of every Man of every Clan, of every
Environment; and to relax guard was then Self-murdr, or also
Treachery. so then no Man might chose his way, until he were
Hunter, Fighter, Builder; not any Woman, but she must first be
Breeder. Now in the Growth of States by Organisation came,
stepping stealthily, a certain Security against the grossest
Perils, so that a few Men could be spared from Toil to
cultivate Wisdom, and this was first provided by the Selection
of a caste Pontifical. By this Device came the Alliance of
King and Priest, Strength and Cunning fortifying each the
other through the Division of Labour.
-126-
{Delta }{tau } DE ORDINE CIVITATUM.
So presently, O my son, this first Organisation among Men,
by a Procedure parallel to that of the Differentiation of
Protoplasm, made the State competent to explore and to control
Nature; and every Profit of this sort released more energy,
and enlarged the class of the Learned, until, as it is this
day, only a small proportion of any man's work must needs go
to the satisfaction of first will essential and common, the
provision of shelter, food, and protection. Verily, also thou
seest many women made free to live as they will, even o the
admiration and delight of the Sage whose eye laugheth to
contemplate mischief. Thus the duty of every Unit towards the
whole is diminished, and also the necessity to conform with
those narrow laws which preserve primitive tribes in their
struggle against environment. Thus the State need suppress
only such heresies as directly threaten its political
stability, only such modes of life as work manifest and proven
hurt to others, or cause general disorder by their scandal.
Therefore save and except he interferes thereby with the root
laws of common weal, a man is free to develop as he will
according to his true nature.
-127-
{Delta }{upsilon } DE SCIENTIAE MODO.
To the mind of the early Philosopher, therefore, any
variation in type must appear as a disaster; yea, intelligence
itself must perforce prove its value to the brute, or he
distrusteth it and destroyeth it. Yet as thou knowest, that
variation which is fitted to the environment is the salvation
of the species. Only among men, his fellows turn ever upon
the Saviour, and rend him, until those who follow him in
secret, and it may be unconsciously, prove their virtue and
his wisdom by their survival when his persecutors perish in
their folly. But we, being secure against all primary enemies
to the individual, or the common weal, may, nay, we must, if
we would attain the summit for our race, devote all spare
leisure, wealth, and energy to he creation of variation from
the Norm, and thus by clear knowledge bought of experiment and
of experience, move with eyes well open upon our true path.
So therefore Our Law of Thelema is justified also of biology
and of social science. It is the true Way of Nature, the
right strategy in the way of man with his environment, and the
life of his soul.
-128-
{Delta }{phi } DE MONSTRIS.
Sayst thou, o my son, that not thus, but by forced
training, one cometh to perfection. This indeed is sooth,
that by artificial selection and well-watched growth and
environment, one hath dogs, horses, pigeons, and the like,
which excel their forebears in strength, in beauty, in speed,
as one will. Yet is this work but a false magical artifice,
temporary and of illusion; for thy masterpieces are but
monsters, not true variations, and if thou leave them, they
revert swiftly to their own proper and authentic type, because
that type was fitted by experience to its environment. So
every variation must be left free to perpetuate itself of
perish, not cherished for its beauty, or guarded for its
appeal to thine ideal, or cut off in thy fear thereof. For
the proof of its virtue lieth in the manifestation of its
power to survive, and to reproduce itself after its kind.
Nurse not the weakness of any man, nor swaddle and cosset him,
not though he were poet or artist because of his value to thy
fancy, for if thou do this, he shall grow in his informity, so
that even his work for which thou lovest him, shall be
enfeebled also.
-129-
{Delta }{chi } DE INFERNO PALATIO SAPIENTIAE.
Now then thou seest that this Hell, or concealed place
within thee, is no more a fear or hindrance to men of a free
race, but the treasure house of the assimilated wisdom of the
ages, and the knowledge of the True Way. Thus are we just and
wise to discover this secret in ourselves, to conform the
conscious mind therewith. For that mind is compact solely
(until it be illuminated) of impressions and judgments, so
that its will is but directed by the sum of the shallow
reactions of a most limited experience. But thy true will is
the wisdom of the ages of thy generations, the expression of
that which hath fitted thee exactly to thine environment.
Thus thy conscious mind is oftentimes foolish, as when thou
admirest an ideal, and wouldst attain it, but thy true will
letteth thee, so that there is conflict, and the humiliation
of that mind. Here will I call to witness the common event of
"Good Resolutions" that defy the lightning of destiny, being
puffed up by the mind of an indigestible ideal putrefying
within thee. Thence cometh colic, and presently the poison is
expelled, or else thou diest. But resolutions of true will
are mighty against circumstance.
-130-
{Delta }{psi } DE VITIIS VOLUNTATIS SECRETAE.
Learn moreover concerning this Hell, or hidden wisdom, that
is within thee, that it is modified, little by little, through
the experience of the conscious mind, which feedeth it. For
that wisdom is the expression, or rather symbol and
hieroglyph, of the true adjustment of thy being to its
environment. Now, then, this environment being eroded by
time, this wisdom is no more perfect, for it is not absolute,
but standeth in relation to the Universe. So then a part
thereof may become useless, and atrophy as (I will instance
this case) Man's wit of smell; and the bodily organ
corresponding degeneratheth therewith. But this is an effect
of much time, so that in thy hell thou art like to find
elements vain, or foolish, or contrary to thy present weal.
Yet, o my Son, this hidden wisdom is not thy true will, but
only the levers (I may say so) thereof. Notwithstanding,
there lieth therein a faculty of balance, whereby it is able
to judge whether any element in itself is presently useful and
benign, or idle and malignant. Here then is a root of
conflict between the conscious and the unconscious, and a
debate concerning the right order of conduct, how the will may
be accomplished.
-131-
{Delta }{omega } DE RATIONE PRAESIDIO VOLUNTATIS.
O my Son, in this case is there darkness, yet this comfort
as a lamp therein, that there is no error in the will, but
only doubt as to the means of success, else were we as
children afeared of Night. Thus we have need of naught but to
consider the matter by wit of reason, and of prudence, and on
common sense, and of experience, and of science, adjusting
ourselves so far as we may. Here is the key of success, and
its name is the skill to make right use of circumstance. This,
then is the virtue of the mind, to be the Wazir of the will, a
true counsellor, through intelligence of the Universe. But o,
my Son, do thou lay this word beneath thine heart, that the
mind hath no will, nor right thereto, so the Usurpation
bringeth forth a fatal conflict in thyself. For the mind is
sensitive, unstable as air, and may be led foolishly in leash
by a stronger mind that worketh as the cunning tool of a will.
Therefore thy safety and defence is to hold thy mind to his
right function, a faithful minister to thine own true will,
but election of nature. Heed well this, o my Son, for thy
mind passive is rightly a mirror to reflect all things clearly
without prejudice, and to remain unstained by them.
-132-
{Epsilon }{alpha } DE CURSU SAPIENTIS.
Therefore consider this again in a figure, that thy mind is
as the marshal of an army, to observe the dispositions of the
enemy, and to order his own forces rightly, according to that
information; but he hath no will, only obedience to the word
of his king to outwit and to overcome the Opposite. Nor doth
that king make war by his own whim, if he be wise and true,
but solely because of the necessity of his country, and its
nature, whereof he is but executive officer and interpreter,
its voice as the Marshal is its arm. Thus then do thou
understand thyself, not giving place to thy mind to dispute
thy will, nor through ignorance and carelessness allowing the
enemy to deceive thee, nor by fear, by imprudence and
foolhardiness, by hesitation and vacillation, by disorder and
the lack of firm correctness, by failure in elasticity or in
obstinacy, each at its moment, suffering defeat in the hour of
shock. So, then, o my Son, this is thy work, to know the word
of thy will without error, and to make perfect every faculty
of thy mind, in right order and readiness to impose that word
as law upon the Universe. So mote it be!
-133-
{Epsilon }{beta } DE RATIONE QUAE SINE VOLUNTATE EST
FONS MANIAE.
Is it not a marvel how he that worketh with his will and is
in constant touch with the reality external, maketh his mind
to serve him? How eagerly runneth it and returneth,
gathering, arranging, clarifying, classifying, organizing,
comparing, setting in array, with skill and might and energy
that faileth never! Nay, my son, in this way thou canst be
pitiless with thy mind, and it will not rebel against thee, or
neglect thine Ordinance. But now consider him that worketh
not with his will, how his mind is idle, not reaching out
after reality, but debating within itself of its own affairs,
like a democracy, introspective. Then this mind, not reacting
equally and with elasticity to the world, is lost in its own
anarchy and civil war, so that although it works not, it is
overcome by weakness of division, and becometh Choronzon. And
unto these words I call to my witness the madness of the soul
of Muscovy, in this year XIII, of our Aeon that is ended.
Therefore behold how this our Law of Thelema, Do what thou
wilt, is the first foundation of health, whether in the body
or in the mind, either of a simple, or a complex organism.
-134-
{Epsilon }{gamma } DE VERITATE QUEM FEMINAE NON DICERE LICET.
My Son, I charge thee, however thou beest provoked
thereunto, tell not the Truth to any woman. For this is that
which is written, Cast not thy pearls before swine, lest they
turn again and rend thee. Behold, in the nature of woman is
no truth, nor apprehension of truth, nor possibility of truth,
only, if thou entrust this jewel unto them, they forthwith use
it to thy loss and destruction. But they are ware of thine
own love of truth, and thy respect thereunto, so therefore
they tempt thee, flattering with their lips, that thou betray
thyself to them. And they feign falsely, with every wile, and
cast about for thy soul, until either in love or in wrath or
in some other folly thereof, thou speak truth, profaning thy
sanctuary. So was it ever, and herein I call to my witness
Samson of Timmath, that was lost by this error. Now for any
woman, any lie sufficeth; and think not in thine extremity
that truth is mighty, and shall prevail, as it does with any
man, for with a woman her whole craft and device is to
persuade thee of this, so that thou utter the secret of thy
soul, and become her prey. But so long as thou feed her with
her own food of falsity, thou art secure.
-135-
{Epsilon }{delta } DE NATURA FEMINAE.
The nature of woman, o my Son, is as thou hast learned in
our most Holy Qabalah; and she is the clothing in sex of man,
the magical image of his will to love. Therefore was it said
by thine uncle Wolfgang von Goethe: Das Ewigweibliche zieht
uns hinan. But therefore also hath she no nature of truth,
because she is but the Eidolon of an excitement and a going of
thy star, and appertaineth not unto its essence and stability.
So then to thee she is but matter and to her thou art but
energy, and neither is competent to the formula of the other.
Therefore also thy will is itself imperfection, as I have
shewed thee aforetime, thou art not in the way of love except
thou be dressed in that robe of thine which thou callest
woman. And thou canst not lure her to this action proper to
her by thy truth; but thou shalt, as our grammar sayeth,
assume the mask of the spirit, that thou mayst evoke it by
sympathy. But thou shalt appear in thy glory only when she is
in thy power, and bewildered utterly by ecstasy. This is a
mystery, o my Son, and of old times it was declared in the
fable of Scylla and Charybdis, which are the formula of the
rock and the whirlpool. Now then meditate thou strictly upon
this most worthy and adorable arcanum, to thy profit and
enlightenment.
-136-
{Epsilon }{epsilon } DE DUOBUS PRAEMIIS VIAE.
Let it be a treasure in thine heart, o my Son, this mystery
that I shall next unveil before thine eyes, O eagle that art
undazzled by the brilliance of light, that soarest continually
with virile flight to thine august inheritance. Behold the
Beatific Vision is of two orders, and in the formula of the
Rosy Cross it is of the Heart and is called Beauty; but in the
formula of the silver star (id est, of the eye within the
triangle) it is of the mind, and is called wonder. Otherwise
spoken, the former is of Art, a sensuous and creative
perception; but the latter of science, and intellectual and
intelligible insight. Or again, in our Holy Qabalah, the one
is of Tiphereth, the other of Binah, and in pure philosophy,
this is a contemplation of the Cosmos, causal and dynamic, and
that of its effect in static presentation. Now this rapture
of art is a virtue or triumph of Love in his most universal
comprehension, but the ecstasy of science is a continual
orgasm of light; that is, of the mind. Thou sayest, o my
Father, how may I attain to this fulness and perfection? Art
thou there, o my Son? It is well, and blessed be the bed
wherein thou was begotten, and the womb of thy sweet Mother
Hilarion, my concubine, holy and adulterous, the Scarlet
Woman! Amen!
-137-
{Epsilon }{digamma } DE ECSTASIA SAMADHI, QUO ILLIS DIFFERT.
Confuse thou not this beatific vision with the Trances
called Samadhi; yet is Samadhi the Pylon of the Temple
thereof. For Samadhi is the orgasm of the coition of the
Unlike, and is commonly violent, even as the lightning cometh
of the discharge between two vehicles of extreme difference of
potentials. But as I shewed formerly concerning love, how
each such discharge bringeth either component more nigh to
equilibrium, so is it in this other matter, and by experience
thou comest constantly to integration of love (or what not)
within thyself, just as all effort becometh harmonious and
easy by virtue of practice. Rememberest thou the first time
thou was thrown into water, thy fear and thy struggles, and
the vehemence of thy joy when first thou didst swim without
support? Then, little by little all violence dieth away,
because thou art adjusted to that condition. Therefore the
fury of thine early victory in these arts magical and sciences
is but the sign of thine own baseness and unworthiness, since
the contrast or differential is so overwhelming to thee; but,
becoming expert and adept, thou art balanced in the glory, and
calm, even as the stars.
-138-
{Epsilon }{zeta } DE ARTE AMORIS ET DELICIARUM MYSTICI.
The path therefore unto this beatific vision of beauty, o
my Son, is that practice of Bhakti Yoga which is written in
the book called Eight Score and Fifteen, or "Astarte", by this
mine hand when I was in Gaul the beloved, at Montigny that is
hard by the Forest of the Blue Fountain, with Agatha my
concubine, the very soul of love and of musick, that had
ventured herself from beneath the Cross Austral that she might
seek me, to inspire and comfort me, and this was my reward
from the masters, and consolation in the years of my sorrow.
But the way that leadeth to the other form of this vision of
beatitude, to with, science is Gana Yoga or Raja Yoga, of
which I have written only here and there, as one who should
throw great stones upon the earth in disorder, by default of
building them nobly into a pyramid. And of this do I heartily
repent me, and ask of the God Thoth that he may give me
(albeit at the eleventh hour) virtue and with that I may
compose a true book upon these ways of union. Thy first step,
therefore, o my Son, is to attain unto Samadhi, and to urge
thyself perpetually to repetition of thy successes therein,
for it hat been said by philosophers of old that practice
maketh perfect, and that manners, being the constant habit of
life, maketh man.
-139-
{Epsilon }{eta } DE PRAEMIO SUMMO, VERA SAPIENTIA ET
BEATITUDINE
PERFECTA.
Now then presently shall it some to pass, as by dint of
each experience that component thereof which is within thee is
attuned to it, and this without shock, so that thou art no
longer thrown back from the trance, as exhausted, but abidest
therein, almost without knowledge of thy state. So then at
last this Samadhi shall become normal to thy common
consciousness, as it were a point of view. Thus all things
shall appear to thee very continually as to one in his first
love, by the vision of beauty, and by the vision of science
thou shalt marvel constantly with joy unfathomable at the
mystery of the laws whereby the Universe is upheld. This is
that which is written: True wisdom and perfect happiness, o my
son, it is in this contemplation that on hath the reward of
the oath; it is by this that the tribulations are rolled away
as a stone from thy tomb; it is with this that thou art wholly
freed from the illusions of distinctions, being absorbed into
the body of our Lady Nuith. May she grant thee this
beatitude; yea, not to thee only, but to all that are.
-140-
{Epsilon }{theta } DE INfERNO SERVORUM.
Now, o my Son, having understood the heaven that is within
thee, according to thy will, learn this concerning the hell of
the slaves of the slave-gods, that it is a true place of
torment. For they, restricting themselves, and being divided
in will, are indeed the servants of sin, and they suffer,
because, not being united in love with the whole Universe,
they perceive not beauty, but ugliness and deformity, and, not
being united in understanding thereof. Conceive only of
darkness and confusion, beholding evil therein. Thus at last
they come, as did the Manichaeans, to find, to their terror, a
division even in the one, not that division which we know for
the craft of love, but a division of hate. And this,
multiplying itself, conflict upon conflict, endeth in
hotchpot, and in the impotence and envy of Choronzon, and in
the abominations of the abyss. And of such the Lords are the
Black Brothers, who seek by their sorceries to confirm
themselves in division, yet in this even is no true evil, for
love conquereth all, and their corruption and disintegration
is also the victory of Babalon.
-141-
{Epsilon }{iota } RHAPSODIA DE DOMINA NOSTRA.
Blessed be She, ay, blessed unto the Ages be our Lady B A B
A L O N, that plieth her scourge upon me, {Tau }{Omicron }
{Mu }{Epsilon }{Gamma }{Alpha } {Tau }{Theta }{Eta }{Rho }{Iota }{Omicron }{Nu }, to compel
me to creation and to destruction, which are one, in birth and
in death, being Love! Blessed be She, uniting the egg with
the serpent, and restoring man unto his mother, the earth!
Blessed be she, that offereth beauty and ecstasy in the orgasm
of every change, and that exciteth thy wonder and thy worship
by the contemplation of her mind many-wiled! Blessed be She,
that hath filled her cup with every drop of my blood, so that
my life is lost wholly in the wine of her rapture! Behold,
how she is drunken thereon, and staggereth about the heavens,
wallowing in joy, crying aloud the song of uttermost love! Is
not she thy true mother among the stars, o my Son, and hast
thou not embraced her in the madness of incest and adultery?
Yea, blessed be she, blessed be her name, and the name of her
name, unto the ages!
-142-
{Epsilon }{kappa } RHAPSODIA DE ASTRO SUO
O my Son, knowest thou not the joy to lie in the wilderness
and to behold the stars, in their majesty of motion calm and
irresistible? Hast thou thought there that thou art also as
star, free because consciously in accord with the law and
determination of thy being? It was thine own true will hat
bound thee in thine orbit; therefore thou speedest on thy path
from glory unto glory in continual joy. O Son, o reward of my
work, o harmony and completion of my nature, o token of my
toil, o witness of my love for thy sweet Mother, the holy and
adulterous Hilarion, my concubine, adorable in thine innocence
as she in her perfection, is not this verily intoxication of
the spirit in the innermost, to be free absolutely and
eternally, to run and to return upon the course in the play of
love, to filfil nature constantly in light and life? "Afloat
in the Air, o my god!" Without support, without constraint,
wing thine own way, o swan, o bliss of brightness!
-143-
{Epsilon }{lambda } DE HARMONIA VOLUNTATIS CUM DESTINIA.
This is the evident and final solvent of the Knot
Philosophical concerning fate and free will, that it is thine
own self, omniscient and omnipotent, sublime in eternity, that
first didst order the course of thine orbit, so that the which
befalleth thee by fate is indeed the necessary effect of thine
own will. These two, then, that like Gladiators have made war
in philosophy through these many centuries, are one by the
love under will which is the Law of Thelema. O my son, there
is no doubt that resolveth not in certainty and rapture at the
touch of the wand of our law, as thou apply it with wit. Do
thou grow constantly in the assimilation of the law, and thou
shalt be made perfect. Behold, there is a pageant of triumph
as each star, free from confusion, sweepeth free in his right
orbit; all heaven acclaimeth thee as thou goest,
transcendental in joy and in splendour; and thy light is as a
beacon to them that wander afar, strayed in the night. Amon.
-144-
{Epsilon }{mu } PARANTHESIS DE QUADAM VIRGINE.
Now, o my Son, I will declare unto thee the virtue of that
part of love which receiveth and draweth, being the
counterpart of thine own. For behold! I am moved in myself
by the absence of the virgin that is appointed for me. And
her eagerness of purity doth encompass me with its soft
tenderness, and twineth about me with sweet scent so that my
mind is enkindled with a gentle flame, luminous and subtle,
and I write unto thee as in a dream; for in this enchantment
of her devotion I am caught up cunningly into beautitude, with
great joy of the Gods that have bestrewn my way with flowers,
ay many flowers and herbs of magick and of holiness withal to
match their beauty. Nay, o my son, I will cease this epistle
unto thee for awhile, that I may rest in the pleasure of this
contemplation, for it is solace ineffable, and recreation like
unto sleep among the mountains. Yea, can I wish thee more
than this, that, coming to mine age, thou mayst find a virgin
like unto this to draw thee with her simplicity, and her
embroidered silence?
-145-
{Epsilon }{nu } DE CONSTANTIA AMORIS, CORVO CANDIDO.
Think it not strange, my Son, that I, praising adultery,
should praise also constancy and delight therein. For this is
to state ill thy question. Herein is truth and wisdom
concerning this matter, that so long as love be not wholly
satisfied, and equilibrated by entire fulfilment and exchange,
constancy is a point of thy concentration and adultery a
division in thy will. But when thou hast the summit and
perfection of any work, of what worth is it to continue
therein? Hast thou two stomachs, as has a cow, to chew the
cud of a digested love? Yet, o my Son, this constancy is not
of necessity a stagnation. Hay, behold the body of our lady
Nuith, therein are found twin suns, that revolve constantly
about each other. So also it may be in love, that two souls,
meeting, discover each in the other such wealth and richness
of light and love, and in one phase of life (or incarnation)
or even in may, they exhaust not that treasure. Or will I say
that such are not in their degree and quality thrice
fortunate. But to persist in dulness, in satiety, and in
mutual irritation and abhorrence, is contrary to the way of
nature. So therefore there is no rule in any such case, but
the law shall give light to every one that hath it in his
heart, and by that wisdom let him govern himself.
-146-
{Epsilon }{xi } DE MYSTERIO MALL.
Moreover, say not thou in thy syllogism that, since every
change soever, be it the creation of a symphony, or a poem, or
the putrefaction of a carcass, is an art of love, and since we
are to make no difference between any thing and any other
thing, therefore all changes are equal in respect of our
praise. For though this be a right conclusion in the term of
thy comprehension as a master of the Temple, yet it is false
in the eyes of the mind that hath not attained this
understanding. So therefore any change (or phenomenon)
appeareth noble or base to the imperfect mind, according to
its consonance and harmony with the will that governeth the
mind. Thus if it be thy will to delight in rythm and Oeconomy
of words, the advertisement of a commodity may offend thee;
but if thou art in need of that merchandise, thou wilt rejoice
therein. Praise then or blame aught, as seemeth good unto
thee; but with this reflection, that thy judgment is relative
to thine own condition, and not absolute. This also is a
point o tolerance, whereby thy shalt avoid indeed those things
that are hateful or noxious to thee, unless thou canst (in our
mode) win them by love, by withdrawing thine attention from
them; but thou shalt not destroy them, for that they are
without doubt the desire of another.
-147-
{Epsilon }{omicron } DE VIRTUTE TOLERANTIA.
Understand then heartily, o my son, that in the light of
this my wisdom all things are one, being of the body or our
Lady Nuith, proper, necessary and perfect. There is then none
superfluous or harmful, and there is none honourable or
dishonourable more than another. Lo! In thine own body, the
vile intestine is of more worth to thee than the noble hand or
the proud eye, for thou canst lose these and live, but not
that. Esteem therefore a thing in relation to thine own will,
preferring the ear if thou love musick, and the palate if thou
live wine, but the essential organs of life above these. Have
respect also to the will of thy fellow, not hindering him in
his way save as he may overly jostle thee in thine. For by
the practice of this tolerance thou shalt come sooner to the
understanding of this equality of all things in our Lady
Nuith, and so the high attainment of universal love. Yet in
thy partial and particular action, as thou art a creature of
illusion, do thou maintain the right relation of one thing to
another; fighting if thou be a soldier, or building if thou be
a mason. For if thou hold not fast this discipline and
proportion, which alloweth its true will to every part of thy
being, the error of one shall draw all after it into ruin and
dispersion.
-148-
{Epsilon }{pi } DE FORMULA DEORUM OCCISORUM.
Alas, my son! this hath been fatal constantly to many a
man of noble aspiration, that these words were hidden from his
understanding. For there is a balance in all things and the
body hath charter to fulfil his nature, even as the mind hath.
So to repress one function is to destroy that proportion which
is wholesome, and wherein indeed all health and sanity have
consistency. Verily, it is the art of life to develop each
organ of body and mind, or, as I may say, each weapon of the
will to its perfection, neither distorting any use, nor
suffering the will of one part to tyrannize over that of
another. And this doctrine (be it accursed!) that pain and
repression are wholesome and profitable in themselves is a lie
born of sin and of ignorance, the false vision of the Universe
and of its laws that is the basis of the averse formula of the
Slain God. It is true that on occassion one limb must be
sacrificed to save the whole body, as when one cutteth away
one hand that is bitten by a viper, or as when a man giveth
his life to save his city. But this is a right and natural
subordination of the superficial and particular to the
fundamental and general will, and moreover it is a case
extraordinary, relating to accident or extremity, not in any
wise a rule of life, or a virtue in its absolute nature.
-149-
{Epsilon }{koppa } DE STULTIS MALIGNIS.
My Son, there are afflictions many and woes many, that come
of the errors of men in respect of the will; but there is none
greater than this, the interference of the busy-body. For
they make pretence to know a man's thought better than he doth
himself, and to direct his will with more wisdom than he, and
to make plans for his happiness. And of all these the worst
is he that sacrificeth himself for the weal of his fellows.
He that is so foolish as not to follow his own will, how shall
be be so wise as to pursue that of another? If mine horse
balk at a fence, should some varlet come behind him, and
strike at his hoofs? Nay, Son, pursue thy path in peace, that
thy brother beholding thee may take courage from thy bearing,
and comfort from his confidence that thou wilt not hinder him
by thy superfluity of compassion. Let me not begin to tell
thee of the mischiefs that I have seen, whose root was in
kindness, whose flower was in self-sacrifice, and whose fruit
in catastrophe. Verily I think there should be no end
thereof. Strike, rob, slay thy neighbour, but comfort him not
unless he ask it of thee, and if he ask it, be wary.
-150-
{Epsilon }{rho } APOLOGIA PRO SUIS LITERIS.
How then, sayest thou, concerning this my Counsel unto
thee? I say Sooth, it is of my will to bring up this my
Wisdom from its silence into my conscious mind, that I may the
more easily reflect thereon. Thou art but a pretext for my
action, and a focus for my light. Nevertheless heed these my
words, for they shall profit thee, thou being of age
responsible in judgment, and free in the law of Thelema. Thus
thou mayst read or no, concur or no, as thou wilt. Have I not
tutored thee in the way of the balance, or of antithesis,
shewing thee the art of contradiction, whereby thou dost
accept no word save as the victor in thy mind over its
opposites, nay more, as the child transcendental of a marriage
of opposites. This book then shall serve thee but as a food
for thy meditation, as wine to excite thy mind to love and
war. It shall be unto thee as a chariot to carry thee whither
thou wilt; for I have seen in thee independence and sobriety
of judgment, with that faculty (most rare, most noble) to
examine freely, neither obsequious nor rebellious to
authority.
-151-
{Epsilon }{sigma } LAUS LEGIS THELEMA.
This Property of thy Mind, my Son, is verily of sublime
Virtue; for the Vulgar are befogged, and their Judgment made
null, by their emotional Reaction. They are swayed by the
Eloquence of a Numscull, or overpowered by a Name or an
Office, or the Magic of a Tailor; else, it may be, they, being
made Fools too often, reject without Reflection even as at
first they accepted. Again, they are wont to believe the best
of the worst, as Hope or Fear predominateth in them at the
Moment. Thus, they lose Touch of the Blade of Reality, and it
pierceth them. Then they in Delirium of their Wounds increase
Delusion fortifying themselves in Belief of those Phantasies
created by their Emotions or impressed upon their Silliness,
so that their Minds have no Unity, or Stability, or
Discrimination, but become Hotchpot, and the Garbage-Heap of
Choronzon. O my Son, against this the Law of Thelema is a
Sure Fortress, for through the Quest of thy True Will the Mind
is balanced about it, and confirmeth its Flight, as the
Feathers upon an Arrow, so that thou hast a Touchstone of
Truth, Experience holding thee to Reality, and to Proportion.
Now therefore see from yet another Art of Heaven the Absolute
Virtue of Our Law.
-152-
{Epsilon }{tau } DE SPHINGE AEGYPTIORUM.
It is now expedient that I instruct thee concerning the
Four Powers of the Sphinx, and firstly, that this most arcane
of the Mysteries of Antiquity was never at any Period the Tool
of the Slavegods, but a Witness of Horus through the dark Aeon
of Osiris to His Light and Truth, His Force and Fire. Thou
canst by no means interpret the Sphinx in Terms of the Formula
of the Slain God. This did I comprehend even when as Eliphas
Levi Zahed I walked up and down the Earth, seeking a
Reconciliation of these Antagonisms, which was a Task
impossible, for in that Plane they have Antipathy. (Even so
may no Man form a Square Magical of Four Units.) But the
Light of the New Aeon revealeth this Sphinx as the true Symbol
of this our Holy Art of Magick under the Law of Thelema. In
Her is the equal Development and Disposition of the Forces of
Nature, each in its Balanced Strength; also Her True Name has
the Digamma for Phi, and endeth in Upsilon, not in Xi, so that
Her Orthography is {Sigma }{Digamma }{Iota }{Nu }{Upsilon } whose Numeration is
Six Hundred and Three Score and Six. For the Root thereof is
{Sigma }{Digamma }, which signifieth the Incarnation of the Spirit; and
of Kin are not only the Sun, Our Father, but Sumer, where Man
knew himself Man, and Soma, the Divine Potion that giveth Men
Enlightenment, and Scin, Light Astral, and Scire also, by a
far Travelling. But especially is this Root hidden in Sus,
that is of the Sow, Swine, because the Most Holy must needs
take its Delight under the Omphalos of the Unclean. But this
was hidden by Wisdom in Order that the Arcanum should not be
profaned during the Aeon of the Slain God. But now it has
been given unto me to understand the Heart of Her Mystery,
wherefore, o my Son, by Right of the Great Love that I bear
unto thee, I will inform thee thereof.
-153-
{Epsilon }{upsilon } DE NATURA {Sigma }{Digamma }{Iota }{Nu }{Upsilon }.
Firstly, this Sphinx is a Symbol of the Coition of Our Lady
BABALON with me THE BEAST in its Wholeness. For as I am of
the Lion and the Dragon, so is She of the Man and the Bull, in
our Natures, but the Converse thereof in our Offices, as thou
mayst understand by the Study of the Book of the Vision and
the Voice. It is thus a Glyph of the Satisfaction and
Perfection of the Will and of the Work, the completion of the
True Man as the Reconcilor of the Highest with the Lowest, so
for our Convenience conventionally to distinguish them. This
then is the Adept, who doth Will with solid Energy as the
Bull, doh dare with fierce Courage as the Lion, doth know with
swift Intelligence as the Man, and doth keep Silence with
soaring Subtilty as the Eagle or Dragon. Moreover, this
Sphinx is an Eidolon of the Law, for the Bull is Life, the
Lion is Light, the Man is Liberty, the Serpent Love. Now then
this Sphinx, being perfect in true Balance, yet taketh the
Aspect of the Feminine Principle that so She may be partner of
the Pyramid, that is the Phallus, pure Image of Our Father the
Sun, the Unity Creative. The Signification of this Mystery is
that the Adept must be Whole, Himself, containing all Things
in true Proportion, before he maketh himself Bride of the One
Universal Transcendental, in its most Secret Virtue. And now
therefore, o my Son, comprehending this Mystery by thine
Intelligence, I will write further unto thee of these your
Beasts of Power.
-154-
{Epsilon }{phi } DE TAURO.
Concerning the Bull, this is thy Will, constant and
unwearied, whose Letter is Vau, which is Six, the Number of
the Sun. He is therefore the Force and the Substance of thy
Being; but besides this, he is the Hierophant in the Taro, as
if this were said: "that thy Will leadeth thee unto the Shrine
of Light." And in the Rites of Mithras the Bull is slain, and
his Blood poured upon the Initiate, to endow him with that
Will and that Power of Work. Also in the land of Hind is the
Bull sacred to Shiva, that is God among that Folk, and is unto
them the Destroyer of all Things that be opposed to Him. And
this God is also the Phallus, for this Will operateth through
Love even as it is written in our Own Law. Yet again, Apis
the Bull of Khem hath Kephra the Beetle upon His tongue, which
signifieth that it is by this Will, and by this Work, that the
Sun cometh unto Dawn from Midnight. All these Symbols are
most similar in their Nature, save as the Slaves of the Slave-
gods have read their own Formula into the Simplicity of Truth.
For there is naught so plain that Ignorance and Malice may not
confuse and misinterpret it, even as the Bat is dazzled and
bewildered by the Light of the Sun. See then that thou
understand this Bull in Terms of the Law of this our Aeon of
Life.
-155-
{Epsilon }{chi } DE LEONE.
Of this, Lion, o my Son, be it said that this is the
Courage of thy Manhood, leaping upon all Things, and seizing
them for their Prey. His letter is Teth, whose Implication is
a Serpent, and the Number thereof Nine, whereof is Aub, the
secret Fire of Obeah. Also Nine is of Jesod, uniting Change
with Stability. But in the "Book of Thoth" He is the Atu called
Strength, whose Number is ELEVEN which is Aud, the Lifht Odic
of Magick. And therein is figured the Lion, even THE BEAST,
and Our Lady BABALON with Her Hands upon His Mouth, that She
may master Him. Here I would have thee to mark well how these
our Symbols are cognate, and flow forth the one into the
other, because each Soul partaketh in proper Measure of the
Mystery of Holiness, and is kin with his Fellow. But now let
me show how this Lion of Courage is more especially the Light
in thee, as Leo is the House of the Sun that is the Father of
Light. And it is thus: that thy Light, conscious of itself,
is the Source and Instigator of thy Will, enforcing it to
spring forth and conquer. Therefore also is his Nature strong
with hardihood and Lust of Battle, else shouldst thou fear
that which is unlike thee, and avoid it, so that thy
Separateness should increase upon thee. For this Cause he
that is defective in Courage becometh a Black Brother, and to
Dare is the Crown of all thy Virtue, the Root of the Tree of
Magick.
-156-
{Epsilon }{psi } ALTERA DE LEONE.
Lo! In the firs of thine Initiations, when first the
Hoodwink was uplifted from before thine Eyes, thou wast
brought unto the Throne of Horus, the Lord of the Lion, and by
Him enheartened against Fear. Moreover, in Minutum Mundum, the
Map of the Universe, it is the Path of the Lion that bindeth
the two Highest Faculties of thy Mind. Again, it is Mau, the
Sun at Brightness of high Noon, that is called the Lion, very
lordly, in our Holy Invocation. Sekhet our Lady is figured as
a lioness, for that She is that Lust of Nuith toward Hadith
which is the Fierceness of the Night of the Stars, and their
Necessity; whence also is She true Symbol of thine own Hunger
of Attainment, the Passion of thy Light to dare all for its
Fulfilling. It is then the Possession of this Quality which
determineth thy Manhood; for without it thou art not impelled
to Magick, and thy Will is but the Salve's Endurance and
Patience under the Lash. For this Cause, the Bull being of
Osiris, was it necessary for the Masters of the Aeons to
incarnate me as more especially a lion, and my Word is first
of all a Word of Enlightenment and of Emancipation of the
Will, giving to every Man a Sprint within Himself to determine
His Will, that he may do that Will, and no more another's.
Arise therefore, o my son, arm thyself, haste to the Battle!
-157-
{Epsilon }{omega } DE VIRO.
Learn now that this Lion is a natural Quality in Man, and
secret, so that he is not ware thereof, except he be Adept.
Therefore is it necessary for thee also to know, by the Head
of the Sphinx. This then is thy Liberty, that the Impulse of
the Lion should become conscious by means of the Man; for
without this thou art but an Automaton. This Man moreover
maketh thee to understand and to adjust thyself with
Environment, else being devoid of Judgment, thou goest blindly
upon an headlong Path. For every Star in his Orbit holdeth
not his Way obstinately, but is sensitive to every other Star,
and his true Nature is to do this. Oh how many are they whom
I have seen persisting in a fatal Course, in Sway of the
Belief that their dead Rigidity was Exercise of Will. And the
Letter of the Man is Tzaddi, whose Number is Ninety; which is
Maim, the Water that conformeth itself perfectly with its
Vessel, that seeketh constantly its Level, that penetrateth
and dissolveth Earth, that resisteth Pressure maugre its
Adaptability, that being heated is the Force to drive great
Engines, and being frozen breaketh the Mountains in Pieces. O
my Son, seek well to know!
-158-
{Digamma }{alpha } DE DRACONE, QUAE EST AQUILA, SERPENS, SCORPION.
Threefold is the Nature of Live, Eagle, Serpent, and
Scorpion. And of these the Scorpion is he that, having no
Lion of Light and of Courage within him, seemeth to himself
encircled by Fire, and, driving his Sting into himself, he
dieth. Such are the Black Brothers, that cry: I am I, they
that deny Love, restricting it to their own Nature. But the
Serpent is the secret Nature of Man, that is Life and Death,
and maketh his Way through the Generations in Silence. And
the Eagle is that Might of Live which is the Key of Magick,
uplifting the Body and its Appurtenance unto high Ekstacy upon
his Wings. It is by Virtue thereof that the Sphinx beholdeth
the Sun unwinking, and confronteth the Pyramid without Shame.
Our Dragon, therefore, combining the Natures of the Eagle and
the Serpent, is our Love, thyeOrganon of our Will, by whose
Virtue we perform the Work and Miracle of the One Substance,
as saith thine Ancestor Hermes Trismegistus, in his Tablet of
Smaragda. And this Dragon, is called thy Silence, because in
the Hour of his Operation that within thee which saith "I" is
abolished in its Conjunction with the Beloved. For this Cause
also is its Letter Nun, which in our Rota is the Trump Death;
and Nun hath the value of Fifty, the Number of the Gates of
Understanding.
-159-
{Digamma }{beta } DE QUATTUOR VIRTUTIS
{Sigma }{Digamma }{Iota }{Nu }{Upsilon }.
See now our Sphinx, with what Subtility and Art is She made
Whole! Here is thy Light, the Lion, the Necessity of thy
Nature, fortified by thy Life, the Bull, the Power of Works,
and guided by thy Liberty, the Man, the Wit to adapt Action to
Environment. These are three Virtues in One, necessary to all
proper Motion, as I may say in a Figure, the Lust of the
Archer, the propulsive Force of his Arm, and the equilibrating
and directing Control of his Eye. Of these three if one fail,
the Mark is not hit. But hold! Is not a Fourth Element
essential in the Work? Yea, soothly, all were vain without
the Engine, Arrow and Bow. This Engine is thy Body, possessed
by thee and used by thee for thy Work, yet not Part of thee,
even as are his Weapons to this Archer in my Similitude. Thus
is thy Dragon to be cherished of thy Lion, but if thou lack
Energy and Endurance of thy Bull, thy Tools lie idle, and if
Cunning and Intelligence, with Experience also of thy Man, thy
Shaft flieth crooked. So then, o my son, do thou perfect
thyself in these Four Powers, and that with Equity.
-160-
{Digamma }{gamma } DE LIBRA, IN QUA GUATTUOR VIRTUTES
AEQUIPOLLENT.
By Gana Yoga cometh thy Man to9 Knowledge; by Karma Yoga
thy Bull to Will; by Raja Yoga is thy Lion brought to his
Light; and to make perfect thy Dragon, thou hast Bhakta Yoga
for the Eagle therein, and Hatha Yoga for the Serpent. Yet
mark thou well how all these interfuse, so that thou mayst
accomplish no one of the Works separately. As to make Gold
thou must have Gold (it is the Word of the Alchemists), so to
become the Sphinx thou must first be a Sphinx. For naught may
grow save to the Norm of its own Nature, and in the Law of its
own Law, or it is but Artifice, and endureth not. So
therefore is it Folly, and a Rape wrought upon Truth to aim at
aught but the Fulfilment of thine own True Nature. Order then
thy Workings in Accord with thy Knowledge of that Norm as best
thou mayst, not heeding the Importunity of them that prate of
the Ideal. For this Rule, this Uniformity, is proper only to
a Prison, and a Man Liveth by Elasticity, nor endureth Rigor
save in Death. But whoso groweth bodily by a Law foreign to
his own Nature, he hath a Cancer, and his whole Oeconomy shall
be destroyed by that small Disobedience.
-161-
{Digamma }{delta } DE PYRAMIDE.
Now then at last art thou made ready to confront the
Pyramid, if thou art established as a Shinx. For It also hath
the foursquare Base of Law, and the Four Triangles of Light,
Life, Love and Liberty for its Sides, that meet in a Point of
Perfection that is Hadith, poised to the Kiss of Nuith. But
in this Pyramid there is no Difference of Form between the
Sides, as it is in thy Shinx, for these are wholly One, save
in Direction. Thou art then an Harmony of the Four by Right
of thy Attainment of Adeptship, the Crown of thy Manhood, but
not an Identity, as in Godhead. Therefore may it be said from
one Point of Sight that thine Achievement is but a
Preparation, an Adornment of the Bride for the Temple of
Hymen, and his Rite. Verily, o my Son, I deem in my Wisdom
that this whole Work of thy Development to Shinxhood cometh
before the Work of Theurgy, for the Lord descendeth not upon a
Temple ill-conceived, and builded wry, nor abideth in a Shrine
unworthy. Accomplish then this Task in Patience, with
Assiduity, not hasting furiously after Godliness. For this is
most sure, that to the Beauty of a Maiden answereth the Lust
of her Lord, spontaneous and without Effort or Appeal of her
Contriving.
-162-
{Digamma }{epsilon } PROLEGOMENA DE SILENTIO.
But now concerning Silence, o my Son, I will have a further
Word with thee. For thereby we mean not the Muteness of him
that hath a dumb Devil. This Silence is the Dragon of thine
unconscious Nature, not only the Ekstacy or Death of thine Ego
in the Operation of its Organ, but also, in its Unity with thy
Lion, the Truth of thy Self. Thus is thy Silence the Way of
the Tao, and all Speech a deviation thereform. This Lion and
Dragon are therefore of thy Self, and the Man and the Bull the
Feminine Counterparts thereof, being the Grace of Our Lady
BABALON that She bestoweth upon thee in thine Adultery with
Her. They are then as a Vesture of Honour, and a Reward, that
are won by the Intensity of thy Light and of thy Love. So
perperly we esteem Men by the Measure of their Intelligence
and their Strength, since they are equal in their essential
Godhead, so far as concerneth the Quality thereof. See thou
closely moreover into it, that if thou be well favoured of Our
Lady, thy Lion and thy Dragon grow in like Measure, forthe
Excess of the Feminine is Dead Weight. The Intellectual
without Virility is a Dreamer of Follies, and the laborious
Giant without Courage is a Slave.
-163-
{Digamma }{digamma } DE NATURA SILENTII NOSTRI.
The Nature of this Silence is shewn also by the God
Harprocrates, the Babe in the Lotus, who is also the Serpent
and the Egg, that is, the Holy Ghost. This is the most secret
of all Energies, the Seed of all being, and therefore must He
be sealed up in an Ark from the Malice of the Devourers. If
then by thine Art thou canst conceal thyself in thine own
Nature, this is Silence, this, and not Nullity of
Consciousness else were a Stone more perfect in Adeptship that
thou. But, abiding in thy Silence, thou art in a City of
Refuge, and the Waters prevail not against the Lotus that
enfoldeth thee. This Ark or Lotus is then the Body of Our
Lady BABALON, without which thou weret the Prey of Nile and of
the Crocodiles that are therein. Now, o my Son, mark thou
well this that I will write for thine Advertisement and
Behoof, that this Silence, though it be Perfection of Delight,
is but the Gestation of thy Lion, and in thy Season thou must
dare, and come forth to the Battle. Else, were not this
Practice of Silence akin to the Formula of Separateness of the
black Brothers?
-164-
{Digamma }{zeta } DE FORMULA RECTA DRACONIS.
Verily, o my Son, herein lieth the Danger and the Treason
of thy Scorpion. For his Nature is against himself, being the
deepest Ego, that is, a Being separate from the Universe; and
this is the Root of the while Mystery of Evil. For he hath in
him the Magick Power, which if he use not, he is self-
poisoned, even as any Organ of the Body that refuseth its
Function. So then his Cure is in his Ally the Lion, that
feareth not the Crocodiles, nor hideth himself, but leapeth
eagerly forward. The Path of the Mystic hath this Pitfall;
for though he unite himself with his God, his Mode is to
withdraw from that which him seemeth is not God. Whereby he
affirmeth and confirmeth the Demon, that is Duality. Be thou
instant therefore, o my Son, to turn from every Act of Love at
the Moment of full satisfaction, flinging the invoked Might
thereof against a new Opposite; for the Formula of every
Dragon is Perpetual Motion or Change, and therefore to dwell
in the Satisfaction of thy Nature is a Stagnation, and a
Violation thereof, making the Duality of Conflict, which is
the Falling Away to Choronzon.
-165-
{Digamma }{eta } DE SUA CARTA COELORUM.
I pray thee to mark, o my Son, how the Grace of Nature was
benignant at my Nativity, to the right Balance and Formulation
of my Shinx. For Neptune was in the Sign of the Bull, giving
Strength and Stability to my Spiritual Essence. Uranus was
ascending in the Lion, to fortify my Magical Will with
Courage, and to turn it to the Salvation of Man. In the
Waterman was Saturnus, to make mine Intelligence sober,
profound, and capable of Labour. Jupiter, with Mercury His
Herald, was in Scorpio, harmonizing me and my Word according
to the Essence of my Nature. Then of the others, Mars was
exalted in the Goat, for physical Endurance of Toil; Sol was
conjoined with Venus in the Balance, for judgment in Art and
in Life, and for Equability of Temple. Lastly, the Moon was
in the Sign of the Fishes, her loved abode, for a Gift of
Sensitiveness and of Glamour. What then am I? I am a
transient Effect of infinite Causes, a Child of Changes.
There is no I, o thou that art not thou, else were I segrated,
a Stagnation, a Thing of Hate and of Fear. But ever-moving,
ever-changing, there is a Star in the Body of Our Lady Nuith,
whose Word is None and Two.
-166-
{Digamma }{theta } DE OPERE SUO.
I am not I. Then, sayst thou, why is this Word? Know o my
Son, that this first Person is but the common Figure of the
Speech of Men whereof the Magus may avail himself without
Implication of Metaphysick. Yet in the Mystery of Illusion,
which is the Instrument of the Universal Will, I will not say
the Harlot of its Pleasure, are manifested these many Stars,
and amongst them that Logos of the Aeon of Horus whom thou
callest {Tau }{Omicron } {Mu }{Epsilon }{Gamma }{Alpha }
{Theta }{Eta }{Rho }{Iota }{Omicron }{Nu } and THY Father. And this is by-come
through Virtue of the Intensity of the Will to Change, through
many a Sepent-Phase of Life and Death, until in the Play of
the Game its Manifestation is the Utterance of this Word of
the Aeon, this Law of Thelema, that shall be for a Season the
Formula of the Magick of the Earth. Who then should inquire
of the further Destiny of that Star, or of another? It is the
Play of the Game, and the Operation of its Function shall
suffice it. Rid thyself therefore of this Thought of "I"
apart from all, but, attaining to Consciousness of All by Our
True Way, contemplate the Play of Illusion by thine Instrument
of Mind and Sense, leaving it without Care to continue in its
own Path of Change.
-167-
{Digamma }{iota } DE FRATRIBUS NIGRIS.
O my Son, know this concerning the Black Brothers, that
cry: I am I. This is Falsity and Delusion, for the Law
endureth not Exception. So then these Brethern are not apart,
as they vainly think being wrought by Error; but are peculiar
Combinations of Nature in Her Variety. Rejoice then even in
the Contemplation of these, for they are proper to Perfection,
and Adornments of Beauty, like a Mole upon the Cheek of a
Woman. Shall I then say that were it of thine own Nature,
even thine, to compose so sinister a Complex, thou shouldst
not strive therewith, destroying it by Love, but continue in
that Way? I deny not this hastily, nor affirm; nay, shall I
even utter a Hint of that which I may foresee? For it is in
mine own Nature to think that in this Matter the Sum of Wisdom
is Silence. But this I say, and that boldly, that thou shalt
not look upon this Horror with Fear, or with Hate, but accept
all this as thou dost all else, as a Phenomenon of Change,
that is, of Love. For in a swift Stream thou mayst behold a
Twig held steady for a while by the Play of the Water, and by
this Analogue thou mayst understand the Nature of this Mystery
of the Path of Perfection.
-168-
{Digamma }{kappa } DE ARTE ALCHEMISTICA.
Wilt thou acquaint thyself now further at my Reproof
concerning this Arcanum of Alchymia, the Art Egyptian, how to
make Gold? Of a Surety this is already in thy Knowledge, if
thou examine by Our Holy Qabalah, what be the Forces that are
the Influx upon Tiphereth, which is the Harmony and Beauty, or
Sol, in every Kingdom of the Universe, so then also among
Metals. Now this Influx is Fivefold. First, from the Crown
descendeth the High Priestess in the Path of the Moon, for
Inspiration, and Imagination, and Idea: see to it that this
Virgin be Pure, for herein Error is Illusion. Next, from the
Father floweth the Power of the Emperor in the Path of the
Ram, for Initiative, and Energy, and Determination. Third,
from the Mother are the Lovers in the Path of the Twins, for
Intellectual Wholeness, and for Adjustment to Environment.
These Three are from this Superna and complete the Theorick of
thy Work. After this, in the Praxis and Executive thereof
thou hast the Hermit as an Influence from the Sphere of
Jupiter in the Path of the Virgin, for Secrecy, and for
Concentration, and for Prudence. Lastly, from the Sphere of
Mars, travelleth Justice in the Path of the Balance, for good
Judgment, and Tact, and Art. O my Son, in this Chapter is
more wisdom than in Ten Thousand Folios of the Alchemists!
Study therefore to acquire Skill in this Method, and
Experience; for this Gold is not only of the Metals, but of
every Sphere, and this Key is of virtue to enter every Palace
of Perfection.
-169-
{Digamma }{lambda } DE FEMINA: QUAE EST PROPRIA JOCO.
O my Son, hear this Wisdom of Experience, how at thy first
Sight, when I put thee into the Arms of Ahitha, thy sweet
Stepmother my concubine, such was thy Beauty that she became
enamoured of thee, crying aloud; Ay me, an such he the Fruit
of thy Magick, o my Master, then let me, me also, even me,
give myself utterly to this Holy Art! Then did I, becoming
heavy in Spirit, make Question of her, saying: To what End?
And at this was she confounded and brought into Bewilderment;
but after a great While, fumbling in her Mind, made Answer,
like a Scarecrow in a Field, so was it for Rags and Tatters of
Thought. Thus yet more Atrabilious and Sluggard was this
Liver of thy Father, so that I fell into a Gloom night unto
Weeping. Then she beholding me with Amazement cried upon me
thus: Art thou not glad in Heart, o my Master? At this I gave
a Sigh even as one night unto Death. And She: if this be so,
then is no need anymore for me to give myself to Magick.
Thereat, perceiving yet again the Just Universal of Our Lord
Pan, was I swallowed up (like unto Jonah of the Old Fable) in
the Belly of the Whale called Laughter, and it seemeth to me
at this present Writing that I am like to abide therein for
the Time that remaineth to me in this Body.
-170-
{Digamma }{mu } DE FORMULA FEMINAE.
Now this is the right Power and Property of a Woman, to
arrange and to adjust all Things that exist in their proper
Sphere, but not to create or to transcend. Therefore in all
practical Matters is she of Might and of Wit to produce an
Effect consonant with her Mood. And her Symbol is Water, that
seeketh the Level, whether for Wrath, eating away the
Mountains (yet even in this making smooth the Plains) or for
Love, in Fecundity of Earth. But it is the Fire of Man that
hath heaved up those Mountains, in huge Turmoil. Man them
maketh Mischief and Trouble by his Violence, be his Will
convenient to His Environment, or antipathetic; but Woman
disturbeth by Manipulation, adroit or sinister as her Mood may
be of Order or of Disorder. For any Man to meddle in her
Affair is Folly, for he comprehendeth not Quiet; so also for
her to emulate him in his Office is Fatuity. Therefore in
Magick though a Woman excel all men in every Quality that is
profitable for her for Attainment, yet she is Naught in that
Work, even as a Man without Hands in the Shop of a Carpenter;
for She hath not the Organism that might make Use of this
Opportunity. Of all this is she aware by her Instinct, for
her Nature is to Understand, even without Knowledge; and if
thou doubt herin the Wisdom of thy Sire, do thou seek out a
Woman (but with Precaution) and affirm these my Words. So
shall she wax woundily wrath, and look grisly upon thee,
proclaiming in a shrill Voice her manifold Excellences, which
she hath, and concern the Matter not a Whit.
-171-
{Digamma }{nu } VERBA MAGISTRI SUI DE FEMINA.
Of a Thousand Years it is nigh unto the Fiftieth Part, o my
Son, since I obtained Favour in the Light of a great Master of
the Truth, whom Men call Allan Bennett, so that he received me
for his Disciple in Magick. And he was instant with me in
this Matter, and vehement, adjuring his Gods that this (which
I have myself here above declared unto thee) was the Truth
concerning the Nature of Woman. But I being but a Youth, and
Headstrong, and being enraptured in Love of Women, and
Admiration of Them, and Worship, delighting in them eagerly,
and learning constantly from them, nourished by the Milk of
their Mystery, as it should be for all true Men, did resist
angrily the Doctrine of that most holy Man of God. And
because, (as it was written) he was a vowed Virgin from his
Birth, and had no Commerce with any in the Way of Carnality, I
disabled his Judgment herein, as if he, being a Fish, had
disallowed the Flight of Birds. But I, o my Son, am not
wholly ignorant of Women, save as all Mem must be in the
Limitation of their Nature, for the Number of my Concubines is
not notably or shamefully exceeded by that of the Phases of
the Moon since my Birth. Many also have been my Disciples in
Magick that were Women; and (more also) I do owe,
acknowledging the same with open Gladness, the greater Part of
mine own Initiation and Advancement to the Operation of Women.
Notwithstanding all these Things, I bow humbly before Allan
Bennett, and repent mine Insolence, for his Saying was Sooth.
-172-
{Digamma }{xi } DE VIA PROPRIA FEMINIS.
It is indeed easy for a Woman to obtain the Experience of
Magick, in a certain Sort, as Visions, Trances, and the like;
yet they take not Hold upon Her, to transform Her, as with
Men, but pass only as Images upon a Speculum. So then a Woman
advanceth never in Magick, but remaineth the same, rightly or
wrongly ordered according to the Force that moveth Her. Here
therefore is the Limit of Her Aspiration in Magick, to abide
joyous and obedient beneath the Man that her Instinct shall
divine so that by Habit becoming a Temple well-ordered, comely
and consecrated, she may in her next Incarnation attract by
her Fitness a Man-soul. For this Cause hath Man esteemed
Constancy and Patience as Qualities preeminent in Good women,
because by these she gaineth her Going toward Our Godliness.
Her Ordeal therefore is principally to resist Moods, which
make Disorder, that is of Choronzon. Also, let her be content
in this Way, for verily she hath a noble and an excellent
Portion in Our Holy Banquet, and escapeth many a Peril that is
proper to us others. Only, be she in Awe and Wariness, for in
her is no Principle of Resistance to Choronzon, so that if she
become disordered in her Moods, as by Lust, or by Drunkenness,
or by Idleness, she hath no Standard whereunto she may rally
her Forces. In this see thou her Need of a well-guarded Life,
and of a True Man for her God.
-173-
{Digamma }{omicron } DE HAC RE ALTERA INTELLIGENDA.
Mark then, o my Son, how in the Ancient Books of Magick it
is Man that selleth his Soul unto the Devil, but Woman that
maketh Pact with him. For she hath constantly the Wit and
Power to arrange Things at his Bidding, and she payeth this
Price of his Alliance. But a Man hath one Jewel, and,
bartering this, he becometh the Mockery of Satanas. Let then
this tutor thee in thine own Art of Magick, that thou employ
Women in all Practical Matters, to order them with Cunning,
but Men in thy Need of Transfiguration or Transmutation. In a
Trope, let the Woman direct the Chess-Play of Life, but the
Man alter the Rules, if he so will. Lo! in ill Play is
Mischief and Disorder, but in a New Law is Earthquake, and
Destruction of the Root of Things. Therefore is Fear of any
Man that is in Commerce with his Genius, for none knoweth if
his Law shall amend the Game or do it Hurt; and of this the
Proof is in Experience, won after the Victory of his Will,
when there is no Way of Return; as saith the Poet, Vestigia
Nulla Retrorsum. Nor do thou fear to create: for, even as I
have written in "The Book of Lies (falsely so-called)", thou
canst create nothing that is not God. But beware of false
Creations wrought by Women in whom is no Function thereof; for
they are Phantoms, poisonous Vapours, bred of the Moon in her
Witchcraft of Blood.
-174-
{Digamma }{pi } DE VIIS MORTIS ET DIABOLI, ARCANIS
TOU TAROT FRATERNITATIS R{.'.} C{.'.}
It shall profit thee much, o my Son, or I err, that I
instruct thee in the Mysteries of the Paths of Nun and of
Ayin, that in our rota are figured in the Atu called Death,
and that called the Devil. Of these Nun joineth the Sun with
Venus, and is referred to Scorpio in the Zodiac. This Path is
perilous, for it seeketh the Level, and may abase thee, except
thou take Head unto the Going. Of its three Modes, the
Scorpio destroyeth himself, as if it were a Type of animal
Pleasure. Next, the Serpent is proper to Works of Change, or
Magick; yet is he poisonous also unless thou hast Wit to
enchant him. Lastly the Eagle is subtlest in this Sort, so
that this Path is proper to a Transcendental Labour. Yet all
these are in the Way of Death, so that thy Wand is dissolved
and corroded in the Waters of the Cup, and must be renewed by
Virtue of thy Nature in its Course. For Fire is extinguished
by Water; but upon Earth it burneth freely, and is inflamed by
the Wind. Understand also that which is written concerning
the Vesica, that it is the Mother, giving Ease, Sleep, and
Death, which Consolations are eschewed by the True Man or
Hero.
-175-
{Digamma }{koppa } SEQUITUR DE HIS VIIS.
Now the Path of Ayin is a Link between Mercury and the Sun,
and in the Zodiac importeth the Goat. This Goat is called
also Strength, and standeth in the Meridian at the Sunrise of
Spring; and it is His Nature to leap upon the Mountains. So
therefore he is a Symbol of true Magick, and his Name is
Baphomet, wherefore did I design him as an Atu of Thoth, the
Fifteenth, and put his Image in the Front of my Book, the
" ""Ritual of High Magick", which was the second Part of my Thesis
for the Grade of Major Adept, when I was clothed about with
the Body called Alphonse Louis Constant. Now the Goat flieth
not as doth the Eagle; but consider this also that it is the
true Nature of Man to dwell upon the Earth, so that his
Flights are oft but Phantasy; yea, the Eagle also is bound to
his Eyrie, nor feedeth upon Air. Therefore this goat, making
each leap with Fervour, yet all Times secure in his own
Element, is a true Hieroglyph of the Magician. Mark also,
this Path sheweth One continuous in Exaltation upon a Throne,
and so is it the Formula of the Man, as the other was of the
Woman.
-176-
{Digamma }{rho } DE OCULO HOOR.
I say furthermore that this Path is of the Circle, and of
the Eye of Horus that sleepeth not, but is vigilant. The
Circle is all-perfect, equal every Way, but the Vesica hath
bitter Need, and seeketh thy Medicine, that is of right
compounded for High Purpose, to ease her Infirmity. Thus is
thy Will frustrated, and thy Mind distracted, and thy Work
lamed, if it be not brought to Naught. Also thy Puissance in
thine Art isminished, by a full Moiety, as I do esteem it.
But the Eye of Horus hath no Need, and is free in his Will,
not seeking a Level, or requiring a Medicine, and is fit and
worthy to be the Companion and the Ally of thee in thy Work,
as a Friend to thee, not Mistress and not Slave, that seek
ever with Slyness and Deceit to encompass their own Ends.
There is moreover a Reason in Physics for my Word; study thou
this matter in the Laws of the Changes of Nature. For Things
Unlike do in their Marriage produce a Child which is
relatively Stable, and resisteth Change; but Things like
increase mutually the Potential of their particular Natures.
Howbeit, each Path hath his own Use; and thou, being
instructed in all Ways, choose thine with Discretion.
-177-
{Digamma }{sigma } DE SUA INITIATIONE.
My son, my Delight, Honey of the Comb of my Life, I will
say also this concerning the Odds of the Formulae of Male and
Female, that mine Initiation was ordered as followeth. First,
unto the Middle of the Way, the Attainment of the Knowledge
and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, were these Men
appointed to mine Aid, Jerome Politt of Kendal, Cecil Jones of
Basingstoke, Allan Bennett of the Border, and Oscar Exkenstein
of the Mountain with no Woman. But after that Attainment hath
Word come to me only through Women, Ouarda the Seer, and
Virakam, and in mine Initiation in to theDegree of Magus, the
Cat '{Iota }{Lambda }{Alpha }{Rho }{Iota }{Omega }{Nu } thy Mother, Helen the Play
Actress the Serpent, with Myriamme the Drunkard, and Rita the
Harlot to bear Dagger and Poison; then these others Alice the
Singing Woman for an Owl; then Catherine the Dog of Anubis,
and Ahitha the Camel that renewed the Work of Virakam, with
Ollun the Dragon and --- but here I do restrict myself in
Speech, for the End is wrapped about with a Veil, as the Face
of a Virgin. But do thou meditate strictly upon these Things,
distinguishing the right Property, Order, and Use of the Other
and the other in the Relative, even as thou makest them All-
One, that is None, in the Absolute.
-178-
{Digamma }{tau } DE HERBO SANCTISSIMO ARABICO.
Recall, o my Son, the Fable of the Hebrews, which they
brought from the City Babylon, how Nebuchadnezzar the Great
King, being afflicted in his Spirit, did depart from among Men
for Seven Years' Space, eating Grass as doth an Ox. Now this
Ox is the Letter Aleph, and is that Atu of Thoth whose Number
is Zero, and whose name is Maat, Truth, or Maut, the Vulture,
the All-Mother, being an Image of Our Lady Nuith, but also it
is called the Fool, who is Parsifal, "der reine Tor", and so
referreth to him thatwalketh in the Way of the Tao. Also, he
is Harpocrates, the Child Horus, walking, (as saith David, the
Badavi that became King in his Psalms) upon the Lion and the
Dragon; that is, he is in Unity with his own secret Nature, as
I have shewn thee in my Word concerning the Sphinx. O my Son,
yester Eve came the Spirit upon me that I also should eat the
Grass of the Arabs, and by Virtue of the Bewitchment thereof
behold that which might be appointed for the Enlightenment of
mine Eyes. Now then of this may I not speak, seeing that it
involveth the Mystery of the Transcending of Time, so that in
One Hour of our terrestrial Measure did I gather the Harvest
of an Aeon, and in Ten Lives I could no declare it.
-179-
{Digamma }{upsilon } DE QUIBUSDAM MYSTERIIS, QUAE VIDI.
Yet even as a Man may set up a Memorial or Symbol to import
Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand, so may I strive to inform
thine Understanding by Hieroglyph. And here shall thine own
Experience serve us, because a Token of Remembrance sufficeth
him that is familiar with a Matter, which to him that knoweth
it not should not be made manifest, no, not in a Year of
Instruction. Here first then is one amid the uncounted
Wonders of that Vision; upon a field blacker and richer than
Velvet was the Sun of all Being, alone. Then about Him were
little Crosses, Greek, over-running the Heaven. These changed
from Form to Form geometrical, Marvel devouring Marvel, a
Thousand Times a Thousand in their Course and Sequence, until
by their Movement was the Universe churned into the
Quintessence of Light. Moreover at another Time did I behold
All Things as Bubbles, iridescent and luminous, self-shining
in every Colour, Myriad pursuing Myrad until by their
perpetual Beauty they exhausted the Virtue of my Mind to
receive them, and whelmed it, so that I was fain to withdraw
myself from the Burden of that Brilliance. Yet, o my Son, the
Sun of all this amounteth not to the Worth of one Dawn-Glimmer
of Our True Vision of Holiness.
-180-
{Digamma }{phi } DE QUORUM MODO MEDITATIONES.
Now for the Chief of that which was granted unto me, it was
the Apprehension of those willed Changes or Transmutations of
the Mind which lead into Truth, being as Ladders unto Heaven,
or so I called them at that Time, seeking for a Phrase to
admonish the Scribe that attended on my Words, to grave a
Balustre upon the Stele of of my Working. But I make Effort
in vain, o my Son, to record this matter in Detail; for it is
the quality of the Grass to quicken the Operation of Thought
it may be Thousandfold, and moreover to figure each Step in
Images complex and overpowering in Beauty, so that one hath no
Time wherein to conceive, much less to utter, any Word for a
Name or any of them. Also, such was the multiplicity of these
Ladders, and their Equivalence, that the Memory holdeth no
more any one of them, but only a certain Comprehension of the
Method, wordless by Reason of its Subtilty. Now therefore
must I make by my Will a Concentration mighty and terrible of
my Thought, that I may bring forth this Mystery in Expression.
For this Method is of Virtue and Profit, by it mayst thou come
easily and with Delight to the Perfection of Truth, it is no
Odds from what Thought thou makest the first Leap in thy
Meditation, so hat thou mayst know how every Road endeth in
Monsalvat, and the Temple of the Sangral.
-181-
{Digamma }{chi } SEQUITUR DE HAC RE.
I believe generally, on Ground both of Theory and
Experience, so little as I have, that a Man must first be
initiate, and established in Our Law, before he may use this
Method. For in it is an Implication of our Secret
Enlightenment, concerning the Universe, how its Nature is
utterly Perfection. Now every Thought is a Separation, and
the Medicine of that is to marry Each One with its
Contradiction, as I have shewed formerly in many Writings.
And thou shalt clap the one to the other with Vehemence of
Spirit, swiftly as Light itself, that the Ecstasy be
spontaneous. So therefore it is Expedient that thou have
travelled already in this Path of Antithesis, knowing
perfectly the Answer to every Griph or Problem, and thy Mind
ready therewith. For by the Property of this Grass all
passeth with Speed incalculable of Wit, and an Hesitation
should confound thee, breaking down thy ladder, and throwing
back thy Mind to receive Impression from Environment, as at
thy first beginning. Verily; the nature of this Method is
Solution, and the Destruction of every Complexity by Explosion
of Ecstasy, as every Element thereof is fulfilled by its
Correlative, and is annihilated (since it loseth separate
Existence) in the Orgasm that is consummated within the Bed of
thy Mind.
-182-
{Digamma }{psi } SEQUITUR DE HAC RE.
Thou knowest right well, o my Son, how a Thought is
imperfect in two Dimensions, being separate from its
Contradiction, but also constrained in its Scope, because by
that Contradiction we do not (commonly) complete the Universe,
save only that of its Discourse. Thus if we contrast health
with Sickness, we include in their Sphere of Union no more
than one Quality that may be predicated of all Things.
Furthermore, it is for the most Part not easy to find or to
formulate the true Contradiction of any Thought as a positive
Idea, but only as a Formal Negation in vague Terms, so that
the ready Answer is but the Antithesis. Thus to "White" one
putteth not the Phrase "all that which is not white", for this
is void, formless, neither clear, simple, nor positive in
conception; but one answereth "BBlack", for this hath an Image
of his Significance. So the Cohesion of Antitheticals
destroyeth them only in Part, and one becometh instantly
conscious of the Residue that is unsatisfied or unbalanced,
whose Eidolon leapeth in thy Mind with Splendour and Joy
unspeakable. Let not this deceive thee, for its Existence
proveth its Imperfection, and thou must call forth its Mate,
and destroy them by Love, as with the former. This Method is
continuous and proceedeth ever from the Gross to the Fine, and
from the Particular to the General, dissolving all Things into
the One Substance of Light.
-183-
{Digamma }{omega } CONCLUSIO DE HAC MODO SANCTITATIS.
Lean now that Impression of Sense have Opposites readily
conceived, as long to short, or light to dark; and so with
Emotions and Perceptions, as Love to Hate, or false to true;
but the more violent is the Antagonism, the more is it bound
in Illusion, determined by Relation. Thus the Word "Long"
hath no Meaning save it be referred to a Standard; but Love is
not thus obscure, because Hate is its Twin, partaking
bountifully of a Common Nature therewith. Now, hear this; it
was given unto me in my Visions of the Aethyrs, when I was in
the Wilderness of Sahara, by Tolga, that above the Abyss,
contradiction is Unity, and that Nothing could be true save by
Virtue of the Contradiction that is contained in itself.
Behold, therefore, in this method thou shalt come presently to
Ideas of this Order, that include in themselves their own
Contradiction, and have no Antithesis. Here then is thy Lever
of Antinomy broken in thine Hand; yet, being in true Balance,
thou mayst soar, passionate and eager, from Heaven to Heaven,
by the Expansion of thine Idea, and its Exaltation, of
Concentration as thou understandest by thy Studies in "The Book""
""of the Law", the Word thereof concerning Our Lady Nuith and
Hadith that is the Core of every Star. And this last Going
upon thy Ladder is easy, if thou be truly Initiate, for the
Momentum of thy Force in Transcendental Antithesis serveth to
propel thee, and the Emancipation from the Fetters of Thought
that thou hast won in that Praxis of Art maketh the Whirlpool
and Gravitation of Truth of Competence to Draw thee unto
itself.
-184-
{Gamma }{alpha } DE VIA SOLA SOLIS.
This is the Profit of mine Intoxication of this Holy Herb,
the Grass of the Arab, that it has shewed me this Mystery
(with many others) not as a new Light, for I had that
aforetime, but by its swift Synthesis and Manifestation of a
Long Sequence of Events in a Moment, I had Wit to analyse this
Method, and to discover its Essential Law, which before had
escaped the Focus of the Lens of mine Understanding. Yea, o
my Son, there is no true Path of Light, save that which I have
formerly made plain; yet in every Path is Profit, if thou be
cunning to perceive it and to clasp it. For we win Truth
oftentimes by Reflection or by the Composition and Selection
of an Artist in his Presentation thereof, when else we were
blind thereunto; lacking his Mode of Light. Yet were that Art
of none avail unless we had already the Root of that Truth in
our Nature, and a Bud ready to flower at the Summoning of that
Sun. In Witness, nor a Boy nor a Stone hath Knowledge of the
Sections of a Cone, and their Properties; but thou mayst teach
these to the Boy by right Presentation, because he hath in his
Nature those laws of Mind that are consonant with our Art
Mathematical, and hath Need only of the Fledging (I may say
this) so that he apply them consciously to the Work, when all
being in Truth, that is, in the necessary Relations that rule
our Illusion, he cometh in Course to Apprehension.
-185-
{Delta }{beta } DE PRUDENTIA ORDINIS A{.'.} A{.'.}
Here then o my Son, that shall be mightier than all the
Kings of the Earth, as it is prophesied, ---an thou be He---
because thou shalt establish the Law which I have given, even
the Law of Thelema, here in this which I have written is a
Point of Judgment in they Work to bring into the Light of
Initiation such as come unto thee, affirming their Will to
this Attainment. For every One hath his own Path and his own
Law, and there is no Art in Magick but to seek out that Path
and that Law, that he may pursue the one by the right Used of
the Other. It shall be that one cometh unto thee, desiring
Amen-Ra (I speak in a Figure or Exemplar) another Asi, a third
Hoor-Pa-Kraat; or again, one seeketh Instruction in Obeah, and
his Fellow in Wanga; and of all these not one in Ten Thousand
shall be aware of his true Way. For albeit our last step is
one for all, yet his next stem is particular to each.
Therefore is the Preparation of a Student that seeketh Our
Holy Order of A{.'.} A{.'.} most general, informing his Mind of
all known Methods, so that his Will may select among these by
Instinct: then after, as a Probationer, he practiseth those
which he hath preferred, and by the Examination of his Record
after the Period appointed thou mayst have Wisdom concerning
him, to confirm him in those Ways which are shewed thereby to
be germane to his True Nature.
-186-
{Gamma }{gamma } ALTERA DE SUA VIA.
Thus I was brought unto the Knowledge of myself in a
certain secret Grace, and as a Poet, by Jerome Politt of
Kendal; Oscar Eckenstein of the Mountain discovered Manhood in
me, teaching me to endure Hardship, and to dare many Shapes of
Death; also he nurtured me in Concentration, the Art of the
Mystics, but without Lumber of Theology. Allan Bennett
bestowed upon me the right Art of Magic, and Our Holy Qabalah,
with a great Treasure of Learning in many Matters, but
especially concerning Egypt, and Asia, the Mysteries of their
Arcane Wisdom. But of Cecil Jones had I the Great Gift of the
Holy Magick of Abramelin, and he inducted me into that Order
which we name not, because of the Silliness of the Profane
that pretend thereto, and he brought me to the Knowledge and
conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel; also, he was the
Herald of the Masters of the Temple when They bade me welcome
to their Order, appointing a Siege for me in the City of the
Pyramids, under the Night of Pan; but for three Years I was
not willing to avail myself thereof. Now mark well this, o my
Son, that this Path was peculiar to the law of my Star, and
none other should follow me herein, or seek to follow me, for
he hath his own proper Orbit. O my Son, err not by
Generalisation and Conformity, for this is the very Idleness,
and breedeth Ideals and Standards that are Death.
-187-
{Gamma }{delta } DE PRUDENTIA ARTIS DOCENDI.
Nevertheless, this one Affliction shall touch nigh all that
come to thee, and that is this great Pox of Sin, that is our
Bane inherited of the Aeon of Slain Gods. Look the first of
all, when any Postulant boweth before thee, whether there be
not Conflict and Restriction in his Mind, and in his Will. If
he deem Good and Evil to be absolute, instead of as relative
to the Health of this Body, or the Weal of the Society of
which he is a Member, or what not, as it may be, instruct him.
Or, if he will say that he will sacrifice all for Initiation,
correct him, as it is written: "but whoso gives one Particle
of Dust shall lose all in that Hour." For it is Conflict if
he weigh one Thing with another; and Renunciation, being
sorrowful, is not worthy of Acceptance. But he must with Joy
unite all he is and hath, heaping the Whole into one Billow of
Love, under Will. Yea, o my son, until thou hast brought the
Postulant into our Freedom from Sin, and the Sense and
Conviction thereof, he is not ready for the Path of our Magick
and Illumination; because every Way soever is a Going, and
this Sin is an obstacle and a Fetter and an Hoodwink on every
one of them, for it is Restriction, whether he set out by the
Meditations of the Dhamma, or by Our Qabalah, or by Vision or
Theurgy, or how else soever.
-188-
{Gamma }{epsilon } DE MENTE INIMICA ANIMO.
How shall a Man attain to the Trance where All is One, if
he yet debate within his Mind concerning Virtue as a Thing
Absolute? Thus, o my Son, there be those that are fuddled
with Doubt whether Meat is to be eaten (I choose this as a
Reference with Habit is proper to the Lion, as Grass to the
Horse, so that his right Problem is solely thus, what is
fitting to his own Nature. Or again, I suppose that he is in
Vision, and an Angel, visiting him, imparteth a Truth contrary
to his Prejudice, as it fell out in mine own Case, when I
inhabited the Body of Sir Edward Kelly, or so do I in Part
remember, as it seemeth dimly. This nevertheless is sure (or
the learned Casaubon, publishing the Record of that Word with
the Magician Dee, sayeth falsely) that an Angel did declare
unto Kelly the very Axiomata of our Law of Thelema, in good
Measure, and plainly; but Dee, afflicted by the Fixity of his
Tenets that were of the Salve-Gods, was wroth, and by his
Authority prevailed upon the other, who was indeed not wholly
perfected as an Instrument, or the World ready for that
Sowing. Consider also how in this very Life I was the Enemy
of mine own Law, and wrote down "The Book of the Law" contrary
to my conscious Will by the Virtue of Obedience as a Scribe,
and strove constantly to escape mine own Work, and the
Utterance of my Word, until by Initiation I was made All-One.
-189-
{Gamma }{digamma } DE ILLUMINATUM OPERIBUS DIVERSIS.
Do thou understand how few be they whose Work in this their
present Lives is our Way of Initiation. Yet it is written in
" ""The Book of the Law" that the Law is for all, so that thou
shalt in no wise err if thou establish it as the formula of
the Aeon, universal among Men. Also, ever for them that are
fitted to advance in our Light, there is Order and Diversity
in Function, as reagardeth their Work in our Sub;lime
Brotherhood, Thus, it might well be that, in a Profess-House
of the Temple, or College of the Holy Ghost, each Knight or
Brother might severally attain Experience of every Trance,
unto the Perfection of all Illumination; yet by this there
ought not to arise Confusion, one usurping the appointed
office of another. For the Abbot, although he be not
enlightened wholly, is yet Abbot; and the Place of the Cook,
were he Saint, Arhan, and Paramahamsa in one Person, is in his
Kitchen. Confound not thou in any wise therefore the Degree
of Attainment of any Man with his right Function in our Holy
Order; for although by initiation cometh the Light, and the
Right, and the Might to accomplish all Works soever, yet these
are inoperative save as they are able to use a Machine which
is of the same Order of Things as the Effect required. As the
best Swordsman hath Need of a Sword, so hath every magician of
a Body and Mind capable to the Work that he willeth; and he
can do nothing, save it be proper to his Nature.
-190-
{Gamma }{zeta } DE EADEM RE ALTERA VERBA.
By this Understanding be they rebuked that make a Reproach
to our Art, saying in their Insolence that if we have all
Power, why are we betimes in Stress of Poverty, and in
Contempt of men, and in Pain of Disease, and so forth, mocking
us, and holding our Magick for Delusion. But they behold not
our Light, how it guideth us in our Path unto a Goal that is
not in their Comprehension, so that we crave not that which
seemeth to them the Sole Food and Comfort of Life. Also, this
which we attain, though it be the Essence of Omniscience and
Omnipotence, informeth and moveth the Matherial World (so to
call it) only according to the Nature of that which is
therein. For the Light of the Sun (by His very Wholeness
itself) sheweth a Rose Red, but a Leaf Green; and His Heat
gathereth the Clouds, and disperseth them also. So I then,
though I were perfect ion Magick, might not work in Metals as
a Smith, or become rich by Commerce as a Merchant; for I have
not in my Nature the Engines proper to these Capacities, and
therefore it is not of my will to seek to exercise them. Here
then is my Case, that I can not because I will not, and it
were Conflict, should I turn thither. But let every man
become perfect in his own Work, not heeding the Rebuke of
another, that some Way not his own is more Noble, or
Profitable, but being constant in mindfulness concerning his
Business.
-191-
{Gamma }{nu } DE PACE PERFECTA LUCE.
How shall the measure our Statue and our Success by that
Cannon of Relation and Illusion, and their ignorance of our
Nature? Time is but Sequence, and a moment of Light
outweigheth an Age of Darkness. What is Happiness but the
Issue of the Harmony of our Consciousness with our Truth, and
the Conformity of Will with Action? To the Initiate is
Certainty of his Fulfilment, which to the Profane is but the
Effect of Hazard, and he feareth to lose what he loveth, or
thinketh he loveth. But we, loving only in Light, suffer not
by Fear or by Bereavement, because to us every Event is
Welcome, being right, necessary and proper to our particular
Path. The Knowledge of this one Matter is the End of Dread
and of Regret; make it the Governor of thy Mind, to rule its
Pace, lest it hasten or lag by Stress of thine Environment.
How this Attainment is possible for all Mankind, since it
asketh but Resolution of Complexities that already exist; so
that this true Wisdom and Happiness cometh by the Acceptance
of our Law, and its Use is the Key to all locked Doors of the
Mind, and the Reconcilement of every Contention. O my Son, in
the Promulgation of the Law lieth the Reward of our Chief
Work, the making whole of Mankind from the Conscience of Sin
which divideth him, and afflicteth his Spirit.
-192-
{Gamma }{theta } DE PACE PERFECTA.
O my Son, is it not a marvel, this Light whereof we are the
Quintessence and the Seed? By it are we made Whole, dissolved
in the Body and in the Soul of Our Lady Nuith even as Her Lord
Hadith, so that the Gnostic Sacrament of the Cosmos is
perpetually Elevated before us. We behold all that is and
comprehend its Mystery, and its Order in this High Mass
eternally celebrated among us, acknowledging the Perfection of
the Rite, neither confusing the Parts thereof, nor
discriminating in Worship between them. So unto us is every
Phenomenon a Shew of Godliness, proceeding continually in a
Pageant that returneth unto itself, identical in the Phase of
Naught as of Many, but whirling in the Orgia of Ineffable
Holiness as it were a Dance that weaveth Figures of Beauty in
Variety inexhaustible. Shall the Initiate bestir him, to
better so prime a Perfection? Nay, this Will that was his is
accomplished; he hath attained the Summit; so without Hope or
Fear he abideth, and leaveth his Vehicle of Illusion and
Magical Engine, that is, as Man say, his Body and Mind, to
work out their Ritual of Change without his interference. O
my son, ask not to what End! As it is written in "The Book of""
""the Heart Girt with the Serpent", concerning the Boy and the
Swan: is there not joy ineffable in this aimless Winging?
-193-
{Gamma }{iota } DE MORTE.
Thou hast made Question of me concerning Death, and this is
my Opinion, of which I say not: this is the Truth. First in
the Temple called Man is the God, his Soul, or Star,
individual and eternal, but also inherent in the Body of Our
Lady Nuith. Now this Soul, as an Officer in the High Mass of
the Cosmos, taketh on the Vesture of his Office, that is,
inhabiteth a Tabernacle of Illusion, a Body and Mind. And
this Tabernacle is Subject to the Law of Change, for it is
complex, and diffuse reacting to every Stimulus or Impression.
If then the mind be attached constantly to the Body, Death
hath no Power to decompose it wholly, but a decaying Shell of
the dead Man, his Mind holding together for a little his Body
of Light, haunteth the Earth, seeking a new Tabernacle (in its
Error that feareth Change) in some other Body. These Shells
are broken away utterly from the Star that did enlighten them,
and they are Vampires, obsessing them that adventure
themselves into the Astral World without Magical Protection,
or invoke them, as do the Spiritists. For by Death is Man
released only from the Gross Body, at the first, and is
complete otherwise upon the Astral Plane, as he was in his
Life. But this Wholeness suffereth Stress, and its Gidrirs
are loosened, the weaker first and after that the stronger.
-194-
{Gamma }{lambda } DE ADEPTIS R. C. ESCATOLOGIA.
consider now in this Light what shall come to the Adept, to
him that hath aspired constantly and firmly to his Star,
attuning the Mind unto the Musick of its Will. In him, if his
Mind be knit perfectly together is itself, and conjoined with
the Star, is so strong a Confection that it breaketh away
easily not only from the Gross Body, but the fine. It is this
Fine Body which bindeth it to the Astral, as did the Gross to
the Material World so then it accomplisheth willingly the
Sacrament of a second Death and leaveth the Body of Light.
But the Mind, cleaveth closely, by Right of its Harmony, and
Might of its Love, to its Star, resisteth the Ministers of
Disruption, for a Season, according to its Strength. Now, if
this Star be of those that are bound by the Great Oath,
incarnating without Remission because of Delight in the Cosmic
Sacrament, it seeketh a new Vehicle in the appointed Way, and
indwelleth the Foetus of a Child, and quickeneth it. And if
at this Time the mind of its Former Tabernacle yet cling to
it, then is there Continuity Character, and it may be Memory
between the two Vehicles. This is, briefly and without
Elaboration, the Way of Asar in Amenti, according to mine
Opinion, of which I say not: This is the Truth.
-195-
{Gamma }{mu } DE NUPTIIS SUMMIS.
Now then to this Doctrine, o my Son, add thou that which
thou hast learned in "The Book of the Law", that Death is the
Dissolution in the Kiss of Our Lady Nuith. This is a true
Consonance as of Bass with Treble for here is the Impulse that
setteth us to Magick, the Pain of the Conscious Mind. Having
then Wit to find the Cause of this Pain in the Sense of
Separation, and its Cessation by the Union of Live, it is the
Summit of our Holy Art to present the whole Being of our Star
to Our Lady in the Nuptial of our Bodily Death. We are then
to make our whole Engine the true and real Appurtenance of our
Force, without Leak, or Friction, or any other Waste or
Hindrance to its Action. Thou knowest well how an Horse, or
even a Machine propelled by a Man's feet, becometh as it were
as Extension of the Rider, though his Skill and Custom. Thus
let thy Star have profit of thy Vehicle, assimilating it, and
sustaining it, so that it be healed of its Separation, and
this even in Life, but most especially in Death. Also thou
oughtest to increase thy Vehicle in Mass by true Growth in
Balance, that thou be a Bridegroom comely and wellfavoured, a
Man of might, and a Warrior worthy of the Bed of so divine a
Dissolution.
-196-
{Gamma }{nu } DE ARTE VOLUPTATE DILEMMA GUAEDAM.
There is a certain Objection, o my Son, to our Thesis
concerning Will that it should flow freely in its Way: namely
that for such as I am it is well, because I am endowed by
Nature with a Lust insatiable in any Kind, so that the
Universe itself seemeth incapable to appease it. For I have
poured myself out unceasingly, in Bodily Passion, and in
Battles with Men, and with Wild Beasts, and with Mountains and
Deserts, and in Poetry and other Writings of the Musick of
mine Imagination, and in Books of our own Mysteries, and in
Works Magical, and so forth, so that in Mine Age I am become
verily a Slave to mine own Genius and my Law is that unless I
sleep or create, my Soul is sick, and fain to claim the Reward
and the Recreation of my Death. But (I hear thee say it) this
is not the Case of All, or even of many Men; but their Act of
Will is satisfied easily at its first Guerdon. Should not
then their Wisdom be to resist themselves for a Space, as
Water heaped up by a Dam gathereth Force, and Hunger feedeth
upon Abstinence? Also, there is that which I have written in
a former Chapter of the right Use of Discipline; and thirdly,
this free Flowing is without Subtility of Art, as it were an
Harlot that plucketh Men by the Sleeve.
-197-
{Gamma }{xi } DE HOC MODO DISSOLUTIO.
Here therefore will I write down the Answer to this
Indictment of our Wisdom; that every Act of Will is to be made
in its Perfection, which State is to be attained according to
these Conditions: firs, those of its own Law; second, those of
its Environment. Judge thine own Case individually, each as
it pleadeth; for there is no Cannon or Code, since every Star
hath its own Law diverse from every other. Now there is the
Restraint of Conflict which is Impotance and Disruption; the
the Restraint of Discipline is a Fortification of the Will by
Repose and by Preparation, as a Conqueror resteth his Armies,
and feedeth them, and looketh to their Furniture and to their
Spirit, before he joineth the Battle. Also, there is the
Restraint of Art, which includeth that other of Discipline,
and its Nature is to adorn the Will and to admire its Strength
and its Beauty, and to enjoy its Victory by Anticipation in
full Confidence, not fearful of Time that robbeth them that
are ignorant concerning him, how he is but Mirage and
Illusion, incapable to besiege the Fortress of the Soul. Work
thou thy Will, as I said aforetime by the Mouth of Eliphas
Levi Zahed, knowing thyself Omnipotent, and thine Habitation
Eternity. O my Son, attend well this Word, for it is an
Heirloom, and a Ring of Ruby and Emerald in thine Inheritance.
-198-
{Gamma }{omicron } DE COMEDIA, QUAE PAN DICTUR.
Subtler than the Serpent of Hermes, o my Son, is this Way
of Restraint of Art, and thou shalt meet therein with the God
Pan, and have him to thy Playmate. So shalt thou devise
Comedy and Tragedy, as it were Settings for the Jewel of thy
Will, to enhance the Beauty thereof, and to refine thy
Pleasures. This is that which is written in "The Book of the""
""Law": "... 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!" Thus thou mayst even toy with
thy tamed Devil of Sin, and use the Pain thereof to sharpen
the taste of thy Meat, being Adult, and thy Tongue keen to the
Olive, and cloyed by the Sweet, while a Child is opposite to
this in his Preference; or as a skilled Match of Love
aboundeth in Pinchings, Slappings, Bitings and the like, to
intensify the Bout and to prolong it. But this is Risk and
Peril unless thou be wholly Master, one in thy Will; for there
is Poison in these dead Snakes, to destroy thee if thou lend
them of thy Life by so little as one Doubt of thyself, as a
Seed of Division.
-199-
{Gamma }{pi } DE LUDO AMORIS.
In this Mystery of the Restraint of Art is also the Secret
of Illusion. Why, sayest thou, hath not Our Lady Nuith her
Will of Her Lord Hadith, and He of Her, and so all ended? But
this is the Play of Her Love, that She veileth Her Beauty in
the Robe of Illusion many-coloured, and evadeth Him in Sport,
yea, and divorceth Him from the Embrace, weaving new Modesties
and allurements in Her Dance. Now, o my Son, the full
Comprehension of this Arcanum is the Fruit of Contemplation,
if this be prepared by the Experience of this Art in thine own
Case. But to them that understand not, and have Grief and
Separation, being deceived by this Play so that they deem it
the Division of Hate, She can but speak in Simplicity by that
Word written in "The Book of the Law": "To me!" For until thou
love, the Play of Love is but Emptiness; and its cruelty is
Cruelty indeed, except thou know it to be but a Sauce to wet
Appetite, and to give Emphasis of Contrast, as a Painter
dimmeth the Light by Cunning of his Shadows. But all this
Delight that thou mayst have of the Universe both in its Veils
and in its Nakedness is a Reward of thine Attainment of Truth,
and followeth after it. Nor canst thou comprehend this
Doctrine by Mind, for the Division in thee crieth aloud in its
Agony, denying it, unless thou be wholly Initiate.
-200-
{Gamma }{koppa } DE GAUDIO STUPRI.
O my Son, this Sin itself that is our Disease is but
Misunderstanding of the Art of Love of Our Lady Nuith. Yea,
verily, it is all a Trick of Her Wit, and a Device of Her
Delight, that Sin should appear, and also (Mark thou well!)
the Misapprehension of its Nature. Therefore the Pain of any
Sinner in his Division and His Separation is to Her a little
Spasm of Pleasure. But as for him, let him apprehend this
Doctrine, and dissolve himself in Her Love. Thou then, being
Initiate and Illuminated in this Truth, mayst accept thine own
Sorrow, or rather that of thy Vehicle, as Lackey to the Joy
that thou hast in thy True Self, the Star among the Stars of
Her Body. The Adept of our Art is not compassionate
concerning Sin, in his own Vehicle or another's, unless the
Healing thereof were proper to his Will, for he is aware of
the whole Truth of the Matter. So goeth he upon his Way, and
tighteneth not a Rein upon the Horses of the Universe, but is
content, beholding the Speed of their Course. Verily, o my
Son, it is well written in the Book of the Magus that it is
the Curse of my Grade that I must needs preach my Law unto
Men. For I am afflicted in my Tabernacle on this Count, but
in my Self, I rejoice, and join in the Laughter of Her love.
-201-
{Gamma }{rho } DE CAECITIA PHILOSOPHORUM ANTIQUORUM.
Behold, how comfortable is this thy Wisdom, wherein I have
resolved every Conflict soever that is or that can be, even in
all dimensions, that Antagonism of Things no less than their
Limitations. I have said: Evil be thou my Good; for it is the
Magical Mirror of Our Astarte and the Caduceus of our Hermes.
Now this was the Error of Elder Philosophers, that perceiving
Changeful Duality as the Cause of Sorrow, they sought the
Reconcilement in Unity and in Stability. But I shew thee the
Universe as the Body of Our Lady Nuith, who is None and Two,
with Hadith Her Lord as the Alternator of those Phases. This
Universe is then a perpetual By-coming, the Vessel of every
Permutation of infinity, wherein every Phenomenon is a
Sacrament, Change being the act of Love, and Duality the
Condition prodromal to that Act even as an Axe must be taken
back from a Cedar that it may deliver its Stroke. The Error
therefore of thee Philosophers lay in their false Assumption
that Bliss, Knowledge and Being (the Qualities of their
Changeless Unity) could be States. O my Son, how pitiful is
their Beggary, these Paupers of Sense and of Experience and of
Observation! The Emptiness of their Bellies was it that bred
Phantoms of Ideal, so that they sought Joy by a crude Denial
of what Truth (or rather, Fact) they had perceived concerning
the Universe, so that they set up an Idol of Death for their
God, in very Rage of Hatred against the Sum of their own
Selves.
-202-
{Gamma }{sigma } DE HERESIA MANICHAEA.
These Philosophers, or shall I not say Misosophers and
Pseudo-Sophists, have been hard put to it to explain the
Mystery of the Existence of their Evil. They have cried,
frothing with Words, the Evil is Illusion. But if so, that
Illusion is Evil, whence came it, and to what End? If their
Devil created it, who created that Devil? All their
contention resolveth to this Dilemma of Change in a
Changeless, Falsity in a True, Hate in a Loving, Weakness in
an Almighty, Duality in a Simple, Being as they define their
God. Nor do they see that they restrict their God (whom yet
they would have to be All) by admitting Opposites to this
Nature, ever when they sum these Opposites as Illusion, since
Illusion is the Denial of His Truth. But the Indians, seeing
this, seek Escape by denying all Duality soever to their God,
or True State, I speak of Parabrahaman and of Nibbana, thus in
any Reality of Thought rather denying Him or It than
destroying Illusion. But in our Light we have no Need of any
Denial, and accept all, yea Illusion itself, discriminating
only in our Minds between Phenomena by Comparison with some
convenient Standard, for the Purpose of maintaining the Order
of our Conceptions in Respect of the Relation of any Being
with its Environment.
-203-
{Gamma }{tau } DE VERITATE RERUM.
So do thou apprehend this Wisdom, o my Son, laying it to
thine Heart, as a Mistress, and hiding it in the Treasury of
thy Mind as a Jewel of Enlightenment. Consider a Dream, how
it is unreal in Respect of thine Experience of the Objects of
thy Waking Sense, but real also, both as it did in Fact
impress thy Mind, and as it did express some Hunger of thy
Secret Nature, as I have already shewed in this Letter.
Consider the Play of the Chess, how its Law hath made for
itself a Language and a Literature, yet it is but an arbitrary
invention; without impinging (save as it operateth though
Pleasure and interest upon Minds) on any other Sphere soever
of the Universe. Equally, Things called (vulgarly) Real and
Material exist in the Universe of our Consciousness only by
the Apprehension of their Images in mind through Sense; as,
how is Colour Real or Material to a blind may or a Law
mathematical true to a man that is imbecile or demented? All
things therefore exist in one form or another; but the Reality
of any, though in itself absolute, is in regard of its
Relation with any other thing dependent upon the Intercourse
and Language between them, conscious or unconscious. Consider
Azote, that hath night Four Parts in Five of the Air, how it
is not real to the Perception of any human Sense, but yet most
real to our Lungs, diluting the Oxigen, by whose Love we were
else violently combust.
-204-
{Gamma }{upsilon } DE APHORISMO UBI DICO: OMNIA SUNT.
My son, long did I await thee, yearning, and with Price and
Great Gladness did I bid thee Welcome to my City of the
Pyramids, under the Night of Pan. Now then in my dear Love of
thee will I reveal this Secret of Wisdom which I wrote
occultly in my last Chapter, in these Words: All Things
Exist. Considered by right Understanding, this is to deny
that there is anything imaginable or unimaginable which doth
not exist. That is, the Body of Our Lady Nuith hath no Limit,
and there is no void that She filleth not with the Variety and
Beauty of Her Stars in Her Space. Nor is there any one Law of
her Nature, but in Her are all Laws, so that each Thing or
each Truth that thou perceiveth is as it were one Gesture of
Her Dance. Shut up the Book of thy Questions, o my Son,
concerning nature, Her Way, Her Origin, or Her Purpose, except
in those Matters which concern thee and thine own Orbit, o
thou Star, begotten of my Loins in my Lust of Hilarion, the
Golden Rose, mystic and Joyous, the Lily of a Thousand Petals
and One Petal, subtle and perverse, that thou mightest fulfil
this Work of a Magus which I cam to accomplish, robing myself
in Flesh of man, as was my Nature and the Will of my Nature,
the Name of my Star that flameth in the Body of Nuith our
Lady.
-205-
{Gamma }{phi } DE RATIONE HUJUS EPISTOLAE SCRIBENDAE.
Behold, I draw unto the End of this Discourse of Wisdom, as
a Ship that hath adventured upon Ocean, from whose mast the
Watcher espieth in the Dimness of the Horizon a Point of Snow,
being the Peak of a great Mountain that is Guardian of the
Harbour, the Term of that Voyage. So now do I commit thee
wholly unto thyself, for I exist not in thine Universe, save
in my Relation with thee, wherefore this Part of me is in
Truth thou rather than I. Yet do thou treasure this Letter,
for it is mine especial Gift, and hath Radiance of the Light
of my Wisdom, and flameth, being the Blood of my Love of thee
and of Mankind. Also, it is the Word of my Will, the Charter
of the Liberty of my Soul, and thine, and that of every Man,
and every Woman; for we are Stars, O my Son, for many Days was
I silent, until thou wast fearful lest thou hadst, by
Ignorance or by Inadvertance, enkindled the Fire of my Wrath.
But I spake not, because I knew in my Wisdom that thou must
pass a certain Ordeal of thine Initiation by thine own Virtue.
For this Cause I held aloof; but in my Love I made a Beginning
of this Letter, beholding thy triumph beforehand; and with
Prescience, divining thy next Need, that is to say, this Book
of the Words of my Wisdom.
-206-
{Gamma }{chi } DE NATURA HUJUS EPISTOLAE.
O my Son, in this Letter have I written the Name of my own
Nature, its Law, its Quality, its Will and its Appurtenance or
Ornament. For it is the Child of my Love toward thee, and the
Expression through mine Art of my Will so far as that
regardeth thee. Now every Child is made of the Essence of his
Father, so that every Creation is a Likeness or image of the
Creator, but modified by the Mother, that is to say, the
Material whereon he begetteth it. So then this Letter is a
Projection of mine own Star in a Mirror, to wit, mine Idea in
thy Regard; and it shall be unto thee as a clear Vision of thy
Father, and of the Word of the Aeon that he hath uttered unto
Man. But also, because this Word is the Formula of the Aeon,
that is the Law of its Changes or Phenomena, the Equation that
expresseth its Energy and its Motion, it shall serve every Man
in his Measure as a Text-Book or Comment upon the Theorick and
Praxis of Magick. By it may he discover his true Nature, and
its Will, and apply his Force and his Intelligence to the
right Fulfilment thereof. It shall be a beacon to enlighten
him, to comfort him, and to direct him; and it shall be a
Witness and Memorial of my Word and of my Work, as of mine
Attainment unto Wisdom.
-207-
{Gamma }{psi } DE MODO QUO HAEC EPISTOLAM SCRIPSI.
There is not one Word in this Letter that is not writ with
mine own Hand and Style, slowly and heedfully (as is contrary
with my custom) being the Fruit of the Tree of my Mediation,
well-ripened by the Sun of mine Illumination. With much Toil
have I done this, being oftentimes seated without Motion save
of the Hands, while Earth rolled from Twilight unto Twilight,
so that my Body became cold and rigid, even as is a Corpse.
Also, in the Intervals of this Scripture, have I been given to
Contemplation and to Works of High Magick, notably the Mass of
the Holy Ghost, in the Concentration of my Will to impart this
Wisdom unto thee, and to reveal the Mysteries of Truth. Now
of all these this is the Root, that Truth is not fixed with
the Rigour of Death, but vital with Lust of Change, and
enflamed with the Love of its opposite. Thus even Falsehood
is not alien to Truth, for the Perfection of Nature
comprehendeth all. But all these Things are written in "The""
""Book of the Law", after which do I limp painfully; afar off,
upon the poor Crutch of mine Understanding of its Word; yea, I
am well assured that in that Book are writ all Things soever;
but we, being mostly without Wit are not able to distinguish
them. For the Stature of Aiwass is beyond our Measure, seeing
that he was able to comprehend the whole Mystery of Nuith and
of Hadith, and yet to declare Their Message in the Language of
Man.
-208-
{Gamma }{omega } DE SAPIENTIA ET STULTITIA.
O my Son, in this the Colophon of my Epistle will I recall
the Title and Superscription thereof; that is, "The Book of""
""Wisdom or Folly". I proclaim Blessing and Worship to Nuith Our
Lady and Her Lord Hadith, for the Miracle of the Anatomy of
the Child Ra-Hoor-Khuit, as it is shewn in the Design Minutum
Mundum, the Tree of Life. For though Wisdom be the Second
Emanation of his Essence, there is a Path to separate and to
join them, the Reference thereof being Aleph, that is One
indeed, but also an Hundred and Eleven in his full
Orthography; to signify the Most Holy Trinity, and by
Metathesis it is Thick Darkness, and Sudden Death. This is
also the Number of AUM, which is AMOUN, and the Root-Sound of
OMNE, or, in Greek, PAN, and it is a Number of the Sun. Yet
is the Atu of Thoth that correspondeth thereunto marked with
ZERO, and its Name is MAT, whereof I have spoken formerly, and
its Image is the Fool. O my Son, gather thou all these Limbs
together in One Body, and breathe upon it with thy Spirit,
that it may live; then do thou embrace it with Lust of they
Manhood, and go in unto it, and know it; so shall ye be One
Flesh. Now at last in the Reinforcement and Ecstasy of this
Consummation thou shalt with by what Inspiration thou didst
choose thy Name in the Gnosis, I mean PARZIVAL, "der reine
Thor", the True Knight that won Kingship in Monsalvat, and
made whole the Wound of Amfortas, and ordered Kundry to right
Service, and regained the Lance, and revived the Miracle of
the Sangral; yea
also upon himself did he accomplish his Work in the End:
"Hochsten Heiles Wunder! Erlosung dem Erloser !" This is the
last Word of the Song that thine Uncle Richard Wagner made for
Worship of this Mystery. Understand thou this, o my son, as I
take leave of thee in this Epistle, that the Summit of Wisdom
is the opening of the Way that leadeth unto theCrown and
Essence of all, to the Soul of the Child Horus, the Lord of
the Aeon. This Way is the Path of the Pure Fool. Amoun.
-210-
And who is this Pure Fool? Lo, in the Sagas of Old Time,
Legend of Scald, of Brad, of Druid, cometh He not in Green
Like Spring? O thou Great Fool, thou Water that art Air, in
whom all Complex is resolved! Yes, thou in ragged Raiment,
with the Staff of Priapus and the Wineskin! thou standest up
on the Crocodile, like Hoor-pa-Kraat; and the Great Cat
leapeth upon thee! Yea, and more also I have known Thee who
Thou art, Bacchus Diphues, none and two, in thy Name I A O !
Now at the End of all do I come to the Being of Thee, beyond
By-coming, and I cry aloud my Word, as it was given unto Man
by thine Uncle Alcofribas Masior, the Oracle of the Bottle of
BACBUC, and this Word is T R I N C.
Love is the law, love under will.
666.
AN X I V
{Sun} in {Aries}
{Moon} in {Aries}
Ty Holder
telnet://ricksbbs.synchro.net:23
http://ricksbbs.synchro.net:8080
---
þ Synchronet þ Rick's BBS
telnet://ricksbbs.synchro.net:23